We started our garden about a month late – our moving date was not well timed with the Farmer’s Almanac this year. So now, we are harvesting veggies that everyone else in our area harvested 4-6 weeks ago. In some ways it makes us feel really behind in our gardening, but in another way it is actually good – having a second harvest! The first time around we bought these goodies from the farmer’s market – second time around from our garden!

Less than two weeks ago we got our biggest harvest yet – 5 beets, 10 carrots, fresh herbs and lots of beautiful edible flowers – nasturtium and borage.

FLOWER POWER!

Nasturtium flowers and leaves are edible and have a wonderful peppery flavor. Even the seeds can be pickled – they apparently taste like capers. The flowers are high in vitamin C, and have been used to treat colds. It can also be used topically for bacterial and fungal infections because of its mustard-oil content.

Borage flowers are perhaps one of the only truly found in nature blue foods, beyond blueberries. They have a very sweet taste. The flowers are also rich in minerals, most notably potassium. Medicinally the leaves are often used as support to the adrenal glands and for inflammation. Probably the most well-known use for borage is borage oil. Borage oil is very high in gamma-linolenic acid, GLA. GLA is an essential fatty acid, omega-6 oil. Borage oil supplements are most beneficial for arthritis and chronic dry skin, such as eczema.

We really planted both of these flowers in accordance with companion planting – plants that keep bugs and disease, as well as other garden pests away from the plants you are growing for food. So these plants have a dual purpose. Plus they are very pretty as an edible garnish. My stepdaughter Gwen had never had an edible flower until we served this salad for dinner recently. At first she didn’t want to try them, but after some coaxing, she did, and she really liked them!

I love roasting beets for salads, and pairing them with goat cheese. There is something so good , and not to mention aesthetically beautiful about the combination of goat cheese and beets. So I decided to roast the whole lot, and arrange them on top of fresh greens from the garden, also. As we have been harvesting plenty of those for months now.

This is a perfect dinner salad on a hot summer night, when your family is looking for something light. This would also be a wonderful first course to a summer harvest dinner. It is colorful, delicious and healthy on so many levels!

INGREDIENTS:

5 small beets, cut in half
10 baby carrots
2 TBS fresh rosemary
1 TBS fresh thyme
salt & pepper
olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp maple syrup
5 cups fresh greens – arugala, red leaf and green leaf lettuces, nasturtium leaves
olive oil to toss the greens in
salt & pepper to season greens
¼ cup goat cheese, crumbled
nasturtium flowers, as garnish
borage flowers, as garnish

METHOD:

Stir the veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper and herbs until well coated. Roast in a preheated 400 F oven for about 45 minutes, turning once halfway through.

In the same bowl, add mustard and maple, dump the roasted veggies in and stir to coat. Then toss the greens with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Crumble the goat cheese on top, arrange the roasted veggies and the edible flowers. Serves 4 as a main dish.

How about a delicious frozen twist to an old classic? I am sure many of you have enjoyed some delicious frozen custard this summer, so why not frozen pudding? This is best served right after the initial churning in the ice cream maker – kind of like a soft serve. I like to sweeten my tapioca with maple syrup and a little cinnamon. This extra little flavor adds a lot of dimension to this tasty frozen treat!

We are busy enjoying summer here on the homestead with a lot of out of town visitors. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

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!

We have had some really scorching days lately! The past several of them have been in the 90′s! I thought I left Florida to get away from the heat, but it looks like it must have followed my mom up here. She arrived on the coolest day we’d had in weeks, lending credence to her idea that we live in The Great White North, but in less than 48 hours, it became an absolute inferno. She loves the heat, so she’s not complaining, but the rest of us are lethargic, even the pets!

So naturally this kind of weather calls for ice cream! But really, we love ice cream and have it quite often no matter what the weather. When I was in Italy, I fell in love with what I called my perfect combination of gelato – one scoop of Frutti di Bosco and one of Nocciola – “Fruits of the Forest” or mixed berries and hazelnut. Such a dreamy combination. Light yet rich at the same time. So I decided to make my own perfect flavor at home, using kefir, a fermented, probiotic dairy drink as the base. We make kefir here at the homestead fresh every day and I love finding new uses for it, beyond a glass straight up for breakfast! So I can now confirm it makes a really delicious ice cream! Next time I will probably add an egg or two to the mix, for a more creamy consistency. But there was nothing lacking in the taste department here! So if you are as hot as we are, or just looking for a different kind of ice cream flavor to cool off on a hot summer day, give this one a try! I promise you will love it!

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups of plain whole organic dairy kefir
1/3 cup of fresh organic heavy cream
¼ cup Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
½ cup of raw hazelnuts, toasted
1 cup frozen or fresh organic raspberries
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD:

I have a Vitamix, so I placed all the ingredients, in order listed into the Vitamix and blended just until the nuts were pulverized. I was looking for a creamy consistency. Then I placed all of it, in my ice cream maker and made it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. You can serve it before placing in the freezer for a more “soft serve” texture, or freeze for a harder consistency. I have also found that adding a ¼ cup of alcohol also lends to better scoopability.

Ooey Gooey Cheesy Lasagna!

In this household we like to indulge in The Birthday Week(TM). This means that when either Roberto or I are celebrating a birthday, each day of our birthday week, we get to pick out some little thing to do – whether it is to go to the movies, to the beach, out for ice cream or a treat of some kind, and one of those days, have a special meal made. Not expensive things, just fun little things to keep the celebration going. For Roberto’s actual birthday, I took him to a favorite restaurant here in Saint Augustine and gave him a very special and personal gift – after almost 2 years of marriage and a very long story, I am now officially Mrs. Campus!

Roberto and I with Mom at Easter – at the table where we were most of the weekend! EATING.

So to close out the week of birthday festivities, this past weekend, my mom came to visit and so we of course had to have another celebration for Roberto. I asked him for his menu of choice, and not surprisingly he came up with Lasagna. It is his favorite, after all.

As for a cake, he was looking for something Tiramisu inspired. I know Roberto is a huge fan of ice cream, so I asked him if he’d like me to make him a Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake – and he was game!

Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake

I spent a few days looking online for Tiramisu flavored ice cream, and a sponge cake or lady fingers to make the cake. We happened to be celebrating his birthday with my mom the day before Easter, which meant we would be baking with my mom too. So I had to plan ahead to make sure all this baking wasn’t going to wreak havoc on me with my wheat issues. Therefore, I modified some Easter bread recipes to include my soaking techniques, and looked for recipes to make cake and bread that was more eggs and less flour. The sponge cake recipe I found for the ice cream cake ended up being more like a big crepe than a cake due to my egg whites not cooperating, but it was perfect for the cake.

Preparing Lasagna Rolls

As for the lasagna, I decided to make baked lasagna rolls, so I didn’t need to use as many noodles. I used whole wheat noodles and I used a mixture of mascarpone, homemade goat cheese, parmigiano, basil paste and spinach as the filling and I made a simple sauce using a jar of organic tomato sauce, a can of tomatoes, some wine and spices. Roberto loved these rolls, and declared it the best lasagna he has had in the US. So I was pretty happy with that! We served it with a nice bottle of Cannonau, a Sardinian wine, known for its beneficial antioxidant properties

This weekend was a very Italian food centered time, which is always great.

To see our Sicilian Easter Dinner with my mom, please check out her blog for the recipes and photos.

Lasagna Rolls:

Cheesing it UP!

INGREDIENTS:

1 package of whole wheat lasagna noodles (12 noodles)

filling:
8 oz. mascarpone cheese
4 oz. homemade raw milk goat cheese
2 inch piece of parmigiano cheese, grated
3 oz. fresh baby spinach
3 TBS fresh basil paste
salt & pepper to taste

sauce:
2 TBS olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
28 oz. can of fire roasted tomatoes
½ jar of organic tomato sauce
¼ cup red wine
oregano, thyme, and basil to taste

12 round pieces of fresh mozzarella

METHOD:

Bring water to boil for pasta, and cook according to package directions, except cut the cooking time by half. Drain and set aside.

Prepare the sauce. Sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil, until translucent. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, wine and spices. Mix together and cook over a medium-low heat for about 35-40 minutes.

While sauce is cooking preheat the oven to 350F. In a bowl mix all the filling ingredients together. Then divide and spread the filling over the length of each noodle, and roll up. Place noodle rolls into a prepared baking dish – place a little of the sauce on the bottom of the pan before laying the rolls on top. Then place a piece of mozzarella on top of each roll, and pour the rest of the sauce over top of the whole dish. Then grate extra parmigiano on top. Bake for 45 minutes, and then remove the foil, and bake for another 10-15 or until cheese is browned. Serves 6.

Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake

One recipe of Tiramisu Ice cream from Desert Candy Blog
(the only thing I changed about the recipe, is that I used a tub of tiramisu marscapone, and 8 oz. of sour cream, as well as sweetening with maple syrup instead of sugar)

One recipe of Sponge Cake Roll Recipe
(again I sweetened with maple syrup)

METHOD:

Preparing Components for Ice Cream Cake

Prepare the ice cream base the night before, so it has a chance to chill. In the morning, bake the cake according to the recipe – don’t forget to roll it in a towel before it cools. While it cools for about 20-30 minutes, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Rolling Ice Cream Cake Roll

Smear the cooled cake with the soft, just churned ice cream, and sprinkle with cocoa powder. Roll up and place in the freezer. After about an hour, sprinkle the cake with some more rum, and then let freeze for about another hour. To serve, slice, and sprinkle with cocoa powder and powdered sugar – and extra maple syrup for those with a sweet tooth. Serves 10

Cute Pets, thrown in for good measure! Everyone deserves a treat!

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…

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cooler temperatures really do require comforting and hearty foods. Sometimes the simplest of ingredients can truly make the most satisfying of meals. Plus you don’t have to sacrifice good nutrition or big bucks in the process. Those are all qualities of a winning meal in my book!

I am a big fan of beans. I really could eat them everyday, they are so versatile and packed with nutrients. But, I know not everyone likes beans as much as I do…I had some leftover cooked Borlotti beans from Rancho Gordo that I got in San Francisco during the Foodbuzz Food Blogger’s Festival.  I needed to use them up, so I asked Roberto how he would like them to be prepared. He asked for “Cowboy Beans”. This comes from his growing up in Italy and watching old American Westerns on TV. In many of the movies, there were scenes of cowboys eating baked beans from a can. So as a child he always wanted to know what those cowboy beans tasted like. He tells me that he never imagined them tasting as good as when I make them. What a sweet husband I have.

I love baked beans, and we make them often at home. My grandmother was famous for her beans. I guess it is a family thing!

My most recent rendition of cowboy beans also included carrots, and potatoes, to stretch the recipe and make extra for leftovers. I slow cooked them with smoked polish sausage. A perfect winter time meal!

INGREDIENTS:

1 strip of bacon, chopped
½ a large onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 small potatoes, chopped
4 small carrots, chopped
1 cup of leftover beans
1 can of tomato paste
1 empty tomato paste can full of water
dash of your favorite BBQ sauce
1 TBS maple sugar or syrup
salt & pepper to taste
1 package of smoked Polish sausage (or any kind of sausage), cut into smaller chunks

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a dutch oven, or large oven proof pot add the bacon and brown. Add onion, garlic, potatoes and carrots, and sautee for about 5-7 minutes, stirring regularly. Once the veggies are getting browned, add the beans, tomato paste, water, BBQ sauce, maple and seasoning. Stir until veggies are coated with the sauce. Then add the sausage and put the lid on the pot. Cook at 350 for about an hour. Check to see if more liquid needs to be added. If so, add more water – and then check your seasoning. Cook for another 30 minutes. You can keep the pot simmering at a lower temperature, like 200 F, to keep warm until you are ready to serve. Just keep checking your liquid amounts.

Serves 4 big portions. Less than $3 per serving.