Iowa – Peaceful Reader

Fall Cooking

Two weekends ago I stayed with my mom while her husband traveled out of town. My goal is always to get her out and about which for her can be as simple as a drive thru coffee shop. On Saturday morning we did just that. She’s fallen in love with her local Scooters and it’s about the only choice in her small town. We picked up pumpkin spice lattes and two cinnamon rolls and sat on her patio to bask in the sun. Because the day was so gorgeous we were able to stay out there for about two hours! We have to hold on to days like that as cold weather approaches.

The next day our adventure was an Apples on the Avenue about 20 minutes north of her. Another day filled with sunshine but very windy. We were happy to enjoy the weather from inside the car. We picked up two bags of apples and headed home. I used some of those apples to make a delicious dessert to serve at two different events. I would make this again. And eat it again and again. I went to a small pre-Halloween party on Saturday night and we shared this with Grandmother’s Sauce (recipe below) and then I served it again on Sunday when I made a birthday lunch for Kristin and Travis. I did give my mother some of the bread pudding as well to celebrate our Sunday outing.

Here is the Honey Apple Bread Pudding recipe by Melissa Clark on New York Times Recipes. Hopefully you are able to click the link and look at the recipe. I know the whole subscription thing prevents this sometimes so I made a Google copy for you. I used a chunky French loaf instead of the Challah bread. I served delicious “Grandmother’s Sauce” over the top and it took this recipe next level. Also sometimes the sauce is perfect dipped on your finger straight out of the jar!

Grandmother’s Sauce (from The Cottage; Casual Cuisine from Old La Jolla’s Favorite Beachside Bungalow by Jane & Michael Stern)

2 cups whipping cream
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Whip the cream in a large mixing bowl. In a medium bowl beat the egg with an electric mixer until thick and lemony colored. Gradually add the sugar, beating until thickened, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the melted butter and vanilla. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Chill at least 1-2 hours so the sugar is fully dissolved. Makes 5 cups.

I think you could substitute any fruit for the apples but at this time of the year the apples I picked up were tart and perfect in this dessert. Enjoy!

Poetry Thursday, it is Thursday, right?

{Langston}

The weather is all over the place. Today it is sunny and then snowing, and also windy. While we are learning at home I would like it to be Spring warm weather not this all-over-the-radar coldness. It is great to be outside as you work on school work and I’ve video taped reading books outside. It’s lovely. Today not so much but I’m getting into a groovy with school work. Are we in it for the long haul-all the way through May? I don’t know but I am mentally preparing myself. Browsing through a poetry book this morning I found one of my favorite Springtime poems from Langston Hughes.

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head
with silent liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song
on our roof at night-

And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes

I love it because it’s positive and simple. I wish I could hear Langston read it and I did look and I found this clip of him reading his famous “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “I, too” : his voice reverberates with strength.

I’m reading Love among the ruins by Robert Clark
I’m watching Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist on Hulu and we watched Pixar/Disney’s new movie, Onward, with Groovy Girl last night. We had popcorn and everything and the movie was very good. She and her dad built a Rube Goldberg machine for one of her Learning @Home assignments. She is assembling the video they took when they finally got it to work. It was super cool involving one of our dogs, many cardboard pipes, a candle, two rooms of our house, a marble, and a glass of water. There is learning happening here.

Slow August Day in Fertile

{Cloth napkins-YES!}

We had an lovely vacation getaway in Northern Minnesota the past long week. It was spectacular and I have many stories to tell but on the way home, we stopped at an amazing restaurant, Cafe Mir, in the small town of Fertile, IA. Honestly, I’d never heard of Fertile before today. Now I’m a fan and I will be back. I was impressed that they have their own small public library.

My mom’s garden provides swiss chard to the chef and they use sustainable, local ingredients when possible. Not hard to do when you’re in Iowa; we have so much produce and organic farmers raising sustainable meat. While many restaurants are on this bandwagon not always is the food as amazing as the concept. Everything we ordered was delicious. There were 5 of us and we ordered a sauteed eggplant dish as a starter, and as meals, we had a pork and beef lasagna, a braised leg of lamb, Hrbek’s ribeye steak, and a wood-fired Margherita pizza for Groovy Girl. I had a “cornucopia salad for dinner, the lighter eater that I am, which is roasted sweet corn, feta, mixed hot and sweet peppers, cilantro, and lime. It was such a refreshing combination and a perfect amount. We had rhubarb pie for dessert and they make their own fresh bread as well.

{rhubarb pie}

The table was interesting with a lot of mismatched glasses, plates, and bowls giving it an authentic old farmhouse appeal. Also, they used real cotton napkins which just warmed my heart. I don’t know when I’m going to take the time to drive an hour and a half north to dine again at Cafe Mir but I know there are other treats on the menu I want to try. Road trip anyone…? I’m also curious to see what they will change seasonally.

{unassuming front of Cafe Mir}

After being on vacation I am realizing that my need for real food, homecooked, slow-cooked grub plus my natural inclination to eat small meals is often confounding to people. I just like to know where my food comes from and I’ve purposely spoiled myself. I like real greens not iceberg lettuce in a salad. Why bother? I’m not a meat eater and I prefer small batches of food compared to large platefuls. I’m not trying to be a pain; I just like what I like.

The Nix by Nathan Hill

I really am ready for spring! I need the snow and ice to melt and the temperature to rise. I want to see green shoots peeking out of the rough ground. I know here we still have a long way to go.

Reading is one of the ways we get through the long winter and during the month of February I’ve spent a lot of quality time with one book-The Nix. Just me and 732 pages of writing from Nathan Hill. It’s a good thing I liked it. It’s long with lots of characters and a variety of twists and turns. There is A lot going on in this novel.

Most of the plot lines center around Samuel, a professor at a small midwestern school. His mother abandoned him as a boy and now as an adult she’s suddenly in the news for throwing rocks at a presidential candidate. Samuel would rather just ignore it except for the book publisher who knows there’s an interesting story there. We travel back in time to see his mother, Faye, as she leaves her small Iowa home with her disgruntled parents behind as she embarks on a new stage of her life in Chicago.

In between we meet a cast of characters from Samuel’s and Faye’s early life and travel as far away as Norway. We meet gaming friends and learn about this complex world of Elfscape as we watch Samuel deal with a humorous yet cheating college student who has an unusual grasp of how the world should work. So much going on yet I was never confused. Everyone’s lives are multilayered and every story, every offshoot matters in this tale.

It reminded me of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara because of its length and detailed writing. Here’s a sample of detail from The Nix:

So that day he felt like he needed to cry. He told his mother he was going to his room to read, which was not unusual. He spent most of his time alone in his room, reading the Choose your own adventure books he bought from the bookmobile at school. He liked how the books looked on the shelf, all together like that, homogenous, with their white-and-red spines and titles like Lost on the Amazon, Journey to Stonehenge, Planet of the Dragons. He liked the books forking paths, and when he came to a particularly difficult decision, he would hold the page with his thumb and read ahead, verifying that it was an acceptable choice. The books had a clarity and a symmetry to them that he found mostly absent in the real world. (83-84)

I’ve already added it to my shopping list for upcoming birthdays and holidays. This is Nathan Hill’s first published novel and he seems like a bit of character himself. I listened to this interview to learn more. Give it a try; any good novel is worth the time you put into it and this one is a huge success for Mr. Hill.

So much delicious food…Weekly recipes

We are getting oh, so close to the end of the school year. It’s a busy time. We’ve been here, there, and everywhere so I’ve got a smattering of recipes from a few different places.

{Natasha’s Kitchen}

I went to an end-of-the-year school party hosted by one of our teacher’s beautiful houses. She had a gorgeous backyard with a big open space where we could all gather. A small stream trickled through a maze of rocks giving the backyard a great zen sound. Groovy Girl would have loved the large trampoline set up in the corner of the spacious green space. Inside her sliding glass patio doors we had tables of food to choose from with every kind of dip and desserts galore. I generally only eat meat at my own house and a few select restaurants (Go local!) so it makes it kind of easy to bypass certain meat-laden dishes and focus on veggies and desserts (my downfall).

One of the salads, created by a kindergarten teacher, was amazing. It’s a perfect summer salad made with cucumbers, red onion, tomatoes, cilantro, avocado, and a squeeze of lemon. The flavor combination was incredible. I looked it up the next day and am sharing it here with you. I have not made it yet but plan to for an upcoming huge group picnic.

Cucumber Tomato Avocado Salad

I also made these brownies for two events; my 6th grade book club party AND a party for a retiring teacher-librarian. They were SO good and easy. So good you wouldn’t think they were so easy. I made them before school and frosted them at school. I’ll keep this recipe handy for the next bake sale, picnic party, or kid-event. They are in no way organic or healthy but my intended eaters were 6th graders and I wanted something they would love for our last party together.

Hershey’s Best Brownies

We were out of town for an overnight in Rochester, MN for the Med-City Marathon and we ate at two incredible places. Right downtown we tried Victoria’s and it was a wonderful experience. I had a martini with blue cheese olives and the walleye with vegetables and rice. The flavors were perfect all mixed together and the vegetables were slightly crisp-just how I like them. It was such a big portion I had to share a lot with my husband after he finished his veggie pasta.

On our way home today we stopped at the Four Daughters Winery and Vineyard right outside of Stewartville. Wow. Can’t believe I’ve driven past this place for years. It was a lovely day, cloudy with still a good amount of sunshine peeking through and we chose to sit outside on the patio for that reason. We each ordered a flight of their wine, a good deal at $5 for 5 wines. My husband ordered white and I the red. After looking over the menu we decided to order lunch as well. He had the pork pancakes with eggs and I had the guacamole served with chips. It was all delicious. I scraped the bowl and ate all the chips. His plate was even cleaner than mine. The wines were good and overall we prefered three of his whites over any of the reds.

Now I’ve got to fit in some extra yoga tomorrow after all this delicious food. Tomorrow we head to a family party and I’m bringing the best margaritas!

February; Weekend Cooking

We went out of town this weekend to attend a Bluegrass Festival in Des Moines. I do love to travel and going anywhere requires finding a few good restaurants to try. On this trip our main foodie experience was Gusto’s Pizza near downtown. This place does not have just your average pizzas plus they do gluten-free crusts for any of their pizzas. I didn’t snap any photos because I was too busy eating. With names like Buffalo Springfield, Vincent Van Goat, Francesco, and the Fromage A’Trois it was very hard to make a choice. With all the menu choices we somehow missed the special of the day which was a spicy Thai pizza.

{Gusto’s Pizza-just NOT the pizza we ordered}

After much deliberation we voted to get the Francesca which featured an Alfredo sauce, mozzarella, Roma tomato, artichokes, cremini mushrooms, and spinach. It was divine. We ate almost the whole thing. There is one lonely piece waiting for me in the refrigerator for lunch or dinner. Groovy Girl got to design her own small pizza; shrimp, fresh basil, Roma tomatoes, and extra mozzarella. She was in pizza heaven and she had a wonderful cream soda to make her smile.

My friend and I both tried 2 different salads from the menu as well. Mine was the Fromage Bleu featuring apples, spiced walnuts, mixed greens, red onion and balsamic vinaigrette. I wished for more bleu cheese crumbled on top-after all the name features bleu! My friend ordered the quinoa continental and it was by far the winner! A small amount of quinoa mixed with mixed greens, goat cheese, roasted butternut squash, dried cranberries, and balsamic vinaigrette. I am going to re-create this salad at home! All in all it was an amazing trip to Des Moines. Oh, and the Bluegrass Festival; it was fantastic as well.

We made it safely back yesterday afternoon just in time for Groovy Girl’s school fundraiser. Last night at about my bedtime I realized I needed to make something for our church potluck. I whipped this vegan curry dish (from allrecipes.com) in about 40 minutes and it was a huge hit. The bowl was scraped clean. Surprising as it was pretty spicy. No leftovers. I’ll have to make more. It’s been a good food weekend for me!

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekly foodie meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.

A 9-year-old's view of the farm

(You can see which part of the farm Groovy Girl, holding Henrietta, loves the most-this one I snapped)

My two children and I just spent the last day and a half at my mom’s house in Northern Iowa. We went to relax and spend time on the farm. The basil was flowering and my mom had beckoned me to make a few batches of pesto as well. Groovy Girl ran around today taking photos of her choice on my new phone.

(the pretty girls)

(the wind tunnel)

(Herb’s Tub-my stepfather’s humor)

Thanks Mom-we had a great time! We did make two batches of pesto (now in my refrigerator), rested, ate two delicious meals, and played a great game of Spite and Malice. Great photos, right?