Garden – Quillisascut

April 2, 2018

How We Make Walnut Oil at Quillisascut Farm

A photo tutorial on a simple way to make walnut oil at home or on the farm!

All you need is a little time and a few pounds of shelled walnuts. Shelling the walnuts is the most time consuming part of the process, but can be fun if you get a group of friends or family to pitch in and help. Make sure to get all the shells and center pith out of the walnuts. Next, finely grind the walnuts, we use our electric meat grinder. The heating step takes some time as you don’t want the nuts to toast, so use a slow oven 200-250*F stir them periodically as they all come to 165*F, while the walnuts are warm place them in a press.

Rick purchased this small antique lard press from a local second hand store. We line it with cheesecloth (it helps when it is time to remove the spent walnut cake) then pack in the warm nuts, this press holds about 6 pounds of of ground walnuts, giving us between 16-20 ounces of oil.

The walnut cake left over can be broken up and used for flour in baking and the lovely oil can be drizzled on salads, in soup or ? What we do know is that you will learn a new appreciation for walnut oil and never want to waste a drop!

March 23, 2018March 23, 2018

The Birth of Cheese

It is spring and a whole new year of cheese making is about to begin. The goats have had their kids and the new flow of milk is starting to come into the cheese room.

For me it is a celebration, like New Years, to taste the rich new milk, smell the rich tangy whey, and take a drink and toast the year ahead.

Here is a pictorial of the cheese- making process

December 19, 2017December 19, 2017

Walnut and Cheese Crackers

There is everything to love about crackers that combine cheese and walnuts here at Quillisascut Farm. These two cracker recipes, Quillisascut Blue Cheese and Walnut and Quillisascut Viejo Walnut, share those sentiments.

Walnuts and cheese crackers at Quillisascut Farm

The blue cheese recipe is a savory shortbread that melts in your mouth. This is a modified recipe from All recipes

Blue Cheese Walnut Cracker

1/2 cup unsalted butter
*8 ounces Quillisascut blue cheese
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 egg white plus 1 Tablespoon water (whisk together for egg wash)
1 cup chopped walnuts
Salt for topping

If your walnuts are in large pieces, place them in the food processor and process until they are finely chopped. Remove from processor and set aside.

Put butter, blue cheese, flour, salt and pepper in food processor bowl and process until combined. Roll in quarter sized log and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Brush on egg wash and roll in walnuts. Slice thin, place on parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, until they have a little color. Remove and let cool. Store in an airtight container.
* for a milder version try replacing the blue cheese with a Quillisascut Farmer Cheese

Walnut Blue Cheese Crackers Quillisascut Style

The next recipe is a thick and crunchy style cracker that features Quillisascut Viejo cheese, with walnuts incorporated in the dough.

Walnut Viejo Cheese Crackers

1 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups shredded Quillisascut Viejo cheese
1 tsp salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 cup of water

Mix together all the dry ingredients, then pour in the water and stir until incorporated.
Let rest for 15 minutes
Roll out on a floured surface to your preferred thickness. Cut into small 1 inch rounds, use a cute small cookie cutter or simple squares. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes until firm.
Cool on wire rack, store in a air tight container.

Next time I am going to try substituting 1/2 cup of our walnut flour in both of these cracker recipes, to replace that amount of wheat flour.

Share with friends!

December 18, 2017December 18, 2017

Walnuts Forever

This fall we have been obsessed with walnuts. Our trees were very productive. Rick and I and several groups of friends picked up more then 300 pounds of walnuts. Thank you walnut trees and a big GRATEFUL to everyone who shared in the joy of the harvest.

walnuts, quillisascut, farm school, cookery — Walnuts under the tree at Quillisascut Farm

Many of the nuts fall clean from their outer husks, but as you can see in the photo some of them still cling to the thick green outer jacket and need to be liberated before storage.

Walnuts, Leeks, farmlife — Fall Harvest of Persian Walnuts and Leeks at Quillisascut Farm

The first step was getting them picked up, second was cracking them, which has been an on going theme for the last two months.

We used our Dave Built Nutcracker to get the shells open and picked through saving all the meats. It took about an hour for one person to liberate a pound of nutmeats. Having friends to share in the process lightened the task with lots of stories, conversation and laughter.

As of yesterday all of the main crop has been cracked giving us close to 100 pounds of walnuts out of their shells to cook with and share with the Quillisascut community!

All along we have been eating them, raw, toasted, with cheese and experimenting with recipes. One of the easiest to make was walnut butter. Here is how I did it.

Walnut Butter Recipe:

Walnuts
Salt

Toast walnut meats in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, until they take on a slight golden toasty color. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. Let cool slightly. While still warm place in blender or food processor (the Vita-mix™ worked like a champion for this making a creamy silken butter, the food processor took a little longer and the resulting butter was a little grainier, but equally as delicious). Add salt blend and it’s ready to eat! I keep mine stored in a jar in the refrigerator to protect the fresh flavor. Iv’e used it as you would any nut butter on bread, and have also stirred it in salad dressing which is especially wonderful on a green salad with ripe pears! (We are enjoying organic Anjou and Bosc Pears from Cliffside Orchard)

Grateful harvest at Quillisascut Farm — Thank you, soil, earth worms, microbes, water, compost and walnut trees!

July 12, 2017July 12, 2017

Green Sour Plum Pickles

What to do with an embarrassment of Shiro plums? Some of you may have been here in the summertime when we experienced an abundance of Shiro plums and witnessed Chef Kären mutter something about “An embarrassment of Plums”. Here at Quillisascut we have been pondering this question for several years. One of our summertime quests!

Shiro Plums when ripe are a sweet, cheery sunny yellow. We have made plum jam, spicy plum sauce, and Japanese style umeboshi plums. Sometimes we have them on the table at every meal asking every one to have their daily ration of sweet yellow fruit.

Rick has taken to thinning some of the fruit from the tree so the remaining plums will get larger. Offering us an embarrassment of little under ripe green plums. The goats do like them fresh out of hand.

Then I remembered reading about mock olives made from plums and thought I would do a little research and see if I could find a recipe or two.

In my search I found they are a favored snack in the Middle East. They eat them out of hand, fresh and crunchy with a dash of salt. They are refreshing on a hot summer day.

I came across a pickle recipe that claimed “these taste just like green olives”. Hot vinegar is poured over the plums, add a few spices and let them set. The second day you drain off the vinegar brine, reheat it to boiling, let it cool a little then pour back over the plums. So far they don’t taste like olives to me, but maybe in a month they will?

Some of the Middle Eastern recipes called for covering the plums with a salt water brine. I decided to try a lacto-fermented version that are still fermenting so I don’t have the taste results, but as you can see in the picture, they look beautiful. And they will offer up wonderful probiotic benefits.

You can bet they will show up with our cheese samplers when guests arrive this summer!