Majestic maples over seventy feet tall overlook Connemara Farm’s landscape, generously shading in the heat of summer, and providing homes to robins and Baltimore orioles, as well as resting places for crows, ravens, grackles, sparrows, and sharp-shinned hawks.
The trees offer pleasure throughout the year, from their glory days of fall to their barky, seemingly barren nakedness throughout the winter.
Yet come spring, when days are warm but nights are still freezing, maple trees weep with sappy joy that soon they will bud and burst into a canopy of leaves, exploding like fireworks that don’t fade until late fall.
The trees are tapped and sap springs forth, drip by drip, to accumulate into gallons of sap which is condensed by evaporation into the most miraculous of all confections: pure maple syrup.
As a “backyard sugarer” I do not have to be as frugal with the syrup I harvest as if I were paying the current $11 for a pint. Therefore, I liberally enjoy syrup in a myriad of ways beginning with a splash in my morning coffee, drizzled over vanilla ice cream, combined with olive oil and vinegar for a salad dressing, and in place of honey when I make granola.
Combining orange juice, soy sauce, garlic, and maple syrup made a great marinade for salmon, which I reduced to a glaze to serve as a side sauce. On the sweet side, however, these lovely cookies are best enjoyed with a cup of tea laced with a little spoonful of syrup.
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Maple Oatmeal Cookies
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
1 3/4 cups maple syrup
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two baking sheets. In large bowl, beat together butter, maple syrup, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in oats. In another bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix well. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto baking sheets and bake for about 12 -15 minutes.