Knit Think

Friday food

I'm on a bender now. I'm set to prove that you can find good places to eat and drink in the suburbs. One of these days I'm going to take a field trip to Blaine, where I hear there are all kinds of fun food things happening.

But today, I'm going to talk about a place that opened near me in Chanhassen late last year, and I'm so glad it did.

 

School of the Wise II. This is the younger sibling of the Victoria School of the Wise, and it's just what Chanhassen needed. Coffee shop and cafe by day:

   

Wine bar with live music by night.

 

Isn't it lovely? It feels upscale without being pretentious.

But of course, beautiful surroundings aren't worth much if you can't get a good meal, at least in my opinion. And that's where SOTW shines.

 

Roasted tomato soup, available every day, along with a soup-of-the-day.

The sandwiches are just about to die for. I've tried most of them, and loved them all. This was particularly yummy:

 

The reuben (yes, I had reubens two weeks in a row, so what?), loaded with corned beef and sauerkraut on marble bread. I just love a cafe that understands you need lots of sauerkraut. I hate when I order a reuben somewhere, and it comes with just a couple of little strings, looking like a combover on the meat. Corned beef demands sauerkraut.

There are also pizzas on the menu, and salads. Service is friendly and accommodating--I had the audacity to once order the Spa Salad (mixed greens, apples, pecans, dried cranberries, lemon vinaigrette) and asked to have them hold the blue cheese. I know, I know--I really can't even pretend to be a foodie when I don't like blue cheese. And I have been places where the servers had a hard time not rolling their eyes at that request. But no one at SOTW made fun of me. I could even do that again. And would, because it's so good.

There's live music several nights a week. So take your pick: breakfast, lunch, dinner, late night. It's all good, baby.

Non-food photos courtesy of photographer Bobi Murray.

Friday food

Happy Friday!

But before we get onto the food festivities, I have one more Jane Austen item. Alert reader Anne sent me this link. Clearly I need to get my hands on one.

Today's food is brought to you courtesy of Voyageur Press, which gave me permission to reprint recipes from this book, which I highly recommend. Not only is a lovely book chock full of great recipes, but it has a tasty dish from one of my favorite restaurants: Hell's Kitchen. And so, without further ado, I give you--not one--but two recipes. And I bet one of them will surprise you.

Here's our cast of characters.

 

First we're going to make sausage. Yes! From scratch! It's quite easy. You just mix together all of the above, and voila! Sausage!

 

If you want, you can stop there, make patties, and fry 'em up. But heck--there's so much more you can do with sausage. Why quit when you're about to get way ahead?

 

Toast up some walnuts. Oh, and brew some dark-roast coffee while you're at it. If you're thinking ahead, you could just buy a cup at your local coffee provider.

 

While the walnuts are toasting, take some of your sausage meat, add the coffee and some dried blueberries or currants. Blend them slowly together, then add eggs. The toasted walnuts join in the fun.

Bet you can't guess what's next.

Flour. Sugar. Lots of sugar. Baking powder AND baking soda. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.

Didn't see that coming, did you!

 

We're making bread! (food safety note--don't let your kids lick the mixer accessories, even though it looks kinda like chocolate at this point. Although it doesn't taste like chocolate. Which could make it pretty funny if someone did a little tasting...)

 

Yup--you can make bread with sausage. And the funny thing is, if you didn't know there was sausage in there, you might have a hard time guessing. It's a lovely mix of savory and sweet, neither overpowering the other.

 

Some members of the Knit Think household ate theirs with additional maple syrup on top. Me, I was happy just to use some high-quality butter. The key here? Bake the bread, let it cool, then toast a slice, so it gets a little crispy. Remember to refrigerate it--it's meat, after all, and shouldn't be left out on the counter.

Reprinted from The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook, with permission of the publisher

Maple-Glazed Bison Sausage

1 pound ground bison

¼ cup minced shallots

¼ cup pure maple syrup

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 teaspoons ground sage

2 teaspoons red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons fennel seed

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Place all ingredients in a mixer fitted with a paddle and slowly blend together until just mixed. Do not over-mix the ingredients because this will compact the sausage and make for a tougher, drier product. With moist hands, patty the sausage mixture into 3-oz. portions.

Bison meat is so low in fat that these patties should be cooked no longer than 4 minutes per side. If charcoal broiling, you should cook the patties over a medium-high heat on a rack set 4 inches from the hot coals. For stovetop cooking, use a heavy skillet lightly oiled, and preferably cast iron. These sausage patties should cook over high heat.

Cook the sausages about 4 minutes per side. Hell’s Kitchen chefs cook their sausages over a charcoal grill. However, sautéing them in a skillet produces a juicier sausage because the patties cook in their own juices, instead of those juices dripping away through a grill grate. And never press down with a spatula on the sausages while they cook, since this pushes the flavorful juices out of the patties.

Bison Sausage Bread

10 oz. maple-glazed bison sausage; Italian sausage can be substituted

¾ cup dried blueberries

¾ cup dark roast prepared coffee

4 large eggs

¾ cup walnut pieces, toasted

¾ cup granulated sugar

½ pound dark brown sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350˚F. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, add the sausage, dried blueberries, and coffee and mix together slowly until well blended. Slowly add the eggs, one at a time, while slowly mixing.

Stop the mixer and add the remaining ingredients. Slowly beat together for 3-4 minutes, or until well blended. Stop the mixer and with a rubber spatula, scrape the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl. Bat another 2-3 minutes on medium speed.

Butter and flour a 5x9-inch loaf pan. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake about 1 ½ hours on the center rack of the oven. Test for doneness. Allow the bread to rest for 10 minutes in the pan; remove to a cooling rack. When cooled to room temperature, wrap the bread and refrigerate or freeze.

To serve, cut into thick slices, butter, and grill on a flat pan; or toast and serve well-buttered.

Jane Austen on a Monday

Oh, those clever folks over at Austenblog. They've uncovered a couple of noteworthy Jane Austen links to get your week started off just right.

First: Jane Austen shows Aretha Franklin just who, exactly, is the queen.

And for knitting content, they've found a knitblogger who is knitting a Jane Austen dress. No, really--go check it out.

Friday food

Last Friday was all about healthy, so that's enough of that for a while.

Let's talk about chocolate. And toffee. And why they're so good together. And why today's recipe isn't really like baking, with all its pesty leveling and 1/8 teaspoons and should you weigh your flour rather than use a measuring cup because the measuring cup might throw your volume off and then you have to use rolling pins. Please. Shoot me now.

Nope, this is "dump it in a pan and bake it" baking. I scored major Mom points over the holidays by making this, not once, but *twice.*

 

Besides, there's some sadistic fun to be had here. You can take these smarmy little chocolate bears and smash them into little pieces. Die! Die, you stupid bears! May I crush you as if I was a flock of Cylon toasters! 

So, yeah. You need around 2 cups of these things, smushed. Then you line a pan with tin foil and spray it with Pam or whatever you do to grease a pan. Melt 1/2 cup butter and pour it over the foil, then spread the tortured Teddys all about. Just to make their last moments a little worse, you poke and press them into place.

What's that? You think I sound kind of mean today? Did I mention DH has been home with a bad cold all week? Yup--the dreaded Man Cold.

All right. You've taken out all your stress on those adorable Teddy Grahams. Now you put the pan in the oven you preheated to 325F for five minutes. (this is why you should always read through the recipe before starting.)

Now things get really exciting. Maybe not visually.

 

What you see here is the barely baked Teddy Grahams now sprinkled with 1 1/4 cups almond brickle chips (Heath Bits 'o Brickle). Oh, but hey! Still feeling stressed? Grab 6 Heath bars (1.4 ounce size) and whack the hell out of them with a meat pounder or rolling pin or whatever. Yes, you do need the Heath bars, even though you have Bits 'o Brickle, because otherwise there just isn't enough brickle and chocolate. Sprinkle the bashed-up Heath bars over everything. Might as well ad a cup of semisweet chocolate chips while you're at it.

 

We have plenty of sugar at this point. We need some protein. Sprinkle one cup chopped pecans and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts all about.

Now you're ready for the final touch.

 

Pour a 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk over everything. Now put the pan back in the oven, which should still be heated at 325F because obviously none of this took very long. Bake for 30 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool completely in pan, then lift the foil out of the pan and cut into bars.

 

Heaven on a plate. And bonus--a stress reduction project as well.

Friday food

Oh my darlin' oh my darlin' oh my darlin' Clementine...

Believe it or not, on occasion, I try to cook healthfully.

I know, I know--that's coming as a shock to many of my faithful readers. Don't worry. It's not a permanent condition. Because the highest priority to me is good flavor, and if it's healthy but tastes like cardboard, it's not going to be added to the rotation.

Fortunately, cardboard isn't all that's available in the healthy eating section. I recently tried a recipe that was published by our good friends at Byerly's. The recipe was cleverly attached to a coupon to buy a bag of Clementines for dirt cheap. I say clever, because the attached recipe involved salmon fillets, which were not on sale and therefore not dirt cheap. But even though I could fully see how I was being manipulated, I fell for it.

And I was really glad I did. The base recipe is here, but Byerly's changed a few things (using Clementime juice rather than orange juice, low-sodium soy sauce, etc.), but otherwise it's the same.

 

You squeeze up a few of these little darlin's until you have 1/3 cup juice. These Clementines were tiny, so it took a lot--5 or 6. You blend the juice with soy sauce, fresh basil, olive oil and garlic in a plastic bag, then add salmon fillets to marinate in the fridge for half an hour. Then it's time for broiling.

 

Pretty pretty. Salmon is very vibrant. And it's sort of like chicken in that there are so many ways to cook it. Baked in sauces, grilled, smoked on bagels. Yummy. And full of that good-for-you fat.

Doesn't take long to broil, either, making this a decent weeknight option. Broil to desired doneness, sprinkle with parsley, and voila:

 

Served with pasta tossed with broccoli sauteed in olive oil and garlic. The salmon is mild but flavorful. The citrus taste is light. Oh so good. SOOO good.

Darn that Byerly's and their cross-marketing with loss leaders.

More knitting goodness

But first, you know how some people's trees get t.p.'d? Ours got shingles:

 

Hmmm. Maybe we should've gotten the tree vaccinated for chicken pox.

Anyway, I recently wrote of the knitting project I and Blogless Heidi are doing for Blogless Don and Blogless Brad. I actually finished Blogless Don's scarf before Christmas and was so excited that I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to him.

See, here's the thing. For once in my life, I'm knitting faster than someone else. Blogless Heidi has expressed dismay that I'm proceeding so quickly with these commissioned scarves. I assured her that it wasn't a race. Then I thought, hey, why isn't it? If it's a race, I'd be winning!

So now it's a race. And I'm winning. Neener neener neener.

For the record, the best Monopoly game our family ever had was this past New Year's Eve, when we played a bout that lasted nearly three hours, with rampant and vicious cheating. Not that it helped--I was the banker and managed to "find" some extra cash and real estate for myself (not to mention other players' cash that should have gone to the bank and went to my account instead), and I still lost. We called it Real Estate 2008.

We don't bother to keep score when playing mini-golf. Nor do I encourage anyone else to mini-golf with us, because of the level of cheating that goes on. "Mulligan" is frequently heard when we play. Along with muttered profanity.

In fact, our favorite card game is Cheat. So you see, I'm apparently hardwired to not play fair.

Fair or not, Blogless Don was kind enough to photo the scarf so I can brag. It's the Multidirectional Scarf in Cascade 220 and Mountain Colors.

 

I know you are all dying to know what Blogless Don looks like, and he was kind enough to model the scarf too.

 

Isn't he a cutie?

Take that, Blogless Heidi. Feel free to hate me. Just a little.

The sky is falling!

Or rather, the roof is falling! Or rather, the roof is being replaced! By hard-working roofers! They'd have to be, to want to be on my roof in 10-degree weather in January. But oh no--my poor plants--what will become of them?

 

Oh yeah.

In other news, even though I have little or no ability to ever complete any KAL or reading challenge I sign up for, I'm signing for another one. But really, I could not resist the logo:

 

The challenge is to read books at least 450 pages long (or 525, if they're large print, which I, ahem, am of the age to appreciate). The complete rules are here. You'll notice there are several categories. Being foolish and optimistic, I didn't go with the path of least resistance (The "Chubby Chunkster," which requires you to read only two books in the 10-month challenge), but again, succumbing to love of silliness, I chose the category "Do These Books Make My Butt Look Big?" which requires me to read 3-5 doorstoppers. Fortunately, I don't have to declare upfront which books I will read, which goes a long way to my possible success; there's nothing like declaring I'll read specific books to make me not want to read those books at all. And I do have several Chunksters on the TBR stacks. So we'll see.

But at least I get a cool button out of it.

Friday food

Ah, January. Time for comfort foods. Soups. Stews. Chilis. Pot roast. And what do many of these dishes call for?

Chicken broth.

Sure, you can use that wimpy stuff in a can, but hey, it's not hard to make a really good broth of your own. What you really need is a lot of time, because this stuff has to stay at a slow simmer for a long, long time. Like 12 hours.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we need a chicken.

 

Hee hee hee. Yes, I know. I'm not likely to become a mature adult if I can't get over giggling at nakey-butt chicken. But c'mon! It's so funny looking!

The recipe says you're supposed to cup up the chicken, but that's work, so I don't. It all falls apart anyway.

Now we need some veggie goodness.

 

Two carrots, one stalk of celery with leaves, two whole onions (unpeeled), all coarsely chopped. And four heads of garlic sliced horizontally in half. Oh, and six canned tomatoes, a couple of whole cloves, and a bay leaf.

Bring the nakey-butt chicken to a very gentle simmer, then dump all this stuff in.

 

Yup--fill that stockpot full. Now you bring this to the gentlest of simmers. You don't want it to boil. That'll ruin it. Just barely, barely bubbling. Hardly at all. Cover partially and simmer for 12-14 hours. If the water starts to reduce, add some more, boiling to keep the temperature steady.

 

Oh! Look what happened! The veggies have gone from being bright and fresh to battle-scarred and defeated. They have had to give up the fight. They have lost everything--all their flavor and nutrition--to the greater good of the broth.

Now you strain out the broth. And really, don't bother keeping the meat and veggies. Seriously. There's no flavor left. Then you need to chill the broth for several hours. Why? So you can increase the health quotient of this dish by having the fat rise to the top and solidify.

 

Ew. Who wants to eat that? I'm all for fat in food, but not when I have to look at it like that. Fortunately, it's solid now. Don't worry, you don't have to stick your fingers in the ick. Just get out your trusty fat skimmer:

 

--and save the day by removing that fat!

What's left?

 

Heaven in a bowl. Outstanding for bases for other soups and stews. Also excellent heated up and used to cook tortellini. And very healthy. Did you notice I put no salt in? Now, I can't guarantee there's no salt in here--many chickens are processed with salt or chicken broth to give them more flavor. Yes, you heard me right--chicken broth is used to make chickens taste better. Because the ingredients are "all natural," you can't trust the labels that say "all natural chicken." If you have salt issues, read the fine print.

I have no salt issues, but this broth simply doesn't need it. I get several 2-cup containers from each batch, which I freeze and use as needed. Oh, and the little last dregs I use up like this:

 

Frozen in cubes for those odd recipes that need just a couple tablespoons or quarter cup of broth.

See? Easy peasy.

And away we go

I'm back! It's a new year! Hopefully full of knitting and cooking and other good stuff.

There has been knitting. It was a fine Christmas break, filled with much laziness and time sprawled on the couch, finally catching up to the cool kids and watching Battlestar Galactica while working on this:

 

This is the Zig Zag scarf from Scarf Style, in some luscious Cascade 220 colors. This, you might remember, is the scarf where the yarn was provided by (presumably) blogless Brad. I'm about five feet into what should be a nine-foot scarf. (Presumably) blogless Brad wants a long scarf. What I'm wondering is: what's the possibility that he'll hate this scarf? Because if he hates it, I could, you know, *keep it for myself.*

Just look at these colors:

 

Yummy. Really yummy. And a fun pattern to knit. Especially while watching Battlestar Galactica. I finally understand all the Adama 08 buttons I saw during the election.

Ah, winter. I'm so glad you're here.

Because New Year's Day is all about being thrifty and practical

 

Get your own Swedish furniture name here.