Archive for ‘January, 2012’

Marinara, et. al.

It has gotten seriously ugly of late. The temperature has been above freezing for several days and it has been raining. It is a damp, slushy, drippy, icy mess! I guess the good news is that it is supposed to stay warm for the foreseeable future so we should be back to bare ground in a few days and ready to give Winter a fresh restart.

Meanwhile, something warm and comforting food-wise seemed like a good idea.

Last Winter, I started making a marinara from roasted veggies. I toss tomatoes, cauliflower, carrots…usually also broccoli – in a baking dish…spritz with olive oil, add salt and pepper and slowly roast everything in a low oven (275). When everything is tender, I add the veggies and a can of tomatoes with their juice to my Vita-mix and puree the lot! I simmer the result with oregano, sweet basil, garlic…adjust seasoning to taste.

The result is beautiful and delicious. I use it on pasta, with meatballs, for pizza sauce and for soup. This jar is only half the sauce made.

The rest, I freeze flat in Zip-loc bags…an idea I saw on Karin’s blog: Paper Route Designs.
Karin is the designer of the jar labels I use and love! Freezing sauces and broths flat allows you to break off just a little as needed.

I need only a small chunk of sauce for a single-serving pizza, pasta or bowl of tomato soup.

Soup, it was on this dreary day! A chunk of marinara, some vegetable broth, some cannelini beans – all in the Vita-mix and the result is a faux-cream* of tomato soup. I doctored it a little further with some chopped kale, pumpernickle croutons and a bit of parmesan. Perfect!

Bob says to save some for him, he’s on his way in!

*I’ve used pureed white beans: cannelini, navy and even garbanzo – to make brothy soups creamy. They do not taste “bean-y” to me but you get the added benefit of protein, fiber and other nutrients from the beans.

Saturday miscellany

Maybe subtle in this photo but the truth is, it got very ugly today…warm, rain and ultimately freezing rain and sleet. Fortunately, at least for my day, the worst happened this afternoon after Bear and I returned from a shopping expedition.

Part of the shopping was for a new snow blower…oh, yea…you might be able to tell that my driveway and turnaround was plowed. It was not blown…The blower made it 3/4 of the way down the driveway – first pass – before the auger quit… AGAIN!!

Anyway…I found my dream machine but it may be a dream for another year. Oh, well. Currently it is 38F and the formerly beautiful snow is now slush and could not be “blown” anywhere with anything. Blech!!

On the home front, Bob and Bear progress. If I wasn’t such a wimp they would probably be fine…maybe some mutual avoidance but I think they are at the point of at least grudging acceptance.

Actually, I think Bear is intimidated by Bob and prefers to pretend that he does not exist.

See… Bob on his table, Bear knows it, the gate is open…no one cares. The main problem is me. I’m working on it.

And I made crackers. I’ve been making crackers at least a couple of times a week for months now. I made a batch over a year ago and dealing with thin dough…seemed more trouble than it was worth. But then I got hooked on La Panzella Rosemary Garlic crackers – they are very spendy and not always available here.

What to do??? I happened on this video …

I ordered the little silicon roller, the Silpat …

And the pastry wheel…

Now I make my own rosemary garlic crackers and they are very good! It takes me about 10 minutes to mix the dough, roll it out in the pan right on the silpat, score them with the pastry wheel and get them in the oven.

These turkeys have nothing to do with the weather or Bob and Bear or crackers. But they were here today and I took some delight at how often they shook in the drizzle…darn, messy birds! …their footprints are funny, though :)!

Saturday miscellany.

Seasons

This dog, Bear…I am so thankful that he is my dog. For whatever reason(s), these last several weeks, the loss of Karl has hit hard, yet again. Maybe because I came so close to losing Bear. Maybe the time I’m spending in the woods, again closer to Bear to reinforce training. Maybe just a cycle of the grief thing. I really don’t know.

It is not that I am sad. It is that suddenly, out of the blue – that Karl is not here – it feels overwhelming.

But, then Bear comes to me or I go to him…or to Bob…or I take photos and peace returns. It is maybe a season, like Winter is a season.

Winter decided to make an appearance. A little late and even later in my corner of Montana and with less ferocity than most parts of the northwest.

This evening, as all was done that needed to be done – and the light was clear – Bear ran and jumped and played in the snow. We were out several times today. It was very cold when it snowed so the snow is like sugar. The sun was out this afternoon and lit the edge of the snow covered trees forming a border of light against dark clouds over the mountains to the east.

As I watched Bear – after our play – resting and watching, snow started falling again…light, medium sized flakes, softly falling.