So today being a late winter day, and the mood being a bit meh, I thought it would be good to do some action here at home.
Watch this space. Here's this year's potato crop-to-be. A bit early, but we'll see. I planted a small potato from the store which is already sprouting, and if previous years are anything to go by, eventually I'll have a nice little harvest of new potatoes. And you'll see in the little black planter behind this one, the new shoots of chives coming through. I already sampled them. Spring tonic!
And here's a great idea. You know how, if you shop online, you get all these boxes, really upsetting, because you've now got more to recycle, or if that's difficult, toss. I hate this. Wasteful. Need to at least give them another use. And I recently found out about this new idea. The GiveBack Box.
The way it works: when you get your, say, Amazon, box of stuff, you repack the now empty box with items you want to give away to a local thriftie or other charity. You download and print out the mailing label, postage paid if in US, and you ship it off out. When you sign up, which is easy, you give your email and your zipcode. This enables the participating firms and charities to direct your box to the nearest participating agency.
You can go to https://givebackbox.com/worksDetail
to find out more. I'm trying this out right now. It will work for everything that isn't fragile, which I will continue to ferry to the thriftie, not much of a hardship, since I usually cruise around there while I'm at it. But this will keep my car off the road a bit more, good for the air quality.
This may only work in the US right now, but it's a good idea, and maybe it does happen in other blogista countries too.
As with a lot of neighborhoods, winter, even in a friendly place like mine, is when you rarely see the neighbors. Nobody's outside having a nice chat and swopping cuttings and gossip. The news everywhere is terrible, and I can only do so much activism. It's not so fun.
But comfort food does help. I have a go-to soup that's easy to make, makes a lot, and never fails me. It's just mixed vegetables. One big can of diced tomatoes (in season it would be fresh, but oh well), two or three cans of different sorts of beans, big chunk of parmesan cheese rind, garlic, onions, basil pesto, tomato paste, bit of curry powder, salt, chicken broth. No recipe, really, just follow usual procedure for soup. It's great, makes a lot if you want to, and you can freeze it. This week it's cannellini and pink beans. I like to use the stick blender toward the end just to break down enough to have a nice texture.
And it's good now and then to have a simple chocolate cake. This is just that one everyone has, named crazy cake or something like that, I don't like that name, maybe we could call it easy chocolate cake, very simple stuff. Just flour, vanilla essence, cocoa powder, oil, baking soda, salt, warm water. I add in half a cup of crushed walnuts. And finish it with a water icing of cocoa powder and confectioner's sugar, water. Note the cook has already tested this one.
With the compliments of my local Asian Store
Happy New Year! and to all the dogs in our blogista households, this is your year, fellers! First Westminster, now this.
Another Westminster, and this year NameMe, the wrangler of the Dolliver Kennels, assembled the Irish Setter, Wire Haired Terrier and Whippet to announce our new winner.
Meet GCH Dolliver Kennels Bunchafluff Bichon Frise, kennel name Fluffy, Best in Show at Westminster, Dolliver Kennel Division, 2018.
Again we have a winner onsite, and NameMe says I knew he was a winner back when he was just a little bit of lint. And now look at him. Great partying tonight chez Dolliver Kennels.
So today being Shrove Tuesday, as well as Day Two of Westminster, the dog show, that is, there was quite a mob in the kitchen, the Dollivers all crowding in to take part in the Making of the Apple Pancakes,
and the purebreds of the Dolliver Kennels being restrained by wrangler NameMe, from diving into the batter and helping. The dogs are plaintive about not getting their due lately, so we let them in here.
The recipe is from the Durham Cathedral Library collection of manuscripts, and is comparatively recent as these things go, from the eighteenth century. So, since Durham Cathedral is part of my home territory, it seemed good to celebrate that as well as the day.
The tradition dates from the custom of fasting during Lent, which starts tomorrow, and required that you use up all your eggs and butter ahead of time. Pancakes are the result. Mine will go with honey, not with the traditional lemon and sugar, though, except maybe I'll do one with lemon and sugar, just to be friendly.
This uses apple slices, and since I seem to be on an apple thing these days, I made the apple frittery type pancakes. They were pretty edible, but not pretty enough for prime time. I'm currently baking the rest of the batter and the apples as a clafoutis.
Also reseasoning the two bigger cast iron pans which have developed a couple of hotspots. This accounts for the less than pretty pancakes, and requires scrubbing with kosher salt, rinsing, baking dry in the oven, then oiling. Then hoping the seasoning will hold up. I don't use the two bigger ones as often as the baking dish and the little egg pan, and they do like to be used a lot, so that's probably what's up.
So they're baking along with the clafoutis. This is getting perilously close to those hairbrained ideas about poaching salmon in the dishwasher, or sizzling steak on the hot engine of your car..
So I needed a little something to go with afternoon tea, and decided to go with Elizabeth Barbone's paleo cookies. Not sure why they're called this, since I doubt if the ingredients were available to paleo people, but never mind.
If you want to try them, go here
Of course, I didn't follow the directions, largely because I didn't have a couple of the four (!) ingredients in the house. And since it's sleeting, and icing and snowing and inventiveness is better than getting frozen and wet, I looked around.
Not enough almonds available to make 1.5 cups of ground almonds, so I used part almonds and the rest walnuts. Ground them in the coffee mill. I never buy the ready ground flour, astronomically expensive. I don't grind them all the way to flour, since there's a hairsbreadth between getting flour and getting nut butter, so I leave it a bit coarse, fine for cookies.
And I didn't have maple syrup, so I used jaggery, the Western version, which is molasses half and half with honey. Lovely organic molasses and excellent pure wildflower honey.
And here they are. This is one of those recipes where they say you can get more cookies than I actually did out of the ingredients. But they look okay to me, and they're ready to show up with their pot of tea in due course.
The vet's office sent their condolence card, complete with pawprints, and signatures and wishes from everyone in the office. This was beautiful, and the pawprints just about did me in.
Not my usual style, but so lovingly done, who could resist.
Update on Duncan: he seems to be seizing the day and attaching himself to me at all times, being an only cat. Eating just fine, too. So perhaps he's handling it okay.
White Rabbits! Suddenly it's February. Yesterday I noticed that it was after 5.30 p.m. and still not dark. That crept up.
And yesterday the catkins I brought in to force broke out and here they are, all ready for the month. Tomorrow's Candlemas, when you start chucking away candles, always thought that a bit premature, but there you go.
