cookies.

grain free peanut butter cookies

All my life, well, thus far, I have been obsessed with cookies. I have, without giving it much thought, memorized simple straightforward recipes and tweeked them to my heart's content. Switched ingredients to fit the lifestyle currently living...(vegan, refined sugar free, wheat free, gluten free, dairy free, grain free... you name it.) Sometimes I write down what I come down with, other times not, and never to be recreated.

Thankfully, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people out there who are just as crazy about this dessert as me.
Phew.

coconut chocolate chip cookies by Paleo Parents

Here is my virtual cookie recipe book...sigh.

Yum.

Pumpkin Soup

"Pumpkin soup, the best you ever tasted.

Made by the Cat who slices up the pumpkin.

Made by the Squirrel who stirs in the water.

Made by the Duck who scoops up a pipkin of salt, and tips in just enough."

Helen Cooper, Pumpkin Soup.

The past few days I have spent dreaming up the creamiest most delicious pumpkin soup, just like these three little guys, deep in the woods in their own white cabin.

So, a variation of this Sally Fallon recipe is in our day.

Squash and  Tomato soup (Using Pumpkin instead!)

1 butternut squash

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped

3 TB butter

1 cup tomatoes, chopped.

1 quart chicken stock

1/4 tsp. red chile flakes

2 TB finely chopped basil

sea salt

cultured cream

Roast the squash until tender, about an hour.

Saute onions gently in butter until tender, then add tomatoes, stock and chile flakes.

Bring to a boil. Scoop cooked squash out of the skin and add to the soup. Simmer about 1/2 an hour.

Puree soup in a blender, thinning with water if necessary. Add basil and season to taste. Simmer gently five more minutes. Ladle into bowls and serve with cultured cream.

Green Tomatoes

Tomatoes. Tomatoes and more green tomatoes.

I never thought I would pick so many green tomatoes. I pick them green and bring them inside, hoping they eventually will ripen in our warmer then outside inside. And something about this dark dank kitchen... they simply love it. Bazaar, huh?

Well, because of our overabundance of green tomatoes I have decided that when time allows, whenever that may be, I am making many more batches of Salsa Verde. So, if you happen to come over for dinner any time in the next month, be sure that you will be eating green salsa. Or something vaguely like the old El Mirador cuisine (a Mexican taco stand I used to work for back in the days of the Portland Public Market...when I was childless and fried chips at five am....). 

Salsa Verde

one pound tomate verde (tomatillos, but green tomatoes will work too...)
1/2 cup loosely packed chopped cilantro
1 large garlic clove, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons white onion, chopped
1/2 tsp salt

cook tomatoes in just a bit of water, until they are soft (five minutes).
Put a bit of the cooking liquid in blender with remaining ingredients and pulse until blended. 
Add tomatoes and pulse for a few seconds.  
Serve on everything. (Scrambled eggs and avocado, refried beans, chicken tacos, "black" tortilla chips, quesadillas, etc, etc.)

the kale. (our other very abundant crop)

Tacos, again.

Last night's dinner was drop down holy cow unbelievable good. If I do say so myself. I guess I have a tremedous weakness for tacos, of any sort and variety, and admittedly I will eat them with just about any combination as long as there is salsa and sour cream involved. And so will my whole family. Luckily. We play the game frequently of "what do we fill these corn tortillas with, anyway?" (Or rather the question is all mine...nobody else much cares...)

So here is the recipe. Maybe I'm just nursing so much it's gone to my head...but either way...


Beef and Zuchinni Tacos

1 pound ground beef
1 clove fresh garlic, minced
2 leaves of swiss chard

cook the above all together with a lid until done.

1 baseball bat size zuchinni, cut into chunks and fried with about 3 tablespoons of butter. (low heat)

enough sprouted corn tortillas for a crew
cheddar cheese grated
tomatillo salsa
sour cream
guacamole (optional. Or you could just eat it all with a spoon before anyone even notices there was any...)
chopped up fresh tomatoes (if you have any...we didn't, but it sounds good...)

YUM!

Days/tea

Well, it's been days since my last post, and honestly I have no excuse for being so neglectful. I have spent the past three days working, but am home at night and in the morning. However, most of that time is spent rushing to beat the band...getting ready for the day, making lunches, packing swimming gear and/or extra clothes, and then when we come home, making dinner and unpacking the days storm of gear. (dirty cloth diapers and wipes, wet bathing suits, towels, and lunch bags.) I can't make the claim that this time of year is any more exhausting then any other- it just seems busier.

Unless you put into account that my gardens need desperate weeding, lettuce and greens need to be picked daily so they don't bolt, and tomatoes are threatening to lean so far over the kale that it's invisible.  So unlike my friends who are farmers, my life in an agricultural sense is relatively easy. There are days that sort of bums me out...I spent a part of my late teens and twenties loving the soil with such a passion I was sure that here, ten years later, I would be living my life more a part of it.  I had this deep love and affection for growing things and processing them into many usable forms (cooking, drying, extracting, etc, etc) that admittedly is still there, but I don't spend near enough time with it.

I began dreaming up tea mixtures the other day, something I did years and years ago and only occasionally since. Thinking of formulations and recipes, and reasons for them. It's been on my mind so much that I drempt last night (in my spotty sleep...) of tea in a big two quart canning jar on the porch sunshine, bright red with flowers blooming inside of it.

Yesterday afternoon I began talking with one of the fathers of the kids I watch about thinking up more activities for the kids, seasonal, creative,and  fun. In the middle of the night I saw us making sun tea, mixing it with lemonade and drinking it through twisty straws. Making flower remedies by clipping the blossoms into a bowl of clean clear water. Picking rose petals to float in vegetable glycerin for later straining. (Evading the big huge bumblebees! Although I've told them they are really very nice, as long as we don't bother them...) Mixing up big batches of yummy pesto. Picking raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries to mix up with lemon balm and yoghurt into creamsicles...

(hm...love it...)

little munchkin!!!