i’m probably on the beach right now, camping it up in california. i’m snapping some pictures and rubbing my toes in the sand. maybe heating up a honey nut brownie on the campfire…yeah, i made brownies and blueberry cake and wrapped single servings up in foil for easy campfire toast-age. i’ll try to remember to take some pictures ;)

as i mentioned before i left, i made some cherry sorbet…it’s good. good like frozen cherry goodness good. enjoy!

cherry sorbet
i only pressed half the puree through a sieve…do what you like. i guess i could have cooked the cherries with the sugar and lemon, but i didn’t.

4 cups pitted, dark, sweet cherries, like bing!
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons honey
juice of half a lemon

put everything in your food processor or blender and let it rip! until you have a smooth puree. press through a sieve and chill. process in ice cream machine according to manufacturers instructions.

awesome? maybe it’s just me, but the old “life is a bowl of cherries…” doesn’t cut it because, well, i don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. life is a bowl of small stone fruits that are varying shades of red (other colors too, lookin’ at you rainier cherries…) and delicious? see what i’m saying?

anyway, all i know about that phrase is life is good when you have a bowl of cherries hanging around your house. you can eat them or jam them or make them into sorbet (which i did! but, you have to wait. hehehe…)

or cook ‘em with some lemon and sugar and spoon them into the bottoms of whatever vessel you have and top them with goat cheese panna cotta! yeah!

it’s cool and creamy with that goat-y tang and some yummy cherries on the bottom…that do not disappoint like that gray fruit mush in the bottom of your yogurt. i love yogurt, but i hate that crap. fruit-on-the-bottom my ass, is what i say to that.

cherry stuff (compote?)

1-2 cups pitted, dark, sweet cherries
juice of half a lemon (a tablespoon or so)
1/4 cup sugar

heat cherries, sugar, and lemon juice over medium heat in a medium saucepan, bring to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, until cherries are heated through and release their gorgeous red juices. cool, spoon into cups or ramekins and freeze (so the layers look pretty!) while you prep the panna cotta.

goat cheese panna cotta
this makes a small amount, maybe for 4 people. it is not very sweet since i served it with the sweet cherries, you can adjust this to your taste.

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon of plain, powdered gelatin
1 tablespoon of water
3 oz. goat cheese
1 tablespoon honey

put water in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the top. let stand for 5 minutes.

heat milk and cream with honey in a saucepan until just before boiling. add the gelatin and whisk until completely dissolved. whisk in the goat cheese until smooth. pour mixture over the frozen cherry compote, cover and refrigerate until set (at least 2 hours).

i was able to put down my wine glass and peel my but off the porch swing to capture this…it’s the sunset! from our back yard!

hello! it’s been a while since i posted anything edible and with a recipe ;)

the summer, it’s busy.
next week i will be camping with sean and his fam in half moon bay, california. i’ve never camped beach side, so i am pretty excited, plus i got a fun new lens for the camera to play with. yay! after that i will be in reno for a week before leaving to the big old apple for a whole week, then when i get back i go to san francisco with sean, my mom and her boyfriend. this summer, it’s action packed.

the heat, so hot.
…but, the evenings, so lovely.

that’s the thing about northern nevada (and i assume in other desert communities too?), the summer sun is so scorching hot during the day, but once it settles into those western sierra nevada’s, the heat of day is replaced by cool, sometimes even breezy, evenings with stunning watercolor sunsets…which i will try to remember to photograph…

if i can put my wine glass down and pull my ass up off the porch swing ;)

in an effort to beat that heat and keep the oven dialed to off, i made a granita. icy, juicy crystals=yum.

ginger.lime granita
i like granita. a lot. it’s super easy and definitely the perfect reward for surviving a super-hot day. how could you resist flaky, crunchy ice crystals flavored any way you please? oh, that’s right, you can’t resist ;)

juice of 5-6 limes (about 1 cup fresh juice)
1/2-1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated super-fine
1-2 cups sugar (to taste)
3 cups h20

stir all ingredients together until sugar dissolves completely (if need be, or patience dictates, heat up the sugar in the liquid). pour into an 8×8 (bigger is fine too) baking dish and freeze for 1 hour. remove from freezer, scratch it all up with some forks (pay special attention to the edges of the dish) and repeat until the granita is completely frozen.

hello friends.

first thing…new profile photo of me doing my fish-face. that’s just how i roll i guess…makes me giggle ;)

i’ve been visiting family and moving into a new place (we have a yard! and a tree with a tiny peach on it! pictures soon :)

it’s been crazy busy and incredibly hot. so hot in our new place, in fact, that the flowers i picked up at the farmer’s market saturday wilted by evening…hot people, like an oven. for realz. which means i am not turning on the oven…at all. well, except maybe in the late, late night time.

having said that, our kind friends jackie and danny gifted us their former evaporation (swamp) cooler. yay! awesome! sean set it up yesterday and let me just say that being able to sit still without breaking a full sweat is a wonderful gift…

…and now, more small town nevada photos…

my greatest pal, brooke, and i went stomping around the town and into a canyon or two to take these photos…they are mostly of the old diamond canyon mine settlement (not a diamond mine, a gold mine) and of one of the many old cemeteries. i’m fascinated by old buildings and graveyards and also super creeped out at the same time. i told brooke that if decaying hand should burst forth from the ground, she should run away and save herself. i have the dumbest fears ever.

this particular cemetery had many, old, dusty, fake flowers on a lot of the graves…i’m pretty sure my cousin and i placed those there when we were like 8 or something, when we used to wander around and read all the really old head stones…cheap thrills in a small town ;)

i could hear water running beneath the ground…

for the 4th of july sean and i traveled to eureka! nevada. it’s the town i went to high school in and a place where they shut down main street for the parade and street games…not to mention gaze at some very interesting big game trophies whilst shopping for groceries. i’m going back for a second visit this weekend. i hope to take some sweet photos of old gold mine sites and some of the century old graveyards…the town and it’s surrounding areas are littered with both old mines and cemeteries. eerie, yet fascinating.

sean participated in the sack race and he and i were a team during the egg toss. our egg died by the 5th round…i missed the catch and it met its fate on my gold flip flop, it’s final resting place between my toes. here are some photos from our weekend away. how was your holiday americans?

aforementioned general store/big game museum,
and an ill-fated egg-toss egg…not ours, like i said that one was rinsed from between my toes :)

glass things (if someone knows what these are called, let me know :) from an old power pole and this no-bake blueberry cheesecake i made for the festivities. i sprinkled some of the lemon-thyme from my mother’s garden on top, so fragrant :)

the sky from my aunt’s front lawn and sean enjoying some conversation and beers on the same lawn.