Month: November 2016

Gratitude, Day 30: This Is The End, Now With Cranberry Cake

NOTE: I am a fan of 30-day challenges, and November is traditionally a time of two: National Novel Writing Month, and 30 Days of Thanks. As I am not a fiction writer, this year I have chosen to publish a daily blog for the entire month, expressing my gratitude. This may not be entirely food-focused, but expect recipes aplenty. Feel free to join me in the comments below. What are you thankful for today?

I won’t lie: this month of blogging about gratitude has been a bit of a slog.

I have learned that combining gratitude, a food blog, and reflection on life is just one thing too many, so I am sticking to food as it relates to life.

It’s not that I am not grateful, and it was never that I couldn’t find something to write about.

Sometimes combining three elements is a little hectic. Next year, maybe it will just be 30 days of cookie recipes, or 30 days of sauces. Gratitude can stay in my journal or shared with those it involves.

Today, the final day of this month-long occasional forced march, I am grateful that I am done.

To celebrate, I made the first of what will certainly be multiple cranberry cakes.

You want this in your face. #Trust
You want this in your face. #Trust

Full disclosure: this could have done with a few more minutes in the oven, but rather than show you a slice that clearly indicates this, I thought I would snap what really matters – the craggy soft interior of a moist, delicious cake that was eaten with fingers before it was barely turned out on the board to take the picture.

This cake is sweet and studded with fresh cranberries that are completely unadulterated. No chopping, no sweetening, no cooking. Nothing.

So what happens is you take a bite and get this luscious, buttery, sweet vanilla cake, followed by a bright/tart burst of fresh cranberry.

So. Freaking. Good.

It’s a bit underdone because this is the first time I made it in a Bundt pan, and I was slightly pressed for time. It takes just 15 minutes to throw together but a solid 75 minutes in the oven.

The other unusual part of this recipe is that it has no leavening agent; eggs and sugar are beaten together until they double in volume and become a ribbony pale yellow.

I would love to claim this recipe as my very own, but it isn’t. I added a touch of orange zest, used my gluten-free flour mix, and didn’t measure the cranberries (just dumped a full bag of frozen cranberries in), but other than that, this recipe is perfection, as is.

Oh, and side note: you could add a ton of sugar and calories by making the pecan topping in the recipe, but that is completely unnecessary.

Today, this last day of November, what are you grateful for?

Gratitude, Day 29: Moveable Feast

NOTE: I am a fan of 30-day challenges, and November is traditionally a time of two: National Novel Writing Month, and 30 Days of Thanks. As I am not a fiction writer, this year I have chosen to publish a daily blog for the entire month, expressing my gratitude. This may not be entirely food-focused, but expect recipes aplenty. Feel free to join me in the comments below. What are you thankful for today?

I love the Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name; a moveable feast is something that is available to you no matter where you are.

It is a symbol of abundance and and comfort, the idea that you always have enough no matter how much you have.

Today I am grateful for Moveable Feast, a non-profit Baltimore organization that provides meal delivery and groceries to men, women, and children with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-threatening illnesses so that they can focus on healing.

So grateful that I am donating to them today on this Giving Tuesday, a day created as a powerful antidote to the mindless consumerism and ceaseless commercial pandering that is on tap from now until January 1st (and let’s be honest – well beyond that). It’s not much, but it’s something, and thousands of not muches winds up to a whole lots.

And because giving shouldn’t be confined to just one day out of the year, and doing good doesn’t require money, I plan on contacting them to volunteer as well.

What are you grateful for today?

 

 

Gratitude, Day 28: Happy Customers

NOTE: I am a fan of 30-day challenges, and November is traditionally a time of two: National Novel Writing Month, and 30 Days of Thanks. As I am not a fiction writer, this year I have chosen to publish a daily blog for the entire month, expressing my gratitude. This may not be entirely food-focused, but expect recipes aplenty. Feel free to join me in the comments below. What are you thankful for today?

A first-time customer classes his Moroccan cauliflower with smoky couscous and spinach right up and shares it online. #Winning
A first-time customer classes his Moroccan cauliflower with smoky couscous and spinach right up and shares it online. #Winning

Today I am grateful for people who express their gratitude, openly and generously.

I realize as I write this that this will be the third post I have written this month about cooking for other people and my gratitude surrounding that.

I can’t help it. Y’all are the bee’s knees, and this picture of a first-time customer’s first meal from me, posted on The Facebook along with sweet words, just warm me and make the effort and thought and attention and love I put into shopping and prepping and cooking and delivering all worth it.

Another friend and customer from the very beginning gave me a bottle of olive oil when I delivered her dinner tonight; she saw it when she was shopping and felt like I would appreciate it.

With friends like that, it’s hard to not be grateful.

What are you grateful for today?

Gratitude, Day 27: Hard Pass

NOTE: I am a fan of 30-day challenges, and November is traditionally a time of two: National Novel Writing Month, and 30 Days of Thanks. As I am not a fiction writer, this year I have chosen to publish a daily blog for the entire month, expressing my gratitude. This may not be entirely food-focused, but expect recipes aplenty. Feel free to join me in the comments below. What are you thankful for today?

This is my first Thanksgiving weekend away from my child, ever.

My knee hurts.

My back hurts.

My brain hurts.

The dog won’t stop gnawing at his hot spots even though he has worn the Cone of Shame for a week.

Khristian and I are suffering from poor communication, potentially due to the first sentence of this blog today (or any other number of things that crop up when navigating a relationship that occurs after everyone packs their steamer trunks of baggage and brings them along).

The Seahawks just lost a piss-poor outing.

I just remembered that there are massive typos in yesterday’s blog that I did not correct this morning as I said I would (but I will by the time anyone reads this).

Tomorrow is my dead father’s birthday. Nine and a half years, and Thanksgiving was his favorite holiday.

I applied liberal amounts of shopping and cooking and tried to apply some football, but it just didn’t take.

So today, I am grateful that I can opt out of being grateful. 

What are you grateful for?

 

Gratitude, Day 26: Let Me Cook For You

NOTE: I am a fan of 30-day challenges, and November is traditionally a time of two: National Novel Writing Month, and 30 Days of Thanks. As I am not a fiction writer, this year I have chosen to publish a daily blog for the entire month, expressing my gratitude. This may not be entirely food-focused, but expect recipes aplenty. Feel free to join me in the comments below. What are you thankful for today?

I won’t lie – today’s gratitude was almost extended for the pecan pie I made last night and of which I ate shameful amounts today, including a decent-sized portion for breakfast and maybe another slice for lunch and probably another shortly.

This is as it should be, just a day late. Pie should be consumed for breakfast on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s pretty much a constitutional amendment, and I BROKE THE LAW by not eating any on Friday.

But I digress.

It was almost pie I was grateful for today, but then I started organizing myself to cook for people on Sunday and Monday.

I love this work.

Today, I am grateful for the fact that I get to cook for people AS A JOB, in the comfort of my own home for their enjoyment and much positive feedback.

Not only do I get to play with new flavors and foods, but I also get to feed tired, hungry people good food when they drag themselves home after a long day. When people leave their house in the dark and come home in the dark, it’s nice to have something delicious to eat.

Not only THAT, but I also get to make lists.

I am an inveterate, unrepentent list maker.
I am an inveterate, unrepentant list maker.

If I don’t have lists and things to check off, then I would not have any idea what I should be doing.

The list above is for six families this week (my max is ten), and it’s heavy on the fresh veg which is also nice to come home to when you are tired, hungry, and maybe a little grumpy.

Food is love, and I am grateful to spread that love all around.

What are you grateful for today?