A Letter to my Nephew

Dear Mark,

I just heard the news about your decision to join the Marines.
Wow. I don't know what to say.
When I first got the email, I thought it was a joke.
Then I realized it was real and that I needed to write to you.

First, I'd like to say congratulations on making such a momentous decision. You are exactly the kind of person I would choose to defend our country. You are intelligent and caring, something I think our military definitely needs more of.
I'm having a little trouble dealing with my fears for your safety, but I guess the only way to do so is one step at a time. I will always be there for your mom, dad and brother, no matter what. And of course, I want you to know that we all support your decision, as we would any decision you made for your life, because we love you. You can always count on us for anything, any time.
I want you to know how brave I think you are, not only for your willingness to handle weapons and fight for your country, but also, and perhaps mostly, for your bravery in the face of all those sit-ups and push-ups. And believe me, having failed to complete the obstacle course in 10th grade P.E., I admire your courage in facing of the rope course and wooden log barriers.
Now, a few words of advice. In preparation for boot camp, I suggest you watch a few seasons of Gomer Pyle, USMC, to help acclimate yourself to your new reality. If Gomer could make it, anyone can!
Let's see, drink lots of water, follow orders, make your bed (yikes!), keep your feet dry, and watch where you point your gun.
But most of all, Mark, please stay safe. I don't know what we'd do without you.
Know that you will be in our thoughts always.
And be sure to write to your mother.

Love,
Aunt Karen

Arkansas Travelers

We visited my mom in Arkansas for a few days last week. She's recuperating incredibly fast from her surgery last fall and hopes to be ready for surgery to reverse the colostomy late this spring.

I hope to look as great as my mom does when I'm 79.

It was so warm that Stephen took the girls exploring in a gorge-like area at the edge of my mom's neighborhood.


=He is such a great big brother. It was really special that he spent so much time with the girls since he'll be leaving for a semester in South Africa in just a couple of weeks.

In all the time we've spent in Arkansas over the years, I just can't get over how different the soil is from here in Iowa.

There was a creek running through the gorge. (Okay, gorge isn't quite the right word. In my mind, "gorge" conjures up a huge gouge in the earth. This was really just a "gorge-let." I could probably find a more appropriate word, but I'm feeling too lazy to go to Thesaurus.com)


They found lots of fantastic fossils, including shells and even plants. It reminded us of all years gone by at the creek on my parents property. The kids spent nearly every minute of every vacation at or in the creek, building dams, hunting for fossils, having a great time. Thinking of the creek always makes me miss my dad...

We haven't had a family picture taken for more than a year. I'm glad to have this one.


Going away for a few days always makes me feel energized and renewed. Unfortunately, it didn't last long this time, as we've had intestinal bugs, a puppy that won't eat, too many hairballs to count and a cat that's so upset about the puppy she's pooping outside the box.

Sigh.

Home sweet home.

Pumpkin Corn Bread

I wish I could take credit for the recipe I use to make Pumpkin Corn Bread.

But since I can't accept the kudos, I can at least share the recipe.

I only make this bread a few times each year, and each time I wonder why I don't bake it more often. It's a great accompaniment to soups and is wonderful for breakfast with a drizzle of honey.

I always feel so healthful when eating a slice!

Pumpkin Corn Bread

from The Vegetarian Epicure Book Two

by Anna Thomas

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

5 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. allspice (I substitute nutmeg)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup yellow corn meal

1/2 cup soft butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

3 T lemon juice

1 1/2 cups cooked pumpkin puree

1 cup milk

Sift together dry ingredients, stir in corn meal.

Cream butter. Beat in sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Add eggs and lemon juice and beat again until smooth. Finally, mix in pumpkin.

Continue to beat as you alternately add dry ingredients and the milk, until all is combined.

Place batter in two medium size, greased loaf pans.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Let loaves cool in pans for 5 minutes before removing.

Allow to cool thoroughly on racks before slicing.

Enjoy!

This is where my recipes for cinnamon rolls, fruit pies, lemonade, ginger creams and a myriad of others live.

I'm not an especially well-organized person.
This character trait manifests itself in a multitude of ways; the piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, the dirty dishes resting semi-permanently on the kitchen counter, stacks of mail needing to be sorted...
You get the idea.
One area that seems disorganized from the outside-looking-in is my method of recipe storage.
Oh, I own a recipe file. It belonged to my DH for years before we even met. But the only recipes I use from the file are ones not available in my cookbooks, such as my grandmother's recipes for banana bread and oatmeal cookies, my mom's brownie recipe, another grandma's recipes for sugar cookies and gingerbread boys, etc.
No, the recipe file is definitely not my primary organizational tool for recipes.
What do I use?
My brain.
I know, it's hard to believe, but I keep my recipe file in my head.
I know which of my myriad cookbooks holds a particular recipe, despite owning at least 50 or more cookbooks. When we moved here two years ago, I purposely reduced my cookbook collection down to a more manageable size, keeping only those books holding recipes I use.
I love cookbooks, often choosing to read from my collection, usually late in the afternoon. Sometimes I'll grab a cookbook looking for a dinner idea, and get lost amidst the glories of Italian pasta sauces and rich desserts.

This is where my recipes for calzones, oven roasted tomato sauce, rosemary-pear pizza, pizza crust and a super-yummy pasta sauce with goat cheese live.

Of my many Italian cookbooks, I know which one has the recipe for ricotta gnocchi, which one has the rosemary-pear pizza, and in which tome resides my favorite focaccia recipe. I know where to find my blueberry pie recipe, where the pumpkin bread recipe is, and where to locate the zucchini-crusted pizza we enjoy so much in the summer.

Each of these recipes is in a different cookbook, but somehow, I can always find them.

Recipes for eggplant ziti parmesan, whole grain pancakes, my favorite zucchini bread and applesauce muffins live in here.

I've tried a few times to copy recipes onto cards. I dutifully place them in the recipe file, where they rest undisturbed, never again to see the light of day.Instead I'll grab the cookbook, flip open to the right page, and embark upon a familiar culinary journey.

I found my favorite recipe for pumpkin bread in this book. It's the only recipe I use on even a semi-regular basis from it, but I bought it for 25 cents at a book sale nearly as many years ago. Not a bad return, I don't think.
As I age, I figure my family will have a good barometer to measure my mental acuity. All they have to do is ask me to find the recipe for gingerbread muffins...

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge - Week 7

Here is my first effort made with heirloom beans from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.
I received lots of beans for Christmas (see previous post!) and couldn't wait to try them out.
I made Tuscan Style baked beans with Rosemary and Garlic, one of my favorite quick and easy bean dishes, using green flageolet beans, a French legume sometimes called the "caviar" of beans.
And if I liked caviar, I'm sure I'd agree. They were exquisite.
What I love about this dish is that flavorful broth it creates. We used local garlic and topped the dish with homemade croutons. Yum!




I have developed an incredible love of beets over the last couple of years. When I was a child, we only had pickled beets my mom had made. Yummy, but nothing like these slow roasted beets, sliced and topped with a couple teaspoons of olive oil, balsmic vinegar, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a smattering of parsley. The beets were from our CSA, the other ingredients, obviously, weren't.


Pumpkin-Corn Meal bread is packed with flavor and healthy ingredients. All the flours and corn meal were from Paul's Grains in Laurel, Iowa, and the pumpkin came from our own, home-grown butternut squash. The eggs were local as well. We served slices of the quick bread with local honey and homemade raspberry jam.

Our dessert, not pictured, was local strawberries, frozen this summer, and Christmas cookies. A few of the cookie ingredients were local, such as the flour and eggs.

A hill of beans

My Christmas didn't amount to a hill of beans.

In reality, I received about 15 pounds of them.

No, it's wasn't Santa's attempt to reduce global warming by eliminating coal in the stockings.

I finally found a source for locally-grown, sustainably raised, beans.

A visit in early November to the Seed Savers Exchange website set my heart a-thumping and my stomach growling for their unusual heirloom varieties of beans.

It took some doing, DH has a hard time paying much for beans when a can of them can be purchased for 99 cents at the grocery store, but I finally convinced him to buy me the beans for Christmas.

And he took me literally.

All I got for Christmas was a whole bunch of beans!

So far, I've used the green flageolets and love them.

I can't wait to try the canellini beans next.

It will be hard to make myself use my smaller amounts of more unusual beans, especially the Hidatsa Reds, originally grown by Native Americans of the Dakotas and the Lina Cisco's Bird Egg beans,brought to Missouri by covered wagon in the 1880s.

A new twist on an old tradition

Every year in December since the kids were little, we've made gingerbread houses. I've always been afraid to try making the gingerbread house pieces from scratch, so we've used boxes coated with cheap canned frosting with graham crackers as siding. Once this structure and the roof was dry, the kids would spread more cheap frosting on the graham crackers and decorate with frosting.

It's been a fun family activity for many, many years.

Photo circa 2005

Last year, no one wanted to make gingerbread houses, except Melissa.

Sad, I know.

She had a chance to make a house at a gingerbread-house-building party at a friend's house.

This year, before the puppy, I had the bright idea to finally bite the bullet and conquer my fears. I would venture into unknown confectionary territory and attempt the seemingly impossible.

Yes, that's right.

I would bake my own gingerbread house pieces.

I found a recipe and templates on the internet and really, the whole was remarkably easy. Michael mixed up the frosting "cement" and helped assemble the houses. I rarely let the kids eat their houses in the past, they were just too gross and dusty by the time Christmas was over. Perhaps it was the lure of the unknown, or the promise that they could eat them, that coaxed Zach and Sarah into the gingerbread building-boom.

It turned out to be remarkably easy and, I think, less expensive than the no-bake method I used to use. It was especially fun to make "stained glass windows" by chopping, arranging and melting Lifesavers.

The houses turned out great.

So far, Zach is the only one who's been nibbling on his house. The girls might follow "tradition" and put theirs out on the porch for the squirrels.