Festive Food Fair: Pfeffernusse

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Anna from Morsels & Musings is the creator of a delightful series of blog posts called Recipe Carousels. The idea, as she puts it, is "to spread good recipes around and around and around..." She was very kind to feature two of my garden-inspired recipes on her Carousels this year: Tarragon & Chocolate Biscotti and Dill Bread. She recently asked if I would like to participate in her first-ever, full-fledged food blogging event, the Festive Food Fair.

Festive food? From bloggers around the world? How could I resist?

I knew in an instant which favorite holiday food I would want to feature... COOKIES. For me, it is just not Christmas without homemade cookies in all shapes and flavors, made with lots of love and laughter. When I was a kid, the cookie baking extravaganza commenced on the weekend immediately after Thanksgiving. Mom would lead us in baking double and even triple batches of our favorites: spritz cookies, thumbprints, cut-outs (two kinds), hazelnut cookies topped with meringue, honey cookies filled with jam, and Springerle (German cookies that we affectionately called "bricks," because they were as hard as rocks and best for dunking). We stowed our freshly baked treats in a giant tin "cookie box" -- a Christmas treasure chest filled with golden morsels that glistened with sugar, icing and dried fruits. Oh, to be a kid with vast heaps of cookies at hand!!


So the tradition continues. I am no longer a kid, but I am still a kid at heart when it comes to baking Christmas cookies. It is -- and always will be -- a way to relive, celebrate and uphold my family's traditions.

And what do Christmas cookies have to do with gardening? Well, nothing at all really. But I can say that having the garden has really taught me to think about (and appreciate) the way our foods (and the ingredients in our foods) are grown. It has made me curious about how things grow, what the plants look like, and where they come from.

And so it was when I made my first batch of Christmas cookies this weekend: Pfeffernusse, or "Pepper Nuts." The recipe called for very traditional holiday spices including cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. But there was one new-to-me ingredient: cardamom.


I've never used cardamom before and I was curious about it. It comes from the seed of a tropical plant in the ginger family. (See photos of the plant and pods here.) Harvesting this spice is very labor-intensive and that's why it is the world's third most expensive spice (after saffron and vanilla). It is a popular ingredient in Scandinavian, Indian, and Middle Eastern cooking. Its flavor, to me, tastes peppery and fruity, almost citrusy. Cardamom seeds can be used as a breath freshener or "to detoxify caffeine in people taking excessive amounts of coffee."

So, let's get to baking some of these cookies to drink with our coffee, shall we?


I used this recipe from Epicurious and modified it slightly by reducing the overall amount of sugar and replacing some of the white sugar with brown. My adapted version of the recipe is as follows.

**********************
Pfeffernusse Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
1/2 cup finely chopped candied orange peel
2 tsp. lemon zest
6 Tbsp. dark molasses
6 Tbsp. brandy
Powdered sugar for dusting

Mix the first 8 ingredients and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the white and brown sugars into the butter. Add the egg yolks and mix. Add the almonds, orange peel, lemon zest and mix some more. Stir one third of the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Add the molasses and brandy. Then add the the rest of the flour mixture. When fully blended, cover the dough and store it in the refrigerator overnight. The next day... heat the oven to 350 degrees. Take spoonfuls of dough and roll them into small balls. Place them on a Silpat mat or a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 12 - 14 minutes. After they've cooled for a little while, roll the cookies in powdered sugar.


These are great cookies to make well in advance of Christmas. We have noticed that they get better with age. As the days pass, all the spices and citrus flavors continue to meld together wonderfully.

Why did I choose to make Pfeffernusse? These were not among the types of cookie we made when I was growing up, but my dad always loves the packaged Pfeffernusse cookies from Germany, so they are a tribute to him. And it just so happens that the man I married loves Pfeffernusse, too! So I wanted to find a good Pfeffernusse recipe that I could add to my arsenal of traditional holiday favorites. This one fits the bill perfectly.


I made these cookies on Sunday and they are so good ("ridiculously good," as my husband puts it), that we have already eaten half the batch! While this speaks well for the recipe, it doesn't bode well for my effort to build up a big stash of cookies for the days closer to Christmas. I guess I will follow mom's example and start with a double batch next time!

Merry Christmas to all and... Enjoy your favorite festive foods!

First Catalog for 2007

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

My first seed catalog for the the 2007 season arrived in the mail, just in time for the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Perfect timing for some leisurely browsing and dreaming about all the choices for next year's garden. (And a great source for fulfilling a few Christmas wish list items, too!)


The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) catalog is one of my favorites. I am continually amazed at their vast selection of unique and temping seed choices. Members of SSE offer 115 varieties of cucumbers, 71 types of eggplant, 297 varieties of lettuce, and 3,684 varieties of tomato. Yes, three thousand six hundred eighty-four kinds of tomatoes! Amazing!

So many possibilities. I'll have to show some serious restraint so I don't order too many things for our tiny plot.

The Experimental Carrot Soup

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I pulled up the first few of my fall carrots last week. They are coming along quite well. Some of them are still very small, though, because they're too crowded. I'll have to thin them out and give them more room to grow.

I also picked the last of my dill. The plants have gone to seed and they won't make it through the winter.

This dill, along with some of my fresh chives and my "tester" carrots, became the star ingredients for a recipe I wanted to try: Carrot Dill Soup.

The recipe called for boiling the carrots, but I decided to roast mine in an effort to up the flavor quotient. I put some of our homegrown garlic in there, too.


Afterwards, I added the roasted carrot-garlic combo to a pot containing sauteed onions and about 4 cups of chicken broth. I let it simmer for about 30 minutes and, once it cooled down a bit, I pressed the whole mixture through a food mill. The last step was to add milk, the chopped dill and chives.


So how did it turn out?

Well, this wasn't one of the best soups I've ever made. The flavor was good; I loved the fresh herbs in it. But the texture wasn't so great. There were still tiny bits of carrot and the soup didn't really taste creamy. I was disappointed with it.

My husband later asked if I had used the finest sieve attachment on the food mill, and, well, no, of course I didn't. I was still using the bigger attachment we used for mashing our tomatoes into sauce. I should have skipped the food mill altogether and put everything in the food processor.


I also used 2 percent milk, as the recipe called for, and I think that didn't help my cause. I was trying to stick with healthy ingredients, but I'm convinced that there are some recipes that are just unforgiving if you skimp on the fat. This is one of those recipes, I think.

Well, at least it looks like a good soup, doesn't it?

Turnip

Sunday, November 19, 2006

The turnips in my garden are getting nice and plump. What shall I make with them? I guess I'll probably make a roasted vegetable dish, but other suggestions are welcome. Does anyone have a good turnip recipe to share?

Join

This is my photo for this week's edition of Green Thumb Sunday. Gardeners, plant lovers and nature enthusiasts can join. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information and check here to see posts from other participants.

Digging Up Dahlias

Saturday, November 18, 2006

I pulled up my dahlia plants a few weeks ago and have since stowed away their tubers for the winter months. The Colorado Dahlia Society has a very thorough and informative tutorial about dividing and storing dahlias, but I've never been so meticulous about the whole process. I basically just pull them up from the ground, clip off the stems and brush away the soil. Then I pack them in a bag with a few handfuls of mulch and put them away... in the bathroom closet.


A friend at the community garden suggested using the mulch. I think it helps protect the tubers from drying out. The majority of the ones I stored in this manner last year came back to life and bloomed beautifully this summer. Only a few of the smaller tubers didn't make it, and that's pretty much to be expected. Survival of the fittest. In fact, survival of any living thing that has spent six months hibernating my the bathroom closet is something of a miracle.

New Garlic

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Yesterday the board members of our community garden shut down the water system for the winter. The faucets are now dry and the hoses are tucked away neatly in the shed. This marks the true end of the gardening season here.

But wait! It's not completely the end, is it?

No, in some respects it's actually the beginning. At least that's how I see it when it comes to garlic. I was delightfully surprised yesterday to see that our new garlic plants have just begun to emerge from the ground. New, beautiful green sprouts.

When all else is shutting down and dying away, there is life beginning anew. Quietly, steadily... One season ends. A new one begins.

Hot Organic Foam

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

So what's the first thing that comes to mind when you read the words "hot organic foam?" A Starbucks coffee drink? A chemical-free bubble bath? A high-end spa treatment. A..., um..., intimacy-enhancement product? (OK, let's not even go there.)

No, it turns out that hot organic foam is the latest thing in... weed killers.

Municipal workers in Ventura County, California, are testing out an alternative to the chemicals and pesticides that are often used in landscaping. The so-called hot organic foam contains natural sugars extracted from corn and coconut plants. It is heated to over 200 degrees and applied to weeds using a gadget that looks remarkably similar to a carpet steam cleaner. (And that gadget costs a whopping $26,000!)

I wonder if individual homeowners will one day be able to rent a smaller-scale Steam-A-Weed contraption from their local grocery store? Steam the carpet, steam the weeds.

Watch the video describing how it works. Read the article from the Ventura County Star, via MSNBC: An Eco-Friendly Weed Whacker.

Brine a Turkey with Sage

Monday, November 13, 2006

My husband recently made a Practice Turkey for Thanksgiving. Yes, you read that correctly: A Practice Turkey.

We are still kind of green when it comes to hosting Thanksgiving dinner, so we need to test things out before the big day. And... well, I think we just had a hankering for an early taste of all those wonderful Thanksgiving flavors: roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, etc.

Sage is a key ingredient used in many stuffings for Thanksgiving turkey. In fact, I can't imagine a Thanksgiving meal without sage included somewhere.

In this case, we used some of the sage from our garden that I dried this summer. It was a key ingredient in the brine. (Yes, Michael wanted to try brining a turkey, which seems to be all the rage right now when it comes to turkey cooking.)

Using a recipe from this month's Saveur magazine, he started out by toasting about 2 tablespoons of the chopped dried sage. This made our apartment smell absolutely wonderful. (I was hungry already!)

He put the sage into a pot of water with two parts kosher salt and one part sugar. He brought that to a boil and then let it cool. He put the brine into a big tub, added a 6 lb. turkey breast, and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 12 hours.


The next day... he took the turkey out of the brine, tucked some pieces of butter underneath the skin, and roasted it. No basting required! The whole idea about brining a turkey is that the salt alters the protein in the meat and seals in the moisture.

So now you're probably wondering...

Was it worth the effort? Was the turkey really moist?

Yes! This was the moistest turkey we've ever had. No dry meat here. The turkey didn't fall to pieces like the one at the Griswold Family's Christmas. It was juicy and delicious.

Did it taste salty?

Yes. Think of the way a brined ham tastes. It's similarly salty, but not inedibly so. (But if you're on a low-sodium diet, this is not the turkey for you.)

Where's the gravy?

The thing about the brine is that it seals in all the juices, so there were hardly any drippings in the pan. We'll have to figure out another way to make gravy.


Did it taste like sage?

Well, no, not so much. The meat really didn't taste like sage at all. Only the skin held the flavor of the sage. I think the best part about using sage in this was... the aroma. It smelled like Thanksgiving.

Anything else I should know about a brined turkey?

Yes. The meat was somewhat pinkish. Think pink, the way a brined ham is pink (although not that pink. Just slightly pink.). It took me a while to be OK with that, because we have it so ingrained in our heads that poultry needs to be well cooked. We used a meat thermometer and made sure the meat was heated above 165 degrees. Even fully cooked, there will be pinkness in a brined turkey. It's normal. (And you might want to explain this to your guests.)


So there you have it, brined turkey with sage. So moist and flavorful... you won't want plain ol' dry turkey ever again!

About brining a turkey
Video: The science of brining a turkey
Find a sustainably-raised turkey
Turkey brine recipe
Another turkey brine recipe
And... one more turkey brine recipe
Apple-orange cranberry sauce recipe

This is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging, which will be hosted by Nandita at Saffron Trail. Are you blogging about herbs, vegetables, plants or flowers? Join WHB!

Smooth Landing

Sunday, November 12, 2006

One of the many beautiful leaves I've encountered on the sidewalk. This one looked as if it had stretched out on its tiptoes to brace its fall.


Join
This is my photo for this week's edition of Green Thumb Sunday. Gardeners, plant lovers and nature enthusiasts can join. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information and check here to see posts from other participants.

Project FeederWatch

Friday, November 10, 2006

I know that many garden bloggers are also avid backyard bird watchers. If you have a bird feeder in your garden or backyard, here's a chance to help scientists learn more about the location and health of certain bird populations. Join Project FeederWatch!

The project is simple: Put up a bird feeder, count the birds that visit, and then send the information to scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Bird watchers in the USA and Canada are eligible to participate. Check out all the details here. Their Web site also has great photos and information about feeding birds.

Campaigning for... a cold frame

Thursday, November 09, 2006

El at Fast Grow the Weeds found an excellent way to use those wire campaign signs that are all over people's yards before the election. Check out the post on Political Gardening. Re-use the wires. Make an inexpensive cold frame.

Good idea!

House is Painted Blue... and Green

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Grist has an excellent summary of how the results of the elections are shaping up for those of us who care about the environment. I am particularly pleased to see that Richard Pombo got the boot! He's been hell-bent on undoing the Endangered Species Act, drilling for oil in national wildlife refuges, etc. Now, keep an eye on what goes on in the so-called "lame duck" session of Congress.

Fall Cleanup and Mulch

This is how the garden looks now. On Sunday we pulled out all of the dead annuals, including the tomato and basil plants. I still have to trim back some of the perennials and cut away the dead vines that are hanging on the front and back fence. But for the most part, our fall cleanup is finished.

We put four wheelbarrows of leaf mulch on top of the soil in most places. This, I hope, will help to enrich the ground by springtime.

Speaking of mulch and compost and related matters, John over at Spade Work posted an interesting question: Is it better to use bagged compost or manure? I've sometimes wondered what all comes in the bagged stuff, and where it comes from. And manure? Well, we once considered putting horse manure on our plot, but I wondered how long it would need to sit and decompose before it would be safe to plant anything in the soil. I really don't know. And, boy, I just wasn't really looking forward to picking up a truckload of horse muck. Probably not fun.

I'm sticking with leaf mulch for now. The community garden provided it for free, so that made it an easy decision this time around.

Vote Today!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

"Act as if the whole election depended on your single vote..." -- John Wesley

If you're in the USA, don't forget to vote today. It matters!

Voters' Guide for DC, Maryland, Virginia
Poll Locator
Candidate Information
Coverage of Midterm Elections

Garlic is Planted

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Michael planted the last head of garlic today. That completes our garlic planting for this year.

We put in a total of six bulbs all together. At about five or six cloves per bulb, that should mean we'll have about 30-35 heads of garlic to harvest next June. If all goes well.

We were a little late with our planting this year. The rule of thumb around here is that garlic should go in the ground around Columbus Day, which was October 9th. That way, the cloves have time to sprout and get established before the freezing weather sets in.

So we'll have to see how the late start affects the crop. I am guessing it will mean we get smaller-than-expected garlic heads. But small garlic is better than no garlic, right? I am hoping for the best.

Autumn in Full Color

Saturday, November 04, 2006

We had our first freeze here last night. The tender summer plants that were still hanging on in the garden are now officially finished. The last tomato has been plucked from the vine.


Autumn fills in where summer has died away. The leaves here are absolutely stunning right now. In every direction, there are vibrant reds, brilliant oranges and glorious yellows. It's beautiful. I'm trying to soak in all the color while I can.

Onions for Valentine's Day?

Thursday, November 02, 2006

When I think about February, I think about Valentine's Day. And that makes me think of love and flowers and chocolate. Not... onions. But my friend Albertino, who has a neighboring plot at the community garden, said, "You plant these now and you'll be picking onions in February!"

I don't doubt him.

Albertino grows loads of onions in his plot, plus all sorts of everything else. Cole crops, fava beans, potatoes, peas, lettuce, strawberries -- even a grapevine, among other things. He has one of the plots that Michael and I refer to as... Iowa. Last winter he set up a cold frame and he was harvesting fresh lettuce in February, while the rest of us were still curled up on the sofa thumbing through garden catalogs and calling in our seed orders for spring.

I was happy to take a few of Albertino's spare onion shoots when he offered them to me on Sunday. He dug up these two clumps -- a mix of baby white and red onions -- which I promptly planted in my plot.


Will they be ready to harvest in February? We shall see. But if it's an exceptionally cold and snowy February, I think I'd rather be... curled up on the sofa with the seed catalogs... and a box of chocolate. Nice thing is that the onions will be just fine in the ground until spring.

Spooky Brussels

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Witches and ghosts weren't the only spooky things around the neighborhood for Halloween. My Brussels sprouts plant was looking pretty frightening too!

The ugliness set in while I was gone for a few weeks last month. The whiteflies came back with a vengeance, something ate big holes in the leaves, and gray moldy stuff grew all over most of the plant. There were houseflies all over it too. I wouldn't be surprised if it had warts.


Surprisingly, despite all the yuckiness, the plant is actually starting to produce sprouts now. (Although I must say, they look downright unappetizing at this point.) Maybe when we get frost, all of the ick will die and the poor plant will have a fighting chance. Bad gardener, me; I just wasn't around to help it out sooner.