Smoking Cheese - Electric smoker

 

Oh! It's been a long time. Sorry about that. 

But hey, it's that season again and my family is gathering food and doing summer stuff and one of the big summer things is smoking cheese. 

We don't have a cold smoker. Our smokers are both electric, and both are Smokehouse Products smokers. One was bought off season at a heavily discounted price- but honestly, it would have been worth full price for how much we use it. The other one is smaller and I got it from a garage sale for free. 

The primary thing we use our smokers for is CHEESE. My family loves smoked cheese but it's expensive. Locally it's about 17 dollars a lb. With a coupon, I can get cheddar cheese for about 3.00 a lb. 

So when it comes to smoking cheese, I've used green apple wood that my son and I whittled into chips, purchased chips, and purchased hardwood for smoking and grilling- also whittled into chips. 

The Chief line of smokers from Smokehouse Products use chips in a small pan on top of an electric element. Fairly low voltage at 450W in my Big Chief model. You set it up on a non-combustible surface for smoking. 

The big issue for smoking cheese in this kind of smoker is that it is NOT a cold smoker. In fact, it runs about 165F, and cheddar melts at 150F. Well, that's kind of a big problem if you want pretty and yummy blocks of smoked cheddar. 

So what we do is get blocks of cheese and cut them down to the sizes we want and put them on the top two racks ONLY. Then under that on a shelf, we put a big pan of ice. The ice helps cool the smoke- and we leave the top open an inch or two so it draws the smoke out of the top across the cheese. 

We like our cheese a little smokier, so we run 3 pans full of chips through it then let the cheese cool a bit before wrapping it in plastic wrap. 

I can do 4 or 5 lbs of cheese this way at a time, and it might be 3 dollars worth of wood chips if I used purchased chips instead of apple wood or other types of woods that are good for smoking that I can get for free, and at 450W, for a full 2 hours costs less than 20 cents to run the smoker. So if I get the cheese for 3 lb a lb, and do 4 lbs, finished cost is less than 4.00/lb to smoke it myself. 

My youngest LOVES our smoked cheddar. So it does get more expensive that way. She eats about twice as much cheese when it's smoked! 

Spiced Crab Apple Jelly Recipe

 

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. It's harvest season. The berries, the mushrooms, all those other things wild and cultivated that my family picks and creates the jams, sauces, syrups and jellies we use through out the year and give to our friends. Also, I'm going to do something weird and give you the recipe before the back story.

This is actually a TECHNIQUE and a recipe both. The technique is for easily juicing the crab apples. 

Juicing the crab apples in an Instant Pot

This method will not be as clear as traditional juicing methods, more of a "cider" than a juice.

You will need: 

• 10 lbs of crab apples- ornamental are fine, we used ornamental for this batch
• water to cover
• strainer
• Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker

We have a Ninja pressure cooker that's large enough we did this in 2 batches, which wound up being 2 cups of water per batch to cover the apples. 

Prep apples by removing stems. For larger crab apples, you can cut them in half too. Seeds and skins will be discarded with the pulp, but can add natural pectin to the finished jelly. 

Bring up to pressure and cook for 8 minutes. Natural release. Using a bowl to catch the juice, strain out the solids. A mesh strainer will work, you can line it with cheese cloth if you want a clearer finished jelly. We just strained and smooshed it through. The pulp and the discarded stems all went into our compost heap. 

Juice can be frozen to keep to process into jelly later. Also if you really, really like sour, go ahead and try it. It is sour though. 

Jelly Recipe (makes 12 half pints with a little leftover)

You will need:

• 9 cups of juice. Measure out your juice, add water to make 9 cups if necessary
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 11 cups of sugar
• pinch each allspice, cinnamon and either mace or nutmeg (we used mace, I'm very fond of that vintage spice) 
• 2 packages of pectin- we used powdered Sure-Jell

Mix crab apple juice, lemon juice, and sugar in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add in spices. Stir, heat slowly to mix completely and dissolve sugar completely. Stir in 2 packages of pectin. Bring to a rolling boil (a boil that can't be stirred down) and boil for exactly 1 minute. 

Skim of foam and put into prepared jars with a half inch headroom. Water bath process for 10 minutes.  

Crab apples are pretty new in our harvesting. Last year at a virtual plant symposium, someone told me approximately where her Dad had planted crab apple trees decades ago. My daughter went out exploring and found them and also found out that other people weren't picking them. Over the course of the next few weeks, she and her brother picked about 30 lbs of them. They were dried, used in pie, used for jellies and apple butter. 

Those trees aren't ready yet. But a friend of our offered to let TG and William pick at her house and they got 16 lbs total! We gave some to a friend, and used the rest to make this jelly. 

It's delicious. This would be amazing with moose, caribou, or if you're down south, venison. It's also a natural for pork. The sweet, tart, spiced combination is a natural with sharp cheese too. 

Air fried puffball recipe

 

My family does a lot of foraging in spring/summer/fall and one of our favorites has always been puffball mushrooms.

Usually puffballs in Alaska don't get much larger than a golf ball, compared to the soccer ball sized ones down south. But the last few weeks have been very rainy and we've found a lot of bigger ones, closer to tennis ball sized. 

My kids and I liked them cooked differently. My favorite was cooked with scrambled eggs, my daughter liked them sauteed in butter with a light sprinkle of salt and garlic. 

Then my son came up with a recipe for air fried puffballs that has rapidly become everyone's favorite way to eat them. (more on identifying and preparing puffballs after the recipe) 

Air fried puffballs: 

You will need:

Puffball mushrooms

1 cup panko crumbs

1 cup dry grated Parmesan cheese (yes, the stuff in the green can, not fresh) 

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

flour (on a plate, small amount for dredging)

one lightly beaten egg (in a bowl) 

olive oil spray

Mix panko, cheese, garlic and salt together. 

Clean and cut the puffball into nugget sized pieces.  Dredge them in the flour then coat in the egg, then roll in crumb mixture.

Lightly spray with olive oil. 

Put in the air fryer at 425F for 7 minutes then turn and cook another 5 minutes. 

Leftover crumb mixture can be used on onions or dandelion blossoms. (we have!!) 

These are fantastic. The inside is soft, gooey and good, the outside is crunchy and delicious. The egg provides a bit more crunch than using milk. They have become so much my daughter's favorite that she has eaten them 3 times this week. 

So finding puffballs- 

Puffballs are one of the safest and easiest to identify wild mushrooms around. There are some look-alikes which are poisonous, but slicing the mushroom in half will show you if it's safe to eat edible puffball. 

Puffballs are round, potato shaped or pear shaped. Not "mushroom shaped". 

When you slice open a puffball, what you are looking for is a solid white marshmallow like interior. 

There shouldn't be a trace of anything that looks like gills, or an immature mushroom. Gills or a standard mushroom shape on the inside indicate it's an immature amanita and could be poisonous. 

A solid interior that is yellowing, greening or browning show that it's too mature for eating. 

What you're looking for is that solid white marshmallow interior. 

We clean our mushrooms with a damp coffee filter or a soft brush and we don't peel them because they are so small here. Larger ones can be peeled. The exterior of a puffball can be slightly bitter. 

Chocolate Salted Caramel Cherry Fudge Recipe Featuring Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

Fudge!! Oh how I love fudge. My family has been using Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk for generations.

Fudge is one of those last minute things that is going to impress if it's got a silky texture and it's really easy to make it fancy and on trend.

Today we made a nice big pan of a subtly two toned fudge to give as gifts- or at least as much as my husband will allow out the door. I suspect he's going to decide a lot of people get cookies instead! The first thing he said when he tasted it is "It's not grainy, it's perfect fudge!"

Ingredients:

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 bag milk chocolate chips
1 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup caramel chips - I used Ghiradelli brand for all the chips.
1 stick butter (8 Tbs) + extra for buttering the waxed paper for easy release
2 cans Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 jars of maraschino cherries- my own preference is for Tillen Farm's cherries with no artificial colors or flavors
2 tsps. vanilla
Caramel sauce
Nice flake salt- I used an Alaskan sea salt that's made small batch in Sitka.

Supplies:
9x13x2 inch pan and wax paper to line it
1 large sauce pan
Spoon and silicone spatula

Line the 9x13 pan with waxed paper, and butter it lightly

In the sauce pan, combine
1 bag semi-sweet chips
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup caramel chips
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 stick (4 Tbs.) butter

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it's all melted and combined. Remove from heat, stir in 1 tsp. vanilla. Pour into pan, spread it evenly.

In the same pan-

the rest of the bag of milk chocolate chips
1 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup caramel chips
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 stick (4 Tbs.) butter
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it's all melted and combined. Remove from heat, stir in 1 tsp. vanilla. Pour into pan, spread it evenly over first layer.

Put the cherries on top evenly spaced. Chill.

Add a drizzle of caramel sauce, cut into cubes, and put on a lightly sprinkle of salt.

Check out Eagle Brand to find a lot more recipes.

This post was sponsored by Eagle Brand- all opinions are mine.

How to make spruce tip salt

This year the spruce tips are coming out a little later than normal. Spruce tips are an easy to forage wild edible that's widely available. They have a green, citrus-y flavor that's bright and my family is pretty wild for it.

Any time you're trying a new wild edible, pick a couple and taste them before harvesting, because you want to make sure you like the flavor! If they need some sort of process to eat- like some mushrooms need to be cooked (NEVER PICK MUSHROOMS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!) - pick a couple, bring them home, and cook them. Just make a note of where you found them.

Spruce tips can be eaten raw. You're looking for just the tips that come out in spring- they will be a light green and the needles are quite tender compared to the rest of the needles. You pick them like berries, just pinching them off the tree. As with any wild edible, harvest sustainably. There are enough tips that you can collect from different places on the trees, and leave most of them in place.

These are the picked tips. See that papery brown coating? It slips right off. Take that off, and discard it. Make sure there is no debris on the tips.

Chop up the tips. You could use a food processor- but I don't like even the mild heat that a motor can generate, or how much gets stuck or pasty because of the slight moisture. Chopping a bunch at a time by hand doesn't take very long.

Mix it with white sea salt. In this case, I got some sea salt from an artisan salt maker in Valdez. She gets sea water and evaporates it. I wanted my spruce tip salt to be made using Alaskan sea salt.

I like a 50/50 mix.

 This is just some of the tips added.

Spread it in a thin layer in a baking sheet and allow to dry overnight. The salt helps it dry quickly. Then put in jars.

What can you do with it?
Spruce tip salt is delicious on vegetables, fish and chicken- and probably good on pork. I'm not really a pork eater.

It makes a lovely, personal gift.

No-bake cultured cream parfait AND TG's rhubarb lemonade recipe

I know what we consider hot weather here is what a lot of you consider a nice day. But it's 70 today and that's a bit warmer than is comfortable. Baking on the 4th of July is NOT going to happen. But no bake desserts in jars? That's easy, cute and transports well.

So starting from the left- those are no-bake parfaits. There are a lot more berries than it appears and it's two of my favorites- strawberries and blueberries.

For 4 pint jars you will need:

To culture the cream:
1 pint of heavy cream
2 Tbsps plain yogurt- make sure it's just milk and cultures
A warm day- or a warm water bath

Put the yogurt and cream in a 1 qt jar, screw on the lid,  shake once, then set in a warm place overnight. After about 12 hours the cream will be very thick when you tilt the jar. Put it in the fridge to chill.

Making the parfait:

Graham cracker crumble:
Melt 1/2 cup butter in the microwave if you absolutely can not stand the idea of turning on the stove (like me, seriously, 70 degrees is really warm for Anchorage)
Mix with 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 1 sleeve, crushed fine)

Rinse the strawberries and blueberries. I got a quart of strawberries and a pint of blueberries, there was some leftover for about a minute. Slice the strawberries.Put berries in the fridge until the cream is whipped.

Mix the chilled cream with 1/4 cup super fine sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and if you have it, 1 tsp Grand Marnier.
Whip the cream! With cultured creams, I've found my cream whipper does not work well, even if they are really cold. Whipping by hand with a whisk works great and an electric mixer would probably work too. I prefer the whisk because it's quiet and quick.

Put a few spoonfuls of the crumb mixture in the bottom of each of your jars, then put in a 1/2 inch layer of strawberries, add cream, add blueberries, add cream, continue alternating until it's nearly full, then top with more graham cracker. A nice addition is to fancy slice a strawberry so you can fan it out on top before putting the lid on.

Culturing the cream adds a delicious tangy flavor, and makes for a smooth, silk like cream. The crumbs and berries provide texture and flavor. My daughter likes to whip in some cocoa powder as well for hers because everything is better with chocolate.

Speaking of my daughter, she made lemonade and measured this time. For those of you living where you can consistently get good lemons, LUCKY!! We use lemon juice because it's more consistent.

Yes, I have jar love. I also have some of the newest products from Ball Canning to show off.

Using a 1 pint jar because  Ball® jars are wonderful. They have measuring lines which makes it all so easy-
Put in 2 Tbsp of sugar
Pour in lemon juice to the first line,
Fill with cold water to the top line. Lid, shake well.

Now in your big 24 oz  Ball® Mason Jar mug (you have one right? They are huge and nicely made!)
Slice up a 4 inch piece of rhubarb, add whatever other fruits sound good. She did! Then lots of ice. Pour the lemonade over the fruit and ice, and use a Sip and Straw lid and a wide mouth jar band.
The nice thing about doing it this way is that she can customize the drinks a bit. Like her dad likes it just like that, but she likes it more sour so she makes hers with more lemon, and a touch more sugar.

Another new product, like the Mason Drinking Jars, and the Sip and Straw Lid that's just really neat is the infuser.

This works with wide mouth jars- like the big  Ball® Mason Drinking Jar (they do have a regular sized version of the drinking jar as well) or the tall Ball jars you use for things like asparagus. I love this. The Sip and Straw lids are NICE. They have reusable thick straws, perfect for smoothies and shakes. The infuser lid though, that's perfect for people like me that try to stay hydrated but like a little flavor. Shown above, it has rhubarb, blueberries and strawberries in it, but soon it will be raspberries from my yard. Yum. It has a drinking hole on top, and has a gasket for a tight seal. The basket is big enough for a nice amount of goodies.

The jars, the mugs, the drink lids are all available on their site- and it's been re-designed to be more mobile friendly.

The lids, jars and mugs were provided to me at no cost. No other compensation was given, and my love for  Ball® Canning products is real.

Crabby Bread Recipe

Actually, this is kind of a non-recipe because it's quick, adaptable and so very, very good. It's more of an overview of how to make crabby bread. A family favorite.

You will need:

• 1.5 lb Snow Crab clusters  OR 12 ozs of cooked lump crab meat*
• 8 oz container soft cream cheese
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. hot sauce (optional)
• 1 loaf of French bread sliced in half lengthwise
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• marinara sauce (optional, good quality jarred is fine)

This can be made either under a broiler for a crispy, toasted cheese look that's very pretty and yummy or done on a grill which doesn't make the cheese as pretty, but cooked over a wood fire adds all that great smoke flavor.

Shell the crab if you have legs/clusters. Or have your son do it because he doesn't mind doing it if it means he gets crab for dinner. (my son really, really loves crab)

Mix the crab, cream cheese , lemon juice and hot sauce.

Toast the cut sides of the bread. Spread the bread with the crab mixture. 

Top with the shredded cheese. 

Then put it on the grill or under the broiler until the cheese is all melted. Serve with warm marinara.

It's that easy, and the flavor is pretty fantastic. The 4 of us ate nearly all of it on Mother's Day when my husband made it on the grill over a birch fire for dinner. He also made salmon, asparagus, potatoes and carrots and I was so stuffed from the crab bread and asparagus that I had the salmon the next day for lunch! It was darn good cold too. 

Variations- all sorts. You can switch out the cheese, you can use different sauces, different breads. Doing the same basic thing but with Alaskan smoked salmon, cream cheese and a touch of horseradish on a rye loaf is amazing but very salty. Really good to serve with a very cold beer and some fresh fruit or berries. My husband also likes the crab with smoked Gruyere, but I'm pretty sure you could melt smoked Gruyere on shoe leather and he'd ruin my good steak knives to eat it. 

*Most Alaskan crab is already cooked. Including snow crab. I know that down south buying lump crab meat is less expensive per lb than buying any kind of Alaskan crab legs because people have told me what they are paying. Up here- snow crab goes on sale frequently and winds up being less expensive per ounce of meat than the stuff shipped up here. 

Don't forget to enter my $50 dollar Better Sleep giveaway!

Rubber Duck Recipe Page

I seem to be on a rubber duck kick. This duck wants to cook for you!

This recipe page is available in both a black and white version to color and a color version. I'm still working on the PDF-fillable version because the new version of Acrobat is just enough different that somehow my forms keep wanting to send themselves instead of just being saved after being filled in. So for now, you'll have to write your recipe by hand.

I hope you enjoy this printable recipe page. Click on the images for a larger version to print!

Color version:

Black and white version:

Silky whipped cultured cream

That cream in the photo? It's amazing. I got the idea from a vintage French desserts cookbook from a thrift store. The Chantilly cream recipe in it called for creme fraiche. Since I've had this obsession lately with coming up with a chocolate cream pie that really fulfills all my chocolate cream pie fantasies in flavor and silkiness- I decided to try making and whipping creme fraiche.

You will need:
1 cup heavy cream
2 TBS cultured buttermilk
a very clean jar
spoon
2 TBS caster or superfine sugar
1 tsp good quality vanilla (I used a Mexican vanilla this time)
silicone or rubber spatula
whisk or mixer- I use a large balloon whisk
cold bowl

Time- 12-16 hours, but not much actual working time.

Mix the cream and buttermilk in the jar, cap loosely and keep it at room temperature until set. I put it out the night before.

The next morning check to see if it's thickened. You can taste it at this point if you'd like. Put it in the fridge until it's very cold.

Because it's so thick, you may need to use the spatula to get it all out of the jar into your cold bowl.
Whip it, if it's too thick, add a spoonful of very cold milk. Mix in the sugar and vanilla and whip to soft peaks. Then serve it over fruit, chocolate or however you think it will be best.

The culturing makes the cream super silky and a bit tangy. It's almost like a cross between sour cream and cream cheese except even better. It's so good that my daughter used her finger to "clean" out the bowl. This is absolutely going to be a component in my dream chocolate cream pie.

Book Review- Put 'Em Up! Fruit

If there is a book out there that has made me more eager for farmer's markets and for my own berry patches and rhubarb to be ready to harvest, I don't remember it. Put 'Em Up Fruit- A Preserving Guide & Cookbook. Creative Ways to Put 'em Up, Tasty Ways to Use 'em Up is by Sherri Brooks Vinton who also wrote Put 'Em Up.

Enthusiastic, knowledgeable and creative, this collection of techniques and recipes for preservation and recipes for using what you've preserved will inspire anyone. It's presented in a great way that can be understood by absolute beginners to canning, dehydration, and other preserving methods. There are great photos throughout the book as inspiration, illustration and instruction.

So what makes this book so great? The variety of fruits and methods is certainly one thing. She explains different methods for preserving everything from every day apples to things like quince. Berries, rhubarb, pears, citrus and my favorite stone fruits are all included. The methods covered create jellies, jams, sauces, gastriques, infusions,homemade vinegar, cordials, fruit leathers and compotes.

The recipes for using up your preserves are also a great reason to enjoy this book. You'd expect a lot of desserts, and you'd be right of course. Fruit lends itself well to desserts, but there are also a lot of savory recipes. Not just for cooking with your preserves, but also one for blueberry ketchup my daughter wants to make after we go blueberry picking later this year. There are main courses and side dishes included in the recipes. The recipes are good for entertaining and family dinners, mostly simple enough to make with great flavor and texture combinations.

The information is fantastic, the author explains the methods step by step in a clear and concise way. She also includes cutting instructions so people can learn the basic knife skills to really make things beautiful. The instructions include great, full color photographs for visual learners.

The book starts with a table of contents of course, but at the end also includes a resources guide and a very complete index.

Absolutely recommended to anyone interested in food preservation and canning. This is one that will be used extensively throughout summer as more things ripen and become available in both my garden and at local farmer's markets.

You can watch videos by the author right here- Put 'Em Up! Fruit - You will learn how to make a blackberry gastrique, how to can using the water bath method and a recipe for using the gastrique with downloadable PDFs of the recipes shown.
The author is also going on tour to promote her book and you can catch her all over the country at farmer's markets and book stores. Check out the schedule HERE.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

My new favorite way to eat asparagus!

This was going to be a post about fish. It was supposed to be about fish when I plated dinner last night and grabbed my camera. But then I started eating. The fish, Alaskan cod, was very good. The asparagus? OH MY STARS! The only way I'd like it better is if we had done it outside over a birch wood fire.

It was just that good. It's not that I did much different, so it has to be the salt.

I love good salts. If you think salt is salt, then you might be missing out. A lot of the gourmet salts have minerals in them. Just like water from a mineral spring tastes a lot better than flat, completely pure water, salt that has minerals in it tastes better than regular salt, or even then standard sea salt. Some of them are smoked for even more flavors.

San Francisco Salt Company sent me some of their gourmet salts to review. I'm a nut for gourmet salts, and my husband enjoys them too. This 3 pack is available on Amazon, or you can order salt directly from their site. These are the 4 ounce shaker style bottles. The bottles are attractive, glass with what looks like brushed aluminum tops which cover the plastic shaker top, which means they are great bottles for reusing if you buy bulk salt to refill them.

The salts themselves are a good range for a beginner into the world of gourmet salts. Himalayan Pink is the one with the strongest flavor, it's a bit lower in sodium than most salts, and has a great mineral taste. It's my personal favorite for chicken and salmon. It's also wonderful on vegetables. French Grey Sea Salt is my husband's favorite. The flavor is more delicate, and should be paired with mild flavors to really enjoy the depth it offers. It has a moist appearance because it is a bit moister than other salts. It's not wet, and it doesn't cake. It does pour freely from the shaker top. Pacific sea salt is the closest to normal table salt, it still has some flavor, but it's very subtle. These shakers are fine ground and work for all the applications regular table salt works well for. Except it really makes things taste better.
They also have coarse salt, and included a sample of the French Grey Salt in the coarse texture. Coarse salt is the kind you want to use as both a flavor enhancer and as a gorgeous finishing accent. It's great for chocolates and all that kind of stuff too. Just a few pieces on top of a truffle to bring out the flavors? Divine.

Oh.. sorry. This was about asparagus. I really, really like salt.

So a lot of Alaskan fisherman and women have a standard recipe for Alaskan fish. It generally starts out
Ingredients:
1/2 cup or 1 cube of butter

After that, various recipes change. Some call for seasoning salt, some for garlic or a whole onion or all three of the above. Some call for lemon juice. End result is that if you have a mild fish like Alaskan cod or halibut, you stop tasting the fish and taste mostly the seasoning and butter. It does taste good, but it seems a waste to mask the flavor of good, fresh fish.

So what I did was simplify it a bit.
1 lb Alaskan cod fillets (pat dry with a paper towel)
2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
zest of one lemon
French Grey Salt (to taste)
black pepper (to taste)
Pepper sauce or hot sauce if you're a fan

Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until the butter is melted, add the onions and cook until just soft. Move the onions to one side. Put in the cod fillets and season with salt, pepper and the lemon zest, cook until brown on one side, flip over and cover with onions. Cook until done. Which is when the fish is opaque and flaky. When you serve it, you'll slide a spatula under the fish and flip it on to the plate so it's served on top of the onions, then use 1/2 of the lemon to add lemon juice over the top of the fillets.

So, that's that, and that was good.

Then I did the asparagus.
Starting with frozen asparagus - Why frozen? Frozen asparagus is really fresh, and unless you have it in your garden, the stuff from the grocery store has been aging and dropping in flavor and tenderness since it was picked. Frozen asparagus is blanched and then frozen fast at the peak of it's season. It doesn't have "woody" bits, and it's got great flavor.

1 bag frozen asparagus spears
2 Tbs butter
the other half of the lemon
French Grey Salt - coarse

Melt the butter, and add the asparagus. Cook until it's heated through, then squeeze the lemon juice on top of it. Plate, and top with a sprinkle of the salt.

It's really that simple, and tasted so good that my DAUGHTER ate some, and she generally hates cooked vegetables and really detests asparagus. The rest of my family enjoyed it very much. This is my favorite way to eat asparagus now. At least until my husband can do roughly the same thing on the grill adding in that wood smoke flavor for absolute perfection.

Check out the San Francisco Salt Company on Facebook, they are currently running a giveaway and the winner gets 100 dollars worth of salt.

Eggnog! With printable recipe cards

I was a bad blogger last night and didn't take any photos of the eggnog. Instead, I enjoyed eggnog with my family.

The recipe from my childhood? Turned out to be just as good as I remembered. Just as creamy impossibly thick. Of course, I probably got the seasonings all wrong, but it worked!

Um.. this? Not for the faint of heart. If you're on a diet, I recommend half cups, or giving yours to someone else. Or realizing that dieting can be a resolution for 2013, or even that the world might end tomorrow. (written 12-20-2012)

My Favorite Eggnog (and now Michael's and my kids favorite too!)
What makes the difference is whipping the cream. A lot of eggnog is made with just straight cream and milk, using very cold cream and whipping it makes a frothy, foamy, thick eggnog. When you're 10, it's impressively good. When you're *coughcough* tyone, it's still very good, and you can add rum!

This recipe is made to serve 4 if you pour full cups. If you do half cup servings, it will serve 8. Why so small? Because one of my friends was very sad there were no small batch recipes for eggnog she could find, and I tested the recipe just for my family of 4.

So first, the cooked part:

4 eggs- separated, you'll use the yolks, refrigerate or freeze the whites to use in meringues or something else later
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/3 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla - or 2 if you love vanilla like I do!

Combine milk, spices and sugar in saucepan, bring to a light boil, and whisk constantly. Let simmer for about 10 minutes while whisking. Turn off heat, and stir in vanilla.

Pour 1/4 cup of milk mixture SLOWLY into the egg yolks while whisking to temper the yolks. This keeps them from cooking on contact with the rest of the hot liquid. Pour that mixture into the pan and whisk it to mix in the egg yolks completely. Chill milk mixture.

While the milk and egg mixture is chilling, whip
1 c. heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. sugar
in a chilled bowl. Whip it to soft peaks (when you lift the mixer, whisk or egg beater, peaks will form and slump). Fold in the chilled milk mixture.

If you want to add rum, decide first if you're going to be serving some to kids. If so, just add the rum into individual cups, and stir it in well. Otherwise, you'll put the rum into the milk mixture before folding it into the whipped cream. If you just want a bit of rum flavor, use 2 Tbs, for a lightly alcoholic drink (about 1 ounce per serving) use a half cup of rum, for a stronger drink, use a full cup of rum. If you're doing individual drinks, I leave it up to you. A shot is 1.5 ounces. If you are going to use rum, please, please use a good one*. Because this is a bit of time to make and you're worth it! (Always drink responsibly!!)

So here's the printable recipe card- click on the images for larger versions.

Peppermint Printables!

I could probably modify the recipe above into a good jar gift for people like the Turnip Girl (also known as Dea occasionally) who look forward to this time of year just for all the places that have peppermint chocolate things. More about that in a minute. First, a printable peppermint themed gift box, and some blank printable cards you can use as recipe cards, gift tags or just as very festive note cards!
Click on the images for the larger version, print on card stock. For the box, cut, score, fold, glue. For the cards, cut them apart using the crop marks as guides.
More peppermint printables

The Turnip Girl has peppermint in common with her great-grandma. Grandma always had peppermint candies on hand. TG may be 17, but peppermint chocolate love goes back years for her. As far as cocoa goes, she loves the stuff, but only drinks instant very occasionally. She has a definite preference for homemade. She also always wants to whip the cream for it herself. She'd rather I make the cocoa, but whipped cream is her domain. She uses either a whisk or an old-fashioned hand operated egg beater. We have a stand mixer, and it gets used only very rarely. She suggests adding in the sugar and peppermint near the end, that way, if you accidentally break the cream, you have a good plain butter that just needs to be washed and have salt added.  In the winter, she chills her bowl and whisk by putting them out on the porch for a few minutes. BRR!
She requested more peppermint printables after seeing 1D on a peppermint stage recently on TV. She's not a 1D fan really. She kind of likes their music, but she loved that peppermint stage.

Cherry Pork Chops with CherryMan Cherries

Now this recipe needs a little explanation and back story.

It starts simply enough. I hate pork chops. My husband on the other hand likes them. So every so often, I'd cook them for him, using shake and coat methods and other people's recipes and generally winding up with a nice little pork hockey puck for him. It never worked out well.

One day, I was considering, and had this flash! Cherry soda! That might work. So I grabbed a bottle of Cheerwine which is a sugar sweetened cherry soda (look for the glass bottles) and started experimenting.
When the pork chops were served that night, they were moist, not noticeably sweet, a gorgeous reddish-pink color on the outside and an absolute hit with my whole family. Except me. I appreciated that they weren't dried out tough chewy pucks but still coated them in apple sauce to eat them.

So this is one of those rare recipes where it's not one of my favorites because I still hate pork chops. But the rest of my family thinks they are the best pork chops ever. They are certainly made with love.

Cherry Pork Chops
You will need:

• 1 jar of CherryMan maraschino cherries- I used Jumbo Cherries with Stems, but the rest of the varieties will work too
• olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion- chopped fine
• 3 cloves of garlic- minced or 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 4-6 pork chops- I use top loin boneless chops
• salt
• pepper
• 12 ounce bottle or can cherry soda- cherry cola will work in a pinch

Put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet and add the onion, garlic and saute until golden and the onions are translucent. Salt and pepper the pork chops, and add them to the pan. Brown the pork chops on both sides. 

After they are brown, put 2 cherries on each pork chop, and then pour 1 cup of soda around the chops, bring to a boil, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes, 40 minutes for thicker cuts. While doing this, pour the remaining 4 ounces of soda in a glass and add a cherry. Yum. You deserve a treat.

Serve with 2 cherries for each chop, the cherries aren't as sweet after cooking, but the tart and sweet flavor tastes lovely with them. My husband likes the liquid with the soda and pork juices over potatoes or to dip bread. 

CherryMan provided the cherries to me for review purposes. CherryMan cherries don't use high fructose corn syrup, and have the classic maraschino flavor that is the perfect topping for desserts or to use in baking. The Jumbo Cherries with Stems are large and delicious and um.. I just had one. Because darnit, I'm a grown up, if I want a maraschino cherry first thing in the morning I can have one. (Michael had a leftover pork chop. Did I mention he really loves that recipe?)

Check out CherryMan on FB and follow them on Twitter here.

You can also like my page on FB - Shala's Beadwork and Printables

Avocados and Halloween- Ghoulishly Green

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Avocados from Mexico for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Halloween and avocados from Mexico are a great combination for parties and get togethers. Tomorrow is Halloween and "Spookamole" recipes are fast and wonderful to serve to adult guests while children go out trick or treating.
At the end of this feature are some free printable Zombie Apocalypse recipe cards for your own favorite Halloween recipes. 
Halloween recipes are available at Avocados from Mexico. My personal favorite is the

Lump Crab Guacamole:

2 avocados from Mexico, halved, pitted, peeled and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons finely chopped white onion

1 Serrano chile, seeded and minced

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, divided

1-1/4 teaspoons salt, divided

8 ounces lump crabmeat

1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Lump Crab Guacamole: 

In a medium bowl, coarsely mash avocados. Add onion, chile, 3 tablespoons of the lime juice and 1 teaspoon of the salt; mix well. In a separate bowl, combine crabmeat, lime zest, chives, remaining 2 tablespoons of lime juice and 1/4 teaspoon of salt; toss gently. Mix crab mixture into the guacamole. Serve with tortilla chips. 

I use Alaskan Snow Crab of course, it's fairly inexpensive here, and it's my favorite. While I could weigh it out, generally I just buy a pound of clusters, and whatever doesn't get snacked on while getting it out of the shell winds up in the recipe! Snow crab clusters, like King crab are already cooked. Just thaw and go. 

2 of my favorite things in the world makes for a very rich dip that's just amazing.

Follow Mexican Avocados on Pinterest,  

Right click the image below and choose save target as or click on the image then hit the back button. The link will take you to a high quality 300 dpi layout that will print 4 cards on one page. I recommend using a black pen to fill them in!


Looking for more fun ways to Green your Halloween? Green Halloween has some EEK!-o-friendly ideas. (Green Halloween is a registered trademark of Green America.)

My Aunt's Fried Chicken Recipe

That above is the juiciest, tastiest fried chicken I've ever made. My family likes my old recipe, but this is something special.

My dad makes lifetime friends, and a lot of them I've called Aunt or Uncle all my life. This recipe came from one of those Aunts. My dad had told me about how he was giving her a hard time, and asked her if she knew how to make fried chicken. She replied she could make the best fried chicken he'd ever had thank you very much and proceeded to prove it. He's mentioned that fried chicken at every single restaurant he's had fried chicken at since.

So when we started emailing each other, I asked her for the recipe. She very kindly gave it to me. When I asked if I could blog it, she gave permission. So now you get her wonderful, easy recipe for what TG and I agree is probably the best fried chicken ever.

Rather than frying a whole chicken, we opted to fry boneless, skinless chicken breasts. We cut them into a few shapes, and found large nuggets or chicken strips worked best. The popcorn chicken turned out moist and good but didn't have the same amount of flavor since the flavor is in the brine.

The Best Fried Chicken My Dad Ever Ate-

1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips OR 1 lb of chicken breast tenderloins

Brine:

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 tsp each salt, pepper and garlic OR
• 3 tsps of Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning and a dash of hot sauce

When she said salt, pepper and garlic, I asked her if Tony's would work instead because my family has been really liking it since I use it in beans and other things. She said "That's really good too, if you use that, add a dash of hot sauce." - For commercial hot sauces, my family really likes Crystal. 

Mix the seasonings with the orange juice and put the chicken and orange juice into a large Ziplock freezer bag. Squeeze all the air out and put it in the fridge for 12 hours or more. In our case, it wound up being about 18 hours. Every time someone opens the fridge for something, have them turn over the bag.

Time to fry!

Wash:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk

Whisk together

Coating:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsps each salt and pepper

Heat about 1 1/2 inches of oil in a big heavy frying pan or wok. I recommend canola or peanut oil. Put paper towels on a plate or in a baking pan to drain the chicken when it's done frying.

Remove the chicken from the brine, except there actually won't be any brine left. Seriously, that half cup of orange juice was about a tablespoon of liquid in the bottom of the bag. Pat it dry. Dip the chicken in the milk/egg wash and let the excess fall off before dredging it in the flour. 

Now, for the flour mixture, I used a tip from this recipe and mixed just a little bit of the egg/milk wash into the flour and rubbed it with my finger tips to make tiny chunks that got stuck on the surface. So the coating wasn't thick, but had great texture. Dredging is an old term my mom always used. It means to drag a piece through flour, front and back. 

Fry the pieces, turning as necessary until golden brown on all sides. Since the pieces are small, they were cooked throughout after the chicken was golden brown.  Put them on the paper towels to drain. Tell your daughter to cut into one to make sure it's done. Watch your daughter cut into one, try it then cut into a second just to make sure and eat that piece too.

It's juicy and delicious. The recipe can be doubled easily for larger families.

And really, this is the best fried chicken. I get it now, why Dad liked it so much. The real question is: Will there be any left when my husband wakes up? 

Sugar Free Mocha Cafe Pudding using Nectresse™

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Nectresse™ Sweetener for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
I've tried a lot of  sweetners in making sugar free desserts for loved ones on sugar restricted diets.  This new sweetener by the same people who make Splenda is a new favorite.
NECTRESSE™Sweetener-
It's the only no-sugar, no-calorie 100% natural sweetener made from monk fruit, it's available very reasonably priced at your local supermarket. 1 packet is the equivalent of 2 tsps of sugar in sweetness.
I tried it first in a cup of coffee to see how it tasted. I was pleasantly surprised. There is no bitterness to it, and tastes natural. The rest of my family also tried it, and my husband and daughter both really liked it.
So after talking it over with my daughter, we decided to try making pudding. I asked her if it should be a chocolate or vanilla pudding, then realized what a very silly question that was right after asking. She thinks the world should be chocolate flavored.


Sugar Free Cafe Mocha Pudding-
Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 Tbsp instant espress
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp corn starch
• 7 packets NECTRESSE™Sweetener

Supplies:

• Large sauce pan
• whisk
• spoon
• bowl

Measure 1 1/2 cups of milk, the espresso, cocoa powder, vanilla and salt into a pan. In a the bowl, mix the half cup of milk, the sweetener and the corn starch, mixing well until the corn starch is dissolved. Set that close by.
Bring the milk and cocoa mix to a simmer over a low heat, whisking as you cook to mix in the cocoa and other flavorings well. When it's bubbling and everything is mixed in, pour in the milk and corn starch mix, whisking constantly. Keep whisking, it will soon come back up to a bubble.
Keep whisking, and it starts to thicken. Homemade cooked puddings are so good. This is the point my daughter told me "It smells good!"
When it's nice, thick and glossy, take it off the heat and put it in the fridge with plastic wrap over it to keep it from forming a skin. Makes 4 half cup servings. Serve after it's chilled.
I recommend topping with whipped cream. Unsweetened and lightly flavored with vanilla.
Click here to try a  FREE sample of NECTRESSE™Sweetener
I liked cooking with this, the pudding turned out good and my family who aren't on sugar restricted diets all enjoyed it. One of the things I liked best about it was that it doesn't foam up like some sweeteners do.
Check out what Lisa Ling has to say about it!

9 Bottom of the Jar Ideas

Since we are on such a tight budget, like so many other people, I'm remembering some of the ways I economized when I was on a ramen budget, and techniques my mother and grandmother used as well. Here's a list of some of my favorite "Bottom of the Jar" recipes ideas. They use what's left in the bottom of a jar. A lot of them use instant powdered milk, my mom always kept it on hand for baking and cooking, and I do the same. It's less expensive per gallon, especially when you buy it in bulk, keeps well, and is always ready to use.

• Orange marmalade, lemon curd and other citrus spreads are wonderful as a chicken glaze- Put in a half cup of very hot water and cover, shake well. You can also add a half cup of orange juice. Season your chicken and pour the glaze over it.
• Berry jam ice pops using jams and jellies- This was one of my favorite thrifty treats as a kid. Put a 1/4 cup of instant dry milk powder in the jar and add a cup of very hot water, cover,shake well and pour into ice pop molds or ice cube trays. If you're using ice cube trays, cover with plastic wrap and poke toothpicks through the plastic wrap for sticks. 
• Make a cup of beef or chicken boullion, pour into a sour cream container, cover and shake well. Pour over noodles.
• Mix 1 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. Worcestershire and 1/4 cup vinegar. pour into ketchup bottle and shake well. Serve over leftover rice and meatballs for a quick lunch.
• Cherry jellies, jams and preserves, apple butter and apple sauce work great on pork chops as a glaze. Mix with hot water or hot water and vinegar if you like a vinegar tang.
• 1/2 cup hot water and 2 Tbs of instant dry milk in a peanut butter jar to make a peanut sauce to add to strawberry smoothies- one of my daughter's ideas! 
• Pumpkin butter OR Nutella plus 1/2 cup-1 cup hot water and a 1/4 cup instant dry milk, cover and shake well to make a great ice cream sauce.
• Spaghetti sauce jar and a cup of water- add to ramen for cooking! Top with cheese.
• 1/4-1/2 cup hot water or a mix of hot water and vinegar with salad dressings, serve over hot vegetables or use as a marinade for grilling.

Feel free to add your own bottom of the jar tricks in comments!

Wild Rose Simple Syrup

Remember 10 Rose Recipes I Want to Try?

The thing I wanted to try most was making a rose flavored simple syrup to mix into carbonated water to make rose soda. Yes. Rose soda. Roses have a lovely flavor and scent, and with summer, it seemed like a nice variation.

My son and daughter went out and picked rose petals for me. You will need to have roses that don't have disgusting chemicals on them. I know the ones they picked are not sprayed with anything and don't have fertilizers used on them (my own garden, I use organic fertilizer and compost on.)

They could only get a cup and a half of petals. Which is just enough for 16 oz of rose flavored simple syrup.

Isn't that gorgeous?  No artificial coloring.

You will need:

• 1 part rose petals- firmly packed
• 1 part water
• 1 part sugar- white sugar maintains the color best
• lemon juice
• pan
• potato masher or large spoon
• bowl
• strainer (small enough to fit in the bowl)
• warm, clean, sterile jar
• canning funnel

I used 1.5 cups of rose petals, water and sugar and 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to make 16 oz of syrup.

Put the rose petals in a pan and bruise them with a spoon or potato masher. Pour the water over the rose petals and bring to a boil. Turn down and cover the pan and simmer for an hour. Take it off the heat and let it set overnight.

Put the strainer over the bowl and strain out the petals. Squeeze out the mass of petals to get as much of the floral water out of them as you can. The petals will be translucent and white, they would probably be wonderful to use in a paper pulp for casting and are still lightly scented.

Pour the liquid back into the pan, and add the sugar. I used C&H Baker's Sugar which is a cane sugar that's very fine. Heat up, but don't boil! You want to heat it gently so you don't destroy the delicate flavor oils. Dissolve the sugar completely in the mixture.

I kept my jar in the water I sterilized it in to keep it warm. Pour the sugar rose water in the jar. It's still just light brown. So now it's time for the fun "seems like magic" part.
Stir in the lemon juice.
The light, pale, barely brewed tea color changes as you mix in the lemon juice to the gorgeous rose color shown above.
I didn't seal the jar, just let it cool and put it in the fridge for immediate use.

To make rose flavored soda- put 2 Tablespoons of simple rose syrup into a tall glass. Pour 12 oz of carbonated water over the syrup and stir gently. Add ice and rose petals to serve.

My daughter wants to try it over vanilla ice cream and over lemon sherbet, the delicate rose flavor is just lovely.

10 Rose Recipes I Want to Try

I love the delicate floral flavor of roses, and fortunately, the wooded area right by my house has lots of wild roses that haven't been touched with pesticides or fertilizers. My husband and son keep saying they will plant some in front of the house. Hopefully soon!
Prickly roses grow very well here and are used in all sorts of recipes.

University of Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service has this PDF available for free download- Wild Roses- in that, you'll find recipes for:

Rose Petal Jelly- which is used as an ingredient in another recipe I want to try
Rose Petal Tisane (herbal drink)
Rose Hip Jelly- where rose petals have a floral taste, much like how roses smell, rose hips are tart and super high in various vitamins.
It also explains how to extract the juice to freeze for future cooking.


Storybook Woods has this recipe for rose syrup. A rose syrup can be used much the same way as simple syrups in recipes to add a great rose flavor. I also want to try it as a caffeinated soda.


Desert Candy has this rose jam tartlet with cream topping for finished rose petal jam or jelly. Yum!


The Nerdy Farmwife has a recipe for hard candy/throat drops - Rose-Petal Peppermint Drops - I probably would use something other than peppermint so the rose flavor would take center stage.


Boulder Locavore has a recipe for Rose Vanilla Ice Cream with Candied Rose Petals

Only Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini has a recipe for rose Turkish Delight (lokum)

Weekend Bakery has a recipe for Rose Tea Shortbread

Casa Dragones has a recipe for rose meringues with summer berries, goat yogurt rose mousse and raspberry sorbet (age verification required, but the recipe doesn't call for tequila)

I've posted lots of photos of that wooded lot in the winter, all snowy. This is what part of it looks like in the summer. Birch, spruce and cottonwood mostly in there. We do nearly all our grilling with locally sourced birchwood. Meaning trees our neighbors get permission from the city to cut down. Everything tastes so good cooked that way!