her able hands

So! Sorry family (New Englanders, all) but that was some game last night. I couldn’t help rooting for NY, they played so hard.

The only treat I made for the game was a batch of Ina Garten’s Coconut Cupcakes.

The cream cheese frosting came out like silk. But I really need to work on my cup-filling technique. Every one of them overflowed and stuck to the edge of the (nonstick!) mini muffin tin. Ina calls for coconut to top the frosting with, but I’m not a huge fan of the chewy coconut unless it’s fresh, so I toasted about a cup of coconut in my cast iron skillet in the oven while it preheated.

This recipe uses buttermilk, and a metric ton of butter which converts to an assload. I mean, I may as well just stuff these babies down the back of my undies, they’re that buttery. I’m going to try making them with coconut milk instead of buttermilk next time. (Oh, yes. There will be a next time. But I will try to wait a few months before I carb load like that again.) I used to make an incredible layer cake using fresh grated coconut and coconut milk and it may have been the lightest, moistest, most delicious cake I ever had. It would translate to cupcakes so well.

And so I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Superbowl, ate two cupcakes and now have an early morning belly ache. But there’s no time for complaining—I’ve got to get the kids up and get us all out the door in 40 minutes. Peace out!

To the soul who found my site by searching “buy pickled turnips”:

Don’t buy them! Make them!

It’s so super-easy and inexpensive and more delicious than you can ever imagine.

Note to self: buy more turnips, you only have a few slivers left in the jar.

This morning the windows on the south side of the house are encased in a thick layer of bubbly ice. It’s freezing rain on top of an inch or two of snow and is meant to turn to all rain and then back to ice pellets and then to snow again by afternoon. But no real accumulation. How I long for a big snow. A colossal snow. A blizzard like the blizzard of ‘78 where we had to remove the storm door and bring it inside in order to begin to shovel our way out of the house. The snow came 3/4 of the way up the door.

Maybe I’m just wishing for another reason to stay at home (of course I’m wishing for that. Think of all of the things I could accomplish). But winters haven’t been as wintry for the last few years. If it’s going to last this long (and it will, it lasts so bloody long in comparison to the other seasons), it would be nice to have some opportunity for sledding with the kids—that doesn’t melt away the day after it hits the ground. I haven’t seen any of the area ponds stay frozen yet this year, and never see kids ice skating.

It seems like my childhood winters had a blanket of snow on them for two solid months, and every day the whole neighborhood gathered at the top of the big hill by the Taunton River for all-day runs. I spent day after day gliding around on Sturdevent’s Pond when I was a preteen, fantasizing that Robbie Benson or Shawn Cassidy or Leif Garrett sliced back and forth behind me, watching my every move and falling helplessly, hopelessly in love with me. And then I’d attempt a spin and fall straight out of the pages of Tiger Beat Magazine and onto my bony little ass.

Will global warming ramp up in my lifetime to the point where I am able to garden in winter without a heated greenhouse? As much as I love the thought of filling my salad bowl year-round with succulent lettuces, I hope to Maude that I never see a tomato flourish in my February garden.

That’s what pantries are for—we’re supposed to enjoy the less-heady, preserved fruits of our summer labors in the winter.

I think tonight I’ll celebrate this in between time. I’ll stew two overstuffed quart bags of blanched winter greens that are still in the freezer—one each of kale and collards. After I get a pot of brown rice started, I’ll sauté a pound of sliced chicken sausage in the dutch oven with a small chopped onion until the sausage is browned and the onion golden and soft. Then add two cups of cooked Great Northern Beans (also ready and waiting in the freezer—or they were until I set them on the counter a minute ago to thaw) and a quart of chopped tomatoes and garlic (I have one jar left from two years ago, found far back on a shelf). I’ll toss in a little kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste, then let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour on medium-low heat. Once the rice is done, I’ll scoop that into bowls, then top with a heaping spoonful of the greens, sausage and beans, then shave some Asiago cheese and a small swirl of basil and olive oil (that I also just took out of the freezer). Doesn’t that sound warm, but wintry? Now come on snow. Work with me here.

I finally moved about 2000 digital photos out of my iPhoto and onto a couple of CDs last night. I edited out the many, many duplicate shots of food and plants and in the process took a wonderful trip down the memory lane of this past growing season. Such a treat remembering the many ways our hands stayed busy all summer long and to see proof again when right now when it’s 17 degrees out and the world is encrusted in ice and snow, and it feels as if nothing will ever grow again. It’s SO good to review all we have put in place so far to become less dependent upon the grinding commercial food industry and to gain inspiration for growing that independence even more in the coming season.

I picked this first hand full of Vermont Cranberry beans too early because I grew impatient with the lack of sun on the pods and the weeks they took to even begin to blush.

I had a big helper in the garden all season and I thrilled to see Lila grow more conscious of what her hands should and should not do while moving in and out of the plants. She was my number one cherry tomato harvester.

Between my garden and the farmers’ market, I set out a giant bowl of fresh salad at just about every dinner we ate last summer. Next summer I’d like to learn some more homemade dressing recipes, I relied a little too heavily on Newman’s Own vinaigrettes which is fine but a little boring. If you have a favorite salad dressing recipe, please share!

Pinch me again! I almost forgot that these black raspberries grow wild right behind the gardens next door, and if we get some early summer rains, they’re plump and juicy just like the ones in this bowl. Mercy, they were so good. I can’t even find words to describe the wild berry explosion that occurred after I popped each one in my mouth. Heaven?

I won’t need to buy any seed potato in the spring because the harvest sprouted in the basement much faster than I thought it would. I guess it’s a little too warm down there, and I’d like to look at eventually turning one corner into a true root cellar by blocking it in with cement blocks.

In about six weeks I’m going to replant the greens boxes and then try not to stare out the window at them to make time move more quickly and bring us back around to that lush, glorious green of high summer. I’m still working on my seed list and narrowing down what to buy. I’ll be planting in the oversize cold frame that Chris built as well — the one with the much too high back and the big bay window that’s too heavy to lift and has a frame so flimsy that it feels as if it will shatter in mid-air. But it’s salad greens real estate and maybe I’ll figure out a way to modify it so it’s less deadly.

Looking back is such an inspiring way to examine the here and now in order to set forth the plan for the future, don’t you think?

My gardening to-do list is starting to grow again and I’m attempting to look at it with quiet enthusiasm and to pay attention to the pulse of trepidation that beats just one layer down. That thump, thump, thump is my Overload Radarâ„¢ (Angelina, this trademark’s for you…and you’re welcome to use it anytime you like) and it doesn’t take very much to set it off these days. I’ve come to understand that a wise and healthy woman keeps an eye on the Overload Radarâ„¢ and lets the to-do list languish when necessary. It isn’t going anywhere.

This weekend I intend* to do a thorough seed inventory so I can figure out what I need to buy. I’m thinking it’s mostly salad greens and some Roma beans. Thanks again everyone for your helpful comments about the beans. I have a package of Fava (Broad) beans from last year and will plant them early in the spot where I had the carrots last summer. It gets plenty of sun before the leaves are all on the trees, and the beans will give the soil a little nitrogen boost to make it ready for whatever I plant there late spring.

After seed inventory comes winter sowing. Hopefully I also manage to clean out my iPhoto, so I can photoblog the process. Right now I can’t even get my Christmas pictures uploaded, it’s that jammed up with images dating back to April 2007.

Meanwhile, it appears that Big Bad Bastard Bronchial Infection is tapping at my lungy doors again. I’m fighting, throwing everything in my arsenal at it, and so far (4 days in) it seems to be holding steady at a sinus nastiness and an upper respiratory coughing situation. Let’s not go full-blown this time, shall we? Everyone tells me that the preschool years are the worst on a mother’s immune system. I’ve had ten different women tell me that they spent an entire winter sick with one thing after another when their kids were in preschool. That right there just might be one of the best arguments I’ve heard for homeschooling.

One last bit…a request for some Bloggy Mojo in the direction of the young couple who looked at our house last weekend. They seemed very interested and mentioned looking to secure a bridge loan so they can buy our house at the same time they put theirs on the market. I feel the winds of change swirling. Thank you so much!

*I’m giving intention a try again, in an effort to reign in the chaos. I’m doing it at home and at work. At work it’s particularly beneficial. I set the intention of accomplishing my work without participating in the daily, minute-by-minute fire drill that goes on even though I had no idea of how to make that happen. After I made that choice, the answer presented itself: don’t deal with requests immediately. Pretty simple right? Well, not so easy to implement when everyone in the company expects that you’ll turn requests around same day, if not same hour. But unless the requester can show me a true need for instant results, I reply, “I’m adding it to my schedule now (which is just an ongoing list, but helps keep things almost clear) and can have that to you by _______.” Generally that’s two to three days out, sometimes a full week. I’ve only been doing this since the new year, and it’s reduced my physical and mental anxiety at work tenfold.