Easy Rosemary Flatbread

Yesterday was a most perfect day.  Forget that it was sunny and almost 75 degrees...the best part was that it was so full of socializing with many wonderful folks! It started with one of Scott's clients, James, showing up in the morning to see his bike. The infamous bike on which Scott broke his collarbone after hitting a deer over a year ago on the way home from a show where said bike won first place in its' class! He had finished the restoration that very week and it was sweet. Not so much after the intimate encounter with the deer. James was in Dallas for work this week and rented a car to make the 5 hour drive to the ranch to have a visit (and a test drive) with his bike. We'd never met James although Scott had many phone conversations with him and we were pleasantly surprised at what a great guy he was.  If anything, we were sad his visit was so short!  We look forward to seeing him again sometime soon. Mid day, I headed to Comfort to pick up my milk and visit a new thrift store in nearby Center Point named "Little Shop of Hoarders". Great name, huh? It's owned by a friend of mine, Holly.  I hadn't seen Holly in quite a long time until we sat together at a funeral a few weeks ago. She told me about her store and I couldn't wait to check it out. It is jam packed full of all kinds of stuff-my favorite kind of store- and it felt like a treasure hunt! I came away with a really heavy flannel shirt for Scott, a great stained glass window for the new kitchen and a killer pair of earrings! I returned home and decided I wanted to make a batch of mozzarella. I had an extra gallon of raw milk and have been wanting to try my hand at cheese.  Since we were expecting another of Scott's clients in the late afternoon I thought it would be a nice snack for all of us. I printed out the recipe and from the time I pulled the milk out of the fridge to Scott tasting the finished cheese was 45 minutes!! Phenomenally easy and way better than store bought! The better than store bought didn't surprise me, but the easy part really did! Why haven't I been doing this for years?? I plan on making more next week and will photograph the process and write a post on it, so start hunting down some good milk NOW! So I had this beautiful glob (elegant word, yes?) of still warm mozzarella and I told Scott, "I wish we had some crackers to go with it..." when I remembered some rosemary crackers I'd made a month ago for a client dinner. I threw all the ingredients in my mixer and 5 minutes later the dough was done and resting. I saw Mario's car drive up the driveway with another car following. When the two cars parked, all these people started tumbling out. Who ARE all those people?  I walked out to the driveway and Mario introduced me to his mother and father, his brother and his girlfriend, and his sister along with his wife Eva, whom I had met last year. Mario's family had surprised him for his birthday by traveling all the way from Uruguay for a big celebration. What an amazing family!  While they visited with Scott, I went back to the kitchen, preheated the oven to 475 degrees and rolled out ping pong sized balls of the dough. So easy, quick and incredibly delicious. And with a couple bottles of red wine and some fresh mozzarella, it made a special treat. An impressive snack for an impromptu soiree!

The recipe halves beautifully, but I wouldn't do that if I were you as you'll regret it!

Here's the step by step in pictures with the recipe following.
Mix flour, salt, baking powder, pepper and fresh rosemary in the bowl of a mixer-you can also mix this in a bowl by hand.

Add olive oil and water and mix until a soft dough forms.

Form dough into a ball and let rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 475 degrees. I have a pizza stone that stays in my oven all the time for bread baking. If you don't own a pizza stone, place a rimless cookie sheet in the oven or turn a rimmed one upside down. Let it heat up with the oven.

Cut dough into 8-10 pieces.

Roll each piece out on a lightly floured board until it is very thin.

Place the flatbreads two at a time on a parchment lined upside down cookie sheet or a pizza peel.

When the oven reaches 475 degrees, slide the parchment onto the pizza stone or cookie sheet in the oven. Bake for 5-8 minutes until the flatbread is golden brown and crisp.

Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Stack them up as you pull them out of the oven.

You can place them on a platter whole or break them into cracker sized pieces.

I may never buy crackers again!!!

Here is the recipe:

Easy Flatbread with Fresh Rosemary

3 3/4 cup unbleached flour

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt + more for sprinkling on top

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 Tablespoon fresh ground black pepper

2-3 Tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves

1 cup water

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil + more for brushing on top

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Place a pizza stone or a rimless cookie sheet or a rimmed cookie sheet turned upside down in the oven. Place flour, kosher salt, baking powder, black pepper and rosemary in the bowl of a mixer. Mix for 10 seconds to distribute ingredients. Add water and olive oil and mix until a soft dough forms. Form dough into a ball and let rest for 30 minutes. Cut dough into 8-10 pieces and roll each piece out very thin. Place two flatbreads at a time on a parchment topped cookie sheet and slide them into the oven. Bake for 5-8 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and brush with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Repeat with remaining flatbreads.

Pearls of Wisdom

I have been attempting to clean all the "memorabilia" off the fridge...you know, all the pics of friends' kids (and our own kids), magnets from the recycling center, wedding invitations that were too cute to throw away. It is a cluttered mess.  As I was removing it all, I came across a small piece of paper. I was rather surprised to realize it had been on the fridge almost 10 years! It came off Scott's fridge in his house in Kerrville. I met Scott 11 years ago (in fact it was 11 years on 1/11/11!). He had a cute little house in Kerrville where he lived with 2 of his 3 children. When he moved out to the ranch, this small scrap of paper came with him. I am going to tuck it away in a memory box, but I wanted to post it here.

Stay loose. Learn to watch snails. Plant impossible gardens.

Invite someone dangerous to tea. Make little signs that say

YES! and post them all over your house. Make friends with

freedom and uncertainty. Look forward to dreams.

Cry during movies. Swing as high as you can on a swingset,

by moonlight. Refuse to "be responsible". Do it for love.

Take lots of naps. Give money away. Do it now. The money

will follow. Believe in magic. Laugh a lot. Celebrate every

gorgeous moment. Take moonbaths. Have wild imaginings,

transformative dreams and perfect calm. Draw on walls.

Read everyday. Imagine yourself magic. Giggle with children.

Listen to old people. Open up. Dive in. Be free. Bless

yourself. Drive away fear. Play with everything. You are

innocent. Build a fortress with blankets. Get wet. Hug trees.

Write love letters. Pay attention to pearls of wisdom.

In so many ways, these words are Scott. As I removed it from the fridge and re-read it, it made me smile.

I know it is this type of thing that made me fall in love with my husband. He is fun and young at heart.

And he makes my life really fun. I couldn't ask for much more.

Making Borscht with Anastasia

Scott and I recently became acquainted with a wonderful young Russian couple, Evgeny and Anastasia. Evgeny, being a civil engineer back in Russia, has been advising us on our plans for a wood burning oven. Last Saturday morning, Anastasia came over to teach me how to make borscht. When she gave me the grocery list earlier in the week, I was confused. Being Lithuanian, I ate my share of borscht as a child. My grandmother made it fairly regularly along with pirogues and potato kugele (yes, I come by these hips naturally). Beef, potatoes and tomato paste were on her list along with other things I didn't remember in my childhood borscht. When I questioned her, Anastasia told me that there is ANOTHER soup in Russia simply known as Beet Soup that is what I was describing. Maybe that will be a different cooking lesson!

This soup is the perfect vehicle for all the wonderful vegetables available in the winter...beets, carrots, cabbage, onions, potatoes. On the grocery list it simply said Beef, so I thawed some of our grass fed ground beef.  When Anastasia saw it she asked if I had a chunk of beef..."maybe with a bone?". The closest I had thawed was a chunk of buffalo without a bone. She said that would do. A week earlier when waxing poetic about Anastasia's terrific borscht, Evgeny said that it could be made with any meat, but beef was the best. Anastasia seconded this opinion and said that in "cheap" restaurants in Russia they make it with chicken, but that they might as well leave the meat out, it was so terrible. So buffalo it was. We started off by browning the buffalo meat in a bit of olive oil in a large soup pot.  We then added a gallon of water and simmered the buffalo while we prepped the veggies. The beets were peeled and cut in large matchsticks, the carrots sliced in rounds and the onions diced.  These were all sauteed in olive oil in a skillet. Look at those beautiful beet greens! Anastasia said they sometimes add the greens to the soup, but these went back in the fridge to be sauteed with garlic and added to white beans later in the week.

Anastasia added a few Tablespoons apple cider vinegar to the beets, carrots and onions. The kitchen filled with an incredible smell. I almost abandoned the idea of soup at this point just so I could have a bowl of these veggies! Garlic cloves were diced and added to the beet/carrot/onion mixture and it was kept over medium heat until just tender.  Anastasia then diced the cabbage and added it to the beef pot.

I fished the beef chunks out of the pot and cut them in smaller, more manageable pieces then sent them back to the soup pot. At this point we realized the soup pot was a bit too small! We made ALOT of soup! After mixing in a can of tomato paste to the soup pot, the beet mixture was added.

We cut the potatoes in large chunks, added them to the soup and upped the heat a bit until it was barely simmering. Anastasia sent me to the garden to gather some fresh oregano while she seasoned the soup liberally with salt, pepper, paprika and chipotle, which I'm sure isn't what they use in Russia, but I didn't have cayenne. As we talked and cleaned up the kitchen, the soup bubbled away on the stove. It wasn't long before the potatoes were tender.

I sliced some green onions and got some homemade yogurt out of the fridge. Sour cream is the traditional topping, but I always sub yogurt for it in recipes and it always works great. It was perfect for this soup.

Scott and I finished off the leftovers for lunch today and it was just as tasty as Saturday. I think I will be making this soup often this winter and into the spring.  Here is the recipe:

Anastasia's Borscht

2 pounds beef (short ribs would be excellent here)

3 Tablespoons olive oil

4 large beets, peeled and diced

5 medium carrots, peeled and sliced in rounds

1 large or 2 medium onions, peeled and diced

4 cloves garlic

1/2 pound of cabbage, diced (more if desired)

1 pound potatoes (about 4 small), peeled and cut in large dice

1-12 ounce can tomato paste

2-3 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1-5 inch sprig fresh oregano, leaves chopped (or 2 teaspoon dried)

2-3 Tablespoons kosher salt (if using regular salt, use less)

2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/4-1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder or ground cayenne

2 teaspoon good paprika

Plain yogurt or sour cream (for topping)

2 green onions, green part sliced (for topping)

In large soup pot, brown beef in 1 Tablespoon olive oil over medium high heat until browned on all sides. Add 1 gallon water and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, add 2 Tablespoons olive oil to a large skillet and saute beets, carrots and onions until barely tender. Add vinegar and garlic and saute 5 minutes more. Add tomato paste and cabbage to beef and stir well to mix. Add beet/carrot/onion mixture to beef and cabbage and stir to mix. Add potatoes and let soup simmer for 15 minutes. Add oregano, salt, pepper, basil, paprika and chipotle or cayenne and stir to mix. Let soup simmer an additional 10 minutes. Taste soup and adjust seasonings as needed. Taste a piece of potato to check for doneness. Top with plain yogurt or sour cream and chopped green onions.

Apple Dumplings for Dinner

I finished my last day of work yesterday until after Christmas. It was a good day-lunch with Marta and Lily, a quick visit with Natalie and then home, sweet home to Scott. Just us. Alone. It's been a LONG time since we've had an evening alone, what with Honor and Lily living with us for the last few months. Honor started school in San Marcos Monday (I delivered her there myself) and Lily went to a Christmas party with her dad last night. To celebrate our kidless evening, we decided to have a decadent dinner of warm apple dumplings with caramel sauce. When my girls were little, on cold winter days, I would sometimes welcome them home from school with warm apple dumplings. It's comfort food for us.

I thought I would post a short tutorial on making apple dumplings here.  They are SO easy and really, really tasty. On my website, The Teaching Kitchen there is a tutorial on making pie dough. It's a great recipe and I make it in the food processor.  I use coconut oil and butter instead of Crisco and it adds a wonderful flavor. So start with some pie crust. I usually make 3 apple dumplings out of one crust recipe. Double the recipe and you can make 6! The dumplings freeze well if all you want to bake off is 2 or 3. To process the apples I use a apple corer/peeler. You can buy them at department stores and online. I got mine at Dooley's in Fredericksburg years ago. I have 2 of them and they are great for making apple pies, but especially for apple dumplings! Easy and quick! If you don't have a corer/peeler, just peel and core the apples by hand.

Pretty straightforward kitchen gadget...simply pull back the bar with the 3 prongs on the end, push the apple onto the prongs and turn the handle to simultaneously core and peel the apple!

It cuts the apple in a spiral that holds together.  For pies, I simply cut the apple in thirds and it falls into beautiful slices. For dumplings, I leave them intact.

Using a piece of pie dough a bit larger than a golf ball, roll it out and place an apple in the middle.

Fill the center with a cinnamon-brown sugar mixture-you can use white sugar and cinnamon, but I like the caramel flavor from brown sugar.

Dot the cinnamon sugar with a bit of butter and then fold up the dough around the apple to seal.

I like to add a leaf and stem to the top-just for fun.

Place the dumplings in a greased baking pan and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 50 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and the pan has a bit of juice in the bottom.

I've come to love Goat's Milk Caramel Spread, also called Cajeta. Our local grocery, HEB, has their own brand and the stuff is dangerous. The ingredients are: Goat Milk, Sugar and Glucose. It is great warmed and poured over pie or as a caramel sauce on these dumplings.

You can freeze the unbaked dumplings-indeed, I made 4 and froze 2 of them-and then bake them straight out of the freezer.  Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, but start to check at an hour.  There are so many possibilities here...think about the fillings...chestnut paste, almond paste (I've rolled out almond paste and wrapped the apples in it first and THEN the pastry-amazing!), currants and ground walnuts mixed with cinnamon sugar...I could go on and on.

There is a new restaurant open downtown on Houston Street. John Besh, of Lüke New Orleans fame has opened a Lüke in San Antonio. Marta lives a half block down the street from the restaurant and has eaten there a number of times. She says it is amazing. The other night she went to a party there and met John Besh. She will kill me for posting this, but I like the picture so much. It makes me smile.

Other news on the homefront:

LILY IS MOVING TO AUSTRALIA!!!

She is leaving the states December 27th to fly to Australia to be an au pair for a year.  She is seriously stoked about this new adventure and I am really excited for her. She will have 2 sweet girls to take care of,  Ella and Amber, ages 2 and 4. Scott has many friends in Australia so we are sending her with a long contact list so she can travel a bit and have some fun on her time off.

We finally got our bee hive. I kept putting it off because so much was going on around here, but last weekend we loaded it in our neighbors truck and got it to our house. Today, I placed our Meyer lemon tree near it. The tree has been in the house (it's in a pot) for about 2 weeks to keep it from freezing. During that time it has begun blooming like mad and the whole house was filled with its perfume! I thought the bees would like it and within a minute of setting it a few feet from the hive it was buzzing with activity!

And of course, no news from the ranch is complete without an update on our pig, Kevin.

After a weeks worth of compost from our Thanksgiving extravaganza (sometimes TWO 5 gallon buckets a night!!) he almost doubled in size.  He still thinks he's a pet and wants to play, but he can almost knock me down and I watch my feet when I am in his pen lest he step on one. Today, while I was in his pen, I threw a stick out of the way and he chased after it and brought it back to me in his mouth. I couldn't belive it.  He carried it around for a few minutes until he lost interest.

He is almost as tall as Sophie and weighs considerably more.

That's all for now. Hope your Holiday plans are going well.  I am seriously unprepared, but hope to pull it all together in the next week. We are taking a short trip to Albuquerque with a stop at our friend Richie's hot springs hotel in Truth or Consequences, FireWater Lodge. Ahhh, to sit in the huge thermal tub in our room and melt for a few days! It will fix all our aches and pains!  G'night!

So Much To Be Thankful For...

Well, tomorrow begins my annual Thanksgiving Cooking Week and I am really excited. It has been a busy November, with our pig Kevin (actually his name is Kevin Bacon) growing like...well, like a pig! I decided this week that we had to stop treating him like a pet. Whenever we went into his pen to feed him, we would let him out for a bit...sometimes to go for a walk with me...no kidding, he'd trot behind me about 1/4 mile before he tuckered out. The other day I went to change his water and he wanted out. I didn't want him out. When I locked the gate behind me, he squealed and squealed like I was beating him. Spoiled baby he is. Sophie and Kevin are great friends. Sophie thinks Kevin is a dog.

This week will be intense. One hundred hours is not unusual as we leave the house before the sun rises and get home well after dark. But it is like a festival, a family reunion and a church revival all rolled into one! This year, I've published a cookbook to give as a gift for all the folks attending.  It contains many of the recipes I've made over the seven years of cooking at the Ranch. Its title is "Celebrating Cypress Springs" and I am quite intrigued with the process of creating a cookbook. I see more in my future...I have plans for 2011 already!  Here's to cooking and writing and being thankful for a good life!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Cologne and Heidelberg and HOME!

Cologne is a big city; but from Bergisch Gladbach, where Lothar and Renate live, it looks like it is growing out of a thick forest. Lots of green space.

Lothar took us on a "tour" of Bergisch Gladbach...an old paper mill (a town with lots of trees and water is perfect for the paper industry) where we saw paper actually being made-and brought some home, a castle built to resemble Versailles-but on a smaller scale (and it is now a SPA!), and a hotel which was once a private home that LOOKS like a small castle.

An original paper machine from the early 1900's.

The mini Versailles

Schlosshotel Lerbach

The town is like a movie set-so much green and some very cool architecture. Houses are tall and narrow, small footprints with lots of square footage, much like in Rotterdam. Here in the States it seems we like SPRAWL, especially here in Texas, but then we have lots of space (or the illusion of). Lothar and Renate's house was so comfortable. They incorporated many interesting touches when they had it built. They have two sons; Lukas,12 and Sebastian, 14 who kept us laughing! 

The door to Lukas' bedroom. "Danger! Teenager in Puberty!"

One afternoon Renate and I were sitting outside on the patio having coffee. Sebastian came out and was visiting with us when Renate realized she had to pick up Lukas. She told Sebastian, "Learn some English from Diane..." When she left Sebastian looked at me and said, "I'll teach you German!" and for the next 30 minutes we walked around the yard and he taught me the German words for things and I taught him English. It was a blast and we were both surprised how many words were similar.

Renate and Lothar Esser

We had such a great visit with Renate and Lothar. Renate walked me to her parents' home, just a few doors down and I got to "tour" their house. The backyard was like an arboretum, with so many different varieties of flowers, shrubs and trees in addition to a pond and a sweet, tiny "garden house" where they sometimes spent evenings visiting with friends. It was very interesting to note that Lothar and Renate both grew up in this town-in Renate's case just a few doors away-and how common this is. They still, on a regular basis, see friends with whom they went to elementary school.  You just don't find that much in the States.

The train ride from Cologne to Heidelberg was sweet. We traveled for a great distance along the Rhine river and it was fascinating to see how many castles were built on the hills overlooking the river. There were many fields of cropland going straight up hills and I was surprised to see some of the plantings were vertical, not horizontal! Excuse this pic as it was taken from the train window.

It also surprised me how close these houses were to the Rhine!

We got to the Heidelberg train station and had to catch a bus to our hotel. I was in Heidelberg to work, so the hotel was not of my choosing.  We were booked at the Heidelberg Holiday Inn and it was a way out of town. After checking in, we asked about a place to eat and the guy at the front desk told us, "There is one place-a Croatian reaturant about 3 blocks away." and he pointed out the door across the street to the woods. Oh, really? We took off, strolling down a sidewalk that wound through the trees and sure enough, there it was, Restaurant Makedonia. Not Croatian, but Macedonian food and it was incredible!  We ate dinner there three nights in a row and every night marveled at how everything was perfectly cooked and how large the portions were. By the third evening, when we walked in the door, the waiters laughed. I was working with Army doctors and the first day was brutal...we met at 6:30 for breakfast, and after a short drive to the base we were working by 7:15. It was after 6 when we finished and I was exhausted when I got back to our room. Scott had been at the track all day with Lothar, who had driven down with Lukas from Cologne. We ate dinner at Makedonia and turned in early, as I expected the next day to be a copy of the first. Thankfully, we finished up around 1 in the afternoon, so when I returned to the hotel Scott and I took off to see "Old Heidelberg". What an afternoon. Strangely, Old Heidelberg felt so familiar. I kept thinking (and feeling) I had been there before. It was a dreary, drizzly day and we walked the cobblestone streets arm in arm, sometimes with our hoods pulled up, enjoying our time alone immensely. Our trip was coming to an end and we were trying to draw our time out. 

The University Library

a cobblestone alleyway

We went to a mini Renaissance Faire and kept thinking of our daughter Molly who, along with her husband Keith, is a Rennie devotee. We ate a snack of spit roasted pork on a bed of saurkraut (we were in Germany after all), but the cool thing was it was served in an edible bowl which tasted like an ice cream cone.

Then we got coffee and cake from another booth. I thought this set-up was ingenious! A shelf with Melitta type coffee pour-throughs sitting over holes in the shelf and coffee cups placed beneath. You've got to see it to understand:

 The hand made pottery cups sat in recesses on the bottom shelf. It was an entertaining faire and great for people watching. An intriguing wood fired oven:

Obviously VERY portable with those heavy duty casters!

We walked the 300+ steps up to the castle and I was struck once again by an eerie familiarity.

The castle from below.

Taken from the steps up to the castle...a bit more than halfway there!

A cool house on the way to the castle

The castle was huge.  This is only a small part of it.

I thought it was cool how, because this part of the tower broke off, you could glimpse inside.

The view from the castle looking down on Heidelberg and the bridge over the Neckers River.

 It was lovely-even though partially in ruin-and the rainy weather seemed somehow appropriate.

We went back to the hotel and packed our bags to head to Paris to spend one night before flying home.

Our night in Paris was uneventful. A bland hotel near the airport and an average dinner. We got to the airport and while checking in our bags were told that the tickets we were holding were invalid and we did not, in fact, have a flight! Excuse me? After more than an hour in line, and already too late to catch our original flight, we were booked on a direct flight home. We could spend our time leisurely, going through security and drinking coffee. Our rebooked flight was only partially full, so they gave us a seat in an emergency aisle (these seats usually cost 70 Euros more!) so Scott could stretch out. It was a pretty comfortable flight and we were glad it worked out as it did, even if we did have a moment of initial panic!

Now, home three weeks, it has been non-stop.  Not only playing catch-up, but with all sorts of new developments.

Cal and Leslie, our "vagabond" friends, who stopped by for a visit a few days after we returned from vacation.

We have had guests at the house 2 1/2 weeks out of the last three and now have a full house for what looks like the next 4-6 weeks. We have a sweet 23 year old, Honor Holly, living with us until she starts school in November. Honor was born in this house and moved away when she was about 2 years old. It has been fun having her around and she keeps us laughing with her sunny outlook on life. Lily has also moved back home after two weeks in Dallas.  Lily and Honor are crazy funny together and it is working out well to have them here at the same time. They occupy the entire second floor of the house-each with their own bedrooms-and I try not to even venture up there. They help us out around the ranch-they have been baking cookies most all day today for the Harvest Classic and will be washing dishes there all day tomorrow!

We got a baby pig this morning.  We have named him Bacon and he will eventually feed us. At this point he is as cute as can be! Love the curly tail! He's pretty friendly and snorts if you scratch his nose.

Next week, we will set up a bee hive.Yeah, life moves on here at the ranch and at this point it sure doesn't feel like a "Half Fast Life"...it feels like full speed ahead! But man, is it fun. Can't imagine it any other way!