Tag Archives: food

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These Days

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There’s a reason I love winter.  Winter is made for comfort.  Winter is made for cozying up next to the fireplace with your tea and toasted cinnamon bread, with your knitting, with your book (or with back episodes of the Doctor).  It’s made for snuggling up with your pets and your kids and watching the snow fall out the window (well, it would be if the weather would cooperate).

So these days, in between cleaning and dentist visits and getting school plans back in order, we are enjoying the cozy.  What are you doing to stay cozy?

Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Bread

Harney & Sons “Hot Cinnamon Sunset” tea – my absolute favorite.

Local Kitchen‘s version of Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in (Butter)Milk

Quick knitting project: a light hat I can wear around the house when I feel chilly.

 

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Final Day Challenge – Hamantashen

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Okay, so Hamantashen aren’t a true Christmas cookie.  They’re a traditional Purim cookie.  But, hey.  They’re yummy!

This recipe comes via my husband’s family.

Ready?

2 bars of butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup orange juice

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

4 cups flour

Solo brand fillings of choice  ( we like apricot, prune, strawberry & poppy seed)

Start by creaming together the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs, orange juice and vanilla.  In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt & baking powder.  Add this mix slowly to the wet ingredients.  Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour  – or overnight.

Once chilled, roll out the dough to about 1/8″ thickness.  Using a round cookie cutter (or glass) cut round shapes into the dough.

Place a dollop (about 1/2 tsp) of filling in the center of each circle.  Next, you’ll need to fold in the edges to form a triangle.

Start with one side.

Fold it over at a jaunty angle. The, fold the oppostire side at a jaunty angle, so they slightly overlap.

Now fold up the bottom.

Now you’re ready to bake them.  375 for 15 minutes.

Voila! Delicious Hamantashen!!!

And with that, I have completed my self – imposed 6 days of baking challenge.

I am exhausted.

But Santa is coming tonight!

Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukkah – and I hope all of your crafty and foodie dreams come true this holiday season!

 

 

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Day 5 – Florentine Cookies!

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Let me just say: I just love Susan Branch.  I use so many of her recipes at Christmas.

Today I made Florentine Cookies.  You can find the recipe online HERE.

To start, I made candied orange peel.  This is the step that took the longest.  You can certainly buy candied orange peel to save time, but it won’t be quite the same.  To candy orange peel you cut it into little strips or squares and boil it in water, drain it, and repeat 2 or 3 times to remove the bitterness.  Then you boil the peel again with a small amount of water and some sugar.

Once your orange peel is done, the cookies are a snap to make.

Boil together your milk and sugar, add your orange peel (I didn’t use citron – I doubled up the orange peel), almonds, extract, flour and butter.

Once all of this is boiled together it looks like this:

It’s pretty gooey.  You have to use a teaspoon now to drop small little rounds of dough onto your cookie sheet.

While baking they will SPREAD, so you have to be sure to use no more than a teaspoon.

See? You end up needing to reshape them somewhat since they don’t always spread out evenly.

Once cooled, you can spread melted chocolate on the back of your cookies, and, using a fork, make little zig-zag designs in it.  This is really just for fun, though.

I like to stick them in the fridge or freezer at this point to speed up the cooling process so the chocolate hardens back up.

These are unbelievably delicious and mouth watering.  I like to hide a few of them from the rest of the family for me to enjoy when no one’s around.

Don’t tell.

 

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Cookie Challenge, Day 4

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Tonight’s a short post to let you know I haven’t fallen off my cookie challenge wagon, but I’ve had a long and exciting day picking up 3 cows for Susan and driving them back to the farm.

Three cows in the back in my suburban, yes.  There are pictures to come, I promise!

But for now, Linzer Cookies!

First, you’ll need to start out with the same butter cookie dough I used for the frosted cut – outs: Susan Branch’s ‘Annie Hall’s Butter Cookes’.

The dough gets rolled out once more and you’ll need your cookie cutters – or better, linzer cookie cutters.  I have a linzer set I use which consists of a star – shaped cookie cutter and several very small cutters of various sizes for the center.

You cut out as many stars as you like, and half of them get the centers cut out (2 stars become 1 cookie).

Then you bake them and let them cool.  Once cooled, spoon a small dollop of jam (or whatever sweet filling you prefer) onto a whole star.  On a separate plate, dust confectioner’s sugar over the stars with the centers cut out.  Then place the sugar stars on top of the jam stars and voila!

Linzer cookies!

These don’t last very long around here, let me tell you!

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Cookie Challenge, Day 3

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Today’s cookie is so easy and quick you can whip it up for last minute guests.  I wove in ends and put finishing touches on a knitting project while making them.  The recipe is once again courtesy of Susan Branch, and can be found here.

Paul loves these macaroons.  They’re chewy and chocolatey and just enough decadent for holiday baking.

Since they were so easy and quick I have plenty of time left over to clean up and watch It’s A Wonderful Life (in black and white.  I maintain only heretics watch it colorized)  before we head out for a family tradition: driving around to look at all the Christmas lights.  It helps put us all in that holiday frame of mind.  I like to do it as close to the day as I can, because it gets us all super excited for Santa!

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Two (or three) in One Bonus Post!

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For day two of the self imposed cookie – a – day challenge, I made gingerbread cookies.  And sugar cookies.  I was an over – achiever today.

I usually use a Susan Branch recipe for BOTH gingerbread cut -outs and butter cookie cut – outs, but I discovered I was out of corn syrup and had to find another way to go for the gingerbread.  Luckily, I have a wonderful resource (other than the internet!): The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.

Also luckily, I found an online source to link to HERE for all of you of said recipe.

The dough is very simple to make, rolls out nicely, and smells divine in the oven.

There’s also no eggs in the dough so it’s even harder not to eat it raw.

Since I pulled out all the cookie cutters and whatnot I figured I’d whip out the butter cookies as well.  This is where Susan Branch comes in again with her Annie Hall’s Butter Cookies recipe.

This recipe makes a ton of cookies and is rich yet not overly so.

I made dozens and dozens of cookie shapes and set them out on the table along with frosting and sprinkles for the kids to decorate.  It kept them good and busy for quite awhile, and I didn’t have to do it.

Soon that tub will be overflowing with a cornucopia of sugar and more sugar.

Now, since I am over-achieving, I decided that in honor of tonight being the first night of Hanukkah we may as well have one of our favorite meals: Blueberry Blintzes.

Oh yeah.

I start out making my tried and true crepe recipe:

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 tsp vanilla

2 TBS sugar

2 TBS melted butter.

Whisk  all together and let it rest for 30 minutes.

While that is resting, I made the blintz filling.  I searched around the internet (well, Pinterest anyway) and got an idea for the general “feel” of a cheese filling.  SO I mixed up a cup of small curd cottage cheese, a package of cream cheese, and a quarter cup of sugar.

Once the crepe batter was ready to go I made them the usual way (in a crepe pan or frying pan) by spreading out the batter into a very thin pancake and flipping once it browned.

When all the batter was used up I rolled a good large spoonful of cheese filling into each crepe burrito – style and sauteed it about 2 or 3 minutes on each side until heated through and somewhat browned.

I didn’t have any fresh blueberries on hand, but I did have a can of blueberry pie filling.  I heated that up in the microwave while the blintzes were cooking.

When everything was ready, I placed a blintz on the plate with a dollop of blueberry topping.  If I had been thinking, I could have added a little whipped cream as well.  Next time.

A little bit of heaven on a plate.

 

 

 

 

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Cookie a Day Challenge

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December has been the kind of month that gives a person whiplash.  I’ve had school work to do with the kids, photo shooting to help out with at the farm, 3 days of awful sickness, a cookie party to clean and plan for, and decorating to do.

THIS week, however, all of that is behind me.  All of the shopping is done, picture – taking and posing are done, partying with my book club and friends accomplished.

Therefore, starting today – Monday – I am giving myself a completely unnecessary challenge; bake one kind of cookie every day until Christmas.  This is the kind of challenge that should result in a wide variety of cookies for us to enjoy all week with a less hectic kitchen.  It’s also the kind of plan that, once Paul gets wind of it, will create in him an almost manic glee resulting most likely in an impatient expectancy for each new batch.

Today’s batch is complete: Rugelach!

 

These are maybe our favorite holiday cookie.  Last year I posted the recipe and you can find it here.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s cookie: Gingerbread cut-outs!

 

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Turkey Day Recovery Mode

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Have you all recovered from the Thanksgiving debaucheries? We are currently couch – bound, still trying to recover from the delectable over – stuffing we did yesterday.

Thanksgiving has to be my favorite holiday, and that is really saying something.  I am sure my dad can’t quite agree with all of my reasoning (as he had to be in the kitchen all day!) but seriously.  We don’t have to buy anyone any gifts on Turkey Day.  There’s not a ton of decorating to be done (and then to take down afterwards).  We can wake up late and sit in front of our tv watching the parade all morning from the comfort of the couch.  And best of all (sorry Dad): I can sit on my butt and drink and knit all day.  Then, sometime in the mid afternoon, a marvelous feast of my favorite foods magically appears on the dinner table. (Also I do get to sample all day long because he knows just how much I appreciate his cooking).

Every year we enjoy two turkeys: a roast turkey and a fried turkey.  I ate way more than my share of fried turkey skin, I can assure you.

Uncle Daddy playing Vanna.  What, you don’t have any relatives with weird nicknames?

We spend a lot of time in the driveway waiting for the deep fried turkey to be done.  Thankfully it’s almost always nice out.

This is perhaps the most important moment of the day: scraping the roasting pan out so he can make the gravy.  I feel sorry for all of you who have never had my dad’s gravy.

Fried. Turkey. Skin.

Then there’s the uber – juicy roast turkey.

This little stinker took up a spot in front of the fridge where all the drinks were kept.  Whenever someone wanted one, she CHARGED them for it. A buck a drink.  Not only that, but my family are such suckers, they actually PAID her.  She and Oona made like $16 between them.

Then the magic happens. Creamed pearl onions with peas, roasted brussels sprouts. Roasted and fried turkey.  Mashed butternut squash with cranberries. Cranberry chutney. Dad’s incredibly amazing stuffing.  Mashed potatoes.

Oona “liked the Coca Cola best!”

This is the stuff of dreams.  I could eat this every day my whole life.  I’d be big as a house, but still.

Thanks to my still – temporary tooth, I was eating still after everyone else had moved on to unbuttoning their pants and snuggling the cuter participants.

And before I could even take a breath, Uncle Eric pulled out the Pumpkin Creme Brulee.  Let me say that again. PUMPKIN CREME BRULEE.  Oh yeah.  This family knows how to do dessert right.

Of course, don’t for a moment think we had to forgo pie.  Perish the thought.

This is why we are still spread out on the couch the morning after.  We were all so stuffed we felt like we may never eat again and we are still waiting to get over that lovely feeling.

Now excuse me while I go break into the leftovers.

 

 

 

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The Tooth of the Matter

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Have I ever mentioned that all of my front top teeth are fake?  I’m sure I must have.  They are all crowns, put in the year before Oona was born, both to make my smile nicer and also because my real teeth are pathetically soft and prone to problems.

When I was pregnant with Oona I had that awful condition where you want to vomit for nine months straight.  For the first trimester I lived with it, considering that with the first two kids the nausea subsided by about the fourth month.  But, after three months or so of constant sickness I had lost enough weight that my doctor became concerned and had me take a wonderful anti – nausea drug so that I could actually keep down food and water for myself and the baby.  The vomiting stopped, but the acid reflux and the nausea never quite went away.  You can imagine what none full months of stomach acid swimming around your mouth does to your teeth.  Especially when the taste of toothpaste makes you nauseous.

This is all to say that I wound up with cracks all along the back of the newly installed crowns.  They held up admirably the last few years, waiting to be patched and fixed and replaced as can be afforded (and let’s face it: who has enough money in this economy to be constantly dropping thousands of dollars at the dentist?).

This week one of my front crowns decided it had had enough, and while eating a mouthful of spaghetti, it cracked and fell right out.  Crown, tooth and all.  I was horrified.  I’ve had nightmares like this.  And here it was, fully realized.  I refused to let anyone see for more than a quick flash to prove what had happened, and was thrilled when I got an appointment first thing the next morning for a quick fix.  Fortunately there is enough tooth left in the gum that the crown can be saved (he used temporary cement to glue it back on for now)  and I don’t have to go for an implant.  UNfortunately, I have only the temporary save until the new molds and posts and whatnot can be done and so I have to be very, very careful while eating, lest I knock it back out.  Thanksgiving isn’t going to be easy. I have been very paranoid about it falling out again before my next appointment for the permanent replacement.

Teeth and dental issues are one of those things that make me unreasonably angry and fired up.  With all of the talk in the news about health insurance, where’s the push for better dental insurance?  Let’s face it, almost everyone I know has put off dental work because of the expense.  People sacrifice their teeth as long as they can before having them fixed. It’s not like teeth are unimportant to our health, either.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we got 3 sets of teeth?  The baby teeth, the set we grow as children, and another set in our 30’s?

When I haven’t been hiding my hillbilly-esque smile from the world this week I’ve been busy with some super – secret knitting.

Between the holidays coming up and friends with new babies and friends expecting babies I am busier than ever.  I can’t imagine where I’ll find the time to get it all done; and I haven’t been over ambitious this year, either.

We’re also enjoying cozy season by bubbling large pots of chicken carcases to make stock.  I love the way the whole house smells after a day of slow – boiling the chicken with herbs and vegetables, and it’s most enjoyable to sit by the fire and knit all day while it simmers and sizzles on the stove.

Oona likes cozy – season food as much as I do.  Soups, stews, pies.  Tonight I am making a chicken pot pie and she is more thrilled than you could believe a four year old would be for such a thing.

These are definitely the days I live for.   But with better teeth.

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Weekend Run – Down

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Now that I have a moment to breathe and check in, I can tell you how packed my last few days have been!

It all started last Thursday when I met part of my book club at a sushi restaurant to talk about an “extracurricular” book some of us had read this year: The Hunger Games.

It’s a trilogy that’s been out for a few years now aimed at young adults, but almost all of my adult friends have read it.  They’re making it into a movie coming out in 2012, so if you haven’t read it yet, I HIGHLY suggest you do!  I don’t know anyone who’s read it that did not like it.  Both Emily and I read all three books in about the same number of days.

And now that I have mentioned it, I am craving wasabi again.  Go figure.

Saturday was an early day.  Caroline and I took a class through the local Cooperative Extension dealing with processing meat birds.  I’ve been thinking for awhile I might like to raise my own meat chickens and turkeys for the cost and health benefits, but I’ve been squeamish about it and not sure I could actually do it.  When this class popped up it seemed like the perfect time to see if I was ready.

No, I didn’t take any pictures.

Yes, I did process a chicken all the way.

This is what it came down to: there was a chicken in a killing cone (the bird is put upside down in an inverted cone to hold it in place and keep it calm) in front of me.  If I didn’t kill it, there was a line of people behind me ready to do it.  So….I apologized and thanked the bird, and I sent it to its maker. After that the rest was easy.  Anyone who’s cooked a full chicken or turkey for dinner could easily have done it.

After the bird is killed (as humanely as possible, I should add), the head removed, and the blood drained, the carcass is scalded for one minute to loosen the feathers.  Then the legs are removed and it is put into a Whiz-Bang feather plucker.

With the feathers gone all that remains is to pull out the organs, wash out the cavity, and package it for the freezer.  This part took some practice, but Caroline and I cleaned out several birds and it gets easier every time.

All class participants got a fresh chicken to take home for their freezer.

As for the killing:  I am not sure I could do it if I had raised the birds from chicks.  Fortunately Paul is willing to do that part if I handle all of the cleaning.  Fresh, free – range, drug – free chicken is a beautiful thing, and with any luck we’ll have our own flock of them going in the early spring.  I can also tell you this: raising your own food (and killing it) makes you much more thankful and mindful of every bite you eat.  It’s very hard to mindlessly shovel it in when you’ve worked hard for it and an animal’s life is forfeit by your hand.

Emily won’t be thrilled.

Sunday was also an adventure.  Susan had arranged for Caroline and I (we make a pretty damn good team, she and I) to drive to Manassas, Va to pick up her “Rent – A – Ram”.  Every fall, she leases a male sheep from another farm to breed with her ewes so we have lambs in the spring.

Paul built a fantastic crate to go in the back of the suburban, and Caroline and I were on our way to pick up Solomon, a beautiful Cormo Ram. Since it felt like we were cramming a Ram into the truck I got into the habit of calling it “Ram Cram 2011”.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful drive up through rolling farmland (it killed me, every bit of it.  I need my farm already!).  We got Solomon and loaded him up in no time and were on our way with nary a hiccup.  We got him back to the farm as the light was failing and introduced him to his new pasture – mates.

I couldn’t have had more fun if I tried.  I didn’t get any pictures, though, so I blatantly stole this one from Caroline:

That’s Solomon being sniffed – up by one of my boys.  I can no longer tell Frodo and Finnegan apart.

He’s going to make some beautiful lambs!!!!