Gotta Cook!

Whenever we are gone for four or five days, we are wild to start baking/stewing/souping/braising - and just plain making - again in the kitchen. Even if we have been staying places with kitchens so we can make some real food, we still come home raring to go.

I suppose part of this urge stems from how bare we leave our fridge when we head out. When we get home from a trip, the home made food "cupboard" is pretty bare. We are loath to grab something out at a restaurant. Didn't we just do that off and on for the past few days?

Today found us mad for making!

Lloyd with his fresh baked bread

Lloyd made his rustic whole wheat bread - a welcome all day project. A loaf for his mom, a loaf for a neighbor and two loaves for us to enjoy over the next few weeks.

And if you have fresh warm bread, what is better than soup? I got busy making a Scotch Oatmeal Soup - leeks, carrots, celeriac, a jar of our canned tomatoes, cabbage and a half cup of steel cut oats. It's hearty and tangy and perfect accompaniment for crusty bread! The recipe is from Dana Jacobi's 12 Best Foods Cookbook.

With the leftover celeriac from the soup, we made the Celery Root and Hash Brown Cake from Deborah Madison's Vegetable Literacy and paired it with some tasty leftover turkey and gravy for the family Thanksgiving yesterday.  We did like the celery pop but the greasiness of the hashbrowns - not so much!

Finally we had some pork shanks we wanted to braise today to use in another dish tomorrow. We find that the rich broth from the slow braised pork pairs perfectly with the winter root vegetable (leeks, fennel and cabbage) braise we make often. That recipe comes from Fine Cooking Magazine No. 18 from Dec 96/Jan 97. It's killer!

So that's our day of delectable makings.

Do ever feel that "gotta cook" urge after time away from the kitchen?

Late Fall Eating

We all enjoy the robust summer growing season that brings us a ton of fresh fruits and veggies throughout May-October. It's simple to make meals with the bounty.

Late fall and into winter are more challenging. But in many ways we find the food more interesting.

Many years ago, Steve Keune, offered a year round CSA. Lloyd and I thought it was the perfect time to challenge ourselves to eat with the seasons as much as possible. We had to be uber inventive as the winter closed in with all the root and "keeper" veggies. They took a starring role in our cooking.

We discovered it was easier than we expected to enjoy the vegetables we had available in late fall and early winter. And we got a little hooked on those humble roots in our eating. We have found ourselves in fall or winter CSA's ever since.

Harmony Valley CSA will be providing veggies through January for us this year. Squash, rutabagas, potatoes, onions, beets, brussel sprouts, cabbage, turnips, celeriac, carrots, parsnips, winter radish, sweet potatoes - these all become the stars of braises, stews, mashes, veggie roasts, soups and salads. We buy salad greens at the co-op. This year we are thinking about making sprouts to keep fresh healthy greens at our fingertips too.

Let me share a favorite recipe that lets rutabagas shine out. It's inspired by a recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone : Turnip or Rutabaga Puree with Leeks

Rutabaga/Potato Mash

• 2 small buttery potatoes (russet,  yukon gold, kennebac, yellow finn), peeled & chopped
• 1 medium rutabaga, peeled and chopped to about half the size of the potato chunks
• 1 medium leek, white parts only chopped
• splash of buttermilk 
• 1-2 T butter, depending on your taste
• S & P

Add water to cover veggies, some salt and simmer, partially covered 15-20 minutes or until tender. Drain the liquid. Mash the veggies with butter and buttermilk until smooth. Eat 'em up!

Cold weather coming? We are ready!

I Killed It!!!

Like many of you we have been making our own yogurt for years.

Our former CSA farmer on the eastern side of the state, Steve Keune, had shared a starter culture of mjölk or as it is more commonly known filmjölk about fifteen years ago. This creamy, slightly tangy yogurt-like dairy product is about the easiest way to make yogurt in the universe.

It cultures right on the counter! Add milk to a few tablespoons of the last batch, place it in a corner of the counter, unrefrigerated, and 24 hours later, you have a new batch. No heat, no timing, just yogurt. To keep it going it needs to be cultured weekly. We learned to make a pint of fresh mjolk weekly - enough to make a smoothie and use some for topping soups, stews and etc. We easily handled that amount and kept it fresh.

I shared my batches with plenty of friends and relatives over the years and, up until two weeks ago, only lost it once before in 2008. Steve provided me with another starter but I knew I better be ready in the future just in case it happened again. I couldn't keep depending on Steve now that I'm across state.

Around March, I noticed my culture getting weaker - a little more watery and a little less firm. I used whole milk and every couple of months half and half to boost its fat content to see if that would work. It was hanging in. I had some heavy cream for a recipe and thought, "I'm going to make a batch with that!" and see if I can add some muscle to the mjölk. The next morning, I found a completely broken yogurt. One sniff told me the tale. I killed it! A sniff of the cream told me why. It had turned and I hadn't noticed.

Filmjölk culturing on our old family highchair

Luckily, I had done my homework and checked the internet. There are a number of sites that sell starter cultures. I ordered two. When it arrived, we mixed the culture in a pint of fresh milk and put our baby by the specified 70-77F spot (a little tough during WI fall-towards-winter) near the pilot light on our gas fireplace. The instructions said it would culture within 12-48 hours.

We waited anxiously.

12 hours - still milk!

24 hours - still milk! (gulp)

36 hours - mjölk!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're back in business again. Today we had a delicious smoothie and started our weekly culturing again. Tomorrow morning, our fresh baby will be waiting  again!

Making and Transforming Food

Our Ridgeland Harvest CSA has begun for the season - we're in our fourth of twenty weeks of the bounty of Wisconsin veggies. After fifteen years in CSAs, we know what each week is likely to bring and are delighted at the challenge of the unexpected veggie.   This Fourth of July weekend was particularly fun because it contained three days to make after being gone to a conference for the entire previous week. I missed cooking!

In the box we had rhubarb, green onions, 2# of peas, 1# of lettuce, napa cabbage, swiss chard, cilantro, broccoli, garlic scapes and a fennel bulb. What could be better? It's fun to spend 3-4 hours on each of these three long weekend days making and transforming these goodies into food for today, tomorrow...and the months ahead!

We started with rhubarb/strawberry fruit crisps. We make them in little coffee cups - a perfect bite and easy to share with friends and family.

Next, time to make garlic scape pesto. While reading the Fresh Food Nation: Simple Seasonal Recipes from America's Farmers,  the author MArtha Holmberg suggested lightly sauteeing the scapes first to soften them - and their sharp flavor. Oh baby, that pesto is to die for. It is frozen and ready for a winter's night pasta when we miss the sun and warmth of summer so much we could cry.

Then we must deal with those sweet plump peas. For us, it is Risi e Bisi or nothing. Our recipe comes from Saveur magazine and we use up those lovely green onions as well.

Our first cilantro features heavily in burritos we make and freeze for lunches. We make rice and add minced cilantro and juice of a lime. Combine that with refried beans, green chiles, and taco meat made with plenty of chile powder, cumin and onions and we have a burrito factory. We have twenty fat little lunches all frozen and ready for the months ahead.

Napa cabbage is delicious in slaw that is lightly dressed with rice vinegar, a hint of honey and soy and a splash of sesame oil - add a few toasted peanuts or cashews and mmmmmmmmmm.

The broccoli gets a light steam and is dressed with the same rice vinegar, honey, soy sauce and sesame oil - we add toasted sesame seeds for a wonderful undertone.

The lettuce is part of sandwiches and salads. This is the one time of year, in an homage to a favorite sandwich of my childhood, that I buy braunschweiger (liver sausage) and pile lettuce high on it for a tasty treat on Lloyd's homemade wheat bread.

The chard and fennel will be part of a Vietnamese rice stir fry that we make and munch the few days following - sesame oil, soy sauce, a little sugar and finished with eggs. It's a great place to include any other veggies lurking from last week too.

When people ask me if getting a CSA is worth it, I always answer yes...as long as you love to make and cook as much as we do!

What's Cooking as the Year Ends and Begins

Tourtiere - French Canadian meat pie

I asked friends to share some of their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day epicurean traditions on Twitter and Facebook. Saying goodbye to the old and blessing the new can bring out deep and complex traditions of delight.

One of my fondest New Year's memories was when I was living across state in Menasha. A friend, born and raised in Europe, invited us to share a meal of New Year's lentils for luck. Beyond the warm friendship and sharing of a meal, the subtle flavors she coaxed from the lentils brought them from legume to legendary. 

I blogged about our tradition last year - cassoulet shared with friends.  What else are people preparing?

Cheryl: We are having a New Year's Eve homemade pizza, and a New Year's day breakfast. Jim calls the breakfast a "lumberjack breakfast;" I don't know why. (Eggs, potatoes, onion, cheese, ham or sausage or Canadian bacon, sometimes breadcrumbs, all together in a skillet.)

Melissa: Homemade pasta for New Year's Eve and homemade pierogis for New Year's Day....oh,and Bailey's cookies on New Year's Eve!

Ally: On new year's day, everyone I know eats black-eyed peas for luck. I've been informed that this is very southern. :)  My grandmother also insists on collard greens!

Jennifer Ann (in response to above):  SUPER Southern. This WI girl had never heard of such a thing until she married a Texan. Oh, a Cuban friend of mine makes us eat 12 grapes at midnight (1 for each clock-stroke) and you make 12 wishes!

Roxane and Steve: Venison/veggie stew and Bloody Mary's with our own pepper infused vodka. 

Meagan: Collard greens, black eyed peas & ham on New Years are a Southern tradition for luck & prosperity. I'm slow-cooking a soup with collards, peas and a crunchy bacon garnish...hopefully it will trick my husband into liking greens!  

Sue: Some day I'm going to get a taste of that cassoulet! But I do have my jar of herring ready for the stroke of midnight!

Stacy:  We do tourtière on New Year's Eve.

I can't help but want to share in all that delightful food. Happy New Year, my friends!

 

The Power of a Made Meal

For the past ten days, both Lloyd and I battled a seasonal flu that had us down low.  Low energy, low appetite, low brain, low motivation.  At the same time, our refrigerator was not staying cool  - we had to keep it closed as much as possible to maintain safe food temperature. So we were limited in food at hand while we had repair folks out twice over five days fixing the problem.

Canned soups became the food of necessity. And we got tired of them very quickly.  After five days, with a refrigerator fixed, I finally had enough energy that I could stop relying on a can opener.  We started eating the real food we love again.

We had purchased a small bundle of pork from our CSA and with our final delivery of potatoes and onions, our first home-cooked meal after a week was scalloped potatoes with ham. I used an old recipe from Betty Crocker, a carefully used mandolin, parts of a ham steak and plenty of potatoes and onions.

It was comfort food from both our childhoods - a welcome homecoming back to making our own food again. It seems like a small thing, but the moment I could summon the energy to make a meal of real food again made me feel immeasurably better.

For the past few days we have been able to make our own simple meals again - pancakes, lambburgers, cooked carrots, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, scotch broth, roasted fish, pasta with our own sauce. We feel the comfort of familiar flavors and believe in the healing that a meal made with our hands from scratch makes possible.

 

The Art and Play of Candy - The Recipe

After our family history and a bit about the process, here is the recipe and sources! We keep the house cool during the process (65F or less) so the chocolate can cool without streaks.

Turtles
2# small pecans (Trader Joe) 
2# small unsalted, unroasted cashews (Weavers Country Market, Fall Creek, WI)

Spread nuts on parchment paper-covered rimmed baking pans (I use six 12"x17" pans purchased from a restaurant supply store).

2# Wilbur milk chocolate (in blocks) (Weavers Country Market)
2# Wilbur dark chocolate (in blocks) (Weavers Country Market)

Caramel (from Pearl Vonyx, a neighbor from our childhood)

Mom's beat-up old 2 c. measuring cup
for the syrup. Gotta use it!

• 3 1/2 sticks of salted butter
• 2# light brown sugar
• 2 cups Karo syrup
• 1 can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
• dash (or more) salt - this is my secret - I go towards the more so my caramels aren't as much sweet as interesting!
• 1 T. vanilla

Melt butter over medium heat. Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir constantly for about 45 minutes until the temperature reaches 247F. Let cool for a few minutes. Then drop small amounts of caramel on the nuts, using a spoon or candy funnel. Cool completely.

Chocolate

Cutting the chocolate blocks

Melting the chips

Hand dipping the chocolate onto the caramel pecans

Chop into small chips and place in small metal pan. Put the pan in a non-reactive skillet with 3/4"-1" of water held at just below simmer (keeps the chocolate at a temperature of between 110-112F). Add water when necessary. Stir chocolate until melted, pour onto a marble and temper (push back and forth over the surface of the marble) to 87F for milk and 89F for dark. Using spoon or hand, drop chocolate onto the cooled caramel-nut clusters. Cool and pack into boxes or tins, using wax paper or parchment paper between layers.

And that's how a batch of turtles gets done - an hour to make the caramel and get it on the nuts. An hour to cool. Two hours to chop, melt, temper and dip. An hour to cool. An hour to pack.  Then a chance to test the result and decide if these little beauties are good enough to give away (YES!!).

Each and every time I repeat this annual holiday ritual, my mom is close to me in thought and heart. I hear the echoes of the laughter, the chatter and the warmth of my sisters and aunts and cousins who worked at the prodigious task of making the candy. Each sweep of my hand and squeeze of chocolate brings back a sense of home and holiday. And I am so grateful for this beautiful skill my mom shared with me. Happy holidays!