I made that!

So this week I started to crack. After weeks months of me sticking up for Seattle, begging for patience, CONVINCED that summer is just around the corner and that when it arrives everything in life will work itself out like a freshly fluffed pillow. Remember when I wrote about spring vegetables and how I was gonna cheat and buy Californian because I was just so impatient and well, Washington peas would be just a few more weeks, right? And telling my family “No, wait to fly out to visit for summer, when the weather is fantastic.” Well, today was summer solstice and it seriously felt like winter. We JUST got local peas. And I’m still waiting on a reliable source of  tiny sweet strawberries so I can take the rhubarb dessert off the menu. I kept telling myself “it will warm up in time for solstice, we’ll totally be able to eat on the porch.” There was no porch-eating. There were however, some peas. So we decided to just go with it. If Seattle wants it to be winter, then dammit we’re cooking winter food.

So we roasted.

A pretty little beef roast seasoned with garlic and herbs.

Sliced into yummy little medium rare pieces.

And there was gravy. And buttery mashed potatoes. And freakishly delicious fresh peas just barely boiled and tossed with butter and tarragon.

But most importantly, there were Yorkshire puddings. Somehow, like the much-later-than-it-should-be summer, I was the last person on Earth to know about Yorkshire puddings. I mean, I had heard of them, I just didn’t take them seriously. We didn’t grow up eating them, and from the photos I had seen, they just looked like dinner rolls. And what is up with the British calling everything a pudding?

Let me start at the beginning. There was a batter, a very simple batter of flour, salt, pepper, eggs and milk. It needed to rest, so I made it an hour before I was ready to use it.

After the roast beef was finished serving time in the oven I cranked up the heat and spooned drippings into a muffin tin.

I popped the fat slicked pan into the hot oven and let it sit until the drippings were boiling and crackling. I filled up the little cups 1/3 of the way with the batter and back into the oven it all went.

25 minutes later and I was head over heels in love with these little guys. How to even begin to describe them? They souffléd up so tall and proud. Yet, for all that muscle they were as soft as pillows (second pillow reference of the night, I must be sleepy…). They were SAVORY! The flavor of the beef fat was all there, and with some gravy spooned over them, oh. my. god. I ate three. Do yourself a favor and make these. I suspect I will be eating them quite regularly. I’ve been looking for a way to use up my left-over bacon fat!

YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS RECIPE (adapted from Martha Stewart):

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper

4 large eggs

3 cups whole milk

6 to 8 tablespoons drippings from roasting pan or pork fat

– In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, and pepper. Make a well in the center, and add eggs and 1/4 cup of the milk. Using a whisk, combine eggs and milk, then incorporate flour; begin with the inner rim of the well. Continue whisking until a smooth, stiff batter forms.

– Stir in half of the remaining milk. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

– Heat oven to 450 degrees. Transfer 1 to 2 teaspoons of drippings into each cup of a muffin tin. Put the pan in the hot oven until it starts to bubble.

– Stir enough of the remaining milk into the batter until it is the consistency of heavy cream. Pour batter in the muffin tins, filling them about one-third full; the batter should sizzle in the hot drippings.

– Return to oven and bake until puffed, browned, and crisp, 25 to 30 minutes. Yorkshire pudding is best served fresh from the oven, but it can be kept warm in a low oven for about 15 minutes.