Sue's Kitchen: Cookies, Pies and Dessert Breads...Oh My!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Cookies, Pies and Dessert Breads...Oh My!

Who doesn't like Blueberries? Well- I have a great dessert bread for you: Lemon Pecan Blueberry! My kitchen will be filled with such sweet smells when I bake these. I can't wait to wrap them up for the market this week.

I'll cut my rhubarb again this week but my connection called Saturday & I'll be getting 20-30 pounds later this week. Oh baby, oh baby......bring on the strawberry rhubarb pies :)

I haven't been to NYC since last fall but I'm going this weekend to visit my daughter, Sara. of course we will be taking in some more bakeries; taste testing, getting ideas, etc. How fun is that? I'd really like to visit the Cake Boss' bakery in Hobokan-we'll see if we make it there.
Also need to revisit Chelsea Market and Balthazar Bakery. I can't wait!!! More on that next week.

Everyone enjoyed the cupcakes this past weekend...it doesn't hurt that buttercream icing topped them off along with mini sugar daisies.

Come visit us this Wednesday in Westerville. It is supposed to be a beautiful day. Last week you could get fresh asparagus, rhubarb, herbs, lettuce, radishes, jams, cookies, meats, eggs, beautiful flowers, heirloom tomato plants, and my PIES. What a wonderful start to 2010!

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About Me

I grew up in the country in Ohio on the family farm baking alongside my Mom and Gramma…back when we grew huge vegetable gardens, foraged the fields and woods for summer’s blackberries, and picked tart cherries until the juice ran down our arms. We spent many a hot afternoon “putting up” gallons of transparent applesauce for our enjoyment later in the winter. Those hot summer afternoons were also just right for raising bread dough on Gramma’s dining room table, later to be hand-rolled into buns and slathered with butter when they emerged from the oven for us to eat. Now that I think about it, it seems only natural to me that one day, many years later I would decide to share my love of baking with others.

After leaving Ohio, moving around, going off to college and working as a nurse, my husband Jim and I came back to our family farm and built our home. We raised our two daughters, Sara and Caitlin, and have been fortunate to have our parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents and extended family close by. How blessed we are to have such wonderful family! Then about seven years ago I decided I wanted to do something to make extra money. Sara was going off to college and I thought this would help with expenses. Farmers’ Markets were just starting to become a popular Saturday morning venue for socializing, buying fresh produce and sampling all kinds of delectable goodies artisans, like myself, baked and brought to sell at the market. I visited our town’s market one day with my Mom and I thought to myself. “I can do this!” And so, our local farmers’ market is where I took a leap of faith and “Sue’s Kitchen” was born.

Each week as I set up my table and put out my pies and cookies I was amazed by how many people do not bake anymore. Is it our fast paced lives that prevent us from throwing flour and butter together to produce yummy cookies? Are fewer people being taught this art as they grow up? Or is it just too easy to hit the local supermarket and pick up a pre-packaged sweet to take home? Whatever the reason, I quickly found how much that lost art of baking is truly missed.

Baking with heirloom recipes has brought smiles to the faces of my customers over the years, especially my homemade pies with flakey crusts and fresh juicy fruit fillings. When I use the leftover pie dough for cinnamon sticks I find my customers have their own family story and nickname for these treats: “roley poley” “cinnamon rolls”,etc..Whatever the name, they say when they were kids they waited in anticipation for them to be done baking then devoured them while still warm. I remembered the cookies Mom baked for us kids and she gave me her Oatmeal Raisin cookie recipe, which I make every week. I always loved Gramma Rose’s Molasses Sugar cookies, which are a fall favorite. I am lucky to have her old wooden recipe box complete with all her handwritten recipes, tips and even some letters. Some interpretation is needed here and there to replace her “butter the size of an egg” with actual measurement.

Another summer farmer’s market season is just beginning along with the growing anticipation of what new to bake, how to reach out to more people and how to design my new logo and website with the help of my friend Linda and my daughter Sara. I hope you all enjoy the ongoing happenings from Sue’s Kitchen.

Sue's Kitchen

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Monday, May 10, 2010

Cookies, Pies and Dessert Breads...Oh My!

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Sue's Kitchen