By the time I made it down to the deck overlooking the chicken coop, the raccoon had her half way down the run. I stood above them, trembling, crying, and throwing rocks until the ‘coon dropped the injured hen and alighted to the top of the fence.

By six am the sun was up, Trotsky was in the ground, and her last two eggs were folded into a batch of blackberry orange muffins. Despite our heavy lids, I knew the Squeeze and I were up. And we may as well eat.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

I always have greater success in achieving a good texture when I mix these muffins by hand instead of in an electric mixer. Lumpy batter is OK.

1. Prepare ten standard-sized muffin cups and preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Don’t worry about “light and fluffy,” just get them smoothly and evenly combined.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
4. Add eggs, vanilla, and orange zest to butter mixture. Stir to combine. Do not mix so long that it becomes smooth and uniform.
5. Add flour mixture and milk. Again, stir to combine, leaving some lumps.
6. Gently fold in blackberries. Scoop into muffin tin.
7. Bake until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.
8. Cool five minutes on a wire rack before removing muffins from the tin.

Adíos, Trotsky. We’ll miss you and your delicious eggs.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Preheat your waffle iron.
2. In a large bowl, thoroughly combine flour, salt, baking soda, lemon zest, and poppyseeds.
3. In a separate bow, whisk together egg yolks, buttermilk, yogurt, milk, and melted butter. Set aside.
4. In a third bowl or electric mixer, whip egg whites and cream or tartar to soft peaks.
5. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in buttermilk mixture. Mix gently with a whisk until just incorporated. Some lumps are OK.
6. Toward the end of mixing, fold in egg whites.
7. Bake in waffle maker until crisp and golden.
8. Serve with powdered sugar, berry syrup, maple syrup or anything else delicious.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Give the salmon a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Broil the fish to medium doneness.
2. Meanwhile, heat a large saucepan of salted water and cook the noodles. Fresh pasta cooks up real quick-like, five or six minutes. Drain and keep warm if it’s done before you’re ready for it.
3. Heat olive oil and butter in a sauté pan and cook leeks, peas, and bell pepper. I like to leave ‘em a little crunchy.
4. To serve, toss the veggies with the noodles and place the fish on top. Give it all a generous squeeze of lemon juice and dig in.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Whip sugar and vegetable oil until very well combined.
2. Gradually add eggs, vanilla and orange zest, beating well after each addition. Mixture will thicken and become very smooth.
3. Combine remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then stir into egg mixture.
4. Mix well, but not excessively.
5. Divide dough in half.
6. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
7. With wet hands, form each half into a log, about 2″ shorter than the length of your pan and 2½” wide.
8. Bake until well golden, about 25-30 minutes.
9. Turn oven down to 250ºF.
10. Cool logs until you can comfortably handle them.
11. Slice on a bias, about 1½” wide.
12. Lay cut-side up on a baking pan and bake again for 40 minutes.
13. After 40 minutes, turn oven off and leave cookies inside to cool.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Combine butter, juice, zest and sugar in the top of a double boiler.
2. Melt butter and stir to create a uniform mixture.
3. Remove from heat and gradually whip in eggs. Sluggish whipping may result in “scrambled” eggs in your curd. This isn’t a huge catastrophe, as you will strain the curd anyway, but try to avoid it if you can in order to take full advantage of the eggs’ thickening power.
4. Return mixture to heat and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened.
5. Strain through cheesecloth.
6. Cool.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. With a very sharp knife, cut corn kernels from the cob. This should yield about five cups of kernels. Reserve the cobs.
2. In a large, heavy stockpot, combine the olive oil, onion and shallot and cook over medium-low heat, covered, until the onions are translucent.
3. Stir in the corn and cook for about 4 minutes longer.
4. Stir in the garlic, peppers, and cumin seeds and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cumin is very fragrant.
5. Add the salt, sugar, stock, milk and reserved cobs.
6. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook, covered, until the corn is very tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.
7. Remove corncobs and puree at least 50% of the soup. I recommend using an immersion blender, though a food processor or blender will get the job done just fine. If using either of the latter two, exercise caution moving the very hot soup around.
8. Season to taste with black pepper.
9. Garnish with freshly minced cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice. Serves about six.