All posts by GretchenJoanna

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About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

Hungry Cats in Bleak Midwinter

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“Bleak Midwinter” might be the title of some news articles of this day, deemed by at least one researcher as the likeliest day of the year for a peak in emotional depression. His formula takes into account failed New Year’s resolutions, the economy, the weather, and I suppose the fact that it is Monday.

Could I be counted in the numbers, because I found it harder to get myself out of bed this morning than I did last Monday? It was on the way to the gym that I heard the “news,” and it made me happy just thinking that the endorphins I was about to produce would help me through this day.

It’s another way of describing bleak midwinter, I thought as I was driving home, and wondered where that phrase came from. It didn’t take long to find out again what I had certainly known in the past, that “In the Bleak Midwinter” is the title of Christina Rossetti’s poem that ends, “What can I give Him? Give Him my heart.”

Yesterday I was told that the human soul is infinitely empty, because it is designed to hold the infinite God in Trinity. For us to become aware of our emptiness and need for God is a good thing, so some amount of what we might call depression could serve us that way. As Oswald Chambers wrote, “Sorrow burns up a great amount of shallowness.”

St. Silouan said that we ought to “keep our minds in hell and despair not.” Don’t forget all there is to grieve over, don’t pretend that the world isn’t lost in sin, but come to Christ with your grief–otherwise you can’t help but despair.

Moving on to things I know more about: the cats in my neighborhood. While we had our own cats, I mostly chased the others away from our yard, but now I have leftover food since Gus died, and it seems right to share it with them. Occasionally I set out some kibble in his old bowl, if it isn’t raining.

The markings on this black and white cat make for an optical illusion that his head is misshapen. At least, I think that’s why he looks so ugly, but I suspect he doesn’t spend much time in front of the mirror fretting about it.

There are at least five cats who pass by on their daily prowl. If I hold very still I can take their pictures, but for the most part they are shy about coming so close to the house when they can see a strange human on the other side of the door. One or another will sometimes make eye contact with me, and then after a few seconds, bolt away as though he got a deadly revelation.


You might recognize the striped cat at left, because I wrote about her already, here , here and here. You’ll have to look back at one of those posts to see her amazing eyes. She doesn’t come around nearly as much as she used to, when she liked to follow Gus and pester him.

 

Mr. Glad was startled by a big raccoon on the other side of the glass the other night, gobbling up food I’d forgotten to bring in at dusk. The picture shows what were probably that guy’s ancestors, caught while enjoying the spoils after they tipped over a whole bucket of cat food, many years past.

I think my favorite cat lately is the black one below, because after watching me watch him emptying the bowl, he sat down to just be near me for a spell.

When we humans notice that our cups and bowls are empty, we can simply hold them up to our Lord and He will fill them, as He told us (John 6:51): “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Homey and Rainy with Cookies

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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

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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

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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.