The Baking Tournament Results

My apologies for taking so long and keeping you in suspense with the results of the Baking Tournament held here in our home over the Christmas vacation. At long last....

"Mighty Mom" scored 3 points in the tasty category and 4 points in the traditions category, 3 points for texture and 4 points for appearance for her Southern Boiled Custard.

"Mighty Mom" and "Kare The Bear" worked together to make Jill Cooper's gingerbread cookies with some additional ingredients for added spice. We scored 5 points for texture, 2 points for tradition, 2 points for appearance and would have scored more points for taste, but accidentally put too much salt which gave us only 2 points for taste in the end.

"Burbee The Baker" scored a whopping 5 points for taste (first plate to be cleared), 5 points for tradition (being the shortbread cookie recipe of our great-grandmother, Nanna), 3 points for appearrance and 4 for texture.

"Gary The Pot-Stirrer Man" scored 4 points for taste (second plate to be cleared), 2 points for texture (the chocolate kept melting and re-solidifying), 3 points for tradition and and 4 points for appearance. Gary had two assistants.

"Kare The Bear's" cinnamon rolls scored 3 points for taste, 3 points for tradition, 4 points for texture, and 4 points for appearance.

"Paulie 'The Mincer' Pie" scored 5 points for tradition (English tradition), 5 points for appearance, 3 points for taste, and 4 points for texture with his Mince Pies.

So here are the results you've been waiting for:

First place: Tied between "Burbee The Baker" and "Paulie 'The Mincer' Pie" with 17 points

Second place: Tied between "Mighty Mom" and "Kare The Bear" with 14 points

Third place: "Gary The Pot-Stirrer Man" with 13 points

Fourth place: The "Mighty Mom" and "Kare The Bear" team with 11 points

Let me know by comment or email if you want any of these recipes posted!

Our Pseudo-Empty Nest

Paul and I can't claim that we have "Empty Nest Syndrome" because we don't have any little fledglings that have flown the coop. We do have Clementine and Fairy, but they seem to like the nest and won't be going anywhere, and our family that has left the nest aren't our kids! The day after my parents left out house to return home to California, a friend of ours, Clara, from Paul's old work flew in to spend a few days. She left this morning at 4:30 before Paul and I got up for work and now we are back to reality.

This morning I was sorting through the fridge looking for lunch from the remaining leftovers from the past week's festivities and I came across some yogurt that my sister had in our fridge and some leftover snack carrots that my mom had left, and her brand of yogurt. And I thought, "Awww, that's my sister's, and mom's..." It made me feel like we're pretty darn alone all at once. We've had practically non-stop company for two weeks now, and I was getting quite used to having everyone there. Sigh.

So as I sit here and eat my sister's yogurt, I was reflecting on things and thought to my consolation: we can't say we'll be bored because we both have work travels coming up, mortgage decisions to make and paperwork for the house to get started. We sign on the 23rd! Life is exciting and new with each turn we make, and it is always surprising that it can still feel that way after our 32 and 35 years of experience.

Chicken and Dumplings

Mom wanted me to post this recipe so that she didn't have to write it down and keep track of it for the trip home. I got the recipe from the Whole Foods website and then made some modifications.

Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken

4 carrots chopped

1 onion chopped

2 leeks chopped

2 stalks of celery chopped

2Tbs. butter or olive oil

5 or 6 chicken breasts chopped (recipe calls for 1 whole chicken quartered but I was going for simplicity)

2 cups water

1 qt. chicken broth

1/4-1/2 tsp dried chili flakes

~1 1/2 tsp. of ground rosemary

~1 1/2 tsp. of dried thyme

Dumplings

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup unbleached white flour (or use 1/2 cup of each flour and 1/2 cup of cornmeal. I don't have cornmeal lying around so I just use extra flour instead and it still tastes great).

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

ground black pepper to taste

3 Tbs. cold butter

1/4 cup green onions or chives

1 egg

1/2 cup of milk

sprinkled parsley

In a large pot heat olive oil or butter. Add carrots, onions, leeks and celery. Saute for 5 minutes over medium heat. Add chicken and continue to cook until chicken is browned (another 5-10 minutes). Add water, broth, chili flakes, rosemary and thyme. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer, covered for 2 hours.

Remove chicken (if you use the whole chicken option), de-bone and shred meat into bite-size pieces. Return chicken to stock pot.

Prepare dumplings by combining flours (and cornmeal opt.), baking powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Cut in butter or shortning. Stir in cives. Add the egg and then slowly the milk until a soft dough forms. Do not over-mix the dough.

Carefully drop walnut size dumplings into soup. Cover tightly and simmer for 20 minutes. These will expand and rise to the top of the liquid.

Serve soup with dumplings on top. Garnish with parsley.

Out 'n About

I don't want to give the impression that we stayed in all the time. We went out somewhere nearly every day, to do something, no matter how simple the pleasure. The Waffle House is a southern must-try if y'all head out this direction for a visit.



Mom finally agreed to sit at the Waffle House bar since all the boothes were full. And since it was something different for her, we had to document with a picture. Heather and I had grits and waffles to stick to southern traditional.

Trying on some hats at Target-- us girls ended up getting matching ones.

And then as you can probably guess by now, we had to go see the house. We checked it out from all angles:

From the front...

From the back...

And we checked out some other finer points...

We did some bird watching... or so it would seem from this picture

And back at our apartment, some new friendships were formed. Ok, so it started with bribery by chow mein noodle, but now as the days have gone by, it's turned into a grand friendship between bird and man.

The Baking Tournament

My family and I hope you have had an excellent Christmas with your families and friends! We miss all of you back home in California and England and were sorry we couldn't be in both places.

My family was not super anxious to do loads of sightseeing this trip since Christmas is special enough in itself. So mainly we've been hanging out. It's been all fun and games, starting with the Christmas baking tournament. Competition was fierce but we all maintained our smiles and good manners. Sometimes we teamed up to form "The Storming Sisters" (Heather and I) or the "Gruesome Twosome" (Paul and I) and the "Sassy Seniors" (Mom and Dad), but mostly we maintained our independence with our recipes.

Below, is "Mighty Mom" scoring super points with her classic Southern Boiled Custard drink that we enjoy every year as a tradition.

She also doubled as "Dishwashing Dame" engrossed so much in her work that she would be seen with steamed up glasses from time to time.

Introducing my sister Heather, "Burbee The Baker" making another classic, Nanna's Shortbread, with a bonus twist of whole wheat flour. These were delicious! She scored points for having made the recipe that was polished off first.

Dad, "Gary 'The Pot Stirrer' Man" scored points for his chocolate dipped pretzels as his tasty salty yet sweet snacks were gone before day 3.

I made my cinnamon rolls that I make every year and as my nickname at home is normally Care Bear, I got the title "Kare 'The Bear.' " Here I'm demonstrating the very cool dough hook that comes with the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer.

Paulie Pie, my code name for Paul, went by the fierce name of "Paulie 'The Mincer' Pie" making a classic English dessert for Christmastime: Mince Pies. To score extra points, he added everyone's initials to the top crust and was the first to have an added accessory, vanilla ice cream.

Stay tuned to see the outcome of this event.

My sister went home today :-( and my parents will be here for only another few days. But I have enough fun pictures of this exciting trip to post blogs for days. I'll pick some of the highlights and post them at a later time. For now, we have movies to watch!

The sleeping Arrangements

Well we have all survived spendidly over the past few days and it has been so fun having house full of laughter and good cheer. And what good sports everyone is with the tight quarters! For movie watching we bring Clementine's cage slightly forward, move the chairs a little to the side and then make sure someone is not sitting on the side of the couch closest to the tree, for the tree blocks one side of the TV and Clementine blocks the other side.


For sleeping...

We have Mom and Dad wedged between the coffee table and couch with their pillows under the tree. Dad keeps knocking the lower ornaments off the tree and the tags off the presents everytime he turns over. But my parents are always good sports (they consider this camping) and say they've been real comfortable. They've even turned down the air mattress to sleep in a "bedroll" for ease and practicality.

Now, Heather, the super sport of a fun sister that she is, said, "Hey, I'll just sleep in the doorway of the spare room." There was no room to fit all the way in the room and not much room in the dining room unless she slept under the table. But this has worked out, and she brought her electric blanket, so she's been good.

We had some grand plans for sight-seeing this week, but we've been having so much fun watching movies, eating, talking and driving around town, that we've decided to just take it easy on this visit and just enjoy Christmas and being together. Next time we'll do the trip to the beach and the mountains for dad to try the fishing, etc.

At the 17th Hole

When most people were at work on Friday, I was out on the golf course. But the reality is: I was still working. Tracy and I were sent to Virginia to collect a groundwater sample from a monitoring well that was stationed strategically on the fairway between the tee and Hole 17. We were briefed by the site maintenance supervisor ahead of time to bring our hard hats and take all safety precautions at the well. It was recommended we start sampling before 10:00 so that we would be done by the time the golfers made it around the first 16 holes. Not to be. We started sampling at 12:00 about the time when all golfers made it to Hole 17. So, we situated the SUV between us and the tee so that we would be shielded somewhat. Tracy worked hard to calm my nerves by explaining that she's done plenty of golfing and everyone is usually pretty good about their aim. Besides, our well was slightly off to the side and not smack in the middle of the fairway.

We were taking our first readings, looking up each time a golfer set up on the tee to make sure we kept our eyes on the ball. Not more than 5 minutes passed when a line drive came barreling straight into the back of the SUV. No damage done, and so we waved the golfers on and tried to look relaxed. Throughout the day a few balls landed in the trees overhead, a few to our right, a few to our left. We ended up being there all day because our pump wasn't working and the well went dry. What was supposed to be an hour on the golf course turned into 3 and we were there to wave at all the golfers, cheer them when they made a good hit and look the other way when the ball landed in the sand pit. I think we made them nervous, and yet they were good sports asking if we got hazard pay and, "surely that's not your personal vehicle you have parked there." And then, "you are brave souls, and "any oil in that well?" We have never had so much company when sampling and I felt kinda like we were on the boardwalk at the beach back home.

Starting Saturday, Paul and I have been really busy lately getting ready for my family to come out for a visit. :-) We have the furniture situated to make the most of the little floor space available for sleeping, a drying rack set up for all the towels and the fridge stocked. Oh, and we got garland and a tree up and decorated. That's what we've been doing for the last 3 days.