We are in the midst of a “real” winter here in Norcal. We can’t complain, we need the rain. And I guess the cold and wind just comes along with the deal sometimes.
But just when almost all the colors fade, the Daffodils (or Narcissus, your choice) pop up. The yellows and whites gleam amidst the browns and grays of winter. There are always signs of spring in California. That comes with the deal, too.
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Putney Farm Guacamole and a cold beer.
Well, the Niners did make it to the Super Bowl, so our series of snacks for the big game will have a more positive note (and perhaps some hints of red and gold). And we will have to come up with a cocktail to celebrate the event….but for now, let’s look at that big game staple, guacamole. According to some very precursory internet research, Americans eat over 8 million pounds of guacamole on Super Bowl Sunday. But what that too often means is millions of pounds of avocados get mixed with something like salsa and mashed up. Other than the color, evidence of avocado is often masked by copious garlic, citrus, tomato and pepper flavors. Good, but really “avocado salsa”.
There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this type of guacamole, and if you have a recipe you like, please use it. And if the avocados aren’t at their best, adding more flavors will certainly help. But what if you have really good, ripe Hass (you really want Hass) avocados? We suggest you cut one open and taste it. Maybe add just a dash of salt. Doesn’t it taste great? Sweet, clean and creamy with some earthy notes? Beautiful color? Yes? Then maybe you can try a version of guacamole that is all about the avocados.
And we do have a basic recipe that really works when avocados are at their best. Three avocados, one minced shallot, the juice of half a lime, a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of black pepper and a scant teaspoon of hot sauce. Dice the avocados with a butter knife in their skins (see the photos). Add the diced avocado to the other ingredients and fold them together, so some of the avocado chunks mash, while some keep their shape. Taste, tune (just a bit) and refrigerate for at least three hours. The taste again, the flavors will have melded and mellowed. Season with more salt, lime and/or hot sauce one last time, and then serve.
Curried Red Lentil Soup
Happy Monday! Happy MLK Day! And Happy Inaugural! We hope everyone enjoys the long weekend (for those who have it). Meanwhile, we always enjoy long weekends as an excuse to cook and visit with friends. Saturday we had a lovely evening with friends and Sunday we got to cook this soup, and we are glad we did. We wanted to play with red lentils for some time and after enjoying this soup, we only wish that we had done it sooner.
We are big fans of lentils, but usually cook with the brown / green French lentils and in more Mediterranean-influenced dishes. But lentils are also a staple of south Asian cuisine, so we bought some red lentils and pulled out this soup recipe with red lentils with a strong dose of curry and ginger. The soup is a real winner, combining earthy flavor from the lentils, the warm and cool notes of the ginger, sweet coconut milk and the deep spice of the curry. Add a little dried fruit and/or nuts and you have a complete, and very satisfying, meal. So good, both our boys liked it the first time out.
The recipe comes from Martha Stewart, but we do add some extra flavor and simplify the process somewhat. Making the soup is as easy as dicing ginger and aromatics, softening them with the curry, adding the lentils and simmering with water and coconut milk. But there is one caveat, you do need to blend this soup. You can use an immersion blender if you have one (this is the easy way), or ladling the soup into a blender, but you must purée the soup. The issue is the use of fresh ginger. It adds flavor, but the fibrous chucks of ginger are very unappealing if you take a bite of one. Puree the soup. It is a bit of a fuss, but very much worth it.
The Bamboo Cocktail
Weekly cocktail time here at the farm, and with another Mixology Monday coming up, we figured we could get a twofer in before the weekend. Firstly, we want to thank Jordan at Chemistry of the Cocktail for hosting this month and Fred Yarm at Cocktail Virgin Slut for keeping the ship afloat. And secondly, here is this month’s theme:
Fortified wines began, in large part, as a way to deal with the difficulties of shipping wine long distances in the holds of sailing ships. Without the rigorous sterilization that is possible today, wines would often spoil en route. However, increasing the alcohol concentration to around 20% ABV was enough to keep them from going off… These wines held an important place in.. punch and have continued on in cocktails proper. [These wines include] sherry, port, and, to a lesser extent, madeira and marsala, all find their way into various mixed drinks… They can play many different roles – from taking the place of vermouths in classic drinks, to providing richness and sweetness in winter tipples, to serving as a base for lighter aperitifs. Whether forgotten classics or new creations, let’s see what you can put together.
Hmmm. Truth be told, we are big fans of port and sherry with food, but have some history of struggling with them in cocktails (we love really good Madeira, but as a treat, and wouldn’t put the really old stuff in cocktails). One of the biggest challenges is the range of fortified wines, styles and producers. Spirits are consistent, fortified wines are most certainly not. Sherry by itself has half a dozen varieties from the bone dry (and almost salty), to the sticky sweet. A cocktail recipe with one type of sherry or port may rock, but be fully gag-inducing with another variety. A high-risk, high-reward ingredient.
Happily, the point of this blog is to try new things and we took it as a challenge to come up with a sherry-based cocktail we liked. And since sherry cocktails are in vogue at the moment, there were plenty of new recipes out there to try with dry sherry. We tried a few that used dry Fino and Amontillado sherries (we will leave them unnamed) and, frankly, thought most were pretty bad, with the woody, saline flavors dominating and none of the nutty flavors we enjoy. Ugh.
So when the newfangled fails, we go back to the classics. And there are few more classic cocktails than the Bamboo cocktail. The Bamboo was created in the 1890’s by Louis Eppinger, the bartender of the Grand Hotel in Yokohama. The Bamboo is an even mix of dry sherry and dry vermouth with two dashes of orange bitters and a light dash of Angostura bitters and a lemon twist. This is an easy drink to make, and with its rich amber color, it certainly is pretty.
Warm Cinnamon Rolls.
It’s cold here in Norcal. And I don’t mean “wimpy-Californian” cold. I mean, its cold. Sub-freezing, burlap on the citrus, frost on the windows, see your breath, don’t slip on the driveway cold. The kids get a kick out of it (we don’t). But the house is still toasty and Carolyn knows just what to bake to warm us up, Cinnamon Rolls. You know, the big, puffy, swirling rolls with the thick white glaze….yup, those. Carolyn pulls out treats like this when the weather gets nasty, and they are so good we almost (and we do mean almost) welcome the cold.
And these rolls are a special treat and a good baking project for a cold weekend, where indoor activity and warm kitchens are at a premium. They do take some time, work, and a little gear, but the reward is something almost everyone likes. And who doesn’t like a cinnamon roll? The whole house smells like a bakery, and then you get a big, sweet, warm and yeasty roll with a sugar and cinnamon filling and a sugary vanilla glaze. Hard to beat. Kid’s and adult’s eyes widen when these come to the table.
Actually, the one person who may not “love” cinnamon rolls is the baker. These do take some time and effort. But this recipes works. It’s from King Arthur Flour, they thoroughly test their recipes, they know what they are doing. And the recipe is big enough so you can split the rolls into batches before baking and freeze half for future use (and the dough does refrigerate overnight or freeze well). So if you make the effort you do get a proven recipe and a batch in the morning or next weekend, if you like. We think it’s a decent payoff. (Right about now Carolyn will say “what do you mean ‘we’?”) 😉
The extra work with kind of baking comes from using a yeast-based dough. Yeast is what makes for a soft and puffy roll, but you need to activate the yeast, add it to the dough and then let the dough rise. In most cases, yeast-based doughs requires just a bit more work, but a lot more time (in this recipe, up to a few hours) and some advance planning. And a stand mixer or bread machine really help here. You can make this dough by hand, but it will be a workout and the dough will take longer to rise. Not advised.
Oh, and did we tell you about the “second rise”? That happens after you spread out the dough, make and add the cinnamon filling, roll up the whole thing and then cut it into slices. (At this point you can refrigerate for baking the next morning or freeze some for future use). You then put the slices in the pan, cover them and let them rise (puff) for another 2 hours, or so. After that, you are ready to bake, and making the glaze is a snap. Again, not a ton of work, but a decent slug of time. Happily, you start to see what the finished product will look like, and it’s hard not to get excited.
Grilled Cheese Pull-Aparts
Make no mistake, love of baseball is one of the true pillars of our family (and yes that includes Carolyn, and yes she knows way more about baseball than most men, and yes that includes fans, and yes I am a very lucky man). But it is football season, and while we wait for pitchers and catchers to report we get to enjoy the 49ers run towards a title (we hope). The boys and I watch the games together and even rope Carolyn in for the 4th quarter, and we do try to cook “tailgate-y” stuff most Sundays. But as the Super (Stupor?) Bowl is coming (I hear the NFL may whack us for using their trademark, so we add some satire for legal cover) we are working on a few snacks that we can serve on the big day.
We will share a few new recipes and update a few old ones, but we will start with this simple, but fun take on grilled cheese sandwiches. We found the recipe for Grilled Cheese Pull-Aparts at the Creamline, a food blog we like and follow (worth a look). The Creamline thought of the recipe as a snack for little kids, but since a bunch of men watching football are just about the same thing (intellectually), we figured we could easily tune the recipe for “adult” entertaining. And it turns out we were right. This recipe will not blow anyone away, but it is easy to make, easy to play with, tastes great (it is grilled cheese, after all) and is good fun.
So what is the big deal here? Basically you get a sheet of 12 of sweet rolls, some areas have King Hawaiian rolls, some have potato rolls, some Parker House rolls. (Look at the photos, you will see what we mean.) You cut them in half, flip them over, so the “rough” side is out, butter and lightly salt the exterior, put a bunch of good cheese and other stuff in between the layers and grill the sandwich. Serve it when the cheese melts and then “pull-apart” the sections. Watch the melted cheese do its thing. Eat. Repeat. Smile.
So what should you put in the sandwich? We use a few different cheeses, usually Cheddar and Gruyère, perhaps Fontina, a bit of bacon, maybe pickles or tomatoes, even a touch of mustard. But this recipe really let’s you do what you want. Left over steak or pulled pork? Perfect? Ham? Excellent. Chutney with cheddar cheese? Sophisticated, but very tasty. You get the idea. Hard to screw this up.
Putney Farm 