Why does food make you feel so tired? Yesterday we had home grown ham and vegetables with all the trimmings. Piles of delicious food. Cold and gray outside with constant snow flurries but warm and happy on the inside in more ways than one. However we are not done yet.
One more dinner party, this time out here at the Farmy.
I am going to roast a couple of plump pasture raised chickens. Last night I made a special loaf of herb bread for the stuffing. It is a roast dinner, (my favourite) easy and very forgiving and VERY tasty with lots of gravy seasoned with Marmite.
Yesterday I made The cranberry walnut apple cake again (It was VERY moist) and we ate it with merinques and whipped cream. No photo after all that. We suddenly ran out of time and everything was shoved into the car and whisked into town to The Matriarch’s house.
This is adapted from The Moosewood Book.
Cranberry Walnut Apple Cake
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar and 1/2 cup vegetable oil
Blend.
add 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla
Mix.
….
In separate bowl.
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tsp salt
stir then add
2 cups grated apple, 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 pound fresh or frozen (thawed) cranberries
the zest of a lemon
Toss, coating fruit in flour mixture.
Add to butter mixture, stir – then into baking tin and bake at 350 for 50 -60 minutes. Or until the cake is coming away from the sides of the tin and firm to the touch.
It really is a very good cake.
Good morning. Today I am making a carrot cake for Sheila. I will tell you why tomorrow. It is the sweetest surprise.
Much love
Your friend on the farmy
celi
You never cease to amaze me, Celi, with everything you do. I learn so much from you about energy, compassion and organisation. I am very behind with your blog but the good thing is that it’s always there for me to refer to, especially if I need cheering up or just the tonic of your wonderful voice and photos. Thank you so much for your friendship. Jxxx
Aaah No, left hanging in suspenders here about Sheila’s surprise, I could make 8 guesses but they might all be wrong. Enjoy your dinner party. Laura
carrot cake ..I love carrot cake…..I love Sheila too so I do not begrudge her my share of carrot cake
I will definitely have to try this recipe, but I may need to use something other than cranberries, which are not easy to come by down here in the tropics! I can get frozen raspberries. Might they do instead, they’re nice and tart?
Kate, the local whole foods store sells dried cranberries, you might be able to get some locally………you could soak them in something yummy to plump them up?
I have made it with fresh blueberries and it was good.. c
I’ll give it a go! Thanks for the suggestion.
Love the recipe C! Only thing I don’t have on hand are the cranberries.
Have a beautiful weekend.
🙂 Mandy xo
I bet Sheila will same the same after that carrot cake, when she has to go for a nap 😉
Isn’t it funny how we can surround ourselves with more food than we can eat in weeks and then feel a need to stuff ourselves silly with it all…Thankfully our leftovers are minimal this year and most went home with the adult children so I can restock the healthy foods now, although I would take a small slice of Sheila’s carrot cake, thank you very much.
For our thanksgiving gathering, I roasted an organic, locally raised fresh turkey, first time for me. Everyone remarked how good it was. And I made corn bread dressing, one guest asked me which dressing mix I bought so she could make it! She was a bit surprised to hear that I didn’t use a package from the store. We had a lovely meal with my in-laws and friends. Hope you have a lovely day. And can hardly wait to hear Sheila’s news!
That is great, finding an organic turkey was well done.. I honestly think everything tastes better when you have control of the ingredients.. c
I agree! and your farmy serves as an inspiration.
Oooh another recipe for me to try – and I have frozen cranberries already in the freezer!
Funny after dinner yesterday we had the same conversation, how eating makes you tired. I am a firm believer in taking a nap after eating (well maybe not after breakfast LOL). Gives the tummy time to digest everything without having to multi task on other things. Glad to hear you put Marmite in the gravy – I love gravy but not the insipid light brown stuff that seems to be offered in the south! Good old beefy gravy especially with roast dinners (hope you are making roast spuds cooked in lard!) And my Dad would insist on his yorkshire puds even if the roast was not beef, and would pour the good gravy all over them!
Yum yum and more yum. A cake for Sheila????? Now what a great idea that is!! You will show pictures this time, won’t you?
Pictures of the cake? Well that too.. it is another gloomy day but we have a whole photo shoot planned.. c
Tell me now!
{{snorts}}
I love roast dinners, It must be so nice to eat meat that you know exactly where it came from and what it’s eaten and has had a good life. I try to buy good quality meat from British farmers that have good farm practices, and I don’t mind paying a premium for that. Can’t wait to see Sheila eat her carrot cake 😀 x
I absolutely agree, eating lesss of a better quality cannot be a bad thing.. c
I quite agree and for those scoffers who say grass fed beef is tough i had a steak from a locally raised, grass fed galloway the other day. I like them quite rare, just so they’re warm all the way through and I could’ve cut it with a fork. It may be a little more expensive (though with the price of beef on the whole rising it isn’t too much more), and if you buy it by the quarter it’s pretty doable. And now I’ve made my own mouth water!
Thankfulness – for this recipe which will make good use of the 1/2/# of cranberries I have left. 🙂
you will love it, I hope.. just don’t leave it in the oven too long! c
You can throw a few dark chocolate chips into that cake for a delightful addition that will have you grabbing a piece every time you walk past it.
Shelia must be having a birthday….or a surprise for all the good work she has done for the calendars and the t-shirts!
Linda
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A cake for Shiela. She isn’t. Is she? 😉 I cannot wait.
I am so looking forward to making a Cranberry Walnut Apple Cake. Looking at the ingredients there seems to be plenty of moisture in them.
1½ cups light brown sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups grated apple,
½ pound fresh or frozen* (thawed) cranberries
*Frozen cranberries would add more moisture than the fresh.
Is the cake very sweet? I might try reducing the sugar. Most cakes I make have sugar/fat or oil in equal amounts.
First I need to find my cup measures and have a practise.
We’re pretty tired over here too!
You are making a cake for Shiela. She isn’t, is she? Cannot wait until tomorrow!
I am so looking forward to making a cranberry walnut apple cake. Looking at the list of ingredients there is quite an amount of moisture there:
1½ cups light brown sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups grated apple,
½ pound fresh or frozen* (thawed) cranberries
*Frozen cranberries would add more moisture than the fresh. I am wondering if there was a misprint in the original printed recipe.
Is the cake very sweet? I might try reducing the sugar. Most cakes I make have sugar/fat or oil of equal amounts. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Now all I need is to find my cup measures (I am more used to old fashioned pounds & ounces to grams & kilos.
yes it is very sweet, and yes fresh cranberries are best, though all of mine are frozen and worked well anyway.. and NO butter! c
I’ll reduce the sugar a little and give it a try. No butter, makes it high on my list.
Yum! I’m going to bake this today Celi .. Might swop the cranberries for strawberries 🙂
Sheila’s surprise? You are indeed a most loving soul… and Mama to Sheila. Slow roasting is comforting and easy peasy… we should venture into life – into the day – with such ease instead of being in a big hurry all of the time.
Eating’s made me tired today: we gave a joint birthday/farewell lunch for 10 at the Restaurant de la Mer which is beside a gorgeous beach. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten, and in good company. When we came home at 5pm, I took a 2 hour siesta, and had a job to wake up for a cup of tea.
I hope Sheila enjoys her cake.
Love,
ViV x
I’m pigging out here in Prague, everyday it’s a big piece of cake, Sachertorte today and some big meal lke goose or duck. All that eating makes me very tired . It’s time to go home .
The cake sounds delish. I have pecans, they would be a good substitute, I hope. The refrigerator is quite full at the moment tho. Based on the cooking times, the turkey was supposed to take four hours. Bill checked it at two and a half hours and it was done! There was quite a rush to get everything else in the oven and cooked before the turkey cooled overmuch, but everything turned out to be delicious. I made from scratch cornbread for the first time for our stuffing using organic cornmeal. It was so good! It did well in the crock pot with the sausage and all of the vegetables. I also found a good recipe for fresh cranberry sauce that was very easy. The pies with the paleo crusts were okay, but not my best. shouldn’t have used thanksgiving for the experiment, but no one gagged, so there’s a plus. Have a good day and a great meal this evening. Very curious about Sheila’s cake.
sounds just wonderful!! no gagging is a bonus!!
c
Gobble gobble burp zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 🙂
Well, I’ll be the third on the list to say ‘she isn’t is she’ ? 😀 !! Cannot see it being possible tho’ !!! So glad you are enjoying the festive days – you are simply not used to sitting down for the length of a lunch or dinner gathering and eating slowly, hence the tiredness . . . I walk and work my intake off immediately. Would not have lasted almost three decades in business with 3-4 course business lunches avec plenty of vino 2-4 times a week 🙂 !! One still had to work all afternoon and then often have more commitments at night 🙂 !! Do hope you enjoyed the roast dinner and that Sheila will love her carrot cake: don’t eat cakes at all as I have said but do make a carrot or nut loaf on occasions, so hope Sheila keeps me a small piece also!!
No she is not.. (laugh!) you are right about ‘that’ being physically impossible!.. c
Love that barbed wire pic…bet I’d like the cake more:)
C, so pleased you made the cake again. E
and it worked so much better with your guidance!.. c
I, too, have an adaptation of this recipe…love it. So glad you had a good Thanksgiving and second dinner.
Love the post and barbed-wire shot. The cake sounds yummy. I could feel the warmth inside, compared to the chill outdoors. Can’t wait to see Sheila’s carrot cake!
That sounds wonderful! I’m going to try to make it grain free, we’ll see how it goes. 🙂
The cake sounds great. I’ll have to try it. And with oil instead of butter, we can all pretend it’s healthy. Thanks.
though I do love butter, in the milking season I make it, but local oils make a nice change.. hope you enjoy it!