Pie vs Pie

Everyone’s favorite four days of basketball is nearly over. My bracket is in tatters, so I’m moving on to bigger and better tournaments. The tournament of books is under way over at The Morning News, fug madness is in the air, and now Jezebel has lined up 16 pies and 16 cakes to take part in this extremely important competition. The winner of the cake bracket will face the prince of pies to be crowned the best, er, cake or pie.

I’m sorry peanut butter pie went out so early, but am pleased to report pound cake looks to pull off a small upset if it can pull out a win against angel food cake.

-Eve

Enquiring minds want to know!

By far the most exciting feature of our blog stats is seeing what search terms people use to find themselves here on cheezcloth. It’s an extra-special glimpse into the collective psyche.

But often I feel sad for all the questions people have searched for and our blog was not able to answer. I’m sorry sir, I don’t know why there was a cheesecloth on your ham. Did you put it there, perhaps? And as for the foodophile who searched ‘handisnack phallus’, I sure hope you found what you were looking for.

Today we had two (two!) searches for: “does cool whip have condom lubricant in”.

I’m guessing no, but any chemists out there want to do a little analysis and get back to us?

-Eve

Happy birthday

…to our intrepid Canadian blogger! The cheezclothers toast your special day with a lime soda cocktail and cookies topped with cool whip roses.

Because it is your birthday. Photo courtesy of Flickr user benjibot

BBC Good Food versus Olive

Battle of the Titans really – two such heavy weights of the culinary world. I only recently started looking at magazines on  cooking but as I continue with my desperate attempts to learn how to cook, educating myself with the help of magazines seemed sensible.

I always jealously eyed up Olive at other peoples’ home it all looking more glam and glossy than BBC Good Food. But having finally spent the money on a few editions and comparing it to BBC Good Food my verdict is that for amateur cooks and someone who’s really only clamouring onto the bottom rung of the foodie ladder, Good Food is the winner. Olive is great for people who have experience and actually gladly read extensive features and articles. Whilst cooking dummies like yours truly really benefit from the straight forward recipes, lists and explanations in Good Food.  And their 20th Birthday edition is especially recommendable – tons of recipes in there that beginners like myself can handle.

– Stef

Damsons – the undervalued plum

So, damsons, apparently not many people know them here. Us Swabians of course totally loving the good old damson, only we call it zwetschge (I had to google that, too)- mind you can probably just call it plum. Only it’s much smaller than a plum and more importantly I grew up with a damson tree. I loved that tree, the first one I learned to climb as it was just about the right height and not as sticky as a our cherry tree.

The Pfeil damson tree - ok so I used a ladder, not 12 anymore...

So, on a recent and rather sad trip home (saying good bye to child home and tree) I thought the time is right for one last climb and proper damson harvest. And I was rather proud of the result – probably the first fruits I plucked from anywhere that wasn’t a supermarket shelf in 12 years or so.

And it resulted in this, a stomach flu prevented me tasting it- which was a bit sad, but I was assured it was very yummy.

damson cake result

It’s a dough made of quark (the praises of which I have sung previously on this blog, it makes for a great cake base) and oil, covered with a bit of sugar and almonds and 30min later and easy damson cake. And one that my greataunt Hedy used to make with fruits from that very tree when I was little. A good way to say goodbye I thought.

– Stef

How do you organize your recipes?

When I was 10, I had index cards and a box. And one recipe.

Cards sans box. Photo by flickr user rocknroll guitar courtesty of a Creative Commons license.

Fast forward nearly two decades (eek!), and things are a wee bit more complicated. This blog is a great reminder of good recipes, but we haven’t been going long enough to be that much of a resource.

Which leaves me with my modest stack of well-thumbed cookbooks, and the rest of the internet. I’ve read some really complicated systems for managing recipes online, but I’ve found my Google Reader to be innovation enough for me. I just add a ‘recipe’ tag to anything that looks promising in my reader, and can import anything else I find online. However, I don’t actually cook from my computer, so I either have to print a recipe out or jot down some notes I can use in the kitchen. Which means I now have a stack of recipes stuck to my fridge, bookmarked recipes online, and books.

How to integrate? Do I go old school and print/copy recipes to put in a binder? That seems even more old lady than Anna’s grandma shopping cart, and I’m not sure I want to take that title from her.

What do the other cheeseclothers do? I’m hoping for inspiration in particular from hyper-organized, menu-planning Meatulewicz.

-Eve

Yoghurt self-made

Yep, you read that right, I have discovered self-made yoghurt. And when I say self-made I don’t mean that I do magical things to milk, that would be a step to far for city girl-buy-everything-prepacked-in-plastic that I am.

When I mean self-made I mean that thanks to the kind people from EasiYo (ok, I admit, not best title but you can’t get everything right) I get a magical powder that only has healthy bacteria in it, mix it with a litre of cold water, keep it in my thermos-like white container for up to 12hours and voila, the perfect yoghurt achieved at last. Not too gloopy, not too watery. No additives and it still keeps for a week at least – and one pack makes 1kg of yoghurt.

Thanks you kind Kiwi-folk for thinking that one up!

Stef

Gratuitous puppy pic

The most popular guest at the BBQ, knackered from all the attention

Easy peasy cake

My recent travels enabled me to test out cake recipes that a) you can make with an oven you don’t know at all and b) with ingredients that are different than they are at home. Because I have found the hard way that cream cheese is VERY different in New Zealand. Consistency is more cottage cheese like and when you put your cheesecake in the oven, you panic completely because it just ain’t creamy and full of little cheese bits. Good news is though that the cake turned out beautifully, despite the bizarre New Zealand like cream cheese.

But enough said, firstly I tried this super easy cheesecake recipe, left the berries out because my good friend Eva made fresh passionfruit sauce (argh to live in a climate where you can make your own passionfruit sauce).

Secondly, I made the brownie cake, bit more work intense but well worth it. We made it with homegrown macademia nuts (argh, to live in a climate where you can grow your own macademia nuts…) but pecan nuts or anything else works just as well. Lovely with icecream and almost better after a day or so!!

– Stef

Beyond help

I don’t think even bourbon and lemon juice could make this kosher wine drinkable.

New York's finest

– Anna