Mom's Birthday

It was my Mom's birthday last week, and so I decided to throw a dinner party for her. I should also mention that my brother Dave moved out in early January, so this doubled as a celebration in honor having a house of my own (his old bedroom is my new dining room!). Plus it's just fun to cook elaborate meals for your loved ones in the winter time. Gardening and other outdoor pursuits leave me little time for such things in the summer.

The one catch to this dinner party was that Saturday night was the only night that would work for all my guests. My "weekend" is Sunday and Monday, so I had to work till 4pm and then prepare dinner on Saturday. The planned menu would take a lot more than 2 hours to prepare, so a lot of prep was necessary.

The planned menu consisted of: Olives Stuffed with Sausage and Deep-Fried, Eggs Fairy Style (kind of like fancy deviled eggs), A Jerusalem Artichoke and Apple Salad, Marina di Chioggia Gocchi with Sage Butter, Roast Pork with Apples, and Strawberry Shortcake (made with frozen strawberries preserved from the summer harvest).

Be prepared for lot of pictures in this post! I'll try to breeze through them quickly. If you're interested in recipes, please let me know and I'll get them to you.

Thursday night was my first night of prep. I did all my shopping after work and prepared a few things. The first was to make breadcrumbs for the stuffed olives. I chopped this sourdough baguette in half, cut it into chunks, and processed it in the food processor. This method worked relatively well. I put the finished crumbs in a open bag on the counter hoping that they would dry out sufficiently before Saturday night.

This vanilla bean was designated for the strawberry shortcake. I wanted the vanilla flavor to be strong, so I decided to flavor my sugar on top of adding the vanilla bean straight to the dessert.

I opened it up carefully with a paring knife. The black gooey vanilla substance oozed out. Mmmmmm.... This is one ingredient that's worth shipping over long distances!

Vanilla goodness. (no comments about my weirdly shaped thumb please!). I cut the opened vanilla bean in half and put it in with the sugar to "marinate" for a few days.

Fast forward to Friday night - the night before the dinner. My chickens haven't been laying much at all recently, but I had 9 eggs on hand. I picked these 8 for the eggs "fairy style".

I had a hunch that Julia Child had the best advise for hard boiling eggs, so I consulted one of her cookbooks. She warned that fresh eggs can be very hard to peel, but if you salt your water, pin prick in the blunt end of your eggs, and chill them well after cooking, your chances of success are higher.

Per Julia's advise, instead of boiling the eggs I coddled them. This means you put them in cold water and gradually heat them to boiling. When they reach the boiling point, you take them off the heat, put a lid on them, and wait for 17 minutes (not 16, not 18, but 17 minutes). I did all this and then put them in cold water and into the fridge to chill.

Meanwhile, I prepared the sausage stuffing for the olives. These are Andoullie sausage from Willow Creek Farm. I know Andouille isn't exactly the best sausage for an Italian recipe, but they were free at work (they had slightly damaged packaging and so couldn't be sold). Work with what you've got!

I took them out of their casings and cooked the sausage with some of my homemade tomato paste (cooked and frozen in August), and seasoned it with a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and black pepper. Once it had cooled, I added Parmesan cheese and put it in the fridge to wait for the olive stuffing the next day.

I also cooked the shortcakes on Friday night. The simplest recipe from The Joy of Cooking always works for me. Flour, butter, heavy cream, and baking powder. I brushed some melted butter and a little of the vanilla sugar on top.

Just perfect!

The eggs, on the other hand, were not perfect. I tried my hardest to peel them, but this is what I ended up with. Something to do with fresh eggs being more acidic than older ones, and acid apparently makes them harder to peel.

The idea of eggs "fairy style" quickly went out the window. That recipe is all about presentation, and these eggs just weren't going to cut it. I decided instead to make an egg dip.

I pressed the hard boiled eggs through a sieve......

.... and ended up with this nice egg puree. It was fluffy and pretty - like really dainty scrambled eggs.

I added some frozen basil from the summer (the basil log in the background is great! I've been cutting chunks off and using it all winter).

I also added some roasted cherry tomatoes that I had frozen from the summer. Tomatoes and basil in February? Freezers are awesome! I mixed in some apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, tasted it, and called it good.

Next, I got to work on the strawberry sauce for the shortcake. Being a winter strawberry shortcake made with frozen strawberries, I decided it would be best to make a berry sauce and serve it warm. I added the vanilla beans, some of the sugar, and a squeeze of lemon juice and started them simmering over low heat.

While they were cooking I started working on the pork. This beautiful roast is from Willow Creek Farm (Their pork is so good I'm beginning to think that I'll never be able to eat pork from anywhere else!)

I rubbed it with butter, dried sage, salt and pepper and put it in the fridge to "marinate" overnight.

These Jonared apples from Ella Orchard were to accompany the pork.

I had seen recipes that say to marinate apples for a pork roast in white wine before cooking. I changed it up a little by marinating them in some home-made hard cider that had been open for a while and had become flat. These also went in the fridge overnight.

Finally, we're to Saturday night! Right when I got home at 4pm I placed the apples, cider, and pork in a roasting pan and got it in the oven. Dave and Erica came over to help before dinner. Erica set the table, and then I assigned them the olive stuffing and frying duties. They experimented with different ways of stuffing, and finally settled on the one on the top of this picture - slitting the olive open and stuffing rather than trying to get the stuffing in the hole.

While they did that, I cut up some local veggies to go with my egg dip. Yellow carrots, beauty heart (aka watermelon) radishes, and Jerusalem artichokes. The dip looked for all the world like hummus, but I think it tasted better.

The olives required three dippings - first flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs - before frying. Dave and Erica tried to use this egg (collected from the coop just minutes before), but as you can see, it was frozen. I've never seen such a thing! I've been collecting them in freezing temperatures all winter, but I've kept them in the fridge long enough to thaw out. I wonder if you can freeze eggs to preserve them..... hmmmmmm.......

Here are the finished fried olives. A lot of work, but my were they good!

I had just enough sage on the plant that I've been keeping inside this winter for the sage butter to go with the gnocchi. While everyone was enjoying the appetizers I chopped up the sage, added it to melted butter, and cooked it slowly for a few minutes.

I had made the gnocchi the weekend before, so all I had to do was heat up water to boiling, dump the gnocchi in, and wait for it to float. I drained it and tossed it with the sage butter. Easy peasy!

The roast wasn't all that appetizing right out of the oven......

.... it looked much better after slicing. Delicious in fact!

Here's my plate! I completely forgot to take pictures of the salad making - I guess it got forgotten in the rush to get everything together. It consisted of apples, Jerusalem artichokes, carrots, lemon and blood orange juice, salt, and a touch of thyme (mostly to add a little green color). It added just the right crunch to offset the gnocchi and the pork.

Erica, my two brothers and Mom, getting ready to eat. Dave said it felt a little weird to be eating in his old bedroom, but he got over it.

Here's the whole crew. It was tight, but we made it work.

Don't forget dessert! Strawberry sauce with plenty of vanilla, shortcake, and whipped cream. A wonderful end to a wonderful winter meal. Strawberry shortcake was especially perfect for Mom's birthday since she and I picked these strawberries together last summer. We usually have strawberry shortcake for my birthday in June - what a treat to have it for her's in January!

I'm not going to post recipes here, but again, if you want any, please let me know and I'll post them!

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Marina di Chioggia Gnocchi (again).

Probably not many people following this blog will remember the post from a few years ago in which I made gnocchi from a Marina di Chioggia squash. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the experience. Marina di Chioggia (which literally translates to Sea Pumpkin from Chioggia) is a beautiful Italian heirloom squash from Chioggia, a seaside town which is also the homeland of the Chioggia Beet and I'm sure lots of other delectable things. This squash is traditionally used to make gnocchi, so of course I couldn't help but attempt it when I was fortunate enough to get a hold of one.

My first attempt at gnocchi was good but frustrating. It took forever to make and I ran out of time and ended up freezing the majority of the dough thinking that I would defrost it and form the gnocchi as I wanted it. Wrong. A year later, I finally pitching the freezer burnt gnocchi dough..... not good. I was so frustrated by the sticky, time consuming process that I didn't take the care I should have on the sauce, and it ended up overpowering the delicate flavors of the gnocchi.

So, since I successfully grew two beautiful Marina di Chioggia squash in my garden this year I decided to try again. The occasion is my Mom's birthday dinner. I'm hosting a family dinner for her next weekend, and I'm planning an elaborate menu (what better do I have to do on these cold winter days?) I knew that making gnocchi would be a time consuming endeavor so I decided to make it and freeze it (formed, but uncooked) the weekend before. All I'll have to do on the night of the dinner is dump the frozen gnocchi into boiling water and let it cook.

This is the larger of the two I grew. It's not as warty as other Marina di Chioggias I've seen, but it is nicely formed and very heavy. I harvested it in early October and it's been sitting on the kitchen table ripening and looking pretty ever since. These squash are great keepers and turn from a dark dark green to a orangey purpley color as they ripen.

It had the prettiest curlicues coming off its stem.

The inside held an extremely firm flesh with a beautiful deep orange color. Just the way it should look! I'm always a bit amazed that something I grew could turns out so perfect. It doesn't always happen, but the times that it does make it all worth it.

The seeds and stringy innards went to the chickens who made short work of them. I drizzled a little local sunflower oil on the quarters and roasted them at about 375 degrees. Normally I would roast squash like this with the flesh down to try and keep as much moisture in as possible, but in this case I wanted them to dry out to make the gnocchi dough more manageable.

Along with the squash I baked these three local potatoes.

The potatoes took a little longer than the squash, but after an hour or so everything was nice and tender.

I peeled the vegetables and pureed them in the food processor, which gave me this nice creamy puree.

Here's where things started to get sticky. I added 2 eggs and seasoned the squash puree lightly with white pepper and fresh nutmeg and then started adding flour. I remember this part well from my last gnocchi experience - the dough is STICKY! I was more prepared this time and I managed to keep things relatively under control, although my hands were way too coated with dough to take any pictures. The key, I found was to coat everything that the dough would touch in flour - my hands, the board, the bowl - everything.

After adding a lot of flour, I ended up with a sticky dough that I could roll into ropes, like shown. I covered my hands and the board with flour and carefully separated a piece of dough from the large mass, then rolled it into a rope, cut that rope in half and rolled that, cut that in half and rolled that until I ended up with a rope about 3/4 inch in diameter.

Usually, you would use a fork and press a pattern onto the gnocchi. I have a really good Italian cookbook that makes no mention of this step, so I decided it would be acceptable to skip it. I ended up with these nice plump little pieces.

I didn't want them to freeze into one big lump, so I layed them out in a single layer on a cookie sheets and put them in my chest freezer for a half hour to start freezing. Then they went into freezer bags and back into the freezer. I didn't have either the pans or the freezer space to do this in one batch, so I ended up rolling and freezing it in 3 large batches. The whole process took about 4 hours and I ended up with 6 quart bags full of really nice looking gnocchi and a sore back from hunching over the pastry board. 6 quarts is way more than what I'll need for next week's dinner and will be the basis of many easy weeknight dinners to come.

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Here's the recipe. Pictures of the finished cooked gnocchi will be in the next post that covers the rest of Saturday's feast!

Marina di Chioggia Gnocchi

1 Medium Marina di Chioggia Squash

Good Oil

3 Russet Potatoes

2 Eggs

White Pepper

Nutmeg (preferably freshly grated)

4 cups of flour or more

Preheat oven to 375. Cut the squash open and remove the seeds. Drizzle with oil and roast squash side up until tender (about 45 minutes to an hour.) In the same oven, bake the potatoes whole until tender. Chances are the potatoes will take longer than the squash. Let the squash and potatoes cool. When they are mostly cool, peel them and puree them together in a food processor until very smooth. Transfer the puree to a large mixing bowl and add the eggs and seasonings. Season this lightly - you don't want to drown out the flavor of the squash!

Start adding flour a little at a time until you have a less sticky dough. I recommend starting the mixing with a spoon and then dumping it out onto a floured board and using your hands when it gets too sticky. When the dough is manageable, start rolling the gnocchi.

On a well floured board, roll a chunk of the dough into a sausage shape. Cut it in half and roll one of the halves. Repeat until you have a rope about 3/4 inch thick. Cut this rope into 1/2 - 1 inch sections and put them onto a floured cookie sheet. Repeat this rolling until all the dough is gone.

To cook, dump the gnocchi into boiling salted water. It will sink to the bottom at first, but after a few minutes will float to the top. Wait 30 seconds after it starts to float, then drain and serve. To freeze, lay uncooked gnocchi on a floured cookie sheet in a single layer and put in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Take out of the freezer, put in freezer bags, and freeze.

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Jailbird

As you can see, I've had to put my bully chicken, the big bad Wheaten Marans, into solitary confinement. She was pecking the other hens badly and I observed her more than once eating the other girl's feathers (this is a bad habit that can be the result of a protein deficiency, but in this case I think it's just boredom).

She's now in a dog crate in the basement. We brought her in on Friday night. At first she was really pissed, and would squawk to high hell and try to rush the door whenever I came down to feed her. Today she seems to have resigned herself to her fate, which is good. I like to think that she's contemplating the direction her life has gone and resolving to reform herself, but I know that's just personification. The plan is to keep her separated for a few more days, and then hopefully when I reintroduce her to the flock she'll have lost her standing in the pecking order and the bullying will stop. We'll see.


In the meantime, the other chickies have been having fun with this cabbage tether ball that I made for them. Just a few days ago this was a fully formed, very firm cabbage. Today it's a pecked shell. I'm planning to make another one to put out for them tomorrow.

I've also been giving them other treats and human food leftovers in the hopes that they'll get distracted and stop pecking at another. Here, you can see Blondie enjoying the out of season cantaloupe that was the garnish on my plate at breakfast this morning. I've also given them beef bone leftovers from making stock, and the cold remains of a Friday night fish fry in addition to their regular vegetable scraps and black oil sunflower seeds. Who knew that chickens love cold french fries?

So far things seem to be going well. the girls with the worst bald spots from pecking have new pinfeathers developing. Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens when the Wheaten returns......
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Chickens in the Snow

As you can see, the chickens finally went outside this weekend! It was about time - they'd been cooped up since the beginning of December when we got our first snow. They seemed to be deathly afraid of it even though I shoveled out a section of their run.

I got them to go outside by dumping a bag of bedding on top of the snow and sprinkling black oil sunflower seeds on top. That got them out quick They just love sifting through pine shavings looking for the seeds. They're like chicken candy!

On Friday I noticed the Welsummer's tail was a little scraggly. On closer inspection I could see a patch of bare skin. In the next few days I noticed my other hens were getting torn up around the base of their tails. My first thought was that they were getting claustrophobic and pecking each other. I posted some questions on the message board at Backyardchickens.com asking what to do about pecking, and someone mentioned that perhaps they have mites...... I hadn't thought of that. I tried to find pictures of mite damage online and convinced myself that they had a bad case of the mites.

I went out on Sunday morning to find my favorite hen (the red Sussex affectionately named Red Hen) bloody by her tail. Whatever the case, something had to be done! I put her in the basement with some food and water so that none of the hens could peck at her and went to get some supplies.


For the coop I got an all natural enzyme spray called "Poultry Protector". It's supposed to get rid of mites. I cleaned out all the bedding from the coop (so much for the deep litter method!), sprayed everything down, sprinkled diatamacious earth everywhere, and put new bedding down. The hens disliked the process, but they were really happy with their new digs when it was all done.


For Red Hen I got some Blue Kote - a gooey blue substance that helps clean and seal wounds. It dyed her hind-feathers a very becoming shade of purple!


I also got this 3 gallon feed trough and filled it with sand, a little potting soil, and more diatamacious earth. Right away, they started vying for dust baths. Perfect!


Today they seemed really happy to be outside but it was impossible to tell whether their feathers were growing back. These three are the worst off. Red Hen is on the right, one of the black Copper Marans is in the middle, and the Welsummer on the left.


This is the better off of the Black Coppers. Her tail doesn't have any bare spots, but it's still pretty mussed.


The other Black Copper is a little worse off.


The only one not affected is the Wheaten Marans.


The Welsummer is the first one I noticed, and seems to be worst of them all.


She's got a pretty large bald spot, although she manages to hide it pretty well with her wings and tail.


Once again, the perfect Wheaten. Not a feather out of place!


Notice anything fishy in this picture? The Wheaten is the closest to the camera and is in the act of pecking Red Hen's hindquarters! This afternoon I witnessed her making the rounds and pecking all of the hens on their butts - right where the feather damage is. It was the first time I'd seen this behavior, but it certainly was incriminating!

Not mites? I'm not positive, but it's seeming likely that it's a bully chicken instead. I'll have to watch carefully in the next few days to see how things develop. Diagnosing chicken problems is hard!

The Wheaten is quite a bird. She's the biggest, healthiest, and lays the most beautiful eggs. If I didn't know better I'd say she has an ego problem! If she really is the bully, I'm hoping that access to the outdoors will help things, and I'll try giving them some other chicken "toys" to distract her. If that doesn't help, she may have to spend some time in chicken jail (aka. a large cardboard box in my basement).


Here's the egg she layed today. One of the most lavender I've had from her yet. You can see how big it is - the others are a nice large size, but hers dwarf them.


The lavender stain on her eggs is really neat - this is what it looks like when it gets wet. The lavender comes right off and you can see the dark mahogany egg underneath. The lightly speckled egg is from one of the Black Copper Marans, the brown one underneath is from the Welsummer, and the light one belongs to the Buff Sussex.
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Kielbasa with Winter Brassicas

Winter meals are sometimes very monochromatic, and this one was no exception - white white and white. The colors may have been pale, but the flavors were diverse and satisfying: local kielbasa sausage, homemade sauerkraut, and fried turnip patties.

This meal took about 25 minutes to prepare and left me wondering why eating local food in the winter is hard for some people - nothing could have been easier or more tasty on a January evening.

Kielbasa from Willow Creek Farm. This is a traditional Polish sausage, made with their delicious pastured Berkshire pork. I think I'm going to have the opportunity to visit this farm and their new processing facility later this month. I'll be sure to take pictures.

I put the sausage in boiling water to begin cooking, and then turned my attention to the vegetables.

thought I was going to make potato pancakes, but I remembered at the last minute that I'd given the 5lb bag of potatoes to Dave when he moved out. All had for roots were the beets I grew this summer and these two turnips, the last of my backyard crop. Not too pretty, but they were still firm, so I decided to give them a shot.

Peeling them revealed two snowy white orbs with a nice crisp turnip-y flavor. Turnips are not usually one my favorite root vegetable, but I like them every once in a while - especially if I grew them myself!

I shredded them and squeezed as much of the water out as I could.....

.... added one egg, some salt and pepper, and a tiny bit of nutmeg and mixed it all up on the board.

I made three little patties of them, and started them frying in local sunflower oil.

I was a little nervous that they wouldn't hold together, but the egg did it's job and they held relatively well. As they began to cook and brown they filled the house with a delicious odor. Suddenly I was feeling like I liked turnips very much.

When the patties were close to done I took the cooked sausage out of the boiling water and added it to the skillet for a few minutes to brown the skin.

There you have it: A delicious local sausage, surprisingly delicious turnip patties (with a dollop of sour cream of course), and homemade sauerkraut. The texture and flavor play between the turnips and the sauerkraut was interesting: two shredded brassicas, prepared in vastly different ways with vastly different flavors and textures. All in all a very pleasing winter meal!

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