The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY SISTER!!!!

We called her house earlier this morning so the kids could sing to her.  No audio, but here's a picture.  Happy Birthday, Meredith!! 

The cat was indifferent.

Sleepless for the Sox

We stayed up for the whole game. 

I'd been up since 4:22 in the morning yesterday (yes, it's that precise) because Julia, (who else?) had been awake and I hadn't seen the whole game the night before (Saturday night's game) because we were so far ahead and because I was falling asleep on the couch.  So I stayed up with Julia from 4:22 on because I was trying to find a news channel or sports channel that would just give me the score.  That didn't happen til after 6:00.  And yes, I could have just gone online, but Julia and I were snuggled up nice and cozy on the couch, and I didn't feel like moving except to press buttons on the remote.

Anyway (and be warned, I will ramble off in many directions as I babble away this morning), last night Bill and I were in it for the long haul.  Because - this could be IT!  So we watched and cheered and occasionally, as the game went on, dozed off for a few minutes - him in the big chair, curled up like a contortionist to fit all 6'2" of him comfortably, and me on the couch, stretched out and comfortable. 

And then it was the 7th inning.  And the 8th.  And I swear there were like 850 commercials played in between innings or at the halfway point or whenever there was a pitching change.  The same commercials.  Again and again.  And we were both just begging for the game to come back on so we could prop our eyelids open and watch and be one step closer to winning and to sleep.

And it was so NERVE WRACKING!!!  A one run lead was not a COMFORTABLE lead. 

And then it was the bottom of the ninth.  And we were wide awake and I was perched on the edge of the couch, leaning forward toward the TV as though somehow that would help.  After the first out, I snuck a quick look at Bill and his eyes met mine, and then we both looked away, like this might jinx it.  Same thing after the second out.  So close....so close....   

May I just state right now that I am in love with so many of our guys.  I was just yelling it at them - like an idiot girly fan.  But whatever.  They can't hear me.  I can be an idiot if I want.  But not that girly - I'm in love with how they play.  How HARD they play.

And then - down to the last out.  The last strike.  And - there it was.  At 12:06 by our clock.

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was off the couch and jumping up and down - in a crouch, because the ceiling in the basement is kind of low, and can you imagine that?  Knocking myself out like that?  It would be kind of funny.  Eventually.

Anyway.  We watched a bit longer, watched them show all the players, all the camera shots, as the realization hit them all and those cautious, waiting expressions just fell away and they were all leaping up and down with joy.  I could watch that again and again.  I couldn't stop smiling and laughing. 

And then - it just figures, doesn't it?  Julia woke up.  WIDE awake.

I said it in 2004 when she would wake me up during the postgame season to see miracles happen at weird hours of the night - she is a Fan.  And I say it again.  She must have sensed that we won, and she just wanted to be a part of it. 

So I brought her downstairs, and we snuggled together, wrapped in a blanket, and watched, for a while longer, the jumping up and down and the champagne flying everywhere and the ecstatic expressions on the faces of these phenomenal men - and the little boys inside of them who still can't quite believe that they get to do this for a living.

At least that's how they looked to me.

9 Pounds, 14.5 Ounces

Our Giant Pumpkin, 2007.

Easy Herb Batter Bread - (the first bread I learned to make)

My mom belonged to a local garden club when I was a kid - and well beyond that, actually.  They did a lot to make the town look nice - the trees planted along main street were their doing, for instance.  "Project Beautification" is a program I seem to remember...

Anyway, another project one year was a little cookbook called Indian Run Gardeners Cook Book.  The name "Indian Run" refers (if memory serves) to a little brook that runs parallel to part of Route 108 near Old Mountain Field.  All the members of the club provided a menu and at least one recipe for that menu. 

Here's the cover of my copy. 

 

The books were "bound" with green yarn looped through the two holes in the side.  Yesterday I went crazy looking for my book.  I was scanning my cookbook shelves, just looking for that green yarn.  Couldn't find it.  It's a skinny book, so I thought it was just hiding.  But no...not where it should be.  Not where it might be.  WHERE WAS IT????  I felt a sense of panic.  This is a little snippet of my childhood, this little book.  It represents, on some level, a lot of who my mother was to me at that time.  The cooking and the gardening parts of her. 

It's not that I needed the bread recipe it contained.  I have it written down elsewhere, and I could probably recreate it from memory if I had to.  But I wanted the book itself.  I wanted to scan the cover and a couple of the pages into the computer to use in this post.  But beyond that - IT SHOULD BE HERE - WHERE IS IT???

I finally found the poor thing.  The green yarn is gone.  The front and back cover are separated from the stapled body of the book.  The whole thing was shoved to the back of a shelf, hidden by bigger hard-covered books.  I was so glad to find it.  No matter how many other stuffed animals she has, Julia wants her pink elephant at bedtime, and if the elephant's not in her bed, the house is turned upside down and inside out in order to find the pink elephant.  That's kind of how my search for this little book felt.

Anyway.  You can see the year at the bottom of that page above.  1977.  I don't remember what time of year the book was put together, but anyway, I was about eleven or twelve when it was "in production." (yes.  so you can do the math.  yuck.)

And for whatever reason, I was called upon to do an illustration for the book.  I had taken art classes for some time, maybe that was why.  I don't remember.  But here it is:

I don't know how PC it is now, but of course it's a nod to the name of the club, the name of that brook, and so that is what I was asked to draw.  I think it's funny.  The fact that this probably wouldn't be done now...that the whole thing would be done on a computer and photos of the club members and maybe scenic shots of the towns and gardens would fill the gaps in between text passages.  The book would be spiral bound and would have plastic-coated cover pages.  Very polished and professional...but lacking a bit of the charm of the pre-computer age.

This is my mom's page:

The little hand-written measurements beside the typed ones are mine - I must have halved the recipe for some reason at some point. 

This, as I said in the post title, is the first bread I learned to make.  I can see in my mind the brown earthenware bowl with warm water in it...the dry yeast sprinkled on top.  I remember mixing the ingredients with a wooden spoon, and the smell of the yeast and the herbs blending together.  And I remember the sense of surprise and satisfaction when the dough doubled in size - just like it was supposed to!  I did it right!  And, best of all, I remember the taste of that first slice - always cut sooner than recommended, well before the loaf had cooled.  This is a taste of childhood, of home, and of memories of warm kitchens on chilly afternoons over all these years.

I've moderned things up a bit - I used my monster toy - my 6 qt Kitchenaid Mixer - instead of a bowl and a wooden spoon.  But no matter how you combine ingredients - the aroma will be the same.  Swoon-inducing.

Shall we?

The first thing you want to do is assemble the ingredients.  Here we have all the small things - left to right in the back row - yeast, sugar, salt and shortening.  Front row - dried oregano, dried thyme, and fresh basil.  I didn't have any dried.  If you're switching between dry and fresh, the equivalency ratio is about a teaspoon of dry to a tablespoon of fresh.  The flavor is more concentrated in the dry so you would need more fresh to compensate, as I did in this case.  Fortunately, we still have a ton of basil out there.

The other two ingredients are water and flour.

You put two cups of warm water into your mixing bowl, and sprinkle the yeast on top.  Whisk the yeast in so it's all combined with the water.  Then leave it alone for a bit.

You want to give the yeast time to prove that it's still active.  Those bubbles in the picture above are just froth from when I whisked the yeast and water together.  They will pop. 

Now yeah, there are still bubbles, but they're not all because of me any more.  See that thicker looking section of tan?  That's the wet yeast, and it's producing some of these bubbles now.  Once this has happened, go ahead and add in the other "small" ingredients except for the salt.  (Salt can kill or slow down the yeast, so add that along with flour next.) 

Now, yesterday when I was doing all this, I had just made some coffee and Bill asked if I wanted to go outside and look at what's still growing.  So, mugs of coffee in hand (and me with a camera, just in case) we went outside and looked around.  We still have tomatoes, zucchini, various peppers, and a VERY late-bloomer of a giant pumpkin.  I figured the batter would be okay for a few minutes without me.

And it was - it was more than okay - it was pretty busy, actually.  Here's what I saw when we came back inside:

Pretty cool, huh?  I hadn't even fully combined it yet - you can see the chunk of shortening up on the top left behind the paddle.

Stir that down...

and then add the flour...

Two cups first (and the salt)...

and so on, a cup or so at a time...

until

it looks like that.

Now, push the mixer speed up a notch or two and let it run for a few minutes to develop some of the gluten.

It's never going to look like dough - as the recipe tells you, it's a batter bread.  It's not going to develop the same structure and texture as a bread that you knead.  Just keep that in mind.

Now that it's all combined nicely, you want to scrape the batter into a lightly oiled bowl,

cover it with plastic wrap,

and set aside to rise.

The recipe says to let rise until doubled in bulk - about 40 minutes.  So I wrote down the time when I covered the batter, and kept an eye on the clock.

40 minutes later (give or take a minute)...

and you can see through the plastic that the batter has expanded.

See?

Next, you want to stir it down...

like so, and then scrape it into a standard (9 x 5 x 5) loaf pan (which you have lightly greased first) and cover.  (* It's probably a good idea to lightly oil the plastic wrap you cover the batter with, because otherwise when you remove the plastic before baking, the plastic will pull the batter and wreck some of the height and structure.  I should know, heh heh.)

Here it is before you cover it.  You should also preheat the oven at this time.  375 degrees F.

The top of this batter should look better - smoother and higher than it does.  Remember what I said about not wanting your plastic to stick?  Here's why.  It's still got some height, but it could look a little better.  Oh, and that pan?  That's not dirty - it's seasoned.

Put the pan on a rack in the middle of the oven and set your timer for about 25 minutes.  Some ovens run hot, others run cold...you want to check on it before anything unfixable happens.

Here's mine at about the 25 minute mark:

You can see the lovely height it has now - when it goes into the oven, all the little pockets of air inside expand with steam from the moisture in the batter.  So in addition to the rising the batter does before it goes into the oven, the sudden exposure to heat gives it that extra boost.  The top is golden, but the sides are still white and the whole thing is rather squishy inside.  If you took it out now, it would collapse on itself.  And it wouldn't be cooked.  So you'd have a lump of gush with a pretty hat on it.

I let mine go for another 20 minutes all together, and when I took it out, here's how it looked:

The crust is a nice brown now, and the sides (though you can't see them in this shot) are browned too. 

Here's the very top, close up:

Don't you wish you had a scratch-n-sniff monitor screen right about now?

And here's a view from below:

Another thing to keep in mind when you're trying to decide if the bread is ready to come out of the oven is the bottom of the loaf.  If you think it's ready, tip the bread out of the pan (onto your hand with an oven mitt on it or something - don't burn yourself in the process!)   You want to tap the bottom of the loaf with your fingers, and if it sounds hollow, you're good to go.  It's also a tactile thing - the bottom should be crusty - not quite as crisp as the top because it's been sitting inside the pan amid all the heat and humidity...but it should feel firm and finished.  If you tap on it and you don't feel a crispness, if it feels and sounds more like you're tapping a hunk of cheese, then put the bread back in the oven.  You need to bake it longer.

Now, the hardest part for me - ALWAYS - is waiting the right amount of time before slicing it.  If you slice into it right away, you'll be tearing the bread rather than slicing through it.  The innards are still steamy and damp, and they'll just stick to your knife.  So you're supposed to let the bread cool.

This is far easier said than done if, like me, you lack willpower in the presence of starch.

I waited as long as I could, and then I cut a slice:

It was still kind of wet inside, and there was some pulling against the blade, but not too, too badly. 

Want a closer look at the inner structure?  Here -

Structurally it's weaker than homemade bread from kneaded dough.  The shortening and sugar in the batter help soften it as well.  I'm thinking it I'd let the mixer work on it longer, more of the gluten would have developed.  So next time I'll let it go for a while.  But still - it's a batter, not a dough.  It's wetter and softer.   

Alas, I have no more pictures of the bread.  In fact, I have very little of the bread left at all.  My family (me included) descended on it like vultures on a zebra carcass, and there's only a little bit remaining wrapped up on the counter. 

The bread makes excellent toast to go along with your eggs over easy, in case you were wondering. 

You can change the herb combination if you want - one time I put in Bell's poultry seasoning - it was like a slice of Thanksgiving dinner.  You can also leave out the herbs all together and make a nice loaf of white bread. 

Anyway, this is the first kind of bread I learned to make.  It was easy, and yummy, and I've made a lot of it over the years.  If you've never made bread before, give it a shot. 

Your house will smell fabulous.

Printable Recipe!

Father and Daughter Stuff

Don't know if I ever mentioned this before, but when I was pregnant with Julia - before we knew she was a she - Bill firmly believed (or hoped desperately) that our next child would be another boy.  Because, according to him, his side of the family only produced boys.  The oldest of the three brothers had two sons.  The middle brother had - well, a son...and a daughter.  But somehow she was dismissed as a fluke, and we were bound to have another boy.  According to my husband.

I didn't care one way or another - I was just looking for a healthy baby.  If it was another boy - fine, they could share a room and toys and hand-me-downs.  If it was a girl - fine, we'd eventually need to figure out the bedroom situation, but in the meantime, they could share a room and toys and hand-me-downs. 

When I was somewhere around the half-way point, we went in for an ultrasound to find out if the baby was developing okay and (Bill's choice) to find out the gender.  I got my way with Alex - I didn't want to know.  So, to be fair, if Bill wanted to know this time, that was okay. 

I remember lying on the table twisting my neck around to see the screen during the ultrasound.  I loved ultrasounds.  I loved seeing the tiny creature growing inside me.  Didn't love the two ultrasounds that gave me bad news, of course.  But this was now, and my baby was growning and moving and - presumably - healthy.  The woman doing the ultrasound was a pro - quick and efficient and calm.  She showed us various bones and said everything was developing normally, everything looked good, right on track, and so forth.

And then - "Did you want to know the sex?"  Yep.  She was silent for a moment as she moved the scope around, and then - "It's a girl."  Not open to discussion or debate.  She was certain.

I burst out laughing.  Healthy, first and foremost, and - a girl.  I looked over at Bill who, fortunately, was sitting in a chair to my left, not standing.  If he had been standing before the announcement, he would have been falling at the word "girl."  I know it's a cliche, but he really had that deer in the headlights look about him.  I laughed more.  The radiologist pointed out the proof - where something might have been right there between the legs, it very clearly wasn't in this picture.  And she'd been doing this for something like 20 years, so even though there was certainly a possibility that she'd be wrong, she was pretty damn sure she was right.

Bill continued to look shell-shocked for the whole drive home, and remained terrified for the rest of the pregnancy.  And several months after Julia was born.  She didn't have boy stuff, she had girl stuff, and girl stuff is scary to men who think they will only father sons.

He got over it, in a way, though I think there is still a part of him that will always be terrified of having a daughter.  Not so much because of her, but because fathering a daughter is a whole different ballgame from fathering a son. 

As another Bill sang in "Carousel" - "You can have fun with a son, but you gotta be a father to a girl."

It's scary stuff.

Flash forward a few years. 

This morning is foggy and occasionally rainy.  A slight breeze sways the treetops, but otherwise all is calm, still.  A perfect morning to go trout fishing.  Originally Bill was going to take both kids and give me uninterrupted time to type or whatever.  But Alex didn't want to.  I told Bill to go alone if he wanted to - I knew he was itching to go.  He went downstairs to get a couple of freshwater poles from the racks and a moment later, up came Julia with her pink Barbie pole. 

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm going fishing!" she announced, in her Dora underwear and her ruby slippers.  "I'm going fishing with Daddy!"  I told her she'd need a few more articles of clothing on first.

Bill came upstairs and, yep, he was taking Julia with him.

I used to go fishing with my father, and with his father.  I was Julia's age - Julia's age! - when I caught 14 choggies - little saltwater fish related to blackfish.  I seem to remember a photo of me standing with all my catch laid out on a cookie sheet or something.  I need to check with my father to see if he has a copy somewhere....

Anyway - this morning.

Bill got Julia dressed warmly and ready to go...

And I took pictures (big surprise) - because this is what I knew would happen, ever since that day in the radiologist's office when I laughed and Bill quaked.  Because this is the wonderful part of fathers and daughters. 

And I know - it's not always like this.  I'm doubly blessed - as a daughter, and now, watching my own daughter and her father. 

Take your daughter fishing.  Teach her to use a hammer and a screwdriver and a saw and a wrench...and how to throw overhand and how to catch with a glove, and how to catch a football and how to shuck scallops and clams and oysters, and how to bait a hook and gut a fish.  Or to play guitar.  Or whatever.

Not that mothers can't teach their daughters these things as well.  Of course they can.  But I'm not talking about that right now.

I'm just smiling here, to myself, because my baby girl and my husband have gone fishing.

And though neither one of them may realize it right now, or for many years, these are special, precious, important times.

  You can have fun with a daughter, too.

Pickled Peppers

From my sister.

Tag, I'm It...8 Things You Don't (or Might Not) Know About Me

Leigh over at Red Pony Farm tagged me yesterday, so here goes.  I wanted to think about it a bit first, but the World Series is preventing me from much independent thinking right now.  And from sleep.

So here goes....

1.  I used to want to be a private detective.  My best friend and I (we were around 11 or so, I guess) had our own detective agency, complete with a sign on the door. 

2.  I have a scar just below my left knee from a bicycle accident that occurred while on my paper route a week before I turned 13.  I had 6 stitches.  I watched the whole thing - very cool.

3.  I was a vegetarian for nearly a year.  I passed up lobster...but I couldn't make it through Thanksgiving and Christmas meatlessly.

4.  Before I was old enough to get a driver's license, I had an idea of what I wanted my first car to look like.  I didn't know what make or model, but I wanted it to be red on the hood, then blend into purple, and then blend into blue at the trunk. 

5.  The first time I ever flew anywhere, I was in college, going to visit a friend in Texas.  The first leg landed in Austin.  As we were descending, motion sickness got me and I threw up into my hands.  (Yes, there was someone sitting next to me.  No one I knew.)  A flight attendant came by and asked if I was all right, and I sort of held up my vomity hands as an offering (evidence that no, I wasn't all right) and she recoiled, handed me an airsick bag and hurried away.  She came by again a bit later, after I'd cleaned up, and this time I held out the bag for her, but no, she didn't want to touch that, either.  I threw it away in the bathroom myself.  It was a mortifying and disgusting experience.  Fortunately, it hasn't ever happened again.

6.  When I was a kid, I once stepped on a dead baby bird that had fallen out of a tree in our yard.  The bird was covered with dirt, for the most part.  I still remember the odd squishy feel of its stomach under my sneaker.

7.  I don't like cauliflower. 

8.  I really like McDonalds cheeseburgers.

There.  That's what I can come up with this morning.  I hope it was exciting and enlightening for you all. 

Time to go get my kids ready for school and daycare.  And me ready for work.

You know, I'm really looking forward to the end of November.

OktoberFeast - Part 4 - the Spaetzle

In my slowly continuing recap of a meal we put together for Oct 13th, here is the 4th recipe I'm posting.

You can see the others here:

OktoberFeast - Part 1 - the Sauerkraut

OktoberFeast - Part 2 - the Onion Cake

OktoberFeast - Part 3 - the Sauerbraten

Today it's all about the Spaetzle.  Pronunciation of the word varies - some say "Spay-tsl" while Bill's mother said "speh-tchle" or something like that.  Whatever way you say it, spaetzle = comfort food.  Little freshly made noodles or dumplings (depending on how you make them - thin and noodly or thicker and dumplingy) tossed with gravy or even some butter - they are light, pillowy, starchy bites of goodness.

Anyway.  I have a feeling Bill's mom put the ingredients together from memory, though he says he saw a recipe.  I couldn't find it, but this is a good, workable ratio of ingredients:

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of freshly rendered lard (actually i think we used bacon fat, you can use oil if you want, or melted and cooled butter)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk

2  1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Beat the first 4 ingredients (all the wet ingredients)together in a bowl.  In another bowl, stir together the last 3 ingredients (the dry ones).  Then blend the dry mixture into the wet mixture and set aside.  How easy is that?

Get a big pot of water boiling and add in some salt - about 2 teaspoons. 

Put the bowl of the spaetzle dough (actually, it's rather loose and more like a batter, to me, than a dough) near the stove.  You'll also want a slotted spoon handy, and a bowl to put the cooked spaetzle in.

Now here's the tricky part.  You can use a spaetzle press if you have one (we don't) or a ricer.  We tried the ricer:

but the batter was too thin and it all just smushed back together before it hit the water.  We tried a collander as well, with the same unsatisfactory result.  I suggested we add a little more flour to thicken it, but my idea was dismissed.  I still think it would have worked.  But what do I know.

So - it was back to basics time.

Bill's mom always used a spaetzlebrot or spaetzle board.  We have hers, and this is what it looks like:

Now, Bill's the one who has actually made the spaetzle, and so has his nephew, Joe.  Joe was here for the dinner that night, and since Bill had other things to attend to, he put Joe in charge of the spaetzle-making.  I believe you get the surface of the board a little wet, then put some of the dough/batter on about mid-way.  Then, with a knife, you smear some of the batter toward the front (the straight edge) and then slice it and shove it off the end into the boiling water.

See all the little knife lines on there? 

You work with a portion of the dough/batter at a time.  The spaetzle will sink to the bottom of the water initially, and when they float to the top, they are done.  Using your slotted spoon, scoop them out and place in a bowl while you make the next batch.

Unfortunately, I don't have any more pictures of that process.  I think I was probably putting the rest of the food on the table or taking knives out of Julia's hands or making faces behind Bill's back for ignoring my additional flour idea.  Something like that.  But I'll post this picture again of the table of food. 

Those two bowls on the right contain the spaetzle, mixed with some gravy from the sauerbraten.  My brother-in-law, Jacques, is helping himself to some of the spaetzle. 

We will make this again, and when we do, I'll take better pictures, or, actually, MORE pictures, so you can really see the process better. 

Next up - the scary foods.  I think. 

Five Minutes on the Sea Wall in Narragansett on Saturday Morning Just Before 10:00...

That's all for the moment. 

Just Call Me Charlotte

Yesterday we had a little Halloween party for our kids and some of Alex's friends.  I had them decorate halloween cookies, and originally I was going to have some sort of haunted part of the house with stuff to touch, like cold spaghetti for brains (or guts) and peeled grapes for eyeballs.

But Saturday I felt like I was coming down with something, and I really didn't have any desire to peel grapes.

So instead, I made a spider web in the back yard and then wove separate lengths of string from the gate through the web and ultimately to their little goodie bags hidden around the edges of the yard.

Here's the view from our second floor:

The original web was more web-like in appearance.  This is after I wove all the string mazes through it all.  The whole web was about chest high on me, so taller than Alex, and he's the tallest of the group of kids.  So no child was decapitated during the event.

And you know, it was the best fun, making this thing.  Especially the original web itself.  I was out there by myself laughing with delight.  (So I'm sure I looked like quite the lunatic to anyone walking by...) 

And it went pretty well, the game part.  It was a little frustrating for some of them, having to follow the strings and unloop them from the main web lines, but still, everyone ended up with chocolate eyeballs and spooky tattoos and rubber bats and spiders, so overall, the web maze was a success.

I actually thought of writing "Boo" or something in the web, but I didn't have enough string.  Maybe next year....

42 Across

"Don't worry, Grammie, I'll tell them you did the whole thing by yourself."

OktoberFeast - Part 3 - the Sauerbraten

I've been posting about a dinner that my husband and I put together this past Saturday - a big selection of German menu items accompanied by a selection of German beers. 

You can see the menu and read Part 1 - the Sauerkraut - here, and Part 2 - the Onion Cake - here.

Today, I'm writing about the Sauerbraten.

Sauerbraten is basically pot roast that has been pickled for several days before it gets cooked.  Why is it pickled?  Sauerbraten is one of those marvelous dishes that transforms a cheap cut of meat into falling-apart, mouth-watering, fighting-over-the-last-shredded-bit bliss.  The perfect accompaniment is a generous serving of Spaetzle , which are bumpy little German noodles or dumplings.  We made them, too, and I'll post that recipe tomorrow or the next day.

But back to the beef portion of our story.

My husband made the Sauerbraten - he's made it once or twice before - and I'll be printing the recipe he uses.  However, I have to tell you, I wasn't sure I wanted to reference this specific recipe because of the baggage it brings to the table.

So I was going to type up another Sauerbraten recipe, from a different cookbook.  But that didn't sit well with me either.  So I deleted that original post (which was part of the Sauerkraut post,) and put it on the back burner for a while.

And then I decided, okay, I'm going to post the real recipe because it's the one we used, and I can't vouch for the other recipe, though I'm sure it's perfectly  good.  But still.  It's not the one we used. 

Why all the dancing around the point?  The cook who wrote the cookbook used to have a rather popular cooking show on public television...he was bearded and exuberant...and later on all sorts of ugliness and accusations bubbled up to the surface, and that was basically the end of his popularity and career.  This book was published a little before all of that, in 1990.   Its author died several years ago.

I don't want to post his name or the name of the cookbook, because I don't feel like dealing with any traffic that might reach me because of those particular words and that particular story.  So I'm not going to.  My blog.  My decision.

The recipe, however, is excellent, and should not be relegated to the recycle bin because of the author.

So now, without further confusion, we have

Sauerbraten (German Pickled Beef Roast)

You will need the following:

One 4-5 lb beef pot roast, with bone.  (Bill got two smaller nearly 3 lb pieces, and I don't think they had the bone, but it certainly didn't seem to ruin the meal at all.)

For the Marinade:

1  1/2 cups red wine vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup dry red wine

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

1 medium carrot, chopped

1 stalk celery with leaves, chopped

8 black peppercorns

4 whole allspice (which I didn't realize we had, but I just checked, and Bill said we did)

4 whole cloves

2 bay leaves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Place the beef in a deep glass, earthenware, or stainless steel bowl. (We used the same crock we'd used for the Sauerkraut...I should probably take a picture of it, important member of the family that it is...)  Combine the marinade ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat to boiling over high heat.  Cool.  Pour the cool marinade over the meat, turning to coat all sides.  Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 days, turning the meat several times each day.

To Cook the Meat:

3 T peanut oil

1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 medium carrot, finely chopped

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup red wine

1/2 cup crushed gingersnap cookie. (About 5 medium sized cookies)

Three to four hours before serving, drain the meat,

reserving the marinade,

and pat the meat dry with paper towels.

  Heat a large saucepan.  Add the oil.  Add the meat and brown on all sides, turning frequently, about 30 minutes.  (When you are browning meat, be patient.  Don't mess with it.  Just place the meat on a side, and leave it alone.  If you try pulling it off the pan and it doesn't want to go - leave it alone!  It's not browned enough yet.  You want a nice dark color on each side.  Just in case you were wondering....)

Remove the meat from the pan and reserve.  Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.  Saute the onion, celery, and carrot in the fat until tender, about 10 minutes. 

Return the meat to the pan.  Strain into the pan the marinade plus 1/2 cup water, discarding the marinade vegetables.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the meat is tender, 2  1/2 to 3 hours.

Remove the meat and keep warm.  Remove the marrow from the bone (if you had the bone in the meat to begin with.  If you didn't, then perhaps your wonderful spouse will get some beef marrow bones at the grocery store the morning you're going to cook all this, and she will roast the bones in the oven and scoop out the marrow for you to use later when you cook your Sauerbraten.)  and stir into the sauce.  Puree the liquid in the blender or food processor and strain into pan, adding the red wine.  Bring to a simmer and stir in the crumbs.  Simmer, stirring frequently, until the sauce is thickened, a few minutes.

Slice and arrange the meat on a heated serving platter.  Serve hot with thickened sauce.  Garnish with chopped parsley.  (Okay, we didn't do the garnish.  And as far as slicing and arranging the meat?  Ha!  It's hard to slice something that just falls apart when you try to lift it from the pan.  Oh yes.  FALLS APART.)

This is just great with German Dumplings.  The gravy is perfect for the dumplings. 

And that's about it.  The German Dumplings are, of course, the Spaetzle, which, as I said earlier, will be the next recipe I post from this feast.

Below is the only picture I took of the whole spread of food out on a table.  It was snapped quickly and it didn't come out all that great, but whatever.  The sauerbraten is falling apart there on that red, rectangular platter in the front.  The gravy is in the white bowl to the right, and the spaetzle is in two bowls at the right front corner of the table.  My brother-in-law is helping himself to some in this picture.  Now, behind the platter of sauerbraten is a smaller glass bowl of sauerkraut, and behind that is the onion cake.  (All our time and energy went into preparing the food - then we just kind of threw it all on the table, stacked up some plates, and let everyone help themselves.  Very relaxed, everyone spread out through the house to eat.  Nothing fancy.  But no one left hungry.) 

We've decided we need to make sauerbraten a bit more often than once every several years.  It's way too good to go without for so long.  Same with the spaetzle, topped with some of the gravy from the sauerbraten...sigh.

Anyway, hope that made you want to pickle some beef and then cook it for a long time some time soon.  You won't regret it. 

Coming next, the Spaetzle....

A Blank

Once again, I have free time - about half an hour - and I stare at the screen of my laptop and my mind looks exactly like this:

Yes.  It's scary.  I don't like the feeling.  I can usually summon up a ton of annoying "listen to what my kids just did/said/drew/threw/sang/danced/destroyed/ate" stories.  But this morning...not a one.

I'm sitting here on the love seat next to the large front window in our living room.  (The main floor living room, the one with the fireplace and the lizard tank...not the basement living room, which has the giant mess of too many toys and the fish tank.)  I like sitting here while I type, because I can look outside at the still-blooming geraniums and those little pink flowers, whatever they are, in the window box, and also look at the leaves turning colors and falling to the ground across the street. 

I'm so glad it finally feels like autumn.  My favorite season.  So glad the leaves have finally really begun to change colors.  I like the overall effect - the crisp, cool air, the blue sky, the fiery calico of reds and golds and yellows, and the orange of the pumpkins on front steps. 

This is about where I should bombard you with pictures I've taken of all these autumn leaves...only I don't have any at the moment.  I haven't taken pictures of any of them yet.  And today, despite my loving description in the previous paragraph, is actually a bit muggy and not at all crisp, it's drizzly, there's rain in the forecast, and I'll need to get ready for work soon.  Hopefully this weekend I can get out and capture some of the current colors.  Sunday is supposed to be nice.

So, in the meantime, and because I have an echo chamber inside my skull instead of anything creative or productive, here is a picture from nearly a month ago, when it felt like summer, and the colors were different, but just as bright.

Cryptic No More

I will be jobless at the end of November. 

Possibly into the beginning of December.  There's some flexibility.  If they need me, I'll stay a little longer.

That's the cliff I was talking about a while back.  It was officially "announced" at work yesterday.  So now it's real. 

You've probably noticed that I've got some ads up now.  Yep.  I do. 

And I'll be stepping up production over at Eclectic Garden as well. 

And assorted other things...

Anyway, that's what's going on, in a little tiny nut shell. 

Have to go now and get the kids moving along.

Julia just yelled "You're a Freezing Potato Cow!" at Alex. 

I'd better go break it up before it gets any worse.

OktoberFeast - Part 2 - the Onion Cake

As I mentioned yesterday, we had a dinner of German food this past Saturday night.  In my previous post I talked about the sauerkraut my husband made.  Next up is his mother's mother's onion cake recipe.

We found this recipe in one of the notebooks I "inherited" when my mother-in-law passed away almost five years ago.  The other recipes before it were various cookies - such as all the holiday cookies that she made every year and sent out to family.  There were also a few bread and cake recipes - all hand-written.

Let's begin.

Bill's Grandmother's Onion Cake

1/2 pkg dry yeast

1/2 cup milk (approx.)

1 egg

4 T butter (room temp)

1  1/2 C flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 lb onions, cut into thin strips

2 T bacon fat

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour cream

2 T bread crumbs

a bit more butter

You'll also need an 8" round cake pan, lightly greased.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The recipe itself is written in a very abbreviated form - just the ingredients and a few lines of instruction regarding the dough, the filling, etc.  I've added my own two cents' worth to the mix.  Let me know if you have any questions.

1.  Warm the milk a bit and put that in the bottom of a bowl.  Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes.

If the yeast is still good, you should start to see little bubbles appearing and the mixture will start to become foamy.  At this point, add the eggs, the butter, and about half the flour.  I used a Kitchenaid mixer with a dough hook, but you can also stir this together in a bowl with a wooden spoon.  If you're using the Kitchenaid, add the salt and the rest of the flour and set at a medium speed.  Knead the dough in this manner for about ten minutes or until the dough is smooth.  If the dough keeps sticking to the side of the bowl, add a little more flour.

* Don't put the salt in directly with the yeast - salt can kill the yeast, or at the very least, put a hurtin' on it, and if that happens - flat bread.  Or cake, in this case.

If you are mixing the dough by hand, keep adding flour until the dough is too thick to stir.  Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface and and knead until smooth and shiny and springy to the touch.

2. When the dough is ready, place it in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, set the bowl in a warm spot and let the dough rise until doubled in bulk. 

I set mine on a little table near a front window.  The front of our house faces south, and the sun was pouring in.   Perfect.

3.  While the dough is rising, get working on the filling.  First thing, if you haven't already, you need to slice the onions.  I used my food processor - mainly to keep all the onion and onion vapor contained and keep my eyes from watering so much.

Next, melt the bacon fat in a skillet (you can use butter if you don't have any bacon fat handy) and add the onions. 

Add the teaspoon of salt and saute the onions until they are soft and golden.  I was kind of in a hurry, so I moved the onions into a strainer and spread them out a bit so they'd cool faster.

 

After the onions have cooled, place them in a large bowl and add the eggs and the sour cream.  (In this next picture, you'll notice that I have added more than two eggs.  I had doubled the recipe when I took these pictures on Saturday.)

Mix well...

...and set aside.  Preheat the oven to 375 (F).

4.  When the dough is ready...

(If you poke the dough with your finger or knuckles, and the indentation stays, your dough has finished rising.  That's what that little dent is in the picture above.)

...turn it out onto a lightly floured surface...

...and while you're at it, take a close look at what's been going on...

See the stretchy, fibrous-looking parts there in the middle?  Those are evidence that the gluten in the flour is working properly and your final product will have structure. 

Press the dough into your lightly oiled 8" cake pan...

If the dough seems like it doesn't want to stay stretched out to fit the pan, it helps to kind of spread your fingers a bit as you press down on the dough.  Like when you make a pizza, you need to convince the dough to stretch out bit by bit.  If you try too hard, you'll tear it.  So take your time.  And if it's not perfect (mine certainly isn't) - don't fret.  It will all be okay.

Next, sprinkle the breadcrumbs on the dough - this helps absorb some of the liquid from the onion mixture.

And then pour the onion mixture on top. 

Dot with a bit of butter and place the pan on a rack in the middle of your preheated oven and set a timer for 25 minutes.

Nope.  Not ready yet.  You're looking for golden brown.  But look how nicely it's rising!

I think I had to bake mine for about 45 minutes, but my oven runs a bit cold.  Just keep checking every five minutes or so until you get the golden brown color you want.

Let the cake cool in the pan for about fifteen minutes or so.  You might need to run a knife around the edge of the pan - I used an up and down slicing motion so as not to pull on the edges of the cake. 

Next, hold the pan and...how do I explain this...you kind of jerk the pan up a bit - you're trying to loosen the cake from the bottom of the pan.  Keep turning the pan as you do this until the whole thing is loose. 

Now, you need to get the cake out.  You can either place a cooling rack (or your hand, or a plate) on top of the cake and quickly invert it, and then flip it back right side up onto another plate or flat surface.  Or you can gently ease a spatula under the edge of the cake, lift it out and put it on the rack to finish cooling.

Whichever way you do it, be committed to it.  No guts; no glory.  He (or she) who hesitates could have a broken cake.

Anyway...here's what one of mine looked like:

Ours was about room temperature when we served it.  I cut it into 12 wedges - it's pretty filling; you could even do 16 wedges. 

The eggs and butter give the dough a soft, rich texture.  The mix of sour cream and egg combined with the sauteed onions is lush and delicious.  It's a cake, yes, but it's savory.  And to add to the confusion, Bill's uncle told us this was served after dinner, with coffee. 

Well, we served ours along with dinner, and that seemed agreeable to our guests, and that was all that mattered. 

Let me know if you make this - and let me know how it turned out and if you liked it. 

(It occurred to me that this would also taste really good with half mushrooms and half onions...I'll have to try that some time.)

Next up - the Sauerbraten.

Looking for Bugs

OktoberFeast - Part 1 - the Sauerkraut

At some point in early September we decided that we would, for sure, have an Oktoberfest gathering of a few friends and family.  Bill brewed a Dunkel Weizen (a dark wheat beer) and we had assorted bottles of other German beers on hand.  We also had a couple bottles of wine - a Reisling that Bill made a year ago and a Gewurtztraminer that he picked up along with some of the beer.  No one drank either of the white wines.  Instead, the wine drinkers had some Italian reds.  There was sparkling cider for the older kids, and juice for the younger.

And now...the food.

We ordered some items from Bavaria Sausage, Inc.  in Madison, Wisconsin.  Anthony Bourdain lists Bavaria Sausage in his book Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, and we've been ordering from them for the past few Christmases.  We've ordered some of their complete meals to send to various relatives as Christmas gifts, but this is the first time we've ordered anything for ourselves.

We ordered a selection of brats and wursts...head cheese, and two smoked beef tongues.  Yes, beef tongues.  For the sole purpose of freaking people out.  (This is how my husband plans a dinner party:  beer and gross-out food.  We served a chicken foot soup at our very first dinner party many years ago.  Of course, I'm no better - I go right along with it.)

In addition to these tidbits, the rest of the planned menu included the following:

Smoked bluefish and some cheeses and grapes (to round out the appetizer selection)

Homemade sauerkraut

Bill's grandmother's Onion Cake

Sauerbraten

Spaetzle

Bill's grandmother's Onion Cake

Grilled brats and wursts

A beer-can chicken (for those who don't eat mammals)

Roasted root vegetables.

Rolls and assorted mustards for the brats and wursts.

And my "cousin-in-law" brought an apple-cranberry pie and some chocolate and peanutbutter chip bars for dessert.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Sauerkraut

Bill started the sauerkraut about a month ago or so.  We found a few sauerkraut recipes online and he probably ended up using elements of all of them. 

We started with two heads of cabbage from our garden.  Now - just a little aside - when Bill bought the cabbage he planned to use it to fill in some gaps in the front garden.  It was sold as ornamental cabbage, and the leaves were very pretty shades of pink and orange, green and blue.  Really!  See?

Aren't they beautiful?  But they didn't stay that way.  They grew and lost the fanciful shades of color until only the green remained...and much to our surprise, little head of actual cabbage began to form.  Maybe we're just stupid, but for some reason we just thought this "ornamental cabbage" would stay leafy and colorful.  It didn't. 

It continued to grow until Bill "harvested" two heads in September.  Here's one of them:

Okay, back to the sauerkraut.  You slice up the cabbage into "slaw" and layer it with a generous amount of salt in a crock.  Cabbage, salt, cabbage, salt...and you push down on it with a potato masher or something as you go - you want to make it as compact as possible.  Once all the cabbage is in there, you place a clean cloth on top and then a plate with some sort of weight on top (Bill used a big beach rock left over from one of our clambakes.).  That's it, as far as the prep work goes. 

The salt will help the cabbage release liquid, and the whole mixture will ferment.  You will need to check it daily to skim any "scum" from the top, and you'll want to keep the crock in a cool spot - around 50-60 degrees so it won't go bad.  Yes, it will smell.  Oh yes.  And no, it's not something you want to say "oh, I got used to it" because, well...it smells.  It's fermenting cabbage, after all.  But still, it was pretty cool - we were making sauerkraut!

Now, we didn't really have anywhere cold to store this.  Well, we had the chest freezer in the basement that Bill uses when he's brewing beer.  He's got a regulator hooked up to the thermostat of the freezer and can set it at just about any temperature he wants.  But he didn't want any chance of the sauerkraut contaminating his beer, so forget that idea.  He ended up placing the crock in a large bowl and placing a couple of those ice pack things you use to keep lunches cold around the crock.  And that worked.  The bowl and crock sat out on the counter all that time...stinking up the place and taking up valuable counter space near the sink...but it was all for the cause. 

After a few weeks, he bottled it and stored it in the fridge.  (He also made a batch of kim chee with the other two heads of cabbage, but that will be another post.)

And the result?  It tasted like sauerkraut!  But with a "funk" to it, as our friend John described it.  A homemade vs. store-bought sauerkraut kind of funk.  A "nothing fake" kind of funk, I guess.  It couldn't have been objectionable - all the sauerkraut was gone at the end of the night.  It was perfect with a brat and some grainy mustard on a torpedo roll.

Next up?  Bill's Grandmother's Onion Cake....

But first I'll do this...

I don't know why I'm procrastinating, but I am.  I'm home today - Julia has some kind of virus that sent her home from daycare yesterday with a low grade fever and red splotches - looks like a rash but there's no "texture" to it on her skin.  And it's not chicken pox.  And she seems perfectly fine, too.  She was a bundle of energy yesterday, and thoroughly perky and jolly at the doctor's office, and she's been a busy little bee this morning as well.

She has been my "excuse" for not sitting down and typing.  I figured she'd probably interrupt me too often for me to get much accomplished.

So instead, I did the following:

Filled and ran the dishwasher.

Put away the dry pots and things in the rack from last night.

Washed the dishes that were in the sink.

Reheated my coffee.

Made myself some breakfast.

Twice.

Folded the laundry in the dryer, moved the wash into the dryer, and re-filled the washer.

Put a bunch of clean clothes and towels away.

Sat with Julia on the couch and watched 10 minutes of "Winnie the Pooh:  Tiggerific Tales." 

Checked email.

Read other blogs.

Folded another load of laundry, moved wash to dryer, and put another load in to wash. 

Julia helped load the washing machine.

She also helped match up socks.

Removed all the summer clothes from the kids' bureaus and packed them away for next spring.

Put all the things Julia has outgrown in a laundry basket to be donated somewhere. 

Tossed some clothes just too ratty to donate to anyone.

Helped Julia put her mittens on.  (She got into the winter clothes.  At one point she had put on a pink and white striped winter hat and one of the matching mittens.  We haven't found the other mitten yet.  That's probably why she ditched the solo mitten and wanted her sparkly pink PAIR of mittens on.  The thumbs gave us problems, but we worked them out.)

Fixed lunch for Julia (Chef Boyardee ravioli) and emptied the dishwasher while she ate.

Brought her to bed for her nap (despite her protests) and tucked her in and gave her kisses.

Brought my laptop and some cookbooks I need to reference downstairs, put the food channel on the TV, turned the volume down a bit, and kicked my slippers off.

Heard a thud, and then the pitter patter of Julia's feet as she scurried down a flight and a half of stairs, and then listened to her laugh with delight when I told her to go back to bed.  She laughed the whole way back to her room.  She's up there now, staying in bed - or at least in her room - and playing and singing and not taking a nap.  But that's okay.  She will fall asleep eventually.

And I think that's everything.  The dryer just shut off, so I feel the pull of fold-worthy clothes tugging at my elbow, but I am resisting.

So enough of this post.  I have some food to talk about in the next one.

Winding Down

It's finally starting to feel like October, temperature-wise (80 degree weather does NOT, in my opinion, belong in October.  Glad THAT's over.) and so yesterday Bill picked some more herbs and I packed them in oil and froze them, like I talked about in this post a while back.  This time I added oregano, chives, tarragon and thai basil to the collection in the freezer, along with some more sage and basil, because we just have so much of them.

Bill also pulled the cilantro plants, which had ceased looking like cilantro and had transformed into seed-bearing coriander plants, like so:

While he and the kids pulled up the strawberry bed (we need to put them in a better spot next year - they just haven't been doing well where they were.) I picked all the little seeds off the coriander plants.

This was not as tedious as it may sound - it was kind of relaxing, actually.  No thinking involved.  Just picking the seeds....

I've left them in a bowl to finish drying out, and then we'll put them in a jar with the other herbs and spices and use them for spice mixtures and rubs throughout the winter.

Zanahorias grandes! Ay yi yi!

Just a little thought...

GO SOX!!!!!!!

We got an email from Bill's cousin Beth this morning.  All it said was "Go Tribe!!!!!" - she's from Ohio, but that's not her fault.  So we've got a nice friendly little rivalry going.  Previously united in our wish for the Yankees to fold...now, we are sworn enemies.  At least for this series.

No cooking tonight - Bill is to order a pizza so that it's ready by the time I get home with the kids.  We will eat, do whatever minimal clean up is necessary, and then we will park ourselves in front of the TV for the game tonight.  The kids will just have to fend for themselves.  (haha - ONLY KIDDING.)

Less than 12 hours to wait...it's going to be a long day.  Sigh.

Thinking Pink

You'll notice the pink on this website - about 11 days later than it should be, but better late than never.  I've also got a button over on the right that you can click on to help provide free mammograms for women that need them.  Please click!  (I absolutely copied this from another site because sometimes I haven't thought ahead about things.)  (Rambling on...sorry.)

Anyway - in memory of my late sister-in-law, Diane, who successfully fought breast cancer many years ago but lost the battle to bone cancer earlier this year, and in support of my cousin's girlfriend, Roseleen, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy and so far, so good...for these two women in particular I have changed the barefoot color scheme to pink.

*********************************************************************

This past Saturday night, Bill and I went out.  Just the two of us.  Like grownups!  On a date!  Dinner AND a movie! 

We'd made plans to see Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix at the Feinstein Imax Theatre in Providence.  It was a 7:40 show, and our babysitter was due around 4:00, so we had around three whole hours!!! to have dinner and hang out. 

Giddy with our freedom, we set off.  I brought my camera along for the ride because gradually it is grafting itself to my hand and eventually I will never ever go anywhere without it.  (Because the times I do leave without it, I kick myself later because I've missed SOMETHING interesting to photograph.)

We parked in the mall parking lot on one of the theatre levels and then walked to Union Station Brewery for dinner.  Bill had their Lobster Bisque, which he shared with me, and oh MY was it fabulous.  We were a bit skeptical, because there were no chunks of lobster meat in it, like you see much of the time, but the flavor - it was perfect.  Creamy and rich and LOBSTERY and a whisper of cognac (I'm guessing) floating in the background.  I would have swooned, but then Bill would have finished up all the bisque himself, and that would never do.

Food-wise, he had a huge salad of Thai chicken and noodles over an assortment of fresh greens.  I didn't try it but it looked very good.  He said the chicken was a little bit dry, but the dressing compensated for it.  I had their Pizza Number 4.  The crust was thin and crisp and texture-wise more like a pie or biscuit than a yeast dough.  The menu said their crusts make use of the spent grains from the brewing process, and I could see specks of brown which were probably bits of those grains.  The bottom of the crust was also crunchy with cornmeal.  I would have been happy with the crust all by itself.  On top of the crust were the following:  shredded smoked chicken, caramelized onions, some garlicky oil, gorgonzola, and scallions.  I may be forgetting something, but those were the highlights for me.  Caramelized onions.  Yum.

I should have taken pictures of the food, but oh well, I didn't.  I did, however, take a shot of the beer menu on the wall near our table:

Union Station Brewery makes their own beer, of course, and the choices are always changing - mainly with the seasons, but more often than 4 times a year.

Bill started with their Oktoberfest and I ordered their sampler so I could try a bit of all five.  His beer was actually nearly flat, and the waitress said they were having a problem with the tap system.  She brought him another with a bigger head on it, which was better, but in Bill's opinion they should have told him up front.  Ah well.  Anyway, moving on - apart from the carbonation issue with the Oktoberfest, everything else was quite satisfying.  The Northern Light was pale and nutty and, well, light.  The Providence Pale was slightly hoppy - as it should be - but not overpoweringly so.  Not everyone can deal with the bitterness.  I'm not a huge fan of overly hopped beers, but I find mild to moderate hoppiness a perfect accompaniment to something rich and savory - like that bisque.  The IPA - India Pale Ale - had a stronger hoppy flavor (again, as it should) and Bill really liked that.  (Of course he had to sample all my samples.  Annoying beer brewer that he is.)  The Oktoberfest was nicely spiced and yummy.  And the Espresso Stout...well.  I love Stouts and Porters, and I particularly love them with some sort of coffee element added.  I had Red Hook's Double Black Stout years ago in Seattle and was - pardon the pun - hooked.  Anyway, this Espresso Stout did not disappoint - it was creamy and smooth and dark and roasty and rich.  The perfect end to the meal. 

Stuffed to the gills, we paid the bill and headed back outside.  Saturday night was warm, summery and alive.  People everywhere, lots of outdoor seating at all the nearby restaurants, a beautiful night.

We headed toward the water...

Saturday night's Waterfire was sponsored by the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation.  I'd heard something about it on the radio a few days prior, but forgot all about it until we saw the banner.  We heard Anthony Gemma welcoming everyone and talking about his mother, in whose memory the foundation was created.  Piano music followed, and more and more people gathered.

We walked, and I took pictures...

Our State House.  With the second-largest unsupported dome in the world.  Gorgeous, isn't it?

We started heading over to the Providence Place mall, wending our way toward the Imax Theatre for our 7:40 Harry Potter date. 

Also, Bill needed to find a bathroom.  We headed to Borders and had lattes and hung out a bit longer...until...Harry Time.

As we walked toward the doors, we could see that the sky was now dark, and there seemed to be a parade of fire marching past the mall.  Earlier, as we'd crossed the street, I had seen a ton of people assembled on the front steps of the State House.  Ah - here they are.  We hurried outside.

It was a moving and powerful sight...

Every one of them affected somehow by breast cancer.  They marched down the street, and we could feel the heat of the flames as they went by. 

The march continued on down toward the water, and part of me wanted to follow them.  My eyes felt prickly.  My heart went out to them.  I felt so many things in just those few minutes - sad, helpless, hopeful, awed....   

We watched the distant flames a bit longer, but we had a movie to see.  And so we turned away.  Slowly.

Overheard this Morning

I sent the kids into the bathroom to start brushing their teeth while I tried to add a few more lines to a post I've been trying to write since yesterday...

Both kids in unison:  "Shake yer BOO-TAY!  Shake yer BOO-TAY!" over and over.

Me:  "BRUSH YOUR TEETH!"

Alex:  "But Mom!  We're shaking our booties!"

(This is why Bill gets migraines.)

Overheard

Bill:  "Alex, what's the name of the girl rat in Flushed Away?"

Alex:  "Her name is Ree-tah.  And the boy rat is Rotty."

It's the Great Pumpkin! And the Great Hubbard Squash!

This past Saturday morning we got together with friends of ours to go to The Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Championship at Frerichs Farms in Warren, RI.

I've never been before but our friends went last year.  It's very much a country fair, only on a smaller and single-themed scale.  There were a few fun things for the kids to do, including a pony ride, and there was food.  But most importantly, there was the 1,000 lb pumpkin drop.

That was at noon, so we made sure to arrive in time to watch this most exciting part of the event.

A crane was set up in a fenced off area and a big pumpkin was lifted way, way up high.

And then, the pumpkin was released,

And it fell down, down, down...

Until...

It smashed

And then the crowd cheered.  Hooray!  We've dropped a vegetable from a great height and it smashed!  Yay!

Almost immediately, people rushed to examine the remains.  Small children carried around chunks of pumpkin innards as souvenirs. 

Later on, they held the weigh-off.  First, they weighed the giant hubbard squashes.  There weren't as many of those - it's a newer category, and there aren't as many brave hubbard squash obsessives growers out there.  Yet.  After the hubbards, they started in on the pumpkins. 

After each vegetable was weighed, it was transported out of the competition ring and set off to the side, where children and their parents could pose for pictures with them.

Like this.  (It was a very bright, hot, sunny day.  Can't you tell?)

And where was Julia?  See that orange, pumpkin-shaped cage way in the back, there?  That's the pumpkin ride.  When I heard there was a pumpkin ride, I thought kids would, you know, ride on the pumpkins.  Um, no.  It's a hayride in a big pumpkin frame, drawn by a tractor.  Bill and Julia bravely took the ride.

They also, as I mentioned, had pony rides, which was probably the highlight of the day for my kids.

We stayed a couple of hours - but eventually the heat and overwhelming pumpkin-ness got to the kids and they both wanted to go home.  So we did.

They ate some Halloween Dunkin Donuts Munchkins on the way home...

It was about a 45 minute ride.

And within twenty minutes...

And they were both out.

If you want to see all the pictures, they're posted here.

Summer's End Lasagne

I started making dinner around nine this morning.  After yesterday's summer-like heat, this morning there was a very chilly breeze shaking up the leaves and cooling things down.  The perfect day to make a sauce...

First thing I did, after breakfast, was to slice up tomatoes and roast them in the oven, drizzled generously with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.  I had two 13 x 9 pyrex baking dishes and a slightly smaller le cruset pan.  I roasted them for a couple of hours, maybe three, in a 325 degree oven.  The smallest pan had cherry tomatoes and yellow grape tomatoes - they finished up first.  The other two pans stayed in another 45 minutes or so. 

When they were done to my liking, I dumped them in a pot, making sure to scrape in all the oil.  Here's what it looked like:

Then I added half a medium yellow onion, chopped, and a big tablespoonful (or two) of the roasted garlic I made recently:

(The roasted garlic had been in the fridge, so the olive oil was kind of solidified and looks like chicken fat - but it's not.  It's olive oil - the HEALTHY kind of fat.  So be not afraid!)

Next - I poured in a slug of red wine and about a quart of beef stock.  I'm shooting for a darker, richer kind of sauce, not a bright, fresh, summery sauce.  Just so you know.  Anyway - the liquids added:

I brought this mixture up to a slow boil and then dropped it down to low and simmered it for a couple hours, stirring it every now and then.

After the first hour, it looked like this:

Can you smell that????

Go ahead, lean closer...

Hungry yet?  I hope not, we're not even close to done.

After a couple of hours, shut off the heat and let it cool a bit.  Then move the tomato mixture into a large bowl and put your Stainless Steel Foley Food Mill on top of the original stock pot like so:

And ladle in about half the tomato mixture.

Now crank that handle around - clockwise - to smush all the cooked-down flesh and the liquids out of the mixture and into the pot.  You want to leave nothing behind but seeds and skins and bits of onion.

And the sauce now lookes like this:

So, next thing I did was to add another pint or so of the beef stock a good slug or so of more red wine.  Set the pan on low heat.  And then Julia and I went outside to raid the garden.

I called this "Summer's End Lasagne" because originally I was going to make Eggplant Parmesan.  Bill said there were several eggplants out in the garden, and I didn't bother to actually look at them.  I just figured there would be enough.  Which, of course, was silly of me.  For one thing, we didn't grow BIG eggplants anyway.  And I knew, somewhere in my disorganized head, that "several" really wasn't going to amount to much.  But I didn't feel like shopping for backup eggplants, so I just figured I'd do SOMETHING with whatever I had.  And I knew I had plenty of lasagne noodles (and other pasta shapes) kicking around, so the sauce would not be made in vain.  Anyway, so instead of eggplant parm, this became more of a gathering of whatever was still growing out there in the garden.  In October.

Here's what I collected:

Some vegetables and some herbs.

First - the eggplant:

Three little skinny little Japanese eggplants, and three plump little Italian eggplants.  Not really enough for eggplant parm.  But that's okay.  I took off the green and sliced them up into "coins."  I left the skins on - the fruit is too young for the skin to be tough. 

Side note:  BEWARE OF THE THORNS!!

The Italian eggplant has nasty little thorns at the stem end - like little needles.  And yes, they hurt.  See how sharp and vicious they are?  Steer clear of them!

Anyway, in addition to the eggplant, I found two little baby zucchini:

Adorable, huh?  I trimmed the stem ends off and the blossom, and cut these into coins as well.

I also decided to add some fresh herbs to the sauce.  So I picked these:

They are, starting at 12:00 - sweet basil, arugula (okay, not an herb), parsley, summer thyme, oregano, and a little sprig of rosemary.  The arugula is nice and peppery, and it's still growing out there, so I plucked some.

I cleaned all the greenery and picked leaves off of stems and put all the leaves into the food processor, ladled a bit of olive oil from the tomato sauce in there too, and processed them til they looked like this:

I suppose I could have chopped it all with a knife, but to be honest, I was making this whole thing up as I went along, and I wasn't sure how I was going to use my herb mixture yet.  I think maybe I was thinking it would be a sort of pesto texture.  It wasn't, by the way.  And I ended up just scraping it all into the sauce.

Like so:

I let that simmer while I got the rest of the ingredients ready.  Which wasn't much.  I hadn't really shopped for this meal, so I went with what I had.  We had sliced provolone and sliced muenster cheese, so I took that out of the fridge.  My parents were here this morning and brought bagels and cream cheese from Dunkin Donuts.  There were five little single-serving portions of plain cream cheese left in the fridge.  I took them out, too.  I mixed the cream cheese with two eggs and some grated romano cheese.  I took the boxes of lasagne noodles down from the cupboard above the stove, got one of the 13 x 9 pyrex pans from the morning's tomato roasting, preheated the oven to 325, and started assembling.

I spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan, then a layer of lasagne noodles.  I used the no-bake kind, but really, if you cook it long enough and have enough liquid, you can just use regular lasagne noodles - the heat and moisture will cook the noodles, and they'll absorb the sauce as they cook.  On top of the noodles, I ladled a little more sauce and then a third of the cream cheese mixture.  I spread the mixture across the tops of the noodles, and then added half the eggplant and zucchini coins.  Then some slices of provolone, sauce, noodles, sauce and cream cheese, eggplant and zucchini, cheese slices, sauce, noodles, sauce and cream cheese, the remaining slices of provolone and muenster, and the last of the sauce.  I spread the sauce out over the cheese so it would all be covered, and here's how it looked:

I covered it with foil and put it in the oven.

45 minutes later, I took the foil off and it looked like this:

I let it cook for another 45 minutes or so, and then it looked like this:

The edges of the lasagne noodles and cheese were dark and almost crispy - which is how I like noodles and cheese.  The inside was all melty and oozy and the vegetables were soft.

The result is a dark and intensely tomatoey sauce, lush with the earthiness of the olive oil.  It's sort of the goth twin of a marinara.  Or maybe not at all.  I don't know.  I'm stumbling here - I can't really describe it any better than that.  So just go ahead and make the stuff and make some lasagne with it, or eggplant parm, or serve it over spaghetti with a side of meatballs.  But try it.  And let me know what you think.

Huh?

It is set in motion now.  And I can see the distant cliff, and I begin to approach it, knowing that in a couple of months I will step off the comfort of solid and dependable earth and jump into the unknown.  In the meantime, I need to try to sprout some wings so I don't crash to the rocks below.  Big enough wings to support my weight and all the other weight I am responsible for in my life.  Big enough, at least, to let me glide around, even if I end up at the bottom. 

But it's partly inevitable, and partly welcome, and I think I need to do this, and I must believe that it is meant to be, and that good will come of it.

Oh, don't you love this cryptic stuff????? 

Bedside Manners

Yesterday I left work early with a skull-crushing headache.  Tension and stress, plus the change in the weather, and I was down for the count.  I came home, where Bill was with Julia.  Julia, as I think I mentioned the other day, came home from daycare Tuesday with a 104 degree fever.  She wasn't allowed back until she had been fever-free for 24 hours, so Bill stayed home with her on Wednesday.

When I arrived, he was cleaning the music room and Julia was playing with legos.  I pretended to be interested in what was going on until Bill told me to just go upstairs and go to bed.  That seemed the sensible thing to do, so I said goodnight to Julia and headed to bed.

A few minutes later, as I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to release all the cast iron bars of tension that had formed across my shoulders and up the back of my head for days, my bedroom door opened and Julia came in and got up on the bed.  She gave the cat a few energetic pats on the head and then a slightly more gentle hug, and then looked at me with great concern as she felt my forehead and my cheek, as I had done to her the day before.  She comforted me a bit more, and then hopped off the bed and left the room, "bye bye mommy" as she closed the door.  That was nice.

I could hear the vacuum cleaner going - Bill had cleared up all the sheet music and located the floor, apparently.  That's okay, it wouldn't last long and it was just white noise anyway.  So I concentrated some more on trying to release tension and loosen my jaw - I noticed recently that I've been clenching my teeth a lot - and then the door opened again and my perky little attention-craving daughter climbed back on the bed.

"Mommy?  Can I draw?"

"Sure, Julia, go downstairs and ask Daddy for some crayons and paper."

"Noooooo, I want to draw with marrrrkerrrrrrrrs!"

Fine.  Bill was still vacuuming and wouldn't hear her anyway.  I got her a sketch pad and the washable markers she is allowed to use on the bed, and she settled down at the far corner and chattered on as she scribbled.  My participation wasn't required - she was apparently talking to herself.  So I closed my eyes and, again, tried to relax.

"Mommy, I'm done."

"Okay sweetie.  Go ahead downstairs.  And could you please close the door?"

"Okay Mommy!"  And off she went.  She's so cute sometimes.

Next, Bill got out the FloorMate so he could clean the hardwoods.  When he's on a mission, he doesn't stop.  More noise.  But whatever.  It's not a big room.  I rolled onto my side and squished the pillow into a better position under my head.

"Mommy?  What are you doing?"  She came trotting around to my side of the bed and looked at me with a huge smile. 

"Mommy's head hurts.  I'm trying to sleep.  Could you go back downstairs and play with the legos some more?"

"Oh, sweetiepie, you don't feel good?"  All concern as she patted my brow.

"No, Julia, I don't feel good.  I really need to sleep." (hint hint.  which is a complete waste of time with a three-year-old.)  Could you please go back downstairs so I can take a nap?  I'll see you later."

"Are these your glasses?"  She picks them up from the nightstand and gives them to me.

"Is this your clip?" She hands me a hair clip that is actually hers, but I was using it to keep bangs out of my eyes earlier. 

"Is this yours?"  She hands me a coaster from Red Hook Brewery in Seattle.  Bill and I went there nearly 10 years ago.  I thank her.

"Okay, sweetie, I REALLY need to take a nap, and you REALLY need to go downstairs.  Okay?"  I am pleading.  I am desperate.

"Okay."  She reluctantly leaves the room.

"Julia?  Could you please close the door?"

"Okay."

I take deep, slow breaths and uncurl my fetal-positioned legs and arms...I uncurl my carpal-tunnel-clawed hands.  RELAX.

"Hi Mommy!"  The tornado spills back into the room.  Her bare feet slap determinedly on the floor as she rounds the foot of the bed to look at me.  She is smiling, and I hate to spoil her fun, but this is NOT helping and my HEAD HURTS and I REALLY need to take a nap and WHY can't Bill notice that she KEEPS DOING THIS TO ME????

"Julia," I groan, "I really, really need a nap.  You NEED to go DOWN STAIRS so I can sleep."

"I don't want to!"  She stares at the little ceramic duck and goose on my bureau.  My mother made them when I was little.  She took ceramics classes back then and glazed a lot of greenware for everyone over the years.  The goose's neck was broken once, but still it survives.  Julia thinks if she ignores me, I will be quiet and let her stay.  Not this time.

"Julia.  You need to go DOWN stairs NOW.  PLEASE.  NOW."  I feel mean, but my head hurts and I need sleep.

She still won't look at me.  "FINE!" she hollers, and I fast forward to her teen years and a cold chill runs down my spine.  She stomps out of the room and closes the door behind her.

And then, less than a second later, she opens the door again - and SLAMS it shut.

Exclamation point.

I can't help but laugh.  And then, finally, I sleep.

Cupcakes with the Kids

Last week at this time I was in the process of making a birthday cake for the boyfriend of a friend of mine.  In order to keep the kids from trying to grab bits of cake off the final product, I told them we'd make cupcakes on Saturday.  So we did.

I used a regular boxed cake mix, and just for kicks I substituted a 14 oz can of pumpkin puree for the oil called for in the recipe.  And I shook in some pumpkin spice mix too.  We all took turns stirring the batter until it was nicely blended, and then I spooned the batter into mini muffin tins.  The kids had had the task of putting all the mini paper cupcake liners in each pan.  I think we made about five dozen of them.  And they were pretty good too - more moist than usual, due to all the pumpkin puree in there.  I think I put a bit too much of the spice mixture in, though.  But no harm done.

I let the kids each eat one once they were cool enough, but then it was time for Julia to go to bed.  After she was tucked in, Alex and I frosted about a dozen of them and decorated them with mini M&Ms and little sugar Harry Potter-themed decorative shapes.  Alex proudly showed Daddy his work, and we all had a little chocolatey pumpkiny goodness before Alex had to go to bed.

The next morning, both kids finished frosting the cupcakes and sprinkling additional colorful sugar on them.

Here's the end result:

They had fun.  Which, really, is the whole point.

A Summer Afternoon on an October Evening

We're watching the Red Sox/Angels game right now.  It's currently the top of the 6th, we're ahead 4-0. 

It's dark outside, we're inside in the basement living room.  There are some toys scattered around the floor.  The kids went to bed about 40 minutes ago.  Bill has been eating some sort of Starburst candy things (ugh). 

And I'm eating saltines and slices of cheddar. 

Saltines and cheddar and baseball - suddenly I have caught a whiff of freshly cut grass on a breeze across my memory...the sky is bright blue, the sun is shining, the back yard is light green dappled with dark beneath the shade of the maples. 

There is a radio plugged into the outlet in the barn, and a ballgame is on.  The Sox are playing somewhere.  It is probably a Sunday afternoon.  Mom is working in the flower beds.  Dad has mowed the lawn.  Now he's relaxing in a lawn chair, drinking Schaeffer ("...the one beer to have, when you're having more than one") from a can, or maybe it's Schlitz.  We kids have ginger ale.  And there are saltines and cheddar cheese for a snack.

We probably weren't listening to the game all that much, my sister and me, but the sound of the game is still the theme song of this summer memory.  The rise and fall of the commentators as things happen or don't happen on the field, and the accompanying crescendo and decrescendo of voices from the stands.  They blend with the cars going by on Main Street, birds calling from the trees, a dog barking, kids yelling somewhere down the street.  Time stretched for miles and hours in all directions.

Now it is years later.  Time seems to shrink as I try to cram all I want to accomplish into the faster and faster beating of the clock.  Today was a tough day for me, and I left work early with a crushing headache.  I came home to take a nap and try to relax and let go of a mountain of built-up tension.  The headache has gone, and this evening I am lazy, resting on the couch with pillows and a blanket.  I try to stay snug in this relaxed, sleepy state and not think of anything other than the game on TV and, for the moment, this laptop and my thoughts of yesterday.  The tension will try to come back, but it can wait until tomorrow.

For while it is dark outside and cozy-dark inside on this October night, as I listen to this game and bite into crispy saltine and sharp cheddar, it is a lazy summer afternoon from my childhood as well.   

(Go Sox!)

Snippets

"All of my stuffed animals are circus animals...even me!" (Alex)

Yesterday I got a call at work around noon - Julia had a fever of 104 - so I changed my voicemail and sent a quick email to people to let them know I had to leave.  When I arrived at daycare, all the other little kids were asleep on their cots, covered with blankets, except Julia.  She sat on a little chair, a blanket across her lap, waiting quietly.  They had given her tylenol, but it hadn't kicked in yet.  She still felt hot when I carried her to the car, and she was sad-sounding "Mommy, I don't feel good...."

We hung out on the couch and watched Dora and other movies until we both dozed off.

Today she's still warm - 101 - so my husband is staying with her for the day.  And Alex has to go to kindergarten.  Bill's downstairs explaining this to him now.  Wonder how that will go.

Okay, I thought I'd be able to post more, but apparently not.  Gotta go get Alex moving along.  And me.