Oatmeal: Like it or lump it?
Guest Post by Lisa Parker, Cakes for All Seasons Lumpy oatmeal, with plenty of butter, a dash of crunchy kosher salt, heavy cream and brown sugar. That’s what I’d like my last breakfast on earth to be. In the meantime, I’ll settle for lumpy oatmeal with plain yogurt. Why lumpy, you ask? Well, when my parents were courting, my father was an Air Force pilot stationed at Loring Air Base in northern Maine. My mom’s family lived on a potato farm not far from the base. When dad got off duty, he would often stop by the farm very early in the morning and have breakfast with my grandparents. Gram made lumpy oatmeal that he adored. When mom came downstairs, ready to leave for work, Gram would announce that “Bill came by for breakfast.” I always loved that story. My other favorite way to eat oatmeal is, of course, in cookies. I have a recipe for chocolate chip cookie with oatmeal in it that I’ve made over the years with golden raisins, cranberries, nuts and toasted coconut. Adapted from a wonderful little cookbook called Diner Desserts by Tish Boyle, it is my go-to recipe for big, yummy cookies. ------------------ Lisa Mae’s Kitchen Sink Oatmeal Cookies Have all ingredients at room temperature. brown sugar, firmly packed - 1 1/3 cups (10 oz) granulated sugar - 1/3 cup (2.3 oz) unsalted butter - 1 cup (8 oz) salt - 3/4 tsp eggs, large - 2 vanilla extract - 1 T all purpose flour - 1 3/4 cups (8.75 oz) baking soda, - 1/2 tsp baking powder - 1/2 tsp rolled oats (not instant) - 2 cups (6 oz) Kitchen sink options: 2 1/2 cups (12 oz) or more of any combination of the following: chocolate chips, white chocolate chunks, dried cranberries, raisins, toasted nuts, toasted coconut, dried cherries, chopped apricots, or replace some or all of the oatmeal with your favorite granola, you get the idea! Directions: Cream the sugars and butter until light and fluffy. Add the salt here to make sure it’s mixed in really well. I use kosher salt because I like the little crunch it gives when you bite into it. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, mixing well after each egg is added. I use pure vanilla extract. My current favorite is Mexican vanilla. It smells like heaven and adds a rich, creamy flavor. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and oatmeal. I sift in the baking soda because it’s often lumpy and doesn’t always mix in well. My tiny strainer is perfect for this.I weigh my flour. If you don’t have a scale, use the “dip and sweep” method presented by Dédé Wilson of Bakepedia.com. If you put the oatmeal in last, it helps keep the flour from making a dusty mess. You can also put your “kitchen sink” additions in here. Mix until everything is uniform. The more you mix, the tougher your cookies will be so don’t over mix. Dump the dough out onto the counter to make sure there aren’t any globs of butter and sugar at the bottom of the bowl. If there are, mix them in by hand until it’s a uniform mass. Now that the dough is mixed, it’s time to scoop. My favorite kitchen tools are my assorted sized scoops. They make uniform cookies, pancakes and muffins. Since I sell my baked goods, I make notes on the yields of recipes using different sized scoops so I can accurately price my desserts. Cookie recipes often instruct you to chill the dough for at least an hour and then scoop. It’s so much easier to scoop the dough when it’s soft then chill the portions. Put the scoops on a tray, close together. Once they are firm, you can wrap them up in packages, label and freeze for another time. To bake, pre-heat the oven to 350F, and place the dough portions on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper leaving room between them to spread. If the dough is just out of the freezer, allow it to warm up to room temp. If just out of the fridge, allow to sit out while the oven pre-heats. Flatten the dough balls with the palm of your hand. Bake until they are as done as you like them! I bake mine for 12-15 minutes depending on the size of the dough ball. I like a big cookie, soft in the middle, just baked through. If you you like them crisp, pull them out of the oven halfway through, flatten them some more with a metal spatula and return to the oven to finish baking. Cool and enjoy! If you don’t eat them all right away, put in an airtight container. Adding a crust of bread to the container will help keep the cookies from going stale. Lisa Parker has been playing with desserts for years. After 20 years of baking desserts and playing with cake, she attended the French Pastry School in Chicago and graduated, with honors, from the L'Art Gateau program. She creates “delicious, joyous cakes and desserts” for wedding couples, party planners, and party goers in southern and coastal Maine, southern New Hampshire, and the Mt. Washington Valley. Lisa can be found at Cakes for All Seasons where she says, “Let’s meet, I’ll bring the treats!”
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It’s Letter Writing Week. This is my favorite to date. I love to write letters; it’s my hobby, my passion, my pastime. I write a lot of letters and what I hear most often from people is:
“I’d write but I don’t know what to write about.” Write about your day, something you did, something you saw. You’re not being graded and you’re not writing a novel, so try to relax. Really. It’s simply another way to say hello. And close behind that is: “But my handwriting, it’s awful.” Well, it’s probably not as bad as you think it is, and really, your handwriting is what makes your letters most special. And what makes it even more compelling is that we can often recognize who a letter is from without looking at the return address. Your handwriting is as unique as you are and that’s what makes all the difference. One morning I was getting ready to write when this happened: Chicken TV It was early in the day and I was collecting stationery, stamps, and a decent pen to write a letter to my in-laws when I heard the neighbor’s chickens. At least two of them were squawking, and it was loud. So loud that I stopped what I was doing to peek out the kitchen window to be sure they were safe inside the coop. They were. When I settled in to write, I wrote about the chickens: --------------------- The neighbor’s chickens are squawking. The coop sits at the low end of the backyard just over the property line. We can see them from the back porch, and in the evening when we’re out there, we like to watch them—we call it chicken TV. One chicken goes in the coop, they all go in. One comes out, they all come out. And peck, peck, peck. There’s Ziggy (the hen with orange feathers), and Jimmy (the speckled one), and three others, and they spend a good part of the day circling in and out of the coop. Peck, peck, pecking. In and out, in and out, peck, peck, peck. Maybe that’s where hen-pecked comes from! When they lay eggs, they squawk. One echoing the other. One egg, squaawk; two eggs, squaaawk; then all together--SQUAaaAWK, SQUAAaaaaaAWK, SQUAAaaaaaaaaaaaAWK! ------------ The chicken letter was a big hit and it gave us plenty to talk about when we visited a few weeks later. And that’s something to squawk about! Houseplants the easy way: succulents! Julie Hews is as lovely as the plants in her flower shop, Ampersand Elements. The shop was an oasis on the gray winter morning when I visited to ask a few questions about succulents and why they might just be the best houseplant ever. Terrariums and Dish Gardens It was during an earlier visit to Ampersand Elements that Julie’s terrariums caught my eye. Tucked into clear glass containers along with ceramic figurines, moss, stone, and other naturals materials, the terrariums create an intriguing diorama; a miniature world of greenery flooded with light. Though I was drawn to the terrariums, Julie said the succulents do just as well in dish gardens. With over-sized snowflakes falling outside the shop’s large front window, it was fitting that it seemed as though we, too, were tucked inside an imaginary world of a snow globe. And it made me wonder if we can grow succulents in Maine. At least two varieties, “hens and chicks survive the winter and grow in gardens all over Maine,” Julie said. They can winter outside or be brought indoors for the season. Others of course are designated houseplants. “I think the fact that here we are in Maine enjoying plants that are so different and unique, with varieties from Arizona, Mexico, California, and South America, is incredible,” she said. Because they come from such far away places, succulents can be a bit pricey. But, they can last for a very long time, decades in fact. “My grandmother had a plant in a dish that was at least 40 years old,” Julie said. Easy Care Succulents may take less care than other houseplants, but they “probably take more care than people think,” Julie said. And it all starts with how they are planted. Starting from the bottom up, a foundation of four layers of materials gives your plants the drainage and support they need. Illustrated on a large panel set on a side table inside the shop, the four layers include: perlite, charcoal, sand, and dirt. Trending Terrariums have been trending for some time, appealing to young and old alike. Just recently, a grandmother and her granddaughter visited Ampersand Elements to select plants, containers, and embellishments from bins of seashells, stones, and moss to create a miniature world of their very own making. Whether you go with a terrarium, a dish garden, or any other houseplant variety, you’re likely to improve your environment. Houseplants not only look good, they purify the air and lift the mood. Two good reasons to bring a bit life indoors.
January is National Hobby Month.
Today, a quick look at knitting. I found this knitting instruction book at a second hand shop and love the old photographs and styling. The patterns and styles may change, but the hobby remains as popular as ever. Here are few links you might enjoy: Books on Knitting Craft Yarn Council Make new friends this winter!
For Show and Tell At Work Day I decided to talk about my winter beauties (that's me with Estelle from last winter). My work? I am a graphic designer, working with individuals, universities, and companies large and small, to bring their words, projects, and ideas to life on paper and online. My company is Composition 1206 , and if you're interested, I love to have you take a look at my online portfolio. So that's work, this is show and tell. Assembly of Grand Pursuits (AGP) is my passion project. I started AGP because I love finding and experimenting with new hobbies, projects, and activities. That's how I began making my Winter Beauties. With the exception of just a few years early on, I make my own holiday cards. But nine years ago I was struggling for ideas, and it was getting close to figuring it out or letting it go, which I dreaded. And then it snowed. I'd seen some creative snowmen in a magazine, and as the snow fell I had my answer: make a snowman, take a photograph, and create a card. It turned out to be a good idea—and a keeper—nine to date! It takes over two hours to build each one. My hands get stiff from the cold, the neighbors get curious, and if I start too late in the day, the light begins to fade. I raid the refrigerator, pilfer garden beds (anything that pokes up through the snow is fair game), go to the beach, walk through the woods, and scan the side of the road for dried flowers, pine boughs, pine cones, seashells, seaweed, and fruits and vegetables for supplies. Frilly toothpicks hold things in place, and I use scissors to trim arborvitae sprigs, rhododendron leaves, and greens for noses, mouths, and eyelashes, using as much natural material as possible. Each time I set out I'm nervous I won't come up with a "beauty." It's a lot of trial and error trying different materials. A neat trick I discovered if I'm struggling is to take a photograph and look at that. It gives me a new perspective and I can more easily see what's not working. And with the final images, just like people, each beauty has a good side—better from the left, shot from above? Yes, that's it! It was only after making about five of them, I thought to take a photograph with each one. When I showed my mother one of the first selfies I took, she laughed and said, "I had no idea how big they are," and she's right. I could make them smaller (that might have prevented the unfortunate topple of at least one before I was finished!), but it's easier to have a bigger surface to work with. The bigger the snowball, though, the harder it is to push and lift when I get back to where I want to build it. SnowGirl (pictured below) was my first. She came to life during a December snow storm and greeted us in the backyard for a good five days before warmer temperatures took their toll, causing her cranberry teeth to loosen and fall to the ground. She was quickly and gracefully dismantled. Today is Old Rock Day. If you've walked a trail or along the beach recently, you may have seen a stack of rocks*, a man-made pile of rocks, a cairn. Historically cairns have been used as trial markers and in ceremonial practices. More recently, however, cairns made for personal and spiritual reasons have been popping up in natural settings all over the world leading some to say "stop the rock-stacking." And for good reason. 1) random cairns can potentially mislead people who might mistake one for a waymarker 2) they disrupt the natural beauty, imposing a man-made structure in a wilderness setting 3) moving rocks may lead to erosion 4) leave-no-trace policies could leave you between a rock and . . . *The cairn above is one I built on a table at home from rocks I collected on the beach, it stands a mere 2-1/2" high. Are you a rockhound? Share you enthusiasm with others, or get started by talking to someone who is. Here's a list of rock clubs by state, find one near you!
If you are a collector or rock artist, we'd love to know more, get in touch and tell us about it! Of Shortbread and Serendipity Guest Post by Lisa Parker, Cakes for All Seasons It’s Shortbread Day and I’ve been invited to write a post about one of the simplest of cookies. As often happens when I pull out my cookbooks and start browsing online, I stumble upon something new, in this case, an essay in The New York Times about cultivating serendipity, and my shortbread journey takes an unexpected turn. I veer off the path of writing about how different ingredients affect the flavor and texture of shortbread and start thinking about flavored versions of the cookies. One cookbook leads to another and I find a delicious new recipe to add to my repertoire. I came upon Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread Cookies in her 2006 cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours. Of the three recipes I baked yesterday, they were the favorite and are an upscale version of the beloved (store bought!) pecan sandies of my youth. The square cookies look nice but I’m already thinking of how I can dress them up for a sweets table. They’ll be pretty baked in my madeline pans—shortbread seashells for a seaside wedding. Say that five times fast! The next time you bake an old standby, try tweaking the recipe a bit and see where the journey takes you. Lisa Parker has been playing with desserts for years. After 20 years of baking desserts and playing with cake, she attended the French Pastry School in Chicago and graduated, with honors, from the L'Art Gateau program. She creates “delicious, joyous cakes and desserts” for wedding couples, party planners, and party goers in southern and coastal Maine, southern New Hampshire, and the Mt. Washington Valley.
Lisa can be found at Cakes for All Seasons where she says, “Let’s meet, I’ll bring the treats!” Name five species in your backyard! Our January calendar asks if you can name five bird species in your neighborhood, can you? I can identify the chickadee, blue jay, dove, seagull, and yellow finch. And though I can identify the birds by sight, identifying them by birdsong is quite another thing. What about you? The National Bird Day website has a birdsong quiz, see how well you do! A few years ago I experimented with drawing birds and came up with a sketch that is one continuous line (plumage added). The image above is from earlier attempts, too many lines. The image below is drawn with one line. The drawings are fun to color and embellish (different eyes and added plumage create entirely different personalities). If you're interested, you can download a coloring page here and if you'd like more pages to color, sign-up on our home page for access to two more coloring pages. Birding can be a casual hobby or consuming passion. Serious birders enter local and world-wide competitions, can identify birds by sight and sound, and travel great distances to see rare species. For the complete newbie, The Big Year, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, offers some (Hollywood) insight into what it takes to win what is a real competition.
If you're interested in learning more, head over to the American Bird Association. Chirp, chirp! If you're interesting in more trivia, test your skills at Mental Floss where you'll find lists, quizzes, and facts in more categories than you might imagine!
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