Sassy Cow Dinner at Nau-Ti-Gal

The Sassy Cow dinner at Nau-Ti-Gal last night was, well, delicious!  Chef Kris prepared a delightful combination of courses using ingredients from Sassy Cow Creamery.  The farmers were there to talk about the farm and the food as well. 

The first course was deep fried Sassy Cow cheese curds with two sauces and greens with a vinaigrette.

The second course was a tomato bisque with Sassy Cow heavy cream.  It was so delicious I forgot to take a photo of that course!

The third course was Shrimp and Cheddar Cheese Grits-delish!

The main course was Mushroom Duxelles stuffed Tenderloin of Beef with whiskey peppercorn sauce

And the dessert course was also so delicious I didn't get a chance to take a picture!  Chocolate Ganache Torte with Sassy Cow's Salted Caramel Ice Cream. 

Everyone received a parting gift from Sassy cow which included chocolate milk and string cheese!

Kudos to Chef Kris and the Nau-Ti-Gal staff for a delicious meal, and many thanks to Sassy Cow Creamery for bringing these delicious products to our market!



Beast's Kitchen: Chicken Feet

Beast's Kitchen: Chicken Feet

Chicken Feet

Chicken Feet...not something you see every day in the grocery, at least here in the Midwest...I recently purchsed some from Farmer Paul at JenEhr's stand at the Dane County Farmer's Market.  Tim had said he would be interested in trying them.  I took one look at the creepy things and thought YIKES!  He's really going to eat that!  OK, now how to prepare them?  So I went to the trusty Internet and started searching for recipes.  Tim thought just deep fried would be good, but I wanted to see how they are traditionally prepared before making that decision.  The recipes I was finding were mostly with long slow cooking methods so I thought perhaps deep frying them would make them dry.  So I tried a traditional recipe I found at this site: http://www.myseveralworlds.com/2007/01/24/dim-sum-style-chicken-feet/ 

The process involves deep frying, simmering, marinating and then steaming the feet, and is a 2-day process.  The end result is somthing that smells quite delicious and looks, well, disgusting.  Tim was a trooper though and ate the ET like feet and even said he'd eat them again, but did admit he'd rather have them deep fried after all.  For me it was an interesting cooking challenge, and I have absolutely no desire to eat them!

Curried Goat Stew

Yesterday at the Dane County Farmer's Market one of the vendors was selling goat steaks and stew meat, so I decided to try the stew meat.  I have a bunch of veggies on hand and some homemade broth and it sounded like it would make a nice curry.  It's in the slow cooker now getting ready for tonight.

The winter market seems to make its living off the popular market breakfasts once the market moves to the Madison Senior Center, but I go for the shopping.  Right about this time every winter I crave fresh local veggies and they can be found at the market.  Yesterday I picked up some Empire apples and shallots from Green's Pleasant Springs Orchard, some fresh spring greens from Don's Produce, spinach from Snug Haven, shiitake mushrooms from a farmer I'm not familiar with, aged white cheddar from Hook's, chicken feet and veggies from  JenEhr and the goat meat.  Tim likes to eat wierd things...he recently tried a dish with duck tongue at an asian restaurant-YUK!  I had mentioned to him that JenEhr had chicken feet and he said he'd like that, so I got some to deep fry for him.  He rarely gets deep fried anything so I thought that would be a fun treat for him.  Since I don't really eat meat I'll try a bite or two of the goat and then pick around it for the veggies in the stew.  The goat meat seems very lean, and similar to lamb at first glance...we'll see how the curry turns out later today.  I like my curry thick and spicy so I'll puree some of the vegetables later to give it the texture and taste it for more spices before seasoning-YUM!

Door County Cherry Granola Bars

Happy New Year!  Welcome 2012...the year the world is supposed to end, or some such nonsense!

Beast and I have not stopped cooking and baking-we've just been so busy we haven't had time to write in the blog.  I'm working full-time now at Sub-Zero and Wolf and it has been an adjustment for us in time management. 

One day at work I came across a recipe in Fitness Magazine for some granola bars that sounded really good.  I hate the store-bought processed ones with all the preservatives and stabilizers so I'm always looking for a recipe for granola bars that will stave off my mid-day hunger and will hold together while eating...challenging. 

Yesterday I made these with a slight modification to the recipe and they are a great consistency and quite tasty.  I can't wait to try them with peanut butter instead of fruit and nuts. 

I used dried Door County cherries and pecans and adjusted the amounts to about 6 oz cherries and 1/2 cup pecans and increased the chocolate chips to about 1/2 cup. 

They make a great healthy snack or breakfast!

Cherry Bounce

It's Door County Cherry Time!  The sweet cherries are done and the tarts have begun.  Last week I picked up a quart and made cherry bounce.  This week it will be cherry pie filling for holiday gifts. 
Here's a quick and easy recipe for Cherry Bounce:
1.75 liter bottle or jar
1 quart tart cherries
1 cup sugar
1 liter vodka, bourbon or brandy (I used potato vodka so it's gluten free)


Stem and pit the cherries (or don't pit as you prefer)
Pour 1 cup sugar over cherries
Cover with liquor of choice
Wait until December to enjoy!
Watch out if you eat the cherries-they'll be intoxicating :)

Dill Pickles

CANNED GOODS

It's pickling time again!  I have a love-hate relationship with canning since we don't have air conditioning and somehow it is always time to can on the hottest possible day of the year.  That said, I love it all winter when we can eat the local produce I canned during the summer for just pennies of the cost of store bought.  And I know there aren't any rat whiskers, mouse droppings or other disgusting things in my canned goods.

Last year my pickles were so spicy that hardly anyone could eat them...a few too many hot peppers in the mix, so this year I just made basic garlic dills.  I learned a new trick this year and can't wait to see if it really works.  Supposedly if you add grape leaves to the jar it keeps the pickles crunchy.  I had good success last year by soaking the pickles in cold saltwater for a day before canning them. 

I had 9 pounds of pickling cucumbers and this recipe made 10 quarts.  Use the wide mouth jars...it works best for fitting the most pickles in a jar.  You'll be surprised how few fit in a jar.  These have only 5 per jar.

I adapted this recipe I found through a google search and adjusted the amounts because I had nine pounds of pickles rather than seven.

9 pounds pickling cucumbers

10 grape leaves

50 peppercorns

30 cloves garlic

1 large bunch dill heads split equally between jars

1.1 oz pickling salt

10 cups distilled water

9 1/3 cups white vinegar

Next up....pickled watermelon!