Salmon en croûte

We've had a funny Valentine's week––Momma's been viral, with off and on energy levels, so we've had our Valentine's meal in fits and starts. The big "gala" will be tomorrow after I finish tidying up (code word for putting away some stuff that's been sitting there since Christmas in all of our moving about on the ridge) in the dining room. Our boys have a long weekend ahead, too, for President's Day, so it will be a fun time to potter about, see some friends and do some cooking.

The other night, as the salmon was thawed (we got two great big planks of Irish salmon at Christmas and they froze beautifully), I made the following dish. I looked at several different recipes, some that friends had suggested on Facebook, and decided that I would just sort of make my own as I went along. I also thought it needed a sauce to go with it so I combined some of my favorite ingredients, et voila! It really is rather like a "Salmon Wellington" if you've ever had beef Wellington (something else I'd like to make). Either way, it is easier to make than it looks and you could make it the same day of a dinner party, put it in the fridge, and bake later.

The only thing I would change to this recipe was the portion size as I used four big servings of salmon––my husband couldn't even finish his!––and also underestimated how the puff pastry would expand. However, size aside (and they certainly made a good one-dish meal), these were rich and delicious––a nice, easy treat and you can even make them ahead (or change it up with chicken, shrimp or just make an all-vegetarian version which I did for our youngest, who isn't a salmon fan). You can also make smaller puff pastry squares, too, to serve more people: just cut smaller squares and use less of everything.

Salmon en Croûte a la Farmwife 
Serves 4-8 (depending on size)

• 4-8 portions of salmon (fist-sized and not too thick)
• 2 sheets puff pastry (I used Pepperidge Farm®––in the freezer section)
• 1 package frozen spinach
• 1 cup mushrooms, finely minced
• 1 large shallot, finely minced
• 1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 3 Tablespoons cream or half-and-half
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• bit of nutmeg, if desired
• 4 slices Gruyere, Jarlsberg, or Swiss cheese (I used Alpine Lace low-fat Swiss because the Gruyere at Walmart was over $13 for a small amount!)
• 1 egg with a bit of water or milk, for wash (beat together)

Set oven to 400 degrees. Sauté shallot and garlic in the butter. Add minced mushrooms and continue to cook. When mushrooms appear cooked, add spinach (drained or still frozen). Stir until thawed and add cream, sea salt, pepper and nutmeg. Set aside. [You can also prepare this mixture up to a day ahead.]

Roll out, with a bit of flour, the thawed puff pastry into two 14x14 sheets. Cut each sheet into four equal squares (for a total of 8) and place four on cookie sheet that has been covered in parchment paper. Brush egg wash on the edges on all four sides of each square.

Place one slice of cheese on each square. Top each with an even layer of spinach mixture, equally divided and not extending beyond the cheese, and then a piece of uncooked salmon atop the spinach mixture.

Place last four squares of puff pastry atop each packet, fold up the sides (flute if desired), and brush each packet all over with the egg wash.

Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown. While waiting, prepare sauce, below, and serve hot. These would also be excellent with a light side salad of spring greens or cooked asparagus spears.

Frondy dill from one of my favorite magazines, Bon Appétit

Mustard-Dill Cream Sauce

• 1 cup, or more, of cream or half and half (you can also cut in some water)
• A bit of flour and butter
• 1 heaping Tablespoon of grainy Dijon mustard
• 1 heaping Tablespoon of fresh chopped dill (or less if dried)
• Salt and pepper, to taste

In the pan where you prepared your spinach-mushroom mixture––so you can pick up the bits of garlic, spinach, mushroom and shallot still sticking to it––melt butter and whisk in flour (no more than 1/4 cup). Add cream slowly and stir until thickened––cut with a bit of water, or chicken broth, if desired. Add mustard, salt and pepper, dill and more cream (or water/broth) if desired for a thinner sauce. Serve on the side of the salmon packets or pour a bit on each plate, then plate the salmon and drizzle with sauce on top. Add fresh dill sprigs!

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Are you ready for Spring?

© Mary Engelbreit

I certainly am! It's not that I don't mind winter any more, I'm just tired of it. And ready for new things: like getting the gardens ready, buying spring plants, starting some seedlings, ordering new chicks (although I hope some will be broody and raise their own), washing and air-drying quilts and putting them on the clothesline. Finishing my cottage-setting-up! I'm also starting to get a little inkling of "kicky legs," as my friend Edie calls them: when you get restless and want to be out and about. The cave bear is emerging.

Our ten-day forecast only has the upper 40s as a low: otherwise it's mid-50s or even 60s! Perfect, on non-rainy days, to be out working the earth, feeling the warm sunshine. It's time. We turned off the heat today in the cottage: no more worries about frozen pipes. I also turned the heat off in the doublewide and am hopeful that the warmer days will sustain us at night, too, with just occasional heat when necessary. Electric heat has quadrupled in Kentucky since we moved here three years ago! Fortunately, we have about four months a year where neither heat or air-conditioning is needed here.

Red bud and Green River Knob, just over the line from us in Casey County.


They say that God is everywhere, 
and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

~ Emily Dickinson

Soon birds will be nesting again, bulbs will be popping (I saw the very tips of some daffodils poking out by the chicken house this morning), and the brown, dull landscape will give way to spring's glories! As much as I've come to embrace and welcome each season, there is no time like spring time. It is truly a time of resurrection and new birth and a reaffirming time that the Earth is a forgiving, and rewarding, place to live.

I'm glad that Easter is late this year, too––in fact, I don't recall when it has ever been this late (April 24) in my memory. It will make the spring season seem even longer to celebrate Easter at the end of April. The month will also be shared with our youngest child's 11th birthday, two days after Easter, and our daughter's homecoming, like Persephone, at the end of a long winter ski season in New England. Yes, spring will be even sweeter with all of my chickens home to roost.

Our former garden room in our old New England barn––also known as "the herb room."

You come back when you're ready!
Catherine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, I couldn't resist this bit of farmhouse-pantry love on eBay this weekend! I had the seller send me the scan ahead of the card as I was so excited to share with all of you (and at In the Pantry, too). It's certainly a World War Two-era card–during a time of rationing and home canning for the war effort.  I believe the woman is even holding a bit of gauze toweling attached to the card. I love the pantry theme, the vintage look, the apron, even the scalloped shelf edging. There are so many relatable things today with the theme of this card: paring down, preserving our own food, economizing. And I have to wonder where little Stanley is today or to whom he sent this Valentine?

I'm not always much on Valentine's Day but this year has been fun planning a menu that we'll enjoy over two days (as errands and a doctor's appointment kept us out longer this morning than we expected––not to mention the repair of our vital JCB!). And I've found some fun, affordable vintage Valentine's on eBay, too. I've been very, very good on eBay these past four years and I need to be good again now that Valentine's frenzy is over––after all, we are conserving here. [I rationalize these Valentine purchases, many of which will be given next year, as recycling and reusing something already made. Yeah, right! Well, kinda.]

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Bluebirds!

 

We just saw some bluebirds darting around the cottage and two were already nesting in our one box. [Of course, I immediately said, "Honey, we need more boxes!" Fortunately our son Eli is becoming a fair bluebird box maker. But right now there are more pressing things.]

Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.

With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!

               ––Emily Dickinson

"His soft warble melts the ear, as the snow is melting in the valleys around. The bluebird comes and with his warbles drills the ice and sets from the rivers and ponds and frozen ground."                                                                                        ––Henry D. Thoreau, 1859

"Is there any sign of spring quite so welcome as the glint of the first bluebird unless it is his softly whistled song? No wonder the bird has become the symbol for happiness. Before the farmer begins to plough the wet earth, often while snow is still on the ground, this hardy little minstrel is making himself very much at home in our orchards and gardens while waiting for a mate to arrive from the South."

––Neltje Blanchan, Birds Worth Knowing, 1917

A Winter's Burning

  
 The sun is in the south and the days lengthen fast,  And soon we'll sing for the winter that is past,

Now we light the candles and rejoice as they burn,
and Dance the dance of the sun's return.

They cut me down, but I leap up high!
I am life that will never, never die.
I'll live in you and you'll live in me––
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he!

The moon in her phases and the tides of the sea,
the movement of Earth, and the seasons that will be
Are rhythm for the dancing and a promise through the years––    The Dance goes on through joy and tears.

~from Lord of the Dance

You come back when you're ready!


Catherine