Take Joy!

Cranberry Coffee Cake

Here's the recipe I mentioned yesterday. It's from Simply in Season, by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert.

Serves 12-15 people who are considerably more restrained than John and I . . .

3 cups raw cranberries

2/3 cup sugar (I don't see why you couldn't substitute Splenda or Equal or some other sweetener here)

Combine and spread over the bottom of a greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Glass is nice. (I used a 2-quart baking dish, because I had it.)

1 cup walnuts, chopped

Sprinkle over cranberries

3/4 cup softened butter

2/3 cup sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

1-1/3 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

Combine in a separate bowl, then add to creamed mixture, mixing well. Drop batter by large spoonfuls over cranberry mixture. Bake in preheated oven at 350* until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean, 40 minutes.

And there you have it: quick, easy, not terribly messy, and it will keep the kitchen warm while you get the rest of breakfast ready. (This last is not to be despised if you, like us, have an unheated kitchen . . . )

EDIT: Sorry about the extra line spaces; for some reason I can't remove them . . . stupid PC.

Monday Already? Again?

Why, so it is! And not a bad one, either . . . I've been making pin dolls today while John works on woven wire chains: we need more stuff in our case at the gallery. (We actually received a check this month! And I sold a doll, but I won't know which one until we go down there, because I have--as usual--mislaid my copy of the inventory sheet. Sigh . . . I'm a number of things, but a businesswoman is not one of them.) Anyway, when my computer gets back up and running I'll have pictures, but for now . . . there are a couple of beaded ones (actually, there are several, but I'm only going to take a couple), and I may take the two out of my Etsy shop and replace them with something else, and I've made two jesters (one with ladybug buttons) and a couple of little dancers--one spring green and yellow, and the other black and mossy green.

But the subject was food, wasn't it? I want to mention my new cookbook: Simply in Season. It's one of those commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee (the others, that I also have, is The More-With-Less Cookbook, and another one of international foods; I can't remember the name of that one and I'm too lazy to get up and look for it). The recipes are divided by season, with some all-season ones at the back. So far we've had the Cranberry Coffee Cake (super), Middle Eastern Meat Loaf (lamb with onions and spices that I hadn't tried before; very good, but I think I'll make a couple of changes next time), and tonight I made Black Beans and Rice, with onions and a sweet red pepper, and some chorizo (not in the recipe, but I had some languishing in the refrigerator). Another keeper!

The coffee cake is lovely (and could easily be made with Splenda or Equal or another of those abominations, if you must), and since there are cranberries in the stores now . . . actually, two bags for $5.00 at the local grocery. I'm restocking my freezer against the summer cranberry drought. Tomorrow I'll post the recipe.

For now, I must go back and bead . . .the week continues apace, and I need to finish these tonight. Tomorrow John needs to go to Berry's for feed to do until the end of the month, and then on Wednesday we will take things down to the gallery, and I must finish the baby hat for John's nephew's new baby, and make sweet potato casserole (our contribution to Thanksgiving dinner) and possibly a loaf of cranberry-pecan bread, and then it will be Thanksgiving, and then it will be Friday and the obligatory visit to my parents' house (we have Thanksgiving dinner with John's family, since apparently the world will end immediately if he isn't there to carve the turkey) . . . no, no shopping. As far as I'm concerned, Black Friday is Buy Nothing Day.

Bah, humbug.

Speaking of Food

We've been harvesting: the aforementioned thirty quarts of canned tomatoes; and yard-long beans (for winter stir-frys), blackberries, and cabbage in the freezer. The beets are ready to pull, just as soon as the garden dries out enough to get in there (4 inches of rain since last week—poor William! His shed is now mud-floored, and he is reduced to sleeping under the overhang beside the feed trough.); we will have pickled beets this winter! And there are more cabbage ready to cut, and make sauerkraut (for which I wouldn't give you two cents, but John loves it). Possibly more blackberries, now that the sun has come back out, and leeks ready to pull, too. We'll freeze them for leek pastries this winter. Potatoes will be ready soon, and onions, and garlic . . . The beans have more flowers, so hopefully there will be more to can.

Yard-long beans, just picked, and a few more tomatoes

John and I both come from a long line of people who wanted to be sure they had enough to eat . . . can you tell?

It's so easy to fix supper in the summer! (I am, I'm afraid, an indifferent cook. I'm partial to large pots of things that can be eaten for several days—chili, or soup, or stew. Some of us, however, like to have a real meal in the evening. <sigh>) Last night we had green beans (fresh greasies!) and onions, tomatoes, cucumbers (all from the garden) and streaked meat for John (local, from Landis; about 125 miles away). There was a cauliflower, too, and blue cheese dressing for me—it came from South Carolina, probably; I bought it at the farmers' market Sunday.

We were out there to buy peppers for making pepper jelly this week, and prospecting for peaches to make peach butter. We found lots of peppers,

but were out of luck in the peach department. The late spring freeze did in the local peach crop, in North and South Carolina. We found some from north Georgia, but they were asking $64 a bushel! (And they were still hard as rocks, too.) At that price, I'd have to charge $10 a jar . . . so no peach butter this year. (I can make peach preserves from what I have in the freezer, but anything else will have to wait until next year.)

I did, however, find one small basket of nice, ripe, peach-smelling peaches for only (only!) $12 . . . so I have peaches to eat this week. I had intended to make a peach cobbler, but there were only 10 peaches, and I've already eaten four of them . . . Vine-ripe tomatoes say "summer" to a lot of people, but for me it's ripe peaches. (And blackberries. Together, if possible.) Fresh from the tree . . . I admit, I've never picked any my very own self, but I have eaten them picked that morning. Years ago, when I worked down near the South Carolina line, one summer  a man came by work every week with a truckload of peaches he'd picked that morning—they were as big as my two fists, and so juicy you couldn't eat one without dripping peach juice, and crisply sweet. That's where my 'extra' money went that summer—we ate peaches until everyone else was sick of them, but not me.

Then I changed jobs, and I've never had any peaches that good again.

I will probably never have my own peach tree (John has tried several times, and they always get borers and die.), but I do have a blackberry patch now, so I am no longer dependent upon the kindness of strangers  for my yearly berry fix. My mother-in-law used to have a good one on her property, and we picked there for a couple of years after we married, but it got full of honeysuckle and Virginia creeper so she had it mowed down, and it never came back. They were lovely berries, too—big and sweet right from the bush. (Thornless blackberries are wonderfully easy to pick, but they aren't sweet. You have to add sugar to eat them. They make very good jam, though.) And we earned every one of them, too—those bushes had wicked thorns! I'd have to wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt to pick, and I'd drip with sweat the entire time. One year a mockingbird had nested in the center of the patch (where I couldn't reach anyway) and she spent the entire time glaring at me.

I've stashed five quarts in the freezer so far; there are more berries on the vines, but they aren't ripe yet—too much rain and no sun the past week.

So—today we will make pepper jelly, and I'll chop up the rest of the peppers and freeze them for this winter. We'll make gazpacho for supper. (We're at the point where we don't have enough tomatoes to can, but there are too many to just eat.) With gannat, since I have some gruyére cheese in the refrigerator. And I have a nice ripe South Carolina cantaloupe, too . . .

Life is good.

(Now, if it will only stop raining for a few days so the chicken/goat lot will dry out . . . )

Recipe Card #2

And here is the other one (dedicated, with much love, to Brian and John) . . . the fairy stamp is one I bought secondhand several years ago, and I have no idea from whence it came; the rays are from 100 Proof Press, I think.

Recipe Card #1

This is one of my two recipe cards for the swap at Cloth Paper Studio. My mother's gingersnap recipe is on the back. (The little man stamp is by Zettiology; the ruler is from 100 Proof Press, and the heart is ancient and the attribution has long since worn off.)

Chestnuts

Aren't these lovely? They came from the tree above the driveway . . . and there are more, but I'm not going to be greedy. The squirrels need to eat, too.

I put a gallon bag full into the freezer this afternoon, plus a couple of pint bags. I have no idea what I'll do with them . . . but I'm sure something will occur to John or I.

(And in other fruit-bearing tree news, I have now gotten two ripe figs from the tree . . . and there are two more which will be ripe tomorrow or the next day if it doesn't rain and knock them off.)

For those interested, here is one thing that can be done with chestnuts: the spiny hulls, that is:

End of the Week, Finally

I seem to have survived The Attack of the Angry Yellowjackets . . . I felt odd and woozy today, but it's gone now and I'm just lumpy and itchy. (And blotchy . . . calamine lotion works, mostly, but it certainly looks ugly. I look like I have some sort of pink leprosy. Bleah.)
Mr. Poozle has a nasty-looking head wound, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. I suspect that he was pestering Victoria again, and she hauled off and whopped him, claws out . . . it seems to be just a flap of skin laid back. I'm putting HealFast (an herbal ointment we make; it's got comfrey and emu oil in it, among other things) on it and it's formed a good scab, so I'm just going to keep an eye on him.
I made a peach and blackberry crisp this morning, which we ate half of for supper, along with pork chops and home fries, cucumbers, and a big pot of greasy cut-shorts. (Peach and blackberry because I had a handful of blackberries, not enough to do anything else with but a little cake, and I'm tired of cake for now.) I'm so full . . .
We jarred the sauerkraut this afternoon, and made a batch of Artillery Jam for the tailgate (as soon as it sets up . . . we used Certo and liquid pectin always takes forever to set up). Artillery Jam, for the uninitiated, is made from sweet red peppers and a little vinegar and sugar. It's a British recipe, I think, and I believe it's called that because they used to feed it to soldiers to help prevent scurvy, since red peppers are full of Vitamin C. (I have, of course, no way of knowing whether that's true or not, but it makes a good story, so I'm using it . . . )
AND . . . I have new shoes! Comfortable new shoes! Yes, I have acquired a pair of Birkenstocks. I walked around all afternoon watching my feet . . . (Yes, I am actually old enough to be out on my own; why do you ask?)
And now to bed with book and cat(s), since John has gone to the Waffle House to discuss the state of the world with his cronies.

Tomatoes and Figs

Here is the fruit, so to speak, of today’s labors:

spaghetti/pizza/whatever Italian sauce. Lots of it. (It’s stopped cooking now for the evening; we’ll cook it down some more tomorrow, then jar and process it. This is about the last gasp of the tomatoes, I think, other than a few here and there.

And the kitchen floor is clean. I had to mop it, after scalding and peeling a bushel of tomatoes, and then putting them through the food mill. Tomato juice in all sort of places . . . but it’s definitely cleaner now.

I made stew/soup for supper, mostly of local stuff: venison that one of John’s nephews shot last year and gave us (I’m attempting to eat some of what’s in the freezer, since it’s about time to defrost it); potatoes, onions, cabbage, green beans, corn, all from the garden; and I bought the carrots and the Mrs. Dash I seasoned it with.

We took, I think, four buckets of peelings/seeds/corncobs/etc. out to the chickens, and there’s still another bucket for tomorrow. They’re fat and sassy this week!

John mended the hole in the goat fence where Frank keeps trying to squeeze out, and trimmed William’s feet  again. Tomorrow he needs to make some more sugar water for the bees, as soon as we can the sauce and free up the big pot, and maybe put another super together for one of the hives. Mom and Daddy have figs from her friend in Old Fort, and are bringing them over . . . I don’t need any right now, but there’s room in the freezer (barely!) and I’m not about to turn down free figs.  Our fig tree got frozen back this spring (again), but has rebounded with a vengeance and is now attempting to take over the side deck:

It actually has a bunch of tiny green figs on it, but I doubt any of them will ripen unless it stays warm until Christmas . . . oh, please, god, don’t do that! I’ll do without . . .

(Besides, these are brown turkey figs; the ones Mom’s friend grows are black missions, and they are much, much better. I’m afraid I think fresh figs as a taste treat are right up there with wet cardboard (yes, I know, I have absolutely no taste. So shoot me.), but even I like black missions.)

And tomorrow I must get back to the Woman of Character . . .

before she attacks Sam.

Transformations

We've been canning . . . turning these

into this

(and it certainly did take a lot of tomatoes to make those half dozen little jars of ketchup . . . on the other hand, I'd always meant to make some, as an experiment, and we don't eat ketchup very often . . .  I used the recipe in the Ball book, and it's very good indeed. I may need to make some more. Next week.)

and these

into this

which will be sauerkraut at some future point. This is John's project, since I neither eat nor want to make the stuff. I prefer my cabbage unsauered . . . (Disclaimer: we did not grow these cabbages. Someone gave them to John; they came from up in Madison County somewhere. Most of ours went into groundhog stomachs.)

John went out to the farmers' market yesterday while I was captive in the dentist's chair (new crown: $965. Ouch! no more yarn or fabric for a while, I guess) and bought peppers and peaches. Next on the agenda: pepper jelly, hot pepper jelly, strawberry-rhubarb jelly. And peach butter . . . I hate making fruit butter; it splatters everywhere. Those old ladies who made it in a kettle over an open fire didn't have to wipe fruit butter off every single thing in the kitchen afterwards . . . And we need to freeze corn for gritted bread, since we picked the rest of the ears yesterday, in order to have them before the raccoons . . . He also bought half a bushel of beans, to make dilly beans; so I spent an enjoyable hour out on the side porch yesterday evening, snapping beans and watching the cats stalk bugs out in the long grass, and admiring the geraniums . . .

We will have happy chickens today: green bean ends, corncobs with bits of corn left on them, peach peelings . . . and tomato peelings from yesterday.

There was a pie . . .

and it was blackberry, and it was exceedingly good.

The operative word here is "was."

Of course, there's a story.

I decided yesterday that I'd make a pie with the blackberries I had, plus those I coerced John's grandson Matthew into picking for me, since I am being arthritic and creaky this week.

So I gathered things together, went to the grocery store and did some other stuff yesterday afternoon, including buying lard. Yes, that's right: dead pig fat. I'd also decided, see, that I'd make a piecrust. Never mind that I haven't made a piecrust in at least twenty years, and probably more. I used to be able to, and after all, isn't that one of the perks of retirement? Having time to learn to do things you'd always wanted to do? (Stop laughing!)

Well, what with one thing and another, and having to get the tailgate stuff ready, and get the truck loaded, and get eggs in and dealt with, and so on, it was eight o'clock or so when I finally got down to business. (I usually take a long nap in the afternoon and work late if I'm cooking much in the summer, because the kitchen's in the old part of the house and it gets hot, so this wasn't terribly unusual.) The pie recipe I used is one from Easy As Pie by Susan Purdy, and it involves putting the berries in a pan with the sugar and cornstarch and a bit of vinegar and getting them to an almost-boil, and then letting them cool before you make the pie. Fine . . . I'll make my piecrust while the filling cools, because the crust has to chill for half an hour or so.

I get everything all mixed up, being careful to mix the shortening in with the tips of my fingers so it'll stay fairly cool, and go to roll it out . . . and I can't find the rolling pin. It's been hanging on the nail that holds up the calender for forever, even though I don't use it often, because it doesn't fit in the drawer, but it's not there now. It doesn't seem to be anywhere, in fact: not in the drawer, or in any of the cabinets, or on any of those same cabinets, or hanging up . . . I even looked in the refrigerator, just in case. (Stranger things have happened, right here, but we won't go into those right now, OK?) Nowhere.
Apparently aliens have abducted my rolling pin, no doubt thinking it can't possibly be any less helpful than all those dumb humans they usually get . . . . or something. (You are probably thinking, why didn't she get everything out before she started? Well, I got everything else out, and didn't bother to look at the wall, since I knew it was there . . . )

About that time John came in from the Waffle House, and he looked too. Even in the junk drawer, which couldn't even hold another odd screw, much less a rolling pin. So I wrapped my pie dough (which was now too warm to roll out anyway) back up in its waxed paper and stashed it in the refrigerator. . . and got out a couple of frozen pie crusts. (I admit to hedging my bets regarding piecrust: I'd bought them at the grocery store that afternoon just in case.) I put the filling into one and sort of mooshed the other one on top, since this was supposed to be a two-crust pie . . . and of course there was too much filling, since the bought ones are smaller than my big pie dish . . . but no matter, I was able to eat the extra filling all by myself, without having to bother John to help me.

It wasn't elegant, but it tasted wonderful.

And, just to keep you from worrying, I now have a rolling pin. With red handles, no less. (Which means that I have, probably, two rolling pins, since the missing one will almost certainly emerge from hiding now that I have replaced it.) We went to the kitchen store this afternoon to get one, and only came out with five other things besides . . . a wok, a set of silicone rings to enable me to roll a precise thickness of crust (I love a chance to get little kitchen doodads!), a stainless steel cake pan (only one, since that's the only one they had), a cast aluminum deepdish pie pan, and a popover pan (when I bought the one I have now, I stupidly did not take into account the fact that my favorite recipe makes 12 popovers, and it was a pan for six . . . that was last year, and I've been looking for another ever since).
We really shouldn't be allowed anywhere near stores together.

The long and short of the pie story is that, in less than twenty-four hours (of which we gone about six, to the tailgate market this morning, and sleeping for another six), the entire pie has disappeared. Except for the piece in the picture, which I am eating even as I post this . . .