4 options for dinner, what would you choose?

I spent some time tonight writing out 4 menu options for an upcoming dinner this Friday. And it got me wondering…. If you had these 4 choices what would you choose? And a bit of mixing and matching is allowed. I hope that I will be able to get out to the woods early that day and dig up a few ramps, wild leeks. I hope to incorporate that fresh, foraged spring food into the menu. And what a great excuse for a walk in the woods! If this sounds so good you just have to have some…. You can always schedule a dinner here at Hillside. I just need a little advance notice to get your group reserved for a date and the price is $50 per person plus tax and gratuity.

What a typical dinner looks like at Hillside homestead

What a typical dinner looks like at Hillside homestead

Menu Option 1
• Pork chops, raised right here at hillside, oven roasted with sage and served….
• On a bed of my own homemade sauerkraut and seasoned with caraway seed
• Mashed potatoes, whipped up light and served with homemade butter
• A fresh pot of apple sauce made with apples from the neighborhood

Menu Option 2
• Slow roasted venison tenderloin, from the neighborhood and not ‘gamey’ served with currant jelly sauce
• Potatoes in jackets, much like modern twice baked potatoes
• Old style baked beans, slow cooked with all sorts of seasonsings and bit of salt pork
• Baked parsnips, sweet and very flavorful

Menu option 3
• Black bean soup with home cured ham as a first course
• Local Whitefish very lightly breaded and served with butter sauce
• Fried potatoes and ramps. (wild leeks if they are big enough to dig up in the woods)
• Deviled Eggs, the chickens are producing some wonderful eggs this time of year

Menu Option 4
• White bean soup with ham as a first course
• Miss Parloa’s creamy chicken. A very delicately stewed chicken and flavorful cream sauce made with my own homemade chicken stock…
• Served on mashed potatoes beaten to a nicety
• Baked Rhode Island Greening apples, a small variety that has kept well all winter

Bread – choose 1
• Yeast risen dinner rolls with homemade butter, apricot jam and apple butter
• Corn bread, with homemade butter, local honey and apple butter

dinner rolls at Hillside Homestead in Suttons Bay

Dinner rolls enough for a big dinner! and pie to boot!

Maggie's perfect cornbread. She made this the day the Martha Steward Mag People were at my house.

Maggie’s perfect cornbread. She made this the day the Martha Steward Mag People were at my house.

 

Dinner will also include rummage pickle as a relish.

Dessert – Choose 1
• Cream pie- a current favorite with my customers, good local cream, my hen’s eggs, sugar, nutmeg…
• Apple butter filled bread pudding, classic bread pudding spread with a not too thick layer of my homemade apple butter
• Pound cake with Lemon sauce
• Custard pie
• Spice cake with Lemon sauce. A recipe I worked on this winter a local historic recipe made with cardamom, very nice.
• Pumpkin pie – the last one I can make this season

cream pie and me

 

 

 

 

 

Nice chunk of chicken fat.

Last Sunday a pair of hawks was stalking my chickens and alas they killed one. But a friend was here and he saw it as it was happening and he was able to retrieve the chicken for me. The hawks took the head and broke the crop, but all the meat was still there.

Another friend plucked and cleaned the bird as I was busy making a dinner for 10. Today I’m stewing that bird. I hope to make Miss Parloa’s creamed chicken and a nice pot of chicken stock.

But the surprise was the fat inside the body cavity near the vent. This chunk of fat is about a cup in volume! Nice and yellow not white like store bought chicken. And this hen was almost 2 years old.

Chicken fat from the body cavity of a 2 year old Light Brahma hen

Chicken fat from the body cavity of a 2 year old Light Brahma hen

I’m pondering this fat and I’m going to render it in the eastern Europe/Jewish tradition of making schmaltz. I’ve never don this before! So to the internet I went and found the typical methods which includes onions. Sounds great. I will report back. Already smells great in here with the bird on the stove.

Light Brahma Hen at Hillside Homestead, busy laying eggs!

Light Brahma Hen at Hillside Homestead, busy laying eggs!

Direct Descendants are coming for Dinner

Something really exciting is happening! A very special group of people is coming for dinner tonight. They are the sons and family of a woman who grew up in this house. Their grandfather, Joe Reicha, built this house. They are a direct connection to things that happened here, things that were farmed here, things that were eaten here! I can’t wait to hear some good stories and share some good food with them.

These fine folks also helped me with hog butchering, well they did all the hard work of butchering! They are old school farmers, growing cherries and apples and other tree fruits, but they also do a little of everything, including a little butchering in season. They give me gifts of pork fat, apples and venison! I’m able to buy straw and honey from them. I feel lucky to know them. I hope to learn all kinds of amazing things!

The dinner I am serving them features some of all the meat preservation experiments that I did. We will be finishing the pork chops stored in lard. I also opened up the pork barrel for them and extracted a ham,  that is soaking overnight to be baked tomorrow. We will have some of the bacon I salt cured and some of the fat back will be used in the pork and beans. I’m so excited!

Dinner Menu Hillside Homestead

The menu for my very special guest, direct descendants of Joe Reicha, the man who built my house

Longer days mean more eggs!

Collected 8 eggs today! I’ve been keeping count of eggs since February 1 of this year. February yielded 47 eggs total and March had increased all the way to 160 eggs. As the days grow longer and the grip of winter lightens hens will begin to lay more eggs. And as the days begin to shorten in the fall production will drop. This is avoided in modern poultry settings by keeping lights on the bird to mimic the long days of summer. But I let these hens go the old way. This is based on 15 or 14 hens. Sadly I lost a hen about a week ago to a hawk.

Rooster and Hens

Our resident rooster, Clark and a few of his hens.

Basket of Eggs

The fruits of their labor, eggs for eating and baking!

Chickens in the snow

Chickens doing their best to make it through the snow at Hillside Homestead

I found a great diary entry about this sort of thing in Sarah Palmer’s Diary from April 13, 1891. Mrs. Sarah Palmer was a resident and farm wife in Suttons Bay Township, where I also live, and she kept a diary for most of her adult life from about 1873 to 1915. It is a treasure trove of information!

Melville & Perry drove over to town after feeding this morning & Nellie Lyle & Rosa all went to School & they rode over too.  I put on a kettle of potatoes for the pigs  I have to attend to the lamb when Nellie is at School.  Nellie sent a letter to Ethel Justus.  Mother gave Cora bleached cotton for a chemise for her birthday present. Melville & Perry went over to the P of I meeting tonight, & then Perry & Cora will go to the Calico Ball. They made fence to day.  We got 15 eggs to day, the most we have got any day.

I collected 15 eggs on March 18! I love it when I can find a connection to Sarah. I’ve been serving lots of fried eggs, deviled eggs and making cakes rich in eggs. I plan to preserve some of my eggs for the winter months too. Production goes way down in December and January.  Back in my Greenfield Village days we experimented with coating eggs and storing them in oats. The wax seals up the slightly porous eggs and helps keep air out. The oats are just a storage medium. I plan to do the same thing but with some lard as instructed in “The New Buckeye Cook Book” published in 1904. I don’t have any good beeswax at hand, but I do have plenty of lard.

Feeding Chickens at Hillside Homestead

Susan Odom, Proprietress, feeds the chickens at Hillside Homestead, summer 2011

Details on that project to come! So Happy Easter and enjoy the eggs.

Apple Pie Video published by Traverse Magazine

Traverse Magazine, a really great regional mag, published a surprise today, a video of me making an apple pie! I had no idea they were planning to do this. It is in honor of Pi day which is tomorrow, 3.14 or March 14. Now I don’t much about Pi but I do know a lot about Pie. And of course I use leaf lard in my pie crust. I render the lard myself from my very own hogs, but that is another story. Last November they published a feature article about me and my place, Hillside Homestead and at that time they published a video where I make pie crust! The day the videographer was here, I suggested we make an apple too. I mean what the heck?! I wasn’t gonna waste all those pie plates we had just lined with paste (old 19th century cook books call pie crust, pastry or paste). I figured that footage was no good since they didn’t use it last November.  What a big surprise Today to see a new video, Thanks Traverse Magazine!

Feature article on Hillside Homestead in Traverse Magazine Nov, 2012

Feature article on Hillside Homestead in Traverse Magazine Nov, 2012

So here are the links: Apple Pie Making Pie Crust making Hillside Homestead Feature Article And the Pie Recipe: Cherry Pie, Buttermilk Pie, Apple Pie, Cream Pie, Mincemeat Pie, Pumpkin or Squash Pie and a few pictures just for fun….

Susan Odom standing by her wood cook stove with a yummy apple pie she made

Susan Odom standing by her wood cook stove with a yummy apple pie she made

An apple pie with a peeler in the background

An apple pie with a peeler in the background

»