Snowy walk at the farm

We're finally getting some snow, so we took a walk at the farm with visiting family.  Alex loved the ice and Penny even tolerated her new snow suit.

New discoveries: this sign and a scary trapdoor in the middle of the barn floor

DB Sad Sourdough

Our Daring Bakers Host for December 2011 was Jessica of My Recipe Project and she showed us how fun it is to create Sour Dough bread in our own kitchens! She provided us with Sour Dough recipes from Bread Matters by AndrewWhitley as well as delicious recipes to use our Sour Dough bread in from Tonia George’s Things on Toast and Canteen’s Great British Food!

Jessica of My Recipe Project gave us the task of making sourdough bread.  I really wanted to try a gluten free sourdough loaf but a few failed attempts and a load of Christmas projects to finish pushed it from my mind.  So all I have to offer is a sad picture of one of my moldy starters.  I'd love if anyone could help me figure out why my rice flour starters got moldy and what I should do about it.  Should I vinegar clean the bowl, boil the water first, get a different batch of rice flour?  Oh well, maybe some other time I'll feel up to trying again.  For those interested, the recipes can be found at our host Jessica's site, My Recipe Project, or on this PDF.

My mold-spotted rice sourdough starter

Dark Days Pumpkin Soup

This week's Dark Days meal is a holiday detox one. Even though I didn't eat huge amounts, the refined sugar and rich food I did eat have me reaching for comforting vegetable dishes. Lots of parsley, arugula and kale salads and for lunch today this soup.

Usually I spice my pumpkin/winter squash soups with curry or warm spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc.  But in a search for "winter" books for Alex I found a gem of a cookbook at our library.  It's called The Winter Harvest Cookbook.  Way ahead of the current locavore movement this 20 year old book was reprinted last year and it is full of ideas on how to cook winter produce.  What I like the most about it is that even though meat, dairy and grains are present in the recipes the focus really is on bringing out the best of the seasonal vegetables.

So this time I made my pumpkin soup a little different by following a recipe in the book that called for juniper berries.  I cooked leeks and onions in turkey shmaltz, added cubed pumpkin and a little ground juniper berries.  These softened together for 10 minutes and then I added chicken stock and cooked it for 30 more minutes.  To finish I pureed the soup and tasted for seasoning.  All the vegetables were local and the chicken stock and turkey shmaltz were from local birds as well.  And the apple is from Rennie Orchards.  A perfect little lunch for a Dark Day.

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entries.  

The Winter Harvest Cookbook by Lane Morgan

The pumpkin I used was a Jarrahdale pumpkin

The kids on Christmas morning
Alex is showing Penny the gems he got and Penny is holding the doll I made her.  Alex's new rockhound paraphernalia surround them.

Merry Christmas!

Dark Days Lamb and Kraut Salad

My lamb from Starlight Hill Farms arrived this weekend so for this week's Dark Days meal I made some pan-fried blade chops with kraut and kale salad.  The kraut and kale salad was inspired by Mother's Kitchen's recipe this week. I also used her kraut recipe to make my homemade sauerkraut, made this fall with cabbage bought at the farmer's market.  For the salad, I used Red Russian Kale and the sweetest little white turnips both from Blackbird Gardens, bought at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons' Saturday market.  I skipped the onion and carrot, used organic flax seed oil and added some anise seeds because I have become very fond of them with sauerkraut.  Thanks Cynthia for your Kraut and Kale Salad and Homemade Sauerkraut Instructions.

Visit Not Dabbling In Normal on Sundays for the round up of Dark Days meals. You can also visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of our Midwest group entries.  

I noticed today that the star is even more crooked than it was when I first put it up and that we have a Christmas spider in residence.

Christmas Photo Outtakes

Yes Megan, it is "an impossible task" but that doesn't stop us from trying to get a decent picture of the kids for Christmas sharing.

There were "interesting" faces

And some sweet ones

In the end you have to *try* and enjoy the process as much as the result, in practice I'm still trying to figure that out.

But the sweet moments help.  She yelled "Huggies!" seconds before.

Dark Days Borscht with Goat

We went downstate for a quick visit this weekend.  While there my mother served us a delicious borscht that reminded me that I've been making roasted beets too often, some soup was overdue.  For mine, I added some goat meat we bought from friends.  Though the kids have mostly been uninterested in it, John and I were surprised how much we liked the goat.  I have a lamb order from Starlight Hill Farms that will be filling my freezer by the end of the coming week so I decided to finish off the rest of the goat before it arrives.  I'm sure this would be good done with lamb, beef or vegetarian.

Borscht with Goat
In a soup pot, brown goat stew meat (~10 ounces) in some bacon fat. (Did I mention I obsessively save animal fat?) Remove the goat meat with a slotted spoon and set it aside.  Soften an onion, two medium beets, and a small celery root in the bacon fat, seasoning them well with salt and pepper.  The onion I diced but the beet and celeriac I cut into small batons.  Of course wash and/or peel the vegetables first.  Add the goat meat back into the pot along with 4-6 cups of water or stock, a pinch of allspice, a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of dried dill weed.  Stir and adjust seasonings as needed.  Bring the soup to a simmer and cok for 20 minutes, or until the meat is tender.  Add a couple of cups of shredded cabbage and cook just until the cabbage is done to your liking. I like the cabbage still a little crunchy. Taste before serving and add more salt, pepper or vinegar if needed.

Dark Days Challenge Info:
The goat meat came from friends who raised the animal themselves.  The bacon fat is from either my homemade bacon or Gallagher Centennial Farm's bacon.  The onion, beets, celeriac and cabbage are from various vendors from the Saturday market at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons.  The vinegar I used is Eden Foods Ume Plum Vinegar.  Eden Foods is a Michigan company although I do not know where they source the ingredients for this product.

This Sunday will be the first Midwest roundup at Not Dabbling In Normal.  You can visit our coordinator at Unearthing this Life to see some of the entries so far.  

Penny has discovered a box of her brother's old animal figurines

And Alex got a haircut!

Dark Days Roasted Chicken and Root Vegetables

My entry for this week's Dark Days of Winter Challenge is a basic meal for us: roast chicken with roasted vegetables, in this case roasted root vegetables.  The chicken is from Hubbell Farm.  The vegetables were all bought at this past Saturday's farmer's market at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons.  This batch included turnips, beets, onions, rutabaga and celeriac.  They came from Birch Point Farm, Providence Farm, and Blackbird Gardens.  I seasoned the chicken with dried sage from my garden and rubbed it with molasses (not local but organic) and some more of my saved turkey schmaltz from Thanksgiving.  The vegetables were also roasted with sage, salt and turkey schmaltz.

Posts will be recapped starting this Sunday at Not Dabbling In Normal though it won't include my group (the Midwest) until the 18th. Until then you can visit our Midwest coordinator at Unearthing this Life or check out the blogs of the participants.  Here is a list of the other Midwest Dark Days bloggers:

Small Wonder Farm

20 Something Allergies

Happy Home

The Local Cook

Detroit Cooks

The Frugal Homestead

Mother’s Kitchen

Our Happy Acres

Dee Dee managing via comments and email

Chewy Molasses Cookies (redone grain free)

When I was younger I teased my mother for eating dried dates by saying they look like cockroaches. It had something to do with the translucence and papery skin, which I still find a little eerie, but recently dates have come to my rescue.  In this year's attempt to tackle wheat free baking I have found that dates, and date paste, are my favorite secret weapon for making good grain-free cookies.  This recipe is the first of two cookies that make use of my current favorite method. Using my ever evolving baking strategies I updated a favorite Christmas cookie of ours, the Chewy Molasses Cookie.  The flavor is still there though the sweetness is toned down to match our current tastes.  In my opinion this allows the zing of the spices and molasses to shine brighter.  I suppose I could still compromise and coat the outside of these in sugar but since they were so well received by both kids I think I'll keep them as is.   One experiment I would like to try is to double bake them at a low temperature like biscotti to see if I can get a crisp version as well as this chewy one.

Chewy Molasses Date Cookies 
Makes ~3 dozen small cookies, made using a 1 tablespoon scoop

7 ounces date paste (or ~1 1/3 cup packed pitted dates)*
3 ounces coconut oil (~1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon)*
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon molasses
1/2 cup almond meal*
2 tablespoons coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

-Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line your baking sheets with parchment.
-It is best to have all your ingredients at room temperature.  Add your dates, coconut oil, eggs and molasses to a food processor and pulse until you have a smooth paste.  If you are using pitted dates double check them for pits and expect this to take a little longer.
-In a small bowl whisk together all your dry ingredients.  Add the dry ingredients to the date mixture and process until combined, scraping the bowl as needed.
-Spoon tablespoons of dough onto your lined baking sheets leaving at least an inch and a half of spreading room.
-Bake for 8-10 minutes until puffy.  Cool the cookies on the baking sheets before removing.  It's best to release the cookies with an offset spatula before removing.  
-Baked cookies freeze well but I have found that coconut flour baked goods like these tend to not store well for long periods at room temperature.

*Ingredient information:  I get my date paste from Country Life Natural Foods.  It is relatively dry compared to most homemade versions I've seen but it's great for baking.  My kids prefer no coconut flavor and so we use the expeller pressed oil from Wilderness Family Naturals.  I've used both Bob's Red Mill and Honeyville almond flour/meal in these and both work fine.

I'm adding these to Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays on Simply Sugar & Gluten Free

Where's the snow?

Can you believe our area of northern Michigan is still waiting for a real start to the snowy season?  Living outside of Detroit I always complained that there was no point in living in the cold without it and now luck seems to have brought SE Michigan's weather here.  But I shouldn't complain too much because even though the days are getting much, much shorter we have been blessed with some beautiful sunny days.

Alex loves that the flocks of starlings haven't gotten all our autumnberries yet.

Penny likes chasing after kitties outside.

Nelson doesn't much care for this game.

We put up the tree early this year and with luck we will still have a white Christmas.  

Until then I'm doing some trial runs of Christmas cookies.