United Irishmen Flag

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brown Soda Bread

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

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

Guinness Stew

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

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

Creamy Guinness Ice Cream without white sugar

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

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

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If you are like me, you know the joys of reading cookbooks cover to cover like a novel. Looking at the photos, skimming the recipes, planning future meals and letting the creativity flow is one of my favorite pastimes. I have an entire bookshelf full of cookbooks in my kitchen. I have made at least one or two recipes out of all of them, but I like to keep things interesting, and generally I use cookbooks as inspiration for my cooking, rather than a step-by-step guide. Now with all the wonderful food blogs I have at my fingertips, I find myself using them as creative fodder more often, so in the spirit of conservation I have really tried to limit my cookbook purchases.

However, sometimes, a cookbook will really speak to me and when I purchase it, it will get a place of honor on my counter-top cookbook stand. Generally that spot is reserved for Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day but now it has a roommate Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. Several people over a short time period told me that I should check this book out. I remember several patients we had at the holistic healthcare office I used to work at talking about Weston Price and fermented and cultured foods, but I never really explored it back then. However, based on all these recommendations, I decided to buy the book. I spent several days reading the introduction which discusses at length the similarities of food preparation (not necessarily ingredients) from traditional cultures all over the world. It also discusses at length the major food groups and gives a lot of information to think about. Now I know some people might read this and be converted right away. I am a skeptical animal by nature, and so a firm believer in moderation as opposed to dogma of any kind. But I have found a lot of useful information in this book, as well as confirmation of a lot of clues and messages I have gotten from my own body when I choose various foods to eat. So for me, much of this book rings true. Then there are the recipes – all of which I want to eat! Well maybe not the organ meat section, I have had quite enough of that to last me a lifetime. But the emphasis here is on real, whole, traditional foods – not new fangled, or processed foods -and some of the foods that fall into that category might be surprising to people – yet it does ring true. It really explores some of the information we, as consumers accept as reality, but may not be the truth of the matter.

For the past 2 months I have been exploring a gluten free diet. But I am not convinced yet that gluten is my culprit. I think my culprit is grains in general and Nourishing Traditions gives lots of information for why that theory may be true. It also gives a lot of suggestions for fermenting grains (and legumes) or soaking them in vinegar, buttermilk, yogurt or kefir as our ancestors did. There are examples from all over the world in this book to support this claim. The soaking 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. This sounded like an experiment I wanted to try – not only because I wanted to find a way to digest grains better, but because I really like kefir, yogurt, vinegar and buttermilk, and thought the flavor might actually enhance the grain dishes. I have to say I had a lot of success in the past few weeks with bulgur, lentils and even oatmeal – something I have been trying to learn to like for years. After learning to soak lentils in warm water and apple cider vinegar, they have become so much easier to digest and are becoming a mainstay of our diet. This book has given Roberto and I the opportunity to actually enjoy foods that were previously not on the tummy friendly list. So just for that I am loving this book.

My favorite grain on the planet is buckwheat also known as kasha (which is not actually a wheat – but a grass). So I started the soaking experiment with buckwheat and lentils for dinner one night – serving them together as a pilaf. I served it with a modified version of Nourishing Traditions’ Moroccan Style Chicken (see my recipe after the cut) and roasted sweet potatoes. It was such a delicious meal – so filling and satisfying…and well, a breeze in the digestion department! I was feeling so inspired that night I starting soaking some Irish oats for breakfast the next day, and it was my best experience with oatmeal ever. I am not a convert yet, but I can see myself eating it more often. With all these successes, and so many other delicious recipes to try, I will most likely be featuring more and more of the recipes and ideas from this book.

Yesterday I ordered a bunch of cultures and cheese making supplies from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company so that I can begin making my own kefir, yogurt, buttermilk as well as some soft cheeses. Also, for more Nourishing Food ideas, I have found a great blog – The Nourished Kitchen authored by Jenny who is really a wealth of knowledge on this way of eating. I came across her blog a few months ago when she was doing a giveaway for a Kimchi and Sauerkraut (some of my favorite foods) Maker! I never wanted to win something so bad. I didn’t win, but that maker is certainly on my wish list, along with the CIA version of the Vitamix! In fact, I think I may to buy that maker today…it is under $30 and the only pickles I can find at the store now without corn syrup and dyes are $8 a jar – and I eat A LOT of pickles! Anyway, as you can see I am really excited about all these new discoveries. So likely this will be a topic of discussion in the future.

As I told Hank Cardello, author of Stuffed Nation during a very enjoyable phone conversation yesterday, I am still on the road of discovery about what “healthy eating” means to me. I don’t have all the answers yet, but the learning process sure has been fun, tasty and eye opening so far, and I am already about 8 years into the discovery process with so much more to learn. Speaking of Mr. Cardello and Stuffed Nation, keep your eye out for an intriguing giveaway we will be doing together in September to help spread the message about food policy and the fight against obesity in the US.

*Update: I am really happy to see the responses and comments on this article. If definitely answers my question as to whether these kinds of posts are valuable/interesting to my readers! Your comments always help me to decide which kinds of articles to write, and although I get great responses to my recipes, it seems that I always get very thought provoking comments on these posts I do on food quality. So I am moved to do more of these in the future. For more articles on this topic, check out my “Health and Wellness” category (categories can be found on the left hand side bar). Thank you all for comments!

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So I told you all about the Summer Solstice Preserves and the Gluten Free Lemon Cake that I made with the preserves, to celebrate the solstice, but what I didn’t tell you about was what we ate for dinner! It was too good not to share, so here it is!

We had fresh local scallops and lobster (the lobster was not local, but was on sale for Father’s Day) kabobs with pineapple. The seafood and pineapple were marinated in a mixture of lime juice and zest, cilantro, jalapeño, sugar, salt, oil and pepper. Separately the same marinade was mixed with a whole sliced avocado. This was then used as a topping on a green salad with corn. On the side I made a red quinoa pilaf. To drink – “Teatini” a sun tea cocktail. Then of course dessert was the cake with preserves and whipped cream!

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As many readers of my blog know, I lived in Norway for a time. I don’t read many blogs where Norwegian culinary achievements are discussed, but I think that is kind of sad, because Norwegian food is very good, and quite varied. There is of course a lot of seafood and a meal wouldn’t be a meal without potatoes. But there are also a lot of lovely fresh tasting meals, and I usually cook up something with Scandinavian flair for Midsummer.

Of course, one of the shining glories of Norwegian fare are the baked goods.

Skoleboller is one of those pastries that you can get at any bakery in Norway – even the grocery store, convenience stores, train and ferry kiosks and of course coffee shops. The name literally means “School Buns” and are a very popular snack for school children, but because of its portability you often take them cross country skiing or on hikes. Sometimes you will just enjoy them with coffee. I ate them a lot when I lived in Norway because I am a huge sucker for custard and coconut, which are the flavors that go into these buns. Oh yeah, and cardamom, which is one of my all time favorite spices – and cardamom is a favorite spice among Norwegian baked goods. Basically Skoleboller are cardamom infused sweet buns (sort of like a Danish, but not exactly) and filled with vanilla custard, topped with coconut and a confectioner’s sugar glaze.

Despite the fact that I enjoyed Skoleboller very often when I lived in Norway, 15 years later, I had almost forgotten about them, that is until I came across the blog Transplanted Baker. *note* Unfortunately, since I wrote this post, Siri’s blog was mistakenly removed from the net She is currently working on a new site that will be up soon!

Now Transplanted Baker is written by Siri who is a native of Minnesota, but lives in Norway with her Norwegian husband and children who cooks up Norwegian favorites as well as developing some of her own original baked goods. This is an awesome blog and I love reading it because it makes me very nostalgic, even though she lives in a different part of Norway than I did, and here are two official forms of written Norwegian…and writes in Nynorsk on her blog, a different official written language than the one I learned when I lived there.

So onto the Skoleboller. I decided to take a Saturday and make these buns. There are several steps, but please do not let that discourage you – they are all fairly easy to accomplish and believe me, these buns are well worth it. I made the dough for the buns first and while it was rising I made the custard.

Here is a note on the custard. I am kind of an egg freak – I eat a lot of eggs, and because of this it is important to me that they are of good quality. This means that the hens live a life a hen should live. I am not going to get into it more than that, but the quality of these eggs are clear. I mean look at the color of the yolks here, beautiful, sunny, deep yellow – and the taste is far superior to your run of the mill (quite literally) eggs. So if you are going to make a dish where the cornerstone is eggs, you might as well use the best available to make your dish all the better tasting.

Anyway, back to Skoleboller. Siri had good advice, she said you can make 12 regular sized Skoleboller or 24 smaller, weight watchers sized buns. So I decided to make the latter. I followed her recipe exactly, except that I embellished a little.

Instead of using a confectioner’s sugar glaze, I decided to use some of the creamed honeys that I had from Honey Ridge Farms.

I also added some nutella (as well as the custard) to a few, and on some I placed a fresh blackberry in the center before popping them in the oven to bake. All varieties turned out really good and by making 24, I had enough to eat, freeze and give out. So I would suggest making them that way – plus less guilt!
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So here is another couple of recipes that I made using wonderful products from FromTheFarm.com who will be sponsoring a Foodie Blogroll Giveaway during March and April!

I received some lovely pears from EW Brandt & Sons. The Brandt family has been a part of Washington state agriculture since 1907. Located just south of Yakima, WA they grow, pack and ship premium pears, apples and stone fruit. This farming family strives to deliver the most flavorful and unique products that can be grown in their region. Through the years, they’ve added acreage, new packing facilities, and a nursery program that allows them to better coordinate their own tree development to diversify into various tree fruit varieties. And these are some beautiful and tasty pears. I really have never seen such lovely ones before – not a blemish on them, super smooth outer skin. Just gorgeous- and the taste? Like a pear should be – crisp and delicious!

The first thing I did when I got a case of pears from EW Brandt & Sons was start asking around for wine poached pear recipes – something I had always wanted to make. So I went on Twitter and asked around. My good friend Peter, from Kalofagas had two recipes to share with me, (hereand here) and so I kind of took the method of how he did his and added my own twist to it.

I had leftover mulling spices from the Gløgg I made for our Winter Solstice Cocktail Party and so I decided to use that in lieu of cloves, cinnamon sticks and star anise. I used Pumpkin Blossom Honey and Blackberry Honey Creme from Honey Ridge Farms to make the wine syrup.

Honey Ridge Farms is a really fantastic company. When I read the materials they sent me with the package I was really happy to read this statement: “We are a long time bee keeping family (5 generations) who believe that honey is nature’s best sweetener”. I would have to agree. I am a huge fan of honey, and maple syrup – if I could figure out how to bake with them, that is all I would ever use…sounds like another good project for me…Anyway their artisan honey is minimally processed, gently warmed and strained, but not filtered. This retains all the complex flavors this honey has to offer. The Pumpkin Blossom honey we got has a sweet and spicy robust flavor – and the color is beautiful.

I also received 3 Honey Cremes, and decided to use the Blackberry Creme in this recipe as it would compliment the berry notes in the Shiraz-Grenache wine I was using. Their honey cremes are blended with the finest fruits and spices and are never cooked – again retaining the natural goodness of the honey. It is delicious stuff and there is so much you could do with them – topping for ice cream, yogurt, on hot cereal, even spread on toast.

Anyway, I also decided to make a vanilla – maple cream to go with the pears – you can see the recipe after the cut.

We got another interesting product from Honey Ridge Farms – Balsamic Honey Vinegar. I know, I wondered what it was too when I saw the bottle. So I got to reading labels and literature to figure out what it was. It is a balsamic type vinegar made entirely from 100% honey! This makes it sulfite free and really does have the flavor of balsamic vinegar. You can use it in place of grape balsamic in salads, marinades and sauces. Plus, Honey Ridge Farms donates a percentage of their profits on this product to fund research for maintaining bee colony health – which is very important.

Strawberries are in season here in Florida right now. I am not a huge fan of them, but I do enjoy them when they are soaked in balsamic vinegar. If you have never tried this, it may sound weird, but I promise you that the flavors work together like magic! The vinegar brings out the sweetness of the berries. So I chopped up some strawberries and added 1/3 cup of Honey Balsamic over the top. I also mixed in about a TBS of the Clover Honey Creme (also from Honey Ridge). I let that all sit in the fridge for about an hour or two – you could do it over night, if you can wait that long! It was really delicious over vanilla ice cream! I am also looking forward to having some over yogurt.

Please check out this post and The Foodie Blogroll’s Contests and Giveaways Page to see how you can be eligible to win one of our awesome giveaways we have going on.
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This is another recipe inspired by my new favorite cookbook,
Dishing Up Vermont.

This particular tagine recipe is perfect for the winter bounty of vegetables that we are experiencing right now. I would not call this a “tagine”, technically, but more of a stew, as that is the way it is prepared, as opposed to the traditional slow roasting method in clay that tagine in known for. However, the flavors are very much reflective of this well known Moroccan dish.

I did not have all of the ingredients in the original recipe, so I filled in the gaps with things that I had on hand, and I must say it was delicious and certainly very easy to make. I would encourage anyone to try this dish with whatever seasonal veggies you have on hand, while keeping the spices the same, and you are in for a real hearty treat. Topped with a nice dollop of strained Greek yogurt and you have a wonderful healthy meal, perfect for staving off the colder weather. It is definitely a dish that I will be making again.
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This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben from What’s Cooking. This is one of the first challenges where I really know each of these bloggers and so I couldn’t wait to see what they would come up with to challenge us this time. I should have guessed from this pairing that we would end of with a pastry! Ben is a master at making Puff Pastry and Kelly is always coming up with great ideas of how to make the DB challenges reflect her culinary style. Therefore, it just made sense when I saw the challenge would be a Danish. On the outset, I must admit that I wasn’t too excited about the challenge, as I generally don’t like Danish. It is always so sweet and the dough is generally plasticy, wet and gummy from the filling sinking into it. But as I have come to learn with these challenges, the things we sometimes buy, often do not reflect what the original homemade variety would taste like.

Once I saw that cardamom was involved in the dough recipe they had picked out for us, I began to feel slightly more relieved, as I have a huge love for this spice. Then when I read further that we could experiment with the filling I felt even better! I do not like pie filling-like danish or pastries and when I skimmed the recipe and saw apple filling, my heart sank. I really dislike apples, especially apples in baked goods. But as I read more thoroughly, I was thrilled to see I didn’t have to go that route. So I thought about what flavors of Danish I do like, and I came to a conclusion, it had to involve cheese. In the Italian kitchen, ricotta cheese is often used as a filling for sweet confections and is often seen in baking, especially the more South you go. So I decided to go with the ricotta, but I needed some way to sweeten it. I didn’t want to use sugar, I wanted to make this pastry kind of classy and fit in with summer. As I mentioned in the last FFF post, I have always been intrigued with cooking with lavender, and I really wanted to try that out in this pastry. So I settled on honey. Honey is so luxurious and really has a warmth to it. Plus honey and lavender sounded like a match made in heaven. So I placed about 3 TBS of local honey in a bowl and mixed a heaping teaspoon of lavender in with it. The lavender hat we consume is the flower, and I know, from working with saffron (the stamen) that a little goes a long way because it is so perfumy. I then mixed this in with about 5 oz. of ricotta cheese and used this simple filling for this beautiful and delicate danish.

Then at the end, I drizzled leftover buttercream icing from the Opera Cakes we did last month! It was heaven!

I am a danish convert now. The dough was so beautiful and I loved all the layers we made within it. It created such a light but crunchy texture after it was baked. Oh and the baking was such a joy, as the smell was absolutely intoxicating! The cardamom in the dough was perfect. In my opinion it really made the whole thing. I didn’t have any oranges, so I left the zest out. But I don’t think it mattered much.

If you love a good Danish, you must try this recipe. Even if you don’t love it, I suggest trying it out. I made one gigantic braid (didn’t read the directions thoroughly enough to realize the recipe makes TWO braids…, even though it is mentioned several times…), and I put about 2/3 of it in the fridge. We are having guests next weekend to celebrate Independence Day, and I think it will make a wonderful breakfast! Not just that, but we will get to enjoy it again.

Recipe to follow:
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So we are going to go back in time a little with this post. I hope you all don’t mind the time warp this blog sometimes is! It is hard sometimes figuring out when to post what! The life of a food blogger is all about organization…and sometimes the lack thereof.

Anyway, as you all know, the week before our wedding, Anna, Roberto’s mom came to stay with us. She is a food blogger and member of The Foodie Blogroll!

Her blog AnnaGarau.com features recipes from her native Sardinia. It is a great blog, full of wonderful anecdotes about Sardinia as well as beautiful pictures and she is quite the chef. It is in Italian, so if you want to check it out, and I recommend that you do, use one of those handy dandy translators like this translator from Google. You can even watch a video of traditional Sardinian dancing and singing – something Sardinians are known for. When she was here at our house, she was updating that post and we were having such a good time. I was really pleased to be able to have a “private” lesson with this great Italian cook in my own kitchen when she was here visiting us from Rome.

When I ask Roberto about his favorite foods that he remembers his mom making, the first thing out of his mouth is always Involtini or stuffed, rolled beef. However, he is always vague about exactly what her involtini are stuffed with. Out of desperation, once, I made these “involtini” stuffed with sun dried tomatoes, spinach and feta cheese.

They were delicious, but not involtini. So I was thrilled when Anna was here that she was delighted to show me how to make her involtini. She also made these fabulous eggplant patties that were very tasty. I am certainly making both of these again…in fact in honor of writing this post we are having leftover involtini tonight (The day I post this, may not be the day I wrote this…you know how the time warp is…)

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