Irish Recipes

Bread recipe from a lovely cooking book called:  

The Country Cooking of Ireland by Colman Andrews

Treacle (Soda) Bread

Ingredients:

3 ½ cups White unbleached flour plus more for dusting

1Tbls sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

½ cup treacle or Black -strap molasses

1 ¾ cup buttermilk  (save 2 Tbs back for brushing on dough before baking)

Butter for greasing

Mix flour, sugar, salt and soda into large bowl with hands, make a well and add wet ingredients (which have been mixed together) and mix with hands or wooden spoon - don’t overdo it.

Place on floured surface and knead lightly for 2 to 3 minutes

Shape into a round loaf, place on buttered baking pan, cut a cross on top, brush top with the 2 Tbls of buttermilk

Bake at 400 degrees (I would do it at 350 to 375) for 40 to 45 minutes

Serve warm with salted butter

Beth’s Recipe:

Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients:

1 to 2 lbs ground sirloin - browned

1 medium sweet onion - chopped and sautéed

1 cup or more sour cream

Salt & pepper for taste

(Mix all three together and set aside)

Bag of frozen peas (thawed)

6 to 7 Yukon gold potatoes boiled, then mashed with real butter, salt and Half & Half cream - make it loose so it doesn’t dry out during baking

Layering:

In large casserole dish layer as follows:

-Peas

-Meat/onion/sour cream mixture

-Mashed potatoes

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees

My Weekend - New, Old and Redo’s

I recommend all…….

New

Best Ever Ginger Bread by Mary Leffingwell of G Bar M Ranch, Montana

1 cup sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup molasses

2 eggs

2 tsp of baking soda in 1 cup of boiling water

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp ginger

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp cloves

Mix well in large bowl - (per Beth I just hand mixed)

Bake in a 9 x 12 greased pan at 350 degrees - (per Beth I used salted butter to grease the pan)

Or

(Per Beth - I baked it at 400 degrees for 10  minutes and then at 350 for 20 more minutes - made the corners and top a tiny bit crunchy.)

Mary Leffingwell suggests serving with applesauce and whipped cream but since we didn't have any  - we decided a scoop of Whit's vanilla ice cream (or vanilla Hagen Daz would work) was the perfect match!

Old

Started thinking about music that I’ve listened to over the years, Here are two that I absolutely love - YouTube them or download to your Ipod- well worth it.

Ooh Ooh Child by Valerie Carter- from her 1977 Stone’s Throw Away album produced by Lowell George

County Line by Pousette -Dart Band

Redo

I just reread one of my favorite books of 2010, “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Even better the second time around - fantastic dialogue, sweet premise, lovely funny story.

Animal Observations

There are few things in life better than watching animal behavior. This morning started with a diminutive red squirrel dangling from my bird feeder while a gray squirrel sat beneath eating the cast-off seeds.  Later during my morning walk I watched Mrs. Robin gathering tufts of this and that to add to her nest. Then further along, a male cardinal sat high in a tree calling out to friends and foes alike.  A few days ago, while walking the same streets I came across an unlikely pair, a Great Dane and a Dachshund - and took their photos. Every animal species whether domestic or wild has a rich and varied social life - devoid of any need for input from us humans.

I spent a good deal of my life being paid to watch animals - in my case captive gorillas.  Mornings in the Ape House were spent prepping and feeding - giving drinks, handing out vitamins, cleaning cages, hosing sidewalks, washing windows, refilling cages with bales of fluffy hay then spreading seeds, popcorn and cereal for the gorillas to search through for later.

Late in the morning after shifting animals outside, making sure everyone was settled and comfortable for the day we would get supplies - more hay, more bags of monkey biscuits, more seeds. 

After lunch we sat and watched gorillas. In the winter it was lovely to be in the building (which was closed to the public) and observe gorillas being gorillas - playing, sleeping, nest-building, browsing. The layers of heavy hay bedding sent dust-motes floating up through the shafts of light from the overhead sky-lights. The building smelled of gorillas - a strong musky odor. Rumblings of contented adults searching for food bits in the hay echoed down the row of cages, youngsters played Tag or King of the hill or just wrestled with one another - issuing their deep-throated chuckling laughter or letting loose with a a deep-bellied sigh, trying to catch their breath before starting on another round of play.

In the middle of the night I have been privileged to observe a mother and her new-born in the quiet of the dimly-lit building. The mother looks down at her clinging son, pulls his hand then his feet away from her own body to carefully examine each finger, each toe - when the baby squeaks in protest the mom vocalizes a soothing rumble and quickly gathers the infant back against her body in a warm embrace  - as if in guilty apology, as if she simply cannot help herself, her delight in her infant is just too obvious.

Small Space Gardening

Have no yard but want to garden - no problem. I love to garden but in essence we have no large ground space available to us- not to worry as small spaces can be just as effective and transformative as large spaces - in fact I prefer them.  Many Europeans (Holland for me was a gardening revelation) have small plots in which to garden and I find their gardens inspiring. 

Most of my gardening is done with container pots but we do have two small plots of ground that I use for my bulbs, perennials as well as annuals. In the back yard the “garden” measures a mere 23  x 23 inches,  I have planted tulip bulbs, tall phlox and there is a pink flower (that somehow got in there and I have no clue what it is) all make their lovely appearance known in early Spring. Once the tulips have had their run, I’ll plant that area with annuals such as wave petunias  

Our front garden plot measures 35 by 83 inches. Each year I plant tulip, grape hyacinth and daffodil bulbs as well as some creeping phlox. Interspersed among the bulb plants are the hostas which are now just breaking ground  - daily unfurling their tightly folded  deep-green leaves like some hidden treasure - they make great ground cover plantings and come in a variety of green colors, some solid and some variegated.  Other perennials are also making an appearance such as the wild geraniums. Once the hostas are done revealing themselves it’s time to plant annuals to fill in the space - pink & white impatience, blood-red geraniums, purple salvia.

It is a pleasure to walk out every single day beginning in March/April to see the emergence of buds, the sprouting, the colors changing. I’m already thinking about what bulbs to buy for planting in the Fall for next Spring.

What influenced my interest in gardening:

·        -My Mother’s row of tall red tulips in front of our white fence and black lamppost

·        -May Sarton’s memoir, “The House by the Sea” given to me by my friend Cici back in my mid-twenties

·        - Living briefly in Amsterdam

·

Recommended reading:

Container Gardening: the complete practical guide to container gardening, indoors and outdoors By: Stephanie Donaldson & Peter McHoy

 The House by the Sea by May Sarton

Best buys for flowers and containers: 
TJ Maxx on Henderson Road for inexpensive and unusual pots and containers.

·         Marc’s grocery store on Henderson Road: Best prices on annuals, they do have some perennials but is limited - check their stock frequently throughout April and May - have had great luck with their flowers - always hardy and healthy.

·      

Spring is Here

Is there anything more glorious than Spring with all of its daily colors and transformations? And is there any better place to be than in Columbus Ohio during Spring? I think not! Three weeks ago I drove up from Florida with my Mom and nieces and this is what greeted me when I pulled up to our house (photo above). There is nothing more beautiful than a tulip with their tapered stems, elegant petals just at their beginning bloom looking like long-limbed ballerinas - all slenderness and grace when they sway in the breeze. 

Due to the loony winter with little cold or snow, this Spring has been wildly off-schedule with everything blooming at once, the Bradford pears, redbuds, crabapple trees, lilacs, daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinths, even the peonies are coming up early and will bloom weeks before normal. Last year at this time, tulips were just coming up and in bloom, this year everything is at least 4 weeks ahead of schedule. 

During her visit my 13 year-old niece (the dedicated gardener) planted all the early Spring pansies and violas in pots lining our front steps - adding a cheerful greeting to those who come to our door. It’s almost time to visit the garden stores to select the annuals that will fill our many pots and planters. Wish you were here E!  More on gardening tomorrow……

Ordinary to Extraordinary - The Power of Photography

I came to photography later in life. It had been niggling away on the fringes of my life since I was a small child, hints left here and there. My father was into black and white photography when I was very young, developed his own photographs  but then inexplicably stopped abruptly. I have his 1950’s film camera on my office shelf.

When I was traveling across the country in the mid-1970’s, we picked up a hitchhiker that ended up leaving his camera and telephoto lens in our car. We only discovered it after we had dropped him off, immediately turned around, backtracked in search of him but no luck. I have often wondered about him, how devastated he must have been when he realized he had forgotten his camera. We decided to sell the camera as we were broke but I've wondered what if? What if I had bothered to keep it, to use it, to take photos.

In the 1990's while working with gorillas I met one of the best wildlife photographers out there - Michael “Nick” Nichols from National Geographic. His photos continue to inspire. Nick is an integral organizer for the annual Look3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Virginia every summer. Please check out Nick's new APP on his Nat Geo web site - bottom of page.

It was only a whim on a snowy Montana day in 2007 that I grabbed my husband’s old Canon film camera taking it with me for our back-country drive.  I took a photo that showed me the magic of a well done photograph - it was of an abandoned US Fish & Wildlife Service cabin near Nye Montana. 

Photography allows me to explore, to be creative, to focus - to shut out the rest of the world while trying to capture that elusive image - most times (and I mean 9 out of 10 times) I don’t succeed but every once in a while you hit it just right.  I keep a camera with me at all times because you just never know what you might see or what you might miss - the above photo is of my neighbor's dogs when I pulled up to my house one afternoon - for some reason they just cracked me up, so I took the picture.

Some of the photos posted with this blog were taken from the car (Smith Brothers), or on a meandering weekend drive where I came across a Civil War reenactment event in a small Ohio town, or on a boat coming around a river bend (Elephant & Egrets) in Africa. Even tourist cliches like the Cliffs of Moher - taken by every person who has ever visited Ireland - can still feel mystical and magical with the right light and angle. It is sometimes the the most ordinary of things that catch your eye and at the right angle, just feels right. I love that photos can tell a story, in "Proud Auntie" my sister-in-law is walking in front of our niece who is in the background being made-up by her best friend - the look on my sister-in-law's her face is just lovely - funny but proud - it speaks to the excitement of my niece's wedding day. None of these photos have been enhanced, - some are a bit overexposed, some don't have enough shadows/light contrast but each is taken just as I saw it at that moment. 

I’m happy to say that photography seems to be running through the family, a grandson is now taking a photography course at the age of 10, my youngest niece began taking photos at the age of 10 as well and has photos on my web site. Another niece in her 20’s has just started her own photography business and web site - while going to university and working her other job. See web sites below.

My web site: http://www.photosbybetharmstrong.com

On my site click on “The Next Generation” to see photos by my youngest niece

My older niece’s web site: http://www.emmaparkersphotography.com

Nick Nichols: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photographers/photographer-michael-nichols/ See Nick's new App at the bottom of this page

Look3 Festival of the Photograph: http://Look3.org


Good Read:
The Passionate Photographer: Ten Steps Toward Becoming Great by Steve Simon

Hearth & Home

There is nothing better than a house that smells of cooking and baking and nothing better than soup and bread on a cold day. Below is a soup recipe that is a combo of different FO soups I've made over the years or seen on cooking shows (Jamie Oliver in particular). And for dessert is my Great Aunt Ida's pound cake - also known as Poor Man's Pound Cake. Aunt Ida was born in 1904, oldest of the eight Shuler girls. She was known as the baker in the family as well as being quite the stylish dresser.

Home is as much about the cooking as it is the coziness of small details like a beautiful tablecloth, fresh flowers and pretty dishes. You don't need an abundance just a few items. With that in mind I have attached some photos from two of my favorite stores in Columbus, Cottage Street and SoBo - found right next door to one another on High Street in Clintonville.
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French Onion Soup

Soup:

4 to 5 large sweet onions (sliced thin)

Tablespoon of olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar

½ cup vermouth or white wine

1 bay leaf

6 to7 stems of fresh thyme (leaves only)

6 to 8 cups chicken stock

Salt & pepper

-          In a large sauce pan drizzle the olive oil and sliced onions, add sugar - should take 30 minutes or more to carmelize the onions.

-          Place onions in big soup pan

-          Add the vermouth and chicken stock

-          Add bay leaf and thyme

-          Salt and pepper to taste

-          Cook on low heat for an hour

Bread & Cheese

Rustic hard bread

Butter

Shredded Parmesan cheese

Gruyere cheese

Cut bread in 4 inch wide slices,  butter top of each bread slice and add parmesan cheese - place on cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes at 400 F.

Serving:

Place bread slices in bowl, ladle soup over, place shredded parmesan and gruyere cheese on top and broil until cheese melts and browns.

Great Aunt Ida’s Pound Cake

1 cup Crisco (cream with vanilla)

1 to 2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups of sugar

3 cups Cake flour (sifted)

2 ½ tsp baking powder (add dry ingredients to sugar, Crisco, vanilla.  Beat on mixer till mixed).

1 cup of milk

4 eggs

Put milk around, add one egg at a time till mixed

Beat two minutes

Use 1 tube pan as Aunt Ida did or grease and flour two bread loaf pans

Oven temp: 375*  Bake for 45 to 50 minutes

Changes:  Beth Armstrong – Pauline Shuler’s granddaughter

Replace Crisco with 2 sticks of unsalted butter – softened

Add the zest of 1 lemon and the juice of one lemon * may need to bake a bit longer*