House Capuchin 3

Plague stalks the inhabitants of the Summits and An Tir. All meetings and events were cancelled for the month of March as of Tuesday and for the Kingdom, and then through May10 on Monday. We had already been talking about a virtual potluck, so we went ahead and announced it to the principality. You can see the results below.

Here’s hoping you all stay safe and well, friends!

Herbs is going to a “virtual” meeting for the next few weeks. Stop at the shop to pick up a bag with a project and then drop it back off. Sewing is just stopped for the next while. Project Day is virtual.

Projects will keep happening, if only in the virtual realm. If you get bored send us some project pix, or food pix, or what’s growing around you. We also have a rose mead to bottle and some cheese to make, puppets to work on and more such things.

• 

  Herb Bunch – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 11am-1pm

• Sewing Time – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 3-5pm
• Project Day – At Ancient Light, Sundays, Noon to 6pm
• Cheese and Wine happens irregularly, usually announced with little notice on our Facebook group.
• Next Potluck – 3/15, 4/19, 5/17
• Next Winter Feast tentative Date is 2/15/21, Theme ??

Here is the direct Portfolio link which has all the past Project Day reports and various projects, original here:  https://housecapuchin.wordpress.com/portfolio/  and new one here:  https://housecapuchin2.wordpress.com/portfolio/ and number three is here: https://housecapuchin3.wordpress.com/portfolio/

Early Week – We started the week with sorting out things from the Field Trip. Bay leaves, planting the chamomile, figuring out what I did with the bay nuts so they could be roasted and ground.

Cookery – I had a lot of bay to deal with! The leaves from the last batch were dry, so they were ground and the perfect leaves fitted into a bottle. New batch leaves had to be plucked from the stems: sorting into wash, damaged or perfect. The perfect ones needed to be strung, and the others put in a basket to dry.

Roasting the bay nuts took a little research. Apparently there’s some disagreement about the temp and time to roast them, so we picked the conservative one. We’ll be baking ’em at 350 for 90 minutes, but haven’t found the time, yet.

Started the chicken for a chicken pie on Tuesday evening and got it picked over in the morning. The ground pork got cooked Saturday evening and drained and put by for Sunday’s pie. …and then those took forever and didn’t get made until late Sunday (finished pix will follow)

Friday night we had řizky for supper (Czech version of chicken schnitzel) and then I started a blancmange.

řizky

A pancake of the leftover crumbs, egg and flour had to add an egg to make it “dough”.

…and the Blomenschir/blancmange that ended up as Saturday night’s supper.

…and a tvarog got started Saturday afternoon and finished on Sunday. We divided one batch in 1/2 and did 1/2 with cheese salt and the other 12/ with honey and nutmeg.

On Sunday Anja started pulling out pickles and things and getting pictures. …and butters/spreads and getting pictures…and then we ate, and ran out of energy to finish….

Sewing – Anja got pictures and started making labels/cards for the pieces she had worked on last week. Worked on the cuffband. Not as much time this week!

Virtual Realm – Isabeau – SCA sewing happening here… Vanguards and kilts, hand-sewn pleats.

Lisette Levine

Herb Bunch – The chamomile got planted and taken outside. The extra bay seedling went to Rayna. Bay leaves were finished on Saturday. Houseleeks were taken outside to grow over the summer. Tarragon and chive seedlings need to be re-potted along with a couple of jade plants.

Project Day – …was all cooking….

Potluck – We didn’t get to do much, since we’re still catching up with finding/washing things since the feast! …but we did manage to “plate” some things and eventually do the pies, but the pix on those are going to have to wait. We ate them before we thought!. Loren and I were pretty stuffed and that was with no lunch, but snacking all afternoon!

…and the Virtual potluck 

<<< Lisette Levine – Her comment was “This was fun! It was a treat plating a pretty lunch to ‘share’. ☺️

Alys says, >>> “Doug’s beef stew, crusty you-bake bread (not *quite* as good as homemade, but close!), and a glass of 2 Towns Hard Cider. Yum!” and “Didn’t use the Poudre Douce(?) for tonight’s dinner; that was Doug’s recipe. It was DELICIOUS: hot &amp; meaty &amp; just enough liquid that I could just dip the bread &amp; not even need butter. NomNomNom!!!”

Stella Blue I made cabbage rolls. I… “borrowed” a handful of rice from the master’s kitchen, reached through my fitchet, and thus did secret this rare treat in my aumônière. A few bits of chicken, an onion end from an onion given to Master as rent from one of his tenants, and a few shreds of cheddar all rolled into a soft cabbage leaf and baked with a red sauce.

Robin Nicole Just started the sweet potatoes for a multi layered casserole dish. Need to brown about 2# of ground turkey too. I’m cooking for the freezer too. 😀 It’s full of veges, some nuts and figs too. All for the most finicky of palates.🐶

Potluck Menu

Nibbling course

• White bean pickles (made earlier)
• Pickled asparagus (made earlier)
• black olive (puchased)
• green olives (puchased)
• pickled beets (puchased)
• Pickled brussels sprouts (puchased)
• Mixed vegetable pickles (made earlier)
• Bacon blue butter (made earlier)
• Garlic butter (made earlier)
• Roasted Garlic butter (made earlier)
• Bread rolls (made earlier)
• Goat’s milk chevre (puchased)
• scalded milk cheese (made earlier)
• Tvarog (Sunday, Anja and Loren)

Main Course

• Leftovers soup (made earlier)
• Cabbage rolls (Stella)
• Beef Stew (Alys and family)
• Sweet potato casserole (Louisa)
• řizky (Friday night, Anja & Loren)
• Chicken and pork pie (Sunday, Anja and Loren)
• Blomenschir/blancmange (Saturday, Anja & Loren)
• Lentil pottage (from 3/17/19 Anja and Loren)
• Sauerkraut (Sunday, Anja and Loren)

Sweets course

• Marzipan (Sunday, Anja and Loren)
• Sugar-Preserved Strawberries
• Comfits

Recipes

RECIPE FOR BASIC MEDIEVAL/RENAISSANCE MEAT PIE – from Gode Cookery

• 1 ½ lbs. meat (beef, pork, venison, rabbit, poultry, etc. or any combination), parboiled and in small chunks, ground, or mashed
• 1 9″ pie shell (lid optional)
• cooked chicken pieces (wings, thighs, etc.) (optional)
• 4 egg yolks
• ½ to 1 cup meat broth (quantity depends on the dryness of the other ingredients – use your discretion. The final mixture should be on the wet side.)
• splash of red or white wine
• 1 to 2 cups TOTAL of any of the following, separate or in combination: minced dates, currants, raisins, minced figs, ground nuts (almonds, walnuts, etc.), grated cheese, etc. The variety of ingredients & the total amount used depends on personal taste.
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. pepper
• 1 – 2 Tbs. TOTAL of any of the following spices, separate or in combination: ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, cubebs, galingale, etc. The variety of spices & the total amount used depends on personal taste.

Mix well all ingredients except chicken. Place in pie shell and top with either a pastry lid or the cooked chicken pieces. Bake in a 350° F oven for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling set. Serve hot or cold. Serves 6-8.

Blomenschir (blancmange) – Anja’s version

• 1 cup of almond flour
• salt
• 4 cups water
• 4 boneless skinless chicken breast
• 1 cup of rice
• ¼ cup sugar
• Splash rosewater
• Nutmeg

Method

1. Put chicken pieces in a large crockpot and turn it on high.
2. Pour almond flour over the chicken, then water.
3. Add a sprinkling of salt.
4. Cook until chicken is done, 4-5 hours. You can cut it up at the half-way point to make it cook faster.
5. Pull the chicken out, and fridge, returning liquid to pot.
6. Turn the crockpot to low.
7. Add rice to the liquid in the crockpot.
8. Cook until rice is past the crunchy point, at least 2 hours.
9. Add sugar, rosewater, and a sprinkling of freshly ground nutmeg.
10. Stir well and cook for 20 minutes. If there is too much liquid (this should be the consistency of thick oatmeal.) measure how much extra and then add some minute rice or rice flour. You could even stir in more almond flour.
11. Dice chicken and add back in. Turn back to high.
12. Stir well.
13. The dish should be thoroughly heated in about 20 minutes and then will “hold” for another 2 hours on low.
14. This may be frozen and re-heated in a microwave. To prevent toughness in the re-heating, freeze in smaller (2-cup or less) portions.

Miscellaneous pix

Music – AncientFM this week! 

Links

• Castle Subtlety – https://tudorcook.co.uk/blog/castle-capers-with-chasteletes/?fbclid=IwAR2pNsoMuNvBh7xE7dL-ZWvXjVY2CuQoiLarXpiZrNDuHZ9Dncw852gJats
• Edible Books? – https://hungryhappenings.com/how-to-create-school-books-using-corn/?fbclid=IwAR3dJR2R4gPdjFK59-DLOdam_H7MdkCNKJIRzqzO6NN2cK-y6l0x8W_9Y5A
• Who were the Alans? – https://www.medievalists.net/2018/03/who-were-the-alans/?fbclid=IwAR0YapMT0XAka2C7suUIpmRD2o9TlKCjZJOI4kp9RMh50d4CD1nYnMtt31E
• 29 Savory Pies to Make for Dinner Tonight – https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/family-meals/slideshow/18-savory-pies-make-dinner-tonight
• Researchers Dig Up 3,400-Year-Old Ball Courts in Mexico – https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/ancient-ball-court-shakes-up-researchers-perceptions-of-mesoamerican-culture
• The Medieval Origins of Quarantine – https://www.medievalists.net/2020/03/medieval-origins-quarantine/
• Plagues and history – https://www.medievalists.net/2020/03/plagues-and-history/
• The Coronavirus is not the Black Death – https://www.medievalists.net/2020/03/coronavirus-black-death/

Funnies 

Anja, Loren, Estella (v), Gogor (v), Louisa (v), Isabeau (v), Daniel (v), Gudrun (v), Brandon (v), Alys (v)

Largesse Item Count – (includes gifts, prizes, auction items, etc.)

• ASXLVII = 24
• ASXLVIII = 88
• ASXLIX = 794
• ASL = 2138
• ASLI = 731
• ASLII = 304
• ASLIII – 146
• ASLIV – 207 plus 2 puppets, 3 hippocras mix, 4 powder fort packets, several cheese spice and powder douce packets, 8 tiny bobs, 9 pincushions, 2 snip case w/snips, one without, lucet cords, 25 pouches for block-printing, 1 medium pouch, 4 small pouches, 12 bookmarkers, 14 unfinished pincushions, 1 sewing kit (except for bone needle), varnished stuff (124)

Total as a Household = 4038 handed off

In ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Created 3/3/19 & published 3/17/20 (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 3/17/20