Whiteley Creek Homestead

Each workstation in the Wholehearted Baking: Whole Wheat Breads class that my granddaughter and I attended at King Arthur Flour's Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont on Nov. 19 was set up with supplies to make a batch of scones and a loaf of bread.

As we progressed through the two recipes, we learned techniques through the instructors' demonstrations and guidance so that we might duplicate what we learned when we returned to our home kitchens… which I did. Return home and duplicate.

After scanning the ingredients and reviewing the notes I had jotted in class, I gathered my supplies. From the Baker's Store at the King Arthur Flour Headquarters, I had purchased two bags of organic unbleached white whole wheat flour*…

a bench knife that I used to cube butter… and a scraper to mix dough.

Applying what I had learned in class, I was able to replicate the scones perfectly. I did run across a suggested option on the King Arthur Flour website to use anywhere from 2-8 tbsp butter instead of the 1/2 cup (8 tbsp) as the recipe states. I am going try 4 tbsp in my next batch. *"King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour, milled from a blend of hard white winter and spring wheats, tastes milder and bakes lighter than traditional whole wheat (which is milled from red wheat). Unlike red wheat, white wheat lacks some of the pigmentation in the bran layer of the wheat berry; since that pigment carries an astringent flavor, white wheat is lighter in both color and flavor." Source: http://www.kingarthurflour.com To better understand wheat varieties-hard or soft, red or white, and winter or spring, here's an excellent resource.

My grandson brings new meaning to the term cereal bowl.

If you're looking for another "out of the box" use for cereal, here's one. In my swim class last winter, I met a man. His name was Jim. I never knew his last name. What I did know is that he was a very sweet man. In his 80s. He'd had a stroke, but, with the aid of a walker, he made his way into the pool Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every week. Because he knew the benefit. During our class, we chatted about different things. About his career that spanned so many years. He proudly spoke of his wife and his children. When he learned that I was from Minnesota and liked to try new recipes, he told me of an author named Joanne Fluke who was born and raised in a small town in rural Minnesota. She wrote a series of murder mysteries with recipes interwoven within the chapters, he explained. Upon leaving our class that day, I stopped by the local public library where I discovered her books with titles such as Carrot Cake Murder, Peach Cobbler Murder, Sugar Cookie Murder, and Blueberry Muffin Murder. I decided upon Apple Turnover Murder. I read the book because what I really wanted to do is make a recipe from the book to share with Jim. So I did. The recipe from the book is called "Imperial Cereal." It is a crunchy, nutty, slightly sweet snack. But, sadly, Jim was no longer in class. Then, I left the area and no longer swam. Fast forward. A year later. I'm searching for Jim.

Top Photos (L):The recipe called for a combo of Multigrain Cheerios and Rice Chex. I chose to use Cascadian Farm Cinnamon Crunch instead. (R):A syrup made of o.j. concentrate, br. sugar, and butter is drizzled over a cereal/nut mixture. Bottom Photos (L):The syrup-coated cereal/nut mixture is baked. (R):After cooling, the mixture is portioned into individual servings.

Cinnamon Crunchies

Makes eight 1/2 cup servings. Preheat oven to 300° with rack in middle position.

4 ½ cups dry cereal (any combination – Recipe suggested Multigrain Cheerios and Rice Chex. I used Cascadian Organic Cinnamon Crunch.)

½ cup slivered almonds or pecans (I used ¼ c hazelnuts, ¼ c Brazil nuts,and ¼ c walnuts.)

2 tbsp orange juice concentrate

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp butter

¼ cup sweetened dried cranberries (I omitted.)

Place the cereal and nuts in a large ovenproof bowl or pan. (I used a jelly roll pan lined with parchment paper.) With clean hands, mix the cereal and nuts together until evenly distributed. In a saucepan, heat the orange juice concentrate, brown sugar, and butter until melted. Stir, then pour over the cereal/nuts mixture. Mix until thoroughly coated. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and mix in dried cranberries (if using). Cool, stir, and store in tightly covered container(s). Note: These amounts represent half of the original recipe’s quantities. Also, I renamed the recipe "Cinnamon Crunchies" because of the cereal I chose to use.

I have a notebook. A tattered, spiral notebook. It holds recipe clippings and handwritten "keepers" collected from the very early years of my marriage to Dick. There is a handwritten, vanilla splattered recipe written on a yellowed sheet of paper in that tattered spiral notebook. It is one that I've used countless times over the past 39 years to make cutout cookies for Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas.

Whereas, during my daughter's childhood, we would have used that recipe, my granddaughter and I chose a "Butter Cut-Out Cookies" recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess because the cookbook was sitting on her kitchen counter… and it was beckoning us to peek inside. Sometimes cutout cookie dough is so fragile that it falls apart while transferring it from the rolling surface to the cookie sheet. This can be especially problematic when a young child is the baker. I can't be sure if it was Nigella Lawson's recipe, the extra thickness we allowed when rolling the dough, or my granddaughter's skill, but the process went so smoothly, and the cookies were devoured so rapidly, that we made a second batch a few days later. I chose to reduce the butter and sugar a bit and we used whole wheat pastry flour instead of cake flour.  

Nigella Lawson’s Butter Cut-Out Cookies

 ¾ cup soft unsalted butter (I used ½ cup.)

¾ cup sugar (I used ½ cup.)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 2/3 cups cake flour, plus more if needed (I used whole wheat pastry flour.)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350°. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and moving towards moussiness. Then beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, and mix gently but surely. If you think the finished mixture is too sticky to be rolled out, add more flour, but do so sparingly as too much will make the dough tough. Halve the dough, form into fat discs, wrap each half in plastic wrap (or natural parchment or wax paper), and rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Sprinkle a suitable surface with flour, place a disc of dough on it (not taking out the other half until you’ve finished with the first), and sprinkle a little more flour on top of that. Then roll it out to a thickness of about ¼ inch. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the cookies a little apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 8–12 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden around the edges. Cool on a rack and continue with the rest of the dough. When they’re all fully cooled, you can get on with the icing. Put a couple tablespoons of just-not-boiling water into a large bowl, add the powdered sugar, and mix together, adding more water as you need to form a thick paste. Color as desired.

Are you longing for the juicy fruits of summer… watermelon, peaches, and pick-your-own berry patches? Are you dreaming of plucking sugar snap peas and string beans from your garden plot? Me, too. But, every season holds what our bodies need at the perfect time. During the summer months, in-season fruits have an abundance of water to hydrate and cool us in the heat. In the winter, in-season produce is heavier… denser to warm us. A winter's diet certainly doesn't need to be boring.

These Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple, or topinambour)… I have been crunching them raw like an apple. Unpeeled so as not to miss any of the nutrients that the skin holds. A crisp sweet treat that is a species of sunflower. Above the ground, a tall plant with a small sunflower blossom. Underneath the soil grows clusters of knobby tubers that become sweeter after a frost.

Celeriac. Celery root. Turnip-rooted celery. Knob celery. All names for the gnarly rooted winter vegetable that is a member of the same family as parsnips, carrots, chervil, parsley, and fennel. As roots reach deeper into the earth and celery-like stalks unfurl to provide beauty in the garden, a massive edible bulb grows under the soil. Like parsnips, harvesting celeriac after a frost enhances its flavor. Photos from my kitchen: (L) Bright green leaves sprouting from the celeriac's crown indicate that it is still very much alive. (R) The roots have been trimmed from the underside. Their diameter shows its strong root system. The following video http://youtu.be/-a4sIVAzhto demonstrates how to prep celeriac for a variety of uses like… 

Celeriac Lentil Gratin. I've returned to the casserole dish this evening for more helpings than any adult, who normally makes rational decisions, should. It's that good. Really. The recipe comes from the website of Crumbs Magazine, which is a UK publication, via a submission by Jenny Chandler. The quantities are in grams and milliliters, so I leaned on metric-conversions.org and a kitchen scale that measures in both grams and ounces.

The recipe called for Castelluccio lentils, which is a brown variety. I had none. But, I did have Shiloh Farms Black Beluga Lentils. After weighing 300 grams, I transferred the lentils into measuring cups and determined it was equivalent to approximately 1 1/2 cups. Instead of two 400-gram cans of chopped tomatoes, I subbed a 23.5 ounce jar of Newman's Own Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce. A perfect swap out in this hearty winter root vegetable casserole. Pair it with a side salad of baby lettuces -romaine, arugula, mizuna, tatsoi, chard, mustard, frisee, radicchio, spinach, mache, beet tops, and kale. A hunk of crusty bread. Some fresh fruit.

Celeriac and Lentil Gratin

Serves 4-6. (With salad and a hunk of rustic bread, it will serve 6 nicely.)

2 tbsp olive oil (I used a generous tbsp butter.)

1 onion, finely diced

4 garlic cloves, crushed (I minced finely.)

2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes (I subbed 1-23.5 oz jar Newman’s Own Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce.)

300g Castelluccio (brown) lentils, rinsed (I subbed 1 ½ cups Shiloh Farms Black Beluga Lentils.)

salt and pepper, to taste (I used 1 ½ tsp salt, divided and ½ tsp pepper, divided.)

large handful parsley, roughly chopped (I had neither fresh nor dried, so I omitted.)

225 ml double (heavy) cream, divided (This is approximately 1 cup. I subbed half & half by skimming 1/2 cup cream off the top of my nonhomogenzied whole milk then filling the remainder of the measuring cup with milk.)

1 celeriac, about 1kg, peeled, quartered, and finely diced (1 kg=2 lbs 3.2740 oz. I used 2 celeriac which weighed 2 lbs 2 3/8 oz. After peeling, I sliced them into fried potato size slices.)

zest and juice of ½ lemon (I omitted.)

100g Parmesan cheese, grated (This amounts to 1 ½ cups grated cheese.)

1)Preheat oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. (What is a “gas mark?”) Heat oil (or butter) in a large saucepan and saute the onion gently until soft and beginning to turn golden. Add garlic and stir until its wonderful smell wafts up from the pan. “Tip in” the tomatoes (or pasta sauce) and simmer for about 10 minutes. 2)Meanwhile, put the lentils in a pan, cover with about 5 cm/2 in of water and simmer for about 20 minutes until soft and creamy rather than al dente. Drain if necessary and then season well with salt and pepper. (I followed the cooking instructions on the lentils package. For 1 ½ cups lentils, add 4 ½ cups water. I simmered a little longer than 20 minutes until the water was absorbed, so there was no water to drain. I seasoned the cooked lentils with ½ tsp salt + ¼ tsp pepper.) Stir in the parsley, if using, and 3 tbsp of the cream. 3)Add the celeriac to the pan of tomato sauce, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes or until tender. (Depending upon the size of the celeriac slices, it may take a little longer. ) At first, there will not appear to be enough tomato sauce, but the celeriac will release plenty of moisture as it cooks. When the celeriac is tender (fork easily pierces it but not mushy-somewhat firm), add the remaining cream, the lemon zest and juice (if using) and season with salt and pepper. (I used ½ tsp salt + ¼ tsp pepper.) 4)Layer the celeriac and tomato mixture alternately with the lentils in a large, shallow ovenproof dish (like a glass 9X13 baking dish), finishing with a layer of celeriac. (I used approx 2 cups celeriac/tomato mixture on each of the 3 layers sprinkling ¼ tsp salt on each of the first two layers. I divided the lentils equally between 2 layers. Sprinkle the top with the grated Parmesan cheese and bake for about 30 minutes until nicely browned on top. (I removed it just as the cheese was barely beginning to turn golden.) Notes: This can be prepared ahead and even frozen. Thaw before baking for an extra 10-15 minutes, covering with foil if the top begins to get too dark. (I haven’t tried freezing it.) Try using any whole brown or green lentil for the dish. Not red lentils, though, as they will collapse into a mush.

It belongs to the umbelliferae family as do carrots, chervil, parsley, fennel, and celeriac. A hard frost develops its sweetness, so it is well suited for planting in Minnesota's climate. It provides vitamin C, fiber, folate, and potassium. It makes a tasty cookie. It's a parsnip.

To prep the parsnips, remove the peel. (A young parsnip's tender peel can be left intact.) Roughly chop into chunks… enough to make 1 cup cooked, pureéd parsnips. "How many chunks is that?" I queried. I guessed, weighed, cooked, pureéd. Perfect. 11 ounces raw parsnips = 1 cup cooked, pureéd parsnips.     

Pureéd carrots and parsnips are added to the liquid ingredients then combined with the dry. Raisins provide sweetness while raw sunnies and hazelnuts add crunch. Finely chopped Brazil nuts sprinkled atop each cookie looks like a dusting of freshly fallen snow.

Parsnip Carrot Cookies

Source:  The Antioxidant Save-Your-Life Cookbook, Jane and Daniel Kinderlehrer p. 164 “Brazil Nut Cookies”

Yield: 3 doz using level tbsp (or 2 doz using heaping tbsp)

1 egg

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil (I used coconut oil.)

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup cooked parsnips*, put thru a sieve (I pureéd using a food processor.)

1 cooked carrot, put thru sieve (I pureéd using a food processor.)

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, less 3 tbsp

3 tbsp soy flour

½ cup wheat germ (I subbed ¼ cup oat bran + ¼ cup ground flaxseed.)

2 1 tsp baking powder

½ cup raisins

¼ cup raw sunflower seeds (my addition)

¼ cup chopped hazelnuts (my addition)

4 Brazil nuts, grated (I chopped very finely instead.)

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine egg, honey, oil, vanilla, and pureéd parsnips and carrot. In another bowl, whisk flour, wheat germ (or oat bran and flaxseed), and baking powder. Add to parsnip-carrot mixture and blend. Stir in raisins, sunnies, and hazelnuts. Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle Brazil nuts on top of each cookie. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly brown. (Don’t underbake or centers won’t be cooked through. May require add’l time.) *11 ounces raw parsnips = 1 cup cooked, pureéd parsnips