Sue's Kitchen: December 2010

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

In The Name of Health & A Sweet Tooth................

Just a reminder to come out to the Columbus Winter Farmer's Market for all your fresh, local shopping. Our next market is January 8. Sue's Kitchen will bring baked goodies to satisfy your sweet tooth and some to help with your New Year's diet! Plan on seeing Biker Bars, Granny Smith Apple Pies (some w/Splenda), Oatmeal Raisin cookies, Skinny Jean cookies and Less Guilt Banana Nut Bread.

February is all about Valentine's Day and Sue's Kitchen will be busy making sweets for your sweetie. Plan on seeing heart shaped sugar cookies topped with either buttercream frosting and sprinkles or everyone's favorite....Chocolate! We'll have Berry and Cherry Pies and Red Velvet cupcakes as well.

March will be all about Spring so watch my blog for what's coming in March..................

Call ahead for special orders or if you want me to hold something back: 740-963-2565.

See you there!

Sue

What a Wonderful Holiday Season

Lots of baking and little blogging has been going on in Sue's Kitchen. After baking 60+pies for Thanksgiving the kitchen stayed humming for Christmas time baking. The pictures are from my annual "Christmas in the Country" Open House. We had a gorgeous winter day and many friends and family came to enjoy the hot spiced cider while shopping for gifts and goodies to enjoy for their parties. When it was all said and done I think Sue's Kitchen produced over 140+ dozen variety of Christmas cookies....and a few pumpkin rolls, dessert breads, pies and cakes. The cookies in the pictures are Gingerbread Men and Red Velvet Whoopie Pies.

Thanks to my friends, Bee (Cowtown Candies) and Gretel (Sunny Meadow Flower Farm) for their wonderful sweets and homemade soaps/salves they brought to the open house. Bee's fudge is the best in Central Ohio and Gretel's soaps smell so wonderful. Their packaging is so perfect, too! Gretel also brought some of her homemade jams and honey-YUM!!

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

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

In The Name of Health & A Sweet Tooth................

What a Wonderful Holiday Season

About Me

MISSION

VISION

VALUES

Sue's Kitchen