My Root Cellar



Apparently fall is a woeful time for me and blogging. I'm sorry for the lack of substance here recently. Writing is a way of processing life and, admittedly, it sometimes takes me a while to process. Kind of like winter cooking, which is suited to braises, stews, and roasting, all of which take time.

 

This morning, I walked to my garden and spent an hour cleaning it up. I pulled up everything except green onions, chives, parsley, and snapdragons (which were amazingly still blooming!), chopped it all into smaller pieces, bagged it, raked the dirt smooth, and stared at it. It's hard to believe that my garden had come full circle again and is now laid to rest for the winter.

 

I got an organizing bug in me after seeing my garden look so neat and tidy, so I came home and whipped my root cellar and freezer into shape. Except for my grandparents, I can't remember anyone having a basement when I was growing up in Portland. Thus living in a house with a basement for the last two years has been a revelation. I have stored winter vegetables in the basement the past two years, but I've decided to be more organized this year, mostly to avoid wasting food.

 

I unpacked my whole freezer and re-wrote my whiteboard list below. I am thankful that my freezer is in pretty good shape. I've realized that my freezer is a better place for storing ingredients that can become a meal rather than pre-made meals. I love to cook so much that I just don't eat pre-made meals. If I'm in need of a quick meal, I usually make an easy meal like peanut butter and jelly toast or scrambled eggs. It's one of my weird food quirks. I'm pretty proud of this list:

 

 

The last two years, I've bought squash at Green Bluff on a whim. Bad idea. I regret to say that much of it was wasted. This year, I bought just the squash you see below: delicata (delicious roasted with olive oil, salt, and pepper), sweet meat (which I'll bake, puree, and freeze in two-cup portions for baking), a Red Kuri (no idea how to cook it, so this is my splurge!), and four butternut squash (wonderfully versatile). I'm prone to impulse fruit/veggie purchases, so I can't guarantee that I won't end up with more squash. But if I don't, I'm content with what I have here:

 

 

My lovely canned goods! I've already shared a photo like this on my blog, but I'm really proud of them. Canning, freezing, and root cellar goods are three of the big ways I like to preserve the precious fruits and veggies of summer and autumn for the lean winter and early spring months. Drying is another big method, but I haven't done much with it yet. 

 

 

On an impulse, I did buy a 10-pound bag of local Yukon Gold potatoes at Green Bluff to add to my stash of red potatoes and fingerlings. It was only $5! I've separated the potatoes by variety into three newspaper-lined boxes. At Green Bluff, I recently purchased two 4-lb bags of red and yellow storage onions for only $1.50 each. A steal! I'm so excited! The last component I'll add to my root cellar is about 20 lbs of Stayman Winesap apples that I'll be picking at Green Bluff tomorrow. The farmer told me these apples are "good keepers." Excellent! That's what I'm looking for! 

 

 

I've been thinking of buying a Dutch oven, so my co-worker was kind enough to lend me his, which is the exact Dutch oven I wanted to buy. I've been testing it out with various recipes, including Butternut Squash Risotto (picture below). The risotto was easier to make than I expected and delicious in an earthy way. With squash, onions, white wine, and homemade chicken stock as some of the ingredients, I happily ate the leftovers for lunch (all week). 

 

 

Today, I simmered the bones of two roasted chickens for three hours, adding in chopped onion, carrots, two bay leaves, and fresh thyme after the second full hour. Happily, the chicken bones have enough meat on them to make Chicken Soup with Herb Dumplings. I'm thinking this Dutch oven will be my next big kitchen purchase.

It's been a good and productive day. I love the possibilities for delicious, healthy meals that are just waiting to spring forth from my cans, freezer, and stored veggies.

How are you preparing for the winter months? Do you can, freezer, dry, or store summer and fall vegetables or fruit?

A Visit With Mom and Dad

My parents drove into town Wednesday, July 10 and stayed until Monday, July 15. I was able to take half of Thursday and all of Friday off work, which was great! This is my first summer working full time, and I'm telling you, it can be rough at times. :) Whitworth's Annual Institute of Ministry was also happening the Wednesday and Thursday my parents were in town. The evening worship services are free and open to the public, so my parents and I enjoyed two wonderful worship services. The preacher, Carolyn Gordon, was fantastic! I can't wait until the podcasts are up on the Whitworth website, so I can listen to her sermons from Monday and Tuesday evenings, too. If you get a chance, listen to them. You'll be challenged, encouraged, and amused.

Wednesday and Thursday, my parents and I did some fun things, like hosted an ice cream social with some of my parents' friends from college, enjoyed ice cream at Doyle's Ice Cream Parlor where my mom and her friend used to take boys in college and make them drink a monster shake (which they still have!), and enjoyed an enchilada dinner with three of my housemates. My mom calls this the ice cream vacation because we had ice cream every day. Part of this is because I'm making good use of my new ice cream maker. The other part is that all three of us just really, really love ice cream!

On Friday, we embarked on our big day trip to Canada. We've all been to Canada a number of times, but not since I've been in Spokane. The drive up there is a mere three hours through some gorgeous countryside. We left at 7:30 AM on Friday morning, and our first stop was to eat muffins and look at the Pend Orielle river at an overlook. Our second stop was at Sweet Creek Falls, which turned out to be this beautiful, Columbia-River-Gorge-like waterfall:

 

Our crossing into Canada was easy and quick. About 10 minutes into Canada, I burst into laughter. Like tears-rolling-down-my-face laughter. It was all because of my dad's behavior with the Canadian border guard. He made us look so suspicious! My dad took my laughter graciously. Here's the grand Canadian flag:

 

Our end destination was the city of Nelson, British Columbia. The picture below is just a tiny view of the mountains and beauty surrounding Nelson. We started off at the Visitor Center where we had the pleasure of talking with a delightful young woman who's a student in Geography at "U Vic" (University of Victoria). She gave us some great advice. With her help, we had lunch at a beautiful little park, walked along the waterfront, got milkshakes, and visited an eclectic coffeeshop. My dad decided to hike to Pulpit Rock across the bridge you see in the background in the photo. While he hiked, my mom and I sat in the park at the waterfront. She read, I wrote in my journal, and we both people watched. It was a great spot to observe families. The main center of town has some major hippie influence, so it was nice to see a different side of the city. Being in a different country made me think about nationality. There didn't seem to be any difference between the people we were observing and us except that they say "Eh" and prounouce "ou" differently. Does nationality even matter? I didn't come to any conclusions, but it's interesting to think about.

We left Nelson around 4:30 or 5 and decided to take a little detour to Crawford State Park back in Washington. We drove 12 miles to get there only to find that the park was closed. Fortunately, we serendipitously turned off onto a side road and found a lovely campground by a river that had big picnic tables. We had great food (old favorites like chicken salad and pasta salad) and enjoyed sitting in the peaceful campground. Here's the pasta salad:

 

They might hate this picture, but I think it's hilarious. :) We were feeling pretty tired on the road back and went to sleep practically right after getting home around 9 PM.

On the road out to Crawford State Park, we saw three beaver dams in the water. It was awesome! We didn't see any beavers, but I guessed it was because they were inside their dams eating toast and kippers (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe anyone?).

On Saturday, we met my friend Margy at Petit Chat bakery. It was delightful to talk with Margy and enjoy pastries together. After that, we drove up to Green Bluff to (as you can see) pick cherries! We picked exactly enough pie cherries for a batch of sour cherry jam. The picture below is my mom showing my housemate Pam and me how to pit cherries with a paper clip. So easy! We also picked Rainier and Bing cherries, all from Cherry Hill Orchard, whose owners go to my church. After Cherry Hill, we walked around Eleven Acres Farm and chatted with the farmer and enjoyed the new microbrewery at another farm. It was lovely to be relaxed at Green Bluff. I'm usually on a mission and fail to enjoy the process of picking food that farmers have so carefully cultivated.

 

On Saturday afternoon, we had some down time and then enjoyed raspberry lemonade with Dottie, my college mentor and friend. Saturday evening we enjoyed a steak dinner with broccoli, watermelon, and this delicious orzo "risotto" from one of Mark Bittman's cookbooks. My coworker mentioned a couple weeks ago that she broiled steak and loved how it turned out. My dad loves steak, so I used the last $20 of my June grocery budget to buy two quality New York strip steaks from Egger's. We were not disappointed. The broiling method worked wonderfully and the meal was delicious. 

 

On Sunday, we had a big waffle breakfast with cherry compote, went to church, hung out in the afternoon, and went up to church again for a concert and hot dog dinner. Oh yeah, and we also cleaned the ice that had been building up in my chest freezer. That was quite the process! In the end, it was pretty easy, but I was so glad my mom and dad helped me out. I would never have had the gumption to clean it on my own. Everything's all neat and tidy in the freezer now and is being filled as we speak with fresh raspberries. 

 

On Sunday night, I brought out all the leftovers from all our meals and found that we each had enough left for meals for another week. It was such a pleasure to make meals for my parents. Foolishly, every meal I made for them except two were new recipes. It could be unfortunate that every new recipe I tried worked out splendidly. :) I discovered soba noodles and liked them so much, I'm going to make another soda noodle dish tonight with zucchini, cabbage, and green onions (from my garden!).

 

After breakfast together on Monday morning, my parents drove back to Portland, and I drove to work. It was a lovely weekend together. I'm so grateful for my parents' companionship. 

Made-From-Scratch Wontons

Last Saturday night, my two friends from church and I gathered to make wontons from scratch! Margaret, at whose house we were meeting, had made wontons with friends once before, so we had a potluck style dinner and she showed us how to form the wontons. We made nearly 50 wontons! Below are some pictures from our time together.

Here are the wontons ready to go out to the fryer:

Bethany frying up the wontons and me looking weird: 



Our wonderful spread ready to be eaten and enjoyed! 

We had two different kinds of wontons. The wontons in the middle of the table are stuffed with pork, shrimp, mushrooms, green onions, and water chestnuts. The wontons at the end of the table are stuffed with cream cheese and green onions. We also have apricot and cherry dipping sauce, lemongrass, baby corn, and ginger rice from Trader Joe's, and fruit salad. Yum!!

We had a lovely evening and had leftovers for later, too, which I ate for Sunday and Monday lunches. For dessert, we enjoyed my second batch of ice cream: homemade strawberry ice cream with Green Bluff strawberries. Thanks for reading!

What's something you like to make from scratch?

Highlights of April/Early May

Wow! I'm so sorry for not posting anything sooner. In light of my procrastination in writing a blog post, I'm going to write up a quick list of highlights from the past couple weeks. I must point out that as I sit down to write this post, I'm also occasionally dipping a Nutter Butter (or two) into a glass of cold milk. It's hot outside, and I have nothing in the house that resembles ice cream (and no desire to drive a mile or two to Froyo), so a glass of cold milk must suffice. I would also like to note that I'm sporting my first mosquito bite of the summer on my left hand. Is this something to brag about?

Here's my list of highlights:

1. My housemates and I all pitched in together to make a Chicken Bacon Spinach Alfredo pizza. I made the alfredo sauce and crust and the whole thing came together rather splendidly. For dessert we had a half-baked cookie with chocolate fudge ice cream, which was incredibly delicious.We also had a ton of fun talking and laughing.

2. My small dinner group from church had the pleasure of going to a Green Bluff farm (Cherry Hill Orchard) where one of the couples in the group lives and works. We had tacos, and I made a delicious pudding parfait dessert with vanilla and chocolate puddings, peanut butter whipped cream and chocolate and Nutter Butter cookie crumbs. The highlight was touring the big red barn out of which cherries are sold in the summer. We climbed up to the cupola at the very top of the barn and got a three-sixty view of the bluff countryside in the dusk. Stunning!

3. Near the end of April, a couple from church invited me to see their two daughters perform in The Music Man at a local high school. This is one of my favorite musicals, and I was in it in high school, so I said YES! We met at Pizza Hut before the performance and enjoyed a lovely time of fellowship with proud parents Samuel and Renee and six others. The performance was delightful and lines of Music Man songs have been playing refrains in my head ever since.

4. On the first Wednesday of each month, I volunteer with my friends Margy and Stella at the Mead Food Bank. Last month, Margy and I went out to dinner with the weekly volunteers and had a great time. Betty, a volunteer, said we could be on the dinner list, which means that if your name comes up on the list, you get to choose where to go to dinner. As soon as I walked in last Wednesday, Betty said, "Elizabeth! It's your choice for dinner!" I couldn't believe I actually got to choose! It wasn't a hard decision. I chose Zip's, a local Spokane fast food joint that I've only visited one time when I was fourteen as my youth group headed through Spokane on a mission trip to British Columbia. We had a wonderful dinner with the food bank volunteers, and I ate a corndog, crinkle fries, and a peanut butter milkshake. Bliss! I was raving about my corn dog so much that Margy said, "You know, you can buy frozen corn dogs at the grocery store." I agreed with her, but told her that I limit my corndog eating to once every six years or so, so I can really eat them with gusto. :)

5. On Friday evening, my friend Heidi and I went to Coeur d'Alene to see a Whitworth music professor debut his second concerto with the Coeur d'Alene symphony. The whole evening was wonderful. Heidi works with Japanese exchange students in town, and I had met her girls once before. I saw three of them while waiting for Heidi and chatted with them about their recent trip to the East Coast. Then Heidi and I drove the 40 minutes to Coeur d'Alene and enjoyed a picnic in a park by the lake. We ate wheat rolls with mustard, mayo, sliced chicken breast, cheese and avocado, cut veggies with homemade buttermilk ranch dressing, orange soda, and a chocolate-peanut butter no-bake cookie from Petit Chat. The concert itself was incredible. Brent Edstrom, Heidi's professor, is a jazz musician, so the piece was mixed jazz and orchestra. It sounds odd, but the pieces worked beautifully together. My favorite movement has some Latin-inspired rhythms and melodies which made it hard to sit still. Probably the best part of the concert, though, was clapping for Brent with pure delight at the end of the concert. He came back on stage three times and played an encore piece because we clapped so hard!

There are other highlights and hard things about the past couple weeks, too, but the stories above are the most delightful and brought me much life and joy. What are your highlights from the past couple weeks?

P.S. Also, I have to tell you that I watched the BBC Miniseries Wives and Daughters this weekend and loved it! I highly recommend it to all those who haven't seen it. It's a lovely story and can generate some good discussion (and maybe even a few good tears).

Sehnsucht

Recently, I've been missing England. It could be because I'm neck deep in season three of Downton Abbey. Or because I never get a decent cup of tea here except at my college mentor's house. I even had a dream recently that I was in England with a giant list of activities planned out. Having studied abroad in Great Britain, I know exactly the places to which I would (and wouldn't) return.

I particularly thought of England today for two reasons. The first is that when the weather is good, I drive through the countryside to get to church, which is about 15 minutes north of my house. There is one spot on the drive where the Little Spokane River looks a lot like a spot my study group hiked to in Wales. Here's a photo from the hike:

 

There is also a walking trail down to the Little Spokane River about a mile from my house. I walked to the river on the trail this afternoon. There's something about the rushing water and the leaf mold smell and the fresh, clean air of the trail that brings beautiful memories to the forefront of my mind: memories of my grandpa's farm and the Columbia River Gorge and the walks I took in England in the Cotswolds and the Lake District. I think these places are the building blocks of many of my most poignant memories of creation's beauty.

 

 

When I was shielding my eyes from the bright sun and looking out over the river and the marshes and trees this afternoon, I identified the emotion I was feeling. Sehnsucht. C.S. Lewis is known particularly for his use of this word. Sehnsucht at its essence means a yearning or longing for beauty and goodness that cannot be satisfied through human experience. Lewis uses the term sehnsucht as an anchor for his autobiography Surprised by Joy, pointing to instances throughout his life in which he encountered beauty that left him longing for more. At the river today, I realized that God uses Sehnsucht for the purpose of drawing us to the end of ourselves. When we yearn for beauty beyond what we see and experience on earth (the nagging Sehnsucht), we realize that it is the beautiful reality of the Trinity--Living God, Word-Made-Flesh, Life-Giving Spirit--for which we ultimately long.   

 

The second reason for thinking of England today (by now you've likely forgotten there was a second point!) is that I made Cornish pasties (pass-tees) for dinner from an English cookbook called River Cottage Every Day. River Cottage is also the name of an English cooking show I watch on YouTube. When I tell people this, they usually make a strange face and say something like "Why would you want to watch an English cooking show?" Whatever your stereotype of English food is, the Cornish pasty is a tradition that's worth keeping. River Cottage Every Day has recipes for three pasties, so I made the vegetarian filling with lentils and butternut squash (and a little too much mustard, but oh well). They looked so lovely and authentic that I had to take some photos:

 

 

Like a pasty, you got all the "meat" of this blog in the middle. I'm sure that you, too, have experiences both of beauty and of Sehnsucht. As always, I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments section, over e-mail (even better), or in person (best!). May the beauty of this life always draw us into the beauty of God and may we be especially aware of beauty as signs of spring begin to emerge!

I Declare February to be Freezer-Emptying Month

My blog tends to catch me at the highs or lows of life. I'm particularly tired tonight, and I think it's because I've had several particularly long days of work and lots of desserts in the past few days. A couple people at lunch today at Partners hypothesized that eating sugar makes one feel groggy and sluggish. I've given up sugar for Lent at least twice before, and it's my plan again this year. I'm actually quite looking forward to it. Sometimes food can be a kind of bondage and fasting has a great way of freeing us.

As part of this Lenten initiative, I decided that I would try to use up what's in my chest freezer downstairs. The majority of what's in there is chicken broth, tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and peaches, so this is going to be a fruit-sweet month. Good timing! I will keep you informed of my progress in emptying my freezer.

I have found two creative uses for my freezer food this Monday. I'm hosting a children's ministry committee meeting for church. The other challenge in making this meal is that our group has a vegetarian, two gluten intolerant folks, and one person who avoids dairy. After much deliberation, I decided to make a pot of chili with tomatoes from my freezer. To this, people can add in sour cream, shredded cheese (also from the freezer), and onions and/or scoop up chili with gluten-free Fritos or corn tortilla chips. I'll make a big salad with a balsamic dressing. For dessert, I'm going to serve vanilla ice cream (thank you Tillamook and Fred Meyer for the sale this week!) with lightly thawed peaches and blueberries and homemade hot fudge sauce. Yum! I'm also making a gluten-free, no-bake cookie that has cornflakes, peanut butter, and butterscotch chips.

It sounds extensive, but it's really a ridiculously easy meal for company since so much can be prepared a day or two before. So, slowly but surely, I will clear out the old in the freezer and make room for the new.

Tonight, I volunteered with a friend from church at the Mead Food Bank. We packaged food based on the number of family members. I was in charge of the fruit station. I grabbed a random can and happened to look at it before putting it on the scale: shoestring beets. I almost gagged. I sneakily moved that can to the back and grabbed a can of sliced peaches instead. As I continued to pile cans of fruit cocktail, applesauce, and pears in plastic bags, I had to wonder. Since when did I become so fortunate that I had so much wonderful, fresh/frozen fruit in my freezer? Volunteering, like walking and fasting, gave me a new perspective.

I'm praying that this Lent will be all about new perspectives. I need a new perspective on my sinfulness, so that I understand Christ's mercy and grace more fully. I need a new perspective on life to realize anew that life is enriched by love of God and others. I need a refreshed view of food as something to enjoy in its proper place. Lent is about stripping away the old to bring in the new life of Christ, and I'm ready for it.

How do you plan to mark the season of Lent? Will you add a discipline? Give up a negative habit? I'd love to hear more about your plan.

A Food Interlude

I have a post of a more thoughtful nature coming this week, but I wanted to post these pictures of the Butternut Squash Prosciutto pizza I made with my friend Kari a couple weeks ago. The sauce is pureed squash:

Then we layered on mozzarella cheese, cubed and roasted butternut squash, and pieces of ultra-thin Trader Joe's prosciutto. Here we are layering on squash cubes:

The original recipe called for arugula on top, but we added kale, which is what I had on hand. We decided to try it on just half the pizza because we weren't sure how it would turn out.

And here's the finished product! It was delicious, but very squashy. In the future, I would put a rosemary-infused olive oil sauce layer (or even Alfredo) and keep everything else. I'd love to try it with arugula, too, instead of kale. But, in the end, all who tasted the pizza were happy and contented and wonderfully full.

Christmas 2012

It was so good to be home for Christmas. And when Elizabeth gets a cookbook, you know things are going to be good. :)

I flew to Portland in the morning on Friday, December 21. My friend Lorry picked me up, and we drove to Molalla to visit Lorry's husband's aunts. Lorry makes a delicious cardamom bread at Christmas, so we delivered two of the loaves to the two aunts and chatted with each of them for a bit. The countryside around Portland is so beautiful. Lorry and I talked a blue streak, and continued our time together at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Selma's in Gresham.

My dad picked me up at Lorry's house, and we drove to a place to pick out new glasses for my dad. The employee who was helping choose glasses for my dad was quite unique. She was very petite and couldn't sit still, like she'd just consumed five cups of coffee. She'd sit on the rolling chair at the desk and two seconds later would pop up, long black skirt swinging, and dodge here and there, pulling glasses off the display cases. My dad must've tried on 15 pairs. If anyone's read the Mitford novels by Jan Karon, this woman reminded me of Fancy Skinner, the hairdresser; a carbon copy!

On Saturday, my sister, mom, and I spent most of the day at my grandpa's Christmas tree farm. It was fun to spend time with my sister, and we had the most delicious grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch with artisan bread made by Lorry.

Julie and I left the tree farm at 2:30, and I drove to Vancouver to spend time with Tyler and Lydia Thralls, good friends of mine from Whitworth. Tyler and Lydia have befriended a Chinese exchange student at WSU-Vancouver and so they had invited this student and three of his friends over for dinner. Tyler made a bean/rice/ground beef African meal that was delicious.

We went to church on Sunday morning and then prepared for the Christmas party at my aunt and uncle's house with my mom's extended family. We ate dinner together and had a gift exchange of homemade items, which worked out surprisingly well. People were quite creative with what they made, and we had a good amount of stealing. My grandpa's homemade gift was two paper airplanes! There were lots of cookies in the exchange, too. In case we hadn't consumed of my aunt's homemade egg nog. :)

On Christmas Eve, I spent the morning with my friend, Ruth, and her family, whom I've known since my sophomore year of high school. Her dad, in his hospitable way, tried very hard to get me to drink a cup of coffee, but I valiantly resisted. I did happily consume a mug of hot cocoa made by Ruth's ninth-grade brother, who had grown about three feet taller since the last time I saw him. :)

My family went to the Christmas Eve service at Greater Gresham Baptist at 3 PM. The theme of the service was Light in the Darkness, and they had a beautiful narrated play about the themes of light and darkness in Scripture. It was very moving.

This is the first Christmas Eve/Day that we haven't had an extended-family party. Instead, a good family friend, Claudia, came over for dinner Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day. Claudia's husband and son were both away for the holiday for work, so it was a great pleasure to have her at our house; she's family.

On Christmas Eve night, we had individual homemade pizzas that were delicious (much to Julie's surprise), and then played Taboo together. On Christmas day, we woke up and opened our stockings and then had these:

 

They're called Pull-Aparts and it's our Thanksgiving and Christmas morning breakfast every year. They are SO good that I had to have one for breakfast again on Wednesday morning as my mom drove me to the airport. :) We always take a photo, too, of us getting ready to scarf down several pull-aparts apiece. I think this was the weirdest one yet, but I love it! Then, we opened presents. Here's one choice photo:

 

Contrary to the box above, this was actually a gift certificate from Julie to my dad. :)

 

After presents, I set my roll dough to rising and my mom, dad, and I took a walk around the lake in a drenching rain. My dad and I raced the last block, my dad narrating as though we were horses in the Kentucky Derby. Claudia came with a honey-baked ham for a mid-afternoon feast. We rounded out the meal with my Walnut Potato rolls, cooked broccoli, pineapple, and twice-baked potatoes with cheese. It was absolutely delicious!

 

Before and after dinner, we exchanged presents with Claudia. The four of us had each gotten her a gift, and she got us each a gift. It was so fun! We laughed so much, as some of the gifts were inside jokes, such as the ones above. I thought it was clever that Claudia had wrapped my and my mom's gifts in "nice" paper, Julie's in nice and naughty (because we're not sure which she is), and my dad's in naughty paper. I suppose in reality, though, we're all a mix of both. :) 

 

 

We ended the day at Claudia's house with yummy frosted sugar cookies and hot cocoa. We watched the animated Grinch and Home Alone. It was a delightful, peaceful end to a fun-filled day. I am so blessed by the friends and family God has given me. May we faithfully thank God every day of the year in light of all the good gifts God bestows, especially the most precious gift of Emmanuel, God With Us.

Happy New Year!

A Cooking Hiatus

You may not believe this, but I've had little or no creative energy to cook in the past couple weeks. I've been eating an inordinate number of easy meals (grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, etc.). This is not my usual self (as you well know). I have ideas for what to cook, but no energy to implement them.

Honestly, I think I'm still getting used to working full time. Not the work itself--I'm used to that--but rather the limitations that working full time puts on my free time. There's simply no way to fit everything I want to do into the free time I have. And yet sometimes, I feel paralyzed. There's so much I could do, I'm not sure what I should do. I've talked about this before on the blog. So you can see that it continues to be a struggle for me.

However, I didn't intend to write a blog about this topic. I mostly set out to write a blog to process what I've been feeling and experiencing recently. Writing has always helped me process my life. Tonight, I mostly want to write about some lovely meals I've had in the past couple days that were provided for me.

On Friday and Saturday, I was at a women's retreat for my church at Camp Spaulding, which is a Presbyterian camp and retreat center north of Spokane. On Friday afternoon, my friend Margaret and I drove the 45 minutes north to camp. It was snowy at camp in contrast to wet and rainy Spokane. The lodge is a beautiful place with four-person rooms that include bathrooms. (This is my kind of roughing it!) There were about 45 women from Colbert at the retreat, which tells me that time for seeking Christ in fellowship with other women is a deeply felt need. I'm now praying that God would be faithful to bring about new and deeper relationships amongst the women who were there.

We got to enjoy dinner on Friday and breakfast and lunch on Saturday at the lodge. The food was wonderful. On Friday night, we had stuffed chicken breasts, a big salad, rolls, fresh fruit, and, for dessert, German Chocolate cake. The breakfast was rather atypical for a camp meal, but it was delicious. Pumpkin scones with pumpkin butter, parfaits with yogurt, frozen raspberries, and granola, and bacon. I had so much at breakfast, I was hardly hungry for lunch. I did find a little corner of room in my stomach and boy am I glad I did! Lunch was a pureed squash soup with pumpkin seeds on top, artichoke dip with fresh slices of bread, and a big salad with lots of good ingredients. Dessert, a necessity on a retreat, was big, soft ginger cookies.

I decided to write about the meals with such detail because of the detail that was put into each meal in the first place. I think it's a beautiful picture of the Kingdom of God to serve meals with such thoughtfulness, generosity, and creativity. I also loved the time of fellowship around the table. There's something so satisfying and unifing about eating a good meal with friends around a table.

The other meal I want to write about is my Monday night dinner with the Colbert Children's Ministry committee. We were at one committee member's house, and she prepared a feast: tortellini with pesto, spaghetti with clam sauce, rotini with tomato sauce, turkey meatballs, white rolls, and a salad with romaine, black olives, sliced cucumber, and an Italian dressing. For dessert, we had brownies with either peppermint or vanilla ice cream, hot fudge or caramel, and spiced nuts. This meal particularly brings out the creativity. I would never have thought to add spiced nuts to your basic brownie/ice cream combo or turkey meatballs with a pesto pasta.

Perhaps some of my unenthusiasm recently is that I only cook for myself. I am definitely more motivated to cook when I'm making food for other people. I'm praying that in the coming couple weeks, I can be creative with my meals, but still allow myself some grace when all I feel like eating is peanut butter and jam on toast.

But whether it's toast or stuffed chicken breasts for dinner, I'm praying that we can all be thoughtful, generous, and creative in our approach to the Christian life and our relationships with others. May food be just the start!

P.S. Thanks to my housemate for the fresh, gooey brownie I just ate. Yum. Not healthy, maybe, but certainly generous and thoughtful. :)

Friday Adventures

This morning, I came upstairs to fry some sausages for a Bible study breakfast and gasped. Snow. Pure white, cold snow covered the back deck and traced the image of the trees in the early morning sky. Good thing I was planning to get my snow tires on today. Fortunately, the roads weren't slippery. I made it to Bible Study and then to work.

After work, I jetted over to Les Schwab to get my regular tires traded out for my snow tires. I told the woman at the desk my mission. She told me candidly: "The wait will be nine hours." Nine hours!!

"You could come back at 7 tomorrow morning or try another time. First come, first serve," she said. "Or you could wait."

Smell that strange tire-y, rubber-y smell until midnight, six hours after they closed? I pictured myself locked in a dark Les Schwab with only popcorn for sustenance. No, thank you.

"I'll come back another day."

I walked to my car, my plans for the afternoon dashed. I hopped in my car and figured I might as well make my Costco run now, as it's two blocks down the road. As I walked into Costco, I was still shocked at the wait time, so I just wandered around aimlessly until I came across a lady with warm cinnamon roll samples.

"These came from the package right over there," she said.

I hovered. "Wow," I said. "These are really good; and they're warm."

"I warm them in my oven here," the lady said, looking at me like I'd just crawled out from under a rock. Not even Costco can sell pre-warmed muffins to the general consumer.

I next collected a rosemary cracker with Brie, a Breton cracker with blue cheese, and a Dixie cup with vanilla ice cream. For a sweet tooth, I really lucked out. Les Schwab can always take the backseat to warm cinnamon roll samples. Realizing my weakness, I grabbed my toilet paper and Life cereal and booked it out of there. Despite their gooey deliciousness, I did not want to come home with a pan of cinnamon rolls for dinner. (I had already had a piece of peanut butter pie for lunch.)

After a stop at the library, I drove to my mentor's house where I had a garden this summer and pulled up the last of my harvest: globe carrots. I pulled them up fast and shoved the dirty, cold carrots with snowy tops into a plastic grocery bag.

Then I drove home, and I ate a carrot. It was great. I love Friday nights. The weekend is my oyster.

And that's the end of my story. Sorry for the anticlimactic ending. I'm afraid the good part of the story is in the middle with the cinnamon rolls. :) But I will leave you with a couple pictures and well wishes for a wonderful weekend!

Call Me Crazy (Maybe)*

I went to Green Bluff today after church and got a ton of fruits and veggies. It's that time of year, and I love it! Using eggplant and summer squash, I made a Veggie Lasagna that I've wanted to try all summer. The food blogs I follow often post pictures alongside the steps of a recipe, so I thought I'd try it with this lasagna.

First, though, pictures of my Green Bluff bounty. I couldn't help but get another box of peaches--only 99 cents a pound!--to use for pies, cobblers, and the like. I froze every single peach from the previous two boxes I bought and couldn't let peach season pass by without at least one pie. From my favorite farm, Eleven Acres, I bought Gypsy and Bell peppers, green beans, Honey Crisp apples, a Snow Leopard melon (like a Honeydew), a Tuscan Cantaloupe, and more.

 

My other favorite Green Bluff farm is Hansen's, owned by a couple from my church. I came into the barn lugging this box of Red and Green Gravensteins (destined for quarts of applesauce!) and Rod, the owner, winked at me and said, "Been a while since I saw you." We'd both been at the 8:15 service at church and it was now noon. He eyed my overflowing box and asked, "Are you sure you want all those?" The big scale registered nearly 34 pounds. "I'll take 'em," I told Rod. "I'm a working woman." With applesauce, it's all or nothing. Admittedly, I was a little apprehensive since I hadn't paid attention to the price per pound. He looked at the scale and said, "Hmm. 34 pounds, we'll call that 33," and rung me up for $28.05. A bargain when you're expecting $60!

 

At 3pm, I started to make the lasagna, the recipe of which came from a website called Annie's Eats. I started by mixing up a tomato sauce (with fresh basil), stirring together a cream sauce (with heavy cream, cottage cheese, parmesan, etc.), and microwaving cubes of eggplant.

 

 

Then I cut up 8 cups of summer squash including one of my own scalloped squash.

 



After sauteing the squash and eggplant with garlic, olive oil, and fresh thyme, I wilted some spinach and mixed all the vegetables together. Next, I layered: tomato sauce, whole wheat lasagna noodles, half the veggie mixture, cream sauce, etc. For a little while I was afraid my pan wasn't deep enough!

 

Here it is, ready to go in the oven!

 

Here it is out of the oven! The hardest part is letting it sit 25 minutes before diving in.



And here's the first piece, ready to be eaten! It kinda fell apart, but it still tasted great!!

 

With it, I enjoyed this Snow Leopard melon. I had no idea I could get local melons (more local than Hermiston, that is), so I was stoked to try this. I also had a piece of corn. Delicious.

 

Now I hope I like this lasagna enough to eat it all week.

 

And yes, you have permission to call my obsession with fruits and vegetables crazy. :)

 

*Just a note to say that I changed this title to reflect a rather silly pop culture reference. Anyone get it?



Happy Valentine's Day!

A couple funny things happened at work today that I wanted to share with you. I had the grand idea to have treats in the office for Valentine’s Day. I was making cupcakes on Monday night for something else and had extra, so I packaged 11 frosting-less chocolate cupcakes for work. After baby-sitting in the morning, I stopped by Safeway with the intention of getting more cupcakes and the ingredients for raspberry Italian sodas (thanks for the idea, Lorry!).

Pathetic, I know, but I had no idea where anything was in Safeway! I always shop at Costco, Winco, or Fred Meyer. After wandering around and looking confused, I finally found the club soda, which I set in my basket. Then I picked out a tray of 12 vanilla cupcakes with towering pink frosting and a container of chocolate cookies with mint frosting. I put these in my basket, too, along with canned whip cream. Here’s where things started to break down.

They didn’t have any raspberry syrup. Reluctantly, I put back the club soda and whip cream in favor of three bottles of Martinelli’s apple cider, but then thought that we might not have anything to open the bottles with, so back on the shelf they went. I realized then that my arm was about to fall off from the weight of the club sodas, so I decided to buy two containers of raspberry lemonade out of desperation. As I was making a beeline for the lemonade, an employee asked “Are you finding everything?” I wasn’t about to tell him how I really felt, so I said politely, “Yes, thank you,” and grumbled to myself about why I couldn’t have just used a shopping cart. I’m sure this would have been the solution to my problem. By this time, the cupcakes were quite jumbled.

Praise God, I made it to work and got everything onto the counter in the kitchen. I pulled the cupcakes out of the bag and some of the frosting tops had come clean off! Two guys in the kitchen stared at the cupcakes. Frankly, I don’t blame them.

“Umm…what happened to the cupcakes?” One of them, David, asked.

I told the whole story, and David suggested that I just separate the frostings from the cupcakes.

“After all, some people really like the frosting but not the cake, and vice versa,” he reasoned.

So I did just that. I set out the rest of the spread, chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, raspberry lemonade and ice, chocolate mint cookies, severed cupcakes and frosting on separate plates, and some vanilla cupcakes that still had frosting. Needless to say, the treats got rave reviews and everything had vanished by 4 p.m. except three blobs of pink frosting.

Around 3 p.m., I was working steadily at my computer, and David said, “Elizabeth! Look!”

He had placed a pink frosting top on a chocolate cupcake. I burst out laughing. Somehow that made all the trouble of the morning’s shopping trip worthwhile.

On a serious note, I wrote out a hymn about God’s love for both Partners and Olive Tree this morning. I’ve committed it to memory because I like it so much, so I’m going to share it with you. Here it is:

Could we with ink the ocean fill

and were the sky of parchment made;

If every stalk on earth a quill

and every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above

would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

tho’ stretched from sky to sky.

O Love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure

the saints’ and angels’ song.

I hope your Valentine’s Day has been full of the love of God, family and friends!

Some Fun Pictures from the Weekend...

My friend Kari has been staying with me since Wednesday because her host family has the stomach flu. On Saturday morning, we decided to make cinnamon roll pancakes. It's a basic pancake dough (which we made with an awesome King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour) with cinnamon swirled (or designed) onto the top while it cooks and doused with a cream cheese frosting on the plate. Incredibly delicious!

I bought snowshoes and poles at REI yesterday with my Christmas money, so my housemate Rachel and I decided to drive up to Mt. Spokane this afternoon to do a snowshoe trek. Turns out we didn't need our snowshoes because the snow was pretty compacted. We had a great time. We hiked all the way up to the top of Mt. Spokane--me for the first time--and it was a gorgeous day, clear and bright. As we hiked back, the sun was setting. It was glorious! Praise God for his creation!

Here's some pictures:

Have a blessed week!!