This beef short rib and noodle soup is perfect for winter. It’s rich, savory, and full of comforting umami. It is braised for hours, filling the kitchen with the wonderful hygge we so long for during nesting season. Yet a healthy dose of ginger gives it a pop of brightness during the season of dark grey. It is also full of collagen, elastin, and chondroitin, to help support our joints – always appreciated in the cold days of winter!
Christmas Eve found us retreating inside, close to the wood stove, as the -35 F wind chill and blowing snow made outdoor activity rather unpleasant. But, if you have a wood stove and time to hang around it, you can do all sorts of fun cooking. On this day, I made a delicious lamb tagine with freeze-dried wild blackberries we foraged this summer, and dates from the pantry.Continue reading →
If you bought into the media hype, you knew winter storm Elliot was going to kill us all. Comparisons to the blizzard of ’78 were flying everywhere, and I understand there was nowhere nearby to get eggs, milk, or bread. In reality, we only got about an inch and a half of snow. But the cold. The cold meant doing everything possible to stay inside! With wind chills approaching -40, traveling any further than the sheep barn was not in the cards for us.
But, Xenia had foraged some winter oyster mushrooms ahead of the storm, and I had some old, leftover Neapolitan style pizza dough. It was really too old to make good pizzas, and since the pizza oven is an outdoor only appliance, I wasn’t going to be making pizzas anyway. But, a savory onion, mushroom, and cheese roll for breakfast? That sounds perfect for a cold day next to the wood stove!
I didn’t realize I hadn’t posted my Grand Marnier Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies to the blog. What an oversight! They’re only the best cookie in existence!
A ragu is an Italian sauce or stew, made with tomatoes, ground meat, vegetables, and wine, and cooked for a very long time. Blognese sauce is a variation on a ragu that most of us are familiar with – though, in that case, a specific regional variation that is a bit heavier on tomato than most.
Ragus are frequently used with pasta, especially spaghetti. But they can go on just about anything. Or, in the case of this week’s Pie of the Week, in anything, or at least a calzone. They are rich, hearty, and full of flavor!Continue reading →
It’s fall, and that means 2 Acre Farm is bringing their wide selection of pumpkins to the Culver Farmers’ Market. They’ve already nearly sold out this year, but I did manage to snag a couple of Long Island Cheese pumpkins. While most folks decorate for a few weeks and then toss their pumpkins, these guys are delicious. So, when life gives you pumpkins, make soup! Pumpkin and sausage soup
This is a traditional lard shortcrust pastry dough, useful for making such things as Cornish Pasties, savory gallets, and really just about any savory pastry use.
Today is National Soup it Forward Day. We are encouraged to celebrate community, friendship, health, and, soup, by making an extra-large batch of our favorite homemade soup, then delivering it to unsuspecting friends and neighbors who need a little pick-me-up and appreciation. In celebration, I’m posting my Four Cheese Cheeseburger Soup recipe that I created for our farm‘s Weeklyish Newsletter.
Garlic Scapes are one of my absolute favorite foods, yet available so fleetingly. They are the flower stalk from hardneck garlic, and must be harvested to allow the garlic heads to size up. But their delicious garlic x leek flavor is an absolute delight. The biggest scape regret is that their season lasts but about two weeks a year.