This summer’s home canning season has been pretty darn excellent for a couple of reasons. First, I’m so happy to see that low sugar/no sugar pectin and pretty much every other home canning supply is becoming easier for me to find here in the urban jungle. A few years ago, I had to go on a canning supply scavenger hunt every time I needed jars or seals, and I wasn’t always successful. I’m very thankful that supplies are always readily available online, but sometimes you need something last minute, you know? Anyway, I think it’s awesome that home canning is gaining more popularity again.

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I’ve never understood why some people are so disparaging of vanilla. Boring vanilla. Plain-vanilla. Yada yada yada. How about exciting vanilla or explosion of yummy flavor in my mouth vanilla? Personally, I’m a huge fan of vanilla, and I think I would describe this ice cream as holy crap this is awesome vanilla.
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The fruit dessert brainstorming started as soon as we hopped into the car after receiving our first CSA fruit share of season. Local peaches? And fresh raspberries? The fruit gods were smiling on me that day. I immediately earmarked both for something, though I wasn’t immediately sure what. A crisp, maybe? No, a cobbler. Definitely a cobbler. I had been wanting to repurpose my buttermilk biscuit recipe as a sweetened cobbler topping, and this was my chance.

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It was the night before my first ever CSA pickup, and it felt like Christmas Eve. What great produce was I going to find in my share? What was I going to make with it? Ooh, the sheer excitement of it all!

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I’ve been feeling rather guilty lately, and it’s all because of juice. See, I’ve started making my own homemade veggie juice on a regular basis, but the problem is the leftover pulp. I’d love to compost but 1) we live in a high rise apartment building, and though we have a balcony, there’s not a whole lot of room to do composting, and 2) I have no idea what I’d use the compost for because I don’t actually grow anything (brown thumb). So, I end up having to throw out the leftover pulp, which really bums me out.

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Has it really been four months since I last posted here? Wow, time sure does fly, and an insanely busy work schedule certainly helps the weeks and months wiz by. Even though I haven’t been posting here (due to the aforementioned insane work schedule), I’ve been very busy in the kitchen and have been experimenting up a storm over the past several months.

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