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{Recipe} Turkey Mole

This recipe is pretty intricate but boy am I glad my Mom picked it out to make this last Monday.  We each made our own batch and it’s super delicious!  We couldn’t get the exact dried chiles the recipe called for but the mix we made was not too spicy and the chipotle chiles gave a nice smoky undertone.  There was enough mole sauce for me to freeze 4 pints to use later and I used the rest on half of my turkey meat (I used a heritage turkey so there wasn’t a lot of meat).  I don’t know if I’ll make the recipe again the way I’ve written it but I did freeze a couple quarts of the leftover turkey broth so I can just make a batch of the mole sauce and skip cutting up a turkey to boil.  I think it would be very tasty on pork  :)

A long process but worth every minute when you dig into your plate of turkey mole!

{Recipe} Turkey Mole
(adapted from Gourmet Today)
1 turkey (10-12 lbs), cut into serving pieces
6 Tbsp lard
4 quarts cold water
6 dried ancho chiles
4 dried chipotle chiles
4 dried hot red chiles
2 cups boiling water
1 lb tomatoes, chopped and save juices
1 lb white onions, chopped
1 Tbsp chopped garlic
2 Tbsp masa harina or 2 corn tortillas, torn
1 cup almonds, blanched
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
2 whole cloves
1/2 cinnamon stick, ground fine
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted
1-1/2 oz Mexican chocolate, chopped
1 Tbsp sugar, or to taste
Sea salt

Rinse the turkey pieces well after you have cut up the turkey, pat dry and season with sea salt.  Brown in batches in a dutch oven with the lard (reserve the dutch oven and lard for later).  Put browned pieces of turkey in a large stock pot and cover with cold water, add 2 tablespoons sea salt and bring up to a boil.  Skim off any foam and simmer, uncovered, for 1-1.5 hours or until the turkey is cooked through.  Place the turkey pieces in a bowl and allow the broth to cool.  Removed the fat from the top of the broth and stain out impurities.  (This can be done a day before you plan to serve your mole.  Just put the turkey pieces back in the broth and store in the fridge.)

Meanwhile make the mole.
Remove the stems, seeds & ribs from the dried chiles.  Tear into pieces and place in a bowl.  Cover with the boiling water, use a plate to keep the chiles submerged and let soak for 30 minutes.  Use a blender to puree the chiles, their soaking liquid, tomatoes, their juices, onions, garlic, masa harina and 2 cups of the turkey broth (this will take a few batches).  Place the chile mixture into a large bowl and mix all the batches together well.

In a food processor mix the almonds, peanuts, raisins, coriander seeds, anise seeds, cloves, cinnamon, 2 Tbsp of the sesame seeds and enough turkey broth to form a paste.  Stir the paste into the chile mixture.

In the reserved dutch oven heat up the lard and add in the chile mixture.  Simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened.  Add in the chocolate and enough turkey broth (about 4 minutes) to make the sauce the consistency of cream.  Simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.  Stir occasionally so the sauce doesn’t stick.  Season to taste with the sugar and sea salt.  (This can be done a day before you plan to serve your mole.  Just cool the sauce and store in the fridge)

Put the turkey pieces into the mole and simmer until heated through (I pulled the meat off of my turkey pieces so I could freeze my extra mole sauce and half of my turkey).  Serve with rice, corn tortillas, black beans or anything else you like.  Sprinkle the extra sesame seeds over the top  :)

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Rhubarb is one of my favorites (which you might notice if you search rhubarb on my blog).  :)   This pie recipe is from my Mom and since rhubarb season is just starting up I figured I better clear out the rest of the frozen rhubarb I have before I even start to think about using this year’s crop.  I think I have enough to make one more pie… my husband was very excited about that fact.  There’s nothing wrong with 2 pies in a week, right?  ;)

Served warm with a little ice cream!

{Recipe} Rhubarb Custard Pie
4 cups diced rhubarb (can be a mix of rhubarb & strawberry if you’d like)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1-2 tsp lemon zest
Sea salt, a pinch or two
1/4 cup flour
Double pie crust of choice (I used the same dough as in this recipe)

Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix in the lemon zest, sea salt & sugar.  Stir in the rhubarb and flour.  Pour mixture into a pie plate lined with crust (you can dot the top with a little butter for some extra richness).  Place the second crust on top, fold top crust under and crimp the edges.  Cut a few vents in the top crust, sprinkle a little sugar on top and bake at 450* for 10 minutes.  Turn down the oven temperature to 350* and continue baking for 30 minutes.  Let the pie cool a little before serving.

***Note – depending on how wet your fruit is you may need to add an extra egg or a little extra flour to keep the custard from getting too runny.  I usually just eyeball the mixture.

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I’m really going to enjoy having a whole day off each week!  Since opening my retail store 5 years ago we’ve been open 6 days/week and other than a few holidays I’ve worked almost every single day!  But now that we moved into a smaller location we are closed Sunday-Monday.  It’s super nice not to have to rush on Sunday afternoon to get all my errands & chores done.

My plan with my extra day off is to use it to garden, forage & cook… then I can relax more throughout the week if I have meals ready to go when I get home from work.  This last Monday my Mom and I made a big batch of savory galettes to keep in the freezer.  It will be great to call up my husband, have him bake off a couple and then just finish them off with a poached egg for a quick dinner!

Ready to Freeze

{Recipe} Savory Galettes
(adapted from Coastal Living)
Makes 6 galettes, can easily be doubled or quadrupled :)
4 cups greens of choice (I used blanched & frozen spinach, chard & turnip tops)
2 eggs
1 cup ricotta
1 cup parmigiano-reggiano, grated
2 Tbsp pesto
Sea salt & fresh ground pepper
Crushed red pepper
Fresh ground nutmeg
1 Pastry crust batch, recipe below

Make the pastry crust and place it in the fridge to chill.  Squeeze any excess water out of the greens and chop fine.  Place the greens in a bowl and mix in the eggs, ricotta, parm, pesto, sea salt, pepper, red pepper & nutmeg.  Divide each pastry round into three pieces and roll out into a round.  Put 1/3 cup of the filling in the middle and fold the crust over the top.  Place on a cookie sheet to freeze (after they freeze, wrap in plastic wrap and store in a container in the freezer) or brush with an optional egg wash and bake at 425* for 15 minutes, or until crust is browned.  If baking from frozen add an extra 5 minutes of cooking time.

{Recipe} Pastry Crust
3 cups flour (I prefer soaked flour)
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup butter, cold & cubed
3 Tbsp lard
1 egg
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup cold water

Mix the flour and sea salt in a bowl.  Cut the butter and lard into the flour until it’s in pea-sized pieces.  In a small bowl mix the egg, vinegar & water.  Mix into the flour mixture until the dough comes together, add more cold water if necessary.  Form into two rounds, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or more.

They are delicious!

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I had a little pumpkin puree left over after making baked pumpkin doughnuts last week.  So I flipped through my large binder of recipes to see what pumpkin recipes have struck my fancy in the past (I pretty much pull out every pumpkin recipe I see).  There was a recipe in my binder for Pumpkin Muffins that I had printed out but never made.  And I had all the ingredients, perfect!

Mix the dry & wet ingredients & combine!

{Recipe} Pumpkin-Buckwheat Muffins
(adapted from Recipe.com)
1-1/3 cup flour (I used white whole wheat flour but prefer soaked flour)
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/3 cup sucanat
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup whole milk
2 Tbsp olive oil
Zest from one orange
1/4 cup orange juice (1 regular size orange)

In a large bowl whisk together all the dry ingredients.  In a smaller bowl whisk the eggs, add the wet ingredients & mix well.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir just until combined.  Spoon evenly into a buttered muffin tin and bake in a 400* oven for 15 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then cool on a wire rack.  Enjoy with butter… but an orange glaze would be great on them if served at breakfast!

Cooling Muffins

They sure puffed up nicely and had a wonderful crumb.  I love the addition of buckwheat, it gives the muffins a little more texture and a nice deep flavor.  The orange comes through nicely and they were delicious as a snack and for breakfast with some pastured butter.  See the cute butter dish in the picture below?  It was my Valentine’s Day gift from my husband… does he know the way to my heart or what!  It took him a while to find one that’s wide enough to fit the butter we like.

A nice late night snack :)

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Every Valentine’s Day my husband and I make dessert together, it’s our little tradition that we’ve been doing since we got married.  We both tried to think back over the last 6 years and remember every dessert we’ve made but alas we couldn’t remember them all.  Another reason to be glad I started this blog… we won’t have to rack our brains to remember every dessert from here on out!

This year when I gave my husband a list of items to make he jumped on doughnuts right away.  Since Valentine’s Day was on a work day I didn’t want to do a yeast doughnut or fry them so I went with this pumpkin doughnut because they are baked.  They definitely aren’t a traditional doughnut but they are really tasty!  It would be a fun dessert to make with little kids as they could make any shape they want and then have fun decorating them with sugars, glazes or frosting.

It's a thick batter so make any shape you'd like!

{Recipe} Baked Pumpkin “Doughnuts”
(adapted from buns in my oven)
2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat flour but prefer soaked flour)
1/2 cup sucanat
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, soft
* Finishes: dip in melted butter and roll in cinnamon & sugar, dip in a chocolate glaze, or frost

In a large bowl whisk together the dry ingredients.  In another large bowl mix the pumpkin, eggs, milk and butter until well blended.  Add in the dry mixture and blend well.  Transfer the dough to a pastry bag without a tip or a large Ziploc with the corner snipped off.  Pipe the “doughnuts” onto a greased cookie sheet and use a wet finger to smooth out any imperfections.  Bake for 10 minutes in a 375* oven or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool on a rack and finish them to your liking!

Next time I'll get some white sugar to sugar them with or go all out and glaze them with chocolate!

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I’ve made this cake a couple of times and I love the simplicity and flavor of it.  It’s very quick to put together and can be easily altered depending on what you have on hand.  If you don’t have a scale for weighing the ingredients you can look up the conversions online here or I’d highly recommend getting one.  Kitchen scales are great for baking, making pasta, & bread making!  This is the scale I have and I love that is measures both weights & liquids.  Happy Baking!

Apple Cake

{Recipe} Apple Cake with Honey Glaze
(adapted from Lucullian Delights)
3 cups apples, diced (I used frozen tart apples)
4 Tbsp honey
1 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
200 g sugar
150 ml melted butter or vegetable oil of choice (I used olive oil with a little lemon olive oil mixed in to make it dairy free for a friend)
250 g flour (I used white whole wheat flour but prefer soaked flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp sea salt
To serve: ice cream, whipped cream or whipped coconut milk

Mix the apples in a bowl with the honey and cinnamon.  Let stand for 20 minutes to pull out the juices.  Drain the apple and set aside, put the apple & honey liquid into a small pan to reduce into a thick syrup.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl.  Add the oil and mix well.  Sift in the flour, baking powder and sea salt.  Mix batter well.  Pour into an oiled and floured 9×13″ pan and level the batter (this is a thin cake so don’t worry that is doesn’t fill the pan up very full).  Sprinkle the apples on the top and drizzle over the honey syrup.  Bake in a 350* oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Topped with a touch of whipped coconut milk.

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I find it completely amazing how many meals and the amount of nourishment you can get from one chicken!  If someone came to me looking for cooking advice I would recommend they learn how to roast a chicken and then go about showing them how to use every part of the chicken.  In my opinion it’s such a waste to throw away the carcass and other goodies left in the bottom of the pan.

Early in the week I slow roasted a heritage, free-range chicken that I had purchased from a friend.  My husband and I ate most of the meat off of it in various ways throughout the week.  Then I took what was left in the bottom of the roasting pot and turned it all into usable items.  By no means is this the only way to go about it but maybe it will inspire a few people to use every bit of their next roast chicken.  :)

Remains of my roast chicken.

After roasting the chicken all of the juices and fat can be poured off and they will separate.  This time I just left them around the chicken carcass in the pan and when cool it’s easy to separate them.  First I split up the remains into their usable parts.  Above picture from top left (clockwise): chicken fat, chicken carcass & skin we didn’t eat, giblets, remaining meat picked off the carcass & the gelatin.

Straining the schmaltz.

Chicken Fat (Schmaltz) –  The chicken fat still has some impurities in it so I heated it in a pan and poured it through a cloth into a container.  This removed most of the impurities but then I put the dish in the fridge and once cool I removed the fat and scraped off the little bit of gelatin and fine particles that settled on the bottom.  This fat is pretty stable so you can just keep in the fridge or freeze it until you use it.  It’s wonderful for roasting root vegetables, as the fat in savory pastries or just spread on some rye bread with a pickle.  Because this chicken was raised outside eating grass this fat is full of nourishment like vitamin E & D… see that beautiful yellow color!

Ready to make stock.

Carcass, Giblets & Gelatin – To make some yummy chicken stock I added the carcass, giblets and gelatin to the dutch oven that I roasted the chicken in.  To that I added some vegetable scraps that I had in the freezer, some carrots & celery, peppercorns and lots of filtered water.  I brought this up to a boil, skimmed off the foam and let it simmer for a couple of hours.

Skim the scum off the stock.

After the stock simmered, I strained out the solids and threw them away with the little bit of skin I had pulled off the carcass earlier.  Except the liver and heart, my husband did eat those while they were still hot :)
The stock went into the fridge to cool and the next day I skimmed off the little bit of excess fat on the surface.

Strain the stock & cool.

I froze a couple pints of stock to use later and with the remainder I made a yummy chicken noodle soup!  I sauteed some carrots, celery, and garlic in olive oil.  To that I added some corn, green beans and sauteed leeks that I froze last summer and seasoned the veggies with sea salt and pepper.  The veggies were added to the stock along with the little bowl of meat I picked off the carcass.  So there you have it, that’s how I put my roast chicken to more uses!

Yum!

Now I just need this stock pot so I can make bigger batches!

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I love making up big pans of lasagna to enjoy with others or it’s really nice to have in the fridge so my husband can heat it up for dinner when I don’t feel like cooking.  It’s also an easy item to make your own and use what you have on hand – red sauce & meat, white sauce & veggies, the combinations are endless!  Here’s one I put together this week for my Growth Group -

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{Recipe} Lasagna Florentine
1 lb fresh ricotta
1 egg
1 package frozen greens (spinach, chard, kale, etc), chopped fine
Sea salt & fresh ground pepper
1/8 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1 tsp herbs of choice (parsley, basil, oregano, etc)
2 cups alfredo sauce
1 package fresh lasagna sheets or boiled dried sheets
1/2 lb mozzarella, grated
Optional: 1/2 lb Italian sausage, browned (I used precooked links)
***Note: I doubled this recipe for the pan in the pictures.

Preheat the oven to 350*.
.
Combine the ricotta, egg and greens in a bowl.  Season with sea salt, pepper, nutmeg and herbs.
.
Put a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of a 9×13″ pan.  Put on a layer of pasta sheets, a little sauce, some of the ricotta mixture, sausage if using, and some of the mozzarella.  Repeat layers and finish the top with sauce and good layer of mozzarella.
.
Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.  Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes or until the cheese is browned.  Let cool 15 minutes for serving.

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I made this soup yesterday and it’s tasty, even my husband who isn’t a fan of soup approved!  Sunchokes are one of my new favorite vegetables, they have a wonderful texture and a slightly sweet taste that I really crave.  They are great roasted, mashed, eaten raw in salads or made into soup.  This soup would be perfect to serve as a starter for a roast chicken dinner, it’s light and refreshing in a wintry/comforting sort of way.

Sunchoke Soup

{Recipe} Sunchoke Soup
(adapted from ‘The NYT’s Bread & Soup Cookbook)
8 sunchokes
1 large onion
4 potatoes
2-1/2 Tbsp butter
4 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
8 cups chicken stock
Sea salt & fresh ground pepper
Garnish: cream, creme fraiche, fresh herbs, croutons, etc

Peel and chop the sunchokes, onion and potatoes.  Put them in a dutch oven with the butter, season with sea salt and pepper, and saute until the onions are transparent.  Add in the garlic and saute a few more minutes.  Add the bay leaves and chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove the bay leaves and puree with an immersion blender or blender.  Taste for seasoning and serve in warm bowls with garnish of choice and lots of yummy bread to dip in the soup!

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I’ve always loved chai ever since my cousin introduced me to the Oregon Chai boxes of concentrate.  There’s no telling how many of those case packs from Costco my Mom and I went through when I was in High School.  Lately I’ve been using the Organic Tazo Chai tea bags because they have less sugar and packaging but they just aren’t the same.  I’ve also been trying to cut back on my daily intake of caffeine (still not ready to give up my morning cup of coffee), so varied decaf options for the afternoon are nice.  Fennel, ginger and other herbal teas are what I generally drink, but when I saw Ann Marie’s post for decaf chai I knew it would be a winner.  A quick trip to the bulk department at my local co-op and I was set.

Assembled Ingredients

{Recipe} Decaf Chai Concentrate
(adapted from Cheeseslave)
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp hot red chili powder
20 cardamom pods, smashed open
4 cubes crystallized ginger, chopped fine
1 cinnamon stick
10 whole cloves
2 whole star anise
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
20 whole peppercorns
4 cups + 1/2 cup filtered water
4 tsp loose leaf rooibos tea
To serve: milk & sweetener of choice (I like whole milk & sucanat)

Place all of the spices in cheese cloth and tie with twine (I used my jelly bag).  Put the 4 cups of water in a sauce pan and the 1/2 cup water in a small sauce pan, bring both to a boil.  Turn off the heat and add the spice bag to the large pan and the loose tea to the small pan.  Let the tea steep for 5 minutes and then strain into the larger pan.  Let cool, cover and then leave to steep for 24 hours at room temperature.  Remove the spice bag and pour the tea concentrate into a bottle.  Store in the fridge for up to a week.  To serve heat up the concentrate and add milk and sweetener to taste.

Tea strained in & it's ready to steep with the spices for a day.

I took the spice bag and used it again to make a second batch with the same amount of water and loose leaf tea.  It had a little less bite because the fine spices weren’t as prevalent but it worked fine.  I used the bag again a third time but added in a few fresh spices (cloves, ginger, fennel, star anise, nutmeg) and it worked great again.  So by all means, make a couple batches of chai with the initial spice blend.  Once you find the mix of spices you like it’s an easy tea to make your own!  For example: my husband didn’t like the pepper bite in this one so the next batch I’ll decrease the peppercorns & red chili powder and up the cloves, star anise & cinnamon.

Great afternoon snack!

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