Wine Harvest Lunch

9 / 4 / 1412 / 3 / 14

The drought and the warmest temperatures in California’s recorded history have once again brought about an early wine grape harvest all over Ca. From Napa, Sonoma to Paso Robles, Los Olivos in between and even Temecula. Harvest seems to be about 2 weeks ahead of schedule and brix levels are promising another great vintage. Brix levels are measurements used on the grapes to determine the sugar content and helps vineyard management decide when to harvest in an effort the get the ideal balance of flavor and alcohol content in the wine.

The warm temperatures this winter caused an early bud break and great early growth of the vines. Veraison, “the onset of ripening”, is the process where the grapes begin the transition from growth to ripening. Some areas in California actually began harvesting in July, in Paso and parts of Napa for example. After a warm winter and spring, in July and August they have experienced some morning marine influence with warm, windy afternoons that has slowed the grape maturity allowing the gradual development of sugars and acidity for harvest. Many white varietals have been picked and light reds such as Pinots have begun with Merlot and Cabernet to follow. Vintners are looking for another good vintage out of this years harvest. We all look forward to experiencing the 2014 Ca. harvest in the future.

By the time we visit Rangeland Winery & Adelaida Ranch with our Fall Harvest Tour, most grapes will have been picked which is a good thing if it turns out to be true that California expects to experience a moderate El Nino, of course I that would be good for all of California. Expect a few grape clusters perhaps; fall leaves will prevail for our trip making for some excellent photographs. Rangeland is dotted with mighty oaks; laurel, live, blue and valley are growing all over the ranch. During our tour of the ranch Laird will share the history of the Adelaida Ranch, the Salinan Nation and Chumash natives as well as the miners and homesteaders. Lisa and Laird have an extensive collection of Native American tools and artifacts that have been found on the property as well. Late fall you might even glimpse the wild turkeys that can be found all over Paso Robles, hawks, deer, bobcats and even a pair of bald eagles may be spotted. Join us on our late fall tour, we have a few available accommodations left.

This has been our Fall Harvest Tour ‘Windrose Farm Heirloom Tomato Tart’ recipe for many of our farm lunches. Enjoy,

Windrose Farm Tomato Tart

1 recipe pate brisee

1 cup fontina cheese, grated (or more-to your taste)

1/4 cup boursin cheese

1/4 cup mozzarella, shredded

1/4 cup Jarlsberg cheese, shredded

3 medium heirloom tomatoes, sliced

1 tablespoon Parmigiano-Reggiano

salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 400°. Pre-bake the shell according to directions in Pate Brisee recipe. Let cool to room temperature or cool overnight.

Sprinkle with the cooled crust with cheeses.

Arrange the tomatoes in an overlapping circle and season with salt and pepper; sprinkle with Parmigianno-Reggiano.

Bake until the cheese is melted and tomatoes are slightly wilted, about 15 minutes.

Garnish with fresh herb sprigs. Serve room temperature or slightly warmed. Can be served along with a light salad tossed with vinaigrette dressing.

Serves 6

Adapted from ‘What’s In Your Pantry’ by Debbi Dubbs

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

8 / 19 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Store these tomatoes in a jar covered with olive oil, use a lemon olive oil if desired. For a quick appetizer see below.

1 pound Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

1 tablespoon basil, chiffonade

1 teaspoon thyme

1 clove garlic, minced

Preheat the oven to 350∫F. Arrange the tomato halves cut side up and close together on a baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper.

In a bowl, combine olive oil, garlic, and herb. Drizzle over tomatoes and bake until the tomatoes are soft and shriveled but still retain some moisture, about one hour.

Let cool completely. Tomatoes can be stored in a glass jar, cover tomatoes with olive oil, seal and refrigerate.

For sauce: Process in a food processor and warm in a large saute pan.

For a quick appetizer, stuff roasted tomato halves with the following.

Mix together 1 log of goat cheese, 2 Tb. fresh chopped herbs and 1 -2 Tb. of heavy cream.

Mix until goat cheese is soft but not runny.

Spoon or pipe herbed goat cheese onto dried tomato, serve with a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar.

What do you do with all those Tomatoes?

8 / 19 / 1412 / 3 / 14

There are many ways to save your harvest and if you have more tomatoes than you know what to do with here are some ideas.

First and foremost is water bath canning, I love this because it means that I can store tomatoes on the shelf in my pantry for the year. Fairly easy to do but when it’s hot and humid out like it has been this summer FORGET IT!

As many of you already know, I like to freeze my tomatoes also so later when it’s cool I can make sauce or unfreeze and can them to make more room in the freezer for up and coming dinners. Freezing tomatoes is the fastest way to get things done, wash, and dry then freeze on a baking sheet until frozen solid, pop into a freezer bag and you are done for the day! You can remove one or four at a time, whatever you need and as they begin to defrost, which is almost right away, the skin will slip off easily.

My second favorite is to make Oven Roasted Tomatoes, although it does require having the oven on for some length of time. I love to dry my cherry tomatoes and then float them in a good olive oil and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 months. Chopped in a salad, in a bruschetta or top on a pizza, they pack a flavorful punch. Fill up your baking sheet and get started right away!

Oven Roasted Tomato Recipe

Great Pepper Cookbook

8 / 4 / 1412 / 4 / 14

Do you know how to cook with peppers? Would you like to learn more about peppers? When you think about peppers do you automatically think peppers are hot? Depending on where a person grew up you’ve either had experience with peppers or you didn’t, I didn’t. I just found the right book to learn about how to incorporate peppers into my dishes. “The Great Pepper Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing and Cooking with Peppers,” from the team at Melissa’s Produce and it is filled with all kinds of great information.

Seasonally inspiring and timed just right for the upcoming summer pepper season the book offers insight into how and when to use fresh or dried peppers or how to exchange the two. What the heck is The Scoville Scale (it determines the heat unit of a pepper) and is loaded with tasty recipes for any palate. From breakfast to dessert and drinks, you can learn to appreciate peppers in a new light.

One of my favorite dishes from the book are the Crab Cake Sandwiches using the flavorful Shishito pepper which is kind of new on the food scene. A sweet and mild small pepper that’s perfect to throw on the grill as a side with steak or chicken also. The book is filled with pictures and information on a large variety of peppers and if you’d like to get your hands on a copy or learn more from the Melissa Team they will be doing a demonstration and book signing this summer at Rancho los Alamitos in Long Beach. Sign up for this event before it sells out and come by to try some of the Melissa Teams tasty recipes. If you miss out on tickets to this event, you can always pick up a book on Melissa’s website, www.melissas.com
For information on the Rancho Los Alamitos event follow this link, http://rancholosalamitos.com/events/2014_pepper_workshop/index.html

What To Do with all those Luscious Summer Peaches!

7 / 30 / 1412 / 4 / 14

Oh all those beautiful rosy peaches from the farmers market! They smell like summer and I don’t know about you but I wait all year for them to show up!
I have a peach tree but that in no way yields enough peaches to satisfy my sweet tooth. Seasonal peaches are available in California from June to Sept.. Peaches from other parts of the world are usually picked hard and mostly premature and will never develop that sweet summer flavor.

The following is part of the prologue to David Mas Masumoto’s book ‘Epitaph for a Peach’, he is talking about the Sun Crest peach but I think it reflects all good peaches. “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit. Your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh and the juices trickle down your cheeks and dangle on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived. “ That sounds like a juicy summer peach to me, what about you?

Choose peaches that yield slightly to pressure, hard fruit isn’t ripe and though it will get softer, it won’t get tastier. Peaches need to develop flavor and sweetness while still hanging on the tree, color will vary with peach varieties but avoid peaches that show any sign of green. Smell the peach for sweetness and you’ll be fine.

Peaches should be kept at room temperature until soft and then refrigerated but don’t wait too long to eat them or they’ll over ripen.

I find it pretty easy to peel a ripe peach with a sharp paring knife or you can blanch in boiling water for a few seconds, don’t over do or you’ll start to cook the fruit flesh.

Here’s my favorite cobbler recipe that I pieced together from two different recipes that I love. One from my favorite boysenberry pie and the cobbler batter from Marcy Masumoto’s ‘French Peach Cobbler’ recipe in the Masumoto Families new book, The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from The Masumoto Family Farm.

Peach Cobbler

Filling

4          cups peeled, chopped fresh peaches
1 cup sugar, approximately
¼ cup cornstarch
pinch sea salt
1          teaspoon cinnamon
1/3      cup Grand Marnier
1          tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Batter

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3      cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
2          tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1          egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter a 9” square baking pan and set aside.

Filling:

Add peaches to a medium sized bowl and toss gently with sugar. Depending on how sweet the peaches are, add more or less sugar.

In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch, sea salt, cinnamon and Grand Marnier. Toss the peaches with the cornstarch mixture and lemon juice.

Add the filling to the prepared pan.

Batter:

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and sea salt, mix well. Add the butter and egg, stir together until the batter is smooth.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto the fruit mixture and bake 40 – 45 minutes or until bubbly and golden.

Remove from oven and cool before serving.

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

6 / 29 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Photo from Central Coast Lavender

Makes about 50 cookies

1 tablespoon dried lavender blossoms

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 ½ cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons heavy cream (or 1 egg whisked with a little water)

extra lavender sugar for sprinkling on top

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Set aside.

In a small spice grinder (I use my cleaned out coffee grinder) to grind up 1 tablespoon lavender and 1 tablespoon sugar. Grind it up! You could also use a mortar and pestle to grind the sugar and lavender together.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment add butter, ground lavender mixture, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Cream on medium speed until slightly more pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Stop the mixer and add the flour, mix on low speed until dough comes together. The dough will be crumbly, then begin to form when it continues to mix. Dump dough mixture out onto a clean surface and form into a ball with your hands. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Divide refrigerated dough into quarters. On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough out to a 1/4-inch thickness. Use a 1 1/2-inch round cookie cutter to cut cookies, or use a pizza cutter to slice cookies into squares. Use a fork to prick cookies. Brush very lightly with cream or egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Refrigerate cookies while oven preheats.

Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 350° .

When oven is preheated, bake cookies for 8 to 11 minutes, until just browned around the edges. Remove from oven. Allow cooling on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes then removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies last, in an airtight container at room temperature, for up to 4 days.

adapted slightly from Party Like a Culinista

Gazpacho with Avocado

6 / 25 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Gazpacho

Serves 2-4

1 small red onion
2 small cucumbers
2 ribs celery
1 small jalapeno, optional
1 roasted red bell pepper
6 medium tomatoes
1 cup French bread, cut into cubes and soaked in a little water
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 lemon, zested
1 Tablespoon lemon juice, to taste
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ Hass avocado, chopped

Rough chop the vegetables and add to a blender, for a chunkier texture process in a food processor instead of a blender.

Squeeze the water from the French bread cubes and add to a blender along with the vegetables. Add olive oil and vinegar and blend to a puree. Season with salt, pepper (if needed), lemon juice, zest and Worcestershire sauce. Refrigerate over night for best flavor.

To serve, check for seasoning again before pouring into a bowl. Garnish the top of the soup with the chopped avocado.

Goes very well with a nicely toasted slice of cheesy garlic bread.

How To Peppers

6 / 11 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Do you know how to cook with peppers? Would you like to learn more about peppers? When you think about peppers do you automatically think peppers are hot? Depending on where a person grew up you’ve either had experience with peppers or you didn’t, I didn’t. I just found the right book to learn about how to incorporate peppers into my dishes. “The Great Pepper Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing and Cooking with Peppers,” from the team at Melissa’s Produce and it is filled with all kinds of great information.

The book is filled with pictures and information on a large variety of peppers and if you’d like to get your hands on a copy or learn more from the Melissa Team they will be doing a demonstration and book signing this summer at Rancho los Alamitos in Long Beach. Sign up for this event before it sells out and come by to try some of the Melissa Teams tasty recipes. If you miss out on tickets to this event, you can always pick up a book on Melissa’s website, www.melissas.com

For information on the Rancho Los Alamitos event follow this link, Rancho Pepper Workshop

Boysenberry Tart

5 / 30 / 1412 / 3 / 14

Pastry:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 pinch salt
6 Tablespoon Unsalted butter, cold
1 Egg yolk, slightly whisked
1 Tablespoon Lemon juice
Filling:
3 Tablespoon Cornstarch
1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier, or more if needed
3/4 cup Sugar
1 cup boysenberries or more as needed

Pastry:
In large bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt. With pastry blender or food processor, cut in butter until it resembles tiny peas. Mix together egg yolk, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon water; sprinkle over flour mixture. Stirring with fork, add a little more water if necessary to hold dough together. Using hands, gently shape pastry into ball. Press dough 1/8″ thick into flan pan. Refrigerate while making filling.

Filling:
Preheat oven to 425°.
In small saucepan, stir together Grand Marnier & cornstarch till smooth. Stir in sugar. Add boysenberries and cook, stirring, over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes or till thickened.

Let cool; spoon into shell, filling no more than 2/3 full. Bake in 425° oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350° and bake 15 minutes longer or till pastry is golden brown. Let cool 15 minutes before removing to rack.

Ojai Pixie Tangerines

3 / 4 / 1412 / 4 / 14

There is nothing as sweet and juicy as an Ojai Pixie Tangerine! Unfortunately they are in season for such a short time, you’ll find them available only until the end of April, if you’re lucky!
Sometimes Pixie tangerines can be difficult to find but you can order direct from Melissa’s Produce website (click here).

Here is a great winter salad featuring the best of the Ojai Pixie’s, enjoy during this short season.

Blue Cheese Tangerine-Apple Walnut Salad with
Dried Cranberries

Serves 4
¼ cup pomegranate vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt and pepper, to taste

1 bunch baby spinach leaves
1 apple, peeled, cored and diced into large chunks
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
2 tablespoons toasted walnuts
3 tangerines — peeled and sectioned

For the dressing:
In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard and olive oil; season with salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly toss the spinach with enough dressing to coat leaves; place onto individual plates or a platter. Garnish with apples, cranberries, nuts and tangerine sections. Serve extra dressing on the side.

Peaches

6 / 4 / 1312 / 4 / 14

Oh all those beautiful rosy peaches from the farmers market! They smell like summer and I don’t know about you but I wait all year for them to show up!
I have a peach tree but that in no way yields enough peaches to satisfy my sweet tooth. Seasonal peaches are available in California from June to Sept. Peaches from other parts of the world are usually picked hard and mostly premature and will never develop that sweet summer flavor.

The following is part of the prologue to David Mas Masumoto’s book ‘Epitaph for a Peach’, he is talking about the Sun Crest peach but I think it reflects all good peaches. “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit. Your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh and the juices trickle down your cheeks and dangle on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived. “

Choose peaches that yield slightly to pressure, hard fruit isn’t ripe and though it will get softer, it won’t get tastier. Peaches need to develop flavor and sweetness while still hanging on the tree, color will vary with peach varieties but avoid and peaches that show any sign of green. Smell the peach for sweetness and you’ll be fine.

Peaches should be kept at room temperature until soft and then refrigerated but don’t wait too long to eat them or they’ll over ripen.

I find it pretty easy to peel a ripe peach with a sharp paring knife or you can blanch in boiling water for a few seconds, don’t over do or you’ll start to cook the fruit flesh.

Here’s my favorite cobbler recipe that I pieced together from two different recipes that I use. One from my favorite boysenberry pie and the cobbler batter from Marcy Masumoto’s ‘French Peach Cobbler’ recipe from The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from The Masumoto Family Farm.

Debbi’s Peach Cobbler recipe