sunday's bread

a reason to spend time in the sunny kitchen this late winter afternoon.
baking some bread. finding nourishment in the time & outcome.

the oatmeal bread from the more-with-less cookbook.
a cookbook that is like a secret password, if you know what it is, then you know what it is to grow up eating with mennonites.

a good bread, with only a little sugar & butter, and this time I upped the whole wheat flour a bit. ever on my quest to make sure what we eat tastes good, but is healthy for us too.

now for the high-altitude part. keeping it from rising too fast. getting the oven real hot. wondering if it is done, even when it looks done.

when we first moved in, I had a hard time with the lime-green paint job done by a previous tenant. I had plans to paint.
i realize now how I've gotten used to it, along with this old adobe. it has become our cozy first home.

but it will be fun to find the next home. hopefully with more sunny rooms than just the kitchen.

january cherry-blueberry pie

at some point this past summer, I'd bought so many delicious cherries that they went overripe before we could eat them all. so I suggested we pit & freeze them. for the winter. & today they came out of the freezer. (so did some blueberries, for the pie & muffins)

my boyfriend loves pie. it makes him so very happy. so I made a batch of basic butter pie crust (using a recipe from here), with some very cold butter & ice water, and let it chill in the fridge while the fruit softened.
after the berries defrosted, I squeezed in fresh lemon juice, about 1/2 cup of sugar and a teaspoon of strong, sweet cinnamon. and then I let it all sit for awhile.

in my cold, winter kitchen, I didn't worry too much about the crust becoming too warm as I rolled it out. (cold crust = flaky crust).

the mixture became deep red & dark purple.

it baked for about 50 minutes. and even after an hour out of the oven, the juices had not set. spilling into the space left by a piece of pie. (some more cornstarch next time.) but the crust is divinely flaky. it crumbles & then melts in your mouth.  so thank goodness I'd baked the scraps of crust too (with a little egg wash & sprinkles of cinnamon & sugar.

fruit pies are not my favorite, they are his. but I love the smell as they bake. and I popped a few of the sweet buttery baked cherries in my mouth, and they reminded me of summertime. and as the kitchen grew darker in the late afternoon, I fixed myself a cup of black tea to enjoy as he ate his pie. a pie dark like winter, but tasting like a summer day.

snowy views

from a snowy drive & a snowy walk.

as we look for a new place to live we learn what is most important to us and what we call home. for him, privacy & trees and for me, sunshine-y windows.

the peppernuts have been baked, and await our sunday afternoon gathering. the high altitude adjustment was some extra butter & extra molasses. (apparently in the way-back-when, women would bake these, store them in ceramic crocks and put them in the fruit cellar until needed. so I feel like being stored in a tupperware for a few days is okay, while also not nearly as interesting).

the next day, the kitchen still smelled of the aniseclovescinnamonginger&molasses.

sunday note

a view after dinner friday night.
our week ended with a few nights with d's folks, warm times in the bitter cold.

this morning a drive out to the trees & foothills, so see a maybe-place-to-rent. a cute place in the quiet country, but we have some questions yet before our hopes get too high & our rent goes up.

rolling out some peppernut/pfeffernusse dough, and it crumbled all to pieces. casualty of the dry high air. so now to try and make another batch.

this winter has given me a true appreciation of long underwear and wooly socks & sweaters.

in a week we'll be hosting a Faspa for friends.

peaches & almonds

i love my gluten. but have been curious about how baking without it could work out. we were invited to dinner last week, and I offered up dessert, knowing that it would be appreciated if gluten-free. I had it decided inside my brain, that it would be almonds & peaches.

a few years ago I decided to pay more attention to how my body felt after eating certain foods. this was my attempt to transition from unhealthily obsessing over how much I ate into a more moderate obsession with what I was eating. we can't always get rid of eating disorders, but we can try real hard to convert them into better versions of themselves.

it wasn't long before I finally accepted that eating foods full of words I couldn't pronounce was a bad idea. and that I needed to focus more on fresh foods, whole grains and avoid additives & preservatives. eat healthy & therefore feel healthy.

i'm not convinced the recent widespread gluten-allergies, lactose-allergies, nut allergies are legitimate. right now they seem more like trends than they do fact. but if someone wants to avoid wheaty gluten goodness because they feel better when they do, then by all means, they should.

but hey, baking gluten-free looks complicated. & I wasn't interested in investing in rice flour, tapioca starch, xanthan gum and all the substitutes needed to replicate the action of a fine, gluten full flour. I just wanted simple.  
 

so i baked an almond crust with ground-up almonds, sugar, some butter & an egg. I baked it until firm & golden.

I let the crust cool a little. and then into it I poured freshly sliced peaches that had been soaking in sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon & nutmeg.
and I dropped little cubes of butter all over the peach mixture.
then baked until the peaches were covered in bubbling syrup.

it came out looking simple & delicious.
and it was like eating a sweet, nubby almond crunch. with cinnamon-peach juices.
we didn't miss the gluten. 

a nice finish to the red chile chicken enchiladas and salad of fresh greens which we ate with views of the mountains growing dark.

baking for flowers

on a lovely evening we had special guests over for dinner. we grilled burgers, made pasta salad with fresh corn, cucumbers, basil and salty pepitas.
I baked hamburger buns. and though oddly shaped, they came out well. helped I'm sure by the glaze of melted butter.

to continue the adventure in baking, I also made a lemon cake. it came out dense, moist and not too sweet. served with sliced freshly picked very sweet peaches.

in return I received a huge bouquet of wonderful kansas-inspired flowers.

I got to bake for people I care about. and spend a evening of happy chatting, laughing and warm friendships. all while sitting outside in the summer air, as the sun went down.

tonight rain & lightning are in the air.

before I left, a new season started rolling in.

he came home from work late one night, coming inside saying, "you have to just see this!"

and so I threw on my jacket and stepped outside, forgetting shoes. and falling from the nighttime stars were huge, sloppy, soft flakes of snow. it was beautiful.

the next morning in the sunlight it all fell from the trees. looking like glitter.

I love that this will be my second Fall in New Mexico.


we bought locally grown Yellow Delicious apples from a farmer wearing a mustache & a cowboy hat. they were crisp & sweet. he told us to take a few "rejects" from the box on the ground too. so later I cut out the bruises, chopped up the good pieces, soaked them in cinnamon & sugar, and threw little piles in between layers of pastry dough. then covered in a sugary glaze, they were definitely worth that morning stroll to the farmer's market.

in winter

 I bake.

december afternoon

last night baked a gingerbread (cake) recipe that called for a cup of guinness & a cup of molasses. along with a ton of ginger. not only was it the tastiest, it made my house smell delicious.

I shared it with friends & bourbon. and ate it for breakfast too.






















been fighting an urge all weekend, to take a long nap. thinking I could wake up and feel rested, in mind and body. somehow trying to prepare for a new year. closing one book, and opening another.

for the weekends ahead, it will be nothing but holidays.

snow coming

the weather looks snowy in the next few days.

baking bread made my house smell warm. and it will be tasty with some soup, on a snowy evening. or just with some cheese & jam, which may be supper tonight.

this was a new recipe. I realise now it just looks like a big zwiebach, but it is actually a style of bread called a "cottage loaf". I got the recipe from an old neighbor. (thank you again!)

with snow, I hope comes some productive evenings ahead.

buttercream for birthday cakes

little adorable had her first birthday party.

her brother helped her blow out the candles. (he also made the decorating decision...of placing the three pink candles in the cake)

she happily stuffed in her mouth, and covered herself all over, in a mixture of buttercream frosting and bananacake. which I adapted the recipe from here.

buttercream frosting, is by the way, delicious. and friends and family, pictures will be on flickr.

baking for a birthday

as I baked this cake today. for my lovely sister-in-law's birthday.
I thought of how it is also a one-year birthday for this adastraland blog.
I always enjoy a reason to bake a cake.





























the cake is a devil's food recipe, from MS. similar to this one.
I included a layer of Nutella on the top of the bottom layer.
And then iced with a simple powdered sugar/cocoa/vanilla glaze.

And here's to one year of this little blog. I'm curious as to what it will
contain in yet another year. I guess every year when the daffodils
are blooming, I'll also have this anniversary to think about. and possibly,
a reason to bake a chocolate cake.

flour, salt, yeast & honey.

and warm water.
I know that at times a bread machine would be nice. At those times I just wanted fresh bread, without all the effort.
But as I stand in my 100-yr old kitchen, at a place where other women likely stood to do the same, and knead away. Everything is peaceful. No computer, no internet and nothing buzzing or whirring. It is simply, me, making bread.

Honey Whole Wheat, like last time.

annual bake-off

only once a year (mostly) do I take the time to make, roll, cut, bake & decorate cookies. mostly I prefer to make cookies that are easily dropped onto a sheet.

these are the sugar cookies which I've been making since I was little. my grandmother's recipe. (I should really remember to ask her where she got the recipe.) one that I thought, when little, had a bit of secret in them, since they call for a combination of milk & orange juice.

I love these cookies. Though they are now in the freezer, waiting for actual visitors, and holiday celebrations. Of course the temptation is too great, and I do pull one or two out, every day, for buttery-sugary-munching.

A batch of gingerbread cookies, (a recipe clipped out of my 12/95 issue of Sauveur--oh my, so long ago?) also now waits. For the buttery-gingery-sugary munching needs.

baking pumpkin

with the sub-zero temps over the weekend, it was important to warm up the kitchen with some baking. I made several loaves of pumpkin bread. a favorite of some visiting familia around christmas day. This recipe from Everyday Food I find I've relied on quite a bit, since it was first published. (Of course, I half the ginger and add cinnamon. Because I have a hard time imagining pumpkin bread w/o cinnamon.)

in other news. we are expecting a big ice storm to start tonight. here's hoping I keep my power over the next few days. as, it will be mighty cold (and no internet), if it goes.

pumpkin c. chip muffins

as soon as a friend had mentioned she'd recently been baked some amazingly good pumpkin chocolate chip muffins...I put in a request that she get the recipe for me from the baker herself.

and as I had a wine-drinking get-together to attend last night, I made up a batch. and the few I'd left at home, were eaten up today by my nephew & brother during a visit.

so, they were a hit. and I've since passed the recipe on to another.
I love that about recipes. how they get handed from person-to-person, over time and over distance.

thanks C.-in-Chicago for the recipe. quite yummy.

best with salty butter

so, yesterday. was an oddly cool day. and a whiff of a comment from a passing friend, who mentioned it would be a good day to bake bread, stuck in my brain.

once again, I used the honey whole-wheat recipe from Martha's Baking Handbook (and basically here, on her site). forgetting to coat the tops with something for a moister crust.

I also lost my will power to keep kneading the dough, about halfway through the rec. time.

whenever I'm kneading bread, I feel like I should be in some old, 2-story, white farmhouse. plopped in between a grove of cottonwoods and a wheat field. with windows open, and kids running through the kitchen. a husband in the barn. and outside the window over the kitchen sink, a view of laundry on the line.

anyways. the bread was good. shortened knead time and all. I sliced a piece before it was cool. and layered on some butter.