Popcorn dreams

This is me moments before a life-changing handful of popcorn.

We had gone to the Traders Point Farmers market early this fateful day primarily to acquire local, healthy pork for sausage-making. Turns out that wealthy hippies like their pork pre-sausaged, so we struck out. We did meet a popcorn man and spoke with him at length about real popcorn and the amazing number of people who only eat it out of a microwave. He gave us a tip on using coconut oil instead of canola for popping and we bought some of his popcorn.

What a find, we thought! Local, organic - easy to prepare - snack to feel good about. We decided to pop it that evening. On a whim, Bill pulled out our homegrown popcorn which had failed to pop at all earlier this winter. It was massive FAIL. It was tons of finger-blistering work removing the kernels from the ears and then we had to wait ages for it to dry. This was likely a project we wouldn't complete again.

But then! Then! Our homegrown popcorn popped like gangbusters! So we opted for a side-by-side taste test with the organic corn we bought earlier in the day. The popcorn man (who also teaches a beekeeping class) had given us a sample of his product at the market and it was deelish. If our popcorn was half as good, we would feel victorious.

We grabbed a handful of our very pretty yellow and red popcorn. Anticipation grew as we popped a few kernels in our mouths. All the work...would it be worth it??

O.M.G. Our little baby homegrown popcorn was ahmazing. Light, airy, crunchy. And, was that a hit of nuttyness? Could our lovely farm and soil have added a touch of terrior in our humble snack?

Yeah. It was good enough to describe it in terms usually reserved for wine. As Bill and I fought over the remaining kernels, the farmer's market popcorn - organically and lovingly grown - wimpered a little from its bowl. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat other popcorn again.

So much for the easy to prepare snack.

Bread day!

I hate running out of bread... To avoid that possibility in the near future, today was a dedicated bread baking day.

Today's loaves:

2 loaves of simple french bread

2 loaves of english muffin bread

1 loaf of caraway rye

1 loaf of honey wheat

1 olive oil rosemary loaf.

I am absolutely sold on the awesomeness of baking the bread in a dutch oven. The round loves above were baked in a 5 quart lodge dutch oven that had been preheated to 450 F. The crusty wonderfulness that results from this technique is a very good thing and I find the consistency and predictability to be quite high. Only problem is that I only have one dutch oven so baking throughput is not as high as it could be. It is probably worth buying a second or maybe even a third so I can bake multiple loves at a time.

Should provide a suitable substrate for JoAnna Spring's jams for about a month.

Citrus canning and squash casserole

This weekend I canned two marmalades (grapefruit and orange) and one jam (cranberry orange). It's not quite as much fun as buying a bushel of fruit from the orchard or farmers market, but it provides my obsession with a nice little fix.

These were my first marmalades and they are bit more complex than jam. It is a two day process as the peels need a 12 to 18 hour soak. The first step involves boiling the peels for a few minutes. I made use of our wood stove for this process - and I used the wood stove again at the end for sterilizing the jars and the finishing hot water bath for the full jars. I'm not comfortable enough yet with either jam making or cooking with wood to trust this method for boiling the jam (it's nice to have the instant temperature adjustments of the stovetop), but maybe some day.

The cranberry-orange jam was so pretty. I used this recipe, and boiled it in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. The recipe doesn't have instructions for canning, but I did a little research and decided that it was similar enough to cranberry conserve that 15 minutes was sufficient. I like that the recipe called for honey, which is a local ingredient, instead of sugar, which is not.

The products! Orange marmalade, grapefruit marmalade and cranberry-orange jam:

Bill cooked up one of our many garden butternut squashes yesterday. I love winter squash. They are delicious and it's great that they just sit in the kitchen all winter waiting for us to eat them.

This is how the casserole looks the day after. Still delicious. But my food photography could use a bit a work...

Bill's sausagey butternut squash casserole:

1 medium butternut squash

1 lb spicy italian sausage

1 lb elbow macaroni

3 eggs

1/2 cup cream

2 cups milk

1 tablespoon thyme

bread crumbs

asiago cheese

Cut the squash in half, remove seeds and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast on a baking pan at 350 until tender.

Brown sausage. Cook macaroni to al dente.

Scoop out squash guts and mix with sausage.

In a separate bowl, mix eggs, cream and milk. Add thyme. Then add this whole mixture to sausage and squash.

Mix in macaroni, plop whole shebang in casserole dish. Top with bread crumbs and cheese. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

Yum.

Citrus in jars...

I've made my first marmalades! (Photos soon)

I'm participating in a 12 month can-a-long of sorts. There are 120 or so bloggers with OCD (obsessive canning disorder) who will be canning a different item each month in 2010. The January focus is citrus.

So far today, I've made two standard marmalades from the Ball Blue Book: grapefruit and orange. Marmalade is surprisingly sticky. After I clean the sticky droppings from all over the kitchen, I'll be making some Cranberry-orange jam.

I bought some key limes at the grocery store as well (you didn't think I'd get locally sourced citrus in Indiana, did you?), but can't find any recipes for canning them, so we'll be making some pie.

winter shortcakes

It is winter here.

See:

But we have been enjoying desserts of summer! It started with the peach shortcake from the cover of the Ball Blue Book of Home Canning. These are honey spiced peaches canned in July.

We've gobbled jars and jars of this stuff. Today was my first attempt at different fruits. In September I canned pears (peeled and cut in half) and whole plums. They were both hot packed in syrup. I heated them on the stove top, adding candied ginger to the pears and a little crushed all spice to the plums (which I pitted and cut into quarters).

Serve on homemade shortcake with hand-whipped cream. Yum!

Can Jam

Building off the success of the recent Canvolution, a group of bloggers is starting a Can Jam for 2010. Each month will focus on a fruit or veggie for canning and bloggers will share their experiences and recipes.

Clearly, I have to do this. Starts January 1.

Thanksgiving tacos

Our turkey was still frozen on Thursday, so we opted for Thanksgiving lamb tacos.

And, of course, margaritas.

The chickens, however, had a traditional pumpkin. The pumpkin is one of many from our garden which grew well due to chicken poop fertilizer.

Bill recently placed an order for 15 Narragansett turkeys to be delivered in April. The plan is to keep a few to breed, but to have a bunch of birds for Thanksgiving/Christmas, though not enough to make millions.