A New Kind of Homewrecking

Upon this year's Thanksgiving, the things to be thankful for stood out more starkly than ever. The support of friends, a hot meal, a hot shower, the love of your spouse. These things are so simple, but such contrast to the hell we've been dealing with.

It's been six weeks since the hurricane Sandy storm surge swept through Red Hook. We're one of the lucky ones, you could say. The water filled our basement, but spared our first floor workspace and our second floor apartment. Neighbors only a block or two away took on four, five feet of water on the first floor. Homes and businesses, destroyed.

Still here we are six weeks later with no heat, no hot water. Still going through the depressing chore of sorting through damp storage containers to salvage what's left of soggy wedding albums and old photos. Things you just can't replace. I've done my best to embrace the bright side: less old crap to lug around through life! I'm pretty sure I didn't need to hang on to every love note passed between classes in high school or those fuzzy VHS tapes of my college band. And now that my grandmother's sewing machine is junk, I no longer feel the pressure to learn how to use it.

For ten days following the storm, our block had no power. Everything in our fridge spoiled and a smelly brown ooze trickled across our kitchen floor, reminding me that our deadbeat landlord has yet to replace our leaky fridge. Our home no longer felt like home, but rather a cold, messy storage facility for all the junk we've collected over time. Homewrecker, that Sandy. 

While the power was out, we were refugees, fortunate enough to have friends across town with a comfortable futon to take us in. I guess we were good house guests because they still let us visit for hot showers every few days and even had us over for a vegan Thanksgiving where I impressed us all by whipping up this vegan gluten-free pumpkin pie.

The hurricane forced us to stop dead in our tracks. I didn't go to the office for two weeks. Our food truck business shut down. While we tried to catch our breath, we began to reevaluate.

I've come out on the other side of this realizing how very badly the past two years of non-stop entrepreneurship, working two jobs and completely neglecting pretty much everything else -- neglecting my own well-being for sure -- has made me miss, well, me.

So with that in mind, 2013 is going to be a year where Mr. Homewrecker and I refocus on taking care of ourselves, honing our true talents (maybe flipping burgers and truck maintenance ain't it), and reigniting our love of homemaking.

Sandy was the ultimate homewrecker for us. I can't top the damage she did with my own kitchen mishaps and wilty houseplants. She wins. With that said, I don't see myself writing much more for Home Sweet Homewrecker. I started this blog when I was single, living with roommates, and barely knew how to poach an egg. Ok, I still don't really excel at poaching eggs, but moving into my own apartment, living with a boyfriend for the first time, getting married, moving more times than I'd like, starting a food business, and then seeing my home kicked in the shins by mother nature have taught me so much about how to make a house (or a 3rd floor walk up, or a studio apartment) a home. Now I'm going to focus on finding the next place to call home, and do just that.

If you miss me, I'll still be updating my Tumblr with stupid asides and links from other ongoing projects. Thanks, everyone, for reading.

These Cookies are My Jam

This is just a quick post to brag that I have made THE BEST COOKIES EVER. I know I made this claim once before, but this tops it.

Following Thanksgiving I had a stash of leftover hazelnuts -- which, by the way, are really expensive -- and in an effort to put them to use, I checked out this new site Gojee.com. It's not the first site to offer recipe search based on available ingredients, but it is certainly the prettiest I've seen. All the photos are huge and beautiful and made me instantly very hungry.

My search led me swiftly to this recipe for Hazelnut Rosemary Jam Cookies. And, since I had leftover rosemary in the house too, I didn't even have to get out of my pajamas to go to the store for ingredients. For the jam I used two of my mom's homemade preserves, which I always have stockpiled -- raspberry rhubarb and pear. The cookies were super easy to make and turned out perfectly. Seriously, just look at my snapshot above and compare it to Gojee. Pretty good, right? The rosemary gave them a really unique and dare I say fancy flavor. I may even whip up another batch of these to impress my in-laws at Christmas this year.

While I'm bragging, I might as well show off my pumpkin pie that I made for Thanksgiving. Joy of Cooking pie + Bobby Flay's graham cracker crust and some homemade maple whipped cream. So good!

An Ode to Summer Sweets

On this last unofficial day of summer, I felt it was time for an ode to summer desserts.

Earlier this summer I got a cherry pitter, a blogger gift from Cookware.com, an online source for every conceivable kitchen item be it a coffee maker or an ice cream scooper. After a sloppy but delicious attempt at apple pie, I decided for the cherry pie to try a more traditional pie crust recipe from Joy of Cooking that relied on vegetable shortening. While the fresh sweet cherry insides were delicious, and the pitter a huge help, I gotta say the crust was greasy, too salty, and even more impossible to roll out and cut than the recipe I used for the apple pie.

But the real problem was my lack of a proper pie pan. As you can see in the photo above, the disposable aluminum pan I used leaked all over, effectively fusing my cherry pie to my baking sheet. I'm pretty sure much of this pie was consumed with a spoon directly over the sink.

My next summer dessert endeavor was much more successful. Down in Red Hook, Brooklyn is a whimsical spot called Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies. Steve's has these crazy delicious things called Swingles which are tart-sized key limes pies, dipped in dark chocolate and frozen on a stick.

[Pauses while you drool] Yeah, I know.

So when I received a set of tart pans as a wedding shower gift, the first thing I thought to bake was homemade Swingles. Luckily I found the actual Steve's Authentic key lime pie recipe on the Food Network's website, and it was surprisingly simple. Figuring out how to dip the tarts in dark chocolate, however, was much more challenging. Without a double boiler big enough to dip a whole tart into, I simply melted dark chocolate baking bars in the microwave and poured it over the top of the tarts, spreading it out with a rubber spatula. After freezing them for awhile, I flipped the pies and poured chocolate over the other side, then returned them to the freezer. Somehow it worked!

When I visited Steve's later in the summer, I realized that my Swingles were about 50% larger and I probably didn't need to melt an entire chocolate bar over each one, but hey, my decadent DIY Swingles sure made Mr. Homewrecker happy.

With the success of the Swingles, I confidently decided to wing it with another tart pan creation. My mom had given me a bag of rhubarb from her garden, so I improvised rhubarb blackberry tarts using the same graham cracker crust from the Steve's recipe. And whatta you know, it worked!

Of course no summer dessert ode would be complete without a nod to ice cream. And since I have not yet attempted to make my own, I would like to give a shout out to my favorite, local, hand-crafted ice cream -- Greene Ice Cream. Last summer the proprietors of The General Greene, a great restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, built an ice cream cart and started peddling kick ass Philadelphia-style (eggless) ice cream made in small batches from seasonal ingredients. Locals rave about the Salted Carmel Pretzel and I'm crazy for the Bitter Chocolate Mint. If you are ever in the neighborhood, run don't walk to The General Greene before ice cream season is over!

Bidding farewell to summer is as bittersweet as those Swingles, because the only thing I love more than summer treats, are the pumpkin and spice desserts of fall. Keep an eye out for another product review from Cookware.com or another of the CSN network of online shops -- perhaps it's time for a proper pie pan.

Where Pies Go When They Die

While Mr. Homewrecker has been busy rearranging the house plants every day, I've been making myself at home in the new apartment by getting friendly with the oven. Perhaps not the best activity in 90 degree heat...



But I simply had to have pie after watching (20 years late) the Twin Peaks series! Pie and some good, hot, black coffee.



Even though my apple pie looked sort of effed up, it tasted damn good. Especially my homemade crust which tasted a bit like shortbread. Apparently the trick in making a successful pie crust is in keeping the dough chilled, but I managed to create a sticky, lumpy disaster zone nonetheless. If anyone has any pie crust tips to get the dough thinner without it becoming too warm or sticky, please tell me. Perhaps tip #1 would be, don't try to bake a pie in 90 degree heat.

Still, results = delicious, if not attractive. Next I will try my hand at Twin Peaks Cherry Pie, especially now that the fine people at CSN Stores have hooked me up with a time-saving pitter!

Blueberries, Blueberries, Blueberries!

After a bountiful harvest of blueberries last weekend in the Berkshires -- FIVE pounds of hand-picked berries in fact -- I had to figure out what to do with it all.

Maybe eating pie and cake all week isn't the best way to keep my girlish figure in shape, but since blueberries are a miraculous wonderfruit antioxidant, that makes it ok, right?

Right!

BLUEBERRY STREUSEL PIE

I turned to EatingWell.com for a less-guilty pie recipe that uses extra lemon zest for sweetness and instant tapioca vs cornstarch. The results were citrusy and delicious, albeit a little soupy.



What I am most proud of, however, is my first ever homemade pie crust!


BOYFRIEND'S MOM'S BLUEBERRY CAKE

How do I win over my boyfriend's heart just a little more? By baking a kick-ass version of his mom's own cake recipe. Of course this could go badly should I not quite stack up to Mom...



Phew! Thankfully I passed with flying colors. Here's this family recipe so you too can impress your boyfriends. I also amazed my intern Pete, who after two months in NYC away from home was probably really thrilled to have something home baked.

• 1/2 Cup (1 stick) butter at room temperature
• 2 Cups sifted sugar
• 2 eggs beaten w 1tsp real vanilla extract
• 3 Cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 Cup milk
• 1 quart (4 Cups) blueberries (preferably fresh) dredged in 1/4 Cup flour
• cinnamon sugar to taste (I go heavy with it)

In a large mixing bowl cream butter well, add sifted sugar & cream again. Add eggs & vanilla, blend well and set aside. In a separate bowl sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder and add alternately with the milk to the batter mixing well after each addition. Fold in the dredged berries. Pour into a 9"X13" greased & floured baking pan ( I use Crisco shortening) and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If using a glass or very dark coated pan bake at 325 degrees. Cool on rack before cutting. Yum.