Getting Ready for a busy season

The loft is getting to be like a backyard hoophouse with all the seedlings coming along in the windows. We have too many roma tomatos already and not enough brussels sprouts. I'll have to buy some pre-started brussels from one of the growers around here and bawl out Johnny's Seeds.

We have to spray them daily at least once and we continually keep trying to find more pots to transplant more growing seedlings.

My 8 chicks are coming along and are now almost 6 and 5 weeks old. Hopefully they will replace any grown chickens who develop problems throughout the coming warmer months. I've got them in an old cow trough with a brooder light over them.

Dad continues to mentally go down hill each day. He reads the paper all the time now. I doubt he has a clue what he is reading but at least it occupies him for awhile. He asks so many questions now and yesterday was insistent that his mother had just died and my mom and myself had to pull our weight now that she was gone. She died in 1961.

It is becoming tougher now to deal with his fantasies and keep him from becoming frightened. I like to look at old pictures of him when he was young. They help me remember what he was like. He is no longer able to think clearly now.

This picture was taken on their honeymoon at Groton Pond in Vermont in June of 1948. I used the photo for a class project and tinted it using Photoshop. I hardly knew what I was doing at the time but I still like the photo.

My father was an energetic man and age did not go well with his character. He liked to stay busy most of the time and that is how I remember him, burning brush, cutting wood, building stone walls, talking into a microphone at the radio stations he worked for, and outside all the time. He never watched much TV or sat for long periods. He had an uneasiness that my sisters and I all inherited. I think sometimes that is why I have a tough time helping him now. There is not much I can do but sit and watch and try and converse with him from across the table or try and distract him from some crazy notion that he won't let go of.

I think the chicks and the seedlings help us forget what is going on with my Dad and concentrate on new growth. I'll try this summer to work with my Dad and still find time to have a farmers market stall in Corning, raise a few meat birds for the Fall and keep the house and grounds outside looking good. Its alot of work but I love eating my own home raised food. Hopefully with some good weather and some help, we can have it all.

The Henhouse

My chickens may not be the best layers that ever graced a backyard operation but they at least try and keep me and my neighbors in some eggs. Right now the yolks are a very bright orange and make a simple omelet into a mardi gras of colors if I add cut chives and sun dried tomatoes.

We added another section to the hen house recently with big windows that let in the light. I kind of hoped they'd lay a few more eggs but the addition made little difference. Then I invested in some temporary poultry fencing and strung it across the yard. After they had been free-ranging for over two weeks, they were positively dejected with the new fence. I never knew hens had attitudes about their habitat.

My Dad is somewhat intrigued with the hens. He asks sometimes about the eggs and how the chickens are doing. Then later he wonders where the eggs came from. At least the chickens make for a limited conversation with him now.

I love walking this time of year. The soft greens and yellows are lovely and give at least a semblance of peace. Spencer enjoys his walks in the sun with me through the fields and woods close by. He's no longer a wild and crazy weim that dashes through the swamp and chases everything in sight. The geese are passing through this area now and land on the pond for a few hours. He watches them and they keep their beady little eyes on him. Both parties pretend not to notice one another too much but the tension is discernible to anybody.

Li'l Besterds!!

We put them out tonight in the barn and up in the loft. On the storage site. I wanted to put them up in the straw but with the heat lamp going and that little guard protector, my mother ops for the storage area free from straw. Not that it would matter.

The house was becoming thick with their dust. Ah... nasty li'l things they are...but so damn cute.

So I will say a prayer that the chicks survive the night inside a steel cattle trough covered in pine shavings and a gore-tex tarp over a couple of plastic planks. I put the water way up on a tower I made out of old bricks so they wouldn't stop up the water system with all that pine shavings. And then under the heat of the 75 watt bulb, I gotta hope they stay at least at 70 degrees body temp. Then I'm reading about this bacteria...begins with c 'osis of some kind that comes from their shite. The chances of getting it are high in my circumstances. I'll have to investigate anti-biotics for them just in case. I hope too I don't burn the barn down. OMG. This sucks. I could'a had a V8. Chicks looked fine tonight. Hope tomorrow they will still be there within an intact barn.

So thats why Denis I have to get a few more or at least try. You want to gurantee some good layers and as time goes by, the older layers lay less so I would have to cull some of them. I had to kill a chick (well chicken) that I raised last week. It was very had to do. She was such an outcast and the rest of them were picking at her more and more. It was best to send her over the chicken rainbow bridge.

I'm also going to get 12 meat chickens. They are called Freedom Rangers that sounds like something Hugh Jackman played in. They take over 12 weeks vs the nasty, stinky mutant cornish x's that are born mentally challenged but taste real good. The Freedom Rangers can be pastured and are said to be the best tasting chicken. They are an old heirloom breed and forage well and cost not so much to raise.

I will try the Freedom Rangers and hopefully they will survive my mistakes. I'll say more prayers for the barn tonight.

Springtime and all the fun it brings

Early Spring around Western NY has a remarkable effect on me. I start freaking with the amount of work coming at me. I have way too many project lined up by the time the snow melts and the ice breaks from the pond.

I've pulled out all the stones from an old walkway my Dad built and now I can't find the right limestone to use as a grout between the stones. I've called all over the area and I'm still looking for crushed limestone. I can get plenty of river rock but no limestone.

I count the days by the flowers that are out now. The wild daffodils come first, then the lilacs, then the tulips as I clean out my composter, clean out the hen house, arrange the started tomatoes and peppers in the upstairs windows. The days are counted by whatever cut wild and partially wild flowers arranged on the kitchen table.


My rooster, "Earl the Pearl" is as horny as a goat as the weather moderates. If one of the brahma hens comes up to me for a treat, Earl sneaks up from behind and jumps her. Its a show of power I guess. He annoys me but I love his crow in the morning.

I have bought 8 tiny chicks that are now smelling up my bathroom and shrieking every time I try and take a shower and trip over the brooding box while trying to get to the toilet. They watch me with averted heads as I brush my teeth. Hopefully by late this week the weather will warm up enough to put them in the barn loft. We will all be happier then.

I have attended seminars and workshops on chickens and I still have much to learn about getting the hens to lay eggs and to understand that roosters are not sentient beings.

I cleaned their hen house this week and spread the manure and straw at the back of the garden for next year. It had all turned to a fine powder over the winter that had a sour smell that permeated the air as I shoveled the stuff into the back of the gator. But it does look nice spread around the back of the garden. Hopefully it will make for some good soil next Spring. The hens love to "help" me dig out the manure from the entrance to the hen house. I find worms in the soil as I dig and the hens wait for the shovel to lift like they are watching a magic act. They dive for the worms and I have to wait until they are finished examining the area for more worms and return to watching me dig.

They have been "free-ranging" for a few weeks now as the grass greens up. Their egg production has been way down because they are far more interested in the grass and the worms than in the mundane job of laying eggs. But when they lay them, they are wonderful to taste and see. The eggs are now bright yellow like mustard and have a light creamy taste. I love to make an omelet with them and put them in pretty dishes. The dish in the picture was my grandmother's. She got it from a little boy when she was a school girl. He had a sandwich wrapped on it for lunch one day at school and my grandmother Irene was attracted to the little painted cupids frolicking naked in the center. She somehow convinced him to give her the plate. Its cracked and chipped but still its fun to remember her telling me about the little boy and the plate.

Ovens are wonderful things

We made rolls this weekend using the sour dough starter again. We also sprouted wheat berries that helped give them an interesting texture and taste. I like them the best in the mornings with coffee and some jam.

While the oven was heated, we baked a round of cookies. We made the old farm hand molassas cookies we made a few months ago but this time blackstrap molassas was used and the sticky stuff gave the cookies an almost chocolate appearance and more robust flavor.

I remember once when I was a kid and my sisters and I had made friends with a girl near Underhill, VT whose parents worked on one of the first big corporate owned farms in VT. They raised swiss brown cows. We went into the kitchen and her mother was busy baking pies, and cookie sheets full of cooling doughnuts. The kitchen smelled of deep fat frying, a method of cooking my own mother hated. I was captivated with the scene and all the food.

Bread baking

Our sour dough starter has somehow survived another year and we continue to use it in breads. I have gotten into searching out flour from small mills. I recently bought a sack of whole wheat flour from New Hope Mills. I also brought home some wheat berries that we soaked for a few days and mixed into the bread sponge.

The fun of bread baking is trying various flours and experimenting with textures. My sister came back from Amish country a few months ago and brought back some overly sweetened raisin and cinnamon bread. My mother rolled out the dough much as the Amish ladies had done and spread the surface with a layer of brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins. It made for great toast.

We usually have the bread toasted in the mornings along with alot of coffee. My Dad tends to drink too much coffee and munches day old doughnuts he prefers to the bread. He gives Spencer a few bits of the doughnuts that has the dog salivating all over the rug.

So next we'll try the sprouted wheat bread again with about 2 cups of the sprouted berries instead of the measly 1/2 cup we started with last week.

This week we baked Irish soda bread in honor of St. Pat's day. I worked as a data-entry clerk for a few months at the county court house and met quite a few policemen and security guards. One of the sheriff's deputies gave me his grandmother's recipe for soda bread and we've been making it ever since. I had sampled it a few times in the past and always found it a little dry and not very flavorful but this one called for over a cup of raisins that kept the bread moist for days.


Irish Soda Bread

4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp double acting baking powder
2 tbl spoons caraway seeds (or more to taste)
1/4 cup butter
2 cups raisins (I use dark and white)
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 egg unbeaten
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg yolk, beaten

Heat oven to 375. Grease cast iron fry pan. Into mixing bowl sift flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir in caraway seeds with pastry blender. Cut in butter till its like course corn meal. Stir in raisins. Combine in another bowl, buttermilk, egg, soda. Stir this into flour mixture until just moistened.

Turn dough onto lightly floured board and knead lightly till smooth. Place in pan. Leave center higher than sides. Cut across 1/4 " deep in center. Bursh with egg yok. Bake about 1 hour or until done. Let cool 10 minutes in pan before removing.

Getting Ready for Spring and Summer

I'm starting to look forward to Spring and all the projects I have planned. I got a small babysitting job until the end of school getting two boys to school on time. I'm going to buy some fencing with the babysitting money and set up some pens for the chickens. I just can't free range them because of stray dogs and hawks. Also want to get a truckload of top soil to surround the garden and create some flower bed borders that will help deter pesky bugs.

I've been studying temporary fencing made from plastic. Although its only good for 10 years, it'll hopefully help me rotate the chicken pasture and keep them in fresh grass.

I stopped in Ithaca last week for a visit and some shopping. I bought some lemon grass that I'll sprout and plant. The lemon grass makes a great landscaping bush during the summer and you can harvest it in the Fall and freeze the stalks for Asian cooking. You just stick them in water until they have rooted and then plonk them into pots until the warm weather allows outside planting. Right now, in a big vase with glass beads at the bottom, the bouquet of lemon grass looks like some crazy window display.

I've begun planting peppers and eggplants upstairs near the big window. I've never had a much luck with eggplants from seed. Eggplants have to be the slowest of all plants to get started, but I love baba ganuj and like any addict, I just keep trying.

I am going to buy some portable fencing soon for both the chickens and possibly to extend the garden a bit more. Not sure how the garden will go this year with my Dad's illness. I've bought multiple packets of greens and lettuces from Johnny's Seeds and I'll start thinking about getting my Farmers Market gig going again. I'll bag mixed greens and lettuce that sold very well last year when I had a stall at the Bath Farmers Market. Its a ton of work to get up at 4 am and cut wash and bag greens but satisfying. People liked the bagged greens and I had a small group of people who bought from me each week.

So I'll start planning the garden, begin working on the chicken coop extension and think about all the other summer work I'm now going to have to do. Mowing the lawn, bush-hogging the field, trimming, fixing the rock walls and keeping the pond clean and weed whacked.

Its going to be a very busy summer.

Sourdough Downhill

We make bread about once a week thanks to a sourdough starter I soured in our back closet a year ago. There is a jar filled with happy bacteria living in the back of our refrigerator and they love a weekly super-shot of flour and water to devour.

The weather plays a big part in baking bread. When the sun shines and the air is crisp, the bread rises so much better than at any other time. We spend time wondering what day to bake bread and how much longer to gamble the days and the sourdough's appetite by not baking it.

But even if we bake on an overcast days and the bread texture is denser, it still tastes good toasted with coffee in the morning. The toast is so good, you don't need butter on it.

When the weather is a little overcast, sometimes we bake rolls. My sister came home from Pennsylvania and brought Amish baked bread laced with pecans and brown sugar and cinnamon. So we tried them androlled the dough out into a flat pancake and scooped the brown mixture all over the pancake and then rolled it up and formed a jelly roll loaf or sweet rolls.

I'm trying some of the regional flours I found at Ludgate Farms in Ithaca, NY. The flours are from small regional mills. I hope the flour tastes better than the Wegmans or Wal-Mart flours.

We have been watching the Olympics together. Thank God for downhill events and hockey. The Olympics has become our babysitter throe much of this week. Dad sits quietly tapping his cane watching Bode redeem himself as a medal winner and the hockey games. He becomes confused when he figures out that many of the players are now women. Women hockey players do not make sense in my Dad's eyes.

Zen and Chowders

I am starting to crack up as the winter of 2010 begins its descent into Spring. Dad is getting the best of me and I am ready to strangle him.

I feel guilty when I keep telling him to go to bed so I can have a few minutes of peace.

"Where are we going tomorrow?", "Where are the car keys?", "Where's the ax", "Give me the keys!!".... over and over.

Somewhere in his mind he is back in Montpelier. This is not his home. We all happen to be here as far as he is concerned. It is bizarre to sit near him as he asks continual bizarre questions. By the end of the day, I'm exhausted. I never read in bed anymore. I just fall asleep.

He walks with a cane because his legs are giving out on him. He paces back and forth upstairs while I type away on my laptop. I think of Captain Ahab on the deck with his peg-leg bonking along as he walks... and the crew down below listening to the bonking. Its very spooky.

We had chowder tonight made from haddock. It was very good.

Chowder

We just fried some onion and (shallots if you have them) until they are golden in some oil. Add some cut up potatos and and watch closely until the potoatos begin to sear to the pan, (you want to get some of that brown stuff at the bottom of the pan). Then you add some water enough so they steam and cover for awhile. After potatoes have become soft you add cut up fish and put cover back on (add more water if necessary at this point). Then wait just a little for the fish to cook and then turn off heat. Add some milk to your taste. We use a little evaporated milk a la "Out of Vermont Kitchen" era.... or you can use a little half and half. I only like a little bit of milk and half and half. You just want to add a creamy texture without it being too thick.
Then add some parsley if you want and some salt and pepper and some bay seasonings and a touch of butter. And just let it stand for awhile. Its very easy. Add some home-made toasted bread on top for a floater.. that's it. Bon Appetite Julia!!!


We had cookies for dessert. They were wonderful although my mother says we should have added stronger molasses rather than the light stuff we used.

Molasses Cookies:

1 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup sour milk

Sift dry ingredients. Cream in shortening. Beat in sugar and eggs. Then add molasses and then the milk. Add to dry ingrediants and mix well. Chill dough for a few hours or overnight. Take dough in small amounts and flour the board well and roll out the piece of dough a little on the thick side. Use the top of a drinking glass as a cutter. Puff up some raisins in a bowl of water, covered in the microwave for a minute and leave to puff for a little while. Keep surfaces all floured very well because the dough is sticky. We put it on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for about 12 to 15 minutes.

Bread Pudding

We decided to try bread pudding. I had it often as a kid but for some reason, we never think to bake it now.

Now however, we are getting about 8 or 9 eggs daily and the egg boxes in the fridge just keep filling up. I thought it would be fun to try bread pudding again. I've heard they serve it in some very upscale restaurants in Manhattan. I figured our chicks are upscale girls and will serve up some pretty good eating pudding.

"Out of Vermont Kitchens" has quite a few pudding offerings that I like to read over. They use lots of eggs! But somehow graham cracker or grape nut puddings don't sound as good tasting as simple bread pudding.

The bread puddings are as good as the ingredients that we put into them.

We have been baking sourdough bread all year from a starter we made from soured milk. It makes a great bread with big holes and dark crusts. With the cost of flour now, its a good idea to try and use the leftover bread for breadcrumbs and toast. In sourdough baking, you have to use the starter at least once a week and that makes for some creative thinking on how to use the leftover bread.

Here's our very basic bread pudding recipe:

- 1 egg to 1 cup of milk

(we used 3 eggs and about 3 cups of 2% milk combined with a little half and half. ("Out of Vermont Kitchens" uses condensed milk).

- About a cup or cup and a 1/2 of dried bread chunks.
- About 1/2 cup of sugar depending on the sweetness of the bread..(we threw in a couple of stale oatmeal cookies.)
- A little salt, some spices that you like such as cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla
- A few dried fruits like raisins, cut up dried apricots and nuts
- A few chunks of cut up apples

Put the bread chunks into a buttered casserole or any oven-proof serving dish. Beat the eggs and milk, sugar and fruit and/or nuts together and pour right over the bread chunks. Garnish the top with some cut up apples if you want.

We added some thawed frozen strawberries from the freezer.

Bake in 350 oven for about 40-45 minutes or until set. Its yummy.

My Rooster

He is a mixed breed rooster. He has some easter-egger in him from his little sideburns and he has barred rock and Rhode Island Red and probably some Delaware. He's all things to all hens.

He has to fertilize 13 hens every day and sometimes at the end of the day he's the first one in the roost. He's had it.

We are learning alot about chickens this winter. We have one that has gone broody as they say and won't get off her nest. She's very sweet though and I shove her off and put her on the floor of the roost. She eats and poops and then gets right back on the nest.

I've been reading thru forums and what I have to do is isolate her from the nests for a few days to get her mind off of the nest. I guess I'll put her in Erika's catbox for a few days in our washroom. If that doesn't work, the next tac is to put her in a pen alone with the rooster for a few days... and he'll get her mind off nesting for awhile.

My Mom doesn't think either idea will work. But I will have to go ahead and try it or she'll be on that nest the rest of the winter.

I've burned a Million Calories and I'm STARVING!

I can't understand people who work out all the time and then eat only minuscule portions of a meal. I'm damned hungry when I've been holding a pose with my left leg in the air and my stomach pulled as taunt as a drum. It hurts!

Yesterday my sister showed up with her snowshoes and we set off, pounding the snow for a few miles. She jogged ahead of me as I tried to keep up using long strides that pulled the muscles in my butt to painful limits.

The blue sky and sun were truly beautiful above the fresh snowy countryside and I enjoyed the hike. When I got home, I collapsed into a chair surrounded by wet socks and a bad case of hat-head. My hunger almost immediately kicked in and I began to pull leftovers out of the fridge. Exercising just makes me hungry.

When I do eat a large lunch I try and make a salad for later that evening. I have come to love salads that contain no dressings. I like them with lime juice and honey and perhaps some sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Oils and cream dressings seem to weight the salad down and all I taste is the glossy coating of oil or heavy mayonnaise soaked witches's brew. When I worked in Boston, I'd open the refrigerator at work where the side compartment was lined with bottles of salad dressings from mostly women employees. The bottles had little taped messages stuck to them like "please don't use"...."this belongs to Shirley"...."get your own dressing!" I'd read the ingredients off the labels and they would contain words I'd never be able to spell or pronounce. If I dared to twist off the cap and sniff the contents, there was a strange, unnatural smell that had no discernible or recognizable origin. Maybe the stuff helped Shirley stay slim but I'm not sure what it would do to her gut.

In the winter, the salads are never as good as the summer months when I can get fresh greens from the garden but I try to make them interesting. I even throw corn chips heated in the toaster on the salad for an added crunch or my Mom bakes cornbread to go along with the meal.

Foodie critics sometimes say that salads are expensive and not affordable in these hard economic times. I don't agree that they are expensive. I don't eat massive amounts of it and I don't add exotic stuff flown in from South America two weeks ago. A few romaine leaves from a package that says its from California, a carrot, some onion and cabbage with some crumbles of domestic cheese or a few nuts makes a salad a perfect evening meal.

Talking with Dad

My conversations with my father have become very different than they were a few years ago. Now he walks with me down the driveway and asks if I am going back to Montpelier this evening. I turn to him and tell him no, I'm staying here tonight. Its easier to continue the fantasy and answer with a statement with what I think he will want to hear.

Once in awhile he'll take some of the cord wood and cut it into tiny useless bits of kindling. At first I didn't want to let him have the ax but we've given in for now and let him cut up some wood. He only cuts up about three pieces of wood. I don't like to watch him doing it.

Bean and Potato Soup

We raised a few rows of dry beans last summer. What's very fun about the beans is that we don't have to soak them. They puff up almost as soon as we begin to simmer them in water.

The potato and onion crops too are still going in our combination washroom root cellar. We added some frozen kale and seasonings. I like the flavors of the beans and potatos and the colors look pretty with cheap china from TJ MAXX.

Risotto

We made some risotto yesterday evening using plain long grain rice, some dried shitake mushrooms from NYC Chinatown, shallots, garlic, butter and white wine.

We used some of the chicken broth from my first rooster I butchered the day after Christmas with my sister helping. The homemade broth made the risotto much smoother and mellower than the commercial canned or packaged broths.

For Risotto:

Chop some shallots, a few garlic cloves, and some minced parsley and saute in some olive oil mixed with canola oil. You saute the mixture until its blended and the onions and garlic are lightly browned and wilted.

Next add the dry rice and stir that around with the saute in the oil until the rice is golden and smelling very good. Add some salt and pepper and maybe some thyme and other Italian seasonings to your liking. I add some dried, mushrooms that I've soaked in water and cooked lightly for a few minutes and left to sit for awhile. I squeeze the water from them and chop the tops of them into thin slices and saute these into the browned rice. Then you add a big splash of white wine and stir. After the wine is all rendered off, then start adding splashes of chicken broth a little at a time and just stir all this till the broth is absorbed by the rice. Just keep doing this with about 4 cups of broth to maybe about 1 1/2 cups long grain rice. The idea is that the stirring of the broth into the rice makes he rice creamy. When the rice is cooked to where its nice and soft and tastes real good, then just add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese and stir and stir until blended.

You can also pan sear about a 1/2 tsp of saffron in a cast iron pan and toast it a little and then grind it in a mortar and add to the rice mix for extra flavor.

PS - I save the dried mushroom stems and chop them up in a blender and use them for soups later.

Sneaking Chocolate

I have become a great liar. My Dad came into the kitchen as I was biting into a piece of chocolate my sister brought back from Ithaca. He came into the kitchen and asked if I was eating chocolate and I told him...."no, I don't have any candy!" I hid the piece of chocolate under my tongue and shook my head. He kept asking if it was candy and I kept saying "no".

The chocolate was an expensive piece of candy. They are called truffles and are hand made. My Dad eats sweets almost exclusively now. Its the last taste that he really understands. Sweet according to Michael Pollan is the most primeval taste that we as humans understand. Sweet means the food is good to eat. The savory and tart tastes are acquired with time. My Dad no longer eats food that has more complex tastes like a quiche Lorraine or even shepherds pie. He only really likes ice cream, cookies and pie.

I wasn't about to waste the expensive chocolate on someone who can't understand the difference between a Twinkie and a truffle. So I kept shaking my head like a fool and saying "No, there is no candy around". I felt like a fool.

Bran Muffins

This morning we made bran muffins for breakfast. They have molasses, raisins, nuts, and honey in them to make a racehorse blush. But they have a great taste with coffee.

My sister Erika brought home this recipe from the midwest. When she was thinking about becoming a nurse, she began her career as a home-health caregiver and would bring these muffins to her elderly patients.


Bran Muffins:
(1 dozen muffins)

1/2 cup unprocessed bran
1/2 cup boiling water

Mix together in small bowl and let stand.


1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg slightly beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbs molassas

Mix these 4 ingredients in med mixing bowl and then add:

1 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cups raisins (I use white and dark raisins)
1/3 cup pecans or other nuts
the cooked bran cereal

Mix these ingredients together and then add:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup bran
1/14 tsp salt

Bake at 400 for about 20-25 minutes

Variations or additions:
a grated carrot
a grated apple
1/2 cup pumpkin

Sticky Rice Creations

Okay here is my entry into the sticky rice sculptor contest. That dirty little monkey , I'm just shocked, shocked at what he did!!

I used my recipe for Thai sticky rice that uses the heavy black glutinous rice. I have to soak it for 24 hours, then cook it in a slow cookerwith some coconut cream for another 12 hours, then blend it with eggs and coconut and bake it for 45 minutes or until set. Its very rich and is fun to mold into shapes.

Tomorrow I'll see if I can make a statue of my weimaraner Spencer using sticky rice.

This is a distinguished bunny who is about to deliver a great speech. He's so distinguished!

Planning the garden

I am missing the fresh vegetables from our garden. I'm one of those salad-eat'in ladies that looks at the salad offerings on a menu before anything else. This is the part of the winter where the salads get made with greens from scary places in California flatlands where the air is seasoned with bug sprays or even worse, chemically green Chilean fields.

I bought some hydroponic red-leaf lettuce while in Ithaca last week and its slightly better than the stuff we get from Wegmans or Sams but I'm still missing the lettuce and greens from the garden. There was still life in the leaves. These winter lettuces from far away have so little taste.

I've got so many ideas for this coming season. I think more ideas than I have time. Plus I'm not sure what's going to be happening with my father's health. But I've got to sit down and order seeds, think about where I'm going to plant them and if I'm going to have my farmers market canopy happening this coming summer.

I am going to try and get involved with Rep Eric Massa's re-election and hopefully protest the Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to fund their choice of candidates and buy their way into office. The Supreme Court never saw any of the Terminator movies I guess.

Dad sat down to breakfast and poured almost an entire pitcher of maple syrup into his coffee. I think its better to just feed him easy food like cold cereal and toast and not entrees that require condiments like maple syrup. He can't seem to put associated things together now. He can't find the cupboard or the container for the donuts we buy him anymore. Spencer points at the cupboard while drooling on the kitchen tiles to give him a hint but he doesn't get it.

My name is Clarise Precious Jones

..."

Bitch, can we change the
 subject?"

Precious the chicken loves to get her head in the trough. She loves fruit except citrus and lettuce ends. She's got a heart of gold for her eggs. ...until you put some applesauce mash in her trough and she forgets all about what she's doing.

Eggs In Everything

I had some leftover basmati rice so we made fried rice and used omlette strips in it for protein. I cooked the beaten eggs in a greased cast-iron skillet. I'd lightly fried some chopped fresh garlic and then poured in the beaten eggs and cooked them until they were hard set and then flipped them onto a board and cut them in thin strips.

Then I regreased the pan and fried a minced shallot, some green peppers, carrots and snow peas and then added the egg strips and some light soy sauce and a few shakes of hot sauce. The dish tasted great.

I finished the book "Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn" by Jamie Maslin. Iran sounds like a wonderful place to visit. The country has old castles and temples that go back centuries. They even have graffiti from soldiers at some ruins and fortifications that came, conquered and were later conquered by others. Now I am reading "Where Men Win Glory, the Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Kraukauer. The one Amazon reviewer says its a good story to read as fiction. I tried to read "Boots On The Ground" by his mom, Mary Tillman and it bogged down. I've always been interested in the Tillman story. He was so good looking. I first saw the story when I was contracting at the Boston Globe and his looks stopped me in my tracks. The mystery behind his death made his story all the more compelling. His father raised him to be confident in what he did. According to Kraukauer, he was over confident, something I know nothing about.

I Finally Made The Gelatin Salad!

I finally made a gelatin salad. I passed on all the gluey mayonnaise or whipped cream filled salads I remember when I was a kid. We had a neighbor lady who loved to make them for us. I would try to look excited when someone offered me a big glob of the stuff on a serving spoon. She often made green gelatin salads with green food coloring and pistachio flavored jello and then add some nuts and miniature marshmallows. How did I ever eat that stuff?

My gelatin salad is Virgin Mary cocktail. The swirls in the photo are from the Saran wrap I used to cover it while it set. I just put two packages of regular gelatin in with a bottle of V8 juice and added some chopped olives, onions and green peppers then added Worcester sauce, lime juice, a bit of salt and some cocktail sauce leftover from our Christmas party. I didn't have celary and that would have been good. The whole concoction is very good and tastes great along with a tossed salad and another squirt of lime juice. The taste adds new meaning to the phrase "I coulda had a V8!".

Spencer and I went for a short walk today because its just too cold to enjoy a good long hike. The chickens are still laying about 8 eggs out of 11 hens. Not bad for rookies. My Dad is still trying to assert authority with the wood stove. I've learned to just relax and let him put more wood on the fire with my assistance. He get angry so easily and its not worth it to argue with him. He can't really understand anymore why we get angry at him. He only reacts to my anger by using his voice which is much louder than my own. Better to declare a truce and just let him play in the woodbox for awhile and then shut it up when he's out of the room.

New England Chutney

We had some frozen cranberries we got from Sam's and never used them over the holidays. I never was a fan of relishes and preferred mustard or ketchup and chopped onions on my hot dogs when I was a kid.

There used to be a hot dog stand in Battery Park in Burlington, Vermont. They were well known for their hot dogs and after working all night as a waitress in South Burlington, we girls would all go there and have one with a Coke and hang around on Church Street.

Now I'm a big chutney aficionado. I love the sweet and sour taste of chutneys that are commonly made with mangoes and peaches. We made one with the cranberries and some apples as the main ingredients and added nuts and raisins to the sauce. The spices are exotic and a far cry from the dilled pickle chunks of the relishes I remember as a kid. We used cinnamon sticks, cloves, shallots, ginger and allspice in this one.

The chutneys make the dishes even prettier with their color. I like them now on everything including mashed potatoes, rice, over noodles, with chicken and fish, and sometimes on my toast in the morning.

Spencer has been limping lately. I think its time to take him to the vet and get him up-to-date with them.

Apple pie and coop re-construction

I browsed thru more of "Out of Vermont Kitchens" many desserts. The 1940's must have been a popular time for baking and making puddings and cakes. There are so many entries for various ice creams using lots of cream and eggs. My mother says that ice cream was a favorite in Montpelier where she and my Dad grew up. Sherbert also must have been a favorite of the day. Its funny not to see any ingrediants without the words "lowfat" or "fat-free" anywhere in any of the recipes. I'll have to try making ice cream. I was housesitting last fall for some freinds in Brooklyn and while there, they made me some homemade ice cream from a gadget they'd bought from L.L. Beans catalog and the stuff was great. A Ben & Jerry's dream that tasted like vanilla and butterscotch.

But we decided to be conventional for now and made a standard apple pie using some apples that needed to be cooked. My Mom pulled it from the oven and broke off the end piece but it tasted great despite the presentation flaw.

My Dad's moods seem to be very influenced by the weather and with the rain he becomes more agitated and requires more looking after and just plain watching. He loves to get into the firebox and move the burning wood around. He's still aware enough to understand what he is doing but there is no telling what he's thinking. Our days become more involved with just watching him.

The new chickens I bought a few days ago are doing well in their new home despite the new home being a low-rent version of the beautiful coop they came from. I tried to buy the coop but was too late but ended up with 10 laying hens. One of them, a big brahma was a pet of two little girls and she is like a big spoiled cat. She loves to be held and petted. Today I've got to figure out how to add some roosts for them to get on at night. The one I have is too small now. I've got to do some problem solving today.

Finding the switch

We spent last night trying to get Dad to go to bed instead of looking for a switch to shut off the jacuzzi. He couldn't figure out where the switch was even when we tried to explain that the switch was behind the door in the bathroom was the one. He was down stairs looking behind pictures on the wall trying to find the switch.

We had taken the ax away from him. We actually hid it, he found it and hid it himself from us and then forgot where it was. I spent awhile with him yesterday and found the ax and finally gave it to him. He began cutting the wood into small kindling wood that would burn in a few minutes. I've given up trying to explain anything to him. He can't seem to understand me anymore. He has flown into rages when we try to stop him from doing anything and that can be very tiring so now I avoid confrontation if possible.

My sister brought back some fancy chocolates from Ithaca yesterday and he wolfed them down like Hershey bars. Its very difficult to remember lately what he was like as a younger man. The disease changed his personality but there are bits and pieces of him from his more lucid days.

Pizza time

We made a deep dish pizza using a cast iron skillet last night.

Late last summer we hauled out our grill and spent the evening grilling pablano peppers and eggplant and froze them. We used straws to pull out the air from the freezer bags.

I stir fried and seasoned the frozen peppers and eggplants with shallots and garlic then spread it over the pre-baked crust. I added a little pesto we were trying to get rid of and some feta. Very rich but very good.

I got 6 more chickens yesterday. These are REAL chickens! Rhode Island reds, black Australorp and a big brahma mama who loves to cuddle in your lap. Henry the rooster was overjoyed and croaked "WOW!" when I put them in the coop with him and his mates. I'm getting 4 more later this week. They are so big he needs a saddle to fertilize them. The coop will be a bit crowded for a few months until the weather improves and we can re-design the space. Its cold and should help keep them warm. The 10 new hens will be sad after having to come down from the penthouse coop they came from. I keep apologizing to them like a good slumlord.

Channeling my best Cesar Milan

My mom said that Spencer snarled at Alanso on the couch today. She'd never seen him react like that before. So I wondered about it the rest of the afternoon. I am wondering if we are, saying this like Cesar Milan talks:
"Da dog iiz channeling your negativve energie". Da dog iz behaving like yer crazy daddy. Be carefullll and always channel possativvve en=er-zy!
So I gotta work on my positive energy.

Gelatin Salad Updated

I've been reading the different gelatin salads and frozen salads in the old cookbook. I remember these from my childhood. The sweet, glossy molded creations were engulfed in mayonnaise or real heavy whipped cream and contained frightening stuff like marachino cherries and food coloring. I remember viewing them from the table on holidays and someone saying as they scooped out a wobbly block of the mess and hovered it over my plate, "would you like to try some of Auntie Marge's wonderful lime mold??"

I guess we didn't eat as good as I thought we did. Michael Pollan, eat your words!

But I'm determined to have a go. I've found a few of them online and in my Mom's recipe collection that aren't quite so bad. One in particular is a mold made from tomato juice called a tomato aspic. Its just a bloody mary in a mold complete with worcetershire sauce and celery. This could be interesting.

Today my little sister is bravely coming up to watch Dad while Mom and I do some shopping and get away from his questions, orders and irrational statements for at least a few hours. We are having the VA help with home care soon and this will give us a much needed liberation. Other than that, we have a few glasses of chardonnay while making dinner.

Rigatoni's and tomato sauce and cheese

The cold weather outside makes "comfort food" almost a necissity. We made a batch of tomato sauce and combined some of the red sauce with rigatoni's and mozarrella. We just mixed the slightly underdone boiled noodles with the homemade sauce and covered the top with grated cheese and popped it into the oven for about 35 minutes. As easy as a peanut butter and fluff sandwich except you have to wait a little longer.

Dad had a bad day yesterday and kept asking continually for an ax to cut wood for the woodstove. He screams now when he wants something badly and I tend to holler back in anger. I hope I can overcome the anger and learn to rationally deal with someone who can't respond to my pleas for logic any longer. We kept telling him we didn't need an ax (which is hidden in the barn) but that never stopped him from imploring me to take him to the hardware store to get an ax. We were exhausted by the end of the day. Thank God for my yoga class at 5. I never realized how much chanting and calming stretch poses can help someone who is as tense as a clothespin.

I met an Indian woman at the class who told me there was an Asian market now in Horseheads that I'll be interested in visiting next time I'm out that way.

Finnian Haddie

Wegmans now has finnian haddie in its seafood department. My mom and I had it while we were backpacking thru Scotland and Ireland. I loved it. Its hard to find here but for some reason Wegmans found it. Its probably seasonal. We cooked it this time by lightly cooking it on a cast iron frying pan and then adding it to creamed potatoes. We combined it with a tossed salad.

I made Sticky rice pudding

I think it looks terrible but tastes great. Its simply black sticky rice. I got it in Ithaca at a Chinese market. They were selling it in bulk and I took enough for about two recipes to see if I liked it. We tried it earlier this summer and baked it as we usually do in Vermont. You bake puddings normally in the 60's growing up in Burlington. We had Jello puddings after school but the custard puddings were always served during our days as children in Burlington and South Burlington.

The sticky rice was almost a grain. I soaked it for about 24 hours and the water turned inky black. I strained it and put it in a crock pot with some coconut milk (about a cup), some toasted coconut, a 1/2 cup of brown sugar, a cube of butter, and a little salt.

I crock-potted it on low all night and left it to cool all day. (I took my time). I added about another cup of coconut milk and 3 eggs separated and combined into the mixture and baked it in slow oven in a buttered dish for about 45 minutes (until set). It was great. It looks terrible but tastes very exotic.

Out of Vermont Kitchens

I have decided to try some of the old recipes from an old cookbook I was given. Out of Vermont Kitchens was first published in 1930's and I have an a 1940's edition. There are lots of recipes with lots and lots of eggs, whole milk, evaporated milk, lard and butter. No non-fat, low-fat anywhere.

The recipes have a list of ingredients but have hidden ingredients embedded with the method.

I'll try a few recipes each week. I'm still leafing thru the cookbook and I'm coming up with alternates for both my health and thighs.

We baked Panettone a few days ago and I'm having some of it with coffee this morning.

We are going to try and re-create some old favorites

As a kid growing up in the 60's, I've decided I'm going to try and resurrect some of the dishes I remember from that era.

The first offering will be FROZEN SALADS. Yes..... frozen salads. A mixture of milk products, sugar, canned sweet fruit in heavy syrup and a few nuts.

Mom is calling some of her friends and relatives to find out how they made their offerings. I'm gonna finally find out about gelatine.

The weather is below zero. The chickens are laying a few eggs and I'm thinking about custard pies from the old Trask farm in Underhill VT. But we'll start with the custard pies.