Lovely, lovely dandelions

When I was 21 and newly married, we moved from California to Iowa, where my husband had grown up.  One of my fondest memories is the fields and fields of yellow, dandelion carpets stretching across the landscape.  Originally planted by the Amana society, the dandelions were used for dandelion wine.  How could people say that dandelions were pests and weeds?  Just look how lovely they were!

Later I learned that the much-maligned dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, is a wonderful food, herb, and medicinal plant.  I've been eating dandelion blossoms and leaves for years.  I love the slightly bitter leaves in a salad or steamed like spinach.  The flowers are wonderful sautéed with beaten egg and feta cheese, or stir-fried with fresh asparagus and fiddleheads.

We have a bumper crop of dandelions this year, and the flowers are both copious and large.

I picked several earlier this week that spanned two finger-widths.  I say I picked them, but actually I snipped the petals with as little of the sepals as I could manage, and filled a large bowl full of petals, all for the joy of dandelion blossom syrup.

Dandelion petals in the bowl

If you've never had it, you have missed one of life's little delights.  Many recipes call for lemon or orange peel and juice; I prefer just the taste of the dandelion itself, so I leave out the citrus. It took about a half hour to fill the bowl, but the time was spent in the afternoon sunshine on a warm and breezy May afternoon, and I got to watch a native bee buzzing from blossom to blossom gathering pollen as I gathered flowers.  I had a bee's eye view, one might say.

Once I had enough, the petals were covered with water and brought to a boil in a gallon pot, then covered and left to steep overnight.

Steeping the petals

This morning, I drained the blossoms in a sieve, squeezing the petals of all their liquid.

I measured 82 ounces of the liquid by weight, added the same weight of evaporated cane syrup, and heated it slowly while I stirred the sugar

Once it reached a boil, I let it simmer for 2-3 hours, until it reached about 215° F, a nice rich syrup, then hot packed it into jelly jars.  Of course, I left a jar out for immediate use, but oh! it's so nice to see that syrup lined up and waiting!

Dandelion Blossom Syrup is delicious. It's hard to describe the taste, at once light and sweet. One friend that I let try it says "It tastes like sunshine." 

The next day I made another batch.  Good thing, too, because the day after that the rains came, and they're staying for a while.

The making of baba ghanouj

My son loves baba ghanouj.  In fact, he loves it even more than I do.  When eggplants come my way, it's the defacto use for them.  Oh, every now and then I'll have a yen for ratatouile or eggplant parmesan, but when I see an eggplant, the first thing that crosses my mind is baba ghanouj.

As i was going through my photos, I came across several taken last summer, documenting this simple but delicious recipe.

Take a few eggplants and roast them in the oven.  I split them in half and pierce the skin a few times to release steam.  I cook them long enough to make them very soft, and at a low enough temperature that I can forget about them for a while, usually somewhere between 250° and 350°, maybe a couple of hours, more or less. 

Roasted eggplant.  The one on the left has been pulped.

 When they're done, I scrape the cooked eggplants from the skin and put it all in the food processor with about 1/4 C Tahini, for every couple of cups of eggplant,
a little salt, 1/8 C of olive oil, 1/8 C lemon juice, and whirr it all together.  Oh, and don't forget the garlic!

I have two garlic presses, one with handles, and this one, The Garlic Twist.  Fast and easy, but not for garlic that has started to sprout.  It's one of my favorite kitchen tools. Smash the garlic to remove the skin (it falls right off), then twist it back and forth a few times, and voilà! Easy peasy.

Chopping the garlic

I change the flavor of the baba ghanouj depending on what I add to it.  Usually, I add basil, sometimes roasted red pepper (Mmmmm!), but this time I added chopped parsley from my garden.  Flat parsley is best, just because it chops more finely, but I think parsley is just a little too bland for my taste.  I ended up adding basil to it.

Ready to dice

All done.  I eat these with pita bread or blue corn chips.  Yum!  By the way, change the eggplant to mashed garbanzo beans, and you hummus.  See?  Two great recipes for the price of one.

The finished product,  Baba Ghanouj.  Could anything be simpler?

Pasties and Pastries

A woman at the local farmers' market sells wonderful savory pastries, full of chicken, beef, and vegetables.  Since I avoid commercial meat whenever I can, I buy her veggie pastries now and then for a quick lunch, with a ginger scone on the side.

Having quick meals at home, particularly since I often juice have juice, fruit, or cheese for lunch,  was particularly appealing since my mother, who is 90, doesn't "graze" like I do all day long.  I decided to turn my own hand to these succulent savories.

I looked up Cornish Pasty online and discovered that the real deal, real honest-to-goodness pasties, use only about four ingredients:  chopped beef, potatoes, swedes (rutabagas), and onions, with a little salt and pepper thrown in.  Well..I used carrots and celery as well.  First I tried an all-butter crust.  It worked, but was a little tougher than I'd like.  Then I decided to pull out the stops and use lard for the crust.  Omigosh!  Why did we ever believe the "experts" who said lard is bad for us?  The crusts are light and flaky, and the taste divine!

Chopped apple, carrots, potatoes, onion, and rutabaga

To some of the pasties I added chopped up turkey.  Today I added fresh ricotta cheese and chunks of apple.  They turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  My mother, though, for whom I've ostensibly done all this, wants gravy in them, thank you very much.

The finished pasties

Next time.  For now, i have enough to freeze and keep handy for a month or two. They're stored in the freezer, right next to the zuccini lasagna and the eggplant parmesan.  Life is good.

Finnish baked cheese--Yum!

I love Juustoa cheese, or Leipäjuusto, a Finnish cheese, called "coffee cheese", because they put chunks of it in their coffee.  It can also be served as a side dish or a dessert.  I like it for breakfast.  Or even for lunch or dinner.  It's versatile. 

I  had extra milk to play with, and wanted something different for lunch, so I decided to make some and record the process.  Maybe it was the recording that did the trick, but this was absolutely the best Juustoa I've made yet.

Heat 1 gallon of raw goat milk to about 86°, then mix together and add:
   1 heaping Tbsp cornstarch
   1/2 tsp (more or less) salt
   1 Tbsp sugar

Now add about 6 drops of double strength rennet mixed with 1/8 C of water and stir well.  Let rest for about an hour.  In this time, it will set almost like a custard.  Check for a "clean break",

 and break up to approximately 1-inch curds. For this cheese, you can just stir it, as I did, using the edge of the spoon to cut larger curds when necessary.
 

 

 At this point I drain it just like any other cheese, with cheesecloth and a colander,letting it rest until the curds settle and the whey drains out a bit.

To speed this up a bit, hang the curds by bringing all 4 corners of the cheesecloth together to form a bag and suspending it over a pan to catch the whey.  I occasionally work the curds by kneading the bag a bit to release more whey.  

 
When it's well drained, it's time to put the curds into a round cake pan.  Press it all around evenly, and bake in a 400°F oven for 15-20 minutes, draining the whey off every few minutes.  Now remove from the oven and put it under the broiler unti just browned.  Again, pour off the whey as it seeps out.  At this point, you can either serve it or flip it in the pan and brown the other side, which is what I opted to do. 

Voilà! A beautiful, baked cheese!  

  Traditionally this is served with lingonberry jam, but I served it for lunch with blackberry jam.

Don't expect this to last very long. It's light and elegant, and oh so delicious!

Not turkey soup again!

A few days ago, I pulled the last of the turkey from the freezer and made turkey soup.  There's only so many times you can eat turkey soup without despairing, and even though we'd eaten it twice already by yesterday, I really didn't want to toss it all, or even feed it to the chickens. I considered that It just needed... um... something to zing it up.  But what?  I thought about it a while and though of Indian spices.  Hmmm.  Google search for "turkey soup spicy".  FOUND!  Turkey mulligatawney soup!  I found two different recipes, tweaked them both, and came up with my own.

Mulligatawny soup does not have carrots and celery in it.  My base was an already-made turkey soup with onions, carrots, and celery, but hey, I didn't know I was going to make muligatawny soup!  You know, it didn't hurt it at all.

To 2 quarts of soup, I added
1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp  turmeric
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground mustard (I used yellow, but next time I'll try ground black mustard seeds and see if it makes any difference)
1/8 tsp chile powder
1/8 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp curry powder

And 1 tsp of my Secret Ingredient.  It was secret even to me, as I put it in a baby food jar a long time ago and I'm a bit fuzzy on what it is.  That is, I'm reasonably sure it's either asafoetida or garam masala.  The last time I opened asafoetida, it was overwhelming.  A pinch goes a long, long way.  It's one of those spices that must be used judiciously or it will ruin the dish.  Garam masala, on the other hand, can be used in quantity.  I added a teaspoonful and all was well.  At this point, I'm sure it was garam masala.  Perhaps I ought to say, I have no doubt it was not asafoetida.

I then added garlic powder and salt to taste, left the soup to simmer for 20 minutes, and then served it up for lunch.


It was delicious, definitely not your run-of-the-mill Thanksgiving-turkey-revisited soup.

Scones, scones, wonderful scones

Last night I had a yen for scones.  I could almost taste them...and then I remembered how dry they usually are, and often how heavy.  I've made a lot of scones in my life, and bought quite a few, and the one thing I've always been sure of is that if you don't eat them right away--or sometimes even if you do--they end up dry and hard.

As I said, though, I just had a yen for a good scone, so I googled "best scone recipe", and I believe I found it.  I quickly made some, substituting yogurt cream for sour cream, and heavy cream for milk, and added an egg (quite accidental, that, but it still turned out well), and when the scones cooled, I ended up eating five of them.  They were sooo good, the best I've ever had.  I took some to my mother today, and she love them, and wants the recipe.  Here it is, the Best Scone Recipe in the world!  And did I mention I made scones again tonight?  This time I left out the egg, used cream entirely, and added grated ginger, chopped up crystalized ginger, and a small chopped up Braeburn apple.  Ta Da!  Apple-Ginger scones!  And they are excellent.

That puts me in mind of the salad I came across this week:  Bittersweet Salad with Apples and Dandelion Greens.  The dandelions are just coming up, and they're tender and full of nutrition, not bitter the way they will be in a few weeks.  The dressing is divine, and quite unusual.  I can't say I've ever tasted anything quite like it, but I'll use it for other salads.

I do love this time of year.  So much abundance!