DDC, Week Four: Game Hen and Vegetables

Cooking for myself this week-- no siblings, no housemates (although I hope they will help with the leftovers!).

One of my co-workers alerted me to a place to get local poultry (yay!), so I decided to see what I could find in stores. While I couldn't find chicken (my original plan), I did find cornish game hens at New Leaf. Because I was cooking for myself, I only had to pick up one-- a good thing, considering that Christmas shopping left me if not broke, then at least depleted in funds. I am incredibly pleased with the way this turned out, though, so I will likely cook it again later in the year.

Game hen: Farm to Family
Butter: Strauss
Parsley: SC Downtown farmer's market (given to me by a friend; I don't know exactly where it came from)
Potatoes, golden beets, chiogga beets, parsnips, carrots: New Leaf (all local farms, but I didn't write down specifically which ones)
Turnips: Happy Boy Farms
Olive oil: Bariani
Salt: Eatwell Farms
Pepper: exception

DDC, Week Three: Shepherd's Pie

Memo to self: don't cook when you're exhausted.

This one took way longer than it should have-- both to prep/cook, and to decide on. My younger brother (and housemate) works at New Leaf, which is where I picked up most of the ingredients for this. I wandered around the store one night for about half an hour, trying to figure out what I wanted to make. At the meat department, my choices were fairly limited: the beef was from Humboldt, but everything else was out of state. Humboldt isn't exactly within my 150-mile radius, but it is, at least, in the same half of the state as I am. I'd been wanting to make shepherd's pie for a while, so I decided to go for that-- I picked up potatoes, carrots, parsnips (thank you, New Leaf, for labeling the origins of your produce!) and cheddar cheese, then went home to cook. Overall, it went fine, but I wish I'd had a bit more time to think and plan this one.

...for one thing, if I'd planned, I would have remembered that I actually had some local ground beef in my freezer. So this ended up an imperfect meal, but a tasty one.

Intentions

It seems that the more I cook, the less I blog. In the past few weeks, I've made a lot of food-- cheese twice, Italian sausage, lemon-ginger-honey jelly and persimmon butter, caramels. Unfortunately, I have been without camera and without a lot of time for most of the cooking that I've done, and a lot of it has been done on deadline. When I made caramels, for example, I made the second batch about half an hour before the friend who was picking them up from me arrived.

I have made one more of the Dark Days meals-- shepherd's pie!-- and have plans for my next (game hen and vegetables, om nom nom), but I still need to post about them. Soon, soon, soon.

DDC Week Two: Spaghetti

Week two!


Nothing too adventurous, yet-- both this week's spaghetti and last week's beef stew are things that I cook regularly, just shifted a bit more locally.

This time around, my exceptions were pepper and parmesan cheese, neither of which I could source locally-- I really, really love parmesan cheese. Other than that:

Pasta: Spaghetti from the Santa Cruz Pasta Factory (note: I'm not sure where they get their flour, but their website says that they source ingredients locally whenever they can)

Sauce: My own, made this summer with tomatoes from Happy Boy Farms and my dad's garden. Two new rules for next summer: I am not allowed to talk myself out of buying flats of tomatoes, and I am not allowed to open my canned sauce until after tomatoes are no longer available at the farmer's markets. Because these were my last jars of home-made organic sauces, and it's only December. Technically, I still have a jar of yellow tomato sauce, but I feel like I should save that for something really special. We'll see.

Meat: ground beef from this place in Cayucas-- I don't remember the name, but will look it up next time I use some. Woo!

Salt: Farmhouse Culture

Olive Oil: Bariani, from Sacramento

Pepper: exception

Parmesan: excepetion

Although this is not the most daring, new, and exciting of meals, my housemates seemed to really enjoy it, at least based on the amount of leftovers!

Dinner didn't happen until quite late tonight, because my friend Laurel and I spent most of the day out shopping. I managed to only buy one thing for myself: a new ice cream maker! My old ice cream maker has been surviving, zombie-like, for the last six months or so-- one of my housemates tried to wash it out, and ended up draining about half of the freezing fluid. So while it could almost freeze everything, it fell just short, leading to oddly-textured ice creams and syrupy sorbets. NO LONGER! I have a new ice-cream maker, and it is shiny and red.

DDC, Week One: Beef Stew

I think that I've been planning to make this version of this stew for longer than I've been signed up for the Dark Days Challenge.

It's essentially the same as the stew posted here, only made with locally-sourced ingredients. My main exception, overall, is pepper-- I've managed to find local salt and olive oil, so I'm pretty set other than that, and a few things (like parmesan cheese) that just aren't produced anywhere around here, as far as I know.

Doing this on the central coast of California almost feels like cheating-- we can get a lot of fresh fruits and veggies year-round at the farmer's market, and there are a few stores that continually stock local produce. On the other hand, it is a bit more of a challenge than I had expected, as there are some things I thought would be available that I really can't find (like peas!).

Onions, Carrots- Happy Boy Farms
Bacon- home-cured, pork belly from Fatted Calf
Flour- Massa Organics
Thyme- home-grown
Salt- Farmhouse Culture
Pepper- conventional
Beef, bones for broth- TLC Ranch
Celery- don’t remember, from New Leaf/farm in Hollister
Beer- Devout Stout, from the Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company

This one stayed in the oven for a full two hours while I was at practice with the pipe corps, and it was om nom nomfully delicious when I came back-- I had no joy finding local potatoes or barley, which are the two starches I usually use, so I ate this with my favorite bread (whole wheat millet!) from Kelly's French Bakery in Santa Cruz. The onions had almost completely disintegrated, which was fun, and the flavors really came together well. I am sad that I likely won't be able to make this exact thing again, as TLC Ranch (from which I bought the stew beef and the bones for the stock) is no more.

Note: this was actually prepared and cooked on Wednesday, December 1, but I am awful about posting on time (and my camera doesn't like to talk to my Mac, so I had to wait for a different computer to get the photos!). Yes, I am utilizing the magic of back-dating for this entry.

Cheese, Jam, Broth

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating for the last few weeks! It's been work, and Thanksgiving, and while I've done a lot of cooking, I haven't done a lot of photography or anything like that. If you follow me on Facebook, you know a lot of it-- a friend commented to me the other day that from my FB, it looks like I'd have no time to do anything other than cook and eat!

I've been experimenting a lot more with cheese, for example. Within the last two weeks, I've made two batches of chevre, mozzarella, and am currently halfway through a batch of feta (from this recipe; I'm somewhat concerned that it'll stay more creamy than crumbly). This is in part due to discovering the lovely people at Mountain Feed and Farm Supply, up in Ben Lomond, who carry all the cheesemaking supplies a girl could dream of. I was so, so happy to discover them-- the staff is both very friendly and very knowledgeable. They also carry vacuum-sealers, smokers, juicers; in other words, things that I really kinda want. Like, a lot. Also, jars! Pectin! PH testing strips for canning! I could really go on for hours.

My dad has also been doing this thing where almost every time I go down to my parents' house, he gives me a whole lot of homegrown something. So far, it's been shallots, oranges, and dried tomatoes, all from the yard/garden. The oranges are getting eaten, the dried tomatoes became pesto, and the shallots... oh, the shallots.

Let me start by saying that I haven't always loved onions. When I was growing up, my parents would always remind me of my sister, Miranda, who absolutely hated onions-- and for a long time, I was right there with her. Sometime near the end of college, I started using onions when I cooked, and from there, it's been all downhill.

On the other hand, when your dad gives you two pounds of shallots, sometimes it's hard to figure out what to do. Thankfully, I'd been considering making savory jam, so shallot jam it was! I used this recipe (I more than doubled the cooking time after I added the balsamic vinegar, btw, so that it actually had a jam-texture), and we have decided that it tastes good on just about everything. I still have a bunch of shallots left, though-- anyone want some jam? It does look a bit like the creature from the black lagoon, but it tastes sweet and savory and the same time. I am in love.

(Also: the secret to Kelley's tuna sandwiches is, indeed, pickled red onions. Woo!)

Tonight I'm making vegetable broth in preparation for the Dark Days Challenge, about which I am incredibly excited. I've managed to find local ingredients for just about everything I need to make beef stew, so that'll be the first thing I make. I'm very excited about this challenge; it'll be the first time I've participated in something like this!

Sometimes, it's the journey

That sounds really pretentious.

At least some of the time, though, it's true-- sometimes the cheese doesn't cheese, or you spend five hours making something that will be eaten in... rather less than that, or what have you.

This, for example, is my second batch of goat cheese resolutely not becoming cheese. I did everything right this time! I didn't mess with it! And yet, somehow, after two days of straining through cheesecloth in the fridge, I ended up with cheese spread, not a firmer cheese. This is totally and completely fine. It's going to be delicious (roast garlic, mmm), but it's not what I was necessarily looking for. I guess next time, it's back to the OMG, must add more rennet/citric acid/agh what can I put in this cheese. Because sometimes, the process tells you that it's okay to mess with things, that you were totally right about the curds needing to be bigger and the whey to be clearer.

And then sometimes you spend all afternoon watching something (pretty) closely, and it turns out that it is both a) gorgeous, and b) totally going to be under-appreciated. This, my friends, is my lovely tomato paste, made from the tomatoes I bought last Saturday from Happy Boy Farms. I made yellow tomato sauce this summer (see below!), and while I usually like to add a can of tomato paste to my sauces for texture, and so they're less like soup, it's entirely impossible to find yellow tomato paste. The box from HBF, though, had several pounds of yellow heirloom tomatoes. So on Sunday, with the beef broth simmering on the stove, I made yellow tomato paste, for the sauce I canned this summer.

I don't know if anyone out there has ever made their own tomato paste, but going from about eight cups of raw cut tomatoes to one half-pint of paste is something of an experience. It's a lesson in patience, in having something else to do when you're waiting and stirring and waiting and checking the heat one more time. Because eventually, you're going to have yellow tomato paste for your yellow tomato sauce, and this winter will be good. (And sometimes, there's also a jar of red tomato paste to be made, as well.)

Grocery Shopping and Me

I've always had an interesting relationship with grocery shopping.

For most of my early twenties, I did the majority of my shopping at Safeway (or, when I lived in Ireland, at Tesco's)-- I ate what was cheap, because I was a college student on a budget. I tried to shop at Shopper's Corner once a month, as my "splurge." Essentially, I ate a lot of pasta, a lot of boxed macaroni and cheese, and a lot of rice-with-things-in.

Now that I have a real job! With a real paycheck!, one of the things I like being able to spend money on is food. I shop at New Leaf (which is also where my younger brother works!), I shop at our local farmer's markets (there are about nine million of them), I will goddamn shop at El Salchichero when it opens. I still shop at Shopper's Corner-- they've got the best butcher's corner in town, as far as I know, as they actually process much of their meat on-site, meaning that I can totally special-order some pork fat from them later this year to make more sausages. Occasionally, guiltily, I shop at Whole Foods.

Usually, this combination leads to pretty good meals, with the more-than-occasional stop at my old stand-by of boxed macaroni and cheese. I make spaghetti, stew, tuna-noodle casserole, crepes, and burritos. I make lemony chicken with peas and rice.

Sometimes, though, things go wrong, and occasionally, this combination of markets leads to interesting purchases... such as this weekend, when I returned from the Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz farmer's markets with five pounds of beef bones and a pound of stew meat from TLC Ranch (which, I was very sad to learn, is closing! I've really loved their meat over the last few years, and will miss them quite a lot), some cippolini onions and a flat of just over-ripe heirloom tomatoes from Happy Boy Farms, and some pesto focaccia from Beckman's Bakery. Nothing, you will notice, that makes a complete meal without some work (although tomato-based beef stew with cippolini onions would taste really good!), which led to last night's dinner (Burger King) and tonight's (housemate's very tasty japanese curry).

Tomorrow, though, there will be lasagna (from the Moosewood cookbook, but with the addition of some ground beef, because NOM) made with some of the tomatoes. Later this winter, I'll be able to cook beef stew with the broth I made yesterday from the bones (and some locally-sourced carrots, onions, and leeks), and spaghetti with the orangey tomato paste I made yesterday. In between, there will be knitting, a craft fair, and Thanksgiving break (oh, how I long!)

It's been a long day.

Thursday Night Risotto

Thursday nights are interesting to me. For the last few years, Thursdays have been the night that I eat with my parents-- they live about ten miles away-- either at my house or theirs. Cooking on a Thursday night means that I'm usually doing something special, because when I cook for my parents, I tend to go all-out.

Now, my brother works late on Thursdays, so we're considering switching our family meals to Sundays so that we can all make it. But cooking on Thursdays still feels like it should be something special to me. Tonight, at around 7:00, I realised that I hadn't yet eaten dinner, and decided that I wanted to eat risotto, because it's easy and filling and I had everything I needed at the house. Because it's a Thursday, I also decided to put a little extra effort into it-- really, only a little-- this is pretty darn close to my usual risotto. So!

Thursday Night Risotto

3 tsp. olive oil
1/2 of a small yellow onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. fresh-ground black pepper (or to taste)
2 tbsp. dry sherry
1 c. arborio rice
~3 c. chicken broth
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese

Optional, but tasty:
1/2 tsp. truffle oil
1/3 c. chanterelle mushrooms, sliced
(Don't be limited! This is a great thing to use to empty out your pantry-- see what looks interesting and works with chicken/rice/cheese)

A note on measurements: When I am cooking for myself, and it's a recipe I'm familiar with, I generally don't measure, um, anything. So when I say "~3 c. chicken broth," what I mean is that I defrosted two plastic baggies of homemade chicken broth that I had in the freezer, and I think it was around three cups. If that seems like too much or too little to you, by all means, change it!

In a a small/medium saucepan, sautee the onion, garlic, oregano, and pepper in the olive oil over medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add the rice, stirring constantly. When the rice grains are mostly translucent, with a dot of white in the center, add the sherry. Stir until the sherry has been absorbed by the rice.

Next, add the chicken broth about a cup at a time, stirring in between additions until all the broth has been absorbed by the rice-- if you add all the broth at once, it won't work nearly as well, and if you don't wait until the broth has been absorbed, you will end up with a mushy, gooey mess. If you're adding the mushrooms and truffle oil, add them after the second cup of chicken broth.

Once the rice is cooked to your liking, turn off the heat. If you're using a gas stove, you can leave the pan on the burner; if you're using an electric stove, move the pan off the heat. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the top of the risotto, and then fold it in slowly, until the cheese is melted in. Adjust saltiness until it's to your liking-- if you're using commercial chicken broth, it's likely not to need salt, as the parmesan is also quite salty.

This recipe will serve two people who are decently hungry, or more people as a side dish. Enjoy!

(Also, second attempt at goat cheese is turning out weird. More on that later.)

Things and also Gardening

This year, for the second time ever, I tried to do that whole gardening thing. What did I learn? Well, mostly I learned that up here, tomatoes do best if you leave them alone entirely. While I was paying attention to them this summer (watering! worrying about the really hot days!), I managed to produce a grand total of two tomatoes over the course of about three months. After I harvested my two tiny tomatoes, I left the plant in the ground and didn't touch it. As of my last check, there are now three new tomatoes on my sad and lonely tomato plant. AGH. Eventually, this gardening thing will make sense.

In other food news, I am making goat cheese again tonight! I am futzing with it a whole lot less this time, so I hope that it turns out well. I left half of the last batch (the garlic-herb half, to be specific) at work when I went to science camp last week, and, thankfully, it was all gone when I returned. The other half (the lavender-and-honey half) was put out before dinner on Saturday night, and absolutely demolished-- I was somewhat gratified that my goat cheese went at the same rate as the cheese that is my favorite in the whole world.

And speaking of Saturday's dinner...

Okay, so. I have this... thing for Thomas Keller. I read the entirety of French Laundry at Home last winter, and purchased the Ad Hoc cookbook last January-- I've been cooking my way through it, and I blame/credit it with at least some of my current cooking thing. My housemate Brianna gave me the French Laundry cookbook for my birthday, and I've been rather intimidated by it ever since. There's so much food! And it all looks so good! Surely I can't cook that!

Well, okay, apparently I can. For my usual Saturday night crew (the folks from the yarn store), I made Citrus-Marinated Salmon with a Confit of Navel Oranges, Beluga Caviar, and Pea Shoot Coulis. Um, but without the caviar, because no. It was abso-frickin'-lutely delicious. My guests had seconds. And, best of all (at least to me), I am no longer nearly as intimidated.

When I started this post, I swear it had a point aside from talking about gardening-- the other point of this point was to tell everyone that I signed up for the 4th Annual Dark Days Challenge-- it's a bit easier here than it is in many other places, but it should still be fun and somewhat challenging.

Knitting Update

Well, I threatened that I might do one of these!

I have very little self-control when it comes to buying yarn. This is why I have made up the following rule for myself:

I am not allowed to buy yarn unless I have finished a project.

This usually works pretty well. On the other hand, this rule does not say how much yarn I am "allowed" to buy upon project-completion. Earlier this week, I finished knitting a pair of fingerless gloves (taking less than one skein total), so that meant yesterday was yarn-buying day. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), is was also day-after-paycheck-day.

Four skeins of yarn later...

...I am about a third of the way into these, but in bright blue and green! I love them so much, even though the colorwork means that there are no "break" rows, where I don't have to pay attention to what I'm doing. TV knitting, this is not! I'll try to post pictures of something eventually.

Day of Food

Every few weeks, I try to spend a day (or at least six-eight hours) cooking food. Today, the second rainy weekend day of the fall, was a perfect day, seeing as I spend the *first* rainy weekend day of the fall on the couch, knitting.

I had a few things planned-- sausages and ice cream-- but there were a few new things, too!

The first thing I started were the sausages:

Apple-Cinnamon-Nutmeg Sausages

1 1/2 lb. pork loin
2 oz. pork fat
1 tbsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. apple, minced
casings

I followed the directions here, essentially, to make these sausages. They're sitting in the fridge right now, waiting to be cooked for dinner tomorrow. We'll see how they turn out!

As the sausages take a few hours all together (between each major step, you have to re-freeze your meat), I made goat cheese in between sausage steps, following the directions here, at Urban Cheesecraft-- for those of you who were living with me this summer, this is where I bought my cheese kit from. I didn't realise that the curds had, in fact, separated from the whey, because they were so tiny! A few hours of straining later, though, I have a really pretty chunk of goat cheese. I plan to split it in half and make half of it honey-and-lavender (we had this at Harley
Farms a few months ago, and it was delicious), and make the other half garlic-and-herb.

Once the sausages and the cheese were done, it was clearly time to make ice cream. Housemate Brianna had wanted earl grey and lavender ice cream, so that's what I made-- following the recipe for vanilla ice cream in Ad Hoc, and substituting looseleaf earl grey and lavender for the vanilla. It, too, is not quite done, but should be deeeeelicious.

Then, it was 9:45, and I made dinner...

...a package of tortellini from Safeway.

One True Biscuit

I have a new One True Biscuit.

For years and years I have been using The Tassajara Cookbook's biscuit recipe, and it's never ever risen properly-- I'd get decent-tasting, very flat biscuits. Within a few hours of baking, you could use them as hockey pucks.

No more, I tell you! To go along with tonight's breakfast-for-dinner (scrambled eggs and homemade sausage), I decided to try out a new biscuit recipe, from Alton Brown's Good Eats cookbook.

They are AWESOME. Fluffy, light, kinda squishy in the middle, and a great vehicle for all sorts of curds, jams, and honey. I'm not going to share the recipe, as it's from a cookbook, but needless to say, I have found my new One True Biscuit.

(We're still working on pictures, but lovely Temporary Housemate Sydni took some surely lovely photos!)

Anyone else out there have a One True Recipe that they feel like sharing?

Savory Galette- Draft

This one is a request from my co-worker, Kristin! This is sort of an anything-you-have-in-the-fridge recipe; I generally make it with what's on hand. The filling for the galette is very similar to what I use for ravioli.

Please note: It's been about six months since I last made this, and I've never written down the recipe. I'll try to cook it again this weekend and give everyone an updated version.

For the filling:
1/2 c. yellow onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb. bacon, chopped
2 c. spinach, chopped
1 1/2 c. mushrooms, sliced
1 whole chicken breast, bones and skin removed, cut into small pieces
3/4 c. goat cheese
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

For the crust:
2/3 c. plus 2 tbsp. butter
2 c. flour
up to 3 tbsp. water, if needed
1/2 tsp. salt

To make the crust:
Cut half of the butter into small pieces and mix it into the flour. I usually use my hands, but you can also use a pastry cutter or stand mixer. Once half of the butter is mixed in, the texture should feel somewhat like cornmeal. Repeat this process with the other half of the butter, until it is all mixed together. Add enough water for the dough to stick together, but not so much that it becomes sticky. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge until you are ready to roll it out.

To make the filling:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

I typically make the filling in one pan-- I cook most of the ingredients individually, but I do not clean the pan between ingredients. Start by frying the bacon in a medium skillet until it is cooked through, but not crispy. Remove the cooked bacon from the pan, but leave the bacon fat in. Saute the onions and garlic together with salt and pepper until the onions are translucent, then remove them from the pan. Next, cook the mushrooms until they are squishy, then the spinach until it is limp. Finally, cook the chicken until it is no longer pink, but still tender.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together all cooked ingredients and the goat cheese until they are thoroughly combined.

To finish the galette:

On a flat surface, roll out the galette dough. Center the crust on a baking sheet. Put the filling in the middle of the crust-- there may be more filling than will fit! Add the parmesan to the filling. Fold up the edges of the crust; they should not entirely cover the filling. Sprinkle the salt on the outside of the crust (I use rosemary salt from Eatwell Farm, which is useful for just about everything).

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the crust is slightly golden. Let the galette rest for a few minutes, until it is cool enough to eat.

Enjoy!

Weekly Recipe: Fall Beef Stew

I've been waiting for the last few weeks for it to be cold enough to justify making beef stew. Today, with the few drops of rain that I got on my drive home, seemed like the perfect day to break out the dutch oven.

A word of warning: this recipe takes about four hours, start to finish. It is not something to cook on a tight schedule! That said, it's really tasty, and makes great leftovers. It is definitely a hearty stew, as well, although it also gives you some vegetables-- there's a reason I waited through summer to cook this!

This recipe started its life as the Beef Carbonnade, from the Silver Palate Cookbook, which I made once, and declared both boring and bitter. This recipe adds vegetables, beef broth, and starch.

2 medium yellow onions, cut into thin half-circles
1/2 lb. bacon
1 c. flour
1 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
2 lb. stew beef, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 12 oz. can dark beer (I used Guiness)
1 qt. beef broth
3 large carrots, cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 stalks celery, cut into 1/4 inch slices
Either cooked barley, potatoes, or your choice of starch
You may also need some additional cooking fat-- I keep leftover bacon fat in the fridge and use that.

Cut bacon into 1/2-inch pieces, and fry in a medium skillet. Reserve all runoff bacon fat; you will need it! Leaving all remaining fat in the pan, drain the bacon and set it aside.

Add the onions and extra bacon fat to the pan. Cook over medium heat, covered, until the onions are translucent and limp-- about 20 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, put the flour, thyme, salt, and pepper in a 1 gallon plastic bag. Add about a dozen pieces of the beef, seal the bag, and shake until the pieces of beef are covered in the flour mixture. Remove the beef from the bag and put it on a plate. Repeat until all of the beef is covered.

If you still have a bit of time before the onions are done, now is a good time to cut your carrots and celery.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees-- yes, now. If you do it earlier, you're just wasting energy while waiting for the onions to cook.

Once the onions are done, strain them into a dutch oven (or similar large, oven-safe pot). Pour any cooking liquid left in the pan through the strainer with the onions. Over medium heat, add about six pieces of beef at a time, browning all sides. Once all sides are brown, remove the beef from the pan and repeat until all the beef is browned. If you run out of drippings, use your supplementary cooking fat. The beef should not be cooked through-- that's what the oven time is for!

Leaving the heat on, add the beer to the dutch oven. Using a large spoon, scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen all those delicious bits of partially burned-on flour and thyme. Add the beef, onions, bacon, and vegetables, followed by the beef broth. You can leave the pot on the stove until the broth is boiling or your oven reaches temperature.

Cover the dutch oven and place on the lowest rack of the oven. Cook, covered, for at least 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve over starch-of-choice. Serves 6-8, depending on how hungry you are.

Substitutions/additions: Let me know of any you make! The last time I made this, in late spring, I used golden beets and turnips in addition to the carrots and celery. Peas are also good, although they have a tendency to get mushy.

Note: I'm going to try to post one recipe each week (time allowing). Let me know if you have any questions, or if something in the recipe is unclear. Happy eating!

A little about me...

I am a 25-year-old middle school teacher who really enjoys cooking, knitting, and watching both sci-fi shows and procedurals. I have been threatening to start a food/cooking blog for the last few years, and, having finally decided on a title, decided to give it a shot. (The title, by the way, is a play on rosemary and rue, which is a bit from Shakespeare, and also unfortunately unavailable as a title.)

I do a lot of the actual cooking in my household (which currently consists of my younger brother, his wife, and three of our friends). I've recently discovered canning-- I put up a whole lot of tomato sauce and raspberry jam this summer!-- and hope to continue doing that this winter, in some form. I enjoy local foods, although I don't eat them exclusively, and will occasionally spend far too much money at the farmer's market. If you read this blog, you will probably hear quite a bit about my love for Thomas Keller, as well as my random experiments in more complex food preserving.

I am not a terribly skilled photographer-- it's one of the things that I've always been somewhat intimidated by, on other foodblogs, because it seems like one of the things One Ought to be Able to Do, if one is talking about food all the time.

While most of the posts to this blog will be about food, I will also be posting the occasional knitting and/or real-life update. If you have the inclination, you can check out my main knitting/crafting blog here-- I share it with a few other like-minded craftspeople.