Blog posts have been few and far between, but I've been busy in the kitchen and otherwise these last few weeks. I received Shirley Corriher's Bakewise for Christmas, and after I recovered from the overload of sugar and fat over the holidays, I started digging into the recipes. Thus far I've tackled cinnamon walnut oatmeal cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, gingerbread, and cake-like brownies from Bakewise. Fortunately we've had a few dinner & book club guests who have partaken in the goods, but even with their strong efforts, part of our freezer remains full of cookies:
The sweet treats have all been solid, but my favorite kitchen output of these past weeks was a loaf of rosemary foccaccia from Baking Illustrated. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the finished product, but here it is right before baking:
I'm really enjoying bread making right now and currently have some ciabatta dough rising to enjoy with tonight's Super Bowl meal of chicken parmesan.
Now that we've hit February, my thoughts are starting to turn to spring. I usually hit a winter funk in the last week or so of January, but this year I seem to have escaped it. It helps that Boston winters are warmer than what I'm used to - 20s are considered quite cold here, but 20s in mid-winter are considered quite nice in Minnesota. So the temps in the low 30s that I'm experiencing here aren't so bad. Plus I'm so busy at work that I haven't really been thinking much about winter!
Two events in the past week have turned my thoughts towards the eventual arrival of spring.
1) Last weekend Chris and I ordered tickets to see the Twins play the Red Sox at Fenway on May 20! This is Chris's 29th birthday, so we'll need to celebrate with post-game cake. You may remember our failed attempt at going to Fenway for a Twins game last year, which made me cry. But I'm much more optimistic about this year. Even if it rains and the game is rescheduled, I could probably just take an afternoon off work to go to the game. And the Twins probably won't get socked like they did last year since their 2010 roster is looking pretty potent! Last weekend Chris also tried to get tickets when the Phillies are in town to play the Red Sox this June, but tired of waiting online after about 3 hours in the ticket waiting room. So we might head to Fenway anyway when the Phillies are here and try our luck with scalpers. For once I'm happy that the Twins are a forgotten team here on the east coast - means that tickets aren't as hard to snag! But I did hear that the Twins have a bunch of nationally televised games this year - so great to hear I'll have a chance to watch some games if I don't order MLB Extra Innings or MLB.tv.
2) We received our Seed Savers Exchange catalog several weeks ago and have spent time planning out our 2010 garden plot. We're going to dig up a fairly substantial part of the backyard (with our landlord's permission of course - even though our existing lawn is crappy, straggly grass) and plant our largest garden yet. I did a germination test on the tomato and pepper seeds that I saved from 2008. My germination rate on the tomato seeds was 100%, but the peppers fared much worse. I think the multiple moves and changes in temperature and humidity were too much for the peppers, so we'll have to order all new pepper seeds. I was actually thrilled that my tomato seeds did well, so didn't feel too badly about the peppers. So, the 2010 garden will include:
Green Zebra, Mexican Midget, and Stupice tomato plants from seeds saved from 2008, and the following varieties ordered yesterday from Seed Savers Exchange:
German Pink tomato
Black Beauty zucchini
Amish melon
Long Island Improved brussels sprouts
Chioggia beets
Cylindra beets
Georgia Flame peppers
Napoleon Sweet peppers
Wisconsin Lakes peppers
We'll start seeds inside and transplant them outside in late May. I'm hoping for a much better summer growing season than 2009 & I'm really psyched to have space once again for a garden.
So even though winter still has a firm grip, thinking about baseball tickets and garden plans has my thoughts turning slowly towards spring sunshine ahead.
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