Whiteley Creek Homestead

My friend, Sheila, is an avid… oh, that word doesn't begin to accurately describe her voracious appetite for books. Voracious… grrrrrr… that's better. Her passion for books led to her starting a book club that she has been hosting for eight years which was naturally destined to develop into her most recent adventure. She has a book blog where she posts what she is reading along with her personal reviews of the books. Frequently, authors send her additional copies of their books to give away, which she graciously does through drawings. Her most recent drawing is for Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly by James E. McWilliams. I read a few pages inside the book on Amazon's listing… very thought-provoking. The author's premise is that the farm-to-table movement, which factors in how far a type of food must travel from where it is produced to finally end up on our plate determining whether it is a conscientious choice or not, is flawed. He believes that food miles are "only a minor link in the complex chain of food production". It peaks my interest to want to read more. If you'd like to enter Sheila's drawing for this book, click on this link to her One Person's Journey Through a World of Books Blog. Pour yourself a mug of aromatic coffee or a steaming a cup of herbal tea. She will draw you in like an impromptu visit with a good friend.    

 

Snatching a small enamel pan to gather today's garden bounty, I headed to my garden to dig enough potatoes for today's lunch. The beef bourguignon that I prepared yesterday was so tasty that I thought, to change it up a bit for a second meal, I would serve it over mashed potatoes. (It turned out to be a great idea! I would, without hesitation, serve it that way again.) I picked two cukes to make refrigerator pickles as a side… 

 

and popped some cherry tomatoes in my mouth as a treat.

 

This is a recipe that my sister, Rita, shared with me many years ago. It's quick… no need to fuss with the whole canning process as these pickles are stored in the fridge.

Refrigerator Pickles

Combine:

1 cup sliced cucumbers

1 cup onion, sliced

1 cup green pepper, sliced (I omitted this.)

Stir together:

1 cup vinegar

2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup… just the perfect sweetness.)

1 tsp celery seed

1 tbsp salt

Pour over and let set 24 hours. You can reuse the vinegar solution. Just toss in some more cuke slices.

Well, we saw it tonight… the Julie and Julia movie. I don't know that I will emmulate real-life Julie Powell's year-long challenge of cooking her way through all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogging about it, but the story was so down-to-earth… so current… so easy to immerse oneself into Julie's world and understand her motivation and determination. FYI: Julia Child died in 2004 two days before her 92nd birthday. Real-life Julie Powell began her Julie/Julia Project in 2002. Her blog caught the attention of a major newspaper that wanted to do a feature on her, so she chose to prepare Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon when the reporter came to her tiny apartment above a pizza shop in Queens to interview her. Wouldn't you know it, when I grabbed a box of Imagine Organic Beef Cooking Stock from my pantry to rehydrate my TVP (textured vegetable protein) to make vegetarian taco salad, there was a recipe on the back of the box for… you guessed it… Beef Bourguignon! I try to be alert and look for signs to direct me down paths in life. I figured this was a sign. If Julia Child has a version of it in her book, it must be good, right? If it showed up on the big screen, how can it not be worth trying?  So I trekked off to the grocery store to purchase some stew meat and Pinot Noir (wine). I omitted the small white onions and button mushrooms. I had everything else. I even found a bottle of organic Pinot Noir with an adorable picture of a 1950 or 1951 Ford pickup parked by a barn at a vineyard. 

 

The recipe really turned out very tasty. Dick and I even took a nap while it simmered unattended on the stove for two hours. If you viewed the Julie & Julia movie, you know what happened when Julie fell asleep on the couch while her pot simmered on the stove (or baked in the oven). Go ahead and let it simmer and forget it. It turns out beautifully.

 

I had some Pinot Noir remaining in the bottle, so here it is three weeks later (August 31, 2009) and I made another batch. This time I simmered it 1/2 hour longer, so it would thicken a bit more making it the perfect consistency to serve over mashed freshly dug potatoes… not at all proper according to French cuisine I'm sure, but no matter.   

Beef Bourguignon

1 lb boneless lean chuck steak, trimmed (I used stew meat and cut each chunk into 3 smaller pieces.)

¼ cup flour

4 tbsp oil (I used 2 tbsp olive oil.)             

1 cup diced onions

12 oz small white onions, peeled and blanched (I omitted.)

4 cloves garlic crushed (or diced)

1 cup sliced carrots

2 tbsp herbes de Provence or other mixed dried herbs (I used 2 tsp marjoram, 2 tsp thyme, and 2 tsp leaf oregano.)

3 cups beef stock

1 tsp turbinado sugar

2 cups Pinot Noir

4 oz small button mushrooms (I omitted.)

2 cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

Sea salt, to taste

Pinch freshly ground black pepper

Cut the chuck steak into small cubes (or use stew meat), pat dry, and coat with flour. Heat the oil in soup pot, add the onions and garlic and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the beef and brown for 2 minutes (or until you get some nice caramelization going on in the bottom of the pan). Add carrots and herbs. Gradually stir in the beef stock, sugar, and wine. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Add mushrooms (or not) and tomatoes and simmer gently, covered, for 2 hours (or 2 1/2 hours for a bit thicker consistency that is perfect for serving over mashed potatoes). There is no need to stir. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with warmed crusty French bread. Serves 4.

       

My father died 5 1/2 years ago at age 94. My mother, who turned 92 on August 6, has been living alone since then in a retirement center on the outskirts of Brainerd. She hasn't found much incentive to prepare meals on her own and the one meal she receives in the dining room each day doesn't thrill her much. She generally eats her dessert and picks at the rest. During the day she has been drinking a diet cranberry juice drink that only contains 7% juice, is sweetened with Splenda, colored with Red #40, and contains "Acesulfame"… whatever the ding dang that is, and several other ingredients. How about just plain 'ol 100% juice with absolutely nothing added? I made her some POM pomegranate juice ice cubes to add to glasses of filtered water instead. For supper she normally has a slice of bread spread with butter and jelly or a bowl of peach or strawberry yogurt sprinkled with walnuts. Yogurt… well, that should be fine… if it didn't contain sugar, high fructose corn syrup, a preservative, food coloring… My mother has diabetes and her blood sugar numbers were up… not dangerously high, but there was room for improvement. What worried me, though, were her legs and feet. From her knees down to her toes, they had swelled to the point where they looked like they could explode if pricked with a needle. O.K., time for a diet overhaul.

I began to plan a daily menu for her that included breakfast, dinner, supper,  as well as a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. I used what I could from the meal prepared in the main dining room and supplemented with food that I prepared at home and packed to bring in to her each day. I encouraged increased water intake. 24 hours into the program, she called to say that she had experienced a stomach ache all night then vomited in the morning but was feeling fine presently. She thought that the split pea soup I had made for her the evening before was maybe "tainted". I explained that Dick and I had eaten the same soup and hadn't gotten sick. It made me sad that she didn't completely trust my plan, but I couldn't blame her. It was too early to see any improvement. In fact, she only felt worse since I had stepped in. I explained that the stomach ache and vomiting was her body adjusting to the different food. Three days into the program, the skin on her legs began to wrinkle and loosen which meant that she was retaining less water and the swelling was going down. Four days into the program, she called to tell me that she had diarrhea. I told her that I felt badly that she had to endure these unpleasant episodes, but the diarrhea meant that the addition of fiber into her diet was naturally regulating her so she could cut back on her stool softeners. She had been taking 4 in the morning and 4 at night, so I suggested she take 2 in the morning and 2 at night instead which has proven to be just right.

O.K., that bring us up to today… only one week into my plan. Each day throughout the week, I saw additional shrinkage in her legs and her blood sugar numbers were now averaging 101 and 102 in the morning and weren't varying far from those number at night which means that proper meals and snacks are helping to maintain a consistent level throughout the day. As importantly, my mom has seen rapid improvement, so she is fully trusting my judgement. She is eager to do whatever I feel is best for her and she looks forward in anticipation to foods like "Ultimate Energy Bars" (made with pureed navy beans), heirloom red quinoa for a hot breakfast cereal, "ants on a log" (she loved them!), hummus, sweet potato scones, all of the wonderful fresh summer fruits, and cottage cheese with unsweetened applesauce. She said that previously she sprinkled sugar on top of her cottage cheese but liked it with applesauce. She thought it sweetened it just enough.       

When I was a teacher, I would reward my students with a popcorn party for especially good behavior, a job well done on an assignment or test… or just because. I decided to throw my mom a similar party by making maple caramel corn, attaching a ribbon streamer to a balloon, and giving her a card with a message that read "Congratulations. It's wonderful to see how successful you've been. " I scrawled a note inside telling her how proud I was of her progress and how it made me so very happy. Here's the maple caramel popcorn recipe I used for our one-week celebration popcorn party. It's from a spring 2009 edition of Edible Twin Cities. For 1/3 cup uncooked popcorn, I cut all of the syrup ingredients in half because I felt it would be way too much coating making it way too sweet. I also chose to cook the syrup to 250° instead of 300°  so my mom wouldn't break her dentures. I wanted it more chewy. Good decision… I think. Would the  chewy caramel suck the dentures right out of her mouth?   

  

 Maple Caramel Corn

1 tbsp oil

1/3 cup uncooked popcorn kernels

3 tbsp unsalted butter, plus additional for greasing bowl

1/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans or other nuts, optional

¾ cup pure maple syrup

¼ tsp salt

Grease a large mixing bowl with butter; set aside. Pop the popcorn using 1 tbsp oil. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Stir in the maple syrup and salt. Boil until syrup reaches 250° on a candy thermometer. It takes about 15 minutes. (To get it to 250° in 15 minutes, turn the heat to nearly the medium setting. If you use a low setting, it will take an hour or more and by then the syrup will be burnt and rock hard when cooled.) Do not stir or the syrup will crystallize and turn sugary. I learned this firsthand and also Alton Brown explained the science behind why this happens on one of his Food Network "Good Eats" segments. Pour syrup over popcorn and nuts. Stir with a wooden spoon that has been coated with oil to prevent sticking.

I am counting down the days to this movie's premier on Friday, August 7, 2009… one week from today! I watched a short sneak preview online video and found that Meryl Streep lives up to my expectations as the perfect Julia Child. I had not the slightest reservation that she would pull it off in grand style. You absolutely must check out the most delightful site regarding the movie. A happy melody greets you. Click on "Watch the Trailer" and a video clip introduces you to the plot. At the conclusion of the video, click on "Enter the Site" and you will just smile… a wire whisk unravels to form the outline of Paris's Eiffel Tower on the left side of the screen and a city (New York?) skyline to the right side of the screen. then pull down the "Menu" for a wide array of fun features and info that awaits you!