Granola Giveaway Winners!

Congratulations to Michelle from All Home Cooking. All Year Long. and Sarah at All Our Fingers in the Pie, our winners for the first ever Great Granola Giveaway. Ladies, please email your addresses to pisces chick 99 at gmail dot com and I'll send your goodies on their way.

I hope to have another of these contests soon, and next time I plan on trying to find more "ingredient-y" type goodies, since most of my peeps prefer to grow/cook/brew/bake their own tasty treats. In trying to put together an appealing lot of Pacific Northwest num-nums, I learned a few things about myself and the food of my region -

a) If you can't ship a Big Tom's burger, a Puyallup Fair Scone, an ETG mocha, an alder-plank grilled fillet of king salmon, homemade rhubarb wine or a caught-that-day homemade crab cake (YUM!), how can one effectively communicate the bad-but-oh-so-good food of the Puget Sound region?

b) Many of my favorite Olympia/Puget Sound foods are only available when the Farmer's Market is open, which around here, is not until April. D'oh!

c) In shopping for the Northwest's greatest hits, I kept bumping into the same 3 things - coffee, candy and alcohol. Lest you've never visited my humble stomping grounds, let me just say that the weather leaves the people of my good city seeking a little "boost" of one sort or another. Therefore, even though coffee and chocolate can no-way-no-how be grown in this climate, our love, nay, NEED of the caffeine & sugar have elevated coffee roasting and candy making to new heights 'round here. The notable exception: Aplets & Cotlets, which I have, despite my better judgement, included in these prize packages for the winners to judge for themselves.

So stay tuned for more goody-bag giveaways, most likely in late spring and early summer, when the garden is beginning to produce and the farmers markets are bustling. Again, congrats to our winners - enjoy! :)

Pay it Forward ~ Granola Giveaway!

Inspired by the "pay it forward"-style giveaways on some of my favorite foodie blogs, I have decided to do the same. Ergo - The first ever Great Granola Giveaway!

Here's how it works - I have two prize packages up for grabs. To enter to win you must simply leave a comment on this post, specifying which lot of goodies you'd prefer. Followers of the blog will be entered twice! This Friday I will use random.org to help me choose my two winners and will send your northwest-themed goodies on their merry way to your neck of the woods. Simple! Fun! Yummy! However - there is one catch...

If you are one of the winners of the giveaway, you too must agree to host a pay-it-forward style giveaway on your blog, featuring selected goodies for your region and/or a few of your favorite foodie delights. By entering you agree to these terms so that the merry sharing may carry on infinitely. :)

Here are your prize packages-



Numero Uno contains: 1 pound of Batdorf & Bronson's "Dancing Goats Blend" whole bean coffee, 1 box of Cougar Mountain's "Apple & Walnut" cookies, 1 Seattle Chocolate's "Pike Place Espresso" dark choclate truffle bar, and one jar of Blueberry jam, made by yours truly.



Numero Dos contains: 1 tub of Tom Douglas' "Rub with Love" salmon rub, 1 bottle of Anna's Fireweed honey, 1 Chehalis Mints "Chocolate Espresso" bar, 1 jar of my extra-thick homemade applesauce, 1 jar of my favoritest-ever "Summer Solstice" homemade jam, and one jar of my infamous sauerkraut. ;)

I may add to these lots as I think of/find/make new local goodies. In the mean time, leave your comment and/or follow this blog to enter to win. Remember that you must have a blog and be willing to host a giveaway of your own to be eligible to win. Thanks for reading & Good Luck!

Update: Bwahaha! I just realized that I had forgotten to throw some Almond Roca and/or Frangos in with the packages as I had intended. So the actual goody pack that you receive will have one or both in addition to what I've already listed. And if I'm feeling particularly saucy/mean, I might just force some Aplets & Cotlets on you too... ;)

Enter the Lion

We've had an odd mix of weather here in Western Washington these past few weeks. Torrential downpours interspersed with gorgeous sunshine and freezing overnight temperatures. Mother Nature's seasonal schizophrenia has tricked many a plant into popping up early, only to be zapped by frost. Of the nettles, daffodils, fiddleheads and dandelions, believe it or not, the one that I am most excited about this year is the much-maligned dandelion.

The dandelion, or Taraxacum Officinale, is so named because once upon a time, the raggedly-toothed leaves reminded someone of a lion's tooth or dent de lion. Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I've hated them with the fire of a thousand suns for as long as I can remember. But if there's one way to change my tune about a plant, it's to tell me that it is not only edible but can be made into wine. Viola - instant dandelion fan!

Having been long-since sold on the sheer delightfulness of dandelion wine (described by many as "sunshine in a bottle"), I've been keeping a sharp eye out for the appearance of the first yellow menace. I found my first few just today. So far, they are only growing on the south side of the house which tells me that I caught them nice and early in the season - woohoo! And so, I pluck a few dozen flowers and sit down to the larger task of separating the petals from the greenery. This takes forever and a day, of course, and yields an amount so paltry that it won't even register on the scale. Hooboy I've got a lot of dandy-pickin' in my near future. I've already enlisted the kids to help me with the next batch of blooms. Wrangling my kids into helping me make wine - I've got the Mother of the Year award practically sewn up!



Fortunately for me, the recipe that I am using calls for a volume of petals (6 cups!), rather than a weight or I'd need to be picking weeds 'round the clock. As it is, I'm kind of eyeballing my neighbor's yards for dandelions. If I play my cards right, in addition to Mother of the Year, I can also be that-weird-lady-who-steals-weeds.

Right now I only have about a cup of petals, so it'll be at least a week before I can start my wine, but when I do, I'll be sure to post details & pics of the process.

The Bird Girl of Oly-town

Today was the last day of this year's Great Backyard Bird Count. For those of you who don't know my family personally, we have, in the form of a sassy soon-to-be 10 year old girl, a self-described "bird nerd" in the house. She was a penguin this past Halloween, and a big yellow chicken the year before that. We have 7 critters in the house, 6 of whom are birds. She has literally memorized word for word every field guide in the house. The girl likes birds.

Therefore, this bird-centric day was practically Christmas part 2 for my sweet Olivia. She, her little sister and I joined my friend and her son for a leisurely walk through the woods to see and hear who and what was either living in or passing through our home turf. Here is the list of birds that we either saw/heard or both in the wetland meadow and woods near my home, as well as a few that we spotted in the back yard today.

Western Gull - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Steller's Jay - 2
American/Northwestern Crow - 1
Black-capped Chickadee - 4
Chestnut-backed Chickadee - 4
Bewick's Wren - 1
American Robin - 2
Spotted Towhee (Pacific) - 2
Fox Sparrow - 1
Song Sparrow - 2
Dark-eyed Junco - 4
House Finch - 2

You think that all of that walking and watching would have been enough bird-filled action for my girl, but nooooo. She wanted to make the birds a snack to boot. Fortunately, I happened to have all of the necessary ingredients on hand to whip up a homemade suet cake. Here's what we used-

1 cup +/- rendered beef fat (from last night's dinner of short ribs)
1 tbsp organic peanut butter
1/4 cup +/- each of cornmeal, unbleached flour, unsalted sunflower seeds, cracked corn & roasted pumpkin seeds (leftover from Halloween)

We mixed the dry ingredients well, while the fat was melting.



Then we slowly added that melted fat & peanut butter to the dry mixture. After combining well, Miss Olivia patted it all firmly into a pie plate to harden.



After about an hour in the freezer, we popped out our "cake" and hung it up in the feeder (made by my darling husband especially for this project) in the cherry tree just outside our picture window.



And there you have a banner day for my little Miss bird nerd and her feathered friends.

Roses and Wine

Actually, it was roses in wine on this particular Valentines Day. We strained and racked the rose hip wine today. Here it is going into the bottle, in which it will continue to ferment and clear over the next three months -



The color was pretty surprising since I was expecting a pinkish-orange brew, rather than the o.j. color that we ended up with. It just goes to show you never know with chemistry...



But the thing that you're probably most interested to hear about is the taste, and I'm pleased to say that both the wine's taste and smell (or should I say bouquet?) are quite good, even at this very early stage. It has a light, sweet apple/pear flavor that reminds me of a very light version of a hard cider, but with - at this stage- a very yeasty kick. I'm always impatient when it comes to drinking my finished wine, but this one has me counting the days 'til we can pour a glass. :)

Rose Hip Wine - Day 3

"Ferm, baby, ferm! Vino inferno! Ferm, baby, ferm - makin' al-kee-hall..."



I know it looks a little scary, but we're just 2 days away from straining out all of the chunkage and moving this yumminess into a jug to continue fermenting. This is my first non-fruit wine, so I am both excited and nervous to taste this. Provided that the first sip doesn't kill me, I'll keep you posted on it's progress.

Aunt Ethel's Cobbler

Having recently stumbled upon a massive cache of frozen blueberries, I've been mulling over how to best use them - ice cream? sorbet? maybe pie? Then I came across the Huckle Buckle recipe contest over at Fat of the Land and knew immediately what I wanted to do with all of those lovely berries - make up a batch of Aunt Ethel's cobbler.



Aunt Ethel was the baker in my Grandmother's generation. She made this incredible cobbler for every family reunion and I remember passing up the home made ice cream for seconds on cobbler. Oh the calorie-careless days of youth...

Anyway, this is my version of Aunt Ethel's recipe. You can use just about any fruit that you want with this cobbler batter, but I most often use berries (blueberries, huckleberries or blackberries, typically) or, once in a while, peaches. My absolute favorite thing about this recipe - besides the taste! - is that it is SO quick and simple to make. I have mentioned my ineptitude at baking many times, but my success with this cobbler proves that foolproof recipes do exist, and if you're really lucky, you also have a really cool Great Aunt to give them to you. ;) Without further ado, Aunt Ethel's Cobbler-

Batter-
1/2 Stick Butter
1 1/2 c. Sugar
2 c. flour
1 c. milk
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. baking powder

Fruit-
1 1/2 c. blueberries (or just about any fruit)
1 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a 11x7 (or similar size) casserole dish in the oven. Remove and let butter cool slightly.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar, flour, salt & baking powder well.

In a separate bowl, measure out your berries or other fruits and sprinkle them with the tablespoon of sugar. Toss well.

Finally, add milk to the flour mixture and mix well until a thick batter forms. Pour the batter into the buttery casserole dish. Some butter will come up over the batter, that is ok. Lastly, sprinkle/drop the sugared berries into the batter - do not stir. Bake @ 350 degrees for about 1 hour, checking every so often to ensure that the top doesn't get too brown before the middle has had a chance to set-up. If you see this happening, you can put a piece of foil over the top to slow things down a bit. Check for doneness with a toothpick. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

This tastes AMAZING with vanilla ice cream, but is pretty fantastic all by itself.