Berries by the Month

Raspberries in May

Yummy raspberries! Our two bushes are producing an abundant supply for sprinkling on breakfast cereal or stirring into homemade goats' milk yogurt, and just plain eating. It has become my daily ritual to go back out after milking and harvest a bowl full of this delicious, juicy fruit. It's important to wait until the berry turns from red to crimson before plucking. The picture shows the difference in color between ripened perfection and not quite ready. Another way to tell: a ripe berry will fall into your hand when gently pulled. If it continues to hold to the stem, give it another day.

Raspberries are very perishable and only keep a day or two in the refrigerator. They can be stored for up to a year frozen. (Place unwashed, dry berries in a single layer on a cookie sheet in the freezer. Once hard, place in an airtight container and return to the freezer.) Here is a copycat recipe from Food.com for Cheesecake Factory Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake. I substitute my goat cheese for the cream cheese -- ounce for ounce. Can't wait to try this recipe.

I am surprised the birds have left us so many berries. It seems robins spend their day either on the ground next to the bushes or on the wire strung for support. Maybe they are leaving the raspberries because they are too full from eating my blackberries. I did get to pop one blackberry drupelet into my mouth yesterday ... it was delicious!

Our little homestead is providing a different fresh berry each month. Reminds me of those catalogs where you can purchase the fruit of the month to be sent to you fresh. Only this is way better! I've already blogged about strawberries. We enjoyed them in April this year. (Due to the warm winter and early spring, everything is early.)

Next up are the blueberries. They have tiny, unripe berries.

Blueberries in June

After that, the elderberries should be ready. They are in full bloom right now.

Elderberries in July

Figgy Pudding!

So bring us some figgy pudding, and a cup of good cheer!

This line from We Wish You a Merry Christmas played over and over in my head this season ... to the point that I decided to make some figgy pudding. Never having eaten any and not even knowing what it is supposed to look like, it became a culinary mystery to solve.

First, it was important to discover that figgy pudding is not pudding. It's more like moist cake. My husband described it as "the middle of a fig newton with whipped cream on top". That's close, but I never had a fig newton cookie with rum-soaked raisins in it or a rum glaze. :) Second, the recipe instructed to cook it in a bowl in the oven, so mine was supposed to look like the much-prettier-than-mine one pictured above. Third, it is the dickens to serve. It fell apart when I cut it with a knife, but was too firm to dish up with a spoon. I'll have to solve that mystery before next year. And lastly, and most importantly, it is delicious! If it's that good using dried figs from California, I can't wait to use fresh figs from my brother-in-law's tree. (It will be several years before I can make figgy pudding using my own home grown figs as I just planted my tree this summer.)

Here's the recipe:                Figgy Pudding
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food/holidays/figgy-pudding-recipe-laura-kalpakian?src=recipe_footer

dried figs (10 - 12 ounces)
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp orange-flower water
1 box carrot cake mix, oil & eggs as recommended
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp fresh grated nutmeg
½ cup sliced almonds
1/3 cup raisins, soaked in brandy
Grated peel of 1 orange
1 Tbsp marmalade (orange?)
¼ - ½ cup brandy or rum
Whipped cream

Put the figs in a saucepan with enough hot water to cover, at least 2 cups. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Let sit until soft (a few hours).

Once soft, remove figs from the water and place in a bowl. Save the water, which will already be fragrant, and add 1 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and let reduce slightly. Remove from heat. Add 1 tablespoon, maybe more, of orange-flower water. Cool.

Chop figs. Chop them fine, but do not pulverize. Do this by hand.

Using a boxed cake mix for carrot cake, follow the directions, but instead of water, use the fragrant sugary water from the figs. (Save the remainder of this water.) Then add oil and eggs as recommended on the carrot cake mix. Add 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg. Mix in a food processor. At the end, toss in the fig pieces and beat in a bit. Turn into a bowl and add 1/2 cup sliced almonds and 1/3 cup raisins have been softened in brandy or rum. Add the grated peel of one orange and a big dollop (1 tablespoon) of marmalade.

Line a 4-quart metal bowl with foil. Use enough foil that you will have a big collar around the top of the bowl. Spray the foil with nonstick spray. Pour your cake batter into the foil-lined bowl. Set into preheated 350° oven for 30 minutes, then bring the collar gently over top of cake. Continue for another hour and half. Use a skewer to test (it will come out clean when pudding is done). It will take a while because it is dense.

Remove from oven and cool overnight.

Uncover and overturn onto a big serving platter. Carefully remove foil. The cake will be a mound, its size depending on the depth of your bowl.

Make a glaze by adding 1/4 - 1/2 cup of brandy or rum to the reserved fig-and-sugar syrup. Heat. Pour over it just before serving.

To serve, top with whipped cream or crème fraîche. (If your cake is less than perfect to the eye, you can instead quickly frost the cold cake with whipped cream, covering any imperfections, and serve the warm sauce on the side.)

Pumpkin Butter

I first tasted pumpkin butter at a friend's house last spring. Not only was it my first taste, it was the first time I ever heard of it! But one taste was all I needed to know I wanted to make some when canning season came around.

"Make pumpkin butter" languished on my to-do list for a couple of months ... until today. The delay, in part, was due to not being able to find a recipe. To my surprise and dismay, Pumpkin Butter is not listed in the Ball's Blue Book, the classic for canning. An online search turned up nothing. So when an e-newsletter from Country Living arrived, complete with a recipe, I printed it without even reading it.

Yesterday, I carved the pumpkin and steamed the meat. This morning, pureed pumpkin waited in the bowl as I started reading the recipe. The first ingredient was 1 stick unsalted butter ... hmmm. The apple butter I made last year didn't have butter in it. As I read on, I discovered it was a recipe for what must be described as pumpkin-flavored butter. Butter, a little pumpkin and some spices, blended and stored in the refrigerator. This was not what I was looking for! I went ahead and made a small batch, pictured above in the red pyrex container, just to try it out.

But this recipe does not lend itself to Christmas presents or enjoying home-grown pumpkin "off-season", two of my goals for making it in the first place. However, it actually turned out to be a good thing because it made me create my own recipe. My apple butter and pumpkin bread recipes were my inspiration. If sneaking a taste from the pot is a true indication, it turned out well (see jar in picture above). Here's what I did:

the meat of 1 fresh pumpkin, pureed (about 4 cups)
2 cups sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves

Ladle hot pumpkin mixture into prepared pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Water process for 10 minutes. Makes 4 pint jars.

A Hanukkah Favorite

A Hanukkah Favorite ... the by-line says for this Mushroom and Barley Soup recipe I found online at delish.com. Regardless of the holiday, most just wouldn't be complete without the customary foods ... and the memories of eating those traditional dishes around the family table.

Although we don't celebrate Hanukkah per se, we support any festival that commemorates what God has done. So while we enjoy the soup, we will remember God's miraculous provision with our Jewish friends.

Here is the origin of this holiday:
The Festival of Lights / Hanukkah was instituted by Judah Maccabee in 165 BC to celebrate the Jew's reclaiming of the Temple during the reign of Antiochus (who erected an altar to Zeus there, sacrificed pigs on it and banned circumcision). Judah ordered the Temple to be cleansed, a new altar to be built in place of the polluted one and new holy vessels to be made. According to the Talmud, olive oil was to be burned in the menorah in the Temple throughout the night every night. But there was only enough oil from a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest to keep the menorah lit for a single day. Miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply. An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle.

Mushroom and Barley Soup, by Joan Nathan
1 16-oz jar chopped tomatoes, with juice (I used my last jar of 2009 stewed tomatoes)
2 quarts water (I used half chicken broth)
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 stalks celery with leaves, chopped
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped (from the cold frame!)
1/2 green pepper (my last fresh one from this year's garden)
1/2 cup whole barley
1/2 cup dried small lima beans
1 carrot sliced (I used 2 because I like carrots)
1 pound mushrooms, sliced (I used baby bellas)
2 tsp salt (Kosher, of course)
2 Tbsp fresh dill (I didn't have fresh dill so I sprinkled some dried dill on top)

In a large saucepan, combine first 9 ingredients. Bring to a boil. Simmer 1.5 hours, covered. Add the mushrooms, salt and dill. Simmer another 20 minutes. Serves 8-10.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Rice & Soup

I'm not sure why the Africans named this dish Eggplant Rice and Soup, or if that is the Americanized version of the name. It does indeed have eggplant and rice, but it is not soup. I would have named it Eggplant Sauce & Rice, but nobody asked me.

My husband spent two years as a missionary in The Gambia many years ago. He came away several things that have lasted, including a knowledge of the Wolof language and a love for African food. His favorite is Domadah (sp?), a peanut butter sauce for rice. Another is Eggplant Rice & Soup. (Note: you can replace the "eggplant" with pumpkin, cabbage or various other vegetables and have essentially the same dish.) Since eggplant was one of the veges harvested in abundance prior to the predicted freeze last week, supper last night was eggplant rice & soup. It's a delicious and more nutritious alternative to Eggplant Parmesan, the only other eggplant recipe I know. So for those of you looking for a new way to eat your pre-freeze harvest, here's the recipe:

1 lb red meat (I use either ground beef or stew meat chopped into little pieces)
1 medium onion
1 medium eggplant, chopped into small cubes
3 beef bouillon cubes dissolved in 1 cup water
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup catsup
2 cups cooked Jasmine rice

Brown the meat, onions and eggplant in a skillet. Pour in the bouillon water and simmer until the eggplant is tender. Mash the cooked eggplant (I just smash it up with the spoon). Add the salsa and catsup. Simmer for 30 minutes while the rice cooks, adding water as necessary to achieve a thickened sauce consistency. Serve over rice. Serves 4.