January is a big month for those of us with Scottish heritage. We start the month off with the celebration of Hogmany or Scottish New Year. This tradition comes from the intermixing between the Norse and the Scottish in Scotland. The 12 Days of Christmas, actually comes from the original 12 days of Yule , and Hogmany is the end of that celebratory time, as the new Gregorian year was rung in.

Then January 25th is Burn’s Night when Scots and those of Scottish ancestry the world over celebrate the life and poetry of Robert Burns by celebrating Burns Night and hosting a Burns Supper. I hosted my first proper Burns Supper in a long time last year and plan to do it again this year.

So in the meantime I would like to share with you this dish inspired by one of my favorite foods that I don’t get a chance to eat very often- black pudding, or blood pudding/sausage. I know a lot of you are probably gagging right now. But blood pudding is truly a sacred food. As the name implies it is made from the blood of a slaughtered animal. Usually sheep, sometimes pigs but it can also be made from cattle, duck and goat. This food really exemplifies nose to tail eating and as a farmer, I believe in using the entire animal, and that includes its blood. I have not had a chance to make it yet, but I do plan to in the future.

I must admit, the first time I had black pudding, I didn’t know what it was. I think that helped my taste buds truly enjoy it without thinking that I was supposed to think it was gross. I am so glad no one told me and just let me enjoy it.

The making of blood sausage is common the world over and can be found in nearly every culture. Generally it is made of the blood, some kind of fat and fillers depending on the culture – in France it is known as Boudin Noir, made with chestnut flour and cream, it was made on the Navajo reservation where I lived, prepared by the women with blue cornmeal, in Norway I ate Blodpølse as part of Christmas Eve traditional fare where it is served with other cured meats and Rømmegrøt. So although it might not be very popular in certain places and have a high “yuck” factor among many, it is part of the traditional diet of probably all of our ancestors and to be respected.

Last year when I ordered my Haggis from Scottish Gourmet USA for our Burns Supper, I also bought some of their black pudding or Marag Dubh. It can be eaten fried up for breakfast and served with eggs, or used in dishes, like this stew I made with beans and mushrooms, creating a wonderfully flavorful dish with a certain je ne sais quoi coming from the addition of the black pudding. It is just like anchovies in Italian Puttanesca sauce, if you don’t tell people it is in there, they will love it, licking their dish, while swearing how much they hate anchovies.

I served the stew with another traditional Scottish favorite, gluten free Oat Bannocks to sop up all the delicious sauce.

Open your mind and be adventurous this new year! Join us for a Burns Night celebration and try some black pudding!

Black Pudding Stew

INGREDIENTS:

2 TBS of butter
2 slices of bacon
¼ large onion diced
1 clove garlic
½ cup re-constituted dried mushrooms (save the water)
½ lb black pudding, crumbled
¼ cup red wine
½ cup mushroom water
1 TBS Flowers of Scotland
¾ lb Christmas Limas, cooked
1 cooked potato diced

METHOD:

Be sure to cook your potato and beans ahead of time. Melt the butter in a hot skillet (preferably cast iron). Cut the bacon into small pieces and cook with the onion, garlic, mushrooms and black pudding. Once the bacon is browned and the onions soft, add the wine, mushroom water and cooked beans. Simmer on low for 25 minutes over low heat, covered. Take off lid and add the flowers of Scotland and cubed potatoes. Reduce liquid until the stew is nice and thick. Serve with bannocks. Serves 4.

Bannocks

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup GF oat flour
½ cup coconut flour
¼ cup tapioca flour/starch
¼ tsp salt
2/3 cup of yogurt/kefir/buttermilk
1 egg
2 tsp baking powder

METHOD:

Mix first 5 ingredients together and allow to sit on the countertop for 8 hours, or overnight. Next day place it in a food processor and add the rest of the ingredients, pulsing until the dough is nice and crumbly. Preheat oven to 400F.
On a floured surface press dough into an eight-inch circle about ¾ inch thick. Bake at 400F for 12- 15 minutes. Serves 6-8.

A delicious gluten-free addition to your Thanksgiving Table, would also make a great bread base for stuffing.

Back when I was eating wheat, I had a great time making bread. My bible in this regard was Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. It really is an amazing bread baking book. I have tried many recipes in the book, and all turn out beautifully!
Once I found out I had was allergic to wheat, I had to start all over, and it was hard. I had gotten into sourdough bread baking, but once I had no gluten to work with, the bread I made became briquettes. It was a sad time in our house. My husband who is from Italy and eats bread with every single meal had to rely on local suppliers. So, I developed some standbys that we both enjoyed (I eat so little bread, it doesn’t make sense to make a loaf all for myself), like Scottish Oat Cakes, Scones and Buckwheat-Quinoa Biscuits, items that could easily be frozen if we didn’t eat them fast enough.
But sometimes, I missed sandwiches and wanted a loaf bread that fit the bill. Imagine my excitement when Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients came out, featuring some gluten-free recipes. But I was disappointed to see that all the recipes contained various gums and GF additives that I don’t keep around the house.
After struggling with this for about a year or so, it dawned on me, why not try some of my favorite bread recipes from the original Artisan Bread book, and just use GF flours? So that is what I did, and it worked out beautifully.
I describe this bread as wheat-free and not gluten-free because I know some GF folks can’t do oats. So far, I have been fine with oats (must be my Scottish blood) and I also get a certified GF Oat flour (See recipe for sources) from Bob’s Red Mill. I really like baking bread with oat flour. It has the most similar consistency to wheat that I have found, with buckwheat coming in second place. So those are the two flours I have used for this recipe.

The bread is super flavorful and has a beautiful crumb. You really don’t taste the pumpkin in it, the pumpkin mostly gives it a lot of moisture. My favorite way to eat it is with a nice slather of butter, absolutely delicious!
I have struggled with trying not to use yeast when baking, but I have come back around and decided to start using it again. I have not found a technique to make delicious fluffy (think, not brick hard) bread items without the use of either yeast or baking soda. Sourdough just doesn’t work for me, much as I have tried with buying cultures and with trying to catch my own wild…they just never, ever bubble.

INGREDIENTS:
2 C. lukewarm water
1 ½ TBS yeast
1 TBS salt
2 TBS warmed honey

5 TBS warmed coconut oil or olive oil or melted butter
1 C pumpkin puree
3 cups buckwheat flour
½ cup Bob’s Red Mill Organic Scottish Oatmeal, 20-Ounce Bags (Pack of 4)

3 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Whole Grain Oat Flour — 22 oz

METHOD:
Mix water, yeast, salt and honey in a large non-reactive bowl, stir gently and allow the yeast to bloom for about 1-2 minutes. Then mix all the other ingredients, in the order listed, adding the flour one cup at a time to incorporate evenly. Cover with a towel and allow to sit for 8 hours or overnight.
When you are ready to bake preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare a loaf pan by smearing it with butter or oil and scrape the dough into the prepared pan. Bake for about 45-50 minutes or until an inserted fork comes out clean.
Makes one 3 1/2 lb loaf *

*Variation – also makes great rolls. You can see what the rolls look like on my Autumn Bisque Post.

(mom and me)

I know I am a little late with this. Mother’s Day has come and gone for this year. But I have had some things on my mind. For the past month or so, when it comes to blogging, I have been standing on my soapbox, discussing issues related to food, that are close to my heart – body image, omnivorism, homesteading, food sovereignty… But I am back to recipes now, and even though I made this for Mom on Mother’s day, this would be a great menu for any Sunday brunch and why not have one this weekend?

Baked Homegrown Eggs with Local Mushrooms, Goat Cheese and White Truffle Oil
Local Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Local Maple Sausage Patties
Grain-free Coffee Cake
Homemade Yogurt and Berries with Maple
Fresh Brewed Coffee with Local Cream
Pear Bellini

I was blessed this Mother’s Day to have my mom in my company. See, she lives in Florida, and with us in Vermont, it isn’t easy to get together to celebrate all the special days in the year. But this year she decided to come to visit us for Mother’s Day and I wanted it to be special and memorable. I searched all around for a local place doing the typical nice Mother’s Day Brunch buffet, but was disappointed with the offerings. I was lamenting this on facebook, and someone suggested I make brunch myself, and that is exactly what I ended up doing. It ended up being great!

(Grain-Free Coffee Cake from The Spunky Coconut)

I recently purchased a copy of The Spunky Coconut Grain-Free Baked Goods and Desserts: Gluten Free, Casein Free, and Often Egg Free (See all Healthy Diet Cooking Books) and I was really excited to try some baked goods. Kelly, the author, and The Spunky Coconut herself, uses a lot of white beans in the base of her baked goodies. Since I like to cook as grain free as possible, this really intrigued me. It has literally been YEARS, since I had a coffee cake, but I used to love them, so I decided to try Kelly’s grain free version. The cake was delicious and power-packed with nutrients– between the beans, the eggs and the nuts, it is full of good for you goodness, but not at the expense of flavor or texture – one of the biggest issues I have had with gluten-free baking. The only thing I would change about the recipe is to cut the amount of nuts. It was a bit too crunchy, where we would have preferred cakey.

(Baked Homegrown Eggs with Local Mushrooms, Goat Cheese and White Truffle Oil)

The other main dish I prepared was a baked egg dish with eggs from our sweet hens, chanterelle and local oyster mushrooms, fresh chives from the garden and local goat cheese, all drizzled with the last of the white truffle oil we got in Italy, while with Roberto’s mom. It seemed a fitting way to honor her in the meal, even if she couldn’t be with us to share it.

We also had roasted potatoes, maple sausage from Applecheek Farm delicious locally roasted brewed coffee from Barista’s Beans, and homemade yogurt with local blueberries and currants (both harvested last year and frozen for winter eating), drizzled with local maple syrup and to top it all off, pear bellini (sparkling wine/champagne and pear nectar).

(Farmchic Tablescape)

It was an elegant (for us!) and casual brunch all at once and we had a lot of good laughs and enjoyable conversation all together. We had flowers on the table and fresh linens, which is about as fancy as we get here on the homestead!

Grain-Free Coffee Cake from The Spunky Coconut

Set oven to 325 F

Add to food processor:
2 cups of room temperature cooked beans – navy or great Northern.
6 eggs
¾ tsp vanilla liquid stevia *
1 tsp vanilla extract*
1/3 cup honey*
*I didn’t have the liquid stevia, so instead I just used a little extra honey with the vanilla extract
Puree well

Add:
¼ cup coconut oil, liquefied
1/3 cup coconut flour
½ tsp sea salt
¾ cup baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
Puree well, pour batter into a greased 9×13 pan

Crumble Topping:
Puree:
3 cups walnuts (I used soaked almonds, since I am allergic to walnuts, and next time I think I will use @2 cups instead)
2 TBS ghee or coconut oil
½ cup coconut sugar
1 TBS cinnamon
Spread the crumble over the top of the batter. Using a fork or knife, really swirl the topping into the batter, and pat the topping down. Bake for about 25 minutes. Great hot, or cold from the refrigerator, store in the fridge.

Baked Homegrown Eggs with Local Mushrooms, Goat Cheese and White Truffle Oil

INGREDIENTS:
2 large fresh oyster mushrooms
A palm full of reconstituted dried chanterelle mushrooms
2 TBS butter
2 TBS fresh chives
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
5 large fresh eggs
¼ cup crumbled goat cheese
Salt & pepper
1 TBS white truffle oil

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 350 F. In a medium sized cast iron skillet sauté the mushrooms with the butter. Add one TBS of the chives. Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese on the bottom of a silicon round cake pan. Scramble eggs in a separate bowl with salt and pepper, add the sautéed mushrooms and chives to the eggs and then pour into the cake pan and sprinkle with crumbled goat cheese. Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the egg is cooked and drizzle with the truffle oil.

In my quest for delicious gluten-free baked goods I have been experimenting in my kitchen and have been putting my hand-powered grain mill to work. I am a huge fan of both buckwheat and quinoa – they both have a wonderful nutty flavor that I find very satisfying. I buy these two grains, as well as other things I use often, whole and in bulk. So now that I am 100% gluten-free, I have begun grinding my own gluten-free flour. I do love my gluten-free scones, but I wanted to create a bready item that could be used for sandwiches and so these biscuits were born.

I still have not plunged into gluten-free sourdough baking because I am intimidated by it. Right now I don’t have a lot of extra time to put into that new skill set…yet. But it is on my agenda for 2011 and I think the final solution for our lack of artisan bread in the house. So for now I content myself with some bread “stand-ins” that I can quickly whip up in my food processor without hassle or learning curve.

(My grain mill, from Country Living – sorry about the quality of the photo, but my camera died recently, and I took this with my droid)

Roberto loves these biscuits and that is a huge plus! It is tough being a native-born Italian and living in a gluten-free household. But I have to give it to my man, he is ever supportive of me and cheers me on through my challenges. He has learned to love corn pasta and relishes these little gluten-free breads, which is why every year for his birthday he gets a tray of real lasagna and bread made with wheat flour.

I adapted a recipe I got from Cultures for Health. I signed up for their newsletter and got a free e-book of kefir recipes. Pretty nice deal and it is still going on! So get over there and get signed up!

Kefir is a nice leavening agent, as it contains a colony of both yeast and bacteria to culture milk. I will be doing a kefir post next week, so keep your eyes out for more on this wonderful health elixir.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
½ cup quinoa flour
¾ cup kefir (you can also use buttermilk)
¼ tsp aluminum-free baking soda
1 TBS aluminum-free baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
6 TBS cold butter

METHOD:

12-24 hours prior to making biscuits, mix the flours and kefir together. Cover and allow the flour to soak. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut the butter into chunks then work it into the flour/kefir mixture along with the baking soda, baking powder and salt. I use my food processor using quick pulses. Do not over mix. If the mixture is too dry, add a bit more kefir. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board. Gently pat the dough to ½ inch thick (this will yield lighter biscuits than using a rolling pin). Use a round cutter to cut out the biscuits. Place biscuits on a cookie sheet. If you want biscuits with soft edges (and a higher rise), place the rounds touching each other. If you want biscuits with crusty sides, place the rounds about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Makes 10 biscuits.

This blog post is part of the Simple Lives Thursday Blog Hop!

Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year. One reason is because it is the only harvest still celebrated by the majority of people in North America, where people enjoy a variety of seasonal foods in a ritualistic manner. Celebrating the harvest is a festival that has been going on for a very long time in our human history and humans have always loved a good ritual. Celebrating the harvest is a way to give thanks for having enough food to sustain you through the next season. Living in a rural area, and spending much of this year planting, growing and harvesting our own food, has really put us in touch with a more natural cycle. Something I am very thankful for.

This year, Roberto and I decided in order to really appreciate the meaning of this holiday, everything we were to prepare would be from local ingredients – some ingredients as local as our own backyard! We pre-ordered a heritage turkey from Applecheek Farm. On Wednesday we went to the farm to pick up our fresh (not frozen) bird and decided to pick up other items at the farmstore to create the rest of our menu. We were greeted with an array of wonderful fresh and seasonal produce – fresh cranberries, brussels sprouts, potatoes, squashes, local breads, cheeses, eggs and milk. Everything one would need for a splendid holiday meal.

Since it was just the two of us this year, we decided not to overdo it. This was our menu:

Maple Roasted Heritage Turkey*
(Local Ingredients: turkey, butter, maple, From The Backyard: fresh rosemary)
Gluten Free Cornbread Stuffing with sausage oven dried tomatoes, fresh herbs and pine nuts
(Local Ingredients: Cornmeal, homemade chicken/duck stock, sausage, From The Backyard: oven dried tomatoes, fresh rosemary and sage) – recipe below
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
(Local Ingredients: butter, fresh cream, From the Backyard: potatoes and rosemary)
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
(Local Ingredients: brussels sprouts, butter)
Fresh Cranberry Sauce
(Local Ingredients: fresh cranberries, honey) – recipe below
Maple and Pumpkin Crème Caramel
(Local Ingredients: maple, cream, milk and pumpkin, From The Backyard: eggs)

*note: heritage turkeys are much leaner and smaller than sedentary commercial birds. This means that fast cooking at high temperatures is a better method than slow roasting. To read more about heritage turkeys, and why you should consider one for your Thanksgiving table next year, read this short article from Local Harvest

I prepared the compound butter for the turkey (I suggest making extra to enjoy with the leftover cornbread – they are the perfect combination with a nice brown ale), the creme caramel and the cornbread on Wednesday, and then spent the morning on Thursday in the kitchen finishing up the rest.

Doing Thanksgiving this way is so much less stressful, because you just go with the flow and what it the freshest and available! So I challenge you to think about doing something like this next year!

We spent the day watching a Lord of The Rings marathon, talking to family on the phone and just relaxing by the fire with the pets. It was a perfect Thanksgiving and a great way to really relax and unwind after such a busy season on the homestead.
THANKSGIVING RECIPES:

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups fresh cranberries
orange zest from one orange
juice of one orange
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ cup dark red wine (like zinfandel, grenache, or malbec)
¼ cup raw honey
pinch of nutmeg

METHOD:

In a medium saucepan combine all the ingredients. I even put the quarters of orange in that have been zested and juiced. Turn heat to medium low and bring to a boil while stirring often. Reduce temperature to low simmer and cook until the liquid has reduced and you are left with a thick sauce – about 15 miutes.

Gluten Free Cornbread Stuffing with Sausage, Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs and Pine Nuts
(Recipe stuffs a 9-10 lb bird)

INGREDIENTS:

half a recipe of gluten free skillet cornbread (see below)
¼ cup pine nuts, toasted
2 TBS olive oil
½ onion, minced
1 clove garlic minced
1 TBS each – fresh sage, fresh rosemary
1 cup loose sausage (I use pasture-raised)
½ cup oven roasted tomatoes, chopped
½ – ¾ cup homemade poultry stock
salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Make cornbread and toast pine nuts and set aside. Sautee onions, garlic and herbs in olive oil until onions become translucent. Add the sausage and cook until just browned. In a large mixing bowl, break up th cornbread into small pieces, then add the contents of the pan. Stir together with the oven roasted tomatoes. Then add the stock and stir to coat all the pieces of bread – making sure everything is nice and moist. Then it is ready to stuff inside the bird.

Gluten Free Skillet Cornbread:
Ingredients:
1 cup oat flour
¾ cup cornmeal
½ cup kefir, buttermilk or yogurt
½ cup milk
¼ cup of butter, melted
2 TBS maple sugar
2 ½ tsp aluminum free baking powder
pinch of salt
2 TBS butter or lard for skillet (I used bacon fat)

Method:
Mix oat flour, cornmeal, kefir and milk in a large mixing bowl. Let sit out on counter overnight or at least 8 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Then mix in the rest of the ingredients, except the fat for the skillet. Heat fat in a cast iron skillet, then pour the batter in and put the skillet in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove bread from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

Before I get into this post, I would ask that if you haven’t read my last post on what you can do to save small farms and the local food movement, please read it! Important legislation is about to be passed that will allow the FDA to have greater control over the ability to execute raids, seize products and force recalls on small farms and artisan food producers. The bill can be used to strategically drive small producers out of business all in the name of food safety! So please read the post and see what you can do to help!

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When I first announced that I was doing a gluten-free experiment, I got a lot of emails and facebook inquiries about baking gluten-free. People wanted to know if I was going to un-lock the secrets to gluten free baking. Many in this world are addicted to bread and baked goods, and so it is a reasonable first reaction – how will you bake if you are gluten-free?

For me, I have never been a huge eater of bread, and have been eating gluten-free about 80% of the time over the past year. The other 20% accounts for the occasional times we go out to eat, or when I was making sourdough spelt pizza dough once a week, or enjoying a sprouted wheat roll a few times a month. So although I do enjoy a croissant or a crepe once in a while or crave a sandwich sometimes, bread is not a staple of my diet. However, I am married to someone who has very different needs than I do – growing up in Italy, a day with pizza, pasta AND bread, is just not a good day. Without some good carbs at every meal, my husband feels tired. So I had to find a way to fulfill his needs while at the same time being able to eat some too if I wanted to because honestly, I don’t have time to bake 2 different types of bread each week.

Creating a gluten-free bread that can satisfy someone who is used to artisan Italian bread, is a difficult task. Anyone who has ever baked a sourdough or yeast bread knows that there is an art and a science to it. Introduce gluten-free flours to the mix, and it becomes even more of a project. For anyone who doesn’t know, gluten is the agent in wheat that makes bread and pizza dough stretchy and elastic. This creates that fluffy and wonderful texture present in artisan bread baking.

I am not ready to tackle gluten-free sourdough baking just yet because it is just too complicated and too much of a commitment in time and ingredients, until I make my decision, on whether or not gluten free is going to be a way of life for me. I am still on the fence about it. After almost 2 months of GF eating, I haven’t noticed much difference in the issues I was hoping to make a difference, and many of the gluten-free flours are giving me problems. As I write this I am beset with stomach pains.  I also am not happy that many of the gluten free flours are full of starches that convert to sugar quickly – rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, etc. Nor am I comfortable with all the gums – guar and xanthan that seem to be a part of every gluten free baking mix. I am however excited to announce that I have found a fantastic source for gluten-free sourdough baking, and I will be sharing that source soon and likely trying my hand at it as well because I will tell you, this is artisan style bread! It is truly revolutionary!

Anyway, to make a long story short, I decided to start with something simple – scones. Scones are very versatile, because you can make them sweet or savory. They are a little more “bready” than my normal bread substitute, oat cakes and therefore, a nice change of pace. I used the recipe here from the back of the Bob’s Red Mill Sorghum Flour package as inspiration, but adapted it to fit in with my soaking flour methods. The soaking in yogurt, buttermilk or kefir allows enzymes and other friendly organisms to break down the phytic acid, an organic acid found in all grains (and legumes) that may make the digestion of grains (and legumes) harder for some people, like me!

I made a sweet version, and then a savory version using oat flour and oats. These were the best gluten-free baking attempts I have made to date, when it comes to “bread”. It is nice for a quick breakfast or great with a cup of tea as an afternoon snack. Whether gluten-free or not, I think you will enjoy these scones!

“Sweet Version”

INGREDIENTS:

1 ¼ cup sorghum flour
½ cup tapioca flour
2/3 cup of plain yogurt
1 ½ tsp cream of tartar
¾ tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum
¼ tsp salt
4 TBS maple sugar
4 TBS butter cut into ½ inch slices
1/3 cup chocolate chips
2 tbs milk

“Savory Version”

1 cup gf oat flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup sorghum or tapioca flour
2/3 cup of plain yogurt
¾ tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum
¼ tsp salt
4 TBS butter cut into ½ inch slices

METHOD:

In a medium bowl combine flours and yogurt, let sit on counter overnight (you can skip the overnight step if you are not into soaking, and can just can combine ingredients in the food processor immediately).

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In food processor combine flours and other dry ingredients. Pulse on and off to combine ingredients. Add butter and pulse 15-20 times until dough resembles large curds. Scrape dough into a bowl and fold in the chocolate chips, if making the sweet version. Pat the dough onto the baking sheet into an 8-inch circle ¾ inch thick. You can brush the top with 2 TBS of milk, if desired. Bake 12- 15 minutes or until lightly brown. Cut into 6-8 wedges.

Lammas or as it is known in Celtic Britain, Lughnasadh is a Northern European celebration of the “first fruits of the harvest” or beginning of the harvest season. It is still observed in England, Ireland and Scotland today, usually on August 1st. In modern times it is reserved for family reunions, bonfires and dancing. The Christian church has also established a ritual of blessing the fields on this day. In the past it was mainly a grain harvest festival, the name being translated to “loaf-mass” after the festival was co-opted by the Christians, but the festival also includes the harvest of berries. I decided to celebrate by bringing the two meanings of the festival together for this holiday and make a blueberry (berry) sweet breakfast bread (grain) to celebrate. As with most celebrations, even if it is celebrated one day, there are preparations to be made in the week or so leading up to it.

Since this is a harvest festival, we needed to harvest our berries first, something I have been looking forward to all summer. Now that we live in Vermont, and have very obvious changing seasons, it is much easier to recognize and connect with the celebrations that were important to our ancestors. They lived more in tune with nature, marking the seasons by what was in bloom, and other events such as various livestock cycles. In our attempts to become more sustainable, and more in touch with natural cycles, we decided this year, to go berry picking. This way we are getting the freshest fruits, at their prime in our location, and then preserving those berries for fall and winter eating. We went to Fruitlands in Marshfield, Vermont to pick blueberries and raspberries. We picked 6 pints of raspberries and 12 pints of blueberries. We probably should have gotten more. We ended up freezing 4 pints of each, and the rest I canned in syrup.

*tip* to freeze berries, do not wash them (if they are organic and you know they are not sprayed with pesticides). Place them on cookie sheets in a single layer, not touching, and place in the freezer for an hour. Then you can bag them – this extra step prevents them from sticking together and freezing in one big mass.

We left 1 ½ pints of blueberries fresh – half a pint we ate on the car ride home, and the rest, we used in smoothies and to make this Lammas Day bread.

We had a great adventure at Fruitlands – not only was it a beautiful and sunny day but it was picturesque – on the grounds of a quaint bed and breakfast, covered in various gardens. But we weren’t alone in our picking adventures, we were accompanied by some guinea fowl (which I thought were wild turkeys – thank you Darlene, for letting me know – I am still working on becoming a country girl)!  They weren’t too happy about me taking their picture and were screaming bloody murder, the whole time, but surprisingly didn’t run away! The lady doth protest? Methinks, not.

We brought with us a small cooler with ice packs to keep the berries nice and cool on the drive home. This is an important step during hot summer days.

I raw packed the berries in order to retain the most freshness. I will try preserving other fruits in honey or maple, but for my first time using this recipe, I made the syrup according to the directions, and used organic cane sugar. I normally don’t use cane sugar, but canning is more of a science than an art – there is acidity and pH levels to consider. All of these factors directly affect the ability of the jar to seal properly and prevent harmful elements from spoiling all your hard work.

As my friend Amber, from Adventures in the Pioneer Valley pointed out in the comments, here is a great resource. She says: “there are some helpful guides out there that can help you figure it out. If anyone’s interested, I think the National Center for Home Food Preservation has some of the best resources. They give details on what you can adjust in a recipe vs. what you can’t, amongst other helpful tips. The link: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html”

Thanks Amber!

*tip* after jars have cooled and before storing, rub your finger over the lid to see if the seal is down. For added security, I always remove the bands from the lids, and shake the jar upside down over a large bowl, to make sure they have sealed properly. If the contents fall out, then the jar is not sealed. If they have not sealed, you can try re-processing, or just storing in cold storage for more immediate use.

Why can, when you can freeze? Sometimes in the country, and elsewhere, power can go out. If you have all your winter storage in the freezer, or fridge you could lose it all in a matter of hours. Which is why I chose to freeze some, but can the majority. Yes, you do lose some nutrients in the process of canning, but at least you are not in danger of loosing your entire food storage due to a power outage. There are other options such as dehydration, but that still requires the use of electricity. There is also sun-drying (not so useful during a rain spell – and berries are quick to spoil). I am certainly open to these other wonderful methods, but canning is still a good option in my book.

The blueberry breakfast bread was delicious. I am still trying new sourdough recipes and some have been delicious, while others have been dismal failures. This bread was an exception – sweet, and crumbly. It is wonderful served for breakfast or tea. Delicious with an ice cold glass of milk too as a quick snack!

Blueberry Breakfast Bread (Sourdough) – adapted from Baking with Sourdough by Sara Pitzer

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup soft butter
1/3 cup date sugar
1 egg
½ cup whole milk
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp coconut lime salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 TBS vanilla extract
1 cup fresh (or frozen) blueberries

METHOD:

Bring the starter to room temperature in a large bowl. Add the flour and mix together. Let sit over night. Next day, cream the butter and sugar together in a separate bowl, then beat in the egg and milk. Turn this mixture into the bowl with the sourdough starter and flour. Add the salt and soda, mix together well. Gently fold in the blueberries. Pour batter into a well greased square baking pan and allow to stand for at least 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375F. Meanwhile, prepare the topping:

1/3 cup rapadura sugar
1/3 cup spelt flour
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ cup soft butter

Stir all the ingredients together with a fork, until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle half the topping over the bread, and with a knife swirl into the batter. Then evenly pour the other half on top. Bake in oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Although it may be tempting to eat this bread hot out of the oven, it will be sticky and gummy, due to the nature of sourdough. So let it cool completely before serving. Then cut into squares and enjoy!

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Raw Packed Berries in Syrup – makes eight pint (500 ML) jars
from Ball’s Complete Book of Home Preserving by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine

INGREDIENTS:
6-12 lbs of fresh berries, stemmed or capped if necessary
1 batch of Ultra-light syrup: ½ cup of sugar dissolved (by heat) in 5 cups of water

METHOD:

1) Prepare canner, jars and lids (see books or websites on canning for more info)
2) Ladle ½ cup of hot syrup into hot jar, fill jar with raw berries within a generous ½ inch of top of jar.
3) Add hot syrup to cover berries., leaving ½ inch headspace
4) Wipe rim, center lid on jar, screw band down until resistance is met, and then increase until finger tip tight.
5) Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid, wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store

We are still without internet, here at the homestead, so my absence in the blogosphere continues…but I have been amassing so many great recipes since we got here, I just have to keep sharing, as I can. I am just so inspired to shop for food and cook here!

This is a local, or at least regional salad with products coming from Northern New England (or grown by me – in the case of the lemons). This salad features the beautiful and delicious bounty of spring and is packed full of nutrients and major brain food.

I am excited to be featuring some delicious products from several awesome local producers here in beautiful Northern Vermont. This just goes to show how easy and pleasurable it is to eat locally, when you are in a community that really supports local agriculture and food producers. Especially when these products are readily available and easy accessible to the community.

That really is the crux of the local food movement– even though our growing season is much shorter here, there is always an abundance of local products available. Having local products available year round is an important goal of this community, and because it is a community effort, you really can find local products year round. This includes produce, meats and dairy in addition to local coffee roasters, bread bakers, beer and wine makers, peanut butter producers, as well as salsas, sauces and condiments. Not to mention the maple syrup and raw honey! The produce variety may not be as extensive as if you were going to the regular grocery store, but that is part of the joy and challenge of seasonal eating. Plus, learning simple techniques like canning and preserving can really prolong the bounty of a shorter growing season, adding color, flavor and nutrients to the winter months. So if you plan ahead, you can actually eat quite well during harsher months. Thinking that weather is the key factor in the availability of local foods in a community, is a terrible misnomer. I found it much harder to find true local staple products in Florida, which is one of the reasons we left. I lived there for over 3 years. I have lived here less than 2 weeks.

This focus on local and sustainable food is just one of the many major reasons we have decided to make this part of the world our permanent home. We really are so lucky to have found a community that shares our strong core values, which is important on so many levels. Living in a place where your ideals are supported and just a “normal” part of life is a welcomed relief. People are adaptable and can make do anywhere, finding hidden treasures, but being able to live according to your values with ease is a true blessing. I am looking forward to sharing many other finds with you over the coming months and years.

Local Products

* Bar Harbor Mackerel, Bar Harbor, Maine -all natural, wild caught, naturally hardwood smoked Atlantic mackerel. Sustainably harvested from the clear cold waters of the Gulf of Maine. I consider Maine as well as the rest of Northern New England and the Quebec province of Canada (25 miles as the crow flies) to be local to us. This mackerel as well as wild herring fillets are available from a local market, Apple Tree.

* Pete’s Greens – Four Season Organic Vegetable Farm, Craftsbury, Vermont – Salad mix featuring: red rib dandelion, endive, fennel tops, wrinkled cress, red leaf amaranth, tatsoi, ruby red chard, bright lights chard, arugula, upland cress, spinach, orach and purslane. These were some of the most delicious and aesthetically beautiful greens I have had. We first had them at the Bee’s Knees an amazing local restaurant. I asked the server where they got their mixed greens, and then we were able to procure some from another local market, The Green Top Market.

* Elmore Mountain Bread Elmore, Vermont– Wood fired micro bakery. They use a long fermentation process in their bread making. Each loaf takes a total of 16 hours. Sometimes it is hard to resist bread like this, and so I was indulging on it when we first got here and I wasn’t having any ill effects from it. Now I know why…just another blessing, considering many of the restaurants in the area, as well as local groceries, and markets sell Elmore Mountain Bread. Being able to eat a sandwich or burger at a restaurant is a true luxury for me. Thank you, Elmore Mountain Bread!

* Farmer Sue’s  Peperoncini Peppers Bakersfield, VT – Do you know how hard it is to find peperoncini peppers without corn syrup? I love these little pickled peppers, and now I have an alternative to making my own . Farmer Sue makes all kinds of delicious pickled vegetables and sells at the year round Lamoille Valley Artisan Farmers Market .

RECIPE:

Smoked Mackerel Salad

INGREDIENTS:

6-8 oz. smoked mackerel fillets
juice of ½ lemon
salt&pepper to taste
hefty sprinkle of herbs de provence
1 TBS fresh chives, chopped
1 TBS mayonnaise
2 peperoncini peppers chopped
drizzle of olive oil
2 cups salad greens

METHOD:

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, reserving a little lemon juice for the greens. Dress your greens with olive oil and lemon juice and toss. Place a mound of the mackerel salad on top. Serve with slices of sourdough baguette, if desired.

Be sure to share the mackerel juice with any feline or canine friends you might have at home. They will love you!

Serves 2

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 beef or 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 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, and quite a lot of recent Scottish influx. 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 and Northern 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!

Scottish Oat Cakes

INGREDIENTS:

1 ½ cup of Scottish Oats (or sub any whole grain oats)
½ cup of oat flour, spelt flour or whole wheat flour
1/4 cup fresh buttermilk, kefir or yogurt (homemade is preferable)
¼ cup hot water
¼ tsp of salt
¼ tsp aluminum free baking soda or powder
¼ cup melted butter
flour for dusting

METHOD:

In a medium bowl, combine oats, flour, buttermilk and water. Mix well. Cover bowl and let sit on counter top overnight, or at least 8 hours. The next day, preheat oven to 325F. Add the salt, baking soda and melted butter to the bowl. Mix everything with a fork, and break it up evenly. If it is too dry, add a bit more buttermilk – maybe a tablespoon or so. With your hands, form into a ball. Sprinkle a dusting of flour on your counter top or a large cutting board. Roll the dough out to ¼ inch thick. Then cut with the top of a glass into round shapes. Be sure to re-roll the scraps to make more cakes.
Place cakes about ¼ inch apart on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, until golden. Let cool. Makes 6-8 cakes. This recipe is easily doubled.

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…

Guinness Stew
(inspired by this recipe )

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. Stew beef chunks
2 TBS whole wheat flour to dust
oil for cooking
3 russet potatoes, chunks
6 carrots, rustic chunks
1 small onion, chunks
2 cloves garlic, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp dried thyme
2 cups homemade beef stock
1 bottle of Guinness
1 cup caramelized onions
2 tsp arrowroot

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350F. Toss meat in flour (reserve any leftover flour that does not cover the meat). In a large dutch oven, over medium-high heat, heat olive oil on stovetop – and brown meat on all sides. Then add potatoes, carrots, raw onion chunks and garlic and season with salt, pepper and dried thyme. Cook veggies in meat fat and oil until browned – about 5 minutes. Add 2 cups beef stock, one bottle of Guinness and caramelized onions. Then add any extra flour and stir. Bring to a simmer. Then place in the oven, and cook for about 1 hour, stirring every 30 minutes and checking for liquid. If extra liquid is needed at any time, add water, more beef stock, or even more Guinness – the choice is yours! But I doubt that you will need any. Then bring it back to the stovetop and let it simmer, with the lid on for another hour. Right before serving, whisk in 2 tsp of arrowroot to thicken. Serve with Irish Soda bread – and a side of cabbage. Save room for Guinness Ice Cream for dessert!

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Sautéed Mustard Glazed Cabbage

INGREDIENTS:

1 head of green cabbage
2 TBS olive oil
salt
pepper
¼ cup good quality spicy mustard
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
2 TBS honey

METHOD:

Heat oil in a cast iron skillet until very hot. Add half the cabbage to the pan, with salt and pepper and sautee until soft. Then add the other half. Meanwhile, in a small bowl whisk mustard, apple cider vinegar, and 2 TBS honey. After all the cabbage is cooked and soft – about 10-15 minutes, pour the glaze over top.

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Brown Soda Bread – see Jenny’s recipe . The only modifications I made were that I couldn’t find currants, so I had to use raisins. Also, I soaked the raisins in a mixture of whiskey and Danish Aquavit – to bring out the caraway flavor.

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Guinness Ice Cream – as inspired by this recipe from Ice Cream Ireland !

INGREDIENTS:
½ c. date sugar
5 organic egg yolks
1 1/8 c. organic heavy cream
1 1/8 c. whole organic milk
1 Can (500 ml) Guinness
½ cup maple syrup
½ tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD:

Measure out 100ml of Guinness and set aside. Boil 400ml Guinness until it reduces to 100ml in volume. Cool. Beat the date sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow. Bring the milk to a simmer. Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream. Pour the mixture back into pan and place over low heat. Stir until the custard thickens slightly (around 70C). Use a thermometer, as at 75C the eggs will scramble! Allow the custard to cool.
Once the custard is cool, stir in both the reduced and non-reduced Guinness. Whip the cream in a separate bowl and gently fold into the custard. Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer. Yield: 6 Servings

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!)

Brunello di Montalcino is a very special wine variety made in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is known the world over as being a very good wine. Our friends Erin and Chris, who lived for a year in Florence, had a bottle that they wanted to share with us. They had fond memories of a night in Florence that they spent with friends savoring a bottle of this wine, and wanted to spend another evening like that with us! So of course we were game and very excited to taste wine from a very different bracket than what we are used to.

Since they were bringing such a nice bottle, I offered to find some tasty morsels to go along with the wine, so we could have a proper Aperitivo – or the Italian version of Happy Hour! If you would like to learn more about Aperitivo, please check out Ms. Adventures in Italy. Sarah has a great passion for Aperitivo and has great tips on how you can have your own – or where to go for the best ones in her hometown of Milano!

I knew this was a special wine, so I enlisted the help of a professional to come up with food ideas to compliment it. With the help of my buddy, Vince DiPiazza (no known relation – though I am sure there is one somehow, not many of us DiPiazza’s in the world) from D’Italia – an online specialty store of food products from Italy, we came up with a menu of aperitivi, or small plates:

Variety of cheeses of different flavor profiles served with Rosemary Grissini and Garbanzo Crackers

Parmigiano-Reggiano is Italy’s most famous cheese, known as Parmesan in the English language. We know it well as a cheese for grating on top of pasta. However, if you eat it in cubes, it is a whole other experience. The cheese is made from raw cow’s milk, it is then put into a brine bath for 20-25 days to absorb salt, and then aged for 12 months. My favorite part (and Erin’s too) are the little crunchies you get in a good Parmigiano – the crunchies are bits of crystallized salt.

Morbier is a raw cow’s milk cheese from France. It is a Gruyère-like cheese with a vein of ash running through its middle. The two layers of the cheese originally came from two milkings, one in the morning and one in the evening, over it with a protective thin layer of tasteless ash, both to prevent it from both drying out and to keep away the flies. The next day, they would add the leftover curd from the morning milking and production. The result was a two-layered cheese.

Goat Fromage Blanc is from a batch of the pasteurized goat milk cheese that I made recently. I added some basil and a little dried dill – as well as a few sun-dried tomatoes (Vince said they pair well with Brunello) stirred in.

Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar is one of our favorite cheeses, and we decided to add it at the last minute. It never tastes the same from one batch to the next. It is the cheese variety that Cabot used to sell to hunters and truckers…on their way out of town. Chris said it tasted like ham to him, which as a vegetarian, was a weird experience. This cheese is amazing paired with a sweet bread and butter style pickle.

Miscellaneous Treats

Sautéed Mushrooms
Hummus
Assorted Nuts
Assorted Olives
Pickles

Dessert

French Truffles
Chocolate covered mint cremes

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The Tasting :

When Erin and Chris arrived we opened the bottle to give it about 20 minutes to breathe. We decided to do the tasting in two stages, the first without food, and then one with food. We each had a piece of paper and a pen. We spent about 5-10 minutes sniffing and tasting the wine, and individually writing our impressions of both the nose and the taste without sharing.

NOSE:

Erin: cheese – brie, sweet chocolate, metal
Chris: robust, dank – wet wood or earth, finishes smoky
Roberto: cherries
Jenn: woody, tannins, blackberry/cherry

TASTE:

Erin: milk chocolate, cheddar, old smoke – like what your clothes smell like after a BBQ or fire
Chris: pungent, truffles, finishes with citrus (mild burn, fruity end) and something like ginger, but not quite ginger
Roberto: old fermenting cherries, blueberry and ends with citrus
Jenn: black pepper, herbal/smoky, cherry

After we shared our observations, we found it interesting that both the guys had noticed a citrus end, while the ladies had both noticed a smoky taste. Is it coincidence, or do males and females taste wine differently?

Once we headed over to the food, and had a second glass with food, we all agreed that the wine tasted much sweeter, and it was at that point that Erin and I noticed a bit of a citrus taste.

It was a really fun night. I can’t say that I have ever really enjoyed wine in this way, and I think it is a really great way to spend the evening with friends. We decided we had so much fun, that we definitely need to do it again, with different wines and food pairings.