Sunday’s homemade ice cream, walnut and chocolate. I made the walnut with the green walnut liqueur, like the delicious variety I made ages and ages ago, but since there are no green walnuts to glean in my neighborhood, I resorted to purchasing a bottle. I suppose it ought to go without saying, but the ice creams were both fantastic!
locavore
Juniper does her sweet beggar best to convince the hubster to share his smoked BBQ chicken, corn, and ranch dressing topped salad.
Another stellar batch of green chile and a new recipe for homemade tortillas from Ford Fry. So. VERY. good.
Farmer Greg tends the carrot and onion patch. No sprouts, yet, but we do have two teeny tiny lettuces leaves going. Baby steps!
Though we are healthy and lucky in so many ways, yesterday was a hard one. I felt as though I was hearing all the bad news of the past months in a single violent wallop, sending every last marble skittering every which way and rendering me helpless to capture them. I am not normally someone who needs a drink, but boy howdy, a prickly pear margarita has never tasted so good nor made such quick work of smoothing all the jagged edges. Gratitude is the word.
Greg and I continue to make our mostly solitary way, going out for provisions every ten days or so and avoiding people, restaurants, and coffee shops. So when we got a craving for burgers, I tried my hand at brioche buns and perhaps ruined us for eating a burger anywhere else. They were simply amazing.
I’ve also come to realize how much my eating reflects this place that is home: the Southwest. Like grits in the South, salmon and berries in the Pacific Northwest, my diet is so utterely centered around green chile, eating it nearly every day, including on the burger.
Greg looking positively adorable AND excited for peach pie and cinnamon-sugar twists with pie dough remnants. Darn tasty!
Green chile again! We topped an open faced breakfast sandwich with brioche (the same batch as the buns), bacon, and cheddar. The breakfast of champions.
Stumbled upon this “lady” on one of our walkabouts. Speechless.
Everyone in our neighborhood taking COVID-19 seriously….
Hello gentle reader. As I write, a bluster of wind sails snow beyond the window, the outlook for our afternoon dog walk very grim. My belly is brimful with curried cauliflower soup, a rainbow sprinkle sugar cookie, and Irish breakfast tea. Satisfied.
I enjoyed a long stretch of time when I thought not one bit about COVID-19. Thirty minutes of bliss.
We’ve spent much of the last weeks sunny weather clipping away last year’s growth, with monster piles of beyond parched plants in tidy compostable heaps, ripe seeds sprinkled delicately, eager for birds and dewy soil. The best moments, however, coming afterward, in the bath, when my skin, heady with dust and sweat, disperses sweetly into the air. What is the word for it? Not quite petrichor but just as intoxicating.
We made fine use of mushrooms with protein noodles and an omelette. I also tried my hand at no-knead donuts which were baked not fried because I don’t care for the hassle. I am known to cut sugar from just about every recipe I make, but these I followed exactly and found them seriously wanting. Darn cute, though! The hummus and pita continue to be a hit, but nothing in comparison to the Dutch baby. I used half blue corn flour for the usual all purpose and was positively delighted. The hubster, too.
Basically chugging along, with every hope for better days. How about you?
Hello from nanuck and his cowboy hat girlfriend! Greg’s words, not mine, but chuckle worthy and true, especially when you look at his shadow on the street. Very eskimo and cowboy.
Thankfully, we are still enjoying all of our dining in (Greg says it’s the best restaurant in town), the top photo the best pork chop of my life and the steak at the bottom topped with a Korean BBQ style sauce of wonder. I’ve been brining, smoking, then pan finishing just about all our meats lately, and what delicious magic it has been. Everything cooked to absolute perfection.
I found a no-knead bread recipe from King Arthur flour, which was crusty good and enjoyed over two days, and this week’s Sunday dessert was cake made with freeze dried strawberries, the frosting, too, utterly cheery and delicious! My ever-sensitive system found it all a bit much, sadly, so I am going to dial back the grains to one day a week. Too much information, I know.
We braved the world in the car on Saturday, the first time in 16 days, off to Target and Safeway (we have vegetables and greens again!), and felt positively weird to be shopping with such heightened awareness. I made a bottle of hand sanitizer with alcohol, water, a little avocado oil, and essential oils, and sprayed every cart surface liberally, and our hands, too. One small measure of control in our very unsettling times. So far, so good.
It was also nice enough to get work done in the garden and chat with neighbors as they walked or bicycled by. Everything is greening up, and the tulips should be beginning their show soon. How I am looking forward to that!
How cute is Greg enjoying a prickly pear margarita last weekend? I made tamales, red chile, and Anasazi beans to go with them, which was marvelous and photographed poorly, but who really cares with that dazzler of a smile?
How are you? We are at day 15 without leaving the house besides a dog walk. Our food supply is pretty good, except for fresh produce, with three apples, three carrots, and one jalapeno and poblano left. We have plans to get rid of our thorny blackberries (OUCH!!) and replace them with lettuces and spinach, maybe some carrots, too. Though I am sincerely hoping it will be a bonus rather than a necessity, but who knows? These are such strange times.
Our health is good, some sniffles after a super windy walk yesterday, so hoping that doesn’t equate to anything serious. I am worried for my friends in the medical profession, as they are already having meetings about not having enough personal protective equipment to get through the crisis, despite government reports saying there are plenty to go around. And then there is every last person suffering financially. I know my prayers mean not a whit, so we are helping those we can how we can. May it be enough to sustain them until government money arrives.
This is Texas Sheet cake, also made last Sunday (p.s. – If you decide to try it and don’t like a cloyingly sweet cake, cut the sugar in half – you won’t regret it!). My friend Whitney was the first (maybe only?) person to make it for me, way back when I was a whippersnapper of twenty-two. I remember being in her kitchen on Albion Street in Denver, us chatting while she washed dishes, waxing poetic about how easy and delicious it was. I hit the pause button the moment she said it contained cinnamon. My rather unworldly upbringing had never-ever put cinnamon and chocolate together. How weird would it be? Would I like it? The answer was a resounding yes, and now, twenty-six years later, I cannot recall the number of times I have made this fabulous flavor combination.
After lamenting the soy flour contained in the blue corn pancake mix we bought in Santa Fe, I ordered some plain blue corn flour (masa) from Gold Mine and made a batch of pancakes the day the box arrived at our door. They were delicious! If you’d like to try your hand at them, they’ve been added to my long list of pancake recipe combinations that can be found here. Enjoy!
Feeling grateful for our every day walks, this beautiful city, and every moment that makes me smile, like this wee one on his way to work!
Whenever I feel overwhelmed with the news, I think on my light and inspiration, my Great Aunt Mary (who would have been 112 on St. Patrick’s Day!). The oldest of seven, she lived through the death of every one of her siblings, save my Grandma Tess, by 1975, the youngest at the age of twenty-five.
Her faith was boundless, and she was the most selfless, loving, and giving person I have ever known. Though she suffered many a heart break and disappointment, she never let her feathers ruffle, never uttered an unkind word. A smile was never far from her lips, nor a chuckle or a prayer. She walked her talk to the utmost!
