It’s always a good day when the delightful Rebecca Peters-Golden has a guest post for us. As a grad student, Rebecca has perfected the art of eating well on a budget, and today she shares her secret to getting through the semester without blowing the bank on crappy snacks. Enter the homemade protein bar!

It’s September again, and we all know what that means. Rather than the childlike glee of new pencils, blank notebooks, and Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers that once marked the beginning of a new semester, September now means figuring out this year’s program of how to keep up your energy during the day without spending a lot of time or money on snacks.

When I’m hungry I simply cannot behave sensibly (read: concentrate, converse, be civil to strangers). This makes snacking an absolute necessity. But it gets really expensive to buy food throughout the day, and, for those of us without easy access to anything better than vending machines, the only options seem to be candy bars, chips, or . . . horror of horrors, The Protein Bar.

I mean, look, I dig the occasional Clif Bar, don’t get me wrong; protein bars do keep up energy and distract from gnawing hunger. Still, whenever I eat one, I always find myself fantasizing about something better . . .

>> Homemade energy bars that you can customize to your taste, after the jump. >>

Please don’t call me a stupid girl, but science was never my favorite subject in high school. Despite childhood obsessions with dinosaurs, the NASA space program, and the process of mummification (yes, they did remove the brains through the nose with knitting-needle-style hooks), my interest in becoming a real archaeologist or physicist faded once I had to memorize more than the behavior of protons, neutrons, and electrons.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that making caramel, a highly scientific process, is one of my favorite kitchen party tricks.

Caramel is basically two ingredients: sugar mixed with cream. Sounds so simple, right? But there’s a clever chemistry that makes the business a bit trickier than you’d think, and here’s why.
>> Read on to learn the trick to no-fail caramel sauce. >>

Tomato sauce made from chopped raw tomatoes, crushed garlic, olive oil, and torn basil leaves is simply the easiest and most elegant dish for a late summer evening. When tomatoes and basil are in season, you almost owe it to them to prepare a dish that lets their freshness shine.

Truly, this is something that you can only enjoy in these parts for two to three weeks of the entire year. I’ve done this sauce with beefsteak tomatoes, plums and heirlooms. Surprisingly, heirlooms are too sour for the sauce, beefsteaks too, um…beefy, but plum and cherry tomatoes are just perfect. I just kissed the tips of my fingers.

That said, this is something I’ve made at least a dozen times and as I contemplated what to do with the nearly thirty tomatoes I received with this week’s CSA delivery, I decided to try something new. I wanted to push the sauce beyond mild and sweet and instead make it bold and hot. The answer was right under my nose…

>> How to heat up your raw tomato sauce, after the jump. >>

Today we welcome contributor Liz Petruska to the GFS family with her story of three women who up and did what a lot of us dream about: opening a bakery in scenic Maine. Spoiler alert: the Village Bakery and Cafe made its debut this summer, and we hope she’ll be back to share more stories of life as an entrepreneur as the business grows.

Seven months ago, over beer and ping pong, on a chilly January night, our new bakery was born. The idea was to keep it simple, to gather our recipes, mixers and aprons and start…from scratch. Our journey since then seems epic to us, three friends who share a love of baking and love to share tasty treats with others, but really our adventure has just begun.

On July 2, my two partners and I opened the Village Bakery and Cafe in the small coastal village of Waldoboro, Maine. The town was in need of a place for people to gather, and quite simply, to get a decent cup of coffee. Meanwhile, we were looking for an opportunity to pursue our passion for baking.
>> Opening a bakery takes more than 75 pounds of flour. Read on to find out. >>

Curing and smoking my own bacon has been on my to-do list for at least a year and a half. It was always in the back of my mind, even though things like making yet another flavor of ice cream or figuring out a cardoon recipe kept taking precedence. As winter turned to spring, I saw two luscious pounds of Niman Ranch pork belly at the butcher counter and promptly stashed ‘em in the freezer. The bacon day would come soon.

But after testing recipes from the grilling, bbq, and smoking primer She-Smoke earlier this spring, I realized my gas grill just wouldn’t be able to produce the rich flavor that I love so much in Niman Ranch’s applewood smoked bacon. Sigh. I would settle for nothing less than perfect bacon. What to do?

Generous husband Dan, who’s quickly overfilling the basement with Mike Piazza figurines, gave me that opportunity when he let me tag along on a lunch date with fellow sports and memorabilia enthusiast Paul Lukas of Uni Watch. See, Paul is one of two people I know who own a Big Green Egg, one of the best (maybe the best) smoking apparatus around.

Plus, he’s the creator of this shirt—say no more. So over a plate of kolbassi at Clifton’s Rutt’s Hut, we made a vague plan for summer smoking.
>> How the bacon-smoking went down, after the jump. >>