Monday, May 23, 2011

Tasty Cooked Oyster Recipe

Tasty oysters casino, made with oysters, bacon, and green onion, along with seasonings.
Ingredients:
·        3 dozen oysters, freshly shucked, drained
·        18 half shells
·        3 slices bacon
·        4 green onions, with green, finely chopped
·        1/4 cup green bell pepper, finely chopped
·        1/4 cup celery, finely chopped
·        1 teaspoon lemon juice
·        1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
·        2 to 3 drops Tabasco sauce
 Preparation:
Place two oysters on the deepest half of an oyster shell. Repeat until all oysters are
used (about 18 shells). Arrange shells on a layer of rock salt in a large baking pan.
You might have to use 2 pans to fit all shells. In a skillet cook the bacon until crisp,
remove to paper towels to drain then crumble. To the bacon drippings in skillet
add the green onion, bell pepper, and celery; cook until just tender. Stir in lemon juice,
Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Spoon onion mixture on the oysters in the shells
then sprinkle with the crumbled bacon.
Bake at 400° for 10 minutes.
Courtesy of about.com (Southern Living Foods – Diana Rattray)



Monday, May 16, 2011

Recipes for Kale!

Kale Sunshine Salad
Ingredients (Serves 2-4)          
  • 1 head Italian kale (also known as Tuscan or Dinosaur kale)
  • 1 T. tahini
  • 2 T. water
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/2 t. chili powder
  • 1-2 t. minced garlic
  • 1 T. nutritional yeast (optional)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • pinch of sugar or stevia
Instructions
  • Note: You want to use Italian kale for this recipe rather than the curly leaf kale. It softens more quickly and provides a more tender salad.
  • Wash kale and pat dry. Using a sharp knife, cut along each side of the kale stem, removing the thickest part of the stem. You can save the stems to juice or throw into smoothies, if you have a high speed blender.
  • Gather kale leaves into a bundle and cut across in 1-2 inch wide strips. Put kale in a large salad bowl and set aside.
  • For dressing, whisk together tahini, water, lemon juice, chili powder, garlic, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper and sugar or stevia. Adjust seasoning to taste.
  • Pour dressing over kale and massage dressing into leaves with clean hands.
  • Refrigerate, allowing dressing to soften kale for at least five minutes, then serve.
Recipe credit: www.peasandthankyou.com
BBQ Kale Chips
Ingredients (serves 4)
  • 1 t. paprika
  • 1/2 t. garlic salt
  • 1/2 t. sugar
  • 1/4 t. onion powder
  • 1/4 t. chili powder
  • 1/4 t. dry mustard
  • pinch of cayenne (optional)
  • 1 head organic kale
Instructions
  • Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  • Wash and tear kale into chip sized pieces and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.
  • In a small bowl combine all spices.
  • Spray kale with cooking spray and then sprinkle with spice blend.
  • Bake kale chips for 20-30 minutes, checking every 10 minutes. Chips should be light and crisp, but watch them so they don’t burn.
Recipe credit: www.peasandthankyou.com

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Recipe - Winter Harbour clams with Virginia ham in white wine sauce

Winter Harbour clams with Virginia ham in white wine sauce
This is a very basic meal, simple and quick to prepare. Virginia ham is a very underrated product and absolutely delicious cooked or uncooked, certainly as good as some Spanish jamon in thin slices.

Not much can go wrong cooking this dish, but remember that clams have thick shells so they take longer to open up than mussels, even so don’t overcook them or they will be rubbery. Don’t worry about undercooking. If they are open they are ready. You can eat clams raw as well. Makes a great starter with fresh crusty bread or a main course with pasta from Bambolini.

What you will need:

Clams, about 10 medium size clams per person.
Onion
Garlic
Celery
Bottle of white wine (try white wine from Grayhaven Winery)
Butter
Cream (either light cream or Mexican style cream)
Virginia ham
Parsley
Black pepper

Preparation:
Rinse the clams in cold water vigorously to clean off any sand or mud, strain off all the water and put them to one side. Cut a half slice of Virginia ham into small squares.

Chop up: one large onion, two cloves of garlic, two tender celery stalks and a bundle of parsley.

Cooking:
Melt butter in a large saucepan. First add the bacon and let it brown very slightly then add the chopped celery, onions and garlic and cook gently on a low heat until soft. Do not add salt as the ham is very salty. Grind some fresh black pepper over the pan.

Add about half a bottle of wine and let it simmer. This is to get the alcohol out of the wine, you just want to taste the wine not make a cocktail!
When you can hardly smell alcohol any more it is time to add the clams.
Bring the mixture to the boil, throw in a good handful of chopped parsley and then add the clams, dropping them in one by one. All the clams should be just under the surface of the mixture, if not then add more wine.
Now just check every couple of minutes to make sure the clams have all opened. Turn them over with a wooden spoon to make sure they all get cooked.
It is possible that even with fresh clams you will get one or two that don’t open. That is fine, but most of them will open. The ones that don’t you can take out at the next stage.

With the clams cooked remove the pan from the heat and strain the liquid off the clams through a strainer into a bowl – don’t throw it away! Put the clams on one side.

The sauce:
Pour the liquid from the clams from the bowl into a saucepan and return to the heat. Bring to the boil, add more parsley and check seasoning. Add about a half to one pint of cream, it is a matter of taste how much. Simmer and stir for about 5 minutes.

Turn the clams into a large serving bowl and pour the sauce over the clams. Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Recipe - Not your average fast food hamburger!


The English chef Heston Blumenthal, who owns the Fat Duck restaurant in the village of Bray (named as the third best restaurant in the world 2010), once spent several months researching and creating the perfect Hamburger. I mention this to show that even the humblest fast food item can require a lot of attention to make a memorable meal.

Blumenthal is renowned for his attention to detail and his nuclear approach to cooking where every ingredient is analyzed to ensure the way it will contribute to the final result. If you want to know more check out http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/ or even better buy his cookbook, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.

RECIPE - What you will need

For our hamburger recipe we bought 1lb. of premium grass feed beef hamburger from Greenway Beef
*Note that a 1lb pack looks smaller than what you see at the grocery store because it contains no extra water, just ground hamburger from grass-fed, hormone free beef.

To start – you will need your food processor and a frying pan (even better would be on a grill)

• One pound of ground hamburger
• Homemade hamburger buns or store bought (try to get buns from the deli department instead of using cheap bread)
• Worcestershire sauce
• Breadcrumbs (use food processor to make breadcrumbs from stale bread)
• Egg
• One medium onion
• Handful of mushrooms
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste or amino spray for a salt like taste
• Cheese slices (optional)

Makes 4-6 hamburgers

How to make the hamburgers
Chop onions, mushrooms and cloves of garlic. Fry on low heat in a pan with some olive oil until they caramelize (about 10 minutes) Remove from heat and put in large bowl with hamburger, breadcrumbs, egg, tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, salt & pepper to taste. You can mix by hand or place in a food processor on pulse to quickly mix ingredients up.
For the perfect size hamburger use a 3 to 4 inch non-stick pastry ring (if you have). Fill the ring to the top with the mixture and then transfer to a foil sheet that has a bit of olive oil on it. The less you fill the ring the more hamburgers you can make. Maximum 6.

PreparationSlice the buns and lightly toast either on the grill or in a toaster.

Cooking the hamburgers

On a grill – heat to high (Mark 10). Lightly brush the top of the hamburger with olive oil and place on the grill. Turn after 5 minutes. For rare hamburgers grill for a further 5 minutes. Turn again, add the cheese slice and grill for 2-3 minutes. Carefully lift off the grill and place on the bun. For medium-well done add 5-8 minutes to cooking time.

In a pan- lightly oil the pan with olive oil. Heat until the oil is hot, add the hamburger and cook as above.

Use garnishes and condiments to taste and enjoy!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Welcome to the Brandermill Green Market Blog!

Thank you to all our facebook friends for showing your support.  We have had several requests for recipe sharing so we now have a blog to collect and archive food ideas and recipe sharing using local food items bought from the Brandermill Green Market

Please help in getting this going.  We would love for you to share your own recipe ideas from home.  To start with, we have the bok choy recipe from Janet at Broadfork Farms.  She is there every Saturday selling fresh greens from her local Chesterfield farm.

Recipes

Braised Baby Bok Choy
  • 1 cup chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 3/4 lb baby bok choy, trimmed
  • 1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
Bring broth and butter to a simmer in a deep large heavy skillet. Arrange bok choy evenly in skillet and simmer, covered, until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer bok choy with tongs to a serving dish and keep warm, covered.
Boil broth mixture until reduced to about 1/4 cup, then stir in sesame oil and pepper to taste. Pour mixture over bok choy.
Recipe credit: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Braised-Baby-Bok-Choy-103970#ixzz1LNjN745t