The Jam Exchange

A few months ago, Steph over at Steph Chows posted about hosting her second jam exchange, and since I'm waist deep in jars of jam this summer, I thought it'd be fun to participate. A few weeks later I got an email telling me that my partner would be Evan, from Sweete Bakes and I immediately popped over to her blog to take a look around and see what sort of things she might like. I found out that we had a lot in common! We both made boozy blackberry jam, and in our back and forth emails we both agreed that every recipe can be improved by a splash of alcohol. Aside from some fantastic cake and cookie recipes I found over on her blog, I learned that she's also a little crazy like me when it comes to never saying no to a baking opportunity, though she does have me beat on the farthest traveling wedding cake delivery.



Keeping all that in mind, I packed a jar of my Vanilla Bourbon Peach jam and a jar of a secret jam that I'm keeping a surprise until she gets her box, and dropped it in the mail. But she's so much more organized then I am and the very next day I had a box waiting with my mail when I got home. In it was a lovely note and two pretty jars of jam. A lovely blackberry blueberry port jam made with port from a local vineyard and an intriguing three pepper jam. I've been eating the blackberry jam in my pb&j sandwiches since last week and I'm planning to take her suggestion and try the pepper jam with fish, just as soon as this week's craziness dies down a bit. Thank you Evan!

Is it too early to sign up for next years exchange now?

Winner and an Apple Butternut Squash Soup

It's been so wonderful to hear from all of you and there were so many wonderful ideas and suggestions, I got hungry just reading your comments. There were lots and lots of different cheesecakes, red velvet cakes, pies, cobblers, a few others that I've never heard of before (Pretzel Jello?) and lots and lots of strawberries and apples. Lindsey, your mom's orange crunch cake sounds fabulous! I also learned that the berries I used to climb trees for as a child, the ones that stained all my dresses and got me into so much trouble, those sweet childhood memory berries, do have an American counterpart: huckleberries! Thank you ikkinlala, I'll be keeping an eye out for them this summer.

While I wish I could give something to each of you for stopping by and sharing your favorites with me there is just one gift, and according to Random.org the prize goes to comment #69:

Bev, I'll be sending you an email to get your mailing info and for the rest of you, thank you for participating. I appreciate all of you stopping by and sharing your favorites with me. It has been fun and I do hope that you guys come by and visit me again some time. As a consolation prize, I give you my latest recipe find.

As I've been trying to figure out the direction of this little blog, I've been doing a lot of research. I've been going through all my favorite blogs, trying to figure out what it is that keeps me coming back and I found myself thinking that I was out of my league. But then, I thought, no one starts out fabulous, right? So I picked a few of my favorites and I started going through their first posts, hoping I'd learn from their experiences. Right now, I'm looking through Orangette's blog. I loved her book A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, which I purchased a few months ago and her blog has been much of the same. She talks as if to old friends and really draws you in with her stories. And what's more, she offers countless simple and delicious recipes that are so simple and straight forward that I find myself thinking of my pantry and wondering why I haven't tried making this stuff yet. That's just how I felt when I read her post about this soup. I didn't have everything, but I did have enough to give it a go anyways, and it came out awesome! This soup is easy, healthy, yummy, comforting, filling and you should go make some right now.


Apple and Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from Orangette

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 2-lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
2 flavorful apples, I used Pink Lady, peeled, cored, and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 2 cups)
1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne red pepper
3/4 tsp ground mace
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup good-quality apple cider
1 quart chicken stock (vegetable works fine as well)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 freshly ground pepper, preferably white

- Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium-low heat. Add the squash, apples, and onion, and stir to coat with oil.
- Sauté uncovered, stirring occasionally, for ten to fifteen minutes, or until onion is transparent.
- Stir in the mace, chili, cayenne, and cardamom, and continue cooking until the onion begins to brown.
- Add the cider. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook for three minutes. Add the stock, lower the heat to medium-low, and simmer the mixture, partially covered, for another 35 minutes, or until squash is tender.
- If you have an immersion blender you can just use that to puree everything in the pot. If not, you can blend the mixture in a food processor or blender until smooth, working in batches being careful to not overfill, as hot liquid could expand when machine is switched on, making a huge, burning-hot mess. Return soup to the stockpot and reduce the soup, mostly uncovered, stirring over medium-low heat until the consistency looks right to you or until you're tired of ducking from the tiny specks of boiling hot soup that will bubble up and fly all over. Stir in salt and pepper, and serve hot with or without a small dollop of sour cream.

Milestone, Carrots and a Giveaway

It was slow going at first. Awkward, not terribly inviting, but willing to try, explore, and bake bake bake. That was what this blog was like in the beginning and while it's no where near where it could be, I think it has grown quite a bit since the first post over a year ago and I'm always trying to improve. But today, I'm marking a milestone for Blondie's Cakes: the 100th post! Whew! It truly has been a learning experience, I've learned a ton about myself, about food, and about those of you that visited me every once in a while and left encouraging comments, thank you. I'd like to celebrate this milestone, and maybe lure some of you silent lurkers out, by having a little giveaway, but business first and treats later.

I am not a morning person and there are very few things that will get me out of bed before 10am on a weekend, but this past Saturday I had errands to run and so I got up at a very reasonable 7:30. What this meant was that I'd finally make it to the Green City Market at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which is awesome! A ton of farmers and vendors set up booths every Saturday morning and you can get anything from fresh apple cider to these lovely French Cannelles, which made for a lovely breakfast:



to fresh farm raised eggs with rich orange yolks:



to these cool looking purple carrots and beautiful shallots:



I have to admit, I've never seen purple carrots and I was drawn to them purely because of their color, but if they were even half as yummy as I thought they'd be I knew they'd make a yummy carrot salad.

My mom has been making this salad on a pretty regular basis for as far back as I can remember and I have often found myself in the kitchen next to her shredding the carrots and chatting about what's going on in my life, discussing various family news or just listening to her tell stories of her past. Sometimes I'm sad that so many eloquent phrases that come up in our conversations cannot be translated from Russian to English. The poetic qualities get lost and fall flat. But the salad needs no translations, it's quick and it's the simplest thing in the world to make:

5-6 good sized carrots
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup raisins

Wash and shred the carrots to smithereens, sprinkle with sugar and fold in the sour cream. Once everything is evenly distributed, fold in the raisins and dig in. See? I told you it was easy.

I was a little sad that the carrots weren't purple on the inside, but the salad was yummy so who cares?


Now back to the giveaway. It's my first one, and I don't have fancy shmancy kitchen gadgets to give out, but I do have a pair of these cute sundae dishes which I promise to fill with all sorts of goodies, so trust me, you will want them.



There will be candy, cookies, tea, and jam and anything else that I'm inspired to add. I might even throw in a bottle of my limoncello if you live in a place where I'm allowed to ship it and if you are old enough.

How to win: In order to be entered into this giveaway you must leave a comment telling me what your favorite dessert is and why. It's that easy, just remember to either include a link to your site or an email address, so that I have a way to contact you if you win. I'm going to take all the comments on Friday night and pick the winner using some sort of random generation method. I might throw bones, ask strangers to pick numbers or maybe even use darts, but you can be sure that it will be totally random. Good luck, I can't wait to hear what you guys come up with!