Food | The Road Home

Posts from the ‘Food’ category

Mid January 2019

Last Saturday, January 12, 2019, Emmett was 11 months old!

In 3 weeks and a couple of days he will be a year old. Time flies. AND it is SO.MUCH.FUN. !!!

This is a “go to place” shot. The morning play was getting a bit much so I did my sing-song attention noise: “hoody, hoody, hoody” and then in a happy voice: “Emmett, go to place” and he did. The little sofa is “place”.

Auggie settles near by and treats are dispensed all around!

Friday, after a week of gray … sunshine!

Mountain tops visible on the afternoon walk.

And then a mini-winter storm.

Home.

Sticks, always sticks!

Emmett: 11 months old!

Saturday doughnut: sour cream old fashioned with chocolate frosting … yes, homemade!

Mid January 2019

Holiday Food Fun

Merry Christmas!

We are having a wonderful Christmas Day! It is gray and overcast with occasional flurries, so once again a perfect day to cozy up inside or bundle up and go out to play.

I have a Christmas music playlist that is classic versions of the hymn like carols as well as some of the Hallelujah chorus so we kept an ear on the reason for the season :)

So, food!! Right around Thanksgiving, I gathered various baking supplies to start making some Christmas favorites. But the work thing got in the way and NOTHING, not a single Christmas cookie, was made.

Friday night, when I turned off the computer and officially started my holiday time off, I made a list:

All summer, off and on, I was craving Boston Cream Pie or eclairs … similar flavors. I had decided as the work week was ending that I’d make eclairs as I had time to make the choux pastry and cream and put it all together. As I was looking for a recipe, I came across the recipe for an Éclair cake: an ice box cake with layers of graham crackers and vanilla pudding, topped with Chocolate ganache. I remembered there was a recipe for graham crackers on Smitten Kitchen that was in the back of my mind to try. In addition to no unpronounceable ingredients, I used about 1/3 whole wheat pastry flour AND reduced the sugar a wee bit.

So – homemade graham crackers and homemade vanilla pudding lightened with stabilized whipped cream happened on Saturday. As a note to myself, I “rolled” the graham crackers like I roll the sourdough crackers I make: using my pasta roller. I thought the grahams would be softish and I could cut the baked irregular shapes. BUT, they were crisp and it was a bit of a mess getting them cut to fit. Next time, I’ll roll with a rolling pin and cut square. Flavor is wonderful and I will not be buying graham crackers again. Plus, easy!!

I made a small loaf sized version of the Éclair cake to see how all went together. I hoped that the irregular crackers would soften in the cream and all hold together but I thought if it was a mess, I’d remake the graham crackers. But all was well, so on Sunday I carried on!

Very good, hits all of the éclair buttons and I have more in the freezer when the craving hits again!

After tasting and re-tasting the eclair cake, sugar cookies kind of lost their appeal. And even though I knew it would be another very sweet thing, I saw Smitten Kitchen’s Baklava Babka and thus revised the remainder of my list:

The dough looked very like the brioche dough that is the basis for doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. And I’ve made both of those with a sweet, stiff sourdough starter … so I went sourdough/natural leaven for the recipe.

Sunday night I mixed the sweet starter: 90 grams flour, 20 grams brown sugar, 40 grams water and 25 grams of my sourdough starter. By Monday morning, it was nice and bubbly. I added the remainder of the recipe ingredients, adjusted for the starter, mixed and put it in the refrigerator for a long, cold ferment.

This morning, I got the dough out, let it warm up, prepared the filling, rolled and shaped. I wanted to make a pretty round like the Smitten Kitchen’s Baklava Babka , vs 2 loaves but I don’t have a tube pan.

Emmett helped me look for alternatives.

We settled on a springform pan with foil wadded up to hold the center open.

Fortunately, I followed Smitten Kitchen’s suggestion to cut off the ends of the rolls and bake those with the filling that spills out when you shape the babka. I say fortunately, because I baked those first and then got to eat some while waiting for the main event. The house smelled so good, it would have been torture to wait without a taste!

The Baklava Babka! Mine is probably less baklava-like than Smitten Kitchen’s as my dough got puffier and I probably did not roll it as thin – next time.

It is wonderful. Very sweet and thankfully it will freeze well as I’m about done with sweet. It is also a candidate for bread pudding and/or French toast :)

Spinach dip and Cranberry salsa remain on my list, but right now … believe it or not … I am not hungry!

Emmett says Merry Christmas and thank you Santa for the good chew!

Auggie says Merry Christmas, also and is thankful that Emmett is growing up and being less of a pain! (mostly…)

Thanksgiving Recap: Thanksgiving 2018

In the twelve years I’ve lived in this house there have been some atypical Thanksgiving Days. Some years I’ve been on the road in the motorhome travelling to my folks or returning. One year I wrecked the turkey and had meatloaf. There was the year that I decided to have pumpkin stew and Portuguese cornbread instead of turkey. Last year I had sardines and black beans in an effort to speed healing of a bruised (maybe cracked) rib.

So.

Thanksgiving 2018. My plan was to work Monday and Tuesday and have Wednesday to decompress from work … play with Emmett and Auggie and get things in order for my simple Turkey dinner on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.

However, I ended up working all day Wednesday to get things in a place where I felt comfortable with a 4 day weekend. So, on Thanksgiving morning … a gray, freezing fog day … I started the woodstove, outings with Emmett, coffee … and procrastinated until I said to myself: “I think I’ll have my turkey dinner tomorrow.

So my Thanksgiving day dinner was a pizza with shredded brussels sprouts, bacon and smoked gruyere. La-di-dah-dah-dah. Wonderful. And I spent the day enjoying the fire, playing with Emmett and Auggie and reading a book.

I DID make a pumpkin pie. But I went off script with a crushed pecan crust vs a regular pie crust. I made a mini-pie to test the crust and YUM! So Friday, my turkey dinner day, I made another little pie!

And I cooked the turkey (turkey breast). And made bone broth from the bones. And that’s as far as it went.

Two days after Thanksgiving: Saturday.

Finally!

But, while I was procrastinating on my Turkey dinner, I spent some time on my blog looking at past Thanksgiving “adventures” … so a bit of reminiscing follows:

2017 Sardines for dinner (Bear’s last Thanksgiving)

2016 A leek gruyere bread pudding was a highlight

2014

2013

2012: The year we had meatloaf because I wrecked the turkey

2010 Pumpkin stew and cornbread vs Turkey (Karl’s last Thanksgiving)

2002 Pre blog days! This year we were renting a house on Flathead Lake. I’d just sold my “in town” house and had not yet bought anything else. The house was furnished … badly. But I am responsible for the somewhat garish table runner. Karl (Karelian Bear Dog 1.5 years old), Bob (Garfield look alike that came with a boyfriend and stayed although the boyfriend didn’t :) ) and Gus (Tuxedo cat and my first ever cat … 4.5 years old)

The walk down memory lane was not sad, it was happy remembering and I laughed at many of the photos I saw along the way.

My dog Zack, was pre digital camera, but I hope to dig out some photo albums and maybe do a “Christmases Past” including him, since this was so much fun.

Hope all had a good holiday. I am very much enjoying this nice break and I have some nice turkey, mashed taters, gravy and cranberry sauce to enjoy for the next few days.

Thanksgiving 2018.

September 16: The week in review

It was a lazy week – see above!

Actually a good week, although not a productive work week due to some domestic items … nothing bad just some things needing doing.

But as always, walks happen and the weather is gorgeous: cool, sunny, blustery Fall weather!

Emmett decided to move his kitchen bed to the office/sunroom, right behind my chair…

Lots of company while I was working, which I love! ***He moved the bed himself!!!

New things this week: a new leash which is thick and soft and I love it. So does Emmett – he took himself for a walk, he loved it so much :)

An orange long line as we begin proofing our recall with distractions. The distractions are deer, Auggie, squirrels and ??? Recall is perfect in the house and in the yard with no distractions so this is the next step.

Emmett is not fooled. He has more freedom on the long line than on leash, but he feels the weight and the one time he started after deer, I slowly applied pressure on the line as I called him. After that, he didn’t venture off the trail. But, this will take time and my plan is that it becomes habit on the long line, then I will use a lighter line which I’ll gradually shorten. I expect it will be Spring before the combination of his maturity and training is fully reliable in the face of wildlife or other very exciting distractions.

BUT, I am very pleased that he does not pull against the line or the leash. Occasionally he will lunge, but then stops. I have the long line as well as any leash attached to a harness so no neck stress. Trainers have differing opinions regarding using a harness. I am going with harness.

Emmett walks nicely on leash with the harness. In new places, he pulls against it, but I just stop. When he returns to me, on we go. We don’t walk when he is at the end of the leash and pulling – pulling gets him nowhere.

I do not do the change of direction thing. We have started some basic “walk to heel” but not at remote (EXCITING) locations. Walk to heel requires his focus on me and a specific position. We do that in the yard but it is too much for exciting places at the moment and right now, the exciting spots are for exploring with the only limits being not pulling and responding to attention noises from me.

Another benefit of working with a trainer and watching other trainers on YouTube is seeing and hearing that all takes time and every dog is unique, so I am working with where Emmett is: his maturity, attention span, experience as well as my own learning experience.

The orange line is very silky and does not get hung up on branches, rocks, grasses – YEA! It is also easy to see. So far, so good!

Auggie gets in on the action, also!

The vegetables took a decided turn to Fall: pie pumpkins! Delicata squash joined tomatoes and lemon cucumber plus cucumber slicers to make an Autumn vegetable “bouquet bowl”…

And that bouquet bowl made a nice backdrop to Saturday morning’s dough shaping…

…for Sunday morning’s Cranberry Sourdough.

Sunday morning in the woods…

And later at Wayfarer’s Park on Flathead Lake.

A Good Week!

Into September: Emmett at 7 Months, some food and some weather

30 weeks old tomorrow and 7 months old on 9/12/2018.

So much fun, in so many ways.

My dream of all of us on the little sofa in the kitchen just keeps getting better!

Training continues, of course. There are stellar days and days when Emmett pretends he never heard the word “Sit”. I have learned to switch things up with fun, fast paced training of things I know he likes to do: touch, follow, left paw, right paw. All of the training is short sessions: some 2-3 minutes, some 5-10 minutes if things are going very well. When I see that he is “done” we either do sprinkler (see video at the end!) or fetch. If we’re inside, I sit on the floor and we have a play/snuggle session to end things.

What I continue to see is an increasing bond of trust interspersed with some fun/funny naughtiness. For the naughty, I leave the area, the fun stops and I do some chore elsewhere for a few minutes. All calm, no one yelled – no drama. He waits by the pet gate and we have a nice greeting when I return.

The other thing I’ve taken from the Kikopup’s training videos is to think about teaching in a way that allows Emmett to do the behavior, or the first part of the full behavior … in a successful way, i.e. setting him up for success and building on that. It requires that I use MY brain so win-win for all of us!

We’ve worked a lot on attention and focus. When on our woods walks, I will occasionally make my attention noise: kissy sound, squeaky toy, cough/sneeze. When he looks, I get all excited, click and if he comes to me: treat, treat, treat!! The idea is that I stay more fun than anything else. Mostly this works :)

So, squeaky toys.

This is the latest. Actually, it is a puzzle toy which is why I bought it. Emmett, an English Shepherd, is a very smart dog that is good at problem solving and seems happiest with things that engage his mind: training, snuffle mat, kong, playing chase with Auggie …

This toy is a hollow log and comes with 6 little squirrels. All of the squirrels have squeakers.

… It seemed like a good idea at the time :)

Actually it is!

Even with 6 little squeaky squirrels, it is a fun toy for Emmett. Not only does he have a good time removing the squirrels, but he stashes them around and plays with them.

PLUS, they are small enough that I can put 1 or 2 in my pocket when we walk and thus have a squeaky toy for attention getting and proof that I am WAY more fun than deer, etc.

One of the keys to positive reinforcement training is to teach in a way that allows the animal to make good choices because those choices are beneficial to him and so it is easy for him to decide to make the good choice. Yelling “NO”, as well as other “punishment” serve to make the animal afraid and unsure. I’ve SEEN the difference in both Emmett and Auggie as I’ve trained with this method. I do some click-treat with Auggie in tandem with Emmett to calm them both if play gets out of hand. I’ve also taught Auggie a hand signal if he wants to walk past Emmett … it is a signal that says that I have control of Emmett and Auggie can proceed without a chase.

Is that a “Thank you” from Auggie ??? Well, maybe not, but at least he does have a retreat!

On to food!

Only 3 more weeks of CSA :(

But this week, we headed into Fall bounty:

And after making Mel’s Kitchen Café Amazing Romaine Salad which required making candied nuts … GREAT salad, but those nuts!

Looking for other ways to make the nuts, I found: these cayenne spicy-sweet nuts . YOWZA! If you like a hot-sweet vibe, this is a recipe to try.

I made a double batch … munched on some and added the rest to vanilla ice cream …

… with David Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Sauce . I subbed cashew cream for the heavy cream – no calorie savings, but my caramel sauce has protein and fiber!!!

Next up is weather.

We have mostly turned the corner to Fall (Autumn).

HOO RAH!!

1 of 3 A/C units put away on August 26.

Help and supervision by Emmett and Auggie.

I put the other 2 away as well as fans that same day.

With the exception of 3 days last week, we’ve been smoke free and cool.

It is wonderful.

Overall, it was not the worst summer ever. And we are likely to have some warm days still, but I really think the worst is behind us. Fires continue and we need a fire-ending weather event. The loss of historic structures is heart breaking. And the animals.

But, to end on a fun note … a video. As usual, my video skills leave a lot to be desired. I am completely in awe of people who video pets and themselves while walking, playing, etc. The only thing I can say for myself is that I am slightly better at editing so mostly have edited out the wild camera swings to the sky and my feet. Emmett is the star and for myself, at least I did not talk “baby talk”…

Mid July: Auggie, Emmett, CSA Veg and Food, Scenery

This past week, Auggie turned 5 years old !!!

And Emmett turned 5 months old !!!

Emmett and Auggie do a bit better every day and playing not quite so rough. They both know I don’t like the rough stuff. When I walk over to have a few words, they immediately separate with that look of “What, we weren’t doing anything!!”. I stay out of it as long as possible. My primary concern is Emmett’s puppy brain going into overdrive and some accidental injury to Auggie.

Emmett is now 35 pounds and has his permanent teeth. I felt horrible a few days when I saw teeth emerging and his gums were swollen and bleeding – ouch. He didn’t whine, but every once in awhile I saw him kind of working his mouth. I believe they are all in now, thank goodness! And speaking of teeth … I have done “husbandry” training as well. Since I brought Emmett home, I regularly put my fingers along his gums and teeth, play with and clean ears, play with feet and generally put my hands over all of him. All of this to make sure that he is ok with being examined and for me to clean teeth, ears and trim nails … and take his temperature if necessary. He had nails trimmed at the breeders and I’ve been trimming them once a week, I’ve started cleaning his ears and now that he has his permanent teeth I’ll do a brush twice a week. (Auggie gets regular teeth, ear and nail upkeep also as I started when he was a kitten.)

Other training continues well. We are mostly working on all that he already knows – all useful stuff so just continuing to use it during daily life. All of the training has been part of play time all along and the current difference is I very randomly click treat and more often just praise. We mostly walk off leash, but I keep him on leash if we are out when Auggie is and then we practice loose leash walking. All very beginning stuff.

I’ve mentioned it before, but Will (trainer) has also reminded me that Emmett is very young and we are building bond, trust, behavior … over time. This is such a relief to me especially with leash walking and recall. Will told me to continue my turning and running with sing-song noises to distract Emmett from deer vs trying to teach a grown up come when Emmett is not ready and likely to ignore it. We build the recall over time as Emmett grows up.

Another good lesson for me came from Laurie Luck of Smart Dog University: Make your dog training more powerful . The gist is that using management as we train makes the training go faster and also contributes to less unwanted behavior that we later need to correct. An example is: put the shoes away! Teaching a puppy to leave shoes alone is not realistic. BUT, if he can’t get the shoes, he doesn’t learn to like the shoes and we don’t ultimately have to teach “leave shoes alone”. “Leave it” is another of the behaviors that takes some maturity. We are in the beginning stages of “Leave it” and so my management is to put things I want left alone out of Emmett’s reach. My other management is sometimes leashing Emmett in the house. I did this a lot for these past several weeks to allow he and Auggie to be together, but to be able to restrict Emmett from really rough stuff. It has worked much better than trying to step in or keeping them completely separate.

As always, I think I’m learning as much or more than Emmett! Although I still make mistakes and get annoyed with myself, overall, I am so happy with how we are all doing!

Weather wise, it got hot and dry and the local farmers are producing gorgeous vegetables!

The vibrant landscape is going to fade with upper 80 temps, some 90 and no rain … so I’ve been soaking in the color and clear air.

The weekly CSA box is getting better and better. Week 8 I added some extra cauliflower and broccoli…

About half, I roasted and of that 1/4 I ate as a side dish and 3/4 I pureed with tomatoes for a vegetable marinara … well, that’s what I call it. The roast vegetables add a bit of sweetness to the tomato sauce – I love the flavor as a base for soups as well as a pasta sauce.

The remainder of the broccoli and cauliflower, I riced and froze. I use the riced cauliflower in place of rice and the broccoli is great mixed with some grain and parmesan and stir fried.

This salad – an excellent combination that hit the flavor, crunch and fill me up buttons!

Yes. Behemoth 1 in place…

And as the note says, I used the sound dampening quilts instead of adding the bedroom unit. I did put the “boy’s room” unit in place. And since the above photo, I neatened up the look of the quilts by adding a tension rod so they hang behind the curtain.

An added benefit discovered on 4th of July … not only sound dampening, but the quilts made the bedroom much darker. This time of year it does not get dark until after 10 and is getting light again by 5 in the morning. The extra dark helps all of us settle and get to sleep at our normal, early hour.

Oh – Emmett slept through the fireworks. We had some practice with earlies, gun shots and thunder. Sometimes he would stop and look at me. I laughed and gave him a treat and praise and pretty soon he was not paying much attention to any of it. YEA!

Emmett likes to see what’s what … Auggie is unfazed and continues his lunch!

Oh, Emmett :) … fortunately, he does not mind a rinse off. He also likes to be toweled dry and it is giving us practice at feet: 1 at a time. He figured out the routine very quickly.

He also figured out that in front of the fan is a good place to be on a hot day!

This is my favorite scenery photo from the week. It was in my Instagram story and is saved in the highlights along with some other photos from Friday morning on my way to town to get my CSA box. As it gets hotter, I head to town at 6:00 a.m., pick up the box, grocery shop and head for home before it gets hot.