What's For Dinner?

 

Twenty years ago when we first moved to Maryland, a quilting buddy took me to Farmer Knopp's Vegetable Stand.

Keeps you honest, putting your quarters in a locked box with nobody watching.

Beautiful day to be in rural Harford County!

His driveway is lined with flowers and I was fascinated with all the butterflies!

What Does it Look Like?

HUGE! This is an emu egg. Beautiful rich teal color. I got it from a friend (I visit-teach her and try to bring her healthy treats) who has a farm with emus. I used a hammer and a nail to make a hole at the top and bottom, blew out 2 cups of yolk & whites, fried it up with Pad Thai dinner.

I love the blessings of following through on my duties, doing what I said I would do, and just being nice to people. Unexpected, fun benefit of looking out for someone else, and them blessing your life more than you could have imagined.

Pomme Frites

I learned how to make these in Nancy, France from Sister Meyers while I was serving an LDS mission. I learned how to eat them with sauce tartar in Liege, Belgium. They had 26 different flavored sauces to go with their frites. I start to drool remembering!

(For Suzanna's Sweet 16 "Winter Defiance" party, we made burgers and fries to go with her Portal Cake. Big success, lots of fun!)

The secret to successful real Belgian fries: double fry.

Use good potatoes. Cut them by hand. SQUEEZE out moisture with clean kitchen towels, keep covered until ready to fry (we used peanut oil).

Heat oil to (325') hot, make sure low enough in pan that it won't overspill. Hot enough that a bread crumb fries and sizzles, not just sits and soaks up oil. Only put 1 1/2 cups fries in to cook at a time. Cook until just barely changes color, NOT BROWN on the first frying.

Set aside draining on paper towels, okay if cools off completely. Do 2nd fry right before serving. This time until brown, less than 2 minutes. Salt to taste.

I taught Max everything I know about this. He says he is still not sure about how to tell if the oil is hot enough. I think it is a practice thing, or buy a thermometer.

Now, armed with a bag of potatoes, a knife, a towel, some oil, salt, a deep enough pan, he can create wonder on his own.

12 Ways of Christmas: "Realize" Day 5

"Realize Symbol: Candle
Scripture: And now behold, I speak unto their seed, and also to the Gentiles who have care for the house of Israel, that realize and know from whence their blessings come. (Mormon 5:10)
Ideas: Let your light so shine. We are blessed beyond measure to have the restored gospel in our lives. How can we seek to bless the lives of others? How do you/can you “pay it forward?”

Sharing a birth DAY with a family member can be tricky. My mother-by-marriage loves German chocolate cake, so I try and make her one every year. I doubled the recipe (yes, I use recipes, inspite of my concept cooking practices), Palmer cousin style, and used the extra frosting inside graham crackers surrounding the cake. Suzu's cake is white vanilla cupcakes with peppermint blue cream cheese icing and rainbow sprinkles. They sang to each other: "Happy Birthday to US!"

I don't have a candle quilt block--but here is an exchange attic window block. Candles in the window are one of my favorite Christmas decoration. That is stretching the imagery a little, I know. There are a couple of candles printed on red fabric almost cut off on far right side. If I can find/make a candle button, I could sew that on any part of a 12 Ways of Christmas quilt/tree skirt...thinking/brainstorming.

Concept Cooking

I like reading recipes & watching others cook. But what I really love, is experimenting. Downside to that is doing something spectacular, and then trying to remember all the ingredients that went into that unique, one-of-a-kind batch. Sometimes NEVER to be recreated. I've tried to be better at documenting successful meals.

If you understand the concept behind a recipe--or the necessary elements, you can play! It is a little like understanding the chemicals and necessary textures/flavors/binders/heat requirements. That is a lot of variety, if you change something in a recipe, you need to balance it. You put in too much flour, you need more liquid. Or it is too wet, you can make pancakes or add more dry ingredients to turn batter back into muffins or cookies. I am still learning. And I think my lack of real recipe cooking has intimidated my children a little. How do you teach them to cook this way? Encourage them to experiment, and talk about what works, and what doesn't...

So, granola day. The concept for granola is to mix grains with a little fat, sugar, and liquid to bind it and cook it. One lady I know uses egg whites as a binder. No fat. Which is a great idea. I've been adjusting each time, trying to find perfect ratio of oats to nuts to bran to wheat germ to butter (YES!) and sweetness.

I do like the taste of butter. And brown sugar makes everything taste better...

This batch, I used 3/4 jar of raspberry jam in the liquid/sugar/fat mixture. Tasty, but the sesame seeds I added are too overpowering. And I could have used more raspberry flavor, omit the maple flavor from the syrup...next time!

Raspberry, coconut, pecan granola, coming to you via package soon!

Perfect Pie

Our 15 year old daughter, Suzanna, is cooking dinner for two weeks. Planning the menu, doing all the prep work, the whole thing. It has been nice to sit back, blog, or read instead of make dinner for 6 every night. She has been very adventurous and ambitious in the Young Women project.

And then she makes treats for her social life: she has perfected her fortune cookie recipe and her pies. Ohh, they smell so good! She will have a high school reputation as an amazing cook.

I wasn't that brave when I was her age. I think that is the goal, that our children will be more courageous, bolder, more fun, smarter, more talented than we are.

Go, Suzu!

A Difference of Opinion

Happily married couples do not have to agree about everything. The big things, yes. Values should match. Life goals, yes. But bacon? Nah!


This IS a couple photo, taken Sunday am. The night before we went grocery shopping together, and I suggested we buy bacon so Max could have it for his birthday morning breakfast. We got two packs, and John said we would have to start cooking at 6:30 am to have it done before 8 am. I was bewildered. No way could it take that long! When I cook it, I put the whole pack in the pan and turn it over once and it is done. I like chewy, flexible bacon. John, however, likes it super crispy. That takes patient cooking, only a few in the pan at a time, until all the fat cooks out. He took over the cooking and saved me out a couple of my-kind-of-perfect slices.