Blackberry Lavender Popsicles

Sometimes you just need a little inspiration. I have been trying to push myself to feel inspired by giving myself a project. I set out to read 30 cookbooks in 30 days. I know there are 31 days this month, but 30 was my first thought so I stuck with it. What can I say, I like round numbers. I decided not to set any further restrictions than that it be a recipe based book of some sort. It's fine if it's 25 pages or 200. Doesn't matter it's sweet or savory, vegan or dairy heavy. I just needed to spend some quality time looking at ingredient selection, composition, and thinking about things that I want to make. It's very unlikely that I will make many of the recipes in their entirety. My brain just doesn't function like that. I always make substitutions and change basic ingredients out to fit my preferences. But that's exactly what I needed. Nineteen days in, I am doing well. I have made my way through sixteen books and have a stack ready to be browsed this evening. It's feeling nice to make lists again of things I want to see in my mixing bowl. It feels like a clean slate.


Like most people, I don't have a huge budget for cookbooks. I generally only buy one or two year depending on how many have been released that peak my interest. Last year was sort of an anomaly, and I ended up with 6 new books & a stuffed shelf. This month I have been relying heavily on the library. I have had a library card in every city I have ever lived in. Growing up, we made frequent trips to the library, and it's a trend that has followed me throughout my life. Aside from studying in the giant marble building throughout college, I made weekly treks to the fiction section to pick up a novel or sat in a chair reading magazines to give my brain a rest. It didn't hurt that the library assistant who often checked me out was really cute, and I needed frequent excuses to ask him questions.
The DC library system is even bigger and more wonderful than any of the libraries in my past. Last winter I went on a several month binge on teenage dramas (which there were plenty of). But now that I am using it for food related books, I was happily surprised to find an abundance of cookbooks in the system too. Based on the books that I have brought home, I can tell that they are well used. So I didn't feel too bad if I happened to drip some popsicle juice on one of the pages, which I may have done. These blackberry lavender popsicles are revised from an recipe in an issue of Bust Magazine that I read in one of the comfy couches of the library's coffee shop. I scrawled the recipe on notebook paper in my organic chemistry binder and never made it until this year when I stumbled upon the recipe again online.


Blackberry Lavender Popsicles
adapted from Lindsay Larick's recipe in Bust Magazine
1 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups water
3 tbl lavender buds
2 1/4 cups frozen blackberries (approximately a 10oz bag)
3 tbl lemon juice
In a sauce pan combine sugar & water. Bring to a rolling boil. Turn off heat, add lavender, & allow to steep for 30 minutes. Strain lavender pressing down on the buds to release all the syrup. Pour syrup into a blender with blackberries & lemon juice. Puree until smooth. Pour into popsicle molds & freeze for several hours. If you do not enjoy the seeds in the blackberries, you could puree the juice and blackberries and strain that before freezing as well.


While in the winter I found it really convenient to place holds on every book I wanted and have them delivered to my closest branch, this month I have been pushing myself to visit all the branches in my quadrant too. I have made it to three new locations so far, and am hoping to visit another three that aren't too far away by the end of the month. It's great browsing through an online catalog and picking out some books that interest me. But what's really been my favorite thing this month is just walking up to the shelves and looking at all the titles. I have checked out a few books I never would have selected online, which is teaching me a lot about my preferences and taste.
Most of you probably know by now that Vegan MoFo is September instead of October this year. While I originally didn't think I was up to the challenge again, I have decided to keep pushing myself in the right direction. I doubt I will blog every day for the month and I certainly won't have a solid theme again, but I think it's a good motivation. Who's going to join me for the craziness that will be vegan blogging in September? Also do you have any cookbook recommendations? My list is starting to get a little low!

Lavender Lemonade

There have been a lot of thoughts on my mind lately, but I have been trouble keeping track of them all. A brilliant idea will hit me like a strike of lightning, and disappear before I can write it down. I will wake up from a dream with lots of hazy allusions that I am not sure how to interpret. I feel ready to run & ready to settle at the same time. I keep thinking about how little I have seen and done, and wondering when I will fit all the things I want to do in. Because if we don't make time, nothing will get done. I have been baking away, but none of those things will magically appear on the internet unless I take the time to sort through the extraneous photographs and turn some of this noise in my head into cohesive sentences.
Today Greg and I went to Roosevelt Island and wondered around the paths. We talked about driving across the country. How I haven't ever seen the Pacific Ocean. How we should visit all the cities we have never been to and see all the friends we haven't seen in too long. We are starting to feel a little stagnant in this city. Weighed down by the things we don't enjoy here. Hopeful about starting over in a new place. But here we are wondering swampy forest paths we have never seen before in a city I have only lived in for 2 years. When is it giving up too soon? When is wanderlust just a state of mind?
Lavender is one of those haunting ingredients. Much like honeysuckle, it reminds me of the country and smells like home. But as a flavor it morphs into something entirely else. More elite. Something you see infused in chocolates or ice creams in fancy shops in the city. Sparingly used, but perfection when it's done right. A middle road I am searching for.


Lavender Lemonade
makes just shy of one gallon

1/2 cup dried lavender flowers
2 cups sugar
approximately 14 lemons
12 cups water

In a stockpot combine 4 cups of water with the sugar. Bring to a boil & remove from heat. Add lavender, stirring until all flowers are soaked. Cover & allow to steep for 30 minutes. Strain, pressing out all the simple syrup. Juice all your lemons. Stir juice & lavender syrup into remaining water. Stir, sip, & adjust to your preferences. Depending on the tartness of the lemons, I sometimes use a few more. I also have a tendency to reserve a little syrup just in case the lemons are sweeter than normal.


The other day it started lightly raining as I was driving my long trek home. I saw a bright flash of light and instinctively assumed it was either a red light or speed camera. I am so disconnected from nature, that lightning didn't actually cross my mind until I saw the second flash. Later that night we sat in a beautiful, old movie theatre. All I could think about was how long it's been since I have been to a drive-in. I love the city, but I love being in the middle of nowhere. Where I do fit in this paradigm? There's a beautiful sunset over DC, but I certainly won't see the stars tonight.

Coconut Cream Pie

This summer has been escaping me at every twist and turn. Until this past week I hadn't gone swimming or seen the beach. I hadn't taken a spontaneous trip or gone a picnic. It's certainly been hot, and I have the bug bites to remind me of the season. But I wasn't getting any of the fun. The last few days I worked really hard to remedy that. I made it to my first Fort Reno of the summer, where I shared this coconut cream pie with a handful of friends on a picnic blanket while we listened to music as the sun set. It was a repeat of the pie I made for 4th of July, but somehow hadn't managed to post yet. It's been a busy summer full of moving, long work days, and nights with little sleep. I can't complain too much. Things are going well, and I am actually quite happy.


I managed to arrange a whole weekend off (a rare occurrence for me!), and used it to make my first trip to Ocean City. I swam in the ice cold ocean. Salt water does amazing things for my hair & my heart. I dug my feet deep in the sand and took a quick nap. A friend and I ooh-ed & ahh-ed over cake decorating books for several hours of the drive. We took silly photo booth pictures. A rampant child kicked sand all over us while running between our towels. A disgusting amount of sugar, soda, and Wawa soft pretzels were consumed.


Coconut Cream Pie

1 nine inch pie crust
3 cans full fat, canned coconut milk
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
1/2 cup blended, extra firm silken tofu
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Toast your coconut in a frying pan over medium heat until it becomes lightly browned. Don't neglect it, it will cook fairly quickly and burn the instant you forget about it. While that's toasting, puree your silken tofu. In a 2 quart stock pot, combine 3 cups of coconut milk (that's just shy of 2 cans, so you will have a little extra), one half cup of the tofu, the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Whisk it until combined, then bring to a boil over medium-low heat. Remove from heat, stir in 1 1/4 cup of toasted coconut and vanilla extract. Pour into your pie crust and allow to chill overnight. When you place the pie in the fridge also throw in your remaining can of coconut milk to make coconut whipped cream. The next day top your pie with whip & remaining toasted coconut. If you are really impatient you can probably get away with only chilling the pie for 4-6 hours, but keep in mind that the flavor really does further develop overnight.


I am hoping to see a little bit more of summer before she leaves again. There's still so many things to be done. I haven't picked any ripe fruit or visited the city pool. I need to read a book in the sunshine while I drink giant glasses of iced tea. There's at least a few more pitchers of lemonade & little day trips in my future. Don't go away so soon. I will miss you when you're gone.

Gluten Free Fruit Tart

Secrets are not really my thing. I have never been good at keeping them. I have never felt the need to be illusive. I don't really even understand how to be discreet. As soon as I am attempting to keep a secret, I will start to get all twitchy & awkward and everyone who knows me will figure out what is going on. I haven't ever been able to keep a crush hidden or consider some new venture in my life without busting at the seams and talking about it to my close friends extensively.
For the most part, I live my life fairly openly. Every recipe I enjoy, I end up blogging about. Every cookbook or restaurant ends up getting mentioned. I talk about the bakery, and what products I am working on developing. There is one thing that has remained a secret. I won't tell anyone my pastry cream recipe. I have worked on it for years now. Tweaking away slowly to get it perfect. I will give people hints and point them in the right direction, but I just don't want to divulge all the little details. It's something I have worked so hard on perfecting that I want it to remain truly mine. I'm sorry if that means you have lumpy or too sweet pastry cream, but I am happy to make you a fruit tart to share over a cup of tea. We can talk about some of my other "secrets".


After I made a few friends some gluten free pies, I realized I had never made a gluten free tart before. I know in making pear frangipane tarts I have used an almond crust before, but generally all purpose flour is added to the almond meal as well. I also didn't want the crust to taste intensely almondy, but more subtle. I decided to use my regular shortbread crust recipe with half almond meal and half brown rice flour. It tasted delicious, but was a bit too crumbly. I think on the next go I might try to add a little starch and see how that helps the consistency. Do you have a favorite gluten free pie or tart shell recipe to help me find my way?

Key Lime Pie

I am a chronic list-maker, an over-calculator, a worrier. I obsess over details. I am often a perfectionist. These are some of the things that make me successful at running a bakery. These are some of the things that keep me awake at night. I push myself a little too hard and often don't know when to take a step back. Sometimes I dream just a little too big. I have been working on this for years. I am a teeny bit less high strung, but I am still overwhelmed most of the time. I will look at something I make and see all of the flaws. I will think about how jagged the crust looks or that the texture doesn't look quite right or maybe my piping is a little sloppy. I will consider starting over. I will remember I don't have enough time to start over. I will settle and give whatever I have made to whoever it was intended for. And then they will be so happy that I will realize it doesn't look quite as terrible as I thought.


Sometimes you aren't really thinking and you pour a boiling hot pan of pie filling into a graham cracker crust a little too soon. It starts to melt the crust and pieces of graham cracker float to the top. You panic. But then you realize that you can just sprinkle more graham cracker crumbs and make it look intentional. In fact, it looks great. And you'll probably do it again in the future. Not pouring the boiling filling in too soon (at least not intentionally but sometimes I am just a tiny bit impatient), rather the crumb sprinkling for decoration's sake.
This pie is made using the key lime recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky, with some very slight modifications. I use a little more lime juice, zest, & agar and a little less coconut milk. Nothing major. I have just made it a few times now, and know what works best for me. But the recipe is terrific. If you can't find agar powder, agar flakes will work just as well. Just use one tablespoon per teaspoon of the powder. But enough of the science, back to the cookbook. Vegan Pie in the Sky is my most used cookbook to date. Jenna asked me to look through it while she was visiting and in flipping through it with her, I realized that I have made over half the recipes at least once. You should consider taking it for a spin. Fall is coming faster than I would like to admit, but it's the perfect time for pie.


I have been on sort of a pie spree lately. I don't know what's gotten into me. I don't really enjoy making pie crust, but if there is something that I can use a cookie crust for it will be on the table lightning fast. I made both key lime and coconut cream pie (recipe coming soon!for a barbecue at my house last week, because I couldn't decide which would be better (have I also mentioned that I am indecisive?). I have been thinking a lot about chocolate pudding pie again, but I want to make something new. Maybe the banoffee pie Ashlae of Oh, Ladycakes made earlier this week? Do you have pie on your mind too?

Raspberry Basil Popsicles

I have a confession to make. I get sucked into TV shows really easily. I am a binge watcher, and Netflix is an enabler. The way it will just play the next episode consistently, only making you hit a button saying you are still watching every few hours is a really dangerous thing for me. Aside from that, I legitimately love television shows. I remember being a neigh-sayer in my earlier years, but I have since really developed an appreciation for TV. I would never say that it's better than reading a book, but I appreciate TV for the same reason. Being transported to a world where I can see interesting things and laugh and cry, without having to stand up on my achey feet after a long day at work is exactly what I want.
I'm also not a TV snob. There are only a few shows that I can legitimately say I dislike (Twin Peaks, I'm lookin' at you). I love Criminal Minds, Parks & Recreation, Downton Abbey, Buffy, & Game of Thrones. I am currently on a Battlestar Galactica binge. I watched the first season in a little over one day, and am currently working my way through season two while I am at home sick. It's a little bit like this Portlandia skit.


Raspberry Basil Popsicles

1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
8-10 leaves of basil
3 1/2 cups raspberries, fresh or frozen

In a sauce pot bring the water & sugar to a rolling boil. Turn off heat, add basil leaves, and cover. Allow to steep for 30-45 minutes. Strain to remove basil leaves. Puree raspberries (I prefer the seeds in my popsicles, but if you don't you can also strain the berry puree before freezing. Add basil syrup to puree and pulse until combined (I prefer the seeds in my popsicles, but if you don't you can also strain the berry puree). Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for 3-4 hours until solid. These popsicles melt really quickly, but you won't be able to eat them slowly enough to worry about that.


Dexter is back on for it's final season, which is really what started this train of thought for me. Those melty popsicles just remind me of the Dexter intro with their bloody redness. Sometimes it's just nice to have things come to an end. TV shows can take things a little too far, pushing beyond good writing to crank out more shows while ratings are still high (cough, The Office, cough). I am fine with a series coming to an end, and I don't think they always need to be revisited. I loved Arrested Development, but the newest season just didn't cut it for me. Sometimes the magic is in that time and place that it was originally created. Of course if they come out with another season or movie, I will watch it. Just like I will watch the Veronica Mars movie (ya know, for completion's sake). But all good things must come to an end. Until then, I will be on this couch cranking my way through the remaining 59 episodes of Battlestar.

Coffee & Cinnamon Ice Cream

I have the luxury of working at a little organic market, where I have access to all sorts of wonderful food. Last month we got in the amazing Earth Balance cheese puffs & popcorn and then Phoney Baloney's coconut bacon. Today we finally got in Cocomels Coconut Caramels! Most of the time I am anxiously awaiting the new products, like the Daiya cream cheeses, but sometimes new products sneak up on me. And it can be so wonderful to be caught off guard by them! This is exactly what happened with Steve's Ice Cream. The Brooklyn company's sweets are mostly dairy based, but they offer a few non-dairy flavors. Steve's makes a mint cacao chip, but our little store currently only carries the cinnamon coffee & blackberry honey. Since I avoid honey I haven't tried the latter, but the coffee cinnamon knocked me out of this world. It's like the best latte that I have ever tasted, spun into this smooth & rich dessert. Not surprisingly it's made from coconut cream and cold brewed Blue Bottle coffee (no wonder the coffee flavor is so fantastic). My favorite ice creams are all coconut based, but you won't detect even a hint of coconut flavor if you have an aversion to it. It also doesn't hurt that their packaging has a really pleasing aesthetic, because I do judge my ice creams by their cover. If you can try this ice cream in Brooklyn or find it in a shop near you, I urge you to try it! I ate the whole pint by myself, which I don't think I have ever done before, but it was really that good. Normally I have to share my sweets with Greg or hide them before he devours them, but luckily he hates coffee. If I can figure out how to leave a pint in my freezer without eating it all, then this will be a great thing.


It's hard to believe that it's July already, but that means that Google Reader is closing shop. You should join me on Bloglovin' here if you haven't switched over already! They even created a handy little guide to import your reading list from Google Reader to Bloglovin', but you're gonna need to do it quick!