It seems a little strange to be writing about a chowder recipe when it is sunny, bright and about 80 degrees outside. But we have had some cooler temperatures these past few weeks, and a lot of rain. These conditions are perfect for a nice big bowl of chowdah and so that is exactly what we had.

The inspiration came when we got our seed potatoes delivered from Seed Savers a few weeks ago. Some of them had not quite gone to seed yet, and so in true Leftover Queen fashion, I decided to use them to make several batches of potato puree, as well as some delicious homefries for breakfasts and for lunch one day a quick German Potato Salad. Call it practice for harvest time. I left one of the pint jars of puree out, to make a batch of potato leek soup, until I picked up some smoked trout at the grocery store, and a plan started to come together in my mind!

This chowder was delightful, and certainly something I will be making again, as we will have copious amounts of potatoes (75 feet of plants) to eat this fall and winter! It reminds me of something you would eat on the coast of Ireland, or one of the Herbridian islands of Scotland, especially because we enjoyed bowls of it with delicious crunchy oat cakes and slices of cheddar alongside.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pint of potato puree
2 c. water
¼ cup cooked, cubed potatoes
4 small garlic cloves, minced
¼ c. sliced leeks
¼ cup sliced fresh oyster mushrooms
¼ cup green peas
¼ cup spinach or other dark greens
juice of one ½ lemon – save the other half
olive oil
salt and pepper
4 ounces smoked trout, shredded

METHOD:

In a large pot combine the potato puree and water, until it is well mixed and has a uniform consistency.
While this is happening, in a skillet sautee the potatoes, garlic, leeks, mushrooms, peas and greens in a nice drizzle of olive oil. Once the veggies are soft, put them in the pot with the puree and mix. Add the lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Then crumble up ½ of the smoked trout and mix into the chowder. Cook all together for about 5 minutes. Serve with slices of lemon (Preserved lemon would be amazing with this) and the rest of the trout, divided evenly on top. Serves 4

We have PEEPS! Now it is really starting to feel like a homestead around here!

Not that it hasn’t been homesteady all along. I mean we have been working on our garden for the past several weeks, and that is actually really going well. This past weekend we planted spinach, chard, mache, 2 kinds of carrots, 2 kinds of beets, 3 types of onions, nasturtiums, green peas, lettuces, turnips and radishes. Also sage, rosemary and dill – oh and the ever present marigolds. Garden gems for the organic gardener! Not to mention blueberry, raspberries, elderberry, lingonberry and currant bushes. As well as apricot and chestnut trees. We also have tomatoes, peppers and eggplants growing inside right now. We are doing a companion planting garden, and are really excited to see the tops of beets already emerging, as well as onion starters sprouting and either radishes or turnips starting in less than a week. My stepdaughters were here last weekend and even got in on the action. Thanks Rachel and Gwen!

I joked on facebook earlier that today I connected with my Irish roots earlier, by digging 75 feet worth of potato trenches by hand. Good hard work that will hopefully yield hundreds of heirloom varieties – over 8 different kinds. Those will be going in the ground tomorrow. Then this weekend the hot plants – tomatoes, peppers, cukes and melons. Probably squashes if we can squeeze them in.

It has been non-stop work since we got here 6 weeks ago. But it is so nice to see how much we have accomplished – all for an important end -FOOD.

But today was the day I have really been waiting for!!!  My first livestock! A recent passion that has just been growing since we got out to the country. I placed my order for peeps 4 weeks ago – just weeks after arriving. I was not  messing around. I got 3 different varieties – Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks and Silver Laced Wyandottes (which I was told not to expect, so I only ordered 2) I ended up getting all, including the Wyandottes, but not the rooster I had ordered. We were expecting them tomorrow, but they arrived a day early. So we spent a rushed hour putting the final touches their brooder, where they will stay for the next 3-4 weeks, until it is consistently warm enough for them to be outside in their coop that we have yet to build. Just another project to do here on the farm!

When you get peeps, you have to show them how to drink water by dipping their beaks into the water. When we got them home, they enjoyed the first water and food of their lives, having been born yesterday morning, immediately packed into boxes and shipped out. So we really are raising them by hand. Such a privilege. I hope they enjoy their life at Thistlemoon Meadows!

As a blogger, aspiring to bring my readers better food, more interesting stories, and drool-worthy photos of my creations, I look to other bloggers who do what I want to do, but do it better. They are like virtual mentors whose posts I pour over, and get excited about when I see them in my inbox. They are the bloggers whose nearly every recipe ends up in my “to make” box.

One of these bloggers is Jenny from Nourished Kitchen.  To me, she is a marvel – she makes delicious, nutrient dense foods, using practices our great grandparents did – making fermented vegetables, cultured dairy products, and using real butter, full fat raw milk and real bacon! While raising a family AND managing her local farmers market! I have been working to eat more and more this way over the past months, and I always look to Jenny’s delicious blog for inspiration. She is a wealth of information and really one of the most gracious bloggers I have been in contact with.

So it is with excitement that I am announcing her awesome e-course! After hearing over and over again from her readers a need for a simple, but thorough way to better incorporate local foods and back-to-basics, traditional cooking into their kitchens, she began work on this e-course. Through this interactive 12-week program Jenny will show you the ropes to making delicious , good for you food that won’t break your back, or your budget, that is usually local, organic and in season. This is the time to start your own Food Revolution, faithful readers! If you aren’t convinced, take a look at these amazing dishes:

Are you drooling yet? If so, here are the details on the e-course! Don’t forget Class begins June 1, 2010, and registration closes on May 31st!!! So you need to act fast!

What You’ll Get

• 12 Comprehensive, Multi-media Online Classes
• Video Tutorials Teaching You How to Cook Real Food
• Digital Workbook to Take Notes & Develop Your Own Recipes
• Charts Outlining Seasonally Available Foods
• Fact Sheets and Handy Tips Analyzing the Value of Real Food
• Online Discussion Forum for Members Only
• Menu Planning Tips & Sample Meal Plans
• Sample Shopping Lists and Equipment Recommendations
• SPECIAL BONUS: Discouts & Coupons from Companies I Trust

Get in now!

You’ll Learn How to:

• Shop for whole, unrefined local foods in season.
• Maximize nutrition and minimize cost.
• Plan meals that will help you stick to your food budget.
• Bake organic whole grain bread for a fraction of the cost of store-bought.
• Save a mint making homemade yogurt, cheese and pickles.
• Make use of cheaper cuts of meat with slow cooking.
• Make healthy homemade soda for just pennies a gallon.

The Lesson Overview

Lesson #1: What is Real Food & Where to Find It
Lesson #2: Eat Whole Grain
Lesson #3: Homemade Sourdough Bread
Lesson #4: Homemade Salad Dressings
Lesson #5: Prepare Seasonal Vegetables
Lesson #6: Make Real Pickles
Lesson #7: Roasted & Slow-cooked Meats
Lesson #8: Stocks, Broths & Soups
Lesson #9: Easy Homemade Yogurt & Cheese
Lesson #10: Soda & Soft Drink Alternatives
Lesson #11: Naturally Sweet Desserts
Lesson #12: Menus & Meal Planning

Check out Jenny’s eCourse here, watch a promo video, and find out how to register.  Class begins June 1, 2010, and registration closes May 31st!!! Every weekly course is at your leisure, at your own computer screen, and they’re all supported by a forum where you can ask Jenny and other participants questions.  There are limited spaces available.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Nourished Kitchen’s online eCourse, so I will be earning a commission from any sales made after clicking a link in this post.  This e-course it taking the blogosphere by storm, with many affiliates, so if you’re going to sign up for Jenny’s course (and you’re not one of her faithful readers), it would be appreciated to start here with my link.

Scottish Oat Cakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche

Weird Food Rule that Jenn lives by #1: Try to eat foods that humans have been eating for the past 200 years, at least, and try as best you can to eat “traditional” foods from your ancestral region of the world.

Weird Food Rules that Jenn lives by #2: Do this 80% of the time you eat.

Hey, it works for other animals, so why shouldn’t it work for us? We are animals after all. My small dogs do better eating dog food with animal products that they could easily catch in the wild – like fowl and poultry and their eggs (and as close to their natural state as possible). But, not so good on venison. I know we can’t all be wild foragers, but it is good to keep this principle in mind when we choose our mainstay foods. I know I think I feel better when I do this as much as I can,  but I trust my dogs, because they don’t have the placebo effect.

Well it is no surprise to those of you who read my blog regularly that I am a huge fan of Mediterranean cuisine. I grew up in a primarily Southern Italian American family, eating lots of olive oil, garlic and tomato sauce. I love wine, olives, pita bread, hummus and cheese. In fact, quick meals are often comprised of many of these things. Antipasti, tapas and small plate eating is my favorite way to make a meal. These are all super healthy foods, that are a mainstay of my diet and will continue to be, because they are so darn good and good for you and well, super tasty. However, all my life, I have also had a strange love for other foods, from more colder climates. Things like salmon, brunost, wild game (especially those with antlers), lingonberries, blackberries, blueberries, seaweed, wild mushrooms, beets, turnips and sauerkraut. I find myself really CRAVING these foods. As well as other foods that can be found in both parts of the world like cheese, yogurt and other cultured dairy products.

Preparing Dough for Scottish Oat Cakes

So it was interesting for me when I got the results of my DNA test to find out that I have 100% Northern European ancestry, with heavy British/Western Isles connections on all sides. So in my quest to fulfill more of my Weird Food Rule #1 combined with my quest to find a good cracker recipe, I decided to try making Scottish oat cakes. People of the Western Isles in Europe have been eating oats and porridge for quite a long time. Oatmeal is good for us, and so I thought this would be a good recipe to experiment with.

It really and truly is a great recipe. It covers all my requirements – significantly more oats than flour, no white flour, holds up well with a pre-soak of the oats and flour – and works really well with buttermilk as the pre-soaking agent.

Buttermilk is an amazing liquid, and extremely easy to make. It is what raw milk becomes when it sours, like yogurt sours (DISCLAIMER: DO NOT try this with pasteurized milk, it ROTS, as opposed to sours, due to the lack of beneficial bacteria and is not safe to drink). Buttermilk is a actually a probiotic food. Even those who are lactose intolerant can generally consume it, since the healthy bacteria makes it easier to digest. I have been making cultured buttermilk (by using store bought milk and a powdered culture) regularly for the past several months. Buttermilk uses are many: pancakes, biscuits, bread, cakes, muffins, and of course these oat cakes. It makes all of these baked goodies nice and tender and airy. I have even drunk buttermilk straight from the glass, on occasion in lieu of kefir and it works well in smoothies, too.

Scottish Oat Cakes with Cheddar Cheese and Brunost

These oatcakes are a great vehicle to serve with cheese – I like brunost, Roberto like cheddar. Also good with homemade crème fraîche and smoked salmon, even salami. Or you could try butter and jam or raw honey for a sweet treat!

Read the rest of this entry »

United Irishmen Flag

Well it’s better late than never, I say. Just think of this post as a jump start to next year’s celebration!

These last few months have been very exciting for me. I recently discovered that along with my new found English ancestry (and a few other Northern European ancestries) and in the company of millions of other Americans, I may have some ancestral roots in Ireland. I am still learning about where it comes from, which has been a very fun process for me and has revived in me my love of anthropology and population migrations. I am not sure how much I will ever really know about my heritage, being adopted with no ancestry history, but it looks like there is a strong Northern Irish connection from all my research so far. So this year, I decided that I want to explore these cultures in my ancestral line through the foods of these lands, and St. Patrick’s day seemed like a good place to start, in good company.

I am not Christian, so for me, my St. Patrick’s celebration is not religious or political, but more of a general Celtic heritage and cultural celebration. It should be no surprise that I have Celtic ancestry, as I have always loved Celtic music (even teaching myself to play the fiddle) and culture, and Scottish and Irish desserts have been among my favorites for years. So I felt like even with its religious roots, this would be a good a time as any to celebrate the rich culture and heritage of Ireland with so many others!

Some Irish Feast Ingredients: Fresh Organic Eggs, Organic Cream and Guinness plus Homemade Buttermilk and Whiskey and Aquavit Soaked Raisins

I wanted to celebrate by cooking some semi- “traditional” dishes, and to challenge myself by cooking with Guinness! So the menu is as follows :

*Guinness Stew
*Sautéed Cabbage in a Mustard Glaze
*Brown Soda Bread
*Guinness Ice Cream

Everything is made from scratch, including the buttermilk in the soda bread. The meal turned out great, and I would certainly make any of these dishes again, for St. Pat’s or any other day.

Brown Soda Bread

I was inspired by several different recipes for this meal, and it all started with Jenny’s Brown Soda Bread Recipe .

As many who follow this blog know, I have been tweaking various bread recipes these past many months, so that the flour can be soaked for at least 12 hours before baking ( to find out why click here ). Jenny is a master at this kind of cooking, even recently being featured on CNN for her Real Food Challenge . When I saw her soda bread recipe, I knew I had to make it.

Guinness Stew

From there, the idea for an Irish feast began. I didn’t have a lot of time this year to research “corning” my own beef brisket , so to speak (maybe next year). So I decided to go with something a bit more in my comfort zone – beef stew with a beef and Guinness broth.

I love sautéed cabbage, and since it was on sale at the grocery store, I decided to grab a head and figure out what to do with it later. As I was cooking the stew, an idea for a delicious spicy mustard and honey glaze was concocted in my mind! I will definitely be making cabbage this way again!

Creamy Guinness Ice Cream without white sugar

I had also been wanting to try this recipe for Guinness Ice Cream for about 2 years. However, I did modify it, to make it more healthy by omitting the 2 cups of sugar called for in the original recipe and using date sugar and maple syrup to sweeten it, instead. I also omitted the brown bread, however I may have to add it in the future, because it sounds yummy!

This was a wonderful celebration to begin to connect with some of my ancestral roots and share it with my awesome and supportive family. Thanks Guys! Hope my readers enjoy this menu as much as we did! Recipes under the cut…

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I have been playing with baking a lot lately. For a long time “carbs” and “grains” meant the same thing to me, in my mind. I don’t know why, but I blame the media and the “low carb craze”. So basically I have stopped listening to the media when it comes to my food choices and eat what feels the best to me, which has taken quite a bit of research and time. I recently took a DNA test, which I may talk about more on here (if you are facebook friends with me, I will be updating my results soon!), but the results showed that I had a low genetic probability to Celiac’s Disease, answering a question I have wondered about for nearly a decade.

However, just because I don’t have Celiac’s Disease doesn’t mean that wheat doesn’t affect me. For the past several months I have been soaking my flour in an acid, like whey, or homemade kefir or buttermilk for 24 hours before baking. I do this in order to break down the phytic acid that is in wheat, which makes wheat hard to digest for many people. I have found this to be very helpful with regard to the effects on my body that I usually attribute to wheat – like a “carb coma”. So recently I was looking through Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, to see what recipes they had for bread, and I found a recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits. I was very excited.

I was recently able to procure some Gjetost – a Norwegian brown cheese, commonly known as Brunost, which means “Brown Cheese”. It is generally a goat’s milk cheese (but there are cow, and mixed versions as well). Brunost is made by boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugar into caramel which gives the cheese its characteristic taste. It is the most amazing cheese in the world. My favorite, and one that I ate several times a day when I lived in Norway. I used to love it on bread for breakfast and lunch, or on waffles, with a little raspberry jam for dessert. I thought these biscuits, slightly sweet, would be the perfect vehicle to eat this cheese, and I was right! They are also good with another Norwegian favorite (and one of mine) smoked salmon.

I really love the dough – it smells amazing and is a dream to work with. I have made these biscuits twice in the past week, and the second time, they were even better. I used the Parmigiano Reggiano Butter I talked about in my last post and it made so much difference. I also made sure the dough was thick enough when rolled out, and used a larger glass to cut them out – which made the resulting biscuits much more tender.

They are simple to make and delicious. Your house will smell like a bakery all day. I happened to have people come over in the evening both of the days that I baked them, and they both asked what I had been baking. So yeah, they are amazing. Try them today – and if you can find some brunost, slice some very thinly on top, using a cheese slicer and place a dollop of jam on top, and you will be in heaven.
I promise.

Buttermilk Biscuits
from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Makes about 1 dozen

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of unbleached white flour
2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole wheat flour
1 cup buttermilk
4 TBS melted butter
1 ½ tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking soda
unbleached white flour

METHOD:

Mix flour with buttermilk and mix to form a thick dough. Cover and leave in a warm place (countertop) for 12 to 24 hours. Place in a food processor with the other ingredients, and process several minutes to knead. Remove dough to a well-floured pastry cloth or board and sprinkle with unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. Roll dough out to ¾ inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a glass and place on buttered baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes (my biscuits baked in about 15-20 minutes, so keep an eye on them!)

(My first attempts—deformed æbleskiver…)

Have you had Æbleskiver (pronounced EB-el-sku-wyr)? They are yummy and delicious, cute and round Danish Pancakes that can be eaten with syrup, like pancakes, or filled with anything from fruit to cream, or even Nutella! I imagine some savory combinations too – like apples and cheddar, perhaps?

I heard about them several years ago, but saw them being cooked for the first time in San Francisco, this past November, at the Foodbuzz Food Bloggers Festival. That is where I met Chad Gillard, co-owner of Aunt Else’s Æbleskiver. He was there in the afternoon’s tasting pavilion as part of the Foodzie crew, demonstrating how to make æbleskiver using Aunt Else’s Æbleskiver Mix which is made with organic, Minnesota grown wheat & organic buttermilk from Wisconsin and using Aunt Else’s high quality, locally made 9-hole cast iron æbleskiver pan. I was really intrigued and got in touch with Chad after the festival to see if he wanted to do a giveaway on Foodieblogroll.com, so we could start an Æbleskiver Revolution in the Food Blogging world! So that is how I came to be a lucky recipient of an æbleskiver pan and Aunt Else’s mix at no charge for hosting the giveaway.

I decided that my maiden attempt to make æbleskiver would be over Thanksgiving, while my family was visiting. I wanted everyone to have a chance to taste these little darlings, and I was excited to offer something unique for breakfast. I had prepared the cast iron pan the night before so it was all set. When it was time, I used coconut oil to prepare the pan for cooking. Making the mix was easy – just add eggs and water and you are ready to go! Just like pancakes, the first few batches didn’t really look as round and cute as Chad’s did at the festival – but then again, I comforted myself in that knowledge that he is a professional! I was about to get discouraged, but then the batches started coming out great! It is fun to make æbleskiver, after you pour the batter in, you turn them several quarter turns using a metal implement that comes with the kit. Back in the day, the Danes would use a knitting needle – but I suppose you could also use a chopstick!

I decided to make a simple version – just plain and sprinkled with powdered sugar! Powdered sugar makes everything look pretty – even my deformed æbleskiver! I served them with maple syrup for dipping.

(Practice makes perfect….)

I really love Aunt Else’s stuff, especially the fact that they are a small company making their product locally, and using local and organic ingredients in their mix. That is something I feel really good about supporting. For your chance to win your own Æbleskiver Kit, check out Aunt Else’s Contest Page on The Foodie Blogroll. Mange tak, Chad and Aunt Else’s!

Thanks to all of my readers for your comments and support over the last year! I am always grateful for your comments, questions and inspiration for this blog! I am wishing all of you the best for 2010 – hope it is the tastiest year yet! Wishing all of you health, happiness and love!

Here are the top 10 most commented posts of this year! I hope you enjoy them (again)! From most favorite:

1. The Poison That is High Fructose Corn Syrup

2. My First Wedding Cake

3. Breakfast of Champions

4. Grassfed Beef Steaks with Chimmichuri and Fresh English Peas

5. Lovely Limoncello

6. BBQ Buffalo Cheddar Burgers with Maple Caramelized Onions

7. Moroccan Themed Ladies Supper Club

8. Eating Disorder or Concerned Consumer?

9. Guess Where I’ve Been (Italy Overview)

10. One Year Anniversary

10 (tie). Skoleboller – Norwegian Cardamom Custard Buns