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.

Sopes stuffed with local cheese and jalapeno jam

Part of feeling settled in a new community comes with making new friends. Having friends makes you feel more grounded in the place where you live and of course it is always nice to have people to share events, food and good times with! We have been lucky in this regard with our move to Vermont. We will have been living here for a year at the end of April, and we are lucky to have developed several groups of friends here in the local community.  The common vein is that all of these friends were met by way of food. But I guess knowing me, that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise!

We met Corey and Kurt during a lamb butchering class we took with Cole Ward, The Gourmet Butcher , this past fall. It was an 8 hour class where we all learned how to butcher a lamb for our own consumption. Cole is a genius and a true artisan of the craft. I can’t wait to take more classes with him! Roberto and I were the only first-timers there. Of course during those many hours we all talked an awful lot about food and recipes. At the end of class, many of us exchanged email addresses. Several of us planned a lamb potluck for January, and for one reason or another, it ended up only being me, Roberto, Corey and Kurt at the dinner.

Since then we have been getting together regularly to enjoy good food, wine and each other’s company either at each other’s houses or out in the community.  Sometimes we even cook together and are making plans to start a Supper Club and acquire more foodie friends!

Corey and Kurt are big foodies. Having lived all over the world they have experienced a lot of different food cultures. They have big plans to host gourmet getaways to Vermont. They already have a beautiful cabin in rural Vermont that they rent out to guests, and are working on having a kitchen put in where they can offer cooking classes and gourmet dinners to their guests.

The last time we got together, they hosted and made Mexican food.  They had recently taken a class with Chef Courtney Contos (the chef on the Gourmet Butcher DVDs), and decided to keep practicing their new recipes by trying them out on us. I offered to bring drinks. I made nice winter sangria using a dark red zinfandel as the base. I added to it several shots of lavender scented vodka, a splash of vanilla extract and a variety of fruits we had preserved this fall, including, raspberries in syrup and plums in a vanilla-cardamom-rum syrup. I also added sliced blood oranges. I soaked the fruits in the vodka overnight and added a pinch of dried lavender. I meant to take a picture when we served it, but we were already a bottle of wine in, and it slipped my mind. The photo above is one of my favorite photos from this blog and a summer sangria recipe.

For appetizers, Corey made the coolest stuffed masa boats, called Sopes.  Masa is Spanish for “dough” but it usually refers to dough made from reconstituted corn meal.  My friend Ben from What’s Cooking Mexico has a great tutorial on making sopes and other tortillas .

Making the Sopes

The only thing we did different with our sopes is that we folded up the sides of the small tortillas to make “boats” before frying them to shape them. We stuffed our sopes with several different options – guacamole, Boucher blue cheese (Highgate, VT) and plain Chevre (Boston Post Dairy, Enosburg, VT). Both of the cheese options were topped with some of Corey’s homemade Jalapeno jam from peppers grown in Georgia, VT. They were all delicious, but I really loved the unique combination of the Boucher blue and jalapeno jam.

Dinner was Mexican rice, homemade beans, and a stewed chicken dish in a tomatillo sauce (via Corey and Kurt’s garden last year), served with freshly made tortillas. For dessert they had roasted pears and pineapple served with homemade caramel. Again, we forgot to take photos, but I promise it was good! We ended the evening with an impromptu Scotch tasting and tea. Definitely a great night!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here is a quick but beautiful and romantic salad perfect for your Valentine’s Day celebration or any other romantic occasion. The beauty is in the freshness and color of the ingredients, naturally. Valentine’s Day menus typically focus around red foods, chocolate and other aphrodisiacs.

I don’t think there is anything more tantalizing than a warm beet salad, with creamy goat cheese and cranberry-balsamic compote to get your dinner started off right. The best thing about it is that it is quick so you don’t have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, instead focusing on more important things!

Chioggia Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Cranberry-Balsamic Compote

INGREDIENTS:
2 giant organic Chioggia beets (the ones I had probably weighed 1 lb each), sliced into ¼ inch rounds
Olive oil to drizzle
Salt, pepper and herbs de Provence to season
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
½ cup red wine
Handful of fresh organic cranberries
Goat cheese (sheep milk feta would do nicely too) – quantity depends on your taste, but a nice hefty crumble between each layer is good.

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 400 F. Place sliced beets on parchment paper lined cookie sheets, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning (to your taste). Bake for about 35-40 minutes. You want the beets to be nice and roasted, but still soft.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, place the balsamic, wine and cranberries bring to a boil over medium heat and then lower heat and let simmer until it has reduced by half. Season with salt and pepper. To serve, layer the beets, goat cheese and compote, in a stack until all has been used up. Serves 4

For dessert, why not try these quick and easy Dark Chocolate Covered Strawberries,  Spicy Mayan Hot Cocoa or Raw Chocolate Pudding – each of these recipes take under 10 minutes to make!

Enjoy!

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.

Now that the weather is growing colder and we are beginning to stay indoors more often, it is time for me to break out one of my absolute favorite cooking vessels – my beloved Tagine. I have used my tagine to make numerous tagines, but I have also used it to make beef stew, roasted chicken and stewed pork ribs, among others. I find that cooking with my tagine is unmatched when my goal is tender, fall-off-the bone, don’t-need-a-knife-to-cut-it meat.

Tagine cooking is really so simple, but the flavors are deep. These meals are perfect for a casual night at home, and at the same time impressive when you have guests over. Especially if you have a decorative tagine to serve it in. But the time commitment is minimal. In other words, perfect for absolutely any occasion.

This time I decided to start Tagine Season off right with a traditional pot roast. I slow cooked it with delicious root vegetables from our garden. It was the perfect meal on a cold night, sipping a glass of red wine and sitting by the fire. I look forward to many many nights like this, during the fall and winter months.

Tagine Pot Roast

INGREDIENTS:

1 roast ( I prefer grassfed beef)
salt and pepper
spices of your choice (I used an espresso meat rub)
olive oil for browning
¼ cup of red wine
2 TBS aged balsamic vinegar
3 large carrots in large dices
2 turnips in large dices
2 potatoes in large dices
1 large daikon radish in large dices
2 TBS dijon mustard
1 TBS of olive oil
dried thyme
rosemary sprig

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Rub the meat with the salt, pepper and spices. In a large skillet brown the meat on all sides in olive oil (optional step). You can do this right in your tagine, if it is made of cast iron. While the meat is browning, toss your cut vegetables with dijon mustard, olive oil, salt, pepper and dried thyme. If you are not browning in the tagine, once the meat is browned on all sides, remove the meat from the skillet and place in your tagine. Pour the red wine and balsamic vinegar over top and arrange your vegetables around the meat. Place a fresh rosemary sprig on top, put the lid on, and cook in the oven for about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Be sure to check every 45 minutes or so for liquid. If it needs more liquid, you can just add a tablespoon or so of water. Serve and enjoy!

This year we joined a CSA – a meat CSA. Most people are familiar with vegetable CSAs but this was the first time I had heard of a meat CSA. We are very fortunate here in our little piece of heaven called Vermont, to have many amazing diversified farms, including one in our town, Applecheek Farm. For us, Applecheek is not just a place to get raw milk, free-range chicken eggs, delicious grassfed beef, or pastured pork. It is also a community hub. Since we have moved here we have been to numerous “Localvore Dinners” catered by and served at the farm, a pig roast, as well as several farm tours.

Applecheek has become a destination for our out of town guests that come to visit us and want to see and experience a real farm, where many animals co-exist together, grazing on green grass, as opposed to a feedlot where there are thousands of one type of animal grazing in, well, their own excrement.

(My step-daughter Gwen having fun with chickens, Jenn at the Welcome sign, Rocio w/ pigs and llamas, a real tractor, Jenn with a goat and the happiest cows you will ever meet).

At Applecheek people can get up close and personal with happy cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys guinea fowl as well as non-food animals like emus, llamas, draft horses and retired pet goats. It is also a place where the local community gathers to eat good food, learn about sustainable farms and spend time with each other.

Rocio and John who have recently taken over the farm operations from John’s parents John and Judy, and Jason and Sarah, who run the catering operation and the Localvore dinners became the first friends we made when we moved here. They have helped us immensely by providing tips for where to get various things locally and of course where the good eats are. We all share a love for good, nutrient dense foods as well as home-brewing, lacto-fermentation and food preservation.

Here is the Applecheek Farm philosophy:

“We strive to produce food that encompasses dignity for our animals, stimulates local economy, provides optimal nutrition for our customers and restores the ecological capital within our soils. Our priorities here on the farm begin with the soil and the nutrients that develop within our land and ultimately passed on to those who eat our food. From our perspective, this is a grass farm that converts grasses into meat, milk and eggs. While many people refer to our farm as a sustainable farm, we feel it is simply not enough to sustain. We are committed to a restorative approach to farming our land and animals in an effort to increase the quality of our soils.”

A dream come true. It is the kind of farm that all of us dream we had in our town after watching Food Inc. or reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Our dream was realized when we moved to this part of Vermont, and we are grateful for it daily, as inevitably some food item from Applecheek graces our table at least during one of our daily meals, be it fried eggs and sausages for breakfast, a delicious burger, or in this case a whole roasted duck.

I am getting really familiar with duck in this household since joining the CSA, which invariably make the fire department really familiar with us because no matter what, I cannot stop myself from frying potatoes in the fat from the duck – which always makes the house a smoky mess, and sets off our alarm! But look at this beautiful dish – it is totally worth it!

Besides that, I am always trying a new recipe with the duck, this time, I decided to make something simple, a classic French dish – roasted duck with olives, or Canard aux Olives. I pretty much followed this recipe, except that I used white wine instead of broth, added some lemons (also stuffed the bird with lemon wedges), skipped the vermouth and used all green olives. I also cooked it in a 350 F oven, instead of on the stove top. I served them with those delicious duck fat fried potatoes. The result was an incredibly good roasted duck that was unanimously declared to be the best duck I have prepared to date. The bones and leftover meat I used to make a delicious stock and soup. Nothing went to waste.

For dessert I made individual preserved plum tarts. I made a crust using almond flour and butter, vaguely fashioned after this recipe pressed it into my individual baking dishes, and baked for about 20 minutes at 350F. Then I placed some of my plum preserved in brandy-vanilla-cardamom syrup and topped with fresh maple whipped cream.

Now since Applecheek really is a special place, I don’t expect that all of you, my dear readers have access to such a farm. But I am sure that you do have farms in your area where you can buy free-range, organic eggs, or humanely raised meat, or if you are lucky raw milk. So support them, learn from them, ask questions and help to make the food on your table a little bit better for you and your family. The more we support these farms, the more farms like this will be available to us! To find farms in your area, check out LocalHarvest.

We are getting near the end of outdoor grilling season here. Of course you can grill outdoors all year round, if you don’t mind the weather. But those lazy summer days of sitting outside eating grilled foods, is past for this year, here in Vermont. To celebrate ushering in Autumn, my most favorite season, I will share with you this recipe for a Tuscan inspired grilled meal.

I also wanted to share with you, my loyal and faithful readers that for the next month, at least, I will be blogging Gluten Free. As many of my loyal readers already know, I started watching my gluten intake over a year ago, but to be honest, I only did it about 80% of the time. It has helped, a lot, however, there are a few more minor issues I want to see if being 100% gluten free resolves. So now it is time to get down to serious business and see what  life is like at 100% GF.

If I was so close why did it take me this long to go all the way? I asked myself this question a lot, and the truth was because I have been afraid. Afraid that it would be hard to lead a normal life, go out to eat with friends, or be THAT PERSON who can’t just go with the flow, mucking up the works. But then I realized, nothing about me is NORMAL!

Even though I have plenty of blogging friends, with GF blogs to get inspiration from, I just wasn’t ready. But I am now. I know I am ready, because instead of being afraid, I am excited!I am excited about this change because it means many new kitchen experiments with breads, pizza and baked goods. I am also excited because I will be able to share how easy, economical and delicious gluten free eating can be. I also am excited to show my readers, that eating a gluten free diet does not mean going to the grocery store and buying all new pre-made items that are part of a “gluten free” line. Instead one can just eat foods that are naturally gluten free, and there are many.

This meal is a perfect example – and I promise you will not miss gluten for one minute! We accompanied it with a garden fresh caprese salad, using the best quality fresh mozzarella we could find and a delicious glass of full bodied red wine.

*note – this is a great meal to serve to a crowd. We were expecting company for dinner, but they couldn’t make it at the last minute. So this is for 6-8 people.

Sausages in Wine

INGREDIENTS:

6 links of Italian sausage
½ cup of good quality red wine
½ cup balsamic vinegar
2 TBS oilve oil
salt and pepper
1 TBS each of fresh sage and rosemary

METHOD:

Place sausages in a glass pan, or bowl. In a small bowl whisk together other ingredients. Pour over top of sausages and place in the fridge for about 2 hours, turning sausages after one hour.

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Tuscan Inspired Grilled Polenta

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups water
1 tsp sea salt
2 cups polenta
2 TBS butter
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 TBS fresh sage, minced
1 TBS fresh rosemary, minced
olive oil

METHOD:

In a large pan bring water and salt to a boil. Gradually stir in polenta. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently to prevent sticking for about 30 minutes, or until mixture is thick. Stir in butter, cheese and fresh herbs.

Oil a medium sized square pan. Spoon polenta in and smooth the top. Place in the refrigerator for about 1 hour for polenta to harden. Then cut into large triangles and brush with olive oil.

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Mushroom Ragu:

INGREDIENTS:

½ cup dried mushrooms, like morel, porcini, etc.
2 TBS olive oil,
1 small onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup red wine
½ cup dried mushroom water
16 oz. crushed tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano

METHOD:

Place dried mushrooms in a bowl and cover with warm water. Set aside for about 15-20 minutes.

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium-high heat, and sautee onions until they become translucent. Reduce heat to medium and add the garlic. Stir and sautee for 2-3 minutes. Then add the wine and mushroom water, reserving the mushrooms. Rough chop the mushrooms and add to the pan. Then add the tomato paste. Stir until incorporated. Add the crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper and dried herbs. Lower temperature to lowest setting and simmer for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile grill the sausages and polenta.

To serve, arrange the sausages and polenta on a platter and top polenta with the mushroom ragu.

I feel like I have had a more intimate relationship with corn this year than I have before. Corn is prevalent here in Vermont. The roads we drive regularly are lined with them, and so we have seen their growth from start to finish, and finally to harvest.

It is harvest time here in Northern New England. We spent the weekend doing our own harvest – 75 feet of potatoes, yielding just over 35 lbs.of wholesome goodness. We planted 8 varieties of heirlooms this year, with whimsical names such as Purple Viking, Austrian Crescent and Rose Finn Apple. We also harvested the rest of our heirloom tomatoes – Pink Brandywine, Black Krim, Bonnie Best and of course the ever present Romas. We had some cold days, which killed most of them sadly. But we managed to save enough to enjoy over the next few days. We also harvested our bush beans, another 75 feet worth of plants – Black Turtle, Royal Purple and Blue Lake. We haven’t weighed the beans, as they are still in various stages of drying. But it looks like it was a good harvest.

Wednesday is the Autumnal Equinox, the official first day of autumn. Commonly a harvest time in many parts of the world. Living in a northern climate, you certainly feel it in the air. Something has shifted. It is that crispness in the air, mingled with the smell of burning wood, damp earth and rotting leaves. Earthy, pungent and comforting. This kind of weather calls for comfort food, which is where fresh corn chowder comes in. Corn is everywhere, and so now is a good time to stock up for winter, and also enjoy some fresh. But that chill in the air calls for a hearty and warming bowl of steamy goodness – warming you, inside and out.

INGREDIENTS:

1 TBS olive oil
3 slices nitrate-free bacon, chopped
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup leftover diced potatoes
4 cups fresh corn off the cob
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp Calabrese ground peperoncini or hot smoked paprika
½ cup white wine – I used Viognier
2 cups stock or water
½ cup plain yogurt
3 TBS butter

METHOD:

In a large pot, or Dutch oven, over medium-high heat sautee the bacon, onion, and carrot in olive oil until onion is translucent. Add the garlic, and pre-cooked potatoes and sautee about 5 minutes. Then add the corn and spices and sautee until corn becomes soft and glistening. Then add the wine, stock or water and bring to a boil. Simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Then stir in the yogurt and butter right before serving.

Serves 4-6, depending on portion sizes.

One of my favorite activities in the whole world is cooking with the people I love. For me there is no greater way to share the bounty we enjoy here in this part of the world. It is not just a way to share what is offered here, but  to also get creative with my favorite people. People hear me preach the act of eating locally, and cooking from scratch on my blog and in person, and when they come to visit us, we all have a great time together living out that vision. Mostly it is for fun, but it also shows people in a personal way why we decided to make our lives here, and how easy it can be to eat locally and healthfully in a place that really strives to make that ideal a reality.

I have had the best summer because we have had quite a few guests visiting the homestead, and since all of them love food in one way or another, we always, without fail end up spending time in the kitchen or out on the deck at the grill and then of course EATING what we have created together. Such a simple yet magical act that really brings people together in a fundamental way.

Here is our summer of eating so far – in mostly visual terms.

My mom was here earlier in the season, and we celebrated her visit with lots of al fresco dining. One evening we enjoyed mead sprizters – local mead, with a splash of Italian prosecco, garnished with muddled mint and currants from our garden. Sadly at the time of her visit we weren’t harvesting many veggies yet. But we still enjoyed many local meals out on the deck!

When my dad and stepmom came to visit, they both ended up cooking for us. My stepmom Kayzie made her mom’s famous crabcakes – and brought fresh blue crab with them all the way from Maryland! On another night my dad grilled some beautiful local steaks that we enjoyed with local sweet corn.

Roberto and I also got a duck as part of our meat CSA share from Applecheek Farm . I cooked duck once before with my friend Amber (who also came to visit us!!! ) but wanted to try a different method this time. So with the help of my dad, we grilled it on our rotisserie. It was lightly seasoned with herbs de provence and stuffed with orange wedges. I made a cherry sauce with red wine and oranges to accompany it. We also grilled some potato wedges under the duck letting the drippings season them.

Most recently my stepdaughter Gwen is visiting. She loves to cook, and whenever she comes to visit we end up making something yummy! This time we made the ultimate nachos – Tortilla chips covered in 3 kinds of cheese (cabot cheddar, maple smoked cheddar chunks and parmesan), homemade beef and bean chili, tomatoes and cilantro from the garden and green chilies.

Tonight she and her dad made me dinner – their specialty, spaghetti with tomato-cream sauce and garden fresh herbs with a delicious side salad – all veggies from the garden.

Thanks to everyone for your visits – and we look forward to many more wonderful meals with family and friends here on the homestead!

Life has been a bit hectic lately, which means that many nights, after coming in from the garden at about 7:30 PM, I need to get dinner on the table – we are hungry and don’t want to wait too long. These are the moments where sometimes I want to just crawl into bed, and forego dinner all together. Sometimes we say to hell with it, and go to one of our great local eateries. But you can’t and really don’t want to do that every night, and we find ourselves in this situation at least 5 nights a week.

This is when my kitchen forethought and planning really pay off. I like to make sure that I have beans and usually grains in the freezer that have been pre-soaked and partially cooked. Things I can just pull out and throw in a pan in a pinch. I also have a variety of fresh veggies always on hand – whatever looked good at the farmers market, or local market that week. Plus, some kind of animal protein that is quick to cook like sausages, or skirt steak, or doesn’t need to be, like good quality non-nitrate cold cuts or canned fish.

In this case, I had some Christmas Lima Beans from Rancho Gordo ready, some huge and meaty portabellas, and some nice British style Bangers we got from the local butcher. So I decided to make a nice adult version of Beans and Franks.

I sauteed the beans in some olive oil and then added some diced fresh portabella mushrooms, onions and garlic. I de-glazed the pan with a little red wine and seasoned everything with some thyme, salt and pepper. Then I added some nice fresh, local spinach and stirred until it wilted. I served it with half a link of British Banger and some nice goat cheese crumbles. It was quick, satisfying and really delicious.

This is a dish I had several years ago, and have always wanted to replicate it. Unfortunately it took YEARS to find a good source for humanely raised, antibiotic free short ribs. But when I saw them, I bought them, and I should have bought more for the freezer!

Anyway, the dish I had so enjoyed was served over creamy polenta. There were carrots, onions, and other vegetables that had been slow cooked with the ribs in a thick velvety tomato sauce that was laid on top of the polenta, and the sauce made thick tomato-y rivets in the polenta. I remember thinking to myself that those were some of the best carrots and veggies I had ever eaten! So I did my best to do justice to this dish that stayed with me for so long.

I started by searing the ribs on all sides in olive oil in a dutch oven. Then I added nice rustic chunks of carrots, onion, garlic and a few fingerling potatoes that were lying around. Once everything was browned, and seasoned with salt and pepper and fresh thyme, I added a glass of red wine to de-glaze the pan. Then added a can of organic tomato paste, and a handful of dried morel mushrooms, and seasoned again. I threw the pan in the oven at 350F for about 2 hours. Every 30 minutes or so, I checked for liquid, and stirred everything around. If it was too dry, I added more wine. Before the final 30 minutes, I gave the whole thing a nice hearty drizzle of olive oil. At the same time, I started the polenta, and prepared it according to the package directions, but added a bit more water to make sure it retained that ultra creamy quality.

This really is a hearty, wintery meal if there ever was one. So this being the tail end of cooler weather for most of us – make it while you can! The best part about preparing this dish was the realization that making it was quite easy, and the slow cooking was what really gave the veggies such an amazing depth of flavor. This amazing dish is easily replicated and tastes like you were slaving all day in the kitchen! Enjoy!

I had about a half a pound of ground grassfed beef in the freezer. It really wasn’t enough to make burgers, and Roberto has been craving meatballs lately. So I decided to make some pasta with red sauce and mini meatballs.

In my constant quest for pasta that is good for you, and doesn’t make me symptomatic, I came across another option from DeBoles– my favorite pasta company. Most of their pastas are made with a flour other than or in addition to wheat. I have had 100% corn (my favorite), and a Jerusalem artichoke/semolina mix, and now Ancient Grain. Ancient Grain is a mixture of organic spelt, quinoa and amaranth, along with organic whole grain semolina and organic whole grain durum. It packs 32 grams of whole grains per serving, and cooks up just like regular pasta.

Due to my issues with grains, I don’t cook pasta very often. But every once in a while it is nice to have a nice steaming bowl of pasta with red sauce, and for those occasions, I am thankful that I have these ready made pastas available. When I eat it, I try to eat more sauce than pasta, actually!

I wanted to make a nice sauce to go with it. Roberto, being Italian and a lover of pasta, does eat it more often than I do. For those occasions, he goes with a nice local organic jarred sauce. There was about a half a jar left of sauce in the fridge and a ¾ can of tomato paste. So this is a leftover queen recipe for sure! I added to those the mini meatballs, onions, garlic, wine and dried porcini mushrooms from Marx Foods. There is a giveaway of these porcini mushrooms (and morels) going on over at The Foodie Blogroll this month. So if you haven’t commented over there to win, please do! The mushrooms are excellent and added an amazing depth of flavor to my sauce with a mere pinch or two of the small broken bits and powder at the bottom of the bag. The sauce turned out dark and thick, perfect for coating the penne. With a nice crumble of soft goat cheese and a quick grate of Parmiggiano cheese on top, it was a great and extremely flavorful winter meal.

The other wonderful thing about this dish besides the wonderful flavor, is that it is also extremely inexpensive and would serve a family nicely with a side salad. This is a great way to stretch your grassfed beef, if you are worried about cost. This dish serves 4, and was about $1.75 per serving.

INGREDIENTS:

½ lb of grassfed ground beef, formed into bite sized meatballs
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 TBS fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup red wine
1 ½ cups red sauce (from a jar)
¾ can of tomato paste
½ tomato paste can of water
2 TBS of dried porcini mushroom powder and small bits
1 box of De Boles Ancient Grain Pasta
cheese to top with – use whatever you have available!

METHOD:

In a large skillet, with a lid, over medium heat, place the mini meatballs in the pan with enough room in between them that they are not touching each other. Brown on all sides, with the lid on to avoid splattering. Add the onion and garlic and cook with the meat for about 2-3 minutes. Add the fresh thyme, and salt and pepper. Then add the wine, sauce, tomato paste water, and dried mushrooms. Stir together, cover pan, and cook over low-medium heat for about 15 minutes. Check every 5 minutes or so for liquid. Add more water if sauce gets too dry. In the meantime, heat water for pasta and cook according to the package directions.

Before topping pasta with sauce, add a nice drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil to the sauce and mix in. Then top the cooked pasta with the sauce, and add cheese on top, if desired.