3 cooks in the kitchen

Astrid supervises the making of German apple cake.

granola for grandaddy

Sometimes if you grumble enough in front of the right folks...you just might get what you want!  That is if you have industrious little grandsons.  

in the kitchen with gramma

Pizza for dinner! 

cinderella

My Cinderella pumpkin from the Central Oregon Pumpkin Co. Patch in Terrebonne, Oregon made its way up to Vancouver, was roasted and baked into our Thanksgiving pie.  Well worth the extra effort!  This year I broke away from tradition and went with some new recipes.  I turned to what I consider to be the most reliable recipe source online, Smitten Kitchen.  Basically, I've come to the conclusion that her recipes are fail proof.  This was no exception and I will probably stick with these recipes for life (with this exception: the pumpkin filling recipe called for canned yams and I used all pumpkin.  I'm a purist.).  Read her two part series on pie crust, it is pretty enlightening...in the "duh, your great great grandmother knew what she was talking about" kind of way.  It was to date my best pie crust ever.  

And of course, there was Matty's pecan pie.  His specialty.  The only thing really missing was Jonathan.  Simply because I have such fond memories of Matt and Jonny making this pie together in years past.

We managed to escape Thanksgiving without any leftovers, except a few pieces of pie (now gone!).  That was a stupid move in that Ali and Mary made simply AMAZING THINGS that I could have and would have eaten for days.  So in that regard it was a smart move, because heaven's knows I need to stop. eating. period!  We are headed to Mexico for New Years...could there be a worse time to wear a bathing suit than post holiday gluttony and ultra white winter skin to boot?  Barre3 is going to be my constant companion in the coming month, let's hope it works!

(Have I ever put this many links in a blog entry?  Think not.  Must be feeling like quite the serious blogger tonight.)

"when i grow up i want to be a raspberry farmer"

One of the benefits of living out in Timbuktu these days... berry picking just five minutes from home on a beautiful July morning.  

Wally and I picked 17 lbs. of perfect, ripe raspberries.  Fritz ate a bunch and played with sticks and bugs.  Not a bad morning.  Now we've got our work cut out for us to not let them go to waste.  And at $1.50 a lb. we will probably need to go pick again next week!

The plans:

raspberry jam

raspberry vinegar

raspberry yogurt popsicles

raspberry buttermilk cake

raspberry breakfast bars

salted chocolate caramel cookies for the "baby shower"

I have attended two baby showers in recent months and Auntie Bridget came down to our house last weekend for a baby shower too, all leading to a bit of baby shower confusion around here.  The boys think every time I go anywhere alone, I am going to a baby shower.  We made these cookies yesterday for "Mommy to take to the baby shower" which was really just me going to see friends (and one new baby!).  The boys helped get out ingredients, measure, mix and roll the dough.  Most importantly, they got to hide the caramels inside the balls of dough.  Thankfully they are all out of the house now, because they would be tormenting me and my little sweet toothed boys today!  

peas, please.

This post is about two weeks delayed due to the birthday festivities and general craziness of life with two toddlers.  Last night we actually ate the last of the fresh peas, prepared my favorite way.  A quick dunk into boiling water for 30-60 seconds, butter, salt and pepper, chopped chives and mint.  So good.  Although there has hardly been two days of sunshine here, I managed to harvest 30 plus pounds of sugar snap and shelling peas in my first year attempt.  (Feeling kinda proud!)

We had "Spring Thanksgiving" one night to celebrate the harvest and used as many local foods as possible.  Pastaworks fresh herb fettuccine, Juniper Grove Pyramid raw goat's milk cheese, shrimp, and our garden peas.  Garden salad greens and Grilled garden artichoke.  Didn't stay local on the wine, had to break open a a favorite Italian Chardonnay, Alois Lageder.  Matt was a huge fan of the whole dinner, but to be honest the pasta did not turn out as I had hoped.  Probably because I still think the peas, mint and butter just can't be improved upon.

The hands down winner of pea preparation this year has been the pickled sugar snap peas, from the Smitten Kitchen blog.  Everyone agrees, they are divine.  I'll probably have to plant more next year so that I will have enough to can and put away.  But the 8 pounds that went into the vinegar this year will be gone before making it to the Kerr jars.

In other pea news, Fritz is a pea shelling expert!  Wally watched Dinosaur Train (Fritz really could live without tv, Walter really could watch it all day if given the chance) while Fritz and I shelled peas for 45 minutes.  He was totally focused and determined.  Such a beautiful moment with my son.

This boy...

This boy helped make pancakes this morning.  He then proceeded to eat four full sized oatmeal pancakes with blueberries and syrup.  It was astounding.  Mind you, his pants were still falling off all day and I could still see all of his ribs during bath time tonight.  Mr. Skinny sure can eat!

We made the most delicious recipe for oatmeal pancakes from a fun blog sent to me just last week.  They were really outstanding and will become my go to recipe.  This says a lot, because I am usually not a fan of pancakes.

A Heidi Baker Classic, New Revised Standard

"Sausage Rolls" recipe invented by my mother, one of my childhood favorites.  I revisited this recipe a few days ago and made a few additions to the original Italian sausage and swiss cheese.  The new version also has sauteed onions and swiss chard.  So delish, I'll probably never go back to the original.

PS. The dough is quite simply a bag of frozen Rhodes dough rolls.  As if I have time to make dough!