Happy January!!! Happy New Year 2023 If the year gives you any lemons just make soufflés!!!!!

  New addition:  Chicken Piccata meatballs:

Who doesn't love chicken piccata?  Lemons and capers?  So yummy.  I thought I would add another recipe to this LEMON post   I subscribe to Giddy.com which is Giada de Laurentis' cooking website.  I found this recipe complete with video.  It takes very little time.  The recipe is perfect but I would double the sauce part....you just have to have plenty of sauce to cover  pasta or sop up with bread. Bueno appetito!

Chicken Piccata meatballs 

 Here we are in a New Year with lots of hope and ideas to look forward too.  Somewhere in every year something "poopy" happens.  Then what?  Make lemonade from your lemons or soufflés or dessert bars or simply a fabulous vinaigrette:

There's always something to harvest in the garden.  This week it's LEMONS!  If I were to have only one food producing plant in my home or garden it would be a lemon tree...even better a Meyer lemon tree and even better two trees.  The first year I moved here (2018) I planted a Meyer lemon tree.  It was small but with a lot of hope.  Last year she gave me 4-5 beautiful sweet fruit.  This year I have about 25.  I am thrilled:

Meyer lemons are a little sweeter than regular California Eureka  lemons.  The skin is a little more orange and thin,  It's zest is so pungent and flavorful in cooking.  It's thought that Meyer's are a cross between a Eureka and a Mandarin orange.

 So now that I have an abundance of lemons in January what do I do with them?  My first urge was to make a lemon soufflé.  So for New Year's Eve I prepared this delightful dessert:

I started counting my eggs - I need 4 eggs plus 2 extra whites. I need the zest of a lemon and 3/4 cups of lemon juice.  Well here's the complete recipe; 

 for lemon soufflé  from the Food Network and Ann Burell.  I also like Julia's recipe found in an earlier post.

OK now I have two extra yolks.....hmm..... Lemon Bars??  Lemon bars are basically a shortbread on the bottom and lemon curd baked on top.  This calls for 4 eggs and 2 extra yolks...hey...I have two extra yolks.  Also the zest of a lemon (Meyer, please) and a full cup of lemon juice

Oh these are pretty, nest pas?  Any other time of the year I would be searching for friends to give my extra farm eggs to but I actually had to buy eggs to supply myself with the 10 eggs for these two desserts and you all know how hard it is to find pasture raised eggs these days and I had to pay for them!!!!  Yikes!!!

I have tried a lot of lemon bar recipes but this one is my best so far.  I actually made the shortbread layer two days before I added the lemon curd layer.  It worked out fine.  Here's my recipe for lemon bars

also from Food Network.

All of my granddaughters are fabulous bakers.  Last week the youngest (almost teenager) Gabriela made lemon bars too:

Oh the curd looks so rich and what a beautiful color.  She used Rose Levy Beranbaum's Ultimate Lemon Butter Bar recipe which is also very reliable and a go to must.  I would highly recommend Rose's Christmas Cookie book for your kitchen library.  Her Cookie Bible is also a great investment.  Well done Gabriela!!!

Well what else to do with my bounty?

I'm going to side step a bit and share a little art quilt project I did a few years ago.  When I had collected enough full size quilts I started looking for a variation art.  I met Jane LaFazio in Oceanside for my first art quilt class.  I love love embroidery, ribbons, buttons and beads so this little post card sized "quilt" was a perfect project.  

OK next lemon recipe:  Simple lemon vinaigrette:  

1/3 cup lemon juice

2/3 cup good olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

plus any seasonings, herbs you want to add

OK  Now that I have my vinaigrette ready time to make a salad.  I had to buy a fennel but all other participants are from the garden....yes even in January

Kale salad mis en place:

4 cups Kale leaves - if the ribs are tough, cut out

radishes - about a cup 

fennel, 1/2 bulb

I like to grow the dinosaur kale with purple ribs....who doesn't want more anthocyanins in their diet?

What's this? you ask.  It's a watermelon radish.  This one is about a 2 1/2" bulb.  Watermelon radish has no bitterness especially freshly picked.  They are easy to grow in cool weather.  You can also get them at good produce markets this time of year.....about $4/lb

Kale salad with fennel and radishes - undressed

Then I dressed it with the lemon vinaigrette and added some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. avocado and some Nicoise olives.  That was my dinner!!!!  I'm having it again tonight.  This salad holds well even when dressed.  It's one of those few salads that you can make ahead and will last almost a week.

Another side step:  This art quilt is about 8" by 8" 

With all of my favorite notions: fabric, beands, embroidery and ribbons.  Don't you just love pink grapefruit?

So what's better than one lemon tree?  Two!!  I live on my grandparents property.  My grandmother loved lemon trees too.  She had one in the front yard for many years.  My brother, Dan, tells me for some reason it was moved to the back of the property where my orchard is now.  A month before I moved in almost all of the trees on the property along with all of the overgrowth was cut to the ground.  Last year on the side of an unidentified trunk up came little stocks with leaves on them that looked like citrus leaves....lemon leaves.  So I nurtured it, fertilized it, pruned it and had about 3 lemons last year.  Well look at it this year! Eureka!!!  I love my job as a farmer.

And a footnote.  As I walked the property this evening I can see my next bounty ripening:  Key Limes

Happy January friends!!

Got Eggs? Souffle! Souffle! Souffle!

 

Pure perfection

Yesterday's egg collecting

OK I waited 8 months for my new chickens to become hens and lay eggs.  I always ask for abundance and this time I got it.  Yesterday these sweet feathered friends gave me 8 beautiful brown and blue eggs.  Now what?  Souffles of course.  First I made myself a lemon souffle for my birthday "cake"  topped with a raspberry coulis.  It really doesn't get any better than that.

Next I made a classic Julia Child cheese souffle made with my goat milk cheddar cheese:

And last night I made chocolate souffle....yes I had a few strawberries and whipped cream

When I was a student at the Cordon Bleu School of Cooking in Paris in 1982 I learned to make this gorgeous and fun dessert.  First you must learn the technique for a souffle and then choose savory or sweet. I want to share this with my Seattle granddaughters on my next trip. 

perfectly beaten egg whites

chocolate souffle

                                                       blood orange/passion fruit souffle 

Souffle     means "to puff"  in French.  French cooking is the origin of this dish and it is a classic delight.  Souffles can be sweet like chocolate  or lemon or they can be savory like cheese or lobster.  Although the timing is sensitive it is not a difficult dish to make.  The expertise comes in the method.  That is usually the trick in French cooking.  All of the flavor comes from the egg yolk have of the combination.  You make a roux of butter and flour, add a little milk or other liquid and allow the roux to thicken the liquid.  Let the liquid cool and add egg yolks, one at a time.   And that's your base....add more flavorings like lemon or orange/passion fruit juice, citrus zest or other intense flavors and set this aside until your souffle dish or ramekins are prepared and your egg whites are beaten stiff but not dry.  When it's time to mix the base with the "poof" take gentle care in folding (not mixing) the two together by starting with adding 1/4 of the whites to the base and then continuing 1/4 egg whites at a time until fully incorporated.  Gently add any more ingredients like broccoli or lobster or raspberries before filling the baking dish (s).

Preparing the souffle dish is important too.  If sweet, butter the dish then coat the butter with sugar and put in the fridge to get cold before filling them.  If savory, butter and then coat with Parmesan cheese.  This will give the outside of your souffle a little flavor and crunch of its own.

Fill the souffle dishes 3/4 of the way full and make sure the rims are clean before popping them in a hot oven.  An aluminum foil collar is optional but if the baking pan has adequate space left it's not necessary Now NO PEAKING until the last 2 minutes of baking.  If you open the oven door too soon the souffle with fall.

I used Anne Burrell's recipe for my basic lemon souffle:  I prefer baking in just one 6 cup souffle dish but the little ramekins are cute

Next fruit souffle:  blood orange/passion fruit.  I used the exact same method and substituted 3/4 cup blood orange/ passion fruit juice for the lemon juice and blood orange zest for the lemon zest.  So fresh and delicious

I used Claire Robinson's recipe for chocolate souffle.  It's easy and reliable but not as traditional.  Still it's impossible to find fault with any of it.

Now when you make a cheese souffle the only mentor I have for this is Julia.  A perfect Julia Child masterpiece  You can watch the entire French Chef episode on YouTube

Julia's ingredients:

Sauce:                                                          8 egg whites (1 cup)                      1 cup of cheese

3 TBs Butter                                                 1 tsp cream of tartar

4 1/2 TBs flour                                              pinch (large) of salt

1 1/2 cup warm milk

salt, pepper, nutmeg, cayenne

6 egg yolks

Place in 400 deg oven and once in reduce to 375 deg.  Bake for about 30 minutes.  A little jiggle is ok.  I followed this recipe for the blue background cheese souffle above.  You can see it's perfect

Bon Appetit!!!!!!!