Today she caught a cricket that managed to find its way inside the house, and in a manner both cute and horrifying, playfully dismembered it before eating the thing.

I won't call it pizza, because of how royally I screwed up the crust. I was trying to use this Serious Eats recipe, but my aging food scale severely under-weighed the volume of water, so at first I ended up with a wet paste rather than a dough. I kept adding a few tablespoons of flour and mixing until it finally looked like dough, though by this point it was over-kneaded and under yeasted, and didn't really rise.

Regardless, I decided to send it. Used a yogurt feta dip (made WAY too much and trying to use it up) as sauce, then topped with thyme, onion, mushroom, broccoli, mozzarella, and crumbles of some old dried out mortadella. Topped with some grated parmesan once out of the oven, and it tasted pretty good, albeit a bit dry.

Just over a month ago, this little kitten showed up on our doorstep. The security camera showed her making a beeline right up our driveway and onto the porch, where she sat screaming her head off until we heard and opened the door.

She was nothing but bones underneath the matted fluff, but she was immediately friendly and surprisingly trusting. I had been wanting a second cat and my husband jokes that my desire manifested this little one, who we named Sofrito, or Sofi for short. ♥️

Doesn't quite fit the briefing of food porn (imo it's pretty hard to make soups/stews aesthetically pleasing), but sure did taste good.

Didn't have the cream I'd normally use, but made do with 2% milk and buttermilk powder, and then I added potato flakes and a bit of gelatin for some extra body.

Pretty gutted, had just started to harvest this year's crop. Just the cherry on top of an already shit day. Even managed to snap the half inch metal stake I put there when I first planted it in February 2021.

[Image description: view of a row of five young fruit trees planted in half wine barrels in a home garden.]

Harder to stand up, but SO much easier to carve!

This was something my dad used to do when I was a kid. Next year when the kids will remember the person in the scarecrow, it will actually be stuffed, and I'll be hiding somewhere else!

View from a little further away, my husband was hiding behind the screen door controlling a spider that dropped from above 😈

[Image description: nighttime view of the front door of a house decorated for Halloween. A scarecrow sits on the porch with a large spider hanging above. In the foreground is a dark hooded mannequin, with swirling fog.]

I think you're supposed to pinch them off, but they're just too pretty.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17825263

[Image description: a bright green bee with pollen covered legs on a lilac flower with jagged edged petals.]

[Image description: a bright green bee with pollen covered legs on a lilac colored flower with jagged edged petals.]

[Image description: a perfectly round peeled bulb of garlic on a cutting board, with unpeeled normal cloves behind it.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17588319

[Image description: a thicc green hornworm hanging onto the stem of a tomato plant. The hornworm is speckled with little white dots, has eyespots and angular white stripes down his side, and the namesake sharp little spike of a horn on its butt.]

[Image description: a curly-leaf kale plant in a raised bed, with voluminous radiating leaves that kinda look like the afro of said Simpson's character.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16622039

Week 24 - Seasonal ingredients: Many berry pie with rosemary lemon ice cream

My dad loves berry pies, so had to make him one for Father's Day. Fresh seasonal items used were blueberries and lemons (picked from my tree). The rosemary was from my yard too, but that thing grows year round 😋

Other berries used were the frozen Costco mix of blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries and pomegranate, on a homemade crust.

The ice cream was a custard base, with rosemary steeped in the milk & cream. I like experimenting with unique flavors of ice cream, and this one was a hit with my family.

[Image description: a close up of a slice of double crust berry pie with a dollop of melting ice cream on top.]

They look pretty grown but just before I snapped this pic, one of them was begging an adult at my bird feeder, very cute to watch them flitting around.

[Image description: two small brown and white speckled finches perched on a mature sunflower that is drooping with the weight of its seed head. One of the finches is sitting upright on the neck of the sunflower, while the other is flipped upside down to get at the seeds. The whole image has grid pattern imposed on it, due to being taken through a window with a mesh screen.]

As is often the case with my meals, this was a "use it up before it turns" meal. Had some beef top round roast, jalapenos, carrots, and cabbage, plus a giant bag of oranges from my parent's tree that need to be eaten, and this is what came out.

General recipe:

• Slice beef into strips, marinate for a few hours in orange juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, pepper and garlic powder.
• Stir fry ginger, garlic, and onion, then add julienned carrot, jalapeno, cabbage and roughly chopped mushrooms. Don't over crowd the wok, cook in batches. I added a splash of soy and rice vinegar to the cabbage at the end to steam it at little.
• Pat the beef strips dry before searing in the wok, again working in batches.
• Cook down the marinade, add a corn starch slurry, and keep adding a little bit of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar until it hits the right Magic Sauce™ blend of overly sweet, tangy, savory.
• Serve on rice with some green onions.

Still have more beef and more oranges,

Her first time seeing a balloon, was absolutely fascinated.

[Image description: a brown and white tabby cat sitting in front of a backlit curtain, staring upwards with rapt attention. The end of the balloon ribbon can be seen dangling to one side. The angle of her head emphasizes the roundness of her little cheeks.]

From the bones of a couple Costco rotisserie chickens and veggie scraps saved in the freezer. Only boiled the bones for a couple hours, so didn't get as much gelatin out of them as I'd like, but it was getting late. I also thought I had more pint jars, had to put the last bit of stock into a couple quart jars in the fridge.

Is it possible to mix jar sizes when canning? Assuming you process them all using timing for the larger jar size?

[Image description: five pint jars of opaque tan broth, still slightly bubbling as they cool on a towel on a kitchen counter. In the background a stock pot and an All American 910 can be seen.]

Here's the link to their recipe.

Now normally Serious Eats is pretty bang on with their recipes, but this one has a CRAZY amount of sugar in it. I made it as directed (but using store bought puff pastry) for Mother's Day, and it was tasty but so sweet it could have been served for dessert.

This is the second time I made it, but with half the sugar. However sweet is still the dominant note, even after adding Worcestershire sauce, tart goat cheese, and more herbs. If you want to make this, seriously try using just a quarter of the sugar they ask for, and you might get something more savory.

[Image description: a circular tart made of layers of deeply caramelized cabbage in a sticky glaze. A bit of golden crust can be seen on the edges, and the tart is sitting on a wooden cutting board on a stove top.]