Oatmeal Skillet Cookie with Crumble Topping

I spend a lot of time by myself. I've read four books since we moved to Ligonier. We get to name our house this month and I have a list narrowed down. I make sure the dogs get fed, my work gets done. I hate folding laundry and I love when I smell the dirt and concrete in the air from a passing truck kicking up gravel.

I told Nolan we can't leave anytime soon. We can't move again. I showed off my house to my best friend, Carissa, when she was visiting last weekend. I called it ours instead of mine and that shift in a possessive pronoun echoed like a foreign chord in the dining room. I'm still not used to having it be ours, but I love the idea of it all the same.

I told him we can't leave until our dogs are ready and they may never be. They've moved too much, from California to Pennsylvania. Milo flew home with me when we thought we could start all over again. They need consistency, we owe it to them now.

And for me? Home was never a place, but has always been something to run away from. I would walk up a hill in front of my childhood home and see how far I could go before it got dark, before I got tired and scared. Before anyone would know I wasn't in my bedroom. Home has been invented over and over and over again. And each time I found myself awake in the night, I'd be anchored to the spot by the sounds from my window.

The frog in the creek bed. 

The lazy moths that hit the window.

The lost cricket from the woods and the only thing separating me and the coyotes was a chain link fence.

We moved back last year and bought a house. Things have changed and I go back to the theme of creating home through food. One that I can't run away from. And so here is a skillet cookie with butter and oatmeal and a crumble topping. It smells the way comfort does and tastes just as good as normalcy can. I make oatmeal for the dogs a lot; they've come to expect it. So this recipe, in the silliest way, feels like home for us, too.

Oatmeal Skillet Cookie with Crumble Topping

Ingredients for Skillet Cookie (inspired by one from The Food Network)

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 6 TB shortening, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/3 cup dried cherries

Directions for Skillet Cookie

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare a cast iron skillet with oil and flour
2. In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, soda, cinnamon and salt
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together fats and sugar using the paddle attachment
4. Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla
5. Turn mixer off and use a spatula to stir in your flour mixture
6. Finally, stir in oats and cherries
7. Turn out into your skillet and press down

Ingredients for Oatmeal Crumble

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cup quick cooking oats
• 2 TB maple syrup
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 TB candied ginger, diced

Directions for Oatmeal Crumble

1. Put all ingredients in a bowl and pinch with your hands until fats are incorporated wholly into the mixture
2. Pour over the top of your cookie
3. Bake entire dish for 1 hour, cover with aluminum foil (to prevent burning) and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
4. Enjoy with whipped cream for up to three days in an airtight container

Toasted Cornmeal "Dutch Pancake"

It's been unseasonably warm lately. The dogs are learning to play Frisbee and I am learning to play Monopoly (I haven't won, but I have a rematch with Nolan tonight). We ordered a rug; we are decorating slowly. We are researching composting and burned all of our trash in the firepit just off the trail to our creek. The smoke still stuck to his hair while we watched TV last night, I could smell it on my fingertips this morning, too.

Or maybe it was the brand of Camel he likes to smoke. A pile of them, stubbed out at different angles, hide under rocks and in porch crevasses like small mushrooms. He'll stop when things slow down. I only smoke to look cool to strangers. It's never worked, but I keep trying.

I'm writing to the local papers more, telling them how I feel about the world these days. My best friend is going to London in May. I traced my mother's grandmother's grandmother back to Ireland and bought three pairs of reading glasses with a coupon I had in my email. Life keeps moving forward, slowly but surely. I keep baking, I keep drinking more coffee than I should. I keep forgetting to pay bills and I sleep to pass the time. But I'm happy. Happier than I have been in years and years and years.

Toasted Cornmeal Dutch Pancake

This recipe is if a Dutch Baby and a cornbread had an affair in a skillet. It's eggy, sweet, nutty, and light. It's not dense, but is denser than it's dutch baby cousins, so will not puff up to the same extent. It's perfect with lemon, cherry jam, or even just more sugar on top.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup cornmeal, as fine ground as you can get (but not flour)
• 2 TB butter, unsalted
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425*F
2. Pour your cornmeal into a dry cast iron skillet (11 or 12 inches) and heat on medium-high
3. Stir once or twice so as to prevent browning, but allow your cornmeal to toast and give off a nutty-sweet scent
4. Now, pour your toasted cornmeal into a bowl and replace with your butter in the pan
5. Put pan into oven to melt butter
6. Whisk all remaining ingredients together vigorously. Remove pan from oven for only a second to pour batter into skillet and then return to oven
7. Bake for 20 minutes. As the ingredients are slightly heavier, they will not puff up, but dish will still be light
8. Enjoy immediately

Baked Eggs for Any Lazy Morning

This morning I am lazy. We are nearly done unpacking and making dinner more often than eating out. Last night, we drank a bottle of wine and sat on the couch, stretched out and in a comfortable silence. 

This morning, I give you another non-recipe. Another easy, no fuss attempt to make your mornings a little easier. These baked eggs are my solution to a no-prep, delicious alternative to another bowl of cereal with my third cup of coffee.

Directions: Preheat your oven to 350*F and grease any oven-safe pan (While my personal favorite is to use Lodge's Mini Cake Pan, you can use ramekins, muffin tins, or even a small casserole dish). Crack  your eggs into your pan, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, a tablespoon of leftover pasta sauce, and a pinch of dried tarragon. Bake for about 14 minutes or until whites are just set. Remove, eat immediately.

A Simple Bread for a Simple Life

The dogs always seem to want up before the sun. I'm not sure what it will be like when we get chickens, but I hope my sluggish eyes can keep up with their demands. The sun rises right over the white barn that sits at the edge of our neighbor's property and blinds us by 10 in the morning. The house needs curtains. We are not shut-ins, but we need our own form of privacy from the world, the elements, the mailman, and the buzzards that circle and circle and circle the roadside.

We bought food in bulk before we moved in, things we thought we'd crave that weren't perishable. We have a sack of rice hidden in the back of the cupboard behind the dog food. Pasta sauce that doesn't look as appealing as it did on the store shelf. In the back of the cabinet, behind the clover honey and the tomato paste, I found a jar of kalamata olives that became the inspiration for this bread. 

While a quick bread is not my go-to, I love the ease and convenience of this Irish soda bread, cut into rolls and kneaded by hand. They are still delicate, crumbly, and can last for a couple days. Just long enough to enjoy for the weekend while watching the sun cast shadows on the house you own now.

Olive Irish Soda Rolls

Ingredients:

• 4 cup AP flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 4 TB cultured butter (or unsalted butter), cold
• 1 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg, room temperature, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375*F and grease a 12 inch cast iron skillet or casserole dish 
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients
3. Using your hands, pinch your butter between your fingers into the dry mixture until fats are the size of peas
4. Create a well in the center of your ingredients and, using a wooden spoon, slowly stir in your buttermilk and egg
5. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead until dough is springy (will be sticky at first)
6. Knead in olives
7. Cut into eights and roll into balls
8. Place into greased skillet and bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown

Variation: Beer-Poached Pear Cobbler

The snow drifts; it has no concept of space-time. The dogs sleep and wake throughout the day, all three of them in huddles and heads propped on the others' backs. They are all paws and tails when we come home, a mix of cries and nerves. 

We went to a charity dinner last night, for the ASPCA and Your Safe Haven. We spent the night at my parents' instead of driving home. And I missed it, the place in Ligonier that has a barn and field and where we've slept in the same bed for the last week. It's finally feeling like home, a transition I wasn't sure would happen so quickly. 

It's peaceful and quiet and I am left alone most days. I keep the TV off. I read in my spare time. A year ago it wouldn't have been like this. Here, I can forget the world and the past. Here, I have no concept of space-time myself and I can drift off into a sleep or pile up in a thousand blankets and take more moments for living instead of remembering.

Beer-Poached Pear Cobbler

This recipe is warm. It's beer and spiced pears and warm biscuits and cool cream. It's baked in cast iron and lasts for days. It's a variation, a riff from this cake and lovely in its complications and its delicacy.

Ingredients for Beer-Poached Pears:

• 4 pears, peeled, cored and halved
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup clover honey
• 1 vanilla bean, split in half
• 2 cup beer (I used Yuengling)
• 1 orange, juice and zest
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup orange juice
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoon ginger, peeled
• 1/4 cup AP flour

Ingredients for Biscuits and Cobbler:

• 1 1/2 cup AP flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar, extra for sprinkling
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 6 TB unsalted butter, cold and cubed
• 3/4 cup buttermilk, cold
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• 2 TB candied ginger

Directions for Beer-Poached Pears:

1. In a medium saucepan, bring all ingredients (except the flour) to a boil
2. Reduce heat, simmer for 15 minutes or until just tender
3. Take off heat, remove pears
4. Put in a small mixing bowl and sprinkle with flour while it cools

Directions for Biscuits and Cobbler:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Prep your cast iron skillet with butter
3. Whisk together dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl
4. Using your hands, mix in butter by pinching into your dry ingredients until fat is the size of peas
5. Create a well in the center of your mixture with a wooden spoon and pour in buttermilk and vanilla extract
6. Stir until just mixed
7. Pour pears into pan and drop biscuit dough on top of pears
8. Sprinkle with a bit of sugar
9. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown

Assemble: Scoop out a pear with a bit of biscuit on top. Whisk together mascarpone or greek yogurt, a bit of honey, and some vanilla to top.