Cozy Days, Part Ten?

I'm certain I've used the title Cozy Days numerous times before, but I'm too lazy to go back and count.  So, we'll just say this is the tenth time.  

It's spring break here, and even though I don't teach any more, I'm still tuned in to the school schedule. And per usual, it's rather rainy and dreary, but that just makes for cozy days, which I love. And cozy days bring me to the kitchen.  And cookbooks.  

King Arthur Flour Company has published a new magazine this spring called Sift and I finally decided to order it.  I've enjoyed slowly reading through it.  I may never make any of the recipes, but it has inspired me and that's a good thing.  After several evenings of poring over it, I checked my cookbook cupboard for similar reading and pulled out A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman.  It's full of information and tempting recipes, and the photographs are absolutely gorgeous.  

I noticed that the Goldman book has a line of type on the bottom of the cover and the middle words are "Bake to Nourish."  I'm sure she meant nourish as in feed, but somehow baking nourishes my soul.  Mucking about in the kitchen, covered in flour, is a soul satisfying time for me.  I'm reminded of Brother Lawrence's (a seventeenth century monk) words:  "The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen. . . I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees. . ."   ♥

Round Two, and More Gadgets!

Made another Pain d'Epi and my shape is getting better!

And it was just as delicious as the first try.  Crunch, crunch, mmm, mmm...

Meanwhile, in the knitting department, I finally broke down and bought a yarn swift.  Say what?!  A yarn swift.  

Several years ago now, I bought some expensive, beautiful hand-dyed yarn to use in knitting socks.  I bought three colors and used two right away.  Trouble was, they were hanks, not prewound skeins that are easy to use.  These are looped in a large circle and have to be wound to be usable.  I did the first one by myself, draping the circle over my knees and rolling, rolling, rolling.  It took forever, compounded by the fact that I apparently started with the wrong end and had to do some serious detangling throughout the process.  When it came time to use the second hank, I conned Dan into holding the yarn over his outstretched hands as I wound.  It also took forever and poor Dan's arms almost fell off in the process. 

Needless to say, the third hank became buried at the bottom of my yarn basket.  I finally purchased a yarn winder last year, but to be effective, a yarn swift is also needed.  I found a simple pattern for one and asked Dan to make me one, but with all his other work, it got buried just like the yarn.  Last week, spurred by a sale email from JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts, I took the plunge and ordered one.  It came yesterday afternoon and I, surprisingly, put it to work soon after.  (I was afraid if I waited, it would turn into a buffalo.)  Once again I was thankful for the internet because not a speck of instruction came with my new toy.  Cue YouTube.  

So, here is my yarn winding in process.  The swift is the wooden umbrella-like contraption on the left.  

The swift spins as the yarn is wound on the ball winder. Everything worked as advertised and in short order, my yarn was wound into a ball that pulls easily from the center.  No arms were worn out in the process.  ♥

Not Perfectly Shaped, But Delicious!

And what could I possibly be referring to?  Bread.  I believe I confessed long ago that when it comes to the kitchen, I am way more a baker than I am a cook.  I even wrote a whole post about my cookie baking.  But I also love making bread.  (Interestingly, however, I'm not much of a cake baker. Hmmm...)  

I have written about using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day master recipe to create crusty loaves of bread to accompany soups and pasta dishes.  I hadn't made a batch in a while and on Thursday night, I decided to whip one up. Literally, as I used my Danish dough whisk to mix it, just as authors Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg do. 

Later that evening, I went to the Artisan Bread site and discovered they had recently done a class for Craftsy. Checking it out, I decided to go for it.  The book is great (I have the original version), but I had stalled out with shapes, just making a round loaf each time.  It was time to branch out!  As soon as I bought the class, I was able to view it.  There I sat, in my La-z-Boy loveseat with my feet up, headphones on, watching and learning. Sometimes the internet is just too amazing.

We usually have a date night on Fridays, so it was yesterday before I decided to take the plunge and try a new shape for a loaf to accompany our leftover Pasta E Fagioli soup.  I confess I almost chickened out but then I decided no matter how it turned out, looks-wise, it would still taste great.  And so I began.

I chose the Pain d'Epi, or wheat stalk because it looks so pretty.  I didn't get mine thin enough, but you get the idea.  (And I think I need a new, long bread basket!)

We broke off the chunks and I'm telling you, the bread was so crusty and crunchy on the outside and tender and chewy on the inside!  I've never made a better loaf! Zoe Francois mentions in the book that it's delicious with jam, so after eating a piece with my soup, I ate another with jam for dessert. Oh.My.Goodness.  

Bread making is SO MUCH FUN!  ♥

Ahh, Soup, How I Love You!

Lest you think this is an ode to Campbells, let me assure you that it is not.  It's an ode to homemade soup.  In this case, a little number I concocted using dried beans.  

Is it not gorgeous?  At four o'clock this afternoon, my bag of navy beans was still sealed.  (Have I mentioned lately how much I love my pressure cooker?  Well, I do!) My recipe starts out with some basics from Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass, and then is customized by moi.  I have appropriated her name for it though:  Pasta E Fagioli. And I have to tell you, as we were eating it tonight, I heard myself say, "It has such depth of flavor." And, "The flavor lingers in the mouth." And then I said, "I don't think I've ever said those phrases before! Hmmm..."  After more than forty-three years of being the head cook, most things I make don't knock my socks off anymore, but this little number will be repeated!  ♥

Kitchen Tools

I love kitchen gadgets, a trait I get from my dad.  When I was growing up, I remember him coming home several times with something he picked up at the hardware store (the only "kitchen shop" of the day, especially in our little town) and presenting it to Mom.  Trouble was, Mom wasn't a lover of gadgets.  I especially remember the potato ricer he brought home one day.  John and I loved it, but mom thought it made a mess and was difficult to clean.  Both were probably true, but it was fun to use!  Needless to say, it languished in a drawer.   

But I digress . . . somewhat.  A few years ago my dad ended up in the hospital some distance from their home near Thanksgiving and Dan and I stayed up with Mom and eventually brought them both home. As a thank you, they bought us a spiffy new FoodSaver, a contraption that seals food in a vacuum bag.  We had one, but it was much smaller and didn't hold the rolls used to create the bags.  

We've used this new one a lot, especially when it's hunting season; it's perfect for steaks and stew meat.  I used it again tonight.  Waffles and bacon is one of my favorite comfort meals.  Finding good bacon can be difficult, but lately our Winco has stocked bulk packages of bacon--good bacon!  We bought a new package the other day, and after I cooked some tonight (and made waffles!), it was time to package up the rest.  There were fifty thick, meaty slices in the package, so that made dividing it up easy--five per bag (two for me, three for Dan).  

In short order, I had this nice pile on the counter, ready for the freezer:

I'm a gadget girl!  ♥

Saturday

The sun is shining now, but this morning it snowed!  It's a week until March, but I think weather-wise, it's already here.  

So what have I been up to?  Lots of knitting.  I made two lace scarves for friends.  One was a birthday gift for the secretary at the school where I taught, and the other is for a long-time friend who had to retire from teaching for health reasons just when I began and gave me boxes and boxes of much appreciated teacher supplies.  I used this pattern again, making one in silver and the other in light purple.  I love that pattern!  I also finished a pair of socks.

In the sewing room I've been slowly working on a winter quilt using the Through the Winter Woods fabric.  I love how it's looking and Dan really likes it, too.  I need to add the borders and it will be ready to quilt.

My lovely "design wall" is a picnic table cloth pinned up with the flannel side out  It works perfectly and just fits the space.  It sure came in handy for this quilt because I needed to put all the pieces in place before stitching any of the blocks to be certain I had a nice spread of the colors before getting to the last block and discovering I only had one color of strips left.  The bars on my Handi-Quilter cover up the lower left side in case you wonder what you're seeing there.  :-)

And now I'm off to sit by the fire in the basement and do some more knitting.  It's a simple scarf using some leftover yarn.  Perfect for TV watching or just a lazy day project.

Happy Saturday!  ♥

Life Moves On

Life is interesting.  Most of the time, things are good and we meander along, paying scant attention to our own well-being and happiness.  But then, sometimes, we are abruptly reminded of how precious it is to be loved and healthy.  Our daughter, Ann, has been mentoring (or as we call it at our church, discipling) a young mom for the last year or so.  Dayna was living in Europe with her husband and baby when her marriage went horribly bad and she, through an amazing series of events, was able to get back to the states and settle back in our little town.  

Over the past few months, she's felt increasingly unwell, plagued with headaches.  After seeing several doctors she was diagnosed with first, a sinus infection, and second, migraines.  But still, even with antibiotics and migraine drugs, she was feeling worse and worse. Finally, two weeks ago today, she called Ann and said she couldn't take it any more and would Ann come and take her to the ER.  I was called in to watch the D-man and so the day began.  There was frustration at every stop.  From a dentist office (Wisdom teeth impacted? No.), to the local ER, to the local quick care, to, finally, the ER in an neighboring town.  Where they performed a CT scan to find a brain tumor.  So desperate was the situation that they wouldn't release her but made arrangements for her to be admitted to a regional hospital that night.  Ann and Eric drove her to a town in-between where she was transferred to the car of her brother and by noon the following day she was in surgery.  They said if she hadn't had that surgery she would have been brain dead in two weeks.  That's today, folks.

The rest of the news is that it's bad news.  A stage 4 malignant tumor.  This is a twenty-eight-year-old mama of a little blond two-year-old.  They are headed to Seattle to see about treatment options, which appear to be limited.  We are praying for peace and for healing. Sometimes it's difficult to understand why things happen, but we, like Dayna, know that God is with her.  

And so, for the rest of us, it's a reminder that life is precious, not to be taken for granted.  Health, the love of family, and home are gifts that we need to be thankful for.  Every. Single. Day.