Simmering Over the Kolz

Noche Buena de Cuba

2011-12-17T15:15:00.011-05:00

Welcome to Noche Buena at the Montague-Kolz home. We're exploring the traditions surrounding Christmas for Cuban families. I’ll get credit for this creative project in my Spanish III class as well, but you don’t have to tell the people you’re cooking for.

Like any Cuban family or our English-Polish family for that matter, most of our gatherings revolve around food.

Noche Buena is the traditional Christmas Eve celebration. Christmas Eve, or Noche Buena--for Latin families is often the biggest feast day of the season, when friends and family, young and old alike, would sit around a table laden with traditional dishes, telling stories that grow more colorful each year.

The main course at any Cuban Noche Buena celebration is lechon-- roast pork, black beans -- frijoles negros and rice. Then comes Yucca root with mojito, yucca drizzled with mashed garlic
and olive oil, as the side dish. Fried sweet plantains, and salad will finish off the main part of the meal. A caramel bottomed flan, turned over, will end the meal. I’ll share some recipes for the roast pork, the plantains, and beans and rice. They’re really good!
Marinate a pork roast in orange juice, garlic, and lime juice mixed with orange juice and some Cuban spices, roast until fall apart tender, and you can celebrate – that it’s Tuesday, if you like.

Lechon de Asado
1 (6 lbs) fresh ham -bone in (or boneless pork shoulder)
1 cup sour orange (or ½ cup lime juice and ½ cup orange juice)
½ cup apple juice with 1 T apple cider or other vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
2 whole garlic heads (peel off cloves)
2 onions (minced)
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp ground bay leaves
½ tsp ground black pepper
Directions:
Using a mortar and pestle, mash the garlic with the salt, pepper, ground bay leaf, cumin, oregano and 1 tbsp of olive oil until you have a paste.
Prick the pork on different parts using a knife. Rub the pork with the garlic mixture and insert some of it into the slits.
Place the pork in a large non-reactive pot or in large plastic bag, with all the mixture. On a separate mixing bowl, pour the sour orange, olive oil, onions and dry sherry and mix with a whisk. Add the sour orange mixture to the pork, cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 4 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees F. Use a heavy roasting pan and lightly brush it with oil. Place the pork in the roasting pan and reserve the left over marinade.
Put the roasting pan in the oven. Cook for about ½ hour, turning every 10 to 15 minutes to get a lightly golden brown color on all sides. Pour in the left-over marinade with the onions. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil. Reduce the temperature to 325 degrees F., and continue cooking for about 2 to 2½ hours, basting occasionally with the juices. Remove the foil in the last 15 minutes of cooking.
Cooking time is about 20 minutes per pound, or you can verify if the pork is ready by using a meat thermometer. Pork is done when the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F or about 170 degrees F., if you desire it well done. Modern pork doesn’t need overcooked, like it used to be
Remove from the oven, cover with aluminum foil again, and let it rest (covered) for about 15 minutes before carving. It will continue cooking even after you remove it from the oven.
Carve the pork and serve. You may pour some of the juices on top of the meat, from the cooked marinade.

You can make this side dish, platanos maduros, to serve with your holiday meal like most Cubans, and who knows, it might become part of your family tradition!

Platanos Maduros

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

The sweet fried "banana" served as a side dish in just about every Cuban restaurant.
INGREDIENTS:
3 large ripe plantains, peeled and bias cut into 1-inch thick slices. Plantains must be very black skinned! See plantain notes
2/3 cup vegetable oil, or lard, or coconut oil (to cover half the thickness of plantains in the pan)
Pan – use a heavy bottomed skillet, a cast iron skillet is optimal.
Peel and bias cut (diagonal) the plantains into 1 or 1-1/2 inch thick slices. Heat the oil until medium hot – a drop of water will sizzle.
Fry the pieces briefly, about a minute or two per side until lightly golden brown. Reduce heat to very low and continue cooking, turning occasionally until they are darker brown and caramelized.
Plantain Note: You can buy yellow or green or brownish black plantains at most any grocery store, like your local Wegmans’, then let them get nice and dark black, which shows the sugars are properly developed for this recipe.

Black beans and Rice
are a Cuban staple.

Your family might enjoy this recipe – I know mine does.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Total time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Yield: 10-12 servings (one Montague-Kolz family dinner size)

Frijoles negros is a signature dish of Cuban cuisine. It's black beans cooked to perfection in a thick aromatic stew.
INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 cups black beans, dried
9 cups water
1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups green bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 tablespoons olive oil for sautéing
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
1 bay leaf
3 tablepoons vinegar
3/4 cup dry Spanish wine or
I used apple cider from our apple trees
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil (to drizzle over beans in final step)

First, soak the beans in ample water, overnight, the day before you plan to cook them. Drain that water to reduce flatulence in the eaters. Then put the beans and 9 cups of fresh water in your pressure cooker and cook for 20 minutes until tender, or simmer all day long in your slow/crock pot cooker.
Whichever method you use, do not drain the water from the cooked beans.
Meanwhile, chop onion and green pepper. Mash the garlic with salt and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle.
Sauté the onions and green pepper in olive oil until the onions are translucent. Add mashed garlic and sauté another minute or so.
Add the cooked beans, oregano, cumin, bay leaf, vinegar, and wine. Cover and simmer over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaf.
Some cooks – including us – like to thicken the beans by taking about 1 cup of beans and mashing them to make a thick paste. Mix the mashed beans back into the pot.
Add additional salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in the sugar; then drizzle a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over the beans. Immediately cover the pot, remove from heat, and let stand for 10 minutes.
Serve the by now fantastically prepared black beans over white rice.
You may garnish the beans with cilantro and chopped white onions. My children prefer no raw onions, thankyouverymuch. Kolz kids prefer – a spoonful of peach and mango salsa, homemade.

Baby on Board for October

2011-07-06T12:45:00.003-04:00

I found this post, sitting in my drafts, waiting for me to feel better to update my blog. Um, the baby is now 9 months old, today. My prediction of his birth day was one day off. Daniel M. Kolz joined us 10-6-10. Here's a shot of him wearing his Curious George hat, and woolen overalls. I just put those items away to find them a new home, and felt so nostalgic for when he was so little. Without further delay, here's my post from January 2010 that I never put up.

All hail the morning sickness, the motion sickness, the freezing cold body temperature, the inability to return to sleep, the constant trips to the bathroom all night long.

Because we're having a new baby join our family about October 5th, 2010.

We saw the little gummi bear on ultrasound on Friday and observed a nice strong heartbeat, which was the answer to our, 2 miscarriages in a row will ruin your optimism, prayers.

My 12 year old sons (two of them) have made these funny observations.

Mom, the baby must sure like Fresca. You never drank it before. Nope.

Mom's eating weird things, she just had meatloaf for breakfast. Yep.

Did you notice Mom eats every two hours like she has an alarm clock? Yep.

Mom, would you like some Butter Pecan icecream? ::cringe::: Not on your life. No, I have no explanation for this aversion except for pregnancy. I mean seriously, who can dislike Butter Pecan icecream?

Dad, Mom said I have to take a shower, I smell like beef and onions. Do you smell beef and onions? ::snickering:::

Seriously Mom, I don't smell anything, are you sure something smells bad?

Um Emma, let's go watch Dragon Tales in the breakfast room, mom's snoring is too loud to hear the TV. ::oops::

Jack and Jill of many trades: baptism gifts

2011-03-09T08:54:00.000-05:00

Jack and Jill of *many* trades: baptism gifts

Amazing! They ate the minestrone.

2010-04-26T18:46:00.000-04:00

This week marks a milestone in our family. Or maybe it's a speedbump perhaps. I'll be working full time for a week, in training really, for the US Census. Grandmother is watching the toddler while I'm at work except for one day when Grandma is off volunteering. At which point Emma will be playing at our Old Order Mennonite friend's farm. The children will be at the grandparents for a couple of hours until Dad gets off work, and then they'll follow my simplified instructions for making dinner, which I will have started earlier in the morning before leaving for work at 8:15. My 13 year old son looks at me like it's the last supper, cooked by mom.

Working a four day shift compresses all the rest of my real work, as many working mothers nod sagely. I prefer the more relaxed day I usually have. I like time to shop for bargains, and to hang the laundry to dry on the line. Today I went shopping to several Mennonite markets with my friends Bertha and Jill and three children. We sampled some delicious and varied bulk foods (sweet potato chips, bacon dip, sesame crackers, some yummy corn relish, and tortilla chips). I love to purchase the horseradish pickles they sell there - a national brand I'm sure. Nathan's horseradish pickles, delicious! In times of $4.00 gallon gasoline, I even sliced cucumbers and kept refilling the jar to make it stretch further.

But today, my favorite find and dinner inspiration, was the cheese at Zimmerman's Meat Market on Lovejoy Road near Penn Yan, NY. It's just a wee little butchershop that now carries a few bulk foods as well. I didn't even see meat, but it was in the back and some pretty kapp wearing Mennonite teen girls wrapped and labeled my order for me with smiling efficiency.

I bought 4 lbs. of Farmer's cheese, some of which we used for dinner. But my favorite find was Extra Sharp, New York Cheddar cheese. The label says Cuba cheese, from Cuba, NY. I paid no more than $2.40/lb for the 10 lbs I had cut into manageable size pieces for our family of 7. I think it comes in 10 lbs. blocks, but that's too hefty for our bunch. They vacuum sealed it and labeled it for me, and gave me an order sheet for their fresh and frozen meat and fish, as well as the multitude of cheeses they sell. I bought 6 lbs. of whiting fillets too, so that will be dinner another week.

Tonight - I wanted to do something substantial with Farmer's cheese. Now it tastes like Mozzarella to my tongue, but it's not as squeaky, and it doesn't melt smoothly like cheddar.

For my wedding anniversary on Friday night we had dinner at a favorite steakhouse - and I started dinner with a lovely bowl of French Onion Soup. It was divine, and I savored every last drop of that rich brown broth, and the gruyere cheese I had to cut with a knife. That was my inspiration for this combination.

KelliSue Minestrone Soup - that they'll eat
1.5 lbs. of sweet Italian sausage (I used venison sausage)
1 diced sweet onion
1 can of mixed vegetables (like veg-all) including liquid
1 quart of home bottled tomatoes or a large can of diced tomatoes including liquid
1 quart of spaghetti sauce (I used Hunts' chunky vegetable which contained zucchini slices)
1 quart of water
1 can of garbanzo beans with liquid
1 cup of macaroni
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons of sweet basil
or mixed Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon of minced garlic (I used jarred)

Saute' the Italian sausage until no pink remains. You may need to add a little olive oil if it's as lean as ours is. Set aside.

In a dutch oven sized pot, drizzle a little olive oil or use butter, and sautee the diced sweet onion until softened. Then add the can of mixed vegetables, liquid and all, and the quart of canned tomatoes. Cook for 5 minutes and then using a stick blender, puree until mostly liquid with few solid bits remaining. Add the spaghetti sauce, the quart of water, the can of beans with liquid, the precooked sausage, and bring to a rolling boil. Add the cup of macaroni, and simmer until tender, about 7 minutes. If it's too thick, thin with some water or broth. The sausage adds quite a bit of salt and flavor, so be cautious in using broth if it's salted.

Now add the spices and seasonings to taste, beginning with the amounts suggested. Taste again for salt and pepper, and then ladle into large bowls.

We added a large handful of shredded farmer's cheese to each bowl, and topped it with a few oyster crackers, but saltines will go nicely too. The cheese melts to a stringy delight, and made the soup disappear like magic.

If you don't have available farmer's cheese, I'm told the classic is to use parmesan, shredded into the pot of soup, or you can add chopped parmesan cheese rinds to the pot early on in the cooking. But we had great fun with our Farmer's cheese today. Hat's off to farmer's and their cheesey goodness.

If you try this recipe, I hope you enjoy it like we did. Even the toddler ate it right up. If you prefer Vegetarian cooking, you can leave out the Italian sausage, and use a vegetable broth instead of the quart of water.

Honey Mustard Chicken

2010-02-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

This is a family favorite. We make it sometimes with cut up fryers and sometimes with chicken breast or tenderloin pieces. There's even a vegetarian version! Whichever you try, I think you'll be pleasantly delighted with it.

And if you are vegetarian try this sauce recipe with some tofu that has been prepared to be more meatlike. I freeze Nori Nu Extra Firm tofu for a day or longer, then I thaw it in the refrigerator. This eliminates the jello/egg feel of the tofu. Open the package, drain it, slice it thickly and set in a colander. Put a plate on top of the tofu, and add a large can, let sit for half an hour to press the water out. This gives it a meatier texture. Now cut it into chicken strip sized fingers and cook in the oven on 400* with the honey sauce of this recipe until the tofu is browned and has soaked up the delicious juices.

Honey Mustard Chicken for Six

6 chicken breast sections (1/2 breast each), or cut up chicken pieces of your choice

1 tsp. salt or season salt of your choice

1 cup melted butter
1 cup honey
1/3 cup spicy brown or dijon mustard or grainy hearty mustard

Preheat oven to 400*. In a baking pan with sides, lay chicken portions, season with your salt and some pepper. Combine butter and honey and mustard in a microwave safe bowl, heat for 30 seconds until it stirs easily to combine. Pour over the top of the chicken breast pieces. Cook until the chicken pieces are done, (which could be as soon as 15 minutes) and meat temperatures register 160* with a meat thermometer, and the sauce has reduced a little. Remove the chicken from the oven, and let sit for a few minutes for the juices to settle back into the meat. This also raises the temperature to 170* internally. Spoon the sauce into a gravy goat or syrup pitcher and pass with the chicken.

Serve with risotto or mashed potatoes, and drizzle a little of the sauce over the top of your chicken and rice or potatoes.

This feeds my family of seven, because the children are little and don't eat a full adult sized serving of meat. Add or subtract how much meat your family will need.

P.S. I can often find boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.40/lb. when bought in bulk, and leg/thigh combos for .69/lb. So we rotate these using this recipe.

Butternut Squash Risotto

2010-02-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

1 medium butternut squash (about 1 pound whole or 12 ounces cut up) or 1 thawed pkg. frozen squash

24 sage leaves (or use 2 tsp. dried sage, or omit completely - which is what I do)
Salt and pepper
7 to 8 cups chicken or vegetable stock, I prefer low sodium
1 medium onion, finely minced
2 T olive oil
1 T real butter or margarine if you prefer
2 cups uncooked Arborio rice
Scant 1/2 cup apple or white grape juice, plus 1 T of white vinegar
1/2 cup parmesan or romano cheese, grated

1) Peel squash, then dice into very small (1/4- or 1/3-inch) cubes. Combine squash, a few sage leaves, 1 cup stock, and a little salt in a heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a simmer and cook until just barely tender (but not too soft) about 5 to 10 minutes. Drain and reserve liquid, just in case.

2) Put the remainder of the stock into a sauce pan, add 1 cup of hot water, then bring to a simmer, and keep it just barely simmering or steaming.
3) In another, larger, heavy-bottomed dutch oven sized pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over med. high heat. Add sage 1/2 the sage leaves, and cook for 30 seconds until crispy. Remove, and set aside on a paper towel for the end of the recipe. To the same pan add onion, the other 1/2 the sage and cook until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Turn heat to low, add rice and a pinch of salt and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often, until rice has turned slightly translucent. Turn the heat back up to medium, and add the juice and vinegar. Once the juice has been absorbed, add two-three ladles full of the simmering stock, just enough to reach the top of the rice. Stir well and reduce the heat back down to medium-low.

4) Gently simmer the rice, stirring occasionally, until stock is absorbed. Add another 1/2-to-3/4 cup warm stock, and stir occasionally until new stock is absorbed. Repeat the process until all the stock has been absorbed by the rice, and rice has a bit of a bite still, but is tender on the outside. You want just a little resistance in the middle, this is what separates risotto from American rice. If you run out of stock, add a cup of water it will be fine.
5) If you're using frozen squash, now is the time to heat it in the microwave until it's heated through. Otherwise, have a glass of apple juice and stir the rice occasionally.

6) When rice is mostly tender, add cooked squash, parmesan, and a tablespoon of butter. Cook 3 to 5 minutes, until dairy is melted and squash is heated through. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, using sage leaves as garnish.

If you don't have butternut squash, you can also use canned carrot cubes, or shred raw carrots and saute' it with the onion. They're both delicious. And I usually dislike cooked carrots.

By the way, the second and third time I made this I used simple short grained rice from my food storage buckets, which reduces the price considerably. My family is lactose intolerant, and we find that we can use Sheep Milk Romano cheese (read the label) instead of parmesan and nobody gets a belly ache. During our milking season we also use a homemade parmesan cheese made with goat milk.

Risotto goes really well with Honey Mustard Chicken, home bottled green beans, and a smile.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, and Price Per Serving
371 calories, 10 g fat, 1.4 g fiber, $1.77 or less

Pumpkin Coconut Soup

2010-01-26T10:24:00.001-05:00

I have some pumpkins and even more butternut squash taking a siesta in the root cellar at my parents' home up the street. They're calling to me today. They store whole for quite some time, but c'mon, I should be using them up more. So here's a recipe for the squash. You can substitute boxes of frozen squash puree, or any cooked winter squash or canned pumpkin puree you like. Spice it up with curry paste or curry powder if you dare.. but it's a nice subtle pumpkin coconut soup for those days when you aren't quite up to extra spice. I like to serve it with marinated venison or chicken grilled on a skewer, then served with tortillas. Hold a warm flour tortilla, and then place the skewered meat on your tortilla, and use the tortilla to hold the meat as you remove the skewer for serving.

Keng Bouad Mak Fak Kham
Thai Pumpkin Coconut Soup

6 to 8 medium shallots unpeeled, roasted until soft
*or see substitution below
3.5 to 4 cups of pumpkin or butternut squash, cooked
*This is about a 4 pound pumpkin or squash, if you have whole ones in your root cellar
For many people, these may also be frozen squash, or cans of pumpkin puree
1 can 13.5 or 14 oz. coconut milk (check the Asian food section in your market)
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1/4 cup fish sauce (Asian)
Generous grindings of black pepper
1/3 cup minced scallions
Pumpkin seeds, if you have them.

Place coconut milk and chicken stock in a soup pot and then add pumpkin or squash puree, stirring to combine. Add roasted shallots or garlic, or the dried toasted onion option. Heat to a boil, stirring regularly. Add the fish sauce, turn down and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. At this point I usually use my stick blender and blend the soup smooth. It eliminates any stringy bits from our home grown squash or pumpkins. Store bought sieved purees may eliminate the need for this step. Taste for salt, but usually we don't need any extra.
You can serve this really beautifully in a baked pumpkin shell, but in the winter there usually aren't any available. Serve in individual bowls or a soup tureen with each serving topped with toasted pumpkin seeds or minced scallions.

Another version of this adds some curry paste or powder for some spice. That's a good idea if you have colds or flu in the family. Either way, it's a good way to get extra vitamins in the family during cold and flu season.

*roasted shallots or garlic: place 6-8 whole shallots or 2 cloves of garlic in aluminum foil and drizzle with 1/4 tsp. oil, wrap well, roast until tender and the skin has darkened. Another option is to dry roast the whole cloves in a frying pan until the skin has darkened, but the inside is sweet and tender. You can also take 1 tablespoon of dehyrated onions and toss in a hot skillet and keep stirring and tossing around until dark tan, and then add to the soup.

A vegetarian version could include tiny cubes of tofu floating in the pumpkin soup, and use only vegetable broth, and substitute tamari sauce for the fish sauce. Either way, it's gluten free and nondairy.

Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowls

2010-01-25T10:29:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a grey, rainy winter day, suitable for melting the snowpiles we saw as we drove to church, but not for much else. I had some boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces that were thawed waiting for me to decide how to use them, waiting in the refrigerator when we returned. Here's what we came up with. Just to give you an idea of the response to this meal from my family - here's how it went.

Emma, 3, cleaned her bowl completely. Merina - asked for seconds on the rice and green beans and gleefully drizzled teriyaki sauce over her second bowl. The big kids (9, almost 12, and 12) all had seconds, and my husband said WOW! High praise from half my family who were raised on pizza and wings and canned ravioli before I married in.

So here's my new favorite, somewhat reduced sugar Teriyaki sauce. And following you'll find how we used it last night and ideas I have for the future. Because I ate the leftovers for breakfast at 5:30 this morning. I named it because in the cities where I lived in Washington there were teriyaki places in every strip mall. Nearly every place served their meals similarly, a scoop or two of rice, stir fried veggies including cabbage, garlic and broccoli, and a portion of grilled chicken thigh or breast with a nice glaze of teriyaki sauce.

I Miss Seattle Teriyaki Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup splenda (or substitute other low sugar sweetener)
1 cup of sugar free soft drink

*I used a generic of Crystal Light in peach, but have used Orange Early Rise previously too. You may also use Sugar Free Sprite, 7UP or other sugar free drink. You can substitute Pineapple juice, but then it's not suitable for diabetics, at all.

1 teaspoon grated ginger, very fine or use 1 hunk of candied or crystallized sugar ginger, like I did, minced
1 large garlic clove, minced or 1 tsp. jarred garlic
3 scallions, chopped fine - I skipped that, the refrigerator was out and we don't shop on Sunday

Bring the soy sauce and sugar free soft drink to a simmer in a sauce pan, add the ginger and garlic and add sweeteners and stir until it's dissolved. Add the scallions just before serving. Makes about 2 cups of teriyaki sauce.

Now where do you use this teriyaki sauce? Everywhere. Here is what we had for dinner last night:

Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowl

1/2 cup of steamed white rice per person
1/4 lb. of sautee'd chicken breast or thigh (do not salt)
1/2 cup of steamed veggies of your choice - piping hot

In a bowl, mound 1/2 cup of steamed rice like an icecream scoop, arrange 1/2 cup or more of steamed veggies around this. We like broccoli, or a stir fry mix, but even canned green beans from last year's garden are really good this way.

Then drizzle Teriyaki sauce, to taste, over the top of each rice bowl. Reduce in size appropriate to the age of the eater.

How else can you use this delicious sauce? How about baking some chicken wings, sectioned, until crisp. Toss them in a bowl, drizzle with sauce and stir until well-glazed. Or, when your hamburger or turkey or venison burger is almost done to your liking, brush this teriyaki glaze on it for the last two minutes of cooking.

Teriyaki Beef from Leftovers:

In a large skillet, heat a tsp. or so of heart healthy oil on high heat. Add one or more sliced sweet onions and sautee' until just turning golden. Slice leftover steak or roast into bite sized portions, sautee' with the onions until warmed through. Now drizzle some teriyaki sauce over the meat, and turn the meat down a little so the sauce won't burn, and glaze the meat. Serve this teriyaki over a scoop of steamed rice with salad or a steamed or stir fried vegetable along side. And that will be the end of your leftovers, quickly.

If you're eating lower carbohydrate, you might consider serving the teriyaki over stir fried cabbage and zucchini and broccoli cut into thin slivers instead of rice. Vegetarians will find this is really good to use for a marinade for pressed tofu, and in fact makes a delightful sandwich with diced fried tofu, shredded veggies and lettuce stuffed into a pita.

It's bliss. What's your local food favorite? What do you find on nearly every corner, and at every strip mall in your community? It's one thing I just don't see any more... teriyaki restaurants. In rural upstate New York, it's pizza places, sub shops, and the occasional overcooked Chinese fast food.

Enjoy Mouthwater Mondays' Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowl, in whatever version you try.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

2009-10-21T19:54:00.000-04:00

Carrot Cake Pancakes?!?

I was reading a cooking blog the other day and I grew intrigued by his carrot cake pancakes.

I made a test batch, and as I mixed the batter I said, hmmm these proportions are missing something. I made one wee test batch, and sure enough, they were tough or heavy, and a little oddly textured to my point of view.  I revised the recipe tonight and made a very large, new and improved version. They're still not light and fluffy buttermilk pancakes with this much shredded provider of betacarotene and other vitamins, but they're better. They taste so good.. quick, go make some.

My critics occupy the dinenr table. We're talking 7 people eating carrot pancakes.   And they devoured them.

But wait, back up. I personally dislike cooked carrots. Oh I do like carrot cake, and thus carrot cake pancakes are a luscious thought. But what if I ended up with surplus carrots? Then what? I would have to ::shudder:: use up a bunch of carrots as a moral necessity. Necessity being the mother of invention - I opted to peel half a butternut squash and shred it quickly. I love squash and I can imagine hundreds of squash use ideas. But the carrots would go to the goats.. no carrot salad for me.

The original recipe, when quadrupled for my crowd, produced heavy, but delicious lead weight pancakes. I opted to lighten them with a bit more leavening, add 1/4 cup of oil for the proper texture and to prevent unreasonable stickiness/gloppiness. These taste great! I used an artificial sweetener Splenda, and a touch of molasses for the brown sugar flavor. It reduced the carbs a little, and still tastes really yummy. Please, feel free to try this on your crew for brunch, 'breakfast for dinner', or a weekend breakfast treat. A dish of applesauce, some lean turkey sausage, or scrambled eggs makes a nice accompaniment, whatever time of the day you're serving these.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

But really, they're made with shredded butternut squash. Did I mention they're low fat too?

Ingredients:
1 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour (or use all white flour if you don't have whole wheat in the house)
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups milk (or buttermilk)
2 eggs
1/2 cup splenda sugar free sweetener or brown sugar
1 Tablespoon of molasses (omit if using real brown sugar)
1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter or margarine
2 cup shredded raw butternut squash

Optional Topping:
8 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
6 tablespoons maple syrup
powdered sugar to taste

Directions:
First take your average size butternut or other winter squash, and cut it in half. The butternut confines its seeds to the bulbous, so for speed, avoid that part, and peel just the longer neck portion. See, speedy! Now toss into a food processor on shred, and Bzzt, you're done. Or like me, use your box grater and 5 minutes later you have 4 cups of shreds. That wasn't too time consuming. Watch those knuckles though. Now on to the batter.

1. Mix the flour, leavenings, and spices in a very large bowl. Not that one the larger one. Ok, thanks.

2. Mix the milk, egg, oil, sweetener and shreddy squash in another bowl.

3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients making sure to not over mix. Over mixing causes tough pancakes.

4. Heat your skillet or large griddle (we have a huge nonstick electric griddle that cooks 6 pancakes at a time).

5. Pour 1/4 cup of the mixture into the pan and heat until the surface starts to bubble and the bottom is golden brown, about 2-3 minutes.

6. Flip the pancake and cook the other side until the bottom is golden brown, about 1-2 minutes.

We served these with margarine and sugar free or reduced sugar maple syrup or real maple syrup from our trees. There are diabetics at my dinner table each night.   The children are also sensitive to cream as in cream cheese, so we'll be making the topping another night, from goat cream cheese. But do try it, because the thought of cream cheese frosting on carrot cake pancakes makes you drool - doesn't it?

Optional: Mix the cream cheese and maple syrup and add some powdered sugar to get it as sweet as you like. Then spread your cream cheese frosting onto your carrot cake pancakes. I'd use it as filling and just sprinkle some powdered sugar on top, myself.

The family reviews were unanimous. WOW, good carrot cake. And that's with sugarfree syrup and diet margarine. Imagine, if you made these with sugar and real maple syrup on top.. they'd be over the top FABULOUS. Try them however you prefer. They're delicious.
Psst.. have you tried Butternut slaw? That's right, you make coleslaw with shredded butternut squash, and it's sweet, and delicious and leaves you saying: now why didn't I think of that?

Butternut Slaw

To one shredded butternut squash (about 4 cups), add 1/2 cup of dried cranberries, and 1/2 cup of toasted chopped walnuts. Then toss with your family's favorite coleslaw dressing or try this variation. 1/3 cup of mayonnaise, 1 1/2 tablespoons honey, 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 1-1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Taste and adjust it to your palate, then pour over the salad. Or just substitute the shredded butternut squash in your favorite coleslaw recipe. It's really good. Just try it. It's Autumn. It's good!

That was so yummy! Cabrini Greenie Casserole

2009-10-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

I made this Greenie dinner tonight, after adapting it to my pantry and provisioning. It is so delicious. I'm posting the original Cabrini Spinach recipe, and then the alterations I made so you can make one or both or even your own version. I reduced the fat in this dish by cutting out one cup of cheese, using light margarine, and low fat sour cream. Extra sharp cheese has reduced or no lactose, which gives us a little dietary wiggle room here in using sour cream in a dish.

KelliSue's Cabrini Greenie Casserole - with my apologies to the Junior League
1 16oz. box of rotini - or approximately the same of low carb or gluten free pasta of your choice, cooked in well-salted water until barely tender, drained
1/2 cup light margarine
3 cups of cooked swiss chard, stems chopped, or spinach, pressed dry
3 cups of shredded extra sharp cheese
1 diced onion
1 cup of diced mushrooms (I used wild mushrooms)
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast, cubed - sprinkled with season salt
2 cups of sour cream (low fat would work here)
6 grinds of freshly ground black pepper

In a large bowl, stir together cheese, sour cream, pepper. Pour the hot drained pasta over the top, and gently combine. Meanwhile, sautee the onion, mushrooms, and chicken in 1/2 cup of light margarine. When the chicken is cooked through and the onions are softened, combine with the pasta mixture and place in a 9x13" casserole dish. Top with a layer of Panko style bread crumbs, and spray with butter flavored spray. Bake uncovered at 400*F for 30 minutes. The breadcrumbs get nice and crunchy and the casserole becomes one delicious pan of cheesey melty goodness. Makes 8-10 servings. The original calorie count is below. I'm sure my version was improved! You can keep this vegetarian by omitting the meat.

My family's reaction to this casserole, which goes nicely with homemade bread by the way, was "make this one again Mom". My husband liked how delicious it was, and was happy that the chard came from the garden. As for me - I like one dish meals. You might want to put in 1 lb. kielbasa, cut into coins, instead of the chicken breast, or use some leftover ham cubes another time. This wasn't an expensive dish, using garden produce, 1 box of pasta, 1 lb. leftover or planned over meat, 3 cups of shredded cheese, and a .99 pint of low fat sour cream. I'll be blanching swiss chard and putting it in the freezer so we can enjoy this one again in the deep freeze of the winter months in Upstate New York.

KelliSue Kolz

Cabrini Spinach
Recipe From: Creme de Colorado by The Junior League of Denver

9 oz spaghetti, broken into pieces, cooked al dente and drained
1/2 cup butter, melted
20 oz frozen spinach, cooked and drained (2 boxes cut-leaf spinach)
4 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese
1/4 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 cups sour cream
1/4 cup diced onion
1 dash dried oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1/4tsp freshly ground black pepper

In a large bowl, stir together all ingredients. Place in a 9x13" casserole dish. Bake uncovered at 350oF for 45 minutes. Makes 8-10 servings.
Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 461 Calories; 33g Fat (63.8% calories from fat); 18g Protein; 24g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 85mg Cholesterol; 458mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1-1/2 Grain(Starch); 1-1/2 Lean Meat; 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 5-1/2 Fat.

Opie Taylor goes to Iraq

2009-10-06T11:17:00.002-04:00

With fourteen children in my family during my formative years, I'm surprised that it seemed like Robbie was the baby for the longest. Maybe it was because I was in high school when he was born and that makes all the difference. He was fun to play with, and of course more happy to see me at age 2 than my siblings who were within a year of age to me. I see that in Emma now. She runs to the door hugging and kissing her Andy, Gerard, Sarah and Merina when they return home from school.Robbie was born pretty bald like most of my birthed in siblings. The adopted ones all had dark hair. Robbie grew in the brightest head of redhair and with his big grin and freckley face he quickly resembled Opie Taylor of The Andy Griffith Show.

As my little children (12 and under) have grown I've been reminded of Robbie's childhood several times. Emma is redhaired and destined to be freckley some day. One morning she came to me in her blue footy pajamas and said Mama, I wet. As I changed her out of her soaked diaper and wet pajamas and put her into the shower I was flashed back to when I was a teen and Robbie was a wee toddler.All the children's rooms were upstairs, like in this old house we live in here. Robbie's room was down the hall from me, but Mom was way down the steep stairway, or so it seemed when we were small.

On the occasion when 2-3 year old Robbie would wet the bed, he'd shed his footed pajamas and soaked underclothing on the bathroom floor and make a speedy, dark, dash down the hall to my room. I slept on the bottom bunk of our bunkbeds shared by my sister and I, and I could reach the bottom drawer of my dresser without much stretching. When Robbie woke me up I'd reach over, grab an old Tshirt out of my bottom drawer and pop it over his head for a makeshirt night shirt, tuck him into the bottom of my bed and go back to sleep.That's what I remembered as I was changing Emma one morning.

Robbie called me with news a few mornings ago. He told me he loves me and that he is being shipped to Iraq with the U.S. Army. Oh sure, he likes the Army life, and he's a good cook keeping both his culinary skills sharp and the army soldiers well-fed, but he's my baby brother. This is not what I envisioned as I encouraged him during culinary school. There's no safe place in Iraq. Even Army cooks have to drive along those roads with those roadside bombs. Even Iraqi children fall prey to the sadistic terror of their countrymen gone wrong. War is Hell.I do not want my baby brother in Hell. I want him exchanging recipes for things we wish we made more regularly, and trying new techniques for things we do repetetively.

I want Robbie kissing my children and milking my goats and coming with surprises for holidays and asking for my prayers about things with which he's struggling. God bless our Troops. May God bless my baby brother who I love so much.

I would appreciate it if when you read this that you would pause and say a heartfelt prayer and ask God to please watch over Robert Brown, the freckle faced boy from Kent, Washington who really wants to make a difference in this world. And maybe one for his mother and his sister who cry over him and want him safe and home.I'll be praying for our president and other leaders who need to fix this situation and get the U.S. Army out of Iraq. Nevertheless, not my will, but God's be done. KelliSue Brown Kolz

Where did you hide the rabbit?

2009-10-05T10:28:00.000-04:00

Ree, at Pioneer Woman made a beautiful blog about Welsh Rarebit, which we have always called Welsh Rabbit. Growing up on Bunny Bee Farms in Ferndale, Washington, there was a little irony in that title.

"Where's the rabbit? I can't find any rabbit. Moooooooom, I didn't get any rabbit in mine. "

Ahem. Ok, it was a family of 14 children, 15 and under, I kid you not. Since I'll get letters... yes, there were 7 adopted children.

This is a riff on my mom's version, in case you're hungry today. Mom stirred in scrambled eggs to stretch the Welsh Rabbit. You can do that, or like I do with my family of 7, try scrambling three whisked whole eggs into a 12.3 oz. box of extra firm or firm tofu that you've cubed. When the eggs are cooked, the tofu is hot, and then blend with the yummy cheese sauce that is Welsh Rarebit.

Mrs. Kolz Welsh Rabbit

6 Tablespoons butter or margarine
6 Tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. worcestershire sauce
a few drops of hot pepper sauce or a hearty pinch of ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon of dijon mustard, right from the jar
1 cup of either apple juice or white grape juice
or 1 cup of chicken broth with 1teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice added into the broth - just trust me.
2 cups of milk of your choice (we use goat)
3 cups shredded sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese

Melt your butter in a large sauce pan on medium heat, just until no solids remain. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and stir with a wooden spoon, letting it bubble for a couple of minutes, nice and light golden. This removes any starchy flavor in the final sauce. Pour in either the juice or the acidified broth, and whisk until the sauce is completely combined and no lumps remain. Toss in the sauces and spice if you use it. Gradually add 2 cups of milk and stir over medium heat until the sauce thickens.

Meanwhile, have one of your children or other cooking assistant toast up hearty slices of bread. Get them nice and crunchy! This is a great place to use up hearty, grainy bread, or rustic artisan breads, homemade bread, whatever you have.

If you have a slicing tomato sitting on a sunny windowsill, now's the time to go slice it. I love a crunchy slice of toast, a ladle full of Welsh Rabbit, and then a beautiful slice of ripe red tomato right on top. Use a fork and knife and dig right in while it's hot. Bliss!

But you know what's even better? A Kentucky Hot Brown Sandwich. Try this variation, and you can thank me later.

For each Hot Brown sandwich, place two slices of toasted bread on a metal (or flameproof) dish. Cover the toast with a liberal amount of sliced, possibly leftover or deli sliced turkey. Pour a generous amount of sauce over the turkey. Sprinkle with additional Parmesan or cheddar cheese. Place entire dish under a broiler until the sauce is speckled brown and bubbly. Remove from broiler, top with a thin slice of tomato, cross two crispy pieces of bacon over the top into an X, and serve immediately. You eat these with a fork too.

Makes 4 servings of two open-faced Kentucky Hot Brown sandwiches each. They're special. You are too, so try one soon!

Here Moosey Moosey!

2009-10-05T09:58:00.002-04:00

I have a love affair with shelf-stable, ready when I want it, tofu. Truly. Stay with me, you might find yourself in my camp. Really - that chocolate pie at the very end is quick to make, and will make a convert of you.

That's right. 12.3 oz. of silken goodness, just waiting for me to add it's protein richness to something we eat. This little box costs about $1.50, give or take, and can also be bought in 24 pack cases, which is how I usually purchase it. Ideally I mix 12 of the the extra firm and 12 of the silken in the case pack, if the store manager is in the mood to be helpful. The two varieties are used quite differently at my house, so the firmness matters.

How convenient that they color code the boxes so I can send a 7 year old into the pantry with instructions to bring me a blue tofu box, or a pink tofu box.

Chocolate mousse makes a nice dessert on a Sunday afternoon after a big dinner, or a fluffy surprise for after school snackers at my house. It's kind of diet friendly, if you're counting carbohydrates or are diabetic. I also keep on hand a box of Whipped topping mix that I make with icy goat's milk, or a container of frozen Cool Whip in the freezer. This recipe calls for real whipping cream, so use that if you prefer.

Let's make something with the silken soft tofu first. How about a chocolate mousse that's sugar free and yummy? These are ingredients that sit on my pantry shelf just waiting for the mood to strike. And I heart it, because it has a good supply of protein, along with chocolatey goodness. Think about your favorite flavor of pudding and you might find a variation that flips your lid. My personal favorite is chocolate mint.

Sugar Free Chocolate Mousse
1 4 oz package Chocolate Sugar-Free Instant Jello Pudding
1 10 oz to 12.3 oz. package soft tofu (refrigerated tofu is sold in 10 oz. pkgs, and shelf stable in 12.3 oz. pkgs.)
2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Optional: Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract to vanilla pudding or 1 tsp. peppermint extract to chocolate pudding or 1/2 tsp. butter pecan flavoring to butterscotch pudding
1 pint real whipping cream – whipped and divided

In a large mixing bowl, add the pudding mix, tofu, cocoa powder and optional extract. Beat with an electric mixer on medium high until very smooth. Or mix with a hand held blender until ultra-smooth. If you wish to make vanilla or butterscotch, omit the cocoa powder.

In separate bowl, mix the whipping cream until soft peaks form. If you are dairy intolerant - this is a good place to use a whipped nondairy topping. Just gently fold 2 cups of nondairy whip into your mousse, until barely combined. Then skip ahead to serving in the parfait dishes.

Gently fold 2 cups of whipped cream into the mousse mixture using a rubber spatula, just until it's softly combined. You don't want to deflate the cream.

Serve in parfait dishes and garnish with some of the remaining whipped cream, chocolate shavings, or a sprig of mint. Fluffy, sweet, and oh so nice.

But let's be real. Nothing beats a deep, dark, chocolate pie. Not even mousse.

Try this one with the extra firm or firm tofu. You'll need a blender or food processor for this recipe.

Can't Believe It's Tofu Chocolate Pie
1 pkg. 120z. pkg. or so of (2 cups) semi sweet or special dark chocolate chips (these are non-dairy)
1 Tablespoon of butter or margarine
1 pkg. (12.3 oz. ) extra firm tofu
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract

Crumble or break up tofu into a high speed blender or food processor and blend until completely smooth. While it blends, melt butter and semisweet chips together in a microwave safe bowl, one minute on high power. Stir until smooth, heating an additional 10 seconds at a time if necessary. Pour the liquid melted chocolate mixture into the blender container of smooth silky tofu. Add vanilla extract and blend until completely and evenly mixed.

Immediately pour into dessert dishes, or a graham cracker or pre-baked pastry crust. Chill until firm. This cuts like a cheesecake without the lactose issues that affect my children. It's amazing and once it's cooled you'll not taste any tofu taste at all. Try it. If you use soybean margarine, this is an appropriately vegan recipe. My dad, the tofu hater, loves this pie and can't believe it's tofu.

A Tale of Two Cookies

2009-10-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Two recipes for butterscotch no bake cookies. It's an experiment... two very delicious butterscotchy cookies, not to be confused with the candy-like haystacks, that obtain their butterscotch flavor from two different sources. The first is

Butterscotch No Bake Cookies
Using Butterscotch Morsels

Ingredients:
3 Cups Butterscotch Morsels (that's 2 full 11 oz. packages Nestle butterscotch morsels, with 1/3 cup leftovers to feed your assistant.)
1 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Milk (we've used both soy and goat's milk with success)
3/4 Cup Butter
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups Chunky Peanut Butter
3 1/2 Cups Of Quaker Rolled Oats
Cooks note: I have used both old fashioned and quick cooking oats.

Information:
Serving Size 15-30
125 Calories Per Serving
5 Grams Of Fat
Preparation Instructions:

In a large bowl, barely combine the peanut butter and rolled oats. Just mix a few times, you'll set them aside for later. In a medium sauce pan combine the sugar, milk and butter and bring to a boil. Boil for exactly 1 minute. Turn off the heat, then stir in the 3 cups of butterscotch morsels and add the vanilla extract. When they're melted and well incorporated, pour over the rolled oats and peanut butter. Mix well, and drop by tablespoon onto a well-greased cookie sheet or on a counter that is lined with was paper. Let the cookies sit at room temperature until hardened, or to expedite the process you can slide them into the refrigerator to chill. Excellent with a glass of cold goat's milk.
Cook's note: That's $5.00 for butterscotch chips alone, and I'm not feeling the love of my family budget in this recipe. They taste good, the peanut butter is a nice addition, but really, $5.00 for just one ingredient? These go fast, so the children aren't getting very many cookies for their budget dollar in my opinion. They're cute on an all no-bake cookie tray, alongside the vanilla and chocolate varieties.

Pantry Lover's Butterscotch No-Bakes
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup milk
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package instant butterscotch pudding mix (I have used both instant and the cook and serve variety - they both work here.
3 1/2 cups quick oats

Directions
1On stovetop in a 3 qt pan on medium heat: Combine first 3 ingredients and bring to boil, stirring frequently. If using cook and serve pudding mix, add here, mixing well. Boil hard exactly 2 minutes.
2Remove from heat and add oats and instant pudding mix here, if using.
3Mix thoroughly.
4.Drop spoonfuls onto waxed paper.
5. Let cool 15 minutes

These are called pantry lovers, because we can store all the ingredients in the pantry and at the last minute when we want a quick cookie treat, voila'. They're quite good, and pretty inexpensive. The butterscotch pudding was less than $1.00 which makes it a viable choice for sitting in the pantry as a last minute cookie go-to item. They're also simple enough that many children can manage the recipe on their own, with a little supervision at the stove top.

This one is a keeper.

Closure and Remembrance

2009-10-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

I was about 7 weeks pregnant. The fertility center's protocol is that at 6 weeks you have an ultrasound. My friend Clare, who is my age (gasp, we're past our 40th birthdays) had been in to see her doctor at 6 weeks and was told there was no heartbeat on her ultrasound but there might be and she should come back in a few days. Later, at the return, she found that her embryo had already died. Remembering that experience, I delayed my own ultrasound for one week so there would be no dilly-dallying about growth of a fetus.

I flippantly and cheerfully gave my husband a pass and encouraged him to stay at work instead of coming to the second ultrasound. I had seen the embryo on a previous ultrasound, firmly implanted in my uterus at 5+ weeks, so we knew that the pregnancy was proceeding normally. I hopped in the minivan and dropped the children off at my parents and zoomed off for the hour drive to the Fertility Center.

As I drove, I was struck by a sudden sense of gloom, an almost tangible grey cloud, and I began to pray out loud for relief. I asked Heavenly Father to help this horrible feeling to leave me so that I could enjoy my pregnancy, and had the most immediate feelings and impressions. I felt comforted, but the gloom did not leave me. My prayer changed and I asked Heavenly Father to help me to be cheerful and enjoy this experience for however the pregnancy lasted. I then saw in my mind's eye a fat little baby with a sweet baby face looking at me. I smiled at that baby, because the baby was a little smaller than my Andy and Sarah, who were 10+ and 12 lbs. each, and the baby was also bigger than Emma who was 5-11 when I brought her home from the hospital. I felt some relief to be seeing a live birthed baby because this feeling of gloom was so strong as I drove. And yet I felt comforted. I put it all aside to cheerfully greet the receptionist.

I went in and got ready for my ultrasound and chatted with Dr. H who was there to perform it. She scanned my abdomen and a momentary flicker led me to say Oh There's the heartbeat, and she said no.. that's not.

Oh. A sick feeling of dread overwhelmed me. Shock and puzzlement filled my soul. How quickly I forget what I had been warned.

She scanned over to the actual fetus and said "I'm sorry Honey, the baby has no heartbeat". I sucked in air abruptly.

There's no heartbeat - how can that be? Oh.

She measured and recorded her medical information for my file, the baby made it from embryo to fetal stage, but had stopped growing one week previously.

I want my mama!

How am I going to tell my husband? He's at work, and this is going to hurt so bad.

She hugged me and left me to dress into my street clothes, indicating I was to meet her in the office across the hall from the ultrasound room. I texted my husband to call me. I sat in her office and heard the clinical explanations of what happened. Probably chromosomal damage. An incident of the interaction between one particular sperm and one particular egg. Not uncommon over age 35, but not a portent of everlasting doom either. That helped, somewhat. FarmBoy called as I sat listening, and I told her I'd take my husband's call. He took the information calmly, and Dr. H was able to answer his questions as she had mine.

How do you recover from that? How do you take that same rounding belly home, and wait for your body to recognize that the baby is dead and expell the fetus? Why does morning sickness make you barf on the way home, even though you just found out the baby is dead. Darn those hormones! How do you reconcile the joy you felt at having a new family member join your family with this sudden gloom? There are no simple answers. Here's where I found peace.http://kellikolz.blogspot.com/2009/07/no-matter-how-dark-friday-sunday-will.html

I was given three options. I could wait and see how my body handled a miscarriage within the next two weeks and it might take care of everything on its own. I could use misoprostol, a drug that dilates the cervix and gives one contractions which will encourage the expelling of a dead fetus - but with a risk of incomplete miscarriage. I could schedule surgery, a dilation and curretage which would scrape out my uterus and end this process quickly and surgically but with a risk of uterine damage or scarring.

I opted to wait at home with my family. It gave me days to ponder my family, my hopes and our dreams, and to feel and process my grief in privacy. I cried, I was comforted, and I continued through stages of grief. It was good for me. However, as the 2nd week approached without resolution, I opted to take misoprostol, hoping to avoid surgery. I received testing at the maternity ward at the hospital and the shot for my RH factor in my blood. I took the prescription drug Cytotec every 4 hours as prescribed by my OB/Gyn's backup Dr., with painkillers, and was stunned at how painful the contractions were. I had gory blood clots but didn't see anything that was what I expected a fetus to resemble. My OB/Gyn called regularly to monitor my progress at home. After the third day of this I saw my OB at his office, and I was barely able to walk due to contractions and pain. He examined my cervix and said he could see the fetal sac right there, and predicted I'd pass it in his office or on the way home. Making certain I had all the supplies I'd need, I opted to go home, a mere 15 minute drive. I was a little cheerful, hoping for a final resolution and end to this ordeal.

The next day, a Saturday, came and went, without resolution, and I decided to go back into the office on Monday to schedule a D&C and be done with the suffering. I woke up on Sunday morning shaking and shivvering in the recliner as I lay wrapped warmly in my quilt. July turned out cold and cruel, after all. I came to my senses and took my temperature and headed for a hot shower to warm up. It was 102*. That's enough to send a woman in my condition to the ER.

I called the OB who said he'd meet me there. I took my pain medication and ibuprofen for the fever, swallowed a glass of water, and got to work. It took me an hour to get the children awakened, showered, fed breakfast and ready for church and organized to meet Grandma who would keep them for the day. My fever dropped as I went along, as I knew it would.

Then, content that all was well in my little nest of chicks, I went with my husband to the hospital. The OB examined me after I'd received an IV, and said yes, you have a large blood clot at your cervix. I told him it had been there since Friday and we had no tissue pass at all. He asked if I was still feeling strongly about avoiding a D&C. I said not any more. I asked him if I had a UTI. We had tested for that when I arrived. The lab results said no. I was a little anemic though. He held up his hands to show how far I was dialated, and indicated it would be curretage (scraping) only, and would be done under general anesthesia. As I was 15 minutes from needing another pain pill, I told him that as long as it was within 15 minutes I would be fine. I felt calm and noticed that FarmBoy didn't even look like fainting this time. He has that vaso-vagal response which put him on the floor at the sight of blood or trauma, but he held up pretty well, seated safely at my head.

I was wheeled into surgery. The surgery was normal and uneventful, and I had no nausea afterwards. I'm reconciled and have grieved the loss of our child some two weeks as I waited, so I was just clinically noting my responses to each thing and determining that everything was okay with me. I was hungry. I wanted sushi. This amused the nurse and doctor. I ate sushi on the way home from the hospital.

The surgeon-OB told me that most all of the fetal material was still internal when he did the surgery, so the d&c was a wise choice. A wide open cervix is like a wick to a uterine infection. I had avoided that. He gave me some IV antibiotics, but just one dose, feeling it was sufficient. I recovered well, noting that I felt much better immediately, compared to the previous week of laboring for nearly 5 days.

It was good to see my children at home and my toddler gleefully climbed in my lap and asked if my tummy was all better. I had very gingerly held her over the past week, asking her to avoid my really sore abdomen. She's glad that's past, as she takes flying leaps into my lap with her pink cheeked demand "Hold me, I tired". Grandma, my mother, brought over dinner Sunday night, as I vegetated, while my white faced self recovered from anesthesia.

I rested on Monday, just putting dinner into the crockpot to simmer while I read books and snoozed. The children went to Seabreeze, an amusement park with their Grandfather, and Grandmother kept the toddler with her. Yep, I milked it. Napped, nibbled, novels. A good day to recover. I skipped soccer practice that night, as a nod to my OB, but not because I needed to.

Ladies from church have apparently recieved word that an army has taken up residence, as they brought over trays and trays of food including enough pasta salad and artisanal bread for an encampment, and a turkey dinner for the neighborhood. Bless 'em all.
I had to hurry and put the food away as we had a soccer game for the 7 year old's team that we coach. I ran off and on the field with the kids and assigned positions, blew my whistle incessantly to oblivious 7 year old blue frogs and just generally had a good time. It's nice to feel my muscles again and stretch my back and use my abdominals as we warm up.

When we got home, I still had energy. It's amazing. I've been tired of feeling pathetic, so this is nice! I took half the turkey dinner to a friend undergoing chemotherapy,my excuse being that it just wouldn't fit into our refrigerator with the food of the day before. And she has cancer. I had minor surgery, that I've been expecting for weeks, and I filled my freezer and pantry with easy to prepare foods and crock pot essentials.

It felt good to do something good for someone else for a change. Now that's more like it.

This is in retrospection of my miscarriage in July. It's now the last day of September. One year ago today I gleefully noted that I was pregnant with a new baby after two long years of trying, and had a miscarriage a day or two before Halloween. Then in July, just a month after that baby's due date, I had another later miscarriage. I know that there is a chubby, pink, visibly healthy little boy child waiting to join our family. We eagerly await the news that he's on his way after these two false starts.

If you would like to join us, please pray for a healthy, strong, full term body for a baby to join the Kolz family. Grandma Kolz passed away September 11, and we'd really like to celebrate another one coming, after we noted one passing. Baby Daniel, Mama longs to hold you in her arms.

For Body and Soul

2009-09-30T10:13:00.001-04:00

On our farm stand we have these huge hubbard squashes and huge butternut squashes. Any kind of squash will do. My husband, the saintly FarmBoy, peels gigantic squash on his lap tray while watching sports on TV. It's a guaranteed way to get no complaints about him watching sports during prime time. So I find ways all year long to use those cubes of squash that we froze. We do it simply - just peel and seed and cube the squash - then rinse, put in ziplock bags and toss in the freezer. No blanching, no whining, no problem. Try it, or find a harder way to store squash.

Then, when making macaroni and cheese, for example, I boil some of the frozen cubes with the macaroni. By the time I have added the sauce to the boiled macaroni, those cubes are orange and dissolving making it look like we added extra cheddar to the noddles. I've added the cubes to beef stew, and other long simmered soups and sauces, and they just disappear, leaving behind some good fiber, beta carotene and other nutrients. And my conscience is clear, because I can't stand a spoonful of orange goop, no matter what you call it. But I'll eat it in pie, breads, and Cheddar Cheese Soup with Broccoli, or potatoes, or cauliflower. Try it, you need the vitamins this winter.

My kiddos can't eat cream due to their milk-intolerance issues. We even use cheese sparingly. Interestingly enough, extra sharp cheddar cheese is almost or reportedly lactose free. We can eat that easily.

I make this soup, like most things, with goat milk, substituting at the asterisks to make it seem like the original. I use a few spoonfuls out of a jar of chicken soup base usually, and just add it to the hot milk. It sneaks in extra calcium for the kiddos and makes the soup more creamy and probably a little less fatty than with the cream. Last time I made this I added in 1 cup of diced zucchini and yellow squash when I fried the onions in the bacon drippings.

Hard Rock Cafe Potato Soup - scaled to 4 servings
4 slices bacon
1/2 cup Diced yellow onions
1/3 cup Flour
3 cups Hot chicken stock (*3 cups of hot goat milk and enough soup base for 3 cups)
2 cups Diced -- peeled baked Potatoes or leftovers.
1 cup Heavy cream *(1 cup goat milk)
1/8 cup Chopped parsley (I substitute chopped celery leaves from the tops)
3/4 teaspoon Granulated garlic
3/4 teaspoon Dried basil
3/4 teaspoon Salt
3/4 teaspoon Red pepper sauce
3/4 teaspoon Coarse black pepper
1/2 cup Grated Cheddar cheese
1/8 cup Diced green onions -- white Part only

Additional chopped bacon --
Grated cheese and Chopped parsley for Garnish

Directions:
Fry bacon until crisp. Chop bacon and reserve drippings. Cook onions and celery tops in remaining drippings over medium-high heat until transparent, about 3 minutes. Add flour, stirring to prevent lumps. Cook 3 - 5 minutes until mix just begins to run golden. Add chicken stock gradually, whisking to prevent lumps, until liquid thickens. Reduce heat to simmer and add potatoes, cream, chopped bacon, parsley, garlic, basil, salt, pepper sauce and black pepper. Simmer 10 minutes; DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL. Add grated cheese and green onions.
Heat until cheese melts smoothly. Garnish each serving as desired with chopped bacon, grated cheese.

It's a good recipe. It's also a good place to hide cubes of raw butternut squash. Just sautee in with the onions, and as the soup simmers the squash nearly dissolves and makes it a nice cheddar cheese color. I'm a veggie pusher I tell ya. It's for sale on the farmstand - $1.00 each. Come on over.

Big Beautiful Muffin Top

2009-09-18T15:10:00.000-04:00

This could very well be the most delicious and beautiful muffin or muffin loaf you have ever tasted. Please have napkins ready to avoid drooling on your neighbor's muffin. That would be inappropriate.

Beautiful Blueberry Muffins

4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/4 cups white sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup milk or buttermilk
3 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 325*. Prepare loaf pans by greasing with solid shortening and dusting with flour, then shaking off the excess. Line muffin pans with paper liners, or spray silicone muffin pans with non-stick spray. Set aside.

Mix flour and sugar, salt and baking powder together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk 3 eggs, the milk or buttermilk, and add the oil. Stir until combined. Gently combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, stirring only until the flour is absorbed. Mix in 2 cups of the blueberries, and put batter into pans. The batter will be quite stiff.

I used 1/3 cup of batter for each muffin, then topped with about 5 additional blueberries, pressed gently into the top of the batter. For muffin loaves, fill 3/4 way up the loaf pan, smooth the batter, then top with additional blueberries, patting down gently. I left them like this, naturally beautiful. You could add large crystals of sugar, or perhaps a streusel topping, but we liked them with the big juicy berries.

In my oven, the muffins took 25 minutes to cook through, and the loaf pans varied. The larger loaves were 60 minutes, with the 5 inch long mini-loaf pans averaging 45 minutes. How many loaves and how many muffins you will make depends tremendously on the muffin pan and the loaf pan size. Sorry, I know that's vague, but once you've made this, jot down how many you get based on your pan size. I had 2 large loaves, 1 small and 6 muffins.

I cannot keep these muffin loaves and blueberry muffins stocked on my farmstand for more than a couple of hours. A large loaf sells for $3.99 and a miniloaf for $1.99, with six muffins going for $1.99 too.

Zucchini Balls with Melted Cheese Centers

2009-09-18T14:43:00.001-04:00

Zucchini Balls

Let's be real.. this is a labor intensive recipe by my estimation. It's a good way to use up a lot of zucchini at once, and the zucchini balls can be fried, and then cooled and frozen, and reheated for later. It's not low fat (but I do have an idea for a variation). But they taste delicious, and are high in fiber. I'm done justifying the fried zucchini balls. Try them once. Delish.

Start with 2 pounds of zucchini - which is 2-3 medium sized, or one really big one. I cut the seeds out of the really big one after salting it and letting it sit, and aimed for 2 lbs on my kitchen scale.

Line a large colander with as many zucchini slices as possible and sprinkle the slices generously with salt. Lay another layer of slices on top of the first layer and sprinkle with salt. Continue until all of the zucchini slices are in the colander. Set the colander in a sink or over a large bowl and let sit for 15 minutes. The zucchini will release some liquid while resting. We're just removing some of the liquid, firming up the zucchini, and removing any bitterness there might be. You can also substitute eggplant, but let sit for an additional 15 minutes to get the bitterness out on those purple guys.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.Pat the zucchini slices dry with a paper towel. At this point I cut out the big seed core of the larger zucchini. Place the slices on a baking so that they lay in a single layer.

Set the baking sheet in the upper portion of the oven and bake until the zucchini slices are tender and dry, about 30 minutes.

Place the zucchini slices in a food processor and pulse a few time to chop. Be careful not to chop it too fine. This took 3-4 pulses in my processor. Of course, you can always chop the zucchini by hand.

Scrape the zucchini into a bowl and add 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, 1 egg, a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, and 1/4 cup bread crumbs.

Whisk a second egg in a medium bowl. Gradually beat in 1 1/2 tablespoons flour to form a smooth batter.

Pour 1 cup of dry bread crumbs onto a plate or shallow dish and season with salt and pepper. It's unnecessary to add the salt and pepper if you use Italian seasoned bread crumbs. Form the zucchini mixture into balls slightly smaller than ping pong balls. Insert a bocconcini (mini mozzarella ball) or 1-inch cube of fresh mozzarella into each eggplant ball. Roll again in your hands so that the mozzarella is no longer visible. By the way, you can cut a cheese stick into small segments if you'd prefer. The cheese is firmer, but the cost is lower this way. Just shorter than 1 inch is preferred. You could use a small piece of homemade paneer or pressed ricotta here too.

Roll each cheese stuffed zucchini ball into the egg/flour batter and then roll in the breadcrumbs. You can prepare all of the balls up to 2 or 3 hours in advance of frying them. I popped mine onto a cookie sheet and kept them cold in the refrigerator until I had time to fry them later. Another time I plan to spray a batch of these yummy little nuggets with an olive oil spray, then bake them at 425* until crunchy. I haven't had time to do that yet. But back to frying them.

In a large skillet, heat 1/2-inch vegetable or canola oil over medium-high heat to about 375 degrees F. When you drop some of the egg batter in the oil, the batter should sizzle and immediately float to the top.With a slotted spoon, lower the zucchini balls into the oil. You'll have to do this in several batches. Once the balls are golden brown all over, remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a plate lined with paper towel. Keep an eye on your oil thermometer because if the temp is too high, the outside will get too dark before the cheese melts.

Repeat with remaining batches.These can be served hot or room temperature. I love flexible food! Top each ball with a small dollop of plain Greek yogurt and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley. Or let's just say my children prefer them with a side of ranch dressing and lots of napkins. We skip the parsley.

Maaaa Maaaa

2009-09-18T14:03:00.000-04:00

Andy, our newly trained goat milker, went off to Boy Scouts of America camp this summer and these were the thoughts I had as he was gone. I'm short a milker. It gives me the chance to be hand to udder, and shoulder to hipbone with Kate and Ebony once again, which isn't a bad way to start the day and end the evening. They talk, and they nibble their goat chow, and we bond. I like goats, it turns out.

Kate Maaaa'ed at me quite vociferously this morning, especially after she saw the delectable weeds I had pulled for her out of our corn rows. The corn was tossed into the garden as an afterthought, and wasn't planted in black plastic like everything else. Hence, it needs weeding, regularly.

Goats are very thoughtful that way, being willing to eat the delicious flavors of weeds, whilst pointing out which ones taste bitter. Incoming yucky weed..... patooey. They do have a way of picking up the offending weed and tossing it away that is kind of amusing.

I solved the mystery of the barn light coming on too. I knew the goats turned it on, but this time I caught our doeling Miss Heidi with the string pull in her mouth. Such a precocious child, she turned and gave me a wry little goat smile. She's one year old now, and will be bred with a registered Nigerian Dwarf goat this winter to produce Mini-Alpine kids this spring. The mini-alpine breed might be the most perfect ever to produce just a good amount of milk for a family living in a smaller place than one would presume to have a few dairy goats.

Not your Average Lasagne - this one Disapppears!

2009-07-25T11:10:00.000-04:00

I was reading here, and I had to try out substituting zucchini for the asparagus in this delightful Asparagus and Ham lasagne. Asparagus season is long gone here, but the zucchini is beating down a path to my door.

Kolz Kidz Riff on Ham & Cheddar & Zucchini Lasagne

9 uncooked lasagna noodles

2 tablespoons margarine or butter
1 1/2 lb. zuchinni, cut into julienne strips, or half moon slices
1 (8-oz.) pkg. (3 cups) sliced fresh mushrooms
1 lb. cooked ham, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (2 3/4 cups)
2 cups milk
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon chicken-flavor instant bouillon
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
8 oz. (2 cups) shredded Cheddar-mozzarella cheese blend

DIRECTIONS:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Cook lasagna noodles to desired doneness (al dente - still a little undone) as directed on package. Hey, don't get discouraged. This is as easy as boiling a big pot of water, putting in 9 large noodles into the boiling water, setting a kitchen timer, and then fishing them out with a pair of tongues a minute before you think you needed to. Or pick up the big pot and Drain. You can do it. Continue reading. (Cook's note, you may not want to fall for the gimmick of no-cook lasagne noodles, just trust me on this. Or add 1/2 cup of chicken broth to the sauce so your no-cook noodles will cook in the lasagne and be sure and cover well with foil).

2. Meanwhile, heat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Then do it again, just to be sure you're not sand blasting some yummy cheesiness stuck to your pan after dinner. Melt margarine in 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add zucchini and mushrooms; cook and stir 5 to 7 minutes or until zucchini is taking on some color, and softening a bit. Now add the ham and warm through. Pour into large bowl.. Set aside.

3. In same skillet, combine 1/2 cup of the milk, flour, bouillon, pepper and Dijon mustard; blend well with wire whisk. Add remaining 1 1/2 cups milk; blend well. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture is bubbly and thickened. Remove from heat; stir in 1/2 cup of the cheese until melted. See.. you just mastered a variation of the mother sauce, bechamel. Take a bow. Leave out the dijon another time and add a bit more cheddar and you have your basic cheese sauce suitable for well, most everything.

4. To assemble lasagna, spread 1/2 cup sauce evenly in bottom of sprayed baking dish. Reserve 1/2 cup sauce for topping. Add remaining sauce to ham mixture; mix well.

5. Arrange 3 cooked noodles over sauce in baking dish. Spoon and spread half of ham mixture over noodles; top with 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining noodles and reserved 1/2 cup sauce. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese.

6. Bake at 350°F. for 20 to 30 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Your tummy will thank you. Really. Just try the recipe, and listen carefully.

P.S. - Instead of Ham you can use leftover grilled chicken in this recipe. Just do these little steps at your next cookout or grill session. Make way too much grilled chicken, before letting the family eat it all, chill the extras in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator. When you get around to it the next day, remove meat from the bones, or cube the boneless chicken, and remember this recipe. See. Easy Peasy. You're welcome. And remember.. sweet peas go nicely with zucchini, chicken and cheddar lasagne too.

Happy Birthday Andybear

2009-07-17T14:48:00.000-04:00

My eldest child is turning 12 at the end of the month. Andy is the first child of my infertility - a hard won battle at the end of three years of trying to conceive with medical intervention within our marriage. He was the child who I wept over, so grateful that God granted the wish of my heart. He should have had Clomid flowing through his veins, that son of mine. He weighed 10 lbs. 6 oz., and was the reason I was courageous enough, after months of trying, to finally inject myself with insulin the day before Mothers Day. His was the pregnancy that led to my diagnosis of diabetes. I promised the Lord, upon finding out that I was pregnant (with no fear of miscarriage because who ever has those?) that I would raise him to be a good boy and to serve the Lord and our community with all his heart to the best of my ability.

I've kept my end of the bargain. Andy's gentle and courageous personality is the better part of his father and I. I contributed my strong morals, personal courage and Andy's father, my first husband, contributed his artistic, compassionate heart and voice like an angel. Andy has made these traits his own, and continues to delight his whole family as his personality and talents unfold.

Yesterday we received by mail the results of the standardized testing for sixth graders. Andy consistently scored in the high 95-98th percentile in mathematics and averaged 93% in english language arts. I'm so proud of him. He had a substantial school workload last year as a new middle schooler and he kept his grades up.

Andy has show himself to be well-rounded in his hobbies and interests and how he spends his time. He plays the clarinet and is trying to learn the piano. He plays soccer and basketball at my request. When I began to falter a little in keeping up with all of our domestic chores while pregnant, Andy stepped up. He's 11 and nearly as tall as I am so I thought he might be good at milking. It's a twice a day position, so I imagined he could help once a day, and make it possible for me to get other remodeling and canning and gardening jobs finished. Sure enough, I made four batches of black raspberry jam and a couple of strawberry jam this week. Thanks Andy!

As scheduled, when school was out for the summer, I taught him to milk the goats. He took the job on and has diligently fulfilled the 10 minute milking job each morning and night without error or complaint. It took some time for the two dairy goats to get used to him and for him to feel assertive enough to back them down when they tried to bully him. He now notices when their water bucket is getting low and tosses hay in to them. It's nice to see him take on responsibility, as he turns 12.

As I went into the hospital this past Sunday for emergency surgery at the end of this pregnancy, I knew the goats were well taken care of, and that as Grandma watched the children, Andy was milking and filtering the milk. Then they all headed off to church.

July 30th is Andy's 12th birthday. In our religion he is eligible to become a member of the Aaronic priesthood and to be ordained a deacon. God gives priesthood authority to worthy male members of the Church so they can act in His name for the salvation of the human family. It is the priesthood authority by which John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus Christ, teaching faith, repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins (Matthew 3:1-17; Mark 1:1-11). Aaronic Priesthood authority includes the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel, which is the gospel of repentance, baptism, and the remission of sins, and the administering of outward ordinances (D&C 84:26-27; 13:1; 107:14, 20).

You're probably wondering what a deacon is, or have a vision of older, stern looking men. In the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a deacon is young. Worthy brethren may be ordained deacons when they are at least 12 years old. A deacon follows counsel, sets a good example, and may (1) pass the sacrament, (2) collect fast offerings, (3) care for the poor and needy, (4) be a standing minister appointed to "watch over the church" (D&C 84:111), (5) assist the bishopric, (6) serve as a messenger, (7) participate in quorum instruction, (8) serve in quorum leadership positions, (9) fellowship quorum members and other young men, (10) be baptized and confirmed for the dead, (11) speak in meetings, (12) share the gospel, (13) bear testimony, and (14) care for the meetinghouse and grounds.

That's quite a bit of responsibility at 12, but Andy has his bonus dad Martin to assist him and the rest of his family encouraging him and supporting him in his activities. Which means we'll help care for the meetinghouse and grounds with him. I wield a duster as well as anyone.

As I ponder all the good things Andy does and Andy has become internally, I ponder wanting to fulfill his birthday wish. Andy received a used Nintendo DS gaming system for his birthday last year. Being the oldest child and the one with the coolest electronics, he shared with his siblings. Despite their caution and his surveillance, the DS has broken. The games are now useless and he sweetly shared them with his sister Sarah who also received a DS from her father for her birthday in May. He hasn't complained that his sharing with his siblings resulted in the stress fractures on the DS and the left button wearing out. I picture his Sims all walking in circles to the right, to the right, to the right. He didn't complain. He made it funny. He merely asked me for glue when the plastic case broke.

Andy's father, my first husband, called a couple of weeks ago to cancel his trip out for Andy's birthday. It's the only week that the children see their father all year long, and they were emotionally distraught about it. A couple of weeks have passed and their emotions have eased, and my urge to headsmack an ex-husband has subsided. Mostly.

Martin had an idea, after seeing the children cry. Why don't we pay for a railroad ticket to get their father here for a few days? We're not a family of much means, but I figured with juggling things a bit and cutting back here and there I could do this. At the price of reducing what I have to spend on Andy's birthday. Martin's factory just ended Friday Furlough's two weeks ago. We're getting by very well, but frugally.

I was then reminded of the trip to Las Vegas that was taken from Chicago just last month. With stops in Utah and other parts for mini-family reunions. By the same father that now cannot afford a railroad trip of 12 hours to see his only children. Two hours after I returned from the hospital from having day surgery, that same ex-husband called me to get sympathy because he didn't feel very well. Which is why he doesn't work full-time, and hasn't for some 9 years now. Because he doesn't feel up to it. We will not be subsidizing his trip from Chicago to NY. If he really wants to make the trip he can work extra hours, or get a part time job, or do odd jobs or any of the number of things I was considering in how to pay for his trip. The children will see, sooner than I had hoped, their father's sense of entitlement, love of immediate gratification, and lack of sacrifice for his children. I'm sure none of it is his fault.

I'm off to the local Game Stop franchise to purchase a refurbished Nintendo DS, and an additional game, with the money I might have spent on a railroad ticket for a man who opts to work as little as possible. Our son will play his DS, share with his siblings again, and be rewarded for his hard work and diligence in his labors and responsibilities of this past year. And who knows, maybe son's good example will someday influence his father to complete his personal growth.

I'm so blessed to have Martin as a husband. He is a good, hard working, fine example of service and diligence to all of our children. He's kind and considerate and praiseworthy. It was his idea to invite my first husband to come and stay with us the summer we married so Reed would have an opportunity to see his children. Small wonder that Martin retains custody of his children from his first marriage. I'm still amazed by Martin's kindness.

I feel richly rewarded by having a sweetheart who loves me and tenderly cares for me. I feel richly blessed by having a warm and wonderful son, Andy, who makes us so very proud of him because of his strength of character and his personal choices each day. Happy 12th Birthday Andrew Reed. I promise not to come to Boy Scout Camp on your birthday and deliver your birthday kiss in front of your troop. Really. Nor call you my beloved Andybear in front of anyone wearing khaki. Pinkie promise.

No Matter how Dark the Friday, Sunday will Come

2009-07-01T23:45:00.001-04:00

It was a Friday, that dark day when we learned of the loss of our unborn child. Fittingly, today I re-read this message and was reminded, no matter how dark the Friday, Sunday will come. Please join me in this loving reminder, posted to Youtube, here.

Joseph B. Wirthlin, a widower in his 90s when he gave this talk, knew of what he spoke. Please enjoy his words: " I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the cross.
On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful storms lashed at the earth.

Those evil men who sought His life rejoiced. Now that Jesus was no more, surely those who followed Him would disperse. On that day they stood triumphant. On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.

Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon the cross. On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.

On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled. It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God. I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s history, that Friday was the darkest.
But the doom of that day did not endure.

The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind. And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, stood before them as the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.

Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come.
I felt Sunday dawn today.. misplaced as it may be in the middle of the week. I just want to share some of that with you, for when you find a Friday just smack you upside the head in the middle of another week. XoXo Kel.

Miscarriage - the word seems so neutral

2009-06-26T17:03:00.000-04:00

The Kolz family mourns the loss of our baby due this winter. Today's routine ultrasound showed the fetus passed away last week. Please pray for us as we wait for a miscarriage to begin and mourn the baby we expected with such joy.

I have never felt such abject shock.

1000 pounds of Beef or 100 pounds of Goat

2009-06-24T08:46:00.006-04:00

The day after our fateful evening before the goat court proved fraught with a little tension. I was greeted by 9:30 a.m. by two neighbors who had been to the village offices to procure further information after the village meeting last night. They offered their support, and reported their morning experience in the office.

Two requested copies of the 1965 village rules that duly permit necessary farm animals. An additional two neighbors requested permits for their "livestock" which primarily are ... wait for it... small rabbits. Those cute fluffy bunnies in their small rabbit hutch are hardly in the same category as a manure accumulating 2000 lbs. horse. Imagine the impact of a couple of rabbits in a coop in a lot as big as football field. Or.. where do you keep the rabbits? I can't see them. Oh - are those the rabbits in that hutch out back by the willow tree?

I put into writing a request for either a permit for my barn to be occupied by two dairy goats, or for two goat permits, whichever they prefer. I offered to pay $5 for an annual permit. Of course, I asked for copies or to view the permit of the sheep farm that contains eleven sheep within the village limits. I just want one like they have.

I believe our town trustees need input that aids in drafting a more reasonable, modern approach to animal zoning. To that end I'm putting together some zoning ordinances that work in other areas, including New York City, Seattle, and Denver, Colorado. My proposed ordinance for the village will include reclassifying female sheep, goats, and neutered goats and sheep, miniature horses, miniature cattle of specified sizes, as small animals (under 150 lbs) rather than livestock on the order of a 800 lbs. or larger cow.

A village neighbor has a Harlequin Great Dane, a magnificent, beautiful dog who is great with children. He's also over 120 lbs. His bark, while seldom heard, is quite loud and intimidating, and he has been known to be the killer of another neighbor's pet ferret. He was not turned in to animal control, out of compassion for the children who own him. Yet, we have laws more restrictive of two sweet faced dairy goats who would rather munch on rose bushes than bite anyone, even provoked. Countless larger dogs, usually the popular labrador mixes, are seen escaped from their village yards, and send the neighbor's outdoor cats up trees for safety.

I'm disbelieving that dairy goats need more restriction than labradors, especially since my alpine goats have never retrieved the neighbor's pet rabbit and dropped it at my feet. Don't misunderstand, I grew up with labradors, and I own two dogs myself.

This is why we have the underground fencing system, because left to his own devices Speed Racer would suffer the fate of Wiley Coyote, without the magical ressurrection effects of animation.

Speed Racer is a pretty good traveler, and a sweet ambassador of canine friendliness, so he attended the children's soccer game last night. Other dogs are usually in attendance. Biscuits, a miniature dachshund was present on Monday night which prompted my children to bring Speedy last night. He lapped up the affection along with bowls of water in the sunshine.

Coincidentally our 7 year old kids' soccer team played the team our village mayor's daughter is on. I saw him and his family on the far end of the soccer field, and thought I should go over and shake his hand after we sparred across the village trustee table the day before. But frankly, I'm pregnant, it was over 80* and I was coaching, which involves much trotting up and down the soccer field, and I just didn't get over there.

The yellow shirted team we played averaged 6 inches taller than my team, which caught the eyes of my team parents. I explained that just by luck of the distribution of children, that team contained more second graders than first graders, and even a few early birthdayed third graders. And then if you add in our two developmentally disabled boys on our team of 9, we end up with slower, shorter, less coordinated children on our team. And I don't mind it one bit! We have great fun at our practices and all of the children who have tried soccer this year for the very first time are having positive experiences and indicate a wish to play again next year.

My husband, a typical protective husband, both carries the heavy net bag of a dozen soccer balls, and made a humorous but snarky comment about the opposing team as we saw their towering stature compared to our wee little team. "Seems the mayor's team is stacked against us here too".

We don't keep score, I reminded him. Not in soccer, not in the barn. Well, maybe just a chalk mark on the barn wall where the goats can read it: Goats 1 - Mayor of Rushville o.
Just a tiny little victory dance on behalf of my children who avoid the painful consequences of cow's milk for their digestion. For one more month, or one more year.

Save the goats! Save my Children!

2009-06-18T19:32:00.000-04:00

A concerned neighbor approached my husband tonight. He brought with him a law numbered 5-2009. Our village, upon discovering we have no livestock laws, has issued a moratorium on permits for livestock. I wondered why. The neighbor wants to help. He gave me all the paperwork from the last, closed door, village trustee meeting.

I have a herd of 2 dairy goats, which provide milk for my family, my parents, and an additional 5 gallons of milk that is distributed to needy families by the food pantry that operates around the corner from us. This is a small village - 600.

I called my favorite village board trustee who informed me that a complaint has been lodged by a 'neighbor' about my goats. I'm quite surprised. I have really great neighbors, and the goats stay in the barn. They're quite happy with their feed of goat chow and hay and all the snacks (weeds and produce) the neighbors pick out of their garden for them. It's the neighbors I have to keep out of the goats, ha ha, not the goats out of the neighbors space. The barn is a magnet- but that's okay.

Goats aren't particularly smelly. We only have females, so there's no stinky rut cycle from a buck. They're not particularly noisy - they will call to the people who are out in their gardens and beg through the window of the barn for treats. And they do have their favorite people - like the adult neighbor ladies who live next door. These are my neighbors who put in a row of burdock because the goats really like it. Burdock is a weed, by the way. So clearly, it is not them.
I called several village trustees I'm acquainted with and urged them to consider compassion and wisdom as they discussed and voted. These economic times are challenging in the Northeast, and more gardens than ever are being dug and planted. More people are relying on their own industry and thrift, than ever.

Now is not the time in a small NY farm village, to limit the contents of one's barn and one's ability to feed their own family. Not to mention.. who is going to buy the large amount of specialty milk my family would require with our caseine and lactose intolerance problem? Should the village be able to limit, for no good reason, my children's access to safe food and drink?

They may be messing with the wrong mama. I will go door to door and campaign for my goats, the people's right to raise food for their own family without interference, and maybe it may help that my own mother is on the village planning board. I doubt it, frankly, because she hadn't heard of the law when I approached Mom. I'm not sure who has juridstiction here.

It's not like the neighbor two doors down and their friendly labrador/poodle mix who they cannot keep on a leash. It's not like my goats go in their barn and bother them. And yet I have sweetly returned their pooprador home from my barn at least a dozen times without complaint, instead of calling the dog catcher (if we have one). Because Curly is a nice dog, and it's not his fault his parents just open the door and let him out to turn over people's trash cans and poke his head in my barn.

The next village board meeting is July 18. I'll have to skip soccer practice to rally the board in support of my goats. In the meantime, I am mentioning this to every family who drinks my goats milk, and to every friend of my goats, and every parent who loves their children and would do anything to help them grow up safely without diarrheal disease and other misery from drinking something harmful for them. Please consider calling my village hall in support of our goats.

As I asked the village board member tonight. What would you have me give my children for breakfast tomorrow if the village votes my goats out of the barn? Do you know of any place in the three county area which sells goat milk by the gallon? I cannot buy 1/2 pint cans of goats milk for $2.99. I urged the board members to act with compassion and wisdom, because my goats are no threat to the natural resources or happiness of my neighbors. But they are necessary for the welfare of my children.

If you read this, I encourage you to call, between the hours of 9a.m to 4p.m. Monday through Friday, and leave a message with the village clerk or leave a note for the village mayor of Rushville. The phone number is (585) 554-3415. Please call in support of Mrs. Kolz' dairy goats for her children. The goats live in a barn, and provide milk for the children, manure for the neighborhood gardens which supply families and the food pantry, and also provide free milk for needy families. And please be polite, this is a small, country village and we're polite. Thank you.

Tangy Key Lime Bars on a Sweet Butter Cookie Crust

2009-06-17T13:27:00.006-04:00

My friend Lisa had to go and talk about her home away from home in Florida. Oh yea, that's all it took for me to start thinking of Key Lime Pie, but I just couldn't work myself up to making pastry crust, and well that's how new recipes are built. I didn't want a typical graham cracker crust - so try the butter cookie crust that I adapted from the Neely's. My filling is better!

Tangy Key Lime Bars on a sweet butter cookie crust

Sweet butter cookie crust
1 cup unsalted butter
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch kosher salt

Tangy Key Lime Filling
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated lime zest
• 2/3 of a cup of fresh squeezed lime juice (about 23 tiny key limes or 2/3 cup of regular Persian lime juice from the larger Persian limes
• 1 cup sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch cake pan with nonstick spray.
To make the crust, combine the butter and confectioner sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt, and mix another minute, until well combined.

Transfer the dough to the prepared pan and pat out to an even thickness over the bottom of the pan. Bake the crust for 20 minutes until it is just barely taking on color. It will be baked more later. Remove from the oven, and cool on a baking rack.

To make the Tangy Key Lime filling, whisk the egg yolks and lime zest together until the yolks have increased in volume and become thick and creamy looking, then add condensed milk and stir together until fully incorporated. Add key lime juice and mix well. Ok, you can do this with an electric mixer if you insist. But better biceps aren't just born ya know.

Carefully pour mixture onto cooled crust, smooth surface and bake for 20-25 minutes until the filling is set. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. When completely cool, refrigerate until ready to serve. We're talking four hours, for complete cooling and the filling setting up firmly.

You can serve each bar with a thin slice of lime if you'd like. Or a dollop of sweet whipped cream.

Pardon me while I go walk off my key lime bars.

Grey Duct Tape with Turquoise Uniforms

2009-06-15T14:27:00.000-04:00

As the mother of a future six children, with Speck due in January, I feel such pangs of responsibility when soccer signups are passed around. I manage to stifle them most of the time. I almost always do.

I dutifully fill out four forms in 3 age groups and with a small inaudible whimper write out a check for soccer fees. Then I ponder who has outgrown their cleats, shin guards, and soccer socks from last year. After that little task is sorted out, I begin praying that the teams will not have soccer practice all on the same night, on different fields.

Last year we were at the soccer fields Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. On the 100* days, I felt trapped in a humid purgatory, but on days with lovely weather, it was enjoyable to have an hour or two to sit outside and enjoy a little down time. Half- frozen Crystal Light, melting in my bottle, always supplying me with a fresh blast of chill... a Reader's Digest Condensed Books volume of 5 novels in my hand, a comfortable chair. And lots of children to play with my irresistible toddler who wanted entertaining. Who could ask for more on a sunny summer day?

Despite my strong powers of resistance to the requests for parents to sign up for coaching soccer, I powered through those application forms for all the children. But they got me, got me I tell you, when they sent email pleas for coaches for both my 7 and 9 year old daughter's teams.

I might have volunteered my husband, were I quicker on my feet. But that would end any chances of having ice cold Crystal Light brought to me. And I'm pregnant. In the summer.

So I took the only avenue available to me. I volunteered myself as coach, as long as it was the youngest group available (they're less critical), and that it was my daughter's team. Imagine, I might have accidentally signed myself up for the one night my children had off of soccer. That wouldn't do.

As a postscript, I told the soccer director that my husband would assist me. When your husband jumps to the erroneous conclusion that he's coaching, alone, the older children's soccer team, he quickly is relieved to find out he's assisting for the 7 year old's team. Whew. He took that well. He usually does. And he did volunteer to coach 3rd and 4th grade basketball a few years ago, when in fact they called me on the telephone to discuss my team with me. He assumed they were calling for him and that I volunteered him.

We received the team uniforms recently. They should be a turquoise blue hit with the kids tonight. They have white shoulders with black designs on them. Very cool looking for 7 year olds. Black drawstring soccer shorts and matching turquoise soccer socks rounds out the uniforms. Nice. The kids will like them.

Somehow we ended up with 9 boys and 2 girls on our team. It's a nice mix, although a little light on estrogen. But I really like playing soccer with a bunch of little kids, so this is going to be fun! We have such a variety of players on our team which warmed my heart. We have a chubby boy with developmental disabilities who has such tremendous enthusiasm and just loves that he gets to play soccer for the first time this year. We have a sweet, shy, blonde haired boy who has never played soccer before and is the first I've seen to fall all over himself, but I think he's coming back for more. We have several little David Beckham wannabees who keep telling me that they've been playing since they were 5, and now they're almost 9. But they still laugh and squeal as we play my version of Soccer monster with one of my 11 year old sons playing the attack monster, trying to steal their soccer ball. We have one tall soccer loving girl, and one tiny little pixie of a soccer playing girl (mine), and it's a good mix. I just need to work on my crowd control techniques a little better. My husband, I may have mentioned, is hearing impaired and wears at least one hearing aid daily. So convenient to turn those puppies off!

There is one boy with a hyphenated first name (a testimony that his mother is indecisive?) who will not be quiet. Ever. Jonathan-Michael might entice me to bring duct tape so we can get through the game without me pointing to the time out bench. Just kidding. But really, he talks as much as all six of my children. I know the one in the womb has things to say, I can just tell he has opinions on the Thai sweet chile garlic sauce I've been dowsing my food with. More. That must be it. But truly, I have to get Jonathan-Michael to be quiet so we can give directions to the team. Repeatedly. I didn't find my whistle until after Tuesday's practice.

Besides having a great time playing soccer at my appropriate skill level, 2nd grade, I'm getting good exercise running up and down the field, and appreciating my own children a wee bit more. I mean, I knew they were usually good children, but the peace and quiet of only 5 children in the car on the way home makes me realize I don't have a child named Jonathan-Michael in my family.

Bring on the bruises! Bring on the gatorade. Bring on the popsicles of defeat and the popsicles of victory. It's soccer season!

Bulls Eye

2009-06-11T11:37:00.001-04:00

Some days I think cats were put here, on the earth, to amuse me. The neighbor's cat, Kitty Boy, is a strikingly handsome black and white tuxedo cat. He's neutered, but because of his propensity to spraying indoors, has been somewhat banished to the out of doors.

He's a sweet natured cat, often seen being petted by the neighbor children from either side of his home. That's five at my house, alone. It's quite a life for him.

You may recall he loves to luxuriously stroll up and down the underground wire that will trigger a static bzzt in my two little dogs wearing their receiver collars if they fall for his lure. Kitty Boy often provokes barking from the little guys as he wanders over to our yard and waggles his lush tail at the dogs. Then retreats an inch, and lays rolling in the grass, taunting them. The dogs did once get a second of revenge, as documented in my blog here but it was shortlived.

Recently I saw Kitty Boy get a little justice, animal style.

It caught my eye out the window. Kitty Boy was stalking a squirrel with a fat fluffy grey tail. Imagine how alluring that was to a cat. The squirrel was determined to get his big walnut up to a nest in the tale maple tree, soshe ignored him and quickly scurried. Kitty Boy took this as a sign of weekness, and began climbing the tree after the squirrel. Apparently Mama Squirrel tossed that walnut in her nest, I imagine, right into Papa Squirrel's paws, and ran down the tree to slap Kitty Boy silly.

Kitty Boy was stretched up as high as his rear legs would reach him and was suddenly greeted with a face down, hissing snarling version of a squirrel. Mama Squirrel shook her tail in a fury and thumped her feet in a rage scaring Kitty Boy off the tree.

Higher up the grand old maple tree a bold blue jay had just about had enough.

As Kitty Boy retreated, he was goosed in the rear by a dive bombing blue jay who flew off with a bit of fur in his beak.

Poor Kitty Boy, he just can't catch a break. I think I heard the dogs laughing.

Pumped!

2009-06-09T13:22:00.002-04:00

We planted new potatoes, baby peas and the sweetest of tiny little cherry tomatoes to herald the gestation of.. Baby Kolz #6. Baby Kolz is due towards the end of January, right about the time of the late Grandpa Kolz birthday - January 23. We're so excited to have a sweet new baby to join our family. I feel great, energetic and healthy. On occasion I've barfed after a delay in eating, or right after beginning to eat a meal that wasn't quick enough. I recover quickly and finish my meal. But other than that, I'm hale and hearty, and thinking maybe #7 is doable too. Just not at the same time. I may be singing a different tune after the delivery, but for today, 7 children doesn't seem so very impossible.

With our current sibling tally of 3 girls and 2 boys, the children have officially voted that this one should be a boy to even teams, of course. Our current ages are Mom & Dad (abstained) , two 11 year old boys, nine year old girl, seven year old girl, and a three year old girl.

On the way to church yesterday the children were discussing what we should name a girl. Danielle was toyed with, but I reminded them that we have a pattern going for girls names, so it should end with an a sound, like Sarah, Merina, and Emma. They each have Elizabeth as their middle names. Sarah and Merina were discovered to share that middle name when FarmBoy and I married. When Emma came along a year later we decided to continue the pretty trend.

Gerard, from the backseat, pipes up with, I know what goes with Sarah, Merina and Emma. Tortilla. Tortilla?!?

I've heard it all now. Tortilla Elizabeth. Does that come with guacamole on the side?

Speaking of food. Pregnancy has had a funny effect on me. I'm fascinated by food and recipes, even more than usual. I'm looking forward to trying several new recipes this week, including Brown Trout Au Gratin, Green beans in green coconut curry, and Maui Turkey Burgers with grilled pineapple. We will also be eating Upstate NY BBQ chicken, and salt potatoes, recipes posted last week. Clearly I don't suffer from heartburn induced by food, nor hypertension issues.

I think my varied menus while pregnant debunk any connections between what you eat and appearance of the baby. My former mother in law reported that her son had dark brown eyes from her habit of eating a can of olives regularly through her pregnancy. I was quite relieved to see that none of my children resembled pickled vegetables with lean turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Nor tortilla chips and fresh chopped pico de gallo salsa.

If you've been pregnant, what kinds of food did you find yourself gravitating toward?

Salt Rocks!

2009-06-04T10:09:00.000-04:00

One of the best things about Upstate New York is my husband. He loves Chicken BBQ by the way. The ubiquitous accompaniement to the popular Upstate New York BBQ is the salt potato. They're non-descript in appearance, but don't let that fool you. Here in the Finger Lakes Region we can find cleverly pre-packaged 'salt potato' bags in the produce section next to the baking potatoes, but you can reproduce this at your home, regardless of where you live. Salt potatoes, it turns out, are a regional specialty in the Central New York area, specifically Syracuse - about an hour from here.

Syracuse is famous for its salt mines and is today home to the Salt Museum, which tells the story of the salt potato: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/952

"In the 1700s & 1800s, perhaps even earlier, this Salt plant produced almost all of the nations salt. Add the salt production to the Erie Canal and you can see what a prosperous location Syracuse was during that time. Water taken from the Onondaga Lake was boiled down, or set out in the sun for evaporation in huge bowls. As most of the workers were Irish they brought along their potatoes for their meals and would place the potatoes in the boiling vats to cook giving you the famous salt potatoes. Syracuse is well known for its salt potatoes to this day! (Nowadays all they are, are very small potatoes boiled whole with the skins on in very salty water. 4 lbs potatoes to 1 lb of salt). Eat these dipped in melted butter and you have a great treat. By the 1870s this way of making salt was obsolete and the factory folded. "

Reportedly Hinderwadel's, a local company, began hosting big company clambakes, and helped salt potatoes catch on in the 1930s, long after the original Irish workers had long been out of work. Nowadays, you can boil 4 lbs. of new potatoes in a big pot of water with 1 cup of salt, and not have to haul Onondaga lake water. You can substitute little red potatoes, the taste is a little creamier, and you'll be delighted.

Salt potatoes are really great just drizzled with butter, in a bowl, eaten with your fingers. Ask my children, after I pass them a napkin. And while it is a large quantity of salt, the potatoes taste merely well seasoned, and not overly salty. Try them. They're really good alongside a clambake, bbq chicken, or anything you grill.

So let's go put on a big pot of water, sort through the new potatoes, and put on an Upstate New York treat for dinner.

Upstate New York Salt Potatoes

4 lbs. new potatoes (larger than fingerlings, smaller than a fist, sometimes called creamers)
About 5 quarts of water
1 cup of salt, iodized or not, kosher, whatever you have
A big stockpot.

Wash your potatoes, picking out any with bad spots. Put your potatoes in the pot, and cover with water, plus an inch. Pour 1 cup of salt over the top, and put the lid on the pot. Set on high heat. When it comes to a boil, turn to med. high and cook for approximately 25 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tender, but not split.

Drain the potatoes, and add 1/2 cup of butter or margarine. These are typically dished up into a bowl, and the eaters spear them with a fork or eat them with their fingers at a bbq. Serves 8 adults and a couple of children.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. You have to try small potatoes this way. Leftovers make good fried potatoes at breakfast the next morning. Just don't add extra salt when you fry them.

Chicken BBQ - No Hickory, No Tomato Sauce, All Yum!

2009-06-03T11:10:00.000-04:00

Upstate New York has a phenomenal barbecue tradition that is both delightful and mysterious and fascinating to me. It's as if the dawn of spring brings out Chicken BBQ signs, like little dandelions, popping up in the most unexpected places.

Church parking lots, high school fundraisers, fire stations, corner lots, even well-established restaurants put up signs touting Chicken BBQ Saturday 10 a.m. until sold out.

If all those signs advertising chicken bbq don't get your mouth drooling, you might not have the same BBQ gene I have.

Cornell University's Professor Baker invented this Cornell BBQ Sauce to help chicken farmers. http://www.roadsidefans.com/chicken.html The chicken with a college background! As a home and public schooling mom, I'm on the side of education.

This account is based on information posted by Wally Day in Roadfood.com.
"Cornell-style barbecue chicken, sometimes referred to as "State Fair chicken," traces its origins to a Cornell University professor of animal science, Dr. Robert C. Baker. Baker's original purpose was not necessarily to create a culinary delight, but to simply help New York poultry farmers sell more birds.

In the first half of the 20th Century, chickens were raised primarily as a source of eggs, and often they were not slaugthered until they reach a dressed weight of 4 or 5 pounds. Birds of this size were considered "fryers," any bird larger than this was a "roaster." Dr. Baker reasoned that if a market could be developed for a bird with a dressed weight of 2 3/4 to 3 pounds, poultry farmers could send their birds to market sooner, increasing their turnover. Thus the "broiler" with an optimum weight of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds per half.

For Dr. Baker's scheme of sending chickens to slaughter sooner to work, he needed to come up with a use for the smaller birds. The chicken barbecue filled the bill nicely. All that was needed was a tasty barbecue sauce recipe"

Without further delay, try this!

Cornell University Chicken Barbecue aka

New York State Fair Chicken

In a bowl or blender container, mix

2 cups of vinegar, cider or white vinegar or other (not sweet balsamic)
1 cup of a neutral flavored vegetable oil (not extra virgin olive please)
1 egg
1-3 Tablespoons salt (We always use the 3 T, but for salt sensitive, you may use less) Try it first with 3.
1 Tablespoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Saving one cup in a 1/2 pint jar with a lid, I pour the rest of the marinade over split chicken quarters. For the unfamiliar, these are the thigh/leg combo, or the split breast/wing combo. It's frugal, because chicken hind quarters, the leg/thigh combo, are currently selling for about .89/lbs or less at Walmart Supercenters. For best results, let the chicken soak for 24 hours to get that deep to the bone marinated taste. The salt and the vinegar combine to make for one seriously moist chicken piece. It's finger linking for sure!

BBQ, grill, or bake this chicken slowly, over indirect heat, to avoid flare-ups. In other words, keep the coals low, and the temperature med. low, or the grill rack raised higher, to avoid the chicken burning before it is cooked through. It takes me about 35 minutes on my gas grill, turning the chicken every 8 minutes. You can use large boneless, skinless chicken breasts in this recipe, but be sure to only marinate it for 12 hours. The marinade will otherwise chemically cook the chicken breast, turning them white, from the enzymes in the vinegar interacting with the protein in the chicken.

Upstate New York Chicken BBQ's are usually accompanied by boiled salt potatoes with melted butter, coleslaw with mayonnaise dressing, and a roll. If you're really lucky, there's fresh corn on the cob too!

Later - we'll talk Salt Potatoes. I'm just saying... this may be the way to get your children to eat a vegetable, straight out of the pot, with their fingers, as fast as they can. Even before you add the butter.

Tomatoes, Tomahtoes. Green Stripey Ones!

2009-06-03T10:32:00.002-04:00

Memorial Day, after three counts to confirm, we tallied 88 tomato plants in our garden. After a typical Upstate New York chicken barbecue, FarmBoy and my Dad headed out to Natureberry farm where they were given free plants, seconds if you will, that could not be sold due to some relatively minor frostbite.

You can't not adopt a homeless, frost-touched plant start - it's unAmerican! So FarmBoy brought oodles of plants home. A dozen went to a Mennonite family who saw their own covered plants frost killed and were delighted to see replacements. Others went to villagers in our neighborhood who had bare spots in their gardens.

We now have over 145 planted tomato plants in more varieties than I could ever name. They came in green zebra, black, brown, purple, red, pink, yellow, orange, as well as currant, grape, cherry, plum, and beefsteak sized tomatoes. I'm most excited to see the currant sized tomatoes for the first time.

My 9 year old Sarah absolutely loves the green zebra tomato.

These are actually a little on the overripe side, with the yellowing, but are even better at a stone cold green. They have a slightly more complex flavor, like a ketchup spice flavor, rather than just plain tomato. Sarah claims it's the only tomato she likes. Bring on the bacon, I'm going to have lots of tomatoes for salads and sandwiches. And canning sassy salsa, and lots of paste tomatoes for bottling for sauce, freshly made on the stove.

In fact, I think I'll go to my Mennonite friend Mrs. Stauffer's farm stand. She's located on Ferguson Corner's road if you're local here in New York. She has hothouse tomatoes ready now, and I think I need a bacon tomato sandwich for lunch. Immediately. More on the why on Friday.

The Votes Have Been Counted

2009-05-20T22:13:00.000-04:00

And the board of education does not include me. Alas and alack. But I'm delighted to note that I lost by 7 votes.

I think that gives me privileges to tease my neighbors next door, who didn't get around to voting, that they stood in the way of progress. Their 1850 Victorian is subdivided into three beautiful apartments. Mom and Dad, Grandma, and great-Aunt, and a married son and young granddaughter. . Harumph. I coulda been a contender.

I haven't carefully planned a career in volunteer politics, but after this experience, I may have to plan my future. It all began unexpectedly when my husband, reading the mail from the school district, noted that a school board member quit after the ballots were printed. She has two years remaining in her term. With no time to reprint the ballots, a write-in campaign was requested. With one week notice. And elections were on the night of my daughter's 3rd grade chorus concert.

My children cheerfully and gleefully accompanied their parents as they roller bladed, scootered, or were strollered door to door in our village of 600. We handed out business card size flyers for voters to put in their wallets and remind themselves who I was at the polls. A couple of other villages are included in our school district, but they aren't within walking distance of ours. Factoring in costs for campaigning, my husband's part time layoff, and that this is a volunteer position, we rang up the other villages.

The victor was whom I predicted, a well-known long time resident of our school district. But I trailed her by only 7 votes, which shows that hard work and cute kids and handy dandy wallet cards really pay off. I took time off from 6:55 p.m. to 7:20 p.m. to sit and applaud heartily at my daughter's concert, and then crept out during the intermission as the 4th grade band set up. The classic juggling of mother's responsibilities, distilled into one 25 minute period.

Being the joyful mother that I am, I bought the really big bag of popsicles to celebrate last night after the polls closed. The kids celebrated their hard work, and the fun we had campaigning. Because really -- that's the lesson we take from this adventure. Shared time, working toward shared goals, and family cohesiveness. I guess we won after all. Tropical popsicles, on me!

We love our Superintendent of Schools!

2009-05-18T10:09:00.001-04:00

Our school district had superintendent's day. Why the superintendent gets his own day is still unclear to me. Yet I am willing to give him one, since it means I get all five children home with me. HOORAY for the superintendent. He seems like a pretty amiable fellow, and I appreciate the recorded phone calls he has made to our school district about a note found in the boy's locker room. Apparently a child feeling bullied, left a note threatening to bring a gun school. I admire that they didn't just discuss increased security for the middle school, there was an increase, and they didn't just urge students to pass along information about children who had exhibited threatening behavior or gun interest. He encouraged all parents and students to discuss and disclose bullying situations so they could be ended, and of course so we could get help for the child who is bullied. Not just prevent a gun being brought to school. Way to go Sup!

My five little, not bullied, children are home, pondering if a chore list is a form of bullying behavior. But the prize is we're making these beautiful nibbles. And boy howdy, my girls are so excited to make these they even picked all the toys and stuffed animals up off their bedroom floors. That is priceless.

Man, these taste so good, and they're just as cute as you could ask for.

I heart bakerella.
http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2008/05/cupcake-bites-made-easy.html

If Only the Neighbors Would Sit Down and Eat a Bowl of Ice Cream

2009-05-14T14:18:00.001-04:00

Then all the world would be a much better place. Oh tsk tsk you're counting calories again, aren't you? Have you considered Edy's Slow Churned Light Ice Cream? Well there you have it, the perfect solution. You're welcome.

I only mention this because I'd like you and your neighbors to submit an essay on why your neighborhood should have an icecream party (for up to 100!). C'mon, do it! 350 words or less... big ice cream payoff.

http://edys.neighborhoodsalute.com/enter-to-win.aspx

Enter your essay to win a neighborhood ice cream party.

Here's mine, to give you an idea. But don't despair, they have actual winning (and inspiring!) essays on their website. One made me wipe my eyes from the tears. Here's my potential icecreamy entry:

The poor economy has hit Upstate New York hard, and our neighborhood in particular. Some families have their primary breadwinner out of work, some find that the factory job they've enjoyed for 20 years has cut their hours to half of last year's salary.

Did we let this get us down? No! By teaming up together in our small neighborhood we have planted enormous gardens on otherwise vacant land, one young mother is providing how to preserve your home-grown vegetable classes, my own small barn of goats provide milk to meet at least some of the needs of three large families, and another neighbor has started a day-old bread pantry on her side porch.

We're ordinary families, pitching in to feed our neighborhood. Imagine what your neighborhood could do! Plant a couple of extra rows of vegetables in your garden, and drop some off to a family who doesn't have any garden space. Buy an extra loaf of bread and give it to a family who is out of work in your neighborhood. And most of all take time to share a bowl of Edys Slow Churned light ice cream, because tough times call for gathering together and remembering what really counts. Families, friends, neighborhoods, and good memories - everything is better with a bowl of icecream. We can't change the economy, but we can bring neighborhoods together and cheer people up with a bowl of Edy's Slow churned ice cream. That's what I'd like for my neighborhood.

...and as the saying goes: "Mother knows best".

That's with an I, Kolz with a K

2009-05-12T14:11:00.008-04:00

May 19th is our annual voting of the school budget. School's need a budget. Otherwise, that school bus may never arrive and I will be destined to entertain/educate/stimulate 5 children for nine full hours until their father arrives home and I can go take a well deserved nap. We'll be having none of that missy!

Joking aside, after the budget and the ballot for Board of Education members went to press, one of the board members resigned, citing a need to spend more time on her business. In these economic times, I wholeheartedly understand the need to pay more attention to business.

My business, though I jest, is my children. Five. Tall ones, short ones, several in between, skinny ones, chubby ones, one of them is mean. Jesting again, she's just teething her molars. My neighbor, my husband, my mother each encouraged me this past several months to put my name on the ballot for the board of education. I passed on that opportunity. There were three candidates and three positions. All done! After all, I home school one of my children for his special needs, and I have a preschooler, a herd of goats, a garden, an opportunity to serve at church, two dogs, three cats, and a hobby of my own.

Now that there are 3 candidates and 4 openings on the board of education, there is a last minute call for write-in candidates to serve as a volunteer on the board of education. This compelled me to finally write myself in. May 19. One week from today. Whew. There goes my manicure.

I've been interviewed by our local paper since tossing my hat in the proverbial ring. That's Kelli with an i, Kolz with a K. What? Kelli, no y, K*O*L*Z. Yes, I want the position. No, I'm not Quaker, I'm a Mormon Mom. Oh my comment that I felt a religious obligation to serve in my community lead to the question. I see. No, it is okay with me if you do not list my religion unless you are listing the other candidates' religions.

Why would I run for the Board of Education? Children do better as students when their parents are involved more fully in their education. Schools do better when parents are involved with the schools. Boards do better when parents of the students are more fully involved in decisions regarding their children's education and school. I am a full-time parent. I will serve if elected.

Pity that my 5 loyal readers are not within my school district boundaries. I could use your vote. Should you feel the need to increase your exercise this week, I am accepting volunteers to go door to door with little cards with my name on them. That's Kelli with an I, Kolz with a K. Because the children shouldn't have to knock on all 250 doors in the village, right? We'll call that walk-a-thon... physical education. Because I am all about education.

Star Wars Extravaganza

2009-05-06T11:31:00.002-04:00

Sarah was due to turn 9, and her nights when she should have been sleeping were filled with visions of senators, Princess Leia, brave and virtuous Jedi knights and padawans. That's right, for the Star Wars obsessed, she's a big fan of the animated series 'Clone Wars'. Our Friday evenings are reserved for 9pm viewings of Clone Wars. To avoid overfrequent exclamation of "Aww mom!" I am obligated to set the DVR to record on Friday evenings we are out.

Mom!! Let's have a Star Wars party and I'll invite.. and we'll ...... as I counted carefully our reduced income with FarmBoy's factory having Friday furloughs. Sarah's an illustrative child and I have been feted with sample after sample of drawings of everything she wanted for her birthday, and everything she thought was cool and praiseworthy and of good report. That's a lot of crayon drawings. Well, it's garden season, so they made good mulch, and I noted what her hearts' desires were. Five kids, all very artsy craftsy - you do the math. We have lots of paper mulch.

I pondered Sarah's birthday in my heart quite carefully. Some of her friends go to Chuck E. Cheese's, which is an hour's drive, and spend a couple of hours in the sugary pizza charged video game atmosphere. My personal idea of the 4th level of Hades. Our bathroom is under construction. Our kitchen is under construction. I balked at 9 8 year olds coming for 2 hours.

Sarah solved my dilemma with her creativity. MOM! Sarah always speaks in exclamation marks. Why don't we make our own Star Wars costumes and have a Star Wars party? Deal! Lest you have a common misconception, I do not sew costumes, so this was not a 'mom makes costumes for everyone out of nothing, and we all exclaim how frugal of a Martha Stewart she is'. That was very cathartic. Does Martha make goat cheese every other day and milk a small herd of goats? I don't think so.

My job was to help tie sashas, design hairstyles, and clap as they told me of their creation's name and role in Clone Wars. The pink bathrobes and recycled graduation gowns came out, a battle droid with a blaster appeared and even a navy blue pair of snow bibs were pressed into service for a one armed medical droid. Good times!

Pin the light sabre on the Jedi proved to be a rowdier game than you would initially think. It really does matter who you put in charge of the spinning of the blindfolded child/victim. Who knew I had vertigo? Andy kicked our clone hineys on that game. I was lucky to get the light sabre taped on the right wall of the living room, quite frankly.

Next came a Nerf inspired version of Bounty Hunter target practice. Apparently intergallactic bounty hunters need to keep their trigger finger limber. It was hilarious, foam missiles everywhere, and there was some accusation of stacking of teams, but Papa (FarmBoy) triumphed over all. He took the cake. Literally, the cupcake was the prize. Not just any cupcakes. But the ones we learned how to make here. http://www.bakerella.com/. She calls them cake pops and cupcake bites, and here's where you can see what I mean. I call them little bitty cupcakes in a peanut butter cup mold from the craft store. Cute!

Sarah was delighted with her gift card from Grandma B, and her handmade dress and matching ladybug head scarf from Grandma H, and her Pink Nintendo DS with Build-a-Bear game from her father, and her grown up rollerblades (size 6!) and Little Pet Shop stuff (and more accessories). We had a bbq outside with hot dogs and hamburgs and sausages on the grill, baked beans and corn chips and chili dip, cookie cake and icecream, and her best friend BreeAnna over for dinner and games. On Monday, her clothing order from the big sale at http://www.childrensplace.com/ came in. She scored two cute skorts (shorts/skirt combo) for $3.50 and a couple of adorable sweater tops to match. She wore a pink skort and pink and brown sweater to school yesterday, looking all pretty in pink and chocolate. Cutest little bargains in town!

This led to her gym teacher's inquiry at school yesterday. Sarah, where did you get all those scratches on your legs? Do you have a kitty you went to war with? Oh no Mrs. Lahue, my cats are very gentle. I like to climb trees and cruise on my new rollerblades. (cue laughter).

It was delightful. Some of the fun for me was that a huge neighborhood garage sale near the doctor's office where I had my Friday appointment yielded $5 rollerblades, $10 for bags and bags of Little Pet Shop animals and accessories. These were her heart's desire. Sarah had asked for ice skates for Christmas, and with no nearby pond or rink, we didn't get them for her. Friday night he rollerblades were met with a huge squeal. The big bags of LPS characters brought another squeal and she fell to her knees and opened the pet shop house and began playing with her 7 year old and 3 year old sisters. On Saturday Sarah and I went to Walmart where she cashed in her gift certificate and bought knee and elbow pads for her rollerblades. Thanks Grandma B!
The bargains on Sarah's new clothing were made even better because I had a coupon code from http://www.shopittome.com/howitworks. You can use my email address for your referral if you like. ldsfreckleface@frontiernet.net. Drop me a line if you have any questions. Bargains galore I tell you, and you get to choose the stores and designers you prefer.

A little creativity, a lot of serendipity and enthusiasm, and not very much money really made Sarah's birthday turned out great. The children went to bed happy, and delighted, and we weren't left with any debt or worry about overspending our tight budget. Coming here soon, a shocking side effect of the debt ensnaring families in America. And the unexpected and horrific cost to some families.

Once Upon a Time - FarmBoy's Folly

2009-04-21T23:40:00.004-04:00

Once upon a time there was a FarmBoy, as I have affectionately called my husband since we first met,who loves to tap maple trees for their sap. As a consequence on perfectly good winter days that demand that one cuddle up with one's loved ones on the couch in front of a steaming kettle bedecked coalstove, he could be found going out into the cold white north, bundled up. The cats and puppy kept me warm on the couch, with intermittent visits from various children. I blogged here about his maple syrup adventures and took a few pictures, on a warmish day in the winter.

My sweetheart makes awesome tasting maple syrup. He cooks it over a Franklin cast iron wood burning stove, in the back yard. This year, with a new to him stove, he accidentally let too much smoke get to one batch of the sap boiling atop the stove. As it concentrated down, it became hickory-smoked syrup. This is not pancake friendly, to my tastebuds. But after patiently stoking fires for hours while out in the cold, the end product of that labor of love becomes dear to us. After tasting it and realizing we couldn't eat it on waffles, we filtered it and bottled it with "smokey maple syrup" on the lid as a caution.

I finally found the perfect use for it. If you don't have the same mishap in your backyard, you could recreate our serendipitous adventure with 1/2 tsp. of liquid smoke flavor to 1 cup of maple syrup (or pancake syrup if you don't have access to real maple syrup).

FarmBoy's Folly - Hickory Scented Bean and Green Soup
1 pound dried white beans, such as white kidney (cannellini) or great Northern, rinsed and picked over
1/2 pound ham, diced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 cups chopped yellow onions
2 cups cleaned and chopped collards or other greens (try chopped swiss chard, spinach, etc.)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup of pure maple syrup
1 Tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1 Tablespoon Steak Seasoning (a mix of coarse pepper, salt, and assorted aromatic herbs)
½ teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
2 quarts chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese or parmesan
Preparation:
Put the beans into a large pot or bowl. Bring the beans and water to a boil over high heat and cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and allow to stand for 1 hour. Drain. This reduces the flatulence effect of the beans.

Fry the ham in a heavy medium stockpot over medium-high heat to render some fat, about 4-5 minutes. Remove the ham, and set aside. Add 1 Tablespoon of oil to the pot and add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 4 minutes. Add the collards, and the chicken stock, the soy sauce, and liquid smoke, then add the presoaked beans, and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender, about 2 hours. Remove half the beans, mash or puree with a hand blender, and return to the pot. Add the maple syrup at this point to the thickened bean soup. Taste for salt, and add molasses or brown sugar a tablespoon at a time, if you desire more sweetening.

Stir in the cooked ham dices, and heat through. Ladle into a warm bowl and sprinkle with the grated Romano or parmesan cheese. This can be served with Boston Brown Bread, or corn muffins, or your favorite cornbread to help sop up some of the pot liquor. If you're vegetarian, you can make this recipe without the ham, using ham flavored TVP or adding hickory smoked tofu at the end and warming it through. Substitute vegetable broth or stock for the chicken broth and you're good to go!

This was the perfect dinner for a cold, wet Spring day. It followed the best Spring Break Ever, if you ask my children, and made for one traumatic let down, weatherwise. Back to school, back to sitting still in class, and back to rain, mud, and dripping jackets. It demanded a warm, filling, heart dinner. The children will tell you that it's the perfect day to have some honey and butter on your corn muffins too, to must make everything feel better.

The morale of this story is, the next time you find you've had a little folly, remember FarmBoy and that old saying your grandmother repeated: "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade". She was right, it's very delicious, and we did it ourselves! I may have to use some of that hickory smoked maple syrup as a glaze on some baked salmon fillets too.

The Little Children that Could

2009-04-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

I blogged yesterday about the Little Bake Sale that Could. The Big Sister in need of adoption is now fully funded, her mother tells me before we had the chance to mail our check out. The Candy Cane Club children are looking at sending their $75 to SWAN - Serving Women Across Nations http://www.swanforhumanity.org/about.html The children will send their check earmarked to buy school children shoes to protect their feet from parasites, so they can attend school. http://www.swanforhumanity.org/AdoptaSchool.html

According to their website: "2009 finds Bolivia's political and economical status precarious. The poorest country in South America is seeing inflation gobble up the already meager household incomes resulting in families going hungry. 'The older children understand,' says one mother, but is is hard to see the little ones cry for want of food."

Take a look, it was founded by one of my favorite authors Liz Adair, and my friend Terry Adair Gifford, a girl I grew up with near Ferndale, Washington and her sister Ruth. When I knew Tudy Adair (aka Liz Adair) she was the mom who let us use their barn for barn dances, baked seriously yummy cinnamon rolls, and had this funny to me rule that her children had to eat breakfast before school, or they didn't go that day. Odd what one remembers 20something years later. Terry served a full time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Bolivia, a couple of years before I served mine here in Upstate New York. I'm delighted with what she has been impressed to do for the people of Bolivia that she loves dearly. They provide microcredit (small loans) for mothers to be able to begin or grow tiny businesses to feed their families, and other inspirational projects. Well worth our time and money. May God bless them all.

Busy Day Soup and the Little Bake Sale that Could

2009-04-18T23:11:00.002-04:00

Last night was girls night in. Or as the rest of the world calls it: Spring Camporee for the Boy Scouts. FarmBoy, my husband, and our two 11 year old sons went camping overnight. That leaves me with three girls 8 and under, 4 goats - 2 who need milking, and a very cold spot on his side of the bed. I do love my sheets prewarmed. The goats were warm at least, but I left after milking.

This was the very first scout campout for Gerard, my second son. I confess I was a little anxious for him. I want him to enjoy Boy Scouts, and to find a buddy, to feel included, and to not fall into the fire. With ADHD, one cannot assume this wouldn't happen. He's a great kid, voted most like to say "but I didn't see the great big bonfire there or I wouldn't have walked into it. I was thinking about constellations and astronomy."

Our firstborn son, Andy, had his first campout midwinter, so I've mastered some ability to let the boys go, and not feel as if I need to telephone and make sure everybody is warm enough. Don't laugh, I'm a nurturer by nature. With a strong secondary component of not wanting to raise a wimpy boy. So I dial the telephone and then hang up, and pray for him instead. Ok, but it got me through the winter campout, where I knew the windchills were 0*. This time FarmBoy was with them, and I didn't worry (much) at all.

Instead, the girls and I baked double chocolate chip cookies, and as the toddler and I sat and rocked, Grandma baked chocolate chip cookies with Sarah and her new best buddy BreeAnna. The girls were getting a little restless earlier this week, looking for something exciting and important to do. They formed a club, The Candy Cane Club, made up of two neighbor brothers who are 10 and 7, and my 5 children, and BreeAnna, our neighbor. It has been a nice week for Spring break, filled with sunny days and lots of cups of Koolaid and enough snap peas eaten to feed the Russian Army. Ours aren't ready from the garden, these came from the grocery store. They're pretty addicting I might add. You pick up one and walk into the other room to put a load of wash into the machine, and find yourself going to find the bowl of them to grab a handful.

The Candy Cane Club (CCC) meets daily in the top of my goat barn, and decorated it with some surplus red tape I donated to the cause. I've been impressed with how tender and sweet they are in helping our three year old join them up the ladder. And at Emma's athletic prowess climbing that ladder.

The CCC decided they were bored, and declined my offer to hang laundry on our outside line, alongside me, with polite eyerolls. Instead, they decided to have a bakesale. That's a great idea, now what should we do with the money we'll make I querried. They came up with some silly ideas about buying furniture for the top of the barn. Then I read a blog where an acquaintance of mine was raising funds for a stepparent adoption of her daughter, made more poignant by her recurrence of ovarian cancer.

I read the information to my children, who are two sets of stepchildren with a little 3 year old sister they would hate to be separated from if one of their parents died. The children took this topic to the CCC and they voted to help raise money for the adoption of a little girl hereafter known as "Big Sister".

Armed with lemonade, Grandma's chocolate chip cookies that she helped them bake, double chocolate chip cookies, and a few dollars of change, the children of the neighborhood made signs and posted them in the post office in our small village, put them up on telephone poles, and told all the neighbors they saw outside in the sunshine. At the end of day 1, they'd earned about $55.00 toward this adoption. At the end of day 2, they had added another $20 to the coffers. Not bad for 25cent cookies and cups of lemonade. May I interject how proud I am of my children, who develop empathy as well as gratitude from projects such as this? And how impressed I am by the residents of my community who listened to chirpy 8 year olds tell them why they were selling cookies and lemonade?

While we were busy preparing for the bake sale, and then sitting out waiting for customers, this is what we had simmering in the crockpot. It seems appropriate for a Boy Scouting family. Try it, your family might like it too. It uses canned food items, and you can easily used items from your food storage to make this during a power outage, while cooking over a camp stove, or using a dutch oven.

http://www.eaglescoutscarves.com/camp_recipes/busydaysoup.htm
The author says: "This recipe was shared with me by my co-worker Jacque Jensen at a previous job. "Busy Day Soup" was a hit the first night I made it! Because it's mostly canned it's great for camping and on a "busy day" it makes a quick and very savory dinner too.

BUSY DAY SOUP
1/2 lb. hamburger
1/2 onion, chopped
1 can bean and bacon soup
1 can alphabet soup
1 can tomato soup
1 can nibblets corn
2 cans water
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Brown together hamburger and onion, then add bean and bacon, alphabet and tomato soup. Add corn and cans of water and chili powder. Simmer until hot.
Table Scraps: A Collection of Our Favorite Recipes, Primedia, November 2006, pg. 18

I tasted this, and it was good, but a bit bland for my crew. I added some dried garlic powder, some black pepper, and a dash of Frank's red hot sauce. The children liked it, and that's my gauge these days for quick dinners at least. It goes well with rolls, and an icecream sundae for dessert - I mean if you're celebrating girls night in and you're having sundaes so your crew isn't sad that the boys get to do all the fun things while the girls stay home.

One project on my to-do list is to brown and pressure can the pounds of ground venison that fill our freezer, that we haven't eaten yet this year. Canned ground meat makes for super fast sloppy joes, hamburger enchiladas, busy day soup like this, and chili, for example. It's a convenience food that really makes sense. Especially if you have a surplus of free ground meat.

So the next time you know your day is going to be one busy day, maybe you'd like to pop some of this busy day soup into a crockpot, or just heat it up quickly on the stove. Your tummy and your wallet will thank you. Buy a few extra cans of things, and put them in our pantry, for that rainy, or busy, day.

I'm so glad that tonight my side of the bed is prewarmed. And FarmBoy was so gracious as to carry out all those buckets of water to the goat pen. Those Boy Scouts all went to bed early. I do love a good hike with great vistas. And boys going to bed with tuckered out smiles!

Shrimp Stuffed Salmon Fillets

2009-04-11T22:00:00.001-04:00

Mouthwatering Monday. That's a challenge I just can't walk away from. You may have noticed that I'm a Washington state raised girl, married to a farmboy from Upstate New York. And yes, Upstate is the important part. You see, downstate is New York City. I know you've seen Law and Order on television, and it just doesn't match up with Upstate New York. I mean, goodness, the goats broke out of their barn after a wind storm blew the hinges and hardware off the 200 year old barn. They wandered 10 yards to the back of our village neighbors greenpatch and gobbled down tender shoots on their blackberry bushes, and topped their rosebushes but good. Did Christopher Meloni and Marishka Margitay pop out of their sedan and tackle the goats and read them their rights? I think not. This was no issue of Law and Order: Caprine Victims Unit, nosirreebobby. Instead, FarmBoy sees the goats roaming the village, in their girly rhinestone goat collars I might add, and came in the house and hollered for the big boys to come help because the entire goat herd was loose.

He hollered for the two eleven year old boys, because Mom o'Five was up several times in the night with 5/5 and was sleeping. But those are my goats, so I was down the stairs in my warm sleeping sweats and into my kelly green rubber boots before those boys had even registered Papa's holler.

Goats were cavorting like ballerinas in Swan Lake. It was hilarious to see grown goats leaping into the air like little kids free... free at last. They startled when I came bounding out the back door to protect them from the imagined dangers. I called them, and like the good Alpine goats they are, they came running to follow me back to the barn. Ahh, bliss, nibbles of tiny sprouts of greening grass in the spring time, followed by a handful of goat chow and a good back scratching. Oh wait, I was going to be sleeping more than 2 hours. Who needs sleep when you have goats? Oh back to the life I left behind when I married my FarmBoy.

I'm from Washington - and it was a farm, actually with goats where I spent my formative middle school and high school years. Goat milk works well for lactose intolerant tummies, and big gardens feed big families, and that's how I grew up - lots of produce and lots of dairy from our goats. Life and employment took me to Corporate America, and jobs in major metropolitan areas, and what is it that I miss in a tiny village in Upstate New York?

Good seafood. Truly. There have been days when my mouth watered at the mere sight of Iron Chef - Fish of your choice. Being from Washington - I love Pacific Salmon. Being in Upstate New York, I can usually find Atlantic Salmon here. A bit drier, and not as lovely red hued, but stil heart-healthy and delicious. FarmBoy informed me he didn't like salmon. I gasped. When I clarifed that salmon doesn't exclusively come from a can, he invited me to try recipes out on him.

Upstate New York has a supermarket chain that excells. Wegmans'. It's a family friendly chain, and voted #1 in Fortune's Best 100 Companies to Work for. I go there for Thai recipe ingredients, and this week, for salmon. Salmon has those heart-healthy omega fatty acids, and that's my excuse for eating it this week. FarmBoy gives it two thumbs up!

Shrimp Stuffed Salmon Fillets
32 oz. Salmon fillets (about 8)
1/2 to 3/4 cup of seasoned Italian bread crumbs
3-4 T mayonnaise (low fat is fine, but not fat free)
2 T chopped fresh basil leaves (I used frozen from the garden)
1 clove of garlic, pressed or finely diced.
1/4 c shredded parmesan
1 cup chopped shrimp (cooked)
1 roasted red pepper (capsicum) peeled, then finely diced
First, thaw your salmon if using frozen. Lightly salt and pepper the fillets, then make a pocket in each fillet by slicing most of the way through the fillet, leaving both ends uncut. Open a little wider with your fingers. If a single fillet is cut thin, instead, roll up in pinwheel fashion, rather than cut a pocket.

Place chopped shrimp, red pepper dices, chopped basil and garlic, and 3 T of mayonnaise in a small bowl. Mix lightly, add parmesan and 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. Take tablespoons of stuffing, and press together in clean hands to make a stuffing ball. Add a little mayo or breadcrumbs to make it just right, to hold together fairly well. Put a stuffing ball into the pocket in the salmon fillet, and mound a little on the top.

When you've stuffed all 8 pockets, put on an oiled baking sheet and bake about 15 minutes, or until the salmon begins to flake. Remove from oven, and cover with foil for another two minutes, until salmon temperature rises to 130* or fish flakes easily with a fork.

Delicious with spring asparagus, young peas, and pierogies with browned butter. Because Upstate New York pierogies and Washington state (pacific) salmon are a match made in heaven. Just like FarmBoy and me. If you're not feeding lots of little ones like we are, you might even want to add some cajun or creole seasoning and kick it up a notch.

Now that's good food, well earned, after saving the village from a herd of marauding goats. Eat your heart out.

Hey Lucy! What's for Dinner?

2009-03-25T07:00:00.001-04:00

My husband certainly isn't Ricky Ricardo, but some days FarmBoy and the Kolz Kidz come home from their busy activities with precisely the same thing on their minds. Lucy! What's for dinner?

We're working as a family toward establishing a full year's supply, and keeping it up, while rotating things that we enjoy first, and secondly are useable in an emergency, and thirdly will keep long term. Some things simply will not, but we'll be glad to eat those up and rotate them quarterly if need be. In case of emergency, come to the Kolz home for bacon, bacon, bacon. We've got recipes we can use that bacon up without any second thoughts toward the cholesterol about to be burned off in active, physical labor chopping wood or something. Yeah, that's how I'm justifying it.

My first very do-able goal is to have 3 months of easy to fix dinners from the pantry. I have a huge garden most years, as I stock a farmstand and sell surplus produce (and Olde Order Mennonite produce). That gives us a lot to bottle and preserve, but you can find most things I bottle at your grocery store, Aldis discount grocers or International markets (Asian or Hispanic or Indian subcontinent). Then we also store bulk grains, flour, vegetable oil and shortening, legumes, sugar, baking supplies like cocoa, and even chocolate chips.

We end up with a huge variety of canned staples, including vegetables, soup, fruit, some stews, ravioli, tamales, coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, and evaporated milk. How on earth does one keep them all organized, without the store room becoming as big as Walmart? Here's one really good option. And it's free. Free is good. Here's what it looks like and free drawings.

Some good resources for all pantry supplies dinners include: http://threemonthsupply.blogspot.com/ She includes shopping lists she uses, and recipes for different pantry meals.

Here's one we tried for the first time today. I felt rather daring, having never even eaten mackerel fish before. All we knew was the saying "holy mackerel". I figured, how bad could it be with tartar sauce? People eat those fishsticks, this had to be much better. And it was. Even the children thought so, and they're not big fans of salmon, yet.

Fish Patties, or Fish Croquettes
1 can of mackerel (about 16 oz), drained into a cup, with broth reserved.
1 small onion, finely grated or 1T dried onions rehydrated with fish broth
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or use fresh herbs of your choice (try basil, dill, etc)
ground black pepper, to taste
2 large eggs, well beaten
1 to 1 1/2 cups fine dry bread crumbs (or you can try potato flakes!)
3 tablespoons oil for frying, or you make spray with spray and cook without oil

Preparation:

Turn fish into a medium mixing bowl. Flake with a fork, mashing any bones (they are soft, and very edible). Mix in grated onion, parsley and pepper. Mix beaten eggs with salmon. Add enough bread crumbs, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup, to make thick enough to shape into 12 small patties or six bun sized patties. If it's too stiff, add some of the reserved broth so the patties will stay together. Roll patties in another 1/2 cup bread crumbs. In a large heavy skillet over low heat, add oil; add patties. Fry patties slowly on one side; add remaining oil, turn patties and fry until brown on the other side. Another time I may use the mackerel in seafood alfredo. I think it would be good used in tuna or salmon recipes interchangeably. Did I mention how inexpensive of a protein source mackerel is? One approximately 16 oz. can was purchased recently for .79 cents, and I see it quite regularly for $1.49 at Aldis. While I wouldn't want to eat fish everyday, here in landlocked Upstate New York, I think we may include it as one dinner in our two week menu rotation.

We served this with tartar sauce on hamburger buns, with a large salad as an accompaniment. French fries wouldn't be bad either, and we do have some 400 lbs. of stored potatoes in the root cellar. But that's enough fat for one day, so we had salad. If you have a garden, this is a food storage friendly salad during garden season. Our produce came from the grocery store today. Coleslaw would be another nice side dish in lieu of salad. But our second favorite salad is the BLT Salad with Parmesan Peppercorn Dressing. Our absolute FAVE salad is here.

BLT Salad with Parmesan Peppercorn dressing
Feeds 7 (with 5 small children)

Parmesan Peppercorn dressing
1/2 -3/4 cup of real mayonaise - reduced fat works fine here as well
1/4 to 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 tsp. sugar or splenda sugar substitute
1/2 tsp. steak seasoning (or salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste)
cracked black pepper to taste
Mix in a small bowl, adding parmesan to your taste. It will be diluted by the salad, so strong is good.

1/2 pkg. of ~2.5 oz. shelf stable chopped ready to eat bacon
6 hearty slices of whole grain bread, cubed, and drizzled with 1 T of olive oil, sprinkled with garlic salt, and baked until crunchy - or croutons
Medium salad bowl of chopped romaine or variety lettuce mix
2 garden tomatoes or 1-2 cups of halved sweet grape tomatoes - to taste

Combine the bacon, lettuce and tomatoes with the salad dressing. Add toasted bread cubes right before serving, toss well, and accept compliments. Sprinkle with extra bacon if desired. Rumor is that you should keep the croutons separate for storing leftovers so they won't get soggy, but the salad has had any leftovers.

Tomorrow is boy scouts, and Achievement day girls, and sap boiling for hours and hours which just begs for - a busy day dinner, from my food storage. What's your busy day dinner?

Maple Syrup Weekend - and What's for Lunch?

2009-03-23T11:37:00.000-04:00

It was Maple Syrup Weekend in Upstate New York. Don't worry, it comes again for the final weekend, March 28-29 too. For the Kolz Kidz that means all you can eat pancakes at the local fire hall. For those who don't live in a tiny village or hamlet in the Northeast, you should know the fire hall is often a hub of social busy-ness. There are the once a winter Saturday Roast Beef dinner fundraiser, the several summer Saturday chicken bbq's with a special Cornell University chicken bbq recipe that gently imprints itself in your DNA as you like the drumstick bone. Don't forget the wedding reception of that one peculiar brother in law to his first wife was held there too. Which works out quite well when the fool lights himself on fire fooling around over the unity candles. Volunteer firefighters rock!

Anyway, back to the mapley goodness of all you can eat pancakes. Oh it's not just pancakes, it's delicious sausage patties, and fluffy scrambled eggs, and then all you can eat pancakes. They meant it too, as I watched my 11 year old sons put away more pancakes than their Papa. The girls ate like birds, pecking a little eggs, a bite of sausage, and dipping it all into a puddle of real New York maple syrup. Then they ate bites of pancakes before calling themselves full. Funny little birds.

As you know, the Kolz family taps maple trees here in our tiny village. After having a hearty breakfast, we returned home to feed the fire of our Franklin stove and keep our own sap evaporating down to thick, rich, slightly smokey syrup. Delicious.

Enough about breakfast, we've been discussing Frugality, and ways to endure the economic decline in our country/region/household. I've had a hearty, job search fortifying breakfast now, what's for lunch?

We like tuna sandwiches, the occasional turkey or chicken salad sandwich, salad during the greens season, leftover soup and muffins, chicken and dumplings, chili, macaroni and cheese, leftover spaghetti and meatballs, hearty stews of the rib sticking variety. My children would eat spaghettios, unceremoniously dumped into a bowl and heated in a microwave. While it makes me nearly wretch to type that, they still talk about the one time they had a can of ravioli. And plead for me to buy them another. Maybe for food storage, eventually. Hmm, this is giving me some ideas of things I can purchase a few cans or a case of, to add to my lunchtime or dinner food storage. Canned chili, plus home bottled tomatoes, plus Jiffy Corn Bread mix equals Tamale Pie for lunch. Now those are things I can sink my teeth into. And store for the future.

How about you? What kinds of things can you add to your food storage, for that proverbial rainy (paycheckless) day?

How to Endure Economic Downturn and still Eat

2009-03-21T09:32:00.000-04:00

My husband has worked for his benevolent employer*, Maco Bag, for a good sixteen plus years. Their boom and bust cycle hasn't been hard to adjust to. Periodically over the last few summers (we've been married 4 years soon), we've taken a day off, unpaid a few times a summer, which really FarmBoy just used a day of vacation to cover. Maco Bag Group packages and assemble items, as I understand it, and FarmBoy works in their warehouse, keeping it organized and correct in the inventory system. His favorite part is driving a forklift as necessary, and doing inventory at the end of the month. Or that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. You know, over-sized Tonka toys, and over-sized cute boy driving one. Yes, I see you do understand.

This winter the employees were called in and informed that sales and orders were down a bit and most employees were given one day a week furlough. I think this is benevolent, as opposed to laying off a bunch of workers, then retraining a new crew in a few months when orders pick up again. They will pick up again, won't they President Obama?

How does a family of seven get through the inevitable ebb and flow of orders in a factory job? We'll discuss some tactics we use over the next few days. I've compiled some resources and websites that may be of use to you in your quest to endure the downturn in the economy too. My thanks to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for making so much information available to everyone.

My first principle was to pare down our needs, from our wants. We have resources for some wants, but the key is separating which is necessary from which becomes expendable. Your choices may vary from mine, so adjust as necessary. Our priority is paying our mortgage, fuel bill for heat and two automobiles, and providing food and clothing to our children, maintaining our goat herd, and providing adequate clothing and food for ourselves. We have good dental, and RX, and health insurance through FarmBoy's employer, a flexible savings account for vision and eyeglass and hearing aid expenses, and a 401k we invest in weekly. That said, we feel very blessed, recognizing how quickly most of this could disappear.

To that end, we have heeded the counsel of a living prophet (see Amos 3:7, Holy Bible). It's important, much like Noah's warning to get in the ark, and our family began a 1 month, then 3 month, then one year supply of basics for our family. Why should you do this? You might consider that it will absorb the impact of reduction in force at your employer, it will help insure your family's survival in case of death of a parent (and income loss), it will provide your family with comforting and familiar foods in times of stress and economic trial (like an ARM housepayment going through the roof because unemployment didn't pay enough to make the full payment). If you didn't have to buy food for a month, or three, how much cash would you then have? $500, $1500 maybe. Things to ponder. What could you pay off, if you freed that cash up for a payment? What debt could you reduce and free yourself from if you or your spouse lost your job, and you could still go to the pantry and prepare meals without a trip to the grocery store.

I don't have all the answers, but I have some good questions. Let's explore some of the options together. One thing I do is store whole grain. It doesn't go rancid like flour will, eventually. I retrieve a 5 gallon bucket from the closet, spin it open, and scoop out a #10 can of wheat berries and pop it into my electric grinder (with emergency hand crank available). That's fresh, fiber and vitamin filled whole grain flour, in 10 minutes or less. I don't make bread - but I do make muffins, biscuits, pancakes, cookies, brownies, and apple and other fruit crisps. You could make bread too, if you like. Save me the heel, with lots of butter, please.

I started with the information found at http://www.providentliving.org/. May I suggest a 1 month surplus of the things that your family eats each week? For example, make a list of two weeks worth of meals. What are your common breakfasts, lunches, and dinners? Real ones, that you eat now.

My children like Oatmeal for breakfast in the winter. I have #10 cans of rolled oats stored, which I can also use for apple crisp, oatmeal for breakfast, and oatmeal cookies. We also have boxes of instant oatmeal, just add water type, in cardboard boxes, with individual paper bags inside. For long term storage, these would have to be kept in something secure, like a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, because they'd be susceptible to moisture, or rodents, or a teething Jack Russell Terrier Puppy on a quest. If you have one like this. On alternating days we might have some high fiber cold cereal, like GoLean Crunch, and a small handful of raisins or other dried fruit. So I store some boxes of cereal (calculate how many servings your box actually feeds, and how many people are eating this.) Of course you'll need milk on your cereal, so I suggest storing either vacuum packed milk like Parmalat, or shelf-stable soy milk that you rotate, or powdered milk. Occasionally we have sweet rolls and bacon strips, so you could try canning pumpkin bread in a jar, and storing some ready to eat fully cooked bacon, that you can find in the produce section in some stores. I presume so you put it on a Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato sandwich. Granted, the shelf life

is only about 150 days, so that's less than six months storage time. I'm a bacon lover, so I'd be willing to take one for the team and heat up a package and make bacon tomato spinach sandwiches. Just to keep the food storage rotated and everything fresh, of course. I'm good like that. For this purpose I followed the advice of Wendy Wittt and began a food storage inventory notebook. Now I know that in 4 months, the height of tomato season here, we will eat and replace into our food storage, 2 lbs. of ready to eat bacon.

You can store bottles of juice for a year, without any loss of quality, and rotate them and work them into regular use before they go past expiration date. So there are four breakfast possibilities: instant oatmeal, boiled oatmeal, cold cereal with milk, fruit juice, banana bread slices and bacon. Considering you could also store pancake mix for a year,a few bottles of maple flavored syrup, (just the dry ingredients for a thriftier approach,) you could have better breakfasts in a downturn than you enjoy now. That will be a good start for a day of job hunting and resume polishing, no?

Tomorrow - What's for lunch anyway?

*Any time they'd like to return his hours to a full 40 per week, I'd write a lovely, glowing blogpost about how they were voted into Rochester's Top 100. Truly. With their logo and hyperlinks to their website. Nope, not a link yet. Alrighty then, pancakes and bacon and eggs it is for breakfast!

I'm not Giving Up the Chocolate

2009-03-20T07:10:00.001-04:00

It's not necessary. Really. What lunch is complete without a little taste of chocolate? Ok, most of them. But a day is made brighter by a little bite of brownie, c'mon, unless you're like my dear friend who shall remain nameless that thinks chocolate tastes like soap.

I have the coolest Aunt in the world, Fay DeBoer. It's her birthday, 29 AGAIN! If you knew her, you'd be nodding your head up and down with me, ayep. Some of her cool things she does is make dresses for little orphan girls. Cute, cute dresses for cute little orphan girls. In fact, I coveted a couple of her dresses when she brought them to my parent's home when we lived in Washington state. She told us that these two dresses needed to be worn by a little country girl. And gave them to my only daughter. Nifty thing is, that those two dresses were so well made, and so beautifully done, that they are now beloved by my third daughter. Still loving the dresses! Still loving the Aunt Fay! Happy Birthday sweetie.

Aunt Fay likes chocolate brownies now and then. In fact, I imagine she probably has a little cocoa in her food storage too. My favorite brownies had to be tweaked a little for my emergency preparedness recipe. Here's the original recipe, and the notes for how to eat out of your food storage, follow.

Chewy Gooey Cocoa Brownies

1-2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted (or other fat)
2 T water
2 Large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla flavoring
1-1/3 cups flour (I have used 100% whole wheat, 1/2 all purpose flour, and other variations)
3/4 cup Baking cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt (optional if you use salted butter)
3/4 cup chopped nuts (completely optional)
Preheat oven to 350*. Grease 13x9 baking pan. Combine sugar, butter and water in large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture. Add nuts if desired. Spread into prepared baking pan. Bake for 18-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky. Cool completely, then cut into bars. Makes 2 dozen brownies, depending on how you divide the pan. Needs no frosting.
Food storage substitutes:
How to substitute for 1 egg :

1 teaspoon dry unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
7 teaspoons of hot water
Combine gelatin with cold water. Let sit for a moment to hydrate the granules.
Add hot water, stir well. Use in place of 1 egg.
***For baking*** reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup per egg replacement used. Experiment with this to see how to adjust your favorite recipe. In my case, I used one real egg in the brownies, and one egg substitute and the recipe is perfect! Another day... I'll use two egg substitute measures. Just for you gentle reader, because we have 30 dozen eggs in the cool cellar.

I use whole wheat flour, ground from the whole wheat kernels I store in some #10 cans, and some 5 gallon buckets. I have vegetable oil stored, and usually have 20 dozen eggs at any given point in a very cool cellar. It wouldn't be fun if I didn't have bulk baking cocoa stored. Baking powder is stored in very small cans, because it begins to go flat once they're opened. Do not store baking powder in #10 cans unless you have some wicked large group of people to bake biscuits for, within the next six months. I have a few #10 cans and some large canisters of Hershey's baking cocoa, and a few jars of vacuum sealed chocolate chips. They'll keep quite a while, not that we'd ever let them get old.

Back to lunch. Write down 2 weeks of lunches you'd be willing to eat, and then tally up the ingredients you can use to make them. Double it, and you have a month supply of lunches. Here are some ideas. Biscuits and creamed chicken cream of chicken soup, canned chicken, a can of peas, a bottle of peaches, and a brownie for dessert. You can store homemade biscuit mix for a year. With it you can make strawberry shortcake, chicken and dumplings, chicken ala king over a biscuit, sausage gravy over biscuits, Sausage cheddar balls, a quick biscuit pizza crust, chicken pot pie, and more.
Here's just one variation to get you started thinking.

Easy Biscuit Mix
Ingredients:
6 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/4 cups butter flavored shortening
Directions:Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Store in a container with tight-fitting lid. For a healthier mix, make with 3 cups white flour and 3 cups whole wheat flour. For Buttermilk Mix, add 9 tablespoons dry buttermilk powder to the basic mix.

To use this mix, take 3 cups of Easy Biscuit mix, add 3/4 cup of milk, or yogurt, or buttermilk etc., and mix gently. After adding your liquid mix only until a soft dough forms. Dough may be slightly sticky but that is normal.
Generously flour counter or board and transfer dough on top dusting with a small amount of flour if dough is sticky. Pat dough out with hands till about 1 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutter or large glass dipped in flour. Place on baking sheet about 1 1/2 inch apart. Bake 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter if you like.

You could roll with rolling pin but that will make for tougher biscuits. Not good, no no no.

To make dumpings, you stir as above, then drop into gently boiling stew. Turn down to a simmering boil, cook for 10 minutes uncovered, and then cover tightly for 10 more minutes. This would perk up your every day chicken soup considerably, wouldn't it? You can store canned carrots, canned peas, bottled chicken you canned yourself when chicken legs & thighs were on sale for .49 cents a pound, and voila' gourmet goodness in a pinch. Living frugally doesn't have to be living on top ramen noodles and generic box brand of macaroni and cheese powder.

What's a Mattar Paneer?

2009-03-20T07:00:00.002-04:00

It sounds like a joke, What's a matter Paneer? Economy got you down? This cozy, gently spiced vegetarian recipe of Indian continent origin will warm you from the inside out, and help you forget the end of a dreary winter and your declining house value. Mr. Green's Social Studies class is studying India, and this recipe is posted for them. Hello!! Mr. Green's six grade class.

Are your feet cold? My feet are cold today. I've just entered myself in a Blogger giveaway of a beautiful pair of hand knit socks. Socks like this are just too beautiful to be covered in shoes! Take a look at http://yestheyareallmine-mom.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-200th-post_12.html
and see those cute socks! Tell her KelliSue sent you. It will warm your feet this winter.

Speaking of winter, I'm planting spinach seeds today, maybe tomorrow. Then peas. They do well in the cooler weather we're having here in Upstate New York. It's no coincidence that yesterday's recipe is spinach and today's is peas.

I have a good six inches of mulch sitting on the garden just waiting for me to mess about with it. Thanks FarmBoy for removing the hay from the bottom of the goat's pen where it has made nice deep piles to keep them warm all winter. The goats are perking up just like the little tips of the daffodil bulbs I saw emerging yesterday. Spring can't be far away! And after spring, comes chocolate brownies from my favorite recipe. No really it does. See tomorrow's blog post. It's chocolate!

Mattar Paneer
serves 4 -6
2 cups paneer cheese, cubed

2 tablespoons vegetable oil or melted butter
**********
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced ginger or about 1/2 inch of ginger - no need to peel
1 tablespoon garlic, pureed or several cloves, depending on size
2 teaspoons whole coriander seed
1 teaspoon cumin seed
3 Tablespoons of oil or melted butter
**********
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne or other chile pepper *omit if you wish
1 cup diced raw or canned tomato, measure after you have pressed to remove juice
1/2 cup tomato juice you pressed, above
1 1/2 cups or 1 pound pkg. of frozen sweet peas, thawed
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaf, or cilantro

Heat 1-2 tbsp vegetable oil in a large skillet and saute' the paneer in batches (add more oil if necessary), until lightly browned, and drain on paper toweling. Alternately, you may broil it until speckled on a sprayed pan, turning once. This firms the paneer and adds carmelization, and depth of flavor.
In blender container, add onion, ginger, whole coriander seed, cumin seed, and oil. Pulse until smooth. Heat a large frying pan on medium high until a drop of water dances across. Add the fragrant onion, spice mixture from the blender. Cook for 5 minutes until it begins to take on a little color, stirring often. Add the rest of the spices, and the salt. You should begin to see the oil separate from the vegetable spice puree. Do not let the onions brown. Add the tomatoes and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring once or twice to allow some carmelization.
Add the tomato juice, and and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 8-10 minutes or until the sauce is thick and smooth. Add the thawed peas and paneer and gently warm them through.
Garnish with chopped cilantro before serving. This is a terrific side dish when served with dal (lentil stew), or chicken, and warmed naan (Indian bread) or tortillas or whole wheat flat bread. Of course a bottle of home canned peaches is lovely alongside. Some mattar paneer recipes have cream added, at the end, but we prefer the vegetable taste shining through.

Variations include adding cubes of boiled potatoes or cauliflower for a low carb version.

Homemade Saag Paneer or How to Enjoy Spinach

2009-03-19T07:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we made Paneer from goat milk graciously provided by the Alpine goats Katie and Ebony. Here's one of our favorite dinner recipes for using it. It's a mild recipe, but if you like your Indian food spicy, please feel free to add the optional cayenne pepper or use hot chiles instead of the mild ones. Saag Paneer is high in iron, an added benefit to it's deliciousity!

Indian Paneer with Spinach or Saag Paneer
This recipe serves 4-6:
1 lb. cooled paneer (about 2 cupes of cubed Paneer )
2 lbs. frozen spinach (thawed, then pressed dry)
2 Indian green finger chillies (or use 1/8 cup canned mild green chiles, 1/2 bell pepper, or 1/2 chopped pasilla chile or other mild green chiles)
2 tsp coriander , ground
2 tsp cumin ground
1 tsp mild chili powder
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3 Tablespoons of vegetable oil, divided use
2 Tablespoons of all purpose flour
1/2 cup evaporated milk, light cream, goat or soy milk, or suitable substitute
1/2 tsp garam masala
Juice of half a lemon

Into a blender, measure 1 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 medium onion, halved, 4 garlic cloves and 1 inch ginger piece. If you have ginger puree you may use 1.5 T instead. Blend until coarse.
Cut the paneer into even, 1" x 1/2 " cubes. Sprinkle the paneer cubes with a dry marinade of turmeric powder, half the chili powder and half a teaspoon of salt. Just toss lightly, and set aside.
Now heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a thick bottomed frying pan over a high flame. When it is hot, fry the paneer pieces until pale brown on two opposite sides. Remove from the oil, draining them carefully. Now add the onion, garlic and ginger puree into the same oil and fry until they are a pale toffee brown. Then add all the spice powders, except the garam masala which is added at the end. Stir vigorously for about 10 minutes on a medium heat until the pungent, individual smell of the spices change to a more melded aroma.
Now mix in the spinach evenly, alternating with 2 Tablespoons of flour, adding salt to taste. It takes quite a bit of salt, so start with 1 tsp. and continue tasting as you go. Lower the flame to a gentle simmer and let the spices work their magic through the spinach for five minutes. Blend with a stick mixer, to reduce the spinach into a puree, adding the 1/2 cup of milk of your choice or cream, a few tablespoons at a time. Simmer 2-3 more minutes. Finally stir in the garam masala, gently fold in the paneer cubes and the lemon juice. Let the ingredients simmer together for another five minutes and serve hot. It should be the consistency of a thick stew, so adjust your liquid as necessary depending on your simmering time, humidity of your flour, etc.
As a final tip, the flavors meld quite lovely if it’s left sitting in the fridge for a couple of hours before being reheated.
If served as a main dish, this is typically served with Indian bread - naan, but can be scooped up with a warm whole wheat tortilla, flat bread, or greek pita bread as an alternative. My children like it served over steamed rice too. As a side dish, it goes well with lots of little dishes, like dal, and tandoori chicken, or chicken makhani.

Go Speed Racer, Go!

2009-03-17T07:10:00.000-04:00

We fostered a pitbull named Juno, or Junie B. Jonesdog as she became quickly, for three weeks with a houseful of little children. She was quite a sweet natured puppy, and great fun to throw a kong to, but had very big always muddy paws. When Junie found her adoptive home, we spread the word that we wanted to adopt a dog of our own. A goat raising family heard of our dilemma and mentioned that she had a goat raising friend who had a stray wander up- a long haired dachshund. I was excited about the size of that dog! I grew up with a red shorthaired dachshund named Gretchen. She was hilarious and good with children. The possibilities were exciting. Stacy, one of the good folks at SM 3Pines Farm

Speed Racer standing guard

said she'd call the family who had the dog, and see if he was adopted yet. Speedy was soon ours. His foster family showed us his delightful trick. In addition to being an escape artist, he will stand up on his hind feet and wave at you for attention. We brought him home, put him with his favorite blanket into his crate, and let the children all get a good look at him, from behind bars. He's so fast, it might be their only chance.

What a character he is! Recently we repaired his underground fence which had stopped working with a foot of snow and ice on the ground. This returns him to the great out of doors for as he enjoys running paths around the house, keeping the chipmunks and squirrels in line. He's a great herd dog, pushing his cats around the yard, and playing crossing guard to the neighbors' cumulative 14 cats who deign to transverse our 1/2 acre.

You would never know from watching him boss them around outside, that the cats rule the house. I have followed the sounds of whimpering dog to find Speedy standing in the hallway, pinned between two cats who have each staked out a doorway, daring him to try and cross past them. But the yard is his domain. He is limited in range by the collar, which warns him with a tone, that he is near the end of his boundary. Kitty Boy senses this range, I'm unsure how, and sits just outside the perimeter and mocks him, taunting Speedy with his ample tail. He strolls back and forth like a sentry, tempting the dog to venture too far and receive a static shock.

Today, Speed Racer wore his electric receiver on his collar after a lengthy absence and roamed the yard at his leisure. Kitty Boy, the neighbor's neutered black and white tuxedo kitty must not have received the memorandum. He has grown accustomed to Speed Racer being confined to a 20 foot line since his electric fence went down in December. But not any more.

Kitty, blissfully unaware of Speed Racer's return to freedom, spied a couple of squirrels raiding our bird feeder, and trotted across to see if he could at least touch the tail of a fleeing tree rodent. Speedy seized the moment and gaining great momentum tackled Kitty Boy, rolling him, and then trotted off triumphantly with his tail flagged in victory. Just because he could.

Kitty Boy returned to his safe perch outside of the perimeter of the electric fence and climbed his favorite tree to survey the horrific scene of his attack, tongue-combing his coat in an effort to remove eau de dog from his ruffled black fur.

I immediately snatched up my camera to take photos of what I had witnessed through the window. I do think Speed Racer was grinning. That's why we love this dog. Notice to cats - he's back!

Speed Racer, gloating over rolling the neighbor's cat after a 4 month hiatus. You'll see Cricket, our Jack Russell fox terrier pup learning the ropes of cat herding in the upper corner.

Tie-Dye Eye?

2009-03-16T07:24:00.000-04:00

Emma, the 2 year old caboose in our train of children , has a penchant for following. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that when the longhaired dachshund Speed Racer went racing out of the family room door, chasing Socks the tuxedo cat that Emma jumped up in her footy pajamas, and ran after them.

Sadly, she did not clear the heavy, 1840s era oak door that they so lithely slid around. Her left cheek smacked right into the edge of the door and split right open. I will spare you the slasher film description of the after effects of this collision. It was heart-rending. Suffice it to say that your stereocilia have also been spared permanent auditory damage. Clearly her lungs operate well.

Emma cheerfully shows off her tie-dye eye and cheek, day 2.

Poor Emma. I grabbed her up, clutched her to my chest while applying direct pressure to stop the blood spray, and ran to the kitchen. That's where we keep the paper towels and ice packs, of course. I called a Kolz Kidz Round up, which brings all the children at once to locate their mama and ask how they can help. We've established this call for precisely this purpose.

It went kind of like this. Gerard, the second son, grabbed a soft gel cold pack to reduce the rapid swelling we were seeing. I heartily recommend the blue packs that Becton-Dickinson makes. Merina, my six year old, stopped when she saw the blood all over me and the baby, and immediately went to get some tissues to help. I had my attention focused on getting an ice pack on Emma's face, with some protest, so I didn't thank her for her tissue delivery. She continued, like the enchanted broom in the Sorcerer's Apprentice, bringing pile after pile after pile of crumpled tissues to my aid, while I was attending to the baby's needs. Finally I spied the foot high pile of facial tissues and urged her to stop. Poor Merina, she was rather frantic upon seeing the blood, and did what she thought would help. I thanked her and redirected her nervous energy toward a more useful path. She went to get the baby's winter coat and mittens, and her winter boots.

Sarah got a lime green otterpop out of the freezer for Emma to suck on, and to reduce the swelling on her split lip. Andy the elder called Grandma who lives up the street, and requested she come down to watch the children for the inevitable Emergency Department (ED) trip. I phoned my MD, who is 3 minutes from our home, but he referred us to the ED. Grandma saved the day! Even better, my brother, the Army soldier, Robert, was home on leave! We couldn't have timed our accident any better if we'd have planned it. I think our Cub Scout first aid training paid dividends.

Uncle Robert saved the day by coming over with Grandma and milking my two dairy goats so I could leave without delay for the Emergency. While hardly the same as life on a farm, having dairy goats in our barn does embue me with a grave sense of responsibility for their comfort and well-being, as well as a respect for their ability to provide my family with an ever growing amount of cheese and our daily milk.

"I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille" - Liesl the Alpine Goat.

Little did Robert know that the lengthy milking tutorial I had given him the day before was his one and only shot at learning to milk before being drafted under combat conditions. And he thought the Army was rugged. My camo clad hero.

I babysit for a nurse who works at the hospital that I was headed to. Throwing caution to the wind, I wrestled the screaming toddler into her car seat, buckled her in under protest, and gave her an icepop to suck on as I drove to the hospital. I phoned Ken, the nurse, who I knew was on shift that day, and advised him where I was headed. His son was due to be dropped off into my care in a few hours.

I arrived in the ED with a slumbering toddler, worn out from her screaming. We were seen within a few minutes, but not before every potential mother or grandmother in the waiting area had cringed upon seeing Emma's swelling face. She was doubled wrapped, papoose-like in blankets, held down by two nurses, and after having her face suitably numbed, was stitched up.

Her plaintive pleas for freedom from the wrap-up tugged at my heart and I had tears trickle down my cheek as she became increasingly resourceful. "Mama- I hold you. Mama - want OUT! Out NOW pwease. Pwease. Mama - all done! Mama - milkies pwease, pwease milkies? ."

A nurse offered to go get her a carton of milk after hearing her milk plea. I thanked her and explained Emma wanted to be free to breastfeed, being a nursing toddler and all. The nurse, bless her heart, didn't bat an eye. Emma's quite lactose intolerant, so a mini-carton of milk would result in the dear nurse cleaning up vomit off the floor in short order. Not pleasant. That's my motivation to keep goats. Toddler breastfeeding is just what we do in our family. It works well for us to allow them to wean themselves.

In due time, Emma was the proud owner of about 4 stitches to her cheek, and was snuggled up in my arms with a blanket thrown over us, quietly nursing while I filled out insurance paperwork to pay for this expedition to the hospital. Nurse Ken popped in and checked on us and walked us to the door. We chuckled over the comments of the MD who stitched Emma's face with a needle she could clearly see. "Emma you need to hold your head still". I wonder which two year old that has worked with? Ken was surprised that it was Emma who had the emergency hospital visit. It's quite predictably Merina who is our resident monkey hanging from all heights and climbing up higher than most would attempt. If insurance companies weighed risk accurately, Merina's health insurance would be ridiculously high. Emma's would be free. But not after today.

Ahh Emma, our little coppertopped caboose to the family train. Each day is an adventure, made more delightful for you having chosen to make it with us.

A kiss and a hug from each of her siblings when she returned home, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a warm chocolate chip cookie, and Emma was ready for her afternoon nap. Because even little cabooses need a little recuperation time. Soon she'll be up following after everybody and everything.

Now tell me, what sent your child to the Emergency Department most recently? Any one else have a tie-dye eye?

Daylight Saving Time

2009-03-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Daylight Saving Time (DST) isn't very popular on blogs. Facebook updates show whining about sleep deprivation and winter doldrums, as if that particular one hour update was the root cause of all wicked in the world. Perhaps it is, and therefore there is less wickedness in Arizona and parts of Indiana - or so I'm told.

Apparently DST is unpopular in my barn. That's right, the goats have registered an inaudible, but very loud complaint. No, I'm not suddenly translating the Maa-Maa's of the goat's into English.

The goats have learned to turn on the barn light. I kid you not.

I blamed my husband. I fingerpointed toward the sleeping children in the upstairs bedrooms. But no, clearly, the goats have learned to turn on the barn light.

That's certainly one way to register a complaint.

Pi Day

2009-03-13T08:02:00.005-04:00

Pi, as in the oft remembered 3.14. Tomorrow is Pi day 3.14.09. It is also Albert Einstein's birthday as I'm reminded by the due any day now, redheaded Amy Anne.

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. :::yawn::: There goes my readership of two. But it's pretty useful stuff if you're an engineer. Growing up in a 2nd generation Boeing family, with Dad and my brother, as well as my career being predominately at Boeing, I've never let the fact that I personally wasn't an engineer, ever rain on my parade. I adore engineers. Especially Boeing engineers. Hey Seattle!

So let's all celebrate Pi day. Why let the engineers have all the fun? ::Shout out to my aeronautical and electric engineering friends at Boeing!:::

You could do the homeschooling option of "Hey, let's measure the circumference of everything circular and discover it's radius." But my homeschooler nixed that one, thankyouverymuch.

How about bake a pie? It has a circumference, and kiddo#2 said he'd be glad to eat a piece of pie, which involved cutting a radius across it, of course.

It's also Albert Einstein's birthday tomorrow. I feel almost morally obligated to put a birthday candle in that pie and sing.. but I'll resist. In case you cannot, you may still have a slice of pie in his honor. Since I was raised mostly in Washington state and now reside in the other apple state, New York, only apple pie will do for Pi Day.

Use your favorite apple variety and add sugar according to its sweetness. If you're new to baking apple pies, then add 1/2 cup of sugar, taste the filling, and go up from there to 1 cup if your apples are granny smith apple tart.

It's Pi day Apple Pie
a variation by KelliSue Kolz

1½ hours 35 min prep
SERVES 6 -8
7 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/2 to 1 cup of sugar or Splenda Sweetener for diabetics -see directions below
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest, just the yellow, finely zested
2 tablespoons butter or vegan margarine

Pastry for double crust pie
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup lard or butter or vegan shortening - very very cold
1/2 teaspoon salt
Ice cold water (you'll not need more than 1/2 cup depending on the flour's humidity)

Pastry for double crust pie-------------.
Combine flour, lard and salt with a pastry blender or fork until balls are the size of a large pea.
Add cold water by the tablespoonful and blend until the bowl starts to clean itself as you work the dough. Pat into two nice round discs about as big as your hand, then wrap in plastic wrap or put in a zipper plastic bag, and put in the refrigerator while you mix the filling.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine sliced apples with 1/2 cup of sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon rind. Taste, and see if you desire more sugar, up to an additional 1/2 cup more. Less is better, really. When you're happy with the sweetening, remove the pastry discs from the refrigerator.

On a floured surface, roll out the pie crust about 1/2 larger than the circumference of the pie. It's pie day after all, so remember, that's 3.14 x the radius of the pie plate.

Line pie plate with unbaked pie crust, trim pastry, crimp (or press with a fork) to edge of pie plate. Trim excess. Repeat rolling directions for the top crust, cut out a cute little apple shape in the middle, saving the apple insert for a treat for the children or your room-mate and cover with a towel briefly while you fill the pie. The little apple bit can be baked on a little cake pan, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. This is what memories are made of, on Pi day.

Fill pie crust with apple mixture and dot with softened butter.

Brush crust edge with water and place pie crust top on top of pie, crimp to the bottom crust.

Make some slits in the top crust for steam to escape. Bake for 55 minutes. Cooking time may be vary somewhat according to how thick you sliced your apples, as well as what variety they are.

If you find your pie crust edges are turning shockingly brown at minute 30, please feel free to cover them with a piece of aluminum foil hastily fastened around the perimeter of the pie pan. There's no shame in that. Be careful, that's when you might accidentally knock of the edge of some crust, so proceed with caution.

When your pie is presumed to be finished baking, very carefully, with a sharp knife, pierce through that apple shaped cutout, and test an apple slice with the tip of the knife. You're looking for little to no resistance, you want tender apples, not crunchy ones.

Let cool a little bit, then serve warm with either a slice of sharp cheddar cheese, or a scoop of icecream. That will be soydelicious frozen dessert for my lactose intolerant Andy.

Yours, Mine, and Not Mine

2009-03-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

You thought I'd say ours, didn't you? There's a bit of stress in combining a family from two previously small families, and quite a bit of humor. We each had two children, a manageable lot for a divorced, custodial parent. Then overnight, we were a bonus family of six. Sometimes we really have to emphasize the humor, as we work the kinks out. Somedays, frankly, one of the children is 'not mine'. It's not birth-order or birth-family discrimination. Its what led my mother to say to me, her spitting image, "you I must have found under a cabbage patch". Frustration and humor, now that's my favorite combination.

For example, have you ever tried to make a dinner menu for two weeks for a family comprised of two boys, 6 & 7, two girls, 3 & 4, a Polish-American New Yorker (read Pizza & wings), and a first-trimester pregnant Navy Brat raised with Pacific Rim influenced tastes?

Yeah, whatever you thought should be on the menu, the answer was: Nope, not that.

Andy, the 7 year old, is primarily vegetarian. Oh, he eats meat, just not 'that' meat. Pick one, oops you're wrong. He cheerfully devours beans, tofu, nuts, soy in any form, and is sometimes horribly lactose intolerant. He'll eat hot dogs, hamburgers sometimes, sausage without any discernible chew to it, and meat without any texture variations. Boneless skinless chicken breast will do, as long as there is no accidental texture change, anywhere. Ever. He would prefer to eat take-out from a Washington State Teriyaki joint, found on every corner in the greater metropolitan Seattle area. A nice serving of grilled boneless teriyaki, topped with a sweet teriyaki sauce, served with stir fried vegetables and a large portion of rice. No need to vary the menu.

Gerard, age 6, had significant food rules. The food must not touch each other. Nor have been rumored to have touched. There will be no legumes in his meal, nor shall it be acquainted with beans in this life or any other. Pizza may not contain pepperoni, for a child once told him that pepperoni was terrible and he is not taking any chances with that rumor. Please, do not try and pass off anything green as food, because he has seen grass and knows that it is not edible, therefore anything of that color is not edible either. Forget the sauce too. No dressing please, oh wait, can I have ranch to dip that in? And can I have a bite of what you're having?

Sarah, age 4, would eat anything that she can outrun, as long as she's in the mood, hungry, and not overtired. She runs, a lot. Therefore she will always either be tired, or hungry. Or both. Oy.

Merina, age 3, would not sit still long enough to eat, and cannot understand why we adjourn to a dinner table at regularly scheduled intervals because she is not hungry. But now, 15 minutes later, she's starving, and must eat immediately. If not sooner. She does feel much better if she is sitting on someone's lap and eating off of their plate, because the food is significantly better there. It's a good thing she is as cute as a button, our monkey girl.

FarmBoy is a sweet, gentle-natured man accustomed to his own cooking, which often came in a flat box marked Pizza Hut. It fit well with his car racing hobby, and the schedule that went with that. He liked potatoes and roast beef and roast chicken, and he had eaten canned corn before too. He remembers that his first wife made hamburger helper, and his mom made shake-n-bake pork chops. He liked his good old American classics, such as those. Poor FarmBoy. Nevertheless I had retained hope for his culinary derring-do. On our honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas Farmboy went to the sushi bar several days, at 4 p.m., to get a sushi snack to tide him over to our 8:30 dinner seating. I avoided the raw fish, but FarmBoy tried all kinds of sushi rolls. My hero!

I grew up overseas, spending some time in Europe, the Guam in the South Pacific, then Washington state, Southern California, back to Washington with its Pacific Rim influences. That's a lot of pasta or rice influences, where FarmBoy had a potato influenced childhood.

I tried asian influenced noodle and vegetable combinations for that family. Those tactics showed roadblocks from the "it has green vegetables" and the "can't eat that it feels like meat" contingent. FarmBoy looked a little uncomfortable but ate cheerfully. It was carefully whispered one day that with four little children watching his every move that this was his responsibility - I might add. Otherwise it was going to suddenly be his job to make meals for our crowd. Because I was pregnant and hormonal, of course. He was smart, and politely ate every meal I made.

I found success one day, and we developed a recipe that all the family could eat and enjoy. We've made many variations on this theme, and we hope that your family enjoys this and alters it to fit your family tastes too.

Farmboy reports that he still doesn't really like goat cheese, does like sushi, and won't eat clams unless they're frittered. He occasionally enjoys rice with eggs for breakfast, and Lo Mein, and butternut squash casserole and other things he had never heard of previously. I have cheerfully overheard him telling friends what a great cook I am. I like his enthusiasm, even if his accuracy is a little off.

While pregnant, I craved sushi. I was overjoyed when I found that my favorite cucumber or avocado rolls were being made fresh daily at Wegman's market, just a 13 minute jaunt from our former home on the family farm. Domestic bliss was restored once again.

I might add, that now, 4 years later, Andy eats lots of beans and still has his meat texture issue, Gerard eats lots of beans and forgot that his food couldn't touch, and pepperoni pizza became his occasional favorite. Sarah and Merina can often be found poking each other at dinner time, but Merina is not sitting on anyone's lap, and with patient redirection, she can eat a complete meal. Sarah eats quickly to get back to the book she is reading.

Here's the salad that unified our family at dinner time. I was overjoyed when I found one thing that everyone would eat quietly, and joyfully, at the same time. Yes, that's right, it was a miracle.

Cowboy Chopped Salad - influenced by Cheesecake Factory

12 cups packed moderately finely chopped romaine lettuce (use two 9-ounce bags cut-up romaine lettuce, chopped finer than in bag) or the equivalent approx. 3 heads of romaine lettuce
2 cups diced grilled chicken breast or grilled beef, or substitute diced ham,
or seasoned pressed tofu
4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced fine - or garden tomatoes, seeded, chopped
8 baby carrots or 2 grown up ones, cut into small rounds
1 cup fresh raw from the garden OR frozen, thawed corn kernels
1/2 cup chopped crisp-cooked bacon or soy baco-bits or substitute smokehouse almonds
3/4 cup shredded or diced cheese of your choice - I prefer cheddar or colby
2 cups of black, kidney, pinto, black eyed peas or other cooked beans of your choice

Crunchy topping of your choice: BBQ corn nuts, corn chips, or tortilla strips
2 medium avocados, pitted and chopped - when in season

BBQ Ranch Dressing (recipe below)

Feel free to add cucumbers, boiled eggs, diced vegetables from your garden, or whatever you would like to add to this recipe.

Dressing:
Combine in a small bowl, 1 cup Ranch Salad Dressing or homemade buttermilk dressing.
1/4 cup BBQ sauce (or to taste) We like Sweet Baby Ray's or KC Masterpiece. Stir.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except avocado, and crunchy topper. Toss until mixed. Drizzle with salad dressing, mix again. Taste, and add more dressing if needed. Add avocado and crunchy topper of your choice to each portion and serve immediately.

Serves 2 adults and 4 children

This recipe made for quiet, cheerfully chomping children, whom I was eager to claim as all mine! It took a while to find 13 other dinner meals that everyone would eat, but now, 4 years later, we're successfully navigating dinner with fewer ripples. Who knows what effect Cowboy Salad will have on your family. Do try it and let me know.

The Sap is Running

2009-03-11T10:10:00.001-04:00

It's not an old fashioned jab at my husband - the beloved FarmBoy Kolz.

In Upstate New York it's maple sugaring season. Cold nights and warmer days make the sap rise in the sugar maple trees. My industrious husband drills the tree, places a spile,

and gathers sap into large barrels which he then boils down to maple syrup. It sounds easy, doesn't it?

When you figure that 40 gallons of maple sap yields 1 gallon of maple syrup, the illusion of easy, tasty syrup evaporates like so much H2O boiling off the sap. Don't be discouraged, if you're a Noreasterner yourself, and have access to sugar maples, this might be a really fun winter project for you. You can find more information here: http://www.theheartofnewengland.com/LifeInNewEngland-BackyardSugaring.html

We found that with the trees we have on our property, along with the ones the neighbors donated to the cause, we produce enough maple syrup for a family of 7 for most of the year, along with the half pints we give to the neighbor-tree owners, and our close family. There never could be a surplus.. could there?

Why tap a maple tree? There are several historic reasons according to a state of Vermont historical site. Maple sugar became the colonists own sweetener ending their dependence on foreign sugar. They boiled the sap from their own trees into syrup, then further reduced it to sugar crystals, often stored in a lump. It kept all year without spoiling. Also, it was never tinctured with the sweat of the southern slave as was cane sugar before the civil war. And if that's not enough motivation - how about pure maple syrup was seen on sale at Wegman's market for $22.69 a quart last week?

There is a lesson there of self-sufficiency from our colonial ancestors. How could we extrapolate this to reducing our independence on foreign oil of a petroleum variety? Polly put the kettle on - we'll all have tea, and ponder this one.

I digress. Besides, I feel a kindred spirit with colonial and pioneering American women as I tie on my bright yellow print apron with ample pockets. I come from solid, plump, British stock, and I imagine my ancestors each had the same sweet tooth I enjoy. Just a little tangible touchstone with my ancestors, boiling down the maple sap from trees planted in front of my 1840s Greek Revival home. They would have stored lumps of maple sugar, carefully meted out for special occasions or to sweeten their winter food. I'm putting up pints of maple syrup, hygienically canned in mason jars for us to miserly drizzle over pancakes, waffles, and french toast. And every so often I make a special treat where maple syrup is a guest star.

What blogpost about maple syrup would be complete without a little recipe?

An ordinary baked good takes on new levels of deliciousness with Maple Icing made from *our very own trees*. If you purchase maple syrup, my recommendation is buying the Grade B darker maple syrup for baking and such, because the flavor has more depth. You won't fail if your store sells only the Grade A, you'll just not have quite the richer slightly smokey maple flavor of a darker syrup.

This frosting has a pure and simple flavor blend of real butter and subtle maple syrup. The nuts are optional - and I usually skip them unless our English walnut trees had a bumper crop.

Maple Butter Frosting

1/2 cup butter
3 cups confectioners sugar
4-6 T. pure maple syrup
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Thoroughly cream butter and sugar, adding maple syrup until light and spreadable, a smidgen more if you're pouring as a glaze. Add nuts if you like and frost. This frosting tastes so good you'll start dreaming up places to use it. May I recommend glazing an English scone?

Proper English Scones - yields about 18

2 cups sifted all purpose flour (256gm)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup margarine or butter (I use 4 tbsp on an American butter stick)
1 cup milk (If you don't have your own goat herd, cow or soy milk will do)

Optional: 3/4 cup raisins or sultanas (miniature raisins)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425°F or 220°C. Grease a cookie sheet or baking pan.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.

3. Cut in the margarine or butter till mixture resembles cornmeal, then stir in the raisins.

4. Add the milk and mix to make a smooth dough. (Add a little more milk if necessary. The dough should not be too dry - very much like an American biscuit dough).

5. Knead very lightly for ten seconds on a lightly floured surface. Roll or pat to about 3/4" thick (2 cm) and cut into individual scones. I prefer triangles. My mother insists they're to be in circles, cut with a biscuit cutter. May be that's why triangles feel so right.

6. Bake for approximately 12 minutes, at which point they will be lightly golden brown.

They can be served with clotted cream and loads of strawberry jam, for a proper English tea snack, but in our American household, it's usually sliced, given a schmear of butter (we are New Yorkers now, after all), and a big dollop of whatever jam jar we've retrieved from our summer berry picking stash. For your purposes today, let the scone cool, and then frost the top with maple frosting. It's deliciousness will amaze you. Brilliant served with Red Zinger herbal tea, I might add.

Nibble on one whilst you ponder how to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, will you?