http://provenancefarm.com/blog/categories/recipes/

I hope you enjoy it!

Shepherd's Pie

My wife lived in New Zealand for part of her childhood and her dad is from New Zealand. When we were dating she made this for me and I was sold. It was my first real introduction to lamb, which they raise plenty of in New Zealand. They have more sheep than people in New Zealand!

Shepherd’s pie is a true comfort food, containing potatoes, veggies, minced (ground) meat and gravy!  This dish is great to make to feed a large family or to make and eat leftovers all week for one or two (if it lasts that long!).  Since we’ve made it for some time we have adapted our recipe quite a bit but we base it off a recipe in the premier New Zealand Edmonds Cookery Book.  This book was a gift Rachel received for a wedding present from her New Zealand grandparents.  It is a common gift to brides in New Zealand as it is the go-to cook book in New Zealand homes.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb minced (ground) pasture-raised lamb (you can substitute pasture-raised ground beef but it’s not as good!)
• 1 onion, minced
• 4-6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 3/4 cup chicken, vegetable, or beef stock
• 1 cup peas
• 1 cup diced carrots (and/or other similar veggies)
• 2 tablespoons chutney or tomato sauce (I used my grandma’s cranberry chutney)
• 3-5 medium potatoes boiled and mashed into mashed potatoes
• salt
• pepper
• 1 tablespoon oil

Shepherd's Pie Golden

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Heat a heavy bottom skillet over medium-high heat with the oil
3. Cook the onions until they are transparent
4. Add minced lamb and cook until done
5. Add flour, stir well and cook for 1 minute
6. Add tomato sauce or chutney and stock
7. Add peas, diced carrots or other similar veggies
8. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes
9. Meanwhile make mashed potatoes (make sure to add salt, pepper, butter and cream/milk to make it creamy enough)
10. Put mince filling into a pie dish or casserole dish
11. Top with mashed potatoes and optionally cheese
12. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden

I hope you enjoy it!

Brown Stew Chicken - stewing

After a very long hiatus I decided to cook again.  Just kidding, I cook all the time!  The only problem is I don’t make time to share it with you.  Well, here I am and I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, including this delicious stew.

I recently returned from a wonderful vacation in Jamaica where we had “Brown Stew Chicken” in a couple of different road-side restaurants.  It was always delicious, tender and flavorful.  When we got home the first thing I attempted to cook was this!  Of course it is nice that we raise our own pasture-raised chickens now, this is the perfect winter dish to make with these chickens!  This dish was delicious and I am definitely going to make it again soon!

prepping the ingredients

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 pasture-raised chicken cut up into 10 equal pieces
• 1 large onion, diced
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup scallions, diced
• 1 spicy chili (jalapeno, scotch bonnet, etc.), minced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 2 teaspoons thyme
• 1 teaspoon pimento or allspice
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil (canola or olive would work too)

Add the chicken

Method:

1. Mix lime, tomato, scallions, onions, garlic, chili, thyme, pimento and soy sauce in a large bowl.
2. Add chicken and mix, set aside to marinade for about an hour (up to 8 hours)
3. Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan or casserole over medium-high heat
4. Remove chicken pieces from marinade (saving marinade) and brown in pan with oil
5. Add the marinade and carrots to the pan and cook for 10 minutes
6. In a small bowl mix flour and coconut milk
7. Add coconut milk mixture to pan, stir in
8. Turn heat to low and cover.  Simmer for 20 minutes or until chicken is tender
9. Serve with some rice and veggies for a perfect dinner.

I hope you enjoy!

Now, do you want to know how to make it?  Sharing that with you would be a pleasure for me.  I typed in a few ingredients into food blog search that I had lying around the house.  When we have a few things lying around the house it doesn’t make sense to go to the grocery store, right?  This incredible recipe was waiting at the other end of the search button and I’d like to share what I did using it.  One of the major things I loved about this dish was the celery seeds.  It is a make or break deal.  Use the celery seeds!

If you’re interested in a conversation related to some of the concepts around locally raised or pasture-raised livestock I found this story interesting.  Since my wife and I have started a farm raising pasture-raised animals we have been learning a lot about this kind of thing.  It just makes so much sense.  We hope you’ll join us and find a producer near you that sells pasture-raised animals.  We’re not on there as of the time of this writing, but we are going to register soon.

The beef I used in this recipe came from our wonderful friends over at Afton Field Farm.  It has such a rich flavor, is wonderfully lean and contains a much more dense set of nutrients than you can find in conventionally raised beef.  Not only that, but they aren’t polluting the environment with conventional fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.  Nope, the chickens do all that work (fertilizing, eating the bugs, and more) after the cattle get fat on the grass.  Back to the recipe, here’s what I did (feeds 4):

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion
• t tablespoons olive oil
• 1 lb of pasture-finished ground beef
• 2 cups of uncooked large macaroni noodles
• a bunch of fresh chopped parsley, about 1/2 cup
• 1 can diced tomatoes (or, if they are in season in your area, about 4 large diced tomatoes)
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
• 2 tablespoons worcestershire  sauce
• kosher salt, sea salt, or seasoning salt to taste
• crushed red pepper flakes to taste
• fresh ground pepper to taste

Method:

1. Begin cooking the macaroni, boiling it for the time listed on the package or until just tender
2. Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottom pan over medium heat
3. Chop and saute the onions in the pan, about 5 minutes or until soft
4. Add pasture-finished ground beef and saute until brown
5. Add pepper flakes, salt, celery seed and ground pepper to taste
6. Add the worcestershire  sauce
7. Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer
8. Drain the macaroni and add to the beef
9. Add the parsley and simmer for about 5 minutes more.

Serve this dish with a side of vegetables, like corn, and some bread, like my favorite — Pan Marino.  I hope you enjoy!

This post could also be titled: “How to surprise and awe your wife on a lazy Sunday evening.”  Rachel and I were sitting on the couch, enjoying the fire and reading.  Like she does on many occasions, she asked me to get her some ice cream.  (She’s always polite.)  So I got up and went into the kitchen.  About 45 minutes later I walked out of the kitchen with a fresh blueberry and raspberry pie in my mits.  She was surprised.  She was awed.  I think she had a sneaking suspicion I was not bringing her ice cream after the first 10 minutes and I did not return.

I have had a craving for cobbler for a while now.  Every night I come home I tell myself I am going to make it, but tonight I decided to actually do it.  Here is a little story for you about my love of cobbler.  First of all, I feel sad for you because you probably don’t have the same grandma I do.

My grandma makes the best berry cobbler.  Every time I come to visit she tells the story about little Keith.  When I was little my family and I would travel to Grandma’s for a vacation each summer.  As soon as I arrived I would run straight to the blackberry or raspberry patch (whichever was in season at the time).  I’d pick a bucketful of berries and run straight back to Grandma and beg her to make me a cobbler.  Of course, being the world’s best grandma, she would oblige.  Later that evening I would be in Heaven.  At least I can truly say that I will enjoy Heaven when I get there full-time, but for now I just have those small moments to latch on to.

Unfortunately I cannot make quite the same cobbler my grandma does.  I keep trying and she keeps telling me how to do it.  It is never the same.  Fast-forward to tonight.   I whipped out Rachel’s “Pie and Pastry Bible” and searched for a new cobbler recipe.  I did not immediately find one, but what I did find looked delicious.  I found a recipe for Fresh blueberry pie.  A side note about recipes: I’m one of those people that can’t take a recipe and just follow it.  I have read some other blogs regarding this subject.  I do believe it is ironic because I proceed to post my modified recipe for others to follow.  Back to it then: All I really changed was to speed-up the crust-making time and added raspberries to make up for the no-cobbler.  (We all know that cobbler must have more than one type of berry!)

I put my dream of cobber on hold for a bit longer in order to try something new.  What is the recipe you ask?  Good question, but before I serve this evening’s dessert course I must tell you about our friend’s amazing Valentine’s day special: A box of beef!  How cool is that?  Don’t tell Rachel, but I think I’m going to get her one!  On with the show, Here’s what I did:

Crust Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cup unbleached pastry flour
• 8 tablespoons of butter (1 stick)
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 4 tablespoons ice water
• 2 teaspoons of kosher salt

Crust Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Cut the butter into 3/4 inch cubes and place in a small bowl in the freezer while you get the rest of the ingredients, measure them into small containers so they are ready when you are.
3. Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium bowl
4. Add the butter using a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles course crumbs
5. Place the mixture into a gallon zip-lock bag, remove the air as you seal
6. Roll the mixture with a rolling pin so that the butter and flour form a flaky crust
7. Remove the flakes and scrape the bag, set the bag aside
8. Add the water and vinegar and mix with a spatula
9. Place the mixture bag into the bag and knead, using the bag as a “glove”, until it forms a ball.
10. Place the ball on a floured surface, flour the top a bit and flatten it.  Roll it out to fit your pie pan and then shape it into your pan
11. Poke a bunch of fork holes in the side and bottom
12. Bake it for about 20 minutes or until it is golden brown on the bottom.  I covered my sides after about 15 minutes to keep them from over-browning.
13. Let the crust cool a bit before filling it.

Filling Ingredients:

• 8 cups of fresh berries*
• 1 cup of water + 4 tablespoons of water
• 1 cup of sugar
•  6 tablespoons of corn starch
• 2 teaspoons of fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Filling Method:

1. Place the 1-cup of water and 2 cups of berries (I used 1 cup raspberry and 1 cup blueberry) into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the 6-tablespoons (each) water and corn starch together
3. After the berries come to a boil, reduce them to a simmer and stir for about 5 more minutes.
4.  Add the corn starch mixture, sugar, and lemon juice to the simmering berries
5. Stir for another minute or until the mixture becomes translucent.  (I believe this step is important.  My pie did not set because I doubled the recipe here, but forgot to double the corn starch and added it at the last minute, skipping this step for the second portion.)
6. Add the rest of the berries, mix and remove the saucepan from heat.
7. Pour the berries into the cooked pie crust and let it set for 2 hours.  This is the hard part!
8. Serve and enjoy a small taste of heaven in your mouth.

I hope you enjoy it!

*Since it is January, we don’t have fresh berries.  Of course your could go to the grocery store and get frozen or unripe, tasteless, bitter “fresh” berries.  I prefer to use our frozen summer surplus.  Rachel picked berries until her hands fell off this summer, so we have a freezer full of freezer jam and whole berries.  I like to rinse the frozen berries in cold water to remove the frost and make them soft again to use in recipes like this during the dead of winter.

Every once in a while members of a running club, that I am a member of, gather for a finger-food potluck.  Being a food-lover, I thoroughly enjoy these occasions.  What surprises me the most is the selection of “unhealthy” foods and beer that flow at these things.  These runners are all bones and a little skin.  They amaze me!

The question arose today before I went to our annual gathering, “What should I bring?”  As I usually do when I don’t have a plan, I looked in the pantry, fridge, and various counters cluttered with nibbles of this or that left from a previous meal.  I found:

• 1 green apple
• 2/3 loaf of Pan Marino bread from Big River (This bread is SO GOOD!  It has fresh rosemary in it and a nice layer of sea salt on the crust.)
• 1 big block of Tillamook Cheddar Cheese

“Perfect.”  I thought, a platter of bread, cheese and fruit!  Nothing fancy, but off I went slicing, coring and arranging.  Of course, you can see the results.

If you are ever hungry and don’t know what to eat, just take a look around the pantry and be creative!  I hope you enjoy!

The peppermint latte is the love of my life.  On cold winter days it reminds me of being a kid and sucking on a candy cane.  It reminds me of sitting next to a fire with wood stacked ceiling-high, crackling and popping and warming up on the inside and out.  I love me a peppermint latte.  The cold weather we have been having lately have really brought the craving out in me but I have to admit something.  Last year around Christmas I started making and buying peppermint lattes as the drink of choice whenever I would splurge.  Usually I get coffee — black.  Well, when Christmas and the festivities were over I didn’t stop ordering peppermint lattes.  I just kept getting them.  Now here we are — a year later and I am still making and ordering them.  Since I had a few minutes I thought I would share how to make the delicious-ness that is: A peppermint Latte.  (I didn’t take any new photos, so you’ll have to excuse the re-use — but at least I am finally updating my blog with something!)

Ingredients for a 12-oz Peppermint Latte:

• 8-oz non-fat milk (it foams better!)
• 1 tablespoon Peppermint Flavored syrup
• 2 one-oz shots of espresso
• A candy cane, crushed, and whole.
• Add 3 tablespoons chocolate syrup to make a peppermint mocha

Method:

1. Prepare your Espresso Machine for steam and espresso
2. Steam your milk until it is just over 170 degrees or until it is too hot to touch the side of your steamer cup
3. Brew the espresso
4. Add the peppermint (and optional chocolate) to an empty 12-oz mug
5. Add the espresso and stir well
6. Pour about 3/4 to 4/5 of the mug full of the steamed milk leaving room for the foam
7. Top the drink off with the foam from the steamed milk
8. Sprinkle the crushed candy canes on top
9. Serve with the whole candy cane and enjoy!

I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks to the recent release of Julie and Julia I was introduced to Julia Child.  Surprisingly, I had never really seen any of her stuff.  Now, I am a complete “foodie.”  Even more so after cooking and eating this most recent delectable dessert.  I found the sweet treat in Julia’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume Two. After seeing the movie I just had to order both of her “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” Books!

We invited some friends over for dinner and served up this delicious dessert!  We were so pleased with the dessert.  I was a little scared to make the recipe since it doesn’t have any pictures.  In the end, her excellent descriptions helped to make the job easy!  I didn’t even use Google!

Since it is pear season, I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate the arrival of my new book, but with a bottle of red wine and poached pears!  Flip to page 440 in volume two to follow along!  Here’s what I did (5 steps).

Step 1 – Poaching the Pears (can be made several days ahead):

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 1/2 cups côtes-du-rhône (After making this I imagine you can use a good Oregon Pinot Noir — one of my favorites lately.  Try the $10 Eola Hills Oregon Pinot Noir or find a local young red wine from your area)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 4 whole cloves
• zest of 1/2 orange
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 firm, ripe, pears
• A pan 2 1/2 inches deep or more, large enough to cover the pears

Method:

1. Stir the sugar, wine and water together in the pan
2. Bring to a simmer over medium heat
3. Add the cloves, zests and vanilla
4. Simmer for another 20 minutes, then remove from heat
5. Peel the pears and halve, lengthwise
6. Remove the stem lines and cores
7. Drop each half into the wine syrup, it should just barely cover the pears, add more liquid and sugar if necessary
8. Bring to almost a simmer and poach, uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes until the pears are soft.  Do not let the syrup come to a simmer
9. Remove from heat and let the pears cool for at least 20 minutes and up to 1 day in the syrup
10. Julia says you can leave the pears in the syrup for several days to absorb the syrup.

You can stop here and enjoy the pears all by themselves or get creative and serve them with some Gorgonzola or blue cheese or you can continue and serve with some Sabayon sauce and meringue.

Step 2 – The Sabayon Sauce (can be made several hours before serving):

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of the pear-poaching syrup
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons more of the poaching syrup
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons orange liqueur

Method:

1. Rapidly boil down the cooking syrup in a small saucepan until reduced to 1 cup (about 5 minutes)
2. In a second sauce pan beat the egg yolks and cornstarch to blend smoothly
3. Beat in the two tablespoons of cool cooking syrup.
4. In a thin stream, stir in the reduced syrup
5. Set over medium heat and stir slowly with a wooden spoon until the syrup coats the spoon
6. Do not let the syrup come to a simmer
7. Remove from heat
8. Mix in the butter and orange liqueur

Step 3 – The Canapés (made up to an hour in advance):

Ingredients:

• 2 loaves of bread (Julia recommends white bread, I used whole wheat)
• 2 tablespoons of butter

Method:

1. Cut the crusts off the bread and cut each slice into quarters
2. Heat the butter over a medium-high heat in a small pan
3. Sauté the bread squares until golden brown in the butter
4. Set in a greased baking pan

Step  4 – The Meringue:

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• big pinch of salt
• big pinch of cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup sugar (though I accidentally put 1 cup in and it turned out okay)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

1. Beat egg whites until foamy
2. Beat in salt and cream of tartar until soft peaks are formed
3. Beat in the sugar by the heaping teaspoon leaving 30 seconds between additions
4. Beat in the vanilla
5. Continue beating for several minutes until the egg whites are stiff and shiny.

Step 5 – Baking and Serving:

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Sprinkle some “sugar in the raw” over the Canapé.
3. Place a pear half, hollow side up on top
4. Fill hollow with the sauce Sabayon
5. Cover the pear with the meringue
6. If desired, spread sliced almonds over each pear
7. Sprinkle powdered sugar over each pear
8. Place in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the meringue is golden brown
9. Serve with some luke-warm Sabayon sauce, passed separately

I hope you enjoy it!

Who needs pasteurization?  Not Europeans and not me!  Our neighbors and good friends (Tyler and Alicia) down the street have a farm and on their farm they have a cow.  No, not Old MacDonald, but their cow recently had a calf and we are reaping the benefits here at the Prickett household.  Yesterday I received a day-old half gallon of raw, whole, real, enzyme-full, sweet, delicious milk.  I am starting to remind myself of the Goode’s.

I have another friend who once told me that you can make butter by simply blending heavy whipping cream beyond whipped cream in a kitchen aide.  When I received the milk from Tyler and Alicia the other day the first thought into my head was: “Butter!”  Maybe I was inspired by the recent “Julie and Julia” movie.  I scooped the cream off of the top of the milk after it had risen to the top and I was off to work.

You can make butter from pasteurized heavy whipping cream no problem.  But perhaps you should consider finding a local farmer or friend who has a cow too?  You can help support the livelihood of a community member and have fresh, great tasting milk.  Try asking vendors at your local farmer’s market.  The rules and regulations for selling raw milk are pretty strict.  For example, in Oregon, farmers aren’t allowed to advertise that they sell raw milk so everything is sold via word of mouth.

I didn’t get that much butter from 1/2 gallon of milk (about 1 cup of cream, 2 tablespoons of butter).  I think a lot of that is because there was a lot more liquids than solids in the 1 cup of cream I scooped off the top of the milk.  I think I could save the cream from a few days and make a much more substantial amount of butter.  Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cream (more or less accordingly)
• Pinch of salt (more or less to taste)

Method:

1. Pour cream into mixer or food processor
2. Mix as high as possible without all the liquid flying out everywhere for a good number of minutes.
3. With raw milk the buttermilk separated from the butter as I blended, with store-bought heavy whipping cream the cream whipped and then thickened even more as I blended.
4. If there is a substantial amount of liquid (buttermilk or whole milk) in the mixer strain it off, reserving it for your coffee or just drink it.
5. You can blend the butter a bit more
6. Use immediately on Zucchini bread or refrigerate for a later use.

I hope you enjoy it.

Boy, oh boy!  This curry is the most amazing curry I have had yet.  I have tried to make many curries in the past and none even come close to this.  A friend gave me a book by Madhur Jaffrey called “Foolproof Indian Cooking” which proved to be great!

I am definitely going to buy this book because of this recipe alone.  I posted another recipe from the book and served this curry with my first batch of parathas.  The pairing goes really well together, but if you like Indian food this curry will also go really well with naan.  One time, when we made a different curry, we just went down to the Indian restaurant in town and got naan to go and brought it home!  I felt like I was cheating, but naan is so good with curries!  But I digress.  Make sure to serve some steamed rice with this dish also.

This dish definitely filled my craving for large chunks of lamb in a delicious curry.  Warning: this dish can be really spicy depending on what kind of chili you use.  You can always use a chili that is not quite as spicy or spicier depending on your preference.  A green jalapeno would work well for those who don’t like that much spice.  Another note is that I had to purchase a few items that I did not have on hand, such as fenugreek seeds.  But now I have them and can use them for whatever other dish might come my way.  Here is what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 10 fenugreek seeds
• 4 cloves
• 4 hot dried red chiles
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 small to medium onions diced
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 4 to 6 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 lb boneless lamb (from the shoulder)
• 2 large tomatoes, very finely chopped
• salt to taste (start with 1 and 1/2 teaspoons)
• 14 oz can of cocunut milk (shake well!)

Method:

1. Place the coriander seeds, peppercorns, fennel seeds, fenucreek seeds, cloves and chilies in a cast-iron frying pan over medium heat.
2. Stiry the spices until they are a darker shade and give off an aroma.
3. Allow them to cool and then grind them in a clean coffee grinder or spice grinder (or use a mortar and pestle)
4. Pour the oil into a wide pan over medium heat
5. After it heats up, add the onions and cook until they are soft and start to turn golden
6. Add the ginger, garlic and stir for another minute or less
7. Add the meat and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes
8. Add the tomatoes, spices, salt and coconut milk
9. Bring everything to a boil
10. Cover the pan, turn the heat to low and simmer for an hour or so until the meat is tender.
11. Uncover the pan, turn up the heat and boil away some of the liquid until the suace is thicker and clings to the meat.

Thanks Madhur Jaffrey and I hope you all enjoy it!