Sunday morning

It's pretty rainy here today...well, it's actually been pretty rainy for a couple of days.  When the weather's like this I have a tendency to get uber-domestic.

Yesterday I made granola (again), and banana bread, and chicken cacciatore from scratch.  The bread that is currently baking in the oven was started last night, too.

The last few days have been good for cleaning up the garden (between - and sometimes during - rain showers).

Earlier in the week, before all the rain, I'd set aside this sunflower head so that I could try my hand at toasting seeds.  I figured, "how hard could it be?"

As it turns out, not very hard at all.

I started out by separating the seeds from the head and washing them in the sink.  The seed head was pretty dry, and all the ripe seeds separated by the simple action of rubbing my palm across the flower head. Once they were in the sink, I picked up double handfulls of them and rubbed them against each other to knock off all the garden dust and debris.
They were then left to sit in the sink so that the debris could settle and the seeds float (coincidently, this step corresponded perfectly with the amount of time it took to check my email!).

Because I didn't think to put them in a salt brine last night for today's roasting, I opted to boil them in a brine (5:1 ratio of water:salt) for about 20 minutes.  They're still a little saltier than I'd like, so next time I'd probably do 6 parts water to one part salt.

Once they were boiled, I drained them in the colander, then spread them on a baking sheet for toasting.  They were toasted at a higher temperature (375F) than I normally would have done them - but - I was baking the bread at the same time.

I took them out and stirred them at 10 minute intervals to check on their progress.  I think they were in and out of the oven about 4 times...making the total roasting time about 40 minutes.  It was pretty obvious when they were getting close to done, as the whole house started to smell like roasted seeds.  Mmmmmm.

The inspiration for all this activity was a memory I have of big sunflower heads that Mom and Dad grew on the farm when I was young.  I remember passing those seed heads sitting in the shed, drying, while I fed that cats (I think) each night.  It's funny, the way that memory is, but I don't remember if we ever did anything with them, or if they just eventually ended up in the massive compost area that we had behind the greenhouse.  Either way, the sunflower seeds today are a little tribute to those long-ago sunflowers, to that long-ago garden.

Enjoy the weekend.

Lisa

Apple abundance....apple pie filling

My Mom and Dad shared their apple bounty with me - THANKS!

I spent a couple hours last night and this morning making Christmas gifts of canned apple pie filling (be forwarned, family and friends) and thought I'd share the recipe...

4.5 C white sugar
1 C cornstarch
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp salt
10 C water

Combine in a large pot, mixing well. Cook until thick and bubbly. Remove from the heat and add

3 Tbs lemon juice.

Meanwhile....

Peel, core and slice
6 lbs apples ( I used about 8 lbs for each 7 L of finished filling, but many of the apples were small)
I put mine into a sink full of cold lemon-water as I worked so that they didn't get too brown.

Pack 1 L jars with apples, leaving about 1/2" head space.

Fill the jars with the hot syrup and gently remove air bubbles with a knife.

Put lids on and process in a hot water bath canner for 20 minutes.


Whew!

I made a pie from the leftover bits of yesterday's jars and this morning's jars using a pre-made pie shell.

If you wanted to do this with pre-made shells (from the grocery store freezer section), make sure you buy a 2 shell, deep dish box.

Let the two shells thaw on the counter for at least 15 minutes, then pour the contents of one jar into one of the shells. Unmold the other shell onto the counter top so that it flattens out a bit.
Place the flattened shell on the pie , pinching all around the edges. Cut a few vent holes in the top, and bake in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees, then bake another 25-35 minutes, until the pie is lightly browned on top and the crust is flaky.

Let it rest for 15 minutes or so before cutting into it...serve with ice cream, or cheddar - or, with my dad in mind, BOTH!
:)

Happy Sunday,

Lisa

Kitchen Joy

We are back from Spring Break, getting re-adjusted to the schedule that is our regular lives...

I'm back with this lovely thing that is making my life so much easier - a gift from my Mom-in-Law - a mandolin. Woah, what took me so long to figure this out? Why not sooner? Hunh? It certainly does let me make all those elaborate, chopping intensive things that I try to avoid...and fast. I'll just try not to take off the tips of any of my fingers...



Got a chance to start my new gift for my fella...shhhh...don't tell him, okay? The wool finally came, so I can get on with it.



We spent lovely holidays with both sides of the family and got tons of cousin/aunt/uncle/grandparents goodness in the bargain. Took our old, deaf dog with us to my parent's house after she was cared for by my sister (thanks again!) and that was interesting. We haven't tried to take her anywhere but camp (and even that not in the last couple of years), so it was new all over again with the hand signals she and I have negotiated between us. We were out in the Kootenay Lake area - a definite no-leash zone. It felt strange to be the only person walking with the dog on a leash, but with her stone-deafness, I couldn't call her if she decided to take off after an interesting smell, a deer, coyote, car or an emu(!).

A sweet local girl took care of our cats while we were gone, so today I got down to making her some sweet thank-you's.

Now, if you've been reading the blog for a while you'll know that I do a lot of whole food cooking, a lot of food from scratch. If you normally tune in for a bit of that foodie goodness....stop reading now! I made something truly decadent for our young friend and some to share with her little brother (maybe). Something that involved buying two (!) devil's food cake mixes. And cream cheese. And butter. And shortening.



It's enough to make any heart patient cringe, but lordy these are good.
They're Faux-reos...yes, Oreo cookies without the trip to the store. Both boys said that these blow the store-bought ones out of the water, and I have to say I agree.

It was a first time 'round with this recipe, and I'll be adding it to our once-a-year, diet-to-the-four-winds cook book.

I can't wait to inflict these on my book club friends.

If you think you can stand the sugar rush you can find the recipe here for the cookies, and here for the filling.

Yes, the amounts are right. There really is that much butter, sugar, shortening and cream cheese in this recipe. Please do yourself a favour and don't look at the nutritional information. It'll only make you sad.

The good news is that it made substantially more than I thought...85 cookies! We'll give away 3 dozen, and that leaves us with 49.
Oh, make that 48.

I mean 47?

Would you believe 44?

:)

Lisa

The things that make a girl happy....

You know you've irrevocably crossed the line into adulthood when household appliances can make you giddy with joy.

If you've been reading for a while, then you know that I do quite a bit of 'scratch' cooking. I make the majority of our bread, granola and baked goods...we try to eat a very natural, mostly whole foods diet - and I love cooking.

One of the things that I'd moved away from in recent years and am just now re-discovering is how much we all love homemade pasta. A LOOOONG time ago I bought a Marcato pasta rolling machine. It came with cutters for both spaghettini and linguine. I always wanted a ravioli attachment, but never could see myself affording one. I made our spaghetti, our linguine, our lasagna noodles - all manner of flat noodles (even won ton and egg roll wrappers) with my trusty Marcato.
Recently I found myself looking online researching vegetable cutting mandolins. I've been wanting one for a while (my Mom in Law uses one religiously, and I think it would be a good solution to our 'never a sharp knife' problem) when I ran across ads for my old Marcato! Not old, mind you, but current! It would seem they are still making this wonderful tool, and all the attachments. I came across the ravioli and raviolini cutters and thought -" jeez, I'm a grown up - I can have a raviolini cutter - what am I actually waiting for?"

Well, I didn't buy a mandolin. Yet. But my raviolini attachment arrived today....

and I almost kissed the delivery guy! I can't believe how excited I am to have this gadget! Since I ordered it I've been brainstorming ideas for fillings, looking up ones in old cookbooks and hoping that a couple recipes would be included. There are two - but honestly, the manual is in at least 6 languages...2 pages per language, - two recipes is plenty from there.

And here it is, on my trusty Marcato.

I can hardly wait to start some pasta dough, clamp this honey to the counter and give it a crank.

I've already got the spinach thawing upstairs for spinach/ricotta filling....


Oh, it is the little things in life, isn't it?

:)

Lisa

Teacher gifts

Each year we like to try to say a thank you to our boys' teachers at school. I was out of ideas this year when I ran across a post over at Angry Chicken about cakes baked in jars. Whaaa? How perfect is THAT idea? And it inspired me. Yup.

It was as easy as making any quick-bread recipe...and I got to give away some more canning jars (I really am trying to thin things out around here before we move - no, no one has looked at the house in 3 weeks, but a girl has to be hopeful, doesn't she?).

I made Pumpkin Spice Cake and here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Spice Cake in Jars

1 c seedless raisins
1 c walnuts
2 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
4 eggs
2 c granulated sugar
1 c salad oil
16 oz can pumpkin

Preheat oven to 325-degrees.

Brush the inside of 8 (1 pint, straight-sided) Kerr or Ball Quilted Crystal (12 oz, straight-sided) canning jars with shortening (DO NOT use Pam); set aside. The 1 pint jars are shorter but bigger around than the decorative 12 oz jars, use either one. Sterilize the jars, lids & rings first.

Coarsely chop the raisins & walnuts; set aside. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cloves, cinnamon & ginger in a large bowl. Add raisins & walnuts; toss to lightly combine. In another large bowl, beat eggs at high speed until thick & yellow (2-3 minutes). Gradually beat in the sugar until thick & light. At low speed, beat in the oil & pumpkin; blend well. Gradually stir in the flour mixture until well blended.

Divide among the 8 canning jars (should be slightly less than 1/2 full).
Wipe the sides of the jars off (inside/ outside) in case you slop or it'll burn. Place jars on a cookie sheet or they'll tip over. (I used our canning funnel to fill the jars, so there was no slop).

Bake in preheated 325-degree oven for about 40 minutes or until a long pick inserted into the center (deep) of the cakes comes out clean. (My jars took about 15 minutes longer!)

When the cakes test done, remove the jars, one-by-one & immediately place a lid & ring on & screw down tightly. Make sure to use HEAVY-DUTY hot pads because the jars are VERY hot. Place on the counter to cool. You'll hear a "plinking" sound when they have sealed. I nearly forgot, keep the lids & rings in the hot water until you're ready to use them; you want the gaskets hot so that the jars will seal.

I did use pecans instead of walnuts, but aside from that I followed the recipe. Only one didn't seal, so we will eat that one!

I printed out the recipe (partly so that the recipients can make it themselves if they want to, and partly so that they can see what's in them - in case of food allergy or some such) and the boys decorated each one. We ribboned and tissue papered the top of each jar, attached the recipe/cards, and sent them off to school.

The good news is that we still have five jars to share with friends and neighbours.

Happy Holidays,

Lisa

**later edit - sorry about the wacky fonts...I don't know what's up there, and can't seem to get it to be normal!** -L

Why Saturday is good

Yesterday was lovely. It was cold, it was rainy and once we came in from cleaning up the Hallowe'en decorations, there wasn't much reason to go outside.

It was the perfect day to make granola.

I've been making granola since about '92, I think, when I worked for a family in Vancouver as the nanny. The Mom in that family had a recipe that I made regularly for them and have been making variations on ever since.

This makes the whole house smell amazing.

If you ever want to make it, this is how:


In a really big bowl mix:

1/2 C raw sugar (demarara)
5 C rolled oats (the old fashioned kind)
1 C wheat germ
1 C unsweetened coconut ( or chopped nuts if you have an allergy to coconut)
1 C sunflower and sesame seeds
(and 1/2 C poppy seeds if you like)

In a separate container mix:

1/2 tsp sea salt dissolved in 1 Tbsp milk
1/2 C honey
1/2 C oil (canola, sunflower, whatever is in the cupboard except olive)

Heat the honey, oil and dissolved salt in milk. This will help the two combine better (before you heat them you can call in your kids for a little lesson on liquid densities, water vs. oil based compounds, and emulsifiers - or not).

Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and mix well. Divide out on to shallow baking sheets and bake at 275 degrees, stirring occasionally, until toasted.

Let cool, store in an airtight container. Serve with milk, or yogurt, or just eat it straight out of your hand for a crunchy treat.

Confession time....

I make it this way now and then. Mostly I wing it a bit (as I do with most recipes). Usually I add about a cup of chopped nuts and more seeds. Usually I double the recipe. I do use the basic framework ratio of dry to wet, sweetener to oil, but I have made this substituting maple syrup for the honey (all or in part), or buckwheat honey for the regular liquid honey. The dry ingredients usually are somewhat dependant upon what's in my cupboard. I've used 9 grain cereal mix to substitute for part of the oats when I didn't have enough. Once it's all done and cooled, it's nice to chop up some dried papaya or mango (or even to throw in a handful of raisins or other dried fruit) and mix them in your finished granola.

So there. Go. Have fun.

Oh - and this is the view from our kitchen. I'm starting to say little goodbyes to this house (not that anyone has looked at buying it), and have started to take photos here and there of daily things I have loved living here the last 8 years. Looking out over the treefort that DH built has certainly been one of those things.

Oh, and a second confession...

We didn't stay in all day. We went to the hotsprings.


:)

Lisa

Blackberry goodness

Last Friday was DH's birthday. Instead of a cake, I made him blackberry pie. It's a recipe of my Mom's...I have wonderful memories of eating this pie in fresh fruit season growing up.

It's a fresh pie, not baked - so if your fruit is in peak condition, this is really the best way to show it off!

Although I made this pie with blackberries, you can substitute any kind of berry, or cut up peaches, or plums... you get the idea. We have a HUGE blackberry crop this year, and I'll be making this again soon.

Ingredients:

9" baked pie shell, cooled
3 oz pkg of cream cheese, softened and sweetened
4 C berries (rasp, black, blue or straw)
3/4 C water
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 C sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
dash salt

1. Spread cream cheese over the bottom of the baked shell. Arrange 3 C of your berries on top of the cheese
2. Crush remaining berries in a saucepan, add the water, simmer 3-4 minutes
3. Strain to remove seeds and add enough water to make 1 C of juice
4. Mix cornstarch, sugar and salt. Add the juice and bring to a boil. Cook 3-4 minutes, until thickened and clear.
5. Remove from heat, cool slightly and add the lemon juice.
6. Spoon glaze evenly over berries in the pie shell. Chill until firm, garnish with slightly sweetened whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Lisa

The best bread ever

I've been making the lion's share of the bread consumed in whatever household I've lived in for the past 17 or so years. Having children 10 years ago brought the first bread machine into my life (a good machine, it lasted me through every-other-day use for about 7 years). Our old machine packed it in a while back and Mom and Dad gave us theirs, which they didn't really use. It's a great machine and very serviceable (it's been in heavy use since it came to reside with us), but sometimes I crave the well developed crumb of a thrice-risen loaf and will make our bread the long way, the old fashioned way.

About 9 years ago, when Oldest was very small, I had a recipe for traditional French bread. It was a marvel of crusty wonderfullness, and somehow, through time, I misplaced the recipe and had no luck finding anything that came close...until now. I found this recipe while tripping around the web the other day (if it comes from your blog, let me know! I want to give you credit!) and thought it sounded about right:

• 3 C all purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 5/8 C warm water
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 C water, and stir until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it, sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put dough seam side on towel and dust with more flour (or whatever you're using) and cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least half hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6 - 8 quart heavy COVERED pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed, it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 - 30 minutes until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Makes one 1 1/2 lb loaf.

I started the dough yesterday at about 3 pm, and had it out of the oven at around 8:30 this morning. It's wonderful. No sugar, as the yeast has long enough to work on the wheat gluten and make a delicious, light, well developed crumb. Simplicity at it's finest.

I'm heading out of town here early tomorrow morning, to a quilt show in Grand Forks. It runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I'll be there in my booth with a selection of the fabrics that are in stock right now. I look forward to seeing many ladies I've not seen in a while. If you're in our neck of the woods, pop in and say hi!

Until next time,

Lisa

Rhubarb pudding cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix and spread in the bottom of an 8” pan:

• · 4C sliced rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
• · 2/3 C sugar

Mix in a separate bowl:

• · 1 C flour
• · 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
• · 1/8 tsp salt

And set aside.

In electric mixer beat:

• · 5 Tablespoons of softened butter until creamy…add
• · 2/3 C sugar (until blended ) then add…
• · 1 tsp vanilla extract
• · ¼ tsp cinnamon
• · 1 large egg
• · ½ C milk

Once this is all mixed, add the flour mixture and stir until well blended.

Spread over rhubarb in pan (it may not cover, but will spread while baking). Bake 45 minutes, or until done. (In all honesty, I bake it about 30 minutes in my convection oven.)

This is one of our regular birthday and other special day treats. We’re having it tonight because it’s spring and rhubarb is plentiful – isn’t that a great reason to celebrate?

Enjoy!

Lisa
* later edit* - I went to take a photo of the cake for my post (now that Blogger's letting me attach photos again) and, well, pictures don't lie. So far, rave reviews again. But how far wrong can you go with butter, sugar and fruit?
:)
-L