(Image courtesy Science Blogs)

I am going to the gold country California for a few days to learn about the Gold Rush. Yes, I am that much of a nerd. Blogging will resume on Monday, August 2. Have a great weekend.

It’s blackberry season! In my little town, blackberries seem to be sprawling all over every vacant lot. I have been craving blackberry pie since February, so last weekend I walked down the street to a lot that I know of and spent about 40 minutes picking. I came back with two containers full of berries:

I plan to go again next weekend.

Blackberries are my favorite berries, but I don’t have them that often because when you buy them at the store, they are usually sour. That’s because, like the tomato and the strawberry, blackberries are only good when they are so ripe they are about to fall off the vine. That doesn’t make them a great commercial crop, but it does make them the perfect food for foraging.

To forage blackberries:

* Bring plenty of clean containers to hold the blackberries.
* Wear gloves to protect against the stickers.
* Wear long sleeves for the same reason.
* Wear old clothes because the stickers will snag you.
* Bring a pair of tree trimmers to clip long briars out of the way–very helpful.
* Only pick the softest, sweetest berries (if in doubt, taste!).

Pick as many as you can right now. They freeze well and they make great jam, scones, pastries, and of course, pie:

The best part of blackberry pie is that it is even better the next day. The juices soak into the crust and make everything gooey and delicious. It may just be my favorite pie.

The recipe:

Blackberry Pie

Ingredients:

Enough pastry for a two-crust pie. (Someday I will post my pie crust on here, but in the meantime here’s Martha Stewart’s pie crust.)

5 c blackberries
1-1 1/2 c sugar
1/4 c flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl, mix in blackberries, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Add one cup of sugar and taste the berries. If they don’t taste sweet enough, add another 1/2 cup and taste again. You want the filling to be sweet, but not too sweet.

Set the filling aside. Roll out the pie dough and form in a pie pan. Pour the blackberry mixture into the crust. Roll out the top crust and place on top of the pie. Pinch the edges together and cut a vent in the top to let out the steam.

Put the pie in the hot oven. It’s smart to put a cookie sheet under the pie to catch the juices when they leak out. Cook for 15 minutes on 400 degrees, then lower the temperature to 375 degrees. Cook for another 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees. Cook for 30 more minutes until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling. Remove pie from the oven and cool before serving.

I like this quirky gun vase from Suck UK. It’s ceramic and shaped like three barrel-to-barrel pistols. $50 from Uncommon Goods.

There is also a wall-mounted version for $30:

I like this Danish Modern computer case mentioned on engadget. I’m not clear if this is a new piece of furniture or a modification of something old, but either way, it’s a very stylish.

I am going to try to have a large fall garden this year. A friend recently pointed me to this chart on Mother Earth News called What To Plant Now. You click on your region and it tells you what you should plant for each month of the year.

I found this helpful because I have been confused about when to put in fall plantings in my area. The answer seems to be half August, half September. Here’s my plan:

August:

Green beans
Peas
Radish
Beets

September:

Arugula
Leek
Mustard
Fava beans

What are you putting in this fall?

Cooking with My Kid made bite-sized Greek salad appetizers. They are feta cheese, olives, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes strung on a toothpick. Simple and seemingly delicious. I might have to do this at my next party. (Via Craft)

Yesterday, I ate a package of tofu that had an expiration date of June 2010. The reasons I knew the tofu was okay was that it had not been opened before, but had been kept in a vacuum-sealed bag in a very cold part of the fridge. On top of that, the tofu smelled and looked normal. There was no discoloration, strange liquids, smells, shrinkage, or anything out of the norm. So I tossed it in some cornstarch, fried it in some oil, added it to roasted vegetables from the garden, and it was a very tasty dinner.

To me, there’s no sense in throwing food out just because of the expiration date. First of all, most companies guarantee their food for 7-10 days after the expiration date. Secondly, whether or not something is bad has a lot to do with how you handle it. I regularly freeze food and use a vacuum sealer to deprive certain food of oxygen (oxidation is one of the main reasons that food goes bad). I also use my senses–including common sense–and examine the food before I eat it.

And I have never gotten sick by eating food this way.

Which is not to say that there isn’t plenty to be concerned about when dealing with oldish food. There are bacterias that can lurk in food that are difficult to detect and it is always better to throw something out rather than to take a risk with it, especially when dealing with meat or dairy. When in doubt, throw it out, they say.

But that’s different than blindly throwing out food just because it says so on the package. The package date is often wrong and the food is still good. Throwing out perfectly good food is a waste of money.

Now there’s a website called Still Tasty that goes over the shelf life of different food. It has some decent information on there, but I prefer to listen to Christine Bruhn on the topic. Bruhn “is the Director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California, Davis where she earned her doctorate” and “has a special interest and passion for safe food handling practices.” In other words, she’s an expert on food handling, and she has recorded a series of videos for Monkey See with information on how to tell whether your food has gone bad or not.

Here is her video on How to Tell if Your Leftovers Have Gone Bad.

Check out the rest of the series for more information on this topic.

NPR reported that there is a basil shortage this year due to downy mildew. The article says this will put a cramp in the style of pesto lovers, but you don’t have to make pesto out of basil. In fact, I’ve made pesto out of lots of different herbs and one of the best I’ve discovered is oregano pesto.

I put in my oregano plant about five years ago and it has been thriving ever since. Here it is when I first put it in:

Since then it has quadrupled in size. That is a lot of oregano, far more than I would ever use. But that’s fine because the plant requires no care besides the occasional watering at the height of summer. Contrast that to basil, which is plagued by pests, needs a ton of water, and can only be grown in the summer. One plant gives me no trouble and the other is a prima donna in the garden.

Of course, basil tastes about a million times better than oregano, but that’s the point here. Oregano pesto is a poor woman’s version of basil pesto. It uses a cheaper herb, cheaper nuts (walnuts instead of pine nuts), and less oil, but you still end up with a delicious pesto that tastes almost as good as the original. Together with a little garlic bread and wine, oregano pesto makes a great vegetarian dinner.

Recipe:

Oregano Pesto
(Serves 2 people)

Ingredients:

1 heaping c fresh oregano
1 small handful fresh basil, about 3 large leaves
2-3 cloves garlic
15-20 walnut
1/3-1/2 c Parmesan or other dry Italian cheese. I used Pecorino.
3 Tbs butter
Olive oil
Salt
Enough spaghetti for two people.

Directions:

Put a pot of salted water on to boil. Cook the spaghetti.

In a food processor, combine oregano, garlic, basil, walnuts, and a pinch of salt. Grind until it all looks uniform. Slowly add the olive oil until it becomes a paste. Go conservative with the oil because you will also be adding the butter. It doesn’t take much. I would estimate about 2 Tbs of olive oil does the trick.

Add cheese and butter to the mix and grind it all up again in the food processor. Taste the pesto. It should have a nice balance of oil and herbs and nuts and salt. If not, adjust the ingredients accordingly. Most likely you may have to add a bit more salt.

When the spaghetti is done, get a frying pan out and spoon the pesto into it. Turn the pan on medium heat and warm up the pesto. Add the spaghetti to the pesto. Turn the heat to low and slowly began to mix the pesto into the spaghetti with a spoon or spatula. Keep this up until the pesto is fully integrated into the spaghetti and everything is warmed through.

Dish onto two plates. Top with more grated cheese, if you like. Enjoy!

I like this idea from Preston and Theo’s house tour on Apartment Therapy–store a flat-screen TV on a painter’s easel. It’s a good way to add interest to the ugly old TV. And it would make it easy to move around, too.

A Merry Mishap decided to spruce up some plain white dishes using a porcelain paint pen.

(Image courtesy Dick Blick)

Apparently, you can get the paint pens at most craft stores. All you do is draw a design on the dishes and then bake them in the oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Instant face lift.

This idea makes me want to get a lot of old plates from the thrift store and experiment. (Via style files)