Ginger

 

This time of year absolutely everything is flavored pumpkin.  There isn't a choice, it's everywhere.  We had this discussion last year so I won't repeat myself here.

While I enjoy a piece of pumpkin bread or a muffin I don't love it enough to have it flavor everything in my life. I don't even like pumpkin pie.

What I do start thinking of this time of year is gingerbread.  Those deep, rich, sticky flavors of gingerbread are my thing.

Ginger is very hot - like peppery hot - and if you use a lot of it in something you can set your tongue to tingling. But I always say, "if you can't taste it, why eat it?"

I bought this book.  Luckily the people I know, know me well and gift me with gift cards to bookstores so I can shop and indulge myself when I see something I want.  Usually if I buy a cookbook I have to look at it in the store to make sure there's more than one or two things inside I'd be interested in. Then when I bring it home I read it carefully.  This book had lots of goodies. 

The first thing I made was this.  It's stem ginger and even though I made it, I still don't know what it is or how to use it but the house sure smells good.

The recipe was confusing only in the size to cut the ginger.  I ended up chopping it into small pieces while the sugar syrup was cooking down.  One of the recipes called for using two ginger balls but there was no talk of balls in the recipe.   I'm not worried.  I improvise more than I follow directions.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.  And yes, she has recipes in the book using it. 

And isn't this pretty?  Peaches are a luxury this year.  A late hard frost took all of the peach crop in our area so if you want them you have to search farther afield and pay dearly for them. Well, it isn't summer without a peach and I made this crisp to take to friends for a fun day.