torley manor

Tonight our friend Deanna came over for dinner (and band practice). Being that she has some issues with soy and wheat foods, we sought a meal that lacked both of these things. Luckily the local produce is abundant and a great meal was made.

First, a mixture of green and yellow string beans from our garden. These started coming in a little over a week ago. We’ve been eating lots of them. Sooo good and very abundant. Beyond eating them, i’ve already been able to put away six freezer boxes of them. We just steamed ‘em and then lightly salt and peppered them with a healthy dose of Earth Balance (the new SOY-FREE variety!!)

Second, a mix of local beets bought at the co-op and chard and kale from the garden. Last week our friend Sara came over and made some beets using a zesting of lime and ginger and it was delicious. Tonight Emma copied that recipe, tho’ also juicing the lime for some extra kick and adding the aforementioned kale and chard to round out the greens. The beets were boiled and then sliced. Then the beets, the beet greens and the chard/kale mixture were cooked down in a skillet with some fresh garlic from our recent garlic harvest.

Third, spicy sweet potatoes (i don’t think these were local.) I think we’ve blogged about these before. We just microwave the potatoes to soften them up, then skin and cut them into thin slices/chunks, fry in a frying pan with a little salt and pepper, then right before you are done frying them up, adding a good squirt of sriracha sauce. Toss ‘em around a bit to mix the sauce onto all the potatoes and let ‘em fry a few minutes more to get some crispness.

Finally, we made up a batch of quinoa to supplement all the veggies. I gave mine a shot of Braggs Liquid Aminos and mixed it in with the greens/beets. Good eats!!!

I washed my meal down with a little sun tea that I made in the backyard the other day.

Add in a couple extra friends joining us for dinner and then a productive band practice session afterwards and you got a wonderful evening.

A pal of mine is having a birthday today, and here is her birthday cake. She watched the Candy Mountain video (link) not long ago and came to me afterward saying “Emma, you know about this internet. What IS this???”

So what choice did I have but to replicate the unicorns?!

Jo helped make the horses into unicorns (and give Charlie the unicorn his kidney-removal-wound); the horses were actually props from a prior set of horse cupcakes a while back.

I can’t stop cackling about how fun it was to make this cake. Dioramas are my favorite kind of cakes to make.

Early on in my relationship with Q, we made a cake with a ganache tar pit in one corner, some prehistoric palm tree sugar cookies standing up and some sugar cookie dinosaurs drowning in the tar pit. I wish I had a picture of it!

Then a few years back, for Tay’s birthday, I made her a diorama of a Wild Pack of Family Dogs (also sugar cookie based):

They’re so much more fun to make than more traditional cakes, because they can be messy and still look amazing. And absurd. And that’s what I am in a nutshell.

The other day, Q and I went berry picking with the family. It’s one of my favorite summertime things to do, and LOOK! Just look at this bounty:

What does one do with a pot full of berries? Well, in this case, add a bit of water to the berries. In a dry bowl, mix maybe 1/3 to 1/2 c sugar with about a tablespoon of corn starch or arrowroot powder, and add that to the berries. Stir them very gently so the berries don’t fall apart too badly, and simmer then just till they start to boil and the sauce thickens up a bit.

In the meantime, heat up your waffle iron!

Dessert Waffles!

• 2.5 c flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 c sugar (optional)
• 1 stick margarine, melted
• 1 t vanilla
• 2 c water

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients.  In a small bowl, melt the margarine, and then add it along with the water and vanilla to the big bowl. Stir gently.

Here is a critical reminder: if you’re using sugar, your waffles are going to be more inclined to stick. Spray your iron each time if you’re going to use the sugar (ordinarily, I use about a tablespoon of sugar for regular breakfast waffles and only spray the iron between maybe every other waffle).

Assemble a hot waffle, a scoop of vanilla (soy) ice cream, and a big spoonful of black raspberry sauce. For optimal photographing, you might want to center the waffle on the plate.  I was too eager to eat the mess!

I haven’t tasted any of the garlic yet, but we’ve hung it up to dry a bit so we clean them up for storage. It looks to be a total success, so far! I didn’t know they’d make such hairy roots on the bottom, but it makes sense.

Here’s the test of the screen for this year’s blues fest t-shirts. If you’ve got something you’d like to have this printed on, holler!

Neither of us took one single photo, but sweet sweet Sara K. took a great set of photos that can be found here:  Sara’s Flickr Set.

We’re currently importing/editing/uploading the video, which is a much bigger project than I realized. Video is kind of a pain, and I am now more grateful for people who tape shows and upload the video so I can watch it. Thanks people!

It was a good time — a great mix of new friends and old friends, brand-new-first-gig-ever performances and done-this-blues-thing-a-thousand-times performances. Q and I played three songs, all covers:

• “one of these days” by neil young, which was a fairly true cover.
• “reigned” by Io, who were an amazing local band. this song would not be recognizable in cover format except for the breakdown.
• “in the pines” — a version with half traditional lyrics and half lyrics taken from an old song by the NYC band The Syndicate.

Here’s a photo of us playing, taken by Sara. We’ll let you know when the video’s ready!

I have been in the Laurel Highlands, yessir!

Here is a link to the set of photos, if you’d like the narrative of the whole 70 mile backpacking trip. It was a fantastic experience.

I hiked the whole Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail in a week, which meant short days (6.3 miles and 5 miles) on the ends, and longer (10-14 mile) days in the middle. It is hard for me to want to eat very much during a hot day, when I am sweaty and hot and my muscles are working hard. I am much more inclined to eat a lot later on when I am cooled down and relaxing at camp. So how and what do I eat?!

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