Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Holiday Greetings
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
I guess winter is finally here
Monday, December 14, 2009
Farewell dear friend
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Those cookies that just kept coming
EVERYONE remembers the cookies that Chris Mathewson "Cupcake" baked for the big day. Yesireee Bob......all 480 of them! Indeed - just when you thought you were the lucky one who snagged the very last cookie, you'd turn around 5 minutes later to find the plate refilled again. Which of course meant you had to continue eating them. They were that amazing, and totally addictive. None of us could believe it when we woke up the following morning and found the original box Chris brought them in, and yes, MORE COOKIES! Everyone was excited, and we, of course, ate them. So imagine our surprise when a week or so after Glenn and I returned from our honeymoon in Maine, we found a tin of guess what? More cookies. And still somewhat fresh. We ate them, all except one. We vowed to each other to save it until the day we got the recipe to make more. So the photo above is Glenn eating the last one today after lunch, and thank you Chris for the recipe below. I think we need to call a meeting with the powers that be so I can make a motion that you be called "Cookie" now, instead of "Cupcake".
Peppermint Pothole Cookies
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup turbinado [or light brown] sugar
1 large egg, beaten
2 tablespoons whole milk yogurt
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 teaspoons cut peppermint leaf
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
8-9 ounces dark semi- or bitter- sweet chocolate, melted
Cream butter and blend with sugar until smooth and even textured. Beat in egg, yoghurt and peppermint. Combine flour, salt, peppermint leaf and baking powder and add to mixture.
Place teaspoonfuls on buttered, uncoated cookie sheet. Pat with floured fingers to form depression in center of each. Fill with chocolate.
Bake for seven to nine minutes at 375 degrees. Remove from oven and cool for about five minutes, then chill to set chocolate.
Makes about six to eight dozen.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
White Trash Cake
White Trash Cake (Hummingbird Cake) from West Virginia
350 degree oven- cook in angel food cake pan (hole in center) coat pan lightly with crisco and flour
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 tsp. sat
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
mix well with a spoon, add:
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 unbeaten large eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 8 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained
1 cup chopped bananas (3-4, ripe best)
mix well, then add and mix in:
1 cup large pieces walnuts, black walnuts if you can get them, pour into pan
Bake 1 hour or until done
whip, beat until light
1 8 oz. cream cheese
1 softened unsweetened butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 box confectioner’s sugar
Spread over cake and enjoy. Un-iced cake can be made ahead and frozen. Thaw and frost.
Thank you Martha!
Mergefest Collages
Friday, November 6, 2009
This week's recipe
Crawfish/Shrimp Etouffee Recipe
1 pound shrimp (cut in half) or crawfish tails
1 stick butter
1 large onion, diced (heaping cup)
1/2 cup celery, diced
3/4 cup green bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup K.A. A.P Flour, *toasted
3 cups *crawfish/lobster stock/veggie broth
( i.e. 2 cups lobster stock + 1 cup veggie broth)
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon thyme (if ground, then less!)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons seafood hot sauce (greene’s of vt texas chipotle)
2 tablespoons chipotle hot sauce (sting ray)
1 teaspoon lemon
Saute onion, celery, bell peppers, garlic and bay leaf in butter in Dutch
oven until onion translucent.
Whisk in flour and stir/scrape constantly for 5 minutes on medium+. This
is a white roux.
Slowly add most of crawfish/lobster stock/broth mix and bring to boil for
5 minutes.
Add parsley, thyme, seafood sauce, chipotle sauce, lemon and tomato paste
Simmer for 15 minutes, do not boil, stir about every five minutes.
Mixture should have a sauce-like consistency, add a little stock if
necessary, but don't over thin.
Add crawfish tails/shrimp and cook 10 minutes. Crawfish tails are precooked.
* Stock can be made by boiling lobster bodies (w/liver), or crawfish heads
and/or shells.
* Toast the flour in a cast iron pan, over medium heat. Keep the flour
moving. This isn't something that can be left alone, the flour can burn
quickly. You’re looking for a med. brown - darkish brown color.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Iron Guild
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Happy Halloween
Friday, October 30, 2009
Yum!
PATRICK’S BOTTOM LINE
GARLIQUE EXTRAORDINAIRE
For 1-2 typical Garlic enthusiasts
recipe may be doubled, tripled, quadrupled etc.
***
SLICE ONE BLUB GARLIC CLOVES
LENGTHWISE AND PEEL
***
HEAT SIX TBSP. OLIVE OIL
IN A HEAVY SKILLET
(if it smokes its too hot).
***
ADD SPLIT CLOVES, TURN AND
SIZZLE TILL GOLDEN BROWN
***
SALT TO TASTE
EAT LIKE FRENCH FRIES
Cooking transforms garlic into a sulpher compound,
and is widely considered to be an effective agent
in preventing illness and promoting a robust sex life.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
They're here!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Jules
Friday, October 16, 2009
A Message from Mom
The Wedding was spectacular. Just as the vows ended, for the first time in days, the sun came out! Then during the Ring of Fire there was a brief moment of “Moonlight In Vermont!” If you believe in signs then surely this was a marriage made in Heaven.
Thanks to my three Grandchildren for taking such good care of Granny Annie in the airports and thanks to all of Jackie and Glenn’s wonderful friends and to the Campbell Clan who pitched in to help make this event so memorable. A special thank you to Glenn’s Aunt Ginny for being so friendly and making me feel at home and to Donna for transporting me back and forth. That Donna is an awesome driver. She fearlessly slid me right up to the Third Meadow. I’ll ride with Donna anywhere!
A final thought: Last summer Glenn took back to Vermont , in a big barrel, some Carolina red clay to have at the Wedding. Well not to be outdone, I brought back from the Wedding , not in a barrel but on my shoes, a lot of Vermont black mud which yesterday I sprinkled over the grass in my yard. The circle is now complete!
Love to All from Jackie’s Mom
Anne Kirkman Wade
Thursday, October 15, 2009
We're Baaack!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Three days in and loving it!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Three things
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Blessed
After writing the last four posts, I am feeling very tenderhearted and extremely grateful to have such loving, talented and generous friends and family in our lives. I will try not to get to sappy in writing about you all, but I feel I have to mention things as they come to me. Hence the photo above.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Capturing Mergefest moments
Introductions please
We would like to introduce you to The Wee Beastie, who will be making an appearance at the Mergefest escorted by our friends the Iron Guild. For those of you not familiar with the Iron Guild, please visit their website at : www.ironguild.net
Thursday, September 24, 2009
And it just keeps getting better
Monday, September 21, 2009
The manifestation of a bread oven
Monday, September 14, 2009
Wedding Day Schedule of Events
Friday, September 4, 2009
Mergefest Music
We are so thrilled that our friend John Peterson is bringing his bagpipes and will be "piping us in" for the ceremony. There is nothing quite like the sound of those pipes as they come up through the woods, and when you hear them in the distance, you will know the ceremony is about to begin. What Scottish drama!