CrankyCakes

Is it just me?

Wouldn’t you expect that your children and their two friends could stay at the petting zoo and playground for two minutes while you ran to get them a bottle of water since the poor little darlings were thirsty?

And if they had to run wild in the minutes you were gone, surely you’d think they could continue on with the petting zoo animals, or climbing the wooden tractor, or running across the wide, safe, open field.  What child of reading age would cross an acre, pass the “CLOSED” signs, and enter the corn maze?

This place, by the way, is a big old actual maze with paths that swirl around in traditionally confusing and re-doubling ways.  It wasn’t terrifying at 3:00 p.m., but I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be there after sundown.   I’ve seen the horror movies and I know what goes on.

Still, you and your younger child yourselves entered the forbidden rows, yelling for the trespassers and were at last reunited, after telling the offending three children that they were in TROUBLE and had ONE MINUTE to find their way to where you were (because if you tell people to do something impossible while YELLING, the laws of physics will change to accommodate your wishes), and then the farmer showed up to yell at them too.

So there we were with glaring adults and big-eyed children.  I was waiting for the finger-pointing and the meltdown and I was ready to dish out some Very Serious Consequences.  But that was when E. said, “Listen.  It’s my fault.  I went in and they came in to get me out.  I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed.”  The farmer looked at me and I think realized they were in much more trouble on the homefront than they were with the farm.  He asked, “So now you know you did something wrong?  And if I had a cable across that row you wouldn’t have gone in?  We want to make sure you’re safe, you know.”

I don’t know what you would have done but for me it was to give the children a hug.  And then we shared our first cider donuts of the season sitting around a picnic table talking about how to decide what’s allowed and what’s safe, about how smart it was to stay together and keep each other okay.

In the end it was one of those golden moments when our children show us the beautiful people they’re becoming, even if there’s plenty of crazy along the way.

And then we went home to make a dinner of our first 2010 local apples, some good Cabot cheddar, and a pile of crackers, since I had no energy left for cooking.  On the way, E. said, “Mommy, you know it’s not really my fault.  They should have signs showing how to get out of that place!  Can you believe there was only one picture of the whole thing?!”

Indeed.

And now that we’ve recovered I want to share with you this pure summer harvest celebration of a recipe that we enjoyed last week after a much less adventurous visit to our CSA farm.  It was Z.’s idea to mix, “corn … and cheese … and broccoli and water … and I’ll stir it all up!”  I’m sure he was thinking something more mudpie-ish, but to me it sounded like chowder, and that’s what we made.

Cheesy Corn Potato Chowder
About 6 servings

1.  Remove the kernels from:

• 3 ears fresh corn

and set aside.

2.  Heat until rippling in a large sauce pan:

• 2 T. butter or olive oil

3.  Adjust heat to medium-low, and add:

• 2 cups diced potatoes, with peels unless you really hate them
• 1/2 cup sliced carrots
• 1/2 cup chopped onion

Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until carrots are softened, and onions are starting to brown gently.

4.  Stir in and mix very well:

• 1/2 t. salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 cup flour (substitute your usual thickener if you’re going for gluten-free)

Then pour in, 1/2 cup at a time, and bring to a simmer while stirring.

• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup water

5.  Stir in and cook at a low simmer just until broccoli turns bright green, about 3 minutes:

• 2 c. shredded cheddar cheese (I use Cabot 50% reduced fat cheddar)
• 1 cup finely chopped broccoli (or substitute spinach or chopped chard)
• the reserved corn

Heat through, and serve.

The Vermont plums are in, and they are damned good.   So good that I find myself leaving the farmer’s market each week of their short season with far more than I really need or have plans for.  Which was what was happening a couple of weeks ago when I ran into a friend who told me about her old neighbor who made dumplings with the plums that grew in her yard.

Of course the word, “dumplings” piqued my interest.  So with quarts of plums at the ready, I went home to find a recipe.  Here’s what I found, and have so far made two batches – one to freeze for winter, and one we ate fresh with grilled sausage and a great deal of delight.

Plum Dumplings
Adapted from AllRecipes.com
The original recipe’s yield says 25, but 20 seems to be closer to the truth

1.  Peel, quarter, boil until tender and then mash:

• 2 large or 4 small potatoes

2.  While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the plums.  Slice in half:

• 25 prune plums (Who knows?  Maybe you’ll get 25 out of the recipe and will actually need each one.  If not, you’ve got sugary sweet plums as a snack, so it’s a low-risk situation.)

Remove each pit, and sprinkle a bit of sugar into the spot where it was.  Place plums in a bowl while you prepare the dough.

3.  Make the dough by sifting together:

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 t. powdered lemon peel
• pinch ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Make a well in the center and add:

• 3 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons softened butter
• 1 cup mashed potato

Mix together with a wooden spoon until too hard to stir, and then knead until very smooth.

4.  Flour a cutting board well, and roll out half of the dough to 1/4″ thick.  Use a glass or biscuit cutter to cut out 3″ or 4″ rounds.  (Work fairly quickly so the circles don’t dry out.)  Place one round on the palm of one hand, rub the circle’s outside with a sugared plum to moisten the dough.

Stretch and seal the dough around the plum, trying your best to avoid any holes in the dough.  (If you do end up with a hole, just grab a scrap from the board and patch it.)

Repeat until all dough is used up, gathering and re-rolling as many scraps as you can.  (To freeze at this point, place in a single layer on a well-floured cookie sheet and stick in the freezer until hard, and then put in a container or bag.)

5.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and gently place dumplings in the water and boil for about 10 minutes. (Add about 4 minutes if you cook from frozen.)

6.  In a large sauce pan, melt together over medium-low heat and stir until warm and thick:

• 1/2 c. unsalted butter
• 1  c. brown sugar or your favorite jam or marmalade (we were lucky to have some peach butter bubbling away on the stove and so used that)
• 1/4 c. bread crumbs to thicken if you like.

I’d like to come up with some brilliant summation here, but I’m a bit distracted as I’m here with a 5-year old here who insists it’s my birthday (it’s not) and that I have to go off to a party with Batman, a plastic dinosaur and some wooden milk.  You, on the other hand, should get yourself some plums and eat them in any way you can think of.

Ah, blueberries.

My friend Robin tipped me off that she had heard that Charlotte Berry Farm was worth a try.  “$2 a pound and nearly organic,” went the rumor.  I packed up the boys and we went to check it out.

We arrived on a recent perfect summer day to just a few cars in the parking lot, a sign that said, “We’re glad you’re here,”  and a purple and rainbow boat that sure looked like it was there for kids to play in.

Things were looking pretty good.

Then we went inside, where I confirmed Robin’s information: pick-your-own blueberries cost $2/pound, and they’re grown using Integrated Pest Management practices.  The boys’ eyes got huge when they saw the corner of the farm building that was set up with books and toys, including an enormous box of Legos.  They settled in there, which the lovely person staffing the counter said was okay, and I got a flat and went out into the field.

The berries were so abundant that it took just about an hour to pick 10 pounds (all Bluejays).  And it was a pleasure doing so among the tall bushes that screened the sun from beating down on me.  While I was there, a big group from a local camp wandered through; shouting, “Jackpot!” when they found a big branch of berries.  E. & Z. wandered out to find me, and then went back to play.  I followed them a little while later, and treated them to a creemee.  What you need to know about this treat is that the farm juices the berries that are in season and flavors their ice cream with it, which is how I got this:

And then we went home, where I made a big old batch of jam, froze two batches of pre-measured-for-pie fruit, and ate berries all afternoon.  And given the reaction everyone around here is having to the jam, I think we’re going back next week to do it all again.

It was an early summer day and there in the cheese section was a bright and cheery box of ingredients put together by Ricki the Cheese Queen.  It was about $25, said it made 30 batches of mozzarella and/or ricotta and I had a little extra money and couldn’t resist.

So I got some milk, invited friends over and off we went.

We thought the boys would love making cheese, but the process turns out to be a lot of cooking and then touching hot things.  Instead they turned out to be more interested in this:

So we mom-types got a look at the ingredients in the box …

And then, repeating to myself, “pay attention, pay attention, — ooh look, a glass of wine! — pay attention,” we got started.

We learned this is really important before you start:

1. You can use raw (if you’re a fan) or pasteurized – but not ultra-pasteurized – milk.
2. Get thee some chlorine-free water, either by buying filtered or letting your chlorinated water sit uncovered for a few hours to let the chlorine evaporate.  I don’t know why this matters but the Queen hath spoken.

We dissolved 1/4 rennet tablet in 1/4 c. of that chlorine-free water.

Then mixed the citric acid in with 1 c. more chlorine-free water.

Then we poured the milk into a big stainless steel pot, stirred in the citric acid, and heated the milk to 90F.  First it looks like this:

And then before I knew it, it looked like this.  This was definitely the first time I’ve ever been excited to see curdled milk, and the first time I can remember ever considering that “curdled” doesn’t mean “went bad” but does in fact mean “form curds as if to make cheese.”  Awesome.

Then it was time to stir in the dissolved rennet.  Ricki’s instructions say to stir with “an up and down motion,” and I have no idea what the hell that means since I’m pretty sure that stirring means something that happens in a circular fashion.  So I stirred, making sure to sort of fold the top part of the stuff into the bottom part of the stuff and hoped that was good enough.

Then it was time to cover the pot, leave it alone, and wait five minutes.

After 5 minutes, it was supposed to look like a custard, with the liquid (whey) separated from the curds.  It didn’t look like custard, and the whey was pretty milky looking (apparently not desirable), so the lid went back on for 5 more minutes.  Then it looked better.

We were supposed to next cut the curds in a sort of grid fashion, but ours were not so solid that they were really able to be sliced, so we stirred it around.

Then the pot went back on the stove to stir and to heat the proto-cheese to 115F while stirring, then stirred it off the heat for a few minutes more.

There is no picture of this.

Then Her Majesty said to “drain the whey” off of the curds, which seemed a little crazy because the whole thing was mostly liquid.  We poured it over a strainer instead.

Next a big pot of water got heated to 185F, and then the curds get dipped in and stirred around.  This was super-exciting because they quickly start to melt and look an awful lot like mozzarella.  Then there’s more dipping and folding and dipping and folding and stretching, some adding salt and herbs and before we knew it we had some cheese.

There’s no picture of this because I was dipping and folding and adding salt.  But look:  video!

We thought, “Why not bocconcini?”  so after it was thoroughly cheese-like we started forming those.  They were hard to get round and it was hard to make them without lumps and bumps and seams.  But by then we were on our second glasses of wine so we pressed bravely ahead.  We mixed up some garlic and olive oil and kosher salt and Annie chopped up some basil from the garden to marinate our little mini mozzarellitas.

And we threw together some edible flowers and greens and currants and thawed some biscuits from the freezer and turned it into dinner.

It was lovely, and I’m happy to report that every day since then Z. has asked for homemade cheese.  And it will most definitely be coming.

It is day 5 of summer vacation and I have already threatened my #1 son with juvenile detention if he doesn’t stop hitting his brother.

Homemade sugary treats with purple sparkles!

He wanted to know if he could eat hot dogs if he went to kid jail.  No hot dogs, I told him.  No good food at all.

For breakfast!

Homemade Blueberry Pop Tarts
adapted from King Arthur Flour & with inspiration from Smitten Kitchen
makes about 9

Whisk together:

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 T. ground flaxseed
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Use 2 forks or a pastry cutter to work in:

• 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pats

Whisk together:

• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons milk

Add oil-egg-milk mixture to flour mixture and stir briskly until mostly incorporated.  You can knead it a couple of times if you like.

Divide the dough in half and shape each a rectangle.  Chill in the refrigerator for 10 or 15 minutes, then roll out first one rectangle and then the other to a rectangle about 1/8″ thick measuring 12 x 15 inches (use a cutting board or baking sheet as a guide).

While dough is chilling, prepare filling by placing in a small saucepan, stirring well and heating to a boil for one minute:

• 2/3 cup blueberry jam
• 1 t. cornstarch dissolved in 1 T. water

Let filling cool.  Lightly oil a baking sheet and set aside.

Removing dough from refrigerator, use a sharp knife or a pastry wheel to cut 9 approximately same-sized rectangles.  Repeat with second rectangle of dough.  Brush outline with:

• beaten egg

then place a tablespoon of filling in the center.  Put another piece of dough on top, then press and crimp edges with a fork and poke a few holes on top for ventilation.  Put each on the prepared baking sheet.

Preheat oven to 350.  Refrigerate pastries for 15 – 20 minutes, then place directly into oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until lightly golden.  Remove to rack to cool.

If you really want to be able to prepare these in your toaster, you probably should stop here.  But if you just want them to enjoy them without the actual use of a toaster, go ahead and make some sugar glaze and then top with colored sugar or sprinkles before eating them all in a carbo-loading festival of self-loathing and -pity at your horrible parenting surprising your little angels with them for a special breakfast treat.

If there’s a food habit I could break, it would be stealthing food into my children.

I’d so much rather have them happily eating their own vegetables to the tune of,

“Oh mama, how we do appreciate the organic local goodness you get for us, never mind the expense.  Could you pass the broccoli and sesame sauce for dipping?  It’s simply divine!”

I’ve seen children like this.  I see the looks their parents give me when I tell them what my #1 son’s food repertoire consists of.  Oh yes, I see the looks they exchange with their friends, smug and sure that their superior parenting skills have produced adventurous eaters.    I’m sure they’re right, and not for one minute do I wish anything unpleasant upon them, like maybe a child who develops a midnight yodeling habit or becomes possessed by the spirit of Vlad the Impaler.

I try.  I put the vegetables on the table in a casual way, and when the caterwauling begins I nonchalantly suggest they try one bite.  Then, while they’re convulsing on the floor and crying, I shrug.  I say, “It’s up to you how you get your three healthy choices.”

But I want them to eat vegetables.  So it’s squash in this and spinach in that and carrots in some other thing.  Like these scones, which embellished a King Arthur mix that someone had given me at the holidays.   They would have been good on their own (though I’d prefer that King Arthur leave the “natural flavoring” out of their mixes and just let real ingredients shine through), but the additions made them really yummy indeed.  And healthy enough that I fed them to the boys for dinner while guests were here this weekend, all of us happy that we had gotten away with something.

Carrot Cake Scones
Makes 8

Preheat oven to 425.

• 1 mix or basic recipe for 8 scones
• (please consult recipe for the amounts of butter, milk, etc. you’ll need for that)

Add to the mixed batter:

• 1/2 c. pureed pumpkin or butternut squash
• 1 c. shredded carrots
• 1/2 c. yogurt raisins (it’s what I had around – use what you like)
• 1/2 t. each ginger, cardamom

Press the dough into a circle 8 – 9″ on a baking sheet.  Cut nearly through into 8 pie-wedge type pieces.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, or until golden brown.  Frost with anything, or nothing.  I had some cream cheese frosting around from cupcakes last week, which was pretty darned good.  In fact, that was the only part Z. ate, proving that I just can’t win.

It’s that magical time of year, yes:  time to defrost the freezer! And so I’m trying to plan meals around the things that need to come out of said box of frost.   I found myself rooting around in there the other day, and was delighted to find a whole organic roasting chicken in the back of it that had somehow escaped winter meals.

Then I found the last round of root vegetables from a winter CSA pick-up, and had nettles and rhubarb from the farmer’s market, and before I knew it, I had a great dinner coming together, tart and sweet and green.  The rhubarb gets soft and melty, the big chunks of parsnip keep just a bit al dente, and the contrast is really nice.

I almost always make roasts in a clay pot, but you can use any basic recipe (like Thomas Keller’s below).  Clay pot cooking is its own special technique.  It doesn’t result in the same flavor intensity you get from dry-heat roasting, but I love how forgiving it is, and how it helps the other flavors inside the pot meld and transform.

Roast Chicken with Rhubarb, Parsnips & Nettles
4 – 6 servings

• 1 4-ish pound chicken, humanely raised please, rinsed, patted dry, and with any necks or whatever removed from the inside
• 4 – 6 large parsnips, scrubbed, peel left on, cut into nice big chunks 2″ or so
• 4 stalks rhubarb (about 3/4 lb.), washed, leaves removed, cut into 3/4″ pieces
• 1 lemon, organic, washed, seeded, and cut into 1/8′s
• 4 T. olive oil
• 1 t. kosher or other favorite salt
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 lb. nettles, handled with gloves, rinsed, blanched for 2 minutes and drained very well  (mine were from Half Pint Farm – maybe they’ll have more this week)

If  using a clay pot, prepare by filling top and bottom with cold water and letting sit for 20 – 30 minutes.

Line pot with parchment paper (I was out & so I didn’t).

Mix 2 T. oil, 1/2 salt, garlic, and juice from 2 or 3 slices of the lemon together in a small bowl.  Rub all over the chicken, including under the skin.

Place parsnips, rhubarb, remaining salt, remaining oil in the bottom of the pot.  Place chicken on top, put cover on pot, then place whole thing in the oven with rack in the lower third.  Heat oven to 450 (on my slow oven 475 works better), and cook for 50 – 60 minutes, until juice from deepest part of the thigh runs clear.  Remove top from pot and cook for 20 minutes more, or until nicely browned.  Remove from oven, place chicken on a platter to settle for 10 or so minutes.  Mix nettles into the parsnip-rhubarb mixture in the pan.  Place vegetables around chicken and serve.

Don’t have a clay pot? Here’s Thomas Keller’s Basic Roast Chicken Recipe.  You can do the vegetables on the side, in their own covered dish while the chicken cooks and present them the same way.

It’s a cool night, the boys are sleeping, and the woolly caterpillar living in the bug house on the counter is nibbling on a clover leaf.  Why have I grown so fond of this thing?  Last night I actually found myself baby-talking it as I handed in new greenery.

Things are anyway mellow around here, and it seemed like a good night to start on my goal of using the cool nights to bake and freeze some stand-by favorites to have even when it’s too hot to bake.  I’m aspiring  to have a few dozen muffins, a big old batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, maybe a banana bread or two on hand.

Plus these biscuits, which are vegan, mostly whole grain, and a big favorite of E.’s.  With a kid like him, it’s nice to have a few argument-proof things in the freezer to throw on the table with some fruit and milk when whatever thing I’ve made for dinner is the cause of consternation.

Flax-Butternut Squash Drop Biscuits
Makes 24

Preheat oven to 475.

Whisk together:

• 1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
• 2/3 c. white flour
• 2 T. ground flax seed
• 1 T. baking powder
• 1/2 t. kosher salt

In a separate small bowl, whisk together well:

• 1/4 c. pumpkin or butternut squash puree
• 2/3 c. soy milk (or regular milk)
• 1/3 c. vegetable oil

Add the liquid ingredient mixture into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined – it will still be sticky.  Use two spoons to form walnut-sized balls and place on a baking sheet about 1 1/2″ apart.

Bake 8 – 11 minutes, until the bottoms are golden brown.  Cool and serve, or freeze.

While mine cool, I’m headed out for more fresh clover for our little pet.

I don’t know what is happening to me, but I seem to be turning into Cursing Mommy.

We were coming home from Costco the other day, merging onto the highway.  There were three cars driving in our direction, and two of them merged into the passing lane so we could merge in.   I started to get up to speed and steer into the right-hand lane, but saw that car #3 had not yielded.  This is clearly annoying, but really not an unexpectedly big deal, right?

So what happened next is a little confusing.  A word came out of my mouth that I didn’t really know was in my vocabulary, a word so far beyond polite conversation that I can’t write it here.  It was a word that had Z. in an explosion of delight there in  the backseat:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  What’s a dushbag Mommy?!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  DUSHBAG, DUSHBAG, DUSHBAG!  Mommy said duuuuuushbag.

Proud I was not.

Clearly I have no excuse for what came out of my mouth as I was reading about the recall of all those children’s products and realized I had given the boys the tainted medicine.  Upset, of course, but was it really necessary to provoke E. to ask:

Son of a what, Mommy?

It’s a good thing I’ve got some nice mellow dinners like this one to get myself on an even keel.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Greek Veggie Burgers
yield: about 12

Puree together in a food processor, leaving it just a bit chunky for texture

• 1 1/2 cups steamed and drained kale or spinach
• 1/2 c. chopped sauteed mushrooms
• 1 1/2 cups cooked or canned chick peas, drained

Place spinach mixture in bowl and stir in:

• 1 1/2 cups bulgur wheat (3/4 c. dry, soaked in 1 1/4 c. boiling water for 30 minutes)
• 3/4 cup vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 T. tamari, soy sauce, or Bragg’s
• 1 t. chopped garlic
• 1 t. dried lemon peel
• 1 t. chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 t. dried

Form into patties, then place on baking sheet (give a little space around each, but they won’t expand like baked goods so don’t worry too much).  Bake for 25 minutes, then carefully flip with a spatula and bake for 20 more, until nicely browned.  Serve in whatever burger-y way you like.

We were out to dinner the other night and a friend pulled a couple of crinkly plastic bags out of her purse.  She had a share of a wild-crafting CSA, and declared that she needed some help “appreciating” the coltsfoot and sedum with which she had been gifted that week.

We nibbled at bites, furrowed our brows, and concluded that frying was the answer.  Definitely frying.

Two days later, Z. and I were having our usual Monday at home and it was time for breakfast when I stumbled on the bags in the fridge.  Fritter time.

So I beat together until smooth:

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 c. white whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c. milk
• 1/4 t. kosher salt

And then stirred in a cup or so of the mixed wild stuff.

Then heated up in a large skillet until it was slightly rippling:

• 1 T. butter
• 1 T. olive oil

Then poured the whole mix in, and let it sit until the underside was set and the top was starting to bubble, when it got flipped.

Then I cut it into wedges and ate half of it. It was really good – the coltsfoot has a sort of cumin-like taste that I found delicious.  The sedum tasted most like wilted thick spinach, pretty green but unoffensive.

And this is when the really startling thing happened.  Z. was watching Sid the Science Kid when he started wrinkling up his little nose and said, “I smell something yummy, Mommy!”  Hmm.  I asked if he wanted some.  I gave him a little slice, which he promptly devoured.  And then he ate the rest!  Hardly picking out the greens at all!

Truth be told, I’m still a little stunned.