A long weekend of bread baking including baguette's, lemon poppyseed muffins and chocolate goji berries muffins. I tried something different when baking the muffins, I substituted olive oil for the butter and used goji berries instead of chocolate chips. I found you really have to watch your baking time or the muffins will be a little to dry. Still working on muffin recipes, I will share these soon.
The Common Threads Benefit held March 1, 2010 was a great success with a fantastic line-up of Chicago's best restaurants and guest participants including: Celebrity Food & Mood Guru Jaime Laurita, Charlie Trotter's, NoMI, The Chopping Block Cooking School, Top Chief Season 5-Radhika Desai, Lula Cafe, Cafe Boulud, Girl &The Goat, Top Chief Season 5- Carle Hall, The Purple Pig, Tru, Blackbird, Nightwood, C-House and many more. The food and wine tasting was over the top and the live auction proceeds went to Common Threads program that teaches low-income kids to cook wholesome affordable meals.
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The best butter is made from local fresh cream. I had no idea where to go to find fresh cream in our area. I new there must be a small dairy in the area, but where? I sent an e-mail to one of our local food enthusiast/ food columnist Julianne Glatz. She pointed me north approximately 75 miles from Springfield just past Bloomington to Kilgus Farmstead. Kilgus is a family operation that produces fresh dairy products: Cream, milk, cheese and more. I purchased cream for the butter and milk for ricotta cheese. Making the butter was easier then I imagined. See below for instructions.
For the butter I used just short of half a gallon of cream. I saved a cup and half out for later use. Pour the cream into the stainless steel bowl of a kitchenaide mixer. Turn the mixer on medium and let the cream do its magic until it becomes fluffy, then turns into soft cottage cheese curds. At this point the cream turns to butter and will get stiff, you will see a watery milk(buttermilk) substance at the bottom of the bowl. You can stop the mixer, with a large flat spatula press the butter against the side of the bowl to release more of the buttermilk. Drain off the buttermilk into a jar, if you think you will use it another time or discard it. Poor ice cold water over the butter and press against the bowl again to release the buttermilk, continue this process 6-7 times until liquid is clear. Scrape butter on to plastic wrap and form a ball or log shape. If you like you can add a variety of herbs or salt to the butter, just need them into the butter before wrapping in plastic wrap. Before placing butter in the refrigerator, wrap again in foil. Butter will keep 3-4 days in the refrigerator or 2-3 weeks in the freezer.
Instructions for making the butter came from Organic Gardening Magazine Feb/March 2010 issue.
Thanks to Julianne Glatz for her guidance. See Juliannes column in the Illinois Times.
The recipe for this Risotto is from the book RISOTTO by Judith Barrett and Norma Wasserman.
Ingredients
5 Cups chicken broth(reserve 1/4 cup)
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 Cup finely chopped leek, white part only
3 T finely chopped celery
1 1/2 Cup Arborio Rice
1 Cup grapefruit juice
1 T chopped fresh parsley
1 T unsalted butter
1/4 Cup parmesan cheese and 4 grapefruit sections dice
Bring the chicken broth to simmer in a saucepan on the stove. In a separate 4 quart casserole heat 3 T of olive oil on medium-low heat add the leek and celery saute until leek is transparent. Add the rice to the casserole and stir a minutes or so till rice is transparent(use a wooden spoon). Add the grapefruit juice stir until obsorbed. Begin to add warm broth 1/2 cup at a time stiring constantly, make sure broth is absorbed before adding the next 1/2 cup of broth. Continue adding broth until it is gone. This process should take 18-20 minutes. When the rice is tender add the reserved 1/4 cup of broth, turn of heat and add butter, parsley and parmesan cheese. Stir well and garnish with parsley and grapefruit slices. Makes 4 servings.
Note: The key to good risotto is to slowly add the broth and stir so the risotto does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
Olive oil is truly the nectar of the gods. Marianne Prey the owner of Extra Virgin An Olive Ovation lead a recent class, all about olive oil. Marianne lead the class through the process of growing, picking and pressing olives. The class was also informed that there are several grades of olive oil: Extra Virgin, Virgin, Olive Oil (pure olive oil) and Olive Pomace Oil. We also discussed the health benefits of olive oil and regions of the world where olive oil is produced. The class included tasting three distinctly different oils. Marianne then suprised us with preparing three different risottos using each of the oils. All three risottos were delicious: Grapefruit risotto(risotto al pompelmo), tuna risotto(risotto al tonnato) and butternut squash risotto(risottoconla zucca). The grapefruit risotto was my favorite, I made this at home. The taste of the grapefruit juice was delicious in the risotto. This class was very informative, I learned alote about the joy of cooking with olive oil. The class took place at the Kitchen Conservatory in St Louis MO.
After the olive oil tasting class I made the trip down to St Louis again to visits Marianne Prey at her store Extra Virgin Olive An Ovation. While there we discussed how to buy olive oil and how to store it. I found out I was storing my olive oil in the wrong place in the kitchen. Setting olive oil next to the stove is not a good place, the heat from the stove will damage the oil. Olive oil should be kept in a cool dark place.
At Extra Virgin there are 20 or more different olive oils to taste, a variety of olives and balsamic vinegars. I went home with three different olive oils: Extra Virgin Olive Oil Estate Grown-Domaine Le Grand Servant en Provence for everyday use, Les Costes Extra Virgin Olive Oil Limited Selection 2009 from Spain for special recipes and Olivas de Oro Estate Grown Organic from California Mandarin Orange Olive Oil. I also purchased a 2 liter Fusti, a stainless steel decanter. The Fusti sits on your kitchen counter filled with your favorite olive oil, already to use.
Extra Virgin An Olive Ovation-143 Carondelet Plaza Clayton, Missouri 63105
Yesterday I dashed over to Del's Popcorn Shop for last minute Valentines Day treats. Del's has a huge variety of popcorn, candies, nuts and ice cream. I found everything I wanted in one place. I am ready for the big day, well almost.
Del's Popcorn located Downtown Springfield IL.
WWW.DelsPopcornShop.com
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