Spools for Tea

Even though it has been hot here on the prairie

The front porch always seems to be cool

It's tree shaded

And faces East

There always seems to be a breeze as well

For a porch I like wicker

And tables to hold tea things

A tray with a plate of Lemon Spool cookies

And two glasses of tea

(iceless because our icemaker was broken . . .

but the tea was cold . . . for it was well chilled in the fridge)

The cookies are fun to make

And I suppose one could do other "flavors"

Although my recipe called for lemon

A glass of lemony cold tea and a plate of lemon cookies

However, two seem to feel that they're forgotten

They're inside

And the cookies are outside!

The cookies are fun to make and I love the design the spool creates in the dough!

Almost like a flower.

LEMON SPOOL COOKIES

2 1/2 c. flour

1 t. salt

1/2 t. baking powder

1 c. sugar

3/4 c. vegetable shortening

2 medium eggs

1 T. grated lemon rind

1 T. lemon juice

1/2 t. lemon extract

4 drops lemon food color

For the design, use a large empty plastic spool from thread.    Remove the paper from the ends.

Mix flour, salt and baking powder.    Set aside.    Beat sugar and shortening in a large bowl with electric mixer until fluffy.    Beat in eggs, lemon rind and juice, lemon extract and food color.   On low speed, gradually beat in flour mixture.    Chill dough 1 hour.

Heat oven to 400.    Make colored sugar by stirring together the sugar and yellow food color until uniform in a small bowl.    Form dough into small balls the size of a walnut.    Roll in colored sugar.   Place about 2 inches apart on silicone or parchment covered baking sheet.    Press flat with the bottom of a glass.    Cookies should be about 1/4 inch thick.    Press spool about half way into each cookie center to make design.    Bake 7 to 8 minutes or until light golden color.    Cool or wire racks.    Store the extra colored sugar for your next batch of lemon cookies.   (You sometimes can find yellow sugar in the baking aisle so you don’t have to make your own!)

It's Tuesday and I'm joining Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage for Tea Time Tuesday and Marty at A Stroll Thru Life for Inspire Me Tuesday.

A Farmer's Market Saturday

Friend Kelly

Market Manager of the Nevada/Vernon County Farmer's Market

Invited me to visit their market as a 

Guest Chef

Saturday I was up really early

to load the car

and travel 20 miles East

to the little town in Missouri

where we lived for 17 years

I set up my "station"

For it was a cooking with herbs day

And for tasting . . .

Homemade Bread

Cut into sampling fingers

So that herbal butter

(we tasted first chive, then thyme and lastly tarragon)

and peach rosemary jam

could be slathered on

And I always like to have an herbal sweet

Lemon lavender cakes

And a big jar of garden herbs

Snippets were used in the pasta salad

which we also tasted.

Vegetables, pasta, oil and vinegar and a generous amount of minced herbs.

I always enjoy my stints at the Farmer's Market and this was my first time in Nevada

I hope they invite me back for I had a great time.

And they have a great market.

Thanks, Kelly!

I ended up bringing home . . .

local raspberries and strawberries

2 butterfly bushes

And some Gobbler Roost Salad Dressing

(which I don't normally buy -- salad dressing, that is -- but Kathy's is superb!)

It's Monday and I'm sharing my Farmer's Market food with Yvonne at Stone Gable for What's On the Menu Monday

It's A Grand Old Flag . . .

It surely is

And today is "Flag Day"

Although not a holiday

(although it should be)

it is the day that all those many years ago

we adopted these stars and bars

as the official flag in 1777.

We always fly a big flag at Linderhof

To show our patriotism

And on Flag Day

(and Veteran's Day, and Memorial Day and the Fourth of July)

we put smaller flags in the front planters.

The tired pansies will soon be replaced

It's getting too hot for them to be happy.

Two in each

It's our way of celebrating a "Grand Old "Holiday"!

And because, I received so many comments

And because it seems such a patriotic dessert

The German cherry pie

In all of it's red and whiteness

on a blue and white plate!

The recipe

(from my old and loved and much used copy of

The Joy of Cooking)

Although I am of German descent, we never had a cherry pie like this when I was small.

But as both The Lunch Bunch and Husband Jim can testify

It is a good pie!

The cherries were prairie cherries, frozen last year,

but you could it them with frozen store cherries or fresh cherries -- but never canned cherries!

GERMAN CHERRY PIE

Drain and keep the juice from:

2 1/2 cups solid pitted cherries, fresh or frozen

Pour over the cherries:

6 T. sugar

Very acid cherries may require more sugar.   Permit to stand for about 1/2 hour, until the sugar is dissolved.    Stir gently several times.    Drain and reserve juice.

Prepare:

1 1/2 cups flour

resift it with:

1 1/2 t. cinnamon

6 T. sugar

1/8 t. salt

Cut into these ingredients with a pastry blender or two knives (or the more modern food processor) until blended

1/2 c. butter

Add to the above:

1 beaten egg

Now, wade in with your hands and work the dough until it holds together but no longer (or you can use the food processor as I did!).    Chill it.   Pat it into a 9 inch ovenproof glass pie pan.   Let it come to the upper edge of the pan.    See that it is spread evenly.    Crimp the dough around the edge with the tines of a fork.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Measure the sirup drained from the cherries.    There should be 3/4 cup.   Taste it.   Add sugar if it seems to be too sour.    Reserve 1/4 cup.   Place the rest over low heat.    Stir into the 1/4 cup until smooth:

4 t. cornstarch

When the rest of the juice is boiling, stir in the cornstarch mixture.   Stir and cook over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture is no longer cloudy.    Add

1/4 t. almond extract

Place the cherries in the pie shell, pour the hot juice over them and bake from 50 to 60 minutes.

It's Friday and I'm sharing my patriotic dessert (although it really didn't start out that way) with Michael at Rattlebridge Farm for Foodie Friday.

The Monthly Luncheon

Tuesday was the Lunch Bunch

One of whom had just came back from

Paris

Thus a French feel to lunch

I was originally going to lunch outside

I love a garden lunch

But the 90 degree temps and 100 degree heat index

moved the luncheon inside

An outside pot full of white geraniums was the centerpiece

anchored by two lead birds

a last year Christmas gift from the Lunch Bunch

A table of white and blue -- 

The white of an old linen tablecloth, damask napkins and geraniums

The blue of the Spode dinner plates and bread and butter plates

The menu . . .

Roasted baby beets and goat cheese salad

Vegetable soup with a spoon of pesto

Homemade rolls

 German Cherry Pie

With Kirsch whipped cream

We lingered over coffee

sharing snippets of information

about our children.

It's Thursday and I'm sharing the June Lunch Bunch Lunch with Cuisine Kathleen  for Let's Dish and with Susan at Between Naps On the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.

A Spot of Tea In the Garden

We always stop for tea

at half past three

And this time of year

It's often iced!

A tray to be taken to the garden

A nosh and tea

Palmiers

A favorite cookie of mine

Often there are ones in the freezer

so that I can bake one or two off for afternoon tea

It's not "iced" tea but cold tea

Which suits me fine after having spent time in Italy and England

Ice is not a necessary

But Husband Jim does like ice.

No ice today -- not because I got my way

But because the icemaker is broken.

So the tea may be cold but it is "iceless"

Palmiers are just one reason to buy frozen puff pastry

And they are so simple to make!

When I was a child we used to get something similar at

The Cake Box Bakery in Kansas City

called elephant ears.

It was my favorite.

(My brother could have all the chocolate chip and peanut butter ones!)

PALMIERS

2 cups sugar

1/8 t. salt

2 sheets puff pastry, defrosted

Preheat oven to 450

Combine the sugar and salt.   Pour 1 cup of the sugar/salt mixture on a flat surface such as a wooden board or marble.   Unfold each sheet of puff pastry onto the sugar and pour 1/2 of the sugar mixture on top spreading it evenly on the puff pastry.    This is not about sprinkling, it's about an even covering of sugar.    With a rolling pin, roll the dough until it is 13 x 13 inch square and the sugar is pressed into the puff pastry on top and bottom.    Fold the sides of the square towards the center so they go halfway to the middle.    Fold them again so the two folds meet exactly at the middle of the dough.   Then fold 1 half over the other half as though closing a block.   You will have 6 layers.   Slice the dough into 3/8 inch slices and place the slices, cut side up, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.    Place the second sheet of pastry on the sugared board, sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar mixture and continue as above.    There will be quite a bit of sugar left over on the board.   Slice and arrange on baking sheets lined with parchment.

Bake the cookies fro 6 minutes until caramelized and brown on the bottom, then turn with a spatula and bake another 3 to 5 minutes until caramelized on the other side.   Transfer to a baking rack to cool.

From Pansies to Petunias

Or perhaps it should read

from lettuce to petunias!

For we do plant lettuces in empty planters in February

to enjoy in the spring

But when it gets warm . . 

it tends to bolt!

And about the time we need to replace the lettuces

in June

the annuals are often on sale

And we tend to replant the planters one by one

(or sometimes two by two)

instead of one big "switch everything from fall to summer"

marathon of planting.

Saturday, we found some supertonics

in an interesting color

Which I thought would look good in Linderhof's garden

replacing the lettuces in the concrete planter.

And in the big planter under the kitchen windows

Although it really isn't a window box

Are pansies -- most of which were planted last fall

Not as lush as in year's past

because the April hailstorm decimated them

I always hate to see the pansies go

But they won't survive the 100 degree days of July

And annuals will

So we pull them up . . .

But not before

We clip the blossoms

to candy

The blossoms coated with egg white

Sprinkled with sugar

And left to dry

And while they are drying . . .

the petunias were planted

Love the purple and white purple against the bricks

A tin full of sugared pansies to garnish cakes and cupcakes this winter

At Linderhof, candying pansies is a rite of June!

It's Monday and I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday and Yvonne at Stone Gable for What's On the Menu Monday.

Food To Go

Not from a "to go" place

But rather food made at home

And taken to an event.

The event --

A Chamber of Commerce After Hours

Sponsored by our Garden Club

as a way to promote our garden tour on the 15th

An After Hours calls for food and drink

And I signed up for food --

White bean and basil hummus

(with peta chips)

It was a garden tour "do" after all and there needed to be something gardeney!

And

An old favorite

bacon breadsticks

Easy to make and can be made ahead for they're served at room temperature

I did bring some hummus home

But alas, not one breadstick was left!

And just because . . . 

You don't always need flowers

Sometimes just a big bunch of herbs look good in a blue and white pitcher

on the breakfast room table!!!!

BACON BREADSTICKS

1 tube of Pillsbury breadsticks

12 slices of bacon

1/3 c. brown sugar

3 T. chili powder

Mix brown sugar and chili powder together and put in a shallow plate.  Roll bacon around each breadstick and twist.    Roll wrapped breadstick in brown sugar mixture.   Place on a sillpat or parchment lined baking sheet.    Bake at temperature recommend on package until breadsticks are done and bacon is brown (about 20 minutes).   Leave on baking sheet for about 10 minutes.    Serve at room temperature.

NOTE:   I cut my breadsticks in half and my bacon in thirds before wrapping and rolling!

WHITE BEAN AND BASIL HUMMUS

1 can Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

4 cloves garlic

2 T. fresh lemon juice

6 basil leaves

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. pepper

3 T. olive oil plus more for drizzling

Combine beans, garlic, lemon juice, basil, salt and pepper in the bowl of a food processor.    Pulse a couple of times until the mixture looks somewhat chopped.     Add in the olive oil while the machine is still running.    Let process until the mixture is creamy.      Season with additional salt and pepper and drizzle the top with a tiny bit of olive oil.    (Can be made one day ahead)

It's Friday and I'm joining Michael at Rattlebridge Farm for Foodie Friday.