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Happy Place … the Baking Place

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

I recently asked blog visitors to let me know what they are looking for when they use the search term “sad place” and come to my site, but I got not one reply. So I’ve decided to do a short post on the opposite end of the spectrum, “happy place.”

Here’s a happy place for me … all the ingredients lined up and ready to bake. This was in preparation for baking a chocolate layer cake for Christmas dinner. I was trying a new recipe as I am often wont to do … so many recipes, so little time … and the recipe sounded terrific. But I made a mistake. The recipe called for shortening. I used butter, my shortening of choice. The texture came out rather strange, perhaps because they meant to use something like Crisco? Not sure, but since I don’t use that, I guess I’m going to have to read more carefully next time and choose only recipes where they specifically want butter. The mocha buttercream frosting, however, came out delicious. Next time I will up the amount I make by 1/2. Who doesn’t love plenty of frosting?

Baking Round 2 was my favorite brownie recipe that I’ve made for years, dressed up with dark chocolate chips and dried cranberries. This was for a gift, but I did have to sample just a wee slice. To make sure they were safe for consumption, of course.

I am a happy baker, always from scratch, and a happy cook. Nowadays, I don’t have the time I once did to bake and cook, and I have to say, I miss it. I have a great collection of recipes I’ve made over the years, and I collect new recipes for all kinds of food, especially desserts. In fact, you might think I was creating extensive meals for a big family 3 times a day, to look at what I’ve clipped, saved, and hope to make.

But we all need to dream, do we not? Me, I dream of relaxed time in the kitchen … a happy place. I wish I were there more often. But it’s always possible. Maybe even tonight.

 

Yummy Is for Oatmeal

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Are you an oatmeal fan? I actually love almost any good hot cereal, but McCann’s Irish Oatmeal is my favorite. It’s warm, nourishing and while delicious with the simplest of accompaniments – a touch of brown sugar and a small dab of butter – there are so many ways you can dress it up to make it even more yummy. Plus McCann’s is non-GMO, an extra bonus.

I found an excellent idea in a past issue of Prevention magazine which suggests you crumble a gingersnap, (or two or three), into the bowl of oatmeal, and toss with some chopped pecans. Yum! They also suggest having the liquid be 1/2 cup apple juice and 1/4 cup water, but I haven’t tried that yet. In the bowl pictured, I threw in a bunch of organic raisins to a mix of half  2% milk and half water, and when just shy of boiling, added the McCann’s Oatmeal, (which is what Prevention also used), and when done, crumbled in the gingersnaps. In the bowl, you can see some raisins and the gingersnaps which get deliciously soft and chewy.

Other tasty combos are raisins with walnuts and a dash of cinnamon, dried cranberries with some chopped pecans, or chopped apples with a tad of brown sugar and cinnamon. Oatmeal is such an inviting food and good oatmeal doesn’t lose its flavor with additions stirred in. Plus it’s heart healthy! Here’s something else I read along the way – oatmeal will stick to your ribs longer the more whole the grain. So eating instant oatmeal will leave you hungry soon after because the oats are chopped extremely fine to speed up cooking, but they are also digested much more quickly. I use McCann’s Quick-Cooking, steel cut oatmeal for more heft, but the regular steel cut, while still longer to cook, will stave off hunger the longest.

I also found, in looking for gingersnaps for a cheesecake crust, that they are practically a specialty nowadays and may take a little hunting to find. The mainstream cookie manufacturers don’t seem to make them anymore, so look carefully.

Have any hot oatmeal suggestions you’d like to share? Let us know!

No Coincidences – the Komodo Dragon Comes Home

/ still a dreamer

Here you see something I’ve wanted for quite some time … a handsomely carved Komodo dragon. I spotted him probably two years ago in one of my favorite stores, Two Buttons in Frenchtown. At the time, they had one that was probably 5′ long. I really wanted that one, but didn’t dare look at the price tag. Each time I’ve been in the store, I’ve been powerfully drawn to one of these Komodo dragons.  They are hand-carved by an artist in Bali, (I believe), and each is unique. I would hold one, or several in turn, in my hands, feeling a connection I cannot explain.

On the occasion of my birthday this past summer, I was given a check. I was asked to please spend it on something that I really wanted, something special. My immediate thought was of the dragon. And yet I have dallied, contemplating all the things I really need and should do with that money. Do you ever find yourself doing this? You are invited to do something or buy something that is unequivocally a treat for yourself, but instead you spend it on something practical, or wrangle endlessly with yourself over it? Like I have. You know, we really need to be good to ourselves, kind to ourselves, to believe that we are deserving of all that is good.

So about a week ago, doing some Christmas shopping in Two Buttons with a friend, I picked up a Komodo dragon, as I had so many times before. He had a different attitude in his posture than I had previously seen. He seemed reflective. And as I held him, once again considering my still unspent birthday money, one of my very favorite Christmas songs played through the store, John Lennon’s So This Is Christmas. And I knew that that Komodo dragon was meant to be mine.

There are no coincidences.

And then this Saturday I met a longtime friend for breakfast. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and she returned a book to me that I honestly had forgotten I’d lent her — Gratitude, A Way of Life by Louise Hay and other luminaries. It’s easy to forget sometimes how much we truly have to be grateful for, and I felt that this book returning to me after such a long time was also no coincidence. Perhaps I really needed to re-examine how much I have to be thankful for in my life. So I’ve decided to read one of the author’s essays on gratitude each day. We can never go wrong being thankful and making it a daily practice.

Most likely you have your own Komodo dragons appearing in your life. They are opportunities to be kind to yourself, to be thankful, to even find moments of peace. Take them.

Let there be peace on earth. And let it begin with me.       – Jill Jackson Miller

Fear Not the Cheesecake

/ still a dreamer

Have you ever noticed how many perfectly competent, as well as excellent, cooks shake in their boots at the thought of making a cheesecake? (Also homemade pie crusts, but that’s a different post!) This always surprises me, because cheesecake is actually one of the easiest desserts you can make. It’s not that you can’t find very complicated cheesecakes – they’re out there, and I’ve made them, too – but most of your cheesecakes are fairly simple and almost foolproof.

Take this pumpkin cheesecake, for instance.We decided that this year for Thanksgiving I would forego the more traditional pumpkin or apple pie, and make a pumpkin cheesecake instead. I have a couple good recipes for pumpkin cheesecake that I know to come out well. In deference to my host who cannot eat nuts, I eliminated the pecan or walnut praline topping, and made a substitution in the crust ingredients. Instead of the called-for graham crackers, I used gingersnaps. Note – the crust has only 2 ingredients – ginger snaps and butter. Easy, right?

More simplicity – the filling is all made in one bowl, – cream cheese, sugars, eggs, pumpkin, cream and spices. It doesn’t really get much easier than that! It came out creamy and delicious, and although it called for 1-1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice, you couldn’t go wrong by making that 2 teaspoons.

Feeling more confident yet? Cheesecake is really an easy dessert – easy on the cook, easy on your busy schedule, and easy on your hungry guests eyes!

p.s. If anyone would like to try my recipe, just leave a comment, and I will scan it or type it up.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

/ still a dreamer

Thanksgiving, to me, is always the epitome of fall … glorious foods in colors and flavors of autumn grace the table, there still may be some tawny leaves on the trees, and just the right chill in the air. It’s the last major holiday before our thoughts turn to snow and Christmas, trees and gift-giving. Thanksgiving seems the culmination of fall, and then a whirlwind of different flavors and colors surrounds us.

We sometimes have to be careful that in our anticipation of great dinners and watching football and Thanksgiving Day parades that we don’t lose why the holiday was so named, a day to give thanks. I thought a few words from those who’ve pondered this holiday might be in order …

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.  ~Meister Eckhart

Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal.  It’s a way to live.  ~Attributed to Jacqueline Winspear

If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.  ~Robert Quillen

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness.  ~Author Unknown

HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING!