Yes, I know there are all sorts of chemicals I could use to get the upper hand in the battle, for a while.  But let’s remember, people, that this is my kitchen.  I live here.  My primary tools in this battle are borax and orange clean spray.  I’m just not willing to use anything more toxic.  so I have to get crafty.

They have been mustering their forces for a couple weeks now, and I’ve been watching with some trepidation, and searching for my round tuits.  I’ve swiped them off the counters whenever they’ve made an incursion, and kept my vigilance up in the cleaning department, making sure there was never a dirty dish on the counter or in the sink, never a crumb lying around to tempt them to make a sortie.

Today, though, they crossed a line.  I opened the upper cabinet next to the stove where I keep the sweet things– all in hermetically sealed containers, because I am not a n00b in this war– and there they were.  Somehow, they had found the prize.  That was it, I had to engage.

Let me pause for a moment to explain these ants.  I’ve never encountered them anywhere but the west coast.  They don’t bite.  They are tiny and mostly black.  A little bit of googling makes me think they are probably “little black ants,” or Monomorium minimum. They are, simply, everywhere.  That site suggests you can manage them with bait traps.  This has not been my experience. I put out bait traps when I first moved in, to no obvious effect.  I renewed them a week ago after the ants started appearing again, but they seem to laugh at the traps.

I will state for the record that I would far rather be dealing with these little guys than fire ants, and perhaps I should just quit my bitching.  But I’m not gonna, so there.  :-P

It took me several years to fight them to a draw in California, and I bring those skills to the table.  In that house, I was able to seal most of the house to reduce their access points to the doors and windows, where I put down a line of borax.  This helped, but was not, in the end, sufficient.  I’m not sure if it’s sad or funny, the things I did to defend my kitchen from the ants.  Sugar jars in water moats.  Trying to find and destroy the ant colonies outside.  The garden folks told me this wouldn’t help.  There were too many ants.  They told me I could, perhaps, destroy a colony, but that would just open up a territory for the colony next door.  I’m not sure of the mechanics, but they were right that it didn’t work.

What finally succeeded at managing them was an accident.  You see, I came home late one night, tired from dancing, and wanted to make tea.  I puttered about in the ambient light of the kitchen doing that thing, and reached for the cute little honey jar I had at the time.  It was white ceramic shaped to look like a bee hive with one of those wooden honey drippers in it. I thought it was adorable.

The salient point here is that I had gotten cocky, and left something sweet on the counter in an unsealed container.  Which I discovered when I innocently picked it up, and immediately had ants crawling all over my hand.

To my credit, I did not drop, or fling, the honey jar.  I walked out the kitchen door to the garage and set it down in the back corner, to deal with the following day, then returned to the kitchen swatting and flinging ants and cursing.  I scrubbed my arms, washed down the counter, and went to bed with my tea, fully expecting half the colony to have moved into my kitchen by the morning.

Much to my shock and surprise, the kitchen was 100% ant free in the morning.  The honey jar in the garage, however, had a thick swarm of them, and a trail I swear was an inch wide going back and forth from a crack under the back wall and back.  I had an AHA! moment.  What the ants demanded was a tribute!  And, really, was a container of honey so much?

Now I wanted my little beehive jar back because I’m stubborn that way, so I found a little plastic container in the recycling, put on my big girl pants, and picked up the beehive jar.  I poured the honey into the container until I couldn’t stand the ants crawling on me any longer, and ran into the kitchen to wash my arms and the jar off in the sink.

The ants accepted my tribute.  Eventually I switched to a plastic plate with sugar on it, but I renewed the sacrifice whenever it seemed to need it, and the ants mostly left my kitchen alone.

I made a similar tribute shortly after moving in here, when they found my box of sugar cubes.  Living on the east coast had made me soft.  The ants out there will bite you, but they mostly seem to prefer to live outdoors.  So I had, unthinkingly, left a container of sweet stuff unsealed in my cabinet.  Once the ants found it and I realized my error, I transported it to the wall outside the kitchen, and the ants happily accepted it.  It was a cardboard box, though, and this is Seattle.  It was enough to appease them until the rains and the cold came, but now that spring is warming up the world, they are back, and they want what’s theirs.

I cleaned the kitchen today, scrubbed every surface to get rid of the trails, and discovered, much to my horror, that they had moved into a narcissus pot on the kitchen windowsill.  I tried to drive them out by drowning- leaving the pot standing in water for a while- but after a half hour of letting it sit for a bit then lifting it out of the water to see more ants come swarming, I decided they could have the damned narcissus bulbs, and put the pot out on the porch.  I don’t like narcissus that much anyway, and they are done blooming.

I also built the vessel of my tribute, Seattle style.  A Darigold sour cream container now has a couple holes about 1/2 inch up the sides, and the lid on.  I know the tribute will need to stay dry.  I have put some cactus honey powder in the jar, and sprinkled some on the counter closest to where the ants always emerge from, coming from a gap that’s too wide to seal between the cabinets and the wall.

I know they will return, and find the tribute, and I can locate it in a place that’s not in my kitchen.  Hopefully that will keep the truce, for a little while.

And this is how I made them:

Waffles, reprise

• 1 oz almond flour
• 1/2 oz tapioca flour
• 1/2 oz corn flour
• 1/2 oz white rice flour
• 1/2 oz potato flour
• 1 T sucanat
• 1 T buttermilk powder
• 1/4 t xanthan gum
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 T vanilla
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 C water

whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the wet and whisk to combine.  Cook until uniformly golden and crispy.

None of that changed the fact that I’m feeling bluesy and needy and very much alone tonight.  I think this is the first time it’s hit this hard since I moved here, which is a testament to how well I’ve been coping, overall, with the changes.  Driving home from the therapy session it started settling in.  I thought about looking for something to do that would involve going out and being with people, but decided it was better to sit with my feelings and try to release them rather than dodging them.  So here I’ve sat tonight, knitting and petting cats and watching Caprica.

PMS is probably a factor in my mood, as is February.  This month is the nadir of my affect more or less every year.  The darkness has really gotten to me by this point, and even though the daylight is getting longer and longer, there still isn’t a whole lot of it. I knew February would be hard back in June when I found out these changes were coming, and I’ve been building my life to be ready for it.  I’m feeling pretty good about how it’s going so far.  Sure, it’s only day 5, but I’m in a good place heading into the month.

Generally I’m approaching the bluesy mood by working first on the physical things that are easy to set to rights: eating better, exercising more, and sleeping reasonable and regular hours.  Being physically in a good place is the first, best defense against the down moods.

I’m also returning to my yoga practice.  The myofascial release work is directly related to this; I want to stretch more, and work on my alignment and balance, integrating the work I’ve done on the table with a more dynamic practice.  I discovered this week that my cubicile is private enough, and has enough open space, that I can practice most yoga poses without being seen or disturbed.  I’m getting up and running through Sun salutes between meetings, or another flow that I’ve been liking which is a runner’s stretch into Warrior I into triangle, then rotating to do the sequence in the other orientation.  Warrior I has always been energizing for me, and that is still true.

Seattle is being kinder than I expected to my mood, because it’s clearly already spring.  I’ve spent several of the afternoons this week starting to work on my garden, and this weekend there will be much gardening accomplished.  I am stripping the vegetation off the majority of the back yard, and laying out a vegetable garden.  I haven’t decided for sure the layout for it, but step one: “clear the area” will be the same no matter what. I figure I can look at it tomorrow while I’m digging, and hatch a plan.

Part of me wants simple rectangular beds.  Part of me wants a stepping stone garden, like what I had in Santa Cruz years ago.  Part of me wants a labyrinth. It will be interesting to see what comes together from those parts.  :-)  I’ll measure thoroughly as part of the work tomorrow, and then sketch tomorrow night.  Where by sketch I mean “pop open a graphical editor and move around stuff.”  The paper and pen stuff is sooo last millennia.

I’m expecting to establish herbs near the back door, but mostly plant annuals in the majority of the garden area: veggies, and a few flowers.  I’m going to leave the perennial beds around the edge this year, just trying to prune the decadent growth back into vigor, and see what is there.  I may do a major restructuring in the fall, but I want to watch it through a full turn of the seasons before deciding.

I’m setting off to the side the well rooted perennials that have seeded into the area.  Some of them I can identify, and some I think I recognize.  All of them will be set into a narrow bed along the south edge of the property, against the fence, where they can’t get up to much trouble.  Eventually that bed will be ferns, hostas, and Japanese forest grass, but for now it’s a nursery.

Creatively, I’ve made reasonable targets for myself, and am taking great pleasure in more or less meeting them.  The sock pattern is coming along nicely.  I hope to have the instructions for knitting the foot fleshed out a bit more, the sizing information worked through, and a clean draft created by the end of the weekend. That sounds like a lot, but should only be a couple hours work.

In life generally, I’ve taken a step back, sorted out my priorities, let go of the guilt I pile up on myself when I can’t do everything and be everything for everyone, and I’ve put things more or less in order.  I am making slow progress against my goals, and I’m comfortable with that.  Every day a little more.  Not a lot, but enough.  I am still rooting in, still healing.  This is not a time for big glorious growth yet, this is still a time for recovering and letting go.

Tomorrow there should be pictures.  I want to shoot the two WIP’s I have going, and also lay out a garden design draft.  For now, though, it’s time to sleep.

So after cleaning the kitchen, I wanted a simple breakfast.  I’ve been working on waffle recipes for a while, and I think I came up with a good one this morning.  One worth noting, anyway.  Most of the GF waffles I’ve tried come out either gritty or chewy, neither of which are what I want in a waffle.  I like them fluffy inside and crispy outside.  These were not *quite* as crispy as I would have liked.  I think the liquid was too much, and there might be a need for some extra fat in the batter.  But these will do.

GF Almond Waffles

• 1/2 C almond flour
• 1/2 C tapioca flour
• 2 T sucanat
• 1T buttermilk powder
• 1/4 t xanthan gum
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 T vanilla
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 C water

whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the wet and whisk to combine.  Cook until uniformly golden and crispy.

I would half the sucanat and the water next time, and add 2T melted butter.

We also got a few honey sticks for Zack, some cheese, and smoked salmon.  And, finally, Z talked me into a splurge: cinnamon butter.  I put most of that up in the freezer to harden in an ice cube tray, so that we’ll have small portions  when we want to have a treat.  I also made us two slices of toast with butter that were shared with the neighbor kids, who were over playing.

After we got home, Z went over to play with the neighbors, and I gardened for an hour or so, setting the daffodil bulbs (finally!) and moving a poppy from the back yard to the front.  I hope the poppy deals with the transplant.  I could feel the stalks and roots cracking and breaking as I set them in the ground.  I know poppies resent transplanting.  Hopefully these make it; I set them to anchor the corners of the retaining wall.

The plan for dinner is roasted chicken with carrots, which is disappointing me by taking FAR TOO LONG to cook.  I finally siphoned off most of the stock, and it’s cooking better now.  We’re also having Tyrolean Savoy Cabbage, which is delicious.  I snook some out of the pot.

That’s a picture before the cooking.  Hopefully it’s done now.  I’m going to check.

And that brings me to the other point of this post– Lasagna!  I have a lovely dish bubbling away in the oven, and thought I would write up the recipe.

No Boil Lasagna

I don’t know about you, but I hate boiling lasagna noodles.  Especially the rice noodles that I have to eat.  They rip and stick together and are generally, well, like wet noodles.  I learned a while ago that I could bake lasagna, and let the sauce and ingredients soften the noodles while they cook!  It’s a miracle.  I forget who taught me this trick, but it’s a good one.  So, with no further ado:

Ingredients

• A box of lasagna noodles.  I love Tinkyada.
• Two big 28 oz cans of your favorite crushed tomatoes
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 1/2 lb spinach
• 2 medium yellow onions
• 1/2 lb spicy italian sausage
• 1.5 lb ground turkey
• 3 T crushed garlic
• 2 T italian seasoning plus a little for a garnish
• 1 T white pepper
• 2 C ricotta cheese
• 1 C cottage cheese
• 1/2 lb blended Italian cheese, or 1/4 lb mozzarella and 1/4 lb parmesan, or your favorite mix of cheeses
• 1/4 lb parmesan or asiago for the top

Prep

Chop the onions into small (1/4 – 1/2″) squares.  Chop the spinach as well, into fork sized pieces.  I frequently use the pre-chopped frozen stuff, but I’m lazy that way.

Remove the casing from the Italian sausage, and brown thoroughly in a large sauce pan, chopping as you go.  Add the ground turkey, and brown that as well.  Lift from the pan with a slotted spoon, and set aside in a bowl, leaving the juice in the pan.

Add the onions to the pan, and cook until they are translucent and golden.  Add the spinach, and continue sauteing until they are thoroughly wilted and well mixed with the onions.  Remove to a bowl and set aside, leaving juice and even some onions and spinach in the pan.

Add the crushed tomatoes and tomato paste to the pan, and bring to a simmer.  Add garlic and italian seasoning.  Leave sauce at a low simmer.

Mix cheeses, other than what is reserved for the garnish, in a bowl with the white pepper.  Stir them together thoroughly.

You now have three bowls of stuff, and a simmering pot of sauce.

Preheat oven to 375°

Assembly

Spoon a generous amount of sauce into the bottom of the pan– enough to easily cover the bottom.  Add a layer of noodles.  You will need at least three layers of noodles.  In my pan, I do three layers of three, and have three left over.

Spoon 1/2 or 1/3 (depending on if you want 3 or 4 layer lasagna) of the meat mixture over the noodles.  Spoon 1/2 or 1/3 of the veggies, and then 1/2 or 1/3 of the cheese.  Add another layer of noodles.

Repeat all of that: meat, veggies, cheese, noodles one or two times more, ending with noodles on top.

Pour the remaining sauce over the layers.  You may have too much to fit in the pan; if so it will be a lovely pasta sauce for another time.  Enjoy the leftovers!

Add the garnish cheese on top of the sauce, and add the garnishing Italian seasoning on top of that.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until the cheese is brown and the sauce is bubbly.  I put an old baking sheet on the shelf below the pan, because that’s easier to clean than the bottom of my oven.  ;-)

Enjoy!

hamamelis at the Seattle Center

Seattle is weird.  The plants have told me this week that it’s spring.  The people have been telling me for a couple weeks that the worst of winter was over, but I didn’t believe them.  Plants, though, don’t lie.  I have daffodils and daylilies poking up, and there are fat buds on many trees and shrubs.

Forgive me for a moment while I get my garden geek on.  The hamamelis is in full flower, and I was just introduced to lonicera fragrantissima while walking around at the Seattle Center today.  When I first scented it I thought it was a daphne.  I was surprised to see this big, rangy shrub instead, and didn’t recognize it as a lonicera until the gardener who happened to be tending the beds told me.

lonicera fragrantissima at the Seattle Center

I had the most delightful time talking to the gardener, too.  I was wandering around while Z was in his acting class, and taking pictures of spring.  He was cleaning up the beds in my favorite corner of the landscaping downtown, and we got to talking while he worked, and I enjoyed the fragrance of the lonicera, and the hummingbirds who were also admirers of the shrub.  He ended up giving me a cutting to try to root.  :-)

Beyond wandering about, Z & I also watched the movie Gandhi, and then went to play board games.  I was surprised by how much he got into Gandhi.  He was asking me questions and clearly really thinking about the themes being presented.  And then we went to game night, and he easily picked up Settlers of Catan, and played quite well for his first time.  My little boy is growing up.  :-)  I’m so proud of him.

It’s been a good day.

To make 4 eggies:

pre-heat oven to 450°. 475° is better than 425° here, kiddos, because you want these to cook FAST.

Mix together:

• 1/3 C flour (or 1/3 C rice flour + 1T arrowroot for the gluten intolerant)
• 1/3 C heavy cream*
• 1/3 C sour cream*
• 1/3 C milk
• 4 eggs, or 1 egg + 7 egg whites to make it a bit less of a fat bomb

* You really do have to use full-fat cream and sour cream, or else they don’t rise

pre-heat 4 10oz ramekins in the oven with 1/4T butter in each one until the butter browns. Best to stand all 4 on a cookie sheet– contains drips and makes them easy to handle when they’re HOT.

pull them out of the oven, and CLOSE THE DOOR. Spray the inside of the cups quickly with a shot of canola oil spray, so the eggies don’t stick. Divide the batter between the 4 cups, swirl them around a little so that the batter coats the sides of the cups, and toss them back in. The swirling usually happens naturally as I’m navigating the tray into the oven, and makes for nice pretty crunchy bits on the edges of the eggies. Not strictly necessary, but recommended. :-)

NO PEEKING.

Wait 12-15 minutes, until you can smell the eggies browning. Then wait another minute. Then crack the oven to make sure they’ve risen and are sufficiently browned. This will make you want an oven with a window, if you don’t already. Kids LOVE watching the eggies rise– they grow out of the cups to about twice the height of the cups, generally. Serve immediately. They are easy to pop out of the cups with two forks. Be sure to soak the cups before putting them in the dishwasher, because the batter sticks like mad, but I let the pyrex cool on the stove before putting them in water.

We serve these in lots of ways. With powdered sugar and berries. With maple syrup. With cinnamon sugar, which I make using the raw crystal sugar, so that it’s a little crunchy. Most decadently I sometimes make a sauce of 1/2C orange marmalade and 1/2 C cream cheese, melted together.

They also make a nice pudding to serve with meat. :-)

It’s one that always gets that amazed look when people first taste it, frequently associated with groans of pleasure.  The house smells wonderful for days after I’ve cooked it.  I try to have some always as leftovers in the freezer.  This defines comfort food for me, especially when I’m feeling a bit under the weather.  Healthy never tasted so good.

In its original incarnation it was vegan, but when I started eating meat, I re-worked it as a beef stew.  I still frequently make the vegan version, however.

Magic Stew Recipe

First off, you’re going to need a big pot.  I have one of those ginormous pasta pots I use, and it’s frequently filled 3/4 full.  Add to the pot:

• one can each of red, black, and white beans.   Add the liquid that the beans have been canned in as well, because most of the soluble fiber from the beans is in that liquid.  If you would prefer to start with fresh beans by all means, but I’m rarely organized enough to remember to soak mine the day before I want to make stew.
• two large cans of tomato sauce, or crushed tomatoes
• one each of white, yellow, and red onions, chopped to 1/2″ square-ish pieces
• 2 C or more of chopped carrots, chopped to fork sized pieces
• 2 C or more of celery, chopped like the carrots
• in season I add yellow beets (washed, peeled, and sliced into 1/4 rounds, and quartered.)
• sometimes I also add bell peppers in various colors, or whatever other veggies look like they want to be stew.
• 1 lb spinach, pureed in a food processor
• 2 T pureed basil- I use the stuff in the jar unless I have it fresh in the garden
• 4 T chopped garlic
• 1 T oregano
• 1 T parsley, or 3 T fresh chopped
• 1 t sage, or a few fresh leaves
• 1 T rosemary, or a similar amount fresh, chopped fine
• 1 t thyme
• 1 T cinnamon
• 2 T coriander (your guest will thank you for this.  It works like Bean-o.)

Once you get everything in the pot and simmering, it may be that you need to add some water to get all the veggies covered.  Do what seems right.  Sometimes I add 2-3 cups, sometimes none.

While the stew is simmering, take out  a large skillet if you’re using beef, or a small one if you’re making the vegan version.  You’re going to burn the peppers and paprika just a little, which makes them more flavorful.  This can be a bit dangerous at worst and unpleasant at best if it’s not done correctly, because you don’t want to breath in the smoke from the peppers.  Trust me.  Inhaling capsaicin- the chemical that makes your mouth catch on fire- can do real damage to your airway.  The stew will still be tasty if you chicken out and just dump the peppers into the pot, but it will be better if you burn them.  :-)

Prepare stew beef by trimming off the fat and cutting into 1/2″ cubes. Have on a plate next to the stove top.  If I’m using beef, I’ll add two or three pounds.

Put about 2-3T of olive oil in the skillet, and heat the pan until the oil spits if you flick drops of water into it.  Be careful with this trick though.  If you use too much water the oil will splatter you, and can burn you badly.  If you have a stove hood, turn it on high.

Add:

• 3T of paprika
• 2t of cayenne
• 2t black pepper
• 2t white pepper

Stir the spices into the oil, keep stirring constantly, and allow to heat until they start to darken and  JUST start to smoke.

IMMEDIATELY add the meat, or a couple ladles of stew to quench the skillet.

Brown the meat, or stir the spices around in the stew you added to the skillet until the spices have all been incorporated.

Add back into to the stew, and simmer until done!

This is a recipe that *really* improves after resting for a day or two and then getting reheated.  I serve it with cheese bread, or garlic toast, or sometimes ladled over garlic mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:

• boneless leg of lamb; this is sized for about a 4 lb one.
• 3/4 C good quality mustard.  I like the kind with seeds.
• 1/4 C crushed or chopped garlic.  I’m the lazy sort who buys the big jar.
• 3 T olive oil
• 1 – 3 T ground black pepper, depending on your taste
• 3 – 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary about the length of your roast.
• 1 C carrots, chopped
• 1 C celery, chopped
• 1/2 C onion, chopped
• 1 C red wine
• 1 T arrowroot powder

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450°

Make the marinade by combine the mustard, garlic, pepper, and olive oil in a small bowl.

Prepare the roasting pan by tossing the carrots, onions, and celery together on the bottom.  These veggies will help season your gravy, and will keep the roast from burning and sticking on the bottom of the pan.

Most of these roasts as you find them in the grocery come rolled up in an elastic net tube.  This is great!  Roll it off the roast and set it aside; you will put the roast back in its tube when it’s been marinated, and the tube will hold the roast together for cooking.  If it didn’t come with a bag, or you have to cut it to get the roast out, you will need to use skewers or kitchen twine instead.

Examine the roast, and remove extra fat, to taste.  Leave some of the fat for flavor, but generally there are great gobs you can just pull off and discard.  I generally do this by hand without a knife, and leave anything I can’t remove easily.

Using about 1/3 of the marinade, coat the inside of the roast.

Lay the rosemary inside, and roll the roast back up around it.

Put the roast back in the bag, or tie it up, or skewer it back together.

Use the rest of the marinade to coat the outside of the roast.

Put the roast in the pan on top of the bed of carrots, onions, and celery, and pop it in the oven.

Cook for 10 minutes, then drop the temp to 350°.  Continue cooking until it’s done to your liking.  I advise a meat thermometer, and I cook mine to 125-130°. This is rather rare, which is how I like it.  The FDA recommends 140°.  To my taste, that’s medium well done.  I expect it to take about an hour, but start checking after 45 minutes, and sometimes it goes an hour and a half.

If you’re winging it, watch for dark juices to start collecting in the pan, and take the roast out.  Slice into the center of it, and see if it looks almost done.  The roast will continue to cook a bit after you take it out of the oven.

Turn off the oven, set the roast on a plate to rest, and scoop the veggies into a strainer over the roasting pan.  Allow the juices to drain back into the pan for a minute or two, pressing them with a spoon to encourage the juicing.

Some juices will have collected on the roast’s plate by now, so add that to the roasting pan as well.  Cut the netting off the roast and discard somewhere safe from pets.

Discard the veggies.  They have done their job.

Put the roasting pan onto the stove top, and set the burner to medium heat.  Use a spatula to scrape any crispy bits off if you can.  Let the juices start to simmer, and cook them down if there seems to be too much.

Once the juices are good and hot, and reduced if necessary, add the red wine.  It will bubble vigorously as the alcohol boils away, and help to remove anything left stuck on the pan.

Turn the heat down to low.

Add any remaining juices from the resting roast, and examine the gravy.  If it seems watery, remove a couple T, and mix it with the arrowroot until you have an even paste.  Spoon the paste a little at a time into the gravy and stir well between each addition.  Too much arrowroot will give you tasty jelly instead of gravy.  :-)

Turn off the stove top, and serve!

I like to make sour cream-garlic mashed potatoes and peas to accompany the roast, along with a tart jelly.  My favorite is a red currant, but I also like the Ikea lingonberry and have had a few others that worked well.  I don’t like mint jelly much, but many people do.