All Things December

 Fun with Piano Students

After school one day in December, we had an impromptu 'tea' only with hot chocolate and molasses sugar cookies. This is Abby and Emily, and their Mom Carol and I are sipping out of sight of the camera, and keeping warm in front on the fire. Brrr- it's been cold for a couple of weeks now.

Here is another group of students, and the one with the guitar is Shayli, then Brinnay and Ella in the green Christmas t-shirt, along with Mom Kindi. I have known Kindi since she was Ella's age, so it is so much fun to teach her girls. The home school in the kitchen while each has a piano lesson.

JoAnn has been busy baking up a storm, and made some very beautiful sugar cookies that were a work of art!

JoAnn and I had a fun time too, decorating the tree this year. We had purchased a few new trims and I sat and got the ornaments ready for her then she put them on the tree. What a great idea! I was happy to be sitting, and she was happy having control of the placement. Christmas music was playing and a plate of cookies was nearby for the hungry (that's us)!

Well, we have done some fun things in December this year. Tonight we are going out to dinner with 3 dear friends and have a special Christmas dinner together. Then on Saturday is our Church Ladies Christmas Brunch and I am going with a friend and looking forward to it. 

Then of course I am fitting it the baking and Christmas cards as time allows. So nice to spend these days preparing my heart and home for the coming of the Savior!

Summer Food Items of Note

 This is a rather dark photo, but it is a summer morning breakfast. Cornmeal griddle cakes batter, with fresh blueberries to add...along with coffee of course. Delightful!

  And then my mother-in-law came to visit, and we made raspberry freezer jam together. A tasty treat in the winter months. 

When we were over at her house visiting, she showed us she can still make a delicious potato salad at age 95. Wow!

And finally a summer dinner. It is a taco salad, made a little differently, with each fresh ingredient separated and then mixed all together at the end. It's pretty this way, don't you think? Adding a few fresh grapes for dessert, we had a wonderful meal. 
(Each of these photos shows up better if you click to enlarge them)

Valentine Baking

 Happy Valentines to you and to the lucky insurance man!

Thanksgiving Greetings

"I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, among the peoples;

And I will sing praises to Thee, among the nations.

For Thy steadfast love is great, above the heavens;

and Thy faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;

and Thy glory above all the earth."

Psalm 108

Thanksgiving greetings and love to all our family and friends!

August Doings

 We have been spending time in Burns with my in-laws. Good summer times together. Here we are relaxing in the shade of their front porch and watching the world go by.

 We always enjoy good food together, and Mom baked an apricot pie...my first! Her pies are always great!

We had a visit from granddaughter Kory, always a fun time.

We wanted to cook together, so we tried out a ham and veggie Risotto. It took a lot of stirring, but between the two of us, it wasn't bad at all....and the results were tasty! With a bit of fresh dill on top.

We got creative with breakfast too, and made an Eggs Benedict, only used fresh spinach instead of an English Muffin (gluten free) and I tried a Hollandaise sauce made in the blender. Loved how easy it was. We took it outside to eat, and it sure was fun having Kory here. She has now officially begun her first year as a high school science teacher. Good luck Kory!

 Next came a week's visit from Joy and Macy. We were blessed to have Macy with us for two weeks this summer. 

One night I put on some Frank Sinatra, good dancing music of course. We listened to music and danced as the sun went down on another beautiful summer day.

 Joy is a walker these days, and an early  morning one at that. She got up the first morning and enjoyed a great walk at sunrise, with the beautiful Cascade mountains in view...

and along our canal. After she got back, she joined the sleepyheads, and we all went for a walk together.

 One night we had a bonfire in the back yard, complete with S'mores. 

 A really fun time together as a family,

and Aunt JoAnn joined us too. We really enjoyed their summer visit. More about that in the next post.

Feeling a Bit Domestic

 It's July and it's hot outside, so I typically garden first thing in the morning and try to be inside by around 10am. I am free from piano lessons this summer, and so have decided to do several cleaning chores and some extra cooking with some of my free time. The first thing I decided to do was to try and make sauerkraut like Julie posted on here some while ago. I cut up my head of cabbage, and decided to use the crock above to ferment it in. After adding my salt, I put it into the crock above and weighted it down with agates in a bowl. After all it is summer, and the agates remind me of the beach, the cool beach. I think I left it in the crock for 6 or 7 days. I had never done this before, and I don't think I have actually tasted sauerkraut many times in my life. Certainly never homemade. A real adventure. The insurance man was dubious....

It came out beautifully, not too strong but rather salty. I decided to add it with other ingredients my first time out, so I sliced up some sweet onion and bell pepper, and stir fried them with the sauerkraut all together and added some large chunks of Italian sausage. It was good, but could have used more seasoning. We both liked it. I am going to try a different recipe for the kraut I have left.

Another morning I decided to clean out and organize the freezer. It's so much easier to find things, and to organize the meat we have to use it better. Each year we get 1/2 of a beef, grown by some good friends in Prineville. Anyway, I found 2 packs of soup bones and decided to make my own beef bone mineral broth. 

 

I cooked the bones with lots of veggies and scraps for flavor, and cooked the whole thing for 24 + hours. My first time to cook it that long. It made a nice rich broth when strained. The recipe said that the broth would gel as it cooled, and sure enough it did. I added the veggies and spices for a nice beef soup and could just feel all that goodness going down. There was actually a lot of meat on my soup bones, not like the photo above, so the soup was really yummy. (I even shared the cooked bones with a couple of black labs visiting next door.) It made a lot of soup, so it went into my nice clean freezer for another soup day.

 

 

And finally, I made up some freezer jam. It was and is a good year for berries in Oregon. I made strawberry, raspberry and a batch of strawberry/raspberry combo. We will be enjoying that this autumn.  

 

Tomorrow I am going to polish my silver in the morning. Next week I have in mind to clean out my china hutch and wash all the dishes. Who knows?

Homemade Sauerkraut In A Mason Jar

Somehow over the years, this west-coast-native learned to like sauerkraut.  Since I moved to an area where it is served regularly, I had to adapt.  However, there is a big difference between the kind you buy and the kind you make.  I highly prefer homemade and it's so simple to make.  I made some a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I would post what I did. 

First, I got some crazy-cheap cabbage at Aldi on a sale.  After halving, coring, and cutting it into wedges, I shredded it in my food processor.  I threw it into a big bowl and added the appropriate amount of salt.  The exact amounts that I used can be found at this website: thekitchn.com.
After thoroughly washing my hands, I mixed the salt into the shredded cabbage by hand, sort of working it in until the cabbage began to wilt and give off juice.

 The last step is simply packing it very, very firmly into the clean jars to ferment in it's own juices for a few days or more.
Next week I'll be putting it into my crockpot with kielbasa to make a super-yummy dinner for my crew.

This Week's Farm Basket

Our family signed up for a membership to a local farm CSA this year.  We paid a large amount of money at the beginning of the growing season and then each week we receive a share of whatever the farm is harvesting.  We have thoroughly enjoyed our fresh vegetables.  Here's what we got this week:

2 quarts green beans

2 large onions

2 fennel bulbs

huge bunch of scallions/green onions

3 green peppers

large bunch of beets with greens

bunch of carrots

2 quarts potatoes

1 bag of salad mix greens

1 bunch cilantro

So what's on the menu, you ask?  I'm still deciding, but I'm definitely making something Asian with my scallions and cilantro.  I'm trying a recipe for Pad Thai for dinner tonight and and later on an Asian curry soup with fish in it.  Those beets will be great cooked, sliced, with butter and salt for dinner this week with a venison roast in the crockpot.  Maybe I can put together a bouillabaisse with the fennel.  Any other suggestions?

Fresh Peaches

During the summer months as each fruit season begins I always think this one's the best. First strawberries, then raspberries, then the melons and then more berries etc. But right now is the peak of the peach season, and I found myself thinking "is there anything better than a ripe fresh peach?" At our local fruit stand on Saturday, a clerk offered me a just-cut slice of a fresh peach and it just melted in my mouth with it's juiciness and sweetness. Of course we had to bring some home (which was the clerk's plan) and the next morning they adorned some yeast waffles and were in turn adorned by a few dollops of whipped cream. Oh boy, I do think peach season is the best, and I'm sure they are doing their best to aid in my recovery.

I Love Old Kitchen Gadgets

 I noticed in our Sunday newspaper, about a week before the 4th of July, that the Parade insert had an interesting recipe for Mini-Pies. They were being touted as picnic food, as they are a hand-held dessert. I decided to try them out, and they came out delicious and handy as promised. I made one batch of apple pies and one of marionberry, as it is high berry season here in Oregon. They were a big hit.

 

You simply cut out small rounds of dough, and put a scoop of filling on the bottom round, then the directions said to cut a vent on the top round, place on the bottom one and seal with a fork. BUT, I have a wonderful little tool passed down from my Mom and Aunt Minnie that worked like a charm. The above little wheel with tines was made for sealing pie crusts. You just turn it on it's side and 'wheel' around the edge.

 

 On the other side is a decorative shape, made to push into the dough and form a vent for the steam to escape.

 

Nice pies, with nice sealed edges and a cute 'vent' on top. Now that's a handy tool!

Clam Chowder on a Cool June Evening

 I haven't done a cooking post on here for a long while, so decided that it was time. Yesterday was a cool drizzly day in the 50's here, perfect for a clam chowder night.
This is one of my all-time favorite soups, and one I don't need a recipe to throw together. Here are the ingredients:

1 Large Onion

3 or 4 Slices of Bacon

2 Cans of Minced Cans, with the Juice

3 Large Potatoes or 6 Medium Ones

1 Can Evaporated Milk

1-2 C of Whole Milk

Flour mixed with water for thickening

1 T of Butter

Directions:
Cook bacon until crisp, removing the bacon and reserving the fat. Roughly chop the onion and cook in the bacon fat. Sprinkle the onion with course salt while cooking to aid in the weeping. While cooking, peel the potatoes and chop into 1" pieces. When the onions are translucent, add the potatoes and stir around in the onions and grease a little to coat with flavor. Add enough water to just cover the potatoes, and a generous T. of salt. Drain the 2 cans of clams and add the juice, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are soft. Add the can of evaporated milk, 2 C of milk and 2 cans of clams, and heat through but do not boil. Shake together 1/4 C of flour and enough water to make a paste that will still pour. and add to the soup, stirring until thickened. Depending on how thick you like your chowder, you may have to do this step twice. I added the flour water mix twice last night and it was just right. Add the tablespoon of butter to melt and you are ready to serve along with oyster crackers of course!

Homemade Yogurt

This is Julie.  I'm a long, lost stranger on this blog, I know.  I have a couple of posts in mind, so I thought I'd visit.

Today, I want to share my latest "homemade" experiment.  This was a pinterest find that inspired me to finally try making my own homemade yogurt.  Incredibly simple, healthy and fuss-free in my crockpot were my incentives to give it a go.  The recipe I followed can be found here.

I thought this experiment was a great success.  The essentials of the process are simply pouring 1/2 gallon of milk into your crockpot, cooking it on low for 2 hours 45 minutes, turning it off and letting it sit for 3 hours, stirring in 1/2 cup of plain yogurt and then wrapping the whole container in a towel and letting it sit overnight.  That's it.  Magically, the milk thickens into a lovely-textured yogurt that is ready to be sweetened if desired, and eaten or refrigerated.  

I've made this several times now.  The cost is exactly 1/2 of what it costs me to buy the same quantity of the cheapest yogurt I can find.  Since my family eats such a lot at a time, it works out well for us and saves $.  Hurray.  A good change for my household!

Again, the recipe is found here:  Homemade Yogurt in the Crockpot

Quiet with busy-ness, softness with hard times

 

 

Yesterday was a fast moving day. However, it started

off beautifully with a quiet silver and pink sunrise.

We had a frosty morning, with frost heavy on the

north side of the evergreens and pines.

 

I cooked with three other ladies at our local community

food kitchen in the afternoon, and served

dinner to about 150+ hungry folks. What a

blessing this ministry is, and how much I enjoy it.

 

We got home around 7:00, and I was very thankful

for a crockpot full of vegetables and meatballs in

a beef/red wine sauce. Hot food when you need it.

 

I fell asleep curled up on the couch, with a blanket and a

pillow...nice ending.

 



Oh, to be in June in strawberry season....

 This is truly one of the best times of year. We are so blessed to live in a state that has the best strawberries around, wonderfully sweet Pacific Northwest strawberries. With just a little sugar and butter....oh what wonders a cook can come up with!

The first of course is Strawberry Shortcake. When I was growing up, my Aunt Joyce who had strawberry fields all around, started the tradition of celebrating strawberry season by having strawberry shortcake for dinner one evening....just a big bowl of shortcake with nothing else. We all looked forward to that every year, especially after picking strawberries all day. I continued the tradition after getting married, and now my daughter Joy does as well. Since the strawberries are a bit later than usual, due to a rainy season, we had our strawberry shortcake dinner this past week, along with some rhododendrons and peonies from the garden. I prefer homemade biscuit type shortcake, how about you?  YUM!

 Next, I made a couple of rhubarb-strawberry pies for a supper club we attended, with the rhubarb from my garden but not the strawberries. We have a patch, but they are just now putting on the berries, and they are still green. That way we stretch the season out just a bit...by having our own after the valley berries are gone.

And finally this morning we had strawberry crepes for breakfast, a great way to start out the week-end. Oh what joy during the season of strawberries!