Biscotti Extravaganza!

I have a best friend.  As true blue as they get.  The kind of friend you can always count on even when times are beyond bad...or may seems so.  But, what is most wonderful about my best friend is we have FUN!  I am talking about balmy with an emphasis on silliness.  We are pirates~~~yes with pirate names!  I am Desdemona and she is Esmeralda...Desmo and Esmo for short.  To keep my best pal blog-nonymous  (this is my baby) I will refer to her as Esmo her true pirate name.  

We are both crazy hard workers.  To some, our fun may look like a whole lot of effort, especially our annual tradition of biscotti making.  We are not talking about a leisurely day of baking.  It is a flour flying, tunes cranking, egg cracking event!  This year we broke our record with 34 loaves!  (we made a note on the recipe that this just~ might ~ be enough).  We give most of our creations away.  I have a tradition of random acts of niceness...next blog post.  In the mean time here are some photos of the fun +++ the recipe!

Basic Recipe

All Ingredients Room Temperature 

Pre-Heat Oven to 350

Cream Butter & Sugar

10 Tbs of Butter

1 cup of Sugar

Add Next 3 Ingredients & Mix

1 Tbs of extract

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Add Eggs One at a Time Until Blended

4 eggs

Add Flour to make a Moderately Stiff Dough

4 cups of unbleached flour

A splash of Milk if too Stiff or More Flour as needed

Now Stir in the Goodies (see ideas below)

Form 2 Long Loaves on a baking pan lined with parchment paper or a silicone liner

Bake about 20 minutes at 350 ~~~ Until tooth pick comes out clean.

Keep an eye on the baking you may need to rotate the pans depending on your oven

Remove from the oven and cool thoroughly 

we use my unheated breezeway as a cooling area...really speeds things up

Then slice 1/2 inch to and inch thick...what ever is your pleasure

Time for us to open our bottle of wine and enjoy while we clean up the kitchen too.

Oven at 375

Bake Slices Flat for about 8 - 10 minutes

Flip and Bake Again for 8 - 10 minutes

Until just a hint of browning happens.

Eat crumbs that were created during the cutting for the second bake!

Keep records of the goodies you like best for future enjoyment

The Biscotti Freezes Beautifully for a Month...never lasted longer than that!

HAPPY MESS!

Dueling Mixers

Runa's Favorite Part!

GOODY LIST

Here are some of the combinations Esmo & Desmo have made over the years...

Heaping Cup of White Chocolate & 1 cup of Dried Cranberries (all time fav)

The Zest and Juice of 2 lemons (need a bit more Flour) Use Lemon Extract instead of Vanilla and a cup of Dried Blueberries OR Dried Cranberries (I LOVE lemon)

2 cups of Toffee Chips

1 cup Peppermint Candy Crushed & Heaping cup of Dark Chocolate (kid fav)

1 cup Crystallize Ginger & 1 cup of White Chocolate 

plus 4 Tbs~yes tablespoons~of Ginger Powder.  Bazinga!  Didn't share these TOO good!

2 cups Andes Mint Chips

Substitute Butter for PEANUT BUTTER 

+ 1 cup Reeses Chips + 1 cup Chocolate Chips + 1 cup Dry Roasted Peanuts

(My Hubbies fav)

1 cup home Dried Apples (chopped) + Caramel Baking Chips + 1 tbs Cinnamon

We have tried many others but these have proved to be delicious!  I encourage you to be creative and find your own wonderful combinations.  I think it is time for tea!

The Staging Area

Runa on Guard 

~~~Gratitude~~~

I am grateful for ducks.  We have the pleasure of caring for 7 Runner Ducks.  They have been under our care for 3 1/2 years now.  We loving call then the "Cluster Ducks" or for you Star Trek Fans..."The Borg".  Ducks are less individual and more community.  They are easy to care for and provide us with wonderful eggs.  They forage like crazy for insects, slugs, and snails. But mostly, I am grateful to have them in my life to just watch.  They are delightful creatures.  They greet me each morning with a wonderful bowing dance as I let them out of their house we call "Duckingham Palace".  And yes, I bow and dance with them...sorry no video?!?!

I will write more about ducks down the road and welcome any questions from would be quack care takers.  I am still new to the blogging rhythm.  I have a lot I want to share.  It IS the busy holiday season. I just want you to know I am still here and expect to be more rhythmic once the next week or so passes.  In the meantime enjoy these few photos of my girls with some duck poetry to go along.

The Duck

Behold the duck. 

It does not cluck. 

A cluck it lacks. 

It quacks. 

It is specially fond

Of a puddle or pond. 

When it dines or sups, 

It bottoms ups. 

Ogden Nash

This poem was one of my son's favorites when he was a little guy.  We used to recite it together nearly every night for several years.  That was many years before having ducks.  Maybe, this poem gave me the ducky desire?

`Ducks' Ditty.'

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!

Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim--
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!
WE like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call--
WE are down a-dabbling
Up tails all!

Kenneth Grahame ~~~ Wind in the Willows

Winter Light

 Winter solitude--

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

Basho

This was today's light.  I tried to delay my walk in order to enjoy the sunshine that was predicted for today.  But Runa, my dog, could not wait.  Her need allowed me to experience a wonderful winter glow as the sun was making it's entrance.  It was particularly quiet today.  The wind was a low whisper.  I was in peaceful solitude, enveloped in the serene energy of the world around me. I send you a sigh of contentment.

The Cold ~~~ Wendell Berry

How exactly good it is

to know myself

in the solitude of winter,

my body containing its own

warmth, divided from all

by the cold; and to go

separate and sure

among the trees cleanly

divided, thinking of you

perfect too in your solitude,

your life withdrawn into

your own keeping

--to be clear, poised

in perfect self-suspension

toward you, as though frozen.

And having known fully the

goodness of that, it will be

good also to melt.

Gratitude

I am grateful for the many great thinkers and teacher throughout time. Seems when I need words of wisdom I find them.   I was a bit out of sorts so I started reading my collected Merton quotes and this one popped!

“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”
– Thomas Merton, Journal, October 2, 1958

I have a Reiki Practice.   I have been putting myself out there more in order to expand my work.   Sometimes the work is judged and I feel challenged.  But it is a part of "what I already am".  

So with acceptance I continue and open to the possibilities.  Thanks Thomas!

Lichen Lit

Contrast is the best way I can describe the Maine weather, lately.  Yesterday was warm enough to run around without a coat.  But today the wind was whipping requiring scarf and mittens.  This contrast got me to thinking about lichen.  Yes, my mind goes to strange places sometimes!  You may or may not be aware of the fact that lichen is a combination of fungus and algae.  Two contrasting forms of life together creating what seems to be one thing.  Rather it is a co-creation of an existence.   A beautiful one at that.  

The photos here are of a 20 year old stump in one of my flower gardens.  I left the stump there on purpose to see what nature would bring.  I was rewarded by the act of looking.  All the hues around here now are of browns, grays, and fading greens...except for this one stump.  A closer look revealed a Lilliputian garden of crimson.  Some contrasts are bold and hard to ignore while other require a closer look.

Well, when my mind wonders...poetry is the next thing on the agenda.  So I Googled "Lichen Poetry" and this lovely site had these and many more offerings.    http://hellopoetry.com/words/lichen/

ENJOY....I did!

Raj Arumugam "earthing trees and the creeping moss and lichen"

under the birches one may sit

under the birches one may sit
under the trees
perhaps on a rock, a stump
in the quiet
in the solitude
in this light
The Japanese umbrella by one’s side
One in one’s best clothes
here may one sit
in one’s time
as if all of life has been a journey
to this single point, to this one place
One on one’s own, having come into the world so
and all relationships and realities coming to this
in the midst of this, one may sit
with the light, and colors and with the earth
and the sky and the water
as if finding one’s place in this life, on this radiant earth
amidst the breathing trees and the creeping moss and lichen
one may come to one’s poise and silence
a moment beyond thought and emotion
one coming into one’s own
a transcending of pain and disquiet
a coming into peace, into stillness and seeing it all
all things, all movement, seeing all as it is

poem based on painting "Under the birches" (1881) by Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt

Devan Proctor "Within the air, defined with moss and lichen, and casualties of wet rotting wood-dep"

Present Moment #21

Within the air, defined with moss and lichen, and casualties of wet rotting wood-depletion on the dregs of the summit, is a flicker of reality. Here, no naked cedars or fair-weather friends are bent and leaning along the sturdy, unadorned spines of rifle green spruces. The stone-crushed trail takes above the haze of tree lines, founding a path by and beyond the fickle trustworthiness of rocks, and the wind carries all of fog and cloud away, and whispers like one thousand ghosts, and deceives the shrouded mountain’s inclines, unfolding above unto the soft clarity of dew and silence. The only reality is a place where the neck can ease its craned crooked coils to view the now-seemingly distant and muted pale orb of a star. And nothing here cannot breathed with. And nothing that can’t be understood is here amongst the scarred-ancient black cliffs and fissions of olden earth-crust and time. And nothing scales above the lonely, opening a prayer in the sky and the space.

 A "Lichen coats faces"

Haiku #8

Lichen coats faces
weathering ancient beauty
Stone and earth are one

Nov. 5, 2010

Travis Dixon "lichen which"

Like

Like this.
Like that.
Like this
likes that
that likes
these & those.
Liken this
to that
lichen which
grows
so slow
over corpse & stone,
the likes of which
so few know
or like, let alone
love, like
we know
we should.

"Listen to the stone of the wall."

 

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your

Name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet).  Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of 
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.

"I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult.  Tho whole
World is secretly on fire.  The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning?  How can he dare
To sit with them when
All their silence
Is on fire?

- Thomas Merton, The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton, pp. 280-281

A thanks to Beth at http://fatherlouie.blogspot.com for this today.  This is one my favorites poems by Merton.  I really needed the pause that reading this poem gave me this morning.  I have been in a holiday hustle, lately.  Packages to send, clients to see, and Etsy work.  I have been losing track of what I love about this season most...quiet.  During my morning walk I took the quiet time to enjoy the stone walls around this land...and ...listen...

~~~Gratitude~~~

I believe that thoughts are some sort of thing.  Creation comes from thought.  When I want to create a bit of joy in my life there is nothing like Gratitude Thoughts to make happiness happen!  When I am grateful the moment can change from gloomy to glorious.  Today for instance was  raw, gray, and drizzly.  I am almost over a bronchitis that makes me feel less than energetic.  I made pancakes for breakfast so all "carbed up" I just wanted a morning nap.  But I looked into my dog, Runa's, eyes and I just could not deny her a walk.

So I put on my boots and rain coat and shuffle outdoors to do my duty.  But as soon as I felt the fresh air and looked into the beautiful misty fog I felt a deep gratitude for this dog I share my life with.  If it wasn't for her I would not have walked outdoors today.  So  Thank-you Runa!

It is my intention to share each Sunday something that fills me with Gratitude.  I write ~~~Gratitude~~~ with the wavy lines to represent the gratitude ENERGY~~~~~!  I hope you will join me and share what fills you with gratitude and how it has changed your moment.

Here a few more photos from our walk today......