happy memories

i've got a wonderful new program called adobe lightroom 2. it's for people for whom photoshop is way too much, but who still want to be the author of their pictures in these times of digital photography. i've been playing with pictures from mom and dad's visit back in august/september. so enjoy...

there's something of american gothic over this picture

minus the pitchfork

that was fun now, wasn't it?

how about sharing some of your pictures, i'm sure you have some! :-)

and now for the recipe

The English version of a muffin is baked on a griddle. It is served warm or cooled, split and toasted for afternoon tea, accompanied with lots of butter and marmalade.

English Muffins

1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/2 C. warm milk
1/2 C. warm water
2 to 2 1/2 C. flour
2 T. sugar
2 T. Farina
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. t. soda
1 T. oil
Cornmeal

In small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm milk and water (105 to 115 degrees F). Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup, level off. In large bowl, combine 1 C. flour, sugar, farina, salt and soda; blend well. Add yeast mixture and oil; blend at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed. Stir in an addition 1 to 1 1/2 C. flour until dough pulls cleanly away from sides of bowl.

On floured surface, knead until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. Place dough in greased bowl; cover loosely with plastic wrap and cloth towel. Let rise in warm place (80 to 85 degrees F) until light and doubled in size, about 35-45 minutes.

Punch down dough several times to remove all air bubbles. On lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut with floured 3-inch cutter (An empty 6 1/2-oz. tuna can with both ends removed, can be substituted for 3-inch round cutter.) Place on cookie sheet sprinkled with corn meal; turn once to coat both sides. Cover, let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 20-35 minutes.

Heat griddle or electric skillet to 325 degrees F. Bake muffins on griddle about 5-8 minutes on each side or until deep golden brown. 10 muffins.

(I found that my skillet only needed to be at 300 degrees. I kept peeking at the muffins to see how brown they were getting, and never let them cook the 5-8 minutes before turning, but perhaps only 3-4 minutes per side. I also must have gotten half my dough thinner than the other half, as some of the muffins were thinner, and I ended up with 13 muffins. I will know better next time.)

100th post!

although i've done probably 90 out of the 100 posts on this blog, this time, it's really coming from my mom.  it's her story of a little exchange she had with ralphie this morning regarding english muffins. here it is in her own words (and even with capital letters):

* * *

I am commencing to make the English muffins for Dad. I found real fine farina in the “scratch and dent” grocery store, packaged by Quaker and called Creamy Wheat. It is quite fine. I am wearing my new Christmas gift, the apron. According to a conversation with your Dad this morning, he wondered why I hadn’t made these in 40 years. I said I hadn’t run onto a scratch recipe for them before. He said I don’t need recipes for everything. HE could make anything without a recipe. (He had informed me that he would be VERY CRITICAL when trying them.) My uncontrollable laughter ushered him out the door, but not before I assured him that if he didn’t like them, I would frisbee them to the cats out in the barn.

* * *

a couple of explanatory notes:

* yesterday mom and i had a conversation about what exactly "farina" was, since her recipe called for it. we discussed (rather extensively) whether one could just use cream of wheat. (i said yes, she was skeptical as to whether it would be ground finely enough.)

* i sent her an apron from the fabulous anna maria horner for christmas, so that's why she mentions the apron.

* bravo to mom for writing this. if there are others out there who have something to say, but don't want to/know how to post it, please send it to me and we'll do just like we did with this post.

* i'm sure the english muffins will be fabulouso.