Homemade Ritz Crackers
I bragged about making these on Facebook, so of course then I got a request for the recipe. It is really easy! I got the recipe from one of Peter Reinhart’s bread books. I am embarrassed to admit that I don’t recall which one, but all his books are good.
Homemade Ritz Crackers
- 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
- 1 c. cake flour
- 1 tsp. kosher salt, plus additional for garnish
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 3/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
- 10 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted, plus an additional 4 Tbsp. melted unsalted butter for garnish
- 1 egg for the dough, 1 egg beaten with 2 Tbsp. water for egg wash
- 6 Tbsp. cold milk (any kind – I used nonfat)
Combine all ingredients except butter for garnish, salt for garnish, and egg wash. Mix for one minute by hand or with a paddle attachment on your mixer. The dough should form a firm, non-sticky ball. (This will be an unusual dough – it should be pliable and smooth, and absolutely not sticky at all. It may feel somewhat greasy to you.)
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 30 seconds to make sure it is well-mixed. Dough should be slightly tacky, but not sticky. Adjust with flour or water as needed.
Preheat the oven to 400F and line three baking sheets with parchment paper. You do not need to grease the parchment paper, but do use it – otherwise the crackers may scorch.
Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1/8″ thick. I do this in several batches because that is really thin and requires a lot of space. Prick the rolled-out dough all over with a fork. Cut the dough with a pizza wheel or with cookie cutters (I have a cute tiny fall leaf set that I used), and place on the cookie sheets. If you are feeling fastidious, you can cut the dough first and then prick, so that the docking is pretty. I will admit to doing that. ^_^; The dough will not expand as it bakes, so go ahead and cram them close together on the sheets.
Brush the crackers with the egg wash, sprinkle with salt, and bake two pans at a time in the preheated oven, for 16-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the bake time. At the end of the bake time, brush the crackers with the remaining melted butter and return them to the turned-off oven for 3-5 minutes. They should be a rich golden brown, and crisp. If you find they are deep golden brown when you pull them out of the oven the first time, just brush on the butter and get them out of the pan quickly so they don’t overbake.
When baking the third sheet, check them at about 14 minutes – they will cook faster if it’s just one pan. Let cool and enjoy!
Garden Update
Where has the summer gone? I lost it in a whirlwind of conventions and work, which led to me messing up my left shoulder and left hand, and deciding that I really needed to re-evaluate how I was spending my time.
One of the things that I’ve decided to do is pitch the standard “work out 30-45 minutes per day” business. Why? Because working out is boring, and working in the yard is fun — and just as much, if not more of a workout. This does not mean I have stopped playing hockey or going to archery — far from it. It just means that the hour a day I was burning in front of WiiFit or EA Sports Active 2 has been transformed into far more productive and happy time in the sunshine.
Also, my yard really needs the work. It’s not that it’s that big, or that hard to manage, but it is that hard to manage when you’re not making the time for it. And the carrotwood … the infamous, annoying carrotwood … it is trying to come back, like some sort of zombie plant invader.
I think the folks who have been reading me for a while know that we took out two 30-year-old carrotwood trees in the backyard. We did this before we put in the veggie beds. There’s a long story here about the plastic-and-rock covered yard, the lack of irrigation and all kinds of stuff, but basically what it boils down to is that my backyard is covered in enormous near-surface carrotwood roots. And the ground is full of river rocks, but that’s a different story.
So I’ve spent the past few days working a little on the yard every day. Today I worked a lot on the yard. I pulled out the green bean plants that were tired and dying, and pulled out the yellow squash, and propped up a volunteer cherry tomato that looks kind of like a black cherry but tastes more like a 4th of July. Then I got to work on the carrotwood. Check out what I dug up.
The largest root in this bundle is as tall as I am. That’s a one-handed hatchet, for comparison’s sake.
I didn’t dig this one up. It’s way too big. So I remembered a suggestion from my Mom about how to deal with tree stumps and such things that won’t die … and I went and got the drill.
I did some drilling, and then Mark came out and helped me finish. Each of those holes is about the size of a nickel, and at least an inch deep. Hopefully it’ll help put the hurt on the miniature carrotwood forest that keeps trying to grow.
Crockpot Malmenye Furnez — Medieval Recipe, Modern Method
Malmenye is something I got introduced to many years ago in the SCA, at the first event where I helped in the kitchen. I’d never heard of it then, but it made quite the impression — shredded chicken napped in a rich wine sauce, studded with pine nuts and raisins. And if that wasn’t good enough, it was then put in honey-brushed pie crusts and baked off. Amazing stuff.
When I inquired as to the recipe, I got told that it was in Take A Thousand Eggs or More, by Cindy Renfrow. Aha! thought I — I have those books. It turned out that it was in the second book, which is the one with the translations, but no redactions. Since it’s been over fifteen years and I couldn’t remember exactly how it got made, I ended up re-redacting it myself. And since I loved the recipe, but didn’t want to deal with a million dishes, I took a shortcut, and made it in the crockpot. This is actually a mix of several malmenye recipes; one’s specifically a capon recipe, the others are pottages (think of a pottage as a soft cereal dish, kind of like oatmeal).
Crockpot Malmenye Furnez
- 1 chicken, skinned and cut into 8-10 pieces (I did 10 — the breasts were huge)
- 1 medium onion, chopped (this is in none of the original recipes; it’s my own addition, because I felt the dish was too sweet otherwise)
- 1 c. almond milk (find this at your local health-food store)
- 1 c. good red wine
- 1 Tbsp. poudrefort or poudredouce
- 1/2 c. honey
- 1/4-1/2 c. red wine vinegar
- 3 oz. pine nuts (1 small package)
- 1 c. raisins
- 1/4 c. rice flour
- salt and black pepper to taste
Combine everything except the salt and pepper in a large crock pot. Mix well. The dish will be scary pink right now because of the red wine and red wine vinegar. Do not fret; it will turn a lovely brown color as it cooks. Cook on low 5-6 hours, until the chicken is done and falling-off-the-bone tender. Remove the chicken from the crockpot, shred well, and return it to the rest of the sauce. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired.
You can serve it as-is, or serve it in a pie crust. To serve in a pie crust, brush the bottom crust with honey, add the malmenye, cover with a second pie crust, crimp, and bake at 350° until the pie crust is golden. (I’ll admit, I haven’t baked the current batch in a crust — it’s good just plain or over rice.)
You may find that the sauce is not thick enough for your liking; the rice flour clumped in mine because I didn’t stir well enough. If that happens, remove the shredded chicken and sauce from the crockpot and put it in a pot on the stove. Bring to a boil. Make a slurry of equal parts cornstarch and water, and add it to the sauce 1 Tbsp. at a time, allowing it to return to a boil (that’s when the thickening occurs) before you add more.
Easy and delicious. Give it a try — you’ll like it. (:
Extreme Raw Kale Salad My Way
I’ve seen some recipes for raw kale salads floating around on the interwebs, and I’ve tried them, and they were OK, but they weren’t what I wanted today. Today, my body flat-out demanded Raw. Kale. Now. OK, OK, OK, says I. Here you go:
Extreme Italian Kale Salad
Serves 1
- 3 leaves lascianato (dinosaur) kale, stems removed and leaves sliced very thin
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 sprig basil, sliced very thin
- 1 sprig oregano, leaves and buds torn off
- generous amounts salt, pepper, olive oil, and good balsamic vinegar
Combine all ingredients, mix well, and eat. OM NOM NOM. This is insanely good. I might go make seconds.
Things I’ve Learned About Boysenberries
Posted by Leanne in Canning and Preserving, Garden, Recipes, Uncategorized on May 30th, 2011
In January 2010, I planted, on the advice of my nursery-man, four little sticks. In the intervening year and a half, I’ve learned a reasonable amount about said little sticks, and I’m going to share it now. (: I am pretty sure that ‘long around September I’m going to have an addendum to this post as I try to figure out what needs whacking back. But before I launch into the lecture, let me muse for a few minutes.
I’m a native Californian. I grew up less than two hours from Knott’s Berry Farm. If you’ve ever been to Knott’s, you’ve heard the story about how Walter Knott found the last few vines in an abandoned field once owned by Rudolph Boysen, and how he turned those nearly-dead hybrid raspberry-loganberry-blackberry vines into history, fame, and delicious jam. Maybe you’ve had the chicken, biscuits, and boysenberry pie at Knott’s Berry Farm. For me, that’s a childhood memory that made a lifelong imprint. But it wasn’t until I was older — and when I started growing my own food — that I began to wonder why it was that in California, the birthplace of the boysenberry, our very own special native fruit — I couldn’t find them in the grocery store, except as jam.
So I decided I’d grow them myself. And I did.
First thing I’ve learned: boysenberries love my lousy Mira Mesa clay soil, full of rocks, minerals, and under-the-surface retained water. Those four little sticks have grown into this:
Second thing I’ve learned: you really, really really don’t need four boysenberry plants for a family of two. {: Unless you love them even more than I do. I have so far in the past week made boysenberry cobbler, boysenberry pie, and have boysenberry jam cooling in jars right now.
I picked berries on Friday. I picked them again this morning. This is what I picked this morning:
That there is four and a half pounds of boysenberries. And you can see in this picture that the plants are nowhere near done.
They do pretty much grow, flower, and fruit all at once, it seems — one gigantic harvest a year. I’ll try to make sure that I post when they are done, so that I have a record of how long they produce.
Third thing I’ve learned: bees adore boysenberries. Plant them and the bees will be all over your pretty white flowers, buzzing away happily. They like the boysenberries better than my lavender!
Fourth thing I’ve learned: unless you’re way better at trellising than me (certainly likely!), pick from the bottom up. That way you don’t step on ripe berries when you’re going for the ones in the middle and at the top.
Fifth thing I’ve learned: Just because the plant is “thornless” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have thorns at all (these have little tiny ones that are just a nuisance, rather than painful), and just because it’s thornless to begin with doesn’t mean the new canes will be thornless too. Obviously these are adapting very, very well to my yard!
Sixth thing: I know why you never see boysenberries in the grocery store. I know you might find them in the farmer’s market, but it’s 99.99% that you won’t find them in the grocery store, because a boysenberry goes from underripe to overripe in, oh, about three days. They may have cores like blackberries, but they’re soft as the raspberries they were cross-bred with. Pick a bowl of fresh ones like those in the picture above, and the almost-overripe ones will squish from the weight of the other berries. Freshly-picked perfectly ripe or just-barely-underripe boysenberries last about two days in the fridge. That’s it. You want ‘em raw, better grow ‘em yourself, or find someone who’s growing them and maybe they’ll share. (;
Seventh thing: boysenberries are terrific raw — slightly underripe, they’re much like raspberries. Closer to overripe, they’re more like blackberries. Either way, they have a honey-sweet tang all their own. But great as they are raw, they’re even better cooked. Cooking naturally mellows and melds the flavors in the berries into one cohesive taste of pure awesome — as if every point of flavor you could taste separately raw are all together at once when they’re cooked.
You can use boysenberries pretty much anywhere you’d use their cousins, but sometimes the simplest way is the best.
Pure Knott’s Nostalgia Boysenberry Jam
Makes about 11 half-pints, or 5-6 pints.
- 4 1/2 lb. boysenberries, freshly picked, well rinsed, and cleaned of any remaining caps and leaves (have a mix of mostly ripe and some slightly under-ripe so they’ll set better)
- 6 1/2 c. sugar (I like evaporated cane sugar, which still has a little cane flavor)
- 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
Set up your boiling water-bath canner, jars, and lids.
Place all of the berries in a large pot and crush them gently. You can use a potato masher if you have one. I don’t, so I use a pastry cutter. You can also use the back of a big metal spoon. Just remember that boysenberry juice, like its cousins, stains like crazy. Wear an apron when you do this.
Add the sugar and the lemon juice and stir well. Bring the berries to a boil, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Reduce the heat so that it boils gently, and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, until it sheets off a metal spoon.
I like mine softly-gelled. So I check the big metal spoon I stir with, after I take a break from stirring for a while, before I put it back in the pot. If the jam has gelled on the spoon between now and the last time I stirred, that means it’s pretty much done. It took me about half an hour to get to a good gel.
Ladle hot jam into hot jars, wipe the rims, screw the lids on finger-tip tight, return the jars to the canner, bring to a rolling boil, and process in the boiling-water canner for 10 minutes for either pints or half-pints.
[Basics] Red Sauce
Everyone should be able to make basic spaghetti sauce. Everyone. And there’s no excuse for it to not be fabulous, when it’s really easy to do. This is what I do; feel free to play with it, ’cause it takes just fine to adaptation.
Red Sauce
- 2 32-oz cans crushed tomatoes
- 2 6-oz cans tomato paste
- olive oil
- the largest onion you can get your hands on (use two if they’re small)
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- red wine
- 2-oz package dried mushrooms (I use porcini when I can get them, but any kind works), or you can chop up some fresh mushrooms instead
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. basil
- 1 1/2 tsp. fennel seed (whole, not ground), oregano, thyme, and parsley
- 1 tsp. rosemary
- 1/2 tsp. hot red pepper
- optional: sausages
Rehydrate the mushrooms in 2 c. hot water for about 15-20 minutes. Drain, reserving the soaking water, and chop the mushrooms.
Chop up the onion and saute in a large pot with olive oil. When the onions are tender, add the garlic. When it’s fragrant, add the mushrooms, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, a generous splash of red wine, the mushroom soaking liquid, and all the spices (I should note that I never really measure these; I measured the last time I made this just especially for you folks). Stir well and bring to a simmer.
If you’re adding sausages, add them now. My family always cut them in half, so I do too. You could saute them ahead of time, but I never bother; they’re just as good this way.
Simmer the pasta sauce for at least two hours. Add water if it gets too thick. Stir occasionally. Enjoy immensely.
Offered without further comment: today’s post-rain harvest
Posted by Leanne in Garden, Uncategorized on May 17th, 2011
Roasted Tomato Panini
No pictures. I know, I know. I ATE IT ALL, okay? ^_^
This is a great thing to do with leftover ricotta, which I often have, and then dither on what I should do with it. No dithering here! If you want to be luxurious, add a slice of prosciutto to each sandwich, or leftover sliced cooked sausage.
By the way, since I have your rapt attention: it’s one PANINO, two or more PANINI. Not that any of the fast-food places seem to know this or care. (;
Roasted Tomato Panini
Serves 4
- 1 sourdough baguette, sliced into four sections, then sliced in half horizontally (so you get four long sandwich rolls)
- ricotta (a couple tablespoons per sandwich, or more, if you don’t mind your sandwich being gooshy)
- 8 Roma tomatoes, stems removed and each sliced lengthwise in half
- mixed lettuces
- olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, basil, oregano
Preheat the oven to 400°. Place the Roma tomato slices on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, basil, and oregano, and pop in the oven to roast until wrinkled, slightly chewy, and smelling wonderful, somewhere between 40-50 minutes. You can do this step ahead and just pull the tomatoes out of the fridge whenever you need to make sandwiches. They’ll keep for a few days.
Pull out some of the soft inside of the bread. You can save that for making breadcrumbs or croutons or just eat it (which I will admit that I do, sometimes). Toast the bread if you want, or not. It’s good either way. Spread the bread thickly with ricotta, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top with roasted tomatoes.
Toss the mixed lettuces with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil and place on top of the tomatoes, top with the other half of the bread, and serve immediately.
Poudre Douce and Poudre Fort
If you don’t do a lot of medieval cuisine, you’ve probably never heard of poudre fort and poudre douce — literally, strong powder and sweet powder. I was first introduced to the concept when I was doing SCA regularly, via a nifty little pair of books called Take A Thousand Eggs or More, by Cindy Renfrow. They’re both spice blends, one spicy and one sweet, and there’s no standard recipe for either of them. So I’m going to share mine with you.
Now, you’re probably thinking — I don’t cook medieval cuisine, what’ll I do with these blends? Actually, they’re terrifically flexible. I use my poudre douce blend for French toast, cookies, pumpkin pie, the spices in my jam, you name it, if it’s sweet, it will go well. Poudre fort is great with pork, beef, and chicken, especially in stews and slow cooking. Of course, if you want some heat in your sweet dishes, you can use poudre fort there too.
Poudre Douce
Inspired by a production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, wherein Master Merrythought sings,”Nutmegs and ginger, cinnamon and cloves, and that gave me this jolly red nose.” You’ll note it doesn’t scan well. Most of Master Merrythought’s songs don’t. The general consensus amongst the cast was that he was supposed to be singing poorly because he was drunk, but that’s kind of a far reach for a modern audience who doesn’t know the songs. In our production, it was switched to “cinnamon and ginger, nutmeg and cloves” … and it has been stuck in my head ever since.
- 5 parts ground cinnamon
- 3 parts ground ginger
- 2 parts ground nutmeg
- 1 part ground cloves
Combine all ingredients, mix well, and store in an airtight container.
Poudre Fort
I heavily adapted this blend from War Fare, by Bonny Feinberg and Marian Walke, which was recommended to me by a friend. “You remember Old Marian? She wrote a cookbook …” Well, that was that, I had to get a copy. (And mmm, the recipes in it are delicious.)
- 4 parts poudre douce
- 2 parts ground cubebs
- 1 part ground peppercorns
Combine all ingredients, mix well, and store in an airtight container.
Enjoy!