Food Stuff

Have you missed me? I've been taking a small blogging break. Something had to take up all the time I usually spend here. So, we've been eating! Since Friday's Feast is on vacation this week, I thought I'd share a feast of my own making, the yummy kind. To say "we like food" at our house is understatement extraordinaire. We cook. We eat. Therefore we are.

Breaking in the new wok from Taiwan with a batch of fajitas. I know, wrong culture. It worked great though! Our stove even has a wok ring that you place on a burner to hold the wok in place. It is so cool!

Can I tell you how much I adore pumpkin? I can eat it any time of year. This particular Pumpkin Cheesecake in a Gingersnap Crust was particularly yummy last week, especially with pecans substituted for the hazelnuts in the crust.

This is truly a sad sight. I only made this batch of brownies last night and Shawn and I are the only ones home! These are the best chocolate brownies ever, ever, ever, ever.........ever.

Brownies

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8" square pan. (I used Corelle greased with butter). In a medium bowl (I used my KichenAid mixer for this recipe) combine melted butter and cocoa, stirring until dissolved. Add sugar and mix well. Add eggs one at a time and mix until well combined. Stir in vanilla, flour, and salt until combined. Do not over mix. Fold in chocolate chips. Spread in pan and bake for about 25 minutes. Do not over bake. There's nothing worse than dried up brownies! Test with a toothpick for doneness. Toothpick should come out of center with moist crumbs, not clean. Cool, cut, eat. Yum.

You can thank me later. Just don't send me the bill for your new pants, one size bigger.

Happy Friday everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

I don't know how we could have forgotten the whole wheat flour...

Bread and Such

Having been recently inspired by a post about bread by Daisy and an ongoing debate about whole wheat bread at the homeschool boards, we decided to bake bread this weekend. Our search of the grocery store shelves turned up no contenders for whole wheat bread that was high fructose corn syrup free. We purchased whole wheat flour and yeast. Research on the net turned up this wonderful recipe for 100% Whole Wheat and Buckwheat Honey Bread. We just happen to have buckwheat honey in the cupboard from one of our shopping adventures last year with Gretchen. We were set, right?

Only, you know that saying about "too many spoons in the pot"? There were three of us working on this bread project: Myself, Julia, and Seth.

As I was kneading the rested dough, I reached for the bag of flour to add more underneath the ball of dough. Hmm, it was white flour. We'd failed to put any whole wheat flour in the recipe, at all!

The bread is quite yummy and makes delicious toast too. I'm sure the intended whole wheat version is equally good! Maybe next time we'll find out.

Julia and Seth did redeem themselves later in the evening by making individual, chocolate molten lava cakes. Chocolate covers a multitude of sins.

Preparations

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a day to spend with loved ones thankful of all our blessings, and of course thankful for the food. My sister, Kathy is hostess this year. She is a wonderful cook. I learned practically everything I know about cooking from either her or our mom. The usual holiday feast will be waiting for us tomorrow as we venture over the river and through...oops, I mean over the highway and through the towns. As my contribution to the feast I have been asked to bring pies. Guess what I've been up to this morning?

A messy cook is a happy cook I've always said. Are you neat or messy in the kitchen? Do you clean and wash dishes as you go or do they pile up until the end? I'm somewhere in between but closer to the latter.

Blueberry pie, with a kitty-shaped steam hole of course, and a well sugared crust.

Oh look, there's two pumpkin pies as well! It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without them.

No sense in wasting the extra pie dough. Mom always made tarts with the extra dough. They were the best part because they were so small and precious and because we could eat them right away! These tarts are filled with cherry berry conserve and quince jelly.

What are you having for dessert this Thanksgiving? Are pies on your menu? What kinds? Yum, yum. Be sure to save room for dessert.

Pie Princess

On Saturday we picked two pints of raspberries at the apple orchard. They are a favorite of one young lady in our house who immediately thought they would be good candidates for a pie. Yesterday I guided her through the pie crust making process and we scoured the internet for a raspberry pie recipe. Old Betty Crocker failed me this one time. There is no recipe for raspberry pie in my book. The recipe Julia used worked beautifully and was easy as pie!! It called for a top crust, but Julia is a crumb topping fan. It was a wise choice and tasted so, so good. Wow, warm pie and vanilla ice cream, what a treat.

Cutting in the shortening

Don't those berries look good?


Great job, Julia! We all think you should bake more often!!

Summertime Sensations

Last night was a treat for the senses, all of them.

Taste. The smooth sweetness of homemade sour cherry pie, a true summertime delicacy, the flaky crust mingling with the silky texture of the vanilla ice cream as it slipped past our lips.

Sight. The beautiful light show put on by the fragments of a comet's tail as they burst into flame in Earth's high atmosphere: The Perseid Meteor Shower. The night was so moonless and clear we could see the bright sash of the Milky Way like a belt around the sky, holding in the bulging light show.

Touch. The cool moistness of the grass at midnight as we picked our way carefully along the lawn to the meteor shower desired viewing location, away from the house and the trees. The warm, fuzzy blankets underneath and on top, the chill in the air tickling our noses as the Earth released the spent heat of the day. She wore no blanket to keep in her warmth last night.

Smell. The musty odor of decaying bark mulch, flowers that have seen their better summer days, and squash vines dying back to put the plant's full energies into the ripening of the fruit. The smells were magnified by the darkness. Our other senses compensating for our inability to see what was around us as we lay on the grass gazing skyward with anticipation.

Hearing. The symphony of crickets and tree frogs trying to drown out the hushed voices of the newcomers as they lay on the damp Earth gasping at each bright streak as it raced across the dome overhead. We were made aware of our status as intruders to this nighttime habitat by the many voices surrounding us. All day as we baked pies and waited for the dark skies the catbirds mewed at us unceasingly as if to say, prepare yourselves, summer is winding down. This morning the crows were here, cawing their arrival in the yard, announcing their domination of this post-dawn territory. When the days turn less hot and I again feed the multitude of neighborhood birds as they return from their wanderings, the crows will not be so bold. The jays and cardinals will send them packing.

Summertime sensations: Taste, Sight, Touch, Smell, Hearing. Each season brings its own sensations to our five senses. Enjoy the sensations of summer, it is rapidly slipping away. As I look forward to the sensations of fall, my favorite season, I am also keenly aware of the short time left of summer and am desperate to grasp hold of every bit of this season. The more years that are under my belt the more quickly the seasons change, and the more noticeably I yearn for a rope to tether them and slow them down. I am not so eagerly looking forward to what is around the next corner as I was in my youth. Savor the summertime moments, the voice inside my head entreats me. It will be gone soon.

Games and Goodies

Yesterday afternoon Gretchen invited me over for a rousing game of Scrabble and some chit-chat. I brought the goodies which consisted of Pioneer Woman's guacamole with some assorted chips for dipping and this luscious, fat cell stimulating mixed berry crisp. We devoured it topped with excessive dollops of whipped cream. My clothes will never fit the same again!

This recipe is simple as pie. Actually, it is simpler than pie. Here is the recipe:

Blueberry Crisp (I used frozen mixed berries)

3 cups blueberries or 1 pkg (16oz) frozen unsweetened blueberries

2 T lemon juice (I skipped this)

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup quick-cooking oats

1/3 cup margarine or butter, softened

(seriously, who uses margarine? yuck. butter all the way)

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

Cream or Ice Cream ( I used whipped cream)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Arrange blueberries in ungreased square baking dish, 8x8x2 (mine was a little bigger). Sprinkle with lemon juice. Mix brown sugar, flour, oats, butter, cinnamon, and salt; sprinkle on top.

Bake until topping is light brown and blueberries are hot, about 30 minutes. Serve warm with cream. 4-6 servings.

Oooh, here it is in the oven all bubbly and yummy!

This is the cookbook it is from. It is my old standby. Notice the worn cover and deteriorated spine. Kinda like me! lol. Doesn't it just crack you up that it is the "New and Revised Edition", then you look inside to find dated pics of ladies in the kitchen wearing their lovely yellow 70's smocks. Looks like a scene right out of That 70's Show.

The finished product. Go, make some crisp, gain some weight. You don't want me to suffer alone do you?

Rhubarb: It's Just Good Stuff

My lovely friend Gretchen has a treasure trove of rhubarb growing in her backyard so she brought me some stalks a few days ago in order to share the rhubarb wealth. This odd fruit brings back memories of childhood days swinging on old metal swing sets with the neighborhood gang; breaking off stalks of rhubarb to chew, our mouths puckering as we giggled our way back to the swings again. There is something about that red and green, sour taste that draws me back even today.

The memories of my childhood have been sustained over the years by the sweet-sour taste of my wonderful mother-in-law's strawberry-rhubarb pies. In the summer when we'd make the long trek to Maine her kitchen would simply ooze the fragrance of cooked rhubarb and freshly made cookies. She was always prepared for the onslaught of hungry children and grandchildren. My son would gobble down masses of rhubarb freezer jelly. Sometimes Grammie and he would have to make up another batch together.

Over the years I have baked my fair share of strawberry-rhubarb pies. They are always a delight served warm with melting-too-quickly vanilla ice cream.

Alas, at the moment I am trying to avoid foods containing flour in order to control my migraine headaches. But, what is summer without strawberry-rhubarb. Here is a recipe I devised in order to have the flavor of the pie without the agony of the headache. It met with rave reviews from several rapidly growing teens as well as my husband. Enjoy:

Strawberry-Rhubarb Sauce

About 7 stalks of rhubarb, chopped
1 large bag frozen strawberries, unsweetened
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch dissolved in 1 cup water

Chop the rhubarb and place in a large saucepan with enough water so that all the rhubarb floats. Add the sugar and cook over medium heat until the rhubarb dissolves into threads. Add the strawberries. Cover and cook until the strawberries begin to break down. You want the sauce to have some texture but not contain whole berries. Turn the heat to low and add the cornstarch/water mixture. Stir and cook until thickened. Cool slightly and serve over vanilla ice cream. You'd swear you were eating pie a-la-mode!

Chop and bag up your rhubarb for the freezer while it is in season, then you can have this awesome flavor memory throughout the year.