Finger-lickin' Everyday turkey pot pie

(Recipe for tonight's supper of Pot pie below.)

So, I've been thriftily getting an average of 3-5 meals each out of three pound chickens for our little family. I don't buy meat every week, and we try buy ethically and stretch it a good long way when we do. But the boys are getting bigger and eating more! On a whim, Paul and I decided to try a turkey, still frozen in the store, leftover from thanksgiving. It was almost eighteen pounds. I brined it for a couple days while it thawed, roasted it up just like I do with my usual chicken, except with loads of stuffing, which I think helps keep the bird nice and moist because the cavity isn't all full of hotted air.After the first meal, of stuffing and fresh meat, we had:
meals of:
-mashed potatoes and gravy (make potatoes extra and save for winter cheese and potato pie; my favorite)
-turkey pasta salad with almonds and dried cherries in a creamy poppyseed dressing. (Gib's other favorite)
-Turkey teriyaki over rice with steamed broccoli
-lots of cold turkey for lunches
-turkey soup with big fluffy dumplings. every one's other favorite. The secret is to not to boil the broth hard--ever. Simmer like you know it's going to be delicious.
-fresh turkey baby food
-Turkey omelets
-and, tonight, finger-lickin' turkey pot pie. it was so gratifying. everyone enjoyed this simple dish so much. no herbs or fancy flavors. just pure goodness.
And, as I still have a nice jar of broth and two containers of meat, later this week, I'm planning: -on using more broth in a pineapple fried rice dish
-turkey sandwiches with kitchen sink sprouts
-using the broth to float my gnocchi in tomorrow
-some kind of yummy salad?
-maybe turkey-black bean burritos. Burritos are great to make a handful extra and stick in the freezer for lunches.

That's a very reasonable 13 meals. It was expensive, this no-hormone, no cages, pastured, bird, but we've also been so enjoying not being so scrimpy with meat--I wasn't stretching the turkey thin in these meals. So I consider this very economical. It certainly was less pricey than an equivalent amount of chicken. A perfect focal point for our winter menus where we want good simple food, but not as spare as it will get come Lent in a month here.
Oh, and there's been not a whisper of anyone being sick of turkey. It's juicy and good. We've been so enjoying. We don't really eat much meat usually, and, never hosting the big holiday meals, never have large-scale leftovers of roasts. Heck, we wouldn't anyway. The family's big and hungry enough that there aren't many leftovers to speak of when we get together!

Finger-lickin' Pot Pie
easily, many other meats could substitute in here just fine. Also, parsnips, potatoes I would have tossed in if f I had had on hand. The crust I just made up, and we all loved it so much. We ate up every morsel and for once I'm not sorry there were no leftovers because I think it would get soggy.
2 cups pieces turkey meat, white or dark
2 stalks celery, chopped thinnishly
2 chopped, peeled carrots
1 1/2 cups peas
1/3 of an onion, finely minced (for most kids don't like the feel of onion in their picky little mouths) I would have used a whole if I hadn't just happened to have a part left over from another meal
1 1/2 cups broth
2/3 cup milk
good grinding of black pepper

Boil the celery, peas, and carrots 10-15 min, until just tender.
Saute the onion in turkey fat skimmed from the broth jar. Just to golden.
Heat the broth and meat to a simmer. It had been in the fridge for a week, after all. Mix veg, onions, meat, broth, milk, salt and pepper to taste. If Paul hadn't been around to keep an eye on the brood, I would have done the above, and prior chopping and washing of the above, ahead of time, and just assembled the pie and popped it in the oven an hour before dinner. Maybe. Okay today I would have put the baby on my back and cranked some loud music for the boys to jump around to and done it all as I did in the hour before supper.

Now the fun starts: biscuit-pie crust
3-4 cups flour, pile in a heap on butcher block or big bread board
stir into it with a fork:
1/2 tsp baking soda
two good pinches of salt
now I took my dough knife and chopped a quarter cup (half a stick) of butter into the flour. I just chopped until all the pieces were pea-sized or so. I suppose a chef's knife or butter knives or fingertips could do the same thing. I did chop, not knead or rub. The butter was just out of the fridge.
Now-- I made the flour into a little mountain and made a hole in the center. Quick as can be, I stirred 3 Tablespoons full of good plain full-fat yogurt in. I incorporated as much flour as possible, then take the soft dough out and set it aside and do it again until most of the flour mixture is dough. Maybe three times. I stop before all the flour is incorporated so I won't have to add more for rolling out the crust. I took half of this crust, and rolled it out. This makes a big flaky, floury pile that doesn't seem like it's ever going to hold together at all. That's good; it will, though. All along I'm dusting the excess flour over and under the crust to incorporate it; I roll the crust out as big as my pie pan. I take my dough knife and scrape up the edges on the four sides all around and fold them inward, like folding it in half and in half again. Roll it out again. As soon as possible, I set that crust into the deep dish pie pan. I do the same with the second half, and fold the finished crust in quarters to rest a minute.
Pour the filling into the bottom crust. If there's too much, (I want to leave an inch of room so it doesn't boil over) I put the extra aside for another meal or an extra little pie or hand-pie for Paul's lunch. Best not to overload!
Now I take that folded crust and unfold it on top of the pie. There's a good bit of over-hang. I seal the top crust to the bottom crust all the way around the edges by pressing with my fingers. I fold the excess under against the inside of the pie, because we like crust so, double thick is great. I crimped the edge with my fingers. I slit the top with a knife to let the steam out, and pop it into the oven, which is preheated to 425 F.

It was all cooked in 25-30 minutes, just goldening on top and around the edges. Rested for 10 minutes. Served nice and hot but not scalding! Everyone was so happy.
Our six year old adds, "make sure to say that kids like it too!"

Whew. That sounded like a lot of work, but that crust took just a couple of minutes. Really. Like, less than five. I've made a lot of fussy crusts with taking in and out of the fridge, and ice water and vodka and whatnot. They were so fussy I never made anything with a crust! I'm not sure vodka and ice water weren't just trying , and failing, to make up for my not knowing how to just do this quick and with a light touch. I don't think Grandma used ice or liquor in her crusts, and I don't think she just always served tough or heavy crusts! But as I get the hang of it, it's not so hard. Just making one every once in a while was so worth it, I think I'm getting the knack now, and I can just bang these out!
The crust was between a biscuit crust and a pie crust: crisp outside; flaky, light, and soft inside.

Sup with me: Honey Baked Lentils

Hrmmph. Dislike cooking?

I'm not a gourmand, and this is no Smitten Kitchen, but I think I might do some posts of cheap, healthy, easy quick dinners. Recipe at the bottom of post--skip down if you don't want my rambling commentary.

This one can be made, for me, without a trip to the store. It's because of our well stocked pantry, which could just as easily be a cupboard. Here's how it works: I always have onions, (I don't know how anyone functions if you don't have a couple of onions waiting for you!) garlic, spices, and the grains and oils and baking stuff I use all the time, on hand. When I use up one of these ingredients, I just write it on the grocery list that we keep running, on the fridge. I have tied a pencil to the magnet that holds the list, because otherwise I can't find anything to write with when I use up the ingredient, and I forget about it and don't have it the next time I need it. Things that are sold in bulk at the coop where we shop, like lentils and honey, I write a b next to, with a little circle around it, so Paul, who does the grocery shopping, will be alerted to bring the appropriate container. If I were really organized, I would put the empty container in a certain place, like the grocery bag, so he wouldn't have to hunt around to find it!
I haven't planned this recipe into this week, but if I needed to, I could go downstairs and make it right now. It can be baked in the oven, or a crock pot (which I don't have) or in a solar oven if it's too hot to heat the house.

I think the key to not loathing cooking is only making food that you personally like to eat! I don't even try cooking things that seem weird or gross to me. When I have, it is invariably a disaster.
I enjoy preparing meals for the family infinitely more if I know where my food came from, and can feel good about serving them something delicious and nourishing. I also like touching good fresh food. I am a bit like a preschooler--my favorite thing about this recipe, is running the lentils through my hands when I put them in the dish! (If the kids aren't too messy, one could let them play with the dried beans while one gets the rest of the ingredients together. It's like a sensory bin in the nursery school! My kids like to put their plastic snakes and dinosaurs in grain and make little diorama scenes! Afterwards they want to help put everything together, and then they have a better chance of liking the food, since they helped cook it.)

Also, a sharp knife, and a good wooden butcher block. It's no fun to cut an onion with a dull knife. That makes me cry. And then I'm liable to cut myself, or go ballistic when the kids flip the lentils I gave them all over the kitchen floor. Life with little children is really more enjoyable with a good sharp knife. I have one plain good chef's knife that I use for almost everything. I sharpen it with a round steel I keep right next to the knife. I haven't taken a class in sharpening, (I know, I'm really just straightening the edge, Imad!) but it stays keen enough for me. I use a wooden butcher block to cut, for everything. A damp towel under the cutting board can keep it from sliding around if that's a problem.

This is the recipe that got me started tolerating beans. I first found it on HappyFoody. For some reason, I grew up loathing them. But this is so tasty, I like to lick out the pot after it's all gone! I brought this to a church dinner once, and people who claimed they hated lentils had seconds and asked for the recipe. No guarantees that you or yours will like it, but I and mine do! I find that my hungry children like almost anything, whereas my children who've had their fill of crackers and sweets are bound to complain about even their favorite dishes!

Honey Baked Lentils
Good for the cooler months. Serve with good rice, or pitas, or fresh whole wheat bread and butter, or as a soup, with a spoon! Great with a nutty or grainy bread. This does take some time in the oven, so it's not a last-minute dish, but it is low effort! Good with carrots or winter squash or sweet potatoes. Winter vegetables could be cooked into it. But honestly I just make it plain and simple.

I cup Lentils, I use brown
Onion, chopped
2 Tbsp Honey, could also be made with maple syrup
2 Tbsp Soy sauce or tamari
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp Ginger: grated fresh or the powdered spice is fine too
2 cups Water
Salt and pepper to taste

Put all the ingredients in a covered dish, in a 350F oven, and bake until fragrant and tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Lentils should be very soft.
If desired, blend or run through a food mill to make it smooth; for some reason my kids like smooth things best.

Miscellany of Frugal Food tips

Our family of five spends $400 a month and I feel like we live like kings. We shop at our co-op or farmers' market. We shoot for local, real food. I say amen to all the folks I meet who want real food! Do you wonder if it's possible to eat fresh, local, ethically grown food without being rich? I think it is!
-planning is huge. I make the most I can out of all our meat. A roast, salad and sandwiches from the leftovers, broth and sauces from the bones, fat, and juices. We look to buy whole birds/small animals and split half or quarter cows/other large animals with neighbors and family. I look at what's leftover when planning the next shopping trip--we buy exactly what we need
-plan ahead for snack food and lunches. I like to have grabbable snacks around for emergencies and busy days. I have found it useful to package up leftovers into meal-sized containers before we eat. Otherwise if it's good, it just gets all eaten, or only
the unpopular bits are leftover.
-when we have beans, I make tortillas the next day. I make a bunch extra, wrap them up and freeze them for good quick meals.
-Gardening! It's not as hard as it seems! The garden gets a little better every year, as I learn from my mistakes. Really, the first year I planted tomatoes, I was amazed that these things grown with next to no assistance. It's like a miracle every year. You plant things, and they grow, and make fruits! What a gift from God!
-we never buy prime cuts. Luckily, our neighbors we are buying beef with this year want exclusively prime cuts! Jack Sprat and his wife, you know.
-we planted strawberries, mullberries, raspberries, blackberries, juneberries. I get blueberry bushes for friends who have better yards for growing them. Berries are so expensive organic, we can never afford to buy them, even locally and pick-your own. Once planted, they get better every year and come back on their own. (did I mention I love perennial foods?!!)
-we have a small yard, so glean from other people's fruit trees. Most people with fruit trees don't seem to know what to do with all the fruit! Some people are happy to let me harvest their whole crop instead of letting it fall on the sidewalk. This has worked for me with apples, pears, crabapples, grapes. One good little tree gives us a year's supply of applesauce and apple butter. Fruit is really important to us! I have gotten fruit from vacant lots.
-We get WIC. I know lots of people qualify for this who would never think of getting assistance--we love the program. they are always very respectful, and we can buy all the food at our coop. they also give vouchers for our local farmers' market.
-we make everything we can from scratch. little by little I've built up skills and habits. for instance, I realized we used a lot of ketchup; when I canned tomatoes I put up a year's supply of ketchup for not much extra work. pickles, jams, sauces--this type of stuff is way more expensive to buy than to make. yogurt, fresh cheeses. I don't know if fermented grains would be better nutritionally for you than other grains, but they are for us. I started a lot of this reading "More With Less", the mennonite cookbook. They also have a seasonal cookbook, "simply in Season".

-seasonal eating. Buy what's cheap when it's cheap, in quantity. We eat a lot of squash and beets in the winter! Mushrooms and beef in fall, chickens, dairy, eggs, and onions in spring. Vegetables galore in the summer. I recommend "Full Moon Feast". and "Midwest Gardener's Cookbook".
-free and cheap garden ideas: buy green onions, save the rootbase and the bottom inch of stalk. Stick these in the ground, and next year enjoy fresh green onions! An herb garden has a big payoff--once planted, perennial herps just come back on their own, with no extra money and harldy any work. I don't ever buy fresh herbs from the coop, but cook with them every day for free!
-I haven't yet successfully started tomatoes and peppers from seed, but all the gardeners I know who do this often have lots of starts they want to give away for free.
-alfalfa sprouts and other bean sprouts: I grow these in a jar with a screen lid on the dish drainer. Great for the winter when fresh greens are so pricey and shipped across the country
-I seed coriander/cilantro from the bulk whole herbs at the coop. also coop garlic is way cheaper for planting. than garden suppliers, and usually open-pollinated, heirloom varieties. Ditto onions and potatoes. If I have some spouting or getting all soft, I just plant them out. I say amen to a lot of what has been posted and will try to only add my extra bits:
-we buy all our food at our co-op or farmers market. we shoot for local, real food.
-We get WIC. I know lots of people qualify for this who would never think of getting assistance--we love the program. they are always very respectful, and we can buy all the food at our coop. they also give vouchers for our local farmers' market.
-planning is huge. I make the most I can out of all our meat. A roast, salad and sandwiches from the leftovers, broth and sauces from the bones, fat, and juices. We look to buy whole birds/small animals and split half or quarter cows/other large animals with neighbors and family. I look at what's leftover when planning the next shopping trip--we buy exactly what we need
-plan ahead for snack food and lunches. I like to have grabbable snacks around for emergencies and busy days. I have found it useful to package up leftovers into meal-sized containers before we eat. Otherwise if it's good, it just gets all eaten, or only the unpopular bits are leftover.
-when we have beans, I make tortillas the next day. I make a bunch extra, wrap them up and freeze them for good quick meals.
-we never buy prime cuts. Luckily, our neighbors we are buying beef with this year want exclusively prime cuts! Jack Sprat and his wife, you know.
-we planted strawberries, mullberries, raspberries, blackberries, juneberries. I give blueberry bushes to friends who have better yards for growing them. Berries are so expensive organic, we can never afford to buy them, even locally and pick-your own. Once planted, they get better every year and come back on their own.
-we have a small yard, so glean from other people's fruit trees. Most people with fruit trees don't seem to know what to do with all the fruit! People are often happy to let me harvest their whole crop instead of letting it fall on the sidewalk. This has worked for me with apples, pears, crabapples, grapes. One good little tree gives us a year's supply of applesauce and apple butter. Fruit is really important to us! I also get fruit from vacant lots
-we make everything we can from scratch. little by little I've built up skills and habits. for instance, I realized we used a lot of ketchup; when I canned tomatoes I put up a year's supply of ketchup for not much extra work. pickles, jams, sauces--this type of stuff is way more expensive to buy than to make. yogurt, fresh cheeses. I don't know if fermented grains would be better nutritionally for you than other grains, but they are for us. I started a lot of this reading "More With Less", the mennonite cookbook. They also have a seasonal cookbook, "simply in Season".
-seasonal eating. I buy what's cheap when it's cheap, in quantity. We eat a lot of squash and beets in the winter! Mushrooms and beef in fall, chickens, dairy, eggs, and onions in spring. Vegetables galore in the summer. I recommend "Full Moon Feast". and "Midwest Gardener's Cookbook".
-free and cheap garden ideas: when I buy green onions, I save the rootbase and the bottom inch of stalk. Stick these in the ground, and next year enjoy fresh green onions. An herb garden has a big payoff--once planted, perennial herps just come back on their own, with no extra money and harldy any work. I wouldn't ever buy fresh herbs from the coop, but cook with them every day for free!
-I haven't yet successfully started tomatoes and peppers from seed, but all the gardeners I know who do this always have lots of starts they want to give away for free.
-alfalfa sprouts and other bean sprouts: I grow these in a jar with a screen lid on the dish drainer. Great for the winter when fresh greens are so pricey and shipped across the country
-I seed coriander/cilantro from the bulk whole herbs at the coop. also coop garlic is way cheaper for planting. than garden suppliers, and usually open-pollinated, heirloom varieties. Ditto onions and potatoes. If I have some spouting or getting all soft, I just plant them out.
-I look for recipes that have just a handful of ingredients, most in my pantry, playing backup to whatever's in season. Simple but really good.
-I don't feel at all bad about being cheap. It is a delight to have good, fresh food. I like my food better since I don't get everything year-round. By the time it finally warms up enough for minnesota greens or chives and peas, or cools off for apples and soups, we're all so hungry for them!

Making Knipfle

A favorite dinner of ours is Knipfle. It's German for noodles, though I just know it from my Gramma Loretta, who says, "ki-NIP-fla". I only know this word orally but poking around online, I found spellings Kinipffla, and Knepfla. She and my Grampa Bob grew up speaking low German in a small town in North Dakota and foods like this are one of the only remaining elements in the family of our German roots.
Knipfle are chewy noodles, filling and unctuous. They're cheap, and made only with things that tend to be in the house anyway (handy when one's run out of meat and fresh veg and fruit, and pulling together dinner!) Ezra calls them "sticky noodles". It may be the love of my teeth sinking into knipfle that has driven my love of chewy foods.
for an actual recipe, look it up as "German egg noodles" in the Joy of Cooking, but here's how I make them:
Knipfle:
in a small mixing bowl, stir together with a fork
several handfuls of flour
two generous pinches of salt
a dash of parsley
and a dash of nutmeg. (I've had questions about this: a dash is when your spice jar has a top with holes on it and you shake it once )
dig a hole in the center of the pile of flour.
break an egg or three in this hole
beat the egg up with a fork. as I beat, flour will be incorporated into the egg; let it. Mix until a soft dough forms. I usually add extra water; if too wet extra flour could be added instead. Knead for a few minutes. It's often quite sticky, and requires generous flouring, especially for children.
Now I usually drop a puddle of olive oil in my mixing bowl and roll the dough in it so it doesn't dry out while I work on some other thing for a bit. If I'll be a while, I've found it's best to put the noodle dough in a plastic bag in the fridge.
When I come back to it, I knead it until it feels stretchy. It gets smooth and feels quite like skin!
I take this elastic dough, cut it into a few pieces and begin to roll them out into ropes about the thickness of my finger. When a piece of dough gets too long for my bread board, I cut it in half so I can roll it comfortably.
Knipfle can be cooked in plain water, or it's great in chicken soup or broth. When the broth or water is boiling vigorously, I take a snake of dough and cut it into pieces maybe the length of the first joint of my finger. Gramma Loretta says, "you cut them as small as you can." I cut these straight into the boiling pot. Usually the kids like to cut some too, over a bread board, and I put these in as well.
Kids can make these start to finish with a little direction; scooping handfuls of flour, pinching salt, stirring the dry ingredients, beating the egg, kneading, rolling, and cutting dough. Both our two year old and our four year old can cut knipfle.
If your kids are anything like mine, they will enjoy also the eating! Mine like their knipfle in broth, or plain with ketchup. They are good with sour cream and salt or baked with cheese and buttered bread crumbs. Also would make a nice side for kraut and sausage, or roasted veg or meat, in stew or with gravy.

Pudgy Pies

Some people call it a tonka-toaster. We always called them pudgy pies, presumably because eating them in great quantities makes us pudgy, hobbits that we are. There! The secret's out! They can be savory or sweet, but the classic pudgy pie is filled with marshmallows and pie filling.
A good pudgy pie can only be made in a cast iron clam-shell cooker. Aluminum or steel will not work just as well. We've tried. We only have one pudgy pie maker, and don't know where to get another one. Maybe I shouldn't advertise!

Pudgy Pies
-butter two slices of soft bread. Whole wheat will work great, so long as it's soft.
-Lay a slice, butter side down on one half of the pudgy pie maker.
-Spoon on fillings.
Sweet:
Fruit is great. Depending on how gooey you want it, add sugar or brown sugar if it's fresh fruit rather than pie filling. Chunky jam will work if it's on hand. Maybe a dollop of butter or a marshmallow, one big or several mini mallows.
Other combos: Chocolate and marshmallows
or Chocolate and peanut butter
Peanut Butter and Bananas.
Chocolate and dried cherries, Dried fruits, nuts, cream cheeses, etc...
The fillings are quite personal.

Savory Pudgy Pies:
Eggs: it may be best to cook the eggs and meats or anything that really needs cooking, not just heating up, before assembling the pudgy pie, especially for pudgy pie newbies. Eggs of course like bacon, ham, cheese, sausage, broccolli, peppers, mushrooms, onions, though I doubt all the above would fit in a single pie!
Potatoes, gravies, meats, you get the picture.
So, we've put in the fillings; enough to fill the pie but hopefully not so much it oozes out all over the place, unless you're into blackened food.
-Now we put the other slice of bread on top of the pile, butter side up like a grilled cheese sandwich.
-Close the clam-shell cooker, clamp it shut
-and set it right on top of a nice bed of coals.
-Flip over every 15 seconds several times and check for doneness. We like our pudgy pies dark golden brown.
The art of the pudgy pie is in getting the insides melted and gooey while the crust is golden brown. The common failing is the filling being cool while the crust is blackened. This especially happens if the pudgy pie is cooked over hot flames instead of hot coals. Coals, I think, cook much better, but the inclination is to put it in the dancing flames. We wait to cook them until the fire has a nice bed of coals, and rearrange things a bit so there's a good place for roasting.
The most difficult part of pudgy pies is waiting until they cool off a bit before devouring them. We eat these at the cabin, where we're ravenous from hiking around all day, so it helps if they come as a dessert course, which also makes time for a nice fire full of glowing coals, but we like them so much they are often the main attraction. I usually burn my tongue on the first one. Watch out!

Real Quick and Good

Pfannekuchen
a raised German pancake. Hearty and filling, I serve it for breakfast and dinners when I'm in a hurry. It takes very little time to prepare, so we just whip it up and get dressed while it cooks. This makes just enough for me and the two little kids if we're really hungry. Or Paul and I and kids if we're not too hungry. If I were alone, I'd do 2 eggs with 1/2c. flour and 1/2c. milk, in a smaller skillet. A big gathering, just double.
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
3/4 cup milk
lump of butter
Turn oven on to 350 F. Put butter (a spatch or two!) in your trusty cast iron skillet and set in oven to melt. Whisk milk and eggs together, stir in flour with salt. Pour into hot skillet, bake 15-30 minutes, till puffed and just starting to get golden. Set table and pour drinks, to eat just when it comes out, as it rises and falls like a souffle. Call, "pannekuchen!" Serve and eat piping hot!

Options: I like to toss some fruit in the skillet before I pour in the batter. My favorite right now is pears with a sprinkling of cardamom. Then we eat with maple syrup. (I'll bet the first run of the maples is starting right about now around here. Anyone know?)

Pastina
Quick alternative to a box of Macaroni and Cheese, when you need something that quick; and a bit more nutritious, I think, as it is so fresh with no preservatives, and when I need a quick meal I do want some protein. A great nursery food too, as children love mild things.
Cook small pasta al dente. Acini de Pepe are good-tiny round pasta. I usually use small shells or break up sphaghetti.
While it's cooking, grate a bit of cheese.
Drain pasta and put quickly back into its cooking pot.
Break an egg or two, one for a small pot, two for a lot, right into the hot pasta. Stir up quick till whites and yolks are all blended into pasta. Cover when mixed. It blends together, and coats the pasta, cooking from the residual heat of the noodles and pot.
Stir in or top with cheese, pepper, garlic salt, or whatever good and tasty things I might have on hand.

Options: I also put in some vegetables chopped small if I want this to be a whole meal; for the winter carrots, parsnips can go in the cooking water; mushrooms or squash I would saute separately. In the summer I would just toss with fresh veg from the garden.

Great Brownie Recipe, Plain and Birthday-fancy

Dear Reader,
I have missed writing to you! I have so many things I want to share, but the days have been stretching on, post-less for me. (I wrote this before I finished that last post, so it's been a bit.) So, first things first; brownies. I've made a few batches of brownies, from scratch, that have been disappointing. Hard to believe, isn't it? You'd think all brownies would be good! But I've found my perfect recipe. Normally I'm not a stick-to-the-recipe kinda Mama, but with baked goods, improvisation can lead to sadness in my kitchen.
One qualification: this whole post is not very Lenten, but we had a birthday around here, and exceptions must be made!
Here it is, from my new favorite cookbook, Savoring the Seasons, which I discussed a while ago. They are an historic recipe from Mrs. Macine of International Falls, MN. Don't be intimidated by cooking these from scratch if you're not a from-scratcher; these are almost as easy as a box, and only have six ingredients. I do leave out her recommended chocolate chips, as they're so expensive, and these are fudgey goodness itself with out them. I also changed the chocolate; her recipe called for squares baking chocolate, and we buy unsweetened cocoa powder in bulk, so this is my adaptation.
6 full Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 stick butter, okay to skimp on it; I always do!
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract; we buy good vanilla, and I always use extra! Paul is amazed at the amount of vanilla and flour we run through; winter's the season--we probably won't need a refill all summer long.
1/2 cup flour

Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. I turn off the heat when the butter's about half melted and cover it to finish melting whilst I mix the other ingredients. Waste not want not, you know.
Beat eggs and sugar. Mix in vanilla and flour.
Pour into a greased pan, 9x9 is good. Bake at 375 (F) for 12 to 18 minutes. And here is the key to these goodies: do not overbake them. They are done before they pull away from the sides of the pan.

Now for the fun part: our little one, the older little one, requested a mouse and strawberry party. We had a tiny party, with just a few children (one for each of his years, as he is only three and easily overwhelmed. Also because if it is a small party we can be very fancy and make everything super-special, without Mama and Papa being overwhelmed either!). So, since we were having a mouse party, mouse-sized cakes seemed fitting. I improvised a tiny cake stand by using masking tape to stack teacups and pretty plates together, and whipped out a batch of brownies in mini muffin tin the day before. Each one was about a tablespoon of batter. We always lick all our spoons and bowls!

The day of the party, we whipped a half-pint of cream, stirring in a bit of vanilla once semi-stiff peaks form. I beat some sugar to taste into maybe a quarter cup of cream cheese and whipped cream. I made a simple syrup from a bag of frozen strawberries. Some of this I stirred into some of the whipped-cream-cheese frosting.
The fun part is assembly: I sandwiched the plain frosting between tiny brownies, and topped with swirls of plain frosting, dollops of strawberry frosting, and drizzled strawberry syrup on top. This all isn't as heavy as it sounds because they are small and the frosting is whipped. Delicious? Yes.
Since it was a mouse party, the birthday boy had a special mouse outfit, and all guests wore whiskers and pink noses. There was also one lion, but he was mostly friendly with the mice

.

We read The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, which I checked out from the library in one of those oversized storytime editions, played hide and seek, sang songs, and nibbled on treats. Happy Birthday, little Mouse!

Wild Rice Soup for a Minnesota Winter: a Tangential Recipe

Winter Wild Rice Soup
The key to wild rice is letting it blossom. I put several handfuls of wild rice (this is real wild-grown stuff, hand harvested by Ojibwe people on Mille Lacs Reservation! Just another local treat from the co-op!) into my little sauce pan, and a kettle of water on the hob. When the kettle whistles boiling, I pour the hot water over the rice, cover it and leave it. This can be done the day before, or hours in advance of the meal. Before cooking with it, I rinse the rice a couple of times. Then all the rice is softened and each grain opens up. Wild rice seems expensive, but expands a lot more than white rice, so it's not really more pricey. If I don't let it blossom, all the other veggies get mushy while I wait for my rice to soften. You then end up cooking the soup for four hours into flavorlessness, or having chewy wild rice soup.
Heat a jar of broth or stock in the bottom of a nice deep pot. I make stock from leftovers of all kinds. Lacking this, just use water.
Put into the pot chopped carrots, wild rice, chopped potatoes, or other firm winter veggies.*
In a saucepan or frying pan, saute in a few glugs of olive oil:
chopped onion, garlic, parsnips**
Have I yet mentioned my new love of parsnips? You can dig them out of the garden all winter (theoretically. this might take advance planning if you live in the frozen north, but if they can be extracted from that hard ground, they will be sure to please!) I love their tart sweetness. Roasted, they carmelize and become a snacky pleasure food. cooked, they are sweet, soft, and tangy.So, saute this high-flavor matter till it becomes fragrant. I let it brown a bit, and toss in a splash of water. For some reason, this makes it all the sweeter. Transfer to the soup pot. Here I also added a fistful of sweet farmer's market corn frozen from the summer bounty. Slosh in some white wine, if you've got it.
Saute some chopped fresh mushrooms and put in soup.

When the veggies are almost all cooked, add a chopped stalk of celery or two.
I don't bother to wash the saucepan before making the roux. This is to be a cream soup. The flavors from the carmelized parsnip and onions are so good I don't want to wash any away. To make the roux, I put two spatches of butter in the pan until melted. Turn off the heat and sprinkle in an equal amount of white flour. This is not the time to use whole wheat flour for this one! Stir with a fork or wooden spoon till smooth. Then I slowly mix in a cup of real (whole) milk, little by little so as not to get doughy lumps of buttery flour. Stir this white sauce into the soup and season to taste: salt, pepper, parsley***, maybe basil or thyme, as your fancy takes you.

*Winter Veggies
I'm thinking about what people who didn't have supermarkets, cheap gas, and cheap refrigeration would eat, here in Minnesota all year long? Think pioneer suppers, think long Lakota winters. It just doesn't make sense to eat food shipped from South America, Fuji, or California for so much of the year that we don't have a fresh harvest here. Oranges at Christmas are one thing, we don't need this kind of expense and consumption to get good food here. (Joan Gussow articulates the concept of local eating quite well in her readable book, This Organic Life: confessions of a suburban Homesteader. I recommend the book as an intro to the local, seasonal table)
There is so much we can grow when it's warm and keep through the winter right here in Minnesota! I'm hoping do do more and more food preservation myself in the coming years, but for now we're just enjoying the few foods we have put by in the last year, and trying to buy foods that come from good, small, concientious farms as close to us as possible. Shopping at the co-op makes this easier, as they label where each offering hails from. Paul does most of the shopping, so I just ask him to look for the closest state possible. I know he also considers cost. Who wants to pay for shipping refrigerated, gassed spinach and tomatoes from California when parsnips are dirt-cheap?
Another factor is food durability. As in, beets are more durable than spinach. Foods that have to be eaten within weeks of harvest, that bruise easily, or need refrigeration or chemical treatment to survive until they hit the store shelf, we just avoid in the winter. We can eat green salads April through November, right out of our backyards. We're not super strict about this--we're in no danger of scurvvy, but as I learn about the whole history of the foods we eat and its implications for us, our neighbors, farmers, and children, I find it very satisfying to plan our meals around real keeping crops. Not to mention, I don't know anyone who actually enjoys grocery store tomatoes in February. As our friend Liz Fleming says, they should have a different name from the tomatoes one grows and picks in the garden, as they are an entirely different and vastly less enjoyable vegetable.

This really isn't as limiting as it might sound:
Parsnips, carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes, winter squash, cabbage, kale. (I found a variety though Seed Savers that is hardy to ten below, Farenheit and then when picked keep forever in the fridge,)
Grains: Barley, oats, rice, wild rice, cornmeal, quinoa, amaranth, pastas, etc.
Legumes, dried
And for fresh foods: Sprouts! Alfalfa! Mung bean, wheat, fenugreek, etc. Mary Jane Butters has a fun section on growing sprouts in her Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook.
Mushrooms
Dried fruits: apples, cranberries, currants, raisins, etc.
Wine, hard ciders, vinegars
Dried Herbs, spices
Meat and Dairy: cheeses, cream, milk, puddings, broth, eggs, etc.
All that stuff can either be produced and sold right here all winter long, or stored from earlier production here.
I don't have qualms about getting spices, coffee, tea, etc from distant ports as they don't require refrigeration during shipping and aren't fresh; these are dried products, relatively lightweight, ship quite efficiently as compared to fresh, canned, or frozen fruit.
There is also a beauty in seasonality. Roasted root vegetables, thick soups, fresh bread, puddings, and stews feel good these cold months. Rather than feeling limited, I almost wish I had more time before spring to try all the recipes in my head for these foods. There will be plenty of time when it's too hot to even think about the oven. Luckily, in those months, fresh salads and fruits abundant will grow wild just outside our door!
**Cabbage would also be good
***I would like fresh parsley. If we had a good south-facing window for it, I would try growing more windowsill herbs through the winter. Some things take dried herbs better than others. In this soup, I felt the flavors of the veggies, especially the parsley, corn, and wild rice, along with the creaminess of the roux gave a full, rich taste that didn't need extra herbs. No sense in making bright flavors dusty with last summer's dried herbs. I don't go in much for buying them at the market. At ours, they come in plastic cases and are expensive. You get this paltry bit of greenery, more plastic case than herbage. I say, skip that!

Egg and Laundry Thoughts

Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell and Lillian Hoban is one of our very favoritest books around here right now. Inspired by her, we have been having lots of soft-boiled eggs in the morning.
As Frances' father said, "What a lovely egg! If there is one thing I am fond of for breakfast, it is a soft-boiled egg."
"Yes," said Mother, spooning up egg for the baby,
"it is just the thing to start the day off right."
"Ah!" said Gloria, [the baby] and ate up her egg.
My friend Liz Winter taught me how to make a soft boiled egg and we learned how to eat them at our friend Ann's annual St. Patty's day bash. Lots of fun is had by all. Except for non-egg eating Paul.

Here's what we do:
-Put eggs in cold water on the stove. Bring to a boil. Boil for three minutes, counting from when the boiling actually starts.
-Since the kids are waiting at the table hungrily, after the three minutes, run the eggs under a bit of cold water so they can touch them.
-Set an egg on an egg cup (found ours at the Vinnie, down on West Seventh. Small baby food jars or shot glasses also work great.)
-Use a spoon or fork to crack a ring around the top of the egg by chiseling at it somewhat carefully. Then whack off the top! (I don't remember where I got this great pointy spoon, but it's just perfect!) Dig to the yolk, if necessary. Ideally, the white is all cooked, and the yolk is still runny and bright yellow or orange.
-Salt and pepper to taste and let the kids dip little sticks of toast or pita into the yolk
-Lo and behold! Egg yolks taste way better when they are less well cooked! (we like to use eggs from happy, healthy birds.)

I have seen more than a few bloggers whom I really like post such picturesque photos of hanging their laundry up to dry. Ha! My laundry line is certainly not fit for public display! I'll just show you a little corner to show off Gibbie's hanging job. I guess laundry can be pretty even if it's not all bright white and red tablecloths and vintage linens snapping in the breeze.

So, around here it's getting too cold to hang clothes to dry outside. What's an earth-lovin girl to do? While indoor drying racks are a pain on rainy summer days, I've found they are wonderful for chilly winter days! When it's cold out, the air gets painfully dry inside our old house. I'm real sensitive about this. I have dry skin, and get uncomfortable just breathing the dry air all night long, so we tend to keep a humidifier going at night. Laundry can be a great help too! On a cold day, it will dry inside in no time!

Advantages: Humidify the house and dry the laundry at the same time with no use of electricity!

Plus, our folding rack has lots of spaces that are low enough for Gibbie to hang up the clothes himself. It's pretty fun, working together like this. He can focus now, for a whole basket of clothes, actually hanging each piece up as nicely as he can. He's also started helping me fold things! Here's how it went.

Little Bear: What are you doin, Mama?
Mamabear: Oh, just folding these blankets.
L: I don't know how to do that.
M: Would you like to learn? I can show you.
L: No, I am not big enough to do that. When I am a man, I will fold blankets. I will do that when I am a big big big big kid. Not until then.
M: folds another blanket
L:joins right in
So I showed him how to match up the corners, and stack the folded ones in their place. Now he helps me with all sorts of folding! Above is pictured a common sight around our house these days. The littler one climgs into the stroller and the big one pushes him all around the house. They are taking a lot of trips to the cabin, the lake house, the coffee shop, and the restaurant these days.

Woodstoves, Purlieu Stew, and Carmelized Onions

One of the things we most love about Purlieu is the rawness of it. I realize I have some romantic ideas about farming, simple living, poverty, and the "olden days", but man, do I ever love cooking on a woodstove! Really, there's nothing pretentious about this cabin; it's very simple and practical and I think those things make it beautiful though it's not fancy at all. Of course, I also grew up coming here and can't remember not loving the cabin and everything about it. Unknowingly, growing to love the same land my dear Paul does.
Chris, who built this cabin, has two woodstoves. The little one in the pit is the primary heat stove. Paul stoked it several times each night to keep us cozy. It is great to put a big kettle of water on top of this stove for dishes, bathing, or hot drinks. We also cooked potatoes and squash right on the coals inside. Yum! We fuel it with wood that Chris mostly chops from downed trees on the property, and the ashes go into the outhouse, completing the cycle. If we lived here, I bet we could use those ashes to make soap and fertilize the garden.
There is nothing like sitting in front of a roaring fire on a chilly rainy day, which we had plenty of.

I don't think of it as roughing it, though we sure have more amenities at our home in the cities, because if I could, I would prefer to live like this.
This range has gas burners, powered by a propane tank, plus an oven and hot plates heated with a fire box. I loved cooking on it! We had hash browns, pancakes, and a killer squash stew:

Bake squash (we used a small butternut) and potatoes in the oven or fireplace if the fire's going.
Dredge lamb stew meat in flour (pancake mix also works just fine!) Saute in olive oil or butter with chopped onions till onions are tender and meat is brown.
Continue to saute gently whilst seasoning with whatever's around: I used dried tarragon, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, and bay leaves.
Add squash, potatoes and water and continue cooking and tasting until it's just right.
For a vegetarian version, I would simply omit the meat and use a bunch of fresh basil.

Another smashing success I had on the range was the carmelized onions. These would be a fine garnish for a plain soup or stew, and are great on burgers, vegetables, or baked potatoes, and are very simple to make.
Carmelized onions:
Saute chopped onions (they're in season right now here, and available from local farmers) in butter, without browning until tender. Pour a decent glosh of water in the pan and stir as the water evaporates. Repeat until onions are brown and delicious.

This works like magic. I don't know why, but pouring water on the onions makes the sugars in them carmelize. It seems counter-intuitive that they would get all brown and sweet with the addition of cold water, but it works! They are especially good for giving depth to mild foods, useful when converting a meat recipe to a vegetable-only one, or when cooking a soup or stew without a good broth base.
I've only ever cooked these, like I cook almost everything, in a heavy cast iron skillet. I don't know if it would work as well in an aluminum pot.

Local Grape Juice!

Grapes are one of the easiest fruits to pick; it goes to fast! As Samuel Thayer says, you can pick gallons in an hour without taking a step. Now, these aren't from our own yard, but they are pretty close to home.This is Gibbie and I sorting grapes. We carefully rinsed our hands regularly as we plucked the grapes from their stems.
We picked the grapes in a local alley. They grow all over around here in St. Paul, fecund and forgotten. Unlike table grapes, these grapes (small, seedy, with a rather alarming flavor and texture to the unsuspecting) aren't really for eating raw. Best for making juice (or wine, cordial, etc, for those more knowledgeable than I) and jelly.

With a full pot of grapes, I added some water and turned the heat on. When all this rain dries up, I can't wait to try juicing in the solar oven! Anyway, on our regular gas stove, I simmered the grapes till the skins burst. The juice is dark, bright purple. An important step to note, that I often try to bypass, is letting this cool off a bit before moving on!
After boiling the grapes until they release their juice, I took a big mixing bowl, set it in the sink, and lined it with a clean dish towel. Into the towel I poured the grapes. Then I bound up the corners of the towel and tied it to the dish drainer, right above my bowl. When the dripping had slowed to almost nothing, I squeezed and mashed all the extra juice I could out into my bowl.
Here we see the drained juice getting strained a bit more in my homemade jelly bag.

As suggested by my guide, Mr. Thayer the forager, I let sediments settle to the bottom before decanting my lovely grape juice into a pretty pitcher. About two quarts of grapes made well over two quarts of grape juice. I mixed it with sparkling water, though I could have diluted it even more, it was so strong. Really it was grape juice concentrate! With just-ripening apples on my brain, I'm thinking that apple juice would make a superb sweetener for our next batch!

I hope to bottle a batch in those re-sealable German beer bottles, maybe also freeze a batch as concentrate, as part of our hoard of local goodness against the winter blues.

The juice was rich and delicious. Also made tasty popsicles!

Corn Bread

Adapted from the More-With-Less Cookbook, a Mennonite book devoted to frugal, simple food:

Wonderful Tasty Cornbread
great with honey

Preheat to 400 F.
Mix in a bowl:
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour (I used 3/4 whole wheat, 1/4 white)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup dry milk powder

Make a well in the mound and add:
2 eggs
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup oil

Stir just until smooth. Pour into an oiled pan and bake till nice and brown. (half and hour-ish)
Serve hot with butter, syrup, honey, or milk.
With frugality in mind, I used all powdered milk, instead of fresh, as the original recipe had it. I also added molasses, which I love in my bread.

Pie--Glorious Pie!

Yes, this gorgeous pie is cooling on the windowsill. Ahhh. It was very much enjoyed!

Mulberry Rhubarb Pie
This recipe is adapted from two wonderful cookbooks. The filling is from A Midwest Gardener's Cookbook, by Marian K. Towne. This book really is a good companion for the Minnesota gardener.
The crust (I never quite understood all quest for flaky, tender crusts till I bit into this! It puts ready-made crusts to shame.) is out of The Lost Art of Pie Making Made Easy by Barbara Swell. This book is a hoot.


Crust: This will take a while. Makes bottom and top crust with lots leftover for pie-crust cookies (by far Gibb's favorite element of pie-day!)
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. baking powder
a stick and a quarter of butter, cut into little pieces and frozen
a glass of water with some ice and a squirt of lemon juice in it

Work fast! The key is not letting the butter get warm!
Mix up all the dry ingredients. Rub and cut the butter into the dry ingredients. Take heart; once you get through this the rest is easy. I used to use a pastry cutter before I lost mine. This time, I cut it in with butter knives and then rubbed it in the tips of my fingers. After a while I gave up and used my whole hands. I worked quickly and popped it in the freezer to chill as soon as all the flour was mixed in. It made a beautiful crust!

Now mix up the filling.
Filling: be generous with the fruit now!
Mix up in a bowl:
2-3 cups mulberries, leave the stems on. If you try to take them off, the berries will turn to mush
1-2 cups sliced rhubarb. avoid the tough part at bottom of stalks
3/4 sugar
3 Tablespoons flour

Assembly:
I take that dough from the fridge or freezer. Pat it into 3 disks. Put 2 back in the fridge.
Put the dough on a floured silpats mat. (thanks, Grammers!) These are crazy expensive. I think a floured dish cloth, oil cloth, or saran wrap might work too. This keeps the dough from ripping as I pick it up and from getting stuck to the table.
Roll the dough out quick, sprinkling with flour if it starts to stick. Peel off the mat and into a waiting pie pan. I now cut around the outside edge of the pan with a butter knife to slice off the excess crust, which goes with the extra lump in the fridge.

Fill this bottom crust with fruit! Now I turn on the oven; almost done!
I take the next disk of dough and roll it out as before. Once it gets nice and big, I cut it into long strips a bit wider than a finger. This is the fun part, where I weave the basket-like top crust. I lay a few strips across the middle of the pie. Then I start to lay more strips going crosswise to the first ones, over and under. I continue likewise until the pie is covered in latticework strips of crust.

Just before the oven (375 F) I trim the top crust, pinch top and bottom crusts together (this gives that pretty crimped homemade pie look) and brush the top crust with cream. Put it in the oven.
In the meantime, make the extra crust into cookies.

Pie-Crust Cookies: My mom always let us make these. They finish baking long before the pie, and are great for impatient assistant chefs. If I had extra anything else on hand, I would have improvised another pie or tart with all the extra crust. Plus, if I've got the oven on on a summers' day, I want to fill up that oven to get all I can out of the heat.
Just roll out dough and cut into strips, diamonds, or with cookie cutters. Odd-shaped leftover cuttings just roll out again, or toss right on the cookie sheet. Brush with milk, cream, or water, and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Gibbie loves helping with this!
Pop them in the oven. Stay in the kitchen! They cook up quick, for excited little children who can't wait for pie.
The pie cooks for around an hour. I take it out when it's golden brown on top and the berries are bubbling merrily. I set it in the windowsill to cool. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

Pies are so worth the trouble to bake; the house may have been a disaster the day we made this, but the accomplishment of this triumph of summer fruit, this pie, sure made me lift up my head. It's also worth getting out the pretty plates.

Adventures in Vegetables

Cabbage and Beets: Despised vegetables, right? But Oh my Goodness, do I have a good recipe for them! I didn't even know I liked cabbage!
This comes from my friend Christy, who learned it from her mother in law, Nadine, although she makes it with romaine lettuce and tomatoes. It being still winter here, we don't have good tomatoes, so I thought to try it with more wintry veggies. Lo, it worked!
-Mash a few cloves of peeled garlic in a mortar and pestle. (If you don't have one, mash them on your chopping block with the bottom of a jar or a meat tenderizer, and run out and buy a good mortar and pestle tomorrow.)
-Sprinkle garlic with salt: in Christy's words, "more than you think" I used about 1 tsp.
-Squeeze in a puddle of lemon juice; several Tbsp.
I did this all in the mortar and pestle. The key is to make a nice mashy paste. Taste to see if the flavor balance is good
For Cabbage: chop up. Heat a few spoonfuls of butter and/or olive oil in a frying pan on Med-Low. Saute the cabbage, stirring casually until it is partially wilted-- a little crunch is nice. I used a whole cabbage, which quite filled my pan, so I stirred using a wooden spoon and a spatula to turn it without overflowing the pan. Toss with dressing just before serving. Eat hot or serve levtovers cold with rice. When I made Paul taste a forkful of the cabbage, he actually said, "what did you do to that to make it so delicious?" Imagine--delicious cabbage!
For Beets: Boil beets whole. When they are soft if you stick a big one with a fork, put the pot in the sink and rub the skins off with your hands under a slow stream of cold water. (Warning: if you have bare hands, they will turn pink!) The skins and cooking water are great for the compost pile. Then loosely chop or cube the beets and toss with dressing. Beets are so rich and sweet I don't think they need added butter or oil. Adjust flavors to taste. It also works to include the beet greens; just chop and wilt as with cabbage, tossing before serving hot or cold. Happy eating.