Cooking at Cornerstone Again

This time around, we did not get very many pictures at all, especially for dinner/dessert - there is always much more going on when we are cooking here, with extra people and kids, etc.  Because of that, we are not thinking as much about taking pictures, and that makes it more difficult to take time to try and get good photos.  But we still had delicious food!

Natalie cooked mutton for us again--she braised it in wine, carrots, onions, and celery.

We made a salad based on the Little Gem, Feta, and Cumin Salad in the July 2011 Bon Appetit.  The dressing was delicious, made with greek yogurt, feta cheese, and cumin, and we used a mixture of salad greens from both Cornerstone and Ian and Jeanette's garden.  We also added freshly picked radishes, which added beautiful color, as well as a little spice and crunch.

Now on to side dishes...we'll start with Cheese-Stuffed Portobellos from the June 2011 Food Network Magazine.

These had so much stuffing in them (and there was still some left-over after piling it on really high) that no one realized they were mushrooms until we told them!  We used spinach from the garden in the filling, and omitted the celery salad the recipe suggests to serve on the side.

Next we made hasselback potatoes - the potatoes are sliced thinly, but not all the way through, filled with thin slices of garlic here and there, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary (from the garden), and baked at a high temperature until they're cooked through and crispy on the outside.



The final side dish for this meal was Spinach Gunge from the June 2011 Bon Appetit.  It takes a lot of spinach, but is a pretty simple dish made with creme fraiche, Pecorino cheese, and dijon mustard.

We decided to eat dinner on the second story of the 'barn'

Lauren also made her first loaf of sourdough bread using a starter and instruction from their intern/roommate Andrew, who ate dinner with us as well.

Frozen Key Lime Pie from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook was for dessert.  We weren't able to make it as much in advance as we should have, so it wasn't too frozen yet when we ate it, but it still tasted good!  We stayed in the barn for dessert, and then started a game of Rats, which was later moved into the house.

The next morning, which was Lauren's birthday, we made Fresh Peach Cake from the June 2011 Food Network Magazine for breakfast.

The cake batter is layered with sliced peaches and cinnamon sugar, and then topped with chopped pecans

It took longer to bake than the recipe said, but we made it in a slightly smaller pan than it called for

It smelled so good while it was in the oven, and turned out great!  The cake was moist and fluffy, and the peach juices and cinnamon sugar seeped into it, giving it great flavor.

Now that the weather is finally warming up, there are lots of things growing, so we have a lot more farm-fresh ingredients to use!  We better get cooking!

Cooking in Cornerstone's Little Kitchen

We are behind on posting this, but we made dinner and breakfast at Cornerstone on Vashon a couple weeks ago.  First up, dinner...

There was a recipe we knew we wanted to make for Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings from the May 2011 Food Network Magazine, and then we figured out the rest of dinner around that.  The dumpling mixture was made into balls and rolled into flour

Then we made a marinara sauce to put the dumplings in, using fresh herbs from the farm



After boiling the dumplings, we tossed them in the sauce, and then topped them with parmesan cheese

Natalie cooked mutton from the farm, using leftover sauce from meat that Brandon had cooked, and it was so delicious, with a slightly sweet flavor!



There were also white beans that Natalie had cooked, and Brandon and Julia finished by adding butter, bacon, herbs, and cheese - they were also really good, but unfortunately we don't have a picture of just them. 

We made Asparagus with Garlic Dip from the May 2011 Food Network Magazine

We roasted the asparagus instead of boiling it like the recipe suggested



The dip was made with LOTS of garlic cooked in oil, then pureed with the rest of the ingredients, and finished with chives from the garden.

The salad we made was a Green Salad with Buttermilk Dressing from the June 2011 Food Network Magazine. 



We used cilantro from the garden, and raw yogurt and buttermilk from Vashon.  We also added some arugula from the garden. 

For dessert we made Maple Pecan Bars from Tasty Kitchen

To go with them we made vanilla/maple ice cream.  This isn't a very good picture, but we didn't get any better ones :(



Ian, Jeanette, and Wesley spent the night and in the morning we made Puffed French Toast, also from Tasty Kitchen. 



We got bread from Great Harvest, which is dipped in a batter made with orange zest

Then they are fried, and while they are frying they puff up a lot! 

We fried them in coconut oil that had already been used for frying ice cream, so the oil looks really dark

After being fried they are rolled in cinnamon sugar

They were really thick after being fried, and it was hard to tell where the batter stopped and the bread started--we thought you could just leave the bread out and fry the batter, and it would still be really good!

We have another post to do already since this one should have been done so long ago--hopefully we'll get it up soon!

May 11th Rainy Day Dinner and Breakfast the Next Sunny Morning!

Since there seems to be no end to Winter in sight, we decided to make a warm, comforting casserole for dinner that Jeanette has been talking about wanting to make since we got the magazine that the recipe is in over a year ago. We still included some Spring items in the meal, like asparagus with dinner and rhubarb in the dessert.



The main part of dinner was Tuna Noodle Casserole with Leeks and Fresh Dill from the March 2010 Bon Appetit Magazine. We substituted dried dill and fresh parsley for the fresh dill that the recipe called for.



The potato chip topping really made the dish, adding crunch and saltiness on top. Ian remembers having tuna casserole this way when he was young, but Bethany's mom didn't add the topping on hers. All of us thought it tasted "just like tuna noodle casserole!" - basically it took us back to childhood!

We also made Escarole Salad with Anchovy Dressing from the May 2011 Food Network Magazine. Not only were there anchovies in the dressing, but also lemon and orange juice. The flavors of the dressing, hard-boiled eggs, and croutons were similar to caesar salad.


And because it should be Spring-time, we made Lemon-Parsley Asparagus from the May 2011 Food Network Magazine.

This was very simple to make, but added a lot of flavor to the asparagus, and went really well with the casserole.

For dessert we made the Rhubarb and Raspberry Crostata from the May 2011 Bon Appetit Magazine.

Rhubarb is something to look forward to in the Spring!



The filling was cooked on the stove to thicken, and then cooled before putting it on the crust and baking.

We used freshly ground flour for the crust, which was very buttery...during baking a ring of melted butter formed around the outside of the crostata! Jeanette also made brown sugar vanilla ice cream to go with it, using local raw milk as well as eggs from Cornerstone Farm. We really enjoyed the dessert, especially since we hadn't made something with so much fruit in a while, and this had a lot of fruit filling for a crostata! Surprisingly, Ian even ate a piece and a half!

For breakfast the next morning, we made Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cake with Broiled Topping from Tasty Kitchen.

Wesley liked the batter pretty well!

The recipe called for quick-cooking oats, but we just used rolled oats, and they worked great--we thought you probably would barely notice the oats if you used quick-cooking. This cake has a lot of sugar in it!! It would probably still be sweet and taste good with the amount of sugar cut in half!



The topping was put on at the very end of baking and broiled very shortly, making a delicous crispy caramelized top.

We made whipped cream to have with it too!

The cake was delicious warm, and as it set the topping became more and more crunchy!

Though he did try a few bites of the cake, Ian made himself a savory breakfast. He topped it with creme fraiche that Jeanette had made using raw milk.

Since Wesley had so much fun licking all the beaters and spoons, he didn't have more of the cake for breakfast, but a pb&j instead.

Because it was so nice outside in the morning, we ate breakfast outside by the fire that Ian made.

It was beautiful out, and even though we were right outside the door to the house, it felt like we were camping with the fire and the lake and trees all around us.

After breakfast we went to let out three ducks that the Wilsons got a week ago, and were acclamating to their new home by keeping them in a house before letting them loose on the property.

It was a really fun couple days, filled with lots of good food, laughs, and at least some sunshine!