Lazy W Marie

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

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raspberry-almond oatmeal bread

Greetings, friends! Greetings and salutations!

Today I have a fun bread recipe to share, something I baked up for my Dad last week that is worth repeating. At least to me. The jury is still out as to whether Dear Ol’ Dad deems it mouth-watering. But let’s dive in.

raspberry almond oat bread recipe label

As the title makes clear, this bread is not terribly plain; it boasts a lot of texture and variousness, which is so my groove. The raspberries bake up chewy and tart. The toasted almonds chunks (not slivers for a change) are so crunchy and satisfying. The oatmeal texture just makes you feel full and happy and alive. Win win win.

Let’s make this bread for the whole ingredients, the heart-healthy oats and the heavy texture. Let’s make it for the early summer colors and the aroma of it baking, for the way your serrated knife finally crunches through the golden, bumpy top then glides right down through the steaming middle, begging you for a pat of sweet cream butter. Or two. Plus some hot coffee in the middle of the afternoon.

Okay.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil (Next time I’ll use either browned butter or applesauce. If you try either variation please let me know!)
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup quick oats
3 teaspoons baking powder
dashes of salt and cinnamon
1 cup whole raw almonds (chopped rough then dry toasted)
1 cup whole raw raspberries (toss these in a speck of flour before adding to batter)

Method:

In a large bowl mix together the brown sugar, milk, oil (or variation of butter or applesauce) and eggs. You only need a wooden spoon for this.

Stir in the flour, quick oats, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Still just the humble wooden spoon.

Are your rough-chopped almonds already toasted and cooled? Yay! Go ahead and add those as well as the berries. Fold it all into a glorious kaleidoscope of favor and texture.

Pour this chunky, colorful batter into a standard bread pan which you have smeared with butter and dusted with flour and cinnamon. Bake the whole yummy she-bang for up to an hour at 375 degrees. Plan some fresh coffee for later and soften a little extra butter. You’ll need it soon.

Now I am craving this again! I only ate one skinny slice the day I baked this.
Not enough! : )

Dad, did you like this? I know it’s bit more like “granola” style than you usually groove. But don’t worry; we’ll get back to pure indulgence soon. I love you!

Friends, happy Tuesday! What is going on in your kitchen?

“Cooking is like love.
It should be entered into with abandon
or not at all.”
~Harriet Van Horn
XOXOXOXO

 

 

timeout warrants issued

What’s up, Kat? You totally made me cry into my perfect coffee with your post about a memorable lesson and a burnt headlight. Biggest hugs to you, sweet lady. That was beautiful. xoxo Friends, you must go read You Can Fix It. It’s short and so very sweet.

This week Kat wants to know what 10 things
(people, places, whatevv) need a timeout?
Here are my nominations:

  1. The rain. The rain has been a wonderful blessing and has busted all our historic droughts and given us such glorious spring gardens! It’s been magical. But we’re good now, thanks. Still flooded everywhere you look, Oklahoma now sees a nine-day forecast of nothing but more rain. Heavy rain. Storms like what you’d see in the tropics, not the southern Midwest. We are soaked to the bone. The rain needs a timeout.

    Verdant and colorful, yes! I just love it. But we crave more sunny days like in this photo. The plants crave the sun, too.
    Verdant and colorful, yes! I just love it. But we crave more sunny days like in this photo. The plants crave the sun, too.
  2. People who commit body shaming against others, including themselves. This includes people who call others “too fat” as well as people who call others “too skinny” or anything at all. This barely used to bother me, but for some reason lately all the careless adjectives and tones of voice flying around just create a really confusing, hurtful atmosphere. I don’t groove it. Body shamers need a timeout.
  3. Natasha the black barn cat. She has been bullying Fast Woman, who you may remember recently became an indoor cat (on a trial basis at least). Natasha spends lots of time lurking outside the doors and windows, howling and spiking her shoulder fur in Fast Woman’s general direction. It’s aggressive and it needs to stop. Natasha needs a timeout.

    They will stare at each other like this for a solid hour, hissing and thinking terrible things.
    They will stare at each other like this for a solid hour, hissing and thinking terrible things.
  4. People who freely post on social media graphic images of death and violence. Animal abuse, abortion, actual funeral caskets and headstones, and more. I don’t need shock value to help me calibrate my moral compass. Nor do intense visuals like this provide any kind of healing for very real grief. Some people seem to care more about making a splash or getting attention than about how they affect others when they propagate this gut wrenching stuff. They don’t realize that such images can trigger deep trauma and sadness, so they need a timeout.
  5. Chunk-Hi the buffalo for bullying the horses and sleeping on their hay. I mean, come on man. I see you. I know you know what you’re doing. Timeout for the buff.
  6. Liars, rumor spreaders, and gossips. It’s rampant lately, in both private and professional circles, and all of these folks need a timeout.
  7. The excessive alligator snapping turtles showing up on our roads and in our ponds. Nope! No thanks. Timeout.
  8. Spammers. Not necessarily the fine people who manufacture and distribute Spam, the canned meat product; that foodstuff has its place and I am sure those Spammers are great people! In fact I have kind of a heartwarming story about that kind of Spam if you want to hear it someday. But the trolls who work so tirelessly to poison our internet experience? Those spammers. They need a timeout.
  9. People who insist on putting frogs at or near my person, on or around my neck, chest, face, and head. Most of all my sweet, ornery husband. But also practically all the kids we know. And our friend Jeff. And my Dad. All people who think it’s funny to throw frogs at me or even fake like you are doing it, you need a timeout.

    Cute in a photo. Terrifying in 3-D.
    Cute in a photo. Terrifying in 3-D.
  10. The rain. I have to say it twice for emphasis. Take five, rain. Let’s meet up again in late July.

 

Whew! If these ten timeout warrants are actually satisfied, then so shall I be. Life would be ever so much lovelier.

Who or what do you think needs a timeout? Spill it.

XOXOXOXO

marathon monday: what’s your worst outfit?

One day last week I finished up a hectic afternoon of running errands by stopping at that one-mile loop track that’s sort of near the farm. I sprinted for three sweaty, desperate miles, making eye contact with nobody, then hurried back to my Jeep and made a beeline for home. Once there I kissed my husband, who was working on his Camaro and thankfully didn’t need a lot of eye contact, then made a second beeline to the shower and then my closet for fresh clothes. I’m not always in such a hurry to shed my running layers, but on this day my running layers were embarrassing.

I was wearing third-day, baggy yoga pants, full length ones with wide bottom legs that went swish-swash with every stride. Also the kind with a wide elastic flap at your hips that when flipped over reveals a super classy word, etched in sequins. Totally appropriate for a woman my age. Oh, but I tend to wear these pants wrong side out because I hate the way those sequins feel against the small of my back if that flap flips up. Which it often does. So, third-day, baggy, wrong-side-out yoga pants with bell bottoms that could start a campfire.

I was also wearing a lavender-colored stretch cotton pajama top, some ill-fitting Winnie the Pooh number from I cannot fathom what chapter of life (it looks like a maternity top but isn’t), and my husband’s athletic socks. Picture, if you will, the heel contour landing somewhere north of my ankle and near my calf muscle. Not that you could see that. On account of my super classy yoga pants.

I looked less like a runner and more like a person who had just awoken from a coma that had started long ago, while nursing a baby during a Britney Spears video.

My only semblance of normalcy was that pair of new blue and turquoise Brooks that still looked pretty fresh. Those shoes alone carried all the heavy burden of making me look like a legit runner at the track that day. Apparently I care about this now.

shoes

Why such shoddy attire? Because I hadn’t done laundry in several days. So all my workout gear was used up. Nor had I showered very recently.

These were facts of life because our septic tank was near capacity.

This was because Oklahoma has been enjoying a deluge of steady rainfall for weeks now.

Our water table is full. Our well is full. Our pond is full. And so, as things go, is our septic tank. Or at least it was last week, and I was exercising an abundance of caution. Trust me: not showering and not doing laundry is not my thing.

Anyway, the next time you see a badly dressed person at the running track, resist judgement and assume that he or she has a good reason for it. Things happen.

After all, color-coordinated spandex and witty racer back tees are for the drought.

The End.
XOXO

 

 

 

 

yet another kale salad & some recipe reviews

Howdy! And thanks for checking in again! It’s Tuesday, so let’s see what’s up in the Lazy W kitchen.

What we’re eating a lot of these days: EGGS. So many eggs, in so many wonderful incarnations. The hens are laying maniacs this week! Yesterday I collected 22. That’s a lot for us. So we are compelled to find more and more ways to eat our weight in these little nutritious miracles. Fried, hard-boiled, cheesy breakfast sandwiches, mushroom omelettes, Quiche, eggs cooked hot and runny over kale, you name it. Liquid chickens are on the menu! Handsome may or may not be getting tired of this.

Speaking of kale, I am still eating lots of that, too. Although, and maybe you’ve noticed this yourself, the grocery store offerings are starting to taste a little drab and bitter as the season progresses. So I’m relying more heavily on what the raised beds provide. Fresh baby kale to the rescue!! Last night I found a bunch and a half of not great grocery store kale in the refrigerator plus half a bag of languishing clementines. (How long have we had those?) Together these two nearly expired food stuffs comprised a really delicious salad base.

kale citrus 1

kale citrus 2

Try this salad:

As always, just wash the kale, remove the “bones” (do any other veggies have bones?), slice it up really skinny, and massage those kale ruffles with just 2 teaspoons of your fave olive oil. Toss all of that with freshly squeezed clementine juice then some black pepper and sea salt. Add a plain roasted sweet potato and chicken breast if you want. The clementines made it all much sweeter than normal, a great flavor combination with the roasted sweet potato. Do you like those salads with chicken and strawberries? Not at all unlike that deliciousness. And supremely filling.

bowl 1

bowl 2

 

Okay, now on to a few recipe experiments and reviews of each:

Bacon-Cheddar Scones: I made this recipe, with a few minor tweaks, for my Mom for Mother’s Day. She is taking her diabetes and health very seriously, yay Mom! So I feel guilty loading her up with desserts no matter the special occasion. A double-protein treat seemed better. (I used oven-cooked bacon instead of ham, by the way.) She really seemed to liked these, so this recipe is a keeper. Sometimes don’t you crave a dense, buttery scone instead of a more delicate pastry? I do. So on a special brunch day I’ll make it for us here at the farm. Bacon and cheddar scones. Oh, quick tip! Freeze your stick of butter at least partially then grate it into your dry ingredients, and don’t overdo it with the mixing!

Turkey Burgers: I was a huge fan of this recipe, but Handsome was decidedly not. No offense to the recipe itself; the ground turkey is just not a texture he could handle. He barely gagged down half of his, so we won’t be sharing this meal again. Like, ever. But since I have more ground turkey in the freezer, I’ll make a batch of these for myself once in a while, only with less dark mustard next time. Also, in the spirit of use what you have, I added a little shredded mozzarella instead of fancy cheese. Plenty good enough for a weeknight or for a healthy lunch. Turkey Burgers

Roasted Garlic Humus: Okay, this recipe we agreed was wonderful. This is good news, too, because a craving for humus was the main reason I spent $10 on a jar of tahini. (Yikes!) Next time for the sake of my husband’s stomach health I’ll use less (or zero) roasted garlic, and eventually I’ll invest in a food processor. My trusty blender did an okay job of destroying the tender beans, but the finished product was slightly chunkier than I would expect humus to be. Overall, easy and so good! Really good with whole wheat pita bread and celery. Roasted Garlic Humus

Iron Skillet Focaccia: Oh man, friends, I am a sucker for good focaccia. It has got to be the loveliest of all homemade breads, right? Especially with fresh rosemary, some olive oil, maybe a splash of vinegar. Or nothing at all! It’s so good naked, and the whole baking process imparts a cozy sexiness to your home. But sometimes the day is too full and the kitchen counter is too crowded for rolling out the heavy dough, kneading it, allowing it to rise seven million times, etcetera. I mean… Those things are satisfying and worthwhile, just not always possible. Well, I happened upon this recipe last week on just such a day and was thrilled with the results! We don’t eat bread much these days, so when we do I want it to be pretty gangbusters. This was a success. Try it. You will not be sad. Easy No Knead Skillet Bread

focaccia

Okay that’s it for now! I’m reading my way into an appetite for food by Elizabeth David, but that’s for another day. Tell me something you have tried cooking lately. I’d love to hear. Over and out!

“Calvin: Why are you crying mom?
Mom: I’m cutting up an onion.
Calvin: It must be hard to cook if you anthrpomorphisize your vegetables.” *
~Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
XOXOXOXO

 

*LOL

happy mother’s day

Happy Mother’s Day, friends! How are you spending today? Are you sleeping late and enjoying a simple but heartfelt breakfast in bed constructed by toddlers? Are you dressing up for a fancy brunch with adults? Are you attending church service with your family, looking forward to hearing the preacher’s message about motherhood and all a good woman’s virtues?

Or are you removed from some of the cultural fanfare, either missing your mother or missing your children? I think of some close friends who lost their Moms years ago, and how even with the passage of time the pain doesn’t stop. This worries me for my husband who lost his Mom just a year and a half ago. I also think of the women in our life who have lost a child, of how no matter who else is in their life, that loss remains a deep, open wound.

This all can be scary, except that I understand how grief can be such a beautiful expression of affection. Love and loss, so closely intertwined.

rp_instagram-roses-after-rain.jpg

I am so lucky. My own life has been generously blessed by an amazing Mom who at a young, tender age decided to give everything to me, and then to my four siblings, and now to our spouses and her grandchildren. Her life all these forty-plus years has been all about us, good and bad, no matter how much it has hurt her. But really she shows us joy. She makes us believe that she has loved every minute of the roller coaster, and each of the five of us would agree that Mom is our biggest fan, our most ardent cheerleader no matter what we are trying to accomplish. We may not always admit it, but making her proud and making her laugh is truly one of life’s biggest pleasures.

Mom has been an example of humility and strength, selflessness, resourcefulness, and good, plain hard work. She has also shown me how to be a good friend to people and how to be a good caretaker. She totally embodies gratitude. She is a wonderful cook, talented at creating delicious things out of whatever she already has, and she grows the most beautiful gardens. Slowly, naturally, patiently. Every year her gardens are more stunning. This is how I want my entire life to look.

mom me 2015

Time will tell whether I become the woman Mom has shown me to be, but for today I am very grateful. I am grateful for the example she continues to set, for the forgiveness she allows when I hurt her, and also for the freedom she gives me to live my own life, to find my own way.

heart shaped rose petals

However you are spending this day on the calendar, I wish you all the Love your soul craves as well as all the strength and openness you need to share the Love you have already been given. I hope your life has been graced by all the best qualities of motherhood so that when someone near you needs it, you can shed that grace all over again. Keep it moving, just like new life. Breath it in and breathe it out.

“Making the decision to have a child- it is momentous.
It is to decide forever to have your heart go
walking around outside your body.”
~Elizabeth Stone
XOXOXOXO