Cheery little thank you tarts

 I suppose it goes without saying that I've been just a little bit busy this past month. Like this blog post, these tarts were long over due in the making.

Way back in December, I had, on a whim, purchased a jar of sour cherries from the Jewish Restaurant/Deli in town and then promptly stuffed them into the back of my fridge. (Yes, I know, I'm supposed to stop saving food just because it is too special for every day consuption! I'm working on it!!) Just a couple of weeks ago, on my way to emptying out the refrigerator in anticipation of being gone for a week to Oregon, I found the lost, forlorn little jar looking up at me from the now empty shelves. I gave it a quick promise to make something truly grand with those bright little darlings when I returned from Oregon, and today I managed to keep that promise.

The reason behind making the tarts was not just to use up the cherries that I had been saving, but instead, my primary goal was to make something really cheerful and tasty as a thank you for one of my neighbors. Because of the fact that eating a full sized cherry pie is nearly impossible for a single person, or even for a couple, I made tiny tarts that could be slowly consumed over the course of a few days without getting too soggy(I hope!!).

I baked the tart shells on up turned muffin tins

Please do not mind the appalling state of the undersides of my muffin tins. I firmly believe in allowing my baking ware to get as crusty as possible, if only to save on elbow grease(it surely isn't laziness on my part). After all, I don't want my elbows getting rusty!!  

The little, unfilled cups looked brown and toasty. I wanted to eat one just plain!

I love the rustic edges of these tarts(I have to like them, otherwise I'd be disappointed)

my new light box

Sweet, sweet Matthew wanted to buy me a light box for our anniversary but due to the exorbitant cost for what really amounted to a bit of white material and some bright lamps, we decided to put one together as a happy anniversary project, instead of buying one.



We found a plain, white box at Ikea and used a couple of old desk lamps and one new lamp(the green one) from target with an extra bright flood light. It's all a bit slap-dashed together and could catch on fire at any moment! the flood light gets frighteningly hot, but so far the photos from our first testing have come out alright. We'll probably make some further adjustments, but for the time being I'm fairly happy with it and am looking forward to taking photos for the blog with the light box as back drop.



My hope is that the light box will help my photos turn out better during the dark winter months. With more and better photos, I'll have more to blog about. After all, nobody wants to see a grainy photo of a cupcake lurking in the yellow shadows of the tiny hovel that Matthew and I call home =)



The Grass is a cute backdrop, but as I mentioned above, adjustments will need to be made. The grass curls up on the sides because it is too wide for the box, perhaps some extra large scissors will be enlisted to correct the problem.

A Big thanks to The tiramisu custard, decorated with Daim candy bar shards and Ikea biscuits, for modeling the new light box for this post!! It was our anniversary treat!

I"m jumping up and down...

in excitement, over the fact that Matthew and I just got to meet this great fellow who writes mmm-yoso. His blog is one of my favorites and I check it every day. He was really nice and seemed pleased to meet me, which was perfect because I was so worried about interrupting him. When I realized who he was, I was afraid to introduce myself but Matthew encouraged me to say hello and I am glad I did. It was so cool to meet him as I've wanted to ever since I started reading his blog 2 1/2 years ago.

Anyway, this was a wonderful evening.

posting photos is difficult...

...especially when I make such a half hearted attempt. So, this is a practice post. All I'm gonna post are photos and my comments. Then I'll see how it all works and perhaps future posts with photos won't have giant gaps at the bottom or comments sitting a mile above the photo or other such ickiness(such as in my derby post).

Hello Kitty toast display in the window of my favorite Hardware store.

Super onigiri - he will save the world! Well maybe just save Matthew from hunger.

This is the Mitsuba that I planted when the herbs I bought at the store started to take root. They sat in my fridge for too long and started to get brown but I didn't want to throw it away so I planted it anyway and now it is all green and happy.



This is the tarragon that came back to life this spring. I thought it died last fall but watered it anyway and it is so green and pretty now.

Barrage

I'll just make up for a weeks worth of posts today! I'm waiting for my food processor which I ordered from Amazon so I have to stay at home. I might as well spend all that time catching up on the computer since all I did yesterday was read Bust. I'm not even sure I checked my email.

I thought I'd start a "real" blog

Well, as real as a blogger.com blog can be; at least it's more real than a myspace blog. Although I'll keep using myspace too.