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Savory Turkey Tart

carrotTart
This savory tart will have the family vying for the last crumb and demanding to know when you’re preparing it again. Turkey acquires new flair when smothered in cheesy kale and feta filling and topped with a layer of twice-baked caramelized baby carrots. The pastry shell is a tried and true recipe that pairs just as beautifully with savory fillings as it does with sweet.

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Chicken Treat Recipe

Homemade Chicken Treats Homemade Treats for Chickens

Oh words, how they matter. Example: when you type “homemade chicken treats” into a search engine you’ll get an altogether different result than when you type “Homemade treats for chickens.”  In one case the chicken is the treat and in the other it is the recipient of one. An important distinction, particularly from the fowl’s perspective. Or is that foul? This recipe speaks to the latter: a winter treat for your backyard hens involving categorically non-chicken ingredients.

Acorn Squash Soup

Ever sat at a Thanksgiving Day table and daydreamed about the potential for glorious leftover recipes? Yeah, me neither. So on a completely unrelated note, here is a beautifully simple leftover recipe that upcycles a classic squash dish.

Thyme Infused Dinner Rolls (with homemade cultured butter)

 
These herbed pull-apart dinner rolls, with their rustic crust and fluffy sweet interior, possess exactly the right density and flavor for sopping up pan drippings and gravies at Thanksgiving. The dough comes together like a velvet symphony when ingredients are allowed to reach room temperature and the mixing bowls warmed before combining. The secret to the light and fluffy interior is to add only as much flour as necessary and not a pinch more.

Pickles

ThreeJars

Frig Pickles

Nerd confession: one of my favorite guilty pleasures is to curl up with a jar of ice-cold pickles, a pair of chopsticks, and binge-watch Doctor Who episodes with The Husband. Crunchy dill and Tardis. Mmmmmm.

washingCukes

Watermelon Cucumbers

We’re refrigerator-pickling fools this year.  There’s a constant squirreling away into briny jars every manner of leftover onion, garlic, zucchini and cukes. Poor chickens are getting huffy over the MIA veg scraps to which they’ve grown accustomed. I feel a lawsuit brewing.

I’ve discovered my deep-rooted childhood hate of zucchini can be attributed to the fact that they never came fresh or picked at the peak of ripeness (ours were often over-grown, spongy things ruining an otherwise perfectly good summer salad) but now, oh, I love me some young zucchini spears marinated in tangy cider vinegar and spices.
BoothbysBlond

Boothby’s Heirloom Blonde Cucumbers

On a lark I picked up a quart of watermelon cucumbers at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago. Adorable, mild little buggers but what to do with them? A three-week soak in apple cider vinegar and peppercorns has drawn them out of shy. And if you want to get all fussy about it these look pretty sliced up in a salad or tucked into a bento box.
But my favorite pickle by far comes from our little Boothby’s Blonde Summer Cucumber. These heirloom cucumbers originate in Maine and are the sweetest and loveliest I’ve eaten. They are a squat little yellow veg that puzzled us at first because we couldn’t tell when they were ‘done’ on the vine. As a pickle they are the finest.
And we grew them in our backyard garden which makes them taste even better and The Doctor all the more thrilling.

Chicken Feet


chicken-feet

When Susan Underwood of October Rose Farms gifted me a bag of chicken feet at the farmer’s market on Saturday I wondered what I could possibly have done to offend her. The feet of chickens?  Did she really dislike me so much?  “Trust me,” she said, “these make the most delicious broth. Google it if you don’t believe me.”
I took a deep breath. I accepted her gift. And I Googled the heck out of it.
Chicken feet, I’ve learned, have an ironic presence in our world: they are regarded as a delicacy in some parts, discarded offal in others, and serve as a standard, everyday ingredient in too many ethnic culinary circles to count. The American food culture, me included, seems to have forgotten our long-standing relationship with the lowly chicken foot. Pre-WWII Americans were probably unaware of the unique micronutrients found only in that part of the bird but clearly understood that the collagen, gelatin and high flavor profile made this an essential ingredient for every-day cooking.

chicken-feet-rinse

In “the olden days” chicken feet were the standard thickener and flavor enhancer of American soups, stews, and gravies; just after the Second World War the food industry figured out how to hydrolyze proteins to a base containing free glutamic acids, and MSG was born. With the resulting explosion of the convenience-food industry along with the disappearance of back-yard chickens, chicken feet as a matter of daily life were forgotten. Americans began gorging on hotdogs and pre-packaged chicken patties made from chemical infused this-and-that pieces-parts and turned our noses up at the very idea of cooking with something so gruesome.

chicken-feet-stockpot

The stock we made from October Rose Farms’ chicken feet was rich in body and flavor, worlds better by far than any store-bought product, mercy yes, and superior even to our carcass and vegetable stock-making method which, until now, has been our gold standard.
This week we learned to connect with a culinary tradition that goes back hundreds of years: utilizing all the parts of the animal, evenespecially the highly nutritious and flavorful feet.

chicken-feet-gravy

CHICKEN FEET STOCK
Ingredients:
2 pounds of chicken feet
1 bay leaf
Thyme
Vegetables: Tomatoes, carrots, onions, celery, garlic, etc: use the vegetables you have on hand, course chopped and thrown into a large stockpot.
Water (enough to cover all ingredients in the pot)
Directions:
1) Rinse the chicken feet under running water to wash away any surface debris.
2) Scald the chicken feet for 15-20 seconds in a pot of salted boiling water, then immediately quench in a bowl of ice water to cool.
3) Peel the yellow membrane entirely from each foot.
4) Chop off the tops of the claws at the first knuckle using a sharp knife.
5) Place the feet in a large stockpot and add vegetables and herbs as desired. We used: tomatoes, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaf and thyme
6) Cover stockpot contents completely with water.
7) Bring to a boil, then reduce to a very low simmer.
8) Simmer for at least 4 hours.
9) Allow liquid to cool completely, then strain.
10) Freeze or can. Yield: approximately 1.5 gallons.

Strawberries, 5 ways

Berry Harvest Farm Strawberries

Berry Harvest Farm Strawberries

I love this fleeting moment of summer when strawberries abound with the promise of deliciousness enough to make our bellies ache. I love strawberries with The Girl’s Perfect Whipped Cream. Or with

bucketRowice cream. Or yogurt. Or on a salad. Or as-is by the handful, good grief, it’s all good to me.

 Confession: I’ve never picked strawberries before. So when on Sunday I woke feeling antsy I trekked out for berry-patches unknown, determined to find a U-Pick establishment friendly towards newbies.  I found the perfect spot: Berry Harvest Farm in Cato, owned and operated by Alvin and MarySue Stever and son. MarySue herself manned the check-in/check-out tent and good-naturedly inaugurated me to U-pick customs. I took her bucket and followed the long row, realizing too late that it was flat-out goofy to have lugged my gigantic purse out into the middle of a strawberry field. Newbie.
Picking strawberries is a surprisingly illuminating activity. I learned a lot out there in the Berry Harvest Farm berry patch:
Strawberries with strong personalities.

Strawberries with strong personalities.

  •        It is hot as blazes in the middle of a strawberry patch.
  • The best strawberries are shy and try to hide.
  • The thrill of hunting the next “perfect” strawberry appeals strongly to my OCD tendencies and goes a long way in making me forget the puking-hot sun.
  • I have an affinity for strawberries with strong personalities.
  • Strawberries I’ve picked taste perfect.
Here are the results of my Berry Harvest Farm strawberry-picking excursion (recipes below):
Strawberry, banana, and white chocolate muffins.

Strawberry, banana, and white chocolate muffins.

Strawberry Feta salad

Strawberry Feta salad 

Peasant strawberry tart

Peasant strawberry tart

Strawberry smoothie

Strawberry smoothie

Strawberry lemonade

Strawberry lemonade

RECIPES:

PEASANT STRAWBERRY TARTS
Strawberry Filling
2 cups of strawberries
after thinly sliced
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp flour
Directions: Put berries in a bowl and toss with the flour and sugar and set aside.
Pastry

1 + 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup cold butter, cubed
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp cold water
A pinch of salt
Directions:
1.     Put the flour, sugar, butter and salt in a mixer with the paddle attachment and mix at low speed until thoroughly incorporated.
2.     Add the egg yolk and drip in cold tap water. Continue to mix on low until a dough forms.
3.     Gather the dough together and form into a disc. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
4.     Preheat the oven to 360°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
5.     Take the dough out of the fridge and divide it into 4 – 6 portions depending on how big you want each tart.
6.     Roll out each portion of dough until thin. Pace the rounds of dough on the baking sheet.
7.     Put 3-4 large tablespoons of strawberry filling in the center of each round, leaving a half-inch border around the edges.
8.     Roughly pinch the edges of the dough together around the filling, leaving the center open.
9.     Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden.
STRAWBERRY, BANANA, & WHITE CHOCOLATE MUFFINS
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 very ripe banana
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup strawberries, diced small
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
Directions:
1.     Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a mini muffin tin with mini muffin liners. Set aside.
2.     Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
3.     In a separate bowl, stir milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and banana.
4.     Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined.
5.     Add strawberries and white chocolate chips and gently fold in.
6.     Fill the muffin liners 3/4 full with the batter.
7.     Place the muffin tin in the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes.
STRAWBERRY FETA SALAD
Garden Greens, crumbled feta, sliced strawberries, balsamic dressing
STRAWBERRY SMOOTHY
Strawberry smoothie: Combine Wake Robin Farm yogurt and fresh strawberries in food processer. Whisk Wake Robin vanilla yogurt in a bowl and pour into the bottom third of a glass; gently pour over strawberry smoothie, top with remaining vanilla yogurt.

Return of the Nerdy Locovors

Thursday trip to the market
We’re doing that thing again, the one where we spend the summer eating only fresh food produced within a 10-mile radius of our house and what we forage from our own garden [queue the laugh track for that last part, not even I can say it with a straight face].
I recently read an excellent piece of advice posted by my personal life coach Pinterestthat, aside from being a mash-up of stuff Michael Pollan has been saying for years, gets to the heart of it:
“Avoid eating anything with an advertising budget.” 
Yep, that.
Yesterday was the Skaneateles Farmer’s Market and here is the resulting simple meal:
Feta and Spinach Burgers


Feta & Spinach Burgers
           1 October Rose Farm egg (our girls have mysteriously suspended laying at the moment)
1 pound Byrne Black Angus beef
2 cups chopped Elderberry Pondspinach
2 cloves Good Karma Russian Red Garlic, diced (we’re down to our last bulb from the Fall harvest and eager for the new stuff to come in!)
                                                                                                       4 ounces crumbled feta (comment         below if you know a local source)
Buy these.
Directions: Mix ingredients; form into patties; throw on the grill. Top with slices of Horsford Farms onion and place on a SkaneatelesBakery roll; serve with a side of Navarino Orchard pickled tomatoes.
On the topic of Navarino Orchard Pickled Tomatoes which I impulse purchased and may or may not have subsequently eaten half the jar thereof using chopsticks: I am prepared to release a statement at this time informing the public that These. Are. Yum. That is all.
And, continuing in that spirit of preparedness, I rolled a few meatballs after dinner for today’s TGIF bento box:
http://onegirlsbento.blogspot.com
Happy Friday!