Curried Cauliflower in Squash Custard

This morning I laid in bed thinking about a squash ricotta ravioli in a cauliflower cream sauce. In the end a few adjustments were made. The recipe below is for two of the IKEA pans I gave you for Christmas. You could cut the recipe in half or bake the other in an oven proof bowl.

This afternoon I accidentally discovered a process to extract potato starch. When I boiled the potatoes for lefsa last week I froze the water which they were boiled in to use later in bread. This morning I took a hunk of the frozen potato water and placed it in a pan on low heat and left it alone. When I came back to check on it the starch had separated from the water in a strange globuleous mass. I assume if I could have dried it and pounded it into a powered potato starch (i didn't). Sure does make excellent bread...



Also attached is a pic of our excellent Eggnog from Christmas - Thanks for the raw milk Rachel!


Curried Cauliflower in Squash Custard
Blender or whisk up:
1 1/2 cups squash puree (i used Australian blue)
1 cup whole milk
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt

Saute with hot olive oil:
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 finely chopped shallots
2 T finely chopped ginger
add:
1/2 tsp curry powder
aprox 2 cups cauliflower

Divide cauliflower mixture between pans and cover with squash mixture. Place in a 9x13 and fill the larger pan with 1/2 way up with hot water.
Bake at 350 for aprox 45 minutes.

Cookies!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yumm Yumm Yumm

so far , krumkakas and dipped pretzels

soon to make;

Swedish toate, sugarccookies, peppermint snowballs, pecan tarts, rosettes, spritz, chocolte and maple fudge

Are we missing anything? Let us know.

Brussle Sprouts

Yumm,

mom pan sautaied some farmers market brussles - thanks Tab & Steve. They were mixed with some ham from a ham halk, and some cheese and over rice.

For desert we ate a wonderful pound cake, full of shreded chocolate and nutmeg. Mmmm Mmm

Oooo we set up the trees, yes we have 2 this year. Looking forward to the yummy treats!

bottling cider (and gratin)

Joe and I bottled our hard cider yesterday! I took this picture with the laptop while he ran to the bar on the corner to find more empty bottles. Unfortunately they were having a special on a beer with a twist off cap. So we had to finish by bottling into some canning jars. I have a towel over them in case they explode!

I think it's going to be a success! It tastes really good- not too sweet, not to acidic, bubbly. And it will change in the next few weeks so hopefully it will get even better. Making it was very fun and pretty easy.

Here's also a fruit gratin I had for breakfast. Pear, kiwi, apple and orange pieces with cream and brown sugar under the broiler. I have that fruit CSA I'm always mentally struggling with (cost vs. fun, real CSA vs. fake CSA, need vs. want) but which tastes delicious and does make me find tasty cool new ways to eat fruit.

Lets talk about what we are going to eat for Christmas soon! I'm bringing the milk for egg nog!

yumm

Butter burger Mmmmmmm Pop tart vs. Cub

- cub wins! poptart too artificial!

Sunday Breakfast

It's been a while since I made a nice Sunday Breakfast. Homemade Sunday breakfast usually includes an entire days worth of calories. This morning I made buttermilk waffles, coffee and hot cocoa, a most excellent way to start the day.




The caption on the peanut brittle recipe reads "Boys' favorite - mothers who find it at church sales take some home". Guess where this recipe comes from... I believe my "man will be pleased" when he arrives home and beholds what I have made:)



Finally, below is the promised dumpling recipe. It's from Beatrice Ojakangas' New Ideas for Casseroles (published in 85). I never would have picked it up if it hadn't been written by her - it's quality

Dumplings:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 T minced fresh parsley
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground mace or nutmeg
2/3 cup milk
2 Tbl butter, melted
1 egg, slightly beaten.

Mix all dry - stir in wet until just moistened. Drop by tablespoonfuls cover and cook minimum 15 minutes

Anamamme theif!

It was good, warm and with a tad of salt.

yet another try

hmmm

hi just trying again.

turkeyalaking

I'm trying to see if I can get my pictures up yet. If there is nothing just ignore it, i'm trying.
Have a great weekend!
whoohoo a storm!!!!!!!!!!

Turkey ala King

yumm yumm, it tasted great with turkey and on a nice bun.

Comfort Food

It's been a couple of weeks since I took the bus and walked home from work. Even walking quickly with my nordic mittens from mom and cat hat from Eppie, I was still cold. All I could think about was biscuits and gravy on the walk home. I managed to thaw most of the lamb under cold running water and made Dad style gravy (thickened with cornstarch), it hit the spot.








I tried making Olibollen (with some modifications) two weekends ago and failed miserably. I don't like to waste so much oil on one batch of food so falafel was had yesterday.




You can see the Gingerbread Houses that were made during Fun Day last Friday. I wanted to keep them all to decorate the house!

brussels sprouts, again

I cook em up once a year. And while I'm hesitant to say I like them, each year I do find something more and more palatable to make with Brussels sprouts. This year I halved and roasted them with garlic. Then I mixed them with bacon, caramelized onions, sage, squash cubes, and a sauce of cream, white wine and mustard. It was my best effort yet!! I'll even say I liked it!

pumpkin chili cupcakes

More pumpkinny fun! I made pumpkin chili cupcakes. They have a bit of ancho chili in them and a tasty chocolate frosting. Here's the recipe, http://www.gildedfork.com/pastryprincess/2007/10/cupcake-round-up-2.html
Check out this fun recipe for Coffee and Doughnut cupcakes! http://cupcakeblog.com/index.php/2007/09/doughnuts-and-coffee-cupcakes/

prize winner #2

Here is tonight's dinner. A grilled sharp cheddar, apple (ashmead's kernal- a tart russet) and caramelized onion sandwich with squash lentil soup.

The sandwich was another REAP recipe contest winner- and it's good! Working from home makes making bread and caramelized onions pretty easy. Sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do with what I'm making, but I'll figure it out or give it away instead.

The soup was made with squash and puy lentils and a ton of spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, coriander, cumin, kala jera, paprika, fennel seed, pepper, cloves, allspice, saffron, cardamom, and galangal and orange peel. Then it still didn't taste very good- I think because I didn't have stock so I had to use water. So I added pomegranate molasses and kalamata olive tapenade. Then it was good!

virtuous pumpkin pie

The other night we made fish tacos and krispy kale for dinner. (the krispy kale was great Rach! all flamage was avoided) We made a black bean and corn salad to go with the fish. Tasty tasty dinner.

Dessert was punkin pie! It matches rachels virtuous souffle. I lost the rubber ring for the blender, so we put the pumpkin through a ricer. Some of the squashes I have squish right through it, but the pie pumpkin I had was crazy stringy so it would barely go through the ricer. And sometimes because we were pushing so hard to get it through, some bits of pumpkin would make it through and go flying. Anyway, good fun. We ended up with a tasty pumpkin pie, definitely more texture than canned pumpkin, but the flavor was excellent. And pie, as always, is an awesome breakfast
.

White Yam Ravoli

On Friday Stephen & I made up a white yam ravioli with a mushroom, sage cream sauce. The yam took a solid hour and a half to bake. To make the filling we mixed it with ricotta, nutmeg, salt and pepper. The sauce was shallots, mushrooms, sage, paprika, salt and cream. The texture of the filling was not smooth and made for a nice contrast to the cream and soft mushroom sauce. It was surprisingly yummy.

Tonight I made a yummy "old fashioned cinnamon sugar cookie". I think it's called old fashioned since the batter is made with sour cream - very similar to a hermit cookie without the fruit. Simple and delicious.

hummm diddy he he... hua hua

Hi guys, well I have been cooking a lot lately, I just forget to take pictures. This is an squash, apple, fennel soup I made last week. It turned out delicious! It had chopped fennel bulb and ground toasted fennel seed in it. The garnish is apple "matchsticks", there is apple in the soup also. The biscuits were a recipe from the Herbfarm Cookbook, they have wheat and white flour and cornmeal in them (also called for rye but I didn't have any) Good and hearty.

We finally bottled Matt's peach wine from back in July. It smells pretty yeasty still, but it has good potential to be tasty. We'll try it in a few months.

And, I thought you might like to see where Catfish sits when I'm cooking...

Pizza

Yummy yummy,
We made homeaid pizza. I made the crust!
green pepers green olives pepparoni
and corn meal on the bottom.
Happy Weekend
~sAraH

A Day of Cooking & Baking

It's been busy lately and I haven't had much energy for cooking. Today I made up for it. I made buttermilk pancakes (Martha Stewart recipe of course) for lunch and Chicken and Dumplings for dinner . While Dads Chicken and Dumplings are still great I now prefer my method.

Chicken and Dumplings my way. Skin the chicken and cut into six pieces (two legs, two wings and cut the chest cavity in half). Boil in water for approximately 20 minutes - until the meat is done. Take the meat off the bones and through the bones back into boil for at least another 30 minutes. Strain the stock and add a whole celery bunch cut up and a good portion of a 5lb bag of carrots thinly sliced and the chicken meat. Boil for only 15 minutes. Add dumplings on top cover and simmer 15 minutes. With this method nothing is mushy and the chicken is not stringy.

I've been craving homemade bread so I baked a loaf of Oatmeal bread. My refrigerator is also full of apples so I made two loaf pans of Brandied Apple Spice Cake - tiz yummy. Also I started on the gingerbread houses for my friends to decorate at Fun Day - you can see the pictures. I finished 10 roofs and 10 front and backs - no side walls yet - later.

After visiting mom yesterday we dropped Sarah off at work. I wanted to buy a loaf of bread from her and settled on the Finish Sourdough Rye. She couldn't cut it for me because it would bread the machine! It weighted 3 lbs! Anyway after smelling it in the car I decided it needed some dill havarti and turkey just like open face rye sandwiches at Twig Church Potluck - it was a fun diversion.

Fuyu Persimmons

They're not bad! In fact, they're pretty tasty.

I have a fruit CSA for the winter- it's not locally grown but it is a random selection of in-season fruit from around the country grown on small farms. This week was my first installment and I got some local luscious pears, Valencia oranges, avocados, apples, (pink lady variety- which I'd never had because I don't buy apples in the store, but they're good!) and persimmons.

I wasn't too excited about the persimmons but after reading up on the variety- Fuyu, I found they are supposed to be eaten while still firm. Hachiya persimmons are eaten "when they feel like a water balloon" and I'm pretty sure that's what we had as kids. These Fuyus are good! The texture is pleasant, the flavor is good, and they are very pretty. I ate half of one straight and then I pureed the other half and used it to try and fix my experiment from yesterday- a macaroon type cookie made from cooked wild rice. It's not been a raging success but oh well... I'm happy to discover that Fuyu persimmons are pretty good.

salads

I've been eating a lot of salads recently. Which is a really new thing- I've been pretty scornful of salads in the past because they are just so boring and such. But the friend I mentioned who doesn't eat raw veggies, he particularly laments that he can't eat apples in salads anymore. So I thought, well yeah, that sounds pretty good and I've got a jillion apples. But really, I found the key to good salads.

Kalamata olive tapenade/olivada. Mix it with a little more olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and mustard and it's a truly delicious salad dressing. I've had it with apples, raisins, walnuts, red pepper, spinach, romaine, hard boiled egg, tomato, crutons, carrots, etc. Not all at the same time mind you.

This is the salad I had tonight- yep it's as enormous as it looks. It's spinach, lettuce and blanched kale with bacon, apples, paprika peppers and radish with the dressing above. Gosh it's good. I just love kale, blanched and sauteed or baked, or whatever. It's so good and chewy.

I got my first winter csa box yesterday- squash, sweet potatoes, normal potatoes, kale, spinach, radish, beets, celeriac, turnips, leeks, lettuce, brussel sprouts (good braised wiht bacon and mustard seed but that's about it for me and brussels), onions, carrots, and my garden still has eggplants!

Hey tab, the green tomato jam is just bad. Yich. I don't like green tomatoes. what a bummer- a real waste of 5 c of sugar and an orange and apple. Oh well! I'm actually still gonna try the carrot cake jam.

stale

For breakfast I had a bowl of stale old coco puffs mixed with stale old cookie crisp

Mushroom Seitan Currry

Yep - last week was busy - I'm glad it's done. I decided to make apple hand pies this weekend. *I break into this posting for an aside. I almost didn't create this blog because I didn't want you guys to know how much I get obsessed on a particular food. I tend to make something over and over for a couple of weeks or months and then move on. You may have noticed the hand pie theme....

Anyway I basically made an applesauce with Prairie Spy, Northern Spy, Anise Hyssop, a little sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and star anise. I thought that by putting it in a hand pie it would be like a normal pie - Not so. I just don't like applesauce. Give me pie, crisp, cider, or raw apples - no applesauce, not even in a hand pie.

Tonight I made an "interesting" yummy quick curry. Sauteed some shallots and ginger in butter; add mushrooms, seitan and sweet curry powder saute further; add goat yogurt, a little home canned tomatoes, a little pumpkin ale, and a little water - simmer till good and serve over rice.

shake n' bake vs. slop n' glop

I was over at Allisons for dinner. She was going make chicken fingers - basically strips of chicken coated in bisquick. So I wasn't watching as she mixed up the egg and added the bisquick - butter- spices. So she goes to coat the chicken but all it is is a big bunch of glob. So I read the directions. She was suposed to cover with the egg and then the dry ingredients would stick. Suprisingly it tasted fine. But it sure looked gross as we tried to glob muck on the chicken.

Chutney n such

Hey ya. So I guess I haven't really eaten anything interesting lately. Hence the lack of posts. Well, actually I have eaten interesting things, but I had friends over and it seemed weird to wave my laptop in front of the food before we eat. Maybe I'll get used to it...

So this here is my leftover roast chicken from Wed (I roasted one of Kristen's enormous birds with herb butter under the skin, served with root veggies, spinach salad and apple crisp)in a sandwich. I've been getting into the chutney thing lately so this is with a rhubarb curry chutney I made last spring. It keeps forever in the fridge. My late lunch doesn't look very good, but it tasted good.

I've got two recipes planned for this weekend: green tomato, mint and apple chutney and carrot cake jam! Carrots, currants, sugar, apples, cinnamon, walnuts... MMmmmm!

pumpkin seeds

Matt and I had fun with pumpkins on Saturday, We carved them and roasted/toasted the seeds. It was a nice day to sit in the grass. They are not handling the warm temps real well, drying out and getting funny looking, but perhaps that makes them more halloweeney.
I had my first okra cooking experience last week. (ominous dun dun dunnnns) but it was pretty good. They came in our CSA so I figured I should cook them up right away, otherwise I probably would have "forgot" about them. I roasted them in the oven with radishes and zucchini, and ate them with cheesy herbed polenta. I'm sporting a nasty burn on my wrist from the polenta, but it turned out tasty.

26 varieties and dinner

I went to an apple orchard this weekend that had 30 varieties for sale! I took their purple sharpie and wrote the names on 26 of them so I could try and learn which one's I especially like. I'll have to peel the names away before I eat the whole apple, but I think it's a worthy venture anyways. I'll let you know what I conclude as I eat my way through them! I don't want to slice all of them all at once, I'm just going to take notes as I go.

Then, here's my dinner: a salmon cake on swiss chard with sorrel sauce. I just discovered the salmon in a tuna-type pouch. Less mercury than tuna and if it's Alaskan wild-caught, then it's sustainable too! My salmon cake could use some refining- it was kinda tough but tasty anyways. Oh and it's in the living room so you have a chance to see some new scenery- the davenport, the coffeetable eppie made, and even the rubber tree.

Lentil Ham Soup

For dinner I made a lentil ham soup and was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. I hit and miss with thrown together soups.

Saute in olive oil 3 shallots and 2 cloves of garlic. Add a ham bone and one leek finely chopped - saute 4 minutes. Add water, large sprig of sage, one diced turnip, one diced kohlrabi, 1/3 cup lentils, 1/3 cup diced ham, salt and cumin; bring to a boil then simmer till done. Serve with parmesan.

Friday Fun

Yesterday Stephen & I visited Frontenac State Park and visited the Alexis Bailly Vineyard. My work week was Sun-Thurs so Stephen took Friday off to gallivant with me. The mushroom picture is from our walk along the Mississippi River. The park trails are about 15-20 feet in from the Mississippi shore and 8-10 feet higher than the water line. Very steep trails from the cliff edge to the river. Tons of fun mushrooms to take pictures of - if you want more mushroom pics let me know.

There is a vineyard 10 miles south of Hastings, along our route back to St. Paul. I've never stopped at a winery before so we tried it. For $5 per person we tried all of the wines they produce - 2 whites, 2 rose, 4 reds, and 3 dessert. I ended up purchasing a bottle of their ice wine even though they cheat. Ice wine is supposed to be made with grapes they leave on the vine to freeze. Then while the grapes are frozen they squeeze any of the remaining liquid out. Instead they press their grapes, freeze the liquid and discard the frozen water...Oh Well. It was fun.

Ole's boller! (oliebollen)

I dub them tasty!
I made them with currants but without the candied lemon. The candied lemon peel really would be great in them, although I was thinking while eating one that lemon icing would do in a pinch. I rolled them in sugar to add some sweetness. Thanks for the recipe Tab!
Time for a cup of tea now...

Honey Carmel Corn

Tab made some so I had to. Only I was out of corn syrup, and had only half of the required brown sugar.

Epp, you said you wanted the recepie;

20 cups popped corn

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 plus 2 tb. honey
1 tsp salt
MIX ALL BOiL for 5 Min
ADD 1/2 tsp Soda
PUT IN 250 Oven, stir every 15 min for 45 min.
Drool
eAt
Drool
EAt

Roasting tomatoes

Hi guys, tonight I used up a batch of Roma Tomatoes. Last spring on an episode of good eats, alton brown made a tomato sauce out of romas roasted in the oven and run through a food mill. Since I don't have a food mill, I peeled them first, roasted them, and put them in the blender. They turned out pretty great, I left them in the oven for a good hour probably. At the same time I roasted a bit of zucchini and egglplant to add to the sauce. Topped off with some crumbled goat cheddar, it was tasty!

Who is going to make me these doughnuts?

Instead of walking home from my bus stop in Highland I looked for cookbooks at Half Price Books and took myself out to tea at the TeaSource while waiting for Stephen to pick me up. It was sample day at the TeaSource - 5 3oz samples of tea for $3.00 - a good deal. I had Lavenderberry (yicky rooibos based - smells like rust), Yunnan Puerh (I gave it a good try but it tastes like a damp cave), Milk Oolong (absolutely delicious - tastes like sweet butter with a slight floral edge), Some sort of fruit flavored green tea, and Prairie Passion (ya'll have had that).

For $10.00 Half Price coughed up three lovely books for me. One buck for The Festive Bread Book, one buck for Crepes, and seven for Will Write For Food.

The following recipe is from The Festive Bread Book. Supposedly this was "an American favorite in eighteenth-century New York". I think it sounds fascinating because of the grated apples and candied lemon peel - might be a good one to try for Thanksgiving.

Oliebollen
2/1/2 - 3 cups flour
1/2 T yeast
3 T sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp grated lemon peel
1/4 cup milk
2/3 cup cream
2 T butter
2 egg yolks
1 cup coarsely grated apples
1/3 cup raisins (I would use currents instead or omit them all together)
1/4 cup candied lemon peel

Heat milk, cream and butter till hot. Sift dry ingredients. Beat all ingredients together add flour to make a soft dough. Rise until double. Beat dough down and form into balls the size of a walnut. Fry in 375 degree oil.

the turkey is in the bag!

I don't know what mine/our/yours plans are yet for Thanksgiving but my money is down on a heritage breed from my favorite meat farmers- Jordandal Farm.

Yum! That reminds me Tab I've got apple cider in the fridge and a bottle of Jameson- hmmm yum! Brandy might be better but Jameson does cut the sweetness. I'm going to have to acquire a cold between now and the pm hours so I can earn a hot toddy.

SUGAR!

I've been craving sugar. What better thing to satisfy that craving than with Carmel Corn? It's finally back to decent temperatures so I cooked up a batch this evening. YUM!

Soon I'll be drinking my spiced cider - it's been mulling for the last hour and a half with cinnamon stick, cardamon pod, star anise, allspice and cloves so it should be good now - add a little brandy and it's medicine for my cold.

yumm

asparigus

Yumm Yumm,
we had asparagus for dinner with homemade spinach and squash ravioli with marinara sause.
It was great!
for desert we are eating homemade apple pie alla mode.

I love having a CSA

Our fall CSA started on Thursday and it is superb. It included beans, radishes, mixed greens, turnips (pink on the outside, a huge buch of mustard greens, and eggplants, oh and broccoli too! So so fun. It is crazy that I am getting a "fall" csa and it is consistently in the 70s and 80s everyday. On Thursday I made Turnip Soup with Guyere Croutons, from Deborah Madison's Veg for everyone. It was really tasty (I had no idea I liked turnips!), I couldn't believe it when I read the recipe and had both turnips and guyere in the fridge, it was destined to be... Last night I wanted to use the mustard greens, but could not find a good recipe, so I made a crustless quiche with eggplant, mustard greens, and goat cheese, with brownies for dessert.
The quiche is reheating now for breakfast, then we'll head over to the farmers market, today is the last one for the year. Oh, and if anyone wants to send me a jug of apple cider, I'm open for trades!

it's clear I'm stalling

So I tend to write about breakfast. Could it be I'm trying to stall beginning work for the day? Could be... Well here's the fruits of my recent labors- the morning's breakfast of apple pie (Absolute BEST breakfast in the world) with my three recent jams: chocolate pear, apple raspberry cherry and rhubarb vanilla. Thanks for the recipes Tab!

I was hearing on the radio recently about what happens to people's brains when they pursue the craft (and by craft I mean the creation of something) they love- they loose their sense of time because of the physiology of the brain and the centers for artistic pursuit and time are quite separate. That happens to me when I'm cooking. All of a sudden it's 11pm and I swear I've only begun.

Mom and Sarah came over for Craft Night. Knitting fun was had. Stephens game was cancelled so he made us dinner - vegetable stir fry with seitan. I'm generally not a fan of stir fry but he did all of the vegetables separately so they turned out excellent. Thanks for dinner Stephen!

Note Sarah's drink. Stephen gave her a dragon embellish - I added a treat from Atilda & Earl in its mouth.

One Tough Cookie

Whatever the results of the pathology report - This is our Mom - One Tough Cookie.

eggs

Today for breakfast I ate scrambles eggs with chopped up polish sausage. It was not bad.
But I always end up with watery eggs when ever I scramble, any one know why?

Stephen's Request

Vegetable Pie by Beatrice Ojakangas. Loads of farmer market vegetables in a sour cream pastry crust. Vegies used: napa cabbage, carrots, kolorabi, parsnips and leeks. Other: gouda cheese, thyme and salt.