Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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creamy coconut-pumpkin soup with chicken

A few days ago my friend Meredith posted to snap chat an intriguing soup she had discovered at her office’s cafeteria. She raved over the soup’s deliciousness, vowed to crack the code, and hooked me. I stalked her snaps and Facebook until, on a particularly bitter cold afternoon this past weekend, she reported having deduced the recipe and thereby warmed her house and tummy. We saw each other at a holiday party shortly afterward and she offered some details.

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Thank goodness for friends who are adventurous and love to cook! Because, dear reader, I have a new favorite: Creamy Coconut-Pumpkin Soup with Chicken. It is as weird and perfect as you might expect, and although I just yesterday inhaled this glorious food for His-and-Hers Soup Night at the Farm, I already cannot wait to make it again. So good.

I actually, literally, no joke, licked my bowl clean. Not sorry. Also, three cheers for using Christmas china on weeknights as often as possible.

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The building blocks for this simple luxury are pumpkin puree and coconut milk, with plenty of unusual (to me) spices, add chicken breast (because protein!). The recipe came together fragrantly in less than the time it took to make chicken and dumplings for my guy, and I suspect it would do well in a slow cooker, too, which you can bet I’ll be trying soon. 

If we gotta do winter let’s do it cozy, okay? OK. And let’s not skimp on vitamins and fiber. OK. 

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What You Need:

  • olive oil
  • salt, black pepper, garlic powder (optional)
  • ground cayenne pepper, turmeric, ground ginger, curry if you have it (I did not)
  • 3 celery stalks, diced, and a few cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 can pumpkin puree
  • 1/3 cup of coconut milk
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 fully cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast

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What You Do:

  1. Sautee the celery and garlic till tender, adding spices as you go.
  2. Add the pumpkin puree, coconut milk, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Spice again, to taste.
  3. Add the fully cooked chicken and stir, taste, season, etc. It is ready to eat when it is all blended well and tastes good to you.
  4. Devour it all guiltlessly, knowing you are providing your hard-working body with gorgeous phyto-nutrients, hefty fiber, immunity-boosting spice, and that ever-important protein.

Other Gorgeous Ideas:

  • Add roasted pumpkin seeds. (I forgot we had a can of these in the pantry!! Would have been so nice and crunchy.)
  • Add lime juice.
  • Include some onion with your garlic and celery. The Lazy W is “not in the onion business,” as my Grandpa says, due to an allergy. But I know all about the cooking trinity.
  • Roast or saute some diced fresh pumpkin and let that simmer and soften more in the liquids. Mer said her original bowl of soup featured this and it was delicious, tender like cooked potatoes. Yum! I will try this soon. In fact in my kitchen right now is one final pumpkin from our Lazy W pumpkin patch that needs to be used. Destiny.
  • Drizzle the finished soup with a little extra coconut milk.
  • Fresh basil, yaaaaasssss.
  • shrimp instead of chicken? Maybe…

Things I Adore About This Soup:

  • It fills you up. Thoroughly. It is immensely satisfying on a cold, hard-working winter day. 
  • The creamy decadence is achieved with neither butter nor heavy cream or anything like that. I am a coconut milk convert.
  • The spicy heat was a welcome reprieve from so many standard savory flavors lately. Perfect for when you crave something different but not something too different.
  • It’s sweet without being sugary.
  • Back to the bowl-licking: fewer dishes to wash!
  • It’s a fast weeknight recipe if you have the chicken already cooked, and you can make it in small batches like this or just add cans and make more. Easy! I love that. 

Thank you, beautiful Mer, for sharing your soup discovery and for doing the leg work of cracking the code! I am obsessed. My mouth actually watered while typing this blog post. 

Have a cozy week, friends! I hope your final days of Christmas prep are clicking along joyfully.

XOXOXOXO

 

jocelyn’s amazing colorado tiger butter

This past week, since writing to you guys about our recent feast on Soul Cake, we have feasted on the glorious stuff even more. Our oldest surprised us with a visit home from Colorado, and now she is home again, back in Colorado. She is at home with herself, really, and with her sweet pup Bridget, but that is a whole other blog post. Anyway, to say that Christmas came early to the Lazy W is quite an understatement.

Today, while the details are fresh, I want to share with you a recipe she taught me this week: Tiger Butter. You just might find it useful for an upcoming holiday party! Then soon, more Soul Cake stories, because my gosh… xoxo

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Background: The Girl worked a brief stint at a well known candy shop, The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. While there she learned all kinds of great tricks and secrets about candy making and has been eager to share it all. Most notable to me is how she learned to measure ingredients by weight, not volume. I had read a little about this in Julia Child’s book My Life in France but never really considered the practical differences until Jocelyn stood in front of my Oklahoma stove puzzling out her chocolate-peanut butter ratios. After a few moments she declared with that signature doe-eyed confidence, “We’re just gonna eye-ball it.” Okay! And it turned out so good.

Tiger Butter is a bark-style candy flavored like Reese’s and named for its stripes, which you achieve by dragging a knife through contrasting flavors/colors of molten yumminess. It has precious few ingredients and comes together more easily than I expected. Tiger Butter is so rich that you must nibble it slowly, in tiny cold pieces, so a batch seems to last forever compared to, say, a big heap of chunky oatmeal cookies that can double as a meal for yours truly. According to Joc, and I heartily agree, a mouthful of Tiger Butter requires a chaser of ice cold milk. I would suggest strong dark coffee too, but the combo of high sugar with high caffeine might be… Shaky.

Okay.

What You Need:

  • 2 microwave-safe bowls, one medium and one small (Yes, you could certainly do this stove top instead.)
  • a shallow freezer-safe dish lined with waxed paper (we used a petite glass one, somewhat smaller than 9 x 13)
  • about 2 cups your favorite peanut butter (We used just less than half of a 28-ounce jar of Peter Pan smooth. She said crunchy is also delicious if you like added texture.)
  • 1 bag white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 bag your favorite chocolate chips to supplement the white chocolate (I think she chose semi-sweet. This was part of the confident eye-balling in lieu of weighing out the ingredients, so you should do the same, knowing that this chocolate will blend with the peanut butter and white chocolate flavors.)
  • up to but not necessarily a whole bag of dark chocolate chips (for the top layer)

That is a lot of richness, right? Straight peanut butter and at least two bags of chocolate chips. But to my surprise you need neither butter nor evaporated milk like with pralines, no eggs, etc. Tiger butter is a rich, dense, straight to the point, focused indulgence. A lot like my girl, if you ask me.

Okay.

What You Do:

  1. Line the shallow pan with waxed paper and set aside.
  2. In medium bowl, combine peanut butter, white chocolate chips, and extra chocolate chips (as needed) then cook in the microwave, stirring occasionally, melt some more, get it smooth and shiny. (Joc said the proportions should be approximately 1:1 peanut butter to chocolate, but she also tasted it and adjusted between melting sessions. You can scarcely make this wrong so no worries.)
  3. Pour this pale colored lava into your prepared dish/pan. Admire the sheen and the shimmer. Set aside.
  4. In smaller bowl, melt the dark chocolate to the same glossy gorgeousness.
  5. Dollop this second chocolate onto the pale layer gently, maybe on alternating sides. Think of this step as your chance to be creative. You are staging the origins of your stripes.
  6. Now use either a butter knife or a toothpick or a chopstick (something more delicate than your finger, though you will be tempted) to drag slow, deliberate lines from one dollop to the next, leaving drag marks as you go. Drag all the way across the pan then start again, going in opposing directions. Again, get creative and have fun! Joc said she once drew her name in the chocolate. So somewhere out in the world a stranger has enjoyed handmade chocolate with my daughter’s name frozen in the face of it. If you move in an even, checkerboard pattern your dark chocolate layer can achieve a feathery effect, which is beautiful.
  7. Once you like the look of your creation, place the whole thing in the freezer for a couple of hours. It will harden nicely without changing design at all. Later, if you lift it out by the waxed paper hammock, you can then cut it uniformly with a sharp knife or break it into irregular, craggy shapes. It packs great for gifts or a potluck party or a dessert bar, whatever your plan. Remember a little of this rich treat goes a long way!

That’s it! Some chocolate chips, some peanut butter, your microwave and freezer, and a little time. You will be elbow deep in homemade candy and also have a cool connection to the Rockies and my beautiful firstborn.

Thanks for checking in, friends. I hope your December has been filled with surprises and miracles like ours. I hope you try making your own Tiger Butter! And I hope to see you here again soon. Lots more fun stuff on the horizon.

Be sweet
XOXOXOXO

 

soul cake

Hello, happy first weekend of December! Long time no blog, haha. That’s getting to be the usual around here, but not for lack of things to share or writing urges. Evolution is in the air, though, and I am happy about it. Blogging will pick back up in time.

A good portion of my week has been spent up in the Apartment, sewing aprons and towel sets, organizing Christmas gifts, making yarn crafts, and playing a not-low-key-enough game of fetch with Klaus. Between tasks we chase each other back and forth along the length of the second story and up and down the stairs. We have wrecked many a laundry basket and more than a few framed paintings on the wall in the hot pursuit of slobbery tennis balls. His slobber, to be clear, not mine. Okay.

These hours immersed in creative projects have been so nourishing. My thoughts are clicking into place. My physical energy is adjusting from slightly obsessive marathon training back to a steadier, stronger norm. And I have lots of beautiful textiles to show for the time.

This was a fun custom order!
This was a fun custom order.

The soundtrack of this past week has been mostly Sting Christmas music. One of the best songs kind of sums up life lately. Soul Cake. Do you recognize it? Please go give it a listen.

Soul cake, soul cake, please good missus a soul cake.

An apple a pear a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry.

I actually feel like we have been feasting on Soul Cake for weeks. Life has taken a delicious turn, and we feel nourished far beyond even the good done by a few days in the Apartment.

Thanksgiving with my family was beautiful. Aunt Marion and Uncle John hosted us locals, including sweet Grandpa Stubbs. My sister Angela was with us, such an answer to hopes and prayers. The nieces (when did they get so tall and skinny?) kept everyone entertained and stocked up on cuddles. As always the food and surroundings were perfect. We feasted and laughed and healed each other a little and made a thousand sparkling memories. We wrapped each other with love. It was an excellent beginning to a long, cozy winter.

My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).
My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).

 

Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.
Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.

 

I feel like this photo will go down in infamy.
I predict this photo will go down in infamy.

The Soul Cake feast began before that, too. Handsome and I managed to spend a few precious days in Estes Park with our oldest, maybe my fifth trip to visit since she moved there but Handsome’s first. Every minute with her is worth a hundred written pages. She makes us proud and happy, and we cherish the opportunity to see the world through her eyes. That quick weekend also gave us a good appetite for winter and all the wintry holidays. (But let’s not talk about extreme altitude sickness, which is apparently very real. I discovered the depth of this particular despair for the first time on this last trip and hope to never experience it again.)

We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can't you tell? xoxo
We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can’t you tell? xoxo

I often fall asleep saying thank you thank you thank you for so many things. From our marriage and family to my husband’s career and my own secret aspirations, from health and well-being to finances, and every little thing in between, life is amazing. So many answered prayers, miracles of every shape and size, unexpected blessings, and innumerable joys. Even the remaining heartache is so clearly encased in the glow of hope and faith that it barely casts a shadow. This is not one of those fake it till you make it seasons. It’s a bright, hard-won time for celebrating. And we intend to seize it.

God bless the master of this house

and the mistress also

and all the little children,

that round your table grow.

Soul cake is everything around us lately. The food we eat, the people who love us, the work we are lucky to do. Soul Cake is time and energy and reading material and music. Movie nights, cowboy parades, Santa sightings, and twinkling light displays. Scriptures, traditions, desperate prayers answered beyond our wildest dreams. It is all abundant for us, for our children, for the generations before us. Our friends are Soul Cake for us and we hope to be theirs.

Nourished in all these way, fed heavily on Soul Cake, the Christmas spirit comes easily. On this first weekend of December I am already effervescent and relaxed. Giddy, really.

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Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions...xoxo Check out those longhorns!
Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions…xoxo Check out those longhorns!

We were talking this morning about the sustainability of Christmas traditions. We were between donuts in our pajamas and the Christmas parade in Stockyard City, and the radio ads were full speed ahead with materialism. I am feeling the exact opposite of worried about that. Because the extra nonsense always falls away in its own time. We are healthy and strong in our Souls, because of all the Cake, and that’s what matters.

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We hope that you’ll be kind

with your apple and your pear,

and we’ll come no more a-soulin’

till Christmastime next year.

How is your winter starting out? Are you feeling hopeful and confident, or do you need a heavy helping of what nourishes you? Either way, I wish you all the very best. We have plenty Soul Cake to share if you need some.

Happiest of Decembers, friends.

If you haven’t got a penny
a ha’ penny will do.
if you haven’t got a ha’ penny
then God bless you.
XOXOXOXO

 

what to talk about at the holidays

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, friends! Are you reading this only because you are taking a break between pie recipes and adding one more flavor to the turkey brine? Is your apron dusted with flour and are your fingers sticky from lemon juice and Karo syrup?

Is your home filled with travelers and kids out of school, or are you home from the office and soaking up the quiet? Uh oh, are you at the grocery store right now? I’ll light a candle for you. My favorite local spot this afternoon was a bustling, happy place; but I can only imagine things will deteriorate gradually hour by hour. Ha.

However you are spending this beautiful evening, I hope you are happy and feeling loved. Truly. I am thankful for you and have love to spare because it has been heaped upon me.

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Already late November. And in Oklahoma our weather only just cooled down, my chartreuse sweet potato vines only turned black two days ago, so the suddenness of the calendar is mixed with the weird anti-climax feeling like summer just ended, sort of, but also in a far away dream? Our autumns here are not like other autumns. They are elusive and indecisive.

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New topic. I need to prepare for something and hope you’ll join in, maybe help me:

Is it funny-not-funny to anyone else that we are thrust into the holiday season immediately following such a pivotal and hotly contested election season? LOL. I mean, I’m not really LOL-ing, but I’m trying.

And it is definitely not that I have any disdain for the holidays. I treasure each of them. It’s the election and all the fallout that have me wound up. And at the holidays we spend time with people we don’t see very often. People we love, of course, or else why would we gather? But the relatively (no pun intended) brief gatherings can be a bit risky. We don’t necessarily have that smooth, easy, conversational rhythm set in place, you know? There is often a little rust that needs kicking off. And Thanksgiving dinner is just the beginning of about seven weeks of celebrating.

Cut to the chase: Either people agree on hot topics and can openly discuss them in safety and commiseration; or people disagree and get into fights, clinging to beliefs over bonds. God forbid either of these happens when people are wildly inebriated. I get nervous just thinking about the fallout of a political “debate” rising up like black crude in the otherwise verdant wildflower meadow of a family gathering.

To further this ridiculous metaphor, I guess it could be true that political discussions are nourishing to our families, like oil to our modern society, but MY GOSH it scares me. I vote for the meadow, ok?

Here’s the opposite extreme: I also don’t want to waste our precious time with family and friends time skirting so delicately around key topics that we only manage small talk. That’s weak.

There has to be a safe, beautiful, fruitful middle ground. There’s an ocean between these two dangerous extremes, right? Can we swim there happily, exchange some ideas and make some memories without hurting each other? I sure hope so.

I would like to tell you how sorry I am for all these mixed metaphors but really tomorrow we will start mixing foods, so oh well. Ha.

Okay, here are some possible conversation alternatives:

  • Weather lately (easy)
  • Health issues (obvious)
  • What is the weirdest thing you saw on your travels to get there?
  • What food are you most excited about? Do you know the recipe’s origin story in our family? Which recipes do you have memorized from making so long?
  • Do you know anyone who skips the holidays or eschews tradition? (Our friend Maribeth serves her family steak on Thanksgiving and they love it! And I love her.)
  • The year is almost over. Tell each other all about how your 2016 goals and resolutions are going.
  • What plans do you already have for next year? What would you do if money were no object? What would you do if you could not spend any money?
  • What stands out for you this past year? What prayers were answered? What have you learned?
  • How would you improve the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade? Carte blanche!
  • Design a new reality show casting everyone sitting at your holiday dinner table. (WAIT nope, better scratch that idea, haha. Never mind on that one. Terrible terrible idea.)
  • What reality shows would you maybe be on?
  • Thinking of the Native Americans showing the Pilgrims how to grow crops in a new land, what culture around the world would you most like to learn from? And, if not turkey and mashed potatoes, what kind of feast would you like to explore?
  • What is your favorite Thanksgiving kids craft? What is the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen?
  • Talk about charity efforts or community events or light displays.
  • Debate Black Friday ethics.
  • Talk about football.
  • Books and movies, music specials, and where to hike.
  • Specifically Christmas movies! What are the best ones? What are the worst?
  • Favorite SNL cast member or skit?
  • Talk about how much we all love Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams.
  • See who has the best story to share about a holiday kitchen failure.
  • Debate whether to let your food touch or not.

It goes without saying that for these family gatherings especially, but always, our hearts should be firmly set on gratitude. Drop expectations of each other and look for the best to shine through. It usually does. Resist the urge to compare and fish for conflict or hurt feelings. Feed the common ground you have, and it will only grow stronger. Show appreciation for each other, memorize each other’s faces, be sure your voice spreads only Love.

(I am telling myself all of this stuff, ok?)

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope your celebration is everything you and your people need it to be. Please let me know how you plan to navigate things.

My favorite SNL skit is where Paul Simon and Victoria Jackson
smelt Christmas gifts on a desert island.
And I have had so many prayers
answered this year it’s not even fair.
XOXOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm: nourished

Hi friends, happy Friday! Lots has been happening, as always, and I am remiss in sharing a thousand great stories and photos with you. Life continues to be full to bursting with beauty and surprises around every corner.

For now, for Friday, let’s pause to notice the things that have been nourishing us, the features of average daily life that keep us going day to day, task to task. Are you game? Here are five of mine, lately. I would really love to hear what has been fueling all of your grand adventure and such, too. 

1. SOUP. I am really in deep over soup right now, maybe even more so than salad, which is saying a lot. My favorite ones to make at home involve lots of chicken broth and chicken and maybe lentils, some raw kale, a squeeze of lemon, twist my arm over half an avocado why don’t you. My favorite ones at restaurants lately have been this chicken Florentine potion (So creamy! So much celery!) and one gloriously plain and satisfying cauldron filled with clam chowder. Here in Oklahoma we are barely cold enough for soup yet, really, but every chance I get it’s happening. Makes me feel so great deep in my bones.

2. NATURE, always and forever, especially views like these…

view

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3. TIME with my people. Romantic getaways with Handsome, quick caring afternoons with girlfriends, nighttime walks and long sunshine talks with my daughter, Face-timing with my sister-in-law and newborn nephew, meaningful conversations with my best friend (Handsome again), extended cuddles with my dog. (Yeah for sure he counts as one of my people.)

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4. STORIES like that of Jesse Owens. Have you seen the movie Race? Friends, it’s so great. In fact, may I strongly suggest that you watch it with your family this holiday season. We all need some balm on our hearts. Agreed? His story is told beautifully in this film. And not for nothing that it’s about running, okay?

5. THANKS and all the amazing energy that flows from the giving of it. Gratitude is a trans-formative force, lest we ever forget. I have lately been enjoying a ribbon of happiness thanks to, well, thankfulness. The more you rest your mind on your blessings, the more you show your appreciation, the more you mean it, the better. I think soup helps with this, as does spending time in nature and with your people. So do great, inspirational, true stories; they give us hope on so many levels.

Pretty great little cooperative effort we have here.

What is nourishing you these days?

“I consider that all which lives must feed itself and nourish itself
in a manner suitable to the way in which it lives.”
~Giordano Bruno
XOXOXOXO