The Bride Makes An Old Family Recipe

After shoveling snow in the rain with the COG and The Son of, The Bride made potato soup, by an old family recipe. The Bride's mother must have made it at least once in these circumstances, because The Bride has a strong association between shoveling snow, and then eating Potato Soup.

In The Bride's mind, of course, this has a mythic quality: The warm family kitchen, the creamy soup with patches of yellow from the quantitites of butter used in the soup, the faint brown sprinkles of celery salt on the top. Also, in memory, The Bride's mother always, without fail, made the soup after shoveling snow.

The Bride would normally never dream of using celery salt and The Kitchen Police (aka The COG and The Son of) would normally protest. But for this one recipe, it is necessary.

The Bride Has A Birthday

The COG cooked Meatballs and Spaghetti, always the Bride's favorite birthday meal. The Son of COG made a Chocolate Souffle, shown here. Divine!

The Bride received a new 3d gen Nano, named Dulcibella, so adorable and tiny. And a new large screen to use with her laptop computer, named Bluebell.

The Bride will have to wean herself from Annabelle, her old ipod, which feels more like a pet, than technology. It will be wrenching.

Why why why does the Bride never learn not to name things?

Quarante-quatre (44) Update

In October, I made Forty-Four (1 orange studded with 44 coffee, left to mature in vodka with 44 sugar cubes for 44 days). It's done.



The first picture shows the brew before we filtered it through a coffee filter. I've put it on white paper to show the wonderful color.







The second picture shows it after decanting, before drinking. This time it's less sweet and more spicy than previous versions, so it's even better than before. It will continue to mature as it sits.

The Bread and the Pie alluded to in an earlier post

COG and Son of COG had already helped themselves to bread. I'm told it's a particularly nice loaf. Probably due to rising overnight in the fridge.

Radishes?

These weird vegetables were part of this week's share. They were labelled 'storage radishes' and they taste like radishes. I put a teaspoon next to them to show their size. I'm not quite sure what to do with them. When I showed them to the Son of COG and he said they looked like something from Blackadder.

Wild Harvest - Hickory Nuts and Apples

I've been out foraging on Heartbreak Road. I found hickory nuts just down the road among the leaves.

The little white egg-like things in the picture are hickory nuts, which are a native species and they grow wild all over here. Right now, when I take Sheba for a walk we trample nuts in every direction on the roads around our house. From the internet I've learned that pecans are a form of hickory nut, but some people think they are inferior in flavor to the kind I found. Therefore, I'm going to try to make a hickory nut pie, similar to pecan pie. The only problem so far is that their shells are fairly thin, so it's hard to get the nutmeats out without crushing them.


Here's a picture of my harvest. The apples are also from Heartbreak Road, from an old tree hidden in the hedgerow - it doesn't seem to be in a place where it would have been planted. I've already made apple butter with them. They looked pretty ugly, but they made a mighty fine apple butter.

Walnut Liqueur Recipes

First, The Bride is sorry to tell you that it's too late this year to make walnut liqueur. It turns out that the walnuts need to be green, as in immature, not simply green, as in encased by hull. The French traditionally pick them on the feast of St. Jean, which is June 24th or thereabouts. In the mountains (pays de Montagne) of France, the nuts are picked on Bastille Day. In California late May or early June is better. So, make your best guess.

Second, The Bride warns you to wear latex gloves and use an non-staining cutting board because the walnut juices stain a deep, indelible brown. If you don't take this precaution, don't blame The Bride, she tried to warn you.

Thirdly, the COG and The Bride have made many variations of these home-made liqueurs over the years. It's lots of fun and we think everyone should try it. One hint: you need to pre-plan to accumulate really large containers and bottles with screw-tops.

Recipe 1: from the San Francisco Chronicle, by Georgeanne Brennan

Vin de Noix

INGREDIENTS:

35 green walnuts
7 750-ml bottles dry red wine (inexpensive, yet drinkable red wine-Cote du Rhone, Cote de Provence, Syrah, Merlot and Zinfandel are good choices.)
1 quart vodka
4 1/2 cups granulated sugar

INSTRUCTIONS:

With a small mallet or hammer, strike walnuts hard enough to crack open green outer covering. Put them in a glass jar or crock large enough to hold them and wine. Pour wine over them, cover and store in a cool, dark place. Let stand for 40 days.
Then, using a fine-mesh sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth, strain wine into a large, clean, dry crock or pot. Discard walnuts.
Pour vodka into a nonreactive pot or bowl. Add sugar and stir until it has dissolved, about 10 minutes. Pour this mixture into wine and stir well. Using a funnel and a ladle, fill bottles with now-fortified wine to within 1 1/2 to 2 inches from top. Push in a cork or otherwise seal.
Makes approximately eight 750-ml bottles

Recipe 2: translated by The Bride from the French cookbook Vins Aperitifs Maison

Vin de Noix
5 liters of vin rouge
25 young walnuts, picked on the feast of St. Jean
1 kilo (2.2 pounds) granulated sugar
1/2 liter of vodka (in France they'd use eau de vie, but here, vodka substitutes nicely)
5 grams of bitter orange peel
a Tablespoon of plain tea

Clean the nuts and cut them into morsels and put them into a dame-Jean with the red wine and other ingredients. I have no idea what a dame-Jean is and babelfish translates is as 'dame-jean'. My best bet is that it's a demi-john, or other very large container.

Bitter Orange peel -- hmmm. In England you can buy bitter oranges for marmelade. I've never seen them here. Maybe grapefruit, or just plain orange peel.

Let everything macerate for 6 weeks, agitating it frequently, to stir it up.

Filter carefully (we've used coffee filters or clean linen towels placed in a sieve) and put in bottles to age. Place the bottles in the shade, or better still in your 'cave' or in the 'chat-bouton', if you live in the Luberon. Which you don't, but I thought you'd like to know that its a little room, like a pantry, situated on the north side of the house, often under the stairs, well ventilated but sunless.

Recipe 3: from the San Francisco Chronicle again.

Nocino, an Italian variant of Vin de Noix, sans vin

INGREDIENTS:

25 green walnuts
1 quart vodka
2 cups granulated sugar
Zest of one lemon
4 cloves
1 stick cinnamon
Syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water

INSTRUCTIONS:

Cut walnuts into quarters and put them in a large, clean jar with vodka, sugar, lemon zest, cloves and cinnamon. Close jar and setunder sun for 60 days.
For syrup, combine 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Store covered in refrigerator. Add syrup to steeping nuts to ensure they are covered at all times. If necessary, make additional syrup, but not to exceed 1/2 cup. At end of 60 days, add any remaining syrup, then strain liquid through a fine mesh sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth. Discard nuts, lemon, cloves and cinnamon. Bottle liqueur and seal.
Makes about 1 quart