food

I hereby declare today Swedish day.

My energy is waning, and the to-do list is getting short either by completion or deletion. I needed to keep today a little bit simpler. My main task for today was to make Swedish Coffee buns (after the Rayburn's recipe). My college roomie and I bonded over Christmas and our shared Swedish heritage. I love these coffee buns she made every Christmas. The secret is cardamom. I made a pile for our Christmas breakfast and sent a text to her. She was making them, too.

I made peanut brittle for the first time!!

I didn't have a candy thermometer. And I've never really made candy. So it took about three tries and lots of drops in a cup of water to get the right temperature. All the recipes that tell you to boil for a certain number of minutes are just garbage! It's actually a mix of nuts and a few raisins.

Sweet potato latke.

So there is a little bit of a back story to tonight's dinner.

After my friend MK raved about apple pandowdy, I saw it again in Everyday Food (I think). Guess it's the coolest newest retro dessert.

So we sort of made our own version, which actually was more just apple pie just baked with a top crust.

This is a very toddler-friendly way to make apple pie, and as we all know, "Marlowe make apple pie!!"

Blueberries go "kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk" into buckets.

Marlowe, where do the blueberries go?

Ever since my friend Keri kept mentioning making bagels and how they are so yummy and how she will never buy bagels again, because they are so yummy, the thought of making bagels has been nagging in the back of my head.

We've been getting our CSA box for several weeks now. I knew I wanted to do this partly because it's in my blood to support local agriculture. But over the past few weeks this abstract idea has developed some concrete realities for me. I don't choose what goes in the box. The farmer grows stuff and once a week gives me a box of what he's growing, so that means, we get whatever is in season. I remember growing up with times of plenty in the area of tomatoes, cucumbers, zuchinis and such.

When I was a kid, we had donuts on Saturday mornings. I always got cream filled. I remember swinging madly on our swing set probably high on sugar.

Lately, I've been so tired in the evening, that I save cleaning the kitchen for the morning. I know you're not supposed to do that. But I'm a whole lot more cheerful cleaning in the kitchen in the morning. Sometimes I get to the point, where I'm "together" again, and I manage to go to bed with a clean kitchen, but sometimes...not.

After dreaming and dreaming about it, we finally signed up for a CSA share.* I'd like to say I'm excited about supporting local agriculture (and I am! that's very close to my heart, actually), but I think I was a tad more excited about being presented with a box of food that I can cook with but that I didn't have to exert the brain power to actually choose. It's really hard for me to feel inspired when I look at a blank piece of paper that says "Menus for the Week." I cringe every week. I never do it.