Find and Reuse

Here in Takoma Park, Mother's Day weekend filled with sunshine and yard sales.

Finds of the weekend:

1. A handwoven hand-dyed mudcloth from Mali, perfect for our dining room table. We found this at a yard sale. The family had bought it a dozen years ago when they were traveling in Africa.



(Oops--I guess it is actually "hand-died")



2. Metal champagne flutes. Since I saw Beth's stainless steel wineglasses over at Fake Plastic Fish, I've been coveting something like these for our picnic basket. We found these at a community yard sale on the grounds of the library. Proceeds went to help finance the local Independence Day celebration.



We put the glasses to use Sunday morning, drinking mimosas in bed as we ate croissants and read the newspaper. (This is an old tradition that David and I had, but only recently is it one that our son could enjoy as well. Granted, his mimosa had seltzer instead of champagne, and he enjoys the comics more than the book section.)

3. A gorgeous cake plate. I'd been dreaming about cake plates all week, ever since I ran across the lovely examples over at This Week for Dinner.





I'm not sure this one should count as a thrifting find, since David found it in our basement, filled with things from his grandmothers which we have not really unpacked since we got them a dozen years ago.  I'm so pleased it is finally joining us upstairs!

Check out some other great thrift store finds over at Thrift Share Monday and at Thrifty Treasures.

Garden Fresh

The menu plan for the upcoming week's meals is all inspired by what vegetables are growing in our garden--and, for our non-vegetarian meals, what meat is eager to be defrosted from the freezer.

Monday:
Radish Greens Soup (from our garden)
Brown-bread Toast with Goat Cheese and Homegrown Radishes
Deviled eggs with Paprika and Homegrown Chives

Tuesday:
Roast Chicken
Homegrown Broccoli Rapini
Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Orange Zest
Arugula and Lemon Balm Salad (from our garden)

Wednesday:
Enchiladas with goat cheese, mushrooms, onions, and homegrown mustard greens
Wednesday Cocktail of the week--Mojitas made with homegrown mint

Thursday:
Chicken soup with Wild Rice, Leeks, and Homegrown Greens (made from leftover chicken from Tuesday)

Friday:
Steak Diane
Homegrown Salad with Arugula, Sorrel, and Radishes
Balsamic Strawberries with Ricotta Cream

Saturday:
Marcella Hazan's Simple Tomato Sauce
Telephone Cord Pasta
Assorted Salad Greens from the garden
Blueberry Muffins (dessert, to be held back from our CSA's "muffin luck" celebration of the opening of the season)

Sunday:
Homemade Vegetarian Sushi
Strawberries

I've found a few great online link lists of meal plans, including Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus. Check out all the inspiring links!

A Handmade Salad

For my birthday, my mother-in-law frequently asks me to figure out something that I love but would not splurge for myself.  Although I've been dreaming about beautiful small salad bowls recently, the mass-made ones did not call my name--and the handturned ones seemed a bit out of my price range.  What a perfect time for birthdays!

Through Etsy, I found many beautiful bowls, including this one from One of a Kind 2.  When we got home from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, the box was waiting for me and I eagerly opened it to see if the bowl was as beautiful in person as it was on the website.  And it absolutely is.

I suppose this style of natural-edged bowl made from a fallen tree could be called Wabi Sabi--or Imperfect Beauty, as it is sometimes translated.

My own style tends toward the natural, the authentic, the homemade--and of course, stacks of books and papers, and the odd ball of yarn with a pair of needles...

I can't wait to fill this beautiful bowl tonight with arugula, amaranth leaves, parsley, and sorrel from our garden!  Finding the beauty in the things naturally around us--be it wooden bowls and pottery plates, or our homegrown food-- adds so much to my sense of peace and joy while sitting around the table.

Do you have a personal connection to your tableware? Do you eat off your Grandmother's china, or use a clay bowl for salt that your toddler made, or serve homemade bread in a basket bought on the side of the road near Charleston, or cook in clay pots bought in South America, or off of handwoven placemats? I'd love to hear about it.

Meal Planning, Week 3

Although I've spent most of my life as a seat-of-the-pants cook who loved to invent dinner on the fly out whatever was in season (or in the pantry), I've really enjoyed the last few weeks of planning a week's worth of meals in advance.  I've over-ridden my intuitive instincts for a little while--and I'm trying lots of new cookbook recipes.  By doing this, I'm learning some new techniques, experimenting with some new flavors, and getting lots of ideas for the future.

Last week's meals were almost exclusively from Aviva Goldfarb's new SOS!  The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families. She, after all, was the person who got me intrigued with the whole idea of meal planning to begin with.  Her recipes are interesting and tasty, beautifully easy to follow, and really quick to make on busy evenings.  I loved the meals filled with all the wonderful flavors of spring.  And we especially enjoyed her Shrimp and Grits!



We also loved the leftover asparagus soup which we served chilled.  David and I ate it for lunch one day (while our son was visiting friends), along with homegrown radishes on toast with fresh butter:




*  *  *

This week, I thought I'd try out some recipes from the marvelous food memoirs I've been reading.

Monday:
Chicken Thighs with Cinnamon and Dates
   from Kim Sunee's Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus

Tuesday:
Wild Greens Turnovers with Lemon Bechamel sauce (vegetarian)
Basil Panna Cotta
   both from Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove

Wednesday:
Channa Masala over Brown Basmati Rice (vegetarian)
   from Shoba Narayan's Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
Homegrown Broccoli Rapini
Mango Lassis

Thursday:
Out for a book signing by one of my son's favorite authors
Travel Salad (vegetarian)
   from Emily Franklin's Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes
Carried "to-go style" in our tiffin

Friday:
Flank Steak with Chimichuri
   inspired by Tara Austen Weaver's The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis (but recipe here)
Assorted Salad Greens from the Garden
Sweet Potato Pie

Saturday:
Chicken Thighs Braised in Pomegranate Molasses
Roasted Cauliflower with Smoked Paprika and Cocoa Powder
  both from Shauna James Ahern's Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back...And How You Can Too

Sunday:
Bouchon au Thon
   from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
Steamed Asparagus
Strawberries

* * *

I found a few online link lists of meal plans and have really enjoyed clicking to see how everybody makes their menus. Two of my favorites are Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus.

What are you thinking about eating this week?  Are you being inspired in the kitchen by books?  Or are you being most moved by all the asparagus, strawberries, garlic scapes, or fresh peas coming into the farmers market?

Maryland Sheep and Wool

Every year I look forward to the incredible Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  It always falls at such an ideal time: the weekend between my birthday and Mother's Day.

One of the things we always love to watch is the sheep shearing demonstration.  This gentleman kept the feisty Scottish Blackface remarkably calm...





...and, using hand shearers, took off the coat in one beautifully big piece:



Of course, sheep demonstrations are a pretty small part of the festival for me. I go for the fiber off the hoof. My stash has gotten ridiculous in the last few years so I promised myself I would not buy a lot of new yarn. I went with one booth in mind: Seacolors.



And from this booth came my only significant purchase. I bought enough yarn for a sweater for myself, in very muted colors (which actually are pretty colorful for me):



* * *

One of the coolest things is seeing blog friends. I'm pretty sure I saw the Fiddlin' Fool and young Jamie from Two Sock Knitters. I also saw, I think, Anne Hanson from Knitspot, accompanied by the gorgeous model for her Hypoteneuse stole.  And best of all?  While David was waiting for me, sitting on the floor of the main hall knitting squares for the knitted quilt our family is making, Shani recognized him from the pictures on this blog and asked him if he was David!

Great-Granny's Pound Cake

This has been a week full of celebration.  My birthday and my son's birthday fall just two days apart during this beautiful season of azaleas and dogwoods.  We both always want the same cake, so we often celebrate with it on the day between our birthdays.



The cake we both love so much is from a recipe my great-grandmother (for whom I was named) brought over from England when she immigrated.  Her daughter made it often, her granddaughter made it often, I make it often, and now my son can help continue the tradition.

*  *  *

 Great-Granny's Pound Cake

3 cups sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
6 eggs
3 cups flour
1 cup heavy cream
1 lemon, zested and juiced

1. Bring the butter and eggs to room temperature.

2. Prepare a tube pan or a bundt pan by greasing it with butter.  Sprinkle flour in the pan and shake to distribute.  Dump out any remaining flour.

3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and smooth.  A good stand mixer makes this process much easier, but you can do it with a hand egg beater if you are patient and strong.

4.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat them in well.

5.  Mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice.

6.  Alternately add a little flour and a little cream and mix until all is incorporated.  Don't overbeat.

7.  Pour into the prepared cake mold, using a rubber spatula to get every last bit.

8.  Put the pan into a cold oven and set the temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cook for 90 minutes or until it is golden brown and smells heavenly.

9.  Let it cool a bit, if you can wait--especially if you're putting wax candles in, which will melt into the cake otherwise!

*  *  *

One of the tricks that makes this cake turn out so well is to use cream, butter, and eggs from grassfed animals.  I know those are the only things my great-grandmother had access to, but it means making a decision these days.  Going grass-fed means this gastronomical splurge is a bit better for you since these ingredients will be higher in vitamin E, omega 3 fatty acids, and conjugated linoleic acid than conventional eggs and dairy would be.  (You're also reducing the chance of food poisioning if you lick the delicious batter from the bowl!)

"Scrambling" for a Spring Menu Plan

Last week, I made an official meal plan for the first time--and loved the relaxed feeling it gave me at 5:30 or 6pm when I carried my laptop into the kitchen and turned on a podcast (often The Splendid Table) while I cut veggies for a meal already thought out. Although I've always adored reading cookbooks, I've rarely actually followed a recipe without major changes. I did this week--and we had a couple of meals that were quite different from the meals I normally create.

We did change a few things around. I forgot to defrost the chicken, so we had stuffed potatoes with goat cheese and rapini that night (instead of chicken, baked potatoes, and sauteed rapini). I changed the meal plan to reflect how we actually ate.

One of the best things about the week of meals had nothing to do with the planning itself. This was the first week when our local farmers market sold asparagus! We ate it for two meals--one roasted, and one steamed. Perhaps because we've spent a long winter deprived of these offerings, or perhaps because of my spring birthday, asparagus and strawberries are my absolute favorite foods ever. Well--and okra. And Brussels sprouts. Oh--and oysters, or shrimp.... And I couldn't live without rice.... (Yep, I'm a coastal South Carolina girl at heart, no matter where I live now.)

For those of you who read my first meal-planning post last week, you may remember that I was inspired to try meal planning by conversations with--and then a book talk by--Aviva Goldfarb, creator of The Six O'Clock Scramble and the author of the fabulous new eco-cookbook SOS! The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families.

This week will be a plan almost entirely inspired by recipes from Goldfarb's book.  All of these main dish recipes--and even many of the side dishes that accompany the mains--are hers (more or less), with the exception of Saturday evening.

*  *  *

Monday:
A Night at the Opera
Beef Empanadas (made with homemade dough)
Kale
Carried "to-go style" in our tiffin

Tuesday:
Indian-spiced Salmon over Brown Basmati Rice
Spinach with Mushrooms
Mango Lassi (dessert)

Wednesday:
Orzo Salad with Peas and Feta Cheese (vegetarian)

Thursday:
Cream of Asparagus Soup (vegetarian)
Assorted Salad Greens with Raisins, Cashews, and Sunflower seeds
Homemade Sourdough Bread

Friday:
Spice-tossed Shrimp with Parmesan Grits
Lemon-Pepper Broccoli
Rhubarb Crisp (dessert)

Saturday:
A Day at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival
Homemade Mushroom Pizza topped with Homegrown Arugula (vegetarian)
(dough recipe from The Greens Cookbook)

Sunday:
Lemon Parmesan Fusilli with Asparagus and Spinach (vegetarian)
Strawberries topped with Greek Honey Yogurt

* * *

I found a few online link lists of meal plans and have really enjoyed clicking to see how everybody makes their menus. Two of my favorites are Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus.

Next week: menus from great food memoirs!