Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Donalyn

With Chocolate. Can it get any better?

Ellyn asked me to put this recipe up, so here it is. [Keep scrolling and you will find my recipe for mushroom couscous that someone else asked me for, though I can’t remember who it was.]

I was looking for something a little lower in fat than the standard Christmas cookies and came up with these by combining ideas from several different recipes. Most biscotti recipes seem to have some added fat, but these do not, beyond that in the eggs and they are quite lovely nonetheless. Ok – there is some fat in the chocolate drizzle. So sue me.

2/3 cup of white sugar
2 eggs
grated peel from one large orange
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Beat on medium speed until very thick and light. It should run off a spoon in a wide ribbon.

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup toasted almonds, coarsely chopped
Combine and then add to egg mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. Line a heavy baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone liner. Dampen hands as the dough is quite sticky and form it into a smooth flattened rectangle or log shape about 12 x 4 inches. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes, until nicely browned and fairly firm to the touch. Remove to a cooling rack for 15 minutes or so and then cut into diagonal slices about 3/4 in thick. A serrated bread knife works well for this. Lay slices on the same parchment paper lined cookie sheet and return to the oven.

Now, don’t tell Mario Batalli or Giada DeLaurentis, but I don’t like my biscotti rock hard like it is supposed to be. If you do, then bake the slices about 10 minutes more, turn over and bake another 10 minutes. I prefer to bake them about 5 minutes per side which gives them a nice firm texture without needing a chisel to break off a piece. Either way, after removing from the oven, cool completely.

1/2 cup semi sweet or dark chocolate baking chips
2 teaspoons shortening or butter
Melt in microwave, 10 seconds at a time, stirring in between until you can stir it to a smooth consistency. You can use a fork to drizzle the melted chocolate over the cooled cookies, or spoon it into a ziplock bag, cut off a corner and squeeze/drizzle it over them. Either way, there will be little leftover melted chocolate to clean up. Yum. Cool completely until chocolate is solidified and store in an airtight container. They keep quite a while, not that you will have to worry about them going bad before they get eaten.

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Mushroom Couscous

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Donalyn

Fast, could not be easier, relatively low in fat. And really yummy.

In a 10 inch skillet, place 1 tablespoon olive oil and heat nearly to smoking point.

6 ounces any kind fresh mushrooms, roughly chopped
1/2 med onion, chopped
1-2 shallots, minced [optional but nice if you have them]
1 large clove garlic, minced
Throw all the mushrooms in at once, quickly spread out in the pan and saute without stirring until they are beginning to take on a bit of color, stir and add onion, shallot and garlic. Reduce heat and cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

1 cup chicken broth
2-3 tablespoons half and half [optional, but nice]
I actually use a cup of reconstituted chicken soup base because it has more flavor, but if you have regular broth, you could throw in a bullion cube to jack up the flavor a little. If you are having this with beef or pork, you can use beef broth instead of chicken. Anyway – throw it and the cream in there with mushrooms and bring up to boiling, then turn off the heat.

1 cup plain couscous
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
Mix the couscous and herbs into the broth/mushroom mixture and cover. Let sit for 5 minutes, fluff with a fork and spoon into a serving bowl. Grate a little pecorino romano over the top. Makes 3-4 servings

We had this last night with chicken breasts sauteed with garlic and acorn squash out of the freezer. It goes really nicely with steak or pork chops too.

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The Banana Bowl

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Donalyn

I understand. You are puzzled and a bit confused. What, pray tell, is a Banana Bowl? If you know me personally, it would puzzle you even more, since you know that I do not like bananas. So why would I have a bowl that seems to be designed for holding them? I am asking myself the same question and other than the fact it is difficult to hide things in a small car, I have no explanation for my present possesion of this lovely item.

This picture might help you understand a little:
These sandals belong to Lauren. I think they make a statement all their own and need no editorializing on my part. They were given to her by Steve’s Grandma a couple years ago. I should take pains to assure you that Lauren is very fond of Steve’s Grandma. And further, I should tell you that the last two years, Steve’s Grandma has sent us a generous supply of very good oranges she picked herself. She’s a nice person with many fine qualities but a rather curious sense of style and questionable taste in both footwear and home decor.

But even given her previous experience, Lauren was somewhat mystified upon seeing this label when opening her Christmas gift from her Grandma-in-law the year before last.

What could it be?

Closer inspection revealed that it is a bowl, not necessarily for holding bananas

but seemingly constructed of them

Wow

We have this thing we do sometimes in our family, with items that have become iconic to us. Once, when we were visiting Louise and Scott, my sister and brother in law, Larry discovered that he had neglected to bring his hat with him. Since we were planning to spend the day in Boston and it promised to be hot and sunny, he ran up to a variety store a few blocks from their house to remedy the situation. He came back with the absolute worst hat any of the rest of us had ever seen. A ball cap of a sickly greenish color, oddly shaped, with a particularly ugly fish embroidered on the front. By unanimous vote, he was forbidden to wear this eyesore if he planned to go into the city with any of us. Even given men’s tendency to stick together in matters such as this, Scott could not bring himself to be seen in the company of this monstrosity. The hat stayed home and sat around the house for the entire week of our visit and when we left, I tucked it under the pillow in our room.

After Louise and Scott’s visit at Thanksgiving time it appeared in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. It made it’s way into their box of Christmas presents that year and for several years it whizzed back and forth between NY and Massachusetts with clocklike regularity. At some point I forgot about it, until 6 years ago when we were packing to move into the new house and it turned up in a drawer I obviously had not looked through in awhile.

So, Lauren brought the lovely Banana Bowl for all of us to admire when we got together for Christmas and when she and Steve went home, she stashed in the spare room closet at Ellyn’s house. Unfortunately, she left something at Ellyn & Jason’s that she needed so when Ellyn mailed it to her, the Banana Bowl went back to Georgia.

This year, when Lauren and Steve were here, a couple days before we all went back down to Virginia, I was checking to make sure that there was enough toilet paper in the guest bathroom and there the darned thing was, in the cabinet! I made sure that it made it to the van before we left, but unfortunately, Lauren and Steve were driving a smallish car and though I tried, I was not able to successfully hide it in there. [I can’t prove anything, but I am pretty sure that Steve told Lauren that he saw it in our van, even though I threatened to withhold his Christmas presents if he told her, so I expect she was looking for it. He will be dealt with at another time] They left before we did and as expected, the bowl was sitting on the seat of the van when we went to leave.

I am pretty sure there are international laws about shipping really really ugly glassware into a war zone, where they have enough to deal with already, so I can’t get it back to Lauren until she is home from Iraq. Since I am stuck with it, I thought I should see if I can make use of it. Not liking bananas, we don’t have any around, so I tried oranges.

They just don’t look right in there though. The worst thing is that the more I look at these pictures, the more I actually ……………… like the Banana Bowl.

I am not a well woman.

Posted in family, me | 20 Comments

Sunday Prayers

Posted on January 20, 2008 by Donalyn

This little guy is a Black-Crowned Night Heron baby. We ran across him on the Niagara river a couple summers ago. We have a lot of herons along our creek here but this kind stays mostly to our west and north. As we walked up the path, he was less and less happy with our presence and crept out to the edge of his log. He seems to be considering whether we are worse than the river. We backed off at this point because we felt badly about scaring him.
Doesn’t he look like he is contemplating the unknown? Looking into a future that is uncertain and daunting? I know how he feels.

I love Philippians. It contains some of my favorite verses – verses that I treasure and look to over and over in my life. And in praying through scriptures I often return to Phil. 1:3-9.

3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; 7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. 8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

They speak so eloquently of the fellowship of belonging to God and seem especially appropriate when I am feeling separated from people I love. Going to come in handy over the next year I think.

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I love Daylilies part 1

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Donalyn

I have a whole lot of different flowers, foliage plants, trees, shrubs and bushes on our two acres. Daylilies are well represented and I have to admit they are my favorites. There are numerous reasons for this and I think I will spread them out over a couple different entries. So, today I will tell you about just one of them.

One reason a lot of people like Daylilies is because they are relatively easy to breed which gives you brand new kinds that no one else has ever grown before. If you are careful, keep good records and know what you are doing, you can end up with some pretty spectacular flowers. Doing it well requires a degree of meticulousness that is foreign to my nature, so it is unlikely that I will try it anytime soon. I am more than happy to take advantage of other people’s efforts though.

I was looking through some photos from the last couple summers and found pictures of these favorites from a bed of un-named Daylily cultivars. I bought these on eBay, from a breeder who was getting rid of his less desirable plants for 2 bucks apiece. These will never be famous or win any awards, but each summer I get to enjoy their varied and unique blooms.

Despite my ignorance about a lot of this, I do know why some of these were discarded. This tangerine one looks beautiful when it first opens, but just a couple hours under the sun and it fades in blotchy patches. It looks really nice for a short time though.

This little rose one comes out in what is called a bagel form and I imagine that is what the breeder was looking for – too bad only about 1/2 of the flowers ever actually look like this.

I have no idea how this one fell short though. It gets prettier every year. I hope the breeder I bought it from doesn’t find my blog – he would suffer sellers remorse and sneak into my yard some night to steal this little beauty.

Another puzzler. The flowers on this plant are some of the most stunning in any of my flower beds – nearly 8 inches across and it blooms for a full month. Maybe he had one with a deeper color or rounder petals?

I am partial to yellow daylilies, so I love this one, but I know the cup shape isn’t particularly desirable to most people and the blooms don’t really open enough.

This is my favorite. The first two years it didn’t look like much but since then it has been gorgeous with huge blooms and intense color. It will be big enough to divide this coming fall and I will be spreading it around the yard.

So, while you can spend around $500 or more on a single plant, if you are into the really fancy cutting edge varities, one of the things I like the best about daylilies is that they are/can be cheap. Even named varities are usually not very expensive and here’s the best thing: they increase. And increase and increase and increase. You can dig them up and divide them and replant them in another spot and give them to your friends or sell them yourself. In fact, if you don’t dig them up and divide them at least every 5 years or so, they won’t bloom as well and that is a good thing for a lazy person like me because otherwise, I would intend to divide them till the cows come home without ever actually doing it. Taking pictures of daylilies is a lot more fun than dividing them.

We will be talking about daylilies again, of that you can be sure. Because I have a lot of daylilies and that means I have a lot of daylily photos.

Posted in garden | 9 Comments