Simple Supper

I like to be able to prepare a simple good meal even when I have little time. People are impressed when you can do this, but you still need to have a plan. I did a simple meal the other evening with little prep and cooked the meal while having a glass of wine.

There is a section in bon appétit called fast, easy, and fresh. I have over the years been able to get some good recipes from this section. This month featured an apple salad with caraway. The main ingredient was to be kohlrabi (which I could not find) but I did substitute celeriac. My main dish was salmon which I bought wild-caught, and broccoli was my vegetable. It was a wonderful delicious meal and so healthy. Now I am all for healthy and fast!

Taken from ‘bon appétit’ October 2013.

Celeriac and Apple Salad with Caraway

4 servings

1 tsp. caraway seeds

3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

1 medium celery root, peeled, thinly sliced on a mandolin (I grated mine)

2 small heads lettuce such as frisée, about 6 cups torn into bite-size pieces

1 crisp red apple such as Pink Lady or Honeycrisp, thinly sliced

4 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives, divided

Toast caraway seeds in a small dry skillet over medium heat, tossing often, until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Let cool, then coarsely chop.

Whish caraway, oil, vinegar, and mustard in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper.

Add celeriac, lettuce, apple, and 2 Tbsp. chives to bowl with dressing and toss to coat: season with salt and pepper.

Top salad with remaining 2 Tbsp. chives just before serving.

 

Roast Salmon and Broccoli with Chili-Vinaigrette

4 servings

1 bunch broccoli cut into florets

4 Tbsp. olive oil, divided

Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

4 6-oz. skinless salmon fillets

1 jalapeño, thinly sliced into rings, seeds removed if desired

2 Tbsp. unseasoned rice vinegar

2 Tbsp. drained capers

Preheat oven to 400°. Toss broccoli and 2 Tbsp. oil in a large rimmed baking sheet; season with salt and pepper. Roast broccoli, tossing occasionally, until crisp-tender, 12-15 minutes.

Rub salmon with 1 Tbsp. oil; season with salt and pepper. Push broccoli to edges of baking sheet and place salmon in the center. Roast until salmon is opaque throughout and broccoli is tender, 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile combine jalapeño, vinegar, and a pinch of salt in small bowl and let sit until jalapeño is slightly softened, about 10 minutes. Mix in capers and remaining 1 Tbsp. oil; season with salt and pepper.

Serve salmon and broccoli drizzled with chili-caper vinaigrette.

 

 

Woodville Willdlife '13

We have just attended our 5^th Deer and Wildlife Festival in Woodville, Mississippi, and we get to eat something new every time. I was working the gate this year and missed eating the samples from the “wildlife cook-off.” The big draw at this festival was having one of the Duck Dynasty people come, for quite a sum I might add. I had never heard of Duck Dynasty when the planning committee first proposed someone from the show last spring.  Unfortunately there was an extra charge to ‘meet and greet’ John Godwin so I never even saw him.

Anyway, I had a buffalo burger from the booth of the local Vine’s Meat Store in Centerville and it was quite good. Benny from Vine’s, has to order 2,000 pounds of buffalo at a time to help defray the cost of shipping. He also had an elk burger and elk sausage. I went down to his store the next week and bought some elk sausage and it was delicious, but expensive. I cooked some slices in the microwave and served it with hot mustard and it was a tasty treat. I plan on using it in my red beans and rice next week. It’s similar to deer sausage which a lot of hunters make. Vine’s is the place around here that deer hunters take their deer for Benny to make sausage.

I have just received my new issue of ‘Louisiana Cookin’ and who was on the cover but the Duck Dynasty family! They were giving the recipes they were going to be using for their Thanksgiving feast. Some of them were of interest to me so I tried their appetizer called armadillo eggs. Yes, when the peppers are cooked they do look interesting, but since I have never seen an armadillo egg I cannot say for sure if they look like their eggs! Do armadillos lay eggs? Apparently not, so where did this dish originate.  It seems that it started in Texas.  I had not had any experience with armadillos until I came to Alabama (they have not yet populated North Carolina), but there is an armadillo festival in Victoria, Texas where armadillo eggs may have originated. They also serve real armadillo, if you are interested. I guess armadillo eggs have traveled northeast with the armadillos to Monroe, Louisiana where the Duck Dynasty clan live. I did not try their cornbread and rabbit dressing but it did sound good. Their dessert of sweet potato tarts sounded tasty so I may give that a try also.

Both recipes from ‘Louisiana Cookin’, November-December 2013, issue

Armadillo Eggs

 

These are slightly large for a pickup at a cocktail party, but would be nice for a first course using a knife and fork or they could be sliced to use as a pick up treat.

Makes 8 servings

8 jalapeños, halved and seeded

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 pound ground breakfast sausage

1 pound bacon, thinly sliced

 ¼ cup butter, melted optional

Preheat oven to 400°. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and top with a metal cooking rack.

Fill each jalapeño half with cream cheese. Make 16 sausage patties. Mold a patty around each jalapeño half, making sure to cover the whole pepper. Wrap one piece of bacon around the sausage.

Bake until bacon is crispy, and sausage is thoroughly cooked, about 12 to 15 minutes on each side. Remove from heat, and brush with melted butter, if desired.

 

Sweet Potato Tarts

Makes 2 (10-inch) tarts

2 Homemade Piecrusts (recipe follows)

2 pounds sweet potatoes, cooked, peeled, and mashed (about 3 cups mashed)

2 cups sugar

6 large egg yolks, lightly beaten

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ cup butter, melted

1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°. On a lightly floured surface, roll out homemade piecrusts; and fit into 2 (10-inch) fluted tart pans with removable bottoms. Gently press crusts into bottom and up sides of tart pans and trim. Line crusts with parchment paper, and place pie weights on top.

Bake until crusts begin to set, about 10 minutes. Remove pie weights and parchment paper, and bake until lightly browned, about 8 to 10 minutes more. Let crusts cool on a wire rack 10-15 minutes.

In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sweet potato, sugar, egg yolks, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, evaporated milk, and vanilla. Mix on low speed to combine.

Divide filling evenly among prepared crusts. Bake 10 minutes; decrease heat to 300°, and bake until tarts have set and are dark golden brown, about 45 to 50 minutes.

 

Homemade Piecrusts

Makes 2 (9-inch) pie crusts

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes and frozen

5 tablespoons ice water, or more, as needed

In the work bowl of a food processor, pulse together flour and salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture has pea-sized pieces of butter.

Add ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing after each addition, until dough comes together. Add more cold water, if necessary. Remove from bowl, and place on clean work surface. Separate dough into 2 even disks, being careful not to overwork. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm, 1 to 2 hours or up to overnight.

 

 

Jerusalem Artichokes

My husband has been digging Jerusalem artichokes.  It is a little early in the season but he wanted to clean out an overgrown area. And I have been finding new ways to cook them instead of just boiling them and adding butter. They are ugly little creatures and are hard to clean, but they are a good vegetable with a misleading name.

Jerusalem artichokes are neither from Jerusalem nor artichokes. These tubers are actually a member of the sunflower family, and their name is probably a derivative of girasole, the Italian word for sunflower, or girasol, a Spanish word that means “follow the sun.” The association with sunflowers explains why they are sometimes marketed as sunchokes. In southern Louisiana they are known as tompinambours. By any name, they are intrepid growers that come back and flourish annually, to the point that some gardeners might wonder whether the towering plants will take over the garden.

A native of North America, Jerusalem artichokes were eaten by Native Americans, who both cultivated then and harvested the ones that grew wild along the eastern seaboard. Jerusalem artichokes were taken back to the Old World in the early 1600s by explorers, who suspected they would be a hit back home. They were. Even now, Jerusalem artichokes are more popular in most of Europe than they are in the United States, although there are pockets of great devotion in communities across the South. People praise this vegetable’s sweet, nutty crunch when raw and its earthy, silky smoothness when cooked.

Most cooks make a relish out of the artichokes or use them in a rémoulade. I made a rémoulade with the artichokes and celery root recently. It was very good with a piece of beef. I think one of the best ways to use the artichokes is in this soup combined with wild mushrooms and hazelnuts. This soup is perfect for a cool autumn evening and worth the effort for finding some of the ingredients.

 

Taken form The New Southern Cookbook by Sheri Castle.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Wild Mushrooms and Hazelnuts

Makes about 2 quarts

 

Soup

1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar or cider vinegar

1 ½ pounds well-scrubbed Jerusalem artichokes

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup chopped leeks (white and tender green parts) shallots, or sweet onion

½ cup chopped celery or celery root

3 ½ to 4 cups chicken, duck, or light-colored vegetable stock

1 teaspoon kosher salt

8 ounces russet potatoes, peeled and cut into1-inch chunks (about 1 ½ cups)

1 small bay leaf

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

¾ cup half-and-half

1 tablespoon Madeira, tawny port, or dry sherry

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

 

Wild Mushrooms and Hazelnuts

2 tablespoons butter

8 ounces wild mushrooms, stemmed and cut into ¼ -inch slices

¼ cup peeled and finely diced Jerusalem artichoke

¼ cup shelled, skinned, and coarse chopped hazelnuts

2 tablespoons Madeira, tawny port, or dry sherry

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Porcini oil or hazelnut oil, for drizzling (optional) (I had only olive oil.)

For the soup: Fill a medium bowl with cool water and add the vinegar. (This will keep the artichokes from darkening when cut.) Peel the artichokes only if the skins are blemished and cut them into thin slices, dropping them into the water as you go.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan or small soup pot over medium heat. When the butter stops foaming, stir in the leeks, celery, and a pinch of salt.  Cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft, about 8 minutes. Stir in 3 ½ cups of the stock and the salt and potatoes.

Drain and quickly rinse the artichokes, then add them to the pot. Add the bay leaf and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer partially covered until the artichokes and potatoes are very soft, about 30 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Purée in a blender (working in batches) and return to the pot, or purée the soup directly in the pot with an immersion blender. Stir in the half-and-half and Madeira. The soup should be very thick but not pasty, so add the rest of the stock or another splash of half-and-half if needed. Season with the pepper and more salt, if needed. Keep the soup warm over low heat, stirring occasionally.

For the mushrooms: Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter stops foaming, add the mushrooms, making sure they are in a single layer in the skillet; cook them in batches if necessary. Stir the mushrooms briskly to coat them with butter. Sauté stirring or shaking the skillet occasionally, until the mushrooms are browned and barely tender, about 4 minutes. Add the artichokes and hazelnuts and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the Madeira and cook, stirring until the liquid cooks away. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the nutmeg, thyme, and parsley. Season with a tiny bit of salt and pepper.

To serve, ladle the soup into serving bowls. (Shallow soup plates work well.) Spoon a portion of the mushroom mixture into the center of each serving. Drizzle a few drops of the oil around the edge of the soup, if using, and serve straightaway.

Although this soup can be a hearty meal, it is fine enough to be a soup course at a nice dinner party.

Red Devon '13

We have just returned from our annual Devon meeting which was held this year in western North Carolina. The farm visit was to the Lenoir Creek Farm of the Tranthams, operating since 1807 and raising Devon since 1849 when the cattle were brought to North Carolina by Capt. Thomas Lenoir from Maryland.  The Tranthams have been on this farm and raising Devon for 25 years and they have an amazing herd. Devon have been in America since the 1620’s and the breed used to be prevalent before the feed lots that began after WWII.  They are still a recovering breed according to the Rare Breeds Conservancy.

This year is a banner year as the two Devon organizations in the United States combined forces as Red Devon USA and plan to aggressively promote the breed as ‘Gourmet Beef on Grass.’  Angus has done a good job of branding. Devons are at the forefront of eating healthy with grass-fed, grass-finished beef. If they are fattened on grass and killed without stress, the meat is also tasty and tender. Grass-fed beef has less total fat, increased beta-carotene, vitamin E, B vitamins, thiamin and riboflavin, minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium, total omega-3’s with a healthier ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.  The meat is higher in CLA, a potential cancer fighter, and higher in vaccenic acid which can be transformed into CLA.

Grass-fed beef is becoming more available in the grocery store and in the future you are going to see grass-fed Devon available as well.

We ate the Trantham’s Devon all weekend as hamburgers, roast beef, meat loaf and beef stew. The chef at the convention center who cooked the Devon beef said it was some of the finest beef he had cooked. So different from all the other commercial beef he had been using. It does have to be cooked somewhat different since there is less fat.

We did have good beef stew at the meeting, but I did not get the recipe so came home and found one of my own. I will say that for dessert one nice lady had prepared 18 different pound cakes. Now, that was a sight and one could hardly decide which one to try. Several people tried quite a few. Since they had had such good beef a little sugar would not hurt!

This recipe is taken from The River Cottage Meat Book, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This book has all you need to know about meat.

A Provencal Daube (Stew)

This stew is the kind of simple stew that exemplifies slow cooking at its best. In a couple of hours you can have produced something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Serves 6

3 pounds boned beef shank or other good stewing beef (I got grass-fed beef shanks from Whole Foods)

2 tablespoons olive oil

8 ounce piece of salt pork, pancetta, or bacon

3 ½ ounces pork or bacon and cut into ¾ inch squares

2 cups white wine

About 2 cups water or light beef stock

1 onion

4 cloves

4 garlic cloves, bashed with the side of a knife

2 bay leaves

A couple of sprigs of thyme

2 or 3 strips of finely pared orange zest

2 carrots, cut into big chunks

3 celery stalks, cut into 2 inch lengths

1 pound tomatoes, skinned, deseeded, and chopped (here I used canned)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cut the beef into larger-than-you-would-think, not-too-boringly-square pieces, trimming of some, but not all, of the fat as you go.

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan. Fry the bacon and the pork or bacon rind until lightly browned (but not crisp). Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a large casserole. In the same oil, brown the beef, in 2 or 3 batches, and then transfer to the casserole.

Deglaze the frying pan with a little of the wine, then add the rest of the wine, heat until it boils, and pour it over the meat. Heat up the water or stock in the same way and pour that over too—enough to cover the meat by a good ¾ inch.

Cut the onion in half and stick each half with 2 cloves, then add to the casserole along with the garlic, herbs, orange zest, carrots, celery, and tomatoes. Season, going easy on the salt for the time being (remember that the bacon will give up salt to the pot). Bring to a very gentle simmer and maintain it, either on the stove top over a very low heat or in the oven at 250°F, for 3 to 4 hours, until the meat is completely tender. At this point the stew can be cooled and kept in the fridge for a day or two. It will get better as it sits.

To serve the stew, make sure it is thoroughly hot. Remove the onion, unless any of your guests fancies half an onion (I leave it in). Ladle your stew into deep plates or wide bowls, with plenty of juice (which in this stew is meant to be thin and copious, rather than thick and reduced). You could serve it with potatoes-boiled, baked, or mashed. Or it could be served with macaroni or some other noodly pasta, precooked and stirred into the daube a couple of minutes before you ladle it out.

Natchitoches Meat Pies

Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-uh-tish) in northwestern Louisiana is famous for two things: “Steel Magnolias,” which was filmed there in 1988, and spicy meat pies that predate the Civil War. We were in Natchitoches in July and stopped by to take some meat pies home. They are good!

The most famous pies are found at Lasyone’s which is located on Second Street. These meat pies were originally out-the-backdoor or street food sold by the few who knew how to make them. In the tradition of street food in Louisiana, the pies were sold with their own street cry: “Lotta, hotta meat pies!” They are not easy to make and local recipes seem to be vague and faulty: too much flour in the filling, too much lard in the pastry. The best way to make them is to bake them, not only less caloric but they will not fall apart in the oil when you try to fry them.

I found that there is a meat pie festival every year in Natchitoches the third weekend of September. This historic town is along the banks of the Red River and was founded in the early 1700s in French Louisiana. The settlement was established in part to develop trade with the colony of New Spain at Tejas (east Texas). Though nominally French, Natchitoches was not easily connected to the rest of Louisiana, and the foodways of the Spanish had great influence in the region. The now-famous Natchitoches meat pie is one of the results of that cultural exchange. Early pies would have been stuffed with bison, deer, and other available game. Now that crawfish is available you will find many pies stuffed with them especially in the spring.

Give them a try or you can buy them frozen at some grocery stores. Serve them hot with spicy mustard and you will have a real taste of Louisiana.

From A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson

Natchitoches Meat Pies

Makes 23 appetizers

Pastry

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup firmly packed lard or vegetable shortening

3 tablespoons cold milk beaten with 1 large egg

Filling

¼ pound ground beef chuck

¼ pound ground pork

2 medium scallions, trimmed and coarsely chopped (include some green tops)

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1/8 to ¼ teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne)

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

¼ cup water

For the pastry: Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add the lard and using a pastry blender, cut in until the texture of coarse meal. Quickly fork in the milk-egg mixture and as soon as the pastry holds together, shape into a ball. Place on a large sheet of plastic food wrap, flatten, then wrap and refrigerate until ready to proceed.

For the filling: Cook the beef, pork, scallions, salt, black and red pepper, and allspice in a medium-size heavy skillet over moderate heat, breaking up the clumps of meat, for about 5 minutes or until no traces of pink remain. Sprinkle in the flour, then, stirring all the while, add the water. Cook, stirring now and then, for about 5 minutes or until lightly thickened and no raw floury taste remains. Cool to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Remove the pastry from the refrigerator and roll as thin as pie crust on a lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut into rounds with a 2 ¾ -to 3-inch biscuit cutter, then drop 1 ½ to 2 teaspoons of the filling onto the lower half of each round, leaving a margin of at least ¼ inch. Reroll the scraps and cut additional circles. Moisten the edges of the pastry circles all around, fold in half to enclose the filling, and crimp the edges firmly with the tines of a fork to seal. Also prick the top of each round with the form to allow steam to escape.

Arrange the rounds about 2 inches apart on an ungreased large baking sheet, slide onto the middle oven shelf, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the edges are brown.

Serve hot with cocktails.