Admonishment

I've been admonished for treating my blog like a website. I have been accused of only posting recipes. Yesterday at the Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference I read a PowerPoint slide that said "Blogging is about Conversations."

Ok. Guilty as charged. I mainly post recipes here so that I can say to my family--"Oh, you can find the recipe on my blog"--so that I don't have to type them up and email them to every person who asks, "Can I get the recipe for this?"

Sometimes I feel like I spend so much time thinking about work, which means thinking about writing and pedagogy and reading and grading papers and defending the F I gave to a student with a 6th grade vocabulary and 3rd grade spelling skills, and getting published, and going to conferences, and buying plane tickets that I just don't have time to think of witty wordsmithing for my blog. In fact, I guess I use my blog for recording something I don't really have to think that much about--cooking.

Of course, for some reason, my recipes never work out when I make them at home for my parents. I swear to this day they have never had a meal prepared by me that tastes good. Things always get messed up when I cook at their house--spices go awry; I try new recipes that fail; things burn. There are people in at least four states and two countries who would tell you I've cooked the best food they've ever had, but my parents always seem to get the bruschetta that went wrong, the stuffing I decided to fill with garlic cloves, or the risotto to which I added tumeric instead of saffron. Someday I'd like to cook a meal for them that goes just right. I'd like it to be like the dinner party I had in August, with the melon soups and the squash lasagne.

So...what do you write in a blog? I guess I don't really know, since I've been doing it wrong all this time. Oh well. I'll try harder.

Gardener Village Encounter

Last weekend patrick and I went to Gardener Village, a great place for an afternoon stroll among crafty country shops. He met up with some old friends and I almost got jealous until he bought me a beautiful skirt and took my picture with this fake flower! Here he is with his old girlfriends.

Breakfast

Today I had an interesting Breakfast and I thought, "Other people might like this, too." So, I'm putting it up on my blog.

Almost Apple Pie

I use this "filling" as a sweet pancake or ice cream topping, or I eat it by itself when I need a sweet fix and don't have much in the house but apples...and I always have apples.

1 apple
3/4 cup water
2 Tblsp Splenda
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Put all this in a little pot and cook it on the stove until the apples are soft and half the liquid has evaporated. Then, in a little bowl or cup, mix together 1 Tblsp white flour and 3 Tblsp water with a fork. When the flour is dissolved in the water, pour it into the apple mixture, still on the stove over medium heat. The apple mixture will instantly get thick. Stir everything up for a few seconds then take it off the stove and let it rest. It is yummy.

Whole Oat Groats
If you don't know about whole oat groats get some. They are great! They have more texture and are not as viscous as oatmeal, have more fiber and more flavor. They make a nice rice-substitute, pilaf-like side dish or they make a delicious hot breakfast cereal, especially good with the apple mixture above. You can get them in the natural section of your supermarket. They are made by "Red Mills."

Dividing the directions on the package to make only one serving does not work. You need to add a lot more water or else it will evaporate off and you will have burned groat briquettes. I suggest this:

Combine 1/4 cup oat groats, 1/4 tsp kosher salt, and 1 1/2 cups water in a very small covered sauce pan over high heat. Bring mixture to a boil and then turn down heat to low. Keep the lid partly off the pan to allow steam to escape; otherwise you will have a gooey, foamy mess on your hands. you will need to let this stuff simmer for about tan hour, so this isn't a dish for those who need breakfast quickly. You can cook it in advance though. Check on the groats periodically to make sure all the water has not evaporated. If it has, add enough to cover the groats and bring it back to a boil. After 50 minutes or thereabouts, either add a little water or let enough boil off so that the groats are not dry, but only have a little water left on them--sort of like wet rice.

Add a little butter or margarine and some Splenda. If you can have sugar, you should add honey because it tastes so good on the groats. If you are like me and shouldn't have honey, use Splenda. I’m sure that very soon we will have honey flavored Splenda. You can already buy Brown Sugar Splenda, but be careful as this mixture actually is part brown sugar. It has the moist molasses texture of brown sugar, so it works in recipes with half the sugar. I believe that one day there will be a molasses flavored Splenda as well so that people who shouldn't have half the sugar will be able to get the molasses flavor without the glucose.

In any case, enjoy it with fruit, cottage cheese or just by itself. Try it with the stewed apples recipe above. It is a great rainy day treat.

Groceries?

I know something must be changing because today when I dumped my groceries up on the checkout counter I had Smart Balance Omega 3 Peanut Butter Spread, Smart Balance Light Margarine Spread, Dryer's No Sugar Added Fat Free Ice Cream, Dried Apples, and something called Pumpkin Flax Plus Low Fat Granola, and I was actually happy about it all and thinking it would be good.

Times they are a changing.