This is my lunch from yesterday. I have some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes coming off the plant in the garden right now. They are so sweet that when you eat them, you remember that tomatoes really are fruit after all.

Point is, I made some bruschetta with one of these tomatoes, and it was yummy. So here’s my lazy, impromptu, but delicious, bruschetta recipe:

Five Minute Bruschetta

Ingredients:

2 large pieces of French bread
1/2 a pat of butter
1 large tomato
5 basil leaves
1 slice fresh mozzarella (optional)
Salt

Directions:

With a knife, shave off a small amount of butter and spread it evenly over the bread. Put the bread on a sheet pan and broil for 2-5 minutes, until bread is golden and butter melted. You can also toast the bread, but broiling makes the top of the bread crispy and bottom soft, giving a nice texture to the bruschetta.

Meanwhile, chop up the tomatoes, basil, and optional cheese. Put in a bowl and mix together. Salt to taste. It takes a surprising amount of salt to bring out the flavors here–maybe a quarter teaspoon?

Take the bread out of the oven. Slice each piece in half so that you have four pieces. Spoon the tomato mixture on top. Enjoy!

Cost of Dish: Tomatoes and basil: Free from the garden; Bread: $.40; Butter: $.05; Mozzarella: $.15; Salt: practically free.
Total Cost of Dish: $.60 for lunch

NPR has an interview with Lauren Weber, who wrote a book on the history of thrift in the U.S. It’s pretty interesting stuff. Like many people, Weber thought thrift was a dying virtue in this country until she started interviewing people for the book. She found that there are lots of frugal people alive and well in the United States.

Her book, In Cheap We Trust, traces the roots of American frugality back to the Revolutionary War. She mentions Benjamin Franklin, for example, who has been called the apostle of thrift, (Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. ~Benjamin Franklin) and says frugality has always been part of our national identity.

So if thrift is longterm value here, why do so many people see it as penny-pinching and miserly instead of smart money management? The answer lies in the rise of the consumer culture after World War II:

“So right before the war ended there was a lot of talk about how Americans needed to buy more washing machines, buy cars, get prepared for the consumer economy that was coming and Americans really took that to heart,” Weber says.

And, she says, pop culture offers proof:

“It’s not ironic that Scrooge McDuck, the famous miserly uncle of Donald Duck, emerged in 1947. And Jack Benny’s famous cheapskate character on radio and TV came in the late ’40s and early ’50s. Thrift went from being a national virtue to being kind of a punch line.”

Sounds like a good book. Listen to the whole interview here.

I confess, I’m over wall decals. However, I like these chair decals from Blik for $30. Seems like an interesting way to spice up the dining room, especially if you have cheap or boring chairs. (Via Country Living)

We are having a bit of an Indian summer around here. So this Labor Day, I got together with my friend from Drink of the Week and made Shotsicles, or alcoholic popsicles.

Despite their clever name (thanks, husband!), Shotsicles do not contain an entire shot of alcohol. It’s more like a half ounce, or one-third of a shot, of alcohol. So don’t worry if you make these–they aren’t going to suddenly sneak up on you like jell-o shots tend to do. I mean, unless you eat a lot of them.

Shotsicles have to be low in alcohol because alcohol doesn’t freeze very well. To get them to work, you need to combine the alcohol with juices and syrups, and even then they take longer than your average pop to freeze. But they are worth the wait–sweet and delicious with a tinge of booze in the background, just enough to give the popsicle some edge.

To make a Shotsicle, you need a mold. You can use store-bought popsicle molds, of course, or you can make your own. We used small paper cups and umbrella toothpicks. Both things were lying around from a party I recently had. We poured the liquid into the cups and then put the open umbrella inside, toothpick down. The umbrella balanced the toothpick in the center of the liquid while it froze, like so:

To eat, we tore off the cups and stripped off the umbrella part. Then we held the Shotsicle by the toothpick.

We tried two Shotsicle recipes, one slightly tweaked from The Bitten Word and the other made up from scratch. Here they are:

Melon Tequila Shotsicles

Ingredients

2 c melon juice. We used a crane melon, which is like cantaloupe.
1/8 c or 1 oz tequila
1/8 c or 1 oz midori

Directions:

Puree the melon in a food processor and drain off the juice. (I saved the puree for ice cream.) Mix the juice with the liquor. Taste the mixture. If you like it a bit stronger, add one more tablespoon of tequila. Pour into molds and freeze for 5-8 hours until firm.

Chocolate Bourbon Shotsicles
From The Bitten Word

Ingredients

1/2 c sugar
3 1/2 oz chocolate chips
2 Tbs cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 c or 1 oz bourbon
2 c water
2 Tbs finely chopped mint leaves

Directions:

Combine sugar, chocolate, cocoa powder, salt, and water into a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring all the while. Transfer the mixture to another container, preferably one that lends itself to easy pouring, and let the mixture cool until it is room temperature, about a half hour. Stir in the bourbon and chopped mint leaves. Pour into molds and freeze for 5-8 hours until firm.

Mmmm minty bourbon-y fudge cycles…

Designer Oscar Diaz did a cool project–he recycled the plastic from bottles into a cutlery set.

He chose the bottles based on the shape so that he could cut out the knife, fork, and spoon without having to bend the plastic. Then he coated them in copper and tin. The resulting set can be used just like any other cutlery set.

Kinda neat! (Via Style Files)

(Courtesy Food and Wine)

I was watching Anne of Avonlea yesterday on YouTube, because I’m cool like that, yo. Anne and Marilla, Anne’s adopted mother, kept talking about plum puffs, how Marilla makes amazing plum puffs and how they make everything better, and I was like, what is a plum puff? Because I think I want to have one.

The Anne of Green Gables series always does that to me. I remember that when I first read the book as a kid, I was taken in by the chapter where Anne makes tea for her friend Diana and they eat fruit cake and cookies and “snaps,” whatever they are. Then they think they are drinking raspberry cordial and it ends up being current wine instead–neither of which I have tasted to this day–and then Diana gets drunk and her mother bans her from ever seeing Anne again.

Well this time, I decided to look up what a plum puff is. I came up with a few options (which makes me wonder if LM Montgomery made plum puffs up, but I digress). This site has a plausible recipe (scroll down)–sounds like a puffy cookie with raspberry jam on it. Okay, not bad. Not exciting, but not bad.

Then there is this recipe, which is a cream puff type thing with raspberry jam in the center.

Much better!

Still, the best plum puff recipe I came across was this one Food and Wine, which uses puff pastry and fresh plums to make those delectable things pictured at the top of this post. The recipe:

Plum Puff Dumplings
Courtesy of Food and Wine

Ingredients

Flour for rolling
One 14-ounce package all-butter puff pastry, thawed and cold
5 large purple plums, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
1/4 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375° and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the puff pastry 1/8 inch thick. Cut the pastry into six 6-inch squares and transfer to the baking sheet; freeze for 5 minutes.

2. In a bowl, toss the plums with the 1/4 cup of sugar and the cornstarch and cardamom. Spoon the fruit and juices onto the center of each puff pastry square. Working with 1 square at a time, bring up all 4 corners and pinch them together in the center. Pinch the seams closed at the bottom corners to trap any juices, leaving the tops open to vent steam. Brush the pastries with the egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in the center of the oven for about 30 minutes, until puffed and golden. Let cool slightly and serve with scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Now, did they have puff pastry that they could conveniently get from the freezer section in the grocery store in 1909, when Anne of Avonlea was published? No. But this is the kind of plum puff I would find capable of “heartening me up,” like it does to Anne in this chapter of the book. So I figure it has the spirit of the thing right, anyhow. And that’s the important thing.

Not to long ago, someone made me do one of those lists of 10 things you want in life. I wrote it, and then for number 11, I wrote, “Have a little house in my garden for writing.” I had recently seen a documentary on playwright Tony Kushner, and was envious of his writing hut in the middle of his garden. It was isolated from the main house, surrounded by trees, and only big enough for a desk and some books. I wanted a writing hut too.

Well, now the dream has evolved. I want this to be my writing hut:

It is a polyhedron house in Bogotá, Columbia. And that’s not all, check out the back:

I am impressed with the complexity of this thing. Here is a basic diagram of how one makes a polyhedron-shaped house:

Not to mention how cozy it is inside. Install me some bookshelves and I’m ready to go:

Okay, I’m mostly joking. I don’t really want a polyhedron house in my backyard. The Tony Kushner writing hut would be good enough for me. Still, I wouldn’t turn a polyhedron-shaped garden house down if someone wanted to make me one. (Via NotCot)

I guess I have a thing for old-timey mustaches right now, because I smiled when I saw this mustache salt and pepper shaker. One half is salt, the other half pepper.

$28 from Etsy. (Via Rare Bird Finds)