Venison sausage!

Good friends have you over for dinner. Better friends invite you to stay all night and serve you breakfast as well. The very best friends send you home with venison sausage and chili meat from the deer they personally hunted.  

The other night, we were discussing my attempt to eat ethically raised animals who were allowed to forage and act like animals and I was telling Greg and Carol about the farmers’ markets in Houston where you can buy such pastured animals.  And Greg said, “Deer!”  And he is absolutely right. You can’t get further from factory farming than hunting for your own wild meat.   The deer was processed by some local folks in Katy, who turn it into a variety of cuts, including sausage.  I think they are culinary geniuses.

Tonight I am simply pan-frying one package of four wonderful links of smoked venison sausage. I have been cutting off small pieces for tasting and it is delicious! Smokey and spicy and full of flavor!

I will have mine with leftover mashed potatoes.  Cecilie has chosen Buitoni Light Four Cheese Ravioli to accompany hers. We will both enjoy a fresh cucumber salad, made from the cucumbers I got in my most recent Share basket from Central City Coop.  Twenty-three dollars (if you pay online with Paypal) will get you this from nearby Gundermann Farm.

Grace Lutheran church at 2515 Waugh Street

Cucumber Salad

Simplest recipe ever.  Peel the cucumber if the skin is a bit thick, otherwise, just give it a scrub. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scrap the seeds out with a teaspoon. Cut each half in half again lengthwise. Then cut the long pieces into moon shapes about 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, white balsamic vinegar and good extra virgin olive oil.  Give it a stir and eat!

Thanks again to the Nutters!  I will think fond thoughts of you all with every delectable bite.

Meringues with Berries and Whipped Cream

Beautiful fluffy meringues make perfect sweet edible bowls for fresh berries. Top with whipped cream and you've got one simple but impressive dessert.

With as much moving around as we’ve done in our almost 25 years as expats, there is good and there is bad. The good is clearly the wonderful places we get to not just visit but to immerse ourselves in their culture and become friends with their inhabitants – natives and other expats alike. The bad is always the saying goodbye to that town, country, culture, those people, who have entered your heart and become a part of who you are and who you will become, even as you move onto the next country and culture and challenge. The way to make the good last, to prolong it, is to keep in touch with the special people who became family and touched your lives in a profound way you will never forget.

Carol and Greg and their sweet children are some of those special people. From Carol I learned, way back when, that people can really enjoy exercise. She was the first person I had ever met who told me she loved getting on her treadmill. It was a revelation and I thought there might be hope for me yet. (I am still hoping.)

Lately she has taught me that we are never too old to aspire to another career and that, with enough perseverance, and determination, that change of career is possible for those who want it and are willing to put in the time and effort it requires. Greg has long awed me with the example he sets as a supportive husband and, along with my own helpful, loving husband, he has shown me that good men do exist and has reinforced my sense that, while marriage for many is a push-me-pull-you proposition, it doesn’t have to be.

All of this is a prelude to another dinner invitation and another offer to bring dessert. Once again, during this time of fresh, sweet summer fruit, I had to go simple and fruit-oriented. This is one of my favorite desserts to make because it looks fancy but it isn’t difficult at all.

From Petit Mont Blancs – Delia Smith




Ingredients
For the meringues:
3 large egg whites
6 oz or 165g fine white caster sugar (not confectioner’s sugar)

For the filling – with plenty extra for just eating
2 lbs strawberries
12 oz blueberries
1/4 -1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

For the topping:
1 pint (16 oz) heavy whipping cream
1-2 pinches of cream of tartar

Method
Preheat the oven to 300°F or 150°C.

To make the meringues, place the egg whites in a large, grease-free bowl and, using an electric hand whisk (or free-standing mixer) on a low speed, begin whisking. Continue for about 2 minutes, until the whites are foamy, then switch the speed to medium and carry on whisking for another minute.




Now turn the speed to high and continue whisking until the egg whites reach the stiff-peak stage.



Next, whisk the sugar in on fast speed, a little (about a tablespoon) at a time, until you have a stiff and glossy mixture.






Now all you do is spoon the mixture on to the prepared baking sheet (I greased the pan with Pam and then put a sheet of baking parchment), spacing them evenly. (I ran out of space and ended up making seven.) Then, using the back of the spoon, hollow out the centers. Don’t worry if they are not all the same shape. Next, pop them on the center shelf of the oven, immediately reduce the heat to 275°F, 140°C, and leave them for 30 minutes.



After that, turn the oven off and leave the meringues to dry out in the warmth of the oven until it is completely cold (usually about 4 hours.) Since I knew I was serving these that night I was not so concerned about their drying completely out, and beside, I didn’t have time. Mine were probably in for just one hour after the 30 minutes with the oven on. 

If you are baking these ahead to be served much later in the day or even another day, do let them dry out and store them in an airtight container. Meringues can even be made ahead and frozen in an airtight container.

Meanwhile, prepare your fruit that will go in the hollowed out centers. Any fruit will do but our family favorite for this dessert is fresh berries. Today I chose 2 pounds of fresh strawberries and about 12 oz of blueberries. I know this is way too much fruit for the meringues, but fresh berries are so nice with whipped cream and I know they will get eaten when the meringues are gone. To just fill the meringues you probably could use half that amount. Anyway, hull your strawberries and cut the larger ones into smaller pieces. Little strawberries can be left whole. Rinse the strawberries and blueberries, drain well, then sprinkle them with the sugar.




Depending on the sweetness of your berries you may not need the whole 1/2 cup. Let your taste decide. I put as little as I think I can get away with! This time it was only the quarter cup. If you want to use Splenda or the like, that would probably work too. Add the balsamic and stir. Put this mixture in the fridge until it’s time to serve.

Another meanwhile. Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form, adding a pinch or two of cream of tartar, which helps the cream stiffen and make good peaks. If you have hand beaters, this is probably not a problem, but if you have a big hands-free mixer like mine, do not walk away and do NOT overbeat as your cream will start to turn to butter. Store cream in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Assembling the Mont Blancs: Each person gets a meringue, topped with a heap of berries and a heap of whipped cream. Drizzle some of the juice over the top of the whipped cream. This is a feast for the eyes, and then the mouth, on a plate.



Greg was in charge of dinner and he barbecued succulent, tender beef ribeyes, along with grilled vegetables that would knock your socks off. We ate the leftover steak for breakfast (yes, this was a slumber party!) with buttered toast and poached eggs, courtesy of Carol. I can highly recommend the Nutter Bed and Breakfast. Love you all!

Enjoy!

Summer Fruit Tart*

We have been invited out to dinner tonight!  (Thanks, Mom!) I offered to bring dessert and since it’ll just be three of us, and I have some fruit in the fridge, a quick puff pastry tart seemed just the thing.

I discovered puff pastry in sheets a few years ago – yeah, maybe I’m slow – and for a while, I experimented with it so often that it seemed almost everything I made had puff pastry as a main ingredient. It is a miracle substance, as happy as a shell or companion for sweet as for savory.  Best of all, it lives in my freezer until I need it and thaws quickly and bakes to a beautiful golden crust just as fast.

Ingredients

Summer fruit – about 1¼ lbs – Pitted if necessary and cut into chunks if bigger than bite-sized. I used two nectarines and one 6 oz punnet of blackberries

1 package of puff pastry containing two sheets

1/4-1/2 cup of brown sugar

1/8 cup of butter (four good slices)

1 tsp of natural vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons of cornstarch

Method

Preheat your oven to 425 °F.  After the pastry has thawed, lay the first piece on a piece of parchment paper in your baking tray. If you don’t have parchment, which, as you can see from the photos, I forgot today, it will cook just as nicely. It will just be harder to get out of the baking pan and into a pretty serving dish.

Pit your fruit and cut it into chunks, if necessary, and sprinkle it with the brown sugar and the cornstarch. If your chosen fruit is really tart, you might want to increase the amount of sugar, hence the variable amount in the ingredients.  Start with the 1/4 cup and taste to see if more is needed. Add the vanilla extract and stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Set aside.

Cut the second piece of pastry up into eight equal strips.  Brush the edges of the bottom pastry with water and lay the strips along the edges. Brush that layer with water and add the last four strips.

 Dock the bottom pastry in the middle with a sharp knife or a fork. This will keep it from puffing up under your fruit.

Spoon the fruit into the middle of your pastry “walls” and drizzle the leftover juice over it, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Dot the fruit with the slices of the butter.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and puffy. At our house, I usually serve this with double cream for pouring but unsweetened whipped cream or even vanilla ice cream would go quite nicely as well.

* I am calling this a summer fruit tart, but honestly, you can make this with thinly sliced apples or plums or pears or whatever fruit you have on hand all year round.   Or if you were looking for a savory treat – perhaps to serve with salad at a luncheon, caramelized onions with some feta cheese would also be a divine filling. Use your imagination.

Pesto Pizza

As I mentioned the other night when I made pesto from my overgrown basil plants, I had leftover pesto at the end of our pasta dish. Here’s a simple pizza dough recipe that goes great with leftover pesto and mozzarella to make delicious homemade pizza in just about the time it takes Domino’s to deliver.

Ingredients 
For dough enough for two regular crust (12 in or 30cm) or three thin crust pizzas

1 package (¼ oz.) active dry yeast (I use Fleishmann’s Rapid Rise.)

About 4½ cups or 560g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups or 355ml warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil - coat the bowl during rising

For toppings:
Leftover pesto - homemade or otherwise
Mozzarella cheese - amounts will vary with taste and number of pizzas you make

Or make a more traditional traditional pizza with tomato sauce and toppings such as pepperoni, olives, etc.

Method

In a large bowl, combine yeast, 2 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon salt. In a microwaveable measuring pitcher or a saucepan, heat water until very warm (120 ºF - 130 ºF – it should be pretty hot but you should be able to hold your finger in it for a count of 10 without pain.)

With mixer at low speed, just blend water into dry ingredients. At medium speed, beat two minutes, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in ½ cup of flour to make a thick batter.

Beat two minutes more. Stir in about 1½ cups of flour to make a soft dough.

Knead dough by hand or with a bread hook for a few minutes. Pour a little olive oil in the bowl and put the dough in to rest for 15 minutes (if using Rapid Rise yeast) or to rise for 30-45 minutes (if using regular yeast – but then all promises of a 30-minute delivery are off.)

If using Rapid Rise, at this point preheat your oven to 450ºF or 230ºC.  (If you are using one, put your pizza stone in while the oven is still cold.)

Ready to rest for 15 minutes

Risen and ready to punch down and roll out

Your dough is now ready to punch down and roll out to top and make two 12-inch pizzas! (Or three, if you like the crust thin.) 

My usual instructions say to make sure to oil your pans first, to make the bottom bake up crunchy but I tried something new this time. Finally, I have a kitchen item that I have been wanting: a baker's peel. I bought it online at the Bakers’ Catalogue, which is connected to King Arthur flour and this was the first time I attempted to use it.

Add flour to the counter top and roll the pizza dough out, 

Transferred the dough by the rolling pin to the peel, which I sprinkled with cornmeal. (See note below if you don't have a pizza peel.) 

At this point add the pesto and spread it around. 

Then add the mozzarella liberally to the top.  

Very liberally

With a quick flick of your arm, quickly transfer the pizza to the baking stone that is in the preheated oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.

NOTE: If you don’t have a peel but would still like to use a baking stone, put your rolled dough on the greased underside of your baking tray so it is on a completely flat surface. Add your toppings and pop the whole thing in the oven on top of the stone.

After just a few minutes, perhaps as many as five, remove the tray from the oven and run a long knife around under the pizza to make sure it is loose, then slide the pizza off the tray straight onto the baking stone. Those few minutes of cooking harden the underside enough to unstick it from the pan. 

When your pizza crust is browned and the cheese is golden and melted, the pizza is done. Remove it from the oven and place on a cutting board. Divide into slices with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. 

We actually made three thin crust pizzas. Not all show here. 

Enjoy! 

When you know better, you do better

I am struggling and conflicted. Just thinking out loud here. On one hand, I have read Eating Animals (I finally finished it, Victoria, and have passed it on to Cecilie.) and I understand the suffering that goes on in factory farms where chickens are produced. This summer I have made every effort to buy humanely raised and killed animals – and in the process, have cooked a lot less beef, chicken and pork.  Here’s the dilemma. I have some Cornish game hens in my freezer. They are from Perdue who claim not to use antibiotics or cages. But a simple web search shows that humane treatment does not necessarily follow those claims. 

So, do I cook the game hens who have been in my freezer since before I was aware? On one hand, I am sorry that I bought them. On the other hand, just throwing them away seems like more of a negation of their right to a happy chicken-y life.  Not that they care now, but upon reflection, perhaps the proper thing to do is to cook something special with them. Something that takes time and care and possibly even expense. I am thinking an adaptation of Julia Child’s coq au vin. It won’t make the Cornish game hens feel better, but I will.  

Rigatoni with Homemade Pesto

One of the first things we did when we arrived in Houston was to buy fresh herbs in pots for the back deck:  Rosemary, basil, oregano, flat leaf parsley and thyme. We are fortunate to have Buchanan’s Native Plants in the neighborhood with their great selection of wonderful plants.  All of the herbs are healthy and growing but the basil has really taken off!  Which only means one thing: pesto!

Ingredients

2-3 big branches of overgrown basil

1-2 large cloves of garlic , peeled and coarsely chopped (I only had one but would have put two if it had been available.)

45g or 1.6 ounces of raw pine nuts

100g or 4 ounces of Parmesan

Olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

500g or about 1 pound rigatoni pasta

Special Equipment

Hand blender

Method

Toast the pine nuts in a dry non-stick skillet.

Pick the leaves off of the basil branches and finely grate the Parmesan. 

Put 100ml or 4 ounces olive oil in the hand blender container. Add the toasted pine nuts, half the basil leaves and half the Parmesan.  Blend for a couple of minutes and then add the balance of the basil and the Parmesan and a few good grinds of fresh black pepper. If the pesto is too thick, add more olive oil, starting with another 2 ounces. Blend until the pesto is smooth and of even consistency.   This will make enough pesto for two or three meals.  It keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks. It can be frozen and will still be tasty but it is most delicious fresh.

Cook the pasta according to package instructions. Save some pasta water in a cup before draining in a colander.  After draining, pour the pasta back in the hot pot and add a great dollop of pesto, according to your taste. 

Mix thoroughly and serve.  (If you are not serving immediately, wait to add the pesto until you are ready. Loosen the pasta with some reserved pasta water first and warm through before adding the pesto.)

Serve topped with extra Parmesan.  This can be a complete meal on its own or it also makes a great side dish.   We served ours with a small fillet each of single-hook-caught wild salmon from Whole Foods, simply pan-fried in a non-stick skillet with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a touch of olive oil.

Grilled Mushroom Risotto

This Grilled Mushroom Risotto is deliciously creamy dish, flavored by grilled portabella mushrooms and lots of Parmesan cheese.

Younger daughter and I are on our own again so it’s time to get back on the program of trying to eat healthier and more vegetarian.  That was tough when we ate out so much when Simon was here.  So our first evening’s meal was a mushroom risotto we had planned for a couple of weeks back, adapted from a recipe from Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients to serve two hungry people without a side dish – or two not so hungry people with a small bowl of leftovers for breakfast the next day

For the risotto

Approx. ½ liter/1 pint vegetable stock  (Make stock with vegetable stock paste or cubes and warm water or go all out and boil some vegetables. I used the stock paste.)

2 tablespoons olive oil

200g/7oz risotto rice (I used Arborio and I think it turned out creamer than my usual Carnaroli.)
½ glass of dry white wine
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
42g/1½oz butter
56g/2oz freshly grated Parmesan cheese

For the mushrooms

3 large Portabella mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thickly

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

For the mushrooms: Heat a griddle pan till it is scorching hot and then add a drizzle of olive oil.  Place the mushroom slices in the hot pan with enough space in between so that they actually grill and brown. Turn when golden and brown the other side.  Turn the heat down and sprinkle with sea salt, pepper and the finely chopped garlic.  Drizzle with a little more olive oil and let the garlic cook until it is soft. Do not let it burn or it will be bitter. Remove from the hot pan and set aside to top the risotto.

For the risotto:. You want it to be smooth, creamy and oozy, not thick and stodgy.

Stage 1

In a pan, heat the olive oil and add the rice then turn up the heat.

Stage 2

The rice will begin to lightly fry, so keep stirring it. After a minute it will look slightly translucent. Add the wine and keep stirring — it will smell fantastic. Any harsh alcohol flavors will evaporate and leave the rice with a tasty essence.

Stage 3

Once the wine has cooked into the rice, add your first ladle of hot stock and a good pinch of salt. Turn down the heat to a simmer so the rice doesn’t cook too quickly on the outside. Keep adding ladlesful of stock, stirring and almost massaging the creamy starch out of the rice, allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. This will take around 15 minutes. Taste the rice — is it cooked? Carry on adding stock until the rice is soft but with a slight bite. Don’t forget to check the seasoning carefully. If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, add some boiling water.

Stage 4

Remove from the heat and add the butter and Parmesan. Stir well. Place a lid on the pan and allow to sit for two minutes. This is the most important part of making the perfect risotto, as this is when it becomes outrageously creamy and oozy like it should be. Eat it as soon as possible, while the risotto retains its beautiful texture.

Serve topped  with the grilled mushroom slices and another helping of freshly grated Parmesan.

Enjoy!