Corey Ackelmire

Friday, May 9, 2008

5/7/08

11 p.m. Almost forgot to take my picture on Wednesday.

Daily photo.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The winner of my recent contest received, among other things, a grocery bag I made from an old linen skirt with a vintage fabric lining. This is the bag I made from the other half of the skirt, for myself. Sorry, Lace, I kept the half with the pocket. ;-) You understand.

5/6/08

It doesn't look like much, but this was my first ever, and, if may say so, delicious, stuffed pablano pepper I made on Tuesday.

I used a combination of recipes because I had many of the ingredients from the cull-bin at the Co-op and didn't want to have to buy anything but the meat.

So, I boiled 2 pablanos in 1 c. vegetable stock and 1 c. water for 3 min., then cooked 1 c. rice in the same water for 30 min. Meanwhile, I cooked onion, ground beef, garlic and taco seasoning 'til meat was brown and onions were tender. I added the rice, diced roma tomatoes, salt and pepper and cooked about 20 min. more until rice was tender. Then stuffed the peppers and baked at 375 degrees F for another 15 min. Sprinkled with monterey jack cheese and chopped cilantro and served with a cold beer! Yum! N. was suitably pleased.

Daily photo.

Monday-Culinary Delights.

I thought I'd do a week of pictures of my culinary experiments/discoveries, but I didn't have one on Wednesday, so that's out. I am, however, focusing this week, primarily, on what I eat.

#1: Peaches and basil simple syrup over ice cream.

I discovered (in my world, at least) this weekend, that fresh basil and fresh peach taste good together. I resolved to make something with them and this is what I came up with.

Things I learned:

-blanch the peaches first. papery skins are not good on ice cream.
-do not cook the basil in the simple syrup, it basically looses all flavor.
-do cook the diced peaches in the syrup (which is 1 part boiling water into which you dissolve 2 parts sugar)
-store the syrup and peaches overnight WITH fresh basil leaves in it, then remove the leaves before use.

I served it over vanilla ice cream, but it seems to me you could do just about anything with it, including (which I haven't tried, but plan to) mix the strained syrup with ice and club soda for a refreshing summer drink!

I know, I'm so clever. ;-)

Daily photo: 5/5/08