Scenes from February at Cold Feathers Farm

In February, Deborah and I painted wood for a new set of shelves in our garage. 

After two weekends, they were finished.   And since they would always be filled with stuff from now on, I had the kids get up on them before I filled them.

 A wonderful dinner of mussels and shrimp that I made one cold Sunday night.

 And of course, we had to go see the 3D version of Star Wars I.  In costume of course!

Stephen and my dh saw this one cold morning.  Can you tell what happened?

Our guess is that it was a mouse that crept out of a bramble and then got eaten by an owl.  See the wing marks near the top of the picture and how the mouse tracks just end?

April Fool!

For April Fool's Day, Aaron really wanted to make some April Fool food.   So we started off with drinks...

 ... which were really jello.

 The rest of the meal was normal except for dessert.   For dessert, we had Spaghetti!

 The base is pound cake.   The spaghetti is frosting tinted just a little bit yellow.   The meatballs are no bake cookies.   The parmesan cheese was grated white chocolate.   The hardest part was the sauce.  It was hard to get something that didn't look like strawberry jelly or was too dark.   We ended up making it with apricot jam, a little cherry preserves, and a spoonful of chocolate pudding.

Pasta!

This Sunday, Joe made us another pasta feast.   I told him that I like the trend our Sundays have been taking lately.

This week it was Zite Sangiovanniello (on the left) and Shells with Gorgonzola and Pistachios (on the right).   Both were delicious.   The Zite was light and tasty and the Shells were cheesy and wonderful.

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

My parents came for a week of fun and food after Christmas Day and stayed until Jan 2nd.

We played a lot of board games,

 played with Grandpa and Grandma's Ipad,

 card games, 

more board games,

puzzles,

and more card games.   This is Nathan's hand in Quiddler.   Look at all those vowels!

 

Joe made us a surprise drink one night - the Swedish 60.   It is a variation of the French 75 drink.   It was made with aquavit which has an anise taste.  Since I come from a Swedish background, he thought we might find it interesting.

 I liked it.   I especially liked getting a picture of him pouring the drink from our John Deere pitcher!

 Joe also made a copy of the wonderful Poached Pears with Blue Cheese and Walnuts that we had at Molly's this summer with my parents.   They just loved it and my mom was raving about it 6 months later.   So Joe made her some.   He poached the pears for 5 hours in wine, sugar, and water.   Then he cooled them, split them, sprinkled crumbled blue cheese and pecans over the pears, and drizzled them with balsamic vinegar.   They were fantastic and Mom was very pleased.

Pasta tonight!

Joe made homemade pasta tonight for supper.

 Ta-da!   Tagliolini with mascarpone and lemon.   It was very lemony and light tasting.  

Paris-Brest

When my dh was home this holiday season, he made me a beautiful dessert called Paris-Brest.   This dessert was inspired by the road race from Paris to Brest and resembles a car tire.   First he made the pastry cream.   Then he made a praline that he reduced to a dust in my food processor.   Then he folded that praline dust into the pastry cream.   

Then he went to work on the pastry rings.   They resembled eclair dough and were made by cooking the dough and then piping it onto parchment paper and baking them.

 The successful finished pastry on the left, the first try that got too dark on the right.

 He split the finished ring in half, spread the cream on the bottom and then put a "inner tube" ring in the middle of the cream.   Then he spread more cream on top of the inner tube and put on the top part of the big ring.

 Ta-da!   The finished product.   And it was very very good.

Annual Tapas Night

Welcome to our annual Tapas Night!   We usually hold it on New Year's Day, but this year we decided to hold it on New Year's Eve.   My parents were visiting and enjoyed sharing in our New Year's tradition.   So without further ado...

Course 1:    Fried Gruyere Cheese with Bacon and Eggs with Black Olives made by Stephen.

 Vegetable Pate made by Deborah.

 All three dishes tasted good.   The Fried Gruyere was my favorite of this group, but the Vegetable Pate was a surprise hit.   We decided that we should do this in the spring with fresh asparagus.

Second Course:   Cumin Carrots made by Aaron.

 Garlic Shrimp made by Stephen.

The Cumin Carrots tasted very Mediterranean and were served cold.   The Garlic Shrimp was moist and fantastic.   Nathan did complain that it didn't taste garlicy enough.

Third Course - Potato, Tuna, and Vegetables in Puff Pastry made by Aaron. 

 Fried Garbanzo Beans with Onions made by Nathan.

 Aaron's puff pastry was a delicious way to serve the salad which was light and flavorful.   Even my mayo hating Nathan liked it.   Everyone but me liked the Garbanzo beans.   The onions had been cooked for a long while and really were quite mellow in the dish.   

Fourth Course - Potato and Banana Omelet made by Deborah.

 This was my biggest surprise.   I really liked it.   I was afraid that the sweet bananas wouldn't work, but they did.   We served it at room temperature but I think it would be even better served warm.   We used "baby bananas" and they were very sweet.

Fifth course - Veal Stew made by Nathan.

 Well, by now we were getting kinda full.  But this Veal Stew was so velvety smooth that everyone loved it.   I'm looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow!

Sixth Course - Sauteed Bread with Honey Syrup made by Deborah.

 This was Joe's favorite dish which surprised me because Joe isn't really a big dessert person.   But these were amazingly good.   Of course, dousing anything with homemade honey syrup would make it taste good.   They were like French toast but so creamy and custardy inside.

My Executive Chef, relaxing after a hard day and a half of work.  Well done!

Apples and more Apples

We had a lot of apples this year.   I estimate that we harvested about 20 bushels of apples from our 9 trees.  This was our biggest harvest ever.

They were beautiful and we hardly had any bugs in them.

We had so many Red Delicious apples that we decided to make cider with them.   We took 8 bushels up to a friends' house.

 She had picked some other types so the cider tasted delicious.   We used an old fashioned press and the children had a great time.

 I've also made a lot of applesauce.   Good thing we love it so much!

Happy Anniversary!

My dh made me this wonderful warm corn and scallop salad for our anniversary dinner.   It was a favorite dish at a restaurant that is now out of business.   

 For my part of the meal, I made a spaghetti dish where you didn't cook the tomatoes.   You sauteed the onions and peppers and garlic and then added the tomatoes and cooked pasta.   My dh was skeptical, but it was fantastic. 

 This year, we celebrated 24 years of married life.   Sometimes it seems like it has been 24 years and other times, it feels like it was just a couple of years ago that we were newlyweds.

Mother's Day

I had a relaxing Mother's Day this year. The children had gotten me an ice cream cake for the occasion and my dh grilled hamburgers. We used Aunt Lorene's deviled egg plate for the pickles and eggs.

My presents - all revolving around food! A new garlic press since I broke my last one. A new book of tapas and chocolate!

Deborah's chocolate even had instructions!

Maple Syrup!!

Last Saturday we boiled down our maple sap. This is the first year we've tried to use our new metal pans. Overall it was a fantastic success. My dh built a fire box out of concrete blocks.

First we put one pan on and tested it with just 2 gallons of sap. No leaks this time so we were good to go.

Then we put on the second pan. That pan had one leak but it seemed to close up once the pan got hot.

We kept the fire going all day (well, my dh and children did). I was inside a lot of the day finishing up the sap that I had already boiled down on the screened in porch in my big electric cooker.

Here's a close up of the fire and the high tech leak containment system we employed.

It wasn't hard work, just steady work. Someone had to keep adding wood to the fire and someone else had to keep adding sap. Nathan was mostly chopping firewood.

My dh estimated that if we kept the sap at a rolling boil, we would boil off 7 gallons of water per hour.

We gathered a lot of dead wood from the woods to keep the fire going.

We boiled into the night and then filled up both pans with all the sap we had left and went to bed.

On Sunday after church, we started boiling again and got the sap boiled down so that it fit in one pan. We continued boiling and were just about to give it another half hour or so when it started to snow. That did it. We strained the sap and brought it indoors.

We had about 8 gallons of the reduced sap when we brought it in. I strained it once more using a special paper filter and then it was time to boil inside with the vent on full blast. I boiled this sap Sunday night and then some on Monday morning and finished about lunchtime.

End result: 159.5 gallons of sap collected and 3 gallons, 3 quarts, and 1 pint of syrup canned. We actually had two different types of syrup. That is almost a 40 to 1 ratio which is excellent considering that we only have red maples, not sugar maples.

The lighter syrup was made from the sap that was collected early and reduced on the porch. The darker syrup was made from the later sap. The darker color is natural for sap that is collected closer to the end of the season. The lighter syrup is very delicate in flavor but the darker syrup is more robust and seems like it has a touch of molasses in it.

Both were excellent on pancakes the next day!