Recipe: Summer Fritatta with Beef-Bacon

It is the end of the summer produce at the Farmer's Market and at the Deck Family Farm booth there was a package of beef bacon that was calling my name. The day seemed perfect for a frittata, especially since our chickens are finally laying and beginning to increase their production a little.

Summer Fritatta with Beef-Bacon

2-4 potatoes, par cooked and sliced

5-6 slices beef bacon (the only place I have ever found this, or lamb bacon which would be equally good, is the Deck Family Farm.)

2 cloves of minced garlic
1 yellow onion
2 bell peppers
1 zucchini
10-14 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1-2 cups grated cheese
Salt, pepper, herbs
1 tomato

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut the bacon strips into bite-sized pieces. Fry till cooked through and remove from the pan. Sauté the garlic and onion until transparent and add the remaining veggies (except tomato) and cook till done.

While the vegetables cook, grease an 11x14 baking pan and cover the bottom with a layer of potatoes. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over them. Distribute the cooked bacon over that, spreading it out evenly. When the veggies are done, spread them out I et the bacon.

Whip up the eggs, milk, herbs, and salt & pepper. The frothier your eggs are, the more the frittata will rise as it bakes. I used chives and dill, but use whatever herbs are handy and tasty to you.

Sprinkle the grated cheese over the veggies in the baking dish. Pour the eggs over the layers. The egg mixture should come about 2/3 up the side of the dish.

Thinly slice the tomato and spread the slices over the top. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until the egg doesn't jiggle when you shake the pan.

Frittata is one of those wonderful recipes that has infinite possibilities and is really hard to mess up. For myself, I've found that par cooking the potatoes is important. What do you like in your frittata?

Recipe: Simplest Strawberry Pie

I promised some strawberry recipes - results of our wonderful strawberry picking expedition at Riverbend Farm. Their u-pick strawberries are done, but I've heard tell of all kinds of other berries coming ripe. This pie would work with any kind of berry, as long as you get a good corresponding jam.

Really, this is so easy it shouldn't count as a recipe. But here you go anyway.

One baked pie shell - I wrote out my thoughts on pie crust here, or you can check out this tasty almond (and therefor gluten free, paleo-friendly) crust here.



Approximately 4-6 cups of washed and cut strawberries.
1 cup strawberry jam (fresh made? use up last years?)
Zest and juice of one lemon

8 oz. whipping cream or 4 oz. whipping cream & 4 oz. marscapone cheese
Pinch of sugar (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla

Put the jam, lemon juice, and zest in a small sauce pan. Heat to thin the jam and mingle the flavors. Mix with the strawberries. Taste - add sugar or honey if you feel it needs it. I never think it does.

Fill the crust with the berries. Whip the cream till it forms soft peaks. Use 4 oz. if you are adding the marscapone, 8 if not. I add vanilla to whipped cream, but not sugar. Do what moves you. To make the topping truly decadent, use 4 oz. whipping cream, once it is whipped add in 4 oz. marscpone and whip again to combine. Spread on the top of the pie. Decorate with a few extra strawberries if you wish.

That's so easy. And tasty, as you will note by the lack of pictures.

Recipe: Lamb & Cabbage with Fennel

Thus far, Summer is a tease. We will have a day - maybe two! - of warmth and sun, only to be plunged back into dreary, muggy, rainy days. I'm craving the flavors of summer - corn, tomatoes, cherries - but the weather calls for different foods. Grrrrr.

The following recipe is a result of wanting a rich and warm dinner, but also lighter summer fare. The results were very pleasant and just fit the bill. The fennel is flavorful and summery, but the warm lamb and cabbage helped combat the cold and dreary day.

When I posted about Lamb Burgers, I mentioned what a difference there is between pastured lamb and cheap lamb. Don't compromise on this. Like most of the meat we eat, our lamb is raised on organic pastures at Deck Family Farm.

This was a slow cooker meal, but with a little time to simmer it would also work well on the stove.

Lamb & Cabbage with Fennel

1 lb Lamb stew chunks
1 tbl. oil or lard
3-4 cups chopped green cabbage
1 fennel bulb
6-8 new potatoes
2-3 cups water
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tbl dried oregano
Salt and pepper

Heat a frying pan and warm the oil. Brown the lamb chunks.

While they are browning, cube the potatoes, and coarsely chop the fennel and cabbage. Layer potatoes, greens, and browned lamb in the slow cooker. Sprinkle the caraway and oregano over the top. Add the water - less for a thicker stew broth, more for a thinner soup broth.

Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. Stir once or twice in the last hour or two. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread and a salad.

A Busy Time and A Good Read

I'm not writing a lot for the next month or so. Besides the usual onslaught of life, chores, homeschooling, and pregnancy, we have family in town (parked in an RV behind my house), we just spend almost a week working up at Breitenbush, and now we are getting ready for our week out at the Oregon Country Fair.

I posted some pictures from Fair last year - it's always a mad thing to prepare for. Six days of camping, wandering, partying, parenting, and other mayhem. It's the week that most of our plans and goals revolve around every year. I can't wait to get out there, get my wings on, and have a blast.

In other news, the blogging conversation continues. A while ago, MommyMan wrote about his son's desire to wear a dress and I responded. I was completely thrilled to read a recent post from the MommyMan, in which his son dons a dress and feels fabulous - as all kids should, regardless of the clothing they wear. It's a great post and I will certainly admit to getting all choaked up while reading it.

I guess it ties into our trip to Country Fair...if only because I have to remember to get Brother-Bug's new green taffeta dancing & cocktail dress clean for the weekend...

The Day Lillies Are Blooming!

Summer is here, with Strawberries to eat and the bank of Day Lillies blooming out front. Last summer I was delighted to find out that

Day Lillies are edible!

They are so tasty added to salads.

Doesn't Sister-Bug look so...One...in that post? She's grown so much in a year!

Find some Day Lillies. Eat them. Enjoy.

What is your favorite edible flower?

Wordless Wednesday: How To Park An RV Behind Your House

My dad squeezes his RV behind our house for his annual summer visit. It's tight, but we love to have him. It's even worth giving him our backyard.

Recipe: Lamb Burger with Apple and Gruyere

For Mother's Day, Papa-Bug & Brother-Bug made me these lovely lamb burgers. Simple and very tasty. It's the honey-dijon sauce that really puts them over the top. We ate them outside after a day of wonderful sunshine and yard work, with oven-baked french fries. Simple, yet gourmet and deeply satisfying.

No pictures, because we ate them up too fast!

A couple of tips.
Get good buns - if you're going all the way with a fine cheese and good meat, don't scrimp on the buns. Go to a bakery and see what they have that's real. Your standard wonderbun just won't cut it here.

Get pastured lamb. Seriously. I could (and eventually will) go on and on about the flavor differences in pastured versus feed-lot raised meat. But the place that I notice the biggest difference is in lamb. Good lamb, from animals who have been with their herd in lush fields, is amazing. It doesn't get much better. Cheap lamb tastes...cheap. And it's cruel. But if you are making hard decisions with your food dollars - and with the need for organics for many people combined with rising food costs, who isn't? - choose to get the pastured and worth-every-penny lamb.

Lamb Burgers with Apple and Gruyere

1+ pounds pastured ground Lamb (1 pound will make 4 quarter-pound burgers...do your math and figure out what you need.
2-3 tart apples - Papa-Bug used Granny Smith
Wodge of Gruyere (enough to have slices for the number of burgers you are making, but can you get too much?)
Good buns - as mentioned above
Romaine hearts
Salt, pepper & onion powder to mix into the meat
Olive oil
Creamy Honey-Dijon Sauce
1-2 tablespoons honey (gently warmed till melty)
1-2 tablespoons dijon mustard
2-4 tablespoons whole yogurt
Mix throughly, tasting and adjusting honey and mustard till you're satisfied.

Mix the meat with the salt, pepper and onion powder to taste and form into patties. Peel and slice the apples into cross-wise rings, taking the core out of each ring. Toss the apple rings with olive oil. When the grill is ready (I assume you know what you are doing here. There are lots of website dedicated to the hows of grilling if you need help...), put the apples on, grilling them till they are warm through. Add the burgers and grill as you would any burger. Add the cheese near the end of the burger's second side, and the apple on top. When the burgers are satisfactory, remove and quickly toast the buns over the grill. Spread each bun generously with the Honey-Dijon Sauce, apply burger, and romaine. Enjoy.

Bonus!

Easy Oven Fries

Preheat the oven to 425F.

For a family of 4 cut 3 average sized potatoes into your favorite fry shape - long and skinny, short and fat, wedges, whatever. Toss with salt, pepper & olive oil (or a combination of melted butter and coconut oil). Spread the fries on cookie sheet in a single layer. Pop those fries into the oven for about 15-20 minutes, turning half way though. The time they need to bake will depend on how thick or thin you cut them. Poke them with a fork to see if they are done.

These are so easy that I wonder at buying frozen fries (even though I do so at times...).

===

If you are in the Willamette Valley, Oregon and need some pastured Lamb...because you read my recipe and now you are craving...the Deck Family Farm sells such an item from the farm, which you can visit or at 7 different Saturday Farmers' Markets! One in Eugene and 6 in Portland. Contact them for more details.

Mindful Monday: Back To Just Us

Sister-Bug with Muzzy on a beach walk.

One of our major summer events is the six-week visit of my dad and his wife. Once they parked their giant RV at a trailer park for the summer, but when we moved we made sure we got enough yard space to share. Today is the last day of their visit.

It has been a wonderful summer. The kids have been in ecstasies over the backyard grandparents. It's nice to have a second set of adults around. Sister-Bug has really gotten close with them, which is so good since they live on the East Coast the rest of the year.



There is going to be some serious sadness in the land if my little people when the RV disappears around the corner later today. This Monday I'm focusing on getting us back into the swing of being a family of four, and helping the kids with the big feelings this is going to generate.

Without further ado, Mindful Monday today...

Who: The whole family
What: Re-group as a small nuclear family
Why: To ease and support some of the shock of losing two such loving playmates.

Puz and Brother-Bug starting a major excavation project.

How: Exert a lot of patience with the kids while they process this sad event. Do some work around getting ready for Winter Solstice (we may be a little early on that, but since it is the next time we see Muzzy and Puz, it might help to focus on the future). Get ready for a family camping trip this weekend - get everything together and focus the kids on camping fun. Enjoy and appreciate the things we did with Muzzy and Puz, make lists of favorite moments, make a scrapbook...

===

I missed Mindful Monday and Wordless Wednesday last week. With the last week of grandparents, siblings coming into town, canning blueberries, and everything else, the blog slipped through my fingers. Life is like that.

Blueberry Day

Today, on a cool, slightly damp day, we adventures out to Adkin's Farm for blueberry picking. The picking was a little damp, but we didn't get hot, dehydrated, or sunburned. And this is the Willamette Valley, so we are used to the damp. The bushes were laden and it was a fun and successful adventure. Rest assured that regardless of what else happens, there will be more pie at this house.



Many of the berries will be dehydrated and frozen. Leftover freezer berries from past years and some berries from today found their way into the jam pot.



After canning nine jars if plain ol' blueberry jam, I decided that diversity is the spice of life. So I added some ground cloves, ground ginger, and chipotle peppers to the pot. This came out fabulous. I think I have a brother and fellow canner out there who wants s PB&J sandwich with this concoction.

All in all, 15 more jars of jam and all the freezing and drying, and we can call this a good canning day.

And if anyone is interested, here is the approximate recipe I created for the

Blueberry-Chipotle Jam

To one standard blueberry jam recipe

add

2 tablespoons ground ginger
1/2teaspoon ground cloves
1-3 tablespoons chipotles peppers in adobo sauce, ground smooth.

Start with a small amount of the Chipotle and adjust the spice to taste and heat desires. Remember that it is easier to put spice in than take it out!

Wordless Wednesday: Tie-Dye Hat

Just The Summer Thing

We are blessed in having my dad and his wife as a part of our merry band, backyard neighbors, for six weeks in the summer. They live in North Carolina the rest of the year, but darling grandchildren have lured them out here for more and more time each summer, and my family is thrilled to host them and their RV.

We are doubly blessed that my dad's sweetie, whom the kids call Muzzy, was once upon a time a teacher at the excellent Duke School for Children, and brings all those skills and enthusiasms to our home for fun and learning. It pretty much rocks for my kids.

Today it was hot (for here, which is not hot for many places). In the mid-eighties. Brother-Bug had a friend over for the day and Muzzy busted out a cooking & science project;


Making Personal Ice-Creams

Can you think of a better thing to learn with on a hot summer day? Here's the deal:


You will need materials:

A small recycled can (clean!) - tomato paste or small juice sized - one per child
Cup measures (1/4 cup and up)
Measuring spoons
A bowl or container almost as tall as the can, and much wider - one per child
Aluminum foil
Wooden tongue depressors or popsicle sticks - longer than the can's height - to stir with.

Reading directions...

You will need ingredients:

Whipping cream or half -and-half
Vanilla
Sugar
Salt
Rock Salt
Crushed ice

(For a non-dairy option your could simply use a favorite juice to make sorbet. Lemonade would make a lemon ice, for example. You could use yogurt instead of cream for frozen yogurt...)

Assembling:

Into each can put:
1/4 cup cream
1/8 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
A very small pinch of salt

Learning measuring and fractions...

Muzzy had lovely print-outs with the directions and she encouraged the kids to read the directions to her as they worked. 

Stir the milk mixture until the sugar is dissolved.

Cover the top of each can with a piece of foil so that no salt or ice can get in.

Lots and lots of salt is required... but why?

Put each can into a larger bowl/container.

Put crushed ice around the can, filling the bowl as full as possible.

Stirring, stirring, stirring...

Add lots of rock salt, but don't go all the way up to the top of the can. You want some of the can to stick out to prevent salt in the ice cream.

Rinse any salt off hands!

Carefully uncover the can - don't let any ice or salt get in!!

Just beginning to freeze...

Let the cans sit and get cold for a few minutes.

When the edges of the cream begin to freeze, start stirring with the tongue depressors. Scrape the sides and the bottom as throughly as possible.

We used plastic spoons to stir, because we didn't have tongue depressors. This was a little hard for the necessary scraping. We strongly recommend an actual wooden stick. 


Keep stirring until ice cream is formed. It might be necessary for kids to taste their ice cream as they go. It can take 10-15 minutes to get it "all the way ice creamy" (to quote Brother-Bug).

Add ice and rock salt as you go, to keep the bowl full of cold.


As we stirred we made up a song about ice cream, talked about the condensation on the outside of the large bowls, and why we need salt on the ice to make ice cream (do you know why?). You could also read a book about ice cream, play a game, or ???

Almost frozen!!

Finally, after you stir and scrape and stir and scrape, it is ready to taste. If you want it to be harder, more frozen, you can put it in the freezer. After all the long stirring, my little folks opted for soft-serve.

Ready to eat! Finally! That fifteen minutes felt like fifteen years...

As I mentioned earlier, we made up an ice cream song, which I am including here. We sang it to the tune of "Hungry, Hungry, We are Hungry"... and it ended up that the kids mostly made up their own tune anyway. 

Notice that some of the lyrics (the flavors) are bold. Muzzy made the structure of the lyric and the kids filled in the flavors - real and funny flavors. Take that and make it your own if you want!



We Like Ice Cream

Sister-Bug didn't help but she still enjoyed...

Ice cream, Ice cream,
We like ice cream.
Ice cream, ice cream,
Here we come.
We like chocolate,
vanilla, and marshmallow,
peanut butter pickle,
chunky ice.

We like lemon,
orange, football.
We like cherry,
turtle, too!
Ice cream, ice cream,
We like ice cream
'til our lips are turning blue.




So that's it. Simple. And it makes only about a quarter-cup of ice cream for each person, so it isn't a huge sugar treat - just enough sweet for a kid to really enjoy. All in all, it was a perfect project.

A perfect ice cream for a hot day!

One More Word on Cherries

PIE!!

I saved enough cherries out of the canning project to make one lovely pie to eat now. 

Perfectly summer. Delightfully tasty. The quintessence of Pie.

It was so very good.

Recipe: Cucumber Soup

The perfect foil for hot eather - and excellent leftovers too! We grilled some sausages and made biscuits to go with. It's so easy to make also that I didn't spend very much sunny time stuck in the kitchen.

At the outset I was using an official recipe for this, but then I didn't have all the required spices and had to create my own blend with what I had on hand. The result was tastier than the recipe I had set out to make.

Summer Cucumber Soup




2 cups buttermilk
2 cups yogurt
1 cucumber
2 green onions
1 clove garlic
2-3 tbl. Fresh basil leaves
1 tbl. Caraway seeds
1/2 cup coarsely chopped almonds
Salt and pepper to taste

Chop and toast the almonds. 

In a food processer mince the garlic, green onions, fresh basil and caraway seeds. Coarsely chop the cucumber and add it to the mix. You might want to peel it. I didn't. Throw the cucumber chunks in the food processer and run it till you have a coarse or large mince. Set this aside for the moment.

In a large bowl whisk the butter milk and yogurt till smooth. Add half the almonds and all the cucumber mix. Stir to incorporate and chill for at least an hour. The longer you chill the soup the better the flavors will mingle.

Serve with the remaining toasted almonds sprinkled on top.

Wordless Wednesday: Tye-Dye Shirt

In our summer yard. Just thinking.

Mindful Monday: Get Ready for Faire!!

As I already posted, we are deep in the throes of Oregon Country Fair Preparation. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, because if you camp out there with us you know what I am talking about, and if you haven't been to Faire you can't imagine it. I have seen people try to imagine Faire and it just doesn't work.

That said, I have a few things to do.

• WHO: The Whole Family
• WHAT: Getting Ready for Faire
• WHY: Because we leave next Wednesday and we need to: make a pirate costume, freshen the baby's wings, construct a wagon canopy, buy a tent, re-skin a gnome (again, really don't ask), decorate some sunglasses, shop for a weekend of camping mayhem, and pack for said weekend. That is an abbreviated list.
• HOW: Stay focused on the tasks at hand. I would love to be making some ATCs, or finishing the few unpacking tasks in the living room, but that can all wait till after Faire.

From the left: Me, Brother-Bug (at 10 months), Auntie-Bug waiting for a parade to go by...

Busy Days

Things are keeping me busy.

1) I went ahead and got the iPhone. I'm enjoying the experience so far - especially being able to take my internet with me and catch up on off moments. I also like that I can share lists and calendars and stuff with my husband's phone. Maybe soon we can stop talking altogether!! But the set up and transition to the phone has been lengthy - and continues to be. I still need to do contacts and music and all kinds of stuff. And get the app for blogging from my phone...

2) My dad and his wife roll into town tomorrow! This is exciting. They are staying in their RV, parked next to our house for a month or two this summer. Brother-Bug is beyond excited - next door grandparents!!! But it also means we had to do a bunch of yard work and clean up and other preparations. Crazy times.

Brother-Bug at Faire last year.

3) Finally, and most time-sucking of all, we are getting ready for Oregon Country Faire. This means making flowered hats, pirate coats, a gnome, a wagon frame, buying a tent... the list goes on and on. But it is the family vacation, the yearly party of delight, mayhem, and excess, and the event we count down to all year long.

All this to say, I'm not online a lot now, despite the smartphone. I'm busy. I'm giving a gnome a skin graft (don't ask).

Sister-Bug, 3-months old at last Faire and already trying her wings!

Wordless Wednesday: Sunny Summer Helper

Few things as good a freshly sunned laundry and a toddler to help hang!

No Mindful Monday This Week!

The kids and I are packing up to go the Breitenbush Hot Springs for the weekend. We leave on Wednesday and return next Monday. I will be mindfully packing the jillion and ten things kids need for a weekend in the erratic weather of the Northwest Spring. Come to think of it, there probably won't be Mindful Monday next week either - unless it is mindfully doing the mountain and a half of laundry that is one of the results of this escapade.

Our favorite hot spring for soaking - the middle meadow. I'll be there in 48 hours!

Recipe: Caeser Pasta Salad

Finally we had a weekend where we could eat outside - light summer-ish foods that create a deep satisfaction in the soul.

I wanted to try a different kind of pasta salad so I went looking on line. I found this Caesar Pasta Salad over on Epicurious and made a few adjustments.

*I added an extra clove of garlic.
*I substituted a couple of handfuls of chopped up snow peas for some of the lettuce.
* I added extra Parmesan.

It was excellent with one of the incomparable Smoked Bratwursts from Deck Family Farm. A little sauerkraut (someday I want to learn to make sauerkraut), some mustard...

It was also good the next day as leftovers, with some smoked salmon crumbled on top. The note there is that the croutons had become soggy. If there is enough to be leftovers, serve it without the croutons mixed in and pass them at the table. 

Both kids loved the salad. They ate it right up with no fussing at all!

Then we went out for a banana split. How lovely.