Shepard’s pie has got to be one of the most comforting meals around. I love this dish, and this is THE BEST one I have ever made. The most rewarding thing for me, since I have started cooking exclusively with Happy Meat, and local and organic vegetables, is when I make simple dishes like this, that I have always loved and made a billion times before, and realize how much better it tastes when you are using the freshest and best ingredients you can find.

Ingredients really do matter – not just in terms of health, but also in terms of taste. It really does take it up to a whole new level. I can attest to this, because even Roberto, can taste the difference. He will marvel at how good it tastes, and wonder how it can be so, since I used the same ingredients – and then he will realize that it is because the quality of the ingredients have changed since the last time I have made this. Lately he has been saying that everything I cook is the best thing he has ever tasted! Now, I know I am a good cook, but I can’t take all the credit.

Making a dish like Shepard’s pie, doesn’t take much effort – and the cost is minimal – even when you use the best of ingredients. All it costs you is about 10 – 15 minutes of prep time. The rest of the work is done in the oven, or on the stovetop, where you don’t have to do anything, but smell how good it is!

This meal is less than $3 per person – and that is with a hefty man-sized portion. Less than a fast food meal, or something out of a box or a bag – way better for you too, and I guarantee a thousand times tastier. Even your kids will love this one! This meal can serve six, but Roberto and I ate half each – divided over 2 meals – and that was under $3 per serving. Seriously.

Treat yourself to something good and hearty tonight!

INGREDIENTS:

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

8 oz. of reserved potato water
1 tsp better than bouillon, beef
(or you can use 8 oz. Homemade beef stock)
splash of wine or stout beer
1 TBS non-GMO cornstarch

1 lb of grassfed ground beef
2 carrots, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 small onion peeled and cut into small chunks
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 cup of mixed leftover roasted potatoes (sweet and white)
handful of corn
handful of peas
sage
thyme
salt & pepper
Malt vinegar

METHOD:

Boil the potatoes until tender. Reserve 8 oz.of potato water. Hand mash potatoes with butter and cream, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

If using better than bouillon instead of homemade, in a small saucepan, mix potato water and bouillon, and stir together. Heat over medium, and add a splash of red wine, or stout. Whisk in 1 TBS of corn starch, and keep whisking over heat until gravy thickens. Then set aside.

In a cast iron skillet place ground beef, carrots, onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat until eat begins to brown, and veggies start to soften. Then add your leftover veggies, corn, peas, and spices. Mix together. Pour gravy over top, and stir. Then dollop the mashed potatoes on top and spread evenly over the top of the other ingredients. Sprinkle a hearty bit of malt vinegar over top for that real pub taste!

Enjoy!

I have been playing with baking a lot lately. For a long time “carbs” and “grains” meant the same thing to me, in my mind. I don’t know why, but I blame the media and the “low carb craze”. So basically I have stopped listening to the media when it comes to my food choices and eat what feels the best to me, which has taken quite a bit of research and time. I recently took a DNA test, which I may talk about more on here (if you are facebook friends with me, I will be updating my results soon!), but the results showed that I had a low genetic probability to Celiac’s Disease, answering a question I have wondered about for nearly a decade.

However, just because I don’t have Celiac’s Disease doesn’t mean that wheat doesn’t affect me. For the past several months I have been soaking my flour in an acid, like whey, or homemade kefir or buttermilk for 24 hours before baking. I do this in order to break down the phytic acid that is in wheat, which makes wheat hard to digest for many people. I have found this to be very helpful with regard to the effects on my body that I usually attribute to wheat – like a “carb coma”. So recently I was looking through Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, to see what recipes they had for bread, and I found a recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits. I was very excited.

I was recently able to procure some Gjetost – a Norwegian brown cheese, commonly known as Brunost, which means “Brown Cheese”. It is generally a goat’s milk cheese (but there are cow, and mixed versions as well). Brunost is made by boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugar into caramel which gives the cheese its characteristic taste. It is the most amazing cheese in the world. My favorite, and one that I ate several times a day when I lived in Norway. I used to love it on bread for breakfast and lunch, or on waffles, with a little raspberry jam for dessert. I thought these biscuits, slightly sweet, would be the perfect vehicle to eat this cheese, and I was right! They are also good with another Norwegian favorite (and one of mine) smoked salmon.

I really love the dough – it smells amazing and is a dream to work with. I have made these biscuits twice in the past week, and the second time, they were even better. I used the Parmigiano Reggiano Butter I talked about in my last post and it made so much difference. I also made sure the dough was thick enough when rolled out, and used a larger glass to cut them out – which made the resulting biscuits much more tender.

They are simple to make and delicious. Your house will smell like a bakery all day. I happened to have people come over in the evening both of the days that I baked them, and they both asked what I had been baking. So yeah, they are amazing. Try them today – and if you can find some brunost, slice some very thinly on top, using a cheese slicer and place a dollop of jam on top, and you will be in heaven.
I promise.

Buttermilk Biscuits
from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Makes about 1 dozen

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of unbleached white flour
2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole wheat flour
1 cup buttermilk
4 TBS melted butter
1 ½ tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking soda
unbleached white flour

METHOD:

Mix flour with buttermilk and mix to form a thick dough. Cover and leave in a warm place (countertop) for 12 to 24 hours. Place in a food processor with the other ingredients, and process several minutes to knead. Remove dough to a well-floured pastry cloth or board and sprinkle with unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. Roll dough out to ¾ inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a glass and place on buttered baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes (my biscuits baked in about 15-20 minutes, so keep an eye on them!)

A few weeks ago, I got a nice package in the mail from Tropical Traditions. They are doing a giveaway this month on The Foodie Blogroll, and as the creator of that community, I often receive some nice perks for putting these giveaways on for the community. One of the delicious coconut items in the package was a bag of coconut flour (to see all the items, and for a chance to win them, click here). I was really excited to see coconut flour included in the package, as I have been working with a variety of Gluten Free and Grain Free flours lately.

I had some chicken tenderloins in the fridge, and thought it would be fun to make Coconut Chicken Tenders. I always have a bag of dessicated coconut in the pantry, and so with an egg I was ready to go.

I served it with a potato puree that I made in my Vitamix. I had intended to make mashed potatoes, but those blades are certainly powerful! So mashed becomes pureed! The puree turned out delicious and udderly (pun intended) creamy – a perfect accompaniment to the chicken.

I used a special butter in the puree. Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter is made from the cream left over from Parmigiano Reggiano cheese production. It is a delicious, delicate and flavorful butter – with a Parmigiano Reggiano quality to it. If you happen upon some, it is worth trying. It is certainly not local to me, but the quality of Italian dairy products is known the world over.

Coconut Chicken Tenders

INGREDIENTS:

6 chicken tenderloins

1 egg, scrambled

1/8 cup coconut flour

¼ cup dessicated coconut

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Rinse and pat dry the chicken tenderloins. Dip them in the egg, and then the mixture of the flour and coconut. Place them on a cookie sheet and cook for 25 minutes – turning halfway through. Serve with potato puree.

Potato Puree

INGREDIENTS:

4 Idaho potatoes, boiled until soft

1- inch slice of Delitia Parmigiano Reggiano Butter

dash of heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Place all the ingredients in the Vitamix, and blend until smooth.

Brunello di Montalcino is a very special wine variety made in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is known the world over as being a very good wine. Our friends Erin and Chris, who lived for a year in Florence, had a bottle that they wanted to share with us. They had fond memories of a night in Florence that they spent with friends savoring a bottle of this wine, and wanted to spend another evening like that with us! So of course we were game and very excited to taste wine from a very different bracket than what we are used to.

Since they were bringing such a nice bottle, I offered to find some tasty morsels to go along with the wine, so we could have a proper Aperitivo – or the Italian version of Happy Hour! If you would like to learn more about Aperitivo, please check out Ms. Adventures in Italy. Sarah has a great passion for Aperitivo and has great tips on how you can have your own – or where to go for the best ones in her hometown of Milano!

I knew this was a special wine, so I enlisted the help of a professional to come up with food ideas to compliment it. With the help of my buddy, Vince DiPiazza (no known relation – though I am sure there is one somehow, not many of us DiPiazza’s in the world) from D’Italia – an online specialty store of food products from Italy, we came up with a menu of aperitivi, or small plates:

Variety of cheeses of different flavor profiles served with Rosemary Grissini and Garbanzo Crackers

Parmigiano-Reggiano is Italy’s most famous cheese, known as Parmesan in the English language. We know it well as a cheese for grating on top of pasta. However, if you eat it in cubes, it is a whole other experience. The cheese is made from raw cow’s milk, it is then put into a brine bath for 20-25 days to absorb salt, and then aged for 12 months. My favorite part (and Erin’s too) are the little crunchies you get in a good Parmigiano – the crunchies are bits of crystallized salt.

Morbier is a raw cow’s milk cheese from France. It is a Gruyère-like cheese with a vein of ash running through its middle. The two layers of the cheese originally came from two milkings, one in the morning and one in the evening, over it with a protective thin layer of tasteless ash, both to prevent it from both drying out and to keep away the flies. The next day, they would add the leftover curd from the morning milking and production. The result was a two-layered cheese.

Goat Fromage Blanc is from a batch of the pasteurized goat milk cheese that I made recently. I added some basil and a little dried dill – as well as a few sun-dried tomatoes (Vince said they pair well with Brunello) stirred in.

Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar is one of our favorite cheeses, and we decided to add it at the last minute. It never tastes the same from one batch to the next. It is the cheese variety that Cabot used to sell to hunters and truckers…on their way out of town. Chris said it tasted like ham to him, which as a vegetarian, was a weird experience. This cheese is amazing paired with a sweet bread and butter style pickle.

Miscellaneous Treats

Sautéed Mushrooms
Hummus
Assorted Nuts
Assorted Olives
Pickles

Dessert

French Truffles
Chocolate covered mint cremes

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

The Tasting :

When Erin and Chris arrived we opened the bottle to give it about 20 minutes to breathe. We decided to do the tasting in two stages, the first without food, and then one with food. We each had a piece of paper and a pen. We spent about 5-10 minutes sniffing and tasting the wine, and individually writing our impressions of both the nose and the taste without sharing.

NOSE:

Erin: cheese – brie, sweet chocolate, metal
Chris: robust, dank – wet wood or earth, finishes smoky
Roberto: cherries
Jenn: woody, tannins, blackberry/cherry

TASTE:

Erin: milk chocolate, cheddar, old smoke – like what your clothes smell like after a BBQ or fire
Chris: pungent, truffles, finishes with citrus (mild burn, fruity end) and something like ginger, but not quite ginger
Roberto: old fermenting cherries, blueberry and ends with citrus
Jenn: black pepper, herbal/smoky, cherry

After we shared our observations, we found it interesting that both the guys had noticed a citrus end, while the ladies had both noticed a smoky taste. Is it coincidence, or do males and females taste wine differently?

Once we headed over to the food, and had a second glass with food, we all agreed that the wine tasted much sweeter, and it was at that point that Erin and I noticed a bit of a citrus taste.

It was a really fun night. I can’t say that I have ever really enjoyed wine in this way, and I think it is a really great way to spend the evening with friends. We decided we had so much fun, that we definitely need to do it again, with different wines and food pairings.

Well I have been up to a little kitchen experimentation, lately. First I wanted to tackle another batch of Fromage Blanc made with goat milk. The last time I made it , after draining it for 12 hours, I gave the cheese cloth a bit of a heavy handed squeeze which resulted in a dry and crumbly sort of cheese. I liked it. It was good for stirring in eggs and other dishes. However this time I was hoping to yield a softer more spreadable cheese. Basically I followed the same procedure as last time , except that I used pasteurized goat milk, instead of raw, let the cheese drain for about 15 hours (instead of 12) and did not squeeze the bag. It came out perfectly! Wonderful and creamy and perfect to spread on crackers…except there were no crackers!

That was an easy fix. I have been wanting to play with some of the recipes from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. Jeff and Zoe, along with Monica from their publishing company, St. Martin’s Press, are generously hosting 2 months of giveaways of this book on Foodieblogroll.com! I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the book from Monica and really wanted to get baking. I was particularly interested in the gluten-free breads. So I was delighted to find a gluten free version of the Olive Oil bread, I use so often from their first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. The gluten free recipe called for soy flour, and I have a soy sensitivity and I didn’t have rice flour on hand either. So I decided to make a modified version, using what I had available – since I really wanted to enjoy some cheese & crackers.

These crackers are not gluten free, but what I call transitional crackers. Although you could make them gluten free by using rice flour in place of the WW flour. I used kefir and raw apple cider vinegar to soak local whole wheat Vermont flour – from a farm we visited in Vermont this fall and then used garbanzo bean flour to cut down on some of the grains in this cracker. The garbanzo bean flour had a very strong smell and so I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out if I used exclusively garbanzo flour. I used over half of the dough to make crackers, and then used the other part to make a small loaf of bread. The bread was not great, but the crackers were wonderful! The bean flavor in the flour really complimented the nice crispy crackers. Here is my recipe inspired by both Gluten- Free Olive Oil Bread and Gluten-Free Cheddar and Sesame Crackers from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

Seedy Garbanzo Crackers (NOT Gluten-free)

INGREDIENTS:

1 ½ TBS yeast

1 TBS sea salt

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp raw apple cider vinegar

2 large organic eggs

½ cup of homemade kefir

2 cups filtered water

3 cups whole wheat flour

3 cups garbanzo bean flour

½ cup corn starch

Cracker toppings: seeds: white or black sesame, fennel, flax, etc, salt, za’atar spice or any other spices or dried herbs you like.

METHOD:

1) Whisk together flours, cornstarch, yeast and salt, and put in a large lidded bowl.

2) Combine all the liquid ingredients and gradually mix with the dry ingredients using a spoon, or 14 cup food processor.

3) Cover (not airtight) and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for at least2 hours, but better for those with grain intolerance, to let it rest for 12 hours and up to 24 hours.

4) The dough can be used immediately after its initial rise or you can refrigerate in the lidded container and use it over the next 7 days. The flavor will be better if you wait for at least 24 hours of refrigeration.

On Baking Day:

1) Thirty minutes before baking time preheat the oven to 400 F.

2) Cut off an orange sized piece of dough, place dough on a piece of parchment paper or a silicone mat. Then cover with more parchment paper or plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin and roll until you have a 1/16^th inch rectangle. Peel off the top layer or wrap or paper, and place the dough on top of the paper or mat onto baking sheet.

3) Using a pizza cutter gently score the dough into the shape you want the crackers (be careful not to cut the silicone mat, if that is what you are using).

4) Just before baking, using a pastry brush, paint the dough with water and sprinkle the top with black and toasted sesame seeds, salt and za’atar spice.

5) Bake for 15 minutes, or until crackers are golden brown. Allow them to cool before eating.

6) Serve with fromage blanc!

I don’t always have a plan for dinner. It is about 50/50. But for me, that is OK – because how can I call myself The Leftover Queen if I’m not quick on the draw in the kitchen?! For me, some of my most creative, exciting and delicious adventures in the kitchen are the result of not having a plan. In these cases, sometime in the afternoon, or when dinner time rolls around, I look around in the veggie bowl, the fridge and the pantry, and let all the items therein swirl around in my mind until the perfect pairing of flavors – or an interesting combination comes to the forefront. Then I roll with it. These meals are the ones I tend to get the most compliments on from the spousal unit.

Such a night happened this week. I had an acorn squash, 2 links of chicken sausage (leftover from the corn pasta ) and some leftover buckwheat and quinoa from my daily Breakfast of Champions .

A plan started to form. Stuffed acorn squash sounded perfect. All I needed to do was scrounge around in the veggie bin and fridge to see what I could add to give it something – a spark, VT cheddar, red bell pepper, red onion and homemade yogurt filled the space. I threw the squash halves in a roasting pan while I did my daily exercise and after, I stuffed the squash with my stuffing, threw it in the oven and took a shower, while it was cooking. Having healthy, whole and nourishing food doesn’t require slaving in the kitchen and can easily be accommodated into a busy schedule!

This dish was super easy, very filling and so satisfying in the flavor department. Plus it was really good for us. I can’t ask for more than that. Having a pantry and fridge full of staple items that you love, make dinner making easy, even in a pinch, if you allow yourself just to have fun, and be creative.

Acorn Squash w/ Gluten Free Sausage Stuffing

INGREDIENTS:

1 medium acorn squash
2 links of chicken sausage
¼ cup red bell pepper, chopped
¼ cup red onion, chopped
1 clove garlic
¼ cup pre-soaked red quinoa
¼ cup pre-soaked buckwheat
(why do I soak? Check it out here )
handful of sharp VT cheddar cheese cubes (or any cheese you have on hand – but something sharp!)
¼ cup of homemade plain yogurt
salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Roast ( @350 F) acorn squash halves (cut side down) in a small roasting pan, with a splash of water.
While the squash is roasting – make the stuffing. Remove casings from sausage and brown in a skillet with olive oil, red pepper, red onion and garlic. Once sausage is browned on the outside, and veggies are getting soft, place in a bowl. Add the quinoa, buckwheat and yogurt. Once the squash is finished scoop out most of the flesh – making sure to keep the structure of the squash intact. Raise oven temp to 400 F. Mix flesh with the other stuffing ingredients and fold in the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff the squash halves with the mixture and cook at 400 F for about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, and serve immediately.

As part of my 2010 food related goals, I have almost completed 2 weeks of not eating any wheat. I keep going back and forth with the gluten free thing – and I am still not sure that I have all the answers. So there are going to be some fun experiments coming up! However, as part of my two week abstinence experiment, and my on-going efforts to find a pasta that doesn’t make me fall asleep within an hour, while still satisfying my Italian’s need for pasta, I re-discovered corn pasta. I have made, and enjoyed corn pasta in the past but guess I grew tired of the spaghetti shape. Happily on a recent trip to the health food store, I found corn pasta in an elbow shape from De Boles, a pasta company that I already really like for their use of Jerusalem Artichoke flour in their pasta. So I bought a box to try.

The thing I like about corn pasta is that it looks the same as regular pasta, and cooks the same as well – and I have never gotten a soggy, clumpy result, like I often do with rice pasta. Plus, I think that rice has the same affect on me as wheat. Don’t ask me why…Anyway, corn pasta tastes really good – and works well with any of your favorite pasta dishes.

For this dish, I sautéed 3 links of chicken sausage, added 2 cups of homemade tomato sauce from the freezer, about a cup of frozen peas and 2 cups of leftover roasted cauliflower. I added a dash of red wine, about a cup of homemade yogurt, and some herbs – like oregano and basil, as well as salt and pepper. Then I tossed the pasta in the sauce, and served with a generous helping of freshly grated parmesan cheese. This dish was so good! It made enough for 6 servings. The first night we each had one serving. The next night, we each had two! I justified it as part of the experiment. If I could eat corn pasta two nights in a row, and even double up the second night, and not feel sleepy – then corn would be IN! So for now it is in. Personally I would like to find an alternative, as I am not thrilled with all the modifications that have been done to corn, or how the subsidization of corn has led to a lot of food policy issues in the US. But for now, I am happy to have found pasta that I can enjoy! And my husband is happy too!

Next on my list to try is a handmade soaked pasta that I found via MAHM during a recent Twitter #realfood chat,  and also see if I can find any pasta made from buckwheat – my ultimate, super grain!

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Also, my blogging buddy Pam from A Love for NEW Recipes! gave me a Happy Blog Award, and asked me to name 10 things that make me happy. Thanks for the award Pam! These are in no particular order:

1. My husband, Roberto

2. My animals: Nimue, Pepino and Cipollina

3. Coffee

4. Archery

5. Working out and sweating!!!

6. Vermont

7. Milkshakes  – although I rarely have them

8. Good friends and family

9. Music – especially fiddles

10. Growing things and taking care of my loved ones with good food

Thanks everyone for all your great comments recently – especially as it pertains to my two posts on year 2010 goals. I think we all have goals, but for me, putting it out there and in some sense therefore being more accountable makes it more fun – and more of a challenge for me! So thanks for all your lovely comments and feedback!

In my last post, as it pertains to one of my food goals for this year, I told you I was going to post a recipe for creamy tomato soup that I prepared in my Vitamix for lunch last week. I was lucky enough to receive one of these AWESOME machines from my lovely husband for my birthday. I have been wanting one for over 3 years, and this year, I guess I was a good girl! These machines are not cheap, but they do take the place of a blender, food processor and grinder (you can actually grind coffee beans in it) all in one. In fact you can make fresh fruit and veggie juice in it too – not pulpy but rich and creamy from all the natural fibers – the blades are that powerful. You can even make a kind of ice milk or fruity dessert in it as well.

We have really been enjoying all the above mentioned treats have we make with it, especially our nightly smoothies, but one of the things I love the most about the Vitamix is that is actually MAKES soup – I mean you don’t even have to cook it – the heat created from the friction of the ultra fast blades heats it up! So you literally have soup in 5 minutes.

Here is what I did:

INGREDIENTS:

1 box of Pomi strained tomatoes
1 ½ organic roasted red peppers (jarred)
dash of organic heavy cream
salt
freshly ground pepper
dried oregano
dried basil

I put all of this in the Vitamix and let her rip. In about 3-4 minutes you could see the steam coming out of the lid, telling me that it was done. That’s IT. The soup was so rich and creamy. The taste of the black pepper was very prominent – I guess it go so pulverized that it really infused the entire soup. I put a dollop of homemade yogurt on top and it was a wonderful, filling and super healthy lunch full of one of my favorite things – Lycopene, because it is oh so good. So go ahead and enjoy some tomato soup today!

On another note my friend Betherann from Kitchen Courage gifted me with a Beautiful Blogger Award and asked me to share 7 things about myself. So here they are:

1) I just took a DNA test for ancestry and health. I am adopted and know nothing at all about my birth family, my ethnic heritage or the types of health problems that run in the family. I have been waiting 33 years for this – and decided to finally do it. If we are facebook friends, keep checking my status update for how you can be involved in this life changing event! Trust me, it’ll be fun!

2) My favorite flower is the Thistle.

3) If I never had asparagus again in my life, I wouldn’t miss it.

4) I believe in life you have to be willing to take risks in order to realize your full potential.

5) My favorite color is Rust – which is why I probably love eating pumpkin, squash and sweet potatoes so much!

6) I spent a year in Norway and speak some Norwegian  – I used to be fluent – but it has been 15 years!

7) I am a very accurate and passionate archer – makes sense since I am a Sagittarius!