Blueberry Muffins Recipe Faaaaavorite blueberry muffins recipe! I made a batch before going to our camp for a few days this week. I went out to the dock to watch the sunrise at 4:25 am with a cup of steaming coffee (it was 45°!) and a gigantic blueberry muffin. Washington County, Maine produces something like 95% of the world’s wild blueberries, though these days they’re a highly cultivated but still wild in nature plant. The plants are low bush, growing…
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Coleslaw Recipe What’s a picnic without coleslaw! I think of this coleslaw recipe in the spring and summer, and then again in the fall and winter. This really is an all-season side dish that suits a lot of meals. This spring we’re packing this in the cooler to take with us when we’re picnicking on the bank of a stream we’ve been fly fishing, and while we’re scouting for turkeys as the season is about to open. It’s always a…
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Maple Walnut Pound Cake It’s maple season again. Our friends at Chandler’s Sugar Shack in Kossuth are tapping 4,000+ trees this year. It wasn’t that long ago that they started out with less than 200 and now here they are with a sugar “shack” the square footage (or more) of our house and thousands of thousands…and thousands of taps. I decided to use some of our syrup to make Maple Walnut Pound Cake. Oh my gosh. It’s just enough maple…
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Hot Pepper Wine Jelly Hot Pepper Wine Jelly, also know as Christmas Jelly because of it’s beautiful red and green peppers, is my favorite holiday party appetizer. It’s also my favorite Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day and curled up on the couch watching a movie during a nor’easter appetizer. The zing from the peppers combined with the sweet sugar and the richness of sour cream is awesome. How Hot? You can adjust the heat level with your choice…
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Mincemeat Cookies Mincemeat cookies? Really? ohh…no, thanks. I don’t really like mincemeat. “You’ll like these,” Erin Merrill said as she nudged the plate across the table a few inches. I resisted for a while. Erin looked from me to the cookies and back again several times, nudging them now and then. “They’re gooood.” Erin’s convincing, and as mom to my favorite little guy, she’s kind of hard to resist. She was right. These cookies are fantastic. There isn’t a lot…
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Salted Caramel Apple Pie Recipe Salted caramel apple pie is my new go-to pie for potluck suppers, Thanksgiving dinner, having guests over, and girlfriends’ lunch when it’s my turn to host here on the homestead. Steve takes it to office luncheons. This pie is rich, sweet and immensely satisfying so you might consider a smaller-than-usual slice. Hahaha…no. Eat the pie. Enjou the pie. I am all for kids in the kitchen. Mine started cooking when they were three or four…
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Pumpkin Whoopie Pies I use the recipe for soft pumpkin cookies for Pumpkin Whoopie Pies, and then use a cream cheese frosting recipe to make the filling for the pies. This filling recipe is very, very sweet. You might want to use almond extract instead of vanilla (did you know that lessens sweet taste?) and eight cups of powered sugar instead of nine. It’s not a huge difference but it does help. Gundy has a great suggestion. Make these for…
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Pumpkin Pie This isn’t your mom or nana’s pumpkin pie. Oh sure, they make great pie, no doubt. This pumpkin pie is different. It’s untraditional. What’s an untraditional pumpkin pie, you ask? Yogurt, extra spice, half the traditional amount of sugar, and if you have them, duck eggs. Want to shake up the universe? Okay, not the universe but your pie? Use squash. I’ll pause here while the cheering and head scratching subside. Did you know a lot of commercial…
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Garden Fresh Salsa I’m in the kitchen with Taylor this week while we use the seemingly endless supply of tomatoes and hot peppers. We’re using a variety of tomatoes – a plum-shaped volunteer, Luci (round, 6 oz), Juliet, Cherokee Purple and Bobcat, to make garden fresh salsa. The Bell peppers are a big, thick-walled variety called King of the North from Fedco. German Extra Hardy garlic did very well this year but I had to water it often to keep…
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