Oh, just one more

Ran out of butter, so I made this instead of scones:

Walnut quick bread
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4  cup ground walnuts
1/4 cup evaporated unprocessed sugar (optional)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt (for a sweeter bread use vanilla yogurt)
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons walnut oil
1 cup (3 ounces) chopped walnuts
1/2 cup plumped golden raisins

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat the eggs in a large bowl then whisk in the buttermilk or yogurt and the oils. Quickly whisk in the flour, and fold in the raisins and walnuts. Scrape into a prepared bread pan. Test at 40 minutes, to see if nicely browned and a tester comes out clean. If tester is not clean, continue testing in 5 minute increments. Cool on a rack. Serve with butter and honey.

based on: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/health/nutrition/02recipehealth.html

The Dark Days Challenge

I’m very pleased to announce I'm helping with the 5th Annual Dark Days Challenge. Along with my fellow writers at Not Dabbling in Normal we'll be working with (not so) Urban Hennery to manage it this year.

What’s the Challenge?
Cook one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients, write about it on your blog (or in the comments here, on Not Dabbling or at Urban Hennery) and email your happy recapper a link to your post.  There's more details in the post and in the right sidebar at the Urban Hennery blog.

We’re still finalizing all the details, but there are likely to be THEME WEEKS and PRIZES and a whole lot of other reasons that this will be the best challenge ever. I'll be recapping participants in the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes region, since I share your challenges.

To sign up, head over here and fill in the form at the bottom of the page.  You need to sign up by December 4, although if you miss the deadline you can still follow along; you just won't be part of the recap.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up! Join in! Cook the winter blahs away with fabulous local food all winter! But seriously, I hope you’ll join us in eating locally, sustainably and fantastically well this year!

The challenge runs from Sunday, November 27th, 2011 to Saturday, March 31st, 2012; check out the Dark Days post (here it is again, in case I haven't linked it enough) for answers to questions on what constitutes "local," how to participate if you don't have a blog, etc.

How do I sign up?
Use the form here (okay, that's 5 copies of the link, if you haven't managed to find it by now, I give up) to join; and make sure to include your location so you get put into the right geographic group!

And finally, remember that pumpkin maple bread I was bragging about? Here it is--made with home-grown pumpkin, local flour and local maple syrup.


Pumpkin Maple Quick Bread

1 cup evaporated, raw, or granulated sugar
1/2 cup maple sugar ($16 a pound. Substitute regular sugar to save money)
1 cup canola oil (if you know that no one with a nut allergy will be eating it, use walnut or hazelnut oil)
1/2 cup maple syrup
½ teaspoon maple extract
3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin puree

3 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (or 1 teaspoon pre-ground)
½ teaspoon allspice

Optional: 1 cup chopped, toasted walnuts or hazelnuts and/or plumped raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter and flour two 9x5 inch Pyrex loaf pans. Tap off excess flour from the pans.

Combine the dry ingredients and set aside. Beat together the sugar, oil, maple syrup, and maple extract until smooth and completely combined. Add the eggs and beat until combined. Add the pumpkin and mix until combined. Then add the flour and mix on low speed until just combined. To plump raisins, cover them with water, then microwave for one minute. Drain thoroughly, then add to batter.

Divide the batter equally among two pans. (I made a double recipe, and used mini pans because I had them.) Bake for 60 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Place in the pans on a cooling rack, and allow to cool about 10 minutes before removing the loaves from the pans.

Serve with maple butter:
1/2 cup softened butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
pinch of salt

whip until completely combined

As American as

Nothing more American than apples on this uber-American day. I got 10 pounds of them from freshpicks.com last week, so I've spent the last few days making stuff.

I started with a simple applesauce--peel and core, and boil the hell out of a gallon of diced apples. Dump in honey for sweetener, and lemon juice for preserving. Hot water bath, and I've got a quart and half of apple sauce.

I used Early Golds; these seem mostly to be recommended by the "Early" part of the variety name. I actually happen to like mealy apples, but these are a little mealy, even for me. They make a nice tart sauce, but if you like your sauce sweet, this is not the apple for you.

Last year I discovered that apple peels make a great stock, so I froze some of them to use for that in a future risotto or soup. About 4 quarts of peels, however, I used for my latest torture of trying to make jelly. I boiled the peels and cores until I had, essentially, apple stock (about 15 minutes), ran them through a food mill, and then strained out the liquid. Followed an apple jelly recipe to the *#* -%&$#&^ letter and I still appear to have apple syrup instead of apple jelly. It can't be that hard, right? I mean illiterate pioneers and immigrants can make a jelly set up, why can't I?

Still having a lot of apples, I started hunting through my favorite recipe sites: Orangette, and Chocolate and Zucchini, and Southern Food.com and finally found a fantastic list of apple recipes at the ever wonderful Coconut and Lime. I made this apple bread, and I'll be making meat loaf for dinner.

And that's all about as American as Apple Pie, if you ask me.

I could get used to this

It's a good thing my husband is well employed doing work he loves, because while I have interesting jobs (yes that's "jobs" plural), you couldn't exactly support a family on my take home pay. I complain about it a lot (I'm sure I'm very boring--sorry).

But last Friday I got to go to the movies at noon, and right now I'm sitting outside in my garden under my new table umbrella gearing up for my day's on line work. It's about to rain, so it's a little bit chilly; I'm wrapped up in a blanket knit for me by a friend and I'm listening to the thunder and watching Rabbit Kong try to breach the defenses.

Beats the heck out fame and riches.

Strawberry cream cheese bread

Adapted from mybakingaddiction.com

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup honey
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 egg + 1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream, thinned with a little milk or cream
1 1/2 cups strawberries, and macerated in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla and 3-4T of sugar

Preheat oven to 350/175. Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cream butter, honey and cream cheese until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla. Blend flour mixture with butter mixture just until blended. Add buttermilk and only stir until just combined; do not over mix. Carefully fold in strawberries. Dough mixture will be thick. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Okay, didn't have any honey (how does this happen?) so I used 1/2 cup sugar, and increased to two whole eggs. Decided it would be more interesting to thin the sour cream with 1/4 cup of homemade strawberry syrup. You could also use orange juice, or just substitute buttermilk, but I can never find anything except an abomination called "fat free buttermilk" at the market-- what is that? It's buttermilk folks, fat is the entire point.

Anyway, the adaptation of the adaptation was also delicious.

June Bloom Day

I'll start with the tickweed and daisies, and move on to parsnips and chamomile, but mostly this month is about the 100 petunias on my porch. I usually have more exotic items on the porch--palms and licorice plants, gynura, cordyline. Last year I left the pots empty "to fill up with possbilities"

But this year I needed something simple and bright and prosaic. Something that would just widen the pupils and put a smile on everyone's face.

Ah. Petunias.

Tickweed and daisies

Parsnips and chamomile

Petunia Sun Spun "Silver

Petunia "Daddy Strawberry"

Petunia "Cappucino" and Verbena Lanai "Peach"

Petunia "Yellow Madness"

Sour Cream Rhubarb Bread

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground clove

2/3 cup diced rhubarb

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup walnut oil

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

Topping

2 Tablespoons raspberry sugar

1 tsp butter

1/4 tsp clove

Preheat oven to 325F/160C

Whisk dry ingredients together. Add the rhubarb and cranberries. Beat the liquid ingredients together until thoroughly combined then add to dry ingredients and mix all bread ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter in a small bowl, combine with the other topping ingredients and whisk until well combined. Grease a bread pan. Pour the batter into the pan. Drizzle the topping over the batter.

Bake for 55-65 minutes or until a knitting needle inserted into the center comes out clean. This is a very moist bread. Allow to cool completely before tipping out of pan so it doesn't fall apart.

For a sweeter bread, macerate the rhubarb in a 1/4 cup of sugar for 1/2 hour before adding to batter. If you do this, add the rhubarb last.

Really not buying stuff

Last year, a couple of days into March, I found out about the Real Food Challenge at Not Dabbling in Normal. This year I'll be blogging about it there as well as here.

My experience last year was that our society has put up a lot of barriers to eating responsibly, or as I like to think of it, deliberately. First, bad food is cheap. This sounds like a good thing, but it has led to the consolidation of grocery stores into mega-centers with no connection to the community, and also putting a lot of small family grocers out of business. It has made the profit motive the main motivation for food growers, pushing millions of family farmers to the brink of ruin, or pushing them out of business altogether. (Keep that in mind when listening on the news to the current attack on the so-called public sector. You are the public folks. An attack on the public sector is an attack on you. /soapbox digression.)

Real food sometimes doesn't look "right" to us anymore as well-- real fruit, picked when ripe and grown for flavor and nutrition, rather than for how pretty it is, isn't, well, pretty-- it's bruised and misshapen sometimes. It isn't shiny because no one's waxed it. Real meat is meat colored--a rather dull grayish red-brown, but the last two generations of shoppers have been trained to think that healthy meat is bright red, because they treat it with god knows what.

So people switching to "real" meat think they're getting spoiled meat. Wrong. This is what meat looks like.

I was between jobs last year when I jumped into this so enthusiastically. I had time to figure it out and it took time-- well into the summer to really feel like I was getting a handle on it. Now there are so many things that I don't buy anymore; I either make them or do without. I don't buy bread, baking powder, mayo, jam, soda pop. I don't buy non-seasonal vegetables unless preserved locally when they were in season. I've learned to make crackers, cookies, cereal, microwave popcorn. (hint-- ALL popcorn is microwaveable. Biggest boondoggle of the modern food era. Orville's got a lot of splainin' to do.) Most of these things I make myself. If I don't make them, we don't eat them.

It was a commitment of time and intellect. I've always hated baking, but I taught myself to bake, and I'm getting better at it. If I'd done this with my kids while they were small, think of the head start they'd have now. Oh well. I take one day a week and do nothing but cook; on the other hand, since I get all my meat and staples from a home-delivery CSA now, I haven't been inside a grocery store in more than a month, saving me easily a day for baking and preserving.

On Monday I'll have a "slow start" guide over at Not Dabbling. For now, here's my attempt to get a better-rising, moister sandwich bread.

Honey whole-wheat yogurt bread
Combining aspects of these two recipes:
http://www.kitchenlink.com/cookbooks/1999/0609803891_1.html and
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/wholewheathoneybread

4 cups whole wheat flour
¾ cup hot water

3/4 ounces bread or all-purpose flour
3 packages active dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1 2/ cups plain yogurt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup water

1/3 cup honey
2 eggs

glaze: 1/8 cup milk, 1 teaspoon honey, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

thefreshloaf.com recipe suggests: “Mix the hot water and whole wheat flour together in a bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic and set aside until around room temperature, at least 1 hour. My thought is that soaking the flour may help soften the bran and release some of the sugars in the wheat, though, truthfully, I don't know for sure if it does.” Make sure you mix the water in thoroughly with your hands til it resembles a coarse meal.

Heat the yogurt, water, and butter in a saucepan over low heat until the butter melts; the mixture should not be allowed to simmer. Check the temp; cool to 100F/38C (just stick it in the fridge or freezer, and monitor). In a large bowl, whisk together 3 cups of the bread flour with the yeast, salt, and soda. Add the cooled yogurt mixture to the flour mixture and blend well. Beat the honey and eggs, mix well, and then beat vigorously by hand or using the stiff hook of an electric mixer at medium speed for 3 minutes. Stir in the soaked flour to make a stiff dough.

Knead the dough on a floured board (or work it in an electric mixer with a dough hook) until it is smooth and elastic - about 5 to 10 minutes. The dough will be slightly sticky and should retain this slight stickiness and elasticity throughout kneading. Place in an oiled bowl and turn the dough over to oil the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, then knead and let rise a second time.

Preheat the oven to 350F/167C.

Punch down the dough and divide it in half. Form 2 loaves and place each in a well-oiled 8x4-inch loaf pan, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled in bulk. Put the glaze ingredients in a microwave safe dish and heat until the honey and milk easily blend (30-45 seconds). Brush on the loaves, then bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until bread is a rich golden brown. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.

No Buy February: The Rules

I jump started a discussion on My Folia (where I journal my gardening) and on my personal Facebook page, and discovered that there's a lot of anxiety about this idea of not buying stuff. "No Valentine's presents?" "Can I buy a heat mat for my seedlings?" "This is the one time of year when we splurge!" "Can I buy things that I use to make other things?" et cetera.

So on this first day of February (Imbolc or Candlemas in the celestial calendar, for those who keep track), I thought I'd try some clarifications.

1. What do you need? First and foremost, this is not about spending no money. It's about mindful spending. Don't buy what you don't need. If you have a major seed starting project for your summer garden, and you're out of fluorescent bulbs or starter mix, then this would be something you need, because February is seed starting month in a lot of places. If you're in Chicago and the sole comes off your boots, you need boots. Buy away!

2. When do you need it? I don't care if it's on sale, or you're afraid it won't be at the store in a month. You can't buy it if you don't need it now. So, no bathing suits unless you're heading to the Caribbean.

3. Do you already have it? Sole-less boots you can buy. A second pair of boots, no. If it's something you've been planning to replace, well, hold off for a month. Make it do, for now.

4. Can you make it? This is your Valentine's Day and February birthday category. Make a gorgeous dinner, a spectacular card, bake a cake, or paint a pot that you already have as a gift for the gardener in your life. You don't have to give up giving. You just have to give up buying what you (and your loved ones) don't need. For the cooks among you, or the really committed, I'll throw snacks in here. You can live for a month without buying potato chips.

5. Were you planning to buy it before you left the house? If not, then it's an impulse buy. Leave it on the shelf. Corollary to this, was it in the budget already. A completely self-serving rule, this would cover things like piano or, um, figure skating lessons for the kids. (Thanks, Gwen)

6. Is it from the Target Dollar Spot? Never buy anything from here again. Items from the Dollar Spot are unnecessary almost by definition.

7. Do you think you'll still be using it in 6 months (or if a seasonal item, at this time next year)? If not, then you don't need it.

In the end, you need to define this challenge for yourself. Don't let me tell you what you need. But that's the point. You shouldn't cede that power to the marketers, either.

Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Loaf
Adapted from Orangette

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp rosemary, ground fine
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
6 Tbs unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup honey
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup pumpkin purée (or cooked, puréed—until very smooth—winter squash, yams, or sweet potatoes), at room temperature
½ cup coarsely chopped almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease (with butter or cooking spray) a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan.

Whisk together dry ingredients. In another bowl, mix water and flavor extracts. In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy, about 30 seconds. Add honey, and beat on medium speed until lightened in color and texture, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add pumpkin purée, and beat on low speed until just blended. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the water-flavorings mixture in two parts, beating on low until smooth and just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary. Fold in almonds. Pour batter into pan and spread evenly across the top.

Bake about one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack for five or ten minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Obsolete stuff

When I was a very young child, in the early sixties, manufacturers started discovering the decades-old concept of "planned obsolesence." In the words of cultural critic Vance Packard in The Waste Makers, it's "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals."

Originally coined in 1932 by an obscure economist, it took the manufacturers a while to catch on. Make things so that they break or go out of style. Parse out slightly better, more desirable versions, so that the old version is no longer acceptable (Apple is the genius without par at this).

And we bought it. Literally.

Outsourcing to exploited workers in developing countries means it's cheaper to replace most appliances than it is to get them fixed. Because we don't make these things here anymore, the people who know how to make (and therefore fix) them have all died. As this happened more and more, the small repair shops that used to exist in every neighborhood started disappearing, so that now it is both expensive and time consuming to get the toaster fixed. (And who owns them? Immigrants, from countries where they still manufacture stuff.) Shop classes, where they taught you how to do simple repairs, disappeared from public schools, because everyone is going to law school now, and teaching people how to do useful stuff is racist and classist. Just drop into Sears or Walmart or Target or Walgreen's and get a new one. Old one goes into the landfill. Use the credit card! As Judith Levine says in Not Buying It, credit is the perfect capitalist solution to keeping wages low while ensuring that workers keep spending money.

Families lost their livelihoods, manufacturing in the US died, unions struggled, the earth filled up with junk, and we poisoned a generation or two in countries where there are no environmental or safety regulations.

But man, that new iPod Touch is cool, and my toaster has a digital display ensuring the exact quality of toastiness that I desire. If I get an iPad, there's probably an app that will get my toast going for me before I get up in the morning.

Cleverly, manufacturers have figured out Planned Obsolescence 2.0: it's obsolete by age alone, regardless of whether it still works. When was the last time you got rid of something because it broke? We don't hold onto our appliances long enough for them to break anymore. Consumer durable goods are considered to be things we use for three years or more, like refrigerators, cars and other large appliances. Not things that only last three years. Things that we replace every three years. Three years? I'm supposed to replace my fridge every three years? Yes, I am. I recently tried to get my stove top fixed. It was installed wrong, and one of the burners doesn't work. The repairman refused to fix it. Told me I needed a new one, because this one was from 2002. He actually refused the minimum repair fee rather than have to fix it. Mind you, it can be fixed. But he has bought so deeply into the idea of "new" and "better" that he actually chose not to be paid rather than to support my suspicious desire not to buy something when the thing I've got is fine.

It's a pathology. We need to keep our things. We need to stop replacing them before their time is up, or worse, just adding to the pile.

Because what they've really planned the obsolescence of is our free will and choice.

Oatmeal molasses bread
recipe adapted from the American Home All-purpose Cook Book

2 c. milk
2 T. molasses
1 T. sea salt
2 T butter or shortening
1 package active dry yeast
1/2 c. warm water (barely cool on your wrist)
2 eggs
1 cup oats, ground to a fine meal in your food processor
4 c. whole wheat flour
2-2 1/2 c. white or bread flour

Scald milk (i.e. heat it to just shy of boiling, in saucepan or microwave). Cool to 100F/38C then add the shortening, salt, and molasses. Stir until it melts, then cool further to 80F/26C. I put it in the freezer to speed the cool down. Once it's cool, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water, let it sit about 5-8 minutes. Beat the eggs into the cooled mixture, then add the activated yeast.

Stir in the oat flour until completely moist, then start adding the other flours about a cup at a time until it forms a stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured board and knead 5 to 10 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. It will not feel as smooth as white bread doughs.

Grease a large bowl, and place the dough in it, rotating the dough a couple of times to make sure it is coated with oil. Cover with a damp towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size. (I have had this take as long as 4 hours). Punch down, let rise again until almost double. Again, this can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Grease two 9" loaf pans. Punch dough down, knead briefly to pop any air bubbles, divide in half. Shape each piece into a loaf and place in pans. Cover.

Let rise 50 to 60 minutes or until doubled. Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes.

The oats give this bread a nice springy moistness, and the molasses its lovely golden brown color. Great for bread-and-butter or as a sandwich bread.

You need a farmer to run a farm

Last June, through a miscommunication at Peterson Garden, we put in 12 "farm" plots-- four that we called "Farm4You" and 8 that we designated "Farm2Give." The F4Y plots were sold for $100-$250 to individuals who had time to harvest but not to care for a plot; the F2G plots were installed as teaching plots with all the produce donated to local shelters, community organizations, and food pantries. The original intention was to have as many F4Y plots as we could sell, and 4 demonstration plots (a Vintage plot, a Three Sisters, an Heirlooms plot, and a Bee Plot) from which we'd donate food. One day, in a fit of enthusiasm, I put in 3 more, then took on a fall plot as part of an outreach project.

Because the miscommunication was mine, I felt somewhat obligated to be the one caring for these plots.

Each plot is 24 square feet, for a total acreage of less than 1% of an acre. By way of perspective, an average, commercially-oriented truly family-owned farm is 180 acres, or some 1000 times the area I was taking care of.

While I did end up harvesting nearly 200 pounds of produce just from the F2G plots, I'm sure that we lost a lot of the yield to lack of care and missed harvests, so that produce rotted or dried before it could be picked. Because we didn't have a farmer, whose job it was to nurture these plants, plots didn't get watered, didn't get picked, didn't get pruned.

My lesson from this? As the title says, if you're going to have a farm-- a commercial enterprise providing food to other people-- you need someone whose job it is to grow things, in other words, a farmer. I know how much work goes into a garden--I plant twice that area in my backyard every year. But that's a few steps outside my door, and if I miss a harvest, I can rationalize that I'll just turn that into compost. No one starves or loses income because I let a few tomatoes rot on the ground.

But I feel bad about the yield we lost at Peterson. Good intentions and a green thumb don't make a farmer. What makes a farmer is an investment of time, and effort; it's a job that you do every day, not just when you can get there in your spare time. Not that I didn't already have all kinds of awe and respect for farmers, but this experience has hugely reinforced that.

Apple Carrot Bread

1 cup white flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp. orange extract (optional)
2 eggs

2 medium apples, peeled and shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 medium carrot, peeled and shredded (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup + 1T honey or 1/2 cup maple syrup+2T molasses
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350F/175C. Grease or line with parchment, bottom only of 9 x 5 or 8 x 4 inch loaf pan.

Whisk dry ingredients together; set aside. Beat eggs, add and beat in softened butter, honey, and molasses. Add fruit, mix thoroughly, then add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 3 minutes. Stir in nuts. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan to cool. Refrigerate any leftovers. Makes 1 loaf.

An act of courage, and the hand of the divine

Sometimes the most mundane activity inspires the most profound thoughts. After gathering the morning’s harvest, I set about dicing the six cucumbers to freeze (fresh cucumber soup in January!), nibbling as I cut, as one does. I slipped a sweet piece of pale green crunch into my mouth and experienced the most revelatory moment:

I made this

I made a cucumber. I also "make" tomatoes, eggplants, squash, corn. Beans. Beets. Carrots. In fact, I can make anything, with help from God and the goddess. A garden brings the divine into the kitchen, through each small miracle of a fruit.

Urban Americans are so disconnected from food origins, and so indoctrinated to rely on someone else's expertise, that it takes both imagination and a profound act of courage to eat something that no one has inspected, or vetted, or processed, or labeled, or packaged. In our culture every single piece of fruit has a label and a number. Small storefront grocery stores are mistrusted if not demonized, let alone the guy selling watermelons off the back of his truck. Children ask “what is it” when confronted with a cherry tomato on the vine, and have never snipped the ends off a bean. Eating something that only you and God have touched is nearly revolutionary if not actively subversive.

I learned today that in the UK, everyone is entitled to an allotment, because “landless citizens have a right to the commons.” Here in the states we’ve let cities like Detroit and New Orleans die, because god forbid someone should use someone else’s land (i.e. vacant, abandoned lot) to grow their own food. God forbid the government should be required to redeem land that they allowed private companies to contaminate, so that no one can use it to grow things on, while allowing agribusiness to drench our inspected, vetted, processed, labeled, packaged foods with poison.

This week, we've been subjected to a report about poisoned eggs. Eggs that have been bleached, irradiated, scrubbed, and in fact, vetted, processed and labeled, have supposedly sickened more than a thousand people. We took "baby's first perfect food" and turned it into poison. I don't have to worry about it. I get my eggs from a local farmer, who neither poisons, nor cannibalizes, nor confines her chickens, and whom I've met.

And I grew a cucumber, a carrot, a tomato, a bean. I ate it hot from the sun—God’s hand to my mouth.

Cucumber-raisin bread
Adapted from simplebites.net "Best Zucchini Bread Ever"

1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 cups cake flour (or all-purpose)
2 teaspoons cinnamon (freshly ground, if you're into it)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (again, freshly grated, assuming you have, um, nutmegs? around)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder (make your own!)
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup canola or nut oil
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup buttermilk (or regular milk with a splash of vinegar)
1 cup organic Turbinado sugar (or brown sugar, firmly packed)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups finely grated cucumber
4 oz raisins, plumped

Preheat oven to 350F.

Oil a 9×4 inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper. Line a 6-cup muffin tin with papers OR oil a mini loaf pan. Whisk dry ingredients and set aside. In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy, then beat in yogurt, buttermilk, oil, sugar, and vanilla and combine well. Stir in grated cucumber and plumped raisins. Fold flour mixture into the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Spoon batter into 6 muffin cups (or mini loaf pan) and pour the rest into the 9×4 loaf pan. Bake for approximately 50 minutes. Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes in the pan.

Loosen the sides and remove from pan. Cool loaf completely before cutting.

Spitfires in June

The spitfire nasturtiums are doing their nasturtium thing, namely, growing wherever you put them. A volunteer snuck in at the Narnia gate, so there's a butter yellow one from last year's mix, and the spitfire (which, by the way, bloomed).

The original transplants were planted out quite early and cloched; these are now big enough to start training up the cyclone fence (left). They get almost no sun, but don't seem to care. The largest has leaves the size of saucers. I have to keep cutting back the lilies to give them air and light, but they're going to take off, unless the evil furfaces find them.

I also direct seeded some around a plant stand in one of the vegetable beds, and will train those up the legs. I planted them May 14, and they were sprouting by the 20th.

And speaking of completely random recipes that have nothing to do with nasturtiums, here's some cornbread.

Update: gardengirl came through in the comments with this local Illinois source of cornmeal.

I'm growing Nasturtium "Spitfire" for the GROW project. Thanks to Renee's Garden for the seeds.

Cornbread

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (I made my own using the recipe at Not Dabbling in Normal)
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Spray or lightly grease a 9 inch round cake pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, salt and baking powder. In a separate bowl (for instance a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup) whisk together the honey, egg, milk and vegetable oil. Beat into dry ingredients until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely before removing from the pan. Learn from my mistakes. (Oh well, still tastes good.)

We threw out the baby

I went to grade school in the 60s, which meant the boys took shop and the girls took home ec. We wore skirts to school, and boys had to have their shirts tucked in. We learned ballroom dance and always wore white gloves when we dressed up. Shop meant that the boys learned how to change the oil in a car, basic carpentry like use of a band saw and a table saw, simple construction (bird house), and how to wire a lamp.

The girls made a sewing sampler, and a couple of simple garments both by hand and machine; we learned how to set a table, talk to the servants (this was Philadelphia's Main Line after all), arrange a luncheon, and meals from simple- chicken soup- to complex- a souffle. We learned how to write a household budget and how to balance a check book.

Unfortunately, when women developed consciousness in the late 60s and early 70s, all the "girl" stuff got thrown away. It wasn't valued. The boy things we kept-- now everyone took shop, and no one took home ec. Message received-- things that boys do are good, and things that girls do are bad. Baby, meet bath water. Someday we'll maybe manage a society where every contribution is valued, whether it's done traditionally--girls in the house, boys in the world--or new age, where you work where your talent and your inclination leads you.

I remember Home Ec very clearly-- how to make chicken broth, how to use a percolator (this was decades before Mr. Coffee). We made salad dressing--everyone did in those days. There was no such thing as off-the-shelf salad dressing. We made souffle, at the age of 12, and omelettes.

When you teach children to cook at school, you remove the emotional content and it becomes a normal thing that people do. Especially now, when so many mothers don't cook from scratch anymore, cooking at home, especially for tweens and teens, becomes fraught with political correctness, or parental weirdness. Teach the kids to cook at school--boys and girls--and it moves into the background noise of Things We Should Know.

The first thing we made, on the first day of Home Ec, was cinnamon toast. Seems silly, doesn't it? But how many people reading this blog buy their cinnamon sugar already mixed? That is what seems silly now. Buy your cinnamon from a reliable spice shop, and put as much or as little real cane sugar into yourself. Cheaper, more reliable, no fillers, and custom made for your preference.

Other than that, I remember this cinnamon toast as being the best cinnamon toast I ever made before or since. I don't recall any more how they did it, except that it was toasted in the broiler, not a toaster, and it was bubbly and crisp and exquisitely delicious. Here's my attempt to duplicate it here, on my own homemade wheat bread.

Whole wheat bread
from the American Home All-purpose Cook Book

1 3/4 c. milk
1 T. sugar
1 T. sea salt
1/4 c. honey
2 T butter or shortening
Yeast-- 2 cakes compressed, 2 pkgs active dry, or 2 tsp bread machine yeast
1/2 c. warm water (105-115F)
4 c. whole wheat flour
2-2 1/2 c. white flour

Combine milk, sugar, honey and shortening in a saucepan and heat until bubble appear around the edge and butter is melted; cool to lukewarm. If you are using active yeast, at this point crumble it into the warm water in a large mixing bowl and stir to dissolve, then add the lukewarm milk mixture. For bread machine yeast, add the yeast to the flour or to the milk mixture.

Stir in the whole wheat flour until completely moist. Add 2 cups of the white flour, work in well. If needed, add enough additional flour to make a stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured board and knead about 5 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. It will not feel as smooth as white bread doughs.

Grease a large bowl, and place the dough in it, rotating the dough a couple of times to make sure it is coated with oil. Cover with a damp towel and let it rise in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours, til doubled in size. Punch down, let rise another 30 minutes or until almost double. Grease two 9" loaf pans. Punch dough down, knead briefly to pop any air bubbles, divide in half. Shape each piece into a loaf and place in pans. Cover.

Let rise 50 to 60 minutes or until doubled. Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes.

Cinnamon toast
2 T softened butter
2 tsp cinnamon sugar (about 3:1 ratio cinnamon to sugar. Add a little clove or a tiny pinch of cayenne for a kick.)
2 slices of bread

Mix the cinnamon sugar into the softened butter, spread on the untoasted bread. Place cinnamon-side up on a cookie sheet or a broiler pan, place in broiler and cook at broil heat until butter is bubbling and edges are lightly toasted.

The empty nest

I'm trying to plan menus two weeks out, because of buying groceries online--order on Tuesday for delivery Friday. Instead of planning this week, or the next few days, and then walking through the garden, or dropping in to the market, I have to jump ahead 5 to 10 days and think of what I will need.

Next week my daughter will be here for about 10 days, and I can't remember what she eats. Cheese, and bread. Cold cuts? She's a carnivore, but I don't really want to add much meat to the diet. I need to make bread. Rice pilaf, and all the family favorites I suppose, since she eats almost exclusively packaged pre-made foods and restaurant fare on the road.

Perhaps she'll like the homemade pita.

My own pita recipe
• 2 cups white flour
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
• 1 teaspoon mahlepe
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• ½ cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
• 1 to 1 ¼ cups water, roughly at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

If you are using active dry yeast, follow the instructions on the packet to activate it. Otherwise, mix the yeast in with the flour, mahlepe, and salt. Add the olive oil, sour cream, honey, and water and stir together with a wooden spoon. All of the ingredients should form a ball. Adjust flour or water to get a very slightly sticky ball (should knead easily)

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, place the ball on a work surface, such as a cutting board, and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it'll be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, place a cookie sheet on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas (probably 2 or 3) as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes.

Body Spirit Art Intellect

Why garden?

Because it satisfies the senses: does it taste good (body), does it feel good (spirit), does it look good (art).

There's another aspect to gardening, that people tend to equate with "real" or "good" gardeners: do you understand it (intellect).

Intellect is gardening knowledge; all the things about planting that concern the science of the effort: What is the variety? How does it behave in my zone? Are there any reasons not to plant it— zone, effect on the native ecology, interaction with other plants (either positive and detrimental), is there enough light, how big will it get?

I’m quite impressed at gardeners, especially novice gardeners, who can identify a scientific name by the look of a plant, who know what variety they are planting, and can compare one variety’s behavior against another. I’ve always joked that my garden is “Darwinian”— only the fit survive—or worse yet, laisser-faire. I've been gardening for more than 20 years, but I'm not sure how much I know about gardening. Garden bloggers in particular intimidate me terribly-- they seem to know so much stuff!

You can get joy from gardening that is visceral and emotional. One puts in a bed to fix the shape; or put in a plant to change the profile or enhance the color. My garden has a beautiful design, but I didn't "design" it. It's just twenty years of living in a space, and moving things around, kind of like the living room furniture. It just takes a little longer with plants. If the color or size works in the spot I want to fill, I’ll try it. If I want to try growing some new thing to eat or preserve, I'll try it.

But it’s hit and miss, with plants cycling through because they were the wrong choice made for the wrong reasons, or wouldn't grow here, or maybe I just didn't like them. (The morphing of my garden can be seen here.)

A benefit of this is that the plants that have survived are indeed hardy, with some spectacular successes. But a lot of the garden areas never quite get there because I haven’t really considered what they need, from a more scientific viewpoint. Thank goodness, because then I get to try something else.

Cooking is the same way. A flavor combination will pop into my head-- how about cinnamon and hot? Basil and raspberry? And I'll try it out (I seldom look up recipes first-- someone has always thought of it before me, which takes all the fun out of it.) This one is an exception, since it's baking. I confess it was inspired by kelly at MyFolia, who was bragging on Twitter about eating these. So I looked up a recipe to try my own. Couldn't quite find one, so I adapted.

Rosemary Peasant Bread
adapted from Make and Takes

• 1 packet dry yeast (or 2 1/2 tsp) with 1 T. sugar; or use the self-starting kind with no sugar
• 1 1/2 c. warm water
• 2 T. honey
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 c. white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup corn meal
• 1-2 tsp. fresh Rosemary plus more for topping
• Olive Oil, Corn meal, Melted butter and salt

Dissolve yeast in the warm water and sugar. Add flour, salt, and 1-2 tsp Rosemary and stir until blended. No kneading--the dough is quite sticky, you won't be able to knead it. Cover with a moist cloth and let rise for 1 hour or until double in size.

Remove dough. It will be sticky. Coat your hands lightly in oil for taking out the dough and shaping it. Place it in 2-3 rounds (about 6" diameter each) on a cookie sheet lightly coated in oil and sprinkled with corn meal. Cover with a towel or greased plastic wrap. Then let it rise another hour.

Brush each round with melted butter and lightly sprinkle with more Rosemary and sea salt. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce temp to 375 for 15 minutes more.

Eat it with
Squash baba ganoush
from Jeff Smith's Our Immigrant Ancestors

Butternut or acorn squash, about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds, roasted
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
cracked black pepper

Method

1. Place the squash in a bowl, along with minced garlic, tahini, lemon juice (or vinegar), olive oil, sea salt, and crack pepper. Combine and taste. Adjust the seasonings to taste.a

Having time to make mistakes

Today I made croissants.

In general, I've never baked very much. My mother died when I was young, which is like losing your cooking confidence; there are so many things I've never tried because I had no non-judgmental mentor to guide me. I've never made a pot roast or a ham. Angel food cake. Pie crust. These are things that require guidance and confidence and knowledge.

Or at least time and resources to mess it up while you figure out what you're doing.

The time-consuming aspect of not buying things with ingredients (like bread, or fancy cereal, or crackers, or snacks other than fruit) I think is the true challenge of "eating real." Even buying these things from local, owner-operated shops takes more time than simply stopping at the national chain on the way home from work. Right now in our society "eating real" is a privilege of those blessed with the twin resources of time and confidence. (Contrary to popular belief, it does not cost more; in fact I have cut our grocery bill by more than half doing this.)

Fortunately for me, I cooked a lot with my mother until I was 14 and she got ill, at which point I just made all her recipes for the whole family (she would leave me instructions on the 'fridge that I would find when I got home from school: "marinate the chicken in the juice of one lemon and sprinkle with salt, oregano and pepper." Or sometimes, "make spaghetti sauce tonight." Uh, right. How do you make spaghetti sauce?)

You'll cook like your mother cooked. My mother cooked from scratch, and mine may have been the last generation (the early and mid-Boomers) who can say that as a general rule. Our mothers came home from the factory or the base, and spent the next 20 years cooking. The generation after ours have had to figure it out largely on their own. I rarely read a cooking blog that says "my mother never cooked." How do you learn to cook if your mother doesn't cook?

If you don't have the time and confidence to make mistakes, and to try again, then you're eating out and eating out of boxes.

I've never really had the time or confidence to bake before, and this family's baking knowledge died with my mother and grandmother. There are no aunts. My obliging boss recently gave me the time by cutting my job (and my salary) by half. Writing about cooking on line, and the Eat Real Food challenge have upped my confidence. All I need is knowledge, so I pulled out my mother's trusty Joy of Cooking (no stains on this page, so if Mom ever made these, it wasn't from this book).

Maybe next I'll try a pie.

Croissants, from Joy of Cooking
About 18 Crescents

7/8 cup milk
1 tablespoon lard or vegetable oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

Scald the milk (about 3 1/2 minutes on high in the microwave, or until just before it boils on the stovetop), then stir into it, until melted and dissolved, the lard, sugar and salt. Cool until lukewarm. Activate the yeast in 1/3 cup 105°-115° water and add it to the liquid. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Stir in or knead in the flour to make a soft slightly sticky dough (you have to guess the amount of flour by the quality of the dough, which should be smooth and elastic.

Knead on a lightly floured surface, using a pastry scraper to flip the soft dough end over end 10
times. The dough should now hold together. Place it in an ungreased bowl. Cover with a cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 11/2 hours. Then cover the dough with a lid and place m the refrigerator until thoroughly chilled, at least 20 minutes.

Roll or pat it out on a floured surface into an oblong 1/4* inch thick. Whip 1 cup of unsalted butter. Spread 1/4 of the butter over two-thirds the surface of the dough, leaving an unbuttered border 1 inch wide. Fold the unbuttered third over the center third. Then, fold the remaining third over the doubled portion. The dough is now in 3 layers. Swing the layered dough a quarter turn—or, directionally speaking, bring east to south.

Roll it again into an oblong 1/4 inch thick. Dot the center third with 1/4 cup of the whipped butter, and again fold it one-third over one third, turn and roll out to 1/4 inch. Repeat this two more times. (NB: The dough will start becoming more springy and elastic, so you have to roll it quite thin for it to retain that thickness.) Now, cut off any folded edges, which might keep the dough from expanding. Cut the dough into 3-inch squares, and cut the squares on the bias (i.e. into triangles) Roll the triangular pieces, beginning with the wide side and stretching them slightly as you roll. Shape the rolls into crescents. Chill for 20 minutes, not allowing it to rise again.

Preheat oven to 400°. Bake the crescents 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350° and bake until done—10 to 15 minutes longer.

What I don't need to buy

As people who read this blog know (both of you), I've been following the Eat Real Food challenge from the food and homemaking blog Not Dabbling in Normal. I've been going back and forth on how meeting the challenge works for this family. I was feeling quite discouraged that I couldn't seem to meet both forks of the challenge-- to source food locally, and to eschew packaging--without adding huge time and inconvenience and also while staying within the food budget.

I'm happy to report that at the Family Farmed Expo on Sunday I found a grocery delivery service called Fresh Picks where I can choose my food (unlike a CSA, which I don't use because I grow all my vegetables), that delivers to my door, and where the prices are comparable to, and sometimes cheaper than, the grocery store brands. Further, they have everything except dry goods (flour, noodles, etc. Still trying to find local flour that I can actually both get to and afford.)

So what I've done with the challenge is to make it mainly avoiding things with ingredients (vis. Michael Pollan's Food Rules) and packaged goods. I'm also walking to the grocery store, which will discourage buying stuff that I don't need.

Since Monday is a day off, I'm dedicating it to making the things I usually buy, which this week was scones for breakfast and snacks, hummus, and pita bread. (I really wanted peach scones, but since they're not in season that seems out of the spirit of the challenge. Maybe I'll do it and not tell anyone, heh-heh. Right. The goddess will know.) Adding in the crackers that I made on Friday, my time investment was about 4-5 hours. Not counting the cost of the ingredients (negligible) my savings was about $20! In other words, making just these things, which are fun and easy to make, that I buy regularly, will save me something on the order of $1,000 a year.

Hummus

1 (16 ounce) can garbanzo beans, half the liquid reserved
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons tahini
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 heaping teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil

Put all ingredients, except the reserved water, in a food processor and blend until creamy. If it's too dry, add a little of the water. Any water you don't use, throw it in the jar of vegetable stock that I just know you have in your freezer. You can add different herbs or vegetables for flavored hummus, such as chopped roasted red peppers, basil, sundried tomatoes, etc. We ate this with the homemade crackers. Yum.

If you're a real sucker for punishment, um I mean if you want to lower your carbon footprint even more, you can make a creamy hummus grinding it by hand in a large mortar, and tone your tricepts and delts at the same time.

Pita recipe here.

Happy New Year

I didn't remember my mother making New Years' bread until I stumbled on the word-- vasilopita-- somewhere a few years ago. I immediately got a smell and an image in my head; somewhere in my past I watched either my mother or my yiayia making this sweet bread.

Vasilopita is a sweet yeast bread flavored with mahlepe, ground cherry pits. (Thank goodness for The Spice House, which had this spice, as it was very hard to find.) This bread is made in honor of the patron saint of Greece, St. Basil, on his name day, January 1st; hence the association with the new year. The tradition is to bake a coin or trinket into the bread; the person who gets the slice with the coin has good luck the rest of the year. I used a Chinese coin in honor of the other half of our family heritage.

This recipe is from Adventures in Greek Cookery by Kapulos and Jones.

Vasilopita

1 cup milk
2 yeast cakes (or equivalent dry yeast)
3/4 cup + 2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter
3 eggs, well-beaten
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon mahlepe
1/3 cup lukewarm water
up to 6 cups all-purpose flour
1 or 2 clean coins

for topping:
3 tablespoons light cream
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sesame seeds

Scald the milk and set aside to cool. Crumble the yeast in a small bowl, sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar, and set aside for 10 minutes, or prepare dry yeast per packet directions. Don't put the dry yeast straight into the mixture, however careful you are with temps. It doesn't work as well. *

When milk is cool (I cooled mine in the fridge, to about 100F/38C, or just warm to the touch) combine it with remaining sugar, and the next 5 ingredients (through the mahlepe) in a large bowl. Beat with electric beater for 5 minutes. If using fresh/cake yeast, add the lukewarm water to the yeast, blend until smooth, then stir into the mixture. For dry yeast, simply stir the foamy, activated yeast into the bread. Add the flour and cup at a time and knead the dough until soft and pliable. If you use a dough hook, use it for the first 4 cups of flours, then work in the last 1 or 2 cups by hand, kneading as you go. (I seldom use all 6 cups.)  Thoroughly grease the sides and bottom of a large bowl. Turn the dough into it and rotate until all sides are greased. Cover with a heavy cloth and put in a warm place to rise for two hours. It should at least double in size.

After two hours, turn the dough out on a floured board and knead lightly. Divide into two parts and put a clean coin in the center of each, or for one loaf leave dough in one piece and use one coin. Then knead until the coins are well hidden. Shape the dough to fit into two greased 9 inch round cake pans or one 12-inch round pan. Combine the cream, sugar and cinnamon, brush over the tops of the loaves and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Cover with a cloth and put in a warm place to rise for two hours. It will double or more in size again.

Bake at 350F/175C for 50 minutes (check at 45) for 9-inch loaves, or 1 hour for 12-inch loaf. Remove from pan immediately and cool.

The first slice is for the lord (or the goddess, depending on how you roll). The second is for St. Basil. Dole out the remaining slices from the youngest person at the table to the oldest.

* 2 packets of dry yeast

Testing for the holidays

I couldn't make the promised cheese crackers because I realized I don't have a full-sized food processor anymore. My 40 year-old antique finally gave up the ghost last winter. Now I've only got the little 3 cup one.

But I've been jonesing for cheesy things lately, so I didn't want to give up on the cheese, not to mention that I have a fridge full of cheese because I thought I'd be making cheese crackers.

We'll be spending Thanksgiving at my brother- and sister-in-law; I'll be using the last of pumpkin palooza to make some recipes from this site as my contribution. In the meantime, I picked up a couple of bags of cranberries earlier in the week to try a cranberry syrup (it's delicious). Only used one bag for the syrup, so I tried my favorite google search today-- recipe: Random Ingredients.

The Random Ingredients of the day were cranberries and cheese. Yes. There are recipes that use both cranberries and cheese. This one looked like the winner:

Cranberry Cheese Bread
from Baking Bits

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
a 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup fresh orange juice (forgot to get oranges, so I used the cranberry syrup, 3T in a measuring cup, then filled to 3/4 cup total liquid)
2 teaspoons grated orange rind (I used some dried that I had)
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 cup chopped cranberries

Sift dry ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse cornmeal.

Combine orange juice (or whatever), rind, and egg and pour into dry ingredients. Mix just to dampen. Fold in cheese, cranberries and nuts. Pour (BakingBits said "pour" but it was more like "glop." Batter is quite thick.) into greased and floured loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool and store overnight before slicing.

I wish I could take a picture of the smell, because it is indescribably delicious. Ditto the taste. Sweet crust, salty cheese, tangy berries.

A week's worth of pent-up cooking mojo

After lunch, I started thinking about that big tub of yogurt that I used for my soup garnish, and all those carrots I still have from the garden, and the walnuts that I found. Well, one of the things I've learned is that if you google "recipe: any combination of ingredients", someone has a recipe.

Found this wonderful nutty bread on the Plumpest Peach blog. She credits it to Olive magazine. I've adjusted her metric measures for us diehard avoir-dupois-ists.

Quick carrot and walnut bread

1 1/2 c plain flour
5.8 c whole meal flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2/3 c grated carrots
handful of walnuts toasted
1 1/4 c low-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 c skim milk

Method
Heat oven to 455 F. Mix the flours, salt and baking soda, then stir in the carrot, walnuts and yogurt, followed by enough milk to make a soft, quite sticky dough. Tip onto a floured surface and form a flat ball, put on a baking sheet, slash the top and bake for 30 minutes until risen and cooked. It'll sound hollow when you tap it.

Guinea pigs

The cast, crew and staff of Light Opera Works' production of C'est la vie went the extra mile this week and taste-tested two different versions of carrot bread for me, including my first ever attempt at changing key ingredients in a baked goods recipe. You may have noticed that you don't see a lot of baked goods on here; I'm not much of a baker. All that sciencey-stuff. You kind of have to know what you're doing.

But I took a chance at a pumpkin-carrot bread (remember all that pumpkin and carrot in the larder?) made with honey instead of sugar. The verdict seems to be that this Carrot Pear Bread was the winner, but the adapted recipe was also pretty good. (Don't tell them, but I brought them the smaller, drier loaf. What can I say.)

Apparently, I have now spoiled them, as they are asking what I'm bringing next week. This is why I never bake (although I did find a recipe for pumpkin-chocolate swirl brownies...)

Pumpkin-carrot bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 T cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups honey
1 cup homemade or 1 can of pumpkin puree
4 large eggs
3/4 cup nut or vegetable oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease and flour two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans.

Put raisins in a microwaveable container, just cover with water, and microwave on high for 1 minute (this will plump them).

Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Set aside.

Combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, oil in large mixer bowl; beat until just blended. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Fold in carrot and raisins. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pans.

Bake for 50 minutes, test with an inserted wooden pick (should come out clean). If not done, bake another 6 to 10 minutes and retest. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 2 loaves