Oddities in Pictures

Yep! Weird food.

More of the strange but true encounters with food that I have all the time.  These are just the photogenic ones.

Dinosaur Egg? Quail Liver?

Superior Technique Salvages 50 Pound Blue Pumpkin

People who cook always say that big squashes have no flavor. Baseball-bat zucchini end up in the compost every summer in many a garden. That big jack-o-lantern never really makes a pie worth eating. . .

Well, maybe that's because we don't treat them right. Squashes seem to start out from the blossom packed with flavor which gets less intense as they grow. It's like the water that helps them balloon in size dilutes that original charge to a low and disappointing voltage. I happen to have a Prodigious Pumpkin from my friend Mike at Harvest St. Louis. . .

. . . Which gives us the opportunity to practice one of the Cook's Maxims: Remove Water to Intensify Flavor.

Will it work?

Caramel Squash Butter

Caramel Squash Butter

Here's a recipe that may provide welcome variety once you've made that squash soup, squash puree, and spherified squash gel. . .  It only takes a little bit of cooked winter squash to make a pint jar, and it goes down well on toast on these cold mornings.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (packed) Cooked Squash (see below for techniques to maximize flavor)

1/2 c Sugar

1 pinch Salt

1/4 c Water

1/2 tsp Cider Vinegar

10 cardamom seeds (not the big pods), cracked 

How to Carve the Toughest Winter Vegetables

It has happened to all cooks: 

We are tempted to do something we KNOW is dangerous, but we really WANT to do it anyway. Take this beautiful hard winter Golden Nugget squash:

Its skin is like armor. It's going to be SO GOOD, if I can just get the blessed thing apart! And so we end up going at this spheroid with our knife while it rolls unpredictably, berserk, causing us to nearly lose a finger.


Well, no more of that for my readers! Here's a series of knife techniques that will allow you to apply big forces safely to bust into the treasures of tough winter vegetables.  No Rutabaga is too mighty to withstand these methods!

The 40,000: What If?

40,000

That's a big number (in some contexts.)

What if it were the answer to the following question:

Into how many pieces can a person cut a carrot?

This Person:

This Knife:

This Carrot:

(OK.  Haven't chosen the Carrot yet. . .)

Sounds like an action film, right?!
It's a no-holds-barred real-life man-versus-nature contest happening in my kitchen tomorrow.  Video to follow.  Just you wait and see!

Summer in 20 Minutes

We call it Summer Soup, although its popularity in my house has stretched around the calendar.  Since it's simple and uses ingredients that freeze well, it's no trick to have it anytime.

Last summer I was searching for a way to feed green things to my two year old.  We had a new baby at home also, so I needed a FAST dish healthy and tasty enough that the weary, nutrient-starved parents would enjoy it, too.

Roasted Napa Cabbage: Simple Pleasures

If you like Brussels Sprouts roasted caramel brown, then you should consider the other members of the cabbage family. They're cheap, quick to prep, and cook in about the same amount of time.

Recipe:
Set the oven to 400.
Cut a head of Napa into lengthwise wedges, trim out the toughest part of the core.
Toss or brush liberally with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Lay cut-side down (so the outer leaves will act as a tent, keeping in some steam to soften the leaves as they roast) and cook until tender and caramelized. Mine took about 20 minutes.

October Culinaria: Blue Pumpkin, Crabapple Jelly, Cornbread

Yes it's a pumpkin, yes it's pale blue. . . and yes it trumps a regular Pumpkin in all regards.  

It has flesh that's densely orange with not much void space and few seeds.

Culinary Adventures: Spelt Brioche, Community Garden, and Crabapples

Harold is a good sport.  Especially for a one-year-old.

He serenaded me with his toy piano while I made Brioche.

He strolled with me to check out the Overland Community Garden.

He went with Melanie and I to the secret-location Creve Couer Crabapple tree we pick fruit from every year.  We had some laughs, some new experiences, and a good nap too.

The Brioche:

It proofed beautifully, but Spelt lacks the necessary elasticity to produce a nice round dome on a risen loaf - at least, I've found that to be true.  Part of it is preference.  I'd rather have a tender, moist loaf that's not perfectly shaped than a nicely domed loaf that is too dry in the crumb from too much flour.  Maybe one of you bakers out there has got some knowledge I lack about this phenomenon.

We had some for lunch, along with. . .

Concord grapes!  Harold's first ones.  I was squeezing the soft core into his mouth and holding on to the skin (and for you nervous parents out there, I was selecting only the smallest ones for this - to avoid a choking hazard.)  He'd chew a few times, then smile, and down the hatch they'd go.  As you can see, he was ready for more.

The Overland Community Garden is in its first year, so we went to check it out and see if anyone was there working, since it was such a beautiful day.  It was devoid of gardeners, but you can see they've got a good start.

One plot caught my interest.

Linda has been hard at work.  

I think I see radishes (a lot of 'em,) cauliflower, and collard greens.  But I'm an amateur - what do you see?

Harold liked the ornamental grasses growing on the edge of the lot.

All that walking made us tired, so we rested awhile.

Afterwards, we visited my parents and then walked to the tree, which is so loaded this year I can't believe it.  I would guess a couple hundred pounds of crabapples.  In past years, we've always made jelly, and sometimes tarts.  This year I'm thinking Crabapple Clafoutis for Pomme - Bryan and I tried one three weeks ago but the fruit wasn't ripe.  But now they're ready.  (For such a small fruit they can take a long time to mature.)

For some reason, the sight of the boughs shaking and the fruit falling into the bag was hilarious to Harold.  

All in all, a beautiful day.

Now, in an addendum to our story, I made this discovery on the front porch back at home.  

It has been so long since I've seen a wooly-bear caterpillar, that I wasn't sure if this was one.  Also, is this specimen particularly wooly, or just the usual thread count?  Our friends at Wikipedia lay out the folklore surrounding the woolly-bear and its appearance, but I think this one I found must be a different species.   The body shape is more like an elongated hedgehog than a worm with fur - also, no brown band in the center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrharctia_isabella

 One thing is certain: this little guy is ready for winter.

If all goes well, I'll have some crabapple jelly put up in the pantry, to spread on brioche on a mid-winter's morn.