Dark Days Challenge Week 15

I love the look of chopped red cabbage. Also like the way it tastes with my dressing on it.

This week there have been several meals that qualified for the challenge but all are things I've made and pictured before. I figured you didn't need to see another photo of flank steak or beef short ribs smothered in my BBQ sauce. We also had Butternut squash soup with chard and bacon.

I slow cooked a pork roast in white wine with Yukon gold potatoes and carrots.

So I did a lot of cooking but nothing seemed to stand out for a photo, except the red cabbage.

We are flying to St. Louis tomorrow for five days to see Mark and Julia. Looking forward to seeing their house and their new city. I will be back to finish the Dark Days Local Challenge, but I am looking forward to spring and summer vegetables. Aren't we all.

Signs Of Spring At My House

The pink blossoms are on our miniature peach tree, which rarely produces peaches but does a heckuva job of producing beautiful flowers.

Not quite sure what the white flowering trees are. Some are on our property; some on the neighbor's land. I took the photo from our back deck near dusk so they look pretty ethereal.

This, to me, is the best part of living in California. We don't have to wait too long for the spring blooms to appear. These photos were taken on Feb. 24. Every where I look there are blossoms.

The sun is out so it's time for some more gardening. Yesterday I fertilized my bulbs and trimmed a few things. Today I turn my attention to our orchard. It's only three trees, two apple and a pear that produces four kinds of pears. Anything more than one tree, in my mind, becomes an orchard. We get two days of rain after that so it's a good time to fertilize.

New Purse And iPhone

I love the purse and the phone. The purse means I still don't need a wallet. I still have plenty of room in the front pocket, under the heart, to store my new iPhone. It's not much bigger than my last Brighton bag that I had for five years.

Len waited on me again at the AT&T store. I reminded him that I was the person who had to find a new purse before I could get the phone. I showed him the purse; he thought it was excellent. Who knows what he will tell his wife tonight. We made sure the phone fit in it and then I bought it. Haven't spent this much money in one day in a long time.

Now I need to spend some time setting up my phone, which is also an iPod.

Another Art Quilt

This one is another Rose Hughes pattern. It's 24 x 48 inches. Now that I've done two of her patterns, I'm ready to branch out and design one myself. I've been working on that about a week. The working title for that one is "Lily pads." It's 48 by 38 inches and is an abstract view of a pond (without algae for those of you who know what our ponds are like).

I was going to work on one depicting a cottage and its garden in the Cotswold but decided it was time to do my own thing.

If you click on this one you should be able to see more detail in the beading and embroidery.

Quilting Bee this a.m. and then off to search for the perfect purse for an iPhone, which I have yet to buy. Hopefully I'll find the purse and then get the phone.

Dark Days Challenge Week 14

It was so wonderful to find asparagus at our farmers market on Saturday. At first I wasn't sure that I was seeing right. I looked at the sign over the vendors head...yes, local and, yes, organic.

So our Dark Days Challenge dinner featured the first asparagus of the season (simply steamed) along with barbecued flank steak smothered in homemade barbecue sauce.

Pretty simple meal but that's what being a locavore is all about...simplicity.

Went wine tasting today at a local winery. One of the owners is on the Placer County Ag Commission. We talked a lot about being locavores. This is not a huge winery. Both husband and wife have day jobs.

Met a woman there who didn't know about a local fishmonger who brings salmon, crab, shrimp and scallops fresh from Alaska and Baja. No farm raised fish. I recently heard that a South American fish farm (don't remember where) had some kind of disease. You know things are bad when even the fish are not healthy.

I think of the first asparagus as the harbinger of warm weather. And being a locavore is a harbinger of meeting many new people and sharing information. I'm glad we have year-round farmers markets.

Farmers Market Purchases

And yes, that's asparagus grown locally and organically. This is just one more reason to live on the West coast. Those slender little darlings will be part of our dinner tonight. Also got chard, leeks, carrots, apples, broccolini, popping corn, and red cabbage. This time it's a small cabbage so we won't spend a whole week eating it. The egg lady was sold out again; she gave me her phone number so I can call her next Friday to reserve a dozen eggs for Saturday.

I didn't include Kerry's purchase in the picture; he bought Kettle Korn. Mr. Diabetes bought a boat load of carbs.

It's cloudy here with a promise of rain and clouds for most of the week.

Monday we order our meat from the meat club. Gotta check the freezer to see what we need. I think I'll get my eggs there. Next Saturday we are flying to St. Louis to visit Julia and Mark so won't get to the market. Looks like a heat wave in St. Louis while we are there; highs in the low 40s.

Dark Days Local Challenge Week 13

Up until this week I had fixed cabbage two ways: raw for cole slaw and boiled with corned beef.

Last weekend there was this beautiful green cabbage at the Farmers' Market that was calling out to me; I brought it home.

One of the recent Dark Day entries wrote about sweet and sour cabbage. Sounded really good. You are supposed to make it with red cabbage but all I had was my beautiful green one.

So I made it anyway; it was a little blah looking but it tasted great. I used bacon from Coffee Pot Ranch, cider vinegar, leeks and Splenda (not SOLE). Kerry recently has had some not very good glucose numbers. He had slipped back into his old eating habits so we have started cutting back on all things sugar. His doctor upped his meds, and now he's testing daily. I just hope he doesn't slip back again.

We had brined and BBQed pork chops, which were also from Coffee Pot Ranch, to go with the cabbage.

A great dinner with leftovers to feed us the next night.

Fabric Art Quilt

I've shown parts of this before, but now it's hanging on the wall in my sewing studio. I have another one I've just finished but haven't hung yet.

Now I'm striking out on my own; my pattern not one from another quilt artist. This is so much fun. I love fabric.

Dark Days Challenge Week 12

Risotto is one of my favorite comfort foods even though it takes a lot of stirring to get it right. This one was made with homemade chicken stock, locally grown Kale, mushrooms, leeks and garlic, plus Parmesan cheese from Glen Canyon Creamery.

The bread was my first loaf using my new bread making book. Mark had told me that each batch is a bit different. The second loaf was denser but still delicious. Probably won't bake the third batch until tomorrow.

So that's Week 12. Taking Mark to the airport soon. Then Super Bowl festivities with friends.

My First Loaf

The top photo shows it resting before going into the oven. The bottom photo is after baking for 30 minutes at 450 F. on my baking stone. Now it has to cool for a couple of hours; then we can taste. I'm just amazed at how easy the process is. The lop-sided nature of the finished bread is because I didn't make deep enough cuts in the dough on that side.

Easy Bread Making

The headline for my blog, I thought, was an oxymoron. I had tried to make bread and been very unsuccessful at it. But I still really wanted to make bread; it's the most nurturing thing you can do with food.

Mark and Julia (son and daughter-in-law) talked to me about a book they had discovered that made bread making easy: "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day."

Then they sent me a copy for my birthday. I read the book, agonized over it, and finally made my first batch of dough today. It was way too simple, I told Mark (he's here for a few days). But then the dough rose like it was supposed to. No kneading. Now it's in the refrigerator; yes the cold refrigerator.

Tomorrow morning I will break off a hunk of dough about equal to a grapefruit (1 pound for those of you with a scale) and put it in the oven. No pan, just a baking stone with lots of corn meal on it. I'll let you know what happens.

Dark Days Challenge Week 11...And More

There has been a lot going on this past week that did not involve food. I'll get to that second.

Last night's dinner was an invention that developed from what I had on hand. It's a casserole with layered potatoes (bottom and top), pieces of chard, crispy bacon cut into small pieces, more potatoes, Golden Glen Creamery cheddar cheese, and whipping cream from Straus Family Creamery with garlic added. I poured the cream over the whole thing and baked it covered for 75 minutes in the oven at 375 F. It's sort of scalloped potatoes with chard and bacon.

Kerry pronounced it delicious. Leftovers tonight. I'm going to add some more chard and warm it in the oven. Can't get enough greens.

Now for the rest of the week. We recarpeted our bedroom and sitting room and my sewing room (shown here with new carpet).

I took it as an opportunity to get rid of lots of stuff. I took bags of clothes and boxes of books to the Salvation Army. It always feels so good to lighten my load. I did the same thing in my sewing room. I still had boxes from our move here. I discovered all kinds of things that could go in the garbage. Also organized my room better for what I'm doing. Finally got some wire baskets in which to sort fabrics by color and pattern. I discovered that I have lots of green and neutral colors but not much blue. Not sure what that means.

I am so thankful I got all of this done before the carpet layers got here. I feel this wonderful elation when I walk into my sewing room now. On the wall to the left in the picture I am going to put up one long curtain rod so I can display my quilts. Photos to follow when that job is done.

Also solved the mystery of all the readers from Great Britain who come to my blog via "what is panagrattato" on Google. I asked someone to enlighten me. Finally one person responded anonymously that there is a chain of pubs in the UK that serves panagrattato. When you Google that word my blog is the first answer that comes up. A couple of years ago I made it. So that mystery is solved. Hope some of them keep coming back for a visit.

Dark Days Local Challenge: Week 10

I made maple syrup-glazed pork chops, steamed broccoli with a mayo and soy sauce topping, and baked sweet potato with butter.

I brined the pork chops, which really helped keep them moist. The recipe called for quite a bit of cooking time to get the glaze to carmelize. Pork chops might have been really chewy by then. The glaze was just maple syrup (Costco but the real thing), chicken stock (ours), some dried mustard and salt and pepper. Went well with the sweet potato which has local butter on it. The broccoli is from the farmer's market.

I'm really enjoying reading all the things folks are making; imagination abounds. I just wish we had a good chacuterie in the area where I could get some good, local sausage. I'll keep searching.

Divine Bread

I love bread. Not the ordinary kind. Grew up with Taystee bread. Didn't know how awful it was until I lived in Germany for three years after college. That's when I first experienced good bread, the kind you have to really chew.

The loaf pictured here is from a new bread maker, Nathan, in Auburn, CA. The first loaf I bought was a Meyer lemon rosemary round. The second loaf was the same. I probably won't get around to trying another loaf until Meyer lemon season is over.

It's not a dense bread so it's ideal for tearing chunks from the loaf. He sells to small markets like Newcastle Produce and Latitudes Restaurant in Auburn. His parents own Latitudes.

Panagrattato

It's interesting to note that whenever I get someone from the UK reading my blog they have gotten there from a search for "panagratto." The other search that I get a lot of hits from is "silkworm." I don't know who you are and you don't have to divulge your identify; I just know you are using that search term to get to my blog.

I know I wrote about both subjects; I'm just curious why you folks in Britain keep coming back to "panagratto" which is basically bread crumbs mixed with anchovies. No need to stop coming by; I'm just curious.

I'm the only one in my family who seemed to like the "panagratto." Haven't made it since. Maybe there are lots of folks in Britain who love this.

Anyway, this has been on my mind for a while so thought I would post it and see what the results are. You can comment anonymously.

ET's Spaceship

It's a romanesco. Larger than a cauliflower; part of the broccoli family. It always reminds me of ET's spaceship when his parents came to get him.

It shows up in our farmer's markets this time of year. Tonight it is the main ingredient in a soup I'm making. Ingredients, which are all local except for the cream, are romanesco, leeks, chicken stock from our chicken last night, cream, chicken from last night's chicken, and sun-dried tomato cheddar cheese. Maybe I'll call this "Phone Home Soup."


That's all we are having for dinner. Kerry will probably have some toast with it. My appetite is not great; antibiotics do that to you.

If you see one of these in your market, buy it. It's yummy and beautiful.

Dark Days Local Challenge: Week 9

We bought two Dungeness crabs at the farmer's market last Saturday. There is a fish company that goes out of Bodega Bay on the northern California coast. We can count on them for great, non-farmed fish and crab. It's called the Little Fish Company. Turns out the family's name is "Little."

The first night we just spread newspaper on the table and ate crab. It's so messy, we don't even bother with plates. It's newspapers, the nut cracker and a roll of paper towels.

The leftover crab went into a frittata I made on Monday night. The local ingredients included: the crab, eggs from our local provider, butter from Straus Family Creamery, garlic and broccoli from the farmer's market and sun-dried tomato cheddar cheese from Golden Glen Creamery. I visited this creamery when I was in Washington at Christmas. It counts as local because we were in the area and visited the creamery. It's not like we drove there specifically for the creamery's products. Checked this out with Urbanhennery and she agrees.

Also made garlic bread with the Straus butter and farmer's market garlic.

The Irish Sports Pages

I'll get to the goats in a minute. My Irish grandmother always referred to obituaries as the Irish Sports Pages.

This may seem a bit weird, but I love reading obits. To me they are short stories about people's lives. Give me a good long obituary for a very old person and I'll find an interesting nugget of information.

For example, an obit I read a couple of days ago talked about how this lady was an avid bowler. She had bowling balls for all four seasons. Now that was a nugget.

Another one talked about the cowards who attacked and killed their mother in her apartment. You rarely see that kind of thing in an obit. I found the article and yes, the mother had been beaten to death by an unknown assailant.

The pictures can be wonderful too. I especially love it when you get a young and an old picture. Some of those 1940s hairdos were really something. And the WWII photos of these handsome guys in their uniforms are just great.

I'm amazed by how many obits talk about the person going to be with God or Jesus and, of course, other family members who have died. I remember my Aunt Jerry, my grandma's daughter, telling me that she would be waiting for me in heaven with my mother (her sister). The last person I ever want to see is my mother and quite frankly I don't think she's in heaven. If she is, then God or someone, made a mistake.

My sister reads them too so maybe there is a genetic connection here.

The language is interesting to sort out; viewing means you get to see the body and visitation means you get to talk to the dead person's relatives and friends. I can sort of tell when it's a suicide because it will say that someone died unexpectedly at home. It's usually a younger person. I feel sorry for the person who found the body.

Anyway, on to the goats. Our neighbors a couple of acres away have a bunch of them. Apparently there is a break in their fence and these pretty little creatures are roaming the neighborhood. One of them has a damaged hoof so he/she hops on three legs. We only hope they will stay long enough to eat lots of blackberry bushes. Not even sure if the owners realize there is a break in the fence. The cats and Harleen get quite excited when they show up on the front porch.

Oh, and Kerry has Shingles. What else can happen healthwise here?

Dark Days Challenge Week 8

I'm sick AGAIN! Luckily I managed to cook one local dinner before I felt really awful. After that I relied on Confluence. More about that later. I got my new (actually used) camera two days after we finished the spicy lamb stew so you will have to use your imagination.

We got back from our 12-day trip to Washington on Sunday afternoon; that's why I missed Week 7. I took some lamb kabob meat out of the freezer. I've never been a big kabob fan so decided to do a spicy stew cooked in the crockpot. The lamb came from Flying Mule Farm where they really do farm with mules.

I put the lamb in the crockpot with tomato sauce from last summer's tomatoes, corn from last summer's farmers' market that I blanched and froze, chicken broth from a Chaffin Orchards' chicken, organic black beans (origin unknown), white wine, and onions and garlic from Newcastle Produce. Lots of cumin, chili powder and paprika added to the spiciness. I made enough so we had leftovers. Spicy foods always taste good when I'm sick and my taste buds are out of sorts.

But now for the Confluence Kitchen and Market. It's located in Auburn, CA about 12 miles from here. They have a store, but they also come to the Auburn farmers' market. The web site is www.confluencekitchenandmarket.com Luckily I had stocked up before we left for Washington. They sell both fresh and frozen entrees that are made from organic, local food. I had a broccoli and cheese quiche and a red pepper and polenta lasagna in the freezer. Those two frozen entrees plus the spicy lamb stew have guaranteed that we ate healthy, local food while I was sick. Last of the leftovers tonight and then tomorrow I'm back to cooking.

We've also had their chicken pot pie and beef empanadas. Both were delicious.

Happy New Year From Burlington, WA

Pictured here are my new friends from Golden Glen Creamery in Bow, WA. My sister-in-law Susan and I paid them a visit. We brought home some of their finest work: all variety of cheeses including Parmesan, butter, chocolate milk in a glass bottle and eggs, one of which was green (we also met the chickens).

Folks in the store were so nice. They gave us a map of Skagit county that shows where local food is produced and can be bought. We will be back in May for a wedding so I'll check on lots of them then. We did go to the Farm to Market deli in nearby Edison where we bought some yummy treats. My favorite was (I already ate it so no pictures) polenta cake soaked in lime juice. It was shaped like a mini Bundt cake. Delicious.

It's official, my camera is dead. I hope I can find a good one on sale when we get home.

Susan has been cooking up a storm, as usual. Last night we had her clam linguine. It was so good we are having it again tonight. We brought a leg of lamb with us to share with the family. They loved it. Otherwise I've been eating lots of veggies and oysters from a nearby bay. It is such a treat to have fresh fish. That's what happens when you live close to the ocean. My lunch today will be raw oysters in seafood sauce (aka ketchup with lots of horseradish).

Saw the Sandra Bullock movie The Blindside. Great flick even if it did have lots of football scenes. On New Years Eve we watched "Angels and Demons." Pretty good.

Yesterday we visited fellow blogger Urbanhennery at her home. Harleen played with their lab, Jake. She gave us some of her homemade strawberry jam and dill pickles. We brought her Satsuma mandarin oranges which count as a local food for her because we were in the area and just happened to bring them some. Same goes for the stuff I bought at the creamery.

We head home tomorrow and should be back in Lincoln on Sunday night. Weather through the Siskiyous is the only thing that could slow us down. Right now it looks like it's going to be good tomorrow and Sunday.