three hundred and nineteen

"Now that September is nigh, relief from the insanity of summer is in sight.  Kids go back to school, vacations cease, and life gets back to normal until the seemingly just around the corner winter holiday season.  Assuming you’re not Jewish, that is.  And if you are Jewish, getting the kids to school on time is the last thing on your mind, because you know that September is the beginning of what feels like a month of constant holidays..."

 Read the rest of the post "Homemade Challah" at Home Ec 101.

three hundred

"I’m not a fan of summer; it’s hot, sticky, and—for someone as pale as I—sunburny.  I spend most of the summer indoors, hoping for a cloudy day.  For reasons probably related to my aversion to summer, I long ago decided that August is, in fact, autumn.  And what does autumn mean?  Soup, of course!  Every year, I spend my late summer early autumn days making and consuming vats of soup.  In the first week of my imagined autumn, I have already jumped into preparing my favorite soup: French onion."

Read the rest of the post "French Onion Soup" at Home Ec 101.

P.S.  Holy guacamole!  300 posts!  I may need to reconsider my post naming system before I hit one thousand...

two hundred and ninety-five

"If you’ve ever made your own creamy salad dressings from scratch, you may have been shocked by the inclusion of up to a cup of store-bought, chemical filled mayonnaise.  Since when does a 'from scratch' recipe call for 'sauce from a jar'?  Moreover, can a salad dressing, potato salad, or tuna sandwich qualify as 'fresh' or 'homemade' when the main ingredients, eggs and all, can sit on the shelf for years before expiring?  I’m no whole food purist (I’ve even been known to employ a well placed can of Tex Mex tomatoes) but in my opinion, store bought mayonnaise is on the same level as Miracle Whip.  No hate for you Whip lovers, but this post is about real mayonnaise..."

Read the rest of the post "Homemade Mayonnaise" on Home Ec 101.

two hundred and eighty-one

"If you had to summarize summer in three words, which words would you choose?  Swimming, picnics, and ice cream?  Vacations, thunderstorms, and fireflies?  Bikinis, bonfires, and s’mores?  How about red, white, and blue?..."

Read the rest of the post "Red, White, and Blue Potato Salad" on Home Ec 101.

P.S.  Stuff about life after the jump.

two hundred and seventy-seven

"I’m sure most of you would agree with me if I said that nothing is tastier than an ice cream sandwich on a hot summer’s day.  It’s cold, it’s creamy, and it conjures up memories of childhood summers spent chasing down the ice cream man.  Despite its deliciousness, however, I’m often wishing for a cake by the end of summer… Maybe with a scoop of ice cream?..."

Read the rest of the post "Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches" on Home Ec 101.

two hundred and sixty-eight

"Have you ever had a popover?  If you haven’t, you’re missing out on one of my all-time favorite sides for a Sunday roast.  Crispy and crunchy outside with an airy inside, popovers are the perfect utensil for transporting gravy from plate to mouth.  Like Yorkshire puddings without the pan drippings, popovers are simple to make with five ingredients you probably already have in the house—or seven if you’re a fan of pepper and Parmesan cheese.  And no, you don’t need some fancy schmancy popover pan.  The most difficult part of this recipe is keeping yourself from peeking on them during the baking process!  (Seriously, don’t open the oven until 30 minutes into baking.  Deliciously good things come to those who wait...)"

Read the rest of the post "Popovers in a Muffin Tin" at Home Ec 101.

two hundred and fifty-nine

"During my freshman year of college, I was required to live in a dorm.  It was the most miserable experience of my life, not because I had a terrible roommate, but because I couldn’t cook or bake without having to use the communal kitchen (which meant I had to share with whoever walked by and said “mmmm”).  I told myself that I would survive that year with nary a cookie to be had, but less than a month passed before I heard about the wonders of the bakery less than 30 yards from my front door..."

Read the rest of the post "Basic Scone Recipe" at Home Ec 101.

two hundred and forty-nine

"I don’t know about you, but late spring and early summer are not exactly my favorite times warm up the house by using the oven. Since I’m often too cheap to turn on the air conditioning, I tend to relegate my summer baking time to the necessities. Unfortunately, my stomach doesn’t often get the memo and decides that it wants, say, a soufflé when it’s 90 degrees outside. Even more unfortunately, my tummy is in charge of my mood, so what it wants, it gets. Dutifully, I’ll throw together a half-hearted soufflé and call it a day. In the end, my belly is happy that it got its way, but the rest of me is just too hot to enjoy the darn thing..."

Read the rest of the post "Let There Be Lemon Cookies" at Home Ec 101.

P.S.  FYI, you can totally freeze that.

two hundred and thirty-six

(Today's quick tip and menu plan are after the jump.)

 "I’ll never forget the first time my childhood friend showed me how to make one of her favorite treats.  The recipe was simple: one piece of white bread, squished and squeezed into a compact ball.  It was kind of like a bread bonbon, and the thought of it horrified me immensely.  You see, I grew up eating sprouted wheat bread—the kind that can lead a child’s mind to wonder about the possibility of those seeds sprouting further during the digestion process—and it most certainly did not squish.  It crumbled."

Read the rest of the post "Hearty White Sandwich Bread" at Home Ec 101.

two hundred and twenty-seven

"Ramen. It’s a single word that conjures images of students and young newlyweds alike, united by their grumbling bellies and meager budgets.  Most of us have been there, done that—myself included—and if you’re anything like me, you may have also done a happy dance when you finally said sayonara to your noodle heavy twenty dollar a week food budget.  Despite my longstanding eagerness to eat something (anything!) other than what the Japanese refer to as gakusei ryori, or “student food”, years later I still find myself craving the salty, slurpy soup that got me through the leanest times in my life..."

Read the rest of the post "Pork and Miso Ramen" at Home Ec 101.

two hundred and eighteen

"A little over ten years ago today, I enrolled in home economics as a school elective.  To say I was excited would be an understatement, and I showed up for my first day of class eager to learn anything and everything I could about sewing, cooking, cleaning, and—most important to me—baking.  The pace was slow; by the middle of the semester, we had barely made a batch of cookies!  I finally got up the courage to ask the teacher when we’d learn to make, say, a simple loaf of bread.  My courage was rewarded with a “Hah!” worthy of The Simpsons’ Edna Krabapple.  Deflated and embarrassed, I gave up on baking and spent the rest of the course sewing stuffed animals, taking breaks to thread my classmates’ needles..."

 Read the rest of the post 

"Easy Italian Bread" at Home Ec 101.

P.S.  I'm going to be writing Home Ec 101 posts more frequently starting, like, today.  Do my dear Dreams Unreal readers mind if I keep up the trend of posting teasers for my Home Ec 101 posts?  They don't seem inappropriate to me content-wise, but I don't want anyone to feel I'm being annoying and spammy.