Sugaring Time: Maple Caramelized Onion and Bacon Pie

Here is a Vermont version of a classic Tarte Flambée, or Flammkuche, depending on where you're from.  This is a thin, crisp crust topped with creme fraiche, lardons, and onions.  I have changed it up by using caramelizing the onions, using smoky, intense Vermont bacon, fresh rosemary, a bit of my own cheese and......maple syrup.

Sugaring Time: Elk Medallions with Maple-Cassis reduction

It's that time again.

This weekend, sugar houses around Vermont welcome visitors to experience the wonder that is maple syrup.   It's on my mind.  Our gallon, purchased from the shuttle bus driver up in Lebanon last year, is getting low.  Low to me is less than half a bottle, as it turns out.  Ample excuse for driving from sugar house to sugar house this weekend, sampling. 

There are three kinds of Grade A syrup, but I like Grade B, which is dark, with a pronounced maple flavor.  Don't bother with the more expensive Grade A, which is very much lighter and milder.  Not the same thing at all.  Keep in mind that people in Vermont originally sweetened everything with syrup, so the mild kind was prized. 

This recipe is the first of several I've been considering for maple syrup.   I wanted to complement local farm-raised elk medallions with flavors that would balance and hold their own with maple.
I've used Vermont Cassis from Putney Mountain Winery, to provide a suprisingly appropriate and delicious counterpoint.  Enjoy!

Almost Spring: Peach and Blackberry Clafouti

When the going gets tough, the tough make Clafouti.

Taking a break from the cheesemaking, it occurred to me that all of the fruits I canned last fall need to be used up before next fall.... and we haven't made much of a dent.   I've given some away, used some, but there are still a lot of jars downstairs.  I think that things reproduce in my basement; cardboard boxes, mismatched glassware, irresistible items from IKEA, skis.... there are just more all the time.

But you never know when you're going to need these things.  Recently our power went out for 4 days, and I was glad we had the big box of half-burnt candles, the various candlesticks, the generator, and the extension cords.   And of course the peaches.

My new cheese: Hawks Mountain

I like this cheese so much that I named it!
I've been waiting five months for this; it's the result of my quest to make a mountain cheese, or at least my idea of a mountain cheese.  It's rugged on the outside, but tender and delicious on the inside.  This morning, I gave it the omelette test with local araucana eggs, and it passed with flying colors!

The Winter Gruyere's Tale

If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

It's late winter in Vermont and I'm making Gruyere.   Much of the snow is gone, and sugaring has begun in earnest.  Mud season is upon us.  

Sourdough Redux, part 2: Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits

Here is another nice way to use extra sourdough starter, particularly if you have a dog.  These treats are quick to make, use ingredients you probably have, and are gratifyingly well-received.  

Raclette

Ah Raclette.  It's a cheese, and it's what you call dinner when serving this cheese, melted and scraped from the wheel.  (The word raclette is from the French racler, "to scrape".) 

There is something aesthetically perfect about Raclette, which is hard to pin down.  The cheese is firm, but not hard; balanced in flavor, and with superb melting characteristics.  Excess calcium is rinsed out with clear water before pressing, to keep the curd tender.  I age this cheese for four months, with regular brine washings.