March Madness

I have felt so lazy lately.  I haven't written anything.  March has been a bit insane.  It started out like a lion with stormy, windy weather.  Somewhere in the middle, we got a few days of relatively warm sun.  I did get to mud in some sweet pea and snap pea seeds and do a little messing about in the garden.  Not enough, though, before the wild weather came back.  

We did have a wonderful St. Paddy's in Palouse on the 17th.  Paul started St. Paddy's in Palouse about 9 years ago because he couldn't find a good place to play Irish music on St. Patrick's Day.  The Palouse Arts Council gals made wonderful food...corned beef, colcannon, and Irish soda bread.  I, personally, made all ten loaves of soda bread for the event!  We served dinner to about 100 people.  Paul's Irish music band, Potatohead, played great music and we had Irish dancers as well.  It was a wonderful time in our small town and a highlight of this otherwise dreary month. 

Yesterday was the first day of spring and we awoke to snow!  Today it snowed ALL day...big, fat, wet flakes of the stuff came down and came down.  Luckily it was warm enough to not accumulate much although I think we had about 4" at one point today.  Sigh...now the snow has turned to rain.  I can hear it pelting the window next to me.  More snow is supposed to fall tomorrow.  I may cry. 


March came in like a lion and it seems to be going out like one, too.  I hope Spring kicks Old Man Winter out pretty soon.  He's overstayed his welcome!

Bickies

The oven is finally fixed!  It's been thirty-seven days since I've been able to bake anything!  The whole family has been grumpy and going through withdrawal for bread and scones and, most of all, biscuits.

We love our buttermilk biscuits around here.  They are probably everyone's favorite breakfast treat.  We all have our favorite way to eat them, too.  

Peter likes his with a different kind of jam on each piece and then stuck together like a sandwich.  I like to put either jam or honey on mine but I like them separate, not sandwiched. 

Paul likes to eat his sopped in an over easy fried egg.  Any way you eat them, they are delicious. 

Here is the recipe:  

Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat the oven to 450º.  

Combine 1 3/4 cups of flour, 2 t. baking powder, 1 t. sugar, 1/2 t. baking soda, and 1/2 t. salt in a bowl and stir until blended.

Cut in 1/4 cup butter until the mixture resembles very coarse cornmeal.   A pastry blender works best for this.

Add in a generous 3/4 cup buttermilk and mix with a fork until the ingredients just come together.

Pat out the dough to a 1" thickness on a lightly floured board.  Cut biscuits with a 2" cutter (I use a 2 1/2" size).  Push the dough together and keep cutting out biscuits until you've used  all the dough.  Try not to handle the dough too much or the biscuits can get tough.  It will make 8-10 biscuits depending on the size of cutter you use.  Transfer the biscuits to a baking sheet and brush the tops with cream or some more buttermilk (This is what I do).   Bake until puffed and golden, about 10 minutes.

At our house, biscuits for breakfast is one of life's lovely pleasures and we went without them for way too long.  Thankfully, they're back.

Blah, Blah, Blah

Not much has been going on around here lately.  I think I have the blahs.  My oven is STILL not fixed.  It's been over a month now although the repair person is coming on Wednesday.  We're all keeping our fingers crossed that this time it's the right part.  We miss our baked goods!  Especially the biscuits.  We love buttermilk biscuits for breakfast around here.  I'll do a post about them as soon as I can make them again.  Sigh...

And it is still winter.  As someone I know posted on Facebook, "stupid groundhog."  Just last week I saw snowdrops poking up and pussywillows emerging and heard the redwing blackbirds chirping.  Now the robins are shivering in the cherry tree, puffed up to keep warm and snow is coming down as I type.  

I've been doing some long overdue reading.  I love to read but have found that I don't do as much as I used to.  I think it's because when I read, I get lost in the book, whatever it is, and hate to be interrupted.  But this household is full of interruptions, that's just life.  I've been reading a book of short stories; The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich.  I really like her writing.  The nice thing about it is I can stop easily because they are short stories.  

I'm still stitching, too. I'm just finishing a beautiful piece.  It will be a pillow soon.  The next two will be gifts. 

Anyway, I do have a bit of the blahs, feeling like I'm not really accomplishing much and wishing for spring.  Luckily, I know that it is on it's way, just taking its own sweet time. 

A Failure to Communicate

Monday was a frustrating day.  Well, it started out just fine.  We awoke to about 6 inches of snow.  Everything was cold and white and lovely outside.  We opted out of our friends' annual MLK Jr. Day walk on Fiddler's Ridge and stayed home to dig our way out of the driveway and our foggy brains.  Besides we had company coming for dinner.  

We had planned a nice dinner of polenta with white Oregon truffles and, for dessert, a cherry pie.  After all, I had put up all those cherries in the freezer last summer.  It was high time to use some.  So I made a nice looking cherry pie with a lattice top and stuck it in the oven and set the timer.  I was busy doing this and that around the house when I noticed a burnt smell coming from the kitchen.  I tried to open the oven door to check on the pie and it was locked!  I suffered a small bout of panic as I looked for and then paged through the owner's manual to see what to do.  I turned off the oven and pressed the cancel button.  I also learned, from the manual, that one feature of this oven is to automatically lock its door if the oven gets too hot.  Now, when I put that pie in, the temperature registered 400º and the knob was set on bake so all should have been well.  But, obviously, it was not.

To complicate the situation, I was just getting ready to leave for an appointment in town so I had to hurriedly fill Paul in on things and run out the door.  When I got home again a few hours later, there sat my pie.  As you can see, it did not look like a dessert to serve to guests.  

I called the repair shop and the person I talked to thinks its either a sensor or the control board not talking to the oven thus the oven kept heating up and up instead of staying at the desired temperature.  We're waiting for the part to come in and the oven to be fixed.  In the meantime, we're living without it, which is trickier than it might sound.  Especially to one who loves to bake.  No biscuits for breakfast for a while.  Sigh.

By the way, we did salvage some of the pie.  After removing the burned lattice and crust edge, the filling and bottom crust were in fine condition.  We ate it spooned over vanilla ice cream...and laughed.

Earth Mother

I really didn't set out to be Suzy Homemaker, honestly.  In fact, when I was in my twenties, I was what I called an "Earth Mother" type.  I baked my own bread, used honey and not sugar when baking, canned and froze food, and had a big vegetable garden.  Shoot, I even tried making my own ketchup!  Then I decided I was working way too hard!  I should add that I was also working a full-time job at the time.

And so life went on.  I never lost my love for playing around in the kitchen but did so on a smaller scale most of the time.  However, now that I am "retired,"  I have more time and have found myself going back to my Earth Mother self.  I'm making a lot more things from scratch than I ever did when I was young.   I am baking bread again, both sourdough and whole wheat.  I make raspberry vinegar and homemade vanilla extract (delicious!).  I even make bagels.  I still put a lot of food in the freezer but don't can anymore.  

One thing I tried a couple years ago was making cheese.   The first cheese I tried was ricotta.  It's very simple and tastes creamy and smooth, unlike the sort of gritty feel of the store bought kind.  Then I tried making mozzarella.  It turned out that mozzarella cheese was really difficult.  After a couple of failed attempts, I gave up but, in the process,  I accidentally made cream cheese.  It was really yummy.  

It is more rustic than the smoothed out blocks one buys.  It tends to keep draining whey in the container but that is easily drained off.  It is quite spreadable but not too soft.  And it freezes really well.  It's incredibly easy, too, although it does take a couple of days.  Most of that time it's just sitting and doing it's cheesy thing.  This is a finished batch fresh from hanging overnight in the refrigerator.  It is the perfect topping on one of those homemade bagels!

PS  If you're interested in the recipe for the cream cheese or the ricotta, leave a comment or email me.  I'd be glad to share but it's a little long to post here.

Monkey Business

Sock monkeys were never a part of my childhood.  I had a Barbie and a stuffed animal or two, although I don't remember what any of them were at this point.  But when I became part of this family (Paul and Peter), sock monkeys came into my life.  

Peter has a sock monkey made for him when he was born.  His Aunt Judy is the creator of this monkey.  His name is Blue Eyes and he is definitely part of the family.  Blue Eyes has a funny and distinctive personality, voiced by Paul.  I should explain.  

It all started with a couple of sock monkeys Judy and her husband, Tom, had long ago.  Apparently they would goof around and make the monkeys talk to each other.  Eventually along came Karen Monkey who was given to our niece, Lisa, by her Grandma Inez for Christmas when she was 6.  (She is now 21!) Tom immediately began making Karen talk and hasn't really stopped.  Karen has quite a personality. In fact, she has her own email, blog and Facebook page.  Honestly, I think Karen is Tom's alter-ego.  

Paul said he didn't really understand the sock monkey voice/personality thing until Blue Eyes came along (and Peter).  Thus Paul became Blue Eyes, rascal that he is.  Blue Eyes and his cohorts, Curious George the puppet and Jambo (another stuffed monkey), are constant sources of entertainment for Peter, even at age ten.  In fact, they are the main characters in the lunch notes Paul creates for him.  (click photo to enlarge)


As you can see, sock monkeys are a big deal around here.  

Now there is a new baby in my family.  My nephew has a 6 month old son who will be celebrating his first Christmas this year.  In fact, I will get to meet him for the first time this weekend.  In honor of his first Christmas, I made him a sock monkey.  Peter and Paul helped with some of the details so it has been a fun family project.  We're all excited about passing on the sock monkey tradition.  Now Paul will have to explain to my nephew about becoming a monkey.  Hopefully he will have as much fun with it as Paul and Tom do.

The Cactus Surprise

Christmas cacti are strange plants.  They are actually a genus called Schlumbergera and originated in the coastal mountains of Brazil.  I didn't know that until I just looked them up.  I have three of them, all given to me by my Mom.  One of them was started from my great-grandmother's plant.  It's the only one that has ever bloomed.  If I remember, it is a lovely dark pink color.

One of them is a large plant with very cactus like spines.  I hope it does bloom someday because the blossoms are HUGE, about 6 inches long or so.  

 The third cactus is blooming now, for the first time in my memory.  It is stunningly beautiful.  The plant is covered with buds and blooms.  The blooms are about 3 inches long.  I don't think I've ever seen a lovelier Christmas cactus. 

What a sweet Christmas gift.