Ginger Carrot Soup

I always wait until we've had a frost to harvest the carrots.  The story is that this time of year they convert some of their starch into sugar.  They are definitely sweet! 
This year we went straight from 70 degree days and very cool nights to 4 inches of snow on the ground.  When I realized the snow was coming, I quickly dug my bed of carrots and got another record harvest.  53 pounds of bright orange carrots out of one raised bed.  
Last year I was able to keep them well in a crisper drawer for months, but I've got too many this year for that.  I gave a few bags away to friends and family and today I made a delicious Ginger Carrot Soup. 

I originally got this recipe from my friend Jen and then made a few changes.  We had it last Thanksgiving as a first course and it was delightful.  My biggest word of caution with this soup is don't add salt until you taste it at the end.  I made the mistake once of using a salted stock and it changed the flavor dramatically.  The flavors here are delicate and require just a small amount of salt added at the end to balance the flavors.

Ginger Carrot Soup

1 stick unsalted butter
1 large sweet onion - chopped
3 pounds of carrots peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon fresh peeled and shredded ginger root
5 cups unsalted chicken or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 1/2 cups half and half or heavy cream 
In a heavy bottomed pan, saute the onion in the butter until tender and translucent.  Add the carrots, ginger, and 2 1/2 cups of the stock and simmer until the carrots are tender. 

Allow the cooked carrots and onions to cool until they can be  handled.

Puree in batches in a food processor or use an immersion blender to make quick work of the hot ingredients without the need to cool.

Add the coriander and the orange juice concentrate.  The orange juice concentrate was my addition.  The original recipe called for grated orange peel and I found that had a bitter taste while not giving it the intensity of orange flavor.  So, I tried a couple of different things until I landed upon the orange juice concentrate, which adds just the right amount of flavor and sweetness without the bitterness of the peel.  Stir in the remaining cups of stock and add the half and half or heavy cream.

An immersion blender makes the job quick and less messy.

I actually prefer the heavy cream to the half and half, but being calorie conscious is always an issue.  I've found that I can also use half low fat milk and  the rest non-fat Greek yogurt and that works well too, with fewer calories. 

Warm the soup gently.  You do not want to bring it to a boil.

Balance the flavors with a little salt and if needed a tablespoon of brown sugar.

The flavors of this soup are at their peak when it is well warmed, but not hot, so be careful not to overheat it.

This soup makes an excellent first course, or with a chunk of bread and butter and/or a side salad is a full meal.

You can garnish it with a sprinkling of fresh chopped herbs or the way I love it garnished is with a scoop of Greek yogurt.

Like all soup, it is even better the next day so make plenty and refrigerate the leftovers for another day.

Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

My husband could eat butter cream icing from a bowl with a spoon any day of the week, but it is the main thing that I don’t like about cake.  I’ve found a delicious way around dealing with icing and that is the old fashioned upside down cake.  I’m going to give you two versions of this cake so that you will be free to experiment with any fruit you like.  It seems like such a great answer to never having to deal with icing again.  I make them frequently with whatever fruit I have on hand or that is in season.

I make a version of this cake with my frozen Flathead cherries that is beautiful and delicious too.  If you’re using frozen fruit or canned fruit, be sure to drain the fruit before using it in this recipe.  There are just 2 basics steps to this recipe.  The topping, which goes into the pan first, and the cake.

Upside Down Cake

Begin all cakes with a generous spray of Pam or similar vegetable spray on the 9 x 9 x 2 inch deep square pan or a pan that will accommodate the cake.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Heat the butter, sugar, and vanilla to make a sauce.

The topping:
4 Tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar (for caramel apple) OR 3/4 cup white sugar (for other varieties)
1 teaspoon of vanilla (for caramel apple) OR 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (for other varieties)

Melt the butter, sugar, and vanilla or lemon juice in a small sauce pan over low heat until the sugar melts and the mixture bubbles.
Pour into the prepared pan and coat the bottom of the pan.

Layer the fruit on top of the sauce.

2-3 Apples or fruit of your choice
Add a layer of apples or any fruit to cover the bottom of the pan.  (Apples, cherries, peaches, pears, apricots, and pineapple of course) Fresh apples like I used can have a double layer or overlap significantly as they do shrink.  Other more moist fruit won’t shrink.

 



The cake:
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup of milk (or use apple cider for the apple cake)
1 ½ cups sifted flour
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift together the dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside.
Cream together the butter and sugar.  After this becomes light and pale, add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla.

Continue beating adding ½ the dry ingredients, then the milk, and follow with the other half of the dry ingredients.
Spoon the batter onto the top of the fruit and bake until the cake is well risen and golden brown.  At around 45-55 minutes, the cake will be firm to the touch, a tooth pick inserted into the center will come out clean, and the cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Apples shrink so add twice as many as you think.

Have a plate or platter ready to receive the cake.  Run a knife around the edges to make sure it is free.  Immediately upon removing it from the oven, invert it onto the plate.  Leave the pan inverted for a few seconds, up to a minute and then gently lift it off.  Should any of the fruit have stuck to the pan, you can quickly transfer it back to the cake.

Allow the cake to cool and serve with a little whipped cream.  You won’t miss the icing.

Fire Roasted Marinara Sauce

 Fire roasting gives a slight smoky flavor to whatever you roast and so I thought it might be just the perfect way to start my marinara.  This sauce is made from tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs and a few peppers, freshly plucked from the garden.

Some people call it spaghetti sauce, or Italian tomato sauce, but marinara has a nice ring to my ear.  One theory suggests the sauce was invented by the Spanish in the mid 16th century.  Because of the high acid content of tomatoes, the sauce was resistant to spoilage, making it ideal for lengthy sea voyages and thus sprang the name marinara.  Whatever the name, fire roasting does add an additional element of flavor to the tomato.

Fire Roasting

Two more helpful reasons to fire roast are the removal of additional moisture, and if you want to remove the skins, they can be picked up in your fingers and tossed aside - no need to blanch and skin.

To get started, I took about 10 pounds of San Marzano tomatoes from the garden.  I washed them, cored them, sliced them in half lengthwise and removed the seeds.  I took a couple of onions and sliced them into ½ inch slices, and I cored and sliced lengthwise a couple of peppers.

Fire Roasted Tomatoes

Fire Roasted Marinara

10# fresh Italian paste tomatoes like San Marzano’s
2 large onions
4-6 cloves garlic minced
2-4 green peppers
2-3 Tablespoons fresh minced basil (1 TBS dried)
2 Tablespoons minced oregano (1 TBS dried)
1/2 cup olive oil - divided
3-4 teaspoons salt (or to taste)
1-2 Tbs sugar (optional or to taste)

Fire Roasted Peppers and Onions

Bring your grill to about 350 degrees with medium heat.  Put 1/2 the olive oil in a dish and brush the inside of the tomato with olive oil and place on the grill cut side down.  Quickly fill the grill with tomatoes and close the lid.  The temperature will have dropped to 200 degrees or below.  Wait until the temperature rises to 350 again.  Quickly open the grill and brush the top side of the tomatoes with olive oil and then check the first tomatoes that you put on.  They should have grill marks on them.  Using a spatula, quickly flip them over and close the lid again, waiting for the temperature to get back up over 350 degrees. 

Have a rimmed pan or bowl to put the roasted tomatoes into as juice will continue to run out after you take them off.  Remove the roasted tomatoes from the grill to the rimmed pan and let them cool.  Roast the other vegetables in the same way, brushing them with olive oil and leaving them on the grill to show a little black char marks, but not totally blackened.

Once the tomatoes are cool, you can use your hands to pluck the skins from the tomatoes if you wish, or you can just leave them on as they will be chopped up in the next step.

Add the chopped garlic and herbs to the sauce.

Drain off the liquid from the roasted tomatoes and reserve this liquid. Put the tomatoes into a food processor and pulse to chop finely.  Add the processed tomatoes to a large stock pot with the other 1/2 of the olive oil. Process all of the rest of the ingredients roasted and not and add them to the stock pot.

Thick sauce ready to be cooked

Simmer the sauce for 60-90 minutes stirring frequently. It will be thick and you will need to watch so that it does not burn.  Add the salt, pepper, sugar, and the juice that you reserved from the roasted tomatoes to suit your taste and thickness.

 





You should end up with about 6 pints (12 cups) of sauce.  You can place that into hot pint jars, seal them and put them in a boiling water bath for 35 minutes or you can cool the sauce and then put it into freezer bags in portions for future use.  Just like the pesto recipe that I gave you last month, there is no end to the uses you will have for this sauce, so make plenty!   

The Glory of the Harvest

 It’s the time of year when we count every night that passes without a frost as a bonus.  Here on the side of the mountain northwest of Missoula, we live in a special little micro-climate that affords us many weeks longer growing season than our neighbors in the valley.  I’m grateful for every growing day I get.

I have a bumper crop of tomatoes that are ripening on the vine.  Soon I’ll be canning marinara, harvest soup, and eating them for breakfast - lunch - and dinner, knowing it will be a long dry spell for fresh tomatoes.  The onions and garlic are already harvested and drying, the potatoes and carrots will be next.

Beautiful Millionaire and Prosperosa Eggplant

Today I harvested a few eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes and some peppers to make my ratatouille.  Ratatouille is just another word for a vegetable stew.  Mine is simple and only takes a few minutes to prepare a big pot to enjoy for at least a couple of meals.  This stuff is so delicious that I also can it in quarts for use all winter.
   
Ratatouille
2-4 Tablespoons olive oil
1-2 Medium sweet onion
1-2 Medium eggplant
1-2 Medium red or green bell peppers

Large diced veggies

3-4 Medium green or yellow zucchini
4-6 Cloves of garlic
A handful of fresh basil and oregano
2 teaspoons salt
1-2 Tablespoons sugar
3 14oz cans of diced tomatoes (canned tomatoes are ok to use as they come in the can without draining) or 4-5 cups of fresh garden tomatoes that have been peeled, seeds removed, and excess water drained off.  If using fresh tomatoes, just do them first and let them drain in a 
colander while preparing the rest.

Begin to saute the veggies

Wash and dry the vegetables.  When it comes to the vegetables, there is no exact measurement, this is just a stew.  I say 1-2 Medium, but in general each vegetable ingredient equals about 3 - 5 cups more or less, when chopped. 

 Put the olive oil in a large pot and start with the onions.  Chop the onions and begin to saute them over medium heat.  As soon as they start to soften, turn the burner off and begin to add all of the rest of the vegetables that are chopped into large 1 - 1 1/2 inch pieces.

 

Mince the fresh herbs and the garlic and add that to the pot as well.  Turn the heat back on to medium and stir and begin to cook the vegetables together.  Add the tomatoes and salt and bring to simmer.  Simmer for 60-90 minutes until the vegetables are cooked through.

 

Add the chopped and drained tomatoes

Yummmmm!

As the ratatouille is ready, taste it for the appropriate amount of salt and sweetness and adjust to your taste with more salt or sugar.


I serve this over rice or pasta with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese as a hearty main dinner dish.   Enjoy!

Cabbage Noodle Casserole

Every once in a while, we need to be inventive.  I had some freshly made pesto in my food processor, a cabbage and some sweet onions from the garden on the counter, and the need to make a dish to take to a friend.

That's how this all started and here is what I did.  I invented a Cabbage Noodle Casserole.  This dish makes a great vegetarian main dish or a nice side dish.



CABBAGE NOODLE CASSEROLE
(makes 1 large 8 serving or two 4 serving casseroles)

1  head of green cabbage, chopped
1 large sweet onion, chopped
3 Tablespoons olive oil

In a large skillet, add these first three ingredients and begin to caramelize the onions and cabbage.

As the cabbage and onions turn a nice caramel color, turn off the heat.

In a separate pan, cook just until aldente 4 cups of wide noodles.
Drain the noodles and toss the noodles and cabbage mixtures together.

Add to the mixture 1/2 cup of pesto and 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese.

Toss this all together to mix and place in one large or two smaller casserole dishes.

Top with a hand full of Parmesan cheese and place under the broiler to brown the top.  Instead of the cheese on top, some nice Italian bread crumbs or croutons would work as well.

This is totally cooked and ready to eat as soon as the cheese is melted and the top is browned.

 

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Got Basil - Got Garlic

Let’s make pesto!  

I've had no less than 3 inquiries about my pesto recipe in the last week, so it sounds like it's time. My basil and garlic are ready to go, so rather than wait another minute, here is my “not so secret” recipe.

Basil and garlic are among those Mediterranean medicinal herbs that are supposed to do great things for your health... and since they are so delicious, why not have them year round!

Traditionally, pesto is made with a mortar and pestle - thus the name pesto.  It is said to have origins in northern Africa, been domesticated in India, and perfected in Genoa, Italy.  Leave it to me to have to come up with my own recipe for the stuff, but I had some modern criteria I wanted my pesto to meet.

 


I wanted something that I could store and it would stay fresh throughout the long Montana winter.  I did not want to use pine nuts as I have had too many with an off/fishy taste.  A lot of the pestos I had tried were swimming in olive oil, thin and runny.  I thought mine should have less oil and more basil.  Also, with a food processor in my pantry, I was not about to use the mortar and pestle method.

This recipe is simple and only takes a few minutes to make, and you can enjoy it until the basil grows again next year.  (PS - plant more basil next year.)

PESTO
(makes about 4 - 5 cups)

4 cups packed (pack as many leaves as you can into a 4 cup measure), fresh picked, cleaned, and dry basil leaves 
(I use both the Genovese and the larger lettuce leaf varieties, The salad spinner makes quick work of the wash and spin, then I lay them out on a towel to dry, fluffing them a couple of times to assist in the drying process.)

6 large cloves of garlic, peeled
2 cups of walnuts
1 1/2 cups of shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese 
2 teaspoons of salt, or to taste
3/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup olive oil
       
I start with the garlic and the lemon juice in the food processor.  Once the garlic is finely minced, I add the 4 cups of basil leaves and mince those.
Add the salt, walnuts, and cheese and the mixture will be very heavy.
 

With the food processor running, I drizzle the olive oil into the tube and continue to let it work until the whole thing comes together into a beautiful, creamy, light green color.

I then taste to see if it meets my satisfaction.  You can add more salt, more lemon juice, or more oil to your taste and process again until it is well blended and creamy.

 

Then put the pesto into jars or freezer safe containers that will hold about ½ to 1 cup each.  I use half pints, the tapered jelly jars work fine too.   Put them right into the freezer.  The pesto will retain it’s beautiful, fresh, light green color while frozen.  

Before you plan to use it, move a jar to the refrigerator to thaw.  It will keep for weeks in the refrigerator.  Once opened it will gradually oxidize on the top.  This is normal and doesn't hurt anything.
 
Here are just a couple of suggestions for using your pesto, beyond the linguine that is...

How about spreading it on a loaf of french bread, top with a little mozzarella and broil, or toss it with some new potatoes or green beans, make a green pizza by spreading it on the dough instead of a red sauce - then top with chopped tomatoes and a little mozzarella for a different style Margarita pizza.  I have even known someone that spreads it on a turkey sandwich as a condiment.  Let me know if you discover any great new uses for it, and I will be sharing some additional pesto uses as time goes on.

(Just as I was finishing this post, my husband came in and told me our neighbor was recovering from a fall. I decided to make a casserole for him using the left over pesto and a cabbage I had sitting on the counter - see the next post.)

Whole Sweet Cherry Preserves

A generous person living on the shores of Flathead Lake, allows us to pick cherries each year from her personal orchard.  She has a number of different varieties, but this year she said something that piqued my curiosity.  She said there was one tree that had just plain yellow cherries on it and that no one did anything with those.  That rang a bell in my head and it said, why not?

I checked out the tree and the cherries were just as sweet and delicious as any of the rest, and they were yellow.  I picked about a gallon and a half and thought I would make some whole cherry preserves from them as an experiment.   In the old days, nothing was there without a purpose and nothing went to waste, so I decided to do a little research.

I discovered they were called white cherries, even though they are a beautiful golden color.  They are the major type of cherry used for making maraschino cherries.  The FDA's definition of a maraschino cherry denotes this artificial process: “The term "Maraschino Cherries" is regarded as the common or usual name of an article consisting of cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar and packed in a sugar sirup flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor.”  Not really very appetizing.  No wonder I have never liked maraschino cherries.  

I also discovered that these trees were often planted as a good cross pollinator for the other trees in the orchard.  That makes a lot more sense because there was only one white cherry tree in Nancy’s orchard.

In case you are fortunate enough to have one of these trees in your orchard or run across some of these white cherries at the co-op or farmer’s market, here is a recipe that I’ve formulated to make a big batch of whole white cherry preserves.  You can also use this recipe to make preserves for any type of sweet cherry and you can easily cut the batch in half.

Whole Cherry Preserves

 1.    Wash and drain, and then pit about a gallon and a half of cherries and toss them in about 1/4 cup of lemon juice. This helps keep them from turning brown while you process them.
2.    Heat them slowly and simmer for about 15-20 minutes to release the juice.
3.    Let cool and remove the cherries from the juice.
4.    Bring the juice to a boil and add 10 cups of sugar (or half of this if you are doing a half batch).
5.    After the syrup has boiled for a few minutes, add the cherries back to the juice and bring back to a boil and cook gently for 10-15 minutes.
6.    Turn off the heat and let stand in a cool place overnight (12-18 hours). This allow the air in the cherries to be expelled and helps the fruit to be suspended in the preserves rather than float on top.
7.    Get 12-15 half pint jars ready with lids and the equipment you will be using.
8.    Divide the cherries and juice in approximately half - I did two 7-8 cup batches.
9.    Sweet cherries do not have enough pectin to gel, even in the long boil process so it is necessary to add pectin.  I used one box of Sure-Jell for each of my batches.  I put my cherries and juice into a stock pot and added the pectin, stirring it into the cold juice.
10.    Then I brought it all to a boil that could not be stirred down and boiled it for exactly 1 minute.
11.    Skim and ladle the preserves into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space.  Wipe rims, attach lids and place in your boiling water bath.  At our altitude I process in the water bath for 25 minutes.  Check your book or the internet for  the processing time for your altitude.
12.    Remove from the water bath and invert on a towel (lid down) until cool.
13.    Once cool, turn the jars over and the cherries will settle beautifully and evenly from the top to the bottom of the jars.

Enjoy some now and certainly this winter the sunny color will bring a little sunshine to your toast!