Cape Ann Fresh Catch CAFC caught aboard "F/V Kenneth Duncan" "Sauté Yellow Tail Flounder Marsala with Fresh Chives"

Wash, Pat Dry,
and Dredge Filets with Flour

Heat a Mixture of Butter and Olive Oil in a Cast Iron Skillet

I worked two cast iron pans

Saute on Med High Heat

Yellowtail Flounder Filets

Chopped Fresh Chives

Flip the Fish Filets when brown on one side

Find a good Marsala Wine

Add Chives and Marsala Wine and Serve Immediately

Served with Basmati Brown Rice, Fresh Green Beans, and Corn

In Gloucester, MA where I live we have a bonanza of Fresh Seafood Options. One of the best initiatives in recent years is CAFC or Cape Ann Fresh Catch. Basically you sign up to buy fish in advance for several weeks of a season. I signed up for the Late Spring Early Summer Season which is a 7 week program. Every Thursday afternoon you pick up the fish at Turners Seafood , every Thursday afternoon between 3pm and 6pm. The emphasis is on locally caught sustainable fish. You have an option of getting 4lbs of unfileted fish or 2 lbs of filets. There are some other options for certain dietary restrictions but you can check out the website for that. This is my first time trying the Community Supported Fishery initative and I have to say it was extremely fresh and high quality fish. We picked the filets option so I froze one lbs of the Yellow tail and cooked up the other lb tonight and this is how I did it. The fish melted like butter in our mouths it was so delicious and tender! Paired with fresh vegetables and brown basmati rice, very healthy too!

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Gloucester is such a beautiful place to live!

Happy Fishing and Happy Cooking! Melissa

Parisian Sourdough Bread Adventure

Making Sourdough Bread 

with Parisian Sourdough Starter

RECIPE - makes 2 loaves

1 cup PARISIAN sourdough starter (I followed the instructions and allowed several days to grow the culture)
1.5 c. warm water
2 c. unbleached flour
1/4 c. honey (I used my own from backyard hives)

I mixed this together with my mixer and placed in
a covered glass casserole dish overnight 12+ hours in warm place

Culture I used from www.culturesforhealth.com

Sponge made with 2 c. flour
 1 c. starter, and 1.5 c. warm water,
and 1/4 c. honey 

after the sponge has rested and grown overnight, mix in a little at a time 5 c. flour, 1/4 c. warm water, 5 tbsp soft butter, and 1 tsp. salt. I kneaded with a kitchen aid mixer and dough hook but you can do it by hand too. I added enough flour until I had a soft and pliable dough and then I let it rise in the bowl in a warm place for another 1+ hours before dividing it and slightly kneading it and then letting two balls sit and rest for 15 minutes.

Bread after Baking

Resting

I prepared my cast iron pans by heating them till warm in the oven (not hot) and sprinkling some corn meal on them. You can use a pizza stone but I decided cast iron would be fairly good too. I placed the loaves on top of the cornmeal on warmed cast iron pan.

I brushed on some melted butter

I slashed a Cross knife cut as I have seen
 on many European Loaves

Then I let rise in warm place for 1 hour. I did not cover them. I figured the melted butter was a cover and I put them in the warm but not turned on oven so it was like how they rise bread in France in a box affair they use there.

When it was time to bake, I preheated oven to 400 degrees. I placed a dish of hot water on oven floor for moisture. This makes the crust crustier.
Then I popped the pans on to the racks. After 12 minutes I switched racks as the bottom was rising and getting bigger and the top was getting browner on top. This is something I have to do with my oven and I do it with Pizza and other breads I make with the cast iron pans. Then I baked for a total of 25 minutes. The bread smelled incredible while it was baking!!

The Crumb and Crust is Amazing and
no strong flavor to the Sourdough

Happy Baking,

Melissa

Parisian Sour Dough Pancakes

I bought some Parisian Sour Dough Culture online from Cultures for Health. They have several varieties of Sour Dough Cultures but I chose Parisian Sour Dough Starter.

I had tried making Sour Dough many years ago but failed. I don't think I had the right instructions and cultures to get it going successfully. I was super excited to hear that you could buy Authentic Heirloom variety cultures to use.

A couple of Sour Dough Memories: I have fond memories of eating Sour Dough bread in many places in my travels but the breads that I remember the most are the really tangy and strong sour doughs of the San Francisco Region in California. Delicious toasted, for sandwiches, a very particular and lovely taste.

I also remember a big round Sour Dough loaf baked on the north of Ibiza an island in the Baleric Islands I had the good fortune to spend some time living in an Ibizican Finca in SanVisente. The name of the Finca was Can Rey and it had solid think white stucco walls, tiled floors, and dark rafters. Surrounded by almond orchards and a near by dry river bed filled with blackberries in August. the valley was bisected by a road thru the middle and age old farms on terraced almond and olive orchards staggering up on either side. The ancient people here has goats, sheep, and chickens at their farms but also fennel and rosemary bushes everywhere. The earth there is red dirt and all the roads were red dirt roads. The baker in the valley had supposedly committed suicide by hanging himself in his cistern but his wife still baked this incredible big round loaf of Sour Dough for people in the valley. I bought the bread at a little local variety store which sold a few things like olive oil, salt, shampoo, toothpaste, bread, coffee, milk ,mânchego cheese, and tea. A very small store with a few shelves. The bread was magnificent. The taste was earthy, surprising, and almost like big bubbled silk in texture with a crusty brown crust. When you sliced it, it was an enormous oblong slice. I practically lived on this bread and I would toast it under a gas stove broiler and eat it with whatever toppings were on hand such as olive oil and salt,peanut butter, jams, butter, or cheese. With a cup of tea it could be any meal of the day. I remember boiling big pots of herbal tea from the fennel and rosemary which grew everywhere and what I didn't drink, I rinsed my hair in after washing it with the worst shampoo I had ever used sold in the same little store as the bread. I always associate sour dough bread with the smell of rosemary boiling in a pot on the gas stove. If you boil it, the oils come out of the stalks and that's what made a good hair rinse.

The Beach or Playa at San Vicente, Ibiza, Baleric Islands

All if this was a very long time ago when I was quite young, about 20 so forty years ago. Anyway, the idea of recreating some sourdough in my own home sort of brings me back to my time in Ibiza.

The Process:
Part if getting the sour dough going us a series of feeding and proofing the cultures over a period of days. You are supposed to take small amounts of the proofing sour dough culture and feed it with more flour and water. Because of this process, which I am in the midst of, there is leftover sour dough culture. I decided to make some sour dough pancakes with some of this discard as my first sour dough project. Apparently I have several more cycles of feeding the culture on a daily basis before I build up enough bubbly mojo sourdough starter to actually bake some bread. So yes, this is only the beginning of my sour dough adventures 40 years after eating thus amazing bread on the Island of Ibiza.

The Parisian Sour Dough Batter

Getting my Cast Iron Pans Set Up

Parisian Sour Dough Culture Proofing in Excalibur Dehydrator
Notice the little line, I put that there when I 1st fed the culture
 and in a short time it grew beyond it

RECIPE:
Makes 8-9 pancakes enough for 2 people, double or triple the recipe if you have more Sour Dough Starter to use up and more people to feed!
1 c. Sourdough Starter
1 Egg
3 Tbsp. Honey
3+ Tbsp. Coconut Milk (can us Reg. Milk)
1 scant tsp Baking Powder (optional but makes fluffier)
Olive Oil to brush on Cast Iron Pans or Griddle

Mix together all the ingredients together and the amount of Coconut Milk you use is dependent on the thickness of your Sour Dough Starter. Heat the Griddle or Frying Pan  to a med-hot range. Not too hot, not to cold but just right. Cook each side till golden brown. You will notice the that second side gets really bubbly and rises a bit when you flip. I keep plates warmed in the oven at 200 degrees and as each pancake is done I place in oven on warmed plate until ready to serve. I like to serve my pancakes hot and I do everything for them not to get cold before serving.

Served with sliced fresh strawberries, heated genuine maple syrup, and creamery butter. You can serve with any toppings you like and you can omit the butter and they are just as light and fluffly and delicious as can be. A very slight but delicious tang taste and coupled with the sweetness of the honey from my own backyard hives, a real treat!

Pancake starting to bubble up

Flipped, nice and brown and bubbly

Close up of the leavening bubbles - excellent!!

On my Wish List: As soon as I get the Parisian Starter fed and up and going, I will do a post on Sour Dough Bread but until that time this is my beginning process in the world of Sour Dough!

I bought my Sour Dough Culture online at: www.culturesforhealth.com

Happy Sour Dough Making,

Melissa

Blacksmith Shop, Rockport, MA Pineapple Upside Down Cake Baked in a Cast Iron Skillet

The very first thing you do is melt
1/3 c. butter in the cast iron pan

Add 1 c. brown sugar to butter and
pineapple rings with some
freshly cracked pecans

The Blacksmith Shop Restaurant was run by my grandparents from 1929-1972 in Rockport, MA. This recipe comes from my Grandmother Melissa C. Smith's collection from that time period. This was a popular dessert in the 1950's and many remember the marchino cherries used as decoration in the 
middle of the pineapple rings. In my grandmother's recipe she calls for either Cherries or pecans. Since Charlie and I had stopped and bought several pounds of pecans at Abbott Farms in South Carolina 2 weeks ago, I decided it was pecans for tonights cake. In addition, I used a cast iron frying pan my mother-in-law Priscilla Abbott insisted I take after she bought an induction range several years ago. It is my favorite pan now. I always think of her when I use it.

Pecans we bought in S.C.
At Abbott Farms

RECIPE

PINEAPPLE UPSIDEDOWN CAKE IN CAST IRON SKILLET

Melt 1/3 c. of butter in a heavy cast iron frying pan; blend in 1 c. brown sugar. Place drained pineapple slices into the mixture.  Cok for a couple of minutes on simmer.Garnish with pecans or marchino cherries if you wish. Turn down to low or off while making cake.

Cake:
Soften with a wooden spoon 1/3 c. butter. Add gradually 1/2 c. sugar and 1/4 c. pineapple juice. Separate the 2 eggs, add egg yolks to the butter mixture; Beat Egg whites in mixer until stiff, adding 1/4 c. sugar during the beating to make egg whites nice and stiff. Sift 3x 1 3/4 c. flour, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 2 tsp. baking powder. Add dry ingredients and alternate with 1/2 c. milk with 2 tsp. vanilla in it. If cake batter is too stiff, add more pineapple juice. Beat well but do not stir. Carefully fold in egg whites. Cover the hot pineapple, butter, and brown sugar mixture in the cast iron pan with the cake batter. Bake in 350-375 degree oven for 40-50 minutes. Take out and let cool. I make sure I loosen around the edges with a knife while the cake is cooling. Find a nice extra large round plate and invert the cake onto it. Serve slices with freshly whipped cream.  You might want to put the whipped cream on the side so as to show off the beautiful glazed pineapple. 

Pour the cake batter right on top of the
sizzling pineapple slice mixture
 in the cast iron pan

When it comes out of the oven it looks like this
 and it smells heavenly!

After you invert on to a large round
plate the cake has a wonderful glaze 

Serve with freshly whipped cream!
Old Fashioned but still delightful!

This recipe is on page 23 of my book of Historic collection of Cape Ann Recipes in
"The Legacy of Three Melissas"

Springtime Honey Fruit Nut Flax Crackers made in Excalibur Dehydrator and Vitamix

1. Soak 1 cup whole flax seeds in 

1 cup water for several hours

2.Grind in dry container of Vita Mix 1 additional cup flax seeds and turn into flax meal

Mix with 1/4 cup sunflower seeds 1/2 c pumpkin seeds 1/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup dried cranberries, 2 Tbsp Chia Seeds, 2-3 Tbsp Honey, 1/2 cup chopped raw almonds

Mix together well and with a spatula spread thinly on two para flex sheets for dehydrating

 Put into Dehydrator  big huge flattened pancake of mixture ontp Paraflex Sheets and dry in your Dehydrator at 135 degrees for 6-7 hours and then turn down to low and dehydrate on low temperature overnight or for 7-9 more hours.

Take big hardened pancake off of Paraflex Sheets and cut into squares with Pizza Cutter and turn upside down on Paraflex sheets and pop  little cracker squares back into the dehydrator for 2-3 more hours until completely dried out. Should be crispy!

Returning the dried and cut cracker squares to Dehydrator for a few more hours.
I have turned every cracker upside down

DONE!

I keep in a cookie jar on the counter for snacks. Very filling, good for you and Delicious!

These crackers are so expensive to buy in the store. I bought a small package once and it cost $7! It was no where near as good as I can prepare at home. I really love my Excalibur Dehydrator. It is one of the best investments ever!!

Happy Dehydrating!

Melissa