Sue's Kitchen: February 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

What do you want? What makes you happy?

I need to try some new recipes and am interested in your favorites. I'll always have my signature pies, cookies, and biker bars but what really puts a smile on your face? I know dessert breads can be yummy. My cinnamon rolls fly off the table. Mini cupcakes are super cute and tastey. What do YOU think?

Here's what's new this week: I'm making berry cream cheese coffeecake for this week's market and will focus on a variety of coffeecakes for the coming markets. You can choose from a whole coffeecake for your family or by the slice to enjoy with your morning cup of coffee. Over the past couple of years I've made blueberry, pecan crunch, apple walnut streusel, and cinnamon sour cream. All are quite yummy and you can look for these in coming weeks.

What else is a popular sweet indulgence? What's your favorite? What do you want to see at the markets or available to order?

I want to hear from you so send me your comments and e-mails!!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Sweets for Valentine Sweeties

Friends Zoe and Janessa enjoyed some mini cupcakes for Valentine's Day at the Worthington Winter Farmers' Market this past Saturday. We had a nice crowd who came out and braved the cold weather to pick up their purchases. Thanks to everyone for coming!

And for Valentines' Day my pies always have to be pretty.........

Snowday

There's nothing like a snowday to get me motivated to bake something just for my family, clean up the kitchen, and organize all the cookbooks and inspirational magazines that I've accumulated. I look outside and see the huge icicles hanging from the roof and the constant falling snow and I know I will surely appreciate spring this year. I know my husband Jim will too as he works for ODOT and has been working many 12 hour shifts plowing the roads in northern Licking County. Winter is beautiful but...come on..enough is enough!!

Here is a fun Snowman Family from Worthington

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

Sue's Kitchen Menu