Pumpkin Stuff

Tomorrow we head through the woods, on freeways and byways, over rivers and train-tracks and more roadways to Travis and Sarah's home for Thanksgiving. It's been a long time since I've not hostessed Thanksgiving, cooking the turkey stuffed with my grandma's and mom's sage dressing. I'm making the pies and rolls and a fresh cranberry side dish to bring.

I've got pie pumpkins in the oven roasting for pumpkin pies. I simmered dry the pumpkin seeds and they're spread on a cookie sheet drying in the oven now too. I posted last year about cooking up squash seeds - I do it for most winter squash, not just pumpkin seeds. I know too I must have gotten my idea from somewhere, so I just looked at books I knew I had when we were early married that might have it in, and found it. I looked mainly to find proportions to share with you since I wing it each time and sometimes they're too salty.

The Salted Roasted Pumpkin or Squash Seed recipe wasn't in one of my grandma's cookbooks but Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book - The Encyclopedia of Country Living, and I see it's still in print. I've got her original book she wrote decades ago, printing sections from a mimeograph machine on varying colored pages and bound in a 3-ring binder, having heard her on TV. I've not read her newer version word-for-word as I did the first edition, but I do know things are missing ... like her Christian testimony and married to a Mormon man, were in the Chicken chapter.

After washing the squash seeds she boils them 15 minutes: 2-3 TB salt per quart of water, drains, and spreads to dry on a cookie sheet in a moderate oven till brown and crisp. I think that's too much salt and I add other stuff. I like to barely cover the seeds in a saucepan with water and put in a TB of butter or olive oil. For one pumpkin's seeds today I put in 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp garlic powder and 1/2 tsp onion powder. I like to simmer till the liquid evaporates cuz then the flavorings penetrate the seeds. Most recipes have you adding butter or oil to the cookie sheet and salting and stirring - how would the salt really stick? and 'twould be messy. Usually I just put them in an oven that had been on, but now turned off and leave them to dry - sometimes leaving them in till the next day (just don't turn the oven on for something else, forgetting the seeds are in there! And you should peek in the oven when you're turning it on anyway - I've left cast iron pans in to dry. Monte's cousin's kid likes to hide stuffed animals in the oven!)

My sister sent the pumpkin picture last week and I deliberated posting it. I told her it was SO funny yet gross too. She had several comments to her post and the one I thought funniest was "I think I'll reach for the apple pie this Thanksgiving ..."

Well, off to make the pie crusts and refrigerate - chilled dough makes flakier crusts, as well as not manhandling it too much. I'm making two pumpkin and two mystery pecan pies.

Chili Con Carne

What did I cook on the cookstove Saturday when it slightly snowed but moreso heavily froze and frosted everything in a very picturesque way? Chili. I've got my 3x5 card sitting here with me. It has a paperclip on it, meaning I've accumulated several chili recipes. Paperclips in my recipe box are on Lasanga, and Tiramisu (not remembering what else). But Monte says this is the BEST Chili, so I need to make that note on the card (maybe throw away or put away the other cards).

As I've said before, I packed away most all my cookbooks (tho, as I posted a picture on my photoblog, Monte just made a shelf in the garage over the freezers that my books are now on and I'm utilizing them, having missed them!). A cookbook set I did leave out is all the Cooks Illustrated bound magazines. I never buy the magazines, waiting till the end of the year's bound edition, and have them all from their beginning. I consult them all the time. So this chili recipe is the best because of consulting them, yet not following their exact recipe. That's what I like about them - so much exploration and process of elimination with the whys, that I can choose my own way -

Chili con Carne
about 4# beef chuck roast, cut into 1" cubes (the last couple times I've used pork shoulder since it's what I had in the freezer. And the cubed meat is what's a key to the goodness of this recipe.)
7-8 slices bacon, cut into 1/4-1/2" pieces
Fry bacon and brown meat in batches (I used some wine after batches to remove browned bits stuck on pan's bottom - Monte thinks that's another key to the goodness - my addition to the recipe, having read many recipes that do that.)
Saute -
1 onion, chopped, 5-6 minutes, and add -
5 garlic cloves, minced &
3 anahiem chilies or 1 jalepeno, chopped
(I grilled these anahiems earlier, as we got them in our farm share. And they're a bit spicy hot. Once grilled, let cool- and then I plop them in the freezer in a ziplock bag with other chilies I've grilled. This would be another of my additions to the original recipe.)
2 tsp salt
3 Tb chili powder
(The recipe original messes with a variety of chilies, grinding and making a paste ... I skipped. I let the juices dry out, maybe not adding all the tomato in at once, so that the spices saute, toasting a bit too.)
2 TB cumin (whole, I didn't grind this time)
2 tsp oregano
1 cup (or small can stewed) tomatoes, chopped
2 TB lime juice
Add back in the meat and bacon and 7 cups of water and let this simmer at least 2 hours.
At the end, Add -
5 TB Masa Harina, mixed with
2/3 cups water
and occasionally stir letting it heat and thicken some.
(The original recipe doesn't add beans, but I always add a can of either black beans or black soy beans.)

We love to eat this with added grated cheese and avacado chunks. I'll eat with tortilla chips, while my boys will crush the chips into the chili. Add a side salad and you've got a great meal. (I froze what was left of it last night for one more meal.)

Dawson and Splarah went skiing today for this year's first time. Wow, early October. There was a year that Travis made the goal of skiing every month of the year - not sure where he'd have done that in August. But one of our ski hills is open the earliest and latest of all others - it's A-Basin, most of it above timberline. We have the typical evergreen pines, conifers, spruce, and then above them there's the Bristle Cone Pines that are as old as Jesus! A-Basin's summit is above 13,000ft.

That's chili!!!!!!!

Happenings including Zucchini

Heather and Will are gone. Monte drove them home over the weekend. Now he's on to Houston for some meetings. I've got computer editing and art work to do, so missing them won't be so bad. I did hear a bit of music the other morning that reminded me of one of Will's toys and had to remind myself they're not here.

Dawson and friends started logging our woods this past weekend. There's lots of dead trees to cut down, especially the aspen, before they drop their leaves and then we don't know which are dead. I prefer burning aspen in the stove over pine, it burns hotter. We don't have hardwood in our woods. The aspen were just starting to show tinges of yellow for their Fall color. Don't know what this heavy snow will do - maybe break some branches and just turn the leaves brown.

I cleaned the front porch of summer wind debris and made room for the chopped wood, moving furniture around. Our front porch gets the brunt of the wind and on the north side of the house, so total shade. Monte had made me window boxes years ago, but I gave up on real plants. So Saturday I changed out the summer fake flowers to fall's (click here to see a picture). Dawson brought a load of wood into the house, which I'm burning today. "Why" you might ask? Because it's snowing! Arghhhhhh...!!!!!!

I have been afraid to look at the ten-day weather forecast knowing our first frost was coming any day now ... but several inches of heavy snow?! It was close to 80 degrees 24 hours before, so it's melting as fast as it's coming down, I'm sure. Since I've not had a Monet wildflower garden before I don't know how many of the flowers are tender and will die. I was SO enjoying them! Saturday I put the potted plants I wanted to save in the greenhouse where they'll stay now all winter. Sunday I picked all the squash and beans, should have pulled all the basil ... can I make pesto from frozen basil? (I have a friend I can get some basil from - mine were so small - cool summer - and still have pesto in freezer from last year.) I covered some of my tomato plants. We'll see.

AND we did have a bear again - got into the bird feeders twice last week. How, with the electric fence? At first we thought it walked over the long front porch to the back. But no, the second day, Monte noticed the back wires next to the house spread apart. We didn't finish the split-rail fence there cuz we're going to do a gate. And would a little prick of pain, maybe like a mosquito bite, hurt a thick-haired bear? Probably not. Monte put up more boards and wire and wrapped some wires with bacon. That ought to hurt - so, Yes to pain and no gain (I hope)!

I started a big batch of sourdough starter today for making zucchini bread tomorrow. The recipe from the book Nourishing Traditions calls for 2 cups buttermilk to 3 cups flour (I ground kamut) to sit for up to 24 hours before making the bread. It's a master recipe for banana, apricot almond, or ... Having made it once before, I'm going to add a bit more maple syrup since zucchini is not sweet like bananas.

I went to our local health food store on my way to pick up our weekly farm share this late afternoon (snowing cats and dogs - ugghh) to get more eggs and buttermilk and they had some unhomogenized milk, so I've got it warming by the stove to make my own cultured buttermilk. It's got to set out at room temp for about 18 hours. This is an experiment from the Milk book I wrote about not long ago - I've not done it before, tho I make yogurt all the time.

I've already froze a lot of Zucchini, Potato, Onion soup (click to see the recipe). We really do like it reheated over winter. I've grated zucchini and froze it before, but found I don't use it, so prefer the soup and bread. Monte likes to dry slices of the bread, I like slices heated with thin sliced cheese on it.

Supposed to be back close to 80 again by Friday. Should I report on what survived? Now it'll be Indian Summer and Heather and Will will return around Thanksgiving for the Holidays. Dawson's hating his homework this semester. It's the Jewish Rosh Hashanah's High Holy Days and our church is celebrating it this year - a first, and I'm loving, living it!

Cooking - a Spiritual Practice

I read this, by a pastor John O'Hara, and wanted to capture it for me to ponder more and not lose it in cyberspace.
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It might just be the last honest place left. A sanctuary built into our living spaces that frees us to roll up our sleeves and creatively interact with the yield from God’s good creation, the kitchen calls us to a universal vocation and a spiritual exercise.

We cook for a variety of reasons, both noble and ignoble, sacred and common. It’s a practice that cuts across the boundaries of culture, class, religion, ethnicity and gender. It is a uniquely human pursuit and a universal experience that creates for us a bond which transcends all artificial lines of division. To cook is an exercise that teaches us to live with creation – and to live in sync with the rhythms of the Creator, if we are patient enough to wait for that goodness to flow our way. Often the temptation comes to circumvent this rhythm and flow; and it usually manifests in the towering backlit signs of fast-food drive through windows piercing the darkness of our hungry and hurried world, or in the form of fruits and vegetables shipped halfway across the earth to fulfill our dietary whims and industrial carbon quotas. How we eat what we eat and why we eat it are, beneath the surface and beyond the glittering reverberations of advertisers, spiritual questions that deserve the kind of wrestling and soul-searching normally reserved for prayer meetings and seminary classrooms. We have an existential relationship with other living things: we grow, we live, we die, we feed others from the stuff of our existence. Our relationship to food is a touchpoint for that world to which we mystically and metaphysically belong.

When I am in the kitchen, I am aware that I am preparing something real and visceral, something to be broken and consumed, enjoyed and shared. More than a mere illustration of something spiritual, it is spiritual in its’ very essence. When the Church of Jesus was in its’ infancy, the Acts narrative points to people making a daily discipline of worship and meals shared. Somehow I feel that we have lost our way in the fog of our industrialized efficiencies. Quick trips to the super warehouse mega store to pick up a slab of this and a pound of that – or more threateningly, something food-ish that has already been prepared, packaged and preheated and frozen in a factory before it reaches us – reduces us to a kind of two-dimensionality, to the vocation of a consumer; when instead we are so much more complex and beautiful creatures who were designed to participate in the food chain, not just feed off the top of it like some glorified trough. What we gain in convenience through supermarkets and fast food, we lose in the quality and tenor of that relationship to what we consume. In the preparation of food, in choosing foods that are local and in season, we are fractionally returning to a more vibrant stewardship over creation. One cannot help but imagine that doing so enhances our worship relationship with the Creator.
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Heather and Bill come home tonight. I think Bill flies back to Iraq Thursday.

Rhubarb

Today has been a cloudy day and now rainy all afternoon. For years Heather has been the main harvester of rhubarb, so since she's here, she harvested a bunch this morning and this afternoon we got it cut, bagged, and in the freezer - freezing 31 heaping quarts and 28 heaping pints.

When we picked out this site for our home to be built on, rhubarb and chokecherries were already here. They could be 100 years old. An old homestead foundation was here along with an outhouse and a smokehouse. I think the hitching rail is still standing.

The rhubarb had seeded way out into the meadow. We kept the ones to the back close to the chokecherries and aspen grove and woods, fencing in a space for a garden. A guy was here bulldozing a road into our site and the area for putting our house. He pulled back the sod from the garden area for us. That was 25 years ago - the longest home I've lived in.

Monte saw that we were going to be at the rhubarb for a long time so jumped in and helped us a lot! Will sat by watching when awake.

Look under "Recipes" to see my Rhubarb Custard Pie and Rhubarb Crunch recipes. I also use frozen rhubarb for making Rhubarb Aid which all guests have liked.

Sourdough Pancakes

I just ground more rye flour for the sourdough starter I began almost two weeks ago. I've not had sourdough around for several years and we've been missing it - primarily for sourdough pancakes - our favorite!

I have a cookbook called Alaskan Sourdough I got years ago, though it's currently packed in boxes with most of my cookbooks in the garage because we dismantled a wall that the bookshelf was on almost two years ago, opening up the kitchen and great room more - and I'm seeing what I can't live without. I google recipes now and look on FoodNetwork.com, SplendidTable.org and find most anything I want. Like I googled sourdough pancakes and the first entry was from that Alaskan cookbook of mine.

The Alaskan sourdough is made from potato water and sugar and flour (maybe yeast initially?). I've never made sourdough using milk like some recipes use. The current recipe I'm using is from the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. She claims the best results for sourdough starter are obtained from rye rather than wheat flour. And that's fine with me since we consume so much more wheat than any other grain. Her reasoning is because rye contains a lower phytate content (don't ask me what that means cuz I haven't researched it so I don't know).

Start with mixing 2 cups rye flour and 2 cups water and cover the bowl with cheescloth and let sit out on the counter (I've got my bowl covered with a dish towel and rubberband). Each day for a week add another cup each of rye flour and water, then it's ready for bread, which I've not made yet, and may not get to make, as the demand for the pancakes rules! and I don't have enough starter left for bread.

So, from the Alaskan cookbook-

Sourdough Pancakes

Start griddle heating.

Mix together:

2 C starter (I've been using 4 in a 2 quart pyrex bowl - it'll bubble up so bigger is better)

2 Tb sugar (double)

1 egg (I've used both 2 or 3 and either works)

4 Tb oil (double, using 1/2 cup, and I'm using olive oil)

1/2 tsp salt (double)

Mix together: 

1 (2) tsp soda

1 (2) Tb warm water

and fold into batter and let set a bit to rise.

Using a ladle, pour the pancakes to cook on an oiled griddle.

They are best with maple syrup. I often cook up berries or old fruit, adding in any old jams needing to be used up. The fruit syrup is good with yogurt (I always have homemade on hand, look for my recipe). Leftovers are good. I haven't done it lately, but I used to spread leftovers with almond butter and raspberry jam, roll them up, and put in a sandwich baggie for a quicky meal when running errands.

The Alaskan cookbook tells historic stories and its said a special place was always made in their cabin/home for their starter and that they'd rather live a year without their rifle than without a sourdough starter. I also found it interesting that a ball of starter could be stored in the midst of flour in a flour sack, like if you were crossing the prairie in a wagon. Think about it ... no stores, no yeast (except for wild yeast, and that's another story that I have from my own experience) you'd sure love biscuits and bread rather than just crackers or tortilla like flatbread all the time.

recipe quest

This is "the week of egg salad". Any favorite egg salad recipe you'd like to share?

This picture was taken a year after these eggs had been boiled in onion skins. What I learned? 1) Surprised, having saved yellow onion skins for a long time turned these eggs a reddish brown color. 2) That hard boiled eggs sitting out longer than a year never smell or explode (as some of our raw Ukrainian died eggs have) and do seem to dry up inside. Conclusion? Maybe hard boiled eggs would be fine to use for Ukrainian dying. They just can't be eaten, so no egg salad from them (see post.)

Snow & Rhubarb Pie

It's snowing! We woke to a dusting and now it's a blizzard. Schools closed anticipating a typical spring dump. The airport has canceled afternoon flights and businesses are suggesting closing by noon too. Denver's talking about 1 - 1 1/2 ft, so of course we'll get more! Good day for the wood stove fire going. We designed our great room with a cookstove setting between the kitchen and dining area. I leave the stove's oven door open for more heat to flow out. The upper little left opening is the fire box. I'd cleaned out the ash box below it last week, adding the ashes to my compost bin, so it's burning fast and hot.

"Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of Rhubarb Pie?" - Prairie Home Companion's ending to many stories and then a song: "Mama's little baby loves Rhubarb, rhubarb/Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie ... Just one little thing can revive a guy/ and that is a piece of rhubarb pie/ serve it up, nice and hot/ maybe things aren't as bad as you thought ..."

We were going to have company for supper last night, so I had supper preparations pretty well underway before they decided to fly out earlier ... just-in-case ... So Monte and me had a meal of the white chicken chili soup, nice salad, homemade bread ... and rhubarb pie. I took pictures of the pie making process, and here's the recipe from my Hearth & Home cookbook. When looking for recipes I'll often lay out many varieties, so I created this recipe from combining things I thought sounded good together.

Rhubarb Custard Pie

First, I freeze the 1/2" cut-up rhubarb from our garden in a heaping quart measuring bowl, so it's about 5 cups of rhubarb.

Second, you need pie crust for a double crust pie. I use my ground white whole wheat or pastry wheat I've always got in freezer. Since I had kamut in there too, this pie is half wheat and half kamut. I always use butter, unsalted if I have it. I've used lard or the newer organic shortening which is palm oil. I never use shortening. It's vegetable oil heated so hot it's next step would be plastic. Our body does not know how to break this fat down - it's what's now called trans-fat. And labels that have "partially" hydrogenated anything I never get. It's the word partial that's killing people. It races around our body looking for a home and latches onto cells, hurting them, and today we have way more cancer, diabetes, and heart disease than ever.

I use a food processor all the time now for the preliminary processing of the dough, unless I'm making a larger amount, then I use the whips in my regular Bosch bowl, putting the cut-up butter in first. But I always finish up both processes by hand with a pastry blender. Mixing the final bits of water in is when we often over-process pie dough, which makes it tough. Then I flatten the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it while putting together the filling. Keeping the dough chilled is another key to a flaky crust.

Filling -

the 5 cups cut up fresh or frozen rhubarb put in pie first.

Mix together -

3 eggs

2 Tb whole wheat flour

2 Tb tapioca

1/3 c honey

1 c sugar (we've been practically eliminating sugar, so I'm going to cut this back next time cuz it was too sweet for us now)

1/2-1 tsp orange peel

pinch of salt

Pour the filling over the rhubarb and cover with a top crust and make steam vents. I usually sprinkle it with a touch of cinnamon, but forgot yesterday. Bake for 10 minutes at 400, then lower to 350 and continue baking another 45-60 minutes. We like pie crust well-browned and giving the bottom crust a chance to thoroughly cook too.

When I put on the top crust I knife off the excess dough before crimping the edges.

I roll out this excess dough for little cinnamon tarts. Sometimes I'll put pats of butter then sprinkle on lots of cinnamon. The very little bit of sugar added on these is Sucanat. It can't really be called a sugar, cuz by its very nature, sugar is processed. Sucanat is plain dehydrated sugar cane.

Maybe this storm won't be as bad as we thought.

White Chili Soup

Heather called me asking for the chicken soup recipe I'd made for her and froze when I was with her in Texas that month. I decided to post it here and tell you that Heather is sick. I think she got that same flu bug that's everywhere. Hers started with a sore throat and fever and now she's really coughing and can hardly talk with me. Maybe she'll go to a doctor if it stays the same or worsens this week, but all's I could suggest was sleeping whenever baby Will sleeps - daytime too, since she's not getting much sleep. Will is doing well. So pray for Heather please.

White Chili Soup

3 16oz cans northern white beans

4 c cooked chicken

1 Tb olive oil

2 medium chopped onions

2 cloves minced garlic

2 4oz cans chopped green chilies

2 Tb ground cumin

6 c chicken broth

3 c  grated jack cheese

That's how my good friend Jeanie, who's moved away, gave it to me. Now I'll tell you what I do:

I do usually use the canned beans, but might at times cook the beans from scratch, which would probably be about 2 cups of dry beans. I prefer the smaller white beans. I usually cook up a whole chicken, both for the meat and the broth. Otherwise I use organic chicken broth. I usually have cooked chicken and turkey in the freezer from past meals, but in a bind, I've used canned chicken. I can't tell you the sizes, but I think I used three cans.

Saute the chopped onion and garlic in the olive oil. I always add more garlic than recipes call for. Then add the chopped green chilies. We always have frozen roasted anaheim chilies in our freezer from the farmer's market. I get a bushel and usually 3 chilies equals 4 ounces. I don't remove the blackened skin when freezing, but remove it when thawed and I'm readying to chop them (and don't like washing it off, as I think I'm washing away good flavor, but just run my fingers down the chili to remove the skin, stem end, and seeds, then I do have to wash my hands to remove it all from them!). And the cumin, I grind fresh. I rarely buy pre-ground spices, preferring their fresh ground flavor. My cute little wood mortar & pestle sit on my kitchen windowsill.

If I'm taking the soup somewhere, then I put the cheese in it too. At home, we grate cheese and put some in our soup bowls and ladle in the soup. From another chicken soup recipe, I fell in love with fresh avacado cut in chunks and added to the soup bowls. When we have guests (some guests having had it more than once - and they love it!) we typically set up meals buffet style on our island in the middle of the kitchen that the stove is a part of. So the soup pot stays on the stove and there'll be a wooden bowl with wooden tongs of grated cheese and a bowl of cut up avacados (with fresh squeezed lime juice to keep them from browning). Homemade bread and salad top off the meal.

Birthdays and Mac & Cheese

Today is Monte's birthday, but he's not here, he's somewhere in Nevada with some geologists planning April's field trip. So Dawson and me had the traditional Birthday meal. Since Dawson's usually gone for school and socialization, I do cook something we can share together when he's around.

I did a variation of Macaroni and Cheese and it was good. Growing up, home cooked macaroni and cheese was always my birthday meal choice. Whenever you ask Monte what he wants for supper, he'll always say, "Vegetables". That's always first in his thoughts. That's why he's so healthy!

I don't know where the recipe came from, cuz I usually write a source, but the 3x5 card is vague and titled Macaroni & Cheese with Chiles.

2 c dry macaroni (I used penne)

1/4 c butter

3 Tb Masa Harina or flour

1 tsp salt (I'm going to use less next time)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp pepper

3 c milk

1/3 c grated onion (just fine chop)

4 oz diced green chilies

3 c jack cheese (I used colby-jack)

Cook the pasta till almost tender. I melted the butter in a 4c pyrex measuring bowl in the microwave and then added in the masa and seasoning, then added some powdered milk, and poured in 3 cups of the water the pasta cooked in. Microwave it to thicken - this is a 'white sauce'.

In a 2 1/2 qt casserole dish layer the pasta, onion, chilies, and cheese. Then pour over the white sauce, kinda mixing it a bit to make sure it pours thru to the bottom. 

Top with 1/2 c crushed tortilla chips and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

It's a keeper and I know Monte will like it.

Great Depression Cooking with Clara

I love watching and listening to Clara. If only all Grandmas could be captured for all generations like this.

Spiritual Birthdays and Tacos and stuff

Today is Travis's Spiritual Birthday and last thursday was Dawson's. When our kids were little there'd be God-talk-times, but there seems to be a definite time when children ask deeper questions and want to commit their life to God. Monte said he did it when he was eight, soon after realizing that his dad wasn't 'God' and in control of everything. He simply transferred that trust in his dad to trust in God.

I wrote these times on the calendar for each of our kids. Then each year we'd celebrate that birthday with a special treasure hunt meal. The meal had lots of condiments so we could hide them around the house. Since curry (which makes a great treasure hunt meal) isn't a favorite of my kids, we tended to do a taco meal. We'd make up riddles as clues to be left with each food item, guiding them to the next. Eventually everything is at the table and we can eat. There's a final note at their plate reminding them of their treasure in Heaven.

I quick fry corn tortillas so they're soft. Then there's bowls of cooked ground meat, grated cheese, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, green onions, and sour cream, and sometimes guacamole, chips and salsa, and maybe beans. It's one of my favorite childhood meals I grew up with, and my family loves it too. I prefer the soft cooked shells to the traditional crisp shells because the first bite tends to crack the shell down the middle and everything falls out! If you travel to Mexico soft corn tacos is traditional.

I still remember the first time we did this - and we usually retell the story. Heather was just learning to read. Monte was out of town and my sister Kelli was living with us (and that's a powerful story!) so I wrote out very simple clues. Travis, not able to read yet, was practically hanging on to Heather's shirt tail waiting for her to sound out the clues so they could run and find the food. Like she'd be saying, "Look in the re-frig g g g ..." with a hard 'g' sound, as she was slowly walking upstairs. Finally I said, "The refrigerator is not upstairs!" And they'd take off running and laughing.

When Deuteronomy says several times, "teach the children diligently", "tell the children" - this is kinda like another commemoration as is the Lord's Supper and Passover. I'll tell you, our kids never grew up wondering if they were a Christian or not. And what great memories we have celebrating (partying) together around God's Truth and Presence in our lives.

Yesterday at MOPS I did the devotional. It was Tea and Testimony day, so the whole time was filled with five people's stories. Lots of laughter, tears and evoked memories. I combined two things I've posted: The Jar of my life and the Spouse story.

Monte and me thought of some new connections: each of us, so not just me, but Monte, my kids, our friends ... have jars of their lives. I see the larger items as relational, long lasting, for better health and living beyond maintenance, and maybe even eternal. When I got to the part in the story where Sarah's mom felt an urging to pray for Sarah's future mate at the same timing as Travis' horrible illness (if you're lost you need to click on the above stories and read) - I really started crying this time! Through my tears as I put my hand over my beautiful jar of fruit (I took it as a visual aid) I told of the possibilities when other persons have a grapefruit in their jar that they've named "Heart Keeping" and have that relationship with God - that there's a depth in relationships between spouses, relations, friends and community.

I was given a glimpse, tho twenty-some years later, of what the power of prayer can be. And I bet paradise is going to be full of these stories!

Another twist Monte and me are still pondering, is what if two people marry and they seem compatible and their jars are just filled with sand? What might that say? I had quickly voiced the book title "Amusing Ourselves to Death" as a possibility.

This morning I emailed Heather, telling her I think I absorbed her fever last night. I'm sitting here with a thermometer in my mouth. Last night I all-of-a-sudden started getting a tickle-cough, and slept terribly hot, and now if I cough, it's hurting deeper than my throat. We'll see ... we so rarely get sick. I guess it would be good for my immune system.

Heather's fever is low-grade and comes and goes. She talked with the lactation nurse who helped us so much at the hospital. So between having her advice and all Heather's reading and doing, she's going to be ok. Probably the beginnings of mastitis. Other than still wishing she could sleep longer ... she's really enjoying little Will. She says he copies her facial expressions and likes holding her fingers.

My temp is 99.9.

My Pantry

I got a comment on my last post that made me go to Dawson's photoblog since I've not looked at it in a couple days, and there it is - My Pantry! So click on the above link to see it. His wide-angle lens took a couple great pics. View it in the slideshow format.

I just finished cooking up a batch of All-Purpose Basic Ground Meat Mix to freeze in six portions. When first married I had the Make-A-Mix cookbook in two books, now in one, and I got one for Travis and Sarah, and now Heather. That's where I'm getting ideas from. And I'm now going to start making a lasanga and will freeze the rest of it after we have some for supper tonight, along with the cheesecake I made, from my Hearth&Home cookbook (are you getting hungry?! ;^)

Heather has not had her baby. She's having contractions regularly tho ...

Old Fashioned Caramel Frosting

I've loved the flavor of spiced cake and caramel or maple frosting since I was a kid, so my mom always made it for me for my birthday. I carried on that tradition, making it for me from scratch for my birthday since I got married. And like I said in the last posting, where I wrote the cake recipe, my daughter Heather made it for me for this year's birthday when Monte and me arrived at her new home in Texas. She left for me, the frosting to make. 

It's considered a Boiled or Cooked Frosting, and I've been making it from the Joy of Cooking cookbook all these years. But when we moved to 8000 feet elevation in Evergreen, Colorado from Tucson, Arizona, the recipe did not work and I had to do a lot of reading and figuring.

Old-Fashioned Caramel Frosting

In a medium saucepan heat and stir until sugar is dissolved:

2 c packed brown sugar

1 c heavy cream

Cover and simmer for 2 minutes. Spoon down any sugar on the sides of the pan and cook uncovered, hardly stirring, until the syrup reaches 238 degrees. Remove from the heat and add, without stirring:

3 Tb butter (unsalted if you have it)

Set aside, without stirring, until the mixture cools to 110 degrees and stir in:

1 tsp vanilla.

The 238 degrees is where I had to change the recipe (and it has an optional addition of rum flavoring which I don't like). It was in the Joy of Cooking's "Know Your Ingredients" chapter, and maybe under making candy, and maybe even canning, that I figured it out. Cooking and canning temperatures and timings are set for sea level. At 8000 ft I had to lower the temperature to 18_ degrees (I'm not at home with my cookbook and notes. But at my elevation, boiling water temp is at 186, which means 20 minutes of waterbath canning time stretches out to 46 minutes for me! And I think when making candy, that soft-ball stage at 238 has to lower about 2 degrees per thousand ft or is it hundreds?)

Once the frosting is cooled and vanilla added you beat it with a hand mixer in the pan (or you have to transfer it to a mixing bowl) till it gets thickened creamy.

The recipe actually makes more frosting than the cake needs, but my kids always wanted the extra to add to their cake slices or spread on ginger cookies or graham crackers. Yummm ....

In Ogema, Wisconsin, Monte's Aunt Ruby makes this cake frosting. Even last year she had it at an event and I recognized it and we talked about it. She says it's everybody's favorite. Aunt Ruby is the only other person I know who makes it. She raised her family on a dairy farm, so you know her cream had to be the BEST ever! 

Spice Cake

I've been asked several times for the Spice Cake recipe I use for my favorite cake - My favorite birthday cake since I was a kid. I've been making it for years from The Joy of Cooking cookbook. But, as usual, I don't do the exact recipe...

First off, I have to say, I am not a cake person. I've never loved cakes for dessert, preferring pies, cheesecakes, and now Tiramisu. Also, I rarely eat desserts. I have to choose the types of carbs I consume carefully. I'm pretty good at avoiding store bought desserts and processed flour products. Since the only place my body can grow is out, when I take in foods, they are nutrient rich, phytonutrient rich choices. I even have to limit my homemade breads.

So when it comes to foods with flour, I make everything from home-ground grains. That way I know they are nutrient rich and at their optimal. So I've made all my pie crusts, cookies, and cakes from ground whole wheat. I use either pastry berries or white wheat, not the red winter wheat berries.

When I look at cakes, all cakes made from cake mixes have a plasticky sheen to them. Maybe it's just my self-conscious seeing things. Maybe my baked goods aren't as light and fluffy, but that's what's been built into our likes from the era when processed flour was introduced as a 'rich mans' food, just like processed white sugar was coveted in the same way.

In the Joy of Cooking, it's the Velvet Spice Cake, 

but here's my version:

I start by beating

4 egg whites 

1/8 tsp cream of tartar, till soft peaks form and gradually add in

1/4 c sugar, till peaks stiffer, but not dry.

I scrape this mixture into another bowl to add in at the end.

Next I beat 

1 1/2 sticks butter (12 Tb) in my Bosch mixer bowl, with the butter (usually unsalted if I have it) sliced in pieces so the whips don't get bent. And add in

1 1/4 c sugar

Beat in 3-4 lg egg yolks

Adding in the dry ingredients:

2 1/4 c whole grain flour (and I never sift either)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (I do have a cute nutmeg grinder)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp grd cloves

1/2 tsp salt

Fold in beaten egg whites.

(The eggs can be done whole, without mixing them separate if you don't mind the cake being denser.)

Pour into greased and floured tube or bundt pan, and it works in a 9x13.

Bake at 350 degrees about 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool about 10 minutes to invert the cake out of the pan (or just leave it in the 9x13 if you want).

I always make a boiled brown sugar frosting for it. I don't have time to post it right this minute, so will do it later.

Just a side note: The Joy of Cooking has changed over the years and I don't know what's still in the newer versions. I heard it talked of on a program. Mainly editing out some of the details and maybe ingredients or recipes that people today don't stock. Hopefully it's still making everything from scratch.

Fish Tacos

I think I've perfected a recipe for Fish Tacos - that we like! Monte's had them in both California and Canada; I've had them at the fast food Wahoo's Fish Taco. I crave them. I've posted before about every time I'm out by the airport I'm wanting a wahoo taco! And I'm starting to see more restaurants around Denver open up (they originated in California).

Though some recipes batter and fry the fish. Traditional Mexican fish tacos are charbroiled. So broil or grill a firm white fish (mahi-mahi, wahoo, swordfish, tilapia ...). I put some hickory sawdust in the grill to provide a smoky flavor, and oil the fish while grilling. Allow about 1/2 lb of fish per person.

Then they are traditionally served with thinly sliced cabbage and a fresh salsa.
Fresh Salsa -
3-4 tomatoes, diced fine
1-2 red onions, diced fine
(I quarter these, leaving the root intact, and grill while the grill is preheating and cooking the fish)
1-2 jalepenos, finely diced (I'm preferring the canned pickled ones now)
1 bunch cilantro, the leaves finely chopped
1 lime juiced
1 tsp freshly grd sea salt and pepper

The corn tortillas are freshly made - 3-4 per person. So refrigerated ones need to be warmed: wrap in foil and keep turning on grill while grilling. (Sometimes I quick fry them soft, in heated oil.)

Monte's going to read this and say, "Why didn't you say what I like to do?!" So I'll write it. He sits at our kitchen table by the toaster. Whether the tortillas are just warmed to soften or quick fried, he likes to fold them and put them in the toaster, watching them (baby-ing them!) till barely browning. Then too, he's going to say, "Why didn't you tell them what I made?" Okay. He was served tacos in Canada in taco holders. So he pounded nails in a little strip of wood to hold two tacos for filling ease.

A recipe suggested sour cream mixed with a chopped chipotle chili in adobo, another suggested Ranch Dressing. Since we love avacado, i mash one, and since the fresh salsa creates juices, I pour some of them into the avacado. I just use plain sour cream, but think the chipotle flavoring sounds good and will try it sometime.

I'm getting hungry writing this. I think I'll eat the leftover's for lunch!

Candy Cane Legend & Happenings

Monte just called me from Norway. He's been there for a full week now and will be flying home tomorrow. All week I've been imagining 8hours ahead ... he's in geology meetings ... he's sleeping ... he's out eating supper. He typically calls me just before going to supper.

I've been planning our Christmas foods. With Heather not here, the sentimental one for tradition ... Our typical meal is Scandinavian. Monte said he's had ENOUGH Scandinavian Christmas foods, including several meals with lutkefish! So after remembering that Travis and Dawson don't even love some of our meal's foods, we're going to do Mexican! After writing my Las Posadas post on Dec 16, I got hungry for tamales.

So I'm currently cooking up field corn kernels with lime and water - for fresh masa. If you've ever had fresh made corn tortillas from fresh masa ... :-P !!!! And in my post I had mentioned churros, so I found a recipe. I've eaten them before, but not made them. Rather than typical doughnut shape, it's strips of dough dropped into some hot oil from a star shaped piping tip, then sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar.

Chanukah begins tomorrow and oil is an ingredient in their menu. Besides latkes, doughnuts are a more current food you can get in Israel today. So churros is good. We can remember the miracle of the oil as we make them and eat history!

Watch this for a well done presentation on the history of candy canes.

Chicken Parmesan (and Eggplant, and Beef)

My sister wanted me to post the recipe I made last week while in Arizona. I took leftovers with me to share with Kelli and Richard. I get a lot of my favorite recipe ideas these days from Cooks Illustrated. I stopped buying the magazines years ago and just wait for the end of the year - I have all of them from the beginning in hard-bound books and have a 15 year index. Their recipe has a home-made tomato sauce which I usually do, but with organic spagetti sauce so readily available, I'm using it more and more. (The eggplant and beef isn't a part of their recipe, it's just to show you other possibilities).

Have a bowl with beaten egg and pinch of salt, and
another bowl of 1C bread crumbs mixed with
1/2 tsp salt, and a pinch of pepper.
Typically parmesan cheese is mixed in with the bread crumbs, but I like how this recipe puts it on later and broils it. (I did the beef last night with the parmesan cheese in the bread crumbs. I pick up organic beef at my local store, regularly finding it 1/2 off and buying all that's there and freeze it. So last night's recipe used tenderloin steaks cut in bite size pieces, coated with the bread crumb cheese mixture and broiled a short bit till surface is crunchy - on a foil lined cookie sheet.)

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
(I always cut it in thin pieces, sometimes pounding it flat)
Dip the chicken pieces in the egg and then the bread and put on a rack till all done.
Heat 1/4C olive oil over med-high heat in a skillet and brown chicken on both sides. Put them back on the cleaned rack over a cookie sheet
and top with 1/4C (1 oz) grated parmesan and 3/4C (3oz) grated mozzarella and
broil 4-5" from heat source till spotty browned.
Serve over cooked spaghetti with sauce.

I've done eggplant the same way too, but this time I browned both sides of 1/2" slices of eggplant brushed with olive oil under broiler, then sprinkled on the same grated cheeses and broiled again.

Last night's sauce was home-made from tomatoes that ripened from our garden. I had lots in a paper bag that were still green and most have turned red. I grew the Brandywine heirloom tomatoes this year. It's the first year I've gotten lots of brown bottomed tomatoes - don't know if that variety is prone to that or what?

I've often wanted to post about umamis and still am not. Just going to mention that it's a fifth taste, and that parmesan is an umami.

Broccoli Soup...and bugs

I made a simple supper of broccoli soup with toasted bread last night. With the unusually warm weather for the Rocky Mountains, knowing winter is right around the corner, Monte and me have been working outside till dark. Once you harvest the main broccoli heads (I froze 26 lbs last month) the plants produce side shoots we tend to eat as they come. Since we were out of town, I harvested a bunch this week. Some had aphids so I kept soaking them in new basins of water. That's what I made the soup with.

I combined two recipes: one from our farm share newsletter and the other from the FoodNetwork.com. It was really good.

Saute in 3 Tb butter:

1-2 sliced onions

1-1 1/2 lb broccoli

1 tsp fresh thyme

(tsp fresh tarragon - I didn't taste this)

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

salt and pepper

3 Tb flour

Add 3 C chicken broth.

When the broccoli is soft enough puree with a hand-held blender in the pan.

Add 1/2-1 C cream to thin enough while pureeing.

Put in soup bowls and sprinkle a handful of grated cheese over the tops of the soup bowls and broil till melted and browning.

When almost done with our soup I said to Monte, "since we're also eating aphids, I'm reminded of the India study".

Actually I'll mention 2 studies. The first was done years ago on farm raised kids vs city kids and the growing amount of allergies. It's thought that because of such a focus on sterility and anti-bacterial everything, kids immune systems were not developing very strong, thus more allergies. 

Another more recent study has concluded that when people from India move to the western civilization, like going to school and living in England, and yet remaining vegetarian, they are developing poor health because the produce in the western countries is 'cleaner' - no bacteria and bugs!

Food for thought ...

Squash Seeds and Apples

We're about off for the 2nd son's (Eric) college football game a couple hours away and we leave from there for Monte's parents.

Supper was on time bake while we visited some apple orchard 'stores'. So many apple samples, so many varieties of tastes you'd never imagine existed. Lots of heirloom types too. There's lots of abandoned apple trees on Scott and Chris's land. I was wondering if there's a DNA testing for apples. Some could have even got their start from Johnny Appleseed, who traveled the countryside and people wanted to hear his story-telling.

Supper? Chris cooked up butternut squash she got bulk of at the weekly Amish market. It was so good. But so much seeds! I can't throw them away. I almost always rinse off the seeds, put them in a small amount of water in a saucepan with a bit of salt and pepper, usually garlic and onion powder, but then anything could be added. Boil them almost dry and the seasoning penetrates. Then because the oven's usually been on, I just spread them on a cookie sheet and let them dry in the oven. The finally to our pork chops over potatoes, squash and salad meal was an apple pie. Great Fall meal.

Family Time

Travis and Sarah just left. They live 1 1/2-2 hours away in Ft Collins. As a Worship Minister he gets Mondays off and Sarah asked to have Mondays off too. So we usually get together Sunday afternoons over to Monday. Dawson started school today, so we had supper together.

I got a new cookbook, a Webber Grill book. I tried a recipe out of it tonight that was fantastic and want to try everything in it! Monte wanted to try making 'Ices' - out of the Thompson seedless grapes hanging everywhere in our greenhouse, and the ripe red currants we have on bushes in my fenced in veggie/produce garden. In googling grape ice cream I found that most things are made with the purple concord grape. It's probably because the green isn't that appealing of a color.

Monte didn't use all the sweetening syrup I made for the ice cream, and it would have been better had he followed the recipe. So most of us mixed in store bought vanilla. It was good.

A good relaxing day together.

Grilled Corn Salad

My mom asked me to bring my grilled corn salad to the family reunion. I first made it for a meal we shared at Travis's on the 4th. I got the recipe from William Sonoma (they call it Charred corn salad). It's so good, even as a leftover.


Grilled Corn Salad
serves 6-8

Grill 6 cobs of corn, husks and silks removed, brushing them with
2 Tb olive oil mixed with 1 tsp salt
turning them occasionally, until charred spots, about 15 minutes.
Let cool till can handle and cut the kernels from the cobs.

In the serving bowl mix -
2 Tb fresh lime juice
1 Tb fresh orange juice
1 tsp diced chipotle chile in adobo, plus 1 Tb adobo sauce
(I don't measure this, just cut up a smallish chili out of the can, which I refrigerate in a jar to always have on hand, and spoon out some of the sauce.)
1 garlic clove (I always add more)
1/2 tsp honey (which I don't measure either, just eyeball it)
1/4 c good tasting olive oil
Add to this 'sauce' -
the griller corn kernels
1 15oz can black beans (I used black soy beans)
2 Tb chopped fresh cilantro (I used more)
1/2 c jicama (I used more)
1/4 c chopped red onion (I probably used more)
2 c quartered cherry tomatoes

Serve at room temp.

Stuffed Grilled Chilies

I looked through my posted recipes the other day and noticed I haven't posted my stuffed poblano chili recipe, which is odd since it's a definite favorite, not just to me, but to everyone I've made it for. I've been making it for several years now and am going to give you the recipe from my memory. I originally got it from one of the first "Real Simple" magazine issues, and I don't know if over the years I'm making it exactly the way they did.

6-7 Poblano chilies - these look like pointed bell peppers, though usually a darker green. Every store labels them different: like ancho (which is really dried poblanos) or pasillo ... So that's why I'm telling you what they look like.

Cut a slit down one side and remove the seeds and wash and drain. You'll be spooning filling in them and evening the filling amount in each in the end. I stuff the filling, shoving it well in so it doesn't easily come out when cooking (it does, but it's worse if you don't pack the filling).

Filling:
8 oz grated cheese
1 15oz drained canned beans - I usually use black soy beans since they are higher fiber and protein. My next choice would be black beans; then pinto.
1/3 cup raisins
1/4 cup salsa
2 tsp chili powder

I soak mesquite wood chips for at least an hour and have a chip pan I insert under the grill grate on one side. I leave this side on high for the entire cooking time. Before I had a nice grill, I used to put the drained, soaked chips sealed in heavy-duty foil with holes poked in it for smoke escape.

On a preheated grill place the stuffed peppers away from the wood chip side on high. Turn the burners under the chilies to low - near the end I often turn these burners off, still leaving the chip side on high. Cook with the lid closed. I grill them about a half-hour. Turn them over half way through, but be conscious of the slit opening so you don't dump all the filling out. They should get some dark blistering on both sides. Remove to a serving tray and cover with foil till you're ready to eat.

I don't think the recipe called for a sauce, but from my Rick Bayless Mexican cook books, I often make a sauce to serve the chilies with. He has you chopping onion, tomato, jalepeno and what not and add to cooking cream. My simple version is to heat cream and simmer down a bit, to thicken, and add some salsa.

I'm sorry I didn't take a picture. Dawson's photoblog site does have a picture of these, both on the grill and a plate (though he wanted flames for effect so put paper pieces in the grill to catch fire, good grilling though should not have flames). And I'm kicking myself I didn't take a picture of the 6 dancing chickens suspended over beer cans on the grill last night. The Norwegians did! They loved it - and it was so good. I posted this recipe with a picture a couple months ago.

Authentic Mexican cooking for stuffing all sorts of chiles, burritos and enchiladas often adds some chopped dried fruits. Not a lot, but to have an occasional bite of a bit of sweet is good.

Easter Story Cookies

My friend Ellen just sent me this. I think I have it, or something like it, in my stash of calendar research. What's coolest to me, is that my friends so know me that they think of me when certain things come their way.

This is a great hands-on tradition for the kids - it's another Eating History thing (I mentioned this in the Seder post). Kids or no kids, I suggest we do it for OUR inner-child......

EASTER STORY COOKIES
To be made the evening before Easter.
You need:
1c. whole pecans
1 tsp. vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch salt
1 c. sugar
zipper baggie
wooden spoon
tape
Bible
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Place pecans in zipper baggie and let children beat them with the wooden spoon to break into small pieces (I have a wooden meat pounder I use for doing this). Remember that after Jesus was arrested He was beaten by the Roman soldiers.
(Read John 19:1-3.)
Let each child smell the vinegar. Put 1 tsp. vinegar into mixing bowl. Remember that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross he was given vinegar to drink.
(Read John 19:28-30.)
Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life. Remember that Jesus gave His life to give us life.
(Read John 10:10-11.)
Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl. This represents the salty tears shed by Jesus' followers, and the bitterness of our own sin.
(Read Luke 23:27.)
So far the ingredients are not very appetizing. Add 1c. sugar. The sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to know and belong to Him.
(Read Ps. 34:8 and John 3:16.)
Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed. The color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus.
(Read Isa. 1:18 and John 3:1-3.)
Fold in broken nuts. Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper covered cookie sheet. With each mound imagine the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid.
(Read Matt. 27:57-60.)
Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF.
Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door. Remember that Jesus' tomb was sealed.
(Read Matt. 27:65-66.)
GO TO BED! Feel sad about leaving the cookies in the oven overnight. Remember Jesus' followers were sad when the tomb was sealed.
(Read John 16:20 and 22.)
On Easter morning, open the oven and help yourself to cookies. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow! Remember that on the first Easter Jesus' followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty.
(Read Matt. 28:1-9)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." - John 3:16

Palm Sunday

Our Supper Group friends just left - our brave friends. It's snowed a few inches, but the heaviest is supposed to start around midnight. I'm anxious to hear how their drive home went! It was raining in Denver when they left to come to our house. I'll let you know how much snow we get. It's not supposed to move on till tomorrow late afternoon. The meal turned out great, even though I was grilling the chickens in the snow! We had a great time and conversation.

I came home from church with lots of palm fronds (I do that every year) to decorate the kitchen table and set out my wool sheep and Jesus on a donkey. Everyone thought it so cool that I had to take a picture to post.

I found one tradition in all my readings for Palm Sunday that I've been doing several years now. My ancestors on my dad's side in the Netherlands carry on this tradition: baking bread chicks on a stick with colored streamers and parading them about homes and church. I bake a large bread shaped chicken with baby chicks sticking out around her. Where does this come from, and why Palm Sunday?

As Jesus overlooked Jerusalem, He wept. Jesus knows us and loves us, even with all our ordinariness. Jesus wished He could "gather them under My wings like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings". (Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34)

Here's my recipe for a hen and chicks bread-

1 cup hot water in a blender with- 1 small unpeeled, cut up and seeded orange (cut off some skin to use as chick beaks)
1/2 cup raisins
Let soak a bit and then blend well. Pour into a bread-making bowl and add-
1 pkg (2 tsp) yeast
1/8 cup oil or melted butter
1/8 cup honey or sugar
1-2 Tb molasses
2 tsp-1Tb cinnamon
1 cup flour

Mix these ingredients just until the dry ingredients are moistened, and with a cover on to keep warm, let sit to sponge for 10 minutes. Then add- 2 tsp salt & more flour till dough begins to clean the bowl and form a ball. Knead for about 10 minutes.

Shape the dough into loaves or the chickens (one large or 2 small). Let rise on a greased baking sheet, covered with a towel. Bake about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (I haven't done this this year yet. If I do, I'll take a picture and add it here.)

I do a large ball for the hen body, then lots of small balls around her body for the chicks and one small ball on top of her body for her head. Take a toothpick to make indents and add currents or cut up raisins for eyes and slivers of orange peel for beaks.

I pulled out art work that I set on an easel for this week. I have Leonardo da Vinci's "Lord's Supper" as well as a modern painting of the scene. I have Rembrandt's "The Raising of the Cross" where he paints himself in the picture. And then Michelangelo's "Pieta". I saw these scenes frozen in Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of Christ" and it caught my breath - a work of art!

Passion Week is before us. One day the people cry "Hosannas" that soon changed to "Crucify Him"!

Grilled Chicken etc

This morning was MOPS. I woke at 3:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep. My mind often kicks into gear and there's no stopping it, so I'm tired. I spoke - telling a piece of my story, and why I'm often called "The Calendar Girl" (not that I've posed naked for a calendar - cute movie by the way).

It hit me about the timing of MOPS and next week starting Holy Week. What would Christianity be without the cross and resurrection?! and yet we 'celebrate' other holidays moreso and especially Christmas. It's so easy to embrace a baby and shepherds and sheep and kings and presents! Who wants to embrace a cross?!

I'll talk more on this later. If you buy the dozen egg thing (like advent) at a Christian store, today would be the first day for opening a plastic egg and seeing what miniature is inside and reading about it - often from a Gospel story.

Last night I did a dry run on grilling a chicken, before doing a large amount for our supper group Sunday evening (why is it called a 'dry run'?). Travis had done it for us awhile back and I had posted a picture of the 'Dancing Chickens'? So yesterday he instant messaged me the how-to along with the 'whys' (the science). It's so good, and easy, and I'm going to be doing it a lot.

He marinated/brined the chickens for about three hours. Since I did one chicken I cut his recipe in thirds. Here's his recipe:

1 gallon water (1 qt hot in the beginning to dilute the salt and sugar, then add cold, including ice)

3/4 c salt

2/3 c brown sugar

1/2 c soy sauce

herbs (thyme, rosemary, bay, pepper, onion, garlic)

olive oil (I think I forgot this)

Submerge with a weighted plate in a bucket (I did the one bird in a ziplock bag) for three hours.

Rinse well.

Have the grill preheated hot.

Have hickory chips (mesquite is too powerful for this) presoaked and ready to add to grill with the chicken.

Have a beer can for each chicken - emptied of half its beer - and punch more holes in its top. Put the chicken over the can, which will hold it up for the entire cooking time on the grill.

Squeeze a lemon half over the chicken and put the other half in the neck cavity.

Sprinkle with some herb mixture (I used our no-salt mixture).

Travis has a grill with 2 burners and kept one turned off with the wood chips on the 'high' side. I have 3 burners, so kept one on high where the chips stayed, the middle on low, and the third burner off, where I put the chicken (and a winter squash). We'd check the temperature, trying to keep it around 300-350 degrees, and periodically turned the birds. You can't have a burner on under the birds or you'll have flare-up flames!

One bird is done in an hour. Travis cooked the three birds in a little over two hours. I'm going to be cooking four birds Sunday (and it looks like it might be snowing!) so I'm going to allow for at least 2 1/2 hours.

I did the winter squash along with it. You could roast sweet potatoes with it, which are really good done on the grill (skin on of course!) And oh, leave the skin on the chicken too!

Brining initially pulls water out of the meat while pushing salt in. The salt denatures the proteins, which means that they can't coil up as tightly when they cook, so then the proteins don't squeeze as much liquid out of the meat, leaving you with a moister bird. So, although brined meat starts out with less moisture, it actually has more at the end of cooking because it hasn't been wrung out like a sponge.

BLT Soup

We just had a wonderful soup and Monte wants me to post the recipe (this is his way of making me write it down so I-don't-forget-it type of deal!).

Costco has some great natural thick-sliced bacon, but it's too salty for us to just eat as is. So I might keep getting it and divide it up for a black bean pizza (did I post that recipe?) and this soup.

BLT Soup
4-5 thick slices of bacon
Cook these till done, and crumble them.
Now some of you might not like this, but I cook the bacon in my soup pot and proceed to saute the veggies in the bacon fat. If you prefer not then saute the following ingredients in the order listed here, in oil, in your soup pot-
1 chopped onion
1 chopped bell pepper
2 chopped celery ribs
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 diced tomatoes (and since I'm supposed to be writing out exactly what I did ... I had some cherry tomatoes that were on the counter just starting to wrinkle and no one was wanting to eat them fresh anymore, so I cut them in half. So with these I had probably 2 tomatoes worth or maybe even more. But I figure since Monte loves stewed tomatoes, it wouldn't hurt anything.)
Chopped or shredded romaine (I used kale- and probably about 1-1 1/2 cups thin sliced)
1 quart chicken broth
1/2 cup cream
(pinch of chipotle pepper flakes)
pepper (and salt - hardly use)

I cut my home-made baguette bread down the middle and in 1-2 inch pieces, drizzled them with virgin olive oil and sprinkled them from a hand grinder mixture of pepper, garlic and salt. Bake (I have a convection oven) them till crispy. This is one of my versions of 'croutons'.

And just for your information, it's snowing. It's been blizzarding all day and we didn't go to church. There were probably only a handful of people there since the highway was a parking lot, no one going anywhere! Yesterday, March 1st, was in the 70's! The snow has never left the ground this winter like it often does, since we've been getting bits of snow here and there. We're so anxious for Spring, yet March can be our snowiest month!

Spiritual Birthdays and Tacos

Yesterday was Dawson's Spiritual Birthday and next Wednesday is Travis's. When our kids were little there'd be God-talk-times, but there seems to be a definite time when children ask deeper questions and want to commit their life to God. Monte said he did it when he was eight, soon after realizing that his dad wasn't 'God' and in control of everything. He simply transferred that trust in his dad to trust in God.

I wrote these times on the calendar for each of our kids, calling them their 'spiritual birthday'. Then each year we'd celebrate that birthday with a special treasure hunt meal. The meal needs to have a lot of condiments that we can hide around the house. Since curry (which makes a great treasure hunt meal) isn't a favorite of my kids, we tended to do a taco meal. We'd make up riddles as clues to be left with each food item, guiding them to the next. Eventually everything is at the table and we can eat. There's a final note at their plate reminding them of their treasure in Heaven.

I quick fry corn tortillas so they're soft. Then there's bowls of cooked ground meat, grated cheese, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, green onions, and sour cream, and sometimes guacamole, chips and salsa, and maybe beans. It's one of my favorite childhood meals I grew up with, and my family loves it too. I prefer the soft cooked shells to the traditional crisp shells because the first bite tends to crack the shell down the middle and everything falls out! If you travel to Mexico soft corn tacos is traditional.

I still remember the first time we did this - and we usually retell the story. Heather was just learning to read. Monte was out of town and my sister Kelli was living with us (and that's another story!) so I wrote out very simple clues. Travis, not able to read yet, was practically hanging on to Heather's shirt tails waiting for her to sound out the clues so they could run and find the food. Like she'd be saying, "Look in the re-frig g g g ..." with a hard 'g' sound, as she was slowly walking upstairs. Finally I said, "The refrigerator is not upstairs!" And they'd take off running and laughing.

When Deuteronomy says several times, "teach the children diligently", "tell the children" - this is kinda like another commemoration as is the Lord's Supper and Passover. I'll tell you, our kids never grew up wondering if they were a Christian or not. And what great memories we have celebrating (partying) together around God's Truth and Presence in our lives!