Back in the Kitchen

One of the nicer things about being retired is having the time and the energy to enjoy baking and cooking again.  In the past two months, I have baked more than I have in the previous two years.  I have made two plum cakes, two banana walnut cakes, a pear crisp, an apple crisp and a loaf of whole wheat bread.   Though, perhaps, the less said about the bread, the better.  It wasn't exactly a rousing success.  But I think I figured out where I went wrong and will attempt the recipe again.  I have plans to make some genuine New England style gingerbread, a black walnut teacake and a fresh apple cake in the near future.

Yesterday, I candied the peel from our morning grapefruit and will make citrus peel nut bread today to have for tea.  It's oddly satisfying to cook and bake from scratch again after the last few years of cutting corners and relying on take out and partially prepped foods from the grocery store.  Even a simple thing like candied peel is so much better when prepared at home.  The trick is to remove all the bitter white layer, leaving only the flavorful peel.  My husband questioned why I'd take the trouble and the time to do such a thing.  I explained that using all the usable bits of our food purchases is just plain good sense.  [Anything left foes in the compostor].    It's also a rather calming activity much like whittling which the act of paring away the white layer very much resembles.

I have also done a lot more cooking  and have espoused the whole foods movement, serving as much of our intake in its least processed form: whole grain cereals and breads, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, cage free chicken eggs, fresh herbs, antibiotic free chicken and beef.  I use more agave nectar, honey and molasses than refined or brown sugar though I am not completely weaned from the last two. My menus this month have included eggplant Parmesan, chicken Parmesan, chicken cacciatore. chicken cutlets in a shallot and white wine reduction, quiche, Western omelets, pasta bolognese, mac and cheese and homemade chicken soup.  The occasional pizza and burger from The Filling Station have slipped into the mix bur not anywhere near as frequently as in the bad old days of irregular  late night schedules.  

Endless Zucchini

What to do with the huge zucchini and its only slightly smaller cousin, that I found hiding under the foliage when I began cleaning up the garden for winter?  Your average zucchini bread recipe requires two cups  of shredded zucchini, which used up only a third of the largest zucchini.  I was running low on olive oil and eggs, so I only made one recipe [Mom's Zucchini Bread] and baked it in a spring-lock tube pan.  That was yesterday.  The only change I made to the recipe was doubling the amount of chopped walnuts to a full cup. I tend to like my tea breads to be rich with nuts

To the left is a shot of the second zucchini, which measured 11 1/2 inches long beside the zucchini bread  and a plate of Fig and Bleu Cheese Scones.  I just had to try a recipe for Fig and Bleu Cheese Scones that was in a recent Tea Time issue, while I was doing all that baking yesterday.   Fall always makes me want to bake.  The cool weather just calls out for a cozy kitchen smelling of spices.  Usually, I find myself making fresh apple cake or New England gingerbread at this time of year.  But I have yet to visit the local orchard ... maybe next weekend.

Today, after an early trip to the grocery store for more eggs and more canola oil and more olive oil, I will be making zucchini "cakes" - not really a cakes at all, more of a starter like a crab cake appetizer.  I found both the Mom's Zucchini Bread recipe above and this recipe on the allrecipes.com website.  Still, this will only use up the largest of my zucchini.  I guess I'll be making zucchini muffins tomorrow.  Or maybe the Zucchini Souffle that I downloaded from the same website.  I'll have to freeze half of the zucchini bread and half the scones.  At least, I'll be well provided with goodies for afternoon tea for the next little while. That's the problem with being a two person family ... finding freezer space for all the cooking and baking!  However, there will be a bit more room since this morning I am also making 10 dozen cookies for the catechist meeting tonight ... using the boxes of pre-portioned frozen cookie dough that were samples promoting our Fall Fundraiser. 

Since I'll be working late tonight, I took some time to chop and saute the onions and peppers and defrost the chicken for chicken quesidillas that can be assembled quickly for supper and washed some greens so I can throw together a quick salad.  Sometimes I wonder about these days when I don't have to be into work until noon or one.  Waking up at 5am with my husband, I tend to put in a full day of work at home before heading into work at the office.   And then I wonder why I am always so tired.  In the immortal words of the Lethal Weapon duo, "I'm getting too old for this shit!"

On the stitching front, I did get a little more done on The Primitives Shop ornament yesterday but not enough to warrant a photo.  I am hoping to finish it up today.

Simply Saturday

This was the first Saturday in four weeks that I came home at noon ... no extra classes or events in the parish ... just the normal Saturday morning classes for Grades 1-6. Sweet bliss!!!

I actually had time to make a scrumptuous lunch of potato pancakes and applesauce. I had some cooked potatoes leftover from a corned beef and cabbage dinner I had for the ICS Faculty reunion earlier this week and used my mother's shortcut recipe for potato pancakes. No precise measurements ... more a method than a recipe. Peel leftover boiled potatoes, mash with just enough boiling water to make mashing easy. Add two or three large eggs, well beaten ... the number of the eggs dependent on the amount of potatoes. Today I had 8 large potatoes and I used three eggs. Stir well. Then add between a third to a half a cup of sifted white flour to bind the batter. Finally add either 3 heaping tbs of parsley or chives. Stir to distribute evenly. Fry batter in olive oil till brown on both sides. I served it with unsweetened applesauce and made a large pot of Earl Grey tea. Dessert was a rare treat: Edys frozen juice bars: Tangerine. It was nice to be cooking in my own kitchen after spending so many weeks depending on take-out, frozen dinners and dining out. Healthier, too.

I even got to spend some time stitching on my Day 3 project in the Crazy January Challenge Homespun Elegance's The Stitcher. This chart dates from 1995 and uses only five shades of DMC floss, in very muted colors, I might add. Very simple and very plain, in the Quaker sense of the word.It will be interesting to compare it with my Day 4 Crazy January Challenge piece, Homespun Elegance's Witches Stitch, Too. The witch is seated is much the same posture as the stitcher and the alphabet is arranged in similar fashion ... but the more current piece uses overdyes and a broader palette. I am playing with the idea of finishing the two pieces as the flip sides of one wall-hanging or pillow. The witch was clearly meant to be a companion piece or an homage piece to the stitcher so such a finish makes perfect sense to me.

Weekend Progress Report # 42

Still working on catching up to my ornament goals this week:

Bride's Tree SAL: I am doing rather well. Since October 1st, I have stitched and assembled the ornaments for May through August, and am currently stitching September's Teapot, symbolizing Hospitality. As I have mentioned before, I am making a conscious effort to make all these ornaments a genuine "set". All are stitched on 28ct Raw Glasgow linen and finished as fringed pillows with hemp cord hangers. All are stitched in the same style using Quaker motifs and Belle Soie silks. I have a three foot tall faux Christmas tree that I will use to display these ornaments come Christmas time ... the only other thing I will use on this particular tree will be some cranberry strands made of wooden beads ... this will give me the rustic look I am going for in my dining room. I spent most of Saturday stitching on the August Bride's Tree SAL ornament, a rose done in the Quaker style in Belle Soie silks Tortoise Shell and Sister Scarlet. I never cease to be amazed at how close juxtaposition has an effect on color values: the green with black-brown undertones of the Tortoise Shell looks so much greener beside the Sister Scarlet than it did alone against the raw linen. It really does seem to have the look of dark rose leaves, now. It is one of my favorite shades of green for backgrounds and borders since the brown-black undertones give it a neutral value that tends to work with an almost endless range of colors. I definitely need to order some more as I am running quite low, down to my last 12 strand length when just a week or so ago I had one full and one partial card. I finished and assembled the Rose Sunday afternoon at which point I began the September Teapot. Here are some photos of my progress on this series. The front of the teapot ornament is done except for the border. I figure I'll work on the border and the back for the ornament Monday morning before work. That will leave only the October ornament to do and I'll be all caught up ... at least till November 1st rolls around next week.

Halloween and Thanksgiving ornaments: I am still working on a few Halloween ornaments for this year's tree: M Design's Winifred Witch is my current WIP. There are two more kitted up and "in the pipeline". I have also asked my husband to order the kit for Monsterbubbles Day of the Dead as a Christmas gift ... now that's one ornament I really want to stitch ... but it will have to be for next year's tree. I just love the over-the-top, wildly creative Monsterbubbles signature style. And their use of unusual materials really calls to my aging hippie soul ... I am always using found objects in my own textile art. I also love playing with color and I enjoy the serendipitious moments that occur so often when stitching. For instance, this past week I have been working on two distinct projects that have led me to the planning of a third ... all because of an observation about color. When laying out my projects for this week's stitching bag, I couldn't help but notice that the 32 ct Aurora linen I am using for M Design's Winifred Witch and the Belle Soie silk Foo Foo Flamingo I used for my Quaker Fish ornament would combine to make the perfect tone-on-tone project ... perhaps a pin pillow or an ort jar cover. However, the silk looks so much paler against the raw linen shade used in the ornament that, had I not laid out all the materials on a table in close proximity to one another, I'd never have noticed how vibrant the silk could look against a more color-saturated background.

But even though I haven't met all my ornaments stitching goals, I am going to revert to my BAP, TW's Autumn Faerie for the remainder of October with this one exception: on Sunday, October 31st, I'll be participating in Rachel's Halloween SAL by stitching on whatever Halloween ornament is still a WIP and posting three times on my blog that day with photos of my progress.

A visit to Blacksheep's blog earlier this week had me salivating over the mere thought of gingerbread ... a pity photos can't be transformed into edible reality with the click of a mouse. I think that's something Bill Gates ought to get working on immediately. Failing the ability to attain instant gratification by computer magic, I dug out my favorite recipe for genuine New England style gingerbread and made it this morning ... I am also saving blacksheep's recipe for future baking adventures. One can never have too many gingerbread recipes.

Here's the one I use most often [from June Platt's New England Cookbook, c1971]

Raisin Gingerbread Preheat oven to 350F

2/3 c sugar

2/3c dark molasses

2/3c boiling water

2 Tbs butter

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 c raisins, washed and dried

1/2 c chopped walnuts or pecans

1 egg, well beaten

1 &1/2c sifted flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cloves

1c heavy cream lightly beaten

Mix tgether sugar, molasses and boiling water. While the mixture is still hot stit in the butter and baking soda. Let cool slightly. Add raisins, nuts and beaten egg. Sift together flour & spice and stir into molasses mixture. Pour batter into a well-buttered 9" square pan and bake in pre-heated oven 35-40 minutes, until it tests done in the center. Serve hot or cold with beaten cream.

I tend to double the spices or add chopped crystallized ginger because I like a very spicy cake. I also use lemon custard sauce instead of beaten cream, just because I like the combination of spice/sweet & lemon.

I had intended to spend the better part of Friday cooking and baking ... but that didn't happen ... so Saturday became a cooking day and Sunday, a baking day. I made a pan of Chicken Parmigiana and a pan of Eggplant Parmigiana, both with fresh mozzarella, on Saturday. This ought to take care of dinner through Tuesday nght. Since I work till 9:00pm on Mondays and Tuesdays and my husband's daily commute gets him home at 8:30pm, having something ready to re-heat quickly and conveniently is a priority. I picked up some Lemon Curd and some fresh lemons while shopping Saturday so I could embellish my gingerbread ... the lemon curd being a back-up since my home-made custard sauces tend to be rather hit-and-miss.