musings from madison

Penelope Jane

2011-02-02T20:54:00.002-06:00

Penelope Jane, One Month Old, originally uploaded by musings from madison.

Introducing Penelope Jane
Born on 12.29.2010
7 lbs 9 oz
4:58 pm
20 in long

Picture was taken at one month by Scott Sterner.

Red Velvet Cake for My Love

2010-11-05T08:38:00.004-05:00

Ruthie's favorite cake of all time is red velvet cake. I found this out 4 years ago when we first started dating, and it has been tradition ever since then to make this for my Love for Valentines day AND her birthday. With her birthday tomorrow, it's a good time to post this. Red velvet cake is basically a chocolate cake with red food coloring....A LOT of red food coloring. I can't explain it, but the red food coloring adds a unique depth of flavor to this cake. But just like everything else, there are good versions and bad versions. A few years ago The New York Times featured it. I've tried that one as well, but the Red Velvet Cake Connoisseur (RVCC), a.k.a--my Love--said it wasn't very good. Undeterred, I kept on making more Red Velvet cakes for my Love until she was satisfied. This version, according to my Love, is "the best Red Velvet cake she has ever eaten."

The recipe is based on--you guessed it--my grandmother's chocolate cake recipe. Grommie made the best chocolate cake. She also made the best fudge frosting for this cake that was sublime. The icing was dense, yet thin and kinda melted into the cake; chocolate double-chocolate cake you could say. Together, it was the best chocolate cake ever! Just ask anyone in my family and they would tell you that it was the most requested birthday cake of all time. The whole family kept asking her how she made the fudge frosting, and she would say, "Oh that's easy. You just boil sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk, for 3 minutes, then beat until it starts to thicken..." We have all tried to make her fudge frosting, but no one has ever been able to replicate it. I remember the last time we were around the dinning room table drinking our coffee after a wonderful Easter dinner talking about that cake. When we asked her then, "So how do you make that icing?" She would say the same thing, "Oh that's easy. You just boil sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk..." I am still convinced there is some secret ingredient or secret technique she did differently than what was not written down. Maybe one day Ruthie and I will tackle replicating her chocolate cake and fudge frosting recipe. But back to the chocolate cake. This chocolate cake recipe is unusual in the fact that you boil water, cocoa, and butter together and add it directly to the sugar and flour. You would think this would toughen the cake by seizing the starch and making it pasty, but instead it does the opposite by somehow 'tempering' the starch molecules in the flour and preventing gluten formation. This is the sort of kitchen science experiment I love since I am a biochemist.

As a side note. The original recipe calls for margarine. Margarine was originally made with partially hydrogenated vegetables oils to approximate the soft spreadability of butter. But now we know how bad partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are for us, so we don't cook with them anymore. When I tried to make this recipe with all butter, the cake came out too firm and dry. I have noticed this with a lot of recipes that were originally made with margarine. After some trial and error I found how to get the "old'fashioned" texture and flavor without using margarine. I use 1/2 butter and a 1/2 vegetable oil in place of the original margarine. This gives the cake buttery flavor, but preserves the moistness which the vegetable oil lends to the cake. I have tried this substitute with many different recipes and it works quite well. An important point to remember about this cake recipe is to mix the batter thoroughly after adding the ingredients especially the baking soda at the end.

Cream cheese frosting is the traditional icing for this cake and I think it compliments the rich chocolate cake incredibly well. If this cake couldn't get any better, I added real vanilla bean seeds in addition to the vanilla extract which intensifies the vanilla flavor. There are different components to this recipe, but it goes quickly so make sure the oven is preheated before starting.

Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

Preheat oven to 400 degrees before starting.

Mix with the beater attachment (NOT whip attachment) of an electric mixer (2 minutes on #2 setting on Kitchenaid, med-low):

2 cups (8.5 oz) pastry or cake flour (All-purpose flour WILL NOT be the same)
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt.

While mixer is running, in a 2 quart saucepan bring to BOIL and immediately remove from heat:

1/2 cup (1 stick; 4 oz) butter
1/2 cup (4 oz) vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/3 cup cocoa

Set aside 5 MINUTES to cool slightly (you want it very hot, but not boiling, when you add to sugar/flour mixure). With mixer running on low speed (#1 on Kitchenaid), add the hot mixture. Then turn up the mixer to med-low (#2 setting on Kitchenaid) for 1 MINUTE (don't worry, you won't over beat).

Meanwhile in a SEPARATE small bowl, beat very well:

2 large eggs

Then add to the eggs:

1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

And beat together and add slowly to the mixer while running (again, #2 setting on kitchenaid). Then add:

2 oz red food coloring (usually sold in 1 oz bottles so you will need two 1 oz bottles; 1/4 cup)

Beat all for 2 MINUTES and then add:

1 tsp baking soda (I usually measure 1 tsp and then put in a 1 cup measure and then with back of s spoon crush the clumps that are present before adding to the batter. Baking soda tends to clump)

Beat 2 minutes. and then transfer to two 8- or 9-inch cake pans (greased and dusted with flour) OR to cupcake liners. If using cupcakes molds, fill VERY FULL (7/8ths up the sides).

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes (12-15 min for cupcakes) or until a toothpick comes out clean. DON'T OVERCOOK or it will dry out too much. Cool before icing.

Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Icing:

1 stick (4 oz) butter
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
1 vanilla bean with the seeds scraped into the icing mixer (OR 2 tsp vanilla)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 cups of powdered sugar

Beat the butter and cream cheese until soft. Add the vanilla bean seeds and beat in the powdered sugar until stiff enough to spread. Feel free to add more (or less) powdered sugar if needed to get to the right consistency.

This cake is best made the day ahead or early in the day before serving. DON'T REFRIGERATE THE CAKE. If you are worried about the cream cheese icing sitting out, store the cake at room temperature and ice the cake a couple of hours before serving.

MIA

2010-08-17T19:44:00.000-05:00

When do you update a blog about personal things? You know those things that take a ton of your time, thoughts and energy that you do not desire to share with the whole world right away (because the whole world reads our blog...ya right)? Well, today is the day I feel comfortable sharing... I realize my last post was in March and even at that it was a reference to an article. And yes for our readers benefit my darling husband has been sporadically updating the site with garden updates or things we are excited about food wise, I however have been a complete and total blogger-slacker.

So the big reveal? What the heck has been going on in my (our) life that has me so distracted? Well, things changed a bit for me a little over 20 weeks ago. Hummm....speaking in weeks? Why yes, I find myself speaking in weeks. Is that a dead give away?

For the past 20ish weeks I have been growing who we found out today, is our daughter!

GARLIC!!!!!!

2010-06-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting all year for this. This past Saturday was our garlic harvest and they're beautiful. We have had a very wet June and as of yesterday we had over 8 inches of rain. It was just too much and I decided pull them before they started to deteriorate. And after seeing them, they were ready.

There is something about seeing all this garlic hanging on our porch drying down for winter storage. We grew a variety called Siberian. It is a hardneck garlic and this variety is adapted to the Northern climates and can handle 6 inches of solid frozen ground. The Siberian garlic is intense and spicy; it also forms 6-8 very large, easy to peel cloves because I hate peeling tiny cloves. We had over 30 pounds and 120 heads. The goal was to harvest about 120-130 heads and we would save the largest heads (about 1/5th of the harvest) and replant in late October.

You wonder whether we'll eat all this garlic...probably not (at least not this year). There will probably be excess. But that is OK because it was a fun to grow. But just to let you know, we actually do eat a lot of garlic; almost 2 heads a week. Basically any recipe that calls for garlic, I triple it. Our basic marinara has 4-6 cloves and I routinely add half a head of garlic to our roasted chicken. And I have been known to substitute garlic ounce for ounce for recipes calling for onion because I like the extra punch. It's addictive. and I believe you can never eat too much garlic.

The most amazing salad!!

2010-05-21T22:12:00.003-05:00

We had the most amazing salad from our garden tonight! 5 different lettuces, sweet pea tendrils, baby radishes, green onions, chive flowers, caramelized walnuts, and Granny Smith apples. There is nothing like making a salad from all the things from your own garden. So go and get yourself a garden and grow some fresh vegetables.

Our May garden

2010-05-16T20:44:00.003-05:00

This our May garden in panoramic view. March, April, and May are cool months in Madison so things get going to a slow start. Garlic, shallots, and onions love the cool weather, though. Our garlic is growing like gangbusters. Up close it looks like corn stalks:

farther away:

Onions are picking up. This year I started the onions from seed indoors in pots back in February under lights and transplanted them to the garden in the first of April. They grew sluggish for a couple of months. Our main storage onion is Copra. We chose this variety because is has a 12 month storage life. We go through a lot of onions and a lot of garlic for that matter and we plan to grow and store the majority of our onion and garlic for the year. We grew shallots last season and we were surprised how easy they were to grow. Shallots are incredibly sweet and complex. Shallots remind me of a combination of garlic and leeks. Onions are in the foreground and the shallots are near the back:

Our Fall Spring spinach is doing well. We have already harvested over 15 pounds of spinach since late March. This crop is kinda of a fluke. This was supposed to be our Fall crop, but I started it late and it never really picked up. On a whim, while I was covering our garlic with mulch for the winter last November, I decided to cover the spinach up in hopes I could get an early spinach spinach crop. Well it worked and we will be repeating it this fall:

Our peas are doing very well. Ruthie and I worked in the garden this past Saturday and the peas are really picking up. They have been sluggish over the past few weeks, but since the temperature picked up they have really picked up. I noticed on Saturday that they are getting ready to flower so we should have peas in a few weeks:

Breakfast for dessert or dessert for breakfast??

2010-05-08T18:24:00.000-05:00

We harvested our first pound of rhubarb this past weekend. I, nor Ruthie, ever grew up eating rhubarb on a regular basis. I don't think it grows too well in the South. Anyway, having tart, fresh, bright red fruit come spring after a long 6 months of winter weather here in Wisconsin is refreshing. With regular berry and fruit season still 1-2 months away, rhubarb fills in the gap. The taste of rhubarb is unique, very berry-like (it kinda think it reminds me of sour cherries in it's tartness), and it combines well with other fruits most notably strawberries. The combination of rhubarb and strawberries in a pie can be sublime. In deciding what to make with this beautiful rhubarb from our garden, I thought it would go well with a buttery flakey pastry. Homemade pop tarts are big right now in the blogging World, so I thought I would make a rhubarb filling. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I used this recipe almost verbatim, except that I substituted rhubarb and added more sugar to balance out the extra tartness of the rhubarb. We made two half batches, one apple and the other the rhubarb.

I even used the pie crust recipe she has except I made it in the mixer using the paddle attachment to cut in the butter, but fill free to use any pie crust recipe. This one, though, is extremely flaky and buttery and makes it more flakey strudel-like than pie crust-like (I'll blog about it later). So for now you can either make the one in the recipe or use your favorite. Both with be great I'm sure. Ruthie and I loved this recipe a lot. I love good pie pastry, sometimes even more than than the filling itself. I found these pop-tarts maximize the pastry to filling ratio well. We found very quickly that this recipe is not just for breakfast, but is an extremely fast way to have an apple pie (or rhubarb pie) with ice-cream dessert. Just make these, then plop them in a bowl with ice cream and you have my favorite all-time dessert, warm apple pie with ice cream. Sorry, I don't have a final picture of the rhubarb pop-tart (they all got eaten), but I do have a picture of the apple pop-tart.

Homemade Pop-Tarts

1 single 9" pie crust of choice (I recommend this one)

Filling: (NOTE: if using rhubarb use about a pound of rhubarb chopped into 1/2 inch chunks and increase sugar to 1/3 cup)
3 medium apples (I used granny smith for tartness) chopped fine
1/4 cup butter
1/2 vanilla bean (split and scraped)
3 TB sugar
dash cinnamon and nutmeg (not much)

Heat apples, butter, vanilla, sugar in a skillet over medium heat. Cook stirring until translucent, but still have shape (you don't want mush). Remove from heat and cool (put in refrigerator to speed things up).

Assemble and Bake (or Freeze):

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out the dough till about 1/8th inch thickness (similar thickness when making pie crust) into a 6 by 18 inch rectangle and cut into 3 x 3 inch squares. You should have about 12 squares. don't trim excess. This are rustic so don't waste the pie crust. Mine were misshapen a bit when I finished. Spoon 1-2 TB piles of apples into the middle of 6 squares and then add a square of dough on top. It took about all the apple mixture. Pile it on if you have a lot of apple mixture left. To finish the pop-tart, seal edges of dough with the tines of a fork (follow the recipe pics in this recipe). place on cookie sheet and bake 20 minutes until golden brown on top and bubbling. Cover with aluminum foil near the end of the baking if it is getting too brown around the edges. Serve warm or with ice cream. Alternatively: (and what we did), freeze pop tarts until frozen solid, wrap individually in aluminum foil and put batch in freezer gallon bag. To serve, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place frozen pop-tart on cookie sheet (don't thaw before baking). Bake one at a time or several. Bake for 20 minutes or until dark golden brown for 20 minutes. Cover with aluminum fold if getting too brown around the edges. Serve warm as a strudel for breakfast or as a dessert with ice-cream in a bowl.

The Chubby Vegetarian

2010-04-18T16:17:00.000-05:00

Our new favorite blog is called The Chubby Vegetarian (aka the CV). Check it out. Tonight were making delicata and acorn squash + sage lasagna .

Garden update

2010-04-10T22:14:00.001-05:00

The garden is looking good. The garlic is kicking everybody's butt in the community garden. The plants are huge. The peas are starting to sprout and should pick up this month and we transplanted a few broccoli and cauliflower plants today. We also transplanted our storage onions last weekend. They're small right now, but will pick up in the coming months.

Broccoli transplanted today:

Peas sprouting:

Garlic going strong:

Onion tranplants:

Hook's 15 year Cheddar

2010-04-10T21:37:00.005-05:00

Sublime. This describes the Hook's 15 year Cheddar. A very unique cheese and a product of the great state of Wisconsin. This cheese is absolutely amazing. The first time we had this cheese was on our anniversary last year at L 'Etoile. And I remember that night Ruthie and I were recollecting what we were doing 15 years prior when this cheese was made. I think I was 17 years old in high school and Ruthie was in Jr. high. Well, last weekend we got away and booked a Bed & Breakfast in Mineral Point, Wisconsin which is where the Hook's Cheese Company is located. Quaint is best way to describe this town. We had a wonderful time and we picked up some 12 year and 15 year Hook's cheddar. NPR had a radio interview of Mr. Hook owner and maker of Hook's cheddar We brought it home and tried to recreate the cheese course we had on our anniversary. There are no words to describe the combination of caramelized walnuts with this 15 year cheddar. It is sublime.

The First Fruits

2010-03-28T11:38:00.005-05:00

We have hit the ground running this year in the garden. The last of the snow melted off 2 weeks ago and things are getting a bit greener. The high temps will be in the 70's this week. Spring is here. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at the garden. It was a great day to be at the community gardens and is refreshing to see new gardeners and the 'regulars' working in their plots side-by-side, asking questions, catching up while the winter kept us away. Gardening is good and seems to bring out the best in people.
This year we had the privilege to over-winter our garden from last year. I planted garlic and shallots as bulbs in the ground last November and mulched them heavily once the ground froze in December. I also started spinach last fall hoping to have a fall crop of fresh spinach, but cold weather settled into Southern Wisconsin very quickly last year, so I just mulched over the little plants and hoped that they make it through the winter. Low and behold last week, I uncovered that blanket of mulch, the little spinach plants were waited patiently for spring to arrive and it didn't take them long to soak in the warm sunshine and grow. I picked a bag of fresh spinach as well as some green garlic and shallot greens yesterday. Combined with Hook's blue cheese, toasted walnuts, and fresh mandarin oranges and a simple vinegarette, we had one of the best first-of-the-season salads ever.

If you thought it couldn't get any better, we combined the salad with a simple pan seared chicken and acini de pepe (recipe to follow), but risotto or rice would work as well.

Acini de pepe is a small 'rice-like' pasta that is literally spaghetti pasta that has been diced very small. It cooks up like risotto rice, starchy, and absorbs the flavors it's cook in very well. One of the reason's we like acini de pepe is that is cooks a lot faster than risotto and is just simple variety. It also does not break down like risotto rice does if you overcook it, so it can hold on the stovetop well until your ready to eat. You can also add acini de pepe to vegetable soups and well as in cold salads like couscous. This is NOT a recipe to make acini de pepe, very complicated to make unless you have a pasta extruder machine, but it can be easily found in the larger grocery stores and in specialty shops.

Acini de Pepe

Serves 4 as a side item. Takes about 20 minutes prep and cooking time

1-2 Tb olive oil
1 carrot
1/2 of a small onion
1 rib celery
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups chicken stock or 1 can chicken stock plus water
1 cups acini de pepe
green onions or chives (optional)

Finely dice the carrot, onion, celery and sauté in olive oil over med-high until soft (1 -2 minutes). Add acini de pepe and sauté for 30 seconds until the acini de pepe is fragrant and coated in the olive oil (don't toast). Add the minced garlic and half of the chicken stock (or chicken stock and water) and stir over med-low heat with top on. It does not have to be stirred all the time like risotto, just often to prevent the bottom from sticking and browning. Add more liquid as necessary to prevent it from drying out (it should be a little soupy and sticky). Acini de pepe is done when you bite into the pasta and it soft in the middle. Add salt and pepper to taste. It can be kept warm over very low heat until ready to serve. It will continue to absorb more liquid as it sits, so right before serveing adjust consistency by adding more water or chicken stock. Green onions or chives added at the last minute before serving is really good with it.

The Femivore's Dilemma - NY Times

2010-03-18T14:08:00.003-05:00

The NYT (Peggy Orenstien) has a fantastic article from a few days ago. It is provoking on many levels...it asks questions Eric and I discuss frequently:

What constitutes "enough"? What is my obligation to others? What do I want for my child[ren]? Is [our] home the engine of materialism or a refuge from it?

photo credit goes to Katherine Wolkoff

I encourage you to read the article.

The March Garden

2010-03-14T20:34:00.002-05:00

At last! Spring is here in Madison!

We began our gardening for 2010 today! Last year we planted spinach, garlic, and shallots prior to winter beginning. We covered them all with compost and mulch to protect it against the harsh elements of winter and today we went and uncovered our plants to see if they survived! Take a peek at our spinach (the first rain or watering will wash off the dirt on the leaves)! We should be eating spinach salad as early as next week!

Fixing a Failed Vegetable Garden - the WSJ

2010-03-10T08:35:00.004-06:00

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today about Fixing a Failed Vegetable Garden.

Check it out HERE

Slackerly-slackerson

2010-02-09T17:02:00.000-06:00

Yes, that's right, we have been total slackers in the blogging department as of late...well as of the past two months. While I'd like to justify it with a host of excuses, capped off by it's just freaking cold up here which makes it hard to do much of anything, we really are without excuse. We've enjoyed the holiday season and I think while we both love the festivities, we are glad to be home in Madison, getting back to our regular routines.

We had a lovely holiday in Tennessee with our families and friends. This was "the" trip that made us realize how much we miss it (it being Tennessee). We were glad to return to Madison as it is difficult to travel for long periods of time, we like it, not to mention it is where our lives reside.

New year, new resolutions? Well, I think one we're agreeing on to work toward together is what I term the tidy-factor. We started this year off by giving away a ton of stuff and resolving to keep our place less cluttered. Eric started running last year (he did the Berbee Derby 10K run on Thanksgiving last year--I did the 5K walk) and will "train" for something (half marathon, marathon, race of some sort) this year I'm sure. We've pledged to eat all the vegetables in our freezer and on our shelves from our garden last year, before this years garden starts producing. We are looking for a new apartment, in spite of how much we l.o.v.e. our current place, now that we know Madison, we feel we can find something comparable at a better rate.

We are also trying to enjoy the winter. While not bitterly cold as it was last year, it is still cold, and still snowy. Eric is trying cross country skiing, and we went ice skating at Tenney Park a two weekends ago. We are ready for spring to come, and hoping it comes quickly. We ordered our seeds for the garden this past week and Eric surprised me (and even himself a bit) by shaving off his beard. He's now talking about how cold his face is. I have no sympathy.

So, I realize this is a rambling update...but this is simply to say that we shall return to the blogisphere...perhaps not with vigor, but we shall return.

Traditions

2009-12-13T16:47:00.006-06:00

I remember a long time ago, that the families in our neighborhood would exchange gifts on Christmas Eve. My dad would load up the car with our gifts to give all the neighborhood families. We used to have a dozen families swing by our place to wish us happy holidays and to drop off gifts (which were usually something amazing to eat and only reserved for the holidays). For many years we made caramel corn for our neighbors. I was the one who usually made it. After a couple of years, the caramel corn became the expected Vincill family gift. We even had neighbors give back the tins for refill. Refills? Yeh, thats right, expected refills on the Vincill family caramel corn.

I haven't made carmel corn in over 15 years, but today I checked out the Organette Blog and she had a post on carmel corn, and it brought back a flood of childhood memories. I miss those years. There, I said it. I am a sucker for Christmas traditions. Now as Ruthie and I start our family together, I get excited about starting our own Christmas traditions. Today we made a batch of the Vincill family caramel corn and are sharing it with our good friends in Madison.

This is the original family caramel corn with new twist. I added fleur de sel (flaked sea salt) which compliments and intensifies the caramel flavor.

Vincill family Caramel Corn with Fleur de Sel

makes 3-quarts or more

16-18 cups of popcorn (make sure it is not salted or buttered; 2x for popcorn recipe)

2 cups light brown sugar

1 cup butter

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/2 tsp table salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups roasted, salted peanuts

1/2 tsp fleur de sel (flaked sea salt)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Make popcorn and put into two very large pans (preferably with high sides) and place in the oven to keep warm. In a 3 quart saucepan, bring sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt to a boil over medium heat. Stir only until it comes to a boil and then stop stirring. Boil over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit until it stops bubbling. Quickly add 1/2 tsp. of baking soda and 1 tsp. vanilla and stir for less than 30 seconds until it starts to foam up. Pour quickly and evenly over warmed popcorn and stir until evenly distributed. Don't worry if all of the caramel doesn't coat each individual piece of popcorn because that will happen later. Evenly distribute coated corn into the two large sheet pans. Add peanuts (optional) and place in oven for an hour stirring every 15 minutes. During the last 15 minutes, sprinkle 1/2 tsp fluer de sel over the caramel corn and it will stick to the carmel.

After an hour, remove from the heat and place on wax paper and separate large pieces. Cool completely and store in airtight containers. The peanuts usually don't stick to the carmel and usually drop to the bottom of the containers.

St. Vincent's Finds

2009-12-10T11:29:00.000-06:00

We talked about this thrift store before in previous posts. This store is literally across the street. Just like most thrift stores, most is crap, but we have been able to find an uncanny amount of really good furniture. Today we found an amazing dinning room table. It is solid walnut with 2 leafs. We originally had a square table, which was awkward is getting chairs around the table unless you have a VERY big square table. But this table is semi-circular, so we can get two people at each end with a comfortable 6 people and if need be 8-10 people total.

The table was only 45 dollars!! But then St. Vincent's had a 50% off all furniture sale that day so we got it for 23 dollars!!!

Here it is. The chairs were ours, but they actually match the finish extremely well.

Here it is with the leafs in:

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

2009-12-09T17:39:00.001-06:00

I feel this is extremely appropriate, given that we've just had 20 + inches of snow dumped on us today.

This is a couple of Tennessee Natives we went to school with. A darling couple and a great sound.

Aren't they fantastic! Madison, you should become familiar with Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors.

Stay warm tonight!

It's Christmastime!

2009-12-01T08:00:00.004-06:00

It's Christmastime in our house.
Many of you know that I have a hard time waiting to give gifts or tell surprises, because I get so darn excited! In the spirit of this, we ended up exchanging gifts early this year...like super early...in fact, the night we put our tree up...which was the day after Thanksgiving.
I know it's ridiculous. However, Let me show you my Christmas gift this year (thanks to the Williams-Sonoma employee discount--I'm holiday help again).

The KitchenAid Pasta Extruder (it makes tubular pasta) I couldn't be more excited! I l.o.v.e. homemade pasta, particularly tubular pasta...

Of course, I made some right away. AND once the pasta dough was the right consistancy, it was easy as pie.

Eric, of course, then made me the most delicious mac and cheese I've ever tasted.

and I just had to share it with you. I give this KitchenAid attachment two thumbs up!

November Garden

2009-11-14T09:10:00.001-06:00

So I went out to the garden the other day to see how the brussel sprouts were doing. They have been slow to mature and I was afraid that a hard freeze would set in before they were ready to harvest. Southern Wisconsin has had an unusually mild fall with average lows in the 40s and average highs in the 60s. We have not even turned our heat on in our apartment yet. Albeit, we do live in a middle apartment so we get heat from our lower and upper apartments. We did put that plastic on all the windows which has helped tremendously. So back to the garden....I had forgotten about the cauliflower and was not expecting a good harvest, but the short days and cool/mild fall gave us some huge heads of cauliflower. Cauliflower is a hard vegetable to grow because if requires temps in the 60s and 70s and short daylight or it bolts and forms puny sized heads. So hear you go. Here is our prized cauliflower and other vegetables. BTW, we did not grow pumpkins, that came from a friends garden. Next year, I want to grow some sugar pie pumpkins. These are small, sweet, densely fleshed pumpkins that are great for cooking with and for making pumpkin pies.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

2009-11-02T22:17:00.006-06:00

So, I like to bake, mostly because I love almost every bread product ever known to man. When we moved to Madison, I had a lot of time on my hands. With that time and a limited budget, baking seemed like the most natural solution. I discovered that I have a talent for baking bread (after you exclude the inevitable mishaps that go along with "Ruthie in the kitchen"). It all started with the Pretzels, Pasta, French Bread, then came the Sandwich Bread, and my most favorite Ciabatta (which like most things started out with calculation mishaps, however, we love this bread and I make tons at a time --this past go around I *accidentally* made 24 loaves, it's a long story...needless to say my time in the kitchen isn't without it's humor).

I follow a baking blog called Bakers Banter put on by King Arthur Flour. It's an excellent blog for the carbohydrate lovers out there and especially nice for me because they do step by step pictures (my favorite)! I book marked a recipe for a sandwich bread they wrote up recently and just had the chance to give it a go. I must say, we are pleased....very pleased. It will replace our current sandwich bread recipe mentioned earlier. Here's my abbreviated recipe: It is a wet dough, but really is as simple as mixing a starter 4 hours to 2 days prior to baking (which is a nice touch that it can fit MY schedule instead of the other way around). Next you mix in some other ingredients, put it in your mixer and kneed it, take it out, let it rise, cut it in half and put it in two loaf pans, let it rise and then bake and voila! wonderful bread. No rolling out, folding and wrapping, just glop and rise glop and rise.

You will find the pictorial/technique explanation here and the actual recipe here. I didn't use ascorbic acid from their version and substituted brown sugar for the demerara sugar they recommended. Next time however, I will use honey.

Here's my version of the recipe with all credit going to KAF.
For the starter - make 4 - 48 hours ahead of time:

1 cup Unbleached Bread Flour

1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

2 cups cool water

For the Dough:

all of the starter
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
4 1/2 cups Unbleached Bread Flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt OR 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
4 tablespoons butter or 1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 9 x 5 loaf pans (we actually used 1 9 x 5 loaf pan and a 8 x 4 1/2)

Recombine the starter with the water that's seperated out of it. Add 1.5 cups of the bread flour, the oats, flax, yeast, sugar, and salt. Coarsely combine in the mixer. Add melted butter or oil and the water.

Add the rest of the flour and transfer to the mixer (I had to split mine in half mid way through because it was too hard on my mixer). Kneed in the mixer for 7 minutes or so until it has all come together and is pulling away from the sides of the mixer. (I had to add a little bit extra - 2 T to each half of the dough- water mid way through kneading due to it not combining well).

Let rise until doubled in size. (60 - 90 minutes) - I preheat my little oven to 200 for about 5 minutes, turn it off wait until I can put my hand in the oven and it isn't too hot, rather just warm, and then put my bread in it to rise. This usually always cuts my rise time in half. Sometimes I turn the oven back on to 200 for 3 minutes if it's gotten cold. You'll just have to determine what's best for your oven.

Divide it in half and shape into two logs for the lightly greased loaf pans.

Let rise until it's "fully risen" (one inch or so above the lip of the pan).

Bake for 20 minutes at 350 uncovered, then make a foil tent and cover for 25 more minutes until nice and brown on top.

Let cool in the pan for 3 - 5 minutes (but no longer because condensation will build up in the pan giving you soggy bread). Turn out and let cool on cooling rack.

Slice and enjoy.

Hope you love it as much as I do!

The October Garden

2009-10-29T12:26:00.000-05:00

The garden season is coming to an end here in Madison. Last week we harvested the last of the golden beets and carrots. The basil, swiss chard, peppers, broccoli, and bean plants were pulled up and composted. Our third planting of green beans never really made it. They were hit with low 30 degree night temperatures in late September and just sulked there with all of their flowers dropping off. We did get a few handfuls of tender small green beans for a couple meals, but in the end, I just pulled them up and composted them with all the other end of the season garden refuse. We finally had a good freeze and a couple of frosts, putting an end to the growing season except for a few hardy vegetables such as the brussel sprouts and kale and cauliflower. The frosts should actually increase the sugar content of the kale and brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts are extremely hardy and we should be harvesting them all the way into December. Last week I turned all the beds over, and added about two inches of compost and planted our cover crop. It is a mix of hardy legumes, bell beans, and oats, which will grow up until mid-December when we get our first big winter storms. This above pic is the cover crop starting to spring in the beds. The cover crop provides a duel role in the garden. First, the vigorous roots dig into the soil and hold it firm to prevent erosion during the Winter. Second, because the cover crop has a hefty amount of legumes, it captures atmospheric nitrogen and converts it to a form the the plant can use. Since these plants will be turned under at the first of Spring, all that nitrogen is released into the soil for next seasons crops to use. We practice high intensity gardening with crops grown in succession all season long. When one crop is harvested, then another is planted in it's place.

For this type of gardening in the long run to be sustainable, it requires a large amount of fertilizer, micro-nutrients, and organic matter to be put back into the soil. There is no one solution either. We turned in over 6 inches of compost this year alone! To get a perspective of how much that is, that is about 7 cubic yards of compost which is about 7 front loader buckets full. That is a lot of compost for a 25 x 25 foot garden. I don't expect to add that much next year, but we inherited some worn out soil with almost no organic matter and who knows how much available nitrogen. We also turned in 50 pounds of soybean meal this season as well (soybean meal has a NPK of around 7-2-2). Finally, the cover crop. The other advantage of the cover crop is that it works during the late Fall, Winter, and early Spring months when nothing else is growing. This is truly sustainable organic gardening practices.

Last but not least, we planted our garlic and shallots last week. This is one of the things I am really excited about. I ordered a variety of garlic called Red Siberian from Peacefully Valley, a well-known online organic supply house. We ordered enough so that we can replant part of our harvest next year and continue doing that year after year. I also planted shallots. We planted some this past year and were surprised how easy they were to grow and how productive they were. We planted 10 bulbs this past year and harvested over 50 bulbs! This year I planted I planted 40 bulbs and should harvest around 200 shallot bulbs if were lucky.
That is it for now.

...We're gonna have a good time...

2009-10-07T11:01:00.003-05:00

My Love, originally uploaded by musings from madison.

Today is my sweet husbands birthday.
Those who know us, know we love to celebrate...I mean, we REALLY love to celebrate.
So for Eric's birthday we are celebrating all week long. This past weekend, Eric's sister came up with her husband and we were able to celebrate with them on Saturday night. Last night we went to L'Etoile for dinner. They offer a $22/Tuesday meal and last nights was Pulled Pork BBQ... cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, and texas toast. We made reservations over a month ago, because these things fill up fast. It was yummmm..... We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I must say however... the northerners don't know how to do barbecue like southerners...it was delicious don't get me wrong, and it was by far the best that we've had since we've been up here... and it was in fact extremely delicious. However we agree...the BEST barbecue is yet to be found. So if anyone in the Madison area has any suggestions...

Tonight we are celebrating with friends at one of our FAVORITE places, Tex Tubbs Taco Palace. For those of you who read this in Knoxville, it is like our La Paz. Eric happens to share his birthday with Tex Tubbs (it is their 2nd? maybe?). So we decided a joint celebration would be appropriate. Tex Tubbs also has a special brisket taco that Eric is CRAZY about. To cap of the week of celebration Eric is playing poker this weekend. So those are the celebration plans for the person we celebrate.

The person we celebrate: Eric is my favorite and I delight in him. He is my very best friend. His passions are contagious and the zeal with which pursues them is dynamic. He is exactly who he is without reservation. He loves people well. He loves me well.

So to my sweet husband, this is to say happy birthday until I can find a card that is inappropriate enough to give you.

Gourmet Magazine Heads to the Meat Grinder

2009-10-06T16:11:00.000-05:00

Gourmet Magazine Heads to the Meat Grinder

Gourmet Magazine will be no more. It is an unfortunate event.

Beer infused Broccoli????

2009-09-24T08:38:00.007-05:00

The name of the variety of broccoli we grew is called Green Goliath, and I think it lives up to its name. These things are HUGE!! Each one weighs several pounds a piece. Pictures don't do it justice, so I used my head as a reference in size...and a wine bottle. This past Spring, we bought broccoli plants at the local gardening center, so we didn't have control over the variety or how they were grown before we got them. They were still nice looking. But for the fall crop, we bought the seeds and started them indoors on July first and planted them in the garden as transplants 4 weeks later. For bed preparation, we worked in 2 inches of compost and made raised beds. Other than keeping them well watered, we just let them grow. This is just the first 3 heads, we have 10 more that will be ready to harvest in the next week or so.

We will have broccoli like people have zucchini. I guess we will need to think of ways to serve all this broccoli. I was thinking about beer infused broccoli? While I work on that recipe I will leave you with one Ruthie and I make all the time. It is a broccoli salad that I was introduced to by my sister-in-law, Emily. The only thing we do differently is we add a tablespoon of toasted sesame seed oil, which gives it an Asian flavor.

Broccoli Salad

1.5-2 lbs chilled broccoli tips (you want small bite-size pieces)

1/2 cup Sunflower seeds

6 baccon slices crumbled (or 1/4 cup prepared bacon bits)

1/2 cup Golden raisins

1/2 cup chopped green scallions, chilled

dressing:

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Red wine vinegar

1Tb. toasted sesame seed oil

Whisk and chill.

Combine all and chill at least 1hr before serving.

Pepper Harvest

2009-09-22T14:20:00.005-05:00

We prepared for this moment well in advanced. We researched and bought books on the subject. Checked and double checked the calender in order to time this day as perfectly as we could all well knowing that so many things could go wrong in a span of 9 months. Then we made the decision and bought the seeds way back in January and started to germinate them in April, indoors of course. Then we fed and watered the little guys until they were ready to go out on their own in the garden. When planted, they stretched their leaves to the sun, and with their roots, clung to the fertile earth and grew. Bigger and bigger every day. All season long they grew and set fruit. One, two, five, ten and more fruits were born, but they did not ripen. Spring turned into summer and we waited. Summer days grew cooler and shorter and we waited....Until today. The first day of fall. Today is the day that we harvested our big beautiful red peppers and hundreds of jalapeños.

With all of these peppers around us, Ruthie and I have been asking ourselves what do we do with them all? For the red peppers, I couldn't imagine a better recipe than roasted red peppers. The recipe is very simple, but if you had to distill it down, it involves charring the skin of the pepper, removing the charred skin and coring and deseeding. But what happens the to flesh of the pepper is amazing. The sugars caramelize and it also intensifies the red bell pepper flavor. We add these roasted bell peppers to freshly steamed asparagus, green beans, or tossed with some oven roasted brussel sprouts. One of my favorite pizza toppings is roasted red bell peppers. I will slice the peppers into strips and toss with a little olive oil and a good dose of balsamic vinegar and top a pizza with that and some thinly sliced red onion and pepperoni for the best pizza in the World.

Roasted Red Bell Peppers

Red Bell Peppers (as many as you want to do)

Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil (it makes it easer to clean up afterwards). Slice peppers lengthwise so that each half has a part of the stem. Remove the stem and seeds from each half. Smash gently so that each side lays relatively flat on the pan. It will crack in places, but that is OK. Put under the broiler in the oven until the skin is black. It may set off the fire alarm. Remove from oven and using the same piece of foil lining the pan, lift one side and fold over onto the peppers and seal, sort of like making a pocket. This will steam the peppers. After ten minutes, the black skin will loosen from the flesh and you can remove the skin. Use immediately in a recipe or you can store them for longer use by transferring them to a jar and covering with some balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil. The acidity of the balsamic will preserve them in the refrigerator and the oil will prevent them from drying out.

For jalapeños, there is nothing better than fresh jalapeños in salsa. Another way I like jalapeños is pickled. These are especially great on pizza. Some reason, that vinegary, salty, spicy flavor of pickled jalapeños goes great with pizza. They are also essential in nachos supreme. You can chop up pickled jalapeños and add them to chili, or anything mexican for that matter. And best of all, they are pickled and will last months in the refrigerator or if you can put them up by canning them for a year or more unopened. This pickled jalapeño recipe is unique because of the garlic, cumin, and coriander which adds a depth to the usually one dimensional pickled pepper. This recipe can be doubled or tripled easily depending on how many jalapeños you have.

Pickled Jalapeños

(makes 2 pints)

1 quart plus 1 cup of jalapeños sliced into medallions (measure after slicing)

cider vinegar

2 cloves garlic (skin removed and smashed)

2 tsp coriander

2 tsp cumin

2 Tb olive oil

Put sliced jalapeños in a pot and barely cover with cider vinegar. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Turn off heat. Meanwhile wash and clean two pint jars well. To each jar add a clove of garlic, 1 tsp coriander, 1 tsp cumin and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Pack jars with peppers and add the hot vinegar to 1/2 inch of top of jars. Seal lids tightly. At this point, they can be put in the refrigerator for several months. Or they can be processed in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Cool and stored at room temperature. Here are good directions for water bath canning pickles. Shake jar occasionally to distribute the garlic, coriander, and cumin flavors.

Ina's Angel Food Cake Step-by-Step

2009-09-19T00:19:00.027-05:00

As previously mentioned we went to Bell Buckle for Easter. Angel food cake with sliced strawberries and whipped cream has always been a traditional dessert for us when having Grommie's special holiday meals, especially for Easter and this year was no different. It is ethereal and melts in your mouth. Everyone who has had Grommie's Angel food cake would agree that it is wonderful. In fact Grommie is such a master at making this dessert, nobody has ever bothered to make it, we have just enjoyed Grommie's. This year Paige decided to initiate a lesson in Angel food cake making and Ruthie and I decided to document the process step-by-step. The list of ingredients is quite simple, but there are a few particulars with the mixing. First off, CAKE OR PASTRY FLOUR IS A MUST. Second, don't beat the egg whites too much. In fact, it is better to under beat them than over beat them if you are unsure. Here is a tutorial on whipping egg whites to the correct consistency The rest is basic things like sifting and folding. When Ruthie and I went to make this in Madison, we could not find cake flour in any grocery store. We substituted pastry flour and it worked just as fine. A common brand of cake flour to look for in the grocery store is called 'Swans Down Cake Flour.'

I realize that it is not Easter anymore. OK, it was half a year ago, but we lost the recipe and then the garden went into high gear and this post got put on the back-burner. Fortunately, Grommie graciously sent us the recipe recently and we had the opportunity to make it again, and yes it is still as awesome as ever. So here is:

Ina's Angel Food Cake Supreme recipe Step-by-Step:

1 cup sifted cake flour (this means measure out approximately 1 level cup of flour, then sift it onto wax paper and remeasure it. Sifting lightens it and it should be 2 TB LESS than unsifted flour. I went ahead and weighed what that would be and it weighs exactly 4 ounces. This means all you need to do is weigh out 4 ounces of cake or pastry flour)

1 1/4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar (also called powdered sugar; same way as above. Again I weighed out what 1 1/4 cups of sifted confectioners sugar be and it weighs exactly 5 ounces)

1 1/2 cups egg whites (we make a lot of ice cream and we save the whites in the freezer and they freeze very well, just give them enough time to thaw out in the refrigerator)

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. almond flavoring (NOT almond oil; oil will cause the egg whites to deflate)

1 1/2 tsp. cream of tarter

1 cup granulated sugar

Separate eggs to obtain about 1 1/2 cups egg whites (about 10 to 12)

Sift cake flour with the confectioners sugar 3 times

Beat egg whites with cream of tarter, salt, vanilla and almond flavoring on medium speed of an electric mixer until soft peaks are formed (about 3 to 5 minutes). Under beating is fine at this point, you want them white and tripled in size, and when you pull up the beaters, the egg whites form soft peaks (meaning they fall over onto themselves) but are not runny when you tilt the bowl. Again follow this tutorial.

Increase the mixer speed to high. Start adding the 1 cup of granulated sugar 2 Tb at a time until all is incorporated and the sugar has mostly dissolved and the egg whites hold stiff peaks (about 5 minutes). Don't over beat them, they should be glossy and smooth (again, it will take a few times to know what they should like). If in doubt, you can always under beat. Tip: slow the mixer down when adding the sugar so that it doesn't fly out of the bowl

Sift the dry ingredients onto the stiffly beaten egg whites in 4 batches.

It might be easier to fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites if you transfer the egg whites to a large wide bowl as shown at left.

Once all the dry ingredients are folded in, put batter in a 10 inch ungreased tube pan. Run a knife through the mixture to help settle the thick batter and remove large air bubbles.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until the top begins to crack and a thin knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. You will notice that the cake will rise very high, but then settle a little once the cake is completely cooked. This is OK.

Remove from oven and immediate turn upside down on a cooling rack to thoroughly cool (2 to 3 hours. Once cool. Invert and run a thin serrated knife around pan to loosen cake from pan.

The cake can be made a day ahead. The Vincills and the Mingles think this cake is best served with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Enjoy.

Whipping Egg Whites 101

2009-09-18T17:39:00.028-05:00

For a beginner, whipping egg whites can seem daunting, probably because there are several stages to whipping egg whites. And if you never done it before, it is hard to know the difference between "softly beaten egg whites" vs "stiffly beaten egg whites." When I first started baking, I cannot tell you have many recipes I passed over simply because it had the dreaded instructions: "...separate 3 eggs and beat egg whites until stiff but not dry" Well I hope this tutorial will help when you encounter a recipe that calls for beaten egg whites.
First of all, egg whites can be beaten by hand, with a hand mixer, or with a stand mixer with equal results, but beating by hand or with a hand mixer will simply take a longer amount of time. But since the stand mixer (e.g. Kitchenaid) has become ubiquitous in the kitchen, I will focus on how to beat egg whites in a stand mixer. For the actual beating, it is important to ensure the beaters and the bowl are free of grease or oil residues. This also means when you separate eggs, to make sure the yolk does not get into the whites. Egg whites will not beat to their maximal volume if there are traces of fat or grease. Egg whites should be beaten at medium speed in the early stages. The time between foamy egg whites (stage 1) to over beaten egg whites (stage 5) in a electric stand mixer is 5 to 7 minutes.

Stage 1:

Foamy Stage

The first stage is to beat the eggs until foamy. This breaks of the clumpy whites to a uniform foamy mass.

It does not stick to the beater

And when the bowl is tilted, it is pourable and forms ribbons from the beaters

Stage 2:

Soft Peak Stage

Continue beating the egg whites until they stop forming ribbon from the beaters when lifted and forms a peak that folds over on itself. The texture is uniform and light. This is the stage that a lot of recipes instruct you to start adding sugar to the egg whites.

Stage 3:

Stiffly beat egg whites

The egg whites will form a stiff peak the does not bend back on itself. They should be glossy and smooth and firm. Another indicator is it forms a long peak vs a short stiff peak (see next stage). This is the stage that recipes call for folding into other ingredients such as in Angel food cake recipes and white cake recipes.

Stage 4:

Very Stiff Peaks

This stage is characterized by stiff very firm peaks. The the peak will be short when the beaters are lifted out of the bowl. This stage is important in the making of meringues to top pies and pastries or the making of dry meringues and meringue cookies.

Stage 5:

Over-Beaten Egg Whites

The egg whites will take on a 'rough' texture. They will be dry and most of the whites will stick to the beaters when lifted out of the bowl

Picking up the egg whites with a spoon will look 'grainy' and rough and not smooth. There is only one recipe that I know of that this is the optimal stage in whipped egg whites. It is the waffle recipe on this blog.

Sweet Corn

2009-09-11T17:05:00.003-05:00

Sweet Corn, originally uploaded by musings from madison.

We didn't grow corn this year because we had every intention of going to the Sweet Corn Festival in Sun Prairie. However on the weekend of the festival, we got side tracked and ended up rearranging our furniture. Needless to say I was sorely disappointed. However we went to the grocery the next weekend and low and behold they had locally grown sweet corn for 20 cents an ear!!

Let me pause for a second and acknowledge that I am aware that I can sometimes "go over the top" when it comes to buying things in bulk. I have gotten better as the years progress (i.e. I no longer buy products I don't care for (pudding) in bulk because it is a good deal or I'm learning to restrain my impulse to buy when I think "oh well, we always need more raisins!")

So, back to the corn...20 cents an ear!! I couldn't resist. We bought 50 ears and froze them! This has an up and a down side, the upside is that we will now be able to eat corn all winter long; the down side is that each individually wrapped ear of corn is on top of all of our other vegetables in the freezer, causing one to dig through and pull out all the corn, just to get to the other vegetables!

September is here

2009-09-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

Just a few pics from our garden. The fall garden is in full swing. The broccoli (back right) are starting to head and the brussel sprouts (back left) are 4 feet tall!! There are tiny sprouts on the stems, but hopefully they will not form until after the first frost to sweeten them up. The carrots (foreground) are growing well in the cooler weather. The green beans and the cauliflower (middle) are struggling, but hopefully in the next 6 weeks we will get a crop. The first killing frost is expected in the middle of October. I've ordered 3 pounds of garlic sets and 3 pounds of shallot sets. I know that sounds like a lot, but we go through a head or two of garlic a week!! Everything tastes better with garlic. And the shallots are extremely easy to grow. We planted 10 sets this spring and to our surprise we harvested 50 shallots!!They will go into the ground once we get our first frost. This will give them time to start roots and get established before the ground freezes. Yes, the ground really does freeze up here and it is like digging in a block of ice.

The last pic was taken yesterday. All I can say is WOW! (click on to see the large version)

Tomato Season

2009-08-17T10:05:00.001-05:00

Ruthie and I just back from the Scruggs family vacation and were greeted with an over-abundance of tomatoes. One week ago there were only a handful of tomatoes. 7 days later there is literally a bushel (yes, thats right a bushel is 53 pounds) of ripe tomatoes. Were in the process of putting these babies up. We'll keep you updated on what we do with them.

a little NPR love

2009-08-04T21:25:00.007-05:00

We love NPR, we listen to it every morning during breakfast and every evening as we make dinner. We also love Michael Pollan, so imagine our delight when we listened to Michael Pollan on NPR's Fresh Air talking about cooking. Take a listen (it's about 20 minutes), interesting food for thought (every cheesy pun intended)! The interview was provoked by this NY Times article.

Garlic

2009-07-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

Close friends of ours, Robb and Jessie, in Madison share the love of growing fresh vegetables with us. In fact it was Robb who told me about EHCG in the first place. Even in this short amount of time, I cannot imagine not having a garden up here in Madison. They were also very generous in sharing their plot last fall in growing garlic...one of our primary ingredients for just about everything... just recently we harvested 20 heads of garlic...

Ruthie braided them so we could hang them dry...

Our First Tomato!!!!!

2009-07-25T23:05:00.005-05:00

This is our first tomato. Were excited. Too bad it is so small....

But don't tell him that. He's got a big tomato complex....

quality time

2009-07-24T19:11:00.003-05:00

We love having visitors...sharing our lives here in Madison with those who've known us in another context...in particular we love hosting our families up here.We had great weather, not too hot or humid...I'm sure a welcome break from the Southern heat and humidity.

We were very excited they were coming to visit and their trip was an absolute delight for us.

Here is a summary of their visit in pictures

We went to the garden...

Celebrated Danny's birthday and father's day...

went to the Arts Fair on the Square briefly touched down at the tail end of the farmers market

and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We love hosting, so anytime anyone want's to scoot themselves on up here...we've got place for you!

Deal of a lifetime

2009-07-21T08:58:00.001-05:00

I have been teaching Ruthie the finer points of "dumpster diving," while she has been teaching me the finer points of "knowing what is good quality vs crap." I guess I have rubbed off on her because she found a deal of a lifetime. This past Saturday we were taking it easy and got up late. Enjoyed some coffee at a local coffee shop and walked over to check out St. Vinny's deals. Ruthie came up with this 8 x 12 handmade oriental rug. We bought it for 95 dollars. I started pricing them on the internet and came up with a price range (conservatively) of 2,500 to 5,000 dollars. So here is the before and after in our den. It is bigger than the space we have. It is a 8 x 12 foot rug. We had to roll part of it under the far couch

Before:

After:

Stuffed Eight Ball zucchini

2009-07-17T14:23:00.004-05:00

OK I am going to set a precedence with this post. We usually post things that we like but not necessarily expect you to like them. But this one is different. You should go the store right now and get some zucchini and make this tonight. Yeh, it's that good. I actually had dreams about this dish last night. It is a simple stuffed zucchini, but the flavor combination makes it incredible and sublime. I could see this being served at Le Etoile in Madison or The Bistro in Knoxville. This year we grew a variation of the normal zucchini called, Eight Ball. Because it forms these perfectly round zucchinis, it is perfect for stuffing. Our first Eight Ball was ready this past week. I knew I wanted to stuff it, but I wasn't sure with what. I started rummaging through the refrigerator and came up with list of ingredients we had on hand:

sharp cheddar cheese

bacon

shallots

garlic

swiss chard (from our garden)

biscuits leftover (in the freezer)

With this list of ingredients I came up with this recipe.

Simple Stuffed Zucchini

This serves 4. Can be doubled easily.

2 Eight Ball zucchini or regular large zucchini

4 slices of bacon, finely diced

2 shallots, finely diced

2 garlic cloves pressed or finely diced

2 cups of cooked coursely chopped swiss chard (about 10-12 oz by weight). Spinach can be substituted easily. Use 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach (thawed).

4 oz cheese sharp cheddar cheese graded (no substitutes) about 1 cup grated by volume

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup course prepared bread crumbs or homemade. We use homemade bread crumbs. Leftover biscuits (stored in the freezer) make the best breadcrumbs. I prefer biscuit bread crumbs over yeast bread crumbs because the yeast bread crumbs impart a strong bready/yeasty taste that I think is overbearing in this light gratin dish.

For the shell: Split zucchinis in half lengthwise. Scoop out insides leaving about 1/2 inch shell in zucchini. Coursely chop scooped out flesh and set aside for stuffing. Steam zucchini shells for 6 minutes or until tender, but still hold their shape. Run cool water over them to stop the cooking process.

For the filling: saute bacon over medium heat until browned set bacon bits aside. Drain bacon drippings from the pan (you should have 2-3 TB of grease). Add back 1 TB bacon drippings and cook shallots and garlic over medium heat until translucent but not browned (2 mins). Add swiss chard and reserved scooped out zucchini flesh (NOT zucchini shells). Cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat until zucchini is tender and fully cooked (5-10 minutes). Add salt and pepper to taste. Add sufficient salt because the shell is not salted. Set aside and cool to room temperature. Brown bread crumbs in 1 TB reserved bacon drippings (I add a little salt and pepper for seasoning) and set aside.

Combine filling, shredded cheese, and bacon bits. Evenly fill all four zucchini shells. Top with the toasted bread crumbs and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until bubbly and the cheese is melted. Cover with aluminum foil for the last few minutes if the bread crumbs get too brown.

We served this with green bean almondine and garlic roasted carrots. All these vegetables came from our garden. I also encourage you to grow some Eight Ball zucchini. It has out produced our regular zucchini and squash and is perfect for this recipe.

New camera lens

2009-07-14T10:39:00.004-05:00

This past week we bought a new camera lens. It is the Canon EF-S IS 55-250mm F4.0-5.6. Before this lens, I had two fixed lenses. The Sigma 30mm 1.4 and the Canon 50 mM 1.8. Both lenses are incredibly sharp and fast in low light. In fact all of the pictures on our food blog have been taken by these lenses. I really love fast lenses with low focal ratios. They make the background blurry and the focused object really pop on the picture. There are some downsides to the 30mm and 50mm, including the fact that they don't have the "reach" that a telephoto lens has or optical zoom which allows one to recompose the pic and zoom in closer if needed to. I had been researching telephoto zoom lenses for about a year now. Basically I wanted a fast lens with a low focal ratio, mega zoom to get in really close without actually getting up close (think binoculars). I WANTED IT SHARP, TACT SHARP. I also wanted a lens which would cover the focal range that I was missing especially in the 50 mm to 200 mm range. And, if possible, I wanted macro capabilities. Of course they make lenses like I decribe, but they are between 1,000 and 2,000 dollars!!
As a compromise, I started looking at the Canon EF-S IS 55-250mm F4.0-5.6. At a focal length of 4.0-5.6, that makes it rather slow not good in low light. But it had a built in image stabilizer which allows one to use it at a slow shutter speed and still get sharp pictures. It is also in the focal range I was looking for and as an added bonus, on our digital canon SLR which has a crop factor of 1.6, it brings it to an effective focal range of 88-400mm. That is a long reach. And one more thing it had going for it, was it had macro-like qualities. It is not a true macro lens, but it come close.
My parents were visiting Ruthie and me this past weekend, and we took them out to our garden. And it was a great time to test out the lens. Be sure to click on the images below to really see how amazing these pictures are:

Click on the sunflower above to really see the tiny hairs on the leaves.

This robin is double fisting it with a grub and a Japanese beetle.

Swiss chard from our garden

No words to describe this beauty.

Ripe raspberry.

Daylilies.

Not sure what flower this is. Maybe dahlia??

Catch up...

2009-07-13T12:05:00.004-05:00

I have 5 or so posts that have been waiting in "draft" for far too long now. I'm going to get busy this week so that I can finally share what's been going on "in real time" as opposed to what happened 3 months ago...sorry for the delay...I resolve to try harder to get our posts out sooner rather than later!

From musings from madison

Scavenging and Foraging

2009-07-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

This is a delayed post, so, my apologies...

Scavenging and foraging...Eric talked about it in his post "Fat of the Land." Well, my dear sweet foraging husband did in fact leave early one morning this spring to go off in search of a plant called Stinging Nettles. (Which for the longest time I thought he was calling them Stingy Noodles...) What are Stinging Nettles you might ask? Well, they have a stronger flavor than spinach, but can substitute for spinach in pretty much anything. Here's a good summary of how you can use them. You must wear protective hand wear while harvesting, so be careful.

Sweet Love cooked up an original recipe of Stinging Nettle Soup with a Stinging Nettle Pesto to top... And I must say, I was rather impressed. It was not only bearable, I liked it. So, I thought I'd share a pic of the cheapest meal we've eaten since we've been here.

Black Earth Creek Round Two

2009-07-04T11:14:00.001-05:00

This is Eric, just so you won't be confused. Last September I told you about fishing the Black Earth Creek trout stream. It is a classic spring fed trout stream that meanders through farmland between the little towns of Black Earth and Cross Plains Wisconsin and which so happens to be only 20 minutes away from Madison. It is an absolutely beautiful trout stream as you can see below. I had no luck then catching anything.

For the July 4th holiday I tried the stream again. A college friend who now lives in Chicago drove up and we fished Black Earth Creek hoping to hit the evening Hex hatch. No luck on the Hex hatch, but there was a heavy caddis hatch. I put on a yellow caddis and never changed flies. Within the first 10 minutes I already hooked into a wild brown. He jumped three times in succession before I landed him. Sorry no pics. I really did not expect to catch anything, so was not prepared in the visual department. So you are gonna have to believe me it was a young 10 incher. Within the span of 2 hours I had caught 2 more just like the first one. When the sun had completely disappeared and the moon was the only light available, I was still fishing that same yellow caddis and trying to set the hook whenever I heard a splash. I finally set the hook into the mouth of a 14 inch rainbow trout! I know "fish stories," so if you don't believe me I guess you are just gonna have to come up to Madison and I can take you fishing on the Black Earth Creek and experience it yourself.

A house is not a home without bacon

2009-06-22T11:11:00.002-05:00

I never ate bacon growing up...
Thinking about that now seems almost sacrilegious. It's not that there wasn't any bacon around, rather, I was just a painfully picky eater and for some reason, and that translated into bacon not coming anywhere near me. I started eating bacon right around the time we moved to Madison. My mother-in-law, served it to me and I ate it. I had never experienced such salty crisp flavor in my entire life...I think back upon it now and I'm realizing I missed out on the prime bacon eating years of my childhood.

My mother-in-law also has an ingenious way of cooking bacon. We've all heard about baking our bacon in the oven on a cookie sheet, right? Well, in a simlar vain, you start like that, EXCEPT you put it on a cooling rack. You will come away with the most tender/crispy bacon ever. AND the bacon doesn't have to sit in it's own grease while it's cooking.

You may have to adjust the time, but what I've found works best for us is preheat your oven to 325 and put your bacon on your cooling rack on your cookie sheet. About 30 minutes later, you will have divine bacon. It's also a no-fuss way of cooking bacon and pretty low maintenance compared to standing over a stove top or electric skillet.

Our Own CSA Box

2009-06-21T12:20:00.001-05:00

Eric and I strongly debated whether or not we should sign up for a CSA box. We do live in the CSA capital of the world, or at least it seems like it is the CSA capital of the world. Then we decided we'd just try to do it ourselves. With Eric having green thumb, I wasn't too worried that it would pay off. And it has. Yesterday Eric went to the garden before I even woke up. On his way home, he calls me and tells me he has a surprise for me. For those of you who don't know me well, there are a couple of things that solicit guaranteed delight for me 1. Celebrating any and everything, and 2. Being surprised and/or trying to surprise someone else...I'm not good at the latter, I just get so excited!! At any rate, he calls me and tells me that he has a surprise for me...

He comes home takes me by the hand and leads me into the kitchen and there are 4 HUGE cauliflower heads sitting on the counter! Now the cauliflower has been a semi-sort of personal investment for me. It was my request that we plant them and my sweet husband obliged, even though he'd never grown them before. Two days ago, the cauliflower wasn't ready, and then all of a sudden there was cauliflower on our kitchen counter!

Now, this isn't all about the cauliflower, he also harvested 2 lbs. of White and Red Swiss Chard, 5 heads of Red Leaf Lettuce, and 3 lbs. of Baby Carrots. (We have to thin out our carrots, and in the mean time we get tender baby carrots!) I must confess though, I am most excited about the cauliflower.

All that to say, this week the CSA Box a la Eric and Ruthie, was tremendously successful! Additionally, never really having had a garden, I find extremely satisfying to grow our own food.

Swiss Chard

2009-06-16T21:22:00.003-05:00

From musings from madison

We harvested about 1 pound of swiss chard this week (and more to come). We are growing red stemmed and white stemmed varieties. If you are not familiar with this vegetable, it is a relative of the beet, but it's the top leaves are what are harvested. The stems are tender and mild as well. What we like about this vegetable is that it tastes very similar to spinach and can be used interchangeably in any recipe calling for spinach. As a bonus the plants last all summer long and do not bolt. You just harvest the outer leaves as needed. I was amazed how expensive it is in the grocery store. It was 3.50 a bunch (not even a pound!) at our local grocery store. This week we've made swiss chard quesadillas as well as braised swiss chard with garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes. No recipe here, just wilt down some swiss chard in a pan with olive oil, crushed garlic, red pepper flakes and finish with a little chicken stock. 5 minutes from pan to table. enjoy.

Garden Update June 16th

2009-06-16T12:47:00.001-05:00

Here is a quick garden update. All of the plants are growing well. The cauliflower and broccoli have literally grown out of their floating row cover and the cover had to be removed. They are doing surprisingly well without cover. The main reason we covered them was to prevent flea beetles, cabbage loopers and catepillars from eating them up. But we found that once they were growing well and established, that they were able to shrug off most insect damage. I might cover them before the harvest, though. The cauliflower is starting to head and I've tied the inner leaves up for blanching. We should start getting cauliflower in the next week or so. The broccoli have not even started forming a head. But they are well over 3 feet tall with huge leaves. I am not sure that is a good sign or a bad sign. But I guess we will know in a month or so.

In five weeks the cabbage and cauliflower went from this:

To this and out-grew their row cover:

The lettuce I planted back in April is ready to be harvested. We've got too much lettuce that I've started giving it away already. Too bad we can't freeze lettuce. In this picture we have red lettuce on the outer rows with green beans planted in between and an oak leaf lettuce planted down the middle of the row. I like the well organized and symmetry of this bed. Since this pic has been taken, I had to rip out all the oak-leaf lettuce down the middle of the row. It was shading the green beans.

It looks like an emu!!

2009-06-16T11:58:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday we were working in our garden. Ruthie was weeding and I was off at a distance getting some compost for the garden. When I got back, Ruthie told me that a huge bird just walked into our garden. I told her, "it was probably a turkey" She said it was bigger than a turkey. She took a few fuzzy snapshots of it with her phone. The pics were not very convincing. We went home and did a google search and the only thing that looked like this bird was an emu!!! Surely there aren't any wild emu's around here. Then I started thinking about scenerios in which emus would be running wild in Madison. Maybe there was an emu farm around here?? Maybe some idiot let it into the wild when it got too big to be a pet?? I didn't think much about it anymore for the rest of the day, but the next day I was out at the garden and and this huge bird was back and it had chicks with it. They were very docile and let me get close to them, so I snapped this pic below:

I quickly realized it was a crane, but I had never seen this kind before. I looked it up and found out it was a sandhill crane. But just to see the resemblance to a REAL emu, here is a comparison:

I know you nature buffs would laugh at me for thinking it was an emu, but it was such a big *@s bird. So there you have it, we have sandhill cranes in our garden. We also have a resident turkey that roosts on the compost pile at night. I have not been able to take a close picture of him yet.

Brownie Mix, be gone and don't come back!

2009-06-16T11:00:00.005-05:00

Growing up there were things we made from scratch and things we did not. One of the things we didn't make from scratch were brownies - probably because we didn't eat much dessert growing up. At any rate, made from scratch brownies are almost as easy as box brownies, and ohhhhhhhh so delicious. Or in my families language: delicimicimos (de-lee-she-me-she-mose) - loosely defined as soooo freaking delicious.

The Vincill family on the other hand, never made box brownies. As long as Eric can remember, his mom made these brownies. Eric made these for the first time when we had friends over. We didn't have a dessert so Eric made these on the fly. From start to finish, he had them in the oven in 10 minutes...needless to say the next time the friends came over, I made sure that we had them again as they were such a HUGE success the first time around.

I encourage you (all box-brownie-lovers) to try it out. I'm quite certain you'll feel a sense of self-satisfaction. How could you not? They're awesome.

Homemade Brownies

Sift the following ingredients onto wax paper:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa (you can use less if you prefer, but if you add more than 1/3 cup, you need to reduce the flour in the recipe accordingly since cocoa has an affect on the density of the brownie)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt (not kosher)

This is why you sift - there are little bits of cocoa like to clump together and that's never good.

Mix in a bowl until just combined (30 seconds or less. You DO NOT want to cream or dissolve the sugar. It will look grainy, see pic below):
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter melted and cooled (I usually just melt it quickly in the microwave)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Add the following to the above bowl and mix just until combined:
2 large eggs (beaten in a separate bowl)

With a rubber spatula, stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients just until combined and there are no flour lumps in the batter. Pour into a parchment lined 8 x 8 inch pan (greasing is not necessary). I usually cut the parchment paper so that it hangs over the pan; these act as "handles" to pick up the brownie from the pan once it has cooked (see picture below). Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until a knife or toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (start checking at 20 minutes). Let cool in pan 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of pan and lift the brownie out of the pan with the parchment paper "handles". Let cool on a cookie sheet and slice as desired.

Spicy Chicken Stir Fry with Peanuts

2009-06-14T15:07:00.003-05:00

This is a fast and easy dish to make, it has nontraditional stir-fry flavors, but is very good and complements typical stir-fry dishes (such as fried rice) extremely well. It is also good because you can make it for 1 or for 10 just as easily. I usually do 2 chicken breasts and get 4 servings out of it. It is a good dish, holding up well, for leftovers the next day too.

Per chicken breast -
1 teaspoon peanut oil - per chicken breast (you can also use a combination of canola and toasted sesame seed oil)
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast half , thinly sliced crosswise
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced or minced
1/2 to 1 jalapeno, thinly sliced crosswise - if you are serving children, make them large enough to pick out easily. (If you use a red jalapeno, the dish is much "prettier," my example is rather green.)
4 ounces fresh green beans (about 1 1/2 cups), stem ends trimmed - the original recipe calls for snow peas, but I found that green beans held up better and are what we have available.
Coarse salt and ground pepper
Fresh lime juice
2 Tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts (at least)
1/4 cup basil or cilantro leaves, torn (optional)

Directions
In a medium nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high.
Salt and pepper your chicken to taste, then add chicken to skillet; cook until browned on one side, 3 minutes.
Add green beans, and at least 2 tablespoons water; cook until chicken is opaque throughout, about 3 minutes. (you can turn it down a bit and put a lid on it to steam the beans a bit more - best when you use more than the recommended amount of beans).
At this point you can put it all in a dish and put it in a 200 degree preheated oven covered with foil if you need time for the rest of the meal. Turn oven off after 10 minutes or so of preheating. You can make whatever else you are making for the meal (usually I make the fried rice at this point).
When ready to serve, take dish out of oven, put back in the skillet you were using over lowish heat to reheat it if needed, add peanuts and garlic until garlic is fragrant. Take off heat and sprinkle cilantro.
Squirt lime juice over the whole thing right before you serve. (For 2 breasts I use almost a whole lime's worth of juice).

It's an easy and fast (15 - 20 minute from start to table, depending on how long of a break you take in the middle) recipe. A nice alternative to traditional stir-fry flavors.

Adapted from Everyday Food. Here is their version.

Shaved Asparagus with Linguine

2009-06-09T09:30:00.000-05:00

I found this recipe in Everyday Food. It was easy and extremely successful. The recipe originally calls for spaghetti, but we made linguine to mimic the width of the asparagus. Also, we will make it again using other vegetables (zucchini, carrots, etc.) and expect it to be extremely tasty. It is a wonderful alternative to creamy pasta dish, not "heavy" at all.

Serves 4 - 6

Coarse salt and ground pepper
12 - 16 ounces linguine
1 bunch (1 pound) asparagus shaved length-wise with a vegetable peeler (remove the tough ends)
lemon zest, thinly sliced or grated and 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons butter (we will use Smart Balance next time)
1 ounce Parmesan, shaved with a vegetable peeler for large flakes, or grated

Directions
Cook pasta until al dente then drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water. Add asparagus and lemon zest to pot with the pasta.
Add butter and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper, and toss, adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce. Top with Parmesan.

Click here to view Everyday Food's version of the recipe.

This is why we have a home garden

2009-06-05T06:49:00.001-05:00

We had our first vegetable harvest of the year. You can't get radishes like this at the store...

From musings from madison

3 week garden update

2009-06-01T08:02:00.000-05:00

Quick update. Last Saturday we planted the tomatoes, peppers, first crop of green beans, and the summer squash and zucchini. We planted two major kinds of tomato varieties (22 plants!)--determinate and indeterminate. Our major crop of tomatoes consists determinate tomatoes. Determinate means that the plants grow up to a defined size. They set all their fruit at one time and ripen all at once. These are the varieties that canners use (e.g. Heinz) uses. Canners need to have the tomatoes ripen all at once so that when they go through the fields with mechanical harvesters and harvest all the ripened fruit at once. The two determinate varieties we planted were Road Runner III and Castlerock. We intend to can as many tomatoes, so this allows us to can in large batches. The other type of tomatoes we have are of the indeterminate variety. Indeterminate means that their growth is not defined and will grow all the way until the first frost setting fruit and growing. These can get quite large plants that can spill out of their cages. We made double sized cages by staking and putting two cages on top of each other. Examples of indeterminate tomatoes that we are growing are the Black Russians, Green Zebras (which is my favorite tasting tomato), and others. These are for fresh eating in salads and sandwiches. We will still preserve as many as these as we are able to.

Our cauliflower and broccoli is growing by leaps and bounds. The floating row cover has been the secret in getting blemish-free plants while going 100% organic. Here is a pic of the cauliflower and broccoli when we planted it 3 weeks ago:

Three weeks later:

They have tripled in size. We also interplanted lettuce so that the broccoli will give some shade to the lettuce and keep it cool in the summer.

Canning experiment. Our big canner came in this past week. This brings our canning capacity to 11 quarts or 17 pints at at time. We intend to can both green beans and tomatoes and freeze the rest of our vegetables. We are planning to get a small chest freezer and a vacuum sealer later in the summer when the vegetables come in.

Our First Anniversary

2009-05-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

Eric and I celebrated our first anniversary together recently and it was wonderful. As you may have guessed we love food, so spent our anniversary splurging on restaurants we wanted to try or that we've already deemed one of our "favorites" here in Madison. Madison has so many wonderful choices and we absolutely delight in them so I'll just keep this post to the primary celebration spot.

It was a perfect weekend...restful, relaxing, beautiful, and delicious. We started with crispy waffles, strawberries and mimosas at home, went to our garden to check on our babies, then Eric surprised me and took me to L'Etoile for dinner... it was amazing.

Eric was sneaky and dropped off a couple of things at the restaurant earlier that day. He had the table set with a flower which matched my bridal bouquet.

Next to the flower, he had the restaurant lean a box full of salted caramel chocolates from a local chocolatier. They were soooo delicious and lasted maybe 48 hours in our house.

Our anniversary could not have been more perfect. We had an amazing time together; a perfect way to cap our first year together.

It has been a wonderful year and we look forward to many many more years of love, friendship, and laughter.

Granola update

2009-05-22T22:56:00.000-05:00

We posted Ms. Hellmann's Granola recipe a few weeks ago. We were making it tonight and I realized that I did not give the temperature that your supposed to cook it at. The oven temp is 350 degree F.

Our Garden

2009-05-19T05:21:00.009-05:00

When we first moved up here to Madison, some friends of ours introduced us to the university's community garden called Eagle Heights Community Garden (EHCG for short). It is an anomily of sorts. I wish I could say that EHCG was the first to start this back-to-grass-roots, I'm-gonna-go-green, home gardening craze...but I can't. It is actually a holdover from the 1960's gardening/back-to-basics wave. It was started in 1962 as a community garden to allow families and neighbors of the University of Wisconsin to grow vegetables. Fast-forward to spring of 2009 and now Ruthie and I have plot number #906. We have been busy planning and working the garden for the last 6 weeks. This garden will be an ever evolving project this season, so keep checking on garden updates in the months to come.
The weather here is much different than what we are used to in the South. OK, it's down right cold. Things do not really get warmed up until June first. In fact we had a frost warning this past Saturday night so it has been recommended that June 1st is the planting date for warm season crops (like tomatoes, peppers, squash), because it has been known to snow and frost until that date. Since I work in the UW Botany department, I have access to some awesome growth chambers. This one below, uses a metal halide lamp. It is pretty much a sun lamp, in fact there is a warning on the outside of the chamber to minimize exposure to this lamp because it can cause a sun-burn! The plants love it as you can see.

Two weeks later....

The tomatoes grew by leaps and bounds in two weeks. In fact I had to move them to 4 flats (from the original two) to give them maximum growing room. Memorial day weekend we will be planting our tomatoes, peppers, squash, and green beans.

Here is plot # 906, our plot. The dimensions are 25 feet x 25 feet. We have 4 large raised beds 4 feet by 22 feet. I worked up the beds a lot this spring. Since space is limited, raised beds maximize the growing space. They also prevent us from stepping around the plants and compacting the soil, as well as less stooping while planting and weeding. I worked in about 2 inches of compost and you can see how it blackens the soil.

I also bought row cover for the cauliflower and the broccoli (and later in the season brussel sprouts). I hooped the row cover and it will be permanently on these plants the whole season. The reason is because this is an organic garden and spraying for insects is not allowed. Row cover is light spun polyester that allows water and sunlight to easily in, but prevents insects from reaching the plants. Thus the row cover acts as a physical barrier to prevent the bugs from reaching the plants.

Here is a picture of the cauliflower and broccoli underneath the "tent" enjoying the bug free environment.

Our swiss chard is just starting to germinate below.

Chemical fertilizer is not allowed in the community gardens. Compost, manure, composted manure, soybean meal, cottonseed meal, fish meal, and fish emulsion are all sources of nitrogen that are allowed in the gardens. I plan on using soybean meal as my main fertilizer. Soybean meal has a N-P-K content of 7-2-1 which makes it an excellent source of nitrogen. It is also $12.50 for 50 lb bag at our local feed co-op. Soybean meal can prevent seeds from germinating, so I plan on only using it as a side-dressing to growing plants. I use fish emulsion for young seedlings and watering in transplants (a tip I got from my brother-in-law, Drew. thanks buddy). As far as compost goes, the University dumps all of the picked-up leaves next to the gardens. After 2-3 years, it turns into this black gold and it is free for the taking. There is so much compost available that the gardens will never run out. I plan on adding 2 inches of compost to each bed both in the spring and fall.

We'll keep you posted on the garden...

Homemade Granola

2009-05-08T00:03:00.001-05:00

My sister, Paige, introduced me to this recipe almost 10 years ago. I never made it, but I did enjoy it when she would give me some for Christmas or whenever I was in town. So last Saturday Ruthie and I were both craving some good granola. We missed not having some of my sister's granola, so we thought we would try our hand at it. I pulled out my sister's recipe, went to our local Co-op (which by-the-way, is the best place to find these ingredients in bulk) and started making it.

I need to stop here for a second. Granola is a personal preference thing. I personally, like my granola to have a rich caramel taste with lots of toasted nutty background. I also like it to be "chunky" with nuggets of granola pieces. I made this twice. Once without deviating from the original recipe, and the second time with my own personal tweaks. I am going to post my version, but I am going to let you look at the original version posted by Katy Marquez Carter who makes it regularly. Like I said before, granola is a personal thing and this recipe should be tweaked to your liking. The recipe came from one of my sister's close friend's mother who everyone calls "Ms. Hellmann," so the recipe is named after her, Ms. Hellmann's Granola. I have had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Hellmann on several occasions and somehow the conversation always revolved around food and recipes. She loves to cook and she loves to share with others. So here is a recipe that has been shared many times over.

Ms. Hellmann's Granola

Mix together in a very large bowl:

8 cups old-fashioned (not quick-cooking) rolled oats
1 cup raw wheat germ
1 cup oat bran
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
2 cup nuts (I use sliced almonds)

In a microwaveable medium-sized bowl, combine

3/4 cup water
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 TB molasses
2 tsp salt
Microwave for about 3 minutes, or until the sugar dissolves. Stir well, then add to the liquid mixture

1TB vanilla extract

Pour the liquid mixture over the oat mixture, and stir very well, so that all the dry ingredients are coated. Mix by hand for a few minutes until the mixture starts to stick together and form globules. Add:

3/4 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)

By adding the oil after the granola starts to clump together ensures the granola will be more chunky since the oil has a lubricating characteristic and will prevent the granola from forming sticky chunks. If you like a more uniform granola with no chunks, then add the oil to the liquid ingredients in the first step
Press gently into the pans ( I divide into two half sheet pans and then with a silpat or parchment paper press down on the mixture to form a tight cake on the cookie sheet), trying to keep an even thickness to prevent over-browning. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove pans from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes (very important in maintaining large granola chunks) and using a spatula, gently flip and stir chunks of the granola, then return pans to the oven. Bake another 15 minutes, or until your desired toasty-golden-color is reached. I find it needs 15 more minutes with a seconds turn to get an even browning and toasting. Again, I am going for a caramally. toasty nutty goodness which needs a little more cooking. Remove the pans to cooling racks and let cool completely (granola will dry out and turn crunchy as it cools). Break up extra large pieces if necessary.

Cookies On Demand

2009-05-07T11:05:00.001-05:00

Convenience, right? That's what compels us to the refrigerator isle in the grocery where we pick up the "go to" dessert solution...I am of course speaking of slice-and-bake.

Here's a solution that doesn't even involve driving to the store, doesn't involve your mixer, AND doesn't involve preheating your oven (see ** below)...These cookies are not only fast and easy, they blow any other cookie on demand, right out of the water. Actually we prefer them over any other chocolate chip cookie recipe, not just on demand cookies. I know we all have our loyalties to what we deem the "best chocolate chip cookie" recipe in the world... but try this... just try it.

This recipe came from CI, which I tweaked a little bit by adding toasted pecans and baking them directly from the freezer. This technique relies on melting the butter called for in the recipe and adding it to the sugar mixture and mixing only until cooperated. This is an important step because it preserves the structure of the crystalized sugars and prevents the sugar crystals from dissolving. This contrasts traditional cookie recipes where you cream the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Somehow this step creates a crispy outer crust with a gooey center. I've never had a chocolate chip cookie like it. Below is the recipe that I have made at least 5 dozen times. Make them the recommended size so that the center stays gooey.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/8cups bleached all-purpose flour (about 10 1/2 ounces)

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly

1 cup brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces

1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 - 2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

1 - 2 cups toasted pecans, cooled

Sift flour, salt, soda together. In a separate bowl, mix until barely incorporated (1 min.) sugars, and melted (cooled) butter.

Add egg and egg yolk and vanilla and combine just until incorporated (30 seconds).

Add dry ingredients and stir until a stiff dough forms and does not stick to your fingers or the sides of the bowl (I find my fingers mixes the dough best). Add chocolate chips and pecans ( it will look like a chunky dough at this point)

Measure a scant 1/4 cup of dough and make a ball out of the dough

Now divide the dough ball with your hands and recombine with the jagged edges facing up (this increases the surface area as will as give the cookies a unique moist interior.)

Place on cookie sheet and put in freezer overnight.

When ready to bake, preheated 325 degree oven. Pull out as many frozen cookies that you would like and place on a parchment or silpat lined cookie sheet with a few inches between each cookie to give them room to spread. Bake for 15-17 minutes until the edges are very slightly golden (they should look a little underdone in the middle (you will have to experiment with your oven and cooking times). **We have a small countertop convection oven and we bake our cookies for 17 minutes starting from a cold oven. ** When done, lift the parchment off the cookie sheet and cool cookies for 5 to 10 minutes.

Surprise...surprise...

2009-04-25T11:45:00.002-05:00

Every year Eric goes on a weekend with his friends from college. (I think this was the 9th year they've gone?) They are all pretty committed. What goes on during these weekends? Well, I'm not privy to that information, nor do I want/need to be.

This year, my mother surprised me by calling me up on Wednesday asking if I wanted to come to visit for the weekend, leaving Thursday. Of course, the answer was yes...and less than 24 hours later, I was on a plane.

It truly was a family fun filled weekend... it was great. We went to the Dogwood Arts Festival on Friday. We were able to eat *almost* all of my favorite Knoxville specific dishes. One of my favorite parts (outside of simply being there with my family) was hanging out with my eldest niece, Sadie Parker. She loves me, and I tell you...there's nothing quite like being unreservedly delighted in by a child. They didn't tell her I was coming and, let me tell you, it was a joyous reunion. It was also awesome to see Ruby, she's grown and changed so much...getting some personality... Most of the pictures I took were of Ruby, just wanting to capture a bit of her to take back to Wisconsin with me, but I took some others as well...of course, my sister would say my picture taking could be a bit obsessive. But, I love taking pictures, I love my family, I love taking pictures of my family...and therefore am unapologetic for my photophilic tendencies. Check out Sister's blog for more photos.

Sadie Parker is "posing" for pictures now.

Ruby

Sister

Ruby snuggling on Sister

Gorgeous Sister, Sweet Ruby, & Hot Momma

Sadie Parker got t her face painted...

The Family:

James, Sadie Parker, Me, Emily, Ruby, & Malissa

On Saturday Sadie Parker had a T-Ball Game...she is "stepping and throwing"...excellent.

The Momma! Yea!

Ruby saying "HI!"

Ruby shoving the cake in her mouth, as the fork wasn't getting it in fast enough.

Post sugar consumption.

Sadie Parker loves the icing

Ruby and Me

James & Me

This is where I grew up! Isn't it BEAUTIFUL in the Spring!!

And the Momma, who was so kind to bring me in for the weekend.

It was so fun.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-24T12:00:00.001-05:00

We spent Easter in the very charming Bell Buckle, TN with Eric's extended family.

Such a wonderfully sweet time.

James Mingle

Peyton

Willow

my love

Ina & Marlene

Ina, Eric & me

Ina & Eric

It's been FAR too long...

2009-04-23T12:50:00.003-05:00

I realize it's been far too long since the last post.

It's not that we've stopped cooking or playing. Rather we have been in and out of town which just takes a lot out of us. However, we are working on a few posts for you. One will be the much awaited Croissants, step by step (it will be worth the wait, I guarantee it).

Hopefully by next week they will be written. I also have pictures from our travels that I have to post. Simply put, we love our families and we love Tennessee in the Spring...ahhhh so nice.

So if you wouldn't mind waiting just a smidge more...we'll be back on the ball soon.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

2009-03-24T21:33:00.001-05:00

No, no, not holiday season...although holidays are pretty wonderful too.

Rather, two of my oldest and dearest friends came to visit.

Literally our friendship began in elementary school, blossomed in high school, was enriched college, and is still solid today. They are good for me and love me well. What a blessing to have them visit!!!!

Why did they visit you may ask?

Because they rock and are willing to make the drive.

Amy on the left and Kerry on the right

Extract!

2009-03-08T22:00:00.001-05:00

Remember the Vanilla post?

We mentioned we would be making vanilla extract...

Well, we did, and it is AWESOME.

I suggest you try it, here's the recipe again if you don't want to go all the way back to the other post.

Homemade Vanilla Extract
(from Pro Bono Baker)

Her recipe is to make a liter of extract. We knew we wouldn't be needing a liter of extract, so we modified it... doing the 2x (double concentrated).

1 cup vodka

6 vanilla beans (3 Bourbon and 3 Tahitian)

While it's only 4 weeks old, we've used it and think it's a winner.

Baked Penne with Farmhouse Cheddar and Leeks

2009-03-08T21:31:00.001-05:00

For my birthday my sister-in-law gave me a subscription to bon appetit and Gourmet magazines. Of course we both devour the magazines every month. I insist that I should be able to read them first because they were my gift, whereas Eric thinks that whomever gets the mail gets to read it first. At any rate, we tried out bon apppetit's March 2009 Baked Penne with Farmhouse Cheddar and Leeks...We loved it, and are certain you will too. We served it along side a large salad with the Creamy Feta Dressing to balance the richness of this dish.

Baked Penne with Farmhouse Cheddar and Leeks

Recipe by Rick Rodgers

bon appetit, March 2009

Ingredients

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
5 cups chopped leeks (white and pale green parts only; about 5 large)
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 1/2 cups whole milk
1 pound extra-sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated (about 4 cups packed) We used Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar.
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
2 large eggs
1 pound penne pasta

Preparation

Lightly butter 15x10x2-inch baking dish (we used two 11.5 x 8 bakers - which we LOVE - and cooked it in our small brick convection toaster oven). Melt 1/4 cup butter in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add leeks; stir to coat. Cover saucepan and cook until leeks are tender, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes (do not brown). Uncover saucepan; add flour. Stir 2 minutes. Add milk; bring to simmer, stirring often. Add cheese, mustard, and pepper sauce. Stir until cheese melts. Remove from heat. Season cheese sauce to taste with salt.
Whisk eggs in medium bowl. Gradually whisk in 1 cup cheese sauce. Stir egg mixture into cheese sauce in saucepan.
Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain. Return to pot.
Stir cheese sauce into pasta in pot. Transfer to prepared baking dish. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake pasta until cheese sauce is bubbling around edges and some ends of pasta are golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes.
Let stand 15 minutes. Serve hot.
test-kitchen TIP
Unlike classic mac and cheese, which is thickened by a roux (a flour and butter mixture), this one uses eggs to make a rich, gooey custard. But be careful when adding the hot cheese sauce to the eggs; you'll need to whisk the sauce in slowly so that the eggs don't curdle.

Try it, we're pretty confident you'll love it.

Cheddar Soup, original post 1/31, updated 3/04

2009-03-04T11:05:00.000-06:00

I made a WONDERFUL Cheddar Soup the other day. I could eat soup everyday. I just love it. This one is particularly nice because it's a Cheddar Soup, but not too creamy or rich.

Cheddar Soup

Makes about 7 cups, serving 4 to 6. Adapted from Cooks Illustrated March 1, 2002.

This soup isn’t the best candidate for making in advance. Reheat the soup in a saucepan over low heat, whisking gently to prevent the soup from separating. Do not bring above a bare simmer. (We didn't have any difficulty reheating it in the microwave.***Well, we didn't have a problem reheating it in the microwave the FIRST time I made it. The second time however...we used Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar - my favorite cheddar right now - and I added some broccoli, it did not reheat well. We think the problem could have been that the first time I made it I used some generic grocery store brand cheese with emulsifiers [like I know what those are...] in it that prevented it from separating upon the reheat...OR the other theory is that there was extra moisture in the broccoli that added extra water to the soup and disrupted the balance...so if you're going to make it and reheat it...just be aware.)***

Ingredients

3	tablespoons unsalted butter
1	medium onion , minced (about 1 cup)
1	medium carrot , minced (about 1/3 cup)
1	small rib celery , minced (about 1/4 cup)
1	medium clove garlic , minced
2	tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
2.5	cups low-sodium chicken broth
2.5	cups half-and-half (I used 1.5 cups half and half, and 1 cup 1% milk)
1	bay leaf
	pinch cayenne pepper
3	tablespoons dry sherry
12	ounces sharp cheddar cheese , shredded (about 3 cups)
1	tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves (I used dried)
	Table salt and ground black pepper

Instructions

Heat butter in large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat until foaming; add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 4 minutes. Add carrot, celery, and garlic; cook until garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Add flour and cook, stirring to coat vegetables, until mixture begins to brown on bottom of pot, about 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in chicken broth and half-and-half and add bay leaf. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to boil; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until vegetables soften, about 10 minutes.
Off heat, add cayenne and sherry; cool soup for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in cheese and thyme; season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

The Pan

2009-02-21T12:39:00.001-06:00

written by Eric

Around Christmas time, we received 'the pan' as a belated wedding present. I was floored, I knew immediately what it was. This is not just some ordinary pan. It is a French copper Mauviel pan. And not just some ordinary Mauviel pan, but one that came from the most amazing French cookware store in France, Dehillerin . This store has been around since the 1820's supplying French restaurants with the batterie de cuisine necessary to make France the culinary capital of the World. It was given to us by Wayne and Sara. Wayne shares my passion for food and he has inspired me to 'forage' for local foods. But I have to say, I have a lot to learn from him. He knows his food and restaurants. I have a passion, but that passion needs to be developed which is humbling but exciting at the same time. "Wayne, I'm going morel hunting in the spring!" With that said, the first use of 'the pan' had to be memorable, but I couldn't wait till May to saute morel mushrooms in local butter.
So what to make in Winter in this wonderful pot? Tarte Tatin. It is basically an upside-down pastry. You cook apples or pears in a sugar syrup on top of the stove and then add a pie crust on top and bake until the crust is golden. To serve, you flip the pan and the crust is on the bottom and the juices ooze down the crust and onto the plate. The apples (pears) are tender, yet caramelized and toothsome. This is a quick desert if the pie crust is already made and 'the pan' is perfect for this desert for Ruthie and me. The following is a recipe in two parts. The pie crust for the tarte tatin and the pear filling.

About 4 weeks ago I got interested in European style butter . This butter is different. I has a distinctive buttery 'tang', perfect to eat on bread alone; rich on the tongue as well as complimentary to a whole gamut of foods. One of it's more interesting characteristics is that it has the plasticity or malleability perfect for tender and flaky pie crusts, puff pastry and croissants. No other butter compares (believe me I've tried). Land O' Lakes is good, but still not the same. European style butter has a higher butterfat content from 2 to 6% more butterfat. I have been experimenting with at least a dozen pastry recipes for years. I thought I finally nailed it and even posted it on it in our blog as the perfect pie crust. Recently, I heard about a pie crust technique from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook that I thought was interesting. It involved simply butter cut into cubes and 'smashed' with flour to form 'flakes' with your fingers and then a few Tbs of cold water added to form a dry, but malleable dough. It sounded fundamental and simple and made me think I had made something 'easy' into something complicated. Recently, PBS has released years worth of Julia Child video on cooking food. One episode discussed making pie pastry and was very similar to the Judy Rodgers' method of making pie crust. With a full-length video illustration of this method I set out to make this pie crust recipe with the following ingredients (adapted a little bit by increasing salt and sugar since we were using unsalted butter):

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. table salt
1 tsp sugar
8 TB unsalted butter
3 TB ice-water

Cut the butter into 8 pieces (you want them rather large) and put into the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes to harden up. mix flour, salt, and and sugar together in a medium sized (2 quart bowl) and put in freezer as well. When well chilled, put butter in the bowl with the flour mixture. Using fingers, gently 'smash' butter pieces a little bit to ensure that they are malleable. Dump everything out onto the counter or pastry board (see video). Using a rolling pin, roll sheets of butter with flour to form 'flakes' of thin butter pieces (should only take 30 seconds or so). Dump 'sheets' of butter with flour back into original bowl (Pastry scraper is a must with this recipe) and add 3 Tb of ice-cold water by sprinkling on top. Using a fork stir and lift to incorporate the water (20 seconds). Dump again out onto counter or pastry board and using rolling pin roll out again to form sheets of butter and flour double the length of the mound in the bowl you originally started with (it should look dry). Using the pastry scraper, double over and fold back onto itself and repeat the rolling and folding 2-3 more times. You want to ensure that the mass does not melt and that there are distinctive 'flakes' of butter being rolled out. It should not take longer than 2-3 minutes to finish. It should be dry but flaky and soft and cold. Seriously, no more than 2-3 minutes. It should be in a squarish shape. Using pastry scraper, transfer to plastic wrap and mold inside plastic wrap to form a circular disk and put in refrigerator for at least 20 minutes or up to 2 days.

Now for the Tarte Titan by EDV.

One note, this is for a 5 inch pan. If you are going to use a 9 inch pan, you will need to adjust the recipe. I would say a 9 inch pan would hold 3-4 pears so then triple or 4x the recipe.

1 pear (peeled and quartered)
3 Tb white sugar (or 3 Tb dark brown sugar)
1/4 cup water
2 tsp butter
1/4 vanilla bean (split with seeds scraped into caramel sauce) or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (click here for a cheap source of vanilla beans )
1/3 pie crust recipe (above). Remember if using a 9 inch pan, you would need the whole recipe of pie crust.

You will be making homemade caramel with this recipe. It is very easy, but it you have to watch it or it will go from caramel to burnt sugar very quickly. If you don't want to make this caramel, I guess you can substitute dark brown sugar and add the water until the brown sugar melts.

In the pan you are going to make the tarte titan, over medium heat add 3 TB of white table sugar. Don't stir until most of the sugar has melted. Now get ready 1/4 cup of water. Stir the sugar. It will go from clear to straw colored to golden to brown very quickly. Once you see it go from golden to brown add the 1/4 cup water all at once and turn the heat to low. It will bubble up vigorously. Stir until the sugar has all melted and is bubbling again.

Add quartered pears (I used a large pear and only 3 quarters could fit in). Add 1/4 split vanilla bean and seeds to pan with the 2 tsp butter. Simmer 10 minutes or so over low to med-low heat to soften the pear. If you are using a fully ripe pear, it should take a shorter amount of time. If using a under ripe pear it make take a little longer. Do this uncovered because you want the caramel sauce to evaporate and thicken. Flip the pear slices in the caramel sauce to fully coat the pears.

While pears are simmering, roll out pie crust and cut to fit the pan. re-chill circle for a few minutes on a cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. When pears are tender, place pastry on top. For an extra crispy and top, brush pastry with milk and sprinkle sugar on top and and slide in oven. Cook until pastry is deep golden brown

Allow to cool a few minutes and invert pan onto serving plate. This amount is perfect for a desert for two. We added homemade vanilla bean ice cream (we will blog about this next) on top and we ate it up in about 90 seconds!! I like this recipe because the pastry is extremely flaky and buttery and the pears are infused with the flavor of caramel and vanilla. With the added ice cream (we also made it with whipped cream) it is sublime. Not your everyday dessert, but it is knock-your-socks-off when you do make it. And it is the perfect recipe to use our new favorite copper pan. Thanks Wayne and Sara!!

Ciabatta

2009-02-20T22:09:00.002-06:00

The saga continues. I'm pretty sure ciabatta is my arch nemesis. This time while the recipe worked wonderfully and the bread ended up great and I will definitely redo this sooner rather than later...I seem to get in my own way. Does that ever happen to anyone else? I just wanted a home run, like the pretzels (which you should try if you haven't). My edits to the story of this recipe are (as usual) in italics. (Oh! and one more thing, our "good" camera's battery charger is MIA...so these photo's are fine, but I'm missing the other camera...)

CIABATTA!!
Makes 2 loaves. Published March 1, 2009. From Cook's Illustrated.

Two tablespoons of nonfat milk powder can be used in place of the liquid milk; increase the amount of water in the dough to 1 cup. **See my note below. As you make this bread, keep in mind that the dough is wet and very sticky. The key to manipulating it is working quickly and gently; rough handling will result in flat, tough loaves. When possible, use a large rubber spatula or bowl scraper to move the dough. If you have to use your hands, make sure they are well floured. Because the dough is so sticky, it must be prepared in a stand mixer (which will dance around your counter top as it kneeds, just fyi). If you don’t have a baking stone, bake the bread on an overturned and preheated rimmed baking sheet set on the lowest oven rack. The bread will keep for up to 2 days, well wrapped and stored at room temperature. To re-crisp the crust, place the unwrapped bread in a 450-degree oven for 6 to 8 minutes. The bread will keep frozen for several months wrapped in foil and placed in a large zipper-lock bag. Thaw the bread at room temperature and re-crisp using the instructions above.

Ingredients

Biga
1	cup unbleached all-purpose flour (5 ounces)
1/8	teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
1/2	cup water (4 ounces), at room temperature
Dough
2	cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1/2	teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2	teaspoons table salt
3/4	cup water (6 ounces), at room temperature
1/4	cup milk (2 ounces), at room temperature (see note)

Instructions

FOR THE BIGA: Combine flour, yeast, and water in medium bowl and stir with wooden spoon until uniform mass forms, about 1 minute. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature (about 70 degrees) overnight (at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours).
FOR THE DOUGH: Place biga and dough ingredients in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix on lowest speed until roughly combined and shaggy dough forms, about 1 minute; scrape down sides of bowl as necessary. Continue mixing on medium-low speed until dough becomes uniform mass that collects on paddle and pulls away from sides of bowl, 4 to 6 minutes. Change to dough hook and knead bread on medium speed until smooth and shiny (dough will be very sticky), about 10 minutes. Transfer dough to large bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

**Okay, so at this point a few things happened. First, I put too much water in it, mistaking the increasing to 1 cup if using powdered milk, to add an extra cup of water. This was very wrong. Eric looked at the dough and what it was supposed to be looking like and as gently as possible started asking me what steps I had taken. He then realized my mistake...I start to kind of freak out and am ready to literally flush it all down the toilet. This is the 3rd time I've attempted ciabatta...and I just get so hopeful that it will work. So, in my frustration, I get a little tearful. This is where I want to make that superhero announcement noise dudududooooo and yet again I am rescued from myself. I think we've mentioned that Eric was a pastry chef at a chi-chi restaurant in Knoxville for a spell? He knows a bit about baking and therefore was able to tell me how to remedy the situation. We doubled the recipe, adding all the ingredients of another starter (without the 24 hour wait), and then proceeded as normal simply making 4 loaves rather than 2.
Spray rubber spatula or bowl scraper with nonstick cooking spray; fold partially risen dough over itself by gently lifting and folding edge of dough toward middle. Turn bowl 90 degrees; fold again. Turn bowl and fold dough six more times (total of eight turns). Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes. Repeat folding, replace plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes longer. Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to lower-middle position, place baking stone on rack, and heat oven to 450 degrees at least 30 minutes before baking.

**This is another thing that threw me for a loop... apparently there was a plastic container sitting on top of our baking stone with water in it that was "preheated" along with the oven for 30 minutes. Our smoke alarms were going off, which in itself is NOT an unusual occurrence at our house, the sensitivity of the smoke alarms, AND the fact that it's pretty much guaranteed that they will go off if we cook anything above 400, so we simply close doors and fan the smoke away--I always still check to see if there is in fact a fire...as onetime there were actual flames...) Yet, here comes my sweet husband yet again, as I am just ready to quit and gets the melty plastic off of the stone...all the same though, I am pretty flustered.
Cut two 12- by 6-inch pieces of parchment paper and liberally dust with flour. Transfer dough to liberally floured counter, being careful not to deflate completely. Turn 1 piece of dough so cut side is facing up and dust with flour. With well-floured hands, press dough into rough 12- by 6-inch shape. Fold shorter sides of dough toward center, overlapping them like business letter to form 7- by 4-inch loaf. Repeat with second dough piece. Gently transfer each loaf seam-side down to parchment sheets, dust with flour, and cover with plastic wrap. Let loaves sit at room temperature for 30 minutes (surfaces of loaves will develop small bubbles).
Slide parchment with loaves onto inverted, rimmed baking sheet or pizza peel. Using floured fingertips, evenly poke entire surface of each loaf to form 10- by 6-inch rectangle; spray loaves lightly with water. Carefully slide parchment with loaves onto baking stone using jerking motion. Bake, spraying loaves with water twice more during first 5 minutes of baking time, until crust is deep golden brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into centers of loaves registers 210 degrees, 22 to 27 minutes. Transfer to wire rack, discard parchment, and cool loaves to room temperature, about 1 hour, before slicing and serving. **For the record, we don't own a spray bottle, so I just dumped water on them right before we put them in the oven. Literally, probably a very healthy 1/8 cup for each loaf. Also, we made 4, but one of them slid a little too far off the pizza peel and ran into the back of the oven, so it looked a little ghetto, so we put it out of it's misery and promptly ate it.

and then today I made my favorite sandwich (minus avocado)....mmmmmmmmmm......

I will make this again. It is a wonderfully flavored bread and rises well. This recipe wasn't as sticky as the others I've tried and was in all reality (if you take my "skill" out of the equation) rather easy. I hope you try it!

ps. it is also extremely budget friendly

Ciabatta Accountability

2009-02-18T12:35:00.000-06:00

Hold me accountable. Eric bought me the newest Cooks Illustrated because it has a recipe for Ciabatta . I've tried a few times now to find a recipe that is actually doable with the desired results (see the Accidental Focaccia post). Being a huge fan of Christopher Kimball , I have been meaning to try the recipe since last Friday...so I figured, if I announced that I was going to try it and then post about it, I might be more motivated to actually do it as opposed to just wishing I had done it, because I really am so very excited to try the recipe. So, now we wait to see if this plea for accountability worked.

Fat of the Land

2009-02-09T11:07:00.135-06:00

   My new (this is Eric) blog is by Langdon Cook is Fat of the Land . He is a forager and food writer who lives in Seattle. He has a new book to go with the blog called: Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21ST Century Forager. I don't see myself becoming a forager vocationally, but I do see it fitting in with eating locally and seasonally as well as taking advantage of the bounty that this earth has around us. Take a gander at the blog and you might find it interesting.

   From the time I was a kid, I always found it exciting to find things in the woods to eat and use. I cannot tell you how many gallons of blackberries I have picked as a kid. And I still pick gallons more every summer at my mother-in-laws blackberry patch. I remember one time picking tiny wild strawberries that ripened in May. I think I picked for 4 hours and only got about a quart (OK more, but those were eaten and not counted for). I remember that black raspberries ripen for a very short period of time the first week in June. One year I convinced my parents to let me collect the sap from the sugar maple trees around our house so that I could boil it down and make my very own maple syrup. It tasted bad, but I thought the process was cool. Oh, I can't forget the bees. My dad and I kept bees and I still did up until we moved to Wisconsin, and I found it fascinating that bees would collect pollen and nectar and make honey. Truly an amazing creature. Below is a picture of my bees in Knoxville (circa 2002) when they produced 200 lbs of honey!! The beehive was taller than me.

All of these foraging things I did as a kid struck a long dormant nerve in me. Kinda like your appendex or your tonsils. You don't need them now, but maybe sometime in the past, they served a vital survival purpose. Every time I picked blackberries or fly fished for trout this long dormant nerve was activated and twitched in me a feeling of satisfaction, and also a feeling of 'rightness' that I belonged doing this. It is more than 'getting something for nothing'. It itches at something more primal; more in the likes of survival. OK, this is sounding very Michael Pollan (here is a good introductory article that Pollan wrote in the New York Times), but I think he is right. Foraging and hunting are ingrained in us. We have long since removed ourselves from it from a survival point-of-view, but that long dormant nerve is still in us and gets excited every once-in-awhile, more so in some (like me) than others.

I have a foraging goal in the spring. Wisconsin is well-known it's morels. I am already staking out places to hunt for morels. They say in good years you can get easily 20-30 lbs in couple of days time!

Croissants

2009-02-08T10:06:00.042-06:00

Remember the butter post? Well, one of the most delightful parts of having a husband who is experimenting with butter is all the things to be made with it....one of those things being croissants!!!!! Which, by the way, are one of my favorite things EVER. The taste of a buttery croissant in the morning with a cup of hot coffee...there's nothing quite like it.

Above was the first attempt... they were very good, great flavor, yet, they did not mimic the croissants we get from the Willy Street Co-Op, which are actually from the Madison Sourdough Company, so Eric was not satisfied. This led him to try again...and I am so glad he did because while the first attempt was tasty, the second attempt was AMAZING.

This isn't the recipe post, this is just a proud wife showing off her husbands awesomeness. We'll do a step by step croissant post at some point, but not now. Now I am simply bragging on him.

Calling All Butter Lovers

2009-02-08T10:03:00.028-06:00

I love being married to a scientist. Really, I do. There are times when I wouldn't have ever thought it was possible let alone even EASY to do some things in the kitchen. One of the most recent things Eric has been exploring is butter. Not just your standard run-of-the-mill butter, rather French or European Style butter. This is an amazing (and in fact preferred) butter for pastry making (...another thing hogging the lime light in our house), especially since I do the grocery shopping and I do not buy shortening.

So when I think about butter I imagine some Little House on the Prairie/Anne of Green Gables type chick, bonnet and all, with an old-school butter churn outside on the front porch. Now this image might just be unique to me, although I think I'm not alone with this association. Alas, another reason why I am so thankful I was born when I was, no bonnets, no butter churn, rather ponytails and a KitchenAid.

Basically I am trying to sell you on this idea of making your own butter. It also fits in with the 100 Mile Diet and the Omnivores Dilemma if you really break it down to fossil fuel usage and supporting your local agricultural community. But in all honesty, I just think this is pretty stinking cool.

I must say, from cream and a smidge of store bought buttermilk or organic whole milk yogurt, you get not ONLY about 3/4 lb of butter, but you get about 2 cups of buttermilk as well. You can make it Salted or Unsalted, given your baking needs.

Eric made AMAZING croissants with it and pastry crust (which, by the way, there may be another blog post coming about the newest "best" pie crust recipe...)

So, for you butter loving brave and not so brave souls... Here is your challenge... just try it. You'll impress yourself.

Homemade Butter and Buttermilk (adapted from New York Times)

4 cups (1 quart) heavy cream (do not use whipping cream that has stabilizers such as carrageenan and mono- and di-triglycerides). We used local Wisconsin heavy cream.

1/3 cup good yogurt (we used Stonyfields organic) OR 1/3 cup cultured buttermilk. Alternatively you can buy a packet of pure buttermilk cultures and give more consistent results. I will probably try that next time

Salt to taste (optional).

1. Stir the cream and the yogurt together in a large non-reactive bowl (plastic or stainless-steel). Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 18 hours at room temperature. After 18 hours it will start to get thick and taste like cultured buttermilk.

2. Pour the cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk and start mixer on medium-high speed. The cream will go through the whipped stage, thicken further and then change color from off-white to pale yellow; this will take at least 5 to 8 minutes. When it starts to look pebbly, it’s almost done. After another minute the butter will separate. Careful: it will start to splash so turn down the mixer to low until you form pebble-sized pieces of butter. You don't want to let the butter to fully clump in one mass yet because you want to wash it of excess buttermilk proteins with gives it a longer storage life. Following the step-by-step method below should make it clear what to do.

3. Set a strainer over a bowl. Pour the contents of the mixer into the strainer and let the buttermilk drain through. Strain the buttermilk again, this time through a fine-mesh sieve set over a small bowl; set aside.

4. Now add about a quart of cold water to the butter granules and use the mixer to wash the excess buttermilk from the butter. Repeat the straining process, but throw away this water mixture.

5. Keeping the butter in the strainer set over the first bowl, knead it to consolidate the remaining liquid and fat and expel the rest of the buttermilk. Knead until the texture is dense and creamy, about 5 minutes. Strain the excess liquid into the buttermilk. Refrigerate the buttermilk.

6. Mix salt into the butter, if you want. Make sure you wrap the butter in plastic wrap and THEN aluminum foil. Aluminum foil will keep out unwanted flavors and odors that butter can pick up in the refrigerator.

Around Wisconsin we can get heavy cream for about 3.00 dollars a quart which makes slightly less than a pound of butter. 1 lb of Land-O-Lakes butter costs about 3 dollars a pound. 1 pound of Plugra or other European style butter (another is Vermont Butter and Cheese) can be around 6 to 8 dollars a LB!! So, I think it is worth it.

Creamy Feta Dressing...did I mention it's "light"?

2009-02-03T12:00:00.024-06:00

Eric and I have stumbled upon the best feta salad dressing and just had to share it.

David Lebovitz published an amazing recipe. You must try it. Eric puts olives on his (I don't like olives). Also we've sliced up some radishes and green onions to go on it as well as grilled chicken.

SO GOOD! Super easy.

Click on the link below and read his post about it for more detail.

Creamy Feta-Red Wine Vinegar Dressing

4 ounces (115g) feta cheese (we used 3 oz and it worked fine)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon finely-chopped fresh thyme or oregano (we used dried thyme)
2 tablespoons flavorful olive oil
5 tablespoons water
salt and freshly-ground black pepper

1. Mash the feta with the vinegar and herbs with a fork until fairly smooth.
2. Mix in the olive oil and water, until smooth. Because feta cheese can vary in moisture, add more oil, vinegar, or water, if desired.
3. Season with pepper and salt, to taste.

Storage: This dressing will keep for four days in the refrigerator.

Vanilla

2009-01-27T11:24:00.087-06:00

I've found out recently that not everything bad is coming out of this slow economy. The vanilla market crashed and has resulted in ridiculously cheap vanilla beans. I had been hearing stories on blogs of people getting vanilla beans cheap, so I thought I would check it out. In about 15 minutes I found an online store called Vanilla Products USA that was selling 100 beans (~3/4 Lb) for 15 dollars!! I thought it was worth a shot and bought them and we weren't disappointed. We tripled bagged them in freezer bags and you could still smell the beans through 3 layers of heavy plastic (BTW: don't freeze the beans). They were incredible and they gave us 10 Tahitian beans for free. The ones we bought are known as Bourbon vanilla beans (it has nothing to do with bourbon alcohol). These are the ones most people are familiar with. They are the bases for most of the vanilla extracts because they contain high amounts of vanillin, the flavoring component of vanilla. There is another bean variety called Tahitian vanilla, it is closely related to the Bourbon bean, but has significantly less vanillin and is not suitable for most recipes containing vanilla. On the other hand, Tahitian vanilla is extremely aromatic, much more so than Bourbon. Tahitian beans would be good for things that you want to give an aromatic vanilla punch such as a vanilla custard or ice-cream, but I still would use some Bourbon in there too. Another idea is to make a 2X batch of vanilla extract and use 1 part Tahitian and 1 part Bourbon and you would have an intense vanilla concoction.

Pro Bono Baker has a recipe to make your own vanilla extract. You initially start with 10 beans, but when you use vanilla beans in recipes, you wash it off and then add the used bean to the the extract.

Homemade Vanilla Extract (from Pro Bono Baker)

1 liter cheap vodka

10 vanilla beans (Bourbon variety)

Split the vanilla beans down the middle. Throw seeds, vanilla pods (these actually have the most vanilla flavor) and vodka in a glass container and store at room temperature in a dark place for 6 weeks are more. You can strain it at that point or just leave the beans in the jar which will make the extract stronger over time. Alternatively, you can make a 2x vanilla extract by using 20 beans. You can even use 1/2 Bourbon and 1/2 Tahitian for that 1-2 vanilla flavor and aroma punch. At 15 dollars a pound you could make literally gallons of extract. Not that you would actually use that much in a lifetime, but it would make something great to give away to family and friends.

These beans are so cheap, that we have been using it in everything and giving them away to friends and we still have over 80 beans left. And since I bought them two weeks ago, the price has dropped even more. You can buy 1 LB for 15 dollars now. As a note, you should get the 'grade B' or also known as 'extract grade' beans. There is no difference between the two except that grade A are longer (and more expensive). If your thinking organic, 99% of the beans in the world are already organic.

Transitions Never Make Blogging Easy

2009-01-24T10:21:00.000-06:00

So, we've been going through some pretty major transitions (at least for us), recently. After returning home from the holidays, I started working for a business consulting firm that has an amazing evaluation tool that I help manage. I think, what they do is pretty awesome, and of course I draw from my social work background and think what they do is pretty awesome; it's like social work for people who don't know they need help, but by helping them, you are increasing the quality of life for everyone they work with and manage along with increasing their quality of life at the same time. That's been pretty all consuming over the past 3 weeks for me and for Eric. We're trying to learn how to be that couple that leaves at 7:30am and returns at 5:30pm. Man it's been an awakening for us...not in a bad way, just in a different way. The cooking thing has been difficult for us to figure out how to eat well and healthily, to find time and energy to exercise, clean, socialize, etc...etc. In order to help remedy the cooking part, we purchased a Slow Cooker. We've been "fairly" successful with it. We made an AMAZING Split-Pea Soup, also, a pretty good Black Bean Soup, a roast that was okay as well... Yet we tried to roast a chicken in it and it was...well, while it was tender, the white meat was chalky and inedible. Fortunately, the dark meat was okay and we had a lot of side veggies, so Eric ate the dark meat and I was able to have a delicious meal of veggies. At any rate, we are determined to learn to use the slow cooker in ways that even the person who has delectable taste buds (aka. my husband), will be satisfied. It's a good challenge.

Yesterday at work I ended up tossing my cookies pretty significantly, right as my "boss" walked in...so while the rest of yesterday was incopassitated due to my vomitting schedule, today I seem to be doing better, but have been restricted (in an oh so loving way) to the couch. So I figure that now is as good time to rest a little, blogg a little, rest a little more. So now, I am going to attempt to catch up on some posting that I've wanted to do for a while now, but just haven't been able to.

Everyday Food!

2009-01-09T21:33:00.000-06:00

So my Mother-in-Law gave me Everyday Food this year for Christmas. And I cannot tell you my excitement! Within the first 3 days of us returning home from the holiday, I'd already made one of the dishes. And if you can imagine, it was delicious, so I thought I'd share.... (the picture they have on their webpage of it is much better than ours, but I don't want to show you THEIR pic, I want to show you OUR picture. It was a great meal, healthy, light, ummmmm.... wonderful.

Pan-Grilled Pork Kebabs
From Everyday Food January 2009

Ingredients:

3/4 cup long-grain white rice
1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas, thawed
1 pork tenderloin (about 1 pound), cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
1 navel orange, cut into chunks
Coarse salt and ground pepper
4 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees; place a baking sheet in oven. Prepare rice according to package instructions. Stir in peas, and heat briefly to warm through.
Alternately thread pork and orange chunks onto eight 6-inch skewers; season with salt and pepper. Heat grill pan to medium; brush with 2 teaspoons oil. Cook half the skewers until pork is opaque throughout, 4 to 6 minutes per side; transfer to oven to keep warm. Brush grill pan with 2 teaspoons oil; cook remaining skewers.
In a small bowl, whisk together honey and mustard; season with salt and pepper. Reserve half of sauce for dipping.
Working in two batches, return skewers to grill pan, and heat over high, brushing with sauce, until glazed, about 2 minutes. Serve with rice and reserved sauce.

Sweet Picture

2009-01-09T21:19:00.001-06:00

I felt like this picture deserved a post all it's own. I love this one of Eric's grandfather James Mingle (aka. Big Daddy).

Merry

2009-01-02T17:03:00.005-06:00

Eric and I headed home for the holiday this year. (Home [of course] being Tennessee.) We left on the 20 in between snow storms. Seriously it was right after over a foot of snow had fallen in only 24 hours.

Anyway, we went to Knoxville first then Nashville. We left early around 4:30 am. I dug our parking spot out the night before so that we wouldn't have to dig it out early on Saturday morning to make our 6 am flight. We arrived at the small airport in Madison by 5 am. Surely an hour should be enough time?!? Right?!? Well, we'll know better next time. We get to the airport at 5 only to be greeted with 75 - 100 people ahead of us in line at the one airline who had a flight at 6 am that day. We're waiting, weighing our bags, adjusting stuff re-weighing our bags...etc...etc... the line is moving so slow and we both start to get nervous. Finally at 5:40, we get in the security line, and start getting ready to do the whole airport security thing...shoes off, belts off, computers out, liquids out...etc...etc...

While we're in line we hear the call for our flight to board...at this point we wait at least another 10 minutes, make it through security, barely...and when I say barely, I mean, all loose items, still loose, and in the arms, one shoe partially tied, one in the arms, rolling luggage carried because the wheels just slow you down when your sprinting to your gate, saying just below a yell "we're here! we're here!" we get to the gate and they haven't shut the door, they were preparing to board standby's. (mind you it is now 6:20 and the scheduled departure was at 6)... so when we find this out, I bend over to stuff all our stuff back in our bags and put my shoe on saying, "Thank you Jesus! Praise the Lord!" ...so as I say this I see heads turn and start looking at me... but it doesn't matter, given the fact that we were 40 minutes late for boarding and the flight should have left by then. I'll say Praise Jesus, all I darn well want to!

We make it to Knoxville, exhausted, but so thankful to be in Tennessee! We were greeted by the best sign in the entire world!! Held by Honey (my mom) and Sadie Parker. I wish we had a picture of them holding the sign, but alas we do not. But we DID bring the sign home with us!!

The holiday was amazing, of course! We delight in our families and are so thankful to spend time with them! What a treat!!

So it turns out that flying is not our (and by "our" I mean Eric's) favorite thing. He loves the freedom of not being committed to a schedule when you drive...but when you live 12 hours away (which is calculated BEFORE all my bathroom breaks), chances are you will be driving at night. And this is where I step in....

Eric is a horrible night driver. Not that he's a bad driver, just that he falls asleep...so we have come to the point in our marriage where we know that if it's night time and longer than 30 minutes, I'll be driving. Yet, it's not just the night time that causes my love to become drowsy, there's also his extreme susceptibility to highway hypnosis... Though flying does tend to be hard on him...on the way home, we weren't on a time crunch like we usually are, rather, he got what he has since researched and found out was food intoxication. Fortunately, it didn't hit until the beginning of the last flight...but when it hit, it hit hard. He has since learned that the airplane lavatory is his least favorite place to vomit...and seriously,who wants to "rate" their favorite places to toss your cookies? Hilariously, SP, my sister's eldest daughter, so tenderly asked about Eric and his "Food Poisonous."

Things have been crazy since we got back home. Eric was sick for about 2 days, and recovering for the next two. I started my "big girl job" this past Monday. It has been an exhausting week for us both. We're going to figure it out though...slowly but surely, we'll find our routine. I love my job. The organization I work for is AWESOME. It's a consulting firm with an evaluation arm that is unlike any evaluation tool/service, I've ever seen. My job will be to work with the evaluation part of it all. It's a lot to learn, but it is doable and I'm energized by it.

Here are some pics from the holiday Scruggs Holiday then Vincill Holiday. They are not the greatest, but I hope to score some more from my sister very soon...check out her blog and you will see some more...

The Scruggs Family Christmas!

Well Ruby and Sadie Parker for now...I hope to add more later...

A few photo's from the Vincill Family Christmas!

This is the Infamous Grommie, whom we reference frequently on our blog.

Eric was DETERMINED to win Uncle of the Year.

Second Time's a Charm

2008-12-19T12:23:00.001-06:00

I think it worked out much better the second time around...

MAJOR WINTER STORM IMMINENT!!!!

2008-12-18T21:38:00.000-06:00

So the National Weather Service has issued the following warnings (see below)....I laughed. I thought it sounded like dooms day.

...one caveat is that this might be 'the big one'....I'll let you know tomorrow...

I kid you not this is exactly what they said:

"...Major Winter Storm Now Imminent Over Southern Wisconsin...

.A Major Winter Storm Is Expected To Significantly Impact The Area Late This Evening Through Early Friday Afternoon. A Low Pressure System Will Gather Strength Over The Central Plains Early This Evening...Then Track Northeast Across Northern Missouri... Central Illinois...And Central Indiana By Friday Morning. This Is A Classic Storm Track For Heavy Snow Across Southern Wisconsin.

Widespread Snow...Heavy At Times...Will Fall Across All Of South Central And Southeast Wisconsin. Snowfall Accumulations Will Range From 9 To 13 Inches South Of A Line From Madison To Milwaukee...To 8 To 11 Inches North Of This Line...With 7 To 9 Inches North Of A Montello To Fond Du Lac Line."

E

musings from madison

Penelope Jane

Red Velvet Cake for My Love

MIA

GARLIC!!!!!!

The most amazing salad!!

Our May garden

Breakfast for dessert or dessert for breakfast??

The Chubby Vegetarian

Garden update

Hook's 15 year Cheddar

The First Fruits

The Femivore's Dilemma - NY Times

The March Garden

Fixing a Failed Vegetable Garden - the WSJ

Slackerly-slackerson

Traditions

St. Vincent's Finds

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

It's Christmastime!

November Garden

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

The October Garden

...We're gonna have a good time...

Gourmet Magazine Heads to the Meat Grinder

Beer infused Broccoli????

Pepper Harvest

Ina's Angel Food Cake Step-by-Step

Whipping Egg Whites 101

Sweet Corn

September is here

Tomato Season

a little NPR love

Garlic

Our First Tomato!!!!!

quality time

Deal of a lifetime

Stuffed Eight Ball zucchini

New camera lens

Catch up...

Scavenging and Foraging

Black Earth Creek Round Two

A house is not a home without bacon

Our Own CSA Box

Swiss Chard

Garden Update June 16th

It looks like an emu!!

Brownie Mix, be gone and don't come back!

Spicy Chicken Stir Fry with Peanuts

Shaved Asparagus with Linguine

This is why we have a home garden

3 week garden update

Our First Anniversary

Granola update

Our Garden

Homemade Granola

Cookies On Demand

Surprise...surprise...

Happy Easter!

It's been FAR too long...

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Extract!

Baked Penne with Farmhouse Cheddar and Leeks

Ingredients

Preparation

test-kitchen TIP

Cheddar Soup, original post 1/31, updated 3/04

I made a WONDERFUL Cheddar Soup the other day. I could eat soup everyday. I just love it. This one is particularly nice because it's a Cheddar Soup, but not too creamy or rich.

Cheddar Soup

Instructions

The Pan

Ciabatta

Ingredients

Instructions

Ciabatta Accountability

Fat of the Land

Croissants

Calling All Butter Lovers

Creamy Feta Dressing...did I mention it's "light"?

Vanilla