This weekend

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend.

Making salsa to can, preserved lemons, and pizza sauce for the freezer. 

 

The garden is doing nicely, though perhaps behind other people's (it is in the shade too much for my liking)

And we relaxed. The best part.

For the love of the nog

I've just been reading on the Internet, trying to find out this burning question: If egg nog originated in the United Kingdom and moved to the USA with the colonies, why I can't find it in the shops here in Scotland?  I grew up on the West Coast of the United States, and egg nog was a staple in our house at Christmas.  Since I've been in Scotland I've not once see it in the shops.  

Never mind, better to make these things yourself anyway.  Especially when your chickens are still laying 5 a day and you need to use up some eggs.

I'll not lie to you, I've been feeling very festive this year.  

Christmas Cake ✔

Lebkuchen  ✔

Christmas pudding ✔

Egg nog--better get to work!!

I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com.  This is a fabulous site, in case you've never been there.  Here is what I did:

Amazingly Good Eggnog

• 1-1/3 cups milk
• 2 whole cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1-1/3 cups light cream
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

 

Directions

1) Combine milk, cloves, 1/8 teaspoon vanilla, and cinnamon in a saucepan, and heat over lowest setting for 5 minutes. Slowly bring milk mixture to a boil. 

 

 

2) In a large bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar. Whisk together until fluffy. 
3) Whisk hot milk mixture slowly into the eggs. Pour mixture into saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for 3 minutes, or until thick. Do not allow mixture to boil. Strain to remove cloves, and let cool for about an hour.
 

4) Stir in cream, 3/4 teaspoon vanilla, and nutmeg. Refrigerate overnight before serving. 

 

I changed the recipe only slightly.  I omitted the rum because I want to share it with the kids.  I'll add a wee dash of something from the cupboard after they've gone to bed. 

Home made gnocchi

Once before I made potato gnocchi and I thought they were really good.  I also thought they were rather labour intensive, because I am a really lazy cook.  However the universe recently ensured that I had a glut of kale, and a glut of potatoes, and I decided I need to make a recipe I had been saving for some time, Spinach Gnocchi Bake.  And yes, I know that the dish isn't pretty.  But oh my did it taste like a little bit of heaven.  Days later and I still can't wait to make it again!

I used the gnocchi recipe from my Italian cookbook, which I will write out here, mainly because it is the only recipe I use from this book.  When I made them this time I didn't think they were that difficult at all, and I had enough from a 1/2 recipe to make dinner and freeze 1/2 for dinner later on.  Perhaps I've matured as a cook.  At any rate I was well chuffed!  However I was just doing a web search on making gnocchi and everyone is saying how hard it is.  I thought it was dead simple, and they were really good.  I think if don't go into a project thinking it will be hard, you will be better off. 

To make potato gnocchi my super easy and tasty way:

1kg/2lb potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
60g/2 oz/1/4 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
300g/10 oz/2 1/2 cup plain flour
salt

1) Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for about 10 minutes or until tender.  Drain well.
2) Press the hot potatoes through a sieve (strainer) into a large bowl.  I use the back of a large spoon to do this.  Add 1 tsp of salt, the butter, egg, and 150g/5oz/1 1/4 cup flour.  Mix well to bind together.
3) Turn onto a lightly floured surface and kneed, gradually adding the remining flour, until a smooth, soft, slightly sticky dough is formed.
4) Flour your hands and roll the dough into 2cm/3/4" thick rolls.  Cut into 1cm/1/2" pieces.  Press the top of each one with the floured prongs of a fork.

5) Bring a large pan of water to a simmer.  Add the gnocchi and cook in batches for 2-3 minutes until they rise to the surface.  Remove with a slotted spoon and put in a warmed, greased bowl.  At this point you can use them for a recipe, or simply pour a sauce over them it is up to you.

When I made these, I made 1/2 a recipe, which gave me about 1lb of gnocchi.  I used 1/2 of that to make the recipe above.  The rest I froze without cooking, so when I am ready I can just pull them out of the freezer and pop them into the boiling water.  Talk about fast!

A few notes about the recipe Spinach Gnocchi Bake. I didn't use spinach, I used kale.  I washed the kale, removed their very stiff ribs, and whizzed it in my food processor until it was quite finely diced.  I find kale very similar to eating a brillo pad, so I like to break it down first.  Then I sautéed it with the onions and it was wonderful.  Also, don't skip the Gruyere cheese, it makes the recipe.  I DID skip the mozzarella cheese, because that seemed WAY too cheesy for me.  I didn't miss it, I don't think you will either.

7 Days (in pictures)

In the spirit of the The Barefoot Crofter, here are my seven days.

It cracks me up Isla chose the Santa Beard for her face painting at the school Christmas Fair.  Too cute!

Our first snow fall of the year, November 25, 2011.  Luckily it didn't stick around (though it did snow three separate times!)

Pumpkin pie!  My favourite pie ever, and even better than Mom's now that I cook down my own pumpkins.

Swan at the park.  The girls and I were pretty excited it came so very close to us. 

Home made gnocchi ready to be cooked.  I made a fabulous meal out of this that I will post last in the week.

Isla showing off her new mittens.  I whipped these up for her sheep costume for the school Christmas play, and they are incredibly nice.  I think I'll need a pair of these myself! 

Making Corned Beef

Due to the serious lack of (non-canned) corned beef available here in the UK, we decided to make our own.  Using the recipe here, we purchased a 3lb beef brisket from the butcher, and spices from the local deli.  We made our own pickling spice mix rather than using a pre-made.  We also did not add the sodium nitrate, so our meat isn't pink like a store bought corned beef would be. 

toasting the peppercorn, mustard and coriander seed

all the spices together

Pickling Spice

2 tablespoons black peppercorns

2 tablespoons mustard seeds

2 tablespoons coriander seeds

2 tablespoons hot red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons allspice berries

1 tablespoon ground mace

2 small cinnamon sticks, crushed or broken into pieces

2 to 4 bay leaves, crumbled

2 tablespoons whole cloves

1 tablespoon ground ginger.

Brine mix: 1 gallon of water with 1 1/2 cups salt, 1/2 cup sugar, 3 smashed cloves garlic and 2 tablespoons of our home made pickling spice. Bring to a simmer, stirring until salt and sugar are dissolved. Remove from heat and let coo.

After letting the brine cool we soaked the brisket in it for 5 days in a tupperware in the fridge.  Lovingly turning it every day (when remembered).

When we were ready to eat the corned beef, we cooked it in the slow cooker.  First I rinsed the meat to remove the brine solution, then in the pot it went, with an onion, 2 more tbs of the spice mix, a couple of carrots, and enough water to cover everything.   Cook for 8-10 hours.

The next day we made Ruben sandwiches with home made rye bread. 

Rye bread, thousand island dressing, Swiss cheese, and sourkraut.  Divine!

Pumpkins

My very favourite part of autumn is......pumpkins!  I love their shape, their colour, their flavour.  Up until my late 20's I only ever used canned pumpkin, the main reason being you can get it year round in American grocery stores.  Then I learned that you can buy fresh pumpkins and cook them down yourself, a revelation!

That is what the girls and I did today.

We started with three lovely little sugar pumpkins.  I've used regular jack o' lantern pumpkins before, and they work just fine.  Perhaps they are a bit more stringy, because sugar pumpkins have such soft fine flesh.  You can also use a butternut squash if you can't get your hands on a pumpkin.  Here in the UK they are definitely harder to find than in the US.

 

Normally I cut the pumpkins in half, scrape out the seeds (save these!) and then put them cut side down in a pan with about an inch of water. Cover with foil and cook for an hour or until soft.  
 
I was reading online today about boiling them instead, so we decided to do them both ways.


In the end, I found boiling them gently faster, which is better when you are doing several pumpkins.  Next time I'll use an even bigger stock pot and do two pumpkins at once.  

After they are cooked until soft, we pulled them out, let them cool until we could handle them, and then using a spoon gentley scraped out the flesh into the Cuisinart.  Whiz whiz and you have pumpkin puree.  I put them in ziplocks in 1 or 2 cup measurements, as that is what most recipes called for.  The three pumpkins we used gave us 10 cups total.

Using one cup we made a gorgeous pumpkin bread.  Yum!

Maine Pumpkin Bread (from Allrecipes.com)

• 2 cups pumpkin purée
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin purée, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.