Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Friday, September 28, 2012

Fall Poetry: Wild Peach Orzo Salad

From Blossoms
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches. 

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat. 

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach. 

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
- Li-Young Lee

I ordered three bushels of peaches through my magical fruit lady a few weeks ago, and when they came and I removed the lids, you should have seen these peaches!!! They were the size of a baby's head. I swear to you, I have never seen peaches as big as some of these. Now why would I order that many peaches? Let me think... Peach pie, peach preserves, home bottled peaches, frozen peaches for winter smoothies, OH and Wild Peach Orzo Salad.

My Mother in Law (An avid foodie, cooking class instructor, bakery owner, you get the picture...) served this at her wedding, and I have loved it ever since. It is so fresh and lovely. It would be an amazing side dish for pork loin. Who am I kidding, it would be a great side dish for dirt. It is seriously so good. And I eat it on it's own as a main dish. So here you go!



Wild Peach Orzo Salad
Courtesy of my MIL, with a few modifications. We can't all have raspberry vinegar on hand, Martha Stewart!!! (Also, I didn't use the peach salsa. Because seriously? Who has that? Oh, my MIL does... ok)

1 16 oz. container Orzo pasta, cooked according to package instructions
3 Peaches, chopped
6 Green onions, chopped
1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped
1/2 C chopped Pecans
1/2 C Cilantro, chopped
1 C Peach Salsa
1 Lemon, Juice and Zest
2 TBSP Honey
1/3 C Olive Oil
1/4 C Red Wine Vinegar
1 Tsp. Salt
Pepper to taste

Cool your cooked orzo, whisk the last 6 ingredients together in a bowl, toss everything else in there together and mix it all up! 

As a side note,  a small little baby in this household sacrificed her thumbnail for this salad. Her older sister slammed the sliding door on it while Mom was out picking citrus off the tree. But several hours and one hospital trip later, I gave this to her for dinner and she thought it was totally worth it. Also, in running her to the hospital, I may have left out the pecans. Oh well, still delicious.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Fall Poetry: Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

~ Emily Dickinson

Perfect pairs are hard to find.  Just ask Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.  I mean, if two vampires can't make a relationship last in this world, then who can?  

(Can you tell that the reading pickings were slim at the grocery store checkout today?  Not a "home" magazine in sight.  People, however, turned out to be a wealth of information.  Did you know Will and Kate may or may not have talked about possibly, potentially, hypothetically having a baby . . . someday? Ugh.)

Luckily, there are pairings in this world that I can still rely on, like . . .

little boys and mysterious piles of sand on my wood stairs even when I've made them remove their shoes . . .

or my toddler and the dog's food when he fancies a mid-afternoon snack . . .

or Annie Sloan chalk paint and the blogosphere.  

(Confession:  I believe I am the ONLY woman in blogland that has yet to cover something in ASCP.  One of these days I just may join the ranks of the rest of you cool kids on the home decor playground.)

But when I need a perfect pairing---like warm pumpkin and sweet maple---that captures everything wonderful about fall in one bite, this is the recipe I go to.









Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Frosting


(adapted from Ina Garten and House Beautiful) (Makes 24 cupcakes)



  2 cups all-purpose flour
  2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
  4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
160z canned pumpkin
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 cup vegetable oil
Maple Frosting (recipe follows)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped Heath bars, for serving (2 1.4-ounce bars)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place 24 cupcake liners in muffin tins. Into a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vegetable oil. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely.  Spread the cupcakes with the Maple Frosting and sprinkle with the chopped toffee bits.

Maple Frosting 
  8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
  4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon maple extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 Cups Confectioner's Sugar
  
  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese and butter on low speed until smooth. Stir in the maple extract and vanilla extract. With the mixer still on low, slowly add the confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth.



 When you serve these delicious cupcakes, I guarantee the requests for more will come in "pairs".  

Happy September from Be Book Bound!


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Sunday, January 15, 2012

Valentine's Decor Printables

Guess what?! We are officially within a month of Valentine's Day. You should probably know that we are a wee bit obsessed with Jane Austen and her novels in this family (Well, maybe not Northanger Abbey. We're all a little "Eh" when it comes to Northanger Abbey. Sorry Ms. A!) But to celebrate the queen of Regency Romance, we are embarking on a month of Austen madness. *Squeal* Party ideas, food, decor, and Novels; it's going to be a fun month! I am kicking it off with a few Valentine's Decor Printables:

 


This is from a lovely D.H. Lawrence poem, entitled "All I Ask."

All I ask of a woman is that she shall feel gently towards me
when my heart feels kindly towards her,
and there shall be the soft, soft tremor as of unheard bells between us.
It is all I ask.
I am so tired of violent women lashing out and insisting
on being loved, when there is no love in them.
 




This is my favorite favorite favorite sonnet! I love it dearly, and am so glad that it is quoted in Emma Thompson's "Sense and Sensibility," or it would have taken me a lot longer to find it. Also, when a college professor asks if anyone can recite ten lines of Shakespeare from memory, I proudly pull out this little baby instead of the other ten lines that I know from a certain "Billy Madison" speech.


Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


This is my first attempt ever at something that looks modern. I am a swirly, cursive kind of lady, so don't expect to see a whole lot of this. But I love this quote and it's so playful that I thought it kind of fit. This is from Jane Austen's Love and Friendship: a collection of her very early writing.

Just click on the pictures and it'll take you to flickr where you can download a copy.

I will be back tomorrow with Bronte sisters, some Pride and Prejudice, and some RED! Can't wait to 'see' you then :)

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