Category: Food & Wine

Pesto blobs

We have several basil plants on our patio that have yielded a bounty of basil all at once. I made a huge batch of pesto yesterday (around 12 cups of cleaned basil). I’m freezing it in meal-sized blobs to give us a taste of summer through the dark, rainy days of winter.

That’s just a bag of happiness right there.

I have been knitting, of course. I signed up for a mystery knit-along, Casapinka’s autumn shawl project. It’s just plain fun. I have the first clue done, the next one comes out tomorrow. I even used stash yarns.

The first section used three of the four colors, the fourth I’m using is a deep blue. Most of the yarn is from the Sanguine Gryphon, sadly no longer available. That pale gold is a four skein gold gradient from a long-ago sock yarn club (Three Irish Girls).

Those little knitted knots in the center of that are called Gobshites, if you want to know. There’s likely an official knitting name for them, but that’s what the designer calls them, so there you have it. If you’ve knitted any of her patterns, you already know that she doesn’t take things too seriously.

Plenty

It is that time of year again, when the patio tomatoes start to get ripe. We have a bumper crop; that is just some of them in that photo. We’ve been putting tomatoes in everything we eat, but it was time to face the fact that we aren’t going to eat all of those before they go bad. Not to mention the trays full that are still on the vines.

Today is roast tomato day. The larger ones will go into tomato sauce for the freezer, but a lot of these are getting roasted.

Those are the smaller and medium sized tomatoes, cut in half or quarters. I tossed them with olive oil and salt and pepper, then put fresh thyme on top and stuck them in the oven on low heat (300 on my oven, which tends to run cool). They’ll sit in there until they are collapsed and look like sun dried tomatoes.

These will go in stews and soups and such, much of the fall. I’m going to freeze some, though I’ve not done that before and don’t know how well they’ll keep that way.

The bigger ones will live for another day. I plan on making a rustic tomato sauce/purée which definitely WILL go into the freezer for fall and winter meals.

And supper will be this tonight.

That is a tomato tart with pesto and ricotta. That very one up there was dinner last week, it was so good that we’re making it again. It couldn’t be easier. Here is the recipe, it is from NY Times Cooking. This tastes sort of like the world’s best pizza, if you were asked to make pizza and didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to be made with a puff pastry crust. It is divine, and relatively healthy.*

Enough about tomatoes. I’m going to find a comfy spot to read and knit for the afternoon. It would be a gorgeous summer day if it weren’t for all the smoke from the fires out there. I stepped outside once this morning when the mail came, and almost couldn’t breathe. The fires in Washington have been awful, though nothing serious has come “we-gotta-get-out-of-here” close yet. And the wind has died down, which should help with fire control a lot. Stay safe if the fires are close to where you are.

*Relatively, considering it starts with puff pastry that likely has a bazillion pounds of butter in it.

Baycation!

I’m home on vacation this week. John’s sister Ena is supposed to be here this week, but the pandemic had other plans. I’ve had the vacation time blocked out for quite a while, and can’t turn it back in, so drat, I have to stay home. John and I find ourselves saying about every other day that this isn’t a bad place to be quarantined.

So that’s my plan up there. Reading, knitting, maybe a little spinning, and definitely some deck time. We’ve had a really cool and windy summer so far, but this week is supposed to be in the 80’s, so that works for me. If Ena was here she’d likely freeze to death. She lives in Georgia, and it has been getting down into the low 50’s here in the evening.

John’s son (who is a graphic designer) made a “flat Ena” so she could enjoy the vacation virtually. Here are a couple of photos.

She’s already had loads of fun!

That’s the sock in progress. I’m hoping to get more done on that today.

Last but not least, a friend gifted us with a big bowl of Gravenstein apples, so I am making this.

It is still in the oven, but it is starting to smell awfully good. We might just have that for supper tonight! And there will be plenty, since Ena doesn’t eat much!

Pantry

As with all of you, we have found ourselves stuck at home for the duration. When it comes time to plan meals for the next few days, we can’t just hop in the car and go to the market for one or two things. Earlier this week I stepped out on our front patio and noticed this.

It’s gotten warm enough that the sorrel plant has popped up. Fresh green stuff is not something to be taken lightly right now, so I harvested it and decided to make lentils.

Here’s my recipe:

  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped
  • celery, 2-3 stalks, chopped
  • chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 tomato, seeded and chopped (can use canned diced)
  • sorrel, roughly chopped. You could use spinach or any other fresh greens (kale, chard)
  • salt and pepper
  • herbes de Provence, about a teaspoon
  • Bay leaf
  • Aleppo pepper*, if you have it, about half a teaspoon
  • Water or stock, about 4 cups
  • Lentils, picked over, rinsed, and drained, 2 cups

Saute the onion, celery, and garlic in a bit of oil. Add the tomato, parsley, seasonings, and the lentils. Add the liquid.

Bring to a simmer, partially cover and cook until the liquid is absorbed and the lentils are done. This will take 20-30 minutes. Stir in the sorrel just at the end of cooking. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

Here is the finished product:

If you have any growing space, sorrel is a good thing to have on hand. I’m not sure it would winter over in a really cold climate, but it is a perennial, and even I can’t kill it. It starts to come up in the spring, and as long as you keep harvesting it, it keeps growing. You can use it where you might use spinach, though it is quite a bit more lemony and tangy. It is high in vitamins and antioxidants, and supposedly can lower your blood pressure, so it is good for you as well.

Beans and lentils, along with rice, already are a staple for our meals around here, so we had a pretty good pantry stock set up. By supplementing with a few fresh veggies and fruits, we should do just fine for quite some time.

What’s on your table for the coming week?

*Aleppo pepper can be found online and in specialty markets. If you don’t have it, just use a bit more regular pepper, or add a tiny bit of cayenne.

Betty f*ing Crocker

It’s time for another episode of Cooking With the Knitting Doctor. One of the things that is nice about being home is home cooking. The food was great on the cruise, but we usually eat a lot more simply at home, and eat way more plant-based meals. I had the urge to make beans and rice yesterday, and did so. They aren’t vegetarian, since I added some leftover sliced ham that was languishing in the freezer from Thanksgiving, but they were pretty loaded with other healthy things.

Here is roughly the bean recipe

  • 1 pound of Rancho Gordo Ayocote Morado beans.
  • Medium onion, sliced or diced.
  • Celery, 2 stalks, chopped.
  • Garlic, 2 cloves, chopped.
  • Red bell pepper, half of it, chopped.
  • 2 slices of thick cut ham, diced.
  • Generous spoon each of dried thyme and oregano.
  • Generous spoon of cumin, ground (I use the whole cumin and grind it as I use it).
  • Pinch of cayenne.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.
  • Stock or water.
  • Can of diced tomatoes

I soaked the beans in water for most of the day. Drain.

Sauté the veggies in olive oil in Instant Pot container. Add everything else, then the stock or water to cover the beans by about 2 inches, more if you want it soupier.

Lock the lid, set on high pressure for 24 minutes. This really depends on the kind of beans you are using. I tend to underestimate a bit, unless I’m shooting for falling apart beans. You can always close it up again and cook for a few more minutes if they aren’t done. When the timer is done, release the steam, check the beans, make sure they are done.

This is one of those recipes that is easily modified. Leave out the ham, or add a different meat if you have leftovers to use. Change up the spices as you like. Some chopped greens would be great in this as well. If you want to use canned or already cooked beans, you could, and just do them on the stove top.

I promptly fell asleep last night after I did these, and missed dinner. My brain is still on east coast time. So we had them for breakfast today.

I took some of the beans, cooked them in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil, mashed them a bit. They were put on top of a heated corn tortilla, and topped with shredded cheese, a fried egg, chopped scallions, cilantro, and tomatoes. And a splash of hot sauce that we bought in St. Thomas.

Honest to God, these were so good that I almost cried. I think I’ve mentioned Rancho Gordo before, I joined their bean club a while back. I get a shipment of their lovely beans every quarter, and buy more in between as well. Their beans are heirloom varieties and are wonderful.

And just so you don’t think I’m kidding about being Miss Betty F-ing Crocker, here’s proof. I won the Betty Crocker Family Leader of Tomorrow award in high school. No lie.

It is risen

I haven’t made bread from a sourdough starter in quite a while. When we went to Poland in September, I forgot to take care of the starter before I left, and by the time we got home and remembered it, it was well past resurrecting.

I decided to buy a small starter from Breadtopia last week. It took a few days to build it up to a usable quantity. Here’s what it looked like this morning.

That looks like a fine healthy starter to me. I have bread dough in the works for a nice sourdough Pain de Campagne.

Millions of Tomatoes

It is that time of year again. Our patio tomato plants have finally started to get their act together.

That means we are putting tomatoes in pretty much everything we are eating right now.

Last night I made a French tomato tarte for dinner.

Here is what it looked like before it was baked.

And after:

We ate the leftovers for breakfast with a fried egg alongside this morning.

Here is the recipe I used. I modified it a bit. I partially baked the tarte crust, for about 10 minutes, so the filling wouldn’t make it soggy. I also thinly sliced a yellow onion, and caramelized it, then tossed in some chopped garlic for a few seconds. I layered that between two layers of sliced tomatoes. I used a mixture of fresh herbs from our garden, parsley, rosemary, marjoram, oregano. And I topped it with shredded Comte cheese instead of goat cheese since that is what I had. This is one of those recipes that is sort of endlessly modifiable. You could add other sautéed veggies (zucchini, red peppers, etc.), or use different kinds of cheese. You could vary the herbs, or make it spicy with either hot peppers or pepper flakes. You could add various meats as well, although this with crusty bread and a salad was plenty hearty for supper. Unlike a quiche, it doesn’t have a custard base, so it keeps better, though it certainly didn’t last long here.

What are you all doing with your fall harvest?

Home Again

And back to healthy eating. I think we ate enough meat at the beach to feed a small village. I’ve been trying to eat a more plant based diet, which is challenging when you live with a confirmed carnivore.

I’ve lost about twenty pounds over the last few months, but need to kick things up a notch to get the rest of the extra pounds off. Steak and cheese don’t help. Neither do vodka martinis (sob).

Here’s my breakfast today.

It’s a healthy version of migas.

Migas

4 scallions, chopped

Handful of baby kale, sliced

Small tomato, chopped

2 eggs

Ground chile, about a teaspoon

Small handful of tortilla chips, broken into pieces

Salt*

Salsa

I sautéed the scallion in a tiny bit of olive oil, then added the tomato and kale and cooked for a half a minute. I scrambled the eggs with the chile and salt and added to the pan. As soon as the eggs start to set, add the chips and continue stirring until the eggs are done. Serve with salsa.

Usually migas are full of cheese and things like refried beans, so aren’t all that healthy. The veggies bulk this up quite a bit so you don’t need as many chips. I couldn’t eat all of it, John finished it off and pronounced it good. Next time I’ll add more veggies. Spinach and bell peppers would be good as well. If you made this with three eggs it should be enough for two people.

* if your chips are pretty salty, don’t add extra to the eggs

Happy New Year’s Eve!

Don’t forget to gather your ingredients for your New Year’s Black Eyed peas!

Once again, as a public service, here’s my sort-of recipe for BEP’s. I say sort of, since I don’t actually follow it exactly, this is just a guideline.

1 biggish onion, chopped

4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped

Celery, about 3/4 cup chopped

1-2 large carrots, chopped

1 Bell pepper, any color will do, chopped

Olive oil

Blackeyed peas, 1 pound bag, picked over and rinsed

1-14 ounce can of diced tomatoes, drained (use the juice if you like it more tomato-ey)

Chicken stock, canned

1 bottle of beer

Splash of worcestershire sauce

Ham hock or ham shank (shank is meatier)

Thyme & oregano, a couple of teaspoons each

Bay leaf

Dijon mustard, a teaspoon or two

Salt and pepper

Cayenne, to taste. I start with about 1/4 teaspoon, and generally add more.

Saute the onion, celery, carrot, and pepper in oil in a big pot. Add the garlic when the other veggies are soft, cook for a minute. Add the rinsed peas, the can of tomatoes, the beer, and enough water or chicken stock to cover by about an inch. I usually use the tomato liquid, too. Throw in the seasonings, except for the salt. Add the ham hock and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook until the peas are done, about 45-60 minutes or so. Add salt to taste towards the end of the cooking time. Keep an eye on it, and add more liquid if needed as the peas cook.

Pick the meat off the ham bone, if there is any, and add it to the peas. Serve with cooked rice. If you are really lucky, someone will make you homemade cornbread to go with it.

Solstice Time, or Trifle Recipe

It’s that time of year again. We are having our winter solstice dinner tonight for neighbors and friends. I have a six course sit down dinner for 10 people and I should be cooking instead of blogging. I posted a photo of the trifle on FB, and a family member asked for the recipe so here it is. This is a little updated for how the recipe has morphed a bit over the years.

Lorette’s English Trifle

10374073_10156432016080235_439110390929736315_n

1 large clear glass bowl

Sara Lee frozen pound cake, 2 of them.  I actually only used about half of the second cake. If you slice it thinner you can get by with 1 cake.

Whipped cream, I used about a quart of whipping cream, whipped with a bit of sugar and vanilla. Use real cream, heavy whipping cream works best, and beat it fairly stiffly so it doesn’t wilt on you.

Vanilla pudding…NOT INSTANT, it will separate out in the trifle unless you eat it right away. I used 2 large packages of Jello brand pudding.  Make this the day before so it can chill. Warm pudding won’t work.

Fruit.  Fresh berries work best, of all the things I’ve tried. Raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries hold up best and don’t get soggy. And kiwis for the sides and top.  A big trifle like this one used a dozen or so kiwis, peeled and thinly sliced.  I probably used 3 or four cups of berries plus the kiwis.

Seedless raspberry jam.  I used about a quarter to a third of an 8 oz. jar.

Sherry.  Doesn’t have to be really expensive, but make sure it is not cooking sherry, use something you would actually drink.

Slice cake into about half inch slices, then cut these in half or thirds and line the bottom of the bowl.  Spread a thin layer of jam on the cake pieces.  After trying various utensils to do this, I decided that just using my fingers to spread it around works best.

Sprinkle with a bit of sherry…I used about 2-3 tablespoons per cake layer, maybe more, maybe less.

Stand your kiwi slices on end around the side of the bowl.  See picture.
The idea is that you see the layers of kiwi slices through the glass, so you have to be a little fussy about placement.  Putting the kiwi in place before you plop on the other layers keeps it all neater.
Layer fruit next, then a layer of pudding, then a layer of whipped cream.
Now do another repeat of the same layers…cake, sherry, jam, kiwi, fruit, pudding, whipped cream.  Depending on the size of your bowl you might get a third repeat, but my bowl holds 2 sets.

On top of the last layer of whipped cream, arrange fruit slices in a decorative pattern.

Chill for at least 2 hours, then serve.  You can make this earlier in the day as well.  If you make it the day before, things get a little soggy, and the whipped cream doesn’t hold up as well.

You can vary this by using different fruit, different jam, flavor your cream, etc. I’ve seen variations that use chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, etc.  If you’re not feeding the whole neighborhood, obviously you can cut this back and do it in a smaller bowl.  The leftovers are great for breakfast, though, and people will eat more of this than you think.  Even after devouring about twelve pounds of prime rib, we ate two-thirds of this bowl last night.

If you were Martha, you would make your pudding from scratch instead of a mix, and would make real pound cake yourself instead of buying it.  It’s good even with the shortcuts, though. There were grown people standing around the bowl just digging in with spoons by the end of the party.

 

There you go. I’m getting back to work.

I Married A Sweetheart!

I had to work the whole holiday weekend, so my sweetie offered to make me breakfast this AM. Bacon, scrambled eggs and homemade hashbrowns.

image
Of course it didn’t hurt that I finished his MITTENS! Did I mention that already? Here they are on the blocking board.
image
Why is only one of them pinned down, you might ask? These took so freaking long to knit that my gauge changed, and the one on the left is just a bit bigger, so I stretched the other one a bit to match. Wool is a lovely thing.

And the Finished Bacon project:

image

Summer, Finally!

It took its sweet time getting here, but we finally have something resembling summer. It’s been in the mid to high 70’s the past few days, and not a drop of rain! Hooray!

In honor of the nice weather, I hauled the wheel out to the deck for a bit of spinning.

_MG_4208

Yes, that’s plain white fiber. I bought pounds of plain white fiber in a couple of different wool varieties. This is Bluefaced Leicester. I intended to dye this using some of my plant dyes, but decided it’s less tricky to spin it first, then dye it. This is such nice stuff that it’s not boring at all to spin, even if it’s not dyed. I’m easily entertained.

Marilyn asked about my fried chicken recipe in the comments earlier this week. After I sent it to her, she suggested you all might like it, so here it is.

Lorette’s Fried Chicken

Chicken parts-make more than you think you’ll eat, people eat this like they haven’t had a meal in weeks.

Self rising flour, enough to dip your chicken. You really need the self rising kind to get a nice finish.

Add salt and pepper to taste to the flour.

Grate a bit of fresh nutmeg into the flour as well.

Mix the flour and seasonings all together and put in one dish.

In another dish pour buttermilk, enough to dip chicken pieces into.
Dip the chicken pieces in the flour mix, then the buttermilk, then back into the flour, coating well. Coat just enough to cook one batch at a time, if it sits too long it tends to get a bit soggy.

Set the coated chicken pieces on another plate or a big sheet pan and let sit for 15 minutes. The waiting period is essential as well to get that nice bubbly crispy coating.

IMG_0942

This is pretty easy, though a bit messy. I use a huge cast iron deep skillet, and crisco to fry. Fill up the skillet about half full or a little less with the melted crisco, remember it can run over when you add the chicken.  It can make a nasty kitchen fire if it runs over onto burners, so be careful. I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen and know how to use it, but it would be the last resort, any food on the stove would be ruined, and it probably wouldn’t do the cooktop any good either. A box of baking soda can put out a grease fire in a pinch also. It’s best to not fill your pan too much, the melted fat should come up about half way or a little more on the chicken pieces. And don’t overheat your fat; if it starts to smoke turn off the heat, or you’ll risk a flare up and a fire.

I also cut up brown paper bags and cover the floor around the stovetop. Seriously, do this. It makes clean up easier.

Now fry your chicken. Heat the crisco, then add the chicken pieces, then cover and fry for 10 minutes covered. Adjust your heat so the oil is bubbling a bit but not so much that it’s bubbling out of the pan.

Uncover and cook another 25 minutes, turning once or maybe twice if needed to brown nicely. This is where you need your kitchen fan and a mesh fryer screen to keep the oil mostly contained.

IMG_0944

When there is about 15 minutes left in the cooking time, coat your next batch of chicken so it’s ready to go when the first one is all cooked and crispy.

Drain the done chicken on brown paper bags.  I usually cook several batches, it’s fine served at room temperature and terrific cold. It’s also really terrific leftover, skinned and cut up to make chicken salad.

Get somebody else to clean the cooktop if possible.

Go forth and make chicken!

One Freaking Sock

There you have it. I posted my June goals earlier on in the month. I must say, they were rather ambitious, given that I finished exactly seven projects in the past year and a bit. Why don’t you people tell me when I write something as stupid as “I’m going to finish a sweater, a pair of socks, and part of another sweater. Oh, and a million rows of a complicated lace shawl that requires my total concentration and cannot be worked on if anyone is speaking within a hundred miles of my location.”

Ahem. On top of my lofty goals, work was a bit busy. And I tried to cut my left index finger off right after I said I was going to knit a row a day on that shawl. It was a relatively tiny cut, but it was right on the tip of my finger where the knitting needle hits it with every single stitch. So I couldn’t knit anything for about a week or it would start bleeding again, and since then it is healing OK, but hurts every time I poke it, which is with every single stitch.

No, there was no alcohol involved. I was trying to slice bread. Serrated bread knife meets finger, part eleventy billion. My family appears to be known for this talent, so much so that my husband’s first instinct was not to grab a towel or a bandaid, or even to see if he needed to call 911. No, he grabbed his camera so he could post a photo of the carnage on Facebook for my loved ones to laugh at. I’m not linking to that. Imagine my hand, some bread, and quite a lot of blood.

But I did finish a sock. Here you go.

Of course I still have one sock to go, but at least I’ve started it.

I was a bit worried as I finished the first sock that I will run out of yarn, since the yardage is a bit short on this stuff*. After I finished, I hauled out the trusty drug-dealer scale to check.

Finished sock weighs 45.9 grams (including a bit of heel and toe reinforcing yarn).

I have 54.2 grams left, so I should be good.

I’m also baking bread again. Last week’s bread was a white-wheat-rye blend. Here’s what’s in the bread machine today.

Here are the approximate proportions of what’s in it.

2 cups regular bread flour

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup water

1/2 cup mixed “harvest grains“, softened in about 1/2 cup hot water

2 TBL canola oil

2 TBL molasses

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 TBL wheat gluten

1 TBL yeast

I get my bread making ingredients at the King Arthur store online. I linked to the harvest grain blend, but the rest of what you need can be found there as well.

I’ll bake that in the oven on a stone instead of in the machine, I like the texture better that way. I’ll try to remember to show you a photo later when it’s out!

*The yarn is Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes sock yarn. It’s 367 yards, which for someone with a foot that is close to size 11, can be a little light. Can I tell you how much I love them though? When I went to find a link to this, I discovered that they now make their sock yarns in “Big Foot” sizes. You can buy a skein and a half if you have Sasquatch size feet!