"So, in case of a zombie apocalypse, you can THROW your canned goods at the zombies?"

The title of this blog post came courtesy of my brother-in-law, Noel, yesterday.  I was trying to suggest that in case of the apocalypse, I would have plenty of canned goods to get us through for a little while, but apparently, I watch too much of "The Walking Dead," so the word "zombie" came out with it.

Noel was right though - in terms of a zombie apocalypse, my canned goods won't do any good other than hurling quart-sized jars of tomatoes at the zombies, but I guess that's better than nothing, right?  Josh will be protecting us with all kinds of anti-zombie weaponry, so I'll just stand behind him with jars of tomatoes as backup.

Anyway, I digress.

So, I've discovered that one of my favorite things about summer is Carpinito Brothers in Kent.  It's a produce stand/garden center and it's awesome.  They have lovely flowers and all kinds of locally (and state-grown) produce for sale.  They also have this super awesome table of clearance produce.  You know - the kind where if you buy it today, you'd better use it today, otherwise it'll be bad tomorrow.  Not only have I found useful things for cheap on said table, but I've also been able to experiment with recipes I've got (and haven't wanted to spend a lot on a produce-gamble).

Today at Carpinito, I bought a 20-lb. box of Yakima beefsteak tomatoes (not on sale, but that's okay), a couple of bell peppers, and from the clearance table, I got a bag of Anaheim peppers and three random peaches.  I went down there specifically for tomatoes, but I was super excited about the peppers, knowing that I've had a recipe for pepper jelly that I've been wanting to try.  The peaches for the jelly were just an added bonus.

Throughout my canning projects today, I tried very hard to take ongoing pictures of what I was doing.  I realized that I just don't have the patience for it, because I have to stop what I'm doing, wash my hands, get my camera out, take the picture, blah blah blah.  It takes too much time, but some turned out pretty, so I'm going to post what I have this time.

The recipes I used were easy to follow, and I've made sure to save them for future use.  

The tomatoes were canned in their own juices (squishing tomatoes into a jar is cathartic and fun!), and I just followed this recipe from Never Enough Thyme.  The recipe suggests adding a tablespoon of sugar to each jar, to offset the taste of the lemon juice, and both times I've used this recipe, I've done it - with the result being terrific.

I found this recipe for Peach-Pepper Jelly to follow to start, and I immediately made changes to it.  I used fresh peaches rather than dried, I kept the diced peppers a little bigger than suggested so that it would be more of a jam than a jelly, and I threw in some cilantro that I had in my fridge already that was begging to be used.

This was the jam mixture just before I started boiling it.  Oh, my gosh, did it smell amazing!  The peppers, the cilantro - YUM.  I tried a spoonful after I'd filled all my jars, and it's fantastic.  It's mostly sweet, but the heat from the peppers and the red pepper flakes hits you just a little bit in the back of your mouth at the end of the bite.  I can't wait to use this for all kind of things I haven't come up with yet.

And now - the finished products!

I threw that last one in because I just really loved the colors in it!  I love that you can see the chunky peppers and the pretty golden color of the jam itself.  Are you jealous yet?  If not, you should be.

I have visions of not only jam-covered cream cheese and crackers for this jam, but I'm also thinking it would be yummy on a pork roast or roasted with chicken.

And those gorgeous tomatoes?  Those are begging to be soup this fall and winter.  If all else fails - zombie deterrents.

Dinner, Wine and a Tom Hanks Movie

The Husband has a work thing all weekend, so rather than being solo tonight, I invited two of my favorite girls over for a wine night.  Well...it started off being just a wine night, but it quickly evolved into wine and a Tom Hanks movie (we watched "The Terminal").  The plan was wine and finger foods, but I decided that I wanted to make something decadent and crazy-rich for dinner, so the final plan was set.

Our disgustingly hot Seattle summer is supposed to give way to a pretty fierce, autumn-like storm this weekend, and the meteorologists mistakenly told us that it was going to start today (which, beyond some rain this morning, did not).  Following the weather forecast, I wanted to make something that was comfort food-ish, so I toyed with the idea of some over-the-top macaroni and cheese.  When I Googled this, I found a lot of bacon mac and cheese (and you all know that I'm all about the bacon), but that just didn't seem special enough.  I browsed a few more links and found some recipes for lobster mac and cheese, which sounded perfect, except for one teensy little problem.

I don't like lobster.

You know what I love, love, love though?  Dungeness crab.  One quick swap, and the Dungeness crab macaroni and cheese was born.

I found this recipe for Lobster Bake Macaroni & Cheese, which came from the Tillamook site.  I did everything exactly the same, but for the one pound of lobster meat, I used two-six ounce tubs of Dungeness crab (oh yeah, and I used shell-shaped pasta rather than gnocchi because I couldn't find any).  I thought about going for three tubs, but Dungeness crab is pretty spendy, so I figured it would be just fine with one less tub (and it totally was).

This recipe was really easy to follow, and it was the very first time I made a bechamel sauce (which I would like to eat All The Time, Forever).  I felt VERY accomplished!  The problem with this recipe is that the timing for all the steps was kind of off.  Looking back, I really should've realized it the first time I read the recipe through, but I was trying to follow the instructions, so I did what it said.  The water for the pasta should've been started as I was making the bechamel sauce, and the oven doesn't need to start being preheated until the pasta is actually in the water (because otherwise, your house heats up for longer than necessary because the weathermen are liars who were wrong about the heat and humidity that actually happened today).

Anyway.  The end result of this was freaking amazing.  The three of us ate a really decent amount of the mac and cheese, and there's still a ton left, so I'll be eating Dungeness crab mac and cheese for several days to come (cue the violins, right?).  It smelled soooooooooo good, and looked fantastic!

Side note: if you're looking for a lot of step-by-step pics of my food, you're really not going to find it here.  I admire people who are able to take pics as they cook, but I don't have the attention span for it.  I need to focus on one task at a time, otherwise, I'm likely to burn the bechamel (I'm pretty sure that's my new favorite word).  What I do like, though, is extreme close-up pictures, so be prepared for lots of those!

Extra wine night tip:

Last night, while I was shopping for ingredients for the mac and cheese, I made a pass through the wine aisle, and came across this, Acronym White Wine Blend.  I bought it because I really liked the look of the label, and it ended up being completely delicious wine!  It was sweet and fruity, but not ridiculously sweet.  The bottle is empty now, ha!

Also, I just finished up a lovely helping of mac and cheese leftovers while writing this.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm a terrible photographer.  Along with being an amateur foodie, I fancy myself an amateur photographer.  Armed with my Canon EOS Rebel T3i or my Samsung Galaxy S4, my cameras take the good pictures, and I just get lucky while clicking away.  I randomly play with the lighting and hope for the best.

Having said that, I've decided I need to practice a whole lot more than I do.  I started thinking about what I should take pictures of and I landed on three things I'm around a LOT: my husband (Josh), my cats (Gibbs and McGee), and the yummy things I make in my kitchen!  Rather than bombard you right away with pictures of my husband and cats, I thought I'd start off with a sweet and salty treat - bacon chocolate chip cookies.

Bacon chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorite things to make.  They're sweet, they're salty, and they involve bacon.  What else do you need to know?

Literally, all I did to make these cookies is use the recipe on the back of the bag of whatever chocolate chips happen to be on sale that day.  Instead of nuts, I add crispy bacon.

Boom.  Done.

My coworkers should be pretty excited, because these cookies are headed their way tomorrow.