Summertime Strawberry Jam

One often thinks of orchards only in the fall, when apples are being picked and pressed into apple cider, and hay rides and pumpkin patches need to be explored with cold hands and hearts warmed by the festivities. However, the springtime is also a great time to visit an orchard because many times they have berries and tender spring vegetables, ripe for the picking. I visited early last week and walked away with a most peculiar but ultimately pleasing purchase - organic strawberries. Usually not my M/O, but I simply couldn't resist.

Strawberries, fresh from my favorite orchard in Lexington, still warm from the sun.

It is a wonder any of these beauties made it home; I swear I couldn't keep my hands out of them, they were that deliciously tender and explosively sweet. Their little seeds never lodged themselves in my teeth like their more annoying commercial cousins tend to do, and they had the most delicate and fanciful outer skins that almost melted on your tongue, making it difficult to just eat one. I had never had strawberries as wonderfully provocative as these, I simply couldn't get enough.  

Besides eating all of them as quickly as possible, what was I going to do with these little bundles of sunshine? They were altogether too tender to hold over for the next week and savor a few a day, so why not preserve them? Strawberry jam it is!

It really did hurt to have to dismember these - more than a few were spared their fate in the pot and made a B-line for my mouth instead.

To really drive home the summertime flavor, I added lemon zest and stirred in a splash of really good vanilla extract right at the end, just to round out the flavor. The zest was refreshing and indicative of strawberry lemonade, and the vanilla added a subtly sweet, holistic flavor, which is completely devoid in a standard store-bought jam.

Big jars of this jam was a necessity, for sharing, gifting, and one partial one for me to savor.

Lemon, Vanilla, and Strawberry Jam

2 2/3 cups fresh strawberries, washed and cut in half

3 TB Real Fruit Pectin

2 cups sugar

3 TB fresh lemon zest

2 TB good vanilla extract

Place strawberries in a large saucepan and crush with your hands (you can also use a potato masher, but really, use your hands.) Add fruit pectin, stirring to completely combine, and bring to a full roiling boil that cannot be stirred down. Stir the entire time. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve, boil for one minute, stirring, then remove from heat. Cool slightly, stir in lemon zest. Cool almost completely, then add the vanilla (that way the vanilla won't cook off from the residual heat in the jam.) You can now either can in prepared jars and seal, or, if you are like me, just place in sterilized jars and place in the refrigerator to consume within a week. (Trust me, it won't last that long.)

Side note: I have adopted a family of geese (and by adopt I mean gawk at every time I work in the downstairs kitchen...) Aren't they precious! They live at Woodford Reserve, back behind the aging houses, in the creek that runs behind the distillery, and I feel like they are mine because I have watched the four babies grow up from eggs just a month ago. So cute!!! I have yet to name them, not for lack of trying, but because I need the perfect names for such cute babies (while the goose parents just stare at me daringly.)

In Continuation of my Tardy Mother's Day Theme

I figured I should get on posting about the actual meal that we enjoyed in order to commemorate another wonderfully spectacular and festively embraced Mother's Day.

What was on the menu? Why, a traditional backyard barbecue feast, certainly fit for my mom - 

Grilled Chicken Sausages and Hamburgers, with all the messy fixin's

Potato Salad

Grilled Asparagus

Cabbage Salad

Ice Cream and Brownie Sundaes

I owe you all the recipe for the cabbage salad - I have not yet memorized it and am back in Lexington, thus far away from mom's recipe box. It's delicious and simple though, definitely something up my alley, not to mention not that bad for you. The kicker? Dried ramen noodles, a food completely banned from my diet and yet, in this salad, it seems so right that I can overlook the sodium, fake ingredients, and overall "blah" just this once.

No barbecue plate is complete without Izzy's pickles - if you have no idea what I am talking about, then you have been sorely missing out your entire life... look them up now!

Doesn't this look like a kitchen island full of heaven?!

Bourbon Balls for Mother's Day

I am getting into this bad habit of posting things way after they happen. I am going to blame it on the warm weather, summertime mind set, lackadaisical attitude with which I approach my free time now, and my inability to go inside until it is way too dark to be outside. Isn't that what summer is all about anyway? Grilling out, eating watermelon until juice drips off your chin, showing off farmers' tans with pride, and camping outside so you can (attempt) to count all the stars in the night sky. That is at least how I choose to spend my summers. Regardless, however, I apologize for my absence and promise that this post will make up for my dropping the ball (get it?! Dropping the ball... Bourbon balls... I have jokes today.)

As you know, I love to give homemade presents, and since I really am not much of a crafter, I tend to make presents in the kitchen. Quick breads, someone's favorite meal, jams and preserves, and in this case, chocolates! As you all know I work at the Woodford Reserve Distillery and thus decided to make some of the recipes that I have internalized for my mom for Mother's Day which, of course, features our namesake libation. This bourbon ball recipe, however, has some slight variations made due to my ill-equipped kitchen.

Woodford's own pecan bourbon balls... with my own special twist.

Pecan Bourbon Balls

1 cup chopped pecans

Woodford Reserve bourbon, or bourbon of choice

1 stick butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 TB bourbon

24 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted with 1 TB shortening

Toasted pecan halves

Cover the chopped pecans with bourbon and let sit overnight. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, set aside. Cream the butter, vanilla, bourbon, and sugar until fluffy but stiff, adding additional sugar if necessary or until the mixture is pliable, like soft Play-Do. Fold in bourbon soaked nuts. Roll the dough into balls, refrigerating the dough slightly if it is too soft to do so. Dip in melted, slightly cooled, chocolate to cover; top with toasted pecan half. Allow to harden at room temperature.

This is the best way to say Happy Mother's Day if you ask me.

Homemade vanilla: vodka, two vanilla beans, split but not scraped, and 2 weeks of steeping.

I might have spiked the chocolate a bit too... the more the merrier right?!

What homemade goodies do you like to gift?

Tea Time

Many of you are aware of my infatuation with tea - there is nothing like a warm cup to put you at peace and calm your mind for just a few minutes. Admittedly I have been drinking a lot more coffee lately than I usually do due to sheer necessity, but tea is still my favorite. So this morning, I decided to indulge and, despite the warm weather, turn on the stove.

I brewed some green tea (even though Earl Grey is my favorite, hands down), drizzled in a thin stream of honey, and garnished with a lemon slice and fresh thyme. The essential oils in the lemon all danced across my tongue as the thyme added fresh herby freshness to what can be a monotonous mug. Heavenly.

Tea enthusiasts everywhere, feel free to share your favorite tea time combinations.

Guy Food

I love to eat healthy, really. It makes me feel good, keeps my girly figure intact, and helps me power through my (sometimes very long) days. That being said, I still have cravings for bad-for-me food just like everyone else, and recently it was a meatball sub. Usually I don't like meatballs (I push them off my spaghetti, avoid them at appetizer buffets, and the Swedish cannot tempt me at Ikea) but I think it was the combination of crispy toasted bread, melty bubbly cheese, and chunky tomato sauce that had be craving a meatball sub.

So I made one - healthy Katelyn style!

Ladies, your guys would be pleased to eat this, it's total guy food. You don't need to tell them it's good for them.

Turkey Meatballs 

1 pound ground white meat turkey

1/2 cup minced parsley

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 cup fat free/low fat mozzarella

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 egg

1/2 (homemade) bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all these ingredients together and form into one inch balls. Heat some oil in the bottom of a medium pan over medium high heat. Brown all sides of the meatballs, remove to a sheet pan and bake 10 or so minutes, or until cooked through. Be sure not to overcook - turkey dries out quickly! 

Sandwich meatballs inside a toasted hoagy bun, topped with chunky tomato sauce and some more fat free mozzarella cheese, then broil in the oven to melt the cheese. 

1 egg

Graduation Photos at Last!

I am a college graduate!

I'll let the shock and awe of that statement sink in for a minute.

Here are some photos from graduation day! 

Of course, the food comes first...

Celebration dinner! Feta, kalamata olive, and sun dried tomato risotto, topped with roasted  pork tenderloin and fennel  and apple slaw.

With my Grandma Banks...

And my family, before the ceremony.

With my roommate right before we became alumni!

And here I am, after the ceremony, an official  UK Alumni.

With Mommaw and Boppaw after there ceremony - their Tater Bug is growing up!

Here I am with Shelby after the ceremony - doesn't she look beautiful?!

Shelby and I in my favorite park in Lexington!

Poor Shelby always gets stuck carrying the stuff...

Curious how graduates keep their belongings together without a purse? Fanny packs all the way! Hidden under a Bachelor's robe no one was the wiser.

It is strange that these few pictures contain one of the first "before and after" moments of my life. All contained in just a few pictures... I am still grappling with the sheer magnitude of what it means to walk across that stage and receive that diploma, let alone the fact that I earned it in three years. As I have said before, I am anxious to start culinary school and begin my career as a personal chef and caterer, but I am hesitant to end this chapter of my life. All good things must come to an end in order to make room for better things - I suppose I should take my own advice and go with the flow.

Spring Time Salads

I know what you're thinking - Katelyn, why are you devoting an ENTIRE blog post to salads, they are SO BORING. I am writing this post to, well, prove all you haters out there wrong. I am a huge fan of salads, but admit that they can be kind of boring sometimes, which is why I have made it my goal to make exciting, tasty, healthy, and intriguing salads this summer. First, let's answer the question: why salad?

With my summertime work schedule, I don't get to eat much of a lunch and tend to work right through from breakfast to around 4:30 when I get home, which means I arrive home ravenous at not-the-most opportune time. My solution? Have a substantial snack, something like a piece of peanut butter toast and an apple, cottage cheese and strawberries, or hummus and carrot sticks, and then go on with the rest of my day until dinner time, which is usually a few hours later. Since I just ate, my dinners have consisted of a lot of hearty salads, as they are light and filling, quick and easy, they make me feel healthy, are customizable, I get my vegetables in, and they are great ways to clean out the fridge. What's not to love?

So the key is to be excited about your salad. Buy some interesting ingredients to make the dressing, or try a new vegetable, fruit, nut, or leafy green to switch things up a bit. Here are some tips that I have been using to build the best spring time salad possible.

Tip #1: Make your own dressing.

I know, I know. That takes more time than pouring it out of a bottle. But here are some reasons why you should make your own:

• Statistically, you use less dressing if you make your own.
• There is less mystery stuff in homemade dressings.
• You can control the taste, so if you like it spicy, sweeter, or creamier, you make make that happen.
• Homemade dressings are better for you, hands down.

I started my going to a gourmet olive oil and balsamic vinegar shop here in Lexington, which turned into a very dangerous place for me to be - I luckily got out of there with minimal damage to my bank account, but have already planned a second trip back.

Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar, Basil Olive Oil, Roasted Garlic Sea Salt, and Lemon Twist Sea Salt. Perfect dressing makings!

Just a drizzle of balsamic and olive oil, and a sprinkling of garlic salt and I am well on my way to dinnertime bliss.


Tip #2: Remember texture.
Some people, falsely, think salads are boring because they miss out on all the great mouth-feels and textures that accompany all our favorite dishes. So add lots of texture to your salads - creamy avocado (I am still trying to learn how to like them,) crunchy nuts, tender spinach, crispy asparagus, hearty mushrooms, the possibilities are endless!

"Total" cereal chicken chunks, tender asparagus, spinach, romaine, tomato,  and bell pepper.

Tip #3: Use leftovers.
Salads really are a great way to clean out the fridge. I had some pesto potatoes left over from another dinner and decided to throw those in my salad one night, and voila! A completely different salad yet again. This can be done with shredded chicken, leftover beans or steamed veggies, grilled shrimp or steak, and fruit from breakfast - anything! Get creative and let you fridge do the work.

Pesto potatoes, tomato, asparagus, and romaine.

Just a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some basil olive oil on top of some leftover roasted veggies and I was good to go!

Happy salad making!