Oh how I love summer fruit. Most of the time I just like eating it as is, but I seem to have developed a weekend baking habit. Actually, I made one of these cherry tarts on a weekday, but that was for a farewell lunch at work, so it's not really the same thing at all, right? So, about these cherry tarts…the first one I made following this recipe exactly. It was quite good, although not spectacular, and was quickly consumed by my co-workers, much to the disappointment of Mr. HeyLucy. So I promised to make another one for him, only this time I decided to make it even better. I used mascarpone instead of cream cheese, and added a little lemon zest and juice to the creamy filling at the very end. I also brushed the cherries with cherry preserves, rather than raspberry, because that's what I had and it just seemed to make more sense. Strangely, the original recipe called for a six ounce package of cream cheese. Silly Martha, everywhere I looked, cream cheese is usually in eight ounce packages. I thought the mascarpone version was pretty perfect, very light and creamy. The lemon added a nice bit of tang. I am quite pleased with my adjustments. Also, it's just really pretty, no? 

Our air conditioner is currently refusing to come on before 8:30 pm, so I've been busy cleaning up the porch and making it into a couple extra rooms. It gets the morning sun, but it's lovely and shady the rest of the day. Things will be re-arranged throughout the summer, but I spent a good part of my afternoon here, reading a good book. I planted some lavender and mint in the pot in the corner. The chickens haven't discovered it yet. I'm also working on painting a table and set of chairs. One day I'd love to find a daybed, so we can really stretch out and relax.

Number one: I'm pretty sure rhubarb season is just about over, but I've made this rhubarb compote twice, swapping vanilla for the orange liquer, and it was delicious and super easy.

My favorite way to enjoy it is like this: 

With a some Greek yogurt and granola. I was eating for breakfast, but it was such a treat, I've started having it for dessert.

Number two: I've been trying to drink more water and less diet coke. But plain water is boring, so I've been making lots of iced herbal teas. I funnel it into this pretty bottle, and take it to work. In no time at all I can drink the whole 750 ml. I had a little Monin raspberry syrup in the cupboard, and added a tiny bit to some ginger tea. Another nice combination was ginger tea with lemon and mint. 

Number three: I tend to have insomnia, and now that the sun is coming up even earlier, it's a struggle to sleep past 5 or 6 o'clock. I have never, ever been a morning person, but I've decided to let my insomnia work for me. Instead of tossing and turning I've just been getting up and puttering around the house. Of course this means I have to work on going to bed earlier. I've managed to be in bed before 11, but I need to work up to 10 0'clock. I'm slowly getting some serious spring cleaning done in these early morning hours.

 

 So far I've managed to transplant some herbs one morning, cleaned and organized my shelf of spices (more on that later) and my shelf of baking items, and made a dent in a pile of ironing. All before work!  

Good grief it's been gloomy and dark around here. I attempted to take some photos of knitting projects Monday morning and this was the best I could do:

I know I have my Ravelympics project, and I have been working on it, but it's laceweight yarn, and I needed a break. This is the opposite of laceweight, it's two strands of yarn held together and knit on giant (size 17) needles. Plus, it's a blanket, so it kept me warm while I was knitting it. This pattern is from Lion Brand, it's called Cascading Colors blanket, and it's made with Lion Brand Jiffy and Cotton Ease. I love the colors. It's pretty small, but just perfect for a stroller or car seat, or for a toddler to drag around. I blocked it by throwing it in the washer and then in the drier, and the Jiffy yarn got pretty fuzzy and pill-y. Also, every single end that I had carefully woven in popped through to the front side. I trimmed everything neatly, and now it looks pretty good, If I do say so. 

And now I have some opinions and reviews for you, whether you want them or not. I splurged on a set of Zephyr knitting needles from Knit Picks, since they are on sale right now. They're clear acrylic, and I think I rather like them. They're slick, although not as slick as nickel-plated needles. I switched my Featherweight cardigan from a pair of plastic needles to these, and it's going much more smoothly. The yarn slides nicely, and the tips are nice and pointy, so they're especially nice for this very fine yarn.

I watched Bright Star this week. My goodness, it was boring, but so very beautiful. I'm not really one for wimpy poets, and Fannie was kind of bratty, but her clothes were wonderful and every scene was like a painting. I could look at it over and over. How's that for the oddest review ever? I loved it, even though the story was slow. Maybe I'll just let it play without sound next time, and enjoy the eye candy.

I went to the Asian grocery store and bought ingredients for Tom Yum soup, which is very easy when you use the paste mix from a jar. I got a big bag of shiitake mushrooms for just $2.99 a pound. When I was at Vons a few days later, I noticed their price for shiitake mushrooms was $15.99 a pound. That's just crazy, how can they do that? My cheap mushrooms were delicious in the soup, they absorbed all that sweet and sour broth and just melted in your mouth. I don't think they would have done that if I had paid $15.99 for them. 

I've wanted to make fleur de sel caramels since I first read about them, but I'm more of a cookie baker, not a candy maker. It seemed simple enough, though; cook up some sugar, add some cream, sprinkle with salt. So, armed with a candy thermometer and some fancy salt, I decided to give it a try. 

 The first batch, well, it seemed quite delicious. I poured it into a buttered dish to set for a couple hours, but when I went to pop it out it was rock solid. Mr. Heylucy enthusiastically smashed it to bits so we can use it to sprinkle on ice cream or maybe use it cookies. Batch number two was going well, and then my mother-in-law called. While I was busy trying to convince her that she wasn't going to be thrown in jail for running a red light equipped with one of those cameras, my caramel once again cooked just a touch too long. I refused to give up, so I tried one more time. This time I took it off the heat just after it reached the soft ball stage, and it worked out just perfectly. I used this recipe, substituting the corn syrup with honey. I had some of this fancy sea salt, so that's what I used, so they've got a nice honey flavor, perfect with the caramel and salt. 

I'm baking the rest of this rainy afternoon, so there will be more pictures later. First up are these quick and easy lemon cornmeal cookies: 

Also on the list: marshmallows, pumpkin-pie-in-a-jar, and my usual cranberry-oatmeal-butterscotch cookies. I think that will be a nice selection of treats for the gift boxes I've got. I'll be sharing them with some co-workers tomorrow. More pictures to come! 

I had no intention of disappearing for three weeks, but I guess that's just what I did. I've been both busy and lazy. Well, not so much lazy, just worn out from the busy. And there was a bit of a cold somewhere in that time too. Last week I decided to enter a contest at Veer.com to win a MacBook Pro. I knew the competition was going to be tough, but I forced myself to try anyway. Veer is a stock photo/illustration/design site, so most users are professional graphic designers. So the contest was to step away from the computer and recreate their logo with real materials. Multiple entries were allowed, so I did three: a mini quilt, a papercut, and a candy mosaic. 

The winner was pretty darn cool, and the ten runners-up were also really great. I'm still happy I went without sleep and ate too much orange candy in my attempts. I do love my papercut one, although that was my first attempt at papercutting, and it was not easy. I want to try it out with different kinds of paper, because everything looked terrible when I tried to use a blade. I ended up using paper scissors in the end. I think I'll remove the letters from the quilt and turn it into a little doll quilt, I love the bright, juicy oranges. 

I've been doing a little cooking as well, and had myself a little tea party one afternoon, while watching Howard's End. You don't really notice the food in that movie unless you watch it hungry. I speak from experience. So I was prepared this time. One of my favorite scones ever are the ginger scones I would get at Teaism, when I lived in Alexandria, Virginia. So I used a cream scone recipe and added finely chopped crystallized ginger and they may not have looked like much, but they were just perfect. I recommend that you try this sometime. 

My former boss is an avid fisherman, and brought back a whole lot of yellow fin tuna from a recent trip. So I decided to use some to make fish & chips, but with a little Asian twist. I cut the chunk of tuna into fat sticks, dipped them in beaten egg, and then coated them with panko crumbs. Then I fried them in a little oil (maybe a half inch deep), turning so that all the sides got nice and brown. I made two dipping sauces instead of tarter sauce. The first was my usual wasabi cream sauce and the other with a spicy mayonnaise, which was simply mayo with some srirachi chili sauce (also known as Rooster sauce), and a little squeeze of lemon. Yum! It was delicious and really easy. 

Now I'm hungry, and we are out of bacon, so I think I'm going to get myself dressed and head over to the local diner for breakfast.