Happy Easter

Hope Springs Eternal

Spring may actually be here.  If not, we're carrying on anyway.  These crocuses were waiting in the snow cover in the morning encouraged by a sunrise and promise of 50* temperatures.

By afternoon the snow was disappearing from all but the darkest corners and the wide puddles covering the lawn the day before had managed to soak into the already saturated ground.  I got started on my To Do list labeled "March" (optimistically).

The first thing was to take some measures to protect my sprouting tulips from the now ravenous deer who are craving fresh fruits and vegetables as badly as I am.  Then I straightened the pots stored in the cold frame and potted up some geraniums I saved over bare root from last year.  They don't look too promising but I doubt they're all dead.  I watered everything wintered over in the cold frame.  It's now time to fill some flats and get lettuce and herbs seeded and make full use of the cold frame to start our season early.

Tim spent the afternoon on one of my wishes, a dibble board.  On the right you can see the vintage one salvaged from the family greenhouse.  Its missing many pegs and is cracked and repaired from years of use.  The board would have made holes in 4 six plant peat packs so the seedlings could have been easily transplanted.  My boards are intended for speed in planting beans, especially black beans, which, instead of rows, are planted in the whole bed, 2 inches apart in any direction.  I don't need to tell you, that's time consuming!  I can now poke 54 holes at once, and then lay the next board beside it and poke 54 more holes.  If I need to alter the spacing, I can just skip a hole or a row of holes.  The best part is that they were made entirely of scrap we had lying around.  2 hard maple plants, and some dowel rod and some handles that had been taken off of somethingorother.  If you would like instructions on making your own dibble board, here is the blog that I followed Beekman 1802

Black beans were my favorite crop last year.  I still have a precious few left in a jar, and there is a batch simmering on the stove right now.  After catching a Dr. Oz segment on homeopathic food and remedies this past week which included some of the fascinating benefits of black beans, Tim has agreed to try them :).  So I'm making up some to serve on leftover rice for supper.  You can find many versions of the recipe on the web, but tonight I'm going easy on Tim and not put anything fancy in them.  I'm just going to flavor them with some onion salt, garlic powder and chili pepper (Tim loves hot chili con carne).  I'll add some diced tomatoes over the top for me.

Some Things are More Trouble Than They're Worth...

There are certain things that seem like a wonderful idea at the time, but in reality, are just more trouble than they're worth. You can either buy the finished product for much less than you can make it yourself, OR you are better off just admiring a picture of it. Please remind me of this moment of clarity if I ever show signs of doing the following:

Trying to grow my own Sweet Corn, Pumpkins or Watermelon.

Canning Tomatoes or making Sauce.

Planting more than two Zucchini plants at a time.

Baking cutout Christmas cookies.

I keep a list of cookie recipes that I've mastered, and I also keep a list of failures to never try ever again. Inevitably, every few years, my memory grows dim, and a photo like this in a catalog...

...will catch my eye. I will immediately send away for the cookie cutters. I will clip the photo for inspiration. And I will take several years off my life trying to achieve similar results.

And for what? To try to impress my mother, husband, extended family, friends and coworkers with my baking prowess when I present them with a picture perfect box of Holiday delights? Trust me, there is no baking prowess. My mother is already impressed with me, due in no small part to her claim on giving birth to me. My husband barely tolerates my flights of Holiday fancy as it is, and my coworkers know they must pretend to be impressed or suffer a 40 hour work week of bad (worse) temper. My friends would probably think me pretentious and talk amongst themselves while I'm occupied with my cutout cookies.

Alternatively, there are several recipes that are a lot less trouble than they appear.

Split Seconds, for instance, have a bit of a learning curve, but are remarkably easy, and they look so festive. Especially if you drizzle white icing over the finished cookies. I use cherry jelly instead of raspberry jam, and I apply it with a cookie decorator.

Hershey's Peanut Butter Blossoms. This dough is SO easy to work with. Very forgiving. But, if it looks like you are going to get more than 4 dozen out of the batch (I got 5) be sure to unwrap the extra kisses BEFORE you pop the last sheet in the oven! Time is of essence!

Pecan Turtles. A regional candy favorite. Add two tablespoons or heavy cream instead of water to your caramels. Very easy to make, not as messy as they sound and heavenly to eat.

Now, as for those cut out sugar cookies... I still have several refrigerated dough logs to work through. I think the wise choice would be to get out the snowman cookie cutter and apply the frosting with a broad knife.

Tis the Season

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. This is the time for all gardeners and homemakers to shine. So you might wonder what I am making this year. And the answer is..... Reservations!

Yes folks, the Holidays are a stressful time. If you really want to enjoy them, you must pace yourself. I have done the big Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey, the sweet potatoes, the wonderful apple cranberry relish. I have even baked a few pies in my day. There have been long grocery lists, mounds of leftovers and huge piles of dishes. Every few years, someone in my family up and decides they want to put themselves through that. And in between, we make reservations.

What?!? No turkey leftovers? No pie? I assure you there will be pie. We will most likely spend the afternoon house hopping and sampling everyone's pies. But I solve the turkey leftover problem by buying breast only turkey, and cooking that for Sunday dinner now and then. It helps with that turkey leftover craving. Two people+one large turkey breast=sandwiches all week.

But there ARE things to be done. Now begins my "using up of my vacation" plan where I take every Friday off giving me time for holiday projects. Today's project was cleaning the fridge, and I don't mean just wiping the shelves. I get out the graniteware slop pot and take after the canned goods. Anything that has been in there since last Christmas has to go, along with stuff we really aren't going to eat after all. Must make room! Then, one shelf at a time, I scrub. I have a shelf soaking in the sink this minute. Not sure what is stuck to it, but it isn't edible. Our house will be full of impromptu guests for the next two months, and it is bad form to send someone to your fridge to get themselves a mixer and have your fridge either avalanche on them or growl at them.

And I've already been up early and too the grocery store. I have things on the side porch where it's cool, and they need to be organised into the freshly cleaned fridge. I keep a list on the computer each year, and as the sales and coupons start rolling in, I begin stocking up. I have enough crackers, cheeses, olives and such to throw together a little party platter at a moment's notice. They also had a good price on spiral cut hams, so the Christmas ham is already here. You also never know when you might need a can of broth, and it is a good time to refresh your baking supplies.

My list not only shows ideas of what to serve for a "Happy Hour" party vs a family open house, different people's drink preferences (so I know when to make sure I have OJ handy) and ingredients for special dips, but I also keep a list of failures. My family is tired of bread dip and stuffed mushrooms. Each year I try to introduce one new recipe. If they don't finish something one year, they don't get it again for at least three years.

Tim is a bit of a "social director". He feels the need to plan and invite and people have happily let him take that over. And if he is social directing, then I am cooking. About 7 years ago I told him if I never put together another relish tray as long as I lived, it would be too soon. So I have also learned to order out for things like that. It's on my to-do list. but right now, I have to go put my fridge back together and clean myself up because the rest of this day off is for relaxation. That is what the Holidays are about isn't it?

Today's Theme: Out 'er Space

We are, errrr... outta space.

My hod was in the basement full of potatoes. All my yard sale plastic strainers that I pick into were full of Shelly's extra tomatoes which she wanted not to have to deal with. But I found one more and heaped the beans in.

I realised after the beans were picked that , due to last weekend's lasagna making spree, I had no room in the freezer to put a tray (I am also, coincidentally, out of Gladware, but that wasn't a problem at the moment). After some juggling I made room, and realised that a gallon of beans was not going to fit onto one tray. But if I used the deep tray of the broiler, I could stack them and not have beans freezing to the bottom of the top tray.

In the meantime, on the other side of the kitchen, I was running out of both casserole dishes AND oven space.

And when I ground down all Shelly's surplus tomatoes, I was precariously near to running out of space in my 4 qt pot.

In the end (at 11pm), it all got into the freezer. It just took some engineering.

Early Mornings, Late Nights, Busy Weekends, Messy Kitchens

Endeavoring to grow your own food, and put it up for the winter, is a pretty big commitment. I remember with fondness, the July heat wave which got me out of bed half an hour early (I am NOT a morning person) each day to water the garden for several weeks in a row. Now it is the late nights. It happens several times a week. You get home from a long day work and running some errands, sort the mail, grab a glass of wine, and head out the garden by six o'clock to pick some beans for supper. As you are picking beans, you realise there are more here than "just for supper". Five minutes turns into twenty. You go to the garden shed for another container.





Looks like another tomato evening. It was bound to happen sooner or later. If you get dinner started first, you calculate that you can get the tomatoes washed and cored and in the oven by 7. That means they will be done by 9:30, and with luck, you can grind them and simmer them down by 10:30 or so and have that last pot washed and put away before 11 pm.




Some nights you are faced with the biggest, heaviest, ugliest hod full of slicing tomatoes that have to be gotten rid of.

They still look kinda pretty all chunked up and ready to roast. But, by the time the movie or TV shows run out, you still have some pretty runny tomato sauce and you're just not interested in monitoring a pot of sauce until the wee hours of morning. This is one of the hazards of growing too many slicing tomatoes. So I tasted this runny sauce and I said to myself, "Self, what you have here is not tomato sauce. It's tomato soup."

And pretty good tomato soup at that. In fact, what this tomato base is begging to be is Minstrone Soup. Maybe tomorrow.

Another fact of heirloom gardening tomato season is the seed saving. Soon, my kitchen counter is full of juice glasses full of seed gel. There are even some on my window sill at work. I wonder what the cleaning crew thinks is in them? The gel must be allowed to mold to separate the seeds from the goo. It's not an attractive process. It breeds fruit flies. WHERE do they come form? It's NOT something you want to spill on your counter. Trust me. When disturbed it can stink to high heaven.

When the mold experiment has successfully concluded, rinse the seeds until all you're left with is seeds, and dump them through a tea strainer.

Arrange them on wax paper or paper plates to dry over night and put them in an envelope, or one of those minuscule zip lok bags that the extra buttons for your shirt came in. The paper plates are nice because you can write on them what variety you're drying.

The larger weekend projects continue. The potatoes are dug and the bed mulched and tilled for next year.

All the onions have been pulled, dried and braided for storage.

The potatoes are washed, dried in the wind, and stored in the basement.

But there are still potatoes in our future. This is what's left of the Great Potato Pot Experiment. There is only one plant in this pot, although I started with 6. I also started with two pots. The main lesson I learned with the Great Potato Pot Experiment is DON'T WATER THEM. They will do just fine on rain water alone, and will be quite happy waiting three weeks for rain. The one day I watered them I killed all but this plant.

And the bush beans are beautiful. The first planting was so discouraging due to the hot dry weather in July. The plants, beaten down by cycles of wilting and watering, allowed the bean tips to touch the ground. The yield was very poor, with small beans that were all curled from being stubbed against the ground. The plants looked anemic and miserable and I happily pulled them out way before their time and started lettuce in their place. The lettuce is shown in the potato drying photo. It will soon be ready to pick lightly, although you will notice, that after 4 months of gardening I didn't have the patience to plant the seeds in any sort of order. I just scratched up the soil, strewed them around and watered them in. I kept filling in the bare spots with the remaining seeds and now I have a pretty even crop coming up in various stages.

I have to say it... I'm looking forward to fall with it's mums and pumkins. There will be plenty of food and hibernation can begin.

S'getti and Meatballs

It's a sugar-coated ice cream world

It may have dumped 6 inches of lake effect snow on the garden today, but we can still enjoy meat balls and home made tomato sauce

Mmmm... summer....

Grandma's Molasses Cookies

I wrote this a year ago, so this is somewhat of a reprise. But it goes in here great, just as these cookies go well with Glogg.

So my mission at Christmas, like so many women before me...is to keep the traditions alive. I've been longing for some of Grandma's Molasses cookies, and I thought for Christmas, it would be nice to make some and share with the family. Actually, I did not consider sharing until I read the recipe. Now I realize it will not simply be an act of family tradition, but a necessity.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my Mom to find the recipe. She promised she would. She also said she had a tub of Lard I could have. Lard? I don't really plan on using Lard. "Well, they won't be the same without the Lard".  I give it a couple of days, contemplating the thought of baking cookies with Lard in the year 2008. After much thought, I relent. "OK fine, give me the Lard." Mom smiles knowingly "You're going to need the BIG Kitchenaid."

Today, I am happily off work and snowed in. 5 days 'til Christmas. A perfect day for baking. I had already read the recipe and bought supplies accordingly. In addition to the Lard, I bought a second bottle of Dark Molasses, in case one wasn't enough, 5 pounds of unbleached flour, and an extra jar of Cinnamon.

I wrestle the Kitchenaid out of it's cupboard. WHY do I keep this monster over the refrigerator? Oh, I remember, it's the only cupboard large enough. I jockey it over my head narrowly missing the blades of the ceiling fan thinking... "why don't I remember to turn that thing off? Remember what happened to the toaster?"

I start with the lard. 2 cups. My kitchen now smells faintly of bacon. I scrutinize the ingredients on the pail of lard, but it does not reveal what I already know to be true. Lard is pig fat. Granted, it has less saturated fat (the bad fat) than butter, while it also has more than twice as much monosaturated fat (the good fat) than butter. Still, this does not look (or smell) like the beginnings of a cookie recipe.

I glance over my shoulder to make sure my husband is still out plowing. 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 eggs, cream together... now the lard looks better even if it doesn't smell better. 2 cups of dark molasses. I was right, 1 bottle only has 1 2/3 cup in it. Open the second bottle. The smell of Lard is soon overcome by the molasses. My kitchen no longer smells like bacon, it smells more like the feed mill. 1 1/2 cups of unbleached flour mixed with 2 tbsp soda, 2 tbs cinnamon (am I reading that right? Tablespoons?) I open the second jar of cinnamon. 1 1/2 tbsp ginger, 1/2 tsp allspice, 1 1/2 tsp salt.

I mix that in and eye the mixing bowl. It is now dangerously full of batter. Yes, Batter. And the next step is 2/3 cup boiling water. This ought to be good. Although I pour slowly, the Kitchenaid, in a typical display of bad temper, splashes boiling brown batter on the wall and floor. THAT looks yucky. I leap for the paper towels before my husband comes in to see what looks like...well you know... all over the floor.

Now comes the rest of the flour. I am supposed to add 7 to 9 cups to texture. I dump most of the 5 pound bag of flour into a large bowl, and I can't see how 9 cups of anything are going to go into the already full mixing bowl. I get a scrap of paper and a pencil and start making hash marks to keep track of how much I've put in. Amazingly, through some phenomenon of science, the flour does not increase the volume of the batter but instead changes it’s viscosity. It disappears willingly into the batter thickening it to a dough.

The Kitchenaid groans. It's been through this drill before. It knows what's coming. I keep my hand on the top, testing the temperature of it’s motor as I add flour. At 7 cups (8 1/2 total, because we already put some in earlier) the dough reaches a familiar consistency. It has been over 20 years since I stood on a stool in the farm kitchen and watched this dough being made, but I remember it well.

Finally satisfied, I scrape the sides and the beater and set the bowl outside on the porch to chill. I turn my attention to my exhausted mixer and the counter. Not bad. Besides the batter-splatter incident, all went well. There isn't even much flour to clean up. I feel the mixer again, and consider bathing it with Absorbine and throwing a woolen horse cooler over it for an hour. A thorough sponging with plain hot water does the trick. It will survive and be ready for the peanut butter balls later.

I pause to collect my thoughts. The dough will need to chill at least an hour, then I will roll it into balls and press it with the sugared bottom of a glass to press each cookie down, and place a raisin in the center of each. The recipe doesn't reveal how many dozen it makes. We'll find that out soon enough. I'm sure it will be enough to share with the rest of the family. Those old farm wives didn't mess around. They made enough for a whole farm crew all at once. 

 After a break to create a Christmas centerpiece I began to bake. 350 degrees 8-10 minutes and DON'T burn them. "Burnt ginger cookies are no good". (The recipe actually says this). A little trial and error and I settle on 9 minutes. My hands soon have that familiar sheen of lard. I roll and press, remembering to double strike them to get extra sugar on them. 

They are soft cookies, and not burning the bottom means they will still be soft when you take them off the sheet. After 4 dozen I perfect the technique of getting them off without smooshing the sides and only have to eat four rejects. After 5 dozen I am considering putting the rest of the dough back outside and saving it for cookie day at Mom's. 

 After 6 dozen I lose count and begin to run out of room on the dining room table. After 7 dozen I decide I 've been on my feet all day and the peanut butter balls can wait until Sunday. The Kitchenaid, now cool to the touch, goes back in the cupboard. After 8 dozen I am looking at the rest of the dough and figuring maybe I should just throw it out. I scrape the last from the bowl and do a final count. Including the ones I broke and had to eat, 106 cookies. That's 8.8 dozen. Whewww!

They are sort of pretty all laid out on the table. Their sugary tops glimmer in a Christmasey sort of way. I think back over my childhood. Grandma almost always had these cookies in the jar. I would guess she made a batch like that once or twice a month. If she didn't make these, it was peanut butter cookies. What a lot of work. But completely worth it.

Now Thatsa Won Spicey Meataball

Every year (or so) we buy a side of beef. The biggest problem I have with that is... what the heck do you do with half a dead cow? And I'm not a huge fan of beef anyway. This last time, we specifically told the butcher we did not want any more than 75# or so pounds of ground beef, and that they should find other more creative ways of dealing with the rest of it. Stew beef is always a lovely option.

When we went to pick it up, we had no less than ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE pounds of ground. 129. Pounds. And I know I'm remembering that correctly, because I made mention of it on a chat site, and I can go back and check. That was a little over a year ago, and we still have 60 pounds or so lurking about the freezer. See, this is the problem with buying locally and in bulk. Why can't they make cows that consist only of rib eye steaks with one roast, #20 of stew beef, and #50 of ground. Richard, if you are reading this, may I suggest you look into Low Line Angus or some other tiny bovine?

So, naturally, we are getting a bit desperate for ways to use this ground beef. Thus Meatball Fest was conceived. This past weekend, while most of America was out scrambling around trying to get the best deal on a new flat screen TV, we were over at the neighbors making meat balls. I took a #20 pound tote full of beef out and put it on the side porch to thaw (I am a big fan of natural refrigeration), and Mike and Shelly gathered the other ingredients. We always have enough eggs we can collect up, even though Mom's chickens are moulting and a bit off their game.

Shelly had her mother's meatball recipe, and I had my Grandmother's Swedish Meatball recipe. We roughly divided the beef between the two, warmed the Glogg, put on Christmas music and popped open a bottle of wine. The meatballing commenced. We didn't have a firm plan of attack, but each of us fell into our favored tasks. Mike tried peeling onions which brought him to tears. I took over because they don't bother me. Shelly measured out ingredients and watched the timer, acting as referee between the many tasks to be done in a relatively small area. Mike mixed the large batches by hand. Tim worked the scooper keeping two roller's hands full, and ran trays in and out of the garage to cool.

Six hours later we had many dozen baked meatballs divied up into zip lock bags and back in the freezer. Through the Holidays and the winter, if we need a quick hors d'oeuvres or dinner idea, all we have to do is grab the appropriate number of bags of home made meatballs out of the freezer, and we're in business. I think next we ought to have a Korv stuffing party.

Grandma's Swedish Meatballs:

3 pounds of ground beef

3 medium onions diced

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups bread crumbs (I use the Italian seasoned ones)

4 shakes of black pepper

4 shakes of Allspice

roll into small meatballs, makes about 3 dozen

To cook them you have two options. You can place them on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 25 minutes. Or, you can lightly flour them, brown them in a frying pan, then put them in beef broth to simmer for an hour. When I serve them at the Holiday, I put them in a crock pot, cover them with broth, and put them on low.

Glögg

Now that the beauty of autumn is past, and the temperatures are dropping, my interests have turned indoors to cooking, eating and home making. Neighbor Mike has gone on a bread making spree, thanks to my loaning him William Alexander's book 52 Loaves of Bread, and he loves to share. I've taken up making sweet, dark Anadama bread to trade him and I'm enjoying the rich butteriness of winter squash. I'm starting my mornings with hot tea, and finishing my evenings with hot cider or Glögg. The house has been filled with warm and delicious smells. What is Glögg? What do you mean you don't know what Glögg is! I can't believe you are missing out on such a useful winter elixir.

Many European and especially Scandinavian cultures have a traditional variation of mulled wine, usually red wine, heavily spiced, and served warm. King Gustav I Vasa of Sweden was fond of a drink made from German wine, sugar, honey, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and cloves and in 1609 it was called "glödgad vin", which meant "glowing-hot wine." This has been shortened to in Swedish and Icelandic to Glögg, Norwegian and Danish call it Gløgg, Finnish and Estonian have Glögi.

The American Swedes, particularly those native to our far corner of New York, have taken their Glögg a step further, and created a deadly concoction involving the highest proof grain alcohol they can get their hands on. It's potent stuff, being 1/3 moonshine. Now I'm "swedish" (half Swede), but my husband is Svedish, and when he introduced me to the family recipes for Glögg and Tom and Jerrys, I quickly concluded that his family's Swedish tradition was obviously to stay loaded from Thanksgiving through New Years.

The Glögg tradition starts in late summer with the outsourcing of grain alcohol. You see, the American Government has concluded that the public is not to be trusted with high grade alcohol. There are now only a handful of states where you can buy "the good stuff" which is 190 proof Everclear or Graves grain alcohol and our lovely state ain't one of 'em. The 151 proof version doesn't provide enough kick with the normal recipe, and the higher proof vodkas change the taste. In the past, I've been able to find Moonshine amongst some of my West Virginian coworkers, but the quality and proof varies greatly, so its easier to just import the store bought stuff. Around August or September, we start making calls to our contacts in Maryland, and the Carolinas to get the necessary ingredient.

The spices will be in the old, family owned Swedish bakeries and markets around the first week of November. But, we always put aside enough spices to start us out next year. The weather will likely turn before November, and we will ration whatever is left from last year's Glögg while keeping an eye on the calendar. You see, Glögg is important. We don't want to get caught without. And, now I see you can buy Glögg spices online through Amazon, and several other Swedish storefronts. But the local version has been unchanged for a couple of generations. The spice packets, are about the only part that is unchanged, as each family has their own subtle variation. The Johnson Family Cookbook has 4 markedly different variations.

So, what makes this precious firewater so special? Well, first, let me say that we serve Glögg in a 4 ounce glass. Few people are up to a second round. It's served steeping hot, just on the verge of boiling. Thus heated it will radiate fumes which make in unwise to inhale over your glass. If you have a head cold, it will clear it. If you have a chill, it will chase it. If you have insomnia, it will cure it. It is a necessary antidote to shoveling or plowing snow. It lends a warm, cozy glow to dark blustery evenings. It goes well with cookies.

The recipe starts with the spice packet containing cinnamon sticks, almonds, cloves, cardamon seeds, raisins and dried orange peel. Some people use the "fruit" version which includes dried apricots and prunes and perhaps some slices of apple, although I'm not sure about the wisdom of combining prunes and fuel grade alcohol. We use a double spice packet, dumping them loose into a stock pot with two quarts of water, and simmer them under cover for at least two hours. As a bonus, within 10 minutes, the whole house will begin to smell of cinnamon and cloves. I've found that it's a good time to let the Anadama bread dough rise on the stove top, while the spices simmer beside it.

After two hours, the water will have reduced by half, and the only real work begins. You have to strain out the spices. What I do, is use a slotted spoon to fish out the majority of the spices leaving just a little scrunge in the pot.

Then I strain the water through several layers of high quality cheese cloth which can be washed out to reuse again and again. Then, you rinse the stock pot, return the liquid to the pot, and the pot to the heat. Next you add the sugar. We use two cups because we like it sweet. After the sugar is fully dissolved, you can turn off the heat and add the wine and grain alcohol.

For wine, we use Taylor Tawny Port. We've also used plain Taylor Port, but it isn't as flavorful. This is also where the individual family recipes begin to vary. The most common variation seems to be the addition of Brandy, but I've heard other things too such as Sherry and even Rum. Honestly, the Tawny Port tastes very much like the finished product in milder form. We add one quart of the Tawny Port, then one quart of the grain alcohol. Two years ago, for our pre-Christmas party and hay ride, I made a terrific batch from the last bottle of Tim's father's collection using a 1940's bottle of grain alcohol with the brand name Pharm-X-O. That's right. Rubbing alcohol. We had to pick two neighbors up off the floor.

This is when the Glögg tastes the best... right off the stove. You have to be careful to take it off the heat at this point, or all the alcohol content will burn off. The fumes coming from the pot are flammable. You can touch a match to it, and it will burn quite vigorously with a mellow blue flame. Tim's father claimed this burned off the impurities, but really, it's just a party trick to demonstrate the proof of the alcohol. You can put the flames out by covering the pot.

You now have a $50 batch of Glögg to be distributed amongst your friends. As I said, it's best hot off the stove, but we put it up in any screw top bottles we can find to give as gifts, and we've found it keeps just fine for several years, although it does start to "mother" and produce sediment that needs to be filtered out. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a stock pot full of spice water cooling on the stove as I write, and I need to go and strain some spices and finish batch number three... yes, it's the second week of November, and we're already on batch number three. Yesterday, we sat in lawn chairs in the beautiful 50 degree sunshine, sipping mugs of Glögg and surveying the winter garden beds... wintertime dreaming of gardening.

Wild Plum Jelly

Jelly is FUN! For one thing, I'm enjoying the suprise of finding those long forgotten plums. And while tomatoes and pickles are useful they are pretty common. "Wild Plum Jelly" not only makes a pretty and tasty gift, but it even sounds wholesome, creative and rare.

Since I've never made jelly, I got out my old Ball Blue Books and Canning bulletins from post WWI and read up on the process. I noted that the older booklets mentioned "Greengages" which , it turns out, is what these plums really are. Which variety is a mystery. I also found that I not only had exactly the right weight of plums for one batch, but they were picked at the right time. You make jelly out of slightly under ripe plums because they have a higher pectin content, and pectin is the stuff that makes jelly jell. If you have really ripe plums, you are better of making jam. If you aren't aware of the difference, jelly is made from clear fruit juice. Jam is made from the flesh of the fruit mashed up.

I did some more Googling, and found some more romantic and interesting plum info. Cooking with Plums from Country Living, and a bit of a field guide for guessing which variety of Greengage we might have here. Pretty Plum Prints

I spent two evenings making Jelly. The first evening, I made the juice. Five pounds of plums was expected to yield 5 1/2 cups of juice. The instructions called for crushing the fruit, but they didn't suggest how to go about this. At first, I cut a couple of plums open to remove the pits. I could see right away that I was going to lose valuable juice material doing this, so instead, I circumscribed each plum with a paring knife and pulled them apart, leaving the pits in. This let me check each plum, cut out any major blemishes, and discard the bruised ones. I ended up with only three rejects, and very few spots cut out.




The next instruction was to add a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water per quart of prepared plums. This is just to keep them from scorching to the bottom of the pan when you first put them on the heat. I underestimated, and added a cup. After half an hour covered on medium heat, they were bubbling away. I pressed a few against the side to check that they were soft without mashing too much flesh into the juice. I was amazed at the amount of juice which had appeared out of nowhere.





The next task was to get that juice drained. Here is where the older booklets were more detailed and helpful. Plus I remember my Grandmother making currant jelly. I have a clear memory of the currants hanging in cheese cloth from the towel bar of her wood cookstove. This part I knew....

I always stock some very tight knit cheese cloth. We use it for straining Glogg. Glogg is something you will just have to wait until November to find out about. Anyway, I cut a large piece of it and developed a strategic plan for getting the mush in the cloth, and the juice in the pot.



Over the past few weeks I've gotten quite adept at handling boiling liquid. I did wait until this had cooled a bit which was wise since I was a little cavalier about my volumes and whether they would fit in my chosen receptacles.

As soon as I gathered the cheesecloth and tied it into a bundle I knew I had most of my juice already. But the instructions suggested I leave the mush in the bag overnight, so I did.

I got most of my 5 cups of juice right away, and I was delighted with the color and clarity. It was beautiful, the color of ruby red grapefruit juice. And TART! But no matter, we're going to add 7 cups of sugar. Yes, 7 cups of sugar to 5 cups of juice. This isn't health food.

And I proved that there was a whole bunch of pectin in this batch of plums. The next day when I dumped the mush, it had solidified into the consistency of Playdough. It was really ugly and brain-like. Tim suggested I not take a photo of it, and just get it out of the house and into the compost pile where it belonged. I think he found it rather creepy, hanging there from it's noose dripping into a pot.

I put the juice in the fridge, and didn't get back to it until two days later. That's the beauty of jelly! Procrastination.

The canning process seemed pretty easy. Standard canning process, but only 10 minutes in the bath. Abbreviated canning! There was just the complication of the whole messy jelling process. Once my jars were ready and heating in the water, I got the juice up to temperature, adding first the pectin, then the massive amount of sugar, which I had premeasured so I wouldn't lose track. Mixing the jelly is much like making jello. Everything is sticky, and soon every piece of cookware you own is covered in a film of goo. And when jelly decides to boil, it gives no warning. One moment you are stirring pretty pink juice, and in an instant you are dealing with a bubbling cauldron.

I ladled the juice into the hot jars, being careful to avoid the solids that were trying to develop in the pot. I tried to remind myself this was my first try and I wasn't preparing a State Fair entry, but nonetheless, I was very particular about the quality I was trying to achieve, and very pleased with the results. I had pans of hot tap water to set each jar in as I filled them three at a time. Then I cooked two batches in the canning bath for ten minutes each. As I was picking them out of the bath, the seals were already beginning to pop. I was so intent on getting the jelly into the jars, I almost forgot to lick the spoon! It tasted better than I had anticipated, but tomorrow's breakfast will tell the tale...

And now the best part... I get to give them away!

Gramma's Mollasses Cookies

Since garden season is pretty much over, I thought I'd branch out into other home keeping type subjects. Today I'm cooking. I've made ham and bean soup off the bone from last Sunday's dinner. I have spices steeping for Swedish Glogg, and cookie dough chilling in the fridge. I'm making my grandmother's molasses cookies. I wrote this story last Christmas, but I thought it would be a good time to share it...this time I only made half the recipe!



So my mission, is like so many women before me... to keep the traditions alive. I've been longing for some of Gramma's ginger cookies, so I thought for Christmas, it would be nice to make some and share with the family. Actually, I did not consider sharing until I read the recipe. Now I realise it will not simply be an act of family tradition, but a necessity.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my Mom to find the recipe. She promised she would. She also said she had a tub of Lard I could have. Lard? I don't really plan on using Lard. "Well, they won't be the same without the Lard".
I gave it a couple of days, contemplating the thought of baking cookies with Lard in the year 2008. After much thought, I relent. "Alright fine, give me the Lard." Mom smiles knowingly "Good thing you have the Kitchenaid.”

Today, I am happily off work and snowed in. 5 days 'til Christmas. It’s a perfect day for baking. I had already read the recipe and bought supplies accordingly. In addition to the Lard, I bought a second bottle of Dark Molasses, in case one wasn't enough, 5 pounds of unbleached flour, and an extra jar of Cinnamon.

I wrestle the Kitchenaid out of it's cupboard. WHY do I keep this monstrosity over the refrigerator? Oh, I remember, it's the only cupboard large enough. I jockey it over my head narrowly missing the blades of the ceiling fan thinking...”why don't I remember to turn that thing off? Remember what happened to the toaster?”

I start with the lard. 2 cups. My kitchen now smells faintly of bacon. Suspiciously, I scrutinize the ingredients on the pail of lard, but it does not reveal what I already know to be true. Lard is pig fat. Granted, it has less bad fat than butter, while it also has more than twice as much good fat than butter. Still, this does not look (or smell) like the beginnings of a cookie recipe. I glance over my shoulder to make sure my husband is still out plowing. I would hate to have to explain putting bacon grease in the cookies. 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 eggs, cream... now the Lard at least looks better even if it doesn't smell better. 2 cups of dark molasses. I was right, 1 bottle only has 1 2/3 cup in it. Should this stuff come in gallons? Open the second bottle. The smell of Lard is soon overcome by the molasses. My kitchen no longer smells like bacon, it smells like the feed mill.

1 ½ cup of unbleached flour mixed with 2 tbsp soda, 2 tbs cinnamon (am I reading that right? Tablespoons?) open the second jar of cinnamon. 1 1/2 tbsp ginger, 1/2 tsp allspice, 1 1/2 tsp salt. I mix that in and warily eye the mixing bowl. It is now dangerously full of batter. Yes, Batter. And the next step is 2/3 cup boiling water. This ought to be good. Although I pour slowly, the Kitchenaid, in it's usual display of bad temper, splashes boiling brown batter on the wall and floor. THAT looks yucky. I leap for the paper towels before my husband comes in to see what looks like...well you know... all over the floor.

Now comes the rest of the flour. I am supposed to add 7 to 9 cups to texture. I dump most of the 5 pound bag of flour into a large bowl, and I can't see how 9 cups of anything are going to go into the already full mixing bowl. I get a scrap of paper and a pencil and start making hash marks to keep track of how much I've put in. Amazingly, through some phenomenon of science, the flour does not increase the volume of the batter. It disappears willingly into the brown soup . The viscosity changes from batter to something more closely resembling dough.

The Kitchenaid groans. It's been through this drill before. It knows what's coming. I keep my hand on the top, testing the temperature of it's motor as I add flour. At 7 cups (8 1/2 total, because we already put some in earlier) the dough reaches a familiar consistency. It has been over 25 years since I stood on a stool in the farm kitchen and watched this dough being made, but I remember it well.

Finally satisfied, I scrape the sides and the beater and set the bowl outside on the porch to chill. I turn my attention to my exhausted mixer and the counter. Not bad. Besides the batter-spatter incident, all went well. There isn't even much flour to clean up. It actually ALL went in there. The Kitchenaid stands on the counter panting from its exertions. I consider bathing it with Vetrolin and throwing a cooler over it for an hour. A thorough sponging with plain hot water does the trick. It will survive and be ready for the peanut butter balls later.

I pause to collect my thoughts. The dough will need to chill at least an hour, then I will roll it into balls and press it with the sugared bottom of a glass to press each cookie down, and place a raisin in the center of each. The recipe doesn't reveal how many dozen it makes. We'll have to wait and see. I'm sure it will be enough to share with the rest of the family. Those old farm wives didn't mess around. They made enough for a whole farm crew all at once.

I turn my attentions from mixing to baking. I preheat the oven. The recipe says 350 degrees 8-10 minutes and DON'T burn them. Burnt ginger cookies are no good. The recipe actually says this. A little trial and error and I settle on 9 minutes. I roll and press, remembering to double strike them to get extra sugar on them. Soon my hands begin to resemble Gramma’s. The fingers are red and overall, that familiar sheen of… Lard. They are soft cookies, and not burning the bottom means they will still be soft when you take them off the sheet.

After 4 dozen I perfect the technique of getting them off the sheet without smooshing the sides and only have to eat four rejects. After 5 dozen I am considering putting the rest of the dough back outside and saving it for another day. After 6 dozen I lose count and begin to run out of room on the dining room table. Out of necessity, I stop eating the rejects. After 7 dozen I decide I’ve been on my feet all day and the peanut butter balls can wait until another day as well. The Kitchenaid goes back in the cupboard clearing more space for cooling cookies.

My memories don’t include acres of cooling cookies. How was this accomplished in that tiny kitchen? After 8 dozen I am looking at the rest of the dough and figuring maybe I should just throw it out. I scrape the last from the bowl and do a final count. Including the ones I broke and had to eat, 106 cookies. That's 8.8 dozen. Whewww! Most recipes make 3 to 4 dozen. They are sort of pretty all laid out on the table. Their sugary tops glimmer in a Christmasey sort of way. I think back over my childhood. Gramma almost always had these cookies in the jar. I would guess she made a batch like that once or twice a month. If she didn't make these, it was peanut butter cookies. What a lot of work. But completely worth it.