Timeless Goodness

One of the nice things about going back East to visit at my Mom's is that I often get to talk cooking with family members who are equally passionate about food. In some cases I'm pretty sure they are more passionate than I am.

One of these is NoHandle and he offered to do another of his wonderful guest posts. Read on and find out what he has put together because I think you will find this the perfect thing to bring on picnics, as we did.

NoHandle writes:
It all started as I was reading “The Minstrel Boy” a sequel to “Blue Bells of Scotland” by Laura Vosika. The tale is about medieval Scotland, at least in part, and they talked about a portable meal called a Bridie, which seemed to be the Scottish version of the Pastie, but without potatoes or other root vegetables. The author of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, hails from the place in Scotland where these are famous. One suggestion for the origin of the name is that these were popular finger food at wedding celebrations.

I was casting about for something to blog about, and I had an up-coming pot-luck party to provision, so this looked like a great opportunity. I also had some leftover puff pastry sheets, called for in one of the recipes, so using them was another plus. If you are unfamiliar with Bridies or Pasties (I was) I will tell you that it is a light dough surrounding a seasoned ground meat center. It takes a bit over an hour to prepare, with most of the time devoted to baking the finished product. I should also warn you that sampling the meat before adding it to the pastry can be addictive. It is an experience much like tasting raw cookie dough, if you swing that way, but meat-based and cooked. You have been warned.

I have blended this recipe (“Forfar Bridies”) from two sources, both claiming a measure of authenticity. The differences are minor, and reader comments were incorporated too.

The first thing you should do is defrost the pastry sheets. This is said to take about 40 minutes, but may be 10 minutes less. Once that is started, I saute the onions in a cast iron skillet, although the original recipes called for cooking the meat first. I also chose ground beef for the first try, mostly because I'm the only one in the household who likes lamb. I'm going to try a blend next time, with other consumers. Once the onions are soft, add the ground meat and seasonings. When the meat is browned, drain most of the fats and juices (it's mostly fat) and add the flour, stirring it around to form a roue. Then add the beef stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Check the taste, adding salt and pepper if needed (I go light on the salt and heavier on the pepper, but that's just me). This would be a good time to pre-heat the oven to 375. Remove the skillet from the heat and let the meat mixture cool while you prepare the pastry sheet(s).

The recipe calls for ½ cup of the meat mixture for each Bridie, and thinks you can get six from a frozen pastry sheet. I couldn't; I may have used a few more ounces of beef, but the pastry was a problem. I was able to build four full size Bridies and one demi-Bridie from the scraps. This is where indulging in tasting may pay off, you don't need as much filling. On my second attempt, I managed five full-sized ones.

The other issue is fitting ½ cup of filling in a six-inch round of pastry dough. I had to stretch the dough some to even partially seal the product, and even then it was, shall we say, rustic. This is not a bad thing, as the filling must be vented anyway and this just adds to the venting opportunities to the two or so holes where you pierce the dough. If Peter Pan walked up to a passel of Bridies, he would recognize the ones with two vents as containing onions, and those with a single vent as being “plain”.

You can be creative here so people can distinguish different fillings, if you choose to make more than one kind, like one vent for beef and two for lamb. If you want to make the entire thing from scratch (of course you do), a flaky pie crust is said to work well, and will provide plenty of pastry. Another option is to make more smaller ones; I suspect that three-inch circles would take a tablespoon or so of filling, perhaps two. This size would be better as cocktail snacks as a full Bridie would be enough for a lunch for many. Let me know if you find a size and proportion that works better for you.

Once the pastries are sealed (using the usual water method) apply an egg white wash, and bake for about 35 minutes. Remove when “golden brown and delicious.” Serve as quickly as you can, especially at altitude. They are best piping hot. If there are leftovers, you can freeze them in individual plastic bags and reheat in the microwave. About two minutes should do it. Leave them right-side up when reheating or the pastry will get flattened and a bit soggy; they will still taste great.

The Bridie was the Hot Pocket® of it's day, and can be eaten that way today. Enjoy!

The Bridie
makes about 5-6 lunch sized Bridies

Ingredients:
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 12 ounces ground lamb (or beef, or a combination)
• 1½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 
2 tablespoons beef broth
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• ½ tablespoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste
• 1 package or frozen puff pastry or 1 recipe flaky pastry for double-crust pie
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten

Directions:
In a large heavy skillet (I prefer cast iron) over medium heat, saute the onion. Add and cook lamb (or beef) until evenly brown; drain excess fat. Add the flour and stir for a minute or two. Remove from heat, and stir in beef broth, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Allow the meat mixture to cool for about 20 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, roll pastry out to 1/8 inch thickness (or unfold thawed puff pastry sheet). Cut into 6 inch rounds. Place approximately 1/2 cup filling on each. Stretch and fold the pastry over the filling, and crimp edges to seal. Brush lightly with beaten egg white, and cut two or three slits in the top to allow steam to escape. Place on a lightly-greased (baking spray will do) baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown.

To take on a picnic, bring in an insulated bag, or put into a casserole, wrap that in newspapers and put into a cardboard box lined with crumpled newspaper, or into a cooler and fill in with crumpled newspaper.

Lets Bring Back Picnics

Somewhere recently I read that picnics are falling out of favor with the younger crowd. Couldn't tell you if that is true, but I support that author's call to bring back old-fashioned picnics where you pile a basket or tote with lots of home made goodies to eat and a cooler with stuff to drink and then you spread out a blanket or table cloth and set out the feast. Smart folks picnic where there are picnic tables so that you get to sit on a bench and the table keeps the olives from rolling all over the place like they tend to do on that picnic cloth on the grass.

One of my nephews is coming to visit next month and we hope to go on at least one picnic. I'm a firm believer that visitors make for the perfect excuse to throw normal day to day living to the winds and to pretend that I'm a tourist and on vacation, too. We also hope to go to San Francisco and probably an excursion through the redwoods and to a county fair and maybe a ferry ride.

When you have been working hard all day and have no actual energy to bake or cook anything beyond the basics, its the perfect time to browse cookbooks. Little chance of jumping up to bake those gorgeous brownies, but a good chance of being inspired for another day.

That's what happened this week. I keep hearing about Beth Hensperger the bread baker and how great her recipes are so I too her book, The Bread Bible out of the library and found the perfect recipe for one of those picnics I have planned. She even has a section of the book called Savory Special Occasions: Picnic Breads, which makes it easy should we have more than one picnic.

The loaf I decided to pre-screen, so to speak, is a wonderful, aromatic, savory thing called Sausage Bread. It is basically pizza dough rolled up with a sausage onion filling and twirled into a snail shape and then baked to a golden brown.

As is often the case, I jazzed it up a bit right from the start. To begin with I started with her Basic Pizza Dough, but I wanted to use my sourdough starter. The starter had already been enriched with a feeding of flour and water a few days before. I wanted to use some whole wheat flour and semolina flour, too. The olive oil remained the same...something had to. These changes made for a delightful pizza dough that was easy to work with and full of flavor.

For the filling I again changed things a bit. I used less sausage and more onion than called for and included some minced Italian parsley and some fresh baby spinach which I steamed, squeezed dry and chopped. I was tempted to add some shredded mozzarella, but decided I had enough filling.

I also changed the order of cooking, sauteing the onions first because the Italian turkey sausage that I get at Willie Bird's has very little fat to render. I used some olive oil to saute' the onions, then browned the turkey separately. Because there was a lot of filling, I also rolled the dough out larger than called for. Where that made the dough a little thinner you can see the filling showing through a little bit.

This is great stuff! When Sweetie and I first had some it was still a little warmer than it should have been, but the aromas were just too good to wait. Later I had a slice that was just slightly warm and I liked that even better. Sweetie had some for lunch reheated today and he was quite pleased with the improvement in taste. Don't you find that almost anything with onions in it tastes even better the next day?

I loved the swirls of filling and dough and this will make a super picnic bread because it tastes fine at room temperature, too. Since there is only one rise for the dough and one rise for the filled bread this one goes together pretty quickly, too (for yeasted bread), so give it a try. You'll be glad you did!

I'm sending this along to Susan at Wild Yeast for her Yeastspotting event...the most inspirational yeasted bread event around.

Sausage Picnic Bread
Based on recipes in Beth Hensperger's book The Bread Bible

1 recipe Pizza Dough (below)
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 pound sweet turkey Italian sausage
2-3 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 large handful fresh baby spinach (1/4 cup once steamed and chopped)
garlic salt (optional)

Prepare the pizza dough and let it rise. Meanwhile, place a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and saute’ the onion until transluscent, about 5 minutes, stirring to keep it from browning. During the last minute, stir in the Italian parsley and toss it with the onions to combine. Remove to a wide plate and spread to cool.

In the same pan crumble the sausage (remove casings if there are any) and saute’ until the meat is cooked through. If there is a lot of fat rendered, scoop the cooked meat out with a slotted spoon to leave the excess in the pan. Place on another large plate and spread out to cool.

Steam the spinach until fully wilted. Place on a towel and roll up and squeeze well to remove as much spinach juice as possible. Transfer from towel to cutting board and chop spinach. Add it to the meat, add the cooled onion mixture to the meat and stir to combine all the ingredients. Cool to room temperature.

Turn the risen dough out onto a floured work surface. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to a rectangle. The recipe called for 14 by 10 but I rolled mine out to about 17 by 14 inches. Spread the sausage filling evenly over the dough, leaving a 1-inch border all around.

Beginning at the long edge, roll up jelly-roll fashion to forma long, tight loaf. Pinch the edges and bottom seam tightly to seal.

Place a piece of parchment on a pizza peel or large baking sheet. Put the roll, seam side down onto the parchment and coil the roll into a spiral or snail shape, tucking the outer end under.

Brush the top with olive oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, with a baking stone set on the center rack if available.

Remove the plastic wrap gently. Brush the top again with olive oil and bake in the center of the oven until brown and firm to the touch, 45 – 5 minutes. Remove from the baking sheet to cool on a wire rack before slicing. If you use a baking stone, you can slide the parchment with the snail onto the baking stone and when done slide the parchment back onto the pizza peel or baking sheet, then onto the rack to cool.

Serve warm or at room temperature, spread with mustard if desired. Store, wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator, for up to 2 days. Makes one large loaf.

Sourdough Pizza Dough
based on Basic Pizza Dough in Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Bible cookbook

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup water
½ cup warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 ½ cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup semolina flour

Place the sourdough starter in a medium bowl. In another bowl whisk together the all-purpose flour and the water. Whisk the flour/water mixture into the sourdough starter. Let sit, uncovered 2 hours (or overnight in the refrigerator).

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer combine the sourdough mixture, the warm water and the olive oil.

In another bowl or large glass measuring cup, whisk together the bread flour, whole wheat flour and semolina flour. Using a wooden spoon, stir about 1 to 1 ½ cups of the flour mixture into the mixture in the stand mixer bowl, until a very soft dough is formed. Using the dough hook and on a low speed, add the rest of the flour mixture, a little at a time, to form a firm dough that cleans the side of the bowl. Add additional bread flour, a tablespoon at a time if necessary. Let the machine knead the dough for 8-10 minutes until satiny. Remove to an oiled bowl or other rising container and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour to an hour and a half.

Use in your favorite pizza recipe.

Glin to Dingle and Some Grilled Garden Goodies

If more of my Ireland journey journal has you yawning, just scroll down the post almost to the end for Sweetie's take on grilled zucchini.

A few days earlier when we exited the Tarbert ferry, everyone seemed to be following the sign toward the west, toward Dingle. Now it was our turn. We were sad to leave our new found relatives, but also excited about seeing some actual ancient (Stone Age) stone ruins.

On a slightly overcast day we drove back to Tarbert and took the N69 southwest, past Listowel, past Tralee, past Derrymore to Camp. Once we passed Tralee we were on the Dingle peninsula.
Dingle peninsula is a lovely but rocky piece of land and is the westernmost tip of Ireland, which is itself the far western part of Europe.


Dingle is part of the Gaeltacht, a part of Ireland where Gaelic is spoken, traditions of music and poetry and the arts are cherished, and sometimes the signs are only in Gaelic. Coming through pass between Camp and Anascaul we read a sign painted on the road that ended in Mall. We were pretty sure that it wasn’t directing us to a shopping mall. As it turned out the phrase was ‘Taisteal go Mall ‘ which is Gaelic for ‘go slowly’. Fortunately we were going fairly slowly so that we could enjoy the lovely green valley below with fields crisscrossed by hedges and stone walls

and flocks of puffy white sheep here and there.

There even seemed to be a section at the lowest part of the valley for peat farming.
One of the pleasures of Ireland is how clean everything is, both with the lack of trash at the road side and in the towns, but also with the lack of billboards and other visual distractions. We did see some signs that explained how clean and fresh many places looked. There is a national competition for the Tidy Town award.

People keep their personal space in good order, towns plant flowers and paint buildings bright colors.

Getting the award seems to be very important. I wish we had something like that here.
There were plenty of signs for those running for office, but even those seemed to be regulated so that none were terribly large. Multiples of the same sign posted side by side on highway overcrossings was as close as they came to big campaign signage. There are often appropriately sized signs at ruins telling a little bit about the history, but even those are discrete. Road signs are very large when needed and usually well placed and helpful. It seems to me that Ireland has the right idea.

Driving home from the Oakland Airport after our trip the most noticeable signs were the commercial ones; neon signs, lighted signs, and billboards were more numerous and shouted for attention much more than the occasional road sign. They seemed to be a blight on the senses after the serene lack of them in Ireland. Think of a busy American large tourist town and all the bright, overpowering signs and then notice these which were on one of the main streets in Dingle which is a major tourist destination.

After coming through the pass we were able to see Dingle Bay on our left as we continued on to Dingle town and our next B & B, Harbor Nights, which sits right on the water of Dingle harbor. Housed in narrow, traditional row houses,

the rooms were similar to a good motel’s, but the beds were top notch and there was a tea set up in the armoire and a good shower and nice sliding door to the balcony. The breakfast room is bright and well appointed and the common room upstairs has really comfy chairs and good, free Internet connections. The innkeeper, Kathleen, was welcoming and efficient and her helpers charming.

One of the advantages of staying here, besides all rooms being en suite and there being parking behind the B&B is that you are within easy walking distance of Dingle town. Should you wish to stay there, they have a web site: http://www.harbournightsguesthouse.com/.
While Sweetie caught up with his e-mail upstairs, I headed off to town and had a look around and mailed some post cards. I was charmed by some old fellas chatting by the harbor

and by some schoolgirls at lunchtime gathered by a grocery store.


Store fronts might have dolphins ‘swimming’ on the front


or they might be adorned with a beautiful carved face with knotwork hair.

There was a lot of traffic and plenty of shops.

I went into a pottery shop


and fell in love with a beautiful and unusual teapot which is the work of the owner’s daughter. I had it shipped home and have already enjoyed the wonderful balance it has…so important in a teapot that is for use, not just looking pretty. Isn’t it beautiful?

That evening we celebrated our anniversary (a little late) and enjoyed a fine dinner at Fenton’s with two kinds of fresh fish. Mine, a flat fish similar to a flounder, was poached and finished with a light butter, lemon and chive sauce. Sweetie’s was a steak, similar to halibut, grilled and it came with a mushroom sauce. Both were excellent and you could tell that it was very fresh fish. Fresh veggies were lightly sautéed. The light as air potato soufflé was a perfect way to enjoy the extra sauces. We shared a strawberry rhubarb crumble for dessert. It came with a dollop of whipped cream, but also with a pitcher of barely warm, pourable crème anglaise . Heavenly! Too bad I had left the camera at home. In fact, most of the time I was in Ireland I forgot to take food photos. What kind of a food blogger am I?

As we walked home from dinner it began to get dark. There were dramatic clouds on the horizon. We hoped for good weather the next day because we were going to explore ancient Iron Age forts, beehive huts used by monks, and hoped to have a picnic, too.

The next morning I headed for town to get supplies for the picnic. I spotted a bakery with industrial sized beaters hung in front of a window. I missed cooking and baking!

Inside I bought some goodies for a picnic I had planned. One slice was a Victoria Sponge enrobed in chocolate. The other was puff pastry with pastry cream and powdered sugar. (The last made a mess in the rental car, but was really good.)

At another grocery store by the post office I found local cheese, a wonderful seeded baguette, some sliced sausage, fruit and juice. At the fish market across from the B&B I bought some salmon pate’ which finished off the picnic provisions.

Starting a little later this way was a good thing. The road along the edge of the peninsula as you go in a clockwise direction is very narrow and the tour buses you are sharing the road with are very wide. Since most of the buses leave much earlier, we had little traffic and could enjoy the wonderful sea views and felt blessed with the slightly overcast but good (but windy) weather.

At Ventry Harbor there was a nice sandy four mile long curved beach. We pulled in and had our picnic, but the wind made it nicer to eat in the car.

Fortified, we headed off to Dun Beg Fort, an Iron Age (500 BC) ring fort on a rocky promontory. This is looking straight down to the sea.

Comparing this actual historic ring fort to the one we had seen at Craggaunowne, it seemed like the real one was larger and that there were multiple rings. Amazing how these unmortared walls

are still standing so many hundreds of years later. The doorways were very low,
but lined up with the breaks in the ring walls.

You can see that the underlying land is very rocky. Imagine having to clear all that rock!

They have estimated that there are something like 40,000 ring forts remains all over Ireland. We had parked across the street at a stone house where a traditional boat called a currach is permanently dry docked. It looked a bit like the Brendan.

Our next stop was at a group of beehive huts or clochans.

They were likely the living quarters for monks. They are enclosed by a circular wall, like the ring forts,

but the rock on the huts continues on up to make a roof, with spaces to let smoke out. Although the entry ways are low,

inside you can see that the roof is a fair distance over your head. Some like these above have lost their roof section. Imagine living in rock buildings like these so close to the water! Some of them were connected with a sort of corridor. You can see Sweetie on one side of two that are connected.

One of the interesting thing about the western part of the Dingle peninsula and, indeed, the area around the Cliffs of Mohr in County Clare, is that there is so little topsoil before you reach underlying rock. Getting to the sand and seaweed to build up the soil can be a challenge when this is the coastline.

It turns out that the inhabitants started out with mostly rock and hard clay and slowly built up the soil by first clearing rocks and piling them into walls, then sand and seaweed were laid on the clay and in time it was good for grass for grazing. A hard way to create soil that wasn’t even deep enough in most places to plant anything. Sheep and cows were grazing near the beehive huts, carrying on centuries old traditions.

Having had enough of stone and wind and narrow roads for the day, we turned around and headed back to Dingle Town. Here is where we were from Glin (day 4 & 5) to Tarbert, Listowel, Tralee and on to Dingle and then the stone fort and beehives (day 6 & 7) and left Dingle on day 8. On day 8 we headed toward Killarney and it’s beautiful lakes and gardens.

Speaking of gardens, thanks to drip irrigation installed before we left, mine is doing really well!

For the food portion of this post, we turn to a summer staple, fresh from the garden zucchini. There has been a fair number of lovely yellow, light green and dark green zucchini squash (also known as corregettes) being harvested so far, with some being given away to friends and neighbors, too.

In case you were wondering, I rarely give more than three medium sized at a time and never any of those baseball bat sized ones that managed to hide under the broad leaves. I like folks to be happy when I turn up with squash, not running the other way in dismay.

This "recipe" works for all types of summer squash; just be sure the pieces are large enough or they might fall through the grillwork and onto the fire or coals. For small pieces, use a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil on top of the grill to hold them.

"RECIPE": Sweetie is a genius with the grill, so we cut the squash lengthwise in thick slices, slather on some olive oil, sprinkle on a little garlic salt or herbs and a good grinding of fresh black pepper and they are ready to grill. I like them slightly charred but not so cooked that they are mushy. A few in the photo were a little too charred for my taste, but Sweetie likes them that way. A nicely cooked zucchini which retains is firmness and has a little sweetness from being so fresh is a true summer treat. Add in some golden bell peppers, also grilled, and you have a plate of goodness.

Let's Go On a Picnic

It's spring. Some of the time it's sunny and not too windy (but not today) and the out of doors calls when we are stuck inside being adult or something. It's picnic time in wine country.

Last Friday friends from New Orleans visited and gave us the perfect excuse to get on the road with a picnic basket full of food. With choices like a day at Bodega Bay, a hike in Armstrong Redwoods near the Russian River, a trip into the past at the Petaluma Adobe, or heading north for some wine tasting, there was no way to have a bad day.

Our guests chose the wine tasting tour, so we headed for the Dry Creek valley, one of our favorite places to taste wine, although there are hundreds of wineries within driving distance. One stop was at the Hop Kiln Winery which is housed in a historic old hop kiln. Inside on the stone walls there are photos from the turn of the century showing hops pickers harvesting the hops from the tall vines. Later those hops were toasted in the kilns and used to flavor beer. Now there are no commercial hops in the valley, but lots of wine grape vines. At this time of year the vines are just starting to leaf out and you can still see the twisting of the old vines.

Our favorite winery to eat lunch at is Armida Winery. You drive up a steep and twisting drive, past two ponds and a bocce ball court. The winery is in a geodesic dome building. They concentrate on reds, so we purchased a nice Zinfandel to go with the picnic. They provide glasses and a wonderful deck with comfortable tables and chairs and red market umbrellas. The view over the valley is wonderful. We nibbled, drank wine, had long rambling conversations and nibbled some more. I'm telling you this while risking the possibility that Armida will become so popular that there will be no tables available when we visit. We already have trouble getting to play bocce ball. Oh well, it really is a great picnic spot.

A favorite picnic for this type of trip includes a selection of crackers, cheeses, salami, nuts, fruits, crudites, and some chocolate.

This time I made sure to include an artisan baguette from The Village Bakery in Sebastopol and some Humboldt Fog goat cheese. The bread, sliced fairly thin, makes a nice base for the tangy cheese. Both are made locally. They really go well with the Armida Zinfandel. These will make a wonderful addition to the Blog Party Picnic hosted by Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness. See you there!