Goodbye, 2009! You’ve been a good year. Not just because of the places we went:
or all the new restaurants we tried:
or all the food we made (and this is just some of it):
2009 in review
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Yearly Archives: 2009
here’s to the new (maple blueberry coffee cake)
As this week marks many lasts of 2009, my kitchen and I are marking a first, one I hope to continue into the new year, and it’s as simple as a new ingredient: whole wheat pastry flour, a fresh player in our cooking arsenal.
Do you already know whole wheat pastry flour? Very fine in texture, whole wheat pastry flour comes from a whole white wheat made with softer berries than the kind used for regular whole wheat flour. It’s very fine in texture, high in starch and low in protein, with lower gluten than what’s in white flour. It’s particularly good for using in crumbly baked goods as it yields results similar to those made with regular white flour, though admittedly not as light and airy, and it’s more nutritious. You can substitute it one-to-one for all-purpose flour in cakes, pies, muffins and some cookies.
Working from the recipe for Huckleberry Maple Coffee Cake at 101 Cookbooks, I christened my new-found flour last weekend in a sparkling blueberry coffee cake, the kind that is dense, with sweet crumbles all over the top and chock full of dark blue berries that stain all the dough they touch, creating bursts of almost-purple throughout.
Good Writes/Reads 2009
Merry Christmas, everyone! We had a nice, quiet day here at my parents’, but that’s not to say it was without its crises. For example: Have you ever roasted a stewing chicken? Well, don’t—just get yourself some rough cardboard to gnaw on for the same effect and less struggle. Annyywayy…
We did manage to eat well (another of this month’s many smoothies included), and I even found a new! camera! under the tree with my name on it, something sure to get a lot of use in months to come.
Speaking of the months to come, here we are a week from 2010, and you know how end-of-the-year things go: reflecting, looking back, remembering. So in proper form, here are 24 of my favorites posts and articles from 2009, 12 from Food Loves Writing and 12 from all over the Web. Enjoy!
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