Not Easily Broken

Sure Do Love Those Christmas Cookies, Babe...

Yay! One more day of school and we are on Christmas break!!  Clayton will be finished tomorrow after one more final exam.  We are excited to get extended time with him as he has been soooo busy studying.  He often leaves before everyone but me is up, and then comes home after everyone but me is down.  So even though he has been living at home and commuting to UW this year, he is not home very often.  Needless to say, his younger brothers and sisters are looking forward to spending time with him. And so is his banjo!

We have a lot of Christmas cookie baking to do!  Here's a Christmas cookie recipe that has become a new favorite for us.  It is from my favorite Christmas cookie book, Christmas Cookie Jar  from Gooseberry Patch.  I made extra dough and was storing it in the frig when I noticed the lid was always open.  Hmmmm.  I always make sure lids are secure...why was the lid open? 

 When I looked in the container, I could see many finger swipes where someone was tasting the dough.  I was able to squeeze out a few reluctant confessions, but not without some pressure.  I was glad for the confessions, but annoyed because with all the activities and gift plates that require cookies, I am feeling the pressure to provide.  If all my dough gets eaten, I have no cookies to share.  So with a firm rebuke, I told the tasters to "Stop it!"  and with some passion. 

A few hours later, Clayton came home uncharacteristically early and was chatting amicably with his brothers.  At one point in his conversation, he innocently called out, "Hey, Mom, that chocolate cookie dough you made is AWESOME!"  His brothers enjoyed this way too much.  Him too???  It's a wonder I have any dough left.

But here's the recipe, and I hope you get to bake the cookies because they are pretty good cooked too!

Chocolate Peppermint Drops

1 c. margarine, softened

2/3 c. sugar

2/3 c. dark brown sugar, packed

1 t. vanilla extract

1 t. peppermint extract

2 eggs, beaten

2 c. all purpose flour

3/4 c. baking cocoa

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. candy canes, crushed

Combine margarine, sugars, extracts and eggs in a large bowl; mix well.  Add remaining ingredients except candy canes; blend well.  Chill for 15 minutes (I love it when recipes tell me to chill...I just picture myself with a magazine on the couch with the timer set for 15 minutes.  It's nice to have permission to chill--but wait, I think they mean the cookies.) 

Roll well-rounded teaspoons of dough into balls; place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.  (I love parchment...it helps me not burn stuff.)  Bake at 325 degrees for 11-13 minutes, or until cookies are puffed and centers are set.  Remove from oven, and with the back of a spoon (or your thumbprint--that's what I did) immediately and gently make a well in the center of cookies.

Spoon some of the crushed candy canes into the wells and let stand 2-3 minutes before removing from baking sheet.  I would tell you how much this recipe makes, but I think those estimates always lie.  I never get that many cookies out of a recipe. Hey, maybe it's because of the dough-eaters in my house...hmmmm.  Just double this recipe and you will have enough for dough-eaters and cookie-eaters.  Enjoy!

Blueberry Picking

One of the perks of living in Northwest is having access to all kinds of berry farms.  We live within a 30 minute drive to U-pick farms that offer strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and marionberries.  Blackberries grow everywhere too. 

When we first moved up here, I saw that we had blackberries growing right in our backyard!  I was so excited until I began seeing billboards advertising for blackberry removal services.  "Hmmm, why would anyone want to get rid of their blackberry bushes?" I thought. 

 Not long into the summer, I saw how the blackberry vines would completely take over your yard and make it impossible for you to do anything about it because of their incredible will to live and giant, sharp thorns.  "Ooooh, that's why we would want to get rid of our blackberries." 

Every summer, we fight blackberry encroachment.  However, the battle is not as intense anymore as after 15 years, the blackberries have almost accepted where the boundaries lie.  Unfortunately, their response has been to not produce as many berries, just mostly thorns.  So, to pick berries for blackberry jam, we have to go to other locations and hope that the bushes have not been sprayed with some pesticide. 

Our favorite berry to pick is the blueberry. There are no thorns, the berries pretty much just fall off the branches with just a little tickle from your hand, and you can stand up to pick them.  Best of all, they taste WONDERFUL!!  I think this is where I am supposed to mention their high levels of Vitamin C and antioxidants...

A couple weeks ago, we went blueberry picking at Mountain View Blueberry Farm near Snohomish.  My kiddos are well-trained pickers and in about an hour we had over 18 pounds of berries.  We didn't weigh the ones we ate, but if we included those, we probably had closer to 24 pounds.  I always feel like the farmers should weigh us before we begin picking and after, then charge us for the difference, but they don't seem to mind.

We brought our yummy berries home and some went to friends, some stayed in the frig for a fresh treat, some went into a pie and some went into the freezer for later use.  My favorite way to eat them (other than in a pie) is to put frozen blueberries on plain yogurt.  Yum!  I eat that for breakfast almost every morning.

Mountain View Blueberry Farm has always been the place we go for blueberries, and we have seen it grow in popularity over the years as a U-pick farm.  My kids love to go there and look at the giant frogs in their pond.  There's a big fence around it that completely keeps them away from actually catching the frogs (hooray).  But it is still fun to just look and wish.  

  

 

In recent years, they have added some turkeys chickens. 

 

I am so glad we made it out to pick blueberries this year.  We didn't make it last year or the year before because of our crazy busy lives.  This year, I was very purposeful about making it out there.  My older kids love to do it because of the memories from when they were very young.  My younger kids love to go because they have heard about those memories and want some for themselves.  Fortunately, I remembered to bring my new camera so that I could catch some of those memories for them. 

I included a recipe that I often use for breakfast.  I like to serve it with plain yogurt.  I suppose if you used ice cream, you could have it for dessert. Or, you could put the ice cream on it and have it for breakfast.  It's your choice.

Blueberry Crisp

4 c. fresh or frozen blueberries

2 t. cornstarch

1 T. lemon juice

1 t. cinnamon

1 cup of applesauce (if you have it, it is nice to add it to make the blueberries thicker, but you don't have to have it)

Mix these ingredients together and put in a 13X9 pan.

For the topping...

2 c. oatmeal (quick or regular...doesn't really matter to me)

1 c. chopped nuts (I use almonds cuz' they are the cheapest at Costco, but my favorite are PECANS!  YUM!)

1/4 c. flour (to make it gluten-free, I used to use rice flour)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 c. brown sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

 1/2 t. salt

I throw all the topping ingredients into my KitchenAid mixer (if you don't have one of these, I feel sorry for you), and let it mix all together.  You might want to cut the butter into small pieces if it is not soft.  Otherwise, you get oats and nuts flying everywhere as the mixer tries to break it up (yes, I'm speaking from experience).

Spread the topping on top of the berry mixture and put it in the oven at 350 degrees until, well, until it is done.  I honestly don't know how long that takes.  I just usually allow 45-60 minutes.  It does take awhile for the berries to get thick and bubbly and that is what you are waiting for in the cooking process.  So, just allow for 60 minutes and time it yourself...if you do, make sure you tell me. 

 I am notorious for losing track of how long to cook things.  This can and sometimes does end in cooking tragedies, but mostly not...people are too hungry at my house for things to cook too long.  Usually at my house, there are at least three people standing in front of my oven repeatedly saying, "When is it going to be done?!"  So, I don't usually get to the burn stage unless I'm home alone and doing laundry downstairs where I can't smell what is cooking in the oven. Or when everyone has eaten their fill and gone outside to play and there is one last pizza in the oven, or one last batch of pancakes on the griddle, or one last dozen of cookies on a baking sheet.  Those often get burned.

Anyway, enjoy!!  Make sure to check back here as I will be adding some new gigs on the September schedule as soon as we get them finalized and loaded on here.

 

Great Mixing

Earlier last week we recorded our first CD and last Friday was the final phase...mixing.  We worked with chief sound engineer Katy Kavanaugh from Rainstorm recording studio.  Katy did an amazing job mixing our CD and putting it all together so that it sounds great.  She was a pleasure to work with and was VERY fast in putting it all together because she knows what she is doing.  We highly recommend Rainstorm and are very thankful for all Katy's help in making our CD.

Now that the recording and mixing are finished, we can put the music onto CDs and make them available to you.  It doesn't look like they will be ready for our May 27th performance for the Connections Spring Celebration.  But they will probably be available in mid-June, and definitely before we hit the road!

You know, since we are talking about great mixing, it is a great time to share a new recipe we have been enjoying lately and tell you about some more great mixing that I highly recommend.  About 7 years ago, after a lot of encouragement from a dear friend, I purchased a KitchenAid upright mixer.

An experienced baker and mother of four boys older than mine, my friend knew how much time I would be spending in the kitchen and helped me pick out a mixer.  The price was higher than I was used to paying for kitchen equipment, BUT it has been the best piece of equipment I have ever acquired.  I use it everyday and it has not broken yet.  The true test of whether something is durable is whether my kids can use it and it stays intact.  So far, so good (unlike Kelli's mandolin that bit the dust last night when one of the boys tried to move it off a chair with his foot.  He succeeded in moving it...sigh). 

I use the mixer for everything.  I love it that I can walk away from what I am mixing and get more ingredients, change laundry loads, check on kids, put in a CD, answer phone, get the mail, practice some bass runs, take a nap, whatever!  It is a great piece of kitchen equipment for multi-taskers, like myself.

And now I will share with you my family's new favorite treat recipe.  I just finished making it using my KitchenAid mixer.  The recipe comes from an indulgent cookbook that my parents gave me for Christmas called Christmas Cookie Jar from Gooseberry Patch.  The cookbook has almost 200 cookie and treat recipes!  We have not tried all of them, but the ones that we have tried, we have REALLY enjoyed.  Not only are the recipes tasty, but also simple to make as well.

You can visit the Gooseberry Patch website at www.gooseberrypatch.com and read about how this interesting business started.  And you can order your own Christmas Cookie Jar cookbook.  OR, you can use their "Find a Store" tab and see if you can find where their products are sold near you.  I was surprised and delighted to find several locations in the Seattle-area that carry Gooseberry Patch items.

Here's our new favorite treat recipe...

Brown Sugar Brownies

2/3 c. butter, softened

2-1/4 c. brown sugar, packed

4 eggs, beaten

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

1 t. vanilla extract

6-oz. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips

With an electric mixer, beat together butter and brown sugar in a small bowl; beat in eggs.  In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla; mix in butter mixture.  Stir in chocolate chips; spoon batter into a greased 13X9" baking pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick tests clean.  Cut into squares.  Makes about 1-1/2 dozen.

These Rolls Rock!

It has been a long time since I have shared a recipe.  Pardon my slang in the title and my reference to a lesser genre of music...I couldn't help myself.

This recipe comes from a new friend I met at the Graham Emmanuel Baptist Church gig back in October.  The kind folks at Graham Baptist provided us with a fabulous meal of one of our favorite things to eat...BBQ!!  And with the BBQ came these awesome rolls.  After finding out that the rolls were homemade, I knew I had to meet the baker who made the rolls and, hopefully, get the recipe.  The gig went on and finished and I still did not have the chance to find the baker or the recipe.  But then just before we left, I met Darlene!  She was the one who not only made the rolls, but also decorated the chapel for the event.  The decorations were great and so was her enthusiasm for autumn.

Darlene happily agreed to share her recipe with me. I finally had the chance to make them over the Thanksgiving holiday.  The funny thing is that I did not need to wait until I had time to make them because they hardly take any time to prepare.  We had them with some more BBQ when we had the Burwell family over.

I have written about the Burwells before when last spring we performed with them at Maltby. Stephen and Seth Burwell are two VERY talented young men who can play some serious bluegrass.  Stephen plays fiddle and mandolin, while Seth plays guitar.  If you want to catch these musical young men performing, I believe they are going by the name of Beauty and the Beasts (their older sister is playing cello with them too).  Check out the Molbak's schedule for December.  Or I am sure they will be playing at the Maltby Jam and Open Mic in January.  And if you can't make it to Maltby, well, then I will just put a video of their jam right here on the blog.  Scroll down for the recipe...

All those hungry, young men seemed to like the rolls as much as I did, and so I thought I would share the recipe with you just in time for Christmas.  Enjoy!

Darlene's  Awesome Rolls

1 1/2 cups  warm water

1 egg

1/3 cup  oil

4 1/2 cups of bread flour

1/2 cup of sugar

2 tsp. powdered milk

1 1/2 tsp. salt

5 tsp. yeast

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.  Proof the yeast in the warm water and sugar for a few minutes.  Add rest of ingredients and mix.  Roll into balls and put on pan on parchment.  Shut off oven and put pan of rolls in to rise for 16 minutes.  Take out and cover with towel.  Let rise a bit more while oven reheats to 430 degrees.  Then put back in oven and bake for 8 minutes.

Let's Try This Again...

Okay, this time no gross stories about things my cat leaves for me on my deck.  This time, I am going to share a recipe with you.  But before I do, I will update you on some of our family happenings over the last week. 

Last Saturday, Clayton and Clark, and Kathryn left for Eastern Washington.  They went with a group from our church to work on an Indian Reservation.  They will spend this whole week doing construction projects and holding Vacation Bible School for the children of the reservation.  They are working with a ministry called Sacred Road Ministries.  Our church supports this ministry and sends a group of people each summer to work on the reservation.  This is Clayton's third year attending and Clark's first.  I am curious to know how it is going for them both.  They will return on Saturday.  We are looking forward to lots of stories about their week.

With Clayton and Clark not here, it has been rather quiet around the house, but not totally quiet--we still have a bunch of kiddos here at home--but quieter than usual. 

 Anyway, on to my recipe.  The recipe I want to share with you is my pancake recipe.  I LOVE pancakes.  I have been making them almost every Friday morning for years.  I started making them in a very basic way, and then over the years, I adapted them according to the needs of our fam.  For instance, when I figured out that Clark needed gluten-free food, I started working with different flours, like millet, amaranth and white rice flour, to find a palatable gluten-free pancake for him.  I make a separate gluten-free batch for him. 

Later, when I went through my health-food craze, I began using whole wheat flour-- ground from home by my own hand-cranked flour mill.  That flour mill was also a great discipline tool when the boys were little...whenever they got out of hand, I would just have them ground a cup of wheat for me.  Grinding wheat with the hand-crank was very tedious and time consuming.  By the time they were done with one cup, they were very sorry for whatever they had done, and went away happy to get along with each other again.  I loved that flour mill, but one day, it broke.  I don't know what happened.  But, I am sure one of my boys will confess to what happened someday.

In addition to my home ground wheat, my kids will tell you that I actually put sunflower seeds in one batch of pancakes.  They still think that was so awful.  It really wasn't that bad.  But, I didn't do it again either.  During the health food phase of my pancake evolution, Ben chose to not eat pancakes.  He just requested eggs.  My kids considered him lucky to have a choice.

Anyway, later, when finances were tight (Ben became an entreprenuer at that time), I learned to make maple-flavored syrup for our pancakes.  It was cheaper than real or even imitation syrup.  But unfortunately, it caused a reaction in Clark because of the caramel coloring.  For the time that I was using the maple-flavored syrup, Clark was freaking out every Friday (pancake day) until a friend mentioned that people who react to gluten often react to caramel coloring.  Sure enough, after switching Clark to REAL maple syrup, he became a more balanced individual.

Though our finances were tight, I bought the Costco real maple syrup for a long time and put up with Ben's frequent exclamations of, "MODERATION!!" everytime the kids poured syrup on their pancakes.  Finally, he figured out that Clark should have real maple syrup, but everyone else had to have Mrs. Butterworth.  The kids were fine with that because to the young palate, sugar is sugar.  But to my more aged and refined palate, real maple syrup was the only syrup for me, and I always have real maple syrup with Clark...and of course, I always use moderation.

Later on, and after our finances improved, Ben and I visited a bed and breakfast where they had pancakes.  And they used real buttermilk.  Oh my goodness!!!  That sent me over the edge!  How had I gone all those years without real buttermilk in my pancakes?   It is the best.  I am sure the next step would be to eliminate the salad oil and use melted butter, but I don't think I can afford that with money or calories.  So, that is where I have drawn the line.  Incidentally, when I started using buttermilk, that was when Ben began eating pancakes.

As the years went on, life with our large family became busier and busier and I found it hard sometimes to make it to the grocery store for milk before the starving masses gathered at the breakfast table.  So, I improvised and found that orange juice makes a great substitute for milk.  Not as tasty as buttermilk, but in a pinch, orange juice works great too.

All during these years, I would toss different ingredients into my pancakes.  My hope was to stretch the recipe and use up some leftovers.  I have tried mashed bananas, pecans, walnuts, almonds, yogurt, berries of all sorts, leftover oatmeal, applesauce, peaches, chocolate chips (on birthdays), and my favorite...pumpkin (mashed yams work like pumpkin too!).  For the pumpkin (or yams), just add some clover, cinnamon and nutmeg. 

So, here's my basic recipe and you will just have to play with the different ingredients yourself to find what you like.  (Don't bother with the sunflower seeds though.)

Basic Pancake Recipe (I double this for my family of 8)
2 cups of flour
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 T. honey or sugar
1t. vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 c. salad oil
Buttermilk--I will let you decide how much...some people like their pancakes really thick or thin.  Over the years, I just add it until I get the consistency I want.  It also depends on what other ingredients you add.

Enjoy!
p.s.  You might wonder why I don't just use Bisquick or Crusteaz...2 reasons:  #1 Homemade tastes better and #2 Homemade is cheaper.

p.s.s.  I cook my pancakes on an electic griddle.  It is easy to make a bunch if you have a big electric griddle.

Good Morning

It is Sunday morning and I am waking up a second time this morning.  The first time was quite a bit earlier.  I had my window open during the night and heard a strange noise outside that woke me from a deep sleep.  Though it was very early in the morning, somewhere around 4:30am, it was light enough for me to see my cat hunched over something. 

So, I am sure that when I open my patio door to feed her this morning, I will find some rodent grotesquely, half-eaten sitting on my deck.  I hate that.  All cat lovers tell me this a high honor bestowed upon the owner of the cat.  But I don't think so because my cat doesn't even like me.  She really doesn't.  The only time she even notices me is when her food dish is empty.  I am not complaining or anything, really, I came to terms with that long ago.  I learned to get my loving elsewhere.  This baloney about her loving me and just sharing her dinner with me is not at all what is happening.  She puts half-eaten critters on my deck because she is trying to prove a point.  She is saying, "Look at what I have to eat because you people don't have the decency to feed me the canned food I deserve.  Here, here's what I have had to resort to...now, you clean it up!"

You can say it is her loving me, but it is not.  It is her selfish, true colors showing through.  If she loved me she would bring me something I enjoy, like a flower, or a mocha.  Just like I don't gift Ben with Jane Austen DVD's, she should not gift me with mouse guts.  Have I proven my point?  It is not love or honor, it is gross selfishness.

A little over a week ago, the boys thought it would be funny to take a picture of one of my cat's "gifts" with my phone.  It was a particularly brutal rodent murder--all that was left was the mouse's face with whiskers and bulging eyes.  I should have known something was going on when I entered the dining room.  They were all snickering expectantly when Clayton said, "Hey, Mom, you had a phone call...here's your phone!"   "Oh, thanks, Clayton.  Hmmm, I didn't hear it ring." 

As they handed me my phone, I noticed a different picture for the background, but I couldn't figure out what it was.  The boys enjoy putting new pictures on my phone because I haven't really figured out how to get them off, and it is a fun way to irritate me with their pictures of Lamborginis, banjos, odd faces with props and their favorite...someone misbehaving while I am not present.  So, I figured this was one more irritating picture stuck on my phone.  But I couldn't figure out what it was.  They were busting up laughing as I studied the subject...it looked strangely familiar, but, hmmmmm.  Finally, I realized what it was with a little scream, which of course, sent them into hysterics.

 "Ha, ha.  Now get it off my phone."  Usually, they tease me with a snotty, "No, we won't!"  But, I think this time they knew they had crossed the line of "appropriate mom-teasing" and promptly removed the picture.  And cleaned up the mouse murder scene.

I was planning to share a breakfast recipe with you...but, now I am not so hungry.  And you probably aren't either.  I think I will save it for the next blog.  Besides, it is getting late, we have church, and I need to get breakfast going. Oh, and I probably will need to clean up whatever was left for me on the deck. 

Until next time...

Strawberry Cake

Spring is my second favorite season of the year.  I love seeing all the new growth bursting forth from the trees, bushes and ground.  Walking around my yard is like attending a reunion of old friends that I haven't seen for awhile, as my perennials peek up from the brown earth, greeting me with the promise of new blooms. 

Years ago, I happened to plant an evergreen shrub by my front door that blooms this time each year.  It is a plain shrub with not much interest except for two weeks out of the year when its tiny white blooms put out the most amazing scent.  I couldn't tell you the name of this shrub because I bought it before I knew much about gardening.  But its scent is so wonderful that I make sure I find time each spring to sit on my front steps and savor its smell.

 Well, along with the amazing display of floral delights, spring also brings strawberries.  In a month or so, we will go to Harvold's U-Pick berry farm out in Carnation so that we can pick boxes and boxes of nature's best dessert.  We used to get out there 2-3 times during strawberry season, but as the kids have gotten older and schedules have gotten busier, we are now lucky to get there once a season.  But, also since the kids have gotten older, I am finding that they are much better pickers (not noses--strawberries, oh, and bluegrass too!) and that one time of picking brings us plenty of strawberries.

When they were little, it was all I could do to keep them in one row putting more strawberries in their buckets rather than their tummies.  But now, even though they are still eating a lot of berries as they pick, they are picking with much more focus.

 We usually divide into teams and then see which team can pick the most berries as determined by weight.  I came up with this competition years ago when I was just trying to get the kids to pick the berries instead of hurdling the rows of strawberry plants, chasing each other with mudballs, or sword fighting with the row marker stakes. 

After picking, during the drive home, the car is filled with the delicious smell of fresh strawberries.  A quick trip to the grocery store for some ice cream begins the first of many strawberry delights that last all the way to Christmas with preserved strawberry jam made as gifts for friends. 

Here is one of those many delights we enjoy...

Strawberry Cake

1 cup fresh strawberries (you can use frozen too)

1 (3-oz.) pkg. strawberry flavored gelatin

1/2 cup boiling water

3/4 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 (18-oz.) white or yellow cake mix

Sprinkle fresh strawberries with 1/4 c. sugar. Let stand 1-2 hours.  Drain.  Combine gelatin and boiling water stirring, until dissolved.  Then cool.  Combine oil and eggs with gelatin and strawberries.  Sift cake mix into mixer bowl, and add gelatin mixture blending on low speed.  Then beat on high speed for 4 minutes.  Pour into 2 greased and floured 9-inch layer pans and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

For the icing, I like to use a cream cheese frosting...

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. softened cream cheese
1/2 cup soft margarine
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups of powdered sugar
small amount of milk to mix

Combine all ingredients with 1 Tbsp. milk or more and mix until smooth.

This recipe comes from my favorite cookbook, Mennonite Country-Style Recipes & Kitchen Secrets by Ester H. Shank.

Breakfast is Served

Time for another recipe.  As you can imagine, our four boys eat a lot.  I mean A LOT!  Keeping them from gnawing on the furniture is quite a challenge...you think I am kidding, but you should see one of their bunk beds.  You would think a beaver slept there.  Anyway, you've probably heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  And it is for my guys because they have not eaten for about 8-9 hours and they wake up ravenous.  So, breakfast is a must. 

I found out long ago that cereal, though easy to prepare, is not affordable if you are trying to feed four hungry boys.  Also, it typically does not have much protein and so doesn't contribute to them being focused in their school work.  I had to come up with affordable alternatives to satisfy them and survive financially.  We eat cereal 2-3 days a week (when we are in a hurry), but the other 4-5 days, we eat biscuits, every kind of egg, sausage, granola, pancakes, fruit crisp, breakfast quiche, cornbread, baked French toast, fruit, yogurt, etc.

 I make all these things from scratch...why?  Two reasons:  #1 Clark is gluten-free, and #2 if you buy these things already prepared, then you still are paying a lot of money.  So, I suck it up and make it all from scratch.  It tastes better anyway, and then I can adapt the recipes to fit Clark's needs for a gluten-free diet.  Once you get a routine down, it is not so difficult to make things from scratch.

One of the kids' favorite breakfast recipes is something called baked oatmeal.  I haven't seen it anywhere else and believe me, I am always looking for breakfast recipes.  I found it in a Mennonite cookbook that my mother-in-law gave me for my wedding.  It is one of the best cookbooks I have and I have used it weekly for the last almost 18 years of my marriage.  It is held together with a rubber band and has all kinds of food drippings and grease stains on it with some burn marks too from where I forgetfully set it on the oven and torch it at times.

Anyway, I like this recipe because it is like pancakes...you can throw almost anything into it and it still tastes great!  I gather up all the fruit that is not pretty enough to eat as a snack anymore, some nuts, and then toss it all in there.  I actually triple the recipe.

Here's the basic recipe.  I will list the optional ingredients at the end.

Baked Oatmeal
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk   
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3 cups quick oatmeal (I use regular because that is what they sell at Costco--if you want quick, just put regular in a food processor and chop it up a bit.  But I am too lazy to do that.)

Pour into a greased 8X12 baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 25 minutes.  Serve with warm milk or yogurt.

Makes 6-8 servings, if most of the consumers eat like birds.  Otherwise, it makes enough for 4.

Optional ingredients: pumpkin (be sure to throw in some ground cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg), maple syrup, apple sauce, chopped pecans, chopped almonds, chopped walnuts, peaches, berries of any type, bananas, or coconut. 

I usually pick just a couple of these optionals and add them to the recipe.

Pizza

It is almost Friday and I am thinking about tomorrow's schedule, activities and meals.  Life stays pretty busy around here, but one thing we look forward to on Friday nights is pizza!  We have pizza pretty much every Friday night.

Friday night pizza started way back when we lived in Japan.  Maybe you didn't know this, but soon after Ben and I married, Ben's first duty station for the U.S. Navy was Atsugi, Japan. It was a naval air facility outside of Tokyo.  We went there as newlyweds and stayed there for four years.  Clayton and Clark were born there.  It was our first home and I wish like crazy we could go back and visit it.  We loved Japan and stayed the extra fourth year because we loved it so much.

We loved the people, the scenery, the adventures and the food.  Japanese food is amazing!  And we miss it a lot.  We learned to love and appreciate all kinds of Japanese food.  BUT, we did notice one thing about being over there...stick to Japanese food when you are in Japan. I am sure there are many exceptions, but we didn't find too many.  And one of the worst eating experiences we had in Japan was Japanese pizza.  I won't go into too many details, but just picture corn and shrimp on your pizza.  I like to put fun and creative ingredients on my pizza...maybe shrimp, but corn??  No, it just didn't work for me.

So, out of necessity, I began making our own pizza.  We just missed pizza too much to go without.  Back then, I used to make pizza with my Zojurishi bread maker.  Bread makers were a new thing all those years ago. I found that mine was pretty useful for making pizza dough.  That was when there was only 3-4 members in our family.  Over the years, I have switched to a big, old KitchenAid stand-up mixer to meet the demands of my large family's appetite. 

I have a great pizza dough recipe that is pretty foolhardy.  I will share it at the end of this blog, along with my sauce recipe.  It makes enough to feed a visiting family of four or five, and my four starving boys, two hungry girls and a mom and who are moderate in appetite, but feeling like, "Hey, it's Friday...let's live a little and worry about pounds later."  If we don't have anyone over and I have some leftover dough, I can just put it in the freezer in a ziplock bag and save it for another time.  I just take it out the day I need it and let it thaw till dinner prep time.  It works just fine.  It takes a lot to ruin this dough.  I even refreeze it sometimes.

With the amount of pizza we consume, there is no way we could afford to order out for pizza.  My boys are just too hungry!  We do have Costco pizza sometimes when life is just too crazy.  But there is a quality issue there.  So, by making our own pizza, we get quality and quantity.

 Here are the recipes for the dough and sauce.  You can choose your own toppings.  Here's a list of some of my favorites:  roasted garlic, fresh basil leaves, cream cheese chunks, capers, red onions, zucchini, bacon, chicken, spinach, feta, red peppers, red onions and goat cheese. However, goat cheese has been outlawed even more than corn by my family members, sigh.

Pizza Dough

3 cups warm water

2 Tablespoon yeast

2 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon salt

2/3 cup olive oil

1 cup of semolina or cornmeal

about 7 cups of flour

Stir water and yeast together with sugar.  Let rest until foamy, about 5 minutes.  Add salt, olive oil, semolina, and flour.  When adding the flour, keep adding it until the dough is no longer sticky, but smooth and elastic.  You can knead it by hand also.  Let it rise if you want to for 1-2 hours.  I rarely get that much time for rising and usually use it as soon as 20 minutes after kneading.  It still turns out fine for me.  Roll out on floured surface.  Place on greased pizza pan or stone, prick with fork and add toppings.  Bake at 450-500 degrees for about 20-30 minutes.  You kinda have to eyeball it a bit.  This is what I tell Ben when he wants me to give him a specific time on when it is done, "Just cook it til it looks like something you would want to eat."

Pizza Sauce

Small recipe:

1 6oz. can of tomato sauce

1 6oz. can of tomato paste

1 Tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon of garlic powder

1 Tablespoon of parsley

2 teaspoons of basil

2 teaspoons of rosemary

2 teaspoons of oregano

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Mix all the ingredients together and spread on pizza.

Big recipe:

Get a #10 can of crushed tomatoes from Costco and mix in much bigger amounts of the above ingredients.  Freeze what you don't use in Tupperware til next time.

Other Forms of Jamming...

In my last blog, I wrote about jamming at bluegrass festivals.  And as I did that, I couldn't help but to think about the other form of jamming that I do.  No, not the kind that Michael Jordan is known for.  Although, I did play a lot of basketball in high school.  Rather, the kind my grandma does...the kind that includes fruit and sugar!

As I thought about jamming in the form of preserving fruit that you can spread on toast, I couldn't help but consider how fine food and live music go together.  And so, I decided to add yet another category to this blog...the recipe category.

I figured this could work for a bluegrass blog because people who enjoy bluegrass probably eat too.  And so, every now and then I will share a recipe with you all.  And if you beg me or comment favorably, I might do it more often.

Anyway, I didn't learn to jam from my grandma.  The reason for that is because by the time I had an interest in jamming, I was living on the other side of the country from my grandma.  So, I had to learn from the back of a fruit pectin package.  And why did I want to learn?  Well, a few years ago, Ben had begun his own business and we went a whole year with no income.  So, we learned to conserve, reserve and preserve.

I joined a "gleaning" club and was able to get free food from grocery stores that had gone past the point of being suitable for selling (and many times eating).  The club gathered all the food from the grocery stores and then brought it to one person's house.  Then everyone who was in the club could go and get a free share of the food.  For some reason, we would get HUGE amounts of one item or another.  Then we would have to figure out how to use it or preserve it.  So, I learned to can.  And I ended up loving it! 

Another reason I wanted to learn to can was because I live in the Northwest.  The Northwest has an incredible lineup for berry picking in the summer.  The season starts with strawberries, then raspberries, blueberries and finally blackberries. Marionberries fit in there somewhere, but I haven't found a U-Pick farm for those nearby here yet.   And really, I keep quite busy with the list I mentioned before.

Anyway, ever since Ben and I decided we wanted to live in the Norhwest, we have gone berry-picking.  The boys have grown into amazing pickers over the years, and now my girls are learning how to make their blueberry pails go, "Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk!"  (That is a quote from one of our favorite children's books, Blueberries for Sal.) 

Hey, I just thought of another connection between jamming and bluegrass...picking berries and picking strings!  Wow!  Not only are my boys amazing berry pickers, but also amazing bluegrass pickers!  SEE!!  THIS WORKS!!  You can't be good at jamming unless you are good at picking!!

And so, on that note (please, someone stop me!!), I will leave you with one of my favorite jam recipes.  This is one you will have to hang onto til the summer, but I am sure you will enjoy it when summer finally comes!

Blueberry Marmalade

1 medium orange

1 medium lemon

3/4 c. water

1/8 t. baking soda

4 c. fresh blueberries, crushed

5 c. granulated sugar

1 package (6 oz.) liquid fruit pectin

Directions:  Peel orange and lemon.  Finely chop rind and place in large cooking pan.  Chop orange and lemon pulp and set aside.  Add 3/4 c. water and baking soda to rind and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add chopped orange and lemon pulp, blueberries and sugar.  Return to boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes.  Add pectin; return to a boil.  Boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and skim off foam with a metal spoon.  Pour into hot sterilized jars, filling to 1/4 inch from the top.  Wipe jar rims.  Cover at once with metal lids and screw on bands.  Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.