216 <3

It is now 2012. I am going to apologize for the disarray, and then quickly move on as though no time has been lost. First, a quick recap, just to bring you up to speed…

The chickens are doing wonderfully! Although the Winter has been rather mild, and the rest of the United States knows this area was in dire need of a mild Winter’s start, there have been a handful of very cold, flurry-filled days. The ladies seem to spend most of their time hanging out in a blue plastic tub I put on its side to block the wind under their coop. The drop in temperature means they aren’t producing at their full potential, but in the month of December we got 85 eggs from our 5 hens. Not bad at all, if you ask me.

first eggs ever from flock 216

Their shell colours range from tan to a medium brown, sometimes speckled and sometimes not, and some of them are just HUGE! The yolk colours vary as well, and they are amazingly delicious. We have heard only wonderful things from the friends and family who have been lucky enough to partake. They truly are awesome for toast dipping! After their last great escape, which found Mr. T.U.H. and I running through neighbors’ back yards and down the alley on retrieval missions, we fixed the holes in the netting, and haven’t had any recent problems. Of course, now that I have typed that I will get a knock on the door about birds out back. They are worth all of the hassle, however. Their eggs are better than any I have purchased, and I know exactly what they are eating. They really love tomatoes and spent beer grains.

Our farmers markets this year were interesting. Gordon Square was awesome, as usual. There is nothing like meandering over to the market on your bicycle, after someone else has gotten up early and packed and unpacked and set everything up, so you can chit chat with neighbors and other vendors. Hey, Mr. T.U.H. wanted it this way! We did the Downtown Farmers Market for a bit, but it just seemed to be going downhill. Vendors were leaving, never to return, and there was a giant lack of produce; Por Bar Farm was the staple, a mighty fine staple. If the city of Cleveland is going to host a farmers market in Downtown Cleveland, they need to do more than have one press conference the first year of the market. Their lack of support is going to drive that market into the ground.

After we left the Downtown Market, we tried the Euclid Market at the Shore Cultural Center. It is a wonderful little market with tons of produce, and the cutest pie man ever. Unfortunately the Cleveland weather decided not to like us at the Euclid Farmers Market, and we were rained out the last few weeks. We will be back!!!

attack!!!

This Urban Homestead preserves FLEW off the market tables this year. At any time you might have found: strawberry, strawberry chipotle, strawberry rhubarb, strawberry balsamic black pepper, sweet cherry, sour cherry, spiced cherry, yellow watermelon, cherry vanilla bean, cherry balsamic, peach, low sugar peach, tru tom jam, attack of the heirloom tomatoes jam, tim tom jam, apple sauce, or apple butter; I am sure I have forgotten something. Next year will bring even more imaginative preserves along with some savory to boot! In the year 2011, Cleveland ate 130 of my bacon buckeyes and many dozens of This Urban Homestead Compost Cookies (to be renamed in the future) as well! Next year it’s 300 bacon buckeyes or BUST!!!

peanut butter, peanuts, sugar, and bacon all mixed up and then dipped in dark chocolate mmmmmmm

In business news, the building is still not up and running – yet. We have one last holiday event to attend today, and then it is all business in 2012. Origins Beanery and This Urban Homestead need to kick the brick and mortar incarnation into action. In garden happenings, I applied to, and am waiting to hear back from, the OSU Extension Market Gardener Program. Hopefully I will be accepted and then get some of my problems with organization and soil amending sorted out. I have taught myself a lot, but I could still use a lot of instruction.

Oh! I almost forgot that our big food adventure this year is to raise and cook our own turkey for Thanksgiving. We could have homegrown turkey, stuffing with homemade bread components and homemade chicken sausage (since we can’t raise our own pig, and stuffing with sausage is a must), homegrown mashed potatoes made with butter and cream from the farm (since we can’t raise our own cows here, the farm dairy is the closest we have), and greens from the garden that were blanched and frozen for just such an occasion. Now I am drooling and I have to go.

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day 2 breakfast: roll with capocolla and homemade garlic scape pesto, home squeezed orange-pineapple juice back

day 2 lunch: homemade carbonara

day 3 brunch: chicken "snack wraps" with homemade BBQ sauce, local cheddar, and Old Husher's lettuce

day 3 dinner: pasta with homegrown basil, thyme, oregano, chicken, the last of the homegrown/homecanned old ivory egg tomatoes from last year

day 4 breakfast: Mr. T.U.H. muffin with a whole wheat muffin, local cheddar, local pastured eggs, and bacon

day 4 lunch: mini pizzas with local cheddar, homemade tomato sauce, and bacon on whole wheat muffins

day 4 dinner: chicken curry with udon noodles, carrots, peas, and homegrown cilantro

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Any time I hear the words ‘fava beans’, I immediately think of the above video and make that frightening slurping noise, either in my head or aloud to Mr. T.U.H. This makes going to the market especially amusing at times. Still, I had never cooked with one. Today Por Bar Farm had the most beautiful looking fava beans at the Downtown Market. This was perfect because I was ready to venture into a fava bean dip, a hummus of sorts.

I scoured the internet, reading recipe after recipe. Some had yogurt and dill, some had cumin and cilantro, others had cumin, parsley, and coriander. Not one to follow a recipe exactly, I crafted my own based on how many shelled fava beans I had. Here is what I ended up doing, and the result was delicious!

Creepy Slurping Guy Dip

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups shelled fresh fava beans

juice from half a lemon

3 T plain greek style yogurt

3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

2 T olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 cup mix of fresh cilantro and parsley, roughly chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Fresh fava beans must first be shelled

fresh fava beans after initial shelling

then blanched for 5 minutes

fava beans blanching for 5 minutes

plunged directly into ice water to stop cooking and then strained

fava beans after being blanched and then submerged in ice water to stop the cooking process

before finally being squeezed out of their second skin.

fava beans post second shelling

Once you complete those steps, which sound daunting but really are not terribly difficult, put all ingredients into a food processor and go to town.

garlic, cilantro, and parsley

Scrape down the sides a few times and pulse as well as let it go on its own, as scraping and pulsing will help get all hunks down to the desired consistency.

Scrape into bowl and let sit in the refrigerator for about an hour. When first finished, the dip might seem runnier than desired. Allowing the dip to sit in the fridge for an hour will take care of the looseness.

Top dip with a dollop of greek yogurt and a sprinkling of the parsley and cilantro, if wanted.

finished fava bean dip

Enjoy!

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day 1 breakfast: greek style yogurt with local honey and fresh strawberries.

The beginning:

At the start of May, 2011, we joined a herd-share. What this means is that we purchased a share of a herd of cows. Every month we pay a fee to cover a portion of housing, feeding, caring for, and milking of said cows. The cows live on a happy little farm about an hour and a half South of here, and are taken care of by a wonderful family. Every week I get milk or cream or butter or yogurt that is fresher than anything I have ever tasted before. This is where the ice cream making comes in.

With all of these fresh ingredients, ice cream seemed like the perfect thing to make. Making ice cream means first finding the perfect recipe. This, of course, means playing, I mean researching, on the internet. We wanted to make coffee ice cream, seeing as we roast our own coffee, but all of the recipes called for instant coffee; there was no way that was going to happen in this house. We finally found a recipe that looked delicious, and used real coffee. The recipe was found on a blog called Not Eating Out In New York. The ice cream recipe turned out as delicious as it sounded. (the only change I made was to use a pint of cream and 1 cup of whole milk instead of 1.5 and 1.5. I find this gives a richer, silkier ice cream.)

So what does all of this have to do with eating in? The blog’s writer wrote a book about the 2 years she spent not eating out in NYC. If she could do it for 2 years there, we could certainly do it here for 30 days. We have made a modification, however.

If we know how to make it ourselves we cannot buy it.

This means things like bread, soft cheese, ice cream, pasta, etc. Beer is not included in this list because we did not have the foresight to brew any before giving ourselves this challenge. We do have homemade wine, however, so there will be no wine buying.

day 1 lunch: hot capocolla, roast beef, local cheddar and mustard on homemade whole wheat bread; home-squeezed pineapple-orange juice, and left-over warm baby reds with butter, peas, and dill from the garden.

Eating in, 216 style began this morning. Mr T.U.H. made himself an egg and some toast with homemade bread. I had greek style yogurt (not homemade because it was already in the fridge, but I will make my own when this is done) with local honey and fresh strawberries. At some point during the month we will have 216 Restaurant Week, where we cook our versions of fancy dinners from such local eateries as Lola, Greenhouse Tavern, and Crop to name a few.

I hope you will follow along as we embark on this adventure. Who knows, maybe 30 days will turn into a year?

day 1 dinner: Grill This! Grilled corn, grilled green beans, grilled pork chop from Blackbird Farm

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The chicks are doing great. The above photos are from their second day here. They look totally different now, so I will have to update with new photos tonight. They are still in the brooder and we are picking up their new digs tomorrow! Can’t wait to mod the dog house and build the run!

I have been doing a lot of chicken reading, both books and online. The BackyardChickens.com site is so helpful. The forum there is excellent. I honestly still can’t tell the difference between the other three chicks. I think I have to come up with a remedy for that soon.

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Inside of the shop

Through Cleveland’s, seemingly, never ending April showers I can see a glimmer of sunlight sent to remind me that warmth is really on its way. We have survived yet another deep freeze, and the sprouts in the bathroom mean it will soon be outside time again. Let’s recap what has been going on around This Urban Homestead lately.

The Lorain Avenue General Store:

You might have found yourself here because you saw Aaron’s presentation last night at the Local Food Cleveland meeting. Personally, I think he did a wonderful job; I might be a little biased, however. It was great to be invited to speak with such a great group of panelists, all having done such great work to get their local businesses off the ground. We met some amazing people and made some very promising contacts.

Where did The Lorain Avenue General Store idea come from?

In the Winter of 2010, Aaron and I purchased a building, 7952 Lorain Avenue. This building has two storefronts, connected inside to make one large retail space, as well as two apartments upstairs. The basement runs the entire area of the building as well. Originally we bought the building with the intention of opening a coffee shop and renting the apartments upstairs to tenants. It didn’t take very long for us both to say, “Who needs another coffee shop?”  What we did need was somewhere for local vendors to sell their wares when the Farmers Market season was over. We knew there wasn’t a store like this around us now, so I hit Google to see what there was along these lines in other cities. This is how we found Local Roots in Wooster, Ohio. It was then The Lorain Avenue General Store was born.

What is The Lorain Avenue General Store?

The Lorain Avenue General Store, or the LAGS as we have begun calling it, is our plan for a year round market for locally produced/raised/grown food and goods. Why should a person only be able to get local food locally once a week and only in the Summer months? Right now the answer is lack of a space. The LAGS is to be located fewer than 2 blocks from our home. We live in an urban area that is home to multitudes of families on public assistance. The people in this neighborhood deserve, and have a right to, good local products they can stop by to grab on their way home to make dinner. Yes, I said make dinner. Right now we have more fast food available than produce and properly raised protein. That needs to change. Our plan is to accept public assistance so that the regular, everyday people of the Detroit Shoreway can afford to shop for local food that is good for them.

The Lorain Avenue General Store aims to be more than just a market, however. We aim to educate and get the community involved. One of the aspects that excites me the most is our desire to offer sustainable living classes. How can we become a more self sufficient community? How can you start your own garden from seed, raise the plants indoors, transplant them outdoors, keep them happy and healthy, harvest those plants and then put that food away for the non-growing season? We aim to teach just that. How can you raise chickens in your own backyard? We aim to teach that as well. How can you make cheese and bread and pasta at home, saving money and adding nutrition to your family’s meals? Yes, we aim to teach that too. Knitting, sewing, composting, coffee roasting, beer and wine making, and many other things are to be taught at the shop.

The roof is flat. We see a greenhouse up there. The basement is huge! We see a community kitchen down there, helping home based food producers gain access to a commercial kitchen that they otherwise would not have. This isn’t just a store, it is truly meant to be a community resource.

What stage is The Lorain Avenue General Store in right now?

The wiring is extremely old, and oddly connected in strange ways, and not able to withstand the fridges, freezers, and other machinery that will need to be run. Rewiring will be expensive; it all needs to be redone completely. Remember when I said we bought the building? I meant we bought it outright. We owe nothing. What does that mean? We need capital. The building had to be bought when it was, and there was no option of financing with the sellers. We believe in this project. The community believes in this project. We are working with the Detroit Shoreway Development Co. on things such as the program for storefront renovation and other grants we qualify for. If you have anything to offer, be it in skilled work, things like accounting, electric work, plumbing, you like to make and bring people pizza and beer, you just let me know by emailing la@thisurbanhomestead.com .

So things with the shop are moving along. We should hear from the Cleveland Colectivo soon, and on Friday we have a meeting with some very important people. This really is all so exciting.

This Urban Homestead News:

The sprouts are doing great! So far, at This Urban Homestead, we have started:

a rainbow heirloom tomato mix (burpee)

mortgage lifter tomato (seed swap)

pink accordion tomato (seed swap)

brandywine tomato (not sure where this seed came from)

sweetie cherry tomato (not sure)

yellow roma (saved from a por bar tomato)

japanese black trifele (saved from ym own last year which came from seed saved from a blue pike farm tomato 2 years ago)

cherokee purple (sse)

cucumbers (not sure)

hot pepper mix (burpee from a few years ago but still good it seems)

rainbow bell pepper mix (old burpee as well)

brussels sprouts (seed swap)

lima beans (they really shouldn’t be started inside but I was messing around with germination and these three are still doing great. seed came from Baker Creek)

little gem lettuce (Baker Creek)

about 5 kinds of basil (spicy globe, genovese, thai, sweet, something I can’t remember. not sure where the seed came from either.)

cilantro (old burpee)

dill (seed swap)

I will have lots and lots of extra tomato plants if anyone wants any.

I really should get outside and plant some peas but the rain is making that difficult to do.

Beyond the farming, I finally ordered 5 Barred Plymouth Rock hens! I pick them up on May 2nd. I need to get the application filled out and sent in to the city. I am going to use Valentine’s old dog crate as the brooder. The chicks will only be a day old when I get them!

In food news, I have been making cheese, bread, and pasta. We also had the first Sunday Supper at This Urban Homestead. There were 8 people total and a huge meal of homemade all day gravy with pork and beef, homemade macaroni, homemade meatballs, homemade bread, and amazing brussels sprouts was served. J & S brought an outstanding coffee choco lava cake, using Origins Beanery coffee no less!

Now that Spring is showing its face, expect more frequent updates – I promise!

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In doing some research regarding the current situation, I came across a page on the Family’s own site that kind of shocked me. This page contains the definitions for “Urban Homestead”, “Urban Homesteading”, and “Urban Homesteader”. The definitions are very well written. What shocked me was how obviously in contrast they are to filing for a trademark on a concept, a movement, a way of life. I now present the Dervaes Family Definitions, taken verbatim from http://urbanhomestead.org/urban-homestead-definition .

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Serves:

Honestly I am not sure. 4 servings or so with another 4 servings minus the chicken to freeze, if that makes sense. (I used 3 HUGE bone in skin on breasts. I didn’t have enough meat for the entire batch of veggies and sauce so I mixed a smaller batch to bake for dinner, froze the rest of the veggie/sauce mixture, and saved the leftover chicken for the next day as chicken salad. So, It really depends on the amount of chicken from your breasts. They get roasted on their own, so mix things together a bit at a time for a good ratio and save the rest for other things.) This recipe could easily be halved.

Ingredients:

Just under 3 lbs. bone in skin on chicken breasts (this was 3 large split breasts for me)

3 tablespoons olive oil

kosher salt to taste

fresh ground pepper

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups chicken stock

1 cup cooking sherry

8 tablespoons butter in 2 T and 6 T groupings

a dozen or so nice sized mushrooms like shitake or cremini, diced

2 chicken bouillon cubes or matching amount of soup base

2 cups onion chopped

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup heavy cream

2 cups diced carrots

2 cups frozen peas

1 cup frozen corn

here is where I admit to using prepared puff pastry as my topping

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the chicken breasts on a baking sheet and rub them with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast until cooked through. Change oven temperature to 375 if cooking pot pie immediately. Set aside until cool enough to handle, then remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin. Pull the chicken by hand into bite sized pieces. You will have 4 to 6 cups of cubed chicken.

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a large pot or Dutch oven, melt the 2 tablespoons butter and saute the garlic and mushrooms over medium-low heat until fragrant. Remove to a bowl. Add 6 tablespoons butter and saute onions until translucent, about 10-15 minutes. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the cooking sherry. Add the hot chicken stock. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring, until thick. Add 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and heavy cream. Add the pulled chicken, mushrooms carrots, peas, and corn. Mix well. Pour mixture into baking dish.

Top with puff pastry sheet and cut vent holes. Wrap foil around the edges of the pot pie to prevent browning too early. Bake for 45-60 minutes, removing foil near end of cooking time, until golden brown on top and bubbling hot inside. Let sit for a few minutes when removed from the oven and then serve.

You can prepare the pie filling ahead of time and then keep in the fridge until it id time to put the top on and cook.

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Brown Sugar Lemon Glazed Salmon with White Wine Risotto

time: not a ton not a little

serves: 2 adult people (with some skin for dogs if you are so inclined)

salmon ingredients:

16 oz. salmon filet with skin on (cut into 2 8 oz. pieces)

1/6 cup brown sugar (I just estimated with a 1/3 cup so it doesn’t have to be exact)

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

fresh ground black pepper to taste (a handful of good coarse grinds)

zest of one lemon

put brown sugar, salt, lemon zest , and black pepper in food processor and combine for about a minute. Pat fish dry! Rub seasoning onto fish and let sit while you prepare risotto.

Risotto ingredients:

2 pieces lean streaky bacon, cooked, diced and reserved

about 34 oz of chicken broth (you want 3 cups, but you lose some to evaporation as it simmers so this is what I use)

2 handfuls of green beans, ends removed if necessary and cut in half

2 tablespoons butter, divided

1 shallot, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced

3/4 cup arborio rice

3/4 cup white wine (I used homemade, which is on the sweet side)

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Freshly ground black pepper

Salt (you probably won’t need this)

Bring your chicken stock to boil in a saucepan. Reduce the heat to keep the simmer. Add green beans and blanch for 3 minutes. Remove from saucepan and set aside. Keep stock simmering.

In another saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic and cook for about 3 minutes, until fragrant. Add rice and stir constantly for 4 minutes, until toasted nicely. Add white wine, scraping brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook until wine is almost completely absorbed by the rice, about 4 minutes or so.

Begin to add the chicken stock, 1/2 a cup at a time. Do not add the next cup until the previous is almost completely absorbed. You will add 3 cups of stock in total to the risotto. You must stir constantly. This takes about 20-25 minutes in total. It is a pain in the ass but soooooo worth it in the end. I promise you.

Once the 3 cups of stock have been absorbed, remove pan from heat. Add the other tablespoon of butter. Stir. Add the cheese. Stir. Add the green beans. Stir. TASTE. Here I noticed I did not need to add salt. If you need to, go for it, if not, don’t do it. I added freshly ground pepper.

Cover.

Turn oven to broil and move the top rack to the second position from the top. This is assuming you have a modern oven. If you have the old kind where the broiler is actually in the bottom, I don’t know what to tell you. I hope you read through the recipe before now. I think you might catch your fish on fire down there if you try this one.

Leave the broiler on for two minutes. Put your fish in an oven safe pan. Broil for 6 minutes (nice and rare if you got a good thick cut) to 8 minutes (medium and in my opinion overdone if you got a nice thick cut). KEEP A CLOSE EYE! There is a bunch of sugar in there. Watch for flare ups or too much smoking. Don’t be afraid to move your fish down a notch. Remove and let sit for five minutes.

Plate your fish and risotto. Sprinkle diced bacon over the top of the risotto. Enjoy.

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We have been experimenting a lot with the bread machine. Right now I am working on making awesome baguettes. I let the machine make the dough, and then I shape it and bake it in the regular oven. The first one I did was using the recipe that came with the machine. It made a very nice French bread. It was very soft, however, like really good sub rolls. I wanted more of a skinny, crunchy on the outside and flakey on the inside baguette rather than a French bread. I found another recipe online. The photos of the bread looked amazing, so I thought it would be a good one to try. Mr. T.U.H. baked the first loaf. He made it round, not long and skinny, but it was delicious. The outside was nice and crispy, and the inside light and fluffy. I have a shaped loaf downstairs on the final rise. I tried to make it long and skinny, like a proper baguette, so we will soon see how it works out. I really like baguettes, good baguettes that is. I hope this one works out!

This is the beautiful post that gave me the current dough recipe. It is worth taking a look at the rest of the site as well. I plan on starting the mustard today. Kiss My Spatula

I also finished my tshirt rag rug!

Cheers!

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