A happy St. Nicholas morning

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

This is one of our favorite mornings each year, and today was quite sweet. We had a St. Nicholas party earlier this week, and so we already read our St. Nicholas stories, ate our St. Nicholas cookies, and found coins in our shoes once - but I couldn't resist doing a little something again this morning.

The girls put out their shoes last night, and found them this morning filled with quite a lot of gold (chocolate) coins, and a few stickers - each girl got stickers just right for them - ocean creatures and pink ponies. There was even spontaneous sharing! It was a simple treat, but enough to remember the secret kindness of the real St. Nicholas, the joy of charity and gift giving in this frantic season.

So we spent this quiet St. Nicholas morning coloring pictures for the stickers, nibbling on chocolate [and coffee], while listening to the last few chapters of The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe. We picked up on the joyous chapter where the stone creatures come back to life:

Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing round him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all that deadly white the courtyard was now a blaze of colours; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, indigo horns of unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs and satyrs, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the birch-girls in silver, and the beech-girls in fresh, transparent green, and the larch-girls in green so bright that it was almost yellow. And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter.

This is a bittersweet day for me: reminding me of the joy of children and life, saints and loved ones in heaven, and the kindness and goodness that connects us all. This reading from C. S. Lewis seemed just right. Life, color, laughter returns with the king.

And I had my own little St. Nicholas Day miracle! I've been wanting an out of print book for a few years, but used copies are listed on Amazon for ridiculous prices in the $1,000's. I set up a saved search thingy on Ebay. Occasionally I get an email saying the book is for sale for something like $100, and I just delete the email. Last week, I got an email saying the book was listed for $5.98! I snatched it up before someone else did! A nice thick book arrived in the mail just in time for St. Nicholas Day, so this morning, I'll settle in with my coffee for some reading.

I'll share our The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe studies soon! In the meantime, wishing you all a happy St. Nicholas Day.

Find activities and stories at the St. Nicholas center, or read my other St. Nicholas Day posts.

Koulourakia

A friend of mine asked me to try his recipe for Koulourakia. And given my love for baking things in funny shapes, I've made these many times now. They're kind of like the Christmas butter cookies I grew up with, but not nearly as dry. Plus, they're super pretty with sesame seeds sprinkled on top, and they go nicely with hot coffee in the morning. 

There appear to be as many variations of this recipe as there are Greek bloggers. :) This recipe is close to the one I used, but this one is nice, too, with lots of pictures. I took some pictures to show how I twisted the shapes. A good recipe will make a strong dough that's not too sticky so they twist up quickly and nicely. 

Happy New Year!

The holidays are so often a rush and a whisper - a whirlwind of busy-ness and a call to peacefulness.  Ours has been a bit paradoxical, both lovely and lonely. And I am eager to hold on to the lingering lovely moments that we have before our routine returns, to hold on to them and plant them into our routine.

I made an absolutely beautiful loaf of bread, but didn't bother to photograph it until it was almost gone. Yet, its beauty persists each morning as we eat another toasted slice. 

And despite our abnormal schedule and irregular appointments, we are still pouring two cups of coffee each morning and washing the dishes [most days]. This is beautiful, too. This is life and it persists despite our disrupted routines.

I have no idea what is in store this year, what projects we will undertake, what joys and tragedies we will face, but I am going in with my eyes wide open. I am determined to make this a year of love and not argument. I am looking and looking. Wishing you much love and beauty this year!

"Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute, at the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there. Perhaps it was distorted, perhaps damaged, but it was beauty none the less, and what he did was to call out this beauty... 

And this is what we must learn to do with regard to each person as an individual, but also - and this is not always as easy - with regard to groups of people or a nation. We must learn to look, and look until we have seen the underlying beauty of this group of people. 

Only then can we even begin to do something to call out all the beauty that is there. 

Listen to other people, and whenever you discern something which sounds true, which is a revelation of harmony and beauty, emphasize it and help it to flower. Strengthen it and encourage it to live." - Met. Anthony Bloom

Braided Brioche and Doughnuts

One thing I love about the Bread in Five book is that I get to try a bunch of new recipes at once.  I made the brioche dough finally, and made several recipes from it.  I'm going to have to add a whole tag just for the book, I think...

The first recipe I made was a plain brioche, braided. I thought I should keep the first loaf simple, although I couldn't resist an attempt at braiding. It was much easier than I expected. I forgot to take a picture of the final loaf, but isn't it pretty anyway?

And also, doughnuts - which I've successfully made before with the regular dough, but its much yummier with the brioche. I have to admit I was a little hesitant about deep frying, but it was so worth it. It's basically the same as the beignets recipe, but who can resist the donut shape? I rolled my dough and then cut my circles with a biscuit cutter. I needed a very small circle for the hole, so I used the top of a glass bottle to cut out the centers, which I thought worked quite well.

These are long gone, of course, and I think it maybe time to try another batch...

Colored Eggs

Easter is almost here, and we're getting ready by dyeing eggs.

A few people asked questions about our eggs so here's a quick summary:
We have six hens and one rooster. Two hens are bantams and give small eggs, while the rest lay extra large ones. It makes measuring interesting. We get almost 3 dozen eggs per week, which is a little too much for us, but not quite enough to bother trying to sell at the farmer's market. We've been sharing with friends, but we're also going to start making more egg dishes. When we move to our own land, we'd like them to be free range, but right now they have a pretty good size run in the woods. All the grass is gone, but we give the grass clippings from the mower when we can and cracked corn every day.

So here they are before. I wasn't sure how the colors would work with some of the dark brown eggs. It just happens that all the bantam eggs are lighter rose and green colors, so most of what I dyed are the small lighter eggs.

And here's a few shots of the after. Mom, L and I made them using yellow onion skins and turmeric, and one bowl where we mixed the two dyes together. Find instructions on Martha and here. It didn't make a true red, but a nice burnt sienna kind of color, and the turmeric a rich gold, and mixed together marigold - my favorite. Notice the un-dyed eggs in the back, one brown and one green bantam.

Romanian Cheese and Ethiopian Coffee

The first year we were married I asked John what was the best thing he'd ever eaten. He told me that when he was in Romania many years ago he had some really wonderful fried goat cheese. Thanks a lot, I thought to myself. But after a little googling and a trip to Ada's, it turned out to be a simple recipe - now our Valentine favorite. The recipe is below.

But what is in my lovely Hazel Atlas mug? African Skies fair trade coffee from Just Love, a company that uses proceeds to help an Ethiopian orphanage and families adopting not just from Ethiopia, but from anywhere in the world. If you buy from this shop, you can support our friends in their Ethiopian adoption.

Romanian Fried Goat Cheese
11 to 12 oz Goat Cheese, chilled
1 tsp garlic
1/4 tsp rosemary
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 large egg beaten
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs (I always use the cornflake kind)
1/4 cup olive oil

Our cheese comes in wedges which I sliced into about 8 or 9 thick slices. Mix the garlic, rosemary and salt and pepper. Put this in a bowl, and then put the flour, egg, and bread crumbs each in their own bowl. Dip the cheese in the garlic mixture, then the flour, then the egg, then the bread crumbs, coating evenly with each. Chill in the refrigerator.

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. When heated, cook the goat cheese about 2 minutes per side or until a pretty golden color. It's best to eat them hot, but they reheat pretty well, too.

Christmas Bread

I am making a second batch of this incredible bread today. I was making some as gifts, and then John and I ended up eating too much - so now I have to make more. I chose this recipe because it's Christmas-y, and new, and I had all the ingredients... who knew it was going to be the most wonderful bread I've ever made. That's probably because of the buckets of butter and eggs in it, but that's what makes it Christmas bread, I suppose.

Traditionally, it's made with a cross on top, which I didn't do because I've been wanting to make gift bread this way for as long as I've had this bread cookbook. You tie the loaf with a brown paper ribbon before the second rise, and then replace it with a real ribbon after it's baked.


After looking online at other Christmas Bread recipes, I realized this version is maybe a little simpler than most. Here it is, with my changes in the loaf style:

Christopsomo (or Greek Christmas Bread)

blend:
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water

Combine:
1/2 cup scalded and cooled milk
1 cup butter
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons crushed anise
1 tsp salt

Add yeast mixture and gradually add 6-7 cups unsifted flour.
Knead for 10 minutes on floured board
Let rise 2 hours or until double.

Punch down and divide into 6 small balls. Brush butter around outside, and tie each ball with a strip of brown paper (the same width as your ribbon - for small loaves like mine use a skinny ribbon) and place on greased baking sheets. Let rise 1 hour or until doubled. Bake 30-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Serve warm, or toasted with honey.

Easter Eggs

I tried the natural easter egg dyes this year via Martha Stewart. I kind of just did it myself, since L is still small, and I wanted to let the sit overnight. But John and L both enjoyed peeking in on the process. The colors were so rich, and the process was fun and easy. I tried red cabbage for blue, and turmeric for yellow. I put mine in jars because I didn't do a lot of eggs, and so it was a little more efficient to cover the eggs this way than in a wide bowl. Also, I mixed a little of the two dyes together to try a green - which turned out great, even though the dye looked pretty muddy.

Puffy Oven Pancake

I tried a new recipe yesterday morning. It's straight out of Betty Crocker. John and I love Popovers, and this is basically a popover, just one big one in a pie plate.

heat oven to 400* and melt 2 TBSP butter in pie pan
lightly beat 2 eggs and add 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup all purpose flour, and 1/4 tsp salt.
don't over mix. Make sure the butter coats the pan and then pour the batter in.
Bake 25-30 minutes or until puffy and a deep golden brown (the less you bake, the eggier the texture is).

I added chocolate chips (go figure) and topped with strawberries and powdered sugar. It was marvelous, and requires a lot less standing around than pancakes - although it is fun to watch it puff up in the oven.