Snake & Eggs

This snake looks like it swallowed a dozen eggs. Bumpy. Susan spotted it by the side of the path when we were walking at Phipps a couple of weeks ago. Probably a gray rat snake, she said. It didn't move, & neither did Zing! We proceeded hastily past, as I kept the dog on a short leash. A couple of days afterward, I was chatting with a city parks employee who said learning about snakes is the best way to lose your fear of them. Stephanie, who now works at PetSmart, said she's heard of two dogs dying recently from snake bite.

Peanut Butter & Sweet Potatoes

Everyone loves peanut butter (except for a couple of people in my own family), but many think sweet potatoes are just for Thanksgiving.

Not true, of course. I love sweet potato wedges tossed in olive oil & chopped rosemary, then roasted at 375° until soft & golden brown.

Which led me to try this simple dish: Boil sweet potatoes, then mash with some cooking liquid. Add lots of chopped fresh garlic &, yes, peanut butter. Toss with cooked pasta & top with chopped green onions.*

"I wouldn't care if you didn't make this again," Clark said, as he returned his plate to the kitchen, nearly untouched. He can't deal with peanuts in his pasta.

I will make it again – next time as a soup. Just for me.

*I boiled 3 sweet potatoes, & mashed them with some cooking liquid, using my immersion blender. I added 2 cloves of chopped garlic, salt to taste, & about 3/4 C. peanut butter. For soup, I'll add chicken broth. Cream would be good too, but I'm trying to limit that. I might try cilantro &/or mint for garnish with the green onions.

UnspOILed

Horrible serendipity caused writer Susan Cerulean & others to collect essays & poetry to "speak with one voice across Florida" against drilling for oil. This was five months before the BP oil spill, so the collection that resulted, UnspOILed: Writers Speak for Florida's Coast, has potent urgency. Saturday I heard several of the writers read their pieces at Native Nurseries. I was impressed with their passion & how they seem to be able to put their words into action. They were: Julie Hauserman, Diane Roberts of FSU, Crystal Wakoa, Grace Jackson, & O. Victor Miller of Georgia & Florida.

Boston Cream Pie

All I have to do is say it's my mom's recipe: you know it's delicious.

Boston Cream Pie is festive but it's not hard to make. It's Mom's sponge cake, split & filled with vanilla cream, then topped with chocolate glaze. The heart pan made it special; I made it Wednesday for a little girl we love.

Mom's Sponge Cake

1 C. sifted flour

1 tsp. baking powder

dash salt

1/2 C. milk

1 T. butter

2 eggs

1 C. sugar

1. Sift dry ingredients together.
2. Scald milk with the butter. Let butter melt. (I use a glass measuring cup & put it in the microwave until little bubbles form on the sides, but it doesn't boil. Takes less than a minute.)
3. Beat the eggs a lot, until they lose that eggy look & become light.
4. Gradually beat in the sugar.
5. Then add the dry ingredients. Stir until just mixed.
6. Add hot milk with butter & vanilla.
7. Pour into buttered & floured 9" cake pan (I used a heart-shaped pan.) Mom often used a skillet (an 8" iron skillet or a frying pan that is about that size. Mine is 7 1/2" at the base and 10 1/2" at the top.) Bake 30 min. at 350°.
8. Cool & then remove cake from the pan. (Don't use a skillet if you plan to remove the cake from the pan.),
9. For Boston Cream Pie split the cooled cake carefully with a long serrated knife & spread bottom layer with cream. Put second layer on top of the cream. Decorate with powdered sugar or a thin chocolate glaze.

*Other Sponge Cake options from Mom:

• Pierce the top (a lot) with fork tines as soon as the cake comes out of the oven & immediately pour lemon syrup (made with equal parts lemon juice & sugar, maybe a half cup of each, that you boil until the sugar melts) over it so it seeps into the cake.
• Lightly sprinkle sugar on the buttered pan, top with two peeled & thinly sliced pears or apples, & pour the cake batter on top.
• In a skillet, melt a little butter, add enough brown sugar to cover the bottom of the pan, & melt it. Then add fruit such as pineapple (fresh is best). Pour the cake batter on top for Upside-down Cake.

Mom's Cream Filling

Mix together in saucepan:

• 2 tbl. flour
• 2 tbl cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 C. sugar
• lump of butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla

1. Add 2 C. milk. Cook over moderate heat until thick, stirring all the while or it will burn.
2. Remove from stove.
3. Add 1 egg, this way: Crack the egg into a little bowl & beat it. Then take a teaspoon or so of the still-hot cream & beat it into the egg. Then the egg is kind of prepared for the heat & is less likely to curdle. Mix the egg into the pudding. Stir in quickly & well. This is the trickiest step of making a pudding. If you don't do it right, the egg will start to turn to scrambled eggs. Don't worry – it's not hard to do it right, but it does take patience.
4. Put the mixture back onto the stove & cook 3 minutes longer, stirring all the while.
5. Remove from the heat & stir in the lump of butter & vanilla.
6. Cool.

*You can make chocolate cream by adding cocoa to the sugar mixture, or by stirring in good chocolate at the last step. If you use brown sugar you've got butterscotch pudding. I've never combined the two, but doesn't that sound good?

Chocolate Glaze

It's trial & error here: I mix some confectioner's sugar with some cocoa & add some water, a little at a time. Then I beat the lumps out.

You could also melt bittersweet chocolate with a lump of butter.

Gone (not) Fishing

Saturday we drove to St. Marks for lunch. The Riverside Cafe still had grouper sandwiches, but that was it. We were having friends for dinner, & fresh fish – snapper or grouper – was on the menu. But we couldn't find any for sale. The fish dock next to the restaurant had none. Lynn's was closed. Lighthouse Seafood offered only mullet & shrimp. The waters around St. Marks are not closed to fishing, but it appears that there's little fishing going on."All the fishing boats are out looking for oil; they're not fishing," the woman inside told us. When we wished her well, she thanked us & said, "Things look bad."

Quilt collage postcard

I made this 4" x 6" postcard for Rodney, who is sick. I don't know if you can see the stitching around the images & edges. I love to send small, vulnerable cards in the mail with just a stamp, not even an envelope. It's kind of a miracle that they arrive. The poem is one of my favorites, It's the Dream by Olav Hauge:

It's the dream we carry

that something wondrous will happen,

that it must happen

time will open

hearts will open

mountains will open

spring will gush forth from the ground

that the dream itself will open

that one morning we'll quietly drift

into a harbor we didn't know was there.

Taste of blue

Patrick & Steph are rich in berries, & yesterday we picked some. Is that why they taste so good? For dessert I made cobbler, using my sweet biscuit recipe, with half & half instead of heavy cream. I just put the biscuits on top of the berries, mixed with sugar, lemon juice, & a little lemon rind. The rest will be beautiful with cantaloupe.