Potato soup
4 T of butter ( I used a european-style goat butter, since me and cows don't get along)
4 large leeks (white and pale green parts sliced thin, with the dark green parts saved for stock)
24 oz of fingerling potatoes, cut in to 1" chunks (really, any potatoes will do, but these were straight out of my CSA box)
1 tsp roasted minced garlic
1 tsp thyme
5 c of chicken stock (4 c from the store and 1 c from some I made and had stored in the freezer - darker and tastier and even that little bit made a huge difference to the overall flavor of the soup!)
1 - Melt butter in your soup pot and add leeks, stirring to coat; cover and cook for about 10 minutes or until leeks are tender
2 - Add potatoes and garlic and cook until potatoes are soft
3 - Add chicken stock and cook for about 30 minutes
4 - Use an immersion blender or food processor to make into a more even consistency, or be impatient and just eat as is! I kinda like it a bit chunky, so I'll use the blender but not worry about super smooth.
I'll also occasionally add sliced carrots or other random veggie for vitamins and interest.
And with that, I promise I'll get some posts out here soon, as soon as I sort out my international travel schedule. This week, Taipei. December, its back to Amsterdam. vroooooooOOOOoom
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Plum tickled
Something blog-worthy happened this morning. I was pummeled by plums. Plums from the plum trees growing in my backyard. Folks who have been reading my blog for a while might remember some of the photos I posted back in February of the tortured, poorly pruned trees in the backyard. Back then, I thought all the trees in the yard were apple trees. Little did I know the summer was going to usher in a veritable fruit salad of trees!
So, back to being pummeled by plums. I figured out a few weeks ago that a some of the trees back there were plum trees, and I figured out a bit before that that at least one tree was a pear tree. As the plums turned to a lovely orangey-purple, I was gently picking them with one of those long orchard fruit picker thingies. I was trying to catch only the ones ready to just drop, rather than pull them off before they were ready. I picked close to two dozen yesterday that way, and figured I'd do a quick trip back there this morning to see if any more had come ripe. I didn't bring any tools, I just figured I'd gently shake a branch or two and see if any came off.
My goodness, did I get plums! This was today's harvest, and there are plenty more that will come ripe in a day or two.
And they are as sweet as they are pretty.
There's more than one kind of plum out there, too, tho' I don't recognize the others and the local Master Gardener's suggest they might need watering to actually do the right thing with the maturing fruit.
Here's a shot from some of the younger trees...
But wait, there's more!
Apples! Lots and LOTS of apples!
I am told that the local lore has these as gravensteins, but I don't have any idea what a gravenstein looks like, so who knows? I am joining the local fruit growers club - how could I not, with this yard? - and will bring a ripe apple to the next meeting to see if someone can tell me what I have.
Did I mention, LOTS of apples? Or at least, more than I've ever had before (never having lived on land with an orchard) and certainly more than I know what to do with. Fortunately, living in a semi-rural community as I do, I know several people who will come help pick and can and enjoy the fruits of the yard. This won't go to waste.
When it was time to prune, I didn't have the time and energy to get to all the trees back there, but the four I focused on - two of the plums and two of the apples - are just bursting with fruit. The trees the farthest away from the house did not get pruned much, and their fruit output is pretty low as far as I can tell. But come February, I'm going to get serious about pruning these lovely things and see what I get next harvest.
The pear tree is huge, and not the healthiest tree on the lot. I'm a bit worried about it, but if even a third of the pears come ripe and edible, I'm going to be drowning in pears.
Anyone know what kind of pear that is?
It needs some professional help, I think. Or at least someone with a tall ladder to help thin out the upper parts!
But wait, there is still more! One of the banes of the local orchard is the invasion of blackberries. Remember my goat project I mentioned a while ago? I'm still researching the idea, and it's in no small part to help control the blackberry. I haven't gotten it under control, but at least at the moment, that just means a bit more fruit to go in to the jam process that will start today.
And if all this was not enough, would anyone like some fennel?
I do love living here. This winter, I really need to get a garden started to have more fun with this kind of thing. Green beans, mmmmmmm.
So, back to being pummeled by plums. I figured out a few weeks ago that a some of the trees back there were plum trees, and I figured out a bit before that that at least one tree was a pear tree. As the plums turned to a lovely orangey-purple, I was gently picking them with one of those long orchard fruit picker thingies. I was trying to catch only the ones ready to just drop, rather than pull them off before they were ready. I picked close to two dozen yesterday that way, and figured I'd do a quick trip back there this morning to see if any more had come ripe. I didn't bring any tools, I just figured I'd gently shake a branch or two and see if any came off.
My goodness, did I get plums! This was today's harvest, and there are plenty more that will come ripe in a day or two.
And they are as sweet as they are pretty.
There's more than one kind of plum out there, too, tho' I don't recognize the others and the local Master Gardener's suggest they might need watering to actually do the right thing with the maturing fruit.
Here's a shot from some of the younger trees...
But wait, there's more!
Apples! Lots and LOTS of apples!
I am told that the local lore has these as gravensteins, but I don't have any idea what a gravenstein looks like, so who knows? I am joining the local fruit growers club - how could I not, with this yard? - and will bring a ripe apple to the next meeting to see if someone can tell me what I have.
Did I mention, LOTS of apples? Or at least, more than I've ever had before (never having lived on land with an orchard) and certainly more than I know what to do with. Fortunately, living in a semi-rural community as I do, I know several people who will come help pick and can and enjoy the fruits of the yard. This won't go to waste.
When it was time to prune, I didn't have the time and energy to get to all the trees back there, but the four I focused on - two of the plums and two of the apples - are just bursting with fruit. The trees the farthest away from the house did not get pruned much, and their fruit output is pretty low as far as I can tell. But come February, I'm going to get serious about pruning these lovely things and see what I get next harvest.
The pear tree is huge, and not the healthiest tree on the lot. I'm a bit worried about it, but if even a third of the pears come ripe and edible, I'm going to be drowning in pears.
Anyone know what kind of pear that is?
It needs some professional help, I think. Or at least someone with a tall ladder to help thin out the upper parts!
But wait, there is still more! One of the banes of the local orchard is the invasion of blackberries. Remember my goat project I mentioned a while ago? I'm still researching the idea, and it's in no small part to help control the blackberry. I haven't gotten it under control, but at least at the moment, that just means a bit more fruit to go in to the jam process that will start today.
And if all this was not enough, would anyone like some fennel?
I do love living here. This winter, I really need to get a garden started to have more fun with this kind of thing. Green beans, mmmmmmm.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Black Sheep Gathering and Cookies
Black Sheep Gathering: where crazy people go to play with wool. Try it, you'll like it.
For various reasons discussed by sociologists, anthropologists, and other people who are concerned with such things, fiber artists (particularly in the US, quite possibly in many other cultures these days) are usually female. I am not a sociologist, anthropologist, or a person who is particularly concerned with such things, except when it comes to planning for bringing food to a fiber event.
I just came back from a lovely weekend at the Black Sheep Gathering, and before I left, I committed myself to baking cookies. This was a Big Deal 'cause, think about it: we're talking an event with hundreds of (mostly female) fiber artists, a dozen or more I know personally, all high on the wool fumes from the fleeces and spinning fibers and yarns around us, totally having a day or weekend away from the world. This translates in to potentially massive cookie consumption, especially for the ones with chocolate in them. I know how to make three kinds of cookies particularly well, two of which handle the rigors of travel with grace, style, and minimal structural integrity issues.
I ended up with close to 90 cookies when I finished baking the Friday we left for BSG. I had about 80 by the time we got to the highway. I felt this was a good sign that the cookies would be considered an acceptable offering to the fiber goddesses. And I was right.
By the end of the weekend, there were four cookies left. I think there were four left because I hid some in my bag to have on the drive back up to Seattle, and we were too tired to finish them off (but they made a great breakfast this morning). Enough folks had their eyes roll back in to their heads over the nom-iness of the cookies that this whole blog post is mostly to get the interested parties the recipes.
For those of you who favored the chocolate chip cookies, that recipe is available on-line over at Gluten-Free Girl's blog. I used goat butter in place of cow butter (no cow dairy for me) and some other minor modifications to the flours used, but that recipe as it stands won't do you wrong.
For those of you who not only want but NEED the almond cookie recipe, that's so simple!
Oven = 375F
1 lb of almond meal (you can either buy almond meal or buy a pound of raw almonds and grind them down as fine as you can. If it's not as fine as commercial almond meal, don't worry about it. Cookies still turn out great.)
1/2 lb fine sugar (bakers sugar or confectioner's sugar, whichever is easier for you to acquire)
2/3 c bitter orange blossom water OR rose water
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t almond extract
mix all that up in a bowl. You can use a blender or just a fork, it's up to you. Have a beaten egg and sesame seeds on hand. Scoop up about a tablespoon of the mixture, roll it in to a fat tube, dip one side in the egg, then the sesame seeds, then put it on the cookie sheet (parchment paper - you really want parchment paper to line the cookie sheet), stretch it out a bit and try to make sure it's fairly uniform in thickness as you do.
Here's the closet thing to an "interesting" part to this recipe. I've cooked this in a couple of different ovens, and the time for cookie varies widely. At home, in my cheap electric oven, we're looking at 20 minutes or so. At a friends house in their nice gas oven, we were looking more at 30 minutes. Your mileage will vary so pay attention! When they get lightly brown like light toast, they are done.
So of course there was more to BSG than just the food. There was fleece and sheep and goats and yarn and very cool people. We had show and tell, many folks admiring my handwoven scarves, the gorgeous handknits all around, and some great discussion on the fine art of batt making. Many of the folks I got to talk to will also be attending Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon next month. More crazy fiber fun, and yes, I will bake cookies.
For various reasons discussed by sociologists, anthropologists, and other people who are concerned with such things, fiber artists (particularly in the US, quite possibly in many other cultures these days) are usually female. I am not a sociologist, anthropologist, or a person who is particularly concerned with such things, except when it comes to planning for bringing food to a fiber event.
I just came back from a lovely weekend at the Black Sheep Gathering, and before I left, I committed myself to baking cookies. This was a Big Deal 'cause, think about it: we're talking an event with hundreds of (mostly female) fiber artists, a dozen or more I know personally, all high on the wool fumes from the fleeces and spinning fibers and yarns around us, totally having a day or weekend away from the world. This translates in to potentially massive cookie consumption, especially for the ones with chocolate in them. I know how to make three kinds of cookies particularly well, two of which handle the rigors of travel with grace, style, and minimal structural integrity issues.
I ended up with close to 90 cookies when I finished baking the Friday we left for BSG. I had about 80 by the time we got to the highway. I felt this was a good sign that the cookies would be considered an acceptable offering to the fiber goddesses. And I was right.
By the end of the weekend, there were four cookies left. I think there were four left because I hid some in my bag to have on the drive back up to Seattle, and we were too tired to finish them off (but they made a great breakfast this morning). Enough folks had their eyes roll back in to their heads over the nom-iness of the cookies that this whole blog post is mostly to get the interested parties the recipes.
For those of you who favored the chocolate chip cookies, that recipe is available on-line over at Gluten-Free Girl's blog. I used goat butter in place of cow butter (no cow dairy for me) and some other minor modifications to the flours used, but that recipe as it stands won't do you wrong.
For those of you who not only want but NEED the almond cookie recipe, that's so simple!
Oven = 375F
1 lb of almond meal (you can either buy almond meal or buy a pound of raw almonds and grind them down as fine as you can. If it's not as fine as commercial almond meal, don't worry about it. Cookies still turn out great.)
1/2 lb fine sugar (bakers sugar or confectioner's sugar, whichever is easier for you to acquire)
2/3 c bitter orange blossom water OR rose water
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t almond extract
mix all that up in a bowl. You can use a blender or just a fork, it's up to you. Have a beaten egg and sesame seeds on hand. Scoop up about a tablespoon of the mixture, roll it in to a fat tube, dip one side in the egg, then the sesame seeds, then put it on the cookie sheet (parchment paper - you really want parchment paper to line the cookie sheet), stretch it out a bit and try to make sure it's fairly uniform in thickness as you do.
Here's the closet thing to an "interesting" part to this recipe. I've cooked this in a couple of different ovens, and the time for cookie varies widely. At home, in my cheap electric oven, we're looking at 20 minutes or so. At a friends house in their nice gas oven, we were looking more at 30 minutes. Your mileage will vary so pay attention! When they get lightly brown like light toast, they are done.
So of course there was more to BSG than just the food. There was fleece and sheep and goats and yarn and very cool people. We had show and tell, many folks admiring my handwoven scarves, the gorgeous handknits all around, and some great discussion on the fine art of batt making. Many of the folks I got to talk to will also be attending Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon next month. More crazy fiber fun, and yes, I will bake cookies.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Iceland!
Some of you had a chance to follow along my Icelandic photo journal and so know everything I'm about to say, but for the rest of you...
I just got back from a fantastic 10-day trip to Iceland! The first 7 days were all about me, and the last bit was the conference that paid my airfare to the country. I took well over 100 pictures a day for much of the vacation, and I've posted them, photo journal style, on Google's Picasa.
In the album, you'll see a sheep or two (or three. Possibly fifty.), some spinning wheels, mules, and possibly jennies, waterfalls, a geysir, a continental rift, and all sorts of other things.
I've got a bit to do to catch up at home, like get something new on the loom, post more items to my Artfire shop, finish some lace I'm knitting, and do quite a bit of spinning to eat in to this backlog of fiber around my house. But while I'm doing that, you can enjoy the photos!
I just got back from a fantastic 10-day trip to Iceland! The first 7 days were all about me, and the last bit was the conference that paid my airfare to the country. I took well over 100 pictures a day for much of the vacation, and I've posted them, photo journal style, on Google's Picasa.
In the album, you'll see a sheep or two (or three. Possibly fifty.), some spinning wheels, mules, and possibly jennies, waterfalls, a geysir, a continental rift, and all sorts of other things.
I've got a bit to do to catch up at home, like get something new on the loom, post more items to my Artfire shop, finish some lace I'm knitting, and do quite a bit of spinning to eat in to this backlog of fiber around my house. But while I'm doing that, you can enjoy the photos!
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