Ginger Asian Dipping Sauce

I am making tuna sandwiches and salad for dinner with a side of bacon-wrapped scallops (Archer Farms frozen appetizers). On the back of the box, they suggest dipping sauce.

So I mixed up:

- low sodium soy sauce

- maple syrup

- ground ginger

- sesame seeds 

Sweet potato fry snack

Child has a 2-hour delay today and like mom's everywhere I'm screaming "My routine is off!" And it's Monday, which makes it even more difficult. Honestly, I'd rather keep her home for the day!

So at 10:20 a.m., they have a healthy snack from home.

For own snack I made sweet potato fries, sprinkled them with cinnamon and serving with a dipping sauce of 1 part blackstrap molasses to 3 parts pure maple syrup.

Best. Snack. Ever.

Sweet Potato Coconut Soup

Me. My blender. No ideas for dinner.

Soup.

32 ounces kitchen basics no salt added vegetable stock
A big can of sweet potatoes with most of the syrup drained
A can of Trader Joe's organic coconut milk
A tablespoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons organic maple syrup
And a large teaspoon of nutmeg

I overblended to a thin liquid and put in the crockpot.

My husband had two bowls. I thought it tasted like something they'd serve in a fancy restaurant with sliced almonds and a dollop of some sort of cream in the center... Daughter, who loves soup and eats just about anything, HATED it. My heart is broken.

farm tour #1: maple syrup

Guest columnist is my friend Gayle.

Angel and I share many philosophies about food. One is that people should know where their food comes from.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a big fan of the factory tour. And the farm tour. I love to see how things are made. We always did factory/farm tours on vacation. I thought it was the educational component. It was much later in life that I realized we did them because they were free.

Hopefully this will be a series of guest columns on farms, farmers markets and food tours. 

A few weeks ago I received an email from the Easton Farmers Market  and one item was about the Open House at Dutch Hill Preserves in Canadensis. You could see how maple syrup was made. Cool. I emailed Angel and asked if we could take Bug.  She said maybe. Depended on her work schedule.

So today we went. 

When we arrived, there was a crock pot of maple baked beans to taste (yummy!) and maple chowder. It tasted like chicken soup. Some maple syrup bread and a wonderful spread with walnuts. Actually I think it was walnuts soaked in maple syrup, warmed, and  poured over cream cheese. Devine on the bread. There was also lollipops. Mom said no. Bug asked the wrong adult!

After an intro on syrup making, the group marched down to the woods. And I was shocked. As we approached the woods it looked like it was strung with blue plastic tubing. I was expecting the traditional bucket and spout.

The season is brief. Using the trees and the bucket technique you might have to empty the bucket several times a day. There would be 22 acres of bucket. Yikes!The tubing eliminates that problem. However, animals, especially squirrels eat the tubes. That's a big problem..

The blue tubes were attached to the trees and dripped the syrup into a black collection tube. The collection tube sent it to the collection barrel, which was suctioned into the sugar house for processing.

Sixty gallons of sap makes 1 gallon of syrup. It makes you wonder how the original syrup makers thought of tapping a tree for sweetener. They really didn't need another labor intensive activity!

Children were given the opportunity to do it the old-fashioned way. But the sap wasn't running. It was too cold.

On the way back from the collection site we pasted the chicken coop. Bug loves chickens. When she's on her own, I fully expect to see a chicken coop in her yard.

Bug asked on the way home if they were having pancakes for breakfast. It's a school day so mom had to say no.

All and all it was a fun educational day. If you can ever see the process, do. If you just want some fresh, local maple syrup (or preserves), then stop by their stand at the Easton Farmers Market. It opens May 7th!

Click here for more pixs

Leftover plan

I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow already...

If we have real maple syrup, I'm going to have a vegan breakfast of Morningstar breakfast (sausage-style) patties and leftover cornbread.

If we don't have maple syrup, I'm going to use my mother-in-law's homemade strawberry jam for my cornbread...

Or maybe, if I don't want to go vegan, I'll use a little of my imported French butter on my cornbread.

Waffles for dinner

We had belgian waffles from the freezer, smoked bacon, and berry applesauce for dinner. We topped the waffles with real maple syrup and in some cases peanut butter. The house is running out of groceries, but it worked.

Pumpkin Maple Crêpes

I'm finally feeling better. I open my cupboards and they are bare. I see a frozen pack of crêpes and decide to make chicken crêpes. I send the family out to my garden to pick fresh lemon thyme. I'll cook the chicken with fresh chives and lemongrass/corn soup and make... what's this? There's no chicken left? Where did it go?

Plan B: Pumpkin Maple Crêpes
from: http://coffeeworks.blogs.com/coffee_and_tea/2006/10/pumpkin_crepes.html
modified of course

This turned out to be fabulous for summer since everything is room temperature except for the pumpkin sauce that tops the crêpes.

Pumpkin Filling
1-15 oz can pumpkin puree (with about five tablespoons pumpkin in reserve for the sauce)
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves (I added the cloves to make it taste more like pumpkin pie)

Mix thoroughly in a bowl.

Butter Sauce
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
about 1/2 cup water
5 tablespoons pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Melt butter in a skillet. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. Heat well.

Make your own crêpes (this blog has a recipe), purchase some, or use pancakes.
With the crêpe room temperature, spread a thin layer of filling across the crêpe and roll/fold in your preferred method. Coat with the syrup. That's it!

The original recipe yields about 15 crêpes and estimates two per person. We made more filling than that and still ran out after eight crêpes but we had a ton of syrup remaining.

Midmorning Tea Party

I normally eat my breakfast around 9:30 a.m. This morning, another rainy day, I whipped out the tea set and made a tea party for my little girl.

I diluted my usual homebrewed iced tea for the teapot, prepared a platter of yesterday's homemade biscuits, and scrambled some eggs. I also peeled a pear.

And voilà... One happy little girl who ate two biscuits, a scrambled egg and a pear.