chicken pot pie

I discovered the beauty of roasting a whole chicken and making stock from the bones long ago.  However, when I started buying chickens that were raised out on grass by a farmer, I realized I had to change my cooking technique a little bit.  These birds tend to be better-worked, more muscular, and a little more prone to getting dry.

The other thing I realized is that they are expensive!  Contrary to popular culture, chicken has become our family's special-occasion meal.  A well-raised bird can easily run $3-4/pound, and at 4-5 pounds each, you are now talking about a $20 bird.  We save those for when we have guests for dinner, and then we stretch them into two or three or four meals.  (You know what's cheap?  Ground beef or stew meat, that's what's cheap, relatively speaking here.  And eating vegetarian, like using beans or paneer as your protein, is cheapest of all!)

I roasted a bird the other night for some company, and here's how it went:

First night:  roast chicken

Second night:  chicken tacos

Third night:  chicken pot pie

And then I tossed the carcass in the freezer to make stock later.

And then I realized I had never shared my chicken pot pie recipe!  It's a true favorite in our house.  A full meal in one pan (vegetable, bread, protein).

Chicken Pot Pie
1/2 an onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1-2 ribs celery, diced (optional)
2 T butter
2 T flour
1 C chicken stock (may need more)
1/2 C milk
1/2 t dried thyme
1/4 C frozen peas
1 C diced cooked chicken
salt and pepper
1 C flour
1/3 C frozen butter
cold water as needed

Oven - 400.

Start by frying the onion, carrot, and celery in butter over medium heat.

Let them get really soft - no one wants a big crunchy carrot chunk in their pot pie.  Drop the heat a little if you need to, and add a little stock if it starts to get too brown.  I probably let this go for 10 minutes.

Add the flour and stir it into the butter and vegetables, making sure it is completely combined and no more white floury areas are visible.

Add the chicken stock and stir very well.  It will start to bubble and thicken right away.  Add the milk and keep stirring.  Add thyme, frozen peas, and chicken, and combine.  Taste it and season with salt and pepper.

Once everything is all warmed up and thick, scrape it into a casserole dish and set aside.

Now, make the pie crust.  This is my standard pie crust recipe.  I love freezing the butter and grating it - it takes all the mess away and gets the butter the perfect size without you having to get your hands all dirty.

In a small bowl, put the cup of flour and a pinch of salt.  Using a cheese grater, grate the 1/3 C frozen butter into the flour, stopping occasionally to toss the butter around in the flour.  Once it's all grated, grab a fork.  Pour in ice-cold water about a tablespoon at a time, stopping to stir it in after each addition.  Once it's come together and there is no more dry flour visible, turn it out onto the countertop.  Press it lightly into a disk, then used a floured rolling pin to roll it out to the size needed to cover the pot pie.  You may have more crust than you need - just freeze whatever is leftover and use it whenever you need a little pie crust!

Cut a couple of vents on the top of the pot pie, then pop it into the 400 oven for about 30 minutes.  It will get brown and bubbly.  Pull it out and let it cool for a few minutes, then enjoy!

Serves 2-4, depending on age and appetite.

paneer tikka masala

As promised in my last post about elementary cheese-making, here is one of my favorite uses for paneer!

Chicken tikka masala is the "national dish" of Britain, funny enough, because it was an Anglicization of Indian food during Imperial times.  It's a favorite of mine at buffets.  Once I realized how easy it was to make at home, I decided to stop paying for it.  Making it with paneer is even easier!

Paneer Tikka Masala
12-16 oz paneer
3 T butter
1 T olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
2 serrano peppers, minced (seeds removed if less heat desired)
2 T tomato paste
8 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced (about 3 cups - or 2 15-oz cans diced tomatoes)
1 t garam masala
2 t paprika
2 C water
1 1/2 t salt
1/2 c cream

Melt about 1 T of the butter in a large skillet (I always use cast iron).  Fry the paneer on all sides until nicely golden brown.  Remove from the pan and set aside.

Melt the remaining butter and the olive oil together in the same pan.  Add the garlic, ginger, and peppers.  Fry and stir until it is lightly brown - about 3-5 minutes.

Add tomato paste and fry until it darkens in color - about 2 minutes.  Add garam masala and paprika and fry together for another minute or so.

Stir in the tomatoes, water, and salt.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and let it simmer 20 minutes (now is a good time to start basmati rice).

Let the curry cool slightly, then blend it in two batches in the blender, until completely smooth.  Return it to the skillet, add the cream and stir it in.  Add the fried paneer cubes back into the curry and let it all cook together for about ten minutes.

Serve over basmati rice with cucumber raita, mango chutney, and/or green chutney!  Also, this is delicious served with a mango lassi to drink.  Serves 4.

paneer

I promised this recipe post long ago, when I posted a photo of my paneer and butter on Facebook and had lots of interest from friends, wondering . . . what the hell is that stuff?

We have belonged to a milk co-op for about four and a half years.  We partner with an old-order Mennonite farmer in Kentucky, and about 8-12 families participate at any given time.  We take turns driving up there, visiting with Joseph, and bringing back milk, cream, and eggs.  It has been a phenomenal experience, and I'm so happy to be a part of it.  I love showing the kids the farm and the animals and where our food comes from.  Plus the drop point has been my backyard for the past few years, which makes it pretty easy for me.

The upshot, though, is that I pretty much always have a gallon of milk and a pint of cream waiting for me to do something.  We don't drink a ton of milk straight-up in my household.  Todd likes a glass here and there (he demands "fresh milk"), I like it in coffee.  But I get a gallon every week, rain or shine, and so I have had to get creative with how I use it up.

I skim the cream from the top of the gallon, combine it with my pint of cream, and make butter every week or two.  This has made me into a huge butter snob.  I only like my bright yellow butter now, and a lot of mornings the kids just have bread and butter and honey for breakfast.

I also make and freeze a lot of paneer.  I got super into making Indian food in the last couple of years.  It's pretty easy and it makes your house smell like exotic heaven.  Paneer is kind of the Indian equivalent to tofu.  It's a vegetarian protein staple that can pick up pretty much any flavor you combine it with.  Making it is an adventure in easy cheese-making:

Paneer . . . to the left, to the left.

Paneer
You will need milk, lemons, a big pot, a colander, cheesecloth (or an old clean pillowcase), a couple of plates, and some heavy cans.

Pour 8 cups of milk into a large pot.  Heat over medium until it begins to boil.  (This may take about twenty minutes - stir continuously near the end so it doesn't scald to the bottom.)

When it boils, pour in 1/4 C fresh lemon juice (no seeds! - you can also use bottled in a pinch).  The milk should begin to curdle immediately.  If it doesn't, add a little more lemon juice.

Drop the heat to low and stir the curds together gently for about five minutes.  You want to stir in such a way that you are sort of bringing them together, rather than smashing them apart.

Wet the cheesecloth and put it in the bottom of the colander.

Drain the curds into the lined colander.  Tie the ends of the cheesecloth together to make a little sack of curds.  Hang it from your kitchen faucet to drip for five minutes.

After the curds have drained five minutes, take the cheesecloth ball and twist it so that the ends are off to one side.  Place the ball on one plate, smash the ball down a little and put another plate on top of it.  Weight the top down with a couple of cans and let it drain for another twenty minutes or so.

Once the draining is over, remove the cheesecloth and dice the paneer into 1-inch cubes.  Use immediately or freeze for later!

How do I use it?  It's great in pretty much any Indian recipe!  Saag paneer, paneer tikka masala, and matar paneer are my favorites.  I will post a recipe for one of these in the next few days - this post already seemed too long and overwhelming!

Asian slaw

I wrote in my last menu plan that I needed to finally get this recipe out into the ether.  I make this Asian slaw probably once a month, usually for a potluck situation.  My mother-in-law requested that I bring it to the family Easter dinner yesterday.  I love bringing it because:  cabbage.  It feeds an army for like fifty cents.  This whole salad probably costs $5 to put together, and it feeds 12 as a side dish, easily.  I also love it because you can make all the three elements in advance (salad base, dressing, crunchy toppings), and just put it all together right before serving.  So, without further ado, please have my recipe for Asian slaw!

Asian Cabbage Slaw

1 small head cabbage, finely shredded
1 carrot, shredded on a box grater
4-5 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 C dried cherries
4 oz sliced almonds
1 package Oriental flavored Ramen noodles
1/4 C sugar (I used sucanat here)
1/4 C rice vinegar
2 T olive oil
2 T sesame oil

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, toss together the shredded cabbage and carrot, green onions, and dried cherries.

Crush the Ramen noodles inside the package, using the back of a knife or a mallet.  Open the package, remove the seasoning packet, and spread the noodles on a baking sheet, along with the sliced almonds.

Toast the Ramen noodles and almonds for about 5 minutes - watch closely because they will burn fast!

Meanwhile, combine the sugar, vinegar, olive oil, sesame oil, and the seasoning packet from the Ramen noodles in a small mason jar.

Shake shake shake!  Dressing is done.

Pull the noodles and almonds from the oven and allow to cool slightly.  Toss them with the cabbage/carrot/onion/cherry mixture.  Dress it all liberally and serve!

(If I make this ahead of time, I dress the salad mix with about half the dressing, and reserve the rest.  I also pack up the noodles and almonds separately so they stay crunchy.  Combine it all at the last minute and serve!)

Serves 8-12 as a side dish.

homemade ricotta

One of the things that has been so fun and interesting for me as I ventured into a real-food diet has been the evolution of my concept of consumer choice.  For instance, your standard American mom makes a grocery list based on some recipes she wants to make (or maybe she doesn't even make a list - she just goes to the store and sees what looks good), goes to the grocery store, buys what she needs to make what she wants, and goes home.

I'm kind of doing things backward now!  I buy a half-cow in various cuts, then I look in my deep freeze at the beginning of the week and think about what I can make with what I have.  I get my CSA box and see what will spoil first, and plan on cooking those vegetables early in the week.  And we do a static dairy order each week - we can only change at the new order for the month.  So, if I ordered a gallon of milk, I get a gallon of milk each week, whether I want it or not.  And then I need to figure out what to do with it before it sours!

This may sound like a lot of work, but I really think it's a lot of fun.  It's about being resourceful and imaginative.  And once your brain gets used to shifting the order of operations a bit, it becomes second nature.  

Preserving dairy is a great extension of this resourcefulness.  Whatever we don't bake with or drink straight up or in coffee gets turned into butter, yogurt, pudding, ice cream, sherbet, mozzarella, ricotta, or ricotta salata.  I have shared most of these recipes with you already, but today let's talk ricotta!  

Ricotta is really the easiest soft cheese to make (aside from labneh, which is just strained yogurt).  And the uses are endless!  You can ripen it in the fridge to make ricotta salata, which is a salted, dried, aged version.  You can dollop it on a white pizza.  You can mix with salt, olive oil, and fresh herbs for a nice dip.  You can fold it into a cheesecake.   You can mix it into pasta (a traditional lasagna is my favorite!).  It has a mild, creamy texture and flavor that really make it versatile.  

So here's how you do it.

Start with a quart of whole milk.  (Raw, pasteurized, whatever.)

Heat gently to 95 C (~205 F).  I do this over medium heat, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, mix 1/2 teaspoon citric acid with a few tablespoons of cool water.

When the milk is up to temp, pull it off the heat and stir in the dissolved citric acid.  The milk will begin to curdle immediately.  Cover and leave it for half an hour.

This is what it will look like when the half-hour is up - totally separated into curds and whey.

I use a ricotta strainer basket to drain off the whey.  I just discard it.  Some people save it to feed to their plants or things like that.  The whey at this point has lost all its probiotic quality due to being heated so high, so it's not a very useful dietary supplement.  You can strain it to your desired dryness. 

After straining mine for about an hour, I turn it out into a container.  

And there you have it!  Fresh, creamy, homemade ricotta, waiting in your fridge for you to eat it up!

From a quart of milk, I will get about 8 ounces of ricotta.

Have you ever ventured into cheesemaking?  Tell me about it!

[This post submitted to Fat Tuesday 3/10/15 and Simply Natural Saturday 3/7/15.]

nine ways to eat your cabbage!

Seasonal eating . . . It's what I'm committed to.  It's what I stand for.  It's the right way to eat - the way our great-grandparents did it!  It . . .

Starts to suck really bad in February.  Seriously.  Here's what we get in the dregs of winter:  cabbage, hard squash, turnips, cabbage, sweet potatoes, potatoes, cabbage, onions, carrots, broccoli, cabbage.

A lot of cabbage.  Those heads of cabbage are huge!  I currently have no fewer than five cabbages in my fridge.

I'm lucky that I like cabbage.  But there's only so much cabbage a gal can take.  I put together all my favorite cabbage recipes here, in case you are in a situation of cabbage richness similar to mine.

Here you go - nine ways to eat your cabbage!

Sauerkraut - the classic gateway drug to lactofermentation!  It really couldn't be simpler.  Slice your cabbage very thinly and then weigh it.  For every pound of cabbage, add two teaspoons of salt.  Put it all into a great big mixing bowl and start kneading it with your hands like bread.  Crunch the cabbage shreds between your fingers and press it all together.  Soon it will start to release liquid.  Once you can grab a handful and squeeze it and liquid trickles out of your fist, you are ready to jar it!  I usually do quart-size jars.  Pack the cabbage very tightly into jars.  Use a wooden spoon handle to tamp it down in layers before you add more.  You want the liquid to cover the top of the cabbage.  Once it's full, put a lid on loosely and leave it on your counter for a few days.  It will start to bubble.  Taste it after three days.  Is it nice and sour?  If so, cap it tightly and refrigerate (or cold storage).  If not, let it go longer.  Taste each day until it's ready.  Kraut will last basically indefinitely in the fridge.  It is an amazing natural source of probiotics.  I eat a tablespoon-full every night before bed to settle my stomach.

Pickled Cabbage Salad - I adapted this one from Smitten Kitchen.  Mix up a brine of 3/4 C white vinegar, 3/4 C water, 3 T sucanat or sugar, 1/4 t celery seeds, 2 t sea salt.  Heat the brine until everything is dissolved.  Meanwhile shred a pound of cabbage.  Add a julienned carrot.  Pour the brine over the shredded veggies and let it sit for several hours.  It will get better each day (refrigerated)!  This is awesome on Korean beef tacos or as a side to any rich meat.

Vinegar Slaw - This is the bare-bones version of cole slaw that I prefer!  No mayo.  It's perfect on BBQ pork or brisket sandwiches.  Shred 1/2 a head of green cabbage.  Mix 1/4 C sucanat or sugar, 1/4 C white vinegar, and 1 T salt.  Toss it with the cabbage and let it sit for several hours before serving.

Cabbage, Noodles & Bacon - This is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods.  Something about the piquancy of the vinegar against the richness of the bacon, the texture of the cabbage with the noodles.  I just love it.

Braised Cabbage - With both apple cider and cider vinegar.  This is SO freaking good.  Cabbage + apple + bacon is such a natural flavor combination.  Plus Tom Colicchio can do no wrong.

Cabbage Rolls - Leave it Ina Garten, my personal favorite and the queen of Jewish soul food, to give the perfect recipe for this comforting dish.  It takes a little bit of preparation, but it's no harder than a lasagna!

Cabbage & Rice Soup - This is one I came up with on the fly to use up leftovers.  It was perfect.  I took a mix of homemade chicken and pork stock from the freezer - maybe 2 cups.  I added 1 cup thinly shredded cabbage and let that all come to a boil, cooking until the cabbage was tender.  Then I added a cup or so of leftover sesame-scallion rice.  After it heated through I added a half-teaspoon or so of Sambal Oelek.  It was rich and comforting from the stock, filling with the rice, and pleasantly spicy.  Such a good lunch.

Asian Slaw - This is a big favorite in the family for picnics and potlucks.  This deviates from my Real Food ways a bit, since it uses the noodles and spice packet from a package of instant Ramen noodles.  But hey - you only live once, right?  Have some Ramen noodles.  I basically use this recipe, but instead of bagged coleslaw mix, I do 1/2 a head of shredded cabbage and two shredded carrots.

Cabbage & Noodles - This is supreme comfort food that I learned from my days living with my old friends Stephanie and Julie.  Julie's parents brought up all their children as vegetarians, and they had four kids!  So they needed economical ways to feed the family.  You basically just take a head of cabbage, an onion, a one-pound bag of egg noodles (or a pound of fresh), a bunch of butter, and some salt.  Very thinly slice the onion and cabbage.  Take your biggest pan and saute them in 4 T butter and a few teaspoons of salt (I also added about a teaspoon of caraway seeds last time - very nice).  While that cooks, bring a big pot of water to a boil and add the egg noodles.  Cook until they are done, then drain.  Once the cabbage and onion are very soft and starting to caramelize (maybe 20-30 minutes), add the noodles to the pan and add another 4 T butter.  Taste and add more salt as needed.  Stir well so the noodles are totally coated in butter.  Feed an army and enjoy.

So - do you have favorite cabbage dishes!?  What have I forgotten?

[This post submitted to the HomeAcre Hop 3/5/15.]

like buttah

Except it's not just like butter.  It actually is real butter!  I just realized I've never given you a post on how I make butter.  I'm kind of embarrassed to do it, because it's not much of a "recipe," to speak of.  It's just a series of actions with one ingredient that takes about half an hour.

And that half an hour each week is totally worth it to me!  To have fresh, raw, local butter.  At a great price!  (Works out to about $6/lb for me.)

Here's what I do.

Each Monday evening, we pick up our milk from the co-op.  We usually get one gallon of milk, one pint of cream, and one dozen eggs per week.  We bring it home, and I pull whatever cream was left from last week out of the fridge.  I combine it with whatever cream I won't be using for recipes during the week from the new pint.  Usually it works out to about a pint or so of cream altogether.  Sometimes I wait until I have more cream built up and do a quart at a time.  Your preference.  The more cream you use, the longer it takes to curdle, but then you have more butter.  You can always freeze the excess if you'd rather do a big batch at once.

You have a choice at this point.  Do you want:

1)  Sweet cream butter?
      Pros:  neutral flavor, good for baking, can be made with cream straight out of the fridge.
     Cons:  shorter shelf life on the counter, leftover buttermilk is basically just skim milk and cannot be used as an acid in baking (unless you add some additional acid to it, like lemon juice or vinegar).

or

2)  Cultured cream butter?
      Pros:  slightly tangy flavor, European-style, longer shelf life on the counter, leftover buttermilk is cultured and behaves just like store-bought buttermilk in baking (that is, it acts as an acid with chemical leaveners like baking soda.)
      Cons:  not as good for baking because of flavor profile, the cream must sit and culture first at room temperature.

If you want to culture, it's really easy:  just sit the cream on the counter and leave it for 12-24 hours before you make butter.  Done.  I always make sweet cream butter, just because I prefer the flavor.

So here's how I make the butter:

I put the cream into my stand mixer with the whisk attachment.

I cover the whole thing with a dish towel (or you will splash buttermilk in places you didn't even know existed in your kitchen!).

I turn it on to a moderately high speed (maybe a 6 on my Kitchenaid), and let it whip.

Just leave it alone and let it do its thing.  It will turn into whipped cream,

then it will break and shrink back down,

and finally it will begin to separate into butterfat and buttermilk.

I stop it just one time, after the whipped cream has broken, to scrape the sides of the bowl and be sure it is all incorporated.  For a pint of cream, this stage generally takes about 20-30 minutes.  If you have more cream, it will take longer.

When it's fully broken, you will hear a lot of sloshing in the mixer bowl.  Stop the mixer and strain the butter away from the buttermilk.

Put the butter curds into a large mixing bowl.

Use the back of a wooden spoon to press as much moisture as you possibly can out of the curds.

Spread the butter around the bowl with the spoon and then push it together.  A lot of buttermilk will continue to come out of the butter.  Drain it off into the jar with the other buttermilk.  Really work as hard as you can to get the buttermilk out of the butter, because any liquid left in the butter is what causes it to spoil.  I usually knead the butter with the spoon for about 5-10 minutes.  Some people do this with their hands, but I've found my hands are way too warm and they just end up with melted butter smeared all over them and wasted.

Once you are satisfied that no more buttermilk is coming out, put your butter into a glass dish and either keep it on the counter to use immediately or in the freezer for storage.  I always keep some out so it's spreadable.  I find that the butter will taste sweet and good for 2 weeks in winter, and closer to 1 week in summer.

Enjoy!

[This post submitted to Fat Tuesday 2/24/15 and the HomeAcre Hop 2/26/15.]

chocolate strawberry jam cake

I've always maintained that I'm not much of a dessert person.  I would pretty much always prefer an additional portion of supper, rather than something sweet afterward.  But Valentine's Day is a day that demands chocolate.  And berries.  And something sweet after dinner.  Vicki and I made these precious chocolate shortbread hearts, drizzled with royal icing and dusted with red sugar.

But those were for her classmates!  So we needed something else for our Valentine's supper on Saturday.  I remembered a cake recipe I once made for my friend Mackenzie's birthday.  It was a layer cake, really lovely.  It called for a rich chocolate buttercream frosting, but I kind of despise frosting.  So I decided to just go with some homemade strawberry jam, both in between the layers and on top of the cake.  I swapped some ingredients from the original recipe to make it more real-food friendly, and also reduced the recipe so that it was only two layers tall rather than three, and voila!  A beautiful, rich, jammy cake that you can enjoy without too much guilt.  It is made with plain old all-purpose flour, so consider it an indulgence.

Chocolate Strawberry Jam Cake
(Adapted from this recipe.)

Sorry 'bout the photo!  A food photographer I am definitely not!

1 C + 3 T AP flour
1 1/3 C sucanat
1/2 C cocoa powder
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t sea salt
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2/3 C buttermilk
1/3 C melted butter
1 1/2 t vanilla
2/3 C boiling water
1/2 - 2/3 C strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter 2 8-inch round cake pans.  Cut two circles of parchment paper and fit one into the bottom of each pan.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sucanat, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt.

Whisk together the egg and egg yolk, buttermilk, melted butter, and vanilla.  (I just do this in the measuring cup I used for the buttermilk to avoid dirtying another dish!)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir together thoroughly, but don't over-mix.  Whisk in the boiling water.

Fill each cake pan with half of the batter.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of each cake.

When the cakes are done, pull them out of the oven and immediately press down on the top of each one with a clean dish cloth.  This will even out the surface and prevent you having to trim the cakes!

Pop the cakes into the freezer for fifteen minutes to cool.

When they come out of the freezer, release them from the cake pans.  Stack one cake on the bottom of a cake stand or plate.  Put half the strawberry jam on top of it.  Then stack the other cake upside-down on top of the first, so that the bottom of it is on top.  Spread the remaining strawberry jam over the top of the cake.

Enjoy!

[This post submitted to Fat Tuesday 2/18/15, Real Food Wednesday 2/19/15, and the HomeAcre Hop 2/20/15.]

new england clam chowder

It's been a nice cold snap!  In general, I think that people in Nashville are sort of wimpy about the winter.  Growing up in Kansas gave us a very solid winter season - tons of snow, bright crisp days, the whole nine yards.  In fact, the year that Vicki was born, we had just had our final blizzard in Topeka a few days before she came . . . in April!  Winter in Nashville is not as severe (which is good, because the second there is ice on the road, everyone forgets how to drive), but it's also not as beautiful.  It's mostly gray, kind of rainy, and a little depressing.  But this latest cold front has been lovely.  Freezing air that smacks you in the face the second you walk outside.  Blue skies with nary a cloud in sight.

I actually love winter because I am always hot.  I sweat a lot.  Winter is the only season each year that I feel relatively comfortable all the time.  And it's the only time I really enjoy drinking hot beverages (aside from coffee, which really should be its own food group in my daily diet) like tea or cocoa, and eating lots of warming soups.

Clam chowder has always been a favorite of mine.  The creamy texture, chunks of potatoes, faint salty background from bacon, and bits of chewy clam - yum.  We made a pot last night and dipped sourdough rolls into it, although I know that oyster crackers are more traditional.  I meant to also make a massaged kale salad to go alongside, but I forgot.  And no one complained!  This is a very nourishing and nutritious soup:  homemade chicken stock for lots of minerals and collagen, clams for tons of iron (more per ounce than beef!), grass-fed milk and cream for fat-soluble vitamins.

I always use canned clams because we are landlocked and finding fresh clam is not worth the trouble or the price.  But if you are near the coast - by all means!  Use fresh clams.  You would need between 3 and 4 pounds of fresh unshelled clams to yield 13 oz of clam meat.  Just steam them until they open, allow them to cool, pick the meat and save the juice.

New England Clam Chowder
3 oz bacon or salt pork (we used cured jowl from our recent half-hog purchase), sliced into 1/4" pieces
1 onion, finely chopped
2 6.5 oz cans of chopped clams in clam juice
1 C chicken stock
2 1/2 C peeled, chopped potatoes (3-4 medium russets)
1 t Worcestershire sauce
1/4 t ground thyme
1 C milk
1 C cream
2 T flour (use sprouted if you prefer)
salt and pepper

Serves 4-6

Place bacon pieces in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Allow them to crisp and render until they are totally done.  Remove them to a plate and leave the fat in the pan.

While the bacon is cooking, open the cans of clams and drain them, reserving the juice.  Measure the juice and make sure you have one cup.  If not, add water or more chicken stock to make one cup.  Set clams and juice aside.

Place chopped onion in hot bacon fat.  Allow it to cook for 7-10 minutes, until totally soft.

Add clam juice, chicken stock, potatoes, Worcestershire sauce, and thyme to the pot.  Bring it up to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Cook until the potatoes are tender (15 - 20 minutes).

While the soup is simmering, whisk together milk, cream, and flour.

After potatoes are tender, add clams as well as the milk/cream/flour mixture.  Allow it to come up to a simmer.  The flour will begin to thicken the soup slightly.  Taste the soup and add salt and pepper as needed.

Serve with warm sourdough rolls or oyster crackers, and pass the bacon bits you saved from the beginning to top the bowls of soup!

[This post submitted to Fat Tuesday 2/10/15, Real Food Wednesday 2/11/15, and the HomeAcre Hop 2/12/15.]

simple baked apples

Are you starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the holiday indulgences?  I love a good pumpkin or pecan pie as much as the next girl, especially when made from scratch from whole ingredients.  But sometimes you want something to satisfy the sweet tooth, without all the hullabaloo.  This is it!

We did our annual order of a bushel of apples in October, and I have a few lingering in the crisper drawer.  Also, our winter CSA has begun, and we got several beautiful, crisp apples in our box.  So, for Family Dinner last night, I whipped up some baked apples!  My Grandma Joy, who died when I was in sixth grade, used to make these a lot, so it's a happy food memory.

The recipe is adapted from one of my trustiest sources - a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook I received at one of my bridal showers.

Simple Baked Apples
6 baking apples (Granny Smith, Jonathan, Rome - something that will hold its shape.  I used Cameos)
1/4 C sucanat or other evaporated cane juice product
1/2 C raisins or other dried fruit (cut into raisin-sized pieces if large)
1/2 t nutmeg
1 t cinnamon
pinch salt
1 C freshly-squeezed orange juice

Oven 350

Core the apples, leaving them intact.  Use a paring knife to cut away the ring of skin around the top core.  Place the apples in an oven-safe baking dish.

Combine sucanat, raisins, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl.  Stuff the mixture into the holes in the apples.  Place any excess stuffing mixture into the baking dish with the apples.

Pour the orange juice into the baking dish.  Use a spoon to scoop some juice over each apple.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until apples are tender.  Baste 2-3 times during baking, using a spoon to scoop juice over each apple.

Serve plain, with whipped cream, or with vanilla ice cream.  Make sure to spoon a little of the sweet syrup over the apples and ice cream!

Serves 6

[This post submitted to Fat Tuesday 12/9/14.]

meatloaf, smeatloaf, double-beatloaf . . .

We're getting into the season for watching A Christmas Story!  My favorite scene is where the mom keeps trying to sit down to eat while her kids and husband continually ask her to get stuff for them from the kitchen.  The narrator says, "My mom hadn't had a hot meal for herself in 15 years."  So true, so true.  I also love when Ricky, the little brother, is complaining about how much he hates meatloaf.

When we bought our half cow last spring (I still have to tell you about that, don't I?), we got a lot of ground beef.  It's sort of the nature of the thing.  Not every part of a cow is fit to be sliced up into steaks.  A lot of it is scrap and bits that need to just be all tossed together and ground up.  In our menu plans, ground beef figures prominently.  We eat it one night a week, usually on Tuesdays.  There are a lot of things you can do with ground beef!  Burgers, Korean beef, chili, hamburger corn pone (this is an amazing Southern dish I will write up soon!), meat sauce for pasta, beef tacos, BBQ beef, shepherds pie, or . . . meatloaf.

I have a few tricks I incorporate into a standard Better Homes & Gardens meatloaf recipe, so check it out:


Classic Meatloaf
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 C breadcrumbs (3/4 C if totally dry, 2 C if totally soft - see below)
1/4 C grated onion
1 T dried parsley (or 3 T fresh)
1 t salt
1/2 t dried oregano (or 1 1/2 t fresh)
1 1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 C ketchup
1/4 C sucanat or brown sugar
2 t yellow mustard

Makes 6-8 servings.

Oven 350 F.

Start by mixing the eggs and milk in a large bowl.

Add the breadcrumbs.  This is a great time to use up that heel of your homemade sourdough loaf, or the cracker crumbles at the bottom of your yogurt dough cracker bag.  If your bread is very fresh and moist, aim for 2 cups of crumbs.  If your bread is stale, aim for 1 cup of crumbs.  If you are using cracker crumbs or the fine breadcrumbs you buy in a canister from the store (which I don't recommend!), do 3/4 cup.  If you are making your own, just whiz it up in the food processor.

Add the onion.  This is one of my tricks.  You never properly cook the onions in a meatloaf, and you don't want to crunch into a big chunk of onion while you're eating.  So grate them on a box grater (I have a little tiny one - isn't it cute?!), and then add the grated onion and juice to the bowl.

Add the parsley, salt, and oregano.

Mix well, then add the ground beef.  Mix it all very thoroughly with your hands.

Now, here is another one of my tricks.  Honestly, my favorite part of the meatloaf is the outer crust glazed with sweetened ketchup.  I want more surface area. I don't use a loaf pan, because it limits my crust.  I also make mine into two loaves, because one again - more surface area for glaze!  So shape your meat mixture into two equally-sized loaves on a baking sheet.

Pop it into a 350 oven for an hour or so, until they read 160 F on a thermometer.  Meanwhile, mix together the ketchup (a great time to use your own homemade ketchup!), sucanat/brown sugar, and mustard.

After the loaves are up to temperature, paint them with the ketchup glaze.  Put them back into the oven for ten more minutes, then let them rest for ten minutes before enjoying!

\[This post submitted to the Homestead Barn Hop 11/10/14, Real Food Wednesday 11/12/14, and Pennywise Platter 11/20/14.]

making mozzarella

Cheese.  Glorious, homemade, creamy, cheese from grass-fed cows living a perfect Mennonite life.  Dudes, it just doesn't get better than this.

We get a gallon of milk from our farmer every week, rain or shine.  Because my kids are little, we struggle to drink the full gallon each week and usually have between 1 and 2 quarts left.  I refuse to dump it, so it either becomes yogurt, ice cream, or cheese.

My friends Parth and Julianne gave me a stupendous gift for my birthday this year -a cheese-making kit!   It had everything I need to make ricotta, ricotta salata, mozzarella, and burrata.  Do you know the joy of making a lasagna in which every item has been made from scratch, including the cheese?  It's an intense amount of joy.  Ricotta is easy and fast, and ricotta salata is easy but takes time to cure.  Mozzarella, on the other hand, is a little bit hard.  There are some elements to it that are sort of like bread-baking - you just have to do it over and over and then you know.  But I promise that it's worth it.  The taste just doesn't compare to what you can buy at the grocery store.

Let's get started, huh?  Cheese awaits us.

Cast of characters:  a half-gallon of good milk.  Doesn't have to be raw, but use the best-quality whole milk you can find.  Citric acid, calcium chloride, and rennet can all be found at cheese-making supply stores, or ordered online.  I've also found that a lot of brewing-supply shops carry cheese-making stuff.  If you're local to Nashville, All Seasons Brewing on 8th Ave. S. has everything.  And salt!

Start by putting the cold milk in a pot and adding 1 mL of calcium chloride, along with 1 t citric acid diluted in 2 T cool filtered water.

Heat the milk gently over medium, stirring constantly, until it reaches 32 C.  Have ready 1 tablet vegetable rennet dissolved in 2 T cool filtered water.  Having a good thermometer is essential!

When the milk reaches 32 C, add the rennet and stir briefly to dissolve.  Then cover the milk and let it sit for 30 minutes or so, until the curd is firmly set.  You can tell this by cutting into it slightly with a knife.  If it makes a clean cut, you are ready to go.  If not, leave it for awhile longer.

If the curd is ready, use a long knife to cut it into a checkerboard pattern.

Then place the curds back over medium heat, stirring constantly, until they reach 42 C.  They will change in texture during this time and become more stretchy and pulled-together.

Once the curds reach 42 C, dump them into a colander lined with cheesecloth, an old clean pillowcase, or a floursack towel.  Save some of the discarded whey if you are wanting to store your cheese after it's done.

Let the curds drain while you prepare your stretching water and your ice water.  Rinse out the pot you heated the curds in and fill it with fresh water.  Heat that water to 70 C and then remove it from heat.  While it heats, fill a medium bowl with cold water and add some ice and salt.

Okay, stretching.  This is really the tricky part.  I use rubber gloves because that hot water is really a little too hot for comfort.  Gather your curds together into one mass, and dip it into the hot water.  Leave it for about 10 seconds.  Pull it out of the water and begin stretching it like taffy.  Hold it with one hand and use the other to pull it away from you like a slingshot.  When it starts breaking rather than stretching, dip it back into the hot water for another 10 seconds.  Keep repeating this process of stretching and heating until it stretches smoothly and looks glossy.  Start stretching it into a ball by making a small circle with your fingers and palm and forcing it through the opening.  Try not to roll it, but rather mold it into a ball.  Once it is properly stretched and molded, drop it into the ice water.  Leave it there for 10 minutes or so, then it is ready to serve!  If you wish to store it, add a pinch of citric acid to the reserved whey and keep the cheese submerged in that in the refrigerator.

Yum!  I seriously have trouble not just slicing up this whole thing and eating it plain.

It will still have quite a lot of the natural moisture of the milk still in it, so if you want to grate it, it needs to be pressed and dried a bit first.  I tend to preferred it sliced rather than grated.  This mozzarella is an absolute essential to our Friday pizza nights.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

[This post submitted to Real Food Wednesday 11/4/14 and Pennywise Platter Thursday 11/5/14.]