I've been gone for so long! (At least it felt like it.) But since last time I have eaten many things, so I have lots to talk about. The first thing I want to tell you about is some really cool salad dressing that I made. There are two ingredients; heavy cream and vinegar. In other words, curdledness. You are probably thinking "gross"!  (Although, if you are some sort of food adventurer, cottage cheese expert or food writer, you might have said "I'll give it a try", "Mmm hmm" or "I should write about that"  before you thought anything else. I thought "COOL", then "GROSS" then "BLOG."

Here is a picture:

Last night, I made blackberry fool. I was inspired by the charming and beautiful picture book A Fine Dessert, by Emily Jenkins and Sophie  Blackall. The book includes the stories of mothers and daughters from 1710, 1810, and 1910, as well as that of a boy and his father in 2010, and a recipe.  What do these stories have in common? One sweet treat!

 This is the recipe (as written in the book):

 Blackberry Fool: A Recipe

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2-1/2 cups fresh blackberries (Other berries will do- but the fool won't have such a nice purple color; frozen berries will work, though fresh are nicer.)
1/2 cup sugar, divided in two
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups heavy cream

Find an adult to cook with you.

Mash the berries with a potato masher or a large fork. If you've got a food processor, you can use that. With clean hands, press the crushed berries through a sieve to remove the seeds. Sprinkle the fruit with 1/4 cup of the sugar. Stir.

In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, the vanilla, and the cream. Using a whisk or whatever kind of beater you have, whip the mixture until it makes soft peaks, but not stiff ones.

Fold the sugared berries into the whipped cream. Taste it to see if it's sweet enough. Add more sugar if you need it. There should be streaks of white and purple.

Refrigerate for 3 hours or more.

Eat! And don't forget to lick the bowl.

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So, I followed the recipe mostly, although I forgot I could use my hands for straining, and spent 45 minutes with a spoon. I also didn't refrigerate for 3 hours. I did for about an hour, and the fool got pleasingly stiff, but luckily not frozen. If you don't have 3 hours +, it's ok to refrigerate it for less time. But you do need it to get cold, otherwise it is a mess of flop.

If you are curious about the word "fool", and you have a copy of The Oxford Companion to Food, look for it under f. It's actually quite interesting to read.

Hello! Because it is supposed to snow tomorrow in Brooklyn, instead of writing about springy food to eat, I will be writing about Americas favorite snowy day drink: hot chocolate. I can't remember where I heard this (or maybe I read it somewhere) but SOMEWHERE I learned that there is a different between hot chocolate and hot cocoa. (Yes, there really is a difference, I am not just making this up.) Hot chocolate is made with milk, whereas hot cocoa, is mostly water and cocoa powder. It is disturbing to me that anyone would want to drink chocolate-flavored water, but in the interest of cutting down on our methane production, I appreciate the effort.

One other thing I have been wondering recently is: what is the difference between warm chocolate milk, and hot chocolate? If you have any clue leave a comment.

Spring has sprung! (Not in NYC of course.) The first things that come to my mind when I think Spring are 

1) Bunnies 

2) Flowers 1

3) Farmers Market 

And when I think farmers market, I think 

1) Salad

2) Salads 

3) Many Salads

I think it would be slightly strange of me to give you a salad recipe, but I will provide you with a few simple salad formulas. 

Salad 1: Very Simple 

 

Math Form 

Greens + Olive Oil + Vinegar + Salt = Salad 

Physics Form 

G20OlVS2

Salad 2: Still Simple 

Math Form 

Greens + Fruit (by Fruit, I mean vegetables) + Dressing of Choice = Salad 

Physics Form 

G15Fr10D

Salad 3: Not Just Vegetables (Recipe for Magic Salad) 

Math Form 

Canned Tuna + Boiled Potatoes + Lettuce + Optional Tomatoes + Olives + Optional Anchovies + Olive Oil = Magic Salad 

Physics Form 

CtPb5L5(T5)O4(A3)Ol

On Wednesday, I baked peanut butter cookies for a bake sale at school. I completely forgot about my blog, or taking pictures of my cookies, but this morning I remembered! (But unfortunately, no pictures.) According to my friends who were tending the bake sale, my cookies completely sold out, and Mr.Osborne (a seventh grade math teacher) bought four.  I thought I would share the recipe with you guys so maybe you can sell them at school bake sales. (Or eat them all yourself...)

Ingredients:
1 egg                                                                                                      
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter (whichever kind you like)                      
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Procedure:
Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl, until you can't see any of the egg anymore. Mold into balls the size of small ping pong balls (for lack of a better phrase) and place them on a buttered baking sheet. 
Take a fork, and squish the balls of dough one way with the tongs, and the other way to make a lattice-type pattern. Bake your cookies in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. 

History of Meals on Saturday

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Hi guys! My mom gave me the idea this morning to research what people historically ate on Saturdays. So I did a little searching, and this is what I found out:

In Colonial times (in America), at noon on Saturdays, beans were sent to the baker, to bake in his oven. On Sunday morning, the beans (now bean porridge) were brought back to customers with some brown bread. You ate gruel if you were so poor you had to water down your porridge so it lasted longer.

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Information from http://colonial-american-life.blogspot.com

More Pie!

It's March! And National Banana Cream Pie Day! I found a few recipes online, but i'm sick, so I haven't been able to try these. If you try one, please let me know how it was, and why you did or didn't like it. Click Banana for the first recipe, Cream for the second, and Pie for the third.  Also check out epicurious for more recipes for anything. (If you haven't already.)
                             

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