A winter salad, think cranberry and orange!

Sometimes the inspiration for a salad lies in the ingredients for the dressing. In this case is it flavored olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Midtown Olive Press. I love this store because you can sample the olive oils and vinegars. I also like the fact that you can refill your empty, clean Midtown bottles in effect recycling them.

I was out of my favorite white balsamic vinegar (Honey Ginger) and went to the Midtown Olive Press location in Greensboro at Friendly Center. I tried the Cranberry Pear White Balsamic Vinegar and WOW, what a wonderful flavor. It pairs well with the Blood Orange Olive Oil which I also used when making the focaccia a few weeks ago.

The beautiful thing about this olive oil and vinegar is that you don't even have to 'make' a vinaigrette. Just sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the salad, Splash the oil and vinegar on the salad and you are done! No need for mustard or anything else.

Now what do I put in this salad? Beautiful mixed greens from the Greensboro Farmer's market, carrots, dried cranberries, sections from a clementine (they don't have seeds), and chopped walnuts.

Put the olive oil and vinegar in a bowl.

Add the slices of carrots and let them enjoy the flavors for a few minutes.

Peel the clementines, I used 4 for a salad for 3 people, add the chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, carrots and dressing to the greens in a large bowl and toss. I like to put this together immediately before taking it to the table so that the greens don't wilt.

The sweetness of the oranges, tart flavor of the cranberries and crunch of the walnuts and carrots made a delicious combination. The Blood Orange Olive Oil / Cranberry Pear White Balsamic Vinegar combination was a perfect pairing for this salad. 

Not even one morsel was left!

Yummy!

Vegetable soup--no tomatoes this time!

Let's see, in the fridge I have 1/2 of a fennel bulb, leeks, carrots & broccoli.

There is also some of the 4 hour roux and turkey stock left over from Thanksgiving. Add some red new potatoes, garlic and onions and it looks like we have the makings of a soup!

First, dice the onions, fennel, leeks, carrots and garlic. 

Saute these vegetables in 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. 

Once they are tender, add the minced garlic. 

Season with 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. I also added 1 teaspoon of Southern Spain Pinchito Spice and a pinch of Crushed Aleppo Chiles from Savory. Savory Spice Shop is at Friendly Center and is a fun place to explore new ways to season food. You can taste the spices and buy small amounts of their spice mixtures to try.

Cook the vegetable mixture about 2 minutes after adding the garlic. Then add the diced new potatoes.

I just happened to have the red ones, didn't peel them, just cut them up in 1/2 inch cubes. Cook the potatoes for about 5 minutes stirring occasionally and lower the heat to keep everything from burning.

I chopped the broccoli and cooked it in the microwave covered with saran wrap for 7 minutes.

Then add to the vegetable mixture. Cooking the broccoli in the microwave ensures that it will be tender.

Then I mixed about 2 tablespoons of Jon's 4 hour roux (equal amounts of butter and flour cooked over low heat for about 4 hours, stirring periodically) with about 3 tablespoons of the left over turkey stock and heated it in the microwave to get a smooth consistency. Add this to the vegetable mixture. The roux has already been cooked sufficiently to remove any flour taste so once it in incorporated add about 2 cups of the turkey stock. This stock was not a liquid in the fridge, it had been cooked down to the point where it changed into a gelatin when refrigerated. It quickly liquified in the hot pan when mixed with the vegetables. Cover the pan and let the soup simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add more liquid as needed.

Take about 3 cups of the vegetables and some liquid and put in the blender or food processor (the blender gives you a very smooth mixture) and process until completely smooth. Then add this back to the pan. Add about 1/2 cup of cream and 1 cup of shredded white cheddar cheese and warm through allowing the cheese to melt.

Making soup isn't hard. Onions, carrots, sometimes celery and garlic are a good beginning for most soups. Season the soup with salt and pepper and experiment with some of the other flavors in the spice rack. Add the seasonings before you add the roux and stock. (If you use a commercial stock instead of home made, you will probably need to add less salt when seasoning the vegetables at the beginning.) Let the spices cook and release their flavors. Then add stock, tomatoes or whatever else you want to try.

And to think that I was originally planning 

just a leek and potato soup! 

It was good enough to freeze the left overs!

Two tips to add great flavor!

Food preparation for Thanksgiving is always an adventure and this year two things really vaulted the flavor of the gravy to a new level.

First we found a half gallon of turkey stock in the freezer that was made from last Thanksgiving's turkey carcass. After we finished the feast last year, I took the carcass and put it into a big pot and filled it almost to the top with water. This picture is of the 2013 turkey carcass cooking down to make next years's stock.

I heated the contents to a boil and then lowered it to a simmer and let it go all day. The result was a 64 ounces of turkey stock that I strained and froze. Jonathan put this turkey stock into a large pot and simmered it all afternoon, skimming the impurities that accumulate on the surface every hour or so. The result was about a pint of pure turkey flavor, which congealed into a gelatin over night. This concentrate evoked all of the flavor of the smoked turkey from 2012. We used this to make the gravy which allowed us to make the gravy even before the turkeys from 2013 were ready to take off of the grill where they were cooking all day outside.

The second flavor enhancement was the roux which was also made the day before Thanksgiving. Jonathan combined equal parts of flour and unsalted butter in a heavy bottomed pan and gently cooked this over low heat for 4 hours, periodically stirring it and checking the color that was developing.

Usually a roux is cooked just long enough to remove the flour taste, or longer to create a darker roux for some creole dishes. The aroma of this four hour roux reminded me of caramel. It was also added to the gravy this year.

Finally when beginning this year's gravy, Jonathan sauteed in butter the turkey liver, heart and gizzard which had been minced very finely. He also added minced shiitake mushrooms that were left over from his mushroom soup. Once these ingredients were cooked, the reduced stock, now a gelatin, could be added. The gelatin was warmed and a small amount was added to some of the roux to change it to a sauce like consistency and the roux was added to the giblet/mushroom mixture. Cream was added and this year's gravy was done. Normally when making a gravy one begins with the roux. Since the roux was already made, sauteing the giblets and mushrooms was the beginning.

Two turkeys were stuffed with an apple sausage suffing (also contains mushrooms, celery, onions, bacon, sourdough bread, cornbread, thyme and sage) and placed on the grill for 5 hours.

When they are done, they are a deep brown. 

Collards seasoned with salt pork, beer, cider vinegar cook inside. It is a challenge to put the lid on top of the pot with all of the collards inside. Even had to tip the beer to get it poured into the pot. As soon as the bottle was empty, the top was put on the pot and the collards cooked for about 4 hours. Even people who never liked collards love these!

Turkey day is done now and the next task will be cooking down this year's carcass to make the savory beginning for next year's gravy!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Brining the bird - an artful combination of spices and herbs!

This morning Jonathan, my youngest, is in command of the kitchen creating a combination of roasted herbs and spices to use in brining the turkeys. Yes, that is right, plural, turkeys.

Rosemary and bay are picked from the garden, the rest is in the spice cabinet. First he dry toasted the spices separately in a skillet on top of the stove. In the picture below beginning from the top left corner going clockwise are: whole cloves, black and szechwan peppercorns, whole fennel seed and star anise, mustard seeds, fresh bay and rosemary (not toasted) and coriander. Then he ground them using a mortar and pestle. He ground dry sage leaves with the toasted seeds in the mortar and pestle to release the oils in the sage.

In a large stock pot bring 3 gallons of water to a boil and then turn the heat off and add one box (3 lbs.) of Kosher salt and 1 pound of sugar.

Add the spices and herbs, including the bay leaves and rosemary, stir and add 1/2 bag of ice to cool the brine and a bottle of dry white wine. Then add the brine to the turkeys who are waiting patiently in the cooler, top it off with ice and cover to brine from Tuesday morning till Wednesday night. Add ice as needed.

We have been brining turkeys for years and are convinced it makes a difference in the taste of the birds. The turkeys will be stuffed and cooked on the grill on Thursday. They will be roasted and smoked and will be golden brown and succulent beyond belief!

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Play with your food! Chicken Pot Pie!

Roast chicken was on the menu this week and of course there were leftovers. Aside from making chicken noodle soup with the leftover carcass, for stock, and the meat, my next favorite leftover from a chicken is to make a chicken pot pie.

Saute some onion, carrot and celery in a little olive oil and butter, till tender, seasoning with salt and pepper while these are cooking. If your stock isn't low sodium, go easy on the salt. Add some flour and cook about 3 minutes to get rid of the flour taste. Then add stock and make a thick sauce. Add some frozen peas that were defrosted quickly under tap water and the cooked chicken and you have the inside of the pie.

Playing with food consisted of decorating the crust. I purchased decorative leaf pastry cutters to make Rose Levy's Designer Apple Pie and decided to decorate the crust with leaves. I used the large leaves around the outside and the medium and small ones in the middle. This was so much fun. Just 'glue' the leaves on with an egg wash after brushing the whole top crust with egg wash.

After baking, the crust is golden and delicious, and the pie isn't bad either!

Who says a chicken pie can't be as pretty as an apple pie!

More experiments with bread, this time brioche!

Ever since I started reading Rose Levy Beranbaum's book The Pie and Pastry Bible, I have wanted to try making brioche bread. It doesn't require any unusual ingredients, just the usual, yeast, water, eggs, flour and salt. The result is a buttery, flaky, light roll that is usually served for breakfast.

None of the individual steps in the recipe are difficult or time consuming, but the process begins on one day and you finish it the next. There is quite a bit of time for the dough to rise in between the steps. The directions for recipes in The Pie and Pastry Bible are very well written and easy to follow.

Other authors have slightly different recipes for brioche. Some require more flour and egg yolks and less overall time for the entire process. This recipe is the only one I have tried so far. Once I found that I could make the dough I bought the fluted pans that give the brioche its characteristic shape. You can also make it in a loaf pan and slice it like a loaf of bread.

On the second day, the dough emerges from the fridge. It is ready to knead a little and shape it. You can divide it into 16 pieces, place it in well buttered pans, and let it rise for the last time.

This dough has just been shaped and put into a well buttered pan,

After rising it almost fills the pan.

Brushing each pastry with a mixture of egg yolk and cream gives them a golden brown color!

They were ready at noon and made a great mid-day snack with honey or jam!

Light, soft, pale yellow, flaky pastry--oh my goodness! By the end of the day, there was only one left!

Go to Rose's blog for recipes for brioche.

Sourdough bread and starter

We love sourdough bread and after seeing an article in the Greensboro News and Record I decided to try making sourdough bread again.

SourDough bread and starter

Michael Hastings, Food Editor for the Winston-Salem Journal, has a Recipe Swap. You can reach him at mhastings@wsjournal.com. One of his readers, Dolores L. Barauskas submitted this recipe.

The recipe in the link above makes two loaves. They are great right out of the oven (do let them cool a bit for better slicing) and also toasted.

The starter is easy to maintain in the fridge and the recipe is simple. It has to rise two separate times for two hours each, but the results are worth it.

When I put it in the oven I sprayed a little water on the sides and bottom of the oven to create steam. This help make a nice crust for the bread.

Best part---the house smells great as it finishes baking!

Yummy!

Curry Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken noodle soup may sound like fare for those with a fever, nourishing perhaps, but not exciting flavor. Forget that. This recipe begins with a whole fryer, although you could use a rotisserie chicken from the grocery. There are two reasons why I prefer to begin with an uncooked chicken: first the price and second and more important, the wonderful flavor you get from the pan drippings after roasting the chicken.

Wash and pat dry the chicken and season with salt and pepper.

Then stuff the inside of the chicken with one lemon cut in half. Squeeze the juice from each half into the cavity of the bird then put the lemon halves in too. Cut one head of garlic (that's one head, not one clove) and put both halves into the bird. Last cut a medium sized onion into quarters and insert. Hopefully you will have room for all of the onion. Then tie the legs together with kitchen twine. Drizzle olive oil over the bird and season the outside with salt and pepper.

Place the stuffed chicken uncovered into  a roasting pan that is just a little larger than the chicken in a 400 degree preheated oven. The pan should have sides to catch all of the drippings that will emerge from the chicken.

Roast for an hour to an hour and a half depending on the size of the chicken, or until a meat thermometer reads 180 degrees when inserted near the thigh.

When the chicken is done, remove it and place it on a plate to cool so that you can remove the meat.

Pour the drippings from the pan into a cup. When they have cooled in the fridge you can remove the layer of fat and discard it. What is left can be used.

Take the pan with its browned bits and place it back on a burner on medium heat. Add white wine or some chicken stock to deglaze the pan. While heating the wine/stock scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Once the pan has been scrapped clean you will have a brown liquid that can be reduced in volume by simmering for a few minutes. Then pour this into another small container and allow it to cool. Again remove the layer of fat that will rise and congeal at the top. This dark brown gelatin is packed with flavor and will be great for soups or gravy!

Remove the cooled chicken meat from the bones and set aside.

The cooked chicken will be added to the soup.

Now we make the chicken stock.
Discard the lemons and put the carcass and the remaining garlic and onions into a big stock pot with the following:

• another head of garlic cut in half
• 2 stalks of celery cut into quarters
• 3 carrots cut into quarters
• 10 whole black peppercorns
• a bunch of parsley tied with kitchen twine
• one onion cut into quarters, you don't even have to peel it

Now fill the stock pot with water to within 2 inches of the top and put it on the stove. Bring the contents to a boil and then turn down to simmer. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half, 4 - 6 hours.

After the liquid has reduced by half and cooled, strain the liquid through a colander and discard the vegetables, they have given up all of their flavor by this point.

Then strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer to get the finished stock.

Cool in the fridge and remove the fat that will rise to the top. This will yield about 3 quarts of stock.

Now you have delicious chicken and stock for the soup. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but the resulting flavor is well worth it. You could roast the chicken and make the stock one day and finish the soup the next day.

To make the soup prepare the following vegetables:

• 3 carrots medium dice
• 1 onion medium dice
• 2 stalks of celery medium dice

Saute the vegetables in 1 Tablespoon of butter and 1 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Season the vegetables with 1 teaspoon of salt (I use Kosher salt) and 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper. Since this is curry chicken noodle soup, add 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of curry powder ( I used Madras Curry Powder) to the vegetables as they are cooking.

When the vegetables are tender, add the chicken stock (6 cups) and some of that dark brown liquid (concentrated flavor, fat removed) that you saved from the reduced drippings when the chicken was roasted. Add the chicken that you have shredded into the size you like for the soup. I like shredding instead of chopping the large pieces of chicken. Let this simmer in a large pot for an hour. 

Add the noodles, I used Mrs. Miller's Old Fashioned Medium Egg Noodles, and stir into the soup. Adjust seasoning, adding salt if needed. Adding the noodles will take up some of the salt flavor. I serve it with slices of the curry wheat bread. See the post from September 24, 2013 for this recipe.

This will definitely warm you up on a cold evening!

Inspiration for this recipe comes from Ina Garten's recipes for roasted chicken. See her recipes on Foodnetwork.com

Focaccia - this time it isn't a big cracker!

The summer I tried making focaccia. It didn't get golden brown like the recipe said it would so I left it in the oven longer, too long in fact. It turned into a giant cracker, and not a brown one.

I asked Josh at Loaf Bakery what I should do to make the focaccia brown in the oven and he said I needed to create steam as the focaccia is beginning to cook. You can use a spray bottle and spray the preheated oven on the sides and bottom, but I just splashed a few tablespoons of water and that seemed to work fine. This time the focaccia browned in the 20 minute cooking time.

The recipe is from Sarabeth Levine's cookbook Sarabeth's Bakery. You can find the cookbook, seen in this picture, on her blog, Sarabeth. The green bottle of olive oil is from Midtown Olive Press. The recipe called for a fruity olive oil and I used their Blood Orange olive oil. The recipe calls for putting olive oil on the half sheet pan before adding the dough and again on top after the dough has puffed up and you create the dimples with your finger. It really gave the focaccia a great flavor.

Midtown Olive Press also has a delicious Honey Ginger White Balsamic vinegar that pairs well with the Blood Orange olive oil for a salad dressing. I just drizzle a little of each over the salad and season with a little salt and pepper. Salad dressing doesn't get any easier than that.  I love to go taste the different vinegars and olive oils at Midtown, located in Friendly Center in Greensboro, NC. I also like that they let you bring your washed bottle back and reuse it. 

While the focaccia was baking I made a trip out to the garden to see what was left that I could put into a salad. 

Good thing I took the basket! Earlier I had pulled up some tiny carrots, but now they are much bigger, short, but fat! There were also peppers, spring onions and grape tomatoes. I sliced the carrots and onions very thin, cut the tomatoes in half and diced the peppers. This combined with some purple leaf lettuce from the farmer's market made a great salad. Don't forget the dressing that was described above. 

So much good food and good recipes to try!

Two yummy recipes--a pork loin roast and sweet potato soup!

There are two recipes in this post, the first uses Lipton Onion Soup Mix (the dry package). I have always used it to season a beef roast, but this time it is for a pork loin roast. It is also a crock pot recipe, so it is very easy.

First I remove the netting that they put around the pork loin roast. I don't know what part of it they think will escape, but it works fine to remove it.

Season the roast with salt and pepper. I sliced 3 cloves of garlic very thin and inserted them into slits in the pork roast all around.
Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a hot cast iron skillet.
Sear the roast all around.
Once each side has been browned, remove the roast. Turn down the heat to medium.
Add the following and cook until the vegetables begin to get a little bit brown:

• one large carrot chopped
• one onion chopped
• two stalks of celery chopped

Season the vegetables while cooking in the skillet with salt and pepper.

When the vegetables have a little bit of color, add 1/2 cup of white wine to deglaze the pan. The wine will bubble up and you can scrape up all of the tasty bits on the bottom of the skillet. Use chicken stock if you don't want to use wine. Let the wine or stock reduce by half.

Place the pork loin roast into the crock pot.

Sprinkle the contents of the Lipton Onion Soup packet on top of the roast (only need one packet, there are two in the box).

Pour the vegetable mixture on top of the roast and add 2 cups of chicken stock.

Cover and cook on high until the meat is tender, about 4-5 hours.

Once the roast is tender, remove it to a plate and cover with foil.

Strain the liquid in the crock pot and discard the vegetables which have cooked and flavored the liquid.

Put 2 Tablespoons of butter into a clean skillet and when melted, add 2 Tablespoons of flour to make a roux. Cook the flour for 3 to 4 minutes to remove the flour taste.

Add the strained liquid from the crock pot and whisk to form gravy.

Serve the gravy with the roast-----yummy!

OK, second recipe, Roasted Garlic Sweet Potato Soup!

On the way home from the mountains this weekend, we stopped at a restaurant and I wanted to try the sweet potato soup that they had on the menu. Apparently everyone else did too, because they were out of it. When I got home I searched for a sweet potato soup recipe and found lots, this one is "roasted" sweet potato soup, and it is really good. I made a few changes, listed below.

Roasted Garlic and Sweet Potato Soup

I put the sweet potatoes on a large sheet pan so that they are in one layer and seasoned them with salt and pepper and drizzled a little olive oil and maple syrup over the cubes of potatoes. Mix with clean hands before putting this into the preheated oven. I also roasted the head of garlic as mentioned in the recipe above.

Instead of roasting the onions, I cut them into a large dice, seasoned them with salt and pepper, 1 teaspoon of dry thyme, a pinch of red pepper flakes and sauteed them in 1 Tablespoon of olive oil.

After the sweet potatoes and garlic roasted I added them and the onion mixture to a large dutch oven with the chicken stock. I let all of that simmer on top of the stove covered for 1 hour. Then I processed the soup in the food processor until smooth. Add chicken stock if the soup is too thick. 

The soup has a savory flavor due to the thyme, onions and garlic even though it is made with sweet potatoes. 

Sorry, no pictures this time, I'll do better!

Cutting azaleas, picking tomatoes & spinning yarn

Fall is the time to make cuttings of azaleas and root them. Several years ago I put a cutting of one of the pink azaleas in a clay pot, put it on the north side of the house and literally forgot about it. It took root and I transplanted it to the back yard beside the deck. It has grown so much over the years that now it gets pruned in the summer after the blooms are finished.

Don built the rooting box in that same spot on the north side (shady) and this year constructed  the potter's bench beside the rooting box. It is a great shady spot for working on projects for the garden.

To root the azaleas, I cut a section so that there are either leaf nodes or branches that will be below ground. Remove the leaves or cut the branching stems short, then apply powered Rootone to that part and put it in the soil conditioner that fills the rooting box. Then I watered gently and thoroughly and replaced the windows covering the rooting box. The box is now filled with pink and lilac azalea cuttings. Next year they will be added to the garden.

The garden also yielded the last crop of tomatoes. These were from one of the 'volunteer' plants that appeared in the compost dirt that was added to the new part of the garden. 

They were just perfect for a salad!

Six pots of violas are handing from the deck, lots of pretty blooms for winter!

Spent time spinning on the front porch, now that the bobbin is full, 

the double ply yarn will be wound onto a nitty noddy.

My nitty noddy measures 1 and 1/2 yards each time you wind the yarn around. I wound around this nitty noddy 204 times, so I have 306 yards in this skein of yarn. 

Now with the bobbin empty, I can begin to ply two single strands of yarn together again. Only a little more roving to go and I will have spun this entire fleece. Then I can decide what to make with it.

When you are spinning, everyone always asks, "What are you making?" 

The answer is always the same, yarn. 

Sometimes I don't know what the yarn will become,

 a sweater, blanket, shawl, 

but it will always start as yarn!

Wandering around in Savannah, Georgia

On the way down to Michelle and Scott's wedding in Orlando, we stopped in Savannah, Georgia. We stopped there on the way back too, and this time we had more time for seeing the sights.

You can barely read the sign, Lady and Sons, for Paula Dean's restaurant in Savannah. We wanted to eat there, but there was a long wait. I did manage to get inside just to see it.  Guess I will just have to enjoy her recipes!

One of the streets is always closed to traffic and pedestrians can enjoy strolling past the stores and restaurants. this was just outside one! 

Johnny Mercer wrote "Moon River" and this statue is dedicated to him.

We also found Moon River Brewery. This is a sweet potato ale, with pumpkin pie spice and crushed pumpkin seeds around the rim of the glass, delicious!

There were lots of spacious parks in Savannah, like this one.

A 50 foot tall marble obelisk marks the remains of Nathanael Greene in the center of the park.

Dinner that night was at Churchill's next door to the Moon River Brewery. Service was impeccable, the food delicious and you had the feeling that you were in a pub in London! Don was very British that night, ordering prime rib with Yorkshire Pudding!

Life is good and the food is delicious!