Leave My Herbs Alone Irene... Oh, and the Putt Putt Too!

Well we got caught up in the Irene hype here on the Rocky Coast.  I am hoping it is just because it is the first time we have lived on the coast during a hurricane/tropical storm warning/watch.  But in our defense, we are firm believers that it is better to be safe than sorry. 

My biggest concern was the Herbs.  I can't tell you how I love them.  But I do. 

The basil and thyme are nice and light, so they went under the deck.

The rosemary is in a heavy cement pot, so UD placed that in a safe corner of the yard, not too far from it's home.

The parsley and chives are probably what I use most, so they were put in a very accessible spot.  The garage.  Oh, and the Putt Putt too.  Along with some stuff off the deck and out of the yard.  As I said, better safe than sorry! 

Actually, the next day we were just a little sorry.  Not that the storm was a bust, but that we had a lot of lugging to do, to get the deck and yard back in order.  Oil well ....

A bientot!  See you soon.

Haddock Chowder

I love chowder.  Clam, lobster, corn or haddock.  I love them all.  I finally happened upon a recipe that uses potatoes, so I was in.  I gave it my own tweaks, and that base is what I use for every chowder I do now.

Here is what you will need for the most delicious haddock chowder!

1.5 pounds fresh haddock
1 onion
3 tablespoon of butter
Extra virgin olive oil
2 Idaho potatoes - I used to use Yukon gold, but recently I was reminded that Idaho potatoes have a lot of starch, which will help to thicken the chowder.
2 cups of whole milk
1 can of evaporated milk
1 to 1.5 cups of water
1-3 tablespoons of fresh parsley - I love parsley, so I tend to go overboard.
Paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat a large pot over medium heat.  Lightly coat the bottom of the pot with EVOO.  Add a tablespoon of butter.  When the bottom of the pot is nice and hot, add the chopped onions, salt and pepper. Cook until they are tender and translucent.

Dice the potato pretty small.  About 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch.  Add that to the onion, and add salt and pepper again.  Remember, you should season every step of the way.  Then add the cup of water.

The water should cover most of the potato, but not completely.  It should look like the picture below.  If 1 cup wasn't enough, add more, half a cup at a time.  This took 1.5 cups of water.

While the potatoes are cooking, season the haddock with salt and pepper.

Let the potatoes simmer, but taste the potato as it cooks, to check the consistency.  You want it to remain a little firm, because it will continue to cook as you finish the rest of the chowder.

When the potatoes are halfway there, add the milk, evaporated milk, chopped parsley and the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. 

Let the chowder heat up, and taste it along the way.  If it needs more salt, add a little at a time.

When it is seasoned just right, and the chowder is nice and warm, add the uncooked haddock.

It will poach to a nice flaky consistency.

Ladle it into your bowl, and sprinkle with paprika.

Add some oyster crackers, and enjoy!

A bientot!  See you soon.

 

A Fake Bake

I know I didn't invent fake baking, but I know it is the kind of baking I do best!

This brand of muffins has a can of blueberries in it.

 

I did the ol' switcheroo, and put in fresh blueberries that Sister E and P had brought us.
 

I followed the directions on the box.

Except for substituting in the fresh blueberries.  Thanks again Sister and P!

They were so moist, and so delicious!  Why bake?  Just kidding!  But for now it will do.

  

A Bientot!  See you soon.

Parmesan Crisps

I have seen parmesan crisps done on the Food Network a few times.  They looked fairly easy, and very yummy, so I decided to give them a try.  I went to the Food Network website and looked at the various people who have recipes for them.  Most cooked them at a very high temperature.  But I noticed that Alton brown did them at 300 degrees, and he is a little more scientific about cooking.  I decided to give his recipe a try. 

First I grated the cheese on the small grate side of a box grater.  Most reviews for this recipe said that it worked much better with freshly grated cheese.  That is what I did, and they turned out very well.

My last open chunk of cheese yielded about 1/2 a cup.

Which made six nicely sized portions of crisps-to-be.  I lined the baking sheet with parchment paper, and sprayed it with Pam cooking spray.  I used a tablespoon to measure them out, and then flattened them and spread them just a little, as my man Alton Brown suggested.
  

The recipe said to cook them at 300 degrees for 5 or 6 minutes, or until they were golden brown.  These actually took about 12 minutes.  I am sure it varies from oven to oven.

They were very crisp.

And very delicious!

Next time I am going to experiment with adding some chopped Herbs.  Depending on what Herbs you use, these would be terrific to serve with chicken soup or a nice pasta dish.

A bientot!  See you soon.

It's Friday Night Somewhere

When Sister E and the crew came to visit during their vacation in Maine, they brought a bounty of fresh produce for us.  They picked up blueberries, cucumbers and summer squash, from a farm stand they passed on the way.

I am really excited to use the spaghetti squash and the cucumbers, but today is all about the blueberry.  Again.

I have done enough baking with blueberries lately, so I decided to go another route.  A Blueberry Daiquiri.  Why not?  It's Friday night somewhere!

You will need:

1 cup of blueberries

2 shots (1.5 ounces each) of white rum

2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice

2 teaspoons of granulated sugar

You will also need a blender, two chilled glasses and a shot glass.

This is my Elvis Presley shot glass. My friend D gave it to me years ago, and I love it. She and I share a love for the Big E.

Put 2 cups of ice into the blender and blend it into crushed ice.

Add the rest of the ingredients over the crushed ice, and whirrr away!

Sprinkle with a few fresh blueberries and enjoy!

 

A bientot!  See you soon.

 

Sprinkle With Berries

Sister E and P were vacationing on the Rocky Coast this week, with my nephews T and J, and their cousin, my niece, LD.  They made plans to visit UD and I, and we were filled with excited anticipation over the visit.  I decided to make Blueberry Buckle for them, either to have here, or to take back to the cottage with them.  Now I am not much of a baker, but I wanted to make something they would all like, and Blueberry Buckle seemed just the thing.  Well, that is where the fun horror begins.

I am including the recipe here, in case you would like it.  But I am going to just do a quick version of what I did, because it was wrong, wrong and wrong.

These are the ingredients I used.

I mixed the dry ingredients.  Then added the wet ingredients.

Here, I was supposed to beat until light and fluffy.  I would call this dense and packed.  Even though I followed the directions in the recipe, this is the exact opposite of what it should be.  Quel est le probleme?

It says to spoon the batter into the prepared pan.  I had to use a hammer and chisel to get it out of the bowl and into the pan.  What should look like silky smooth batter, looks a lot like Play Doh to me.

Sprinkle with berries.  That I could handle.

Combine the dry topping ingredients.  Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  What the heck is a pastry blender?

I did the best I could with a fork.  But what was supposed to look like coarse crumbs...

was actually a pasty mess.  I couldn't continue like this.  It just wasn't right.  I decided to start over, with at least the topping.  So, I painstakingly removed all the "paste".

I had used softened butter, because that is what you use in the topping for the crumble.  I switched to cold butter, and it was better, but it certainly didn't resemble coarse crumbs.  More like tan clumps in tan sand.

At this point I just went with it.

When I removed it from the oven, it didn't have the golden top all over, but it was better than I expected.  All the vacationers bravely tried it, even after I explained that there had been several baking faux pas.  Surprisingly, the taste was pretty good, and the cake on the bottom was actually not as hard as cement.  It was rather soft and moist.  I don't know why, but somehow I got lucky. 

No more baking for me. Mon dieu, what an experience.

The rest of the visit was really fun.  We took a walk to the East side of the harbor for lunch, and ate at The Boothbay Lobster Wharf.  Here is the crew.  The beautiful one on the left is LD, and the planking one is T.  They are joined by beautiful Sister E and the handsome P and UD.

And of course we can't forget the very brave J, planking by the lobster traps.

We met up with a friend and co-worker of E and P.  This is the lovely V and her husband Chef S. They were both awfully nice and we were so happy to have met them.  We all indulged in delicious ice cream from the Downeast Ice Cream Factory. 

So a terrific time was had by all.  And the Buckle was but a distant memory, of a mild disaster.

A bientot!  See you soon.

Crumble For The Gs

It is blueberry season on the Rocky Coast.  There are boxes of fresh picked blueberries everywhere.  Whether you are heading North or South on Route 1, there are people sitting under canopies to avoid the scorching sun, waiting for passersby to pull over and buy a quart of their prized blueberries.  So we did just that. 

Coincidentally, UD is heading to Massachusetts this weekend to play golf with some long time golf buddies of his.  Our friends, the Gs, offered to put him up, which was very generous.  I wanted to do something nice for them, so I decided to make blueberry crumble and send it south with UD.  Hopefully they will all enjoy it.

I pulled a page out of the Food Network magazine for this recipe.  It is really nice, because it shows you how you can choose different nuts, and fillings, to create a crumble that will best suit you and your friends and family.  The first time I did it was for the kids.  They really love blueberries, and again, it was blueberry season.  So I went with the blueberry filling.  But they have examples of other fillings, which I will include at the end.

You will need:

3/4 cup of chopped pistachios (or walnuts, almonds, pecans, hazelnuts)
1/2 cup of rolled oats
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 cup of light brown sugar
a pinch of salt

7 tablespoons of room temperature butter (one tbls short of a whole stick)

4 cups (1 quart) of blueberries
1/3 cup of granulated sugar
1 tablespoon of flour
1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons cold cup up butter

A large and medium sized mixing bowl
An 8" x 8" baking dish, buttered

I do two things early in the day.  The first is to take a stick of butter out of the fridge, and let it come to room temperature.  And the second is to get two tablespoons of cold butter, cut it into a bunch of small pieces, and return it to the fridge until it is needed.

Then later in the day, rinse the blueberries and pick out any stems or leaves that may have been left behind, and lay them out on a clean dish towel.

Once the blueberries have dried a little, you can make the filling.  Put the blueberries into the large bowl.  Add 1/3 of a cup of granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice.  Toss these all together.

Transfer the mixture to the buttered baking dish, and dot the top of the blueberry filling with the cold cut up butter. 

Now the topping.  In the medium sized bowl, put in 1/2 cup of rolled oats.  Add 3/4 cup of flour, 1/2 of a cup of light brown sugar and a pinch of salt.  Whisk that all together.  Then add the chopped pistachios. 

Now add the 7 tablespoons of room temperature butter.

Mix this all together until it is well combined and crumbly.  I usually mix it with a large fork, and then I get in there with my hands to finish the job.  Messy but effective.

Now place the topping all over the blueberry filling.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven, for 40 to 45 minutes.  Let it sit for 10 minutes before serving, and top with whipped cream or ice cream, if you like.

This is going to the Gs in the morning, so I am going to let it cool off completely and then wrap it in plastic wrap.  Enjoy Gs!

Here are some of the other filling combinations I mentioned before.

Apple-Raspberry - Peel 3 pounds baking apples (such as Macoun or Cortland); cut into 3/4-inch chunks.  Toss with 2 cups of raspberries, 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch each of nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.

Plum-Nectarine-Blackberry - Halve and pit 4 nectarines and 2 plums (no need to peel); slice 1/2 inch thick.  Toss with 2 cups blackberries, 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon of flour.

Pear-Pineapple - Peel 3 pounds baking pears (such as Bartlett); cut into 3/4-inch chunks.  Put the pears in a skillet, and combine with 3 cups of pineapple chunks, 2/3 cup of granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and cinnamon.  Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring, 12 minutes.  Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour; cook 1 more minute.

Quince-Grape - Peel 3 pounds of quinces; cut into 1-inch chunks.  Put the quince in a skillet and toss with 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 1/3 cup of water and a pinch of salt.  Cover and cook over medium heat, sirring occasionally until tender, 15 to 20 minutes.  Stir in 1 pound seedless red grapes and 1 tablespoon of flour; cook 1 more minute.

I think next time I will try the Plum-Nectarine-Blackberry.  :)

A bientot!  See you soon.