Happy 2022 - January in the garden

 Happy New Year!  Another new beginning and hope for a great year!  It's time to clean out the pantry and the doors to the fridge.  Do your storage containers all have lids?  Toss out the pieces that don't have their mates!  It's time to start fresh.

Even though it's winter I have gifts from the garden and farm.  Of course I have eggs.....fewer on the short days of winter.  Poppy gives me about 2 cups of delicious milk each day...plenty for my lattes and making cheese and ice cream.  I think I'll try buttermilk this week!  The deciduous fruit trees have all dropped their leaves and are waiting to be pruned but my citrus trees....as young as they are ...are my benefactors this month.  Surprisingly I am still enjoying fresh tomatoes....but my garden's abundance is leafy greens,  Here's what nourishing me this month:

Ruby Red grapefruit.  There are about 20 of these beauties even though this tree is only about 2 feet tall

Leafy greens: Mizuna lettuce, red freckle lettuce, kale, arugula

Swiss chard, rainbow...such pretty red ribs....filled with nutrients

A new crop for me this year: celery.  I know it sounds boring but celery from the garden is delicious

Oh yes and I will harvest my first sugar snap peas today

definitely too pretty to eat

and the never ending stream of passion fruit

Enjoy your January and your New Year!

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!!!!!!!

Blood orange and Passion fruit sorbet

blood orange and passion fruit sorbet

I found some passion fruit at the Downey Farmers Market last week and brought them home wondering what I could do with them.  Hmmmmmm.

Alice Waters helped me out with this recipe from her Fruit recipe book.  Here's the recipe:

Passion Fruit Sherbet:

Ingredients:

3 pounds of oranges (enough to make 3 cups of juice)..I used blood oranges

8 passion fruit (I only had 4 so made that do)

3/4 cup plus 2 Tbs sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract ( I mistakingly used 1 full tsp and would repeat this)

optional 1 tsp Cointreau

 Method:

Juice the oranges, stain and measure 3 cups

Cut passion fruit in half and scoop out the pulp and seeds into a small saucepan.

Add the sugar and 1 cup of the orange juice

Heat gently and stir until sugar is dissolved

Press and scrape through a fine meshed strainer with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula

Add the remaining orange juice, the vanilla and the Cointreau if using

Chill thoroughly

Freeze in your home ice cream freezer

Remember I used blood oranges,  They are pretty much only available in January and February.  But the blood orange juice gives this sorbet a gorgeous color:

passion fruit

blood oranges cross sectioned

sorbet liquid ready for the ice cream freezer

Fruit

This sorbet is not too sweet but enough..has a nice sour "bite" and would go well following a spicy dinner.  Alice suggests serving it with a delicate butter cookie or  coconut macaroons

I think I'll just go and have some all by itself.

Bon appetit!

footnote:  I am taking Alice Waters' Masterclass available at https://www.masterclass.com/homepage