Pear honey

If you like jam you'll love this vintage recipe for pear honey -- sweet and spreadable with a hint of ginger. Enjoy it on toast, muffins or even as a basting sauce for chicken!

I have been looking so forward to writing this post.

And not simply for the opportunity to introduce you to pear honey (it's not really honey, honey, but we'll get to that in a minute) but rather to talk about backstories.

My sister-in-law once asked me how I decide what to put on the blog. Largely, my inspiration comes from the seemingly never-ending supply of food magazines to which I subscribe (probably too many), Pinterest pins (probably too many) and aha! moments of my own (probably not enough).

And then sometimes they are simply handed to me.

A few weeks ago, given the overwhelming number of pears we got from our trees this year (yay, pear trees -- keep up the good work!), I made and posted about pear butter. Yum. In sharing a link to the pear butter post on my Facebook page, a follower commented something Amazon-ish like "If you like pear butter, you should try pear honey."

Here's where the backstory gets interesting: The commenting follower was Margaret, a college classmate of mine that I didn't know well as an undergrad and have only come to know better and consider a friend in the past few years, thanks to Facebook and 5-year-interval college reunions. In her comment, she mentioned that her mother used to make pear honey all the time.

Whaaaa? Pear honey? I was intrigued.

I (of course) googled around and found that pear honey isn't honey at all but actually a sweet pear jam. Bizarrely, it's made with pears, sugar and ... wait for it ... canned pineapple.

I know, right? Who the hell decides to put these things together for the first time? "You know what this pear jam needs? PINEAPPLE!"

Whatevs.

But I was willing to take Margaret's word for it. But given the variety of recipes for pear honey on the interwebs claiming to be "the best," I decided to go for a proven recipe: I asked Margaret if her mother, Helen, would be willing to share her recipe.

Auntie Nanci's noodle kugel

Noodle kugel

Happy Hanukkah!

Embarrassingly, I know very little about the Festival of Lights, other than what I learned from Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song". But, being pretty food-focused in my life, I do know about kugel and that it is traditionally served at Hannukah.

I had only tasted kugel once, in college, courtesy of my part Catholic, part Jewish roommate. (This is a great denominiation combination; for example, while she was married in a traditional Catholic church ceremony, we also got to dance the Hora at the reception!). And I loved the kugel ... and remembered it after 25 years ... and then managed to remember to ask the roommate for a recipe before Hannukah arrived so I could share it with you.

My roomie shared two different kugel recipes with me: one sweeter, more of brunch casserole, made by her aunt, and one less sweet, more of a side dish, made by her grandmother. (Wheeeee! Family recipes!) I asked her which she liked better and she chose the sweeter one, telling me, "It tastes a bit like French toast."

Done and done. Mr. Ninj loves French toast.

Apple spice drop cookies

I've been sampling a bunch of new (to me) cookie recipes lately, looking for a great holiday cookie to make for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012 (stay tuned).

I decided these apple spice drop cookies didn't quite fit the bill as a holiday cookie, but that doesn't mean that they aren't excellent.

Regular readers know that, while I do quite a bit of baking and regularly share cookie and cake recipes, I prefer my sweets a little less on the sweet side.

I've always been this way. (My sister used to love sitting next to me at birthday parties because I only ate the cake part of my slice and gave the frosting to her.)

It's also how I can get away with eating cookies for breakfast. Booyah.

Soft molasses cookies

Soft molasses cookies

I've made the transition to fall -- even though I've still got tomatoes and green beans aplenty in the garden.

I love fall, especially fall in New England, and all the season-changing promise it brings with it: beautiful foliage, crisp apples, cool days, even cooler nights and, of course, cider.

There's something about having just one cool, crisp day -- a day in which a jacket is not optional when you go outside -- that instantly puts summer away for me and makes me focus on fall.

My taste buds seem to change instantly as well. I'm no longer craving tomato salads and lobster rolls; instead, I'm thinking about how many ways I can cram spicy sausage and kale into a casserole or hearty pasta dish.

And that's just on the savory side. When fall arrives, I say move over soft lemon cookies, we need something spicier.

Like soft molasses cookies!

These cookies are quintessentially "cookies" to me. I mean, I think if I had to pick a cookie to define cookies in a visual dictionary or to explain what a cookie is to someone from another planet, I'd pick these. The way they look, the way they taste -- simple and classic.

Lactofermented dill pickles and homemade remoulade

Celery remoulade, made with lactofermented dill pickles

Time for another adventure in cooking as part of Grow It Cook It Can It's Cook It! 2012 challenge.

(I am seriously loving this year-long challenge. It's like having fun, creative homework for Home Ec class or something. So far we have made pasta, bread, butter and cheese.)

May's topic? Lactofermentation.

This one was a bit trickier for me. Why? Well, first because I had to research what the hell lactofermentation even means.

In a nutshell, it's an old, natural process by which veggies are fermented using salty brine.

OK, it's essentially rotting, but it's good, yummy, controlled rotting, not like the kind of "fermentation" that happens in the bottom of my crisper drawer when I forget about a bunch of cilantro. The addition of the brine means that the veggies produce lactic acid that will kill off the bad bacteria and prevent complete putrefication.

(Wow, I'm making this sound very unappetizing. Sorry. Keep reading, it gets much more delicious.)

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: Holiday 2011

I love visiting with my vintage ornament collection every year. Happy holidays!

Never-fail popovers: a vintage recipe

I love books. Maybe too much -- just ask my movers.

(And yes, this is in fact a post about popovers, complete with a recipe -- but there's backstory first.)

I also love poking around in antique stores for books or any other little treasures I can find. Maybe it's the musty smell, or the fun of finding a reasonably organized store or booth, or trying to imagine the people that once treasured these treasures, but I'm a sucker for that ubiquitous red, white and blue "Antiques" flag. (I recently tried to share my interest with my 17-year-old stepson. His reaction to his first visit to an antique store? "Sometimes old junk is just old junk.")

So my visits are usually solitary, which gives me a lot of unrushed time to thumb through the books. Since beginning my ninja adventures, I've been drawn to the old cookbooks. It's a hoot (and wicked gross, frankly) to see calls for ingredients such as oleo, lard, saccharin, crisco and other yummy gems. However, I recently came across a whole collection of Vermont Grange cookbooks -- you know, those fundraiser recipe books, often produced by churches or schools, to which members contribute their favorite family recipes. Well, given that the Grangers were (are?) originally all local farmers, I figured that I might find some good eatin' in there. I was honestly prepared to see lots of versions of ambrosia salad but was pleasantly surprised to find instead some really interesting, tried-and-true, no-weirdo-ingredients recipes.

(Here come the popovers, I swear.)