Cookies 2012

I invited a new friend over to bake cookies in 2012.
I was very sick with a bad cold. I don't remember much about the day, except that it was actually challenging to think about ingredients with my brain so wonky.





Good thing I've made these cookies so much, because we ended up with a nice big haul!


Proud!

Putting the garden to sleep

I like to keep the garden all disheveled for Halloween; add an unkempt flavor to the decorations. Right after Halloween, we had a frost, and all the tender plants died. It was time to cut everything back for the winter.

Here are the front beds trimmed down.






I looked online for tips on how to trim the buddleia and hibiscus.
Everything said that they were happy to take a hard pruning. Given that they had grown from nothing to huge over the summer, I figured down low was the best strategy.
We will see next year how that played out.

The other two things that I pruned down low with uncertainty were the society garlic (I think is what it is) and the Del Oro lilly.

Those garlics are driving me NUTS! they make tiny seeds, and last year I let them go to seed, so we have zillions of little garlics like unwanted hair all over the beds. I contemplate taking the poison to them. See the mess on the wood edging? that's garlic.

Anyway... this is probably the end of 2012 gardening.

Next year I hope that we have a more predictable season.

My new addition plans include:
Hollyhocks
Lavendar
and maybe a Jasmine

we will see...

Baked

The night before I realized that I was short on buttermilk; I forgot to go to the store on my way home.

In the morning, I decided to prep before going to the store. Good thing because I realized:
1. the buttermilk I froze and then defrosted was gross - don't do that!
2. I didn't have enough anyway
3. I ran out of sugar for the filling portions
4. just get extra butter... you never know!

Running to the store put me about 30 mins past my scheduled start time (9am). I figured it didn't matter 'cause I could stay up as late as I needed to get them all done.

Once I started baking, the plan executed very well.


5 batches of dry ingredients ready to go.


5 bags of lemon juiced apples ready to go.


kitchen ready to go.


Batch 1 filling out of the oven.


Topping ready, next batch of apples.


Baking topping.


Batch 2 ready to go.


Batch 1 done!

In assembling the filling for batch 3, I figured it would probably have been a good idea to taste 1 and make sure everything was ok. I paused, ate a jar...
they taste GREAT!
In part, how can you go wrong with apples and cinnamon?! and two, this is an amazing topping recipe!

I ate the one on the left.

The only other baking mis-hap is that I borrowed a 4th cookie sheet.
One of those actual cookie sheets: link.
This sheet sucks for carrying jars! It is flimsy and bends when you have it loaded up with EMPTY jars, let alone trying to get it in and out of the oven loaded. It has no handle edges so I kept burning myself through the gloves. And the worst part?! because it is so thin (I'm guessing), the filling actually caramelized during the double bake. Luckily, I used the tray in the 2nd batch, which means I only had to use it twice.
In the second use, I took the filled and topped jars out in 10 mins instead of 15. No more burnt filling.

At one point I lost track of where I was, and had to look in the oven to figure out what my next step would be.


Jars cooling.


The Bride wanted ribbons. This may have been the most tedious part of the day.


Lids on, ready for ribbons.

I waited until each jar was completely cool before I put the lids on. Ideally, I would have waited until the next day, but I had to work and couldn't find time between that and the wedding to lid and bow all the jars. So, I got it done the same day, and stored them in the cool garage overnight (there are no cars in our garage).
The only thing about this - which I didn't like - is that the crispness of the crust went away. This also happens when you make scones and store them in a ziplock overnight... the moisture trapped with them makes them "soft".
Oh well.
In retrospect, we should have put on the label a note that says "enjoy as soon as possible" or "homemade - please keep refrigerated".
I haven't heard any stories of apple cobbler poisoning in the Metro area, so maybe I am ok.

The wedding was beautiful! The bride was grateful, the groom said they were delicious!
I hope people appreciated the personal touch of a home-made favor.


.......................

The apples we picked were all different sizes (and varieties, of course) so I could use an apple count for determining the quantity I needed to peel and prep. So I figured I would use weight. I weighed a typical granny smith - 8oz. I multiplied that by the number of apples I'd need per 24 jar batch, and that's how many we peeled.

Well - this was WAY too much! by a batch and a half.
Given that I was updating Facebook all day, I hoped that I would have some takers for an extra batch at swim that night. So one more in the oven!

Getting Peeled

I totally forgot to take pictures! sigh.

so - my cousin came and visited last week, and since it's fall and everything is all fall festivals, we took her apple picking and pumpkin buying.
The pumpkins we carved (a first for her), and the apples I ear marked for the Great Apple Cobbler Baking Extravaganza of... TOMORROW!
Remember this: link

Anyway - the bride came over on Sunday, and while Felix Baumgartner slowly went up, and quickly came down, we peeled apples, cored and sliced (thank you tools), and put them in batches of 5 with lemon juice.

That morning I measured out all the dry ingredients for the toppings, and we are now ready for the insanity of tomorrow.

Truth be told - I am nervous!!

this is probably the biggest, most meaningful, cooking event of my life.

yikes!

I am putting post-its all over the kitchen to remind me to take pics... stay tuned.

"Balance and Well-Being"

Before my trip to Thailand in 2008 I decided I needed a new pair of shoes.
I wanted something that I could wear all the time - pants, skirts, dresses, walking, in water - that didn't look too touristy or backpakery (Teva, Keen, etc).

At REI, I found a pair of Ahnu Tilden sandals that fit the bill.

I have worn them all summer, every summer since then.

A plan was hatched for me and a friend to dress up as milk maids for Ironman Wisconsin. She decided to wear running shoes for the day. I know my feet hurt when I wear running shoes that long, so I chose to wear my Ahnu's.

I wore them (with socks - it was cold in the morning) for 20 hours straight; and in those 20 hours, I was probably sitting for a total of 2. By the end of the day, my feet were killing me and I realized that it was time for a new pair of sandals.

I went to the Ahnu website to see what was new, and I got sidetracked reading about their philosophy and the things they do for the "Greater Good".
It seemed to me that throwing away my Ahnu sandals was the last thing this company would want me to do.

I sent an email to the contact page, and explained that I'd had these shoes for a long time, worn them all over the world, and after a 19 hour day of standing in them, realized they needed replacing. Did they have a recycling/donation program to which I could send the old ones.
To my surprise, they offered to take my story and shoes for posterity, in exchange for a new pair!
Would I please send some photos of me in the shoes.


I had a lot of fun going down memory lane with all the adventures I've taken in my Ahnu's.
It wasn't easy to find photos of me that included my feet!

Bangkok 2008


South Africa 2009


Nelson Bay, Australia with my Dad and two bro's 2010


Having a chat with a President in Williamsburg, VA 2010


Kayaking 2011


At home, the last time I wore them 2012


Today I received my new pair, and wow! they are so much more comfortable.
Old meets New


Goodbye original Ahnu's, thanks for all the miles.

And thank you to Ahnu for being such an amazing company!!

Mixing it up

A friend of mine is getting married at the end of the month. She was talking to me about wedding favors, and since she's from Seattle, she loves to cook, and it's a fall wedding, I immediately thought of this exercise shared by Seattle blogger "NotMartha".

I shared the idea, and my friend loved it. Another friend offered to make it for her! I thought, wow, that's a generous offer.
A couple weeks later, the baking friend told me that she was going to be out of town on the scheduled baking day, so would I do it instead. Since I have a problem saying "no", I ended up with the task.

To prepare, I needed to modify the recipe since Megan baked hers with blueberries and the bride wanted apple.
One of my friends on the Team, PieMan, has baked these amazing crumbles for the whole Team at an end of the season race the last two years, and I figured if anyone could help me with advice on pre-preparing, changing it up, and identifying pitfalls, he could do it!

PieMan gave me some suggestions and this past weekend I did some experimenting.
Here are the results...

I used a pre-prepared tin of apple pie filling from Wegmens and two Fuji apples.
I mixed these with other things as follows:
1. just the tin filling
2. apples with some lemon juice and cinnamon
3. apples with some lemon juice, cinnamon, and 1/8 cup sugar
4. apples with some lemon juice, cinnamon, and 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
5. tin filling with cranberries
6. apples with some lemon juice, cinnamon, and cranberries
7. tin filling with 4 Hot Tamales
8. tin filling with 2 Hot Tamales
9. apples with some lemon juice, cinnamon, and 4 Hot Tamales
10. apples with some lemon juice, cinnamon, and 2 Hot Tamales

Some post-baking photos.
1. and 2.


3. and 4.


5. and 6. on top, 9. and 10. on the bottom


7. and 8.


1. apples were mushy
2. very bland
3. too sweet
4. PERFECT!
5. and 6. cranberries added nothing
7. 8. 9. and 10. The waxiness of the Hot Tamales made a melted chewiness, and you tasted none of the spiciness.

Here's my plan:

I will be preparing 108 120 jars, that's 9 10 sets of 12.
Since I have a convection oven, I plan to bake 24 at a time, 12 on each baking sheet.
As Megan suggests, I will use 3 batches of the topping recipe for 24 jars.

That's 13.5 15 batches of topping.

I will need 4 apples for each set of 12 jars, 40 apples in all. I have an apple slicing tool, and I will half all of the slices before I put them in the jars because they fit better that way. I will mix each batch of sliced apples with 6 Tablespoons of lemon juice, 6 Tablespoons of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.
So for each baking of 24 jars, that will be:
8 apples
12 T lemon juice (3/4 cup)
12 T sugar (3/4 cup)
4 t cinnamon (might add more, 2 T?)

I need 9 10 batches of filling.

It takes 1.25 hours to prep and bake each set of 24 jars (25 mins for the filling, and then 25 mins for the topping). That means it will take about 6 6.5 hours to make all the jars on the day of baking.

The weekend before, I will pre-measure the dry ingredients and put them in tubs. We will peel and cut the apples, mix them with lemon juice, and put them in ziplock bags. So, the day of, is about melting butter and mixing it with buttermilk and vanilla right before each batch of filling comes out of the oven. I am hoping my friend visiting from MN will be at my house, and not at the conference for which she is coming to DC, on that day!

Clean jars ready for baking.




I'm hoping to remember to take pic's of the next steps in the process too...
Remember to remind me!

Fall additions to the garden

I planted the bed in the back yard. Here is what we get to monitor:

Hosta - City Lights

in the front, middle, and side: Liriope "Monroe White"
- 12-15" tall, blooms summer

to the left: Helleborus Brandywine "Lenten Rose"
- 18" tall, blooms early spring

in the back left and right: Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum' Solomon's Seal;
- 24-30" tall, blooms mid to late spring



The Clematis went in next to the light pole.


I cleaned up the pumpkin vine which died once the pumpkins started turning orange. Now we have two great pumpkins we grew ourselves!


Here are some pics of the beds in September.

Things that will make you nuts...

I just drove between my house and a friends' to check on their cats.
I took all local roads, there was no traffic.
Google told me it would take me 15 mins, it took 25 mins.
I thought about why that might be and realized it was probably all the traffic lights that stopped me for very long durations.
So, on the way home, I timed how much of the trip was travel vs stopped as a result of lights.

40% of the time I was in the car was stationary at traffic lights.

That is a CRAZY high number, I think.

The shortest stop was 4.6 seconds, the longest was 2:35.7 (This was the light close to my community that I know is long. I stopped while it was already red, so if you catch it just turning, you wait is longer than 2.5 mins).


Traffic lights seem to me to be a huge waste of my life.
I don't understand why the U.S. transportation community is so adverse to traffic circles!

Planning for Fall - continued...

First series of Fall purchases are here.

To encourage the hummingbirds, I just bought these two Agastaches.

I'm going to plant Desert Sunrise next to the rose, just behind the downspout.

Pstessene Coronado Red will go in front of the kitchen window next to the Buddleia.

I want to put some Hollyhocks behind the Rudbeckia. I just need to figure out how to do it...
buy small plants?
start seeds in peat pots in the spring?
sow seeds now?

some research is in order.

A Surprise in the Garden

A while ago we started getting the beginnings of a vine growing next to the front door. We had no idea what it was, and assumed it was a self-seed from bird activities next door (our neighbors have a full-on garden, remember). As with all unknowns, I let it be so that it could show us what it was.



It grew, got blooms, nothing happened. I watched the blooms to see if any of them turned to fruit. They didn't.
Then one day, I noticed that there was a squash-like thing growing under one bloom, and then I noticed another. I kept an eye on those fruits. Once they got a little bigger, it became very clear what this vine is.

Every year, I put pumpkins on the porch. This is from a couple years ago.

Last year we didn't carve the pumpkins,
and yes, one rotted,
on that corner,
and now we have this:


and this


I think it's kinda cute that there are only two.

Since I was outside, I captured some other garden status shots.

Chives blooming.

I spent a couple hours removing weeds at the end of this border.

(In the middle of this shot is Caladium White Christmas. I am very happy with how well this is growing.)

I have plans for this end.


This spot on the corner is ready for planting (looking down from the deck).


On the other side of the deck we have this:

It's mostly a forgotten part of the yard, and seems to be ok with that.
The daisies, ferns, and Buddleia were all there already.
This year I added the Cleome (hassleriana Rose Queen) and Verbena (bonariensis).

A closer look:

Garden - end of August

Wow, I can't believe a month has gone by since I took photos!
Things have not been popping up as often as they did through the spring and early summer. In fact, some things look the same.
I am happy to find that they hibiscus has bloomed for a month! yay!

Here are some photos of the front in its overgrown, weird self seeds kinda way.