Happy Valentine's Day

Sometime in the middle of January, I was overcome with the urge to make Valentine's cookies. I could taste them: the recipe would be "Aunt Mary's Sugar Cookies", (someone else's Aunt Mary) printed in a cookbook produced by the employees of The Texan's credit union, which are deliciously seasoned with nutmeg, and the icing is quite salty for a nice sweet-salt contrast flavor.  I could see them: heart-shaped, pink icing, with funny sayings on them like on the little candies one is always disappointed to receive on Valentine's Day.  I'd make some for my nephew who is laboring on his dissertation. Instead of Luv U, and Be Mine, they'd say things like Proof it! and Write On and PhD in Cite and U R Almost There.


So, early last week I made the cookies. I frosted the cookies. We moved everything in the kitchen to the dining room or basement, in jumbled boxes. We demolished the kitchen. In the midst of all this, I did pack up a box of cookies for the nephew, and as I was driving home from the post office, I realized I forgot to put the funny notes on them.  Ah well. He'll get a box of really good cookies to eat -- it will just look a little strange (I'm not much of a Valentine's giver in the normal way).

By the way, I was awed to see that I was visited by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which just happened to manifest itself amongst my heart-shaped cookies.  I reckon that was meant for the nephew too, for more power and get-it-doneness in the face of adversity (for who knows adversity better than the FSM?), so I sent that to him, too.

Flurry of household tasks

I painted the bathroom this weekend (a pale pale blue-grey, photos wouldn't do it justice), which involved also scraping peeling paint off the ceiling and priming it, too (I still have to paint the ceiling at some point).

I also cleaned up the yard, at least well enough to last until a temperate day in November, when I'll do the last winterizing.

Spiders have taken over the tomatoes -- you can see the webs in the photos. (We call the two largest Shelob and Shelob's Cousin Bolesh.) A major part of the yard clean-up involved pruning back the flowering tendrils of the tomatoes, and exposing as many as possible to the weakening, lowering sun. (I worry that rather than get sun to them, I have just cut off their insulation and now they'll chill over night. C'est la vie.)

I discovered a treasure trove of golden Sunsugars behind Shelob's web -- we have unintentionally avoided picking there, for obvious reasons. I picked about 2 pounds there alone, with a careful eye on the her, but I left her web mostly intact.  I also harvested about 5-6 pounds of full-sized tomatoes, mostly Romas, and more than a pound of rhubarb.

To preserve (or to use up) the tomatoes, I made three batches of variant sauces and then froze them: 1) a plain Tomato Sauce, same as I've been making of each species of tomato, but this time with the Sunsugar cherry tomatoes -- it is golden as saffron, and sweet as an ice cream topping; 2) a Marinara Sauce of simply garlic and basil complements; and 3) an Amatriciana Sauce -- which is bacon and hot chiles, and has a nice kick to it. (All recipes were from Joy of Cooking.)

Baking and Decorating

Gosh, it's hard to photograph food so it looks tasty.

We've outdone even our old record for cookies this year -- partly due to being trapped in the house by the weather. Here you see (left to right) Iced Oatmeal Cookies, Aunt Joan's Revel Bars, Peanut-Butter Blossoms, Almond-Cardamom Stars, Rum Balls, Apricot Balls, Molasses Cookies, and along the bottom, Cranberry-Pistachio Biscotti, dipped in white chocolate. This is not a weight-loss Christmas for any of us.

FemmeDommi was to lead the 2nd Grade Cookie Decorating Project on the last day of school. School was canceled for snow (our schools were canceled three days last week; across the city, in the West Hills, lucky children had five snowdays, while their parents missed work and Christmas shopping, and cursed the city school board). So we ended up with four dozen sugar cookies (trees, bells and stars), two dozen tiny gingerbread men, and all the decorations. Today we had fun, and we'll deliver plates of these to our neighbors tomorrow.

I have been thinking of making a batch of Snickerdoodles as well. What's Christmas without Snickerdoodles? And we have no nut-cookies, no pecan sandies, no Russian teacakes. A gap in our selection, indeed. And the Texan has yet to make her stellar Linzertortes, either. So more cookies may be forthcoming.

Halloween, 2008 -- Preparations

I've been really wordy the last few posts. Sorry. In an effort to make this a 30-second read, here are simply lots of pictures.

We decorated Halloween cookies last night. (The Texan made them from a great, tasty sugar cookie recipe, with lots of nutmeg. Ask if you want it.)

The whole set.

Ghost of the Mad Housewife.

Amputee Ghost

One Bad Apple

Gray Squirrel
(A reminder of the preymate Tasha brought me, last night.
Which I won't talk about.
Except to say, at least it was only a partial preymate. .)

St. Valentine's Traditions

Probably the best Valentine's gift I've ever received (although to be honest, I've not received many) was a large Godiva chocolate heart box, filled with handmade sugar cookies, frosted and personalized by my then-boyfriend, Peter.



As a gift, it held the right excitement (a very large heart-shaped box - it must have originally held five pounds of candy) ... the right note of wary concern when I saw the "Godiva" logo (we were college students, on our first Valentine's together -- what did he expect for such an expensive gift? And how would I bring myself to eat all those -- I don't care for chocolates that much -- to properly thank him?) ... the right discovery of relief (no chocolates after all!) ... and the right coy cuteness (Awwww! The man made me cookies all by his lonesome! And decorated them, too). I knew even then that his mother had likely suggested the idea, and probably even baked the cookies and let him take credit (in my memory of the moment, she's standing in the background as he hands me the box), but I was willing to forgive a little lack of creativity and effort for not having to appropriately thank him for a 5 lb. box of expensive chocolates.



So I've always had a soft spot for Valentine's heart-shaped sugar cookies. Today, the Texan made a delicious batch (they have a hint of nutmeg that makes them very special) and the children decorated them. Boy-child, not to be too mushy, asked for foot-shaped cookies instead, and he decorated them himself. Girl-child, Texan and I did the rest. We even decorated a cookie in honor of each of the cats (named on the cookies).

No-Knead Bread

Taking a card from another's blog, here is my own entry into the No-Knead Bread craze that's sweeping the country. I made a whole wheat version -- one-third wheat, actually. It was dead easy, with a chewy-crisp crust and soft brown interior that tastes great toasted with jam.

It's my second loaf of bread this week -- the first was an Irish Currant Loaf, also part whole grain, with yummy currants and a trace of brown sugar. Last year at this time I was baking a couple of loaves of yeast bread a week, which is about as fast as we eat it. The family loves bread, but mornings are for bagels, and lunches tend to use sandwich bread, and the children rarely eat the homemade stuff, preferring more processed sandwich bread -- although curiously they like artisan-made Italian loaves (just not so much when baked by me -- are we raising a generation who doesn't like home-made?).

It's good to get back to baking.

Domestic Arts: Felting

To give me something to do while I catch up on all the shows I have TiVo'd, or the many DVDs I've checked out from the library while the Writer's Strike continues, I've returned to handwork. I started with a pair of slippers for Girl-Child -- bright pink. The top photo shows them pre-felting, alongside some right-sized shoes. The bottom photo shows them on the same feet, after three washings, sans the requested purple ribbon that will make them truly fashionable. Of course, she tells me they are too small, now (but that can be adjusted by reblocking them). And shortly after this photo was taken she slipped and took a face-forward dive on the hardwood floor -- so I shall have to apply "puffy fabric paint" to the soles to make them a little sticky, as instructed in the felting how-to book.

Frankly, I doubt Girl-child will wear them (she won't wear her bathrobe, other slippers, or even socks, preferring instead to complain about the cold and lie under a blanket), but at least I feel like I was somewhat productive during Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. (Hey, I had never seen it, and was trying to get caught up before the tv show started! Get off my back! I didn't say it was a good movie, despite Claire Danes and a killer story skeleton.)