cooking-spree

May 8

Cauliflower Before It’s Soup

Something as pretty as this begged to be seen, and then remembered…before it’s soup, and steaming in a bowl…

May 8

Love in a Box

(A repeat performance of a post first published in Feb, 2011)

Three days ago, my 82-year-old mother had what her doctor termed a “mini-stroke.” She’s had several now. Aside from slowing down and the normal signs of aging, she remains unimpaired. Mom still lives on her own, on six acres in the middle of Oregon’s wine country, tending the chickens she loves and rises early to cook for each morning. Yes, she actually cooks them warm meals, made of the sorts of things they’d never find on their own, living chicken-like lives: bread soaked in warm milk, perhaps an egg spun in, some leftover oatmeal, a colorful scattering of vegetables from the night before. She lovingly heats and stirs the pot before she’s had her own coffee, before she re-kindles the fire to get her own body warm. And then, with her walking stick (and the unlikely cell phone in her pocket) she sets out for the coop. Making little noises as she nears them, they respond in kind. She unlatches the creaky door, and they burst from the roost, making fluffy circles around her feet. One hen in particular begs to be lifted into her cradling arms. The total effect is a flurry of feathery clucking bodies creating a welcome party just for her, each and every morning. Mom scatters lettuce and scratch, then serves them their breakfast in an enameled cast-iron gratin dish with remnants of blue Fleur de Lys, worn, but still visible on its sides. She may fill her one empty pocket with eggs, if there are any. This time of year there tend not to be, but she doesn’t love them for their eggs. She simply loves them.

Mom’s place sits on a hill and through most of her windows (or from the chickens’ yard) the views that stretch are of a lovely gentle valley, a few stands of trees, and acres upon acres of wine grapes staked in their rolling rows. Read more

May 7

5 Comments

Ani’s Apple Crisp –

Ingredients Topping

3 T. unsalted butter, broken into several pieces
3 T. walnut oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 c. rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
1 handful of walnuts, chopped
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Ingredients – Filling

Approximately 2 pounds of apples (see note)
1/2 cup or so of fresh or frozen cranberries
3 T. all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar (I prefer brown, but granulated is fine)
ground cinnamon (1 t. or to taste)

NOTE: A combination of Fuji, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious and maybe one other of your choice makes for the most interesting and tasty apple dessert. About 4 medium apples should do. Though there’s lots of leeway here, it’s essential to have one tart apple (such as the Granny Smith) for flavor.

Preparing the Topping: Using your fingers, work the butter with the sugar, flour, oats and spices so that each piece is coated and you have a coarse, crumbly mixture. Stir in the walnut oil and add chopped walnuts, incorporating well. (Variation made with all butter: if you haven’t any walnut oil and the urge strikes you to make this dessert with what’s on hand, you can substitute 6 T. butter. But walnut oil is delicious in certain salad dressings too and really nice to have around. Keep refrigerated.)

The Filling: Peel and core the apples and cut into bite-size pieces. Mix with cranberries, flour, sugar and spices. Pour into a 2-inch high baking dish, and cover with the crisp topping.

Baking: Bake at 375° F until the fruit is bubbly and thickened around the edges and the crisp topping is browned. (Depending on your baking dish and the variability of ovens, this may take up to an hour, but check sooner. If it begins to brown too much before its edges get bubbly, cover with aluminum foil for the duration.)

Served warm is best. But even cold for breakfast, with plain or vanilla yogurt, is good! (In a future installment, I’ll share my recipe for Vanilla Cardamom Ice-Cream, a rather divine accompaniment to a simple, homey dessert.)

for a printer-friendly version of this recipe, click here.

May 7

2 Comments

Lemonade

What does grace under fire look like? I’m quite sure I’d recognize it if I saw it…but, sadly, I haven’t in a while. Spree is a bit out of her element when she’s dealing with issues related to cyberspace. Spree likes living things, plump fruits, and squatty little tubers, heaps of greens and her hands full of fragrant herbs; she likes wooden spoons and good sharp knives and pots that brown things well; she likes the woods, the ocean, and chasing clouds in an ever-changing sky; and Spree likes the shimmer and sparkle caught by her camera’s winking eye. But in cyberspace, Spree, poor thing, is chewed up and spit out, and she gets terribly whiney. So these past nine days, with her web site down, living with Spree has been hard. (And because I mostly like her very much, that’s all I’m going to say about that!)

She had SO much in mind to share with you at the end of “citrus month”, she was quite giddy. So please, indulge her. More citrus recipes will be coming in May, but we’ll try to give a fair shake to foods falling outside that realm too. In any event, it’ll be a delicious month – and it will almost always feature healthful, approachable food – with a couple of really wonderful desserts thrown in just because we simply love it when you smile.

Thank you for bearing with the messages that you might have received when trying to visit cooking-spree recently (“forbidden” being the worst!) – and for what has seemed (to me) like an unbearably long absence. I’m back, and hope never to leave so rudely again! : ) In a couple days I’ll let you know how you can follow me on Twitter (if you do that sort of thing!) If the rug ever gets pulled out from under me again, at least on Twitter I could tweet you why.

In the next few days (oh, I hope it’s only a few!) I’ll be in the process of re-inhabiting my site with previously published posts. But at the same time, I’m interested in keeping something new coming your way, so we’ll see how good I am at performing that circus act. In the meantime, thank you, as always, for visiting. I love knowing you show up to see what’s on the table here! And I hope you’ll keep coming back! Leave comments if you like – I love those too!