Rest In Peace, Sweet Bonnie

This post is for my family and friends who follow my blog because I'm too sad to actually talk about this and it seems easier to write it just once, rather than send emails to everyone.

Our Bonnie died this afternoon. She was 13, and the most loving and good natured dog I've ever known. She also had a great big personality, and as a proper Sheltie, treated our kids like her sheep and herded them every chance she could when she was younger. We have so many good memories.

Steve and I both held her as she passed and it seemed peaceful for her, but it was torture for us. Even when you think you are prepared and you know what is coming, I guess nothing really prepares you for the pain of the actual event. It was 1000 times harder than I expected, and I am a million times more heartbroken than I ever imagined...

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Drops

I found another great way to get rid of an excess of milk. Cookies! If you leave a plate of these little goodies out on the table, your family members will be reaching for a glass of milk in no time flat.



This is the ultimate cookie recipe, with something for everyone. It has peanut butter, oatmeal and chocolate chips all rolled into one delicious recipe, which I found in The Ultimate Cookie Book by Better Homes and Gardens. (Thanks, Mom!)



The cookbook has more than 500 cookie recipes and it includes tips for how to make better cookies, which comes in handy for people like me who are a tad bit cookie challenged. One of the things I don’t like about cookies is how long it takes to bake them. This recipe was easy, but it must make a billion cookies. Actually the recipe says it makes 48 (!!!), but I wouldn’t know because I gave up after 24 because we were heading out to the movies and I ran out of time. So I put the remaining dough in the fridge and the next day, I let it come to room temperature and then pressed it into an ungreased 8 by 11 inch pan and baked it at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.



The cookies were fabulous, but the bars were even better! So moist and chewy and full of flavor. Pass the milk, please… Chick update: The girls are finally outside! The Kitchen Genius has built them a wonderful home that includes a 8 by 12 foot pen.



My reluctant chicken farmer now loves his chicklets and built them a play set made out of a sawhorse and a corner roost that's about 4 feet high. Of course, we had to teach them how to use their new toys.



It didn’t take them any time at all to figure out how to climb up onto their new playground.



I was pretty darn nervous on their first night outside and sat on my back deck reading and listening for predators for hours. So far, so good (knock on wood). I was told that the chickens would automatically go into their coop as soon as the sun went down, but our chicks perched on their corner roost instead.



We’ve been tucking them into bed by hand ever since they first began going outside in their mobile pen and they needed me to do that the first couple of nights. Buttercup and Rosie figured it out first and I swear they stood at the doorway calling the others up, until one by one they figured it out.

Now at 7:30 every night, they all climb their little ladder and when I go out to close up the coop, they are all happily perched side by side on their roosting bar. I can't believe how big they are now...



The Recipe:

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Drops
(slightly adapted from The Ultimate Cookie Book by Better Homes and Gardens)

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup of creamy or chunky peanut butter (I used creamy)
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 package chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, baking soda, baking power and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in flour. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes until golden brown. Let stand for 1 minute on cookie sheet. Transfer to wire rack and cool.

For a printable recipe click here

Living Like a Locavore

I’ve wanted to be a locavore ever since I read Barbara Kingsolver’s most excellent memoir, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I live on a one third acre lot, on sandy Cape Cod, in the oh so chilly Northeast, and it’s a challenging proposition.

But this past weekend it actually felt possible. For the past month, every Saturday morning I head down to the Orleans Farmers Market to buy our produce. It’s been fun catching up with my farmer friends, but the pickings have been slim, until this weekend.

Finally, things are starting to grow on Cape Cod and we filled our bag with salad greens, winter kale, radishes, scallions, leeks, and a dozen quail eggs.

The quail eggs taste just like regular eggs, but they are so tiny and cute. You simply boil them for five minutes and then let them rest in a cold water bath for ten minutes. They’re fabulous in a salad.



We also recently joined a raw milk co-op from Paskamansett Farms in Dartmouth. There are 12 members in the coop who take turns driving 145 miles round trip to pick up the weekly milk supply for everyone. A two and a half hour drive once every 12 weeks does not seem like too much work for the pleasure of drinking raw milk. It comes in glass bottles like I remember from my early childhood.



Being in a milk coop is a bit different than running to the store when you run out of milk, because you have a standard order each week. That means if you don’t use it all, more is still coming. So this week, in addition to an abundance of bluefish, we have an abundance of milk.

I’m discovering the life of a locavore involves a certain amount of repetition. Rather than cooking what you have a craving for, you have to dream up recipes that use what you have on hand. So far I haven’t tired of the challenge, or the flavors, but all that milk left me flummoxed.

Thankfully Karen at Karen Cooks, recently posted a recipe for Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. Her recipe called for 1 1/2 cups each of whole milk and half and half, but we decided the cream that rose to the top of our milk might be creamy enough substitute all milk for the half and half. Besides, we were psyched to use up three cups of milk.

First you steep fresh mint leaves in the milk for a half an hour.



Then you make the mixture, put it in your ice cream maker and let it do it’s work for 40 minutes. Freeze for four hours and this is what you get:



We didn't add food coloring for a prettier color and our raw milk version wasn’t as creamy as ice cream, but it was plenty rich and the fresh mint flavor is indescribable.

For the recipe, visit Karen’s Blog and while you’re there, check our her gorgeous gardens!

Clam Pizza and a Chick Update

We’re still clamming and we’re discovering that it’s a lot like a treasure hunt. You can’t predict what you will dig up. Our last haul consisted of large “chowda” clams. Since we’ve already made stuffed clams, clam chowder and Portuguese clam stew, it was time to get creative.

Since last October I’ve been making homemade pizza about once a week. As much as I love it, I get bored making anything the same every time. That has led to a whole bunch of fun experiments and I have yet to regret a single one, but the clam pizza ranks as one of my favorites.

I used the dough recipe I wrote about here. I steamed the clams, just until they opened and then removed them from the shells, chopped them and rinsed them in a colander to remove any stray sand.

After I rolled out the dough, I gave it a drizzle of olive oil and then spread the chopped steamed clams on the dough. I wanted to keep them under the cheese so they wouldn’t dry out and it worked perfectly. Then I topped it with cheese, some caramelized onions and garlic and chopped bacon. Totally delicious!



In other news, we’ve been busy tending our garden and building a chicken condo in our back yard. This project seems to become more complex with each pounded nail (meaning it still isn’t done and those chicklets are still living in my basement). But the Kitchen Genius did build them a mobile poultry run and now they spend their days outside. We love to just sit and watch them (even the teenagers!) It’s so darned peaceful.



Until it isn’t! We’ve had our first run in with a predator and it wasn’t a raccoon, fox, coyote, skunk or hawk like I feared. Instead it was our backyard neighbor’s dog, a little tan colored bat out of hell that made a bee-line for our chickens and went berserk, barking and trying to dig a hole under the pen to get in. Poor little Tinkerbell got a cut on her comb that actually bled! Luckily our daughter Julie was home and scared the crazy dog away.

I’m not a “call the police on your neighbor kind of gal,” but I was so upset (and worried about a repeat attack) that I called the animal control officer. She gave the neighbors a reminder that there is a leash law in our town and informed them about the chicken incident.

For some reason, this attack shocked me. The chickens have been living in our house for a month and our dog and cat have almost completely ignored them. They are in an enclosed pen and I’m not sure what they think is going on down in the basement, but they haven’t been curious enough to check it out.

Now that the chickens spend their days outside, our cat (and the other neighborhood felines) seem slightly fascinated but mostly terrified of the chickens. Our Daisy literally hides behind a tree when she watches them and she hasn’t gotten closer than 20 feet - ever.

They actually get bigger EVERY day, and here they were going through an awkward stage with spiked new feathers. It must be time to get out there with my camera and capture their new sleek feathered look.

Grilled Bluefish with Lemon Dijon Dill Sauce

How much do you think I loved the Kitchen Genius when he brought that fabulous bluefish home?

And then he brought home twice the pleasure a few nights later. Oh yeah!



The bluefish proved to be the perfect ingredient to finally post about the wonderful fresh frozen herbs that Matt from Daregal Gourmet sent me a few months ago. (Click on the link and enter the Daregal sweepstakes to win some yourself!) Matt sent me six different herbs or herb blends to try and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Fresh herbs are so far superior to dry, but even if you have an herb garden (which I do), it’s really hard to use fresh herbs in the winter unless you pay a fortune at the grocery store. Daregal’s herbs are already chopped and so easy to use that I’m still using them even though my herb garden is going strong.

I’ve never had much luck growing dill so I don’t even try any more. Daregal’s chopped dill was perfect for the sauce I made to baste the bluefish. A lot of people aren’t big fans of bluefish, but we love it. It is a meaty fish with a slightly stronger flavor than striped bass.

One of the best ways to cook it is to slather it in mayonnaise and throw it on the grill. We decided to make a sauce with mayo, Dijon mustard, lemon and dill. We coated our filets with the sauce, put them in a fish basket and grilled them. I saved some of the sauce to drizzle over the top when the fish was done.



Some grilled vegetables (rubbed with olive oil and Daregal Grilling Blend) and a simple salad of sliced tomatoes and fresh mozzarella drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and some Daregal chopped basil made the perfect accompaniment to our meal.



The Recipe:

Grilled Bluefish with Lemon Dijon Dill Sauce
Serves 4

2 pounds bluefish fillets
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Daregal chopped dill
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the bluefish into four servings. Mix remaining ingredients and coat both sides of bluefish with sauce, reserving 1/4 cup. Place fish in wire grill baskets and grill over medium high heat for five minutes per side or until fish flakes easily. Drizzle fish with remaining sauce and serve.

For a printable recipe click here

Orange Glazed Rhubarb Tart

This one is going to be short and sweet – and tart.

One of the many joys of this season is rhubarb. We love it in my family and I buy it every chance I can because it’s only around for a little while. Usually I pair it with strawberries because they are also coming into season and the combined flavors are just perfect.

My go-to recipes are strawberry rhubarb pie or strawberry rhubarb crisp, but a pretty picture in the April issue of Gourmet magazine that combined rhubarb and oranges caught my eye, and I just had to try it. The Gourmet recipe called for puff pastry, but I had some phyllo dough in the freezer so I decided to use that instead.

It made a lovely and light dessert that everyone raved about at a recent family dinner party.



I also made an apple tart for the kids just in case they didn’t like rhubarb without strawberries. I used the same basic recipe, but substituted thinly sliced apples for the rhubarb and cinnamon for the citrus.



I need not have worried. They loved the rhubarb tart, but were especially enthusiastic about having two different desserts to try. Add some vanilla ice cream (one scoop for each flavor of tart of course) and what kid wouldn’t have fun with that?

Orange Glazed Rhubarb Tart
Adapted from recipe in Gourmet Magazine April 2009 issue

1 large orange
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
4 long rhubarb stalks, thinly sliced on the diagonal (1/8 inch)
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 half package phyllo dough, thawed (The Athens Brand I used comes with two separate rolls, so I used one)

Juice the orange and grate 1 teaspoon of zest from the rind. Mix orange juice, lime juice, sugar, orange zest and rhubarb and let flavors meld at least 10 minutes.

In the meantime prepare pastry. On a cook sheet covered with parchment paper, place one sheet of phyllo dough. Brush with melted butter using a pastry brush. Continue in this manner for 6 layers. Top pastry with half of the rhubarb slices, overlapping slightly and leaving 1/2 to 1 inch “crust” around the edges.

Repeat with six more butter basted phyllo layers and one more rhubarb layer. Bake pastry at 400 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes. While it is baking, pour marinade juice into a small saucepan and simmer over low heat to form a glaze. When pastry is finished, brush the top with the glaze. Serve with vanilla ice cream drizzled with extra glaze.

For a printable recipe click here

Clamming Success! First Recipe: Stuffed Clams

Yesterday I went to the seafood market and was appalled that two dozen clams cost $18. For clams! On Cape Cod, where they are free for the taking.

As soon as I left the market, I headed right over to Town Hall and got a shellfish permit. We’ve wanted to dig our own clams for years, but just never got around to it. We even have the equipment, which is fairly basic. All you need is a clam rake, a wire bucket and a gauge to make sure your clams are big enough.

Even though I already had the two dozen clams that I bought in the fridge, I couldn’t wait to get started. We headed down to Linnell Landing Beach on Cape Cod Bay as soon as the Kitchen Genius got home from work. After about an hour of very hard work, we had one clam each.

Not such a great start, but we came home, opened those suckers and ate them raw with a bit of cocktail sauce and Tabasco. There was something really thrilling about eating a clam that had been in the ocean just a half an hour earlier.

This morning at the Orleans Farmers Market, I asked a shell-fisherman friend for some tips, because we obviously needed them. I learned that the best time to go clamming is an hour before low tide and the farther out onto the flats you walk, the better. I also learned that you don’t have to dig six inch holes like we did yesterday (whew!) because clams are only about two inches down.

If you’re in the right spot at the right time, you really do just rake them up. And that’s just what happened when we went clamming again this afternoon. We hit a payload and FILLED our basket in an hour. It was like a treasure hunt – and highly addictive. KG had to drag me away.



We had a bounty of clams, but there was already pot of chili simmering on the stove for dinner. (After yesterday, I wasn’t taking any chances.) But those gorgeous clams were just calling, so tonight KG decided to make stuffed clams for an appetizer.



He adapted a recipe from Howard Mitcham, who for years was considered to be Cape Cod’s master seafood chef. Even Anthony Bourdain tipped his hat to Mitcham in his memoir, Kitchen Confidential, declaring Provincetown Seafood Cookbook the best seafood cookbook EVER. That shout out has made the out of print cookbook a collectible that sells anywhere from $100 - $500 dollars.

If this recipe is any indication, Mitcham’s reputation is well deserved. No exaggeration, these were the best stuffed clams I’ve ever tasted. They were light in texture, but bursting with briny clam flavor. I’ve actually never been a big fan of stuffed clams because the ones I’ve ever tried were in restaurants. The restaurant versions tend to be as dense as hockey pucks and the only hint there is a clam involved is the shell the stuffing is packed in.

These are a whole other creation and so tasty we plan to fill our freezer with them.



The Recipe:

Stuffed Clams
Adapted from “Clams, Mussels, Oysters, Scallops & Snails” by Howard Mitcham

1 dozen large sea clams
4 cups bread crumbs (made from day old French bread in food processor)
1 stick butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 yellow pepper, diced
1 rib celery, diced finely
3 slices bacon, minced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Pinch thyme
Pinch ground cumin
1/4 cup white wine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons sherry

Wash clams thoroughly. Pour one cup water in a large pot, add clams, cover and steam the clams until they are open (about 15 minutes). Save the liquor (juice from clams). Remove the clams from their shells, chop and rinse thoroughly to remove any sand. Place in food processor and pulse four times.

Melt butter in a large skillet and sauté the onions, pepper, celery, garlic and bacon until vegetables are soft. Add wine and sherry and cook for three minutes. Add clams and herbs and spices and cook for 2 more minutes until heated.

Meanwhile, strain clam liquor through coffee filter to remove any sand. Mix clam mixture, bread crumbs and 1 cup clam liquor. Stir until well combined. Stuff the mixture into empty half shells if eating immediately. (If freezing or making ahead, stuff one half shell and top with other half shell. Place rubber band around the shells to hold them together.)

Dot with butter and bake at 375 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes until golden brown on top. If cold, bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes until heated through and golden on top.

For a printable recipe click here