Grinding Pork, Making Breakfast Sausage

Well....

Ground Pork

I'm experimenting again.

I haven't used my meat grinder in quite some time

but a great deal on some "pork roast" 

 made me pull it out again.

This meat was labeled  "for Carnitas", (a Mexican dish).

Heavily marbled, it seemed the right type of meat for breakfast sausage.

I ground it up, sort of,

the fat keep clogging the grinder,

added herbs and seasonings, then fried it.

It was ok, not great, dry tasting,

I guess I need to experiment some more.

Round Two!

I decided to grind some more to use as taco meat.

I trimmed away some of the fat this time and that helped getting it through the grinder.

I sautéed  the meat with some onion,

garlic and jalapeno peppers,

then added chili powder, cumin, diced

 tomatoes and tomato sauce.

I cooked until the liquid had reduced a bit,

then served in taco shells with grated cheese on top.

That turned out really good.

So the first batch, with the fat, turned out dry,

and the second batch with the reduced fat turned out great.

Maybe I cooked the first batch too long?

Maybe the acidity of the tomatoes in the second batch helped to tenderize it?

 Anyone have any opinions/suggestions?

Till next time,

Bonjour

How We Grow Lavender

Well....

Let me just start by saying, lavender doesn't grow well in North Texas!

If I lived about 3 hours south down interstate 35 I would have fields of it.

Down around Austin there are real lavender farms, acres upon acres of lavender.

It's the new cash crop!

Austin is hilly... read.... loose, drainable soil.

We have tight, not so drainable soil.

What grows well here are cotton and maize, useful crops I'm sure,

but...

 cotton and maize don't make for a good soap or bath tea....



SPANISH LAVENDER



So,
What to do, what to do?

We've tried and failed with the elusive lavender

until we talked with a master gardener.

She was one of the speakers at the lawn and garden expo a few years ago.

Her advice was....

Dig a large hole, add about one gallon of pea gravel, 

insert the lavender plant,

backfill halfway with pea gravel,

backfill remainder of hole with your native soil,

ring your lavender from the stem out, about two feet,

with a layer of white marble chips.

Viola....

 The dynamics are...

the pea gravel mimics the rocky soil, aiding in drainage,

the ring of white marble chips reflect the sun into the plant center

aiding in faster dry time of the foliage during wet weather.

Seems to be working, we have eight lavender plants all doing great.

As to the type of lavender,

we have one spike, huge plant but the flowers are very elongated,

the other seven are Spanish,

it's more compact, with bushier (fatter) flowers.

I prefer the Spanish.

Lavender it seems, likes loose, rocky, well drained soil.

Don't over water.

I hope you give lavender a try, it's a lovely plant and our bees love it,

 they also love the buford holly and the rosemary.

Let me know if you have success with this method.

And, as usual, it's way past my bed time.

Till next time,

Bonlour

The Lavender Is flowering

Perfect for a bath  tea!

Till next time,

Bonjour

Rosemary and Parmesan Madeleines



ROSEMARY AND PARMESIAN MADELEINES

 

Don't Panic....

I got the butter scraped up and
the oven is as good as new!

Another vacation day, can't get out, icy and freezing in north Texas.
Some baking is in order.

I saw this picture on Lorrie's blog a few weeks ago and thought
this sounds good, maybe I'll give it a try.
She didn't list a recipe so today
 I googled and found one at Williams - Sonoma along with the picture.
I don't have a madeleine pan but
I do have corn stick pans, just as good I'm thinking.

So....I'm going over the list of ingredients,
have everything except the cake flour.
What's the difference between cake flour and all purpose flour I ask myself?
Another trip to the computer.
Seems cake flour has less protein (8% or less)  and is made from the softer endosperm of the wheat.
 All purpose (10% protein) is a mix of hard and soft wheat. Bla, bla, bla.
Humm...
Is there a substitute?
More googling!
Why yes, there is.
For 1 cup of cake flour you can substitute
7/8 cup all purpose flour with 1/8 cup cornstarch.
Ok then.
Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 cup cake flour

3 tsp. finely minced fresh rosemary

(I am not going outside to clip rosemary, dry, smooshed is good enough.)

1 tsp. fleur de sel (very expensive salt, normal sea salt will have to do!)

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper (I used lemon pepper instead.)

4 eggs

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

2 Tbs. sugar

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°

Brush two madeleine corn stick pans with 2 Tbs. of the butter, set aside.

Sift the cake flour into a bowl and gently stir in the rosemary, salt and pepper, set aside.

In your mixing bowl wisk the eggs until fluffy. Add the cream of tartar and sugar. Wisk some more.

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour and cheese, then fold in the remaining butter.

Spoon the batter into the buttered molds so the batter is even with the rims.

(Keep in mind, I'm using corn stick pans so there was no spooning, I had to scrape it off the spatula then spread it with a  table knife. Very thick batter!)

Bake for about 12 minutes. Immediately remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

Sounds easy enough, right?

WRONG!!!!

BUBBLING, BUTTERY MESS!!!

I'm sitting on the kitchen stool waiting, I hear sizzling, I see a flash in the oven.

What the hell heck?

Open door of oven, butter is dripping everywhere, trying to ignite the element, crap darn.

Smoke alarm goes off!!!

Quickly get the cookie sheets out and put the stick pans on top of those.

Back into the oven they go. (gotta keep that smoke contained)

Smoke alarm stops.

After about 15 minutes total I guessed they were done,

it was hard to tell with all that butter floating on top!

There was no quickly transferring to a wire rack happening,

more like wait a few till all that butter stopped bubbling.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for the oven to cool so I could scrape up the butter.

They taste ok, a little heavy, and suprisingly, buttery.

Probably would have been better if I'd used cake flour.

After more googling I found that cake flour is better able to absorb fats,

maybe I should have paid attention to the bla,bla,bla?

Steve faired better with his Confetti Corn Bread.

CORNBREAD WITH GRATED CARROTS, CHOPPED ONION AND JALAPENOS

I will try this recipe again, only next time, WITH cake flour.
Hope your day is going better than mine.

Till next time,
Bonjour

No Dallas Super Bowl Sunday For Me!!!

WELL....

I had another quilt post scheduled for today

but since the weather was so super, I was able to venture

outside for some much needed sunshine!!!

Laundry was hung out, carrots and fruit trees were planted,

spray painting projects were finished, herbs were meddlied, bees were checked on,

and many pictures were taken.



FRUIT TREE




LADY POSING IN FRONT OF THE ROSEMARY

 






RED DOG



STEVE PLANTING CARROTS

























BEE HIVE



NATHAN MIXING HERBS






REDOING AN OLD FLOOR LAMP



POND AND MORE ROSEMARY





Also made some herb bread for Nate to take to his mom,

un-molded soap, and generally just enjoyed the warmer weather.

BAD weather on it's way!!!

Till next time,

Bonjour

OOPS And Super Nate Spice

OOPSIE...

I posted my Christmas swap today only to realize I had forgotten to enclose all of the goodies!

Drat, so be expecting two packages Sue.

 In a previous post I mentioned baking a Foccacia bread for Roland's b-day. (Roland is my husband's employer) Well, one of Steve's co workers saw it and asked for one also. My pleasure!!!

The bread machine is super handy when you want bread with very little effort.

Just throw the ingredients in, push dough cycle and Viola, 90 minutes later you have kneaded dough.

Oil the pizza stone, sprinkle with herbs or spices, coat/roll dough in THE SUPER NATE SPICE, let rise 30 minutes and bake. Couldn't be easier!

The reason I bring this up is,

Sue wanted to know what THE SUPER NATE SPICE is.

I grow herbs mainly as additives to my soaps and such but we also eat them.

Rosemary, thyme, sage, all kinds of mints, oregano, Mexican oregano, parsley, basil, lavender, fennel, lemon balm, lemon verbena, I think that's all.

Let me just start with this...

We have Nathan, my grandson over every weekend.

When Nathan was about 6 years old (he's 12 now) I started to teach him about herbs. How to identify them and how to use them for cooking and healing. (Also taught him to make soap.)

Well, he has taken a great interest in the cooking part. (His favorites are gravy, bread and popcorn.)

He takes the gathering basket, goes out into the herb beds and gathers herbs.

Then he brings them back in, washes them, puts them into the drying baskets and labels them.

Now comes the fun part.

When they're dry he gets creative.

He has blends that he does. Earthy, lemony, spicy, minty, or a mixture of all.

(You never know what he might do.)

He gets down the mason jars, the mortar and pestle, the sea salt and starts blending.

(He also likes to make lemon pepper.)

VIOLA

SUPER NATE SPICE!!!

(The kid can make some awesome popcorn with his blends, (just watch out, sometimes he adds crushed red pepper seeds!!!)

So when I make bread I just choose what category I want and go with it.

He is just too cool!!!

Old school phrase, I know.

So to answer your question Sue, It's just a blend of herbs, Nathan Style!

Now, where is that snuggly quilt?
There's time for a few minutes of TV before beddy-bye!

Till next time...

Bonjour

"Chillin"

Just Chillin...



Nate cooking breakfast



We had a great show yesterday, sold lots of soap etc....

This morning we are just trying to take it easy, having a leisurely breakfast to start our day. I've been teaching my grandson Nate how to cook biscuits ( I say biskits, spell ckeck says biscuits) & gravy with fried eggs on the side. He really enjoys making the gravy, adding the herbs & seasonings. He's learning to identify the different herbs that I grow & how to use them in cooking.

You never know what's going to be added to the gravy... dill, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage or all of the above! I know it sounds weird but it always turns out great. He loves to medley the herbs for his special jar of,    SUPER NATE SPICE!!!    Who knows, he might be a great chef some day.    Steve is going to make some corn bread to go with the HUGE pot of beans he made Friday. Half of the beans for cornbread & beans the other half for chili. Don't have any ground meat, but there's some cooked roast in the freezer we can dice up to put in the chili. I guess you know what we are eating this week!



Nate cutting herbs,



lots & lots of  herbs!





Got to go unload the truck so I can inventory the product, make more ETC....

Till next time....

Bonjour