Lilac Lemonade

After posting my lilac martini recipe I thought I needed to come up with something for the kiddos to enjoy. Simple syrup is great because you can use it to make so many different drinks. I decided to make up some lemonade for my kids to enjoy at lunch.

Lilac Lemonade

(makes one glass but can be easily multiplied)

Lilac Simple syrup Ingredients:

• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of fresh lilac blossoms

Directions:

1. Combine the water and the sugar in a small saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.
2. Once the mixture is boiling turn the heat down, add the lilac blossoms, and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Strain it into a container. This simple syrup can be saved in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Lilac Lemonade ingredients:

• 1 lemon; juiced
• 2-4 Tbs. of the lilac simple syrup (this can be adjusted to taste)
• 8 oz. of cold water (or sparkling water)
• ice cubes

Directions:

1. Combine the lemon juice and the water in a tall glass.
2. Add 2 Tbs. of the lilac simple syrup to start. Taste it and see if you want to add more. You can always add more but you can't take out what you've added.
3. Add some ice cubes and a couple of lilac blossoms for garnish. Serve immediately.

My kids loved this drink. The lilac and the lemon go very nicely together. I also think that if you wanted to make this into an adult version you could sub out the water for some champagne. I would take a glass of champagne, add a nice splash of lemon juice and about a tablespoon of the syrup. Then you could be really fancy and have a lilac lemonade spritzer...Oh La La!

Sweet Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits

I just entered this recipe into a food competition on Food 52. The competition was for the one recipe you want to be remembered by. That's a hard one. My husband pointed out that it was going to be particularly hard for me because I rarely repeat meals. So we all sat down and started to go over the requests I usually get from my family, but they just weren't "the recipe". Then I started going back in my mind. I went all the way back to my childhood in California. I went back to the house I grew up in and all the fabulous things we had growing in the backyard. The lemon trees, the artichoke patch, the pomegranate bush, and the rosemary bush. The rosemary bush that was as big as me. And my mom would use that rosemary to cook the most wonderful meals. I would go and pick bunches of it for her and I still remember the smell that lingered on my hands when I was done. I managed to find a picture of my Mom with that rosemary bush in the background. I know she is probably going to kill me for sharing this so I will apologize in advance. Sorry Mom.

If you look behind her to the right back on that hill, you can see the rosemary bush and just how big it was. One of the things she used to make from that bush was rosemary muffins. They were more of what I would consider to be a biscuit but they were called muffins. I've been making them for years now too and whenever I do I always get asked for the recipe. So this was "the recipe" I wanted to enter. There was only one problem...it came from a book and was not original. We don't even know what book it came from just that it did. However, I am not easily dissuaded so I just came up with my own variation.

Sweet Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits

(makes 8-10)



Ingredients:

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves; finely chopped
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 Tbs. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 4 Tbs. cold unsalted butter

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a small saucepan combine the buttermilk and the rosemary. Bring it to a bare simmer. Turn off the heat and allow to steep until cool (at least 10 minutes).
3. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the cold butter with two knives or a pastry cutter until the mixture is coarse and crumbly.
4. Add the buttermilk mixture a little bit at a time until the dough balls around your spoon or fork.
5. Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface. Pat it out gently in a circle until the dough is 3/4 - 1 inch thick.
6. Cut the dough into 8-10 wedges.
7. Place biscuits on a silpat lined baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the biscuits are a light golden color. Serve warm.

Side note: If you don't have buttermilk or you just don't want to buy a whole quart when you only need a cup you can take a measuring cup and put in 4 1/2 tsp. of either white vinegar or lemon juice and then fill it the rest of the way up with whole milk to the one cup line. Wait 10-15 minutes and you will have a batch of homemade buttermilk.



I found that I liked this recipe a little better than the one I grew up with. The biscuits are more tender and fluffy due to the use of the buttermilk. I also played with a couple of variations. I added the zest of a lemon to a batch and that was very good. I also added in the zest of a lemon along with 1/4 cup of pine nuts into another batch which was really nice too. But I have to say that I'm a sucker for the plain rosemary biscuit.  A biscuit is a simple thing, but out of all the things I make this is the one I'd like to be remembered by.



Celebrating Spring: Lilac Martinis

Lilacs are in bloom here in my little corner of the world. The smell is positively intoxicating to me. I was out picking a bunch for my bedside table last night when a thought occurred to me that lilac blossoms are probably edible. The next thought in my mind was, if they are edible, what can I do with them???

The answer to my first question was, yes, lilacs are edible. At What's Cooking America they have what I believe is a complete list of edible flowers, which is where I found the answer to my first question. By the way, it is important to look up that sort of information and not just go running around eating random flowers just because they smell good or look purtty. Some flowers, even common ones, are poisonous, so it would be a wise thing to make sure that little blossom you are about to pop into your mouth won't make you sick or worse.

 Then I started looking at recipes. Cooking with flowers has become more and more popular over the years. People have come up with all sorts of interesting recipes. At the blog JIm Long's Garden he gives a really wonderful looking recipe for lilac sorbet. I already have the base for that chilling in my refrigerator.  I also found a recipe for lilac jelly on Michael Rulhman's blog-site. I will be making that the first thing I can this spring after I get the remaining ingredients this weekend. Then I found this website called Old Fashioned Living that has generic recipes that you can insert any edible flower or combination thereof into. They even suggest flower flavored honeys. And if there is enough time I might just have to try my hand at some lilac honey. I think that would make a lovely addition as a sweetener for my chamomile tea later this summer.

Well all that reading got my wheels turning and I thought to myself, self, you should make a lilac simple syrup. And I agreed with that thought. So I did.

Lilac Simple Syrup

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of fresh lilac blossoms

Directions:

1. Combine water and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir so that sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Turn heat down and add the lilac blossoms. Simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Strain and store in a container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

 Lilac blossoms simmering and infusing themselves.

The completed lilac simple syrup. It has a slight green color to it. 

So...what to do with this lilac infused simple syrup...Well, you could buy some sparkling water and make a nice homemade soda for the kiddos. You could also use it to make some lemonade, which would also be rather nice. I think I will try both of those ideas, but the first one I decided to make was a Lilac Martini.

Lilac Martini

Ingredients:

• 3 oz. vodka
• 1 1/2-2 oz. lilac simple syrup

Directions:

1. Fill a martini shaker with ice.
2. Pour vodka and lilac simple syrup into the martini shaker.
3. Shake  it like you mean it.
4. Pour martini into glass and garnish with fresh lilac blossoms. Serve immediately

And it's good, I mean it's really good. It really does have the flavor of the lilac in there. Now, I know drinking isn't every one's cup of tea which is why gave those other ideas. However, if you do like a special drink every now and again this is a a new seasonal favorite of mine.

 Cheers





Swimming Upstream

I thought I'd share this meal even though the recipe isn't mine. Last month when I was smoking all kinds of deliciousness for Charcutepalooza I made hot smoked salmon. I had started out wanting to make traditional smoked salmon, Or lox as it is better known, but alas the smoker I was using wouldn't stay below 90 degrees. So I had to accept that homemade lox was not in my future that day, change gears, and set course for hot smoked salmon. The results were nothing short of beyond my wildest expectations.

I had seen a recipe for risotto with smoked salmon, spinach and goat cheese in the Williams-Sonoma Complete Pasta Cookbook. I admit that I was a little huffy because the recipe called for smoked salmon, and I knew they meant lox, but I decided to just lay the smoked salmon fillets on top of the risotto. Since I was the only one cooking and I didn't object to this solution I moved on.

I had been curing the salmon in the refrigerator for a couple of days. Then I had rinsed it off, patted off the fillet, and allowed it to dry in the refrigerator overnight. This gave time for the surface of the salmon to become slightly tacky, which helps the smoke stick to and permeate the fish. I smoked it for 3ish hours using hardwood lump charcoal and alder wood chips. While it was in the final stages of smoking I cooked up the risotto and dinner was ready.

My husband and my oldest daughter are not fans of eating things with fins and scales...so this was a little sketchy as far as things to serve them. But sometimes, on the rarest of occasions I make something that I like to eat and let them just suck it up.

My husband didn't gag which is actually a high compliment when it comes to eating fish. He said it was OK but that it wasn't something he would request. My 11 year old daughter was a little more than skeptical but she ate it without complaining, and even said it was "alright". My 3 year old daughter Lily didn't like it, but she won't eat anything without moaning and groaning right now. When it comes to her opinions on food I just sort of glaze over them for now. She did enjoy having me take a picture of the food on her fork though, and I promised her I'd include it in my blog, so here is Lily's "food shot":

My 20 month old son loved it though, so that made up for the other families lackluster responses. He shoved mouthful after mouthful of the salmon into his mouth, nodding and "ummming" the whole time. He abandoned his fork, which was, let's face it, only getting in the way. He clapped his hands for seconds and cried when it was all gone, screaming "No! No! No!".

It was adorable and made me feel really good. I also found the meal to be really amazing although I held it in better than my son did. Whoever came up with the idea that fish and cheese don't go together has clearly never had this meal. Smoked salmon and cream cheese go well together and everyone knows that so it wasn't a far reach to assume that goat cheese with its similar tang, and smoked salmon would also go well together.

I would absolutely make it again, although perhaps I would spare the family the smoked salmon and just make them some smoked chicken instead. I'll save the smoked salmon for Jude and myself.

I used the small amount of leftover salmon that I was able to hide from my son in a cold salad the next day and it was just as good. Unfortunately Jude got a look at what I was eating and insisted that I give him some of that as well. Such is the life of a mom, meals are hurried and often shared.

My "food shot"

Spicy Mocha Pork Tenderloin with Sweet Potato

Today I decided to enter my very first food contest. I entered one at Food 52 for their coffee recipes. The winner gets a marble rolling pin from Williams Sonoma. I do love coffee. I always have. I came up with a few ideas but the one I settled on was Spicy Mocha Pork Tenderloin with Baked Sweet Potato. We had it for dinner tonight and it was really good if I don't say so myself. This year I'm really trying to push myself to come up with my own recipes. I'm trying to do at least one a month. This one is definitely a keeper. I'll post the other two ideas I had in the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed though, I have wanted that rolling pin for years now!

Yo-Play; The Caramel Connection

My two youngest go through yogurt like it's going out of style. It's expensive, especially since I only buy them organic dairy products so I can avoid giving them growth hormones, anti-biotics and what-not. Recently I saw a blog on homemade yogurt, and how easy it was to make by using your crock pot. But crock pots are big and take up a lot of counter space, and counter space is not plentiful in my kitchen. Plus, you still have to buy store-bought yogurt to use as a starter, which goes back to the "how expensive it is" issue. But, it got me thinking. A little later I saw another blog on making yogurt from The Leftover Queen. This time it sounded much more promising. The author was saying that she had gotten a starter that was re-usable, sort of like a sour-dough starter. So you take some of the leftover yogurt and use it to make a new batch and just keep going like that. Plus she makes her yogurt on the counter in mason jars. This sounded much more appealing to me.

The Company she got her culture from is Cultures For Health which offers all sorts of different cultures and starters for your enjoyment. They even have a sour-dough starter but I'll tell you another way to get sour-dough starter for free in an up-coming blog. The re-usable yogurt cultures will run you $12 each, but since you only have to buy it once it evens out over time. You can make the yogurt using pasteurized milk or raw milk, and it's always nice to have options. So taking her word for it I ordered the culture she recommended which is the Filmjolk culture.

I activated my culture and whipped up a half gallon of homemade yogurt. It is not as thick as store-bought but has much more of a tang which I personally enjoy. I sweetened it by drizzling honey over the top and my kids wolfed it down happily. Then there was the cost, a half gallon of organic yogurt, which is what they go through in a week, costs me $6 at the grocery store. The 1/2 gallon of organic yogurt I made at home cost me $3. So lets do the math here... $6 a week = $312 a year with store-bought organic yogurt. Now with the homemade starter made with organic milk it is $3 a week = $156 a year (plus the $12 for the initial culture)!

There is one more advantage to making your own yogurt. You get to play with the flavors. I am going to do a series of posts for the new flavors I come up with. Hence the name of  the title of this blog "Yo-Play" (This is also what I named this culture. After all, it is a living thing and therefore deserves a name). I am keeping a non-flavored batch of Yo-Play to keep using as a start-up for following flavors, but then I am making smaller batches to play with the flavors. The first flavored yogurt I made was caramel, and it was super easy to do.

My oldest daughter Naiya celebrated her 11th (gulp) Birthday a few weeks ago. Every year I let my family pick a dessert for me to make for their Birthday. This year she wanted a banana cream pie. I made one several years back from one of Emeril Lagasse's recipes. It was so good. I mean really, really good. The recipe calls for two sauces to drizzle over the top of the pie; a chocolate sauce, and a caramel sauce. I was not a huge fan of the chocolate sauce but the caramel sauce was to die for and I remembered that from last time. So, this time I just made the caramel sauce. And "unfortunately", there was some left over, so I "had to" make this yogurt, and I'm glad I did.

All I did was mix it the caramel with a cup of milk until I liked how it tasted. I think I used somewhere between 2-3 teaspoons. Then I added a tablespoon of the yogurt I had already made, stirred it up and dumped it into a small mason jar. I placed a coffee filter over the top, secured it with a rubber band so nothing could get in there that wasn't supposed to, and popped it in the oven with the light on overnight. I know I said "counter top" and that will happen, but the culture needs it to be between 70-80 degrees to do it's thing. Since it's still below that here at night I put it in the oven with the light on to reach that desired temperature range.

The next morning after it had been culturing for 12-18 hours I put a lid on it and put it in the refrigerator to stop the culture process. After six more hours the caramel yogurt was ready. And it was good! What I really like about it is how subtle the caramel flavor is, and the sweetness in completely integrated throughout the yogurt. Plus it seems slightly thicker than the plain batch. Either way it is disappearing quickly and I will absolutely be making another batch of it. Caramel yogurt = success.

Smoking Nostalgia

nos·tal·gia [no-stal-juh, -jee-uh, nuh-] 
–noun

1. a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.

2. something that elicits or displays nostalgia.

A younger version of me

For the past month I've been playing with smoke. As have all us Charcutepaloozers. The 4th challenge laid before us was to make our own hot smoked salmon (we'll get to what "hot" smoking is in a minute), Canadian bacon, spicy smoked pork loin, or tasso ham. I opted to try a few of them. So, I made the hot smoked salmon, and then split a 4 lb. pork loin in half to make Canadian bacon and the spicy smoked pork loin. I also made some smoked almonds because, well, why not? Oh and some maple bacon! How could I forget the bacon?!

There are two main types of smoking, cold and hot. Cold smoking is when you keep the temperature below 90 degrees in your smoker. This type of smoking is used for the long term preservation of meats. It takes days or even weeks to complete. A meat that has been properly cold smoked can be kept without refrigeration for a year or two without any problems. Hot smoking is when meat is both smoked and cooked. The temperature of the smoker is typically kept between 200-300 degrees and the smoking can last anywhere from 2-24 hours. This was the type of smoking called for in this months challenge.

Everything I made came out wonderful. Even the smoked salmon that I was expecting my family to reject disappeared at dinner. My 18 month old son ate at least as much as I did, shoving large quantities into his mouth while making satisfied noises. My husband said that it "didn't make him gag" which is actually really good considering how much he hates fish. But I'm not here to talk about salmon. I'm not here to tell you about how everyone including my uber picky 3 year old that doesn't even like pizza right now scarfed down the spicy pork loin. I'm not even here to confess to you that I secretly made the almonds just a little too spicy for the kids so that my husband and I could enjoy them all to ourselves. Not even about the BLT's. I am here to talk about nostalgia, and how I happily smoked myself into a childhood memory.

I started doing this by making Canadian bacon. And doncha know I considered typing the whole blog like this, eh? But I decided that would get rather annoying and I don't want you to not read this because of some silliness on my part, so instead I've decided to hold your attention with the process.

It started with the brine, and ended with the smoker. It looked a little like this:

 The pork loin sat in a brine with some garlic, sage and thme, in my refrigerator for a couple of days.

After 3ish hours in the smoker it was done. I used maple wood for the smoke, with hardwood lump charcoal for the heat.

When it was done and the homemade English muffins were done as well.

Everything smelled amazing. I smelled like I had been sitting next to a campfire, the house smelled like fresh English muffins, and everyone was hungry for dinner. And we'll get to that in a minute, I promise, but first I need to give you the background. And that is where my mom comes into all of this.



Me and my mom watching hang gliders in California

My mom is not only one of my favorite people on the planet, but she is also an amazing cook. I remember watching her make dinners after working all day, and while I'm sure they were not all wonderful and perfect, in my memory they are (with the exception of one Thanksgiving turkey). She made all our breads and pastas from scratch. I remember standing at the edge of the counter and cranking out the pasta for her, eating the raw pasta scraps that fell off the machine. Every Sunday she would make sourdough pancakes with her starter that she kept in a little brown crock. Our backyard had a lemon tree, a lime tree, a rosemary bush that was bigger than me, an artichoke patch, and a pomegranate tree. She's the Mary Poppins of the kitchen. She is the reason I cook the way I do today, and now when she visits she gets to kick back and let me cook for her. 

Someone hand her a tissue please so I can get on with this.

Whenever my mom didn't feel like planning a meal she pulled out the green notebook. This notebook holds all of her best recipes as well as inherited family recipes. She would plop it down in front of me and ask me to "pick something". Out of all the fabulous meals my mom made, consistently there were two things she made that were not in that notebook that I would request. One was her hot dogs and beans, and the other was:

English Muffin Breakfast Sandwiches

(Serves one but can be multiplied to suit your needs)

(And it makes a good dinner too)

Ingredients:

• One English muffin, halved. I followed the recipe in the link but I used lard instead of shortening.
• Two slices of homemade Canadian bacon (smoked maple bacon would be good here as well. I'd use four slices, two on each sandwich half).
• Two pineapple rings (fresh would be best, but I won't tell if you use canned)
• Two slices of American cheese (white or yellow, whatever suits your mood)

Directions:

1. Toast the English muffin.
2. Heat the Canadian bacon in a small frying pan.
3. Assemble sandwich in the following order; English muffin half, Canadian bacon, pineapple ring, slice of American cheese. Repeat with other English muffin half.
4. Toast the sandwich in your toaster oven or under a broiler until the cheese is melted. Serve immediately.

Besides being incredibly easy to make, they are also very satisfying to eat. You get that whole sweet/salty thing going. Plus the cheese is all melty, and the muffin is all crunchy so you get the whole texture thing too. But really for me, it just takes me back. I made some fairly "fru-fru" things with the rest of the meats I smoked this month, and I'll post on them in the next couple of weeks. This was simple though, and sometimes simple is best.



Marching On With Our Backyard Birds

We are continuing to see more and more birds as the weather warms up. I've been keeping track of the new comers on a scrap of paper tucked inside my bird identification book. The Christmas tree has been gone for some time now. We are just using an assortment of bird feeders scattered around the yard with a mix of birdseed, nyjer seed, black sunflower seeds, and meal worms filling them up. Word is continuing to spread about our little backyard buffet and at times now there will be up to 30 birds flitting and hopping around the yard. Lily and Naiya are becoming quite the pair of ornithologists. Naiya's favorite is the Mourning Dove, while Lily is a big fan of the "Ckick-a-dee-dee-dee". Jude, meanwhile, is desperately trying to learn how to say "bird".

Here Lily is reminding Jude not to bang on the glass or he will scare the birds away.

She's such a big sister.

For March we continued to have our usuals; the Cardinals, Chickadees, Mockingbird, Juncos, House Finches, Sparrows, and Mourning Doves. We also had the Carolina Wren, Robin, and Starlings which I already posted about. There were two more species though.

 Tufted Titmouse

This is a really cute little bird. It is becoming one of my favorites. Plus its name cracks me up. One thing I am noticing is the different eating habits that each species has. For instance the Titmouses (Titmice?) will hang on the feeders to eat, while the Juncos have to perch on a branch and reach up.

Downey Woodpecker

I was surprised to see a woodpecker at the feeders since I always associate them with that drumming on the tree trunk sound. I'm assuming that it is after the meal worms in the birdseed mix I make, but I have no facts to base that theory on. The first time I saw it I thought it was a fluke, but it has been back since so it must know what it's doing.

There have been two other species that have shown up in this first week of April, but I will resist talking about them until the end of the month. I really think I'm enjoying this at least as much as the kids are. I keep finding myself wandering over to the windows to see who's out at the feeders.