Eggs

 

 

We did a GLORIOUS job this year if I do say so myself. We're actually going to need a dozen more than initially thought. They make such a nice centrepiece for the table. And looking over these photos we definitely need more yellow in there.

 

Thus.

And thus.

 

We DID do the F**k You egg but for those more delicate readers I shall obscure the potentially offending script. Below are a few close up snaps.

 

The JKO one is for the three of us: Mum, Dad, and me, all happy together in one place.

See the Warrior Beetle egg? Raaarrrrr.

Those V's that you see are birds, dear reader. And that misshapen animal is supposed to be a rabbit but Mum's crayon slipped and then the egg slipped so . . . that's what you get.

 

 

 

You may have seen from the JKO egg above, Easter is a bittersweet time for me. Easter morning three years ago my Dad left early for his next rehab stint and I never saw him again. He died on Memorial Day a few months later. So whilst I am cooking and welcoming spring and being happy and busy, I am also remembering standing with him in the driveway and giving him the biggest and strongest hug I could and saying "You can do it, Daddy." I never realised I'd never hug him again.

 

That's why we do the f**k you egg every year. Because strange and irreverent and sacreligious as it may seem, it's our way of saying hello to him, and our way of making sure that he's always part of things, no matter where he is.

 

More egg pictures when we do them, as well as recipes and lots and lots and LOTS of construction paper bunnies to come! Beetle out.



What Easter Means to Me

Ok to preface. I realise that the title of this post could easily be construed as "What prayers I will be saying on Easter Sunday and what I have given up for the Lord during Lent." Let me hasten to assure you that that is not the case.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. We are just not particularly observant.



Also, to note, we're not looking particularly
Easter-y outside. This is the view out the dining room.



And this is the snowpile at the end of the driveway. Spring has . . . not sprung.

But since Easter is a)awesome and b)a holiday with a decent amount of religious significance, I should at least mention that whilst we will be celebrating Easter, we will be celebrating egg hunts, spring vegetables, and ceramic bunnies. 

This Easter I am very much looking forward to the EASTER SUPPER PARTY which will of course be documented (and I absolutely PROMS that there will be adequate photo coverage this time) because in addition to me and Mum, we will be welcoming an old family friend and one of my bffs who will be staying the weekend. I am actually going to put my bff in charge of the camera (sorry, L!) so it will be her work you will see. Giving the camera to Mum results inevitably in blurred photos of her fingers. She still hasn't mastered the SLR thing yet.



One AWESOME addition to the Easter celebration is THIS GAME that we just got in the mail. I am sooooo excited to play it. I think we're going to do youngs versus olds and see who's pantheon of random knowledge is more useful. I should say that the "olds" will include a math professor at MIT so . . . yeah we'll probably lose. BUT we've got pop culture on lockdown.





And of course the food comes into play. I'm still planning the menu, but since I don't eat lamb or pork, we will not be serving a crown roast or a ham, unless its tofu ham (which, gross.) Fish in all probability (hopefully they'll have arctic char again like they did last time . . . nothing says Christ is Risen like eating your weight in arctic char) and Easter would NEVER be complete without carrots and parsnips! I know they're winter root vegetables, but, come on, CARROTS JUST SCREAM EASTER. I went on a massive parsnip kick this winter, they are just so delicious, so it's either going to be oven roasted or braised or if I'm feeling special, mashed. And with fresh dill. obvs.

That being said, you HAVE to have something green on the table. I did leeks last week and not that you can't repeat but I feel like mixing it up. I did find this on Martha for an Asparagus Custard Tart which looks divine (although not Beetle friendly) and I'm thinking of doing it for kicks. Of the puff pastry in the freezer, the sheets are gone, but I do have a box of the little shells . . . and I think it would be beautiful to have little individual asparagus custard tarts. I can watch everyone else eat them and sigh with envy. I love peas to death and they are really so spring like, but sadly they rate pretty low on the Beetle Friendly scale. So I'm trying to figure out what I could do with spinach??? Maybe roasted fennel with baby spinach in a sort of mixed hot/cold salad? I'll figure it out and let you know.

OH I almost forgot to tell you about Bunny Cake. Ok I don't have photos of this but my grandmother used to make Bunny Cake (yes caps are needed) every Easter. Tradition. Awesomeness. White sheet cake cut to resemble a massive bunny head with ears sticking out the top. The frosting, like all good New England households, was BOILED FROSTING which is insanely complicated and and can go so very wrong if you're not careful but when done properly is the single most delicious thing on earth. (and yes, that vague sound you hear is me weeping in agony that I can no longer eat it.) This was slathered over the cake and ears, then sprinkled with coconut flakes for that "fuzzy" look. Pipe cleaners were the whiskers, and remember the Brachs jellybeans? Of course you do you can still get them but it's getting harder and harder (screw you, Jelly Belly, you'll NEVER BE BRACHS!) The giant ones than you could use as makeup if you were . . . like me . . . ok never mind maybe only I did that. THE POINT BEING. Pink jellybeans for the inner ears, and then the face.

BUNNY CAKE.

Seriously the bestest part of Easter. I made one two years ago I think in my tiny kitchen in Manhattan and it was epic. Delicious and epic. Since it's no longer Beetle Friendly, though, I've had to come up with alternatives to Bunny Cake over the past years. I made oatmeal gingerbread a few years ago and stenciled powdered sugar bunnies on top, and this year the jury is still out. We DID get a bundt cake pan at Target last year, so perhaps a lemon or ginger or lemon/ginger cake of some sort is in order? Lemon seems appropriate. And I'll figure out something for the "bunniness" of it all. Rest assured, dear reader, BUNNY CAKE WILL ENDURE.

Tomorrow we're going to dye the eggs. Key. There is a tradition in our household with the eggs. It was begun by my dad when we were all sat round the table doing our own things and he made what Mum deemed a "stupid coloured egg." (note: You can't get away with ANYTHING in this house. It's kill or be killed, adapt or die, This. Is. Sparta., etc.) He strangely enough took the criticism silently and put his legitimately substandard egg back in the carton to dry. About ten minutes passed in pleasant egg-dyeing silence. Then without speaking he held out the egg he'd been working on towards Mum, fat side out. Using the white crayon that comes in the box he'd written, excuse my french, "F**k You." Hilarity ensued. Mum took his first egg and wrote "Stupid" on it and dipped it in another colour so that it showed up. It pretty quickly deteriorated from there.

ANYWAY thus began the F**k You egg tradition. See? I told you. We're not super religious here. A lot of people see the photos of Easter eggs and go "oh how pretty you guys did such a nice job they're gorgeous" and then . . . "oh . . . wait . . . what?" The closer of my peeps know what to expect.

Once the eggs are dyed, the HUNTING begins. See the note above about our family being a bit Spartan in its approach towards everything? The egg hunts are none of this pleasant "la di da I wonder where the Easter bunny hid them this time!" nonsense. They are full scale take no prisoners every man for himself bloodbaths. People get locked in bathrooms and closets to buy a few extra minutes. Eggs go missing because the hiding places are so good the person who HID them can't remember an hour later. My grandfather was in the CIA in WWII. You wanna know how to lose an egg hunt? Have a former spy hide the eggs. No joke, three weeks later, buried in the bottom of a can of ground coffee in the back of the freezer, down the back of the toilet tank, tucked underneath the back burner of the stove (that one we found what can only be described as the smelly and messy way.) It's a free for all. A hilarious, delightful, ridiculously fun and competitive free for all.

So in summation, that's what Easter means to me. An egg that says Fuck You in white crayon, the vision of my grandmother reaching into the back of the toilet and screaming in disgust, and a cake in the shape of the biggest bunny head you've ever seen. Also making myself sick on black jellybeans because they are the best ones.

Pictures of all TK!

Postscript: because it's that kind of day, sinus headache, cover letters, laundry, I'm sharing Primrose's complete and utter lack of interest in anything.

 

Supper Party

Do you know, I had this whole plan to upload a slide show of pictures and I began the afternoon assiduously documenting everything. Then . . . I don't know what happened. I mean, obviously, the party happened, but we were carrying dishes back into the kitchen from the ruin of the table and I realised that there were exactly FOUR photos on my camera, and all of the appetizer. None of the rest. humph. Oh well. Imagination, dear reader, imagination!

And now for the important bit:

le menu

first course

Leek and Olive Tart with Two Cheeses

dates and cheese

Rosemary bread

main course

Baked Halibut

Roasted Cauliflower with Tomatoes and Olives (just omit the pasta)

Carrots and Lentils in Olive Oil

Rosemary Bread

dessert

Ginger Cheesecake

 

 

 

Notes:

Seriously, don't you feel more hopeful looking at this?

1. Everything looks more impressive on puff pastry. Seriously, that tart was SO EASY but slap it on a piece of thawed puff pastry and it's like you went to Cordon Bleu. I did manage to take pictures of that. Leeks are just amazing. Have I mentioned that? Also I was in Beetle Friendly HELL with all that Camembert. mmmm camembert.... This came about because I was worried there wasn't enough green in the menu and then I came upon this one and leeks are Eastery and Springy and I figued hell, there are two feet of snow outside but it's Easter next week so maybe, by making leeks, I can make it become spring. It was a hopeful appetizer, people. An appetizer of hope.

 

 

I do.

2. We lucked out again and got amazing local halibut from Chatham, MA that had just been brought in. It was delicious and so so fresh you could still taste the seawater on it. I think we bought about 20 pounds of halibut and there are two pieces left. It vanished. Hey, we're massholes. Don't stand between me and my baked fish.

 

3. The roasted cauliflower actually serves as a nice fish topping since it's mediterranean by nature with the olives and garlic. I just served it in a big dish and it made a nice vegetable side. The carrots and lentils cooked up WAY more liquidy than indicated but I let it simmer away and in the end ladled out about 2 cups of the "broth" which will make a nice soup later on. (over bulgur maybe? or brown rice?)

 

4. We've already discussed the cheesecake. I went at the end to push another piece on people and was all "oh . . . I made a huge one . . . seriously you have to have another piece . . . oh. Never mind." Sucker was GONE. I had to break into the custard. Guys, I had to break into THE EMERGENCY CHEESECAKE. That's how good this one was. I would show you a picture but . . . it's an empty pie plate. 

 

 

Things that were discussed at great length last night:

1. Seagulls and what is, to quote Lebowski, the preferred nomenclature. If you didn't know, here. Wikipedia on several phones plus Petersons Guide to Birds. Very heated argument.

 

2. Doomsday Preppers, (you guys seriously it's the best. show. ever. watch it.), full scale underground bunkers vs. temporary underground bunkers, being that crazy, why I love the OCDness of the food storage system with all the labels of MREs facing the same way. (It just make me calm looking at their perfectly ordered 10 years of freezedried chicken. I like things to be organised, ok?)

 

3. GMOs.

 

4. What exactly is a crown rack of lamb?

 

 

I feel bad there are no pictures (I failed. I FAILED.) so I will leave you with these:

 

Further nod to spring, we got BEAUTIFUL flowers.

 

Check it out, one of our guests raises her own chickens and we got a dozen SUPER FRESH EGGS that were laid that morning. Score. They're so pretty. You guys it's ALREADY EASTER up in here.

 

 

Awesomely, the placecards were library checkout cards. Obviously.

 

In Which I Wear a Forever Lazy and Make Ginger Cheesecake

There is a Supper Party tomorrow night at the farm. One of mum's favourite things to do is wait until I'm home (which I am . . . for a while . . . until some AMAZING boarding school hires me to teach English and coach cross country . . hint hint hint) and then invite people to dinner. And then I get to cook. Thing is it actually works out really well, because I love cooking and we have really awesome friends so it's always a fun night. Only at our Supper Parties can we move from settling an argument about Channing Tatum via imdb to impersonating a foul mouthed Scotsman to the IMF bailout and the UK independence party in the space of about 15 minutes.

I'll post more menu info and photos tomorrow once it actually happens, but I have been a busy beetle for the last two days.

First was two loaves of Black Bread. I wish a photo could convey how amazing this smells when you're mixing the dough. It's the good stuff, none of this candyass "oh I used rye flour I made black bread" nonsense. It's got coffee and cocoa powder and I almost never use white flour when making stuff like this. So it's . . . dense is a good word. Like, kill someone with it dense. Anyway, the recipe was this from 101 Cookbooks. It's a good one. I swapped out the carrot for a can of pureed butternut squash (which comes half a cup short) and to make up the bulk of it added half a cup of oat bran. It definitely makes the dough sticker so be prepared if you follow in my fingersteps. The bread is actually payment for our wonderful handyman putting together the spin bike I bought for myself before I moved back home. I'll photo it later. Me being able to workout whenever and however long I want = world peace. He put it together in about an hour bless him and I promised him two loaves of his favourite black bread when he comes tomorrow night. So voila! This one takes a while, but it smells incredible and it's SO satisfying and filling. On the Beetle Friendly scale it ranks about a 7 (10 being all good). It's got a little bit of butter in it which I could easily switch out if I were making it for me and cocoa powder which, technically, not supposed to eat chocolate. But it's awesome.

Today was four (count 'em FOUR more loaves of the Rosemary bread I made last week. I took out the honey because I wanted something even more savoury and we got some really nice fresh rosemary yesterday. Oh here photo:

The rosemary looked so pretty floating on the yeast. Sigh. And now the kitchen smells like salt and rosemary and everything that is good and kind in the world. Rosemary bread is a resounding 10 on the Beetle Friendly scale. 10+

Dessert came next in the cooking schedule. For thanksgiving I had made a pumpkin cheesecake (cheesecake incidentally is a 0 on the Beetle Friendly scale . . . seriously call the paramedics) which I had to hide from mum so that it wouldn't have giant spoon holes in it when I put it on the table. I decided to do cheesecake again but THIS time I would make a ginger one. Yay!

I found out when I made the pumpkin one at TG just how amazing Neufchatel really is. It makes all the difference in the world when you're making cheesecake. So light, so fluffy. I guess there's an added bonus that it's not AS guilt inducing but whatever, if you're going to eat, EAT. I'm talking about the density difference here. The recipe I used for Ginger Cheesecake called for a ground pecan crust but I hate pecans so even if I'm not going to eat one single bite I refuse to cook with them. I went with a good old fashioned gingersnap crust that I filched from another Martha Stewart recipe and set to work.

Do you have ANY IDEA how amazing ginger cheesecake smells? It's all spicy and sweet and warm and just HAPPY. Gingersnaps too, btw. I was crushing them up for the crust and I seriously just put my palms up to my face and took a couple of huge breaths. I'm glad nobody saw me but I was completely justified.

So with the Neufchatel doing it's airy fairy thing up in there, THIS is what it looked like:

At that point it was full of cream and eggs and ground and grated ginger and BRILLIANTLY full of ginger preserves which means it's studded with tiny pieces of crystalised ginger . . . omg. Amazing right? I've never been a stickler for having a perfectly smooth cheesecake crust (you're just going to eat it anyway) so I don't have any problem showing you the finished product currently cooling in my oven.

Due to our last springform pan dying a noble and heroic death in the middle of carrying out a gingerbread cake assault, and Target's surprising lack of springforms (really guys? you have EVERYTHING) I used a pie plate. Ah well. The result of that is that there was a bit of filling left over, so I poured it into a pyrex and baked them side by side. The excess without the crust becomes a ginger cheesecake CUSTARD instead which . . . what's the problem. And the cool part is that when I was scraping the bottom of the mixing bowl for it, all the crystalised ginger bits from the preserves ended up getting on the top of the custard so it's sort of a topping. A topping of awesome.

So that's one day of cooking down. Tomorrow I make the mains: Filets of whatever fish looks good at the market, Spiced Carrots and Lentils with Sauteed Onions, Cauliflower and Black Olives with Roasted Tomatoes and Coriander, and in a nod to spring (ha, we have two feet of snow outside) a Leek and Olive Tart with Cheese. Like I said, photos and descriptions to come. For the time being, having run 10 miles in the bitter wind and then run around the kitchen all day listening to the Parliamentary debates, this is one Hungry Beetle.

The definition of "Beetle Friendly"

The first question I get asked when it comes to food is "Aren't you gluten-free?" The answer, every time, resoundingly so, is "Hell. No." If I could ever find a tee shirt that said "Team Gluten" I would wear. I love gluten. Gluten is my secret boyfriend.

The second question is "Aren't you vegan?" For the answer, see above. Although I don't eat meat, I eat fish like a seal who's been swimming for three years without break and just arfed her way into a fishmonger's shop. I LOVE fish. Love it.

Tangent: Wanna know how much I love fish? I'll tell you. You know how when you were little and you would go to the grocery store and your parents would buy you a snack as a treat for the ride home? A candy bar (back in the days when your parents could just HAND YOU A BAR OF CHOCOLATE without worrying about getting arrested for crimes against society), or something similar? Yeah, my snack was never a candy bar. MY snack was a strip of salt cured herring. A solidified piece of salt and fish that was so dry you had to rip pieces off with your teeth, and was so salty it made the insides of your lips all puckery. So. Good. My dad used to look back in the rearview mirror at Little Beetle, buckled in, mountain of curly hair atop her three year old head, gnawing for dear life on salted herring. And he'd say "Jesus Christ we're raising a Viking."

ANYWAY. Point being. Not a vegan.

What I am is a strange hybrid of all the "free" diets rolled into one. And the reason for this is, there's no delicate way to put this, IBS. Yep. Sorry, everyone. I know it's not polite to discuss your digestive system in public, but it's got to be done.

If you're really bored at work, here's the Wikipedia entry on IBS. It's kind of a bitch. And everyone's IBS manifests itself in different ways. What will send me to the emergency room will make up the bulk of someone else's diet, and vice versa. And the only way to know what you can eat and what you can't, is, you guessed it, trial and error. SO FUN RIGHT? My trial and error period was the three months after getting diagnosed. It was basically me eating dry cereal and sometimes crying in a fetal ball and sometimes not.

It started when I was 22. I had been sick on and off for a few months and then one morning woke up (GROSSNESS ALERT) to find the entire contents of my digestive system in my bed with me. Needless to say, I called my doctor. Tests, etc. ensued. I got to take Demerol for one of them which was AMAZING. At the end of all of them she told me I had stress-induced IBS and that I could either make a comprehensive eating list and calm the f**k down or go on Zoloft. I chose the former. (Note: I've been a lovely little stress ball since I had my first full blown panic attack at 11. I bet there are legions of parenting blogs out there who would be happy to blame the fish. And the salt. And, you know, air.)

So. Long story short. I am not gluten-intolerant. I am not lactose-intolerant. What I am, dear reader, is fat-intolerant. Yep. My body, for whatever reason, has an inability to digest fat in large quantities, and in almost all it's forms. As one co-worker once said to me, perhaps not totally nicely, "you're destined to be skinny and healthy for every day of your ridiculously long life."

It's boring to list the foods I can't or can eat. Suffice it to say that cheese is out (insert large sob), as are nuts, cream and butter, seeds, and all oils except olive in small quantities. I had to stop eating meat whilst I got better and sort of fell out of the habit of it, hence the pescetarianism. It IS possible to retrain your body to digest certain foods again. It took me five months of agony before I could eat potatoes but to be honest I would rather die a horrible death than face life without potatoes ever again. Potatoes = God. I got back most kinds of beans, and recently, and to my delight, almonds.

Again, long story short. As long as I eat low fat, high fiber, the simpler the better, I'm good to go. Lots of steamed vegetables. Lots of tofu. Lots of bran crackers and wheat/spelt bread. I'm a runner. Carbs are my life. Bread is the single greatest culinary creation of all time. BRING ON THE BREAD.

So when I say "Beetle friendly" as I will over the course of this, I mean butter free, cream free, seed free, and 99% of the time oil free. I cook with a lot of vegetable purees, a lot of applesauce, and I will be the first to admit that it's more than an acquired taste. You gotta get used to dinners that taste "really" healthy. But once you do, it's not so bad. At this point my internal checklist is so innate that I don't think about it anymore. And my taste buds have gotten used to it. Once in a while something will sneak in, a restaurant will fail to tell me something or I'll misread an ingredient label. And then . . . well . . . have you ever seen a tv show or a movie where the character turns into a werewolf? It's kind of like that.

But for the record. Not a vegan. Team Gluten. Yay Carbs.

A Bulgar Kind of St. Patrick's Day

I'm half-Irishy/Welshy so St. Patrick's Day is a thing, although definitely not a "let's get as drunk as possible wearing plastic green shamrock necklaces" thing. It's more of a "farmhouse old country" kind of thing.

What I did that was relatively Irish yesterday:
- Make cod for dinner
- Watch an episode of that new show "Vikings" on the National Geographic Channel
- Call my uncles and wish them Happy St. Patrick's Day. I incidentally also send cards.

The most relatively Irish thing I did though was to make this.

Thank you, Martha Rose Shulman of the New York Times and your truly awesome "Recipes For Health" blog, for Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread with Bulgar.

Now, I don't like Irish Soda Bread. I never have. And mum doesn't either. It's pretty tasteless, it's crumbly and doesn't stand up to jam or butter (therefore rendering both taste-giving methods useless), and I don't like raisins or currants in my bread.

So why would I make this you ask? It was a risk. It's got buttermilk in it, which means it's not Beetle-friendly. Which means there is only one person on this farm who can eat it. If it tanked, it would be left to mum, who doesn't like Irish Soda Bread. It was either going to be a success, or the squirrels were going to be reeealllllyyyy happy right about now. But I felt like I should do something, and I love bulgar, and I love M.R.S. and have never had a bad recipe off of her. So I went for it.

For starters, it was really hard not to eat the bulgar straight out of its little bowl instead of adding it to the dough. Bulgar is delicious and it smelled so earthy and carbohydratey that I almost caved. But it would have meant another half hour of soaking in boiling water and we had to go to Target, so I controlled myself.

The dough, I gotta tell you, was essentially liquid. I used exactly 2 cups of buttermilk as per the recipe. But when M.R.S. said "the dough will be slightly sticky" I don't think this is what she had in mind. It had no shape at all. When I put it on the baking sheet I literally had to scoop handfuls out and sort of pat it into a rough "circular bread loaf" shape and hope for the best. Having never made soad bread before, I was hesitant to add more flour because what if that was SUPPOSED to happen and I killed it? So I just went with and apprehensively popped it in the oven. But I have to say, the pale brown dough, with little pieces of bulgar making it all rough and stickey outey, looked a hell of a lot like cat vomit on parchment paper.

I crossed my fingers and set the timer.

Well it didn't end up like cat vomit, that's one thing. I did the whole 20 minutes at 450 and then 20 minutes at 375. I think maybe next time (there will be a next time, incidentally, yay!) I will reduce the buttermilk, or shape the cat vomit/dough into two smaller loaves, or maybe bake it at 400 for 40 minutes? I'll figure it out. The issue was that when I took it out at the proposed "done" time, it was still wet in the middle. I put it back in the oven for a little bit, until the bottom was aallllmoooost burnt, and then let it cool and hopefully finish up cooking. When I sliced it it wasn't wet anymore, but still sort of damp-ish.

The jury deliberated before dinner and the verdict was
- really good
- not at all like Irish Soda Bread (hence the really good)
- to be made again with the above modifications

I'm putting another picture in because it really did look super pretty, like an awesome rough farmhouse loaf. Which, considering it was St. Patrick's Day, is what I was going for. It was toasted this morning and spread with blue cheese and fig jam. Irish no. Delicious yes. As my Nana always used to say on St. Patrick's Day, "Erin Go Braless."

The Best Bread in the World

I can never make this bread again. Ever. Evereverever times a million.

Because if I do, I will keep making it. And then I will keep eating it. And then I will become like those people you see on TLC who need a crane to lift the roof off their bedrooms and then lift their own morbidly obese bodies out of their beds so they can go to the hospital for being too fat.

THAT is why I can never make this bread again. It is the single most beautiful thing I have ever eaten.

It's Nigel Slater's fault. He posted a recipe for "Rosemary and Honey Bread for Cheese" and like an idiot I thought "wow that looks great I'll give it a try." Despite the fact that I can't eat cheese, anything involving rosemary catches my eye. And let's face it I'm a sucker for bread recipes, and for bread itself.

I made a simpler version, wanting something I could have with a savoury dinner or even breakfast. So I took out the apricots, sultanas, etc., and instead of half white flour/half wheat flour, I used all wheat.

Thus:
VERY SIMPLE ROSEMARY AND HONEY BREAD WITH SEA SALT
(adapted from Nigel Slater's recipe, and converted to US measurements)

4 cups whole wheat flour (or 2 cups wheat/2 cups white)
1 tsp salt
350 ml warm water
1 tbsp honey (not super strong, not super light, in the middle)
2 packets dried yeast

2 tbsp chopped rosemary

a bit more rosemary, to decorate

sea salt, to decorate

• Mix flour or flours and salt in a large bowl.
• Pour the yeast into the warm water, stir until dissolved, add the honey, stir again, add the rosemary, stir again.
• Mix water/yeast/honey/rosemary into the flours. If you are using a spoon and your hands like I was, mix until a spoon is no longer effective then switch to your hands and knead in the bowl for about 5 minutes until the dough is all together and sticky. It's a pretty small ball of dough, don't freak out.
• Cover with a cloth and let rise for about an hour in a relatively warm spot. (note: when you are cooking in a freezing cold farmhouse in Massachusetts or similar, don't expect it to rise that much, it will look not that much different than it did at the beginning of the hour.)
• Divide the dough into two balls/loaves/whatever shape you feel like at the moment. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Scatter with sea salt and rosemary flakes.
• Bake at 425 degrees about 25 minutes until it's brown around the edges.

The kitchen smelled AMAZING in about ten minutes. I kept checking it to see if the cooking time needed to be different since I read "Gas Mark 8" and get tunnel vision. But almost exactly to the second of 25 minutes, they were brown and crackly on the sides and wowie wowie wow.

OMG this bread. I wanted to wait until dinner time but I couldn't resist, I figured I'd better determine its edible-ness before I served it and thus avoid a potential incident. So I cut off a small piece at the end. I could SMELL that musky honey sweetness as the knife broke the crust, and a few flakes of sea salt hit the parchment paper.
O
M
G
The texture was perfect. Soft and fluffy but substantianal enough that you really felt like you were eating homemade bread. And the ROSEMARY. And the SEA SALT. It's perfect bread. I stood there, in the darkend kitchen, staring out the window at the early-now-it's-summer setting sun and had a bread moment like no other. Every bite. Sweet, salty, savoury, it's all in there. And it was warm and nourishing and just made me feel like there would never be any bad in the world ever again.

When Mum got home, I met her at the door with a slice, pronouncing "I AM A F*&%ING GENIUS." She stood in the foyer in her overcoat and ate two slices making little puppy mewing noises. And we proceeded to polish off the entirety of loaf #1 with dinner (incidentally, roasted broccoli and sprouts with lima beans and more life-affirming rosemary.) She had some with butter for breakfast this morning, and as soon as my butternut squash finishes steaming, it'll be accompanying dinner tonight. And then . . . bread obesity here I come.

I wonder how much a 10 miler in arctic temps with a head wind has earned me in the bread department tonight . . . you know what, sod it. Don't care.

I am a Beetle. Hear me Roar.

This is a post about nicknames.

I figured I should explain the whole "Warrior Beetle" thing. And why when someone says "Hey, Warrior Beetle" I turn around and say "Yes?"

It wasn't always Warrior Beetle, the whole beetle thing began with my mom deciding that I bore distinct similarities to a Dung Beetle. Just to clarify, I am not rotund, horned, or covered in a black exoskeleton. Nor do I spend my time pushing balls of elephant dung ten times my size around on the ground. What my mom decided was that I was strong (did you know they can move ten times their weight in poop?), industrious, highly focused, and always busy. I also weigh 96 pounds of muscle so when you hug me it feels very carapace-like.

So for many years I was Dung Beetle, which was sometimes shortened to D.B., or Dung, or Beetle. So how did the Warrior come about?

The last three years haven't been the easiest years of my life. For starters, my dad died a few months before my 27th birthday after a long and messy battle with substance abuse. A year and a half after that, I got laid off from my job. Yes, world, I became a statistic. It's not the nicest sensation in the world. Since January 2012 I've been relatively unemployed, living in New York on a rapidly dwindling bank account, and trying to a) get a job b)figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. And apart from my OCD cleanliness getting a bit worse, losing all of the small amount of body fat I had, and sporadic panic attacks, I'm still here.

I think this is why Warrior Beetle came about. Mom decided I was a Warrior. For a while I was Ninja Beetle (apparently I look like an assassin in my running clothes, and I make no noise when I run so stealth killing is possible). But although I spend the majority of my time in running clothes, I do dress up whenever I can. So Warrior Beetle happened - a bit more theoretical and applicable even if I'm in lace and pearls. I am a warrior because I fight back. One thing everything that has happened has taught me is that life can suck really hard sometimes. And it's not fair. And it doesn't make sense. And anyone who says "everything happens for a reason" needs to be punched in the face. But what are you going to do? You gotta keep going. You figure out how to survive and you survive. And that's what I'm going to do. I am a warrior. And I am a beetle. I am a warrior beetle.

*waggles horns in triumph*

Lest this become one of "those" posts, I want to end on a lighter note. If you can hold Standing Head to Knee at the same time as your cat is biting your ankle, you are set for life.

Happy Mothering Sunday!

First post. Here we go.

In honour of my dear mother, and to maintain our monarchist leanings, Mothering Sunday was celebrated today. And what better way to say "you are a good mom" than scones?

 

I was still in the post-run shower (desperately trying to dethaw) when she got back from the gym, so I left *this* on the stove for her to see. I was rewarded with a large hug when I came down, and she didn't even tell me to take shorter showers. A rare occurance.

 

Of course, making something like scones is ridiculous and silly for me (to be explained ad nausea, trust me) but when I have no intention of partaking in the baked item, then it can include all sorts of fun things like butter and whole milk. The "only" stipulations for Mom Scones are minimal if at all sugar, and she hates both raisins and currants. I adapted the recipe, switched out for whole wheat flour, halved the butter and added more milk. I took out ALL the sugar which may horrify some people but whatever. The person who made these first apparently likes raw scones. They cooked for half an hour instead of 15 minutes, and I made them into the appropriate "scone" shape, which is what you see above. Enough of this triangular nonsense, people. Scones should be round. Like biscuits. End. Of.

 

By the time I came down, one had disappeared and another handful were heating up in the oven. When slathered with butter and marmalade, the result was thus:

 





Herewith the recipe, with my edits:

MOM SCONES

1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 stick butter, softened
1 1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup milk

- Preheat oven to 375.- Mix together flour, baking powder and salt.- Cut in butter until it's very crumbly.- Add in oats.- Add milk, mix until everything's evenly wet. You can add more milk if you need to.- Shape into the "proper" scone shape with your hands.- Bake on cookie sheets, either with parchment paper or greased, about 30 minutes until browning around the edges. You can of course increase the oven temp if you're in a hurry.

NB: this is not everyone's thing. You can absolutely add back in 1/3 cup of sugar, or honey, or agave, or whatever you choose to use. Or put in raisins or currants or anything else you like. This is just a simple, easily adaptable, quick scone that I could do watching "American Supernanny", eating rice cakes, and putting on mascara at the same time. They should all be that simple.

Happy Mothering Sunday to all the mum's in the world.