Blackberry gelato, page 148-149

Four ingredients: blackberries, sugar, water and cream. What a lovely way to eat blackberries in the summer. These blackberries were from my mother's garden, actually. Thanks, Mom. I'm going to let the pictures speak for the recipe. I think you can see how yummy the gelato is.

City of Columbia Crawdads?

On a recent three day trip to Owensville Oliver and Ann’s Dad made some Crawdad traps. We had hoped to employ them to catch some big Crawdads down on Table Rock Lake, but time got away from us, and we weren’t able to get in a fishing trip that involved a four-hour one-way drive.  At least not for a while.

But we couldn’t just let these traps sit. So I decided to give the closest waters to my house a try: Twin Lakes, a city of Columbia park. Twin Lakes isn’t known as a crawfish paradise, but perhaps that is only because no one ever tried to catch them there before. This was my hope, anyway. It has a nice floating dock, so it was easy to put the traps out without getting wet or muddy. I set one near the shore, and the other two out at the end of the dock. On several peoples’ recommendations I baited them with canned cat food.

I checked them with the kids after about an hour and hadn’t come up with anything. I’d read that crawdads are more active at night, so I left them overnight and came back the next morning. I had caught about half a dozen minnows, and 1 crawfish.

Since that wasn’t working, the following night I moved the traps to Stephen’s Lake. There’s a bridge there that goes across that lake, so once again setting them out was a breeze. I put them out with the Henry and my nephew Carols at night. Both boys appreciated a nighttime adventure, since the in summertime we are usually calling it a day by the time the sun is down.

The next morning Ann’s sister Tracey (who was visiting for a few days with her kids) took the kids back to check the traps. No crawdads, and not even any little fish on this run. And the traps were stinky. Nine Lives gets rank after sitting out in warm lake water for two nights in a row. Henry immediately decided that if this was what cat food smells like, he never wants to own a cat.

So according to my field research, crawdads aren’t plentiful in city of Columbia lakes. I think we’ll stick to un-impounded waters next time.

(Editorial note: It seems you can use the terms crawdad, crawfish, or crayfish interchangeably, but for goodness sake never say craydads. That would just be silly.)

Trout and sprout salad, pages 108 and 109

Finally, another recipe that I can share with you. This is one of four recipes MDC published on-line to give people a "taste" of what the book is like. It's a pretty loose recipe, actually.

I tell you, a person feels so very good after having a meal like this. The clean, flavorful protiens with the smoked salmon, the fresh, flavorful dressing, the plate of raw vegies, and the cool noodles--what a "good" meal. It was a good meal because it was tasty. And, it was good in that it's the sort of food that is terrific for your body.

Here it is, folks:
Trout and Sprout Salad
Ingredients:
Leftover grilled or baked trout, broken into bite-sized pieces
Fresh spinach
Mixed lettuces
Bean sprouts
Cilantro
Green onion
Garlic tops (the green tops of fresh garlic) or freshly minced garlic
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Rice wine vinegar
Instructions:
I tossed the trout together with all the vegetables, a little soy, toasted sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. It was perfect! You also could add such things as peanuts, mung-bean threads and avocado. Fresh orange sections, carrots, red peppers or cucumbers come to mind, as well.

Fettuccine with chanterelles and smoked trout, page 182

Hey, here's a twisted silver lining about the drought. I've been worried about how in the world we'd find summer and fall mushrooms to use for recipes in the book. I've never seen them before, that I know of, and don't have any close friends or family who can identify these mushrooms, either. But, here the drought comes upon us making a perfect excuse for not finding these mushrooms. Knock, knock, Ann. There's no fungus in the woods! Duh on me. Fungus takes a certain amount of moisture to fruit and right now moisture is something we are very much lacking.

So, I feel relatively comfortable giving up on wild chanterelles and hen of the woods this summer, and substituting them with more exotic mushrooms I can find at the store. 
 
Last night we tried the pasta with chanterelles (substituting oyster mushrooms) with smoked trout. On the stove Fred smoked the trout that we caught earlier this spring. The mushrooms are sauted in olive oil and butter with herbs, then the trout, cream and lemon juice are added.

Bernadette (sorry for always repeating this but just in case you are new to the blog, Bernadette Dryden is the author of the recipe book we are working through) said in the book that she served the pasta with brushette. There's no recipe for the bruschette (toasted bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil and topped with fresh tomatoes and basil) , but I thought I'd give it a try, too. Unfortunately, we forgot to get bread at the store, and was too impatient to go back to the store, so I make bruschette with bagels. And, let me tell you what, that's mighty tasty, too.

This was yet another very fine dinner. I'm getting so spoiled using this recipe book.

Squirrel and dumplings, page 49

This weekend we made one of the two remaining squirrel recipes: squirrel and dumplings. It's a recipe in the book that author Bernadette Dryen put in from "squirrel aficionado Kevin Lohraff. The recipe is more like a telling of how to make squirrel and dumplings than specific directions. In a couple of paragraphs, Kevin tells the story of how he makes this dish, with no specific measurements or times.

I had a queer combination of feelings when making this dish. I'd just been watching a cooking show on T.V. which got me inspired to feel all gourmet-like. On the other hand, I was making a gravy with fried squirrel drippings!

First I boiled two squirrels in an electric skillet outside to keep the heat out of the house. Then, I sauted mushrooms, garlic (and this I added to the recipe) and shallots in butter in a big pot on the stove. In the same pot, I browned the boiled squirrel pieces that had been floured. Then, all that is scooped up and a gravy is made in the pot with water and flour and the drippings (and I added milk). Next, the squirrel and mushroom mixture plus parsley is added back in with the hot gravy, drop biscuit dough from your own favorite recipe is added in balls into the pot, and the whole thing cooks with a lid on on the stove top.

It's a mighty fine dish. I liked it much more than I thought I would, Henry ate too many servings to be thought of as decent, and Fred liked it as well. O mostly liked the dumplings.

My sister and her kiddos came to visit this week. She warmed up the leftover squirrel and dumplings for lunch and was unsure about the wee little bones in the dish. It was a bit of a turn off for her. But, after she tried it, she was convinced. Squirrel is very good! And, her kids gobbled it up, too.

A blog that's too sweet? You decide. No-cook blackberry spread, page 152

Just before  Fred and I married, when he had graduated college but I had not yet, he lived in the country on a a farm adjacent to his parents. The land around his house was hilly and scrappy with cedars and briars. Fred's landscaping maintenance  at the house was to borrow his dad's tractor to brush hog the "yard." Beyond the fenced in area, cattle took care of the mowing for you. Fred got a black lab from a coworker of his named Backie (the dog that is, not the coworker) that kept him company on the farm. Fred and Blackie had a good, simple relationship. They ran together in the early morning on the gravel road that went between his dad's and his neighbor's fields. Then Fred would leave for work, Blackie would roam the farm and perhaps beyond, and they'd meet up again in the afternoon.

The land around Fred's place was crazy with wild blackberries. The rough hills were in the perfect stage of succession for them--grown up enough to allow time for shrubs to grow, but not grown up enough for hardwood trees to shade them out yet.

I very much remember Fred telling me when the blackberries were ripe and that he and Blackie would go together to pick them in the hot summer evenings. Fred would pick and Blackie would eat the berries right off the bush. Then, Blackie would cough and cough because the blackberry stems would stratch his throat. I wasn't sure if Blackie ate the berries because he liked the taste or because he wanted to partner with whatever Fred was doing.

I remember coming down from college to visit Fred during blackberry season on a day that he was working. I had gotten to the farm before Fred was home and decided to kill time by picking some of the blackberries myself. Up the hill I trotted, and up the hill trotted Blackie after me. I picked, Blackie ate and coughed. I very much liked having Blackie there to keep me company. And, I so remember Blackie's absolute loyalty to Fred. As it approached time for Fred to be coming home, Blackie started heading to the house. That was his routine. I kept calling him back trying to keep him with me. But, Blackie wouldn't have it. It was time to go meet Fred and that was what he was going to do.

Fast forward 16 years. What's changed? Two boys are added to the mix. Blackie is long gone but we have a new black lab cross named Josey.  It's blackberry season again.  Fred's been working out of town for several days  and I'm waiting for his return this afternoon. It's feeling all pretty similar really.

I made the no-cook blackberry spread from the book this week with blackberries that Fred and the boys picked. It's equal parts blackberries and sugar (which as it turns out is a tad too sweet for me) mashed with a potato masher and refrigerated. You can't get any simpler than that. Perhaps I'll add more blackberries.

Mostly, I'm thinking of Fred on his way home, blackberry season and the hot Missouri summer, and me once again filling my time until Fred comes home. He's got two more loved ones looking forward to his return than he did 16 years ago, his new dog is not quite as sane as Blackie  (but just as lovable, in my opinion) and we are all looking forward to Fred coming home, especially me.

A wedding toast: blackberry cordials, pages 152-153

I run with a group of people on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:30 a.m. One of the people I often run alongside of is Jon Rosen, at least on days that I’m feeling particularly fast and days that Jon is moving slower than usual.

Jon just married, or perhaps we should say eloped, with another runner, Lisa. The two snuck off to Hermann about a month ago and tied the knot without making a big deal about it to anyone else. “It’s just like Vegas. You can do it all in one day here. No blood test or anything. They just ask you if you’re already married, and you can lie if you want to,” Jon said.

Although the wedding was personal and low key, the party celebrating it was kind of the opposite. The refrigerator magnets they had made up to promote the wedding party, which was dubbed Rosenfest, bore the tagline, “Leveraging 45 years of marriage experience.” A party reminder encouraged people to take time to stop and smell the Rosens.

I tried Googling “Inappropriate Wedding Gifts” to figure out what to give the Rosens, and I did find several “Inappropriate Wedding Gifts” lists, but as usual, I found ideas that are not my own to be lame. But then I remembered that Jon has been a reader of Woods To Food, so I was inspired to give them something from the book. Of course my first thought was squirrel, but it was 106 on the day I needed to the get the gift, and when I poked my head outside the door at the farm, all of the squirrels were holed-up in the shade.

That, and I knew that a fresh squirrel dish wouldn’t be needed that night. Meat for the party was being provided by Sean McCollegan. Sean has a smoker he and friend built that looks like a tornado shelter for two or three families. He’s starting a catering business on the side called The Cowbell. For the party he smoked pulled pork, ribs and brisket, and all three were the best I ever had. I wouldn’t really want to put my squirrel up against that.

But I did have the wild blackberries, hand-picked by three generations of Koenigs. There is a recipe in the book was for Blackberry Cordial, with the entire ingredient list being blackberries, sugar and vodka.

I purchased a bottle of McCormick’s vodka for the recipe, primarily because it’s a local food product, made in Weston, Missouri, but also because it is $7 a bottle, compared to the fancy stuff that is $20 and up.

For the recipe you put it all in a quart jar and cap it. Every other week you open it up and stir it, for two months, or more if you want it to be even better. The amount of liquid only made the jar about half-full, but I think maybe all the extra air was necessary for the fermentation process. It looked a little skimpy for a wedding gift, but since their party info said “Absolutely No Gifts,” I figured it would suffice.

The wedding party was tremendously fun. Fake Elvis recreated the wedding ceremony on their front lawn. Although all of Jon and Lisa’s running friends made for the trimmest, most athletic looking party crowd I had ever seen, they had no problem putting away the massive about of meat (15 racks of ribs, 15 pounds of pulled pork, 14 pounds of brisket)  Sean smoked up for them. And considering Jon’s booze consumption at the party, having to wait a few months to drink the black berry cordial will probably be just fine.