Good Maine Cooking

Mainers are a thrifty lot, savers extraordinaire and experts at reinventing uses for old equipment. The infamous toilet lawn planter springs to mind, although equally thrifty would be the reuse of old cast iron-porcelain bathtubs as livestock waterers. My former landlord in Greenville, Lonnie Rowe, used an old delivery van as a chicken coop, and made wildlife watching perches out of old tractor seats set on pipes in the ground.

This thriftiness transfers into the food category, too. Chicken and turkey carcasses become stock, meat scraps go in the freezer to become soup. Of course, poultry owners have a ready source of birds to productively dispose of every scrap of food. And should you trap a big old coon or a give terminal lead poisoning to a pesky groundhog, well, there's good eating if you know how to prepare it properly.

For my birthday earlier this month, Dan found a great old-time recipe book for me, All Maine Recipes, published by the Courier Gazette of Rockland in the late 1960s. It is chock-full of good Maine recipes, many for game such as venison or pheasant, with some modern ones, too, with many variations of the Jello salad --shudder. (I even found a recipe from my long-ago landlady Irene Yerxa of Bridgewater, Maine, and Dan saw a recipe from a woman he knew in Waldoboro, Athlene Damon. Maine is a small town spread over a big state.)

And there are several recipes for preparing garden-chomping rabbit, raccoon and woodchuck.

It is good to know I have a resource handy for preparing varmint should the opportunity arise. You just never know.

A fine theme song for freecycling

Theme song from Sandford & Son

Although, consider this a warning: if you are one of those people who frequently finds a musical phrase stuck in their heads, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS!

I've been humming this little melody for 3 solid says. Quincy Jones, the composer, clearly has an evil streak.

By request: Roasted Cauliflower Veggie Soup

1 head cauliflower
3 garlic cloves
2 medium onions, cut in wedges
3 T olive oil
I carrot, grated
1 celery stalk, thinly sliced
1 waxy potato, washed and grated
3 c broth or water
½ t crushed dried thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
2 cream, or to taste
hefty grind of black pepper
salt to taste

To roast the cauliflower:
Cut cauliflower into same-sized florets. Toss cauliflower, garlic, and onions with 2T oil to coat and roast in middle of 425°F oven until brown and caramelized, stirring frequently during the latter part of the roasting. Can be made in advance and refrigerated until needed.

In a soup pot, sauté the celery, carrot and potato in 1T oil until tender. Add broth, water, roasted cauliflower mixture, and herbs and simmer for 30 minutes, or until cauliflower is very tender. Discard bay leaf and puree in blender (or you could skip this step if you cut the cauliflower smaller). Return soup to pot and stir in cream, salt and pepper to taste. Heat through and serve.

I make it a little differently every time. I rarely have cream on hand, so often use half and half. Evaporated milk will work, too. A little cheddar tastes great melted in and it would probably be gorgeous topped with a big slice of bread and cheese and broiled, French onion soup style.

A good day for soup

The skies were clear here at Henbogle today, setting us up nicely for a big plunge in temperature, when the forecast is for a low of 3ºF overnight. The high today was in the mid 20sºF, but with a perky little breeze --perfect soup weather.

I've got a strong tendency to stockpile items like food, building materials, fabric, garden tools. The other day, when making room in the freezer for our pork delivery, I realized that I need to actually use all the food I have so carefully laid away (so far we've only cracked open 2 jars of tomato sauce, and a 3-4 of grape juice). In six months, I hope to be picking more strawberries and harvesting lettuce from the garden. It was high time to use those freezer veggies, so I stirred together a big batch of minestrone soup.

I had made a big batch of stock from one of our delicious freezer chickens the other day, so I sauteed some onions, added some carrots, celery, garlic, then the stock, potatoes, cannelini beans, cabbage, and from our freezer, swiss chard, wax beans, green beans, corn and pesto. With some homemade garlic croutons and warm from the oven ginger bread for dessert, I can almost forget the plunging temperatures. For a little while.

Tamale Pie

Tonight's yummy dinner: Tamale Pie.

I made a bit pot of chili the other day. It is always a bit pot of chili, because how else can you put in all the things that make chili taste great? My typical batch includes onion, garlic, green peppers, red peppers if I have them, chipotle chiles, chili powder, corn, carrots and/or sweet potatoes, black beans, pinto beans, canned tomatoes (DelMonte diced with jalapenos), and a few other secret ingredients. This batch included some ground beef and green peas, and kidney beans instead of pintos.

Anyway, with a big pot of chili, that leaves some great options for morphing it into another dish, in this case, Tamale Pie.

The recipe, (such as it is):

2 c stone ground cornmeal
2 eggs
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/4 c oil or melted butter
1 ish cup of yogurt or buttermilk
milk enough to make it the right consistency
1 ish cup shredded cheddar cheese

Leftover chili

Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix eggs, oil, and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients, stir together, and add milk as needed.

Grease the sides of a casserole dish. For best result, use a dish with a fairly large surface area (my pictured dish is really too small but that casserole is magic). Spread the leftover chili evenly the casserole dish. Pour 1/2 the batter over the top, sprinkle half the cheese. Pour the remaining batter and spread over the cheese. Bake at 350 until the cornbread is done, test with a toothpick or cake tester. Remove from the oven and spread the remaining cheese over the top. Broil until melted and yummy (2+/- minutes). Serve and enjoy!

Fresh snow for the new year

True to the forecast, the snow began here at 12:50 pm, and it has been snowing steadily ever since. Dan's guessing that as of 6:30, we had 3 inches of snow, with the flakes becoming heavier and falling more rapidly as the evening goes on.

The forecast has flopped and flipped more than a presidential candidate before the Iowa caucus, but right now the prediction is for up to 9 inches, about half of early predictions for 12-14 inches. Will there be school tomorrow? Only time will tell at this point.

Yesterday, we spent a very pleasant new year's eve with friends Bill and Karen. After shoveling out yesterday morning, we picked Bill and Karen up in the afternoon and drove to the local independent movie house to see the movie Juno.

We all enjoyed it, as did most of the other patrons, judging from the laughs during the movie and smiles after in the lobby. We then grabbed dinner at a locally owned Mexican restaurant, then went back to Bill's and Karen's for a few games of cards and some celebratory champagne. Karen whipped up a dessert treat, "David Eyre's Pancake," an eggy, puffy pancake reminiscent of a Dutch Baby, but sprinkled generously with lemon juice and powdered sugar.

Curious, today I did a quick search on it and found it had been originally published in the NY Times by Craig Claiborne in 1966, and again fairly recently featured in the food section. More can be found about the pancake and David Eyre here and more, including the recipe below, from Eyre himself, here.

The David Eyre Pancake

2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (the New York Times recorded the nutmeg measure as a "pinch")
4 tablespoons butter
2 to 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
Juice of half a lemon, or more to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add flour, milk and nutmeg and lightly beat until blended but still slightly lumpy.

Melt butter in a 12-inch skillet** with a heatproof handle over medium-high heat. (An 11-by-7-inch Pyrex dish will work equally well, according to Eyre.) When butter is very hot but not brown, pour in batter. Bake until pancake is billowing on the edges and golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Working quickly, remove pan from oven, and using a fine-meshed sieve, sprinkle with sugar. Return to oven for 1 to 2 minutes more.

Sprinkle with lemon juice. Serves 2 to 4.

** Eyre said a cast iron skillet made the pancake too crisp.

In the article, Eyre mentions the pancake is delicious served with macademia nuts, pineapple and/or mango. I'll have to try that!

Decidedly delicious. Thanks, Karen, and best wishes to all for a happy and healthy new year!

Popping out of the oven

Amazingly, given the generosity of the Henbogle girls, I had never made popovers until tonight. They were scrumptious!

I served them with a lovely pan seared steak, cooked with some of our shallots, and roasted pole beans from our garden. It was a yummy dinner.

Popovers
Makes 6

1 cup sifted bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 xl eggs
1 cup milk
unsalted butter for brushing the custard cups

Preheat oven to 450°F Warm the eggs and milk to room temperature

Stir flour and salt together a medium bowl. Stir together the eggs and the milk, and add to the flour mixture. Stir the batter until it is smooth. In oven, heat six custard cups until hot (5+ minutes). Remove from oven, brush with the butter, and fill them half full with the batter. Bake the popovers in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375°F, and bake the popovers for 20+/- minutes more, or until they are browned and crisp. I had about a tablespoon of leftover asiago cheese all grated, which I stirred in to the flour mixture -- I could taste a hint of it, I'd try that again.

Welcoming the light

Although I love Christmas, when I give free rein to my inner magpie, at this time of year my energy is always at a low point. The short days, too often cloudy, sap my energy and keep me inside for far too much of the time. It seems like my only moments outside are brief forays to other buildings on campus or to and from the car, and weekends never have enough room in them to spend all the time I want outside.

But last Saturday we celebrated the return of the light here at Henbogle, inviting a few friends over for good company, good food and a Solstice fire. Each guest had a spring of evergreen to throw on the fire if so desired, and after the blaze died down we warmed ourselves with some delicious homemade eggnog, courtesy of the Henbogle girls. We certainly enjoyed ourselves immensely, and I hope our friends did, too.

The promise of lengthening days and a fresh new year are energizing, as is having some time off together here at home. Dan and I have spent quite a bit of time clearing the clutter, weeding the bookshelves, reorganizing our files (aka giant piles of paper) and puttering about. We've both had colds, so the desperately-needed cleaning of the barn hasn't happened, but it will, as a February vacation project looms.

We visit the girls daily for bonus midday treats, (frozen pumpkin, breadcrumbs, leftover green beans, yum!) and took advantage of a warm day to clean out Henbogle Coop and put in fresh bedding (that's Pippi checking things out). A recent winter rainstorm had exposed a few blades of grass which the girls greeted with enthusiasm. The snow dome is working out remarkably well, now that the girls have overcome their fear of the snow.

A big pile of gardening catalogs awaits my attention, and with the promise of snow for the next few days, I am sure to have time to start planning for spring as the light increases. And of course, there are a few birthdays ahead to look forward too as well. Happy new year, everyone!


Henbogle Eggnog

12 eggs, separated
2 cups sugar
2 c gold rum
1 c apricot brandy
3 pints milk
1 pint heavy cream
Nutmeg

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until thick. Slowly stir in the rum, apricot brandy, milk and cream. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled and pour into a punch bowl. Beat the egg whites until stiff and and fold gently into the eggnog. Grate fresh nutmeg on top to taste

What was lost is now found: Double Chocolate Pound Cake

I was beginning to panic --my chocolate pound cake recipe had gone astray. It was based on one of my mother's recipes, but I'd made several changes to it, tweaking it here and there to better accommodate my taste and including new techniques I've learned along the way. It would take me many tries to recreate my changes, even if I could find the cake recipe again.

And then Holly called and said she'd found a pad of paper. She laughed, saying she knew it was mine because it contained many lists. She didn't realize the cake recipe was in the middle of the lists. I was so very glad to lay my hands on this recipe again!

Double Chocolate Pound Cake
1 ¾ c flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 ½ sticks butter, divided
1 ¾ c light brown sugar
1 T vanilla
5 eggs
¾ c cocoa
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
¾ boiling water
1 c sour cream

Pre-heat oven to 350º F Grease bundt pan with a mix of 1 T each of melted butter and baking cocoa, blended into a paste. Heat ¾ c water to a boil. Add cocoa and stir together. Add ½ stick of butter and chocolate and stir until melted. Allow to cool slightly, then stir in sour cream. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour baking soda and salt. Beat 1 stick butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about four minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and chocolate mixture alternately. Bake until just pulling away from the pan, about 60 minutes.

This is a very adaptable cake. For Holly's wedding, I used organic dark chocolate with orange, added the zest of a large, organic orange, and made an orange sauce from the juice of the orange to use as a glaze. It was a terrific combination of chocolate and orange. I had hoped to make candied orange peel for a garnish, but ran out of time. This summer for Dan's and Michelle's silver birthday celebration, I flavored the cake with cherry liquer and made a cherry glaze for the top. I am so glad Holly found the recipe!

Create a cookbook

I'm so excited I just have to write about this (and no, I'm not getting a kickback from the company). There's a new website, Tastebook,which provides a template for self-publishing a cookbook!

I long ago promised a friend a cookbook as a wedding gift, and did give her a crude pile of pages from the laser printer, but have yet to get the book formatted to go to Kinkos for printing.

Now, I don't have to. It is so easy to upload recipes, that I'm halfway finished (54 recipes) uploading all my recipes from my book. In addition to uploading your own, you can import favorites from Epicurious as well.

Finally, no more frantic shuffling through the clutter to find a recipe drafted on the back of an envelope. They will all be neatly bound in an organized manner. Now if I could just find the recipe for the chocolate pound cake....

And for posterity, the recipe

Pickled Pepper Rings

Prepare 5 pint jars and lids.

3 lbs. mixed sweet and hot peppers
5 c white vinegar
1 ¼ c water
5 t canning salt
5 T mustard seed

Wash and slice peppers in ¼ inch thick rings. (I deveined my peppers and removed most of the seeds).
In a large non-reactive pot, bring brine to a boil.
Place 1 T mustard seed in bottom of each jar. Pack pepper rings into jars.
Cover with hot brine, allowing ½ inch headspace.
Process for 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Allow to age gracefully for 3 months.

Buttered Rum Pound Cake

This recipe was originally from Southern Living, but I've made several alterations.

Buttered Rum Pound Cake
1 c butter, softened
2 ½ c brown sugar
6 eggs, separated
3 c flour
¼ t baking soda
1 c sour cream
1 t vanilla
½ c sugar

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in yolks, 1 at a time, beating until just mixed. Stir in vanilla. Combine flour with baking soda and add alternately with the sour cream.

In a clean bowl beat egg whites until foamy, then gradually add ½ c sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Stir half the whites into batter to lighten, then gently fold in remaining whites.

Pour into greased and floured 10” tube pan. Bake at 325 F for 1 ½ hours. Cool on rack for 10 minutes, and while the cake is cooling make the glaze. After 10 minutes turn cake over onto plate and remove pan. Prick with toothpick or wooden skewer and pour glaze over cake.

Buttered Rum Glaze
6 T butter
3 T rum*
¾ c sugar
3 T water
½ c chopped toasted pecans

Combine butter, rum, sugar and water in a pan. Bring to a boil; boil for 3 minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in pecans.

* Light is best although dark works, too.

Bananas Foster Sauce
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
3 T water
1/3 c rum
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 bananas, peeled and sliced

In a large, deep skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in sugar, water, and cinnamon. When mixture begins to bubble, add bananas. Cook until bananas are hot, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the rum, heat for 1 minute, then ignite rum with a long match. When flames go out, serve immediately.

Slow and simple Wednesday

Wednesday I was moving slowly, no doubt still recovering from the efforts of the day before in the vegetable and new perennial gardens. I did not make it to Freeport Tuesday, instead, decided to press forward with more weeding and edging in the new bed which has no name yet.

Maybe it should be the holly bed? It does after all host 3 Castle Spire blue hollies and 1 lucky male, a Castle Wall, to provide pollination resources. AND my best friend, twin sister of a different mother (who is somehow distantly related to my mother I'm sure) is named Holly. Yes, the Holly bed, I like that.

That bed is new and still very weedy, with many, many, many, common and broadleaf plantain seedlings continually sprouting, another reviled weed, creeping purple bellflower, slinking in from the rear, and of course, my old pal Creeping Charlie making a frontal assault. I weeded, and even used a teeny bit of Roundup on the bellflower, being very careful not to overspray. I then deeply edged the entire front of the bed, making a nice sharp edge to discourage weeds, especially Creeping Charlie, from moving to a better (gentrified?) neighborhood. I'm going to give it a week, then one more good weeding and then put heavy layers of cardboard over the bellflower at the back, and newspaper toward the front, then cover that with another yard of shredded bark mulch.

After that project on Tuesday, I was a bit of a slug yesterday. I finally got moving later in the morning and did some more pruning, trying to tame the rather unruly weigelas in the Holly bed. I had just finished weigela #1, which has just finished flowering, when the rain sprinkles began. So I packed up my pruners and decided to head to Freeport to return my hiking boots and look for some new shoes.

What was I thinking! I grew up in Maine, and can distinctly remember visiting LL Bean in the good old days, when the floorboards were plain oiled wood boards, and the changing rooms were unisex plywood cubicles with hook and eye latches. Not so anymore, I'm sorry to say. Progress has turned Freeport into a yuppie cash cow, and on an overcast day in the summer, it isn't pretty. The most satisfying part of the trip was parking -- after waiting for a BMW SUV try and squeeze into a smallish parking spot, giving it several unsuccessful tries, my cute Pontiac Vibe slid right in as soon as he abandoned it. That was sweet.

Bean's was crazy. I managed to return the shoes, no problem, but gave up trying any new ones on, it was just too busy to try and find a salesperson and get some actual technical assistance. Gone are the days.... Back home, I puttered some more than made a yummy dinner using some leftover rice pilaf (Basmati rice with celery, onion, dried cranberries) and chicken breast.

Chicken with Curried Orange Sauce
1 boneless chicken breast, halved, and pounded to an even thickness
1/4 c freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 c freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 c chicken broth
1 small onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 T curry powder (I like Penzey's)
Red pepper flakes to taste
vegetable oil
salt and pepper

Rice Pilaf
big bunch of spinach, coarsely chopped
Chopped fresh parsley

Pound chicken and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in saute pan over medium high heat until it shimmers. Cook chicken, browning well on both sides. Remove from pan and cover to keep warm.

Add oil if necessary, and cook onion until translucent. Add garlic and stir until it begins to color. Stir in curry powder and red pepper flakes, then add juices and broth. Reduce by half.

While sauce reduces, reheat rice (or be cooking fresh). Just before serving, stir in spinach until just wilted. Add a big handful of chopped parsley, reserving enough to garnish. Serve rice under chicken breast, topping with the pan sauce and garnishing with parsley. YUM!

Approaching Pizza Perfection

I've been working on my pizza skills for some time, looking for the perfect crust. I tried deep dish dough, cornmeal dough, Alton Brown's dough, you name it, I tried it. Finally, I'm approaching the pizza I've been searching for.

I adapted a recipe from Peter Reinhart's book American Pie, Napoletana Pizza, simplifying the process considerably, and adapting it for my oven. I cook the pizza directly on heavy clay tiles I bought at Home Depot for a fraction of the cost of a pizza stone. I had two tiles cut so the that I have a large surface area on which to bake the pizza or bread. If the tiles get too stained, I heave them and start over. The tile cost me less than $6 total. Here's my version of the recipe.

Nirvana Pizza Dough
4 1/2 c flour
1 3/4 t salt
1 t yeast
2 T olive oil
1 3/4 c water
flour for dusting

Stir together the flour, salt, and yeast. Stir in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed. Stir or knead with the electric mixer for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are evenly distributed. The dough should be smooth and sticky.

Sprinkle flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Work into a log, then divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Sprinkle flour over the dough. With dry floured hands, round each piece into a ball, dust with flour and transfer to a plastic bag. Store in the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough, (will keep for up to 3 days.)

Remove dough from the refrigerator 2 hours before making the pizza. Dust the counter with flour place the dough on floured breadboard and sprinkle with flour. Flatten disks gently to about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Don't get it too thin or it will be hard to handle later. Sprinkle with flour, cover loosely with plastic and let rest for 2 hours.

At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 450F. Generously flour the peel.

Gently stretch the dough out to about 9 inches in diameter, lay it on the peel or pan, making sure there is enough flour to allow the pizza to slide off the peel. Add 3 or 4 toppings, including sauce and cheese.

Slide the pizza onto the stone. Bake about 5 to 8 minutes, until the cheese and crust have browned. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Now the hard part: Cool for 3 to 5 minutes and serve. YUM!

I generally use a simple red sauce of whole Roma tomatoes, chopped, cooked with a little garlic and olive oil. Other favorite toppings include ricotta and spinach, Italian sausage, mozzarella and parmesan, pesto and parmesan.... the options are as unlimited as your imagination.

Although finding the right crust recipe has been difficult, in my experience, the real challenge is getting the pizza onto and off from the peel successfully. Somehow, I always seem to end up with the kitchen windows wide open, fans blowing the smokey air out as the shriek of the smoke detector pierces my skull and smatterings of pizza toppings 'caramelize' on the oven floor. Clearly, I need to build an outdoor Italian brick oven for breadbaking and pizza, don't you think?