Fresh cherry pie

What a treat! Soon after James and I got married we planted some trees in our barren back yard, one of which was a dwarf pie cherry tree. Our little tree is still small, but it has grown quite a bit. Every year it has had a nice little crop of cherries, but this year was it's best by far. There were enough cherries for a least two cherry pies! The pie you are looking at is from miraculously organic (yet insect free) homegrown cherries.

I've often wished we had planted a Bing cherry tree instead, but this is still nice. Another benefit that comes with a sour cherry tree - Emily left it alone. She'll go pick strawberries and raspberries to her heart's content, but not cherries.

Bagel Making 101 from a beginner

I discovered Tammy's blog a few months ago and loved it because, well, I love looking at recipes. I could read cookbooks and cooking magazines for hours. The only problem is that it frequently makes me hungry!

Tammy has instructions for making bagels on her blog, so I decided to give it a try. I love fresh bagels from a bagel shop, but we don't have any shops close to our home. So a bagel craving leads to a drive downtown and an overpriced, but delicious, bagel.



After making the dough, letting it rise, and then shaping the dough, I boiled each bagel for about 30 seconds.



Then the bagels needed to dry off for a while. Before baking, I brushed them with an egg wash and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on half of them (my favorite bagel at the bagel shop is cinnamon-sugar).



The finished product was tasty and I was very pleased that they looked like bagels! The only problem I had was that the bagels stuck to the baking sheet. Next time I think I will try lining the baking sheet with parchment paper. Although this recipe is somewhat time-intensive, it was worth the effort for this bagel fan.

Tomato Paste Solution

I've mentioned that I use a lot of tomato paste to thicken our pizza and spaghetti sauce. I've found that the most economical way to buy tomato paste is by the gallon at Costco. It's usually around $4/gallon (just like fuel has been...).

The problem is that I don't need a whole gallon of tomato paste when I'm making sauces. So what do I do with the extra paste? I've found that most recipes call for tomato paste by the tablespoon, so I measure tablespoons of it onto cookie sheets and then freeze it. After they've frozen, I put them in a gallon sized freezer bag and store them in the freezer. It's very handy and it keeps me from wasting my excess tomato paste.