Trips Off the Tongue Has Moved

http://tripsoffthetongue.com

This new website is Barbie approved.

Trips Off the Tongue will have a new home website soon.

Excuse my silence.

I appreciate all who are following my food journal. I am in the process of creating a new site specific to my love of baking, sharing and tripping over dogs in the kitchen.

Thanks for your patience. I hope to have the new site ready within the week. It's a steep learning curve for me.

A warm aloha,

pam

A Mary Oliver poem

for how many years have you gone through the house
shutting the windows,
while the rain was still five miles away

and veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the north
away from you

and you did not even know enough
to be sorry,

you were glad
those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple,

were sweeping on, elsewhere,
violent and electric and uncontrollable--

and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget
all enclosures, including

the enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will you
dash finally, frantically,

to the windows and haul them open and lean out
to the dark, silvered sky, to everything

that is beyond capture, shouting
i'm here, i'm here! now, now, now, now, now.

– Mary Oliver, "From The Book of Time"  in The Leaf and The Cloud: A Poem

Keep Digging: Beyond Images, a Faux Rhubarb Goat Yogurt Scone

Sometimes the presence of one thing amplifies the absence of another.

In this case, the shadow growing behind each new memory this Mother's Day was the absence of my father. He was my greatest scone-devouring fan, even offering to bankroll a bakery for me when I graduated from college in 1986. Hindsight….

Besides roasting a turkey and baking macaroni and cheese for Sunday's festivities, the wild mountain apple also made two appearances for brunch: as the previously posted lemonade and then as a coffee cake, which I'll post in a few days. Both were big hits. I'm choosing to share a new scone recipe today, in memory of you, Dad. 

Walking around my childhood neighborhood the week my dad died 

I found this ball in the gutter. I read it as a sign he'd arrived safely.

Rubber band bracelets were part of my father's daily attire.  

Moving on.

I can't post a goat on my site without waxing poetic for a moment about my Capricorn father, a goofy and exuberant influence on my love of all-things-kitchen. 

The muskiness of the homemade goat yogurt nuzzles into the heady perfume of the mountain apple with more grace than overt lust.

While I do not eat these apples raw, many do. Their super power for me is in their rhubarbishness. My Nova Scotia Nana made me rhubarb pie every summer when we'd visit her in Halifax. She'd serve it with both blend (half-n-half) and ice-cream. She grew the rhubarb in her garden and also near Grand Lake, where she and Grandpa had a cabin we referred to as "camp."

Faux Rhubarb Goat Yogurt Scone
The original recipe can be viewed here.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Notes: I use a food processor, but it’s not mandatory. If you don’t have a processor, work the butter into the dry ingredients until it is the texture of gravel. They will still come out flaky and perfect.

I live in a hot climate so always use frozen butter.

Combine:

3 cups flour

½ cup white sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

Add:

¾ cup frozen unsalted butter

Mix until gravelly.

Transfer from the food processor into a large bowl.

Add:

1 cup chopped mountain apple

1/2 cup chopped Madjool dates

1/2 cup golden raisins 

Fold in:

1 to 1 1/2 cups goat yogurt. 

Because I follow Yvette Van Boven's method for making yogurt, it's quite runny compared to store bought. This is the only liquid I use. I add enough to pull the dough together, that's why the measurement is not exact; it all depends on the humidity that day. There should be dry ingredients still visible in the bottom of the mixing bowl. If you are using thicker yogurt, I would add one cup of yogurt and drizzle in enough orange juice to pull the dough together.

Plop spoonfuls of dough on to an ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Scones bake faster on the black cookie sheet. If using black, bake 18 minutes; if using aluminum, bake 22 minutes.

The Tree That Keeps on Giving: Wild Mountain Apple Lemonade

Bring 31/2 cups water to a boil with 5 cups chopped wild mountain apple, 3 1-inch strips lemon skin, 3/4 cups sugar, 5 sprigs of mint.
Simmer 20 minutes.


Strain.
Press all liquid from fruit with the back of a wooden spoon.
Add a cup of lemon juice.
Serve over ice with soda water to make it bubbly.

This beverage has been approved by Barbie.

She's Never Been an Eater: Mom's Peach Coconut Smoothie

This is the smoothie my mom drinks everyday without complaint. I have to say, "without complaint," because this 120 pound 85 year-old is not a fan of our mostly vegetarian lifestyle. Although she did tell me this week that my quiche was my best effort yet. Thank you eggs, flour, milk and frozen pie crust.
I boost this smoothie with coconut oil to feed mom's brain and for her gut, either Straus Family Creamery Maple yogurt or their peach kefir. I add protein powder for obvious reasons and coconut milk for a healthy fat. This is a case where every item is organic.

Caroline's Peach Coconut Smoothie

1/2 cup coconut milk

1 tablespoon Coconut oil

2-4 tablespoons peach kefir or Maple yogurt

A heaping scoop of protein powder

1 small handful frozen peaches

Barbie. A Triceratops. A Squash. And Quinoa Choyote Cherry Cake

Barbie says, harvest the smallest choyote so you can eat the entire squash -- skin, seeds and all.

Large choyote require peeling

and seeding.

Mom's hands and the cake in a loaf pan.

Much cuter baked in remekins.

The Stuff:

1 cup quinoa

1 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 choyote the size of apples, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup dark brown organic sugar

3/4 cup cherries

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 

1 teaspoon ground ginger                                                                                                                                               

The Work: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the quinoa with plenty of water and bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes or until quinoa is tender and the seeds' "tails" (the little white part) are beginning to uncurl. Drain well and set aside.
3. Dip a pastry brush in the melted butter and use it to grease the inside of a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan or 10 little white ramekins, which I prefer for their cute factor.
4. Put the remaining melted butter in a large bowl, and mix with brown sugar and cherries until evenly distributed.
5. Add choyote and cooked quinoa and stir to combine.
6. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger and nutmeg.
7. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir to evenly combine.
8. Scrape the mixture into the prepared loaf pan or ramekins and bake for 50 minutes if in a loaf pan and 43 minutes if in ramekins, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top of the cake is golden brown.
9. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Let cool completely before cutting to help cake maintain its shape.  Serve with homemade whipped cream.

Adapted from Home Made Winter.

Grow your own so you may harvest small.