I spent a good chunk of time in the kitchen this weekend baking. Banana bread using the three over-ripe bananas no one would eat. Chocolate chip cookies for comfort, baking 16 cookies and freezing the remainder of the dough. And two loaves of sourdough bread from the starter I began earlier in the week. It was all absolutely necessary to keep myself busy -  hands-on tasks that required timing and attention. It was all unnecessary as well - we do not need a kitchen full of baked goods, although no one is complaining.I know I am not alone when I say I am feeling very fraught. I had moments this weekend where I felt good and happy and productive. Then something small would happen - the yarn I was winding got tangled, the bread dough stuck to the dish cloth, the dishwasher wasn't run - and my frustration level would skyrocket. Seemingly small, annoying things that I usually would let slide threw me into a (self-contained) hissy fit. And then I would be angry with myself for reacting so fiercely, for not being able to handle the situation with more grace. In the same moment, I logically understand that what we are all experiencing is difficult and scary. No wonder my mood can change in an instant.I see it in my girls, too. Kate is a high school senior, missing all those year-end, traditional events. Right now she is definitely out until May 4th, but her last school day is supposed to be May 6th. She won't be going back. The IB tests were cancelled - so disappointing after two years of hard work as a IB student. Her graduation is up in the air. She is worried that she'll start college online, at home, missing that freshman experience. Jane is home from Colorado, three-quarters of the way through her sophomore year of college and feeling robbed of her friends. At her school, they take one class at a time for three and a half weeks and the one she has now is an archival history class where they were supposed to go on field trips to look at the primary documents. Instead, they are meeting via Zoom every day. She is not enjoying the experience and is missing the in-person interaction with her classmates and professor. She is supposed to study abroad in the fall and has convinced herself that it won't happen.I don't know what to tell these girls except that we are all disappointed right now. Collectively, as a world. And that it is ok to be disappointed and angry and sad. I am all those things, too. I am trying not to project too far in the future - maybe just a week or ten days ahead. Easier said than done, but really important I think. We don't know what will happen. We don't know when the isolation will end. There is a lot to be happy about, thought. We do have each other and all the streaming movies and TV we can consume. There are books to read, projects to make, things to bake. The weather has been nice and we can be outside. Maybe if we focus on the positive, the rest will seem less scary? I sure hope so.I just reread everything that I have written and I thought about deleting it all. I don't want to come off as negative. I am, however, feeling all the feelings this morning and I don't want to pretend that I am not. Along those lines, I found this article helpful. Maybe you will, too? "That Discomfort You're Feeling is Grief"

A few weeks ago I posted a photo of something I was baking on Instagram and promised Molly that I would post the recipe. I did mention that it is my favorite dessert. And it is. My mom used to make this in the summer, once or maybe twice each year. Her mom, my grandmother, also made this with just-picked raspberries when we would visit their farm. It's a sentimental dessert for me - truly the taste of my childhood summers. It is one first recipes I asked my mom for when Fatty and I were first dating. It has three main ingredients: fruit, sugar and Bisquick.  Nothing high brow about that at all. Just delicious. It is especially good because you are essentially cooking the pastry and fruit in a simple syrup that cooks down to make the most delicious sauce. Serve it warm with vanilla ice cream. The leftovers make an excellent breakfast with a cup of coffee. Here's how you do it.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Make the shortcake recipe as follows:

3 1/2 c Bisquick plus approximately 1/2 c more for rolling (You can use original or the reduced fat one. I've never tried it with a bisquick-like mix made from scratch, but I bet it would work.)

1/4 c sugar

3/4 c milk

4 tbsp. melted butter

Mix all ingredients together until the dough forms. If the dough is sticky, add more Bisquick until you can roll it out. Dust the rolling surface with Bisquick and roll it into a rectangle about 8" x 12" that is 1/2" thick. The thickness is the key part - your rectangle may end up slightly larger. That's OK.

Add:

3 - 6 oz. containers of raspberries

Place raspberries in a single layer on top of the dough. Roll the dough and raspberries together into a log. Cut the log into 1" slices.

Make the syrup:

Pour 1 1/2 c sugar in a 9" x 13" glass baking pan.

Add 2 c boiling water and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Place the slices of fruit and pastry so they float in the syrup. Pack them in the pan, leaving little room between slices. If you have extra berries, go ahead and plop those in as well.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the top is golden brown.

I've had grand plans for the better part of week to sit down and write a post about what has been keeping me busy. We've had two sets of houseguests and in between visiting and cleaning and the never-ending laundry, I've been slowly and painfully working on the last two swoon squares and staring at an unfinished pink sweater that needs just a little attention.

And I've been cooking.

I don't know if it is the change of seasons or the beginning of the school year or some other cosmic force, but I've been spending more time in the kitchen. This is more than your average "it's dinner time so let's throw something on the grill and put a salad together". This is "let's see how much we can fit into the freezer" kind of cooking.

I started by poaching one chicken.

I reduced the poaching liquid for stock, put a quart in the refrigerator and froze the rest in 1 and 2 cup portions.

With the meat, I made two pans of Mad Hungry chicken enchiladas - one pan of 8 for dinner that night, the other pan of 8 for the freezer.

There was still meat left over so I made some Mad Hungry chicken pocket pies. I doubled the dough as I had twice the amount of cream cheese that was needed. I figured I'd freeze the extra pastry for later. After making the first batch of chicken pocket pies, there was still meat left and I had the dough so I made another recipe worth. These 12 pies are now frozen.

I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies - baked half, froze the other half.

I made my favorite Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day dough - the peasant loaf. That batch makes enough for four loaves over two weeks. Perfect.

And that was all on the first day.

Now, I don't want you to think that I spent hours and hours slaving away in the kitchen. I made the bread dough and the cookies while the chicken was poaching. While the cookies were baking, I whipped up the enchilada sauce and assembled them. While the pastry for the pocket pies was chilling, I made the filling. It did take some time, but less than you'd think. And I figure if I'm going to make a mess, it might as well be a big one.

Right now I have a HUGE pot of sauce bubbling on the stove. I'll use some to make a spinach lasagne for tonight and the rest will be frozen in 2 cup portions for later. I'm not good about menu planning so these made-ahead meals are my saving grace on busy nights. All I have to do is remember to pull something out of the freezer that morning, or even the night before if I'm really on top of my game. Add some fresh veggies and that's a family meal with little fuss.

Other ideas I have include doubling up marinades and buying family packs of meat to make one meal for us now and two meals for later. I'm also thinking about making small, individual frozen pizzas for those days when the girls have longer and later sports practices and need a little more to hold them over for dinner time.

Got any good freezer ideas you care to share? Menu planning or big batch cooking ideas? I'm listening.

Faced with an abundance of white peaches and little time to can them, I decided to make some ice pops. They turned out really well and were simple to make. I've made multiple batches this week and they are a hit with everyone in the house. I thought I'd share my recipe in case you have the desire to make some, too. Of course, your peaches don't need to be white. Regular ones will be just as delicious! Nectarines would make lovely ice pops, too. (The popsicle mold pictured below is this one by Norpro. I also have the Zoku popsicle maker and love using that, too.)

White Peach Ice Pops - makes about 10 pops

6 to 8 medium white peaches

1/4 to 1/3 c sugar (this is to taste)

Peel peaches by placing them in boiling water for one minute and then transfering them to an ice water bath immediately. After a few minutes in the ice water, the skin should slip right off. Chop the peeled peaches and place them and any juice in the jar of your blender until it is almost full. Pour the sugar on top and blend it all until smooth. You can strain the mixture by pouring and pressing the liquid through a fine mesh sieve, but it's not necessary. Pour the liquid into popsicle molds. Place in the freezer for one hour and then add the sticks. Continue freezing for another 4 hours or overnight. Remove the popsicles from the molds by running them under cold water until they release.

Have a safe and fun holiday weekend!

We are all home from various places, settling in to our days. It's been a sea of laundry and home cooked meals. A little hand stitching and plans for bigger projects are simmering, too. For now, I am just dipping my toes back in the blog waters and it feels pretty good. I am almost ready to jump back in. Soon.

At some point every May, I take mental stock of what we have going on in the coming weeks so I can find the day, most likely on a weekend, when I can make the strawberry jam.  This pondering normally begins when I see my first pint of local strawberries, my tell-tale sign that it is summer, or close to it. And because of all that mental work, I knew that if it was going to happen at all this year, it would have to be this past weekend.

But, at the same time, I wasn't convinced that I needed to make it happen. The strawberry crop was hit with a bunch of rain in April and the beginning of May, making the fruit slow to start. My favorite u-pick farm closed their fields to pickers. Big bummer and no fun. And I am pretty sure we have *just* enough in the freezer to get through the year, although I was really too lazy to actually take inventory. I was willing to gamble. And then on a whim, we went to the farmers market on Saturday. Yeah, you guessed it. Eight quarts of strawberries purchased. I made the jam.

It's a yearly ritual at this point and why I thought I wouldn't do it is really beyond me. It's kind of like planting bulbs in the fall, or in my case, the good intent to plant said bulbs. Every spring, I swear I am going to plants hundreds of daffodils. By October, I am so. over. gardening. that. I. cannot. bear. to. plant. anything. at. all. Come spring, I curse myself and swear I'll do it this year. Cross my heart. But then it's rinse and repeat, doesn't happen. It's the same, but opposite with the jam. Every year, I think I am going to take a break and live on my reserves and Bonne Maman. But no. I do it. I get the strawberries. And the sugar and the pectin. Or Fatty does, as it happened this year. Regardless, I make the jam. I always do.

Strawberry freezer jam is a taste that takes me right back to my childhood. It's just as much a part of me as, say, red hair and freckles. Really. I think the only time in my life when it wasn't in my refrigerator was when I was in college, living far from home and the chest freezer full of jam. And, by now, you'd think that I'd realize that I can't not have it around and just go on planning to make it. But I think the making of the jam is kind of like strawberry season - it comes fast, hits hard and is gone before you know it. It appears to be that way for me - I made five batches in record time this year.

The sweet, sticky mess was made lickety split and, just as fast, was all cleaned up. The only thing I have to remind me is the 14 pint jars of glorious, sweet, red jam sitting in my freezer. Jam that will bring the taste of summer to my mouth some blustery autumn afternoon or snowy winter day. And when the spring rains start coming, and I am eating jam, I'll realize that May is just around the corner. The thinking will begin. The strawberries will call and I will make jam.

For more information on how I make the jam, refer to this post from 2009. I also wrote about strawberry freezer jam in 2008 and 2010. Like I said, it's an annual thing.

I'm pretty transparent and steadfast about the things I love. If you've been hanging around here for any length of time, you know that. I often spout about my love of the color green. And limes. And margaritas. And peonies. And champagne. And fabric. (OK - no fabric links...too many to chose from!) I could go on, but I won't.

For my 40th, I wanted food with Mexican flavors and margaritas. That's all. And because I'm picky (that may be an understatement) about my margaritas, I said I would make them. What I didn't know was how to translate my favorite recipe that yields one or two cocktails into the large volume a party requires without making them too booze-y or too sweet.

So, I hit Google. I typed in "big batch margaritas". I clicked on this recipe, looked at it and then adapted it to my tastes. I was planning on doing the same thing Jeffrey does: buy cheap bottled water by the gallon, use it to water the plants or cook pasta or whatever, and reuse the plastic gallon jug. There was some higher math involved as we extrapolated one recipe into five. But once they were made, with one taste, I knew it was close to my favorite recipe. Here's what I did:

Big Batch Margaritas, adapted from A Gallon of Margaritas by the Gallon by Jeffrey Morgenthaler

6 c silver tequila

2 1/2 c Cointreau

5 c freshly squeezed lime juice (10 - 12 limes generally yields about 2 c)

2 c simple syrup ( I used a 1 to 1 ratio of sugar to water)

Mix everything in a gallon container and then refrigerate. Serve on the rocks with salt and a lime garnish. (If you put it into an empty gallon water jug, you will need a funnel to avoid spillage.)

If you have leftovers (pshaw!), pour them into a freezable container and pop them into the freezer. Once frozen, you can have leftover margarita slushies as wanted. I know because we have 6 frozen quarts at the ready. Thank you to Alicia for that brilliant idea! I've got cocktails covered for most of the summer.

Happy weekending folks!

You guys are awesome! I knew that you would give me lots of great ideas to jump start some different dinners. I've gone through the comments a few times now and I plan to go through my Everyday Food mags this evening and sticky note your recommendations.  There are so many wonderful suggestions in the comments of that last post - check them out for some great links.  Also, Mad Hungry was mentioned a few times. I bought that cookbook this fall and LOVE it. It definitely deserves a post of its own, though.

I started chain piecing the Liberty quilt this weekend. I started by sewing one white square to each of the Liberty prints and then sewed another print onto those strips. After an hour of piecing like this, I realized that I was going to have to come up with a better plan. It's very random (which is what I want), but I'm worried about balancing the prints and the white. So for now I think I am going to make 2, 3 and 4 piece strips and then lay it all out on the floor, add the white where it is needed and then I can sew the pieces into blocks or strips and go from there. I was trying to avoid laying out a huge 27 x 30 block rectangle, but it looks like it's inevitable.

I've put this all aside for now so I can focus on the auction art projects this week. I'm treating the auction work as my day job (Monday - Friday, daytime hours) and the quilting and other crafts as my leisure (nights and weekends). It's my sincere hope that I can keep to this schedule and by doing so that I can avoid stressing myself out too much.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Gotta run - I have some rain barrels that need a final coat of spray paint. Later!