Traditional Foods Blues

It’s a song, people.

dum dum dum deedum

I woke up this morning

my earl grey tastes like a goat.

Set the sourdough rising,

and cooked those soaked oats.

Dee dum dum deedum

The yogurt milk boiled over,

but it’s gonna taste okay.

Got to keep at it,

it’s just that kind of day.

Dum dum dum deedum

My bone broth stopped gelling

after two days a cooking,

I don’t know what happened

but at least the smell is gone.

deedly dum deedee dum

My fermented carrots turned nasty

guess something went wrong

it don’t really matter

cuz I got me this song

dee dum dum deedum

These beans I’ve been soaking

for 48 hours

So get yourself supper

and feel the food power.

Yeah!

::

Won’t you sing along? What’s happening in your kitchen, right or wrong?

Mealtime Grace

 

Is there some unspoken rule that every blogger (with children under age ten) must write at least one post about meal planning? Let’s just pretend that there is, and that I’m meeting my requirement. My apologies to readers of the non-housewife, restaurant-preferred variety.

I’ve never been much for meal planning–while I loved the idea, doing it regularly never happened, so I opted to just have a general idea what kinds of meals I’d make in a week: something with chicken, something with beans, etc. It worked, more or less. But lately,  I’d go to the store and buy milk and eggs and chocolate and then come home and wonder what to cook.

With a baby coming, oh any day now, I’ve spent the last few months trying to find every way I can to get my kingdom running itself, as a friend of mine says. For me, that means not having to think about what’s for dinner. Fortunately for our family, I had a huge burst of I’m getting my act together. And I did, and it’s working.

I started by planning meals for a full four weeks instead of just one. I  could have kept going but was starting to feel compulsive (at one point my enthusiasm for the project was so great I almost made a super complex house cleaning chart, with each day of the week a slightly different chore. It was totally OCD, though I still fantasize about it.) Anyways, I came up with general themes for  weeknights according to our schedule: oven fare on my baking day, crock pot day for the day I’m out in the late afternoon, beans and rice on Friday, because that’s what we’ve done for years and years (and called it a feast, too.)

Then I got out my cookbooks and left them on the table for a solid week. I tend to only turn to cookbooks when I’m feeling kind of desperate, and it seldom works out because I don’t have the right ingredients on hand at the last minute. But I love these books and want to be guided by them more, both to expand my kitchen skills and to have a wider variety of flavors on our table. For instance, if I knew we’d be having a stirfry one night, I wanted a different sauce each week. I took notes on what recipes caught my eye, and made a rough outline.

I found that the menus were like a puzzle, and I had to move the pieces around a bit to find the right balance between rich meals and healthier ones, to make sure we didn’t have rice every single night one week, and to vary the amount of cooking required each day. Some days are full-on cooking affairs where the oven runs for hours straight, other days we have leftovers, still others it’s twenty minutes to fry some fish and steam the veggies. While some days are very detailed, others are open: We’ll have vegetables, surely, but I won’t know what they are until I pick up our CSA for the week (but a safe bet these days would be turnips).

By organizing what we are having each day, I’m able to use our food much more efficiently. I know that if I roast a chicken on Monday, we’ll be having soup on Wednesday. I know when to soak beans, and when to defrost meat. And most importantly, for my budget and dwindling brain power, I know what to buy at the store each week. Yep, once I had the menu ready, I made up grocery lists for each week listing all the major components of the meals. If I already have an ingredient I can simply cross it off the list, which I find easier than putting it on the list by pulling it from some imaginative, dreamy part of my kitchen brain.

And yes, at first I rebelled like a willful child: What? I don’t want chicken tonight! I’d cry. But you know what, there is something so comforting about just having that dang chicken since it’s chicken night, and not having to think about it for another minute. Though of course, one could always change the sauce. I’m now on round two of my month long menus, and this time it’s even simpler: much less meat (as I won’t be pregnant too much longer, I hope!), and more straightforward meals that involve less use of cookbooks.

What’s cooking at your place? Please share tips about cooking, budgeting, babies, and other kitchen related epiphanies.

Love,

Kyce

 

Sour Cream

First things first: I’ve sworn off strawberries except as a very occasional indulgence–until, of course, they come into season here and I do whatever it takes to (non-violently) fill my freezer. Certainly if we have trouble waiting for their season to come, there are plenty of other “exotic” California fruits that don’t involve a package that will sit in the landfill forever.

Now, sour cream. When we started reducing the amount of plastic we bring into our home, the steep drop-off in trash was more of a bonus than the outright goal. Our intention was really to learn to live in a new way: to make what we needed ourselves, from scratch, and to learn to go without the things we couldn’t make ourselves or obtain in a plastic free way. Sour cream perfectly embodies both of these things.

While I’ve had sour cream starter in my freezer since New Years, I didn’t start making it until, oh, a few weeks ago. I don’t know why, but we went without it for months. This was not easy for us. We talked about it over our bowls of beans and chile, tried to remember the taste of it, the texture, the tang. Perhaps on some level I didn’t think it would work, that it was going to prove beyond my ability to make it. And I hate failure. But what else could you call a life without sour cream?

Finally I bought the cream, a whole quart of it–which amounts to a small fortune in glass bottled milk. When time came to add the culture I saw I was supposed to use light cream or half and half. Even skim milk. Skim milk! So I made pies and quiches and used up the heavy cream, bought half and half, and finally, finally, around The Man of the Place’s birthday, made the dang sour cream.

And my life is forever changed. I am a new woman. Maybe even a real woman. To think, if a few more weeks had gone by, I might never have discovered the simplest, most delicious home-cultured milk product known to housewife’s across Russia and the Ukraine.

So: Obtain milk product as described above. I started with culture from this company, but have since been using the cream itself to make subsequent batches. It’s alive, like yogurt. I wonder if any commercially available sour creams have a live, active culture. If so, try using a tablespoon or two of those per pint of milky cream. The best part is it’s totally fuss free (unlike yogurt, which has a slightly more tedious but still very simple requirement of heating, cooling, incubating). Warm the milk/cream/whatever to 80 degrees. In case you don’t have a cheese thermometer, this is to where it’s not cold anymore, but well before it gets even luke warm. Mix in your starter. Leave undisturbed at room temperature for 12 hours.

Then eat with a spoon, straight out of the jar.

ps, we’re going to dollop sour cream on our (ahem) rhubarb-apple cobbler this very minute.

The Best Thing Since…

I’m thinking that whoever decided sliced bread was so great must have sold plastic bags. After all, why else praise an innovation that requires something as basic as bread to be kept in one? A much better thing to celebrate the greatness of, I’ve decided, is the tortilla press.

No, you don’t really need one. My friend makes corn tortillas by pressing them with a pyrex pie pan. But oh, are they heavenly. I’m quite taken with this one that my folks brought me from Mexico. I could have bought one down the road at the Mexican grocery, but am a bit wrapped up in my buy nothing new philosophy, which happily doesn’t exclude gifts.

It’s like magic, this amazing little maquina. Mix dough easy peasy, press the handle, put on the skillet, eat a bit of heaven. I used to think making corn tortillas was a chore. We eat a lot of bean and rice feasts around here, and the taco portion has been conspicuously absent for a while. No longer. Now I’ll make a few tortillas at lunchtime (without complaining!) and even in the morning when making E’s lunch. I will say that when I tried to make wheat tortillas with the press it didn’t work too well, and that I was a bit relieved that I still have good reason to wield my rolling pin regularly. Also, I should mention that tortilla presses come with a piece of plastic sheeting to press the dough between, so that it doesn’t stick to the press. At first I was opposed to using it, and used parchment paper instead. That worked fine, but isn’t as reusable or durable as the plastic, so I’m surrendering to the wisdom of countless Grandmother’s south of the border and just loving it instead of fighting it.

So I ask you, what’s your favorite device that brings a bit of ease and perfection to an otherwise handmade endeavor? This week, see if you can’t slip into casual conversation something like, “Oh wow, that’s the best thing since____(the food mill, apple slicer, etc) was invented.”

Homemade Crackers

(Oops, I accidentally posted this while still in draft form. Here’s something more coherent.)

I had an epic day in the kitchen this week, mostly involving my big sack of New Mexican whole wheat flour. As the snow swirled down outside, I puttered away, making bread and yogurt, then two cherry-peach tarts (with frozen fruit from last summer), then egg noodles and goat milk ricotta for ravioli. I figured while I had the big sack of flour out and getting all over the place, and the oven roaring, I should make some crackers, which after our long deprivation, we seem to inhale by the dozen. It was a day of creativity and sustenance, the steady rhythms of measuring and mixing fueled by inspiration and an adventurousness that used to find its powder day outlet in the mountains rather than in the kitchen with flour flying everywhere.

::

Maybe crackers seem like an obvious thing to make from scratch, but to me they were a final frontier. So necessary, and yet so…impossible. Or did I think them boring? But they’re lovely and oh so simple (how could they not be given that so many other things that have no business acting like crackers often do?). Best of all they contain only the ingredients I actually want to put in, rather than all the white flour and cane sugar and what all the store-bought ones contain. It should also come as no surprise that they are cheap. This recipe is a simple foundation, a blank canvas for your culinary genius. No part of it is set in stone, and everything is up for adaptation.

Whole Wheat Crackers

Sift

2 cups whole wheat flour, or flour of choice. (I like to add in at least a 1/2 cup of cornmeal or rye. Adjust accordingly.)

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

blend

1/2 cup melted butter or oil

1 spoonful (you decide which spoon!) honey or molasses

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

About 1 1/2 cup of water, but not all at once.

Note: The right moisture content is key to happy rolling–add water in small amounts until the dough is smooth and elastic. My flour seems like a sponge, it takes in so much moisture (we’re all a little dry here in the high desert) so what works for me might be way too much for you. Do not attempt to roll out crumbly dough. It might make you cry in frustration and curse my name. If the dough becomes too sticky, sprinkle with flour.

Roll dough out thinly, and cut out with cookie cutters or into strips or squares.

They can bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, until golden. They might come out a little soft, but will turn crispy when cool.

Variations:

~ lightly press poppy or sesame seeds into top of rolled dough–we call these birdseed crackers

~replace water with apple juice and add a few dashes of cinnamon

~brush with olive oil and sprinkle on dried herbs and parmesan

~brush with egg and top with raisins and sliced almonds

~replace 1/4 cup butter/oil with 1/4 cup nut butter

~add a dash of  your favorite curry spices, and granulated garlic or onions

Rolling Rotis

I’ve been making tortillas/chapatis pretty regularly these days. More than anything else I cook, this recipe seems to fill my kitchen with helpful, if opinionated, spirits.

Here is what they say:

Mix flour, salt. Plenty of water makes for easy rolling.

A palmful of dough between the hands. Move it in slow circles.

I don’t know why, only that this is the way.

Reminds you of what a circle feels like

between two flour-dusted hands, maybe.

Activates gluten, maybe.

Ah, see. And you thought you knew what a circle was.

No matter. Good enough.

Lay them like chickadees in a neat row, covered with a cloth.

Or make your balls quick one at a time, rolling it out just seconds before laying it on the hot pan.

Careful of fingers on the skillet!

No. No spatulas. Are you a woman or a mouse?

Better to cook them too little than too much.

Keeps them soft, that’s why. I know they’re a bit raw. What do you want, a cracker?

When you flip it, take that dishcloth and push down on the tortillas.

Push! I thought you’d given birth, but this is how you push?

Makes the tortilla light, and airy. Airier, at least.

Simple. Salt, flour, water. Round ball, rolled ball. Hot skillet. Flip. Push! Done.

Live and Learn

Our experiment in living without new plastic has been going swimmingly,

but what would it be without a few lessons along the way?

Such as, don’t assume ones favorite restaurant has eco friendly to-go-ware.

I felt sick bringing home all this styrofoam with leftovers from a rare dinner out. Ever practical and searching for meaning, I looked for the lesson in the disaster. Apparently this week’s take home message is something along the lines of Always Be Prepared. Or maybe it’s to get out of the house more often.

I’ve trained myself to always have canvas bags filled with an assortment of small muslin sacks, a couple jars, and a plastic squeeze bottle at the ready in the back of the Suby when I’m out and about. To that stash I’ve added a tiffin for situations like the one above. For good measure my purse now houses a set of silverware wrapped in a napkin. Some folks even carry a glass drinking straw, but I can’t imagine what would happen if my Favorite Pickpocket got ahold of that. Oh, and if you’re in the market for a new one, a mason jar with a sock cozy makes a splendid travel mug.

Our ways are changing, slowly but surely, and it’s encouraging to see the new ways taking hold. The experience of accepting food in styrofoam felt like a threshold moment, right on the brink between who we’ve been and who we are becoming. My hope is that it never happens again, but in the meantime it offered a reminder that lest we get too smug about our good deeds, there are many more habits from a lifetime of careless complacency waiting to be cracked open and remade.

The Teachings of Guru Yo-yo

So, my girl taught me to say yo-yo, and the joy of it is so great I swear I’ll never say yogurt again. Turns out yo-yo has a few lessons of its own for this woman trying her hand at the old kitchen arts. It says, if you want to make me, remember:

::Sing often and loudly. This work is a celebration.

::Pay attention, to temperatures and tablespoons, but also to the rhythm of your breath, the sureness of your hand.

::When things come out differently than planned, remember that the unexpected is a generous detour, and not driving is another way of discovering new delights.

::Give way, give way. This isn’t the dairy aisle, Dorothy. Thin, thick, sour, sweet. None of it will go to waste if only you give way, give way.

Note from the humble yogurt making disciple: I used to think making yo-yo was as easy as cooking a pot of rice. Then came the time I now call The Month of the Funky Yo-yo. With each new batch I tried to reclaim my groove, tinkering with the starter, the incubators, adding rennet, and on an on. For my efforts I’d get something acceptable for adding to pancake batter. And I’m not picky! This week it just…worked. We are enjoying the loveliest, creamiest, thickest and sweetest goat milk yogurt imaginable. I am delighted to say that I have no idea why it worked this week and not the others (unless it had to do with my forgetting all about it and leaving it to incubate 11 hours instead of 8). It is alchemy and magic and my only advice is this: persist, don’t insist.

Introducing. . . Mamita

That’s the Little Mama on the right, offspring to the Grandmother who hails from a 1965 French kitchen. They’re red wine vinegar, potent and rich, filled with the flavors of decades of nurturing and countless glasses of leftover wine. Some friends gave Mamita to me most generously, the Grandmother brew passed down in their family through the generations.

Do you see that blobby bit popping up out of the vinegar in the little jar? That’s the Mother of Vinegar, which Wikipedia says is a “substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcohol liquids,” and basically turns them to vinegar. Think of kombucha and you can imagine what the Mother looks like. In time, daughters grow and can take charge of their own vinegar.

I brought Mamita right home, gave her an honored position on the top shelf of the cupboard, and declared we had to have wine with dinner in honor of the newest member of our family. Of course I shared the leftovers with her, and she’s happily topped off.

I love having food in my kitchen so alive – so sentient! – that it demands a name. Take care of me, Mamita, and I’ll take care of you. For a long, long time.

1/20/10: Just found this very comprehensive post on making/maintaining vinegar. Enjoy!

Like Eating a Meadow

If this plastic free business is our way of fighting the good fight while living the good life, then two goats down the road are our secret weapon. This fall we joined a milking co-op run by a community of friends a short walk away. Our Friday morning share supplies us with a week’s worth of milk and gives us a taste of the farm life here in Old Santa Fe. All in just one bitterly-cold-crack-of-dawn milking extravaganza per week.

It adds a certain rhythm to our days, that bounty of six or so quarts the Mamas give us. There’s yogurt to be mixed up and incubated (and hopefully not forgotten). There’s cuajada (see below) to make from raw, still-warm-from-the-udder milk, and then bread to be made from the leftover whey. Later in the week I’ll cook up another batch of cheese, this time my beloved panir or ricotta or queso blanco, depending on what’s for dinner.

I’ve heard it said that eating cheese made from fresh goat milk is like eating a whole meadow. The goats are lovely, to be sure. But the only requirement for all this home made goodness is milk, and that can come from a cow and the store. Of course, you could get your own goats, like this gal did. Or, ask around. You might be surprised how many goats can be found in the back yards of urban neighborhoods, their milkers eager to sleep in one morning a week so that you, too, can discover the pleasures of being sustained by the milk of a gentle, sweet eyed creature.

To make a soft, mild cheese called cuajada: add 5 drops of vegetable rennet per quart of warmish (80 degree) milk. Let sit for thirty minutes or until firmed up. Cut into “cubes,” then gently ladle curds into a colander lined with a tightly woven cheesecloth. Let drain to desired consistency. This Nicaraguan style cheese doesn’t melt when heated, and so is great in quiches, stir fry’s, and pasta dishes. It also spreads onto bread and tops salads beautifully.

Want to go plastic free but don’t have goats or time for cheese making? Ask at the deli of your grocery store for a portion of bulk cheese wrapped in butcher paper.