Home.

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Family.

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Dolls & dollhouses.

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Snippets from a lovely day.

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My cousin, Debbie, and her man, Andy, tied the proverbial but not literal knot under a bright, sunny and vast Albertan sky.

Here are a few of the pics that I took not for work but for fun because I just love to do it and I love them too.

I love bedtime stories.

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Dressing the part.

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My trusty sidekick, Jeans.

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So, in typical late-bloomer-geek-out style, I played with my new toy all day.  And took copious amounts of photos.  Of Jeans.

But I promise not to bother you with this stuff.  At least, not every day.

Bright lights at night.

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Finished, finally.

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So we finally finished our 2nd preserving marathon, with a couple of hiccups along the way.

For me, recipes need to be of the hand-holding variety.  Point form, step-by-step, negative space in-between each step and lots of pictures.  Without this, I don’t really have the patience for it.  In truth, whatever I do know how to cook, I’ve learned from watching and doing.  Leave me alone with a cookbook and something will end up in flames.

The husband, on the other hand, is much more careful and meticulous.  He’ll read, re-read, follow the words with the tip of his finger and move about the kitchen with efficiency and quiet confidence.  I believe this is a skill that he learned from his mother and inherited from his ancestors.  Generations upon generations of people whose fate was intimately intertwined with that of their land and their food.  To cook and provide nourishment with love is something that runs deep in his veins.

Whereas I probably still have remnants of Cheez Whiz curdling through mine.

So, when he asked me, ladle poised in mid-air, to read the next steps, it is only natural that I should pick up, mid-paragraph (lack of negative space to delineate steps) and read the wrong recipe (because there were no pictures).  Somehow we missed a step!  How could we have forgotten to layer in the slivers of garlic and hot peppers?!  Not sure if you know which recipe I’m referring to but it’s the one for disaster.

The recipe for preserving sun-dried tomatoes is very different from the one for making tomato mostarda.  One calls for garlic and hot peppers, the other for sugar and mustard powder.  Combining the two… probably not a good idea.

Thankfully, we caught my blunder relatively quickly, hopefully pulling the misplaced garlic / peppers early-to-mid-handshake, hopefully not giving them any time to mingle, hopefully saving the mostarda that we’d been working on (by that point) for 36 hours.

(sigh)

Anyway, there they are: 3 jars of tomato mostarda with a couple of stray jalapeno seeds thrown in for good luck.

Tomatoes from our garden, en route.

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Ventured out to the garden and returned with another basket, brimming with both San Marzano and red currant cherry tomatoes.  Even with all the cherry tomatoes we lost due to our lackadaisical gardening, we still ended up with a healthy harvest of 4-5 lbs.  (Keeping in mind that some of these tomatoes are tiny, like dime-sized, so that was still a lot.)

We decided to try our hand at making mostarda di pomodori (tomato mostarda).  All these preserving recipes are from the August 2010 issue of La Cucina Italiana but you can find the mostarda recipe here.

The photo above is of the tomato mixture, cooling to room temperature.  After a night spent chilling in the fridge (the recipe says 12 hours), we’ll finish the job.

And above we have our attempt at making pomodori secchi (preserved sun-dried tomatoes).  These puppies were in that oven all day and we haven’t even begun the preserving part of the recipe so tomorrow is part two.

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pomodori secchi / preserved sun-dried tomatoes

1 hour * makes 1 pint

• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 1/2 cups white wine vinegar (7% acidity)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 celery stalk, halved
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 2 cups sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
• 2 fresh arbol or serrano chiles, thinly sliced
• About 1 1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil

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Line a baking sheet with paper towels.  Gently smash and peel 1 garlic clove.  In a large saucepan, combine peeled garlic, vinegar, water, celery, bay leaves and peppercorns; bring to a boil and cook, 5 minutes.  Add tomatoes, return mixture to a boil and cook 3 minutes more.  Remove mixture from heat and let stand for 15 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer tomatoes to prepared baking sheet to drain; let cool to room temperature.  Thinly slice remaining 2 garlic cloves.  Layer tomatoes, sliced garlic and chiles into a clean, dry 1-pint jar or other container with a tight-fitting lid.  Add just enough oil to cover mixture and secure with lid.  Preserved sun-dried tomatoes keep, chilled, for 2 weeks.  Bring to room temperature before serving.