Views from the Flatirons
July 22, 2011 § Leave a comment
Last Sunday we took a hike in the afternoon, eager to get out despite the heat we’ve been having lately. Clouds came at just the perfect time to protect us from the summer sun.
Here’s what we saw:
The Royal Arch! Our destination. Many stairs up and some shortness of breath, but sure worth it.
The picture can’t quite show you how big it is . . . you’ll have to go see for yourself when you come out here someday. (Hint. Hint. Come visit me.) We would have liked a shot of ourselves in the middle, but there were so many people – it was such a nice (if hot) summer afternoon for a hike, and we met some friendly outdoorsy folks along the way.
At the top there were skittery little chipmunks tempting all the dogs to chase them right over the edge. Yikes.
Next time we will remember to bring more water. Miss T. didn’t have a bottle for herself, and unlike some of the other trails from Chautauqua Park there were no streams for her to drink from, so we had to share. That day, that hike, it wasn’t quite enough! Fortunately, along this dry trail she managed to find one small shady spot where water had collected on a stone. She settled right in to cool off and quench her thirst.
Aaaaahhh!
Collard fritatta and a clafoutis calamity
July 21, 2011 § Leave a comment
For some reason I wanted to bake with eggs today.
I got up early and had a quick breakfast and cleaned and ran errands. Poor Miss T. has been limping for the past few days so she is not getting the walks and outside playtime that she likes to have. She keeps standing at the door and looking at me.
You need to rest, honey. If only she understood. At least I could take her in the car with me as we went about town. Sometimes it’s nice to just get out.
We went to pick up my milk share and get some eggs. I have not settled on a source for local eggs yet; the ones on the farm where I work are spoken for. I’m happy to know, though, that I can get good brown eggs from Organic Valley at the grocery store. Those eggs are so pretty. I was smitten with brown eggs as a little girl and I am still. That color!
The collards from the farm had been sitting and I needed to do something with them. So easy to throw together garlic, onion tops, collards, eggs, milk, and cheese – with of course some salt and pepper – to make a fritatta. Nice for lunch today . . . and easy to put into containers to bring to work for the next week!
And then the clafoutis. Well.
I had never made it before and was eager to try this traditional Limousin French treat. Especially with the Rainier cherries I’d gotten at the market. Colorado cherries trucked over the mountains from Palisade. Such a cheery yellow.
I used a gluten-free baking mix in place of all-purpose flour, just because I think it’s good to mix up your grains. Guess what? (Silly me.) The baking mix has baking soda and baking powder in it. And guess what else? Those are not ingredients in clafoutis. It had been my understanding that this was simply a mix of various flours to use in place of wheat flour. Not quite. (Always read ingredient labels.)
So . . . my clafoutis bubbled up to rise rather than settling into a smoothly dense golden-brown custardy flan sort of thing.
Oh, dear.
Despite how it looks, it really wasn’t that bad. I’m happy to say it still tastes pretty good.
And when I get it right, next time, I’ll let you know! And post a recipe. For now . . . well, waste not, want not. At times we all have to eat, or look at, or revise our mistakes. In doing so, we might even find that they are not so terrible, after all.
—–
COLLARD FRITATTA RECIPE
Ingredients:
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 cloves garlic
10 collard green leaves
7-10 onion tops
3/4 cup whole milk
7 eggs
1/2 cup cheese, grated (I used Organic Valley Raw Mild Cheddar)
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Mince, crush, or press the garlic into the oil in a medium skillet, and being heating at medium heat. Remove the stems from the collard greens and cut into strips, then into halves. Slice the onion tops into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces. Toss collards and onion tops into skillet and sautée until collards have softened.
Beat the eggs with the milk. Add the cheese, salt, and pepper. Fold in the greens and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
In the Bur Oak
July 21, 2011 § Leave a comment
I was lying on my back on the bench
of the picnic table, for fifteen minutes
of lunch and blessed shade between work.
.
Above me, in the branches of the bur oak,
a little black-and-white bird also positioned
himself upside down. He had quite the grip
.
with those little feet as he skittered along
the bottom of one limb. I thought at first
he was some wild sort of squirrel-creature
.
but then up along the side he went, his head
well-shaped, movements quick and attentive,
wings folded behind his back. I don’t know why,
.
but it made me laugh, this bird in the tree moving
along without flight, with some kind of purposeful
hurry, unperturbed as I peered into his aerial home.
Colorful mornings
July 17, 2011 § Leave a comment
Look what we get to wake up to weekend mornings! The balloons drift by just outside our apartment and land in a field beyond the houses of the neighboring subdivision.
They are so close you can hear the shhhhhhhhhhhhhh of the air.
There’s something so happy about them.
E&E’s Hearty Sweet Granola Bars
July 16, 2011 § Leave a comment
These are days of getting-up-and-going. Work starts at 7:00 a.m. most days for me. I like working early and ending early and having a long time of afternoon-into-evening.
My body would love it if I would rise early enough before work to prepare a hearty breakfast of eggs and cheese and swiss chard and a cup of coffee. My body would also, however, enjoy lying longer in bed. I almost always choose the latter. This means jumping up at the last minute to throw on clothes, put in a ponytail, grab a cap, and find something to nourish myself with before spending many hours working in the heat, the rain, the mud, the dry dust.
I’ve eaten my share of granola bars and there are some good ones out there. But none as good as the recipe my sister discovered a few years ago. She and her husband have made batches and batches of them ever since, playing with variations and usually packing them with different combinations of dried fruit. In graduate school we would go to each other’s houses and have granola-bar making evenings in between the stress of studying and working and job-searching. (Such good memories!)
After graduate school ended, I guess I set aside the recipe and forgot. I found it again when I moved into this new apartment and stuck it to the fridge so I’d remember to make the bars. Months later? I still hadn’t.
And then I wanted to with enough determination to quit imagining that it would happen later. It would happen now! But I am watching the pennies and so this time instead of going out to buy what I didn’t have – which, actually, was a good chunk of the ingredients – I substituted with what I did have. I am happy to report that they are just as tasty!
So, though my original recipe is entitled Elena’s Granola Bars, these adaptations make the new one both of ours. E&E’s Hearty Sweet Granola Bars. (And next time, I might add peanut butter! Or finely chopped espresso beans. Ooh.)
For those of you who also have get-up-and-go mornings.
And remember: it’s nice to share with your siblings.
—–
RECIPE
Ingredients:
2 cups mixed nuts
1 cup oats
2 cups hearty cereal (I used muesli)
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup honey
4 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 dark chocolate bar
Directions:
Put mixed nuts in a food processor or blender and pulse to chop. Mix the nuts, oats, and cereal, then toast in a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Line a glass baking dish with wax paper (I also found that a nonstick baking dish worked fine, without the wax paper). In a saucepan, bring the brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla and salt to a simmer. Mix everything together except for the chocolate. Dump granola into the baking dish. Put wax paper on top and press down hard (I skipped this step, but it’s a good idea of you want to make sure the bars are dense and hold together well). Chop or break up the chocolate bar and, after the bars have cooled some, press the chocolate pieces into the granola. (Doing so sooner would cause them to melt.) Press down on the bars with the wax paper again, if desired. Let chill for several hours, then cut and serve! If you want a more concise way to store them, you can layer them in a container with pieces of wax paper in between. Feel free to make variations – and let me know how they turn out. (Coconut? Coconut and apricots? Cranberries and white chocolate chips. Blueberries and dark chocolate. Go on!)
Horse crazy. Still.
July 14, 2011 § Leave a comment
I get to spend an hour or so with horses six days out of the week – most at the boarding stable, one at a therapeutic riding center. The people are great and the horses are great. The smell of the hay, and the horses themselves, and the grain and even the beet pulp . . . the feel of the smooth leather on the seats of saddles . . . the soft breath blown from the horse’s nose . . . the eager nicker in anticipation of food . . . the smooth coats, the clop of hooves, the way they move. Oh, I love it.
I was a thoroughly horse-crazy kid. In my mind horses were wonderful and I was brave and we ran far and fast through meadows. Then my family got a horse (my parents liked helping our daydreams to become real as much as they could) – but he was a stubborn Arabian and he didn’t listen and I didn’t know how to make him. And I realized how fragile I was. And I felt afraid of horses then and sort of shut down the horse-craziness for awhile, in-between still really liking horses and trying to hide the fear.
It is important to be aware of what horses are capable of. What is better is to be aware enough to become informed and cautious enough to know that you need not be freaked out to the point of missing something marvelous. Fear can be shifted into something useful, or it can be crippling. Volunteering here and there helped me learn how to read horses at least well enough to not feel so afraid anymore. Unfortunately, at the same time this shift happened life was crowded and horses just had to be pushed aside for awhile while I worked (silly me!) on trying to have a career.
This year, I decided that it was high time I get my foot back in, well, the stirrup. (I’m not there quite yet. I might lease a horse. Maybe. It can be expensive. But we’ll see.)
Life is not very long, you know?
So now that I’m all intentional about being around horses even just this little bit, oh how the horse-craziness seems to be coming back. Horses! I am always smiling and happy-sigh-glad when I come home from the stables. I look forward to that hour or so every day. Is this my life? I always imagined working at a horse barn. And then it seemed impossible. Darned grown-up ways of thinking. Here and there, old dreams come and get fulfilled, after all.
It’s nice to feel ten years old again, sometimes.
Blackberry shortcakes on a misty blue evening
July 7, 2011 § 2 Comments
With the summer scorchers we’ve been having lately, I wanted to make something bright, fresh, light. Today the plan was for blackberry shortcakes and by the time I settled into making them, the skies had clouded.
Does this seem to be happening often on my baking days? Yet I don’t really mind. It’s certainly better than rain falling on my work-outside days. And it makes everything cool down.
But before the rain came, when the clouds were just hovering and the thunder hadn’t yet rumbled, Miss T. and I went to our favorite spot while the berries macerated and the biscuits chilled in the refrigerator. I had to catch that misty blue.
Then home we went to put biscuits in the oven. Baking, they smelled wonderful and warm, and that is always good against the sound of falling rain. I left the door open for the cool air to come through.
And, you know? While strawberry shortcakes are so very much for hot summer days, even mid-days, blackberry shortcakes have a deeper, more mildly sweet flavor that works also for days like today.
Especially with a cup of tea, steeped long enough to get just a bit of a bitter edge. I want that sometimes.
So when all was done we sat outside, watching the water hit the sidewalk, breathing the fresh damp air. Tasting the sweet and bitter, the heavy and light.
Glad for contrasts, for complementing opposites.
—
RECIPE
I won’t steal copyrighted info! So I can’t give you the exact recipe I used. But I can tell you the recipe for the biscuits is in Earth to Table, under “Shortcakes with Chantilly Cream and Macerated Strawberries.” You can use another biscuit recipe that you have on hand, but you’ll likely want to add sugar – and brush it on top with cream before baking.
For the berries, just mash the berries so you have some that are whole and some that are crushed, then mix in some sugar (1/4 to 1/2 cup), and vanilla if you want. Let sit until you are ready to use. You may want to cover and refrigerate if you plan on waiting awhile before you use them.
For the cream: making Chantilly cream simply involves adding a little vanilla and a little powdered sugar to heavy whipping cream. So, whip the cream first, then add the sugar and vanilla to taste as the cream seems to be near ready (thickened and forming peaks). Fold them in gently and don’t whip for too long!
Common sense, of course, suggests that you’ll want to wait a bit for the biscuits to cool before piling everything together. Otherwise your cream will melt down and you won’t have as pretty a result.
I recommend serving with a cup of black tea . . . on a rainy day!
News
July 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
I forgot to tell you all my recent events. Here they are:
1. I quit the office job, about two weeks ago.
2. I am working part-time at a CSA farm and part-time at a horse boarding stable.
3. I am sort of writing. More. A little.
This means that my body is sunburned and sore, and I am much happier and sort of laughing to myself about how I’m ever going to really make it. But somehow I just am. There is something in your spirit that knows when you are doing what you’re meant to do, or at least are on your way. And that is not where I was for these past nine months. And it is where I am now.
So I don’t need luck or wishes, really, but you know? If you hear of opportunities related to farming and writing you are very, very welcome to send them my way. I am in Colorado until the end of January, but after that . . . oh, the wide open.
Happy Fourth of July!
July 4, 2011 § Leave a comment
from The Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Kinds of Honey 