• About
  • Dispatches
  • Contact

Nation of Three

~ Domestic chaos at its finest.

Nation of Three

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Garbage Soup

26 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Soup is comfort food for me.  More than chocolate or ice cream.  I love soup season.  My cast iron Dutch oven pretty much just lives on the stove from October to April.  La Famiglia has a long tradition of making ‘Garbage Soup’.  I’m sure it has it’s home economics roots in in the generations before me having lived through two world wars and The Great Depression, with a big, close, extended family that was legion all by itself, and has a habit as far back as anybody ever recorded of taking in strays.  For generations, someone in my family is always bringing home another slightly startled looking stranger.  It’s genetic.  ‘You look hungry, you need to come with me.’ is just imprinted on all of our brains from childhood.  We all do it. Then we keep them and all of their offspring for generations until nobody even knows for sure which ones are blood relatives, and which ones just had an unwary ancestor who followed one of my ancestors home one day.  It makes untangling the family tree a bit of a chore, but there is a solid upside to being part of your own standing army.  You can put two complete football teams on the field without even having to resort to second cousins if you want.  It has always been this way.  Everyone on my side of the family has inherited walls and a table that stretch to fit however many they need to.  

Crowded homes and crowded noisy tables are better than new cars and swish vacations any day, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, but it can mean sometimes needing to feed a crowd with not much.  Not truly the case in our house, we have more of everything than we really need, and room left over for considerable comfort.  Our ends don’t just meet.  They overlap pretty comfortably most of the time.  Still ‘Garbage Soup’ is a thing.  

As a child I had an aunt who would steal corn cobs off your plate.  Or chicken bones.  Or WHATEVER.  Before you could throw it out and waste food, it went into the ‘soup bucket’.  A clean ice cream tub in the fridge.  The same aunt hung teabags on the clothesline for reuse.  We also grow them a little strange. Everything in the ‘soup bucket’ would simmer in a pot on the back of the stove all afternoon the next day, with a parmesan rind, whatever else was around that needed using, and whatever seasoning it inspired, plus whatever pasta or rice was closest to hand.  Food and family are a connection for most people.  For me, the soup was like the echo of whatever noisy family meal it was the remains of.  It tastes as much like the stories told over the table as whatever was on it.  As a result, some days the more we stretched things to make room for ‘just one more’, the better and richer the soup turned out.  Bread is cheap and easy to make, and you can always find an extra potato, onion or carrot to make the soup go a little further.  No matter what kind I ultimately wind up making, it always winds up tasting like home, and family, and time spent with loved ones.  

The more we water the soup, the better it gets.

I miss my noisy, crowded table of chosen family this year.  Cooking is EASIER when not stepping around the fiddle player, over someone’s kid, and ‘when did we get a dog?’ but it isn’t nearly as much fun.  For now I have to settle for knowing that you’re all safe, healthy, and the separation is temporary.  

And so I’m making soup.

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Zucchini Bread

03 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

I love zucchini.  I will put it in anything, and have been happy as heck to have a garden overflowing with the stuff this summer.  In a few minutes, I’ll be starting zucchini fritters for my own family, but a friend asked for a zucchini bread recipe, and it happens I have a good one.  You can tell.  The recipe card is spattered and sticky, and almost impossible to read.  I use the same formula for almost all of my quick breads and swap out whatever I have on hand, mashed banana, shredded carrot, cooked pumpkin or in this case, zucchini, and then adjust sweetness and spices accordingly.  Quick breads are a satisfying, easy entree to baking, make lovely gifts, and for me, sweeten the pre-dawn hour of silent communion with my coffee cup that I need before I’m ready to face another human being in the morning. Even zucchini haters love this moist, spicy bread.

WHAT

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I am in love with the roasted cinnamon a friend gave me)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup sugar

1 cup finely shredded unpeeled zucchini

1/4 cup cooking oil (you can lower the fat and use unsweetened apple sauce, but the result is a slightly tougher bread)

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon fresh lime zest

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

HOW

Grease the bottom and about 1/2 inch up the sides of your loaf pan and set aside.  In medium mixing bowl (or bowl of stand mixer), combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

In another bowl, blend sugar, zucchini, cooking oil, egg and lime zest. Fold nuts in last.

Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes, or until it smells amazing, has risen, and a wooden toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I like to top this with either a sprinkle of coarse sugar crystals, or this cinnamon streusel topping, which I keep prepared and frozen, so it’s on hand for all kinds of baking. (scroll through to the bottom to get instructions for the topping)

Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, and then you can invert and cool completely on a wire rack.  If your family doesn’t just eat it all before you’ve even finished the dishes.

Enjoy

 

 

 

 

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Rhubarb Pie

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Where I live, we have a community garden project.  We’re a very socialist kind of neighbourhood.  We have our own daycare/summer camp, our own toy library and clothing exchange, a neighbourhood wide barter system for trading goods and talent, and our own food bank and community kitchen where those of us who have a little more can share with those who have a little less, and nobody has to be embarrassed.  The roster of who’s on which side of the equation shifts from year to year.  When the community garden started three years ago, it was a natural extension of the programs that we, the residents of my community, had already built for ourselves as local social services have shuttered one after another.  Interested residents enter a lottery, and if chosen, have the use of a fenced in raised bed garden for the six months that this part of Canada is capable of producing anything besides traffic accidents and new curse words.  Two plots are held back from the lottery, and everyone who ‘won’ a garden plot contributes to the planting and maintenance of these.  They supply our community kitchen with fresh produce for half the year.  A kitchen where neighbours who need or want, can assemble on any given weeknight to cook and eat together with ingredients provided by the community.  No judgement, nobody keeps track of who the leftovers go home with, and we all take turns sharing recipes, so we all learn from each other.  Those who don’t cook can chop, prep, or wash dishes, and hopefully learn the skill with exposure.  It’s a great system, and I’m really pleased to be part of a community that has elevated itself from ‘bad neighbourhood’ status into the giant, extended family that it is becoming.
I had a garden the first year, but didn’t win one last year.  This year, my name was drawn, so once again, I am growing a ‘spaghetti sauce’ garden.  Peppers, spinach, onions, zucchini, four kinds of tomatoes and a variety of herbs.  This year, however, I inherited a rhubarb with the garden.  It wasn’t there when the plot was assigned to me in March, but by the time I was ready to start planting after the last APRIL snowstorm this year, it was already there, huge, scary-looking, and almost ready to pick.
I’d actually never eaten rhubarb.  When I was little, the elderly couple next door grew it, quite by accident, and it was a game in spring between the two of them, to see if he could manage to kill it before she was able to harvest it.  Even when he succeeded it would be back in a matter of weeks, and this cycle would repeat itself all summer long.  I always thought it must be some evil weed eaten only by pickle-faced old Scottish women, who proved their mettle by eating it raw, while everyone in the room winced just watching them and waiting to see which would prove more bitter.
So when I found myself the proud custodian of a ridiculously healthy rhubarb, I had no idea what anybody actually DID with it, besides run it over with a lawn mower at every available opportunity.

Fortunately, there are a lot of people in my orbit whose rhubarb experiences were clearly a lot more positive than mine, and many sent me recipes and links, and I’ve been happily experimenting for weeks, because, as it turns out, unless you rip the whole plant out by the roots, even after you pick it, it just makes MORE rhubarb.

I had no idea, but as it happens, rhubarb is like zucchini.  In that the moment you have it, you automatically have way too much of it, and it turns out that everyone in your house thinks they hate it, and you’re forced to resort to leaving baskets of it on the doorsteps of strangers in the middle of the night.

During the first year with the garden, I finally addressed the zucchini issue for my house-mates with great success here. So far, they’re both holding out against rhubarb, but I’ve got my best friend living right behind us, happy to help dispose of surplus jam and pie, and in the process of all this experimenting, have found myself a convert.  So while my husband and son are still in the design phase of the flamethrower they’re building to try to eradicate the plant completely, I’ve been baking pies. I’m on my seventh pie now, and the plant is bigger and more robust than when I started.

After trying all kinds of different fillings, pre-cooking, blending with other fruit etc, the winning rhubarb pie recipe is below.  As with many of the best recipes I know, it’s dead simple, and requires little very art at all.
Rhubarb Pie
WHAT
Double crust pastry recipe, or a package of store bought.
1 1/3 cups sugar
A teaspoon or so of cinnamon
6 tablespoons of flour
1 beaten egg
A tablespoon or so of coarse sugar
HOW
1. Line pie plate with bottom crust (I will use either store bought, or make my own, depending on how I’m feeling, and how much time I have. Don’t judge me.)
2. In a mixing bowl, combine 1 1/3 cups of sugar with 6tbsp of flour and a teaspoon (ish) of cinnamon. Stir until blended
3. Spoon half the mixture over bottom crust
4. Fill with 4 cups (ish) of chopped rhubarb
5. Spoon remaining flour/sugar mix over rhubarb
6. Top crust. Either lattice or well vented.
7. Brush top crust with beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar
8. Unless you like cleaning your oven, put the pie on a cookie sheet.
9. Bake on the bottom rack of oven at 450 for 15 min, then turn oven down to 350 for 45 min to an hour. (When it smells like cooked pastry, go look) Let cool on a wire rack. Devour while still warm, and laugh at all the silly people who think they don’t like rhubarb.  Repeat ad infinitum, because you never actually run out of rhubarb, and once people find out you like it, you’ll have all the rhubarb you can handle.

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Millionaire Shortbread

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by JennB in Recipes, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

baking, cookies

I know, I know. It’s been a billion years since I’ve posted anything officially. It’s not that I’m not still cooking, I’m just busy. Suddenly it’s Christmas, and I have three days left to finish all my baking. I adapted a new recipe this year, and it was a mistake. I made the first batch in late November, thinking to get the jump on holiday baking, and I haven’t been able to keep them in the house. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve made now. The current batch is hidden in an All Bran box in the hope that it will survive until Christmas Eve.  I give you, ‘Millionaire Shortbread’! Merry Christmas!

Millionaire Shortbread, close up.jpg

Millionaire Shortbread

WHAT

Crust:

1 ½ cups (375 mL) All Purpose Flour (dip, don’t scoop)
½ cup (125 mL) icing sugar
¾ cup (175 mL) butter, softened

Pinch of salt. Because everything sweet tastes weird without a little salt.

Caramel:

1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons golden or dark corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Generous pinch salt

Note**  No.  You didn’t do it wrong. I doubled the recipe for the shots below.  You might want to consider doing so also.  Trust me.

Pour molten caramel over shortbread.jpg

Top:

A bag of the best chocolate chips you can find. I like Ghirardelli milk chocolate, but whatever blows up your particular kilt is fine.

spread chocolate chips.jpg

HOW

Line an 8 X 8 baking pan with foil and spray generously with cooking spray.

If you have a mixer, use the paddle and combine butter, icing sugar, flour and salt until a soft dough forms. If you don’t, roll up your sleeves and get out your pastry cutter, then cut it all together until it looks like coarse crumbs, then knead until it is dough. Press into the bottom of your pan. I use a shot glass to roll it in pan to make sure it’s an even layer. Bake at 350 for 20-25 min until just slightly golden and set it aside to cool completely.

Place all the caramel ingredients into a heavy bottomed medium saucepan and whisk gently over medium heat. Don’t stop. You have 20-30 minutes to kill while the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Good thing you have WiFi in the kitchen.  It will boil gently. If it boils rapidly, turn it down a little or you’re going to have toffee, not caramel. This is boring. Stir continuously until it reaches a deep, golden colour, and you can let a few drops fall into a glass of ice water and be able to form them into a soft ball once cooled. Think, slightly stiffer than peanut butter. Remove from heat and pour over cooled shortbread, using spatula to scrape pan, and smooth evenly. Give it a minute or two to begin to firm up, then sprinkle your chocolate chips evenly over the whole surface.

Now go for a smoke, check Facebook, feed the cat.. whatever it is that you’ve been dying to do while you’ve been stuck standing in front of the stove stirring caramel. You have 3-5 minutes.

When you get back, use a clean spatula to spread the now melted chocolate chips into an even layer over the surface of the caramel. If so inclined, sprinkle a little sea salt on top.

Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.

Let them come up to room temperature again before cutting them, or the chocolate on top will shatter when you try to slice them into 24 bars, give or take. It’ll taste the same, but you’ll have ugly, ugly cookies of shame.

They can be stored at room temperature in an airtight tin for a week to ten days, but you won’t need to worry about that. You’ll probably have eaten half of them before they even make it to the tin.

 

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Chicken Apple Breakfast Sausage

05 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

cooking

Chicken Apple Breakfast Sausage

Chicken Apple Breakfast Sausage

Chicken Apple Breakfast Sausage Rounds

Ok, so it’s October now. That means a switch back to cold weather cooking and eating, and in our house, that means a switch back to hot breakfasts. Like anybody else, our mornings are busy, and starting from scratch isn’t an option. But being me, I resent paying far too much for low-quality, assembly line fast food that’s been handled by heaven knows who. Now that I’m on chemo full time, I have to be super cautious about food handling. With no immune system, food-bourne illness is easier than ever to fall to. I also do not like mass produced food. I’ve worked in enough factories and quick-serves over the years to be very skeptical of food handling in any business that is more accountable to its shareholders than its customers. So pretty much all of them. The solution is just to do all of our cooking at home. I enjoy the process, and often spend lazy weekend days puttering in the kitchen just for the pleasure of it, and then portion pack and freeze, so we enjoy the convenience of prepared stuff, without all the unlisted chemical additives, and questionable practices.
Also since it’s October, pretty much everything I make for the next month or so will feature either apples or carrots, since both are abundant, all but free and either grown by me, or someone I know. (There’s a wonderful carrot soup recipe coming, just as soon as I remember what I did!) Because I cook in such quantities, and often for a crowd, I’m also always aware of using what’s in season and readily available, just because it costs less. I’d go broke feeding everyone, except I stockpile things as they’re available, and buy and cook in quantity.

These came about when DH accidentally bought ground chicken instead of the turkey I’ve been using for years. They look the same, but cook and season much differently. They were an accident, but I think I like the chicken better.

WHAT

2 lbs ground chicken
1/2 baking apple (DON’T USE MACS) minced
1/2 medium sweet onion, minced
1/2 tsp minced garlic
3/4 tsp black pepper
3/4 tbsp crushed thyme
3/4 tbsp ground sage
1/2 tsp ground ginger (yes, Jenn, you can leave it out or use cayenne instead for heat, just use less)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2-4 tbsp cooking oil

HOW

Mince the apples and onions, and fry in oil in a large skillet until onions are transparent. Leave the pan on. In a large mixing bowl, combine chicken and spices. Add the apple and onion once they’re cooked and mix until thoroughly combined. Use a tablespoon, ice cream scoop or spatula to scoop out handfuls a little larger than a golf ball and pat into patties, dropping into hot pan when complete. Cook 4-5 minutes per side until browned, and never use the same spatula that you used for raw meat on the cooked product.

Now your house smells fabulous, and you have 16-20 sausage rounds that you can freeze and just heat and serve, or if you’re entertaining as I often do, grab yours and put the platter out on the table. You won’t get a second chance, because they’re amazing.

Goes without saying to wash hands thoroughly in between. Whenever handling raw poultry here, the dishes all get washed, and then rinsed with a little bleach in the rinse water. Sink is scrubbed, and dish cloth is washed and microwaved after clean up.

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Tourtiere

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tourtiere

Adapted from Canadian Living.

I’ve been making this one at Christmas for a few years now.  Like any of my recipes, this one is very versatile, and easy to double, and even triple.  You can make individual turnover style tourtiere for a cocktail party or buffet, or a full sized pie if you like.  Each double crust pastry recipe should yield 24 turnovers.  I tripled this recipe and made 48 turnovers and a full sized pie.

WHAT

  • 2/3 cup cubed, peeled potato.  I almost never do this.  I make a whole pot of mashed potatoes, and then use it as an excuse to make Leek & Potato Soup on the back burner.
  • 12 oz lean ground pork, or whatever convenient, non-standard sized package your grocer or butcher has.
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped (I use a quarter to a half of a large Texas sweet)
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced (or a heaping teaspoon of the minced stuff from the jar)
  • 1 rib celery, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup sodium-reduced chicken broth – use a tetra, use concentrate, a bullion cube, make from scratch- it doesn’t matter.
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 bay leaf

HOW

If you’re not just going to make a pot of mashed potatoes, you can microwave cubed potatoes for 5 min or so with a couple of tablespoons of water, and then coarsely mash with a fork and set aside.

Brown the meat.  I add the garlic, onions and celery while it’s browning.  Don’t forget to drain.  Once browned, add the spices, mashed potato, bay leaf and chicken broth.  Simmer, stirring regularly until most of the liquid is evaporated and then turn off the element and let it cool.

You CAN make your own pastry, I often do.  The one over at Canadian Living is as good as any I’ve used.  But this close to Christmas, I’m desperately short of counter space and time, and since Thursday was a chemo day, I’m still not feeling that hot, so I cheated.  Each double crust makes either one family sized tourtiere, or 24 or so turnovers.

If making turnovers, I use a pint glass and punch out rounds of pastry, then fill with 1tbsp (ish) of filling.  Dip finger in water and trace edge of pastry round, then fold over and crimp with a fork.

Don’t overfill.

They explode.

For a full pie, just drop whatever you’re using for pastry in to a 9″ pie plate, fill, add top crust and crimp edges to seal.  Whether making turnovers or a pie, don’t forget to cut vents.

They explode.

For turnovers, space them evenly on a parchment lined cookie sheet, for a pie, I always set the filled pie on a pan and lift that, so I don’t wind up breaking the crust trying to get it out of the oven.

Beat one egg lightly with about a tbsp of water, and brush pastry.  Sprinkle with Kosher salt if desired.

Bake in the bottom third of the oven at 425 for the first 15 minutes or so, then reduce heat, and bake an additional 15 min at 350.  For the pie, you may wish to use pie shields or tinfoil over the outer edge of the crust when you reduce the oven temp, on order to prevent scorching.

You’ll know when they’re done.  They’ll be golden brown, and your house will smell delicious.

Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.

If you’re making these ahead, freeze them in a single layer, then reheat on parchment lined baking sheet at 350 until they smell good.  If reheating a pie from frozen, don’t forget to shield the outer crust.

Your other option, of course, is just to eat them all.  🙂

Tourtiere turnovers (3)

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Grandma’s Molasses Crackles

28 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

My cousin posted yesterday about how, with the holidays approaching, she was craving a particular cookie my grandmother always used to make at the holidays.  Another cousin chimed in, and pretty soon we all realized that we all share a ‘sense memory’, associating the smell, taste, and texture of my grandmother’s molasses cookies with family and the holidays.  After my grandmother died, another cousin went through her recipe cards, many annotated or hand written, and made each of us a copy of ‘Grandma’s Cook Book’.  A fair number of the recipes are missing steps, or have ingredients that my grandmother forgot to mention, since it was assumed that you already KNEW what you were doing, and what the end result should be.  She was an accomplished home cook who would feed anybody, and whose cooking and kitchen, whether at the winter house or the cottage, were the anchor of pretty much every childhood holiday, as well as a gathering place for half the known world.  As a teenage runaway, I held on to some of those sensory impressions for dear life, the only shreds of home and security I could carry at times.  Now, as an adult, I take as many opportunities as I can to fill my home and kitchen with people, and a lot of the same tastes, smells and textures that were the foundation of so many great childhood memories.  Food nourishes so much more than just the body at times.  This is one of those recipes I keep going back to,every holiday season, because it brings an echo of my gigantic, messy, wonderful family, both living and not, into my present day life, along with all of the associated great memories of time spent with them.

Enjoy.

2013-11-28 13.37.59

Grandma’s Molasses Crackles

WHAT

3/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon each of ground cloves, ground ginger and salt

Granulated sugar for rolling

HOW

Cream together molasses, shortening, sugar and egg

Sift all dry ingredients and blend into wet to form a soft, sticky dough.

CHILL- I recommend at least two hours.  Unchilled dough makes flat cookies that don’t crackle.

Once dough is chilled, roll into 1″ balls, and then roll in granulated sugar. I use the coarse, sparkly kind.  It’s pretty, and adds a nice crunch.  Place cookies at least an inch and a half apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet, and bake at 350. ‘Till done’ is what my grandmother’s instructions say.  For the rest of us, that’s about 10-11 min if you prefer them soft, and 12-15 if you like them hard and crunchy, like a biscotti.  Let cool on the pan for a minute or two before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.  Depending on how big you roll them, this makes 4-5 dozen.  Make a double batch.  They’re delicious, and your whole house will smell wonderful.

Try not to eat them all before anyone gets to see what a genius you are in the kitchen.

 

 

 

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Rage Against the Minivan: On respect, responsibility, and Mrs. Hall’s open letter to teenaged girls

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Excellent post from rageagainsttheminivan.com.  Kristin says exactly what I thought on reading Mrs. Hall’s vicious open letter to teenaged girls.  Only she says it more articulately, and with less swearing.

Rage Against the Minivan: On respect, responsibility, and Mrs. Hall’s open letter to teenaged girls

On respect, responsibility, and Mrs. Hall’s open letter to teenaged girls

Last week I saw dozens of people linking to a post written as an open letter to teen girls from the mom of several boys. Almost as quickly as that post went viral, the backlash hit. It seems like the post struck a nerve – some feeling like it expressed their very own thoughts, and others feeling like the message was problematic.

I am in the latter camp, and my first reaction was to write a snarky post . . . my own open letter back . . . maybe some satire to skewer what I felt to be a condescending and sanctimonious tone towards other people’s children. But I thought better of it, because the more I thought about this mom and her need to write something like this, the more empathy I felt for her.

When I really look at this post and the message behind it, I actually feel sad. I feel sad for this mom and sad for her boys. I think the attitude in this post reflects a lot of fear . . . fear of her boys growing older, fear of their sexuality, fear of their autonomy, fear of their potential. While we may land in different places, I get that fear. I think a lot of parents do. I desperately want my kids to have a healthy sex life as adults. But when I think of the possibility of one of my kids having a sloppy makeout session behind the portables or looking at porn or posting sexy photos, I kind of want to curl up into a fetal position. But hiding my head in the sand about the fact that my children are sexual beings does not benefit me, nor does it benefit my kids. Neither does pretending like it’s everyone OUTSIDE my home who poses a risk to my child’s sexualization, because I have enough humility to know that it could very well be my own daughter posting sexy photos someday, and it could very well be my own son googling a lot worse.

Mrs. Hall and I probably have a lot in common. We probably have anxiety about the potential problems and heartache that could result from early sexual behavior. We probably want our kids to grow up into respectful adults. We probably want them to be respected, too. We want to be involved parents and we want to be cautious of their online life. We want our kids to become moral, upright citizens of the world. We don’t want to raise boys who are disrespectful or who leer at girls.

But Mrs. Hall and I have very different approaches for how to get there. She seems to think she can best help her sons with their sexuality by externalizing the problem. I was struck by the us vs. them nature of this post, as if her own children were devoid of any of their own impulses if it weren’t for the influence of others. She puts the responsibility of their thought life on their female friends. She blames the girls for any potential objectification. For example:

“Did you know that once a male sees you in a state of undress, he can’t ever un-see it? You don’t want the Hall boys to only think of you in this sexual way, do you?”
Whether or not boys are capable of only thinking of a girl in a sexual way after seeing her in a bathing suit or pj’s is a problem to address WITH THE BOYS. Yes, parents of girls should be having discussions about how they present themselves online. I think that needs to happen within relationship, and it needs to happen with kindness instead of shame. But parents of boys should be having discussions with their boys about their own behavior, and how they will conduct themselves in a world that screams to girls that they need to be sexy.

There is a lot of pressure on girls to be sexual. Our culture tells us in overt and covert ways that sex sells, that being sexy equals power, that the shape of our bodies communicates our worth. It’s not the least bit surprising that girls feel tempted to express themselves this way, and this is a necessary conversation to have with our girls. However, I don’t think the context of this conversation should be about boys and their powerlessness to objectify. It should be about self-empowerment, wisdom, and personal boundaries. Because no girl is responsible if a boy can ONLY look at her in a sexual way. And the dangerous message that Mrs. Hall is sending her own sons is that they are powerless to the objectification of women if certain modesty conditions are not met.

Further, our conversations with girls should be approached with respect and understanding. I shudder to think about having a mother approach me with the tone Mrs. Hall took when I was a teenager screaming for attention with my clothing choices. I feel sad for the real-life peers of Mrs. Hall’s children who realize that they’ve been blocked and then read her barbed “no second chances” letter to them online. This is not grace.

The irony here is that Mrs. Hall herself is objectifying these girls. She is rejecting them if they have stepped outside of he code of behavior which involves only one trait: modesty. She’s not asking about their other qualities. She’s not looking at context. And she is teaching her sons that they have two options when confronted with a sexually attractive girl: objectify or reject. I’m afraid this practice is only reinforcing the idea that boys could not possibly view someone who looks sexy without objectifying them. She isn’t teaching her sons to respect women. She is teaching them that only certain woman are deserving of respect.

I love how Nate Pyle puts this in a post to his son:

A lot of people will try and tell you that a woman should watch how she dresses so she doesn’t tempt you to look at her wrongly. Here is what I will tell you. It is a woman’s responsibility to dress herself in the morning. It is your responsibility to look at her like a human being regardless of what she is wearing. You will feel the temptation to blame her for your wandering eyes because of what she is wearing – or not wearing. But don’t. Don’t play the victim. You are not a helpless victim when it comes to your eyes.
Our world is bombarded with sexual imagery. Unless we have our boys walking around in blindfolds, they are going to see it. It’s on billboard and commercials. It’s on magazines at the checkout aisle and at the gas station. And yes, it’s on instagram and facebook. It’s not wrong to want to reduce this. But our goal shouldn’t be to solely set up conditions in which our sons who never have to deal with this. Our goal should be to have sons who are equipped to deal with women they find sexy. Because THEY WILL. (Or they may find men sexy. That’s a possibility, too.)

I think it is vital that we teach our boys that there is a difference between finding someone sexually attractive vs. reducing another person to a sexual object. We would do well to teach our boys that one does not have to lead to the other. (We would also do well to reassure our children that sexual attraction is TOTALLY NORMAL).

Speaking of sexual attraction being totally normal, something else really bothered me in Mrs. Hall’s post. She said:

We hope to raise men with a strong moral compass, and men of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily clad high-school girls.
I’m going to ignore the age specifics here, since she’s referring to her boys who are in high school. But I want to point out that many men of integrity DO linger over pictures of scantily-clad women. The fact that Mrs. Hall thinks these things are mutually exclusive is not going to prepare her sons well, either. In my counseling practice I’ve seen MANY men of integrity who struggle with looking at pornography. Of course, some men do this and don’t have moral convictions about it, but I’m referring to men who hold religious beliefs that place this behavior outside their own moral code. I’ve seen pastors of mega-churches, Christian authors, elders, church leaders struggling with pornography . . . I’ve seen great husbands and exemplary dads who struggle with their impulses as it relates to sexual imagery. Plenty of good men struggle to adhere to their own convictions about sexual imagery or lust. And I’ve also seen that most of these men, when raised in Christian homes, had families that shared a pattern of behavior:

They were taught to be ashamed of their sexual feelings
Their parents emphasized female bodies as “forbidden fruit”
They were taught all-or-nothing thinking in relation to sexuality (i.e. Good men aren’t even tempted by this stuff)
Their families lived in denial about adolescent sexual behavior
Their families never normalized sexual feelings
Their families held the reigns too tight, failing to equip them for life in the real world
These kinds of parental behaviors often lead to the very thing the parents are trying to avoid, because when we pair shame with normal sexual attraction, over and over, we are telling our boys (and girls) that there is something wrong with them. Shame is the fuel for addiction – why saddle our children with that potential? We’ve got to normalize sexual feelings and within that, teach self-control and respect. Our kids need to learn to do this in the context of the real world. Because one of these days they won’t have mom around to block the instagram accounts of every potentially sexy friend.

We can’t control how others dress. We can try to help our own daughters, and the girls whose trust we have earned, to make good choices. But when it comes to our sons we need to focus on teaching our boys to manage their own thoughts and to extend respect to every woman, regardless of how she is dressed. That’s their job and no one else’s. Trying to protect them from situations they will encounter in real life simply leaves them with under-developed self control and a mentality that blames women for their impulses.

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Pierogies

24 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

As I’ve mentioned previously, by a combination of choice and chance, I often end up feeding a lot of people at once. I also live on a fixed income, so making the most out of inexpensive ingredients isn’t just something I teach, it’s something I do by necessity. Yes, I know you can buy frozen pierogies inexpensively at the grocery store, but I like to know ALL of the ingredients in the things my family eats whenever possible, and prefer to be in control of how much salt, fat, sugar etc. goes into the things I make. I’ve also worked in enough factories to be skeptical of food handling techniques in any environment that is more answerable to its shareholders than its customers. Also, preparing and eating meals as a group strengthens both families and communities, both things that mean a lot to me.

So I make a lot of things from scratch. Also, given the time of year, potatoes are even more available and inexpensive than usual. This is another recipe that will feed a small army on less than $10 worth of ingredients, and still leave leftovers for the freezer. I was cooking with the kids today, not because they’re much help yet, but because I think cooking is one of many life skills best started as early as possible. By making it fun for them now, I hope to encourage a lifelong enjoyment of the art and science of preparing their own meals, as well as providing the tools for making their own kitchens an anchor for their social universes someday, as mine is for me.

They’re all still pretty young though, so I did a lot of the prep work ahead of time, making and chilling the dough, preparing the filling and allowing it to cool, so they could jump right into the fun ‘hands on’ part as soon as they were ready.

WHAT

Dough

Pierogie Dough

2 cups flour, plus extra for kneading and rolling dough
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup sour cream, plus extra to serve with the pierogi
1/4 cup butter, softened and cut into small pieces
butter and onions for sauteeing

Filling

5-6 medium potatoes
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp butter

Your choice of shredded cheddar, finely chopped sauteed onion, dry curd (drained) cottage cheese, minced cooked bacon, whatever blows up your particular kilt in terms of flavours. I don’t measure quantities for these, since it’s up to your individual taste. A general guide might be 1/2 cup cheddar, 1/2 a medium sweet onion, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, but really, play around until it tastes good to you, and is of a consistency that you could roll it into a 1″ ball and have it stay that way without spreading or crumbling. Salt and pepper to taste. Today I made four double batches (about 200 pierogies) so I know this recipe doubles and triples easily. If I’m going to go to the hassle anyway, I prefer to fill the freezer for easy use later, when I’m more pressed for time.

Making the Dumplings

HOW

In large mixing bowl, or bowl of your trusty stand mixer, combine all dry ingredients. Add sour cream, egg and butter all at once, and mix until combined. If working dough by hand, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until dough is smooth and elastic. If using mixer, just dump everything in with the dough hook and let it run on 1 for a few minutes until smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 min or overnight.

While dough is chilling peel, quarter and boil potatoes in salted water. Drain when fork tender and mash with whatever combination of ingredients appeals to you. Allow to cool enough to be workable.

Once chilled, on a floured surface, roll dough to 1/8″ thickness and cut out rounds using a biscuit cutter, pint glass or whatever else is handy. Place a rounded teaspoon or so of filling in the center of a round. Dip one finger in water and trace around the edge of the round, then fold over and press edges together to seal. If you like pretty pierogies, crimp the edges with a fork. Place in single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet while working so they don’t stick together. These refrigerate for up to 2 days uncooked, and can be frozen indefinitely. Freeze in a single layer first (you can bag them after they’re frozen) to help keep them from sticking together. If you’re going straight for cooking, pay attention, because I sort of depart from the text here.

First boil

Then brownMost people lean one of two ways with pierogies, they EITHER boil or fry. I do both. Simultaneously, using a method I learned from watching a friend prepare Chinese dumplings. Drizzle 4-6 tbsp of oil into a large, shallow, non-stick pan at medium heat. Top with about 1/2 cup water. Lay pierogies into the water. Allow enough space for them not to be on top of each other or they’ll stick. The water should bubble around them, basically shallow boiling them. Let it boil for 3-4 min, then flip and let the other side boil. Eventually the water will evaporate, and you’ll be left with the oil, so you can move straight from boiling into browning. Let the side that’s down once the water goes brown first, then flip. You may need to keep an eye on them, and move them around to keep them from scorching. Remove when your preferred shade of golden brown is achieved. I make pierogies a couple of hundred at a time, so I often have my big catering pans on standby to keep them warm in the oven until I’m ready to serve. Often I’ll bake large chunks of kielbasa or similar style sausage while I’m sauteeing pierogies.

When serving, top with sauteed onions, crisp bacon, shredded cheddar, sour cream…whatever.

Finished

Enjoy!

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Cinnamon Streusel Mulberry Muffins

29 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by JennB in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

baking, cooking, recipes

I hate mulberries.  Not the flavour or texture or anything.  I hate the mess.  I was already living under a catalpa, a basswood, and a northern black maple, all of which lean over my tiny 16′ X 20 patio.  I’d already gotten used to needing a snow shovel for 10 months of the year if I intended to use my patio.  When the houseful of post-grad students next door to me let a mulberry tree grow RIGHT on the fenceline between our two tiny little yards, rather than pull it out before it could do any damage, I figured it was no big deal, ’cause the mess certainly couldn’t get any worse.

I figured wrong.

Mulberry trees are crazy messy.  And they draw pests.  Every night, under my window I listen to raccoons, possums, skunks and heaven knows what else rooting around my yard after mulberries, and every morning, just before dawn, an epic battle between blue jays, robins, and squirrels rages right under my window, tormenting both cats, as every other living thing in my neighbourhood fights over fruit, and then shits all over my patio furniture.  The roots are heaving my patio pavers along the fence line, and I sweep, and then SHOVEL buckets full of berries out into the common green space on the other side of my gate (for the landscapers to deal with) at least twice a day.  As I write this, there are now two of them (berries, not landscapers) floating in my coffee.

I hate that effing tree.

I also hate the idea of wasting anything that could be made useful.  So with the burst of hyper-kinetic energy that arrives within a day or two of a chemo treatment, Boi and I were out early this morning, collecting the nicest of them before shoveling the rest out the gate, since if we leave them standing, we end up with mice, squirrels and far creepier critters constantly visiting our tiny yard in search of food, and I’d already filled the neighbours’ mailbox with them.  Being on chemo means having virtually no immune system, so any and all fresh produce, regardless of origin is soaked in a vinegar/water solution for 10 min or so before being rinsed and dried for use.  Normally both boys are sort ambivalent about eating fruit, but if I put enough cinnamon streusel topping on it, they’ll eat pretty much anything.  So I adapted an old coffee cake recipe and made Cinnamon Streusel Mulberry Muffins.

2013-06-29 10.04.52WHAT

Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil (you can lower the fat/calories by substituting an equal amount of unsweetened apple sauce. It will produce a tougher texture though)
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh mulberries (Use more if you like. They’re all over the damned place! I will cheerfully mail you some if you don’t have a mulberry tree of your own!)

Topping

1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

HOW

Oven 400 degrees

Grease 8 large muffin cups.  My muffin pan has 12 cups.  I always fill the empty ones with water to avoid damaging the non-stick coating by baking empty.

Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in large mixing bowl.  Or if you’re me, in the bowl of your stand mixer.  Fill measuring cup with 1/3 cup oil.  Crack the egg into that, then top with milk until the cup is full.  Pour this into the dry ingredients and mix until combined.  FOLD in the berries.  Don’t use the mixer for those, or you’ll end up breaking them and you’ll have lovely purple muffins with no discernable fruit.  Unless you want that.  I have kids.  They like purple food.

For the topping, combine cinnamon with sugar, flour and cubed butter.  The original directions say to just mash it with a fork, which I’m sure will work for most of you, but owing to non-working fingers (the result of a progressive auto-immune condition that causes arthritis, among other things) I have to use a pastry cutter.  The result should be a coarse crumb.

Spoon batter TO FILL muffin cups.  Top with as much of the cinnamon crumb as you can jam on without it falling off all over the bottom of the oven. (the bits left on the pan when you’re done are your reward for not just eating it all with a spoon)

Bake on center rack 20-25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Anytime they start to smell good is a good time to look in on them if you’re like me and don’t really ‘time’ anything.

Allow to cool a few minutes in the pan while you pick at any stray bits of topping that may have fallen off your muffins, and now be looking lonely, and in need of eating.  Remove to wire rack and let ’em cool most of the way.  Serve slightly warm with butter, jam or whatever blows up your particular kilt.

2013-06-29 10.22.04

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Follow Nation of Three on Twitter

My Tweets

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 32 other subscribers

Other Jenns I love

  • Highly Irritable Because Jeni M makes me feel less guilty about my own life.
  • Runesmith's Canadian Content Smart political commentary from a Canadian perspective.
  • The Bloggess Because Jenny Lawson is way funnier than I am.
  • You Know, THAT Blog Because we Jenns need to stick together.

Nation of Three Follows

  • Dressed for Success, Egesta Comics What Sweet Hubby does when he’s not holding my purse, or retrieving my lost coffee cups.
  • Ivan Sorensen Photography Images from the artful eye.
  • Nero's Fiddle What I do when not parenting/blogging/cooking
  • Studio A Audio Recording & Production Great alternative to corporate studio for indie musicians or businesses!
  • The Honest Toddler The name says it all really. Check it out!

Old Stuff

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Nation of Three
    • Join 32 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Nation of Three
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: