The Tastebuds Do The Seven Deadly Sins

Last night we celebrated this months theme; the seven deadly sins.  The seven deadly sins have roots going back centuries.  They have been inspiration for art, poetry and epic narratives.  They hearken back to the beginnings of Christianity and the deeds are described as the root of all sins.  So after hearing about a similar party across the ocean (thanks Julie!), we decided to let those sins be our dinner club muse.

The stage was set beautifully and also represented the sins in a spring-like way, since we are all aching for color (I suppose that sentiment alone could be envy, huh?)  The thoughtful centerpiece was comprised of gold for greed, dark orange for pride, blue for lust, red for wrath, orange for gluttony and light blue for sloth.  A perfect stage laid, without further ado, the seven deadly sins as prepared by the tastebuds:

Wrath

Spicy Bloody Mary's

Lust

Candied Maple Crusted Bacon Wrapped Asparagus Spears

Envy

Bitter Greens in Endive Boats Tossed in a Maple Dijon Dressing

Sloth

Slow Roast Hickory Smoked Brisket

Greed

Fried Curried Sweet Potato Balls

Pride

Spinach and Feta Pie

Gluttony

Sticky Toffee Date Cake with Bourbon Glaze

Redemption

Finally we topped off with a digestif  

a little lead in to our next meeting on Holy Saturday, a perfect contrast to our sins.

Serenade

 After another 30 hour marathon of syrup making B and I headed to bed while the kids caught up on a couple of recorded television shows.  I knew when they were done watching when I heard the piano.  Since Charles started lessons in January, I have not really needed to push him into practice.  Though he typically does not practice as much as I would like, in these beginning stages he very quickly masters and then bores of the lesson.  It is not just with piano, he has much the same understanding of his baritone as well.  What is wonderful is that his piano teacher is teaching him rhythms at the same time and he has a tremendous understanding of the theory of music even as a novice. 

After a couple of duets of heart and soul with his sister, he practiced his lesson.  When B went down to do a final check on our cooking sap, he said the kids were using the computer to play more full versions of the songs that he wanted to learn and then he was trying to key them out and utilize chords (which he is just beginning to learn).  When I came down this morning, the piano and kitchen were littered with printed pages of simple sheet music.  His favorite song thus far is Ode to Joy, and I see he seems to have taking a liking to Beethoven in general.  I would not trade this late night serenade and self directed learning for anything.

Random 5 Friday

1.  We had brunch at a friends house on Sunday.  What could be better than the shrieks of dads and kids participating in some good old fashioned play?!

2.  This week as been a little warmer and the sap has been flowing well.  It looks like we will have another batch of maybe 50 gallons to boil down tomorrow!

3.  Have you ever wondered about what your favorite ice cream says about you?  This is a fun little article.

4.  Here is a very thought provoking article about being too busy, and why we do it.  Shouldn't we all strive for this dream  “leisure . . . will be abundant, so that all can develop the life of the spirit, of reflection, of religion, of the arts, of the full realization of the good things of the world.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

5.  Speaking of dreams, today on the first full day of spring sixteen years ago, I married mine.

Won't you join us for:
 

A Bit O' The Green

This St. Patty's day we are thankful for our little onion sprouts giving us a glimpse of the green to come.  When the soil thaws, they will be separated and grow to be beautiful red onions, how can you resist a varietal called Cabernet?


As we look with eager eyes to the gardening season.....

May you have:
No frost on your spuds,
No worms on your cabbage.
May your goat give plenty of milk.
And if you inherit a donkey,
May she be in foal.

 as seen on Irish Central

A very Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and yours!  Sláinte

Sugar Sugar

As I mentioned here, we are attempting to collect sap and make our own maple syrup this year.  Yesterday after a week of intermittent temperatures and two good sap flow days that yielded 15 gallons of sap, we decided to cook down what we had collected so far.

Our method of choice was a large propane operated camp stove, which seemed to do the trick quite nicely.  Next time if the snow cover has subsided we may try doing this over a wood burning fire.

Would you expect anything less of a small animal veterinarian, than to have access to the perfect bulk sugaring device?  An unused stainless steel kennel from work was the perfect tool for the job.

As we collected sap during the week, we stored it in a couple of large buckets that we packed in snow.  I suspect by the time we get to cooking next weekend, our snow cover will be sparse, but the nighttime temperatures should continue to work in our favor.

So basically, you do nothing to the sap but cook it, and cook it, and cook it.  The sap is comprised of a great deal of water so your aim is to evaporate all of it off.

Once our volume had reduced from fifteen gallons to about three gallons, in this case seven hours, we poured it into a couple of large stock pots to finish in the house.

The indoor finishing process took an additional three and a half hours.  The sap begins to turn amber, reduce more dramatically, and most importantly taste like maple syrup.  What you are looking for is your syrup temperature to reach seven degrees above where water will boil in your location on that day.  So for us, the temperature we needed was 217 degrees.  You have to be very careful not to cook it over that temperature or you can scorch it.  Trust me, after this time investment, no one wants that to happen.

So at 1:30 am this morning after ten and a half hours of cooking our syrup was jarred and us put to bed.  We learned a few great things, this is truly an easy task, just time consuming and we need to start much earlier next time.  We yielded 4 pints from 15 gallons.  Based on what we ended up with our sugar concentration was  3%  which is what we would expect from sugar maples and so fantastic for the silver maples we are using.  With the weather appearing to be ideal this coming week, we are looking forward to how much we can collect for next weekend.