Sparkle Stories Blog

It's pirate food, to go with the Martin & Sylvia story "Pirates!"

Lavender infused honey is a good starting place, but the method below will work with any number of ingredients. Think herbs like thyme, camomile, anise, cloves, rosemary, or mint. Or go really wild and infuse your honey with chili peppers, lemon peel, or dried mushrooms.

Some of you will probably remember ice pops from childhood — you know, the kind that came in the little plastic tubes. They’re still great for a treat, but, as a grown-up now, I prefer something a little healthier for our family’s day-in, day-out popsicle needs.

So named because it must be kept in cold storage, “fridge jam” leaves out the last step in traditional canning — the boiling water bath to seal the jar. Further, because you’re keeping the jam cold, you can also play a bit faster and looser with the ingredients without worrying about things like acidity and botulism.

To help our turkey burgers taste like more of a summer celebration, I begin by buying turkey with a little higher fat content. It varies, depending on what’s available at the store in a given week, but I don’t like to buy ground turkey any higher than 93% lean.

While I would gladly choose peach pie with neighbors over canning tomatoes or cleaning the basement, I must confess that my favorite kind of peach pie isn’t the sweet kind — it’s peach pizza pie.

Cheesy crackers, as we generically call them, are also easy to make at home. Not only do the homemade crackers have less preservatives, by making them yourself you can also flavor them how you like.

Homemade applesauce—typically dolloped onto a bowl of warm oatmeal at our house—is like a fuzzy scarf and a hug as the weather starts to turn colder.

While berries are good in a variety of dishes and desserts—pie, cobbler, ice cream, and on and on—really good, fresh-picked berries rarely require that much fuss. In season, our local blackberries are so big, fat, and juicy that we often have them plain for dessert or with just a little whipped cream.

I’ll admit, I find the mechanical information of trains a little boring, but I love the history. Especially, that of the glamorous era of train travel, when you slept in Pullman cars and awoke to a special breakfast in the dining car. This French toast recipe is one of those historic breakfast options.