It Might Be A Brick

My church is having a Palm Sunday bake sale and I decided to bake one of those pudding type cakes for a recipe I recently acquired.  Pudding cakes are not a regular thing for me.

The recipe was explicit, use the regular pudding mix and not the instant and I could have sworn that was what I picked off the grocery shelf.  I seem to remember that it might have been the only type in the flavor I needed.

Too late to back track since the egg mixture was already whipped up, I carried on.

If I had taken a moment to think, maybe if I added the pudding at the very last minute, I might prevent a possible disaster.  Time will tell.

 

Twenty minutes in the oven and it does look a little peculiar.

I think I will save for Easter dinner next weekend and maybe let the family members enjoy it?

Whatever, I have plenty of time to whip up the family cake for tomorrow.

Babs in the Kitchen - Why Don’t We Cook Cucumbers? *

Most of this morning was spent by this lazy and sometimes reluctant cook. 

I do my grocery shopping with very good intentions.  Sometimes, well quite frequently my plans change or fail.

A quick inventory of the fridge resulted in a cache of tired and wrinkled and not so gorgeous fresh vegetables.  A salvage operation was organized and the successful result is what I will call a dump soup.  A raid in the pantry gained a carton each of vegetable and chicken broth and 2 bay leaves, added to a sauté of garlic and chopped onion in the soup pot. More scavenging found a can of stewed tomatoes that was crushed and added then one slice of deli ham was launched to float around in the mix.  Dump #1.       

Next dump was diced carrots, celery and red pepper, and the final dump was the canned red and white beans found with the tomatoes, along with zucchini chunks and spinach.  While just a few leaves of the fresh basil looked anywhere near promising, my entire supply of fresh parsley was still in its original glory!  Chop, Chop!   A few grindings of black pepper and sea salt and for a little kick, a pinch of cayenne pepper.                 

Some of that hopeful celery was still left, so tuna salad appeared.  Was on a roll - then some egg salad was born.  Several lunches, ready to go.

Unfortunately, the English cucumber from Mexico or Canada didn’t pass muster.  I really tried.  It still looked a bit viable so it was peeled and sliced.  It was faking it as the inside was not the appetizing creamy white. And, it failed the taste test.  Too bad.  I am not sure if it could have been dumped.  I have only ever had cucumber in its uncooked state.  Does anyone cook it?

* This was an unpublished draft written who knows when but I still ask that question.

Stout Search

 Well, I seem to be on a roll, sometimes averaging two years between posts.  It is what it is.

The Covid19 pandemic is still with us but hopefully, with vaccinations, boosters and natural immunities, it will soon settle down and life can go back to some sort of normalcy.  I am so grateful that my family has been spared any serious illness.  

During these past few months, with lots of time and internet, I was hanging out on the genealogy websites, hunting for the elusive ancestral lands.  A few years ago, I learned I was descended from the Randall family, the tavern owners who gave Randallstown its name.  Not an incorporated town these days but it does have a bustling commercial area with shopping centers, churches and a post office.  Maybe not too much different from those days in the late 17th century.  And, I presently live less than five miles away.

My ancestor was Christopher Randall, who owned several properties in what at the time was Anne Arundel County but is now Baltimore and Howard counties in Maryland.  Internet is so wonderful, giving you access to so many records, like land grants.  Randall held a patent for a property called Stout Plantation.  My (casual) quest the past two years was to find Stout.  I wondered if it was at one time in my neighborhood.  

Like a lot of quests, I found more about other family and lands along the way.  Margaret, the sister of my ancestor Joanna Randall, married into the Thomas Browne family.  The Browne farm is now the home of the Howard County Conservancy.  One of the Randall properties, Good Fellowship, is now part of the farm.  Great place to visit, easy hiking.  I live about three miles away.

The Patapsco River appeared quite often in the boundary surveys of the old grants.  Good Fellowship mentions the 'great falls' of the river.  Anyone who has visited the McKeldin area of the Patapsco Valley State Park, has seen what is probably the only true rapids in the river.  Was this the great falls?  Well, my excitement waned when I learned that quite often falls in a river sometimes meant just rocks, not really rapids.  The Stout search continued.  I was so certain it was somewhere near home.

On occasion, I will travel to the Breadery, on Oella Avenue in Catonsville.  They sell frozen brick oven pizza that is made next door and some local craft beer, wine too.  Busy area here, walkers on the Trolley Trail often stop in for coffee and maybe a muffin.  I always pass the entrance to the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and have never visited.  So, after my last pizza run, I did a quick drive through, literally just a ten minute visit.  Turning right after entering, there is an interpretative area,  an old house and apparently some trails leading down to the river.  The museum is on the left at the entrance and as I came down to make the turn, on a big rock was a plaque describing how the place became the Banneker farm, originally part of Stout, that at that time had passed out the Randall family.  So, another longer stop, with a visit to the museum and a hike will be in the future, when winter lets go.

Stout found.  And the craziest thing, just through the woods, you could likely walk to the old Phelps house on Nine Mile Hill, where my dad grew up.

Adventures in the with Kitchen with Babs

Social distancing has evolved into a stay at home directive, which is pretty much how I have lived my life the past two weeks and will continue to live until the curve flattens.
There is an abundance of time to read ebooks and even time to do tasks around the house. One of those jobs that I tackled last week was to clean out my freezer.  Today, I share what I did with a couple of discoveries.

In the very back of the freezer was a jar of homemade cranberry sauce.  Cranberry sauce is one of the easiest things to make, if you are a fan of the chunky kind.  I think I was the only one to enjoy it that past Thanksgiving.
There was also some leftover phyllo which I’m sure I used to make something but I have no memory of what it was.
What could I make, a cranberry tart or something?
The gauntlet was thrown down and I arose to the challenge of making that something.

First, this lazy baker took layers of that phyllo and slapped them into a buttered pie dish.
Next came the filling.  Languishing in the fruit drawer were three apples, getting soft in their old age.  Those three ancients were peeled and chunked and thrown together with some of that sweetened cranberry sauce, which had hints of cinnamon, and then all was dumped on top of that thin pastry.
Lastly, was the most labor intensive part of my endeavor.  Butter was cut into a spiced flour and sugar mix and crumbs were made to sprinkle on top of the fruity concoction.

I popped that dish into the oven and and very soon, was rewarded with the aroma of a creation that teased at the possibility of being something delicious.

How did it taste? It smelled heavenly but I have no idea since I haven’t tried it yet.  You can always ask later.
But, if it is a fail, I have ice cream in the freezer.

The Funny Spoon

Back around the holidays, maybe it was the past Thanksgiving, my family made a collective decision to do a family dinner about once a month.  The first one was on Valentines weekend, with a luscious spread of roasted beef tenderloin, Parmesan potatoes and steamed broccoli, along with a salad.
Dessert was a so-so apple cake but there was also something definitely enjoyed more, ice cream and cream soda floats.

Someone ended up with the funny spoon, which is really just a sugar spoon that is in the drawer with the teaspoons.  To be possessor of the funny spoon was always coveted.  I don’t know why.

It was a great afternoon of sharing food, conversation and card games.

The next family dinner, which I already had planned to be a very much less elaborate one of some family favorites was first delayed because of grandkids sports conflicts and now looks to be even more delayed because of pandemic.  Family get togethers are postponed indefinitely.

So, time will be spent with my self for company as I do the social distancing thing.  Lots of time to tackle the household back burner list along with the pile of books to be read.  And spring weather is here with more opportunities to enjoy the season’s beauty, if in silent solitude.

And to wonder, what was so special about that funny spoon.

Wrinkled Red Peppers

And just like that, nearly two years have passed since my last post.
So much for the attempt to share more reflections on life which right now, is thankfully, is in sort of a holding pattern not too much different from the past.  Meaning, I’m still just trying to keep up.

Recent adventures include travels to parts of this world previously unknown to me, like Greece, Malta and Sicily.  Journeys to new places are in the future.

The past years also brought some sadness with the loss of beloved family members and but also strengthened the love I have for my family and my extended family (Cousins are the best!) and friends.

And I have added choir member to my life resume; these new friends are so welcoming to this wanna be song artist.  Wonderfully lifts my spirit and soul.

Still learning and playing the folk harp, doing lessons and workshops that I love, when I can. Nearly fifteen years ago I made the leap into something new and have not regretted it ever.

And so, today’s reflection is like the wrinkled red pepper rescued from the vegetable drawer in the fridge and sautéed for my breakfast eggs.
I am finding each day is a chance to find a new blessing in my imperfect journey of life.

In the Kitchen Today

Tomorrow brings the feast of Saint Patrick, celebrated by many of Irish origins and those who have adopted the Irish custom of a corned beef and cabbage dinner. I have been to Ireland several times and have partaken of many meals in pubs, carveries and restaurants. I never saw corned beef and cabbage on the menu. Must be a U.S. of A. thing. I do remember my first dinner in Ireland, in Doolin, bacon and cabbage. Wonderful meal, the bacon being more like the Canadian style bacon, ham really, washed down with a genuine Guinness. Definitely pork and not beef. And a potatoes and cabbage combo was everywhere, but no corned beef. In fact, I always thought it was a Jewish deli thing.

I have been invited by a very good friend to a corned beef and cabbage dinner tonight. So, yesterday evening, I thought I would make something to complement the Irish tea that I am gifting to my hostess. I thought, Welsh Cakes, really cookies. Not Irish of course, but still Celtic, I think. The recipe looked quite simple.
Perhaps I should not have attempted anything so late in the day. Let's just say that it was a fail that has been relegated to my freezer for my own consumption when I am desperate. Maybe aging will improve them.

So, today I was up early and in the kitchen, mixing up my no fail cake. Not just any cake, but one my in laws call the Phelps cake. A cake that my mother always used to bake. I once asked my dad's sister, Aunt Nancy, about where the recipe came from and she said that her mother used to make it. So, maybe it's really a Beatty cake or even a Flanagan cake. Anyway, I like to think that it in fact may have Irish origins and so, is most appropriate to go with the maybe not so Irish corned beef dinner.

Something different I did today was to actually bake the cake at the proper temperature of 325 degrees Fahrenheit. I had always heard that ovens can vary by as much as 25 degrees, and darn if my oven wasn't in the plus range. 325 was actually 350! So, I tinkered with the setting, giving thanks that I had digital controls. 315 gave me my 325, or fairly close. Best looking cake to come out of my oven in a very long time! My recommendation, check your ovens with a simple little oven thermometer.

Years ago, my husband Steve gave me a Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas. The heavy one. Much better than a vacuum cleaner. It has faithfully served me, whipping up cakes and frosting and kneading my popular Parkerhouse rolls that are always requested for holiday dinners. Long ago, I bought the meat grinder attachment and one day, I may attempt to make my own sausage, if I can find it. Meanwhile, I will continue the upper body work so I will never lose the power to lift the mixer from its cabinet. Second recommendation of the day, consider getting one if you haven't one already.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

 "To all the days, here and after,
  May they be filled with fond memories, happiness and laughter."

Slainte Mhaith!