Randomday, with recipes

 The plum tree is going to have one of those years, it looks like.  You can't tell until you get right up close...

 but there are a whole lot of plums on it.  By the end of the month we'll need to have a plan.

The zucchini plants at the end of the driveway are looking very healthy, as are the volunteer potato plants.

 Quarta was supposed to help Steve cart away some of the weeds.

I made this salad - fava bean and fennel - to go with supper.  Although I had never had much of either one of these vegetables before this summer, it's very good.  I left out the parmesan cheese.  Supper was Steve Special - mac and cheese from the box, tuna, peas, and olives. 

I had plums from 2009 in the freezer, which was maybe the last year the plum tree was this productive.  So I made my version of this recipe - Cornmeal Buckle with Plums - for fellowship dinner after church tomorrow.  This was a recipe I clipped several years back and my adaptation is as follows:

Cornmeal/Plum Buckle for a Crowd

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9x13" pan.

Topping:

1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, cut into 1-tablespoon pieces
Cut butter into dry ingredients in a small bowl; set aside.  (This is the same amount as called for in the original recipe)

Buckle:

1 stick (1/2 C) butter, softened
3 cups flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 qt. size freezer bags of halved plums, defrosted and excess juice drained
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In another large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar and eggs until it is fairly light and fluffy. Add half of the milk and beat until smooth. Gradually add the remaining milk while beating.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients just until well moistened. It will be the texture of cake batter. Fold in the plum pieces. Pour the batter into the baking pan and spread evenly. Scatter the topping mixture evenly over the top. Bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.

I double the recipe for the buckle itself but leave the same amount for the topping, and I bake it in a 9x13" pan for a little longer than the original recipe calls for.  I did have some spillover - I could probably have just used one package of plums, but I wanted to clear out the freezer.  I'll clean the oven next week.

The Tour de Fleece continues.  Last night I spun while Steve and I watched Snow White and the Huntsman.  Tonight we may watch some Wallace and Gromit while the boys play board games with friends.

Today I finished all the blocks needed for my Country Stars quilt.  Whee!  Now begins the fun of seaming them together with the sashing.  I think I have the layout the way I want the star blocks to be, but I need to have another look to see if there's something that jumps out at me as being too much of one thing in one place.  I have blocks pinned to other blocks because my design wall isn't quite big enough for a queen-sized quilt.

"Education is about the only thing lying around loose in the world, and it's about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he's willing to haul away."
— George Horace Lorimer

July 4, 2013

 Daniel wished he had Instagram.

 Quarta made a fruit salad like she read about in Highlights.

Secundus was the grill chef.  Chicken tenderloins marinated in Thai-Malaysian Curry-Ginger Marinade for Tofu from Passionate Vegetarian... really good for meat too! 

 Strawberry Pretzel Dessert - an ode to my Midwest upbringing.  Pretty sure it passed for a salad at church dinners when I was growing up.

On my Grandma's china.  Grandma Maffett, not Grandma Bogue.  I don't remember Grandma Bogue ever making this, (and she was the undisputed queen of desserts) but the creamy filling is a lot like her Davy's Delight.  Which is a recipe I'll have to share sometime because it's not known to Google, apparently.

I got a tiny bit of spinning done for the Tour de Fleece today too.  We have hours to go before dark and then it will be noisy for quite awhile in our neighborhood.  The kids bought sparklers and spinners and those pathetic "glow worms" and "magic colored snakes" for later.  The best way to enjoy the snakes is to throw a whole package of them into the firebowl, according to Daniel.  We only do non-airborne fireworks, but our neighbors go all out.  Yesterday it sounded like a an entire fireworks stand went off all at once at one point.  Oh well, the country only turns 237 once.

CCXXXVII a patria condita

Lovage and Authenticity

I had to cook dinner the other night, which is nothing new.  I usually have to cook dinner.  It's just harder when one family member has braces and doesn't want to eat anything crunchy, one has recently become a vegetarian, and two of them rotate around whether they will eat vegetables or not.  And two of them have probably depleted the fridge of the ingredients that I was counting on.  My sympathy levels are not great for the ones who are old enough to fend for themselves, and they are all over 10 so are theoretically able to help at least a little.  Anyway, that's the dinner situation at our house lately.  Coming up tonight, I think I'm going to cash in my gift card for Papa Murphy's, and make Quarta make a fruit salad.

We had a bunch of lovage from our Grace's Garden share.  Lovage looks like a cross between celery and parsley; it's got larger leaves than parsley, and it doesn't have thick stalks like celery; its flavor is a little like celery but much, much stronger.  So strong that after nibbling a leaf, I decided it would need to be cooked, not used in salads.  It has a little of that "if I eat too much of this it will give me a headache" taste, if that makes any sense.  I also remembered reading something about lovage at my new favorite Ancient Roman food blog, Pass the Garum.  So I went there and did a search.  Apparently the Ancient Romans loved lovage, especially the seed, and used it frequently.  I found two recipes that call for lovage seed, not the green herb, and I decided to freely adapt them for Tuesday night dinner.

Sautéed Cabbage with Lovage a la Apicius - inspired by Sweet Cabbage

I may be very deferential to the ancients when I teach Latin, but I'm not going to give up my modern cooking equipment, techniques, and certain prejudices -- like you don't boil cabbage.   You just don't.  So I decided to sauté my 1/3 of a chopped cabbage in a little olive oil, along with chopped onion, ground pepper, and chopped lovage.  It gave off a mysterious, dusky, old-world kind of smell when the lovage was added.  Once the vegetables were crisp-tender, I added a teaspoon of Thai fish sauce (the nearest equivalent to liquamen).  And because I don't have any raisin wine handy, I put in a few tablespoons of honey and a splash of balsamic vinegar.  It was a very nice way to prepare cabbage, and you tasted the exotic flavor of the lovage without it being overpowering.  Just don't expect cabbage to cure all diseases.

Baked Chicken with vaguely Roman seasonings - inspired by Parthian Chicken

You can tell that I do not pride myself on my food photography, and that I can't really follow a recipe at all.  I still want to try the real Parthian Chicken recipe, but on a weeknight when I was tired to begin with, this was quite successful.  Except with Secundus, the vegetarian.  I had chicken breasts defrosted and ready to bake; I just decided to use some Roman-esque seasonings on them at the last minute.  I drizzled them with olive oil, then the juice of half a lime, then chopped garlic and fennel and lovage and a little cilantro, plenty of pepper, and finally some caraway seed, ground in my mortar and pestle.  Bake at 350 until it's done, and it's good.  Better than the picture.

So there you go - two Roman-inspired dishes featuring lovage, prepared in an American kitchen by a tired mom.  Enjoy!

Emperor's Day Treats

Every year, Cedar Tree has a Latin Emperor's contest for grades 3-6.  It's elimination, in the style of a spelling bee.  We toga 4 emperors, one for each grade, and all elementary grade students watch with great interest and partake in the Roman Feast at lunchtime.  I forgot to take my camera this morning so I have no shots of my 6th graders competing (it was a good contest, I had to come up with extra words and sentences than I had planned).  But I did document the preparation of what I believe are relatively authentic treats yesterday, treats which were consumed by students while reclining on the quad on a glorious early June day.

I have made Roman Honey Cakes before, and I decided to try for a little more authenticity this year.  There were 15 eggs, whipped in my stand mixer until they were thickened.  Then I drizzled in about 1 1/2 cups honey and was about to add 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour when I stopped, and realized that I should probably use spelt instead, since it's more typical of the grain the ancients would have used.

I do not have an authentic quern, so I used the completely modern K-tec kitchen mill.  I don't have a staff of kitchen slaves, so this is the next best thing:

It makes a lot of noise, but it does make a nicely ground flour.  I added it to the eggy batter and then I selected some spices:

I do have a relatively authentic mortar and pestle.  Doesn't everybody?  Seriously, I use mine a fair amount even when I'm not trying to be authentically Roman.  Although I did try to get the coriander down to a finer grind with the blender, but that didn't work all that well for such a small amount.  Coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, and a fairly large knob of fresh ginger.

I baked them at 350 for about 20 minutes, using muffin tins and nonstick mini-donut pans.  It's best to grease the tins well, and don't expect a light, airy cupcake texture.  These are like a cross between a sponge cake and a muffin.  They are nice to munch on.  I don't know how terribly realistic it would be for the ancient Romans to be able to beat eggs to the degree that a modern stand mixer can do though.

If you're going for authentic Roman food, you really need to check out the Pass the Garum blog, where I got the following recipe for Dulciaria (pepper and pine-nut stuffed honeyed dates).  It's quite delish.

Yes, I used my mortar and pestle twice in one day!  This time, it was to grind pepper the old fashioned way.  I mixed that with pine nuts (which are $26 a pound, so I only bought a small amount).  Then I stuffed the peppery pine nuts into the pitted dates.

Add a dusting of salt to the sticky dates, then make them even stickier by coating them with hot honey (about 1/4 cup simmered in a small saucepan; use a skewer to dip and a small fork to push the date off the skewer after dipping).  They were extremely sticky after sitting in the fridge all night.  The pine nuts have a slight vanilla flavor - I had never noticed that before, probably because they cost $26 a pound and I don't buy them.  The salt and pepper give a nice, grown-up flavor to this authentic Roman treat.

Yum! I'll definitely make these again.

Gumbo Afternoon

Silva Rhetoricae made the live auction!  This means it will probably sell for more than the actual material + labor I put into it, which is nice for me and for the school.

I spent most of the afternoon chopping veggies for Gumbo Zeb.  Yesterday our first basket came from Grace's Garden, so it seemed a good time to make a big batch of the Gumbo Base for the freezer.  I follow the recipe in Crescent Dragonwagon's Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread cookbook, which may just be my favorite cookbook of all time.  But, like my quilts, gumbo turns out to be a little improvisational.  Making gumbo is an all-afternoon job, and I'm tired and looking forward to eating it for dinner, and taking it to the fellowship meal Sunday.

 You have to do a roux.  That's the brown mixture on the left: flour and oil cooked together and stirred frequently over a medium heat until the flour browns.  It will thicken the gumbo and add a nutty, brown flavor.  On the right is a sauté of 2 1/2 bell peppers, 2 1/2 onions, and a whole bunch of celery in a whole stick of butter, with a whole bunch of chopped chives added at the end.

The cool thing about Gumbo Zeb is it uses all those greens that you are supposed to eat more of but most people don't.  I put in about 2 large bunches of mustard greens from our yard, beet tops, radish tops, Swiss chard, bok choy, spinach, and parsley from the veggie basket.  And I decided to branch out and put a small bunch of lemon balm in it, because it's a green leafy vegetable/herb, and it grows in abundance in our yard.  I did check my herb book to see if lemon balm could be toxic in larger quantities and it looks like it has been used happily for at least three thousand years with no reports of negative effects whatsoever.  So in it went.  When it was all done simmering I added the roux and the vegetable sauté and the seasoning blend -- 1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce, 1 T of Tabasco sauce, and 8 cloves of garlic were some of the key ingredients, with spices and herbs galore and plenty of tomato sauce and tomato paste.  It fills my stockpot almost to the brim.

So for dinner I cooked a pot of rice, mixed about 4 cups of the gumbo base with equal amount of chicken stock, browned some Andouille sausage and we're good to go.  The rest of the base will cool and then be packaged up for future gumbo feasts.

Yum!

Summer tomato salad

I'm participating in the 31 for 21 challenge, but they say you don't have to blog about Down syndrome every day and today is one of those busy days and yesterday's post took a long time and I've been waiting to share this photo for a week, so here goes:

I can never have enough of this salad.  When the tomatoes are finally ripe, I cut some of them up, together with about an equal amount of peeled cucumbers.  Red onion is nice, but I had a leek so I used it here.  And sweet basil leaves are a must... although I usually chop them.  Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with salt and maybe a little freshly ground pepper.  The only problem is it was too big for the bowl.

It was a busy day today and we finally redeemed our coupons for the Mexican restaurant that we got at the auction last May.  I'll relate one little cute story about Tertia* before signing off... we were ushered in and asked if we would need any kids' menus.  She stated, "I'm 13 now," and that was the end of kids' menus for her!  She ordered a taco salad.  And said "Gracias!" every time the waiter came to our table.  She knows how it should be done!



* blogname for my 3rd daughter, the one with Down syndrome.

Randomday - Wat's in the Crockpot

You never know wat you're going to get on Randomday! 

Wat's in the crockpot?  Wat's in the crockpot!  (Wat was in the crockpot earlier in the week, actually, I'm just blogging about it today.)

This one's for you, Dad.  I used a recipe from Stephanie O'Dea's latest book, but it's also on her website A Year of Slow Cooking.   Ethiopian Chicken Stew, also known as Doro Wat.  My mom always made it with beef and served it with pancakes, to replicate the injeera bread that is the authentic way to serve it.  It was always too spicy for us kids to eat, so we had a pancake supper!  But we might venture to eat one of the hard-boiled eggs that had absorbed some of the sauce, just enough enough to know what Wat tastes like.

I tinkered with this recipe a bit... I added chopped kale since I had it and I like greens cooked along with my meat.  I didn't have enough hard-boiled eggs, but that worked out okay.  And I didn't add water since I remember our family Wat being a very thick stew.

1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
5-6 boneless skinless chicken thighs, frozen
Juice of half a lemon
1 T butter
2 diced onions
1 t. ginger
1 T. paprika
1 t. cayenne pepper (more if you're my Dad)
1/2 t. black pepper
1 t. turmeric
1 bunch kale or other greens, chopped
1 hardboiled egg for each diner, peeled, to add later

Add everything to the crockpot except the eggs.  Add water if desired, up to 2 cups if you want a more soup-like stew.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or high for 4-5.  Stir once or twice during cooking.  Add the eggs about 15 minutes before serving.

I served this with rice in the time-honored Bogue tradition.  It was very good, although I think the Wat spices blend that came from Ethiopia propbably had a few secret ingredients in it that I don't have in this recipe.  And as good as it was, I had a bit of an upset stomach for a few days afterwards... so go cautiously with that cayenne.  This is 1-handkerchief Wat, Dad.  You would probably like a full tablespoon of cayenne!

S'Mores Pizza

After watching several episodes of "Cupcake Wars," Quarta had a brilliant idea last weekend as she was making pizza for us.  There was enough extra dough for her to try making a dessert pizza, and she decided to make a S'Mores flavored one.  And it was delicious!

She was a little disappointed to see the flyer that came a few days later for a S'Mores pizza from Papa Murphy's.  She honestly came up with the idea on her own.

Spinach Noodle Bake

It's the time for spring greens and early harvests from the garden, so I'm sharing one of our family's favorite recipes today.  All of the kids like it, except that the 2 girls don't really like the way I made it yesterday, which was with half mustard greens instead of all spinach.  But I used the mustard greens anyway, because we have a lot of them and they're just going to reseed themselves soon.  With us just picking up our first basket of the season from Grace's Garden, I'm pretty sure we're going to need to cook a lot of greens recipes.  This is one that works very well as a main dish.  It doesn't seem to matter to my meat-loving boys that it's vegetarian.

I uprooted two plants of mustard that were growing wild by the blueberry bush and got a really big bunch.  I chopped it and cooked it in water, then picked up the rest of the recipe as usual.

Spinach Noodle Bake

2 8-oz packages frozen, chopped spinach (I used 1 package plus the aforementioned large bunch of mustard greens)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (you could get all foodie on me and make your own white sauce, but this is what I use.  I'm plebeian that way.)
Seasonings: Fines Herbes or Tarragon, garlic powder, seasoned salt, pepper, oregano, onion powder - all to taste
shredded mozzarella or Swiss cheese - about 2-3 cups
wide egg noodles - about 8 cups
paprika
poppy seeds

Cook the greens and then drain them; add the can of soup, and season to taste with seasoned salt, fines herbes, etc.  The fines herbes or tarragon adds a very faint licorice taste that works well with spinach and makes you think of elegant French dishes.

Meanwhile, boil the noodles in plenty of water until al dente.  Drain them and put half of them in a greased or Pammed 9x13" casserole dish.  Cover the noodles with a layer of cheese, spread the spinach/greens mixture on top, and then top with the rest of the noodles and another layer of cheese.  Sprinkle the top with paprika and poppy seeds.  Bake at about 375 degrees for about 25 minutes or until heated through and sufficiently melty.

Despite the fact that this looks like something that Calvin's mother (of Calvin and Hobbes) made him eat against his will, this is really tasty.  If you teach your kids young to eat it, they will grow up loving it.  It was on the menu at Primigenitus' 1st birthday party, and has been a favorite ever since.  I am not making this up!

Homemade Granola

Homemade granola is the ultimate comfort food/ breakfast food as far as I'm concerned.  My family always wants "fruit cereal" which averages $4 a box or so.  Homemade granola can be made in large batches, so lasts longer, tastes better, and probably is better for you.  I haven't priced it but I'm pretty sure it's cheaper, and it definitely uses less packaging.  As an additional benefit, it makes your house smell even better than baking bread does while you're making it.  Try some!  A sort-of recipe follows:

Here's how I do it: Preheat oven to 375; spray 3 9x13" pans with Pam, and fill them with a mix of grains: mostly old fashioned rolled oats (I buy these in 25# bags and store in a bin in the pantry), 5-grain or 7-grain cereal from the bulk bins at the store, and maybe a little flax seed.  Just about that much, I've no idea of actual poundage or cup quantity.  See that spoon over in the right pan?  You'll be doing a lot of stirring.

Now get your liquids heated up.  I didn't measure, but you want about a cup or 1 1/2 cups of honey, a cup or so of oil, and maybe a little (1/2 C or so) flavorful juice if you like.  Apple juice, orange juice, cranberry juice can all work; I used Mongo Mango juice this time.  Heat in the microwave until it's bubbly.  A little cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc, can be added to the liquids here, or stirred in with the grains.  You can also go exotic with orange or lemon peel, lemon juice, orange liqueur, vanilla, cocoa powder -- whatever enhances the flavor theme you are trying to develop.  Add anything with alcohol or subtle flavors AFTER microwaving.  Pour the liquids evenly over the grains.  Stir, stir, stir.  Pop the pans into the oven for 20 minutes.  Take out and stir, stir, stir.  Put back in for another 20 minutes; stir; add any nuts you would like to have toasted along with the grains; return to oven for a final 20 minutes.  At this point it should be nicely toasted and you can remove from the oven and let cool without stirring; or you might decide it needs another 10-20 minutes of baking.

You will need to fend off the snitchers for awhile until it cools.  Then add your chosen dried fruit and nuts (if you didn't add them earlier).   Again, I don't measure but go for a large handful of fruit and slightly smaller handful of nuts in each pan.  This batch used slivered almonds and dried blueberries (and a tiny amount of golden raisins I had leftover).  By waiting to stir it for the final time until after it's cool, you will end up with a few more clumps of grains stuck together -- which is a good thing in granola.

When I make granola, I plan in advance when I'm doing my weekly grocery shopping.  I buy the mixed-grain cereal, the honey, nuts, and dried fruits to fit whatever flavor theme I want.  Some themes you might like to try:

dried apples, raisins, dates, walnuts
coconut, pineapple, mango
apricot, golden raisins, pecans
dried cherries and blueberries
orange honey, orange peel, orange liqueur, cloves, cinnamon, raisins, pecans

Kitchen shears are great for snipping larger pieces of dried fruits into bite sizes.  Store in an airtight container and watch it disappear fast.

Paella a la Costco

Some nights I just don't feel like cooking.  This week has had a lot of those nights.  I've been scrambling to print out final exams, restock the pantry after last week's deluge, and now grade final exams.  Yesterday when the usual inquiries after dinner began, I decided to throw the Costco chicken and apple sausages in the oven and make a rice dish to go with them, somewhat inspired by paella but without any meat... because the meat was in the sausages.  Practically all the ingredients for this lovely looking dish came from Costco.  The day before we had Costco chicken for dinner and I made stock afterwards from the bones in the crockpot.  I used the stock to cook the rice dish: I had thought I'd make soup, but didn't have the energy to make it.  It came out so pretty that I had to take a picture, and I knew I'd be in the throes of grading tonight so thought it might be an easy blog entry.  Here's my approximation of a recipe, because I didn't take notes.

Put a swirl of olive oil in the Dutch oven and saute a chopped onion and several sliced mini sweet peppers.  Add about 1/2 C lentils and 2 C Jasmine rice, some chopped snap peas, and saute slightly.  Add 4 C chicken stock, the dab of tomato soup and small serving of leftover broccoli that was languishing in the fridge, several chopped Kalamata olives, some chopped fresh cilantro, some seasonings (salt, pepper, smoked Spanish paprika, thyme, basil, etc.)  When the stock comes to a boil give it one last stir, put some thin lemon slices (Meyer lemons from Costco, supposedly they're "chef's choice") on top, turn the heat to low and put the lid on.  Leave it to cook for 25 minutes while whatever meat you're planning heats up, and get someone else to set the table and toss a salad.

I don't know if you can call it paella if it doesn't have meat in it, but it's a whole lot nicer than rice-a-roni and not that much harder.

The Last Noel: Q&A

I was a party hostess instead of a blogger for the last few days, so here are some of the frequently asked questions about our Last Noel party Friday night.

Q. So how long have you guys been doing the Last Noel, your fabulously popular end-of-the-holiday-season open house?
A. It started when we were newlyweds in 1992, but it was before Christmas then.  It shifted to after New Year's when we had small children and were always travelling over Christmas.  There were several years when it didn't happen at all, but it's become an annual tradition since we moved out here.

Q. How did it get to be such a cool event?
A. Honestly, we have no idea.  We do not see ourselves as the kind of people who throw the coolest party of the season.  Hungry teenage boys, sloppy joes, and word of mouth might have something to do with it.

Q. What's the menu?
A. Sloppy joes, pasta salad, veggies and dip, potato chips, coffee, tea, hot cider, punch, and assorted Christmas cookies.

Q. How much food do you buy for it every year?
A. 15 pounds ground beef, 96 buns, 2 pounds of pasta and lots of assorted vegetables, 2-3 Costco sized bags of chips, 3 gallons apple cider, 3 gallons cranberry juice, 3 2-liter bottles of lemon-lime soda, 3 2-liter bottles of flavored seltzer water.  (This is more for my own future reference than yours).

Q. How many sloppy joes does the average teenage boy eat? 
A. It appears to be 3.  Two if they are holding back, or ate before they came.

Q. Is it really true that no one is allowed to have a Christmas party after the Last Noel, until next Christmas season?
A. No, that's just something I told my 7th grade class, and they're literal enough to believe me.  I wonder how they think I'd enforce that?  But I don't think anyone would want to have a Christmas party after the first full week of January.

Q. Do you have to clean the house furiously beforehand?
A. No.  This is actually a key part of it.  We clean, but not obsessively, and the piles of papers stay pretty much in place.  The tree doesn't come down until after the last guests leave, although they may be invited to help undecorate if they wish.

Q. How many people show up for this thing?
A. It varies from year to year.  We had about 75 people this time; not as many as some years, but most of them stayed longer.

Q. Music?
A. We have about 15 hours worth of Christmas music queued up.  Steve is in charge of that.  He tends to favor Baltimore Consort and the choir of King's College Cambridge.  I like to add a little Vince Guaraldi and Mannheim Steamroller into the mix.  We both like all the Celtic Christmas albums.

Q. Was this year's Last Noel successful?
A. I'd say so.  None of the kids had nosebleeds or needed an ice pack this year.  The noise level was intense, but the crowd managed itself pretty well.  Serious conversations took place in the dining room, the boys headed upstairs to hang out with Primigenitus, younger kids in the family room, and various groupings of lively conversationalists in the kitchen and living rooms.  Muffball remained in deep hiding in the basement and poked her nose out at about 10:30 when she was sure everyone had gone.  We took the tree down and vacuumed most of the little cedar seeds and debris up before going to bed.

Q. Have you ever in your life been more tired than the Saturday after the Last Noel?
A. No, I don't think so.  I may recover in time for school tomorrow, but I am definitely not as young as I used to be.

Q. When are you going to share the recipe for those fabulous filled raisin cookies pictured above?
A. Tomorrow.  They're worth waiting for.

Pumpkin and Mustard Greens Colcannon Soup

Here's the soup I made for yesterday's church dinner.  Colcannon is an Irish dish with mashed potatoes and cabbage, and this is loosely based on a recipe by Crescent Dragonwagon who wrote my favorite cookbook.  But I added pumpkin puree, which I make up from the pumpkins the kids bring home in the fall even if they're not pie pumpkins, and mustard greens from our garden.  It had a sharp, tangy flavor from the mustard but the sweetness of the pumpkin takes some of the nip out of it.  It's great comfort food on a cold day.

Here's my recipe: assume "approximately" in front of every ingredient, because I didn't measure.

1 1/2 C chopped onions
2 T butter
1 bunch mustard, washed thoroughly to remove bits of cedar scales and dirt, and sliced into ribbons (you could use frozen greens such as spinach, kale, or collards instead)
4-5 potatoes, peeled and diced
6-7 cups water (you could use chicken or vegetable stock, but I didn't)
2 cloves garlic
4 C pureed pumpkin or squash
salt to taste (I used about 2 t.)
pepper to taste
red pepper to taste (I used Aleppo pepper from Penzey's spices; omit if you don't want too much spice)
1-2 C milk
1/2 C cream

Saute onions until clear in butter: add mustard and saute if fresh: otherwise add water and mustard, potatoes, and garlic; bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes until potatoes are soft.  Add pumpkin and puree with immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender; leaving it chunky is also an option.  Add salt and pepper to taste; shortly before serving add milk and cream and heat just until hot.

WIP Wednesday: Pre-Thanksgiving edition

This WIP Wednesday, my two lovely assistants are helping to display my finished top for the Happy Quilting STARS quilt-along.  Which was put together except for the borders weeks ago.  Now I need to get it onto the frame and quilt it.  I think it will be another quilt to donate to the Cedar Tree auction, like the Crumb-Along quilt.

Final dimensions on this are about 61"x 85".  Should be good for a twin bed.  Definitely a girl's quilt!

Other WIPs this week: I finished the Crumb-Along top, as mentioned above; I did 5 more Farmer's Wife blocks, I cleaned my sewing area a little, and now I have it messy again thinking about jumping into the Orca Bay mystery with Bonnie Hunter.  That's an awful lot of cutting and sewing, and I need to get some of these tops quilted, so we'll have to see.  But it looks very fun and scrappy, if you can manage all those tiny triangles.

Right now, I'm more concerned with WIPs in the "food for Thanksgiving" medium.

Pies: 1 apple, 1 blueberry, 2 pumpkin and 1 pumpkin custard.  1 bird, presumably defrosted, 18 pounds; a triple batch of cranberry sauce.  Still to do tonight: saute celery and onions for stuffing, put my feet up and knit for a few hours.  Tomorrow I will be peeling potatoes and actually cooking the bird.

Handy Latin saying for tomorrow: "Da mihi, amabo, plus solanorum tuberosorum tunsorum et iuris!" (*Pass me some more mashed potatoes and gravy, please!)

Emperor's Day

The weather was chilly and the competition for 3rd grade was long and intense, but we toga'd our 4 emperors and led them in a triumphal parade around campus.

Then they gave the sheets back so they could play kickball.

High school students, having just read the Lord of the Rings, were celebrating Middle Earth Day.  Even hobbits and elven-maids have to go to school.

I've always maintained that the best costumes are the ones assembled in less than half an hour.  Primigenitus bought brown polyester pants at the thrift store for $3.  Everything else was stuff we had on hand.

It was my first time ever for applying makeup to feet.

The Roman honey cakes were popular.  There weren't enough left to take over to Rhetoric and call them Beorn's honey cakes.

Pad Thai and salad rolls

Okay, I usually don't get up to this on a Friday evening after a week of school.  But here's what we had for dinner:

Pad Thai!  And salad rolls -- the kind with rice paper wrapped around lettuce, mint, cilantro, carrot strips, tofu and noodles.  And two sauces for dipping, peanut sauce and sweet-sour.  My favorite 3rd grader helped with the assembly line for the rolls, which are really easy if you can find the rice paper wrappers.  The Pad Thai is basically the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook -- the newer editions anyway.  Thai food is now mainstream.  This is my birthday dinner request every year and Steve cooks it like an engineer.  I made it without measuring anything very precisely, and it was still great.  If you want to try it, you'd need to have a few unusual ingredients -- mainly fish sauce, rice noodles, and chili paste.  Cilantro, bean sprouts, peanuts and limes also.