You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2008.
Summer fruit waiting to be transformed
Technically I am not fulfilling the TWD rules this week, so it will not count towards my participation this month (which means I will do next weeks recipe as well), but I had all the ingredients and had wanted to make this one anyway. And so I did. At least it is still summer, and therefore fitting for the Summer Gallette recipe chosen for this week.
I bought some nectarines, peaches and plums at our CSA yesterday when we went to get our box of farm goodness (oh! the glorious summer tomatoes and basil in there!). And finally this afternoon I found a little space of time to put this together. Wonderfully it really did not take long, but it did take a bit of forethought because the butter for the dough needed to be frozen, and then the dough itself needed to be chilled. Other than that it basically made itself in no time.
I have to say, I’m always a bit afraid of pastry. My friend is a whiz at it, but I find it troubling and usually avoid it. I’ve had some luck, but more frustration, ripped crusts, and mishaps than I care to list here. It was a lovely suprise to have this crust come together so quickly and easily in the food processor (brilliant!). Even better, it tasted devine! Light and buttery. Dare I say…flakey?
My leaky lucious gallette
I love making this kind of pastry over a pie in a dish– the free form crust suits my non-perfectionist style much better and saves time , as well as dishes to be washed! I have made similar desserts, mainly working from Ina Garten’s (Barefoot Contessa) recipe for Apple Crostata in her Parties! cookbook. (Here is another of her crostata recipes I was able to find online) This cookbook is one of the most stained and tabbed books in my collection, precisely for these types of simple, flavorful recipes. Her crostata differs from Dorie’s gallette mainly in the topping. Dorie used the custard, Ina a light crumb topping. Honestly, I couldn’t taste the custard enough to warrant the extra step– I could taste the fruit and the crust and that was enough for me with a great big glass of milk– but… I was eating it quite warm in order to be able to post this evening. Perhaps the custard comes into its own in cooling; I should know at breakfast tomorrow!
One last note about this recipe. I’m not sure if I just had extra juicy fruit, or used too much but my gallette leaked all over. In fact there was so much juice I had a hard time telling if the custard had set. Really I don’t mind, the juice made it luscious to eat, but it did make the bottom a little less crisp than would be ideal. I wonder if the the leaking would have been worse without the crumbs and jam?
I will leave the experimentation for another day.
Find the recipe for the Gallette posted here.
Photo from my vacation!
We are home again! And while when I am here too long I can only think about traveling, when I am away too long, I can only think about home. Our full trip was almost two weeks and it was nice to come home, check on my garden (still growing), my to do list (still growing), and think of fun summer things to do in our area where my bed is (blackberry picking is high on our list this week). I was also anxious to get back to my posting here. We came back a bit too late to get my TWD up today (check tomorrow– I did get all the ingredients today and they await me in the morning) but not too late to get up another post about baking with children– one of my favorite topics.
My Baking Boy a couple years back
In my last post about Baking with Children I mentioned one of my favorite cookbooks for children, the well-known classic, Pretend Soup. And my favorite recipe in that book? Popovers. Hands down one of the most satisfying baking you can do with young children. I’ve made this recipe now multiple times not only with my children, but in their preschool classrooms where it never fails to be a hit.
The great thing about this recipe is that it is broken in to steps making even the prep work managable for the kids. The children get to “paint” the muffin tins with the melter butter, and just as Katzen promises, some children “love” this and will do this for quite a while, making for some very buttered tins!
The format of the cookbook is a bit lengthy with grown-up hints, the recipe itself, and then simplified pictorial directions for the children to follow. I can’t obviously recreate that here, so I will do my best to give enhanced directions. The best bet is to check out the book itself, at the library or at a bookstore.
Popovers
adapted from Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen & Ann Henderson
best eaten slightly warm, with jam
This recipe will work in a toaster oven and in mini muffin tins.
Ingredients:
2 TBSP butter, melted (to “paint” with)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 375. Have the children paint the insides of the muffin cups with the melted butter (you may need more than the 2 TBSP depending on how much they enjoy this part– don’t rush them! Focusing on the process instead of the product is very important for young children)
When they are ready, break the eggs into the mixing bowl (try my trick for the small bowl for each or Katzen’s listed “break them on the bottom of a big bowl and let the egg run out into the bowl”). Once you have all the shells out of the egg, add the milk and beat well. Add flour and salt and whisk until blended.
Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. You can put the batter in a small pyrex measure cup to let the children help fill them on their own. Bake for 30 minutes without opening the oven (if using mini muffins it will be less– you will need to watch them, but this is part of the fun of popovers!)
Remove from pan and prick with a fork to let steam escape (truth be told I don’t think I usually remove them from the muffin pans– lazy, I guess). Katzen suggests having your child wear an oven mitt when they prick the muffins to protect them from the steam.
Eat one. And another. Add a little jam to the next. Maybe time for a glass of milk, or a mug of tea. Now one more.
Now get them young'uns in the kitchen!
I’ll be camping and traveling to see friends, but I don’t go far without a book in my hand (that’s my daughter above reading at our quick beach trip in June. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). Here’s a list of books I’m hoping to get through while I’m gone. This reading will only be possible with quiet children in the car, a husband who wants to drive, and lots of down time while we’re gone. It may be entirely wishful, but it’s the hope that keeps me going.
Divisadero It’s been on my list for quite a while. I’ve loved other books by this author, hoping for a similar reaction.
Toast by Nigel Slater I’ve been wanting to read this ever since looking through his wonderful cookbookish book, Kitchen Diaries last year.
Three Cups of Tea Recommended to me by a good friend and fellow reader. Looking forward to reading this and sharing my reactions upon my return!
A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies Can’t remember why this ended up in my pile (was in NY Times book review that mentioned… yes I think it was this one about another book on my “to read” list!), but my australian e-pal says he’s a good aussie author and I trust her opinion infinitely.
The Biographer’s Tale Picked this up at the local Friends of the Library bookstore for a dollar (can’t beat their prices). I haven’t read anything else by Byatt since I read Posession, but sounded right up my alley.
Here’s to my summer reading! I hope it really happens.
I love baking. I love sharing things I love with my children. Not too far a leap to loving baking with my children. One recent afternoon my son had a friend over and we headed to the kitchen to do those things I love. My son loves chocolate. That lead us to this recipe from Linda Collister’s, Cooking with Kids for Double Chocolate Muffins. The recipe was from her aptly named section in the book, “baking afternoon”.
I got the boys suited up into aprons and away we went, mixing, stirring, cracking… and of course spilling. We made it through with only the barest of messes (one egg did miss the bowl completely but a quick swipe, a new egg, and we were back in business. 30 minutes later- cooling muffins. The interesting thing is that I think they enjoyed the process of baking more than those muffins. By the time they had come out of the oven they were onto another activity— but momma enjoyed them!
Here are a few tips when baking with children. The thing to always keep in mind is that baking with children will be a little bit messy. But there are some things you can do to minimize the mess and mishaps.
1. Have them crack eggs in a small separate bowl so if shell goes in with it all is not lost! I picked up this little trick from one of my favorite children’s cookbooks, Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson.
2. Use nice large bowls. It helps when they pour in too quickly (slosh), too much at one time (large puff of flour in the air), or stir with the might of mighty mouse (flinging unincorporated flour or, even better, bits of batter, throughout the kitchen). It doesn’t solve the mess, but it does minimize it.
3. Read through the recipe before you invite them in the kitchen. Make sure you have all the ingredients and prepare what you can. 
3a. Be sure that if you are baking with more than one child that the recipe has more than one egg to crack. This is the highlight of baking for most children. You can also check to see if there might be a compensating step, but cracking the egg is hard to beat. To ensure equal egg breaking consider making scrambled eggs after or instead. All will be happy.
4. Choose a recipe that will be done today. Preferable within an hour. Patience is not common in children, especially when it comes to eating dessert.
Happy Baking with your children!
As I started last year with some pics from my garden I thought I should head out there again. First off you can see from my pic above that my hollyhocks are back– I can’t remember if the doubles bloomed last year or not, but the singles are back too! They bloomed again with no help from me! Other than that (new) constant I’ve changed the set up slightly based on some things I learned last year.
Here are the top three things I learned:
Now where did that garden path go?
1. Just because they are beautiful and interesting doesn’t mean your children will want to the eat blue pumpkins you grow.
2. Before you plant every variety of tomato you love, think about how many tomatoes you will be harvesting off 2 cherry and 2 yellow pear tomato plants + 2 other plants– note to self, that would be way too many for one family to eat or even give away– Hello compost!
3. Don’t let your garden over take your walking areas.
So based on these starting points I was sure to do a few things differently this year. First off I’m growing a pumpkin the kids want– jack o’lantern pumpkins. I still did plant one winter squash (amish pumpkin) to try but hopefully they’ll be less prolific and smaller than the queensland blue’s of last summer. I”ve spotted small pumpkins on the amish plant, but not the jack o’ lanterns….yet.
Secondly, I restricted my tomato craziness. I did not start them from seed this year (no time! I had to germinate paper topics instead) and limited myself to 3 tomato plants and only one small tomato, the other two are medium sized tomatoes. We opted for yellow pear this year although we really did enjoy the currant cherry tomatoes from last year. They seem to be coming along, some have green fruit on them, but August will really tell us if this is still too much for our family of 4 to give away and/or eat.
Thirdly, I am being sure to trim the rose bush, the hollyhocks and tomato plants to maintain a reasonable walking area…so far. August will be the true test!
Based on some companion planting research I did I also tried some interspersing of flowers with vegetables this year, tucking in marigolds and nastursiums where I could fit them, as well as some herbs here and there. Most serendiptiously some sunflowers just grew right were I wanted them. I had been planning on planting a few sunflower seeds along the back of one box, but didn’t get to it. Strangely four have grown right there. My friend guesses that some bird dropped the seeds, but I’m not sure. No matter their source (could I have planted them and forgotten?) I am happy with how that worked out.
Another new addition: Jackamanii Clematis
A couple new additions to my garden are 1) a sunshine blueberry bush (I wanted two but only had room for one) that is already producing fruit and is a great treat for my kids, 2) more strawberry plants in one box (that produced a disappointing amount of strawberries) and 3) a lipstick pepper (last year I grew only the chocolate bells, but this year I am growing one of those and one of this other kind of pepper).
Another View of My Suburban Garden!
I haven’t been able to really give it much time this year, but it seems to be humming along. I am curious to maximize my boxes more next year and have been inspired by this blog (randomly found one evening) to look more at square foot gardening as a way to do this. Of course right when I get it all figured out my tree will get bigger, block all my sun, and force me to rethink it all.
But that’s the great thing about gardening… it can (and should) be different each year.
This is my first week doing TWD and I am very excited. I’ve had Dorie Greenspan’s Baking cookbook up on my shelf for over a year now and have baked some out of it, but as with many of my cookbooks in the last year, it has not been put through the paces as much as I would have liked. I have found two great birthday cake batters in there (Devil’s Food White-out Cake [pg 247]- a chocolate chip cake- and Perfect Party Cake [pf 250]- a lightly lemon flavored white cake with a stupendous crumb) but beyond that ventured very little. When I stumbled upon TWD one night last week while blog surfing– jumping from one baking blog to another through links– I was delighted. Accountability- that’s what I needed to explore her book more; so I signed myself up.
At least 2 weeks out of every four I must make the chosen recipe from her cookbook and then post my experience, reaction, etc here. So here is week one for me. My next posting will be not be for one or two weeks as I will be out of town.
So lets get down to the pudding…..(you can find the recipe here)
I’ve made chocolate pudding from scratch before from Barefoot Contessa’s cookbook, Parties! (I’ve found a recipe link here for that version) and with success. I am always delighted with the result, and with anything chocolate, the better quality chocolate you use the better your result. So this time I pulled out the bittersweet Valrohna bars which I tuck up in my baking cabinet for just such times.
After weighing out my five ounces I thought I should do this recipe right and prep all my ingredients (measured and all) before I got started. This is not my usual method, but I was multitasking with cobbler in the oven, and one child still awake making periodic visits to the kitchen for one more tuck in.
A few characteristic flubs (broken yolk while separating eggs [dump, start again], too much sugar in the milk [dump start again], too much milk in the milk [scoop out with a measuring cup because I was tired of dumping out]) and I got down to business. Of course that wasn’t the end of my mishaps– while taking my bubbling cobblers out of the oven the milk boiled and overflowed the pan, flooding my burner. Milk was fine but I was a 1/4 cup short now– that would be the 1/4 cup that was now filling my burner plates. No problem, pour off finished milk, boil 1/4 cup more with a sprinkle of sugar– Good as New!
Over all I found the back and forth between pan and food processor a bit tiring, but I think that is because where I plug my cuisinart in is not very handy to the stove, so I couldn’t, say, pulse AND watch the milk (of course we all know this isn’t why the milk overflowed, but it could have been). But I understand the reasoning– my arm was not exhausted after whipping up this pudding. When I’ve made some puddings and pastry creams (which are similar to pudding, and which this same cookbook has a great recipe for (Dark Chocolate Cream page 25 
the amount of whisking needed is downright frightening and I end up with flared up tendonitis in my forearms. Ina Garten’s recipe uses a similar technique but she utilizes the kitchenaid mixer instead of a cuisinart– perhaps that could be used here as well– but in either case I appreciate the modern shortcut.
Yes. I licked that Cuisinart bowl clean while my finished little puddings were chilling. And just for the record– I prefer the film on my pudding so I did not cover it. I love breaking through that film to the smooth depths.
The end product? Superb. Very Chocolately. Ultra Chocolately. I might almost substitute a wee bit of semi-sweet for some of the bittersweet chocolate (I used Valrohna 70% bittersweet). The richness is a nice way to savour it slowly. The six little cups (by the way I have to give credit to La Tartine Gourmande for the inspiration to use these little yogurt glasses that had been kicking around my kitchen for a while– too cute to recycle) that it made have lasted a few days as 1/2 of each is enough for each sitting.
I will be tabbing this recipe for future revisiting, but hopefully won’t flood my stovetop next time with sticky sweetened milk.
I think that my reference to Martha Stewart projects as sources of “inspiration” was spot on. I’m glad I saw their “Easy Beach Bag” project, but it really only served as inspiration for the final project as the directions did not end with the type of finished bag I wanted. If you followed their directions you would end with a drawstring backpack, but their pattern for it did not meet my standards (which I honestly hadn’t realized were terribly high). So I had to work it out on my own, based loosely on theirs, and pulling some tricks out from when I made lunch bags for my kids a couple years ago using this pattern. The main difference in the end is that I wanted the seams hidden on the inside of the bag, so that the lining is inserted rather than sewn together, and I wanted the holes where the drawstring comes out to be finished. A little tricker, but worth the effort.
Here is my tutorial on how to make this more finished version of a drawstring backpack. I’m working on some step-by-step pictures to go with this tutorial that I will get up soon. Let me know if you use this tutorial and if I can improve it in any way!
Materials Needed 1 14 x 32 inch piece of preshrunk cotton or other fabric (I used decorator weight fabric I had lying about)* 1 14x 32 inch piece of nylon or cotton (use nylon if you plan to put wet suits, waterbottle or other damp items in the backpack to prevent a soggy pack)* 2 4-inch lengths of cord 2 50-inch (+) lengths of cord
*You can customize the size of the back by changing the size of your rectangle, just be sure to remeber your bag will end up about 1/2 the size of your rectangle– so figure out your dimensions and double the length and add seam allowances. Also, don’t forget to change length of your cord if you lengthen the bag.
1. Fold each piece of fabric in half, width-wise. Iron to make a nice crease, then pin. For the interior fabric (the nylon lining) sew up the sides.
4 inch loop, as it should be set inside the folded exterior fabric
2. On the exterior fabric piece you will need to tuck in the loops before sewing. Fold one of the 4-inch cords in half; place inside one of the bottom corners, matching up the raw ends of the cord with the raw edge of the fabric, the loop tucked inside facing toward the center of the fabric. Pin in place as you see fit. I snuggled a pin very close to the loop so that the loop wouldn’t slide out of place.
loop inserted, pins holding it secure
Repeat on the opposite side. Sew up the sides sewing over the cording to lock the loop into place– I did a little back and forth over the loop to make sure it wouldn’t pull open the seam there. 3. After finishing your seams as you see fit (pinking
exterior & interior with finished seams. Mine have bottom seams because did not fold fabric but rather sewed two pieces together.
shears, zig-zag stitch, serging, etc) inside out the lining so that the seams are on the inside– Do not inside out the exterior fabric. Slip the lining inside the exterior so that right sides are facing. Pin the top raw edges to secure. You will be sewing around the top, but need to leave two gaps, one largish one (perhaps 2 inches) and one smaller one (perhaps 1 inch or 3/4 of an inch). These gaps should be evenly spaced from the side seams on one side of the bag– space them about 1/2 and inch from the side seams. 4. About 5/8 inch from the raw edge sew from one mark just behind one side seam around to the other mark on the other side of the opposite side seam. Now sew the interior from the end of one gap to the beginning of the next on the unsewn side.
The lining pulled through...
5. Through the larger gap pull the lining through, and inside out the exterior fabric. You should now have a long piece that looks like to right-sided bags sewn together. Tuck the lining inside and iron the joining seam to make the top edge crisp and defined, folding the fabric at the gaps in and ironing them to match the sewn parts. 6. Starting at the far edge of one gap topstich right near the top around to the beginning point of the other gap, crossing both side seams, sewing through both the lining and the exterior fabric. Start at the end point of the first gap and topstitch through the other gap until only 3/4 of an inch remains of the 2nd gap (it should match the first in location and size.
stitch completely around to create channel for cording
Now stitch completely around at the top about 3/4 of an inch from your top stitching. You should now have two evenly spaced and sized gaps at the top of the bag and a channel formed from the two series of stitching you have done. 7. Using the saftey pin method or one of those handy dandy threading tools, thread one 50 inch cord from one gap all the way around so that both ends come out. Working from the other gap and in the opposite direction thread the other cord through.
8. Pull one end of the cord down and through the small cord loop and back up tying the cord ends together. Repeat on the other side.
finished bag with strings tied
finished bag with lining
finished bag with strings pulled partially
First off I really must warn you– this is not a typical southern recipe. This is more of the Northern California 70’s pseduo-hippy mom recipe. The actual description should be Honey-Whole Wheat-Peach Cobbler– but it’s what I grew up on so I knew no differently and love it best. This is something that my mom made but I’m not sure where she got the recipe from. My dad did a lot of the cooking when I was a kid- dinners, packing our lunches, making breakfast– but my mom usually did the baking. In the summer we could count on peach cobbler at least a few times, and when the blackberries were ripe and someone had headed down the block to the empty fields where they grew to pick a bowl full, we would get a blackberry peach cobbler—mmmmm.
I loved to eat this warm with melting vanilla ice cream (always Haagen-Daaz of course), but even more so for breakfast the next day (it usually didn’t last much longer than that). A sweet breakfast was special treat in our house of whole grain cereal or oatmeal sweetened with raisins and milk only; cold peach cobbler with a large glass of cold milk was mighty fine!
So it being summer and all and organic peaches being on sale this week I thought I really should make this before I had to wait another year, because even though you can use frozen peaches there is something about using fresh. I made two smaller ones tonight, one for a potluck, and one for breakfast tomorrow! It’ll be a nice change from my yogurt and granola and my kids will be thrilled.
Honey (Whole Wheat) Peach Cobbler
3 lbs peachers, peeled, pitter and sliced or 2 1 lb pkgs unsweetend frozen peach slices, partially defrosted
3 TBSP lemon juice
1/2 cup honey
2 TBSP cornstarch mixed with 2 TBSP water
2 TBSP butter
1 recipe whole wheat and honey topping (see below)
Preheat oven to 400 place the peaches in a shallow 3 qt baking dish. Stir in the lemon juice, honey, and cornstarch mixture. Dot with pieces of the butter. Prepare topping and drop by spoonfuls onto fruit mixture, leaving space in between– it will spread a bit and some gaps are desirable to see the peaches peeking through. Bake for 30 to 35 minues or until topping is well browned. Serve warm or cool, with vanilla ice cream or milk, morning or night.
Topping:
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (tonight I used 3/4 cups whole wheat & 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup cold butter
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup honey
In a bowl, stir together whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg. With a pastry blender, cut in cold butter or margarine until well blended. Stir together milk and honey; add to bowl, stirring until combined.
Note: If you want to make a blackberry/peach cobbler substitute some of the peaches for blackberries. Simple and delish!
I mentioned in my previous post that I’d come across some recipes to use up any buttermilk I might have in my fridge. I tend to buy a carton for a recipe and then never use the rest of it– not sure why really, but thought I should add a few buttermilk dedicated recipes to my repertoire— you know… just in case. I had just the buttermilk in my fridge. I had bought it for a gluten-free cornbread mix I had made for a visiting friend of my daughters and it was languishing in the back of my fridge. Fortunately, it lasts a while, and I was able to find the buttermilk cookie recipe (by chance of course, because I had forgotten the carton was even in there as usual) before the date on the carton.
So today was my buttermilk cookie day. All went well. No glitches, cursing or even burnt trays. I really had no idea what to expect and I was pleased with them. The batter had the consistency of some cake batters I had made, and indeed they are little cake cookies. I would have liked the lemon flavor stronger myself, but I try to not mess with a recipe the first time with it. My son tried them and deemed them “sour”. This description does match up with ezrapoundcake’s description as “tangy” so his acute sense of taste has been noted for furture tasting needs.
We now have a cookie jar full. The true test will be how long it stays full. I could very well have turned languishing buttermilk into languishing cookies. We will see.
Well, I’ve done it. I made those muffins mentioned on Sunday and we finished off the last of them today. My final verdict– good, but a bit too sweet. I added sunflower seeds and raisins to them and that helped, but considering that I don’t normally have buttermilk around my house, I’m not sure this is a recipe I will make again (unless of course I have some buttermilk to use up, but I’ve found a couple other contending recipes including this one for buttermilk cookies from a newly discovered blog, ezrapoundcake.com). Instead I will probably stick to my old standby healthy muffin recipe, but try some new variations with granola, wheat bran and the sunflower seeds. Here is the basic recipe that I normally make (with any of my changes/preferences noted) originally from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook by Nava Atlas.
Basic Muffins
2 cups w.w. pastry flour
2 Tbs wheat germ or ground flaxseeds
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup natural granulated sugar
1 cup vanilla yogurt, soy yogurt or applesauce ( I use applesauce)
2 Tbs safflower oil (any vegetable oil seems to work fine)
1/3 cup low-fat milk, rice milk, or soy milk, or as needed (I use milk because that is what is in our house, but if your vegan this would be an easy recipe to convert)
Additional optional ingredients that I normally add:
1 cup raisins
cinnamon
1 smashed banana
1. preheat oven to 350 & prepare muffin cups with liners or oil
2. combine dry ingredients, including sugar
3. make a well in the center of dry and pour in wet ingredients. Stir until thoroughly combined.
4. Stir in any additions and pour into tins.
5. Bake for 20-25 min or until knife comes clean.
Now having made the Family Fun recipe I’ll probably add sunflower seeds to the batter, top with granola, and experiment with substituting part of the flour for wheat bran, perhaps 3/4 of a cup.
Today was a day of little accomplished except enjoying summer. We swam, visited family and ate ice cream– twice. While I didn’t get much of anything done this afternoon, I did find time to see a few things I’d like to do this week.
First up is trying these banana crunch muffins from an issue of FamilyFun that I received last Fall but have just been able to crack open now. Hopefully for my son can munch on these on the way to his 1/2 day soccer camp this week. This recipe appealed to me as it didn’t have tons of sugar and did have whole wheat flour & bran. I’ve been making a poppyseed banana muffin for the last 2 years from one of my favorite cookbooks, Once Upon a Tart, but this one looks promising.
Next I’m hoping to try this cute little bag from Martha Stewart’s website for one of my daughter’s first sewing projects. Looks fairly straight forward, but will be a satisfying end result for her– I hope. It is something she can use right away, but we won’t get a chance to take a crack at it until next weekend as she is going to her first summer day camp this week.
All this thinking about actually doing things has made me quite tired. I think I’ll call it a day.
But he did! In fact he had about 10 more Fried Potatoes. They were terribly addictive but the taste wasn’t the only thing to be celebrated. We used the oregano from our CSA box (!) and tried a new recipe from a new addition to my cookbook library.
We joined a CSA late last summer, but have noted that some ingredients (ones we don’t typically buy) tend to not get used up before they go bad. I decided since I have a bit more time this summer to make an effort to try some new recipes and use up our CSA goodies. Although I’ve given up on recipes for turnips (I’ve decided to admit I don’t like them) for other ingredients we get in our box I hit my cookbook indexes, especially trying out some of my newer additions, such as Mediterranean Harvest by Martha Rose Shulman that joined the shelf sometime during last semester only to collect dust until now.
I wasn’t doing much (ok…. ANY) cooking last semester as my schedule had me gone 3 nights a week, and doing homework the other nights, but I’ve had grand plans for this summer. I have in fact done quite well, making a blackberry-apple crisp and chocolate cookies from Nigella’s latest, and searching out this recipe for today to use our oregano. But did I make this one? No. I have been busy reorganizing closets and my sewing area. While I created a royal mess throughout the house emptying closets and making givaway piles, my husband did the cooking tonight. But I should get some credit for planning the meal, right?
Here is the recipe, slightly amended from Shulman’s cookbook. We had it with greens (I spritzed mine with balsamic and sprinkled feta on top), and tri-tip. But these were the star tonight.
FRIED POTATOES WITH TOMATOES AND OREGANO
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 medium potatoes, preferably Yukon golds, scurbbed, peeled if desired, and cut into thin wedges or 1/4 x 1/2 x 2-inch sticks
Salt and freshly ground peper
1 1/2 tsp. fresh oregano
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (14 oz) chopped tomatoes, with juice
1. Heat oil in a wide nonstick skillet (we used our large cast iron) over med-high heat and add half the potatoes. Cook, turning, until nicey browned and cooked through, about 10 min. Season with salt, pepper, and 1/2 tsp of the oregano. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a serving dish or platter, leaving the oil in the pan. Cook the remaining potatoes, season them, and transfer to the serving dish.
2. Pour off all but 1 Tbsp. of the oil and add the garlic to the skillet. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minutes. Add the tomatoes, season with salt, pepper, and remaining oregano, and cook until the tomatoes thicken and smell fragrant, 5 to 10 min. Taste and adjust seasonings. Either pour the tomato sauce directly over potates, or use as a dip.
Note: You can make ahead of time and reheat potatoes in oven (350 for 15 min) or microwave if you desire. Sauce would be equally good hot or cold.
It seems i’ve been inundated by green awareness lately. I read this article in my local paper recently, retitled: “Green Confusion”, but it was originally published in the NY times as “Green Noise” and it has been echoing in my head ever since. This is something I got to thinking about last year when I first started working on this blog (which has been neglected this last year as I stressed my way through my first year of grad school) when I wrote about green living, or rather the contradictions of trying to do so. I identified with most of the people in this article. I try to buy glass milk as often as possible (the fact that we seem to alternate between 3 or 4 different grocery stores which don’t all carry glass bottled milk contributes to this problem), I get most of our produce from a CSA, we recycle, use long-life bulbs, but I too long for a cheat sheet for “green living” because my intention is there, but not always the full knowledge. What am I doing that I think is “helping”, that really isn’t? Or isn’t helping more than the alternate choice?
This was an issue I first visited in considering cloth diapers over disposable 8 years ago. How do you weigh, ecologically, the impact of detergent and transportation of a cloth diaper service, over the impact of disposables? Difficult to do is what I found after too many hours researching it. My decision? I started with the diaper service and switched to disposables after about 5 mos. or so. I wasn’t able to really defend either choice. That’s kind of how I feel about many so-called “green” choices I make.
To exasperate me even further I read later in the day (after reading about all this oversaturation of green awareness and the complexity of “doing the right thing”) another article, this one in Dwell magazine called Rethinking the Material World. The most upsetting element of this article?: the emissions figures for the USA compared to the REST OF THE WORLD. Our CO2 emissions are something like 5 times that of the rest of the world, and at least 2-3 times that of Europe, and yet we rejoice (or at least report) when nations make steps towards emulating our lifestyles. I find this all very depressing to say the least.
But what do I do when I’m feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem? Focus on the small things like detergent, turning off my lights, and perhaps…. deodorant? Angry Chicken has a nice blog on making your own deodorant and shampoo that I found diverting this evening. Shall I admit that I too have been on a natural deodorant search for many years with no avail? Since December I have been using Dr. Hauschka Floral Deodorant and it has been working better then others, and I am not itchy as I sometimes am with traditional deodorants. It is a little pricey though, however I justify that by averaging the cost to $5 per month– a small price to pay for social acceptance.
I also enjoyed reading about the “no shampoo” idea– which frightens me, but also addresses my main issue I have with shampoo– not so much the ingredients (although they bother me as well) but the fact that all the waste water goes down the drain. So, perhaps I will explore this– perhaps. But it does bring me full circle in my thinking. What good does it do to worry about these things? Why do I worry at all? I guess my main worry now, as a mother, is that my children won’t have the same world to live in that I do, or even the ability to fret over their “greenness” because the reality will be much harsher. And perhaps even that their children won’t be able to draw such pictures of our world as my daughter can still do now.
One of my favorite things about these summer days is the time to do art and crafts with my two kiddos, who are now at an age to really get into and take off on their own with just a little nudging. First up was this quick little 4th of July project— from this Martha Stewart idea. Now I don’t claim to be Martha, and my kids certainly don’t either, but she can’t be beat for inspiration! Ours didn’t turn out quite the same, but then, our budget and crafters were both a little smaller. 
I made a slightly sloppy, but very quick, table runner out of some cheap white muslin (1.99/yd) and about 4 minutes at my machine and serger. Then using some fabric paint and scrub brushes the kids went at it, making “fireworks” all over!
Next up were the paper fireworks to set on the table runner.
We used construction paper and straws instead of the vellum and skewers called for, mainly because of budgetary reasons, but also because they were to be had in our cupboards. Both kids loved it and were able, after the first one, to do them on their own.
To make a firework: 1) take a piece of colored construction paper or other colored paper (not cardstock– we tried some it is was a little too stiff) 2) fold it in half lengthwise 3) using that line as a guide, tear or cut it in to two skinny pieces 4) fold the smaller piece in half lengthwise again 5) make mall cuts along the length leaving the folded edge uncut (this is sometimes called fringing) 6) tape straw end to paper end 7) role paper around straw with fringe end pointing up tape to secure 9) roll some of the outer fringes down & squash others. Homemade fireworks!
Surprisingly, both of my kids declared that the paper fireworks (or pom-pom’s as Martha calls them) were more fun to make than the more expensive and labor intensive table runner! All in all this project, ringing in at about $6, was much cheaper then an art day camp for both of them! Plus, I got to have some fun with them and they got to see Momma doing something besides cleaning house!
