My Local Food Obsession

Dark Days: Failed the Challenge, but Still Cooking! Steak.

2010-02-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a while....bet you wondered if I succumbed to botulism and died after all. But no, I just gave in to that other dreaded disease called BUSY that threatens all of us from time to time. I primarily enjoyed...in fact, relished in, my recent busy-ness. Family and friends visiting, getting out and about and going on adventures in town and out. I all but stopped experimenting in the kitchen, even putting my kefir grains into dormant phase in the refrigerator.

So, I guess I failed in the official dark days challenge, but it's a failure I'm willing to accept. I had a lot of fun eating in restaurants these last two weeks, some of which were super-local focused, and I went to a pickle-themed party in Boston to which I took some apple kimchi which received mixed reviews.

Without further adieu, this week's dark days meal: Kimchi Sirloin Steak!

This month, two of my pounds of meat from the meat CSA turned out to be sirloin steak. I'm pretty sure I've never cooked a steak in my life before this month, so I looked it up. Alton Brown's food network recipe really took the cake (err, Steak), so I went with that for my first steak last week. I think my roommate was a little dismayed at the hunk of raw meat placed directly on the oven rack, so this week I refined my tactics.

Last week's steak was so-so. Tough and a bit hard to chew, and needing a little more flavor. This week I had major kimchi cravings and finished off another jar, leaving a about three cups of fuschia kimchi juice. What to do with the probiotic goodness? Marinate meat!

I soaked the second raw steak in this juice in the refrigerator for 24 hours, then followed Alton Brown's advice, this time with a broiler pan. Success! More tender, more juicy, more flavorful. Served with, what else...Kimchi! Iron-rich, priobiotic goodness.

Dark Days: Buttflap

2010-01-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

My mom came to visit, all the way from Texas. I saved the most prized cut of meat from the meat CSA expressly for her visit: the Buttflap. That's right, the meat CSA came with some delectable steak-like item labeled Sirloin Buttflap. I had no idea what to do with it. Neither did anyone else I talked to.

The internet provided some ideas towards making it into fajita meat, but we didn't have time to marinate it and we weren't making fajitas. My mom cut it into bite-sized chunks, removed most of the fat, and marinated it for about fifteen minutes in apple cider vinegar. Then she sauted it just a little in olive oil.

I chopped a large turnip and peeled and chopped a small butternut squash and put them together in a dutch oven. Then we poured the semi-cooked meat and all its liquids on top, added more water, salt, turmeric and pepper, covered and simmered until done.

Tough, chewy, gamy? A bit. But flavorful and an excellent combination! I would do it again, with a proper marinade next time.

This was a three-course meal....a surprise salad! A woman in my writers' group has an organic CSA membership that is giving her more greens than she knows what to do with, so I benefitted from the bounty. (No, the olives are not local, but they're organic and they're a gift from my mom!)

And, custard for dessert! Local eggs and milk with a bit of honey and amazake. Normally, I have local honey in stock, but as I was out I used some raw honey from elsewhere. The amazake was a leftover that was going to go bad. I feel, generally, that using leftovers, rather than wasting, is ethically on par with eating local foods even if it may not be nutritionally comparable (dumpster-diving, anyone?).

A lovely end to a lovely three-course meal....oh, and the custard was cooked in my brand-new glass baking-and-storage dishes, courtesy of my mom as well!

Local AND Vegan: Can it be done?

2010-01-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

My cleanse is completed, but the questions it brought up for me persist. This recent experience caused me to hearken back to my (brief) days of veganism. I find myself torn between the locavore diet and the modern intergalactic superfoods ascension-to-other-realms diet of spirulina, coconut butter, agave, goji berry juice, maca powder, and other such delicacies. I want to be well, and while I love root vegetables, I am tired of them being the basis for every meal. I am also having quite a challenge with integrating so much meat into my diet.
So I ask, can one be a vegan and a locavore? And, more importantly, should one be committed to either? Veganism seems intuitively wrong to me. Being indiscriminate omnivores is what got humans to the top of the food chain, and I have never heard of an indigenous population that subsisted on a vegan diet. In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.), Barbara Kingsolver even mentions an interesting historical blooper where vegetarians from India migrated to England and became anemic. It turns out they were consuming bug parts in their minimally processed grains in India, whereas the overprocessed British flour was devoid of such delectable nutrients.

For myself, I feel the most amazing when I eat close to what is now being referred to as the "paleo" or "caveman" diet. Essentially, the paleo diet consists of meat and veggies and fruits and nuts and seeds: anything that was available for consumption in pre-agricultural times. When I eat a mainly raw-vegan diet with the occasional local organic free range egg and the occasional (like, once or twice a month) big hunk of meat, I feel light, energetic, and satiated.

However, the is always the philosophical, ethical, and ecological question of how and when it is okay to eat meat. I have come to terms with local, organic meat being okay with me, and after having participated in a chicken slaughter and various other events of animals dismemberment, I'm getting closer to having a sense of what I would be willing to eat based on what I would be willing to kill. I am still not at peace with the process, but I also accept it as part of the cycle of life.

I try to imagine living up to my locavore ideals while being a strict vegan. In essence, I would currently be living on root vegetables and kimchi. Yuck.

I would like to hear whether others experience this or similar tensions when deciding where to send their food dollars!

Dark Days: Juice and Broth, on a Cleanse

2010-01-14T20:04:00.000-08:00

This week, a friend and I decided to do a three-day cleanse together. We don't actually live in the same place, so we went with what was available to us more or less locally. And we went with the theme of nourishment.

In the past, I have done cleanses which involved deep juice-fasting and a month of raw foods. Three times, I have done the Blessed Herbs colon cleanse, with mixed results. While I feel that I benefitted deeply from their Internal Cleanse, I am skeptical of all that fiber. I decided that my colon has been good-and-cleansed in the last few years and what I wanted was a break from digestion and animal products, not from nourishment. I am no longer interested in sand-papering my insides. So, I stocked up on nourishing goodies: probiotics like homemade water-kefir (my grandma sent grains, so I've got it started! pictures soon), local Kombucha, homemade veggie broth from local, organic veggies, local organic multigrain Miso, and totally non-local but high-energy-organic Vitmineral Green Superfood. I also bought some Amazake because it is probiotic and makes me feel full and grounded.

Other tricks I tried included sprouting sunflower seeds and then putting them, along with some water and organic raisins, through the blender with some Vitmineral Green powder. I also drank a lot of organic Guayaki Yerba Mate and a little Fasting Tea from Yogi Tea. And I soaked flax and blended it with water and Vitmineral Green powder as well. This last trick, I do not recommend....drinking more than a tablespoon of blended flax is like downing a glass of mucous.

But, I digress....here is the part that was (almost) entirely local!

First, Juice. Carrot-Beet-Cabbage-Ginger juice. All organic, and local except for the ginger. Juiced through the Jack LaLane Power Juicer. Really hearty and satisfying. I meant to save the fiber and make flax crackers for later, but in my spacey, foodless state, I forgot to clean the juicer. I'm dreading going to look at it.

Then, Kombucha. This was a great find...a local, organic, kombucha company called Katalyst Kombucha! I imagine that the Schizandra Berry flavor, which I was buying, probably has a non-local Schizandra Berry component, but overall I felt pretty good about this product.

Finally, broth with South River Miso. Bits and pieces from my most recent "broth bag". Sweet potato, turnip, and carrot ends. Bits of celeriac. Onion skins and tips. Beet chunks. And a couple of whole potatoes and an extra carrot for good measure. All of it simmered for several hours until it was a rich brown and sweet, thick flavor. After the broth cooled a bit, I added heaping spoonfuls of South River Aduki Bean/Brown Rice Miso and it was so deliciously satisfying. I feel incredibly lucky that this miso company is local! Normally, I try to avoid soy, but as this is small bits of fermented soy mixed with many other goodies, I feel okay about it.

The three days are up now, and I feel amazing and have decided to stop eating on Tuesdays. Tuesday is now "cleanse day", just for the sake of allowing my system to rest and restart and reminding myself of how good I feel when I get this chance to stop and reflect.

Would love to hear other people's cleanse thoughts/stories!!!

Kitchen Medicine

2010-01-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

I woke up naturally in the pre-dawn hours this morning, ready to go for the day. But, afraid of getting tired halfway through the day from starting so early, I elected to stay in bed. Then, ultimately, I started my day late, and sluggish.

The same energy carried over into cooking my first meal of the day around 1pm, which was buckwheat and fermented-oat-groat pancakes. I cooked them in way too much boiling olive oil, and I didn't put a lot of love or attention into the cooking process. A hard lesson in the art of awareness, because upon flipping my first pancake I received a spray of boiling oil right to the face. It seemed like several droplets, but the most noticeable, and ultimately the only one I could locate later, was on my left eyelid (such useful things, eyelids, or else I suspect I would be blind!).

All in all, this was a very lucky adventure: First-off, my reflexes led me to close my eye! Secondly, it was the dead of winter, so the water coming out of the tap was frigid cold and I could splash plenty of it onto my face for a few minutes. I also had some raw cider vinegar on hand, so after the water treatment I put on a (STINGING!) dab of vinegar and waited for that to take effect. Then I dried it (professionally, with my cotton shirtsleeve) and went to the bathroom and dabbed on some raw honey (a holiday gift, thanks mom!) to help with pain and infection prevention. Then I took some Bach's Rescue Remedy, just because I had it on hand and I thought, why not.

Overall, the pain wasn't much, but I'm missing about a centimeter of the top layer of skin on my eyelid, and I was surprised by how the suffering was so much more based in the fear than actual pain. I wasn't thinking, "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow," but rather, "Omigod, there's boiling oil on my face, omigod, I can't open my eyes, omigod, I'm alone in the house and the stove is still on behind me and I have no idea how bad this injury is, omigod I'm going to be scarred and ugly for life." Yeah, even the vanity aspect was frightening.

I knew the remedies by heart, but I re-consulted my all-time favorite home remedy book, Lifetime Encyclopedia of Natural Remedies, which is one of the best gifts I've ever received. All of these remedies are in there, and I definitely recommend it as a kitchen companion. Or, just keep your face out of the way when you're splashing heavy objects down into boiling oil.

Winter Farmers' Market!

2010-01-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

When and where did I get this nifty, free bumper sticker? Today, at Winter Fare Northampton! This was a festive one-day winter farmers' market with lots of little extras like a soup-stand (sold out in a little over an hour), educational tables and workshops, and a "dot survey" to get feedback from shoppers. It was a wild success judging from the throngs of busy people and the empty, sold out boxes at the vendors' booths.

I volunteered my time to recruit people to vote at the dot survey, and besides enjoying people's enthusiasm, I got to see the trend of answers to questions like "where do you normally get your local food during the winter?" and "where do you normally get your local food in the summer/fall?" It never occurred to me that these answers would be different, but often they were, including my own. In the summer/fall, I enjoy the social aspect of heading to the farmers' market. In the winter, the CSA is really handy. I'm sure I would save money, and maybe it would be better for the farmers, if I joined a summer/fall CSA and got my extras at the market. What do you do?

Sourdough Starter, Take Two

2010-01-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a smell is priceless.

I made a new sourdough starter yesterday by combining one cup spelt flour, one cup buckwheat flour, and two cups leftover, warm oatmeal water. Then I set the jar above the woodstove in the hopes that the warmth would help the yeasts become quickly active on these cold winter days. It worked!

Somewhere around 2am, I woke up to go to the bathroom and couldn't help but notice a subtly pervasive smell of vomit everywhere I went. I checked the bottoms of my shoes. I checked a trash can. I watched carefully for cat vomit as I walked back from the bathroom. I worried briefly about my roommates, but it sounded like they were sound asleep, and vomiting illness are rather loud. I went back to sleep.

In the morning, my roommates found the smell too. They looked all over, briefly worried that I had gotten sick in the middle of the night, and then discovered the jar. I wasn't far behind. The sourdough starter had become madly successful, and its success had gone to its head.

Full of bubbles, with a round, cemented crust in the top cheesecloth, it had clearly vomited about a quarter cup of its contents down onto the mantle and the wood stove below. My roommate later found this cracker-like substance behind the stove--->

After much laughter, drama, and debate, I decided I was determined to save it. I reasoned that when I made Katz's Millet Porridge it smelled exactly like vomit, so this must be a good sign of active yeasts. I added about two and a half tablespoons of buckwheat flour and gave it a vigorous stir. Then I washed the cheesecloth and set up shop in a cooler location. I will stir frequently today, add more flour tonight, and see if it is salvageable. If not, I will compost it because I think it's unreasonable to ask other people to live with my mad science experiments for too terribly long!

Dark Days: Mashed Roots Topped with Dried Kale, a Simple Dinner

2010-01-08T07:39:00.000-08:00

Last night, I lacked cooking inspiration and was growing a bit tired of the same ingredients. I was also a little pressed for time, so I surrendered to simplicity. Dinner was a large portion of mashed root veggies with dried kale sprikled on top. Technically, it probably should have been a side dish, but if you eat enough of a side dish it counts as dinner, right?

Mashed Roots Topped with Dried Kale

4 small potatoes
1 medium turnip
1 parsnip
1 clove garlic
1 cup water
1 cup milk
dash salt
dash pepper

Chop all veggies, press garlic through a garlic press and add it plus spices and liquids to veggies in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer 'til soft and mashable. Mash, and serve with dried kale chips sprikled on top!

Dired Kale

Tear fresh kale into bite sized pieces, removing stems. Place, well-spaced on dehydrator trays. Dehydrate on 135degrees for about two hours, or until crunchy. Store in Mason Jar and use in soups, as toppings, or eat like chips!

Failure as a Strategy to Meet Needs (or, buckwheat flax crackers)

2010-01-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

My friend Ian is a Non-Violent Communication trainer. He can be relied upon to accurately assess the feelings and needs present in any situation and to give you straightforward feedback about your life, no matter how grim. When I told him a few weeks ago that I was nervous about failing in my endeavor to establish myself in Western Mass, earn a living as a freelance writer, and continue Feldenkrais training, he recommended that we find a time to explore the perspective of failure as a strategy to meet needs.

Often, I think about his comment while I am cooking. Some recipes turn out better than others, but a few are utter failures. If I'm on the ball, I can occasionally turn a failure into a success.

A recent failure was the result of a seemingly minor error...I had placed my buckwheat sourdough starter on the mantle above the woodstove to keep it warm and toasty. Then I forgot to feed it for a day. When I tended it again, a thick, cracker-like crust had formed across the top of the jar and the rest of the ferment reeked of hard liquor. Yep. Alcohol. Apparently I over-fermented.

I fed it flour and stirred it vigorously for a couple more days in the hopes of revival, but to no avail. Alcohol it remained. I'm not sure why I was even trying to convince myself that I could turn back the clock. Chemistry doesn't work that way.

Soooo, I soaked a couple of cups of golden flax seeds for 24 hours and mixed them in with the fermented buckwheat. I spread all that out across a dehydrator tray and set the dehydrator to 115 degrees. I let it dry for 24 hours, flipped the giant cracker, and dried it for another 8-12 hours. It was still soft in the middle, so I finished it off by breaking it into small, manageable crackers and distributing them across the more ventiled racks. Finally, out came raw, omega-rich sourdough crackers!

Alone, they are a bit too sour for comfort. But with soup, or with peanut butter and jelly, they are heavenly.

Milk, and What to Do With It

2010-01-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

Caitlin had a great series of questions about Milk, and What To Do With It. Lucky for Caitlin, I spent last year living on a raw milk dairy farm and about a quarter of my life was dedicated to Milk, and What to Do With It.

First off, I hate frozen milk. I know many people freeze their milk and they swear it's totally fine, but I think it's disgusting. I am of the opinion that it absolutely changes the texture and the flavor. But some might describe me as neurotically sensitive to such things, so use your own judgement.

Here's the other thing about frozen milk: if you're dealing with raw milk to start with, it never actually goes "bad", it just turns into other stuff, like sour milk and potential cheese. It's not like moldy bread, which you should throw out (yes, the whole loaf), or moldy cheese, which you can carve down to a non-moldy piece (don't throw the whole thing out). Raw milk just turns into sour milk, which is eternally useful. Pasteurized milk, on the other hand, gets kinda gross. It's still salvageable as cheese, but it's better not to let it go bad. So, if you think you have too much milk on your hands and you're opposed to freezing it like I am, make something with it ahead of time, like cheese, yogurt, sour cream, kefir, or ice cream.

Buttermilk. It's funny how buying things at the store removes us from knowing what those things actually are. Real buttermilk is actually the liquid leftovers from making butter. In other words, you take cream and beat it until you think your arm is going to fall off (a butter churn is helpful) and then you get solid fats and liquid leftovers. The liquid leftovers are buttermilk. If you didn't salt your butter, the buttermilk will initially taste sweet, but it's one of those things that you either love or hate to drink. Either way, it goes sour very quickly. You should use it within a day or two. It's excellent for baking in lieu of water or milk in baked goods, or in lieu of water when cooking grains. **Note: If your raw milk is unhomogenized, you can let it sit in the fridge in a wide-mouth container for 24 hours and then skim the cream off the top, use it to make butter, and get buttermilk!

Cheese. or Curds and Whey. The only cheese I know how to make is a sort of poor-man's ricotta/farmer's cheese. It's very simple. You heat the milk until an almost-simmer...just tiny bubbles coming to the top. Then turn off the heat, add a tablespoon or two of vinegar (I prefer apple cider, but it does impart its own flavor) or lemon juice, and stir. Sometimes the result is instantaneous, but other time it takes a while, and you may begin to wonder if anything is going to happen. Right about the time you're ready to give up, the curds will separate from the whey (that's right, this is where we get the expression "curds and whey"). You can then strain off the curds and do any manner of things with them...mix in herbs, press in cheese cloth (that's where paneer comes from). But whatever you do, that's your cheese, no further operations necessary. The leftover, sour, milky liquid is the whey. It can be used as a nutritional drink or in lieu of water when cooking grains.

Yogurt. You can actually make raw-milk raw-yogurt, just don't heat the milk above 110 degrees. Sally Falon is the best source for going in-depth with this process, and other raw-milk uses. The only thing about raw-milk yogurt is that it doesn't make a good starter the next time around. So, if you want to keep your own starter instead of buying a new one, it might be best to reserve a small bit and pasteurize it for that purpose.

Kefir. See "Fermentation Fervor" post from 12/18/09, and subsequent update.

Ice Cream. I'm waiting until winter's over. But raw milk makes the best ice cream.

**Note: Interstingly, raw cream makes the best whipped cream as well. It has something to do with the way the fats bind without having been damaged by homogenization and pasteurization. It is sooo easy to whip up raw whipped cream, and it stays still a lot longer.

Snow Cream. An old-time classic and the ultimate in local. The milk is fresh and raw, the snow falls directly out of the sky. You just blend milk and sugar and toss in enough snow for a thick consistency. Don't do this if you live in a polluted area.

Hot Chocolate. Okay, for most people chocolate is not local. But it's one of my three non-local vices, along with green superfoods and coffee/tea type beverages. Raw-milk chocolate is the most delicious.

Raw Honey Milk for Bedtime. Heat a cup of raw milk to just above "warm", then stir in a tablespoon of raw, local honey. Drink right before bedtime and sleep like a baby.

Would love to hear other suggestions from readers on what to do with raw milk!!!!

Dark Days: Sweet Potato Squash Soup with Roast Chicken

2010-01-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

It is becoming abundantly clear that I am almost incapable of following directions. Even with recipes, I insist on doing it my own way. This week, I created two "original" dishes, one vegetarian and one for the carnivores. I am still generally unaccustomed to cooking with meat, but I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Sweet Potato Squash Soup

The inspiration for this soup originated with Vegan Fusion World Cuisine's "Sistah Jah Love Roasted Squash Soup." This is one of my favorite cookbooks, but it contains an overabundance of tofu, which I don't eat, and Hawaiian regional cuisine, which I would love to eat if I lived in Hawaii. But I live in New England in the winter, so I've gotta work with what I've got. So, by the time I was done modifying to suit my own needs, I completely ignored the directions and went off half-cocked, refering back to the recipe only when it seemed like an emergency. Here's what I did:

Butternut squash cut in half, scrape out seeds, bake face down in pan full of water on 450 degrees until tender
Celeriac peel and chop into small bits
Sweet potato (2) bake alongside squash
Onion chop into small bits
Milk
Curry Powder
Cinnamon stick
Olive Oil
water

I sauteed the onion and celeriac in olive oil until they began to soften (it's okay if the celeriac doesn't really soften, but at least sautee it until the onions brown). Pour about two cups of fresh milk on top and bring to a simmer. Add curry powder to taste plus one cinnamon stick. Add about two cups of filtered water.

Scoop in flesh of squash and chopped sweet potato, skin on. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about fifteen minutes. Turn off heat.

Meanwhile, rinse squash seeds and lay them on a pan. Sprinkle with salt and place in Toaster Oven for about twenty minutes on a high setting. I tend to overdo it and have them start popping like popcorn, but you can avoid that, I think, by using a lower heat over a longer time.

Use the hand blender to blend the soup in the pot (remember to remove the cinnamon stick) until creamy. Little chunks of potato skin are okay, but not big ones.

I sprinkled squash seeds on top to serve, but they got softer in a few minutes, so next time I would serve them on the side for optional crunch.

Chicken

Legs (2) white and dark meat
Olive juice from the bottom of an almost-empty jar of garlic-stuffed olives
Apple cider vinegar
Olive oil
Black pepper
Thyme
Turnip (1 large)
Red Potaoes (4)
Carrots (5 small)
Garlic (1 clove)

After rinsing the chicken legs and cutting off any skin that peeled away easily, I placed them in the bottom of a Creuset Cast Iron Dutch Oven, one of my new favorite cooking tools. I chopped all veggies into bite sized pieces and placed them on top of the chicken. I pushed the garlic through a garlic press and added that, and then I poured, oh, probably an eighth of a cup of olive oil on top of everything. I tossed in a little of the juice from the bottom of a jar of organic, garlic stuffed olives--a minor non-local transgression, but the olives were a holiday gift and the juice would have otherwise gone to waste, so I found it acceptable--and a spalash of local cider vinegar. Sprinkled on some black pepper and thyme, tossed the veggies lightly, covered, and placed in the oven on 450 for half an hour. After half an hour I turned the temp down to 375 and cooked for another hour. Probably overkill, but it was covered so it couldn't dry out. When done, I let it stand, covered, on the stove for another fifteen minutes before opening.

The flesh of the chicken melted off like butter and the flavor was really, really nice. But something was missing. It was bland. I ate a small serving before I figure it out....the gravy!

Gravy

All the drippings from the bottom of the dutch oven
One tablespoon buckwheat flour

In a small cast iron skillet, I heated the oil and added the flour a tiny bit at a time, whisking continuously to avoid clumps. I brought the whole thing to a boil and continued whisking for a minute or two, then poured it over my second serving. Mmmmm, tasty delicious comforting heavenly down-home local cooking.

Botulism and Home Canning Public Service Announcement

2009-12-29T10:26:00.000-08:00

"Is your bed polluted with toxic chemicals?" is the sign I found posted on my door this morning. A comedic gift from my housemate who cut the title out of a magazine advertisement for "green" bedding. Sadly, it shouldn't have been funny, but it gave me a good moment of comic relief. Why? Because I recently purchased a brand new, cotton and foam futon mattress which proceeded to offgas an unbelieveable volume of toxic chemicals into my room. I wrote the company, which said I was the first person to ever complain, and that the smell was cottonseed oil. I wrote back explaining that not only does cottonseed oil likely contain natural pesticides, but it is also notoriously heavy on chemical residue from farming practices. I suspect that the bed is treated with many other pesticides and fire retardents as well...you know, to make it safe. For droids to sleep on. Anyway, the bed is non-returnable (maybe for good reason?) so I purchased a mattress wrap, which does work. Plus, it's plastic, so not a problem if I ever wet the bed, yeah!

So why am I opening a post about botulism with this story? Because last week, when the mattress was happily offgasing itself in the hallway outside my bedroom and wafting its friendly chemicals into my sleep, I awoke in the middle of the night with a sore throat, pain in my sides and back, a stuffy nose, nausea, and mental confusion. And I thought to myself, "Oh nooo, I have botulism! I am going to die now. I want my mommy." I didn't die (mattress chemicals are slower to kill you than botulism, I hear.) My symptoms went away upon covering the mattress with the plastic wrap.

However, it's holiday season, and people are wrapping other, more pleasant items and gifting and re-gifting left and right. I received a re-gift of some home-canned, pickled fruit. I am not including a picture in case, by some rare chance, the original gifter stumbles across this blog. But I will say that it was slightly discolored at the top and so, although the source was a highly reliable and experienced canner, there was some speculation about the safety factor. Being ignorant and cocky, I ate it anyway. It was very tasty. That was on Dec 23, so I have until New Years Day to see if I'm going to live.

Here's the thing about botulism: if it's there, you can't tell. It's a silent killer. You can't smell it. You can't see it. You can't taste it. And it can take up to eight days for you to exhibit any symptoms of your impending death if you happen to come into contact with it. It is a rare danger, but a real danger. And if you are involved in a serious way in the local foods movement, you are likely to take a foray into the world of canning at some point. So, here's what you need to know:

1. Botulism bacteria is anaerobic. This means that the sealed environment of a jar is perfect for it. This also means that exposure to open-air cooking with frequent stirring on high heat for at least 15 minutes will kill it dead.

2. Botulism bacteria spores can survive boiling temperatures (212 degrees), so simply boiling the food BEFORE you can it does NOT guarantee safety.

3. Don't can food that looks rotten to start with.

4. Don't do a botulism taste-test...you can't taste it, and it can kill you anyway.

5. Low-acid and low-sugar foods are more susceptible to the toxin, but that doesn't guarantee the safety of the high-acid, high-sugar foods.

6. Pressure canning creates a high-enough heat (240 degrees) to destroy the botulism bacteria, so if in doubt, pressure can.

Botulism is rare, and the fact that what I ate was both sugary (fruit) and acidic (pickled) means that I'm probably in the clear. But it occurs to me that, with the local foods movement catching on and lots of enthusiastic amateurs taking up the practice of food preservation, it's important to keep the sobering facts in mind.

If you don't hear from me after New Years, just think of me whenever you can something (correctly) in the future.

My sources:
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/botulism-10381

Dark Days: A Foray into Fleshy Foods (and an array of side dishes)

2009-12-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

This week, I cooked meat. I hadn't eaten meat in over a month. I am an almost-vegetarian, averaging probably a pound of meat per month. But, in order to be a part of my house's local-organic-meat CSA, I had to place a monthly order of five pounds. So, January's order has arrived and I had to figure out what to do with it all!

I thawed a pound of ground beef and took a stab at The Joy of Cooking's "Ground Beef in Cabbage Leaves." As usual, I made quite a few modifications to the recipe, but I wasn't too far off. At first, this recipe seemed like more trouble than it was worth, but once I got the hang of it, and tasted the results, I was at peace with my efforts.

I'll start with a picture of the gourmet (okay, slightly burned on top) final result, and work backwards from there:

Cabbage rolls, as far as I can tell, are kind of like sweet-and-sour meatballs in a leaf. I would do a few things differently next time, but it was exciting to see that I could make a relatively complex dish, with multiple side dishes, out of entirely local foods.

The parboiling of the leaves was less tedious but more time-consuming than I imagined, and I didn't have tongs so I had to use some canning equipment to fish the leaves out. I was afraid of over-doing it, so I under-did it and ended up with crunchy stems. Next time I would boil each leaf until even the stem felt slightly soft.

The beef was exceptionally tender and, until I added the vinegar, a bright red. I didn't have all the ingredients, so I went with a whole chopped onion, salt, pepper, cayenne, crushed garlic clove, apple cider vinegar, and a tablespoon of honey for the filling.

I used an Ulu to chop the onion. TheUlu took me some time to get used to, but now I consider it an indispensible tool for chopping anything into small pieces without excessive labor or loss of fingertips.

Lacking any sort of string or toothpick as required by the recipe, I simply folded the rolls up tight and put the flappy-side down, and that held them together just fine. I had some kefir left, so I poured that on top and sprinkled paprika all over.

I baked them 50 minutes on 375 as recommended, but next time I would likely cover them for the second half of the bake time to protect from burning. The end result was was rich and brothy. I might like to add another vegetable to the filling...maybe mashed sweet potatoes? Or something spicy? In any case, I have a jar of them in the freezer to test how useful they may be as a sort of "local fast-food" in the future.

(A note on the kefir: I never strained out the grains and it continued fermenting into a strong, sour, effervescent sludge. I took it out of the fridge to come to room temperature while I was cooking and the pressure from the gasses built up enough to blow the lid off. The cat was on it like bluebonnet.)

And nowww..side dishes!

Tiny baker potatoes came in abundance with this week's veggie CSA, but they were already sprouting at the eyes so I decided they needed to be used. I also had parsnips in the refrigerator from about three weeks ago and a few of them were starting to get a little flimsy at the ends. Thus, potato-parsnip mash. And a roasted medly.

First, the medly: a simple toss in olive oil, salt and pepper, and twenty minutes in the toaster oven did the trick.

The mash was slightly more complex. I sauteed a mashed clove of garlic in a cast iron dutch oven in Earth Balance vegan margarine, and then I filled the pot about 2/3 full with fresh milk. While that was warming, I chopped parsnhips and potatoes--about 1/2 and 1/2 equally--into bite-sized pieces. Then I added them to the milk, brought it all to a boil, turned the heat to medium, and simmered until everything was "mashable". I mashed them with a large serving fork (I would LOVE to have a potato masher...it's one of those eternally useful things without which I frequently find myself) and turned the heat down to low. Replaced the lid and let simmer until I got hungry.

My other side dish was cabbage soup. Earlier in the day I had pulled my full broth-bag out of the freezer, covered it in filtered water, and simmered it down until those veggies looked good-and-dead.

After straining, I put the broth back in the pot and chopped two-and-a-half small green cabbages. A-la-Joy of Cooking, I kept it simple and just included salt and pepper. That's it. It was painfully bland at first, but but after a day of seasoning it improved. Plus, I discovered that adding a (local) hard boiled egg to the top makes a world of difference.

Finally, I had some leftover meat filling so I grilled up three small hamburgers and steamed some purple kale from this week's CSA. How many meals came out of thise one, entirely local and organic, cooking spree???? Totally amazing. My, belly, fridge and freezer are full.

A couple of other updates:

I got another accidental extra half-gallon of milk and made kefir again, this time keeping more closely to the directions, and straining out the grains in the end, and it is lighter, creamier, and sweeter.

I have also started "feeding" the sourdough starter, which means adding a tablespoon or two of flour each day and stirring vigorously. It is thick, sour smelling, and will be ready to make bread within the week! I moved it to the mantle above the wood stove in the livingroom to encourage a warmer, bacteria-friendly environment.

Bon apetit!

Solstice Pie

2009-12-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

I was invited to a winter solstice celebration! Not one to pass up gorgeous sunrises with friends on snowy hilsides, I got geared up to contribute to the post-dawn potluck with an almost-entirely-local sweet potato-squash pie (only the rice and spices were outsourced). A few minor disasters were navigated and the whole project turned out to my general satisfaction.

First phase went well: I roasted a halved butternut squash and a large sweet potato in the oven on 350 for, ohhh...an hour? Basically, until both were soft when poked with a fork. While I waited, I washed the squash seeds with water and spread them onto a toaster-oven pan and sprinkled them with salt. Baked them for about twenty minutes and munched on them while I read a magazine.

Second: I put the rice on to cook. Short-grain, brown rice for the rice-crust. I think I got the rice-crust inspiration out of some cookbook or another, but it was a while ago and I can't recall the source. I use it frequently to avoid wheat and add protein. One cup rice to two cups water and a sprinkling of ginger powder, simmering covered for about half an hour.

Third: The butternut squash finished first, so I scraped it into a large measuring cup while the rice and sweet potato finished. I added about a cup and a half of milk and a heavy sprinkling of cinnmon and nutmeg to the squash.

Fourth: I separated three eggs. Amazing how the shells of local, organic eggs are about four times more durable than your average factory-farm egg. They feel almost like ceramic. Anyway, the whites went into a hand-blender cup and the yolks went into a bowl to wait for the rice.

Fifth: Rice was done. About 2/3 of the rice got mixed with the egg yolk and pressed into a pie pan and a cast iron pan as crust. Sweet potato, done, came out of the oven and crusts went in to pre-bake.

Sixth: Egg whites got beaten until stiff via the hand blender. Sweet potato, skinned, was added to the squash mixture and blended with the hand blender until creamy. This is the point when I should have added egg whites, but I didn't...near disaster numero uno. At this point, I was distracted by taste-testing. It was a bit bland, and I had no intention of adding a sweetener, but I wanted to draw out the natural flavors of the squash and sweet potato. I had some Young Living Citrus blend essential oil on hand so I put in three drops and loved the results...a refreshing, citrusy tinge to completement the deeper root vegetables. Next time I would stick to only two drops, though.

Seventh: Crusts being done, I poured the filling into one of them. Then I realized my mixtake and tested the durability of the crust by pouring the filling back into the bowl. It proved its worth. I then folded in the egg whites and tried again. Both crusts full, I arranged some decorative and tasty pecans on top (luxury holiday gift, thanks mom!).

Eighth: Spilled pie filling in the oven. Had a brief fight-flight-or-freeze moment before I realized I could scoop the light, meranguey mixture off the oven easily with a spoon.

Ninth: Bake, 350, for about an hour, and let stand to cool.

Ten: Sleep four hours, then cover pie in regualar pie tin with a plastic bag and place in basket. Carry one mile in cold dark to Zipcar and spend an hour getting lost on the way to party.

Grand finale: Arrive fashionably late, watch the sun rise, and enjoy pie with party!

Soupcakes, Kefir, and Sourdough updates

2009-12-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

What do you do with a painfully bland and watery soup? Make pancakes, of course! I must toot my own horn a little and say that this is one of my favorite recipe innovations to date. It was blissfully easy and gratifying.

I took two cups of leftover Dark Days Potato-Leek-Carrot Soup and whisked it together with one cup buckwheat flour and two local eggs. Then I poured it by the quarter-cup into a piping hot cast iron pan full of olive oil and quickly had about three meals' worth of lightly latke-flavored pancakes.

This afternoon I sat down to enjoy them with a heap of apple kimchi on top (in lieu of the traditional applesauce with latkes) and it was delicious.

Another quick update: Kefir.

My kefir has been in the refrigerator for a couple of days now and it is continually changing. I have all sorts of theories as to why this is.

My first theory is that I didn't follow the package directions and now I'm paying for it. But that theory is boring.

My second theory is that, in Wild Fermentation Sandor Katz states the importance of straining out the kefir grains before refrigerating your kefir to stop the fermentation process. In my kefir, I didn't see anything that seemed to identify itself as a "grain", and the storebought package of culture omits this direction anyway. Do they want to keep me from saving the grains, thus keeping me dependent on buying their cultures? Do their cultures not work the same way? I don't know. But I skipped this step and the kefir has been continuing to grow more lumpy, fizzy, and sour by the hour. I'll keep you posted...it may end up as sour cream.

A third update: Sourdough starter

This is my first attempt at sourdough starter. However, I started it with buckwheat flour and then became concerned. Another blogger, Engineer Baker (see comment in previous post), has assured me that all is well, so I'll tell you what I did; I followed directions a-la-Katz insomuch as I mixed two cups of (buckwheat) flour with two cups of water. I usually make oatmeal in the morning with raisins and pumpkin seeds, so I added extra water to my oats and used that cookwater as a warm, starchy starter. Then covered it with cheesecloth and stashed it in behind some root vegetables. So far, it has been stirred once, and it smells like....flour.

Fermentation Fervor

2009-12-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

I am on a Wild Fermentation kick once again! I can't state enough how much I love that book. It gets better every time I read it. Kefir is the obsession of the moment. I'm pretty sure the Kefir-gods planned this experiment because I requested that I start to receive a half gallon of milk in our delivery and my neighbor accidentally sent in an order for a whole gallon. So what's a girl to do with a whole extra half gallon of sweet local milk? Make Kefir, of course!

This first go-round I did the ignorant, generic, beginner's thing and bought a rather expensive package of Kefir culture in powder form from the grocery store. In my usual do-it-yourself-chef fashion, I failed to properly follow most of the directions on the package but I got kefir out of it anyway.

First I heated the milk to a boiling-over-into-the-stove level, but luckily I managed to remove the pot before any damage was done.

The next step was to cool the milk to 70 degrees. Sans thermometer, this generally means that it's about right when you can hold your finger in it and it feels hot but doesn't make you want to jerk your finger quickly to safety.

I became overly eager and filled the sink with cold water, placed my milk-pot in it, and stirred to release heat. Then I sat down and read Yes! magazine and got so wrapped up that I let the milk become too cool.

Placing the milk back on the stove seemed like a recipe for disaster so I decided to risk it and just mix in the culture. Failing to properly follow another box-instruction, I mixed way too much starter with way too little milk and then stirred the whole thing together. Somehow I managed to pour it all back into the narrow-necked milk jug without a flood on the counter. Cover and wait, that's all there is to it.

The next morning it smelled a little sour but was still relatively bland and liquidy. The next evening it turned the corner to good, thick kefir, and the sweetness of the local milk still came through the sourness of the culture.

Sandor Katz lists several resources for kefir-grain-exchange. He also mentions several ways to make vegan kefir. So, my next project is fully-local hand-crafted vegan kefir. One step at a time. Right now I'm enjoying this kefir on everything.

Dark Days: A Rather Bland Soup

2009-12-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

This week, my Dark Days challenge meal was a bit of a flop. I almost don't want to insult my readers by offering the "recipe", but I'll give an idea of what I did. It was a poor-woman's variation on Potato-Leek soup.

First, I burned some leeks:

It was just a few of them that got charred, but that's all it takes to impart a nice "smokey" flavor to the whole soup.

Next, I chopped about three heaping handfuls of potatoes and two handfuls of carrots. I tossed those in with the leeks and a bit of sea salt and just enough water to cover the whole thing. Then I let it boil for about an hour and blended it all together with the hand blender.

After taste testing, I sprinkled in a bit of cumin to give it some flavor, but it was still a watery mush. Thinking of the old saying, "brussels sprouts make everything better" (wait, maybe I made that up?), I sauteed a handful of brussels sprouts in olive oil and salt and sprinkled them on top of the soup to add texture and flavor.

The brussels sprouts did a lot to improve the overall experience, but I still would not recommend this soup. It was a little better the second day, althought it gives me an odd stomach ache every time I eat it. My new plan is to spice it up and call it a "sauce" and pour it over something else. I may also mix it with some buckwheat flour and eggs and call it a pancake. I'll keep you posted.

A Local Side Dish: RadishMash

2009-12-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

Everybody loves mashed potatoes. (Okay, I'm sure there's someone out there who doesn't, just like there are those strange rare souls who don't like chocolate...good, more for me.) But sometimes it's nice to give a little kick to an old favorite...especially if it uses up a uniquely flavored winter root veggie like the radish.

First, the photo essay...then, if you haven't figured it out, I'll tell ya:

******************Deliciously simple. I fished two handfuls of potatoes (mostly little yellow buttery ones, and one red roasting tater) and a small radish out of my sawdust-filled preservation box. After scrubbing them all clean, I chopped them into bite-sized bits and placed them in a cast-iron pot. Next, I fished a large clove of garlic out of my pink brine jar and pressed it through a garlic press into the potatoes. Covered the whole thing in olive oil and sauteed on medium-high heat until the garlic started to stick to the sides a little.

After the initial flavor-imparting saute, I covered the mix in water and boiled it down until it was almost dry again. Then I covered the lot in water (filtered, always filtered, chlorine tastes awful) once more and, about halfway through this reduction, I used a large fork to mash everything together. I waited until all the water had evaporated and gave it a couple more minutes to fry on the heat. Finished by putting it into a bowl and sprinkling a bit of black pepper on top!

It was very tasty, light, and refreshing. Maybe next time I'll go for the heavy, traditional, butter-and-milk mashed potatoes, but this felt very clean and the radishes gave a little kick to the potatoes.

Could-be-local Buckwheat Pancakes, a.k.a. Stupid Human Tricks

2009-12-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Humans are strange animals. We have invented machines to take perfectly acceptable, edible veggies such as carrots and separate their liquid from their solid components. With the intention of consuming both.

I used one of those fancy machines this morning in the form of the Jack LaLane Power Juicer, which I still often find to be more trouble than it's worth, but it's much better than my cheap department store juicer that exploded ginger all over my kitchen and ended up in the trash.

This morning, I juiced three medium-sized organic local carrots and one inch of organic ginger (not local, cost-prohibitive at the moment). I mixed in one heaping tablespoon of Vitamineral Green, which I recognize is not at all local and does not generally have the potential to be. But man is it potent. This is my one "superfood" luxury besides chocolate. The stuff makes me feel like I've had about five cups of coffee, minus the jitteriness. I can't even drink it before bed. And it is entirely organic and natural. Okay, enough advertisement...mixing potent superfoods with fresh made carrot ginger juice is a good way to start the day.

I then took a heaping half cup of coarsely ground buckwheat flour and put it into a hand-blender cup. According to Cornell University, Buckwheat can be grown within decent proximity of Western Mass, but I haven't seen it available in any stores. I'll keep looking.

I cracked one very local egg into my non-local buckwheat flour and added the remainder of this week's milk delivery, about 1/3 cup. I blended them all together, sprinkled in a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, and then had an amazing brainstorm: why not add my juicer-fibers? In they went, two handfuls of carrot pulp with a smattering of ginger. All blended up into a thick paste and ready to go.

I covered the bottom of a cast iron pan in olive oil and tested my first pancake...then ended up with three ridiculously large ones and one small and reasonable one. Drizzled honey over the top in lieu of syrup and set to taste testing. Buckwheat typically leads to heavy results, so I was surprised by the relative lightness of these carrot-ginger-fiber cakes. I assume that the fiber, combined with thorough blending, gave them a little more breathing room. Still, were I to do it again, I would add a bit less flour and a bit more milk and possibly one more egg, going for a more crepe-like texture. The honey helped a lot. Another surprising thing: I was satisfied, but not heavily bloated, tired, or overly full after eating this theoretically heavy meal. Good combo.

Brined Garlic, Black Garlic

2009-12-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

This evening, I set out to make garlic toast only to discover that almost an entire head of my precious local-organic-CSA garlic was moldy. How that greyish-blackish-bluish mold managed to get a foothold in a plant renowned the world over for its anti-biotic properties is beyond me, but every now and then it happens.

So, quick on my feet as any slow-foods enthusiast ought to be, I consulted my fermentation bible, Wild Fermentation, and came across brined garlic. I had been toying with the fantasy of brining all of my garlic but was hesitant to change anything about its natural state. However, I didn't want to lose another clove.

I pulled a quart mason jar, about 1/4 full of leftover kimchi brine with a bit of veggie sediment in the bottom, out of the fridge. I then peeled the remaining three heads of garlic that were non-moldy (around 12-15 giant cloves). I simply dropped the cloves directly into this fuchsia liquid and stuck it back in the fridge, hoping for the best.

I am curious, though, about the concept of black garlic. I was once saw in a grocery store a Korean variety of fermented garlic called "black garlic". It seemed like a bit of a commercial gimmick due to the packaging, but this mold experience got me thinking about where it may have originated. I put the concept into google and got, of course, a bit of a commercial gimmick at first: http://blackgarlic.com/ The more general Wikipedia yielded somewhat more useful results. But what I really wanted to know was this: Can I make this at home? So far, all I've been able to come up with is that, in Korea, they have a special pot in which they slow-cook the stuff. Would love to hear if anybody else has any ideas.

Buy Local, Act Evil??? Discuss

2009-12-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

I read an article today on Slate that cited a study in which participants who purchased "green" products were less likely to do good-samaritan types of things like give to charities. It posits that, essentially, we have a sort of moral bank account in our heads which leads us to participate in unsavory activities if we have balanced them with savory ones.

There are, of course, subtle nuances to this theory which the article takes into account. Still, based on my publicizing of my Local Food Obsession, my readers may be able to assume that I am an immoral, arrogant ass. This, I conceded, is entirely possible. I do an awful lot of talking about buying and acting "green", and I follow it up with action. This, according to the article, makes me the biggest jerk ever.

I write this tongue in cheek, but it is an interesting hypothesis. I consider my own actions and weigh them against those described in the journal. Last year, for example, I spent an entire year as a full-time, live-in volunteer. It was the most exhausting, draining year of my life and I left it in a state of severe burn-out. Now, I have moments where I think things like, "I have paid my debt to society for a good chunk of time and instead of doing X good deed, I will do X thing for me." This supports the article's theory, but I am okay with it for the time being. As I recover my sense of self and well-being, bit by bit, I also recover my spirit of generosity.

This line of thinking leads me to wonder, then, what people's motivations are for doing their so-called "good deeds" and "green buying." I buy green because I care about the planet and I know a lot about where the non-green products come from. And I buy local because living in a healthy, sustainable community is high on my list of priorities. And I cook local because it brings me endless joy to do so, and double-endless joy to share my local concoctions with willing dinner guests. It doesn't occur to me as part of my "moral bank account" because it is just what I do and who I am. I think the article fails to take this important aspect of values into account. If buying local is part of one's intrinsic value system, whether or not it is part of the cultural norm, then it ought not to add up in the moral bank account. If, on the other hand, one feels good about buying local simply because it is becoming "the thing to do", then maybe one should watch out for becoming an insensitive jerk....

I would love to know what you think on the issue. Read Here: Buy Local, Act Evil

Dark Days Carrot-Celeriac Soup

2009-12-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

Mmmmm, it's finally time for me to transition into those warm, warming, thick, nourishing, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink soups! This week I had a friend come to visit from out of town and I did what any good host would do; I put her to work chopping carrots. We made a tasty soup that was very warming and fulfilling, and ended up having much more flavor the second day after the spices had had time to steep.

Ingredients:

BIG bag of carrots
One celeriac
a few stalks of celery
a couple inches of fresh ginger
one onion
cayenne pepper
cumin
curry powder
kelp strips
olive oil

The how-to:

Have your guest chop all the carrots into bite-sized pieces. When she thinks she's done, present her with an onion and some ginger to mince and slice, respectively.

Meanwhile, you put on a large pot of water with a kelp strip to boil. Then peel and chop the celeriac and add it with all of the chopped carrots into the water to boil. Chop the celery stalks.

In a cast iron pan, pour a few tablespoons of olive oil and put your guest to work sauteing the onions, ginger, and celery chunks while you expertly add the spices with pure intuition and no measurement. Our theme was "spicy."

When the onions look a little wilted and glassy, pour the saute mixture into the soup mixture and simmer for approximately an hour and a half. Then run all contents through a blender until you reach your desired consistency.

Serve hot, and garnish with kale chips.

Kale chips:

Chop several leaves of green and several leaves of red kale into two-inch pieces, removing the thick part of the stalks. Rub with olive oil and salt (or soy sauce if you have it, which I didn't).

Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and bake on convection setting at 300-325 degrees, turning/stirring once, for approximately 15 minutes or until nice and crispy.

Extra garnish:

If you can get local sunflower seeds, which we couldn't but decided to include anyway because they were only a tiny garnish to a completely local menu, saute them until brown in butter and add a bit of salt. Sprinkle onto soup. Yum!

Broth Bag:

I also started a "broth bag" with this project, which includes the ends and bits of all non-cucurbit and non-nightshade veggies. I will keep it in the freezer and, when it is overly full, I will simmer all these bits in water for a day to make a nice soup stock.

Could-Be-Local! Recipe--Sweet Potato Oat Cakes

2009-12-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

I love to cook. I experiment quite a lot and I use recipes more as guides than as formulas, if I use them at all. This evening I made a particularly enjoyable meal with almost all local ingredients, and the one non-local ingredient, oat groats, could be gotten locally if I had joined the grain CSA. So, although this is not my meal-of-the-week, and although I forgot to take a tasty picture until I was almost finished eating, I wanted to share the "recipe" (a loose term with me) here.

I hope some of my ideas will inspire other home-chefs trying to come up with one more way to cook yet another turnip, so I will continue to share recipes and pictures which Could-Be-Local but aren't in my kitchen at this time due to a variety of reasons.

Without further adieu, tonight's menu:

Sweet Potato Oat Cakes on a Bed of Purple Kale

I soaked several handfuls of coarsely chopped oat groats in filtered water for almost 48 hours. Normally I change the water. This time I didn't, so they were potent.

I mixed the oat groats with one egg, one very large baked sweet potato, one sauteed onion, and a mix of warming spices that included cayenne pepper, cumin, tarragon, salt, and pepper.

I dropped the mixture into hot olive oil in a cast iron pan on high heat as you would a pancake and cooked them as you would a pancake.

Meanwhile, I sauteed chopped purple kale in olive oil and cider vinegar.

I placed the kale on a plate, topped it with the sweet potato cakes, and ate until I felt sleepy with satiation!

Making Vinegar

2009-12-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

I have been around the making of local, organic vinegar before, and I have tasted it and felt its deep medicine working its way through my being, but I have never made it on my own, start to finish. So I decided to give it a try.

I was at the store for a quick errand the other day and saw that they had the same brand of organic cider as the vinegar I mentioned in my earlier post, so I bought a gallon (not looking at the price, which made me gasp when I got home) and carried it lovingly the two mile walk back to my house. I drank a couple of delicious glasses and then just left the cap off, simple as that.

After a couple of days of watching it, I noticed bubbles forming on the top and I decided to double check my methods. I really like this particular resource: Earth Clinic--How to Make Cider Vinegar
I am not adding any yeasts and I don't have cheese cloth. I am simply leaving it open in its original plastic gallon jug and giving it a good, swishing stir once per day. Hopefully it doesn't make my bedroom smell like vinegar (there are cats in the rest of the house so I don't want to leave it open in the kitchen). I'll keep you posted!

My First Dark Days Meal

2009-12-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

Hungry from my travels, and energized by the abundance, I set to cooking almost immediately after returning home last night. I went for quick, easy, nourishing, and filling. I started by chopping three small white potatoes (two bakers and one yellow, buttery type, don't know specifics), all the miscellaneous tiny knobby carrots I could find, and half of a daikon raddish. I put them in a pot with a small amount of filtered water, added sea salt and caraway seeds, and covered them the rest of the way with fresh milk. All of this went on the stove to simmer.

Next, I chopped green kale and put it in a cast iron pan with Olive Oil Earthbalance (not local, I know, but no local butter on hand after being out of town for two weeks and oh-so-convenient) and some Apple Cider Vinegar from Dwight Miller Orchards Vermont Farm. Although my long-term vision is to start making my own vinegar from local organic apple cider, I do really love this brand of local vinegar. Anyway, I sauteed the kale very lightly in this mixture.

So simple...my original intention was to create a sort of "veggie mash" with the milk and root veggies, but I stopped short of that for the sake of texture and was really happy with the result. Creamy, soft, chunky, served with a sprinkling of pepper on top as a sauce over the kale which was tart and slightly crunchy. Delicious!