Freemotion's food journal: Expanding the gardens, pics p 53

[FarmerDenise]

You have quite a bit of stuff going on. We do to. I have grown beans on sunflowers. Unfortunately the beans got too much shade and didn't grow very well.
All parts of sunflowers are edible. And it doesn't matter if it is BOSS sunflower or an ornamental type.

Garlic tips will also turn yellow, if the ground it too hot. Like when we put the chicken yard stuff in the garlic bed and it didn't age long enough before planting. Which we do on a regular basis
I am glad to hear they are doing well

 

[freemotion]

Picking and weeding in the upper perennial food garden. I got an almost-full five gallon pail of scallions that I will wash, snip, and freeze. I weeded and mulched the sage and will pick that soon. I weeded around the chives and the rhubarb and if my search for strawberries in the freezer is successful, I'll go pick some rhubarb for a crisp for supper along with something with bacon....maybe more egg noodles carbonara, as I have about 15 eggs on the counter. I could go get nettles for my greens....but....the ticks are really, really bad right now....but free food.....what to do, what to do.....

 

[FarmerDenise]

How do you make cabonara? I have a refridgerator filled with eggs and nothing planned for dinner yet

 

[freemotion]

Cook some bacon until crisp and crumble it. Cook some noodles (purchased or homemade egg noodles) and after draining them, add some bacon grease to the pasta pot and quickly return them to the cooking pot and add some raw beaten eggs, and toss until the eggs are almost cooked but a little runny. You may need to turn the heat on a little. Toss with some grated sharp cheese....I like homemade salty hard feta, for purchased cheese, I like romano or parmesan. Top with the crispy bacon bits.

For a more authentic texture, you can add some heavy cream to the eggs, but I never remember to and it is delicious!

 

[FarmerDenise]

Oooh sounds great! I even have bacon, romano cheese and egg noodles.
Thanks.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Cook some bacon until crisp and crumble it. Cook some noodles (purchased or homemade egg noodles) and after draining them, add some bacon grease to the pasta pot and quickly return them to the cooking pot and add some raw beaten eggs, and toss until the eggs are almost cooked but a little runny. You may need to turn the heat on a little. Toss with some grated sharp cheese....I like homemade salty hard feta, for purchased cheese, I like romano or parmesan. Top with the crispy bacon bits.

For a more authentic texture, you can add some heavy cream to the eggs, but I never remember to and it is delicious!

Making this when the in-laws get here!

 

[abifae]

I don't have noodles. I usually do all my noodles dishes with squash. But you can't lose with squash, bacon, and cheese

 

[freemotion]

Tonight we had lots of pork chops....cooked enough for leftovers for tomorrow night's supper....cooked with onions and garlic and some onion wine. Yum. DH said the sauce reminded him a bit of marsala without mushrooms. It is completely delicious. I am so making five gallons of that onion wine this fall. Have I mentioned that yet?

I finally made the chevre cheesecake and it was a hit! I combined and tweaked a couple of recipes and here is what I ended up with....delicious!

For the crust I used lwheelr's recipe with the addition of vanilla extract. I'd like to try it next time with baking soda instead of baking powder for a more cookie-like texture. It was a bit biscuit-y, which was still yummy, but I'd like to go for cookie texture next time.

Cream together:

1/2 c butter (I used half lard/half butter)
a shake of salt
1/4 c sugar

Add a glug of homemade vanilla extract.

Add two beaten eggs.

Add two cups freshly ground wheat flour and a teaspoon of baking powder (baking soda next time.)

I pressed this into a greased deep pie dish and well up the sides and baked it at 400F for 10-12 minutes until golden and starting to brown on the edges.

For the filling, I mixed about...um....three cups of chevre? with a half cup of sugar, a generous glug of vanilla extract, and three beaten eggs. I spooned this into the cooked crust and returned it to a 375F oven for about 25 min or until set.

I chilled it in the fridge for as long as I could stand it and we had a piece...so delicately flavored, beautifully yellow with those free-range yolks, and rich and slightly grainy from the goat's milk cheese. Absolutely wonderful. With fresh berries, it would be sheer perfection.

Next time I will use the deeper cake pan, because there was plenty of crust for that pan. Then I would use the entire one gallon batch of chevre with another egg and bake it longer for a deeper cheesecake.

After another tweak or two, this will definitely be a company dessert. I will also try it with honey next time. I was afraid the honey might overwhelm the flavor, but I think it would be fine.

Chevre was the first cheese I made so long ago and I really didn't like it. I think I need to give it another chance and make it periodically. I don't like yogurt, but I can see eating a big bowl of nice, cold chevre with fresh berries for a quick breakfast on a hot summer day.

 

[AnnaRaven]

Cook some bacon until crisp and crumble it. Cook some noodles (purchased or homemade egg noodles) and after draining them, add some bacon grease to the pasta pot and quickly return them to the cooking pot and add some raw beaten eggs, and toss until the eggs are almost cooked but a little runny. You may need to turn the heat on a little. Toss with some grated sharp cheese....I like homemade salty hard feta, for purchased cheese, I like romano or parmesan. Top with the crispy bacon bits.

For a more authentic texture, you can add some heavy cream to the eggs, but I never remember to and it is delicious!

Or you can temper the eggs by adding some of the hot water from the noodles to them, stir them so they become "saucy" and then add it to the hot noodles and bacon. I usually separate the yolks and serve them raw, one on top of each bowl of noodles and let people stir it in for themselves. Yum! Make sure to grind plenty of fresh black pepper on top.

 

[freemotion]

Cheesecake quest update: I tried the above crust recipe again, replacing the baking powder with baking soda, hoping for a more dense, cookie-like texture. Don't do it. Trust me on this one.

It puffed up so much that there would be no room for filling....and....I burnt it! The pigs were ecstatic. I mourned.

Today I started out making a pie crust with a bit of sugar and cinnamon in it, and before adding the water, decided to try pressing it into the bottom of the pie plate and baking it like a shortbread. It was doing great, then I got distracted and ......BURNT IT!!!!


So I googled "crustless cheesecake" to get baking times and to see how similar the filling would be....and my crustless cheesecake is chilling in the fridge now with raspberries on top. It will be devoured momentarily. I may return with results if I'm not in a cheesecake-induced coma.

For the filling I used a quart of chevre, four beaten eggs, a large glug of vanilla, and a couple spoonfuls of raw wildflower honey....maybe 1/3 cup? I greased a ....um....don't know what kind of pan it is, it is bigger in diameter than a pie plate, but has straight sides like a cake pan, but the sides are short...it is a white Corningware pan. I greased it with lard and spread the filling in it and baked it for about an hour, starting at 350F for about 45 min then checking it every five minutes. No way was I gonna burn this thing!

It was nicely browned on top and fell to a nice, dense texture and pulled away from the sides of the pan slightly, so I have high hopes that I will be able to get a piece out without massacring it too much.

ETA: It bugged me that I didn't know what that pan was called....it is a 10" quiche pan!