Snow (Ice) Day

With ice storms last night and more predicted this afternoon, there is no school and my office is closed. The ice on the trees is very pretty but it is not so pretty on the roads, or on the dogs when they mix it with mud and bring it into the house.

At my house, we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas throughout the month of December. We fit in traditional family holiday rituals with basketball games, karate tests, chorus concerts and work related trips out of town. Many of the holiday traditions that have been handed down for generations involve food. Hanukkah is not complete without Neil's Potato Latkes, although in my house we may eat them while we decorate the Christmas tree.

Peel 4 large potatoes. Grate potatoes and onion, if desired, in food processor. Put grated potatoes in cheesecloth and squeeze out liquid in sink. Put grated, dry potatoes back in food processor. Add 2 eggs, 1/2 cup flour, and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix into a smooth batter. Drop batter by serving spoon (1/4 - 1/3 cup) size spoonfuls into pan with very hot oil. Cast iron pan and peanut oil work well. Fry over moderate to high heat until brown on underside. Turn to brown on top. Lift out of oil and drain off excess fat on paper towels. Serve with sour cream and applesauce.


Another essential part of the holiday season is Christmas cookies. I made some snickerdoodles and chewy gingerbread which have already disappeared. If I get ambitious this afternoon, I will get out the cookie cutters and rolling pin and make one of Grammy Baugh's cookie recipes. The simplest one is Grammy Baugh's Cinnamon Crackers:

Cream together 3/4 lb butter and 1 lb sugar (2 cups). Add 3 eggs and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Mix in 1 lb of flour (4 cups). Using more flour, roll out dough and cut out cookies. Bake at 350 F for 10 to 12 minutes or until brown. Thinner cookies may bake faster.

If you are an ambitious cookie decorator, you can make royal icing and decorate these in very fanciful ways. If you are not an ambitious cookie decorator, you can sprinkle colored sugar on top of the cookies before putting them in the oven to bake. Even better, you can have a small child sprinkle the sugar on the cookies.

Heirloom tomatoes and more socks

Today's CSA share included heirloom tomatoes -- they look interesting and taste very good. All of the tomatoes from the grocery store taste the same but each one of these has its own unique look, texture and taste. The Tomato Jubilee is in a couple of weeks -- then I can go and pick all the tomatoes I want.

I have been experimenting some more with combinations of the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches. My cast on stitches are improving but I do not think it will ever become a favorite stitch. I used crested chain, scroll stitch, french knots, straight stitch, wagon wheel and detached chain or lazy daisy stitch on this piece.

I have been doing more knitting than stitching and have been busy for the past week. Friday, I went to Stitches Midwest and took a class in lace knitting. I learned about Orenburg Lace and how it is made. I also did some shopping and bought a ball of Opal sock yarn and have been knitting the rainbow ripple sock in the picture. I also went to the family night for the football program. Saturday I spent at a Church Leadership Retreat and at the Chicago Sky Game. Sunday, I went to the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild Meeting and saw Margriet Hogue's slides of antique samplers in European museum collections. This weekend is not going to be as busy.

Flower, Fruit and Vegetable share

I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements the other day to play with. Above you can see the results applied to a photo of my latest flower, fruit and vegetable share. There are pie cherries, blueberries, peaches, yellow beats, green peppers, dill, cucumber, basil, spring onions, zucchini, eggplant and lettuce.

More vegetables and a quilt . . .

I took the time to photograph my vegetable share this week -- red kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, zucchini, radish and buckwheat sprouts and garlic. Next week I will start getting fruit and flowers as well as vegetables. I love the taste and smell of fruit that has a chance to get ripe on the tree or vine. I will have to use up the rhubarb in my garden while I wait for my fruit shares to start.

I also got my first package in the quilt block of the month program that I joined. I ordered it from Keepsake Quilting. I need to felt the wool and then I can start assembling the first block. I am pleased with the colors. The pieces are blanket stitched onto the background and will form a full size bed quilt when it is completed. I can either put it in the sewing room/spare bedroom or add more fabric around the edges to make a Queen sized quilt and put it on my bed.

June Ornament - in June!

I finished my June Christmas Ornament today -- Partridge and Pears 2005 by Prairie Schooler from the 2005 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Issue. It is stitched using one strand of DMC over two on left over 40 count linen. I updated the date since it was stitched in 2007. It is brighter in person than it is in the picture and was fun to stitch.

I like ornaments, they are quick to stitch, I can imagine finishing them and using them someday and I can stitch them using leftover fabric and thread from my stash.

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In addition to stitching, I have a cook book recommendation -- Joan Nathan's The New American Cooking. It was a Christmas present in 2005 -- the same year that the ornament pattern was published. I have used many recipes from it -- most recently an asian chicken salad. They are all delicious and every time I bring something from this cookbook to a pot luck or family gathering I am asked for the recipe. The Door County Oatmeal/Dried Cherry cookies are great (even with raisins) and so is the salad with the maple syrup based dressing.

Why am I a CSA member?

I have mixed feelings about commercial agribusiness -- on the one hand, there is the fact that we have made huge advances in food production:

"In 1830, it took 300 hours of labor to produce 100 bushels of wheat on five acres. Today, it takes 1.5 hours to produce the same number of bushels on two acres." (Gourmet, June 2007, p. 61)

On the other hand, it is almost impossible to find tomatoes that taste like tomatoes or apricots that taste like apricots in the grocery store. I grew up with produce from Japanese farmstands and fruit we picked ourselves in the spring. The vegetables and fruit were ripe and tasted real. However, this bounty came with a price in arid Arizona. Orchards and vineyards were cropdusted and the farmers mined water in some cases causing the water table to drop 30 feet a year.

Now, I drive a few miles out of my way each Thursday to pick up my CSA share. I buy fruit and vegetables that are grown locally in sustainable ways rather than transported halfway across the country or the world. The produce types change seasonally and I am surprised every week by what is in my share. My husband has found he loves swiss chard and likes beets and turnips, my son eagerly awaits the summer tomato crop, and my daughter looks forward to fresh peas.

This week we will be eating radishes, carrots, green garlic, rhubarb, leaf lettuce in two colors, spinach, arugula, and bok choy.

Take a Stitch Tuesday -- on Thursday

Here is a Take a Stitch Tuesday post before Monday night -- I used the crossed blanket stitch to make this free embroidery snail. The snail is stitched using left over needle necessities threads and kreinik metallic blue. The snail is very vibrant in person. The crossed blanket stitches were easy to make into a coil, although the metallic blue base for the snail could be more even. The rest of the snail is stem, or outline stitch, long stitches and french knots.

I also picked up my CSA share this afternoon -- between work and my last elementary school chorus concert. As you can see, the weather has been good and the produce harvest and variety are increasing. Red and white spring onions, multicolored beets, asparagus, thyme, bok choy, napa cabbage, lettuce, fennel, and rainbow chard. I am thinking salad, stir fry, and maybe tomato/asparagus risotto again this week. The newletter from Sandhill Organics included recipes for chicken stuffed with greens and chicken salad with napa cabbage that sound really good.

Not all vegetables are green . . .

My third weekly CSA share included dandelion greens, spinach, Japanese turnips, asparagus, chives with flowers, rhubard, and potatoes. The colors are a sharp contrast to the all green share from last week. I am going to use the asparagus for strata for a church breakfast. I have to bring an appetizer on Saturday night -- it will be something with spinach in it. The new issue of Gourmet came today -- the back page features potato salads. Laurie Colwin would be thrilled -- I will have to try one of her recipes as well as the recipe in Gourmet for a potato salad with horseradish. I am open to suggestions for the rhubarb -- in addition to the rhubarb in my share I have a huge rhubarb plant in my yard -- it is outside the electric fence so the dogs can't chew it up and the rabbits don't like it so it is doing very well.
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In addition to my vegetable share, I finished stitching Ewe & Eye & Friends Pea Pod Scissors Companion tonight. I have about a dozen of their scissor companion patterns -- two finished as scissor fobs, others stitched but not finished or unstitched. I picked this one for the Cross Stitch Pals May Stitch-a-Long since the theme is kitchen. Instead of stitching something for my kitchen, I decided to stitch something that might be found in my kitchen.

Take a Stitch Tuesday and other goings on

I created a garden using Kates Kloths stranded colors and a spare piece of linen for this week's Take a Stitch Tuesday combining basque stitches with cross stitch and stem stitch. I couldn't decide whether it needed another flower or not so I left it as is for now.

My copy of A Pageant of Pattern, the Lentz and Lane book of needlepoint stitches came yesterday. I was able to sit and study stitch variations and admire their incredible illustrations before I went to bed. I remember thinking about paying $200 for that book about 10 years ago, the one I got yesterday is in almost perfect condition -- dust jacket and all -- and only cost me $11 including shipping. I have been stitching on my Ewe and Eye and Friends pea pod scissor fob. I have finished the pea pod and all of the green backstitching which is good since I lost a length of dark green thread; the Anchor colors in their kits are not as easy as DMC for me to replace. I have quite a collection of their scissor fob designs -- stitched, finished and not started. I got them out and photographed them for the Needle and Thread board.

I made sorrel and potato soup tonight to eat during the week, arugula and cucumber salad, cheddar dill biscuits, pasta with goat cheese, asparagus, pine nuts, dill and mustard, and salmon with mustard and dill. The salad was delicious. Half the biscuits disappeared instantly and I liked the pasta but no one else did. We will have strawberry shortcake later for dessert. I have to think of spinach recipes for the rest of the week. . .

Second Week CSA Share

This week's share is dominated by greens -- spinach (2 bags), arugula, lettuce, and sorrel, with dill, asparagus, pea shoots and bok choy. I am thinking lemon flavored rissoto with asparagus, chinese or thai noodle salad with bok choy, salads, spinach pie, and a spinach omelet. I ate most of last week's share during the week -- I have some potatoes left, a couple stalks of green garlic and some chives. I think that there are some radishes too.

We have had a lot of pretty finches in the yard including some small, very yellow male gold finches. I imagine that soon they will start looking for mates. I love watching them while I sit at the kitchen table. Abel and Holly also love watching them through the glass door. Both dogs, Cain and Abel, like to watch Bob in the yard. Bob the Bunny is out and about this time of year and he knows where the dogs go and where they don't. He looks like he is teasing them by staying just outside of the electric fence boundary and twitching his tail at the dogs.

This is a short entry. I sat down and started to learn how to use electric quilt this evening. So far I have created a simple quilt. It was very easy to do, with practice, I should be able to use other patterns and color combinations to create anything I want.

Dinner tonight was beef with barbeque sauce, cabbage and radish slaw, and scallion biscuits. I made potato/corn chowder for lunch tomorrow and a buttermilk/scallion salad dressing. Tomorrow night, tandori chicken, roasted potatoes and tomato/cucumber salad.

Community Supported Agriculture

This week was the start of my vegetable shares for this season. The picture shows the vegetables in my share from Sanhill Organics (http://sandhillorganics.com/2007_sandhill_organics.htm). I pick up my shares once a week at Prairie Crossing which is a few miles north. I enjoy the fresh taste of the vegetables and fruit that I get in the shares, I like supporting local agriculture and knowing where my food came from, and I like the surprise of picking up a different assortment of produce every week and planning dinner around it.

This week the share included green garlic, asparagus, chives, salad greens, radishes, red potatoes and tomato puree. Friday, I had a salad for lunch with radishes, salad greens, cucumber, tomato and tuna. Then, I made tomato/asparagus risotto for dinner with some of the garlic, the tomato puree and the asparagus. Potato side dishes and radish garnishes are planned for the rest of the week.