The holidays are messy

Bruce and I are non-traditionalists when it comes to holidays....we don’t really celebrate them unless of course you count putting a basket of chocolate on his desk in the morning...they don't have to resemble eggs, rabbits, snowmen, or even reindeer he will eat them!!! 

I myself like the visuals and smells of the holidays....the frosted windows of the small cabin with the light all a glow on a cold winter night....the smell of fresh cut fir trees leaning outside the super market, the beautiful light pink wrapping paper with satin bow dusted with what looks like fairy dust...the smell of oranges and cloves...I just love the first snow fall that blankets the ground making all the trees look like someone carefully frosted them. 

However reality is the holidays are messy and unpredictable....

Remember the pictures of the holidays depicted by Norman Rockwell....as a child I always wondered why my holidays didn't look like this...the happy family bundled up bearing gifts at a door, stocking hung by the chimney with care, the warm fire and beautifully decorated tree....you know the one. It seems my parents missed the memo....my family was the one where the tired parents looking frustrated with three kids completely out of control wanting to carry the over-sized gifts wrapped in what looks like old birthday wrapping because someone forgot to buy wrapping....the tree is crooked and the lights are all on one side of tree while all the decorations on the bottom...the stockings are nowhere in sight and ashes fill the fire place...

Christmas dinner with the older gentleman cutting the turkey at the table looking noble and the generations of family gathered around a long elegant table...engaging happily.  Just once it would have been nice to have experienced this version, unfortunately I don't think it exists. Having spent many dinners away from my family I never sat at this table.  Each family had it's quirks....However my family dinners were the most fun..if you can understand the quote "Let's put the dys back in function."  That was my families motto....or "pack your bags were going on a guilt trip"....we had many trips around our dinner table over the years. From my Grandpa falling into his soup...and my Grandma giving him the side eye while saying to everyone "He's okay" she just rolled his head out of the bowl so he didn't drowned....Nobody even flinched, nobody even grasped in concern...they just carried on like it was just another family dinner....I guess it was just another family dinner!!!  If you paid close attention you would see peas being flicked across the table at siblings , while other food was even discreetly handed to the dog....our table was loud with very inappropriate conversations taking center stage. No topic was off limits...

My holidays growing up as a child may not resemble a Rockwell painting, but it does make me laugh and makes for great stories.
Like I have said the holiday season is messy....



Grow, Harvest, Cook Eat
Jenn

Time is a beautiful gift

This time of year my anxiety kicks into over drive....the stores are busy stocking decorations and everything is oh so wonderful....Deck the Halls and Fa La la keep playing in my mind. I look with wonder and oh my gosh that would be so perfect....but is it? As sugar plums dance in my head....and the smell of for boughs linger all around me......I think of Who-ville & the Grinch and how he stole Christmas....but did he?

“And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: 'How could it be so?'
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes or bags!
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
'Maybe Christmas,' he thought, 'doesn't come from a store.' "

Sometimes I catch myself getting all caught up in the fa La La and need to remember that the holidays are not about gifts and ribbons and bows...but more about spending quality time with friends and family....and giving to those less fortunate then myself.

Time is the beautiful gift we are all given in life. ... The time and experience you spend with someone shows its meaning. The time that you set aside to commit to something can never be replaced. Time is the best thing you can share with someone. Time is the gift that we all have.

Grow, Harvest, Cook, Eat

Jenn

Quiet Mornings

My headphones on listening to music in the dead of night...4 am is my time to do research for cooking classes and peruse food blogs...and write. This morning I organized my t-shirt drawer....did the sock drawer the other morning.  I have been on this kick to get things cleaned up and orderly...I think because my recipe file is a disaster zone and I have no idea how to organize it. and in some respects it's just that I don't want to, it's my creative organized chaos food world. It's a delicious mess, filled with treasures that I stumble across when needed...I am guided by the universe...if I need it it will appear and if not...

I also sleep cook, it's my way of organizing...I cook the entire meal over and over in my dreams until it's perfect.  By this I mean I organize my kitchen with what I should do first prep wise and then I move on to what gets cooked first and what goes into the oven and so on...I have cooked a hundred or more meals in my sleep...and when I say I can cook this with my eyes closed, well I can..laughing. 

My creative process of designing menus would shock most people....an artist would understand it comes from deep inside. I have a visual board of foods in side my head for inspiration and I refresh it continuously by reading food blogs, visual Instagram food porn at 4 am and many many cookbooks.  I have a trunk of recipes...bits of scrap paper scribbled with menus, plating ideas, note books of shopping lists...my cooking classes from start to finish..the thought process of how I developed the class with all my research...

I was putting the final touches on my menu for tomorrow this morning...I was having issues with the sauce...for my Duck Confit.  I was going to go with a traditional orange sauce, but something was not right..I just didn't feel it....it made no sense to me. So I read the menu over a few times did some visual food research....and what came next was the like running your hand over velvet...Perfection!!!!
Winter Apple Sage Butter with Cider Pan Sauce.

Menu

The Start:

Mixed Green Salad 

Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette

" Mixed Platter"

Brie Cheese Round

Duck Wontons 

Dates & Goat Cheese

Onion Tart 

The Main:

Roasted Duck Confit
Winter Apple Sage Butter with Cider Pan Sauce
Parsnip, Potato, Squash Mash
Green Beans

The Dessert:

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

Fresh Raspberries 

Chantilly

Life is beautiful in my world and the menu makes sense..

Grow Harvest Cook Eat
Jenn

Just Jamm'in

There are many meanings to jammin-jamming....and some from the urban dictionary are eye opening....I could be accused of CLICK BAIT...laughing. My jamm'in is not in the dictionary YET!!!!  perhaps one day if jam making ever became more mainstream again they will feature a line in the urban dictionary....Jamm'in is make delicious fruit preserve in a group or by ones self.  "So are we jamming on thursday?"  Yes, could you bring the jars?

Jam has long history, the first recipe for jam appears in the first known cookbook: De Re Coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) which dates from the 1st century AD. In its simplest form, it was soft fruit heated with sugar (or honey, in this case) and cooled, then stored. Come the crusades, warriors brought back more complex concoctions from the Middle East. Jam’s popularity as a delicacy – rather than just a way to eat fruit – took off. Joan of Arc ate quince jam before going into battle as it filled her with courage. Nostradamus loved the stuff so much he wrote an entire treatise on it, including a love-potion version that, if passed from mouth to mouth, would strike a woman with ‘a burning of her heart to perform the love-act.’ 

Sailors and pirates stockpiled jam on board their ships as it became clear that Vitamin C prevented scurvy. Meanwhile, Louis XIV was so passionate about it that he insisted that every meal be finished with jams served in special ornate silver dishes. 

But large-scale jam production did not become possible until the discovery of pasteurisation. In 1785 Napolean Bonaparte offered a reward to anyone who could find a way to preserve large quantities of food for soldiers. The lucky winner was Nicholas Appert, who worked out that boiling at high temperatures and then sealing in airtight containers kept food safe. Louis Pasteur validated these empirical findings in the next century.

During WWII there was widespread anxiety about a shortage of food. The Women’s Institute came to the rescue. A government grant in 1940 gave them £1,400 to buy sugar for jam. As a result, 1,631 tons of preserves were made in more than 5,000 ‘preservation centres’ in farm kitchens, village halls or sheds. They were largely made by volunteers, under the guidance of the Ministry of Health. 5,300 tons of fruit were preserved between 1940 and 1945.

However Marmalade is not jam!!!!  

Some have gossipped....marmalade was invented when Mary Queen of Scots was suffering from sea-sickness (Marie est malade, in the fashionable French spoken in court at the time). Her doctor whipped up a concoction of orange peel and sugar which cured her ailment immediately. It’s more likely, however, that the word comes from ‘marmelo’ – the Portuguese for quince. Marmalade inspires its own cultish rituals. Old-fashioned Englishmen will only eat the stuff if it is homemade, dark and thick-cut. Kitchens constantly debate whether marmalade should be the consistency of wallpaper paste or paint. I am a sweet slightly bitter marmalade girl, I like it just between paint and wallpaper paste with visible chunks of peel. 

I love making jam, it's a hot sticky business with delicious results.  Last summer I made a scrumptious Apricot & Strawberry Fragoli Jam, it was what summer feels like in a jar.  The colour is that of a August sunset, the warm yellows melding into brilliant oranges and deep reds....when you crack open the jar the rush of strawberries comes at you like a freight train...you would think you were out picking strawberries in the summer sun.  The first spoonful you can taste the sweetness of the strawberries and the slight tang of the apricots...it rolls across your tongue with a tropical fruit finish.  It's a dangerous jam...if one is not careful you might find yourself standing in the fridge door at 3am eating spoonful after spoonful right out of the jar.  Not that I have ever done this.....

Apricot & Strawberry Fragoli Jam

2 lb strawberries, hulled and quartered (your best to use fresh picked strawberries)

2 lb apricots, pitted and cut in quarters

1/4 cup lemon juice

 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

7 c sugar

1/4 cup Fragoli Liqueur  

Combine the fruit, lemon juice, vanilla and sugar in a large pot. Let sit 30-60 minutes, allowing the sugar to draw some liquid out of the fruit. 

Place the pot over a medium-high flame. Bring to a boil, stirring often. When the jam comes to a rolling boil, turn heat down to medium, the cook, stirring occasionally, until it passes a jelly test. Add Fragoli and stir to finish.

Please follow the appropriate canning guidelines for your area if you would like to preserve this recipe.  



Grow Harvest Cook Eat

Jenn

Hello...My name is Jennifer, but most people call me Jenn....

Hello my name is Jennifer....I am a Holy Hannah-aholic. 

My addiction started many years ago....I believe the road to addiction started the day I arrived at cooking school. I was about to depart on a journey that would take me places I could never image.... creating beautiful food, travelling to distance dinner tables, working side by side my mentors.

Until....one day.....that day....that day my world was turned upside down and I am standing over a pan of DUCK CONFIT!!!!! With a hunk and I mean hunk of delicious day old bread and not just any bread, but a chunk of Holy Hannah and I am dragging it through the pan drippings of the most scrumptious duck confit!!!!!!  getting all those  lovely dark bites....my hands are shaking. As I bring it up to my mouth I can smell the mix of rosemary, garlic, onions and heavenly fat...biting off a piece, the fat dribbles down my chin...I don't care!!!! I do it again...and again and again.  I can't decide what is more glorious....the bread or the fat?  I am happy dancing all over the kitchen with a mouthful of the most delicious thing I have ever put in it!!!! 

I am a Holy Hannah Addict...I am in love, infatuated, swooning over a loaf of bread....not any bread by mind you....this heavenly delicious mind altering bread is full of delicious holes!!!  It's the dam holes...It takes two tablespoons of butter to butter a piece of toasted Holy Hannah, you see the butter melts through the holes.  A crunchy piece of heaven dripping butter with each bite.  Don't even get me started with a grilled cheese....or peanut butter toast!!!

Last night for dinner I toasted up two extra large slices of Holy Hannah topped them with pan fried duck eggs and a few pieces of extra thick bacon....I have a few more loaves....and my addiction will come to a screeching halt...

I'll be looking for a fix.

Grow, Harvest, Cook, Eat

Jenn

The path to Pizza Dough is littered with wine bottles...

The path to a good pizza dough is littered with red wine bottles....my kitchen was not littered with wine bottles today because I just so happened to have a half bottle of a delicious "Tridente Tempranillo, Castilla y Leon" in the fridge. I know what you are thinking "RED WINE IN DOUGH??????" are you insane!!!  Yes,  I am crazy.....I am a crazy foodie who has been looking for the ultimate thin crust pizza dough...and I found it.

The dominant flavors in a Tempranillo include cherry, dried fig, cedar, tobacco, and dill. Age impacts the flavors of Tempranillo significantly, with Roble and Crianza examples imparting juicy fruit flavors and heat. Reserva and Gran Reserva examples feature deeper, darker fruit notes, dry leaves.

While famed for pairing with red meat and ham, Tempranillo is a surprisingly versatile food wine that can match well with roasted vegetables, smoke, starches, hearty pastas.

Yeast or baking powder

I say YEAST pizza dough because baking powder produces an almost instantaneous reaction, then it fizzles and neutralises. Yeast, on the other hand, reproduces and makes air bubbles in the dough much more slowly. The bubbles are stronger and keep growing until cooked. 

The marriage between Tempranillo wine and classic dough will lead you into a food coma like bliss.

Red Wine Pizza Dough

1/4 cup Tempranillo red wine (if you will not drink it, you don't cook with it)

3/4 cup warm water (100-110 degrees)

1 1/2 ounces yeast

1 tbsp. pure honey

1 tsp.  Maldon salt

1 tbsp. EVOO

2 1/2 cups 00 flour & 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted together

 Combine the wine, water and yeast in a large bowl and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the honey, salt and olive oil and mix thoroughly. Add 1 cup of the flour and mix with a wooden spoon to make a loose batter. Add 2 more cups of the flour and stir with the spoon for 2 to 3 minutes to incorporate as much flour as possible.

    Bring the dough together by hand and turn out onto a floured board or marble surface. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes, until you have a smooth, firm dough. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a towel. Set aside to rise in the warmest part of the kitchen for 45 minutes.

  Cut the risen dough into 4 equal pieces and knead each portion into a round. Cover again and let rest for 15 minutes.

    To make the pizzas: Dust a clean work surface lightly with flour. Working with one piece of dough at a time, use your fingers and palms to flatten the dough into a 10- to 12-inch round, each about 1/8-inch thick.

Grow Harvest Cook Eat

Jenn

Do more of what makes you happy......and follow your dreams

It took awhile to find my way back to the important things in MY life...which is blogging, recipe writing, cooking, creating beauty where ever I go and of course when this six feet of snow clears off GARDENING!!!!
2016 was a year of self discovery and let me tell you I discovered I have patience, oh my, do I have patience.  I learnt I am a great teacher and do inspire people...I am a leader, not a follower....and I can be stubborn.  I have moments of self doubt and I have moments of pure genius.  You can cry because you are happy...and of course you can be blinded by sadness and not shed a tear.  When someone leaves this earth, they are never really gone. They become those quiet moments in the garden which makes you smile and laughing in the sunshine with all the beautiful memories you carry in your heart. I learnt to never give up...belief is half the battle.  Never get too busy so you can't stop and breathe, life is not a race.  Life is a journey...and it can be filled with amazing people which can enhance your life.  2016 my life was filled with the most amazing individuals who enriched my life, taught me you are never too young to follow your dreams.

Do more things that make you happy is my motto for 2017.....
And too start off one of the things that makes me happy is recipe development & writing...so I have been developing a sprouted grain drop scone and biscuit recipes which if it plays out like it does in my head....watch out!!!  I'll be in the genius realm of drop scone history and the south will redefined.
I have my grain mill on the way....and will be starting the sprouted grains and legumes.  Once they are sprouted, I'll dehydrate them in preparation for milling.
If you have ever dreamed of  Roasted Carrot & Caramelised Onion with Sprouted Lentil Flour Scone then you are in luck!!!
Next will be a Butter Chicken Mill High Biscuit Sandwich....I'll be making a sprouted pea flour for my mile high biscuits which will have roasted potatoes and samosa spices.  Split open to fill with Jenn's Butter Chicken and creamy burnt scallion raita.

Bruce and I had the most amazing interns from all over the world last year....and will be hosting more this year.  We have some wonderful young women coming to help us out with our gardens and I'll be teaching them the fine art of living in the middle of nowhere.

I have missed my quiet mornings writing and musing....it's good to be back


grow, harvest, cook, eat

and do more of what makes you happy....

Jenn