Midwest Saskatoon

Rustic Saskatoon Tart with Irish Butter Crust

2011-08-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

Rustic Saskatoon Tart with Irish Butter Crust (Soooooooooo Good!)

Crust:
1 C all purpose flour
1/4 t salt
6 T Pure Irish Butter cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 large egg yolk (reserve white)
1 t ice water

Filling:
2 C Saskatoon berries
3 T Sugar
2 t cornstarch

To make the crust:
Heat oven to 425 degrees F. In food processor, whirl together flour and salt. Add butter to processor, pulsing just until mixture resembles course meal. Add egg yolk and water, 1 teaspoon at a time; process just until mixture clumps together and begins to form a ball.

Set 2 pieces (each about 12 by 15 inches) plastic wrap on work surface. Lightly dust each with flour. Gather dough and press into a flat disk about 6 inches wide. Set disk in center of 1 piece of wrap. Set remaining plastic wrap, flour side down on dough. With rolling pin, roll dough evenly in to about an 11 to 12 inch round; occasionally turn it over, lift plastic wrap, pull smooth and replace; continue as needed.

To fill the tart:
Peel the top sheet of wrap and invert into 12 by 15 inch baking sheet lined with cooking parchment. Remove remaining plastic wrap, and distribute berries in center of pastry, leaving about a 2 inch border. In small bowl, mix sugar and cornstarch. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of the sugar mixture evenly over the fruit. Gently fold edges of pastry over the fruit, pleating to fit; leave an opening of 4 to 6 inches wide in the center. Brush pastry with egg white reserved from crust. Sprinkle pastry lightly with remaining sugar mixture.
Bake tart on the top rack of the 425 F oven until crust is golden on bottom and juices bubble, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool inn pan at least 15 minutes. While still warm, loosen tart from pa with wide spatula, especially where juices have leaked out. Transfer to serving platter and serve warm or cool. Cut in wedges. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Lemon Saskatoon Muffins

2011-04-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

This morning started seamlessly enough. I went to bed at a decent hour last night and woke feeling less grumpy than usual. I whipped up some tea and a breakfast sandwich for my lovely teacher boyfriend and actually got dressed (in real clothes not just pajamas) before I left the house to drive him to school. It was when we arrived at my car that the seams started to burst a little. My trusty Subaru has become a little less trusty as of late, and today it wanted nothing to do with obliging our transportation needs. My overworked car was dead as a door nail (to take from my mom) and in need of some TLC. Luckily it decided to die right across the street from a great mechanic. I got the teacher off to his teaching and headed over to the shop to squeeze my way in to a jam packed garage schedule. Once that was settled I headed to the store to pick up the ingredients for some gratitude baking. The following recipe is the one I came up with today to thank all the guys at Augusta & Paulina Service-Complete Auto Repair. Their service was fast, friendly and affordable and I'm back behind the wheel in plenty of time to make it to school before the last bell.

Saskatoon Lemon Muffins

Ingredients

1 stick of butter
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups Saskatoons, frozen or fresh

Topping:

1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line muffin tins. I ran out of liners so I used pieces of waxed paper cut in to squares.


In a bowl, cream together butter and sugar.


Stir in eggs and milk. Add 2 cups flour, 2 tablespoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 2 teaspoons lemon zest

Carefully stir in 2 cups Saskatoons

Divide batter among muffins

In a bowl, combine brown sugar, zest and butter and sprinkle on top of muffins. Bake for 20-25 minutes

Viola!! So good.

Saskatoon Bread Pudding

2011-04-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

Today, I am sharing a recipe my dad emailed me. The man avoids computers at all costs preferring his chicken scratch and snail mail to anything requiring a keyboard, and yet there it was, smiling up at me from my inbox and titled "Eggs and Saskatoons." My dad, being my dad and all knows I love eggs and eat them every morning. He also knows and encourages my passion for Saskatoons. Judging by the subject line alone I figured whatever he had taken the time to painstakingly send was worthwhile. I wasn't disappointed. "Eggs and Saskatoons" turned out to be a scanned recipe for Saskatoon Bread Pudding with hand written notes about his healthy substitutions. The following is his recipe with both the original ingredients and his minor tweaks and changes. Those will be noted with an *

Thanks Dad for the copying, scanning, attaching and emailing. Love you.

Dad's Saskatoon Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

5-6 Cups hearty white bread-day old but not stale, crusts removed and cut in 1-1/2 inch cubes

*we used hearty whole wheat

1/4 C Dark Maple Syrup

4 Large Eggs

4 Egg Yokes

1/2 C sugar

1/8 tsp sea salt

2 tsp fresh lemon zest

2 2/3 C whole milk

*we used 2%

1 1/3 C heavy cream

*we used 2%

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbs butter for the pan

*we used olive oil spray

2 C fresh or frozen Saskatoons

*we used frozen~ will try with fresh this summer

Cooking Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Drizzle the maple syrup over the cubed bread and toss to coat. Place the bread on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 15 minutes or until the bread is toasted and the maple syrup is slightly caramelized.

Remove bread and reduce heat to 375 degrees. Let bread cool.

Cream eggs and and yokes until thick. Add sugar, salt and vanilla. Mix. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Pour in to 8x8 baking dish.

Add cooled bread and mix slightly. Allow the bread to absorb the egg and fruit mixture until soft (about 30 minutes).

Once the bread has absorbed the mixture and is soft, place into the oven and bake 45 minutes or until pudding is spongy but not wet.

Let cool, slice and serve.

*we like ours warm so we let it cool slightly and served it with vanilla frozen yogurt.

Saskatoon bread pudding with fresh whipped cream and warm Saskatoon syrup

Saskatoon Kefir

2011-03-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

Hello all! This week Matt and I have been busy in the kitchen. We've made lasagna, chocolate pots de creme and best of all Saskatoon Kefir! Here's how we did it:

First we picked up a gallon of Oberweis Whole Milk-totally awesome and all natural. www.oberweis.com

Then we picked up some freeze dried kefir grains


Use a candy thermometer to bring milk up to 180 degrees

Next we heated the milk to 180 degrees

Then we heated 2 Cups of frozen Saskatoon berries with 2 Cups of sugar

After the berries were heated through we strained the berries and removed the pulp and seeds. Then we returned the Saskatoon and sugar mixture to the heat to reduce. Once the liquid thickened we removed the syrupy mixture from the heat and stored it for later use.

Once the milk reached 180 we put it in the refrigerator to cool to 71 degrees. Once the milk reached the appropriate temperature we removed a small amount from the pan and added the packet of freeze dried kefir. Once the grains dissolved we added it back to the rest of the cooled milk and transferred the entire batch to the milk jar. From there we capped it and put it in a warm spot to culture for 24 hours.

After the milk had thickened into the consistency of watery yogurt we placed it in the refrigerator again to stop the culturing process. After 8 hours we added the reserved Saskatoon syrup and Viola! Delicious, nutritious Saskatoon Kefir! Pretty huh?

Saskatoons available at the West Michigan Co-Op

2011-02-04T15:47:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited! The West Michigan Co-op is the brain child of a crafty guy named Jerry Adams who wanted his members to get to know their growers and their growers to make some fairly earned money without wasting time, energy and most importantly ~produce, and I'm now a member! Here's how it works.... The Co-op website opens for business 1 week of the month. During that time members get online and place their orders. After one week the Co-op "closes" meaning no additional orders are taken. At the time producers like myself log in to the website and view their orders. They have a few weeks to prepare whatever it is they are selling and then it's off to the market. Co-op members who have placed orders show up at the warehouse to meet and chat with their grower/producer, pick-up their goods and even purchase more if the producer happens to have some on hand that day. A few hours later members are at home cooking up a mean dinner produced by a person they've met and likely shaken hands with and the grower/producer heads home sans a truck bed full of left over goods. Seems like a win-win to me and I'm enthusiastically awaiting my opportunity to meet the people who are interested in baking up , saucing up, jamming up some Saskatoons and the ones like me who are so exited to be doing what they are doing.....providing good food.

If you live in the Grand Rapids area check out West Michigan Co-op http://www.westmichigancoop.com/

Something tells me...

2010-05-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

And we're off.... or at least I'm off. Here I am, the end of May in beautiful Northern Michigan with 3 tons of frozen Saskatoon berries in cold storage, a caravan of semis poised and ready to ship 50,000 Saskatoon plants and the question, "what have I gotten myself in to?" My unyielding optimism and enthusiasm has me hoping things with the Saskatoon will mirror the sentiments of the song made famous by Herman's Hermits- "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good." Yet I can say that sometimes I'm completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the endeavor at hand. Attempting to build a whole new fruit industry is no simple task, but it is interesting to say the least, and fulfilling.

Today, I met with Mesick restaurant owner Denny Sparks; to sell him 75lbs of berries to use in his restaurant "Sparks". As it turns out he's also going to buy 750 plants from me. He asked me the same question everyone does..."so Sarah, how did you get yourself involved in this venture?" I laughed, explained to him my initial attraction to the Saskatoon: The berries are high in antioxidants, the plants themselves are extremely cold hearty-perfect for the harsh Midwest winters, and it’s a huge challenge to build something from the ground up. We chatted a while longer about the potential uses for the berries (pies, jams, pancakes, syrups, brandies, wines, beers, sauces, etc, etc), the development of a market for the berries and the eventual transition from imported, Canadian berries to locally grown fruit.

Then it was time for goodbyes. One of my favorite things about working on this project is the relationships that are built in the parking lot of Traverse City Cold Storage, in the fields, in kitchens and coffee shops. In what has become the norm, we parted with hugs not handshakes and I got in to my car smiling.

I also got into my car feeling rejuvenated, not weighted down by the future or the extent of my commitment. Instead I felt enthusiastic and motivated to work with people like Denny who embody the potential of this crop and breathe life into it with enthusiasm, determination and hope. And so, at the end of this day I am feeling much like that song...Something (Denny) tells me I’m into something good.