We are digressing from food to fuel this post.  We hope you don’t mind………although we don’t often have to use firewood to cook our food, it certainly does happen when those winter storms turn us back a century to preparing our meals on our wood stove.

We had an especially wet spring with summer barely showing up in late July.  All this extra rain made us realize our aging roof could not possibly tolerate another drenching winter of 100+ inches of rain.  (Our rain forest we fondly call “the mountain” makes Portland look almost balmy and dry.  When they are getting a mist, we are experiencing downpours.)

Ah….but can we re-roof and leave all the factors that prematurely age a roof?  So there you go, or rather, there THEY go…….the trees surrounding our property making our home a small swath in the towering trees of Hockinson mountain had to be removed.

We found it very entertaining to watch the tree fellers at work.

First they remove branches.

This is why you pay money to have someone do this!

Feeling dizzy?

How about this one?

Next up is cutting into rounds.

and more rounds

and still more rounds

All this “rounding” left us with piles and piles and piles of rounds of firewood needing to be split,  stacked and covered.  We had somewhere around 20 trees felled. Our real work began.

My photographer husband has been splitting wood for us for almost 35 years.  Here are his favorite tools:  Gloves, Maul, Split wedge

Firewood 101……how to split:

Find a check mark

Tap in the splitting wedge halfway between the end of the check and the outside edge of the round.

Continuing pounding until the round is split in half. You can use the maul to pry the halves apart, if needed.

To further split the halves, a firm, hard surface works well.  A freshly cut tree stand is high enough to keep from too much bending.

These steps repeated numerous times results in a pile like this:

Unfortunately for us, all this firewood was downhill from where it needed to be stacked.  So hours and hours of moving it uphill with a combination of throwing(where it was too steep to carry), carrying (where it was too steep to wheelbarrow) and wheelbarrow-ing brought us to the pallets (the favored surface to stack wood in our aforementioned wet climate).

A level pallet, air space between rows and 6 ml plastic sheeting protects all that hard work.

If you don’t have a tree to be an end to start your stack, a crosswise stack can suffice.

We had so much wood to protect that we bought a box of 6 ml plastic sheeting 10ftx100ft; we cut on the fold lines, making four 30″ x 100 ft lengths. These strips are kept in place with small, flat head nails.

Here’s a typical row

Our stacks are Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar on the bottom, as those woods last the longest, topped with Alder, Maple and other various NW trees.

On to the roof in pictures:

Delivery Day

All ready for the crew

Men at work

More men at work

In a little over one day

Wish we could say the same about the firewood…..it has been an odyssey of over 5 months and counting…….but we are nearing the end.  It looks like perhaps 15 cords of wood will be ready for fueling our home thanks to the tireless efforts of my photographer husband.

Winter chill, come.

~A

Wow.  I had no idea.  You can make the smooth on your tongue, blissful ice cream without eggs!  Although S. is famous for her egg-tempered ice cream, I, on the other hand, dread those recipes and have mostly avoided doing those kinds of ice cream recipes, favoring Peanut Butter or cream cheese recipes that don’t require near the patience.  On a summer visit, S. left me a copy of Saveur magazine and within it’s pages was a beautiful article on homemade ice cream by Jeni of “Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home“.  Wow, again.  So here’s the method and the recipe.  Be amazed it can be so simple to have something this wonderful, this easy.

Chocolate Ice Cream

Place 3 tablespoons cream cheese in a small bowl and let warm to room temperature.

Whisk together in a small bowl:

1/4 cup whole milk

4 teaspoons cornstarch

This will be called a “slurry”.

Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk together:

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

1 3/4 cup whole milk

Add 2/3 cup sugar

Pour in 2 tablespoon corn syrup

Blend in 1/4 teaspoon salt

Pour this mixture into 4 quart saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Cook for 4 minutes. Use your timer.

Stir in your slurry.

Bring back to a boil and cook for about 2 minutes, until thickened.

Add 1/4 cup of the hot milk mixture to the cream cheese.

Whisk until smooth.

Blend together.

At this point, you have a plain ice cream base….I couldn’t resist adding my favorite chocolate to the recipe.

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Stir until chocolate is fully incorporated.

Pour ice cream base into a Ziploc freezer bag.  This is a messy without some help to keep the bag open while you pour, just letting you know .  Submerge sealed bag in a bowl full of ice water.

When mixture is fully chilled,  process in your ice cream maker.

Done.

Did I say “Wow”?

~A

Costco strikes again with beautiful fillet steelhead!  My photographer wanted to share his method of bbq’ing, our favorite way to eat it .

He likes to cut the fillet into about 2 inch pieces…the tail section will be longer and narrower, of course.

Heat the grill to medium and spray with PAM.

Place the fish skin down on the grill and give the pieces a moderate salting.  DO NOT CLOSE LID of bbq.

After a few minutes, flip the fish; if you see grill sear marks you are done with that side; if not, give them a few more minutes.

When you are satisfied with your grill marks, you should be able to peel the skin off.  The grayish fat layer will be exposed.  Scrap this off with the end of your spatula.

Ick.  Throw this out.

Salt this side.  Grill this side until when you push down with your spatula at the thickest point, the fish feels firm.  Now turn the heat up to briefly to brown the skin(now removed) side of the fish.  DO NOT OVERCOOK!  You are just giving it the beauty treatment.

Lovely.

~M, our competent photographer and grill master

Do you wonder how you might make healthy bread with only five minutes to spare?  The artisan bread revolution started by Dr. Hertzberg and Zoe Francois has entered the whole foods realm with another book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, to follow their Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Our post, Bread for Everyone introduced their concept.  Although I added whole grains to their recipes, I am excited they have published a book that features whole grains.  My sons love multi-grain bread; this is the first recipe I made from their new book.  In case you are asking…..no, this does not taste like the slow rise bread that was a part of our lives in simpler times, but it is “good enough” for the ease of it’s preparation.

Ten Grain Bread

This is all you need!

2 cups Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain Cereal

3 cups white whole wheat flour

2 cups unbleached flour

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast

1 tablespoon KOSHER salt

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

3 1/2 cups lukewarm water

Whisk together the cereal, flours, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a large bowl.

Pour water over flour mixture.

Mix together with a spatula.

As you stir, if all goes well,  it will form a ball.

Plop dough into a large plastic container.

Let rise 2 hours at room temperature.

Use spatula to deflate.

You can shape, rise and bake now or refrigerate dough until you want it as much as 10 days later.  When you want your loaf…..

Remove dough from refrigerator.

Weigh (you can guess if you don’t have a scale) a pound of dough…grapefruit size.

Shape into a oblong loaf…I made three loaves.

Be careful to keep the “skin” on the surface…don’t plummet the dough but gently shape.

Place on parchment if you have a stone to bake on or a baking sheet.

Let rise until your finger leaves an indentation, about doubled…approximately 40 minutes unrefrigerated, 90 minutes from the frig.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees well ahead of baking time.

Ready to bake:

Slide dough onto stone or place baking sheet in oven AND add 1 cup hot water to a pan on bottom rack of oven to add steam.  In 30 minutes, you will be rewarded with this!

~A

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

6 medium sweet potatoes

Trim ends, peel and slice into 3/4 inch rounds

Toss with 1 teaspoon kosher salt.

2 tablespoons oil…..I used coconut oil, which out of my cupboard, looks like this:

Into my microwave for 10 seconds to liquify.

Pour oil over potatoes and stir to coat each slice.

Line a baking sheet with foil , spray with PAM and spread slices on sheet.

Cover tightly with foil.

Place in cold oven on middle rack and turn oven to 425 degrees.  Bake 30 minutes.

Remove baking sheet from oven and carefully remove foil covering.

Place back in oven for 15 to 25 minutes until golden brown on top.

Remove pan from oven and flip slices over.  Return to oven to brown remaining side, 18 to 22 minutes.

When you love the way they look ; take the pan out and let them cool 5-10 minutes.

Serve.

Who knew healthy could taste so good?

~A

WA-HOO!

Mexi Chicken Soup

One medium onion

2 tablespoons bacon fat or oil

6 carrots

4 chicken breasts

7 oz can green chilis

12 oz jar roasted red peppers

1 tablespoon chili powder

4 cups fire roasted diced tomatoes

3 cups chicken broth

1 15 oz can black beans

1  15 oz can corn

Parsley flakes

Chop onion…I like to slice thinly on my mandolin and then chop.

Since I had six carrots to shred, I pulled out my Kitchen-Aid shredder…it’s way fun to use as you can see…

Heat bacon fat in dutch oven.  Add onion and saute until soft and translucent.

Stir in shredded carrots and continue to cook until carrots are tender.

Cut chicken breasts into chunks.

Chop green chilies.

Do the same for the red peppers.

If you are feeling especially thrifty, you can throw the onion and carrot peels and chicken bones into a pot with water and make some hurried broth.  Boil for about 30 minutes and drain, reserving broth.

Add the peppers and chicken to the vegetables along with the chili powder.  Stir over heat until chicken is no longer pink.

Meanwhile……..drain corn and black beans.

When you are satisfied the chicken looks done, pour in the chicken broth, tomatoes, black beans and corn. Heat until almost boiling.

Sprinkle with parsley.  Serve as is or top with sour cream and cheese for a richer soup

Salt and pepper to taste.

Warm and satisfying…..welcome, Fall!

~A

This post is part of Pennywise Platter

Walnut Crema

Simple ingredients:

1 1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 small red onion

Kosher salt

Fill a large pot with water; add 1 teaspoon salt.  Bring to a boil.

Add walnuts to steam basket, if you have one…….or you can just put the walnuts directly into the water.

Place basket into boiling water and blanch for 10 minutes, or until walnuts are tender.

Remove basket and drain, reserving 1/4 cup cooking liquid.  Blanching removes the bitterness of the walnuts.

Dice the red onion.

Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a saute pan.  Add onion and a generous sprinkle of kosher salt.  Saute until golden brown, approximately 7 minutes.

Combine the sauteed onion, walnuts and reserved cooking liquid into food processor.

Process until creamy.

With the processor running, stream in remaining olive oil.

It should resemble hummus. If it seems a bit thick, add a little water.

Let sit at room temperature, covered, for two hours.

Although not a vegan serving option, we spread it on whole grain bread, sprinkled with cheese AND

broiled.

A taste sensation.

~A

French toast waffles... a novel idea for that neglected waffle iron.  I saw this recipe in the Sunday supplement of our newspaper back in August of 2010(!) and it has been in my files tempting me each time I would see it.  Finally, the “clean-up” of the files was happening the other day and it seemed like a wonderful breakfast for this “back-to-school” season.  And it delivered just as promised:  a lovely, nutritious breakfast sure to please those peanut butter and jam fans at your house.

French Toast Waffles

I especially appreciate recipes that use my everyday kitchen pantry items.  Who doesn’t have:

3 eggs (I was making three sandwiches…one extra large egg per sandwich)

whole milk

whole grain bread

vanilla

peanut butter

jam

syrup

Crack the eggs into a baking dish, add a generous splash of milk and scant amount of vanilla.

Spread two slices of bread with peanut butter and jam to make the infamous PB & J sandwich.

Beat the egg mixture thoroughly.

Dip the sandwich in the egg mixture….

Flip over carefully to soak the other side.

Gently place into your preheated waffle iron and squish a little.  It will take a bit but the bread will yield.  Remove when the waffle iron says “done” (on ours the light turns off).

Serve with your choice of syrup.

One bite and we wonder what took us so long to make this easy breakfast treat!

~A

Method:

Cut into 2 inch wide sections along the length of the fish.

BBQ on moderate heat  on skin side first until bbq marks appear.

Flip to meat side and scrape off skin and fat.

I know this looks disgusting but you are discarding this stuff!

This fish has enough fat to stay moist if you are careful to not overcook meat side.  Flip and finish off the skin side (without the skin–you have discarded, it, remember???).

Heart healthy bliss.  We even like it for breakfast .

~A