Donegal Oatcakes and Tomato-Rosemary Jam

I’ve been home most of this week with FOUR sick kids.  I’m only just getting used to having four children, let alone sick ones.   It’s been snowy and cold here, so if there is a time to be taking care of sick little ones and baking, that time is now.  

This whole cold, snowy weather, sick kids thing could really be a bummer, and while I hate that the kids are off their game, I’m feeling fortunate that it’s not this nasty flu everyone else is getting.  Also, since I’m on maternity leave, I can be here to take care of them.  And do what I would probably be doing anyway: Bake.

It’s funny how I think most people who know me would say that I’m an extrovert, outgoing, social and talkative (“excessive talking” was the comment I would get from every single teacher on my elementary school report cards).  I’m all of those things, but I’m also a homebody to the core. I can go days, weeks even, without leaving the house. I always have a list of projects I want to tackle and it’s so easy for me to just get lost in one or a few of them.  When I’m focused, I don’t notice the hours or days go by.  Paul tells me that he can identify the look in my face when I’m “in the zone” and he knows to just get out of the way. Haha.

My point is, that for me, being snowed in with sick littles isn’t so bad. It’s an opportunity for me to get things done around the house, including trying some recipes I’ve had on my list.  So, once again, I find myself cooking comfort food from the pantry.

I’ve been wanting to try this simple recipe for Donegal Oatcakes by Darina Allen for ages.  When I surveyed the contents of our fridge and saw tomato-rosemary jam, a by-product of Paul and I both buying grape tomatoes on the same day, I thought it would complement these oatcakes perfectly. Well, as it turns out, I was right. These were nutty and homey and another easy and delicious way to use my favorite Irish flour. They are also great with fruit jam and clotted cream, creme fraiche, or greek yogurt.  They can be taken in the direction of dessert with a generous swipe of nutella - sort of like an oaty, nutty, chocolate digestive. With just five ingredients, and a little time, they couldn't be easier to make.

Put the kettle on.

Donegal Oatcakes

• 1 cup stone-ground oatmeal
• 1 cup whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter or lard, cubed and chilled, plus butter for serving (optional)
• 1⁄2 tsp. kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
• 1⁄2 cup boiling water

Tomato- RosemaryJam

• 2 cups grape tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ⅓ to ½ cup of sugar

For tomato jam:

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer until tomatoes cook down and the mixture reaches a thick, jammy consistency, about 1 hour.  Remove rosemary sprig, its ok to leave some whole leaves that have fallen off in the jam. Serve with oatcakes, brown bread, on a grilled cheese or even with chicken, fish or pork.  

For oatcakes:

Add oats, flour, butter and salt to food processor and pulse until butter is in pea-sized clumps.

Drizzle in boiling water until dough comes together. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a ½” thick square.  Place a kitchen towel over the top and let sit to dry out for about an hour.

I rolled the dough out between the parchment I baked them on and a sheet of saran wrap. 

Preheat oven to 250F.  You can cut the cakes out with a biscuit cutter and gather and reuse the scraps or just cut them into squares as I did.

With this approach, they don't look identical (unless you rolled them out in a perfect rectangle) but I don't mind the "rustic" look.

Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and bake, flipping once, until golden and slightly crisp, about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Serve warm or at room temperature with butter (or Irish cheddar) and tomato jam.

It's tough to tell from the photo but these did brown slighty on both sides.  They are crisp on the outside and a soft on the inside. 

These last about 1 week in an airtight container.

Put 'Em Up: Oven Roasted Tomatoes

To say that I don’t have a green thumb is more than an understatement. My brother Mark, got the green thumb in the family, along with all of the musical ability, thick dark, curly hair and eyelashes, and well, a lot of things I still wish I had. When he lived in Brooklyn he basically had the secret garden growing in his apartment.  In contrast, I could kill a bamboo plant.  But I love the idea of growing my own food. So I have two raised planters in the backyard where I’ve been growing herbs, peppers and some vegetables for the last few years.

It’s great to have fresh herbs growing in the backyard because I cook with them so much and hate spending $2 here and $3 there to buy them at the store (in quantities that I don’t really need or use). I’ve also been growing peppers: Shishitos, Banana peppers, Jalapenos, Serranos and, this year, Poblanos - mostly because they are easy to grow and the bunnies don’t like them.  An added bonus is that when I have a zillion peppers ready at the same time in mid-August I am able to pickle and candy them.  The best part? We actually eat all of those jars of peppers throughout the year.

This year, we planted a cherry tomato plant that basically took over the garden. We obviously should have built some kind of structure so that it could grow upwards instead of out.  Lessons learned. Because the growing season in Chicago is so short and grocery store tomatoes are nothing like homegrown ones, I never, ever, EVER get sick of eating fresh tomatoes. However, when the tomatoes finally started ripening on our single plant, we had too many for the 5 of us to consume.  So, last weekend I decided to slow roast a couple of trays of them with garlic and herbs and throw them in the freezer. It really couldn’t be easier and the hands-on time is 5 minutes tops.

These little guys are great in pastas, soups, braised chicken or meat dishes, piled on top of a big scoop of hummus, or as a bruschetta topping.  Beware, these little guys really cook down and as they do, they shrivel up until they start to look like sun-dried tomatoes. But that’s the whole point. As they dry out in the oven their flavor is concentrated and they become chewy and even sweeter.  After they are roasted I like to drizzle them with a little bit of honey to accentuate that natural sweetness even more.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

• 2-3 lb cherry tomatoes
• 12 cloves of garlic, whole (unpeeled, I used peeled because I had pre-peeled garlic on hand, unpeeled is better)
• A bunch of fresh herbs, I used Thyme for one pan and Tarragon for the other
• Olive oil, enough for a generous drizzle over the tomatoes
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Honey or agave nectar, to taste (optional) 

Preheat oven to 300F.  

Cut tomatoes in half and put seed side up along with garlic cloves on a sheet pan covered with a baking mat or sheet of parchment paper.

Drizzle with olive oil.

Sprinkle with fresh herbs, salt and pepper.

Slip sheet pans in the oven and cook for a total of 2-3 hours, rotating from top to bottom (if you have two pans in there) about 1 hour in.

Tomatoes are ready when they have cooked down and dried out considerably and have become chewy but remain tender with concentrated tomato flavor. Taste them and take them out when you think they are done.

Allow to cool at room temperature before placing in labeled bags (I always think that I will recognize things months later in the freezer but I never do) or other containers in the freezer.

Chimichurri

Even before I was married or had kids I probably spent some portion of my weekend getting organized for the week ahead.  Doing some of the things that I knew I wouldn’t want to do after a long day at work (i.e. cleaning, laundry) and getting other tasks (i.e. making portable breakfasts/snacks) out of the way so that I couldn’t use them as an excuse not to go to the gym before heading into the office. Now that I have three children under the age of three, getting prepared for the week ahead takes on a whole new meaning. Buying a tub of yogurt and cutting up some fruit does not cut it if I want to have any semblance of order and sanity for the upcoming week.

By now I’m pretty good at using the weekend to get laundry taken care of, cook a few things and make sure that we have what we need foodwise to make it at least most of the way through the week.  I also try to make sure the car has gas in it (which rarely happens and I’m always full of regret when I find myself pumping gas on a dark, freezing cold weeknight with three grumpy kids in the car - bad planning!).  

One of the other things I’m not so good at remembering to do is sorting and prepping groceries once I get back from the store. The fact that I don’t do the majority of my grocery shopping on the weekend is partially to blame. I usually cram my groceries in the fridge, freezer, cupboards - anywhere there’s space - as soon as I get home from work and immediately launch into dinner, dishes, play, baths, etc. I promptly forget about the head of lettuce and bags of herbs I’ve shoved into my crisper drawer, only to find them a week later, all wilted, leaves mushy and stuck together.

This year, in an effort to do better, I’ve been focusing on preparing for the week more and getting the kids involved in the process. This means, the older two have already learned to vacuum, not very effectively, but it’s the act of contributing that matters. And Paul and I are putting more emphasis on cleaning up after activities. Isla wants to do absolutely everything “by myself!” and Emmett loves to be my little helper so I’m capitalizing on these phases while I can.

This weekend I discovered a great way that they can help me in my quest to have an organized fridge full of ready-to-eat food. The SALAD SPINNER! I can’t believe I never thought of it before. I had tons of cilantro and parsley because I had planned on roasting pork shoulder and making chimichurri to go with it but never got around to it. Ah, the best laid plans...

By the next Saturday I needed to do something with my herbs, stat. I decided to make the chimichurri anyway because it’s so good. On anything. Um, everything.  I washed my herbs and got out the salad spinner. One look at that thing and the kids were underfoot, wondering what on earth I was going to do next. I let them take turns washing the herbs, spinning them dry and pouring out the green-tinged water left behind. They had a ball.  

The bonus for me was that I was actually able to get a few pics of Emmett, my little hummingbird, always flying too fast to capture in a photo. People say you have so many photos of your first born and less and less of your younger ones but it hasn’t played out that way for me at all. Isla and Eve both love to stop whatever they are doing for a photo op and I am happy to oblige. So capturing my oldest on film was a treat.

So is the chimichurri. If you need ideas, it’s great with: any kind of meat or chicken, mixed with some greek yogurt for a dip, stirred into soft butter for an herby compound butter, or smeared on your avocado toast. Stir a spoonful into your soup if you want to feel French or add some to your vinaigrette. Now I’m feeling like I should have made more. Luckily I had Emmett prep the remaining herbs in case I run out.

Chimichurri

2 cups parsley, roughly chopped

1 cup cilantro, roughly chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

Juice of one lime

¼ cup red wine vinegar

⅔ cup good extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Pinch of sugar

Crushed red pepper flakes to taste

Throw all of the ingredients into a food processor and process until combined. Just a few seconds is fine. I know it’s not the traditional method, but it is fast and still tastes amazing. You can also make this by hand, just chop the herbs very finely and mix everything in a bowl.