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! Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in a post about the ThinkFood project I am honored to be a part of, that I am a huge fan of eggs. They are a central part of our family’s diet, something we eat on a daily basis. One egg has 13 essential nutrients in varying amounts – including high-quality protein, choline, folate, iron and zinc. Eggs also play a role in brain function, muscle strength, healthy pregnancy, eye health and more. Eggs are an important part of a healthy diet, and do not have a link to high cholesterol, a common myth that has unfortunately been perpetuated through mis-information.

I love eggs not only for all all their amazing health properties, but because they are so versatile and delicious. I love them for breakfast, in omelets, crepes and pancakes. For lunch, hard-boiled on a salad, or made into egg salad. Sometimes even for dinner as a frittata, or the glue for a nice breaded, pan fried piece of meat or fish. They are perfect for dessert, be it clafoutis, creme brulee, pudding, ice cream, or custard. We probably could integrate eggs into every meal, and not even notice!

Living out in the country, we have access to many varieties of farm fresh eggs. White ones, brown ones, even green ones. You can also often times get eggs from other poultry, besides chicken as well. In our area, we have access to goose eggs, duck eggs, even emu eggs! A while back, at the Farmers Market, I got some goose eggs to try.

The first two I used to make a huge omelet, and I noticed that the goose eggs made the dish sweeter than chicken eggs. So I knew that with the third egg, I was going to make a creamy rich custard. I love a good, simple vanilla custard.

I went pretty basic here, wanting the flavor of the egg to really come through. I used this recipe from Evil Shenanigans as inspiration.  I don’t like my desserts super sweet, and I tend to cut the sweetener in any recipe by half, sometimes more. I figure that if it isn’t sweet enough, we can always add a drizzle of maple on top. But some desserts are so sickly sweet, and you can’t remove the sweetness once it is in. This is also a good way to make desserts if people in your family vary in the strength of their sweet tooth – this way everyone is accommodated!

We enjoyed the custard with a nice dollop of Frangelico-laced fresh whipped cream and a raspberry on top!

INGREDIENTS:

1 goose egg (or substitute 3 large chicken eggs)

¼ cup of pure maple syrup

1 TBS pure vanilla extract

2 cups whole milk

½ tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 325F. Boil 4 cups of water. Whisk together the egg(s), maple and vanilla. In a sauce pan, heat up the milk until it simmers and remove from heat. Add the milk to the egg mixture at about ¼ at a time, whisking the entire time. Once half of the milk has been added in ¼ cup increments, pour in the rest of the milk, and whisk well. Add the cinnamon. Then pour the custard into 4 ramekins, or a small baking dish. Place the ramekins, or baking dish into a roasting pan, or larger baking dish. Carefully add the boiling water until it reaches ¾ of the way up the sides of the ramekins or small baking dish. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until custard is set, and jiggles in the middle. Carefully remove from the oven, and allow the custard to cool in the water bath for about 30 minutes. Then you can chill it in the fridge, or serve warm. However you like!

One of my latest kitchen experiments has been baking with a sourdough starter. I have been baking all our breads, pizza doughs, pastries, cookies, cakes, etc from scratch now for over 2 years. One of the many ways in which I vote for better food with my money daily. Not only is baking from scratch cheaper than buying, but most recipes whether bread, cake, or pretzels, three of the recipes I am going to share with you today, have under 10, and more often, under 5 ingredients, no preservatives, corn syrup, or weird chemicals. I challenge you to find that at your grocery store!

I had also heard that many people with gluten sensitivity (not Celiac) did better eating baked goods made from true fermented sourdough than baked goods leavened more commonly with yeast. I waited until our big move to experiment with sourdough, as once you have a starter, you have to feed and maintain it to keep it healthy and alive. So now, besides 2 dogs, a cat, 10 chickens, kefir – both dairy and water, kombucha, and yogurt, I have added sourdough culture to my feeding schedule! I can’t say with certainty if it is the sourdough or the spelt flour I have switched to that allows me to enjoy breads and the like without feeling like I have a hangover the next day. I still eat all of these things sparingly, although my dear husband, who is a major carb addict, seems to be enjoying his daily bread without any side affects. It took eating this kind of bread, for him to realize that he was having a bit of a problem with the other kinds.

Anyway, sourdough is extremely versatile, and not all sourdough starters are created equal. You can try to capture your own, or you can purchase one. I decided to start by purchasing one from Cultures for Health. Several weeks later, I got another one from Erik a friend who sells hand roasted coffee at our local farmers market. He traded me sourdough starter from Ischia, Italy and kombucha for some Viili culture. I think I got the better deal.

I started experimenting by baking bread from the book Baking with Sourdough by Sara Pitzer, from Storey Publishing and then tweaked it a bit, to make it more to our liking. After I figured that out, I started playing around with various herbed breads, which is how I came up with the Za’atar Spice Bread Ring.

After I had that under my belt, or better yet, in my stomach, I wanted to try something I had never heard of – Sourdough Chocolate Cake, from the same book, which I also tweaked. This cake was really fantastic and probably one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever had. We are not big cake eaters in this house, so I can affirm that it froze well, and also lasted in the fridge for about 2 weeks. I am sure you could have a lot of fun with this recipe, including making various kinds of icing. Roberto liked spreading nutella on his, and I enjoyed mine plain or sometimes with a schmear of almond butter.

Most recently I tried making Sourdough Pretzels, all the same ingredients (except honey in place of sugar) but tweaked the method a little bit to allow all the flour to ferment. The pretzels turned out being more like pretzel shaped bread, than actual pretzels. I got a lot of helpful suggestions on facebook like adding sparkling water or lemon juice for better rising. So I think I will have to try again. Although Roberto likes them, since he can grab one, kind of like a roll to have with meals, without needing to slice anything.

I have continued on experimenting with making sourdough spelt pizza dough, buckwheat pancakes and crepes, as well as muffins. The pizza dough, pancakes and crepes have become staples in our house (look for these recipes soon), while the muffins still need some work. But the wonderful thing is, each week I have to feed my starter, which means at least once a week I should bake something and so I am trying to keep creative. I have been yeast baking free for almost 3 months! I definitely encourage you

to try your hand at it too. If you would like to try and catch your own starter, my blogging buddy Michelle over at Big Black Dog has a great post about it!

I am going to share THREE recipes with you today. For one, I want to show you just how diverse sourdough is – it is not just for bread! And also because my mom is coming to visit for a few weeks, and my posting rate may be a bit slower these next few weeks – so I wanted to keep you busy while I on vacation!

************************ Read the rest of this entry »

I love Dark Mole – it is one of those sauces that captures the imagination and has an almost mystical quality to it– chock full of colorful, luxurious and delicious spices, chilies and chocolate. Whenever I see it on a menu, I can’t resist ordering it. I have never made it before, and it has been on my kitchen “to do” list for a long while. A series of events happened that made this the perfect time to make Mole, my way. This is not a traditional Mole, made by a Mexican Matriarch, but I do feel it encompasses the flavors and spirit of the dish.

As I said, this dish was inspired by several things – a recent shipment of samples from my foodie friend Justin, at Marx Foods (these guys are awesome!) of various dried chilies that we will be giving away on The Foodie Blogroll soon. I used two mild varieties – Mulato and Pasilla Negro. The Mulato is described as having a chocolate and licorice flavor, which I thought would go well in the Mole. The Pasilla Negro said it was “good in moles” on the package, so I trusted the Marx Foodies on that one.

This dish was also inspired by a chocolate bar I bought for the trip from Florida to Vermont. On road trips, we always like to treat ourselves to some dark chocolate. This time I chose Dagoba’s Xocolatl bar – dark chocolate with cocoa nibs, chilies and cinnamon. It was wonderful on its own, a perfect pick me up during a long day of driving. As I was eating the chocolate, I knew it was destined to be cooked with – as it was not very sweet (which is the way I like my chocolate) and full of the flavors described on the package.

I also wanted to use some Calabrian pepper powder, I received as a recent sample from Scott at The Sausage Debauchery for a giveaway on The Foodie Blogroll last month, that I hadn’t had a chance to cook with yet. This hot pepper powder is very reminiscent of hot smoked paprika. It is a gorgeous bright deep orange, and smells wonderful. A little goes a long way though, and I didn’t need much to add a kick to the dish. I also used some Mexican Mole Seasoning that I got at the Saint Augustine Spice and Tea Exchange. A store I frequented in Saint Augustine when we lived there, and that I am very thankful has a website, so I can continue to order their amazing, top quality spices.

I was very pleased with the result of my first attempt at Mole. The sauce had a lot of depth, and all the flavors really complemented each other in a cohesive unit. Not bad for the first time!

The leftovers make amazing quesadillas with some cheddar cheese and plain yogurt on top, or you could put some of the sauce over your morning eggs (fried or poached) for some Mole Eggs.

This is definitely a diverse sauce that can be used to turn the ordinary into something extraordinary. I love that this recipe makes enough for either 4 people, or several meals for 2, making this not only tasty, but cost effective, which is always a bonus. Especially because sauces like this taste doubly better the next day and your efforts in the kitchen can be extended to several meals.

INGREDIENTS:

4 chicken drumsticks
olive oil
salt & pepper
1 1/2 TBS Mexican mole seasoning – fresh pepper, chocolate, cumin, coriander, chili pepper, garlic, onion, salt, etc. From The Spice and Tea Exchange
½ tsp Calabrian Hot pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
6 sticks Dagoba Xocolatl bar, melted
1 dried mulato chili (chocolate/licorice, mild)– reconstituted and scraped – reserve about 1 cup of water used to reconstitute.
1 dried pasilla negro chili (Good in moles) – reconstituted and scraped
juice of one lemon
1 cup strained tomatoes
5 carrots, chopped
4 small onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced

METHOD:

Wash the drumsticks while the chilies are reconstituting in hot water (this takes about 10-15 minutes for them to soften). In a bowl drizzle olive oil over the chicken and sprinkle spices over top. Add the chili flesh and massage everything into the chicken. Then add the lemon juice and stir all together. Let marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Preheat the oven to 300F. In a dutch oven, drizzle olive oil and brown chicken on all sides. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a double boiler, and pour over chicken. Add the reserved chili water, and strained tomatoes to the bowl the chicken was marinading in. Whisk together and pour over the chicken, de-glazing the pan. Add the potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic, then stir the whole pot. Place the lid on the pot, and cook in the oven for 3 hours. After the 2nd hour, reduce heat to 200 F. Check for liquid every 45 minutes, and add water if necessary.

Serve on top of sprouted tortillas. Serves 2 – with leftovers for 4 small sprouted corn tortilla Quesadillas and 2 servings of Mole Eggs.

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 »

Today I want to share with you my consistent kitchen disaster: Pancakes! I know, it is funny to imagine that anybody could have a pancake disaster, but I am here to confess that making pancakes has always brought disastrous results for me in the kitchen.

If I make them from a mix, things go pretty well, even if I soak that mix overnight. But if I try to make them from scratch using the same ingredients that are in the mix, things just get really screwy. Why? You tell me.

Recently I bought some buckwheat flour. Most of the Buckwheat Pancake mixes have some whole wheat flout in them, and even though I soak the mix overnight, I wanted to make a pancake that was truly wheat and rice free. I tried to make the recipe that was on the back of the package of flour, which called for whole wheat flour. Instead, I substituted coconut flour for the wheat. The recipe required overnight soaking, which I thought was great, since I do that anyway. It also used yeast, which I thought was weird…but I followed the directions, and then added some kefir (in the amount of water that was asked). I fear that is where I went wrong. I reckon that the yeast and bacteria in the kefir battled it out against each other all night and ended up killing each other off.

In the morning, the batter was really dry and had a funny almost fluffy consistency. So I added some water. The batter just kept soaking up the water, never reaching a thinner consistency. It was looking funky, so I added an egg, since most pancake recipes call for eggs – and I thought it might help the batter with the consistency and at least bind it all together, so I could cook them up.

I heated up my cast iron pan, added some butter to the pan, and tried to make a pancake. All it did was burn on the outside and remain raw inside. I tried again and again, but all I managed to do was smoke up the kitchen (setting off the fire alarms and everything), and allow frustration to set in.

I generally am not a pancake fan, preferring savory breakfasts, but sometimes I get a craving for them. Due to my problems digesting grains, I need to soak the flour, which means I have to wait until the next day to actually make the pancakes. So by the next morning, I really want them! So when I use all these ingredients to make the batter, and have to wait and it still doesn’t work out, it is upsetting and extremely frustrating!!!! It’s not like I can just whip up a new batch and try again…I would have to wait another day!

So I wanted to turn this disaster into a positive experience. I poured all the leftover batter into the cast iron skillet and threw it in the oven, hoping to make a pan-cake out of it. It baked at 350 F for almost 2 hours before the middle was cooked through. I took it out, and tried a bite. It was so bad, I literally could not swallow it. I had to spit it out, and dump the whole mess into the compost bin (the nice little blue bin in the photo). Un-salvageable DISASTER.

So I am asking all of my faithful readers, especially those who are into traditional foods and gluten free cooking: Do you have a recipe for a non-wheat, non-rice pancake or crepe that can be soaked with kefir or yogurt over night, that tastes great and is easy to make the next morning?

Help! I am desperate!!!

On another note, please remember that through the end of this month, all the proceeds of the sale of my e-book – The Secret Energy of Love Through Food will be going to Haiti Relief efforts. You only have a few days to take advantage of this sweet deal!

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!