Joy – Page 2 – Peaceful Reader

Advent Joy!

Happy St. Nicholas’s Day!

Our advent season is a little wacky this year because Groovy Girl is spending Christmas in Florida with my mother, brother, and his son, her cousin. I wanted to do something special for her because she loves Christmas (duh, she’s a ten year old girl) and I know Florida will be fun but she will miss us here. We need to do plenty of pre-celebrating so she doesn’t feel she is missing things here.

Pinterest has a ton of cool advent ideas which spurred me to create one for her based on the fact that a purchased one would be left unfinished before she left and that is just the kind of emotional dilemma she doesn’t need as she leaves us all for the glory of Disney World.

I took 15 recipe cards one night while watching some television and tried out a few fun ideas for her to do. My husband found red and white envelopes to put each card in, numbered the cards, and taped them up in a tree design.

So far she has opened:

1. watch the (original) Grinch movie

2. one trip to Claire’s

3. read 3 favorite Christmas books with mama

4. Decorate for Christmas with Christmas music playing

5. make paper snow flakes and hang them.

We’ve done all of them except the Claire’s trip. We are going to do that one right before she leaves on her trip. Last night we did the snowflake one using a template I had at work. She folded them up origami style and I cut them out as the tiny grooves were hard for her to maneuver wielding a scissors. We now have snowflakes hanging around our house. No snow on the ground here but we are festive inside.

My stepmother has always sent my kids December 6th gifts to celebrate St. Nicholas Day which was a family tradition in her full German family so today Groovy Girl had an actual box to open instead of an envelope. There were plenty of treats nestled inside. The true celebration involves boots and St. Nick with a long flowing robe as he checks up on children-adding them to his naughty or nice list, I’m sure.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around here. How are you getting in the mood?

Weekend Cooking; Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef and other menu ideas

I browsed the new nonfiction shelves of my local library and came up with two cookbooks and two parenting books in under two minutes. I had to quickly walk away after that because I go on these binges and bring armloads of nonfiction home only to let it sit and sit and sit until I return it two days late.

This time one recipe stuck out like a yummy thumb just waiting to be cooked. I had a beautiful small pie pumpkin from the last farmer’s market and I didn’t know what to do with it; no one here really likes pumpkin pie. So I thought what the hey, I’m sure they’ll love pumpkin soup. Ha.

I’ve enjoyed reading Gluten-Free Girl’s blog a few times on my recent quest to explore and understand celiac disease so her name popped out at me as my neck twisted sideways at the new cookbook spines. I would own this book if I were to indeed become gluten-free just for the stories splattered among the recipes. I’ve enjoyed understanding more about Shauna’s journey and their sweet love story.
How can you resist headings like; Grocery Shopping as Foreplay and Honey, remember to eat.

Many of the recipes are too complicated for me or include ingredients unavailable to me in my sleepy small town but there is much more to this cookbook than just recipes. In a small section at the front Daniel explains the importance of “mise en place”-a perfect three paragraph summary of my cooking life. He describes Shauna in the beginning like this “she’d put a hot pan on the burner and then start chopping her onions with the oil getting hot in the pan. She’d run from the stove to the refrigerator while a dish was simmering, always a bit frantic.” (14) That’s me-most of the time. I do not set up ingredients first. I want to be that organized and now I can name it; mise en place. Daniel gently reminds the reader that is why the ingredients list tells us what to do; chop, dice, cups, tsps so it can be there ready! I feel enlightened.

If you are gluten-free this book would make a great holiday gift to yourself!

I made pumpkin muffins last night while I put the finishing touches on the soup and on Wednesday afternoon I had a brownie craving and made a pan of them just like my mother used to. I thought her recipe was magic when I was growing up. She admitted to me just a few years ago that she peeled that recipe from the back of the Hershey chocolate can. How deflating. I’ve cleaned it up a bit and made it my own.

Click for recipes:

Pumpkin Soup
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
Judy’s Chocolate Brownies
Butternut Couscous (tonight’s menu with salmon from the co-op)

p.s. my kids disliked the soup but loved the muffins even though I told them (after the fact) that the muffins also had pumpkin in them. They didn’t care. It’s all about the dark chocolate! My husband, with a more discernible palate, had several bowls of soup and then, three muffins.

I discovered a new foodie blog this week while searching for the above butternut and Israeli couscous recipe. Meet Peter and Keith at Feast. I scrolled through a few recipes and they all look wonderful. I hope they keep going.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking. Click over to Beth Fish Reads for more food-related posts. Happy eating!

Weekend Cooking Love

I live a rich life although I am far from wealthy and I’ve recently realized how much joy I get from participating in Weekend Cooking, the one meme I participate in all week. Sometimes on busy weeks it is the ONLY post I make. Like this week. I’ve had many inspirations for posts but no spare time.

I love the community of Weekend Cooking~I love trying out their recipes, I love reading their cookbook recommendations, their inspirations and menu plans. I’ve learned a lot about cooking and baking and I’ve had fun experimenting with recipes I might not have tried otherwise. It’s like going to church for me. I can find God everywhere in my life but the community of people I have a church is support network for me. I feel that way about weekend cooking and blogging in general because it makes my life richer. I like being part of a community of readers and eaters.

We had a church Christmas bazaar today and I made 6 loaves of bread and 12 peppermint whoopie pies. Yum. I’ve made the bread many times but the whoopie pies was a new attempt. I know, risky, right to try something new for an event but seriously I can’t have 12 whoopie pies sitting around my house-I would eat them. This way I got to share one with my family-yes, we split it three ways (Groovy Girl was at a sleep over and thus was excluded from the tasting). I got the recipe from So Sweet! a cookbook from Sur La Table I discovered from a Bermuda Onion’s Weekend Cooking post. Of course. I bought the cookbook as a Christmas present for Groovy Girl. It’s been tucked away for a few weeks and luckily she was at that sleepover so she didn’t notice me using it last night. This compact cookbook is adorable with delectable pies, doughnuts, cookies, and cupcakes.

Here’s the recipe.

Chocolate Whoopie Pies
makes about 20 pies (It only made 12 for me; maybe I made the cookie part two big.)

Cake Ingredients
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 425* F and position an oven rack in the center. Lay 1 nonstick silicone baking mat or a piece of parchment each baking sheet.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together and set aside.
3. Combine the buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl. (Or leave it in the measuring cup like I did)
4. Cream the butter with the shortening in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on low speed until completely mixed. Scrape the sides of the bowl well with a rubber spatula. Add the brown sugar and continue mixing on high speed for about 3 minutes until mixture is light brown and fluffy. Add the egg and mix. Scrape the sides of the bowl again.
5. Turn the mixer on low and begin adding the flour mixture and buttermilk in two alternating batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
6. Scoop the batter into tablespoon-sized balls using a spring-loaded cookie scoop or a spoon and place about 2 inches apart on the prepared pan. Bake the cakes one sheet at a time for 8 minutes, until cakes are puffed. Transfer to a cooking rack and let cool completely.

Peppermint Filling

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temp.
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup marshmallow creme
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 T. peppermint schnapps
1/2 cup crushed peppermint candies

1. Place the butter and vegetable shortening in a medium mixing bowl of a stand mixer, and beat on low speed with a paddle attachment. Add the marshmallow cream and increase the speed to medium. Beat for 3 minutes.
2. Add the powdered sugar and continue beating on medium speed for an additional 3 minutes.
3. Add the peppermint schnapps, beating on low speed for 1 minute. Pipe the filling between two cakes as directed.
4. Place the crushed peppermint candies on a plate. After assembling the pies, gently roll the edges along the crushed candies to coat. Store as directed.

The array of whoopie pie flavors is spectacular. Key lime, bananas foster, Kahlua and cream, black forest…Wow. I would like to play with the filling to leave out the shortening which is a fake almost plastic flavor for me and I could taste it. I think if I added more butter and marshmallow cream it could even it out.

Thank you to Candace at Beth Fish Reads for linking together all our food-related posts.

In other cooking news I have an 11 pound locally raised turkey soaking in brine in my grandmother’s extra large crock. We are celebrating T.giving tomorrow as a family. I’ve also spent the week trying to go gluten-free. It makes me stop and read the labels even more than I used to and I’m becoming educated on gluten and wheat. I’m gaining empathy for people who really have to avoid these two ingredients.

Summer is here and the time is right…

I’m done with school as of today at about 4:39!! I’m not planning on going back tomorrow either! I’m not on the beach but this is just how I feel. Whoop Whoop!! I have a serious agenda for this summer and only some of it includes playing and reading. My day was jammed packed with finishing up three huge projects and now the bliss begins! I hope your day is ending well and you can think cartwheels if not do them!