Banana Bread

so simple.

1/2 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
3 real ripe bananas mashed to a fine pulp
2 c. sifted flour
1 tsp soda
1/4c chopped nuts

Bake at 325 degrees (about 1.5 hours or until cooked through)

bliss

There is nothing quite as satisfying as licking the bowl, okay maybe licking to spoon because it's a little bit easier.

Tonight grandma made seven minute frosting.  OMG it's like a summer cloud, all puffy and dreamy.  It transports you back to days of laying on soft grass staring into the sky above, comparing shapes of the drifting creatures, innocence and pure pleasure. And yet there's something sinfully decadent about it too.  Nothing this good should be so easily made.

Seven minute frosting
Get a double broiler boiling
in a separate bowl combine
1/3 Cup water
1 1/2 Cup white sugar
3 teaspoons
2 egg whites
pinch of salt
mix very well and then add to the double broiler, keep it boiling
with a hand held mixer continue to beat mixture until a silky and oh so sticky frosting forms, should take just less than seven minutes.

consume and please, lick the spoon.

oysters

What is it about the Puget Sound that makes it so condusive to growing oysters?  Is it the grey sky, the constant rain, maybe it's the wind that blows off the pacific and pounds the shoreline ceaslessly carving new bays. The flat lands have been saturated year after year by the remnants of silt from massive glaciers that carved huge river valleys.  Only a few mountains in the Cascade range still hold these locked seas of ice.

The rich waters have been making human life rich and easy for hundreds of years.  Before the Sweeds or Dutch migrated accros the great plains to fish, farm and fall timber, Native Amercian Tribes warred over the bays and inlets.  But now a less violent war is waged, this one is fought over cold hard cash.  Which oyster and muscle farmer will put your dollar in their till this season.

My preference is Taylor Shellfish Farm, no they haven't given me anything except excellent service for this promo, make that excellent service and amazing (shrink down your shoulders, let your head fall back and your eyes roll amazing) oysters.  I'm sure their geoducks and muscles and crabs are good too, but the oysters, yes please, can't get enough of them.

So here's a little receipe from grandma (who I am sure got it off the label of some jar of oysters somewhere)

Oyster Stew
heat 2 Cups of  half and half
add 2 Cups milk
add oysters and their juice (at least 36),
a dash of worshtershire,
a spinkle of salt,
a grind of pepper.
warm for a while to let the flavours mingle
and a dallop of butter, let melt
serve  (prior counting of oysters is highly recomended so that everyone receives and equal portion)
slurping this 'stew' is highly recomended too.

fyi.  if the oysters are raw and you don't like this then pre cook them in their own juices prior to adding them to the milk.

custard

there are few things more wonderful in life than warm freshly baked custard.  Plain and simple it's what I define as luscious.  It's silky and delicate with a hint of exotic spice.

G-ma's custard.
preheat oven to 325 F / 160 C
scald two cups milk on stove top
in a shallow ovenproof pan/pot bring water to slow simmer
meanwhile in a oven proof dish stir the following ingredients well to combine
3 eggs
pinch of salt
cap or less of vanilla
1/4-1/2 cup sugar

after scalding milk and combining other ingredients, slowly pour milk into the egg mixture, stir to combine.
place the oven proof dish into the hot water (making sure the water doesn't get into the custard mixture.  Sprinkle with nutmeg or cinnamon.  Place dish and pan in oven and bake for about an hour.

grandma served it warm  with whip cream, but I like it just as is, no cream.

beside me

Contents of nightstand:
1 maple leaf red enamel badge
Hawaii the Big Island Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook
1/8 of a cup of hot chocolate in a pretty green mug (from Starbucks)
Alaska: The Magazine of Life on The Last Frontier
Fine Gardening [magazine]
snap bracelet watch in yellow and green
large legal pad
Washington Federal Savings green pen
gold dusty lamp with pleated and beaded shade.

Tonight I sleep with this beside me.

The other nightstand holds more books, magazines, a clock a matching lamp and a box of tissues, a second lamp and two sticky notepads.

Tonight I sleep between such inspiration and adventure.

The amoire and dresser at my feet are piled with misciallania, hats, gloves, jewlery, prints, small items from the spilled stocking, lollies and boxes.

Tonight the joys and trappings of a comfortable life surround me.

dreams will come, tonight

and tomorrow, light will bounce off suspended droplets, the prism will be at my fingertips

merry christmas

In less than thirty minutes it will officially be christmas here on the west coast, finnally!  The tree here has looked so sad since grandma cleaned up the last of the paper from under it two days ago.  We had christmas last Sunday and it was great: lots of food, great presents, family all gathered.  Yep almost perfect, but where was the snow!  No white christmas this year on Huckleberry Lane and I'm feeling totally ripped off because Melbourne is being covered in white frozen water.  Okay, okay so it's hail but it's still a white christmas.  So while I sit down to my prime rib tomorrow, stomach still recovering from the 12 pound turkey last Sunday,I'm thinking of all you bastards down under and wondering just where a girl has to go for a white christmas.

Pecan Pie and Strawberry Jam

I consider my grandmas freezer strawberry jam the best jam in the enitre world.  It's sweet, there's big chunks of berries, it's gooey, red and delicious.  I've always wanted to know how to make it so today I asked.  I was expecting her to rattle off a few lines from memory, but no, what I got was what I should have known it would be, the simplest of recipies pulled straight from the side of the box.   Grandma is of the WWII generation, she grew up on recipies from the sides of boxes and guess what, those are some damn fine recipies.  Last night we had this amazing pork chop in mushroom campbell soup rice, yum.  But I degress, today was about jam, oh so wonderfull strawberry jam.

So here's the recipe from CERTO
2pt strawberries
1 Lemon
Discard stems and crush (grandma says to do the 'mashing' with a potato masher, not too fine though!)
2 C mashed strawberries
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
4 C sugar
1 pouch CERTO: according to the box CERTO is the premium liquid fruit pectin

1) mash the berries
2) stir sugar into berries let stand
3) combine CERTO and lemon juice
4) combine everything and stir till all sugar crystals have desolved.
5) containerize-gma says you can even put this jam into ziplock bags and it'll be fine.  Stores up to one year in the freezer or 3 weeks in the fridge.

because of it's pectain it doesn't really freeze, well it sort of does, but then it doesn't.  You just have to trust me on this one.  It's yum. like you find things in your pantry just to put this on yum.  Sometimes I just use the ole' 'but my nutritionist says that jams' better for you than peanut butter' excuse.  Mom just shakes her head at me and laughs.

FYI
if you want to cook the fruit, add a bit of butter or margiarine to reduce the foaming, fruit should be at a rolling boil when you add the pectain.

if you are under 3,000 feet the processing time is 5 minutes, if you are over 8,000 feet it's about 20 minutes.

p.s. sorry about the lack of photos, I'm tired of trawling the web for images, I'll soon have a new digital camera again and will update old posts.