This week in the kitchen

Monday/23-Jun-15: Dinner was a 20-minute supper, Shrimp & Greens Curry (web), easy and quite tasty. I planned this because there has been bok choy in the shops lately. But not this week, so I used  spinach instead. Served over rice. Some yummy little apple tartlettes from the boulanergie for dessert.

Tuesday/24-Jun-15: A friend whose wife is away for a week came for lunch today. We bbq'd Grilled Lime-Marinated Flank Steak with Chipotle-Honey Sauce (Thrill, p141; cookbooker). French cows don't have flanks, so I used bavettes instead (no idea what those might be in English). The sauce (with slightly less honey than asked) was scrumptious. Schlesinger and Willoughby recommend serving this with Black Bean Salad (Thrill, p319) and Corn Bread Salad with Lime Juice and Cilantro (Thrill, p312), so I did. These are so much alike, it really wasn't a good suggestion, I think. I've made the black bean salad before; it was still good. The corn bread salad was ok. Might have been a bit better if my corn bread had risen properly; this is where I discovered my unexpired baking powder was dead. Neil brought some Nutella chocolate brownies with ginger for dessert and I made some easy vanilla ice cream. No more food needed for the day.

Wednesday/25-Jun-15: We ate at the marché des producteurs in La Roche this evening. Nothing happened in the kitchen,

Thursday/26-Jun-15: Went up to the Montemboeuf market this morning to see what I could find, and stopped at the butcher for some nice pork chops. Since we're changing shopping day to Friday, I hope to visit the market more often.

Dinner was, yes, grilled pork chops, topped with the yummy sauce from Tuesday. Then some potatoes, loosely based on Crash Hot Potatoes (web). (I drizzled with a mix of olive oil, harissa, sale, sesame seed, and lemon juice.) And some of the combined black bean and corn bread salads. Mixed the rest of the sauce into this for future use.

Friday/27-Jun-15: Shopping today. During which we learned lots of people buy fish on Friday. I walked away from a line with two people in front of me, only to come back to a line with six people in front of me. Sigh. But, they had samphire/salicorne/zeekraal.

So I changed the menu and made Roergebakken Zalm met Zeekraal en Knoflook (which I got in a newsletter from visrecepten.nl, but can only find online here); that's Stir-fried Salmon with Samphire and Garlic. Served over tagliatelle. I hadn't realized that there was enough samphire to call that this a one-dish meal, so I also made a quarter recipe of Green Beans and Radishes Braised in Orange Juice (web). I took a bite of this, but the rest is in the fridge for another night, maybe as a salad. Two squares of dark chocolate with almonds for after. (Dark chocolate with hazelnnuts, my favorite, seems to be out these days.)

Saturday/28-Jun-15: Not much happened in the kitchen today. We had dinner at the Fête de la Motte in the evening.

Sunday/29-Jun-15: Starting to deal with the flat of apricots I bought on Friday. Made a half recipe of Apricot Habernero Salsa (p72, PutEmFruit) which made less that expected. Tasted pretty good

We had our main meal in the early afternoon: Ricotta-Zucchini Pasta Salad (web). Surprisingly tasty for as easy as it was. Then a salad. Then some fruit juice popsicles.

Another 2kg of apricot's going for Fatima's Confiture d'Abricots, the one with almonds, except I had an inventory failure and there were no sliced almonds. And, yes, well, I bought the apricots to make jam, but forgot to buy extra sugar. We're now more or less out. Guess I'll have to stop somewhere tomorrow to get more so I can finish off the last batch of apricots. Eight AH jars from this batch into the freezer.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 BACKLOG: yes; #2 UNUSED: yes; #3 GRAINS: yes; #4 VEG/FISH: 3
This month: #5 PASTA: yes; #6 BREAD: no; #7 FotW: no for June

Strawberry bonanza

Barbara's strawberry patch has gone crazy in the last sunny days. This morning David brought over a huge basketful that filled my largest bowl.

First I used about three pounds (i.e., 1.24kg, stemmed weight) to make 2 quarts for making my Grandmother Katie's Strawberry Preserves. Used my basket gadget for cooking multiple rounds of pasta for dropping the berries into boiling water for a minute. For the first 4 cups of sugar, I used up my Dutch witte basterd zuiker topped up with regular white sugar. For the second 2 cups, I used sucre de canne (a natural brown cane sugar). The preserves are now in sit-and-stir mode for three days before they get canned. (I'll freeze the jars rather than topping with paraffin.)

Katie's Strawberry Preserves
– 2 quarts strawberries (about 3 pounds) – 4 cups sugar – 2 cups sugar	As Katie wrote the directions: Wash and stem 2 qts of strawberries. Put berries in colander; drop in boiling water for 1 minute. Then put berries into a kettle; put 4 cups sugar on berries and boil 3 minutes. Add 2 cups sugar and bboil 3 minutes aagain or longer. Pour into a bowl. Let stand 3 days, stirring 2 or 3 times a day. Seal cold, cover with paraffin. (Can stand longer than 3 days.)
Yield: TBD

Also made some Strawberry Balsamic Jam . Not quite enough brown sugar on hand, so topped up with a bio sucre de canne with pectin. (How can I have missed refilling both white and brown sugars?!) Hope it isn't too thick because of that bit of pectin. Had about 3.8# dressed weight (stemmed and chunked), so adjusted other ingredients upwards slightly.

Strawberry Balsamic Jam
– 3 pounds fresh, ripe strawberries – 2 cups granulated Sugar – 1/3 cup lemon juice	Wash the strawberries, remove the tops and coarsely chop. Place the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a heavy bottomed pot and bring to a boil. Boil over medium high heat stirring frequently, and skimming off the foam for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to a slow boil, and continue to cook until the jam has almost set, about 45 minutes to an hour.
– 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar – 2 teaspoons black pepper, optional	Add the balsamic vinegar and pepper if using and mix well. Cook for another 5 to 10 minutes. Test to see if your jam has set (see below). Sterilize your jars and lids and while still hot fill with the jam leaving about a 1/2-inch headspace. Place lids onto the jars and boil in a water bath with jars covered by 3 inches of water for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit an additional 5 minutes before removing from the water bath. Place the jars on counter and let sit untouched for 6 hours before storing. Refrigerate after opening.
Yield: 3 AH fond jars, about 1.5 cups each
Kaye's notes: Found this recipe on the web. Last year I also made the version with black pepper. We decided that, while that was plenty good, the plain version was even better.  To test if your jam has set, place a small plate in the freezer before you begin to make your jam. When you think your jam has thickened enough, take a small spoonful and drop it onto your plate and place the plate in the refrigerator for a minute or two. Take the plate and hold it sideways. The jam should be thick enough to mound on the plate and not run off. The recipe is advertised to make four pint jars. For two years now, I've gotten much less than this. Three 3/4-pints is about what it makes for me.

Peach butter

Barbara brought us a big basketful of peaches from her trees. They're little but quite tasty. I used some for peaches and cream ice cream, and we ate some for lunch. I used up the rest making peach butter. I read a lot of recipes on the web and looked in lots of books in the house, and then made it up.

To peel or not to peel, that was the big question. Some recipes say Yes, others say No. Haven't really found a reason one way or the other. These peels were not bitter (like those of pêches de vigne often are), so I left them on. Except for the ones that decided to peel themselves as I pitted and chunked.

All the peaches, halved, pitted, and chunked came to a good 5 cups. I zapped these in a food processor, along with about a tablespoon of lemon juice. A lot of the peel didn't really blend up, so I strained the pulp, ending up with about 3 cups of good pulp and a cup of peel and other bits. (This actually tastes pretty good, but isn't the best texture. Maybe I'll make some peach skin bread or something else.) I've put the pulp, with 1/4 cup sucre de canne, in the crockpot on High. This will cook about 3 hours. Then I'll taste for sugar, add some spices (1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground allspice, and a bit of lemon juice*), and let it go overnight on Low, with the lid ajar to lose the moisture.

And that wasn't long enough. Turned the heat to High, lid still ajar, and cooked quite a while longer until it was finally thick enough, only about 1 cup remaining.

Quite tasty, but I can't say that the crockpot method is any better than the way I do apple butter, stirring on the stovetop.

Fruit butters seem to be an American thing, not known in Europe or the UK. It seems they were "invented" to use up fruit that wasn't good enough for jam or jelly or other preserves. I like making my own because I can control the amount of sugar. US products and recipes are generally too sweet for us.

During the summer fruit season, I should try other fruit butters. Apples are available all year round, so it's a shame to stick to that.

* Should have been more than just a "bit" of lemon juice. Ed thought it needed more tartness. Think about how much cider vinegar is used for apple-plum butter and add something similar here.

This week in the kitchen

Monday/4-Jan-10: This morning I finished off the mustard. I'll use it for a sauce for tonight's pork chops. First impression? I really don't like Guinness all that much, so I shouldn't expect to like this mustard, should I? But, it was easy to make. If I can find a source for mustard seeds here, it's definitely an idea to play around with. In smaller quantities, since this is almost a liter/quart of mustard!

Spicy Guinness Mustard
– 1 12-oz bottle Guinness Extra Stout – 2 cups brown mustard seeds (10 oz) – 1 cup red wine vinegar – 1 tbl kosher salt – 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper – 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon – 1/4 tsp ground cloves – 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg – 1/4 tsp ground allspice	Combine ingredients in a nonreactive mixing bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 1-2 days so that the mustard seeds soften and the flavors meld. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a food processor and process, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, until the seeds are coarsely ground and the mixture thickens, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a jar and cover. Refrigerate overnight and use immediately or refrigerate for up to 6 months. (The flavor of the mustard with mellow as the condiment ages.)
Yield: 3-1/2 cups
Kaye's notes: The recipe is a magazine clipping from what I thought was an English magazine, but I see it uses US spelling, so I don't have a clue where it's from. I used a 33cl bottle of Guinness, about 12 oz. 10 oz of mustard seeds was about 1-3/4 cups. The mustard still seemed a bit runny at the end, so 2 full cups might be better.

For dinner I sautéed some pork chops and made a sauce with chicken broth from the freezer, créme fraîche, and Guinness mustard. Not bad. Accompanied by Rosemary Roasted Potatoes & Goat Cheese (MC) and a salad with cuke, beet, avocado, and onion topped with a vinaigrette. A good combination, but the vinaigrette should have had lemon instead of vinegar (a lemonette?). More fig flan for dessert.

Tuesday/5-Jan-10: Went to make chicken stock this morning, with the remains of the tandoori chicken, only to discover that it was a bit fuzzy and smelled really bad. Have to roast another chicken soon, so we can have stock.

For dinner we had Shrimp-Stuffed Eggplant (MC), well, loosely that recipe, I've never really followed it exactly. Turned out surprisingly good, even with an eggplant nearing its use-by date. Served with trio rice this time, not having thought to start brown rice early enough. Finished up with a bit of the nice camembert we've been eating on.

Wednesday/6-Jan-10: Had trouble keeping my cooking list for the next week down to manageable level. There are simply too many wonderful things to make and not enough time. Shopped, and will probably skip the market yet again tomorrow since the roads probably won't be too good that direction.

Tonight I made a 2/3 recipe of Stir-Fried Garlic Pork (HotWok, p102), easy and delicious. Accompanied by Sesame Green Beans (now MC) and rice. More fig flan (now bring us your figgy pudding?) for dessert and still one more round to go.

Thursday/7-Jan-10: We had Lemon Herb Roasted Chicken (MC), with Coriander Layered Potatoes (MC) to use the last bit of cilantro I bought at the holidays, and Roasted Carrots with Cardamom Butter (now MC). And finished off the fig flan at last, good to the last drop! Had problems with an overfilled oven, so everything took longer to cook than expected. (One day we'll have a proper stove.) But all tasted good, and tomorrow I can make chicken stock to refill the freezer.

Friday/8-Jan-10: Didn't feel much like cooking today. The stock didn't get made. Didn't put the beans on to soak last night, so the Cooking Italy beans didn't get made. Oh well. Dinner turned out to be a variation on Farfalline "haute couture" with shrimps, scallops, and leek sauce, a recipe that I collected recently. Should have had squid ink pasta (ha!); none in house, and certainly none in the shops round here. Tri-color penne was pretty enough. Might do this again with some changes. The leek sauce was pretty bland, and cooled off (it's cold in the kitchen!) quite a bit before serving. The recipe has cayenne added to the shrimp and scallops, which just accented the blandness of the leeks. Think I'd stir them all together, warm it up, correct seasoning, and then plonk it on top of the just-plated pasta. Save some of the shrimp and scallops to top it all off with. This was followed by a big salad. Then we finished off the last bit of camembert while watching another episode of Civilization.

Saturday/9-Jan-10: Started some chicken stock this afternoon; set it outside to cool. Will remove the fat, strain, and freeze it up tomorrow morning. For dinner, there was Leek and Potato Tart with Thyme (MDTarts, p30) using pâte brisée from the freezer. The crust was delicious, but I really don't have the hang of making it pretty. Homely, but yummy. Started with some salad and the last of the foie gras with magret. Oink! No room for dessert. Walked the dog in the snow instead.

Sunday/10-Jan-10: Finished off the chicken stock this morning. Froze quite a bit and put some in the fridge, since the freezer's getting full. No getting to the boulanger today with icy roads all around. Baked a loaf of bread and took it to the Boulesteix and have another loaf going for us overnight.

For lunch I heated the leftover sauce from the roast chicken with the last bit of cream from an open box and added some frozen chicken bits. Toasted some old bread in the oven which was heating up for the sweet potatoes. Oh boy, said Ed, S-O-S. Tasted awfully good on a cold afternoon.

Dinner was the Ravioli filled with Sweet Potatoes from Cooking Italy, accompanied by a simple salad of mâche with an Italian vinaigrette (no Dijon mustard). The ravioli required a pair of amaretti. When I got my box from my stash, I discovered that they were not true amaretti, but amaretti virgiana, which are larger and softer. I looked through lots of my Italian cookbooks and online to find information about the difference between these soft amaretti and the regular ones. I didn't find much of use, but I ran across this recipe in Pellegrino Artusi's Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well:

193. Amaretti Fritti (Fried Macaroons) Take 20 small macaroons, soak them briefly in rum or cognac, but do not let them become too soft. Dip them in the batter described in recipe 156—the amounts given there should do for our purposes here. Then fry in lard, butter or olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with confectioners' sugar and serve hot. This is not the kind of desert [sic] to send you into raptures and make you ask for more, but it will do in a pinch.

The last sentence makes all the search time worthwhile!

Coming soon, use-it-up, ideas, etc.

• leftover leek/potato tart
• buckwheat gallettes with chevre & gruyère (start using the buckwheat flour bought in error)
• pizzocheri, p478 BittVeg
• something stuffed with leftover sweet potato ravioli filling
• James mentioned Thai pineapple fried rice with scallops; sounds interesting; to be investigated
• spinach gnocchi as side dish (only one more batch to go!)
• something with yellow curry paste Hitomi sent
• chickpea (besan) dumplings in yogurt sauce (using recipes from Sahni and others)
• something to use up Angela's soy milk

Raspberry preserves

While breakfasting this morning, I made some raspberry preservers from our home-grown raspberries using a very simple recipe I found on the web.

Raspberry preserves
1-1/3 tbl water 1 cup sucre de canne	Put the water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.
1 cup raspberries	Add the raspberries and simmer for 5 mintues. Pour into a sterilized jar. Refrigerate.
Yield: About 1 cup preserves

That's all there is to it. We'll see how it is.

Market

The market had boxes of apricots for preserves for €8. Too bad Ed doesn't like apricot preserves. :-(