Feeding Beautifully

The last couple of months I've been trying to do more of the cooking. It's something I have always enjoyed, and always had a pretty good knack for, and always done a lot of - until the last couple years when I have been dating, engaged and married to someone who also loves and is good at it. We love to share this task (not at the same time usually, because some people don't share work spaces as well as others, and one of us definitely likes to work hard on something and present it to his wife when it is well-thought-out, completed, and beautiful).

But I've realized it's easy to let someone else being willing to do something for you, and enjoying it in general, and taking over when you're feeling really tired or morning-sick, to turn into it being his job. So here we are turning it back into a shared task, a shared delight. I might be back to doing most of it, even - except that he is pretty faithful to do breakfast every day while I'm showering and preparing for my early work day. I'm finding the fun in it again, and learning more creativity, and looking for excellence in how a simple things is done.

We are also (both) working at feeding our souls with the Word. Daily readings you can find easily linked to are a wonderful help for this, and ensure that you don't just skip to your favorite Psalms, or spend 10 minutes trying to find a good passage for the day.

The world has been charged with the glory of God, as the poet Hopkins so famously has written. It comes out everywhere. It's there in the growing and harvesting and shopping and preparing and serving and eating of beautiful and good foods; it is explicit in the pages of words passed down through the ages and the church; it is shimmering in the light on the trees you can't stop looking at early dewy mornings; it is leading and inspiring the kindness in faces that smile across the room and in arms that hold you and in hands met in the passing of the peace and in gracious words of forgiveness from someone you dealt false or rudely with again.

The glory is there. Sometimes it takes a little poking and pulling back of the leaves to see it growing quietly there. Sometimes it looks like contentedness that borders on the mundane. Sometimes it is waiting on the shelf to be picked up and opened. Sometimes it is in your cupboard and in your fridge and needs to be measured and tossed and marinated and grilled. And then shared. Glory is meant to be shared, given, helped with, talked about, received.

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I made this bread today. Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread. So very delicious, soft, and rich. I sensibly put one loaf into the freezer for busy July days when Baby is making things harder, but we have already eaten about half of the other loaf... not even as a meal, just snacking. I'll have to bake more bread, maybe even tomorrow.

And I posted this to facebook the other day when I needed a bit of encouraging for the day's tedious and seemingly-endless hours. 
I always want to be a little less weak, a little more purposeful. 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 has been on my mind a lot since Fraser read it at breakfast yesterday.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God."

Lengthy AWESOME Recipe Post

Mostly the recipe is awesome. But maybe I am tired AND happy right now (a rare combination), and have had some spiked iced tea, and have eaten several servings of this dessert today and can't HELP being a little long-winded and braggarly (which isn't a word? Why isn't braggarly a word??)

Fresh Strawberry Streusel Tart

 
So I made this deliciousness that I think might even be better than a strawberry pie. Which is saying something, since strawberry pie is so epic. Why is it so epic? Well, because pie is my favorite dessert, I can make a pretty darn good crust with my Momma's recipe, and strawberries are the best fruit on earth. Logic.
 
But this tart. It has a lot going on, on the flavor, color, texture, and plain old fun-in-the making front.
 
Most of this is from The Joy of Cooking, but as I said, I used our family's pie crust tradition (which I think is actually super basic, yet somehow not used by everyone and definitely not used to perfection. Allow me this one bit of pride?), and I selected which of Julia Child's recipes to put together and how. If you have her/their book you can find most of this in pieces and with different berries, but if you have the INTERNET why not use MY recipe??
 
---
 
First
make your tart crust
which is actually pie crust in disguise
and if the measurements seem funny it's because this is actually for 1.5 crusts since I think a tart is better with its crust a bit thicker than pie crust tends to be. And because crust is AWESOME and so so tasty.
 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix together
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teas salt
-Add 1/3 PLUS 1/6 cup very cold lard or butter (I always advocate using half each for optimal flavor)
Chop, cut or break the fat into small pieces. Pastry blenders, people. My favorite kitchen tool, besides the knives. Speaking of knives, you CAN cut the fat in with two kitchen knives. I've done it when I was for a short time without my own pastry blender, but it takes patience and way too much time for most of us mortals. The butter or lard all needs to be pretty evenly broken up, but not so tiny there's no texture left there. Think pea-sized for the largest pieces, and some variations down from there. -Chop chop chop, and never think, Oh I can use my fingers to break it all up and get the fat incorporated into the flour, because while you CAN do that, you'll warm it up too much and it'll get melty and your crust will be tougher and you don't want that.
-Add cold water. Probably under 1/3 cup, but add it in splashes so you don't accidentally get too much and so that you work each bit of moisture in carefully (again, with the pastry blender) before adding more. Your dough will start pulling together, and sticking to the pastry blender in between the wires or blades or whatever those things are called that cut down through it. You want to stop (adding water AND cutting it in) when the crust dough can be pressed together gently and stay there. There might be still a bit of dryish crumbly stuff in the bottom of the bowl if you go to pick up all of it at once, but most of it will adhere to itself and you can make a lightly-formed bulgy ball of crust.
-Set the crust down for a moment, and spray an 8-inch pie pan with cooking spray. Then press the crust into the pan and up the sides. (The crust can also be rolled out with a rolling pin, but I think this method here leaves you with a slightly softer, more shortbread-like crust, which is nice.) You can flute or press with a fork the edge. Prick the crust a bunch of times with a fork.
-Brush the crust with egg yolk. Nope, not white. This adds flavor and color, and I'm not sure what else. But it's good.
-Bake about 15 minutes or until it looks slightly puffed. Don't need to bake until golden, as it'll bake with the filling in it.
 
---

 

While it bakes
make the filling.
 
3 cups fresh strawberries, thick sliced or just cut in half (or probably any other berry, and maybe any fruit? But I haven't tried any others so I cannot vouch for how they'll turn out here)
1/3-1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp lemon juice
 
---
 
And make the streusel.
 
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp all purpose flour (or rice flour)
2 Tbsp unsalted butter (whoops, I used salted, but it didn't destroy the recipe. It rarely does, that little extra bit of salt...)
 
Blend until crumbly.

Add

1/2 teas cinnamon
1/4-1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional. But oh man, I'm pretty sure the nuts are why this turned out AMAZING instead of just SO GOOD. Please don't skip the nuts.)
 
---
 
Remove crust from oven. Lower oven temp to 350 degrees.
Spread the berry filling evenly into the hot crust.
Sprinkle the streusel on top of it.
Bake until the filling is all excited and bubbly and the nuts in the streusel on top are just browned, and the crust edges are golden.
Remove and cool.
 

*I have only eaten slices of this tart at room temperature with a glass of milk on the side, so I can't say definitely the best way to eat it, but I feel pretty certain a dollop of whipped cream or generous scoop of vanilla ice cream would be a happy addition to your bowl. Oh, and you'll want to use a bowl and spoon, especially the first day. It's a bit juicy. By the second day it's mostly gone, but what is left keeps its shape pretty well and can even (I have experimented here, this afternoon, for SCIENCE) be picked up in a narrow slice with the fingers. Dishes will be saved. Time will be saved. Deliciousness will be tasted. You will be happy in so many ways.

**In its favor, this is a rich dessert, which means it is heavenly and also that you can get by with a slightly smaller piece than you might expect, yet it's not terribly sweet (yay fresh berries! And yay not pouring in the sugar indescriminately!) so you don't feel gross after eating a little more than you had planned.

 

 

Flavors. Dinner. Yum.

Lately I've been poking around on this site, Budget Bytes, by Beth. This is not because I know Beth (because I don't), and not because we need to save money (though beating the budget is always nice), but simply because I somehow got a link to it and have found so may delicious looking recipes there. Admittedly I have only made a couple of them. But I have been faithfully pinning them like a true Pinterester for future use, and wow, some are just phenomenal looking.

Last night I made Chicken and Pumpkin Soup. We had leftover chilis in adobo sauce from something fancy Fraser made earlier this week, and pumpkin from a Christmas pie, and one last pair of chicken breasts from a package, and there are always leftover parts of onions in the fridge and partial bags of frozen veggies in the freezer.

This is super easy. The recipe says it takes an hour and 5 minutes, and that's about right, while during that hour you definitely have some free time to toss together a salad or clean the kitchen floor - or both, as it happens I did, because I did ten minutes of prep work earlier in the afternoon just after finding the recipe. I get a little excited about putting together a tasty supper, especially when the husband has done most of the cooking for the last week and I'm needing to get my own creative juices flowing again before he takes over. :)

I changed a few things in the recipe, but not enough to affect the flavors that much. I used about 50% more chicken and 50% more pumpkin (which was a pumpkin and squash mix, actually, since I baked up a tiny decorative squash that's been sitting around here forever. The picture is of the beautiful steaming thing after pulling it out of the oven - sitting pretty next to the dutch oven we use the most, this perfect smallish soup-size orange one). I used that salty powdered cheap chicken boullion, but it tasted fine - didn't need to add any salt to the finished soup. Annnd I skipped the fresh cilantro, partly because my husband doesn't really care for it and mostly because we just didn't have any (because my husband doesn't care for it, ha), but put a pinch of dried cilantro in instead. This is a delicious soup. Filling. Colorful. Spicy (go with the 2 chilis she suggests, and maybe taste it and see if you want to add a bit more of the sauce too; it's really not too hot).

I put together a salad from another source, but I heavily edited it. It was a Mexican Salad with Honey Lime Dressing, and as such had corn and black beans in it (which I didn't want seeing as the soup already contained those), and also contained jicama, which is cool but would have necessitated me running to the grocery store. AND the recipe would have made too much for us. So here's what I did, for 2 good sized servings:

  4 or 5 leaves of lettuce
  a tomato
  tops of 2 green onions
  1/2 avocado
  1/4 bell pepper
  some feta cheese

And the dressing. You only need about 1/3 of the dressing this recipe makes for that little salad, so be judicious with your drizzling of the dressing. You never want to overdo salad dressing; just enough for flavor.

These two dishes went beautifully together (visually and gustatorially), and I kind of want to make the salad again when we have leftover soup this evening or tomorrow.


*Sidenote: this made a lot of soup. We put some of it in the freezer.

Pretty Eats

Have you ever used Foodgawker?

It's a great way to find new recipes. The page organizes links to websites of good recipes, and it is done in a beautiful and searchable way, with new recipes added ridiculously often and counters for how many readers have liked and viewed each one. Since vast numbers of new links to recipes are added daily, they tend to fit well in the season we're currently in. The search categories are helpful, including 32 such as 'beef,' 'bread,' 'breakfast and brunch,' as well as searching by keyword, excluding by keyword, and searching by the submitter of the recipe. You can also look at recipes from the most recent day, or week, or month, favorite ones, or just a great heap of them altogether.

I use this page a lot, and in the last week we've found and used a number of recipes, including the delicious Ham and Baked Bean Soup, which I made on Thursday and we've eaten once or twice a day since then.

Still alive, and it's Thanksgiving week

Yep, still alive and thriving over here. Just not as good at posting things as I used to be; sorry.

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means I've been married for almost 4 months to my favorite fellow on earth, and it also means it's going to be easy for me to write something here. All I have to do is list some of the things I'm thankful for and ta-da! How simple and how perfect for the week we are in.

1. I'm (still) so thankful for this man. Being with him is both natural and unbelievable, and this new life together is both simple and full of things to learn. Fraser gives to me every day, somehow, and sometimes (like when we go shopping) even wants to give more than I want to let him. I love when I can surprise him with something delicious smelling when he walks in the door from work. And when he comes up with a great idea like "let's drive to Spokane this afternoon!" And when he tells me I am not allowed to go to work because I'm so sick. And when he reaches out for my hand when we are walking somewhere - even if mine is in my pocket already. He makes me laugh, and can stop my tears, and his laughter is one of my favorite things.

2. I'm grateful for our wedding photographer Chris Walker and the great job he did. Here's a sampling of our photos. http://chriswalkerimages.com/blog/2013/7/27/1/

3. I'm thankful for cooking: for the spacious kitchen, the beautiful pots and pans, and the full cupboards I have. I like baking late at night, and making quick scrambled eggs on a late morning, and steeping tea, and chopping up onions so precisely and small, and leaning down over a pot or fry pan to breathe the fire and life that is simmering there.

4. I love this book we've decided to work through (over the next few years, probably. It's 300 recipes, after all!). Thanks to whichever roommate or relative or friend happened to leave this behind and left it for us to inherit! The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia. http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-definitive-professional-ingredients-techniques/dp/0681020377/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385073811&sr=1-3&keywords=the+italian+cooking+encyclopedia

5. I'm thankful for fabric and needles and thread and irons and patterns and the Joann's store. Currently working on our stockings. And I'm not very good at it. And sometimes frustrated. But I will one day have cute stockings to post a picture of, I'm sure. Not to mention, to put presents into. :)

6. I'm happy to have family - so much family, and more all the time, it seems. Thankful for my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, who have been part of my world since before I could understand who they all were. Thankful for the siblings who've been best buds and good competition and tagalongs and little shadows and adorable frustrating hilarious human beings. Thankful for a new set of parents and grandparents, and their love and welcoming, and for a new sister and brother and the different surprising perspectives they give me on life, and things, and my husband. And thankful for all the kids who call me Aunt Bobbi, and the new ones who will someday. They steal my heart over and over.

7. Electric heaters. No explanation necessary.

8. Paychecks.

9. Winter sunlight. I'm about to take a walk to do a few errands, and thing that'll perk me up just about as much as I need for the rest of the day, and the week.

10. Chocolate chips. Seriously, when there isn't a good solid chunk of chocolate bar to grab, a handful of these little dudes is pretty much the best thing I can think of. I'm off to raid the cupboard and pop one at a time as I head out to do those errands.

Summer, Grilling

Summer.

Windows open all night.
Flowers in my yard.
Farmer's Market music which is almost universally bad but so bad it's good.
Baby plants for sale.
Cut-offs.
Porch in the sunshine.
That swelling feeling as your skin burns just a little.
Ice cream.
The blackberry bushes coming back with a vengeance.
Leaving the windows down with no fear of a midnight rain. (Or theft, or vandalism, for that matter. This is kind of the safest place ever, too.)
Packing.
Smoothies.
When a dollar buys 3 ears of corn.
Gloves and hand tools and dirt and weeds.
Arm out the window on the highway.
The way light looks on maple leaves. How can they be so green??!
Sandals.
Running in shorts and a tank top early in the morning, and still being warm.
Wanting to eat nothing but fresh vegetables and grilled meat.

It's been a good summer for grilling already. My roommate kindly left her grill here when she skipped town, and my fiance has been buying briquettes and getting quite skilled with lighter fluid, building pyramids of coals, long tongs and shepherding flame. What a guy.

There are so many options. We've done a few things:
Grilled corn on the cob (left a few layers of husk on to keep kernels moist as they cook)
Pork chops (rubbed with salt & pepper first)
Grill potato fries (wedges, sprinkled with some oilive oil, S&P and grilled slow)
Chicken breasts (with a bit of lemon juice, S&P and some chicken seasoning)
Kabobs of onions, peppers, zucchini, mushrooms

Last night we did Grilled Tilapia with Mango Salsa and it was fabulous.

(ingredients pile)

(marinade)
 (filets soaking up the goodness of lemon and oil and garlic and parsley and basil)

We shared cooking duties, as usual, although he ended up doing more than I. :) I bought some fish the other day & mentioned it as something we should have next grilling. He found this recipe. I grabbed a couple things at the store and made the marinade (which the tilapia sits in for an hour - or 3, if you're like me). He started the grill. I peeled and cut up the mango and he chopped peppers and had the stinging jalepeno hands. I chopped fresh cilantro and reveled in the smell that he doesn't particularly care for; he measured and mixed. And then he grilled the thin filets of tilapia over the hot coals for some perfection of about 2 minutes per side, while I stood close enough to soak up all the smoke, and make small panicked noises when I thought the fish was going to slide through the grill, and poke it with a fork when it was done, just to be sure, and tell him how awesome he was. We make a good team.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the finished product. My sister and her fiance arrived and things got exciting. There was a new sparkly ring to admire. The food was all getting done. Hunger happened. Wine was uncorked. So no photographic evidence of the end result, but it did look similar to the recipe photo. I guess our salsa was a bit juicier.

*the only alteration we made to this was I used all fresh herbs, and we used about 1/2 the jalepeno.

Healthy and Happy Potato Soup

Monday was a day for soup. Ergo, I went shopping for very specific items and made a pot of it. I had in mind my mom's utterly comfortable potato soup, but wanted it a little more refined and healthy, a little more bacony, and wanted to skip one ingredient hers has that I think just might not belong. It was a good experiment, and I'm writing it down for the sake of posterity, or maybe just so I remember how to do it again. My method is pretty relaxed and unmeasured, so I apologize if you aren't the kind of person who eyeballs it, or adds ingredients by pinch and slosh.

First, I peeled 5 pounds of red potatoes. The pot fed 12ish people, so it's a decent amount. Chop them up and simmer them until almost soft, and drain them (the fork goes into them but they don't fall apart; they will cook more after everything else is added). While they are cooking, cut up 2 pounds of bacon and fry it. A large onion (hot), 2 or 3 crowns of broccoli and 5 or 6 cloves of garlic should be prepared. The sliced onion, diced broccoli, and minced garlic are sauteed in about 1/2 of the bacon grease (put the garlic in only for the last minute or so or it will overcook and not taste as good).

 

Add the bacon and the veggies to the potatoes. Don't put the rest of the bacon grease in unless you like a thick skim of fat floating on top of the pot of soup. Also add a couple cups of chicken broth and enough milk to cover everything and a bit extra so it's a half-inch or so above the potatoes etc.

Salt and pepper generously and to taste - I think I used about 1.5 teaspoons of fresh ground pepper and at least a Tablespoon of salt. Cook on low (not quite simmering; it's easy to burn this milk-based soup) for an hour or so. Best with bread of some kind, not crackers. And homemade bread, fresh and warm, if possible.

Together

This is the morning-after of our biggest dinner to-date at the Jefferson House. Four tables were used, twenty-four people served, and eaten was zucchini soup, bread and butter, fresh pineapple, diced sweet potatoes with onions, mulled wine, and oatmeal raisin cookies. I love how generous my house of roommates is, and I love it when everyone comes together (including guests) to make table space and seating work. Two tables, many chairs, and a couple stacks of bowls, along with a handful of spoons, were added to ours to supply our every need. And a good time was had by all.

Apple Pie: poem #5 for April

Apple Pie

Into the oversized silver bowl
nearly-translucent half-moons falling,
thin pieces stacking themselves haphazard.
At the first few a faint ringing
vibrates the stainless steel, as a voice
rings the guitar when it's just the right tone
Next to the bowl, discarded bits of skin
a colored-and-pale curve of debris, shaven
deftly from flesh bound for glory, like the pile
of wood and and bark by a carpenter's bench.

Scents deepening with the cutting and stirring,
first the faint, lively smell of cool fruit,
then the quiet sweet of grains of sugar
and the brown strength of ground cinnamon
and finally the heady anointing droplets
of pure vanilla, dark as midnight.

Past the white-on-white dance uniting
dry dust of wheat and salt from the sea,
the slick of lard and cold of water;
and the draping and crimping of crust
over the edge of slant sides of glass;
and past the moment the filling,
faintly colored and gathering juices,
slips and drips from bowl into pan.
Past the covering, the pricking design,
and step away for sixty minutes, until
at last the door swings down and open.

Pale brown crust, puffed and settled
around and over its treasure, breathing nectar,
the overflow-puddle of juice blackening
in the floor of the oven, dark souvenir –
and you, reeling in the rolling heatwave
heavy like summer, bee-glad, swelling with sun,
suddenly smitten with heavenly grain
and heaps of glorified fruit.

The gift of food

Thanks 155-166

155. Grocery stores. Sometimes I feel suddenly overwhelmed at the number of choices to make there, unable to decide which kind of salad dressing to get. Other times, I am floored by the abundance of God evident in the heaps of food around me.

156. Calculating my money, the emptiness of my cupboards, and each item I take from a shelf at the store, so that the total at the cash register comes out within cents of my budget.

157. Slices of apples and cheddar

158. The Spirit of Food: 34 writers on feasting and fasting toward God.

159. Simple Americano with a pinch of sugar and a slosh of cream

160. The smell that hits me when I open our pantry to the sacks of apples waiting to become apple butter.

161. With the help of Emma, getting all of the dishes washed from our chicken, rice and gravy dinner last night. Brings back good memories of the fellowship, re-stocks the cupboard with clean dishes for today, clears the counter and makes us look like responsible housekeepers.

162. The multi-colored and-pattered plates in our cupboard that bring the same tasty things to each of us in different ways.

163. Opening my freezer to find the bag of dark chocolate chips I bought on sale a week ago and forgot about.

164. A fresh bag of coffee in the cupboard, thanks to Maria.

165. Communion tomorrow morning with my beloved church family, my Lord and Savior, and the rest of His body around the world and throughout history.

166. Sunday dinner invite from friends, and preparing our contribution to the meal ahead of time.

Food, love, poetry, beauty

Two poems I read today were about onions. Almost invariably I think of Father Capon when onions show up in books I am reading. His directions for knowing, looking at, enjoying and using an onion will always stick with me, nudging me further down the path of loving the little things. Capon's book, theology and cookery, is also extraordinarily poetic, and his way of looking at the onion is especially poetry.

But perhaps these vegetables are ultimately poetic, these multi-layered, strong and stringent, beautiful globes with pale pale flesh, filmy slips between the layers, lightly-striped and crisp golden skin. I already admire them for the way they grow in their dark straight lines in the garden, for their crinkling tops as they dry hanging in the storage room, for their perfect circles falling in sloping stacks on my cutting board, for the way they pale and become nearly clear and then honey-colored in the bubbling butter in my frying pan, for the flavor they add to my spagghetti, my taco, my salsa and my salad, BLT and hamburger and the pork roast. But today, my love for these countertop sweet-and-hots grew a little more.

The poems:

Onions
William Matthews

How easily happiness begins by
dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter
slithers and swirls across the floor
of the sauté pan, especially if its
errant path crosses a tiny slick
of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto
or chutney (from the Sanskrit
chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions
go limp and then nacreous
and then what cookbooks call clear,
though if they were eyes you could see

clearly the cataracts in them.
It’s true it can make you weep
to peel them, to unfurl and to tease
from the taut ball first the brittle,
caramel-colored and decrepit
papery outside layer, the least

recent the reticent onion
wrapped around its growing body,
for there’s nothing to an onion
but skin, and it’s true you can go on
weeping as you go on in, through
the moist middle skins, the sweetest

and thickest, and you can go on
in to the core, to the bud-like,
acrid, fibrous skins densely
clustered there, stalky and in-
complete, and these are the most
pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare

and rage and murmury animal
comfort that infant humans secrete.
This is the best domestic perfume.
You sit down to eat with a rumor
of onions still on your twice-washed
hands and lift to your mouth a hint

of a story about loam and usual
endurance. It’s there when you clean up
and rinse the wine glasses and make
a joke, and you leave the minutest
whiff of it on the light switch,
later, when you climb the stairs.


Valentine
Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Half and Half

When your sister brings a gallon of half-and-half home and you've been skimping on milk for a while, what a party for your palate. Here are some things I've been doing with it this week.

(Straw)berry Smoothie - ultra general and subjective recipe
Drop some frozen berries into the blender
Add enough dairy (milk, half-and-half, cream?) to nearly cover the bulging frosty fruit
Dribble some vanilla in there
Add a dash of sugar if you like (completely heavenly without it!)
Optional: add more berries or a berry syrup for extra flavor
Blend on 'pulse' until texture looks good and there are no large frozen pieces in there.



Creamy Potatoes or maybe Potatoes au Creme because there's no Gratin
Peel potatoes (russets or any old kind will work, but Red Pontiacs are my favorite)
Slice super(paper-)thin and layer in casserole dish/cake pan
Every few layers, pause and add salt. Sea salt is especially good.
About 1/3, 2/3 and at the top of the pan, sprinkle pepper and a very little nutmeg, and, if so desired, some onions. A word of warning about the onion: be very, very moderate. I would do half an onion or less in a panful for my entire family. These slices are so delicate most of them don't even constitute slices but distintegrate in your fingers. And the dish works without them too, they just add a certain little dash of whatsit.
When your pan is full, pour cream (I would advise heavy cream, but today I used half and half and it worked all right, just not quite as decadent and delicious)until the potatoes are submerged completely. So much creamy healthiness. :)
Bake at 400* for about an hour. The top will be all browned and golden (but not black; turn the oven down if that's gonna happen) and a knife will slide into them easily
Cool slightly before putting on the table. They keep the heat extremely well.

Vanilla Pudding
which I actually DO have measurements for, because it's from allrecipes.com, only I fudged things a little, of course
Heat up 2 cups of milk (half-and-half, people: more substance, more yummy) in a medium saucepan until hot but not boiling. The milk will have little bubbles in it. I stirred mine almost constantly because I didn't want any scorching to happen, but I don't think you HAVE to
While that's heating, combine in a small bowl 1/2 cup (or less) white sugar, 3 Tablespoons cornstarch and 1/4 teas salt.
Also get out of your cupboard/fridge at this time: vanilla, and 1 TBSP butter
When the milk's nice and hot, pour some of the dry stuff into the milk while you're whisking the milk. Do just a bit at a time, and keep whisking, so that lumps aren't formed
Stick a spoon into it once in a while, and when the spoon back is covered nicely with white stuff (it's not so thin that it slips right off), pull the pan off the stove and immediately add the 1 tsp vanilla and the tablespoon of butter, stirring until well combined.
Pour the pudding into individual bowls and chill in fridge for a while. Maybe 30 minutes. Maybe longer. Mine was done way before dinner so I don't know how long it took to cool.
Yummy served with sliced berries. Potentially delicious with almond flavoring and craisins served with dark chocolate on the side.

Coffee, cilantro, cleanup, conversation

That is what Saturdays are all about. Or, at least, what this one is about, now that I'm all graduated and not sleeping in after a ridiculously long school week and spending the rest of the day scrambling to get homework done that was due yesterday... I am beginning to enjoy this being-done-with-school. It is peaceful, and God is bringing everything together into a good routine, even while giving me plenty of opportunity to stretch out and try new things.

Here is my Saturday plan and my progress so far: Running, shower, scrambled egg breakfast and some quick facebooking with friends. Walk downtown to meet and chat over iced coffee in the sunshine while Train of Thought plays and sings not 20 feet away. Farmer's Market, where I couldn't help but stock up on some more produce (cilantro, cucumbers) even though I just went shopping. Now gearing up for some good hard work in the yard, whacking some thistle patches and extremely tall grass, mowing, and hopefully bagging up whatever dead plants I rake up afterwards (though I have to run to the store to get some good strong trash bags). Then later this afternoon, making some bread, and putting dinner together for myself and a couple of friends. My roomies are all off on various things tonight, so I'm inviting two close friends over to eat and hang out. Maybe we'll even see a movie.

I love the life God has given me right now. I will always be working toward godliness with contentment, which is great gain, and am nowhere near sanctified enough at this point in my life, but it is days like this that I feel His hand on me for good. I feel it in the sunshine on my bare shoulders and the laughter late at night with new roommates. I taste it in the roasted and ground and brewed dark beans in my cup, and I smell it in the smooth round scents rising from peaches piled at the market, and the dark and almost sticky section of the street that construction workers have been at for the last week. His goodness presses in on every side, and I feel it molding me into the right shape, the shape of gratitude. Saturday is the perfect time for me to slow down and enjoy every bit of this good life.

19-26: the bread of life

I made some bread for the first time in my new house. It made me very happy. Baking bread is one of those things that works like therapy (along with singing, reading, and working in the sunshine). I love baking any time, but it seems like I usually endup doing it most late at night when I want a break from my reading or just feel snacky. :)

This bread has no recipe. It's a very basic thing to make, though, and if you have practiced doing something for long enough, and give enough love and care to it, you are sure to get by just fine without directions and lists and persnickity rules. That is how life is, whether it is in writing a letter or getting a baby to fall asleep or sewing a dress. The same goes for driving a car, and grocery shopping, and raising a garden. You do it again and again until you could almost do it in your sleep.

It is Monday, and in this world, there are millions of miracles to be thankful for.
I'm thankful for a kitchen which has all of the neccesities for cooking.
I'm thankful that if you pour yeast and a pinch of sugar into warm water, it will foam up and keep on swelling even when you add other weird things to it.
I'm grateful for whisks with their little webs of silver wires and the clack they make against the side of a bowl.
I'm thankful that bees have factories to make honey, and that I can get mine in little plastic bottles shaped like a bear.
I'm glad that grapeseed oil is green and weird looking, but that it doesn't change the flavor of the food.
I'm grateful for the sun of an egg waiting in the white shell, and the salty little rocks stored in cardboard shakers by my stove, and that they make tangy yeasty water taste good.
I'm thankful for flour and the way it whisks into the bowl, flouffing like dry snow all over the counter, and how it thickens and tightens into stretchy white dough.
I'm thankful for my hands and the way they tell me how taut or soft the dough is beneath my fingertips, how done the loaf is when I tap it, hot in the oven.
I love how these things combine to make bread. Bread which strengthens man's heart, which represents the broken body of our Lord, which makes my toast and my sandwiches and the lovely warm buttered treat for during a movie at night. The life that was nurtured in wheat, then broken down and given to death, and battered and ground and completely changed, changes form into the order of bread loaves, and returns to life again as man takes it into him. It returns to greater life as it becomes, now, part of the Temple of God, part of this person which images the true Bread of Heaven.

venison on the hook

My grandpa and uncles were (and my brothers became) serious hunters, going out for 10 days at a time, horseback with pack mules, coming back thinner, with nearly-empty packs but enough dirt, facial hair and usually some bear or elk to prove themselves mountain men. The men in the family all enjoyed target-shooting, and usually brought in some kind of fresh game sometime during the year.

Yet Poetry Daily's listing today caught my eye, about a fellow who

"never—it was a point of honor—
Hunted legally—not antelope
Nor deer nor elk. He never had a fishing
License either, for that matter, never." (http://poems.com/poem.php?date=15050)

Here at home, getting some wild meat didn't really necessitate having all the paperwork and plans. Mostly because 'getting a deer' here meant something a little different. It seemed we couldn't keep any kind of critter out of the garden, and it was understood by everyone that it's ok to protect your own property. Plus deer taste really good.

So when I was little we usually got venison every summer or fall, eating fresh butterfly steaks and cutting up the rest to store in the freezer for later in the year. Dad may not have had a license all of the years of my growing up, but we didn't consider it poaching. The deer was usually caught up to his knees in bean bushes, or with sweet carrot tops hanging from his mouth, and we always made use of the meat.

But this getting of meat during hunting season without a license, or perhaps a couple of weeks outside of season, was something I knew was not quite considered kosher by 'the cops' (considered governmental authority to us kids). It was one of those things you know is all right, but that you don't want the world seeing because they might not agree with you and cause trouble somehow. Like the fact that my mom taught us at home, or like 4 of us sharing seatbelts before we got a rig big enough for all of us. There was no sin, but there was something like fear, especially to a kid who just knew that there was a reason to keep something quiet from authorities.

The meat gathered in our garden usually hung upside down from large metal hooks in the cellar for a few days, and the door bumped into it when you went to fetch some canned good from a back shelf. In the dark, the thump of wood on flesh (or, if the door happened to miss it and you stepped in quickly, your hand against a cold, hairless carcass) set your heart thumping just as hard, and fed the imagination. What if someone saw what we did every day? What if there were spies? Would they believe us? Would they even realize it was just a deer?

Baking with Naomi

Peanut Butter Cake
(Don't overbake it
Serve with ice cream or some cold milk.
YUM.)




In one bowl:
-3/4 cup softened butter
-3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
Cream together. Add:
-2 cups packed brown sugar.
Beat well. Add:
-3 eggs, one at a time.

In second bowl, combine:
-2 cups flour
-1 TBSP baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt

Add flour mixture a little at a time to butter mixture, alternating dry with:
-1 cup milk
Add
-1 tsp vanilla

Mix well. Pour into greased 9x13" pan. Bake at 350 for 45-50 min. Cool completely before frosting.


Rich Chocolate Frosting
(makes about 3 cups)

In saucepan:
-1 cup semisweet chocolate (chips, bakers chocolate, etc)
-1/2 cup half-and-half (or cream)
-1 cup butter
Cook on the stovetop until melted and well combined.
Remove from heat. Blend in:
-2 1/2 cups powdered sugar


Set saucepan in ice and beat/hand-stir until frosting holds its shape.
Smooth over cooled cake.
Best eaten with a large family around a story being read.

Fall & Food

This poster makes me happy.

(http://www.barewalls.com/pv-460411_Sassy-Chef-I.html)

And so does this poem:

To Autumn

William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest rest
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

Kitchens more Cozy

So I think the huge French kitchen was a little unreal. These two are a little more warm and comfortable, places sisters might gather around you as you cook and there might be some folksy music playing and you wouldn't feel weird going around sock-footed and with your hair a mess on a normal Saturday.

Amazing French Kitchen

I'll take this, thank you very much. I'll just walk down to the market every day for my fresh meats and bundles of veggies and cook all day long.

http://www.irlhomedecor.com/images/french_castle_kitchen2.jpg

A good way to eat lettuce

So, my sister-in-law knows how to make salad into Salad, and eating into a celebration. The counter of toppings was a beautiful sight:

chicken, fried, chopped

halved cherry tomatoes

cucumber slices

green pepper

carrot

sunflower seeds (salted)

cheese cubes

avacado

strawberries

cottage cheese

croutons

dressings (blue cheese, ranch, caesar)