SkyWatch Friday: Frosty Daybreak & Festive Delight...

Our week began with frigid 5ºF temps and this golden sunrise, made eerie by the freezing fog...

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After Monday's frozen sunrise, we wanted a warm and festive treat. So I made these yummy muffins...

Cranberry-Orange Muffins from FatFree Vegan Kitchen

(©Susan Voisin & reprinted with permission; my changes in red italics)

Ingredients

~ 2/3 cup unsweetened dried cranberries* (if using sweetened, omit agave nectar & reduce sugar to 1/2 cup)

~ 1/2 cup hot water

~ 1 TBSP agave nectar (omit if using sweetened dried cranberries)

~ 1 cup whole wheat flour

~ 1 cup unbleached white flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)

~ 1 TBSP ground flax seeds

~ 3/4 cup sugar (I use 1/2 cup of sucanat)

~ 1/2 TBSP egg replacer powder (Ener-G brand or homemade)

~ 1 teaspoon baking powder (I use reduced sodium)

~ 1 teaspoon baking soda

~ 1/2 teaspoon salt (I reduce to 1/4 tsp)

~ 1/2 cup orange juice (I use juice of zested orange + 2-3 mandarins)

~ 1/2 cup soy or rice milk (I use plain, unsweetened organic soy milk)

~ 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

~ 1 teaspoon vanilla

~ 1 teaspoon grated orange zest

~ 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional) (I use 'em!)

* I've also used regular frozen cranberries, thawed - halving the larger ones and soaking them in the hot water. They work just as well though you'll probably want to use the agave or increase the sugar.

Instructions

1. Put the cranberries in a bowl and pour the hot water and agave nectar over them. Stir and set aside for at least 15 minutes to allow the cranberries to plump up. 

2. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Spray the muffin pan with non-stick spray or use a silicone muffin pan or silicone muffin liners (which is what I do).

3. In a large bowl, stir together the dry ingredients: flours, flax seeds, sugar, egg replacer, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, stir together orange juice, plant-milk, applesauce, vanilla, and orange zest. Strain the liquid from the cranberries into the liquid ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add liquid. Stir just until all flour is moistened; don't over-stir. Gently fold in cranberries and nuts.

4. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups (at least 3/4 full). Sprinkle tops with a little Demerara sugar, if desired. Bake for 12-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one muffin comes out clean. 

5. Remove muffin pan to a wire rack. Cool for 5-10 minutes before carefully removing muffins from cups. Makes about 14-16 regular-sized muffins. 

As with most fat-free baked goods, the texture of these will benefit from being allowed to sit awhile. Overnight is in a covered (more or less!) container is best.

Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes

Number of servings: 14-16

Nutritional information for the original recipe is posted on Susan's blog

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Muffins this festive deserve a festive beverage to accompany them... 

So I enjoy my muffins with a delicious cup of hot hibiscus tea... whose beautiful red color goes so nicely with the cranberries (as well as with my silicone muffin cups and holiday dishes), but whose beauty is more than skin deep...

Happy SkyWatching and bon appétit! :-)

Tea & Scones

As promised in a previous post, here's a sweet treat of tea and scones...

We had vegan oatmeal cinnamon scones during our stay at the Elm Cottage B&B in Searsport, ME last summer, and our hostess Janet shared her recipe for them. (I've also found an almost identical recipe on this and a couple of other web sites, but its original author remains unknown). The recipe originally called for 1/2 cup of margarine, but Janet made them with applesauce for our no-added fats diet and was pleased with the results.

I made these scones a couple of weeks ago from Janet's recipe, then again last weekend with a cranberry-orange twist. The original recipe and my cranberry-orange variation are below...

Vegan Oatmeal Cinnamon Scones

Recipe from Janet Williams, Elm Cottage B&B

with Cranberry Orange variation

Variation by Laloofah :-)

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/3 cup brown sugar (I use Sucanat)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup unsweetened organic applesauce

1/2 cup raisins (or dried cranberries)

1/3 cup organic soy milk (I use vanilla)

2 tsp demerara sugar (optional, for sprinkling on top)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional, I don't use)

For Cranberry Orange scones:

1 tsp orange zest

3/4 tsp orange flavor

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in food processor or large bowl. Cut in applesauce until mixture becomes uniformly crumbly. Stir in oats and raisins or craisins. Add soy milk, and - if using - orange zest and orange flavor. Mix gently until a soft dough beings to cling together.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and pat into a 7-inch circle. Cut into 8 wedges and place them on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 350ºF for 15-18 minutes until golden brown and firm when pressed lightly in the center.

You can make these with other dried fruit as well: chopped dates, apricots, blueberries, cherries, apples or pears.

And what goes better with scones than a nice cuppa? We ate some of our scones with our morning mug of Dandy Blend, but as an afternoon or evening treat we enjoyed them with this delightful Naughty & Nice organic chocolate peppermint tea, a generous Christmas gift from my friend Rose. Made by Remedy Teas in Seattle, it's a Limited Edition Holiday Tea that I couldn't even find for sale on their web site during Christmas. I don't know if it will be available next year, if it's only sold in stores or only in the Seattle area, but if you can get some next year I highly recommend it. With all organic ingredients that include peppermint leaf, raw cacao nibs, honeybush and rooibos, it's really delicious. It smells divine, and look how pretty it is!

It brews prettily too, in a festive red color...

Is that gorgeous tea, or what?

So some friends joined me for tea and scones the other day, and as we were debating (or dozing, as the case may be) our way through various topics, the subject of how to pronounce the word "scone" came up...

We agreed that it depends on where you come from. I said that we, and every other American we know, pronounces it with a long o, as in "stone." The Mad Hatter argued that when in England (where they certainly know their scones!) we heard it pronounced with a short o, so that it rhymed with "gone." And the March Hare reminded me that while on a trip to Scotland we visited Scone Palace, where the word was pronounced Scoon, rhyming with "spoon." (The March Hare apparently didn't want to use my preferred rhyming word, "loon," in the Mad Hatter's company). ;-) The Dormouse just snored, so I don't know what he thinks.

And what about you?

Yep, I used "loon" as my rhyming example in the poll, and the Mad Hatter can just deal with it. Besides...

;-)

New look for Noël & some rockin' ponies

No, not a new look for me, I still have the same raggedy-ass look I usually do!

But our living room got a bit of a makeover earlier this year, with new carpet, new paint, new baseboard and ceiling moldings, and some new decor (well, not really new, we just shuffled stuff around between rooms so it feels new!). I thought I'd thrill two birds with one scone by including photos of our holiday decorations as my "after" photos. :-)

Summer 2008

December 2010

AdventureJo made the beautiful quilted star pillow! :-)

It's not easy to see, but many years ago I'd stenciled a pretty vine with red berries around the top of the two living room walls. It was a lot of work and I really loved it, so it was painful at first to paint over it. But once I'd gotten started I loved the new green wall color so much I was able to paint over my stencil rather ruthlessly. :-) Hey, out with the old, in with the new, right? Besides, I still have the stencil kit, so I can recreate it some other time (and place!)

I know that colors don't usually look all that true and can vary widely on computer monitors. The actual colors are deeper, darker and more subdued (with more gray tones in them) than they look in the first two photos, but look truer in the next ones, at least on my computer. We used Sherwin Williams' Duration (low VOC) satin paint in "Coastal Plain" for the walls and "Basil" for the trim...

Some of you may have noticed the Santa's Workshop on the stereo cabinet. You'll get to see it in detail in a future post... probably on Christmas Eve when we can sneak in and look around while Santa is otherwise preoccupied with his deliveries.* ;-)

Look, Molly! A latchhook rug from my crafty past! ;-)

*BW, my UPS-man husband, made up a little ditty that he and his co-workers now all sing as they load and sort their package cars at this time of year. Sung to the tune "We Are Santa's Elves" from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, it goes:

We are Santa's elves, filling Santa's shelves...

we do the work but he gets the credit, we are Santa's elves!

Oh, go ahead and sing along, you know you want to! ;-)

I think BW needs to re-write the rest of the lyrics. :-)

Now that we've enjoyed that festive musical interlude, here are a few non-holiday living room decor details...

You may have noticed this little gallery hanging just to the right of the hallway in the above photo. I bought the butter prints cross-stitch pattern and the ceramic bas relief butter print goat plaque above it in either Maine or NH about 20 years ago. (I entered that cross-stitch in my local county fair the following summer and won a blue ribbon for it, yay!)

In addition to my fondness for goats, I've loved foxes since I was very little and have a few foxy goodies (<-- that should make for some interesting Google search hits, lol) scattered throughout the house. Here is an ensemble consisting of a tiny original Claudia Hopf scherenschnitte ("paper-cutting") fox picture my mom commissioned her to make as a gift for me a long time ago, and a cross-stitch illustration of the Aesop fable The Fox and the Grapes that Mom did in 1987, upon whose frame I've perched two wee fox figurines and a little wood carving that also depicts The Fox and the Grapes fable.

The antique lawyers bookcase to the left of the bay window originally belonged to my grandparents, but was decorating my bedroom by the time I was in high school. When BW and I brought it here from Mom's where it had been stored all those years, we put a new back on it and lights in the top section. The top shelf houses what's left of a pretty extensive miniature rocking horse collection that Mom and I started when I was in junior high. We'd noticed that between all her miniature displays and my miniature horse collection, we had quite a few rocking horses. So we thought, "Let's put them all together as a collection and add to them!" After a while, when it got truly ridiculous, we agreed, "Only unusual rocking horses from now on." As you can see, that caveat didn't really narrow the field much so our collection continued to grow like kudzu. What you see in the following photos is what remains of our fairly heavily-culled original collection.

The bookcase's second shelf holds my little Beatrix Potter and Tasha Tudor books from childhood, along with the last of my once vast herd of miniature (non-rocking) horses. As a tot and teen, I glommed onto anything horsey! In recent years I gave a lot of them away and sold some others, so now my collection is distilled down to my very favorites, some of which I've had since kindergarten. (The third shelf holds more books and little odds and ends, but I decided it's not closeup worthy). :-)

Here are some rocking horse closeups... I'll give you a little tour of my favorites. :-)

The large rocking horse in the back corner, standing on a toy drum with other toys at his feet, is a music box. The stained wooden horse on the right near the back (between the spotted and terra cotta horses) is one of my very favorites. He was made by a man in Virginia who made exquisite dollhouse miniatures. I wish you could see the craftsmanship in that rocking horse!

The gold one in the middle near the front is an old Avon sachet holder. His saddle is hinged, and when you open it there's a little stash of sachet - a perfumed wax you're supposed to dab on your pulse points. Given that it was fresh back in 1973, I wouldn't advise doing that. ;-)

Just to the left of the gold horse and behind the red one with the bright yellow mane and tail is a clunky little rustic wooden horse. His name is Ned (I'm not kidding, it's even written on his belly), who was carved by a man in Canada. I just love Ned!

Favorites in this group include the patina-green rocking horse on the left, which is made of some kind of metal that's heavy as hell; the red and white glass one behind him; a plain little wooden one near the front right that my mother made out of basswood; and the fuzzy little brown one just in front of him.

And here my faves are another music box in the back corner; a red horse with fancy embroidery and bells who's looking back over his shoulder (made in China long before the days when everything was made in China); and a cute little merry-go-round of rocking horses that spins. (But none of them, in my opinion, hold a candle to Ned). :-)

I hope you enjoyed your visit and our sing-along! ;-) Now help yourself to a freshly baked muffin and some tea. Speaking of which, Mountain Rose Herbs is having a fantastic giveaway this week for all you tea lovers out there! Deadline is Sunday at a stroke before midnight (PST). Cheers and good luck!

A Nice Cuppa Tea

Seriously? It's December already?!

With the calendar change came a drastic change in our weather, from yesterday's warm and sunny to today's Severe Winter Weather Advisory. And with that came a free ticket to Migraineville (not as fun as Margaritaville!) for me. So now I'm behind, but I got the Fall decorations packed away, the laundry done, and my first batch of Elderberry syrup made and bottled! And lots of tea brewed and enjoyed, including some with freshly grated ginger this morning. Mmmm...

Along with our dried elderberries we got some beautiful organic loose teas from Mountain Rose Herbs last week. The Easy Day, Evening Repose, and Dream Blend teas are just lovely, and the Dream Blend tea not only brought me nice dreams, I had my first cup while watching the PBS Nova program What Are Dreams?

No foolin'! :-)

I don't believe there's anything more soothing on a snuggly winter day like this than a big mug of freshly brewed tea!

So why not join me? Go pour yourself a cup...

Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you.

Now tell me about hundreds of things.

~Saki

And I will tell you some of my favorite quotes about tea (I promise there aren't hundreds!) :-)

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves -

slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time

the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.

~Author Unknown

A good friend of mine is a cup of tea, indeed.

~Richard Llewelyn

How Green Was My Valley

Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world.

~Tien Yiheng

You can never get a cup of tea large enough

or a book long enough

to suit me.

~C.S. Lewis

We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe.
~Rudyard Kipling

Here at the frontier, there are falling leaves.

Although my neighbours are all barbarians,

And you, you are a thousand miles away,

There are always two cups on my table.

~Anonymous

T'ang Dynasty, A.D. 618-906