Oatcake Fiction

 
    Nathanael and I enjoy reading to each other in the evening while dishes are being washed or pecans being cracked. Most of the time the book captivates us enough that we find other times to read, like having one person brush their teeth at a time, which is one of the current methods as we read Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald. It is best if there is some activity going on, because if we choose to read while just sitting, especially before bed, Nathanael needs to watch me carefully to make sure I am legitimately awake...actually even if I am the one reading, I may in fact be sleeping. During graduate school I read an entire chapter of Harry Potter to my roommate Lucy while she knitted, and despite the pages having been full of excitement I could not recall a single thing that had happened once I stood up to get ready for bed.
     Most of the books we read together are classic literature, and we especially enjoy the unabridged works of George MacDonald. His novels are the epitome of fiction which does not leave your brain to sit idly by, but engages it to play with philosophy, expand vocabulary, and envision situations and scenes rich with detail and feeling. I know some people who only read non-fiction, but I think they would appreciate a book such as Sir Gibbie, The Castle Warlock or Malcolm as evidence that edifying truth can often be more poignantly delivered through substantial fiction than through biography or historical reflection (though no author conveys the whole truth of course; some are much closer than others).

A friend gave us a neat little notebook where we record the books
we've read and movies we've watched...with ratings of course.

 
     Since George MacDonald was Scottish, his books are mostly set in Scotland with characters who enjoy Scottish fare, and quite often oatcakes. Nathanael would probably have made a good Scotsman back in the day. Of the 30% of Nathanael that is not water, about 60% is oats. We enjoy our oats in many forms around here. We nearly always have hot cereal, often have granola around for a snack, and sometimes we sprinkle oats into the crackers or sour dough bread. And whenever Nathanael needs to pack a lunch and we have no bread or convenient eaten-cold foods, he packs oatcakes and goes merrily on his way. Oatcakes are a plain food, and very healthy tasting, which I enjoy and Nathanael could eat every day. They're not junk food. I think they are an excellent medium for butter and jams, or savory spreads, but Nathanael delights in them just as they are with their roasted oat essence as the main attraction.

Scottish Oatcakes
from A Feast of Scotland by Janet Warren
1 1/3 cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
1/4 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon of Butter or Lard (Oil would probably work out alright)
6 Tbs hot water (approximately)
A bit of flour to dust the rolling surface; any variety will do.

1. Mix the oats, soda, and salt together.
2. Melt butter and pour into the center, then add enough water to make a stiff dough. Stir briefly with a wooden spoon.
3. Turn the dough onto a flour dusted surface and knead well. Divide in half, and roll each into an 8-inch circle about a quarter of an inch thick.
4. Cook the oatcakes in a dry, heavy based frying pan. They should take about 3 minutes on each side and be golden brown and slightly crisp. Alternatively they can be baked at 325F (160C) for about 30 minutes.
Serve with butter, honey and marmalade for breakfast or with soup and cheese for lunch.



Do you read to each other in your family (or with your roommates)?
What's on your summer reading list?
I would love some good recommendations! (And yes, we read non-fiction too!)

Golden: Beautiful Bamboo

While I was in graduate school I had some of those handy dandy cutting board sheets, each labeled with the name of the food you should cut upon it. When I was in the store they seemed so clever and practical...but they certainly have their downsides...especially when you set them on the floor and have your strong brothers-in-law take turns cleaving open pumpkins. Additionally, the flexibility of the boards makes them less easy to clean, and causes them to stick together should you accumulate more than one in the sink (or all four, which I would never do of course...only most weeks). And, as with other plastic cutting boards, thick or thin, the places where the knife marks the surface eventually becomes rough and not so fun to run your hand or dishrag across, while wood or bamboo stay smooth.

Winter is for Gardening

There are our little garlic plants....back at the beginning of January actually. It is so strange to garden through the "winter". It is wonderful, I can't tell you how really wonderful; but between gardening and the weather in general, my internal clock just assumes that we are having the longest April in history. The other day someone told me the birthdays of two people and I made a comment about the birthday in August coming before the one in March.

 

A friend is letting us garden on her land, so back in November and December we measured out a 50 by 55ft plot (which incase you can't envision it, is huge), and slowly began our gardening. Really really slowly at first. We went to a farm and shoveled a whole trailer load of horse manure, but when we got it back to the garden it looked like just a tiny little heap.

Nathanael planted around one hundred garlic before we left to visit our families in December (each planted clove will yield one bulb in late summer), and we also had a neighbor till the soil with his tractor. It was a pretty serious job to break up the turf of what was previously just lawn. 

    When we returned in January we began to dedicate a little more time to gardening. For the first couple of Saturdays Nathanael used a big borrowed rototiller to break up the soil. He went over the entire garden twice (something I admire him for because I certainly would not have had the gumption). I wish I had more pictures to show you just how enormous of a job it was to deal with all the silty soil.

(Watch the gotee, it will disappear.)

Meanwhile, I was in the digging trenches, some of which will serve as the drainage (very necessary) and some of which will be the walking rows. The soil I removed from the trenches became the beds, which I then shaped with a hoe to prepare for planting. It did get a little cold on some Saturdays, and I did wear layers and a scarf, but it was never unbearable to have bear hands.

Even though I kept digging and digging, I usually only dug just more than one trench/row each Saturday. Why? Because 55 ft is pretty long. Yes.

 After a few rows I had a hard time keeping them from becoming curvy, so we put up a network of strings on sticks to help me out.

 So things started looking much more organized.

So we began planting other cold weather crops. First we planted snow peas, and now we have also planted spinach, broccolis (2 varieties), lettuces (4 varieties), carrots (4 varieties, 3 colors!), beets, parsley, dill, and coriander.
Here are some of the seeds we chose for this year (we also have some seeds we will be planting from last year, so this is about 3/4 of the plan). We will have 40+ varieties when everything is planted. We were so excited when this package came in from Baker Creek. I have a picture of Nathanael with his face showing the excitement from that night, but I think he'd rather I just stuck to this picture. (Click to look closer at the fun varieties.)

Since the snow peas were starting to peek out of the soil, we figured we should do something to keep out the deer and armadillos(!), but we didn't want to do something that would be too costly or too much of an eyesore. So Nathanael decided to drive posts in at the corners and string fishing line at 8 different heights to keep the deer out by making them run into an "invisible" barrier which will hopefully creep them out a little. 

Do you see it?

(If you look very carefully you can see a few of the lines on the left. And the levee on the right, beyond which is the Mississippi River. Sorry about the glare, though the strange light is the only reason you can see the fishing line. And yes, that's our car.)

 

Nathanael also put up steaks and twine as a trelis for the snow peas, and eventually we will do the same for the Thai Long Beans (Khew Dok) and Chinese Red Noodle Beans. (He is actually gardening barefoot in this next picture, but I didn't really capture it.)

 

So, now that the tilling and fencing trellising are mostly complete, Nathanael and I are taking turns digging, hoeing and planting. Right now we have about 40% of the garden dug and hilled, and maybe 35% of it planted (and also marked with neat little wooden stakes so we can remember the name of each variety).

We are so excited about our garden. The opportunity to have a garden has definitely been an answer to prayer; it was the main thing we were unsure of as we moved to another urban area, but God has blessed us with a very generous friend.
We are looking forward to sharing our produce with our friends and neighbors, and cooking with each of the international vegetable (and fruit!) varieties which are new to us. We also hope to be able to have some work days with some of our international friends so they can share the joy of gardening with us, especially once things begin to grow. 

Are any of you putting in seed orders yet, or making plans for gardens or potted terraces?

Are you jealous of our gardening hats?

Organizing and Revamping

 

This week I have been reorganizing...everything really. 

It occurred to my last week as I was being bothered by an unruly shelf, that if I am a scientist and an artist, I should really also be an inventor, if even in very small things. And so, this week I set about reconfiguring things in small ways and solving problems in the most well designed ways(both functionally and artistically)  that I could think of on short notice. (Yes, it's true...we have guests coming and that is part of the sudden motivation.)

     In the bathroom, we have some built in shelving which once had doors (probably before I was born). For hours I tried to decide which fabric I would choose to sew little panels to cover the least used (most filled) shelves in a decorative way...but finally I came across some woven striped dish cloths we had never used. I hammered them up, and they are not revolutionary, but the bathroom looks much more tidy without exposed bottles everywhere.

    For the bedroom I am contemplating shoe storage options (let me know if you have some great ones), and considering one of those cloth over the door shoe racks. I have always considered them ugly, but I was thinking I could probably make one in a small amount of time, using some sturdy recycled khakis and some fabrics I would like to see every day. We will see if that goes anywhere.

      Now that the shop is open (check out the grapefruit marmalade added today), the blog too will be receiving a new look. So say goodbye to this one, and look forward to a little less *ehem* clutter, and a little more fun.

    And finally, (you may laugh) I did something about the plastic grocery bags that were slowly spreading through the kitchen cabinet like The Blob. Again, I considered making something, like one of those fabric bag holders, but just didn't have space for something floppy. So, I tore the wrappers off of two empty oatmeal boxes (the 42 oz ones) to reveal their simple cardboard brown, and decorated them a bit before stuffing them full of an unbelievable number of plastic bags. So even though it may sound silly, I though I would share with you how oatmeal boxes turn out to be quite attractive for storage.

 We make a lot of granola and hot cereal around here.

 

 ^This picture makes it look a bit like a cup of coffee from a cafe.^

So, simple and silly? Yes. 

But helpful too.

Dark Chocolate Traditions

 In March I posted one of my family's favorite cookie recipes. This one is the other favorite, and was also passed down to my mother from her Italian maternal grandmother. These chocolate cookies are perhaps a little less suitable for breakfast than the fennel seed ones, but that may not stop you (or me) from eating them for breakfast when they are available. I made them on Monday night because Nathanael and I had a long car ride in front of us on Tuesday, and not only did I want to eat them all the way there, but I also wanted to share them with the family members waiting for us on the other side. As it turned out there was more than enough food when we arrived, so we still have most of the cookies, but that is alright with both of us.

  I remember making these cookies with my mom, sisters, and a family friend one year when we had an all day Christmas cookie bake. There are no eggs in these cookies and the dough is quite delicious; I ate so much of the dough that even our family friend told me to stop. I tried, but I think I ended up still having a few more bits of it. I recall we also made some kind of sugar cookies where you mix 2/3 of the dough with pistachio pudding and they ended up looking like little green UFOs with tan domes.

This cookie recipe has you do some unusual things, which might dissuade you if you are picky, but I would recommend that you be brave and branch your chocolate cookies into this new and gourmet realm. (Just make sure you read the recipe from start to finish before beginning. You will need almost a whole box of cocoa, and probably most of a bag of confectioner's sugar to frost.)

 You will chop not only the nuts, but also the raisins. This will keep them from cracking the cookies as they bake. The recipe calls for coffee, and even though I don't EVER drink coffee, these cookies are one of my favorites. The coffee will not only give richness to the chocolate, but since it is warm it will soften the raisins and melt the shortening. These cookies are the only reason I brew coffee (well, them and Nathanael).

These cookies have no eggs, and the original recipe calls for vegetable shortening, so in their traditional form they are vegan. However, shortening is falling out of style because of hydrogenation, so if you are an adventurous vegan go ahead and try some combination of oils. I typically use some butter and some oil. 

  Sifting your dry ingredients will ensure the cocoa is mixed well with the flour.

 I roasted my cloves in the oven to make them slightly easier to grind with the mortar and pestle, and it made our house smell wonderful until we returned from our trip three days later. However, roasting is not necessary.

 The dough is a scrumptious mixture that is easy to work with and not dangerous to eat. What more could you ask for?

The only thing missing is the almond frosting. Then they will taste really Italian.

Italian Chocolate Cookies  yield 4 dozen
Wet ingredients
1 cup of hot coffee
1 cup shortening (I usually use 3/4 butter, 1/4 canola oil)
1 cup raisins, chopped
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup sugar

Dry ingredients
4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups cocoa
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cloves (you can add up to 1 1/2 tsp, but my family usually keeps it on the low end)

Later addition
3/4 to 1 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 to 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional and not in original recipe, try to balance them out with the walnuts to equal no more than 1 1/2 cups so that the cookies don't crumble)

 In a medium glass bowl pour the hot coffee over the shortening/butter to melt it completely. Once melted also add raisins (to soften them), vanilla, and sugar. In a separate bowl sift together dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry mixtures together and add walnuts and chocolate chips. Mix with your hands until all ingredients are mixed evenly. Let dough rest for 5 minutes. Roll into 1 inch balls, place on greased cookie sheets, and bake at 375°F for ten minutes only. Remove carefully to a wire rack and cool fully. If desired (and you will desire it once you taste it) frost with confectioner's sugar frosting.

Confectioner's Sugar Frosting
2 cups powdered sugar (sifted if possible)
1/2 tsp pure almond extract (or vanilla if you must, but almond is better)
10 tsp milk (2% or whole)

Place sugar in a bowl and add flavoring. Measure the first 5 tsp of milk into the bowl and then stir the mixture into a paste (this reduces lumps). Slowly add the remaining milk, one teaspoon at a time, stirring after each addition. You will probably use all 10 tsp, but it may depend upon your sugar. Resulting frosting should be somewhere near the thickness of Elmer's glue. Dip cookies in completely, scraping off excess, and set on a wire rack to dry. Allow frosting to harden before storing cookies.
This will frost about 2 dozen cookies, more if you scrape up the drippings.

Pecan Weekend

On Saturday Nathanael asked me whether I had any plans for the day. When I told him I did not, he responded, "Good. Because I do."
We got out our tandem bike and rode a short distance to an area beside the road where a few pecan trees grew and spent the morning collecting pecans. I thought it was the most wonderful fall activity. The light was beautiful  in the shade of the trees, and we were usually not too far from each other, which allowed us to talk while we collected. And, unlike berry picking, with pecan collecting there is no danger of squishing what you collect or eating them as you go.

     Pecans are prevalent in Southern desserts, none of which I have yet attempted, so our efforts were not only recreational, but also a bit frugal. Shelled pecans from orchards are ordinarily sold for six to nine dollars a pound depending on the size of the nut pieces (halves, chopped or ground), but pecan trees are sprinkled in along roads and sidewalks. On Saturday, each tree we encountered had nuts that were a slightly different size or shape; some being too small to seem worth it, and some being long and narrow. Most of the nuts we collected were just a little smaller than the ones you can purchase at the grocery store, but the meats have a soft golden skin instead of the chestnut brown one that is classic in stores. I think they also have a better flavor, but it might just be their freshness ringing through.

After about two hours, we collected around 6 quarts of nuts. One huge bowlful. If you look closely you can see a few of the different shapes and sizes we came across. Later in the day we went out and purchased a super duper nut cracker for ourselves. It will take a little practice to consistantly achieve unbroken nut meats, but attempting to do so is an addicting challenge.

  The next day our Sunday school class was kindly invited for a riverside picnic at one of the member's homes, followed by nut collecting beneath their 20 pecan trees. Nathanael and I thought it not only sounded like fun, but that we might learn something from the locals about how to collect and crack the nuts more efficiently. We entered the address into google maps, and seeing that it was only three miles away, hopped on our bike and road off to another adventure. I am not sure why we momentarily disregarded previously being told, "You will see cows," and rode straight downtown looking for the address. When we failed to find the farmhouse downtown we headed the other direction on the road, hoping the numbering would start over soon and we would come to the same address not too far away. Strangely, that single road re-numbered itself more than four times in the same city and we still did not encounter our destination.
We saw a lot of cows. I waved and said hi.
After a while I just assumed we must have missed it altogether, but there were always intriguing bends ahead, so Nathanael drove us onward....onward....onward. When we hit a new county we decided to stop and eat our picnic lunch on top of the levee and then attempt to find a more direct route home, but some kind passersby informed us there were some houses just a little further down the road.

And so, after biking just a few miles further, we found it!

Our hostess was impressed with our excursion (just short of two hours), and also sorry she had forgot to mention the address was in a different city. After a second lunch, we spent just half an hour collecting pecans and came away with a stash even larger than the one from the day before! We received a ride home, which was definitely a relief, and our bike was returned to us a couple of days later. We enjoyed our bike ride, but if I had known we would be pedaling so far I would not have worn sandals or allowed Nathanael to carry so heavy of a backpack. When we mapped out our route that evening we discovered we had gone 26.3 miles.

Phew! It was quite a memorable weekend. 

 

L.L. Bean Trail Bars: Two Ways...or Maybe More

 Nathanael is taking a wetland plant taxonomy class this semester. They have field trips on many of the weekends, which is a little bit of a bummer for Nathanael's cramped schedule, but he enjoys the interesting excursions nonetheless. The students are required to collect and press 25 herbarium quality plant specimens by the end of the course, but Nathanael has already collected more than enough even though they are not yet halfway through the semester. Preserving species is pretty invigorating once you get into it, and I know that sounds very nerdy, but it isn't really. It is more of a pleasure in understanding your surroundings I think.
  When Nathanael goes on these all day trips into the southern heat we are nearly always out of bread. So he usually requests oat cakes and I fill a container with fruit and vegetables, but I also make him a more outdoorsy snack to satisfy his hunger. So far trail bars have been just the thing.
      Today I would like to share with you this recipe, which is rather drab in terms of color, and probably also not the most healthy thing you have ever eaten...but that is what makes it tasty. Alright, it does involve prunes and an assortment of grains, so it has those things going for it at least. The real reason I am posting this recipe is because various members of my family have been searching for it at a given time, and since I have finally found it, I want others who are looking to be able to find it too. (There are other versions on the internet, but they are not all alike.)
My Mom cut this recipe out of an L.L. Bean catalog some time in the nineties, which I think is unusual because I don't think I have ever seen recipes appear in that catalog on any other occasion. There was a picture, which made the baked trail bars look like granola bars, but when my mom made them they looked like fiber filled brownies. However, when I (at long last) rediscovered the recipe I made one batch that looked like hers, and one batch that looked like granola bars. But, both were delicious and each one accompanied Nathanael as he collected plants. (I include the instructions for each outcome below.)
   You may be skeptical of prunes, but I would like to assure you that prunes complement chocolate wonderfully without being loud in their own flavor. If you are a big fan of original powerbars, make the brownie-like variation (they are not just like power bars, but reminiscent of them), and if you are more of a chewy granola bar person, make the original version. I have substituted almost all of the ingredients at one time or another, so just make these with what you have or see my ideas below.

 

L.L. Bean Trail Bars (original recipe)
Dry Ingredients

1c. quick oats
1 c. flour
1/2c. wheat germ
3 Tbs sesame seeds
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/4c. chopped walnuts

Wet ingredients
1/4c. sunflower oil
2 Tbs. maple syrup
1/2 c. honey
2/3c. chocolate chips

Later addition
1/4c. baby food prunes

In one bowl mix wet ingredients thoroughly, in another mix the wet ingredients. Combine wet and dry mixtures, and the baby food prunes. Spread into a greased 8 by 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 375 F.
Cut into bars while warm.


Brownie-like variation

Heat wet ingredients together in a saucepan until the chocolate chips are melted. Cool slightly, add to dry mixture and stir in baby food prunes. Spread into a greased 8 by 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 375 F. Cut into bars while warm.

Alternate ingredients
old fashioned oats instead of quick
the addition of any puffed or rolled grains instead of portions of the oats
whole wheat flour instead of all purpose, or gluten free flours because rising is not important here
flax meal instead of wheat germ (or just skip the wheat germ)
your choice of nuts instead of sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and walnuts
canola oil instead of sunflower
additional honey instead of maple syrup
chocolate chunks instead of chips

Granola: colorful textures

My Mom is the queen of granola. She varies the ingredients in her homemade granola from time to time, but the basic texture and dependable goodness are always the same. My sister Melissa has created a number of granola recipes since she began cooking, none of which are anything like Mom’s, but instead they usually have a wide variety of ingredients and an addicting crunchiness. I think that my freshman year of college I probably consumed a gallon or two of that granola all on my own just on the occasions I stopped by her apartment to say hello.
I have made granola in the past, though usually either under the supervision of my Mom (or with my Mom on the phone), or with an end product that was nearly inedible. Probably part of my problem is that I would like to mix the flavor of Mom’s with the texture of Melissa’s. A few years ago I attempted to make a crunchy granola, added 5 or 6 different uncooked grains (wheat berries, barley, buckwheat, etc.) to the oats and came up with something that smelled fantastic, but was destined to break your teeth. My roommates felt sorry for me and ate some, but in the end I threw most of it away.
With a few years of added cooking experience and my Mom unreachable by phone (don’t know what she was up to), I successfully created a tasty granola recipe this morning from some interesting ingredients that gave it a little crunch. Give it a try if you’re feeling adventurous; putting it together doesn’t take very long.





Chipmunk Granola
Toast 5 cups of oats on a baking sheet at 350 F for about 10 minutes
In a large bowl mix:
¾ cup canola oil
1 cup honey
2 Tablespoons flax seeds
½ cup flax meal
3 Tablespoons raw millet
¾ cup puffed millet
1 cup shredded coconut (I used unsweetened)
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt


Combine mixture with oats and stir until completely coated. Divide onto two baking sheets and bake on the top oven rack at 350 F for 5 minutes, then stir with a wooden spoon. Return to oven and repeat 5 minute intervals until oats are a light golden brown (they will darken as they cool). This took me 15 minutes or so, but it may vary depending on your oven. Stir on tray every few minutes as it cools to prevent sticking. Store in airtight container.

Variation: Exchange the ingredients you don’t have for some you do, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, unsalted nuts, or soy grits. You may also want to add a cup or two of dried fruit, but this should be done right after you take it out of the oven.