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Category Archives: Garden and Orchard

  • Summer Fruit Lazy Daisy

    July 15, 2013

    25 Comments

    Summer Fruit Lazy Daisy.

    Summer Fruit Lazy Daisy.

    There are some dishes we make here at the farm that are a bit of a mystery before we try them. We ask ourselves if we chose the right recipe, bought the right ingredients, cooked them properly with optimal equipment, plated them well, etc. The only way to really know how we did is to make the dish, take a look at it and taste it. But this is NOT one of those dishes. From the moment you start making a Lazy Daisy cake with summer fruit you know its gonna be good, real good….like staring at the oven while bakes good. From batter to oven to plate this cake just screams “I taste good, serve me with some ice cream!” (It does, we heard it from the oven….we swear).

    lazy3lazy4If looking and tasting great wasn’t enough, the Summer Fruit Lazy Daisy has a few other charms, it is as easy as cake making gets and it will work with almost any summer fruit. If you are like us, between growing fruit and buying it at the farmers market we tend to be up to our armpits have a “surplus” at times. And while we enjoy fruit out of hand and making jam, there is something about a big pancake mixed with peaches and berries and baked in the oven that sounds pretty good (and that’s basically what a Lazy Daisy is). Top it with ice cream and you are ready for a big smile and a nap.

    lazy5lazy6As we noted, and the name suggests, making a Lazy Daisy isn’t hard and is similar to making pancake batter. Heat your oven, grease a pan, melt some butter, mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and melted butter, pour into a pan, add in some fruit and bake. Cool, sprinkle on some powdered sugar (fend off your eager family and friends) and then serve. It really is that easy.

    lazy7lazy8lazy10The only hard decision is your choice of fruit and presentation. We used our peaches, strawberries and blueberries and then added some blackberries from the farmers market (our blackberries got fried in the heat wave, sigh). A good balance of tart and sweet. You can use any combination of berries and stone fruits, but we suggest you taste them and adjust the sugar to match the sweetness of the fruit. As for presentation, you can choose a pretty design, or just mix everything together. We chose the latter…it is a “Lazy” Daisy, after all.

    lazySummer Fruit Lazy Daisy:

    (Adapted, somewhat, from King Arthur Flour)

    Notes Before You Start:

    • Nada. Big oven pancake with summer fruit. ‘Nuff said.

    What You Get: A delicious and very easy summer cake. A perfect dessert for a summer get together.

    What You Need: No special equipment required.

    How Long? About and hour and 20 minutes, with about 15 minutes of active time. Anytime dish.

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    Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Dessert, Fruit, Garden and Orchard Tags: baking, Cocktails, cooking, dessert, food, fruit lazy daisy recipe, lazy daisy, photography, photos, recipes, summer fruit lazy daisy recipe, vegetarian
  • Frisee Aux Lardons (Frisee Salad With Bacon)

    July 11, 2013

    19 Comments

    frisee2frisee3frisee4friseeBefore anyone even asks the question- no, we don’t grow our own frisee. And, frankly, we aren’t sure why. We could. Probably should. And Norcal has the climate to grow chicories like endive and frisee. A very minor mystery, to be sure. But we do have pretty consistent supply from some local farmers, and we make a lot of home-cured bacon, so it figures that we make Frisee Aux Lardon pretty often around here. Or, if you prefer English American, we make frisee salad with bacon pieces (lardon), poached eggs and a vinaigrette. (We cheat and fry our eggs, but there is a reason for that- see below).

    frisee7frisee8Simple stuff, and very good stuff, at that. But like many classic French recipes (and many of the great salads) the devil is in the details. The real key here is good ingredients; local greens just out of the ground, good bacon and very fresh eggs (the yolks are less likely to break). With so few ingredients there is really nowhere to hide. But there are some easy ways to improve your salads, regardless of the recipe.

    frisee6frisee10With any salad there are two things you can do to make the most of the greens. Firstly, greens start to wilt the minute they leave the ground, so a quick soak in cold water for at least 15, preferably 30, minutes will do wonders (even with firmer greens like frisee). Secondly, after washing / soaking you must thoroughly dry those greens! You want to know why that good restaurant salad is so much better than yours? They really dry their greens. Multiple spins, laid out on paper towels or cloth, etc. Why bother? Dressing sticks to dry greens, spreads evenly and isn’t diluted by extra water (wet greens make for soggy salads…yuk).

    frisee11 Continue reading →

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    Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Garden and Orchard, Lunch / Salads / Sides, Vegetables Tags: Cocktails, Cook, cooking, curly endive salad, food, frisee aux lardon, frisee bacon salad, gardening, photography, photos, recipes, vegetable
  • Lemon Buttermilk Scones

    July 9, 2013

    18 Comments

    Lemon Buttermilk Scone.

    Lemon Buttermilk Scone.

    lscone3Another scone recipe? Well, yes. Firstly, Carolyn makes them a lot (the boys and I don’t mind). Secondly, if there is a “gateway drug” into the joys of baking, scones are it. Scones are quick to make, use common ingredients, are easy to tune/tweak and the dough can be frozen for future use. Close to the perfect pastry.

    lscone4lscone5But that doesn’t mean all scones are created equal….we like great scones. A little crunch on the outside, tender and moist on the inside, sweet but not cloying. Happily, Carolyn bakes up some truly awesome scones. And this recipe for lemon buttermilk scones is one of Carolyn’s better variations. And since the recipe features two of our favorite “special” ingredients, we aren’t surprised we like it so much.

    lscone6lscone7What special ingredients are we talking about? That would be citrus zest and buttermilk. If you want to be a better baker and/or cook, these are ingredients you need to use on a regular basis. Citrus zest brings clean bright citrus notes to dishes without the liquid, sourness and acid of the juice. If you wonder what that extra kick is in that super-tasty chicken, fish or veggie dish- look for some zest (sometimes you can’t even see it, but it was there). In baking or ice-cream making citrus zest brings out big flavors with minimal footprint or impact on the chemistry/balance of a recipe. And don’t even get us stared on citrus zest and cocktails…..a lifetime study (one we are pursuing as we speak).

    lscone10

    The daily haul from the garden- good with scones.

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    Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Breakfast, Dessert, Fruit, Garden and Orchard Tags: best scone recipe, buttermilk scones, Cocktails, cooking, cooking with zest, food, garden, lemon buttermilk scones, photography, photos, recipes, vegetarian
  • Happy July! Have A Peach.

    July 1, 2013

    35 Comments

    july1july2It’s hot here. Really hot. Not just “I am from Northern California and anything over 75 degrees makes me whine” hot (although it does….and I do). I mean 100 degrees and no wind hot. And it will last for a few more days. It is so hot the roses withered (mostly) and the bees spend more time at the bird bath than in the flowers. Let’s hope the tomatoes like it. Meanwhile, we are picking our fruit early and seeking shade. But there is an upside…we have peaches. Lots of peaches.

    julyjuly9Our orchard (such as it is) has over a dozen trees and 25% of those trees are peaches. We have Red Haven, Sun Crest and Indian Free peach trees, with the Red Havens being the earliest and heartiest. The Sun Crests are the sweetest and the Indian Free have the most unusual flavor and color, but the Red Havens make up the bulk of our peaches, and we can live with that. This crop is good, with big, sweet and juicy peaches that are (mostly) nice to look at. Success. And while you might see some peaches in recipes, we mostly eat them out of hand. No embellishments needed.

    july3

    Yes, yes, you are happy to see us….

    july10july11Otherwise, life in the garden marches on. The blueberries are near the end (they don’t love the heat much, either). Strawberries are thriving, eggplants and zucchini are coming in fast. Carrot tops are big and bushy, hinting that we may have some good stuff growing underground. The early tomatoes are giving us a few teasers to enjoy at lunch. And the herb garden is becoming an herb forest (thicket?). Lemon verbena anyone? Anyone?

    july12 Continue reading →

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    Posted By: putneyfarm Category: Fruit, Garden and Orchard, Vegetables Tags: Cocktails, cooking, flowers, food, Fruit, garden, gardening, photography, photos, recipes
  • Cucumber Salad With Smashed Garlic And Ginger

    June 28, 2013

    64 Comments

    Cucumber Salad With Smashed Garlic And Ginger.

    Cucumber Salad With Smashed Garlic And Ginger.

    Yotam, meet Nancy. Nancy, this is Yotam. You are separated by thousands of miles, but we think you will get along just fine…we certainly hope so.

    One of the fun things about cooking and blogging is the volume of recipes we read and cook (we have a obsession thing with cookbooks). And sometimes when we are cooking one recipe, another recipe jumps into our heads as a potential compliment (then again, sometimes we have to look around for a while). In this case we adapted a recipe for Sashimi With Hot Rice and Broth from Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s book “Japanese Farm Food“, and this recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty” immediately came to mind as our salad. We hoped for a good fit.

    cukecuke1The fish was a simple, warm, umami-bomb of a dish (but oh so good). We wanted a salad that complimented the savory umami flavors but was also cool and crisp. Few things are as cool as a cucumber (ugh), so we pulled out this recipe that added a serious dose of ginger, onions and garlic to the cukes with a big splash of a rice wine vinegar and sesame oil-based dressing. A very good recipe and one that we would have just as likely seen in Singleton’s cookbook as Ottolenghi’s. Either way, they seemed like a natural match.

    cuke6cuke7cuke4And they were quite complimentary. The ginger, onion and garlic are marinated in the dressing for a bit, so you still get their flavor with the cukes, but the harder, hotter edges are taken away. Sesame seeds and cilantro add some depth (we think peanuts would also be good) so the first bite was as good as the last. And the final benefit was timing, this salad was easy to make and took about the same time to prepare as the sashimi in broth. An excellent salad and a good foil to any flavorful or savory main dish.

    cuke8cuke9cuke10The only downside of this salad is that, even if the rough edges are smoothed, you are still using crushed raw garlic. It sticks with you for a while. I went to a town council meeting later that night and bet that sitting next to me wasn’t a real treat (or was worse than normal). And when I spoke I could almost see the council member’s eyes water. I would like to think it was my moving oratory at work, but I suspect it was something else… 😉

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    Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Garden and Orchard, Lunch / Salads / Sides Tags: Cocktails, cooking, cucumber salad, cucumber salad with smashed garlic and ginger, food, hachisu, recipes, salad, vegetarian, Yotam Ottolenghi
  • Mixology Monday LXXIV Cocktail: The Baur Au Lac

    June 15, 2013

    20 Comments

    Baur Au Lac Cocktail.

    Baur Au Lac Cocktail.

    Time for another Mixology Monday cocktail (yes it’s Saturday but we try to get ahead on these things). As always, thanks to Fred Yarm at Cocktail Virgin Slut for keeping our monthly online cocktail party going, and thanks to Andrea at Gin Hound for hosting this month and for the excellent theme of “cherries”. Here is the scoop:

    mxmologoSingapore Gin Sling, Blood and Sand, and the Aviation wouldn’t be the same without them… But cherries in cocktails are also horribly abused, few things taste worse than artificial cherry aroma, and the description of how most maraschino cherries are made can make you sick to your stomach. So it’s my pleasure as the host of Mixology Monday… to challenge you to honor the humble cherry. However you choose to do that, is entirely up to you. You could use Maraschino Liqueur, Cherry Heering, Kirchwasser, Belgian Kriek Beer, cherry wine, or any spectacular infusions invented by you in a cocktail. Or make your own maraschino cherries for a spectacular garnish.

    lac2lac7Another excellent theme for us “farmers” to work on. The only bummer is that we have already worked with cherries quite a bit (seeing as how we grow our own). So far we have made our own maraschino cherries, venison with cherry Cumberland sauce, clafoutis, cherry crumble pie and cherry and chocolate chip muffins. And that’s just the food, as for cocktails we have cherry-lime Caipirinhas, Scott’s Manhattan, the Cherry Fling, the Tax Evasion cocktail and the Kentucky Royale all using cherries or cherry liqueurs. We got a lot of cherry goin’ on here at the farm.

    lac6lac5So while we love the ingredient, we were lacking a bit in inspiration. But this is where a good cocktail book is helpful, so we reached for “Bottoms Up“, one of our favorite retro classics. Bottoms Up is a 1951 collection of cocktails from all over the world, shared by hospitality professional Ted Saucier (he was the publicist for the Waldorf-Astoria…nice gig). And along with hundreds of recipes, the book also includes “saucy” illustrations from a dozen of the best illustrators of the day. Good drinks, good fun and a great coffee table book.

    lac4We decided that we would use the first good cherry recipe we found in the book, and after passing on a few recipes we found the Baur Au Lac, a cocktail named after the famous hotel in Zurich. The original recipe includes kirchwasser (cherry eau-de-vie), Cherry Heering, orange juice and lemon juice shaken and strained. We added muddled fresh cherries and a cherry garnish- we had fresh cherries and figured we may as well max out on the theme.

    lac8 Continue reading →

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    Posted By: putneyfarm Category: All Recipes, Cocktail Recipes, From The Garden, Garden and Orchard Tags: baur au lac cocktail, cherry cocktails, Cherry Heering, Cocktail, Cocktails, cooking, DrinkWire, food, mixology monday, photography, photos, recipes

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