Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

by Carrie Koepke

I have a particular weakness for soups.  In general cooking soup makes me happy because it is one of the most forgiving dishes as far as a recipe goes.  You can go with what you have and alter liberally.  Sadly, the summer heat fights off my craving for a sauté and simmer ritual.  I tend to freeze single servings of each batch of winter soup to hold me off.  Come corn season, however, I have to pull out the soup pot.  When it is cold I sweat onions and garlic for at least an hour before even deciding what kind of evolution will simmer through the afternoon.  In the heat I forgo the fancy good smelling embrace.  I tried chilled fruit soups, but decided they were just weak smoothies.  So instead I trust this simple base and embellish with sharp cheddar if there is rain, add slices of venison on top for my meat eating husband, cucumber seeds for my son, and a few kernels of frozen corn for my daughter and myself.  If you have some extra time when you cut your kernels off the farmer’s market corn, soak the cobs in the milk and broth to ease out the last of the deliciousness before you start the blending and cooking.  If you know you will be in a rush just cook extra corn the night before and have the bowl of kernels waiting for you when you get home.  From that point on it is only ten to fifteen minutes from blend to table depending on how smooth you want the soup.

 5 cups of corn

2 cups of milk (or soy milk)

2 cups of chicken broth (or vegetable broth or even water)

1 Tablespoon hot salsa (or 5 sun dried tomatoes)

Pepper to taste

Salt to taste

Put all ingredients in a blender and puree or use a stick blender in the pot.  Heat on medium until slight simmer starts.  Serve with a few local spinach leaves and some fresh sour cream.

Rules: Made to Be Broken

 The best thing about pesto is that there are no rules. As an expert rule breaker, I enjoy any recipe that essentially tells me to do whatever I want.  I’ve listed the traditional pesto recipe below; however, I’ve been known to throw any number of fresh herbs, toasted nuts into a blender with olive oil and garlic and produced phenomenal results. If you really want to be daring, use artichoke hearts or kalamata olives or lemon. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

 Second best thing about pesto: you can do anything with it.  Our dinner consisted of linguine mixed with farmer’s market tomatoes and zucchini topped with chicken breasts stuffed with pesto and goat cheese.  I have, however, been known to put pesto on sandwiches, mix with assorted vinegars for salad dressing and tossed with roasted fingerling potatoes.  The message is: simple pesto +anything=good 

2+ cups of basil leaves

½ cup olive oil

½ cup toasted pine nuts

2-3 cloves of garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

 NOTE:  You may notice the glaring omission of parmesan or romano from this recipe. Because I tend to put cheese in, on and around everything, I omit it from my pesto.  It is a bit lighter and less full, but also a bit healthier, which is nice when everything else is coated in some form of cheese.  Also, adjust the nut and garlic at will, I tend to like a lot of both. 

 Sarah Ratermann Beahan is a Rural Sociology graduate student, a freelance writer, a foodie, a runner and a wino, not necessarily in that order.

You can find her at http://www.onerealthing.wordpress.com/

MY OH MY! BLUEBERRY PIE!

4 Cups Whole Fresh (ONLY FRESH) BLueberries (About 2 pints)

3/4 Cups sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup water

2 Tbsp. corn starch

1 tsp. butter (DONT SUBSTITUTE)

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

9″ baked pastry shell

1 egg white, whipped up a bit with 1/8 cup sugar and 2 Tbsp. water.(Eggwash)

To start with…The pie shell. Use a Pillsbury “unfolded” type shell, you only need
half the package. Let it sit till it’s at room temp. Then, fit it to your pie pan, and
pinch the curst around the edges of the pie pan. Then, take your fork and prick it all
over, sides and bottom. Go ahead and bake it for the 10 or 12 minutes till it starts
to get a little brown. Take it out of the oven and now brush it all with a pastry
brush with the eggwhite/sugar mixture, and put it back in the oven to set, and then
do it again. This makes the crust VERY crisp/tender and the sugar/egg wash makes
the crust golden, glossy and sweet.

Let the crust rest, and get cool. It doesn’t take long, so you go on ahead and fix the
filling at this point.

Now. This blueberry filling is SO simple! But, you will agree that it’s
one of the most delicious idea’s you’ve tasted in a long time. Trust me on this one
friends…this one is a “Keeper” for sure.  Combine sugar, salt, water, and cornstarch in a
medium sized sauce pan, mix it up well, then stir in 1/2 of the blueberries and cook over
medium heat until bubbling and the berries start to pop. Stir to prevent the stuff from
stickin to the bottom of the pan. Remove it from the stove and stir in the butter and lemon
juice. Then let it all sit and cool a bit. Now, take the other 1/2 of the FRESH blueberries and
scatter’em in the fresh baked pie shell, smooth ‘em out nice and even. Then, take the
cooked blueberry stuff and pour it over the fresh berries in the pie shell. Smooth it
all over and then set it in the fridge for at least two hours, but it’s better to leave it
for four hours.

Ohhhhhhh. Now. Slice a piece of this. The crust holds together like nothing you
ever sliced, and the bluberries and such stay right in place. You gotta put a scoop
of ‘nilla ice cream on this dish. Watch out! The flavor of this will send you to the
moon. Promise ya’ll on this one! Blueberry season has just started, so I do hope
ya’ll print this out and TRY it. I give you my word on this. You won’t be sorry on
this one friends!
by Peter Meng

I spend more time thinking about food than I do about anything ANYTHING in the world. I think about every single meal hours ahead of time, I plot what I’m going to eat, where I’m going to find it, how I’m going to prepare it…and when it comes to those items that are only in season for short periods of time (asparagus, strawberries, peaches), I become obsessive.  I’ll plan my whole weekend around making sure I’m at the Farmers Market first thing on Saturday morning. 

Strawberry season is one of those seasons.  Dreaming of those little teensy, tiny rubies, simultaneously sweet and tart, delicate and seductive is what gets me through the bleak February days.  Plotting the new recipes I’m going to try when those seductive little morsels are in season is what makes another plate full of root vegetables bearable in mid-March. And when the first strawberries show up at the market, what is usually a nice, leisurely meander through the booths, chatting with neighbors and friends becomes a competitive sport. It. Is. ON.  Look out, I’m on a mission. 

Strawberries are one of the few things I remember about my Grandma Ratermann, who passed away when I was in elementary school.  I remember a few things about her, she had a great laugh, she wore housecoats in the morning and she always had strawberries.  Even in the dead of winter, I’d come to visit and wake up early in the morning, perch on my stool and wait while she dug Tupperware containers of frozen berries out of the deep freeze in the basement. It was the thing I looked most forward to about those visits (aside perhaps, from being dangled upside down from my ankles by my uncles). 

I spend ridiculous amounts of money on those little babies.  I buy bushels of them, I’m sure. Just after I’ve purchased two quarts from one vendor, I turn around and am enticed by the shiny pert berries at another booth, and what do you know, I’ve got a third quart in my hand. I always intend to freeze them, like Grandma did, so that in February when I’m dying for fresh fruit that tastes like something other than cardboard, I can dig them out.  

They never make it that far.

I put them over ice cream.

I make shortcake.

I eat them for breakfast with homemade scones.

I sprinkle them in arugula salads with goat cheese and onions.

Most recently, though, I found the most incredible use from strawberries. I made a pie. A to-die-for Balsamic Glazed Strawberry Cream Cheese concoction. While not particularly difficult to make, it was time consuming. Flakey pie crust, thanks to my husband the baker, whipped cream cheese and orange zest, hulled and sweetened strawberries, balsamic reduction…all told, it was at least an hour and a half process.  But on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, listening to This American Life on podcast with the sun streaming in the kitchen window, it was a good way to spend an hour and a half.

It was gorgeous.  The crust was perfectly golden brown, the strawberries gleaming beneath the deep burgundy of balsamic glaze.  I’d show you a photo of the pie, but I never got the chance. It sat on the counter, waiting for Sunday dinner. Somewhere in the early hours of Sunday morning, my normally well behaved and strictly dog-food fed Great Dane/Labrador Retriever mix got bored. And as he wandered through the kitchen as we blissfully slumbered, he got a whiff…a whiff of strawberry goodness. And Emmett, my dog with the newly discovered palate for people food, pulled that masterpiece of a pastry off the counter.  He.  Ate. Every. Last. Bite.  Despite the 48 hour bellyache that ensued, Emmett still gives it two thumbs up.

Emmett the strawberry pie eating wonder dog!

 Emmett’s Balsamic Glazed Strawberry Cream Cheese Delight

INGREDIENTS

1 Pie Dough (I’d include the recipe for this, but I’ll be honest. I don’t do pie dough, my husband does, and he’s not sharing his recipe)

2 qts of strawberries, quartered

½ cup granulated sugar

1 TBS orange zest

1 tsp lemon juice

12 oz cream cheese

½ tsp vanilla

1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 TBS balsamic vinegar (you can substitute 1 tsp of lemon juice if you don’t have balsamic, but it is nowhere near as lovely)

INSTRUCTIONS

Roll out pie dough and line a 10 inch pie plate with dough.  Prick the bottom of the pie with a fork. Freeze for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Line the pie dough shell with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Fill at least 2/3 with pie weights (you can use dried beans or rice for this purpose and reuse them later). Bake initially for 15 minutes, then remove from oven. Let cool, remove aluminum foil. Return to oven for 20 more minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool completely.

Gently combine strawberries with half of the orange zest and the granulated sugar in a large bowl so that all the strawberries are completely coated with sugar.  Let them macerate for 30 minutes. If you don’t know what macerate means, I looked it up.  It means let them get soft and juicy. This is a good thing.

Meanwhile, mix together the cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar and remaining orange zest and vanilla. I’ll be honest. I love orange zest, so I threw in a little extra and a little extra vanilla. Mix it until it’s, well, mixed. Refrigerate.

After the strawberries are sufficiently macerated—which means there’s a whole lot of juice in the bowl—place them in a sieve and drawn the liquid.  Place the strawberry liquid in a small saucepan. Add the balsamic vinegar to the saucepan and bring to a boil on medium high heat.  Boil until the liquid has reduced to the consistence of syrup, remove from heat.  Just a note—this is perhaps the most complicated part of the recipe. If you boil too much, it’ll burn. If you don’t boil enough, it’s too thin. If you let cool too long, it’s difficult to pour.  Watch it carefully, and when the mixture coats a spoon, you’ll know it’s good and ready.

Pour the cream cheese mixture into pie shell.  Place strawberries on top of cream cheese.  Pour (or spoon) balsamic glaze over the top.

Place out of reach of large dogs!
Enjoy.
Sarah Ratermann Beahan is a Rural Sociology graduate student, a freelance writer, a foodie, a runner and a wino, not necessarily in that order.
http://www.onerealthing.wordpress.com/

Last year I planted three heirloom tomato plants using four foot stakes that barely served my plants growth.  This was my first experience growing tomatoes after 16 years in Alaska.  From just those three plants I was rolling in red fruit!  Well, this year I have tall cages and 11 planted from seeds that I saved last year. I do not have freezer space so what will I do?  I will preserve them!  Yes!  I can! Or can I? 

Canning started in the late 18th century in France when Napoleon offered a cash prize to the first person who could preserve food for his army.  Nicholas Appert thought of bottling food like wine. He learned over years that if you heat food to a certain point in bottles it would not spoil.  That is all well and good for Napoleon and Mr. Appert, but I have no idea how to can!  I mean our parents and grandparents, aunts and so forth canned like crazy.  If they could do it, so can I!  I want to taste my tomatoes in December 

Vera Massey, a wonderful person with MU/Boone County Extension, will be teaching three food preservation classes this month.  Spread over three Wednesdays with morning and evening sessions, this is a must do for all of you green thumb foodies and farmers market shoppers!  Space is limited so visit the link below or email/phone Vera with questions.  I have my seat!  I asked Vera a few questions for all of you and here is what she had to say:

 SA:  Why do you think so few people can food today?
VM:  For many people canning is something they’ve heard about but don’t have a clue how to do it.  Since canning is a science, it’s critical to use research-based procedures to ensure the foods are canned properly and will be safe to eat.  If foods are not canned properly they can be dangerous.  They can harbor Clostridium Botulinum, which causes botulism, a type of food poisoning that can be deadly.  The good news is that home canning can be done safely when you learn the proper skills and techniques…something you’ll learn at the upcoming workshops, I’ll be offering.  Home canning is actually making a comeback as more and more people are reconnecting with their food through home gardening and locally produced foods.

 SA: What are some of the benefits of home canning?
VM:  Canning food in your own home (using the most current research-based information) can be a safe and rewarding process. Many people can foods because they like the way the foods taste and they have control over what is in the jar…for example no preservatives or pesticides. Personal satisfaction also rates high as a motivator for home canning.   Other reasons people home can are for economic reasons, gift giving and it’s a family tradition. Preserving food with home canning, as well as other preservation methods like freezing and drying, are also great ways to increase your consumption of local food. Eating locally is about eating foods when they are in season, and canning/freezing/drying allows you to capture the bounty of any particular crop in season and extend its availability throughout the year. For example, I love to fill up on fresh blueberries when in season, but I also love them in a jar of blueberry spice jam that I can enjoy in the winter and also give as gifts to friends.

SA: Are pressure cookers scary?
VM:  I’ve been around pressure canners since I was a young child…. a long time.  I don’t find them to be scary but I know many people do.  It seems there are always the stories circulating that someone knew someone who had one blow up.   Scary stuff… but the likelihood of a pressure canner blowing up is very unlikely as long as you follow directions.  The great thing about attending a workshop to learn about canning is you get to see firsthand how a pressure canner works and observe all of the steps of canning—from preparing the produce to taking the jars out of the canner after the processing time is complete.  The bottom line is if you plan to can low-acid foods like vegetables, meats or soup mixtures you will need a pressure canner.

SA:  How much of an investment in dollars does it take to get started?
VM:  There are definitely investments or startup costs when it comes to home food preservation…. the food, necessary equipment and your time.  The investment for equipment will vary depending on the preservation method. The items needed for boiling water bath canning (jams/jellies, pickles, salsas, fruits) are not particularly expensive.  The water bath canner would be less than $30.  If you do a lot of canning projects, then the costs of the jars can add up, but you get to reuse the jars year after year as long as they don’t get chipped or cracked. As your collection of jars grows, your costs of home canning go down in subsequent years. When you reuse jars, you must buy new lids, but they only run about $2 a dozen.  If you plan to can non-pickled vegetables, meats or soups then you will need to invest in a pressure canner that can cost around $90. You might be able to reduce the expense if you have one or two families that want to buy one with you. Then everyone could share it. Be careful buying a used one because the seals and the gauge might not be functioning properly and replacement parts may no longer be available.

SA:  I will be taking two of your classes, the water bath and pressure canning courses, what will I be able to do after those classes?
VM:  After attending the classes, I think you will feel more confident in your ability to safely preserve foods.  During the workshops you will be able to see each of the steps involved in the different aspects of food preservation and ask questions if anything is unclear.  You will also have guide sheets with all the details and recipes for preserving foods that you can refer back to as you are preserving your foods. The canning process can be a little intimidating at first, but after a couple of canning projects, you will feel much more comfortable doing it. There are safety considerations with home canning, but these are all easily satisfied by following the directions you will receive in the workshops.  With a little studying and practice, I’m confident you’ll become a satisfied home canner who is putting up wonderful, tasty, locally grown food.

Food Preservation Classes:
Wednesdays June 16  – Freezing and Drying  – 9:30 am – Noon or 6 to 8:30pm
Wednesdays June 23  - Water Bath Canning  – 9:30 am – Noon or 6 to 8:30pm
Wednesdays June 30 - Pressure Canning  – 9:30 am – Noon or 6 to 8:30pm

Visit MU Extension Website for more information and to register ASAP:  http://extension.missouri.edu/boone/
Or email or call Vera at: 
masseyv@missouri.edu
573-445-9792