As I mentioned, Lisa gave me some heirloom Connecticut Red Fife wheat for trials (from Curtis Eck near Kent, CT).I am hardly a baker and Lisa might have gotten more professional results asking Kaela.
Still, I am an eater and a darn good one at that. So far, I’ve tried a pie crust and made little tarts and a quiche and was really happy with how those came out.
While researching Red Fife, I came upon these biscuits. They look delicious and even better, the recipe is incredibly simple.So, I made them:
They were really good! Next time, I’ll use a little more salt, a little more butter and less milk. I used half Red Fife and half Soft White Winter Wheat from Wild Hive.
Okay, so all of that’s fine and well, but the real test for wheat is macaroni (or if you prefer, pasta). So, I made some of that too. This time, I used 100% Red Fife. The dough handled well (for not being durum semolina).
I tossed the fettuccine noodles with broccoli sautéed in olive oil with garlic scapes. The taste and texture were spot on—hearty but without that cardboard whole wheat taste. It tasted like macaroni!
The broccoli rabe (or rapini, if you prefer) was the first to go! Here it is, going down for the wilt with the garlic scapes, sauteed in olive oil.
Patti gave me a great idea for lettuce: chicken salad wraps. Here’s my chicken salad (chicken from Stone Gardens Farm) wrapped in Patti’s Red Butterhead lettuce.
I made a crock-pot rotisserie chicken for Patti Popp’s Eat Local CT Challenge along with a salad with a (sort of) Thousand Island dressing.
I happened upon a recipe for crock-pot rotisserie chicken at one of Kimberly Hartke’s blog carnivals. Obviously I spend too much time with Engineers because I thought there was a new kind of crock-pot on the market, like with an actual rotating rod. It turned out to be a recipe for cooking chicken in an ordinary crock-pot that tastes just like rotisserie chicken. Still, I like rotisserie chicken, I have a crock-pot, and I had a chicken.
It turns out that there are a quarter of a million (literally) other crock-pot rotisserie chicken recipes. (Google it.) Most of the recipes are quite similar, with variations on the spice mix (or shall we say flavor profile of the dry rub).
A popular technique is to raise the chicken off of the bottom of the pot. Most recommend making several balls out of aluminum foil on which to rest the chicken, but a few suggested using potatoes. I went with the potato idea since you can eat them. I mostlyfollowed the recipe from Real Food, Allergy Free, but borrowed here and there from some of the others.
I made a rub of
3 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp Cayenne pepper
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp pepper (multicolored)
4 minced scallions
1 Tbsp minced spring garlic
I rubbed some olive oil all over the chicken, then worked the “dry” rub into the skin.
I used some leeks cut lengthwise along with the potatoes for the elevation medium.
The chicken went breast down onto the potatoes and I put on the lid. (No water or other fluids—everyone was fairly adamant about that.) I let it go for 4 hours on high and another 2 on low.
It was excellent! I mean really good! The meat was literally falling off the bone (like nearly everyone said it would). Even the breast meat (not my favorite part) was moist and tender. Seriously. I could see making this every week.
Told you the meat was falling off the bone! I didn't think of that as I was removing it from the crock-pot.
Sources:
chicken: Center Brook Farm, (Jesse Miller) New Milford, CT (New Milford farmers market)
Cayenne pepper: Cherry Grove, Newtown, CT, dried here
thyme: mine
potatoes, salt, pepper, paprika, and olive oil from away (although the olive oil is from my own grove, but more about that in another post!)
With a refrigerator full of heirloom lettuce, you almost have to have a salad too.
I tried to do a local Thousand Island dressing. (Operative word is tried.) I substituted yogurt for the mayo and strained it to make it almost Greek style. While there’s ketchup in the fridge, it’s there for other people. Instead, I used some of the roasted plum tomatoes from the freezer. I put the defrosted tomatoes through the food mill, then strained the liquid. I mixed it into the yogurt and added two chopped hard-cooked eggs and two chopped dill pickle spears and some of the pickle juice. I added some red wine vinegar, honey, salt, and pepper. It needs something more, but I don’t know what. I suspect that the problem is simply that yogurt is not mayo. Still, it wasn’t horrible—just missing something.
Really thick dressing...perhaps I drained off too much liquid...
Sources:
Red Romaine and Grand Rapids heirloom lettuce: Sport Hill Farm
My Dark Days Challenge meal #18 was roasted chicken and root vegetables with grains.
This is a rather simple meal, but I needed to make chicken to get the ingredients to make more of my own chicken broth. I thought I had a stock of stock, but I emptied the freezer and found none! Broth in the box is organic and not bad, but it’s not local and it’s not as good as mine.
The grain mix consists of short grain brown rice, black Japonica rice, wild rice, and black quinoa. The packets come attractively and tastily pre-mixed from Boxed Goodes, a local company. This one is called Onyx Whole Grain Blend.
