Peach Oo-la-la Tea

I love Honest Tea’s Peach Oo-la-long tea. I’ve bought countless bottles of it at $1.00 a bottle on sale, and more than that when it wasn’t. It’s not too sweet (only 60 calories for 16 oz) and has this wonderful refreshing taste.

But, it’s getting harder and harder to find in stores (and the Safeway copy cat brand has twice as much sugar). Plus, it’s an expensive habit in a glass bottle that costs a lot to ship (glass adds weight which requires additional gas which adds to the carbon footprint of the product). Glass itself is also getting harder to recycle, as it costs a lot to ship empty bottles to a glass recycling center, which are often far far away from where you used the bottles, so the glass, after one use, ends up in a land fill.

Muesli – Granola without the Guilt

In my quest to eat healthier in January, I’ve been avoiding added sugar. This means that my several times a week fruit, plain yogurt and granola habit has been tabled of late. Then I ran across this recipe for Hazelnut Cherry Muesli. I’d been collecting muesli recipes for a while, but had never gotten around to trying one out. This one seemed like a great place to start.

Chai-Hulud (the ongoing search for the perfect home brewed chai)

As I’ve probably mentioned on this blog before, I’m a tea drinker. Black tea, brewed strong, with a bit of sugar and a splash of half and half (and no, whole milk isn’t the same, and if you offer me that non-dairy creamer drivel, I’ll abstain all together). My first cup of tea was served to me by my maternal Grandmother when I was about 4, in a fragile china cup, with a lot of cream and sugar. I felt all grown up and special, and I’ve loved tea ever since. Half of my heritage is English, so I think part of it is simply in my genetics. I have never learned to like coffee.

When the chai tea craze hit in the 90′s, I climbed right on board, and worked my way through Oregon Chai, Tazo Chai and 3rd Street Chai, along with most other concentrate brands out there. I generally found them way to sweet. A 3/4 cup serving (12 oz by the time you add milk) of Oregon Chai Original Concentrate has 6-7 tsp of sugar in it. Seriously, I want a cup of tea, not a soda.

As for the powered chai concentrates, I feel about them the same way I feel about non-dairy creamer. So much so that I once wrote a letter to the editor of a local weekly paper appealing to coffee places to please please stop thinking that this abomination was acceptable. If you wouldn’t serve instant General Foods International Coffee to your coffee drinkers, why serve the equivalent to your tea drinkers. The headline the paper chose for this diatribe? “Keep Powder Off The Streets”. Still makes me laugh.

I had pretty much stopped ordering chai in coffee shops due to the unpredictability of the product. I had thrown away more than one partial cup because it had cooled off enough to make the sweetness cloying (and I HATE throwing food away). But there was one exception. The home-made secret recipe chai from Durango Coffee Company(DCC). I LOVED this chai. Not to sweet, just the right amount of spice. Durango is a small enough town that I was able to contact the owner and beg for the recipe, playing on a mutual position we had both held on a local board of directors. He refused. When I moved to Washington, and could not possibly be a competing threat, I asked again. No dice. They wouldn’t even tell me the spices that were in it. But they did offer to sell me a bag of the spice mix and tell me how to brew it. Here’s my chance, I thought. I’ll be able to ID the spices. Nope. It came preground. Drat!

I had tried brewing my own chai over the years, and had collected a lot of not quite right recipes, including Oregon Chai copy cat attempts. Chai, referred to as masala chai in India, where it originated, almost always contains five main ingredients; cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper and cloves. Nutmeg, star anise, orange peel, vanilla, and fennel appear less often. Most call for putting whole spices, tea and vanilla in a sauce pan and seeping for about 15 minutes.

The problem here is three-fold. One, in my experience, adding milk to tea too soon seems to interfere with its ability to brew correctly (as I have experienced repeatedly when adding half and half to a cup of tea at a coffee shop too soon, not wanting to stand around for 4 minutes when my friends were ready to go). Plus, I wanted a concentrate, not a ready to drink brew. Second, brewing tea for more than about 4 minutes brings out tannins, and will make a brew that practically takes the enamel off of your teeth. Third, seeping whole spices for 15 minutes is not nearly long enough to extract much of their flavor.

When DCC explained their brewing method, it was a revelation. They brew the tea two-fold strong (because it will be diluted by half with milk later). After they remove the tea, they add the spices, let the mixture seep until cool, strain and store. And because their spices were ground, not whole, maximum flavor was extracted with very little energy input. It was time to revisit home-brewed chai using this new method (but first, I needed to use up all the spice mix DCC sent me, which took about a year).

This recipe isn’t perfect. I’m still playing with the ratio of spices. But it is quite good. Certainly better than anything I can purchase in the store. Play around with it yourself, and see what you think.

Homemade Chai Concentrate
Makes enough spice mix for a few batches of 16 oz concentrate, which happens to be the size I brew because that’s the size of my small teapot. Feel free to double the recipe or make the whole batch at once.

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (or 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon chips or 1 3-inch piece stick cinnamon, broken up – you do know about my spice addiction, right?)
• 10 whole green cardamom pods
• 1-2 whole star anise pods (or to taste – I’m not a huge licorice fan, so tend to shy away from all anise and fennel flavors. I even struggle with chervil, tarragon and Thai basil for their anise overtones. I use one star anise)
• 8 whole cloves (I once had a locally brewed chai that had so much clove in it that my tongue went numb. There is a reason clove oil is used for tooth ache. It IS possible to have too much)
• 8 black peppercorns
• 4-6 pieces crystalized ginger (most recipes call for fresh, but then you can’t store the spice mix. And since I liked DCC’s mix so much, and clearly they were not using fresh ginger, I figured this would work. Plus I had a bunch of leftover crystalized ginger from a Christmas cookie baking extravaganza a few years ago. It never goes bad. You could use ground ginger here, but it tends to lose its potency pretty quickly. I’d go with a fresh 3-inch piece, chopped, if you don’t use the crystalized.
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg (about 1/4 of a whole nutmeg – fresh ground really IS better here, and it grinds pretty quickly

To make the spice mixture

Grind all ingredients, including crystalized ginger, in a spice grinder (i.e. repurposed coffee grinder) until pulverized. Notes: whole cloves can be hard on plastics. The oils are somewhat caustic and they are hard little buggers. After killing the plastic lid of my old grinder with cloves, I now have one where the lid fits over the outside of the grinding mechanism, rather that down into it. I grind the cardamom with the outside husk and all. I throw in any preground spices as well, as it helps to mix it all together. Store in a sealed container.

To make tea concentrate:

• 4 tsp loose leaf black tea of your choice. Assam, a strong Indian tea, is the traditional choice. You can use tea bags instead. Just double the amount you would normally use for two cups of tea.
• 16 -20 oz water, filtered if your tap has chlorine
• 2 tbsp spice mix, above

Place tea and boiling water in a pot (I have this nifty tea brewer with a built-in straining liner, but any pot would work – just be sure to give the tea leaves room to expand. Don’t put them into a standard tea ball, it will be too small). Cover and seep tea for four minutes. Remove/strain out tea. Add 2 tablespoons spice mix to the hot tea liquid and stir. Cover and let sit until mixture reaches room temperature. Strain (most of the spice mix will sink to the bottom and you can just pour until you start to get to this layer. A clean coffee press would probably work great here too.) Store concentrate in the refrigerator for up to a week.

To make your tea, add 1/2 concentrate and 1/2 milk of choice to mug and heat in the microwave until hot. Stir in 1/4 tsp vanilla extract and sweetener of choice (one tsp of raw sugar is just about right for me) and enjoy. Note that a lot of recipes call for whole vanilla beans, seeped with the spice mixture, but buying one vanilla bean locally can run you $7-8, so I go with the extract. (You can get great deals on whole vanilla beans in quantity on eBay – I made my own extract this way.)

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where about half the time, when I am making a cup of chai, my husband observes “shai-hulud”, which was the name the Fremen called the sand worms in the Frank Herbert science fiction book Dune. Yup, he’s kind of a nerd.

Ratatouille – summer in November

Yup, I grew everything here except for the garlic.

I was home for a visit to northern California back in the 1990′s, during the height of summer, and my step-mom was making ratatoullie, a French vegetable stew. Not one to eat many vegetables at the time, I reluctantly tried some, and it was a revelation. It was SO good. Nothing like vine ripened tomatoes and fresh basil to make all vegetables taste fantastic. I was sold, and have been making ratatouille in September, during the height of the warm weather vegetable glut, ever since.

The trick to making sublime ratatouille, rather than just good ratatouille, is really good tomatoes and cooking most of the vegetables separately, only combining them at the end (ala Julia Child). Generally, the order is Eggplant, Zucchini, Peppers, Onions, Tomatoes, or EZPOT (ala some random reality show episode on Food Network). Cooks Illustrated also has a ratatouille recipe where the eggplant and zucchini are roasted instead of sautéed. Play around and see what you like.

The best part of this recipe? It freezes beautifully. Portion it out into quart freezer bags, thaw in the winter, add a small can of cannelleni beans, diced red potatoes or small pasta of your choice, some chicken or veggie stock, and you have a healthy flavorful soup to help counteract all of the holiday eating. It’s also great as a pizza topping.

Ratatouille

• ½ lb. eggplant. Note that the smaller Italian or Japanese eggplant are less bitter and do not need to be salted and drained, as is often recommended for the large globe eggplant.
• ½ lb. zucchini or other on-hand summer squash
• 2 (about 1 cup) green and/or ripe bell peppers
• ½ lb. (about 1 ½ cups) storage onions (i.e. not sweet)
• 2 cloves garlic, or more to taste
• Olive oil
• 1 lb ripe tomatoes. If you can’t get vine ripened ones, you are better off substituting a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes rather than the tasteless ones available in winter.
• 3 tbsp minced fresh parsley (or 1 ½ tbsp dried)
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil (or 1 tbsp dried)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Dice eggplant, squash, peppers and tomatoes into 1/2 to 1 inch dice. Peel and seed tomatoes if that is your preference (I personally don’t bother). Coarsely chop the onion. Mince the garlic.

Skim the bottom of a dutch oven with about 1 tbsp olive oil and heat over medium-high heat. Saute the eggplant until lightly browned on all sides, 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan.

Adding more oil, saute squash until lightly browned on all sides, 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan.

Reduce heat to medium. Adding more oil, saute peppers and onions until cooked through, but not browned. Add garlic and saute briefly until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes and cook until they have released their juices and some liquid has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. (Start with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Add more to taste).

OK, this is not the best picture, taken with a flash, post pot luck. But this did get frozen, and I will be feasting on it in January.

Return eggplant and squash to pan, along with parsley and basil. (The original Julia Child recipe calls for layering the squash and eggplant with the tomato/onion/pepper mixture for a total of 5 layers. The goal is to help each vegetable retain its individual flavor. I find this too fussy. Do so if you wish. I just stir it all together). Simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes. Uncover, and continue to simmer for about 15 minutes, being careful not to scorch the bottom.

Ratatouille is great served hot or cold, with a nice slice of crusty bread. This is a great pot luck dish for summer gatherings. If you want to try this recipe roasting some or all of the vegetables, simply toss veggies/whole garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast on a foil lined sheet pan in a 450 degree oven, stirring ever 10 minutes or so, until vegetables are tender. It should take about 30 minutes depending on the size of your dice. Then combine and add your fresh herbs.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re miles away from summer ripened tomatoes, and could use a big dose of vegetables in our diet. I’ve been enjoying cooking for my husband for the last two weeks, and the scale is reflecting all that good food.

Bricklayer Eggs – Huevos Al Albañil

Wish I could take credit for the garlic, but everything else in this picture was grown by yours truly. Note the blue eggs. My Araucanas have started laying!

Years ago, while on a business trip in Albuquerque, a coworker and I stumbled upon a small coffee shop while looking for breakfast. The place was run by a little Mexican woman who barely spoke English, but boy could she cook. We returned there every morning we were in town for her Eggs Albañil, a dish so spicy and wonderful it made my coworker’s ears ring.

I had problems with some of my tomatillos splitting, so I sold the pretty ones and made Albañil with the split ones. Never let anything go to waste, that's my motto.

If you have (or can get) fresh tomatillos, now is the time to make this dish. This recipe is adapted from one I found via Google when I returned from Albuquerque, and have been making ever since. You’ll also find recipes for this using tomatoes instead of tomatillos, but trust me, this sauce should be green green green.

Eggs Albañil (Bricklayer Eggs)

• 1 pound tomatillos, husked
• 1 medium white onion, peeled and quartered
• 4 large garlic cloves, peeled
• 4 fresh serrano, jalapeño or green chiles, or to taste
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 8 eggs
• salt to taste

Place tomatillos, onion, garlic and chiles in a large saucepan and add just enough water to barely cover. Bring to a boil and cook until the tomatillos are just soft, about 5-8 minutes. Place mixture in a blender (better than a food processor for this application) with the cilantro and puree until smooth.

Rinse out your saucepan, dry and add 2 tbsp oil. Heat over medium heat and add the pureed sauce. Cook 15-20 minutes or until thickened. Add salt to taste (at least 1/2 tsp to start. Tomatillos are on the sweet side, and you need the salt to help counter that).

Just before sauce is done, scramble eggs in separate skillet until just done. Plate eggs, spoon sauce over them, and serve with warm tortillas. The eggs should be “swimming” in the sauce. Don’t be shy about it.

When I’m in the mood for fried rather than scrambled eggs, I just spoon the sauce into the skillet with the eggs, cover, and “poach” until the yolks are done to my liking. Extra sauce will store in the refrigerator for about a week.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re miles away from Mexico, but her food is always near to our hearts.

Squash Abundance – Surprise!

I’ve been having a wonderful time over the last few weeks, as my husband has been here full-time. He had some “use it or lose it” vacation time, and so took a couple of weeks off to spend on the farm. It’s the most time we’ve spent together in one stretch since January 2010! He helped me with markets (SO much easier with two people), made lots of new earrings (see the products tab above for a sample – yes, those ARE rusted fence staples), and generally “got stuff done” around the farm.

Reused hinges, recycled wood for the doors, new handles. The wood is old siding, so the overlap should help keep the snow out.

We finished rebuilding the rotted out doorway to the root cellar, which came out fabulous – solid, rustic and functional all at the same time. We rented a wood chipper and mulched up a huge pile of tree trimmings (you can’t burn wood piles here). And let me tell you, power tools are WAY fun. We now have enough apple wood chips to smoke bacon and salmon for the next 10 years. The garden aisles got the box elder mulch.

We finally got some body work done on the car, from damage that occurred when we hit a deer this spring (it’s hard to drop off a car for a few days when you are by yourself). AND, we went to see Santana and Michael Franti in concert (fabulous) and swam in the Spokane river (Upriver of the paper mill – recommended) on the hottest day of the year. It was a great visit, and was nice to remember what it is like to be married full-time. Needless to say, I didn’t get much blogging done.

Due to the fact that EVERYONE at the farmers markets has summer squash in abundance, AND the fact that one of my markets was skipped due to a local fair being on site for that weekend, we’ve had an abundance of summer squash, despite the fact that I anticipated this scenario and didn’t plant much of it.

Corn and garlic were bought from a local grower. Everything else was grown on the farm.

What to make?  Well, besides ubiquitous zucchini bread, and a favorite squash, pepper, sausage, cheese dish that I love, the best way to use up squash is to make Calabacitas.

My understanding is that Calabacitas is more of a New Mexico/Southwest dish than a traditional Mexican dish. All I know is that it rocks, and is a great way to enjoy summer produce at its peak. It is good as a side dish, or you can throw in some beans and make vegetarian tacos!

Calabacitas
Note that all measurements are approximate. Mix and match amounts depending on how much you have on hand and what you like.

• 1 cup chopped Onion
• 3-4 cloves Garlic, minced
• 2 1/2 cups diced Summer Squash of your choice (zucchini, yellow, patty pan)
• 2 ears of Corn cut from the cob (about 2 cups)
• 2-4 Jalapenos, green chiles, or other pepper with some heat (depending on taste and tolerance – you could use bell peppers if you are really a whimp)
• 2-4 diced ripe Tomatoes (about a cup)
• Good handful of fresh chopped Cilantro (optional – some people hate it)
• Cheese (a nice Mexican queso añejo would be nice here, but jack or whatever you have on hand will work). Cheese is optional, but who are we kidding.

Don't over cook the squash. Overcooked squash is, well, why people hate summer squash.

Heat a little oil (canola or olive) over medium high heat. Saute onion for 3-4 minutes, until translucent. Add garlic and continue cooking for about one minute, or until fragrant. Add squash, corn and chiles and saute until softened but not mushy, about 2-3 minutes more. Stir in fresh tomatoes, cilantro and cheese and heat through. Serve immediately. Left overs can be eaten as a cold salad the following day.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re miles away from fall just yet, and wishing for enough hot weather in September to ripen all of the tomatoes.

That Carrot Sage Pasta Dish

A tomato/cucumber salad on the side is a nice accompaniment

Back when I was a lot younger, and a lot poorer, I lived in Boulder Colorado. I was just beginning to explore “natural” foods and products (Boulder is a great place for this; there were two natural food stores within waking distance to my house). While I wasn’t a vegetarian (and likely never will be) I did start to experiment with eating more vegetarian dishes. And not having a lot of cash, I used to go to the public library and read Vegetarian Times (VT) magazine when I was looking for ideas. If I saw a recipe I liked, I’d plunk down my dime and make a copy.

In October 2003, VT featured a Best Of reader submitted dishes. One of the winners was a simple sautéed carrot over pasta dish that has become a family favorite. I don’t even know the original name, as it was on the previous page that didn’t get copied. We just call it That Carrot Sage Pasta dish. There is something about the contrast of the lemon on the pasta, the sweetness of the carrots and the savory flavor of the sage and onion that just melds into this perfectly satisfying summer dish. Now is a perfect time to make it (with home-grown carrots, scallions and sage if possible, of course).

That Carrot Sage Pasta Dish
Serves 2-4 depending on appetite. Takes about 30 minutes.

• 1/2 lb bow-tie pasta (or whatever you have on hand)
• about 1 tbsp olive oil
• about 2 tbsp butter
• 3-4 medium carrots, sliced into medallions (a good-sized handful of “baby” carrots will also work)
• 9 scallions, sliced diagonally into approx. 1 inch pieces, including some green
• 40 or so fresh sage leaves
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Juice from 1/2 lemon
• Handful (1/4 cup) fresh parmesan cheese (or cheese of your choice)

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil.

Drizzle some olive oil into a large skillet. Add about 1 tbsp butter. Heat over med-high heat until butter has melted and fats are combined. Add carrots and saute until soft and starting to carmalize, about 7 minutes.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook until al dente.

After carrots are mostly cooked through, add scallions and sage leaves. Continue to saute until sage begins to crisp and carrots are browned, about another 7 minutes. When done, kill heat, add salt and pepper to taste, and cover to keep warm.

When pasta is done, drain and return to cooking pot. Add lemon juice and remaining tbsp butter. Toss.

Divide pasta evenly among 3-4 serving bowls and top with carrot mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan and serve.

Seriously, this dish will make you happy!

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we really really wish we had planted twice as many carrots, as we’re almost (gasp) out, and we’re really happy that sage is a hardy perennial.

Bowl Full of Sunshine

As I have mentioned here several times, I was not a very adventuresome eater for the first part of my life. One of the “no way” foods was avocado. Then I discovered Super Taqueria on 10th street in downtown San Jose California when I was in my early 20′s. A grab and go Mexican place that I walked by every day for a year before I was brave enough to go in, and then only because someone I trusted recommended it.

Super Taqueria had these fresh grilled steak tacos that were really more like a burrito, served up with big slices of ripe avocado. For a long time, I ordered them without the green wedges, while suspiciously eyeing the counter containers of horchata, tamarind and hibiscus drinks. But finally, finally, I braved the avocado and learned that it was the perfect complement to the spicy grilled goodness of the meat. These tacos are so addicting that on the rare occasions when I am back in San Jose, (which happens about every 5-10 years) I make a point of going back to Super Taqueria. And wonder of wonders, they are still in business.

I love this juicer. I think I bought this before I left California in 1990, for $5 at a thrift store. It's bomb proof!

Then, along about 1993, I spent some time in the mountains of Chiapas Mexico in the town of San Cristobal de las Casas. There, I spent a lot of time hanging out in a little restaurant associated with a language school called Centro Cultural El Puente (The Bridge Cultural Center). I got to know one of the owners, and helped out a bit while he took a trip back to the states (turns out he was from a town about 30 minutes from where I grew up in California – small world). During that time, I watched one of the cooks make guacamole over and over again, and realized that 1) it wasn’t all that complicated and 2) you really didn’t need to measure anything.

I’ve been making guacamole ever since. It never comes out exactly the same way twice, but it is always good. And it always makes me think of sunny Mexico (or even sunny San Jose), and since I have seen the sun on average about one out of every seven days since November, it has become a bit of a lifeline. It is snowing as I type this.

Guacamole
The gourmet version (with the cheap date version in italics)

This recipe can be easily scaled up or down. Yes, avocados are pretty heavy in the calorie department, at around 250 calories per fruit, but the fat is mostly heart healthy monounsaturated and they contain a nice assortment of nutrients. A cool avocado fact is that they will hold on the tree for a really long time, and don’t start ripening until they are picked, so they are available at a reasonable price almost year round.

• 1 hass avocado, ripe but not mushy (if you can easily remove the bit of stem at the end, and if it gives slightly when you press on it, it is ripe. If it feels soft when you pick it up and has “dents” it is overripe).
• juice from 1/2 lime (or 1 tbsp bottled lime juice)
• 1 clove garlic, minced - the finer you mince it, the more pronounced the flavor (or a pinch of garlic powder)
• 1/8 to 1/4 of a finely chopped red onion (or yellow or white – whatever you have on hand). If you don’t like the “bite” of raw onion, after chopping, rinse the onion in cold running water for about 30 seconds (thank Rick Bayless for this tip)
• 1 small chopped ripe tomato (should it happen to be summer) or about 1/4 cup good bottled salsa.
• Salt to taste (don’t be shy here – it needs salt to really bring out the other flavors)
• Pinch ground cumin
• Pinch black pepper (optional)
• Chopped Cilantro to taste (optional, but in my world essential. You can freeze fresh chopped cilantro in a zip top bag. It is not as good as fresh, but better than none at all AND better than throwing out that slowly moldering bunch of cilantro in your crisper drawer. Cilantro does NOT dry well. Don’t waste your money on the dried stuff.)
• Dash hot sauce, chili powder or cayenne, to taste.

Run your knife through the avocado skin to the pit, lengthwise (through the stem), and then twist the two pieces apart. Embed knife in seed as if you were going to try to cut it in half, and twist. You’ll now have the seed on your knife. Remove seed CAREFULLY. Grasp with a towel if your knife is really sharp. (I think avocados are second only to bagels in terms of knife accidents.)

When an avocado is ripe, I find that if I quarter it lengthwise, I can just peel the skin back off the fruit with my fingers. If not, scoop out flesh with a spoon or fork into a good-sized bowl. Add your other ingredients, and mash with a potato masher or fork. Don’t over mash. Good guacamole should have chunks. Taste for salt and acid (lime). Add more if necessary.

This gets better if allowed to sit for 30 minutes, but I can never wait that long. My Mexican friends taught me that if you throw the pit back in with the mash, it will keep longer. I have done this with success when I’ve made a big batch for a pot luck.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re supposed to have highs in the teens for the next couple of days, but the avocados are on sale!

Chowda’ For All Seasons

The last of my mother-in-law's red potatoes, grown this year, and a Yukon Gold as well. The skins on both were a bit worse for wear, and so the potatoes ended up mostly peeled.

Years ago I took a class taught under the nutrition department at San Jose State University. The professor was really just a foodie (an expression that likely hadn’t been invented yet) and the class turned out to be a grown up version of home ec, where we explored different ethnic cuisines both across the US and world-wide. For the final, we wrote up and prepared for the class a dish that represented our own ethnic heritage. It was one of the best classes I took during my first stint in college.

Ready for the stock.

This was where I first learned to make clam chowder. I had always been a fan, and it turned out it just wasn’t that difficult to make. Then I branched out to corn chowder, potato chowder, fish/salmon/seafood chowder and had a revelation. Basic chowder has these ingredients:

• Bacon
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Some kind of Dairy for creaminess
• Thyme and Bay Leaf (at least in my world)

Pantry staples, quick to make, healthy if you go easy on the bacon and cream. What’s not to love? So, without further ado…

Seasonal Chowder as you like it
Makes enough to serve 2 with leftovers

(All amounts are approximate. Really like bacon? Add more. Hate celery? Leave it out. You get the idea. You really can’t mess this up.)

• 2 slices bacon
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 small carrot, diced (optional)
• 1 small celery, diced (optional)
• 1 cup or more other veggies as desired (corn,  green chiles etc.)
• 2 small cans (6.5 oz) clams, drained. Reserve juice (clam chowder only). Substitute some smoked salmon or other fish/shellfish if you like.
• 1 8 oz bottle clam juice (seafood based chowder only)
• 4 cups chicken or veggie stock (if NOT making clam/seafood chowder)
• 2 medium potatoes, diced (I like red, because they hold up well, but use what you have on hand)
• 1 tsp dried thyme (or a few sprigs fresh if you have it)
• 1 bay leaf
• Ground pepper to taste
• Salt to taste (stocks, bacon and clam broth can contain a lot of salt, so taste and see if you need more. You many not.)
• 1/2 to 1 cup cream, half and half, whole milk, low-fat milk or evaporated milk. (I use low-fat to save on calories and because I find cream way to heavy unless you only want to eat a 1/2 cup serving).

Dice bacon and cook in large pot over medium heat until crisp and fat has rendered. Remove bacon (set aside) and discard all but about 1 tbsp of fat. Saute onion (and carrot/celery if using) in bacon fat until translucent. Add liquid (clam broth or chicken/veggie stock), potatoes, herbs and spices and other veggies, if using. Simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Mash a bit if you want more body and fewer chunks. Add in clams (or other seafood, if using), dairy and reserved bacon. Taste and correct seasoning. Heat through, about 5 minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of fresh parsley and fresh black pepper or a bit of parmesan cheese. Fresh baked cornbread muffins, french bread or crackers optional.

Ready for a cold winter's night. To make green chile/cheddar corn muffins, just add a handful of grated cheddar cheese and a 3 oz can of diced green chiles to your favorite corn bread recipe and bake in a muffin tin (reduce cooking time). Easy!

Notes: I don’t make a regular habit of eating bacon on its own, because I have no willpower and the fat content is high. If I cook it, I eat it. Yet I almost always have some on hand to use as a flavor boost in chowders, chilis and stews. So when I buy bacon (if I haven’t made my own) I freeze it. Because of the fat, it is pretty easy to cut off a chunk even when frozen and lasts up to a year in a zip top freezer bag.

I prefer my potatoes with the skins intact. I like the flavor and the nutritional/fiber boost you get from leaving them on. But be sure to cut off any skin that has a green tinge. This is caused by a reaction with light that produces a natural toxin called solanine  just under the skin. You really shouldn’t eat it.

I blanch and freeze corn, cut off the cob, when it has achieved perfection (and is dirt cheap) in the summer. I then have it on hand for just this kind of dinner in the middle of winter.

I made this particular batch of chowder with roasted green chiles that I bought and froze while in Southwest Colorado. The chiles were supposed to be of medium heat, but they are wicked hot, so it is taking us a lot of time to use them up.

I’m a big fan of organic ”Better than Bouillon” in place of chicken stock, if I haven’t made my own. Since one jar gives me 38 cups of broth, it saves me a lot of cans and cartons of stock from the store, and while I haven’t done a taste comparison, I think it works just fine.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we were hoping that the milk in the green chile corn chowder would help cut the heat, which it did, but we still needed a tissue nearby to wipe our nose.

Here We Come a Wassailing

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Christmas. On the one hand, I understand the feeling of belonging, joy and contentment everyone is striving for, and at times, have experienced them myself. But the mish-mash of obligation, sentimentality, rampant consumerism, outright greed and a religious story I simply do not buy into (no offence meant to those who do) often leaves me understanding what Scrooge meant by “bah, humbug”.

What I DO love, of course, is the cooking. Nothing like a great pot of soup on the stove and cookies baking in the oven to make me feel all warm and snug and allow me to share my love with others in, what to me, is a genuine way. One of my favorite holiday traditions is drinking wassail, which really just means a hot mulled cider of some sort.

In looking up the meaning of wassailing, I learned that wassail is a derivation of a middle English phrase “waes hail” meaning “good health” and that wassailing was an ancient southern English tradition of singing to the apple orchard with the intention of ensuring a good crop of cider apples in the coming year. Now HERE is a tradition I can get behind.

Here’s a wassailing song from Wikipedia (so you know it has to be true).

Old apple tree, old apple tree;
We’ve come to wassail thee;
To bear and to bow apples enow;
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;
Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs

Wassail (Mulled Cranberry/Apple Cider)

• 32 oz cranberry juice cocktail
• 32 oz apple cider
• 3 3-inch cinnamon sticks
• 1 teaspoon whole allspice
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• orange slices
• whole cloves 

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Heat to boiling, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or longer. Strain punch to remove spices. Place in a heat proof punch bowl or ladle directly into mugs. Garnish with extra orange slices studded with cloves, if desired.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from rescuing the American economy with our Christmas shopping, but are enjoying a warm mug of cider on a snowy evening and wishing everyone a joyous holiday season.