East Meets West Meets West Meets East

Tonight's menu
noodles in chicken stock
vegetable potstickers
heavenly salad

Lately, when choosing movies at Pleasant Street Video for family movie night, the girls are all anime, all the time.

This means that they want to eat with chopsticks whenever possible. It also means something that might surprise their Italian relatives: for the first time ever, they like spaghetti noodles (or as we call them, slurpy noodles). I have just been cooking them simply in chicken stock. The girls love to eat the noodles with their chopsticks and drink the broth from the bowl.

The vegetable potstickers are from Trader Joe's, served with soy sauce and hot sauce.

So what do I really want to tell you about?

The heavenly salad.

Oh my.

The girls like steamed broccoli, but they only like the tree tops, not the trunks. I like eating the trunks raw for a snack, but even I can't eat that many. Tonight, I decided to make some kind of broccoli slaw. I ended up with this amazing dish that made me so very happy.

Heavenly Salad

8-10 broccoli trunks, peeled and thinly sliced
1 large carrot, grated
1 meyer lemon, zest & juice
1 Tbs honey (more or less)
fresh ginger, peeled & grated (add as much as you like!)
fresh ground black pepper

That's it! Combine & inhale, I mean, enjoy. Actually, inhaling it did transport me to my mother's lemon trees in California, which took the chill out of this cold winter's day.





Peace.

Night and Day

The most popular supper this week?
Boiled baby potatoes, steamed broccoli, dark kidney beans

Breakfast this morning?
Whole wheat toast with peppermint frosting!

My oven has been broken since Monday night. When I called the appliance store, the earliest repair appointment they could give me is next Monday. I whined, "But it's Christmas!" with visions of sugar plums (or really, sugar cookies) dancing in my head.

Not to mention pies. And roasted vegetables.

As I thought about it, and as I continue to wait, I realized it doesn't really make a lot of difference to our family if the holiday baking happens this weekend or next, or even three weeks from now. While I love the idea of people all over the world celebrating the turning of the wheel of the year, with all the different religious and secular holidays they choose, I don't feel that infamous holiday scramble and pressure. The closest to pressured I feel is the need to find a place in my small house to move a big piece of furniture so there is room for the tree.

I am grateful.

The girls and I walked into town last night to visit a porcelain doll that the 9yo likes. The girls wanted to carry candles. So they did. As we walked, we started singing. When we got to the enormous lighted tree in the park in town, I realized we had been caroling, living a holiday tradition in our own way, spontaneously.







Peace.

Pie and Cake

Thanksgiving Pie

Pear.
A little apple.
Maybe a cup of blueberries.
Maybe a half cup cranberries.
Juice of a meyer lemon, plus zest.
Fresh grated ginger. A little honey. Some cinnamon.
And a splash of some weird maple whiskey and some fancy pear brandy.

Butter/flour/water crust with a bit of bacon grease, too.

Most of the fruit went into the pie

And there was enough leftover for cake today

I made it very similarly to this cake, except instead of cornmeal and pecans, I used the fruit. Instead of flour, almond meal, and oats, I used one cup corn flour and one cup coconut flour. I used a yogurt, apple cider, milk blend for the liquid (and it needed much more than one cup). I did not put any spices in the batter this time, because there was a lot of spice in the fruit.

I also made pumpkin bread with chopped dark chocolate bars today

angel love baker

Enjoy.

pecan cake

It was a rainy, cold gray day today. Perfect for inventing cake. Loosely based on a pineapple upside down cake recipe, but with a sprinkle of cornmeal and some Trader Joe's sweet & spicy pecans where the pineapple and cherries should be.

I also used regular flour (what is cake flour, anyway?) and increased the flour to two cups (I used a flour, almond meal, and oats blend). I also increased the milk to one cup and melted the butter. For some odd reason, I used two teaspoons of baking powder. I used brown sugar instead of white. And added ginger and cinnamon.

Some of the pecans stuck to the pan when I turned it over, so I scooped them out and put them in the center.

Yum.

The Gleaners

Yay! Thanks to the amazing Shawna and Jill, we will have garden potatoes for Thanksgiving!

The amazing Shawna and Jill

Yeah, I knew I'd missed a few potatoes when I harvested with the girls.

I guess I missed more than a few.

Thank you Jill and Shawna.

Biscuits and Coffee

Yeah, I'm back on the coffee again. I went into the Haymarket yesterday to buy myself a treat scone, and I couldn't resist. So I bought a pound. I also can't resist the See's candy my dad sent me for my birthday. So this morning, after I dropped the girls at school, I chopped a bunch of it up and made sconey biscuits. Yum. I don't know why it feels better giving the girls a baked treat filled with candy than just giving them candy, but it does!



Have a candy-filled biscuit. Can I get you some coffee?

Art Pie

nectarine pie (with a little bit of apple and pear), spiced with coriander and vanilla

My pies are works of art! When I made the one above, the 9yo insisted that I photograph it, that she wouldn't eat it unless I did. Three of the cut-out decorations represent each member of our family, and the heart, of course, is for love.

pictures in color

I'm surprised my point-and-shoot camera was able to do this well.
I took the shot from the driver's seat, in the left turn lane at a stop light.
I saw this man standing in the rain on the opposite corner.
I managed to find my camera before the green light and zoom it for all it was worth!

Creative playground.

A snorg-tee model of a certain age...

The tulips are almost open.

Tonight's supper made a lovely picture, so the 8yo told me to take one!

Peace.

What? No Bacon??

We are a bacon & onion pizza family. Our local shop offers a 2-for-1 deal, and we always get bacon & onion on both pizzas. A few months ago I started making my own [full disclosure: I still buy the dough from Trader Joe's]. I've been getting better and better at it. I planned to make pizza this weekend, but somehow never made it to the country store where we buy our bacon. So what to do?

According to the package directions, take the dough out of the fridge and let it set at room temperature for twenty minutes. While that's happening, put the pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 450F.

Warm olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add two small chopped onions. Cook until transparent. Add 7 or 8 chopped garlic cloves and about 2 cups of chopped chard (full disclosure: I used it straight from the Trader Joe's Rainbow Chard bag]. Stir.

Add fresh ground black pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, rosemary, basil, oregano. Stir and continue cooking until it smells delicious and the greens have shrunk. Add small splash of balsamic vinegar. Cook & stir until it's done sizzling. Turn off heat, but keep pan warm on the stove top.

Stretch & roll out dough(s). I made one a rectangle and put it on an oiled baking sheet (with edges). The other I made a circle on my cornmeal-sprinkled wooden pizza palette.

For cheese, I grated a blend of mozzarella, cheddar, and parmi.

For sauce, I just used crushed tomatoes (no salt added) straight from the can. There was enough seasoning on the greens to flavor everything perfectly.

Assemble and bake until bubbly and golden.

Yum.


Peace.

More Spring Joys

Even though it was one o'clock when we got the sugarshack, there was still a two page waiting list. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And it was cold. There were snowflakes! And the scent of the boiling syrup was making us very hungry.





We finally got our turn to sample the sweetness after about an hour's wait. And then we waited for a while for our food: blueberry pancakes and bacon for the 8yo, plain pancakes and bacon for the 6yo, a waffle and bacon for me.

There was no time to take a photograph of the food because it was gone in about five minutes!

Deep Thought

An economy that only feeds the rich makes too much frosting and not enough cake.

Art found here.

Gratitude

Most weeks there is a night where the girls and I get to go to their godparents for supper. I am grateful for the delicious meal Jim prepares, but even more, I am grateful that these wonderful people are in our lives. When I was making the decision to be a single parent, I thought a lot about whether I would be able to handle all the challenges of parenting on my own. I didn't think about the fact that there wouldn't be anyone with whom to share the joys. These loving godparents are a gift to our family. I am grateful.

Peace.

Yesterday's Lunch

Yogurt with banana slices, oats, and cinnamon (the marks on the wall look like the bowl is smokin'!), cranberry juice/water cocktail, ubiquitous clementine. Yum.

What will it be today?

Mug Shot

It's ten degrees outside. Tea with milk and whiskey, in my favorite mug, is a very good thing.

Affordable Housing

a welcoming front entrance

lollipop foliage and presents at the windowsill

a garden view

a picture window big enough to display your tree