Category Archives: Cooking

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Our Cornish Christmas – An Open House – Part I

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I wanted to throw open our doors and invite you in for a Christmas coffee and some Hello Dollies. I hope you’ll be able to stay a few minutes and say hello. I may even give a house tour if you are interested in seeing what we’ve been up to here.

This is a Christmas decoration I put together using Christmas crackers. I learned that while shopping with John for our Christmas goodies at the grocery store that when I say we need some crackers we are more likely to end up staring at an aisle filled with these than something you serve with a cheese ball. For nibbling with cheese, I now know that I should be asking for cheese biscuits rather than crackers especially at Christmas.

This is our dining area off the kitchen. I prefer the table the other way, but it makes it hard for people to sit when they have to scrunch in next to the wall. We’re planning to redo the kitchen next year once we recover from having built the extension and by “we ” I mean mostly John so this area which is part of the kitchen will look different (bigger) by next Christmas.

This was a Christmas floral arrangement I made for the table. The batik on the wall was the largest “art piece” I shipped over and I was so glad to see it arrive in great condition. I bought the batik on a trip to Bali in 2002 and it was something several people wanted me to leave behind so they could have it. The crystal candlestick holders are very special because they belonged to my good friend Patrice’s mom, Marilyn and Patrice gave them to me when Marilyn died a few years ago.

Here is a slightly better shot of the batik.

You can see my Angel bowl that my daughter painted years ago looking down over our table. I hand carried it on my last flight from America. As good as my shippers were, I didn’t want to risk this special gift from her.

Here’s the other side of the space above … where my ingredients wait on the counter (work top) to create our Christmas dinner.

John made all these cabinets and built some more to hold my good china that made across the ocean in perfect condition. If you look at the countertop you can see a large bread bowl and a rolling pin. Both were made by my great grandfather Harper who was a blacksmith and a carpenter. I used the rolling pin when I made these yummy cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and made a few extra for some of my neighbors. It was only my second experience baking with yeast and it held a few surprises.

The bubbling over piece was not one I’d anticipated would keep happening.

But the yield was marvelous as you can see below and this is just what I gave away. We which really means, I ate a bunch of them as well. I forgot to photograph the finished product, but you can go here to see Pioneer Woman’s rolls and her recipe which I followed.

Additionally, I made a sweet potato dish that once you’ve had it, all others pale in comparison. I even brought back the same canned yams I normally use from America, carrying them over in my suitcase. I thought this two pound can would be enough. Hah!  The measuring cup was only half full …

… which left me doing what you see below … cooking more sweet potatoes.

What you see here is me using my computer to follow Pioneer Woman’s cornbread recipe so I can use it in my cornbread dressing which came from her website too. That’s my grandmother’s mixing bowl you see there and if you look back by the computer you can see Miranda in a photograph taken in Paris when we were there for the millennium new year … a whole different story to come later.

My daughter Miranda is the child in the leather coat with the bag over her shoulder queuing for the her first visit to the Louvre.

Next on my list was a recipe we make at Christmas which needed raspberry gelatin and this looked like the Jello gelatin boxes back in America with the exception of being a different brand name. Plus, I knew that what I know as Jello they called Jelly so I thought this one be one familiar thing to work with even if the packaging was different. I set the water to boil and opened the box expecting to find a package of powder to dissolve and was surprised to find …

this … I had about a half second where I thought, what am I supposed to do with this? As John would say when I say something a little different because it’s an American thing, ” I worked it out.”

This is the first deep dish pumpkin pecan pie I ever made. I was so proud of it and it tasted as good as it looked. Well, …

… for a slice or two until it slipped from my hands and fell onto the floor making a nasty mix of broken glass and pie. I was so sad and slightly angry that I had not had a chance to fully enjoy my pie made with pumpkin mix brought from America. You can’t buy it here and I was really bothered by the fact that it was all wasted. So taking my last can of pumpkin and what remained of my pecans, I made …

… this!

Which looked like this when it was done and …

… like this just before I had the first piece. Mmm!

Maybe you remember John’s cousin Mary… she was visiting this past summer with her brother Michael when he suddenly had a heart attack and died. It was a sad time for us all. I wrote about it here, here, and here, if you’d like to learn more about her sweet brother.

This is what our guest room looks like now. I still need to build the padded headboard, but since Mary was staying with us for Christmas I had to save that piece for the new year. Do you remember back when I was reworking the curtains and the duvet and making the pillow shams and the bedskirt or dust ruffle … if not you can go here to read about it.


That’s all for now, have another cup of coffee and I be back with another plate of Hello Dollies and some more pictures in part II.

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Making Mary’s Magnificent Cheese Ball

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John’s cousin Mary has come to spend Christmas with us arriving late last night at about 11:00. While John was pouring her a glass of wine, I got out the cheese ball that I made the night before which interestingly is called Mary’s Cheese Ball. It’s another recipe from my step-mom Cullene and one of my favorites to make this time of year. I promise you that cheese ball will stand out in a crowd of Christmas party trays and people will be asking you for the recipe once they have a bite or two.

It’s very simple. ( Large recipe located at the end of the post )

You mix some finely chopped green peppers along with crushed and well drained pineapple … I chop my pineapple to be sure it’s small enough. ( I’m serious about the well drained part … you don’t want to have soggy balls.)

Then add some onions that are chopped very small.

I prefer a spicy seasoning mix like the Spicy Season – All above instead of a seasoning salt as the recipe calls for. I am not loyal to a brand yet but I look for one with less salt and no MSG.

Mix all your ingredients well. ( Don’t forget to add a portion of the pecans to it )

Put down some foil with a bit of plastic wrap on top then sprinkle some of the pecans into the center and add a bit of the cheese mixture.

Then I sprinkle a little nuts around the sides and over the top and use the plastic wrap to work it in gently.

My picture isn’t the prettiest, but it’s going to taste good.

I like to make different sized cheese balls so I have plenty of fresh ones ( that look pretty) when people stop by.

Uh oh!   Looks like there’s enough for one more.

And there you have it, a tower of Mary’s cheese balls almost ready for nibbling. I like to give these a day to develop the best flavor. It’s one of those things that after a couple of days the flavor just gets better. I serve mine with crackers, but sometimes after Christmas I spread it on my leftover turkey and use it in a sandwich.

Please let me know if you give it a try. I already know what your family and friends will say about it. Last night was no exception as my new British family munched it up and said several times how much they liked it. I’ll be back in a little while to show you what else I ‘m working on. Dare I say there may be more than two or three posts today.

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Hello Dollies – The Taste Of Christmas

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If we are friends on Facebook, you probably know I have been in a modest panic over the last few days because I could not find pecans, a key ingredient in four of the must have treats for my Christmas dinner. Okay…maybe the Hello Dollies aren’t exactly required to make dinner complete, but I had to have pecans for my sweet potato casserole in addition to a special cranberry salad, a cheese ball, and a pumpkin pecan pie all of which must have pecans to make them properly. So you can see why I was beginning to send out SOS messages to the community. Tina, my running buddy answered the call with a shop that still had them and John picked up a couple of bags yesterday just in time for me to make some of the tasty sweets to send off to Jersey to his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, Jersey Girl.

After Judy Harper asked for the recipe and Cindy a friend from high school expressed an interest, I thought I would share both the recipe and a view of my putting it to all together this morning. I have to say that while I finally got my hands on some pecans, there were no graham cracker crumbs to be found and I had to substitute something used for crumbles here. I was skeptical at first, but I think it really adds to the overall taste of the Hello Dollies so it gets my vote for a positive change to an old favorite.

This recipe is part of a collection of family favorites that my step-mom Cullene put together for me on recipe cards a few years ago.

As you can see by the picture above, I have a bag of honey roasted cashew nuts and peanuts that I tried in this recipe too. I made one half with pecans and the other with the mix above. The slightly salty sweet taste of the honey roast made for a taste change I liked.

A problem with cooking here and using local ingredients for my recipes from home is the need to translate measurements. Take the Jersey butter above. That butter package is 250 grams. My recipe calls for 1/2 cup. See what I mean. These cookies should take about 10 minutes to put together, but making a special dish here for the first time can take a bit longer than normal and it can require an extra kitchen aid to help with the conversions. ( note my laptop bottom right )

Butter and crumble mix and molded into bottom of dish to form a base crust.

Then you add chocolate chips and nuts. I prefer a little less chocolate in mine.

The sweet glue that makes it all one chewy mixture goes on after the coconut flakes.

Pop it in the oven until it looks like the picture below. Some people prefer it a bit lighter in color with less oven time, but I like mine chewy. Just be careful not to burn the bottom. I would watch them when they start to get close to being done.

The finished product.

Ready for taste testing … Mmm.

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I’m No Pioneer Woman

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I know it’s been a little while since I’ve been here. Have you missed me? I’ve missed being here, but I have been so busy during the last three weeks that I just haven’t had a block of time to write. It’s late here … almost 2:30 am and I still have to pack. Tomorrow I fly back to England and as much as I have enjoyed my visit home, I’m really looking forward to getting back to my life in Cornwall with John.

I have loads of stories to share, but tonight I had a chance to meet a special blogger who I’ve been following for the last couple of years. If you haven’t had an opportunity to check out this really lovely woman, scoot over here and have a look around.  Take your time there’s a lot to see and I’ll be here when you get back.

Right … I hope you took time to see what Ree Drummond, aka ” The Pioneer Woman”  is all about. I’ve been learning a lot from her over the last year or so especially in the kitchen. In fact, I think there are a few people in my village who might say I have really got the hang of this dish ( scroll down towards the end of the post) that I took straight from her website.

It’s no surprise that I found myself waiting to meet the Pioneer Woman on my last night in America ( for the next seven months, not forever) along with hundreds of other people. She was in town on a book tour to promote her cookbook which I am sure will make my kitchen experience a lot safer for my computer. I picked up one for myself, my daughter Miranda, and her former college roommate Emily. My good friend Patrice came to keep me company while I waited and after browsing through my cookbook, she quickly decided she had to have one too.

My daughter Miranda is a huge fan of PW and wanted to be there, but had to work so I snapped a bunch of photos so she could get a sense of what it was like.  I’ve been to book signings before and never have I seen so many people turn out and wait so patiently. It was a laid back group of mostly women with a smattering of men around taking pictures and helping with children. I did meet one man who was there to buy his wife the cookbook although he confessed that he had tried quite a few of PW’s recipes that he found on her blog. His wife reads the blog everyday, but he prefers to try out things like the cinnamon rolls which he confessed were too good to make very often.  That sounds like a perfect Christmas morning treat.

There were several surprises for me tonight which added to the evening making it even more fun. As soon as I walked upstairs, I ran into a woman I used to work with at a hospice organization in Atlanta. Carla was one of the sweetest people I met there and exactly the type of person you want walking you through things should you or someone you know ever need hospice care.  She was delightful as always and she gave me permission to post a picture of her that I lifted from her facebook page. She’s a newlywed as you can see by the photograph. She wasn’t there for the book signing, but I still raved about the recipes in the cookbook. So Carla if you’re reading this, go over to PW’s place and check out the brisket.

When Patrice and I finally made it to the line, (they called us to it in groups according to numbered color coded wristbands…very civilized ) we were talking with each other when I easedropped overheard two women behind us doing something that sounded familiar. Barely pausing, I quickly turned around and interrupted them in the middle of what I remembered as the torture that goes with the practice of selling drugs. I blurted out, ” Are you two drug reps? ”  They were practicing a sales call with one being the doctor and one the pharma rep. It turned out to be a migraine medication which is kind of funny since I suffer from them from time to time. If you’ve read my blog for long you know that I worked in the same field for too many years. They were in town for a POA (plan of action) meeting and even had a sales aid with them to practice while they waited. As much fun as they were, I am so grateful that my life is no longer like theirs.

Joyce is in red and Deb (go here to see her post) is holding the sales aid or marketing piece depending on how old school you are.

This is me killing time goofing around with my knitting which I brought in case I needed something to do. I just pulled it out for a photo opportunity as there were far too many people to watch and chat with to focus on knitting.

Still these girls seem to be able to focus on the task at hand.

I was too busy focusing on babies like little Helen here above with her mom and the sneaky pic of the sweetly sleeping child below nestled in her mother’s lap.

We waited and watched others leaving with their cookbooks and PW T-shirts… a great gift for those who got their book signed.

Looks like someone is going to give a lot of cookbooks for Christmas.

This is a fuzzy shot of Pioneer Woman going in to her signing area  … people were so happy to see her that they clapped when she arrived and she wasn’t late either …she was way early.

She spoke for a minute, but I couldn’t hear her very well. The sound system was iffy and I was too busy checking out her boots.

It was all go right from the beginning and the smile you see below at the beginning of the evening was still there…

…when I got my chance to say hello and have my books signed.

That’s me telling her all about the time I told my daughter about my blog (when it was new) and her response afterwards. After taking a look around my blog, I asked my daughter what she thought about it and she said, ” It’s okay, but you’re no Pioneer Woman.”  No Pioneer Woman…I was the one who introduced her to the PW in the first place!

She’s still gracious and smiling even after I asked Patrice to take about four pictures of us.

Patrice and I finished up the evening with a signature from Betsy & Hyacinth and after picking up a T – shirt, we said our goodbyes and headed for home.

One last shot before I go.

I may not be Pioneer Woman, but thanks to her cookbook I can sure cook like her now… so fire up the oven John, I’m coming home!  Oops… I forgot myself for a minute and started talking like a rancher’s wife.

I’ll be back in a day or two…blogging from our little village in Cornwall. See you then.

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Remedial Bread Slicing 101

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“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.”

~ Robert Browning

I am not sure there is a food group I love as much as I do bread, I can eat it in almost all forms, but I think I like a simple slice of toast with butter and jam best of all. I’m used to buying hearty multigrain breads loaded with bits of heathy things that are prone to sticking in the teeth. Unless traveling where bread is unsliced, I almost always buy mine already cut into pieces perfectly shaped for the toaster. In this house, John prefers to buy his bread in long loaves untouched by the baker’s steel. He does a nice job with cutting his own gauging the width based on his mood and appetite. Since his loaves do not come with a sticker on the side listing ingredients along with the all important (to me) fat and calorie content, I have tended to have a different bread in the house which has been previously referred to as my bread. This weekend, they were out of  “my bread” so John came home with extra loaves of  “his bread.” In the past, I’ve had little experience with slicing my own and it seems I’ve been making a bit of a mess of it. John commented on it in a funny sort of way yesterday. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but I worked a bit harder this morning trying to keep it on a straight line. Below are the results…

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At a glance it doesn’t look too bad baring the hole in one slice and the missing edge of the other. The loaf itself looks reasonably straight, but see it as it really is below…

IMG_4809

Tips on technique would be greatly appreciated.

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Independence Day

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American Flag - Elizabeth Harper

‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee …’  are the words running though my head this afternoon.

I left the United States seven and a half weeks ago and aside from a few passing moments, I have not been really homesick until today. Today is the 4th of July, if you’re reading this and you’re an American, the date has meaning. Today in England, there is nothing on the news to indicate what’s happening on the other side of the ocean. The US seems to make the news here everyday, but today, when I’d like a glimpse of home there is nothing.

Cullene's Table - Elizabeth Harper

I’ve tried to create a bit of flavor from home by making some of my favorite family recipes. Things you’d recognize on any table at any gathering on July 4th.  I thought it would help, but I think I miss the traditions of the day and the people I love from home even more.

Watermelon

My sister in Alaska quite sweetly made me my very own version of a Peachtree Road Race number with a few modifications to fit my geographical location.  I usually run this race every year with exception of a few when I’ve been out of the country on vacation. I spoke with one of my closest friends this morning as she was preparing for the race. We ran the Marine Corps Marathon together last October and it would have been fun to run the what is touted as the world’s largest 10K run, with her today. It’s limited to 55,000 runners and the race numbers are almost as valuable as one of Willie Wonka’s Golden tickets.

Race Ticket

The weather here was quite different from the 91 degree heat I noticed on the Atlanta Journal website. Of course it’s always heat stroke weather for the Peachtree and it would not be right if wasn’t hellishly hot. Which is why when I looked out the window today and saw the weather here, I decided to skip my morning run.

Water Window

With the windy wet weather we’re having here, our barbeque chicken had to be cooked in the oven instead of outside on the grill. John keeps referring to the amount of food I’ve prepared for just the two of us as a feast. I can’t help thinking about my dad manning the grills on the 4th. Yes, you read that right. I said grills as in at least two and sometimes three. Chicken and burgers and ribs … oh my! Even though there were usually only five to ten people at our house on the 4th, my dad would cook as if the whole neighborhood would be on the doorstep before the day was out. We would have leftovers for days … with so much chicken you’d think you were going to start clucking if you had to eat another piece.

July 4 Lunch 2008

It’s been a quiet day here at my home away from home. Thanks to my sister in Alaska who took the time to dig out some family genealogy …we’ve spent a bit of the day reading about the life my ancestor, John Sparks who along with many others fought for American Independence.

Apple Pie

It’s late evening and John and I have had our first 4th of July together. We’ve had a lovely meal and lots of conversation about the ways our respective countries are both different and alike. When I went to Wikipedia to see who wrote the lyrics to ‘America’ also known as, ‘My Country, ‘Tis Of Thee,’ I found that Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics without knowing that the melody he was using was the same as the one used for ‘God Save The Queen,’ the national anthem of the United Kingdom.

Imagine that … I guess in some ways we’re really not that different after all.

Reposted from original GOTJ

Sorry to have such tiny photos, but the originals were smaller on the first GOTJ blog.