Oven-Baked S'mores by the Fireside

Last month we had some incredible wildfires which burned very close to our place.  We spent a number of days and nights on round-the-clock vigils watching the burn line come closer.  Having prepared for times such as this, we had the fire hoses and shovels ready to do battle.  And we joked that if the flames came close enough, we would roast marshmallows to make s'mores.  As it turned out, the fire crews were able to contain the line just below our kitchen window view.  

We made s'mores anyway...the bake-in-the-oven version.

This hill later burned.

We're enjoying s'mores and watching the fire-line below.

We started out with this package of gi-normous marshmallows

We cut the oversize marshmallows in thirds with scissors, laid them out on the graham crackers and briefly broiled them.

We used chocolate chips and placed this sheet in the oven to warm while the marshmallows were broiling.

When they're nice and melty, just slap them together and dive in!

Goody Goody Gumdrops

So, with Halloween around the corner, I thought I'd share my best tip of what we do with the abundance of candy!  We sort it immediately after the initial thrill of Trick-Or-Treating and put the gumdrops and a selection of other small treats aside for making our annual Christmas Gingerbread House.

The big zipper-bag of candy gets hidden in the pantry until the week before Christmas.  Then all we have to add is a few candy-canes to complete our creation.  We like to have the gingerbread house as dessert after our traditional Christmas Eve prime rib dinner.  I plan to post our recipe and directions for the cookie house in early December.  Until then,  Happy Pumpkin Carving and Trick-or-Treating!

TOASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS
Scoop out the seeds from your pumpkin and remove the bigger chunks of pulp.  Rinse in a colander.  Melt a tablespoon or two of butter in a non-stick skillet. Add the seeds and saute for a few minutes, adding a generous sprinkle of Lawry's Seasoned Salt.  Spray or grease a rimmed baking pan. Spread seeds out in a single layer and sprinkle with a little more of the salt.  Bake at 350 degrees until lightly toasted, about 30 minutes.  Loosen from pan with a spatula and allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container. In our house, we just leave them on the warm pan in the oven and they disappear within a day.  Depending on their tenderness, they may be eaten whole or cracked like sunflower seeds to eat just the kernel.

Being a Blessing with Dragon Eggs

Dragon Eggs
Our teenagers enjoy fantasy fiction literature...think "Chronicles of  Narnia" and "Lord of the Rings"... Somewhere along the line, our imaginative kids decided to name a favorite family one-pan dinner "Dragon Eggs."  It's really a "Shepherd's Pie" with the mashed potato topping done in scoops instead of spread out.  For good measure, the potato "eggs" are topped with a little shredded cheese.  Somehow this makes them a little more appealing to the two in our family who do not care as much for mashed potatoes.   Gotta love a good disguise!

Being a Blessing
Whether you're inclined to call it Shepherd's Pie or Dragon Eggs, I have found this to be a nice recipe to prepare and deliver to someone in need of the blessing of a family meal.  New baby arrival ...  loss of a loved one ...
14 years ago we had our own tragedy when our 4th baby Andrew died at birth due to hypoplastic left heart syndrome.  As we toughed out those first few weeks, we received many offers of  "Let us know what we can do to help."  And being strong and sturdy types, we just never could come out of the blur enough to articulate to our well-meaning friends what kind of help we actually needed.  "We're OK.  We're managing," was all we could say when, in reality, we desperately needed any support we could get.

I learned through this experience:

If you want to bless someone with your time or resources, 

make a concrete offer of whatever you'd like to do and include an option.  

For example:

"I'd like to take your kids to the park so you can get some rest.  

Would Tuesday or Thursday afternoon work best for you?" 

"When is your next doctor visit? I'd be happy to watch your kids during that time.  My place or yours?"  

"I have a dinner meal I'd like to bring over for your family.  It serves 6-8 people and can be frozen if you don't need it right away.  Would you be most able to use it this week or next?

*********

To bless someone in need:
Make a generous portion of this entree in a disposable aluminum half-pan.  Then write the contents, number of servings, date and reheating instructions on the aluminum lid with a Sharpie pen.  If you add a bagged green salad kit, dinner rolls and a dessert, you'll have a nice offering for a meal ministry.

Shepherd's Pie (Or "Dragon Eggs"  for the adventurous ones)
2 pound lean ground beef, browned and with excess fat drained away
1 quart of brown gravy, prepared from a mix
1 tablespoon dry Taco Seasoning mix for added flavor
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables or assorted fresh vegetables, sauteed or steamed.
1 package of instant mashed potatoes, prepared
about 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese or triple cheese blend

After browning and draining the beef, add gravy mix per package directions, taco seasoning and cook until thickened. Add vegetables and cook briefly until crisp-tender.  Transfer to disposable pan if desired or leave in skillet if serving to family.  Top with 1/4 cup scoops of mashed potatoes (use ice cream/portion scoop)  and sprinkle with shredded cheese.  Cover briefly until cheese melts.  Serve (or deliver) immediately.  If cooling for reheating later, chill to 40 degrees within 4 hours.  If refrigerated:  Reheat at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  If frozen:  Reheat at 325 degrees for one hour or until internal temperature is 180 degrees or greater.

This recipe is quite versatile as a family one-dish meal and adapts to what's on hand.  Here I used some dehydrated spinach mixed into the beef. Now, I know this isn't the most appealing photo, but it sure does taste good!

Vincent's Peanut Butter Treats

Vincent was a tough toddler who remained in the mode of "terrible twos" until he was at least seven years old.  By then, he acquired enough language skills to fully communicate, and we also figured out that he did everything in life much better when he had plenty of snacks.   He learned to help himself to good "grow food" whenever he felt his "gas tank running low".  We have probably gone through tons of Costco's Trail Mix during his adolescence.  Now he's nearly an adult and doing marvelously.  He's a great helper and a hard worker.  After 3 summer jobs, he even saved up enough to buy his own Jeep Cherokee!

This is the first recipe Vincent learned to make and it's still a favorite.  He demonstrated the recipe at a 4-H Presentation Day at age 12 and won a ribbon.  This high-protein snack is great for keeping an active kid's energy level up.

Peanut Butter Treats
1 cup peanut butter (your choice, creamy or crunchy)
1 cup dry milk powder
1/2 cup honey (OK to use honey which has crystallized)

Mix ingredients with a spoon in a mixing bowl until well-blended.  Scoop or roll into balls, or pat into 8" square pan (and chill before cutting into squares).  When making this treat to share with friends, we use a small portion scoop to make the balls and serve them in small cupcake papers for an easy grab-and-go.

Those of us "of a certain age" may remember these as the "City Schools Peanut Butter Squares" which were served every week in our elementary school cafeteria.  I enjoyed them then, and still do.  

Mountain Pale Ale

Many have asked about our home-brew experience, so I decided to blog a short photo-essay on the process.  I make about two batches a year, for our friends & family gatherings.  As far as food crafts go, home-brewing is "easy" once you have all the basic tools and plenty of confidence in how to accomplish each step in your own kitchen.  You'll need to know a lot about sanitation, too, in order to achieve consistent results.   I suggest you consult our friends at THE BEVERAGE PEOPLE up in Santa Rosa, for some great kits and resources to get you started..  They also sell stuff for wine and cheese making as well.

Husband Michael and his brother, Tom, introduced me to home-brewing about 22 years ago with the Christmas gift of a brew-your-own-beer-in-a-plastic-bag-kit.  Easy enough, but produced mixed results since the bag didn't really hold in all the carbonation you want for a nice ale.  Several years of tasting, testing and learning the ropes with a local brew-club has enabled me to turn out a predictable and very tasty pale ale.

MOUNTAIN PALE ALE

Make a "Mini-Mash" with a pound of roasted malted barley grain (Caramel Malt) steeped in 1.5 quarts of hot water.  Strain to yield the sweet liquid which will be boiled up into "wort". 
The spent grain can be fed to the chickens.

Boil 2 gallons water with dry malt extract powder and the liquid strained from the mini-mash

.

Hop Pellets of the Cascade variety are added during the 60-minute boil for bittering flavor

More hops are added for flavor and aroma during the last 5 minutes of the boil

The cooled "wort" is poured into a fermenting pail and  clean cold water is added to bring volume to 5 gallons.  When the wort is about 90'F, brewing yeast is added, the lid affixed with an airlock, and fermentation begins. Within a week or so, the finished beer is siphoned off ("racked') and either bottled or kegged.  If bottled, it must be bottle conditioned for several weeks to develop the carbonation.  If kegged, the carbonation can be applied and the beer is ready to enjoy as soon as it gets cold enough!

INGREDIENTS for Our
MOUNTAIN PALE ALE


5 # Briess Light Dry Malt Extract
1# Crystal Malt (40L) in 1.5 qt. water for mini-mash
1 oz. Cascade Hops (5 IBU) for 60-min. boil
1 oz. Cascade Hops for Finishing
(Other hop varieties may be used to a calculated target of 20 IBU)
1 pkt. Nottingham Brewing Yeast, rehydrated into a starter

Makes 5 gallons


Happy Octoberfest!

Hummingbirds at the Watering Hole

Late summer means that our resident flock of hummingbirds are constantly hungry and persistently feeding at our window feeder.  We have so many of these tiny birds around, that we are making hummingbird nectar twice a day.  They will completely consume the two quarts of sugar water before nightfall.  It's really a sight to see! 

What's more, if you stand quietly next to the feeder and put your hands gently around the perches, the little creatures will alight on your fingers as they greedily slurp up the nectar.  Good idea to be wearing glasses with this trick...they get so close you might just get poked in the eye or ear!

It's amazing to watch these birds dance as they jostle for position on the perches.  Some will chase others away while allowing their favorite friends access to the same spigot.  Even more amazing is to realize the surrounding trees are filled with other birds waiting their turn to feast at our hummingbird feeder.

The hummingbirds generally stay with us all summer and fly south after the first freeze.  Here you see a hardy critter who, in spite of the icicles, is unwilling to say goodbye to the best watering hole for miles around.

Our Recipe for Hummingbird Juice

Put 2 cups of sugar in a quart canning jar.  Add 2 cups of boiling water and stir until completely dissolved.  Add enough ice cold water to fill the quart jar, and it will be at a ready-to-serve temperature.   Makes 4 cups nectar.

Our 4th of July Cookie

Kayleigh's Cookie

It’s getting to be a tradition around here.  This colorful pizza-sized dessert was first baked for our friend’s 5^th of July birthday and served at her cabin in the mountains.  So fun and festive was the giant red-white-and-blue cookie, Kayleigh has baked it every year since 2008 to celebrate America's Independence Day.  In the heat of summer and in our non-air-conditioned home, we appreciate the fact that bakes quickly enough as to not heat up the kitchen too much.  The extra heat is a good excuse to whip up several batches of frosty blended lemonade…another summer celebration treat which we enjoy as long as someone has recently brought up a fresh 20-pound sack of ice for the water cooler.

Our Berries

This year we used a combination of our own homegrown berries and some store-bought ones since it is early in our berry harvest season.  The base is a simple spritz-cookie-dough which is spread out in a pizza pan, baked then topped with sweetened cream cheese and fresh berries.

A Patriotic Work of Art!

Kayleigh’s "4^th of July" Cookie

Cookie dough:

1 cup soft butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

½ tsp. almond extract

½ tsp. vanilla extract

2-1/2 cups all purpose flour

Topping:

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

¼ cup sugar

½ tsp. almond extract

Assorted fresh berries such as:

1 cup blueberries

1 cup raspberries

1 cup strawberries

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy in an electric mixer.  Beat in the egg and flavorings.  Gradually add flour and mix until dough is smooth.

Press out dough on 12” pizza pan (lined with foil if pizza pan is perforated)

Bake at 325’ for approx 25 minutes until very light golden brown on edges.  Cool cookie completely before topping. (Cookie can be baked the night before.)

Mix the cream cheese, sugar and extract in the electric mixer until topping is smooth.  Spread topping evenly over the cookie, then decorate with an assortment of fresh fruit.  Enjoy this cookie the same day and refrigerate any leftovers.