Food – Page 25 – a hippie with a minivan

there's going to be a whole lot of baking going on…

Yesterday… when taking out my old loathed stand mixer from under the counter (a ten year old 30$ west bend) the glass bowl fell and broke into a million pieces… and no, I am not exaggerating by saying a million… there was not one large piece left in tact and there was tons of glass dust everywhere…

Anyway… Ironically I had sent Simon a link last week of my dream mixer…

you know the kind that you don’t have to hold down with all of your force when it is trying to knead dough….

the kind that doesn’t start smelling like burnt plastic after 2 min…

The kind that can actually mix a batch of cookies and not cry out for help…

Well… guess what I am getting for X-mas!

Cuisinart 7 Quart Stand Mixer

I just ordered it today because it is on sale at Sears until Friday… (150$ off…)

Omg… I can’t wait to get it!

yumm…. vegetable chowder and pumpkin butter…

After feeling awful yesterday morning I needed some light comfort food to keep my tummy happy happy…

I cleaned up the house a bit, dusted and cleaned the kitchen (cooking is always better with a clean kitchen)

I got the pumpkin in from outside cut and roasted it and then pureed it…

Then I made an amazing Vegetable Chowder… a variation of a recipe that I got on Recipezaar (I add a lot more seasonings and more veggies and broccoli instead of peas and not as much dairy) and we ate that with some of my sourdough bread…

I started to fill some mason jars with pumpkin puree when I remembered a recipe that I had “stumbled” on a few days ago…

Pumpkin Butter

So easy to make and SO delicious!

One batch made 4 jars worth…

and of course while it was still warm I had to scoop a bit on some vanilla ice cream…

mmmm….cranberries and lemon…

I made some cranberry-lemon cake/bars yesterday…

and… they were so good that there is not enough left to get a good pic…

Of course, It did help that I got a call at the last minute yesterday reminding me that there was a homeschooling meeting last night so I packed them up and brought them to share…

I will make them again though and share the pic but for now I will share the recipe…

2 eggs (beaten)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups cranberries (or less if you don’t like them as tart as I do)

1. Beat together eggs, butter, sugar and vanilla.
2. Mix in Lemon zest and juice
3. Add flour and baking powder and mix well.
4. Fold in cranberries.
5. Pour into 9 x 9 cake pan.
6. Bake@ 350 degrees 40-45 minutes .

Pickled beets…

I love pickled beets… especially the ones that my great grandma used to make… and my grandmother… and my mom… and well.. now me…

I asked my grandma for her mom’s recipe when she was here last and this week beets were cheap at .99 for 5lbs… so today I decided to make them…

10 lbs of beets In the pot…

boil for about 2 hours…

all cooked and ready to be peeled and sliced…

all peeled…

sliced… (aren’t they beautiful)

6 cups Vinegar, 3 cups Beet Juice and 4 cups sugar…

jars ready

All filled up…

processed for 30min in boiling water…

a dozen jars of pickled beets…

It's alive!!!

I have been missing making sourdough bread for a while now… my starter died when I was pregnant with Khéna… so I have been trying to make some sourdough starter again…

The first attempt…. failed… just failed… no idea what happened…

The second attempt… put too much water by accident while feeding it and didn’t catch my mistake… no go…

Third… I decided to try cheating and starting with a bit of yeast… foam… looking good… then flat… dead…

Fourth… mixed some flour and water and just let it sit… fed it and slowly I saw bubbles… after about a week I wasn’t getting more but I knew there was potential… so I added about 1/4 tsp of sugar and it doubled within the hour…fed it again the next day with flour and water and it foamed again… and it is perfect!!!

So I have been making sourdough again…