Yummy Learning

Lily insisted that I take action shots of the whole process. Future food blogger!

Blueberry muffins= math lesson in fractions, chemistry in cooking, reading instructions, bonus sanitation and life skills lesson. Learning is life. Life is learning! And yummy.

Freezer Meal Preparation: The Thaw Stage

So far what we plan on making with this: 

Sloppy Does (like Joes but with venison)

Both pork roasts will be cooked together and be made into enchiladas, pulled pork sandwiches, and more enchiladas
 
Beef roast: flautas 
 
Ground lamb: Shepard's pie

A huge batch of meat balls
 
Burek
 
A sausage and broccoli stir fry with rice
 
Lasagna

Organized and will now move into the fridge for thawing. I will cook the ground meats from frozen (I have a trick) tonight, the roasts will get thawed in time to cook all day Sunday, and the sausages and meatballs will get made tomorrow.

There is also a beef shank hiding in there for Saturday night's dinner.

Instant Kid Friendly Oatmeal

Recipe:
Each Serving, 1/4 cup of Instant Oatmeal
1 Tablespoon of Sugar Spice

Sugar Spice Chocolate: 
2 cups of raw sugar
1/4 cup instant hot chocolate mix
optional, caramel chips

Sugar Spice Cinnamon:
2 cups of raw sugar
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground lemon peel

Then I make as many little packets with the spice and instant oatmeal as I can. I got the little bags in the craft section of target to hold soup seasoning for our rice and bean mixes. They happen to hold just a little more than the instant oatmeal packets you can buy at the store in the cereal isle and they make a full kid size serving, which the store bought ones fall just short of. The price for a giant bag of the oatmeal was $2.50, the spice and sugar I used cost less than $2 too. I have half a bag left and this made 25 packets and three test servings.

Bonus, the chocolate ones taste like my Dad's Christmas no bake boil/drop cookies. Just like. Really. Holly gobbled it. So did Isaac. Lily was less impressed and says she likes old fashioned oatmeal better. It has yet to pass the Chad test which is....can Chad make it at 4 am before he's had coffee and will it make him sick? I think it will do fine, but I think he will prefer the spice over the chocolate. 

Gratuitous adorable kids eating chocolate oatmeal pictures:

Half Fail, Lessons Learned

 This looks fantastic, right? Mozzarella and feta, eggplant tomato sauce, lamb sausage. Those parts came together like a spicy, cheesy, melty dream.

 The problem was the crust. I bought a mix, a gluten free stir in water mess of a mix. It looked like pancake batter. All was going well though, it smelled pretty good while it was baking, before toppings were added.

Oh, and the entire thing looked like a success! It smelled good, a nibble off the edge gave me false witness to its true nature of.....yuckness.

The crust was soggy and spongy and...... moist. Like a gross thick noodle. Fail. FAIL.

Just about everyone in at the table ate the toppings off and tossed the rest to the dogs.

To make it just perfectly clear how awful it was? Holly quietly came to the kitchen and asked if I could maybe make a peach pie because she was still hungry and please mama because that was NOT pizza. 

Freezer gold, peach pie was on the table an hour later. Ready to eat. I didn't even get any.

Next time I will use my own go to for pizza crust, though it may be harder to make and take a bit more time. Lesson learned.

Tuna Salad- Pantry Style

Today, I had promised the kids tuna melts. We were out of bread. Out of crackers. I had intended to make bread but the morning got away from me. What to do?

Tuna salad. On sliced tomato! Yes!

Recipe:
One package of tuna, in water
Handful of dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 Braeburn or Granny apple chopped
1/2 cup of sour cream
salt to taste- salt is important here

Serve over sliced tomato and top with pretzels for crunch! (or walnuts!)

An easy, really good lunch that we pulled together from what we had. Week 2 of grocery spending strike and we are still going strong.

Easy Broccoli Skillet With Other Veggies and Sausage

A simple skillet meal of red bell, broccoli, mushrooms, onions,  butter, a squirt of lemon juice, and salt. High heat, stir a lot to keep from burning. Delicious. I served it with a side of sausage links. 10 minutes of prep and cook combined.

Did I mention easy? And fast? Oh yeah......

Best of 2013 Part 2: Oh My, the Deliciousness.....

Oh My, the Deliciousness.....  Until 2013, I never considered myself a food blogger. Early in the year a woman from a different part of Iowa emailed me and asked me to be part of a food blogger gathering. I was panicked as I agreed to be on this list and part of the gathering. Other bloggers on the list were folks I read weekly and admire, some have published cookbooks! No way was I good enough to be included. I felt like a big faker, but I went to Iowa City anyway. I was not sorry and I learned that we are all on different journeys and certainly different stages of growth. I am blessed to be included in such a fantastic and generous group of bloggers.

It has been good for me to view my blog through the lens of food blogger too. I created the Farmhouse Kitchen tab and I am working on making food posts Pinable and printable.

The following posts are not necessarily the top ranked by views, they are simply my own favourite posts. For some I loved the pictures, others have a new place on our table, and the rest are family farmhouse classics.

Dirty Wild Rice Dressing   

This recipe was created by accident. We needed to sell more sausage at Sample Sundays and folks kept asking us for recipe ideas. I had previously failed at making Dirty Rice, even out of a box. I sat down with about 20 recipes and compared them. I compiled a list of ingredients that I wanted to use. 2 hours before getting on the road for Sample Sunday, I pulled out those ingredients and started cooking. While the rice was simmering, I packed kits so customers could make this at home (still hoping it would work.....)

We sell out the kits every single time. It is so simple and so very good.

Alligator Soup 

This recipe was Lily's idea for her birthday. Hyvee had alligator in the freezer section. I do not approve of the confinement farming used to raise the alligator, so it is not something we will make often, but there is a seriously lack of alligator recipes online that are not breaded and deep fried! The complex flavour is lost in the hot oil, this soup is way better.

Banana Spice Oatmeal 

Holly had a hand in the kitchen when we made breakfast this day. Bananas are yellow, if you know Holly, you know that is all they have to be! 

Super Hero Soup (Hamhock and Beans in a French Pot) 

Another Sample Sunday kit in the making. Good grief I love this red pot. My kids love this soup best of all. 

Ribs and African Peanut Sauce  

A favourite of Chad's. This recipe is like the one he used originally to get me to eat pork ribs for the first time. I was hesitant because at that point in my life, I would not eat any meat with bones. (Nope, only blenderized meat mush made into patties for me! Oh my yuck.) However, I was pregnant with Holly and hungry. This recipe evolved from that.

Grilled Farmhand Sticks  

A summer favourite when we are super busy and need to eat on the chore run.

Red Chicken in a French Pot   

A farmhouse classic. This recipe is easy and nourishing.

And the best for last? Yes, please!

Iced Coffee and Maple Syrup   

This.  If you have never tried real maple syrup in your coffee before...do it. You will not be sorry. No, you will thank me and share this recipe with all your friends. This is the iced version. The hot version is: 1 3/4 cup of hot coffee, 1/4 cup of 1/2 and 1/2 or whole real cream (up to you) and 2 T of real maple syrup. Your welcome.
 

Friends, again I thank you for all your support and kind works of encouragement. I look forward to 2014 and all the amazing food that I get to cook and share! 

Banana Spice Oatmeal

After the last batch of oatmeal, Holly asked if we could try a batch with bananas. Grampa makes her instant oatmeal that is banana, could I get that flavour too?

Well, I could try. We usually have bananas on hand.....

Recipe:
4 cups of old fashioned oatmeal with the corresponding amount of water that the kind you are using requires.
1/4 cup of maple syrup (real)
1 Tablespoon of Allspice
1 ripe large banana cut up into small pieces

Make the oatmeal according to directions
Add the maple syrup and the spice
Stir in the banana pieces

Now, to cool enough right away we use frozen berries or ice cream (Mom of the Year here.....), but I was out of ice cream! So frozen raspberries it was, and oh my, was that a perfect choice.

Enjoy!

Mushroom and Iowa Chops One Skillet Meal

This is one of the easiest, simple, one skillet dinners I make. It is so good that my husband compares it to the best meals he's ever eaten.

Recipe:
1 lb of mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion (I used yellow), sliced or diced
butter or lard or bacon grease for the skillet
2 Iowa chops
Seasoning salt of your own choice (Swamp Fire)

Cast iron skillet, warm enough that it melts the butter or fat that you choose. Add the mushrooms and onion and simmer until the mushrooms release their liquid and the onions start to caramelise. Rub the seasoning on the chops and add them to the skillet, moving the mushrooms to the sides to make room. Cover and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Uncover and flip the chops. Do not re-cover. The liquid will start to cook off. When it is gone, scoop the onions and mushrooms out into a serving dish. Then keep cooking the chops until they reach 145 degrees, remove and wrap in foil to rest for 10 minutes. Set the table, get drinks, wash hands, wrangle kids to the table. Then serve!

Failure

Today the discussion over at Midwest Homesteading and Permaculture is about things that we've tried and then failed at. Also, about how dangerous and violent emus are, but that I already know all 

about....

Music. I have tried and failed to learn to play a number of instruments. It is hard, I have a lot of respect for those who can do this, but it is not something I enjoy enough to keep trying.

 

 See these? Oh, the picture is gorgeous but the filling had so much salt that we had to scoop it out and just eat the pepper and the bacon.

These fried green tomatoes were way too salty too. Salt has been a problem in my kitchen lately. I am having a hard time finding the balance since I switched from Kosher flake salt to fine ground pink sea salt. I have since switched back. One year I put too much cayenne in everything, or so I thought. I have since decided that there is no such thing as too much cayenne. Maybe that's why I can't taste salt...

Failure, as I tell my writing students, is an indicator of what needs improvement. It is a chance to revise and do better. If you always get it right then there is no learning, or if no one pointed out that you needed improvement, that is even worse. Revision is learning. Life is about failing over and over again.

When I was in the sixth grade I came home sobbing every day for a week and hid all my homework from my parents. A teacher had told us that if we failed an exam we would fail the class and that homework was just as important. It was history and the homework was stupid map colouring. I pointed out that one of the maps was wrong and I failed the worksheet. I got so anxious over failing the class that I couldn't eat or sleep for a week. I finally broke down crying to my dad and he called the school.

I had a B in the class. Also, failing that worksheet for pointing out an outdated borderline and country name is bullshit. I should have gotten extra credit.

Failing is not something to be afraid of. It is what life is all about, learning holds a lot of it intrinsically, and kitchen failures? My mistakes make me a better cook. Yes, I still have a fire extinguisher and activated charcoal in my first aid kit- I have set the oven on fire too many times and spent too many nights in the ER with Chad over food poisoning when we were first married to not be super aware of that. Those experiences made me research fire safety, food safety, and general health. Bonus is that I am pretty sure Chad is now immune to most food poisoning bacteria. So there is that.

I want my kids to fail too. Lily has burnt eggs so many times that she knows now how NOT to burn them. She used the wrong kind of paper to paint with and the paper ripped when she tried to move it, she knows now that details like paper thickness matter. She cut herself with her new pocket knife. She knows now not to cut toward her hand AND she knows how to deal with a deep slice of a cut. She is my brave girl and being fearless of failure has led her to fail a lot. Instead of shaming her and internalising it, we focus on how failure is part of the process and not a destination. It is only the outcome IF you stop there and do not keep trying.

Sometimes failing is a good place to stop though. Sometimes relationships fail and you just have to walk away. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done for the lamb attacked by a fox during birth and the vet has to put him down. Sometimes failure is a sign that it is time to move on. Is it still failure then? Maybe. Maybe we have too much tied up in that word as a culture to really embrace it?

 

I usually only blog success in the kitchen. Should I start including the failures too? What things have you tried and failed at?

Dirty Wild Rice Dressing

Recipe for Dirty Rice Dressing

2 cups of wild rice

6 cups of broth (I like lamb or chicken, either works)

1 cup of water

1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)

1 lb of ground sausage (I used Traditional Bratworst, but I also like Green Onion in this recipe)

1 celery stick diced

1 onion diced

1 red bell pepper diced 

This is what was in the seasoning packet that our customers purchased at Prairieland Herbs:
3 T of seasoning salt (Swamp Fire is what I used, slap yo' mama works too)

1 T of Alebepo pepper

1 T of dried shallot

1 bay leaf

Bring the broth and water to a boil. Add the seasoning packet/mix and stir. Add the wild rice and stir in. Let simmer on low until the water/broth level is at the top of the rice (this takes 40 minutes to an hour). Turn off the heat and cover. Let rest while browning the sausage in the butter. I know that seems like a lot of butter, but the recipe provides 12 cups of rice, trust me on the butter! 

When the sausage is browned and ready, add it to the rice. Then add the diced vegetables. You will be adding them raw. I like the crunch and texture they add to the mixture and they will cook in the heat of the rice. Some folks I know caramelize the onion with the meat, but it isn't needed. The veggies are also where you can play a little. Like carrots? Dice some up and add them. Shallots? Go for it. Mushrooms. Yum.

Since I usually make this for a large gathering or samples, I then move the mix to a crockpot and keep on low/warm while serving. The rice just gets better and better.

One more tip- more than one person commented at our sample event about the amount of broth in ratio to the rice. Wild rice is not the same as minute white rice. The extra broth really is needed. The mix we use is a combination of 6-7 different wild rices, but the flavour is AMAZING.

Burek, My Version

Years ago, at a local place, I had burek. It was so unremarkable. Bland. The meat was clearly low quality or cooked until mushy- you know like bad taco filling. I remember thinking that I could do better, that the item had so much potential that was somehow wasted and ruined by using low quality ingredients- not what you would expect from a place that brags the opposite. You know?I love meat pies and have a goal to try the meat pies of as many cultures as I can. Except maybe the ones from Mrs. Lovett's shop on Fleet Street. I'll pass on those. (That's a nerdy literature reference, ha!)

So years later I am scanning the Interwebs for a friend looking for venison recipes that use no tomatoes. There it was- burek. Though none of the recipes used venison, which was odd, considering the search terms, but I decided it would work.

So I bought phyllo dough, thawed my ground venison and decided to have a go at it. Could I do better? So far, the only meal I have had out that I could not make better at home was pretty much anything at the Northside Cafe in Winterset. I combined from a couple different sources, used what I had on hand, and it turned out great.

For the filling:
1.5 lbs of ground venison (though beef, lamb, or goat have been used traditionally, depending on region)
2 heaping T of Alepbo pepper (Penzies, but a good medium hot dried ancho will work)
8 baby bella mushrooms, sliced thin
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large red onion, diced
1/2 cup beef broth with fat on top (Basically, I skimmed for just the fat and the broth that came with it. Venison is very lean and added fat is needed. Other meats may not.)
Salt and pepper to taste



Brown the meat in the broth and fat. Add the dried pepper about half way through. Once it is cooked, add the veggies. Let this simmer down until the broth is mostly gone and the onions start to caramelise. I start the meat on high and move to medium simmer when I add the veggies, low when the broth is mostly gone.



Take off heat and let sit while the dough is rolled out.



Phyllo is fine and thin in layers. I used three layered sheets for each one, brushing melted butter between two layers. About 1/2 cup of meat mixture per roll. I rolled like burritos.If I was rolling lengthwise I would use 2 more sheets and double the meat. Rolling short made easier serving portions and I didn't roll into coils this time anyway.



400 degrees in the oven until browned. Serve with fresh tomato garnish, sour cream if wanted. Chevre (a soft goat cheese) is my favourite.

The kids begged to have it reheated for breakfast and then they actually ate it. Then they fought over the last bites, resolving an negotiating with extra clementines and Lily telling Holly about the mushrooms contained in the filling (that was the deal breaker).

Eggnog Oatmeal

Oh there are so many things on my wish list to cook with eggnog. I LOVE eggnog. So much. Funny, though, I had never even considered this one.

Today we were out of milk and cream AND ice cream. This never happens at our house. So I looked, also out of cream cheese, but we had sour cream, yogurt, and.....eggnog.

So. Eggnog it was. In oatmeal. It was brilliant, easy, and the kids each had two bowls.

Recipe
Eggnog Oatmeal

4 cups of old fashioned oats
1 Table spoon of allspice
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/4 cup of eggnog
...appropriate amount of water to cook four cups of the oatmeal....I always just eye it.

Cook the oatmeal- this takes about 5-6 minutes. I boil the water first, then add the oats. About 2 minutes from being done, add the sugar, spice, and eggnog and then continue cooking and stirring until the oats are cooked. Then turn off (or take off) heat, cover and let rest for 2-3 minutes (enough time to get kids to wash hands and set the table (and who's kidding, argue over who gets the pink spoon. I hate that pink spoon).

Serve!

*I used allspice because previous experience told me that it was easier than trying to get the cinnamon, nutmeg, etc combination right for such a small serving portion. It worked really well. The eggnog lost most of the spice flavour once it hit the oats, but added the perfect creaminess. I like to use maple syrup instead of sugar because of the trace minerals and because it is a product from our own farm. Raw sugar also works. 

Eggless Pancakes With Sorghum

Eggless and natural sugar pancakes 
Recipe

2 cups of flour
2 cups of milk
2 T of Sorghum
1 teaspoon of salt
1 T of baking powder
1 T of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Coconut oil for frying

Mix all the ingredients together.

Pour into hot pan with coconut oil and flip when one side gets bubbly.
Easy enough for my 9 year old to make. We are not allergic to eggs, we are just in a war with our chickens and they are holding out on us. Ha!

Farmhouse Lunch

For every butchering group of pigs, we reserve back 1/2 a pig for our own family. From that we can taste the quality of the meat, the cures, and in general quality control. Today we broke out the best bacon our farm has produced.

The best? Honestly, it tasted much like our other best bacon, from the sows....but this bacon was different in a really important way. These pigs had no corn or soy input the last 6 weeks of their life. They had very little before that too. We were able to get enough real food inputs, with enough variety that they didn't have to eat the grain ration. That was awesome.Our worry was that the bacon  and the pork might not taste as good?

A couple observations right off: the fat that was bagged up for me to render into lard was very bright in colour, a lovely pink/peach. It will render white, but the colour is indicative of vitamin and nutrient content. I am excited about that.

The bacon fried up slow and had a good sound to it while sizzling. That is something I started noticing once we started paying attention to quality. The end product was the perfect crisp/chew ration.

So, for lunch I served up local apples, white cheddar, and bacon. My little foodies were all very attentive and gave good feedback too. Lily said the fat was very bright in taste, Holly thought it was just salty enough. Isaac liked to eat it with the apples.



Me? I liked how well it went with my maple cream coffee. It was that kind of day, y'all.

Alligator Soup

So I made this: Alligator Gumbo. Except that it wasn't really gumbo. It was a chowder. The kids insisted on calling it gumbo and they gobbled it up. Isaac had two bowls worth of alligator (he picked the meat out and ONLY ate that until he ran out and then he spooned up broth only bites).

It was simple actually. I carmelized one diced onion in butter, then added bite sized chopped up alligator fillets and sprinked seasoning salt on generously. I simmered that until the meat was cooked and the natural liquid was mostly gone. Then I added a handful of flour and made a quick roux. Next in was 4 cups of chicken broth, slowly poured in while stirring to keep the mixture thickening. Brought back to a bubbling boil, added sweet corn and dried and crushed sweet peppers. I could have added celery, potatoes, and carrots too but I didn't have time for those to cook. Add 1/2 cup of cream when taken off heat.

Recipe:
1 lb alligator fillets cut into bite sized chunks
1 onion, diced
1 cup of frozen sweet corn
4 cups of chicken broth
seasoning salt
4-5 dried sweet peppers
4 T of butter
handful of flour
1/2 cup of cream or sour cream

Serves 4-5 generous bowls.

This would be really good with fried cornbread bites or hushpuppies too.

I want to add this note too, I made this as a challenge to my theory that I could make any soup with a meat of choice, broth, and vegetables on hand. It worked. It worked really well. We will not ever get sick of soup if I can change them up with the kind of variety a simple template like this offers.

Meat + broth + vegetables= soup.  20 minutes from start to finish.