If you’re going to eat, drink and feed your dog from local sources — yeah, the beer was my first consideration.  Could a girl live on Surly alone?  Yes, there are other people brewing beer in this state but I’m picky.  I like very, very good beer.  And then there’s the question of where the ingredients to make the beer come from.  By and large, they aren’t local.  Now what do I do?

I get the engineer types on the job.  They say, “well, are you doing this by weight or by number of ingredients?”  I giggle in return.  Well, now, looks like I’m doing it by weight, aren’t I? This is the very first time in human history that water weight works in a woman’s favor.

So, I’m all good.  This works particularly well when it came to my 70/20/10 breakdown.  My biggest concern was getting my favorite beer – Goose Island’s Pere Jacques.  If it was in the 10% or not allowed at all I would suffer.  And by suffer I mean I would be irritated and make sure everyone around me knew about it.  I’m awesome at solving problems creatively, like, figuring out how one incorporates 100 days of local sustainable foods into their lives, but I totally suck at deprivation.  I won’t stand for it.  Which would make this whole project unsustainable – and sustainability is the point.

For me, I love that sustainability is something that people are thinking about.  See, we all have systems that we travel through in our lives.  Some of them work and some of them don’t.  The ones that work are generally sustainable.  In order to have a system that works, all parts of the system have to have an equal footing as the rest.  They have to be fed what they need and to be productive members of the system.   Then the system itself needs to be able to keep rolling along each step in it’s system without intervention.  This is true with everything from relationships to the environment.  (And frankly, should be the goal of any design project, but that’s a blog for another day!)

Let’s take relationships as an example.  Lets say two people come together and there’s an instant spark between them that grows with their interplay, creating energy from the finely running system that they naturally have. Of course, for various reasons, mostly human, perfect systems move away from being whole and natural.  So then our relationship turns into one where he does everything for her and she is totally indifferent and condesending. That relationship is unsustainable because both people are not being fed and working as a part of the system. It will die, hopefully sooner rather than later so that these poor people can just move on with their lives.

So, let’s say our Mr. Doormat goes and finds a woman who is genuinely appreciative of his efforts to please her and she in turn gives him what he needs, effortlessly.  Thus she feeds him and he her and they can fit their system into other systems and can create more good.  Yea!

Anything within nature has to work like that or things just fall apart in really big ways.

I don’t want this to fall apart in a really big way.  I have to figure out a system here that I can maintain.  I have to have the flexibility to eat the way I want and support food systems that I can believe in.

Can I do it?  I don’t know.  But I’m going to find out.

Before I got it in my head to take on this challenge, I bought 1/2 a pig from a farmer who is in my cooking group.  By the time it got to me, I was two days away from starting this challenge and very happy to have the pork.

So, this was my day 2 lunch.   Ribs from Mike and Michelle at Highview Pastures with sweet peas from my CSA pan steamed and then drizzled with some olive oil and sprinkled with grey salt. (The rest of the day 2 meals were leftovers and cake.)

The ribs were cooked for about an hour and a half over low heat in a smoker, brushed with some bbq sauce with about 10 minutes left.

They were perfect.

And then they were gone.

But the big questions remain:  With our food system so depleted of diversity and given that we’re all so spoiled with getting whatever we want when we want – can one reasonably expect only consume what is locally available?

I hope so, because I like buying products from people I believe in.

Kris is in the kitchen. She has been searching through the pantry for 8 minutes.

I’m kidding.  (There were, like, 2 people who got that BBUK joke.)  Alright, I didn’t get up until 8:20. Which is when I jumped out of bed throwing my clothes on, stuffed a handful of almonds in my mouth and ran off to kettlebells.

Not a particularly auspicious start to my 100 days of eating, drinking and feeding my dog with local stuff.*   First off, almonds aren’t grown locally and secondly it’s one of my normal breakfasts.  I put exactly no thought into it.   Might seem like I’m just going about life as usual rather than making a life changing decision to affect my life and body.  But, for me, that’s sorta the point.

This dog has no idea the bone he’s enjoying with such fervor is from a local cow 20x his size. (Sorry about the focus – he moves about a lot.)

I’m trying to eat like Gramma.  See, I could have dumped everything out of my kitchen and started over again but Gramma would have kicked my ass with a single look if I had thrown out perfectly good food.  So, I didn’t.  (The only exception to this goal is that I plan on being a far better cook than Gramma.  She was an awesome baker but she never did find a piece of meat she couldn’t kill with a pan.  And now that I think about it – for the sake of writing about it I’m just going to conjoin my MN gran with my southern IN gran – ditto on the baking/killing.)

I also could have planned ahead, and given myself a ramp-up period to switch my kitchen over before I started, but then I wouldn’t be able to give much insight on my process as I go through it.  I’m all about the creative process so I think that’s important.

So here’s where I started.

Why?
1) Taste.

2) I love micro-economies!

3) I love supporting people who are proud of the things they make.

4) I’m curious as to how the land that I eat from will change the way I eat. This is one of the things I think is most interesting about taking this on.  I very literally have to be concerned with the actual land the food came from.  (By mid-afternoon I was already thinking about food differently.)

5) I would like to provide a guide for you to do this. We need to take our bodies back from corporate America.  It’s necessary for us to do this.  We handed our food system over to them in the 80s and since then we’ve gotten nothing but diet fads, obesity and disease.  You can tell me that I’m paranoid and whatnot but everyone kept telling me that the market could bear the price of houses going up that high or the lenders wouldn’t finance them.  I kept answering back that the lenders are wrong and it’s a bad idea to artificially boost the economy on the debts of it’s citizens.   It turns out that I was totally right.  I wish I wasn’t but I was and I see the same thing happening with food.  The financial crash was bad enough, we need keep the food crash from happening because that would be way not fun.  The only way to keep it from happening is to take back our food system by supporting people and businesses that we can know personally. **Quietly stepping down from soapbox.**

100% locally grown and produced stuff isn’t reasonable in this day and age.

Here’s my breakdown:

70% locally grown and produced
For me, this broke down to Minnesota, Wisconsin & Iowa. From where Minneapolis is – this just makes the most sense pragmatically and geographically. Wisconsin is right over there, and Iowa is just down 35 a bit.  I’ve researched whats available and this seems like it’s doable for me.

20% regionally grown and produced
That’s the Dakotas, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Manitoba and Ontario.  I took a map – stuck my thumbnail on Minneapolis, my index finger on the Montana/South Dakota border and made a circle around and the states that mostly fit into that space got included. It was a very scientific process.

10% free-for-all
I like olive oil. I like spices. I like Pearson’s Nut Rolls and while they’re made locally – I’ve never heard of a MN grown peanut. And yet the nut rolls exist.  Every now and again I like to eat them.  So, I’m going to.

Beyond that my goal is to have everything be sustainable and organic.   It’s funny that those two words are always together and that they don’t necessarily make any sense together.

What I ate for Day 1

handful of almonds – lunch (chicken @ Brasa) – cherry tomatoes as a snack then…

Dinner | Franks & Beans, Sauteed Chard and Parsnip Cake with Goat Cheese Frosting

lentils
indian spice mix from Ken
water/broth – homemade

3 dogs from Thousand Hills, cut into slices
a small handful of garlic scrapes

Cover lentils with water or broth, add in a T or so of indian spices.  Cook until al dente and then add in dogs and scrapes. Cook until done. If at anytime the lentils need more liquid add more.

Parsnip Cake

This is basically carrot cake made with parsnips rather than carrots.  It’s very nice.

Over-wintered parsnips are parsnips that are allowed to stay in the ground through the winter and then harvested as needed.  They have less water and their flavor becomes intensified – thus they’re perfect for things like cakes and muffins.

This cake didn’t really need any frosting – but if you decide to go that way then it needs zest and raisins.

4 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 c sugar
1 c olive oil
1/4 c butter, melted
2/3 c firmly packed brown sugar
2 t pure vanilla
1/2 c buttermilk

zest of 1 orange (I didn’t use this, I just think it would be better if I had)
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 t cream of tarter
2 t baking soda
2 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground nutmeg

3 c parsnips, shredded or finely chopped
1 1/4 c pecans, chopped and toasted
1 c golden raisins (Ioptional)

Prepare 9 x 13 pan with butter/oil and parchment paper. Preheat oven
to 350 °f.

Mix together the eggs, sugar, oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract and
orange zest. Sift together all of the dry ingredients in another bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture small amounts at a time
mixing all the while. Fold the parsnips, pecans, and raisins.

Pour into prepared pan and cook in oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until
inserted stick comes out almost clean. Let cake cool for a couple of hours and then ice.

Goat Cheese Icing

Hey! Check it out, Stickney Hill cheese is certified cruelty free. I have know idea if this is true, but I can easily drive there to find out.

4 ounces goat cheese, room temperature
2 T butter, room temperature
2 c powdered sugar

Whip cheese and butter together with mixer. Add in powdered sugar 1/2 c at a time until mixture is frosting like. If it gets too stiff add in some milk to thin it out. Spread on to parsnip cake, evenly.

Check in tomorrow and I’ll tell you about the pig I got from pig farmers, Michelle and Mike Webb @ Highview Pastures.

*You’ll notice that Mr. Marv is not putting his stomach on the line here and I’m not going to dictate what he eats.  He is however, very happy with the food… so far.

I am probably the luckiest girl in the world. I don’t mean to be, I just am. I’m friends with several of the best chefs in Minnesota.  Not only are they great cooks, but they have created philosophies and ways of doing thing which makes each them completely unique and wonderful.  To top that off they even love to teach, which means that I get to call them up and say, “Hey, what’s on your mind?  Anything you want to share with some of my favorite cooks?”

When I asked my friend Scott Graden, owner/chef of the award winning New Scenic Cafe in Duluth that question and he answered, “Inspiration is everywhere and it’s so much more important than recipes and ingredients.  I’d like to talk about that.”  In my head I shouted, “woo hoo!”  Then we chatted and brainstormed on how to go about doing a workshop on inspiration, came up with a plan and that he promptly forgot.

I, however, did not.  It turns out that the things that inspire him most are the people and the land around him. Hence, on our weekend in Duluth we got to meet with Stephen Dahl his herring fisherman and David Rogotzke his maple syrup maker and salmon fisherman.

It really was the best adult field trip for cooks ever.

We started off the day at the New Scenic Cafe where Scott was kind enough to talk to us about his experiences as a restaurant owner and chef. He went over where everything came from, how it happened and why he made the decisions he did.  He gave us an amazing insight into the tenacity and drive he had to bring the Cafe to what it is today.  (This included living in the garage for 5 years.)

The cooks drank some wine, asked Scott questions and tried not to shiver too much.

Daily self portrait reflected in the kitchen of the Scenic Cafe.

Superior… uh, dingy?  This is the boat that Steve fishes from.

Steve Dahl, Superior fisherman tells us about the practice and politics of fishing on Lake Superior.  It turns out that most of the state’s policies on fishing rights are crafted for sport fisherman who don’t account for nearly as much revenue on the lakes or care for them as the commercial fisherman.  Even though Steve has to fight all the time, he still considers himself lucky to be able to go out onto Lake Superior and fish everyday.

The folks getting to try Dave Rogotzke‘s maple butter and salmon.

Dave takes us for a tour of his sugar maple farm.  He tells us all about the practices he employs for the long life and care of his trees.  He considers himself to be a steward of the land that he’s lucky enough to get to work with and he wants to protect it as much as he can.

I think Kyndell wants her own syrup house.

Welcome Troop #9!

David explains the rest of the syrup making process, from reduction to bottling.

Then we went picked up a couple of mystery containers of food from the Scenic and went back to the condo for some cooking.  This was our view.  Yea!

Team chicken roll-up hanging with their ingredients.

The offering from Mark and I.  Grapes stuffed with blue cheese and served with Canadian bacon.  All you need to do is cut a conical shape out of the top of a grape with a paring knife, stuff it with some blue cheese and then present it with some warm, cooked Canadian bacon (or regular bacon for that matter) on a stick of some kind.  We served ours on a fork with the instruction to keep the fork safe, as it’s the only one folks were getting for the evening.

Pork tenderloin from Team Zen – The base of the sauce was red peppers and onions sauteed in olive oil and then simmered in chicken broth with mashed garlic, brown sugar, ginger, soy sauce, sirracha, cilantro, salt and pepper.  Once the ingredients were softened they were pulverized in a blender to make the sauce for the pork, which was pan roasted in some olive oil.

Someone is stabbing at the fabulous goat cheese chicken rolls.   Jeff took a couple of chicken breasts pounded them flat(ish) with a small frying pan.  (It was totally awesome.)  He then spread a mixture of goat cheese mixed with, freshly grated parmesan cheese, chopped basil, garlic, salt and pepper.  Then he rolled them up, secured them with twine and roasted for about 30 minutes under a 375 degree oven.

Yoon Hee decided to make some crostini sandwiches.  slice up some bread, slicing through every other slice, and rubbed garlic on them and spread salted butter in between.  Then she baked them in a 375 degree oven for 10 – 15 minutes flipping them once to brown them up.

Team reduction hard at work.

Team Reduction gave us this dish of roasted pork tenderloin and yukon gold potato with a reduction sauce made from home made broth, red wine, mushrooms, currents and other stuff Kyndell’s going to have to tell you about because I don’t remember.  They also served up some collard greens cooked in the same broth with some butter.

The happiest addition of all: crusty bread spread with goat cheese and sliced strawberries let to sit in sugar.  It was a nouveau strawberry shortcake.  I loved it.

And that was our weekend.  If you would like to join us for future events: join us!  Or you can play along at home by visiting our blog.

Love always,

MrsMarv

So normally, a post that has to do with phyllo would have to do with how to work with phyllo safely. Cover it up with plastic wrap and damp towels. Whatever.

MOVE FAST

That’s it. It’s the secret of phyllo. Just move fast and then you won’t need to be so careful.

I also know that it’s awesome being me. I look into a refrigrator of stuff from our CSA going bad and some phyllo and am like, “woah man, your veggies aren’t going to make it. Better make somethin’, stat!” (Don’t ask me what’s up with the ‘stat’ thing – I feel like I’m channeling my sister’s sense of humor. Although, there is something inherently funny about people yelling abbreviations of Latin words. But I digress…)

The truth is that there was a whole lot of stuff perilously close to bad, I sauteed it. There was a bunch of stuff that was frozen and I thawed it and chopped it into chunks.
It turned out to be stupid good. If I have advice to give, I’d say learn to use what you have.

Refrigerator Hockey Spanakopita

1/2 package of phyllo
1/4 c butter, melted
a lot of greens and some ramps
1 small container of ricotta
10 oz feta
3 eggs
1 8 – 12 oz package of frozen broccoli
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat the oven to 375°f.

Saute greens, ramps and, really, whatever you’ve got going bad (that came from the ground) in your refrigerator, in some olive oil in medium-high heat.

In a food processor, process ricotta, feta and eggs until smooth. Add in sauteed veg. If, like me, you’ve found that you don’t have enough veg in there; quick! Run to the freezer, grab the first veg you can find! Thaw it. Toss it in. Process a bit. Taste it. Realize it needs some acid. Add in juice from half a lemon.

Get ready for the prep.

Melt your butter, and place it near by. Get a pastry brush, also lay that nearby. Have your filling in some sort of spot that’s easily accessible and easily scoopablie. Have a 9 x 13 pan on your right or left depending on your hand orientation. Place phyllo on the other side and START MOVING FAST. Brush the top sheet quickly and inexactly with butter and put it in the pan. Then do the same thing with the next 7 sheets. Pile on a bunch of filling, to coat thickly. Brush butter on two more sheets placing them in the pan after brushing. Again with the filling and then with the phyllo until you’re out of filling. (This should be about 3 – 4 fillings worth. With the last sheets brush them with butter and and top the layers off.

Score the spanakopita however you like. I tend to cut all the way through the top and middle layers, but some people would have you just intermittently score. It’s doesn’t really matter. One makes your phyllo roll up, the other doesn’t, but it might break up when you cut it later.

Put in the oven for about 45 minutes (more or less.) Take out when the top is browned.

You’re done! How awesome is that!

(See! We’ve been making things like smoked brisket – I just haven’t been writing about them.)

Spring has finally hit our little corner of the tundra. (Yea!) So, now we get to go out and get things that were grown here and cook them up. To that end I invited a special guest, Michelle Licata, a chef and teacher who shares her philosophy of good food and healthy eating with her eight-week wellness program, “Inspired Wellness,” upcoming cookbook, “Olives and Pearls,” and classes around Minneapolis.

This particular event happened almost a month ago, so there was very little available at the farmers market for us. But, what there wasn’t in variety, there was in flavor. Everything was beautifully fresh. We had chicken, trout, eggs, radishes, greens, grains and amazing artisnal sheep’s milk blue and fresh cheese. So we were forced to make due with just that. (Can I get any pity out there? Hm. No, eh?)

Alright, fine. The food was excellent. Michelle was an amazing and vibrant guide through a world of fresh and healthful eating choices. If you ever have the opportunity to take a class from her, I’d highly recommend it and I think anyone who was with me would as well.

Michele dazzling us with her charm and knowledge.

Linda starts to work on the roasted chicken.  She decided on butterflying the chicken and dousing it with a mixture of olive oil, fresh squeezed lemon juice with thyme, salt and pepper. 

Naomi is getting instruction while working on the radishes.  (I think.)

Michele overseeing the risotto.

Ah, the fritatta needs some seasoning.

Meeting over the trout.  Turns out the trout wants to be dipped in beaten egg, rolled in some panko and spices and then baked until done.

Michelle wokrs on panko/trout construction.

Frittata construction.  Oh yes.

Linda carves up her chicken.

The finished frittata.  (It was as good as it looks.)

‘

This salad of greens, arugula, radish and northern lights blue cheese is good, but not quite done.  It needs a vinegarette.

Ava looks on.

Michele demonstrates how to drizzle in the appropriate amount of olive oil for the emulsion of a proper vinegarette to take place.

Trout breaded in Panko & Herbs with Honey Dipping Sauce

trout, cut into bite sized pieces
1 egg, wisked
pinch of salt
1/2 t ginger

sauce
2 T honey
1 T white wine
1 t sirracha
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 375°f;.

Whisk egg in a bowl. Place panko, salt and ginger in another bowl. Take pieces of trout douse them completely in egg and then coat in panko. Place on a baking sheet.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until fish feels firm.

While fish is cooking bring dipping sauce together over low-ish heat.

Serve fish with sauce.

Fritatta 

4 radishes, sliced thinly
radish greens, ripped
1 T butter
6 oz fresh cheese
6 eggs
3 T cream
1/4 parmesan
oregano
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 375°f.

Saute radish in 1 T of butter over medium high heat until translucent. Toss into frittata dishes with greens and cheese.

Whisk together eggs, cream parmesan and spices and pour over radish stuffs. Put onto a cookie sheet and bake for 45 to 60 minutes. Frittata is set when you press on the middle and it fights back.

Quinoua & Lentil Salad

Quinoua is not an ingredient that I’ve done much with – but as Michele pointed out it’s very easy, light and nutritious.

1 c quinoua
1 c water
salt

1/2 c lentils
1 1/2 c water
1 t salt
1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig thyme

juice of 1 lemon
1T honey
1Tmustard
salt to taste

Boil quinoua in water until done. Boil lentils in water with sprigs until done.

Put both into bowls and add in lemon, honey, mustard and salt to taste. Serve. People will be happy.

Lemon Thyme Roasted Chicken

1 chicken

juice from one lemon
2 T olive oil
2 t thyme
1 t salt
1 t pepper

Preheat oven to 400 °f

Butterfly chicken by cutting out the backbone and bending the chicken so that it is flat, breast side up. Put into baking pan.

Whisk together the rest of the ingredients and liberally cover the chicken. Put into oven and cook until chicken is browned and reads 160°f on a quick read thermometer. Cover and let sit until it comes up to 165°f. It will be perfect. Enjoy!

Needless to say, the idea stuck with me. I had to try and make one up – even though I never tasted the one it was based on. I liked the notion of a cheesecake that was more like a cross between cheesecake and souffle. It sounded light and nice, not as heavy as what we consider cheesecake to be. That’s just what it turned out to be. Yea for us!

The most surprising thing about them is that, well, first, that they turned out well on the first try and second, how completely clean and fresh they tasted. The cheese was made on Sunday and the cheesecakes on Monday, so there wasn’t any shelf time between the time the cheese was made and turned into cheesecake. Nor was there any sort of processed commercial taste about them.

Another really nice thing about the cheesecakes was that they highlighted some really stellar Minnesota dairy products; milk from Cedar Summit Farm and butter from Hope Creamery. Each left it’s stamp on the finished product and we were very grateful.

I think you should try it yourself.

Made Up Cheesecake

Simple Fresh Cheese
1 gallon whole milk
1/4 c vinegar
1 t salt

cheese cloth

Cheese really couldn’t be any easier to make. Basically, you heat up the cheese and then add in an agent (i.e. vinegar) that helps the milk fats bind together to form cheese and separate from the liquid.

First you want to sterilize your equipment. Bring some water to boil in a pot big enough to hold a gallon of milk. Cover tightly and let boil for 15 minutes or so. Add in a scraper and a slotted spoon and boil them for 5 minutes or so. Empty out pan and return to stove.

Let cool for a minute or two and pour in milk. Heat milk over medium heat stirring regularly, so that you don’t scorch the bottom, until the the milk gets heated to 185°f. Add in vinegar a little at a time until milk starts to coagulate. (You will notice that this is happening when you see little linty bits of milk on the spoon you’re using.)

Scoop out curds with slotted spoon into colander lined with several layers of cheesecloth. Gather up the edges of the cloth and hang over sink until drained. Transfer to a container and eat or refrigerate.

Crust
1 packet graham crackers or equal amount of animal crackers
2 – 3 T butter close to melted
1/4 – 1/2 t cinnamon

Cheesecake Itself
3/4 of fresh cheese
4 oz goat cheese, softened
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c cream
2 t really good vanilla or seeds from one bean
pinch or 3 of salt, depending on how salty your cheese ended up

Preheat oven to 350°f.

Process graham crackers or animal crackers until all crumbled up. Drizzle with 2 T of butter and cinnamon. Process until crackers stick together when pinched. If it doesn’t get there add in more butter in small increments until it does. Press crusts into the bottom of 3 small spring-form pans. Place on a jelly roll pan. Bake in oven for 10 minutes. Let out to cool.

In a food processor, process cheeses until smooth. Add in eggs and yolks one at a time, processing in between. Add in sugar, cream, vanilla and salt.
Pour into pans. Return to the oven and bake until firm in the middle about 30 – 40 minutes. Top with blackberry sauce or eat plain. Enjoy!

It just so happens that I have some blackberries. I have quite a lot of them. Oh gosh, I get to play. Crumble. I want crumble. Doesn’t blackberry crumble just sound beautiful?

A funny thing happened while I was making the crumble though. At the time, I was also making cheese. I’d been wanting to make fresh cheese and turn it into cheesecake for awhile. I decided that now was the time. (That was a really awkward sentence. Sorry for inflicting that on you.) And really – if the blackberry crumble happened to be as good as it turned out to be then why not re-create it as a sauce for the cheesecakes? Oh many x yum.

So that’s what I did.

Blackberry Crumble

2 – 3 T butter, very soft
1/3 c flour
1/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c oats
pinch salt

1 pt blackberries, room temp
1 t vanilla
1/3 c sugar
1/4 c wine jelly *
1 – 2 t corn starch
1/2 pt blackberries, frozen (keeps them whole through cooking)

vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 350°f.

Pinch together crumble ingredients with your fingers and set aside.

Mix together vanilla, sugar wine jelly and cor starch. Add to the berries and toss gently until berries are coated. Divide them into ramekins and top with the crumble.

Put them in the oven and bake for 25 – 35 minutes, until berry mixture is bubbling and topping is browned. Let cool for a few minutes, topped with some vanilla ice cream and enjoy the heck out of it.

Sauce Version

1 1/2 pt blackberries
1 t vanilla
1/3 c sugar
1/4 c wine jelly *
1 – 2 t corn starch

Combine all ingredients except blackberries in a saucepan over medium heat. Heat until all ingredients are liquid and combined. Lower heat and fold in blackberries. Let simmer gently until sauce thickens up. Cool and top something with it.

* Wine Jelly
4c wine
2c sugar
juice from one lemon
1 packet low sugar pectin

Cook sugar, lemon and wine together over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Add pectin and stir to dissolve. Ladle into jars, seal and refrigerate. (You can also prepare the jars for canning, but storing them in the refrigerator or freezer is just fine.)

As for the cheesecake, you’re just going to have to wait for that.

xoxo

- Kris

It would be very easy to change this around to whatever flavor profile you were looking for. A bit of crispy bread, fresh greens, creamy cheese, something sweet, crunchy and acidic and you’ve got a combo that will (more than likely) work. And of course if you blend it all up, you’ve got a dip.

Oh, and it takes about 7 minutes to make, total.

Spinach & Chevre on Crusty Bread with Balsamic Reduction

Balsamic Reduction
(Take 1 1/4 c red wine and 1/4 c balsamic vinegar and bring to just boiling. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid is reduced by at least half around 1/2 – 2/3 c. Cool and store until needed. Keeps forever in the refrigerator.)

1 baguette, sliced

You can just slice up the baguette and serve on that, or brush slices with olive oil and brown in a 400°f oven until browned. This is the best option if they’re going to sit around for awhile.

2 – 3 T apple juice
1 bag spinach (or similar amount)
1 – 2 oz chevre, crumbled
2 T lightly roasted almonds, chopped
salt, pepper & cayenne pepper to taste

Heat juice in pan until boiling. Toss in spinach, cover and pan steam until dark green and wilted.

Turn off heat. Let cool down. Drain out extra liquids. Mix in chevre, almonds and spices and stir until mixed in with some lumps. Top baguette slices with a couple of tablespoons of spinach mixture. Drizzle with balsamic reduction.

Serve with some fresh berries.

Unfortunately, as beautiful and lovely strawberry shortcake is – it’s not spring. I wish it was, but its not. The strawberries are a bit sad. So I must work harder to create my own spring. I flavored them with rose water and wee bit of orange zest. Whipped cream got a bit more depth with the addition of chevre and honey.

It was close enough to spring that I can make it the next couple of weeks until I really do see flowers beginning to bud.

Shortcake
(Shortcake is just sweet biscuits.)
2 c self rising flour (made from soft wheat winter, preferably)
1/4 c brown sugar
1 T baking powder
large pinch salt

1/2 c butter, sliced
3/4c + 2T buttermilk or whole milk
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 450°f.

Put flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a food processor. Process for a moment. Add in butter slices and process until they’re about pea sized. Add vanilla to buttermilk and slowly pour into flour mixture while processor is running. As soon as the the dough lumps up together pour it out until a piece of parchment paper lightly sprinkled with flour. Let rest for a minute.

Flour rolling pin, bash in the dough a couple of times with the rolling pin. Using the parchment paper, fold dough in on itself. Bash again a couple few times and fold over again. Keep flouring the rolling pin as needed and bashing/folding for a couple of minutes. if the dough starts sticking just sprinkle some flour on the parchment and continue on.

Sprinkle some more flour onto a flat surface or clean piece of parchment and roll out to about 1/4″ thick. Fold over on itself and use a biscuit cutter to cut out shortbreads. Pick up leftover dough pieces and roll out and cut again. Place rounds on a cookie sheet close together, so that they can grow up rather than out when they bake. Brush off excess flour.

Bake for 13 – 15 minutes.

Strawberries
2 pints strawberries
1- 2 T rosewater (or one rosewater, one orange juice)
1/4 c sugar
orange zest

Slice strawberries, mix in rosewater and sugar. Cover and refrigerate – jostling them every so often. Before making the shortcakes scrape in a little bit of orange zest.

Chevre Whipped Cream
1/2 c whipping cream
2oz chevre, softened
1 – 2 T honey

Put whipping cream and chevre in a bowl and whip until stiff. Add in honey until sweetened to your taste.

I’m so impressed with my cooks that I have to share. I’m sorry if you don’t care, but we are doing some good cookery up in this tundra, pardon-my-french, please.

First off, in case you don’t know, I have a group now. (Hello group!) They can cook. (I love that they can cook!) So I set them up with Scott Pampuch at Corner Table, who happens to be able to cook as well, in fact he’s a James Beard semi-finalist-for-best-chef-in-the-Midwest-cook. And then he and my cooks went to town making a really nice meal.

We divided them up – color circles on name tags mean something sometimes. They were given leaders and joined; team meat, team starch, team veggie, team dessert and team egg. (Once the people knew what was going on… they couldn’t help but make a team egg to be coached by Chef Pampuch. The man knows his way around an egg.)

And this is what happened (approximately) – recipes (not even close) for apple caramel bread pudding and eggs on toast to follow.

Okay, so in my opinion, Team Egg won. There were no winners here, but my god, Team Egg won. I love the duck, I soooooooo love the duck. But Team Egg’s dish was simple, delicious and frankly, eloquent. Really yummy.

Hey, Kyndell! This is my friend Kyndell. Kyndell did not stay as she had to go report the news, but she did make appreciative sounds while eating Scott’s breakfast for her. (Seriously, he made her breakfast before work.)

This is Troy, the leader of Team Meat. Ignore his name tag, it lies. Team meat made Duck confit on some roasted potatoes and onions. Way good, if you ask me. They also made some seared duck breasts, way even better, if you ask me. Oh, how I love the duck.

This is Veronica, a member of Team Meat working away.

This is Chef Scott, making sure nobody burns his restaurant down.

This is Kathy, leader of Team Dessert. She is being heckled by Scott for only making one dessert.  (But if he had let her make cupcakes I’m pretty sure she would have happily made a trio of mini cupcakes for everyone.  She is Queen Cupcake.)

Team Dessert, glowing. They are making bread pudding with apples and browned butter, there’s a reason to glow.

Team Starch hard at work making a gratin that will never be seen.

Tourist Jody looks on to all of the industry.

Team Egg hard at work. Go Team Egg! (Nina, the leader of Team Egg is in the patterned shirt.)

Kathy with a uniform malfunction! Oh no!

Scott coaching Team Veggie, while Team Dessert cuts up apples.

Duck breasts for Team Meat.

Cookery going on right there.

Team Egg made scrambled eggs on toast.  Toast was some lovely crostini Nina is oiling right here.

Yoon He, one of our new members.

Scott and Ann creaming the unseen gratin.

Salad, don’t really know what was in it, but it was good.

Tourist Jody relaxes in the sun.

Duck!

Matt helps himself to a bit of this and a bit of that.

Harkness displays his usual plating prowess.

Kathy munches.

Tourist Jody in her bubble of joy.

Super-Fast Carmel Apple Bread Pudding

Okay, so it’s not really super fast, but it is faster than normal.   Team Dessert, really took too long – but it sooo wasn’t their fault, it was mine.  When they said they wanted to do bread pudding, I imagined it in ramekins; smaller space in water bath means that it would be done quicker than in a huge pan.  They had other ideas, but I was right and should have said so.  Doesn’t make it any less tasty. Yum, yum.

Kathy had her own stuff to say about the day.

1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c butter
1 – 2 t vanilla
pinch salt

2/3 loaf buttermilk bread (or other good bread)
2 small granny smith apples, chopped into chunks
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 c sugar
3/4 c cream
1 c milk
2 t vanilla

1c more cream
2 T sugar
vanilla bean

Melt butter in pan, add in sugar and cook until dissolved.  Add in salt and vanilla. Distribute amongst ramekins.

Pre-heat oven to 375°f. Break up bread into bits and disperse it into ramekins with apples.

Mix together eggs, sugar, cream milk and vanilla. Disperse between ramekins. Place in a larger pan and put into pre-heated oven for 35 min (in other words, way less than the hour 10 it normally takes) or until set up in the middle.

Let cool for a bit. Put cream in mixer bowl. Split vanilla bean down the center, flap sides out, scrape insides out with the flat of the knife. Add to cream. Add in Sugar and mix on medium high speed until peaks form.

Scrape around the perimeter of ramekins and invert onto serving dish. Top with whipped cream. Serve with a smile.

Scrambled eggs on toast

I know there’s no need for this recipe and yet I feel compelled. It was really good.

bread, something in a rustic sourdough would be nice
olive oil

4 eggs
2 T butter
1 – 2 oz chevre
salt/pepper

mushrooms
more olive oil

chives
orange zest

Preheat oven to 400°f. Slice bread into slices, brush with olive oil and toast until brown.

Slice and saute mushrooms in olive oil over high heat until tender.

Put eggs and some butter into a cold pan over medium high heat. Start stirring with a spatula. When the bottom begins to cook all over remove from heat and stir until eggs cool again. Return to heat – and keep doing the heat/no heat rotation until they’re cooked through. Add in chevre and salt/pepper and stir until creamy.

Top crostini with some of the eggs. Sprinkle on some chives. Grate a bit of orange zest on top. Top with some mushroom slices.