Two Salad Dressings

This photo, showing the romaine lettuces, was our garden a month ago.



This is our garden today. It's amazing how fast everything grows! My husband watered the garden Tuesday evening...



...and I watered the blueberries yesterday morning. With the temperatures predicted to hit the 80's (WhooHoo!), it was a day to make sure everything had plenty of water: water the chicks, water the chickens, fill the pig's water bucket, fill the flock's water buckets, fill a bucket for the dog to find, fill all the rabbit water bottles, empty and fill 3 duck pools (yuck!), and I searched in vain for the sprinkler (lost in the tall orchard grass) to water the strawberry bed with. Tromped way out to the back pasture to check and see if the baaing of a lamb was one stuck up to its chest in the stream with waterlogged wool (this happened a couple days ago) or with its head stuck in a fence (this happened a few days ago also), or if it was just one complaining about being weaned or some other great lambie unhappiness. All was well by the time I got to them, and they all followed me back to the barn to drink from their water buckets and lie around in the shade for the afternoon.



Our blueberries aren't ripe yet. I am patiently waiting and dreaming of blueberries. The blueberries are next to the clothesline and as I hung out three loads of laundry (I simply LOVE line dried clothes) I thought of blueberry foods: eating blueberries fresh from the bush, Blueberry Sauce, Blueberry Pie, frozen blueberries straight from the bag, Blueberry Jam, Blueberry Wine...



Iced coffee...



...and salad for my lunch before leaving for work -with a choice of two salad dressings. The truth is that I seldom measure for this Balsamic Dressing but approximate (and rather flexibly) for these amounts. Make it to suit yourself, tasting and adding as you like. The Yogurt Curry Salad Dressing is a bit unusual, and quite good. I also used it as a marinade for some rabbit pieces we grilled over the fire pit. Delicious.

Balsamic Dressing
Mix together in mini food processor:
1 T. honey
2 T. Dijon mustard
3 T. Balsamic vinegar or half and half with red wine vinegar
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 -1 t. Italian Seasoning
1/2 t. salt
few grinds of black pepper to taste


Yogurt Curry Salad Dressing
Whisk together in a small bowl:
1/2 c. plain yogurt
1 T. cider vinegar
1 1/2 t. lemon juice
1/4 t. curry powder
1/2 t. turmeric
1 T. honey
1/4 c. mayonnaise

I have found if you beat the daylights out of this dressing, as when making it in a mini food processor, it will thin overnight. It doesn't change the taste, it just becomes a rather thin dressing, and I prefer the thicker version on my salad.

Socks and Salads

"She wondered how she could possibly accommodate what had happened to her life. She had no choice but to live around it." -Jim Harrison, The Farmer's Daughter



One,



two,



three,



and maybe four? I'll just have to wait and see if I have enough yarn to finish a fourth Socks with Lacepattern (click here).



We are in the middle of the season for salads made with lettuce fresh from the garden. I absolutely love wandering into the garden every evening and picking lettuces for our dinner salad. We seldom buy salad dressings, since they are really quite easy to make. Eating salad every day never gets old when the lettuce is perfect and the dressings are varied. I'm always looking for new ones to add to my repertoire and I'm guessing many of you are too. The Poppy Seed Salad Dressing (click here) I fell in love with last year is still appreciated on just about any kind of greens, but I must say I think Caesar Salad is my absolute favorite. The Caesar Salad we made last weekend with Flashy Trout Back Romaine (click here) lettuce from the garden was fantastic, but I admit I will greedily gobble up any Caesar. This is the Caesar Salad Dressing recipe I use year-round on both summer's spectacular and winter's mundane romaine lettuces.



Caesar Salad
Blend together in a mini-food processor, pint jar with a tight fitting lid, or with a wand blender:
4 anchovy fillets, minced or 1 1/2 t. anchovy paste
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T. Dijon mustard
2 T. red wine vinegar
2 drops Tabasco Sauce
1 t. Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 c. olive oil

Toss with 2-4 quarts washed and chopped romaine lettuce, 1-2 c. (3-5 oz.) croutons, and 1/4 - 1/2 c. shredded Parmesan cheese. This is best served right away, but I admit I am usually quite happy to eat even limp day-old (or more) Caesar Salad leftovers -it really is one of my all time favorites.

Food for An Angel

"Make me an angel that flies from Montgom'ry
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold onto
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go." -John Prine



I've recently made flan (twice) (click here) and red velvet cupcakes (click here), which left me with a quantity of egg whites in the fridge. Baking an angel food cake to serve with fresh berries is my favorite way to use them up. I actually had two cups of egg whites from all this and I simply proportioned this recipe up a bit to make a slightly bigger cake. Eggs whites freeze well and I often freeze in 1 1/2 c. quantities for baking these cakes.

Angel Food Cake
Sift together:
1 c. cake flour
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/4 t. salt



In large bowl beat:
1 1/2 c. egg whites

When foamy add:
1 t. cream of tartar



When soft peaks form add:
1/4 t. almond extract
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. sugar, adding 2 tablespoons at a time.



When all the sugar has been added and mixed in and you have glossy, stiff peaks (that aren't too dry), using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mix. Plop into an ungreased angel food cake pan (I bought mine at a yard sale years ago) and run a knife in circles through the batter to release air bubbles.



Bake 325 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool upside down for 1 1/2 hours before removing pan (I was a bit impatient with mine; it didn't release cleanly and the edges were a bit jagged but it tasted just fine!)



Slice using a serrated knife and serve. We had this cake with the most perfect small, dark red and incredibly fragrant strawberries freshly picked from the bed out back, then sliced and macerated with a small spoon of sugar to release their juices. When I was growing up, we always had scone/biscuit-like cake (click here) with our strawberries, but angel food cake is what my husband's family always ate summer strawberries on. Later in the summer when the raspberries are ripe, I prefer to make this following chocolate variation. All of these cakes served with just picked berries are truly food for an angel!

Chocolate Angel Food Cake
Sift together:
1 c. cake flour
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/2 c. European style Hershey's Cocoa
1 T. Medaglia d'Oro instant espresso coffee
Whip until stiff but not dry:
12 egg whites (1 1/2 c.)
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cream of tartar
Add and fold in 1/4 c. at a time 1 c. sugar. Do the same with the flour mixture. Put into pan and bake 325 degrees for 40 minutes, or until top springs back when lightly pressed. Invert pan and cool.

Happy Fourth of July!

My Friday

"Mama said there'll be days like this. There'll be days like this, my mama said." -The Shirelles

Yesterday, Friday 130 am, I returned from an ER visit. My youngest daughter was chucking cardboard boxes into the dumpster at her work and accidentally got a paper cut on her eyeball (I know, Ewww!).

Sleep, blessed sleep. 7ish am, coffee, breakfast, and more coffee.

Morning Chores and extracting lamb with its head stuck in the fence.

Drove oldest daughter to scheduled doctor's appointment, and youngest daughter to unscheduled doctor's appointment. Luckily, the office of the ER's consulting opthalmologist my youngest daughter was told to have check out her eye is in the same clinic. Unluckily, we had to wait quite awhile and spent the entire morning sitting around in various waiting and examining rooms. And luckily, he OKed driving herself to work -otherwise the rest of my day would have been REALLY complicated!



Drove home for lunch. I had spinach, home canned tuna and Four Bean Salad. Youngest drove herself to work, and I drove her sister to the Transit Center to bus into Seattle with plans for either meeting up with her dad and me afterwards, or bussing home and having her sister pick her up.

Rabbit butchering with Sharon, one of my sisters-in-law (click here). She is interested in learning how to butcher, so I'd invited her to come help me with this necessary task since the process for any bigger animals is essentially the same.

I changed my clothes and Sharon gave me a ride into Seattle, dropping me off at Kristos (click here) where I met my husband and his co-workers for Happy Hour. I had lamb sliders with blue cheese and a couple of their Kronos cocktails -Yum!

Oldest daughter decided not to go to the movie with us and bussed home. We went to see 'Beginners' -a very sweet movie! Bought a bottle of wine on the way home and stashed it in the glove box of our green VW bus (click here). Oldest daughter showed us her brand new tattoo she had done while in Seattle, and we checked in to make sure our youngest daughter's eye was fine -it was. Husband locked up animals for the night, and we drank a glass of wine -I was so tired I couldn't finish mine (what a lightweight!) and trundled off to bed.

Sometime around midnight one of our youngest daughter's friend 'pocket-dialed' the house phone -again.

Sleep, blessed sleep.

Today, I'm making baked beans and red velvet cupcakes, and maybe grilling something over the fire for our dinner. And I'm hoping for a quiet, simple holiday weekend at home, though you just never know what life will bring, do you? No matter how you spend yours, I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend! Happy Fourth of July!!

Flan

We finished last weekend with a flan, and I also made one for a Father's Day dessert. If I were a good little blogger I would look up and share the origins and influences of flan, but instead I will simply tell you what very little I know about making flans. The most important thing about flans is that my husband really likes them. Flans are quite tasty and not really that difficult to make, though there are a few tricks: It's essential to use a water bath while baking one to insure a smooth texture, and it's done baking when it no longer jiggles; they need to chill so must be baked well ahead of when you want to serve them; I've always used this ring mold (I think I bought it years ago at a yard sale) so I have absolutely no idea if you can make one using anything else; the caramelized sugar may look scrumptious after you've coated the ring mold, but if you take the tiniest little taste from the pot (you know, that indulgent finger-taste you just can't help yourself from taking whenever you're bake something) YOU WILL BE SORRY as it is REALLY hot; a flan uses 8 eggs, which can be great if your chickens are producing almost a dozen a day (like ours are), or a complication if the are not yet producing (like the little chickens of Lucy 'In the sky' (click here). This is my recipe for making flan.

Basic Flan
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat 1/2 c. sugar + 3 T. water WITHOUT STIRRING. Swirl once in awhile until the sugar turns honey-colored. Wearing an oven mitt (trust me, you should wear an oven mitt), pour into a 2-quart ovenproof mold and swirl the caramel around to coat the bottom and some of the sides, taking care not to burn yourself. Set aside.

Whip:
1 egg
7 egg yolks
2/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 t. nutmeg or almond extract -NOT both
pinch salt

Add: 2 1/2 c. milk or almond milk
Pour over caramel in mold. Place in a larger pan and pour warm water for water bath to reach 2/3 height of mold. Bake 1 hour, or until no longer jiggles. Cool, then refrigerate for several hours or overnight. To serve: run a knife around edges to loosen custard. Set mold in hot water (in sink or water bath pan again) to reach 1/2 height of mold for 1 minute or so to melt caramel to unmold flan. Give a quick spin-wiggle to make sure the custard is loosened. Cover with a plate and quickly invert -it should plop right out.

DONE

I make TO-DO lists all the time. I diligently apply myself to accomplishing what's on these lists, and I do accomplish quite a bit really, but the truth is that I add tasks at a much more rapid pace than I accomplish tasks. Writing everything down on paper helps to control the feeling of being overwhelmed by it all and to organize and prioritize tasks, but it does not guarantee anything getting actually DONE. It is disheartening to find lists from a year ago, and see that some of the tasks on it are still not yet DONE. This can be quite depressing and discouraging and I try and not beat myself up to badly about this. Instead, I'm trying to focus on giving myself credit for what actually IS accomplished. Our weekends are usually a whirlwind of activities and working on PROJECTS, and though we usually don't accomplish all that we hope to, we do quite a bit. Instead of a TO-DO list of 300 tasks with only 10 crossed off, this is my DONE list for last weekend.

DONE
-daily chores of feeding and watering: 20 some layer hens + rooster, 9 chicks, 4 sheep + 6 lambs + 1 non-productive dairy goat, 1 weaner pig, 4 breeding ducks + 10 young ducks, 11 rabbits +2 baby bunnies, 2 quail, 3 barn cats and 1 geriatric farm dog
-washed many loads of laundry and dishes, swept and vacuumed, and cleaned bathroom
-finally decided where, and husband planted Mothers Day honeysuckle and put up trellis
-weeded garden and hilled potatoes
-weeded strawberry bed
-weeded and net blueberries (I forgot last year and we had no blueberries to freeze)
-husband weed wacked and fixed electric fence; we rotated sheep into new pasture
-slept on freshly laundered line-dried sheets (one of the small joys in life)
-made several trips to transit center -last one Sunday at midnight
-finished reading Old School by Tobias Wolff; husband went to watch Aquasox baseball game
-spent an entire evening simply talking with my family
-knit and spun a bit
-made waffles for Sunday morning breakfast
-pulled first turnips from the garden and cooked them in browned butter
-made a menu and shopped for groceries; we filled three cars with gas
-removed dead newborn bunny from next box; two healthy bunnies left
-cleaned rabbit trays
-cleaned duck houses
-planted tomatillo plants in garden
-made Dinners: Duck and Green Bean Curry with quail eggs (click here); Basque-style Shepherdess Lamb, macaroni salad with green relish, green garden salad and turnips in browned butter; fire-grilled pork chops with leftover salads and Greek Dressing and Yogurt Curry Dressing
-had fire in fire pit for relaxed outdoor dinner for just my husband and me (both exhausted after a day of gardening)
-made new cocktail: Strawberry Moon Mojito (click here)
-thought about this post of Jewel's at Applegarth Farm (click here). for several days. 'Home Cook' would be my best answer, followed by 'Farmer's Daughter' as my next best. And after reading this post (click here) I'm reminded of what a good story it is and am searching for our copy of Watership Down to reread.
-finished the weekend with an 8 egg flan!