De Baking Psychopath

Since I'm the only one in the household who eats muffins on a regular basis, I try really hard to keep my muffin hoarding in the freezer to a minimum so I have the space to try new muffin recipes. Oftentimes, I minimize muffin numbers in storage by bringing muffins to work or events, where I know most of them will be eaten up by the end of the day. I also keep a stash of muffins at work, for those random snack-attacks (whether my own or random hungry scavengers from the floor who know I tend to keep food around). This time, however, I took yet another approach. I cut down the number of muffins I baked by using giant muffin pans. I did not want to halve the recipe because part of reason of making it was to use up the rest of the sour cream in the fridge; this was a more gratifying alternative. And I got to use my trusty old giant muffin pan that I purchased back in college. The recipe I used can be found here . It is a blueberry muffin recipe from Cooks Illustrated but must be a ne...

Yes. An iPhone 3GS. I never knew this day would come. I have a very anti-fad personality, to a fault. The hysterical fervor of tweens and college kids for "social networking" and products that bear the symbol of the forbidden fruit makes me decidedly repulsed. My one-year-ago self would probably give me a judgmental look and tsk away. But thanks to a confluence of factors, I have found myself here in late 2010 with an iPhone to my name, and quite honestly, pretty smugly happy with the thing. This is due to 1) some acclimation to the technology from the significant other owning the same device for several months, 2) finding this gorgeous velvety-smooth burgundy hard case , 3) Pandora mobile ANYWHERE I GO, 4) the Skype application that lets me call home (international call) anywhere through either 3G or WI-FI signal, 5) and the recruitment of this little cutie (instead of half-eaten fruit) to greet me whenever I turn over my phone: At least I can say at this point in my life...

Last weekend, a friend and I went frolicking at a local orchard and country market for the bounty of the local harvest. Early apples, late white peaches, fresh pie! She also scored a bushel of tomatoes for $26....that was a freaking large amount of tomatoes. She thereafter stewed them down and canned them for her and her husband's use through the next several months. But before that, she and I tried our hands at making berry jam! We got the recipe from The Berry Bible . So we forgot to do the cold-spoon-gel-test before canning and our jam didn't actually gel into nice firm jam (we probably needed more pectin)...oops! But we got some really yummy fruit sauce out of it! It's been great on plain yogurt and ice cream!

Zucchini season marches on! So here is yet another variation on the fabulous and versatile quickbread to try while the squashes overrun the markets or your garden. This zucchini bread comes from the cookbook Tartine , brought to us by the founders of the famous San Fran bakery of the same name. The interesting twist to this recipe is the addition of orange marmalade to the batter, which the authors say adds a complementary layer of flavor to the bread and contributes to the moistness of the cake. And this baby is Moist--almost pudding-like in its moistness, due to the high ratio of zucchini to flour in the recipe. It isn't too sweet, and the deep brown crust that develops on the outside (especially the sugar-encrusted top) is rich and crunchy when fresh from the oven. It is also paler in color than previous zucchini breads featured on this blog, due to the use of only white sugar. The biggest problem I had with the flavor profile of this bread was the almost overwhelming flavor ...