Saturday, August 30, 2008

Last Night, This Morning

Misty mountain morning today. I couldn't get myself out of bed early enough to take a good shot seeing as I had a long day yesterday beginning with driving a friend to the airport. Today should be my day off, but I am working up until Tuesday. Photos go roughly backwards in time.

My bedroom window.
The Lamp Post
Shamrock oxalis has a nice view.
Where I make things.William Morris Prints
June Bug is more interested in my
piles of clean clothes than being photographed.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Pretty in Pink, With An Opinion Too

Last night I attended a goodbye party for our lovely Hammertown coworker Elizabeth Johnson. She's a women's confidence coach and an amazing individual with interests ranging from women's studies to animal rights to a love of vintage clothes. Follow the link to her website to read some of her own work. Her favorite color is pink, so I had excuse to try baking something resembling petit fours.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Hannah's Tanglewood Birthday Tart

This tart accompanied us to a performance by Andrew Bird and Wilco at Tanglewood. I wanted to make something that could be easily sliced and divvied up without making too much of a mess. I made pastry crust for the first time (or at least the first time in a long time), having had to call my father up for some instruction.


Pastry:
2 ½ cups pastry flour
2 sticks of unsalted butter
Pinch salt
5 tbs water

Fruit Topping:
2 granny smith apples
2 peaches
Blueberries (fresh, picked a few days earlier from Blueberry Hill)
Blackberries (fresh, picked just down the road from my home)

Grease and large baking sheet
Pre-heat oven 375 F

Pastry:
Didn’t have pastry tool, so I had to make the crust with a fork. Eventually gave in and used hands to knead as lightly as possible… didn’t have a choice! Then used a water bottle to roll out and created layers for the dough. (I moved into a new home recently, so many of my belongings are in need of unpacking.)

Fruit:
Halved apples and peaches and sliced thinly, dividing each fruit into approximately the same number of slices. I was able to line up half each of one apple and one peach for each row of fruit, alternating from one to the other. Perhaps leaving on the skin of the peaches would have given a more dynamic change of color.

Sprinkled blueberries and blackberries in between the lines of apples and peaches and then sprinkled on sugar... didn't measure how much, just went for it.

Baked for about 30 min (rotated tray around about half-way through).
Let sit to cool and then topped powdered sugar for a frosty look.