Hello 2012!!!

Coming soon....Lots of new posts!! Food and wine pairings! Recipes! Cooking and baking tips! Pictures! Fun and inspiring ideas for all food lovers!

Kitchen Inspirations

Prairie Berry chefs Maija and Heidi find inspiration for their cooking everywhere from West Coast wine bars to family kitchens to the Food Network.  Though they may borrow ideas, one thing’s for sure in the Prairie Berry Kitchen…they always change up the ingredients and put their own unique twist on a recipe. 

One famous chef we like here at PBW is Ina Garten. The Barefoot Contessa’s recipes are sometimes used as a springboard for featuring local ingredients before adapting it to our own style of heritage cooking. The following recipe is from The Barefoot Contessa, Back to Basics cookbook (Clarkson Potter, 2008) and although it’s not one we’ve done a riff on here at PB, it is reminiscent of the type of dish you’re likely to encounter at one of our winter bistros or private events.

The recipe is for chicken, but you could easily use pheasant, grouse, or wild turkey instead.  Serve it in bowls  with  some crusty bread and a bottle of PB’s Phat Hogg Red. Don't skip the Rouille....it is a truly delicious addition.

Chicken Bouillabaisse with Rouille

 Serves 4

1  4-5 lb chicken

salt and pepper

1 T minced rosemary

Good olive oil

1 large head garlic

1 tsp saffron threads

1 tsp whole fennel seeds

1  15oz can tomato puree

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 cup dry white wine (such as Phat Hogg Chardonnay)

3 T Pernod

1 lb baby Yukon Gold potatoes

Rouille for serving (recipe follows)

Season chicken with salt, pepper, and rosemary. Heat 2 T oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.Brown chicken in batches, 5-7 minutes per batch. Transfer to plate, set aside.

Lower heat to medium low and add garlic, saffron, fennel, puree, stock, wine, Pernod, salt and pepper.  Stir and scrape up browned bits on bottom and simmer 30-40 minutes, until garlic is tender. Stir occasionally.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Puree contents of Dutch oven until smooth. Return sauce to pan, add potatoes and chicken with juices. Stir carefully. Cover and bake 45-55 minutes until potatoes are tender and chicken is done. Check seasonings and serve hot in shallow bowls with a big dollops of Rouille and bread

Rouille (makes 1 cup)

4 large garlic cloves, chopped and mixed with 1 1/2 tsp salt

1 extra large egg yolk, room temperature

1 1/2 T fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/2 tsp saffron threads

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup good quality olive oil

Using a food processor, process all but oil until smooth. With machine running, pour oil in a smooth, steady stream to make a thick emulsion. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Fezziwig's Sticky Toffee Pudding

We are taking a deep breath from the latest and greatest Fezziwig Festival to date. This year we continued to move closer to an authentic 1840's experience that even Charles Dickens would be proud of. One of the biggest hits at the food stations was an English-style sticky toffee pudding which is really a cross between a pudding and a cake topped with a delicious caramel sauce. The phones are ringing every day with requests for the recipe, so Chef Heidi agreed to share it just in time for the holidays.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

1 cup + 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour          1 tsp baking powder

¾ cup pitted dates                                   1 ¼ cups boiling water

1 tsp baking soda                                      ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup granulated sugar                           1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla                                               3/4 Tbsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg                                         1/4 tsp cloves

Toffee Sauce:

½ cup unsalted butter                            ½ cup heavy cream

1 cup packed light brown sugar            1 cup heavy cream, whipped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a ten-inch round or square baking dish. Sift baking powder and flour and set aside. Chop dates finely and put in a small bowl. Add boiling water and soda to dates and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until blended. Gradually beat into flour mixture. Add date mix to the batter and fold in with a rubber spatula until blended.  Pour into prepared baking dish. Bake until pudding is set and firm on top, about 35 minutes then set aside on a wire rack.

For the sauce: Combine butter, ½ cup heavy cream and brown sugar in a small, heavy saucepan. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil gently over medium low heat until mixture is thickened, about 8 minutes. Preheat broiler. Spoon 1/3 of the sauce over pudding and spread evenly. Place pudding under broiler until the top bubbles, about 1 minute. Spoon into dessert bowls, drizzle with toffee sauce and top with a dollop of whipped cream and serve immediately.

Pumpkin and Apple Soup

Our first Harvest Dinner on October 23 was a great success. Guests raved about all the dishes, but the most-requested recipe by far was the pumpkin -apple soup, so the Kitchen Mouse is sharing it with you!
Remember, our chefs don't use exact measurements, so you'll have to taste and adjust...just like they do!

Pumpkin and Apple Soup

Serves 6

1 large pumpkin

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

4 C peeled Granny Smith apples

5 C vegetable stock

1 C heavy cream

1/2 tsp each: ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, paprika

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut pumpkin open and scrape out seeds and stringy fiber. Cut into chunks, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Place cut sides up in a shallow baking dish and roast 45 minutes or until tender. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Heat 2 T oil in a soup pot and add the garlic and onion and saute until golden. Add diced apple, 41/2 C stock and spices. Cover and simmer gently about 10 minutes or until apples are soft.

Puree the pumpkin in a food processor with remaining half cup of vegetable stock until smooth. Transfer to a bowl while you puree the apple/onion mixture. Transfer both purees back to the soup pot and stir. Add cream. If the soup is too thick, you can add more cream.

Bring the soup to a simmer and cook over low heat about 5-10 more minutes, or until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve. You can also cool the soup and reheat it later. 

We garnished it with browned butter and roasted, spiced pumpkin seeds, but it's just as good without.



The Kitchen Mouse

by Karsi Grego

Greetings from the Prairie Berry Kitchen Mouse*! Now wait a minute, I hear you saying, Prairie Berry has mice? No, of course not. We actually received 100% on our last health inspection, a fact we’re proud to share. So a real mouse, I am not. I do however have the vantage point of a mouse in the Prairie Berry Kitchen. I observe, learn from, and even assist our wonderful Chefs, Maija and Heidi. They’re the Big Cheeses in this kitchen. I hear their collaborations, get to input some ideas of my own, and even score a nibble when they pair our wines with a new menu item. So think of me as the mouse in the corner, scampering around the kitchen and collecting bits of information to share with you. This month’s topic-Recipes!
From the steady stream of emails and phone calls we receive from our faithful guests, one thing is abundantly clear: you really like our food! There is no better measure of our success than the positive feedback we continually hear from you. Thank you! Our passion for creating the best food we can, and in pairing it with the excellent wine our winemaker produces, drives us to always work towards improvement and to continually try new things. We get a lot of recipe requests, a compliment for certain, but a challenge as well. You see, we don’t actually have very many recipes. That may seem odd to some, but for anyone who has had the pleasure to prepare meals with the kind of ingredients we source from our local growers such as Gregson Gardens, or local meat producers such as Wild Idea Buffalo, amongst others, you know the “recipe” simply celebrates the ingredients on hand.
Our soups may reflect this better than anything else. A perennial favorite Tomato Basil starts with a heap of fresh tomatoes, drizzled in olive oil, sprinkled with coarse salt and pepper and slow roasted in the oven until sweet and melt in your mouth soft. Onions and garlic simmer while the tomatoes roast. Once blended together, stock, a touch of cream, and handfuls of fresh basil finish the soup. Taste and adjust. Done! In fact all of our food is approached in this way. Start with the best ingredients we can find (local, organic if possible.) Prepare. Mix in flavors to compliment. Taste. Adjust seasoning. Serve!
Because we cook this way, sharing all of our recipes is not something we’re able to do, but we do offer some of our favorites whenever we can. One way of receiving recipes is to join our fabulous wine club. There is no charge. You simply pay for the wine and shipping fee and in addition to that you receive a generous discount, invitations to member only events and a newsletter that features a few recipes each time. Every time the newsletter comes out, we dust off our measuring cups and spoons and try to figure out just how much of each ingredient we actually use to make our creations. The usual kitchen response to “how much _____ (ingredient) do I add?” is “enough.” And “how long does it cook?” “Until it’s done.” Unless you always cook this way, it can seem impossible, but it seems to work for us.
This blog will be a second way to receive our recipes. Respond to this post with your favorite Prairie Berry menu item. At the end of the month, we’ll tally them up and the most popular item will be featured. We’ll have our measuring spoons ready and waiting! Thanks for coming to eat and drink with us! Hope to see you again soon- TKM (The Kitchen Mouse)

* No actual mice were involved in, nor harmed in the creation of this blog. Any resemblance to a real mouse, dead or alive, is purely coincidental. The use of a mouse as the writer’s voice is simply our attempt at being cute, clever and funny. Please attempt to be amused. Ratatouille has nothing on us.