Sapping, spaetzle, and an infestation

© 2017 Joshua Stark

The fun with the stand mixer continues!  I've whipped up egg whites for home-made Belgian waffles, and made a gingerbread (from James Beard's recipe) with the paddle.  I've also tried the dough hook twice -- for a soda bread, and yesterday, for spaetzle dough.  I'm still getting the hang of it, but it is coming along.

If you've never made spaetzle, the recipe is super easy: 3 cups flour, four eggs, a teaspoon salt and another of nutmeg, and about 1/2 cup of water.  After mixing the dry ingredients together, mix the eggs in the middle with half the water, and then beat in the rest of the water until it's a smooth, elastic and fairly sticky consistency.  The dough hook worked for this part really well, and let me do other things while it worked.

Now, the hard part (for spaetzle):  I don't own a spaetzle press.  I do it the old fashioned way, by cutting it on a board... something like what this absolutely amazing woman does.

Please, take a moment to watch that video, because that woman flat-out rocks!  

Anyway... I'm actually nothing like that woman.  First, I don't have a board with a handle.  Second, the board I do have is too wide to fit into my pot. I also don't have a knife that flat -- my knife is too sharp and kept getting caught on the board. What I got was a quick whipping up of the dough, followed by an hour or so of wrestling with a very sticky, gooey mess.  

I finally was able to cook up a bunch (it kept growing and growing!), served alongside garden chard and elk meatballs. The kids liked it alright.  The wife absolutely LOVED it!

That latter fact bodes ill for my future.  


Now, for the infestation:

Not the best pictures, but they clearly show what was a short-lived infestation of maybe twenty or so Meleagris gallopavo.  They were first heard jumping from our roof to our neighbor's roof -- I wasn't quite sure what they were, then hey!  There's a jenny staring at me through the window!

I called a couple of times, since a jake was keen on struttin' his stuff, and then I hooted like an owl a couple of times and three or four of 'em immediately gobbled back.  It was great.

I don't know if they were roosting in one of our gigantic trees, but we'll be looking for them tonight (update: no return of the flock).

These are city-folk, and we won't be hunting this particular flock come Spring.  However, I have been very pleased with the efforts of our first bird last year


Speaking of trees, I just this morning discovered that people tap walnut trees for sap.  I have a monster English walnut in my back yard (it could easily accommodate three taps), but I have a sneaking feeling that our temperatures rarely get cold enough for a good flow.

Has anybody out there tapped trees in California?  Have you tapped trees where you maybe get three weeks, total, of below freezing temps?

Quick update -- and a new addition to the kitchen

© 2017 Joshua Stark

Back here for a quick update:

Still raining.

No joke, the rain is not letting up here in California.  As a result, many critters are accessing habitat they'd been locked out of for a decade, including our amazing King salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).  Here's a great Capitol Public Radio report on the floodplain known as the Yolo Bypass.

I was blessed to get to hunt this stretch of water on the final weekend of duck season with a good friend.  It made for a great adventure -- canoeing in with dog and decoys, the sky full of birds (most of them juuuust out of reach), and the weather perfect California -- 50 degrees and sunny, with 40 degree water.

My friend managed three ducks, and I, one, but we had more opportunities than just these -- including a great chance at a pair of mallards (I whiffed), a pair of canvasbacks (I whiffed, and still kick myself for it), and Canada geese (they must have been wearing kevlar).  He was kind enough to give me his birds (I think he was done cleaning birds for the year).

It wasn't fast shooting, but it kept on and on, and it varied.  A flight of pintail drakes came ripping overhead.  My pal reeled in a pair of geese with a call like he had 'em on a line. A few times, we'd be watching flocks of wigeons, pintails, or flights of diver ducks three or four hundred yards out, when suddenly six or eight teal would come screaming in about two feet off the water to land right in our decoys.  

It was a great, great day, especially for this river rat who loves the marsh, and who got to be a part of it. We even saw a mink. Thanks, Ryan!

Back home and a week later, I'm still reflecting on that wonderful day.

Oh, I also picked up a new item for the kitchen:

An extraordinary deal!  It's a whole new world for me...

 I've never, ever owned a stand mixer before.  It's a dream long-deferred, because these suckers ain't cheap.  But it was a great deal, on the 575 watt model, which is what I'd been holding out for.

Tonight I'm breaking it in, probably with either a soda bread, gingerbread, or maybe an acorn cake. 

Let me know your ideas for using a stand mixer -- what should I do? What accessories? Any interesting tip and tricks, send 'em my way.  

How to cook nettles

© 2012 Joshua Stark

Here is a short video my friend Abby from This Old Blog put together for me.  If you don't realize it, she is the reason this video is so professionally put together; I did everything in my power to make it stink, but she is very good.

Turkey and dumplings

© 2011 Joshua Stark

As a nice guy and unlucky hunter, but with friends who are skilled nimrods, I oftentimes reap the bounty of others' largesse.  Last month, for example, I was the lucky and thankful recipient of Hank & Holly's freezer emptyin', both by attending a freezer-emptying dinner of theirs, and also by just showing up when they asked, "hey, Josh, you want some ducks and stuff?"

So a few weeks back, I cooked up wild turkey legs (and now you know how I got them, because I sure as heck didn't get 'em from shooting an actual wild turkey).  I really liked how this turned out, and I want to keep the recipe for future reference (in case I ever find a wild turkey stupid enough to walk in front of me).  Feel free to use it, too - but remember, I'm no chef nor cook.

Note:  This is a variation from an old "Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook", and though I use some of their measurements here, I don't always do so when actually cooking, especially with the spices.  Consider all spice amounts as a suggestion, and throw in or out whatever you see fit.

Turkey & Dumplings

2 wild turkey legs
3 C. water
2 Tsp. "Better than Bouillon" (or equivalent stock or bouillon)
1/4 C. walnut ketchup (or, 2-4 Tb. worchestershire sauce)
1/2 cup onions
2-4 cloves garlic
1 Tb. cooking oil
1/2 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. celery seed
1/2 - 1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
2 small zucchinis
2 small potatoes (optional)

First, fill a 4-qt. or so Dutch oven  with the water, bouillon, salt, and marjoram, and heat to boil
While the water heats up, brown the turkey legs in a pan with the oil, allspice, paprika and black pepper.  When the water is boiling and the legs browned on all sides, put them in the water.  Cover the pot and cook for 25-30 minutes.

Chop your onions, zucchini and potato, and put them in the pot with the celery seed, walnut ketchup,
and garlic.  Remove your turkey legs, bone them and remove any tendons, and chop the meat coarsely.  Return to the pot and cover, cook for 10 more minutes.

To prepare the dumplings, mix together 1 C. flour, 1 tsp. baking powder and 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. salt.  Stir in a little less than 1/4 C. canola oil, mixing together until it all resembles pea-sized crumbs.  Add 1/2 C. yogurt or buttermilk, and stir til combined. 

After 10 minutes of cooking, organize your meat and veggies to make some hills above the soup, and drop your dumplings onto these hills.  Make six or so.  Cover, and cook for 12-15 minutes.

This is a great, hearty meal, and like I said, make sure to spice as you see fit.  Enjoy!

One bowl oatmeal biscuits

© 2011 Joshua Stark

And by one bowl, I mean you don't take the dough out of the bowl until you put 'em on the cookie tray.

It's unrelated to my typical stuff (I didn't grow the oats or flour, milk the cow or mine the baking powder), but it worked out so well that I thought I'd write it down here.

First, the ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups flour (I use a half-&-half blend of whole wheat and unbleached)
1/2 Cup oatmeal
1/3 Cup vegetable oil (or butter)
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 or so Cup yogurt

Next, directions:

Heat your oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit.
Cook your oatmeal according to their directions and let it cool (I use leftover oatmeal)
Add the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and oil, and mix it together.
Add the 1/2 Cup of yogurt and mix it together.  The mixture should be wet dough - it comes together as a ball, but it's a bit slimy.
Cut 12 pieces out of the dough, one at a time, and put them on a baking sheet.

Cook them for 12-15 minutes.

No rolling, no kneading.  The oatmeal imparts some liquid and also makes it easier to shape on the cookie sheet, so they don't look like flour drop biscuits.  The oatmeal also makes the biscuits moist.

It's a good, simple recipe.  I hope you like it.

Update: Around the garden and yard (tip!), pickling, and looking for ideas

© 2011 Joshua Stark

Well, it looks as if my latest attempt to keep the ducks out of the raised bed (give 'em one bed, and fence the other with five-foot bamboo trellis) is proving successful, but I wonder if it's only because they are getting older and care less about thwarting me.  Whatever the reason, I'm getting a late batch of corn, beans and possibly okra - I'm especially excited about the beans.  I wish I had pictures for you all, but our camera was stolen from our car a couple of weeks back (along with my fly rod)...

The potato patch (described here) isn't working as I'd hoped - I only see one potato trying to grow, and it doesn't look like it can work its leaves through the bamboo sun-shade I'm using.  However, I'm still hopeful, and the plants I put in on top are still coming up, too.  They aren't looking too healthy, but this is a learning process, and next time I plan to layer some good soil from the worm bin in-between layers of straw.

My lawn experiment is also coming along nicely.  When I built our little duck pond last year, I inadvertently killed the majority of our lawn.  You see, I used the dirt from the pond to in-fill the lower sections of the yard, but I didn't really believe that the dirt below the topsoil was sterile.  Boy, was I wrong on that one.

Gratefully, the ducks have been fertilizing that dirt for the past year.  However, our very hard rains this year turned much of it into durn-near cement (if you put the emphasis on the first "e" in cement, you will pronounce that properly), and I, having no intention of renting a roto-tiller just to find out where my sprinkler lines are, started looking for a short-cut.  This time, to my surprise, I found one:

First, I mowed down the straw used by the ducks.  Then, I soaked the yard really good.  Next, I spread grass seed (by hand, of course - if I'm not renting a rototiller, I'm sure as heck not buying a seeder!), then covered them in a layer of mulched straw, and watered that down.  Every day for the first few days I sprayed the patch, and now, two weeks later, my test patch looks nice and green! A couple of days back, when I saw that the grass had established, I raked up the larger straw, and I'll be danged if it doesn't look like we have grass on our lawn. 

Of course, the ducks couldn't leave it alone, and there are a couple of holes (especially right where the sprinkler pops up), but those can be fixed with extra seed or a patch of sod.  Overall, I'm tickled pink at how well this worked. 

I also finally got around to dealing with my ketchup walnuts.  Instead of the nine days soaking in vinegar, I actually soaked them for over two weeks, and I must say that the vinegar became even darker than I'd remembered.  I wasn't too worried, though, since vinegar just gets better with age, and nothing was going to start growing in that acidic and tannic concoction.

Yesterday, I drained out the vinegar into a stock pot, put in some ingredients (drat! I forgot the horseradish), and about 30 minutes later, I canned four pints of green walnut ketchup. 

I then crushed the walnut chunks (I had a lot), added four apples and a cup of raisins, then some surgar and spices, and made up four pints of chutney, with a little left over for last night's dinner.

Both recipes can be found at my "Green Walnuts & You" page.  I added allspice and cinnamon to the chutney, and it is something special.  If you've ever had store-bought chutney, homemade blows it away - so long as you use good vinegar.  It is smoother, much less sharp, yet still vinegary in a good way.  I could have added some more heat in the form of more cayenne, but then my wife wouldn't have liked it nearly as much.  For dinner last night, the chutney and some yogurt made wonderful fillips for a split pea soup. 

Birthday party!

© 2011 Joshua Stark

Today, we throw a birthday bash for my wife, and also her brother's wife, who share the same birthday (tomorrow).  Sadly for the sis, this will be the first year that she is older than her sister-in-law...

I'm orchestrating the dinner, which is almost perfectly akin to herding cats.  I love it, however, I really do.

The main course:  Oven fried chicken.  Some good sides (smashed potatoes, hummus, a pasta).  For dessert, I'm making a chocolate cake and a four-sweets acorn cake (it went over that good, Hank, thanks!), and one grandpa is making pio quinto.  Can you, from the meal you read here, determine my family's origins?  Hint:  It's more than one.

I'll let you know how the shindig went down, hopefully with a couple of pics.

Weather and roasted tomatoes

© 2010 Joshua Stark

The strange weather in Northern California has brought some strange gardening.  For example, I don't think we've seen one day over 105 this year, and although the National Weather Service says Sacramento has had eight days over 100, I only remember one hot weekend.

Our days have been in the 80's mostly, with a smattering of 90's.  This is not 'normal' - Sacramento usually sees 22 days over 100 degrees in a Summer.

This is my excuse for four-foot corn plants and tomatoes that get a pale orange color when ripe, and the ten or so green beans we harvested from a dozen plants put in the ground.

And this week will continue a strange weather year, starting with temps at around 100 for two days, and then dropping down into the mid 80's... what are we supposed to do with this?

This morning, my daughter Phoebe and I had decided to pull the green-but-not-producing bean plants, along with the old corn stalks, and start planting greens for Fall.  Hank's pak choy and other assorted greens are looking quite lovely, and I think we could get a couple of harvests of young pak choy in, as well as start maybe some garlic and cabbages.

But when we looked into the green beans, we saw flowers!  And, one tiny bean, which I picked for Phoebe.  So, the beans stay, getting a makeshift prop-up from some camphor tree limbs I cut last week.  Hopefully with this week's hot snap, we'll see more beans.

The tomatoes, though not the prettiest, have been producing just fine the past few weeks, and I've started looking for recipes for them beyond just eating them off the plant.

I'm no fan of tomatoes (gasp!), which my wife finds funny, because I'm no fan of eggs (gasp!) or zucchinis (gasp!), either, but I grow them at home in great quantities.  I'll eat them, and I love them all as valuable ingredients, don't get me wrong, but I don't much care for them in their purer states.  This fact, coupled with my plethora of tomatoes this year, is the reason for the searching online.

Because I'm no fan of tomatoes (ga... oh, never mind), what I found was new to me, but may not be so to you all.  I found oven roasted, oven dried, or slow roasted tomatoes, and what I've found I very much like. 

The recipe I used this time, though there were many good-looking ones, was adapted from Julie Biuso's, because it had the shortest cooking time at one hour, and with the expected high temperatures, I'd like to keep the oven off.  I say 'adapted', because I didn't use small tomatoes, I used big tomatoes (an heirloom variety about the size of a better boy) and canning tomatoes (an heirloom that bears a striking resemblance to romas, only longer).  I put some basil on some, cut some tomatoes thicker and others thinner, and then taste-tested.

One of my reasons for not fancying tomatoes is the acid - it's too much for me - so after each bite, I would swish some baking soda water around in my mouth, which seemed to do the trick.

My favorite is the thicker slice with some basil on it:

It could have used some more cooking time, for sure - next time I'll try 90 minutes, instead of one hour.  In the meantime, consider my version of an easy cooking method that yields a divine tomato:

-------------------------------------------

Oven Roasted Tomatoes
Tomatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
Salt
Black Pepper
Fresh basil
Olive oil

Lay out sliced tomatoes, sprinkle chopped fresh basil, salt, and black pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Cook 'til done.  Look for curled, slightly blackened edges, and a thicker, not-quite-fruit-leathery texture.  Enjoy.

If you have any suggestions, ways to garden in the weird weather or ideas to make those oven-roasted tomatoes even snappier, please let me know.

I just can't seem to get rid of anything

© 2010 Joshua Stark

In making tzatziki for Hank and Holly's Big Fat Greek Party, Hank instructed me to squeeze my homemade yogurt, to get a thicker, tzatziki consistency.  And, though I did so, I was loathe to lose all that good stuff (Hank noted, correctly, that I must have never worked in a restaurant before - well, I bussed tables once, but he's right, really).

So, I didn't lose it.  I put it back into the milk bottle, and night-before-last, I cooked the pasta in it.