Field of Mustard

 

It's mustard season in Sonoma County, when the white mustard is blooming in the fields and in the vineyards. It is always a lovely sight that I never get tired of. A few years ago, the Geek and I went into the Dry Creek Valley to photograph the mustard in the vineyards, but this year I was passing this wide field when I returned from my walk in the Laguna. There was a dirt strip by the side of the road where I parked and started shooting the yellow mass.

I was lucky that I had taken my big camera that day, because I wanted to take photos of the birds in the Laguna (those pictures will turn up in this space soon). This was actually the first day this year that I was using the DSLR again. During the pandemic I had become really lazy and was mainly taking pictures with my phone. While I was photographing the birds and now the mustard I realized how much I had missed my big camera.

Mustard belongs to the Brassicaceae family. It is native to Europe, but is so common in North America by now that it is considered "naturalized". It turns up where the soil has been disturbed, I have read that it is good for erosion control and it supresses weeds. Recently I read an article about how it made its way to the California Coast and the findings were surprising. The scientists stated that mustard seeds were found in the bricks that were used to build the missions along El Camino Real and thus got into California. I thought that was an interesting but plausible theory.

The mustard blooming season won't keep for very much longer. When it gets warmer it will disappear from our fields and vineyards. Since it is an annual plant we have to wait until next late winter / early spring to admire it again.

Winter Dishes

 

Cheese fondue

Today I decided that winter is over - even though we are in the middle of a cold spell that still gives us warm sunny days but chilly nights, mornings and evenings. However, there are so many signs of spring around us that we really can't talk about winter anymore, at least not in this corner of the world.

Therefore, it's time to talk about what we ate in winter. Winter dishes are often a bit heartier than meals during the rest of the year. It seems that the short days and cold nights make us long for more comfort and warmth, and food is just the thing to give us both.

Our traditional New Year's Eve food is cheese fondue. We used to eat it with chunks of bread, but recently we discovered a healthier way to enjoy it - with roasted potatoes and brussels sprouts. It is 100% delicious and we didn't miss the bread one bit!

Baked spanakopita pasta with greens and feta

We love pasta and certainly had our fair share of it over the winter. A lot of these meals were new recipes that I tried out, most of them published in the New York Times. But we also enjoyed old favorites again.

Tortellini with caramelized onions and mushrooms and spinach

Baked spinach artichoke pasta

Lemon chicken with mushrooms and orechiette, an old favorite

Especially in winter I include a lot of veggies in our meals. My favorite place to buy fresh local veggies is the farmers market, but since it is taking place on Saturday mornings I usually cannot go there since I teach that time. However, if there is a Saturday when I don't have to teach I go to the market and my fridge drawer for the veggies is filled to the brim after that.

When I made meatballs I used to take store bought ones, but when I saw a recipe for pork meatballs that are made with ginger, fish sauce and crushed Ritz crackers I had to try that. I paired them with roasted aspargus (a recipe my lovely neighbor gave me) - what can I say? It was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S.

And since I had fresh ginger in the house I made this gingery fried rice with bok choy and mushrooms - that is going to be a new favorite! In addition to everything in the recipe I added some lemon zest and scrambled an egg in at the end. It is cooked in a wok and everything comes together fast and easy.

For the first time I tried Trout Armandine, a recipe I found in our local paper. I first couldn't find trout fillets, but then Trader Joe's started to carry frozen ones - fine with me. I was a bit nervous making these - there really was no need for that, they turned out fine and were super yummy. I will certainly try more dishes with trout fillets.

What about a cheesy spicy black bean bake? Perfect on a cold evening.

Or creamy gnocchi with sundried tomatoes and basil (a family favorite)?

We do like cauliflower - a lot. I'm always on the look-out for new recipes. I found a delicious recipe for roasted garlic parmesan cauliflower. An entire stick of butter goes into the crust - it's heaven! I paired it with Kibbeh, a new item at Trader Joes's that I simply had to try since I love Middle Eastern food (it's good, I can recommend it).

I had quite some leftover of the butter-garlic-parmesan mix. A couple days later I dipped cubes of boneless, skinless chicken thighs in it and "threw" them in a stir-fry with rice noodles and veggies. The remaining leftovers (yes, there still was quite some left) went on top of Alaskan sockeye salmon that I then baked and served with roasted carrots and zucchini a few days later.

My last dish is something that I made just this weekend - leftovers will be served sometime this week. It's a coq au vin rosé - the lighter wine makes it perfect for other seasons as well.

What is your favorite winter food?

Books and Beyond

 

Although the pandemic created much more work for me than in the years before, it also provided me with many enjoyable hours of reading. I read 55 books in 2020 (both as ebooks and "real" ones), 5 less than in 2019, but I'm not reading for the numbers anyway. However, I do find it interesting to see by the end of the year how much I have read over the past 12 months.

As usual I made a list of all the books I read including my rating system of zero, one or two asteriks. No asterik is for "okay", one is for "really enjoyed it" and two is for "outstanding". If a book is plain horrible or I didn't finish it I make a note about that as well.

 There are a few I want to mention here.

Four books got two stars - "This Tender Land" by William Kent Krueger, "One for the Blackbird, one for the Crow" by Olivia Hawker, "The Splendid and the Vile" by Erik Larson and "Memories of the Drift" by Melissa Payne. The last one was, if I remember correctly, an 'Amazon First Read', therefore I didn't have high expectations. Usually I find the 'First Reads' rather disappointing with a few exceptions - the best 'First Read' I ever read was "The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland" by Rebekah Crane - and I was plesantly surprised about "Memories of the Drift". I started rooting for the main character and loved all the other characters in the novel as well. There wasn't a single bad character and everybody was there to help the "heroine". I can't tell you more because it would mean to unveil too much, you have to find out yourself.

"The Splendid and the Vile" drew my interest when one of my students talked about it in one of my German conversation classes I offered over the summer. It describes Churchill's first year in office as prime minister 1940/1941 - I learned so much about him - he really was quite a character -, but also about his family and his cabinet. A great read that I recommend to anybody who is interested in British history.

Since the hand knitted items in my shop became in higher demand I had to sit and knit quite a lot, but I finally discovered audiobooks! I tried audiobooks when Amazon offered me a free audiobook for rent - it was "Everything my Mother Taught Me" by Alice Hoffman and I loved it. Then I listened into "One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow" which was on my wishlist anyway. I loved the narration by Jackie Zebrowski and decided to try Audible for free for a couple months. I enjoyed this book so very much. The often rough voice fitted the harsh setting of the novel, but Zebrowski changed her voice for each character - from hard to very soft. It is excellent.

Another audiobook I enjoyed was "The Dutch House" by Ann Patchett, read by Tom Hanks. He narrates very "Tom Hanks like", but I enjoyed that very much as well. Many socks got knit while I was listening to great (and less great) novels. In the end, however, I decided not to subscribe to Audible since I just didn't want to spend the money on it - and I had also started listening to podcasts.

I quickly found the excellent podcasts by the BBC World Service - my favorites were "13 Minutes to the Moon" about Apollo 11 and Apollo 13, and "Fall of the Shah". I also listen regularly to "The Daily", a podcast by the New York Times.

Since I taught a new class at the German School I also had to read for work - in this case "Writing Down the Bone" by Natalie Goldberg. This book gave me good basic ideas how to structure my creative writing class and also for my own growth as someone who loves to write.

I shall not forget the books that took up a lot of my time - books I enjoy over and over again. Every year I buy new ones and go back to the old ones. Of course I'm talking about gardening books.

One of the most interesting ones was "Gaia's Garden" by Toby Hemenway, recommended to me by an online friend in Australia whose gardening climate is similar to ours. This book was quite an eye-opener and I spent considerable time in my garden to implement some of the ideas. Not all of them work, but those that I chose to try out have worked out beautifully.

And in November, I bought this book (on the day it came out, actually), I am still reading and truly enjoying it.

What did you read during the pandemic?

Who Is the Winner?

 

Thank you to everybody who participated in my giveaway.

Third place in the 2020 photos goes to "Through the Lens".

The beautiful "California Poppies" took second place.

And first place goes to "Autumn Glory"!!!

Now of course you probably can't wait to know who is the lucky person to receive three photo cards with these images. It is

Jeanie of the Marmelade Gypsy!

Congratulations Jeanie! Please let me know your address and the photo cards will be sent your way.

Skillet Balsamic Garlic Chicken

 

When I wrote about the food we ate in the fall, some of you expressed interest in the recipe of the skillet balsamic garlic chicken. I got this recipe from my friend Liz who provided me with some wonderful recipes when our oven broke down last spring and I was limited to meals that you can prepare on the stovetop. I'm not sure where she got the recipe from, so unfortunately I cannot tell you the source.

This dish cooks up fast as soon as you are done with all the prep work.

Here's what you need:

• 1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts, sliced or pounded 1/2 inch thick (I slice mine, and I also sometimes substitute the breasts for chicken thighs)
• salt and pepper
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 pound mushrooms, sliced (I used crimini)
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 2 TBSP butter, cubed

1. Season the raw chicken with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat and, when hot, place the chicken in the skillet. Cook it on one side for about 5 minutes until browned, then flip and cook for another 3 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and the mushrooms to the pan and stir to combine. Work the mushrooms under the chicken, so it sits on top of the mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes until the mushrooms begin to soften. Add in the vinegar, broth, bay leaf and thyme.
4. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Then uncover the skillet and cook for an additional 5 to 7 minutes to sligthly thicken the sauce.
5. Add in the butter and cook for 2 more minutes.
6. Serve over rice, pasta or potatoes. We like to eat it over couscous.

Don't forget to vote in my annual giveaway that is open until this weekend!

The Annual Giveaway

Just like in the past three years, January is the month of my annual giveaway of three photo greeting cards. It's a bit different from the years before since I didn't take that many pictures in 2020 - by far. Most of those pictures were taken with my phone. Although my phone has an excellent camera, my photography lacks my usual creativity that I most enjoy when going out with my DSLR. Nevertheless, there are a few favorite ones and in the end I had a hard time deciding which photos to include.

You will see 15 of my photos and I would like you to tell me in the comments which ones are you favorite three photos. Maybe you might like a photo so much that you want to give it all of your three votes - you can do that, too. You can divide your three votes however you like. All the photos have numbers, so just put in the numbers in the comments. By the end of the week I will see which three photos will have received the most votes. One of you - chosen randomly - will be the lucky winner to get those three photos as greeting cards. This giveaway is open worldwide, so don't hesitate if you live on the other side of the world.

1. Morning at the Lake

2. The Pacific Ocean

3.  California Poppies

4. In the Lavender

5. Through the Lens

6. Morning Light

7. Hollyhocks

8. The Seagull 

9. Rock Cairn

10. Crane Creek Park

11. On the Ground

12. Winter Morning

13. Light and Shadow

14. Autumn Gate

15. Autumn Glory