Whiteley Creek Homestead

When my youngest daughter, Jessica, arrived tonight to stay a few days over Christmas, I directed her to the fridge where there was a small pan of leftover lentil soup for her to heat up. I also placed a loaf of what I told her was "dried fruit nut bread" on a cutting board to accompany the soup. Looking upon it, she said,"It's not that icky bread that people make at Christmas, is it?" Me: "You mean fruit cake?" Jessica: "Ya, that." Me: No response. I just wanted her to taste my fruit cake before she passed judgement on this Christmas tradition that is oft a butt of jokes. Afterall, the recipe triggered a memory… as food often does. I wanted her to be part of that memory, because she was. Tucked into my recipe box for 25 years or so, handwritten, passed down over three generations… grandmother to mother to daughter, a traditional citron fruit cake recipe. Not my family's recipe. No. But a family's special recipe nonetheless. I first tasted it during a Christmas season so very many years ago when, with my young daughters in tow, I went to First Federal in Brainerd (Minnesota) to do what it is that one does at a bank. In the spirit of the season, that December day, there were home baked goodies for bank patrons to sample. They were beautifully, enticingly arranged atop a cloth-lined table in the bank's lobby. An employee had made a fruit cake for the occasion but had subbed colorful, chopped gumdrops for the citron. Tasting it, I imagined what Edmund in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe must have experienced when he began to eat the Turkish Delight that the White Witch had provided him. I complimented the baker and asked if she might be willing to share the recipe. She kindly did so. It has a note at the bottom of p. 2 from her mother that adds a personal touch that handwritten recipes do. "Thanks for your letter. Will write later. Am taking Grandpa to the doctor, but wanted you to get this. Love, Mom"             Sweet.    

  

It's the fruit cake's citron that makes it distasteful to some, I am convinced. Simple solution… switch out the citron (candied citrus fruit rind) for gumdrops or dried fruit like dark and golden raisins, cherries, cranberries, dates, pineapple, and apricots. It doesn't seem right to eliminate the citron and still call it fruit cake, yet… 

1. aroma of spices wafting from the sifter… 2. dried fruit and nuts 3. parchment-lined foil loaf pans 4. dried fruit cake batter

 

Dried Fruit Cake

(I reduced the original quantities in the entire recipe by half and reduced some quantities even further to make it cleaner.)

1 ½ cups unsweetened applesauce

½ cup lard ¼ cup butter

1 cup ½ cup sugar

Mix and heat over low setting until butter melts. Let stand overnight. I allowed it to cool while I prepared the remaining ingredients. In a large bowl, sift or whisk the following ingredients together. Prepare pans by lining them with natural parchment paper. (See photo above.) I used three EZ Foil loaf pans size 5 ¾ inch X 3 ¼ inch that each hold 1 ¼ cups batter .

2 ¼ cups flour

2 tsp soda

½ tsp nutmeg

1 ¼ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

¼ tsp cloves

½ tsp salt

Mix the following dried fruit into the dry mixture.  I chose, instead, to add it to the applesauce mixture. Flour gets lodged in the crevices of raisins and dried cranberries. The annoying white spots cause the end product to not look as pretty.

½ cup citron

¼ cup diced dried pineapple

¼ cup dried cherries (I subbed cranberries.)

1 cup dark raisins (I subbed ¼ cup diced dates.)

1 cup golden raisins (I omitted.)

Combine the wet and dry ingredients. 1 ¼ cups batter in each parchment-lined pan perfectly fills them 3/4 full. Since I chose to use a much smaller size pan than what was used in the original recipe, I referred to my “little helper” chart to adjust the oven temperature  and baking time, so… if using small foil pans as I did, bake at 350° for approximately 35 minutes instead of 325° for 1 ½ hours as the original recipe states. After removing fruit cake from oven and testing for doneness with a toothpick, use parchment paper flaps to lift from pan onto a cooling rack.

Twas the night before Christmas… 

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.

Have you ever wondered what sugar plums are? A sugar plum is made of any combo of dried fruit such as plums (prunes), figs, apricots, dates, or cherries and shaped in a small round or oval shape. (At one time, "plum" denoted any dried fruit.) The finely chopped dried fruit is combined with chopped nuts and aromatic spices, rolled into balls, and often coated in sugar or shredded coconut.  Until today, I hadn't realized that I have made several varieties of sugar plums such as these Pecan Spice Delights

Date Bran Jingle Balls

Pumpkin Seed Oat Energy Bites

and Nutty Fruity Bars which could easily be formed into balls.

Although the Date Bran Jingle Balls, Pumpkin Seed Oat Energy Bites, and Nutty Fruity Bars don't exhibit as many of the sugar plum attributes as the Pecan Spice Delights, I think they could still conjure up visions dancing in children's heads as they slumber on Christmas Eve.

Yesterday's Quinoa Beet Pancakes resulted in extra beet puree. What's a girl to do? Make beet ice cream, of course! I combined steps from four different recipe's to create this luscious, creamy treat.  

Far and above, the most important step that I have discovered in the ice cream making process is tempering the egg yolks to prevent scrambled eggs. These things I know… just believe. Tempering is done by gradually whisking some of the hot liquid into the yolks. When the cooked custard begins to thicken as the ice cream maker churns, it is a thing of beauty. My heart leaps at the sight. In the recipe's directions, I have suggested purchasing beet juice as a time saver instead of juicing beets. Biotta, a USDA certified organic brand, is available in my local grocery store's natural/organic foods section. It may also be purchased through vitacost.com.

Beet Ice Cream

Makes 1 quart.

1 scant cup of roasted puréed beets

1 2/3 cup heavy cream

1 cup milk

½ cup 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp sugar

pinch of salt

4 egg yolks

To roast the beets, preheat oven to 375° and place approximately 4-5 firm, scrubbed, unpeeled beets into a baking dish. Add about ½ cup water.  Cover with a lid. If baking dish has no lid, cover it with aluminum foil. Covering veggies when roasting causes them to roast more evenly. Smaller beets take about 25 minutes. Larger and older beets can take up to an hour. When beets are fork tender, allow them to cool enough to handle, then slip their peels off using a paring knife or by rubbing them with your fingers or a paper towel. Cut the beets into quarters and purée in a food processor.

To make the custard, heat the cream, milk, and beet purée (or beet pulp*) in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan until it just barely comes to a simmer. Remove pan from the heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks with 2 tbsp sugar and prepare an ice bath by setting a medium bowl over a larger bowl filled with ice water. After the steeping time has elapsed, strain the liquid to separate out the beet solids and return it to the saucepan. Add 1/3 cup sugar. Bring to a simmer stirring to dissolve the sugar. Very slowly, pour some (about 1/3 to  ½) of the hot cream mixture into the bowl with the egg yolks while whisking constantly until the temperature of the yolks is closer to that of the cream. This is a very important step to avoid scrambled eggs. Pour the tempered yolk mixture back into the saucepan. Stir continually over medium-low heat until the temperature registers 170° – 185° on a digital thermometer and the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Pour the custard through a fine-mesh strainer into the bowl set over the ice bath. Let cool for 30 minutes in the ice bath, then place the mixture into the fridge. Once it is cool enough not to form condensation on the lid, cover and chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator for 4 to 8 hours until it registers 40° or below on a digital thermometer. Churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This should take approximately 25-35 minutes. Serve immediately for soft serve or place in freezer for 3-4 hours to allow ice cream to harden.

*An alternative method to puréeing beets is to put raw beets through a vegetable juicer until you get about 1 cup of beet juice. Simmer the juice in a shallow saucepan over medium-low heat until it reduces to approximately ¼ cup. The beet juice reduction’s flavor is more intense and sweeter than its original state. Add the beet juice just prior to pouring the cooked custard through a fine-mesh strainer into the bowl set over the ice bath. Use the pulp byproduct in place of the beet purée in recipe.

For a milder flavored ice cream but still deeply magenta-colored, add the beet juice reduction but not the pulp. If you have no juicer, or want to cut prep time, a bottled beet juice may be purchased.

Buried deep within Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain Cookbook, which I highly recommend to include in your collection as it encourages the use of alternative grains, I discovered a recipe for pancakes using quinoa flour and beets. As someone whose stomach once upon a time tumbled at the smell of cooked beets, my palette has seriously matured to even consider pancakes with beets as a main ingredient. Sounding strange enough to give it a whirl, I set about gathering my ingredients direct from the source as in Tomie dePaola's Pancakes for Breakfast. It is a wordless children's book about the humorous troubles a plump old lady encounters trying to make pancakes from scratch.  

1)I ground heirloom red quinoa and whole wheat into flour using my grain mill, 2)gathered eggs, 3)purchased raw unpasteurized nonhomogenized milk and cream from a local farmer, 4)made sour cream to use for making cultured butter, 5)whirled the sour cream in my mini food processor until the butterfat separated from the liquid and turned into butter, 6)made homemade yogurt, and 7)purchased Grade B syrup (darker color with a bit stronger flavor) tapped from local maple trees. (If you've been wanting to learn how to harvest your own maple syrup, my daughter Heather created free printables detailing how her family collects maple sap on their homestead and makes it into syrup. The charts make lovely fall, winter, or spring wall art, too.)        

If you see absolutely no point in reinacting the Pancakes for Breakfast story, here are some shortcuts. Bob's Red Mill produces quinoa flour. The remaining ingredients are available at any grocery store. What's left is to roast, peel, and purée beets that will make the most beautiful magenta pancake batter ever to be seen… 

and pancakes in a hue unlike any you have ever seen on your plate. If one is oblivious to the pancakes's ingredients, you'd be hard pressed to detect the beets. 

Quinoa Beet Pancakes

Makes 16 pancakes.

3 medium-small red beets (Hmmm… orange beets might be fun,
too.)

Dry Mix:

½ cup quinoa flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour I use 1 ½ cups w.w. pastry
flour or a mix of flours-millet, buckwheat, amaranth, barley, oat, teff, etc .

3 tbsp dark brown sugar I use 2 tbsp rapadura. Raw
cane sugar is fine, too.

1 tbsp baking powder I use 1 tsp baking powder + ½
tsp soda.

¾ tsp salt

Wet Mix:

1 ½ cups whole milk

1/3 cup plain yogurt

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

1 egg *See note.

½ cup beet purée (See roasting directions.)

"Roasting beets is the preferred method for cooking beets. It not only preserves the flavor, it also enhances color and provides the best texture." (Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2009) To roast beets, remove the leaves keeping about 1 inch of the stem to prevent the beet from losing its juices and drying out during roasting. Wash the beets in cold water being careful not to tear the skin. Arrange beets in the center of a large piece of foil. Drizzle with a little olive oil, then wrap the foil around the beets folding the edges closed. (I used a covered casserole dish instead of aluminum foil.) Roast at 400°F until the beets are very tender, about 45 minutes. Time will vary depending on the size of the beets. To prevent staining, coat your fingers in olive oil. Gently remove the skins from the beets with a sharp knife; the skins should slip off easily. Cut off the stems and bottoms. Purée with a little water in a food processor or blender until smooth. In a large bowl,
combine the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, yogurt, melted butter, egg, and beet purée until smooth. (*Note: I learned a mixing trick from Molly Wizenberg via her delightful cookbook, A Homemade Life. Rather than adding the melted butter directly to the wet ingredients, separate the egg and mix the yolk with the melted butter in a Pyrex custard cup then add it to the wet ingredients along with the egg white. It helps the butter to better incorporate into the batter, making for a more even-textured pancake.) Using a spatula, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently combine. Heat a cast iron pan or griddle over medium heat until water sizzles when splashed onto the pan. Working quickly, dollop ¼ cup mounds of batter onto the pan. Once bubbles have begun to form on the top of the pancake, flip it over and cook until the bottom is golden brown.

I couldn't begin tell you where my blog hopping began. I don't have a clue. It wasn't a search for smoothies or a drinking straw pennant, but when I spied both on Lesley's Homemade Grits blog, it stopped me in my tracks. Inserted into her "only slightly adapted" version of a pumpkin smoothie that she had gleaned from Angela's Oh She Glows blog… that I am now sharing with my very slight adaptation… was a straw topper that was so dang cute, well I just had to make one. Besides garnering a new recipe and a straw topper, my blog hopping sidetrip turned up a what a small world it is… we are so connected to each other moment. Upon camping out a while on Lesley's blog, I discovered that she had stayed in Serenbe, an idyllic community 35 miles southwest of Atlanta, with her family on Monday, October 17, 2011. We missed crossing paths by three weeks, as Dick and I arrived in Serenbe three weeks later on Monday, November 7, 2011 to stay for two nights. I so enjoyed revisiting Serenbe through her photos. I will share mine in tomorrow's post.

Pumpkin Harvest Smoothie

Yield: one 2-cup serving

1 cup milk (almond, rice, cow, goat… whatever)

¼ cup oatmeal (I omitted. It’s just me. I opted for a bowl of cooked oatmeal.)

1 tbsp chia seeds

½ cup pureed pumpkin

1 tbsp blackstrap molasses*

1 frozen banana

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

pinch nutmeg

ice, if desired

Soak the oats, milk, and chia seeds for at least an hour or overnight. This aids digestion and creates a smoother consistency. If omitting the oats, five minutes is sufficient to soak the chia seeds. Place all ingredients into a blender and whirl until all ingredients are incorporated. Add ice, if desired.  (As a garnish, I sprinkled raw pumpkin seeds, and candied ginger cut into thin matchsticks on top.) *Blackstrap molasses are a good source of iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium, and magnesium.