My journey of cooking, gardening, preserving and more
Warning: weird vegetable alert. In case you didn’t know it, you can eat the unfurled fronds of an ostrich fern. Yes, you heard that right. You can not only eat them but, if you’re like me, you can enjoy them immensely. Fiddleheads are, at least …
Spring has officially arrived here in Northern Illinois and yet they’re calling for an inch or two of snow tonight. Sigh. We had a week or so of nice 50+ degree weather though and we even grilled out a couple of times, so I know these …
It’s been a long time since I looked up a lobster bisque recipe because I’ve always made it (and shrimp bisque) the same way. So what I discovered is that I’ve (apparently) been making it wrong all these years. Every recipe I came across called for the veggies (and the veggies vary, per recipe) to be part of the strained stock and not actually part of the soup. Well, I like my veggies and I like them actually in my soup. Now, bisques are a classic and typically they’re strained, but I really don’t want to strain all the good stuff out. I also like my bisque with a little body to it, which is what leaving the veggies in my bisque accomplishes. I hope you enjoy it!
Also, here’s the deal on my stock: I always, always, always make my stocks with the not-going-into-the-actual-soup parts so food doesn’t go to waste. It’s all getting strained out in the end, so add those pieces and parts – veggie tops and ends, onion and garlic skins, herb stems, etc. Your ugly veggie tops and bottoms have the same nutrients as the rest of the veggie, you know? Also, don’t go too crazy on salting your stock because this is going to reduce, reduce, reduce. Better to add more later.
Making your own stock with the lobster shells is really key – it’s the only way to truly achieve that rich, lobster flavor.
For the love of all that’s holy though, please use real butter and cream here. This is meant to be a bit of a decadent dish and the real butter and cream make it oh, so rich. If you only have 1/2 and 1/2, that will work, too. For a gluten-free lobster bisque, omit the flour and add a diced potato when you add the other veggies. This will help add some thickness to your bisque.
As far as the sherry goes – please make it something you’d actually consume on its own. If not, use a nice white wine. If you don’t want to use alcohol, use a really good vegetable stock. It’s lobster we’re working with here and the lobster is the star, so don’t skimp out on the rest of it.
And for Pete’s sake, if you don’t have carrots and celery use your fridge as a guide: leeks, asparagus, broccoli….go for it. Be brave and play with your food a bit.
For the stock:
For the bisque:
For the stock: place all of the ingredients in a large stockpot, cover with about 8-9 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about one and a half hours. Strain through a colander and then strain again through a cheesecloth-lined colander. Set stock aside. Discard solids
For the bisque:
In a stockpot over medium heat, heat pan and melt butter. Add carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. Saute about 12-15 minutes.
Add flour to veggies and stir well. Let cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. I like my flour to lightly brown a little, but you don’t want to burn it.
Add tomato paste and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. I add my tomato paste here because I like to “roast” a little in the pan. To me, this gives your finished bisque a richer flavor.
Add sherry and, using a whisk, whisk everything together until well blended and there are no clumps of flour or tomato paste remaining.
Add stock. If you need to add a little water to achieve 7 cups, that’s fine. Stir well.
Let this simmer for about an hour. Veggies should be completely soft and soup base reduced by at least a third.
Using an immersion blender, blend the base together until creamy. Now’s a good time to taste it and if you need to add any additional salt or pepper, do so.
Return to low heat, add lobster and cream, and cook just until heated through.
Serve with freshly chopped parsley sprinkled on top.
Be sure and serve this with a warm loaf of crusty bread – it’s good for mopping up every last drop from your bowl.
Enjoy and eat well!
This holiday season was my first attempt at making peanut butter dog treats for Buster, our dog. I’ve made sweet potato dog treats for him in the past but then found out that the natural sugar in sweet potatoes was contributing to a yeast issue …
I grow eggplant every year in my garden because it’s one of our favorites. I’ve grown a few different varieties and we’ve loved them all. The plants don’t require any special care and aren’t prone to many diseases; I’ve never had a problem growing them here …
I admit that I’ve put off posting this fermentation recipe for quite some time. Not because it’s difficult or time-consuming because it’s neither, but because I’m absolutely terrible at photographing the process from beginning to end. (though I didn’t do too badly in showing you how I make my fermented pickles a couple of years ago.) Making your own sauerkraut is one of the easiest things in the world to do and I finally decided that I’d rather just share the recipe than wait until I had enough photos of the process. You’re a smart cookie, right? I’m pretty confident you won’t have any problems here at all but if you do, feel free to leave a comment.
You might think that making fermented cabbage is really difficult but trust me, it’s not. The only ingredients you really need to make sauerkraut is cabbage and salt. That’s it. You don’t need to buy any fancy cultures or equipment. You just need a clean glass or ceramic vessel – a bowl, a canning jar, a crock; any of these will work just fine. You also need something to weight down the cabbage, so that it remains submerged in its juice. This can be just about anything that’s clean and non-reactive, such as a plate with something heavy sitting on top of it. And, if you pack enough into a canning jar with a shoulder on it, the shoulder helps keep the cabbage submerged and you probably won’t even need a weight. Lastly, you’ll want something to cover your ferment – I prefer cheesecloth, as it lets my ferment breath but keeps any dust and/or bugs out. Because I ferment on a pretty regular basis now, I’ve invested in some nice Ohio Stoneware crocks and weights but I fermented long before I had these, so trust me when I say you don’t need to get too fancy.
You can add other vegetables to your kraut, so please experiment with what you like; garlic, onions, and carrot are the most common ones. And if you want caraway seeds in your sauerkraut, feel free to add a pinch or two of those too. You can also experiment with your favorite cabbage: red, Napa…use what you have or can find at your local store or market.
This makes about 3 1/2 quart jars, depending on how much taste-testing you do while it’s fermenting.
As you shred the cabbage, place it in a very large bowl. Sprinkle each layer with some of the salt as you go. When finished shredding, it’s time to get a little messy.
With clean hands, get in and smoosh the cabbage up, squeezing it and crushing it with your hands. After just a couple of minutes, you should see some liquid starting to form at the bottom of your bowl. Continue to squeeze and crush until you feel like you’ve crushed all of the cabbage and there’a good amount of cabbage juice in your bowl.
Place your cabbage, with the liquid, into a clean crock or other container and, using a potato masher or other clean implement, mash down the cabbage until it’s all submerged under the juice. Using whatever clean means you want, weight down your cabbage, to assure it’s all submerged. You can use a plate with a filled jar or can on top of it, a baggie filled with water, etc.
Cover with cheesecloth or towel, secure with string or twine and let sit.
Check your sauerkraut every day or two, to make sure there’s still plenty of liquid and that the cabbage has remained submerged in its juice. If it’s very hot weather, you may find your brine evaporates quicker than you’d like. If this happens, just add a bit of water (I use distilled) to bring the juice level back above the cabbage.
If you notice a bit of scum accumulating around the edges, gently remove it with a spoon, taking care not to mix it into your cabbage. I’ve never had this happen with sauerkraut, though it does occur sometimes when I ferment pickles.
We have found we like our sauerkraut to ferment around 3 weeks, where it’s still got a crunch to it but is sufficiently fermented. You’ll want to start tasting yours every week or so though, to see where it is you want to stop the fermentation process. You may find you like yours crunchy at 2 weeks or softer at 4 weeks.
You’ll also have to vary your ferment time due to the temperature – fermentation happens much more quickly when the weather is hot than when it’s cold.
Once your sauerkraut has reached its desired flavor, place it, along with all of its juices, in jars or covered glass bowls and refrigerate. Mine keeps for many months in the fridge, just be aware that though refrigeration slows down the fermentation process, it doesn’t completely stop it. If you store yours too long, it may end up being softer than you’d like.
A couple of quick, additional tips:
That last point brings me to this: If you have digestive issues of any kind, fermented foods have been shown to help. I can only speak from personal experience when I tell you that it’s definitely helped me. Just go easy at first, introducing them to your diet slowly. As your body becomes accustomed to digesting fermented foods, you’ll find it becomes easier to consume more of them without side effects.
Hopefully, I’ve not missed anything, but I know all of you will be sure and let me know if I have. Happy fermenting!
If you’re just finding me now at my old WordPress site, I hope you’ll join me in my latest posts at lolarugula.com
It was not a stellar year for my tomato plants this season. Though I harvested quite a few, it was certainly not a typical year. Cool nights, flooding rains and cooler-than-average daytime temps do not make for happy, bountiful tomato plants. The exception to all …