Author Archives: Jack & Barbra Donachy

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About Jack & Barbra Donachy

Writers, photographers, food lovers, anglers, travelers and students of poetry

Pumpkin Caramel Ice Cream Sandwiches – They are It!

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The crème de la crème of frozen desserts – creamy spiced pumpkin ice cream on a layer of caramel sandwiched between the chewy perfection of oatmeal cookies. The whole creation is dipped in a rich, crunchy chocolate coating.

December may not be the time that most people think of ice cream. But in our home, this is the time of the year when camping and fishing gear are stowed away and the stormy weather outdoors has us working on projects inside. One of my favorite winter hobbies is creating with baked goods.

I’m not sure what caused me to think of It’s Its, but somehow they overtook my thoughts last weekend. It’s Its are a San Francisco frozen creation that I was introduced to during a visit to the great city while in high school. It is really a simple dessert – vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two oatmeal cookies and dipped in chocolate that instantly hardens. Simple but a perfect balance of flavors and textures – the ingredients have so much flavor and the cookies have the best texture. The sandwich is messy enough that you have to pay attention to the potential loss of ice cream, chocolate bits and cookie, but it manages to stay together long enough so you never lose one little bit.

This time of the year, I’m drawn to pumpkin-flavored creations. This being the case, I have a quart of homemade spiced pumpkin ice cream tucked away in our freezer. I also had a jar of caramel topping in the fridge. An It’s It-type dessert made with this ice cream and topping seemed like a winning combination. All I needed was a chewy oatmeal cookie and a chocolate dip that hardens and then cracks just right to turn this memory into a reality with a pumpkin-caramel twist.

Let the experiment begin!

Would the caramel be too hard? Would the frozen cookies remain chewy? Would the coating have that wonderful crunch? The answer, as you’ve probably guessed, is a resounding Yes! They are a bit time consuming to make because of having to wait in between steps for freezing. It’s totally worth it. After all the time put in to making these at home, we have eight delicious ice cream sandwiches to enjoy and to share with friends.

Pumpkin Caramel Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients

  • 8 scoops pumpkin ice cream (click here for recipe)
  • 16 oatmeal cookies (see below)
  • caramel ice cream topping
  • chocolate dipping sauce (see below)

Directions

  1. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Pair up oatmeal cookies so that cookies are of equal sizes.
  3. Spread caramel topping on one side one of the pair of oatmeal cookies.
  4. Place one scoop of ice cream atop caramel topping.
  5. Sandwich second cookie atop ice cream.
  6. Place sandwiches on prepared baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes.
  7. While sandwiches are freezing, prepare chocolate dipping sauce.
  8. Use a pair of forks to maneuver sandwiches. Place one sandwich at a time into dipping sauce. Flip sandwich. Remove from dipping sauce and place back on parchment-lined baking sheet.
  9. Repeat with all sandwiches.
  10. Freeze for one hour.
  11. Enjoy right away or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and keep in the freezer until you are ready to eat.

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

  • ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ¾ tsp cinnamon
  • 1 ½ cup rolled oats (instant or regular)

Directions

  1. Combine butter and sugars. Mix well.
  2. Add vanilla. Mix well.
  3. Add egg. Mix well.
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.
  5. Mix flour mixture into butter mixture.
  6. Stir in oats.
  7. Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes.
  8. Heat oven to 375° F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
  9. Scoop out dough and roll it into 1-inch balls. Place balls on prepared baking sheet.
  10. Flatten cookies with fingers, or base of a flat glass. Use a small amount of water on your fingers or on the bottom of the glass to prevent sticking.
  11. Bake cookies for 8 minutes.
  12. Allow to cool in pan for a couple of minutes. Finish cooling on a wire rack.

Chocolate Coating

Ingredients

  • 8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 ½ tbsp coconut oil

Directions

  1. Place chips and coconut oil in top of double boiler.
  2. Melt mixture over simmering water.
  3. Stir thoroughly.
  4. Use coating immediately in above recipe.

Frosted Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

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Moist chocolate cake infused with orange topped with super creamy rich chocolate buttercream frosting…. happy birthday to me!

Another stellar recipe from my Williams-Sonoma Baking book. I can’t say enough good things about this cookbook. Every recipe is great. In addition to being great recipes, they are also great bases to build from or tinker with. For my birthday, I had narrowed down my celebratory dessert to three chocolate wonders from this cookbook. The combination of chocolate and orange is my all-time favorite, so the chocolate orange cupcakes won. The picture says it all – these delicious little cakes will start a party just by showing up.

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp Dutch processed cocoa powder
  • ¼ cup hot water
  • 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • zest of 1 orange
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • ½ cup buttermilk, at room temperature
  • ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
  • ¼ unsalted butter, melted, at room temperature

Frosting

  • 6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 cups confectioner’s sugar

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
  2. Line 12 standard muffin cups with paper liners.
  3. In a small bowl, stir cocoa with hot water until it is dissolved. Set aside.
  4. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in medium bowl.
  5. Mix orange zest into flour mixture. Set aside.
  6. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and granulated sugar together.
  7. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla.
  8. Whisk in cocoa.
  9. Whisk in melted butter.
  10. Stir in flour mixture.
  11. Spoon batter into each muffin cup. Fill each cup about ½ full.
  12. Bake cupcakes until puffed and a cake tester inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 15 – 20 minutes.
  13. Let cool completely on wire rack. Remove cupcakes when pan is cool.
  14. Make frosting. Put chocolate chips in top of double boiler. Melt chocolate over simmering water. Let cool to room temperature.
  15. Beat butter and confectioner’s sugar until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes.
  16. Beat in melted chocolate until well-mixed.
  17. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a 12mm star tip (1/2 inch) with frosting.
  18. Pipe a spiral on top of each cupcake.
  19. Refrigerate the cupcakes until 30 minutes before serving to set the frosting.

Definitely Thankful for This – Almond Raspberry Tart

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Tis the season for decadent desserts! Imagine a bite of smooth, sweet almond swathed in fresh raspberry jam atop flaky layers of buttery piecrust. Oh yeah!

Sure, our Thanksgiving always ends with Jack’s pumpkin pie. It’s a delicious tradition we don’t skip. When we plan the big feast, one dessert never seems to be enough. Some years, the second dessert has been a caramel apple pie, a lemon meringue pie or even a chocolate layer cake. This year, I really wanted to use almond paste that I sent out in our annual shopping. It’s an ingredient I rarely use, but love so much. Many years ago, when I first discovered bakeries and baked goods, I would always go for almond croissants. The combination of the sweet, smooth almond paste and the buttery, flakey croissant were irresistible. This tart has the same elements along with an added bonus – homemade raspberry jam. Some of the jam I made this year was a freezer jam. In other words, it wasn’t cooked. The fresh berries are stirred with some sugar and pectin and put straight into the freezer. This method of making jam preserves the fresh bright flavor of the raspberries straight from the vine.

The tart starts with a buttery, flaky piecrust that is partially blind baked to keep it light and airy. The crust is brushed with jam and then covered with an almond paste mixture, which is the main event. The whole tart is sprinkled with almond slices which provide the finishing touch. What a delicious combination! We all enjoyed the beautiful and delicious addition to this year’s table. Sadly, it is now just a fond memory.

Raspberry Almond Tart

Ingredients

  • pie dough for one crust
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 8 oz. almond paste, cut into small cubes
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/3 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup good quality raspberry jam
  • 1/3 cup sliced almonds

Directions

  1. Roll out dough to a 12-inch disk. Cover a 9 ½ inch tart pan or a 9 inch springform pan.
  2. Trim off excess if using a tart pan. If using a springform pan, trim off dough 1 ½ inches up the side of the pan. The dough will shrink when baked, so make sure to extend the dough higher than you want your end product.
  3. Freeze the shell for 30 minutes or until firm.
  4. Place oven rack in lower third of oven. Preheat to 375° F.
  5. Partially blind bake shell for 20 minutes. Shell will be done when it is pale gold and dry looking.
  6. Remove pan from oven and cool on a wire rack.
  7. Reduce oven temperature to 350° F.
  8. In a large bowl, beat butter until smooth.
  9. Add almond paste, a couple pieces at a time. Continue beating until smooth. Add more pieces and repeat beating. Continue with remaining almond paste pieces.
  10. Add sugar to almond paste mixture and beat until smooth.
  11. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
  12. Stir in flour.
  13. Spread jam evenly on base of tart shell.
  14. Spoon almond mixture atop jam. Smooth the top.
  15. Sprinkle almond slices evenly over tart.
  16. Bake until filling is golden and the middle is firm, 35-45 minutes.
  17. Cool on wire rack.

Serve at room temperature.

Recipe adapted from The Williams-Sonoma Baking Book

 

 

Homemade Crispy Thin Wheat Crackers in a Snap

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Warm from the oven or cooled and ready for a party, these crispy little wafers with a hint of sweet, a hint of wheat and a touch of salt are sure to please.

A Thanksgiving gathering at our house prompted me to come up with an appetizer that I could conjure out of our bush kitchen. In other words, I couldn’t pop over to the nearest grocery store to pick up phyllo dough or other fun ingredients that I might have available back when I lived in a city.

A great ingredient we do always have on hand is salmon – in this case I had in mind a jar of smoked salmon. We also happened to have a block of cream cheese in our freezer. Mix those two and you have a show-stopping spread. Yummy appetizers with smoked salmon spread can be served on many tasty items – mini bagels, crepes, crostini, and of course, crackers.

I love making homemade crackers. They have a satisfying crunch and flavors of their store-bought siblings. But the homemade versions lack the stabilizers and other mystical, less than healthful ingredients. These thin wheat crackers are no different.

You can simply roll out the dough with a rolling pin, but in this case I ran the dough through my pasta roller. The pasta roller not only produces thinner dough than I can achieve with a rolling pin, it also creates more uniformly even dough resulting in more evenly baked crackers.

By the time Jack’s perfectly roasted chickens came out of the oven, three dozen crackers and a bowl of smoked salmon spread were gone!

Homemade Thin Wheat Crackers

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
  • 4 tbsp unsalted butter, frozen
  • 1/4  cup ice cold water

Directions

  1. Whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and paprika in a medium bowl.
  2. Grate frozen butter into flour mixture using a cheese grater.
  3. Cut butter into flour mixture using two knives to form smaller bits of butter. Mixture is ready when butter bits are the size of small peas and the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal.
  4. Add water, stir with fork until dough comes together. If dough seems too dry, add additional cold water by tablespoons until dough comes together. Knead once or twice. Don’t over knead.
  5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
  6. Divide dough in half. Lightly flour work area. Roll out dough into a very thin rectangle.
  7. Cut dough into cracker shapes. I used a pastry wheel to cut one batch and a knife to cut the other. Both worked well.
  8. Use a fork to prick crackers several times.
  9. Place crackers on prepared baking sheet. They can be close together as they won’t spread.
  10. Optional: I sprinkled the crackers with more salt before I baked them to add to the look and to provide additional flavor.
  11. Bake crackers until crisp, about 7 minutes. Flip crackers and bake an additional 7 minutes. If your crackers are thicker, you may need to bake a bit longer.
  12. Cool on wire racks. Repeat process with second half of dough.
  13. Enjoy crackers right away. Store extras in an airtight container to keep them crisp.

 

Better Bagels (it’s the sourdough)

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The addition of sourdough gives these bagels texture and flavor.

I’m been really happy with my sourdough starter. I’ve used it for pancakes, waffles, and English muffins. Every week, I use this delicious starter to turn out two beautiful loaves of sourdough bread to accompany many of our meals. Recently, I finished a batch of homemade lox. I wondered what would happen if I included some of my trusty starter in my bagel recipe.

Wow. What an improvement. The resulting bagels have a subtle sourdough flavor. But the flavor wasn’t the main improvement – it was the texture. These bagels have a perfectly soft interior and a perfectly chewy exterior. We couldn’t believe the difference from an already tried and true recipe. I’ve made the recipe twice now with the same happy results. It’s a keeper!

Sourdough Chewy Bagels

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water (105° F/40° C)
  • ½ cup sourdough starter
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 qts water
  • 3 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • toppings such as poppy seeds, toasted onions, sesame seeds, etc. (optional)

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, stir together yeast, 1 1/2 tbsp sugar and water. Let sit for about 5 minutes to make sure the yeast is good. (It will foam.)
  2. Stir in sourdough starter
  3. Stir in salt and the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. The last 1/2 cup, you will need to knead in by hand.
  4. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.
  5. Coat the inside of a large bowl with oil and place the dough inside.
  6. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise until doubled, about an hour.
  7. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
  8. Cut dough into 8 equal pieces.
  9. Roll pieces into balls.
  10. Flatten balls slightly.
  11. Poke your finger through center of each ball and twirl dough around your finger to enlarge the hole.
  12. Place bagels on parchment-lined baking sheet to rest.
  13. Bring 3 qts water to boil in large pot. Stir in 3 tbsp sugar.
  14. Place 4 bagels in boiling water. Boil for 1 minute. Flip bagels and let boil for another minute.
  15. Place boiled bagels on clean, dry towel.
  16. Place remaining 4 bagels in boiling water. Repeat boiling process with these bagels.
  17. Take bagels from towel and place them on parchment-lined baking sheet.
  18. Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C).
  19. Brush bagels with beaten egg.
  20. Sprinkle desired toppings on bagels (poppy seeds, sesame seeds, charnushka, minced dried onion and minced dried garlic are some of our favorites).
  21. Bake in preheated oven for 20 – 25 minutes, until browned.

Roasted Stacked Beet Salad

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Roasted Beets & Goat Cheese

Almost ten years ago, I went on a fabulous California North Coast honeymoon with my honey. As I’m sure you can imagine, that get-away was filled with culinary delights. We ate and drank at wonderful restaurants and Jack grilled us fabulous meals on the balcony outside our honeymoon suite. One of our favorite memories is of a dinner at the River’s End restaurant in Jenner, California. The chef included locally sourced food, some of which came from a garden right on the grounds outside the restaurant.

We’d just completed a fantastic run along a trail on a bluff looking out over the Pacific Ocean, and we were famished. We began our meal with oysters on the half shell and a crisp amber ale. Next, Jack and I ordered two entrées to share along with what proved to be a wonderful bottle of old vine Zinfandel from a California winery. Jack opted for roasted elk while I went for duck prepared three ways. While we were waiting for our entrées, we tucked into a pair of beautifully presented stacked beet salads. What a revelation! Growing up, I’d always been served canned, pickled beets. I developed a disdain for those beets. But roasted, fresh beets? Wow, who knew? River’s End’s creation featured three colors of perfectly roasted beet discs atop garden-fresh greens. In between each of the discs were crumbles of creamy goat cheese. A garnish of chiffonade basil and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette completed the presentation. The combination of flavors and textures were perfection.

Earlier this fall, beets showed up in our Farm Lodge vegetable box. With a lovely memory of our honeymoon meal, I set out to recreate this delicious salad. My version came out just as good as my memory. The combination of the earthiness of a roasted beet, a curl of basil, creamy goat cheese and tangy  vinaigrette can’t be beat.

Roasted Stacked Beet Salad

Ingredients

  • two portions of salad greens
  • two medium-sized beets
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • a few sprigs of basil
  • 2 tbsp goat cheese

Vinaigrette

  • 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425° F.
  2. Coat beet roots in olive oil.
  3. Wrap beets in aluminum foil.
  4. Roast for about an hour.
  5. Beets are done when easily pierced with a knife.
  6. Let them cool enough to handle. Using a paring knife, skin the beets.
  7. Slice the beets while warm. Set aside.
  8. Prepare the vinaigrette by mixing vinaigrette ingredients well.
  9. Place greens on plates. Top greens with one slice of roasted beet. Sprinkle beet slice with goat cheese. Continue with remaining beet slices and cheese. Repeat this process on another plate with the second beet.
  10. Roll up basil leaves and slice into thin strips. Sprinkle strips atop each salad plate.
  11. Drizzle each salad with vinaigrette dressing.
  12. Serve with freshly baked bread to sop up every crumb and delicious drop left on the plate.

Light and Airy Raspberry Mousse

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Airy and light, but packing a powerful raspberry punch, this raspberry mousse is a delightful dessert after a rich meal.

Two of my favorite culinary pastimes are making jams and ice creams. We love to pick local berries. The usual varieties around Chignik Lake are blueberries, cranberries, crowberries, currants, and raspberries. Unfortunately, this year was a terrible year for berries. Our usual spots are yielding small amounts or no berries at all. Except for the raspberries. Years ago, someone planted a garden of raspberries and currants. The raspberries, as raspberries do, have spread out from their original patch to a nearby hill. Last year, this hill was crazy with berries. This year, it was the only place we could find a decent amount of berries of any kind. So this winter portends many creations featuring the delicious raspberry.

Today’s recipe stemmed from my other joy – ice cream. Many of our favorite ice creams are the custard type, requiring several egg yolks. This tends to leave us with quite a bit of leftover egg whites at times. What to do? Omelets are good, up to a point. I’ve made batches of meringues, too. But this time, I wanted to do something different. What about whipping the egg whites into a foamy mousse?

This is a simple recipe that can be made in minutes and is best whipped up right before it’s eaten. The first time I made it, I whipped up heavy cream to top it off. That was good, but a little too heavy for this airy-light dessert. Today’s version is topped with a whipped topping made from nonfat powdered milk and ice water. It, too, must be made just before serving. Drizzled with a little raspberry jam, this mousse makes for a light and delicious dessert fit to end a beautiful feast.

Light and Airy Raspberry Mousse

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup egg whites (or whites from 4 eggs)
  • 4 tsp granulated sugar
  • 4 tbsp raspberry jam
  • whipped topping

Directions

  1. Whip egg whites until stiff peaks are formed.
  2. Add sugar to whites and continue to whip until well mixed.
  3. Fold in raspberry jam.
  4. Divide egg white mixture into two parfait glasses.
  5. Top with whipped topping.

The End of Summer in Chignik Lake: A river full of Silver Salmon, a Two-Day Storm and Halibut Chowder

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Smokey Halibut Chowder

With a freezer brimming with Sockeyes and Coho, entering September we have salmon security for the coming winter. The Coho have been particularly fun to put away. These silvery bright ocean-fresh eight to 12 pound fish often hit our lures right at our feet as we cast, swing and retrieve through the Chignik River’s clear green water. We caught and filleted the last fish we need Friday evening just before two straight days of gale force winds lashed our village with heavy rain and turned our lake into an angry, white-capped sea. Today was a good day to stay inside. While José González played quietly in the background on our Bose speaker, Barbra bottled a couple of cases of beer – a red ale and an amber – and turned out two handsome loaves of her famously delicious sourdough bread. I cured a couple of skeins of salmon eggs and tucked in with David McCullough’s fascinating Pulitzer Prize winning biography, John Adams.

A few days ago, a friend presented us with halibut and alder-smoked Sockeye salmon. Today was the perfect day to thaw the halibut and put these gifts to use. The secret to this recipe is to cook the potatoes and the vegetables separately and to then put the chowder together. Roasting the potatoes adds to the depth of flavor and texture. When cutting ingredients up, you want pieces small enough so that more than one item can fit on a soup spoon, but big enough to carry flavor. Celery and bell pepper can be strongly flavored, so cut these finer and go easy on the amount of each. Precooking will significantly soften and sweeten the flavor of these vegetables.

Smokey Halibut Chowder

Ingredients

  • 1 pound halibut cut into chunks
  • 1 1/2 cups of smoked salmon, skin removed diced (or substitute bits of crispy bacon or salt pork and use less)
  • About double the amount of potatoes as halibut, skin on, diced
  • 1 leek, sliced into fairly thin discs
  • 3/4 cup of bell pepper, diced small
  • 1/2 cup celery, diced small
  • 1 can of sweet corn (or 2 cobs worth)
  • about 4 cups of milk
  • about 1 cup of heavy cream
  • olive oil
  • butter
  • smoked sea salt
  • tarragon
  • oregano
  • nutmeg
  • black pepper
  • sherry (or white wine or mirin)

Directions

  1. Place a tray suitable for roasting on the oven’s center rack and preheat to 450° F. (230° C)
  2. Lightly salt the halibut and set aside
  3. Place the diced potatoes into a bowl. Toss with olive oil and smoked sea salt.
  4. Roast the potatoes till soft and beginning to brown and crisp – about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
  5. Meanwhile, heat some butter in a large pan. Add the bell pepper and some sherry and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add the celery, leeks and sweet corn. Add smoked sea salt, and perhaps a little more sherry, to taste, stirring occasionally. When the vegetables have just cooked through and become soft, add the tarragon, oregano, nutmeg and black pepper, tasting as you go. Toss together thoroughly and remove from heat.
  6. Add the potatoes and the cooked vegetables to a large pot making sure to scrape out all the butter & sherry mixture from the vegetable pan. Add the halibut and salmon and toss everything together well. Add enough milk and cream in about a 4 to 1 ratio to sufficiently cover all the ingredients. Add additional salt as needed. Heat on high heat just until the chowder is steaming and the halibut is cooked through. Don’t boil and don’t overcook.
  7. Serve piping hot with sour dough bread and butter.

Let the weather do its worst.

What to do with leftover instant oatmeal packets? Maple and Brown Sugar Muffins, Of Course!

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Instant oatmeal packets – overly sticky-sweat on their own –  can be transformed into moist, tasty, healthy breakfast treats. 

I really hate to see food wasted. So when we recently discovered several instant oatmeal packs fated to be thrown out, I grabbed them up thinking they might make decent breakfast fare for backpacking. Unfortunately, as it turns out the oatmeal is way over-processed and there’s far too much sugar. So I began thinking about how else they might be used. Muffins! I added leftover trail mix to the batter as well as to the topping to add some crunch and flavor. Moist and flavorful,  these muffins along with some fruit and freshly brewed coffee make for a quick and delicious breakfast. In fact, we’ve found ourselves snacking on them throughout the day!

Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients

Streusel Topping

  • 3 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 3 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup nuts, chopped coarse
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Muffins

  • 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 packets flavored instant oatmeal
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 3/4 cup plain yogurt
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 tbsp real maple syrup
  • 1 cup trail mix, chopped coarse

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease 12-muffin cup tin.
  2. In a small bowl, combine all streusel ingredients. Mix with fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Break larger pieces. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, add first 5 muffin ingredients. Mix together using a whisk.
  4. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, yogurt, oil, vanilla and syrup.
  5. Mix wet ingredients into dry.
  6. Fold in trail mix.
  7. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin. Each cup will be about 2/3 full.
  8. Sprinkle streusel topping on each muffin.
  9. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. When done, a wooden pick inserted into center of muffin will come out clean.
  10. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 5 minutes before serving.

Sometimes it’s the Little Things: Farm Fresh Vegetables in Bush Alaska

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Courtesy of The Farm in Port Alsworth, a newly-arrived box of fresh vegetables fit to inspire any food-lover.

Once a week flown in a little bush airplane, a box shows up packed with freshly picked vegetables. It’s like having a birthday each week!

We’ve written a number articles about how we get food out to the tiny, remote Alaskan bush villages where we live. There’s a story about carefully packing a year’s worth of food from Costco into durable Rubbermaid tubs. More recently, we’ve been ordering much of our food from the Fred Meyer grocery store on Debarr Road in Anchorage. The people there take great care getting our groceries out to us, sending us impeccably wrapped and packed goods usually within about four days of the request. Amazon’s grocery store is another great way to get groceries, although sometimes that involves a wait of several weeks. When we lived in Point Hope we discovered a company in Washington called Full Circle, which mails farm fresh gourmet vegetables to select communities in Alaska. We would get multi-colored carrots and Swiss chard, yellow beets, and pink haricots verts. These premium veggies came at a premium price, but I will admit that after eating frozen vegetables our first year in the bush, we threw our budget to the wind in the name of fresher, tastier fare. Besides, it was fun to experiment in our cooking with colorful and interesting ingredients.

When we moved to Chignik Lake, we heard about “The Farm” in Port Alsworth. It was almost spoken as a whisper – a secret to be kept tight within an inner circle. The scoop was that they would sync orders with local flights and ship boxes filled with vegetables picked that very morning. Freshly picked veggies? Right to our door? The same day they’re picked? Our response – “What’s the phone number?” In the same secretive way we’d first heard about this magical place, we were handed a phone number. Imagine a folded slip of paper passed from one to another during a knowing handshake. When I looked up The Farm in Port Alsworth on the internet, I was surprised to discover that there was no evidence of such a place. I took out the note with the scrawled number and called.

“Hello?” an informal voice came through the receiver. Oh, dear. I must have a wrong number, I remember thinking. They should have answered the phone with a jaunty, “The Farm!” Right?

Tentatively I asked, “Is this The Farm?”

“Yes!” came the cheerful reply. Sometimes things in Alaska don’t come about the way one might imagine.

“The Farm” is actually “The Farm Lodge.” Located in Port Alsworth on beautiful Lake Clark, the lodge is operated by the same company that runs Lake Clark Air, which we regularly fly with. The lodge features a picturesque greenhouse, inviting grounds and accommodations for guests who travel to Port Alsworth for nature viewing, hunting and fishing expeditions. In addition to world class salmon fishing and wildlife photo opportunities, the lodge boasts excellent home cooked meals featuring, of course, their garden fresh vegetables. Since Chignik Lake is a regular stop for Lake Clark Air, we benefit from the surfeit of fresh produce grown in their greenhouse.

They may not have multi-colored beets or artisan green beans, but they nonetheless offer wonderful produce. We’ve received many of the crisp favorites one might find in a typical garden – cucumbers, green-leaf lettuce, tomatoes, chard, beets, radishes, bell peppers and sugar snap peas. With long hours of summertime daylight, Alaska is famous for the truly humongous size certain vegetables attain up here. The cabbage that came in our box last week was as big as a large mixing bowl – and yet it turned out to be only half the original head!

The only downside to The Farm’s service is that the growing season ends in October. But until then, we have all the fresh vegetables we can eat to go with meals of the equally fresh salmon we catch in the river in front of our house!

If you are in our area and would like to participate in The Farm Lodge’s special deliveries, here is the secret phone number (907) 310-7630.