January Spice Rack Challenge: Rosemary 3 Ways

I found several different recipes that I wanted to try for this month’s Spice Rack Challenge but in addition to the Spice Rack Challenge, I still have my 101 in 1001 to think about.  So, I opted for recipes that would allow me to do double duty.  Cheating?  Maybe.  Efficient?  Definitely.   Besides, is it cheating if I do three posts with three different rosemary recipes?

Buffalo Stroganoff with Rosemary and Morels over Homemade Pasta

 

All three recipes turned out great.  First I made homemade pasta with rosemary, garlic and cracked pepper.  Several days later I used the pasta as a base for a Dark Days dinner of Buffalo Stroganoff with Rosemary and Morel Mushrooms.

Finished Rosemary-Lemon Marmalade

 I also made Rosemary/Meyer Lemon Marmalade.  I can honestly say it was the best marmalade I have ever made.  It was part of Tigress’ Can Jam round up last year and originally came from Prospect the Pantry.  I should share this marmalade, but I think I will end up hoarding it.

I also made Rosemary Lemon Muffins.  I intended to make Rosemary Lemon cupcakes, but I toyed with the recipe and ended up with more of a muffin.  I found three different recipes for lemon cupcakes and married them.  The result is a light but sweet rosemary/lemon corn muffin.  The flavor is excellent and I think I will make them again, but I will go back to the original recipes and tinker a little more first.

Rosemary/Lemon Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 stick real butter, melted
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups corn flour (flour, not the grittier meal)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 cup milk
• zest from 2 lemons, divided
• juice from 2 lemons
• 1 T. fresh minced rosemary, divided
• 1/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream melted butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time mixing thoroughly after each.  In a separate bowl combine flours, salt and baking soda.  Alternately add 1/3 of dry ingredients and 1/3 milk to wet ingredients mixing after each addition.  Add lemon juice, half the minced rosemary and half the zest; mix for one minute more.

Ready for the oven

 

Combine remaining zest, rosemary and 1/3 cup sugar.  Reserve.

Spoon batter into greased muffin tins.  Fill each tin half full. Sprinkle Rosemary-Lemon Sugar onto each muffin.  Bake 17-20 minutes.

Rosemary Lemon Muffin

I used jumbo muffin tins so mine needed to cook 23 minutes.

Feeling inspired?  Have a good rosemary recipe?  There’s still time for you to join the Spice Rack Challenge.  Hop on over to Mother’s Kitchen to sign up and post your recipe before Friday January 21st.

Dark Days Dinner: Buffalo Stroganoff with Rosemary and Morels over Rosemary Pasta

Stroganoff is a classic dish.  I don’t think I have ever followed a recipe for it the way I was supposed to.  Some things require recipes.  Baking for example is science.  You can’t mess with chemistry and have it work out the same every time.  Sauces are different.  You can play with the seasonings, adjust the thickener or the cook time and it’s all good.  So, as usual my “recipe” is more of a set of guidelines to follow.

Buffalo Stroganoff with Rosemary and Morels over Homemade Pasta

Buffalo Stroganoff with Morels

• Cube a buffalo sirloin steak (8-10 oz.) and place the chunks in a non-reactive dish.  Cover the steak chunks with plain yogurt (about a cup and a half, but enough to cover all the pieces)  Allow the meat to tenderize for 4-6 hours.
• Heat a cup of stock (I used homemade chicken, but beef would probably be better.)  Add 8-10 dried morel mushrooms to the stock and allow to soak while meat tenderizes.
• Sautee a small, diced onion and 2-3 cloves of minced garlic in hot oil.
• Add sirloin to skillet (reserve yogurt) and sautee until browned.  Add salt and pepper to taste and about a teaspoon of minced fresh rosemary.
• Roughly chop morels and add them to the pan (reserve stock).
• Sautee until heated through and add enough flour to thoroughly coat meat and mushrooms. (Probably about a half cup.)
• Turn heat to high and add stock reserved from mushrooms stirring continuously to avoid clumping.
• Reduce heat and add reserved yogurt.
• Add a cup of heavy cream and simmer until thickened.  Add another half cup or so of yogurt to tang up the sauce.
• Serve over hot egg noodles or homemade pasta.  I served ours on homemade rosemary garlic pasta.

#57 ~ Can my way Through Tigress’ 2010 Can Jam: (January/Citrus) Rosemary-Meyer Lemon Marmalade

If you have never canned before, Tigress has lots of inspiration and information to get you started.  If you are a seasoned canner, she has more recipes linked/posted than you’ll probably ever be able to can!  Last year I participated in Tigress’ 2010 Can Jam.  All my recipes are here if you’re interested.  I tried lots of things I wouldn’t have tried without the motivation of a blog challenge.  Some of them I’ll definitely make again like Herbed Strawberry-Balsamic Jam.  Others like my Lemon-Ginger Marmalade will be passed over (or at least modified before they are tried again).

This year Tigress has a different plan so we are, so far, Can Jam-less.  I still want to can regularly and I still sometimes need a little extra motivation so I decided that canning my way through the old recipes would be a good way to keep going.

My inspiration for January’s challenge comes from Prospect: The Pantry.  She tried Meyer Lemon Marmalade three ways.  All three varieties sounded delicious to me but the featured spice for the January 2011 Spice Rack Challenge is rosemary so this seemed like the natural choice.  Besides, as much as I love ginger, I tried a lemon-ginger marmalade last year.

Rosemary-Meyer Lemon Marmalade

About 8 Meyer Lemons (yields ~ 3 cups sliced)
1 7/8 cups water
About 2 1/4 cups sugar
Fresh rosemary sprigs

Lemons and Rosemary

Prepare the lemons.  Wash them and quarter them lengthwise.  Remove the seeds and the pith from the center; set aside for later.  Slice the quarters into 1/8″ slices.

Combine the lemon slices and about 1 7/8 cup water in a large saucepan.  Add a large (2-3″) sprig of rosemary to the pot, bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.  Cook for 5 minutes, cool, cover and set aside overnight in the refrigerator. I actually let mine steep for three days because I couldn’t get back to it any sooner.

Place a saucer in the freezer to test for set later. 

Prepare boiling water bath and clean jars/lids.

Remove the rosemary sprig from the lemon slices and add it to the seeds you have saved.  Return the pan to the stove and simmer about 15 minutes.   Measure the lemon mixture and add 3/4 cup sugar for every cup of lemons.  I had three cups of lemon/juice so I added 2 1/4 cups of sugar.  Wrap the reserved seeds and the rosemary sprig in a section of cheesecloth and tie it with a string. Put the lemons, sugar and cheesecloth into the pan and cook at a medium boil for about 25 minutes or until a spoonful of marmalade dropped onto the frozen saucer doesn’t run.

Finished Rosemary-Lemon Marmalade

Remove the cheesecloth and ladle marmalade into hot jars.  Process in boiling water bath for ten minutes.  Turn off stove and let jars rest in bath for 5 minutes.  Remove to counter to cool undisturbed.

This recipe made three half-pint jars plus enough left over for me to sample.  I’m glad I tried this recipe because after last year’s trials with marmalade I was close to giving up.  The set is perfect on this batch and the flavor is wonderful like lemonade in a jar.  The rosemary flavor is very subtle.  If Meyer Lemons weren’t SO expensive I’d go buy some and make another batch right now.

#37 ~ Homemade (Rosemary Garlic) Pasta

When I decided to make homemade pasta every month I didn’t realize Mr. Hippie would get involved, but tonight’s pasta was his idea!  We made two batches because the pasta maker, like the meat grinder is a pain to clean.  The first batch we made exactly like the last batch.  The second batch however, I wanted to use for the Spice Rack Challenge so we modified it a little.

Sheet of rosemary pasta waiting to be cut.

When we got to the hand-kneading step (#8), we cut the dough in half.  One half we treated just as the original recipe.  To the other half we added a teaspoon of minced fresh rosemary, a clove of minced garlic and a turn of cracked pepper from the pepper mill. All the other steps were exactly the same. 

Waiting for their turn in the dehydrator.

However, with twice as much pasta to dry, we needed to find a way to speed up the process.  After a little internet research I decided that the dehydrator would help with this.  We put pasta on the racks and dried it for about an hour instead of letting it sit out overnight like I did last time.  It kept us busy adding and removing pasta from the machine all night, but we finished our pasta in a day instead of two and I didn’t have noodles hanging all over my kitchen.

The pasta is fragrant and delicious.  We could have easily doubled the amount of rosemary in the recipe, but rosemary can be overpowering and I didn’t want to ruin a whole batch of homemade pasta.



January Spice Rack Challenge: Rosemary

I LOVE rosemary.  Its pungent, piney fragrance is at once refreshing and relaxing.  Although I’m sure I had rosemary before, the first time I remember seeing rosemary was when I started working at the Grand Traverse Resort (and Spa).   I was young and on my own for the first time.  The Resort was impressive and ritzy and there, garnishing the dinner plates in the Trillium restaurant were fresh sprigs of rosemary. 

My two-year-old rosemary wintering on the porch.

Since then I’ve had rosemary plants of my own but here in the brutal zone 5 winters of Traverse City I’ve never had much luck cultivating it.  I’ve never been foolish enough to think that I could grow it from seed but even when I start with seedlings I haven’t had much luck keeping it alive.  I do fine all summer.  I usually even manage to keep it alive most of the winter.  One year I managed to keep a rosemary plant alive outside until March.  Then, it died. Last year I managed to winter my rosemary plant on the back porch.  So far, it is still doing well.  I’m hoping now that it is a little more stable and mature I will be able to keep it alive year-round. 

I prune sprigs from it to add to recipes from time to time but it doesn’t get used as often as it should.  I add it to roasts and other meats when I am braising or roasting them or roasted potatoes, and I added it to my strawberry jam last summer, but other than that, my plant doesn’t see much action.  Thanks to Mom, that is all about to change.  This month I need to make something that features rosemary.  My first thoughts were savory, but rosemary is versatile.  This challenge will take a lot of thought and possibly some experimentation.  Right now I’m off to clean my refrigerator.  But when I finish, the hunt for rosemary recipes begins.

June Can Jam~ Herbed Strawberry-Balsamic Jam

Thank you Tigress!  The Can Jam was just the kick-start I needed to get back to my blog.

The “Hiatus” as it will henceforth be called was an unplanned lull caused by a busy schedule coupled with a lack of motivation and the death of a computer.  I’ll be detailing the causes of the hiatus and all of the very exciting things that happened while I was away in the coming weeks.

However, back to The Jam.  Tigress has a deadline.  In order to be a part of The Jam, this post had to be up by Friday, so I had to get my berries selected and jammed with enough time to get my post done before then.  I am a horrible procrastinator and usually wait until the last minute but I have soccer tonight and a meeting all day tomorrow and Murphy and his stupid laws haven’t been very kind to me lately so I wanted to make sure I didn’t get eliminated by missing my deadline.

This month’s featured ingredient was berries.  Joel and Dana at Well Preserved announced it after the last Can Jam Roundup.  They have lots of helpful tips for berries and jam on their site and it is an excellent blog in general~ you should check it out.  No.  Really.  Go now.

The first of three lugs of berries from Urka.

Any kind of berry would do, but something local and in-season is preferred.  Lucky me, strawberries arrived early so I got to go out to Urka Farms and pick some last week and again yesterday.  I used the last of the berries I picked last week to concoct this delicious jam.  I love jam in general, but this stuff is soooo good.  I will definitely be making some more.

Herbed Strawberry-Balsamic Jam   Printable Version

Ingredients:

• 1500 g strawberries
  (500 g of mine were whole; the other 1000g were sliced)
• 3 sprigs rosemary
  (If you read my Rhubeena post, you’ll remember my rant about recipe quantities.  I’ve again included a photo to avoid confusion.  If you didn’t read the ‘beena post, what are you waiting for??)
  

  Three sprigs of rosemary about three inches long.

   

• 900 g. sugar
• 9 T. Balsamic vinegar
• coarsely cracked black pepper; about six turns from the mill or 1/2 tsp.

Process:

1. Place 2-3 small plates in the freezer to chill.
2. Add berries, sugar and rosemary to a large sauce pan.
3. Bring mixture to a boil; boil 2 minutes stirring frequently.
4. Remove mixture from heat and allow to steep from 2 to 24 hours.
   (Or as long as it takes you to pick 20 more pounds of strawberries.)
5. After your berries have steeped, return the pot to the stove; add balsamic vinegar and cracked pepper and return to a boil.
6. Prepare your jars and your boiling water bath.
7. Allow the sauce to simmer at a medium-low heat until it thickens.
   Keep a close eye on the sauce during this process; the jellying point can be easily passed resulting in jam more like taffy than jam.  Test for jellying by spooning hot jam onto a chilled plate; jam is ready when you push it and it wrinkles.
8. Skim foam from the jam’s surface and remove rosemary sprigs.
9. Ladle jam into hot jars and add lids.
10. Process the jars for ten minutes in a boiling water bath.

Rosemary Strawberry-Balsamic Jam

I’m trying to go the pectin-free route with my jams this year (although I might crack and make one batch of freezer jam because it is yummy) so this jam is a longer-cook variety.  The result is a really dark, rich jam.  The balsamic vinegar also adds a depth of color to the finished jam.  My photo doesn’t do it justice but the color is amazing.

The rosemary is very subtle but after my first taste-test I was worried that 6 turns of pepper was too much. I shouldn’t have worried; the finished product has just the right amount of spice and even the little people in my house with less-refined palates enjoy it.

Oh, I almost forgot.  I still have lots of strawberries to can so check back soon; I’m thinking a Strawbeena is in order.