It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and after the blizzard that hit us, we have so much to be thankful for! Parts of the province are described as looking like they were hit by a tornado, and I just learned that my sister was without power for 2 days. Thankfully, they have a wood stove and fireplace for cooking and heat, as well as a generator.
When I drove my daughter to work on the Thursday, things were still looking good. By the time we reached town, it was starting to snow, but it was on the way home that I drove into the beginnings of the storm, locally.
When it was safe to do so, I pulled over to get a picture.
While we are ready and waiting for my husband to come home from the hospital, we are also getting ready for Easter.
This evening, I went hunting for horseradish.
After scraping away some fallen leaves, I found some new grow peaking through the ground. I used a potato fork (the only fork that didn’t grow legs and walk away over the years) to dig up a few pieces.
This bunch is growing under the power pole in the garden. I knew the area was very rocky, but wow. I had a really hard time getting that fork deep enough to get some roots out. No matter where I moved it, I was hitting rocks, just a couple of inches below the surface.
I didn’t take out much. A larger piece for our own basket, and a couple of small pieces for my mother. If she wants, she can use one and plant the other, since she has garden space where she lives.
For now, I’ve scrubbed the dirt off, and they are wrapped in damp paper towels. For our basket, I will peel some of the outer skin off the lower part, and save the top. The tradition is to use horseradish paste, mixed with beetroot, in the basket; the bitter taste of the horseradish symbolizes the pain of crucifixion Christ endured for us, while the sweetness of the beetroot symbolizes the joy of the resurrection. Growing up, though, we always used fresh horseradish root. My mother would sometimes give away pieces with sprouting tops, after the baskets were blessed, to friends to plant if they wanted.
My mother planted the horseradish in strange places. One batch is under a spruce tree, which would be just as difficult to harvest as the ones growing among rocks. I found more growing among some of her flowers outside the living room window, which has better soil conditions, but harvesting it would mean damaging the bulbs of the flowers it’s growing with.
I’m thinking of maybe using some of the raised planters that are still in decent shape, so the horseradish itself will also be contained better, and not spread too much.
Something to figure out over the next few days!
Meanwhile, I will now go and boil some eggs to make pink pickled eggs. :-)
Though it is still weeks away, we are already planning our semi-traditional Polish Easter basket.
I say “semi” traditional, because we’ve modified some of the contents over the years.
If you’re unfamiliar with a Polish Easter basket, these are filled with symbolic foods to be blessed on Holy Saturday, and eaten on Easter Sunday. The foods include ham, sausage, bacon, bread, cheese, salt, butter, horseradish and eggs. We also include things like olives, vinegar, and olive oil. It may also contain a bottle of wine and a candle. Oh, and sometimes chocolate or candy. The baskets are decorated and covered with lace or embroidered clothes. As a child, Easter was my favourite holiday, and our traditional basket was a big reason for that!
Some of the contents require more advance preparation, and I was able to start on one of those, yesterday. This is a non-traditional way to include the traditional cheese in the basket.
This year, I found some absolutely delightful mini-jars, and decided to make several small jars of marinated goat cheese, but we’ve also done it by layering medallions of goat cheese in a larger jar. Both ways work fine.
It had been my intention to make two baskets this year, with a large family basket for ourselves, and a smaller one for my mother. She declined my offer, and will be making her own basket.
We’re going to have lots extra out of this batch!
To start with, I scalded the tiny jars I bought special for the basket, plus extra pint size jars. Then I prepared the ingredients. The mini-jars have smaller openings, though, so that changed things a bit.
Here we have fresh rosemary leaves and fresh thyme leaves – they came in 28gram packages, and I stripped the leaves from the stems. There are peppercorns and about 8 cloves of garlic, sliced. Not pictured is Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
I completely forgot about the bay leaves. There should have been a bay leaf per jar.
As you can see, this is a forgiving recipe.
The goat cheese came in 300 gram logs; I had 2 of them and cut them each into 4 equal pieces. For the ones to go into the mini-jars, I cut pieces off to try and make them into smaller columns, then gently rolled them between my hands to make them smooth and round.
The first one I tried, promptly crumbed apart. Which is why I have rolled balls of cheese. I broke up each trimmed quarter piece into 4 and formed the smaller pieces into smooth balls.
For the pint sized jars, I didn’t have to be pretty, since they’re not intended for the basket
Each jar got some peppercorns, thyme leaves, garlic and rosemary leaves placed on the bottom. If I’d remembered the bay leaves, they would have gone into the bottom, too. Then the goat cheese gets put into the jars.
This is why I make extras…
I didn’t make one of the small columns of cheese small enough. It got messy. :-D
No worries. It’ll still taste good!
Once the cheese is in, more peppercorns were added, as well as the rest of the thyme, rosemary and garlic slices. Then the olive oil was added.
After the oil was added, the rims were cleaned, the jars sealed, and into the fridge they went.
Next is the hard part; waiting a week before using them!
From the looks of them, I think the balled cheese will be kept for the basket. I do have one non-messy mini-jar with a bigger piece, so I might use one of each. We shall see. The pint jars don’t have to wait for then, though, and I will post pictures, when they are ready. :-)
After marinating for a week, the oil can be drained through a sieve and reserved (the herbs are discarded). It makes for incredibly flavourful oil to use when cooking. The cheese can be served as a spread on bread or crackers, or used any other way you would use goat cheese.
Alternatively, little jars like this can be served as individual appetizers. The jars can be warmed by placing them in a flat bottomed pan with hot water, and placed in a hot oven until heated through. They can then be used as individual servings, eaten straight from the jar.
I intend to put these in our basket, just as they are, without straining them first since the jars are so small. When we made them before, with layers of cheese in a larger jar, we removed the cheese, then put a few pieces into a smaller container with a liquid tight seal. I then covered the cheese with strained oil and closed it up. It made for a nice presentation in the basket. :-)
For those following the orthodox calendars, it’s Christmas Eve, so a joyful Christmas to you!
When the girls were younger, before bed, they would leave their shoes out by their doors with “hay” in them for the wise men’s camels. In the morning, there would be small gifts waiting for them.
We still give them small gifts, and this year was no exception.
After today, we start taking down the tree and decorations.
The old year is slipping by quickly! A time to look back and plan forward.
This blog is not much past a year old, which means I can actually do this: make up a list of the top 10 most popular posts!
The Re-Farmer Top 10 posts of 2018
Let’s start with number 10.
Baby, It’s cold outside! This post is from earlier this month, but managed to make the top 10 list. (It was cold, but not as cold as today!)
And now for something more pleasant. Critter pictures always seem to go over well, and this post from almost a year ago, has some I’m really pleased with.
Cracker Toffee with bacon salt. This one was posted even more recently, but I’m not surprised it made number 8, is so short a time. These things are great!
Brined Turkey with bacon. I’ll be doing another one of these, starting tonight. It’s so good, I not longer do turkey without brining it, first.
Sourdough Rye Bread. This is another one from almost a year ago, and still popular. Mmm… I think, after the holidays are done, it’ll be time to start doing more bread baking again!
As I write this, we are starting to wind down from several busy days. Christmas Day itself, we try to keep more of a quiet affair. The fifth candle of our advent wreath has been lit, we have had our dinner, and it is time to get some rest before we continue with our holiday activities.
I just have to share something I got in the mail today, from a dear friend. She is so hilarious!!!! Check these out!
First, there’s the festive packing tape covering the box itself. Then there was the “snowfall” when it was opened, then there was the array of tiny little gifts for everyone – including treats and a skunk toy for the cats!
The tree and decorations are up. The gifts are wrapped. Aside from those few last things that have to wait for the last minute, we are ready for Christmas.
I am glad we were able to put our tree up this year. We missed out on a lot of that last year, with everything still being in chaos from the movers bringing our stuff over. Most of our ornaments are hand made. One of the things I still need to get back into is the making of new decorations every year. Now that we’re near family again, I want to get back into gifting them again.
Our tree has ornaments we made ourselves over the years, and others that were gifted to us. When the girls were young, as part of home schooling, we took part in something called Flat Travelers, which involved sending a paper doll to visit other families around the world, while hosting some ourselves. They would be returned with mementos of the place they were at, and sometimes that included Christmas ornaments. Almost every ornament on our tree has some sort of connection or story with it, and I love every one!
The Re-Farmer 