Savoring the Snow

As I sit and write this post, I am looking out at a gently blanketed landscape and the snow flakes are dancing like butterflies.  Today has a meloncholic feel to it, the forests always go quiet when it snows and so do the roads as we, like the animals, huddle down.  Maybe we are not as far removed from primal instincts as we think.

I also feel a particular appreciation for the snow today as this might be one of the last gentle dustings we get this year, and then no more until next year when we hope and pray our Christmas will be a white one!  What lies around the corner is long days starting with early mornings, farmers have already been planning the growing season and taking stock of their 'to do' lists, taking trips out to the green house or the barn with a combination of anticipation for how much needs to be accomplished and excitment to get underway. 

Knowing Spring is on our door step and she brings all her craziness and energy with her, I think today is the perfect day to putter around inside and wear your slippers or just your socks all day and appreciate one of the last quiet days we will have this year.  And, as promised, in celebration of the snowy day, I have included a recipe for some cookies.  A sweet friend, Ashley, baked these last week (using organic ingredients) to share and they were DELICIOUS!  It is Martha Stewart's recipe, Ashley added cranberries and I loved them so much I ate more than my share and didn't regret a thing!  They are absolutely worth a quick trip to the store for any ingredients you don't have!

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Coarse salt
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup finely grated zucchini
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt into a bowl. Beat 1 stick butter and the sugars until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.
2. Beat flour mixture into butter mixture. Mix in zucchini, oats, and walnuts. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.
3. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop (about 2 tablespoons), drop dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until edges are golden, about 17 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.
4. Beat together remaining 1/2 stick butter, the cream cheese, and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Spread 1 heaping tablespoon filling onto the flat side of 1 cookie, and sandwich with another cookie. Repeat with remaining filling and cookies.

Surviving Sleet

Here we are again, are you ready to celebrate another storm in New England with me?  Ready to break out the baking pans and punctuate these days with some delicious decadence?  Are you, like me, determined to embrace the gifts of today regardless of how much snow there is to shovel?  And since there has been A LOT of snow to shovel, I feel the need to put the calories back in my body lest I wither away to nothingness and we can't have that, can we? 

It just so happens that conveniently - I love it when this happens - my calorie craving has coincided with a cheesecake craving!  And not just any cheese cake - I want a BAKED cheesecake!  What good is a cold day of wintry mix if you aren't going to at least turn the oven on?  So, this is my special choice for this little winter storm:

Philadelphia Double-Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients:

24 OREO Cookies, crushed (about 2 cups)

1/4 cup  (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, melted

4 pkg (8 oz each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1 cup  sugar

2 tbsp flour

1 tsp  vanilla

2 tbsp (heaped) cocoa

1/2 cup blueberries

Method:

• Heat oven to 325ºF.
• Mix crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of 13x9-inch foil-lined pan. Bake 10 min.
• Beat cream cheese, sugar, flour cocoa and vanilla with mixer until well blended.  Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Pour over crust.
• Bake 45 min. or until center is almost set. Cool completely. Refrigerate 4 hours. Use foil to lift cheesecake from pan. Top with berries.

Enjoy!  A few more snow storms accompanied with decadent ideas and we may just have turned this winter around, don't you think?

Surviving Snowflakes!

Do you remember the conversation your mom had with you when you were little and the kids at school were being mean?  The one where she says 'don't worry honey, don't let them get to you - if they don't get the reaction they want, they will soon get bored and find somebody else to pick on' . . .

Well, that is how I feel about the snow.  It is being mean, and it is picking on me . . . us!  I mean, REALLY!  One storm is romantic, two is still somewhat fun, but one a week is losing its charm.  I have enough snowy photos for ten years worth of Christmas cards - and we built a snowman bigger than us - look:

Yes, my daughter is actually sitting on 'his lap' and those are russet potatoes for eyes - not sure where his rainbow carrot nose is at this point but there you are.  I know others out there agree, that we are kinda out of snow-day ideas.

Back to my point, I think I am going to take my mom's sage advice and refuse to give the mean snow the reaction it is looking for.  Instead, I am going to celebrate these days because after all, taking some down time is not the worse thing to do and I have been told that shovelling your drive burns 1500 calories which makes me feel even more justified in suggesting that we do something decadent, indulgent and delicious with our afternoon.  I am suggesting BAKED PEARS!  With a dollop of Marscapone cheese: 

Ingredients:

• 4 D'Anjou pears
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup water
• Dash of salt
• Dash of ginger (or cinnamon)
• 1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind

Method:

1. Heat oven to 325 deg F (slow to moderate)
2. Wash the pears and cut a think slice from the blossom end (don't you love that term, I think all bottoms should be called 'the blossom end') - this is so they will stand easily - leave the stems on
3. Place pears upright in baking dish
4. Mix remaining ingredients together and pour over pears
5. Bake uncovered for about 1 1/2 hours, or until pears are tender.  Baste syrup over pears occasionally while cooking
6. Enjoy!

Maybe, just maybe, if we punctuate these storms with a little celebration, the snow will get bored and go pick on somebody else.  It's worth a try . . .



BLISS = crushed strawberries + pancakes + maple syrup + kids

So this morning we decided a pajama breakfast party with pancakes was in order - its been a tough week!  I don't know how many people can even make pancakes without pancake mix anymore, but I turned to my trusty cookbook (thanks Granny) for this recipe:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sifted flour (I like King Arthur's organic)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar (cane only if you please)
2 eggs (thank you White Gate Gardens)
1 cup sour milk (I didn't have any, so I used un-soured milk and added a tsp of lemon juice)
1 tbsp melted butter

Method:
Sift dry ingredients together
Beat eggs, add sour milk and butter together
Add milk mixture to dry ingredients gradually, beating until smooth
Drop from spoon into heated greased pan, brown both sides

For the top, I cut some strawberries in half and then crushed them in a bowl using a heavy plastic cup. We spooned the strawberries onto our pancakes and laced them with maple syrup. 

We are still licking our fingers, bad manners I know, and I guess its time to get dressed but it has been the perfect start to this day and my to-do list can wait just a little while longer - it's not going anywhere and you know what?  Neither am I . . .

Don't Play With Your Food!

I had a candid conversation with another working mom the other day about meal times and menu choices and children.  I have one child, who will eat anything you put in front of her, except mushrooms.  And if she hasn't seen it before, she eats first and asks questions later.  She gobbles down soups, stews, anything roasted, and even prefers vegetables to fruit, which is unusual I think.  Then I have a boy who has a hundred questions before he will even pierce the suspicious item with a fork, doesn't like anything of color and usually responds with 'do I HAVE to?’   

Of course, he has a hard life because he seldom gets his pick of menu choices, and 'so-and-so' from school is so lucky because he gets DINOSAUR chicken and SMILEY face potatoes!  This gives me pause to consider the correlation between food and entertainment - which have gone hand in hand for centuries, after all what is a feast without a court jester?  Dancing?  Live Music?  Even to this day, many other cultures seem to manage this combination beautifully, they embrace the day with a slow breakfast and lunch is a laid back affair in which bread is broken and conversations are the table centerpiece.  Good quality, fresh food, well made or simply and casually combined is appreciated - even expected. 

Most families I know barely have time to defrost something let alone actually make it from scratch, and a languid lunch with some wine and conversation is about as foreign to us as France.  So what are we doing wrong?  Our lives are busy, mine is too as a working mom, and although I have blamed 'the world we live in' or 'this day and age' with a frustrated sigh, it doesn't end there.  Food corporations have taken advantage by playing on our time constraints with campaigns around making meals fun AND quick.  Enter dinosaur chicken.  So it comes to pass that with each trip to the grocery store, we have given up ground in 'savoring supper' while walking down the path to convenient and well-marketed.   The paradox here is that at the end of the day, we don't have more time on our hands, we are still discontent, and the food we eat is no longer all that good for us (made with profit as a goal, not nutrition).

Perhaps it's time that we as a nation stop being lured by 'fun and quick' - being entertained by food is a grossly inadequate placebo for a culture of casual, simple meals and appreciation for the taste of freshness and quality. 

Let's find away to kick 'fun food' out the door, and bring food pleasure back instead!

It's cold outside, but it's warm in here . . .

We have a family member visiting from Sunny South Africa this week – he is not used to the cold – or the dark for that matter (it is not called sunny SA for no reason!)  His first few days here he was just miserable about the awfulness of it all, however, after some rest and the opportunity to acclimatize he has settled in.  Last night he was saying how he can appreciate the benefits of our ‘resting season’ as he called it, and he is right isn’t he?  That’s just what it is.

I too would love to just ‘settle in’ for the ‘resting season’ – and for those of you who would like to join me, here is a good soup recipe for the slow cooker (or just stick it on low on the stove if you are around to keep an eye on it).  Potter around at home, scratch the cats belly, or chin which they likely prefer, decorate the tree if you haven’t already, walk around in your socks all day and if you want to go all the way, you can even stay in your jammies – just for one day, shhhh, I won’t tell. . .

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes

4 carrots

1 red pepper

2 bunches green onions

1 bunch kale

3/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2 squares vegetable bouillon or a quart of vegetable/chicken broth

cilantro

Water

1 stick organic sweet cream butter

Method

Chop all vegetables into bite sized pieces. Be sure to use all of green onion, including chives. Tear leafy parts of kale into salad size pieces, discarding stem. Toss vegetables, vinegar, bouillon, and butter into a 5 qt slow cooker. Add water until pot is full. Cook on high for 5-6 hours, then reduce heat and let simmer until serving time. The longer it cooks, the more the flavor comes out.  Settle in and enjoy.