Scalloped Potatoes with Kale

Since I grow kale well into the late fall (I harvested the last bit of lacinato kale in the second week of December) and since it’s one of the more dependable winter vegetables from the health food store, even coming from local sources, we have developed plenty of ways of including it in dishes, from scalloped potatoes to meatloaf.  While The Dad finds the richness of scalloped potatoes appealing, I think they need lightening up, so I make them with non-fat milk (lactose-free depending on who’s home) and pre-cooked kale, plus the requisite onions and garlic. A sprinkle of nutmeg warms up the whole mixture.

Place thinly sliced potatoes and onions in a pot with milk not quite covering them, bring to a simmer and cook for a minute or so. Season a gratin dish with a garlic clove, slice it and add it to the milk and potato mixture. Stir in pre-cooked kale and pour the mixture into a gratin dish. Cook in a 375-degree oven for about 30 minutes until bubbling, cooked through and browned on top. Let sit for a few minutes before serving. For two large or three regular servings in a 7-inch oval dish I used two russet potatoes, one small onion, one garlic clove and about a cup of cooked kale.

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Peppers Stuffed with Bulgur and Beef

There are dozens and dozens of ways that I make stuffed peppers. Since peppers tend to come in droves either during the farm season or in the seconds bin at the health food store, I tend to accumulate them. Not just green peppers but the colored ones too. Stuffed peppers appeal to the Queen of the Leftovers because they adapt to a variety of ingredients. So I found myself with a little ground beef and some already cooked bulgur and put together a mixture that also included onions, dried currants, toasted pine nuts and parsley.

Parboil halved and cored peppers until softening but still crisp. It’s important not to overcook them, since that’s what gives stuffed peppers an odor, a slimy texture and a bad name. These were halved crosswise because of their proportions but lengthwise is more typical of my repertoire. Mix together grains, pre-cooked meat, seasonings etc. Add a lightly beaten egg if it seems that the mix won’t hold together. I usually skip the egg but this mixture needed the help.  Loosely stuff into the pepper shells and bake in a 350-degree oven for about 25-30 minutes. I served it with braised carrots for contrast.

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Tabletop Snowman Welcomes Winter

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Streusel Coffeecake

This is my family’s favorite coffeecake, served early on Christmas morning to stave off hunger while we open the presents in our stockings, and on other occasions throughout the year.  I’ve made this for so long that I have no idea where the recipe came from.  While the streusel mixture could be only a topping, layering it with half the batter produces a lighter and more satisfying texture.

Streusel Coffeecake

Streusel mixture

½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

2 tbsp soft butter

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tsp cinnamon

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Batter

1 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 egg

¾ granulated white sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9 or 9 ½-inch round pan, preferably with a removable bottom.

Make streusel mixture. In small bowl, combine ingredients until crumbly and set aside.

Make batter. Sift flour with salt and baking powder and set aside.In medium bowl with rotary beater, beat egg until frothy. Beat in sugar and butter until well combined. Add milk and vanilla. Gently mix in flour.

Turn half of batter into prepared pan. Top with half of streusel mixture. Spoon remainder of batter on top, smoothing it out. Sprinkle on rest of streusel topping. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a poker inserted into the cake comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature

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Vanilla Extract, Homestyle

Because I like to make things from scratch and re-use anything I can, I’ve recently been labeled “hard-core.” I take that as a compliment even though it was a remark from a pair of co-workers trying to figure out just what was in those jars that I left as gifts.  Maybe I better add instructions in the future. One of my great discoveries of 2009, a year that I wasn’t otherwise fond of, was how to make vanilla extract. It’s not that it’s a mystery, but I never took the time to concoct it well in advance of when I would use it. I had the same problem with preserved lemons until I got in the groove. Vanilla extract steeps for two months, preserved lemons for weeks, depending on the kind. See what I mean about thinking ahead?

The other issue with the vanilla was the cost and the quality of fresh beans. I found the answer in an eBay store called Vanilla Products USA. They offer a variety of assortments in bulk, including sampler packs, bonuses etc. I kept it simple and bought good quality 6” Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beans and Gourmet Tahitian Vanilla Beans. Bourbon doesn’t refer to the liquor, but to an island once called by that name. Tahitian vanilla, which supposedly originated in Mexico like Bourbon, is quite different in flavor. In the future, I will steep them in the same solution to check out the difference, but this time, I processed the two totally differently.

Unlike some of the fancy stuff from Williams Sonoma, which contains sugar, I made the extract with only beans and booze. Using a ratio of three beans to one cup of liquor, I steeped Madagascar Bourbon beans in bourbon (seemed only fair) and Tahitian beans in vodka. The proportions came from Joy the Baker’s web post in July. The beans were split vertically but not cut through, added to a jar with a tight lid (I used a Kombucha bottle for one and a canning jar for the other), stored in a dark cupboard, and shaken up every week or so. 60 days later, we had lovely, aromatic extract. Now I’m amazed at how much vanilla extract I am capable of using. And I even had some to put in tiny dark bottles for gifts.

The homemade stuff is strong, so go lightly when adding to your favorite recipes. My next experiment is to see if I can top off the bottles and add more beans, rotating between the Bourbon and Tahitian beans. The former were more mellow but I’m not sure if it was because of the beans. The vodka could have made the other one a little harsh.

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Gifts from the Pantry

Over the summer and early fall, I put up something every two weeks on average, depending on what was in the farmers’ market or in the field at the Farm. I made jams and pickles, some consumed right away and others put up for gifts: strawberries in balsamic vinegar, pickled asparagus with garlic, rhubarb stewed with ginger and rosemary, hand-picked sour cherries in vanilla syrup and red cherries in red wine, apricot jam from rosy organic orbs and larger yellow ones, a medley of raspberries and blackberries, jam from fresh South Jersey figs, peaches in vanilla syrup, green tomatoes with ginger and vanilla, curried corn relish, tomatillo sauce, quince paste and orange marmalade, plus some other stuff that I can’t remember right now.  Sadly, no canned tomatoes or tomato sauce, salsa, or chutney this year, or dilly beans or cucumber pickles.  Every batch was small – two to four jars except for the tomatillos that I blogged about in November.  Luckily, there was enough variety to hand out as gifts from the pantry.  My family begrudged the gift of any tomatillos, so I guess that was a local hit. Here’s a photo of some of the haul… team-style, before I labeled and decorated the jars.

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Cranberry Sorbet

Sometimes I struggle with the proportions of sorbet ingredients to be able to achieve a smooth, almost creamy texture rather than a block of ice. I made a yummy cantaloupe sorbet this summer that was great fresh out of the ice cream maker but froze to a poor consistency. I think it’s partly in the body of the pulp, partly in whether the ice cream maker will humor me long enough to aerate the mix, and partly in those little  “trucs,” such as adding (dreaded) corn syrup or a little alcohol.

Having to retreat from a certain mulled apple cider sorbet the other day, I decided to go for broke with the cranberries. They have a lot of pectin, I think, based on their gelling capacity when I make Thanksgiving relish, so that already bodes well for consistency. I also didn’t feel that I needed to process a whole quart of the sorbet mixture. To get to a quart, I would have added liquid and that would aggravate the ice factor. This turned out perfectly. Because of the concentration of berries, you can eat only a tiny amount at a time. We could have used this as an intermezzo at our abundant Thanksgiving feast, if anyone does that anymore. It cleanses the palate at any time.

Cranberry Sorbet

12 oz cranberries, picked over, stems removed and rinsed

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

½ cup additional liquid (water, orange juice, cranberry juice)

1 tbsp light corn syrup

Zest of 1 orange

2 tsp Grand Marnier liqueur (optional)

Mix the cranberries, sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until cranberries have popped. Add additional liquid and corn syrup and let cool. When cool, add orange zest and liqueur and chill in refrigerator until very cold. Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. Makes a pint and a half.

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First Ice

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Eternity: Two People and a _______, the Last Bite

There’s an old joke that eternity can be defined as two people and a ham. Now I can attest to an alternative: two people and a turkey. With the brood departing after the holiday weekend and not taking anything with them, there was a passel of left-behinds. A little of this and that and a mound of meat. The carcass had already been cooked down into golden, flavorful stock that made its way into turkey potpie, turkey soup with rice and vegetables, turkey chili. The white meat had been scavenged for sandwiches and salads, and then, finally, all that was left was a small bowl of scraps.

I had been interested in making croquettes for a while but never got around to experimenting with them, so this was the perfect opportunity to purge the pantry of potatoes and use up the modest morsels of cubed root vegetables along with the turkey. Because of the taste and color of the sweet potatoes and carrots, I thought that adding a little curry powder would complement the dish and I was right. These were delicious served on top of baby chard.  (Don’t worry that I posted this so long after Thanksgiving. We had this for dinner a week later.)

Turkey Croquettes

1 cup chopped turkey meat (pulsed in a food processor but not ground)

1 cup mashed potato and root vegetables

1 small onion, diced

Vegetable oil

½ tsp curry powder, or to taste

2 eggs, one for the croquette mix, one for the coating

Flour

Panko or bread crumbs

Prepare the turkey and set aside. Prepare an approximately equal amount of potato mixture, with or without the roots. Leftover mashed potatoes would be fine here. Combine them in a mixing bowl. Slowly cook the onion in the oil until translucent, then add the curry powder, and continue to cook, stirring, until aromatic. Add the curried onions to cool turkey-potato mix and thoroughly combine. Lightly beat one egg and add to the mixture. (I actually added a portion of the second egg since I didn’t need the whole thing for the battering.) Shape into patties

When ready to cook, dip the patties in flour, then in a beaten egg, and finally in panko or bread crumbs. Fry in vegetable oil (1/8-1/4 inch in pan) until well browned, and serve hot.Makes about 4 patties, more or less depending on how large you want them. Mine were 2 x 3 x 1/2 inches.

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Beets on Beets

The other day, I was leafing through years of journals that I’ve kept documenting the bounty from “the Farm,” our local CSA organization, looking for a recipe I vaguely remembered. I was amused to see so many entries about beets and beet greens. At least one or two a year! And pretty much on the same topic, with minor variations. I would typically come home from the Farm with a couple of unwieldy bunches of beets with beautiful tops. Storing them wisely meant separating the greens from the roots, which I reported in the journal and then waxed on about beets’ being related to chard and blah blah blah. As if I hadn’t said that a few times before.

Typically I roasted the beets in the oven, or steamed them if small or cubed, and then served them atop the greens, shallow-boiled, drained, and sprinkled with olive oil and salt. Very simple, very tasty.  The variations came in the type and color of both the beets and the tops. The Farm grows quite a few varieties: dark red with red tops, dark red with green tops, and pink-striped and golden yellow beauties.

When I went to the final gleaning event closing out the season, I spied a field of beets with dark red tops, small and scraggly but in very good shape. So once again, here we have beets on beets. The color was gorgeous but so dark in combination that I couldn’t photograph the beets by themselves, so I sprinkled on feta cheese and walnuts and served them at room temperature as a salad.

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