Petah's First Chicken Dance!

Roast Chicken – Meat & Fowl, Pg. 134 – Violet D. Allen (Mrs. L)

It seems hard to believe, but Peter’s never roasted a whole bird. Chicken parts, slabs of beef, hunks of ham – not a problem, been there done that – but never a bird. Maybe it was watching his mom prepare the annual thanksgiving turkey and the day long process that made it appear too daunting. Perhaps it’s the fact that you can purchase a pre-roasted bird from the supermarket for the same price, without the work. Or maybe it’s a generational thing – although Jan’s tangoed with a turkey, she’s never cha cha'd with a chicken – turns out many of our other friends haven’t cooked a bird either. Who knows?! In any case, it turns out it’s not daunting at all and it’s much tastier than any store bought bird.

The DO recipe was pretty basic – S&P & Butter; so Peter Martha’d it up a bit. Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

5-6 lb Chicken
1 Tbsp butter
Salt & Pepper
2 medium onions (peeled and sliced crosswise, ½ inch thick)
1 lemon (halved)
3 cloves garlic (peeled and slightly pressed to open)
4 Springs fresh thyme
1 Lemon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the giblets and/or organs from the cavity of the chicken (ick!). Wash bird thoroughly with cold water. The Dutch Oven suggests to singe the bird if necessary, but unless you’ve just freshly plucked your bird, hopefully this won’t be necessary. Dry thoroughly with paper towel. Sprinkle the cavity of chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Place sliced onions on the bottom of your roasting pan (Peter used a round cast iron dutch oven). Place lemon, garlic and thyme in the cavity of the chicken and place atop the layer of onions. Bring chicken legs forward and tie together. Spread the softened butter over the chicken and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Suggested roasting time is 20 minutes per pound (or until the breast temperature reaches 180 degrees and the skin is golden brown). Occasionally baste chicken while roasting. When chicken is done let rest for 10 to 15 minutes to allow juices to settle before carving. Pan drippings can be reserved to prepare gravy.

This little chickie was tender and juicy. The aromatics of lemon, thyme and garlic gave this bird an edge over the competition (whoever that is). So if you've been on the fence about roasting a bird - get out of the coup, call on your inner chicken and DANCE!

Blueberry Blunder!

Blueberry Cake - Cake. Pg. 254 - Lila E.D. Kinley (Mrs. J.J.)

Mmmm…blueberries. When it comes to blueberry desserts, it’s hard to imagine anything comparing to the sensational, one of a kind, blueberry buckle (see recipe here). Jan loves her buckle, and when Jan finds something she likes, she tends to stick with it. She knows what she likes and likes what she knows (pssst…she only thinks she knows what she likes). Blueberry season means taking advantage of any and all DO blueberry recipes (even blueberry pudding - not the custard kind, but the other one)….but for that we’re procrastinating and will come at a later date – maybe next season. It took a bit of convincing to get Jan to think outside of her blueberry box…but alas, we bring you blueberry cake!

A seemingly simple cake - a handful of ingredients. Same old same old…right? WRONG! 2 cups of sugar should have made us question this petite gateau. Then – combine the fact that it has double the amount of sugar of any normal cake recipe; with sour milk…we were ready to throw in the towel. But then we thought to ourselves…No! You can’t quit. Weird and wacky as the ingredient volumes are, it will not get the better of us. We trudged onward.

We saw it through, but oh what a blueberry blunder. This cake’s got issues...first off it was as heavy as a brick, and sweet enough to send any adult into a sugar coma and any kid climbing the walls and ceiling. All the blueberries settled to the bottom of the cake, and it turned out extremely dense with little rise. Probably more suitable for a doorstop, we dressed it up with a little simple vanilla glaze and voila! – It looked good enough to eat…and we did, we have no shame – if it’s sweet and has frosting, chances are we’ll eat it.


It did inspire us however to seek out alternative recipes, a quest to find the perfect blueberry cake! Peter and Jan checked with their people, and their people’s people, and so on. After reviewing all the family recipe archives – we decided upon Jan’s great aunt Gladdys’s recipe. Pulled from the secret recipe files of Jan’s Nanny, it was similar to some of Peter’s family recipes.

And that was our placebo second throwdown. And oooooh, it was delicious. Winner winner chicken dinner we say. Light and fluffy, topped with a sweet crunchy streusel topping – blueberry cake perfection! More is more we say - we topped this one with a little lemon glaze – blueberry plus lemon = yummiliscious.

Gladdy’s Blueberry Cake:

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
½ cup butter
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
2/3 cups sour milk (we just used regular milk)
Zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Directions:

Crème 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter together, add 2 beaten eggs. Sift together 2 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder, ¼ tsp salt. Add the dry to the sugar/butter/egg mixture – alternating with wet, per normal batter rules of the universe. Add zest of one lemon (optional). Add 1-2 cups berries to batter…{we prefer wild…but cultivvated would be fine}.

Topping: ½ cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon – topping gets added over batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 mins…or until baked through. Recommended square pyrex or Bundt pan (greased and floured).

Miss Peachberry Pie!

Fruit Pie (Peach & Blueberry) – Pies & Pastries, Pg. 196 – Lois J. Himmelman (Mrs. Thomas)

Here she is Boyzzzzzzzzz….Here she is Girlzzzzzz…..It’s PeachBerry Pieeeee!!!

Well, what better way to showcase two fabulous in-season Nova Scotia fruits, than with a DO fruit pie, mash-up style - peaches and blueberries in one sensational dessert.

The mash-up doesn’t end with the ingredients: Oh, no! It gets better…we used our favorite Julia Child’s no-fail easy as pie crust (find recipe here), and collaborated with Mr. Tyler Florence, Mizzzzz Martha Stewart, and tried to incorporate as much of the ambiguous “fruit pie” recipe from the DO as possible. Okay – the least you could have done is told us HOW MUCH FRUIT TO PUT IN IT!!!! We always feel guilty not doing the DO recipe straight up, verbatim, to help understand the essence of the historic Nova Scotia recipes, and then if we feel adventurous and time permitting, go a second round with a more current comparison and see what provides the grooviest outcome (in our humble opinion of course). But in this case, the recipe was very vague and we felt it not a blasphemy to the coveted book to go free-style on the inaugural testing.

Being a couple of fussy Gen X self proclaimed foodies, and trying very hard to jump on the natural, local, organic, sustainable bandwagon, the whole concept of translucent fish-egg cavier-like pearlescent balls, known to the rest of the world as tapioca, to use as a thickener…is well….icky. And, more scientifically, the tapioca seemed more appropriate for a straight up blueberry pie – by us inviting peaches to the party, we felt it justified to side with the professionals and go with corn starch as a thickener.

Tyler Florence’s recipe called for 2 lbs skinned and sliced peaches, and a pint of blueberries. Martha’s fruit pies called for 8 cups peaches or 5 cups blueberries…so for our mash up, we would like to introduce to the world, the one, the only, the Toast of Mayfair, second cousin, twice removed of Strawberry Shortcake, Miss PeachBerry Pie!

Peach & Blueberry Pie:

12 medium sized peaches and 2-ish cups Blueberries (enter tip….parboiled for 1 min or so and ice bath for easy pealin’)
½ lemon’s juice
½ cup sugar (tyler called for ¼ cup…our peaches were slightly under ripe so we added more)...
1 ½ tbsp corn starch
Tyler adds bit of butter – we forgot, so dollopped minis inside the lattice holes





Lattice work compliments of Mz. Martha, see instructions here.

Brush pastry with egg wash, place pie on cookie sheet, and back at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes.