Sunchoke Bisque

Sunchokes are one our favorites - also known as Jerusalem artichokes, but they are not in the artichoke family and they are not from Jerusalem. They are related to the sunflower and indeed their growing habit is very like a sunflower - they have thick stalks and small sunflower-like flowers. They are beautiful, easy to grow (especially from 3.5 hours away!) and a native. Their taste is nutty and the texture is similar to a jicama. Although considered mildly invasive as once they are planted, it is difficult to eradicate them. I don't understand why one would want to - they are delicious!

I have a large patch of them at the Church-yard. Every fall I dig them up and we feast on sunchokes for weeks. Typically we eat them raw but last week I tried a soup; compliments of one of my heros, Deborah Madison.

Sunchoke Bisque
From Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors

1# sunchokes
1 small onion
3 small red potatoes (I substituted 1 large sweet potato)
1 celery rib (I omitted)
2 T sunflower seed oil (highly recommend Smude Oil for those in the midwest - thanks to Brett for mentioned them in his posts)
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 C vegetable stock, chicken stock or water
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 bay leaves
Milk or cream for thinning
½ C croutons, crisped in the oven
Roasted hazelnut or pumpkin seed oil (I omitted this and topped with a dollop of plain yogurt)

1. Wash all the veggies, then chop into ½ inch chunks. Don’t bother to peel the sunchokes.
2. Heat the oil in a soup pot, add the veggies and sauté over high heating, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 10 mins. Add the garlic during the last few minutes. Pour in the stock. Add 1 ½ t salt and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until the potatoes are tender, about 25 mins.
3. Cool briefly, then puree until perfectly smooth (love those stick blenders!). Return the soup to the stove and add enough milk or cream to think it to the desired consistency. Taste for salt and season with pepper. Serve with a few croutons in each bowl and the oil drizzled in a thin stream over the top.

Beet burger recipe

Adapted from Farmer John's Cookbook - The Real Dirt on Vegetables

Baked Beet-and-Carrot Burgers (except I doubled the beets and omitted the carrots)

1/2 C sesame seeds (I didn't have so I skipped)
1 C sunflower seeds
2 C peeled, grated beets (peeled? No way. As I mentioned above, I doubled the beets and then added some more.)
2 C grated carrots
1/2 c minced onion
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 C cooked brown rice
1 C grated cheddar cheese (I skipped this because the cheese gets lost amongst the beets and we prefer the cheese melted on top of the burger before serving)
1/2 C vegetable oil (I think I used a combination of vegetable and olive oil)
1/2 C finely chopped fresh parsley (I can't remember what I used, but I didn't have enough parsley so I probably used beet greens or chard)
3 T flour
2 T tamari
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 t cayenne pepper (I used red pepper flakes)

Brown sesame seeds in dry skillet until fragrant, about 3 to 5 mins. Remove from heat immediately. Repeat process with sunflower seeds.

Combine the beets, carrots and onion in a large bowl. Stir in the toasted seeds, eggs, rice, cheese and then the remaining ingredients. Mix until well combined (use your hands).

Shape (again with your hands) into 12 patties (we actually do more of a hot dog shape as they fit better on baguettes or on pitas) and freeze.

To bake: preheat oven to 350. Lightly coat a baking sheet with butter. Bake until brown around the edges and fragrant; about 20 minutes (depends upon the size of your patties). Not necessary to turn them over unless they are really large or you like them brown on both sides. Melt a piece of sharp cheddar on top and serve alone or on a bun.

Enjoy.

As you can tell from my substitutions, this is an extremely forgiving recipe. Feel free to add according to your whims.

Mustard

The mustard worked out great! I've given it to a couple of people and so far they are pretty impressed!

Here is the Dijon recipe.

Dijon Mustard

1 ¼ cups brown mustard seeds
1 cup yellow mustard powder
1 cup water
1 cup white vinegar
¼ dup dry white wine
7 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons white wine
Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon ground mace (I left this out)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I left this out)

Soak the mustard seeds and powder in the water, vinegar and wine. Soak 48 hours, then add the garlic and spices. Mix in a food processor or blender for 5-6 minutes. Cook on low heat in a saucepan or crock pot for 4 hours to mellow out the flavors. (I only did this for 2 hours.)

Age 3-4 weeks in the refrigerator.

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We have a dog that is living in our backyard. It won't let me near it, but it is so skinny I can see all of the vertebrae on his spine. His looks like a Chihuahua mix. I've been feeding him 3 times per day to try to put some weight on him and see if he'll come around to be less feral. In the photo here he is in a box on a rug that I put out for him. Bill has since made him a little den with mulch all around it and a cover to keep snow and rain out so he stays dry and warm(er). He is pretty territorial around his den. I should probably get a humane trap and catch him and take him to Anti-Cruelty but I know they would probably put him down, so I'm going to see if he warms up to me at all.

We still miss our dog terribly - even though it has been 2 1/2 years so it is kinda nice to see pawprints in the snow in the backyard again.

Squash quesadillas

I baked up a huge butternut squash last weekend that we have been eating on several times this week. I forgot to take a picture, but it wouldn't fit in my 9x13" baking pan. I had to pull out my big roasting pan. After eating a meal of squash, we still had about 7 C of squash. (yes, it was grown organically and locally by our Southern Wisc meat vendor for my food coop).

Last night we had squash quesadillas.

Heated up several cups of squash. Added a small amount of honey and a lot of garlic. Meanwhile we carmelized some onions from Two Onion Farm with some chipolte pepper (this was a canned item).

On flour tortillas we spread some squash (thinly), topped with the onions and lightly with some cheese (mozzarella from Roelli Cheese - not organic, but local - I shredded it myself) topped with another tortilla and popped into a 325 oven until warmed and slightly browned. Topped with homemade roasted green tomato salsa and some fresh greens from the yard.

Quick and delicious!

Cookbooks

I love seasonal cookbooks that use fresh, local produce. In making supper tonight, I was leafing through a few to get ideas. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Vegetarian Suppers by Deborah Madison

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

Baking Illustrated - Cook's Illustrated

The Real Dirt on Vegetables by Farmer John

Edible Earth by Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko

Dinner ended up being:

Baking Powder biscuits from Baking Illustrated. No milk on hand so I thinned some of my raw milk yogurt.

Browned Brussel Sprouts in Parmesan Crust from The Real Dirt on Veggies.

Quinoa with Carrot and Garlic. I found this recipe somewhere online but I can't find it so I made from memory.
1 C of cooked quinoa
1 large carrot, diced
Some ginger - I used about 3 T
~3 T of flour
Salt & pepper to taste

While the quinoa is simmering, warm and slightly soften the carrot and garlic. Pull from the heat. Cool quinoa in a bowl until it is comfortable enough to handle. Stir in the carrot mixture. Sprinkle with flour and mix well until the mixture sticks together. Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Form the quinoa mixture into little patties (approx 2") and fry in the olive oil. Serve warm, room temp or cold. I drizzle with some yogurt with fresh herbs. They are delicious the next day for lunch too.

Beer bread

My version of Farmgirl Susan's beerbread.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread with Homebrew

2 C. flour (organic please)
1 C. whole wheat flour (organic)
1 T. of baking powder
1/2 T. sugar
2 heaping T. of dried oregano
1/2 (or 1) t. of red pepper flakes
1 C. (more or less) of hand-shredded parmesan (I buy it in large 1 lb hunks - none of that green can junk from the supermarket)
12 oz of beer. This it the part that brings it all home. I use a homebrewed Nut Brown Ale. It makes all the difference in the world. Our Nut Brown Ale is thick and brown and flavorful. It gives the bread a gorgeous brown color. A storebought Nut Brown ale would most likely work as well. (Those mass marketed large brewery beers work but I really recommend you just pony up the $9 for a good local microbrew.) When we bottle our beer, I save the extra that doesn't quite fit in a bottle in the fridge in a canning jar. Will keep for up to 2 weeks. Has no carbonation but that doesn't matter for this recipe.

Preheat oven to 375.

Stir together all the ingredients except the beer. Add the beer and mix - it will be thick and sticky. Let sit for 20 minutes so the flour can hydrate (very important step!!). Turn into an oiled loaf pan (I use a generous amount of vegetable oil). Bake for 55+ minutes. Remove from oven, cool on rack for 10 minutes, turn out onto rack. Cool completely. I store in a thick paper bag.

Keeps well. Makes beautiful sandwiches. Toasts well. Gorgeous breadcrumbs.

Homemade Yogurt Recipe

I prefer to use raw milk, if you can find it. Otherwise, organic milk is a must. I also like to use whole milk.

Find a plain yogurt that you like – I love Stonyfield Farm. This will be your starter.

Freeze your storebought yogurt in ice cube trays and store cubes in Ziploc bag. Each cube is approx 1T.

I like to make a large batch – we eat a lot of yogurt, so I use a ½ gallon of milk each time – which yields two quarts.

If using frozen yogurt as your starter, pull the number of needed cubes (see below) out at the start so they can thaw.

Gently/slowly heat 8 cups of milk to 180 degrees.

While the milk is heating, fill your teapot with tap water and bring to a boil. Make sure you have enough to fill 2 quart jars. Once the water boils rapidly, fill the jars, cover and put in a small cooler (like a 6 pack size) and insulate with an additional towel or two. I like to do this right at the beginning of the milk heating process because I have found that if the water jars are too hot in the cooler it retards the incubating process.

Once milk reaches 180, turn off the heat, cover and let cool to 116. Stir in 4 T of the thawed yogurt (4 cubes) or 4 T of yogurt from a previous batch. Stir gently but very well.

Pour warm milk into 2 quart size canning jars. Place in the small cooler with the (now warm/hot) water jars and close the cover and let sit for at least six hours or overnight. Chill. Keeps very well. Enjoy with fresh fruit, nuts, honey and raw oats (fabulous – let the oats sit for about 5 mins to absorb a little moisture), or just plain. Its also fabulous on a baked potato with fresh chives.

Feel free to use your batch as a starter next time. I only use the frozen cubes if I feel that my yogurt is losing its tangy-yogurtish taste.

Adapted from Liz at Pocket Farm, who unfortunately, has stopped blogged.

Homebrew and homemade pizza

DH and I bottled up 4 cases of homebrew this past week. This should keep us in suds for a bit.

We also took advantage of our kitchen day to make and freeze pizzas. I made a whole wheat pizza dough and we used some of our homecanned tomatoes from last summer for the sauce. The sauce was absolutely delicious. The toppings, alas, had some miles: a zucchini, some mushrooms, a can of artichokes. The garlic was homegrown. The sauce was homegrown/homemade. The crust was homemade - although the flour had some miles on it. We bought the cheese from a local creamery in Wisc and shredded it ourselves.

We live in Chicago (land of great pizza!) but we much prefer our homemade. We froze 4 pizzas for quick weeknight meals. YUUMM!

1st official post. Whole Wheat Cranberry Bread

Hi. This is my first official post and its recipes!

I altered this cranberry bread to make it a bit healthier. Many of you might be familiar with the traditional Cranberry Orange bread that is tasty, but since I live in the upper Midwest, well, let's just say that oranges are not a "local" crop, but honey is!

My farmer friend Dave gives us quarts of honey at this time of year. Its untreated so I need to use it fairly quickly before it hardens up (although easy enough to remedy with a little warm water).

Here it is: Let me know if you like it.

Whole Wheat Cranberry Honey Bread

2 T butter
¾ C sugar
1 egg
1 T honey dissolved in ¾ C warm water
1 ½ t baking powder
1 t salt
½ t baking soda
1 C white flour
1 C whole wheat flour
1 ½ C roughly chopped cranberries (fresh or frozen, if frozen thaw)
1 C chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in egg. Slowly stir in honey/water mixture. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in cranberries & walnuts.

I use an 8x4x2 loaf pan that I have greased well with butter. Bake 50-65 minutes until center comes out clean. You can also use smaller loaf pans, but decrease baking time to about 30-45 minutes.

An excellent breakfast treat!