A Good Griddle

I guess the best way to sum up the past year on these two acres is to say it was one of transition. The process is ongoing but at this point we are pretty much 'retired'.

One of the changes we've made in the past year is the way we eat. We used to eat the conventional three meals every day but now most days we are eating a larger breakfast around 9:00 and a main meal around 2:00 with a light snack in the evening.

As breakfast became more important so did the problem of a griddle. Since I gave up my favorite griddle years ago because of the Teflon coating, I hadn't been able to find a replacement I liked. I had been using a large skillet but sometimes there were tell-tale flavors from previous heavily seasoned dishes and even a hint of garlic is not something I want in my banana pancakes, thank you.

A few weeks ago we made what I expect to be our last investment in high-quality cookware. We used our Christmas gifts from The Mister's father to buy a Swiss Diamond griddle. It is absolutely perfect and the first breakfast of sour buckwheat cakes was delicious as was the sourdough French toast on New Year's morning.

Maple Syrup 2012

Our maple syrup supply this year isn't local but its carbon footprint is phenomenally smaller than that of any I can find closer to home.

Berkshire Sweet Gold not only uses reverse osmosis to reduce the time and energy required to shed the water in the sap but they use solar generated electricity to power their evaporators. The end result is not only environmentally sustainable but wicked good!

A Lovely Trout

Regardless of the lousy photo I want to honor this lovely trout. The season opened on Sunday and Mark, the friend who primarily supplies us with duck and goose, caught this two-and-a-half pound beauty. Thank you Mark! And thank you fish.

A Lesson in Lard

It turns out the smoking point of lard can vary greatly, even when the lard is from the same source.

Several years ago I bought leaf lard online from Prairie Pride in Minnesota. I bought enough to use for pies and frying and while the lard made for some of my better pies and galettes I was disappointed to find it would smoke as soon as I tried to do even simple pan frying.

In clearing out the freezer recently I put some of the old lard in a pan with a thermometer and confirmed that its smoking point was about 320º. Last fall I ordered some fresh lard from Prairie Pride and I decided to check it too. I'm not sure what its smoking point is but it's above 365º. The first lard also left a residue in the bottom of the pan while the fresher lard left nothing behind.

If or when I order leaf lard again I will ask about the smoking point and what recourse I have if it's not above 365º. Lesson learned.

Jon Stadt & Flour City Pasta

David Lassman / The Post-Standard

One of the busiest vendors at The Regional Market is Jon Stadt of Flour City Pasta. I wasn't shopping for pasta yesterday but I stopped in my tracks when I saw a bag of Red Fife flour amidst the boxes of pasta. I couldn't be more pleased to discover one of my favorite bread flours is now being grown and milled locally.

Neil Miller of Farmshed Nation was also at the market yesterday and posted some wonderful photos of Jon and his beautiful new grain mill.

Posole aka "Hog & Hominy"

Our family tradition on both sides was pork and sauerkraut for New Year's and I did that myself for many years. More recently I've done some other traditional New Year's dishes including cotechino con lenticchie and Hoppin' John with collard greens. This year I made a boatload of posole to be topped with napa among lots of other garnishes. Funny how it always seems to come down to pork and some member of the legume and/or cabbage family...

Ending On A High Note

I searched online, found several helpful sites but still had to extrapolate time & temp without knowing exactly what cut I was dealing with, the age or condition of the animal or how it was handled in the field.

In the end it came down to luck and I was lucky indeed to have been given such a gorgeous piece of venison by The Mister's friend, Dallas.

My first venison roast and it was splendid.

It looked good when I opened the package and dried it off. It smelled wonderful as I browned it with a light rub of crushed juniper and fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, and then while it roasted in the oven. But it was when I took the first pass with the knife that I knew it was a beauty; it absolutely cut like butter.

It was tender beyond description, mild and slightly sweet, a perfect Christmas roast served with garlic smashed potatoes and pan roasted Brussels sprouts. Not such a low-keyed Christmas after all...

Mostarda di Mantova

Cooking with Amy

Mustard seed is also one of those things, like coffee or chocolate, that makes me wonder about the people who first thought to make something edible from it. Accounts vary widely but I think mustard seed was probably used to flavor something like mostarda and then came to dominate the condiment.

The last of the quince got a bit dry so I used it in a batch of mostarda. I used Amy Sherman's recipe and replaced the apple with quince.

Mustards

I love mustards, I suspect because, as my mother did, I love vinegar.

I used to have many varieties of mustard and vinegar in my pantry but I have cut way back on both. Even though I know it's still probably more than most people keep on hand, I take it as a small point of pride that I now limit myself to:

a Dijon, usually Grey Poupon
a classic yellow, French's, Plochman's or another
a course stoneground such as Pommery Moutarde de Meaux (if only I could figure out what to do with the crocks...)
Anton Kozlik's Triple Crunch and usually a couple of others from him
Ridley's Fuggle Mustard

And now perhaps my all-time, eat-it-with-a-spoon, favorite:

I first heard about this mustard in a newsletter from ChefShop.com and couldn't resist it at the mention of the Banyuls vinegar. I've ordered more from Honest Foods and this time it's coming in regular jars so I won't have to worry about anymore little crocks.

I am sorry this wonderful mustard comes all the way from California but at least one of the goodies I like to put in on comes from much closer to home:

Hartmann's smoked liverwurst

Garlic & Aioli

Thermadrone Garlic

I didn't plant garlic last year so I bought more than usual this year including a couple of first-time varieties, Thermadrone and Leningrad. I made aioli with three small cloves of the Thermadrone and after tasting it I selected twelve big cloves to plant in the garlic bed this past week. I really can taste the reason why this garlic is preferred for certain dishes.

I got  my Thermadrone, Metechi, Chesnook Red and some Nootka Rose in my first-time order from P D Farms through Gourmet Garlic Gardens. I will definitely order from them again; all the garlic I have from them is an exceptionally nice size, very clean and well cured. I've also planted some Music again, this time from another GGG grower closer to home, Eric Hickey. He also grows the Leningrad. Last but not least, I'm trying some Red Toch again from Big John's Garden. 

I know enough now to order early but I'm sorry that it was only after I had blown my garlic budget that I discovered an organic grower I patronized several years ago at the Regional Market is now exclusively growing garlic!

Wicked Good Quince

I still haven't made a galette but I did cook up the first of the quince on Saturday. The week gave them a chance to ripen further. By the time I cooked them their fragrance filled the house and the cooked fruit is proportionately intense in flavor, absolutely wicked good.

The weather has been spectacular and should continue a few more days. I'm trying to use every moment to do what didn't get done the past couple of months for various reasons.

Today I head to garden where several of those reasons wait to be relocated. Halfway through my reconstruction of the garden beds I ran into a cache of debris that must have been buried when the flagstone walkways were constructed at the back of the house. I take these rocks as a particularly nasty insult because I really dislike the flagstone...

Quince!

It was a dreary morning so I putzed around and got to the market late. I knew it was my only chance to get quince and I knew I was probably too late to get any of the small crop that's usually available but, lo and behold, there were five baskets left! And I took them all!

As the dozen I have in the kitchen have warmed up, I've been able to catch a whiff of their lovely fragrance. First I'll make a galette to follow a dinner of Canada goose breast with porcini and polenta. In my book that makes it officially fall.

Delish

I have a habit of putting the last of something special aside, hoping to delay the final moment of pleasure as long as possible. Unfortunately I often wait too long and whatever it is goes bad before I eat or drink it.

There have been a few bottles of wine that we have finally opened when the wine had passed its peak and I was prepared for as much when I pulled a crumbling cork from this bottle of 1989 Mount Veeder Meritage Saturday evening. But, BUT, it – was – fabulous!! It still had plenty of tannin and a big smokey, spicy, plum flavor. Delish.

This was the style of wine that got us interested in wine over thirty years ago but that's no longer made. Now no one wants to wait fifteen to twenty years for a wine to mature naturally. It's all made to drink as soon as possible and very little of it is likely to be around in twenty-two years if anyone dares drink it then.

Castagnaccio in March

This is a perfect example of how much of the past nine months I lost due to dental problems and pneumonia. I finally made the castagnaccio that's usually part of Thanksgiving. I didn't even get it made for St. Patrick's Day, the 17th of March also being the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, if I have that right.

But I kept my chestnut flour in the refrigerator; it seems to be fine and the cake was as good as ever.

Back in Business

My first effort on the new stone was a loaf from a batch of no-knead dough made with half King Arthur organic bread flour and half Red Fife from Anson Mills. It could have baked another five minutes but it was still a treat.


Red Fife was North America’s preferred bread wheat in the 19th century, fathering many of our modern bread wheat varieties. It disappeared from production with the Great Depression and was re-introduced into Canada a little over decade ago, where it has slowly and steadily drawn an ardent cadre of artisan bakers in both countries. Cold-milled, this new crop hard red wheat produces 100% whole grain bread with profoundly herbaceous and nutty fresh wheat flavors, a moist, satisfying crumb, and a lovely crust with deep, toasty caramel notes. As a whole grain bread flour, Red Fife is unparalleled.

Bargain Condimento

A few weeks ago when I went to Maines for the best price on my favorite utilitarian olive oil I checked out their vinegar inventory. There was simply no way I could pass up this jug of balsamic condimento for $12.99. As I checked out I thought the total was less than I'd expected but there have been additional price reductions at the register before and there was a line behind me so it wasn't until I'd lugged everything to the car that I checked the receipt and discovered the vinegar hadn't scanned. I hate to admit it but I did not go back in part because I didn't really expect the vinegar to be very good.

But it is. Very good. If I go back for another jug I will tell someone about the first. But who knows if they'll have it then. It's a 5 liter jug. I use 150ml for a batch of vinaigrette so that's 33 batches and I use only olive oils for the homegrown salad greens.

Some of which have been sown along with the fava beans, rapa and some radishes. I've been reluctant to plant salad greens this year with the memory of the mess the slugs made of last year's crop still painfully fresh. And the slugs are out there now just waiting for something to sprout.

fava Supersette
cime di rapa Centoventina, Novantina, Toscana
radish Easter Egg
lettuce Johnny's Wildfire Lettuce Mix

Olio Nuovo 2009

My, oh my, oh my. What incredible flavor. I decided to splurge at least one more time for some good olio nuovo and it is fabulous. It even made me go looking for some out-of-season tomatoes and I came across these jewels:

Too Much of a Good Thing

What happened? How did I gain almost 10lbs.? The short answer is that they were giving away ice cream. Or almost. Often this year a local supermarket has had Ben & Jerry’s on sale for $2.50, often when I’ve had a coupon to bring down the price to $2.00. If I hadn’t felt guilty about the dairy farmers getting screwed out of a decent price for their milk I probably would have gained another 10.

To make matters worse–or better–this supermarket is the only one in town that carries my favorite B&J’s flavor, Dave Matthews Band’s Magic Brownies. Lordy, I love this stuff and the fact that my indulgence supports a good cause:

“As the main course in our ongoing Lick Global Warming campaign, Dave Matthews Band’s Magic Brownies™ combines the spirit of Dave Matthews Band, the razzle of chocolate and [the dazzle of ] raspberries and the conscience of Mother Earth in one place. A portion of every sale of Dave Matthews Band’s Magic Brownies™ goes to Dave Matthews Band’s Bama Works Fund to support the work of nonprofit groups taking action against global warming. In 2007, this flavor produced royalties of $35,471 for Bama Works.”

$35,471 in 2007 alone and I didn’t eat much that year! How much ice cream would that represent and how much have they raised this year when I’ve been eating my fair share and then some?

Dinner After the First Hard Freeze

Frost is one thing and not unexpected mid October but this is way too early for the first hard freeze. We haven't put up all the hoses, emptied birdbaths, etc. If we don't get an Indian Summer it's going to be a dreadfully long winter.

Jacques Pépin's Corn and Hominy Chowder
Serves: 6

• 3 tablespoons good olive oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup minced scallion
• 1/2 cup Green Hot Salsa or less for a milder soup
• 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes in sauce
• 1 (28-ounce) can white hominy (about 3 cups kernels and juice)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 4 cups chicken stock, homemade or low-salt canned chicken broth
• About 1/2 teaspoon salt (less if using canned chicken broth)
• 1 1/2 cups corn kernels (from 2 ears of corn)
• 1/2 cup (lightly packed) fresh cilantro, finely chopped

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add the garlic, onion, and scallions.
Cook for 3 minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients, except for the corn and cilantro.
Bring to a boil, and cook for 15 minutes.
Stir in the corn and cilantro, return to a boil, and serve.

from Jacques Pépin: "Fast Food My Way"

The Frost is On the Pumpkins

It's cold this morning after the first, light frost. I didn't want to leave my cozy comforter here on the chilly porch to go get the camera and take a picture of the two white pumpkins I bought this weekend so I did a google image search. My god there are a amazing number of stupid white pumpkin photos out there. Fortunately Waldo Jaquith has this fine image at Flickr. Grazie Waldo.

Several years ago I read Marlena de Blasi’s “A Thousand Days In Venice” and couldn't wait to try her recipe for stuffed pumpkin. As with so many recipes these days, especially those that have been translated from metric to imperial, this one needed adjustments. In order to avoid any uncertainty about procuring fresh truffle, one change I make in my version is to use Boschetto.

This year I'm going to enjoy my first white pumpkins for awhile as they sit on the floor in the kitchen and then I'm gonna stuff 'em.

Whole Roasted Pumpkin Stuffed with Porcini and Truffles
(Zucca al Forno Ripena con Porcini e Tartufi)
Serves 8

1 large pumpkin, approximately 4-5 lbs., stalk end cut to form a cap,
seeds and strings removed from cavity

1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped fine
1 ounce dried porcini, softened in 1/2 cup of warm water

1 egg, beaten
1 cup mascarpone
4 ounces Boschetto al Tartufo Bianchetto cheese, grated
(or another cheese and 1 truffle, thinly sliced or 1.5 ounces truffle paste)
2 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon white pepper
sea salt
4 slices firm-textured day old white bread, cut into 1 inch squares

1. Place the pumpkin in a heavy baking dish and bake for 1 hour at 350°.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium sauté pan, melt the butter and sauté the onion. Add the mushrooms and sauté until both soften.

3. In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients one at a time. Add the mushrooms and onions and stir until well mixed.

4. Spoon the mushroom mixture into the pumpkin, replace the pumpkin cap and roast for 45 minutes or until the pumpkin flesh is very soft.

5. Carry the pumpkin immediately to the table, remove its cap and spoon out portions of the flesh with the stuffing.