Cherry Butter

I love cherries.  When they are in season I eat loads fresh, and I make cherry pies.  This year I decided to make cherry butter, same idea as apple butter.  There is no butter involved, but the texture is thick and smooth.  I made three batches; the first was an experiment.  I used cherries, a bit of brown sugar, some maple syrup, red wine vinegar, lemon, and a bit of water.  After hours of cooking on low heat, the mixture shrunk to about 25% of the original volume.  I then used an immersion blender to smooth it out.  Since this was an experimental batch, I didn't use much, so I didn't end up canning it, just put it in a jar and fridge.  I've been using it on rye toast when I have a hankering for something sweet.

The next batch I made with 8 cups of frozen cherries I had from last year.  I pitted and froze them, measured out for what I need per pie.  Since I didn't use those two bags (4 cups each), I made cherry butter.  I like pies made out of fresh fruit much better anyway, but homemade cherry pie, even when the fruit is frozen, is still way better than any store bought pie.  This batch I made with red wine, a merlot, and some brown sugar, no maple syrup.  It has a slightly different taste.  Eight cups of cherries yielded 2 236ml jars of cherry butter.

The third batch was made with bourbon and lime juice instead of lemon.  I made 2 x 236 ml, and one 125 ml jar.  Bourbon and cherries  are awesome together, though the merlot, as well as the red wine vinegar turned out well too.

I don't have measurements, because I didn't measure anything.  Those 8 cups of cherries were pre-measured for pies.  Amounts aren't all that important for these cherry butters, just taste while it's cooking, and adjust flavours to your liking.  Can in a hot water bath, as you would any preserves, for bout 10 minutes, then wait for the lids to pop.

This is definitely worth the time and effort.

Frozen Coconut Treats

These coconut treats are so easy, and fast, if you choose to make them small shapes.  I made a few flavour varieties.  The ones in the photos are vanilla and honey coconut milk treats.  I made some with fennel seeds, as well as with coconut shavings.  You can add cinnamon, lavender flowers, pineapple bits, chocolate chips, etc.  These are ice cube sized, but you can make them larger, using sticks would be more helpful for larger treats.

Use good quality coconut milk,  and mix it with whatever you like, pour into a form which can go in the freezer.  Adding even just a bit of honey and / or vanilla makes them yummier than the milk on its own, which is a bit bland when frozen.  Within a couple of hours the milk freezes, if using small containers.  You can check if your treats are frozen just by pressing on one.

Super refreshing!  It's best to lick or suck (depending on size), not crunch too many icy treats or ice cubes, because that makes the teeth brittle, and they can chip more easily.

Enjoy!  :)

So long low fat!

“It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health problems.”

http://grist.org/scary-food/2011-03-04-low-fat-diet-fad/


I'm super happy about this.  I've been saying that animal fats are healthier and healthy for people, but people don't listen, probably because I don't have a fancy science degree.  I should just forward this article, each time someone asks me how I stay slim, because when I tell them, they roll their eyes, or make some joke about lard and continue to get fat.

It's a bit funny that I came across this news today, because so far, I had a bacon and tomato sandwich for breakfast and then one for lunch.  It was one slice of rye per meal, fried on both sides in the bacon grease in my cast iron pan, so the bacon crisped up to perfection, and the grease didn't go to waste, then topped with delicious Ayrshire bacon from a local pig farm and tomatoes and onions from my backyard.  Awesome!

This is such a treat.  I don't eat like this all the time, every day, but since I have the bacon and tomatoes are in season, I'm totally indulging.  One open sandwich per meal is totally healthy and nutritious.  I had   a fresh peach in between breakfast and lunch, which was delicious, so sweet and juicy, as it should be.  I bought a basket of peaches, and some bruised when the basket fell off my seat, when I had to slam on my brakes, so I made peach pie, also delicious, but I will post that later.

Tasty Treats from my Garden

It's been a while since I wrote anything in here.  I have been making edibles, but I've been busy.  This year my garden is in the dumps.  Between the slugs, caterpillars, spiders and various diseases on my flowering plants, my garden kind of sucks, to put it mildly.
I planted eggplants, sweet peas, rhubarb, tomatoes (3 varieties), cucumbers, radishes, hot pepper, rue, chives, onions, colourful beets, colourful and orange carrots.

I have a few things growing in my kitchen, which I try to grow and re-seed all year round, this basil is one of those.  I love basil as much as cilantro, because it smells like summer.  I need to re-seed my cilantro, because I let it get to flowering and seeds, so it's the end of this round.  To keep herbs growing, pinch off tips, to prevent them growing flowering buds.  Once herbs start flowering, that is the end of the foliage.

 Buttercups.  Yellow is my favourite colour, again summer.

 I found this caterpillar, and then one more in my dill, near my sweet peas:

 This is how an onion blooms. I love allium flowers.

 This is a fresh onion chopped up:

 This is the onion before I chopped it up:

My kitchen grown chives.  I do have some growing in my yard as well.  I found out that rabbits don't like allium smells, so I planted chives and green onion, and yellow onions around and in between my other vegetables, and I think it's true.  Compared to last year, the rabbits didn't eat very much this year.

 Here is a sandwich with quark cheese / fromage frais, chives and s&p:

This is fromage frais with honey and fresh Niagara peaches.  I often have cottage cheese with honey and fruit, so this is an alternative.

Radishes from my garden.  I planted these from seed, and they grew all squiggly.  They are supposed to be oblong, but the stems are too wavy.

 I love rye with butter and fresh sliced radishes.  So simple, so delicious.

 Yellow and green zucchini from the Farmers Market:

 Raspberries from my backyard:

 These lilies are a lovely shade of red.  If you notice the leaves, they are all chomped by slugs.

 Snap peas from my yard, so sweet:

 With snap peas, you can eat the pods as well, they're sweet and crunchy, and so juicy:

I hope my other vegetables produce something to harvest.  If they do, I will post more photos.

Historic Chicken Breeds, When and How to Eat Them

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/285788/rediscovering-traditional-meats-from-historic-chicken-breeds

This is a very detailed piece about various chicken breeds, sizes, aging meat, comparisons to present day equivalents, tips on cooking chickens depending on their age, etc.  Lengthy, but very informative and worthwhile.

(Strawberry) Charlotte Sometimes

Any time I hear Charlotte I think of The Cure song, so I couldn't resist with the title of this post.  If you know me, you remember my Robert Smith phase.  I miss those days sometimes :)

As for charlottes, they are good any time, especially when strawberries are in season.  You can of course use other fruit.  This is similar to a strawberry short cake, but at the same time, different.

You'll need ladyfingers, those biscuits used for a tiramisu, as well as cream, gelatine, strawberries, icing sugar, whipping cream, vanilla, some water, and I used wild strawberry liqueur.  Alcohol always adds depth to otherwise bland treats.  I don't have exact measurements, but depending on the size of your charlotte mould, you can figure them out, and follow measurement suggestions on packages of the gelatine, depending on how much you'll be using.

Soak the biscuits in alcohol mixed with some water (much more alcohol than water), line the dish with flat sides facing in.  Dissolve a bit of icing sugar in boiling water, and then dissolve the gelatine in this liquid.

Whip up cream with vanilla, and add gelatine.  Then just fill in the lined mould with layers of strawberries and cream.  Cover with remaining ladyfingers, flat side facing up.  Chill over night, be sure to put something heavy on top, which will make for a firmer charlotte.  Next day, turn it out, and serve with a strawberry sauce, which you can make yourself, by simmering berries with sugar, and mashing or pressing through a sieve, or use a good quality strawberry jam and heat it up with a bit of water and liqueur.  This is a terrific alternative to a strawberry short cake, and it really is a perfect summer treat.

Whole Leaf Napa Kimchi and Ground Pork Pancakes

This is super tasty.  The pancakes on the left are meat side up, the right side are kimchi side up, and the one in the centre, I cut in half, shows the pork mixture (meat down).

I made some whole leaf napa (baechu) kimchi a few weeks ago.  Today I was making ground pork rolls for James, so I decided to make kimchi and ground pork pancakes for me.  He won't eat cabbage or onions.

This is easy to make, once you have the whole leaf kimchi.  Here's what to do:

Mix ground pork with chopped onion, chopped green onions, black pepper, salt, sesame oil.

Have a plate with flour, and another with an egg mixed with a bit of salt.

Take a few leaves of kimchi, and cover them in flour.  Place some of the meat mixture on the leaf, 

sprinkle more flour, 

dunk the meat side into the egg, and place, meat down, in a hot pan with melted butter.  

After a couple of minutes flip over.  

Serve right away. 

I made five and I ate all five, though the last one had to wait a bit, so it was cold by the time I ate it.  It was still ok, but the heat from the spices in the kimchi dies down and it loses the crunch.  This was so yummy, spicy, sour, with that sesame oil pork taste.

For a vegetarian version, use tofu instead of pork.  I don't do tofu, but I bet it would also be yummy with various mashed beans or lentils with herbs.

맛있게 드세요 (Korean)

Enjoy!