Living in Season

Little brownie baker

It's been one of those days, and chocolate was high on my list of must-haves. So, I whipped up a batch of brownies this evening. Sam "helped." Yep, the boy has my sweet tooth, I'm sorry to say!

 

 

Taking an eCourse in whole foods from GNOWFLGINS

 

I'm excited to try my first eCourse on learning how to prepare whole foods. Wardeh Harmon, a Whitefish native who now lives in Oregon, is the woman behind the GNOWFLGINS blog (GNOWFLGINS means "God's Natural, Organic, Whole Foods, Grown Locally, In Season") where she talks about getting back food basics, which is the goal of this course.

This is a five week course so it won't be an overwhelming amount of information dumped all at once. I'm looking forward to learning how to use sprouted grains and seeds, plus work on my sourdough technique (which has been a struggle for me lately for some reason - I'm hoping she will help me figure out what I'm doing wrong), and learn how to make kefir! She also has a lesson on how pickling. I'm a fermentation nut so this should be fun. There's always something to learn!

To sign up or take a look at the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals. If you would like to sign up, the deadline is February 22 because the fun begins on February 23. Hope to see you on the Forums!

Kokanee for dinner

Grant went fishing today to try to increase our pike supply in the freezer, but didn't have much luck. He did come home with a lovely Kokanee salmon, though. This was a nice one. I know we would've been doing backflips if we caught one this big on Bitterroot Lake in the Flathead.

It's a good thing he caught it because I wasn't able to cook the turkey as I planned. I hate to handle poultry when I have a baby hanging on my leg, and John didn't give me the chance to pop it in the oven. (The corned beef was another story. That only took 30 minutes.)

I like to slice onions and place them inside of the fish when baking it, but Grant prefers it without. So tonight I put in a little pat of butter, salt and dill. Then I baked it at 425 for 25 minutes. It was perfect. Very creamy flesh, almost buttery. Excellent meal! Grant's hoping to head back to try to sack up some more before the ice is off at the end of the season, but I suppose we need to be careful not to smoke our fish before they're caught!

The wonders of pressure cooking.

Once and awhile I'll work on a story that takes me in a completely different direction. A few weeks ago, I thought it would be grand fun to write a piece on nifty kitchen equipment since a well-stocked kitchen is as important as a good tool shed. If you have the right stuff, life will be much easier.

I interviewed Veronica, the owner of Pizazz, one of my all time favorite shops in Great Falls, who told me pressure cookers are making a comeback. I remembered my great aunt had one because I replaced the rubber gasket for her at a holiday dinner, and Grant tells tales of an entire pork roast shooting through the vent hole when one of those rotten boys hit the cooker while his mom was preparing dinner. He said all of the meat was on the ceiling, and the only thing left in the pan was the bone. Yikes.

With this anecdote in mind, I asked Veronica about their volatile reputation, and she assured me they are practically idiot proof. With three safety features, it would be hard to get a good explosion out of one. I had to have one.

So the slant of the article focused on pressure cooking. Experimentation was necessary! I started off easy with a batch of carrots. I tossed in four or five peeled and chunked carrots with one-half cup of chicken broth. They were done in five minutes. Every time I used it, I was more impressed.

Today, I hit the "wow" zone. I received Lorna Sass' book, Cooking Under Pressure, on Wednesday, and the first thing that caught my eye was the practicality of the recipes. There aren't a bunch of hard to find ingredients, and she explains the techniques in such a style that even a novice can understand.

My first choice was "Boeuf en Daube Provencal" because it was similar to the beef bourguignon that greatly disappointed me a few weeks ago. I cooked the bourguignon for hours, as directed, but the meat was dry. This recipe was simple. I marinated the meat overnight (this is ideal since working in short amounts of time is easier for me) in the wine with some of the spices. When I had a moment this morning, I sauteed an onion for a few minutes in the cooker before adding the wine marinade to reduce it. That entire process took roughly 10 minutes.

Then I dumped in the meat, added four whole carrots, secured the lid, and brought it up to temperature. Once it was rolling, it took 18 minutes followed by a 10 minute cool down to create an absolutely delicious dish. The meat falls apart on your fork. It took a fraction of the time, and the results are far superior than having the oven on for hours.

My only question is why haven't I tried pressure cooking sooner? This opens up a whole new world in the kitchen. Now, on to test something with beans...

Gobble! Gobble!

I had Thanksgiving dinner planned months ago. Earlier this year I ordered a heritage breed turkey from Courtney and Jacob Cowgill at Prairie Heritage Farm in Conrad. They raised 75 birds this spring for their Thanksgiving CSA members, and for direct sales. All year long the birds ate whatever came their way, more like the wild ones, and lived the good life outside of a caged existence. Last Friday and Saturday they met their fates, and I picked up a fresh turkey from Courtney on Saturday. For me, it makes more sense to know how the bird lived, and I'm delighted to support local producers.

Since Thanksgiving isn't a huge production around here - it's usually just us and Grant's brother and nephew - I like to make the turkey the night before so I have time do something else instead of just cooking. To roast the bird, I followed the first recipe Courtney has on their website. I brushed the turkey with a half-cup of melted butter (can't go wrong there), seasoned it with minced garlic, salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary, and put it in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes before turning down the heat to 325 for the remaining 3 hours. The key is to not overcook it. It's done when the internal temp is 165 degrees.

The house smelled heavenly with the turkey cooking in the oven, and we ate some for dinner. Who can resist? The next day, my plan was to make the sweet potato casserole and dressing to be ready to pop in the oven. The mashed potatoes would be made while they baked. I'd reheat the turkey with chicken broth. So, I told the guys we'd eat around four.

I went to see Kelo in the morning. He's so spoiled, and wouldn't stand still for brushing. Romeo, the youngster, was more than happy to oblige. Then I came home and made the sweet potatoes and dressing before giving the boys lunch, and putting them down for a nap. That's where the plan went off track. I fell asleep, too, which is something I desperately needed but wasn't in my schedule, and I didn't wake up until 3:30! All the guys were sitting in the living room!

Thankfully, the Grisaks are not a complaining bunch, and patiently waited until I got things pulled together over an hour later. Everything turned out fine - but of course, they were so hungry by then I could've served them anything! Hopefully, I'll have things better planned for Christmas dinner.

Making Mead - The Drink of the Gods

Are you one of the lucky ones who has a surplus of honey? A great way to use it is whipping up a batch of mead, a quirky high octane adult beverage that is super simple to make. I have an article in he current issue of Mother Earth News, How to Make Mead from Honey, giving step by step instructions on how to do it.

Mead makers are  different kind of folk. We seem to like a challenge, and enjoy the varying results since different honey produces different flavors. And even though the drink is technically a wine, it's not one you can drink in a matter of months. Mead takes at least a year before it's palatable.  So you have to be patient if you're going to tackle this project, but for those who like a light tasting (usually), sweet, earthy beverage with a kick it's defnitely worth the wait.

Putting Food By

'Tis the season to pack food away like a squirrel.  There is a big pot of applesauce bubbling away on the stove making the house smell heavenly. I'm using the Macintosh apples my friend, LeAna, brought when she visited last weekend cooking them down with the skins still on. I'll put them through the strainer before processing the pints in the hot water bath. Samuel's a big fan of the sauce, and now that John is starting solid foods, I'm sure it won't last long in the pantry.

A couple of weeks ago I turned 50+lbs of tomatoes into 13 quarts of sauce, and froze about 32 cups of fresh corn. This season I used the 'Martino's Romas' from Seeds of Change. They're a good choice. They produced nice sized fruit that cooked down well. I'm assuming it tastes good (once again - not a good person to judge a tomato). I added 1/2 tsp of citric acid per quart to ensure adequate acidity, and processed the quarts in a hot water bath for 20 minutes. They all look great. We'll use these primarily for a marinara either for spaghetti, cabbage rolls or the Greek chicken. I still have some of the 'Stupice' tomatoes frozen from last year, but need to do an inventory in the next couple of days to see if I should freeze additional ones before I can another batch. If so, I'll freeze them whole without blanching or peeling.

I planted 'Ambrosia' sweet corn on the recommendation of Marcia Bundi at Bundi Gardens here in Great Falls, and I'll plant it again. Even for an Ohio born corn snob, it was tasty. I was concerned it would be a litle tough since we were gone when it first began to ripen, but it held up well. Six "hills" had roughly 4 dozen ears, and I didn't notice any difference in production between the ones I de-suckered and the ones I didn't. I'm very happy to have our corn on hand. It beats store bought frozen corn hands-down!

This is such a nice time of year when the freezer and pantry are filled to the doors. It definitely gives me a little sense of security - like the hard-working ants in the children's fable - as well as a delicious reminder of summer.

Ice Cream Hounds

Last night Grant went with Blaine and his brothers to the local Voyageurs baseball game. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to make ice cream with Sam since we could scoop it right out of the cannister as it was spinning, and not worry about sharing our cooties with anyone else! (Okay, or sharing at all!)

I put together a half batch of chocolate, and we took turns using the spatula scraping along the insides of the cannister as it spun. By the time we were finished we didn't have much left for ice cream, but there's no doubt we had more than enough... and no bowls to wash.

Opening Day at the Community Gardens

After a rough start we finally have our first gardens organized by River City Harvest up and growing. The spring weather was less than cooperative with heavy snows in the most inopportune times, and when we tried to work the ground with a tractor and tiller it was completely ineffective. Same with a rented tractor and duck foot plow. Eventually Wade from the Cascade County Extension office rallied a friend, and was able to plow it with a 100 HP tractor and chisel plow. That did the trick! Grant tilled it twice last weekend with a tractor and tiller. We had a proper garden!

Since things didn't go very smoothly all spring, I decided I better measure and stake the plots before everyone was there. The standard plots were supposed to be 20 x 30 - of course that didn't hold true. On the south side they were 20 x 34 or so with one plot being only 12-ft wide instead of twenty. On the north section, I had to restake several times trying to squeeze in 10 plots. One plot was the standard 20-ft, while the others varied from 15 to 17-ft wide depending on how long that particular section was since it too ranged from 32 to 40-ft. I managed 9 full plots and one half plot in that half, which seemed okay to me since I was dealing with a migraine from the previous day and 80+ degree heat. My mind wasn't the sharpest to be calculating anything! It turns out I created one extra, albeit short, plot - we were only planning on fourteen plots, not fifteen! Oh well, we'll use it for the food banks if no one comes forward to rent it.

We're also able to provide a plot for the Park Place residents, many of whom are retired farmers or lifelong gardeners. The director came out to chat, and it sounds like the folks are excited to have an opportunity to work the soil again. I'm happy because I know how I would feel if I didn't have a garden, plus I can only imagine the wealth of knowledge behind those walls!

When I arrived, I had to off load the rototiller. Grant showed me how to start it and back it down two skinny boards, but that looked downright dangerous. I simply turned te machine around in the back of the truck, wedged the boards into the ground, and wheeled that bad boy off the tailgate. It rolled smoothly with no problems. (Later, a friend of Deb's in Park Place said they were watching me wrestle it off.)

The first few folks that showed up helped me finish measuring and marking the plots, then when Deb directed each to their garden, they did a great job of clearing the rocks and clumps from the plots. It was wonderful to see everyone enthusiastically working. A few ladies even planted peppers, squash and tomatoes. Others seeded different crops. Our greatest challenges are going to be the wind and sharing water, but I think it's going to go just fine.

Good Day for Making Jerky

Our winter wonderland turned into ground blizzards today with 30 mph winds gusting to over 40 mph. It's pretty normal for Great Falls, but it's still no fun to drive in this stuff. I think it'll be another day at home for me.

Since we're not going anywhere, Grant's going to work on his venison jerky. Yesterday he mixed up his marinade consisting of soy sauce, pineapple juice, honey, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and pepper. He thinly sliced the meat he held back just for jerky, and has been soaking it in the marinade overnight.

Today he'll take several hours drying out the marinated meat in our gas oven at its lowest setting. It takes a bit of babysitting since it dries the best when you can turn it often, but it's as good of a project as any on a blustery day like today.