Buttermilk Honey Rolls

 Today one of my daughters had a medical procedure so I wanted to take her dinner. I included with her dinner the buttermilk honey rolls that have won so many blue ribbons for me. I realized that I have never posted this video on this blog of how to make the rolls. 

Here it is:

Try them - they are easy to make and always a hit!

Cooking with Honey: Making Cocktail Sausages with Honey

 A quick and easy appetizer that includes honey in the sauce are these cocktail sausages:

Recipe for Honey Sauce and Sausages

Ingredients:

2 lbs cocktail sausages

2 T toasted sesame oil

½ cup honey

2 T soy sauce

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425. 

Stir together all liquid ingredients

Place sausages in an iron skillet or roasting pan (skillet is preferable)

Pour liquid over the sausages and roast for 20 - 25 minutes.

Stir about every 10 minutes.

Serve with toothpicks to spear the sausages.

Cooking with Honey: How to Make a Bees Knees Cocktail

 

I gave a talk to the Tara Beekeepers Association tonight and included all the elements of a good honey dinner in which every menu item had honey as an ingredient. The first item on the menu was a Bees Knees Cocktail. Here's the video of how to make it.

Recipe for a Bees Knees Cocktail:

Serves 2

Ingredients:

¼ cup hot water

1 tsp lavender blossoms

¼ cup honey

6 T gin

2 T lemon juice

Bring water to a boil. Pour ¼ cup over the lavender blossoms and allow to steep for five minutes. Mix the honey into the hot water/lavender mix. Strain into another container.

To make the drink put 3 T of the honey simple syrup that you just made, gin and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake and then pour into a glass to serve.

The remaining simple syrup can be used for other drinks, to make lemonade, etc.

Honey of a Dinner 2015

The table is set for the Honey of a Dinner 2015.  The people coming to this dinner purchased it at auction in September 2014.  There will be eight people in all including me and my helpers.

I've got honey bee skep napkins that my daughter Sarah gave me, bee napkin holders some of which my brother Barry gave me as well as my friend Debbara, beeswax candles on the table, honeycomb trivets that my friend Julia gave me - I'm all set.

Here's an up close photo of one of the bee skep napkins and the napkin ring:

The menu for tonight is:

Cocktail:    Bees Knees made with lavender infused honey simple syrup
Appetizer:  Flatbreads with Honey and Thyme
Soup:         Carrot Soup with Sesame and Miso (and honey pickled scallions as a garnish)
Entree:       Pork Tenderloin (marinated in honey) with Gremolata
Bread:        Canadian Buttermilk Honey Rolls
Salad:         Leaf lettuce with oranges and avocado with a Champagne Honey Vinaigrette
Dessert:      Profiteroles with Honey Lavender Ice Cream

I've served some of these items at previous honey dinners but as they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

We had the flatbreads a couple of years ago and the pork last year.  I make the rolls every time.  I've made the profiteroles for this dinner at least once before.

I'm hoping the guests have fun.  I've had a great time getting ready for it.

Honey of a Dinner

For the last few years, I have offered a Honey of a Dinner at our fall bee club auction.  The promise is that the person who wins it can invite up to six people total to come to my house for a dinner in which honey is an ingredient in each of the courses.

In 2013 my friend Gina won the dinner, but we haven't fulfilled it previously because my kitchen was under renovation for a number of months.  Finally on Friday night we had the 2013 Honey of a Dinner (a year late!)

I set the table with my good china and it all looked really lovely:

The honey comb trivets in the center of the table were a gift from my friend and fellow beekeeper, Julia, in honor of my new kitchen.  The bee napkin rings came from my brother Barry.

First we had a delicious cocktail called the Bees Knees made with Hendricks Gin and lavender infused honey syrup (like simple syrup only with honey).   I forgot to take a photo of our drink.  With that we had an appetizer of a sunflower seed encrusted goat cheese log, served with raspberries and mint and drizzled with honey.

Then we had a soup:  Pumpkin Soup with honey and cloves.

The main dish was a pork loin marinated in a honey marinade and served with gremolata and a Canadian buttermilk honey yeast roll (sorry, the only photo is not in focus - maybe it was the bees knees or the wine!):

We had the salad after the entree, European style.  The salad was a Honey Roasted Pear salad with verjus dressing and bleu cheese.  

Then we had a dessert of homemade profiteroles with honey lavender ice cream (also I made the ice cream).

It was such a fun dinner party.  Now to get ready for the 2014 Honey of a Dinner!

Martha Stewart on How to Make a Lemon Honey Pot

The National Honey Board posted this on FB today.  It's Martha Stewart, so no description is needed because she will cover it all!

Click here to see Martha making a lemon honey pot and filling it with honey from her own bee hives!

Honey of a Dinner on Saturday night

On Saturday, my daughter Sarah and I enjoyed the company of six people for dinner in which all the menu items included honey as an ingredient (well, almost all).  We had a great time.  Ernie, the man who purchased the dinner at the bee auction last September, brought his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law and her parents to the dinner.

The first course was flat breads made with Mahon cheese and drizzled with honey and thyme:

photo by Stan Williams

We served them on a honey bee tray that Sarah's mother-in-law had given me.

The second course was a spring pea soup with cream.  It had about a teaspoon of honey in it.

For the entree we had roasted cornish game hens with honey, thyme and lemon.  On the plate also were the two items that included no honey - a wild rice pilaf and asparagus ribbons (way too much trouble - note to self: Don't make these again!) 

We also had Canadian Buttermilk Honey rolls - no photo again.  We were busy in the kitchen - no time for cameras!

The asparagus was pretty but a lot of trouble:

Then, European style we had a simple butter lettuce salad with bleu cheese and a honey champagne vinaigrette dressing, but none of us remembered to take a photo!

For dessert we had profiteroles with honey lavender ice cream.  I made the ice cream earlier in the week and made the profiteroles the day of the dinner.  I've made the profiteroles before for Sarah's birthday.

This one was taken after the first profiterole on the plate had already been eaten!

Stan, one of the guests, took the profiterole photo, the photo of the dinner plate with the hen, rice, and asparagus, and the photo of the flatbreads.  Thank you for sharing it with me, Stan.  Stan also brought wine to go with every dish.

I had fun cooking everything; Sarah was a fabulous helper and expediter for the meal; and the company was lots of fun.  I'll offer it as an auction item again in September this year.

Upcoming Honey of a Dinner

Every year Metro Atlanta Beekeepers has an auction to raise money for the club's projects.  For the last couple of years, I've offered as an auction item a "Honey of a Dinner" in which every menu item has honey as one of the ingredients.

This coming Saturday, the man who purchased the dinner at the auction is coming with five family members (his wife, his son and his son's wife, and his son's in-laws) to have this dinner at my house.  My daughter Sarah who likes to cook as well, is going to come over to help me cook and serve the dinner on Saturday.  She and I make what we call the "Over the Top Christmas Dinner" every year for our families on Christmas Eve, so we have often cooked together and she has great ideas about food, so I'm thrilled she is coming to be with me.

I'm starting to work on the dinner today.  I went to the Farmer's Market yesterday to buy some of the ingredients.  Also yesterday I made homemade chicken stock for the soup and today I'll make the ice cream for the dessert item.  And I might go ahead and make the rolls and/or the profiteroles ahead of time and freeze them.   So since it's on my mind, I thought I'd share the menu with all of you:

Honey of a Dinner Menu   

Appetizer:  
            Flatbreads with Honey, Thyme and Sea Salt
Soup:
            Spring Pea Soup with Cream
Entrée:  
            Honey Lemon Thyme Cornish Game Hens with
         Wild Rice and Asparagus Ribbons

Salad:  
            Butter Lettuce Salad With Honey Champagne Vinaigrette

Bread:  
            Canadian Buttermilk Honey Rolls
Dessert:
            Profiteroles with Honey Lavender Ice Cream

Honey at the Table

Mary Oliver's poem about honey at the table comforts me as I am mourning my lost hive from yesterday:

Honey At the Table

It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table

and out the door and over the ground,
and all the while it thickens,

grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
pawprints of bobcat and bear, until

deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark

you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees - a taste 
composed of everything lost, in which everything
lost is found.

(from American Primitive by Mary Oliver)

Today, August 5, is the birthday for two of my daughters, Sarah and Becky, born two years apart on the same day.  We'll have dinner tonight to celebrate Sarah who lives in Atlanta and there will be honey at the table.

I'm making profiteroles with honey lavender ice cream as a "birthday cake" for Sarah tonight and the honey will, of course, come from our bees.:

Becky, my other daughter whose birthday is today, lives in Cumberland, Maryland, or I would have her over for dinner as well.

Honey Cookbook from the 70s

My mother found an old cookbook in her bookcase (she has shelves and shelves of cookbooks) and gave it to me. I am thrilled. It was published in 1978 - doesn't say so anywhere in the book, but that's what Amazon says.

It is chock full of recipes for cooking with honey and all of them appeal to me. I can't wait to cook out of it. It's hard to find such a comprehensive collection - from salads to desserts and beverages. At the beginning is a rather good description of the beehive and of the basic operations of the hive. There's even a description of the waggle dance!

He talks about honey, mead, vinegar and gives some old, old recipes for mead.



I am a bread baker so I immediately turned to the bread section. There are twenty pages of bread recipes! I know where my next bread recipe will be found.



I noticed for anyone drawn to this wonderful book that there are used copies on Amazon and on Bookfinder.com.  They aren't expensive - around $4 - $13.  The author is Joe Parkhill.

The Bees' Knees

On Christmas Eve in my family we always have what my oldest daughter has named the "Over the Top" dinner. In past years we have made the menu provided by Gourmet magazine, complete with the selected wines. This year, as many of you know, Gourmet is no more - the November issue was its last. We had no Gourmet to guide us, but Sarah came up with our menu.

Our appetizer course gave a nod to my bees. We had a cocktail called "the Bees' Knees." It consisted of (for two drinks) 1/2 cup gin, 3 T honey syrup (equal parts honey and warm water), 2 T lemon juice. This concoction is shaken in a cocktail shaker, which another daughter noted looked like a bee hive. Consumption of this delicious drink gave all of us an appropriate "buzz!"


The shaker

The drink

The appetizers that went with it: Pancetta crisps with goat cheese and pear slice and garlic crostini with a sage/white bean spread.

Wondering about the rest of the menu? Here's our Christmas Eve menu for the 2009 Over the Top Dinner:

OVER THE TOP DINNER MENU – CHRISTMAS 2009
APPETIZERS:
Crostini with White Bean, Sage & Roasted Garlic Spread
Pancetta Crisps with Goat Cheese and Pear
SOUP:
Scarlet Carrot Soup
MAIN COURSE AND SIDES:
Herb Stuffed Leg of Lamb Braised in Red Wine
Winter Squash Gratin
Chard with Tomatoes and Asiago
Linda T’s Amazing Dinner Rolls (also made with honey)
DESSERT:
Winter Jewel Upside-Down Cake with Pomegranate Compote
Chocolate Truffles

We had appropriate wines for each course. My son-in-law, Jeff, brought a bottle of wine he had brought from Paris a number of years ago to go with the lamb....really special.

Dinner with Honey

The National Honey Board sends out a regular email with interesting facts and recipes for using honey. I grew exactly two butternut squash in my garden this year before the stem borers killed the squash. So I was thrilled that the honey board sent out this recipe for Butternut Squash Soup, to make soup using honey from my bees.

My mother says that a good cook is generous, so I followed the recipe but was quite generous with my ingredients. Here's what it calls for and I'll put what I really did:

2 T butter
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
3 carrots diced (mine were small so I used about five organic carrots)
2 celery stalks (I chopped up the center three stalks of a heart of celery)
1 potato peeled and diced
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced (mine were small so I used both of them)
3 cans chicken broth (14.5 oz each) - I used boxed organic chicken broth which comes in 8 oz containers, so I used almost 6 of them
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves (I have it fresh in the garden so I used about 1 tsp fresh)
salt and pepper to taste

With the soup I had a slice of oatmeal bread (also made with honey) with cheese melted on it.

So honey made my dinner quite lovely and delicious.

Not much bee news, but I cooked with honey

The bees were flying at all four hives today, but nothing remarkable or particularly interesting to report, so I decided to cook with honey instead and report to you about that adventure. Even after giving away honey to everyone I know, I still have enough left to use in cooking this year.


I'm going to try more honey based dishes or at least dishes with honey in them. This week it was Apricot Carrots from an about.com page on recipes with honey. Here's the recipe:

2 T butter
6 carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped
1 tsp honey
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 green onions, sliced very thin
salt and pepper

Saute the carrots in butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat for 3 minutes. Add broth, apricots, honey, balsamic vinegar and cinnamon to the carrots. Cover and simmer 4 minutes. Add green onions, re-cover, and simmer an additional 1 - 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

It was good, but if I were to make it again, I'd use a tablespoon of honey rather than a teaspoon, and I'd leave out the green onions. I couldn't tell that they added a thing and I missed enough honey to glaze the carrots. I used organic carrots and six of them sliced was a lot of carrots. Perhaps if I had used insipid ordinary carrots, I would have recognized the honey in the dish more!

PS if you're curious, the whole dinner was from Real Simple - Pork chops with escarole and onions cooked in balsamic vinegar. I thought the carrots would round the meal out pretty well.