Pie and Sangria

As you know, I occasionally like to pretend I know what I'm doing in the kitchen. So last weekend when I spotted some rhubarb at Urban Oaks, I immediately had the urge to bake strawberry rhubarb pie. Which also gave me the urge to make something delicious to drink with it, and I found a delicious white sangria recipe.

I started the sangria the night before. I used this recipe and doubled it. The only changes I made were to substitute half the brandy with Grand Marnier, just because we had it, and to substitute the strawberries with raspberries, because I wanted to make sure I had enough strawberries for the pie. Also, it recommends using either lemonade or limeade, and we chose limeade. The recipe uses a lot of fruit, which makes it super tasty, but also takes up a lot of room:

The next day, a couple of hours before we were planning on serving it, I strained out the fruit:
After I added the ginger ale, there was enough room to add some of the fruit back in, but only a couple pieces. Doubling the recipe made one gallon. It is a really delicious recipe and I highly recommend it.

Now for the pie. This was only the third fruit pie I have ever made, but I have found that pies are a lot simpler than I had previously thought. I used this recipe for the crust and this recipe for the filling. The only change I made to the filling was to use Earth Balance, a vegan butter substitute, because I was planning on enjoying this pie with my friend Laura, who is a vegan.
I was really surprised and impressed at how jammy the filling turned out. Really, really good stuff.

Blog is having existential crisis.

Over the past couple months I have been reflecting on the nature and intent of this blog. The main reason I have lately failed to update regularly is because it usually seems redundant: while it doesn't bother me that only a handful of people consistently read it, I keep finding fewer events and topics that are not covered elsewhere. Those interested in knitting can find it on Ravelry, day to day happenings on facebook, photos on either facebook or flickr, and an occasional supplemental tweet. (Not to mention most of the readership is also kept apprise of any goings-on in actual life.) When I started the Day Zero project I thought it would give some more cohesiveness to my posting. It turned out that the simple items were too dull to write about, and by the time I finished any longer projects I no longer felt like writing about them.

So here we are, with Elizabeth Extraordinaire suffering from an acute existential crisis. It does seem appropriate, given how much of my real life has changed in the past ten months, and at least this crisis is in blog form only.

I welcome any comments and will continue to ponder if it is possible to keep this blog in an authentic way.