Friends in art and pumpkin bread

Cleaners here yesterday, so I went off to do errands and stop in at the library. This is our own township library, not the one where I meet my knitting friends. 

I checked on the jigsaw puzzle lending area

All 500 pieces, about my speed. The lending period is three weeks though. I'm still only about two thirds through my parrot puzzle, after more like three months. 

But if I ever finish it and establish there are no missing pieces, I might donate it to the collection.

While I was there I visited the art gallery. Not being too humble about this -- I founded it, got the library director to join in, pushing for it back when this current library was being designed and built. 

I'd already established a commitment for the previous building that there would always be local art exhibits of serious artists, though the building was completed under a previous director and hadn't included a provision for art.

At that time I founded the artists group, which has undergone various forms and sizes and continues though I'm just a supporter now, encouraging today's exhibitors but not being active in the group.

I also wrote all the protocols for exhibiting, to avert future issues. These were familiar to me as a long time exhibitor and curator of art shows, and juried participant, but unfamiliar to the library director.  Anyone may apply to exhibit, not just the members of the artists group.

We established the art chat instead of an opening, so the artist could talk about their work, rather than just the usual food event where the art's lucky if anyone looks at it. 

That was over 25 years ago and I love to see how it still flourishes, largely because there's a gallery so no question of not using it, as well as the energy of local artists. Back when I had energy and exhibited, it was my home gallery and I was invited to do an annual solo show in whatever medium I was working in at the time.

Anyway the current exhibit is about art and peace, arrived at by consensus of the group, and I picked just my favorites from a strong show of 23 works,  to show you. As you see, a locally based self selecting unjuried group is producing some good work.

Located in the gallery in this building

One side 

Other side! Art Lee is a wonderful person, playful artist, good gardener and great supporter of other artists. I'm pretty sure I've seen him wearing this hat and shirt.

Nelly Kouzmina works in nuno felting which is how this work was made, fibers felted onto a background to create the image. 

These giclee prints by Terrance Cummings, are a way of showing how the dove, symbol of peace, can emerge from the helmet, symbol of war. 

Prayer flags in burlap with prayers and beliefs silk-screened on, by Mousumi Banerjee

Vimala Arunachalam's small oil, 5"x7" is also the header for the show statement. It depicts a first time grandfather holding the hand of his newborn grandchild.

Collage art by Elaine Rosenberg showing contrasts in color and form between anxiety and tranquillity, art bringing peace. 

Back home, the pumpkin wildly decorating the front step, came in because frost was expected last night 

So I cooked it and used half the oulp to make a pumpkin walnut loaf

I used the banana bread recipe, with one cup pumpkin replacing one cup banana pulp 

And since I do like yogurt cream cheese, I made a bit, just drained overnight in the fridge

Here's the resulting cheese, with whey for future soup making.

And

Here's breakfast, slice of seasonal pumpkin bread with a spread of yogurt cheese. I may go back for seconds.

Yesterday was also Textiles and Tea, but it would be blog overload to add that now. Also I wanted to tell some bird stories from petcare days, real avian characters. Another day!

Meanwhile here's what I like to remember

Happy day everyone! 

Photo AC 

Artisanal afternoon break

Scene: indoors, mid-afternoon, July, temp in mid nineties, feels even hotter, who cares, once it gets up there, might as well be 150f.
 

Break from morning at knitting group, afternoon home again, piecing.

Homemade everything: lemonade, whole wheat bread, yogurt cheese, apricot preserves. Puffick!

Friday breakfast chez Boud

Here's the set up for breakfast.

Tray in the offing, with pot of tea,  slice of fresh banana/ walnut/ raisin/chocolate bits cake, yogurt cheese ready to spread, the whey ready to freeze for soup.

Yogurt cheese is a favorite around here. Just strain yogurt overnight in cheesecloth lined strainer over a bowl, save the whey which drains out for lovely soup addition, use the cheese like cream cheese only better. It's tangy without that waxy feel of cream cheese.

Good any time but excellent on toast, banana bread, scones.

Yogurt cheese, ravioli, and Cooking for One

I thought you'd like to see the yogurt cheese complete.  And the whey that came off it.  

You'll notice that it's about half and half solid to liquid.  The whey is great in soup, and can go in any color soup without changing its appearance. I have Indian friends who add honey or sugar to this cheese, for a dessert type food, and other hardy souls who salt it.

So the ravioli came to be.  This is fun to do.  You will notice that if you use wonton wrappers instead of going the long route of making your own pasta, they are a bit translucent.  They do seal nicely, though, so you don't get any separating in the boiling water.

The filling was hot Italian sausage, browned, mixed with an egg, a helping of yogurt cheese, and a big shake of shredded Parmigiano.  I added no seasoning at all, since the sausage had plenty, and the yogurt cheese was tangy, the Parmigiano salty enough. 

Full disclosure on the sausage: I forgot to get them out of the freezer early enough, and they were still partly frozen when I sauteed them. So the skin wouldn't come off as planned, and I had to scrape the meat from it.  However, it made some very nice cooked skin with a bit of meat, which is now in the freezer in the chicken bone bag, to use in a future soup as flavoring. And I still had plenty of the meat for the ravioli filling.

This batch of filling made just under two dozen ravioli, most of which are in the freezer for the next time Handsome Son comes to dine.

Egg wash around each wrapper edge to help it seal, then a spoonful of filling in each, press down all around the edges, then turn each one over and press down again.  These get dropped into boiling water, just a few at a time so as not to lose the boiling point, and when they come to the surface give them just a minute before lifting them out to drain.

Cook's privilege, the first few.  Good without any sauce or anything.

I got the Cooking for One book, and recommend it to people who love meat, and have a budget for the more exciting seafood.  I don't, so it might not fit my kitchen, though I may yet find something, and she has some great ideas about how to keep using the same base in interesting and different ways.  

That way you don't have to eat the same meal over and over, always a good point for a single diner. I also like her assumption that you can be a good guest and host to yourself, enjoy the process of both cooking and dining. So definitely take a look at this one.

And here's a little afternoon tea, fresh hot biscuit with yogurt cheese spread, to accompany my reading.

Ravioli makings and yogurt cheese, thinking ahead

I've been browsing through The Splendid Table cookbooks, and suddenly thought of making ravioli.  Not from their books, in fact, just one of those tangential ideas that fly out from seemingly unrelated contexts. Haven't made them for ages.

So today I added wonton wrappers to the lineup of  hot Italian sausage already in the freezer for whatever it fits with, and whole milk plain yogurt, and a supply of eggs. I probably only need one egg, but it looked nice to display them all.

I've made my own pasta for ravioli, and it was good, but not enough to justify that much work at least not right now, before I've recovered from the Rustic Apple Tart.  So the wonton wrappers are a great substitute.  You use them for dumplings of various sorts, but for ravioli I find them good, too.  I do like cooking the sort of things you plunge into boiling water and wait till they emerge at the top.

And since it's a while since I made yogurt cheese, which I use in many places where cream or cream cheese or ricotta is listed, since I like it better, I set some up to go. Here's the whole container full, turned out into a cheesecloth-lined strainer set on a bowl to catch the whey.  This is whole milk, since I want that consistency for the ravioli particularly, but I've made it with nonfat, too, and it's fine but not as coherent as the whole milk version.

 
And here it's in the fridge till tomorrow, with a glass lid on, to drain slowly, to set up a nice cheese consistency ready to use.
 

Kept the original container for the whey which will feature in some future soup.

This is all very good, because it means I have to wait till tomorrow for the cheese to be ready for the ravioli caper, fine by me, I can read my mystery story, an Emma Lathen set in the Baltic,  instead of pounding about in the kitchen.  And have a cup of tea, too. Such larks.

Tomorrow I'll sizzle the Italian sausage, beat in the eggs and some cheese and various spices for the filling and go from there.  I'll probably freeze a bunch of them, since you can't make just a couple of ravioli.  And they can go with various sauces, but I think I'll make a red sauce this time.

Oh, and a postscript on the Rustic Apple Tart -- Handsome Son stopped in for a cup of tea and a healthy hunk of the tart.  I whined at great length about the complications, multiple tools, and various other things and whether it was worth it really.  

He listened patiently, so tactful, don't know where he gets it from, certainly not from his parents, and said, well, it was worth it, how soon will you make it again?  Oh.  So I undertook to do it for some future special occasion.   

Speaking of which, Carol G., a friend in stitching and a blogista, mentioned a great cookbook she, herself a seriously good cook, swears by, The Pleasure of Cooking for One.  So I've put it on request at the libe, and will no doubt have some adventures with it for your future reading pleasure.

Finally food in my life again

Been a while, but now I'm up to cooking, baking, eating and generally having a food involved life.  And walking my full walk, yay.

Simple is best for my taste.  

Here, yogurt cheese (just yogurt strained, the solids make a wonderful cheese, like cream cheese but tangy, and the whey is saved for soup) mixed with fresh cut chives.  Great combo. 

And the dinner rolls can be split and yogurt cheese spread inside.  Wonderful snack.  The rolls are just from the regular bread recipe, just pull off roll size dough pieces, handle them a bit to get the shape, sticky work even with floured hands, then bake in hot oven.  I took a guess and did them at 450 F for 20 minutes, and they're fine.  Mostly whole wheat with about one third or less unbleached white. Then I baked the rest of the recipe as one big loaf, to slice and freeze.

The planting out front is now DONE.  Massive labor to get the dead pachysandra mainly out.  The trouble was that there was a big live root base under ground, and nothing on top to pull.  So I ended up using a small saw, sawing in squares , through the roots, then peeling it back.  Like cutting turf, but harder work.  I tossed some of the turfs behind shrubs where they can regrow and not be seen looking unsightly, and now have better earth to work with. I'll be able to replant daffodils around this area in fall, my old river of daffodils having been crushed to oblivion during the reno work.

It doesn't look glam at the moment, but once the plants take hold and get used to their homes, it will fill out, some pachysandra will return, try and stop it, and it will look very good.  That daylily you see, moved from the back patio where it was being crowded, will expand to use all that open space you see around her.

After my unsuccessful trip to the nursery for perennials, I decided to shop in the garden instead.  Transplanted some purple and white heirloom iris that needed to be moved, and some daylilies.  With a small chrysanthemum and K's daisies, it will look just fine in a while.  The daisies are back there, left of the Russian sage, which survived handily. And it no longer looks like some alien creature stomped about.

My neighbor keeps wanting to help, not realizing that the labor of gardening is what makes it fun. I love that I can dig and haul and toss and plant for myself.  At his garden, I just point and suggest, at his invitation, and he digs and hauls and so on.  But in mine I like to be the laborer. 

And in the course of gardening, you come across some wonderful natural designs like this one, snail shell on the old wood bench.

 

Ice conditions require baking

Since the first half of the day was about ice and snow and freezing rain, it seemed like a good day to decide to be active indoors. Particularly since my neighbor brushed off my sidewalk, steps, and car before he took off for the day. 

I caught up on baking, both wholewheat bread and banana bread, and took out the yogurt cheese I'd had draining in the fridge for a couple of days.

The bread is from the Healthy Bread book, except that I change up the flour often.  You need 7.5 cups for this recipe, makes four sturdy loaves. Today I used 4 wholewheat, two all purpose and one and a half oatmeal. Cups, that is. I left the oatmeal as whole flakes, interesting to eat, rather than grind into flour.

The banana bread, baked in my trusty castiron baking dish, worked well.  I like to add stuff in to the basic recipe, today golden raisins and crushed walnuts. When I've used golden raisins I've been dusting them in the flour first, so they won't sink in the cake.  But they hung onto the flour, and tasted okay but didn't look so pretty.

So this time I mixed them into the mashed bananas, sugar and egg, beat them all together, then added in the flour, baking soda and salt whisked together.  Baked about an hour at 325F.  Worked a treat. They blend very well. So this is how I plan to do it from now on.

Then put up the oven heat to 450F for the bread, and baked that, in the usual nonstick casserole dish, about an hour.  I bake in the same dish I mix it in, works nicely.

I had put some whole milk yogurt, Dannon my favorite, probably because it was what I ate all the time as an au pair in France long ago, up for cheese a couple of days ago.  

This is where you turn the whole big container into a cheesecloth-lined strainer, sitting on a bowl.  Cover it, sit in the fridge for a day or two, so the whey strains out.  Then the solids make a lovely cream cheese.  I use it everywhere you might spread butter or cream cheese, and it's tangy and more interesting than either of them.  The whey is now in the freezer ready to use in soup.

Perfect for afternoon tea, as here.  As I picked up the tray to carry it through, the fork flew off across the room with a clatter.  I'd never get a job at the Ritz at this rate.

You did know that afternoon tea is what they serve at posh UK places to visitors? that's the name. It's not high tea, that's a kind of workman's supper deal, a knife and fork meal you come home from work to, involving meat and other stuff.  Poor man's dinner. So now you know.  And if you see establishments advertising high tea, you know they don't know their onions. Or their afternoon tea. The food might be good, though, so try it anyway.

So today's baking yield will go, some across the street to Rajiv, who is a keen fan of banana bread, some for Handsome Son, some for me. The bread, a couple of slices of lovely crusty stuff to neighbor for tomorrow's breakfast, to substitute for those "English muffins" he buys.  They remind me of hockey pucks, no matter how much jam you put on them.  

And since banana bread has bread in its name, I might have some toasted for breakfast, too. The bread police are out brushing off cars.

Behind the Scenes Chez Liz, Kitchen, that Iz

First full day at home, and it's cold and rainy, so since I'm out of bread and yogurt and fully stocked with vegetables, it seemed inevitable that, between bouts of stitching, see Art the Beautiful for that update, I would make soup and bread and yogurt.

The bread is what you might call artisanal, or peasant, or something I just call it bread.  The flours are white wholewheat, homeground split pea flour and homeground oat flour.  Very sturdy!

The yogurt, which you see well, you don't, since it's in this mysterious wrapping, the aluminum coat thing, and it's held in place by the handle of my hand mixer. 

Inside there is a saucepan, lidded, with about a quart of milk, scalded, cooled, yogurt starter added, and which will sit quietly fermenting for seven hours before it's ready to fridge and leave to go cold before eating.  And I'll make another batch of yogurt cheese.  The starter was the very last of the yogurt cheese of last week.

The soup is cabbage, acorn squash and zucchini,  with basil pesto, several curry leaves, turmeric, salt, black pepper and the liquid, aside from what was already there in the vegetables, is yogurt whey, from a previous making of yogurt cheese.  It does terrific things for flavor in vegetable soups.  It's currently in the freezer.

And here is the treasure chest of frozen goods, pesto in bags on the right, soup in bowls all over the place, and in bags slipped down on the left along with spaghetti sauce and tomato paste, various spices and garlic and breadcrumbs in the door, loads of frozen vegetables ready for maintaining me over the winter.  This is after I took out several bags of vegetables for the soup!

There's another lot next door in a friend's freezer, too, but I'm too lazy to go out in the rain and organize that area in order to open it and show you.  However the state of my freezer shows you the situation which gives rise to the occasional avalanche.

Off for a healthy walk in the rain in a little while, can't stay in the house for long without needing to move a bit.

Zucchini Sticks Bake for a cold windy day

Today was a good time to make a baked item, warming the house as well as the food, still with the bitter high winds and low temps, so it was a zucchini stick bake.

Sauteed shallots, along with some clipped dried kombu, that's a seaweed type of vegetable, with fresh ground allspice, turmeric, pinch of kosher salt, till all nicely browned, then added in a batch of zucchini sticks from the freezer (nuked them a couple of minutes first).

While this was going on, I beat up an egg with a few ounces of one per cent milk and a few chunks of sharp cheddar.

At 385F  I baked this, the veggies in a glass dish, the egg mix poured over, for about 20 minutes.  Two meals for me. 

Dessert was the last of the apple crumble with a topping of yogurt cheese, eaten too fast for pix, sorry!

The Kitchen as Therapy Center

This evening is the monthly Board meeting of my embroidery guild, and we're really up against our demographics.  What with our aging membership, though we have received joyfully a couple of younger members, most people are either not able to drive at night, or are not very well themselves, or are caregiving a spouse.

All this really cuts into their ability to take part, even with the best will in the world, and they definitely have that.  Currently our doughty Nominating Committee, founder members of the group, in fact, are trying to assemble a slate of incoming officers to replace the terms ending in December.  My term as president is one of them.  And other people are struggling with their tasks, for the reasons I said above, and might not be able to succeed themselves for another term. Sooooo, what will be will be.  

We are still wonderfully productive -- trip to Winterthur on Sunday in place of the usual general meeting, Holiday Party in December, special exhibit open in a private home for us in January, your humble blogwriter teaching paper jewelry in February and on and on, exhibit of all our work in August, all set up.  And we've done great outreach, teaching classes to kids, public stitch ins, all that.

But fewer people available to fill the needs, so everyone's stretched thinner, so we'll see what happens.  

Meanwhile I've been staving off sad thoughts by a massive burst of activity in the kitchen.  I made yogurt last evening, and owing to a lack of planning on my part, had to stay up till midnight before I could put it in the fridge, didn't add seven hours to the equation, doh, then this morning made about half of it into yogurt cheese, currently draining in the fridge, and the rest in individual containers just to eat.  The texture is really lovely, using one per cent milk.  

And I use yogurt in many places where heavy cream might be used, and the cheese where cream cheese might come in.  It's tangy and very good.  And the whey that comes off the cheese making goes into squash and other golden colored soups, sparks them up lovely.

Tomorrow night Handsome Son is coming over to do various good things for me in the house, and I'll feed him a very nice menu.  He doesn't read much in here, so I won't spoil the surprise if I say he's getting a bowl of squash/cabbage/tomato soup which had yogurt whey added and is great, beautiful reddish gold color,  then corn fritters, adding in some finely chopped sweet pepper, using my lovely farm corn and peppers from the freezer, no pic yet, I'll make them tomorrow night, and then a helping of the oat apple crumble, which I talk about below.  I think he'll go home happy.

And this morning I made toasted almond flour, from a box of slivered almonds I toasted five minutes at 350F, then once all cool, reduced to flour, or to ground almonds, in my coffee mill.  Useful for anywhere a nice almond flour is required.  Pancakes.  Cake. Desserts.

Also made Martha's really good oat apple crumble, which took all my this week's supply of apples, and some of my homeground oat flour, now here's one I don't mind referring you to the recipe for, since it's really good.  It looks like this:

and if you fancy making it, go here 

So food is good in many ways, for your spirit as well as your general health!  I like very much making basic things such as yogurt and flour and soup, all that sort of thing.  Too bad I don't have a setup for making wine..

Apple Jam, with the assistance of Dolliver Dreads and her little friend

Having a farmshare, only two more weeks to go, twenty six weeks of great produce, definitely pushes you to new levels of vegetable and fruit prep and eating.  The apple crop this year is amazing, at least three different varieties, all huge and perfect fruit, literally handpicked.  The farm family are proud of their new bit of equipment allowing their picker to get the fruit a bit faster, but it's still one individual working up in the trees.

So, all the squash being roasted, stirfried, made into soup, made into bread, baked, made into french fries, that was the squash scene.  And a ton of green vegetables, which will make great stir fries and soup and bread eventually. And the apples have been: applesauce, apple salad tossed with a bit of mayonnaise, no need to get all carried away,  various forms of crumble, and now I made apple jam. Not jelly, jam.

Caramel apple jam,to be exact, with the assistance of Dreads Dolliver and her little friend, who wouldn't tell me her name.  The pix are still firmly stuck in my camera, and you should have heard their screams of rage, after all their work, slaving over a hot jam pot, before they flounced off back to their shelf, but I hope to reveal the pix and their hard work when a new camera comes into my life soon...

Meanwhile, this week's apple share made exactly six cups of cubed apple, just what the recipe ordered, and we'll see how it goes. Very sweet, I'm guessing, judging from all the brown sugar. And it used up the last of this year's pectin supply.  So I hope it works.

Other experiments: I made yogurt cheese from my homemade yogurt and it's really good.  I got about a cup of whey off it, so that's in the freezer for next time I make a squash/sweet potato/pumpkin soup, whichever happens first.

I tried out the cheese, just a bit spread on, on top of a helping of crumble from the freezer.  I must say that time and freezing improved that anonymous crumble considerably.  The y. cheese was good on top, cut the sweetness.

So that's your low tech blogger sighing and sadly waving goodbye to my loyal old Coolpix cameras, faithful to the end, not their fault their software got old and unsupported.  Don't we all....