the Friday Feeding; VOL. 69

Mmmmmm!  Its maple, melting and mud month!  We have lots of moments to share with you here at the store this month. Cider and maple cheese tastings, maple chicken pot pie, maple rice pudding, maple popcorn, maple drizzled pizza, maple bacon chowder and more.  Read on…

It seems like maple is the favorite flavor here in these parts.  We like it sweet in our breakfast, baking and whisky, and we also like it savory in a pot roast or on a pizza.  Making syrup is a favorite past time this part of year when seasoned folks get out their plaid and desk-job guys exercise their rigor to brave the all-nighters in freezing weather around a boil and a brew.  It’s tradition.

It’s a rite of passage to harvest and boil, and that end result is like liquid gold.  I love the story that Robin Wall Kimmerer tells in her book, Braiding Sweet Grass, about choosing to harvest the maple off her newly purchased property so as to instruct her children in the old ways, staying up all night in a lawn chair on her driveway stoking a wood fire ALL ALONE for nights on end to yield just three quarts.

Liquid gold.

When you are out and about visiting the Sugar Shacks ‘round town, stop by to see some of the finished products we sell that uses this gold.  We have a plethora of maple laden products this month and a celebration planned for New Hampshire’s official Sugaring week-end, March 15-16.  Read about that event by clicking here…

This week-end we are sampling Loon Chocolate Maple Crunch!

Holy smokes! We’ve got Holy Donuts!

Have you heard about them? They are from Portland, Maine, made from potatoes.  It is true, if I must admit, that Dave and I have planned trips to the city all around a stop-off to Holy Donuts. They are that good.  They seem to have a cult following so we are pretty excited that we can get them here. 

We are serving them on Sundays to fill in when I take a day off from baking. We are open 9-4.

Wanna cook?

Well, yes of course I am gonna give you a recipe with maple in it. I made this dish for Chuck and Wendy Sanborn and she exclaimed it was BLISS! So the recipe became hers and is so named.

Wendy’s Bliss Company Seafood Curry

In a large skillet melt:

• 5T unsalted butter

Add and sauté until softened:

• 1 small or a half large onion, chopped
• 1 apple, cubed

Add and stir in continuing to cook on low heat:

• 3T minced crystalized ginger
• 1T curry powder (or more to taste)

Add and increase heat to medium:

• 3T canned coconut milk 
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 2T maple syrup

Mix together with whisk until a paste has been made.  Add to above, cooking and stirring until thickened:

• 1/2 cup whole milk or 1/2 & 1/2 or cream
• 3T cornstarch

Once thickened, add and stir just until warmed, about 2 minutes.  

• 12-18 extra large shrimp, de-veined and precooked (we prefer fresh purchased at a fish market but frozen will do.  Thaw first).
• 1/2 lb. lump crab from a tin or frozen

Serve immediately over cooked white rice that has been dressed with a bit of butter, salt, a pinch of cinnamon, a drizzle of maple syrup and some raisins or currants tossed it. Bliss.

Click here for next week’s Specials Menu

And click here for our full menu updated for March.

Have a great week-end and we hope to see you ’round the store,

Jane and Dave