Smoke 'em if you got 'em

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So, it's been more than a year since my last post.  What gives?  In short, I've discovered that I'm a pretty lazy blogger.  Sometimes it's easier to post a picture to your circle of friends without much explanation and get the enthusiastic response that friends can always be counted for.  But what I miss is the reflection that I used to come by when I would compose my posts.  There's a little bit more of a story -- beginning, middle and end.  I also liked (and, to be honest, sometimes dreaded) the hunt for a good post.  I've had a few of those 'oh, that would be a great post' moments, but overcoming inertia is hard.  Busting out the camera is hard. Setting time to actually write it before it feels stale in your head is hard.  Well, suck it up, lady!  Let's do this!

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We discovered a great mom & pop trout farm.  It's called Troutmere (the page has no website, so the Yelp review link must do).   The pond is really well stocked and their only rule is that you must purchase every fish you catch (as opposed to throwing it back).  

We went there over the weekend with the kids (now 6 and 3) and no one had any problems catching fish.  The kids giggled like crazy and had a blast -- but I think I had even more fun!

Part of me struggled with the imminent bounty we were about to collect, because I knew that I could stand there catching loads of fish all day -- but we're not the biggest consumers of fish, so we really had to moderate ourselves.  We had 12 trout in the bucket -- probably the average length about 9-10 inches each.   As we were walking up to pay, I had a flash of inspiration.  Smoked fish!  (Somewhere my endless marathon watching of survivalist type shows like Alaska the Last Frontier, sunk in, and I had visions of smokehouses and endless trays of fishy goodness.)  I went in for just one more.

Fish in brine (not toxic sludge)

J. looked me like I was crazy.  We don't know how to smoke fish.  We don't have a smoker.  We don't have wood chips.   But, like most of my ideas, he typically is a good sport about it and lets me run with it.  

We saw a few guides online re: how to modify the weber kettle grill into a smoker.  I picked up some hickory wood chips at Safeway.    I already had all the ingredients at home for the brine.  (1/2 cup salt, 3/4 brown sugar, 1 tbsp granulated garlic, 1/2 tbsp powdered ginger, 1 cup soy sauce, 4 cups water).  We soaked the wood chips and brined 7 fish over night.  (We grilled the first 6 last night with friends.)

Today, J. smoked the fish on the grill.   I won't pretend to know all the intricacies of the timing and the temperature and what not, all I know is that what came out of the BBQ was heavenly.  The instant I tasted that rich, smokey, savory test-flake I knew that fishing would now be a life-long hobby.  

Even though it would have been easy to devour all of those fish in one go, I thought it would be fun to turn them into a smoke trout spread.  From our garden: dill and green onion.  (We never have much luck with dill, but this year looks like a promising start!  Hope they last for when pickle season comes).  So, to 3 flaked fish add the tablespoon of dill & 1/3 cup of green onion, 2 tablespoon of mayo, 1/4 cup of cream cheese, a tablespoon or 2 of capers with some of their brine.  

This easily rivaled the best smoke trout dips I've had at restaurants.   We're already making plans to go fishing again.  And J.?  He's in the kitchen right now brining chicken drumsticks for smoking tomorrow.  I think he's hooked, too!

a little of our arugula and spread on a wholewheat bagel 

Mountains of Kale

So, we had a bunch of Kale.  Then we had a bunch of bugs eating the Kale.  So I pulled out a mountain of kale and began an epic juicing.   One fun part of this is that I got to use our new big sink in the garage.  It felt like a restaurant operation!

And then I froze the kale juice.  I toss one of these cubes into the Magic Bullet, along side other goodies like apple juice, fresh mint from the garden and pistachios.    It's kale juice... you can chew!  :)


We've got a crazy amount of celery, onions and garlic a-comin' :)

Mountains of Peas

In hindsight, we planted an insane amount of peas.   Snap peas. Snow peas. Shelling peas. Bush style peas.  I expected them to be ready at different times and to bring a variety of sorts.   In reality, they've all been ready at once.  The kids have been great sports and eating them almost every night.  Mostly we have been eating them fresh and they are sweet and juicy.  Last night, however, I made pea & roasted cauliflower soup.   I added a little mint & lemon juice and zest to keep it springy.

One of the cool things about working with a garden consultant is that it is forcing me to be disciplined about yanking out the plant in time for the next season's plantings.  Tomorrow we're supposed to start planting corn (yay!) and that means I needed to pull out one of the beds of peas -- otherwise I'd let it drag on for a few more weeks.  

Knowing that this was coming, I have been harvesting like crazy all week.  Today I assumed there wasn't much left on the plant but I still came out with a bushel of peas!  So, I decided to prepare a quart back of blanched and frozen peas.

In the freezer for an hour, so they freeze individually and not in a massive block.

Final product. Maybe for a nice pea soup in the summer when I'm sick of tomatoes. :)

Pile it High and Kiss it Goodbye

This year I read a great book called Turn Here Sweet Corn.   One of the little lessons I took from it was a technique that farmers' markets (and supermarkets, for that matter) use in order to sell their goods.  They create the appearance of plenty.  I started noticing this at the markets.  Large pyramids constructed of broccoli.  Overflowing Bushels of carrots.  Tables tops full of packed rows of strawberries, each open slot replaced as soon as a purchase is made -- careful not to display a gap in merchandise.   "Pile it High and Kiss it Goodbye."  There's an obvious psychological component here.  You feel good buying something when you know there's lot more to be enjoyed by others (and presumably previously enjoyed by others).  You feel squeamish about buying the last sad bag of potatoes -- even if there appears to be nothing wrong with those potatoes.  

I started to wonder how this principle may be at play in my garden.  There definitely have been times where I hesitated to harvest something from the garden because we didn't have too many of them.  Then, before I knew it, said plant bolted, or a predator took it, or it became bitter and woody.   Such a waste. 

Compare that to this year where in some cases I planted way more than I ever thought we'd eat... like 26 lettuce plants.  Lo and behold, because there's so much out there, I haven't been miserly about the crop, and have been picking lettuce for lots of salads, sandwiches, and snacking on the go.   And the yield is not totally out of control.  The plants seem to be happy at the pace of which I am 'pruning' them.  We're happy because we're enjoying the harvest without stress.

I wonder what other parts of my life this could apply to .... shoe shopping?

This is the largest head of broccoli that I have ever grown!

Roasted with cauliflower, olive oil, salt & pepper and cumin

Kids munching on the first of our snap peas

Max munching on duck prosciutto

Bought a half case (talk about plenty) of strawberries and put up a bunch of rosemary, sage and strawberry jam.

Mulch Madness

This weekend I mulched the veggie beds and it was very satisfying.  It brings a uniformity to the look of all my disparate pockets of growth.   (We won't talk about the rest of the non-food outside spaces that look pretty neglected -- maybe I'll deal with them during warmer days next year.)

Notice that the front part didn't get mulch -- the cauliflower patch has fallen victim to our first ever gopher.  Bastard!

I was really proud when my garden helper called our Kale "dino" sized Kale.  So I picked a few leaves for juicing and a few others to make duck fat sauteed Kale.

And where did I get duck fat?  That's where the "madness" part of the post title comes from. I decided to make duck prosciutto. Why?  I'm not sure I have a rationale answer for that.  I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but now that we have 2 refrigerators, I was able to set aside enough space to be able to hang the meat during curing.  So... materials + facilities = challenge accepted.


 Here are 3 little duck breasts -- Ideally, you want to find thicker ones than these.  I submerged them in kosher salt for 24 hours, and this is what they looked like after I dug them out.

Then I dusted them with white pepper, wrapped them in cheesecloth and hung them in the fridge so that they don't touch anything.  See ya in 7-10 days.

Came across a bag of potatoes that I forgot about and it got all sprouted, so I strategically dumped them into the compost file which is now transformed into the potato bed!

Today Max harvested and ate the first broccoli of the crop.  It was so delicious.  Tender, nutty and a little bit sweet!  I'm all verklempt that Max is now a big boy who can use sharp objects in the garden.    

Building Blocks of Meals

Sometimes cooking is not really about making a meal.  It's about getting all prep work together for future meals. I've learned a few handy tricks regarding two prep items.

First - Homemade breadcrumbs.  I don't know about you, but I don't always get through all the bread I buy.  I use some stale bread for french toast -- and make extras for breakfast for the kids during the week.  But I still end up with extra bread -- because, truth be told, I over buy bread.  (Can you blame a girl for wanting a fresh-bread sandwich?)  

Anyway, a few years ago when I would make breadcrumbs in the food processor, it wouldn't quite get the job done.  I'd end up with bigger clumps of bread than I wanted.  But when I got the Magic Bullet blender, it worked great on getting a fine consistency.  I also loving adding our garden's fresh herbs to it.  It smells amazing!  Today I made it with rosemary, oregano, and cilantro.  I keep the finished product in a bag and freeze it till I need it.

The next category is my beloved soup stock.  I really am not a fan of store bought stock -- even those in the boxes that are so ubiquitous in cooking shows.  To me, they taste like colored water.  I can't discern any sort of poultry flavor and I bet all the nutrients are long gone.

So, for years I've been making my own chicken stock from poultry carcasses I hoard like a mental patient, and a variety veggie scraps.  I recently learned that I've been missing out on a big part of the nutrition potential of these stocks.  The trick is, you have to give the bones a chance to soak (or drizzle?) in vinegar for about an hour to breakdown the material so that calcium can leave the bone and enter the water of the soup.   Alternatively, I've read you can just add a 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar to the pot when all your ingredients are in.  

The other thing that ups the nutritious level of stocks is having cartilage in there that breaks down into liquid form.  The best way to do that is by adding chicken feet.  Now, they sell chicken feet at my farmer's market, so bought some and tossed it in.  While it makes for kind of creepy sight in the bot -- J. calls it my witches' brew -- I think it adds great flavor.

Look at all that yummy fat floating to the top!

I used to think 3 hours of cooking was the magic number.  I'm now learning that I can go longer.  I've done 10-12 hours and it was delicious.  I've heard that if you go past 24 hours the flavor is a little 'off'.

My bigger challenge is finding family friendly meals where everyone will eat the stock.  The kids categorically refuse to eat soup.  Sauces are out of the question.  They don't eat pasta and rice is also a hard sell.   So I have been making soup and rice for the adults for now.

I put this stock in quart glass jars and keep in the freezer.

Garden Update - December 31, 2013

The sun was quickly setting on New Year's Eve and so I ran out to take some quick pictures of the garden.

Mint with volunteer onions

Cauliflower, sage, onions, garlic, peas

Lettuce, leeks, celery

Cabbage, peas

Worm Inn!

Volunteer swiss chard which looks so festive this time of year.

Peas.  Swiss chard isn't coming up so well up here --- so am working on an alternative...

Swiss chard transplants under grow light in the garage.

Peas and cilantro

Lettuce, parsley (looking yellow and sad), broccoli, lettuce, arugula, spinach.

Kale, carrots, and just planted a new batch of radishes.

Lettuce for NYE dinner

Eating on wedding china, not just because it's festive but because we ran out of clean dishes.

But of all the things I'm proud of growing this year, it's our family.  To a happy and healthy 2014!