When the Farmers Market Gives You Beets . . .

At this time of year, there isn't a lot of fresh produce available at the Farmers Market and what there is tends to be sold in larger quantities than we usually buy. It all makes sense, but sometimes we end up with more than we can use in one week and then I start obsessing about how I'm going to use it up before it goes bad. Such was the case with a bag of beets purchased a couple of weeks back. We used some pretty immediately and then the remainder preyed on me. It's this sort of situation that calls for Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables.

The options for beets were fairly limited, but I was happy to find a recipe for which I had most of the ingredients on hand, many of them purchased at the Farmers Market; I needed to go to the store for only couscous and cilantro. Oh, and I added a few turnips to supplement the carrots since we'd also purchased a large bag of turnips while having eaten most of our carrots already.

The beets in question were gold which I considered a positive: I didn't have to worry about staining the sink pink while peeling them and I think they looked pretty when mixed with the carrots, turnips, and onion on the tray. (Note: I didn't worry overmuch about quantities and I opted to roast everything together for 20 - 25 minutes rather than starting the beets on their own first; who has the patience for such fussiness after peeling and chopping up all those root vegetables?)

While they roasted I made the couscous, once again opting to go a little simpler and just leaving the smashed garlic in the mix, rather than trying to fish it out after the couscous had cooked (why, Josh, why?) My goal was to have all the components ready simultaneously as I wanted everything to be as warm as possible when it got mixed together.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten entirely about the cilantro so I had to chop that after everything was out of the oven and off the heat, thus resulting in things being closer to the recipe's "slightly warm" condition. It was still delicious--and pretty to boot!

*Not covered in the above in any way, the citrus vinaigrette for which I subbed red wine vinegar for champagne vinegar. I also shook it in a jar rather than using a blender or food processor. Scott noted that he'd never have considered citrus with roasted vegetables, but that it really worked.

Incidental pretty

 

Wintering over water

The Big Storm hasn't materialized around Seattle, meaning that I've been able to get out on Bessie every day this week. Oh, I think I've been sprinkled on at least some most days, but it's still been, in a word, glorious. Yesterday was windy, but I realized I wanted to see what the clouds were like from the overlook we've been visiting regularly since the early days of the pandemic. It was worth battling some wind.

Today, I was more after mileage so I was happy to discover that the South Park branch of Seattle Public Library had a copy of Better Living Through Birding on its shelves since I'm trying to be a little more frugal about buying books. After picking up the book (and some free COVID tests!), I turned profligate and stopped for a coffee and pastry at The Scene in South Park. It wasn't entirely fiscally responsible, but it was damned fine. (Not to be confused with Real Fine Coffee which is also quite excellent.) Perhaps it was the coffee, though more likely it was a bit of a tailwind, but the ride homeward seemed much easier than the ride out had been. Views along the Duwamish helped:

 Indeed, the riding was so pleasant, I opted to continue along towards Alki, stopping en route to admire the views across the water:

Bessie started to feel like she wasn't getting her share of pixels so I pulled off onto a relatively new bit of pier/promenade to pose her against the skyline.

It was when she was posing by the Alki Statue of Liberty, however, that a passing stranger noted that her basket was reminiscent of an eagle's nest that had been around a while. I opted to take this as a compliment.

 

Bike-by Update

Post-ride recovery: crumpet and hot tea

 I'm still hazy about what I'm doing while not going to work every day. Oh, I still think I'd do well to find someone to pay me for something, but I don't know how likely that is to happen, and I really like not having to get up and get out by any particular time. 

 But, thus far at least, I'm still getting up (eventually) and getting out (most days). The forecast is for tomorrow to be significantly windy, with increasing rain and possibly snow by the end of the week so I thought it'd be a good idea to get Bessie out while I could. I took the scenic route* to fetch some essentials (because one doesn't like to be out of kitty litter) and so picked up some extra miles. It was a fine ride, as it happens, made all the finer by a civilized tea and crumpet after I got home. 

 Some day, perhaps, I'll do some sort of 2023 wrap-up recording books read, miles biked, etc. but, for now, a portrait of Bessie from Saturday's ride, when the rain held off until the final twenty minutes when it seriously poured.

 

 

*"Scenic route" is a bit of a stretch here since it was wet enough that my glasses were covered in rain drops so I was doing well to see the pavement, signage, and other vehicles.

Of loaves and birdses

There was a failure in the commercial kitchen used by Stephane of All You Need is Loaf last night so I was forced to bake a few loaves myself in my less commercial, but seemingly more reliable oven:

Banana bread (using the Christmas stocking bananas) and an English muffin loaf (already cut into--hungry!)

 Making bread means you're in the kitchen but with  plenty of time to look out the back door, and today has been very birdy in the back yard indeed. Listed in no particular order:

Steller's jay
Scrub jay*
Dark-eyed juncos (so many!)
Gold-crowned sparrows
Black-capped chickadees
Chestnut-capped chickadee
Thumbprints (aka bushtits, and also oh so many!)
Varied thrush
American robin
Starlings
Crow
Townsend's warbler
Yellow-rumped warbler
Northern flickers
Red-breasted nuthatch
Spotted towhee
House finches
American goldfinch

 And out the kitchen window so technically a side-yard bird:

Anna's hummingbirds

*California? Western? I'm hazy on their current designation

New Christmas Tradition?

 

Satsumas filling the space where two rolls were removed to be eaten while still warm

 I decided that this year it would be nice to have fresh cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. Steps were taken, and some of those steps were photographed which means another recipe post. 

 While I have a recipe for cinnamon rolls that I suspect I started using more than forty years ago, I felt that a new recipe was required this year though I can't say why. I've been feeling a bit hazy about a lot of things lately. T'is the season, perhaps.

Kitchen on Christmas Eve around midnight

 

  Regardless, I settled on "overnight cinnamon rolls 1" from the allrecipes.com site, though I made a few adaptations as I went. The "milk" I used was a combination of 1% and half-and-half since that's what we had, and I beat the eggs a little before adding them to the other ingredients. Flour was added until it seemed about right for kneading and then, of course, more flour was added while kneading.

The dough really did feel utterly lovely after it had risen (which took more like two hours than one; see later notes about coldness of kitchen). It rolled out nicely and I brushed it with a bit of melted butter rather than wetting the edges with water. I also brushed the pan with the remains of the melted butter in lieu of using shortening or oil.

Rather than refrigerating the rolls for the second rising I left them sitting on the kitchen table; as Scott pointed out, it's plenty cool near those windows. That approach seemed to work well enough and when I finally got up the next morning I could jump right to the preheating the oven stage. I also sprinkled a little more brown sugar / cinnamon mix on the top of the rolls since I hadn't included all of it earlier. This likely resulted in darker tops. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

What appeared to my wondering eyes Christmas morning (aka rolls post-overnight rising)

And only now do I remember the true impetus for making cinnamon rolls; I had icing left from decorating the army of darkness cookies* and I didn't want it to go to waste.

*Regiment of Army of Darkness

I used that rather than the corn syrup horror included in the allrecipes recipe. It melted a bit when added too soon to the two we ate with our tea while opening stockings, but was quite perfect for the survivors featured in the first photo of the post.

A properly civilized start to the day

Somewhat less tidy a little while later**

**Yes, Scott was the happy recipient of some used doorknob plates from Earthwise Salvage; we know how to celebrate the birth of our Savior around here.

 

Cookies, continued

These neighbors are having a bare-bones Christmas

Some sort of 36-hour bug delayed the continuation of the cookie project for a few more days, and even once recovered I still somehow lacked enthusiasm. But "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without any cookies," as an early (as-yet undiscovered) draft of Little Women started so on Friday I gathered all the necessary goods and got to work mixing up dough. 

The means of production, day 1

I started with the kitchen sink cookies (note hammer in above photo) and methodically worked my way through, cursing the new jar of Field Day peanut butter (for the Mongol Hordes) that was remarkably difficult to stir though I guess the positive way to look at that is that the cutting board received an unplanned oiling in the process. There was, fortunately, a decent amount of still-green fronds on the fennel (for fennel cookies--recipe from The Front Yard Forager) while I had just barely enough molasses for the windowseat cookies. I wisely took a break for a bike ride (see first photo above) which probably saved my sanity, but I was definitely losing steam by the time I got to making dough for pillowcase cookies, and I didn't mind at all that I had to wait a bit for yet more butter to soften before I could finally mix up the aggression cookies.

My favorite element here is the kitchen sink cookie rolls wrapped in old tortilla chip bag packaging.

This year's innovation was to then put all the dough, in its various forms, into the refrigerator and move on to cocktails. The downside of this brilliant plan was, of course, that it all had to be dealt with today. But Scott kindly took part, cutting out the armies of darkness and light, unwrapping Hershey's kisses (some shrinkage there . . .), slicing up the rolls of kitchen sink cookie dough, pulling cookies off cookie sheets, reminding me to use potholders, finding some Christmas music playlists, and generally making it all much more pleasant and efficient. 

Final production round

 A mere three-ish hours after putting in the first cookie sheet, the final sheet came out and the paragon of Virgos washed up the remaining dishes and I swept the floor. We then wisely took to our bikes to ride to Paseo in Sodo for some less sugar-based nourishment. The plantains (tostones) were a little disappointing, but otherwise it was just what we needed. After getting home I eventually worked up the motivation to make some fresh icing and finish the work on the army of darkness (aka windowseat cookies aka molasses cookies). I'm quite pleased with the final results:

I call it the Year of the Dot

My one concern is that the aggression cookies are extra fragile this year and I just don't know why. I worry about whether they'll hold up to shipping.

Now to find more permanent homes for all of them!