An Obsession

Do you ever have a food that you want to eat to the exclusion of almost anything else? For me, it is watermelon. The watermelons have been wonderful this year. Is there anything better than something icy cold, full of sweet water, dribbling down your hands on a hot day?

My favorite is seedless. I am so happy when I find a good one, and so disappointed when I crack one open and it's not juicy or it has bad texture - over ripe or under ripe. Eating watermelon in the summer reminds me of my father. He used to buy one for 10 cents and we would feast - eating only the middle. I'm not sure how much my last watermelon cost, but I'm sure it wasn't 10 cents.

I'm not sure how I feel about these:

But I'm very willing to try one of these:

Or one of these:

THRIVE

Over the last couple of years this site has discussed many issues. We've looked at how our police are becoming very militaristic, how evil corporations are using our food to genetically engineer seed that cannot reproduce, how a very small percentage of the population owns more than the vast majority, how the pharmaceutical companies are drugging our babies. But it hasn't been until now that I've watched something that put it all together and into perspective.

Most of us do not want to believe in conspiracy theories. We've been taught to laugh at them, to be very suspect of anything that requires secrecy as we've come to believe that it is impossible to keep everyone quiet. But when a few hold all of the cards that the rest of us use to get our information - it can be done.

While we were in Hawaii we visited an art gallery and proceeded to get into a deep discussion with its owner. He asked us if we had seen the movie Thrive, which we had not. He proceeded to tell us that we must watch it - that it was a movement and that most of his friends had not only watched the movie, but were actively using the website.

Well, I finally watched it today and I can honestly say it is very well done. I can see why most of the reviewers on Amazon gave it 5 stars. Not only does it link all the dots about how we've come to find our world in the place it is in, but gives solutions about how to get out of the seemingly impossible quicksand that we've found ourselves.

Our future depends on us waking up and seeing the world for what it is, but more importantly for what it could be. As Einstein reminds us - "we can't solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

This movie at least starts the conversation. You can rent it for $5 for 48 hours directly to your computer, or order the DVD from the Thrive site or Amazon.com. It comes in many languages - this is a world-wide phenomenon.

The New Dry Rose'

Rose' wine has a big stigma to overcome - the infamous White Zinfandel. The new dry rose' wines do just that, however. It was the one thing I brought back from our trip to the Wine Country, rose' will be my new summer wine.

I was very pleasantly surprised with the complexity of some of these wines - yet without the oak flavor that I seem to prefer less and less. Don't get me wrong - a buttery Chardonnay is still appreciated - but I'm leaning towards lighter, steel-barrel wines. For one thing, the heavy reds tend to make me feel hot - and not in a good way. I don't know if it is the tannins, or being in oak barrels longer, but it appears I'm not the only one that feels that way. There has been an explosion of new dry rose' wines - in fact it is easier to find the dry rose' wines than my other favorite - pinot grigio - at the wineries we visited. The best ones are from France and Spain, countries that have been drinking them for years.

It is a red wine for white wine drinkers. It pairs well with picnic foods and anything one would serve with red wine. For me it will be summer BBQs and nights when we have main-dish salads for dinner.

The prices are not bad. The ones we bought in the Wine Country were more on the expensive side - but that was because they were only pouring their more expensive wines. First they charge for the sampling, then they only pour their premium wines. But maybe with people cutting back on extravagances it is the only way to have captive audiences to try their best wines. It takes some of the fun out of visiting wineries, however.

I am currently drinking a Mill Creek rose', which they do not have on their website, but I intend to look for a few more to stock up for the summer season. Here is a site that gives some information on what to look for, and what to expect to pay - it also takes you to the winery or distributor if you would like to order it online.

So what is your favorite summer wine? Or do you prefer a summer cocktail?

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Evil Empire

It is time for America to wake up to what this corporation is doing in the world. They manufacture genetically-engineered food, plus they strip the seed's ability to reproduce in order to require farmers to buy only seed from Monsanto, raise the price of seed so that developing countries cannot eat the food they raise, because they must sell their crops to buy more seed. It is also the frog in the pot that is slowly being boiled. By the time we realize what the ramifications are for what they are doing, it may already be too late.

If you care about what you and your family are eating, you'll watch the videos produced by a leading physicist.  Found on the blog IET, I felt it important to pass along. (Go here to watch.) These genetically-engineerd products are now being linked to animal miscarriages.  Can you imagine what it must be doing to us - to our DNA, to our children?

All of life may very well be in the balance. The Middle East is fighting for freedom from corrupt governments, but America is under the thumb of corrupt corporations, determined to have everything in the end. Including our ability to save seeds and grow our own food.

Next time you are buying something for your yard, think about all of the other life forms being affected  - including the disappearing honeybee that is detrimental to our food supply. It is time for all of us to shop responsibly - before it's too late.

Avoiding their products is a start, such as the dangerous Roundup, aspartame (Nutri Sweet, Equal), and Ambien, the sleep aid. Unfortunately, the last one will be missed by this writer...

Meatless During the Week

My husband and I are cutting down on eating meat. Don't get me wrong, we still like steak once in a while, same goes for chicken and fish. However, we find we feel better when we concentrate on beans, corn, veggies and fruits during the week. We also feel like we are doing something good for the planet, despite only buying free-range chicken, grass-fed beef, and sustainable fish.

My husband does his own refried beans recipe and freezes it in small containers to be used a little at a time. We usually go through one of these containers a week. We make bean tacos, bean taco salads, breakfast burritos and sometimes use them as a side with scrambled eggs.


Another favorite of mine is Sushi Rice Salad, recipe posted here.

My daughter passed along a new recipe for a Sushi Bowl that we will try tonight. I like that it uses tofu and brown rice. She says she could eat it every night. She also highly recommends 101 Cookbooks for wonderful recipes that are very healthy. I think I will pre-order the new cookbook, it looks fabulous.

How about you? Any veggie recipes I should absolutely know about?

Emergency Preparation

I just received my new toy: a dehydrator! So for the next few months I will be dehydrating meals and storing them in #2 (food safe) five gallon buckets. I guess I'm finally taking the emergency preparedness seriously. I posted on this subject quite a while ago, but very little progress was made. I was distracted with moving, traveling, etc. But for some reason I feel it is time to put some things together - just in case. We live right on top of a fault line, so all this activity may be moot, but you never know when you might need to be able to care for yourself and your family during an emergency. My goal is several buckets worth of dehydrated organic veggies, beans, rice, canned tuna, a water purifier, some medical supplies and medicines, maybe a tootsie roll or two - then I will feel I've done all I can. I can forget about it, and go on with my life.

Here is a great video, that is part of a series of videos found here, that shows how dehydrated foods can be used. I like them better than freeze dried because if the emergency never arises, I think we will actually eat this food. Plus there is no need to throw out veggies you won't be able to consume before they go bad  - just dehydrate them! Most of the packets will be meals, for instance - a soup with all of the ingredients in one vacuum-sealed package.

You can also find my other post on this subject here. The comment section had tons of great ideas from all of you. Is anyone else feeling the urge to prepare?



Addendum: This video appears when viewing this post through Safari but is absent with Firefox! ??

The Quiet Returns

The house is already too quiet. Order has been restored.

The refrigerator is too full of all the things I wanted to cook in the short amount of time that they were here. The kleenex and television remote fished from under the couch. The frosting wiped from the back of the chair.

My grandson is gone.

 :-(

His mother took full advantage of having grandparents to babysit, however. Several play dates with old high school friends gave her the respite from motherhood so desired in this life stage. She mentioned that the friends she grew up with also have the ability to keep her laughing. They've had years of helping her create a shared sense of humor, after all. She started kindergarten with most of them.

So quiet it will be for another few days.

Then the vegetarian cookbooks come out for my youngest daughter, who is currently obsessed with finding a puppy. At twenty-three she doesn't believe me when I tell her the desire to nurture a puppy is often a precursor for wanting a baby. She doesn't draw the correlation. But that doesn't stop her from wishing she could have a "puppy shower" for needed puppy accouterments such as a puppy stroller - so needed when puppy needs a nap, or "has had too much sand," she says.

And can also be used for transporting stuff at music festivals, of course.

Wowing My Guests

I've been busy with company, one right after the other, and this has been a big hit for summer dinner parties. I found a beautiful salmon, sustainably grown in Norway, at Whole Foods. It has a bit more fat, which works well when cooking on a plank.

The plank makes all the difference, and you can choose from applewood, alder, or cedar.  You can find them at Whole Foods, or even Costco. If you haven't tried salmon cooked on a plank - then you're missing out.

I used a cedar plank and soaked it for about 20 minutes. You can use whatever seasoning you prefer,  but I found a seasoning in Hawaii that is wonderful with fish. Grandfather's Royal Hawaiian Seasoning has a mixture of sea salt, raw pure can sugar, and other seasonings. The sugar adds to the flavor of the salmon cooked this way, for some reason. I've also been known to use a light coating of brown sugar, garlic salt and fresh ground pepper.


Throw some corn on the grill still in it's husk, toss a salad, add some home-made ice cream for dessert, and you have an easy summer party!

Entertaining

We are finally settled enough in our new home to entertain. One of my very favorite things to do. Today a dear friend will arrive for about a week, followed by our daughter and grandson, followed by our youngest daughter. For all of you parents out there that live far from your children - I know you understand my excitement!

I found this very "cool" popsicle maker. My husband and I have tried freezing orange juice and they were wonderful. I'm hoping to make some really fun ones with my grandson. I splurged on the fast freeze maker because it will make the popsicle in 7-9 minutes - which is about the attention span of a toddler. (It will make up to 9 popsicles from a single freezing of the maker.) My thoughts are that he can help me make them, and then eat his hard work while he is still thinking about it. :-)

In the meantime my husband is enjoying my healthy experiments. I'm going to try grape juice tonight. Or how about blueberry lemon-verbena?

Were you alive in the 60's?

I am always amazed how time just creeps along and before you know it you are several decades older. For the last few days I've lain awake trying to remember who I was during the 1960's. I was in high school, graduating in 1971, and for the most part lonely. My mother died in 1960, setting off a decade of feeling awkward. Actually more than a decade, but that's another story. I had plenty of friends, but you can still feel lonely surrounded by people. That feeling comes from within.

Growing through your teens without a mother to fight with is not easy. Dads just don't hold the same place in a young women's heart when it comes to differentiation. High school was hard for me - many of my friends had dropped out and I was the only one on the bus in the morning heading to classes I knew in my heart I needed to attend. I've always been that way. A knowing of the right thing to do, even when my brain says to cut and run, who needs school? Or why not just continue drinking and partying, when I knew it was destructive in so many ways? I guess we all know the right things to do way ahead of actually paying the consequences - we just ignore them. Or not, if we're smart, and actually pay attention to our little voice. Mine was sometimes very authoritative - maybe my mother adding vehemence when it was needed?

It was a wild decade. Many of the same issues as this one - war, recession, a society polarized. Peace, love, dope was the rallying cry. The dope was pot, not the harder drugs that materialized in the next decade. I'll talk about that later. No, the sixties for me was about being young, very young, and not being allowed to participate in the really cool iconic happenings such as Woodstock, or Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. My father would have killed me, even if I could have found a way to get there. Another issue about the 60's for me - I didn't have a car. I did not get a car when I turned sixteen. (The horror!) I took public transportation, or bummed a ride from those friends lucky enough to have one.

I did manage to see BB King in San Francisco at the Filmore. Of course I lied. Do you think my father would have let me crawl into some car driven by "hippies" to go all the way to San Francisco? (Maybe 200 miles?) Naw.

So the 1960's for me was a decade of mostly being too young to be a part of the action. I did however lose two friends to a car accident while they were drinking, which ruined my graduation party because my dad took the distributor cap out of the ($150) car he had bought me for graduation. It was being held out at Pyramid Lake, the same place my friends died, and he wasn't about to let me go. It was so traumatizing then and now it just sounds responsible. Would I have let my girls go to the same party in the same place a decade later? Of course not. Did they do something as equally dumb? Probably. But I did sign them up for the "booze-free" party with their class. Which turned out to not be as booze-free as all the parents had hoped. Kids are incredibly crafty when it comes to circumventing the rules.

So where were you in the 60's? Were you a "hippie" or a "straight"? Or were you somewhere in the middle like me? Were you for, or against, the "establishment"? My husband, the only guy in the universe who went to the University of Oregon in 1969, and was a total "straight." One of those guys who was in ROTC because he knew as soon as he graduated he was off to Vietnam, and thought he might as well go as an officer. How he ever ended up with me is a wonder. But I've always been grateful he paid attention in school. It worked out well for both of us.

So who were you in the 1960's?

Were you even born?

An Addendum: Read: latkas and New Year's Rant to get a great recipe and read a well-written post on the 1960's and our lack of follow-up, plus a call to this generation by My Year On The Grill.  BTW - if you want to link to any of my posts by joining in the conversation on your blog, you can link at the bottom of my post where it says Links to this post.

All Time Favorite Holiday Recipes

CREAM PUFFS!

I have made these cream puffs for years at Christmas and for parties. People love them! I remember making a platter of them for a New Year's party one year and we forgot to have dessert (the champagne was flowing...) A few days later my friend called and said she had eaten all but one! Not only that, but had given her husband the "eye" when he wanted the last one. She was thinking she wouldn't be needing any calories for a while.

It's a Betty Crocker recipe, and came from my very first cookbook back in 1971. It has been a family tradition to make these and deliver them to neighbors and friends on festive holiday plates. I usually make enough for each family member to have two, because one is just not enough! They are small, perfect for about two or three bites. My old cookbook is in storage so I went online to find the original recipe. The batter for the puffs was the same, but it included different fillings - so I started with the one I usually use, and added the other two as well.

Puffs
1 Cup Water
1 Cube Butter (4 oz) (or margarine - I guess...) 
1 Cup White Flour
4 Eggs


1. Heat oven to 400ºF. In 2 1/2-quart saucepan, heat water and butter to rolling boil. Stir in flour; reduce heat to low. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat. Beat in eggs, all at once; continue beating until smooth.


2. On ungreased cookie sheet, drop dough by slightly less than 1/4 cupfuls about 3 inches apart.  Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until puffed and golden. Cool away from draft, about 30 minutes.


3. Make one of the fillings (directions below). Cut off top third of each puff and pull out any strands of soft dough. Fill puffs with filling; replace tops. Cover; refrigerate until serving. Store covered in refrigerator.


Vanilla Whipped Cream Filling: 
16 oz Heavy Whipping Cream
1 - 4 oz Pkg Vanilla Instant Pudding
1 Cup Milk
In large bowl beat beat all three incredients until soft peaks form. Fill puffs as directed and drizzle with chocolate frosting.

Eggnog Fluff Filling: 
16 oz Heavy Whipping Cream
1 - 4 oz Pkg Vanilla Instant Pudding 
1 Cup Milk
1 tsp Rum Extract
1 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Ground Ginger 
In large bowl, beat pudding mix, milk, rum extract, nutmeg and ginger with electric mixer on low speed until well blended. Add whipping cream; beat on high speed 1 to 2 minutes or until soft peaks form. Fill puffs. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to 3 hours. Just before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar or brush tops with light corn syrup and sprinkle with colored sugar or nonpareils.

Peppermint Whipped Cream Filling: 
16 oz Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar or Powdered Sugan
1 tsp Peppermint Extract
5 or 6 Drops Red or Green Food Coloring
In large bowl, beat ingredients with electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. Fill puffs. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to 4 hours.


Chocolate Frosting: 
2 oz Unsweetened Chocolate
2 TBL Butter
1-2 Tablespoons hot water (or as needed)
1 Box Powdered Sugar. 
Melt the chocolate and butter, add the powdered sugar and add hot water, a little bit at a time (just so it is slightly runny), mix well. Drizzle cream puffs and voila!


Now for your recipes!

ESSAYS AND UTTER NONSENSE

PISTACHIO COCONUT COOKIES


 THE RAMBLINGS OF A DISGRUNTLED SECRETARY
FRENCH BREAKFAST MUFFINS

ARMY MOM'S PLACE
SWEET POTATO SOUFFLE



SIXTYFIVEWHATNOW
PANETTONE


CAJUN DELIGHTS
PECAN PRALINES


MY YEAR ON THE GRILL
CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER NUTELLA CRESCENT ROLLS


WRITE PLACE! WRITE CHICK!
CHERRY 'O CREAM PIE & CHOCOLATE FROSTED PISTACHIO ECLAIRS

If you think of something you would like to share, drop me a comment today and I will add it to the above list. Also in my comments from the last post I had a couple of wonderful ideas for hot chocolate and a cream cheese appetizer - so check those out. Thank you for participating and I can't wait to try these recipes!

No More Bah Humbug!

Okay, so I admit I've been a bit of a downer here the last few posts. So now it's time to think some positive festive thoughts. How about sharing your all-time favorite holiday cookie/dessert/hor'doeuvres recipe? Drop me a comment by Sunday if you would like to participate, and I will post it on my blog on Monday. Please include the name of the item so I can link your blog and your recipe title. That's Monday, December 7th!

I know just the recipe I want to share...

Feeling Grateful

This has been a tough year. For so many. And while I was lying in bed this morning, thinking of all the things I had to do today, I took some time to feel grateful for having these things to do. I had to wonder how many people in our country would not have a Thanksgiving dinner, let alone worry about every detail being perfect. And what about the world -

So I decided to be grateful, truly grateful that I have a family. I may not always get along with my sibs, but I love each and every one. Even if one of them is the polar opposite of me, politically. He is my little brother (age 50), and is genetically my "full" brother. We lost our mother to breast cancer when I was six and he was six months old. We have always been close - until W and The Rogue. My other sister and brother are "half" siblings, but we have never thought of ourselves as "half." We are whole in so many ways.

Thanksgiving is the time that is reserved mostly for the four of us and our families. All other get-togethers usually include friends and extended family. I find it is a good time for us. We talk with each other, revel in our children, laugh, heal our wounds. We have one rule in our family and that is that everyone is invited to Thanksgiving. Our family doesn't leave anyone out, no matter how obnoxious they have been during the year. Hurts and misunderstandings heal over turkey and stuffing, we have found.

So I will cook all day, make sure the house is beautiful for my little girl, who arrives tomorrow. Fresh flowers in her bathroom and bedroom. I will hug and kiss my nieces and nephews and play with their children. I will cook like crazy, loving every minute of it, then try to finagle some time with my daughter when her friends start to call. I will be grateful for this moment in time. No one is sick, we have enough food, shelter, and plenty of love. Life is good.

What are your plans? I hope you have a wonderful day, and for my international friends - hope you have a great day, too, even if you aren't stuffing yourself!

Going Veggie, well mostly...

(Veggie "chicken")

Considering the latest information on meat and health, we have been cutting down on our consumption of meat. Trying to eat a mostly plant-based diet hasn't been an easy transition. Since there now is a correlation between cancer and eating meat, and not just red meat, I am making a decent attempt, however. I am quickly entering the second half of my 50's, and with a family that seems to have cancer as a nasty companion, I'm looking for some alternatives to our beloved recipes.

My husband is a reluctant traveler along this road. He loves meat! All kinds - usually half raw. So this has been a bigger transition for him. We are not complete vegetarians. But we are working on eating less of it. Factory farming is the main reason, but also environmental factors that can no longer be ignored. We need to find alternatives.

Enter Quron. It is a company that makes very good vegetable-protein products - not soy products. It's main ingredient is "mycoprotein (“myco” is Greek for “fungi”). The mycoprotein comes from Fusarium venenatum, which was originally discovered growing in a field in Buckinghamshire, England. In the late 1960s, initial product development began, soon recognizing mycoprotein’s potential as an efficient and nutritious protein source." In other words, mushrooms.

The end result is some tasty products. I really don't care for the soy-based meatless products. We have tried several. (Sorry, but Tofurkey doesn't taste much like the real thing.)

My vegetarian daughter is visiting for Thanksgiving and I really want her to enjoy the meal. It will probably include turkey because other family members would feel cheated without it. (Although the vision of Sarah Paylin blithely yammering away while all those turkeys lost their heads behind her has ruined my taste for turkey. Permanently.)

I made tacos the other night with their "hamburger" crumbles, and after adding the taco seasoning you could not tell the difference between what was in the pan, and ground beef. My husband helped himself to only a tiny little spoonful for his first taco, but came back three times and filled the shell with the "meat" after that. If he likes it - believe me, it must taste very close to the real thing. I think the key is to add it to the end of a recipe, not at the beginning. It does better with less cooking.

If anyone has any tips or products that we should know about, please leave a comment. Good Cook did a great post on E-Coli and alternatives to factory-farmed animals. There are farmers out there that believe in raising animals in a humane way for consumption. Although when visiting the website for Heritage Foods I found choosing a chicken that still had it's feathers made it a little more difficult for someone used to seeing her chicken nicely packaged in the grocery store. Which makes a strong statement in itself. BTW - has anyone else been creeped out by that commercial that has the turkey carcase being chased through the grocery store?

We are doing our best to stay healthy, eat more plant-based foods, exercise, etc. But the bottom line - food has to taste good. Food preparation is very important to me, and I am not going to stop cooking great food now. Fortunately, some wonderful chefs are jumping on the veggie bandwagon and some really incredible food is the end result. It think it's finally catching on. We had a Reuben sandwich at Vita Cafe on Alberta while in Portland this week that rivaled any that I've had. You had your choice between "turkey" that they made in their restaurant, or tempeh. I chose their "turkey" and it was delicious.

What about you? Any dietary changes?

Fondue

We went out to dinner with friends last night to a local restaurant that serves fondue. If you have never had this fun meal, trust me - it's ideal for a cold winter night when you want to extend the meal to include plenty of wine and conversation. This particular dinner included both the cheese and the hot oil pot. It had a very cool butane burner that I finally found through Amazon.com which keeps the oil nice and hot. Much better than sterno. I've added it to my "wish list":

We have always had fondue for New Year's Eve. We never enjoyed the forced feeling of frivolity, preferring to stay home and have a nice fondue dinner in front of the fire. We start with a toast of champagne, and open a really good bottle of red to follow.

This year we have offered to babysit our grandson so our daughter and son-in-law can go out. I wonder if they will eventually decide to stay home as well. It is a great time to look over the past year and decide what worked, what didn't, and where you would like to go in the new year. At any rate, fondue is a fun way to spend an evening.

When in doubt - cook!

I've been thinking back lately to my early twenties. Most of my friends were just making do in those days. Money was tight, and since it was yet another recession, most of us were satisfied if we had a job, even if it didn't pay much.

And yet, we were happy.

I have always had the kind of home with plenty of cooking. It really doesn't take much to make a house a home - just the smell of good cooking. It wafts out the doors and makes people want to come inside. I remember one year I was cooking a meatloaf on Halloween, and people kept asking me what smelled so good, peering around me, when I opened the door to hand out candy. It was the smell of home cooking.

I think that no matter where you live, or how little time you have, you should know how to cook. Today was rainy and a bit snowy, and we were feeling a little down. That tends to happen when you read the news. So I decided to cook my grandmother's 'kniphla and saurkraut' dinner. It didn't take long, and the house was full of yummy smells. Browning onions have a way of upping the good smell quotient.

It wasn't long before I was thinking about a holiday brunch that I want to have sometime in early December. I was starting to feel better. Looking forward to things, people, the holidays.

Cooking is deeply ingrained in our psyche. It is how our forefathers and ancestors nurtured their families and friends. It brings people together in a very basic way. It's important.

So instead of going out next week when we drive, yet again, to Sacramento, to go to a Comedy Club for my brother's never ending birthday celebration, I'm going to cook. I'll take all the ingredients, my pans, my knives, and I will cook him a good German dinner before we go out. I know he will love it, and I know the neighbors will stop by if they smell it. Plus he will have leftovers the next day, and all for around $10 in ingredients. One thing my grandmother's family knew how to do was stretch food dollars. Big families ate little meat, but the cooking was usually outstanding.

In these recessionary times, if you haven't already, think about cooking. If you don't know how, then watch the Food Network, or get a cookbook from the library, one of many outstanding food blogs, or online. It doesn't have to be fancy. Some of the best food is easy and inexpensive. It makes us feel good, and our friends and family appreciate being nurtured these days.

Do you have a family recipe that is comforting?

New Hobby

My husband has revisited his hobby of bread baking. The problem? A house smelling of fresh baking bread, and a crock of butter softening on the counter. It's going to be a long winter.

Fingerling Potatoes

I thought these potatoes turned out well. I used fingerling potatoes from the farmers market, green pepper, fresh garlic, and leeks. I cut everything lengthwise and sauteed in olive oil. Kosher salt to taste and fresh ground pepper. Just before serving I added about 2tsp of butter for a richer flavor. Easy, and goes well with just about anything.

Perfect Market

I am preparing for my daughter and grandson, who will be on their way here this afternoon. So off I went to the local Farmer's Market in Kings Beach. The market is small, with less than ten vendors, but they have everything I want. I used to enjoy the one in Lake Oswego, when we lived in Portland, but it was big and took a couple of hours to scan and then shop. This one takes about two minutes to see what everyone has to offer. Then the shopping is over in less than half an hour. Perfect. More time to spend cooking and planning for my very special guests.

Look at these strawberries! It is so nice to be near California and all it has to offer in fruits and vegetables.

This is the view the vendors have while they are open:

Hope you are having a lovely day!

Stew Update #2

So last night I cooked what I thought was the final stew. I included almost all, yes all, of your suggestions. And I think it was "the stew". But it seems my husband is saying it is not the final stew due to the dumplings (new addition, and he hates all new additions of most things), soaking up too much of the liquid. Therefore he is insisting I go back, and do the same stew without the dumplings, before he gives the final thumbs up.

I'm a little worried because it is starting to warm up. I mean how long into the spring do you really want to eat stew? ?

More to follow...