Potato Leek Soup

I didn’t do much measuring for this but it turned out great!

1/2 c butter
splash of white wine
a few bunches of leeks
garlic cloves
quart of veg. broth
about 4lb of potatoes + a turnip for good measure
scoop of flour or cornstarch
a few splashes of cream/soy milk
S & P
parmesan cheese (optional)
sour cream & chives (optional)

Peel, chop, boil potatoes and set aside. Saute the leeks & garlic in the butter, add splash of wine. Once caramelized, add everything else and cook it up – season & garnish to taste!

I served it with some fresh crusty french bread & it helped take care of some leftover cornbread as well…Perfect winter dish. Also served it with arugula salad w/almonds, goat cheese, honey balsamic & beets. (Nothing BEETS fresh beets!) I think a nice piece of salmon would be the perfect finishing touch.

To roast beets:

Cut greens off & save to cook for a delicious side dish. Wrap the bulbs in foil & drizzle some olive oil in there. Bake @ 350 for 45min-an hour depending on how big they are. Once cooked let them cool and you can peel the skin off with your hands. Chop & enjoy!

-Di

Potatoes Au Gratin

I’m bringing back the Belly Log!

I used AllRecipes.com as a starting point for this recipe, but made some adjustments:

Butter a casserole dish and then start layering thinly sliced peeled potatoes. (This is the tricky & time consuming part, as you need to slice them as thinly as possible. A mandolin might work well for this.) When the dish is about halfway full, thinly slice some onion rings and put those on top of the potatoes. Cover with some more potato slices until the casserole is pretty full, covering the dish with a towel as you go to help prevent oxidizing. Top with salt & pepper and put aside or refirgerate.

Cheese sauce:
Melt 3tb of butter over medium heat, then whisk in 3tb flour and 1/2 tsp salt. Whisk for one minute then stir in 2 cups milk or soymilk and cook until thickened, stir often. Finally, mix in 3/4 cups cheddar cheese and 3/4 cups Gruyere cheese and stir until blended. (You can use more cheese if you prefer, as well as experiment with different kinds.)

Pour this mixture over the potatoes and top with some bread crumbs (garlic & herb works well). Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half.

This came out DELICIOUS!! Would be a great hit on special occasions or at potlucks.
-Di

Apple Pie

Local taste, apples, lard… The recipe for the crust is courtesy Rhonda Welcome, who led a workshop about apple pie crusts at MOFGA‘s Common Ground Fair this year.

The goal is a flaky crust, which means successful dough will feel very dry when rolled. Only add water in dire times. Finally, cold is the key to success, so it helps to plan ahead by refrigerating your mixing bowl and rolling pin. You can even spread the recipe out a few days and refrigerating the dough in plastic wrap.

Sift two and a half cups of flour, two tablespoons brown sugar, and one teaspoon salt into a cold bowl and mix (if you haven’t a cold bowl, do this over another bowl full of ice cubes). Mix in with your fingers either a half cup of butter or a half cup of rendered lard with a dash of vinegar. It should have the texture of cornmeal when the fat is mixed in. Add five tablespoons of cold, cold water and gently fold the dough into itself, incorporating the wet and dry. Squeeze the arid dough into two balls. Roll out one ball and fit it over over a pie pan – no need to grease it – and another to be placed on top.

For the filling, use six cups of peeled and sliced apples, one tablespoon of cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg, and three-quarter cups of brown sugar. Mix all this together, then spread over the bottom layer of crust. Cover with the top crust and seal the edges, trimming any excess, and poke holes in the top layer of crust.

Bake at 400 for about 50 minutes. I’ve read of, though I’ve never tried, folding aluminum foil around the edges for the first 40 minutes to keep the edges of your crust from burning. Let the pie cool quite a bit if you want a clean slice – but who can wait, anyway?

Dinner Rolls

The dough only needs an hour to rise, so these rolls are a quick addition to dinner.

Dissolve one package of active dry yeast and one tablespoon of sugar in a half cup of warm water (the temperature at which you’d give a baby a bath). While you let the yeast mixture bubble, warm up a half cup of milk, then add 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of butter. When the milk mixture had cooled and the yeast is active, mix these two together and add one beaten egg and one teaspoon of salt.

The addition of three cups of unbleached flower turned this liquid into a wet dough; knead this with another 3/4 cup of flour or so, and let the dough rise for an hour.

When the dough has doubled in size, roll out little balls and place three in each muffin-hole of a muffin tray. Preheat the oven to 400, and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Granola

This recipe is an adaptation from a post on The Traveler’s Lunchbox. Basically, it’s lifted directly from the site, minus some more expensive ingredients. I tripled the recipe and ended with two overflowing baking sheets of granola, about two overstuffed gallon lunch bags.

Grind a quarter pound of quick and a quarter pound of rolled oats in a blender to a fine powder. Combine this powder with another quarter pound of each (not ground, that is), three cups of nuts (I chose almonds), a teaspoon of cinnamon, a half teaspoon of mace, and a half teaspoon of cardamom.

Meanwhile, heat one cup of brown sugar, a stick of butter, and 1/3 cup of water in a saucepan until the butter has just melted and the mixture begins to bubble. Add a half teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Pour the sugary buttery mixture over the oats, mixing with your fingers into clumps and balls. Spread these (thinly) over a baking sheet along with whatever oats remain.

Bake for 20 minutes before removing the pans and shuffling the oats around. Break up the larger clumps at will. Do this every 20-30 minutes until the oats are dry and browned (took me two hours). Add dried fruits when the granola is cooked.

Beef Jerky

This jerky lasted a hike from Hanover to Mt. Lafayette, and the appetites of four 22 year-olds. I tried it with a fresh ham steak as well, but since trimming fat is so important to making jerky (since fat spoils), it’s a lot harder with pork.

Prepare a salty marinade – I used a Teriyaki marinade. I don’t actually know if a salty marinade or brine is necessary to preserve it, since different recipes emphasize different parts of the process, but I figure a preservative can’t hurt.

Cut a roast into very thin strips; between 1/4 inch and 1/8 inch thick. Trim large portions of fat as you go. Soak the strips in a marinade in an enclosed tupperware bowl overnight.

Preheat oven to 170, or as low as possible. Hang the strips of beef over the grate in the oven (maybe even clean them first), position a baking sheet underneath the meat to catch drips, and prop the oven door open to allow moisture to escape. Cook until it all looks done; tactile but not brittle. This took 5 hours for me.

Teriyaki Marinade

Since trying it once, I have made copious amounts of this marinade. In large doses, it can be too salty.

Dissolve 3/4 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup white sugar in a large bowl with a three-inch piece of ginger, two cups of soy sauce, a cup of chopped onion, black pepper, two tablespoons of sesame oil and two tablespoons of olive oil. Add 4 cups of water to dilute.

Oatmeal Cookies

I pulled from the oven a thin sheet of sugar and butter after following this recipe.  Maybe I didn’t cream the butter enough?  Or is sifting flour that important? I think it might have been the lack of double-acting baking powder.

(From the Joy of Cooking)

Preheat oven to 350.  Cream a half cup of butter, then add and cream a half cup of firmly-packed brown sugar and a half cup of granulated sugar. 

Combine an egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, and a tablespoon of milk to the above mixture and beat until smooth.

Sift together one cup of sifted all-purpose flour, a half teaspoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon of double-acting baking powder, and a half teaspoon of salt; add this to the above mixture and beat smooth.

Add a half cup of quick rolled oats, beat the mixture well, and bake 10 to 12 minutes.

Slaughtering Broilers

Everything was in place Sunday morning for the chicken slaughter. We had been expecting rain and wind, but got cool sunshine, and our kill line swayed gently.

Jason hangs a chicken on the kill line.

With the first five chickens hanging upside down, their feet in slip-knots, we began the long process with a pocketknife. I had to tilt the chickens’ heads back to cut both jugulars (each has two).

A full line, with some cut jugulars.

The chicken is dead when the flapping is over and the blood has stopped running. We removed them from the line and dipped each in 150 degree water for a full minute. If the water is too hot, white (partially cooked?) spots will show on the body. If it is too cool, or the submersion too short, all the feathers won’t come off in the Whizbang chicken plucker.

The Whizbang chicken plucker.

This device is a three foot cylinder, the base of which spins. Long nipples adorn the inside and can strip all the feathers off a chicken in less than a minute.

The Whizbang chicken plucker in action.

Hanne and Heather ready to eviscerate, cut and bag.

The naked carcass visits the evisceration crew.

Fresh from the plucker.

Hanne can lob off the neck fat, cut off the feet, and pull out the innards in a minute or less.

After eviscerating, the wings, legs, and breast are removed.

Long cuts are preferred to a sawing action. We cut legs with as much thigh as possible, wings near to the breast, and then the breast as close to the wishbone as possible. The last step involves pulling the leftover hairs out one by one and then throwing the pieces in a cooler with ice. The legs and wings can go right in, but the breasts – because they are skinless – have to be put in ziplock bags first. This isn’t the final freezing step, it just serves to cool the meat quickly. Later in the day, Hanne bagged all the meat, putting it in the real freezer.

Crepes

The Joy of Cooking claims this recipe yields 16 five-inch cakes, but we got five ten-inch cakes.

Sift 3/4 cup of all purpose flour with a half teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of double-acting baking powder, and two tablespoons of powdered sugar.  In a separate bowl, beat two eggs, then add and beat 2/3 cups of milk, a third cup of water, and a half teaspoon of vanilla.  Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry (volcano-style).  A few quick strokes is all this mix needs.  It will be runny!

Heat a griddle or saucepan and place a few drops of vegetable or canola oil on the pan before cooking each crepe.  Spread the batter thinly, and keep the heat low.   They cook very quickly.