Cat Food

Culinary Scotland

I get the Travel section of the New York Times delivered to my inbox every week. It comes on Fridays. Since money's tight these days I tend to treat reading this section as my weekly vacation (there probably won't be one this year). This week Frank Bruni has a piece on his culinary tour of Scotland in the early Spring during lambing season.

The first time I visited Scotland it was early Spring during that same season because I had a crush on an accordion player that I had met through friends here in New Jersey. I was young and silly and when he mentioned that I should come for a visit I took him up on it. Hell, I had a passport with very few stamps - that needed to change! Needless to say I fell in love ... not with the accordion player but with Scotland. I traveled around the Trosachs (lower highlands) with him and his band staying on ranches and wandering the little towns, mountains and pastures. I bartered my limited culinary talents for room and board and was even given lamb feeding duty on one ranch. Now I haven't traveled around the world but I have been to quite a few places on the planet and hands down, Scotland is my favorite. It's natural beauty and diversity, the hospitality of it's people, it's food ... if you've never been - you must go.

Read the New York Times piece HERE.

There's A New Bakery In Town!

After spending the past 9 months searching for local space (and not being successful I'm sorry to say), former pastry chef and current local cooking instructor Cat Morris (yep - it's me!) is on the verge of opening her first "virtually" local bakery - Basic Kneads.

The bakery will focus on local ingredients baked up like gran'ma used to do it. Everything from low fat muffins like apricot ginger and cranberry orange to all sorts of cookies, double fudge chunk brownies, cakes, pies, tarts and much more. All using wholesome and locally available ingredients. There'll also be freshly baked crackers, breads and even granola packaged to go! And let's not forget about those birthday - wedding and any ole' custom cakes you can think of!

Check Basic Kneads over the next couple of weeks as we roll out our new menu and local delivery schedule.

Baking on Sundays

Spending that week in Tuscany last month really made an impression on me in so many ways. We were there mainly to experience the way these folks approach food and the thing that I really took away is that it seems they eat much less "processed food" and much more variety including lots of vegetables. I decided to try and cut all processed food out of my diet and have been making my weekly bread and pasta on Sundays. At first it took a bunch of hours to do this but now after having it down to a bit of a science it only really takes an hour, maybe an hour and a half on sunday mornings.

This past Sunday I made an olive bread. I haven't made this bread since I lived and worked as a pastry chef on Nantucket 10 years ago. Wow! I can't even believe it was that long ago - feels like yesterday. Anyway I thought I'd share the recipe here because it's a really easy bread and it packs so much flavor.

Ingredients:
yeast 1 pack (dry)
water 1 ¼ cups
flour 4 cups **
salt ¾ tsp.
olive oil 2 Tbs.
olives 1 cup

Yield: 1 loaf
**amount of flour depends on moisture
in olives

Method:
preheat oven to 400 degrees**

1. Pit & chop olives till medium chunky. Or buy pitted olives and coursely chop.
2. Combine all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer.
3. Mix for @ 10 min. with the dough hook until satiny texture and no longer sticky. You may have to scrape
down the bowl once or twice.
4. Place in oiled bowl and cover with a cloth and let double in size at room temp. Approximately 30 minutes
5. Shape dough into a boule or baguette shape and let rise on baking sheet till almost doubled.
6. At this point you can brush the loaf with a little egg wash (egg mixed with a bit of water) or just brush
lightly with water. Make a couple of slashes across the top of the loaf and place in oven.
7. Pour a couple cups of water in the preheated pan on the bottom of the oven and shut the door. Don’t
open the door until the bread has good color. The steam created by the water will help create a nice
crispy crust.
6. Bake till golden brown and has a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom – about 30 minutes depending
on your oven.

**place shallow pan on bottom of oven. When putting bread in oven add water to pan to create steam for baking.

Print Recipe

Our First "Poster" Girl!

I'm so excited! Folks from the MSU trip to Tuscany are starting to send me more photos of beautiful Toscana.
Just give a click on Myra's Tuscany photo page to check them out.

Ciao-
Cat

Cheese Making in Tuscany

I got a little sidetracked over the weekend while I was color correcting and editing down all my photos from Tuscany. I decided to try and teach myself the iMovie software and it slowed me down a bit. Today I put together this "snapshot" of one of our excursions to a cheese making factory in San Gimignano. Cacio Pecorino S. Gimignano is known for their plain, black pepper and red chile flecked Pecorino as well as their amazingly fresh Ricotta cheeses. The factory was beautifully clean with a little shop on the side where you could purchase all these fantastic cheeses plus additional locally made products. It wasn't in the most picturesque of areas, a small industrial park to be exact - but it certainly was the real thing!

Buon Appetito!

Tuscany Here We Come!

I'm almost through tweaking my photos from the recent Montclair State University trip to Tuscany, Italy.

Check back over the weekend to check 'em out!

Cullen Skink Revisited!

Well, it's been a few days of nasty cold damp weather and I thought I'd make a big pot of soup! Oh yeah ... I still don't really have a proper working stove. DAMN!

For those of you out there who are thinking it's soup weather too why don't you try a nice hearty recipe for a Scottish favorite and let me know how it turns out. I have to cook vicariously through you till the new stove comes in!

Cullen Skink ... or Haddock Chowder

A Healthy Snack for the New Year!

Ahhhhh - the holidays are almost over and it feels like the right time to scale back in the food department.

One of the little starters I served on Christmas day was my Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. They’re fantastically crunchy and when you roast them with some fresh rosemary, a little lemon zest & salt they’re down right addictive! They’re fantastic to serve with cocktails or as a snack by themselves, and pumpkin seeds - I use the green pepitas - are really healthy.

Pumpkin seeds are packed with minerals especially zinc and are known to help keep the prostate healthy as well as having anti-inflammatory benefits for sufferers of arthritis among many other health benefits.

So start the New Year off right and make a nice healthy nosh to go with those festive New Year’s Eve cocktails! You’ll definitely be ahead of the game in the resolution department!

Cat’s Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

2 cups green pepitas
2 Tbs. fresh rosemary, minced
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
2 Tbs. olive oil
salt to taste

Method

1) The easiest way to combine the flavoring ingredients is with a morter and pestle. Place the rosemary, lemon zest and a pinch of salt into a morter and bash it around really well so that the mixture is combined.

2) In a separate bowl, toss the pumpkin seeds, flavorings and olive oil together till the seeds are well coated and glossy.

3) Spread the seeds out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or tin foil and roast till they start to become a lovely burnished gold and the rosemary is fragrant.

Check out this site for more info. on pumpkin seeds - link

The Eggnog Conundrum

First off - I really do like eggnog. When it first appears in the market this time of year I always buy some but after the second little cup or so I've had enough. Inevitably there's a quart of it languishing in the back of the fridge until I discover it some time in the new year. A frightening discovery that is!

Last weekend when it was bitterly cold outside I was craving pancakes like nobody's business and decided to substitute eggnog for half the milk in my usual recipe. I also kicked in a little extra nutmeg, a dash of cinnamon and a drop of vanilla and my eggnog pancakes were born. This may not be news to lots of folks but it was a revelation to me. No more scary bloated containers lurking amongst the seltzer bottles. Nope - I went through that sucker and am thinking about getting some more!

Herewith my new eggnog pancake recipe. I think it would be fantastic for waffles too but you might want to make the batter a bit thicker with some extra flour so it doesn't run out the sides of the waffle iron before it starts cooking.

Ingredients

2 eggs
5 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup eggnog
1 1/4 cups flour
1 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Dash of vanilla
4 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp, salt

Method

1) In a small saucepan combine the milk and butter and warm over low heat until the butter melts. Remove for the heat and allow to cool.
2) In a separate bowl whisk the eggs till they are blended. When the milk mixture has cooled, whisk this into the eggs along with the eggnog and the vanilla.
3) In another bowl mix all of the dry ingredients together and then add the egg mixture to it.
4) Stir everything together till all the dry stuff is moist.
5) Heat a griddle until very hot then spray with vegetable coating. Pour about 3 tablespoons of batter for each pancake onto the griddle and allow to cook until bubbles break on the surface. Turn cakes over and cook for a minute more so the bottom is lightly browned.

Makes about 2 dozen small pancakes

Download Eggnog Pancakes printer friendly

Photo Courtesy of Martha Stewart Living

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Well, as some of you know I haven't posted in quite awhile.  It's been a trying time here at Cat Food central let me tell you.   We moved into a new house - our very first - and it has been quite the learning experience. First there was no DSL service back at the end of October.  Then we had to have the electricians and the plumbers and the painters in because everything was on their last legs! I won't go into details but it wasn't until last night that I could cook my first meal in this house!

Last night was one of the first really cold wintry nights and it was wonderful to have a big pot of beef stew bubbling away on the stove - that is on the one burner that still works!  The house finally smelled like home. I've tried lots of recipes for beef stew.  It wasn't something my mom made when I was growing up so I had to find my way around it.  I've found that when I just wing it together - no measuring - using what's at hand - not timing the cooking - it always seems to come out best.

I threw what I had in the house - beef - veggies - stock & wine into my grandmother's cast iron stew pot, covered it and left it alone on the stove to make it's magic.  A couple hours later when we had finished bringing in the Christmas tree and putting on the lights, we sat down to a really hearty and soul satisfying bowl of stew.  Nothing more needed really just some nice crusty bread and a glass of red wine.

Here's last night's recipe but feel free to improvise with what ever you have in the pantry!

Beef Stew
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 ½ lbs. stew beef
Olive oil
1 large onion -peeled & cut into large chunks
4 cloves garlic - peeled and smashed
2 russet potatoes - peeled & cut into large chunks
2 large carrots - peeled & cut into large chunks again
1 medium sized bulb celeriac (celery root) - once more, peeled & cut into large chunks
1 large box of mushrooms - small ones left whole and large ones cut in half
3 bay leaves
2 tsp. rosemary - crushed if using dried and minced if using fresh
½ bottle of a full bodied red wine - last night I used a 2002 Le Grange Clinet
2 - 4 cups stock - you can use a good low sodium beef stock but I use mushroom stock
1 - 2 tsp. of tomato paste
2 - 4 Tbs. flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method
1) Sear the meat in a little olive oil in the pot so it gets nice and caramelized and remove it.
2) Add the onions and garlic to the same olive oil and sauté till they get a little color.
3) Add the meat back in with all the veggies, the bay leaves, rosemary, wine and stock. The whole wine /stock thing is this - you want to fill the pot with enough liquid to cover everything. It's not an exact measurement here. You can use more stock then wine or vice versa.
4) Cover and bring to a full boil and then reduce the heat and let it simmer at least an hour. I let it go for about three hours last night.
5) Season with salt and pepper to taste
6) About 5 - 10 minutes before you're ready to eat mix the flour and the tomato paste together in a small bowl and ladle in some of the hot broth. Whisk this together till there are no lumps and the consistency is more liquidy then dry. Pour this mixture back into the stew and stir till it starts to thicken. Again, the best way to figure this out is to start with a little of this mixture and keep adding more till the stew is the consistency you like. The flour is cooked by mixing it with the hot liquid before you add it to the stew pot, so make sure you do it this way. If you add raw flour directly to the pot it will taste nasty.

Hope you give this a try. It's great to do on the weekend when you have a bit more time to putter in the kitchen and it only gets better with age!

Now to go wait for the plumber to come and make it stop raining in my kitchen!

Printer Friendly Beef Stew Recipe

Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart Living