More food fun

Julianne has become the little...presence...whispering in my ear lately.  She spied the floral focaccia last week and showed it to me.  She also stumbled across "Leopard" bread and had me take a look.  I think she's liking how this works out for her so far.

The inspiration comes from this blog.

I didn't follow the recipe and methods exactly-I couldn't figure out why I'd refrigerate dough for an hour for the first rise so I did what I always do and kept it on the counter.  The chocolate paste was too dry so I kept adding milk until I liked the consistency.  Would it have handled easier/better following her method?  Maybe, but I'll likely never know.😉

 

I'm having a lot of fun trying these new ideas.  How about you?  Has the pandemic pushed you toward anything new and interesting?

Playing with my food

Julianne showed me a picture this morning on Pinterest that piqued my interest...focaccia decorated with vegetable "flowers".  It was so pretty and, hey, I'm a bread baker so it didn't seem too out of reach.  

I suggested the girls and I could do it together since we're still under our stay home order and it would be a break in the regular routine.

I mixed up the dough and started cutting up some veggies we had on hand.  Allison went foraging outside and returned with chives, parsley, chickweed, and dandelion leaves.  Julianne put together a pot of cabbage soup to make the bread into a lunch.

We worked together to lay out our design on a cutting board while the dough was rising.  It made the final placement pretty straightforward.  I brushed the dough with garlic-infused olive oil and we transferred our garden from cutting board to dough.  We oohed and aahed over our creation (a necessary step!), then snapped some pics.

Here it is before baking:

After baking:

We had a lot of fun and a delicious lunch in the end. #Winning!

The view out my kitchen window...

We have been enjoying seeing several bluebirds lately.  We have a bluebird house in our yard but a sparrow has taken it over and refuses to allow the bluebirds admission. Imagine that.

We have this problem more years than not...this year it's a sparrow but the wrens have been culprits in the past as well.  As have the cowbirds.  Sigh.

Clarence decided today to build and place a couple more bluebird houses.  Here's hoping they will beat the other birds to them.

As different as life is these days, I hope you and yours have a beautiful Easter celebration, however you are having to adapt it this year.

Bibimbap...Quarantine Cooking

Cooking can become drudgery sometimes...these people actually expect to eat.every.day.  Add trying to stay out of the grocery store and cooking these days can be more challenging than usual.  

The upside of being ordered to stay home is that we have no commitments to plan around and so, some days, I put a little extra effort into my dinner preparations.  Today was bibimbap, a dish the girls and I had for the first time as part of a field trip when we did to go along with When My Name Was Keoko.  We were treated to a variety of Korean foods that day, which were all good, but bibimbap was our favorite.

I think bibimbap was created to use up bits of leftovers-but I always seem to have to start from scratch when I make it.

When we order it out, there's always pickled daikon in the bowl, which is a component we all really enjoy.  But, in this time of shop-at-home, I decided to pickle some regular radishes to stand in for the daikon.

This is how they looked a few minutes after pouring the pickling liquid over them. By dinner time they were no longer distinctly red and white; they looked bright pink throughout. 

Since it's been a while since I've pickled daikon, I had a hard time remembering the exact recipe I'd used before.  Allison helped me find it and Clarence suggested I blog the recipe so it'd be easier to find it next time.  I adapted this recipe.  Here is how I did it:

Pickled Radishes

1 1/4 pound radishes, cleaned, trimmed & thinly sliced

2 c. white vinegar

2 c. sugar

3/4 c. water

1 t. canning salt 

Bring vinegar, sugar, water, and salt to a boil.  Pour over sliced radishes in jar.  Cap and let cool to room temperature, then chill, preferably 24 hours before serving.

I had a little pickling liquid left over so I think I could use a couple pounds of radishes next time.  And I didn't plan ahead and make the pickles yesterday, so they only had a few hours to chill before dinner.

Still, we were happy with the flavor in our bibimbap tonight so I will likely be making these again as regular radishes are generally easier to find than daikon. 

The past week's efforts

Allison is calling this my "Table of Accomplishment".😀 It's a table set up in our living room in order to allow the jars to stand undisturbed without taking up the whole kitchen.

I bought a bushel of peaches, a bushel of tomatoes, and a big box of jalapenos at a Mennonite store.  Then I spent three days "putting up" all of it and feared I'd actually run out of rings to fasten down the lids of my jars.

I made tomato-peach salsa, regular salsa, crushed tomatoes, candied jalapenos, peach jam with regular pectin and, for the first time, peach jam using Pomona's pectin.  I've heard of Pomona's for years but never picked any up to try until this year.  Making the Pomona's immediately after making the traditional jam was astonishingly eye-opening.  The same amount of peaches went into each recipe but the sugar was 2 cups for the Pomona's and 7 1/2 cups for the traditional!  

I made rolls the day of this picture and decided they might as well go on the table to cool because, really, it IS satisfying to look at all of it in one spot.  The rolls are the first installment on the 300 promised for a friend's daughter's wedding in October.  I didn't want to freeze them for too long but since I get about 4 dozen out of a batch of dough, I had to get started to fit in 6-7 batches before the big day.

The rolls are in the freezer and the jarred goodies are all put away...so yesterday I canned some pickled red onions.  I've never tried them before so we'll see what we think in a couple weeks.  Canning is both immediate and delayed gratification.

Decoupage-it might be an illness

Pinterest can be a dangerous thing.  In the best way, of course.

After seeing some decoupaged crates on Pinterest, I knew I had finally found something to replace the dilapidated baskets we use to hold firewood. 

A couple years ago, I had purchased some pretty napkins at Ikea but never used them for the project I had in mind at the time.  (And I hate printed napkins for mealtime.  They're pretty as can be but all that ink makes them useless for cleaning food off my face.)  I was excited to try them on crates.

But first, maybe I should try a smaller project?

I found an ugly, dark, cheap tray at a rummage sale.  I painted it white and separated the layers of my first napkin...

I ended up peeling the torn napkin off the tray and throwing it away.  Next I tried scrapbook paper and wallpaper border.  It isn't perfect, but I'm happy enough with it.

I scouted around on Pinterest for decoupage advice and found a few tips that gave me hope.

Then I went to Joann Fabrics last Saturday and found crates half-off.  Deep breath.  Maybe I could make the napkins work?  Half-off makes it a pretty small waste of money if it didn't work.  And they'd still be functional, even if I couldn't pretty them up, right?  So, I brought two home.

I finished putting the napkins on tonight.  More coats of ModPodge and they'll truly be finished but I'm pretty delighted with how they look.

I pulled out a jar destined for recycling and a small napkin printed with chevrons today...and considered.  Yep, I'm pretty sure decoupage is a disease.

It's been a long time...

 

(My niece, Victoria, nagged me about sweetly mentioned to me how long it had been since I last posted on my blog.  I guess the prodding must have worked.)

This is one of today's blessings.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit I didn't pick a single one of them.

We have a neighbor who has a couple of apple trees growing by the ditch of his field.  He always graciously allows us to pick however many we want and I make him a pie to thank him.

 

We try to pick them a little green (because they get mealy fast) peel, slice, and stick them in the freezer to use all winter.  Allison often ends up doing the bulk of the prep and also uses most of them when she makes little canning jar pies for Clarence for every gift-giving occasion.  It's a sweet tradition I know he hopes won't end anytime soon.

If you look closely, you'll see spots on some apples and apples that are oddly shaped.  I guess they aren't very pretty, are they?  

 

What I see when I look at them is free, organically grown apples, generously shared with us by a kindhearted neighbor we barely know, that will be a tasty addition to many things in the months ahead.  I am very thankful for these ugly (but I think beautiful) apples...and the man who thinks we're a little strange to want his ditch apples but shares them with us anyhow.