Sweet and Spicy Chicken

1 cup vegetable oil

My strawberry balsamic vinaigrette that we demonstrated at the Owosso Farmer’s Market.  After many demands to share it here it is.

• 1 Lg Shallot
• 1 cup strabwrries
• 1 TBSP Basil
• 1 TBSP Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
• 1 cup vegtable oil
• 1 cup olive oil

Chop shallots in a food processor.  Add dijon mustard and strawberries and pulse.  Add Balsamic vinegar.  With food processor running slowly add the vegetable and olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper and enjoy on you favorite salad!

The Sweet Biscuit is such an easy preparation to make for Strawberry Shortcake and any other fruit filling! You can easily make any cobbler by baking it over your your favorite filling such as apples, blueberries, peaches, rhubarb, etc. Such an easy dessert!

My Recipe for a Sweet Buttermilk Biscuit

• 4 Cups Flour
• 6 0z Butter
• 4 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 2 cups Buttermilk
• some extra flour

Simply mix together all the dry ingredients, cut in the butter to the flour.

Next mix in the buttermilk and ONLY mix by hand until incorporated.  Next flour your hands and flour a cutting board, scoop out dough and form into any size biscuits you like and place in a 9×13 baking pan.  Place them together tightly, when baked they will bake together yet be distinctly seperate portions.

Brush with melted butter and bake at 425 degrees until done and nice and golden brown.

For your cobbler simply drop spoon fulls of dough over you filling and bake.

 Gravlax or Gravadlox is a must have for any Chef’s recipe book!  Smoked Salmon as Great as it is tends to be expensive to purchase and not as easy to do yourself as Cured Salmon such as Gravlax.

  You can use Gravlax for many different dishes and presentations that will impress and WOW your guests…and the best part is the main cost is the fresh Salmon filet’s.  Gravlax is extremely easy to cure…the worst part is waiting for it!

• 2 Salmon Filet’s, I like larger filet’s myself
• 200 grams Sea Salt
• 455 grams Sugar
• 20 grams Cracked White pepper
• 2 Bu Dill, Chopped
• 2 Lemons, juiced, use the zest as well
• 30 grams Olive oil
• 3/4 ounce Aquavit (or toast 1/4 caraway seeds and steep with vodka)

Trim the Salmon filet’s of fat.  Make sure to leave the skin on!  I place the filet’s in a 4 inch deep hotel pan and drizzle with Olive oil, lemon juice, and the Aquavit.  I combine all the other ingredients together in a bowl and mix together well.  Cover the Salmon filet’s thoroughly with the curing mixture and cover with a layer of plastic wrap.  Now place another 4 inch hotel pan on top and add weight.  Bricks, No 10 cans, whatever you have available? Refrigerate.

The Hard part is waiting!  I like to give it at least 2 weeks curing time.

The term ” Gravlax” means -to put to bed.  It is an old Scandinavian preservation method for fish.  People would use this cure and wrap the fish well and bury deep enough in the ground to stay cold.  Preserved in this manner for a long time they could come back later and dig it up when they needed food!

Salmon Gravlax goes very well with many things, my favorite sauce for it is sweet mustard, kind of like Mucky Duck?

Sweet Mustard Sauce

• 1/3 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 2/3 Cup Whole Grain Dijon Mustard
• some Chopped Dill

Super easy just mix everything together.  I love this mustard so much I use it on lots of other things!
Salmon: A Cookbook