Junque Yard! NOMmy photos of what's going on...

Raspberries, strawberries, and Lilies, OH MY! :)

Junque Yard - year of the fruit

I am hereby declaring 2012 the year of the fruit.  While my tomatoes and peppers are doing all right, they are not growing as quickly as I'd like.

BUT

the fruits in my garden are doing gang-busters.

Strawberries - now that they can breathe from having been weeded, have so many unripe berries that the plants can barely stand up.

Raspberries - my canes are flowering and fruiting, and we will have the BEST harvest of them yet.

And even my poor old, decrepit peach tree, struggling to keep up appearances so I don't chop it down, has set an enormous load of peaches.

Now if the leaves would just stay on the poor old guy....

 

Junque Food: V-day present to DaMan - Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

 I first tried this recipe last year or the year before. It was a rousing success. I mean how can you go wrong with Brownies, cheesecake, and raspberries?

I haven’t made them awhile, so I thought I’d whip up a batch for my husband for Valentine’s Day. He’s such a great guy, he’ll let me have a piece. He’d better anyway…if he knows what's good for him...

I originally got this recipe from: http://bakingbites.com/2009/02/raspberry-cheesecake-brownies/

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2-oz dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt

 8-oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup raspberry preserves/jam

Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8×8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil and lightly grease. In a small, heatproof bowl, melt butter and chocolate together. Stir with a fork until very smooth. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Whisking steadily, pour chocolate mixture into sugar mixture. Stir until smooth. Sift flour, cocoa powder and salt into the bowl and stir until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and prepare cheesecake mixture.

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Drop in dollops onto prepared brownie batter. Drop dollops of raspberry preserves into the cheesecake batter. Gently swirl batters with a butter knife, giving the brownies a swirly look.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until brownies and cheesecake are set. A knife inserted into the cheesecake mixture should come out clean and the edges will be lightly browned.

Cool in the pan completely before slicing and serving, either at room temperature or chilled.

Brownies can be refrigerated, covered, for several days.

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Now, when I've made this in the past, I've used a good quality raspberry jam. However, I don't have any. I do have some home made jam from a relative, but it's over-jelled, and takes a chisel and a hammer to get it out of the jar. It was a minor dilemma, but I could always go to the store and purchase some jam, right?  Then I remembered....

EUREKA! I have a large baggie in my freezer of raspberries picked from our own bushes last summer. A moment was taken to Google, "Quick raspberry jam recipes," and I found this recipe which I tried, despite my trepidation of making jam in a microwave (it worked guys!) and ended up with almost 2 pint of jam. Score!

I will have to do this again with some blueberries I also have in the freezer, and do it as a blog post...it was simple, and waaaaay less messy than when canning jars and jars.

I should say, this was quick jam. it's not canned, and needs to be refrigerated or frozen. I'm letting the jars come to room temp, then putting in the fridge. I doubt they will last long enough for me to freeze.


Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

Junque Yard

This morning is muggy but not hot. We had some rain overnight, but not enough to get rid of of the humidity. I'm debating turning of the AC, but I think I'll leave it as I do my chores. Sweating is over rated anyway.

We are finally starting to see some color in the tomatoes! Heavy with fruit, the tomato plants seemed to have been in an indefinite holding pattern. It's been warm enough, the sun has been out, they just seem to be taking their sweet time ripening.  But last night I spied a few lil buggers starting to tinge orange. YAY!

The peppers are growing like weeds.

The cukes have flowers like you read about. heh. I love that phrase, even if it doesn't make any sense.

My poor pumpkins. Still no female flowers. All male. My brain keeps wanting to make inappropriate same sex jokes, but I've refrained...so far.

The raspberries are almost done. Did I say that last week? I really mean it this week.

I finally filled the bird seed feeders, and put up a new nyjer sock for the finches. They love me now. We seem to have an over abundance of birds in our yard this year - with or without the feeders. I think it might be because we haven't had to mow the lawn for over a month (not enough rain for the grass to grow). We have a lot of clover and thistle, and I think the birds are eating it up. We also have a LOT of worms, and the robins are feasting.

My flower garden in the front yard is pathetically choked with weeds. I really REALLY need to get off my dufus and take care of that.

*slurps coffee*

Maybe later.   :)

Musings from the Junque Pile

I don't have a lot to talk about today. But I do have a general feeling of contentment that I'd like to share. DaMan and I spent the majority of yesterday deep cleaning the house, which is something I don't do enough of. Oh sure, I pick up, scour the basics, and basically try to make it so we don't live in filth, but I am not an enthusiastic cleaner.

But I have 3 cats, a dog, and a husband who works on engines for a living. Things get dirty. Yesterday we knocked back copious amounts of animal fur, scrubbed stuff that doesn't get scrubbed often enough, and it makes me feel calm. Happy. Satisfied. It's like free therapy. I should do it more often.

I've been slowly picking raspberries as they become ripe. Raspberries have an extraordinarily short time of ripeness before they go bad. Strawberries have a few days of hanging in there, so if you miss a few, or pick them and stick them in the fridge, they are OK for a few days. Not so raspberries. it's almost like they are daring you to get them before they turn. There are never enough to do anything with them but eat them immediately, which, I admit, I've done plenty of. But I wanted to try to make jam with them this year. Hard to do when you can only pick a small bowl full a day. So I've been freezing them. it is my hope that when I get enough to make a few pints of jam, they will not be too mushy. But hey, it's jam, right? you gotta mush to make jam. I'll keep you posted.