Saturday, October 20, 2007

Some Fun Cupcakes for Hallowe'en





What's more fun that creepy monster cupcakes?


Here are the details for the ones you see at left. And here is the step by step by our friend Martha.








How about bleeding cupcakes?

















Make sure you post them if you make them! (Note that I didn't make these, but I will.)

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Farmers' markets: Raleigh, NC. Somewhere in the world, it is still summer.

Over Columbus day weekend, I was in North Carolina and paid a visit to the Raleigh farmer's market. Summer weather is not over yet there; temperatures peaked in the 90's that weekend.

The climate is reflected in the local produce on the shelves; everything you would find at the height of summer in the northeast is still being sold. Up here, the game is over unless you want apples or winter squash.

There were a lot of items I've never seen in my neck of the woods. The fresh Dixie Lee peas, in the photo above, are a crowder pea variety. Crowder peas are in family of legumes known as southern peas, cowpeas, or field peas which also include the blackeye peas.

Green peanuts are freshly harvested raw peanuts, typically purchased to make boiled peanuts, a traditional southern snack.

There were also a lot of home made desserts for sale involving pecans and sweet potatoes, such as the half eaten sweet potato pie modeled at right (the other half was consumed before I got a chance to take out the camera). Sweet and lovely. It makes me wax nostalgic about a fantastic slice of pecan pie fried in butter on the griddle just before it was served that I had in New Orleans once.

On to the meats! Unfortunately, the pork outlet on site at the farmer's market was closed on Sundays. In the main market, I did find some vacuum sealed pork sides and fat backs (right photo). Pork sides are the part that bacon comes from before it gets sliced, smoked, and cured. Salt pork is also made from this cut. It sort of looks like 3-D bacon. (Also, thank you, Hormel foods, for posting such informative information on cuts of pork! Who knew you were more than just Spam?) Fat back appears to be a common component of sausages, or any other recipe that calls for a lot of pork fat.

In the background of the photo of the pork parts, there are rows and rows of jars, which are a huge variety of jams, jellies, preserves, and pickles, both vegetable and meat. I can't really remember them all, but I do remember the pickled eggs, pickled watermelon rinds, pickled peaches, pickled tomatoes, and tomato jam.

Chow chow is a relish typically made with cabbage, onion, and peppers. According to its wikipedia entry, the southern variety of chow chow tends to be less sweet than the Pennsylvania variety.

We picked up a jar of moonshine jelly, which was quite sweet. The flavor was not very strong - I can't decide whether it was a "delicate flavor" or if it just tasted like nothing. I haven't tried my scuppernong jelly yet. There were fresh scuppernong grapes for sale at the market, which I did not recognize as grapes since they were selling loose fruits off the vine; they were a bronze color I don't normally associate with grapes. I asked the woman at the booth if they were ground cherries, which I've been on the lookout for to try. Duh.

It was fun to go to the farmers' market in another region of the country to see the local specialty farm products. What does your local farmer's market sell?

Top row: Muscadine jelly, moonshine jelly, mint jelly, kudzu jelly, jalapeno pepper relish, jalapeno raspberry jam, (horseradish?)
Bottom row: Sweet artichoke pickles, apricot and brandy, apricot jam, spiced apple rings, apple pie jelly, apple jelly, apple jam, (some other apple preserve)