Enchantment of a baby turnip...

Sunshine is still streaming through my kitchen window. The last wispy tendrils that look almost tangible, as if i reached out to grasp them they would pull me up through the trees carrying me with them through their journey of sunset. We have been delighting in many afternoons of sunshine streams here on this island as of late. Some we have spent with our toes in the sand and some wandering through the maple trees watching the light gleam through the branches. 

We have feasted on orange and red salmonberries and 

gathered rose petals by the Salish sea.

When on a recent Seattle adventure i tasted a turnip that had been roasted in a wood fired oven i was enchanted. 

The taste harbored a hint of bitter that melted into a sweet creaminess all its own 

as it bathed in a pool of creme fraiche and fiddlehead ferns. 

It was served from the kitchen of the very inspiring (and delicious) Essex. 

Saturday i went to the Farmers market and found some beautiful Persephone farm white baby turnips and i decided to try some enchantment myself. 

I took them to my parents house and prepared a lovely salad that we enjoyed in the sunshine... 

the recipe is as follows...

One bunch small white turnips with greens

One orange

White wine

Walnuts

Olive oil

Butter

Salt

Vinegar

Salad greens (i used chickweed and red lettuce from Butler greens farm)

Avocado and cooked chicken if desired...

Slices turnips into wedges of similar size

Place in saucepan and place over medium heat

leave alone until the sizzle stops, you can peek underneath one

and it will have light brown spots on it

Remove from heat, squeeze half an orange of juice and pulp across the turnips,

return to heat, medium low and add the zest from the other half of orange and

3 T white wine, stir to coat properly and then let the juices thicken, when the pan is almost dry stir again

Remove from heat and drizzle with honey, pour into a bowl and set aside

Add 1 T butter to pan and stir to lift off all the little bits of delight

place on low heat

Add 1/4 c chopped walnuts to the butter, stir gently (or any nuts you have on hand)

allow to mingle for a couple minutes

Chop turnip greens into small pieces and add to pan

add a pinch of salt, stir, when just starting to wilt, remove from heat,

set aside to cool a bit

Assemble on a flat serving bowl hand torn bits of salad greens, i added piles of diced chicken and avocado

drizzle the edges with olive oil, add the turnips and surround with the walnuts and the greens

Add a bit of vinegar if you like and find a sunny spot

to enjoy

the Lady with the Plan in her Hand...

One step ahead.
One meal ahead rather, is the way i dream of cooking.
Planning the next or better yet beginning it when i am already within the previous...


When the creation of one meal can create the base ingredients for another, you are working well in the kitchen.
Again this is why i sing the praises of roasting a chicken.
From the enjoyment the first eve of the crisp and savory skin, the legs and the wings, to the chicken enchiladas or curry chicken salad with apples that will follow, there is delight.


Then comes the broth. Whether long simmered filling your home for hours with the enchanting aroma, or a short melding of flavors with vinegar and citrus, the broth is its own reward. A nourishing tea for all and particularly for the littles that run around my kitchen floor. When mixed with a bit of lemon, salt and a good amount of honey... it becomes honey tea.
A comforting tonic or soothing cup of warmth and love that nourishes from the inside out.


Part of the magic of this comes from all the bits and pieces of kitchen creations that you can add to the broth making. Grated bits of ginger added for spice, garlic skins and cloves for their pungent presence, onions for their healing qualities, carrot tops for their hidden richness of nutrients and any number of dried herbs stems from the line of gathered bundles of garden herbs. Never the same combination twice.

Currently i am listening to the BBC food programme about the revolutionary Alice Waters 

i recommend that you do too.

For Love of the Baker... part one.

A dozen bakeries.

This is the body of my current resume.

When i was fifteen i got my first job.
 Pegasus.
A charmed brick building in the marina covered in variegated ivy that was (and is) home to a coffee shop.  Most of my work consisted of making espresso drinks and closing the shop in the evening, of this i recall very little, mostly turning up the Indigo Girls and rocking out while i vacuumed. (Rockin.)

However, on occasion i would get asked to do an opening shift on a Sunday,
blessed were those quiet hazy mornings near the water.
i would arrive generally around dawn when the bakers were there pulling hot scones from the ovens...

i began arriving earlier and earlier to assist them with their baking and creating before setting to my opening tasks. Rolling cinnamon roll dough in particular was enchanting. A long gleaming shining silver table with giant slabs of dough being spread across them, slathered with almost melted butter, sparkling sugar and a fog of cinnamon spice. This was then tucked into itself by rolling it tightly and sealing with an almost kiss. After being sliced into snail like creatures with a sharp blade of steel, each was placed on a baking sheet covered in parchment (a magical kitchen tool indeed!) and slid into a hot oven. When the smell of cinnamon and spice had overtaken the tiny kitchen, you knew it was time to pull them from their brief warm home and inhale their rapture. A drizzle of glaze was the crowning glory to these morsels of delight.

This was not my first experience with baking, my mothers kitchen offered many opportunities for creation. However, this marked the beginning of a long love affair with kitchens in commercial bakeries that i have yet to recover from.

            There is part of me that believes that is a good thing and that the best, is yet to come.

the Secret's in the Sauce...

Actually. The secret is in knowing the secret.
Sometimes, though, the fun is in sharing the secret...
and today i made a discovery worth sharing.            Shhhhh...

Truthfully, i am in agreement with those that don't believe in secret recipes. Food is meant to be shared with others,                 i believe the methods for the making the food  (as well as sometimes the process of)  are also meant to be shared.

This is a beloved recipe. It is a grandmothers recipe. It is also for cookies.
If ever there was a winning combination for a recipe that should be shared, it is those three things.
The recipe comes from my husbands grandmother who is an amazing woman.
She crochets more stitches in a year than i have in my life, although i seek to remedy this
                                                                                      and match her stitch for stitch... someday.

Today the  discovery came in the tiny school kitchen. It was a day when the children were all needing extra love and letting their needs be known with their voices in a wide array of sounds. I was sleepy and in need of a little comfort myself so i decided to make the teachers a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Teachers are always deserving of extra love. They provide so much support and care to so many little ones, i try to remember to find as many ways as i can to say thank you and provide them with some care in return. We do not have a stand mixer of any kind at the school, so i sought a simpler way to cream the butter and sugar. i melted the butter, allowed it to cool and mixed it into the sugar and eggs. The cookies themselves were a bit more melted, a little gooey, and utterly delicious. So this is the secret i share with you today, gooey shortcut cookies, and a gentle reminder to thank the teachers in your life for all they do.


                   Arlenes chocolate chip cookies

Melt 1 and 1/3 cups butter, allow to cool, slightly...

Mix with:
 
        1 cup sugar
        1 cup brown sugar
        3 eggs
        2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix well and add:

        1 teaspoon baking soda
        1 1/2 teaspoons salt
        2 1/2 cups flour

When well mixed add 2 cups chocolate chips

Set the bowl in the refrigerator for around 20 minutes or until your ready to bake

bake at 350 degrees 8-12 minutes until golden brown








i often substitute 1 cup oats that has been ground with 1 tablespoon lavender, 1/2 cup almond meal and 1 1/2 cups flour for the flour amount listed above... its delicious.
 
                 (and if you use skinless almonds and grind them with the oats and lavender,
           you can make extra and use it as a facial scrub. its fantastic and leaves skin so soft!)




                If you happen to be looking for a book to curl up with, or cook from,
                                  on these blustery Autumn days i recommend
                  Fannie Flaggs; Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.
             The recipes in the back will simplify comfort food for your cold evenings.
                                         (The film is pretty great as well...)

Lunch lady in the tiny kitchen...

Many of my hours are spent contemplating how to nourish 45 children. All of these children are under the age of six. i believe that the majority of our eating habits (as well as the fundamentals of our relationship with food) are well formed by the time we begin to lose baby teeth. With that  fact in mind it is a fascinating to watch the eating styles of the different age groups within the school. 

The younger ones, generally are the best eaters and tasters. Whether it is a sensory exploration of the food or an actual nourishing occurrence, they consistently eat a wider variety of foods than the older kids. Our three-four year old group does a wonderful job of trying new things and will often follow each others lead when a friend tastes it and asks for more. 

In our four-five year old room however, the children are strongly opinionated about what they already do like and do not like. We encourage everyone to have an adventure bite of any food that is new, sometimes they do, once again often if a friend has done so first and exclaimed it to be delicious. However, in this room i notice that new foods get passed to the next person quickly without placing a bit on their plate first. i spend quite a lot of time thinking upon how to inspire them to try something different.

Lentils are a favorite of mine and, depending on how they are prepared, the children will eat them. If it is in a soup, yes, if they are in the form of an indian Daal, not so much. Recently i mixed lentils with slow roasted onions and cheddar cheese and folded them into a butter based pie crust. The results were devoured. (Who can resist pie of any sort, truly...?)

Learning to navigate the space of the small kitchen, as well as the large appetites of the small children i seek to nourish are challenges that i find myself excited about these days. As Autumn descends outside our doors, the winds encourage us to find cozy corners in which to nestle, for me the kitchen seems my favorite spot to choose. 

Liberation in the form of Spray Paint...

             Magic Happens Everyday


A can of spray paint, actually several, and some bottles of hair dye, recently accompanied me through my day. My 84 Subaru, Datura Digitalis Love fearlessly was recently returned to us after being borrowed by a very talented film (and magic) maker friend for an international adventure. This car has served me well on many many journeys and as it is the end of summer and her paint was wearing, it seemed fitting to give her a slight makeover for the autumn to come.
            It seemed fitting to give myself one as well...

In autumn comes the beginning of the gray.

This year it comes in the form of heavy mist in the morning, giving way to eighty degree sunshine in the afternoon. None the less, you can feel the gray.
It is the desire to wear sweaters, to make food in the slow cooker, to have a hooded article of clothing by your side.
People who  live in the Pacific Northwest love to complain about the rain, the consistent drizzle and dull constant of the sky,
many of us however welcome it into our heart.

We love making soup that takes all day, filling the house with an aroma of depth, or curling up in a comfy chair with a beloved book and taking long pauses to stare blankly out at the rain (okay those of us that are parents dream of doing this...) Rainy days are an inspiration to cover the kitchen floor with paper and bowls of paint and allow the kids to create chaos.

We could however, 

amidst all that gray,

embrace color a little more fervently. 

Sometime the grayness finds its way into our closets, we begin to blend into our surroundings. I think Datura is trying to be a source of inspiration to wear bold colors,

 to stand out against the background of our habitat, 

the backdrop of our comfortable habits.

                                                                      

Back to the school Yard... Berry Oat Bars...

The day was a flutter.
Or more like a blur.

There was a baking flurry that involved vegan raisin cinnamon ginger muffins, chocolate granola bars gone wrong (an attempt to substitute brown sugar for honey that did not hold together...thank you to the bees for the magic they create with flower nectar...) and delicious brown sugar oat shortbread cookie bars topped with raspberry preserves and crumble... salty sweet perfection.

A recipe.

This makes a large sheet pan worth of cookies, i imagine they freeze well or if you feel like sharing, your neighbors or friends will appreciate them... or if you like, make a half recipe...

Pre heat oven to 350

Mix 1 1/2 cups oats in a cuisinart... till they resemble flour

Add

1 lb butter- cut into tiny cubes and cold

Mix in a cuisinart, or by hand, with:

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup oats 

 3 1/2 cups flour

1 12/ teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix until it resembles sand, or, if you squeeze some with your fist it mostly holds together

Line a baking sheet with parchment or foil,

press all but about 2/3 cup into the sheet pan

Chill the sheet pan for a bit in the refrigerator if you have time, and what you have left in the freezer.

Remove sheet pan from fridge and spread 3/4 cup raspberry jam across the shortbread in an even layer with a spatula

Remove remaining dough from freezer and crumble evenly across the top of the jam

Bake until golden brown on top, about 25 minutes

These were just the afternoon pick up we needed as we transitioned back to school.
                 The smiles on the kids faces, said the same.

                               Illustration from the Mary Frances Sewing Book.  (its Full of Magic.)