Purcavru in Agru Durci garnished with mirto

I told you all I was going to be making things interesting on here with different recipes from a variety of different world cuisines!

With the first in this series, I am giving a nod to my husband’s Sardinian roots. Sardinia is a small island off the coast of Italy in the vicinity of Rome. I was lucky enough to go there this past year when Roberto and I went with our moms on the “roots tour” of Italy. Roberto was born in Sardinia to Sardinian parents, but grew up in Rome. On our visit there last fall, we spent time with the extended family. It was lovely.

Sardinia is an interesting place, I immediately loved it because it has a rich culture both with herding animals (sheep and goats) but is also the place in Europe which has the greatest amount of megalithic structures, making this farm girl and history buff very happy!

These megalithic structures, round tower-fortresses called nuraghi, which ancient villages were built around are over 35,000 years old and there are over 8,000 of them on Sardinia, an island that is about the size and shape as Vermont. So that is a lot of pre-history going on there! If you aren’t into history, Sardinia is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, La Costa Smeralda- The Emerald Coast. There are also beautiful mountains (yes they get snow!) and lunar looking rock formations. There is an area towards the middle of the island that is called Valle Della Luna – The Valley of the Moon and looks just like Rohan from the Lord of the Rings movies. Fascinating landscape!

But the thing I loved about it most is that it is home to some of the oldest trees in Europe. We were able to visit 2 of these old olives, the oldest being 5,000 years old and the second oldest being around 3,000 – and still producing olives!!! For me, a nature worshiper it was akin to meeting Gandhi. The most amazing thing about Italy in general is that you can grow so much food! Nearly everyone that has even a small plot of land has fruit trees, some grapes to make homemade wine, nut and olive trees, veggie gardens, etc. I saw tons of pomegranate and fig trees. There is just so much abundance there!

Sardinia actually has its own language, Sardu, of which there are several dialects. Sardu has been influenced by Catalan, Spanish and indigenous Nuragic elements with some roots from Phoenician and Etruscan. So instead of the more familiar Italian “a” and “o” word endings, Sardinian words end with “u” and “s”, like our last name, Campus. This is because Sardinian is much like Latin. You can see this in the name of this dish Purcavru Agru Durci, which in Italian would be Cinghiale Agrodolce.

So what about the food? Well because of its location, Sardinian cuisine has been able to capture tastes from various Mediterranean influences: Catalan, Corsican, Spanish, Italian. The diet is rich in meats, like lamb, goat and pork, fresh vegetables, wonderful cheeses, fresh veggies and of course copious amounts of olive oil and rich red wine, famed for its high level of antioxidants- Cannonou. On the coast, where we didn’t spend much time, there is also a lot of fish and seafood consumed. And, like the rest of Italy the population consumes large amounts of pasta and bread. In fact as a gluten-intolerant, I had a hard time in Italy in general staying away from wheat as it is in almost everything from bread and pasta, to a thickener in sauces and a coating on vegetables and meats. I asked the question on facebook the other day after reading an article about how wheat is killing the world, how people like Italians, and especially Sardinians, known the world over as healthy and one of the longest living peoples could be in such a good state of health (the island has the world’s highest documented percentage of people who have passed the century threshold.) if wheat is the only factor. It was an interesting discussion, but none of us were able to really make sense of that!

But I digress. One thing which is very unique to Sardinian cuisine is the use of Mirto, or Myrtle. The plant is symbolic of love and immortality, and in Sardinia it is an essential plant. The berries (which look a bit like small blueberries, although there is a white version as well )are used to make a delicious aperitif, called “mirto”, which uses both varieties of berries separately, creating a red and white version and the leaves. Sardinians also use the leaves in cooking, similar in manner to bay leaves or other herbaceous plants. I was able to get some to bring home with me, and this is one of the ingredients that really makes this dish. The taste is very hard to place for me, but is most similar to a bay leaf.

I wasn’t able to get wild boar for this dish, but we did use meat from the half pig we bought this year (and butchered ourselves) from a local farmer.

Purcavru in Agru Durci (from Cooking in Sardinia)

INGREDIENTS:

4-5 TBS olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp myrtle leaves (substitute bay leaf)
1 ½ lbs boneless boar or pork meat, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tsp sugar
1 TBS red wine vinegar
1 TBS tomato Paste
Salt to taste

METHOD:
Sauté onion in a pan (I used cast iron) with 4-5 TBS of olive oil. Add about a tsp of chopped myrtle leaves. Add the meat and a pinch of salt and brown over medium heat. Blend sugar and vinegar, stir and pour over the meat. Then dilute tomato paste in a cup of warm water, add to the pan, lower the heat, cover and simmer for 45 mins. You will have to add more water intermittently so the stew doesn’t dry out. During the last five minutes, uncover pan to reduce the sauce.

I have a few food goals this year; one is to start creating meals solely from the pantry and freezer. We are fortunate to be well stocked in those areas – for the past two years we have been buying whole or half animals for meat and also started raising a batch of meat chickens every summer and I do a lot of canning, preserving and freezing (as well as storing root vegetables) from our summer garden.

But I am like every other foodie, I love going food shopping and I found that every few weeks, when we would go, I would come home with enough stuff to basically feed us without dipping into the reserves too much. I was cooking the meat, using some core products from the pantry but kind of turning a blind eye to the preserves and such. I guess that is the folly of this modern world, where even those of us who are hyper-aware about where our food comes from, who take extra time and effort to grow food and preserve it and who cares deeply about sustainability still can be dazzled by all the fresh fruits and vegetables at the markets. Humans can be so silly sometimes…

I decided that this pattern of mine had to end.  So I started by pretending that my house was the market, and I started shopping here and realize that we have so much bounty! I also started going through all my many shelves of cookbooks and marking recipes that I would like to try. Then I took the next step, and actually make a document, listing and categorizing the recipes. Then once a week, we look at the list and pick out several things to try – maybe 3 dinners, some breakfast and lunch ideas, a dessert or two, several sides or salads, that kind of thing. Then I put the meals on a dry-erase board and that is our menu board for the week, leaving some days open for spontaneity and of course pizza night (every Friday).

This is a creation I came up with on my own, but I think in the coming months you will see that I am drawing inspiration from many cookbooks of various genres. I am excited about this project as it is keeping me creative and entertained in the kitchen, exploring some new cuisines I haven’t spent much time with lately and learning some new techniques.

This dish is very simple and extremely flavorful. The best part is that everything I needed was at home. The chicken is one we raised and the other items came from the pantry or freezer. Since we live in a rural area, we have found that shopping in bulk (through Amazon Prime, mostly) saves us a lot of time, money and gas, so we stock up on interesting things, like artichoke hearts. I hope you enjoy this recipe, good enough for Sunday night dinner, without much effort.

INGREDIENTS:

1 TBS lard (When I am browning meat I like to use lard, so I can get it nice and hot without smoking – and lard from healthy animals can be a healthy part of your diet in moderation – no Crisco! That is not real lard).

4 whole chicken legs

Salt, thyme and basil to taste

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1 can of artichoke hearts (we use Native Harvest – their cans are BPA free)

½ a leek, sliced thin

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 jar or can of chick peas (I use dry beans, soak them, partially cook them and then freeze them in canning jars for easy use, but you can use canned if you like)

1 can of diced tomatoes (a small can – I know Eden Organics has BPA free cans available)

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

 METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat a cast iron tagine, cast iron skillet or dutch oven on low for about 5 minutes (this makes it hot but prevents burning) and add the lard. Rub the chicken legs with the herbs and spices. Brown chicken on all sides and drizzle with red wine vinegar. Add the artichoke hearts, leeks, garlic, chick peas, tomatoes and bay leaf, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Place the lid on and let slow cook for 2 hours. Serve with bread and butter.

“Thus bold, independent, unconquer’d, and free,
Her bright course of glory for ever shall run,
For brave Caledonia immortal must be,”
~Robert Burns, Caledonia

Last night we celebrated Burns Night , the 25th of January, the birthdate of the famed Scottish poet, Robert Burns. It is a night when Scots all over the world celebrate his life, poetry and all things Scottish by hosting a traditional Burns Supper – haggis, neeps, tatties, and a whisky toast!
This is a treat I look forward to every year. Living across the pond, in the US, haggis is not readily available, but I have been lucky to find Scottish Gourmet USA an online retailer of not only some of the best haggis in the US, but many other delicious Scottish products as well, like honey, cheese, smoked salmon, teas, etc. If you love Scottish food, I suggest you check them out!

We started the night off with homemade oat cakes, slices of Dubliner and chunks of Bergenost . I figured since I didn’t have any Scottish cheese lying about, I would seek close relatives, so we went with Irish and Norwegian (learn about the relationship between the Vikings and the Scots in regards to cheese here). We washed the first course down with some Thistly Cross Hard Scottish Cider.

Then it was time for the main course, haggis, neeps (mashed rutabaga) and tatties (mashed potatoes).

Looks innocent enough, doesn’t it?

Now before you all start in with that “yuck” or “ick” word again, like when I talked about my love for black pudding , let me tell you that haggis is really nothing more than a wonderfully spiced sausage. The haggis by Scottish Gourmet USA, contains lamb, liver, oats and spices, nothing else…and YES, I have had the “real deal” in Scotland, and honestly it tastes very much the same. It has a wonderful creamy texture and the aroma is tantalizing. This is real, hardy, stick to your bones kind of food, for real, hardy people! This is traditional, ancestral food at its best! Burns makes this quite clear in his famous address and I must concur! :

“But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his ample fist a blade,
He will make it whistle;
And legs, and arms, and heads will crop
Like tops of thistle.
You powers, who make mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill of fare,
Old Scotland want no watery ware,
That splashes in small wooden dishes;
But is you wish her grateful prayer,
Give her a Haggis!”
~Robert Burns, Address to a Haggis (standard English translation)

(Me with friends Bob and Suzanne, all enraptured by The Address)

Of course before eating, the haggis must be addressed (to see the whole address performed excellently, I suggest checking out this one performed by Andrew of Scottish Gourmet USA) and then toasted with whisky. This year we toasted with a 15 year Dalwhinnie. It was a good one.

As always it was a wonderful evening full of joking, sharing memories of trips to Scotland, etc, such a great yearly tradition. I suggest to all of you, especially if you are Scottish, love Scotland or just love ‘Ol Rabbie Burns, to join us next year in celebrating his life!

Want to know what to do with Haggis Leftovers? Try Balmoral Chicken.

Next UP: Sticky Toffee Pudding!

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.

Today I am truly excited to share with you a guest post from one of my favorite bloggers Rosa, from Rosa’s Yummy Yums. It is a unique and seasonal Potato Salad, a wonderful unconventional addition to your Thanksgiving table! I am a huge fan of potatoes and I adore this recipe. Just look at the beautiful photos.

If you are a food blogger, I am sure you know Rosa. Whenever I am visiting blogs, her comments are always within the first three. She happens to be a very talented lady and so I imagine she has super powers that allow her to be on all blogs at once spreading encouragement to bloggers throughout the blogosphere.  If you don’t already know Rosa and her aptly named blog, go on over there and check her out!

I have been following Rosa’s blog for many years now, since I became a food blogger, actually (her blog has been around a lot longer than mine). Her creative, vibrant and flavorful recipes have always kept me coming back for more and inspired me as a budding blogger. In fact her participation in the Daring Bakers and the beautiful things she made, prompted me to sign up and bake with them for a few years, too! Rosa is not afraid of flavor, spice or color in her dishes and there is always a side of pizazz to go with it! Clearly I admire her.

Besides kitchen creativity, Rosa is also well known for her amazing photography, not only of food, but also the countryside of Geneva, Switzerland where she lives. Besides food we share a love of all things Scandinavian, genealogy and nature. I would love to go visit her someday, and taste some of her amazing recipes, cooked by Rosa herself.  So here’s Rosa!

I have known the lovely Jenn Campus for quite a while now and have been visiting “The Leftover Queen” since its launching in 2007. During all those years I have followed her adventures striving towards the goals of sustainability, preparing traditional foods and seasonal feasting, and have admired her courage when she moved to Northern Vermont in order to live out her dream and become self-sufficient (growing her own vegetables as well as raising her own animals).

So, the day Jenn asked me to write a guest post for her there was no way I was going to refuse her generous offer as I hold her ideas (ideals) in esteem, envy her countryside lifestyle and share similar visions with this captivating young lady who is extremely knowlegeable reagarding all things linked to Nature and homesteading. It is a real honor for me to be invited into her awesome space.

As she advocates healthy eating and enjoys creating culinary delights based on simplicity as well as everyday foods that can be traced locally and respect the earth’s cycles, I thought that it would be a brilliant idea to invent a potato salad which could be adapted according to what’s on the stalls of your regional farmers markets and savored as a fulfilling main course that can stand alone.

I have always been an immense fan of spuds and worshipped them because they are marvelously versatile, nourishing and delicious. There are so many varieties available and an astonishing number of amazing dishes can be made with them. Without a doubt, it is the king of vegetables.

Other ingredients I very much idolize and venerate are tahini, peppers, nuts, paprika and mustard. They literally make my world turn and I cannot imagine my extraordinarily well-stocked pantry and fridge being devoid of them (of course, I buy bell peppers solely from July to October).

Good food and good eating aren’t a class thing – anyone can eat good food on any budget as long as they know how to cook.

– Jamie Oliver

Thanks to my immense collection of condiments, herbs and spices (it is an addiction), my cuisine is intensely savory, makes good use of seasonings hailing from all over the world, is highly inventive, ecclectic and can be described as “fusion”, yet those are not the only aspects which characterizes it. Budget-friendliness is also an integral part of my style of cooking as I only have an acutely limited amount of resources I can spend on groceries every month. This forces me to juggle like crazy and find ways of getting more for less. It means that I never eat meat or fish more than once a week (generally lower cuts or bargain spicimens) and have to manage my larder intelligently.

Nonetheless, being restricted money-wise and following good existence habits doesn’t obligatorily mean that you have to eat like an austere monk on a strict diet, a New Age prophet living on love and fresh air nor restrain your kitchen activity and stop concocting exciting meals. Quite the contrary. It is indeed absolutely possible to count your pennies as well as satisfy your body and soul simultaneously with refined and tasty grub (please read my article “13 ways to eat on a budget and improve your health at the same time” that was published on The Rambling Epicure).

“I don’t know what folks are going to do,” she said “because they don’t know how to be poor.”

- Marilyn, http://culinate.com

I strongly believe that in this period of global financial crisis, more people should be concerned about learning how to survive hard times and to reduce their consumption costs by being more aware of what can be done in order not to throw their dollars/Euros/Francs out of the window, yet without compromising on the nutritional quality the of their dinners and on self-indulgence. Our ancestors were forced to find methods to get through dearth, so there we should maybe start learning from them as their teachings could prove useful in the future – the impacts this behavior has on our environment are either not negligible…

So, the harmoniously tasting (sweet, sour, salty & hot), quirky, colorful and elegant “Tahini, Pomegranate And Coriander Potato Salad” I am presenting here today englobes all of those aspects. It provides cheap nourishment, incredible gustative pleasure and is well-balanced, especially if paired with proteins such as fish, meat or eggs.

Most potato salads contain mayonnaise and, although I have nothing against this practice (I am a big fan of the homemade version), I preferred to whip up a dressing with sesame paste which offers a similar creaminess than its calorific counterpart, but is a lot less fattening and adds a delightful nuttiness to the whole dish. Then, for more color, crunch and sweetness I incorporated a grated carrot, a handful pomegranate seeds and a thinly sliced red bell-pepper (see comments for more info), and for extra gusto and dimension I used plump walnuts, sweet German mustard (or “Weisswurstsenf“), pimentón, finely chopped leftover smoked ham and fresh coriander.

The result was electrifying and even my boyfriend who is not the biggest fan of potatoes in their boiled form was impressed by my invention and had seconds, and even thirds. As a matter of fact, the salad disappeared as fastly as it arrived on the table!

I  hope that you’ll be blown away by this “Tahini, Pomegranate And Coriander Potato Salad“as much as we did and wish to thank all of Jenn’s readers for having taken a moment to read me as well as to express my gratitute to my kind host for inviting me on her platform…

~ Tahini, Pomegranate And Coriander Potato Salad ~
Recipe by Rosa Mayland at “Rosa’s Yummy Yums”, November 2011.

Serves 2-3 people.

Ingredients For The “Salad”:
750g Small firm potatoes
1 Medium Carrot, coarsely grated
1 Red bell pepper, cubed (see comments)
1 Medium red onion, cut into thin rings
30-40g Smoked ham, finely chopped
50g Walnuts, coarsely chopped
A big handful (or to taste) pomegranate seeds
Fresh coriander, chopped, to taste
Ingredients For The “Dressing”:
3 Tbs Tahini
3 Tbs Milk
1 Tbs Water (or more if the dressing is too thick)
1 Tbs Malt vinegar
1 Tbs German sweet mustard (or French old-fashioned mustard)
1 Tbs Olive oil
1 Tsp Horseradish cream sauce
1 Tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 Tsp Sugar
1/3 Tsp Smoked paprika
1/4 Tsp Onion powder
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Directions For The “Dressing”:
1. Mix all the ingredients together, until you get a thickish mayonnaise-like sauce.
Directions For The “Salad”:
2. Cook the potatoes in water until tender. Drain them and let them cool until tepid, then cut them in two, lengthwise.
3. Delicately mix all the ingredients together and add the sauce.
4. Serve and decorate with a little extra coriander.

Comments:
I used small Charlotte potatoes, but you can also use waxy potatoes such as Désirée, Nicola, Bintje or Kipfler that are perfect for making salad.
I made this recipe when bell peppers were still in season. As they are now out of season, I recommend you to replace them by either 1 1/3 cup fresh muscade pumpkin cut into small cubes or thin matchsticks, raw betroot cut into thin matchsticks or finely shredded Brussel sprouts.
If you wish, you can substitute the walnuts with any nut of your choice.

Serving suggestions:
Serve alone as main course or accompanied with smoked fish (salmon or mackerel), rollmops, small shrimps, cold meat or hardboiled eggs.

Happy Summer Solstice to all my readers in the Northern Hemisphere!

The Summer Solstice marks the beginning of summer and is the longest day of the year! Here in Northern Vermont, it began getting dark around 9:30 PM. Sitting out on our side deck enjoying the mountain views and listening to all the sounds – barnyard animals, birds, frogs, insects made me think about past Solstices, and I recalled my time living in Norway when it was still bright as day at 2 AM! Very different but both great experiences!

I like to celebrate my Northern European roots on the Solstices and usually we toast with a local sparkling mead. Unfortunately we were not able to find the mead yesterday, so we settled on Sah’tea by Dogfish Head Ales. I was drawn to the graphics on the label – as it features my favorite animal, the Reindeer. Sah’tea is based on a 9th century Finnish recipe, Sahti. It is brewed with rye and juniper berries. They break with tradition by adding chai tea at the end of the boil. The flavor of the ale was intense with the chai spices tickling the palette. The color was a darker amber than we are used to seeing in an ale. It is a very unique brew, not something I would want every day, but it was definitely a good choice for a celebratory meal!

As for the nibbles, we decided on an antipasti of sorts. For proteins we had prosciutto, fresh marinated anchovies, duck rilettes and 2 types of cheese – a raw cow’s raclette and a sheep’s milk Lancashire. We also had assorted olives, peppadew peppers (which were delicious stuffed with rilletes), artichoke hearts homemade pickles – daikon radish and carrots. For dessert we had fresh, local, organic strawberries with fresh whipped cream!

We had a great evening, enjoying our al fresco meal and ending the night by “tucking in” all the animals. It is quiet moments like this that make everything feel right in the world. Hope you enjoyed yours too!

Delicious Maple Smoked Bacon and Pork Loin

Before I get to the “meat” of my post, I want to give a great big THANK YOU to Rachel and the team from ThriftCultureNow.com for featuring me and this blog, as the Thrifty Blogger of the Week . You can follow them on facebook and get their Thrifty Tip of the day, on their facebook page I have to hand it to Rachel for painting me, the blog and our lifestyle in such a wonderful way. So please check out the article, and their website for more great info!

So last week, I shared with you a comprehensive post about breaking down a whole pig into useable parts, the genius of my friend Cole Ward, The Gourmet Butcher (who was also nice enough to give me a shout out on his blog, recently) and the making of fresh sausages.

This week in my Value Added Products class at Sterling College, our instructor, Chef Anne Obelnicki showed us about the art of curing, fermenting and smoking meats. We pretty much used up the rest of the pig yesterday. It was a long day – 10 hours of standing, cutting, simmering, mixing, grinding and stuffing in a hot and humid kitchen. I totally lost count of how many times I washed my hands in the first 5 minutes.  When I got home around 7, Roberto had dinner ready. I scarfed it down and went to bed shortly after. Dealing with a whole animal, even when you break it up into two days, is hard work, but it is also FUN. You get such a huge feeling of accomplishment from the whole process! Plus it is really fun working with a few other people feverishly to get it all done!

Yesterday we hot smoked the maple bacon and brined pork loins we started curing last week. We also smoked the hocks and the bones. Nothing on this pig went to waste. We trimmed the jowls to start curing guanciale and used the second shoulder to make fermented sausages – spicy sopressata and hunter’s loop. We also made another brine for the 2 hams – we injected the brine first and then placed the hams in the leftover brine to continue curing. These products will have to ferment and cure for several weeks, so I am not sure I will be able to taste the outcome. But the preparation was an education in and of itself, and has led to a lot more questions for me, mainly about the use of nitrites.

“Pink Salt”, spice blend for spicy sopressata and wood chips soaking

I guess it is a good thing that I don’t want to make sausages for a living, as Roberto and I have been avoiding foods with nitrites for several years now. I did a lot of reading this week about charcuterie, and it seems that if you are going to age anything that will not be cooked at some point, nitrites are used.  For example, you don’t need nitrites to cure bacon, since that will be hot smoked once it has cured. But you do use nitrites to make salami, sopressata and various other cured meats that will not be cooked.

Apparently nitrites are naturally occurring and can be found in dirt, rocks, etc as well in an abundance of vegetables, most notably beets and celery, which is what some producers of cured meats use in the place of “pink salt” ( “pink salt” is salt mixed with a smaller amount of powdered nitrites that is dyed pink so that you don’t sprinkle it on your eggs by mistake) when curing.  So even “Nitrate Free” foods still contain nitrites, even if it is just in the form of celery juice, because nitrites are naturally occurring.

Nitrites do two things when curing – preserves the food and contributes to aesthetics – namely color and taste. It reacts in the meat to form nitric oxide which retards rancidity and suppresses the growth of harmful bacteria, like the ones that cause botulism. However, nitrites react with amino acids in our digestive tract to create nitrosamines, known DNA-damaging chemicals.  Not only that, but you know it is harmful when it is suggested to use gloves when working with “pink salt” and other forms of curing salt. Yes, it is supposed to convert to something less harmful through the aging process, but can something like that ever be truly safe?

According to Harold McGee, the author of famed book : On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, “…yet at present there is no clear evidence that the nitrites in cured meats increase the risk of developing cancer…” yet he also exclaims in the same book when comparing the difference in taste between grass and grain-fed beef that “another important contributor to grass-fed flavor is skatole, which on its own smells like manure!” and also, “the saturated fats typical of meats raise blood cholesterol levels and can contribute to heart disease”. So personally, I think I will take his lax attitude towards nitrites with a grain of sea salt.

This issue of nitrites is something I definitely need to explore more. Like, is there a difference between naturally occurring nitrites, like celery juice and sodium nitrite which is added to many processed foods.  Luckily we don’t eat much cured meat or any processed foods.  Just bacon once a week…and our favorite prosciutto – Prosciutto di Parma which I also learned in the Harold McGee book,  is cured with sea salt not nitrites.

But the fact that an old and revered food art, like charcuterie has a long use of nitrites in its history is a little disheartening and I was pretty bummed to learn about it. I guess you can’t assume just because it is a traditional art, or because it is “natural” it is good for you.  I guess in the case of cured meats, it is the lesser of two evils – botulism or nitrites? I am not sure I like the odds.

If you have more information about nitrites, the differences (or NOT) between naturally occurring and things like “pink salt”, I want to hear about it! So please leave a comment.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I don’t mince words and I am passionate about local foods, homesteading and knowing where your food comes from. So here it is, in living color. If you are disturbed by these images all I can say is you should be more disturbed about what goes on in your local chain grocery or within the FDA and what they allow to go on in your local chain grocery store or CAFO farms where most of this country’s meat comes from.

For those of you who follow me on facebook, you know that last week I started my studies this week at Sterling College’s Vermont’s Table program. It is a mix of culinary arts, food entrepreneurship and agriculture studies. If you follow my farm blog, Got Goats? you will have read about my thoughts on Whole Farm Thinking and Traditional Farming methods and more on why I want to be a farmer.

Well yesterday was my first all day culinary course, Value-Added Products. It is all day on Thursdays and is a practical skills hands -on course. The day before I read several articles on charcuterie , the glories of sausage making and meat in general – how it is produced, the various muscles and how they develop into meat and primal and retail cuts.

Cole Ward

All that reading in no way replaces spending 4 hours with a real expert. Yesterday that expert was Cole Ward aka The Gourmet Butcher and a person that I am honored to know, learn from and be inspired by. Cole knows his stuff. He was recently featured in the book Primal Cuts, published by Welcome Books about the 50 best butchers in America. Cole has been a butcher for almost 50 years. He has seen the changes to the art of butchery over his long years of expertise, and frankly is not at all impressed by the current trends in butchery, especially that of grocery stores. If you haven’t seen his blog, I would suggest keeping an eye on it. He mentioned to us that he is going to be writing many more posts about what goes on behind the scenes in many grocery stores across the country that consumers really need to know about. Let’s just say he wouldn’t feed ground meat from the grocery store to his dog. Everyone who eats and buys meat needs to be informed.

Yesterday Cole was a guest teacher in our class of 5 students. We butchered a 270 lb local, pastured pig. He did the first half through demonstration, and then we, the students butchered the second half. I had the honor of butchering a lamb with Cole this past fall, and it was an unforgettable experience. If you want to learn from this master butcher, you can! He is holding a 2-day workshop at the end of the month . We will be butchering another pig and part of a beef cow. Participants will learn the skills, and the meat will be divided between all attendees. Lunch is included. This is a really great opportunity to learn more about the art of butchery from the best. Cole is immensely entertaining, un-untiringly patient and full of so much knowledge. He is a real integral figure in the local food movement and an ally to homesteaders and small farmers who really need a lot of help learning these skills. Simply put, Cole is AWESOME and deserves all the accolades one can muster.

Natural hog casings, ground sausage, pork shoulder with wine soaked cranberries and spices, grinding the sausage

After Cole left, we set up to process a lot of the meat. We were divided into two groups, and each group made one kind of sausage and set up curing another cut for smoking next week. My group cured the pork belly for maple bacon, and made a cranberry-sage link sausage, using natural hog casings. The other group made brine for the 2 loins and made Loukanika sausage, flavored with orange zest, bay and coriander. Next week we will focus on the smoking and make some other products.

Cranberry-Sage Sausage and  Loukanika Sausage

Roberto and I had the sausages for breakfast this morning and they were both delicious. We particularly liked the cranberry-sage and feel it complements a breakfast meal, perfectly. The rest of the sausages will be feeding the Sterling College population at their barbecue tonight for dinner. Since I live off campus, and don’t eat my meals there, I get to take home my portion.

We were on our feet for 8 hours, with a 40 minute break for lunch. It was a long day, but very satisfying. I loved the communal labor involved to turn what was essentially a freshly slaughtered animal into a variety of food items, in a short period of time.

One thing we did learn though, is, if you are ever in the market for a whole pig that you plan to butcher yourself, make sure you do not wrap it in plastic, until it has been cut up to your liking and going into the freezer. Our pig was delivered in plastic and because plastic makes the flesh sweat, we were not able to use the skin or the head and many of the exposed bones, because of the moisture, those areas were beginning to take on an unfavorable characteristic. So we had to take extra measures to clean the exposed surfaces of the pig with salt and also soak other parts in a salt water brine for several hours. Not to mention having to throw away nearly 30 lbs of what should have been useable stuff.

Many farms are new to farmshares, and sending out whole animals vs. nicely vacuum sealed pieces to their customers. This is information that years of industrial farming, and consumers buying meat at the grocery store, has allowed our culture to lose. But thankfully demand for whole animals, and on farm buying has gotten bigger in the past few years. This is a GOOD thing. But your farmer may not be used to it, and may appreciate a gentle reminder that whole animals should be wrapped in cheesecloth or paper. They would much more prefer you telling them this, than having dissatisfied customers on the other end.

(mom and me)

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

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

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

(Grain-Free Coffee Cake from The Spunky Coconut)

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

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

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

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

(Farmchic Tablescape)

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

Grain-Free Coffee Cake from The Spunky Coconut

Set oven to 325 F

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

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

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

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

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

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

I keep posting the last of my winter recipes in the hopes that I get them in before they are irrelevant. I think this is my last one! If you live in New England, this post will most likely hit the spot on a day like today. We woke up this morning to more snow, but now it has changed to rain. Mamma Nature sure is temperamental this time of year! She is as old as the dawn of time, so I imagine she has the right to her own ways of doing things!

This post is long overdue. In fact the meal graced our tables in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day or All Snakes Day, if you are of the Pagan persuasion. But there were some things I needed to get off my chest before I posted any more recipes. I am still really interested in people’s thoughts on sustainability, local foods, etc. So please feel free to get your two cents in on the comments on that post.

Anyway, for me March 17 is not a religious holiday at all. It is just a day where I can celebrate Irish culture and food, with millions of others of Irish decent all over the world! I love the picture above. In fact it makes me laugh. In the photo most of my ancestries are accounted for: Irish stout, served in a stein made in Germany that says Scotland on it! Pretty funny, right!?

Anyway, this was a really hearty and delicious meal. The stew was easy to put together. I browned the lamb cubes in coconut oil (my favorite oil to brown meat in, as it has a high smoke point and it seems to brown more evenly) in my cast iron skillet. I then deglazed the pan with about 1/3 cup of stout and cooked until the liquid evaporated. Then I drank the rest of it, while I cooked! I used Murphy’s Irish Stout. I am of the opinion that it is better than Guinness. I threw the meat in my tagine along with cubed turnips, chunks of carrots, onion and some garlic. I spiced it with salt and pepper, thyme and beau monde seasoning. I added a little more stout and put a few pats of butter on top. Then I cooked it at 350 F for about 2 hours. It came out super tender and extremely flavorful.

For the colcannon, I sautéed thinly sliced green cabbage in my cast iron skillet. I then added some cider vinegar, and put the lid on. I let it cook down for about for about 15 minutes over low heat. I had boiled 2 large potatoes earlier, which I mashed and stirred in with the cabbage along with a splash of cream and a nice healthy portion of butter, salt and pepper to taste, and serve. It was a wonderful side dish, which we really enjoyed.

The leftovers were even better the next day!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to everyone out there! This year I want to share with you my best Shepard’s Pie recipe to date. This dish is common in Ireland as well as Scotland and England, and it is very quick to throw together. So if you want to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but didn’t really plan for it, a Shepard’s Pie is perfect!

I have been working on this recipe for a while. Shepard’s Pie is one of the easiest dishes to make, and it is that very simplicity that makes it such a lure to me to perfect to our tastes. With such a short list of ingredients, the quality of those ingredients makes all the difference. The pie I made before this one was when I really understood that point. Since then, I have added a few other subtle flavors that really add something to the dish, without taking away from its intrinsic simplicity and classic taste.

This past fall Roberto and I butchered a lamb for our own consumption. I wish I had taken some pictures because I so wanted to post about the experience. But I was up to my elbows in the work at hand, and taking photos wasn’t too convenient. It was a wonderful experience and one I plan to do over and over again. I am a firm believer in educating oneself about where you r food comes from. This is why we grow our own, and buy from local farms. Butchering your own meat is about as close you can get to this philosophy.

The lamb and kidney that was used in this recipe is from that lamb we butchered. I know for me, it is hard to come by lamb kidneys, so you can omit this ingredient, but if you can find lamb kidney, I suggest you use it. It adds an amazing richness and earthiness to the pie, but it doesn’t scream OFFAL to your taste buds.

If you are looking for more recipes to celebrate St. Patrick ’s Day, please check out my Real Food St. Patrick’s Day Feast from last year, featuring Guinness Stew, Sautéed Cabbage in a Mustard Glaze, Brown Soda Bread and Guinness Ice Cream!

Slàinte Mhòr!

INGREDIENTS:

5 large potatoes, peeled and chopped into large chunks – I used Idahos
butter
cream
salt and pepper

2 TBS olive oil
¾ lbs ground lamb
¼ lb ground beef
1 lamb kidney, finely chopped
1 cup sautéed onions and shallot, mixed
1 clove garlic minced
1 cup chopped pickled carrots (you can use un-pickled as well)
1 tsp each dried sage, thyme and rosemary
1 tsp of beau monde seasoning http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-beau-monde-seasoning.htm
salt & pepper
1 ½ cup cup homemade gravy – beef or poultry (heat 1 1/4 cup of stock, add ¼ cup of stout beer or red wine and whisk in 3 TBS of arrowroot powder to thicken. Season with salt and pepper).
handful of corn
handful of peas
malt vinegar
extra butter to put in top before baking

METHOD:

Boil the potatoes until tender. Hand mash potatoes with butter and cream, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Prepare the gravy. Then set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Place ground lamb and beef, kidney, carrots, onion and garlic in a cast iron skillet. Cook over medium heat until eat begins to brown, and veggies start to soften. Then add your carrots, corn, peas, and spices. Mix together. Pour gravy over top, and stir. Dollop the mashed potatoes on top and spread evenly over the top of the other ingredients, dab with butter and sprinkle a hearty bit of malt vinegar over top for that real pub taste!

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until warmed through and potatoes become golden.

This post was contributed to Simple Lives Thursday.

It is a rare occasion, at least in most people’s households, to have leftover haggis. Well I found myself in this position recently after a very successful Burns Supper. Lucky for me, I have some awesome Caledonian friends and fellow bloggers that were able to help me out with this culinary quandary. My good friend Cat, who blogs at Kitty Cat’s Litertray explained to me that there are two popular ways to deal with the problem of leftover haggis – Haggis Pizza and Chicken Balmoral.

Now that I am 100% gluten-free and cannot enjoy my perfected sourdough spelt pizza right now, there has been very little pizza eaten in this house. As I mentioned in that post I have yet to find a delicious GF pizza crust…yet. So haggis pizza was clearly out.

Chicken Balmoral is a delicious dish, and really elevates haggis to a more modern culinary preparation. I actually feel very comfortable in saying that if you didn’t know it contained haggis, you would likely think you were eating a sausage stuffed chicken breast. The oats in the haggis are very creamy, and in this dish ads a bit of a “cheese vibe” to the stuffing. It is really a wonderful modern take on haggis, and I am pretty sure I enjoyed this dish when I was in Scotland many years ago as I was eating as much haggis as I could possibly stuff down my gullet.

Should have been a clue back then, of my Scottish lineage…

Chicken Balmoral is essentially chicken breast stuffed with haggis, wrapped in bacon – to keep it all together and drizzled with a whiskey cream sauce. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Yes indeed.

I found several recipes online, but this one, including a very helpful and instructional video is the one I followed.

I was in a bit of a rush when I made this, so I kind of winged the whiskey cream sauce. The only whiskey we have in this house are single malt scotches (I would say I am a bit of a budding connoisseur), so I used one of those, some butter, cream, salt and pepper. It was great, and I particularly enjoyed it the next day with the leftovers of this dinner, because I poured it over the leftover stuffed chicken and the neeps and tatties (aka “clapshot” ) the night before and it had the chance to sink in and saturate everything.

I am really enjoying my exploration into Scottish culture and history through the foods of that beautiful place in the world. I have found a lot of lovely dishes that are unique and tasty. I imagine this theme will continue on for quite a while!

Ith gu leòir! (Eat Plenty!)