Just in case you didn’t notice, I took a little blog vacation. It seems to happen every year around this time. I guess I just need a month off at the end of summer to recharge the creative batteries, so to speak. I’ve been more or less ignoring my computer at home, so other than cleaning out the enormous amount of spam I get, I’ve neglected my e-mail as well. Please accept my apologies if you’ve left a comment recently. I will respond eventually, I really will. Of course, by then you’ll probably be all, huh? why are you talking to me? I said that 5 months ago you dodo brain. But it will make me feel better, so just roll with it. k. Thanks :o)

I had grand plans for a gi-normous garden this summer, but somehow, with the whole tree situation, it never happened. I need to let go of my Martha Stewart induced perfectionism, where I seem to think that if I can’t create the magazine-picture perfect, neatly laid out vegetable patch with 15 different kinds of tomatoes, exotic beans and every kind of dark leafy green I can find then why bother? I really wish I had just thrown a couple tomato plants and maybe some zucchini out there and just been happy enough with that. Ah well, there’s always next summer.

I’ve also been wanting to have a pantry full of home-canned delicious things, but didn’t see how I could find the time and the resources to bottle quarts and quarts of tomatoes or pickles or jam (thanks again, Martha). First of all, have you ever read a canning website? Every time I do I end up thinking that I’m going to get botulism and die from canning my own vegetables. They’re all about special recipes and sterilizing every bit of equipment and processing time and pressure measurements. I don’t remember it being that difficult when my mom and grandma would can peaches and pears and cherries each summer. But then I read this series of articles (via Angry Chicken), and saw that my little sister had canned a few things, and realized that I could do this. It didn’t have to be quarts and quarts at a time and all I really needed was a little patience and a lot of hot water, and an hour or two in the evening after work. So I decided to give it a try. First I splurged on a couple pints of raspberries. In my speed reading of the recipe in the link above, I didn’t notice that it was for 2 half pints, not two pints, so my first batch of jam was a measley one pint jar. But no matter, it looks delicious and sealed up nicely, and gave me the confidence to keep going. Next up, strawberries! This time I made two whole pints. Unfortunetely, I let them sit in the fridge a little longer than overnight, as the recipe states, so it was a bit more runny and never really got very thick. We’ll just call it strawberry sauce. There was a little extra, so I poured it over ice cream as a reward for all my hard work. It was delicious. I guess I now have an excuse to make lots of waffles this winter.

The other day a co-worker brought a bag of tomatoes in, and I waited until the end of the day so that everyone could have their shot at taking some, and I squirreled the rest home. Serendipitiously, I stopped at my usual produce store, and they had tomatoes on sale, 3 lbs. for a dollar! They also had pretty little heirloom tomatoes, two pint boxes for $4, so I spent about $8 on more tomatoes. Not bad, eh? And I went home and canned them that very night. I didn’t use all the big tomatoes, and I still ended up with 5 quarts. Aren’t they pretty? The little green and yellow and purple spots are the heirloom tomatoes, not tomatoes gone bad :o) I’ll have to make a pot of our favorite soup this week and use a jar to see how they taste.

Oh, I almost forgot! I created a Flickr group for the Softies book, so if you make something using a pattern from the book, please join and share it with us! I wish I could tell you how to get a copy if you are somewhere other than Australia, but so far, the only possibilities seem to be to have a friend in Australia send it to you, or buy it from an online bookseller located there and pay a lot of money for shipping. :o( so sorry! Maybe if there is enough demand Penguin in the U.S. and U.K. will re-publish it.

I thought I’d share our fallen tree, although pictures can’t really convey just how massive this thing is. First of all, here is the branch that fell:

The diameter of the branch is about 2 1/2 feet. When I stand next to it, it’s almost knee-high. In the second picture you can see a bit of our 6 foot high fence on the left, which helps to illustrate the scale.

Here is the poor, sad, giant tree:

Apparantly it’s not 300 years old as we originally thought, it’s probably closer to 400 years. A couple of the tree guys that have come to give us quotes have stood, mouths gaping, staring up at it, trying to figure out how they’re going to get it down. It should be fun and involve lots of heavy equipment and cranes and things! They tell us that the trunk alone will yield 8-10 cords of wood. Poor tree, you made it so many hundreds of years, I wish you could have made it the next 50 or so of my lifetime.

Here is my fashion tip for today: When purchasing $10 fake Crocs from Target, it’s always good if they match your pajamas, so when you go out at six a.m. to let the darn chickens out, you look good for the neighbors. You might think that no one will see you at six a.m., but you are probably very, very wrong about that fact. I may have bed-head at that hour, but at least I have cute shoes and pajamas.

Speaking of letting the chickens out, I decided to expand my repetoire of egg recipes and add two really great cookbooks to my collection. First is The Farmstead Egg Cookbook, by Terry Golson and second is simply Eggs, by Michel Roux.  I’ve enjoyed Terry’s hen cam for a long time. When I’m at work and missing my girls, I can just pop on over for a quick chicken fix. What a great little cookbook she’s written. The photos are just lovely, and I will probably make nearly every recipe in there. So far we’ve made a couple different frittatas, and the shirred egg with spinach is one of my new favorite breakfasts. Doesn’t it look so pretty with some good, toasted olive bread? Yummy! And the Carbonara is so very easy and delicious.

We’ve been sharing eggs with neighbors and co-workers, and it’s so funny how people think about eggs. One of the husband’s co-workers wasn’t too sure about taking some of our eggs, worried that maybe they weren’t ‘safe’. Wow. Eggs that I collect every day, from chickens who are free to roam and scratch and take dust baths and eat good quality feed as well as treats like lettuce, grapes and apples versus eggs transported after who knows how long (eggs can be labled ‘very fresh’ when they make it to the store in a week, and ‘fresh’ after 2 or 3 weeks, I believe), from chickens crammed 6 to a cage, unable to stretch their wings, in a factory-like building. The choice seems obvious to me.

The other book, Eggs, is also really beautiful and has recipes not only for chicken eggs, but also quail, duck and goose eggs. Those will come in handy when the geese start laying! All the basics are covered, in great detail. It’s a good reminder to re-learn how long to boil an egg or make really creamy scrambled eggs. I think I might even be brave enough to try poaching some eggs again, although I’ve never been able to do that successfully.

A lot of the recipes are a little more fussy and exotic, and even though I might never make them, they inspire simpler versions. One thing I did learn, while attempting to make the Spanish Tortilla, is that Mexican chorizo and Spanish chorizo are not at all the same thing. At all. Well, I suppose they are both meat products, but that is where the similarity ends. Instead of nice chunks of spicy sausage, I ended up with a soupy, greasy mess. We just threw some cheese and avocado on it and pretended that was the plan all along. It was a pretty tasty mistake :o)

I have no idea where the last week went. There were no big events, just a lot of little regular-life busy-ness. I’ve so been wanting to make something, but haven’t been able to find the time and the energy both at once. Last night I decided that I had to just make something, anything, so I made a batch of cookies. I tried a new-to-me recipe from a book I checked out of the library. Yummy! They’re Oatmeal Cranberry Butterscotch Chip cookies. What a good idea! The dried cranberries are a nice little twist on the usual raisens, and who doesn’t like butterscotch chips? I’ll be making these regularly. Another secret to these, I think, is that they use more brown sugar than white. I like brown sugar.

I had big plans to take an artistic egg picture for Easter, but every shot I ended up with was blurry or silly looking. I blame the slight bug that seems to have landed at our house this weekend. We were both feeling pretty rundown, although I’ve managed to escape the worst of it, the husband is all sniffly and miserable. We napped a lot this weekend. I tried again this morning, but this was about the best I could do. I think the eggs themselves are so pretty. We’re getting a nice variety now, and they’ve been getting bigger. We’re up to about 10 a day. I think I’m going to have to open an egg stand this weekend.

It’s such a feeling of accomplishment, looking at this big pile of eggs. I raised 26 chickens from the time they were two days old, 8 have gone on to good homes, and I have 17 happy little hens, and a handsome, nice rooster. Not too bad for a girl from the suburbs! I sort of feel like I can do just about anything now!

The broody hen has finally been broken. It took a few days in the pen by herself, and a few nights of sitting on a bag of ice, but she’s out and about like nothing happened. What a relief! Maybe I could become a chicken whisperer.

It was so beautiful this weekend, I spent as much time as possible outside. First I went to a couple local nurseries and got a few new plants. The husband had to give me a birthday present a little early, because he was so excited about it. It’s the terra cotta chicken in the pictures. Isn’t it cute? I love it.

The chickens were, of course, very curious about what I was doing. I planted some herbs and flowers in this pot. I hope they’ll have a chance. Yesterday there were about five chickens perched on the edge of the pot investigating it’s contents.

Then I made one of my favorite breakfasts, potatoes, mushrooms, onions and fresh herbs, a grilled tomato and fresh eggs, over easy. Sprinkle with a little hot sauce, grab a good book, sit in the rocking chair on the porch and put up my feet.

And enjoy the view and the beautiful day.

Ahh!

I’ve moved on from my reading cycle into a cookie baking cycle. Sunday night I developed a very strong need for chocolate chip cookies. Luckily, chocolate chips are as much a staple in our house as flour and sugar, so they were easy enough to whip up:

I have a couple of these old, giant mayonnaise jars that were my grandmother’s. The other one is my sugar jar. Grandma usually had a jar full of cookies just like this.  I wish they sold mayonnaise like that still, those jars are the best. I’ll just brag a little bit here, and say that my chocolate chip cookie recipe is pretty darn good, and nearly half the fat of the traditional Tollhouse recipe. So if you get a hankering for cookies, here is an easy and delicious recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened at room tempurature
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of good vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 12 oz. package good chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. Cream together the butter and sugars.
2. Add the eggs and vanilla. I like to measure the vanilla right over the bowl and let a little extra dribble in.
3. On top of this mixture, measure out your flour, salt and baking soda. Since we live at 4000 feet above sea level, I add another 2 spoonfuls of flour. So do that if you live at a high elevation too. Stir the powdered ingredients lightly to combine them before stirring all the way down to mix them with the butter mixture. This is because I am lazy and don’t want to dirty two bowls.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips and taste the cookie dough to make sure it’s good.
5. Drop by the spoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Cooking them a shorter amount of time makes them come out soft, and cooking them longer makes them crispy, so make them whichever way you prefer.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies, depending on how much dough you eat.

Despite the chicken pictures you may see below, this entry is only going to have a little bit of chicken content. Mostly what I’d like to talk about is risotto. I don’t have a picture of risotto, however, because even though I get up well after what you might consider The Crack of Dawn (which always makes me think of graag gedaan, or "You’re welcome" in Dutch. Just thought I’d mention that.), it’s so darn dark in the morning that I have no presentable photographs of the delicious risotto that I made for my bento box today. Which is really no great loss, because risotto isn’t the prettiest of dishes, but it sure is delicious! So, you’re just going to have to imagine what my risotto-filled bento box looked like. Anyway, it’s the flavor that matters, much more than the appearance.

I’ve been craving risotto for over a week, which is a common occurance for me as the nights get cold and frosty. I finally made the time to make some this morning. I do have to add a disclaimer: I am not Italian, not in the least, not even a drop. I’ve been to Italy only once, for a weekend trip. I don’t know if my short visit can really be used to gauge fairly, but every single thing I ate during those 48 hours (and there was quite a bit of eating going on) was perfectly delicious. Also part of the disclaimer: I’ve not seen many Italian food cooking shows. Molto Mario? I just know he wears brightly colored clogs. Is Emeril Italian? I have no idea. But the point is, I am not an Italian food expert. So this risotto recipe may or may not be authentic, I just thought I’d share anyway, because it is darn good risotto, so try it yourself and see, and let me know what you think:

Risotto a la Lucy

First, heat up some chicken stock in a saucepan to simmering. A big can or carton will do. If you are ambitious enough to have homemade, kudos to you. I don’t have time for that kind of stuff. In another saucepan, drizzle enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom, and turn the heat up to medium-high. Once the oil is hot, add about a cup of arborio rice and a minced clove of garlic (I like to use my garlic press, then I don’t have to smell garlic on my fingers all day). Stir it around so that all the bits of rice are coated with oil, about 2 minutes. Lower the heat to about medium. Add a ladle-full of the stock and stir it in. The rice will absorb it in a minute or two. Add another ladle-full and stir it in. Keep repeating this process for 15-20 minutes. Keep stirring. You can step away for a moment at a time to wash some vegetables or get some parmesan cheese out of the refrigerator, but don’t leave it for more than a moment. Some people might consider this a little high maintenence, but really, it’s only 15-20 minutes of your life, and the result is more than worth it. You’ll notice that the rice absorbs the stock really quickly at first, but then slows down a bit. This is how you know its getting closer to being done. That’s when you want to get to grating a nice sized chunk of parmesan (2 or 3 inches, I’d say). I use my microplane for this, and I grate until I’m just tired of grating, which means I usually end up with a mound of parmesan that looks like a cup to a cup and a half. Test a grain of rice. When it’s nearly soft (you don’t want it totally soft, there should be a little bit of bite in the center) add a couple tablespoons of heavy cream (this is my secret ingredient, don’t tell anyone. It makes it super extra creamy). Stir that in well and then blend in the parmesan. You may want to reduce the heat to low at this point. Now taste it. Between the chicken stock and the parmesan, you probably won’t need salt, but if you think it does, go ahead and add it now. Grind in a whole lot of black pepper, and serve mounded in the center of pasta bowls with some parmesan shavings and another grind of pepper on top. Yum!

I love it just plain like this, but you can add all kinds of things in at the end. Some combinations that I have tried: Prosciutto and peas (pancetta or bacon would work well too), asparagus, sautéed wild mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary. Any other ideas? I’m always willing to experiment. Let me know if you try my recipe, and how it works out for you.

Now for the brief bit of chicken content. I moved the chicks out to their coop this weekend:

Action shots! I think they like all the space. I built the roost in the first picture. I’m still patting myself on the back for that accomplishment. I don’t have a lot of high-tech tools, and I discovered that my little handsaw? Not so great for cutting anything bigger than the bars on the roost. The 2x4s for the frame? Those were just a little too big for it, but I struggled through, and made it work. Also, it’s hinged on the top, so when I want to clean the floor below, all I have to do is lift it up! Nifty!

I was pretty worried about them getting through the night, but they seem to have made it just fine for two nights now. I left the light on all night so they’d be warm, and it seems to be tightly enough constructed that no bad critters can get in to get at them. Bear is having fits though. He knows I don’t want him near them, but when he sees them he starts foaming at the mouth. He was like that with the cats at first too, but he knew not to hurt them or someone would have his neck. Okay, not really, but he naturally has a guilty conscience, so we do tend to use that against him a little bit. All we have to do is so NO slightly firmly and he puts his head down and looks guilty. So that’s his big punishment, just a NO and he is completely chastised.