Valentines Cookies

 Years ago my best friend from high school, serena, would come over and we would bake and decorate sugar cookies - i think it started with halloween and then valentines.  We did this for a couple years.  Our friendship began with food and still remains around food ;)  "My mom just made a pot of beans, do you want to come over?"  It was back in 1990, Agoura Hills.  We were friends instantly.
It has been 5 years since we have seen each other and what brings us together again are cookies!  We spent the day baking and decorating with Grace.  So fun.  It felt like no time had passed.

Next cookie day?  St. Patricks?

xox

These cookies are my favorite sugar cookie recipe - cut them thick - they make a lot!

Sugar Cookies

2 1/4 shortening

2 cups white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

6 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

*blend with an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment 

*fold in the following and handle like bread dough

7 cups unbleached flour

3 tsp baking powder

2-3tsp salt

*chill for 20 minutes and roll out.  Bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes.  Decorate with your favorite frostings, etc.   We mix powdered sugar with milk and add a bit of light corn syrup.....

sick in bed

not only has it been so long since i have blogged, but so long since i am this sick - quarantined to my bed.  watching cooking shows without an appetite, longing for chicken soup, someone to take care of me, no responsibilities, hoping for healing...soon!  I am struggling with my little friend productivity right now.  huh, i am not doing anything in bed...i can get things done, like blog.  I tried to knit but got stuck AGAIN and can't knit. this won't be very long but good to put my ideas down of my next entry.
My sweet elizabeth took pictures of my banana bread - would love to get that up, a week long entry of "what we ate for dinner this week"  I always love to know what people come up with for dinner.  the one question my sister xenia and i always talk about ;)
would love to get my farm to feast cooking days on here - but have yet to get the time, pictures uploaded, recipes written....got to be an easier way than what my mind is stuck on now.
here is to chicken soup in bed, yes - buttered toast and to feeling better.

A Big Pot of Something!

Recently I was reading "Where the Wild Things Are" to my bitty ones and I love the end where max comes *home* to a bowl of hot soup and a big slice of cake.  Comfort spilling out from the page ;)  It made me smile, made me long for that.
So, today is a rainy day, a day i feel like making a big pot of something - soup, stew, ghoulash - and a cake.  Yet, so far I have not succeeded in that (as well as not blogging in FOREVER.)  I have strained my neck and yelled like a crazy lady at my children.  After a bit of calm and cuddling on the couch with grace and hudson, cozy by the fire, watching a movie (ahhhh)...I rose up, put a pretty apron on and baked a pumpkin spice cake and it smells like warm cinnamon and thanksgiving.

  I have a few minutes before a fight breaks out in the other room over Zingo and I am sitting in luxury now with these quick moving minutes - writing, dreaming, being.  Here come the footsteps, it is all about to end. Nice being here.  Maybe the big pot of something will come tomorrow - big hopes.  AND no more crazy lady today - forgive me Lord!
*while this is not the best picture - it is a pretty darn good cake.  I was leary of the lemon in the glaze, but go with it - it ends up cutting the sweetness. I also think eggs at room temperature may make for a smoother, less curdled batter.

Spiced Pumpkin Cake
(Real Simple Magazine 11/10)
2 sticks butter at room temperature (plus more for the pan)
3 cups all purpose flour, spooned and leveled (plus more for the pan)
5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 15 oz can organic pumpkin puree
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

*heat oven to 350F.  Butter (or spray) and flour a 12 cup bundt pan.
*In a bowl, whisk flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
*In the bowl of a kitchen aid or with electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on med high until fluffy (2-3 min).  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Beat in pumpkin, milk, and molasses (may appear curdled at this point -it is ok - keep going).  Reduce the mixer to low and gradually add flour mixture - mix until combined - do not overmix.
*Pour batter into pan and bake until toothpick, bamboo stick, knife...comes out clean - about 55-65 minutes.  Let cool in pan for 30 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.
*In a bowl, whisk together the confectioners' sugar and lemon juice until smooth. If the glaze is too thick - add more lemon juice and/or water.  Drizzle over the cake. Let set before eating!

Strawberry Jammin

Grace and I are reading the Little House on the Praire Series and so much of their days were spent preparing food and working in the kitchen - canning food for the winter...so what perfect time for my sweet friend Nancy to come over with a flat of sweet organic strawberries this morning and we got right to work!  Aprons on, water boiling and strawberries getting mashed.  We made her low sugar recipe of strawberry jam - can't imagine what regular sugar recipe is like - this is perfectly sweet.  We ate it by spoonfuls as it was foaming and ready.  Yum.  So much fun. AND our time was lessened since we had such great helpers - Grace washing and drying the red morsels, Hudson mashing and Penelope eating.  Now I will go to bed dreaming of the morning when I can go to the bakery and buy my favorite french baguette (cest si bon) and butter it up with some strawberry jam.  Even more ambitious - make fresh brioche - something I have always wanted to do!

nancy's strawberry jam

6 pints of organic strawberries - washed, destemmed and crushed

4 cups of sugar

Crush berries with a potato masher to consistency you like - we crushed to a smooth texture.

Put in a large pot.

Mix 1/4 cup of sugar from 4 cups and 1 box of Sure-Jell in a small bowl.

Stir pectin sugar mixture into strawbs.

Add 1/2 tsp butter to reduce foaming, if desired.

Bring to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop boiling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly.

Stir in remaining sugar quickly. Return to rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. 

Remove from heat.  Skim foam (delicious to eat with a spoon ;)

Ladle quickly into cleaned and boiled jars. Leave 1/8 inch at the top.

Cover with lids and turn upside down for 5 minutes.  Turn over and make sure the lids have "popped" or look almost concave.  If lids spring back they are not sealed.

Store at room temp for 1 year!

Italian Chicks

Donatella, Isabella, Francesca and Giovanna (Bitty)
our chickens, our ladies - little fuzz balls who stared into corners of their plastic cage under the brooder lamp - now fully social and owning the worms and bugs in the backyard. They travel together, roost together, dirt baths together and share Apache's hay together. The hay that was once shared with sweet ole beauregard! Poor Apache has another invader - 4 little invaders - to his evening meal.

These are going to be good eggs!

Blueberries for all

Out to somis, ca today. underwood family farms has a "you pick" blueberry farm.

we headed out and after an hour and a half we arrived. cute little farm animal area, fruit store, tractor rides and rows upon rows of blueberry bushes. we came back with 4 quarts of blueberries and then headed out down memory lane to Italia deli where I worked in high school. eggplant parmigiana sandwich on a hard roll, turkey and cheese on a soft, salame and cheese for hudson and grace and prosciutto and cheese for our friend visiting from italy - cecy!

The smells of yeasty italian bread and onions brought back so many memories as I squeezed into the all too familiar business of this tiny deli. i remember coming home smelling like an onion - not attractive.

Then to the health nut in calabasas for the dressing i remember as a child - after a driveby of the home i grew up in - so many innocent memories of being a child. and how everything looked so much smaller! how things change. fun to move in and out of memories.

coming home with loads of blueberries only means blueberry pie - 2. fun to make.

tonight allen and I saw "letters to juliet" and we both were pierced by all our dreams to experience life on a winery or place where we work the land, live differently, spend our days differently.

we will continue to dream until the lord shows us an open door - to go, go and live our dreams - get out of being "stuck" in how do we do it and move into living it. I long for that for allen. for me. for our children.

On to blueberry pie recipes.

First Pie:
Graham cracker crust
1 1/2 cups graham crackers crushed (cuisinart is your friend)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/8 cup water
*mix and pat into a pie dish

Blueberries
3-4 cups blueberries
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
7 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp lemon
*mix dry, add wet ingredients, add to the top of blueberries and pour into pie

350F for 50-60min

Second Pie:
adapted from "Polly's Perfect Blueberry Pie"
Crust:
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 - 2/3 cup vegetable oil
3-4 tbsp milk

Blueberries:
1 quart fresh berries
3 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup sugar
Dash freshly grated nutment
1 tsp lemon juice
4 tsp butter

Into a 9-inch pie plate, sift together the flour, sugar, and the salt. In a glass measuring cup, whisk together 1/2 cup salad oil and 3 tablespoons milk with a fork. Pour that over the flour mixture in pie plate and mix with a fork until all flour is evenly dampened. If it is still too dry to work with your hands, mix a little more oil with a little milk and add to flour mixture.

With your hands press the dough evenly against the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan, allowing the excess to fall on the counter. (This will be the top crumble crust and is about 1/3 of the total crust mixture.) Sweep it into your hand and reserve in a small bowl. Crimp the edges of the bottom crust or use a fork dipped in milk to flatten the crust along the rim.

Berry pie filling:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To the washed berries add cornstarch, sugar, and freshly grated nutmeg. Stir gently.

Place the berry mixture in the bottom crust and sprinkle lemon juice over it. Then with an ordinary teaspoon, place little 1/2 teaspoons soft butter evenly over the top of the berry filling.

Crumble the reserved crust on top of the pie.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Check it after 30 minutes. If crust is getting golden but pie filling is not quite congealed, tent the pie with aluminum foil to keep crust from getting too brown.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

LA Love

So many low roads taken today with all 3 kidlets- I despise the low roads and how bumpy they can be - I am very thankful for forgiveness - How quick a day can change things.

Just yesterday I was in complete relaxation, enjoying amazing food, farmers market and time with adorable allen.

Our weekend away started with gelato at 10:30 saturday morning after we just wanted to get a quick drink and ended up at a gelato store.

We cradled our cookies and cream and mocha almond fudge gelato and oh yes our little cups of tap water because we were after all thirsty.

Onward we drove with a grand idea to change our lunch plans and try to get a seat at Pizzeria Mozza. We arrived, they opened, we got the best seat in the house - at the bar, watching pies and all kinds of goodness going on behind the bar.

We started with fried squash blossoms hugging ricotta - out of this world, Rucola (arugala), funghi and piave (a nutty parmesan flavor yet softer) and then a pizza - get ready for this one...Stinging nettles, wild spinach, and salame with cacio di roma (a cow cheese).

Wow, wow, wow - along with a nice glass of lambrusco - I was so happy and content. Ready for dessert?

We deciphered we both are not butterscotch fans but still decided to try the Butterscotch budino served with Maldon sea salt and rosemary pine nut cookies - come on!!!!!!

The pudding was soft and held a nice light texture while it was blanketed by a caramel sauce and topped with a dollop of creme fraiche I believe - you have to dig deep with large spoons, like you would an ice cream sundae...decaf espresso - done, way done!!!!

Laying by the pool, getting served lovely ice water flavored with cucumber, strawberry-lime popsicles being passed around. A quick, short workout before dinner ;) We had reservations at Lucques on Melrose and it was just lovely.

Warm olives with almonds, a dish of sea salt and butter came to the table with thick rustic sourdough like, dense bread! Ricotta dumplings with fava beans, pancetta and just pillows of yumminess really.

To continue on with the Stinging Nettle theme, yes, I ordered the Stinging nettle, green garlic soup and then slowly ate a few bites of allen's short ribs - how does a belly hold all this food - mine had enough and we passed on dessert - i know, can you believe that!

I did get the restaurants "Sunday Suppers" cook book which I am so very excited about. I love Sunday suppers. Above is our farmer's market sunday supper. The mixed salad with flowers in it was my fav!
 
The evening ended with tea and coffee in our room while we sat in big, soft white robes and talked and talked - and then moved to the bedroom (don't worry it is safe to read on) and watched a movie and ate cookies from the pizzeria mozza store - an almondy lump of love ;)

The next morning we ended up at the good old Griddle cafe on Sunset (the best french toast i have ever tasted), we then headed to Larchmont for farmer's market shopping and Sam's bagels to take home (egg bagels toasted with butter falling in all the little cracks).

A special weekend to eat, dream and be with the man whom I adore. We had time to talk, didn't need to be anywhere except dinner - it was just plain lovely!