I realize it’s dated, but there are some fine “dos and don’ts” at this NYT article.

My favorite?

“It’s better to pay the grocer than the doctor.”

Well, moving from a city to a decent chunk of land, one is at first completely overwhelmed with what to do with it all. Thats the first, maybe second year, but you get over it. You start to view things in a different way, a way different from how you thought when you lived in cities, where you were born and raised and developed your sensibilities. And you start to think of all that you can do that you never thought of before.

So, two years ago, while clearing some of the land, I decided to plant a small orchard of plum and pluot trees (pluots are an hybrid of the plum and apricot). I already have an Italian plum, so I wanted to expand it out, so to speak. I planted 6 trees (varieties are Shiro, Flavor Supreme, Flavor King, Santa Rosa, Brooks and Satsuma), a good range of colors, flavors and ripening times. They are now two years in the ground, and should start to produce in quantity this year. I added to the plum orchard this year with the addition of plum cherries (another hybrid, apparently they grow in cluster throws like a cherry, but are larger and taste more like a plum. varieties are Sprite and Delight). All of these are common to each other in pollination, so the bees will have no problem helping me with a crop.

Last year, I continued to expand the concept, and this time it was pears. I planted 6 pears (Bartlett, Red Bartlett, Anjou, Red Anjou, Seckel and Bosc) Hopefully, I get some crop off of them this year, as they usually take 2-3 years to produce after planting.

This year, its apples. Unlike plums and pears, choosing apples can be very overwhelming, as there are thousands of cultivators. When I started to select varieties for planting, I wanted to give up and just go and buy whatever the local nursery had. But I persevered and decided to plant old varieties, varieties that were popular in the past, yet are not “commercially viable” today. Some I selected go back to the 16th century in England and France.

It gets even better. I found a commercial nursery in my area that was selling 5 year old saplings for $15.00. That’s an incredible savings when you consider that most retail nurseries charge anywhere from $40.00-$50.00 per tree! I bought 11 apple trees for under $200.00! And they are very established and healthy! The varieties are Chehalis, Arkansas Black, Honey Crisp, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Gravenstein, Spitzburgen, Whitney Crab Apple, Bramley Seedling, Enterprise, Macoun, Fameuse and Wolf River. This is a great start to a “Heritage” apple orchard. They even had a couple of European and Asian pears that are hard to find, but that may be for next year.

I haven’t posted in awhile, so I thought I would bring you up to date on whats new. I have also been on a program of “Mortification of the Flesh”, in other words, a diet. I am getting down to the weight I consider ideal, so, obviously, I have not been expermenting too much in the larder/kitchen/scullery. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to it in due time.

Ingredients: Fresh wonton wrappers, fresh herbs of your choice, cornstarch.

Toppings: salt, pepper, sour cream,or other toppings.

Mix cornstarch with water to make a paste.

Put herbs of your choice between the wrappers and use the paste to seal the edges (Turns out there was enough cornstarch on the wontons, I didn’t need any more to make them stick together).Use a rolling pin to press and seal.

I chose basil and chives.

Boil until tender. You can use a larger pot and more water for more wontons.

Serve – for this experiment I topped it with a dab of sour cream and salt and pepper.  When making a batch, I’d probably use spaghetti sauce.

My daughter called me at the office, concerned that as her mother is feeling very poorly today with a classroom-petri-dish-induced cold, we needed to come up with something yummy for dinner to sooth her condition.

We’re going to make one of Roz’s favorites, an old formulation I believe comes from Karin Knight’s Baby Cookbook from forever ago: Lime-Dill Chicken.

Take chicken breast, slice it very thin (perhaps 1/8-1/4″). Roll in egg, and dip in italian bread crumbs to fry in a little olive oil until browned. The sauce is a combination of butter, lime juice, and dill weed (fresh if you have it).

We’re going to serve it with mashed potatoes (the lime-dill sauce is an excellent topping for the taters, as well, but then we’re huge lime fans around the Denny house) and perhaps a side of some sort of fresh green veg to be named later.

I’ll try to update this post with some pics during the production of dinner.

PS. She felt far too crappy to appreciate an actual meal, so we made her toast and oatmeal and suchlike; hopefully tomorrow night will render her able to enjoy the lime dill chicken. And yes, Becca, it’s made with actual butter, not just the leavings from the chicken pan. Michael needs to get with the program.

PSS. Sunday update: Megan and I decided to reprise the goat-cheese and sun dried tomato chicken, and potato salad a la Roslyn. The chicken turned out great; the tater salad turned out to be mashed potatoes instead, which was actually a great side for this dish.

Someone was talking in the background on the radio just now, and was talking about how government regulations to disclose the salt content in food was something that wasn’t really necessary — instead, encourage people to use sea salt, as it actually lowers blood pressure.

Lowers blood pressure? Wow, wouldn’t that be nice?

I did a VERY small amount of googling, and found a number of items — but the funnest one was an article in Slate from 2005 that posits the question “Which salt is best?”

Thought I would pass it along. What kind of salt do you prefer, and why? Feel free to add a comment below.

In my continuing love affair with eggs, I made the perfect Breakfast or Brunch dish for Christmas Morning. The secret is in choosing the right pan, as it will rise to ridiculous heights depending. Check the picture. Someone gave me these cool little individual casserole pans which I had never used. They were perfect, but we did take them out of the pans to serve, as I did not want eaters sctatching the pans. Really really easy!! Beyond easy…and slathered with syrup……and each person gets their very own….

Dutch Apple Baby

1 large apple
4 large eggs
1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. milk
¼ c butter
Cinnamon
Powdered sugar
Lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 450

Wash, peel and core apple, slice fairly thin. (may wait until just before using in recipe to avoid browning of apple slices)

Batter: Whirl eggs and flour in blender until smooth. Add milk and whirl to mix well. (You can use a whisk instead.)

In a 10-12 in frying pan or an 9-14 in oval pan, oven proof, melt the butter. Immediately pour in the batter. (size of pan affects the rising of the batter)

Scatter apple slices over the batter and sprinkle generously with cinnamon.( I added some dried cranberries just for color)

Bake at 450 until Dutch Baby is puffed and top is brown. About 20 min. A knife inserted into the Dutch Baby will come out clean. Serve immediately.

Dust with powdered sugar and serve from pan or slide onto a serving plate. Squeeze lemon juice to taste , cut into wedges if you used just one pan, and with maple syrup or a homemade raspberry syrup.

I was researching Matt’s great posting on Timpano di Tucci, trying to figure out what pastas I would use if I were to do it, and found this funny little Quiz:

Take the quiz here

I got 18/24, took it again with my wife (who surprised me at her knowledge of pasta types) and then got 21/24. What’s your score? Try it and post in comments!

Off again to the local meat cutter (Ward’s Meats and it’s just that: you buy an animal from the farmer, the butcher kills it, and off it goes to a local meat cutter for cutting and packing. Our cutter is Ward). This time the goal of the journey is beef bones, both for us (consommé) and the dogs (chewing and burying). Oh, and for sausage casings (I’ve yet to attempt to make these on my own. It’s a project for the future). However, this discussion will focus on neither of these.

In our lives, we try to get closer to the source of our food. Not only is it better for you and you know all about it, but you can get things that normally you would pay for in the store for free (trading homemade preserves for things you want really does work) I like to make beef broth, consommé and stock, but to do this I need a lot of good beef bones. You can’t get these at the local grocery store, and butcher shops are getting to be few and far between. So, since the butcher and the cutter end up with an awful lot of them (and offal) and they just get sent to the rendering plant anyway, I intercept them at the cutter. Normally, we don’t pay anything for them, and they’ll give you more than you can take. We got some bones, and he also gave us a complete ox tail, sectioned, that a customer didn’t take. Ward just wanted it out of his freezer.

Once home, I got to work on Ox tail soup. I thawed them, opened them up and rinsed them off.

That’s them. So, now that we are at the starting point of this recipe, what shall we do? Let’s start, I say!

Ingredients:

21/2 pounds oxtail, cut and trimmed

½ cup unsifted flour plus 2 Tablespoons

2 Tablespoons beef drippings or vegetable oil

2 medium yellow onions, peeled and minced

6 cups of water and 1 pint bouillon

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

2 teaspoons salt1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 bay leaf

½ teaspoon thyme

3 cloves

2 sprigs of parsley

2 medium carrots, peeled and diced

1 stalk celery, diced

1/3 cup sherry or port wine

Dredge the oxtails in ½ cup flour:

Once dredged, brown in drippings. You will need a large, heavy-bottomed stockpot for this:

Drain on paper towels after browning. Add onions to oil, turn up heat to medium and sauté till golden, but not burnt. Sprinkle in remaining flour, mix well and brown lightly.

Slowly add the water and bouillon, stir in tomato paste, salt and pepper;

Place bay leaf, thyme, cloves and parsley in a bouquet garni and add to pot.

Return the oxtail to the pot, cover, and let simmer for 3 hours until the meat is tender.

Remove bouquet garni. Remove meat and separate from the bones, cut to bite size and add back to the pot. Add carrots and celery.

Cover and simmer till carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Add wine when tender.

I often wondered why this dish exists. There is a high bone to meat ratio, and its the tail. After eating it, I now know why. It has an incredible beefy flavor, and the texture is like tender rib steak. A wonderful soup, it went very well with a cold, rainy winter day in the northwest.

Marmalade. I think that it’s the first preserve or canning that I ever attempted. I originally made it way back in the late eighties, and, on again, off again, have made it ever since. I can’t say that I ever have bought it since I learned to make it. That being said I must add that it is perhaps the most difficult of preserves to do correctly. And doing it correctly is all about learning from your mistakes. And they can be awful. Don’t worry, it’s not impossible, and what follows is a process I developed that avoids many of the problems that can be encountered on the road to a great marmalade.

I made two types this year: A Blood Orange Marmalade and a Sour (Dundee) marmalade. I was going to do this right up on the Sour Orange, but decided against that. Instead, I’m doing it on the making of the Blood Orange Marmalade. There are a couple of reasons for this. Most people that would attempt doing marmalade are probably going to use the Valencia Orange, the standard juice orange of California and Florida. The Valencia is a very different orange from the Sour (Seville) Orange. The Sour is very sour and very seedy. The Blood Orange, however, is a bud sport of the Valencia, so, except for its beautiful color, it’s almost the same thing (As a side note, Marmalade made with the Valencia actually has its own name. It’s called “Californian Marmalade”, and it was made famous by the King Kelly Corporation of Pasadena, California).

What makes the process difficult is making sure you have the proper pectin (not hard to do) and not caramelizing the sugar as you approach gel set point (Neither is this)

Let’s begin:  Total ingredients:

4 lbs of whole Blood Oranges

2 lemons

16 cups of water

9 1/2 lbs of White Cane Sugar

Wash all of the Oranges and let dry. Using a Mandolin or a Slicer, slice the oranges into 1/8” thick slices, retaining all juice and discarding any seeds. Once sliced, cut each orange ring into four, quarter, parts. Add all oranges to a stock pot. We will get more than enough pectin for jelling by including all of the pith, pips and peel of the oranges.

Next, completely zest both of the lemons and juice them. Hopefully, you have an assistant for this. This Juicer’s name is Max and he’s real good at what he does.

Add Lemon zest and lemon juice to the Oranges, sans seeds.

Next, add the water and bring it to a boil. When it reaches a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for about 40 minutes (I do this covered as I do not want to reduce the orange solution). Continue simmering until the peels become tender to touch.

Now, with the fruit tender, add the sugar, stirring constantly until it completely dissolved.

Now well start the boil process. This is where we are going to finish the cooking of the fruit, and set the gel of the Marmalade. During this process, you will need to stir almost constantly, as this will help to keep the sugar from caramelizing and the whole liquid from browning. You may need to modulate the temperature on the pot to keep it from boiling over. Try to keep it boiling on as low a flame as possible.

While waiting for a boil, place a small dish in the freezer to keep cold. We will use this to check the marmalade as it finishes.

Take a candy thermometer and keep a constant eye on the temperature. You will slowly approach  222°F. When it does, you are almost at gel set point.

At this temperature, place about a teaspoon of the Marmalade onto the chilled plate; let it sit about 30 seconds to cool. When cool, swirl the plate to move the Marmalade around on it. If it thickens and “wrinkles” you’re there. If not, keep boiling, watching very carefully and stirring constantly.

When you check shows that it is gelled, It’s ready for jarring. We used a dozen ½ pint jars, as they will be gifts, but you can use any size you want. Ladle the marmalade into the jars, place on the lid  and screw on the rings, making sure not to get any marmalade on the jars threads.

Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes, and you’re done. See? It’s not that hard at all, and it’s better than almost any you can buy.

Buttered scones with Earl Grey, anyone?

After my posting on making fresh sausage, Patrick posted a link to a chorizo recipe that I found to be incredibly enticing, tasteful and challenging. After reading it, I checked my stock of chili peppers in the larder and it found woefully lacking to attempt such a sausage. I have since stocked up, and, as fortune would have it, pork shoulder went on sale here. Well, combine the two things, and you have all you need to attempt Patrick’s chorizo. Well, plus other things, but I have them!

I am not going to go into the packing of fresh sausage in this posting as I already have and it is pretty much the same for all types (it’s just the meat and the spices that are variables). What I am going to focus on, however, is the making of the ingredients that make this one different. That’s the chili paste.

There is a great variety of dried chili’s out there, and making them into paste is pretty much the same for all of them. I have made these in the past, for dishes like Pozole (fantastic dish, BTW, highly recommend it), but I am going to tweak it just a bit to bring it in line with more traditional Mexican cooking and, I think, eliminate problems I have had in storing.

Ok, the chorizo calls for two types of dried pepper: Guajillo (pronounced wha-hee-oh, called Mirasol when fresh) and the Ancho (called the Poblano when fresh). For our discussion, I will only be dealing only with the dried varieties of each pepper.

Chances are you will be buying these peppers by the bag, unless there is a really good Hispanic store next to you.  Try to get peppers that are somewhat pliable and not too dry. It is much easier to work with them somewhat soft. If, however, you can’t obtain them this way, email me, and I’ll explain how to deal with the extremely dry peppers. (If time permits me, I’ll do it at the end of this article).

Remove the stem of each pepper and discard. Take a chef knife and make a slit in the pepper from tip to tip, and fold open. Remove all of the seeds from the inside (save some for spring if you wish to grow them). Also, remove any pepper ribs you can that are visible.

When you have them all cleaned and ready, it’s time to make the paste. Take all of the cleaned peppers of one variety and soak in warm water for at least 30 minutes. They will become very soft.

Drain and discard water.Place in a blender (this is easier to get out without waste than a food processor) and add a couple tablespoons of vinegar (I used to use water, but this is the more traditional paste-making aspect I mentioned earlier) The vinegar will work the same as water, however, the lower pH of vinegar will eliminate much of the bacteria growth problems I have found in the past when storing excess paste. If you need more vinegar, add it a tablespoon at a time. Do his until it is a thick paste, and then remove from blender with a spatula.

There you have it, chili paste. I keep many varieties on hand, and my wife, not born in Los Angeles, wonders why. Hmmm, well, to be honest, not so much anymore.

Anyway, I made this paste specifically to make Chorizo. I adapted Patrick’s recipe from the comments on foodnuts to my sausage making. It is a great recipe. There was only one problem: the recipe called for a one to one of vinegar (cup) to one pound of meat. I would cut that volume of vinegar by about 1/3, as it is too soupy, and will come out of the porosity of the casing. (That’s why I say 1/3; it’s about how much I lost.) But, nonetheless, they came out great. Breakfast on Christmas will be Huevos Rancheros made with these.

Recipe for the Chorizo:

9 lbs of pork shoulder

2 lbs fat

9 tbls Salt

1 pint of Guajillo chili paste

1 3/4 cup Ancho paste

9 cups vinegar (I’d cut back to 6)

14 tbls Paprika

9 tsp garlic powder

18 bay leaves, ground fine

3 tbls ground black pepper

4 1/2 tbls ground cumin

7 tbls ground oregano

4 ½ tsp ground marjoram

4 ½ tsp ground coriander

4 ½ tsp ground thyme

4 ½ ground allspice

Mix well; allow to sit refrigerated overnight; pack into casing. Here’s what the final product looks like:

They aren’t hot but they are very spicy! I look forward to a large meal of Huevos Rancheros, made with fresh eggs, homemade Pico de Gallo, adobo sauce and Escebeche!

Here is a tart I made for one of our Top Chef nights. I thought it was appropriate to make a nut tart for the foodnuts!

1 ready-made pie crust (I used Trader Joe’s)
3 cups pistachios, divided (2 cups and 1 cup)
1 cup sliced almonds
5 TBS butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup dark corn syrup
2 TBS half and half
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup (or more) chocolate chips, melted

Preheat oven according to pie crust directions

Roll out pie crust to fit a 9-inch tart shell. Line tart shell with crust. Bake as directed for single -crust pie until golden.

Pour 2 cups pistachios and sliced almonds over the crust in a single layer. Chop the remaining cup of pistachios, set aside.

Preheat overn to 350 degrees F

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt butter with brown sugar, corn syrup, half and half and vanilla. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Pour the hot mixture over the pistachios and almonds in the crust.

Bake for 10 minutes, or until bubbly and golden. Let cool on a wire rack.

When cool, drizzle with melted chocolate chips (Melt in microwave in a plastic bag. Snip corner and drizzle). Garnish with chopped pistachios. I put colorful little leaf sprinkles on too because it was fall.

A word for the wise – it’s probably a good idea to put a cookie sheet on a lower rack in the oven to catch the bubbling over part.  Brown sugar and corn syrup are pretty messy to try to clean out of the bottom of your oven.

The period from the Civil War to 1912 was defined by the Legislative branch of Federal Government. It starts with our first impeachment of a President, and ends with the election of a President that would begin the ascending power of the Executive branch. During this era Congress would wield its greatest power ever in history. The 20^th century would be defined by its slow loss of power to the Executive branch. Never again, after the election of Woodrow Wilson, would Congress ever wield such power.

If the Congress was all powerful, who, therefore, in Congress, would have been the most powerful? Well, that would be the speaker of the House, of course, or didn’t you stay awake in government class? And of all the speakers of this era, none had the power and used it like Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois.

Known as Uncle Joe, he used his power as a tyrant over the House. No bill saw the light of day without him allowing it, as he was also head of the Rules Committee. Nothing in Congress happened without his permission. At times, things came to a standstill, loggerheads being broken only on his whim. Finally, the situation became intolerable, something had to give.

Like Humpty Dumpty, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. As the story goes, Uncle Joe got up from his speakers seat to relieve himself due to “nature calling”. When he left the chamber of the house, the members present, both Democrats and Republicans, quickly put together a resolution to remove him as Speaker. Upon his return, his supporters initiated a filibuster to block the resolution. After 26 hours, the filibuster ended, but the damage was done. Uncle Joe was no longer speaker of the house, and the era that was born in the tragedy of the Civil War came to an end. The rise of the Executive’s star was to begin, and we would enter an era defined by regulation. In history, even the greatest changes can come about for the simplest of reasons.

You must be asking yourself “What’s with the history lesson? Isn’t this a food blog? Well, Uncle Joe is famous for something else, and that’s Senate Bean Soup. Apparently one day he entered the dining room, looked at the menu, and exclaimed “Thunderation, I had my mouth set for bean soup! From now on, hot or cold, rain, snow or shine, I want it on the menu every day.” And it’s been that way ever since, never has a day gone by without it on the menu.

I love this recipe; it has become a staple at our house, our children call it “so good bean soup”. It is great on a cold winter night, and is pretty much a meal in itself. I try to make it as authentic as possible, which means making like they do in Washington, so I follow this recipe:

• 1 pound dry white beans, soaked overnight
• 1 meaty ham bone or 2 smoked ham hocks
• 3 quarts water
• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 4 stalks celery, with leaves, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
• 1 cup cooked mashed potatoes
• salt and pepper to taste

To begin: soak the beans overnight. In the morning, rinse beans, add to a stock pot with 3 quarts of water and the ham bone or hocks. Cover and simmer 2 hours.

Stir in the mashed potatoes and cook over low heat until the beans are almost tender, about 30 minutes. Add onion, celery, garlic and continue to simmer about an hour, or until the beans are tender. Remove the bone or hocks, clean of meat, dice it and return meat to the soup (I always add more ham to it than the bone will have). Salt and pepper to taste, and then serve. It’s very hearty and a wonderful meal. It also goes well with a salad tossed in a strong vinaigrette.

A great legacy left by a man of power, almost forgotten in our history books. Though, like Humpty Dumpty, he fell, the difference is in his case the king had no desire to use his men and horses to put him together again.

Battle Ground, Washington is a small town just north of Vancouver, Washington.  It has seen a flurry of growth, both good and bad, in the last ten years. It has a main strip, called Main Street (believe it or not) that most of the city’s growth has been focused on. It just got its own exit finished off of I-5, exit 11 (11 miles from the Oregon border), so now it is really on the map.

Like I said, the growth is, as I see it, both good and bad. Malls, parking lots and congestion due to increased traffic , is, in my book, bad, yet virtually inevitable. But growth can also give rise to new things that expand an areas opportunities. It now has a brewpub (a branch of Laurelwood Brewing in Portland), a new library and community center. See, it’s not all so bad!

At the end of Main Street is a little produce stand that opened up around the end of summer, 2009. Its named, surprisingly, Battle Ground Produce Co.

We’ve gone there a lot since it has opened, and each time we go there it seems to get better and the reasons to go there get greater. The produce is great; most of it is locally grown. What can’t be grown locally is of a high quality and brought in from reputable sources (for example, in three days they will have Blood Oranges. These come from the hot areas of Southern California, and it gives me the opportunity to make Blood Orange Marmalade). The bread is from local bakeries, as are the honeys and preserves. They even carry locally made candies!

It was started by Lorne Alacano, who has 20 years experience in the green grocer trade, both wholesale and retail. And believe me, it shows. The shop is clean, immaculate and well stocked.  If that weren’t enough there’s more good news.

The stand is a cross between a green grocer and a wine shop. There is a wine room, full to capacity, with an excellent selection. Focused mostly on wines of the Pacific Northwest, they are of the low price range to about the higher middle of wine overall. They range from red and white dinner wines to aperitifs to desserts.  I am sure that anyone selecting a wine to match a planned meal will not come away disappointed nor empty-handed.

I love the concept of this market, and I hope to see more of them in the future. In marrying the wine and the produce, he has combined what food lovers want: great grocery supply and great wines to go with it, purchased in a single location. He doesn’t carry beer, and I neglected to ask him if this is something that he plans on doing in the future. Ill ask next time and update.

And there’s more; behind the wine room is another, currently under construction area. It will be the home of a classical (old style) butcher shop. Oregon and Washington raised beef and pork and Washington chickens. He has a butcher with 40 yrs experience who is setting it up and will be the man in charge.

If you live in the area, do yourself a favor and stop in and check it out. It is yet one more reason that makes it possible to stay north of the Columbia. They’re at 925 E. Main St., Battle Ground WA., Phone: 360-687-1718.

Enjoy!

One of the great things about living out in the country, or in areas where farmland dominates the landscape, is that you have the opportunity to get closer to your food and its sources. Carrots? No problem, ask around and find a guy who is growing them and you’ll have Beta-carotene by the truck load. Tomatoes? Peppers? Scallions? Turnips? Beets? Apples? Pears?  Same thing. Where we live we have found sources for much of what we eat.

However, the opportunity to “get close to the source” for some foods may not be ideal for everyone. I imagine that one of these is pork. Yes, I am talking about the whole hog, standing shank deep in mud, its attention constantly on what it is going in the front end, with little regard of what comes out the back end. If one is used to pork only as a pretty cut of meat, on a diaper and shrink wrapped on Styrofoam, seeing pigs au natural may be a bit of a shock. From the cute piglets to the giant sows and boars, they are a site to behold.

Ahh, but what is contained therein? One of the finest of meats, the complete foundation upon which the French art of Charcuterie is built! Hams, bacons, sausages in their multitudes, country to country, around the world.  Smoked meat and fresh meat, pickled pig’s feet and liver sausage. Some won’t eat it; that’s ok, that just means more for us that do!

Once a year, we buy ourselves a whole hog. They’ll weigh in at just around 200 lbs, hanging weight for the butcher. Digging around, my wife found a source not far from where we live. They are called “Pigs R Us”. Really though, we call them Randy and Betty. They raise hogs year round, some goats also, but mostly swine. This morning the family went on a little trip to pay for our hog. It was killed and slaughtered on Thursday, and is currently at our butcher, Wards meats, hanging. I could send a check, but I wanted to get some photos. Also, since I am one of the few people that take the offal, I have to head on over to pick this up.

Randy and Betty use no hormones in raising their pigs, and the pigs are raised on a diet of soured milk, barley and cracked wheat. That’s it. It’s an old-fashioned way of raising, as it guarantees the quality and taste of the meat.

They raise a mix of breeds: Hamshire, Duroc and Landrace. But you’ll buy each individually. They’ll set up the slaughter, and it will then go off to the butcher to hang and be sectioned. It’s all very easy, it can be done over the phone, and the real problem we have found is making sure you have enough freezer space.

If live in the area, and want to buy your own pig for meat, I highly recommend them. They are in Brush Prairie, just northeast of Vancouver Washington. Their phone is 360-892-2913, or 360-931-4427

Deviled Brussels sprouts

Old King Cole has a very large, old and diverse family. Of all its members, only the Brussels Sprout can elicit such an emotional reaction in people. Tight-head Copenhagen’s, Non-heading Collard Greens, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Kale, BokChoy or even Kohlrabi, none come close to the reaction that one feels when they hear Brussels are “on the menu”. Either one loves them or hates them; there seems to be little middle ground. Each must make their own decision; eat or not to eat.

The ground I stand on is firmly in the camp of “Hell Yes! Bring Them On.”! I love the little green guys, all smelly when cooling and sublime when eaten. Usually, I just steam them, toss in melted butter and salt and serve. However, on special occasions, like Thanksgiving, I like to make my favorite: Deviled Brussels Sprouts.

Actually, it’s very simple and easy. Here are the ingredients:

½ to 2 lbs of Brussels Sprouts

One tsp. of butter

One cup of heavy cream

Two Tbls. of Grey Poupon Mustard

Salt and pepper to taste.

So, now, what to do? Rinse the Brussels in cold water and remove any leaves that are loose and falling off (BTW, if you have chickens, they love these, but they WILL fight over them)

After rinsing, they need a little bit of prep work. Take the Brussels and cut an “x” in the bottom of each one. I do this differently than most people do. I  take the point of a paring knife and insert it straight into the stem of the sprout, like so:

Then rotate the knife 90°, and make the second cross cut, thus:

Now, steam the Brussels sprouts in a double boiling steamer. They will become bright green when done. Don’t overcook, when bright and tender to a knife poke, they are done.

This is what they look like when done, notice how “Bright Green” they are. Delicious!

As the sprouts are steaming, start the deviling sauce. It is very simple. Place one teaspoon of butter into a pan. When melted, add one cup of heavy cream and two Tbls. of Grey Poupon mustard. (Sometimes, when I am feeling even more daring and devilish than usual, I’ll use Coleman’s mustard. I will leave this decision to your discretion).

Whisk till smooth and thick. When thick, add the Brussels to the serving dish, and pour the deviling sauce over the sprouts and toss. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

If you are a lover of the lowly sprout, I highly recommend trying this recipe. They are wonderful served deviled.

(Oh, hey, if you aren’t going to eat yours, I’ll take them. Put’em here…..where mine were!)

I remember when I was a child my mother joined a book club. You remember these, they send you the first 5 or 6 real cheap (10 cents), and then you are committed to full price on the remaining ones of your contract. Well, amongst the original cheap ones was a copy of Graham Kerr’s Cookbook, “The Galloping Gourmet”.

Cover of said book:

His show was very popular in the late sixties/early seventies, and basically had the same format each time: Graham would cook extremely rich concoctions, all the while drinking wine till tipsy. At the end of the show he would go out into the audience and select a giggling Fräulein to join him at a table set for two. There they would feast upon the incredible calorie-laden meal he had just created, in-between gulps of wine. And all this within the half hour allotted by the format of television.

Well, the book, I think, was a bit of a minor best seller. I see it all the time at used book stores, if that’s an indicator. I loved looking at the pictures in this book, and I loved catching the end of his show when I got home from school. Hours were spent on such photos as boiling lobster to hand raised pork pies. But there was one recipe that always stood out due to is simplicity: Billabong Soup (it’s on page 28). It’s basically beef stock, onion and parsley.

I mention it because I always think of that picture each time I make beef stock. It’s one of those childhood memories that get stronger with time. It is also the basic recipe I follow each time I make beef stock. Having recently found myself with about 4-5 lbs of beef bones, I set out to make some fresh beef stock, and to think again of Mr. Kerr.

Beef stock is very simple. Basically roast bones till brown, defat, place roasted bones in stockpot with selected vegetables and herbs and simmer till done. So, here goes:

• Pre-heat oven to 400 °F

• Take 4-5 lbs of beef bones, give them a quick rinse and place in a roasting pan.

• Roast the bones for about 1 hour, or until all they are browned. It will be very fragrant and fill the house with the smell of roasting beef (sometimes I wonder if this is the real reason that I do this!)

• Once brown, remove from oven, drain fat (Keep this! It is Light and clear. There are no better potatoes than those fried in this fat!) Scrape the pan of all burnt-on, and add it to the stock pot.

• Place the roasted bones in a large stockpot. Add carrots, celery, onions, garlic and a couple of Bay Leaves (avoid brassicas, they’ll get bitter) and water to cover.

• Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer. I will simmer this stock over a three day period, at least three times, a couple of hours each time. The longer you simmer, the more gelatin-like it will become, and that’s what we’re shooting for. Add water as needed due to evaporation.]

• After boiling comes the straining. Strain and discard all solids in the stock. (I’m passing it through a sieve with 4 layers of cheesecloth)

• Place in Quart jars and allow to cool; I don’t put lids on at this point, as there will be more of that beef fat that will float in each jar as it cools. Remove and retain this fat.

• When done, you can use immediately, or you can process (can sterilize) for later use. If you choose to can it, process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

Off you go now, a wonderful French Onion Soup awaits you……………..or perhaps that shall be a post of mine in the future!

Oh, and pictures of Billabong soup? Since I lack the ability to scan such a picture out of my book, it’ll have to wait till I have the scanner, or off to a used bookstore near you. Oh, it’s on page 28

Thanksgiving!

When I was younger, I loved the holiday of Thanksgiving. A day full of family visiting, preparations for the event that seem to take days, and anticipation growing of the festival, making it larger than any run-of-the-mill day.  I’m not saying that I dislike it now, but, like most holidays and birthdays, their importance tarnishes as the years go on (especially Birthdays!). And so it is with Thanksgiving. I dislike the Bacchanal that it has become. I dislike the dishes and I especially dislike the waste. All those leftovers! Most doomed to be glanced at in the fridge and passed over (and over) until they go the way of all unwanted things in the kitchen.

That being said, I always look forward to thanksgiving, and this year is no different. We keep the menu small; so as to be able to concentrate on each dish without being rushed and produce just enough that will minimize waste from the production.

So, in keeping with the stated philosophy, we have devised a meal that will maximize these curves and hopefully make the children happy at the same time:

Humbly submitted: Our Thanksgiving Menu, 2009:

Appetizers:

• Cheese selection with crackers and wine(……..and beer)

Main Course:

• Locally raised and smoked Ham
• Butterbeans with Leek
• Deviled Brussels Sprouts
• Bourbon Sweet Potatoes
• Tossed Green Salad with Castille (blue) cheese dressing
• Cranberry Chutney
• Sourdough Dinner rolls.

Dessert:

• Pear tart, with possible pumpkin pie

That’s it. Since this is all conjecture at this point, I lack the visual support that goes with a posting. That will come later, perhaps Friday.

Till then, I would also like to wish all foodnuts a very happy Thanksgiving. Hope you have a great time with family and friends!

Ahh Sausage. Encased meats, so basic yet so complicated. One of the oldest forms of processed meats (it’s mentioned in the Iliad), it has become a basic food in many countries and cultures across the planet. From the exotic of fermented meats, to the simple of fresh sausage, to the messy packing of blood sausage, it seems to be something that every meat eater cannot do without, at least for long.

The ones that we made are simple, fresh sausages. Not smoked and not aged with no nitrates, this is the most common you will see in a supermarket. I will be doing smoked meats later this winter, and will post that also. But for now, what happens in the making of fresh sausage is the basis of all. That being the case, Let’s start here.

Since we make a lot of tomato-sauce based foods, we decided on two types; a standard sweet Italian and a Sicilian wine sausage.  Both can be eaten on their own, or used in many recipes. I have made many types of sausages in  the last few years, but we have found these to be the ones that we use the most.  Without anymore of this introduction, let’s get going!

To make sausage at home, you can do it on the really small scale, which is an awful lot of manual labor for each pound, or you can do it the way that I have found to be a nice, comfortable level. Craigslist and Ebay help with this, as buying the necessary equipment new can be quite expensive. The basic two machines you need are a grinder and a packer. Here’s a picture of mine:

On the left is a thirty’s era Enterprise stuffer, on the right is a meat grinder (#22, this means something to the butcher, and has to do with the diameter of the cutting plate). Both were obtained very reasonably on ebay, both for under three hundred dollars total, and they have easily earned their keep. If you want to do home sausage making, these two items are the going to make your life much, much easier!

I make sausage when the cost of pork sholder drops below .90 cents a pound. This is ususlly  a very good sale price, and makes the extra effort worth it, as a minimum size of sausage making is 15 lbs. Once you set up to do it, the bigger the volume, the better!

Ok, so lets get to the meat end of it. Cut the meat up into pieces that will fit into the grinder. Grind it all up. For these sausages, I use a coarse grind, as finer will give an incorrect texture to the finished product, the sweet italian sausage

Now, since sausage is also a place where butchers utilized excess fat, I add 2 lbs of pork fat to 15 lbs of shoulder. (Sausage is a lot of fat, and it is hard to get away from that fact)

Now, with both ready, run it all through the grinder! Once they are all through, the mixing with the spices will begin.

Add the spices. For this sausage, and amount, the following soices are used:

For 15 lbs. total meat weight (fat and meat) we added:

• 6 Tbls of salt
• 4 Tbls of Paprika
• 5 Tbls of whole Fennel seed
• 1.5 Tbls of fine ground Anise
• 1 Tbls of ground Black Pepper
• 1Tbls of powdered Garlic
• 5 Tbls of Red Pepper flake

Once added, mix well, I mix for 10 minutes by hand, to make sure the spices are thoroughly mixed into the meat.

After mixing, it will be thoroughly mixed and look something like this:

Now comes the fun part; packing the sausage into casing. Casing itself is a rather complicated discussion. There are many types, pork, beef and sheep. Each has its uses and advantages, as well as drawbacks. We are going to use pig middles, which are a very basic casing, easily obtained.

Heres what they look like, after soaking and rinsing:

Yup, that’s right, they’re pig intestines! These are from the small intestine of the swine, and are probably the most common used in home applications

So, let’s get the sausage stuffer prepared! To do this, we put the packing tube on the stuffer, and load in the loose sausage.

Oil the stuffing tube, and place about one tablespoon of olive oil in the end of the casing. This will allow for easy loading of the casing onto the tube and for easy packing of the sausage into the finished sausage.

Once the length of casing is started, continue till the end, it may be more than you need, but it is better to have more than less.

Make sure to keep the casing wet during this process, as drying out could increase the chance of the casing bursting during the packing process.

Next, we’re going to load the stuffer. The stuffer I have is one that can take 15 lbs of ground sausage at a time. That’s why I work with that amount.  Take all of the ground sausage and put it in, rotate the packing disk down and we are ready to start.

Loading sausage

Make a knot in the end of the casing, and we are ready to stuff!

It comes out fast, so get ready for it! Make sure to keep your hand close to the packing tube, trying to eliminate any air spaces that may happen. You want to keep these to a minimum.

Keep going till the packer bottoms out. You will always have about ¾ lb left over that can’t be pushed out. This can be reserved for bulk, or added to the next load of sausage..

When it is all packed, we will make the links. This is basically taking the sausage and putting in a twist, first clockwise, than counter clockwise, until you have done the whole sausage. Make the links as long or short as you wish them to be. It’s very forgiving.

Keep going till completed. This what the final product looked like, the first batch:

It’s a great way to spend an afternoon, and it goes real well with home-made sauerkraut, another thing I must get on, as the 70lbs we have going right now is probably ready to be packaged.

Ahh sausage, Ahh Humanity……………….

Jack found this great blog about lighting for food blogging that I know I certainly can put to good use as we try to illuminate and share our food adventures on FoodNuts.com. Check it out by clicking on their picture or right here!

Okay, enough about all these wonderful dishes you are posting. I want to let you in on my latest experiment. I am trying to get a really easy way to make a sort of soft boiled or poached egg. I noticed this cool egg cup in my cupboard, and decided to just crack a raw egg into it and cook it in the microwave. Some little angel whispered in my ear that it might be a good idea to cover the cup with a towel, just in case.  I made a guess and put it in for 50 seconds. I was surprised by some really strange pops and other noises, and when I opened the door, the towel was off the eggcup, the egg was out of the eggcup and nestled in the towel, and and I enjoyed my very first over cooked microwaved soft-boiled flying egg! Next time maybe 30 seconds?? (Earned my nickname this time for sure).