Happy Nutella Day!

Mmmmmmm, my favorite way to eat Nutella is with a jar and a spoon!  Everything else is just a distraction.

But in honor of World Nutella Day , I melted some Nutella with a little heavy whipping cream and dipped fresh fruit in it.

Strawberries would have been my first choice but I didn't have any strawberries when I realized it was World Nutella Day.  It turned out oranges are luscious.  Grapes are ok, cookies too sweet, but the unexpected burst of juicy, tangy orange following the first soft, smooth, melty Nutella sensation. . . I cried.

World Nutella Day was started in 2007 by Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso.  Thank you!  My adventures in using Nutella beyond my teaspoon are about to begin.

"Promises To Keep"

Every winter I quote Robert Frost as I gaze out my window into the snowy woods.  And I think of the promises I need to keep.  January is a wonderful month for that.  My fall was so busy with the start of a new school year and 2 classes I had to take to keep my certification.  Then the holidays full of all the fun and family took us into the new year.  I have spent this month reorganizing again.  Now things are somewhat under control in our home.  I can find things I need again and I'm excited about the year ahead.  I spent this evening reading some of my favorite blogs that I hadn't even looked at for a couple months.  I'm joining  Cream Puffs in Venice with a list of 11 things I want to do, except I'm giving myself 3 months rather than a year.  It seems easier to handle 3 months at a time!

1.  Maintain the organization I've established.
2.  Follow the cleaning plan I've put together so my weekends are free.
3.  Redecorate one room.
4.  Make every Friday evening a SPA night.
5.  Keep up the exercise plan I've established.
6.  Use lip gloss and lotion constantly.
7.  Use my new CAMERA often!
8.  Complete a knitting project.
9.  Make pierogis once a month.
10.  Visit one new place each month.
11.  Buy lots of earrings.

Goals are dreams with deadlines - Diana Scharf Hunt

Spelt Flour Muffins

Spelt Flour, "A Grain From Antiquity," is the statement on this bag of flour I received as a gift. I had never used or heard of spelt flour before.  What an intriguing statement!  Reading further on the bag, I find spelt is an ancient relative of present day wheat and dates back more than 9,000 years!  Checking online I found that spelt flour is considered  very nutritious--its nutrients being absorbed more quickly than present-day wheat.  For my first use of this flour I adapted the muffin recipe on the bag.  The result was very very good!

Oh, and the little French Chef--he'll be there whenever I bake bread to make sure I don't become careless in my baking.  I just found him in a little French shop.

Spelt Raisin Muffins

2-1/4 cups Spelt flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups milk
3 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon fiori di sicilia (citrus/vanilla flavoring), optional
1/4 cup dark raisins
1/4 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 425 deg.  Grease and flour 12 muffin cups. (I used paper cupcake liners instead and they really stuck to the muffins after they were baked.)  Combine the dry ingredients.  Beat the liquid ingredients and mix into the dry just until moistened.  Fold in the raisins.  Fill muffin cups and bake 17 minutes or until light brown.

I loved the raisins in these muffins and would add a couple extra tablespoons of them next time.  These were good warm with a little butter and a hot sweet cup of tea.

More Wild Mushrooms, Agaricus campestris

I found more today.  This time I'm adding some onion and thyme.

I start these by peeling off the caps and slicing them.  I add a little butter and olive oil to a pan and saute some chopped onion.  When it's translucent, I add the mushrooms along with some fresh thyme leaves.

When the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms are cooked, I finish them off with just about a tablespoon of cream to give a silky texture.  These mushrooms are not as firm as those from the store--they have thinner caps--but they have such a delicious woodsy mushroom flavor!  The first few times I had cultivated mushrooms I thought they were rubbery compared to these.

My absolute favorite way to eat these is just over boiled, fork-mashed, salted potatoes. And, today, I treated myself to some marinated herring in sour cream on the side.  (My husband said I just lost him there--he wants no part of the herring.)  My drink of choice for this meal is cold fresh buttermilk.

Field Mushrooms, Pieczarki

We've had several days of heavy rain and cool temperatures.  Today was a beautiful day with the definite feel of very early fall.  I walked behind the house to feel the fresh air and spotted a couple field mushrooms.  We usually find a couple in early fall but this time I kept finding more and more.  I didn't even have my apron on to gather them up in so I balanced as many as I could on one hand but had to give up and go for the basket--and a knife.

We always gathered these mushrooms when I was young and always heard the stories of the beautiful mushrooms that Mama and her sisters gathered in the woods in Poland.  They were of all colors and would look so pretty in a pan together she would tell me.  She didn't know the wild mushrooms here so these were the only ones we gathered.  The Polish name for these is pieczarki.  We had a black iron wood stove in our kitchen at that time and we liked to lay a couple mushrooms right on the stove itself and let them sizzle with a little salt sprinkled on top and ate them right off the stove.  Mostly, Mama fried them gently in butter and added a little flour, cooked a little more, and then poured in some light cream to make the best mushroom sauce.  The only seasonings she used were salt and pepper. 

Since they have soil and grass over their caps, we just peeled the thin skin off each one. 

I sliced them and prepared them just like my mother did.  These mushrooms are more delicate than the cultivated ones in the grocery store and have a little deeper flavor.  If they were from the store I might add onion or thyme, but I want these plain with just a little thickened cream and salt and pepper and I'm having them over plain bread, toasted.

  The only thing I wanted with this fall lunch was an icy cold glass of fresh, sweet apple cider from the farmer's market.  

Note:  There are white wild mushrooms that are quite poisonous--don't even taste a mushroom that you don't know for absolutely certain is edible. 

BBA Challenge - Pain de Campagne

This BBA Challenge bread is good for making into different shapes and the book shows a variety of possibilities.  I have one banneton (another one has been ordered!) which is a round coiled basket used to proof a loaf into a nice round shape.  I wanted to try it out so I used it for one loaf.  I used a mixing bowl lined with a floured towel for a second round loaf and I decided to turn the third loaf into an "epi" shape.  The epi is first made into a long loaf.  Then you make cuts into it and twist portions of dough out toward one side and then the other to form a long bread with rolls coming out all along it.  I didn't get a picture of it because it was eaten up too fast.  It was too busy a weekend for good pictures, but I did manage to snap a quick picture of the two round loaves.  The one with the rings was proofed in a banneton:

I floured the banneton and the toweled bowl rather heavily as you can see here for fear of sticking.  I had no problem with that.  What did give me trouble was trying to score the dough before baking to make those nice marks on the top.  I have a special little scoring blade but as soon as I started trying to make the cuts the dough began collapsing.  You can see the loaves are a little misshapen.  I also didn't get a brown color--especially on the loaf in the back, but it was definitely done and delicious. The loaves were rather small and look just perfect for soups "in a bread bowl."  As soon as I get my second banneton, I'd like to make this bread again and get the hang of that scoring.  Then I'll make my soup or chili to serve in it.

Plum Pierogi

Italian prune plums always remind me of my mother's plum pierogi.  I loved them and am craving that taste again.

I made the pierogi dough the same as in the earlier post.  I only made a half recipe since I didn't plan to make too many pierogi.  I cut the circles out with a cutter that was a little over 3" across.  I washed 16 plums, cut them open on one side only, removed the pit and replaced it with a sugar cube.  I then wrapped a round of dough around each plum and sealed it according to the directions in my pierogi post.  If you find the dough is a little dry and wants to tear, wet your fingers with water and smooth the whole surface of the round with the water while stretching it gently before putting the plum into it.  Also, wet the inside edge before you seal it to make a tighter seal.   Follow directions to cook the pierogi, about half of them at a time.  At home, we just ate them as they came out of the water, but I thought my husband might prefer some sort of topping.  The usual topping would be bread crumbs browned in butter with some cinnamon and sugar added.  I decided to try these with plum sauce instead since I had so many plums.

Plum Sauce

1-1/2 lbs. prune plums, pitted and chopped

1/4 cup sugar

A little water--2 or 3 tablespoons

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon butter

Simmer the first 4 ingredients until the plums become soft and the water cooks out a little.  Add the butter and simmer a couple more minutes to make a thickened sauce.

Serve the pierogi with the plum sauce.  Sprinkle with a little more cinnamon.

 

I like these warmed up a day later with some sauce--the flavors are better blended by then.   This is one of my nostalgia--from home--treats that I really make just for myself.