use real butter

Recipe: apple tartlets

I typically encounter few problems when cooking or baking things that I eventually post on Use Real Butter. There may be some recipes that I merely feel “meh” about and hold off posting those for times when I’m out of posting material. And then there are times, like this past week, when I try a recipe and it didn’t come out as I had hoped. This actually happened with TWO such recipes and the end results are kind of important to me (okay, okay, I AM OCD). I even told Tartelette I wasn’t sure I wanted to bother redoing them this weekend. But redo them I did… and with the proper results. That makes me feel better.

Most of today was spent working on a rather odd project that I’m pretty sure not a one of you has ever embarked on making before. More on that tomorrow. I’m quite jazzed about it.

The other day I had a few Granny Smith apples lying about with no designated purpose. I didn’t think too much about them until I was working out and the thought of caramelized apples bounced into my head. I tossed about the idea of a deconstructed apple crisp, but I’m not as keen on deconstruction as say… reconstruction. If you will recall the apple cranberry crisp from not to long ago, I went for the same theme, but different presentation.

Recipe: not so special roll

When Jeremy and I moved in together after I graduated from college, I cooked a lot… but I didn’t cook. There wasn’t much need to because we lived within spitting distance of more authentic ethnic dining establishments than I could shake a stick at. We were spoiled rotten. And all of the ethnic grocery stores in LA made it just as easy to get some of the homestyle goodies to take home and heat up. Very nice.

I think NaBloWriMo is sucking the creative juices from my brain.

I usually plop down and crank out a post lickity split, but today… I’ve been writing and deleting and writing and deleting all afternoon. So I’m giving it one last go and that will be it.

During my recent funk I was having a heck of a time trying to muster up the excitement to cook or bake something and blog about it. You would think I could food blog in my sleep at this point. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I just knew I felt dissatisfied. Once out of that downward spiral, I tried to figure out what the problem was.

I think it was the culmination of various physical ailments coupled with expenditure of all remaining energy on visitors and travel for an extended period of time. Basically, I was getting zero creative input. I wasn’t able to keep up with my favorite food blogs, read my cooking magazines, flip through cookbooks, brainstorm ideas. Oddly, Art Culinaire arrived right at the time things began to settle down for me. Like a spark, it reignited my inspiration.

**Jump for more butter**