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Barbecue Sauce

Jenny's BBQ Sauce
This sauce is the perfect "anytime" sauce.

3/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp honey
1/8-1/4 tsp chipotle powder, to preference
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or until desired thickness. Stir often.

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Lentil & Sausage Herbed Farro

Like most people, I first learned about Polyface Farms in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma.  Our local organic grocery stocks Polyface and I've been trying to think of a reason to buy some.  I stumbled upon this idea when looking for ways to use up the lentils and bell peppers that we had on hand.  This dish turned into one of my favorites.  Without the red peppers, it would be visually unappealing, but the flavors are fantastic.  I'd like to think it's my creation, but I'm sure it has more to do with Polyface's delicious pork product.

Lentil & Sausage Herbed Farro
Idea originated from Luna's Cafe

3 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup farro
1 cup lentils (or Sprouted Bean Trio)
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water
1 lb Polyface Farms Breakfast sausage
lots of fresh herbs- rosemary, thyme, basil
1 red pepper, cut into strips

In a large saucepan, bring 3 cups of chicken stock to a boil and add farro. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the farro is tender and chewy.

In a medium saucepan, add lentils and 1 cup water and 1 cup chicken stock to cover. Bring to a boil, simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the lentils are tender.

Combine farro and lentils; add fresh herbs and freshly ground pepper.  Keep warm.

In a large skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil over medium high heat.  Add sausage and cook until no longer pink.  Add sausage to farro and lentils, reserving drippings.  In the same skillet, crisp pepper strips in sausage drippings.  Serve peppers over farro mixture.

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Brown Soda Bread

For Christmas I received Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking.  I've been working my way through reading this tome, but I have yet to make much out of it.  I decided to try her Brown Soda Bread to accompany Dove Stew.

The bread was very crusty with a soft yet slightly dry inside.  The flavor was very strong and held up well when dipped in a soup.
Beginner's Brown Soda Bread
Adapted from Forgotten Skills of Cooking

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg, lightly whisked
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp brown sugar
1 2/3 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400.  Coat 9x5 baking pan with oil. 

Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl.  Combine wet ingredients in another bowl.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and gradually whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients.  Pour into the prepared pan.  I chose to top the bread with fleur de sel.

Bake for about 1 hour or until bread is crusty.  Let cool on wire rack.

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Experimental Game: Dove Stew

My Dad went Dove hunting over the weekend and brought me home a bag of fresh Dove breasts.  After a quick search through my cookbooks and good 'ole Google, I discovered that there's more information out there about Dove Chocolates than there is about cooking Dove breasts!  I figured you can't go wrong with a stew, so I just started making things up. 

One forum told me that Dove meat was very rich and flavorful, so I figured I needed something to balance that out.  I chose sweet potatoes, thinking the sweetness would offset the dark meat.  Turns out, the sweetness simply overpowered the stew. 

I started out by pressure cooking the breasts to soften the meat and loosen it from the tiny bones.  The broth was oily and yellow, not at all what I expected, so I opted to discard that and use chicken stock to create the stew.  The freshly cooked meat was tender and moist, with a flavor stronger than dark meat chicken, but not quite gamey. 

All in all, the Dove breasts would do better in a soup/stew more closely related to a Chicken Pot Pie Soup.

Dove Stew

10 Dove breasts, cleaned
1 cup red wine
4 cups chicken stock
3 sweet potatoes, chopped into bite sized pieces
lots of fresh herbs, minced (I used rosemary, sage, thyme and 5 bay leaves)
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
2 cups green peas

Place breasts in pressure cooker and cover with water.  Cook on high for 15 minutes.  Let pressure release naturally.  Drain breasts and remove meat from bones, shredding as you go.

Combine remaining ingredients except peas in pressure cooker and cook on high for 15 minutes.  Release pressure slowly.  Add peas and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

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