Simmer Till Done » wordless wednesday

Wordless Wednesday: Saucy

Marilyn — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:46:15 +0000

I know we just discussed the Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book, but I couldn’t resist sharing one more image. My favorite image – a scene that mesmerized me at six, seven, eight years old and apparently, at forty-three. They’re so scrubbed and eager, so satisfied with their electric frying pan and paper plates. Look at her crisp plaid jumper, and her jaunty red bow. See she holds out the bun?

They just can’t wait. They just cannot wait for Saucy Hot Dogs.

“Be sure to make plenty…”

“…because everyone will want ‘seconds’.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Minted Balsamic Fruit

Marilyn — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:36:55 +0000

I recently tossed this together as a brunch side to lox and bagels. Minted fruit is hardly a novel idea, but standing in the drowsy Sunday kitchen, still in pajamas and part cutting, part eating drippy fruit, I thought eh, it’s summer. The season begs for no thought and less effort, falling back on old ideas like a hammock, asking little more than juicy, cold and sweet. Go easy on yourself. Dive in.

Minted Balsamic Fruit

I was too summer-lazy to measure. Use my guestimates as a guideline, and know your fruit-eating crowd.

1-2 lbs. fresh fruit, may include:

1 lb. strawberries, hulled and halved
1 pint blueberries, picked over
1 small seedless watermelon, rind removed, chunked or scooped with melon baller
1 medium cantaloupe, rind removed, chunked or scooped with melon baller

can also use raspberries, blackberries, honeydew or other muskmelons

1 – 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, to taste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
small bunch fresh mint, about 1 dozen large leaves, torn or roughly chopped

Place prepared fruit in large bowl. Sift powdered sugar over fruit, tossing to coat. Add balsamic vinegar and mint, tossing once more to coat. Serve immediately or refrigerate, up to four hours. (I prefer to refrigerate 30 minutes – 1 hour, allowing fruit to steep in flavor.)

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday: F

Marilyn — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:12:43 +0000

Fundraiser

Forsythia

Faux

Farm

Focus

———–

Fundraiser: Hazelnut Mocha Cherry Torte, made this week for a fundraising auction. Not pictured: extra mocha buttercream, made for sitting around my kitchen.

Forsythia: Now popping everywhere in shades of lemon meringue, forsythia rings in the season by dangling over porches and sidewalks, showing its aggressive, smiling best in April rain.

Faux: Faux macarons – cute, but extremely faux – macarons. An open bag of oyster crackers plus extra mocha buttercream prompted these tiny, salty-sweet, maddeningly painstaking treats. How to split an oyster cracker? Use the tip of a paring knife – then sandwich with a piped dab of buttercream or chocolate ganache.

Farm: Josie used this farm-animal bowl from babyhood, grabbing, then spooning, years of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, granola, gummi bears, ice cream. And oyster crackers. Now it’s a measuring dish on my scale – no longer her serveware but as I couldn’t part with it, now it serves me.

Focus: Here, our tender-hearted Cleo stares at a single treat, undistracted by phone, music, chatter, Internet, blogs or doubt. She will not budge. She will sit as long as it takes. And who among us couldn’t use a dose of that?

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Semi-Sweet

Marilyn — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:17:14 +0000

Over 20 Valentine’s together, but they’re not important days.

Everything that’s anything happens in between.

Make Mocha Brownies, and stamp shapes with any size heart-shaped cutter. You’ll have lovely brownies and also a grand snacking plate of in-between. This, as Josie will tell you, is easily the best part.

Wordless Wednesday: 1973

Marilyn — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:26:21 +0000

Hard to say what’s best here: those groovy pants, or my sister’s ratty, drooled-on, one-eyed Big Bird?

Apologies for my absence. Simmering away and back soon, with more than a few words.

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween

Marilyn — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:26:41 +0000

A few words anyway: while prepping Miss Undead, Josie said “I want the makeup to look, you know, like she had a lot on and then it smeared for 100 years.” I told her the quickest route would be to turn 42, stay up very late, then check the mirror at 7 a.m.

And your Halloween?