Chicken Noodle Casserole

Needing to use a lot of the Community Supported Agriculture before Wednesday's refill, I adapted a recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole.  I wanted to make a healthier version of the great-tasting noodle casserole.

G.G.'s Chicken Noodle Casserole

2 CSA Leeks, sliced

3 CSA Green Onions (scallions), sliced

2 tablespoons Butter

1, 16-ounce package of Egg Noodles (we used organic mini-lasagna noodles)

1 bunch CSA Chard, sliced

1 bunch CSA Broccoli, diced

8 ounces Mushrooms, sliced

8 ounces Frozen Peas

1 (fully cooked) Rotisserie Chicken (ours was Hormone-Free from Rocky Farms), de-boned, skinned, and cut into cubes

1 pint Cream

8 ounces Sour Cream

15 ounces Ricotta
8 ounces Cheddar Cheese, diced

3 ounces Green Olives with Pimentos, sliced

Salt and Pepper to taste

1.)  Put a large pot of water on high heat to boil for the pasta.  When the water comes to a boil, cook the pasta for the shortest time listed on the package.

2.)  Melt butter in a large stockpot, add leeks and green onions to medium heat.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Heat through until soft, about 10 minutes.

3.)  Add chard, broccoli, and mushrooms, to the leek mixture.  Continue to heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

4.)  Add peas and chopped up chicken to the vegetables, heat through.  Salt and pepper to taste.

5.)  Drain the pasta when it is finished.  

6.)  In the empty pasta pot, add the cream, sour cream and ricotta, salt and pepper to taste, whisk ingredients together.

7.)  Add the vegetable/chicken mixture, pasta, cheddar cheese and the olives to the cream sauce, stir and heat through.

Makes 12+ servings.

Ad Hoc Fried Chicken and Waffles

We rose, packed our car and said goodbye to our generous hosts.  Goodbye cute little cabin in the woods.  Almost, goodbye weekend (and week-long vacation!)

 The line at Bouchon Bakery was getting long, so we diverted and had Sunday brunch at Ad Hoc.  A fortuitous choice because we lucked upon Ad Hoc fried chicken and waffles!  Our brunch started with a yogurt parfait with fruit salad.  The main course of wonderful fried chicken, crisp waffles, maple syrup and chard with roasted bell peppers came next.  Dessert of blondies and brownies, butterscotch sauce and housemade ice cream resting on cashews was presented.  A spoonful of brownie with sauce, ice cream and cashews made taste buds so happy.

Back home we rearranged furniture, unpacked and cleaned.  Sounds funny, but seeing amazing sheets on sale (not even purchased) were enough to put me into gear arranging a suitable space for guests.

Dinner tonight of leftover fried chicken and pasta with stir-fried CSA Brussels sprouts help us pay for food now, to prevent paying the doctor later in life.

About the Afternoon Tea

A lovely guest asked where I came up with the recipes for the tea.  Normally start with "The Joy of Cooking" cookbook and/or the internet for the bones of a recipe, then flesh-out the recipe with my own ideas.  We really enjoy tea:  my husband loves the intricacies of tea itself; I like the pretty china, silver, decor, etc.  Items about the afternoon teas that I especially like were noted from the 100 we've attended.  Subscriptions to magazines such as Tea A Magazine and TeaTime widen horizons as well.

Our friends have tea sourced from around the globe through the business-traveling husband.  Yesterday's tea was to thank friends who'd hosted an amazing dinner in August.  Their house has great entertaining space, so we used it for the afternoon tea.  Last Sunday we hauled our Canton Famille Rose china collection there, set the table, and choose the teas from her collection.

Larry's Original Chai seemed like it would go well with the butternut squash soup I'd planned for the first course.

The butternut squash soup was served so we could use the Canton Cabbage and Butterfly compotes, and because of the unforgettable afternoon tea a year ago that started with the best butternut squash and apple soup imaginable.

Luckily this week's CSA included two small butternut squash, an acorn squash, Fuji apples and carrots.  Settled on this easy recipe:  http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/butternut_squash_apple_soup/ and used the strained pan broth from the turkey baked on Tuesday (a bottle of white wine, 100 ounces chicken stock with the turkey neck and vegetables; a virtual steam bath for the turkey) instead of the recipe's chicken stock.  The Fuji apples were not tart enough at the finish of the online recipe.  Tried to use items on-hand, squeezed in the juice of one clementine tangerine . . . not enough flavor, searched the spice drawer for pumpkin spice to no avail . . . Chinese five spice was the closest thing there, so a teaspoon was added . . . flavor still not right . . . pomegranate would add a pretty color as garnish and is tart.  About a 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed pomegranate juice was added.  The flavor was where I wanted it, then a luxurious addition: 1/2 cup of cream.

Purposefully served relatively small servings of the rich butternut squash apple pomegranate soup topped with a swirl of creme fraiche, CSA bread-turned into mini croutons, and carefully chosen gem-like pomegranate seeds.

I hand count, and mix a Lucky-in-Love floral tea.  Inspecting the teas at our friends' home, a mystery tea appeared from China that resembled my Lucky in Love tea, so I called it T&T's Lucky in Love Tea in honor of our hosts.  Appropriately enough, they were given the tea on a business trip to China right after their wedding.  A guest deciphered the Chinese label on the package:  "Special Tea."

Tips for tea sandwiches:  1.) to keep sandwiches from getting dry, put the sandwiches on a well-wrung damp paper towel on a cookie sheet, then wrap with plastic wrap.  2.) lightly butter both inner sides of the bread with soft, room temperature butter to keep the bread from getting soggy or tearing the bread.  Recommend not serving more than 4 small tea sandwiches per person (roughly equal to one regular lunch sandwich) for a tea this size.

Inspiration for the sandwiches:  Turkey, Basil, Cream Cheese with Raisins came from the All Souls Day Tea a year ago (it may have come from TeaTime Magazine, which called for dried cranberries instead of raisins).  This is a tasty, terrific, and pretty tea sandwich.  A container of edible flowers for garnish came from Draeger's market in San Mateo.

Chicken Curry Salad on a Croissant came from a delicious salad served to honor junior high school teachers.  Originally the recipe came from church friends in the late 1960's or early 1970's.  My mom included the recipe in the cookbook she made her kids for Christmas 14 years ago.  It has grapes, celery and almonds--sweet, savory and crunchy.  The croissant idea came from croissants my brother's-in-law, in-laws make for Thanksgiving.  Used the canned type and made sure that the ends were brought together to make a circular-shaped croissant.  The sandwiches were topped with cilantro from this week's CSA box.

CSA eggs' freshness prevents the egg shells from coming off well when hard boiled.  Brown eggs from the market were used instead.  My husband likes pickles in his egg salad, so I added a little relish and mustard and grated the eggs for a nice consistency.  Turmeric was added for color and CSA dill for garnish.

The tomato and cucumber sandwich idea came from the Four Seasons Las Vegas afternoon tea (sideways, topped with a slice of pimento olive).  It was a good idea, as it combined two sandwiches I normally make.  Note: an easy open-faced tea sandwich--butter a slice of bread, cut using a fluted 2-2 1/2 inch round and top with a Roma tomato slice or cucumber slice, salt and pepper the tops.

On another business trip, our hosts sourced Sabah Ginger Tea from Borneo.  Sabah is a state on the South East Asian island of Borneo.

That wonderful afternoon tea a year ago had a great white chocolate and peppermint scone with candy cane cream (pictured right).  It was so fun to eat!  Our host at the time said she ordered soft peppermints online.  I bought a large tub of soft peppermints many months ago when seen for sale at a local pharmacy.  TeaTime Magazine had the recipe, but it called for peppermint chips (the kind from Andes?).  Went with crushed soft peppermints instead, as my former host mentioned.

Friday during an afternoon tea, with an English culture-loving friend, she commented, "American scones are dry, dense and crumbly.  I never had a dry scone in England."  That got me thinking.  This same friend brought me back a book from England "The Ritz London Book of Afternoon Tea."  Comparing the ingredients and quantities for the London scones versus the magazine recipe, there were differences.  I added in all the cream of tartar in the house, just under a tablespoon (to the doubled recipe prepared); increased the butter from 12 tablespoons to 16 tablespoons; used half cream, half buttermilk in place of the all buttermilk per the magazine recipe; and added 1/3 cup more liquid.  Tal-y-Tara in San Francisco gave this advice for scones:  keep all the ingredients very, very cold for light scones.  The scones went in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking.  While extremely tasty, the scones spread a bit in the oven.  Therefore, suggest cutting the butter down to 14 tablespoons and not adding the extra 1/3 cup liquid.  To keep the scones pretty for the party, while still warm a metal spatula cut off the extra beyond the original triangle shape.

Our male host put together homemade pomegranate sorbet for our palate cleanse (pictured above, right).  Pomegranates are great and they're really healthy.  The sorbet had a touch of lime, another favorite flavor.  The idea for the sorbet comes, again, from that lovely tea a year ago: three sorbets, over the top, in cute little shot glasses (pictured left).  Mom bought me similar shot glasses for a Christmas gift.

Since guests stayed at the tea from 3 to 8:30 p.m., after partially digesting the tea, we savored the second homemade sorbet.  The couple made a fresh CSA apple sorbet, too.  Both were beyond refreshing.

My husband made hot chocolate using whole milk, dark chocolate, Mexican chocolate and hazelnut chocolate; warmed and whisked in a pot.  Shortly before the tea began at 3 p.m., he melted chocolate to cover strawberries.  Our host made a CSA apple and raisin galette; plus crispy, buttery lavender shortbread (the only shortbread better than Walker's).

Friday, through pouring rain, drove to the Divine Delights retail outlet in Petaluma for gorgeous petit fours.  They were a bit less expensive than buying them online or in specialty markets.

Purchased a month ago, and froze TKOs (Thomas Keller Oreos) from Bouchon Bakery in Yountville.  The Oreo brownie recipe calls for a chocolate chip top: to spruce them up for a tea, Valrhona Crunchy Pearls were used instead.  Cut the the recipe by 2/3rds to make 8 small portions in decorative pans.  As an over-the-top addition, leftover Donnelly caramel was drizzled over the top of the TKO Brownies.

One last tip from Chic Chateau in San Jose, CA (didn't use for this tea, but have used in the past):  for the scone course, use the best strawberry jam one can find and stir in a little sparking wine.  It is a fun and festive touch.  There are many tiny things one can do to take tea in a full-pleasure manner.

Thank You Afternoon Tea

I'm exhausted, for good reason.  We're home from an over 5 hour afternoon tea (after 15 hours of planning and preparing).  A set of friends have treated us very well.  To thank them, we set today (months ago) as a day to present them with an elaborate afternoon tea in their home.  I'll be brief with just the basic information, but will go into more detail at a later date.

1.)  Larry's Original Chai (famous in Felton, CA)
CSA Butternut Squash, CSA Acorn Squash, CSA Apple & Pomegranate Soup

2.)  T & T's "Lucky in Love" Tea
Tea Sandwiches:  Turkey, Chicken, Egg, & Cucumber/Tomato

3.)  Sabah Ginger Tea from Borneo
White Chocolate and Peppermint Scone with Candy Cane Cream

Pomegranate Sorbet

4.)  Three-Chocolate Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows
Lavender Shortbread, Divine Delights Petit Fours, TKO Brownies, Chocolate Covered CSA Strawberries, CSA Apple/Raisin Galette

Absolutely fabulous, and a lot of fun!  Worth the work, but not something one wants to do daily.

Quince Paste (Membrillo) from Tree to Table

Our visit to Live Earth Farm today offered us a chance to make quince paste. The first time I saw Membrillo (Spanish quince paste made from the whole fruit) was in Dean and Deluca in St. Helena, CA. I questioned the cheese monger there who told me it was quince paste. I'd seen and tasted quince and didn't quite understand how the two related until now.

Spying the beautiful quince trees I admired the pretty fruit. They were some of the only produce left on the vine/tree in abundance at the CSA during the Harvest Festival. I overheard someone say that the quince were not used, some suggested that the trees would be used for grafting. At the end of the evening I asked Farmer Tom if I may pick some to take home. This would be my opportunity to make quince paste from scratch.

Using http://elise.com/recipes/archives/006144membrillo_quince_paste.php for the recipe, I modified it for my available time.

The quince was peeled, seeds removed, cut up and added to water with a vanilla bean. (Paste=flesh only, Membrillo=whole fruit, seeds, skin and all, then strained) Fruit was boiled, then simmered for 30 minutes until the quince was soft. After draining the fruit, removed the vanilla bean pod, then the mix was blended until smooth.

The blended pulp was simmered in the pan with equal amounts of sugar and two tablespoons of lemon juice for an hour. To speed the process (I don't necessarily recommend unless one's impatient like me): the first 15 minutes on medium-high, stirring constantly, 30 minutes on low stirring occasionally, and the last 15 minutes on medium-low to medium stirring constantly. It was past midnight, and I didn't want to wait 90 minutes for the boiling and another 60 minutes for the low oven. The process went faster, at a slight cost: the quince paste was not as evenly colored as when one takes their time. I didn't mind the strips of caramelization, though.

Spread out on a buttered pan, cooled, and cut. The two of us can't

possibly eat all this quince paste . . . or rather we shouldn't. Three quarters will become "gifts" on our trek to the Napa Valley tomorrow.

Among my favorite meals: bread, cheese, fruit, vegetables and wine! Membrillo is normally served with a Spanish sheep's milk cheese called Manchego. The combination is delicious.

Here I served my homemade quince paste with cheddar, the CSA rye bread, CSA Fuji apple picked today, a not quite ripe fig picked at LEF. My quicker version of quince paste is outstanding. I give all the credit to Live Earth Farm, our CSA, for growing perfectly wholesome flavorful and natural tasting food. The fruit is so good, the quince paste tastes unlike any I've had before: like vanilla caramel, or the sweetest fruit-perfumed honey. It's pure heaven, like my CSA.

Indian Inspired Gourmet Group Dinner

We belong as partial members to a local gourmet dinner group. When the founder found herself ill, she called and asked if we would fill in for her husband and her. Dessert for an Indian curry dinner was our assignment. After two long evenings deciding what to make or buy, I made a final decision.

Driving up a long, forested driveway we arrived at our hosts' home. She began by serving appetizers of eggplant, prosciutto and Fontina cheese; and bacon-wrapped scallops. Delicious. I was glad to see the eggplant appetizer because now I've got a way to use the 5 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) eggplants sitting in my kitchen.

The male host explained that Caesar Salad was our next course. The recipe was given to his mother by the inventor of the original Caesar Salad. Though anchovies are not a part of the original recipe or dressing, we all liked anchovies so they went on the salad.

For the main course, two of the U.S. Navy's recipes for "Indian" curry were used. Being a "Navy Brat," he explained that the Navy used Filipino cooks, and they were the ones who created the recipes.

Over rice we placed the two curries, with a center toppings bar that included three different kinds of chutneys: pear, apple and persimmon. I was very full by the time I finished my plate.

We rested a little while before I served my Indian inspired dessert. None of the desserts I made are traditionally Indian, they're all newly created recipes. In thoroughly cleaned and emptied egg shells, I put a "no bake" coconut custard, under the egg shell I placed gems with cuttings from a peacock feather. The custard cup was topped with swirled hard honey configurations.

Saffron infused oil was used to make my grandmother's sugar cookies. Using a star cookie cutter, colored sugar with a lettering template for initials, and gold leaf I decorated the cookies.

Finally, a blended mango, yogurt and coconut milk drink was topped with Indian spices such as nigella. A good dessert plate for the occasion, and I felt I did some justice for the outstanding dessert making founder of the club.

Live Local Artists

New friends explained the importance of buying art from living artists: a very wealthy guy had two children. The artist daughter struggled, and the father gave her a hard time. She committed suicide in her twenties. The father suffered, and thought about all those years he spent a lot of money on art. He figured he should have supported the young, struggling artists, instead and set-up a foundation in his daughter's honor.

As the friends put it: "The trust fund babies do not need more money [ancestors of the dead artist]; living artists do." Plus, one can see if their money is going toward an artist with good energy.

Here is a list of some of our favorite living artists: (In no particular order) Marianne Hunter, James Scoppettone, Sola Sawyerr, Michael Floyd, Michelle Waters, Mei Yu Lo, Allen Moe, Eileen Goldberg, Uebeners (Mud Daubers), Santa Cruz Pottery, Marge Smith, Acoma potters, Julia Parker, etc. Find and support a living artist.

Tonight I came home to thawed pork ribs. I cut them up and added them to a pot of seasoned beer with a new batch of CSA potatoes. With ten minutes left on the fifty minute boil time, I added corn on the cob. A beautiful heirloom tomato sliced, and dinner was served.

A note about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): yes, in almost every weekly batch there is evidence of bugs/worms. The little creatures know where to locate the good stuff! It makes sense to balance the ick-factor of insects with the good-for-a-body lack of pesticides. Personally, I find it comforting to see the worm holes: I just eat around them, or cut them out.

Imagine my surprise when I took the husk off the corn tonight to find a very happy fat caterpillar! The little guy went outside with some of the corn cob.

If we are going to rid our underground water supply of pesticides, then we need to come to terms with evidence of and eye-to-eye with the bug-kind. Farmers and residents in the heartland deserve a cleaner water supply.

Let's stop poisoning ourselves and our environment. Long live bugs!

Summit Lake Pig Roast and Corn Boil

Traveled up Napa Valley's Silverado Trail, drove east at Deer Park Road, and continued to Summit Lake Vineyards where one is greeted by three winery dogs. It's a treat to see five pigs, two horses, two pygmy goats, a gaggle of ducks, beautiful multi-colored eggs from the chicken coop, and today, an eight-week old squirrel. This is the thirty-eight year old winery in rural Angwin.

We were first introduced to Summit Lake Vineyards at a "Taste of Howell Mountain" five years ago. It was one of the few wines I tasted at the event. I told my husband, "I found a wine I really like [and described the label,] but I don't know what winery it was." Hunting the Taste of Howell Mountain website until he came across a bottle label I described, we made reservations to visit Summit Lake. Immediately I fell in love with the place, it reminded me of growing up in Mariposa, California, and particularly of my best friend's home.

Last year we happened upon one of Summit Lake's pig roasts when we stopped to pick up wine. They were hosting vineyard workers for a thank you dinner, and invited us to stay. That was a very memorable night.

Tonight they barbecue-roasted a whole 100 pound pig, boiled two cases of corn on the cob, had a friend make a green mole and a red mole, and baked five pans of the most delicious bread pudding for dessert. The seventy-five guests (all wine club members) also enjoyed a cheese plate, huge Diablo prawns, fresh-caught and smoked trout, and a beautiful garden salad. The Brakesman family worked hard to provide an outstanding event.

2006 Summit Lake Zinfandel

2006 Summit Lake "Emily Kestrel" Cabernet Sauvignon

2006 Summit Lake "Sophia Lynn" Petite Syrah

2002 Summit Lake "Claire Riley Pirates Reserve" Port

www.summitlakevineyards.com