Category Archives: food and cooking

From a neglected garden.

food and cooking, my garden, , , , , ,

In spite of my absence for various reasons, the garden continues to carry on valiantly its business of growing and changing by the hour. I love walking around and picking off a few dead flowers, or noticing seeds forming, even when I can’t give it the more thorough care it needs.

A couple of years ago I managed to transplant one of the vigorous Showy Milkweed plants (above) next to where the Narrow-Leaf Milkweeds grow. You can’t see the latter very well in the background, which is a good thing, because their leaves have mostly had the life sucked out of them by aphids and have turned black. But every spring, they come back stronger than ever.

Tatsoi greens and lobelia

The leafy green Tatsoi really took off in this pot where I stuck it in next to lobelia, and is begging to be thrown into a stir-fry a.s.a.p. Those I set out in the planter boxes are languishing; that soil must need amending.

The dwarf pomegrantes are mostly a fun member of the garden in that for most of the year have flowers, often with hummingbirds drinking from them; or foliage bright and beautiful catching one’s attention in spring and fall; and their darling fruits, that don’t get very large, and in this climate don’t get enough heat for their seeds to develop sweetness. But they are so cute right about now. This one is about an inch and a half in diameter.

Every day I pick figs; the evening of my return from the mountains I gathered two dozen, and yesterday nineteen. Soon I hope to make that Autumn Fig Cake I told you about one time. And the Juliet grape tomato plant is prolific. I eat the tomatoes in the garden and in the kitchen, and took enough with me to the cabin that I could eat a few every day for ten days, and they were always sweet.

I harvested all but one of the little butternut squashes I grew this year, and planted some Sugar Ann snap peas in their place. Ideally those will start bearing about February, if the winter isn’t too cold and if I can keep the snails from devouring the plants between now and then.

My native sneezeweed is of the less showy sort, but it welcomed me when I returned from my mountain retreat with a particularly lovely array of blooms, not plain at all.

No doubt about it, my garden loves me, and forgives my neglect.
It makes me want to do better in the future.

A berry pie to celebrate summer.

food and cooking, friends, pie

When July came into view, it occurred to me that pies naturally flow from the season of summer, with its many ripening fruits, and picnics. I don’t recall ever eating pie at a picnic (unless it was a savory pie such as a pastie), but surely I’ve seen a picture in a book of such a spread…? It wasn’t from Harold and the Purple Crayon, I know that, but his is the only pie picnic I can discover at the moment.

Well, that’s how my mind ran, setting off from summertime, and how it began to spin this thread that resulted in me baking a pie last week. I didn’t use fresh fruit, but rather frozen berries, because I ended up combining it with the tradition of always baking a berry pie for my late husband’s birthday, when he was still around to eat them, and several times since.

And I didn’t take it outdoors for a picnic, but ate it with my friends Mr. and Mrs. Bread, who had helped celebrate Mr. Glad’s last birthday on this earth exactly ten years ago. That was the sweetest part. And the crust of my pie didn’t flop!

Winter food and flowers.

books, food and cooking, Psalms, , , , ,

Last night the women’s book group of my parish met at my house to discuss Summer Lightning by Wodehouse, and The Holy Angels by Mother Alexandra. I cooked up two pots of soup, and the other women brought rustic loaves of bread and salad and dessert.

Long ago I had got the idea of Cuban Black Beans from the Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook, and devised a soup with the same name to eat in winter, when the fresh and raw veggies the book’s authors suggested for a topping weren’t available from the garden out back. Now in the era of internet recipes, I discovered several recipes for the soup, and they used a sofrito, added in the last stage of cooking, made up of the peppers, garlic and onion sauteed with olive oil and bacon, topped off with vinegar and spices. This is what my sofrito looked like:

The beans in this case are cooked with ham hocks at the beginning, so it ends up a meaty and flavorful bowl for a winter’s evening. Mine was just the amount of spicy I wanted, but I’m not sure I could replicate that next time, if there is a next time. I had printed out three recipes from online, and concocted a unique stew, using parts of all of them and my old recipe, too. It took two pounds of beans, and I had plenty to send home with a few guests, as well as to put in the freezer. Because we also had Florentine Spinach Soup, which I have posted about before. Overall the women liked the soups very much.

Thanks to our member who enjoys coming up with appropriately themed foods for our meetings, we ate angel food cake last night as well! I hadn’t read the Jeeves book that was discussed, but I did read The Holy Angels, and I plan to share a bit about that soon. We all thought it was a treasure.

This morning I actually took my walk before breakfast — that mostly because I ate breakfast so late. Now that I’m putting a high priority on walking, I need to keep re-setting it at the top of my mental list, so I don’t forget. One of these days I’m sure I will forget, and then (note to self) I’ll need to take a quick spin around the block in the dark, just before bed. I wonder if this is one of those behaviors that becomes a habit if you do it every day for three weeks?

I worked some more on Psalm 89 as I walked, and the beauty of its poetry did not distract me from the startling sights along the way, whose images I have shared here. One line from the Psalm:

So make Thy right hand known to me,
And to them that in their heart
Are instructed in wisdom.

Amen.

Between the temple and the kitchen.

church, feasts, food and cooking, Nativity, , , , , ,

For the last week or so, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and an equal amount in church. It was quite the experience to attend Divine Liturgy three days in a row: First for Sunday, the usual Resurrectional Liturgy — though the cathedral had been so brightly decorated on Saturday, it was far from the usual visually. Plus, at the end of the service the choir sang several carols with great zest. We returned for a short Festal Matins in the evening, and sang the glorious “God is With Us!”

Then Monday, which was Christmas, the Nativity of Christ, and the church was full again, with lots of families with babies. My baby goddaughter has had stranger anxiety for several months but that morning she was okay with me carrying her up for Communion, after which I toted her around for a while and showed her off to everyone.

Today is the Synaxarion of the Mother of God, she who was so essential to the event we celebrated yesterday. Of course, the church was not as full of people as on Christmas Eve and Day, but it was surprising how many of us came back for more of the rich spiritual feast — and there was certainly more than we could take in, more than enough to fill our cups to the brim, with a holy elixir.

Cranberry Jellies

My cookie tins have been filled to their brims, too, with more worldly contents, and then partially emptied as I give them for gifts, and then filled again. I made several kinds of cookies before the First Day of Christmas, and I am continuing now on the Second Day, and have plans for a few more, days and flavors.

Salty Licorice Brownie Cookies

I have friends who will be celebrating according to the old calendar, which means they won’t have Christmas until January 7th, which means more opportunities for gifting cookies that I bake “late.”

So far I have made:

Cranberry Jellies
Apricot Macaroons
Ginger Spice Cookies
Salty Licorice Brownie Cookies
Chocolate Almond Macaroons
Fruity Meltaways
Rolled Gingerbread Cookies
Lemon Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies

 

The end of Christmas Dinner

And I’ve started on:

Flourless Mandarin Almond Cookie (my invention)

…and still plan to make:

Salted Anise Butter Cookies and
Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

I’d like to replenish the supply of Ginger Spice Cookies, because the first batch I made with einkorn flour, and I didn’t know one needs to use more of that type than of regular wheat flour; the cookies came out flat flat flat. Still yummy, but they don’t present so nicely…

None of my own family were able to come spend Christmas with me this year, except for my grandson Pat and his wife who spent Saturday with me. But I have other guests for a month, a family with three children, and the children do not speak more than a few words of English. It’s surprising how little one needs to talk, to bake cookies together. I added the rolled gingerbread cut-out cookies to my list for their sake, and well, for my sake, too, because it’s a lot of fun to help them have fun.

Fruity Meltaways

So… today I boxed up some more cookies on Boxing Day, and put them out in the garage to stay cool. Tomorrow is St. Stephen’s Day, and if I weren’t ironing altar cloths (we are going back to gold now, after the Christmas red) I would consider driving to our sister parish where they will commemorate the first Christian martyr with another Divine Liturgy.

But, I will stick closer to home, and hopefully bake a few more cookies, and/or help the children to decorate the gingerbread with Royal Icing. And I will visit some dear church friends to share some Christmas cheer, which may or may not include — cookies!

Happy St. Stephen’s Day!