Culinary Adventures

I've been trying some new things in my kitchen lately.

First of all, Blythe wanted to make her friend Leah a chocolate pie for her birthday. I had never made one before but decided to give it a try. It was an unqualified success. Luckily, I own a copy of The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, which has recipes for every type of pie imaginable. The process took awhile. Blythe stirred and stirred the chocolate filling for a long time and then it had to chill before I could assemble the pie, but the result was definitely worth the effort. I prefer fruit pies over cream pies, but I think I'll have to add this recipe to my repertoire.

Leah's Birthday Pie

Our Pie

Luckily, the recipe made enough for two pies even though it was only supposed to fill one pie, so we got to taste the chocolate pie too. I wasn't having much success making chocolate curls, so I just grated some milk chocolate on top of our pie.

Secondly, my pioneer ancestors would be so proud. Okay, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I made currant jelly using currants grown in my own garden and picked by kids and me and without using any store bought pectin. I might even do it again. Just look at those jars of currant jelly.

The amount of fruit I had yielded almost twice as much jelly as shown above. I didn't think I'd end up with so much so I only had three jars sterilized and ready to go. I put the rest in a jar that I quickly washed and put it straight in the fridge. It's almost half gone already. We've been eating the jelly on french toast and waffles. Justin's mom grows currants in her yard and she turns some of them into jelly. She gave me some many years ago and I loved it. Justin remembered this and planted a red currant bush in one of our raised beds a few years ago. This year was the first that the bush yielded enough fruit to really do anything with. Currants have enough natural pectin that you don't need to add any, especially if the fruit is slightly under ripe. My fruit was bordering on over ripe by the time I made the time to tackle the jelly making process. It's a bit on the runny side, but is definitely thicker than syrup and is perfect for spreading on breakfast foods. I did learn a thing or two, such as jelly will boil over if you aren't cooking it in a huge saucepan. Justin had to come to my rescue when the jelly boiled over and I had to move the pan to another burner. He wiped up hot jelly while I stirred continuously. I thought it was going to be a nightmare to clean up, but my electric glass cooktop cleaned up beautifully.

Lastly, I made my own lemon curd from scratch. I love lemon curd, but have been too intimidated before now to try making it myself. Guess what? It was much easier than I thought and even tastier than the store bought kind. Blythe wanted to bake Brittney a cake for her birthday. We decided on a lemon filling. Blythe made the cake and the frosting all by herself. I made the lemon curd filling and helped Blythe assemble and frost the two layer cake. Then Blythe decorated the cake all on her own. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the cake. Maybe Britt will post one on her blog because she took some photos of it.