Monday Menu: Veal Chops with Caramelized Onions

Rather, this should be titled "Carmelized Onions" because the star of the dish is really a softball-sized sweet variety of white onion (not Vidalia or Walla Walla, maybe it was Sunbrero)? I only bought one, it was unlabeled, it sat in the onion bin for a couple of days, and then I just couldn't remember what variety it was. I should have taken a photo of the sign in the supermarket!

I marinated two 3/4-inch veal chops in 4 tsp. wheat-free soy sauce, 1 tsp. maple syrup, and 1 Tbs. EVOO under refrigeration for 3 hours. There is not enough maple syrup to make it sweet, only enough to help the skinny chops brown when they are cooked.

I sliced the onion and sauteed it on "medium" for about four minutes, then turned the heat down. I used EVOO and a pat of butter to help the caramelization. I don't usually make these because it takes longer than I like to spend standing around the stovetop.

After about ten minutes, the onions have softened, and I'm bored. I lightly salted them.

Five minutes more and they are starting to color; I turned the heat down further, and started flipping the onions over to help them along. I gave them a taste, and adjusted the salt once more.

To get to this stage took about twenty minutes. There are about 2 Tbs.

The chops took about 4 minutes a side, then rested ten minutes, covered, for a medium-rare result.

The onions tasted like Granny Smith apples and were a perfect complement to the savory "teriyaki" veal. It was served with purple sticky rice (one of my favorites) and steamed broccoli. It might be a while before I do caramelized onions indoors again - I hate cleaning spatters off the stovetop.

Surprise! It's a Pony

Imagine my reaction when someone visiting the farm said to me, "So how long have you had the pony?"

"What pony", I said.

This pony. We are boarding her for the winter; no one thought to tell me about it.

Weekend Cook: Chicken Soup with Bunnies

I saw a package of these pasta shapes in the supermarket and had to have them so I could make soup with them. There are bunnies, bears, bicycles, and busses.

I appropriated a stewing hen from the commercial freezer before they were all sold out. This is either a tough old rooster or a laying hen that we raised on the farm. It's a small bird (about 3 lbs.) with very little meat.

I added frozen bits that I'd saved over the summer when we brought too much back from farmer's market: onions, roasted garlic, shiitake stems, carrots and celery (leftover crudites from a party). There are also wing tips from a fresh chicken, 2 bay leaves, and the skin from a smoked chicken breast. The pot was brought to a boil.

I covered the pot and put it in a 300f oven for 8 hours. I wish there was scratch and sniff Internet because this smells fantastic. As you can see, the meat has come off the bones. The entire carcass has fallen apart. I salted the stock to taste (about 1/2 TB) and let it cool.

I brought four cups of the strained, defatted stock and the shredded meat that Dan hadn't eaten back to a simmer, and added thinly sliced carrots and a handful of the dry pasta. After ten minutes, I covered the pot and turned the heat off.


Rich, intense, chickeny soup; all it needed was a little pepper. It's all about eating the screaming rabbits for me!

Life on the farm 11/30/09: Lights Out

This past Saturday the power went out around 7 a.m. No problem, really. It wasn't that cold out and we have a gas stove to cook on, but the lack of Internet was inconvenient because I haven't finished my holiday shopping.

My husband Dan has asked Santa to bring him "On Demand," a service offered by DirecTV that is essentially "Netflix", instant access to thousands of shows and movies.

I needed to order a connection kit so the TV can talk to the wireless router. But, no electricity, no online purchases.

(I have since received the "talk box", but found out that our satellite service does not have the capability to download shows without exceeding the threshold limit. What that means is, it takes several hours to download a 1/2 hour show, and only one every 24 hours, crippling internet access for e-mail, surfing, and uploads. I tried to return the unwelcome unit the following day, but DirecTV refused to accept it back, stating "all sales are final"; I will be contacting the VT Attorney General's office about that.)

The power was still out when Dan came in from chores. There were groceries to buy, and O.C. McCuin's was having 30% off on all the regularly priced items you could fit in a bag. Why hang around the house in the dark?

Swanton was not a sans-power town according to Vermont Electric Co-op's message machine, so we went out to eat breakfast at the My-T-Fine, hoping the lights would be on when we returned.

("Squirrel fans" in the white boxes force air into these plastic baffles, creating the sides to the parlor. They raise and lower according to a thermostat, but in a power outage they deflate completely and let the weather in.)

Two hours later, the milking parlor air curtains were still down so we sat in the car in the driveway, motor running. It wasn't time to panic, but it was time to plan.

We have over 100 baby chicks under heat lamps, and the parlor hadn't gone through its wash cycle.

The cheeses would be okay, since it is excessive warmth and lack of air circulation that ruins them; it would be at least a day before they were a cause for concern.

We have one mobile generator and one tractor-run that is powerful enough to run the milking parlor, but the source of the livestock water is provided by the well at my house. Both are critical. Two needs, two generators.

You see, every farm building isn't on the same meter, and there are 3 barns, a cheeseplant, and three homes to take under consideration in a prolonged outage, not to mention the rental properties we are responsible for.

Though we never lost power during the 1988 ice storm, there was a mid-summer lightning strike on the Cassidy Road that put us out for six hours and made us think.

My recollection was that we were supposed to have purchased a second mobile generator. But we didn't. There are always more pressing places for money to go.

Each quarter-hour that ticked by transformed a minor problem into a shifting list of priorities. How long would the birds be okay? When do the lines need to be cleaned? And, when would our new outdoor furnace snuff out?

(The furnace is the black box on the right, no colored smoke ever blows out because it is so efficient.)

Without an auger delivering pellets or corn to burn, I have no heat or hot water at the house. I realized that it would be of no use in a bona fide emergency, and made a mental note to check the level of the propane tank.

The power came on around 9:30 a.m., while we were talking about what to hook up first.

I now know what I want for Christmas.

(The P-r-e-c-i-o-u-ssssss)

44-lb. Turkey, Collin's Family Style

My turkey cooking technique certainly isn't the way to go if you want to get the most gorgeous looking bird. It's my pleasure to pass this one along, from the Collins family.

(That's a 4-burner household stove oven)

Our friends baked their giant Boucher Farm turkey in the oven at 325f for 10-14 hours wrapped in foil and stuffed with clementines, oranges, lemon, garlic, onions and fresh herbs. The skin was loosened; salt, pepper and butter were slid underneath. The outside skin was also buttered.

The foil was removed for the last 2 1/2 hours. What a beautiful bird! I WILL be stealing the buttering tip for next year's turkey.

Semi-feral barncat

This is the cat that got trapped in our basement when we forgot to close the garage door. She hunts the chicken and turkey coops, the perimeter of the house and all the flower berms on my lawn. Ever try and get a nearly wild cat out of your basement? Let me tell you, it isn't all that easy, 'cause their instinct is to hide, and not expose themselves by running out into the open toward a door.

Scene in Highgate: Wild Turkey

On the way to Swanton last Saturday, Dan exclaimed "Look at the geese!". Well, I hadn't seen any geese, so he turned the car around and on the second (slower) pass it became clear that these were wild turkeys. About forty of them.