Escape from the kitchen...

We always dreamed of having a cow that could really produce some milk.  All the cows we have milked previously averaged about a gallon a day (milking once a day) after the initial freshening.  We would hear of these Jerseys producing 3-5 gallons a day and wonder why our cows never reached such amounts.  Well, Fiona has become one of these mythical cows, and is giving us 2-3 gallons a day with one milking and--and--feeding her calf Lola as well.  This is wonderful for us, but without a pig to drink up the excess, I am constantly working to make use of as much of it as I can.  My sister takes a couple of gallons a week, and I clabber some for the chickens, but I'm making a gallon of yogurt a week, queso blanco twice a week, a half gallon of pudding once a week, ice cream, chocolate milk and smoothies.  I skim most of the cream from the gallons for butter and make that, too, as often as I am able.  Am ordering citric acid and mesophilic starter to start making mozzarella and hard cheeses soon.  I am the Dairy Queen...

Top photo:  the kitchen in a typical state of crazy.  The makings of Best Blueberry Birthday Pancakes for Dominic.  He turned 8 yesterday, although we are putting off the celebration proper until Saturday.  There is also the stuff for making the cheese, cream ready for churning, and the rice and lentils out to remind me to fix up a pot of my lentil and rice "beef-filler".

Second photo, at the end of 5 hours.  In the peanut butter container is 4.5 lbs. of chocolate pudding mix (I had two quarts of pudding in the fridge); there's a couple of pounds of the lentil-rice mix, which I keep in the freezer; 1.25 lbs of butter and 10 oz. of queso blanco.  There's also a bag of leftover pancakes from the bazillion that I cooked up, and 3 quarts of whey, left from the bit of cheese.  I use it for cooking with, or, more popularly, for whey lemonade.

School continues, as we school year-round and take our days off as needed.  Una and Sebastian have been taking Mondays and Fridays off from school to help paint at the new house.  Yes, we are painting, which means we only need doors, floors, trim, electrical fixtures and the whole kitchen before it is done--or at least ready to move into.  Certain things, finishing touches, will have to wait until we are already in.  Things like bookcases and crown molding.  I'm praying for money in the budget for a well, as I hate the thought of paying for city water with what we do here on laundry and showers, not to mention the animals and garden we have planned...

Well--just thought I would drop by to let everyone know that I've not completely dropped off the face of the earth.  Oh, and Annita, I know that Gemma's half-naked in the photos again.  Even with the pretty T-shirts you sent her, she still is constantly peeling them off and leaving them lying about...!

Lard in a crock pot

Real food, as I am discovering, can be quite time consuming.  I've been trying to get my home together and cleaned up in preparation for a visit from my uncle and my grandmother next week, trying to school the kids and trying to keep up with the laundry, and it occurred to me that a good part of the morning each day, even when we have something as simple as oatmeal or muesli for breakfast, is taken up with food related business in the kitchen.  I'm putting up water kefir and kombucha to brew, making butter, making yogurt, cooking up a batch of brown rice and lentils for stretching the meat in burritos or sloppy joes, or some such thing.  Last Friday we picked up the pork that was once Pink Floyd from the butcher, and for the first time I had the butcher put aside some fat to be rendered into lard. He saved 10--count 'em--10 lbs. for me.

My vision of making lard always included cast iron cauldrons and fires, and women in long skirts stirring and stirring.  Actually, the process isn't too hard.  If you have a crock pot, it's really quite easy.  I found this video on YouTube which took away some of my trepidation and all of my Little House on the Prairie visions.  My apologies to those who are vegetarian or vegan.  Or sensitive to photos of great big globs of fat.

This is what 10 lbs of pig fat looks like.  

I cut it into 1/2 inch to 1 inch chunks.  It is messy and the knife gets slippery.  

Looks a bit less gross now, eh?  I put as much a I could fit into my crock pot and set it on low with the lid off.

  After many hours, I though I'd take a chance and put it on high.  I should have done it sooner, as the fat cooked and cooked for many hours, and never seemed in danger of scorching.

Still has a way to go here.  If you want cracklins, you have to wait until the fat is cooked out and nothing remains but yummy little crunchy things.  Mine never seemed to get that far, and I threw in the towel at 10 pm and ladled the fat carefully through cheesecloth and into jars.  The chickens are getting the would-be cracklins.  

Voila!  4 jars--approximately 3 quarts--of lard

Anyway, I just wanted to put the process into photos to show how very easy it is.  I don't cook much with lard, to be honest, but I detest waste, and even if I have to make soap from it, I just can't see throwing out what could be used.  The saying used to be that one could use every part of a pig except for its squeal.

And no, I haven't gotten into pig's trotters or head cheese.  I don't know that I ever will, thank you very much.

Anyway, I had better get back to work...much to do, and so little time!  I just had to take a break after cutting Bret's and Dominic's hair, and this gave me an excuse to take one...

Freaky weather, homemade Easter treats and other matters

                                                                                                                                                                There was an impressive thunderstorm/hailstorm just before we left the Chapel of Divine Mercy on Sunday.  It was quick and violent, and after only a few minutes had dumped quite a bit of hail.

Sunday night Gemma began to look a little green around the gills and said her tummy hurt.  Between 8 pm and 10:30 pm she threw up five times.  I figured we were headed for a stomach virus.  After the last bout of vomiting, I gave her a dropper of colloidal silver, and she sucked on an ice chip or two, then went to sleep.  We slept in the living room, me on the sofa and Gemma on a pallet beside me, as I didn't want to have the whole house awakened if she had to throw up in the middle of the night.  Actually, she's an A-1 vomiter, if there is such a thing.  No crying, no fuss.  She goes quickly to commode or bucket, leans over and waits for it calmly.  It's almost spooky in a three year old, but I recall Dominic was similar.  Anyway, there actually were no middle-of-the-night  episodes and she slept until 6, awakening with her appetite in order.  So I don't know what caused the upset.

Sunday evening until yesterday morning we had no internet, and I spent 45 minutes on the help line trying to get it back.  In the end they said they didn't know what the problem was and would send out a computer guy the next morning but the trouble mysteriously resolved itself by Monday, mid-morning.

 I seem to be fighting a cold--sore throat and burning sinuses--and Bret is sneezing and so is Dominic.  It has been snowing since yesterday morning, but all day yesterday it was a fine dust-like snow that went on and on, and yet never whitened the ground. This morning, however, we have some white on the ground.  I have been extra-generous in filling the bird feeder and the birds seem grateful...there was a steady stream of diners all day--blackbirds, red-wing blackbirds, doves, sparrows, a downy woodpecker, a number of cardinals (would that be called a conclave of cardinals?)...

I'm making treats for the Easter baskets this week.  Yesterday I was making treats for the Easter baskets.  I made peanut butter cups and chocolate-coconut-almond cups (think 'Almond Joy'), and my taste-tester (Bret) said that they turned out well.  They were really quite easy.  I didn't really measure anything--I rarely do with this sort of thing, so all measurements are mere approximations...

Peanut Butter Cups (made 36)

Paper candy cups or silicone mold
2 12 oz bags milk chocolate baking chips
2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 1/3 cups natural peanut butter
2-3 Tbsp raw honey (to taste, really)
pinch of salt (for that sweet-salty taste I love with the Reese's

Mix together the peanut butter, honey and salt in a bowl.  The honey tends to make the peanut-butter "pull together."  If it doesn't, add a bit more honey and mix well.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler with the coconut oil.  Spoon a little chocolate into paper candy cups which have been placed in mini-muffin tins.  Place in the freezer for a few minutes

Here is where my 1 teaspoon cookie scoop comes in handy:  place about a teaspoon, or maybe a little less, on each of the chocolate "bottoms".  Press with a finger to flatten slightly, then top with more chocolate.  Freeze for a few minutes or until firm.  Easy, eh?

Healthy "Almond Joys" (made 36)

Paper candy cups or a silicone mold
About 1 cup of unsweetened, organic shredded coconut
3 Tbsp raw honey (more if you like)
1/3 cup plus 4 Tbsp raw, virgin coconut oil in solid form (do not melt!)  Believe me, the raw, virgin coconut oil has a wonderful coconut flavor to it.  Still, you can add a bit of coconut flavoring to boost it, or even a bit of almond extract if you prefer.
2 12 oz bags Semi-sweet chocolate baking bits
Raw whole almonds

In a food processor, combine the coconut, honey and coconut oil and any flavorings you may choose.  Pulse until you have a well-blended coconut "dough".

Melt the chocolate with the 4 Tbsp coconut oil in a double boiler.  As with the peanut butter cups, put a bit of melted chocolate into each candy cup.  Freeze or refrigerate until firm.

Drop teaspoons of the coconut dough onto the cooled chocolate bottoms.  Flatten slightly with a finger and place an almond on top of each.  Then cover with more of the melted chocolate.  Chill until firm.

As I alternate between my Anti-Illness Cocktail (orange juice with vitamin C powder, colloidal silver and Echinacea-Goldenseal tincture) and my Ginger-Lemon Tea, I am contemplating making marshmallows...it would be nice to have some to float on hot cocoa and we could pretend that it is Christmas that is approaching and not Easter...

Twenty-Five Years

Yesterday Bret and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.  Since we are not in the habit of big celebrations, we opted for going out to eat with the kids, which we never do on account of the cost involved, the unpleasantness of active children in restaurants and the difficulty in finding a menu that pleases everyone.   So...Gemma's three and has never been to anything but the occasional fast-food place when we are stuck away from home mid-day and forced to stop and feed the ravening horde. Bean burritos from Taco Bell is what she knows.

We all cleaned up, dressed nicely and went out.

We went to a nice Japanese grill/buffet place, thinking that this would be best--everyone could find something to enjoy.  I got lots of sushi and steamed shrimp and vegetables.  Bret got all his favorites.  I was amused by just how much the kids enjoyed picking out what to eat.  Sebastian was true to form and had twice as much dessert as dinner.  Adrian took the prize for Adventures in Gastronomy, trying the steamed mussels, the sauteed clams, the craw fish (Sebastian was more interested in turning them into finger puppets) and even a tiny octopus (he came back to the table so excited: "They even have octopus here!"--the couple at a table nearby was so amused).  The kids behaved so well, and we had such an enjoyable time.

Fortune cookie, anyone?

The high cost of good health...

My recent order from vitacost.com

Lent--and spring--are naturally good times for taking stock of things and cleaning house.  We tidy garden beds, wash windows, air bedding and dust the cobwebs from the corners.  Some of us find it a good time to unclutter our homes and sheds, drop off things at Goodwill and the dump, have yard sales.

It is a good time to rid ourselves of bad habits and try to establish good ones.  For Catholics, it is a time to grow closer to God by growing in virtue and rooting out vice.  A time to break our attachments to anything that stands between us and our Creator.

It is also a good time to develop better health habits.  That can be challenging with a large family.  One pays a premium for whole, organic, unadulterated food.  You would think that living in the country as we do that it would be easier to find real food, but it isn't.  The really big farmer's markets are in the larger cities, and so are the natural, whole foods markets.  You would think that the local Mennonite communities would be a good source for organic produce, but guess what: some of them use chemical pesticides.

We avoid GMOs, MSG and high fructose corn syrup.  We have cut back our sugar consumption.  We don't use things with artificial sweeteners.

We do have the advantage of having raised our own grass-fed beef, although our cow hasn't produced a bull calf in years, and our meat is running low at this point.  We have raw milk, from which we make our yogurt and butter.  We wonderful, orange-yolked eggs from our free-range chickens (who free-range all over my porch and sometimes into the road, where they meet untimely ends!)  What we lack is a decent garden and a local source for staples.  So I buy organic veggies at Wal-Mart, pay the extra for any non-GMO products I can find, and just buy regular produce, washing it all thoroughly with Fit Fruit and Vegetable Wash.  I have to limit my kids to two pieces of fruit each a day, and even with that limit, that's about 400 pieces of fruit a month!  Yes, we really, really, really need fruit trees.

I try to boost the nutrition of our food by sneaking in ground flax seed, nutritional yeast, and wheat germ.  I am still looking for a cheap way to get Omega-3 into the older kids.  The capsules are huge, and the gummies are pricey, and the emulsified cod liver oil I give to the little kids would get really expensive, too, if I gave it to the older kids.  We'd go through a bottle a week, which isn't feasible on our budget.

This mix, along with alfalfa, is my "blood-cleansing" spring tonic.  Warm, it tastes a bit like peppermint and lawn clippings, but sweetened with honey and iced it is quite good.

I have always been better about making sure my kids are getting what they need than watching what I do for myself.  I tend to skip meals, forget my vitamins, fail to drink enough water and sleep too little.  But I am trying to make a new start this spring.  I am 48 years old, my youngest child is two, and my five year-old has ADHD.  We are in the process of building a new "patch o' dirt" and the plans include a large garden, fruit trees, bees, and livestock.  I need all the help I can get.  If the cost of eating well is high, I'l tell you now that I can't afford to be unwell or lacking energy.

I shop the best prices for supplements, and decide what is most important in our diet (or out of it), and do the best I can.  I don't obsess about it if the kids eat candy now and then, or if they have a soda when we've been out all day.  I don't think the occasional drink of Kool-Aid, which I generally think of only as dye for wool and play dough, will kill them.  But I don't allow it to become a habit.

Ultimately, our lives are in God's hands.  We have so many factors which remain beyond our control:  things in our environment, genetic factors, exposure to germs, and so forth.  Ultimately, we have to place ourselves in the hands of our Creator and trust in Him.

On the twelfth day of Christmas...

Yes, the big egg was a double yolk!

...we just went on with our rather relaxing week.  We had our favorite buttermilk pancakes for breakfast (ah, the hens are laying again, which meant I could use our eggs, our butter and our cultured buttermilk!), the kids spent a lot of time outdoors in the sunshine, and we savored the last of the twelve days (the octave of Christmas, the octaves of St. Stephen, St. John the Divine and the Holy Innocents, and today, the Epiphany).

I spent the better part of the day trying to put a menu plan in place.  Why is this so hard?

The tree will be stripped and removed tomorrow.  We will lovingly put away our pretty ornaments (we each have our favorites), take the tree outside for the birds, and put the living room furniture back to where it was.  I always use a few bags of foil-covered chocolate coins to trim the tree with, and on Epiphany, the last evening before we take down the tree, the kids snip off all the coins and divide them up between themselves as a last Christmas treat and a reminder of the gold brought to the Christ child on this day.

Our Nativity scenes will stay up for a while, perhaps until Candlemas.

I thought you might like our favorite pancake recipe.  I was going to put cinnamon and cloves into the batter this morning, thinking of the East, from whence the spices--and the Wise Men--journeyed.  But they are equally good without!

Our Favorite Buttermilk Pancakes


2 cups All Purpose flour (I use white whole wheat flour)
2 Tbsp milled golden flax seed (optional)
2Tbsp sugar or Rapadura
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
2 cups cultured buttermilk
2 Tbsp melted butter

Heat your griddle to where a drop of water dances on it!
Sift together the flour, flax seed, sugar, salt and baking soda in a medium to large bowl.
In a smaller bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and the eggs. Whisk in the melted butter.
Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and stir to blend, but do not over-mix.

Grease your griddle or use pan spray.  Ladle the batter onto it to make your pancakes.
Makes about 26 pancakes 4" in diameter.

Freezing strawberries and the marginalia of living...

Ostensibly this is a little post about the great deal I got on strawberries today.  Really nice ones, for about a dollar a quart.  That is not much more than what we would pay if we had to go out and pick them ourselves.

But marginalia, if you don't already know, is the stuff scribbled in the margins of books.  As a book restorer, I used to love trying to read the marginalia in the books I worked on.  Sometimes it was in a difficult hand to decipher, and frequently in Latin.  Anyway, I have a lot of figurative marginalia in my head.

It has been way too hot to pick our own anything this summer.  In fact, I may have lost my basil and thus my years' supply of pesto.  I have been pinching back the plants trying to keep it from flowering, but it is getting away from me and tastes very strong.

 Do you know about this stuff?  I have been using it for years to wash fruits and vegetables, but I only recently discovered that it is a fantastic kitchen de-greaser.  You know the gunk that collects on the inside of your range hood?  It cuts right through it.  I love it!

It is so darned hot that one of our old hens dropped dead yesterday, poor thing.  The heat index was 112 degrees yesterday.  It was very, very nasty indeed.

Strawberries are among the most heavily sprayed crops, up there with apples and grapes.  Unless you grow your own, you really ought to wash them thoroughly.

Not that it has anything to do with heat or strawberries, I don't have a big sweet-tooth.  I don't drink my coffee sweetened (although I do sometimes like my iced coffee sweet), and I can usually take or leave desserts.  I go through phases, however, and will occasionally stash a bag of gourmet jelly beans where the kids can't find them. 

 Anyway, this means that I often forego breakfast with the kids when it is something like cereal, pancakes, french toast or muffins.  My breakfast choices tend to the unusual.  Like lunch.  Or yesterday's dinner.  Case in point:  this morning I had Chicken Tamale Casserole for breakfast.

Sebastian threatens to leave the table when I eat Tuna Noodle Casserole before 9:00 a.m.

You really want to make sure that the strawberries are dry before you free, or the water will freeze on them.   I love the cloth diapers I still have, even though Gemma can't use them because of her sensitivity and chronic rashes.  I use them for Dominic's nearly daily spills, to insulate the cooler when I am making yogurt, and for many other things...

Gemma had a follow-up with her dermatologist today.  He took her off the three prescriptions she was on and now has prescribed something else, along with OTC cream to use.  And we see him again in two weeks. It is nearly an hour drive, and we see him for about five minutes.  I'll bet he drives a nice car.  The air conditioning in our van goes out if we stand still for too long, so if I have to pop into a store, say, to buy eight quarts of strawberries, I generally have Bret drive around with the kids while I shop.  He made the mistake of stopping today, and it took 10 minutes for the AC to go back on.  I can't even imagine what Hell must be like.

Cut the stem ends off, place on waxed paper on a cookie sheet and freeze until solid.  I froze a good four pounds of strawberries and we ate some for dessert, and I saved a quart of small ones to decorate Gemma's birthday cake with (I think I am making a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting).

Well, I did most of this post while watching A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which wasn't fantastic, but had its moments.  Anyway, it is past my bed time, and some of the marginalia I had in my head is now eluding me.  Good night!

Freedom of choice and raw milk.

Doesn't freedom of choice include a most basic freedom to choose one's food?
There are many people in this country who make very poor food choices.  Just look at their shopping carts in the check out line.  Look at the frightening increases in everything from diabetes to food allergies to heart disease.  Our government does not look at the cost of health care and restrict the diets of these folks who make processed foods, cheese puffs and deep-fried Snickers bars (have you seen this at the fairs?  I am incredulous...) a part of their diets.  But the government makes it near impossible for families to purchase whole, raw milk for their own consumption.

We ourselves are currently clabbering our excess milk and feeding it to the chickens and the cats, skimming the cream off first so that I can make and freeze butter.  But our budget is pretty tight.  How much better it would be if we could sell these extra 5-7 gallons to a family who would enjoy and appreciate the excellent Jersey milk!  We can't, however, without breaking the law.  We may sell it for animal consumption or enter into the tedium of a "cow share" agreement (hard to do when our one lactating cow's production goes up and down with the weather and quality of the pasture), but we may not sell it outright.

I can understand the concern for cleanliness and potentially deadly bacteria.  But when it comes to something like picking up milk at a farm, don't you think that the buyer ought to be able to make that judgement and take the responsibility?  I mean, if I buy a loaf of banana bread at a high school bake sale, how do I know how clean that woman's kitchen is?  We are talking about small farms here, not massive commercial production.  The FDA has conducted raids on small farms selling raw milk and raw milk products.  Here is an article from the Washington Post on some of the outrage over this issue.

Senator Ron Paul has introduce House Bill HR 1830 to "authorize the interstate traffic of unpasturized milk and milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption."  The Farmer-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has an online petition you can sign which will be sent to your state representatives.  Please consider signing it, as the freedom to choose our food is really a very fundamental right.

WIP Wednesday

I wish I could show you a good deal of progress in my knitting and some new project started, but I have been consumed with keeping up with the school work and getting ready for our little Halloween festivities.  And laundry.  Lots and lots of laundry.  So, today's works in progress are:

 Beans baking a la Nourishing Traditions,

 Butter churned and ready to strain, rinse and knead,

"Mischbrot" (mixed grain bread) rising.

And laundry.  

No use cryin'...

...over spilled milk, but may I whine a bit?  Bret made an effort to get two gallons of milk this morning by milking our second cow, Naomi, who is not quite as easy to milk as Nuala.  I, carrying the gallon milk jars out to the fridge in his shop, nearly tripped over Max, banged the jars together and cracked a jar.  A moment later, a big chunk of the jar fell out and there I stood, with one jar of milk, one empty jar, and milk all over my skirt and shoes (I seriously considered having Bret grab the camera so that I could shoot my soggy self, but I figured he might be irritated enough).

Today is a dairy day.  I have butter churned and milk is cooling for our yogurt.

 Gemma feeding herself some yogurt.  Well, sort of...

 In addition, I have a pot of pintos simmering on the stove and I also plan to start a batch of bread dough to put in the fridge for tomorrow.  But we need to finish school first.

And before I can do that, I have to find my kids, who wandered outside into the autumn sunshine.  Where my kids at...?

Seven Quick Takes Friday--volume 64

One.
I lost a day this week. I sat down at the computer this morning all ready to wrack my head to do a Small Successes post, and lo and behold, it is Friday! How on earth did I get here? Maybe it was the egg salad we had for lunch yesterday that threw me off--it's normally a Friday lunch for us...

Two.
I wonder if I will ever spend a night in my own bed again. Normally I wind up on the sofa at some point because my beloved husband snores and Gemma will only sleep in my spot on our full-sized bed, which, by the way, used to seem a lot bigger when Bret and I were not parents and slept spooning together and didn't have a third person in the bed with us. For some reason, Gemma will nap in the co-sleeper, but will not sleep in it at night. And that's another thing: how on earth can a six-month old differentiate between nap-time and night time? Last night she and I slept on the pullout sofa because she is so congested and fusses pretty much throughout the night because of her inability to nurse or suck her fingers. She also screams like a siren when I drip saline up her nose and suction her nostrils with the aspirator. Terribly ungrateful, don't you think...?

Three.
On the subject of colds, I am trying to be patient with them, although this is our second cold in less than a month. I ought not complain, as we've only had two colds per winter for the last two years, and the year prior to that we had only one cold, but it lasted the entire winter...plus, this is supposed to be The Winter of the Great Swine Flu Pandemic, isn't it? So I ought to be happy that so far we are just doing battle with snotty noses.

Four.
I want to thank my friend Marilyn for posting this quote from St. Francis de Sales. I am emailing it to several people in my address book who need to keep it in mind as much as I do:

"Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all to God, and then lie still and be at rest in His bosom. Whatever happens, abide steadfast in a determination to cling simply to God, trusting to His eternal love for you; and if you find that you have wandered forth from this shelter, recall your heart quietly and simply. Maintain a holy simplicity of mind and do not smother yourself with a host of cares, wishes or longings, under any pretext."

Five.
Every male in this family is in need of a haircut. Again. I hate giving the boys haircuts almost as much as I hate cleaning the oven, but I only clean the oven about once a year (I know, I'm really bad--I'm the reason self-cleaning ovens were invented), and the guys seem to need haircuts every time I turn around. This was another reason I was so delighted to finally have another girl...

Six.
The older piggy went to the butcher on Wednesday and we are getting back mucho pork today. Because the bacon we've had cured and smoked by the Mennonites is frequently way too salty (their lack of refrigeration makes them a bit heavy-handed with the salt), Bret wants to try his hand at it this time around. As for me, I like pork well enough, but I want beef! Pigs grow so fast, we raise two a year (not that we need to; but we hate not having a garbage disposal that converts food scraps to meat), but a calf takes 18 months to a year to grow to a decent size. And I am down to a few packages of ground beef in the freezer. I don't like to buy beef from the grocery store.

We also need to put a meat grinder and sausage stuffer on the homestead shopping list this year. City Wife has inspired me to want to try homemade Boudin! I want to make sure that we have these kitchen items by the time our small piggy is ready to butcher.

Seven.
My big success for the week (since I missed out on Small Successes yesterday) was not sweating too much about our schedule. I will indeed come up with a workable schedule this month--or so I hope--because having a schedule reduces chaos, and no one can live or work or learn or pray in an atmosphere of chaos, but what Christ said about the Sabbath being made for man and not man for the Sabbath can be applied to the schedule as well. I don't want to overdose on the medicine, so to speak.

Okay, it is time to go. Dominic is charging through the house in his brother's knight outfit, brandishing a sword and hollering loud enough to wake the dead (and maybe even Bret). and I need to have another cup of coffee.

Now go and visit Jennifer's Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes, and maybe add your own!

More baking...and recipes

Mocha-Chip Pinwheels about 7 dozen

1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
2 3/4 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon powdered instant coffee (rub granules through a fine sieve)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4-1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Beat butter and sugar together in a large mixer bowl at high speed until fluffy. Add the egg and blend in. In a medium blow, combine flour, baking soda and salt and mix well. At low speed, beat the flour mixture, one half at a time, into the butter mixture until just blended.
Divide dough in half and place in separate bowls. Add the powdered coffee to one and the cocoa to the other. Mix well (I usually knead it in by hand).
With nonstick cooking spray, lightly grease a 13" x 9" pan. Line with plastic wrap, extending the wrap beyond the ends of the pan. Press the coffee dough into the pan, covering the bottom evenly and chill 10 minutes. Pat the cocoa dough over the top to cover (I do a small area at a time, pressing it with my finger tips). Sprinkle the mini chips on top and lightly press into the dough.
Using the plastic wrap, lift the dough out of the pan onto a work surface. Roll tightly, jelly-roll fashion, from one long side. On a floured surface, roll and press the dough until it is 24" long. Cut in half and wrap each log in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 3 hours or freeze.
Slice with a sharp knife 1/4" thick and place on greased or parchment-lined sheets 2" apart. Bake at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes.


Maple Pecan Refrigerator Cookies makes about 3 dozen--I double it!

• 2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
  
• 1/2 teaspoon maple extract
  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1-1/4 cups finely chopped pecans

With a standing mixer, beat butter until creamy (about 3 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat sugar in gradually. Add the egg and the extracts. Blend in flour. Divide dough in half. Place one half on a sheet of waxed paper or plastic wrap. Shape into a log about 2 inches in diameter, and roll in the chopped pecans to cover. Wrap the log and refrigerate for at least two hours, or freeze. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Slice dough into 1/4 -inch rounds. Bake on ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheets until they start to get a bit golden (about 10 minutes).

Let the baking begin!

A dog-eared, stained composition book, a stack of recipes printed off from the internet, loads of stockpiled ingredients and the weapons with which I do battle each year, and I am ready to begin the holiday baking. The madness in my kitchen is thankfully only an annual malady, but it is such that the kids may end up eating cereal for dinner if I'm in a frenzy...

Not on the menu...

Not now, not ever!

Espresso Cutouts

Love these cookies. My sister gave me the recipe some years back. The cutouts hold their shape beautifully. I usually drizzle them with melted white chocolate when they're done.

Espresso Cutouts
1 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 Tbsp hot water
2 tsp instant coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cookie sheets by greasing or lining with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour and cocoa. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and blend. Mix the coffee granules with the hot water, then add to the butter/sugar mixture along with the vanilla and the cinnamon. Mix in the flour/cocoa one-third at a time. Chill dough until firm.

Roll out dough 1/3 at a time (keep remaining dough in fridge--this dough is soft at room temperature, so work quickly!) on a well-floured surface. Roll out to 1/8" thick. Cut with cookie cutters and use a spatula to transfer to the cookie sheets.

Bake for--hm--I don't have it written down. Try 8-10 minutes. They are thin, so not too long. They should be slightly puffed and look dry on the edges.

Cool a bit before transferring to a rack to cool completely.