Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pickled Pearl Onions For Some Serious Bloody Marys

Posted on June 20, 2011 | 10 Comments

It’s really hot outside and I sprained my ankle. That’s the summary of life right now.  Or maybe I have tendonitis or something.  Either way, I can’t do anything except hobble around like an old lady.  I’m going to make cocktails tonight since not being able to work makes me angry. Here’s the more exciting part that makes me happy, instead of angry:

Pickled Pearl Onions With Horseradish Root and Thai Chilis

Pickled pearl onions that are sweet and sour and spicy all at once, with a wonderful extra kick from whole, unprepared horseradish root are going to make for some serious beverages. Onions and other aliums are in season right now and when I saw bunches of pearl onions at the farmers market, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Is that bad? That pearl onions instantly take my brain to cocktails? Nah…We have a lot of pearl onions in the garden that should be ready in a few weeks, and while I had grand ideas about serving them with braised meats or roasting them in balsamic vinegar, I have a feeling that they’re not going to make it into any dinners.

This recipe is a loose adaptation from a recipe in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is an absolute must-have for anyone interested in canning.

Pickled Pearl Onions

makes: 4  1/2 pint jars

cook time: 12 hours soaking in brine plus 45 minutes active cooking time

Ingredients:

  • 4 c. pearl onions, peeled, tops removed (don’t throw them away, make kimchi!)
  • 1/4 c. kosher salt
  • water
  • 2 1/2 c. white vinegar
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1 tbs. mustard seeds
  • 4 pieces of very thinly sliced horseradish root*
  • 4 small dried thai chili peppers (or whatever you have on hand)
  • 2 bay leaves, split into pieces

1. In a large glass bowl, combine onions and salt and add water to cover.  Cover the bowl and set aside for 12 hours.

2. Sterilize jars and lids. Bring boiling water canner to a boil.

3. The next day, drain the onions in a colander. Rinse thoroughly with cold water.  In a medium sized, nonreactive pot bring the vinegar, sugar, horseradish and spices to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes to infuse the vinegar.

4. Pack the onions into hot jars and cover with the hot vinegar mixture, leaving 1/2″ headspace. Divide the spices and horseradish equally among each of the jars. Remove air bubbles with a wooden chopstick or skewer and adjust the headspace if necessary. Wipe rims and screw on lids. Process for 10 minutes.

*The natural food store in my town had whole horseradish root in their produce section, and I’m willing to be that stores like Whole Foods would have it too. If you can’t find it, substitute 3 tsp. prepared horseradish when you’re simmering all the spices in the vinegar.

P.S. So, if I could walk and hadn’t spent four hours this morning doing an hour’s worth of work, I would have a picture and a tested recipe for the internet universe.  It didn’t happen. It’s too good to leave this out though…

J’s Fantastic Dirty Bloody Marys

This is an approximation of an amazing cocktail that my boyfriend makes. I don’t even know everything that goes in there, but we can try, right? Caution: I’ve made this many times, but never written it down, so some of these amounts are definitely approximations.

serves: 1

makes: 1 cocktail

special equipment: a glass for your cocktail

Ingredients:

  • a shot or two of vodka
  • cold tomato juice (or bloody mary mix) to fill the glass about 3/4 full
  • 1/2 tsp. minced fresh parsley
  • a few grinds of freshly cracked black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. prepared horseradish
  • 1 tbs. green olive juice
  • 3 green olives
  • juice from 1 lemon wedge
  • a dash of your favorite hot sauce (tabasco, tapatio, etc.)
  • garnish: 1 stick celery, 2 pickled onions

Mix all that together in your glass. Drink. Repeat as needed. 

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Posted in Pickling and Fermenting, Spring, Uncategorized

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Fusilli With Artichokes and Chevre

Posted on June 9, 2011 | 1 Comment

I’ve been up to my elbows in jam, getting ready for the Taste Of Mendocino event in San Francisco on Monday.   You should come! hell, even if you live in Kansas, it’s not too late! There are going to be so many amazing vineyards there doing wine tasting that the booze alone should make it worthwhile. Plus there will be meat, cheese, eggs, jams, and so much more.

Anyway, yesterday I got home from the kitchen, essentially covered head to toe in sugary goop.  I wanted real food that was totally devoid of anything sweet.  This lovely little dish is easy to throw together if your feet hurt and you’re really hungry, and tangy lemon, olives, artichokes and white wine will make you forget all about any intense sugar experiences that you may have had recently.

Fusilli With Artichokes And Chevre

As with most of my recipes, the point is not to hunt down specific ingredients but to make use of items in the pantry and the garden. Any olives or capers would be great in this recipe. Feel free to toss in some chicken or shrimp if you have some that needs using.  Roasted red peppers would work well too, but it’s not quite far enough into the summer for us to have peppers lying around.

Serves: 4 entree portions

Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. fresh fusilli pasta
  • 1 tbs. butter
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 or 2 small spring onions, sliced very thinly (about the size of a shallot or a pearl onion)
  • 1 lb. frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
  • 2 tbs. spring onion tops, sliced thinly
  • 1 large asian mustard leaf, sliced into 1/2″ strips*
  • 1/2 tsp. fresh dill, minced
  • juice from 1 lemon
  • 1 c. white wine
  • 1 quart of chunky tomato sauce**
  • 10 kalamata olives, pitted
  • 1/2 c. herbed chevre, crumbled (or whatever your favorite type of chevre is will be fine)
  • 1/4. c. shaved parmesan cheese
  • sea salt and fresh black pepper, to taste

1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil for the pasta.

2. While the water comes to a boil, cook the sauce in a large saute pan: Heat the butter on medium heat. Add the garlic, onion and artichoke hearts and saute for 4-5 minutes, or until the onions are translucent. Add lemon juice, white wine, dill, onion tops, and asian mustard greens and saute for 2-3 more minutes. Pour in tomato sauce and olives and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the sauce has reached your desired consistency. If it is too thick, add a splash of white wine. If it’s too thin, cook for another 4-5 minutes.

3. Cook fusilli according to package directions. Drain, and return to the pot. Pour the artichoke mixture over the noodles and gently stir everything together. Top with crumbled chevre, parmesan and a few sliced onion tops. (Optional: If you’re feeling motivated, put the pasta in a small casserole dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes to melt the cheese).

*Click here to see the greens that I’m referring to; I know this is a slightly obscure ingredient. Use any quick-cooking greens that you have around, like spinach or young kale leaves.

**We have lots of canned tomato sauce from last summer. If you don’t have it in your pantry, you can substitute any type of chunky tomato sauce that catches your eye in the grocery store.

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Posted in Spring, Uncategorized, Vegetarian, What's For Dinner?

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Raw Sea Kraut

Posted on May 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have been harvesting the last of the winter greens over the last few weeks. It’s summer now, and I need to plant tomatoes and corn, not cabbage. Plus the greens were all starting to bolt, so it was time. 

At first I thought I would can some sauerkraut, but I was feeling lazy.  A little bumble bee in the back of my brain starting buzzing something about making raw kraut, that it is one of the laziest but also coolest projects to do with extra greens.

The reason that I can’t stop fermenting all my extra vegetables, in addition to the fact that sea kraut and kimchi are totally delicious and incredibly good for you, is that the whole process is so easy.

Sterilize jar.

Mix up greens with salt and any other things that make you happy.

Put the greens into the jar.  Wait for awhile.

Salty cabbage greens morph into crunchy sour tasty delicious healthy snack for eating all the time, with everything.

Plus, the fermented greens have superpowers now and can somehow last for months in the fridge (or for quite awhile unrefrigerated as well, though they will keep fermenting and the taste may change, becoming more sour than you want.)

In a nutshell, fermentation is one of the oldest and simplest food preservation methods available.  I think part of the reason I am enthralled by the whole process is that you purposely leave food unrefrigerated and let bacteria start infesting your jars. Years of restaurant work have engrained food safety rules in my head, and when I break them I feel like I am robbing a bank or stealing cars. 

Rules are made to be broken. They are just holding you down, man. 

Go grab that last cabbage in the garden and make some raw sea kraut!

Raw Cabbage and Seaweed Sauerkraut

This sauerkraut tastes like the ocean. The recipe is my own twist off of a basic raw sauerkraut recipe in Liana Krissof’s book Canning For A New Generation. It’s a great book to have in your pantry and I highly recommend it for any preservationist. 

makes: 1/2- 1 quart, depending on your cabbage size (mine was small)

cooking time: about 20 minutes of active cooking and then a week or so of waiting

Ingredients:

  • 1 savoy cabbage
  • 2 tsp. sea salt
  • 1 tsp. dried seaweed, I used wakame (see note for more info. on seaweed*)

1. Wash cabbage, remove core, and slice into thin strips. 

2. Sterilize a quart sized jar while you are working on step#3.

3. In a large, nonreactive bowl, combine cabbage, seaweed and salt. Knead the ingredients together, working the salt into the cabbage leaves. Gradually liquid will start to form. Keep going for about 15-20 minutes, and then transfer the mixture to the sterilized jar. It should fit and the liquid should just barely cover the sliced up cabbage. If it doesn’t, keep working the cabbage and salt together (or, in a step which would make this recipe take forever, make a brine, wait for it to cool, and add a little bit to the jar to cover the cabbage leaves). 

4. Weigh down the chopped cabbage with something to keep it below the surface of the liquid. Krisoff’s book and a few other sources suggest a ziploc bag filled with water, but I did it like this:

This is a half-pint sized jar with the lid attached and a long string running underneath the ring of the jar. It perfectly fits inside the wide-mouth quart sized jar that I used for the sea kraut. Drape the string over the sides of the quart jar and screw the ring on to hold the pint jar in place.

If you don’t have this perfect jar combo lying around, just use a ziploc bag.

5. Set aside the jar and wait about a week. You’ll see small bubbles forming, which means that the cabbage is fermenting. After the week is up, give the jar a smell and a taste. If should be pleasantly sour and crunchy. If it’s not sour enough, just wait another few days. At this point, I put the jar in the fridge to keep the flavors pretty much right where they were, but the sea kraut doesn’t necessarily require refrigeration.

How to eat this lovely kraut? I put it wraps with sliced fresh vegetables and on salads. You can make little lettuce cups with sea kraut, bell peppers and grilled chicken or tofu. You could use it in a sandwich. Serve it as a side with stir-fry and rice. The possibilities are endless.

For more information about fermenting, read this article from the Washington Post.

*Note: Dried seaweed is often available in the bulk food section of natural food stores. Wakame is delicious and just the right size for mixing into the kraut, but… funny story…. I realized when I was writing this that I had also used hijiki seaweed, and that several governments have apparently issues warnings relating to hijiki since it contains high levels of inorganic arsenic. You learn something new every day, right? It’s still safe to eat, just in small amounts. Read about it here. I think in the future I’ll just stick with wakame or dulse and avoid the hijiki altogether.

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Posted in Pickling and Fermenting, Spring, Uncategorized

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Candied Buddha’s Hand

Posted on April 10, 2011 | 4 Comments

I bought a buddha’s hand at the farmer’s market last week, and it was too pretty not to immortalize with a few pictures…

Buddha’s hands are part of a larger group of fruits called citrons, which are just like citrus fruit without the actual fruit part.

I can’t even emphasize enough how aromatic these are.  When I sliced it open, the whole room filled with an astonishingly strong, bright citrus smell.  You can make infused vodka with citron, but what I really wanted to do was candy it and use it for baking. Panetonne, a sweet Italian bread with marsala soaked currants and citron, is high on the list of potential projects. Hot cross buns could be good too- these recipes don’t always call for citron but throwing in 1/2 c. of candied fruit never hurt anyone.

buddhas hand pieces in sugar water

I’m no pastry chef, so I’m not even going to try and write my own recipe for this one. David Lebovitz most definitely is a pastry chef though, and his recipe for candied citron is right on the money.

draining off the excess syrup

You can refrigerate the candied pieces in their syrup for up to a year, but we have limited fridge space, so I finished the recipe by giving them a dust of sugar and then put them on racks to dry.

candied citron drying overnight

If you can’t find citron, you can also candy citrus peels, which are delicious too, and can be used the same way in baked goods. Hitchiking to Heaven has a lovely recipe for candied grapefruit peels… go take a look. I used the same recipe for orange peels and it worked well, and it reminded me of those strange processed gummi candies that I remember from being a tiny little kid… (mmmm, refined sugar, so tasty!)

candied orange and grapefruit peels

PS. If you make candied buddha’s hand, reserve the juice from blanching the pieces. It might turn out too bitter, but mine didn’t, and will most definitely be going into jelly.

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Posted in Baking, Spring, Uncategorized

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I Took The Day Off Today

Posted on April 2, 2011 | 3 Comments

Usually I get up before at dawn on Saturdays to go sell veggies, eggs, flowers and jam at the Ukiah Farmers Market, but this week I had to be in San Francisco.  While I felt bad about missing a day of work, it meant I could have a quiet morning, sleeping late and going to the big Allemany Farmers Market in San Francisco as a customer instead of a vendor.  Certain places  in my life that I consistently go back to always seem good and right.   This market is always bustling full of smiling people- a huge range of age groups and ethnicities- with little toddlers in strollers munching on strawberries to old grandmas doing their weekly shopping.  For me, it is the embodiment of vibrant, positive, urban culture, and if I ever move away from California, I will certainly miss coming here.

Plus, the pupusas from Estrellita’s are ridiculously good…  If you’ve never had pupusas before… oh man…   They’re these Salvadorian handmade tortillas, made with masa de maiz and stuffed with all kinds of fillings like cheese, pork, and refried beans.  These pupusas are handmade to order, and fried on a griddle until the outside is lightly browned and crispy and the inside is a gooey mess of melted cheese and meat.  Top it with a slightly spicy, crunchy cabbage slaw and some hot sauce, grab a passion fruit aqua fresca, and you’re good to go.

 

 

I returned home with a bag of medjool dates, king trumpet mushrooms, a buddha’s hand for making candied citron, artichokes, baby parsnips, a pound of tiny calamondins, fresh goat cheese ravioli, bright green giant avocados, and two pounds of the tiniest manila clams I’ve ever seen.  I think I’ll steam the clams in some white wine for dinner, and maybe roast the artichokes.

Days off are really wonderful.

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Posted in Spring, Uncategorized

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Wild Duck Cacciatore (Because It’s Freezing In The Kitchen, and I’m Not Going In There)

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 1 Comment

We’ve been having some real crap weather in Northern California.  I know I should be thankful for the rain since it means we won’t have to worry about a drought this year, but I’m not feeling it.  When I got home from the farmers market this past Saturday, we were getting pounded with freezing mix and high winds.  My “kitchen” (it’s a barn) has no hot water, no heat, no insulation, and poor lighting, and I was absolutely not going in there to start a cooking project….

Hence this delicious dinner, cooked in the warm, cozy “living room” (also a barn, but with insulation and wood stove):

wild duck alla cacciatora

I have a big cast iron dutch oven that I really don’t use very often, but on really cold days I can just throw a bunch of ingredients in the pot and set it on the wood stove, letting it simmer in my living room for the whole afternoon.  If I have the fire burning already, it’s such a convenient way to cook a big meal without a lot of trouble.  (I suppose this is really the pre-cursor to the electric crock-pot.) Whether you decide for the wood stove or a conventional oven,  I can’t emphasize enough that this dish is all about flexibility and convenience; no need to search out obscure ingredients and make life difficult.

If you do want to cook this on a wood stove, keep a good base of hot coals going to ensure an even temperature for your dutch oven.*

First you need a protein. I used wild duck, which is delicious.  It’s very low fat compared to farm-raised duck, so the stew doesn’t get greasy or feel too heavy; the duck adds a rich flavor vaguely like beef or lamb.

Season your meat with salt and pepper, and then sear in the hot dutch oven with some aromatics.  Since I was lazy and tired, (getting up at 6:30 a.m. picking lettuce in the pouring rain for the farmers market doesn’t always make for proper cooking technique) I didn’t mince the garlic, but it would be better if I did. I put the sprigs of fresh herbs in whole and pull them out later, before serving.

Pick out your favorite veggies, and dice them up for the stew pot while your meat is searing (or before you start cooking, if you’re into planning in advance).

i love me some parsnips

I wild-harvested these from the a forest grove in the product section of the grocery store. That’s right!  Whenever I shop at the grocery store I feel like a criminal, like I’m buying crack on a street corner.  I realize that this is totally irrational.  Anyway, though, the sweetness of the root vegetables pairs really well with duck, and the firm texture holds up really well in a stew.

Saute your vegetables in the fat from the meat for a few minutes. This develops the natural sugars in the vegetables and makes them taste amazing.  Once you’ve done that, you deglaze the pan with the red wine. (When you pour the red wine into the hot pan with all kinds of crusty pieces of duck fat stuck on it, you pull all of those intense flavors off the pan and into what will become the best sauce you’ve ever tasted).  Add some stock, and then some tomato sauce for body and thickness.

Throw a lid on the pot and let it cook, covered, for a few hours. This roasts the meat and cooks the vegetables.  Then take the lid off for another hour and let the sauce slowly reduce, concentrating the flavors and achieving the right thickness.  You can always add more red wine or stock if you need more broth.  Remember to re-season with salt and pepper before you serve the stew.  Serve over mashed potatoes, buttered egg noodles, brown rice, quinoa, or whatever you think tastes the best drowned in juicy stew goodness.  A loaf of bread good be a good thing here too.  I decided to make the Wild Stinging Nettle Spaetzle from Hunter Gardener Angler Cook instead of plain old noodles.  Spaetzle taste like a cross between a dumpling and an egg noodle, and are the perfect medium for soaking up the saucy good part of stews just like this one.   Hank Shaw’s recipe for nettle spaetzle paired well with my duck stew, with the brightness of the greens balancing out the richness of the duck.  If you want to give them a whirl, go here for my full post on how to process nettles and make the dumplings.

duck alla cacciatora on wild stinging nettle spaetzle

Wild Duck alla Cacciatora ….   Fire up that woodstove!

This is a cacciatore in the loosest sense of the word, meaning a “hunter’s style” braised meat dish with wine and vegetables.

Special Equipment: Cast Iron Dutch Oven, Woodstove*

Cooking Time: 7 hours, with 20 minutes of active cooking

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

  • 2 California wild ducks** (enough for 1 1/2 c. shredded cooked meat)
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • fresh herbs: 1 sprig marjoram, 1 sprig sage, 3 sprigs thyme, 1 sprig rosemary
  • 1 parsnip
  • 2 large carrots, sliced into rounds
  • 1 large parsnip, sliced into rounds
  • 1 medium rutabaga, diced into 1/2″ cubes
  • 1 garnet yam, diced into 1/2″ cubes
  • 1 c. zinfandel, or whatever red wine you have open
  • 1 pint of chunky tomato sauce (I have this in my pantry, but you can substitute 1 16-oz can of crushed tomatoes. Just know that you’ll need to add some more seasonings, since my sauce is already seasoned in the jar)
  • 1/2 pint chicken stock (or 1 8 oz. can of low-sodium chicken broth)
  • salt and fresh cracked pepper

Start a fire in the wood stove and set a cast iron dutch oven on top of it to preheat. (This is the dutch oven I use; It has feet on it so the whole bottom of the pot doesn’t sit on the stove.  It’s really meant more for cooking directly in the fire, but I like the low, consistent temperature that I get using this method.)

Season ducks with salt and  fresh cracked pepper.  Once the pan is hot, add in the two ducks, fresh herbs, and minced garlic.  The ducks will release fat into the pan, but feel free to add an extra tablespoon or two of olive oil if you think the pan is too dry and the garlic is burning.  Put the lid on the pan, and cook for 10 minutes.
The duck should be sizzling and starting to get a little color at this point (add more wood to the fire if it’s not hot enough).  Add in chopped root vegetables and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pour in the red wine, followed by the chicken stock, tomato sauce, and parsley. Give the pot a stir or two to mix everything together, cover, and cook for about four hours. Open the lid and stir the stew every so often.  If the fire gets really hot and it starts bubbling like crazy you may want to add more stock to prevent anything from sticking.
Uncover the pot.  Remove the ducks.  (At this point I discard the skin because I don’t enjoy eating that much fat, but if you like it, leave it in). Pull the meat off of the bones and discard the carcasses (or reserve them for duck stock or soup). Shred the meat into smaller pieces, whatever size you’d like in your stew. Return the meat to the pot and cook, uncovered, for one more hour or until the stew reaches the desired consistency.  If the stew reduces too much, add some more stock or red wine to the pot to thin the broth out again.  Season with salt and pepper, and serve over spaetzle, noodles, rice or mashed potatoes.

*If you’re not the wood stove – cast iron type, this recipe will work with a conventional oven and any type of dutch oven.  Start the cacciatore on top of the stove to sear the duck and saute the vegetables, and once you add liquid, move the pot to the oven and cook at 300 degrees for 3 hours.

**Meat substitutions that I would recommend: two chicken quarters, 1 lb of beef stew meat, pork tenderloin, or 1 lamb shank or 1 lb. of lamb stew meat. Be creative though, this is just a stew with meat, wine, and root veggies.

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Posted in Foraging, Uncategorized, What's For Dinner?, Winter

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2011 Citrus Season Recipes

Posted on March 1, 2011 | 4 Comments

We’ve been having some wintery weather here in Northern California…

and despite the fact that the gardens are very frozen and unwelcoming right now, I really have to stop getting distracted by citrus fruit and start making sure that the greenhouse is up and that seeds are all getting started on schedule.

But before I depart from all this citrus and move on to other things…

2011 Citrus Season Recipes

Marmalades and Jam

meyer lemon marmalade

 

  • Seville Orange Marmalade, using David Lebovitz’s recipe: This is the second time I’ve made this marmalade, and it’s one of my favorites; a really traditional bitter orange marmalade.  I added a cup of water to the recipe; when I made it the first time, so much of the liquid boiled off that I was worried about it burning.
  • Blood Orange Marmalade with Honey, and adaptation of Sherri Brooks Vinton’s orange marmalade recipe in Put’Em Up: I substituted blood oranges and added some honey, and ended up with a very mellow, sweet marmalade.
  • The Meyer Lemon Marmalade is my own recipe, based off of a traditional marmalade recipe, with one part fruit, one part sugar, and one part water.  This recipe decreases the water to emphasize the flavor and juiciness of meyer lemons.
  • Pomelo Marmalade with Cardamom and Rosewater is also my recipe: exotic flavors make this a wonderful marmalade to use in all kinds of savory recipes.  It will pair well with couscous, quinoa, and other grains; it makes a great glaze for chicken, and I’ve been meaning to try out a new thumbprint cookie recipe using a middle-eastern butter cookie dough that I think will work wonderfully with this marmalade.  This recipe has added pectin, which is nice if you’re not feeling the unpredictable science experiment deal (making marmalade with no added pectin).
  • Orange Jam with Rum and Elderflower was another new recipe this year.  It is very much not a marmalade, and very much a sweet, orangey, delicate jam.

pomelo marmalade with rosewater and cardamom

Pickles and Salt Preserves

  • I have yet to actually taste these since they are still fermenting, but I am so excited for these spicy Rajisthani Kumquat Pickles from Tigress in a Pickle.  I’m definitely looking forward to a plate of saffron rice, chicken curry, and some of these…

rajisthani kumquat pickle

  • Preserved Lemons from Food In Jars:  a great simple recipe that requires no cooking.  I worked at a french restaurant in San Francisco for awhile, and one of the dishes I always was making were theseSanddabs a la Plancha with a brown butter sauce, roasted garlic, and preserved lemons.  These silly little fish gave me nightmares, since they needed to be perfectly seared on a flaming hot cast-iron skillet and it was a really tricky dish to execute correctly (especially if you need 5 or 6 orders of them) but man oh man oh man were they delicious.  Once my lemons are done I will definitely be re-creating this at home, away from the pressures of a Saturday night saute shift.

preserved lemons

Baked Goods & Sweet Things

  • Blood Orange Curd, using David Lebovitz’s Lemon Curd recipe: I switched out half the lemons for blood oranges, and the curd came out a wonderful hue of orangey pink.  If you can get your hands on fresh pastured eggs and citrus fruit, this recipe took all of five minutes to make and was ridiculously good; eat it from the jar with a spoon while it’s still warm- kind of good.
  • Triple Citrus Butter Cake, an adaptation of a recipe from Gourmet. I served ours topped with peach-raspberry jam and powdered sugar.
  • Shaker Lemon Pie from Smitten Kitchen
  • While lemon isn’t necessarily the star player in this Marlborough Pudding Pie, it’s a vital ingredient and this is a really tasty pie, unlike any apple pie you’ve ever eaten before.  The recipe only calls for a whole lemon if you’re using fresh apples, but I use my canned unsweetened apple sauce and the juice and rind of a lemon.

triple citrus glazed butter cake

A Few Resources


And now…. out to the greenhouse.  I have flowers that need planting.


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Apple Brandy

Posted on February 22, 2011 | 2 Comments

the finished product

Last August, I bought a case of Gravenstein Apples for apple sauce, and I ended up with a few extras that didn’t fit in the pot.  Since we already had apple butter, apple pie filling, and apple sauce in the pantry, I started going through all my cookbooks to find something more interesting.

The answer was booze, of course.

I adapted a recipe from Put ‘em Up, by Sherri Brooks Vinton.  Her recipe calls for soaking the apples in brandy for two weeks, making an apple-infused brandy.  When I made it, I added a lot more apples and then I left them in the brandy for six months, making more of an apple-liqeur, with very little taste of brandy left.  The flavor is amazing: light, refreshing, with a really bright burst of apple flavor, like apple juice.  I credit a lot of this to the delicious Gravenstein apples that I originally started with; they have just the right combination of sweet and tart, and a deliciously fresh flavor that later-season varieties of apples don’t often have.

Here’s my version of the recipe:

Apple Brandy

Ingredients:

1. Sterilize your jar and lid.  (Wash jar and lid in hot, soapy water, and then put the jar in the oven at 200 degrees for twenty minutes.  Put the lid in a small bowl and cover it with boiling water, then set aside.)

2. Put the cinnamon stick and sugar in the jar.

3. Rinse the apples, remove stems and cores, and chop into 1″ cubes.  Fill the jar up with as many apple cubes as you can fit (or as you have), leaving about an inch at the top of the jar.

4. Pour brandy into the jar, making sure to completely cover the apples and reach the top of the jar. You don’t want a weird floating apple to get exposed to the air and start doing bad things… like rotting.

5. I gave the jar a gentle shake every day for two weeks (just to make sure that the apples, sugar, and liquor are all staying mixed together).  After that, leave the jar in your pantry (or any other cool, dark spot) and give it a shake every month or so.  When the time is up, strain out the fruit and put the filtered brandy in a clean jar in the fridge, where it lasts up to a year.

apple brandy at the end of the six months, minus one glass...

This basic formula doesn’t end with apples, by the way.  You could put any fruit you want in some brandy or vodka…  the possibilities are endless.  I just started a new batch of blood-orange vodka that I can’t wait to try.  Clean jar + alcohol + fruit = cocktails!

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Posted in Uncategorized, Winter

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When Life Hands You Lemons, Take A Bunch Of Cold Medicine And Make Bacon Cheeseburgers

Posted on February 14, 2011 | 3 Comments

It’s 4:55 a.m. right now, and I suppose this must be why they invented NyQuil, which I currently have none of. I have lots of other cold medicine, which I am taking, and which doesn’t seem to be particularly effective. By which I mean that it’s completely not doing anything.  So, since I can’t sleep, you know…  I might as well write my Charcutepalooza Bacon Challenge Post. Right? (NO? I should go back to bed? Lies. The bed is not working for me right now).

This is gonna be a crazy post.

For the February Charcutepalooza Challenge, we turned fresh pork belly into delicious, home-cured bacon.  It was a Star Wars Meets Lord Of The Rings-style epic journey trying to get my hands on fresh pork belly and the pink salt needed for the curing process.  I know a lot of farms that raise pigs, but for some strange, strange reason, everyone that I called wanted to – get this- keep their pork belly and sell the bacon since bacon basically sells like winning lottery tickets, or free vacations to Hawaii, or, you know…. NyQuil if they were in my house right now. The point is, bacon is one of the most popular items at all the local farmers markets, with vendors often unable to even fill the existing demand, and no one had any spare pork belly lying around.  Totally weak.

Well, I ended up being in San Francisco, and I went to a great butcher shop that had piles and piles of it, right there, all for me.  Normally I like to know exactly where my meat came from, but there was a bit of a language barrier.  Even getting past “Do you sell pork belly?” and “Yes we do” was pretty impressive, so I bought two and considered it a victory.

at the butcher shop

duck!

 

much higher quality than the grocery store stuff....

Back when I didn’t have the flu, or whatever this is, I kind of intended on writing a little something about how supporting local specialty shops is a great thing to do, and how often do you find a proper butcher shop where they have high quality meats and they do all the butchering right there, on site, and you can talk to the butcher about the different cuts of meat and…. blah blah blah.  You see the pictures.  That meat looks darned good– try to find that at Safeway.

The Curing Process

So, first we had to find a special type of salt (Sodium Nitrite? I can’t remember. It’s pink, and usually just called Pink Salt).  The organic folks don’t always like sodium nitrite, since it’s definitely not organic, but in Charcuterie, Michael Ruhlman tells us that it’s completely safe in small quantities, and that you just wouldn’t want to use it like table salt. Which is why it’s bright pink, so that you don’t accidentally season your next big pot of soup with it. That salt was super hard to find, but for any San Francisco Bay Area folks, I finally found it at Village Market in the Ferry Building.  For people who actually plan in advance (the horror!)  the internet is also an available solution which doesn’t involve traffic, parking, lines, etc.

planning in advance and ordering pink salt off the internet would have avoided this

Once you finally have the pork belly and pink salt, the basic idea is to season the pork belly with a salt rub and then let it sit in the fridge for a week. (For the full set of instructions, refer to Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman).

pork belly

When the week is up, the pork belly is slow roasted in a low oven for a few hours.

cured pork belly before it goes into the oven

After that, you’ve officially made bacon, and you’re ready to cut of a piece, fry it up, and eat it!

The Recipe

What to make with bacon, well, besides the obvious?

farm fresh eggs and home-cured bacon

I think the real question is, what would I not make with bacon? (Sorry Deborah Madison.  I love your cookbooks but I am putting bacon in with those veggies.)  Back before I got sick, I had nice ideas about making some kind of pasta dish, with roasted pumpkin from the garden and bacon lardons, maybe some toasted nuts, fresh parsley, some asiago cheese…

ingredients for the dish that never was

The Fever and the Cold Medicine say that we’re making Bacon Cheeseburgers and that all that vegetable stuff is for losers.

The Best Bacon-Filled Bacon-Topped Cheeseburgers EVER!

These are the BEST cheeseburgers! I think the only reason I’m really sharing this recipe is all the cold medicine, usually it’s a big secret.  These burgers are juicy and packed with flavor (and super bad for you!)  Also, there’s a secret ingredient- grated fresh tomato! I stole this from a Middle-Eastern kebab recipe, because it’s works well in burgers too, and adds a ton of extra flavor and moisture.

In the winter I use a cast-iron grill pan to cook these burgers. In the summer, they go outside on the Weber grill.  You could also sear them in a cast iron skillet and then put them in the oven for about 10 minutes if you don’t own a grill pan.  

Makes about 6 burgers

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

For The Burger:

  • 1.5 lb. 80/20 ground beef
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 large onion
  • 1 small slicer tomato (not a cherry tomato, just a small tomato)
  • 1/8 c. BBQ sauce (whatever you have is fine)
  • 1 c. cooked, diced bacon (don’t be a baby, yes, I wrote ONE WHOLE CUP, just do it)
  • 2/3 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper
  • 1 tbs. garlic powder
  • a few tablespoons of grapeseed oil to season the grill

For the toppings:

  • lettuce, tomato, and onion
  • 8 bacon slices, cooked
  • 5 oz. extra sharp cheddar cheese (about 1/2 block), sliced thinly
  • 6 hamburger buns, toasted (whatever type floats your boat is fine)
  • ketchup, mustard, mayonaise
  • homemade pickles

1. I like to preheat my grill pan on very low heat.  Turn on the flame and using a clean cloth, rub grapeseed oil all over the grill.  Any other high-heat oil will work (like canola oil).

2. Using the large holes in a box grater, grate the tomato and onion and put the resulting pulp in a bowl.  It will be watery and messy, just dump it all in the bowl.

burger ingredients

3. Add the other ingredients for the burger to the bowl with the tomato and onion.  Using your hands (wash them first!), fold all the ingredients together gently, trying not to overwork the meat, but still making sure everything is well-incorporated.

4. Form the mixture into six patties and set on a clean plate until you are ready to grill (these could be made in advance, if you wanted, and put in the fridge now).

5. On medium heat, grill for about 4 minutes on each side, or until burgers are cooked to medium.  When they’re two minutes away from being done, layer two bacon slices and about an ounce of cheese on top of the burgers, and cover for a minute to melt the cheese. (I just use big lid from a different pan, since grill pans don’t really have covers).  Very important: Since these burgers have a ton of moisture in them, they will fall apart easily on the grill.  Don’t mess with them! Just put it on the grill, wait four minutes, flip it, wait four minutes, and put it on a bun. Don’t rearrange the grill 900 times while you’re waiting for them to finish.

6. Arrange the burgers on toasted buns with whatever toppings you like, and serve with pickles. Be happy.

bacon goodness

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January Charcutepalooza Challenge: Duck Prosciutto

Posted on February 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

the finished product: duck prosciutto, sage cracker, olive oil marinated chevre, montmorency cherry jam and blood oranges

Where to start… I had huge problems trying to photograph and write something about my first Charcutepalooza project.  For one, the whole process – obtaining duck breasts, learning how to cure them, waiting for them to cure, and then finally knowing how to tell when the meat is finished and ready to eat – was long and very drawn out.  I got kind of bored mid way through, lost interest, and decided to make marmalade and plant flowers, and that was infinitely more entertaining.  That is…  until I sampled some of the finished product! Delicious revelations in cured meats! Needless to say I am on completely on board the charcuterie bandwagon again.  That was the second road block- the prosciutto was disappearing off the cutting board faster than I could go get my camera. In the end, though, this project was exactly what it should be- salty, buttery, melt-in-your mouth goodness.

As part of this year long journey, I am trying to use animals that were either farm- raised or hunted by myself or someone that I know.  I was able to trade eggs for a few of these:

wild duck

This is my favorite kind of transaction: A friend of mine wanted eggs. I have eggs. I wanted duck. He had a bunch of them. No money needed, simple barter of goods for goods.  An interesting point to take note of is that quality of the bartered goods- I can tell you with absolute certainty that my eggs have richer yolks and better flavor than any eggs you will ever find at the grocery store, or sometimes even at a big farmers market.  Large-scale poultry farms, whether they are free-range and organic or not, are not usually able to provide everything that we can.  Our hens have space and sunshine; they are able to forage for wild greens and bugs, and we amend their diets with lots of scraps from the kitchen and the gardens.  In the same vein, the wild ducks that I was able to get are leaner and less greasy than farm-raised ducks, they have a richer flavor since there is more meat and less fat, and I can eat them in good conscience, knowing that they lived happy duck lives in the wild, the way they are supposed to.  The moral of the story? If individuals strive to become part of a healthy food system either by having a garden, supporting local farms, hunting, foraging, canning or preserving, we will not need to rely on overpriced corporate giants like Whole Foods to have access to high quality, artisan, hand-crafted goods.  (Really, we won’t need grocery stores at all. The farmer’s market, our backyards and our neighbors backyards can provide all of the things we need for a beautiful, local, healthy diet).

With all of that insane preaching (probably to the choir), at the beginning of the project, I was so nervous about my meat choices and lack of charcuterie experience, that I ran out to the local Co-Op and picked this up:

Ridiculous! Despite how lame that was and as much as I wished that I didn’t buy it, using both farm-raised and wild duck breasts ended up being a really interesting experiment, and now that I’ve got a little more faith in my meat-curing skills, I don’t think I should have to cave in to the temptations of the grocery store again.   I cured four of the breasts, using the same process for all of them- first buried in kosher salt, and then wrapped in cheesecloth and left to cure in a cool, dark space.  (For a full set of instructions, refer to our textbook for the project, Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie).

duck breasts buried in salt

The resulting prosciutto was delicious, and it was really interesting to see the color variations between the two types of duck.  The wild duck’s darker meat became even darker, and it had a really vivid, rich duck flavor.  The farm-raised duck made more of a traditional prosciutto, with a thick ribbon of fat running across each slice and a less obvious duck flavor.
finished prosciutto: the wild duck is on the left, farm-raised on the right

For the Charcutepalooza, each participant is supposed to come up with a unique recipe for the meats that they have made.  Sampling the prosciutto, it became totally clear that ours wasn’t going into some fancy, complicated dish; we needed crackers, and some cheese, and we needed them fast, before it disappeared off the cutting board.  We ended up with a table full of warm, homemade crackers, olive-oil marinated local goat cheese, fresh herbs from the garden, sliced blood oranges from the farmers market, and a jar of my Montmorency sour cherry jam. The sweet-sour-salty combination of the meat, cheese, and cherry jam was amazing, with some fresh cracked black pepper on top for spice, a sprinkle of fresh thyme, and sliced blood oranges to brighten the whole thing up and make sure it didn’t get to heavy with fat and sugar.  I have to emphasize again: really, really tasty.

montmorency cherry jam

If you want to recreate something like this, a basic list of ingredients would be:

  • cured duck breast (it’s really incredibly easy!)
  • jam or jelly such as fig, cherry, or red wine will work the best with duck
  • cheese (I like goat cheese here)
  • crackers (Recipe follows…. scroll down)
  • fresh herbs
  • fresh fruit
  • pepper
  • olive oil

No need to be too fancy, just put all those items out on a cutting board and go to town. Enjoy!


Homemade Sesame-Sage Crackers

This was also the first time I’m made my own crackers. This recipe is so simple and cheap, I doubt I’ll ever buy them again.

Ingredients:

  • 1 c. flour (I used all-purpose white, you could use whole wheat too)
  • 2 tbs. cold butter, cut into small pieces
  • 1/4 c. cold water
  • 2 tbs. sesame seeds
  • 1 heaping tbs. chopped herbs (I used mostly sage, with some rosemary, marjoram and thyme; whatever you have in the garden is fine)
  • 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
  • 1/8 tsp. paprika
  • 1/8 tsp. turmeric
  • 1 1/2 tsp. sea salt

1. Combine all the ingredients except the water in a food processor.  Mix until crumbly (like making a pie crust) and then slowly add in the water. Mix until the dough comes together in a ball (it’s okay to add a few tablespoons of water if you need).  The dough should just come together, and not be sticky.

2. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and roll as thin as possible.

3. Transfer dough to an ungreased baking sheet. Poke holes in the dough with a fork, and score with a knife if you want to break it apart later to have square crackers.

4. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Cool, and break into pieces.  I have no idea how they would store, since we ate them within a few hours.

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