wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.

Category Archives: Food


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No Running Away, Gingerbread Man

 

A gingerbread man, name of Stan

Was smiling as he left the pan,

He said, “I won’t run,

Cuz I know we’d have fun…,

If you’re nice and don’t bite me, we can.”

 

*Gingersnap Recipe

In a saucepan, heat up:

1 cup butter

1 cup molasses

1/2 cup brown sugar

Bring to a boil, while stirring the mixture. Let it simmer about a minute until it is bubbling vigorously.

Take it off the heat and pour it into a mixing bowl.

 

Have dry ingredients ready to add to the syrup mixture.

3 and 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

 

Mix dry ingredients with syrup mixture and then pour it onto a heavy plate  to put into the fridge to cool for a few hours. I make a couple of cuts in the dough to quarter it on the plate so I can more easily get it off the plate in pieces when it is cooled.

Roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thickness (it will be hard to roll out at first until the dough loosens up and warms a bit – this is where the man of the house comes in handy) and use a cookie cutter to make the round shape of gingersnaps.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes (until the edges are just beginning to turn darker brown). Take them out of the oven and set them aside for a couple of minutes before trying to put them on a cooling rack. They will get “snappy” as they cool.

Use the leftover pieces of dough to make your gingerbread man.


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Plum (or Apple) Crumble Squares

When I had an overabundance of plums this year, I had a lot of work to do to wash and pit them and freeze them in ziplocs.  But the time has come to start turning them into  plum desserts, a reward for my hard work. I cut the plums open so the two sides are like wings joined in the middle. Then I can open them up to put on the bottom crust of the dessert.

Be warned – this is an “about” recipe.  You’ll figure out what works for you.

This dessert is easy to make, especially if you have a food processor.

  • Put about a cup and a half of flour in the food processor with a quarter cup of white sugar and about 3/4 cup of butter. Pulse the mixture until it is crumbly as you would do if you were making a pie. BUT, we’re not going to add liquid to make a pie dough.
  • At this point I add about half a cup of rolled oats (optional) to the mixture and just stir it in so the food processor doesn’t turn the oats into flour.
  • Then pour about 3/4 of the crumbly mixture into the bottom of a baking dish. I like to use my rectangular one. Spread the crumbly mixture into the dish and press it down with your hand to make a tightly packed “crust.” No need to butter the pan because there is plenty of butter in the crumble mix.
  • Take the thawed (or fresh if you have them) plums and place them skin-side down on the crust, covering it completely with one layer of plums.  By putting the plums skin-side down, the plum juice doesn’t soak into the crust and make it mushy.
  • Once the plums are in place, sprinkle them with cinnamon and a light sprinkle of brown sugar. Then sprinkle the last quarter of the crumble on top of the plums. At this point I like to put some large sprouted oat flakes on top to give them a bit of crunch, but it works fine with regular oat flakes too.
  • I use my mini oven to bake the plum crumble, but it works very well in the big oven too. 350 degrees for about 35 to 40 minutes. You can tell it’s done when the topping is golden brown and the plum juice is bubbling around the edges.

Let it cool a bit and  then cut it into pieces of whatever size you like. If there is any left, you can freeze it and take out pieces any time you want, to thaw in the microwave.

 

The plum crumble is good with or without ice cream or whipping cream, but a cup of tea or coffee is perfect with it.

 

This crumble also works well with apple cut into slices. I suppose you could try it with all sorts of fruit. That would be interesting to experiment with. Pears would be good, maybe substituting powdered ginger for the cinnamon.

I hope you try it and enjoy it.


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Land of Plenty

Guess what I’ve been doing in between trying to get  photos of Crispin helping himself to the nuts on our two trees.

It’s that time of year when everywhere you look there is work to do, but you know you’ll be glad you did it later.

The squirrels have been working hard to clean out the nut trees, and I finally decided I should go out there and seriously pick up the fallen nuts, and shake the trees to get more of them down. The pears, apples, and plums are a bonus (from their own trees, of course). May we never go hungry.

 

Harvest time is very fine,

Though my grapes won’t turn to wine,

Could it be that I’ve been grazing,

Eating all the grapes? Amazing!

 

But the hazelnuts are here,

Glad that they don’t disappear,

Good to know the squirrels will share,

There’s enough and some to spare.


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Blackberry Time

My mouth is watering as I look at these blackberries. You can make desserts with them, but why go to so much trouble? Just pop them into your mouth. They are SO good!

They make the best jam too.

Unfortunately, they are not the easiest berries to pick.  As much as I love to eat them, I hate to pick them.

O’ juicy black berry, the sweetest of all,

You ripen so perfectly now that it’s fall.

I reach up to pick you, but you say, “I’ll prick you!

I’ll tangle your sleeve and for help you will call.”

 

“If that doesn’t work, I will call on a friend,

A wasp or a hornet will gladly attend.

They’ll zing you and fling you, they even will sting you.

Your bullying picking time comes to an end.”

 

“If need be, I’ll call for more friends, you’ll be bit,

My thorns and the spiders will go for your mitt.

They prickle and tickle, you’ll be in a pickle,

Until you cry out, ‘That’s enough now! I quit!'”

 

 

 

 


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Your Reward

Thank you, friends, for checking in for the last 26 days while we did the alphabet countdown.

It’s time for your reward. Please help yourself to as many gingersnaps as you want.

If you feel like making your own, I will share the recipe at the end of the post.

Gingersnaps

  

Put in pot and let come  to boil: 

1 c. butter

1 c. molasses

½ c. brown sugar

 

Remove from heat. Put in bowl.

Add: 

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. ground ginger

 3 – 3 ½ c. flour

*

Cool in fridge. 

Roll and slice or cut with cookie cutter. 

Bake at 350* for 8 minutes.

 

Good frozen. 

*Candied ginger pieces can be added to dough.  Also grated fresh ginger may be added.


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Y is for Yule

Yule is a celebration of the winter solstice as well as the Christian holiday we usually call Christmas.

Often you may hear about yule logs being placed on the fire in the fireplace. Basically that’s just a big piece of firewood, usually oak, burned around Christmas time. In days of old, people saved a piece of the previous year’s yule log to start the new fire.

My favourite yule logs are the kind I can eat. They have dates and coconut in them.

If you’d like to get the recipe for them, please check my post from a few years ago.

 

Yule Love Yule Logs

Y is for yule.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 


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U is for UFO

With all the drones flying around over North America, doing “who-knows-what?” I started to wonder if any of them were UFOs.

It’s not such a crazy idea and I’ll tell you why.

A few years ago, I listened to some of the UN speeches on TV. I had the closed captioning feature turned on in case I missed anything they said. I found out that some countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and a couple of others have their food brought in from very far away. Now, I must stress that only a few countries are doing this.

Apparently they have a UFO bringing potatoes in from some other planet, or maybe even from another galaxy. But why just them? Why do they get special potatoes brought in from far away?

Well, the closed captioning said it’s because these countries have …

a disc tater ship. Honestly! That’s what the closed captioning said: “These countries pretend to have a democracy when in fact they have a disc tater ship.”

I always KNEW there was life beyond our Earth!

 

U is for UFO.