pretty rainbow of grape tomatoes
Actually, who am I kidding? Look at all of them.
one plant
other grape tomato plant
itty bitty ones that'll turn soon
Here, take a gander at the Jet Stars that I took a picture of for my first post. Look at how big they’re getting!
the growing jet stars
Am I the only one who thinks of star trek/star wars when discussing jet stars? 
You know what I’m not sure about? (remember I am not a gardener) How big are the giant marconi (GM) bell peppers supposed to get before I pick them?
giant marconi - still too small? just right? I feel like goldilocks...
And then my other, more generic sweet bell pepper plant is barely producing little pepper nubs right now, yet they are the same height. The GM plant is near the outer edge of the garden and the other plant is located near the house – the GM plant probably gets more rain water. Should I water my generic pepper to make up for the decreased access to rain water? Any thoughts, loyal (few) readers?
To take a page from Lisa: Nummies
I should preface Nummies with the fact that I am also not really a baker. I don’t like how exact I have to be with it. Cooking is more flexible than baking and I can fuss with things more. I work in a lab and recognize the reasoning behind doing everything exact and following protocol – in fact, that’s what I LOVE about working in the lab. I can always get the same results becuase I don’t change anything. Yet, I do know from working there so long, what corners I can cut if I have to and what absolutely, no questions asked, has to be done in a precise manner or it all goes to crap. I have not been baking long enough to know these tricks yet. However, there are things i know I want to improve upon (like the vanilla and lemon you’ll read about below) that I try to jump in and do, yet they may not always turn out the best. So, you also get to read about whatever forays into baking/cooking I attempt as well. This way Lisa and my mom/dad can see visual evidence of what I’m working on and they can tell me how to improve.
On to the real story…
I went to Costo last week and bought a HUGE container of blueberries because the 44oz container was the same price as a pint from the regular grocery store. It was a stealbut now I need to eat them. I put some in my yogurt for breakfast, but I wasn’t making a dent. So, I made some random blueberry muffin recipe, pictured below. It was a REALLY thick batter and called for a struedel like topping. They didn’t rise very high and the batter itself wasn’t very sweet – I’m guessing the topping was supposed to compensate for that part… they fell apart easily – more airy less dense than the muffins from the store. Who knows. I’ll definitely be trying a different recipe in the future. On the plus side, I made a heart-shaped one – look how pretty!
heart-shaped blueberry muffin!
And then today, I made blueberry cobbler. Chris and I are going to have dinner with friends and I thought, hey I can bring dessert! (and it’ll include blueberries) So, I got this recipe off epicurius.com. I figured that after my blueberry muffins failed a bit, I should try a more reputable recipe site. I am skeptical about this recipe, but I also didn’t have a lot of time. It’s cooling as we speak and then we’re out the door. The recipe had 3 steps. 1. melt butter in 9×13 dish. 2. sift all the dry ingredients in bowl and then wisk in milk (to which I added vanilla, cinnamon and nutmet) to make batter and pour on top of butter. 3. pour blueberries (to which I added lemon zest) on top of batter. oh, and 4. put in oven.
Weird, right? The berries on top of the ‘cobbler’ ? turns out that the blueberries sunk to the bottom and I got the resulting cobbler.
blueberry cobbler
It looks a bit over-done but it’s because the middle of the crust on top was WHITE and I wanted to give it a chance to brown, so I turned the oven down a bit and left it in. Next time, I’ll put tin foil around the outside for a bit in the beginning. That’ll make everything brown evenly.
I’ll post an update tonight about how it tasted. I already think next time I’ll do it with less butter – it looks like poundcake up close…
Ok, I think thats it. Off to dinner! Happy Sunday
OK… so first of all… that recipe you made may have been called a “cobbler” but it’s actually a “slump.” A cobbler has rounds of sweet cream biscuit dough baked on top of fruit (I’ll post a picture on my site next time I make one. I failed at that last time, but I make them all the time.), a slump has cake batter baked on top of fruit. Semantics, semantics! Anyway… I have the world’s best cobbler recipe, and it’s super easy and can be done with any kind of fruit you have on hand… call me for it or I can email it to you.
That said… how was the slump? Those are good too, most definitely… just a different thing. Sounds nice with the lemon and nutmeg, etc.
As for the muffins – muffins are supposed to have incredibly thick batter… like chunky and doughy and almost holds its shape. It shouldn’t be like cake batter, so it sounds like you got that part right. As to why they did not rise, I have no clue. But, I also happen to have the world’s best blueberry muffin recipe, courtesy of my mom, that you will love and find very easy. Holla!
p.s. I’m jealous of your produce! I’m a long way from picking any tomatoes. I might be able to pick my first green beans in another day or two, though. Have you eaten any of the grape tomatoes yet? How are they?
ooooh yeeah…. and you can pick your peppers any time. They are edible at all stages. If you leave them on the plant, they will stop getting larger at some point and go into ripening mode, where they will turn a color like red (most likely) or yellow or orange. They will be sweeter the longer you leave them on the plant and the more color they get. If you pick them green, they will be crisp and fresh and green-veggie tasting instead of softer and sweeter. I like some of each.