Foods That Make Ya Go... Mmmmmmm.

So, although we are willing to try new foods (ie, brussel sprouts which are now a FAVORITE at our table).  Some foods of "exotic" origin have been hard to pitch to my crew.  My mom isn't exactly an adventurous eater. She's really happy with a hot dog or a fried egg any day of the week, but doesn't love a lot of vegetables, nor a lot of proteins for that matter- she is however game for every starch and cheese we put out, but I have been in the mood to try some dishes that don't have cheese as their center point.

The kids like vegetables, but are random in what they will eat on any given day and Scott has to be in the right mood to try certain new foods.  So- I was very surprised that yesterday I got everyone on board to try Cody's Moroccan stew (which is really smitten kitchen's which was really Aida's... oi vey, it's the recipe version of whisper down the lane)... http://crashingthelastsupper.blogspot.com/search?q=moroccan+stew   ... anyhow- we tried it, and it was love at first bite,

for 4 out of 5 of us (the only reluctant one was the two year old, and honestly, she doesn't count and was busy stuffing her face with 3, yes, 3 clementines!)  Anyhow-- we really loved it.

It's also the first time I've convinced Scott to eat one of the orange foods (butternut squash in this case) happily. The man likes a carrot, but has been very ambivalent about squash, pumpkins or sweet potatoes, and in some cases, he just flat out refuses.  But-- this one-- he liked!!  We used parsley instead of cilantro, threw in some lovely little green olives that we found at our Safeway, and added some hot sauce at the end.  Just makes ya go mmmmmmmm.

Thanks Cody, and thanks to the whole country of Morocco for finding a way to make an orange food we love.  And thank you autumn for your inspiration, your crisp sunny days, and for being a beautiful transition season.  I love this time of year.  mmmmmmmm.... Tonight's agenda:  Cider with spiced rum.... mmmmm.  fall.

Ireland, a Rainy Day, and Some Roasted Tomato Soup

November Rain... it's not just a pretty song--- it is a description of today.

The rain suits me.
I am often melancholy.
And I actually don't mind it unless I HAVE to do something in the POURING rain.. but short of that-- I don't mind it that much.
If Scott is mostly PA Dutch, well, I am mostly Irish (really I am mostly English with a little scotch irish a dash of German and a bunch of unnamed heinz 57 variety of mixed up stuff in my background-- but i LIKE the IRISH part).  Somehow I like to think my love of the rain, my being melancholy, and all of that fits with being Irish.
Also--
 I like castles, poetry, celtic music (love celtic music actually).
I like rainy a dark beer, religious peoples (Catholics AND Protestants)  and I love redheads (I gave birth to one and damn it, I am a redhead if not naturally then by choice and that should count!)....
 I love an irish whiskey (in a coffee please).
And I am loving that we will most likely be going to Ireland next summer to a peacemaking community called Corrymeela.  Yay all things Irish.

I felt like making something Irish, but I also wanted soup... That ruled out Irish pie type things that we might have had today... hmmm what could we make?
...I do not like lamb stews, though that seems like it would be best for a day like today...
if I really wanted to claim that Irish thing I would just cope and make the lamb stew.
Nah.
Instead I will steal a recipe from another Irish American and adapt it to what we love to eat here at "Chez Crazyhouse".

So-- Bobby Flay's tomato soup recipe, and an old recipe we stole from Tyler Florence have married in my kitchen and are now a new Roasted Tomato Soup that suits us.  Which will go perfectly with grilled cheese with Bacon. And with the incredible Magners Irish Cider that a lovely goddess gave me at work.  She's Episcopal, which means she fall right in between the Catholics and the Protestants.  God bless her and her cider loving ways...

Here's what's in the soup:

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes (or in our case, two cans of plum tomatoes)
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 small yellow onions, chopped
• 1 carrot chopped
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 quart veggie or chicken stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

And here's the directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Wash, core and cut the tomatoes into halves. (or in my case, open the can and rinse off the seeds) Spread the tomatoes, garlic cloves, carrots and onions onto a baking tray.  Drizzle with up to 1/2 cup of olive oil (we used a little less) and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, or until caramelized.

Remove roasted tomatoes, garlic, carrot and onion from the oven and transfer to a large stock pot (set aside the roasted vine tomatoes for later). Add the stock, bay leaves, and butter. Bring to aboil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid has reduced by a third.

Wash basil leaves and add to the pot. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return soup to low heat, add cream and adjust consistency with either more stock or cream, if necessary. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Garnish in bowl with  a little olive oil or a splash of heavy cream or with  your favorite grilled cheese or a little bacon. Whatever suits ya!

mmmmm..... thank you Tyler Florence and Bobby Flay... much love to you both from Chez Crazyhouse.

Out Come The Dutchies!

So, my hubby says to me-- Checkie(or Jacquie for those of you who aren't PA dutch)-- we need to make some pot pie!  And I said, "whell, yous know I am always good for sum starch with starch and a lil' chickn!"  So we go to the frigiator and get a chicken and roasted it.. He cleaned it real gut.  and nowuh we are makin our own nooodles from scratch! (oh, i give up, it's hard to write that accent out...)

Although my hubby is one half PA dutch (it's a strong and dominant half) we didn't ever get his grandma's recipe.  I don't think she knows what a good cook her grandson is, so she only ever taught the granddaughters I believe. Oh if only she knew.  He can roll dough with the best of them.  Well, since we didn't have grandma Young's recipe, we started by looking at this one:  

http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2008/08/pennsylvania-du.html

which sounded mostly like pot pie (without the corn, we've just never traditionally used corn).

And it is a good starchy meal.  White with white and more white.  We adapted some of it, but started with her noodles. The real gut part here is the doughy noodles.  Yum.  

So, we made those noodles, and let them dry.  Roasted a whole chicken with some thyme, salt, pepper and oil, and picked it apart.  Then cut up some potatoes.  We had left over celery and a shallot and we  threw them in a bowl to wait.

Then boiled some homemade chicken stock plus a box of store bought (I'd say about 8-10 cups of chicken stock).  As it was boiling, we threw in 2 tablespoons of magic chicken base, which is really called "better than bullion".  When that came to a rolling boil, we added the celery, potatoes and shallot and cooked for ten minutes, then added the noodles one at a time and cooked them for about 15 minutes, then threw in most of a chicken and cooked it all for 5 more minutes.  It was the best pot pie we've ever had.  Really.  Scott also heavily salted and peppered it all.  It was simply amazing.  And everyone agreed (a rarity at our house).

Tonight's learnings:

I love cooking with my husband.  

Love making things from scratch when we can.

Love being in our new kitchen no matter what.

It's good to be home.

Neena and Isaac answering the question: "who wants a biscuit?"

Ike testing the noodles to make sure they are good!

She may be cute, but she's nothin but trouble! Especially at the dinner table.

--

Blessings on your homes tonight...

Blessings when yous outen the light

Blessings when yous tuck into bed...

Blessings on each little head...

-- much love, Checkie, Neena and the dutchies...

Real food, or not real food... it's not really a question

I am overscheduled.  Truly.
I am not able to cook dinner and enjoy a real meal tonight. Sadly.
I am working but having a hard time focusing since I spent all day in a meeting or in class.  Frustratingly.
I am watching a dumbass show I love called pawn stars while trying to read about solitude in community.  ----Weirdly.

I am not drinking wine.  Disappointingly.
This is not food.  Badly, badly not food.

I cannot wait to be at home in my kitchen with a glass of wine, some good bread and my family. Longingly.

Soon and very soon.
--J

The easy road to mock lasagna.

So, tonight I wanted lasagna, but had no patience for it.  To much waiting in there.  Max and I don't get home until 6.  We are usually both hungry and tired by the time we eat around 6:30 or 7.  So-- tonight's solution for Lasagna: I bought prego spaghetti sauce, ricotta cheese, an italian cheese blend, and some mafalda pasta.  Made the pasta, heated the sauce threw in some italian seasoning and parmesan.  Then put some pasta on the plate with a little bit of ricotta and italian cheese blend thrown on top, then sauce drizzled over it all.  on the side we had peas with mushrooms.  And-- It was good enough.  Desperation and lack of time will lead me down the easy road every time.  But sometimes, that road really is good enough.  I'll take the B instead of the A+ tonight thanks!!  And I can live with that quite happily.  good enough..
:)

A day in the life

Right now- a typical week for me looks like this:
SUNDAY:  arrive in York.
MONDAY:  Start at 9 am with 2 hours of meetings, then time in Leadership now offices, maybe a light lunch while working if there is time, 1-4, teaching, 4-5 LN offices or get Max, drive to spring grove, make or buy and eat dinner-- read to Max (if she is with me) and get her ready for bed, work for at least 3 hours prepping for class and responding to pressing emails.  Sleep from midnight until 6:00 or 6:30
TUESDAY:  drive back to Lancaster, max to daycare, meeting from 9-11 (eat during meeting), worship or back to office, prep for class.  Teach/facilitate from 1-6. Rush to pick up max on time, repeat evening from the night before.  or stay at LTS and work there from 7pm until I can't take it anymore.
WEDNESDAY: Class from 8:30-10:30, worship, work on leadership now stuff (usually meet with MegPeg over lunch if we can, or try to grab something to scarf down while working)  2:00-4 meetings (or tomorrow it will be from 1-4)... 4-6 coffee hour and sherry hour (try to do both if possible so that people know I care about both of my jobs)... then drive to Spring Grove or home to Derwood. THURSDAY: either work from home or from LTS ... pick Isaac up from bus stop, cook dinner, check in with scott and mom about what I've missed, find out about kindergarten and how it's going from Ike, then kids routine, baths, books, bed, Then work or collapse and cry on family's shoulders.
FRIDAY: work from home or take a half day if I am working on the weekend.  I have needed to work (in some way) all but one Sunday in the last 4.  This weekend, I will be leading a retreat all weekend.

Even when I am home. I have to work at night in order to develop lesson plans for classes and to grade papers and to keep up with the bare minimum (and that's all I am doing) of Leadership now stuff. And many of my friends want me to have dinner, coffee, lunch, and I try to squeeze those things in as I can, but it's getting too hard to keep that up! Really.  it's killing me...

Backwards or forwards, there is too much to read. 

So, this is one more post to point out the obvious-- it is not possible for one person to teach this many classes and direct a program and have a family and do all three well. It's not.  I am tired of reading. Tired of being away from family and just plain tired.  I plan to change that in the spring.  And I am starting a list of things to cook when the spring rolls around.  Perhaps I'll post that next time to give a little hope and something to dream about...

More wine and family please

So, I started this blog and called it bread wine and family. Mostly because of the religious significance of bread and wine and community in my mind, but also because hey-- it was going to talk about food, and family.  Here's what I think now though.  There should be more wine in this blog.

Today I posted something into a message on facebook that ended up being more of a deal than I thought it would.   In the end, a dear friend who loves me, in their desire to help me, wounded me greatly, and they'll never know that unless they read it here (which I doubt).  But it led me to this thought.  I don't have a lot of outlets for the incredible amount of stress I am under.  And my drug of choice is food.  And I am mostly ok with that.  I also like to relieve stress by spending time on line and reading a good book or magazine to be honest.  And occasionally knitting something or crocheting, painting, sewing, quilting, wood carving, shooting an air pistol, archery, sculpting, writing and just screwing around.
Those things help me relieve stress, feel like my real self, and make me a better person really.

Right now though.  I have no time for this stuff. Even this blog entry will make me feel tremendously guilty at the end of the day.  God forbid I take the time to meditate or take a bath even.  Dear God.  My life is ridiculous and I KNOW THAT!!  I don't need a critique of it.  That isn't even a little helpful.
What I want is time.  I really really want time. Time with family.  Time to read. Time to repair friendships. Time to have a meal that doesn't feel rushed.  And everytime I get 5 minutes of fun in a day-- I feel guilty about that time, and I am sick of that.  I want more time and time I don't have to feel bad about.
I want to care less about what other people think.
I want to do all sorts of cool things in DC. But that takes TIME!
 I want to go see the newseum.  Go into the Washington Monument. Wander every art museum for a whole day. Go to the park with my kids. Take Isaac to the American History Museum, take Max to the Mall and walk around.  I want to sleep next to my husband 5 nights a week (really, more than two would be great).
I want to see the Cherry Blossoms this spring.  I want to go visit Vineyards in Virginia and Maryland and do wine tours.  I want time dammit!!! And I want to know more about wine and I want to enjoy a glass of it now and then.  I want there to be more time for wine and family in my life.  I would like to go enjoy a glass right now...

I am sorry to have whined... but really.. I want more wine please.  
thanks...
Love,
the "half-life" tired spirit that currently is: jacquie