Spinach Artichoke Dip

Spinach artichoke dip is one of those party dishes that you can kind of feel good about. It's main base is vegetables after all. We won't talk about the other ingredients. They are there to make it all taste good!

Spinach Artichoke Dip

from

Copperfield's Coffee Cafe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1 bag of frozen chopped spinach, cooked and well drained

2 cans plain artichoke hearts, drained.

1 cup sour cream

1 cup mayonnaise

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 or 2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Optional: 1/2 teaspoon of Tobasco sauce

Salty tortilla chips for dipping

In a food processor combine all the ingredients except the tortilla chips. Process until smooth. Pour into a buttered casserole dish and back for 35 to 40 minutes or until the dip is hot and started to brown a little. You can transfer it to a chafing dish to keep warm on a buffet table. Serve with salty tortilla chips.

Spinach Casserole

First, I'll report that both Tigger and Pipster are doing fine and have mellowed out completely! No fights, no growls, no hissing. It's wonderful.

You may be planning a New Years Eve get together or a good roast pork and black eyed peas meal for New Years Day, so thought you might like a good spinach casserole recipe to go with. This one is from the 1987 cook book published by the Lebanon United Methodist Women. It's called "Specialities of the House" and it has some pretty good real recipes. This recipe is called Roxie's Spinach Casserole and was contributed by my mother. Roxie was a very dear friend who passed away a couple of years ago. She was always loads of fun, bright and always smiling. We miss her and we love her spinach casserole. Enjoy!

Roxie's Spinach Casserole



4 10oz packages of frozen spinach - or bags of frozen spinach to equal

1 pound button mushrooms, gently washed and sliced or any mild mushroom you like

1 glove garlic

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 pound grated Swiss cheese

5 tablespoons butter

5 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups whole milk

a few grates of nutmeg (optional)

Cook the spinach with the garlic. Drain the spinach well pressing down on it with the back of a large spoon to get the water out and discard the garlic. Transfer the spinach to a large mixing bowl.  Cook the sliced mushrooms in two tablespoons of butter. You might add a little oil just to keep the butter from burning. Cook the mushrooms over high heat, disturbing them very little so they brown a bit. Add them to the spinach. 

In a medium saucepan, make a white sauce of the five tablespoons of butter and flour and milk. Melt the butter, whisk the flour into the butter and cook it over medium high heat for a minute whisking the mixture as you go.  Add milk to the butter flour mixture and cook, whisking well until the sauce is thick and smooth. If you heat the milk, just until its hot, it incorporates more easily into the butter and flour. Add the salt, the nutmeg and 3/4th of the cheese to the sauce and cook, stirring until the cheese begins to melt.

Pour the cheese sauce over the spinach and mushrooms and mix together. Pour the mixture into a buttered casserole dish and top with the remaining cheese. Let stand one hour or longer before baking in a 350 degree oven for an hour.  My mother uses a deep, oval casserole dish with a lid. It's about 9 inches long and five inches wide four or five inches tall. It is an oven to table decorative dish. She likes to bring this casserole to parties in that dish because it keeps well and the dish is pretty, so all she has to do is take the lid off and serve.

Note:  I've augmented the original instructions and added the nutmeg - it was not in the original recipe but always goes well with spinach and Swiss cheese. 

This is my version of a deep, covered casserole dish. This one is by Portmerion and is great for serving a variety of casseroles and vegetables. It's oven to table as well.



Almost All Cats Neutered

Yesterday I finally took the 2010 kittens (now grown cats) to be neutered. I had purchased a spay/neuter voucher from the Warren County Humane Association to have the mother cat spay but she died before I could catch her. She was just a feral cat that showed up and left me kittens this spring. The voucher was going to expire in February so it was time to put it to use. Since I am off work this week it seemed a perfect time to use it and I had two tom cats that were fighting each other all the time. Yesterday I gathered up Tigger and Pipster and took them to my small animal vet to be neutered. I picked them up this morning. They are a little miffed with me and still a little quiet. I'll keep them in the house at least through today.

That means I have just one little guy from the spring 2011 litter to have neutered and then everyone is done!  That's eight cats, seven of which are male, all neutered.

Neutering male cats is a pretty simple procedure. I board cattle for a vet and he neutered three of the kittens on my kitchen counter in October. I just couldn't catch the fourth. He gave them each a shot of something to put them out, then it was a quick slice, twist, snip and tie off. The boys woke up later that evening, played just like always and seemed to have no idea anything had changed. I admit Pipster and Tigger are not quite so carefree about their operations, but I am sure they will be fine by this evening. I forgot to ask the vet how long it would take for the testosterone to disappear from their systems. I expect about a month. Here's a picture of the two "tuxedo boys" from this year, Zeke on the left, and Little Joe.

Beet Soup or Borsch

Here is a gorgeous red soup that tastes good, is low fat and low calorie and all that good stuff. I like it's red color for the holidays but it would also work very well  for Valentine's Day.  I had beets in my fall garden and pulled the last of them around Thanksgiving.  I trimmed the tops and the root, washed them and stored them  in my refrigerator's vegetable bin. They keep very well.

I love beets roasted, so I wrapped half a dozen of them in a package of aluminum foil (two sheets) and roasted them in a 400 degree oven for about half an hour or until they were tender. They cooled in the foil and then were easy to peel.

Easy Beet Soup

Most of the beet soup recipes I've read call for beets, carrots, celery, onion, parsnips, tomatoes and cabbage. I decided I could do without the cabbage. Likewise I didn't see the point of tomatoes, though I suppose it was there for the acid.  I think of beets as a fall root crop, the same as carrots, onions and parsnips so I opted for mostly root vegetables in the soup. The exception was celery. I begin most soup recipes with  my trinity of carrots, onions and celery so was pretty sure that would be the best base. Also, I had my own homemade beef broth which is very yummy and nothing like the little salty cubes of beef bullion (yuk!). Good "stock in a box beef broth (the one in the red box)  should work well. So here's my version of the soup and I hope you like it.

6 medium sized beets, roasted, skinned and sliced or diced.

1 medium or two small carrots, peeled and finely chopped

1 rib of celery, finely chopped

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

6 cups good beef broth

Serves 4 a generous portion of soup, or six for an appetizer.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter in the vegetable oil. Saute the onion, carrot and celery in the butter and oil until the onion is softened and the vegetables are beginning to brown just a little. Add the salt and pepper, the beets and the beef broth.  Bring the mixture almost to a boil, then reduce the heat and gently simmer the soup 15 or 20 minutes or until the carrots and celery are tender. Remove from the heat and add the red wine vinegar. Puree the soup with the gadget of your choice - blender, immersion blender, food processor. Reheat to warm before serving if necessary. 

You could garnish this soup with sour cream but its really not necessary. I noticed when a dropped a little sour cream in the soup it just sunk to the bottom of the bowl. If you must garnish consider some warm crusty bread with a compound butter made with dill weed.



Meat For Sale

My steer went to slaughter yesterday.  He was such a big pet it was hard to send him off, but then I remembered how he "bullied" the cows away from the feed racks and was just generally making a nuisance of himself, so it was time.  The carcass will be hanging at the butcher for a good two weeks and then the meat will be cut, wrapped and frozen solid. I''ll pick it up and distribute it to my customers in early January. 

My steer's hanging weight is 818 pounds. That's a little higher than my 750 average, but not the biggest I've ever sold. He is the first grass fed steer I've sold so I am anxious to see if the meat is really lean. It should be very lean.

I was checking out some other beef farm websites to see what they are offering for split sides - what cuts, how many pounds, the price etc.  I'm a little low on price and a lot higher on pounds! These folks must be selling little Jersey dairy steers!  Most said a split side should hang at 150 pounds and yield 100 pounds cut and wrapped meat. My steer hangs at 202 pounds for a split side and will probably yield between 150 and 175 pounds of meat. I'm selling a split side for $3.00 a pound cut and wrapped. I have one split side left. If you are interested let me know. At this time I plan to deliver meat on January 9th. Most others are selling their meat from $5.50 to $7 a pound cut and wrapped. I think my price is fair and what my market will bear.

I found this list of cuts available from a 100 pound slit side. It gives you an idea of how many kinds of beef meals you'd likely get from a split side.  This list just makes my mouth water thinking about all those good beef meals I'll be preparing!  This list doesn't include things like liver, heart, tongue and kidneys. I feed the liver to the cats and have a neighbor who will take the heart and kidneys. Not sure about the tongue. This list doesn't have a brisket or flank steak. I'll make sure I get those cuts. I'll also include some suet for the birds.

1 or 2 @ 3 Lb. Chuck Roast
2 Chuck Steaks
1 or 2 @ 3 Lb. Arm Roasts
2 or 3 Lbs. of Stew Beef
2 Pkgs. Short Ribs at approximately 2.5 Lbs. per Pkg.
2 Neck Soup Bones
2 Shank Soup Bones
About 7 Lbs. of Rib Steaks or Rib Roasts
Approximately ten steaks total divided amongst the Sirloin, T-Bone, & Porterhouse @ 3/4” thick.
5 Lbs. of Top Round that can be cut as Roasts, Steaks, or London Broil
1 or 2 @ 3 Lb Rolled Rump Roasts
1 @ 3 Lb. Sirloin Tip Roast
8 Cube Steaks
Approximately 40 Lbs. of Ground Beef

Sunday on the Farm

Most weekends Sunday is the only day I have totally to myself to work on the farm.  Some Sunday's I'm busier than others and yesterday was one of those.  It started with delivering round bales of hay to the herd and the Angus boarders. That was a fairly easy task as it mostly involves sitting on a tractor and managing the round bale spear on the front end loader.

I sold BTAP Lulu,  one of the bred heifers, and her new owner came to pick her up last Sunday. She did not want to go and broke away from us, breaking down a gate and joining her mother and sister and little brother. Since she's a good six months pregnant, we let her go and I promised to have my hauler deliver her this Sunday.  

Limousin cattle can jump fences like deer. It always amazes me to see them go over a gate with no running start, so I knew I needed to reconfigure the barn so that Lulu wouldn't find a way to escape. It took a good two hours but in the end she walked on to the trailer with no mishaps. She wasn't happy about it when she realized what she'd done but by then it was too late.

I rode with Mr. Burns who hauls for me to deliver Lulu. I like to see where my animals will be living. I can report that Lulu has a beautiful new home near Milford in the care of a good man.  The operation is a cow/calf farm dedicated to producing healthy, all  natual beef.

Raw Milk

Most mornings I watch "Morning Joe" on MSNBC. Lately their dialog has been all about the many Republican candidates and this morning they reported on Ron Paul in New Hampshire. Paul's big political spewing included a promise to make raw milk legal. This was pandering to the dairy farmers in New Hampshire who (in my educated opinion) should be making ice cream and cheese and not trying to get a market for raw milk!

I've written on this before and I'll keep writing because this is so very important. DON'T DRINK RAW MILK, no matter how sweet and happy you think the farmer and the cows may be.  Milk comes from the cow's udder which is directly in front of the cows rear end where the manure comes out. Manure carries
ecoli and all those other bad bacteria.  Let me tell you folks, cows don't have a clue about cleanliness. As they step in their own manure it splashes on to their udders. They lay down in their own manure and drag their udders through the manure. And yes, the farmer "washes"  the udder down before milking, but have you ever got up close and personal washing a cows udder? The udder is tender and you can't scrub at it twice a day without making a very tender and unhappy cow.  If you are out their  using your hand sanitizer all day long you know how drying it can be. Most farmers wash down the teats with a rag dipped in a bucket of some cleaning solution. It's not normally a big scrubbing job. Can you really think a cursory wipe of the udder is really killing bacteria?  You wipe down the shopping cart in the Kroger's because you don't want to get bad bacteria on your hands. How can anyone think the cow's udder is sterile clean. It is not!!!!   I can't begin to tell you how this makes me see RED! Here we go again with ignorance running rampant through the political process, not to mention the general public. 

We have the most clean, safe food supply in the world. Would I like to see us do better - absolutely. But making our food better doesn't include making it less safe. 

Pheasant with Orange and Chestnuts

A friend of mine went pheasant hunting and bagged a few birds so I thought I'd share the AGA cookbook's Pheasant with Orange and Chestnuts recipe. This is the one that warns that if the birds are old or badly shot they will take 3-4 hours to cook. It actually sounds pretty good.

6 oz dried chestnuts soaked overnight in cold water (probably have to get this on line)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 oz butter
a brace of roasting pheasants
2 oz flour
8 oz good red wine
16 oz chicken stock
2 yellow onions, peeled and quartered
juice and rind of one orange - peel this like you do when making candied orange peel (see blog)
2 teaspoons red current jelly
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Strain the chestnuts and set aside. Heat 1 tablespoonon of the oil in a large pan with the butter and brown the pheasants on all sides. Remove the pheasants to a plate and add the remaining oil to the pan. Add chestnuts to the pan and brown the chestnuts, then remove them to the plate with the pheasants. Add the flour to the pan and whisk it together cooking for a couple of minutes to cook the flour. Whisk in the wine and the stock and bring to the boil, stirring until thickened.  Add the onions to the pan with the orange rind, juice, red currant jelly and seasoning and blend well. Return pheasants and chestnuts to the pan. Cover with a lid and bring to the boil. Reduce to simmer and simmer for about 10 minutes on the stove top. Place the covered pan of pheasants in the oven and cook for 3-4 hours, depending on the age of the birds. Taste to check seasoning and remove the rind before serving.

Shortbread Cookies

I've told you all about my AGA cooker in other posts. Cooking on an AGA is a little different from the usual American electric or gas stove, so AGA gives all its new owners an AGA cookbook. Since the AGA is manufactured in England, the cookbook is for English cooks. I know what you are thinking! England is not known for its cuisine.

But the AGA cookbook is pretty good reading. The recipes are so different from American cookbooks. For example, as I leaf through the book (its a slim volume) I see a recipe called "Beef Oxford".  The recipe is cubes of stew beef browned then simmered in the oven for 4 hours. The ingredients list includes onions, garlic, mushrooms, green peppers, red wine and apricot jam! The tag line says: "Perfect for supper on a cold winter's day."

Another recipe is for "Pheasant with Orange and Chestnuts". The tag line on this one is: "The timing of this recipe is for roasting birds, but you can use old birds very satisfactorily or even ones that are old and badly shot. They may well take 4-5 hours to get really tender." Old pheasant, badly shot. I think I'll pass!

But some of the recipes sound really good. My favorite, and one I make often with my own special twist, is for Butter Shortbread. Here it is. It's a great old fashioned Christmas cookie and gets better with age. I give you the recipe straight from the cookbook as well as my version.  Note:  I have a kitchen scale and weigh the ingredients. Cup measures just don't work.

Butter Shortbread

The AGA Version

12 oz butter

12 oz plain flour

6 oz ground rice, cornflour or semolina

6 oz caster sugar

demerara sugar

In a stand mixer with a dough hook, cut up the butter into small pieces. Put everything together in the mixer bowl and mix with the dough hook until all is combined.  You can also use a food processor or a pastry cutter. Work it like pie pastry.

Lightly grease a large, heavy rimmed baking sheet. (My AGA came with a large 11" by 15" roasting pan which the recipe says to use and I do). Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Smooth the dough with a damp off set spatula. Prick all over with a fork and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 or 25 minutes (maybe longer as ovens vary)  or until the shortbread is a very pale golden color around the edges.

Remove the shortbread from the oven and cut into 40 pieces. Lift out the pieces and cool them on a wire rack. Store in cookie tins.



                                                                  Butter Shortbread

My Version

When I first made this recipe I didn't have ground rice or semolina and I wasn't sure what cornflour was, so I used fine yellow cornmeal.  The cornmeal turned out to be a perfect substitution and I've made this shortbread with corn meal ever since.  I am serious when I say this cookie gets better with age. I don't like to touch it until its at least a week old. I keep the shortbread in cookie tins in a cool place. This is my 88 year old father's favorite cookie. I've also taken it to several cookie swaps and have been told by at least one other gentleman that this shortbread is almost better than sex!  Try it, see what you think.

Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies

So, its Monday and its raining again. I'm trying hard to get in the holiday spirit but this rain and unseasonably warm temperatures are straining credibility.  So I think its time to do a little baking!

Here is a recipe that always says Christmas to me. It was handed down from my Grandmother McGarity. I have no idea where she got the recipe. I got it from my Mom. She has it written down in a little black notebook where she keeps all the recipes her mother gave her when she was married.

These are strong flavored cookies. They are similar to gingerbread cookies but have more flavor.  The full cup of molasses and the brown sugar really comes through. My Mom always makes these at Christmas. They are great with a little powdered sugar on top and a cup of strong black tea. Enjoy!

Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees



3 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter or margarine

2/3 cup brown sugar packed tight

1 cup molasses (unsulfured)

1 cup buttermilk

Sift all the dry ingredients together in a wide bowl or onto a piece of waxed paper.

In an electric mixer, cream the butter until light and fluffy, two minutes. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy three or four more minutes. Add molasses and mix thoroughly. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture alternating with the milk . Continue adding flour mixture and milk, ending with milk. Drop batter by rounded tablespoon fulls on parchment lined cookie sheets. Spread batter slightly with the back of a spoon. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and transfer cookies to wire racks to cool. When almost cool, dust with a little powered sugar using a fine mesh sieve.