Vegan snobby joes and coleslaw. I destroyed them, but Mike proclaimed it "too flavorful...like something you'd get at Earth Fare." I took it as a compliment, but I don't think he meant it that way.
Homemade sushi. Our first attempt and so fun. Even Max ate them. Shock! Horror!
Peanut butter tofu (ala Rosetta's) with sauteed spinach. A billion grams of fat, and worth each and every one.
Cinnamon rolls. Nuf' said.
Sunday was like a dream. (I'm choosing to ignore the weather forecast, which is predicting snow for this Tuesday.) We had a nice, little lunch on the back porch, and then the boys played Frisbee while I puttered around the front flower bed, trimming old lavender stalks and digging around to find new strawberry plants.
Max suggested we have lemonade with our sandwiches. I told him it was a great idea, but we didn't have any lemonade. He looked over to the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, then back at me.
"Well, you have a bunch of lemons."
This immediately induced a restaurant-flashback. I waited tables for many a year at various restaurants through my late teens-early twenties (and then some.) And I'm sure a bunch of you out there have, too. Did you ever run across that person? The customer that requests lemonade, and when you tell them it isn't available, they ask you, "Well, do you have lemons?" "Do you have sugar?" "Then you do have lemonade, don't you?!" This is such an annoyance, not just because they are asking you to go out of your way to make them a custom drink, but it's in the way they go about the questioning. Like they're tricking you into it....like you don't know how lemonade is made. Like you don't have about a million other things you need to be doing, and you have time to make a drink that isn't on the menu that will probably be really good, that the customer won't expect to be charged for at all. I mean, come on. It's just water, and lemon juice, and sugar. What's the big deal? Really industrious customers will order an ice water and ask for a bowl of extra lemons and a sugar caddy. Just make it up themselves. I actually have no problem with that. Go for it. Stick it to the man.
Well, I did make the lemonade for our lunch, and it only took a few minutes. It was also amazingly delicious and I had to thank Max for the suggestion. I haven't worked at a restaurant for a long time now, and it's strange to feel so completely happy to be finished with a certain phase of my life, and also deeply nostalgic for it at the same time. It was a great gig. Good money, entertaining co-workers, and when I went home at night, albeit reeking of the tilapia special, there was a wad of cash in my pocket and not an ounce of work to bring back with me. The slate was clean. Asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I was lucky to spend most of my waitressing career at a wonderful restaurant called The Wild Monkey, (I hate that it sounds like a strip club when it was actually a charming little bistro-type restaurant with a stupid name.) It's gone now. New owners, new menu, different name. I do miss the characters I met there, and the hustle and bustle, and the BBQ scallops. I don't really miss the customers that wanted their checks split to the tenth of a penny, or the morons who ordered soft shell crabs and screamed in horror when they saw their plate, "It's a whole crab???" they'd shudder. And I'd have to be nice, and apologetic, and accommodating. Taking the plate back to the kitchen, and getting yelled at by the cook for wasting a $28 dollar entree. And don't get me started on the side work.
I'm nothing but grateful today, really. Being able to stand where I am now and gaze back at where I used to be. Working for yourself has it's own challenges, to be sure. The lemonade is sweeter, but it's hard to sleep at night.
The sun came out at last yesterday, in the late afternoon. I was so happy I snapped a few picture of the daffodils in the front yard. It is strange renting a house and watching the plants and flowers come up for the first time. So surprising and fun, and the owners sure have planted some lovely things. I'm not really a daffodil-person, but the varieties they picked are just gorgeous. I'll have to take pictures of them all. This house is nestled on a hill deep in the trees, so there isn't a lot of sunlight, especially in the summer when the trees leaf out. I had resigned myself to the fact that a small garden just wasn't going to happen, and no matter how much I'd enjoy it, I didn't really have time for the up-keep anyway. But now...the Spring fever is really making me itch to plant a few things, so I've been scoping out a few locations for some herbs, maybe just ONE tomato plant. I'm sure I can squeeze them in somewhere. Max spotted strawberry plants peeking up through the daffodil leaves, and I figure if there's enough sun for strawberries, well...I can work with that.
I bought this cereal becasue it was on sale, and it is so good! Totally a fake, healthier(?) version of Cap'n Crunch, my all time favorite cereal that I never buy anymore because, let's face it, it's about as bad for you as processed food gets. The Kashi version is actually really tasty, too. Not as crazy-sweet, very satisfying, and still roughs-up the roof of your mouth in that nostalgic way we all love. I try not to buy a lot of cereal these days anyway, but I'd definitely splurge for this stuff. Yum. I'm not crazy about the name, though. They should have been cheeky and called it "Corporal Crisps" or "Sargent Snacks" or something. I guess that's not really Kashi's style.
I think everyone should make their own biscuits. It's just something I feel very strongly about. They are suitable anytime of day, you can fill them with almost anything, and everyone loves them. They just make you feel good inside; the perfect comfort food. So simple to make, you only need five ingredients that are nearly always on hand: flour, butter, milk, baking powder, and salt. Here is my favorite recipe, (adapted from Joy of Cooking) and a few no-fail tips that will have you baking biscuits to beat the band.
Country Mouse Biscuits
*Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 or 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup of milk
Whisk together all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) in a large bowl. Make sure they are nice and blended. Cut your *cold* butter into small pieces. Use a pastry blender to "cut" the butter into the flour mixture. Your not looking for perfection, just work the mixture until the individual butter pieces are no larger than a pea. Do not let the butter melt or get pasty. You want a dry, bread crumb texture.
Add the cold milk all at once. Mix until just barely moistened. (as seen here.) It will look like a big, old mess and nowhere near consistent. That's what you want! Now dump it all out onto your counter top.
Work the mixture together a little, kneading slightly just once or twice until it barely holds together, then pat with your fingers until it's all flat and about 3/4" thick. Yes, it will stick to your hands and table. Deal with it. Adding more flour will risk making the biscuits tough. You can shoot your hands with a little cooking spray to help with the stickiness. No need for a rolling pin. Trust me.
You can easily cut the biscuits with a biscuit cutter, any small glass right out of your cabinet, or even a cookie cutter. Whatever you use, try to press down and lift up evenly, without twisting. It really does help the biscuits rise evenly! You may need to nudge the biscuits off the counter with a metal spatula or scraper.
Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet. Try to cut as many biscuits as you can, and leave very little scrap. You can definitely smash up the leftover pieces and re-cut them...but they will not be quite as tender as the first-cut. The regular biscuits shown here were cut with the glass (seen above,) and the small ones were made with the mini biscuit cutter from the shop (and I'm really smitten with it, if you can't tell!)
At this point, you can brush the tops with melted butter or milk (but I never do, I'm too impatient.) Bake them for only 10-12 minutes until very, lightly browned. You don't want them too dark. Serve them immediately and wait for the collective sigh of contentment from your friends and family. I heartily reccomend slicing your biscuit and adding a squeeze of wildflower honey, it's my absolute favorite. Max insists upon cherry preserves with his biscuits. And Mike, well...he prefers a large hunk of sausage. Oh well, at least this is one case where you most certainly can make everyone happy.
*Final Thoughts*
*You can sub up to 1/2 cup of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. The biscuits may not rise quite as much, but they will still be amazingly good.
*You can use soy milk in place of the regular milk with no noticeable difference.
*Don't add any more baking powder than the recipe calls for, or it will make your biscuits slightly bitter. You don't want to taste the leavening.
*Don't expect these biscuits to taste or look like the ones from Cracker Barrel, or the ones you make out of a can. These are real, homemade, country biscuits. They are gonna take some getting used to, but once you're hooked, you'll never be able to go back. Mike is convinced that I make my own biscuits because I am so frightened of the canned ones that you have to peel the corner of the paper off, because they tend to *explode* in my hands and scare the bejeezus out of me. He may be right. But he's also not complaining. It's hard to complain with a fresh, hot biscuit in your mouth.
This smoothie is about as green (in color) as they get. Made with fresh pineapple, spinach, apple cider, orange juice, ice, and spirulina (yes, that's algae and no, you can't taste is at all.) I first read about the green smoothie phenomenon here, and it literally changed our lives, especially Max's. The boy who used to despise every vegetable on earth, would happily chug a smoothie packed with all kinds of green goodness. And now, I guess his palate has changed, and he is trying more new foods every day, and even asked for broccoli yesterday. He only actually ate one spear...but still. Baby steps. Since we have been smoothie addicts for about a year now, we had already burned up the motors of two good-quality blenders, and I still couldn't get that perfectly smooooth consistency that I really wanted. So last month, I totally went for it:
Could we have picked a better or more magical day, weather-wise, to visit a local maple syrup farm?
