Olive Oyl

Last week my sister and brother-in-law packed up all their earthly possessions and moved thousands of miles east to the far away state of South Carolina.

The majority of their kitchen's pantry contents made their way to my house, including copious amounts of olive oil. While I was trying to find a place to stash a half-full, five-liter jug of the stuff, I decided i just needed to use some of it up.

I'd seen recipes for olive oil cakes before, but had never made one, so I decided to give it a try. I remembered seeing a recipe a few months ago in Food and Wine, so I started looking through my old issues and found two.

I had all the ingredients for one, and not the other, so the choice of which one to make was easy.

The recipe I chose was very simple, using very few ingredients, and the cake came together very easily. As an added bonus, it smelled heavenly while it baked, almost from the moment I put it in the oven.

Here is a link to the recipe on Food and Wine's website, and below is a picture of my finished cake.



It was quite yummy. Not too sweet and with that kind of fruity taste that comes from olive oil. The recipe article didn't give any serving suggestions, but I think it would be nice served with some sweetened whipped cream and some fresh fruit like peaches or berries. It is just fine by itself, too.



I definitely would make this recipe again, and since I still have a lot of olive oil, I'm sure I will.

Ode To A Crayon

A box of new crayons! Now they're all pointy, lined up in order, bright and perfect. Soon they'll be a bunch of ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps, missing their wrappers and smudged with other colors. Sometimes life seems unbearably tragic. ~Bill Watterson

I've been a little bit obsessed with Crayolas today. I bought a brand new box of 64, complete with sharpener no less, at Target, and I've been admiring them all afternoon - reading the names on their wrappers and thinking of all the wonderful pictures I can create.

It's probably been twenty plus years since I had a new box of 64 crayons, and I'm probably as excited to have them today as I was then.

However, I am a little bit concerned because there is a green crayon in the box called "asparagus". Seriously? And it's definitely not even the color of fresh asparagus, but some that has been boiled to a mush.

There are also new colors that I don't remember seeing before such as: purple mountain majesty, wisteria (Desperate Housewives, anyone?), robin's egg blue, timberwolf, macaroni and cheese (really, what is with the food colors?), and the absolute worst - I'm not sure if we are now still coloring or putting on lipstick, mauvelous.

Luckily some of my old favorites are still around. Periwinkle, burnt AND raw sienna, red violet, mahogany, brick red, spring green, plum...

And, as an added bonus, coloring now makes you trilingual. The color names are written in English, Spanish, and French. I now know that I can go to a restaurant and order asparagus, esparrago, or asperge and that the sky is blue, azul, or bleu.

I still haven't colored anything with my new crayons. Part of me really wants to keep my colors in their pristine condition, but I guess if I use them up, I'll just have an excuse to go buy some more. Maybe next time I'll go really wild and buy the box with 120!

Happy coloring!

As an added bonus, here is one of my favorite old time Sesame Street videos showing how crayons are made. I love it.

My bugs

I really like bugs, as long as they are outdoors and not crawling on me. These are pictures I took in Wyoming. Mostly dragonflies, my favorite.

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow...

The other day I got an email from my local gourmet grocery store featuring a recipe for a barley salad/side dish. I thought it looked good, so I decided to give it a try.

It's really a simple recipe. Barley is cooked in chicken stock, (I used beef stock because that is what I had), mixed with fresh corn and peas, and tossed with a little butter and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

I think it is intended to be eaten warm, but I've been eating the leftovers straight from the fridge and it is really yummy that way too. Who knew barley was so good? I did have to pick the peas out, but that is just because of my personal prejudice against cooked green vegetables. When I make it again, I will probably leave them out all together or just sprinkle them raw on top like a garnish.

The original recipe and a couple of pretty pictures can be found here.

Enjoy!