brutally cold

So much to catch up on. I'll just have to plunge in.

First of all, I was wildly excited about every aspect of Suzy's retirement reception. The invitation was a killer (I don't place the story right off, but what a great picture!), the Barks cover wonderful (mud lake indeed!), the Latina girl asking the names of H, D and L in English, the big number of people who came, the old photo (scan, please!). I'm so glad it was a great occasion, richly deserved!

The recipe challenge: I have two takes on it. I might peel and chop the tomatoes, cook them down some with a little garlic. Brown the breasts lightly, then put them in a small baking pan, cover with the tomatoes, top with cheese, and bake for about 20 minutes at 350. Avocado slices as a garnish.

Or I'd sauté the breasts (shake in a little seasoned flour first) and serve with a salady mélange of finely cubed cheese, tomatoes and avocado, dressed with lime juice and a little ex-virgin olive oil.

What did you do, Suzy?

ArOOOgula indeed. We have bushels, barrels of the stuff. It goes to seed so quickly in the spring that one hardly gets to eat it, then in the fall those seeds have sprouted and it's much better than earlier in the season. Despite some hard freezes now, it's still thriving. I should find ways to use it other than in salad. I know it can be cooked like spinach. I can't bring myself to cook and freeze any of it; the freezers are all at capacity. Our fall crop of spinach actually succeeded this year. Charlie picked a lot of it before he came out to CA, put it in the fridge, where it kept nicely while we were gone. What was left in the garden survived a few light freezes, and so we ate a couple of salads, a couple of meals, and added about 15 packages to the freezer stash. The fall spinach, this year at least, was more flavorful and tender than what we grew in the spring (most of which bolted when it was pretty small).

Most of the garden is torn out now, and today (a beautiful day!) we planted and mulched the garlic. We still have some tearing out and cleaning up to do, but the garden work is truly nearing an end. Mom once asked me when we could just sit back and enjoy our garden rather than working in it all the time. "November" was my answer.

And we are now facing the luxury of simply reaching into the freezer for a frozen vegetable rather than going through a lot of preparation of them. We still have fresh carrots, cabbage and leeks in the downstairs fridge, though.

We came home from California to a world transformed; the fall color was beautiful, but it's gone now. We had two days of high winds, rain and some snow in the middle of last week, and that pretty much took care of it. The grass is still green, but we've had some very cold nights (under twenty a couple of times), so that won't last long. We've had fires every morning and night pretty much since we got home. I love to come downstairs to a fire and coffee in the morning (bless Charlie).

I've been terribly busy: eight school visits and a meeting in the nine school days since I got home. Some of these were able to be doubled up on the same day, but it kept me running (well, driving). I'm totally engrossed in Strange/Norrell on 26 CDs. I've just started disc 10. I like it a whole lot. It's wonderfully read, too. I'll interrupt it for a few days when the library comes through with the last Snickett on disc. Of course I'm on tenterhooks for that, but I'll wait; I was surprised to be able to reserve it on the first day it was out. I love our little library network!

Some good cooking ventures. I found a recipe in an old FC (I don't think Marty and Suzy have MS office, but there's a killer Excel FC index that I downloaded) for a pasta dish that was made of roasted fennel (the last big one of our crop, which had been in the refrigerator for at least a month), tomatoes (we're at the bitter end there, too), and garlic. After this stuff is roasted it's poured over spaghetti, then one adds cubed real mozzarella, grated parmesan, and torn basil leaves. It was really good. I also made a beef stew in the crock pot that succeeded (I've had several failures in this direction). I think the trick is to keep the ingredients simple. Adding wine or too many aromatics overpowers it. I think this is what I did:

Sandy's Slow-cooker Beef Stew

1 1/2 to 2 pounds stew meat in 1 inch pieces (I cut up a piece of bottom round)

Brown meat on all sides in a little olive oil. Throw into crock pot. Sprinkle on:

2 T flour, and some salt and pepper

Stir.

In the same skillet, cook slowly until soft and slightly browned:

1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celery
half a leek, chopped, if you have one

Add to crock pot.

Add:

4 small carrots, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch slices
2 or 3 potatoes (I used russets, I think) in 3/4 inch dice
2 1/2 cups low-salt chicken (or beef) stock (Swanson's is the way to go.)
A couple of big sprigs of parsley

Stir it all up. Cook on high for 3 hours, then on low until you feel like eating it, about 4 hours more. (I think it'd take 10 hours all on low.) Half an hour before eating it, thicken with 1 1/2 TB flour and 1 1/2 TB butter, kneaded together (beurre manié) and dropped in in pea-sized chunks. Correct seasoning.

I don't know why this turned out so good, but it really was good. It's very plain. The carb-challenged could leave out the potatoes. I don't know if I'd dare substitute rutabagas or turnips, since they have such a strong flavor. But they, or cabbage, could be cooked separately and served with this.

There's much more to say, but at least this is a start!