Delicious Soup

I soaked a pound of kidney beans overnight and put them in a pot this morning and simmered them for a few hours. They cooked! I found a bouquet of kale and collard greens in my fridge so I rinsed them and then chopped them up adding them to the pot. I chopped two onions and threw them in. Then I added more water (almost to the top of the pot) along with olive oil and salt and soy sauce. I let it simmer some more. Now it is a delicious soup!

Simple Sourdough Bread

Scoop 6 cups of whole wheat flour into a large bowl. Add a blob of sourdough starter, a tablespoon of salt and a three cups of water. Mix well and knead for a bit. Cover bowl with a plate. Let the dough hang out all day and all night in a warm place. Punch down the dough and shape into a ball slash the top. Let rise. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 35 minutes.

Pot Roast

Last night we visited Mary Calhoun and she made this delicious pot roast for Sunday dinner. She found the recipe in the Boston Globe and I am posting it here.

Pot Roast
serves 4
Meat cooked with mustard, Worcestershire, brown sugar, and tomatoes turns dark, earthy, and delectable. Serve this spoon-tender chuck roast with buttered noodles.
3 pounds boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat.
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Pinch of crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 cups whole peeled canned tomatoes, crushed
2 cups water
1 large Spanish onion cut into thin wedges
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1. Set the oven at 350 degrees. Have on hand a heavy-based flameproof casserole (about 4-quart capacity). Place the beef in the casserole.
2. In a bowl, stir together the mustard, salt, black pepper, red pepper, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar. Stir in the tomatoes and water. Pour the mixture over the meat. Tuck the onion and garlic around the meat.
3. Bring the liquids to a boil. Cover the pan and transfer to the oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hours, turning half way through cooking, or until a fork inserted in the beef comes out easily. Remove the lid and cook for another 30 minutes (total cooking time is 2 hours; continue cooking for up to one hour more if the meat isn't spoon tender).
4. Remove the meat from the pan and and transfer it to a cutting board; cover and keep warm.
5. With a large spoon, skim off and discard the fat from the cooking liquid. Set the pan on a burner and bring the liquid to a boil. Let it bubble gently for 5 minutes, skimming often. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and black pepper, if you like.
6. Slice the meat and return it to the pan with the onions. Reheat for 2 minutes or until hot. Sprinkle with parsley. -Sheryl Julian and Julie Riven

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Brownies

On the back of the big bag of Stop and Shop semi sweet chocolate chips there's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I followed the recipe but I substituted peanut butter for regular butter and I used whole wheat flour, skipped the nuts and used all of the chocolate chips in the bag! The batter was dry so I added two more eggs. I pressed the batter into a round pre-greased clay pan and baked it in a preheated 35o degree oven for 30-35 minutes. When it cooled I brought them to band rehearsal in a cardboard box. They were a hit. The old fashioned Providence made peanut butter tastes great, adding an earthy taste. Enjoy!

1 cup natural peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla or more
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
24 oz semi sweet choc chips (a pound and a half)

Pizzelles

I'll admit it I am very materialistic in the kitchen. I love kitchen tools and gizmos! I want to find a pizzelle maker at a yard sale and make these fabulous thin Italian cookies for Valentine's Day! I've only talked about this for ten years. What's the hurry?

Rise and Shine

The boiler room is toasty! Overnight my sour dough rose to the top of the bowl touching the plate that was covering it. I never stop being amazed by rising bread dough.

Lily Love!

I am drunk on Lily love! Lily and I had another few hours walking through Woonsocket towards the sun, and on the way home we played in the park she ran around in the deep snow in the empty fenced-in tennis courts. Now when I inhale her face she smells like fresh air! I love it! Her face and neck and fur are as silky as a bunny's. I'm off to see the cows, and maybe introduce Lily. She is the size of the calves! I am thinking I should grow vegetables this summer and can them so we can eat them all year.

Summer in Winter

Last night I wanted to make and eat coleslaw and there was no food in the house! So my husband and I drove to get a cabbage and carrots in the middle of the night. While we were out in the freezing air I saw a guy in a white shirt thin white cotton beach pants and sandals get into his car! He was dressed like it was the hottest night of the year not the coldest. Today while walking Lily I saw a guy in shorts walking from his apartment to his car. I saw two girls from Beacon school walking with no coats or jackets! They stopped to greet Lily. I asked them how they do it. They said their homes are so warm the cold air doesn't bother them.

If you love coleslaw and have never made it try this: chop cabbage very fine and then grate a carrot or two and chop in an onion. Add mayonnaise and mustard and red wine vinegar to make a gloopy dressing. Also add salt and sugar. Pour over the cabbage mixture and toss. It's summer food but I love it. You can add chopped apples too. I always add raisins.

I love cabbage, it's actually a very sweet vegetable. You can make a simple delicious hot cabbage dish by slicing cabbage and sauteing in olive oil and then adding salt and a bit of water to steam it while cooking.

I've never made stuffed cabbage leaves but perhaps I should try that sometime.

Four Degree Soup

It is a sunny four degrees out including the wind chill factor. I've got two sourdough breads rising in the boiler room. I am wearing my long underwear, jeans, wool socks, and hat and scarf and three shirt + sweater layers under my woolen olive green denim Carthartt vest, indoors. I am just toasty! I am making lentil soup. I've added six quarts of water, fresh garlic, a chunk of ginger root, olive oil, carrots, red pepper flakes and a pound of rinsed lentils. I added the salt after the lentils were cooked thoroughly so the salt didn't prevent the lentils from being tender. I added a few cups of pumpkin mush I had leftover in my fridge and two cups of uncooked rinsed basmati rice. I added two chopped onions and cumin and a bottle of beer. The sun is out and Lily dog and I had a big walk in the snow. Now Lily's fur smells like fresh air! The soup has made the kitchen smell good. It is thick and delicious. It's a fabulous meal for a four degree day!

Fast Blizzard Supper

I never made it to the produce market this morning because I was out having too much fun walking Lily. Then it started to snow and snow. But we did have eggs, milk, bread and pesto in the fridge. So for supper I beat four eggs in a two cup Pyrex measuring cup and added a tablespoon of pesto and mixed it in. I poured it into our hot preheated greased waffle iron. The egg puffed up in minutes and was delicious on buttered toast accompanied by a fresh pot of PG Tips tea. We ate by candle light watching our beautiful big yellow dog on her bed sprawled out, running in her sleep.

Remember the Potato

I finally took a break from basmati rice and remembered "the potato". I have a ten pound bag of potatoes in the closet growing eyes! I sliced the potatoes thinly and cooked them in my Dutch oven with an inch of water, about a quart. By the time the potatoes were done, the water had boiled away. I served them with freshly grated sharp orange-colored cheddar cheese on top with salt, pepper, and olive oil; a simple and good supper to go with leftover broccoli. I never feel poor or deprived when I have vegetables to eat.

Because it was warmer today - above freezing and the sun warm - I made my summer carrot salad which is fast, easy and colorful. To make this salad I grate a one pound bag of carrots (unpeeled), drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top, and add raisins. The only laugh was that there was a lot of orange color to our supper. Last week we had cauliflower and white rice and carrots - an almost albino meal. In 7th grade my home economics teacher Miss Hoenig showed us slide shows about things you should not do in the kitchen and one of them was serve a whole meal of one color. What was ironic is that she was a bland teacher.

Hot Figs

Bill discovered an amazing secret. Take a dried fig and microwave it for nine seconds. It becomes soft and extra delicious. Try it! (Bill says be careful - you can burn the fig! Let it cool off for a bit before eating.)

Forks In The Road

I was recently telling some friends that I often see forks in the road when I am out walking. I am talking about metal forks for eating! They said not spoons or knives? Just forks? I told them I've found a few spoons in my day but mostly it's forks. We tried to imagine how this comes about. Are kids eating in their yard and forgetting and leaving them? But it's 20 degrees out. Monday, when I walked down my street I saw a fork on the sidewalk in front of a row of triple-deckers. I stood there and looked and looked again but I resisted picking it up and taking it home.

A Little Dirt Is Good For You!

This is good news because when food falls on my kitchen floor I always pick it up and eat it!

Click here!

Crazy for Cast Iron

Today while cooking up some vegetables I heard a loud pop. I winced. My six quart Griswold Dutch oven cracked and the hot olive oil began to leak out! It was because my electric burner was already very hot when I first started and the pot was cold. So sad. So I called the foundry on my street, Friends Foundry, to see if they deal with cast iron repairs. They were very kind and they said we only work in cast aluminum but call Fairmount Foundry and Cumberland Foundry. So I did! Everyone was nice at both places.

I had a long chat with Al from Cumberland Foundry about my love of cast iron. I told Al about my cracked pan. He told me it is very hard to repair cracked cast iron but a mold could be made for casting a clone. Interesting, but I imagine it's probably more costly than replacing it. Al is friends with Mr. Lodge of Lodge Cast Iron who I wrote a fan letter to years ago! Yes it's true! I told him my Lodge cast iron Bundt pan is perfectly seasoned now after 13 years of frequent use. A friend laughed at me recently when I told him this and he said only 13 years, that's quite an endorsement! Cast iron is your friend for life if you take care of it! I used to give Dutch ovens as wedding gifts until I discovered people didn't know what to do to season it and the Dutch oven would rust and then they would throw it away! Now Lodge sells a cast iron pan that is pre-seasoned to get people started. I told Al I had a frying pan that was the size of a manhole cover! I asked Al if one day I could go by Cumberland Foundry and see the process of casting iron. He said absolutely. I am so excited. I would be on my way there right now except we are snowed in, or rather slushed in.

(Take the virtual tour of Cumberland Foundry! Click here.)

Lazy With Leftovers

I have my phases of being very lazy and low energy in the kitchen. It happens every few months and can last for months. Here's a perfect home cooked fast-food dish I made the other night and with variations the past few days. It felt like a great invention and perfect match to my lazy phase.
Take leftover rice or pasta put in a Pyrex bowl with fitting lid. A bowl with a plate on top will work fine too! Rinse and chop snow peas and add scallions and mushrooms if you have them. Place in the bowl with the rice add bloops of olive oil and splashes of soy sauce and cover and zap in the microwave for three or four minutes and voila! A fantastic lunch or supper....or late breakfast. This works well because snow peas, scallions and mushrooms are perfect cooked aldente. I sometimes cook a pot of rice or noodles in the morning while I'm having my tea, so I can generate leftovers.

Bill's Asian Delight

My husband Bill created this amazing Asian inspired dish. This is what he did:

Saute in a large frying pan or big pot with olive oil and toasted sesame oil; a couple of bay leaves, a piece of star anise, one crumbled dry Thai red pepper, one large yellow onion sliced, a handful of scallions coarsely chopped, a couple of chopped carrots, a chunk of ginger root peeled and diced, diced fresh garlic (three bulbs), a fistful of dried Chinese mushrooms (rehydrated in boiling water and then chopped), and a fistful of raisins.

Coarsely chop a whole head of Chinese napa cabbage, parboil it in a big spaghetti pot, and then add it to the saute mixture with a generous dose of soy sauce and more olive oil. Bring to a simmer. Add 1-2 teaspoons of cornstarch to the liquid if you'd like it to thicken.

Enjoy!
Eat with chop sticks!

Cranberry Applesauce

Yesterday the refrigerator apple drawer was full of orphaned apples. I filled our six quart Dutch oven with them whole and added a leftover bag of fresh cranberries. Then I added about a quart of water, covered it with a tight fitting lid and simmered it until the apples were cooked. Then I poured it all into the food mill which was mounted over a large bowl in the sink and I turned the handle clockwise making a gorgeous pink tart and sweet applesauce. It's even more delicious with a bit of honey.

Black White And Blue

I just visited Wright's Dairy Farm and all of the newborn Holstein's were wearing blue jackets! The new red barn is almost finished. It will be a milking parlor where the public can come in and observe the cows being milked.

Day By Day

My dog Honey will eat omelettes and waffles and French toast and my bread and plain cooked meat. So we are feeding them to her. Her kidneys are diseased and so her life is day by day. Maybe I should remember all of our lives are day by day.

Appetite

Appetite is a dear friend that sometimes leaves.

Evolving Meal

I cooked Chinese cabbage and bean sprouts and spinach. Then I cooked noodles adding it to the vegetables. The next night Bill added a few fresh whole red cranberries and mushrooms and green beans and ground meat and we enjoyed a great meal. The next night I baked chic peas and added them. Then, tonight I cooked lots of fresh spinach and added it in. Every night we eat a few meals and then the next day one of us takes the leftovers to another step.

Pie Crust

Frost covered the whole bedroom window this morning. So I couldn't see out! It was 50 degrees indoors! I have sore back muscles from shoveling for two days! I set up two breads set to rise next to the boiler. One sourdough has cashews and raisins added and the other one is a plain whole wheat sourdough. We have five inches of snow. The streets are plowed and the crumbly beige snow on the sides of the road looks like the early stages of making pie crust. Perhaps I'll make a chocolate pudding pie.

Play And Nature

Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
-May Sarton

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
-May Sarton

Scent

So when Mr. Henry arrived on a Saturday night, we smelled him. He smelled wonderful. Like trees and lemon vanishing cream, and Nu Nile Hair Oil and flecks of Sen-Sen.
-Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye