Vache Perdu

We spent the whole day yesterday at the zoo. I stood for ages, cooing at a two week old gibbon and his mommy. Charlie went on his first pony ride. Japanese deer with velvet antlers and anime eyes came out of a dark, cool forest to nibble corn from our hands.

We topped off the whole affair with a picnic of organic local strawberries, fried chicken, and biscuits. It was a long, fun, hot day.

And as a result, we were floppy like jello this morning. John made some hot chocolate. We sat around with the paper for hours, sipping his spicy brew and trading political commentary, then eventually I made these french toast sandwiches:

Ingredients
1 stale brioche (I used our standard, from Boulangerie La Vendeenne), sliced thinly

Organic butter

5 eggs (We get ours from Wooly Mountain Farm. The chickens' diet of organic grain and oyster shells produces such a muscular yolk that they're hard to beat. Whoops, I made a punny!)

1/4 C cream

Vanilla to taste (Did you know that vanilla is the sex organ of the orchid, a tropical flower that grows on the sides of trees in the rainforest? I like lots in my french toast--and everything else)

Zest from two lemons (we get organic ones from Peet's Frootique in Halifax)

1 pkg La Vache Qui Ri

Directions
Heat the pan on low/medium. Beat the eggs, cream, vanilla, and zest together well. Soak bread pieces in the mixture, turning over after a few minutes. Drop a dab of butter in the pan (I like stainless steel with a copper bottom for this.)

After browning the bread on both sides, remove and plate. Make the slices into cheese sandwiches, using 1/2--1 triangle of cheese per sandwich. Serve and eat by hand. Delicious!

(And a little maple syrup as a dipping sauce doesn't hurt.)

Sauce Chartreuse

I modified this recipe from one offered by the monks who make Chartreuse:

2 C chopped tomatoes
1 big onion, minced
3 T butter
1/4 C green Chartreuse
1/4 C heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste

Sweat the onions in butter with a pinch of salt until mostly soft; add tomatoes for the last 10-15 minutes.

Add Chartreuse and turn off the heat. Let sit for a few minutes, then stir in the cream and serve immediately.

I served this on a grass-fed roast from Kevin Veinotte (ten miles) and boiled new potatoes from the Annapolis Valley (about 70 miles). It was a nice taste, but I thought the tomatoes overpowered the Chartreuse to a surprising extent. I think next time I'll try adding Chartreuse and cream to a simple broth and pan jus mixture. There's something the marriage of chlorophyll and alcohol that just does it for me.

No Surprises Here

14 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Green Betty Fries Chicken

Ingredients
2.5-3 lbs chicken pieces (We use Kevin Veinotte's free range, organic birds)

Kosher salt

1 minced onion

2 cloves garlic, pressed (This ingredient I grew myself!)

3 C buttermilk

1 t guajillo powder

1 t ancho powder (all our chile powders come from Native Seeds)

1 t cracked black pepper

3/4 C flour

1/4 C cornmeal (both this and the flour are available organically and locally from Speerville Mills)

2 C vegetable fats

1 stick organic butter

Directions
Lightly coat the chicken pieces in kosher salt and pile them up in a bowl, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Combine buttermilk, onions, and garlic.

Rinse chicken well and add to buttermilk. Marinade for between 8 and 24 hours (the longer the marinade, the more distinct the buttermilk/allium scent to the meat. I like it at about 12 hours.)

Combine flour, chiles, pepper, and cornmeal in a big ziplock; shake it all around until thoroughly blended. Remove chicken from buttermilk mixture, shake off the excess, and shake it all around inside the bag. Put it on a piece of waxed paper for 20 or 30 minutes.

Heat the fat and butter in a 12 inch cast iron skilled on moderately high heat (7.5, on my stove dial). Add 1/3 of the chicken pieces, reduce heat to low (2 on my stove) and cook for 10 minutes. Turn and cook for another 12 minutes (legs and thighs) or 8 minutes (breasts). Transfer chicken to a paper towel and drain before eating or storing.

I took this to the one year anniversary party for Lalanova. The compliments are going to keep me fat-headed for about a week.

Garden Update

Okay, for those of you who were impressed by my early, grandiose descriptions of my garden... this is what really happened.

The flower house was a bust. I planted too early while everyone was still starving. The bugs ate the morning glories and the birds ate the sunflower sprouts. I planted again and nothing came up. Now it's getting too late. I give up.

Here are the edibles growing in the yard as I write:

One Honeycrisp apple tree, wee but busting out all over in healthy foliage;
A healthy and productive raspberry bush, with a bumper crop starting to form;
Some rhubarb from John's mom's yard struggling to survive its transplant;
4 varieties of Garlic from Salt Spring Seeds. Only the 'Quebec' strain is thriving (unless the others are supposed to be teeny and yellow, not too likely) but 'Quebec' is doing great--it practically looks like corn;
Several random patches of parsely;
The usual vibrant chives;
A pot of rosemary on the porch;
Some small spring onions in a raggedy circle out by the tent;
Wild strawberries on the front lawn;
and
A plot of something Charlie planted. We're not quite sure what, but I'm starting to suspect broccoli. Whatever it is, it's growing well.

Okay fine, so it's not the permaculture smallholding I envisioned, but for only my second year of gardening (not to mention the year I started a business and learned what it's like to have an extroverted 3 year old) I'd say I'm doing okay.

And am I ever grateful for our local farmer's markets? Hell, yeah.

Bloggy

I'm a busy little writer these days... check out my newest blog-for-pay at Ecoble and my volunteer contribution to the community at Citizens Against Uranium Mining.

I'm also working with a group of local food writers to produce a small 'zine entitled either "Brine" or "Eat It" (to be decided soon). It will contain restaurant reviews--beginning with Trattoria Della Nonna, profiles of some of our local farmers, local food recipes, and an advice column. Watch this space for more details!

Told Ya