Eggy weggies

31. March 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: chickens, food

Now that our hens are back to laying 1 egg per hen per day, it's time to get all those creative egg recipes out! One dish that this family loves is quiche. I know it can be a bit intimidating to make your own pie crust, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, nothing compares. Certainly I wasted a few sticks of butter in the past on tough crusts, but now I produce a tender flaky shell that given the circumstances, I could eat alone. Hunter eats the pie crust raw while I roll it out, and God forbid you keep that kid away from butter.

Speaking of eggs, last year I read a great article in La Cucina Italiana about this wonderful farmer, Paolo Parisi, who lives near where my family is from in Italy. He tends an impressive heritage breed of pig called the Cinta Senese, along with goats and Livornese chickens. I have a crush on Parisi because I simply adore his creative methods of farming and also the way he markets his fare. This man gets over $4.00 per egg because he treats his animals with care and ingenuity.

The article I have read many times, and you can get an excerpt here:   

http://www.lacucinaitalianamagazine.com/article/materie-prime    

Here is my own recipe for one of our favorite quiches. It's easy to prepare, even if you're a novice to pie crust (buy a prepared one from the grocery store).

Spinach and Goat Cheese Quiche by Amy Chelko Lord

–a note on this crust–I use a big ceramic pie dish, it's a 9inch pan, but with high edges, so I have modified a traditional pie crust recipe to make sure that the edges of the crust reach above the sides of the dish by about a quarter of an inch. You sure don't want your quiche filling to spill over your crust or it will burn in the pie dish and stick to the bottom of the crust.

For the crust:

7 tablespoons of cold butter, 1 1/4 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 3-5 Tablespoons of ice cold water or vodka chilling in your freezer.  I got this idea from America's Test Kitchen right here:  

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=11482  

 I do this all the time, and it really works well.

You will also need a bag of kidney beans and aluminum foil for the "blind baking" of the crust.

For the filling:   

8 ounces of fresh spinach, 2 Tablespoons olive oil, 3 cloves of minced garlic, 8 ounces of goat cheese (chevre), salt and pepper.

For the custard:

4 eggs, 2/3 cup whole milk (we use 1% at our house so I just mix in some half and half with it), salt

In the Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment, I slow mix the flour and salt. To this I add the cold butter that I have cut into pieces and continue mixing on low until the flour and butter look sandy. Next, add the chilled vodka–or water–1 tablespoon at a time until the dough forms a ball. As soon as this happens, turn off the mixer. I find this is the trouble area with pie dough-making, over mixing the dough. As soon as that dough forms a ball, turn it off. Dump the dough onto the counter, form a ball without kneading it, and wrap it in plastic. Fridge for half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. You are going to blind bake your piecrust–that is pre-bake it to get it crisp, and then finish baking it with the filling and custard.

http://www.piemaven.com/blind_bake.htm

Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it's about 1/4 inch thick and larger than the pie plate. Gently lift the dough and place it in your dish. With a fork, make many pricks in the bottom of the pie crust. Take your aluminum foil and layer it over the crust so about an inch hangs off the side. Fill the foil with the kidney beans like so:

Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes until the shell is set. Remove from oven, take out beans and foil and return for another 5 minutes until the crust is golden, but not brown. Allow to cool.

Rinse well your 8 ounces of spinach. In a pan with a bit of olive oil, saute the spinach on medium low heat until it wilts and the water is evaporated. At the very end, add a tiny bit more of olive oil and the garlic, which should only cook for about 30 seconds. Hit it with some salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, whisk the 4 eggs, milk, and about half a teaspoon of salt. Obviously, I love salt and use small bits of it along the way while I cook. I prefer to have everything seasoned during the process rather than finish a product with salt. If it seems like too much, ease up on it.

Oven back to 400 degrees.

In your cooled crust, slice some of the goat cheese on the bottom, about 3 ounces. Spread the cooked spinach on top of the crust. Pour in the custard and finish with pieces of the goat cheese round the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes. This quiche is rich with the cheese and may take a bit longer in the oven. Essentially you want the custard set and the crust a nice golden brown.

Cool the quiche on a rack for about 10 minutes and serve. Equally good hot or cold.

On a small personal note, One of my all-time favorite authors just passed away on March 28th. Harry Crews was a southern gothic writer who told hideously beautiful tales of hardship and love with poetic hilarity. I know that sounds like a lot for one guy to pull off, but he did and God bless him for it. He was a writer who inspired me while cracking me up and I highly doubt we'll see anyone like him again for a long while.

On another note, a song I always associate with the first time I picked up A Feast of Snakes and my mind changed.

Swirlies, San Cristobal

Rest in Peace, HC.

A Butter Valentine

14. February 2012 · 4 comments · Categories: food

Huzzah, I have finally succeeded in making a proper shortbread! 

Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that my husband and I rarely celebrate. We've been together for 9 years, so we both know where are hearts are, but occasionally he'll get me flowers or jewelry and I'll bake him some kind of heart shaped treat. This year brought emerald earrings and a luscious batch of Jimmy's Pink Cookies from Molly Wizenberg's book, A Homemade Life.

God bless my mother for giving me this book which is part memoir, part cookbook, and full of love and deliciousness. I've made most of the recipes from it, but always shied from Jimmy's Pink Cookies because of my past failure to produce a crumbly, light shortbread. Mine came out tough from too much handling, and when I waste a pound of butter, I tend to stay away.

Well, no fear with Molly's recipe, it is pretty fool-proof, and the cookies–Holy Mary, they are good. My husband loved them, as did the kids and my good friend, Nancy, whom I consider to be an aficionado of shortbreads, pie crusts, and butter in general. The cookies will a keep a few days in the fridge, or you can freeze them forever, but believe me, they won't last.

Wizenberg's blog, http://www.orangette.blogspot.com, is also full of love and deliciousness. Check it out; she is an artist with food and words.

 

Jimmy’s Pink Cookies (Molly Wizenburg)

For the cookies:
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon kirsch or cherry extract (I used kirsch and probably about 1 tablespoon at least.)
red food coloring

To make cookies, combine the butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, and beat, first on low speed, and then slowly increasing to medium, until light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and salt, and whisk well. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating until the flour is just absorbed. Add the vanilla and beat well to incorporate. (I added the vanilla in after I whipped the butter and sugar due to my fear of the dough becoming tough from too much beating with the flour added.) Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on a large clean surface and turn the dough out onto it. Shape into a disk, wrap well, and refrigerate for one hour.

On a clean, floured surface, roll th dough out to a thickness of 3/8 inch. Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into whatever shapes you would like. (I used an antique heat shaped cookie cutter, naturally.)  Molly uses a 2 inch round cutter and Jimmy uses a much bigger cutter, often in the shape of a heart.

Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake them one sheet at a time, keeping the second sheet in the refridgerator until the first one is done, for 16 to 20 minutes (my smaller heart cookies took 17 minutes exactly), or until the cookies are pale golden at the edges. Do not allow them to brown. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool completely on the pan.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butterin the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat on low speed to fully incorporate, then raise the speed to medium/medium high and beat until there are no lumps, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the flavoring and a few drops of food coloring and beat well. The frosting should be a pretty shade of pink. Taste, if it needs more cherry flavor, go ahead and add more. Generously spread onto the fully cooled cookies. This recipe makes a ton of frosting, Molly recommends using most of it, but I found I had a lot left over. Of course, there's nothing wrong with having too much frosting, I am going to make a small rich chocolate cake to frost with the remainder of it.

The recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies, I rolled mine out a bit thinner and got 3 dozen.

 

 

Homemade minestrone

07. January 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: food

Mine is a family that loves a good soup, and this minestrone recipe handed down from my mom is pretty stellar. I make it using things we freeze from the garden such as green and cannellini beans, tomatoes, and carrots. I get the ham shank from our local smokehouse in Tolland, CT (I buy a few and keep them in the freezer, too), and the rest of the ingredients are all easily found in any supermarket. This soup is easy to make, the only thing it needs is time and love.

The ingredients are as follows: 1 quart bag of frozen whole tomatoes, peeled (1 large can of whole tomatoes), 1 quart bag of frozen green beans (1 can of green beans), a half quart bag of frozen cannellini beans (here you can sub with a can of cannellinis or about a cup or more of dry beans. If using dry, soak them overnight), and the most important ingredient for pure flavor–1 SMOKED ham shank. And trust me, you want that bestia smoked.

You will also need about 4 or 5 medium sized potatoes, 2 medium onions, 5 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot, and 1 stalk of celery, leaves included.

Next, add the shank, both beans, and the tomatoes into a 3 or 4 gallon stock pot and just cover with water.

 

Turn the burner on high. While waiting for that to heat up, prepare the other vegetables. Peel and chop the potatoes into nice chunks, dice the onions, carrot, and celery (with leaves), and mash the garlic with the knife.

 

Add all those chopped vegetables into the pot along with some salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil. Pour enough water in to cover everything and add about an inch or 2 more.

 

Now let this soup cook down for about 4 hours. I know that sounds like a long time, but it is worth it. At that point it will look like this:

 

Yes.

Now crucial to this soup is butter, parmesan, and a good loaf of crusty bread. 

 

When the soup has cooked down and is nice and thick, ladle out however many portions will be supping that night into a smaller pot and bring up to a boil. take a small amount of pasta–I use angel hair–break it into fourths (you want bite-size bits here), and add to the small pot of soup.

 

 

While you're waiting for the pasta to cook, you can package all your minestrone (ALWAYS minus the pasta!) into containers for the freezer.

 

When the pasta is cooked al dente, and with angel hair this only takes about 5 minutes, ladle the soup into beautiful bowl, add a teaspoon sized daub of soft butter on top and a nice amount of parmesan cheese. Serve with your crusty bread and you are in for a rustic, Italian treat.

 

Beer me, Marge.

03. January 2012 · 4 comments · Categories: food · Tags: ,

 

 

Had a couple over for a New Years dinner, and although the roasted chicken with lemons and rosemary was divine, what really stood out were the beers. We started with Father Christmas Highland Ale, a complex rich treat from The Olde Burnside Brewery in East Hartford CT. Definitely tasted a nice cherry flavor in there that was by no means overpowering along with a fine malt to hop balance. Next was a Tripel Ale from Allagash in Portland, Maine. The high yeast and rich malt went well with white tortilla chips, salsa verde made with our own tomatillos, and this sweet, spicy salsa that our guest made with grilled tomatoes and a variety of hot peppers. Third in our tasting was Dogfish Head Brewery's Midas Touch, a malty honey-enhanced sweet and dry beer with little notes of fruit. Finally, we all split a bomber of Rich and Dan's Rye IPA made by Harpoon in Windsor, VT, an earthy bright hoppy drink that paired well with the succulent roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots. We completed the meal with excellent carrot cupcakes our professional baker guest made that she had topped with a light and delicious whipped cream cheese frosting. At that point after 4 beers in the alcohol ranges of 8.7%, we were all happy to finish the night with tea.