puttery kitcheny day

It's a good day for tea.

And puttering in the kitchen.

When it was still quite dark this morning, I saw a little shadow swooping up to the birdfeeder. Then another. Two juncos were breakfasting unusually early. Then I noticed the fine, dense precipitation. It was falling straight down but it was too dark to tell if it was rain or the kind of teeny-tiny snowflakes that couldn't possibly add up to anything but generally do.

I checked the weather report: 1-3 inches accumulation predicted by the end of the day. Hmmm. Pretty sure there was already 3 inches atop the bird feeder, and the sun wasn't up yet.

Sure enough, by the time we went out to feed a couple of hours later, Piper and I stepped out the door into 8 inches of fresh snow. The air was pleasantly warm though: 24F, which feels very warm indeed these days as long as the wind isn't blowing.

At 10 AM, the snow was still falling. The weather report now predicted 3-5 inches total by the end of the day. Step it up, weatherfolk. The sky is way ahead of you.

~~~

While Piper lounged and thawed her iceball leggings by the heater, I baked another fruit-topped teacake.
This one with dates.

I like to think every experiment in the kitchen is an opportunity to learn something. Here's what I learned this morning:
don't bake this particular cake with dates.

Each of those harmless-looking nuggets had the consistency of a very chewy pebble. They reminded me of something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Pretty sure it wasn't something we think of as edible, though.

~~~

In another kitchen adventure, I tried to "zest" Meyer lemons.
I've never "zested" anything before, and to be honest, I'm not sure I've "zested" anything now. Does anyone know if I took too much of the rind along with the peel? I tried not to, but I just don't know. Please advise!

I also juiced the lemons with my Grammy's old glass juicer, thus justifying the allocation of cupboard space to this tool for another year. Maybe ten.

Some of the juice went straight into a peanut-ginger marinade for the tofu which is in the fridge at this moment, becoming wonderful. (Fingers crossed. This was definitely an experiment, and it is on tonight's menu.)

~~~

Oh, here's an actual Helpful Kitchen Tip!

Two, even. 

Gosh, maybe three!

First: I heard that a good way to cook a tougher piece of beef, is to put it in a pan with a can of peeled tomatoes, cover the pan, and bake (roast? poach?) it in the oven for two or three hours at 325F. Last week, I had a small slab of top round and I had a big can of Pomodoro tomatoes, so...I tried it. And I must say, after 2 hours, that chunk of meat fell apart before I could put a knife to it!

Second: as they worked to tenderize the beef, the tomatoes were reduced to nearly a paste, which soon became the base for a bonus pasta sauce. Very tasty! I've had "meat sauces" that tasted less rich and meaty than those tomatoes.

Third: when I decided to add some of the leftover cooked beef to a lentil stew, I wanted to chopped the pieces "across the grain" so there would be no long, stringy pieces dangling from a soup spoon. And as I was pondering the least-tedious way to orient all those small pieces of meat in order to chop them properly, I had a thought:

 

My super-deluxe kitchen shears! 

By which I mean, the pair of ordinary scissors I keep in the kitchen. One of my most useful kitchen tools, but this is the first time they were put to work smallifying chunks of cooked beef. Worked beautifully, and took next to no time. Snippety snip snip!

~~~

It's late afternoon, and still snowing. I just checked the weather report again, and can tell you with certainty that we are experiencing a 50% chance of light snow.

I hope you are enjoying the weather of your choice, wherever you are! And readers who are craving a good snowfall are very welcome to come on by!

I can offer a nice cup of tea, but - just between us? - 

you'd be wise to pass on the cake.

~~~~~

winter interlude

Pssst! Are you looking for

the Grow Your Blog Party post

and giveaway? It's right here!

~~~

We've had a little break recently: after weeks of bitter and paw-chilling cold, the past few days have been warm. Really warm: first in the teens then 20s then breaking 32F yesterday.

There has been much melting.

Piper and I took the opportunity on each warm day to spend some joyful time in the woods.

This is what it looked like the first day:

 And this is what it looked like yesterday:

There was still lots of ice and snow on the forest floor, but there were also many open patches, usually under hardwoods or along the woods road, where the sun had melted most of the snow. 

It was refreshing to see so much color again, and to smell the sun-warmed earth and the autumn-dried plants. A wonderful treat for the senses, especially since I knew more snow would probably be falling soon.

 

Since I didn't need to keep my mittens on (!!!) the camera never left my hand. More than once I spent several happy minutes in one spot, clicking and clicking away, without moving more than a couple of feet in any direction.

Piper finds such behavior baffling. She demonstrates this by eventually running full-tilt across my field of vision, only inches away from my body, and crashing through whatever plant or tiny landscape I am photographing.

And then looking back and giving me a huge happy grin.

Something like this:

Sometimes, I repay this hooliganism by asking Piper for a "Stand Stay" while I take her picture. Yesterday she stood on one of the big glacial erratics we visited many times last summer:

About 5 seconds of standing quietly...click, click, click...then I said, "Okay!" and she was off in one grand, blurry leap.

~~~

Now the cold is back, and falling snow is already covering the recently-exposed ground. Piper accompanied me on chores this morning, then headed straight back to her cozy bed. 

Makes me glad we seized the day(s)!

~~~~~

Grow Your Blog!

It's the 2014 Grow Your Blog party, hosted once again by the lovely Vicki of 2 Bags Full. Welcome to my little part of the celebration! I'm delighted to be participating again. The 2013 Grow Your Blog Party brought me into contact with many lovely bloggers who now both share and enrich my world.

Thank you, Vicki!
Thank you, my bloggy friends!

~~~

So this is where I came in, one year ago, as a brand-new, wet-behind-the-ears blogger. Today I looked back at my first post to see what I had envisioned:

"I'm just going to give it a go. And keep it very simple:

a place to post photographs, thoughts, and words that make me think,

and a place to record projects, creative endeavors, and some of the ordinary magic that seems to go on all around."

In retrospect, this is pretty much (exactly) how the blog has developed. Which just goes to show:

if you keep your initial plan broad enough, it is possible to stay right on track!

Heh.

If you'd like a quick idea of what you'll find on Comptonia, you might take a scroll through my 2013 pictorial retrospective post of monthly collages. Here is one example:

February 2013 highlights: fiber-dyeing, cashmere-combing, playing and working in deep snow, sewing, cooking, and a little attitude from a goat.

~~~

The regular cast of Comptonia is mostly four-legged. 

Some are cashmere goats:

First-time mum Lily, and her daughter Tsuga

Violet teaching her daughter Sambucus to dance

but the star is a Piper:

"Yes. Yes, I am. The Star. Yes."

And if even one of those critters would learn to type 

and work the camera, I'd be reading the blog, not writing it.

By the way, there are hens here, also, but I don't expect my hens to be able to type. That would be silly, wouldn't it?

(Of course, now that I've written that, it's clear the hens would be the best typists of the bunch, with their innate hunt-and-peck method. Hmmm. Something to think about. Stay tuned.)

So, there's some gardening, and a little cooking, and reports on the International Space Station, and walks in the woods, and highly technical analysis of market trends (just kidding), and generally a little bit of whatever comes up.

Welcome! I'm glad you decided to visit Comptonia and have a look around. If you find something you like, I hope you will come back again!

~~~

And now for the Grow Your Blog Party giveaway:

a handknit hat.

Knit by me, in Cascade Superwash, which is a soft Peruvian Highland wool you can machine-wash and machine-dry without fear of...well, without fear of anything. No shrinking, no felting. Truly fearless machine-laundering of a handknit. Woohoo!

The color is a dark reddish-brown heather, with hints of green and gold. It's surprisingly hard to photograph accurately: the first picture shows the darkness quite well, and the others are too light but do show the subtle multicolor-heathery quality. It's a pretty yarn. It reminds me of the ground covered with oak leaves in late Autumn. Oak, and maybe beech. With a little bit of moss peeking out between the fallen leaves.

The hat should fit a medium to a large head, as it is quite stretchy.

Fibery note: I made this hat ages ago as a test-knitter for the Goose Chase Hat, designed by Sarah Roy. The pattern is Sarah's interpretation of a sweater worn by John Watson (Martin Freeman) in "Sherlock" - how clever is that? I finished the hat, washed and blocked and dried it, reported back to Sarah on Ravelry, then tucked the hat carefully away in the Future Knitted Gifts box, for when someone special would need a cozy hat.

And here we are: it's The Future.

Do you need a cozy hat?

The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere. Just leave a comment and be sure to include a way for me to reach you if you are the winner. I will draw a winner on 15 February and announce it in a post on that day. Good luck!
~~~
A follow-up note: I won't reply to your comments here on this post, because it will be easier to do the drawing on the 15th if every comment is an "entry."
But I'll come and say hello on your blogs! :) 

~~~~~

happy hour

There's been more snow. And ice.

When I start morning chores, it's often rather gloomy.

Piper usually comes along, but to be perfectly honest, she doesn't always help. This morning, for example, she went straight off on some mission of her own. Very busy, she was.

While I dealt with frozen latches. I use these double bolt-clips for all sorts of things, such as hanging each goat's feed bucket.

It's hard to hang a feed bucket when a latch is frozen.

The answer to a frozen latch is directly-applied heat.

Glove off:

  

(Not my favorite thing.)

This morning, Sambucus had a suggestion.

"Never mind that frozen latch.
You can just stand right here
and hold my bucket for me while I eat!"

"See? Perfect! Don't move!
I'll only be ten minutes or so."

 Yes, Bui, that would work if you were my only goat. But I can't hold everybody's bucket at once, and naturally everybody likes to eat at the same time. This is why we put on collars and ties, and everyone has their own bucket, hung up with a latch and...

???

"What are you saying?
I am NOT your Only Goat?!" 

This morning, after everyone had finished their grain and been turned loose, and I had collected the collars and topped the water buckets and distributed the hay and filled the mineral feeders, the sun suddenly came up. It sent bright lateral rays here and there across the paddock.

Lily, searching for that one perfect blade of sweet, dry meadow grass hidden deep inside a million lesser blades, was lit by a dazzling ray:

I wonder if everyone with livestock enjoys hearing them eat.

The goats' little munch-munch-munch always makes me smile. 

As I headed back to the house carrying the empty water buckets, I whistled for Piper and she raced up to reveal the success of her mission:

"Found it!!"

It's amazing how much can happen in an hour.

~~~~~

because it was there

Very strange to be bake something without an apple in it, I know. But here goes.

I hadn't planned to bake anything this morning, until I discovered several leftover Portuguese sweet rolls in my cupboard.

They were just slightly too dry to be used for sandwiches, and would probably make terribly sweet breadcrumbs.

So...a venture into bread pudding.

 Cut into little blocks...

...and placed in a buttered baking dish.

Not too tightly, but filling the dish.

Then doused in a mixture of 4 eggs, 2 c milk, 1.5 c sugar, 2 TBS vanilla extract, and 1 TBS cinnamon.
(The recipes I found called for 2 c sugar, but I just couldn't do it.)

Baked at 325F for an hour.
(Because I use Pyrex. In a metal pan: 350F.)

Here's what the pan looked like as I removed it from the oven...
Action shot! 
Drama!! 
Feel the heat!!!

I had a little taste while it was still hot.

And because I didn't make a sauce,

I added a little sliver of ice cream.

Not bad. Especially considering the absence of apples.

I've never made a bread pudding before and can only recall one cold, bland, raisin-studded serving, eaten in a cafeteria somewhere, sometime. 

(Now that I'm thinking about this, there may be a connection between the second part of that sentence and the first.)

This bread pudding tastes rather like French Toast, as one would expect from the ingredients. But the texture is different, with each individual chunk of bread saturated and baked through, and all the chunks forming one cohesive dish.

It would be nice for serving a group for breakfast: simple and quick to put together and pop in the oven, and - unlike French Toast - no one standing, plate in hand, waiting for the next slice to come out of the skillet.

What's your favorite way to use leftover bread?

And if you make bread pudding, what do you like for a sauce?

~~~~~