Sunday, September 30

the day's take


A photo of my garden haul for this afternoon: many eggplants, a pile of paprika and sigaretti peppers, collards, raspberries, basil, tomatoes, rhubarb, and what you can't see is a 5 gallon pail of white yams and 6 big ole squashes!

Whew, what will I do with them all? not quite sure yet... I've got some big sewing projects going on so I'll probably try to preserve them in some way til later.

Hey tab- I'd love the pear and raspberry chocolate jam recipes when you get a chance to scan or type them in. Thanks!

Saturday, September 29

Parsnips



Generally I avoid parsnips - this morning I decided to give parsnips another try - there were so many at the Farmers Market and they looked fun. Pictured is a parsnip spice cake - tiz yummy. Also - it is very amusing to create handlebar mustaches with them!

I slept for two hours on the couch today under two wool blankets - it made me in the mood for baking - thus the cake and two loaves of bread - a very relaxing afternoon of warm blankets and cool rain.

Parsnip Cake recipe based on one from Down To Earth
Boil for 1 minute
1/2 cup grated parsnips (w/micro plane)
1 tsp grated ginger
7 T butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/3 cup currants
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Cool mixture to luke warm and add 2 tsp brandy. Stir into 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda. 9X13 at 325 for 30-35 minutes.

Saturday Morning Farmers Market






I slept in this morning so we were at the Farmers Market later than usual. The cabbage in the picture above fascinated me however I did not want to be responsible for cooking the massive thing. Also pictured is Bob Otis - the man I purchase 95% of my meat from - today he was out of ground lamb so I only bought eggs. In the last month or so Stephen and I have stopped by Black Dog Cafe on our way back to the car from the Market. They have excellent cold press and coffee cake. Finally you can see most of our haul for the week - not pictured are eggs and unpasteurized cider.

Tanpopo Noodle Shop


Stephen & I went out to Tanpopo Noodle Shop last night. The picture of my Kitsune Soba did not turn out at all - however you can see our hot sake, tempura and spicy rolls above. I set my camera on museum mode to take the pictures but I still feel funny taking them at a restaurant..not sure I'll do it again.

Friday, September 28

pumpkin cookies

Yummyumm.
My work has been making these scrumshus cookies! It's kind of cakeie/cookie/ mixture of texture, it has the great pumpkin-spice taste with a wonderful brownsugar infused frosting.
I had one for breakfast
yummyumm

Thursday, September 27

hen of the woods




Last grocery trip I picked up a cool mushroom called hen of the woods or maitake. It looks like chicken of the woods but is white instead of orange. Last night I cooked it up into a gratin with potatoes, ground beef, and a delicious guyere cheese. It turned out nicely, the cheese and the mushroom made it exceptional. (it seems i can't post a picture right now, I'll try to add them later.)

Tonight I wasn't in much of a cooking mood, so Matt made us some soup and cheese and crackers, quite tasty. Now I am enjoying some Rishi Serene tea and playing with the Catfish

Wednesday, September 26

krispy kale


my easy dinner #2. Green beans with butter, salt and marjoram/thyme. And krispy kale! Inspired by Tab's gin and tonic with herbs, a gin and tonic as well. With local gin no less! It seems I can walk the walk while drinking my talk.

Oh but on to the krispy kale. Man is this good. as you may know my glorious assent from second place winner to fame as the grand prize winner of the REAP recipe contest was cut short last year. I forsook my chance at fame and glory when I took my job. I think it was the right choice. And this year's winner proves it so. The grand prize winning recipe is as follows:

1 bunch of kale, midribs removed, torn into large pieces
2 T olive oil
kosher salt

Toss the kale with olive oil and salt. Heat the oven to 400. Place the kale in a single layer (important) on a baking sheet or two. Roast in oven for 6-14 minutes, depending on your oven. The kale is done when krisp and browned at the edges. Remove, dump in a bowl, sprinkle with more salt and enjoy.

SOoooooo good! Don't skimp on the oil- these are just like khips but better! Man are they good!

a toast to Local Night Out and the fact that it will be over tomorrow.

Easy Dinner



As you can see - dinner is cheese, bread, tomatoes and beer - yummy and easy. The cheeses are dill havarti, brie, and smoked gouda; the tomates from my garden are georgia peach, moonglow and german pink. The beer is a new Surley available in can - Surley Fest!

Check out my mushroom pair two days later - they exploded.

Tuesday, September 25

Yea Rachel!

Rachel was most excellent on TV this morning. Check her out at http://www.nbc15.com/morningshow and click the food picture below the flash player. Extremely proud of you Rachel!

Tonight we ate at Highland Grill and the unusual happened. I was more expensive than Stephen - Shock! We switched roles - I had a lamb burger and he had breakfast - we both shared a half price bottle of wine - a Syrah Grenache mix.

I'm having Andy over for dinner on Thursday - I haven't seen him in over 13 years! It will be my own local night out with butternut squash ravioli.

Burger King

OOOLaaaa,
whell for breakfast I ate sum yummy cold bread pudding,
for lunch I traveled on the bus for 1.5 hours to eat at a bugger king waiting for mom to get done with work.
Note to self: Grossssss!!!!
Next time I eat one of those try to stop me
By

Monday, September 24

Galette Love


Deborah Madison glaette recipe (of course) with a mixture of roasted butternut squash, roasted hard neck garlic, salt and grated Idiazabel cheese.

The rain took away my desire to cook up the rhubarb in my fridge. Reading is the order of the tonight. Random food fact learned today: Gelatin starts to lose it's holding power after 18 hours.

Every year I consider making "fruitcake" for christmas. Now would be the time to bake it and set it aside to soak. You'd think there must be some good recipes out there (other than your black cake of course Rachel). Any ideas of where to look? I've got a couple of recipes from Martha Stewart but they are a little too artsy.

Obstacles to mow around


Can I eat him? I've lost count of the number of mushrooms in the yard this year - I doubt I can eat them. This is one of five that popped out of the ground in the last couple o' days.

a crock of pickles


Finally! I made a batch of whole dill pickles with the crock method that actually turned out! They spent a couple months in the fridge and I canned them up yesterday. They taste pretty good, especially considering every other time I've tried them they've been mushy, unbearably sour or salty or just plain suspect. Finally I can make both sweet and dill pickles well.

in other news I'll be on TV tomorrow morning at 6 am talking about... food. I have an event coming up for my program I like to explain as "my big deal" this Thursday so I'm bringing in a few dishes local restaurants are making with local foods... Yikes. I need a haircut.

back to work...

Friday, September 21

Virtuous Souffle


My breakfast. Leftovers of the first souffle I've made and yogurt. Plus coffee of course.

So the souffle was extra fun because I don't have a mixer or anything to beat egg whites. A while back at St. Vinnys I bought an old hand-held egg beater- you know the kind that has a little handle that spins the two whisks at the bottom? Well it works like a charm to beat egg whites. guess there's a reason it's called an egg beater.

But the point is the longer and longer I go not owning a mixer or food processor or microwave the more virtuous I feel about it. Ha! I don't need machines to cook! I don't know if this is just sour grapes or if I really do have a point- another appliance just isn't necessary for great food done easily.

In fact, (not that the picture of my sink full of dishes illustrates this point at all) maybe I even save time not having to lug out a mixer and then wash it all up again. Instead, there is just a small egg beater buried beneath the other necessary implements of making and eating dinner. Clearly I've won this battle.

Wish I could write more about the sauce I made or my plans for ketchup and others but I'm super golldarned busy with work. See ya!

Thursday, September 20

Rhubarb Hand Pie 2


I tried out a new crust for the hand pies tonight. If you look closely you'll notice the texture is very different. This crust has cream cheese and egg in it. Personally I prefer the regular pie crust - it's a little less supple but does not take away from the filling - this one is too sweet.

I had a friend over tonight and much Evening in Missoula was drunk. For dinner I served butternut squash ravioli with butter sage sauce. The butternut was especially smooth after baking which made a smooth filling and me happy. The sage was picked from my garden. I love fall food.

Wednesday, September 19

Pot Pie


Pot pie using what ever is in the fridge:

Two Cups water boiled with the following Herbs for 5 minutes and then set off the stove with a 1 inch piece of jalapeno and 1/4 cup half and half: borage, sage, tarragon and lovage with a clove of garlic, two bay leaves and a 2 inch piece of cinnamon.

Steam:
1/2 sweet potato
1/4 head of cauliflower

Saute:
1 red bell pepper
1 patty pan squash
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin seed

Mix all veggies together and divide between two 5x5 pans.

Melt 3 T butter in a sauce pan and whisk in 6 T flour - cook over med/hi for 4 minutes - gradually add the strained infused water - cook until thick - pour over the veggies. Place a pie crust on top and bake for 35 minutes at 400.

I made this yesterday - today I'm lazy and had a frozen Amy's Pizza.

Monday, September 17

Rhubarb Hand Pie



I had a friend over for dinner who is allergic to fructose. There are a couple fruits low in fructose which she can eat - cranberries, rhubarb and citrus. I had planned on making a Rhubarb Crisp only to realize when I started chopping the rhubarb tonight that crisp has a lot of brown sugar - not good for her. Soo I decided to try hand pies. I made the galette recipe from Deborah Madison. For the filling I chopped 4 cups of rhubarb, and cooked it with 1 cup of sugar, enough water to get it cooking and three sprigs of anise hyssop. I didn't intend to boil the heck out of it - I wanted some chunks of rhubarb left - however, I couldn't get it thick enough for a filling without boiling the heck out of it. The filling had to be iced before making the hand pies - hot filling would have turned the crust to mush. They turned out delicious! Maybe next time I would reserve a cup of rhubarb and add it during the last 10 minutes of cooking for a varied texture.

APPLES APPLES APPLES!!!


YEssssssss!!!! Apples!

I went apple picking yesterday. Did my usual procedure: two bites out of one off the tree before I pick from it, and I left with just one bag full. The full range of varieties aren't ripe yet and I wasn't super pleased with the flavor of my favorites this year- Jonagold and Cortland. The prairie spy's were good as usual though.

Last night I made apple crisp. Tonight I made these apple raspberry galettes- I find my pastry turns out best when I use the bare minimum of water to moisten the flour. I have raspberries in my garden right now. I also harvested the first row of my white yams! They look really promising and are curing on the porch right now. My squash production is looking good too.

Oh, and I decided not to make apple butter this year- as much as I love it I have many other jams and I'm just not as inspired about apple butter. I'm going to make pumpkin/squash butter instead!

Hey Tab do you have any interesting sounding raspberry jam recipes from Mes Confitures for me? I couldn't think of anything interesting with the 7 pints of I-Picked I got last weekend. so I froze them to make jam later....

Sunday, September 16

Food as Furniture




I purchased my annual pumpkin footstool at the Farmers Market yesterday. It's also strong enough to sit on but I don't like to push my luck...

Both jams were made today. In the middle of processing I always wonder why I make them - so much work for things I can't eat even 5% of and give away anyway. I always come to the same conclusion - I make them because I can't get that taste or flavor anywhere else. In the end it is worth it - espically the peach lemon verbena.

we have a kitty!




His name is catfish and he loves to munch on the lemongrass on our balcony! Yesterday morning matt got up and said, um, there must be a cat in here. There was a little pile of cat droppings by the door! Our window screens were fine and the door was locked and it must have appeared there when we were asleep. So we looked through the apartment anywhere big enough for a cat to hide, and no cat! We thought that the previous cat tunnel from the neighbors kitchen to ours was blocked, but it seemed that a cat squeezed through anyway. Finding no cat, we figured the mystery feline had gone back through the kitchen. When we headed out to walk to the farmers market, Catfish was hanging around outside (one of phillip's cats) and he started following us. We didn't want him to get lost on the way or anything, and figured he was the kitty in our apartment the night before, so we went back to the apartment to leave him there til we got back. BUT, when we opened the door, Magic (phillip's other cat) was in the living room! Anyway, shortening the story, we left them both in the living room, talked to phillip when we got back, magic had come over to get away from catfish (magic is an older cat and catfish is very very playful) and phillip decided to look for a new home for catfish. And it seemed that Catfish had chosen us for his new friends, so we have a kitty now, and he is awesome

Saturday, September 15

Jam


On the left you see the rhubarb anise hyssop portion of my rhubarb, apple, passion fruit, anise hyssop jam. There was a lot of cheep rhubarb at the farmers market this morning so I thought I'd get another batch of jam in. While looking for a new and interesting rhubarb recipe I found one for lemon verbena and had to try that also. In the middle is a peach lemon verbena jam. Both of these jams are made in the method of lightly simmering the fruit and sugar the evening prior to making the jam.

On the right are raw olives. While touring Mississippi Market we ran across these for only $3.60 a pound. Even though I dislike olives I thought it would be fun to "make" some. First you whack them with a mallet to crack them, followed by six to ten days of changing their soaking water twice a day, and finally you brine them in a salt/lemon solution. Should be interesting.....

Friday, September 14

chocolate.... mmmmm


I had a great day today. We had a nice long downpour this morning and I had the day off so I sat around and read a book. Rainy days(well, moments more like, it never rains for a whole day it seems) are so relaxing to me lately. When I finished my book I made a chocolate cake! It was a chocolate loaf cake, but the name does it no justice. Imagine a cross between chocolate cake, brownies, and a flourless choc cake. Really dense and kinda gooey, but still definitely cake. Anyway, it was tasty.

Thursday, September 13

Long Day...

Tonight’s dinner was garlic bread, apple pie and beer. Eppie - FYI for Matt my beer was a Fat Tire. I stood for 8 hours straight pumping hands at our annual endorsed convention & trade show, followed by walking downtown Mpls and wanted to do nothing but sit when I arrived home.

I received my camera today sans the memory card - that should come next Monday. It's amusing reading the instruction book - did you know the intelligent face detection doesn't work when your faces is a)obscured by glasses b)upside-down, as in your standing on your head or c) is in fact not a human face but a cat etc.,,

Anyway, THANKS Eppie and Rachel for posting! This is what I was hoping for. Sarah - we'd love to hear about your breakfast of Fruit Loops, lunch of Cocoa Puffs and dinner of chicken nuggets.

Wednesday, September 12

Peaches!




Back in July, Matt and I picked about 40 pounds of peaches on a very toasty (sweltering!) afternoon. It was great fun. I thought it would be just like apple picking, but it was different because you have to make sure it is ripe before you pick it. The peaches are excellent down here, juicy and sweet and tangy. The season is over now, no more peaches at the farmer's market, but here are some pictures, before and after, then a random picture of my turmeric plant.

chipotles from the balcony garden

Hey guys, this is going to be fun blog!

My latest cooking fun began with Monday's supper, we had a bunch of ripe jalapeno peppers from our balcony and matt was wishing we had chipotles to put in the fish tacos we were making. Sooo, we roasted/broiled the peppers in the oven, which I'm pretty sure makes chipotles, at any rate they were tasty. We made a cheese chipotle sauce for the fish tacos. We had a cheese called uniqua or something from whole foods. For dinner tonight we just boiled up some bow-tie noodles and mixed it with the sauce and some tuna. I made a batch of mer-angs (I can't spell it so I might as well spell it really wrong). they are pretty good, they are like pie mer-ang rather than cookie mer-angs. I'll work on figuring out how to post pictures...

Flourets & Cheese

Unfortunately no picture tonight - Stephen has the laptop which has been acting as my camera. My new camera should arrive in the mail next week.

This evening is beautiful and I wanted something warm to eat on the deck. I had a head of cauliflower from the farmers market I'd planned on making curry with. Tossing that plan down the drain I opted for Flourets & Cheese (instead of mac & cheese:)

Flourets & Cheese for One
Steam 2 cups Cauliflower flourets for 8-10 minutes, place in a 5x5 pan when fork tender. Meanwhile melt 1 T butter in a sauce pan and add 2 T flour - cook until toasted approximately 4 minutes (over low heat). Slowly add 3/4 cup milk cook until thickened (over medium heat). Stir in 1/2 tsp salt and 1/3 cup shredded cheese (1.5 oz). Pour cheese mixture over flourets and bake for 35 minutes at 400. Calories: 475 Based on a recipe from Vegetable Love

Transition


The passing of summer... first marked by the basil. Turning black at temperatures under 40 degrees the basil is the first to be clear cut from the garden. This is my haul from last night. I didn't have very good production this year because of the 6 week drought followed by 2 feet of rain in 5 days but so it is. I haven't a food processor so I will once again try basil by hand. This year I will be chopping it finely with a chef's knife before grinding it in the huge and beautiful mortar my friends got me for my birthday. A photo tonight perhaps!

Tuesday, September 11

Dinner for One


Pesto is an easy and fast dinner for one.

Put a pot of water on to boil. In a food processor place 2 cups of basil, 3 cloves of garlic, 7 T olive oil, 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts, and 1/2 tsp salt - process until smooth. Add 1/4 cup (or more!) grated Parmesan cheese. Cook your choice of noodles and add your desired amount of pesto.

I have an apple pie in the oven at the moment. My guidelines for a good apple pie.
-A mixture of apples (ideally 1/3 Cortland, 1/3 Prairie Spy, 1/3 Northern Spy)
-A T butter cubed and placed on top of the apples (under the top crust)
-Spices to include cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg
-An all butter crust. My favorite recipe 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt & sugar, 1 cup butter - water to make a dough
-Unpeeled apples - this gives the pie a lovely pink tinge
-Flour to thicken the juices not tapioca or cornstarch
-Baked at 425 for the first ten minutes and finished at 375

I swear that the water content in Land o'Lakes butter has increased. It makes wretched piecrust. The dough will not roll out - only smears across the counter, even after 24 hours of refrigeration. I wonder what the legal percentage of water in butter is.....

Weekday Breakfast


What you can not see or touch is not iocane powder but Rice River Cereal, which consists of cracked wheat, cracked brown rice, oat bran and wheat germ. All that and only 130 calories plus a teaspoon of butter and brown sugar for 178 and I'm not hungry until 11:00! This is my typical work week breakfast. Trying to keep my calories under 1,600 a day is a challenge - this definitely makes it easier.

Monday, September 10

The sad state of meat

From the guy sitting next to me on the bus to his friend across the isle - "I had to overcook my meatballs in the microwave today - almost burnt em. Ya don't want to get ebola...... or is that salmonella?"

This is why I purchase all my meat from Bob Otis. He sends his meat to a local butcher. None of this 1,000 different cows in one lb of hamburger and absolutely no feces in the meat!

the cheese stands alone


Behold. My first cheese.


It wasn't too hard. Not that I followed directions or knew what I was doing or that it is actually any specific kind of cheese. But it's good. In theory, it's a brie. But that's rediculous. It's more like a feta. And I don't have a ripening cave to make it into a brie. Not that I sterilized things or let the rennet set for the right amount of time or finished it in an entirely sober state. So the USDA has me a bit worried that I'll die tomorrow if I eat it. It was made with raw milk.

Some friends came over shortly after I added the rennet and we had dinner (the leftovers are still sitting on the table shot below- indian-style potatoes in tomato sauce). We had wine. Then I realized my curds were still sitting in the whey. Heh heh. in the way. Ok, this is too much fun.

my dinner table


Hey there! So here's a snapshot of my kitchen table while I was halfway through my dinner tonight. The salad looked good before I devoured it! Let me give you the tour: The salad in front is my new favorite thing. get a bowl and slosh in some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a forkfull of mustard, salt and pepper. Wisk with the fork. Add your CSA lettuce, tomato, garden cucumber, red pepper and basil. then a handful of raisins. Stir. YUM. I thought I didn't like salad until I made this (yesterday).

Also on my table is a really great centerpiece made by my friend James. It was a birthday present and it's a gold, blue and brown mirror mosiac. On it are paprika peppers from my garden, 3 plums from the market that weren't ripe and are now dessicating and one hungarian CSA pepper.

On the side is the single serving raspberry yogurt cake I made tonight. I wanted to make the yogurt cake on www.chocolateandzucchini.com with some leftover raspberry sauce, but I didn't want to have the whole cake hanging around. But I didn't want to give the whole thing away. And I didn't want to give the whole thing, with one piece removed, away. AHA! I made a whole cake and one muffin!!

Also on the table is a plate of tomatoes- mostly from Kristen. Mmmm... the cake was good.

Sunday, September 9

Matcha Tea on a Sunday Afternoon


A couple of years ago Stephen bought me a traditional whisk for making Matcha Tea. I've never had the proper bowl to use it with until Eppie bought me a bowl for my birthday this year. Thanks Eppie! Shown in the picture is the bowl, wisk and the vibrant green tea. The bowl and whisk work superbly - no dredges left in my cup at all. The tea is a little pricy so it will have to remain a treat, $24 for 1 ounce of Matcha, approximately 24 servings. I've purchased cheaper Matcha at the grocery store however it was inedibly bitter.

Matcha Tea
1/2 tsp matcha powder
5 oz 180 degree water

I'm making a butternut squash soup for lunches this week. I've got a bunch of leftover sage from my drink experiments that will be added to the soup as well as some borage from my garden. Absolutely no apples will touch my soup - I get extremely tired of the squash apple soups. Too bad I don't have any jalapenos - I'll try making it intersting with ginger and onions roasted over flames on the stove.

Saturday, September 8

Best thing since sliced bread?


Best thing since sliced bread - potato bread with gin! We went out to Spoonriver last night and I had an epiphany! I ordered the Mill City Fizz - Hendricks gin, soda and sage. It was an excellent cocktail and an eye opener in itself. I didn't know that I would like gin with soda (versus tonic). The addition of sage smoothes the entire wonderful cocktail. The epiphany came when they served the bread. It was a rustic potato bread that matches perfectly, perfectly! with the sage gin cocktail. So I made it tonight. The potato bread recipe comes from The Wooden Spoon Bread Book.

Potato Bread
Boil 1 cup of small-diced potatoes in 2 cups of water until they are easily pierced with a fork. Add 3 T butter, 3 T molasses and 1 T salt let this mixture cool. While the potato mixture cools mix together 1 cup water, 1 1/2 T yeast, 1 T sugar, 3/4 cup wheat flour and 3/4 cup white flour. Combine the two mixtures when the potato mixture is luke warm and add enough parts of equal white and whole wheat flour to make delicious bread - three loaves at 375 for 35 minutes.

Gin Sage Soda - Yumminess
1 1/2 oz Hendricks gin
2 Sage Leaves
Soda to top.

Muddle the sage leaves with the gin, add ice, stir, top with soda. Stir the cocktail for 10 seconds to de-fizz the soda. Drink with potato bread.

A small sample of the farmers market


Some of today's farmers market haul as well as my raising bread. There are three types of plums purchased from two seperate vendors. Pears from the farmer I call the norwegian bacherlor farmer - he's always in overalls. A red peper and a lovely bouqet of basil. The bread in the bowl is Potato Bread from The Wooden Spoon Bread Book.