Rosemary Archives

Steamy and Savory

January 15, 2015 by theblogbloom.com 9 Comments

I know it’s kind of old news at this point but… OH. My. Gosh. It’s cold.

Super cold.

So cold that just today the schools around us had their first full day since before Christmas.

So cold that two nights ago Adam’s truck read -5. Like actual -5 degrees. NOT -5 degrees with windchill.

So cold that my car sounds like it’s a pissed off teenager and just wants to go back to bed every time I turn it on.

Poor Marley.

… That’s the car’s name. It’s a Highlander. Get it?

Like Bob…?

Anywhoo… I feel Marley’s pain.

Getting my toes out from under the covers the very few mornings of 2015 has been challenging. All I want to do it stay cuddled up in bed where it’s warm. I don’t want to have to face the elements. I don’t even want to face my tiled bathroom floor with bare feet.

And, while smoothies and green drinks are so very “in” for breakfast this time of year, I am just not feeling it. I know I should, but the thought of ingesting something frozen while the temperature with windchill flirts with -20? Sorry. Nope. Not happening.

So while the Green Smoothie Goddess on one shoulder get’s shushed, the “let’s make Belgium Waffles with hot maple syrup” Devil on the other chimes in.

And, so does reality.

No, my mind doesn’t go to how many calories would be packed into those waffles (not first at least), but rather to the fact that I have no time for that with a iced over car to warm up!

Note: When you garden and have chickens you acquire a lot of accessories… and, inevitably, you and your spouse lose your places in the two car garage.

But the other morning I discovered something in my pantry, just past the maple syrup, that I had totally forgotten about: Oatmeal.

Oatmeal reminds me of cold mornings in high school. My dad was and still is an early riser claiming he works best in the morning. More power to him. So if it was really chilly he would have oatmeal going on the stove and would top a cup of it with brown sugar as I ran out the door to catch my ride.

A lot of people have poor memories of oatmeal calling it things like “mush” but this was pure goodness that warmed me on the coldest mornings from the inside out.

Perfect for these cold Midwest mornings… except, I am kind of trying to limit sugar. Nothing crazy, but I didn’t really want to add it to anything so I decided to go with a more savory option adding chopped fresh rosemary and a drizzle of healthy fat packed olive oil.

Herbs like thyme would also work great and the grow very well on a windowsill that gets a lot of sun this time of year. For an extra burst of brightness a little lemon juice is delicious.

I get it. This sounds a little weird. But, oatmeal is a grain and we flavor grains like breads, rice and pasta with these ingredients all the time. On oatmeal, with a pinch of salt and pepper, it all works together and is incredibly vibrant and refreshing.

Exactly what I need to wake me up on a cold morning.

Depending on your preference you can use steel cut oats, rolled oats or even instant with this recipe. I use rolled oats because they are basically identical to steel cut oats in terms of nutrition and take a quarter of the time to cook.

Oatmeal with Herbs and Olive Oil

2015-01-15 10:47:02

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Ingredients

1 cup of cooked oatmeal
1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 tablespoon chopped herbs (Rosemary, thyme, etc)
Pinch of salt and pepper
Spritz of fresh juice from a quartered lemon

Instructions

Top cooked oatmeal with all ingredients, stir to combine.
Eat right away.

Bloom. https://www.theblogbloom.com/

Souper Soup Accompanist

October 9, 2014 by theblogbloom.com 1 Comment

Ladies and gentlemen… Soup season is upon us!

Colder, dreary, gray days are brighter and cozier with a scratch made soup warming on the stove top.

Last weekend was a prime example: the weather was mean. It was windy. Brutally cold for the first weekend of October. And apparently, Chicago even saw snow…!

Miserable? Kinda… Okay, yes. But, a perfect weekend for soup.

And I hit it kind of hard.

I had soup for every meal (besides breakfast…) from Friday dinner to Monday lunch. There was a tomato soup that I had canned a few weeks ago with the garden tomatoes. A trip to Panera where I settled on black bean soup because they were out of broccoli cheddar and chicken noodle soup. (Apparently I wasn’t the only one with soup on the mind…) Adam even got on board with the desire for soup and made a chicken gumbo straight out of this months Bon Appetit using the garden’s carrots, celery and herbs.

Side Note: The gumbo was fab. Pick up a copy today. The tailgating story the recipe was a part of was so neat and made both Adam and I kind of wish we had gone to school in the south. Not that we don’t love our Boilers… but… yeah. It looked pretty fun.

As I was out by the herbs snipping a few sprigs of thyme for Adam’s gumbo, I also snipped a tall sprig of rosemary.

My rosemary has done amazingly well in comparison to last year. This time last year I had given up on it. But, this year, I am considering bringing my container of rosemary inside when the temperature dips below freezing to see if it will continue to grow throughout the winter.

I fanned the sprig of rosemary by my nose.

It’s piney scent reminded me instantly of Christmas. Some say that rosemary’s scent is good for your memory and if that’s true I don’t find it ironic at all that it transports my memory to Christmas time.

My mom was good about making gifts for the neighbors, family friends, people at church and our teachers at Christmas time. Some years it was cookies, others maybe candies and gourmet coffee grounds. But, one year in early high school, she made loaves upon loaves of rosemary focaccia bread. It smelled like I was walking into the freshest bakery every time I came home that December.

And, not only did the bread smell great, it tasted great too. Mom would, of course, also make plenty of loaves for the family and freeze them. They would be brought out throughout the winter on Sunday afternoons when she would make soup for lunch and it was awesome because it would feel like Panera in my own home.

As I ran my fingers along the piney leaves of the sprig I decided that it was time to make my rosemary parmesan focaccia.

(Plus, I was due for something other than soup…)

Every winter, by January, I have this recipe memorized. But, since I hadn’t made it for about six months, I was a little rusty and had to dig the recipe out of the archives.

It’s a little labor intensive (just a little, I promise) and isn’t something you can make quickly, but it is absolutely perfect for a Sunday afternoon as a soup simmers on the stove top or in the crock pot.

The recipe also makes a lot of dough so I typically make two loaves and it freezes great. So, it is good for a crowd… or for saving for the next Sunday when you want to be a little lazy.

Rosemary Parmesan Focaccia

2014-10-09 09:16:41

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Ingredients

1 3/4 cup warm water
1 package dry active yeast
1 TBS sugar
3 cups flour
2 cups bread flour
1 TBS salt, plus more for adding to top
1/2 cup olive oil, plus more for lining bowl and topping
3 TBS fresh rosemary, chopped
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Freshly cracked black pepper for adding to top

Instructions

In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar into the warm water. Add the package of yeast and lightly stir with a wooden spoon. Set aside until the yeast is foamy. This will take at least fifteen minutes.
Using a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook bowl, combine the flours, salt, oil and yeast mixture.
Mix until ingredients just come together.
Once the dough forms a ball and pulls from the sides of the bowl, increase the mixer's speed to medium and knead for about ten minutes. The dough should be smooth. If it is too wet, add a little flour. Too dry, add a bit of water.
Transfer the ball of dough to a slightly floured surface and knead a couple times by hand.
Coat the inside of the mixing bowl with oil and put the ball of dough into the greased bowl, turning it to coat the dough with oil.
Cover the bowl with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rise until it doubles in size. This will take about an hour.
After an hour, prepare a pan (I divide the dough and use two round cake pans but you could use a jelly roll pan) with a little oil and spread dough out in the pans using your hands.
Once dough is fitted to the pan(s), poke holes throughout the top using your fingers.
Cover pan(s) with plastic wrap or a slightly damp towel and let rise for another hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Top the bread with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle on chopped rosemary and parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
Bake about thirty minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Rotate the pans halfway through to ensure even browning.
Let bread rest twenty minutes after removing from oven.
Cut and serve or store in a container or wrapped in foil for about a week. To freeze, wrap tightly in foil after completely cooling and use within three months.

Bloom. https://www.theblogbloom.com/

Natural, Roasted Chicken. It’s What’s for Dinner.

August 21, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 7 Comments

It’s hard to believe that it really is late August.

School has started and is in full swing.

The sun is down before nine.

The corn is tall.

And the garden is full of produce.

Like these peppers.

And tomatoes.

Tomatoes.

Tomatoes!

With so much naturally raised produce in the kitchen I decided to cook the naturally raised chicken from my Farmer’s Market trip in July for dinner on Monday night.

I had never cooked a whole chicken and used the website 100 Days of Real Food as a stepping stone. I visit this site often as it is a great resource for cutting out over processed food from your diet. The author takes a realistic and relatable approach as she has (precious) kids and she doesn’t want to “worry” about food, but rather be confident in her family’s food choices.

On the website there is a post about roasting a whole chicken: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/05/14/recipe-how-to-roast-whole-chicken-safely-defrost-meat/

Perfect.

A chicken seasoned with lemons, garlic and rosemary.

Even more perfect. Some of my favorite flavors and I already had local rosemary and garlic in the house.

The post begins with how to properly defrost a chicken. She mentions that even though she has lived to tell about defrosting meat on the counter, the USDA recommends that meat should be defrosted slowly in the refrigerator.

… Something that made this ServSafe certified, hospitality professional proud.

Once defrosted, I mixed the herbs, seasonings, and oils together in a small bowl.

The next order of business was to remove the “giblets or bag of ‘parts’ that may be stored inside the chicken.”

The chicken man at the market had mentioned the “giblet bag” was in there. I remember thinking when I made the purchase, “Oh wow. That’s nice. He bagged those up and put them back in. I bet there are people who want to keep those.”

I looked in my defrosted chicken’s butt. I didn’t see any evidence of a ziplock baggie or saran wrap like I was expecting.

Weird.

I opened the rear end more. A sleek brown, jelly-ish mass was in plain sight.

I had just read the chapter in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” where Michael Pollan processes free range chickens on Joel Salatin’s Virginia farm. Pollan wrote about removing the chicken’s insides after the bird bleeds out.

I knew what I was looking at… it was the bird’s liver.

There was no actual “bag.”

I had been lied to…? Maybe he just forgot to bag up this one…?

Or, it’s an expression. Slang, if you will.

… For chicken organs.

I also remembered from my read that removing these organs needs to be done carefully. Pollan warned that a ruptured gall bladder can be a big mess.

“What the heck am I supposed to do?” I thought, desperately wishing Adam was home. He could handle this.

I looked at the clock. Adam wouldn’t be home for about an hour. And the bird would take that long in the oven. I couldn’t wait.

So, I did what every girl who didn’t know what 4-H was until she was eighteen would do: I Googled it.

The first page I saw said to “Gently reach in and simply remove the giblets.”

Seriously? That’s all you got, Google?!

After many other failed searches and confusing youtube videos, I decided to suck it up.

“Like a band aid,” I told myself, sticking my hand in the bird’s rear end. I wrapped my fingers around the bundle in the cavity of the chicken, wincing, eye’s shut and gave it a pull.

“Ohhhhmyyyygodddd,” I squealed out loud as my hand emerged.

Browns, pinks, yellows and blues made up the still slightly frozen mass. (Thank God. Had that been any squishier we would have had issues.)

Just be glad I didn’t take a picture.

Once I recovered (and threw the giblets away), I brushed the bird with the herbed oil marinade, stuffed the lemon peels in the chest cavity, and placed him in the oven for about an hour.

Right around the time Adam got home from work the chicken had reached 170 degrees. I let it rest on the stove top while I chopped up some tomatoes and cucumbers to serve as a side with a splash of red wine vinegar. Light and easy.

The aroma of the rosemary, garlic, and lemon married well with the chicken, filled the kitchen and demolished any traumatizing mental images of giblets.

By the time I plated everything I couldn’t wait to give it a try.

It seems crazy, but the natural, free range bird did taste different than the chicken breasts from the grocery store that I am used to. It was moist, flavorful, and felt as though I could really taste the chicken.

I am looking forward to having more natural birds from our own backyard this winter.

… And having someone else do the processing.