Got berries? Make clafoutis!

It's a French brunch-y thing conveniently suited to the berries of a prairie summer. It's tradition in France to leave the pits in the cherries, so you decide...

2 tbsp butter
3 eggs
3 tbsp sugar
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1 tbsp flour
2 cup mixed berries such as cherries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, low bush cranberries, saskatoons. You can also add some thinly sliced rhubarb.

Heat the oven to 350F. Put butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet or a pie plate. Place in oven until butter is melted but not brown.

Meanwhile, in a blender mix eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla and salt. With the blades running, add 1 cup flour and blend well.

Toss fruit with remaining 1 tbsp flour.

Remove the skillet or pie plate from the oven. Pour in the batter and scatter the fruit on top. Return to the oven. Bake about 20-25 minutes, until the centre of the custard is set.

Serve warm with a dusting of icing sugar or cool with a drizzle of syrup.

Back of the Pantry - Raspberries!

In my mission to "eat myself out of house and home" I am looking deep into my pantry and, one by one, bringing out jars of this and that forgotten at the back of the cupboard. This week's find: a jar of luscious raspberries canned in honey syrup two summers ago.

The raspberries were grown at Living Sky Winery, where the owners graciously allowed me to pick the last stray berries after the summer harvest.

I ate them for breakfast with yogurt and muesli. Such a taste of summer on a frigid spring morning!

If you've got canned berries, enjoy them with my homemade muesli. The nuts in this recipe are obviously imported, but the oats, flax and hemp seeds are pure Saskatchewan, as are the honey and canola oil. 

Home for Dinner Muesli
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup chopped nuts such as walnuts, almonds and/or hazelnuts
1 cup mixed seeds such as hemp, flax, sunflower and pumpkin
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp canola oil

Mix together the oats, nuts and seeds. Stir together the honey and oil. If they are too stiff to stir, heat them gently in the microwave. Pour the honey/oil into the oats and mix thoroughly with your hands. Spread the mixture onto a big cookie sheet and bake at 200F for about two hours, stirring every 30 minutes to ensure an even bake. Remove from oven. When cool, store the muesli in an airtight container. If you wish to add dried fruit to the muesli, add your choice of fruit, in your preferred quantities, when the muesli is warm out of the oven. 

Yummy brownies for Christmas

This was fabulous, and all the better because I made it with raspberries I picked and froze myself. A little bit of Saskatchewan summer in the depths of winter...

The recipe is by Australian chef Donna Hay and found on the Epicurious website. Click here.

Nirvana in a Jar - Raspberry Jam

This is the best thing I have ever put on toast: Raspberry Freezer Jam. I've never made freezer jam before, and why not, I ask myself? It's quick, easy, has much less sugar and way more flavour than boiled jam. The berries were the last picking from my friends Sue and Vance, who planted a vast berry orchard for their new wine venture, Living Sky Winery. If the jam is this good, I can't wait to taste the wine!

Off to a good start - BREAKFAST MUESLI

Who needs a cereal bowl? A martini glass really shows off a beautiful mix of muesli, fresh raspberries and yogurt. I got the idea from the spa in Moose Jaw and I've been making it at home ever since. At first, I was buying the muesli, but now I'm making my own with Saskatchewan ingredients (except the pumpkin and sunflower seeds).

Golden Flax - Tomtene Seed Farm, Birch Hills, 306-749-3230
Honey - Triple R Honey Ranch, Val Marie, 306-298-2204
Hemp seeds - The Good Seed, Birch Hills, organichempseed@gmail.com
Oats - Daybreak Scheresky mill, Estevan, http://www.daybreakschereskymill.com/

Muesli
3 cups rolled oats
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup hemp seeds
¼ cup pumpkin seeds
¼ cup golden flax seeds
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp canola oil

Mix together the oats and seeds. Stir together the honey and oil. If they are too stiff to stir, heat them in the microwave. Pour the honey/oil into the oats and mix thoroughly with your hands. Spread the mixture onto a big cookie sheet and bake at 200F for about two hours, stirring now and then to prevent burning at the edges. Remove from oven and cool on cookie sheet. Store in an airtight container. I prefer to add fruit just before I eat it - fresh in summer and dried or preseved in winter. You can add your favourite dried fruit when the muesli comes out of the oven.

MERINGUE NESTS WITH FRESH BERRIES

This is a great dessert to serve after a patio barbeque.










4 large egg whites at room temperature
1 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
Fresh raspberries

Heat oven to 325F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon mat.

Beat the egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Turn the mixer on high and add the icing sugar one spoonful at a time, beating for ten seconds between each addition. When the whites are stiff, sprinkle in the cornstarch and vanilla, mixing well.

Scoop the meringue into 12 small mounds on the cookie sheet, using the back of a spoon to create a depression in the centre of each meringue circle. Bake 5 min. Turn down the heat to 200F. Bake for one hour. Turn off the heat and leave the meringues in the oven for another hour or two, until very dry. (The amount of time needed to fully dry the meringue will vary depending on the humidity that day.)

Whip the cream with vanilla. Just before serving, spread whipped cream onto each meringue and top with fresh berries.

Berries galore - BUMBLEBERRY PIE

Last week, I spent a couple days at a Benedictine Monastery at Muenster, Saskatchewan, where the monks fill their days by keeping marvellous gardens. Brother Basil, the chief farmer, showed me around the grounds on his golf cart. Later, I walked out past the cemetery to the raspberry patch and picked a pail of amber raspberries.

I had never tasted amber raspberries before. They are sweeter and more delicate than the common red raspberry, and so delicious. Now I’m eating them every day (or twice a day!) before they go soft. This Bumbleberry Pie is a good way to use a variety of berries and fruit when you don’t have enough for one pie on its own. In addition to the amber raspberries, I used raspberries (picked at Don's house), lush strawberries from the Strawberry Ranch, my own rhubarb, my mom’s saskatoon berries and crabapples we picked over our neighbours' fence.

BUMBLEBERRY PIE
5 cups of fruit, of which 1 cup is tart apple
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
dash of salt
a bit of butter
prepared pastry crust

Peel, core and chop the apple. Chop the other large fruit like rhubarb and big strawberries. Combine all the fruit in a bowl and toss with the flour to coat. Mix in the sugar and the salt.

Roll the pastry so it will have an overhand of at least one inch when placed in the pie plate. Place it into the plate and scoop in the fruit. Dot here and there with bit of butter. Fold the loose edges of pastry over the top of the filling so that it forms a rough circle around the edge of the pie; the centre remains uncovered. (This method uses less pastry crust and allows everyone to see how pretty the fruit looks after it’s cooked.) You can sprinkle the crust with sugar, if you like. Bake at 375 for about 30-40 minutes, until the crust is cooked.

Newspaper - CLAFOUTIS

This column first appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on 17 April 2006

Every now and then, my husband and I go on the egg diet, during which we try our best to eat eggs three times a day. For instance, we may have pancakes for breakfast, egg salad sandwiches for lunch and an omelet for supper. Or, scrambled eggs for breakfast, a spinach salad for lunch and Spaghetti Carbonara (an Italian dish made with eggs and bacon) at the end of the day.

When you think of it, it’s amazing how many different ways there are to eat eggs. Few foods can make the transition from breakfast to dessert as easily as eggs. When we talk about incompetent cooks, we say they can’t even boil an egg. When we talk about gifted cooks, we may think of the perfect, un-deflated soufflé.

My husband and I buy free-range eggs from a farmer, which means the eggs are laid by hens that eat grass and bugs and get their daily exercise. These eggs range in shades from pure white to fawn beige, and range in size from regular to double-yolk big. Every three or four weeks, the farmer arrives at my door in Saskatoon with 20 dozen eggs. I use what I need and resell the rest to my city friends who appreciate this little taste of country. Sometimes my friends don’t need eggs and so we have a couple dozen left in the fridge when the farmer is due to arrive again. Thus, the egg diet. We need to use up what we have before the new batch arrives.

It’s kind of funny that I should turn out to be an Egg Lady because my mother was an Egg Lady when I was growing up on the farm at Craik. We kept a pen of laying hens and mom sold the extra eggs to her friends for 25 cents a dozen. As children, we had to gather the eggs. Twice a day, we would slip into the chicken coop, shoo the chickens off their roosts and scoop up the warm eggs. I didn’t particularly like doing this and would often trade with my brothers – I’d do their dishes if they did my eggs. We all thought we got the best of that deal.

Many people will be eating hardboiled eggs this week, leftovers from the Easter celebration. However, eggs have been associated with spring festivals since long before Easter was inspired 2,000 years ago. The ancient Persians gave out coloured eggs to celebrate spring. The goddess of fertility was known, over time, as Ishtar, Ostara and finally Eastre in old Europe to denote her association with the sun rising in the east on the morning of the spring equinox. Her symbol was an egg.

One of my favourite ways to eat eggs is Clafoutis (kla-foo-tee), a sweet flan from France often served warm for breakfast or brunch. Unlike some French delicacies, it is wonderfully simple and easy to prepare. It is traditionally made with cherries, but I give it a Saskatchewan flavour by using a mix of prairie berries.

PRAIRIE BERRY CLAFOUTIS
2 tbsp. butter
3 eggs
3 tbsp. sugar
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup flour
2 cups mixed berries (sour cherries, raspberries, strawberries, saskatoons)
1 tbsp. flour

Heat the oven to 350 degrees C. In the oven, melt the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (or a similar sized baking pan), making sure the butter doesn’t brown. In a blender mix the eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla and salt. With the blades running, gradually add the flour and mix well. Pour the batter into the buttered skillet. Toss the berries with a tablespoon of flour then scatter the fruit over the top of the batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the centre of the custard is set (test by inserting a knife). Serve warm, perhaps with a sprinkling of icing sugar or a drizzle of maple syrup.

Week 48 - PRAIRIE BERRY CLAFOUTIS

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week – 15 March 2006

Breakfast – Yogurt and cherry sauce.
Lunch – Lentil soup. Clafoutis.
Dinner – Spaghetti Carbonera. Green salad.


PRAIRIE BERRY CLAFOUTIS
Clafouis (kla-foo-tea’) is a sweet "pancake" from France, often served hot for breakfast or brunch. Unlike some French delicacies, it is wonderfully simple and easy to prepare. It is traditionally made with cherries, but I like to use a mix of Saskatchewan berries such as strawberries, cherries, raspberries and saskatoons.

In the summer when the berries are fresh, I freeze them individually on a cookie sheet, then pack them into airtight containers. This prevents the juicy berries from freezing into one solid block, making it much easier to remove just a handful at a time.

2 T butter
3 eggs
3T sugar
1c milk
1/2t vanilla
1/4t salt
1c flour
2c mixed sour cherries, raspberries, strawberries and saskatoons (you can also include some fresh rhubarb in the mix.)
1T flour

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In the oven, melt the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (or a similar sized baking pan), making sure the butter doesn’t brown. In a blender mix the eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla and salt. With the blades running, gradually add the flour and mix well. Pour the batter into the buttered skillet. Toss the berries with a tablespoon of flour, then scatter the fruit over the top of the batter. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the centre of the custard is set. Serve warm, perhaps with a sprinkling of icing sugar or a drizzle of syrup.