Thanksgiving 2016

Adam stayed in Florida with Joy's family for the 2016 Thanksgiving, but Jake and Allie were home. I think we were all hoping for a better November, as both the election and The Game didn't have the desired outcomes. Still, it was great to have everyone together.

The weekend had an inauspicious start. 

The sole occupant, not from our family, was unhurt. Not sure the tree will survive however, as the wound is large and deep. It takes a lot of alcohol to total a car without leaving the yard.

On to the food.

The new breakfast dish had apples and pastry topping. Easy and delicious.

Breakfast casserole is tradition.

I finished some limoncello that has been sitting in the closet for a long time. Vanilla is the secret ingredient.

For the first time, we smoked our turkey. The turkey was injected, and thus the big controversy was over whether we should wet brine it starting the day before. In the end, I gave it a 12 hour soak in a diluted wet brine, then smoked it for 6.5 hours around 275F. 

It was good, but not that smoky. All of the online sources say the perfect smoking turkey is 12# and we used a 20# bird. So maybe next time we'll try a little smaller bird.

We drank 2015 Elderberry-Blackberry with dinner and while nobody commented on the wine, the bottle was emptied, so I think that is a favorable review.

Before the weather turned on Sunday, Jake and I got some outside work done. We did some fence repairs, adding a fifth board where the cattle are still pushing under the fence.

Then we rented yet another great tool, a T-post driver, and went to work in the vineyard.

With this tool, the in-line T-posts went up in under 2 hours.

The cattle watering trough is gone, replaced by a hydrant. We're almost ready for grapes. In April we're getting 36 Norton and 36 Vidal Blanc, for 2 rows of each. I'm also trying Frontenac, Marechal Foch, Chambourcin, Traminette, and grafted Chardonel.

On the winemaking front, MLF of the Chambourcin and the Syrah was more or less complete 2 weeks ago.

 

Today we hit both batches with Kmeta and racked off of the oak. Naturally, we sampled both. The Chambourcin has a deep color, medium body, firm tannins; it tastes of dark berries with a nice long finish. The Syrah is, oddly, light in color and body; tannins are soft, and it is quite fruit forward jammy. While it is lighter than I was aiming for, Lisa will love this wine.  Jake too! Happy Thanksgiving!

Inspired Saturday

Inspiration comes from many different sources, and sometimes from no particular source at all. Saturday didn't seem particularly suited to work in the kitchen but that is the way it turned out. Breakfast was a crustless egg dish baked in serving sized Lodge cast iron serving pans we found a few years back.

Serves 2
2 sticks celery
2 handfuls of spinach, chopped
2T chopped onion
1T chopped roasted red pepper
seasoning salt
4 eggs
Cheddar cheese

Saute the celery and onion.  When translucent, mix in spinach and pepper.  Divide between two Lodge mini pans.  Beat the eggs with the salt, pour over the veggies, and top with cheddar cheese. Bake 25-30 min or til the eggs pull slightly away from the sides.

Imagine this cast iron pan filled with eggs and veggies

Next up, elderberry wine. The recipe has not been finalized, but this batch dials back the fruit to just under 15# in a 3 gallon batch, and it uses 80% tartaric, 20% citric acid. Today we thawed and simmered the fruit, assembled the must, and put it in the fridge for a 3 day cold soak.  I'm going to double check the acid measurments on this one.  I was aiming for TA around 7 and pH 3.5. According to my first set of calculations, I got a TA 6.6 and pH 3.37.  The plan is to ferment this on heavy toast American oak chips starting Wednesday.

15# of elderberries

The best elderberry wine recipe I've found online, oddly, doesn't come from a winemaking site, but instead it comes from a food blog, Hunter-Angler-Gardner-Cook by Hank Shaw.  I'm not a hunter and the site is heavy on waterfowl recipes, but the site is worth some time.  Inspired by this recipe, we're making elderberry liqueur.

1 pint elderberries
1 quart vodka
1 3" x 1/4" strip of Meyer lemon rind (from the greenhouse)
1/4-1/3 cup sugar

Combine elderberries, vodka, lemon rind in a quart jar.  Leave for 1 month, shaking occasionally. Filter, then add sugar and bottle.

We were on a roll.  Next up, limoncello.  Limoncello recipes on the web vary widely in terms of the base alcohol (everything from 80 proof vodka to Everclear) and ratio of alcohol to lemons. I found some inspiration in this recipe using vanilla from an abandoned blog called That Jew Can Cook.  The website has links to some interesting YouTube videos, including one, seemingly done without any irony, on Halal street food.

10 lemons (smallish)
1 lime
1 orange
1/3 vanilla bean (I got burned by vanilla once, OK?)
80 proof vodka
Simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a quart mason jar.  Leave for 1 month, shaking occasionally.  Filter, add simple syrup, bottle.

Our patients have over the last several days given us several butternut squash. Lunch was a delicious, creamy, flavorful butternut squash soup.  I cut the cream cheese in half.

It is the holiday season. Coming full circle means digging into the last of our frozen fruitcakes and kicking off the new batch by getting this year's fruit in the rum to macerate.  We'll be baking cakes tomorrow.

Michigan won big, so we celebrated with a marinated flat iron steak, roasted sweet potatoes, and lemon-pepper-locally-grown green beans.  The wine is 2012 Penalolen Cab.