Potatoes and Cheese

Mr. M has a fondness for Potatoes Au Gratin, or Potatoes and Cheese. Usually, I have served him the kind that comes in a box with dried potato slices and powdered cheese. We all know how healthy that stuff is! I have been afraid of making this particular dish. I don’t quite know why.

But I wanted to rise to the occasion for the Dark Days Challenge. A meal in a single dish. I thought I can do this! And make it SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local, Ethical)! Well, maybe SOLEish.

I had potatoes, the kind that are yellow inside. Not the biggest and I probably won’t be trying to grow potatoes in the future; despite my Irish Heritage, I am not the best potato grower. I do grow some great sweet potatoes (yams?) though. More about those later.

I have lovely homegrown leeks,onions,and garlic.

I don’t have any kind of cream though, just yogurt, plain and nonfat. As I mentioned in my last post, I have local butter  and cheese. Cheese! It is not the first food one thinks of when thinking of Mexico, but the variety of local cheeses is amazing! There is everything from dry grating cheese similar to Parmesan, crumbly cheese, stringy cheese, soft cheeses, cheeses  that melt beautifully (especially in chiles rellenos!), so many different types of cheese. My choices for this dish are a crumbly cheese and an aged, local gouda-style cheese.

The only addition to this dish that is not really local are the mushrooms. They are Monterey Mushrooms  and their source is a bit north  of my 150 mile limit, but a family owned business with good stewardship practices, so I consider them to be ethical mushrooms. Ethical mushrooms? Okay, from an ethical business.

Now, like I said, I haven’t made this without a boxed mix before. So I sort of winged it.

Let’s see:

potatoes: check,

leeks: check

mushrooms: check

garlic: check

cheese: check,

something creamy: check

butter: check

Looks okay to me!

I sliced the leek, mushrooms, garlic and potatoes.  I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter and sauteed the leeks until they wilted. I added the garlic and mushrooms and sauteed them for a couple of minutes. I mixed the yogurt (about a cup and a half) with the crumbly cheese (its sort of like feta), and some sea salt and black pepper. I layered the thinly sliced potatoes with the leek mixture, then the yogurt mixture and the Gouda-like, shredded cheese. In that order. When I came to the last layer, I saved the cheese to add later. I covered the casserole with foil and baked it at 325 for about an hour. I removed the foil and added the rest of the shredded cheese and baked it for about a half hour more.

About five minutes after I removed the foil Mr.M started sniffing the air, followed shortly by, “How long until dinner?”. It smelled that good!

He was so eager to try it that I didn’t let  it sit for a while after removing it from the oven. It probably would have looked better if I had. The taste? As great as it smelled. In fact, one of the last things Mr. M said at bedtime was, “There were leftovers, right?”.

Lazy Lime Curd

Luscious Lime Curd

I looove lime and lemon curd! So creamy, so citrusy, so sweet-tart, so luscious! I can’t resist it, despite the fact that it is loaded with “bad stuff” like fat and sugar. Add to  my weakness for curd the fact that I have an exuberant lime tree and a Meyer lemon tree, and I have the perfect storm for making curd. How can I resist?

Well, until now, my efforts have resulted in a less than satisfying product. Curd is finicky. Combining a hot liquid with egg yolks and cooking the resulting stuff usually results in a sort of scrambled egg in lime sauce for me. Even if I strain it, it is a mess and sort of yukky rather than yummy. In addition, almost every recipe for making lime curd calls for finely shredding the peel and adding it. Well, I have an admission to make: I can’t stand hairy food, as I call it: anything that has a texture of shredded coconut in it (a paranoia that stems from a bad childhood experience).  So I haven’t made very much curd.

Until.

Now.

I have a new easy way to make lime curd. Not only that, but I am going to can it. THIS IS NOT A USDA RECOMMENDED PRACTICE. But, rogue that I am I am going to live on the edge and try it. Some people can straight butter and live to write about it. Other people have successfully canned lemon curd. I am going to try it.

The first step in my new process was to elicit Mr. M to help me. Now he is a great dishwasher, but as far as cooking goes, he is a good taster.

Some thirty or so years ago, my Mom gave me an electric juicer. (Thanks Mom, I miss you!)  I love the way it juices and strains the seeds out. The trouble is, after about 50 or so fruits, my shoulder acts up.  So, to whom could I pass this job?

Well, there is only one other here:

My Number One kitchen assistant

I washed the limes and he squeezed them. I prepped the quart jars to store the juice in. We had quite a bit; much more that I need for the lime curd:

Fresh lime juice

Notice that lime juice is not really green; it is actually just a little more greenish than regular lemon juice.  I use it all of the time when I don’t have lemon juice. Well, I would if I didn’t have both kinds of trees.

Now, if you want to try this recipe and you don’t have access to organic fruit, be sure to carefully wash any wax off before the next step.

Before he squeezed all of the limes, I used my peeler to remove some of the peels in long spirals:

Notice that the peels from my limes are yellow because I allow the fruit to ripen

Then I separated about a dozen eggs:

Separate the yolks

Most curd recipes tell you to mix the sugar, butter, and lime juice in a pan, heat it, add a little to the egg (a process called tempering), to raise the temperature of the eggs, and then add the eggs to the rest of the hot liquids. This is where the scrambled eggs happen. I am trying a new tactic:

First I cubed the butter and put it into my Kitchenaid mixer bowl.

Cubed butter

Then I added the sugar and creamed it together, like making a cake:

Cream the sugar and butter

Then I added the eggs, and it still looked like cake batter:

Incorporate the egg yolks

Then I added the lime juice. It curdled:

Adding the lime juice makes it look curdled

I put some of the lime peel strips into my electric kettle:

Strips of lime peel in the pot

I wanted to use the electric kettle because I can control the heat better.

I added the curdled looking mixture and turned the heat onto the lowest possible setting:

Not inviting at this time

At first the butter separated a bit:

At first the butter will separate

But with constant stirring and low heat slowly the curd melded into a smooth mixture.

After the mixture blended together, and had cooked for about five minutes. I took the peels out with a fork. I figured they had done their job by then. I continued to cook it until it coated the back of a spoon and left a clean line when I drew my finger through it. Sorry no photo of this because it is important at that stage to stop cooking it and start canning it. I poured the curd into sterilized, warm half pint jars and topped them with sterilized two piece lids. I processed the jars in a boiling water bath with the water barely boiling for 10 minutes.

The result? Smooth and creamy, no shreds of peel, no scrambled eggs, and the perfect balance of sweet and tart! Yummy!

Here’s the recipe:

Yield: 5 half pints

1 cup of butter

2 cups of sugar, add a half cup if you like a sweeter curd.

12 egg yolks

2 cups of lime juice

4 or 5 strips of lime peel (removed with a parer with as little white pith as possible)

Cut butter into half inch cubes and place into a mixer bowl. Add the sugar and blend thoroughly. Add the egg yolks and blend thoroughly. Add the lime juice and mix thoroughly, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and all is well incorporated. The mixture will appear curdled.

Place the strips of peel into a heavy saucepan and add the curd mixture. Cook over low heat until the mixture will coat the back of a spoon, removing the strips of peel after about five to seven minutes.

Pour lime curd into half pint jars and refrigerate or freeze. Will keep up to 60 days if refrigerated or 6 months if frozen, or so they say; I know mine won’t be around that long!

This method is so easy! The most difficult part is separating the eggs. Next time I may try using whole eggs instead. The second most difficult part is getting past the curdled look when you add the lime juice. If you love curd as much as I do, try this method and let me know if you like it.

After a day of canning and cleaning up (I also  canned 8 pints of chicken stock). We had a simple dinner of Minestra de Pane, so I could use up some leftover stock, day-old bread and some of our abundant chard. A delicious “Peasant” meal for hard workers:

Glorified leftovers

Simple Soup

Creamy potato soup

Yahoo! A new camera shoots clear! As I said in my earlier post, my beloved camera recently went to Camera Heaven, so I have been out of blog posting for a while. Finally, I have a new camera! Not blogging hasn’t kept me from cooking though.

After our trip to Fort Worth to celebrate Christmas with our two daughters and their families, Mr M and I came home a bit fatter and feeling the after effects of rich food and driving long distances. I have been longing for simpler meals. In addition, my little vegetable garden has been happily continuing to grow in our absence; with no care or water, mind you!

Yesterday, I found this lovely leek that I planted as a tiny seedling. Not only was there the big one, it had 2 babies that I replanted for the next harvest.

Fresh from the garden!

In addition I had some yellow potatoes, harvested earlier, that had been waiting for our return. Potatoes and a big leek, hmmmm… I also had just finished making ham stock from a big bone from some ham I found on sale here (local smoked pork). What could I make? Potato soup of course!

I sliced the leek, some onion from the garden, and sauteed them in some local butter:

Delicious local butter

This dairy is very local! The distributor is just a few blocks from my house and the cows live just beyond the north edge of our little town, maybe 8 kilometers from here. I find it very amusing that despite the company name, the cows are black and white Holsteins!

Holstein Cow

Jersey Cow

But I digress, so here is how I made the soup:

I used about 2 tablespoons of the butter to saute the aromatics, and about 1 cup of sliced carrots from the garden. I added about 16 cups of the strained ham stock, and 8 cups of peeled, diced potatoes. To make the stock, I simmered the ham bone with a couple of carrots, half of a large onion, a bay leaf, a few black peppercorns and about a teaspoon of dried,  homegrown marjoram.

I brought everything to a boil and lowered the heat to a simmer until the potatoes and carrots were tender. I used my handy new immersion blender (thank you  Mr M for the lovely Christmas gift!), to puree the soup, leaving some  tiny bits for texture. I added maybe a cup of diced ham. With a little Jack cheese, this soup is a little bit of Heaven!

My Newest Canner!

A while back, I posted about introducing my daughter to the art and science of pickling vegetables. During our Christmas visit to her house, my nine year old grand-daughter, pickled her very own cucumbers:

I made these all by myself!

I think she did a great job! Her Mom is going to have to invest in a boiling water bath canner soon!

AAARRRGGGG! My Camera!

It amazes me how much I loved my camera! It was a gift from my son-in-law a few years ago for Christmas. I took it everywhere, especially when I travel. So I took it with me when I went to visit my daughters  and their families in Texas for Christmas. I noticed that the camera began acting a little odd while I was taking pictures of our traditional Mexican Chocolate party:

seems a little dark

But the next photo and several after it were okay:

When I got home I wanted to document how my little vegetable garden did with no care or water for almost three weeks:

Not too bad, except for the weeds!

But then, right while I was shooting, this happened!

What is happening?!

I thought it would recover again, but when I  went to photograph a recipe I was making for the Dark Days Challenge, here’s what I got inside the house:

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! The strange photos are kind of pretty in their own way but not what I want!

Guess I will be in the hunt for a new digital camera! Yes, another DIGITAL camera. I have an old manual SLR in my closet and I am pretty certain that I couldn’t get the film developed even if I wanted to use it!