Who Needs An Oven?

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Julie

My husband, Lynn, tells me I’m no Bobby Flay, but do I want to be?  No, but I have to confess one of my few accomplishments this summer is that I have somewhat perfected cooking pretty decent meals on the grill and its side burner counterpart.

My Grill!

So when Mom and Dad came up to visit last weekend, I wanted to show them my “stuff.”  I started by grilling some chicken thighs and brushing them with BBQ sauce.

 

BBQ Chicken Thighs

Then I picked some yellow squash from my garden and wrapped it in some tinfoil, but not before putting some butter and brown sugar on it. When I opened the package, the brown sugar had formed a nice little pond which would be oozing sweetness when we cut it up into chunks.

 

Home Grown Yellow Squash

The red potatoes however, were a bit of a challenge.  Since I started dinner later than I wanted, (we decided to go for a spur-of-the-moment afternoon swim), I knew that simply plonking them down on the grill would take hours, if not days to cook.  I decided to boil them a bit first, then give them a good dose of olive oil, salt and pepper, and some dried tarragon, too, and put them under a piece of tinfoil to cook, but keep them peeking out so every once in a while I could move them around a bit.

 

Half Boiled/Half Grilled Potatoes

 

On the side burner I put a skillet pan filled with peppers and onions but truthfully, at that point, it was cocktail hour and I forgot about them.  Luckily, Lynn loves all things burnt, so he was more than happy with their outcome.

 

Peppers and Onions

I thought the meal came out nicely; we ate outside, even with all the mosquitoes biting our ankles and elbows and toes, and everyone seemed to enjoy just being at the Red House. And if you are wondering whether I still need an oven, the answer is if I am making bread pudding for dessert I do!

Using leftover hero rolls that I tore up and added some milk, cinnamon, sugar and an egg to, I popped the mixture into muffin tins, stuck it in the toaster oven, and plated the whole thing with fresh raspberries.  I want to say it was yummy but actually it was kind of dense, which leads me to think, maybe I should have tried making a “grilled” bread pudding?

Next time.

Red House Bread Pudding

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Can You Still Make A Wish On A Wish Bone, If You Pull Both Ends?

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Julie

This is a short tale about not having to cook for anyone but me, myself and I.  For FOUR (4) whole days! Once upon a time I had a conversation with a female friend, who because she was single, told me she never, ever cooked for herself and basically lived on salad, tuna fish and grilled cheese sandwiches.  I looked at her and thought, “what?” coupled by my mumbling underneath my breath, “then why are you so zaftig?”

Now it’s not like me to give up cooking even when I’m flying solo but the truth is I was working from the Red House and was actually welcoming the idea of just having some granola for breakfast, a yogurt or cottage cheese for lunch, and salad for dinner.  Plus, I’m at the age unfortunately, where I, too, could stand to lose a few pounds.

It started out fine, at first. I poured myself some granola for breakfast one morning and sliced a banana on top.

Banana And Store Brand Granola Breakfast

After sitting at the computer for too many hours, however, and feeling like my eyes were in the back of my head, I got up and decided some cottage cheese with perhaps a few sliced cucumbers and tomatoes would perk me up. It didn’t. The cottage cheese was bland and the tomatoes and cukes (both hot house) had no taste either.  I ate it anyway.

 

Not That Tasty Cottage Cheese Lunch

Coming off a crappy lunch, I decided dinner would have to be better so I decided to make myself a version of a “chef’s” salad.  I picked some lettuce from the garden, cut up a few slices of ham, fresh mushrooms, more tomatoes and some thin slices of real Parmigiano Reggiano.  I dressed the salad with a homemade mustard vinaigrette and it was really good!

Chef's Salad, My Way

The next few days I did a few variations on this theme –sometimes having a slice of toast for breakfast and a yogurt with granola for lunch.  One day for lunch I decided to go “Scandinavian,” making myself an open faced sandwich of a sliced hard boiled egg with a plum for dessert.

Scandinavian Polka Dot Egg Sandwich

And for dinner one night, because I was bored, and also because I started to think of what my life would be like as a single girl (just kidding, Lynn!), I made myself a tuna fish sandwich but kicked up a notch as a tuna melt.

I Really Like Tuna Melts!

This lasted for about three days, these simple breakfasts, lunches and dinner but then came Day 4.  Day 4 you see, I made the mistake of walking into town because I wanted to pick up a few things for the weekend and I went to the market.  Sitting there, staring at me under a big heating lamp was a roast chicken.  It looked at me (I swear!) and said, “Miss your oven, huh?”

I bought the chicken.  And I bought an entire jar of applesauce.  Why, I don’t know.  It just sounded like a good thing to eat with the bird.

Chicken For Cheaters

I walked back home carrying my chicken and my applesauce and decided I would make a salad from my garden and top it off with some leftover gorgonzola cheese.  Since it was  Bastille Day, and I like all things French,  I opened a bottle of white wine, too.

I ate standing up, welcoming a break from sitting and staring at the computer screen, and looked at all the sanding and spackling and painting that still needs to be done. In between I took bites of chicken, salad and huge spoonfuls of apple sauce.

Lovely Lettuce Greens With Gorgonzola Crumbles

Surely this was one of the best store-bought roast chickens on the face of the earth I thought as I was licking my fingers….or was it just my boring meals for one would make anything taste delicious?

Oh yeah, and since Lynn and I always look forward to ending our day together with a nice meal, I was talking to him on the phone as I was eating.  Had he been there, enjoying the chicken with me, he would have been able to pull the other side of the wish bone.   Breaking the wishbone in half myself, I knew we would still both wish for the same thing.

A Really Good Chicken
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A Red House Pound Cake

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Julie

It may come as a surprise to some but I actually don’t like baking.  Now, I do bake — muffins and cookies and pies, and my kids tell me the chocolate cake I’ve always made for their birthdays is decent, but I don’t like having to mix all that butter and eggs with flour and sugar, and then have to babysit the ‘baked good” so it doesn’t burn.

However, I was having family visit and while ice cream in the summer with some berries is nice, having a little cake with it is even better.

Last summer I made a couple of toaster oven pies but haven’t really done any baking since then. At the Red House, I’m also a bit compromised in that besides the fact that I don’t have a “real” oven, I don’t have any of my cookbooks, and most importantly, I don’t have a mixer. Yes, I could have gone online and found a recipe or two but I was kind of lazy.  And since I was feeling lazy, I wasn’t too keen on the fact that anything I “whipped up,” I’d have to do so by hand.

Still I dug out some sugar and poured what I thought looked like a decent amount into one of my blue bowls, then added a stick of butter.  Luckily, it was fairly warm in the house so the butter mixed up nicely.

 

The Beginning

Then I added some flour, baking powder, salt and a couple of eggs.

Winging the Ingredients

Problem is while I thought I had all the ingredients needed to make a pound cake, I actually didn’t have any vanilla extract.  Now everyone knows that vanilla is really what makes the cake.  I thought about how sometimes I’ve also added either lemon juice or zest to the batter and since I didn’t have lemons either, I decided to add a couple of tablespoons of orange juice which I did have in the fridge.

The Basics

Problem was the batter seemed a little thick, especially trying to mix everything up with a soup spoon so I added even more OJ.

The Dough

Luckily, I had bought a loaf pan that fit perfectly in the toaster oven (which I actually purchased to make old-school meatloaf) so I spooned everything into the pan and flattened it out on top with a fork.

 

The Loaf Pan

The Baker's Rack That Goes Where I Go

And then I put the darn thing in the toaster oven. If anyone is even remotely curious, the toaster oven is sitting on one of the few pieces of “furniture” I have at the Red House.  That would be a baker’s rack.  For some reason the baker’s rack and I go back a long, long time, which I find particularly amusing considering I don’t like baking! Somehow though I’ve ended up dragging this one particular item to nearly every single house I’ve ever lived in, with the Red House being no exception.

I’d like to say the cake turned out perfectly, but the truth is I didn’t think it was sweet enough, probably because I know baking is a science and one is supposed to measure ingredients and not wing it.  To make it more palatable, I did wash some strawberries and blueberries and put out three different kinds of ice cream to spoon over the top.  My Dad has a habit of saying something is “fine,” even when it’s not, but actually I think it was just that.

Red House Pound Cake

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Patience Is Not A Virtue: Waiting For The Window Guys

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Julie

I’ve decided my columns have been way too sappy lately. Even though I’m usually writing with fondness about the Red House even with some of the tribulations of living here, part of me is definitely missing my usual WTF attitude.  All it took however was a whole house window purchase to set me right back on track.

21 windows to be precise, that we had to purchase from a big box store because we knew that a) they would come in with a manageable price, and b) would be able to arrange some financing, too.  Should I mention our local big box store was actually our only option since big box store #2 was nearly an hour away?

It started around Easter (think April!) when I made an online appointment for someone to come out and give me a window estimate.  A guy came out to measure all the windows and while doing so we talked about food, The French Laundry  (as in the restaurant, which begs the question, why?), and French existentialists.

I’m not making this up.

He gave me his card, and told me he would send me numbers.  This was a Thursday. Being a city girl, by the time I was back in my office on Monday, I wanted them.  I got nothing.

A week later, I still got nothing.  Finally after a bunch of emails back and forth and a couple of phone calls, the “French existentialist measuring guy” decided he had to send out another guy, presumably a “real” guy, aka, the guy who would actually do the window installation.  This meant of course, that everything had to be measured again.  Hence, the WTF reaction.

Since I know it’s difficult to get everything I want quickly up at the Red House, I’ve decided if nothing else, this adventure has taught me to be patient.  Originally, when I was writing that sentence I wanted to say “a tad” patient.  As in a little. Except that one of my best readers, that would be you Dad, kindly informed me the other day that I use that word way too often when I’m writing.  So, going forward I will perhaps have to resort to saying it in what in the old days used to be referred to as a foreign language, but is now called LOTE.  Hence, if I wanted to say “a tad”  in Languages Other Than English, I could choose “un peu,” if I was feeling particularly French at the moment, “ein bisschen” if German was my thing or, “piccolo,” if I was pretending to be Italian.

But let’s get back to the windows.  I needed 21 windows replaced.  This did not include the attic (four) or three out of the four windows in the basement.  Why?  Well, we thought the attic windows were ok for now and would just be a waste of money, and three of the basement windows were so small (slits really covered with plywood), that they would have to be special ordered.  Those were two words I didn’t want to hear when dealing with my new windows because “special order” also meant “special prices.”

It’s now May. The “real” guy comes with the guy still pondering the French existentialists and the windows are measured again.  When they’re done, I figure that perhaps this time all the “i’s” are dotted and the “‘t’s” are crossed and surely now my window order will be expedited.

In June, we physically go to the store and at 10:30 in the morning I find myself sitting in a dark and dingy office leafing through reams of paperwork that seemingly is my window order.  We look at little drawings of windows, check the sizes, count the number of windows on the first floor and the second floor, and then tally the whole thing up with a hand-held calculator from Staples.

“Do you not have Excel?” I find myself saying to the “French existentialist measuring guy.”

When I continue mumbling “spreadsheet,” “bulk rate discount,” and “extended financing option,” he stares at me blankly, pulls out a pencil stub, and then proceeds to add the numbers up by hand.

Again, I’m not making this up, not even “un piccolo.“

I drive back to Long Island and wait some more.  It turns out the guy who is installing the windows, aka the “real” guy,  is actually a roofing guy and because of the bad weather, he is running about 3 weeks behind on his schedule.

Meanwhile, the “French existentialist measuring guy” tells me he is moving to the plumbing department.  Lucky him, all those bidets and what not!

Truly, I am not making this up, not even “un peu.”

With him jumping ship, we are assigned a new window person to help us through the process.  From the beginning, I knew this lady and I simply were not going to get along.  Why?  Because she had absolutely no sense of humor.  When the lady-who-has-no-sense-of-humor calls me, she tells me she can start installing the windows on July 5th, and that it will take about three days. Three days?  Wait, did I not have 26 windows installed in my house on Long Island in a day and a half? Ok, so that was 10 years ago and maybe they did things faster back then.  But 3 whole days?

The lady-who-has-no-sense-of-humor tries to tell me it’s because we have a “lead” issue.  Well, duh, we have a lead issue, it’s an old house. 150 years old to be precise. So even though we are putting in double hung replacement windows, the old ones, (the ones that were painted over with lead paint) need to be quarantined, then wrapped, and carted away.

We arrive at the house for the 4th of July weekend in anticipation of our July 5th installation date.  Luckily it’s not as hot as it was last year, so the fact that only half the windows in the house are operable (as in they are permanently shut) is not too painful.

It’s now July 5th. The guys who are actually delivering the windows show up first.  Except the big window, the raison d’etre so to speak that catapulted this entire window order because it was broken, is so heavy they can barely lift it and simply slide it over and lean it against where it’s supposed to go. Lovely.

The Really Big Window

The others simply get stacked in the driveway.

 

Is This Really How It's Done?

I then wait for the “real” guy and his crew of  installers.  Well, the crew shows up, the “real” guy does  not. There are three of them, two guys and a girl; two out of the three have only been on the job less than a month, and their previous careers did not seemingly involve anything remotely window installation-related.  Even though I am often accused of being too curious a George, I decide not to inquire what their previous careers might have entailed. Let’s just say that the female component of the crew had shaved her head and had some sort of mysterious Asian symbol tattooed on the back of it.

Day 1

The first hour or so is spent unpacking all the equipment they’ll need to do this project.  The next hour is spent isolating each and every room with sheets of heavy plastic that they seal tightly with some sort of fastening device from floor to ceiling, and then attach some sort of make-shift zipper to it so they can get in and out of what has now become a little plastic cocoon.  Then they get dressed.  Yes, dressed, not undressed.  Over their work clothes, they pull on white jumpsuits and accessorize it with scary-looking masks.  Wow, didn’t I see John Galliano do that look on the runway one year?

Then the crew starts to hang up signs.  Now these weren’t just ordinary signs, they were big, big signs labeled “poison.”  Suddenly, I had a feeling that I kind of knew how some NYC restauranteurs were feeling when they got a bad letter grade with the new safety inspection system that was recently put into place.

 

Poison?

After all of this “setting up,” it was time for a cigarette break, and then it was time for lunch.  Lunch took 45 minutes.  Do you know anyone who still takes a 45 minute lunch break anymore, because I don’t!  By the end of the day (think 4:45 to be precise), they had managed to install five windows.  Five.  All upstairs.  That took them roughly 6.5 hours.

Day 2

The next day they actually show up an hour earlier, but also only install five windows and leave an hour earlier than the day before. (I know the math on that even confused me.)  At this rate I figure, it may be next summer before the project is done.  Ok, so this math I get.  It was supposed to be a 3 day job but they are averaging five windows a day which technically means they still have two full days to work.  Um.

Day 3

The third day, the lady-who-has-no-sense-of-humor is suddenly standing in my bedroom.  Unannounced.  I look at her and figure that perhaps she’s lost, so I ask her sweetly, “Can I help you?”

Now it’s not like I’m getting undressed or anything; I’m minding my own business, writing checks actually, but she is just standing there IN MY BEDROOM.  She proceeds to tell me that she realizes one of the windows was measured wrong so they need to order a new one, oh, and the basement window never made it onto the truck when they did the delivery, either.  She couldn’t tell me this on the phone?

Day 3 turned out to not be a particularly good day because after her departure, I got involved in a very long and boring conversation about the big window. The big window, you see, was not only really heavy, the crew wasn’t quite sure how to actually install it.  They decided a phone call to “the big cheese,” aka the “real” guy who would know was in order.

I sighed.

Two Weeks Later

The “real” guy and his crew were supposed to come this morning and install the big window, with the other two they had to re-order to be put in later in the month. At 10:30 a.m., the lady-who-has-no-sense-of-humor calls to tell me the window guys are running “late,” and they should be here closer to noon. The clock on my computer tells me it’s now 2:48 p.m.

So, if nothing else here’s how the windows that are installed look.

 

Red House Windows

 

But here’s the thing.  Even if these double-hung vinyl replacements last 50 years (which they won’t), they will still never look as charming as the ones  that have been leaning against the back of the barn forever and ever. Not even “ein bisschen.”

 

Lovely

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The Boys Are Back: I Cook

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Julie

Well, even though I’ve definitely been enjoying my time up at the Red House by not having to cook 3 squares a day to feed the family, by the end of the week I realize (sigh) that while I wasn’t missing the shopping, prepping and cooking aspect of it per se, I was in fact missing the ritual of dinner.  The cocktail, the entree, the side dishes, the wine, the dessert.

So, when Lynn comes up for the weekend and brings Nick with him, I surprise myself by not screaming “but I’m on vacation, I don’t want to cook,” and instead think, “Wow, what can I make?”

It’s sad but true.  Here I was a mere two weeks into my granola for breakfast, fruit for lunch, and salad for dinner routine and now I was happy I could do a modest family meal?  You betcha.

But this story needs to start the night before.  You see the previous night I started thinking about dessert (perhaps because of my modest calorie intake this week?), which is always a challenge with these two because Lynn doesn’t like dessert and Nick’s stomach usually can’t tolerate anything remotely dairy-like (i.e., good stuff like ice cream and whipped cream.)

Still.  I had a container of vanilla ice cream on hand and a box of chocolate chip cookies I had picked up and thought, wow, I could so do mini ice cream sandwiches! Except it was 76 degrees in the room and when I took the ice cream out of the freezer and held the container, it had kind of a squishy feel to it.  This meant I had to work quickly.

Too Hot to Make Ice Cream Sandwiches

I laid out the cookies on a piece of wax paper and put a tiny scoop of ice cream on what would be the bottom half. Don’t they look adorable?

Yummy Ice Cream Sandwiches (Next time do it in the winter)

I then put another cookie on top, lightly pressed them together, and tried to quickly wrap each one in wax paper and get it into the freezer.  In theory, this might have worked fine had the ice cream not melted nearly instantaneously between each cookie!  I mean was the room so hot that my cookies already had a “fresh out of the oven” temperature without that actually being the case?

 

Well, They Kind of Look Good

“Dessert” done, the next morning I woke up and realized I needed a plan. I’m one of those strange people that usually has to visit a supermarket (any old one will usually do) in order to get an idea for dinner.  That theory doesn’t work up at the Red House. I decided I’d simply have to make do with what I had in my fridge and freezer. Ok, so I did cheat a little because I was fairly well stocked and managed to pull out a big bag of red potatoes, a couple of red onions, some tiny grape tomatoes and a very lovely and surprisingly inexpensive pork loin I had picked up the last time I was in town.

And then I headed out to the garden.  No, I wasn’t skipping as I made my way there, but you know, it’s quite uplifting when I think that if I want a salad for dinner, I can wander into my garden and simply get some! So, after ripping off some of the green leaves, I looked around to see what else was ripe, namely basil and yellow squash and picked that, too.  I snipped some fresh tarragon and chives and brought everything inside.

Since I knew how long it would take to get water boiling on the side burner of the grill, I peeled the red potatoes and put them in a pan of water to let them do their thing.  I then decided to make a side dish of the squash, red onion, tomatoes and basil, so I cut everything up into funny little pieces and tossed it with some olive oil and decent red wine vinegar.

Perfect Summer Squash Salad

I washed the lettuce and plated it and looked at the pork roast.  Since I still had a couple of work-related projects I wanted to finish before the “boys” got there, I simply couldn’t fathom babysitting a pork loin on the grill for the few hours I had left to get everything done. So, I cheated again.  I put the pork loin on a metal pan and popped it in the toaster oven.  Surrounded as it was by small tomatoes and dusted with paprika, tarragon and salt and pepper, it turned out exactly the same way I make it at home.

Simple Pork Roast, Roasted Tomatoes

But that wasn’t the final version of the dish.  I actually had the chutzpah (yes!) to brush on some BBQ sauce and wrap the whole thing up in tinfoil and put it on the grill.  It gave the pork roast the appropriate smokey flavor I needed without me worrying about cooking it outside. Plus, I knew they liked BBQ so I thought I’d let them think this was the real deal.

By now the potatoes had cooked, I drained them, and mixed everything together with some mayonnaise and both fresh and dried tarragon. (Why not, I had both, why not use both!)

Red-Skinned Potato Salad

And last but not least, because they’re both men, and I knew would enjoy some bread to go with this “BBQ,” I wrapped up a hero roll (also known as a grinder in these parts of the woods) in some tinfoil, and made “garlic” bread.  Why the quotations around the word garlic? Because in our house even though we call any kind of bread that we slice and slather with a combination of butter and/or olive oil and a good shake of dried “Italian” herbs on top as garlic bread, we actually rarely put garlic in the loaf.

 

"Garlic" Bread

They eat almost everything and most importantly,  I welcome their company. The cookies?  Well, let’s just say it was a good idea at the time.

 

 

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The Bounty of the Garden

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Julie

So far it seems the meadow that used to be an old potato field still has a lot to offer.  When you look at the soil, it’s dark and rich and tills up quite nicely, unlike our suburban garden that’s sandy and dry and filled with rocks.

When we started the garden and planted asparagus and green beans, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, some leeks, and yellow and green squash, too, neighbors repeatedly told us that even if anything did grow, the critters (namely deer, chipmunks and squirrels) would eat it. I didn’t want to negate what they were saying, but realized they might be right when I looked at our tomato plants and thought they looked like well, a tad clipped.  In fact, it looked as though some sort of animal had taken to biting off all the good parts, namely the flowering part, without leaving us humans with anything to eat.

I, however, wasn’t going to give up. Working on the theory that sometimes if you just keep pruning it will eventually grow back, I did just that.  Unfortunately, the tomatoes weren’t the only vegetable the animals seemed to like;  the green beans that usually grew so abundantly everywhere else, were shriveled and tiny and didn’t bear any resemblance to the healthy plants I knew.  The eggplant in particular seemed to be suffering from some sort of bug infestation with all the leaves chewed in various places.

I kept watering and looked at the abundant sunshine and hoped for the best.  The good news is that what I’m left with looks very pretty.

Like this single green baby zucchini that I can imagine selling for $7.99 a pound at a Greenmarket in Manhattan, and the zucchini blossoms stuffed and fried and served on a plate at Eataly.

No Zucchini Should Be This Lovely!

 

Then there’s the  single, slightly dark jalapeno, that no animal has claimed.

The Lonely Jalapeno

And a nice crop of basil and celery, too.

Gorgeous Basil — Lots of Pesto!

 

Celery

My biggest discovery working with a garden this size are the weeds.  They are prolific, constant and truthfully add some charm to the plot.  I don’t want to admire them so much that they become an integral part of the landscape, similar to the overgrown acreage of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut, with only the bare minimum being plowed and plucked, but it is fairly tempting to go that route.  Ironically these weeds, since they originated from the hay we lay down to purposely keep the weeds at bay, have very pretty yellow flowers.

Pretty Yellow Weeds

These “flowers” are not to be confused with everything else I’ve got going, interspersed as they are between the vegetable beds.

Lovely Flowers

 

More Lovely Flowers

 

And Again...

I also have the beginnings of a very long cucumber vine, with a lone and chunky cucumber hanging off.  I know he just wants to be a pickle already.  I mean look at him, he already looks like a pickle!

I Just Wanna Be A Pickle!

So even though the few tomatoes that I have are still green.

 

Tiny Green Tomatoes

And my eggplant looks like it’s been attacked, I do have the beginnings of some lovely strawberries and asparagus.

Iffy Eggplant

The Beginnings of Strawberry Fields?

I Love Asparagus

My leeks, unfortunately, look like they’ve battered by a windstorm, or maybe I just stepped on them by mistake!

 

The Leeks

While my chives prefer to hang out in a pot filled with pansies!

 

Pansies and Leeks In An Old Barrel

So even though some of my plants are being stubborn or eaten by the animals, like my green beans for example…

 

No Jack And The Bean Stalk Here!

 

I, at least, have newly painted chairs (red, of course!) to sit and watch everything grow….

But not until all my work is done.

 

These Are Real Wood, Painted Red

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A Red House 4th of July

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Julie

It’s been over a year since we’ve owned the Red House and I’d like to take this opportunity to recap all that we’ve accomplished to date.

1.  We tore down a part of the house that had a kitchen and bathroom whose roof had collapsed and we started framing a new one.

2.  We put in a new furnace, but left the old one it its place.

3. We tore out two bedrooms that were basically useless and decided to make one big master bedroom suite.

4. We sheetrocked 5 rooms (partially).

5. And primed one staircase wall.

6. We redid the bathroom to make it ok for now.

7. And primed a small room which hopefully one day will house a piano.

8. We nearly finished painting the family room.

9. And for the first time ever will have a kitchen that has a fan and two overhead lights.

10. We learned how to mow the lawn on a ride-on lawnmower.

11. And how to do dishes by hand (again).

12. We learned that even if you have no heat in the house and sleep with your clothes on, you won’t freeze to death.

13. We learned that contrary to popular belief, if red wine is too cold, it’s bad stuff.

14. We learned not to be afraid of bugs that suddenly appear out of nowhere, of snakes that slither out of the garage, and chipmunks that like to sit in the middle of the driveway just as you want to start the car.

15. We learned that country life is slower.

16. And that you really don’t need a stove to put a meal on the table.

17. We learned to cherish the bounty of our summer garden.

18. And that if you take a 15 minute nap in the hammock even with all the work that needs to be done, it’s not the end of the world.

19. We learned that watching a movie at night on a laptop works just fine.

20. And that even if you have worked all day, hit traffic, and don’t get up to the Red House until after midnight and there’s five feet of snow in your driveway, you still have to shovel a path to the door or there’s no way in hell you are getting inside!

21. That sharing one bathroom, is ok, too.

22. We also learned that we shouldn’t be running to the window every time we see the Amish family driving down the road in their buggy as if they were some sort of exotic creature, or something.

23. We also learned that if we wanted any “fancy food” up at the Red House, we had to bring it with us.

24. And that because of technology we can never truly “escape.”

25. Most of all we learned we don’t fight up at the Red House. Ever. This last point is particularly nice since we’ll be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in a few months.

On that somewhat positive note, it’s really kind of amazing everything we’ve learned to do in one year! Last year at the Red House, our 4th of July was kind of quiet.  We were probably in a state of shock about how much work we were facing. This year, we arrived a few days prior to the 4th, and were able to catch a glimpse of a small fireworks display in the distance, if we stood on our tippy toes and peered over the ever-growing bamboo forest.

To celebrate the 4th and how much we’ve accomplished (with lots more to go), I decided anyone can put a hot dog or a hamburger on the grill.  But since I always like to be a tad different, this is what we ate at the Red House on the 4th of July.

For breakfast, I made an omelet which stuck to the pan I was cooking it in because I simply couldn’t get the pan hot enough since I only had the side burner of the grill to use.  Working on the theory that if I covered the pan with a lid the eggs would “steam,” and thus, somehow warm the ingredients inside, I did just that. So while it may not have been the best omelet I ever made, it was decent enough.  Loaded with cheese, red onions, and even a jalapeno from the garden, the spicy factor started off the morning with a bit of a bang (sorry, couldn’t resist) in anticipation of the holiday.

Japalepeno, Red Onion and Cheese Omelet

After breakfast and running a few errands, Lynn came back to the house and started sanding the sheetrock in the living room.  Even though he hung a thick roll of plastic between the living room and dining room, it didn’t help much since dust was everywhere. Consequently, we spent much of the day coughing and rubbing our eyes from it and saying to each other, “this can’t be good.”

He kept working but I started to think about dinner. My original plan had been to make lamb burgers. But since ground lamb, which had once been fairly cheap had suddenly become trendy and thus overpriced, I picked up a package of chopped pork instead.  My idea? Pork burgers with gorgonzola on top.  I unwrapped the package, made lovely little patties by hand, and carefully crowned them with tiny balls of cheese, then put them on the grill. They cooked up fairly nicely (quickly, too), and I think they looked quite presentable on the plate!

Pork Burgers with Gorgonzola

I picked some fresh lettuce from the garden, made a simple salad, and also fried up some potatoes. Unfortunately, I started the potato portion of the meal during cocktail hour and actually forgot about them, so they well, got a bit dark. Luckily, Lynn likes anything that’s remotely spud-like and burnt to boot, so he was still pretty happy with this dish.

Burnt Potatoes

Finally, to end the holiday on a sweet note, I emptied an entire container of raspberries onto half a pint of vanilla ice cream into a single bowl, stuck in two spoons, and we ate the whole thing in about 10 seconds flat.

Happy 4th!

Fresh Raspberries and Vanilla Ice Cream

 

 

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Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner: You’ll Need the Grill

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Julie

Since I’m relying on my grill to currently cook all meals up at the Red House, I particularly enjoyed reading Alice Hart’s “Please Read Before Burning,” story that appeared in last week’s food section of the The New York Times. While Ms. Hart managed to whittle down a list of things she thought were basic necessities when cooking outdoors, she mentioned she could live without a colander when “roughing it.”

I can’t. My colander does many things. I use it as a bowl when I’m picking fresh produce from the garden, as a strainer to drain potatoes or pasta, and when I’m done prepping, to carry whatever fruit or vegetable peelings I’m left with out to the compost bin.  My other absolute must-haves when grilling and cooking outdoors are a few decent knifes, a cutting board, and pans that can double for many uses.

The Colander I Can't Live Without

The one thing we both agree on, however, is that while getting the food and prepping might be cumbersome when you’re camping outdoors, the real problem is when you are relying on a grill (or any kind of outdoor flame for that matter) to cook your food, it takes a really, really long time.

Consequently, if I add up the time spent trying to put breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table at the Red  House, you’ll understand why the renovation is taking so long. (Because I’m cooking, not hammering!)

Breakfast:

My husband never had a steak for breakfast in his life until he met my Dad and my brother.  The family ritual was to have steak and eggs on Christmas morning.  Maybe it was a guy thing, since I’ll take some smoked salmon and a hard boiled egg with a fruit salad chaser over a steak any day.  Up at the Red House, though, steak and eggs just sounded like a really good breakfast to have if you were facing a grueling day of sanding a wall or two followed by a few coats of primer.

Thing is the grill we have kind of slants to one side (even after moving it around to different parts of the driveway), and instead of fussing with it, we just lived with the fact that everything we put on the grill pan always slides to the left.  Now, perhaps in certain circles this might have some sort of political connotation — at the Red House it simply means we have to fix the driveway!

See how the steak and eggs just cozy up to one another?  I love it. And yes, they were tasty, too.

Real Steak and Eggs

Lunch:

Remember the scene in The Company Men where Kevin Costner tells Ben Affleck to pick up two pieces of sheetrock the next time he’s carrying something into the house they are renovating?  Well, that’s kind of how I’m feeling about this house renovation right now; we need to both work harder and faster. Consequently, I feel that if Lynn and I are both doing a fairly decent amount of physical labor (he more than me, I will confess), it at least justifies eating hearty meals.  Well, sort of.  This probably explains why my husband didn’t even blink when I suggested we have pasta with broccoli rabe followed by barbequed chicken AND country-style pork ribs for lunch.

However, to make the broccoli rabe, I needed to put up a pan of water on the grill’s side burner about an hour before I wanted to eat.  After about half an hour of waiting for the water to boil (it never did; there were simply a few bubbles and a lot of steam emitting from the pan), I simply threw the macaroni in and stirred it a couple of times.  But here’s the thing, pasta that sits in warm but not boiling water like this and desperately tries to get itself  “cooked,” has a slightly different, kind of gummy taste.

Brings New Meaning To Cooking Outdoors

When I figured it was done enough, I strained the pasta into my beloved colander, then sauteed the broccoli rabe with some olive oil and threw the pasta on top of it.  I had forgotten to buy garlic but did have some red pepper flakes and a chunk of real parmesan cheese to grate on top so it wasn’t a total disaster.

Elbow Macaroni with Broccoli Rabe

 

Chicken and Ribs

Any sane person eating this much food for lunch (with a couple of bottles of Canadian beer no less) should have taken a nap.  I went out to weed the garden and Lynn got on the Troy Bilt to mow the lawn!

Dinner:

Well, I confess, I did cheat a little since I brought our first course from downstate — lovely balls of burrata that I plated with some grape tomatoes (store-bought, sorry!) but with fresh basil from the garden.

I do need to segue just a tad here for two reasons.  #1 I love burrata and when I’m feeling particularly flush (which is hardly ever), I buy the real stuff that comes in little plastic bags and is flown in daily from Italy.  The key word in that sentence, so you have an idea how outrageously expensive authentic burrata is, is ‘flown.” (As in there are lots of darling little burratas flying first class on Alitalia.)  Better option: Trader Joe’s makes a decent product  for under $5 that I’ve become slightly addicted to.  #2 I love burrata so much that when I read Gabrielle Hamilton’s book, Blood, Bones & Butter, and she talks about digging spoons into a big platter of lovely rounds of burrata instead of a boring old wedding cake, I thought what a brilliant idea!

Lovely Burrata

Meanwhile, back on the range (literally),  I had a fire going under some lamb chops topped with fresh mint from the garden.  In fairness, it looked pretty as it was cooking, but imparted absolutely no mint flavor whatsoever, which was actually perfectly fine with me since I’m not a big mint fan anyway.

Lamb Chops with Fresh Mint from the Garden

Earlier in the day (when I was weeding the garden actually), I had picked some yellow squash to eat with the lamb chops as well as some lettuce.

Freshly Picked Squash

Amazing Lettuce

I felt lucky that I was able to put together a few side dishes courtesy of my new garden but it did make me pause and think about the Red House and what it was like as a working farm a hundred years ago.  What were the people who were living here cooking, growing, and ultimately eating?  I’d love to know.  One thing I’m absolutely positive about, even 150 years later, we were both washing dishes at the end of every meal the old fashioned way — by hand!

Old School Dishwashing

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The Beginnings of a New Kitchen; A Lovely Garden and Pizza, Too

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Julie

Some things are really cool like when you leave later than you anticipated on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend but manage to hit little to no traffic on the West Side Highway.  This unexpected event got us up to the Red House in a decent amount of time (think under 4 hours!) from Manhattan.

When we opened the door of the Red House, we were pleasantly surprised by the beginnings of our new kitchen.  Gone were the ugly burnt beams and in their place, a lovely in-the-works vaulted ceiling with new beams holding the room from collapsing in on us.

Even though it was late and we really wanted to have dinner, we walked around the space and “oohed” and “aahed” like little kids marveling at how different the room looked.  We also thought the replacement of a regular old window with a nice octagonal window was really neat, too.

New Kitchen Beams

Another View

In the morning, bright and early with the sun beating down on the meadow, I caught a glimpse of the beginnings of a garden, my new friend Natalie had started for me.

The Beginnings of a New Garden

Natalie (and her husband Greg) spent much of the previous week removing a large patch of sod (in the rain no less), raking the earth and coming up with a design idea of what should be planted where.  Luckily, she’s not only creative but appreciates using found objects as much as I do.  Consequently, she was able to take some hay we found in the barn as well as a couple of old railings and use them as accent pieces.

Flowers and Stepping Stones for a New Path

I love what she’s started for us and can’t thank her enough for helping me start my first vegetable and flower garden up at the Red House.  Her own blog, http://gardenspot-natalie.blogspot.com/ is sweet, too.

Before I came up to the Red House this weekend, I had already decided I would try to make pizza on the grill since last summer’s attempt resulted in a charred, inedible mess.  This time I was prepared.  I dug out my pizza stone and decided that I would roll out the dough on the stone, then put the stone on the hot grill, before the cheese or any other toppings were added.

Now, I realize this is ass backwards; the stone is supposed to be piping hot to cook the dough but I figured this would be the easiest way and would circumvent me having to try and transfer dough from one board (wooden) to another (stone) without it falling apart.

Pizza Fixings

So I rolled it out, put the dough on the stone, put the stone on the grill, added my tomato sauce and cheese, stole some basil leaves from Natalie’s newly planted garden and viola — Pizza on the Grill!

Grilling the Dough

 

The Pie!

I will admit it wasn’t the best pie we’ve ever had, the crust was still a little bit too doughy but we’re getting there!  After all, I have all summer to perfect this technique and experiment with different toppings, too.

 

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Linoleum, Grilling and Craving German Food

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Julie

This weekend I dealt with two major issues.

1. I still had two rooms of linoleum that I never ripped out from last summer.

2. If we wanted to eat, we would have to grill.

So, I hauled the grill out of the barn and got a wonderful shot of some beautiful wildflowers that have suddenly sprung up all over the property.  While others might consider them to be a tad weed-like, I’m keeping them.

Beautiful Blue Wildflowers

The first morning sans stove I was pretty ambitious, I put some applewood smoked bacon on the grill which cooked up quicker than I thought but then suddenly it started to rain and even though I tried to cover the bacon as I was carrying it from outside to inside, it was cold and wet.  Yummy!

Grilling Bacon!

Luckily, the pancakes faired a tad better.  Since I never like to do anything really simple, I threw together a quick pancake batter but threw some fresh blueberries in to just kick it up a notch.  Oh, yeah, I also had real maple syrup that was tapped by a local guy down the road and which the local supermarket even sells.  How about that for a real-time CSA?

I Love Blueberry Pancakes

After my breakfast, I decided to tackle the really ugly linoleum in one of the bedrooms.  I mean really, who would even contemplate putting something this awful down on their bedroom floor?

Who Would Put This On Their Floor?

By the time I managed to rip it out, including lots of stubborn nails that were stuck in the floorboards, I thought about lunch.  It was still overcast and raining on and off, windy and a tad chilly.  I had purposely brought up some brat wurst, sauerkraut and even a package of pierogis for lunch or dinner but I decided I wanted them for lunch.  Yes, I know pierogis are Polish but they are heavy enough for me to be kind of an ersatz German food.

Brat Wurst and Pierogis

I like to boil my pierogis so I put on a pot of water on the side burner of the grill and waited and waited for the water to reach a slow boil.  Wow, this took a really long time! In the meantime, I threw the sausages on the grill and finally when the water began to bubble, I threw the pierogis in.

And yes, they were pretty darn good and filling and heavy but after all I felt I needed a bit of a reward for all that ugly linoleum ripping I had to contend with.

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