I've said it before

If anyone has ever wondered whether I am a pastry chef, this weekend definitely answered that question.

Eric’s company is undergoing a major move into a new building over Labor Day, which means that he has been working late and through the weekends. Given his overall stress level and exhaustion, I decided to make him a no-bake cheesecake that one of my former classmates blogged about recently. Her pictures are so beautiful - and it looked like the perfect summer dessert (heading her advice of not letting it sit out for hours in the August heat, of course).

However, when I added the bloomed gelatin to the cream cheese mixture, it seized up on me and created long strands of cold gelatin (it was as gross as it sounds!). I attempted to add some agar powder, but that resulted with the same outcome. Maybe it was because I was in a hurry or because I never paid attention to how to use gelatin - I don't know. Out of frustration and because I was meeting Eric shortly for dinner, I sieved the cream cheese mixture and added it to the chocolate crust with high hopes that it would set overnight in the refrigerator…except it never did. While it became a bit more solid, after a few minutes in the warm air, it started to melt into a more cream-like mixture. I’m not saying that the failed no-bake cheesecake wasn’t tasty - it was delicious, light and creamy - it just wasn't the "cheesecake" that I was hoping for. It was more like a cream cheese "mousse" with a chocolate crust. And the fact that it melted only meant that we would need to eat it faster.

The next day, I decided to make my fool-proof chocolate cake with Swiss meringue buttercream for one of Eric’s co-workers who is leaving the company. However, I learned that the word "fool-proof" should not be used to describe this cake. For reasons I cannot understand, I forgot the vegetable oil and one cup of sugar (the recipe calls for three cups). So the final product was a cake that was still moist from the buttermilk but really bitter – and would be a rock the next day without the fat. So I baked a second one – which fortunately, came out a bit better.

All in all, a rough few days baking...for the sake of everyone who would be eating my food, I decided to stick to cooking.

After a journey to the Greenmarket with our neighbor Ross - who was filling in for Eric in my weekly trek - I came home with a bounty of delicious produce. I finally had some kitchen success with Mark Bittman’s tomato jam – a recipe that was highlighted in the NYTimes as a way to use the abundance of tomatoes available right now (this recipe recommends plum tomatoes).

While Eric found it a bit too sweet, I enjoyed the odd combination of flavors – ginger, cumin, jalapenos, and tomatoes. It’s a straightforward recipe, worth the hour and a half required to make it – especially with some bread and ricotta – a simple combination that makes an incredibly flavorful bruschetta.

The joys of the Greenmarket also yielded some delicious grape tomatoes – which were turned into a super fast salad with some “quick-pickled” onions, fresh herbs and feta cheese. Nothing could be easier – or taste more like pure summer.

While at the Greenmarket, I also came across the melons of my ancestors:

And finally, I thought that this was really the perfect way to describe peppers:

Not sure if that means during or after eating...