Many Thanks To Cornwall for the Pasty

Whatever the true origin of the Pasty, they are nice looking and even nicer to eat. They were popular Cornish miner lunches back in the day, and are traditionally stuffed with meat cubes and rutabaga or turnip. They are also a fantastic make-ahead camping food. Wrap them in foil and heat them up near (but not too near) the coals and you will be a happy camper. My version is a bit different and is created like so:

Ingredients for the filling:

1 1/2 lbs beef chuck, cubed
1/3 cup flour
1 large potato, cubed
1 medium carrot or parsnip, diced
1 large onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil or clarified butter
2 teaspoons celery salt (or more to your taste)
2 tablespoons dried thyme
1 tablespoon black pepper (let's not be stingy)
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Enough water or chicken stock to not-quite cover the ingredients, this will depend on the size of your pan.

Heat the oil in a pot over high heat, then add the cubed beef that you have dusted with the flour. Brown the meat for five minutes, then throw the rest of the ingredients right in the pot. Cook on low UNCOVERED for at least one hour, stirring gently on occasion. I want you to cook it until it is really thick and dry. You want the juices to look more like gravy than soup. You will get some stuck to the bottom of the pan, which is okay (just soak the pan before you try to scrub it). Let the filling cool down significantly before you stuff your pasties.

Ingredients for the pasty dough:

1 1/2 lbs. all purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
6 oz. cold lard
2 oz. cold butter
8 oz. cold water, or slightly more if your flour is dry

Sift the dry ingredients together with a sifter or just shake them through a strainer, then cut in the cold fats using a pastry cutter or a large fork. 

Add the cold water and mix with your hands. You want to dough to all stick together, if it doesn't, this is when you drizzle extra water if you think you need it, but the dough should be dry and stiff.

Now don't think of this as a pie crust, it's not. You don't want some crumbly thing that won't hold together. At this point, unlike pie crust, you are actually going to knead this hard dough for a minute until it feels smooth-ish instead of chunky and grainy.  Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 30-40 minutes. DON'T SKIP THE REFRIGERATION!

When the pastry is ready, divide it into 6 pieces. Roll each piece out to about a ten inch round circle with your rolling pin. You can lightly dust your board with flour, but this isn't a sticky dough, so you hardly need to. 

Place a nice generous semi-circle shaped blob of filling on one side of each circle, then fold the dough over to cover it. Press the edges together and either mash the edge with a fork to crimp it closed, OR crimp it like the edge of an apple pie (which is what I did), OR roll the edge over and squish the it down so it looks like a rope. Here's a great YouTube video that shows you how to do it: Pasty Crimping

Brush the tops of the pasties with an egg wash, and bake on a cookie sheet in a 325 degree oven for 45 minutes, but raise the heat to 350 at the end and cook ten minutes longer to get more color on the top if you like.

Pasties ready for the oven

   

Carbalicious: Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns, hot cross buns,
One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons,
One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns!

Ingredients:
2 cups warm milk
1 packet yeast
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
5+1 eggs, beaten
6 cups + 1/2 cup white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons cream
a few drops of vanilla

Mix the milk, sugar and yeast, and let sit for ten minutes, then add 5 of the beaten eggs and the melted butter.  Next add the flour, salt and spices and mix well with your hands or a dough hook.

Place the sticky dough in an oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let rise for one hour. 

Sprinkle the dough with the  last 1/4 cup of flour and knead for several minutes. Divide the dough into 24 rolls and place on a cookie sheet in a warm place to rise until double in size. 

Use the  last beaten egg to brush the tops of the rolls before baking at 375 for 15-20 minutes. They should be light golden brown, if you're not sure, err on the side of underdone rather than overdone. 

Remove the buns from the oven to cool. meanwhile, mix the powdered sugar, cream and vanilla to make a sugar glaze. Put the glaze in a plastic baggie and snip one of the bottom corners off the baggie to make a little glaze dispenser. Squeeze the bag and make a cross shape of the glaze on top of each bun. Serve hot!

February is Carb Month: Blackstrap Bread

There are times when I just have to have bread. Thick and chewy, toasted and buttery, a slice of this blackstrap molasses bread with anise will be yummy to my carb-craving tummy.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose white flour
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons anise seed, plus extra for sprinkling
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses,  I like Aunt Patty's
2 tablespoons melted butter or vegetable oil
2 cups warm water
1 packet, or two teaspoons instant yeast

Mix the water, yeast, molasses and oil or butter. Add the flour, anise, cocoa powder and salt and mix well. Knead for one minute, then place in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise at least a half hour, up to one hour. Knead the dough another minute or two, then form into a nice round loaf and sprinkle with more anise seed. Place on a baking pan and put in a warm place until it rises to double it's size. My house is always freezing, so I put it in my oven on the very lowest "warm" setting to rise. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes.  Let the bread cool completely before slicing.

Serve this toasted with butter and jam for breakfast with Earl Gray tea, or toasted with good egg salad and a cup of frothy Guinness stout for lunch.

Quick Egg Salad: 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped, 2 heaping tablespoons Best Foods or Hellman's mayonnaise, 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, 1/4 teaspoon celery salt, 2 dashes Tabasco, 1 dash nutmeg, 1 tablespoon grated or finely chopped onion or 1/2 teaspoon onion powder, and a dash of paprika.

Rummy Carrots with Bacon

Okay, it's almost recipe-cheating to say, "Here's a really great recipe. It has bacon it it." Bacon is more popular than zombies, steampunk, and saying "nom, nom" instead of "yummy", but unlike those other things, bacon actually deserves the popularity. I do think it's silly to put it in ice cream, but bacon really does wonders for a wide variety of dishes including cooked vegetables.

This a nice little side dish to serve with meat; a colorful and tasty little bed for a roasted chicken leg or a lamp chop to rest on.

Ingredients:

6 carrots, sliced thinly
1 slice of your favorite thick bacon, chopped
1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon (or more if it needs it) salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon lavender
1 dash pumpkin pie spice
1 dash celery seed
1/3 cup dark spicy rum like Zaya
 juice of 1/4 large lemon (or half a small lemon)
2 tablespoons Uncle Jer's wildflower honey

In a non-stick frying pan, cook the chopped bacon and butter on high until the bacon is nice and crispy. Add all of the spices and the chopped onion, and continue to cook on high for 2-3 minutes. 
 The star of the show, the sliced carrots, go in next. Toss them around in the pan to coat all of slices in the fat and spices. Turn the heat down to medium, and add the rum. If you have a gas stove, you can  just tilt the pan slightly to catch the rum on fire, if your stove is electric please use a LONG match or fireplace lighter and BE CAREFUL! After the flames die down, clap a lid on the pan and cook for 5 minutes. 

Take the lid off and pour in two tablespoons of honey and squeeze in the 1/4 lemon (I like Meyer lemon for this) and mix. If you don't have lemon, sprinkle in some good vinegar, you just need some acid to balance the sweetness and fat.
Serves 2-3 people

Braised Beef and Lettuce with Dill

Cooked lettuce. It's sweet and lovely. Please don't try to be a lettuce snob and substitute something darker like kale or dandelion greens in this dish. The whole point here is to have mild sweetness- this is a happy, smiley dish. It's a dish to make you feel cozy. You may watch re-runs of Happy Days or Mork and Mindy while you eat this, you may not discuss obscure 19th Century Russian literature or translate the works of Thucydides.

Ingredients:

8 ounces of lean ground beef
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes slices in half
1 small head green lettuce, or half of a normal sized one, roughly chopped
1/2 sweet onion, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons of sherry
1/2 cup warm water
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon dried dill (very important)

Over med-high heat, cook your ground beef in the olive oil until it is well browned. Add the sliced onions and salt and pepper to taste, and cook for another 2-3 minutes, still on med-high. Add the tomatoes, sherry and water. Let this bubble up, then stir in the dill and lettuce and turn the heat down to a low setting (like a 3) and cook for another 7-10 minutes. 

I took the picture before adding cheese, but if you are a dairy fanatic like I am, you can sprinkle on top a mild soft cheese, a dab of Greek yogurt, or a knob of Irish butter. 

This recipe serves two, with each serving adding up to only 325 calories, assuming you use lean beef and limit yourself to 1 ounce of goat cheese to top each serving. I am not suggesting you count calories, but you have to admit, that's a nice lunch for that caloric price!  

Breakfast With Color, and I Don't Mean Fruit Loops: Eggs & Zucchini

I've been eating toast and cheese, or cereal, for breakfast during my illness, and to be honest it probably made me worse. Today I finally had a good breakfast that left me feeling light and energetic, but had lots of fresh flavor.

If you don't like eggs, just make the same thing and add more zucchini or some mushrooms- and just know that I think you're a little weird.

Ingredients:

2 green zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced
1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 teaspoon savory
1/2 teaspoon (or more) garlic salt
several dashes of black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ounce of crumbled feta, or whatever sharp cheese you have
2 good quality organic eggs
salt 

In a non-stick skillet heat your olive oil on high and add the zucchini and garlic salt. Cook for about 2 minutes then add the savory, a bit of pepper and the tomatoes. Continue to cook on high for another 3-5 minutes, depending on how much you  like your veggies cooked, making sure you stir them around once in a while. 

After the veggies are cooked, add the feta cheese evenly over the top, then crack your eggs over the top as well. Now COVER the pan with a lid or foil, and turn the heat down to low/med-low. On my stove the eggs were done to over medium-ish in four minutes, but you can lift your lid after 3 minutes and poke your yolks gently to see if they are the way you like them. This method  is kind of nice because your eggs are basically steaming, so you don't have to flip them.

Salt and pepper the eggs and serve yourself  right away, with good hot coffee of course, and if you're a bread person I would go with toasted sourdough.

Stew...You Need Some

Well it's been awhile. Between having two different flu viruses and a cold, plus moving, I've been too sick and tired to cook for the past six weeks. I've been eating a lot of street tacos from the little Mexican place down the street, and more Chipotle burritos than is good for anyone. I'm also heartily sick of In-n-Out, and tired of turkey sandwiches. It's about time for some REAL food. 

It doesn't get any more "real" to me than beef stew. 

Ingredients:

1 to 1 1/2 pounds of beef (or lamb) stew meat
1/4 cup of some kind of organic flour
1/4 cup of good olive oil or Irish butter
1 large sweet onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped (don't peel them)
3 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
1 clove of garlic, whole
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon dried or fresh thyme
1 tablespoon dried savory
1/2 teaspoon dried orange peel
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon A1 Sauce
1/2 cup tawny port
1-2 cups of warm water, just enough to cover the ingredients

Cut the stew meat into small even pieces and then toss them in the flour to coat. Heat the oil or butter up in a medium sized pot, and then brown the meat pieces over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes (you don't have to brown them evenly, just get some brown stickiness going on). Remove the meat from the pan and set it aside, and yes, you have to do that. 

Now you can throw in all of the chopped veggies, I like to chop them pretty small so they sort of melt into the stew. Plus I've noticed kids and grown men who are weird about eating cooked vegetables like it better that way. Put the salt and pepper in with the veggies, and cook them, still on medium-high heat, stirring frequently. After about ten minutes, add the tawny port and then let it heat heat up before you add the stew meat and juices back in and turn the heat down to simmer. 

Next, add the warm water, just enough to cover everything, and also add in all of the spices. Cook on a good simmer, on my stove it's about a 2, uncovered, stirring occasionally for at least one hour.  
Use a wooden spoon to stir, I swear it makes it taste better. 

You can cook the stew up to 1 1/2 hours, or even two, but if you go up to 2 hours, turn the heat down to a slow simmer after the first hour. More than two hours will dry the meat out, so don't leave it too long. 

Serve over mashed sweet potatoes (not yams, that would be sort of redundant with all the carrots) or mashed sunchokes.

You're a fool if you don't at least consider drinking a big mug of porter or stout with it. Tonight we're drinking Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout