Monthly Archives: January 2010

Homey and Rainy with Cookies

family, food and cooking, my garden,

Today Husband had the day off, and neither of us was sick! The forecast was for a few hours’ break in the rain, so our plan was to prune rosebushes. When the rain let up, we were ready, and pruned the two tea roses “by committee” as Mr. Glad said, afterward piling up weeds carefully pulled away from struggling ranunculus.

Then we brought in a fresh supply of firewood and re-positioned the tarps that always get blown off in storms. Little patters of rain came on just as we were finishing that job, and I thought our yard work was finished for the day.

But no sooner had I got a good fire going, and iced my aching elbow, than the sun came out! I ran out to at least get a start on the climbing roses. They seemed to take forever the last two winters when I carefully cut and trained their branches.

Today I was gleefully shocked to get them both done in an hour or so–before the rain began again! Maybe it’s because I am more ruthless now that I’ve seen how the later growth is always so lush. It seemed like such a gift from God, to just have a “normal” day without sickness or weather standing in the way of my work.

We were expecting Soldier son, coming from the airport with his Special Friend just in time for dinner. And Husband had been hinting around about how some people like to bake cookies on rainy days. So I got on the ball and made cookies, soup and toasted almonds, all while keeping The Home Fires Burning. Wheee! I felt sorta like my old self.

I decided to make the cookies with some of the non-wheat flours I have around. They are wheat-free but not gluten-free, because spelt flour does contain gluten.

Wheat-Free Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cubes butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon walnut flavoring
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups white spelt flour
1 cup whole spelt flour
1 1/2 cups oat flour
1 12-oz package chocolate chips
3 tablespoons finely-ground decaf coffee beans
1/3 cup cacao nibs
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Mix as for any cookies. I baked them about 13 minutes per insulated cookie sheet, at 375°, but I think I might try 350° if I make them again, to see if I could get them to be a little softer. They had a slight crispiness to the outside. The flavor was wonderful, and everyone loved them. I used a normal white-flour recipe I’d used before and changed and added things this time, cutting back on the sugar as well as adding all those crunchies. If you make it with white flour you might not need as much; I had increased the flour by 1/2 cup because they say that spelt flour doesn’t absorb as much moisture.

Apricot Pie

food and cooking,


Before Advent, I’d resolved to bake fewer cookies and more pies at Christmas. I managed to do just that. One new pie I made was apricot. It was a big hit. No one ever seems to mind my unusual crust formations. You can see more of this accidental art in the other “pie” category posts.

(The book picture wanted to be included in this blog, for the obvious reason of its title, but also because it was wrapped and under the tree while we were smelling the pie baking.)

Lacking fresh apricots in the winter, I planned to use canned fruit, but in order to get more intense flavor I added some dried apricots.

Here’s how I did it:

Christmas Apricot Pie

4 15-oz cans apricot halves
1 cup packed dried Blenheim apricots
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
dough for a two-crust deep-dish pie

Put the dried fruit in a pan with the water, cover and cook on very low heat until the apricots are stewed and mushy. When cool, add the sugar, arrowroot, and almond extract.

Roll out the bottom crust and put it in the pie plate. Drain the canned apricots and spread them as neatly as possible on the crust. Slather the stewed apricot mixture on top of the apricot halves. Roll out the remainder of dough to form the top crust, and lay it on. Trim the crusts to even them out, and fold the two layers under together so that the raw edges are hiding against the edge of the pie plate. Crimp and flute this rounded edge, and make a few slashes through the top of the crust.
Bake at 450° for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350° for another 40 or 50 minutes. I always like to wrap some foil around the edge for part of the baking period to prevent over-browning. This post shows that technique, and also another vegan apricot pie I made once or twice. I hate to even mention such a variation in the context of a Christmas feast.

What we ended up with was defintely a deep dish pie; the recipe could probably be made with just three cans of fruit, keeping the other ingredients basically the same. The amount of sugar seemed to be just right; there wasn’t so much that it masked the distinctive apricot tang.

If you can’t find Blenheim apricots, I’m afraid you won’t get the same rich flavor we enjoyed. They are worth hunting down. The package I used had been sitting around for the better part of a year with no loss of flavor, and I will probably buy some more at Trader Joe’s pretty soon, so that there won’t be any question about being ready for next Christmas and what may be our new tradition.

The little guy at right doesn’t have much to do with my subject, but writing about pies always seems to make me a little goofy. Anyway, he looks cute enough to eat.

Trying to Focus, on a Wintry Day

education, food and cooking, housework, , , , , , , ,

Into the blowing and pouring rain I forced myself this morning, so that I could use the machines at the gym. While walking on the treadmill for an hour, I read The New Yorker Food Issue from last November. I pick these magazines up at the library for 25 cents each, and usually find at least one article, though not usually in the Food Issue, to keep my attention while I work out. (I have tried many other reading materials, and everything else is either too heady and distracting, or too boring to keep my mind off the discomfort.)

Today I learned about a cake that is baked on a spit for several hours and is called Baumkuchen, which means Tree Cake in German, because some of them are cone-shaped like a tree. These cakes date back to the Middle Ages, and currently are pretty popular in Japan.

I read about poutine, beloved especially of youth in Canada, where I think I could get into eating it, at least in winter, when one might be able to burn enough calories shoveling snow and keeping warm so as not to put on the pounds from enjoying a dish that consists of French fries, cheese curds, and gravy.

The Michelin Guide to restaurants took several pages to explain, after the author hung out with one of the inspectors for the company during a meal at a three-star restaurant. These inspectors and their identities are top-secret and incognito, so that they can remain objective and also get the same food and treatment as any old customer who is willing to pay dearly for their daily bread.

Later in the morning I read a blog about how good homeschooling can be if the family actually stays home a lot, so that the children can concentrate on whatever it is they are doing and not be constantly interrupted by having to run hither and thither to group classes and such. That got me thinking about how it is better for me, too, still a self-homeschooler, an autodidact, who always gets confused and scattered when I have to come and go.

I read another blog that linked to an interview with Makoto Fujimura, a Christian Japanese-American artist who has a lot to say about God and creativity. I remembered that I’d heard a different interview with him not long ago on the Mars Hill Audio Journal, and I was able to locate the tape and listen to him. I was not able to multi-task, though; I found that if I tried to find his website at the same time, I stopped listening.

I started to take notes on the audio interview. He was talking about how the habit of reading is even more important to cultivate now that our society is so image-oriented. Also about how all the fast-action images that people are feeding on teach their minds to avoid real concentration. They scan, instead of engaging with visual information in a more focused manner. I was still feeling distracted myself and wondering why I was picking this one topic and writer to think about. Was I randomly and shallowly scanning?

No, I had wanted to listen to him again and think more about these things. But if I hadn’t gone to the gym and taken hours to collect myself afterward, I’m not sure I’d have had so much trouble being calmly thoughtful. In the early afternoon I had to go out again and run errands–more dissipation of mental energies!

I was saved by duty–my husband’s needs were what helped me to pull myself together. We were nearly out of granola, his staff of life. And he would need a real dinner. (Without him, I’d eat eggs and toast and tea forever.) He would like to feel the warmth of a fire as he came in the door from work. When I got a fire kindled and started assembling the granola I was happy to give my attention to concrete and practical tasks.

This granola has fed the family for more than 35 years. I make a huge batch still, so that I don’t have to do it very often, even though B. often eats Power Pancakes for breakfast nowadays. The basic proportions of oats, honey and oil have remained the same, while the extras of nuts, seeds and other grains are infinitely flexible. It doesn’t make a very sweet cold cereal, as you might guess if you compare with other recipes.

GretchenJoanna’s Granola
30-32 cups of regular rolled oats, divided
3-5 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
2-5 cups chopped almonds and/or other nuts
0-2 cups each of wheat germ, sesame seeds, buckwheat groats, rice or oat bran
0-1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups oil
2 cups honey (or substitute part sugar syrup, made with 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water)
3 tablespoons vanilla, or substitute part almond extract
Put 20 cups of the oats in a giant bowl. Add whatever other dry ingredients appeal. In a pot, heat and stir the wet ingredients gently and slowly together until the honey is liquid. Pour onto the dry ingredients and stir to moisten them thoroughly. Then add the other 10-12 cups of oats and mix in evenly.
Spread up to an inch deep in pans and bake in batches at 300° until as toasty brown as you like it, stirring every ten minutes. Lately I’ve been using big roasting pans that happen to have 2″ sides, but the toasting may happen faster using pans with less lip. I use the biggest pans I have, and both oven racks, so that it doesn’t take all day. 🙂
I store a gallon jar of this on the kitchen counter, and the remainder in the freezer.

I was going to show a photo of the big bowl of finished granola, but my camera battery is spent. So here is a picture of someone enjoying an early version of GJ’s Granola, circa 1977 (notice the gold draperies and tablecloth).

Time for bed now, and thank God, I can end the day having accomplished reading, writing, and homemaking, even if I wasn’t very organized in my concentrating. I want to do better tomorrow.

What I Did on Zacchaeus Sunday

church, Lent, Pascha

In the Orthodox Church Lent is a long and sweet, helpful preparation for Easter, Resurrection Sunday, PASCHA! But four weeks before Lent we get to start preparing for the preparation, you might say, by means of four thematic Sundays. I’m so glad Deb wrote about this, better than I could have. But what I would like to mention is that it was on Zacchaeus Sunday, which was yesterday, that I became an official catechumen three years ago.

I had been a sort of unofficial catechumen for about seven years before that, so my official period was not long–just about long enough to get ready for Lent, and then enter into its “joy-creating sorrow” and finally be baptized on Holy Saturday. Every Pascha, indeed every Sunday, I remember that event of fully entering the Church, but I mark my first formal commitment with every Zacchaeus Sunday.