Butter in the Press

Potato Pancakes with Homemade Butter

I've had the butter story and recipe printed in the paper.  Link to it is here.

Recipe for pancakes:

Grate 3 small raw potatoes, skin on
Grate one medium onion
One egg white

Mix together and form into patties.  Fry on medium-low until potatoes are cooked through, and they are a pretty color.   Great butter makes everything better! Here's how.

Weekend Cook: Shrimp and Pork Meatballs

Shrimp and Pork Meatball

This is one of my old Chinese dumpling filling recipes, popped into the oven.

Into the food processor goes:  4 cloves of garlic, and a bunch of scallions.  Then, I added a pound of cleaned shrimp and processed until they were roughly chopped.

Added that mixture to a pound of ground pork, add 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp pepper, and combined.  Formed into balls and baked at 400f for 20 minutes. Done!

Baked Walleye, Depths of Flavor

Baked Walleye

 Finally!  It's been nearly 15 years since I last had a taste of this incredible fish.  Dan complained that it been prepared baked, not fried - but I hadn't cleaned the deep fryer, so into the oven it goes. (Plus, he withdrew his complaint after consuming five pieces.)

Whacked cleaned fish in half across the backbone so that I had several large and four small same-sized pieces.  Let them marinate in buttermilk (from the butter recipe, scroll down) and 2-3 TB of hot sauce for a few hours in the refrigerator.

I set the oven to 400f, sprinkled on some s&p, and coated the large pieces in corn crumbs and shredded Tomme Collins.  I let that set for 15-20 minutes.

Baked Walleye

In 38 minutes, moist and flakey.  The buttermilk tanginess was a great combination with the sweetness of the fish and the butteriness of the cheese.  Nice healthy fishy!

Tomorrow: Deep Fried Perch from Lake Carmi... and another beer batter recipe, coming up!

Scene in St. Albans: Round Bale Snowmen

Snowmen

Ran errands today and saw this just before the State Police Barracks.

Cheesemaking: Nearly Ready

Tomme Collins

These tommes were made last November and are lovely in texture at this age, but not as sharp as I would like.  They will be ready for the start of farmer's market in May - but I already have requests for them from our online retailer.

I may be making a fresh batch in two weeks that will hold us over next winter.  This cheese is great on flatbreads, pizzas, pastas, paired with Champagne - in short, anything you would want a parmesan to kiss.

Cultured Butter

Homemade Butter

Homemade Cultured Butter

Adapted from “The Traveler’s Lunchbox” blog

Makes ¾ cup

One Pint Heavy Cream

One TB Plain Yogurt (Cabot Greek)

1/4 tsp. Sea Salt (Fleur de sel)

Cold Water

Equipment: Hand-held Mixer or Food Processor, Fine Strainer

Open the cream container, stir in the yogurt, close it up, and let is set on the counter for 12 hours (75f).

You may refrigerate at this point. The cream should appear thickened.  (If it bubbles and is gassy, it is contaminated and should be discarded.)

Warm or cool cream to 60f and transfer to a bowl or food processor. 

Whip until butter separates.*

Homemade Butter

Transfer butter to strainer and wash gently under cold water until the water appears clear. 

Place butter in a clean bowl and press out the remaining buttermilk using a fork against the side.  Wash again.

Add salt to taste.

Foccacia

I recommend freezing cultured butter in portion-sizes for the best results.  It will keep only a few days in the refrigerator.

*This can be done by hand using a whisk; the buttermilk can be used in other recipes.

Life On The Farm 022712: Cold and Creepy

It’s another chill morning in the farmhouse, because the pellet furnace isn’t performing up to snuff. 

Thank goodness for the propane fireplace in the living room!

I can languish in my comfy chair, wearing flannel jammies under three fluffy blankets and the weight of both cats, until something calls me to task in another room. 

And it has to be pretty darn important to get me up!

It’s times like these when I take my free hours and head out shopping – languishing on the heated seats of the truck like a seal on a sandy shore.

If you see me in the parking lot, sitting with eyes closed while listening to the radio, looking church-pew sleepy and nodding my head, don’t knock on the window.

I’m not having a cardiac incident, I’m fine, and I’ll get out on my own, eventually.

I spend time wandering through the new Swanton Hannaford (blissfully heated) because I barely know where anything is located, even after all these months.

When I returned from the market that day, I opened the overhead garage door - arms loaded down with purchases, and immediately noticed a dead mouse on the floor.

That happens more often than you might think.

It was a squishy flat red mess, except for the little rear feet sticking up to the sky, like a wicked witch that had had a house dropped on it.

I blamed the cats for chewing it up and spitting it out where I would find it. 

(Always with the blame for whoever isn’t around to defend themselves.)

I ran around the horror of it all and squealed for my husband Dan to dispose of the carcass tout de suite.

We made light of it with zombie jokes back and forth; since the mouse was missing its head - and concluded that even the cats know how to deal with the undead, due to the condition of the remains.

I’m against mice on principal, for the tens of thousand of dollars they have cost me in damage at the cheeseplant over the years, and most recently - one of the little bastards ate a hole in the top of the Styrofoam box that I needed for shipping cheese - and subsequently chewed his way out of the bottom, while defecating all over outside and inside – oh god, the powerful gaggy smell that furry farty demon left behind for me to find at the last minute.

As such, I’ve got no compassion for these annoying rodents or how each wee gray and brown nemesis comes to meet its end. 

Since I don’t diddle with hairy dead things, Dan scraped it off the cement floor and noticed: bloody tire marks.

I had smushed flat it on my way out of the garage that morning. 

Ewww!

And for just a second there, I was worried that it hadn’t been completely dead when I ran it over. 

Just for that one second. 

And then I was fine with it.

Weekend Cook: Butter

Flatbread with Homemade Butter

Okay, so it's not exactly "cooking" per se, but I am working on a cultured butter recipe for the home kitchen.  It's easy to make "plain" butter, just whiz cream in a food processor until butter forms, then wash butter in cold water until clear, then add salt to taste and knead together.

Wish me luck! (luck tastes delicious)

Cold and Blowy

Boucher Farm, Vermont

Wow!  This morning gave us big flakes and so much wind you couldn't stand to be out in it.   Fun ahead tomorrow with lunch guests we haven't had over for 20 years - ribs, pilaf and brownie sundaes on offer.

Daffodil Deathwatch

Daffodil

It was our 25th wedding anniversary and Dan bought two pots of daffodils for me at last week's farmer's market.  They survived the weekend, but I fear he may be overwatering.

You see, we both well know that I have the black thumb when it comes to caring for houseplants, so he is in charge of when to water and how much - in a similar fashion as to how he is responsible for feeding the cats.

(Just kidding)  I would so feed the cats if he wasn't able.

Quick and Easy: Cioppino

Cioppino

Enthusiastic about flavor and food again!  The first thing I wanted was garlicky, noodley and simple.  I know this isn't the classic cioppino - but this is rural Vermont.  In winter.  I was lucky to find cod.

Heat: 1 qt. Seafood Stock, 2 Bay Leaves, 2 C. Strained Tomatoes, 1 head of minced Garlic, 1 med. Onion, minced, 1 TB Sambal Olek (or any hot sauce).  Bring to the boil, then simmer and adjust for salt and spice.

Add a handful of rice noodles and cook until soft (about 6 minutes); turn off the heat and add a pound of cod, cut into bite-size pieces. Put the cover on for ten minutes or until the fish is cooked through.

Garnish with sliced green onion.

Garlicky Broth and Noodles

This really hit the spot, and all that garlic made the house smell delicious.  More cooking to come.

Valentine's Day 2012: Wedding Anniversary 25

Dunkin' Donuts

Bought these for the relief milkers - so pretty.  Happy 25th Anniversary to us!

**ps.  Wrote this last week.  I'm still too flu-y to get near food, but planning to eat Thai take-away once better.

Life on the Farm 021312: Flu Blues

This week on the farm, Dan put a proper entrance door on the calf barn.

It already has some “homemade doors” around the perimeter, and sliding “barn door” panels large enough to run the skidsteer through – but they freeze shut – and open.

After witnessing the struggle of our herdsperson to close one, he knew he’d found the reason that he saved the old front door to the cheeseplant.

Works so well, it’s a wonder no one thought of it sooner.

And then, I got the flu.  Again.  With a boomer of a headache.

The only revelation worth noting through the ginger-ale-scented haze of the weekend, sliding in and out of consciousness, is that Smokey-cat is a big-time bed-blanket hog and weighs a lot more than she looks - but kept me company through the worst of it.

I surely wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and if you’re suffering from seasonal illness too, you have my sympathies and well-wishes.

Things are happening on the farm, just wait a while and I’ll get to it all, I promise.

(There won't be many food postings for a while.)

Update: Dan has started symptoms, so we'll probably be house-bound for a while.

Wheatless: Fried Squid

Deep Fried Squid

 This plate of goodness was too crunchy, but the tentacles were sweet and perfectly cooked.

I separated the squid into piles of parts, then coated them in an egg wash and gluten-free breadcrumbs.

Gillian's Bread Crumbs

 They went into the refrigerator for 12 minutes to firm up, then fried at 375f for a few seconds.

Fried Calamari

Dan wanted a cornmeal batter, and this came out hard and "ricey" for lack of a better term.  I used
this batter recipe for the ring sections, but found that they had a tendency to stick together in a blob in the fryer.

No photos from that culinary wreck - thinking that a dry mix is the way to go with squid, but maybe tempura might work, too.   Weekend coming up, that means more experiments in deep frying, but Dan has already eaten all the mozzarella string cheese!

Scene in St. Albans: Complaint Department

Complaint Department

Some days are better than others.

Wheatless: Corn Dogs

Corn Dogs

 Well, I finally got my corn dogs right - and ate waay too many of them!

Batter for one package of Kosher beef dogs:

1/2 Cup Gluten Free Pantry Yankee Cornbread Mix, 1 Egg, 2 tsp. Sugar, 1/2 Cup Buttermilk

Whisk together and refrigerate 1/2 hour.

Cut dogs into thirds and pierce with skewers.  Heat deep fryer to 365f.

Gluten-free Corndogs

Fry until golden brown, and done!  I served these with spicy ketchup and horseradish mayonnaise.

As the batter warms it doesn't stick as well, so keep it cold or dust the dogs in cornstarch before battering.

These were crunchy, corny, and addictive.

Scene in Highgate: 7 and Frosty

Tarte Road, Highgate Center, VT

There hasn't been heat in the house all night, and we had breakfast at the diner - to warm up.   Is there such a thing as a bad day to be flying towards the Canadian border?  This must be it.

New Equipment: Self-Propelled Mower

Harvest Equipment

Dan is checking out the used mower we just negotiated for bought.  The deck is two feet wider than our old pull-behind, and the radio has no knobs (important for long hours trapped operating inside).

We heard a rumor that the dealership will be sold, but no other gossip is available at this time.

Flatiron Steak, Indoors

Flatiron

Giving the fried food a break to regroup.  However, it's been too windy to keep the gas grill lit, and I had to panfry this beautiful piece of steak from our farm, indoors.

I coated it in a commercial rub made for beef; it was mostly black pepper and garlic, I needed to add salt.

Seared both sides, then into a 300f oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking.

Flatiron Steak

Served with a tomato sauce and romaine to wrap.  The beef was soo very soft, just like tenderloin, and perfectly seasoned.

Wheatless: Fried Shrimp :)))

Fried Shrimp

This was a winner, served with avocado salsa and a sweet/sour sauce in lettuce wraps.  Not local, of course, but I've never had a bad fried shrimp, so it was to be the touchstone for my deep fried delving.

Adapted from Emeril Lagasse:  1 1/3 cups GF flour, 2 TB sugar, 1/2 tsp Salt, 1 TB Mural of Flavor*, 1  cup Seltzer plus more (if necessary) to make a batter.  Whisk together and refrigerate 2 hours.

 Defrost 2 lbs. of Jumbo Shrimp, and butterfly (cut down the center so they lie flat).

*The recipe called for Emeril's Essence - fresh out of that - so I used Mural.  It contains onion, shallots, chives, garlic, lemon peel, black pepper, and orange peel.

Heat deep fryer to 375f.  Coat 2 pounds of shrimp with batter, allowing the excess to drip off.

Always do a test piece first, then adjust seasoning for the remainder.  I added 6 shakes of Tabasco to the batter, because it seemed bland to me.

The result was light, crispy, and did not overpower the shrimp.   I may work on a variation with tapioca starch to give it more stick-to-it-ness, since shrimp change shape as they cook.

I even tossed in a few Kosher hotdog pieces to see how they fared.  Dan loved them, but they need a thick batter.  And we probably shouldn't eat more than 2 hotdogs at a sitting, anyway.

These were served in lettuce wraps.  The sweet/sour sauce is made from equal parts of: Sambal Olek, rice vinegar, wheat-free oyster sauce, and agave syrup as necessary to balance the tartness.

Dan liked the salsa by itself with the lettuce - and that's saying something, since he eschews avocado. I really liked the all-purpose sauce that brings Asian zing to everything.

Wine by The Cup!

Dan returned the bottles and cans for deposit, and brought back these two plastic cups of wine that were the oddest thing we've seen since wine in a fish-shaped bottle - and that wine in the cat-shaped bottle - and that wine with Santa on the label, which was all kinds of wrong.

It's the perfect size to stow in a lunch box or handbag.

I'm assuming that if you've gone to all the trouble to pack a picnic basket full of goodies, you will be quaffing a decent bottle of red or white in proper glasses - or using long bendy straws, in a pinch- and not opting for these sulfite-full, forgettable, wine clones.  (Don't contact me if this is your product and you want to tear me a new one - seriously.)

Anyhoo, let's put this into perspective: wine packaged like yogurt, with a snap-on lid in case you have to shove it in your backpack because the cops pull you over, or hide it in your desk drawer as your boss walks by?  Genius!  Wish I'd thought of it first.

And Copa, don't think you'll be taping a piercing straw to the cup's side or including a mail-in coupon for a sippy-cup nipple; I'm already on the phone to patent those ideas AND marketing shelf-stable alchohol in recyclable single-serving juice-boxes.

Cat Feet

Cat Tracks

The ice in the driveway is covered in wet snow today, and pawprints are showing up all around the house and porch where the semi-feral barn cats hunt.

Apparently, we don't have any six-toed cats on patrol.

Wheatless: Another Deep Fried Fail

Deep Fried Mozzarella Sticks

This was a partial success.  The cheese stayed in the coating and was gooey and flowing, but the coating (tortilla crumbs) did not have enough seasoning.  Very Blah.  Needed sugar, salt and pepper.

These are a candidate for the corn dog batter test, but I have to go back to the store for more string cheese, and pepper.  No recipe fit to share, yet.

Wheatless: Deep Fried Fail

Deep Fried Cod

Yes, I bought a deep fryer.  We haven't had one in the house for twenty years, and we made a special trip to the Hannaford to get things to coat in batter.  It was Dan's idea, I swear.

First up: cod, with a GF batter recipe found on the internet.  Bitter result.  Very bitter.  Not giving the recipe out, but you can find one that works deliciously here.

I'm searching for a GF thick, sweeter go-to batter for corn dogs (for example), and a thinner crispy savory one that works every time.   It's a sacrifice to devote so much time and energy to the task, but I'm willing to make it.

At least, until I start gaining weight from all the taste-testing.

Life on the Farm 013012: Finished Business

My husband Dan has obsessed for months that the unfinished rooms on the second floor of our home were “messing with his Karma.” 

There are more pressing home-improvements that he could take on, like replacing the corroded fixtures in the master bathroom, and hiring someone to re-shingle the roof.

There are projects forever pending, like putting up the last piece of cedar to frame the bathtub, and trimming the door to the cheeseplant.  Those loose ends don’t faze him at all.

And, I don’t complain about them much, because the plant door opens and closes fine since being changed last summer, and the tub has never fallen through the floor while in use (by me).

I can accept functionality vs. cosmetic faults that force my left eye to twitch uncontrollably only once or twice a year. 

The two “spare rooms” have been a personal gym, place to hang Lady Gaga posters, a sewing room, the temporary resting place of boxes marked “lawn sale”, and home for a nearly sentient pile of shame/hoard of old holiday decorations and tatty wool socks in need of a mend.

Fine.

I cleaned out those rooms over the summer - which makes now as good a time as any for change, because I’ll probably start junking them up again soon, if the past is any indicator.

With a firm resolve to complete the task before February (2012), Dan went to Swanton Lumber and bought pre-finished flooring – the kind that snaps together.  To his credit, he installed it that same week. 

The spanking new floor immediately highlighted that the walls needed painting - which in a perfect world, would have been done before there was something expensive to drip on. 

(This snowball effect of additional work is typical of our DIY projects.)

My husband doesn’t choose paint colors, not since the Hello Kitty Pink incident.  The foyer looked like a baby’s bedroom for 24 hours before it was re-painted.

I accompanied him to O. C. McCuin’s store, envisioning “yellow or blue”.

Both were rejected straight away.

He gave his parameters: brown, latte (another “brown”), coffee (brown, again) or green.

I can work with green (after all, it’s what you get when you mix yellow and blue). 

We agreed on “Farm Fresh Alfalfa”, then, I found the perfect color: “Slightly Camouflage Khaki”!  It fit his “man cave” theme without reminding me of old pantyhose, or the color of the vinyl siding on his parent’s house.

Dan said, “We need to choose a new overhead fixture, too, because this one doesn’t give off much light.”

I said, “Wipe the dust off – we’re not buying something new just so you don’t have to clean.”

Later that day, I realized that we had purchased a can of the same shade green as the eggs that our Aruacana chickens produce. 

Araucana Eggs

I suppose we simply recognized the familiar, but if it turns out that I don’t like it on the wall - it’s in Dan’s weight room – I won’t see it often.