Butternut and Turkey Sausage Soup

 This is a big pot of soup. Reduce by at least half, maybe three fourths.  

 
From the Carney Clan in Florida. 

Atholl Brose Oatmeal Cookies

When you make Atholl Brose, you’ll have leftover whiskey-soaked oats. This is something worthwhile you can make with them.  These are really quite good.

 

Ingredients:

½ cup oats, soaked in whiskey, now ¾ cup in volume

3 TBSP salted butter, softened

¼ cup brown sugar, packed

2 TBSP granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 egg yolk, large

¼ tsp vanilla extract (bourbon vanilla is best)

⅓ cup all purpose flour

¼ tsp cinnamon

healthy pinch of salt

Instructions:

• Pre-heat oven to 325°F (160°C).

• Mix butter and both sugars until well blended.

• Add egg yolk & vanilla. Mix well.

• Add whiskey-soaked oats. Mix it together well.

• Ideally, mix all dry ingredients together separately & add to these wet ingredients. (But I just mixed them all in, and mixed really well.)

• Spoon scoops onto a silicon baking mat on a baking sheet, or use parchment. Space about 2 inches. I got 8 medium sized cookies from this recipe.

• Bake for 6 – 8 minutes. Watch carefully; these will want to spread out a lot.

• Cool on the silicon mat for a few minutes and then on a cooling rack.

Suggestion: Serve with Athol Brose. Or vanilla ice cream.

Atholl Brose

Ingredients:

½ cups oatmeal (steel cut preferred, but not necessary)

¾ cup filtered water

¾ cup decent Scotch whiskey (I used Trader Joe's Single Malt Highland house brand, but a competent blended whiskey is just fine for this.)

1 TBSP honey

¼ cup double cream (The cream is optional.)

Instructions:

• Soak the oatmeal in the water for 24 hours.

• Add the Scotch. Soak for 36 additional hours.

• Strain the oats from the Scotch. (Use the oats for cookies.)

• Add (warmed) honey & cream

• Whisked until well mixed.

• Chill & serve.

Because of the cream, store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Citrus Peel Bread

Ingredients:

Bread:

9 oz warm water 

1 tsp dry yeast 

2 ¾ cups plain flour

1 tsp salt 

Filling:

1 lemon, sliced very thin, dehydrated & cubed

½ orange, sliced very thin, dehydrated & cubed

1 TBSP fresh rosemary, chopped

1 TBSP monk fruit sweetener 

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp dried Scotch Bonnet pepper powder

½ cup cashews, coarsely chopped 

Olive oil for drizzling. 

Instructions:

• Mix bread ingredients together gently. 

• Prove it, warm place for an hour. 

• While the bread is proving, put all of the filling ingredients except cashews into bullet grinder, and grind to a coarse powder. Add the coarsely chopped cashews.

• When bread dough has risen, turn it out onto a flowered cutting board, and stretch into a quarter inch thick square.

• Drizzle olive oil on the dough.

• Spread filling evenly across the dough.

• Roll the dough up, with the filling inside, starting at one edge. Rotate 90° and roll the dough up again. • Rotate a second time at 90°, and roll it up again.

• Shape into a loaf.

• Put into a greased and flowered bread pan, and put it in a warm place to rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

• Bake at 325° for 35 - 45  minutes or until done. Put aluminum foil over the top if it is getting overly brown.

• Bring it out of the oven, let it rest until it's cool. Slice, toast, butter, and enjoy.

Chicken and Pumpkin Tin Foil Stew

Ingredients, per serving:

¾ cup cubed pumpkin. I used frozen.

½ cup frozen corn.

½ cup leftover chicken, cubed.

1 cup cubed carrots.

¼ cup dehydrated tomatoes, cubed.

3 cloves fresh garlic, coarsely chopped.

1 small under-ripe Scotch bonnet pepper, seeds & placenta removed, chopped finely.

1 TBSP pesto. I used frozen.

1½ tsp dried mushroom powder

½ tsp smoked salt.

1 tablespoon olive oil.

Fresh ground black pepper, to taste.

One tablespoon butter.

Instructions:

• Mix everything except the butter together till seasonings are evenly distributed.
• Place butter in the middle of a sheet of aluminum foil. Deposit the mixture on top of the butter, and wrap to a log shape, sealing the edges. Turn the resulting aluminum foil log over, and wrap again in a second layer of aluminum foil.
• Grill over medium high for 20 or 30 minutes, until you can smell things cooking. (Alternatively, roast in the toaster oven.)
• Unwrap, serve and enjoy.

Lemon Peel Bread

Ingredients:

1 Half-batch no-knead dough

1 fresh lemon, with peel, sliced thinly, then partially dehydrated (just enough to be able to chop it finely without losing juice [flavor] all over), and chopped finely.

1/4 of an orange, peel only, chopped finely. 

1/4 cup pistachio nuts, chopped finely. 

1/3 cup cashew nuts, chopped finely. 

2 tsp monk fruit sweetener. 

2 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped finely. 

Instructions: 

◾ Make the no-knead dough, according to the recipe. Note: make it a little softer or wetter than firm. 

◾ Prove the dough for an hour (until it's doubled).

◾ Mix all of the filling ingredients together and let them soak while the bread proves. 

◾ When the dough is proved, mix the filling in with the dough. Suggested: roll the dough out to a 7" (or so) square; spread filling on that square, roll the dough back up. (At this point, it might be interesting to slice the roll like cinnamon rolls, or to roll the new loaf from the end, mixing the ingredients more evenly, or to just bake it as a filled roll.)

◾ Bake at 350 for 35 or 40 minutes. 

 

Makes one medium-sized loaf.

Note: hot slices just cut off the just-baked loaf with butter: excellent.

 

Source: The idea just occurred to me as I was watering the lemon tree. 

No Knead 4-ingredient Bread

Ingredients:                    Full                      Half                  ¾         
325ml 100º warm water  [11.5 oz]              [6 oz]                [9 oz]
3g yeast                           [1 tsp]                  [½ tsp]              [1 tsp]
425g bread flour              [3 3/8 cups]         [1¾ cups]         [2¾ cups]
   (I used plain flour; worked fine.)
10g salt                            [1 2/3 tsp]            [¾ tsp]              [1 tsp]
Plus a little flour (for dusting)

• My first attempt was with half a batch. I added olives and roasted garlic and olive oil. Worked well. Tasty. 
• Second attempt, also half a batch, but the dough was too firm. Added more warm water and 2 TBSP olive oil. Accidentally gave it more time to prove. Liked it a lot!
• Updated to ¾ size later. Seems to fill a loaf pan better.

Instructions

- Once you’ve added all of the ingredients, use a spatula to bring it together the dough will be quite sticky.

-Cover and allow to rest for an hour in a warm place (on top of an active oven seemed to work).

-After the dough has rested, dip your fingers in water to avoid sticking, and bring the dough together stretching and folding each corner of the dough toward the center.

-Rest the dough for maybe 30 mins in a warm place.

-Make sure you flour the surfaces well. Tip the dough onto your work surface. Cut into 4 or 5 portions. Shape the dough as you like. 

- Free-form loaves on a floured parchment or silicon baking sheet, or in a floured or oiled baking pan.

-I shaped one piece into a small loaf, and slathered the other in oil (oil the bread pan before loading it, oil on top) and pushed some roasted garlic & green olives into the surface before baking. More oil on top.

-Bake in 400 degree (200c) oven until golden brown.

• The basic loaf [left] was fine. The oiled-up loaf with garlic & olives [above] was really nice. 

• Opinion: This dough would likely work pretty well as a pizza dough, or as a wrapping for meat rolls.

-----

Alternative: Split the (half recipe) dough in half, spread out to a rectangle, spread dried tomatoes, roasted garlic (both cubed), and green olives and rolled them up, placing them in an oiled & floured half-size bread pans.

Proved them for maybe 30 minutes and popped them into a 400 degree oven, which I reduced to 350 when I saw how much they were rising. They took 25 minutes to reach golden brown. 

Later filling: 

¾ cups coarsely chopped kalamata olives
6 cloves garlic, roasted & coarsely chopped
½ cup dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 baby red pepper, finely chopped
1 tsp Herb de Provence seasoning
¼ cup chopped parsley
¼ cup chopped cashews
1 TBSP Dukkah mixture
2 TBSP olive oil
Mix it all together & spread across dough, mixing it in. Much better.

 
Next time: half olives & half roasted garlic cloves or chunks of sun-dried tomato? [Tried it. Very nice. Next time add balsamic vinegar and chunks of feta cheese & roll the dough thinner.]

Some time I want to use the same technique, but fill it with meats and roast peppers, fajita style. Add shredded cheese before rolling up. Maybe.