See that dot in the middle of the ocean?

That’s where my older daughter is.
On the Queen Mary 2.
COMING HOME.

Her friend met up with her in London so they could come back on the ship together. They boarded on Sunday (it’s a six-day trip), and that morning I got this photo from my daughter with the caption, “Getting a ride from some strangers!” 

She called briefly then, to let me know they made it to the docks (apparently the bus line was down and there was some festival thing and they had to scramble to find transportation), and to tell me that she wouldn’t have cell service for the next week.

This is the last picture I got from her.

Every day I check in with the dot. Bit by bit it’s getting closer.

So far there’s no bubbles so that’s a good sign, I think.

***

Because I’ve been pretending I’m an ice cream shop, I bought these quart ice cream containers. 

I was sick of all the random assorted containers cluttering up the freezer (containers, I might add, that I need for our regular leftovers and such), but I wasn’t sure what I’d think — would they feel like unnecessary stuff? Turns out, I love these things. 

They stack on top of each other. They tuck into the fridge freezer. They freeze through quickly. They look pretty. The rubbery lids make it easy to push out excess air (and decrease freezer burn). They’re reasonably sized. They’re easy to label. They’re fun to hand off to friends and family — a perfect sized little freezer treat. 

I want more but so far I’m restraining myself. We’ll see how long I’ll last.

***

Speaking of ice cream, I have several addendums for my ice cream comprehensive post. 

a thrift store find, from my mother

• The key to the perfectly emulsified ice cream? After making the base, while it’s still hot, give it a thorough beating with an immersion blender. My ice creams have never been creamier! THIS IS HUGE, PEOPLE.
• To eliminate the problem of icy fruit, soak the fruit in vodka! (Thank you to those of you who pointed me to the answer to my conundrum!). Generally speaking, it’s a cup of minced fresh fruit, a half cup of sugar, and a quarter cup of vodka: macerate for 24 hours, strain off the liquid (and save it — see below!), and then add the fruit to the ice cream at the end of churning. The fruit stays soft and does not taste like alcohol. 
• Skip the Reese’s Pieces. The color comes right off and they’re too crunchy hard in the ice cream.
• If using peanut butter cups, cut them up, even if using the mini cups. A mouthful of a PB cups, no matter how much you like them, is not a good thing in ice cream.
• Salted smoked almonds, chopped up, are yummy and make a good Rocky Road version when added to vanilla ice cream along with marshmallow cream and chocolate flakes.
• Figuring out the correct amount of peppermint extract for mint chip ice cream is seriously tricky. Most recently, I bought this extract which comes with a dropper which has a good flavor. However! I’m giving up on suggesting a specific amount to add. Do it to taste, and, if possible, have several people do the tasting as repeat mint tastings tend to dull the senses a bit. 

rocky road

***

But what to do with that sugary vodka fruit nectar? Why, toss it in a blender with a bunch of ice and then inflict upon yourself the worst ice headache in the history of the world. 

***

A couple days before leaving on a trip, my brother texted me. “Off the top of your head, do you have any epic family read aloud books that we could take on our trip?” I mentioned the request that night at supper, and then shot back a series of texts with our suggestions: Fish In A Tree. To Kill A Mockingbird. Flowers for Algernon. Wonder. Mr. Terupt. Cheaper By The Dozen. Holes. Treasures of the Snow. 

“Great list,” my brother texted. “Could we borrow fish?”

I told my daughter to go fetch the book. A little later she staggered back downstairs.

I picked the top ones (that I suspected my brother’s family may not have read) and snapped a photo to show him my curated selection. 

How many of these have you read? What would you add? (He took five of them, I think.)

***

We have a new bakery!*

Well, it’s the same old bakery, but they knocked out the wall between the bakery and the next door coffee roasters (which moved to the building across the road), renovated in just one week, and now we have double — maybe triple — the space.

It’s so much fun to watch customers come in the door and then stop in their tracks and gape. One guy even let out a big ol’ Whoo-wheeeee!

pastry station with a view

Some highlights:

• We have running water and our own dish pit.
• The oven faces forward so people can see what’s baking. (I think the baker should wear a crown.)
• We have two work benches that are accessible from all sides — yay for tag-teaming pastry, bread, etc!
• There are two doors and lots of space for customer clusters.
• We have a pantry pass where we can eat and do prep work and hide out.
• The customers can see all the pastries at eye level.
• We have our own freezer!
• We’re getting another fridge!
• SPACE
• We work so much more efficiently and quickly. 

You gotta come see us.

*The above photos were taken on the first day we were open after the renovation. The bakery is still changing daily as more and more things get finished.

***

I have been having so much fun watching Young Sheldon.

It’s simple, and a bit silly even, but I find it wonderfully calming, the perfect show to relax with: no stress, a few giggles, sweetness. My husband watches it with me, but it’s a little too slow for him (he prefers Unchained, which we’re also currently watching), but the other night he laughed out loud the whole way through the Sheldon episode, so I don’t think he’s suffering too much.

This same time, years previous: family road trip: Acadia, burnt cheesecake, roasted zucchini parmesan, the quotidian (6.27.16), on slaying boredom, dark chocolate zucchini cake.

Despite having an abundance of our own pork and beef, I often go days without digging any out of the freezer. It’s easier to grab a jar of yogurt for breakfast, saute some veggies with leftover rice for a quick supper, or make a grilled cheese sandwich, baked mac and cheese, or a big ol’ chef salad. But then every now and then, I remember: MEAT, Jennifer. PULL THE MEAT, and I run down cellar to grab an assortment of things to use in the next few days. 

ground sausage, burger, ham, beef shanks

It’s not that the meat is better food, necessarily, but there’s something about pulling meat out of the freezer that makes me sit up and pay attention, culinarily speaking. 

• If I don’t use the meat once it’s thawed, it will go bad, so there’s that. 
• One well-rounded meat-based meal often stretches to two or three, shape shifting in more creative ways than my non-meat meals. 
• Meat byproducts spawn new life: bones to broth to the cooking liquid for rice and soup; fat (bacon or sausage) into scrambled eggs, stirfries, pie dough, and cookie dough (bacon fat chocolate chunk cookies, anyone?).
• A little bit of leftover meat fluffs a non-primary meat meal exponentially: a single leftover scoop of sausage into a quiche filling, those couple pieces of bacon into a tomato sandwich, a leftover hamburger patty chopped up into a pasta sauce, a slice of ham tucked into a cheese sandwich.
• Because meat packs an enormous flavor punch, I find that cooking with it delivers a more satisfying cooking experience, and that’s fun.
• Meat-centric meals extend our budget.* The meals tend to be more complex and interesting (perhaps because I pay more attention to the various components when cooking with meat?), which means they leave the masses more satisfied, which means we’re less likely to snack on cereal and chips in the evening, which means our snack food lasts longer, which means I spend less money.

*Remember: the meat I’m talking about comes from our back yard, and the slaughtering and packaging costs have long been recouped. 

One thing I’m trying to do more of: pan-cook meat on the grill. I used my largest cast iron skillet  and then close the grill lid to keep the heat in and reduce splatters, because even though it’s outside, it still makes a mess. 

Case Study Number One
The other week, I fried up sausages for breakfast, and then fried the eggs in the fat. The eggs cooked, there was still some grease in the pan, so I browned a couple beef shanks and, after that, I sauteed the garlic to add to the beef stew.

Case Study Number Two
Just this weekend I opened a cube of ground sausage, sliced it into wedges like I’m cutting biscotti, and then fried the slices in the skillet. While they browned, I quick sliced a couple onions and peppers and then, the sausages done, I reduced the heat and slow-sauteed the peppers and onions while we ate breakfast, and then I got so wrapped up in enjoying my buttermilk pancakes, sausage, and coffee that I forgot the veggies out on the grill so they got extra crispy caramelized, but they’ll still be delicious added to a stirfry with the leftover sausage, or added to scrambled eggs, or turned into a pasta dish. We’ll see.

Point is, serial skillet cooking on the grill first thing in the day makes me feel like I’m slaying dragons.

But to do this, I gotta remember: pull the meat.

This same time, years previous: chocolate cherry sourdough bread, the middle years, family road trip: coastal Maine, nova scotia oatcakes, the quotidian (6.24.19), teen club takes Puerto Rico, buttermilk brownies, fruit-filled coffee cake, better iced coffee.

Alternate Title: Ugly As Sin and Equally Irresistible

I already have two* bran muffins on this blog — one is cake-ish and has bananas in it and the other is the muffin version of a self-righteous health nut — but then Kate posted her muffin recipe on Instagram and someone else posted a picture of the muffins they’d made using Kate’s recipe. They raved about them, so I was like, Okay, fine. I’LL DO IT. 

I had a bunch of freshly-made cultured butter, cultured buttermilk (from the aforementioned butter), as well as a big-ass bag of bran taking up valuable real estate in my butter-stuffed freezer, so it wasn’t like my arm needed much twisting or anything. 

I’ve made these muffins three times now, and two of those three times I doubled the batch, because: holy heck these muffins. They might appear underwhelming and look wholesome in an unappealing I-think-I’ll-pass way, and they might be flat as failure, but they are wildly delicious. In fact, my husband has said, unprompted and more than once, “These muffins may be the best muffins I’ve ever eaten.”

So even though the flat tops bug me (sunken muffin tops are usually a sign that something is off with the recipe), I’ve decided to run with it: these ugly muffins couldn’t be more perfect. So take that, muffin police (aka The Voice Of Perfection Inside My Head).

I eat my ugly muffins with cultured butter because I’m fancy like that. The rest of the family eats them naked (the muffins, not the people), often three or four in a single sitting.

The mini loaves, which I resort to when I run out of muffin tins and are less tedious to deal with than fiddly muffins, look pretty gnarly since they tend to fall apart when removing them from the pans. But this is, I think, in keeping with these particular muffins’ theme: the uglier the better!

*I lied! I have FOUR bran muffin recipes on this blog, not two! The other two are apple raisin bran muffins and refrigerator bran muffins. This one makes five. FIVE. It appears I may be partial to bran.

World’s Best Ugly Bran Muffins
Adapted from Kate of Venison for Dinner

When I eventually ran out of molasses, I used half corn syrup and half blackstrap molasses, and for my most recent double batch of muffins, I used three duck eggs instead of four chicken eggs. 

1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
2 eggs
2¾ cups flour
2 cups wheat bran
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups cultured buttermilk

Cream the butter, sugar, and molasses. Add the eggs and beat well. Combine the dry ingredients and add them to the butter-sugar mixture alternately with the buttermilk.

Scoop the batter into muffin tins or buttered mini loaf pans. Bake at 350-375 degrees for 15 minutes or so. The tops should feel firm(ish) when pressed, the edges will be pulling away from the sides of the pan, and a toothpick inserted in the muffin should come out clean.

Cool and eat. Best eaten within the first 24 hours, but these also freeze beautifully, so do yourself a favor and bake up a humongous batch. 

This same time, years previous: salted chocolate chunk cookies, currently: a list, cousin week, the quotidian (6.18.18), puff!, smart hostessing, sinking in, dobby and luna, magic custard cake, language study, a dare.