It's beginning to look a lot like. . .

I just managed to delete this entire post, after nearly completing it. Below is my best attempt at replication, but I will readily admit that it's not as good - for one thing, it has far too many parentheses, but what can you do. . .

Tres and Silas discuss our options

The weekend before last, we took Silas out to the farm (the same place we picked blueberries) to buy a Christmas tree. No one seems to grow them out here (Maybe it's too hot on this side of the mountains? Or they need too much water?), but they brought some over from the west side and set up a variety of wintry activities, including tasty treats - warm doughnuts (delicious!), hot chocolate, and cider - a fire pit (complete with fixings for s'mores),visiting alpacas from a nearby farm, and winter hay rides. We had a good time and ended up (appropriately) with a beautiful, 8 foot Fraser fir. It's a considerable improvement over the tree we had the last time we hosted Christmas, although decidedly not quite as inventive.

Our cardboard tree, complete with bodybuilder

angel and packing peanut snow

I've been hard at work on Christmas presents, but a post on them will have to wait until after they're been distributed. Here are some other things I've been up to these past few weeks:

I found a few designs/color schemes that I liked for our Christmas cards this year, but wanted to translate them into something that was my own. I bought pre-cut cardstock and covered each card with a random design of gold polka dots, using acrylic paint and a pencil eraser. Then, I added words on the front and a personal message on the back in gold Sharpie. They're obviously not as polished as either of the above examples, but I got the gold on black contrast I was shooting for and I really like how the dots almost look like phases of the moon, depending on how much paint was on the eraser. Next step: getting them in the mail. . .

cards drying

my supervisor, sleeping on the job

This is actually a collaboration between my mother and me, over the course of about 20 years. She originally painstakingly traced and cut these fabric circles to be part of a wreath; they came into my possession last year and I didn't give them much thought, until I saw a bunting covered with semi-circles a few months ago. I ironed each circle in half, zig-zagged it onto a pre-made bias strip, and presto: the wall feels a bit more Christmas-y!

I made this ball garland a couple of years ago, but wasn't quite happy with it. So, I restrung it on some beautiful yarn (this is where knowing knitters with leftovers comes in handy) and now we have a place to display our Christmas cards. I used the stocking method from this tutorial to make the felted balls. I highly recommend measuring the roving as she suggests, even if it is a bit tedious, if you want them to be uniform in size. To make the garland, I threaded the yarn on a large needle, poked it through each ball, and then pulled it out with needle nose pliers, knotting the yarn before and after each ball (an improvement over my original design) to keep them from slipping up and down the string. It can be a bit irritating dealing with such a long piece of yarn, but it's manageable. If you're like me and can't be bothered to measure, therefore running out of yarn before you've finished, it's easy enough just to tie on another piece, incorporating that knot into the garland.

In case you haven't picked it up from the above, I'm a total nerd and LOVE the onset of winter and Christmas (not so much the way it lingers on, see: February), mostly, I think, due to my own childhood memories. I hope that we can make this time of year as fun and magical for Silas too, once he's old enough of course.

Thanks for the reindeer outfit,
Great Auntie Sharon!

Who lives in Drury Lane

As I mentioned in the last post, soup is a favorite evening meal around here in the winter. To round out the meal, we usually make some kind of bread item. Of course, the obvious (and my favorite) accompaniment to most soups is a delicious slice of crusty bread and butter. For that, I refer you back to Tres's bread making tutorial (please excuse the non-working video - I am in the process of attempting to fix it). Alas, there is not always enough time (or in my case, forethought) for homemade bread, so here are a few of our other favorite options.

Oatmeal Muffins (adapted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, circa 1972)

1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup  packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla


Preheat oven to 400. Grease muffin tin. Beat the egg, then stir in milk (I don't tend to have buttermilk around, so I just add a little lemon juice to the milk and let it curdle - white vinegar also works), brown sugar, and melted butter. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until just combined (it will be lumpy). Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 20 - 25 minutes (you can check to see if they're ready by lightly pushing on them in the center with your finger - if you make a depression, they need more time; if they spring back up, they're ready).


This is the cookbook from which I learned to bake and I still use several of the recipes (as you'll see below). As I've gotten more confident in the kitchen, I've make my own tweaks and changes, to make them more to our tastes. In this one, I've added some more flavorings and switched to rolled oats, which gives them a heartier, chewier texture. If you prefer something softer, you can use quick-cooking oats (which are what the original recipe calls for). The nice thing about recipes like this is that they're very forgiving and adaptable, so it's easy to make them your own.

Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, circa 1972)

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg


Preheat oven to 400. Grease muffin tin. Mix all ingredients until just combined (there will be lumps). Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 18 - 20 minutes (see above for how to check their readiness).


These are much lighter than pumpkin bread or most other baked pumpkin products; it's also a nice recipe for using up leftover pumpkin, as it only needs a little.

Cornbread (adapted from Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food)
1 1/2 cups stone ground cornmeal*
1 1/4 cups milk
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
1 tablespon butter (for the skillet)
4 tablespoons sugar (optional)


Put a large (the recipe calls for a 10 inch, but I imagine 9 would work too) cast iron skillet in the oven and preheat it to 450. Soak the cornmeal in the milk for 15 minutes in a medium bowl. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Beat eggs and melted butter into the cornmeal mixture, then pour into dry mixture and stir until just combined. Pull the skillet out of the oven (do NOT forget a potholder - it's hot!) and grease it with the tablespoon of butter (I use a wooden spoon to move it around inside the skillet). Pour in the batter. Sprinkle the top with the sugar (I really like my cornbread sweet and this makes a delicious, sweet crust on the top - if sweet isn't your thing, or you'd rather just put honey on it later, omit this step). Bake for 20 minutes, or until it's golden brown. To get it out of the pan (and keep the crust on top), flip it from the pan onto a plate and then immediately flip it from there onto a second plate. I know it's a bit silly, but otherwise the crust gets stuck to the bottom of the plate, rather than staying on the bread and making it into your mouth.


* So you'll think I'm a nut or, more likely, a ridiculous food snob, but I feel like stone ground cornmeal has changed my life. Ok, so perhaps I'm being a bit overly dramatic, but it's certainly changed my cornbread and for the better. You can make this recipe with half regular cornmeal and half polenta (which I did for quite some time) and get a pretty nice crunchy texture, but man, the stone ground really makes it just perfect. We found ours by chance in the bulk bins at our local health food store. . . if you can find it, try it, and decide for yourself. It just might change your life too.


Whew, I can't believe it's December already. I've been getting started on some holiday projects around here (gifts and decorations) and will try to post about some of that soon. Silas is growing by leaps and bounds too - he's 8 weeks old today.

And dream about hot soup all day

here comes winter

As the weather changes here, we're getting excited to pull out some of our favorite seasonal recipes again. Once it starts to get cold, soup comprises a significant part of our diet. As the primary cook around here these days, I'm a fan of soup for a few reasons: it's adaptable to the ingredients you have on hand, it's relatively easy to make (there's some prep at the beginning, but then it's usually just a matter of giving yourself enough time for it to cook and stirring occasionally), it warms you up, and (hopefully) it's delicious. I thought I'd share 3 of our favorite soups here, for some "heading into winter" inspiration:

Borscht (adapted from Marian Morash's The Victory Garden Cookbook)

4 strips of bacon
1 large onion
1/2 teaspoon celery seed (the recipe calls for celery, but I'm not a big fan)
2 medium beets, quartered
2 cloves garlic, halved
2 cups tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1 cup potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 quart stock
2 cups water
3 peppercorns
salt to taste
2 cups beets, julienned/grated (I like to do this in the food processor - it saves a lot of time and effort)
1 cup carrots,  julienned/grated (see above)
4 tablespoons butter
3 cups cabbage, shredded
lemon juice, to taste
sour cream


Fry bacon until crisp, then set aside (I like to chop it first, but it's not necessary). Chop onion, sprinkle on celery seed, and cook in bacon fat until softened. Add bacon, chopped beets, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, stock, water, peppercorns, and salt. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Remove vegetables (I like to pour everything through a colander placed in a large bowl - be careful, it's hot!) and puree them in a food processor or with a food mill (an immersion blender - in which case you don't have to do any draining - or a blender - in which case you will need to let the vegetables cool first, trust me on this one - will work too). Add the puree back to the broth and keep warm over low heat. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan and saute grated carrots and beets for 5 minutes. Add to soup base. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and braise cabbage for 5 minutes, until wilted and slightly browned. Add to soup base and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add lemon juice until it has a slightly tart, but not sour, taste - start with a splash and keep splashing until you get the flavor you like. Serve with crusty bread and garnish each bowl with sour cream.

simmering borscht

Sauerkraut Soup with Dumplings (adapted from William I. Kaufman's The Wonderful World of Cooking: Recipes from Northern Europe and the British Isles and Marcia Adams' Cooking from Quilt Country )

1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart tomatoes
1 1/2 pounds sauerkraut
8 cups stock
sour cream


Brown onion in butter. Stir in flour. Add tomatoes, sauerkraut, and stock. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook, covered, for 2 hours.


1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cold butter
1 egg, beaten
6 tablespoons milk


Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter until the mixture looks like oatmeal. Add egg and milk. Blend until just combined. Drop in large tablespoonfuls onto simmering soup. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Garnish each bowl with sour cream.

Saffron Carrot Soup (adapted from Monica Bhide's Soup of Carrot, Bellpepper, and Saffron)

2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion
1 pound carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon saffron
4 cups stock (I like it with chicken best)
1/2 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
saffron garnish


Melt the butter in a medium pot and cook onion until soft and golden. Add carrots and cook until softened. Mix in the turmeric, cayenne, coriander, and saffron and cook for one minute. Add stock and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook covered about 20 minutes; vegetables should be very soft. Puree vegetables (see my suggestions for pureeing in the borscht recipe) and add back to broth. Stir in sour cream, salt, and pepper. Garnish with a few strands of saffron per bowl.

In my next entry, I'll write about some of our favorite soup accompaniments (accessories? I don't know, stuff that goes with soup). Happy souping!

The apple of my eye

don't worry, I put a shirt on him too

A few Saturdays ago, we made baby's first trip to the Farmer's Market. Actually, it was our first trip this year too. Our garden kept us plenty busy and fed in the spring and summer and we didn't have much call to supplement. As we now head into winter, we're doing our final stockpiling and preserving and the market was great for filling in those things that hadn't worked out in our garden or that we didn't choose to grow. While we did harvest some garlic, it definitely wasn't enough to get us through the winter, so we were happy to see some good looking heads at the market. We go through a lot of garlic around here and this probably won't last until next season, but it will be a good start.

In the name of newfound flexibility (I'm having to exercise this a lot with a newborn - it's good for me), I had to give up on my plans for an hour-long trip to the farm for apple picking and cider making this year. There were lots of apples at the market, including a number of uncommon/varieties we'd never seen before. We found a stand where they were actually cheaper than picking and had lots of delicious varieties to choose from. We ended up with 50 pounds of Cameos (a variety we've sauced before, with a nice crisp texture and tartness) and McIntosh (a family favorite - a bit softer than I typically prefer these days, but they have a really great tart flavor and will be well-suited to saucing, I suspect). After making them into sauce, it turned out that we needed a few more, so I got my apple picking in at the nearby orchard the next weekend (I wore the baby,  Tres wore 2 picking buckets, and we picked another 40 or so pounds of Fujis in about twenty minutes). I sauced 25 pounds of them and we're storing the rest in the shop for fresh eating. A few things I (re?)learned this year: using soft apples (like McIntosh) means you will have to peel by hand (as the handy dandy peeler doesn't abide soft apples), said peeler will spray juice everywhere (dress and cover your surroundings appropriately), and the pureed apples will burn if you don't stir them pretty constantly (so try to curb the urge to multitask, despite the monotony of standing around stirring a slowly heating pot).

 apples from the market

my peeling station

our pantry, stocked for winter

 the rest of the pantry, applesauce is on the far left

Speaking of flexibility, the saucing and canning process was a little different this year too. While I followed the same basic steps (peel and slice, cook, grind, reheat, can), it took me a little longer. About 4 days longer, in fact. Now, it's not to say that I was processing apples all day these days, but I was fitting apple processing in between feeding, changing, and otherwise caring for our son. It's interesting what a different rhythm a baby gives your day. I imagine if he were a bit older, I could fit this in during naptime or otherwise structure it around his schedule, but because he is so young and doesn't really have a schedule yet, things are a bit more "fly by the seat of your pants." There are lots of days when I don't do everything I'd like, but I'm learning to set reasonable goals and, again with that word, to be flexible if things don't work out quite the way I'd hoped. I realize more and more how very lucky I am to have a schedule and a life that allow me to do that. Having a cute, sweet baby doesn't hurt either.

My monster from his slab began to rise

Happy Halloween!

I do have a real post on apples forthcoming, but it won't be up until next week,

as we'll be visiting Auntie Jessie Uncle Steve for a long weekend. Yippee!

Here comes the sun...

Amelia didn't have to wait too long after her last post. Her water broke at 3:40 pm and our son, Silas, was born at 10:40 pm October 6th. He weighed 8 lbs. The doctors, nurses, and I were all amazed at Amelia's composure and strength. We've got him home now, and he and his mother are both healthy. Thanks to all of you who sent encouragement and congratulations our way.

When autumn leaves start to fall

Well, still no baby, but we've been having some true fall weather this week, so I thought I'd celebrate by sharing a few photos. The dahlias are still going strong and I think some are getting more beautiful as the season wears on (I swear that the dark pink and yellow shown below have gotten deeper and more vibrant since they first started blooming). The wind is taking its toll on the plants, so I'm not sure how much longer they'll last, but it's been a wonderfully long and abundant season.

The cool, wet weather has also inspired me to do some baking. Yesterday, I pureed another pumpkin and made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting and mulled some apple cider. With the cool rain coming down and a warm drink, it almost felt like I was living on the west side (that's how we eastern folk refer to the greener sides of Oregon and Washington, which are west of the Cascade mountain range) again - it was a nice, nostalgic home-y feeling.

Now, if only that baby would come. . .