brunosdream

Last weekend I had a bunch of friends over for a fall feast that was 3 days in the making. We had a great time filling our bellies! On the menu was a 6 1/2 pound grass fed beef brisket from Missouri. The brisket was braised in the oven at a low temperature for 6 hours with a potpourri of veggies and mushrooms which created a delicious broth.  Two sauces were made that are traditionally serve w/ braised meats at the fair of the fatted ox in Piedmont, Italy (one is a tomato based sauce, the other is a horseradish based sauce). I made a pizza for my vegetarian friend and used the remaining dough to make bread to go with the brisket. For dessert I churned up a fennel gelato and served it w/ a bottle of nice cognac and fortune cookies.  The consensus from my friends was the fennel gelato is one of the best flavors I’ve created so far. It was a beautiful crisp fall evening so we all went outside after dessert to light a fire in the chimenea and sip our cognac. We were having such a good time that we hung out for a few hours by the fire and nearly finished off the entire bottle of cognac!

Fennel Gelato w/ Fennel Fronds

Ingredients:

1 fennel bulb thinly sliced

1 tablespoon fennel fronds – minced

6 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 quart half & half

Procedure:

1) In a metal bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until mixture becomes smooth and pale yellow

2) Place half & half and fennel  in a heavy pot and heat until scalded 

3) Pulse half & half  mixture in a food processor then strain out fennel

4) Very slowly whisk warm half & half into egg/sugar mixture so as not to curdle the mixture

5) Place bowl w/ mixture over a pot of simmering water, stirring continuously w/ a heat resistant spatula until mixture coats the back of a metal spoon (do not let mixture exceed 170 degrees F to prevent curdling), then quickly place bowl in an ice bath to stop the cooking process and promote rapid cooling

6) Once cool, refrigerate mixture for at least 4 hours or overnight

Things are starting to wind down for the growing season of 2010. As you will see in the latest photos, my garden is finally producing some tomatoes! Yippee!! Yesterday I picked a big Pineapple tomato and a small Cherokee Purple tomato. There are quite a few large green tomatoes on the plants that I hope will ripen before the temperature drops too low. The jalapenos are doing great. One plant was so loaded down w/ peppers that it fell over! I’m letting this last batch hang on the plants until they turn red. The broccoli and Brussels sprouts once again got infested w/ worms so I yanked all the plants out of the ground. No point in letting them suck nutrients out of the ground unnecessarily. I’m hoping to have another batch of Swiss chard before the season is over. The herbs continue to do well. I think I have enough Thai and Genovese basil to make some pesto… definitely looking forward to that! I’ve already pick 4 butternut squash and have 3 more ripening on the vines. Glad I can say this season hasn’t been a total loss!! Now on to the latest photos taken yesterday (Sept. 29th):

May your thumbs be green for the remainder of the year…

Bruno

This is a photo that my brother, Fred, shot in the Lot-et-Garonne region of France (not far from Bordeaux). What a beautiful area of the world! If you’re interested in viewing more of Fred’s photos, click this link to go to his website.

For those of you in America, I hope you’re enjoying the Labor Day weekend!

Bruno

 Well, unlike last year at this time when I was boasting and posting about the glorious bounty from my garden, this year has been slim pickin’s! However, so far it hasn’t been a total loss. No ripe tomatoes yet – the fence and marigolds haven’t kept the rabbits and squirrels away – they must be really hungry and thirsty due to the high heat and dry conditions St. Louis has had this year. The rabbits have been munching the marigolds and the squirrels have been hopping the fence to grab the green tomatoes. They even ate one of my baby butternut squash! Last week I sprinkled some moth balls around and the squirrels have left the tomatoes and everything else alone so far. Hopefully I’ll get to sample a few of the heirlooms I planted this year. As you can see in the photos, the worms or caterpillars have helped themselves to the brocolli and brussels sprouts but they’re gone now so I left the plants in the ground in hopes that as the weather cools they may begin producing. My purple bell pepper plant died and the yellow bell pepper has tiny green babies so maybe I’ll get a couple mature ones. The asparagus has ferned out nicely and the Swiss chard is doing OK. Most of the herbs are doing really well – lots of Thai and Italian basil, thyme, chives, oregano, rosemary and sage. The tarragon is all but dead.  My jalapeno plants are doing great! The fresh picked bowl full of  them in the photo was made into candied jalepenos the other day.

The following photos were taken on August 17th:

I hope those of you in the northern hemisphere are enjoying what’s left of summer!

Bruno

My garden is not doing very well this year. Plants aren’t prospering and some are infested w/ some sort of worm, others have become diseased. The photos were taken on July 10th. Since then, the green zebra tomato plant has completely died, the only tomato I have so far this year was snatched by a squirrel, the rest of the tomatoes are the size of peas, one of my bell pepper plants is dropping its flowers and my brocolli has not produced a single crown.

I’ve neutralized the soil, fertilized everything, sprayed everything w/ an organic pesticide and gave the tomatoes special food called Tomato Tone to boost production. I put in  3 new tomato plants as backups (2 were given to me by the nursery where I bought my plants and the third was given to me by a friend).

The herbs are doing well w/ the exception of my tarragon which is scrawny this year for some reason. I will augment w/ another tarragon plant in the fall or next spring because it’s one of my favorite herbs.

At least the pollenators are loving the zinnias which are flowering nicely, but have mildew on some of the leaves. 

Instead of feeling joy when I survey my garden, I feel major disappointment and even dread going out to look around each morning  for fear that I’ll find things have worsened. I didn’t even bother taking any new photos for this post because I’m so bummed out by the way things are going at this point. At this date last year I had so much bounty to share. 

The more I think I know about gardening, the less I really know! I’ve definitely learned that gardening is not as simple as just putting plants in the ground and watering them. I now realized I should have at least rotated where I planted the veggies and also put in a cover crop in the fall (such as rye) to provide nutrients  to the soil for the next crop of veggies. Oh well, live and learn. Unfortunately learning can be a painful lesson in homegrown veggie deprivation!!

I hope your gardens are faring better than mine… and feel free to send me a care package if you have too much bounty :-)

Bruno

Summertime is here, so it’s time to whip up some cool recipes! Here’s one for a great gelato that’s packed w/ a few of my favorite flavors. So good, it was a 3 scooper…

Blueberry Gelato w/ Dark Chocolate and Tarragon

Ingredients:

1 quart half & half

1 cup sugar

6 egg yolks

1 cup blueberry juice (from 3 pints fresh blueberries, pureed and strained through a fine mesh sieve)

1/2 cup fresh blueberries cut in half

2 ounces dark chocolate (coarsely chopped)

1 tablespoon fresh tarragon (finely chopped)

Procedure:

1) In a metal bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until mixture becomes smooth and pale yellow

2) Place half & half in a heavy pot and heat until scalded 

3) Very slowly whisk warm half & half into egg/sugar mixture so as not to curdle the mixture

4) Place bowl w/ mixture over a pot of simmering water, stirring continuously w/ a heat resistant spatula until mixture coats the back of a metal spoon (do not let mixture exceed 170 degrees F to prevent curdling), then quickly place bowl in an ice bath to stop the cooking process and promote rapid cooling

5) Stir blueberry juice into cooling mixture

6) Once cool, refrigerate mixture for at least 4 hours or overnight

For those of you baking in this sweltering midwest weather, here’s a photo of Mount Hood poking through the clouds that I snapped as we were flying into Portland, Oregon last week. Wish I was closer to that mountain right now!!

Stay cool…

Bruno

The plants are pretty well established at this point. I compared photos I took at this time last year of my garden and determined the plants were more filled out and taller last year. I’m theorizing that due to the extreme temperature fluctuations and heavy rains we’ve been experiencing this year, the plants aren’t growing as well. Their growth appears to be stunted and they are spindly. The temperatures are now consistently in the upper 80’s to lower 90’s, however we continue to have heavy rains. I’m hoping that the garden will be allowed to dry out a bit so the plants can achieve a normal growth pattern. Below are some photos taken on June 10th of this year. Click this link to see photos from last year at approximately this time.

 Jalapenos

 Yellow bell pepper

 Herbs

Until next time…

Bruno

I think I’ve found a new favorite bread dough recipe! I’ve been looking for a multigrain blend in the bulk section of the supermarket, but without success. I decided to give this pre-packaged blend a try. It’s called Bob’s Red Mill Organic Whole Grain Right Stuff 6 Grain. It contains whole grain wheat, whole grain rye, corn, whole grain oats, whole grain spelt, whole kamut grain and flaxseed. I’m glad I gave it a try…  it produced an excellent flavor and texture.

I also wanted to do a different shape for my bread. I needed a change from the usual boule shape I’ve been doing, so I decided to do a braided bread because I love the way the finished product looks!

Braided Six Grain Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup 6 grain blend

3 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup olive oil

1/1/4 cups plus 1/4 cup tepid water

2 teaspoons salt

1 rounded tablespoon active dry yeast

cornmeal for dusting pizza peel

Procedure:

1) Place yeast in a large bowl and pour 1/4 cup tepid water over the yeast; let sit until it becomes foamy (about 5 minutes)

2) In a seperate bowl mix together the flour, 6 grain blend and salt

3) Add olive oil and remaining 1 1/4 cups tepid water to the yeast

4) Slowly add the flour mix to the yeast while using your free hand to incorporate the flour and yeast

5) Place the dough on a floured surface and knead for 10 to 12 minutes (add more flour a little bit at a time if dough is too sticky)

6) Form dough into a ball and place back into the large bowl (dust the bottom of the bowl before placing dough into it); dust top of dough ball and cover bowl w/ plastic wrap (I use a shower cap that I got from a hotel –  it fits snugly over the bowl)

7) Let dough ferment for 1 1/2 hours at room temperature (if your kitchen is too cold, place bowl in unlit oven w/ the light on – the temperature is usually 70 degrees F). The dough should have at least doubled in size when ready to shape

8) Remove dough from bowl and split into 3 even pieces (I use a scale to weigh out the dough)

9) Meanwhile,  preheat oven and pizza stone to 450 degrees F

10) Roll pieces of dough into strands that are tapered and long enough to braid

11) Braid the dough, carefully transfer to a pizza peel dusted w/ corn meal, dust top of dough w/ flour and loosely cover w/ a plastic bag, then let it rise for 45 minutes

12) Carefully slide braid onto pizza stone, then mist sides of oven w/ water (I use a spray bottle); for the first 2 minutes of baking, mist the sides of the oven every 30 seconds – this delays crust formation and allows the bread to rise rapidly and evenly

13) After 20 minutes reduce temperature to 375 degrees F and rotate bread front to back for even baking; bake for another 10 minutes

14) Remove bread from oven and tap the bottom; if it make a hollow sound it’s ready!

15) Allow bread to cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing

Baker’s notes: This bread is delicious!! The crust has a nice crunch and the crumb is light and airy. Feel free to substitute the all purpose flour w/ bread flour if you desire.

Bon Appetit!

Bruno

This year’s garden is dedicated to Whiskers (aka – Crimson) who was killed the other night by a predator at his new home.

The fence is up, along w/ a barrier of marigolds to keep the squirrels and rabbits away. This year I decided to put in 5 types of tomatoes (green zebra, yellow brandywine, pineapple, cherokee purple and black krim), butternut squash, broccoli, brussels sprouts, jalapenos, swiss chard and yellow and purple bell peppers. The flowers I planted are all zinnias (state fair mix and dreamland mix),

The weather has been perfect, so I’m hoping for a bumper crop this year!

Happy Gardening!!

Bruno