Jolene's Recipe Journal

  This month's Taste of Home magazine Bakeable challenge is Blueberry Kuchen but it's strawberry season here so I made it with those instead. Kuchen roughly translates to "cake" and this version calls for simple ingredients and really lets them shine. First you combine the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest, nutmeg and salt. Then you add in milk, egg, melted and slightly cooled butter and vanilla.  Once it's well combined you spread it in a 13x9 baking dish. Sprinkle the top with strawberries, blueberries or the berry of your choice making sure to get into the corners and distribute them evenly. For the crumb topping, more melted butter, sugar and flour mixed together with a fork until crumbly. I also grated in a bit of the nutmeg since I already had it and the Microplane out. Sprinkle it over the top of the strawberries, again making sure to get into the corners. Mine baked for about 45 mins in the glass baking dish I used. It didn't say...

The first spring after we purchased our house I was excited to walk around the yard and see what the previous owner had left behind in the garden.  One of the surprises was a large area of chives up against the foundation of the sun room. This year I finally got to take advantage of the beautiful blossoms along with the chives themselves.  I searched ideas and decided to make some chive blossom infused vinegar. I snipped the blossoms right beneath the flower and then I gave them a good rinse to lose any hitchhiking critters.  They went for a ride in the salad spinner and then I added them to a quart jar.  I had read conflicting information on whether to heat up the vinegar or not, in the end I didn't.  I used plain white vinegar because it's what I had on hand, champagne vinegar would also be nice. Make sure that you use a chopstick or skewer to get everything down underneath the vinegar. I used about 24 ounces. I used a plastic lid. I've read that the tradition...

  M is for Mango Strawberry Mocktail! This year I'm participating in a bi weekly challenge with some blogging friends to post recipes using all of the letters in the alphabet.  It can feature a food that begins with the letter of the week or the recipe name can contain the week's letter.   For this week's letter M I did some freezer diving and pulled out my stash of frozen mango. Today's the first day of at least four that will be in the 90s so I thought a frozen drink would be lovely. It's strawberry season here and I'd diced up a bunch for another recipe but didn't end up using them all. I added them to the blender with some honey, orange juice and ice and processed them til they were slushy. I divided it between 2 glasses and then gave the blender a quick rinse and dry.  You can definitely just do it all together in one go but I really wanted the colors to sort of marble together. I repeated the process but omitting the ice cubes because the mango was ...

L is for Lemon ! This year I'm participating in a bi weekly challenge with some blogging friends to post recipes using all of the letters in the alphabet.  It can feature a food that begins with the letter of the week or the recipe name can contain the week's letter. Since K was such a troublemaker for me I decided to go super simple for L and make Lemon Vinaigrette.  Grilled chicken and salad is a go-to as summer heats up because I'm all about easy meals but I still want them to taste good.   You can make this vinaigrette with five ingredients, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, olive oil, salt and pepper. I originally made it in a glass measuring cup but then switched it to a small jar that I recycled from some pesto because I wanted to be able to put a lid on it and store it.   I used my teeny little mini whisk as I added in the oil. I'm guessing you could probably just put the lid on the jar and shake it, which is what I did when I used it a few hours later.   ...