Fall is certainly apple season. One of the ways I like to celebrate my favorite season, autumn is by picking apples and pumpkins. I know here in Northern Vermont, apple picking season is pretty much over, but for all of you in slightly warmer climates, you probably have abundance all around you right now.

I must admit, as I have before on this blog, that I have never been a huge fan of apples. I am not sure why. But I think maybe they are just too sugary sweet for my taste buds. Over the past few years, I have learned to really enjoy whole, fresh apples in savory applications like this Apple Chard Cheddar Tart, which we love making at this time of year, when all the ingredients are still in season, or how about a new take on pulled pork with an Apple Barbeque Sauce? I have another fresh apple recipe I will be sharing with you soon.

I also have come to really love dried apples. In fact, this is my favorite way to enjoy apples. I first made Roasted Pork Chops and Cherry Sauce with Wine Kraut and Red Cabbage last year for our Yule celebration, and this combination of roasted pork, cabbage and slices of dried apple have become a favorite meal of ours this fall season.

Generally, I just sear the chops in coconut oil, butter or bacon fat, and then put them in my tagine. Then I dump shredded cabbage, maybe some homemade sauerkraut, sliced onion and minced garlic and some strips of dried apple. I season this all with salt and pepper, some coriander and raw apple cider vinegar. I put it in the oven at 350 F, for about 2 hours. If you don’t have a tagine, you could use a Dutch oven. It is simple, yet super delicious and flavorful.

So as you can see, there are a lot of savory applications for apples. Since we use them now, I thought about drying some for use over the winter. Drying apples at home for winter storage is really easy. You don’t need any special equipment and all it takes is time.

We harvested about 12 lbs. of apples. I saved about a dozen for eating, and used the rest to make dried apples. I cut the apples in thin, round slices. Then I laid them out on cookie trays, being sure to give them space. When you oven dry fruit or veggies it is important they don’t touch. This helps them to dry better and more evenly.

The first batch I did at 200 F for about 2-3 hours. They didn’t really feel dry enough, so I put them in mason jars and stored them in the fridge for later use. For the second batch, I did about 3 hours. I wasn’t sure they were dry enough either, so I put them on a plate on my kitchen counter and covered them with a kitchen towel. I mixed them with my hands every day, and then put the towel back over them until they felt really dry – about a week. Use your own judgment here. If you have eaten dried apples before, you know what they are supposed to feel like, leathery and a bit sticky from the caramelized sugar.

I made about 4 trays of dried apples, which equates to about 6-7 pints.

We are really hoping to revitalize the apple trees we have here on the homestead, and maybe add a few more trees next year. I am really excited at trying my hand at hard cider and making my own raw apple cider vinegar. Dried apples also make a great DIY handmade holiday gift for the foodies in your life. In fact some of my loved ones may receive some in one form or another this year. That is, if I don’t eat them all myself, first!

Sometimes if I have a craving for something sweet, I reach for a slice of dried apple. Its concentrated sweetness kicks the craving, and all I need is one!

Equipment for Drying Apples at home:

*An oven set at 200 F
*Cookie sheets covered with parchment paper (makes it easier to remove the apples, the sugar tends to caramelize and stick to a naked tray)
*Plate and kitchen towel for extra air drying time
*Mason jars for storage

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!

This year we weren’t dreaming of a White Christmas, we were having one! We have had snow on the ground for the past month or so, and although it wasn’t snowing on Christmas, it was beautiful, picturesque and quaint here on the homestead. Perfect for my mom who is visiting from Florida and hasn’t had a White Christmas for several years.

Although I don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, many people we know do, so we incorporate it into the 12 Days of Yule which begin on December 20th and ends on January 1st. The twelve days of Yule kicks off on December 20th, the night before the solstice, with Mother’s Night where we celebrate the divine feminine and our long line of female ancestors. I like to spend this night baking cookies and preparing foods that were dear to my ancestors, celebrating the long line of people who have contributed to making me who I am. This year I made Pfeffernusse Shortbread cookies to honor my newly found German heritage.

We always celebrate December 24th by setting out an offering of cookies and milk or eggnog for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.
On December 25th we often have another feast dinner, a feast to share with family, having the same intensity of fanfare are the feast we have on the Winter Solstice. This year we had lamb. I have never been a fan of the Christmas Ham, and it has only been a few weeks since our last turkey feast. So for our own household tradition, we have lamb on this night.

This year’s lamb was a very special dish – it came from a lamb that Roberto and I butchered this fall. Since moving to Vermont we have bought meat very differently. We either buy whole animals locally or join farm meat CSAs. We have in our storage freezer, half a lamb, parts of a pig as well as beef, veal and poultry from our monthly CSA. This should get us through the winter, happy and deeply nourished.
For Christmas dinner we prepared the leg of lamb. I marinated it in a mixture of red wine, balsamic vinegar, yogurt, lemon juice and rosemary. I prepared it in my tagine and made a layer of fresh lemon slices on top. It was slow cooked at 350 F for 2 hours. Then I took the lid off to allow it to brown for about 15 minutes. We served it au jus. It was absolutely simple and the lamb was incredibly juicy and succulent.

We served it with glazed carrots and a brown rice risotto with fresh cranberries, wilted spinach, goat cheese and toasted pine nuts.
It was a wonderful evening spent with family. Hope that all of my readers who celebrate the winter holidays are having a most wondrous time with your dear ones!

Wishing you all health, happiness and love this coming year – and of course full bellies!

I can be honest with all of you, my dear readers, right? I mean food blogging is all about sharing recipes, cultures and traditions, right? Well I would like to share with you some of my food traditions for this time of year, which are a bit personal.

I celebrate Yule. Yule is the ancient celebration of the Winter Solstice, which generally falls between December 21-23. I am Pagan. Which means I have my own rich traditions for this deeply special and sacred time of year.

Winter Solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years, spanning many cultures. If most of us traced our family trees back far enough (and for some we might not have to go that far) we would likely find many ancestors who celebrated this feast of light – the return of the sun after the darkest times of the winter, when the days begin to lengthen. The ancient Romans knew the celebration as Saturnalia, the Hindus call it Diwali, the Jewish festival of light is called Hanukkah. For those of us who follow the pathways of our ancient Northern European ancestors, we call it Yule, Jul, or Jule.

Many traditions from lighted Christmas trees, to Yule logs and mistletoe are a part of this rich history and have influenced more modern winter holiday celebrations. These were all ways to celebrate the return of the sun and light after the bleak Northern winter. A time to celebrate brighter days ahead – hope for the future. There are still many of us today who continue these time-honored traditions.

In our home we celebrate by decorating 2 live trees – one outside with edible ornaments for the wildlife to enjoy and one indoors, potted that we can use year after year. We also burn a yule log, which is carefully chosen to represent maximum heat potential and longevity and then at midnight on the solstice we turn out all the lights for several minutes, and then turn them all back on to welcome the sun and the light.

In commemoration of this holiday, I also enjoy preparing a delicious feast. Isn’t that what all food obsessed people do? Did you know that the tradition of the Christmas Ham comes from ancient Scandinavians and Germanic peoples? The traditional meal for these proud people was a whole roasted hog, a tribute to the God, Frey, who is associated with boars.

This year I found out that I have some German and Scandinavian (Danish) roots of my own, and to celebrate this new-found heritage, and honor my ancestors, I decided to focus this Yule feast on those cuisines. Typical Jul fare in Denmark includes roast pork, potatoes and red cabbage. So I created a delicious Yule feast consisting of Roasted Pork Chops and Cherry Sauce with Wine Kraut, Red Cabbage and Mashed Purple Viking Potatoes with fresh local cream and butter.

For dessert we enjoyed a Deconstructed Brown Rice Pudding with Cherries. All washed down with some delicious local sparkling mead. (recipes below).

If you would like to celebrate the Winter Solstice and need some food for thought, here are some ideas from years past:

Norwegian Kjøttkaker med Brunsaus (spiced meatballs in gravy)

Norwegian Mulled Wine and Sweet Porridge

Winter Solstice Cocktail Party

Yule Log cake or Bûche de Noël

*******************************************************

THIS YEAR’S RECIPES:

Roasted Pork Chops and Cherry Sauce with Wine Kraut and Red Cabbage

2 large bone-in pastured pork chops

1 TBS wild game blend (juniper, savory, mustard, brown sugar)

3 ½ cups shredded red cabbage

4 slices of dried apple snipped into strips

salt & pepper

1 ½ tsp Beau Monde- allspice, bay, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, black and white pepper

1 pint homemade winekraut

for Cherry Sauce

1 cup 100% pure dark cherry juice

¼ cup fruity red wine

palmful of dried morello cherries (unsulphured, no sugar added)

½ tsp vanilla extract

black pepper to taste

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Season pork chops with wild game blend. In a large cast iron skillet sear pork chops on all sides in butter or bacon fat. In the bottom of a tagine or dutch oven, season the red cabbage with salt, pepper and beau monde. Place the chops on the cabbage and pour the winekraut over everything. Add the apple slices. Roast in oven for 2 hours.

After 1 ½ hours make the cherry sauce. In a small saucepan, mix all ingredients. Bring to a boil, over medium heat then reduce heat to low. Reduce the sauce until it is ½ of the original amount. Place in a small serving bowl for ladling on top of the pork. Serve with mashed potatoes. Serves 2.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

Deconstructed Brown Rice Pudding (no sugar added, egg and gluten free)

INGREDIENTS:

½ cup of almonds (I soak my almonds in water and salt overnight and then store in the freezer)

¼ cup dried morello cherries (unsulphured, no sugar added)

¼ cup dried wild blueberries (unsulphured, no sugar added)

½ cup water

1 cup cooked brown rice

½ cup whole milk (preferably raw)

1/3 cup 100% pure dark cherry juice

1 TBS pure vanilla extract

¼ cup Drambuie or brandy

METHOD:

Soak almonds one day ahead (optional). Soak cherries and blueberries in warm water for at least ½ hour. Also soak the rice in the milk. This will allow the berries to plump up and the rice to absorb some of the milk.

Right before serving, dump the berries and their soaking liquid in a small saucepan with the extra cherry juice, vanilla extract and booze. Heat up over medium heat, bring to a boil and then simmer until berries have soaked up most of the liquid.

To serve, pour the berry compote over the rice and milk mixture. Serves 2.

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

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

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

Tagine Pot Roast

INGREDIENTS:

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

METHOD:

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

*Disclaimer: Photos in this post are from the video camera – so excuse the quality!

Christmas dinner this year was a small family affair this year – just me, Roberto, my mom and the furry babies. Again I was looking for simplicity. Having just prepared the Feast of the Fishes the night before, I wasn’t feeling like spending hours in the kitchen, again, no matter how much I love cooking! But I did want something special and delicious. So I let my beloved Tagine do the work for me. We added a quick starter and easy side dish and called it dinner!

We started with a tortellini soup. This is something Roberto loves having every year around the winter holidays, because his Mamma used to make it every year this time of year. She uses beef broth in hers, but this year I used some more of my Thanksgiving turkey stock that was in the freezer. Basically I put 2 cups of stock and 1 cup of filtered water on the boil – and added a splash of white wine, some fresh thyme and salt and pepper. Once it came to a slow boil, I added a small package of tortellini. In about 3 minutes it was done. On top we grated some pecorino dolce, and called it the first course!

For the second course, on my mom’s suggestion, we prepared my Nana’s famous stuffed artichokes. You make a stuffing of fresh bread crumbs, Italian parsley, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and enough olive oil to make it come together. Season with salt and pepper. You then stuff the first several rows of outer leaves with the stuffing. Then place stuffed artichokes in a pan with about an inch of water and some fresh squeezed lemon juice. Bring to a boil, lower the temp, put the lid on, and let steam for about 45 minutes. I hadn’t had these in years, and they were so good! I really should make them more often.

For the main course, I wanted something festive, that wasn’t turkey, since we had just roasted one a few weeks ago, for Thanksgiving. I saw some lamb at the store – which is a rarity in these parts, so I picked up a few packages of chops (and some for stew, later). I marinated the lamb chops in a healthy drizzle olive oil, splash of red wine, fresh thyme, and a splash of balsamic. I wanted to serve the chops with our favorite vegetable side – roasted carrots and potatoes! So I chopped 5 potatoes and 6 carrots in large chunks, drizzled them with olive oil and placed them on the bottom of the tagine. I arranged the chops on top, poured the rest of the marinade on top and put on the lid. I placed the tagine in a 350 F oven and cooked it for 1 ½ hours. I didn’t even need to add any liquid. The meat came out falling off the bone.

For dessert it was leftover Pandoro from our trifle the night before. We had a nice and relaxing time – a delicious and festive meal without too much time in the kitchen!

Since seeing the movie Julie & Julia, and just poking around the blogosphere the past few weeks, I have seen a lot about Beef Bourguignon. All of which I like. I have never made Beef Bourguignon, and so I wanted to give it a shot with the rest of my blogging buddies. Unfortunately at the 11^th hour I realized that I didn’t have bacon, or pearl onions, or Burgandy wine. Although I thought I was clever and had that part covered, I was even going to call this post Leftover Beef Zinfandel to be cute – cause I was using leftover (surprise, surprise!) veggies in my recipe! And Zinfandel instead of Burgundy. But much to my dismay and missing key ingredients, not even that was going to fly. So I turned my defeat around, and instead decided to make a fabulous leftover beef stew.

Now the popovers are a whole other good story. My mom was visiting and we were going to a kitchen outlet so I could finally purchase a Cuisinart stick (immersion) blender. How I survived this long without one, will likely never be fully understood. However, she was also thinking about purchasing a popover pan. She said popovers go really well with Beef Bourguignon (at this stage, I thought I was going to be making my cutesy Beef Zinfandel). But instead I swayed her to get a cast iron skillet.

Later back at my house, I was opening up my new baby (the stick blender) and noticed it came with a recipe book. In the recipe book was a recipe for POPOVERS! So it was a sign that we needed to make popovers to accompany this meal. Not only that, but this recipe said to make them in muffin pans! Which we had! Hooray! Something was finally going my way!

Back to the stew. I have been loving my crock pot recently, and have been using it as a receptacle for every leftover, adding broth and calling it stew. So I thought about using it to make this stew. But I felt that this needed to be special, and I really love how nice and browned everything gets in the tagine.

So I opted to use that.

I still browned the cubes of meat before putting them in the tagine – so that was my little nod to Beef Bourguignon!

As the stew was cooking away in the tagine the popovers were being made. And you know what? The combination was indeed fantastic! Yes, I still want to make Beef Bourguignon, and I am sure I will, but a dolled up beef stew with leftover roasted veggies, and popovers is pretty darned tasty!

Leftover Beef Stew

INGREDIENTS:

2 cup grass fed beef cubes

flour

olive oil

8 oz. Portobella mushrooms, chopped

6 carrots, peeled and chopped

½ large white onion, chopped

¾ cup of homemade chicken stock

¾ cup red zinfandel( I used Ravenswood)

1 TBS each of fresh thyme and rosemary

3-4 cups of leftover roasted veggies (carrots, turnips, potatoes, green beans, etc) – if you don’t have leftover veggies, that is OK, you can just as easily add raw veggies to your pot, trust me, they will cook up just fine!

METHOD:

This recipe can be made in a stew pan, stovetop or a tagine or dutch oven in the oven. Preheat oven to 400F. Dust beef chunks with flour and brown in a pan until caramelized on the outside. Remove from pan and set aside. Add mushrooms to the pan, and stir around until all the juices from the beef have been sucked up by the mushrooms. Drizzle bottom of cooking vessel with olive oil. Add the beef, and mushrooms. Add the stock and wine, and fresh herbs. Let sit for about 5 minutes. Then add the other veggies. Cook in a 400 F oven for about 2 hours. Let sit with lid on for about 30 minutes out of the oven before serving.

Popovers

(From Cuisinart Stick Blender Recipe Book)

INGREDIENTS:

¾ cup of unbleached all purpose flour

¾ cup of milk (I used goats milk – that is what we had)

2 large eggs

1 TBS melted butter

½ tsp salt

butter for greasing muffin pans

METHOD:

Place ingredients in the mixing beaker (you can use a bowl). Place the stick blender in the mixing beaker (you could use and hand blender and a bowl). Blend using a gentle up and down motion, until batter is blended and completely homogeous, smooth and creamy. Cover batter and let rest for 30-40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450 F. Grease 6 muffin cups (½ cup size) and then divide batter evenly among the prepared cups (mine filled each cup to the top). Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Do not peek or disturb, or the popovers might fall. Lower the heat (without opening the oven) to 375 F for another 20 minutes. Remove the pans and remove popovers from the pans and prick with a fork to allow steam to escape and prevent them from becoming soggy. Serve immediately.

]]> http://www.leftoverqueen.com/2009/10/12/not-beef-bourguignon-in-my-trusty-tagine-with-popovers/feed 36 http://www.leftoverqueen.com/2009/09/21/maple-glazed-chicken-with-roasted-garlic-and-lemon-and-creamy-fennel-soup http://www.leftoverqueen.com/2009/09/21/maple-glazed-chicken-with-roasted-garlic-and-lemon-and-creamy-fennel-soup#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:23:09 +0000 The Leftover Queen http://www.leftoverqueen.com/?p=2323 Pin it

Today I am going to share with you two recipes, each one, from my favorite cookbooks of the moment: Dishing Up Vermont: 145 Authentic Recipes from the Green Mountain State and  Nourishing Traditions . First I must apologize for the lack of “finished product” pictures. We were so hungry, and it smelled so good, that we forgot to take any pictures of the plated dishes!!!

Even though it is still in the high 80′s and 90′s here in Florida (and we have been dealing with a broken AC for almost a week), we did have a few cooler days in the past few weeks. My internal clock is abuzz with massive autumnal cravings, so on those days I know I have to take advantage of the cooler temperatures to cook up some delicious fall fare. This is my absolute favorite time of year to cook!

As my internal clock made the shift from summer to autumn, I began searching through my favorite cookbooks looking for inspirational meals, that are on the cusp of the seasons. This Maple Glazed Chicken with Roasted Garlic and Lemon Puree, definitely fit the bill. Roasted chickens and maple always remind me of fall in New England, whereas the lemon adds a summery note. I also opted for a creamy Fennel Soup – fennel has a bright anise note, yet it is also a bulb, which reminds me of hearty autumn foods.

Both dishes were quite easy to make. I decided to forego the method for the chicken in the cookbook, and instead roast it up in my tagine. If you don’t have a tagine, you can certainly use a cast iron dutch oven, or heavy roasting pan. As a last resort, you could even use a baking dish. I took a short cut with the method because I didn’t have a lot of time to brine the bird, and do all the pan sauteeing and oven baking that recipe required. Plus the tagine has never failed me when it comes to roasting chickens. Although I will be making this dish again, and according to the recipe at some point, because the flavors were outstanding – sweet, tart and garlicky, all noticeable in their own right, yet completely perfect in unison. Plus the cooking methods in the original recipe, sounds really good, so I am sure it will be excellent!

The fennel soup was also delicious. A simple combination of fennel, leeks and potatoes blended together to make a super creamy dish – without cream. I used some of the chicken stock I made a few weeks back as the base. It was really delicious. We enjoyed it for lunches for several days last week as well. With no AC I even had it several times cold, and it was really quite nice.

Maple Glazed Chicken with Roasted Garlic and Lemon Puree

Recipe adapted from Dishing Up Vermont

INGREDIENTS:

2 garlic heads

olive oil for drizzling

4 TBS fresh lemon juice

salt and pepper

2 TBS fresh sage

pinch of crushed chili pepper

1 (3 lb) chicken

1 TBS olive oil

2 TBS pure maple syrup (preferably from Vermont!)

fresh cracked pepper

salt

a few spare potatoes (optional)

white wine (optional)

METHOD:

Prepare the puree. First, preheat the oven to 450F. Cut the tops off the garlic heads, and drizzle exposed tops with olive oil, 2 TBS of lemon juice – then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap heads in foil and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes. Remove the garlic from the oven and let cool sightly.

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Squeeze garlic cloves into a food processor. Be careful not to let any of the papery skin drop in. Add the fresh sage, crushed chili pepper, maple syrup, remaining 2 TBS of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and puree.

Wash the chicken and lift the breast skin away from the meat. With your fingers, spread 1/3 of the puree in between the skin and the meat. Then rub the remaining puree all over the outside of the bird.

I knew this sauce was going to be crazy good, so I chopped a few fingerling potatoes to place under the bird in the tagine. This was a good call, because those potatoes were some of the best I have ever had!

Cook bird in tagine (or cast iron dutch oven, or heavy roasting pan or baking dish) for about 2 hours. Check every half hour for dryness. If needed, splash bird with some white wine (if using a glass baking dish, make sure the wine is room temp, or else you might have an explosion on your hands!).

The recipe says it serves 4. I must say, the leftovers make an incredible classic chicken salad!

*************************************************

Fennel Soup

Recipe Adapted from Nourishing Traditions

INGREDIENTS:

3 fresh fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced

2 leeks, trimmed and sliced (make sure you thoroughly wash the leeks – they are famous for hoarding sand and dirt)

2 TBS fresh cultured butter

2 TBS olive oil

½ cup white wine (optional)

4 cups chicken stock

3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

6 medium red potatoes, cut into quarters

sea salt

fresh cracked pepper

METHOD:

Cook fennel and leeks in butter and olive oil until tender. Add stock and optional wine. Bring to a boil. Add potatoes, crushed pepper and garlic. Cover and simmer until potatoes are soft – about a ½ hour.

Puree soup with a hand held blender, or using your food processor. You can puree it all, or leave some vegetables whole for texture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 6.

]]> http://www.leftoverqueen.com/2009/09/21/maple-glazed-chicken-with-roasted-garlic-and-lemon-and-creamy-fennel-soup/feed 38 http://www.leftoverqueen.com/2009/03/18/buffalo-stewyou-guessed-it-in-a-tagine http://www.leftoverqueen.com/2009/03/18/buffalo-stewyou-guessed-it-in-a-tagine#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:59:06 +0000 The Leftover Queen http://www.leftoverqueen.com/?p=1744 Pin it

Since the Beef Stew worked so well in the tagine, I decided to do another stew using one of my favorite red meats, buffalo. I had gotten a pound of buffalo stew meat from Whole Foods and decided to really stretch it by adding carrots, frozen peas, potatoes, onions and garlic. Most of you are already familiar with my tagine cooking methods, but for those of you just tuning in all you do is throw everything right in the tagine and cook for 2 hours at 350 F, stirring once and checking for liquid about halfway through.

Again it came out perfect, the meat was super tender and the veggies were as well. Plus this method of cooking really brings out the natural sweetness in carrots, so I find myself trying to sneak them into all the tagine dishes I make! If you do not have a tagine, I still recommend making a stew with buffalo! It is wonderful and so good for you!

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb of buffalo stew meat
2 TBS olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp cumin and smoked paprika
Worcestershire sauce – a few hearty drizzles
2 large carrots, sliced
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 an onion, chopped
5 small red potatoes, diced
1 large tomato, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Drizzle bottom of tagine with the olive oil. Place meat on top and season it with all the spices. Drizzle some Worcestershire sauce on top. Add all the veggies and then drizzle again with a little more Worcestershire sauce. Throw the lid on the tagine and cook for an hour. Then stir tagine and check to make sure it is not getting too dry. In this case, I found there was sufficient liquid. Then cook for another hour. Serve and enjoy! Serves @ 4.

Yes, fine, I am officially tagine obsessed. I know. But what can I say? I am one of those people who really hates doing a lot of dishes. I like to cook with as little mess as possible and so I am highly attracted to one-pot dishes and the tagine is the king of one pot meals. I can’t really say enough about this cooking vessel – everything I have put into it has always come out amazingly tender and full of flavor. I mean just look at this bone – there is not a scrap of meat left on it, and I just pulled it right out.

Tagine cooking is perfect for the busy people and families. Since Roberto and I have been on a health kick this year, we are spending many evenings out exercising and so when we get home, we want something that is healthy and filling and delicious, AND QUICK that doesn’t require a lot of slaving over the stove – because some nights, I don’t have the energy to lift a spoon!

So with the tagine, I can put everything in it, cook it for an hour before we leave, and then turn it off while we are gone. Come home turn the stove back on, and by the time we are showered and ready to eat, the food is done! It is like a slow cooker, without the chord.

So this time I decided to do some pork in there, slow cooker style, to see if the tagine would be a good candidate for making pulled pork in the future. After this experiment, I would say it is. This stewed pork dish with beans was delicious and hearty. The meat literally just fell off the bone. Perfect after working out or on a cold evening to warm up.

I served this up with some awesome Bubbly Beer Bread by Zesty Cook

Again, I mixed the dry ingredients for the bread before we went to work out, and then added the beer when we got home and threw it in the oven with the tagine. I was a delicious and slightly sweet bread. Perfect with soups and stews.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 lbs pork country ribs

1 tsp of each:
cumin
coriander
paprika
New Mexico green chile powder

1 can of pinto beans
2 large carrots, cut up
1/2 of a huge sweet potato, cut up
1/2 a bottle of beer
bottom of a bottle of ketchup (poured beer in the bottle and shook it up to get the remaining ketchup out)
dollop of BBQ sauce
drizzle of pure maple syrup

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Rub the pork with the spices, and place the pork in the bottom on the tagine. Add the beans, carrots and sweet potato, drizzle veggies with maple syrup and pour the beer, ketchup and BBQ sauce over top of everything. Cook for 2 hours, after one hour, stir contents and add more liquid – either more beer or water if it is getting dry.

I am lucky enough to be part of a great little local ladies supper club. I was introduced to this club, and great group of women by my friend Erin (that’s her there in the front, striking a pose in the little dress) of The Olive Notes. I met Erin through the world of blogging, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that she and her husband Chris live about 10 minutes away from us. They have a great group of friends here in Saint Augustine, that have really welcomed Roberto and I since we moved here.

Well the ladies in this circle of friends started an awesome supper club. There are eight of us currently, and we all get together each month. It is kind of a dress up event. Sometimes people just show up in jeans and a nice shirt, which is totally allowed, but there are also party dresses and high heels. It is a very girly event – and no boys allowed!

We all take turns hosting, and each month, the hostess gets to pick the theme, then everyone brings a dish to add to the dinner. We always have a welcome cocktail and appetizer to start, which usually finds us all in the kitchen chatting, laughing and catching up with each other. Then we move on to the table and have soup or salad, and then the main course with a vegetable side and a starch side. There is always wine to accompany the meal, and of course we end with something sweet. It is always a great night and something we all really look forward to each month.

Well this past Friday, it was my turn to host – and so I chose a Moroccan theme. For one, a lot of my table decor has a North African/ Middle Eastern flair to it, and the cuisine is one of my favorites….plus, did you know I recently got a Tagine!?? LOL!

This supper club was a huge success – the food was delicious and we ended the night by working off some of that food with a little belly dancing! I have a lot of music from this region of the world, and all of the ladies know I used to belly dance, so they asked for me to bring out all my gear and show them some moves. We all got down, and it was a wonderful time! Good music, good friends, good times.

But I know that you are all here for the food, so here we go – We started with Moroccan Pomegranate Martinis – fresh lemon and lime juice mixed with vodka, POM Wonderful and simple syrup.

The appetizer was a Spiced Moroccan Carrot Dip – with fresh cilantro, and green olives, served with pita bread.

We started at the table with a wonderfully spiced Harira (traditional soup of Morocco. It is usually eaten during dinner in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to break the fasting day ).

For the main dish, I did a Vegetable Tagine overloaded with fresh acorn squash, chick peas, onions and kale, dotted with prunes and topped with sliced almonds. There was fresh flat bread and a delicious vegetable curry to go with it, and for dessert,

the Moroccan pièce de la résistance – M’hanncha -”The Snake” (although it kind of broke in the revelry!) – which was very reminiscent of baklava.

Everything was wonderful and I had a great time hosting these lovely ladies!
Click through for the Vegetable Tagine recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

2 acorn squash
olive oil
cider vinegar
salt & pepper

2 1/2 cups of chickpeas that have been soaked over night.
1 large bell pepper – any color, sliced
1 large onion, sliced

1 TBS of sambal belacan (Malaysian version of harissa given to me by my good friend Dharm)
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil

about 1/2 to 1 tsp of each:
tumeric
coriander
cumin
smoked paprika
saffron
cinnamon

salt & pepper
clove of garlic, sliced very thin
splash of red wine

4 cups of greens – I used kale

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut acorn squash in half and place in a baking dish filled with an inch of water. Cook for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Peel and slice. Place in a large bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, splash of vinegar and salt and pepper and let marinate for about an hour.

Slice, the pepper and onion and place in another large bowl with the soaked chick peas.

In a small bowl mix together the sambal belacan, cider vinegar, olive oil, and spices, garlic and red wine. Mix together and pour over the chick pea mixture. Let marinate for one and a half hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Pour chickpea mixture into tagine, and then pour the acorn squash over top. Let cook for one hour. After an hour, remove tagine lid, stir contents and add half of the greens. Cover again and cook another 40 minutes. Lift lid and add the rest of the greens, cook for another 20 minutes. Serve with couscous.

So of course after receiving all those wonderful products from FromTheFarm.com I was inspired to start experimenting with them right away.

Santa Sweet Grape and Ugly Ripe Heirloom Tomatoes

Santa Sweet, the name of the company is also the name of the seed variety of this original grape tomato. The company owns the particular seed variety along with the Ugly Ripe heirloom variety seeds. Therefore they are the first company to bring the grape tomato to the United States. Any other company who sells “grape tomatoes” and are not Santa Sweet- their seeds are a cousin of the original. These grape tomatoes are super sweet and very pop-able. Children love their shape and taste. The Ugly Ripe tomatoes are reminiscent of a delicious tomato fresh from my grandfather’s backyard garden. They may be ribbed and bumpy, but their flavor is delicious and full of pure tomato flavor. Perfect to eat like an apple, or chopped in salads.

I live with a “tomato connoisseur” who just fell in love with both of these varieties of tomatoes. So much so, that all we really did with them was make wonderfully simple salads dressed with balsamic vinegar and and extra virgin olive oil.

My favorite salad was these dressed tomatoes over a bed of spicy organic arugala, mixed with a nice ripe avocado and some smoked cheddar cheese. It was like summer in a bowl. We ate these kinds of salads for 3 days straight!

FromTheFarm.com offers a Tomato Variety Pack that includes 6 Ugly Ripe tomatoes and 2 pints of Santa Sweet Grape tomatoes!

********************************************************************************

Sierra Olive Oils and Spice Packets

So everyone has been asking to see how I roast a chicken in my tagine. I love my tagine and I try to come up with as many uses for it as possible. I am a huge fan of roasted chickens, and I usually roast one or two a month and I always make soup from the carcass. So when I got my tagine as a present, I did an experiment and roasted a chicken in it. As with anything you put in a tagine, the chicken came out super tender and falling off the bone – with no basting or liquid necessary. You literally throw it in the tagine, and throw the tagine in a 350 F oven and cook for about 1 1/2 hours. That is it!

This time, I decided to rub my delicious organic roaster with Sundried Tomato and Basil Olive Oil from Sierra Olive Oils. The company had also sent me a variety of spice packets used for dips (which are not available yet, but will soon be), but I thought it would be fun to try one as a rub for the chicken, so I chose the garlic variety.

I had some leftover fresh fennel that I stuffed the bird with. It came out perfectly delicious. Served with peas, it was a delicious and homey dinner, and almost too easy to make!