Snow Globe

It's what I feel like...I'm living inside a beautiful snow globe.  It's been snowing since this morning, now and then the winds swirl and it looks like someone just shook the snow globe then set it down and the snow resumes it's gentle decent to the ground.  The river, it's full of ice.  Late this afternoon we watched as the Coast Guard's ice breaker went up and down the river, breaking up the ice, and freeing the river once again.

We lost count of the passes they made... the ice must be really jammed up river, but it's flowing fast now. 
The bread.  It's a little miracle, I tell you.  So amazing to me that four little ingredients transform into something so heavenly.  Yeast, water, salt, and flour.  So easy to prepare...no kneading at all.  You make enough for 3 or 4 days at a time.  Beautiful results can be achieved with a cast iron dutch oven.  I have an old Le Creuset from my mom that works perfectly.  Bonus:  afterwards heat from the oven warms the house.  Double bonus: house smells heavenly.

 

This evening we're having Guinness Roast Beef.  That used to be one of my mom's favorite recipe's for me to make.  It's kind of a compilation of several recipes found here and there.  The best of all, I think.  Local carrots, garlic, potatoes.  The Guinness course, from Ireland!   We purchased the beef at the European Farmer's Market this past Saturday.  We were able to buy local beef, local chicken.  And local donuts.  Ha.  It really is amazing what a difference it makes with the meat.  Just clean, fresh, and great flavor. 
Guinness Roast Beef
Preheat oven to 350
Spray Dutch oven (like a Le Creuset) with cooking spray.
Take a couple of stalks of celery and an onion sliced and diced and put on bottom of dutch oven.  Make a paste of smashed garlic cloves ( I use about 4), salt, pepper, and oregano (about a teaspoon for 3-4 pounds) smear all over chuck roast.  Lay meat on top of bed of celery and onion.  Cut up potatoes and carrots, season those with salt and pepper and distribute around and on top of the roast.  Stick a bay leaf somewhere in there.  Add one large can of diced tomatoes and to the whole thing slowly pour on one can of room temperature Guinness.  I put a piece of parchment over the top before I put on the lid...just to make sure there's not a reaction with the tomatoes and the lid.  I'm a little paranoid though and you maybe don't even need to do that.  Put the whole shebang in the oven for about 3 hours.  If the roast is smaller you might want to drop the temp to about 325 for the last hour or so. 
If you are lucky enough to have a neighbor who makes homemade picadilly it makes a great condiment...add liberally before partaking of the roast.

There was a young artist at the farmer's market.  I just loved her little paintings.  She lives along the south coast of Maine in a little cottage.  Her paintings just made me smile.

We watched a wonderful documentary last night called "American Promise".  It was on the PBS show Point of View and was an "Official Selection" of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.  I really love well done documentaries. 
Oh!  And I finished one knitting project (washcloth) and have started another.   Really fun to knit this old fashioned "hob nail" pattern.  I plan to make a little stack of them.

And speaking of finishing...I finished a book called "The Goat Song" by Brad Kessler.  It's autobiographical about how he and his wife gave up their life in Manhattan, moved to a farm in Vermont and now raise goats and make goat cheese.  A fascinating read. I have loved goat cheese for many years, but I now have a much deeper appreciation for it.
And finally, the light was just so pretty the other evening.  So many shades of blue that sunset was.  I never knew a sunset could be blue...

 

Now...gearing up for some serious Olympic watching!  How about you?  Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world!  Hope to see you again soon!