Tree Huggers

I guess I was looking for a challenge... And it was James' graduation day from Person of Interest. Their season has been going on since last July and it finally ended. Sooo! Cheesecake time.

Kind of time consuming with a lot of steps but on the whole, cheesecakemaking is not as intimidating as I first thought. I don't  have a spring form so I just used my glass pie form and made a half batch. I started by crushing 1/3 package of graham crackers. Melt 3 table spoons of butter and pour over the crackers along with 1 tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt. Mix it all together and bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

The filling: 1 1/2 packets of cream cheese, 3/4 cup of sugar, pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon of vanilla, 2 large eggs, 1/3 cup of sour cream, 1/3 cup of heavy cream. Put one ingredient in at a time and then beat it well.

Pour the mixture over the crust and put it in a pan with boiling water and then in the oven at 325 degrees for 1 hour. When it is done turn the oven off and crack the door an inch. Leave it like that until the oven is totally cool and then put the cheesecake in the fridge over night. 

To top it off I just put razzies and some sugar in the food processor and made a sauce. And I am not even lying a little bit when I say this is the best cheesecake I've ever had.

For lunch today we had BLT's with local bacon from Cheese Louise on Route 28 and homemade mayo. We drove up to the Woodstock area yesterday to get some trees at Woodstock Landscaping. 

 
 We ended up with a red maple.

A coral bark Maple.

And a weeping willow. This area gets really soggy because of an underground stream so the willow is going to love it!

We also looked around for bluebirds but only found this guy.

I don't think he was so happy to see us.

We've been wondering when to hang the hummingbird feeders. The trumpet vine is starting to pop and we thought we'd wait until it was a little greener. And then yesterday I looked out the window and there he was. First he went to where the feeder usually hangs and when it wasn't there he came up to the window and looked in.

He put the shame on us and 10 minutes later we had hung 3 feeders. These birds really have us on a short leash.

So I looked out the window the other morning and saw this guy. I thought I was still asleep for a second. When I realized I wasn't - we really did have a new guy visiting - I got the camera first. Guy is still hanging around. Then I got the book out. He is a rose-breasted Grosbeak and he was probably on his way up north. He stuck around all day and it was a great treat.

It's getting a little silly I know... all these feeders. And i just added two more of them. I was on a beautiful estate in Connecticut on a job last weekend and the land was not much different than ours. Tom Doyle the owner, a very cool sculptor and regular Ernest Hemingway, told me they got bluebirds. You just have to give them a house and they will come. The house has to be placed in the open. We have seen them up in the mountains and I'm gonna get'em here if I have to hunt them down, blindfold them and bring them myself. But I'm starting with some food.

James once saw an Oriole at 19 Maple Ave. We gotta just get more of them. The feeder looks like something out of fantastic planet.

They are attracted to orange and oranges and drink nectar like the hummingbirds.I'm starting to become a little self conscious about this bird thing.

Cold borscht with fixins is a definite summer favorite! 

Our rhododendrons didn't bloom for very long but they have almost doubled in size already this spring.

 

Our addition from last fall, a Kouza dogwood, is doing very well.

Azaleas and view.

This Swallowtail is enjoying our Azaleas. Please help yourself!

Sidetracked & Bushwhacked

We are sharing in the glory of Florence's magnolia. Everything is popping so early. I hope it stays warm so no buds suffer.

Yea the forsythia!

 Our own star magnolia is looking nice aswell.

The cottage is done! One last before and after because we love them so much.

New roof!

We are showing the place and should have a tenant in there very soon.

The toilet is in and the bathroom is done and looking great I think!

The porch area is totally winterized and can be used as a room and should be used as a room because the cottage is small.

Soooo... we decided to paint it to make it look like more of a room. 

The pool deck is a chapter all itself around here. We have put it off because there just isn't enough time!!! 

Buuuuut we were working on the cottage the other weekend and needed a break and all of  a sudden we are in the middle of these insane weeds and that's when we invented our gardening show "Sidetracked and Bushwhacked".

Sigh...

We buried our  power lines last summer and finally there was a clear shot of the view.

No good. No more.

Instead these weed trees shot up and spoiled  it again. But after this episode of Sidetracked and Bushwhacked that is no more.

Good.

For St. Paddy's day we decided to make shepherds pie. 

First I made the mashed potatoes

Then...

Saute 3 carrots in olive oil.

Add a chopped onion and some chopped cabbage

Add 1 lb of ground meat

add frozen peas and 1 tbsp of butter

Sprinkle over 2 tbsp of flour

add 2 tbsp of tomato paste

2 tbsp of worcestershire sauce

1 glass of red wine

1 cup of stock (I had nice homemade stock from a corned beef and cabbage cook)

Put the mixture in a oven safe pan and spoon the mashed potatoes over it. Brush an egg on the top and sprinkle parmesan over. Put it in the oven at 200C/400F for 20 minutes. I did about 5 minutes in the broiler at the end.

reel from Linda Kallerus on Vimeo.

I  have to take every opportunity to market myself and I took this week to cut a reel together. A reel is what cinematograhers have to showcase their work. So these are bits from everything I've shot. The Conservatory, Caligola, Buster, Flabulous, Mando Diao's Good Morning Herr Horst, Waltz of a Dream, Scotty Karate's Patchwork Romance and Fractures. I picked the song Bees by Caribou to set it all to and had a blast editing. OK. That's enough shameless promotion for one post!

Now we gear up for the arrival of the Swedes!!! They will be here in less than 2 weeks!!!!! Along with a couple of friends who are New York first timers! Can't wait!

On their last visit we went tubing with Meg in Phoenicia. Among MANY other things...

Happy Holidays!

Christmas came and went very quietly around here. Just the way we wanted it. We have watched movies and eaten good food. Relaxed and played games. And we've gotten to just enjoy our beautiful house without the pressure of always having to work on it. 

We got the tree from a farm down the road, a big fat one this year.

Swedish Christmas food on Christmas eve. The regular line up.

Ham with mustard crust

Jansson's temptation (potatoes au gratin with anchovy)

Cured salmon with mustard dill sauce

prince sausages and meatballs

At least 3 kinds of herring

Salty cucumbers

James' deviled eggs

On Christmas day we opened presents and enjoyed leftovers.

I decided to make Swedish Christmas candy this year. My mom always makes marzipan rolls and I never did cause I can never find good almond paste. So this year I made my own. I even boiled the almonds and shelled them, like we used to do. About 200 grams worth. Then I mixed them with 1 deciliter of sugar and 1 deciliter of confectioners sugar in the blender. A splash of cream and I was ready to make chocolate rolls. I made rolls from the almond paste, melted dark chocolate and brushed it on real thick. 

I also made market chocolate. We call it that because you always buy baggies of it when the markets are in town, the biggest one in my hometown is around my birthday, January 25th and it is a big deal. It always seemed to coincide with the COLDEST days of the winter, but that didn't matter. You'd head in to town after school and walk for hours buying trinkets and market candy. I had to look it up and I found out that this particular market, Hindersmässan has been going on in Örebro since 1300 and it was the iron trade that kicked it off.

Whoa. That was some tangent. I get a little homesick around the holidays...

Anyway, the chocolate is so easy to make.

Put about 1/2 cup of shortening, 2 1/2 dls of sugar and 1 dl of water in a pot and boil till it all dissolves. In a bowl sift in 3 dls of flour, 2 dls of confectioners sugar and 1/2 dl of cocoa. Pour the mixture in the pot over the dry ingredients and mix good. Spread it out on a baking sheet and put it in the fridge. When its hard cut it into squares.

The cottage is coming along nicely. The siding is all done except for one side. This one...

Which makes for an excellent before and after opportunity.

Wouldn't you want to live here? You can. Starting February 1st...

We plan on painting the trim the same color as our house.

Board and baton detail.

 


We gutted the bathroom and Brian is laying a whole new shower in there which is going to free up a lot of room. We are doing subway tile in the shower and a checker board tile floor. 


A quiet christmas was followed by even quieter squeeze days. Partly thanks to this guy.

A dog on loan. Weasley comes from down the street, Little Dog Orchard. His parents went out west to visit family for a week and the little guy moved in with us. What a perfect excuse to stay in for New Years and to stay close to home. 

He really is the perfect little dog. So so mellow and lovey and fun to take for walks. The only thing he seems to like more than going out is coming back inside. 

When we can get back to this. 

So we made New Year's special by coming up with a 3 course dinner for ourselves.

Skagen toast for an appetizer. Which is toast with shrimp, sour cream, roe, red onion and dill.

Steak Frites with Bearnaise.

I made frites in the oven, tossed them in oil and seasoned salt and broiled till they were crispy.

I got nice thick petite sirloin steaks and rub them with olive oil, salt and pepper. I seared them for a minute on each side and then let them rest. After that I think we did about 5 minutes on low heat on each side.

We cooked the Bearnaise together with fresh tarragon. It really came out fantastic.

The next morning I made scrammies with onion and cut up left over frites. Served with steak and sauce again I think it was almost better the 2nd time around.

For desert I wanted my favorite desert of my childhood Maräng Svisch! so in the afternoon I made meringues.

It worked out well because I needed 3 yolks for my bearnaise and 3 whites for these guys. So 3 whites, 2 dl sugar and a splash of vinegar. Whisk whisk whisk and then in the oven for 1 hour at 260 degrees F.

Then you have to make chocolate sauce. Combine 1 1/2 dls of cream, 1 dl sugar, 4 tbsp of cocoa and 1/2 tsp vanilla in a pot and let it all simmer together. When it's thick take it off the heat and melt 1 tbsp of butter into it.

So that's all the SVISCH is, crushed meringue, ice cream and chocolate sauce. The best.

The Christmas ham has become a tradition here and so has the left-over-christmas-ham-pea-soup. When we get sick of it about 3 days into it I boil it down for stock.

Add an onion and some thyme and this time, a can of baby food carrots, per Rosemary, it gave a little sweetness to the soup and enriched the color like crazy.

The Latest Projects

We were kind of forced in to our latest renovation project. When our tenant in the cottage of 8 months moved out in the middle of December it made us take a good hard look at the place. And we decided we could not show it to a single person in the shape it was in. Who ever would put up with that mess would not be a good person to have in your backyard. So Jake and Brian went to town.

 Hard wood floors in the whole house. 

  

French doors in one of the bedrooms leading to a deck and new siding.

A deck that incidentally has a better view than us really. 

Whoever built the cottage did a good job but forgot which way the mountains were. The porch is on the wrong side. We are also putting siding on the outside and to please the insurance company - a new roof. With all these improvements in place we just had to do something about the bathroom. New shower, toilet, vanity and floor. And to top it off a washer and dryer and a new efficient gas heater. SO! If you know someone who's looking for a country getaway starting in February send them our way. I will post pictures as soon as all the work is done.

  

The other project is a little film I'm creating with Nathalie Handal, amazing poet and just an all around fascinating global citizen. The film is going to accompany one of her poems and I think we succeeded in creating a haunting, dreamy tone. I finally got an opportunity to use the barn for a location. The light in there is better than I ever thought! 

These are stills that I have pulled from our video. In the last couple of days I've been setting up time lapses in the barn to create filler in our film. I'm having a blast. I made the first part this morning, up at 6 setting up the camera and then I went back to bed. Fun fun!

We hit up our first Midnight Ramble a few weekends ago. It was a total blast and we will definitely do it again soon. The ramble is a concert held in Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock. Levon was the drummer and singer in the Band. If you haven't seen The Last Waltz you should make it your weekend movie, it's one of the best concert films ever made and is filmed during the last show The Band ever played.

Friends from the Vineyard came down to go to the show and I took the opportunity to make French onion soup for the four of us.

I made killer stock from our Thanksgiving turkey and decided to use it for the soup. I chopped 5 sweet Texas onions. First I sweated them for about 15 minutes with some butter and olive oil. Then I added salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar for the carmelization. I let them sit in the pan for over 40 minutes but they never changed into that brown color I see in all the pictures. I decided I was done and added 3 tablespoon of flour and cooked for 3 minutes. Then I added 1/2 cup of sherry and 2 quarts of stock. I diluted mine a lot because it was so rich but after 40 minutes of simmering I took a taste and thought it was bland. OK Linda - take it easy now. What do you always do? You add salt when this happens and then you ruin everything. Soooo - what would Rosemary do... add a splash of balsamic vinegar. So I did, along with a healthy dose of thyme and saved the soup! To serve, we toasted ciabatta slices in the oven and then sprinkled muenster cheese over the bowls. About 5-7 minutes under the broiler and BAM - better than any restaurant!

  

The easiest breakfast to make with a crowd has got to be a frittata. And you can make it with anything in the fridge. Here's my Mexican version. I let the eggs soak with chopped up tortillas and then I add whatever may be hiding in the vegetable drawer. Onion, peppers, tomatoes... I cook it in the pan until the eggs on the are bottom is solid and then top it off with lots of cheese and in the broiler for about 5 minutes. We eat this one with the Mexican chipotle mayo I brought home from Chiapas last year. 

With all this work in the going on in the cottage, the house gets a rest. We are dressing it up for the holidays and we can't wait to get the tree ready. Put our feet up with a fire in the fireplace and a glögg  in our hand.

Merry effen Christmas BABY!!!