Blinded by the light

At long last, the sun has appeared multiple days in a row.  I'm wondering if February went down as the grayest month in history this year.  Tomorrow the rains come, and that should be the end of the heaps of gray snow.  Margaret Roach at A Way to Garden said something about planting peas on St. Patrick's Day, but the ground has to thaw first.  Doesn't it?

Margaret also urged patience re seed starting, but obviously her warning came too late for me.  I'm about ready to transplant the basil into larger containers - they will make nice gifts, don't you think? - and I planted Italian parsley and yellow zinnias last weekend.

The zinnia seed was several years old.  I did not hold out much hope for its germination rate, so dropped 5-6 seeds in each compartment.  And of course, almost every seed has germinated.  Now I have to thin, thin, thin.  I should have performed a germination test, another suggestion from Margaret.  She is wise.

The Year of Bread has reached limbo, thanks to its delicious goodness and my bathroom scale.  Last weekend I did make some cornbread, using my favorite cornbread recipe from The Vegetarian Epicure.  Except I ran out of unbleached flour and substituted some whole wheat instead.  The result was even better!

Despite the not-quite-springlike weather, I did clean off the flower bed on the south side of the house.  If I weren't feeling so lazy today, I would hack down the ornamental grasses, too.  Much dog poop has been picked up in the meantime.

Did the pioneers eat sunflower seeds?

This week's bread is Pioneer Bread, from The Bread Book.

The loaves look a little lopsided because, per usual, I did not know what I was doing.  You bake these in cake or pie pans, and there is a certain skill to making the dough pear-shaped, then plopping it into the pan pointy end down in such a way as to produce a uniformly round loaf.  I have not quite mastered it yet.  The odd shape does not affect the flavor, which is wonderful.  And there are sunflower seeds in it as well.

I also made soup today, Caramelized Cabbage Soup, from Love Soup.  I have never caramelized cabbage before.  Like many things, it was not difficult, just time consuming.  I can't tell you if it made the soup any better because I did not realized two things:  1) the soup requires milk to finish it, and 2) the milk in my refrigerator has a distinctive odor that matches its sell-by date.  I will finish the soup tomorrow night and report back.

Friday I was home sick.  One problem with cooking from scratch using primarily fresh ingredients is that sometimes you want something quick and tasty but there is no such thing in your kitchen other than scrambled eggs.  Pie is not quick but it sure is tasty.

This is French apple pie, courtesy of Betty Crocker.  The crust got a little overdone, but it was great nonetheless.  I like the crumb topping better than crust.

While not cooking, I keep an eye out on the avian visitors in my backyard.  Yesterday I saw a rather large bird fly past the patio door.  Thinking it was a mourning dove, I tiptoed into the West Wing to get a better look.  Mourning doves are ground feeders but there was no mourning dove under the feeders.  Probably because there was a HAWK on top of the shepherd's hook the feeders are suspended from.  I didn't notice it until it flew away.  Hoping it had landed in a nearby tree, I crept up to the window to peek out.  Again, I did not see it, until it took off from the neighbor's swing set.  I think it was a Cooper's hawk.  Exciting stuff!

(FYI - The Bread Book is out of print.  If you are looking for a copy, don't stop with Amazon because their resellers are asking a small fortune.  I bought mine through a reseller at Barnes and Noble, and there are other online used book retailers to try as well.)

 

Mysterious visitors

I'm not an animal tracker of any sort, but I enjoy creating stories to go with the tracks left in the snow by unidentified creatures.

This snow stitchery must be a bird, but what kind and what was it doing?

The marks in the middle look like tail-dragging, the side marks wing-dragging.  A snow dance?

Then this mark in the snow occurred all by its lonesome.

Did something (a hawk?  I've seen a couple hanging around) swoop down and snatch dinner right here?

From the house, these prints looked like they were made by a human trespasser.

But I'm guessing a squirrel was hopscotching across the yard to the bird feeders.

The past few days have been warm enough to feel springlike, but we all know that is a lie.  Yesterday seeds arrived, from Pinetree Garden Seeds and Seed Savers Exchange - that was quick!  Maybe today would be a good day to sort through leftovers and see what is still viable.

If I bake today, I am going to limit myself to dog biscuits.  Maybe.  That German Three-Grain sure was good.

And easy!

Blue Moon/The Birds/Baby, it's cold outside!/Feels like Sunday

I couldn't decide what to title this post, so I used all the titles I was considering.

First up, this isn't really THE blue moon - the skies were overcast last night - but I did think to take a picture on the last clear night we had.

For some reason, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of starlings hanging around this winter.

They descended on my yard this afternoon, but my feeders are such that they can't get much of a foothold (talonhold?)  I'm glad I haven't put out the suet yet because they would clean that up in a New York minute.

The curled up leaves on my rhododendron tell me that it is a bit cold outside today. Could be - and probably will get - worse before winter is over.

And even though it is not Sunday, I baked some Corny Banana Oat Bread today. The recipe is from Whole Foods for the Whole Family. Since I was running low on honey, I substituted agave nectar. I'm not sure whether that helped cause the charring, but the bread is still perfectly edible.

And here is one of my xmas gifts from my son:

The birds already like it.

Hoo dat?

Several nights ago, I was reading in bed when I heard an OWL. It was not a Barred Owl, who calls "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" I got up and looked out windows to try to spot it, but I think it was on top of my house. The next day I looked up owls in my Peterson's and from the voice descriptions determined it must have been a Great Horned Owl. COOL! I hope it caught a rabbit or two in my backyard.

Or some shrews. My next door neighbor told me he has shrews in his garage. He also claims that female shrews become pregnant within hours after birth. I'm not sure if he meant the shrew giving birth or the just-born shrews, but I have not been able to confirm either. Here are some interesting facts, though, on both shrews and moles. Anyway, he has been letting one of his cats out into the garage, and the cat has caught six so far. I hope they stay on his side of the property line.

Meanwhile, holiday prep continues. This is cranberry orange bread, using a recipe from Whole Foods for the Whole Family.



This is wonderful quick bread, but I always hated to make it because of the need to chop fresh cranberries. Now I have a food processor and that step was a snap. Is there an equivalent small appliance for zesting oranges?

Somewhere along the line, cheesecake became a holiday tradition. The recipe for this one came off the Philadelphia Cream Cheese packaging.



What causes a cheesecake to crack in the oven? Anyone? Anyone?

I forgot to purchase anything to top the cheesecake with, and being the lazy person that I am, decided instead of going to the store, I would make chocolate syrup from some of that cocoa powder that has been breeding in my kitchen cupboards.



Very simple to do (recipe may be found here). I measured the cocoa first, then discovered I didn't have the required amount of sugar, so mine is more semi-sweet than sweet. I also cooked it a bit too long - it's more like pudding than syrup. My SO and I sampled it on slivers of cheesecake last night (what?!?) and it tasted fine.

Another tradition that has evolved is Mexican on xmas eve. I will be making chicken fajitas and Spanish rice tonight, to go along with the salsa and chips. And for dessert, Mexican wedding cakes.



I think the recipe I used is from my mother. That cracked one in the middle? I ate that. Mmmm - buttery!

Happy holidays to all!

Slicker 'n snot

I bought myself an xmas present, the Roma Sauce Maker. I'm sure you have seen these around - usually they are associated with tomatoes. Gardener's Supply was offering 20% off, so I purchased a variety of things, including this baby.



Saturday I decided I should assemble the thing, to make sure all the pieces were there, and initially I was not impressed. In fact, one part arrived cracked - the "waste funnel" which is made from a plastic one step better than the plastic used for disposable glasses. Anyway, all the parts went together, and I decided that I should test it out as well. Tomato season is long past, but I just happened to have half a peck of Gold Rush apples in the refrigerator.



An aside on these apples: they are not pretty, which made them a good candidate for applesauce, but while cutting them up, I tasted a slice. Oh. My. God. Crisp and tart but not overly so. I held one back just to eat, ugly skin and all.



According to the directions, tomatoes can go through the sauce maker raw, but apples and most other fruits need to be steamed first. So I quartered the apples and put them on the stove with a little water and let the magic of cooking with gas do its thing.



After the apples cooled a bit, I filled the hopper. That red thing is called a "stomper" but wielding it takes little muscle power.



After hand cranking for a bit, applesauce started to flow. Initially, the peels still had a fair amount of apple mixed in, so I sent the "waste" through again, and extracted even more applesauce.



And it is wonderful applesauce. In the past, I have made applesauce with a Foley food mill, which crushed the seeds and let some of the nasty stuff through. But this applesauce is clean and smooth. I like it tart, but also tried it with a bit of agave nectar and cinnamon. Lovely, just lovely.

It went great with the bread I baked at the same time the apples were steaming. Working from The Bread Book...



... I used their method of creating a sponge first. This step comes after proofing the yeast and before mixing in all the flour.



Smells yeasty.



Otherwise, the directions are standard for bread, with the exception of recommending longer rise times at cooler temperatures and a free form loaf.



The result was a very crusty loaf, just the way I like it. The basic loaf recipe used half whole wheat flour and half unbleached flour, so it is lighter than whole wheat but heartier than white.



I couldn't wait for the loaf to cool before sampling. Mmmmmm!

I highly recommend this book. There is a wide variety of recipes from around the world, plus the authors explain not only what but why. For example, besides instructing you to knead the bread for ten minutes, they also explain that this is to develop the gluten which is necessary to support the yeast, and that mechanical kneading can easily lead to over-kneading, which breaks down the gluten strands. I'm looking forward to working my way through this book during the Year of Bread.