Ashley English's Blog, page 16

Cake Ladies (+Giveaway!!!)

Some of you long-time readers may recall I spent April-September of '10 working at my friend Jodi Rhoden's store Short Street Cakes. Without question, that gig was one of the best places I've ever been employed.

Considering that I was almost 14 weeks pregnant when I first hooked up with Jodi and her crew of raucous bakers, and that I was sick as a dog for some time before and thereafter, being

Sunday In the Cove

Taking it nice and easy today. Huxley is snoring away in his swing beside me (perhaps dreaming of these for his birthday in less than two weeks; I can hardly believe almost a year has gone by). It's overcast outside. The dogs are barking at a hound in the woods and sitting, lazily, instead of running up the mountain to greet it.

I taught two canning demonstrations at yesterday's True Nature

Mediterranean Eats (+ Gluten-Free!!!)

As promised, here's the recipe for the dish Hubs whipped up for our impromptu dinner with Ian and Kristina Saturday night. It was ready in just over 30 minutes or so and was savory and satisfying without making you feel like a lump once you put your fork down, as many grain dishes do to me.

The dish was made gluten-free, with the help of buckwheat, on Ian's behalf. We often turn to buckwheat

The Calm

Oh, man. What a week last week was! We did two of the final photo shoots for the new book, had a photo shoot out here on Friday with Anthology magazine (it was SO much fun, I can't wait to see Jen's photos!!!), and I had to get all of the copy-editing done for the new book during any fleeting free minutes I could find. In short, a whale of a week, but, overall, a whale of a good time.

Come this

Busy Bees

On Labor Day weekend, I mentioned some friends came over and helped us with a summer honey extraction. Ian, Kristina and Jenny are all absolute troopers, always willing to lend a helping hand when it comes to all things apiary (and beyond; these are, as it's said around these parts, "good people"). We busted it out, while Hubs and our friends Jen, Jon and their lovely daugther Awynn played with

A Sweet Deal (+ Giveaway!!!)

If you know me personally, then you know that I have a sweet tooth. It cannot be helped. It's genetic, you see, with my Pop always having something sweet after dinner, his mom (Gran) always maintaining a candy drawer for her multitudinous grandkids to draw upon, my mom typically stashing atomic fire balls in her purse, and her mother (Nanny) drinking her iced tea as sweet as sweet can be (I

Clucking Around

Alright, friends. It's time to chat chickens!!!!I'm prepping for the "Backyard Chickens" class I'll be teaching tomorrow evening at the local community college and that got me thinking that I need to post my next class chez English. So, let's engage in a bit of "fowl language," to borrow from the title of my very clever friend Kristina's column in Chickens magazine.This is a great time of year to

Food In the Heartland

What a time we had in St. Paul! Not only was the Creative Connection Event itself inspiring, invigorating, and infectious, Huxley was a total champ, Midwesterners offered up their customary kindness, and the food scene was totally off the hook.Since so much of my time was taken up with the conference itself, we tried to make our meals outside of the event truly memorable. Boy, were they ever.

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Almost a year ago, we threw our forthcoming wee one a shindig, and dubbed it a Nugget Warming (for those of you new to this blog, "Nugget" was Huxley's in utero nickname). We'd had two other baby showers thrown for us, but we wanted to put our personal spin on things, cook up a mess of seasonal, local food, and gather around the fire ring with a smattering of our nearest and dearest. You can read

Liquid Gold

Pardon the radio silence, friends. I've been taking care of buzz-ness (just go with it), you see. Last weekend, with the help of several friends, I extracted honey from my two hives. A smattering of the honey gathered is pictured above. Three medium supers yielded 5 gallons before bottling and 12 quarts, 19 pints, and 4 1/2-pints once jarred. My little ladies were working some kind of hard all