Batter-Splattered

Yay for sunny early summer days

I spent this one loafing in the yard reading a book all day.

 

 

 

the return of light

Late-February... god bless it. It's when daylight starts pouring back into my life after a few cold, dark months of Arctic darky-darkness.

I celebrated today by wandering around the house snapping photos here and there, glad to be able to capture a little natural light INSIDE the house, rather than only out on the front porch rail from 2 to 2:15 pm.

Valentine's flowers on the kitchen table, fruit, and a new-to-me vintage linen tablecloth I found the other day at the blue thrift store in Anchorage, and the little gold wooden kitchen angel that usually hangs from a cabinet door knob until my husband accidentally breaks the twine it hangs on and sends it flying across the kitchen.

This plant doesn't seem to mind the lack of daylight. It keeps popping out one new shoot after another. February's way too early to yearn for the lush green warmth of summer so instead I fixate on the light and all the green indoors.

These are the fainty-est plants ever. We always kill them. One second they're fine, not begging for a drink or anything and then all the sudden they're dead. But I keep buying them because I think the veins are so pretty.

Hyacinth bulbs, all bloomed and spent. Sometimes the bulbs pop right out of the soil and I find them laying on the windowsill.

 

Can't wait for March.
 

autumnal

Celebrating fall with a new bristly doormat on the front porch, pretty and plaid in my favorite colors, from the sale shelf at Target (yes, Siri -- we have a Target AND a Banana Republic here! but no Williams-Sonoma or Trader Joes, boohoo).

Paperwhites sprouting on the windowsill.

A grassy wreath for the front door.

 

 A new banner image of frosty berries, taken (and eaten!) on a recent hike.

And corn and pepper orzo in our bellies.

 

There was scampi too alongside it but we snarfled that down before any photographic evidence could be taken. You understand. A half pound of shrimp per person can disappear lickety-split.

Corn and Pepper Orzo

Serves six

3/4 cup uncooked orzo pasta

1 large sweet red pepper, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups frozen corn

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, or toss together some dried basil, thyme, marjoram, oregano, and rosemary

Salt & pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet heat the olive oil, then saute red pepper and onion in oil for 2 minutes. Add the corn, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper; cook and stir until vegetables are tender. Drain pasta; stir into the pan. 

i have a thing for large elbows

 

Every now and then I hop over to Apartment Therapy's Kitchn site and catch up on what I've missed. Love that site (although it seems like every link I click on lately takes me to an Amana ad -- annoying).

Today I'm wondering what's with all the white kitchens lately? They're pretty and all but where's the individuality and personality? Seems like everyone does the same thing all at the same time. Such is life, I suppose. I was watching House Hunters International the other day and lemme tell you, you could center a drinking game around taking a shot every time a homebuyer says what they're really looking for is granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. I envision all the hgtv home decorating shows ten years from now, filled with fickle designers declaring that the first thing that has to go is all this outdated granite and stainless steel.

On the opposite end of the color vs. no-color scheme, did you see Kitchn's feature on Edna St. Vincent Millay's 1949 kitchen makeover? I like the New Yorker's comment on the 'eerie slideshow' of before and after photos, and their hinting that the ever-so-1950's aqua blue and salmon-colored kitchen might have driven Edna to her untimely death. I like the kitchen, but being a devoted Edna fan I just can't picture her sitting there over a cup of coffee in the morning -- she was more of a white walls / dark wood kind of a gal in my mind.

So not only did Kitchn have me pondering color and the lack thereof, I also found a delectable looking recipe for easy homemade mac and cheese.

 

Looking at the photo above has me thinking that orange and terra cotta would be lovely colors for a kitchen, no? So there you go, comfort food and a color palette all rolled into one.

I added chopped roasted red bell peppers to mine, a nice touch I thought, but it set my husband to sulking because he's one of those who don't like any 'stuff' in their mac and cheese, unlike me -- I add peas, chopped prosciutto, chili seasonings... I never seem to have powdered mustard when I need some so I just stirred in a little bit of whole-grain dijon mustard.

Easy Homemade Macaroni and Cheese
Serves 4 - 6

1 pound pasta, any shape
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2-3 cups shredded cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon powdered mustard
Optional extras (cook before adding): Ham, bacon, onions, peas, mushrooms, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower

Bring a large amount of water to a boil. Add a handful of salt and the pasta. Cook until the pasta is al dente. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, begin heating 1 cup of milk over medium heat. Whisk together the remaining 1/2 cup of milk and the flour until there are no lumps. Whisk this into the heating milk and continue whisking gently until the milk thickens to the consistency of heavy cream.

Turn the heat to low and add the 2 cups of the cheese, salt, and mustard. Using a wooden spoon, stir until all the cheese is melted and the sauce is creamy. Taste and add more cheese or adjust the seasonings as desired.

In a large bowl, combine the pasta, any extras, and half of the cheese sauce. Continue adding cheese sauce until the pasta is as coated as you like it. Serve immediately while still warm.

Variation: You can also bake this into a casserole. Heat the oven to 350°. Pour the macaroni and cheese into a baking dish, cover with a lid or foil, and bake for a half an hour. Remove the covering, sprinkle with breadcrumbs if desired, and bake uncovered for another 15 - 20 minutes, until the top is golden and the interior is bubbly.

what a weekend! / split pea soup

What a weekend!

Four days long! It's discouraging to think that the coming week will bring with it FIVE days of work followed by only TWO days off. My holiday self is simply not used to such a grueling schedule. It's enough to make one want to stay home for another four days but then one comes to the realization that if one wants a house to wile away four days in, one better drag one's ass to work and earn some money.

But back to that weekend...

It began with three of us in a car, wandering aimlessly in a neighborhood where a new year's eve party was being held but none of us had the forethought to print the map with the address. We just drove around and around till we spotted someone else invited to the party but then we realized that he too was mapless and wandering aimlessly just like us. We shouted and pointed from the warmth of the car, telling him, "Go knock on that door now!"

It was cold. So cold that the pipes froze at my parent's house. Twice.

So cold that the pipes at Sears froze, flooded part of the store, and shut down their cash registers. As I wandered the Lands End niche (the store now has this little niche devoted just to Lands End clothing) loading up on winter clearance stuff, a salesgirl walked up and said: "You can't buy that, you know. Our registers are down."

I wanted to say: But you have garishly printed flannel jammy pants for $7! 

I'm a sucker for the garishly-printed jammy pants. Even better is the puffy down vest, perfect for concealing any chub that may have accumulated around your middle from too much holiday dining.

In the niche they have this lovely sofa and two comfy armchairs, and in the sofa, one very sleepy homeless drunk man had made himself at home. The manager was there, by turns pleading with the man to leave (his response? "NO.") and calling anyone and everyone he could think of to come and remove the homeless drunk man. But really now: put out a lovely sofa and two comfy armchairs in your store in midtown and you're bound to attract people who make themselves at home.

I watched Grey Gardens (how could I have never heard of this before?) and Man on Wire (during which I told the husband, "No, they're not fruity. They're French").

I took three very cold, rompy and stompy walks with the dog.

I made bath salts and bath bombs. You gotta love a crafty activity that, when you mention it to your husband and ask him if he knows where one can purchase citric acid to stir into baking soda, he tells you: "Please. Just don't blow up the house." I'm perfecting my salts and bombs -- now there's an activity I can get into. Taking one hot research-and-development bath after another.

I had the boars head platter, Irish cider, and the Amsterdammer at Cafe Amsterdam.

I wandered the new civic center for awhile. We were supposed to be celebrating 50 years of Alaska statehood but remarkably little was going on there. Just a whole lot of people going up and up and up on the many escalators, only to come down, down, down. Oh and then you could get your photo snapped in front of the cauldron. There was nary a bonfire in sight, and that was what I went in search of in the first place.

I straightened the house from top to bottom, beginning with the taking-down-of-the Christmas-tree and the boxing-up-of-all-the-Christmas-stuff, middling with me nearly having a nervous breakdown because it was all so messy, so very messy, in that way where it's always the messiest right before it gets clean, and ending with peaceful cleanliness, complete with lighted paper lanterns being strung and draped over the curtain rod in the guest room. So pretty.

We just had a very tasty, wintery dinner of moose steaks marinated in mesquite seasoning, roasted cauliflower, and roasted fingerling potatoes.

And the other night I made good use of the ham bone leftover from Christmas dinner and made a lovely and very easy split pea soup. That was the night of the near nervous breakdown, so I think I call this my Hissy Fit Curing Split Pea Soup Recipe.

It tastes even better the next day, and still better the day after that.

Hissy Fit Curing Split Pea Soup

Serves four

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped carrots

1.5 cups of cubed ham

1 one-pound or so ham bone, leftover from ham dinner, or some smoked pork hocks 

1 t dried thyme

1 t dried leaf marjoram

1 1/2 cups green split peas

4 cups chicken broth

Heat oil in a heavy large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, celery and carrots. Sauté until vegetables begin to soften, about 8 minutes. Add pork, thyme, and marjoram; stir 1 minute. Add peas, then broth. Bring to boil then reduce heat to medium-low. Partially cover the pot and simmer until peas are tender, stirring often, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Transfer hambone to bowl. Puree 5 cups soup in batches in blender, or use an immersion blender to blend to desired smoothness. Add diced pork to soup. Season with salt and pepper.  

busy as a bee

 

{oranges at Christmas-time always strike me as being so elegant. and look at that monkeywood wrap-around wooden bowl I got at a thrift shop on Friday night and filled with candy post-haste}

I had high hopes for today -- it was supposed to be an orgy of Christmas decorating and cookie baking and decorating and jelly-making and gift-wrapping and Target shopping and...

Makes ya tired just reading it, huh?

Me too.

I was fueled by a day-long marathon of Christmas decorating shows playing in the background on hgtv  -- not that I ever sat down to watch anything but whenever I heard something particularly tempting, I'd drop what I was doing to run over and feast my eyes -- Christmas in New Orleans! On Mackinac Island! (both places near and dear to my heart) in Durango, Colorado! In Woodstock! Fake snow in Los Angeles! Gingerbread houses!

It's 8 pm now on Sunday evening and I have to go back to work tomorrow (I need a weekend to recover from my weekend) and I was feeling a little disappointed by the day's activities, a bit dismayed by the mess (so, so messy), and I was a might faint from my busy-ness. But then I looked at the photos I snapped today and cheese and grits! I got alot accomplished today.

I stopped to admire the sunshine in the backyard -- the sun is hanging so low in the sky now that it dips behind the house, leaving most of the backyard in shadow.

What a beautiful two days!

I strung a bunch of popcorn and cranberries and wrapped the garlands around the porch railing for the birds to peck away at:

 

It was so cold outside (about 10 below) that I had to stop three times to come inside and warm up my fingers. A wiser woman would have worn gloves but I needed bare hands to knot all those strings of popcorn together. Then I added a wreath and those skates I told you about yesterday.

 

I snip-snip-snipped some icicle-y paper trim for the hutch:

 

Papercrafts are so brilliant. That blue and white cream pitcher and sugar bowl are a new addition to the junk in the hutch -- I got them on Saturday at a thrift shop along with a set of canisters and a woven straw basket made by hand in the USSR in 1992. I should have taken a photo of that.

I polished off the rest of the bread that came in a big gift basket from a friend:

 

I boxed up a whole lot of presents and got them all ready for mailing and then I cursed the fact that we don't have a 24 hour post office here in the valley the way they do in Anchorage. Because if we had one, I would have sent the husband off to dispatch all those boxes. I told him that and he thanked GOD there was no such post office within an hour's drive.

Oh and I made 17 jars of jelly for gift-giving.

I don't know what came over me. I think I even vacuumed. Ordinarily I'm not nearly this energetic but last year, I didn't get much of anything done as far as Christmas goes. I'd just moved into this house and the moving-in sapped my strength. I've got, like, two year's worth of merry-making to do.

And last but not least, I made these:

They're the peppermint chocolate cookies I told you about yesterday. They're chocolate-y, they're dense (no baking soda or powder for rising), they're festive, they're pretty, they go well alongside a shot of whiskey (but what doesn't?).

You need some of these cookies.

Peppermint Chocolate Cookies

by Racheal Ray

1 1/2 stick (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 pinch salt
Two 3.5 -ounce bars dark chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
2/3 cup finely crushed peppermint candy canes or candies

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until soft. With the mixer on low, gradually add the confectioners’ sugar until creamy, then beat in the egg. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa and salt; add to the mixer about one-third at a time, beating at low speed until smooth.

2. Lay a 16-inch sheet of parchment paper on a work surface; turn out the dough onto the paper. Using your hands, shape the dough into a 12-inch-long cylinder; wrap tightly in the parchment and roll into a smooth, even log. Twist the ends to seal and refrigerate for 30 minutes; reshape the cylinder and refrigerate for 30 minutes more.

3. Preheat the oven to 350°; line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Unwrap the dough; using a sharp knife, slice into 1/3-inch-thick rounds. Place about 1 inch apart on the cookie sheets; bake until firm, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool completely.

4. In a bowl, combine two-thirds of the chopped chocolate with the oil; microwave for 30 seconds, then stir until smooth. (If needed, heat for additional 10-second intervals.) Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate until smooth.

5. Using an offset spatula, spread a scant teaspoon of melted chocolate on top of each cookie. Sprinkle the peppermints on top and let stand until set, 2 to 3 hours.