Paintings From Photos

A diary of paintings from photos. This was from my first lesson, a copy of Monet's La Pie (The Magpie). Chui's corrections fixed this up big time. I was paralysed in front of the canvas with the book with the photo propped up  next to me, and Chui would come by, tell me to mix the cobalt blue with white for the snow shadows, and I would tentatively dab at the canvas. He would then emphatically say "pas peur!" take the brush from me, and paint it down. "Comme ca!" I had some fun painting the sun coming in through the fence, and that eggshell sky. I saw Monet's original masterpiece at the Musee D'Orsay; and stared for a long time- it's truly beautiful.

Our field with horses in the fall. The one lying down didn't make it into the painting, as he looked sort of dead. Though that's Jake, he was just napping.

Our neighbor's farm

At Montebello:

A hideous attempt at the St. John's harbour with the icebreaker the Louis St. Laurent

And our neighbour's house

Mrs. Rogers Shortbread Cookies

The Christmas version

These are inspired by Mrs. Rogers, a very nice lady who used to bring these to work at Christmas time.  I obtained the recipe from her, they are buttery and lovely, and the icing is perfect.

One year, she brought in several dozen, and a doc at work sort of ate the whole tin, and everyone wanted to kill him.

Mrs. Rogers Shortbread

She gave us the recipe written on a little scrap of paper:

1 pound butter (soften)
4 cups flour
1 cup icing sugar minus 1 tbsp
2 tbsp brown sugar

bake at 275 F for 40-45 min

That's all she wrote!

Details and hints:

one pound of butter is one big rectangle from the grocery store 473 g. I leave it on the counter all day to soften.

In my version there is also a pinch of salt, a quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Directions: Beat butter using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add icing sugar, brown sugar, salt and vanilla, then add flour by half cupfulls till mixed. 

Chill it a bit in the fridge 20-30 minutes, then rub a little flour onto the table or counter (or sometimes I use one of those thin plastic cutting boards) flatten it a bit with your hands, then flour the rolling pin and roll out to shortbread thickness (about 1/4 inch), use the cookie cutters to make perfect circles. 

As she says, bake 275 F for 40-45 min. If they are thinner, bake for less time. I bake on parchment paper.  I don't like to let them brown at all- just when they are starting to look set and the bottoms are light golden, I take them out, and cool on the sheets.

Then there is the icing which I think is mandatory. Her recipe was passed on verbally:

Icing sugar - about a cup and then 2 spoonfuls of milk and mix- add more milk by drops until it is spreadable (but not runny). Wait until the cookies are cool. Put about 1/2 tsp on top of the cookie and then smooth out with the back of a small spoon. It will settle and smooth out.

Decorate right away with candied cherries cut in 1/4s or 1/8ths (as she did) or nonpareils (which I sometimes do, as in the picture) or more colorful icing decorations like snowflakes or what have you. If you're going to decorate the cookies with colored decorative icing, I'd do that after the first white icing is dry. I got the nonpareils from Dean and Deluca.

Let the decorated icing dry overnight. Makes about 4 dozen. Keeps for a few weeks in a tin, or for a few hours, depending on who's around to eat them.

Hoof Chow

Here are Donkey, Jake and Monty (Montana, clearly named by a teenage girl before we got her). Our hoofed animals are tended to by our kind neighbours, who come and saw and then shave down the hoofs. Donkey's hoofs were getting long, so they came over with their equipment.  I was surprised that the dogs came running to eat the sawed off hoofs. The neighbours said "yeah, our dogs risk their lives to get in there to eat them." Who knew?

Donkey with trim feet

"Yum!"

On Top of Spaghetti

Made local spaghetti and meatballs, and by that I mean, all of the ingredients were from the farm, 20 feet away.

Sauce:

12 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped and cooked for 2 minutes in olive oil (I used quite a lot)

8 L of tomatoes from the vine, washed and chopped. I left all of the seeds, and the skin on.

2 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp salt:

Boiled it all down at a high simmer for 4 hours, ladled off about 4 cups of liquid that was on top (which I saved to make soup later), and then hand blended with an immersion blender: 

The meatballs: this is based my mom's Finnish recipe. The main thing is to grate an onion into the mix.

1 lb of our own beef, ground chuck, seasoned with

1 tsp salt

a grated onion

1 egg

a lot of ketchup

1 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp poultry seasoning

a lot of Italian bread crumbs with parmesan

a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce

Mix with hands and then make into little meatballs and bake at 325 for 20 minutes or fry in a little oil until browned and cooked through:

Mixed with the tomato sauce, ladled over spaghetti and covered in cheese.

And if you're in the mood to eat this while playing the old "On top of spaghetti" song on the ukulele, this is the best free downloadable book: Ukulele Camp Fire Songs