Slow Cooked T-Bone Steak with Red Wine Reduction

One of the amazing things about being on this farm is the semmingly endless supply of humanely raised meat. And by humanely raised, i mean these are some of the best treated cows ever. They get as much grass as they want, are fed grain twice a day, and love to come up to people to be pet and scratched and then frolic away. And then we eat them. Kinda strange, but I try not to think about that too much. Right now they are just happily living their cow lives.
So anyways, we have a freezer full of home raised beef that we are allowed to use at our will, and tonight I decided to take advantage of that. Slow cooking meat makes it unbelievably tender, moist, and flavorful. It takes about 4 to 5 hours to be ready, but prep only takes a very small amount of that time. All you have to do is plan ahead a little. And then of course, making the sauce and side dishes takes some time, but not more than a regular dinner . The red wine sauce turned out delicious, but was very strong and overpowered the meat flavor, so try some meat without it too to see what you like best. I chose to make oven roasted potatoes and steamed chard, all home grown, to accompany my tasty cow :)

Ingredients serves 2
1 T-bone steak
Handful of fresh thyme
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup Red wine
2 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper

-Defrost the meat if necessary. Poke lots of holes in it to let in the marinade, then rub in the thyme, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil. I try to push some of the garlic and thyme into the holes in the meat. Pour the wine on top and let sit for about an hour, more if possible.
-Preheat oven to 250 and put in the steak. According to Darina Allan, at 250 or below, the meat should be able to cook for a long time without deteriorating the proteins.
-Cook for 2-3 hours, and take out of the oven and eat!

Red Wine Reduction Sauce
1 large shallot, finely chopped
Marjoram
Mustard seeds
Pepper
2 cups red wine
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp sugar
Salt
1 tbs flour
Oil

-Sauté the onions, marjoram, mustard seeds, and pepper for a few min, then add the red wine and reduce until it is mostly evaporated.
-Add the mustard, sugar, and some salt. Add some flour if you want it thicker.
-When the meat is done, add a few tbs of the drippings. Mix together and Adjust salt and put on the meat when ready :)

The steak marinating in wine, oil, and herbs

Reducing the wine for the sauce. Smells so good :)

Adding some drippings to the sauce. This steak had lots of fat on the edges, so lots of drippings and the meat cooks nice and moist!

The amazingly cute, smiling, slug-shaped potato that we found :)

And the meal put together… Mmmm, so tasty and so richhhh

Till next time :)
-Celia

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Deviled Quail Eggs

Ok, so you are probably thinking “Why the hell would I want to do that? Sounds like a major waste of time, and who has quail eggs lying around???” Legitimate questions, and here are some reasons to make them anyways.
1) Quail eggs are delicious. If you haven’t tried them before, they are creamier than chicken eggs, and oh-so-tasty.
2) They are so cute and fancy looking when laid out on a tray to serve.
3) If you are really bored, this will kill 1-2 hours depending on how many you make and how much help you have.
4) They are so tiny, you can eat a bunch of them without getting full!
If you still aren’t convinced, you either don’t love food as much as I do, or you have more interesting things to do with your time than I do ;)

Igredients
2 dozen quail eggs
Mustard
Mayonnaise
Wild onions- these tiny onions grow all over the south, and are perfect for tiny quail eggs
Chili powder
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg

-Hard boil the quail eggs. This takes 4-6 min. You might want to test boil one first to get it right. Run the cooked eggs under cold water to loosen the shell.
-Very carefully peel the eggs. Cut them in half and scoop out the yolks into a bowl. Place the egg white halves on a plate.
-Mix the egg yolks with some mayonnaise, mustard, chopped wild onions, salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of chili powder and nutmeg. Taste as you go to adjust seasonings, but don’t eat too much or it will all be gone :) seriously, it will.
-Use a knife to scoop the yolk mixture back into the egg white halves. If you want to be fancy, you can take the time to round the egg yolks. I mean, if you are making this, at least half the reason is for the looks :)
-Arrange nicely on a plate and sprinkle each with some chili powder and chopped wild onion.

pick one up and nibble on it daintily :)
-Celia

Squash or Winter Vegetable Soup

This recipe can be made with whatever winter produce you have around- squash, turnips, parsnips, carrots. The technique was shown to me by my brother using butternut squash, but it works well for all sorts of vegetables. I am using turnips and parsnips because there are plenty in our garden at the moment, and threw in some carrots just for fun (um, this turned out to not be the best idea for the soup colorwise…).
And by the way, do you know how delicious parsnips are? I only really discovered them when I got to this farm, and now I don’t understand why everyone isn’t eating them all the time. If you roast them in the oven with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, mmmmmmm. So good.
Actually, the best soup I ever had was a parsnip soup served at a restaurant in Napa, California, that my dad took me too. At the time, I didn’t realize what it was made from. I wasn’t familiar with parsnips or turnips, so when the menu said “parsnip soup,” my brain thought “that vegetable that is like a potato, but not as good?” (I was thinking of turnips here) “No way. This is way too delicious and, well, delicious.” But now that I have tasted the amazing parsnip, I realize it is definitely what the soup was made from. Alas, this is not that recipe, but it is still a darn good soup, good for you, and probably way simpler to make.

Ratios can be changed around as you like, but I’ll write down what I used as guidelines.
Ingredients
~ 10 small turnips
2 parsnips
2 carrots
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Water
Maple syrup (optional for sweet soups)
Herbs for seasoning (I used marjoram, but you can use thyme, rosemary, oregano, etc)

– Dice vegetables. If using squash, cut off the peel.
-Heat olive oil in a pan or heavy bottomed pot and sauté the vegetables, salt, pepper, and herbs for a few min. Frying the spices brings out their flavor (careful not to add too much pepper- sautéing it makes it spicy!). Cook until the vegetables smell a bit roasted and are a bit browned.
-Add enough water to just cover the vegetables (this makes a thick soup. Add more water for a thinner soup, but be careful not to add so much that you have to take some out before blending- this will makes the soup loose flavor. To be safe, start with less and add more if you need it).
-Once the vegetables are cooked, blend in a blender until smooth (don’t fill the blender with too much hot soup or the top can explode off. It’s happened to me, and it’s not fun to clean up).
-Return the soup to the pan/pot and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Add maple syrup of you want.
Enjoy!

sautéing veggies

just cover veggies with water. Some of the water will evaporate, so add more if you need to

the soup after blending. I like it thick

the carrots made the soup turn a rather unpleasant color, so I added a cilantro and cayenne pepper garnish to make it look more attractive, ha ha :)

Hope you like!
-Celia

Hello world!

Wintertime dinners
Our wwoofing host asked us to start baking some fresh bread on the regular, which is one of my favorite things to do, so what a wonderful request! As the first loaves we made were ready to go in the oven tonight, we started to put together what became a scrumptious meal to accompany the bread. I picked some fresh kale from the garden, while Rosie fancified some left over cooked beans and rice.

Menu:
Bean and Brown Rice Stir Fry with Chickweed
Kale, Onion, Mushroom and Parsnip Stir Fry
Raw Kale Salad with Ginger, Garlic, Carrot and Mustard
Fresh Baked Bread!

Raw Kale Salad with Ginger, Mustard, Garlic, and. Carrot
I’ve tried to make raw kale salad before, and it always turned out a bit, well, nasty. It tasted too green and like grass. What I learned tonight (which, somehow, no one ever bothered to mention before), is that it matters what kind of kale you use! Use curly kale. The only other kind I have tried is Russian kale, and I don’t recommend it (to eat raw, cooked its delicious!).

Ingredients: (measurements are an estimate here)
One bunch curly kale
1 tbs vinegar (I like balsamic)
1 1/2 tbs olive oil
1/2 inch ginger root, pealed and chopped
1 1/2 tsp mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, grated
Salt and pepper to taste

-wash, dry, and strip kale from stems. tear into smaller pieces
-add all ingredients except carrots into a bowl and massage kale with your hands until leaves are soft/ have lost toughness
-add grated carrots, mix and enjoy!

We experimented a bit with the different loaves of bread, and haven’t tried them all yet, so I’ll add recipes and how they turned out later.
And Rosie made the other dishes, so she’ll add those.
Cherio y’all!

-Celia