Jessica's Dinner Party

Archive for the 'fruit' Category

Persimmon Coffee Cake and NaBloPoMo

I have some exciting news for you; I’ve decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month! This means that for the month of November I will be, or at least desperately trying, to post every single day. Yes, that’s right, every single day. It’s a daunting and big challenge for me, but one that I am determined to accomplish. I’m walking into the next 29 days blindly (maybe I should’ve come up with a time lined plan), but I guarantee there will be a lot of recipes, good food, disasters, and above all, behind the scenes chaos.

November 01 2009 | cake and fruit and recipe and thoughts | 12 Comments »

Pumpkin Butter

I’d forgotten how wonderful autumn in Korea was. The sun brightens the flittering breeze as the sky is seamless with not a gloomy cloud in sight. Looking at the contents of my suitcase I expected much colder temperatures, the type where long sleeves, a scarf, and a thick sweater barely gets you by, but I am pleasantly surprised that the sweater can wait. I am also surprised how normal and comfortable I already am here. Sure, I’m still jetlagged dozing off at 8 pm as my brother only begins to open his textbooks, but I instantly felt at ease when I landed here. I guess that’s the meaning of home, when you still feel like a part of the house you grew up in, not like a visiting guest. Maybe I’m anticipating the moment when this place doesn’t feel that way anymore that I don’t realize that I haven’t gotten there yet. It’s nice. I’ve always felt like such an old soul, a grandma in a youth’s body that I welcome the idea that I still have a lot of growing up to do.

October 14 2009 | fruit and recipe and thoughts and vegetarian | 12 Comments »

Blueberry Crumb Bar Cake

There was dessert! How could a picnic end without something sweet? Before planning the picnic, I read an article in Martha Stewart’s Living magazine about how to prepare a picnic. By chance I have a subscription to the magazine. I think it came as a package deal with something else I ordered or it was a secret friend who thought I would enjoy it, but in any case, I was surprised when I kept on receiving an issue month after month. There were a lot of cute ideas there, including the tomato hand pies that inspired my roasted tomato sandwiches and sour cherry crumb cakes for dessert. I decided to follow the article and make a crumb cake because it’s easy to transport, and the picture looked so scrumptious.

From the time I read the article to the time I went to the grocery store something in my mind changed and I believed that the article talked about raspberry crumb bars instead of sour cherry crumb cakes. I set out to find raspberries and didn’t even look at the cherries. However, when I found the raspberries I was totally shocked at how expensive they were. Half a pint was $4 and since I would have to buy at least three of them to make the bars I would be spending a grand total of $12! It might not sound like a lot to some people, but for a recent college graduate, it’s quite a sum. So, after a good ten minutes in front of the berry stand, I decided to buy blueberries, two pints for $5, instead.

I was really happy about my choice of fruit and could not wait to start baking. When I opened the magazine to read the recipe, I realized that I the whole time I was thinking about crumb bars and that I couldn’t make the crumb cakes anyway because I didn’t have any buttermilk or an acceptable substitute on hand. I quickly scanned the indexes of all the cookbooks I had and searched online for a blueberry crumb bar recipe and found one at AllRecipes.com written about by Smitten Kitchen that was easy and simple. Yay!