Under a Red Roof

Crackers

February 26, 2021 in Cooking + Baking, Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

When I was little, my mom made the best peach cobbler, the perfect balance of sweet, tender batter and canned peachy delight. I tried a lot of different recipes on my own without much satisfaction until I realized I should just ask her for the recipe (duh!). It’s pretty spectacular with peaches, of course, but I had some pie cherries in need of eating and tried it with them. So very good! How silly, too, that the simplest solution is often the most overlooked. I need more reminders of that. Just ask!

I made sesame crackers with the leftover almond milk meal. They are fantastic!!

The eggs are a Yvette Van Boven recipe that I riffed on, but are basically baked in cream, with the addition of curry (which looked so cool) and ham. They reminded me of the breakfast bowls Greg and I so love, minus the English muffins. To continue on the breakfast theme, have you ever baked oatmeal, then sprinkled the sugar over the top before broiling it? It’s a bit like creme brulee and a winner, especially the crispy bits topped with butter.

The cake is Delta Caramel, and it looks lousy, truth be told, but WOW, does it taste great. If you are a newby, like me, to the recipe, it calls for the icing to be drizzled over while warm, but there’s no way you’re going to fill that gap with something warm and oozy. Next time I’m waiting for it to cool a bit. Yessir. And in the Huh? category, Delta Caramel Cakes are in the top ten for a funeral. How about that?

More snow! We are finally getting our winter on here. Boy howdy, yes!!

A Million Ways to Runza

February 20, 2021 in Celebrating, Cooking + Baking, Remembering by Colleen | Permalink

S.S. Pisa

Hello Saturday!

It’s a gorgeous and not freezing day here. To steal a line from religious folk I’ve seen on the T.V. – Can I get an Amen?! I feel 100% grateful to have not lost power during that wretched stretch of sub-zero temperatures. What a nightmare to hear of friends shivering at 40 degrees indoors. Hoping they are feeling some much needed warmth!

And speaking of cold places, last weekend I made my first ever batch of runzas. They are a solidly Russian / Eastern European delight of ground beef, cabbage (which turned so blue!), onion, and cheese (sharp cheddar in our case). I also added caraway seeds, because when in Rome, right? They’re like the best hot pocket you can imagine, and can be done a million ways, just roll out the dough and fill them with whatever you fancy. Or, for the lazy or otherwise overwhelmed, head over to the Runza restaurant site, and they’ll ship some to you!

As we were enjoying them, I thought on my Grandma Tess’s father Gyorgy. He emigrated from Jenkovce, Slovakia (Austria at the time) in 1900 on the S.S. Pisa, at the ripe age of 18, with a whopping $2.50 in his pocket (about $70 today). He was a coal miner in and around Springfield, Illinois for the rest of his life and, rather sadly, died of black lung. I imagined him feasting on a runza, this simple all-in one in its own container, while down in the mine; the delicious, fortifying comfort of home.

In a further nod to the Taposik side of my family, when I was little, my Grandma Tess had this Bissel sweeper. I have many a memory of its delightful back and forth whir. I hadn’t thought about it in some time when I saw the Fuller model Greg is using pictured in the Vermont Country Store catalog. My mind got to clicking as I thought on Juniper’s wild riot of dog hair all over the hard woods. Would it work? It was surely worth a try. So I bought it. Wowie!! It’s pretty dreamy and way better than dragging out the noisy vacuum. So thanks Grandma, for the memories and the help! I love you.

Almost February

January 29, 2021 in Cooking + Baking, Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

Hello almost February! How that is upon us, as I often feel time is crawling around baby sloth-like, I don’t know. We are still largely sequestered and not really minding. The most exciting event in our personal lives has got to be the re-opening of the library. I filled my biggest basket and caught up with my favorite librarian, a delightful return to normalcy, despite the mask wearing and distance.

Another January, another cleanse – we’ve been 99% gluten, dairy, caffeine, alcohol, and sugar-free. The sugar being the most difficult part. I’ve made a ton of almond milk and used the leftover meal to make the blue corn bread, which was quite tasty, especially with a little butter and honey.

Juniper waits patiently for lunch.

I wish the image properly displayed the intensity of light at the moment – a brilliant beam from on high!

It is prime puzzle season, and this one of Mont Saint Michel, is one of the most difficult we’ve ever tackled, so much sky and similar textures!

We had two wonderful snow storms earlier in the week, bringing about five inches to our area, though hardly making a dent in the wretched drought figures, so I keep my prayers aloft for yet more.

Juniper, peppercorn, and bay leaf brine for chicken, which made for a marvelous lunch. I made a fabulous Bavarian coleslaw (up yonder with the sausage and mashed potatoes), which won high praise from yours truly and though he thought it was good, did not taste like childhood for my dearest man, so I rectified it with one he loved. We do our best.

What’s been going on…

January 11, 2021 in Cooking + Baking, Exploring, Gardening + Nature, Making by Colleen | Permalink

Our cute little woodsman incense burner, which we bought at a magical holiday market in Pittsburgh, continues to delight!

Not nearly often enough, we empty, scour, and refill the refrigerator. I, in my maniacal delight at soldierly, short to tall rows of jars finds it oddly comforting, opening the doors, even when I need not a thing, just to gaze upon it and marvel.

We had a few meals out in the world before COVID numbers began to creep up, and up, and up, but have since relegated ourselves to 100% home cooking. Ribs with salad and sweet potatoes; Asian glazed drumsticks, fluffy rice, and a mess o’ spinach and roasted pepper; herb drumsticks and roasted broccoli some of the prettiest lately.

A walk or two a day keeps our spirits soaring. So, too, does playlist making, reading – books and magazines alike, Star Trek Discovery gotten from the library, The 2017 iteration of Twin Peaks (so YOU, David Lynch, and I must add how beautiful his silvery locks are!), sipping the hottest of coffee with creamy homemade almond milk come the weekend, bedtime cuddles, and chats with those I love.

Such lovely soup weather we are having. This is lemon chicken & rice.

Hearty beef chili with pinto beans and plenty of New Mexico and pasilla chiles.

Topped with an egg for breakfast the following day. Um, yeah…

I am still making soap, and I daresay these are my prettiest bars! After initially going gonzo with various butters and oils, scents and add-ins, I have whittled down my favorites. The top is a rather luscious goat milk, of which I made two varieties this time: plain and lemon-bay leaf, which smells like summer all year long. The speckled variety in the center photo is orange-rosemary-mint, our dreamy shampoo and body bar. Truly. The white bar is unscented 100% coconut oil and slated to be our new laundry soap. I’ll tell you how it goes. In the mean time, it’s so pretty to look at. They all are, really.

Brain Farts

December 9, 2020 in Cooking + Baking, Exploring by Colleen | Permalink

Hi there! Revisiting the recipes from this Super Supper post, nearly twelve years later. Greg is beardless but no less silly. In this go round, I added mushrooms, substituted sliced linguica for the Italian sausage, and though this slice would have you believe otherwise, doubled the raisins and pine nuts (I toasted them, too). Wonderfully delicious! If you’d like to double down on the healthy bits, make a kale chiffonade and toss those ribbons in, too.

And because it is the holiday season, I could not go without making peppermint ice cream! If you recall, I discovered an old-timey recipe last year for a no-churn variety, and boy have I made the best of it! If you missed it, here goes:

16 oz heavy cream, whipped to perfect billowy peaks

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk (I’m going to try the coconut next!)

Pour the entire contents of the can of condensed milk over the billowy peaks and blend together. Add whatever dream of ice cream you fancy (well, almost) and put in a freezer safe container. It’s best to make it the day before you plan to eat it, as it takes a long while to solidify.

Speaking to the well, almost, bit. Fresh fruit will freeze solid and be quite difficult to scoop and even more unpleasant to eat (voice of rock-hard cherry experience talking!) – best to add your favorite chunky jams or preserves.

The other flavor I made this go round was coffee (both had mini chocolate chips). I used two tablespoons beans on the finest setting on my grinder, added that to 1/4 cup of boiling water, let it cool, and strained the remaining very strong brew into one half of my ice cream base. With the additional liquid, it’s a bit more solid, but goll-ee, does it taste great!

orange roughy + braised cabbage + beurre blanc

Poutine! Greg dashed to Wendy’s for fries. The cheese curds are from our neighborhood Ranch Foods Direct, and the gravy is home made. The awesomeness scale went to ELEVEN.

Our favorite library. Since we are forbidden entry for the time being, we brought Juniper to our hold pick-up and walked the perimeter instead. Gosh do I miss a good library browse!

And in the people sometimes do stupid things without even realizing category: I was at Costco, fully masked and perusing the frozen section, when my mom called. For about two minutes of our conversation, I continued to browse with my MASK OFF, and only undertstood what was happening when I realized the mask was tangling on something. I got it back on right quick.

I now have the tiniest bit of sympathy for those I see blithely strolling sans masks in just about every store. Brain farts are clearly quite powerful.