puff pastry

Stress baking

~ MaryG ~ 43 Comments

I gotta say, this whole situation with the midterm election (and Trump’s plan to undermine it), the mess in the Middle East, inflation, AI coming for us…and on and on…is…STRESSFUL.

Baking with fruit from our own trees is a good counterbalance to the news.

A friend’s trip to Germany inspired me to try making apple strudel for the first time. My husband cut-up the last of our Winesap apples and we used a recipe I found online.
I have very little experience baking with puff pastry. It turns out the timing of when you take it out of the freezer is a key.
There were dots of butter under the top sheet of puff pastry, which I brushed with milk.
After 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven
Amazing. No ice cream needed.

The midterm elections have begun. VOTE like your life depends on it, because it does. VOTE early if you can.

Find voter information here.

Memorial Day

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments

It’s still much too cold here in New England, but I attempted to get in the spirit of the holiday weekend by making a red, white and blue dessert. We got a pint of fresh local strawberries from a farm stand (for ten dollars!) and a massive quantity of blueberries (on sale at Whole Foods). Sadly, I could not find any biscuits or mini sponge cakes in the store for strawberry shortcake. (I actually went to two stores looking for them.) So, I substituted puff pastries and here’s what I learned:

You really want an absorbent base for strawberry shortcake. That’s why biscuits or sponge cake work well. Puff pastries, though delicious, don’t exactly enhance the flavor because they don’t absorb the strawberry juices.

Ah well…we managed to polish it off anyway.

The second try was better because I figured out how to remove the top and actually fill the puff pastry.

Thank you to all who have served. I’m from an Air Force family.

My father and my late Aunt Theresa in their Air Force uniforms (mid 1950s). My aunt served for twenty years (1951-1971) in various administrative positions in Germany, Japan and the US.
My oh-so-dashing father-in-law (1923-2016), a member of the Greatest Generation, enlisted in 1943 and retired as a Major in the USAF in 1968.

The United States military was a key component of achieving the American Dream for these children of poor Italian immigrants. It changed everything for them, and therefore, for us.