Impatiens in Pilsners

What, no Octoberfest?

Inspired by self-proclaimed Farmgirl, Mary Jane Butters, this year I am saving my impatiens from a frosty death and plan to re-plant them next spring.  Since I apparently missed the Farmgirl directive to stock up on Mason jars, I've resorted to using our pilsner glasses, much to my poor husband's chagrin.  This will soon be rectified, I can assure you!  Since I usually purchase at least a flat or so of impatiens annually, this should provide some color throughout the winter and also save some money come spring.  I also plan to try this with begonias.

Roots develop quickly!

The other plants to come inside for winter include some dracena, shamrock, aloe, a spider plant or two and a rubber plant with which I cannot bear to part.  These offer some comfort during the cold winter when it's easy to forget that things are still growing underneath, where we cannot see them.

Easy Date Night

Make food.  Make love.  Live well.

If I were a pessimistic type of gal, I might think the stars had aligned quite dramatically against a Date Night.  The entire family came down with a short-lived, but still nasty, cold (a first for all of us to be sick) which forced us to abandon our plans for a child-free, cavorting date night listening to music with friends under the stars.  Did I mention a bonfire?  C'est la vie.

As all parents know, you absolutely must carve out time together.  It is essential to survival.  So we put the kids to bed early and made the best of things.  Nothing too fancy, but good food and lots of time to sip wine and talk.

Whet the appetite

First up: crostini, which is possibly the easiest first course ever...but always satisfying.  You can make them with bread and anything you have on hand.  Tonight, we toasted the thinly-sliced baguette (brushed with olive oil) for about 3-5 minutes, then topped it with goat cheese, fresh tomato, sea salt and another drizzle of olive oil.  This is very subjective, but I think a good rule of thumb is to broil until the cheese bubbles slightly, but before the bread gets too brown.  Yummy bites.

The Butter Steak

Next up is the Butter Steak.  We had a NY Strip in the freezer, so that's what we cooked.  Basically, you sear off the fatty side, add butter and huge chunks of garlic, then add well-seasoned steak and allow it to cook  (relatively) slowly, over medium heat, basting with butter.  I could blame the wine or the talk, but we neglected to render the fat first.  It mattered not.  The steak was deliciously medium rare and The Crust was still quite amazing.

Spinach is the amazing shrinking leaf.

While the steak was resting, we poured off most of the butter and added some spinach, more garlic (this time finely chopped) and a little salt and pepper.  I like to cook spinach until it wilts by about half and turns a darker, but brighter green; then it's time to plate and eat.

I only put a tablecloth on half the table -- the half we ate on.  For Easy Date Night, candles swiped from the mantle and daisies from the hallway are perfect.  The steak was sliced and placed artfully atop the spinach, then butter-roasted garlic was tossed on that. 

This was a great meal.  More important than the meal itself is the time spent preparing.  Talking.  Laughing.  Connecting.  Life is too short to let a Date Night slip through your fingers.  Make it Easy.  Make it this weekend.  Make it fun.  Make it Real.

Bon Appetit!

Garlic: good for what ails you

Begone, sniffles and sneezes!

Our house is infested.  For the first time ever, we have all succumbed to one of the earth's most ancient maladies: the common cold.  To battle the onset of coughing and sneezing I called upon one of the earth's most ancient medicines: garlic.  One note, I've read that it's best to chop garlic just prior to cooking to receive the most benefit from allicilin, a compound known to kill 23 types of bacteria, including salmonella and staphylococcus.  Take that!

This is quite easy to make, even when you can barely move.  My husband was fairly skeptical that I could manage any cooking in my condition and assured me that leftover chili would be wonderful, but I'd already decided that nothing but garlic would do.


Garlic Tourin
 adapted from "White Garlic Tourin, A Classic French Soup"

1 TBSP duck fat (if you don't have it, use butter/olive oil)
1/2-2/3 sweet onion, minced
1 large head garlic, roughly chopped
6 cups water (or water/chicken stock), boiling
large bunch fresh thyme
salt/pepper, to taste
1 fresh egg, separated
1/2 TBSP red wine vinegar
 optional: crusty bread, vermicelli or fine egg noodles, cheesy croutons, chopped parsley....or cheese toast


In a medium saucepan, fry the minced onion in duckfat on med-high until it begins to brown.  I actually have duckfat in my freezer, saved from last Thanksgiving.  How very French.  While the onion fries, roughly chop garlic and bring water/stock to boil.  I boiled 4 cups in my electric kettle and another cup + frozen chicken stock cubes in a small saucepan.  Add garlic and cook, stirring frequently -- be sure not to allow garlic to burn.

Add boiling stock, thyme and s&p and simmer at least 15-20 minutes.  Check after 20 minutes and adjust seasoning.  Fish out the thyme and discard.  If you are making this when well, pull the itty bitty leaves off the thyme, but hey....if you're sick don't sweat it.  I hit it with my immersion blender and let it simmer 10 more minutes. 

At this point, I realized we had no crusty bread or cheesy croutons in the house and briefly planned to top this soup with grated cheddar and parsley, but rallied enough to make two slices of cheese toast (wheat bread/cheddar cheese) while the soup was simmering.  Once the toast was out of the oven, I whisked the egg white until slightly fluffly and added slowly to the soup, whisking constantly.  You can temper it a bit if you wish, but I really did not have the energy to do this.  Cover the soup and continue to simmer about 5 more minutes.  While you do this, beat the yolk and vinegar together. Remove soup from heat and whisk in yolks -- I added a handful of fine egg noodles at this point and then covered it and let it stand for a few minutes while I chopped parsley and cheese toast.

To serve, I cut the cheese toast into cubes, placed those in the bottom of a bowl, ladled the soup over that and topped with some freshly chopped parsley.  Sadly, I was too hungry and weak to get a final shot, but it was delicious.  This made two bowls each for the two hungry adults.  Follow with a nip of medicinal whiskey and go to bed.  Sleep well!