Chicken!

At the Quakertown Mart today, I ran across an amazing special. 45 pounds of chicken for $16.99.



Miss Inquisative, also known as Midget Cat, or "Half a Manx" for short, checked out the loot.

I gave half the box to my mom and dad. So they got 6 chickens, and Nick and I got 6 chickens. I packaged mine up in freezer bags. At the bottom of the box, I could see that Tyson had intended these beasts to end up as Rotisserie Specials.

Actually, I felt sorry for the beasts...dead and naked and eviscerated. I eat animals, but I do not take that lightly. These beasts,it seemed to me, were processed so quickly and so efficiently, it seemed wrong. So from the 6 I got, I took the first one and made Coq au Vin.


First, I cut up and sauteed 3 pieces of bacon. Then, I cut up the chicken. I am not too experienced at this, but with the instruction from Meat, a Kitchen Education, by Peterson, I did pretty well .

I simmered the bacon, three onions, some garlic, a bay leaf, some parsley and herbs de Provence mix, in the crock pot for a few hours.

And while I was at it, I used the back of the chicken, along with other trimmings, to make a stock. (Rear of the range). I am proud of the fact that I was able to de-bone the thigh, per Peterson's instructions. My pieces of chicken were not butcher-perfect, but they made this....



Pas mal. I used Malbec from Argentina as my wine. So good, and not expensive. This was melt in your mouth delish. For recipes, consult Julia Child or just do a internet search on "Coq Au Vin" and you won't go wrong. We served ours with brown rice and sweet peas. A sweet New Years' Eve dinner indeed!

Mmmmm Sugar!

When Nick and I got married, his mom gave me a little blue notebook, The Bell Family's All Time Favorite Christmas Cookies. The book was compiled by his mom and his sister, Cindy. Cindy typed most of the recipes on white bond paper; some of them were Xeroxed from newspaper clippings. Cindy was a professional secretary, before people started to call them "Admin Assistants", "Executive Assistants", or (I hate this one, but I can't tell you why... "Admins".)

The book has several versions of Sugar Cookies, and I like this one best.

Here's the recipe (adaptations or comments by me in italics).

Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs (Tender Crispy Favorites)

3/4 cup butter or margarine (I always use butter. Butter is better.)
1 1/2 cups sugar (I sometimes use less...this amount makes them very sweet.)
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I also add 1 teaspoon almond extract to this).
3 1/4 cups sifted flour (I measure 3 cups, and then sift that right into the bowl when the time comes to add flour.)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (I usually use a bit more, as I usually bake with unsalted butter,and I think this recipe was probably designed with salted butter or margarine in mind).

With electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. (I use my KitchenAid stand mixer..and beat the heck out of the butter at this stage.) Beat in sugar and vanilla (and almond extract). Beat in eggs (I always put the baking powder and salt in before the eggs and beat the heck out of the mixture.) Gradually stir in dry ingredients (for me this is only flour...I add one sifted cup at a time, this time using the 'stir' function on the KitchenAid...no desire to get those gluten molecules kickin'! - best to keep them unspringy, so as to make for a more tender cookie.)

Chill three hours (in refrigerator, duh... I guess they felt they didn't need to tell you that...then again, sometimes when it's cold outside, I use my cold garage for cold storage...I wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap).

Roll to 1/4 inch thickness (I like them thinner). Cut with cookie cutters. Arrange 1 1/2 inches apart on cookie sheets (No way Jose...I put mine tight as soldiers in formation. These babies don't spread when heated, so no need to put distance between them.) Bake at 350 degrees F. for about 15 minutes. (I preheat my oven, of course, and bake about 6 minutes, then switch the sheets (top to bottom) and check frequently thereafter...usually mine are done in 10 to 12 minutes because I make mine thinner. Cool on racks. Decorate with frosting. (I don't use frosting. Instead, I sprinkle colored sugar crystals on the cookies before baking. My mom always did it that way, and that is what I do too.)

The Root

I

Today was "clean out the garden" day. In the vegetable garden, I found treasures I had forgotten about. Decorative gourds (I don't know where these came from...some bird must have left the seed in early spring...), along with japanese turnips and carrots, which I had planted this spring.

The gourds ended up on the dining room table, keeping company with the ones I got last month from Hellerick's farm. The turnips...well, they were a bit bitter, so they ended up in the compost bin.

The carrots ended up here.
Parsley, sage, and fennel, all from my garden, with a little bacon fat from this morning's bacon, and salt. Baked at 375 degrees for an hour, they became this:


A good accompaniment to a roast, a slice of homemade lavash bread, and a glass of pinot noir!

Beet, Carrot and Onion Soup with Garlic and Herbs

I have been wanting a Vitamix machine for some time. A few weeks ago, our old Hamilton Beach from the 1970s died. This is a machine that Nick brought to our marriage, 25 years ago, and he doesn't remember from where it came. It was probably one of those 'donation' items familiar to college aged-people - it goes like this --- grandma (or whoever) has two blenders, and gives you one of them. This blender was the only one we've ever had until now. I know it is an old blender, because one time, I toured Ike and Mamie Eisenhower's house (it's on National Park property) in Gettysburg, PA. They had the same blender Nick and I did, and Mamie died in 1979. (Ike died earlier).

Our Hamilton Beach died because I had some old parmesan cheese, and I was trying to use the blender to pulverize the cheese so I could sprinkle it on something I was cooking. You know the hard little bits of cheese you have left over from some long-ago culinary escapade? Not moldy, but hard. Well, that was the cheese I was trying to pulverize. The cheese, instead, knocked a hole in the plastic blender container, so that was the end. Besides, the Hamilton Beach was tired.

So, I debated for two weeks before spending a LOT of money (well, a lot by my standards) on a Vitamix.

This baby cooks. Literally! Mostly, I've been using it to make breakfast type smoothies (I experiment with flavors and textures I think will work). This morning, I tossed in 5 frozen strawberries, a half banana, about 10 dried cranberries, 2 oz each cranberry and orange juice.

So at lunch today, I made some soup. Just thought the recipe up as I went along. This machine is so powerful that ingredients COOK through pure friction. Friction is so powerful if you let the machine run long enough, that the ingredients get almost boiling hot, and steamy.

Beet, Carrot and Onion Soup with Garlic and Herbs (serves 2)

1 large beet, peeled and roughly chopped.
1 carrot, same as above.
1 small onion, same as above.
1 clove garlic, same as above.
2 sprigs parsley. 2 more, reserved for garnish.
1 large sage leaf, 2 small ones in addition, reserved for garnish
1 cup chicken broth.
2 T sour cream(for garnish).

Put all ingredients except for sage and parsley garnish, and sour cream into Vitamix. Whirl that baby. Bombs away...the cat scuttles out of the kitchen due to jet-engine noise simulation.

Let pulverize for 5 to 7 minutes, until liquid is steaming. (hot). Watch the liquid go up and down and round and round. Hypnotic red-orange color. Beta carotene and good stuff is practically transluscent in the autumn sunshine.

Pour into bowls and garnish with sour cream and herbs.

Although this was good, it wasn't fantastic. A little 'raw' tasting. Next time, I will soften the roots and garlic in a tablespoon olive oil on stovetop first. A little conventional cooking and carmelization would take this food from good to fantastic.

And if you conventional cook the ingredients before blending, you could make this soup with a regular (non Vitamix) machine.

French Onion Soup

Years ago, I bought a set of four ovenproof bowls, at a factory outlet store in Flemington, NJ, with the idea that I'd make french onion soup. Eight (or so) years later, (yay) I made it!


My first French Onion soup!

It's not hard to make, which makes me wonder (as I do from time to time) what took me so long!

There is some time involved, mainly in making the caramelized onions that serve as a base for the soup. This step turns out to be easy if you use a crockpot.

Caramelized Onions

Peel, cut in half lengthwise, and slice (getting rid of the roots) about 5 pounds onions. I used regular (huge) NY "Bold" onions (the usual kind, not the sweet ones).

Throw these onions in a large crockpot with 1 stick butter. I used salted butter, so did not add salt.

Cook on low 14 hours. Cool and store in refrigerator, where they keep for weeks. Add salt later, as you use them, if you want. These will be beautifully brown and naturally sweet. But if you think they're not sweet enough, just add some sugar. I've been making these onions for a while.

These onions are great more than making soup. Use them for topping hamburgers, serving alongside any beans or meat, baking on top of a pizza, and so on. At our house, we can go through a batch of these onions in about 2 or 3 weeks. And it's just the two of us.

French Onion Soup

Take about 1 cup of caramelized onions from the fridge. In a pan, melt 1 T. butter, and put in about 1 T flour. Make paste, and heat about 4 minutes. Don't let burn. Whisk in about 3 cups stock of your choice. I used a combination of frozen chicken stock that I had on hand supplemented by water and Penzey's "broth in a jar". This Penzey's stuff is phenomenal, in my opinion. In fact, I buy a lot of my spices and such at Penzey's. My mom turned me on to Penzey's a few years ago. What I don't buy at Penzey's, I buy in ginormous bulk quantity at Costco. Put a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and simmer a while. Put the onions in. All told, simmer about 1 hour. Put pepper and salt in if desired.

Meanwhile, slice french bread into 3/4 inch slices (I made some yesterday) and toast it in the oven at around 325 degrees, basting if desired with olive oil.

Get your oven proof receptacles (I used my little bowls). It's nice to make individual type servings, but you can do it in one huge bowl, I guess, and serve it from that. For the individual servings, pPut 1 slice of bread in bottom of bowl. Put on some cheese (I used mozzarella and parmesan because that's what I had on hand but per Julia Child, you're supposed to use gruyere and or swiss with parmesan). Ladle soup on top. Float about 2 slices of bread on top of each bowl, put on more cheese, then drizzle with olive oil (again, learned from Julia Child). Bake at 325 F. for about 25 minutes. This temp browns the cheese nicely, but is not so hot that your soup boils in the oven.

Nick said this soup was as good as any he's ever had in a restaurant. That's good enough for me!

Gad-Zukes!

Anyone who has a vegetable garden inevitably grows Zucchini at least once. I grow it every year. One plant yields a few squash every week. I looked away for a few minutes, and was greeted yesterday by a large one. About nine inches. We normally eat them when they're 4 inches long or less. I don't like them 'alone' when they're that big. So, when faced with a large one, there's always the option of Zucchini Bread.

My mother-in-law, Carol, gave me two family recipe compilations when I joined the family. One of these is a Christmas Cookie book. The other is a blue loose leaf binder, into which she had affixed some of the Bell family favorites. The recipes were painstakingly typed onto loose leaf binder paper.

Along the way, she noted my interest in vegetable gardening, and accordingly, my prolific zucchini harvest. So she gave me several Zucchini recipes, which I added to the binder.

This is one of them:

Zucchini Bread With Dates ("Good", she notes, in pen, on the upper left margin)
My changes are in italics to the right of the ingredients.

3 eggs
1 c. oil (I used only 3/4 cup peanut oil. it worked well. less fat.)
1 tsp vanilla
3 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda1 tsp. cinnamon (I used 1 1/2 tsp.) 2 c. grated peeled zucchinni
2 c sugar (I used 1 cup sugar and 1 cup Splenda artificial sugar.)
1/2 tsp. baking powder (omitted)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. walnuts (I used 3/4 cup grated coconut instead of nuts.)
1/2 c. dates (I put in 3/4 cup.)
Directions:

Beat eggs until light and foamy. Add sugar, oil, zucchini and vanilla. Mix lightly.

Add flour, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon. (Recipe says to mix these separately then add, but I just dumped them in.)

Blend. Add nuts (coconut) and dates.

Pour into two greased and floured (I omitted the flour - no sticking, no problems) bread pans.

Bake in preheated 325 F degree oven about 1 hour. (I baked 55 minutes.)

Can be frozen. (I froze one loaf. The other is almost gone. It may not last 24 hours here at the Bell house!)

Mom and Dad's Barnegat Bay Flounder and Potatoes

This year, the bay is full of large flounder, so when we go to the shore, we often have fresh fish. We catch them in the channel right outside my parents' house.

My mom has a way of pan cooking filets which works really well. First, wet the filets in beaten egg. Then, dip them in corn flake crumbs, mixed with a small bit of Old Bay seasoning. Now, pay attention - following is the secret.

Once the filets are coated in the crumbs, put them in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. This firms up the crumbs, and keeps the crumb coating from coming off when frying later.
There are two secrets in frying. Use medium heat, and take the filets out of the pan right BEFORE you think they are done. Also, use a combination of peanut or canola oil and butter. You don't need much oil or butter, really.

My dad planted Yukon Gold and Redskin potatoes (both varieties) in the side yard, in a small patch near the house. They are ready to be eaten as thin skinned, new potatoes. We simply boiled them whole, and tossed them with butter, chopped parsley and a bit of dill along with salt and pepper. This made a a perfect bayside dinner, served along with green salad and coleslaw.
Below, mom and dad are standing in front of a photo of pound boats. These boats were used on Long Beach Island in the 'olden days' to net fish in the ocean. The boats were sail and oar powered. When my dad was a child in the late 1940s and 1950s, he used to go up to the beach to see the pound boats land with their catches of fish.