Wood Anemone

Another sweet woodland flower in my yard. This one is called Wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia).

I found its name it using this wonderful Flower Identification website.

Fiddleheads!

Every day there's something new to see outside my door. This morning, these unfolding ferns were the prize winners! I've never eaten fiddleheads. Have you? I don't know if the ones growing in my yard are edible, but even if they are, I think I'll let them grow into the bushy greenery that I love.

Wakerobin Outside My Door

Trillium - a delicate forest wildflower also known as "wakerobin" - blooms outside my door.

A host of sweet woodland flowers bloom while they can catch a bit of springtime sun - before the trees leaf out.

How lovely to find these so close to home.

Making Gluten Free Pizza

This is the first pizza I've eaten since going gluten free, and the first I've ever made. It came out really well! I used a frozen crust from Against the Grain (a local GF company) and topped it with homemade marinara sauce, sauteed onions, red peppers, mushrooms, and part-skim mozzarella cheese. Sometime soon I'll try making my own crust, but that's another matter!

A Visit from E.B.

Have you ever tasted Burdick chocolates? They are like nothing else. Tiny little things, perfectly made, subtly flavored, amazingly delicious. I am so lucky that Ananda sends them to me!

That's My Girl!

Pretty kitty sittin' in the sunshine . . .

Signs of Spring

I so love seeing the brave little crocuses emerge!

Morning Light on Green & Red

Do you know the name of this plant? I've tried planting cuttings in a pot with dirt, and it just doesn't thrive. It seems to prefer being in this bowl with only stones and water - no soil - to being planted! My friend J. gave me the cuttings. He keeps his planted in soil, under a glass dome and it's very happy.

Mmm . . . Mmm . . . Oatmeal Cookies . .

I made up a recipe for gluten free oatmeal raisin cookies this evening. They turned out really well! I combined elements from two different recipes: one, my favorite gf chocolate chip cookie recipe from Gluten Free Girl and the other, the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe from The Best Recipe (which, unfortunately, isn't available online).

Gluten Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
(makes 24 cookies/ 108 calories each)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl:
1/4 cup teff flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed
2 Tbsp sweet rice flour (also known as "mochiko" (Japanese), "Bot Nep" (Thai) or "sticky rice flour." Available at Asian markets.)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (This, from The Best Recipe, replaces the more common cinnamon.)

In stand mixer, beat:
1 stick softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp dark muscovado sugar (Also available at Whole Foods Market)
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp white sugar

When sugars are fully incorporated into butter, add:
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Add the dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly.
Then add:
1 1/2 cups gluten free certified rolled oats
1 cup raisins

Scoop out about 2Tbsp of cookie dough and roll in a ball, pressing to make the dough into a solid ball. Place on buttered cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Repeat about 24 times (12 per cookie sheet), and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool slightly before removing them to a rack to finish cooling. Cookies are fragile when warm.

Never Dull?

Lately I've been checking in on an interior design blog that's new to me: Apartment Therapy. They run a program every year called "The Spring Cure," that's a series of assignments to clean up and organize your home. This year there's also a kitchen-only version called, "The Kitchen Cure." I haven't officially signed up, but I'm inspired! I cleaned out the fridge & freezer last week. Today - my big ol' junk drawer.

It's quite satisfying. I threw out some junk, saved a few things for the Shambhala Center tag sale in the fall, and I found a few things that I thought I'd lost! It may be dull to some, but to me it's a pleasure.

A Winter Hike with Friends

Friends from the Shambhala Center in Northampton gathered for a hike on Mt. Tom in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

I've never hiked in the snow before. It was a warm day, the snow was soft and a little slushy in places. Walking in the snow was challenging, and the mountain was beautiful.

The view from the Dry Knoll, looking toward of the Oxbow (part of the Connecticut River).

It was a more challenging and fast-paced hike than I'm used to, but it was a great day!

Gluten Free Baking from King Arthur Flour!

I don't usually post this sort of thing, but I thought the gluten free readers of this blog would like to know that King Arthur Flour - long a great source for traditional baking information and baker's ingredients and tools - has a whole new line of GF baking mixes, online recipes and information about gluten free baking. It looks like a wonderful resource! Click here to visit the King Arthur Flour gluten free website.

Minnewaska Walk

A chilly walk along the rocky Shawangunk cliffs at Minnewaska State Preserve.

Climbers spotted ahead . . .


Someone waits patiently, in her fleece jacket, for the safe return of her people.

Waiting

There's not much to say about it . . .

. . . just a passing train I had to wait for on my way home this evening.

A Tasty Recovery

I'm recovering from a nasty little stomach bug. Many years ago I learned about three macrobiotic foods that restore beneficial flora to the digestive system: miso soup, sauerkraut, and uzu tea. I could never deal with the tea, made from arrowroot powder, tamari and umeboshi plum, as I recall. But I like miso soup, and sauerkraut is okay. They really do help! Click here for the recipe I used. I made the simple kombu dashi (kombu stock), which added some depth to the soup. I also added some gluten free tamari to the bowl. Most miso has wheat (and soy) in it. I used locally made South River Azuki Bean Miso, which contains no wheat or soy ingredients.

KMOCA Opening: A Girl and a Gun, Again by Steve Derrickson

Stephen's show at KMOCA opened on Saturday evening.

There was a great turnout . . .

with friends of all ages!

"She Sells"

A Girl and a Gun . . .

. . . indeed.

It's So Easy!

Wow! I followed the recipe from Jill Santopietro's Tiny Kitchen video for tangerine sherbet. (The delightlful little bowl is by Shelburne potter Molly Cantor.)

I started with the most amazingly juicy tangelos. Did you know that a tangelo is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit?

I zested 2 of them, then juiced the whole lot by hand.

There are a few more simple steps. Go the NY Times website and follow the whole recipe if you want to try this.

There it is, churning about inside the machine . . .

Holy smokes! The most delightfully light, delicate tasting sherbet I've ever enjoyed. If I'm going to keep exploring this sort of thing, you'd better come over and share some . . . or else I'm going to become quite a chubber! :-)

Winter Trees

I love to see the structure of trees when they have no leaves in the winter.

January Thaw I

Here in the Northeast US, we usually have a brief respite from January's below-freezing temperatures: the January Thaw. It began yesterday with daytime highs soaring into the 40s! (he he)
Really, it was sunny and quite pleasant, and I couldn't resist a nice long walk.

This charming couple looked quite content, noodling about in the little unfrozen section of the pond.

We Can All Do Something to Help

Please help the people of Haiti however you can. Click the image below to make a donation to Doctors Without Borders. Every donation, no matter how small, helps people who are suffering in unbearable ways.

Broken Dishes

I have a long, sporadic history of making pieced cotton pillow covers and quilts. I made my first quilt in 1977. In the early 1990s I happened to flip through a copy of A Treasury of Amish Quilts by Rachel and Kenneth Pellman in a fabric store. Inside those pages I discovered the Amish quilt pattern called Broken Dishes, and I've been fascinated by it ever since. I love the straightforward, graphic use of solid colored cotton fabrics that Amish quilt makers employ. And Broken Dishes is barely a pattern at all - the order of the triangles is the only requirement. The color arrangement is random - or so it seems. As you can see below, I made considerable effort to orchestrate the arrangement for this pillow.


Here are the triangles, cut from 2" squares, laid out on the counter. I spent quite a bit of time moving them around until I was satisfied.


The finished top. I think I managed to keep all but one row in the desired order! I adore the fact that a mistake like getting the pieces out of order is easily incorporated into the whole.


Here's the cover stuffed with a 20"x20" down & feather pillow insert. Hey, what's that black fuzzy thing on the right side?


Oh . . . it's my little helper, Miss Bettie!

This pillow was a gift for my dear friend D. It looks really nice on the blue couch in her office.