Twice Baked Potatoes Are Perfect For The Freezer!

In one of those around the kitchen table conversations, my cousin Kathy mentioned she buys baking potatoes when they are cheap in the fall and freezes them. Any conversation that has cheap and potato in it has my full attention!

This is the same cousin who clued me in about freezing apple slices in pie plates so they would fit perfectly into a pie shell while still frozen. You can read about how she does it here. Kathy and her husband were ranchers in Alberta and she could feed an army on a moments notice. Even now that she is retired to town, she keeps her freezer well stocked.

I didn't actually get around to doing potatoes for the freezer yet but I told my friend Wendy about it and she did. She not only made them, she gave me some for my freezer. Yay!

I'm always run off my feet shutting the yard down for winter and getting the chickens snug before cold weather hits. Yesterday was even more of a panic with battening down the hatches before the tail end of the hurricane brought us some nasty weather.

Out came one of those frozen twice baked potatoes to pop in the oven with a simple meat loaf. ~

There are lots of recipes online for twice baked potatoes if you haven't made them before. For the basics, you can click here. Once the potatoes are baked and stuffed, freeze them on a cookie sheet. Once they are frozen, you can bag them individually and they will be good for at least three months.

The frozen potato goes in a 350 degree oven, lightly covered with tinfoil, for 30 mins. Remove the tinfoil and continue to bake for 15 mins. more.

A perfect comfort meal ready for me when I came in from the yard! ~

Thanks Kathy for the tip and thanks Wendy for getting it done!

You Won't Believe What's In This Cookbook!

I preordered happy hens & fresh eggs because the author, chef Signe Langford, is a friend of my daughter. Signe has been a good chicken mommy to many of the rescued battery hens that my daughter brought to her farm for rehabilitation and rehoming. 

What I didn't expect was my absolute delight in the book itself. It has everything I love in a good read!

Where else will you find beautiful photos of gardens, vintage kitchenware, backyard chickens, coop plans, and practical information on caring for your own flock?  Okay, maybe you could find all that in one book but how about 100 egg recipes by the author and contributing chefs!

The photography is beautiful. ~ 

If you daydream about keeping your own chickens, Signe walks you through the highs and lows of having adorable feather balls hopping up on your knee as you sip a cup of tea in your garden and gives peeks into her stylish coop dubbed Cluckingham Palace. She also lets you know what happened to her meticulous landscaping when those feather balls started scratching and chomping their way through the garden like miniature, ravenous dinosaurs. You all know what my gals did to my yard so that won't surprise you much. There's lots of practical chicken keeping advice from Signe and two bloggers I regularly follow, Karen at The Art Of Doing Stuff and Lisa from Fresh Eggs Daily.

The author is as passionate as I am about stopping cruel factory farm practices and I was thrilled to see a picture of my granddaughter, holding a rescued hen, included in the book. ~

I couldn't put happy hens and fresh eggs down until I'd read it cover to cover and by then I was famished! 

I flipped through the book and settled on whipping up Hangry Eggs. They turned out beautifully and tamed the 'hangry' beast in me! ~

Tomorrow, I'll try something a little more refined. I think iles flottantes will do nicely. ~

The gals in the coop have their work cut out for them. I intend to cook my way through the entire book! ~

Luckily I  have lots of 'happy hens & fresh eggs'!

To order (and I highly recommend you do!) click here to take you through to Amazon.ca. 

The Gleaners

I had this print of The Gleaners, by Jean-Francois Millet, hanging on my dining room wall for many years until it faded beyond saving. ~

Only recently I discovered it wasn't a depiction of a biblical story but rather a criticism of the French upper class and the poverty it imposed on the lower classes.

Gleaning bits of grain left behind the harvest does indeed show a hard way of life, but I focussed on the resourcefulness of the women, who found ways and means of feeding their families.

I admit I am a diehard gleaner. It makes me feel good to busy myself in the fall gathering and storing for the long winter ahead.

The last of the tomatoes go into the pot to peel and freeze. ~

Basil is chopped and covered with olive oil to freeze. ~

The last of the corn has been blanched and frozen and the chickens, the ultimate gleaners, have feasted on the kernels left clinging to the cobs. ~

The girls are scurrying about the yard all day at this time of year, pecking at bugs, fallen fruit and grasses gone to seed to put on the extra weight they will need to keep warm in the winter months. They've finished molting and grown a nice, thick coat of feathers.

Don't you just love Vivian's bloomers? ~

This year I've added nutting to my foraging.  My sister called to say the row of hickory trees just outside the village were loaded with nuts. No one has ever gathered them to my knowledge. To be honest, I didn't even know what one tasted like. A little Google session later, I discovered Hickory nuts are right up there with macadamias for a gourmet treat. Shelled, they sell for $24/lb. online. One site said that while walnuts are the Chevys of the nut world and pecans are the Oldsmobiles, hickory nuts are the Cadillacs. They were right! They are murder to crack, but the fruit is soooo worth the effort!

The temperatures dropped dramatically here last night and it's time to haul the potted herbs indoors. The freezer is full and the sealer jars are lined up on the shelves. ~

Yup, I'm happy with my tendency to be a gleaner and storer!

Cream Of Celeriac Soup

January is all about comfort food for me and nothing is as homey as a pot of soup simmering on the stove. I'm trying new soup recipes all the time and saw this one for Cream of Celeriac Soup in the January 2012 issue of Victoria magazine.

Gather up a few ingredients and remember, soup is very forgiving. If you don't have the exact ones, go ahead and improvise! ~

For the first stage of making your soup you will need:

3 slices of bacon
3 Tsp butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 shallot minced
1 clove garlic minced
3 lbs. celeriac (celery root) washed, peeled, diced
3 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups water

Bouquet Garni:

In a square of cheesecloth put 3-4 sprigs of  fresh thyme, 3 sprigs of fresh parsley, 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, and 1 bay leaf.  Tie the cheesecloth to make a packet for the herbs. If you use dried herbs, you can add them directly to the soup, without tying in cheesecloth. Just be sure to cut the amount of each back when you are using dried so you don't overpower the flavour of the celeriac.

In a dutch oven, saute the bacon until cooked through. All you want from this is the drippings. ~

That's about 4 TBS., if you are like me and save bacon drippings in a jar in the fridge. The recipe said to discard the bacon. I assume the author lives in some kind of parallel universe where you throw out bacon. If you don't want to use it as a garnish for your finished soup, just eat the darned stuff while you are waiting for dinner!

Remove the bacon from the pot, reserving the bacon fat. Add the butter to the pot and melt. Add onion, shallot and garlic. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until onion is translucent and tender (about 5 mins.).

Add celery root, chicken stock, water and the Bouquet Garni. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer, covered, until tender, about 45 mins. ~

Remove the soup from the heat and allow to cool a bit. Take out the Bouquet Garni and discard. Puree the soup with a food processor or immersion blender.

Here's a trick for making cream soup ahead of time. Once the soup is pureed, and before you add the milk, you can freeze it as a base. It works great with all the usual cream soups. Just thaw it and add the dairy when you reheat it.

For the second stage of the recipe you will need:

1 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground white pepper (if you don't have white on hand just add more black)
1 1/2 cups half and half
1/4 cup heaving whipping cream

On medium heat, bring soup back up to a gentle simmer and add the salt, pepper, half & half and whipping cream, stirring occasionally to make sure the cream doesn't separate.

The finished soup had a delicate, celery flavour and a thin consistency.  If you like a thicker cream soup, I'd cut the water back by at least half.  ~

I loved the 'spring like' flavour of this soup and it would be perfect served at a luncheon with quiche.

It makes about 2 quarts and serves 6 generous portions.

Time To Get Some Corn In The Freezer!

Some garden produce I freeze I'm so so about.  It's okay, but not great.  Corn does not fall into that category.  Farm fresh corn, blanched and frozen, tastes exactly like ... well, like ... corn on the cob! It's a 'must have' for the freezer for me each year.

All it it takes is the time to boil the water, six minutes to blanch and you are ready to cut those niblets off and bag 'em! ~

For the full instructions on how to blanch your own; click on  How Easy Is It To Freeze Corn?

The only mucky part of the business was cutting the corn off the cobs with a knife.  Not anymore!

This amazing Oxo Good Grips Corn Peeler made the job a breeze. ~

It took about 5 rows of corn off, neat as a pin, with each swipe.  You can tell I've been using it already by the bits stuck on the blade.  The niblets were nice and even and there was no cutting into the cob by accident.  Bit of a bumber for the chickens, who didn't get to pick off all at the corn bits that were left over as usual.  Don't go feeling all sorry for them and reporting me to the chicken branch of PETA!  I threw them a few cobs to make up for it.

My Oxo Good Grips Corn Peeler was a gift, but I'm so hot on it I went looking for it on Amazon.com. It's $9.99 and shipping is free if you include it with another $35 order.  Amazon has a whole bunch of discounts on orders over $25, so it pays to look for the Add On labels when you are shopping on that site and combine orders with friends whenever you can.'

I'll be ordering one of these for all my organic food loving friends and any of the kids in the family who wear braces.  Yay, they can have corn on the cob again!

I feel ridiculously good at this time of year, when I see nature's bounty going into jars and freezer bags. ~

I have to put a little disclaimer here.  As of today, I'm an Amazon.com affiliate.  I'm not totally sure what that means, but my blogging friends told me to do it.  If you bought a gazillion of these things I might get rich, or at least make enough money to pay my blog hosting fees.

I sure hope this doesn't bother any of you and I promise never to link to a product that I haven't used and loved myself!

Gourmet Herb Butter For Steak

This time of year I begin to make herb flavoured butters to store in the freezer.  They are so simple to make, freeze beautifully and are a wonderful way to enjoy some summer freshness in the middle of a cold, Canadian winter.

One of my favourites is a recipe copied from a local bistro that puts a little pat of herb butter on each steak as it is served. ~

To make your own, you will need -

     1/2 cup unsalted butter
     1 TBSP finely chopped parsley
     1/8 TSP freshly ground black pepper
     1 TSP salt  (I used Himalayan sea salt)
     1 TBSP lemon juice

Mix the butter, parsley, salt and pepper together until well blended.

You can do this by hand or be as lazy as I am and mix it all up in a little chopper. ~

Add the lemon juice slowly to the mixture.  I put it in in thirds and gave it a spin with each addition.

Let the butter sit for around 30 minutes to absorb the flavours.  Let the herb butter firm up in the fridge if you are serving now or freeze it for later use.

Sometimes, I will roll the butter in a plastic wrap tube for the freezer but today I've used a small, ceramic condiment dish for freezing.  ~

Once it was frozen, I set the dish in warm water to release the cake of butter, sliced it into individual pats and put them in a freezer bag for long term storage.

Now I can remove just as many pats as I need at a time. ~

While you are at it, you may as well do some chive herb butter and you are all set for a baked potato.

The thought of winter doesn't seem all that bad any more!

Is It Really Cinnamon?

In the switch to whole, natural foods, it's time for me to hit the spice cabinet.  I grow and dry all my herbs organically, so I have that one nailed.  But, what about the more exotic spices that can't be grown here?

My sister is a fan of cinnamon for it's taste and it's health benefits.  She eats it every day and was shocked to hear a health expert on the TV say that what we eat for cinnamon in North America is mostly sawdust.  What!!! ~

I'm sitting around drinking wine with my friend Wendy, telling her what my sis heard and we decided to do a little research on cinnamon.  I used to talk about boyfriends during a girl's night. Now it's all about the environment and the unscrupulous corporations that are destroying our food supply.  What a fun gal I am to hang around with!

Here's what we learned.  True cinnamon is the inner bark of an evergreen tree, indigenous to Sri Lanka, and is called Ceylon cinnamon.  It is light in colour, forms a continuous roll in the stick and has a delicate, almost citrus like taste.  Cassia cinnamon comes from a similar tree but the outer bark is not peeled off and is extremely hard. I guess that's where the TV expert said it was mostly sawdust. It is a dark orangey red and has a strong, spicy taste.

90% of all cinnamon imported into North America is cassia cinnamon.  Why do we care?  Because cassia cinnamon contains high levels of something called coumarin.  You probably know it better as Warfarin, used to kill rodents.  You read that right, Warfarin!

It's been banned as a food additive in the U.S. since 1954 and in cigarettes since 1997 because it damages the liver and kidneys.  I can't find any data saying it is banned in Canada but we aren't allowed to ship food to the States if coumarin is in it as an additive.

That doesn't mean you are safe from coumarin my American friends.  Cassia cinnamon is allowed in your food. You can buy a whole bottle of the ground stuff or bag of the sticks and sprinkle it all over your kids breakfast oatmeal! If you weigh 135 lbs., 2 grams (0.07 ounces) is toxic if used regularly. A single teaspoon would be toxic to a child. It's in candy, gum, lipstick, herbal tea, flavoured coffee, commercial bakery products, artificial vanilla and pretty much anything else you use that has a cinnamon flavour.  Why is it there? Because it's the most popular spice and cassia cinnamon is cheap.  Organic doesn't mean Ceylon cinnamon either, so be very careful what you are buying.

My friend went right to her computer and ordered a tin of organic Ceylon cinnamon sticks.  For about $25 and $5 shipping, she bought a tin of 50 sticks. They were being sent direct from Ceylon and they arrived in 3 days.

The cassia sticks I had in my spice cabinet were difficult to grind with a rasp and would probably burn out a small coffee or spice grinder.  The Ceylon sticks (on the right) are soft and grind easily. ~

Kept in a tightly sealed container the sticks will last up to two years. ~

There are trace amounts of coumarin in Ceylon cinnamon, 2 to 5 parts per million.  Balance that against the 2000 to 5000 parts per million found in cassia cinnamon and I think you get the picture.

Spend a little more on the real stuff and keep on enjoying that wonderful flavour and the health benefits. True cinnamon is great for regulating blood sugar and cholesterol, relieving arthritis symptoms, inhibiting the growth of yeast and fungi and controlling allergies and increasing blood flow to the brain.

There won't be anything but Ceylon cinnamon in this house from now on! ~

photo courtesy of Wendy.  Thanks!

I'll leave the other stuff to the rats!

I'm sharing this with:  The HomeAcre Hop

I'm Having An Asparagus Festival!

When you try to eat local food, asparagus being in season is worth  a festival.  Or, at least a few weeks of binging!

Today's treat was cream of asparagus soup.  Yummmm.

Grab a pound of asparagus and cut the woody ends off and discard them.  ~

Chop the rest into pieces about 2" long. ~

Chop three green onions into small pieces. ~

I had frozen chicken stock but you could use store bought, low sodium or vegetable stock.  ~

I like a bit of tartness to asparagus soup and add a teaspoon of grated lemon rind and two teaspoons of lemon juice to the stock. ~

Add the asparagus and green onions to the stock and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer. After about 10 mins. you should be able to smoosh a piece of asparagus to the side of the pot with the back of your spoon.  Yes, smoosh is a culinary term.  If it smooshes, it's done. You don't want to overcook the asparagus or it will go grey and we want this baby to be green, green, green!

My camera lens kept steaming up, but you get the point. ~

At this point I add the seasoning.  I go light on them because I don't want to overpower the taste of the asparagus.

I used 4 good grinds of black pepper, about a half teaspoon of Himalayan salt and the teeniest pinch of saffron.  ~

Take the soup off the heat and use a blender, food processor, immersion blender; anything you fancy to puree the vegetables.  Do I need to tell you the soup is hot, just off the burner, and you need to be careful not to splash any on you?  I thought not.

If you are prepping this soup ahead of time, you can refrigerate it at this point and finish just before serving.

To finish the creamed soup, whisk a half cup of heavy cream into it.  I didn't have any cream on hand and substituted 1/4 cup of sour cream and 1/4 cup of milk.  Worked great!  Whisking is important because you are adding a milk product to warm soup, with the lemon acid in it.  You don't want it to curdle, so keep that whisk moving!

Put it back on the burner on medium heat and warm to just below the boiling point.  Asparagus soup can be served warm or cold and is great for wowing your guests with an elegant opening course for your meal.

Make an artful design on your soup with sour cream and chives and hope it doesn't sink to the bottom like mine did.  Ooops!

Oh well, I stirred it in and it tasted great with some French bread and chive butter! ~

Let's see, last night was asparagus coated with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper on the BBQ. Today was cream of asparagus soup.  Any ideas for tomorrow?

Grow Your Own Sprouts

My girlfriends and I went out for a shopping day.  They had a heyday in the clothing stores and my big thrill was the farmer's market.  What can I say?  I'm odd.

I'm itching to be outside gardening and a packet of mumm's sprouts looked like the perfect answer for a little indoor garden pretending. ~

I tried to grow sprouts years ago and it involved a tray with layers of paper towel, daily misting and a general failure with mouldy seeds.  In the day and age of Internet and clever bloggers, that has all changed. Someone figured out an easier, foolproof way to have a regular supply of sprouts at you fingertips.

For $4 the mumm's Crunchy Bean Mix guaranteed that my seeds were organic and free of pesticides. You can buy them at health foods stores and some garden centres.

All you need is a canning jar, some cheesecloth, pesticide free seeds and water. ~

Put 2 tbsp. of the seeds in the jar.  Cut a piece of cheesecloth to cover the top of the jar and fasten it in place with a sealer ring. ~

The cheesecloth is going to allow you to add water and drain it out without any of the seeds escaping the jar.

I followed the instructions on the seed packet.  Cover the seeds in water, swish them around in the jar and drain the water out.  Repeat the process.  Make sure all the seeds have fallen back to the bottom of the jar and add water to cover the seeds with an extra half inch or so.

Let it sit for 4 to 6 hours. ~

Drain the water off and the prep part is all done.

Lie the jar on it's side away from direct sunlight.  I put mine in a kitchen cupboard. ~

Twice a day, add water, swish the seeds around and drain the water back out.  By day two, I could see tiny sprouts growing. ~

This is exciting!  Not only am I getting the jump on the growing season, but these sprouts are chock full of nutrition.  You seriously have to click on this link to Get Healthy Life.  I guarantee you will be amazed at the health benefits of incorporating sprouts into your diet!  A quart sealer of sprouted seeds costs about a quarter.

By day five, the sprouts were a nice size for adding to sandwiches, stir fries, veggie soup, fried rice, etc.

Try to get a close up of the sprouts and get photo bombed by the ever helpful Clara Jane. ~

How many of you are making a mental note to never eat sprouts at my house because the cat stuck her nose on the cheesecloth?  I know you are!

This is a really fun project to do with kids.  They see them grow and that always helps to get them to try something new.

By day five I have a bowl full. I can keep them in the fridge, in a covered container, for about a week. ~

They won't last a week in this house.  The chickens went wild over them!