Just say no to dried leftovers...and a story

Its Sunday after a holiday and you just need to stop beating yourself up over what to do with that leftover Turkey.
So here is a favorite dish we like here at the Heywood house.
( you know I am cheating- since we did not have turkey... but I am just trying to save you!)


Picadillo
Recipes for picadillo vary with each country and or region in Latin America.
This one is from my mother Anna Henderson and was her favorite.
I have made some changes and so can you add more hot or less- add more spices if you like.
You can use this in tacos, burritos, or chilaquiles.
We like to make it and serve it with rice, black beans and corn or flour tortillas.

2 pounds of good ground beef- we use our locally raised grass fed beef- or you can use ground turkey or 1/2 pork
2 onions chopped
1-2 cloves garlic
1- apple peeled, cored and chopped
1 red bell pepper sliced
1 yellow bell pepper sliced
1 pound (about 3 medium) tomatoes- or canned- or homegrown frozen.
1-3 jalapenos
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup pimiento olives, cut in half
1/8 tsp. cinnamon and cloves
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper

Saute onions, peppers and garlic in 2 tbs. oil.
cook and drain meat and add to saute
add all the rest and simmer 20-30 minutes.
enjoy!

On another note- we are thankful to be here today after almost being hit by a fool who ran a red light  from the right as we entered into the intersection on our way out to dinner last night. Thank you anti-lock breaks and Marks quick reaction as the fool went right in front of us. We hit just enough to scrape his car, we have now added black to our front bumper, as he continued on his way. I saw him stop just for a second and them take off.
Needless to say we ordered a drink as soon as we sat down and tried to figure out what just happened. The light turned green as two cars were running the light- you fools. There was no one in the intersection as we pulled out. I was doing my wifely thing by talking to Mark, blah,blah,blah and then he said I said "Car" and he saw it coming and hit the brakes hard.
I don't know who you were, where you were going and why you would run a full on red light doing at least 65 or if you have a death wish, but we are happy to be here and you fool just get on down the road and remember to watch out because karma is a bitch and she is looking for you.
To all my  readers, family and friends,
Be safe, share the road and think when you drive.
M

More kiln cookies

Sesame Seed Cookies
1 stick of butter, melted
add:
1/2 c. sugar
1 beaten egg
4 or 5 T. sesame seeds
1 t. vanilla
mix in:
2 cups of flour sifted with ½ teaspoon salt and baking powder

Mix together well and form into a brick or log.
Wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper and
Chill for about an hour, slice into 1/4 inch thick slices
and bake at 350 for 15 - 18 minutes.

A great, not real, sweet treat -- a favorite with red wine.

 Peanut butter cookies no flour:
1 cup peanut butter- I like to use all natural chunky-
1 egg
1 cup sugar
Bake 350 for about 15 minutes.

Kiln Cookies

When I married Mark I married into a family who baked.
In my house we went straight to the food.
We were all about savory and tasty.
I grew up with two parents who read recipe books like novels.
They would read, take the recipe apart and serve up wonderful meals.
When I meet Louise I learned to bake.
Cooking was not her thing.
Opening cans or boxes- throwing a piece of meat on the grill would be the highlight of the meal but she could out bake anyone I knew.
I had to learn through her that you did not take apart these recipes and you followed directions.
If it says sift you sift.
If it says soft butter, use soft butter- not melted.
It also taught me how to wait.
Baking takes times.
Now my trick is to take one day to mix several doughs and another to bake.
So here you go- two of my tried and true cookies from Louise

Oatmeal Cookies
mix together thoroughly
1/2 cup soft butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
6 Tbs. Molasses

Sift and add to above mixture
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Stir in
2 cups oats
1/2 cup nuts
1 cup raisins

Drop in rounded spoonfuls 2" apart on a lightly greased baking sheet.
Bake 4oo* 8- 10 min

Cowboy Cookies
1 cup cooking oil
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs

2 cups flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 cups quick oats
1/2 cup nuts
1 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix oil, sugar, and eggs and vanilla.
Add flour, soda, salt and baking powder.
(sift these together to get a good mix first)
Stir in oats, nuts, and chips.
bake 350* 10-12 min.

Louise and Our son Joel with his wife Katie- Christmas 2008

Bees and such

I was asked to make a tile of house numbers for a friend a few years ago.
This week I thought I need to make those tiles and I had inspiration from Julia over at Henhouse pottery. After all she has some great pictures of her bees on her website. I was so thankful to see her gorgeous bees. It helped to put them in perspective for me.
They are not just round circles with eyes- and big goofy grins. Her bees are so wonderful and they were my study for the tiles.
Now it is not as if these are lifelike- but they are made me see them better as far as shape and where the legs and feelers go.
So thanks Julia!

The tile has bees on it because when our friends moved into their house there were bees everywhere. Their son looked at all the bees and said, "I guess this is the house of bees."


I am making cruets as well and I get a kick out of the "skirt" on the ladies as I am carving the clay.
Back to work!

And if you get a chance I am talking about bread on the cooking blog- enjoy the weather!

Fits and starts and baking bread

Mark just sent me the funny from above. After 2008 we thought we might get a "get out of jail free" card for 2009. I don't think it works that way.

So far for 2009: I lost my keys and a wallet at Lowe's Hardware- good thing was they were turned into lost and found and everything was there.

I glued a round of tiles and the glue did not hold. We figured I must have let the glue freeze or get too cold sitting out on the porch before Christmas- I was going to post on how I do this, but I will wait until I get new glue. I spent last night pulling off the backs I had glued on and scraping away the glue. The good thing was- the tiles were not hung and did not fall off the walls.

I know there are good things going on - I just have a short fuse for the minor things right now.

You get a bit tense after 6 months of not having your space and thinking when will this be over?

But- it has only been 6 months and yesterday we, Mark, hung shop lights and finished putting in the shelving in the redone mix room. We then hung 3 ceiling fans. I am the helper- I put things together, hand tools and hold things.

Then in the afternoon I baked bread.

I stopped to see Tom Gray the other day and had a great chat with him about baking bread.

Between him and my son they have convinced me to throw out some of my "dated" ideas on bread and give these new ones a go.

Oh, my- I am sold. Tom lent me a copy of his book on Artisan breads which I have been reading along with the Bread Bible. So I set to work on an experiment.

I used water, yeast, salt bread flour and wheat flour to make a "sponge" which I set out to rise in a plastic container for about 3 hours. And rise it did- all the way to the top. I folded it down and put it into the refrigerator for the night. The next morning I pulled out a chunk of sticky dough and shaped it into a ball, covered and gave it two hours to rise.

I had preheated the oven to 450 degrees with a pan on the lowest rack.

Well, I knew I needed to water bath so I put water on to boil.

I must have put about 5 cups of water in the pan- because I did not go back and reread the amount to use.

Put the bread in , which I had in a shallow pan.

There was steam pouring out of the oven, which worried Mark. I thought- maybe I had better check the amount- Oh, 1cup water.....

The bread came out with a beautiful golden top, but a tad under done on the bottom.

Note: use different pan.

BUT- the taste was absolutely wonderful.

Moist and Chewy- we sliced it after it cooled and ate 1/2 on the spot.

Yesterday's bread was baked on the bottom of my cast iron skillet with less water.

I use a muffin tin filled with water.

It did not get the same chewy golden top but the inside or "crumb" was again moist and chewy.

Mark, who has been with me since the earth cooled and has eaten a lot of home baked bread in our time together, was ecstatic over the bread. He eats bread several times a day. I have been trying not to eat bread too often. It loves to cling to my thighs. But- yesterday after cutting the bread I thought- what can I give up to eat this bread? Salad maybe?

We had bread and brie for lunch it was tasty!

Time to start another batch.

Thanks Tom- I'll get your book back to you.

Count down to Christmas.......

The kids as they humor their mother and let her take a picture.

A girl and her Dad--------- what can I say? That's his girl!

November 30th....... that leaves just a tad over 3 weeks for you to go out and get your shopping done!

Me- I have just begun. It is what happens when you are retail!

So - go out and support a local artist!

Give someone something to enhance their lives.

Something to eat out of, drink out of, serve off of or just to make them smile.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving- but hold on to your hats-

Here comes Christmas!

Are you tired of turkey?

Thanksgiving

Our son and his future bride are here. So far Joel has smoked a turkey and Katie has made a pie, jello salad and homemade noodles for today.
If I play my cards right all I have to do is set the table......
And maybe some green beans and some potatoes- a bit of bread.
We will miss our daughter Anna and her boyfriend- but Anna is coming Friday for the weekend.
Should we save you a leg?
I hope you are all happy and well.

The Stars come out in Seagrove

It was cold last night in Seagrove, but that did not stop the folks from coming out. We had a great turn out and the crowd had a wonderful time.

The committee and the "curtain" hangers did a beautiful job of transforming the Old Luck's Bean cannery into a wonderful night scene.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy. First up our very own Fred Johnston of Johnston and Gentithes Art Pottery with Gary Spivey from LA now but formally a local from down the road.
Carol and Gary-


I love this picture Of Donna Craven and her mother. Mom helps Donna fire her woodkiln. Now that's love!
More to come- check out Tom and Bulldog for more.
GOTTAGO!

Here's looking at you Tom

I wanted to snap a few shots of set up , but my batteries died.
I did get two of Tom Gray who is across and down two booths from me.
I will post more later- because it looks like a fair number of us who live within spitting distance are all set up together.
Dan- from Dirtworks is next to me on the right, then Kovack and Dixieland on my left and then Tom just up and across from Dan.
We drew numbers for booths so go figure.
We want to put up a sign which would read Potters of Whynot- which is the community we live in.
We all live in Whynot North Carolina just 2 miles outside the town limits of Seagrove.
I don't know if you can see it but I used canned goods from Luck's products as risers for some of my pots. I planned to donate them to the food drive at the end of the show.
Pinto beans, black eyed peas and fried apples- they all use to be made here, but
the company was bought out and they are now canned way out in California.

Well- it's like watching paint dry............

You have seen the curried rice paint... it is bright and we are adding some tropical turquoise blue over near it. Sorry you can't see it yet.
We found some paint at Lowe's on the discount/return table and we are all about saving money on paint.
So I am calling this one toasted almonds to go along with the curried rice.
We think we like the turquoise color well enough to trim the windows with it.
Note the Red electric box- we thought it needed a face lift as well. The electrician thought we should add some flames to it.
We decided we saw enough shooting flames in this room in July.
NO- flames!


The back wall is being painted in the adobe with some crimson red added to darken the color.
It was too pink. We like the warm mud color.
It looks better all painted.
I have a green, my lettuce leaves green,to go in the back room.

When we left the room tonight it was covered with the display for the weekend show.

The display needed touch up and since we can't find this or that since the fire we repainted the display in the toasted almond paint.

I almost went for the turquoise --- but- better stay neutral....

So- check off the list paint for today- found the booth - listed a cookie recipe on the cooking blog and did not step on any toads!

It is a good day.

My List

My list while the kiln is cooling:

1.Paint Walls------

2. Find booth-----

3. post some recipes on the yearsofcooking page.

4. don't step on any toads

Roast Chicken with Pomegranate Glaze and fresh mint

I have posted this recipe on my cooking page


When we had dinner with friends Dan and Jim from Dirtworks Pottery ( remember the pineapple upside down cake?).I mentioned my mother use to buy me and my other 4 siblings a pomegranate every year. With 5 kids in just under 6 years I am sure this gave her a bit of quiet while we figured out how to break into these things and get out the seeds.

I can remember spending the time to break it apart and eat all the sour tasting seeds out of it.



My friend Dan told me he had a tree growing at his mothers house and had grown up eating them. I didn't know you could grow them in NC.

So last week he shows up to see the building and brings me about a dozen.

I had to make the chicken since I had always used just the bottled juice.

We invited our fellow potters and friends from Bulldog and Avery Pottery over to share the food-

We made roasted chicken, roasted vegetables and homemade bread.

Oh- and ice cream with blueberry sauce- I'll have to post up the blueberry sauce as well.

Yum- winter foods.

Let them eat cake!

It's been three months since the fire. In fact the date of October 9Th came and went and I had to remind myself it had been three months. The past month,once the building went down and hauled away and the reconstruction started, things have improved daily.
Last week we glazed, fired and unloaded the kiln- a strange firing- lots of refires, but you can't have everything.


I am packing pots for a show which we do next week-end.
Meanwhile Mark is trying to throw- I am going to fire tiles and some trays in the electric kiln and we are both working in the 12x16 room.


Hummm a testimony to the marriage - maybe.
I think we both want our spaces back so bad it is hard to leave. Hour by hour things get better.
Yesterday they put up ceiling. Today walls- then it will be paint. See it is getting there.



So anyway- the cake.


I posted this cake on my cooking blog and Tom Gray picked it up and made it. So did other folks as it has made its way around the web.


Mark was green! He loves Pineapple upside down cake and this is his grandmother's recipe. I promised one to him and here it is- baked in a glass pan.


I am going to season up my cast iron because the one Tom made looked the best to date! Hands down.
So- the cake was delicious and Mark moaned over the last piece last night.
We did share with friends we had dinner with. Not that Mark could not do a bigger share himself-.
So- cake- pots building- it is all coming along.

Cookies

I have not had much time in the kitchen the last few months.
It has been get in and get out.
The kitchen has always been a creative outlet for me as well as pottery.
I have friends who has said get a hobby- I work my hobby for a living- so some days I need to cook.
I made Whole Wheat and Rosemary Focaccia Bread which I plan to serve with marinated red pepper, onions, garlic, artichoke hearts, olives and feta cheese.
And for a sweet treat some fast and easy peanut butter cookies .
This is my first try of taking pictures of food.
Work with me girls- I have to be fast Mark is here and the pile is getting smaller!
M