Counting Calories?

I truly believe that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Or in this case, a few thousand calories.

Ukrainian and Russian nibbles for my knitting club. Jelly filled donuts, Lepeshki, Ukrainian Poppy Seed Cake, Mini Lemon Bundt Cakes, and more donuts -- all served in vintage Pyrex. Of course.  

Hankering for more Pyrex eye-candy? Check out my latest post on the Pyrex Collective III blog here.

(That's all for today. My last post was a bit long, and after baking that mess above, I'm still too exhausted to write anymore!) 

Gathering the Gooseberries

I went through a little bit of thrifting withdrawal on our recent travels. (Or 'drifting' as the Sailor likes to refer to my junking habit.) 

I think thrifting is the ultimate form of recycling though. Besides, who doesn't like a good treasure hunt? 

This weekend, I went out for coffee with my mom, and on my way to exchange some yarn in between, we stopped briefly at the nearby thrift store. 

THIS... in its full glory, called out my name. 

Those of you who know your vintage Pyrex will know that this Gooseberry refrigerator set is not an easy one to come by. I've seen the prices on eBay and frankly, it scared me off of ever finding one in an antique store, let alone a thrift store. 

But a few months back, I found this lonely little dish here. And I got a little glimmer of hope that more Gooseberry must be out there somewhere, at a reasonable price. 

My mom said she thought she saw rainbows burst out of me when I saw the full fridge set. You can read that story here and see what else I bought that day. I know I spent more money than usual (seriously people, I'm more of a bargain thrifter, not splurger... but occasionally there are times when rainbows burst out of me and I can't control myself...)

Of course my rule in purchasing Pyrex is that I have to actually use it. It can't just sit there looking pretty (although it IS pretty, isn't it?!) 

Avocado and tomato salad, along with homemade fennel soup. I remembered I had a fennel soup recipe I wanted to try out, so I purchased some at the local farmer's market. 

I've never used fennel in anything before -- but it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The soup was little more than butter, onion, garlic, chicken stock and the fennel... but I think the secret was in cooking the fennel for at least 30 minutes to bring out the flavor. Yum.

As usual, everything tasted better in Pyrex. 

 

Snowflake Garlands

I thought for sure we would return home to witness the trees blossoming, buds springing forth from the ground, and a serious temptation to continue to show off my pedicured feet in the form of sandals. 

I was wrong. 

Yesterday, the Sailor and I watched in disbelief as it snowed. 

And snowed. 

And snowed some more. 

Blue skies today mean that the snow is melting, although more wet stuff is forecast for the rest of the week. Forget salads and detoxing post-cruise, suddenly, I'm finding myself wanting to bake.

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I have an affinity for vintage Pyrex. I even blog at a collector's site, although my small kitchen won't permit me to have quite so many pieces of Pyrex. 

I started out loving the yellow and orange Pyrex because it matched my kitchen (Sunflower colors? Why yes, thank you...) 

Along the way, I've gained an appreciation for many of the fun colors Pyrex made -- pink and aqua have now also found their way into my collection. 

I resisted purchasing anything with snowflakes on it though -- I figured I could only use those pieces over the winter, and I wanted my vintage stuff to serve more of a purpose than simply sitting on a shelf as decor. Nevertheless, I found this piece for only $3 and I was hooked.

Last week, once I had unpacked and did the necessary laundry, I did a quick round through town to the thrift stores. I wasn't having much luck at the first two, but then I found something that caught my eye at the third one. 

It's the Snowflake Garland pattern -- one that I don't have yet, and one that I certainly don't need. In fact, I've definitely passed up this pattern in other shapes before. But an 8x8 baking pan with fantastic handles for only $3? How practical is that? 

Now that I actually bought the thing, my only decision is what I'm going to actually bake in it. 

Winter will come and finally go, at least for a few months. Vintage Pyrex, though...  you're here to stay.

Fridge Milk Tart

The Sailor is home-bound so I thought I would make him a special dessert. Since I discussed his distaste for pasta in my last post, I figured it's only fair to share something he actually enjoys -- South African Fridge Milk Tart. 

Fridge what?

It does sound a little strange... I admit. It's kind of like custard, but with a bottom crust. 

My first encounter with Milk Tart was at a South African braai, or BBQ, along a beach in Sierra Leone, West Africa. (That alone is a story for another time...) As a non-South African, I got invited because the Sailor and I were dating. The day was filled with all manner of South African good eats, but I was particularly taken with the Milk Tart -- especially when the Sailor mentioned how much he liked it. 

I cornered the gal who made it and said she must give me the recipe. 

While I'm not a fan of haphazardly posting other people's recipes online (there is somewhat of a copyright controversy in the blogging world) I feel assured that this is a fairly standard Milk Tart recipe. And since she gave me scribbles from memory on how to make it, I'm quite certain she didn't remember who passed it on to her. I have made some minor changes to the recipe (mainly more detailed instructions... the scribbles were a little vague!)

Now I share it with you. Go forth... try something new. Pretend it's summer, and you're having a braai. Unless of course you're in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, there is no need to pretend. 

SOUTH AFRICAN FRIDGE MILK TART

INGREDIENTS: 
1 Packet of Marie Biscuits (These are not always easy to find in the USA. I found 'Goya Maria' ones that are the same. I have also used animal crackers in the past, with great success!) 
1/2 cup of butter 
1 tin of condensed milk 
3 tins of whole milk (roughly 3.5 cups - I actually just use the condensed milk tin to measure the regular milk while I'm making it) 
3 tablespoons of maizena (cornstarch) 
3 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
cinnamon for sprinkling

CRUST: 

Melt the Butter

Crush the Marie biscuits. 

You can crush them even more, but I like my crust to have some substance.

Add the melted butter to the biscuits. Press the mixture into a large rectangular pan (like a 9"x13") or two or three smaller dishes. 

Refrigerate the crust.

FILLING: 

Heat the milk, maizena, and egg yolks on medium high heat. Use a whisk to remove any lumps. Stir until the mixture thickens. This may take about 10 minutes. 

As soon as it thickens, add the condensed milk, salt and vanilla. Stir together. Fold in the egg whites. 

Stir a bit more until thick again and reduce heat. The mixture burns quickly, so watch it carefully. 

Pour the mixture onto the refrigerated crust. At this point, the mixture may still be runnier than you expect, but it will continue to thicken once it cools. (And, as a side note, if it never thickens, it still tastes good... it is just sloppier to eat and has more of a pudding consistency.) 

Sprinkle cinnamon all over and then refrigerate until chilled. 

Enjoy! Or, as they say in Afrikaans... Lekker eet!

(Still craving more? I'm one of many bloggers on the Pyrex Collective III blog. Go here for my post on how I got that gorgeous Butterprint blue dish holding the Marie biscuits. You can also see more of my vintage refrigerator dish obsession here.)

Comfort Food = Mac & Cheese

I love pasta. I'm sure I would have made my grandmother's family proud. Somewhere out there is a distant Italian relative who just shouted 'hurrah' across the ocean.

I have always been a macaroni and cheese kind of gal -- of course as a child, it conveniently came out of a box, and was one of the first things I probably learned to 'make'. Most of my pasta still comes out of a box, but only the pasta itself, and not the packet of orange powder.

When the Sailor isn't home, I tend to eat far too much pasta. He doesn't eat it, nor do I ever expect him to. A friend's father in England often used to say, 'If God wanted me to eat pasta, I would have been born in Italy.' 

The Sailor tends to agree with that line of reasoning. 

So the only pasta dish that gets made when he's home is the occasional lasagna, or some sort of dough stuffed with either potatoes or meat -- a pierogie, for instance. Floating noodles (like in the case of Pennsylvania Dutch Pot Pie*) are also acceptable, perhaps once if not twice a year. 

With temperatures at -19 F this morning (seriously, Old Man Winter -- isn't that a little chilly, even for you?) I was craving comfort food. 

I also wanted any excuse to use this gorgeous 2.5 quart Butterfly Gold vintage Pyrex casserole dish I found last week, at an antique store with a friend (it's the one on the bottom. The top one is a 1.5 quart I found ages ago.)

I had been lamenting not nabbing this piece months ago at the Weekend Antique event I went to, but at $20, I couldn't really justify it. Plus, I already found the refrigerator dishes I wanted that day. Sometimes you need to space out the joy.
 
But last week, I had just put down several pieces of Butterfly Gold that I didn't really like or want (the divided casserole... a few bowls that I already had...) and then I spied this lovely beast in a corner, for only $4. 

That's right. FOUR dollars! It had a few burn marks on it -- and it came with a clear lid, not the white patterned lid like some of the casseroles did, but I couldn't have cared less. I wanted the actual dish! 

 Turns out 2.5 quarts is just the right size for this classic mac and cheese casserole. 

I based the recipe off of this one from Annie's Eats. After I threw the casserole in the oven, and double checked the cooking time, I realized that I somehow completely skipped an entire main ingredient. 

I didn't add any colby jack cheese. 

(Not only did I not add it, but I didn't make up for it with any other cheese. How sad is that?)

I also had about half the amount of panko bread crumbs the recipe called for in my cupboard, no parsley, and no chicken broth (how is this possible? I ALWAYS have chicken broth somewhere.) Fortunately, I happen to save the turkey juice from Christmas lunch, so I used that instead, along with a little bit of veggie broth to get it up to the required amount. I was pretty chuffed with myself, since I do like to use up what I already have in most cases.

And, I used almond milk instead of regular milk, and quite possibly more garlic -- this dish definitely had some heat.
 
In my world, classic macaroni and cheese pairs perfectly with stewed tomatoes. But I only had a handful of cherry tomatoes that I needed to use up, so I sliced them in half and tossed them on top of the casserole. 

Regardless of my kitchen mishap with both directions and ingredient lists, the dish was delightful edible. And I have more than enough leftovers for lunch until the Sailor gets home.

I think next time though, I'll definitely try to stick with the original recipe -- with one exception. I will most certainly keep the tomatoes in there.

* For my true opinion on Pennsylvania Dutch Pot Pie, click here.

Kitchen Disasters

Awhile back, after posting about this lovely orange marmalade cake, and my holiday soirée, I promised a soon-coming post on kitchen disasters. Well, here it is. 

Meet my kitchen. 

Meet the magic that sometimes occurs even with limited counter space.

(What you see above is the counter. All of it. Seriously.) 

 Now meet even more kitchen chaos:

 Including the cake that simply fell apart when I tried to move it:

(For the record, that was supposed to be a chocolate peanut butter marble cake -- but I'm going to guess the original recipe didn't use natural peanut butter like I did, which is probably what should have kept it together.)  

Then there's the ganache that was far too gooey to roll into truffles: 

And oh so many more dishes that never get photographed...

The bottom line? For every wonderful creation I make in the kitchen, there is often a kitchen disaster story to tell. It might be a ruined dinner, a cake that somehow didn't bake properly, or something as silly as a dropped egg. (My mom used to say that eggs make the same sound no matter which floor they drop on... I have dropped enough eggs in several kitchens to know she speaks the truth.) Usually that dropped egg is the last one I have on hand and necessary for the recipe.

Thankfully, the Sailor doesn't mind a disaster every now and again -- as long as we have pizza delivery on speed dial, charcoal for the BBQ, or a Five Guys within driving distance, we'll be okay. He has also encouraged me on more than one occasion by reminding me 'that's how we learn...' 

I have definitely learned a thing or two.

Years ago, I paid too much money for a little black book on basic cooking. I thought I could use some help in the basic area of cooking some days -- most days in fact. 

Sure, I could do a lot of basic things. Growing up, I always prided myself on being able to boil an egg -- that often seemed to be the standard by which people judged someone's cooking ability: "So and so can't even boil an egg."

But I'd never poached an egg before, and my omelettes sometimes turned to scrambled eggs. Ironically, my egg timer supervised this sauce-of-something-or-other that turned whatever cake I made into a dish nobody should have to taste. So awful was the cake, I've completely blocked out the name of it. I couldn't tell you what was actually bubbling below except for that lonely cinammon stick.  

Like that cake, this basic book was a major disappointment. You see -- it was almost too gourmet to be 'basic'. They used words like 'chiffonade' and 'poivrade sauce'. It had recipes for lobster bisque and snail butter -- foods I never actually wanted to eat, let alone create from scratch.

When I wanted to make some simple scalloped potatoes, I searched high and low in this book for the recipe. I just wanted to know the cooking time and temperature. The book contained more than half a dozen potato recipes but nothing for scalloped spuds. (I eventually found the recipe in that old wartime cookbook...) 

Yet even though I keep wanting to just get rid of this book, something stops me every time I put it in the 'giveaway' pile. I think it's because I need to just try something 'basic' out of it -- even if I can't pronounce it -- even if it might be a flop.

Tonight, when I picked the book back up and flipped through it, I saw the instructions for how to poach an egg. 

I suddenly realized that after all of these years, I have still never tried to make poached eggs before. They are pretty basic, after all.

Perhaps it's time. I think my little kitchen can handle it -- as long as I don't drop the eggs on the floor first. 

If I master that, maybe I can work my way up to snail butter. I've discovered there are no snails actually in the butter -- just garlic, parsley and shallots.  

And when all else fails, I know I can still boil an egg. I can also make oatmeal like a champ. I'm also convinced that anything tastes better in Pyrex. Read more here at the Pyrex Collective III about my hunt for cereal bowls.  

Driving Myself Crazy

I haven't created much in the past few days, except lists. To do lists, shopping lists, places to visit lists. 

It's not that I didn't want to create -- it's just that I've been driving. A lot. Seven hundred and twenty miles worth so far. And it's a little hard to knit, crochet or bake while I'm behind the wheel. In fact I'm feeling a little crazy that I haven't made anything in the past few days. 

But it is wonderful to do a bunch of other things when it's just me in the car.

So fun, in fact that I made up a list of the reasons why I love a good solo road trip.

1. I can stop anywhere I like, anytime I like, without consulting the other passenger/driver -- aka, the Sailor. In my case, I got a little distracted by 'junk'. I stopped at no less than half a dozen antique shops along the I-81 corridor within a 24 hour period. Seriously, people... there is no lack of stuff waiting to be purchased by collectors and vintage hunters alike, right off the highway -- like that nifty little Pyrex sugar bowl I scored for only two bucks. The good news is, there are even more antique shops that I didn't stop at, and there is always the drive home. 

The downside: Nobody is telling me to get a move on so that I actually make it to my destination at a respectable hour, like before dark.

2. I can eat whatever I like, whenever I like, including the Sailor's turkey jerky I was saving just for him when he came home, along with leftover Christmas cookies.

The downside: It took me the best part of 20 minutes to wrestle the turkey jerky bag open by myself. And I ate too many cookies and felt quite lethargic by the time I reached my destination (and of course I couldn't even go for a walk to burn off at least one cookie, because I spent too long looking at junk and it was dark by the time I arrived.)

3.  I can pack the car however I want, which means I can take up the entire trunk with my stuff. Plus, I can keep my enormous handbag and the aforementioned snacks all within reach on the passenger seat.

The downside: I packed the cooler in the wrong place and therefore couldn't reach any of the drinks while driving. Plus, I had to load and unload all of my stuff. I never have to do that on a road trip with the Sailor.

4. I can listen to whatever songs I want and flip through as many radio stations as possible, singing at the top of my lungs. 

The downside: There really is no downside to this. Singing at the top of your lungs should be compulsory on a solo road trip. Or any road trip for that matter. Who cares if there are other passengers. They probably want to belt out some tunes too -- sing loud enough, drive them crazy enough and they'll start singing to drown you out. (Oh wait... maybe that only happens to me?!)

So there's that list done. Now to create that list of projects I still need to finish -- starting with this lonely sock:

 

Winter Decor

I love how snow seems to make everything quiet. 

(Unless of course, you're driving. In which case, yuck... it's not serene nor peaceful when your tires are squealing -- be careful out there in the coming days and weeks if you are traveling in snowy locations!)

Having it snow reminded me that winter is actually here. It doesn't just come and go on Christmas day... it usually lingers for a few months afterwards. 

A friend of mine once told me she decorates her home for winter, not just for the holidays. I like that theory, and so I've adopted it as my own. After all, let's face it, January and February can both be yucky months depending on where you live -- sometimes we need a little extra sparkle in the decor. Like glittery pine cones inside a vintage salt shaker turned vase, above.  

Or general snowflake sparkle, with or without spices:  

Red berries combined with small Christmas baubles in gold and red: 

It all looked festive for Christmas, but I still think it fits for a winter scene. So, for now, the berries stay. As do the baubles -- acquired at a thrift shop, along with the mini birdbath they are perched upon.  

I also have dishes that will see the light of day a little more often in the coming months:

 

(To see more of this gorgeous promotional piece of Pyrex from 1965, 

check out my post on the Pyrex Collective III site, here.)  

Festive Merry-Making

I felt festive this week, and wanted to share a little merriment with some friends I've known for most of my life.

Plus, since the Sailor isn't home, somebody needed to eat all of the goodies I've been making. 

 What better way to share the joy than by having a little holiday-inspired soirée?

I made these brilliant little sugared-cranberries, thanks to 
one of my favorite food blogs: Annie's Eats. 

I used them to decorate the otherwise bland cracker tray, and then I also made a ring around the orange marmalade poppyseed bundt cake. I originally planned a different cake, but it was a complete flop, so I went with the old standby -- this is the third one I've made in two weeks. (Stay tuned for a post on kitchen disasters...)

The cranberries that didn't make the sugared-cut got left out for the birds. 

They didn't seem interested though. 

My friends, however, devoured the sugared cranberries. 
Who knew such a simple decorative dish could be so delightful?

I also made some cheesy onion pull-apart bread, and at the last minute, 

threw together a simple (and delicious) roasted chickpea salad.

There were also chocolate truffles.

(Half of which did not go as planned -- again, stay tuned for kitchen disasters...)

 

And of course, what's a holiday party without cookies? Check out how I scored this lovely vintage pink fridge dish, plus more baking prep photos here. 

 Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!

Tickled Pink

I'm tickled pink to be one of many authors on the Pyrex Collective III blog. While I cannot boast of the collections that are posted there (nor would I have the same kind of space in my kitchen!) I do love to learn more about vintage items and to see other people's marvelous thrifty finds. 

And, of course, I love to write, so I'm excited to be included on the site. 

My first post about this fabulous Pink Daisy casserole from the 1950s can be found here.   

Pyrex Mania

I have a small confession. Ever since the Sailor and I got our own little apartment, I have been somewhat obsessive about the kitchen. When we first got married, we didn't always have our own place to cook. For a while we lived with my in-laws, then we lived in Cape Town with another family while the Sailor finished his studies; later we lived with my family.  

Sharing a living space is one thing, sharing a kitchen is quite another. I didn't realize how stressful it was until one day I nearly burst into tears as I told the Sailor that I just wanted to pick out my own dumb tea towels.

The truth was, the tea towels were only the beginning. I was tired of using someone else's dishes, pots, pans, and cutlery -- even if that someone was within my family. I wanted my own. Even if I had my own stuff at that point, it's not the same having to share the space with someone else. 

(I do realize how selfish this sounds... and I also know how blessed I have been over the years considering how many people share kitchens all over the world, but hear me out nonetheless.)

Sunset from our flat near Cape Town

Before we got married, I had been living overseas. I never really had my own kitchen. Even in the few years in England where I lived on my own, post-university, I had a slew of guests come and go, and I was using dishes and the like that had been given to me. When I moved back to America, I felt like I had missed the last decade and everyone else moved forward by owning kitchen gadgets they hardly used (at least in my version of the story). I simply wanted my own knives and a few dishes. Maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I was just being practical. But I'll never forget trying to make hash browns from scratch on our honeymoon. They were a flop, but the Sailor simply reminded me that the cooking equipment at our bungalow was inferior. Right then and there I knew I married a man who understood how much a kitchen meant to me, even if I didn't know yet how to wield the equipment with which to cook.

We had some seriously stunning views in the places we lived -- especially in Cape Town, but I was also using the equivalent of an easy bake oven to make our meals. I was pretty proud of myself for learning how to make meatloaf on a hotplate until we got the little oven, and I was even prouder of myself for baking an entire loaf of bread in the thing -- even when said loaf rose precariously close to the top of the oven.

Moving into our own apartment, the Sailor had his say as to where some of the furniture went, but when it came to the kitchen, he told me he didn't mind what I did with it -- it was all mine. 

Because we were nomads for so long, most people gave us money for our wedding. The cash suited our lifestyle at the time, far more than toasters and blenders did. Besides, we never registered anywhere. I couldn't reconcile the idea that I had invited people from at least three continents to our wedding, and it would have seemed odd to me to have people bring breakable china on a plane to our small ceremony. In any case, I had nowhere to put plates or any material gift in whatever kitchen I was utilizing at the time.

When we finally got our own little space years later, I realized that in addition to furniture -- we needed not only dishes but an entire kitchen complement. I caved and bought my knives, my stainless steel pots and my cast iron pans new, but nearly everything else came from thrift stores. 

Suddenly I was drawn to older kitchen stuff. I remembered my mother-in-law had an old glass rolling pin -- the kind you could put ice into to keep dough cold as you rolled it out. Nobody here had ever heard of such a thing, so I took to scouting out antique shops in search of one. I still haven't found a glass one, but I have amassed a small collection of vintage Butterfly Gold Pyrex dishes along the way. 

At first it was just a small mixing bowl -- I thought it would go well with all of the sunflowers in my kitchen. Then I began to realize that this old Pyrex stuff was tough -- I figured if it had already survived 40 plus years, surely it could survive my kitchen? 

I began finding pieces bit by bit. 

My favorite ones by far were the refrigerator dishes. I liked the modern Pyrex glass dishes with the rubber lids (as opposed to their inferior plastic cousins) but there was something about these older ones that really caught my eye. 

I decided to hunt for the full set of the Butterfly Gold refrigerator dishes. I managed to nab the medium sized 'butter' dish and another smaller white one while weekend antiquing. 

This week, I found the large refrigerator dish. Sometimes, I just have a hunch that I should wander into a thrift store. That day, I went into one on my way to another antique store, in search of some vintage jadeite for a friend. Right as I was leaving, this little beauty stared at me through the glass: 

Can you hear the moment of triumph? The clerk most certainly heard me squeal.

While I don't usually get pieces that are damaged, I made an exception for this one which is only slightly scratched... but totally chip free. For the price, a few scratches were totally worth it. 

So there you have it. The whole fridge family. Happily, I paid less than half of what I've seen lately on eBay and Etsy for all of them. And before you wonder why I didn't just order them online from the start -- for me, it is more thrilling to hunt for them in person. 

In retrospect, if I had to do it all over again, I'm glad I shared so many kitchens and so much cooking equipment with other people. It helped me realize that I can cook anywhere -- in any space and with anything. And I still wouldn't have registered for dishes even if we had our own place back when we got married. (I doubt anyone has a registry for vintage Pyrex in any case.) Far more fun to build the collection this way, I think. The Sailor doesn't seem to mind. In fact, I think he's less overwhelmed when I build my kitchen collection piece by piece instead of all at once.  

And, thankfully, he no longer has to hear me spout off about tea towels.