Category: Cooking

Stirring up a taste of Christmas…
Accentuate the Positive! · Cooking · Family · Gratitude · Hobbies · holiday · just plain fun

Stirring up a taste of Christmas…

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Yes, even before Thanksgiving! Today in the Anglican church calendar it’s the last Sunday before Advent, also known as Christ the King Sunday. This Sunday’s collect, from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican church started with the words “Stir up…”:

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, 1549

I’m starting the process of making a fruitcake, which does have to age a full month. For the past few years I’ve been making extra-special fruitcakes – not the bricks of old, but something that people may actually like once they take a bite out of politeness. I love seeing the reaction of people who hate fruitcake. No, you don’t. You hate Claxton fruitcakes. So do I!

This year I’m making a recipe which calls for 6 full cups of candied citrus peel. The sweet teenager at the Publix didn’t have a clue what I was asking about, and we both started consulting Google Images. He finally led me to the fruitcake ingredient aisle (they move it EVERY YEAR.) The only thing there were those icky-sweet pieces of “fruit” that were in neon colors. Time to make my own. I searched for a recipe and found an easy one on AllRecipes.com.

Life Lesson: Easy is not the same thing as Fast. Or Cheap.

– Aunt Gem

First, my actual cake recipe called for six full cups of candied peel. I shrugged and bought up two bags of Cuties (easy to peel!) and a bag of lemons. I’m $10 in and I haven’t even started on the almonds. Then I started peeling.

Only halfway to 2 cups of peel

Finally, I hit two cups after I emptied an entire bag of clementines. I have a lot of fruit to eat in the next few days. Fortunately, I’m making ambrosia for Thanksgiving.

This is what two cups of peel looks like at the start of the process.

First, you bring to a full boil. Then, you let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Then you drain everything – and repeat the whole process two more times. Finally, you wind up with this:

The two cups I started with shrunk.

And now, over an hour later, I still have four more cups to make. This fruitcake better be worth it, Martha!

Community Supported Agriculture · Cooking · Gardening · Hobbies

Cooking with Cabbage

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It’s too hot to use the stove, even this early in the season. I’m not “cooking” the cabbage, I’m merely shredding it. And making my favorite Alabam’ Slaw. The recipe is super easy – I provide it below.

An entire head of cabbage, shredded.

First, shred your cabbage.

Then, put a little in a bowl, and spoon two or three tablespoons of Thousand Island dressing over it.

Voila!

-Alabam’ Slaw
Yummy – Alabam’ Slaw
Let’s get cooking
Community Supported Agriculture · Cooking · Hobbies

Let’s get cooking

AuntGemLeave a comment

I’m about more than just gardens

Two weeks ago the veggies started coming weekly from my CSA share. And I’ve been looking for more and more recipes – what to do with all that earthy, plant-based, unprocessed goodness? Last week’s kale went into a smoothie. (One-word review: ugh.) This week, I got radishes, sweet potatoes, strawberries, cabbage and cauliflower.

I know exactly what I’m going to do with the cabbage – I’m going to shred it raw and turn it into Alabam Slaw. This is a prized side dish at a local meat-and-three-veg restaurant, Lizard’s Thicket (where “country cookin’ makes ya good lookin’.”) It’s nothing more complicated than shredded cabbage topped with Thousand Island dressing. Even I can handle that one without a recipe.

As for the cauliflower – I was a little stumped. I still had a head left over from the first week – and got another this week. The newer one will become a Cauliflower Pizza Crust. I’ve long had a super recipe for that – just need to go buy some goat cheese to make that happen. As for the older head of cauliflower – what to do? I turned to my trusty Allrecipes.com account and soon found this marvelous English dish: Cauliflower Cheese. Yes, Cauliflower Cheese. Instead of making a lovely cheese sauce to go over macaroni, you’re doing it with cauliflower. And it is delicious. Lightly steam a head of cauliflower, then whip up the homemade sauce. So beautiful, so bland, so British. If you, like me, love comfort food, but want to make yourself believe it is healthy, make a Cauliflower Cheese. I ate my lunch portion up so quickly I didn’t even get a chance to take of photo of it on my plate. So here’s what it looks like, in the Tupperware.

So cheesy, so good.

More to come

In addition to my attempts at becoming Farmer Gem instead of just Aunt Gem, I’m also going to be cooking and photographing and sharing more pictures of my culinary adventures. The sweet potatoes are next: I’m going simple with that one. Old-school roasting with garlic, onion and balsamic vinegar … all things I have in the house. Look for pictures of that coming soon! Is this the beginning of my plant-based summer? I know my gen-Z niece and nephew would think that would be awesome. Or whatever language they use these days…. once I tried to say something was “lit.” My youngest nephew just shook his head, saying, “no, just no Aunt Gem. You shouldn’t say that.”

It’s Saturday and time to garden
Accentuate the Positive! · Cooking · Gardening · Hobbies · just plain fun

It’s Saturday and time to garden

AuntGem1 Comment

I begrudge the time spent indoors on a day like today

The gardening bug bit me

Question: How do you know your green thumb is turning from lime granita to grasshopper green?

Answer: When you start eyeing potted plants your neighbors put on the curb for the yard trash guy, and think, that’s some really good soil. I could use that.

Me, last Monday

This happened this past week, along with another gardening bonus: One day this week I walked my dog at lunch and came across my elderly neighbor raking good, brown dirt off one part of her lawn – onto the street. Just to leave it there, like trash! I hustled back to my house, dropped off the dog and took the wheelbarrow back to Miss Jane’s house to pick up some of that good dirt. It’s going into the base of my latest raised bed, to nourish my new plants. I haven’t yet gotten to the point of picking up dog poop to work into the garden, but if the price of fertilizer goes up any more, I just might. Fortunately, our local zoo sells “comPOOst” – produced by the rhinos, giraffes and zebras.

Continue reading “It’s Saturday and time to garden” →
Hello friend; going my way?
Beauty · blogging · Cooking · Gardening · Hobbies · just plain fun · me

Hello friend; going my way?

AuntGemLeave a comment

Welcome to all the new readers who’ve joined and signed up for updates. For the past six or seven weeks, you’ve been getting a weekly post about my spiritual journey. I hope you all stick around as a pivot to a blog about my hobbies: baking bread *yum*; cooking all sorts of things and sharing recipes; volunteering at my church, reading, reading, reading, and reading some more as I balance two book clubs; writing something besides this blog; and finally, going deep on gardening this summer. I’ve bought so many plants, potting soil, seeds, and more that I can truly relate to this meme:

Seen, felt, heard.
Accentuate the Positive! · Cooking · Family

Carrot Cake

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As long as it tastes good, don’t ask any questions

Friday was Dad’s 85th birthday. To honor him, I decided to make his favorite: carrot cake. After scrolling allrecipes.com for a recipe with lots of stars, I went with Carrot Cake III.

Too many YouTube videos have convinced me that I must set all the ingredients up in a lovely mise en place before I begin. I’m not sure which great chef I think I am, but I imagined Gordon Ramsey yelling at me to make sure I measured carefully and set everything out. Not only did I set out the cake ingredients, but I also set up the “mise” for the frosting. It was that part which nearly did me in.

The fashionable “naked” cake look.
Continue reading “Carrot Cake” →
Cooking · holiday · hostess with the mostess

Welcome to 2016 – and the first recipe of the New Year

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Today I’m having friends over to celebrate the New Year with black-eyed peas and cornbread. I found my new favorite cornbread recipe at martysmusings.net:

  • 2 boxes Jiffy corn muffin mix
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 16 oz. creamed corn

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together and pour into greased 9 x 13 baking dish.
  2. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes or until lightly brown.

As Ina Garten would say, How easy is that?

Beauty · blogging · Cooking

Plates of Sweden

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Plates of Sweden.  This is gorgeous. Take a look at these food photos and drool!

Cooking · Gratitude · just plain fun · Travel

Breakfast of champions, NY style

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Here’s what I’m noshing on my last morning in NYC:

20130322-072113.jpg

Cooking · Gratitude · just plain fun · Something wonderful · Travel

Dinner at the “wurst” restaurant in town

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Ever since I read about this place in the New York issue of Gourmet Magazine (in 2004!) I’ve wanted to go to Hallo Berlin. The restaurant is located on 10th Avenue, between 44th and 45th, so it’s just far enough from the Times Square area to feel like you’re in a residential part of the city.

NYC brownstones
45th street between 9th and 10th Avenues. I kept expecting the Cosby family to spill out of one of the brownstones.

The restaurant’s exterior awning proudly proclaims “Germany.”

Hallo Berlin front awning
It’s always time for sausage and beer at Hallo Berlin.

I had the two wurst plate, which came with sauerkraut, red cabbage and spaetzle. Plus cabbage and potato soup to start. I choose bratwurst and knockwurst.

Wurst at Hallo Berlin
You can only see one of the two mustards which accompany the gorgeous sausages and sides at Hallo Berlin.

It was delicious!