Here's a 10.5"x13.5" watercolor of sunflowers. It's really one sunflower and five petals of a second, but I feel like going with the plural for the title. Because of Vincent. The reference photo I used came from my former student (and current University of Wisconsin-Madison student) Mara. She took the photo a couple of summers ago and kindly gave me permission to paint it--I finally did that over the past few days.
I think sunflowers are kind of boring when they're in full bloom--too symmetrical and repetitive--but I loved the shape of this one that's just starting to open up. I made the leaves and stalk fuzzy with some white acrylic paint and a small messed-up brush. I normally don't like adding acrylic paint to a watercolor painting, but on this small scale that was the only thing that made sense to me. And I really wanted that sunflower to look fuzzy!
I wish I could add a button marked "animate" that you could push to watch the sunflower open up, time lapse photography-style. Instead, please watch this beautiful thing (with surprising but totally great Edward Scissorhands soundtrack!).
I wish I could remember Gustav Klimt's quote about sunflowers being the artists of the garden--I read it in college and I think of it whenever I see them. His idea was that sunflowers are the tallest flowers (and therefore different and therefore outsiders), and it seems like they are observing the smaller flowers when their heavy heads tilt down.
I may have added the different/outsider idea myself. I would also like to see a picture of a sunflower holding a sketchpad and drawing the other flowers. I'm sorry. The Edward Scissorhands music--which made me tear up, how about you?--is filling my head with twee and maudlin ideas.
gggggggggggggg <--Typed by young Hypatia, seen below (left).
Are you like me? Have oatmeal cookies been inexplicably difficult for you for as long as you can remember? Does your mom--whose cookies are the toast of two states (IL, MO) and locals think of her as The Cookie Lady--also have trouble with them?
Troubles like: they become giant pancake cookies. That is the main problem.
Finally, at age 42 and 364/365ths (tomorrow is my birthday), I have an oatmeal cookie recipe that I truly love. They don't spread out like sons of bitches! They are chewy but not too bendy. During that magical cooling-on-the-rack time, they're slightly crunchy on the outside in a way that is...endearing. Easy and fast, too! Freezer-ready!
Interestingly, they contain no cinnamon or other spices, and that simplicity makes them somehow better. Before I made them the first time, I thought about adding chocolate chips to the dough (which you could eat raw by the fistful with no problem whatsoever). But I didn't, and I'm glad because they are so perfect that...
...chocolate would not improve them.
BOOM.
!!! Chocolate would in fact diminish them !!!
The recipe is from The Pioneer Woman's blockbuster first cookbook, and on the page it looked...nothing. Almost comic.
It seemed to me that I was eating the oatmeal cookies of God.
(Bun drowsily watches me make these cookies while in her popular "roast" position.)
But before I get into the recipe, I wanted to address what is currently my top popular search--see box at right. How did I meet Jeff, you ask? Match.com, how do you like them apples? Oh, you naysayers were like:
"Eww, why would anybody ever do online dating there's just so many CREEPS out there and you can't be too careful and gawd what kind of loser do you have to be because I met my man the old fashioned way at some random bar why don't you do that oh right you don't drink and you probably have social anxiety disorder or whatever it is anyway oh well I guess you should give it a shot because tick tock tick tock am I right hahahaha!!"
You people! I shouldn't even let you in on this recipe!
Jeff was the last of seven men I online dated during 2007. We met a few days before Christmas, and after a torrid month of dating, he took me to Chicago to celebrate my birthday. Here's how foxy Jeff looked that weekend:
He treated me like a queen for a couple of days, and we were positively giddy with love for each other. On our way back to the train station, our cab driver asked us if we were in fact married. And that's when Fox Jeff unintentionally gave me the best birthday present of my life when he said, without hesitation:
"Not yet."
GUH.
I mean, what better thing to say to a lovestruck, 39 year-old spinstah?
"Not yet." MEANING THERE IS A YET. Jeff was a real man with actual yet ideas. Yet was a possibility. A probability! No messing around with this guy. DECISIVELY IN LOVE. That's what I had been waiting for, that's what I needed, and that's what he was!
So yeah, I met this loser on Match.com, yo.
Here's the recipe.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup shortening (Crisco) <-- I used butter flavor. Yeah, sorry, but it works, and guess what is in Oreo filling? Basically Crisco! Stop judging and just make these.
1 cup packed brown sugar <-- I haven't tried dark brown sugar yet, just light.
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking oda
3 cups old-fashioned (rolled) oats
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans <-- Optional but really good.
DIRECTIONS
In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening with both sugars until well combined.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs together. Add vanilla and stir to combine. Add to the shortening/sugar mixture and mix well.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix carefully into the egg/shortening mixture until well combined. Now add the oats and pecans and mix to combine.
Divide the dough in half and place each half of the dough onto a sheet of waxed paper. Roll the dough into a log and then wrap it tightly in the waxed paper. You can either chill or freeze the dough until later or you can go ahead and slice the dough evenly into cookie rounds. Each roll makes 12.
When you are ready to bake them place them on a cookie sheet (I used parchment paper on the sheet, but you could also do Silpat or Pam, 6 cookies per sheet although you could probably do 8) and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes until they are golden brown. Golden brown around the top edges of the cookies, that is. Maybe underbake them a little. Definitely check the cookies at 10 minutes if you're using room-temperature dough and 12 minutes if it's frozen.
Cool on a wire rack. Fantastic warm. Fantastic crumbled up on vanilla ice cream--either baked or raw.
More than any other painting I've made, this one looks like it would taste incredible if licked, like some kind of Willy Wonka fantasy candy. But I've got to think that saliva would do bad things to a watercolor.
These are, once again, glass gems, a.k.a. the stuff you can put in floral arrangements and aquariums. Under ho-hum circumstances, they look like this:
But stack them next to a window and get them under the right kind of lights and they become magically delicious. I've said this so many times: I love what light can do to glass.
I've been obsessed with this painting for two weeks. It's as big as I can go at 21"x29", so each gem is about the size of a dinner plate. I had fun with the crazy variety of colors in this one, from Opera to Permanent Green Light, which I almost never get to use. The white, eye-like ovals are my small table lamp. You can see my hands in the bottom gems and window reflections at 9 o'clock on a lot of them.
Obviously (or not?) I have to use photographs for this kind of painting. I can't imagine our cats seeing a pile of these things--which are hard to stack--poised on the edge of a table and not feel the need to knock them over. In case you missed this photo of Bun helping me paint, here's what my setup looks like:
I use my laptop to zoom in on micro-details while Bun glares at me. That's because Bun is old school, I'm afraid. While I am loyal to what I see in my photos, I tend to pump up colors and edit the image as I work. Each whole gem took a day to paint, and each had its own abstract weirdness with which to contend, so I was never bored.
The red gem seems to be the brains of this operation--part of it actually kind of looks like a brain--and it influences its neighboring gems. My favorite section of the painting is in this neighborhood:
Like Bun, Jeff sometimes checks in to see how I'm doing, and his top comment for this painting was, "Aliens." (Jeff is alien-school. He has an entire bookcase devoted to science fiction.) He likes the pink gem on the left which is probably the weirdest one.
Taste the rainbow!
I think Glass Gems 3 is a prime candidate for a giclee print, and I'm currently toying with the idea of offering it in two sizes, small and large. If I wanted to offer a near full-size print (around 21"x29"), the end cost to customers would be at least in the $100-$125 dollar range (***guessing***) if I wanted to make any kind of profit. Smaller prints would be in the $75 range. I really think this deserves to be big, though. Even unframed and just tipped against my studio wall, it has quite a presence. Please let me know if you'd be interested in jumbo gems (or small gems), and if enough people respond, I'll get going on that!
(Sidebar: one time I went to Germany to visit a friend, and while I was there I made a lemon meringue pie for a dinner party. One of the guests asked that same question: "What is pie?"
They don't know what pie is in Germany!
That will never cease to amaze me. I've mentioned it before.)
What is your mental image of a pie, those of you who know what one is? Close your eyes and imagine one. Dig, if you will, the picture.
Here's my idea of a pie: crust on top, some kind of filling, and crust on the bottom. Right? Right. Under no circumstances are the following two items pies:
On the left is a ramekin with filling and crust on top but not on the bottom. Probably delicious; not pie.
On the right is a baking dish with filling and let's say Grands!® biscuits on top. Probably okay; not pie.
Call those two things something else, but stop calling them pies, please, especially if you plan to serve them to guests. Don't say, "Hey, come over! I'm making chicken pot pie!"...
...and present something that has no top and bottom crust. The second you mention C.P.P., people (well, me) will visualize a true pie and spend the day thinking about how great it's going to be, and when you deliver some casserole topped with a biscuit, a part of me will hate you, and I'm sorry. I just really love pie.
Tuesday Melissa came out for supper, and I made a true chicken pot pie. I cut vent holes in the shape of an M on the top crust because who doesn't like a pie marked with their initial? All human beings who know about pie like that, but so few people ever receive a pie made in their honor. Bake a pie with a top crust and mark it with somebody's initial. Make one for yourself! HONOR PIES. It'll knock their socks off.
(Photo not available, but trust me, it was cute.)
So this pie is comfort food of the highest order. It's from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I've already made it twice since Christmas at Jeff's request. I love it too, and after Melissa returned to her apartment, she Facebooked the following: Now I just want endless amounts of chicken pot pie...*sigh*
The Pioneer Woman's recipe is for a top-crust-only-pie-that-is-not-a-pie, and she made it in a pie pan/casserole dish that's bigger than mine. The recipe made more filling than my pie could hold, something like two cups, but that was no big deal. I just kept it warm while the pie baked and spooned it alongside each piece (see extras in the top photo).
It's not the easiest thing in the world to make, but pie never is. You will not be a fan of the time-consuming fine chopping that's involved. Once you start making this pie, people will demand that you keep making it.
But come on. You've got to admit that my honor pie idea intrigues you.
(Unrelated: Bun is a stern taskmistress as she supervises the painting of Glass Gems 3.)
INGREDIENTS
Top and bottom pie crust <-- However you want to make it: if you go with my recipe here (scroll down), use the version with the 3 cups of flour that I've written in blue pen.
3 celery stalks
3 medium carrots, peeled
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 large onion
4 tbsp butter
2 cups chicken, cooked, diced or shredded <-- Lately I've been buying big packages of 8-9 bone-in chicken thighs, which taste chicken-ier than breasts and are cheaper. I remove the skin, top them with 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of one lemon, and salt/pepper, and roast I them in a glass baking dish at 400 for 45 minutes. We eat some and save the rest for stuff like this.
Preheat the oven to 400. I went with 425 as that's how I bake any pie that has my kind of crust.
Begin by finely dicing the fresh vegetables, celery, carrots and onions. Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven. Add the onion, carrots, celery and peas. Saute until the vegetables start to soften, a few minutes (mine always seem to take longer than that). Add the chicken and stir to combine. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables and chicken and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring gently.
Pour in the chicken broth, stirring constantly. Stir in the bouillon cube and wine, if using. The flour will combine with the chicken to create a delicious gravy. Pour in the cream and stir. Allow mixture to cook over low heat, thickening gradually, about 4 minutes. I went a few minutes longer to further thicken the sauce. Season with thyme, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. Be sure it's adequately salted!
Make and roll out your top and bottom crusts (see link above). Lay the bottom pie crust in the pan and load it with the filling until it's level. Do not heap on much more than that. Roll the top crust out to 1" larger then the pan. Place the crust on top of the chicken mixture. Press the crust gently into the sides of the dish to seal. Work as quickly as you can here. The heat of the filling will make the top crust kind of hard to deal with as you seal it to the bottom crust.
Cut small slits (I.E. MAKE AN HONOR PIE WITH DECORATIVE INITIAL) in the top with a knife. You might want to work the slits into bigger gaps. I've found that skinny slits will try to seal themselves back together while the pie is baking.
Cover the outside edge of the pie with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about 12-15 more minutes, or until the pie has a little color on top. But not too much. We're looking for "healthy glow," not "tanorexic."
Let it cool for 10-15 minutes and serve with extra filling. Some filling will inevitably ooze out after you cut into the pie. I like to tip the pan at a slight angle to encourage the ooze to get back to where it once belonged as it cools with mild success.
Cover and refrigerate the leftover pie. Individual slices (with extra filling) will reheat nicely in the microwave.
PS It finally snowed! I made a celebratory crazy cake and, since I didn't have any powdered sugar, I made a quick mocha ganache topping:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped or in chip form
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
5 ounces heavy cream
tiny sprinkle of fleur de sel (decoration)
handful of white chocolate chips (decoration)
Put chocolate and espresso powder in a smallish bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan until simmering (small bubbles will appear along the edge of the pan). Do not boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and wait for two minutes. Whisk the mixture until you have a thick, glossy ganache. I let mine cool and thicken for about ten minutes. Pour and smooth over your cake and decorate it (or not!).
Thanks to my sister in-law Shanna for my new cake stand. I love it so much!
The first week of 2012 was kind of lousy for Jeff and me, with new annoyances popping up almost daily. Such as minor water damage from a leaky washing machine, a dryer that wouldn't heat up, a pet portrait whose background stymied me for about a day, a Bun who we thought may have been constipated again but it was a false alarm, reliable 4:30 a.m. insomnia, a malted crisp tart that didn't firm up and was a nightmare to cut into at a dinner party (my fault; I skipped step #432 while making it). Also Glass Gems 2 wasn't selected for the Sky Gallery. I'm a little disappointed about that, but as always you can never feel too upset when your art gets rejected, and you can never feel too happy when it gets accepted. It's all so subjective, and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. ETC.
But yesterday something nice happened: Bun was reunited with her University of Illinois doctor Blake Marcum, who you may remember from such exciting posts as Bun Health Mega Crisis.
Last week Blake asked me to paint a portrait of a very Bunlike cat named Charli as a surprise for his wife Lindsey. Charli died of feline leukemia a couple of months ago, and Blake wanted something to memorialize their special girl. Blake saved Bun's life, so I was more than happy to oblige and gave him my S.F.R.D. (Standard Fecal Removal Discount). Blake and Lindsey stopped by our house on Saturday morning and I gave her the painting. She received it with a shocked, big smile and some tears--a heartwarming scene and gratifying for me to be sure, as I rarely get to witness my clients' reactions. Lindsey and Blake played with our cats and looked at my paintings for a while. Bun was standoffish but curious, keeping a close eye on our visitors, one of whom probably smelled like a place Bun would like to forget. They were charmed by her judgy little face nevertheless, and Bun eventually warmed up to them, going so far as to roll around on the floor and display her glorious belly for a few seconds, like so.
(See that unspotted, blondish area between Bun's back legs? That is Bun's celebrated "palomino patch.")
A couple of weeks ago, I painted another pet portrait for a very happy client in Virginia. Pets, pets, pets! This dog's name is Honey (and Honey is still alive). Here she is along with my portrait of Charli.
The photos I had to work with were a little blurry and a little flashbulb zombie-eyed, but I can work with that kind of source material if I have to and change backgrounds at the client's request, as I did with these.
Wow, this post is so not about scones yet.
This morning, as Jeff fine-tuned and moved our fixed washer and dryer back into place, I felt like making scones to celebrate the fact that we had survived the hassles of last week. The recipe is by Tyler Florence and originally used blueberries, which are a lot easier to work with than blackberries. The blackberries were mysteriously on sale last week ($1 per pint: bizarre!), so how could I refuse? Here's a reminder of what these scones look like:
They're kind of free-form and not the tight, dry triangles you might be used to. They're not going to win any scone beauty pageants. But taste-wise, they are so much better than those dry triangles. They melt in your mouth and the glaze provides a zippy citrus flavor burst that works well with blueberries (and now blackberries). You will probably hate making them thanks to a few messy steps detailed below, but you will love eating them. I've left my own copious notes in italics.
INGREDIENTS
for the scones
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut in chunks
1 cup fresh blueberries <--or blackberries if you're a glutton for punishment; some people claim to have used frozen fruit and had an easier time, but I can't vouch for them.
1 cup heavy cream
for the lemon glaze
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2-3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted <--probably more like 3 cups
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 lemon, zest finely grated
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Sift together the dry ingredients; the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Using 2 forks or a pastry blender, cut in the butter to coat the pieces with the flour. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. I managed to do all of this in my food processor in about 15 seconds. I used to be old-school when it came to cutting butter into a pastry, but now I'm a firm believer in the ease of a food processor. Both will work, of course. Post-processing, transfer the mixture to a large bowl.
Make a well in the center and pour in the heavy cream. Fold everything together just to incorporate; do not overwork the dough. Fold the blueberries into the batter. Take care not to mash or bruise the blueberries because their strong color will bleed into the dough. You will hate doing this because the dough is tough and "shaggy," and the blue/blackberries will not want to become incorporated. Use your hands to distribute the berries as evenly as you can throughout the dough, trying not to squash them. You will squash some of them, though. It's unavoidable and it's ultimately okay.
Press the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 12 by 3 by 1 1/4 inches. Your rectangle will suck and look rough. Cut the rectangle in half then cut the pieces in half again, giving you 4 (3-inch) squares. Cut the squares in half on a diagonal to give you the classic triangle shape. Place the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet. IF YOU CAN! Things are going to fall apart during the transfer from floured surface to cookie sheet. The dough is going to seem like it's way too dry, especially if you're making these in a cold kitchen and the butter isn't even close to melting. Oh, and the blackberries will be like: We want no part of this. My advice is to work the messy mounds into semi-triangular shapes once you've got them on the cookie sheet. Put a little cream and/or water on your hands as you attempt to organize them. They do not have to be perfect. No one will care about shape perfection once they taste these, I assure you.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until beautiful and golden brown. Mine took 15 and were pale-golden. Let the scones cool a bit before you apply the glaze.
You can make the lemon glaze in a double boiler, or for a simpler alternative, you can zap it in the microwave. Mix the lemon juice with the confectioners' until dissolved in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water for the double-boiler method, or in a microwave-safe bowl. Whisk in the butter (cut into small chunks) and lemon zest. Either nuke the glaze for 30 seconds or continue whisking in the double boiler. Whisk the glaze to smooth out any lumps, then drizzle the glaze over the top of the scones. Let it set a minute before serving. A word about this glaze: it makes two tons of glaze. There is no way you will ever need this much glaze, not even if you flat-out dunk the scones into it each time you take a bite. However, the glaze is awesome and you could probably drizzle it over fruit or bland cookies/cakes later. If that idea does not appeal to you, feel free to cut the glaze recipe in half. Tyler's recipe also makes a very runny glaze, so you might want to increase the amount of powdered sugar to 3 cups if you plan to make the entire recipe. Play around with it until you have a consistency that works for you.
