car snack 2

Okay!
Today is a yes day. I've been on the phone and on the computer since 6:58 this morning when Joey left for school with the girls. I've sent out a message to my facebook group for the campaign, I've talked to important people who are getting things done, and I have almost fixed the rss problem so that you can start getting me on your feed again! I'm working on a few writing projects, and I am caught up. I am humming. I am still in my bathrobe and it is almost lunch, but I will soon take a shower as soon as my phone stops ringing, and then I will go get some compost! I am simultaneously advising people on their home ricotta making and participating in my local government! And today I will plant potatoes!
Somebody just remind me to eat. And to pee. In return, I'll slow down on the exclamation points.

Last week, I had just picked up the girls from school, and we were stopping by the library on the way home. The girls were hot and tired, and they really wanted to go to the library. As we got out of the car, we ran into a man who I had had a meeting with the week before on town issues. One of the side effects of running for local office is that you can't just walk down the street- you will inevitably run into someone who you need and want to talk to. I had been meaning to follow up with him, and we talked for a few minutes, while the girls quietly whined on the sidewalk. We were in front of the post office, and Rosie really wanted to cross the street to get to the library, so she did what she often does- she reached up, grabbed a piece of fabric, and pulled. This time that fabric was the neckline of my shirt, and well, let's just say that I'm following in the line of a few other Massachusetts politicians who have campaigned with less than all their clothes on. Maybe I do really need to start wearing button down's- they're just not so, well, pullable.
Is this why there are not so many mothers in government?

I don't know how, but I righted myself without even a blush. I said to myself, I'm going to do this. I can do this. I am a warrior! And even Rosie if is trying to unknowingly sabotage me by showing the world one of the things that she has always loved about her mamma, I'm really doing this so that she can see that that participation is the way to go here. Apathy has gotten me nowhere. Really, participation is the most activist thing we've got at this point. Yes!

In all this craziness I find myself repeating the things that are important. I say them in my own head, so that I don't forget. Write! Stay informed! Listen! When this all makes you mad, don't take it out on the girls! And for God's sake, Alana, feed those children at 3:00. I repeat, do not forget the car snack!

So a bit ago, I offered you car snack 1. It was good and it was whole grainy, and it had some good protein and fiber. It was a hit around here, and I hope it was hit around you too.
But this one, this one is a little different. It's sweet and desserty-er, although there is a bit of protein in there. It's a variation on a recipe for British flapjacks that Molly Wizenberg wrote about in Bon Appetit a bit ago. I made the recipe as is, and I could not get the damn thing out of the pan. I'm sure it was my fault. It usually is, but I don't know what happened. We chipped away at it with a butter knife, and it was incredibly good. But as a car snack? Uh, uh.
So, I messed with it a bit. I added almonds, and changed the moisture to dry ratio. Most importantly, I lined the pan with parchment. And then...
Holey moley. Whoa nelly. Gee Whiz. I just can't wait to get in the car so I can eat one.

Car Snack 2
loosely adapted from Bon Appetit, March 2010

1 stick butter
scant 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup Lyle's golden syrup
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 cup slivered almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8x8 or 9x9 square baking pan with parchment, leaving a bit left over so that you can just pull it out. Combine butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup in a medium saucepan, and heat on medium until melted. Add the oats, salt and almonds to the mixture and coat thoroughly. Transfer into prepared pan and pat down with a spatula.
Bake until the edges darken, about 25 minutes. It will be soft when you take it out of the oven, but allow to cool completely before taking it out of the pan. When it is cool, cut into squares.

Makes 12-16, depending on size of squares

the word

Did you know that Shakespeare made up the word, "uncomfortable"?

It's quite a thing to be able to create a word that really conveys what it sets out to convey, a word that holds meaning in its rhythm and its construction.

Sadie's turning into a word-maker herself.

The other day, experiencing the joy and frenzy of spending her Amazon gift card that her grandma had sent for her birthday, Sadie created the word, "addtocart." It's a verb, like, "Oh yeah, I'm totally going to addtocart that brainquest workbook."

Works, doesn't it?

But that's not the best one. For Sadie's birthday, she requested a chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting. I made a mayonnaise chocolate cake (surprisingly ordinary!) and whipped a bit of raw cream for the filling. There were three layers, and the whipped cream didn't quite hold it all in place.

"Yikes," I said as I put it on the table so that Sadie could decorate it with a big 7. "That's a little precarious."

"What does precarious mean?" she asked.

"Like, it's going to topple right over, " Joey answered.

"Yes," she agreed, as she put the candies on the tilting cake. "Totally eprecarious."

I kid you not. I give you the best word in the world. One more time.

Eprecarious.

Eat it before it falls, baby. Eat it before it falls.

imperfect

Seven years ago today, I woke up in tears. It was my due date for the baby who we would come to know and love as Sadie, but I had been in and out of labor for three weeks, and I was convinced that I would be pregnant forever. Even though there is no actual case of a woman staying pregnant for the rest of her life, somehow so many women go through the experience of suspecting that they will be the first.
By the end of that day, I was a mother, and tired as I was from all that, well, birth, I didn't sleep at all. I looked at Sadie's face the entire night, absolutely amazed. Of course, I was in love, and in awe, and all of that. But there was something else. I had had all sorts of images of what my baby would look like. My own birth was well photographed (even published, but that is another story), and I have no shortage of pictures of myself in my first day of life. I assumed that my baby would look like me, that she would have a full head of dark hair, that her nose would turn up like mine had. It was just what I saw in my mind.
When Sadie was born, she was entirely bald. Her face was dominated by the most magnificent and royal nose. It was gigantic. She cast her gaze around the room like she owned it, and she looked like an eagle. I looked at that face, and it was not only so different from mine, it was different than anything I could have imagined, and at that moment, I thought, "I have no control over this." Birth is a messy thing, and as magical and life changing as the moment when a baby comes into the world is, it is also a good moment to get used to letting go of your ideas of how things will be.


In preparation for Sadie's seventh birthday, I decided to make pop tarts.

The day before her birthday was a little bit packed, but I carved aside a few minutes to blend together the dough. Like always when it comes to me and pastry, the whole thing seemed too dry, and although I added so much more water than the recipe specified, it still didn't quite hold together. I just pressed and pressed and hoped for the best. When it came time to roll it out, it started to look more promising.

Still though, I pressed holes back together. I patched here and there. I felt doubtful. I was instructed to measure carefully so that I would have nice, even rectangles. No matter how I try to have nice, even anything in my life, my kitchen is where straight lines go to die.
I'm trying to get better at this, but as things stand right now, I will never be a pastry chef. I will continue to be...rustic.


Sadie has been coming into herself in a pretty cool way lately. Seven looks good on her, I must say. I think that she has been really becoming aware of how much she can accomplish, and so, ironically, she doesn't have to try to control everything, either. It's so nice to see her relax a bit. She is just having more fun with her days, I think. Finally, every moment does not have to be perfect for her.

Who started this whole idea of making perfect looking food at home? Was it Martha? I'm thinking that it might have come earlier than that. Maybe it's my deficiency with the whole straight line element, but there is enough to stress over without cursing myself in the kitchen because my icing piped out funny, or, ahem, my crust didn't quite keep together. Enough!

On her birthday, we ate pop tarts, and the jam squeezed out of every little space. They were beautiful in a non-traditional sense. These were no fashion models, but they sure had a nice personality.

This recipe came from the April issue of Bon Appetit, and in the photograph that accompanies the recipe, the pastries are laid out in a perfect star, each equal rectangle devoid of any little leak of jam. The powdered sugar is shaken in such a way that I suspect it might actually have been placed, grain by grain by some sad intern dreaming of the day when they might be able to eat one of these lovely snacks. Stunning.

Maybe your pop tarts will look like that. That is so great, and I applaud your success! But if they don't, then I urge you to embrace the character of your own homemade deliciousness. If the crust falls apart, or the jam comes through, and you even think about feeling any anxiety or stress about the whole thing, repeat after me:

These are going to taste so good.

And oh boy, they will. The nice thing about personality, is that it is what counts.

"Pop-Tarts"
adapted from Bon Appetit, April 2010

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour plus additional for shaping and rolling
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 sticks (1 cup) chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
10 tablespoons ice water, or more if needed (note: the original recipe calls for 4 tablespoons, but this just didn't even start to do it for me. Start low, but be aware that you might need as many as 10 or 12)
10-12 tablespoons fruit preserves (I used blueberry rhubarb that I made last week, but any will do, and low or no sugar will be best here)
powdered sugar, for dusting

Whisk the flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl. Add the butter, and using your fingertips, rub the butter in until it the whole mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water by the tablespoonfuls, tossing with your hands or a fork until the dough starts to stick together. When you pick up a handful and it stays together when you press it, it is ready.
Gather dough into two balls and shape each half into a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill at least an hour.
Line 2 large rimmed baking pans with parchment. If you have limited freezer space, and you cant put two pans in your freezer, you can probably get them all onto one pan, but if you can do the two, it is safer. Working with one disk at a time, roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 13x11 inches. Trim to a 12x10-inch rectangle, and cut into eight 5x3-inch rectangles.
Arrange 4 rectangles, spaced apart, on each sheet. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of jam down the center of each rectangle. Top with a a second rectangle, and gently press together at the edges. Then double seal it with a fork, pressing the edges all around the rectangle. Repeat with the other tarts. Poke each top with a toothpick a few times. Cover with plastic wrap, and freeze tarts on sheets for at least two hours and up to one week.
Position 1 rack in the top third of the oven, and one rack on the lower third. Preheat to 375 degrees. Bake frozen tarts uncovered until golden, reversing sheets after 15 minutes, 25-30 minutes total. Immediately transfer tarts to a rack. Sift powdered sugar lightly over the tarts, and serve warm.

spinach ricotta pie

For some reason, pie crust has been coming up a lot lately.
"I just can't do pie crust!"
I kid you not. I have heard this four times in the last week.

I wouldn't call myself a pie crust master (if only I were master of anything except this mess!), but I no longer get an anxious clench in my stomach when I pull out my rolling pin. And I'd say maybe 4 times out of 5, the crust is damn good. So, I'm getting there. Those other 1 out of 5 crusts are usually hard as a rock, but we won't talk about those, at least not today.

Some people who don't do the pie crust thing just avoid the whole topic altogether. They say they like frittatas better than quiches anyway, and they make crisps instead of pies. I have certainly gone this route, but, like I said, the rolling pin and I are getting to be better friends.

But then there is the other option. There is, ahem, the frozen pie crust.
As I've mentioned here before, this is the crust on which I was raised. My mother's brand of choice was, and still is, called Orenoke. To this day, I hand her a piece of pie made in my own crust, and the best I can get out of her is "yeah, it's pretty good."
I guess I can't really blame her. She just loves that Orenoke pie crust.


Honestly, I think if frozen pie crust is your thing, use it! I say that guilt and the kitchen don't mix. We do what we can, and if it works, then amen to that.
But for those of you who might like to try their hand at pie crust again, or for the first time, I'm thinking we should do a little work together here. Yeah? Maybe next week, after those peas are in the ground? It's supposed to rain a little bit here, and I'm thinking that will be a good time. I could use a date with that rolling pin.

I've got a couple of tricks, and I'm guessing you might too. Will you help out? Together, we might just master this thing.

So what do you think? Are you in? It might be good to get a handle on it before berry season comes around. When there are that many strawberries, it's good to have options.

Just to get started, I've got a pie for you today. This was one of my mother's favorites when I was growing up, and she brought it to every single potluck dinner that I can remember. Of course, the crust was always Orenoke. So, if you want to wait until our little pie crust session to get the rolling pin out, go ahead and use that frozen pie crust. My mother would say it's better that way, anyway.

Spinach Ricotta Pie
adapted from Mollie Katzen, Moosewood Cookbook

1 recipe all-butter pie crust, single crust, or a frozen pie crust, or what have you
1 pound ricotta cheese
3 beaten eggs
1/2 pound chopped spinach, fresh or frozen
1 small, diced onion
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
dash nutmeg
paprika, for the top
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sour cream

Prepare the pie crust and lay into a buttered 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small skillet or sautee pan, melt the butter. Add the onion. When the onion is translucent, add the spinach (if it is frozen, you can put it right in there). Cook for about 2 minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently. Add a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. Remove from heat.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the spinach mixture, ricotta, eggs, flour, cheese and nutmeg. Spread into unbaked pie shell.
Top with one cup sour cream, spread to the edges of the crust with a rubber spatula. Top with a generous sprinkling of paprika.

Bake for 40-50 minutes.

baked salmon with herb butter

I wonder if there will be a time when I am such an experienced gardener that I won't feel compelled to let out an audible yelp when the first herbs emerge again. Someday I'll take it all in stride, and when new gardeners ask me inane questions, I'll coolly answer with only the slightest tinge of a smile.
But that's not now. Now I cheer, and I do a little dance around the yard.
Because the truth is, I still don't believe it. I don't believe that perennials will come back, and I sure as hell don't believe that my seeds will turn into plants.
And sometimes they don't.
But, when they do, it seems nothing short of a miracle.
I am overwhelmed today. There are too many things right now. I'll leave it at that. But when I looked at my list after dinner, and Joey saw my face all pinched up, he said, "Go plant those damn radish seeds you've been talking about." There were other items on that list that were far more pressing, but I went, and before I knew it, I was actually humming, I was so happy. The sun put on the most lovely show for me as it set, and when I was just finished with my four little uneven rows of carrots, beets, and radishes, the sky went and rained for me. Can you believe it? Just out of the blue, like a little hand, patting my back, saying, "Good job, honey, no need to drag out that hose. Go on inside, and we'll finish up here."
Now I'm back with that list, but I feel a little better. Thank you, April.
And the chives? The chives are back, and the tarragon and oregano are on their way too. Glory be. I will be eating many herb butters from here on out, and I hope you will join me.


Baked Salmon with Herb Butter
adapted from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food
serves 4

1 pound wild salmon fillet
salt and pepper
olive oil
1/4 cup butter, softened
generous squeeze of a lemon
kosher salt
Herbs of your choice, but chives and dill are especially nice with salmon, about 1 T of each

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Prepare the herb butter: Combine the butter, herbs, lemon, and a pinch of salt. Mix well.
Cut the salmon into 4 pieces. Arrange on a parchment lined baking dish. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 7-9 minutes, until just cooked through. Serve with a large dollop of herb butter on top of each piece.

the butter lamb

This morning, Sadie woke us up pretty early. She had set up little bowls of dye from a kit scored from the dollar store earlier this week. She ran into our bedroom, jumping up and down, chanting, "Can we dye eggs now?"
We rolled out of bed, and she continued to dance around us as I stumbled through coffee preparation. "What do I do? What do I do."
"The thing is," Joey said in some sort of Israeli- Indian accent for extra effect. "Your Mamma and Poppa are Jewish, and we have no idea what to do."

Really, that is only a half truth. We are sort of Jewish. We are genetically Jewish and a little bit culturally Jewish. We were raised with Brooklyn old people and bagels, with intermittent Yiddish cusses, and with distant second cousins who may have showed us the terrifying and mystical tattoos on their forearms, those badges of ultimate strength and survival.
Yes, we are Jewish. But our Grandmothers are gone on both sides, and this week, we brought the girls to their very first seder.
It was a lovely one- held in a little house on the grounds of Gould Farm, where my parents live. A passionate and liberal young Jewish volunteer at the farm had amalgamated her own Haggadah, and it was filled with inspiring messages of social justice, of curing the current plagues of racism, homophobia, poverty, and the like. It focused on the spring ritual of Passover, and of our own rebirth at this time. The girls loved it, and they ate their matzoh and charoset with gusto. It felt really good to be there.
When we got home, Sadie asked me the question that she had asked earlier in the day. "So what is Passover? Why is it called that?" I took a breath and gave it a shot.

"Well, when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, they asked God, or the Great Spirit, or you know, Nature, to help them out, and he, I mean it, I mean, I don't know, sent all of these horrible things to the Egyptians to convince them to release the Jews, and all the first born sons of the Egyptians were killed, and the Jews were told to put bl- I mean, a mark on their doors, so that the angel, I mean, the spirit, I mean, I'm not even sure if I've got this story right, would pass over the houses of the Jews."

I really wish my grandmother was here.

But as I feel this sentiment more and more, I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to become my own grandma, not in the creepy camp song way, but in the way that I need to start to own this a little bit. I am a grown up, after all. And I used to really love Passover. I'm thinking that it's time to actually get clear on the stories, and to roll up my sleeves and make some gefilte fish.
It can't be that hard, right?
When I say that food is at the center of a holiday for me, it may seem like I'm missing the point. There is God to consider, and gratitude, and whatever else might be involved in that particular celebration. But lately I've been doing some thinking about why food is my focus in general, and why I have come to this as what I want to do. And although I'm still thinking about this, and I'm not sure that I have the words yet, I'm coming to think that food itself may not be a symbol or a side note of celebration and faith- I think it might have the capability to really be the thing that we celebrate. It's all wrapped up together. So I'm maybe getting somewhere on this holiday question, and right now I'm thinking that food is going to be the way in. A meal prepared with the right mind state is, after all, a very powerful thing.

I guess that when it comes to food though, I am really a Unitarian at heart. It turns out that one of my favorite food traditions from this time of year that I have experienced comes from Catholics in the mountains of Poland.

A few years ago, Joey came home with a gift from one of his students. Joey comes home with a lot of pretty fabulous things- homemade Christmas ornaments from pine cones and glitter, gorgeous sculpee magnets- he gets a lot of love and craft from his kids. But this one was different. At first, I wasn't quite sure what to think. It was begging to be photographed, and so, I obliged.

This is the first butter lamb I ever saw. I was enthralled, mystified, and instantly in love. I googled "butter lamb" and found hundreds of images of carved and molded butter lambs, but none so beautiful as the one on my table. It had been gifted to Joey by a little girl named Felicia, whose mother, Marya, had been raised in the Polish Catholic community in Adams, MA, up in Northern Berkshire county. It turns out that the lambs in her church used to be made by the nuns, who had a special mold for their shape. Way back, the mold broke, and the nuns started making the lambs by hand. Yes, the Adams nuns actually broke the mold. That is why the butter lambs coming out of Adams were so much more lovely than any others that I could find on the internet. I had to know more.

Lucky for me, Rosie and Felicia proceeded to become great friends. Two years after I first met that butter lamb, I finally convinced Marya to show me how to make my own.

First, a little more history. Butter lambs, or baranek (baranki is the singular, but who would want to make only one?) are an Easter tradition from a place called Zakopane in the southeastern mountainous region of Poland. On holy Saturday, people would take a basket to the church to be blessed, filled with foods to be eaten when the fast was broken on Sunday. Sometimes in Zakopane, the priest would actually travel around from home to home to bless the baskets. The centerpiece of this basket was the butter lamb, and it would be consumed with the Easter meal on Sunday.

The women in Marya's family still make butter lambs ever year, sometimes over a hundred. At five, Felicia is stepping right into her shoes, and she and Marya led us through the process the other day.

To make your own butter lamb, you will need:

2 sticks cold butter
2 cloves
cinnamon
metal skewer
paring knife
potato ricer or garlic press

1. Start with one stick of butter in front of you. With the paring knife, draw three lines on the stick, dividing it into thirds. Cut one third off with the paring knife. This will be the head.


2. With the paring knife. Scrape a bit of butter off the longer piece that is left. This will be your glue. Use it to affix the shorter piece to the longer piece. Use your hands to smooth it together.

3. Use your paring knife and your hands to smooth all of the hard edges off of the head and body. But all of the excess butter into a pile in to use in a minute.

4. Take the other full stick of butter. Cut one pat off of it, and cut that pat diagonally. This will be the nose. Once again, scrape a bit of butter to use for glue, and use it to affix the nose to the head. The lamb should be looking directly at you. Use your hands to make the seam smooth.


5. Now make the ears. Using the other mostly full stick of butter, cut two long slices off the corners, like this:

6. Create a bit more glue to affix the ears to the head, going out sideways.

7. Now put whatever extra butter you have collected into the ricer or garlic press. You are going to make the fur.

8. With your metal skewer, scrape some fur off the ricer. Apply it to the lamb by pressing the skewer onto the lamb, then firmly pulling the skewer away. Start around the nose and ears, and move out from there.

9. When you have covered the lamb with fur, adjust and smooth out with your hands and the skewer.

10. Now use your skewer to poke two holes for eyes. Poke two holes for the nostrils and a line for the mouth. Find two matching cloves for the eyes.


11. Dip your skewer into cinnamon and mark the nostrils and mouth. Put the cloves into the eyes, and you butter lamb is done!


Happy Holiday, whatever it may be for your family. Thanks so much to Marya and Felicia, for sharing the secrets of the butter lamb.

apple honey oat snack

If you were in my kitchen today (which some of you actually were), you would have helped out with some random jam making from frozen blueberries that had overstayed their welcome, and you would have finally gotten to compare ricotta coagulated with citric acid and ricotta coagulated with lemon juice (lemon juice seems to actually make a silkier ricotta). And you would have had the opportunity to witness one of my most annoying habits in the kitchen, that is, my propensity to start thirty stories or opinions or conversations without actually following through on any of them.
It tends to happen when I'm feeling most scattered. I'll say three words about the stress of public school. You'll ask me a question. I'll say, "Well," then I stir the cheese, notice that it's heating too fast, then start in on asking you when you're putting your peas in the ground. It goes on in this manner.
And although you are not in my kitchen in a physical sense, you are here in another way, and so I seem to be having the instinct to follow the same pattern with you. For days, I have started different posts in my head, different stories and recipes. I only get so far, and then I, well let's just let all of life's distractions come under the heading of "stir the cheese," and then I'm onto another topic.

Because I can't stay away too long, I am here for better or for worse. I have left the dishes in the sink. The uneaten broccoli and cheese is on the table, and the girls are tucked into their beds reading, or in Rosie's case looking at, their semi-repulsive American girl books. I know they're historical, but, well see, there I go. We'll save that for another day.
And I do want to tell you a story, and I do want to give you a recipe, and so I will do my best to stay focused long enough to make it happen.
Three or four years ago, way back when I still owned slings and diapers, I had a job as what can only be described as a governess. There were three older girls in this family, maybe 11, 13, and 15. Their mother was a world traveler, and she had toted the kids around India and other places, and these girls had not only very unique perspectives on the world, but all three of them had sharp and philosophical minds. They drank in Rousseau like chocolate milk. It was a pretty great job.
I did my best to teach them everything I could, and I got so much back from them. They challenged me to read old books in new ways and they let me travel through their stories and memories. But one of the best things about that job was what I learned at breakfast before our lessons began.
Although we were always scheduled to start at 9, they would usually just be sitting down to breakfast when I got there. They would invite me to join them and someone would pour me a little porcelain cup of tea. Often one of the girls would have gotten creative in the early hours of the morning and there would be popovers and jam or some homemade pastry. But it isn't the actual food that I remember. It was the way that they would display it on the table, and the attitude with which it would be consumed. Those girls taught me about food and luxury, and how an apple can be the fanciest breakfast in the world if you just put a little thought into it. Maybe slice it thin, drizzle it with a touch of honey and a few almonds. It was in my job as a governess that I learned how to make fancy food, not fancy complicated saucy French sort of things, but fancy simple creative things. I learned how to make breakfast in a way that I could confidently bring it to a princess who was waiting for her breakfast in bed. Those girls were princesses in the best sense, and they still are. When they would come over for dinner or an extra math lesson, my own little princesses would shyly approach them with awe and wonder, mystified by the beauty of sisters who looked like they had stepped out of a fairytale with their separate hair colors, perfect red, perfect black, and perfect blond hanging down their backs.

On mornings when there was no fancy pastry, and not even a failed but edible fruit tart, there was apple honey oat snack. It had never occurred to me to eat raw oats until then, but this has remained one of my favorite breakfasts. I've altered it a bit from back then according to my tastes, and so should you, as a fancy breakfast should really be tailored to the princess for which it is created. They are all so different , after all.


Apple Honey Oat Snack

serves 2, or 1 if you are really hungry

1 apple (skin on), cored and cut into 1-inch dice
1 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats
3 tablespoons grated unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup slivered toasted almonds
3 dates, chopped fine, or a handful of currants
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon honey

Combine all ingredients and mix. Serve immediately.