Morning in a Quaint Island Village...

Awakening. Contemplations of breakfast and the day to come.
Decisions; inspiration from a british breakfast; realization that tomatoes are a must.
Brightly colored purple dresses are put on,  mother slips quietly out the front door towards town...

We are blessed. (in so many ways...)
The town in which we live, walking distance to both the ferry boat that transports us to the vast city landscape, and to the bakeries, grocery stores, and various eating establishments, shops that create our city center is... charming. Particularly in the bright sunshine of a saturday morning when you are on a walk to one of your favorite bakeries, Blackbird, to acquire whole wheat oatmeal bread, still warm from the ovens... Bakeries and i have a long involved history of early mornings and clouds of flour.
They hold my admiration for all that they do on a daily basis. Magic in the making.

After the bakery, i headed up the hill to the farmers market. Smiles on almost every face that i passed said "Good morning" to me, and i in turn replied. i have found that nine times out of ten when i say hello or greet a passer by they return this attempt to connect, to open our hearts to another spirit. This is one of my favorite things about small towns, the willingness to open yourself to others. i sought out Butler Green Farms and their dazzling array of tomatoes...  They truly took my breath away with their blatant spectacle of summer bounty. Several red green and yellow were chosen and joined the loaf of bread in my bag.

Onwards to the grocery store for milk and cream. Even our local grocery store charms me. Perhaps it is because of the fond memories of fourth of July pancake breakfasts in the parking lot, the gathering of community. Or maybe just the many years i have spent wandering its aisles being inspired by its well chosen selection of ingredients, it certainly seems to have the friendliest crew of employees that i have yet come across in a grocery store. Today was a mission for dairy and a moment, as always to ponder their gorgeous lilies and dahlias in the flower department before walking home.

In between phone conversations with beloved sisters in North Carolina, children running through the kitchen being tigers and attempts at doing the dishes, this was created...then devoured with smiles on our faces.

Granola bars, a recipe (work in progress...)

I am of the variety of cook in the kitchen that goes by feel. There is a trust that hovers in the air,  pulsing with each heartbeat as i reach for the next ingredient. Whether it is instinct, experience or the muses whispering into my ear, i allow my intuition to guide me, adding some of this and a bit of that until all seems as it should be.

 Such was the case creating these oat scones with cream cheese and strawberry preserves, a wonderful afternoon treat. Rarely do i follow a recipe, or make the same thing twice. A practice i am seeking to remedy in order to allow others to create the same morsel in the comfort of their own kitchen time and again.

Recently, in the school kitchen it has been all about granola bars... There has been a flurry of oats, raisins, cranberries, sun butter, shards of chocolate, coconut, honey, maple syrup, tahini, brown sugar, olive oil and vanilla swirling together to create a salty sweet chewy snack for the kids (and teachers) to sustain upon during afternoon play.

A recipe...

3 cups Oats not instant
1 cup shredded coconut

4 tablespoons olive oil or butter
2/3 cup honey

½ cup creamy seed or nut butter
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries
 

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Find a 8 by 12-inch baking dish and line it with parchment paper.
Toss the oats and coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned.  Reduce the oven temperature to 250 degrees.
Place the olive oil, honey, brown sugar, nut butter, and salt in a large pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for three minutes, then remove from stove and pour in the toasted oatmeal mixture. Add the vanilla, raisins, and cranberries and stir well.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Wet your fingers and press the mixture evenly and firmly into the pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for at least 2 to 3 hours before cutting into squares, if you care to practice an exercise in patience, let them sit overnight, they are much better... Serve at room temperature.

A well Orchestrated meal...

i love to roast a chicken. i adore the simplicity of it, the satisfaction that comes from that golden glow when you pull it from the oven. The warmth it creates in the kitchen and the aroma that penetrates the home while it is cooking. i find myself enamoured with the search for crisp skin perfection, which i also find interesting because i rarely eat it. For awhile i was enticed by the french pot method to cook a chicken, and while i still believe this to create a moist chicken superior to many  (ready for an instant soup of delicious proportion), this evening i discovered another way to prepare chicken that lent itself well to the meal it inspired.

There has been little fried chicken in my life, and i seek to remedy this. Tonight i used a relatively new knife for exactly what it was designed to do: cut a whole chicken into pieces. It was a satisfying way to start a meal. Desecrate the carcass of the creatures body who was to nourish me in an honourable way and then lay it in a pool of milk to rest.

While this was occurring, i diced beets from our friends beautiful garden and tossed them with olive oil. These went into a 425 degree oven with two heads of garlic, the tops sliced off and then the bodies salted. An onion was diced. A pot of water placed on the stove to boil. Six small red potatoes were diced and placed in the water till tender, these were then mashed by my daughter with a bit of cream and a sprinkle of salt. We then mixed up flour, smoked paprika, salt and almond meal in a bag and tossed each piece of chicken to coat well. These went onto a hot baking sheet that contained a pool of melted butter. The onions went into the large cast iron skillet with olive oil to brown and we then added the leftover flour and almond meal until it bubbled and dissolved. In went the milk in which the chicken had rested and we stirred and stirred. We flipped the chicken and baked it a bit longer. The gravy thickened and the children were asked to go outside to get flowers for the table.

i set the table and the family was gathered.
          Dinner was a blessing,
  playing its own melody in the form
of savory  morsels dancing on our taste buds.

All that is Delicious about a Moment of Chaos...

She brought me tomatoes picked from the pots on our back porch and she said, "Mama... mama i have a snack for you, two for you and two for me."
They were indeed delicious and they were indeed a snack and the fact that they had been picked with such love and admiration for all that is amazing about a tomato added to the taste on this sunset eve, amidst all the chaos that has reigned here as of late. She is the fruit bat of our family, finding berries everywhere and trees offering their ripe orbs into her hands.

The end of summer stirs many emotions, muddling together as the raspberries mingle on the stove top with the sugar waiting for just the right temperature and conditions to allow the pectin to gel. It is a bittersweet feeling as the leaves start to fall and the berries start to fade. Even in all their brilliance upon the vine, the blackberries today warned me of fall... slight mold at the corners communicating the recent rain and humidity that still lingers in the air.
         A reminder to harvest now as to savour this moment of summer when the gray returns.

To keep my fingers occupied in quiet opportunities i have taken up finger crocheting  again. Creating large scale spiderwebs that cling to the corners of my living room and encourage autumn spiders to build their real webs amongst my rainbow threads. My mornings have been filled with baking projects at the school, zucchini corn muffins with nutmeg, sun butter granola bars with raisins
      and pumpkin bread pudding with traces of vanilla and a brown sugar crust.

                        i am reminding myself to embrace the moment.
             i am grateful to have two little people in my life
       that remind me to do this constantly.
               i think that their energy and creativity may inspire some
        water color painting with rainwater tomorrow, or perhaps a walk,
                 taking the time to jump in every puddle we encounter.

Sometimes Sundays Save me...

Good morning.
Today is wednesday and i am still aglow in the delight of all that was baked boiled crocheted and devoured on the recent Sunday occurrence here. Breakfast with family is something to get excited about. Whether my husband or i are the masterminds of the meal in our home... it is always made with love. Very little outweighs the joy sitting down to share a meal with family. Although i will say, the moment of trying on a freshly made dress when it has reached the "this fits just the way i wanted it too" feeling comes quite close...
      (She breathes a sigh for missed Stitching...)

Our morning meal began with coffee. Creamy and warm and wonderful. Then i melted butter in a cast iron skillet, always a good way to begin any meal really, there are so many directions one can go from there. In a bowl i beat eggs, a bit of flour, salt, sugar... and then the melted butter. To the cast iron i added blackberries from our yard and a sprinkle of cinnamon from a far away place. The batter was poured over the berries and slid into a hot oven.

In another cast iron i poured some olive oil, allowed it to heat, and threw in some matchstick potatoes, covering them with a lid. i chopped some kale, some summer squash and added these to the pan. i ground some coriander that my daughter and i had harvested from the garden a few weeks earlier, inhaling the aromatic scent and taking a moment to gaze upon the plants currently awaiting harvest in the garden. i walked  out to the garden to sit in a small patch of sun and feel the warmth. My eyes wandered the collection of green and i counted how many plants surrounded me whose name i knew... i counted sixty five, which seemed amazing for such a small space, but the plants like to grow over one another and hide beneath each other so its makes sense they all fit... A family of sorts, caring for each other and crowding each other, encouraging and competing for resources as they reach towards the light.

Our own family was able to sit down and enjoy breakfast together that sunny sunday and i am grateful for the moments we spent around the table, looking each other in the eye, exchanging conversation in the form of storytelling and basking in the glow of the light.

When you have reached a decision...

There is a wonderful feeling when you know you are going to be eating a delicious meal. When you have something specific to look forward to...
Whether that is knowing you have a tin of sardines in olive oil and a crust of sourdough bread awaiting you, or a friend who invites you to her house for a BBQ mentions she is grilling chicken. An idea is planted. A seed of something to imagine, allowing the anticipation to build in your taste buds until the moment it passes your lips.

This afternoon after a long day of cooking for little ones and after the doing of the seemingly endless dishes that occur from such creating, i had a moment of clarity. The muse whispered to me about a perfect meal for a late summer evening... something cool and creamy, crisp and clean, and something for which we had all the ingredients on hand. This is the MOMENT that i spend a lot of time wishing for and dreaming of: a meal to look forward to. The minutes spent envisioning it, planning it, preparing it, and enjoying it.

Tonight's creation began with rice noodles cooked for several minutes in boiling water until barely cooked through. i then drained the noodles out, as many as i could catch, and poured some frozen shelled edamame into the still hot water to cook. While they cooked, i poured half a can of coconut milk over the noodles and mixed it gently. my daughter drizzled some honey over them and i sprinkled some salt and a squirt of lime. i then peeled and sliced cucumbers into two inch spears and cut an avocado into bite size pieces and scooped them out of their shell. These each went into their own bowl, aside chopped basil we picked from the garden. Another bowl was filled with the cooked edamame and wedges of lime. i peeled garlic cloves and broke off a chunk of ginger root and set these on the table with a micro zester. Dinner was served.

The kids enjoyed the build your own aspect of the dinner, my husband enjoyed that it was a somewhat substantial meal he could eat some of having recently had two wisdom teeth pulled and i, enjoyed the delicious clarity of it all.