well! much news to cover. last weekend miss kristen fraley and i headed upstate, to my beloved Marbletown, for my mother's end of the summer/Molly's 14th birthday bash!
I had big plans, as I had knows about it all summer, and every recipe that struck my eye i set aside to make that weekend. (first mistake....)
My menu looked like this:
-Farmland Vegetable Pie
-Jumbleberry Pie
-Orange Cremsicles
-Chocolate and Peanut Butter Milk Shakes
-Vegetable Burgers with Eggplant and tomato
-Grilled corn with Hoisin-Orange Butter
-Chocolate chip cookies
-Pupcakes for Molly
Kristen had to convince me to not make scones for Molly in addition to the cakes. Clearly I have a problem with restraint.
The evening before I made molly's cakes and the cookies. Kristen watched Beetlejuice on the couch with my family, as i puttered around the kitchen, covered in flour, crumbs in my hair, and a sleep happy smile on my face. the family went to sleep and i coaxed kristen to stay awake with promises of the first taste of warm chocolate chip cookies. I used this recipe, and i still can't understand how chocolate chip cookies stay soft and chewy?! Tips please. They were pretty god as they were, but i am endlessly curious how to maintain their chewy-ness.
the next morning, Shmoops woke me up, and (delicately) mentioned that perhaps one pie would not suffice for the 30 people expected for Molly's birthday. I wiped the sleep from eyes, and quickly perked up upon remembering my surprise success with the Chiffon Cake.
"I'll make a Chiffon cake." says I.
"great!" says shmoops.
i go back to sleep.
2 hours i awake with the excitement of the first day of school, if i actually ever liked school.
anyway,
first stop: coffee pot.
second stop: clearing my work space and washing all the dishes so i have a fresh kitchen to work with.
I could expound on how the rest of the day went (i got overwhelmed, listened to Metric "Live it Out" 4 times in a row, started crying when my chiffon cake collapsed, made some very heavy handed vodka creamsicles, tried to delegate, hid in my room with Molly to gather my bearings, and danced my way through sugar induced panic) but that's no fun!
but this is....
a zucchini from my mom's garden!! i'm so proud! and then i chopped it up for-
vegetable pie! i was won over when the recipe mentioned a pound of cheese. oh. and by this time shmoops and i were one bottle of champagne in....anyway. I had prepared the crust the night earlier, and was pleased with how it held up, drier is better...you'll see why in a moment.
my first attempt at top crust. once again, i was so happy with the end results! obviously not perfect or necessarily pretty, but nevertheless i was all beamy and such.
yea. i kinda looked like that most of the day.
this is for the Jumbleberry pie. Which is exactly what it sounds like. basically any type of summer fruit is blended with sugar, lemon juice, some cinnamon, half and half, and cornstarch. I made this crust the night before as well, however i used too much water "Kristen! pour until i say when!" i when-ed too late. anyway, the crust was very very thin, i added more flour, and then settled (never again!) for what you see before you. it looks pretty and all, but the thin crust could not hold all the juices and madness that was going on inside. see?!
the bottom of the cookie sheet was filled with juice (which apparently was "delicious: according to Aunt Melinda, but it just made me sad) it was seeping with berry juice and had overflowed into a pretty unattractive pool of juice and sugar. It tasted pretty good (berries are always a treat!) but it was mostly the guts that you tasted...the crust was a bit nonexistant, and certainly not a flaky accent to the pie.In conclusion:
For the love of christ prepare as much as you can the night before!! that's the point that really drove the whole event home. and kristen is a saint. and Molly is the best friend a girl could ask for.
p.s. dogs can't look up.
xox.
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