Limoncello

A while back my friends in Sacramento, California, sent me a box full of lemons from their lemon tree. After some pondering I decided to use some of them to make homemade limoncello.

They smelled so good, you just can't even imagine. It was a burst of summer in the middle of a Michigan winter.

I did a simple Google search for "limoncello" and after some perusal settled on this recipe, from the Washington Post. I had a source from Indiana procure for me a bottle of true high-octane Everclear, 190 proof, which is unavailable in Michigan. This, according to various persons in the know, is what one should use to make homemade limoncello.

I used one of my growlers for the initial steeping. It worked perfectly! And yes, I did manage to get all of the lemon peel out of the jug once steeping was over. There was a lot of shaking involved.

The sugar water-lemon infusion mixing step. This was messy and sticky. The end result filled two half-gallon growlers. That's a lot of limoncello.

The finished product!

I was as careful as I could be when I peeled the lemons but I think a wee bit of white pith made it into the infusion and made it a tiny bit more bitter than it should have been. Nevertheless, for my first attempt at anything like this, it turned out remarkably well. It tastes great and is delicious by itself with some ice or mixed in with other things.

This is not a concoction for the impatient. It took five weeks from start to finish, and I have another half gallon that's still resting in my basement. Anyone want some homemade limoncello?

Chocolate Chambord Ice Cream

A random comment on Facebook did what nothing else could: prod me into updating my poor, sad, neglected food blog. I don't even know how I can be called a Michigan Lady Food Blogger since I haven't updated my food blog in five months! I've had the pictures for this sitting around since LAST SUMMER. There's no excuse. I'm just lazy as heck.

When I discovered how easy it is to make your own ice cream, I started experimenting with different flavors. I learned that I could take a plain vanilla cream base and add almost anything to it. In one memorable experiment, my friend and I made ice cream which contained Gummi Bears and mini marshmallows (that strange combination was his request). Why not? It was fun, and I love having fun with cooking. Additionally, I am in complete control of the ingredients, and as such my homemade ice cream has no salt, less sugar, and no weird chemicals with multisyllabic names.

Anything chocolate has long been a favorite ice cream flavor of mine, so I began playing with various kinds of chocolate. Orange-infused chocolate chip: a huge hit. Chocolate with Grand Marnier: not so much; something in the Grand Marnier prevents the ice cream from ever fully freezing so the ice cream is mushy and slippery. Chocolate Chambord, however: a smashing success.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 8 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, broken into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 cups chilled heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanillla extract
• Chambord liqueur

Heat the whole milk until it is just bubbling around the edges (this may be done on a stove or in a microwave). In a blender or food processor fitted with the metal blade, pulse to process the sugar with the chocolate until the chocolate is very finely chopped. Add the hot milk and process until well blended and smooth. Transfer to a quart-sized container and let the mixture cool completely. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla to taste. Chill for 30 minutes or longer. Turn your ice cream maker on and pour the chilled mixture into the freezer bowl. Let mix until thickened, about 25-30 minutes. In the final five minutes of mixing, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup Chambord liqueur (depending on how strongly you wish your ice cream to taste of raspberry). Once mixing is complete, transfer bowl to freezer and cure for at least 2 hours. For the ice cream to freeze solid all the way through may take up to 4 hours, so if you want to have this for dessert, don't start making it at 8:00 pm!

This is the Basic Chocolate Ice Cream recipe from the user manual for my Cuisinart automatic ice cream maker (a truly wonderful machine). I added the Chambord all on my own. I like to use Ghirardelli bittersweet (60% cacao) chocolate chips because not only does it save you the tedious task of chopping chocolate, the chips are delicious to snack on.

A variation on this ice cream which I made another time included fresh raspberries, which I threw in along with the Chambord at the tail end of churning time. Now that was an epic ice cream!

I know it's winter and we're all so very tired of cold, but it's always time for ice cream!

Oh vegetable stir fry, how do I love thee...

I think I could write a poem about the colorful elegance of my dinner tonight. I "fridge shopped" again, plucking things from the crisper drawers which I thought would blend nicely in my big stainless steel pan. I combined two recipes from my last Tantre share newsletter, because I wanted to use both the daikon radishes and the tatsoi. Add an onion, red bell peppers, garlic, and carrots (all from my share), and I ended up with a beautiful plate of bright red, green, orange, and white. I made a pot of brown rice, nestled the vegetables next to it, and paired this gorgeous yet simple and healthy meal with a chilled Torrontes from Argentina.

I was at the Home Grown Festival in Ann Arbor yesterday afternoon, where I saw many of my Michigan Lady Food Blogger friends. I tasted tomatoes, ate a black bean taco (Arbor Brewing), blueberry and feta pizza (Silvio's Organic Pizza), goat cheese and carmelized onion tart (The Grange), a delicious pastie (Tranche de Vie), a Rice Krispie square (Bizzy Lizzy), several local beers, and the best thing of the whole day: Maitelates dulce de leche cookies. Oh my god people those are TO DIE FOR. I bought a bag of six and I know they will not be my last.

I wanted to eat more, more, MORE!! but after the blueberry pizza I was totally stuffed and as badly as I wanted a tamale I just didn't think my stomach could handle it. Plus the crowds were reaching a point which had triggered my inner alarm and I knew I had to get out of there. I ran 16 miles Saturday morning, an endeavor which burned 2100 calories, and I definitely earned every delicious bite I ate at the festival.

I love living in such a foodie town!!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Sometimes a little chaos is good

I rummaged through my refrigerator and threw together a dinner of no particular provenance or coherence: chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, a bunch of leafy greens, and shredded roast chicken. The veggies were from my Tantre farm share and the chicken was Back Forty Acres. I sauteed the veggies, splashed some broth over the mess to keep it moist, threw in the chicken, and let it simmer. I had originally intended to toss it with pasta but then I thought, "why not just eat the mixture?" So I did. Just the mixture plopped in a bowl. With a hearty glass of my newly received wine shipped from California, it was...an amazing dinner. Just a big sloppy mélange of ingredients and a glass of wine and a cat on my lap. Delicious. Nutritious. Fabulous. No recipe, no direction, no plan, just me and my cutting board and knife and fingers dipping into my jar of salt for a crystalline sprinkle across a fragrant bubbling pan of food, good food, that I made for myself.

I love cooking. I love eating. I love opening my fridge and thinking, "So, what do I feel like tonight?" and pulling something down out of thin air. Yes, I dine alone these days. But I'm never lonely.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Kitchen Sink Pasta

I was going to call it "Instapasta," and then "Garbage Can Pasta," but I think "Kitchen Sink Pasta," as in "Everything But The..." works best. This is what I make when I want a fast, easy meal which uses up ingredients I already have hanging around the fridge and pantry. Whatever is on hand. Tonight's version went like this:

• Whole wheat mini shells (carbs for my long run tomorrow)
• Kale (farm share)
• The onion end of some green onions (farm share)
• Arugula (farm share)
• Garlic
• Shredded chicken (leftover roasted Back Forty Acres chicken)
• S&P
• Parm cheese

A quick sauté in olive oil of the onion and garlic, throw on the chicken to heat it up, add the greens to wilt, all while the pasta is cooking...drain the pasta, add to the mixture, and toss. Presto! I have carbs, protein, and vegetables in one dish. As summer marches on, squash, peppers, and tomatoes will all get their chance as well.

Fabulous Frittatas

Now that the vegetables are flooding in, I have turned once again to one of my staples in order to utilize them: the frittata. I have learned there really is no wrong way to make a frittata, and you can put almost anything into one. For the one in the picture, I used Tantre Farm spinach and scallions from my farm share, added sun-dried tomatoes, and topped it off with grated Parmesan cheese. The eggs came from Back Forty Acres. I cooked up some bacon as well and had myself a little breakfast for dinner. The nice thing about these big-dish frittatas is I can take pieces of it to work for a midmorning snack for several days. Last night I made one with kale, scallions, onion, and cheddar cheese. Ah, the frittata. Making dark leafy greens taste good since...forever!

Salad Days

It's that time of year again. Farm share time.

It was a long dry spell between the closing of the 2008 Tantré Farm season and the beginning of this year's influx of vegetables. I picked up my first share on May 26: spinach, scallions, radishes, potatoes, lettuce...oh, the drive down the familiar road was like coming home. I dived into a sea of green and I don't want to come out. Tuesday evenings are produce prep time: washing, spinning, drying, dividing, wrapping, storing. I prep my salad greens for the week, bag my radish leaves, wrap the spinach, caress the strawberries. And then it's dinner time. Scan the fridge, open the crisper drawers, what part of my bounty will I use today?

Tonight I decided it was time to eat the remainder of my leafy greens from last week. Into the salad spinner went the last bunch of spinach, the tatsoi, the spicy greens mix. I sliced some sirloin from my quarter side of beef, chopped a couple of carrots and an onion, minced ginger and garlic, and threw the whole lot together in my stir-fry pan. The huge pile of greens wilted down to almost nothing. I divided the mass in half (one for now, one for lunch!) and devoured it. So good.

Last week I received strawberries in my share box. I used them to make orange blossom-infused fruit salad on two occasions. My god, the scent of that orange water is intoxicating. And the fresh strawberries mixed with blackberries...I almost had a moment, if you know wht I mean.

My farm share pickup day is Tuesday. Tomorrow is another day full of potential.

Oh yes, and, where are my beets? I want my beets. Chocolate beet cake and oven-roasted beets are calling!