Every once in a while I start to pat myself on the back, thinking that I am turning into a well-seasoned cast iron cook. Not this week.
This week I learned:
1) If you fry an egg in butter, beautifully and perfectly over easy, at medium heat, then set the pan back on the burner and accidentally turn the burner to HIGH instead of OFF, the pan will set off the smoke alarm and fill the kitchen with smoke before you can finish eating the egg.
(Ask me how I know. No. Don't ask. Isn't it obvious?)
When you throw baking soda into it, the baking soda will bubble as if it is boiling from the hot vapor still rising from the burned butter. The seasoning on the pan will be ruined -- ugly dark matte gray instead of glossy black, with a crusty shiny little ring right in the middle where the egg rested in the pan -- and you will have to reseason it, which is especially annoying if it is the beautiful little #6 Griswold that your dad seasoned himself and gave to you.
And your entire family will complain about the smoke until they go to bed that night. In this case, the family is one teen-aged son, who very kindly did not mention the long-ago incident where a skillet actually burst into flames on my stove.
By the way, if you put out the flames in a skillet by clapping a lid onto it, don't try to peek again right away. Because it will burst into flames again as soon as you take the lid off.
2) A cast iron spider, prewarmed on medium heat for as long as it takes to roll a fresh, home-made sourdough tortilla, will be a little cool for the first tortilla, and just right by the third. However, if you then break two eggs into it to fry, it will be much too hot for the eggs. What is more, cooking dry tortillas on it will mess up the surface just enough to ruin its non-stick qualities, so the eggs will sit there bubbling and sticking and turning hard until you try to pry them loose and the yolks break. Your son will leave the last few bites of his breakfast quesadilla -- the bites with most of the eggs -- on his plate.
3) If you then try to clean the spider with a quick scrub under hot water and grease it really well to cook yourself some scrambled eggs and salsa, the scrambled eggs will stick even worse.
4) What you really need in the case of #2 is a second piece of cast-iron. Say, for instance, the pretty little Griswold sitting on the back of the stove waiting to be reseasoned.
5) Can you ever have too much cast-iron? Maybe what you really need is a comal....
____
This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Beef and Bones
Earlier this month I bought 5 pounds of beef bones (a little over $8) and 3.2 pounds of bottom round roast (2 separate chunks) for a little less than $6.50, and two pounds of hamburger. I want to let you know what I have done so far with the bones and the roasts, about $14-$15 worth. Unless you are trying to figure out for yourself how far you can stretch this particular combination of food, you may find this post excruciatingly dull.
I bought it at Sinnett's Market on Commerce, where the butcher assures me that all the beef is free of hormones and antibiotics. Some of it (the more expensive St. Helen's beef) is from the Northwest...but none of it is grass-fed and grass-finished. It's all feed-lot grain-finished. But the butchers are quite willing to answer questions, and if you ask for things that available in the back that aren't up front yet, like soup bones, they are willing to get them out for you. One day one of the guys even mixed up some breakfast sausage for me when they were out of the sausage they usually have in the case.
I used the bones for bone broth. Yesterday I got the bottom round out and started thawing it.
I took some of the broth, put it on the stove, and added diced potatoes, onions and celery. When the vegetables were almost done, I took the beef and sliced it as thinly as I could. I was trying for paper-thin slices, but neither my knife nor my skill is really adequate. I mostly got slices about as thick as a quarter. I added them to the soup and cooked just until done.
They were a little too chewy -- I have a memory, a powerful visual, kinesthetic and taste memory, of slices of beef cooked in broth just before serving that were wonderfully flavored and meltingly tender. That's the vision I had cooking them. They didn't come out that way.
I'm not sure where the memory came from -- it may have been beef sukuyaki prepared by a skilled cook right at our table in our hotel room in a family meal in Japan, when I was eight or nine. Except I think she prepared the version of sukiyaki where the meat is cooked on a little domed grill, then added to the broth and noodles and vegetables.
Or maybe from a Mongolian Grill restaurant? Or a Chinese restaurant?
This beef did have one advantage over chunks of stew meat that have been braised and cooked for a long time -- it had more flavor -- but not the tenderness.
Then I took the rest of that chunk and sliced it with the grain and marinated it for jerky. I looked at several recipes online, ranging from simple (salt and pepper) to complex (mostly versions of teriyaki). I made up my own, adding salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, sucanat (or was it rapadura?), and sea salt.
Then I took the second big chunk of bottom round, rubbed it all over with salt, and set it in the frig alongside the jerky to sit overnight.
Tonight I cooked the little roast at 250 for 2 hours and 500 for 10 minutes, and let it sit for 20 min while I boiled potatoes. It came out just a little bit pink.
The directions I was following (sort of) said to cook it at 200 until it reached 118, then remove, wrap in foil, turn the oven up to 500, and cook until it reaches 128 (for very rare). Mine went up to 140 and was just barely rare.
I realized when I reached for the meat thermometer that I was ill-equipped. Not only do I not have one of those fancy-schmancy meat thermometers that can sit in the roast for the entire cooking time, but the lowest number on it was 140: my desired end temp.
Most of the thin slices were acceptable tender. Not meltingly, mind-numblingly tender, but OK. Quite edible. The occasional tougher gristly bits were nasty, which I suppose is why bottom round is $2.18 a pound and tenderloin is $20.
At any rate: for about $14 for the bones and roasts, we have had:
I'm thinking chili. Beans, some ground beef, spices. A really big pot, dinner plus 2 or 3 school/work lunches.
I would really like to try a French onion soup. But there's the kid problem. "I'm just not really that crazy about French onion soup."
He said that even when he made the soup himself (as a French class project) and everyone in the family said it was the best French onion soup they ever had -- and my dad said it was the best French onion soup he had eaten since he was in Saigon during the Vietnam war (I bet they made it with bone broth instead of canned broth).
And there's still fat on top of the broth too. I could fry some potatoes in it! Or onions.
At any rate, it's a lot more food that I got out of the $14 I spent on take & bake pizza last weekend.
Blog hops/carnivals: this post is entered in Pennywise Platter Thursday and Simple Lives Thursday.
I bought it at Sinnett's Market on Commerce, where the butcher assures me that all the beef is free of hormones and antibiotics. Some of it (the more expensive St. Helen's beef) is from the Northwest...but none of it is grass-fed and grass-finished. It's all feed-lot grain-finished. But the butchers are quite willing to answer questions, and if you ask for things that available in the back that aren't up front yet, like soup bones, they are willing to get them out for you. One day one of the guys even mixed up some breakfast sausage for me when they were out of the sausage they usually have in the case.
I used the bones for bone broth. Yesterday I got the bottom round out and started thawing it.
I took some of the broth, put it on the stove, and added diced potatoes, onions and celery. When the vegetables were almost done, I took the beef and sliced it as thinly as I could. I was trying for paper-thin slices, but neither my knife nor my skill is really adequate. I mostly got slices about as thick as a quarter. I added them to the soup and cooked just until done.
They were a little too chewy -- I have a memory, a powerful visual, kinesthetic and taste memory, of slices of beef cooked in broth just before serving that were wonderfully flavored and meltingly tender. That's the vision I had cooking them. They didn't come out that way.
I'm not sure where the memory came from -- it may have been beef sukuyaki prepared by a skilled cook right at our table in our hotel room in a family meal in Japan, when I was eight or nine. Except I think she prepared the version of sukiyaki where the meat is cooked on a little domed grill, then added to the broth and noodles and vegetables.
Or maybe from a Mongolian Grill restaurant? Or a Chinese restaurant?
This beef did have one advantage over chunks of stew meat that have been braised and cooked for a long time -- it had more flavor -- but not the tenderness.
Then I took the rest of that chunk and sliced it with the grain and marinated it for jerky. I looked at several recipes online, ranging from simple (salt and pepper) to complex (mostly versions of teriyaki). I made up my own, adding salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, sucanat (or was it rapadura?), and sea salt.
Then I took the second big chunk of bottom round, rubbed it all over with salt, and set it in the frig alongside the jerky to sit overnight.
Tonight I cooked the little roast at 250 for 2 hours and 500 for 10 minutes, and let it sit for 20 min while I boiled potatoes. It came out just a little bit pink.
The directions I was following (sort of) said to cook it at 200 until it reached 118, then remove, wrap in foil, turn the oven up to 500, and cook until it reaches 128 (for very rare). Mine went up to 140 and was just barely rare.
I realized when I reached for the meat thermometer that I was ill-equipped. Not only do I not have one of those fancy-schmancy meat thermometers that can sit in the roast for the entire cooking time, but the lowest number on it was 140: my desired end temp.
Most of the thin slices were acceptable tender. Not meltingly, mind-numblingly tender, but OK. Quite edible. The occasional tougher gristly bits were nasty, which I suppose is why bottom round is $2.18 a pound and tenderloin is $20.
At any rate: for about $14 for the bones and roasts, we have had:
- about a half-gallon of broth (most of it still in freezer)
- a nice beef vegetable soup for dinner
- leftover beef vegetable soup -- 2 work lunches put away in frig
- open-face roast-beef sandwiches (beef, bread, potatoes, gravy over all)
- enough leftover sliced roast beef for sandwiches (hmmm....au jus with some broth? but the broth is frozen solid in a huge chunk)
- 10 oz of raw beef sliced and drying into jerky -- I probably have it sliced too thickly -- I'll know tomorrow
I'm thinking chili. Beans, some ground beef, spices. A really big pot, dinner plus 2 or 3 school/work lunches.
I would really like to try a French onion soup. But there's the kid problem. "I'm just not really that crazy about French onion soup."
He said that even when he made the soup himself (as a French class project) and everyone in the family said it was the best French onion soup they ever had -- and my dad said it was the best French onion soup he had eaten since he was in Saigon during the Vietnam war (I bet they made it with bone broth instead of canned broth).
And there's still fat on top of the broth too. I could fry some potatoes in it! Or onions.
At any rate, it's a lot more food that I got out of the $14 I spent on take & bake pizza last weekend.
Blog hops/carnivals: this post is entered in Pennywise Platter Thursday and Simple Lives Thursday.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
When Your Dairy Farmer Sits at Your Breakfast Table
My dad, as a boy in Kansas, used to get terrible hives every spring. For a few weeks, he would be covered in huge itchy welts. Then they would disappear. The family could never figure out a cause.
Then one morning one of his uncles -- the one who owned the dairy farm that my dad worked on as a teenager -- was sitting at the breakfast table. I'm not clear if he had just dropped in, or if for some reason my dad was having breakfast at his place -- at any rate, this uncle was sitting and watching my dad itch and squirm and eat breakfast, all covered in pink calamine lotion (my dad, not the breakfast, was covered in pink lotion.)
And he reached over and took the glass of milk right out of my dad's hand. "You know," he said, "we just put the cows out on the wheat. Maybe that's it."
In farms that combine wheat and dairy operations, there is a certain point in growing wheat -- I think it's the winter wheat, which is planted in fall and harvested in spring -- when it is good for both the cows and the wheat to let them graze on the green shoots.
My dad quit drinking milk, and his hives cleared up miraculously.
As soon as the cows were turned out of the wheat fields into their regular pastures, he was able to go back to drinking milk again.
This is one of the many benefits of having a very short food supply chain!
Since this blog is set up to post into my Facebook notes, one of my sisters is sure to drop me a comment to tell me that I have it all wrong! But that's my story, and I'm sticking to it like cows on grass.
This post is entered in GNOWFLINS "Simple Lives Thursday." And in Food Renegade's "Fight Back Friday."
Then one morning one of his uncles -- the one who owned the dairy farm that my dad worked on as a teenager -- was sitting at the breakfast table. I'm not clear if he had just dropped in, or if for some reason my dad was having breakfast at his place -- at any rate, this uncle was sitting and watching my dad itch and squirm and eat breakfast, all covered in pink calamine lotion (my dad, not the breakfast, was covered in pink lotion.)
And he reached over and took the glass of milk right out of my dad's hand. "You know," he said, "we just put the cows out on the wheat. Maybe that's it."
In farms that combine wheat and dairy operations, there is a certain point in growing wheat -- I think it's the winter wheat, which is planted in fall and harvested in spring -- when it is good for both the cows and the wheat to let them graze on the green shoots.
My dad quit drinking milk, and his hives cleared up miraculously.
As soon as the cows were turned out of the wheat fields into their regular pastures, he was able to go back to drinking milk again.
This is one of the many benefits of having a very short food supply chain!
Since this blog is set up to post into my Facebook notes, one of my sisters is sure to drop me a comment to tell me that I have it all wrong! But that's my story, and I'm sticking to it like cows on grass.
This post is entered in GNOWFLINS "Simple Lives Thursday." And in Food Renegade's "Fight Back Friday."
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Carrots and Bones and Cabbage
Carrots
I bought two big bunches of local organic carrots last weekend at Longview Produce Co., and a big local cabbage. I am always too ambitious when buying produce, but I was determined not to let these go bad on me. I finally got the carrots put up tonight: one quart of dilled carrot sticks in a wide-mouth quart jar, and about a cup of ginger carrots.
Bones
I also roasted five pounds of beef marrow bones for bone broth. I bought them at Sinnett's Marketplace -- sometimes they have them out in the freezer in front of the meat counter, but this time I had to ask the butcher for them, and he brought out a huge bone and sawed it up right in front of me and asked me how many pounds I wanted. I got five, and divided them between two pots on the stove. I don't have one of those huge stockpots. They have been simmering since about two. I think I will move the Dutch oven into the oven overnight, since I worry about the damage that long slow cooking does to the wall next the burner I use for it.
The wall of the pot is just inches from the drywall. Really, really stupid kitchen design.
You will probably hear me complain about it more than once.
After I prepped the carrots, I threw the peelings into the stew pot. I will also throw in some non-organic carrots before I go to bed.
And I made short ribs -- the really short thick kind. I made my own sauce for them, which was pretty good - could have been a bit hotter.
For the rib sauce, I used a big spoon of my home-made lacto-fermented ketchup, a big spoon of molasses, two big spoons of the lacto-fermented salsa I made last week, and mixed it all with a stick blender and let it sit while the ribs cooked. I made some white rice (I'm still using up what's in my cupboard) at the end of the two-hour cooking time for the ribs, and when they came out of the oven I pulled them off the bones, cut away the worst of the gristle and cartilage, and put the bones, gristle into the stew pot. After we ate, I threw in the last, smallest rib that neither of us had room for. And I poured in all the fat.
Before I go to bed I'll add those carrots, and some celery and parsley too. There's already half of a big onion in each pot.
Tomorrow I'll cool it down and strain out the bones and gunk and put it in the frig for soups and gravies. If any of the bones have marrow left in them, I'll dig it out and save it or throw it back into the broth.
Cabbage
Now the cabbage purchased at the same shopping trip is sitting on my table mocking me.
I won't be mocked by a cabbage. My cutting board and a wide mouth mason jar are going through the dishwasher now.
I'm trying to decide how much more I'm really up for tonight. Last time I made sauerkraut I went to bed at 2 a.m.
But this time I'm experienced.
I bought two big bunches of local organic carrots last weekend at Longview Produce Co., and a big local cabbage. I am always too ambitious when buying produce, but I was determined not to let these go bad on me. I finally got the carrots put up tonight: one quart of dilled carrot sticks in a wide-mouth quart jar, and about a cup of ginger carrots.
Bones
I also roasted five pounds of beef marrow bones for bone broth. I bought them at Sinnett's Marketplace -- sometimes they have them out in the freezer in front of the meat counter, but this time I had to ask the butcher for them, and he brought out a huge bone and sawed it up right in front of me and asked me how many pounds I wanted. I got five, and divided them between two pots on the stove. I don't have one of those huge stockpots. They have been simmering since about two. I think I will move the Dutch oven into the oven overnight, since I worry about the damage that long slow cooking does to the wall next the burner I use for it.
The wall of the pot is just inches from the drywall. Really, really stupid kitchen design.
You will probably hear me complain about it more than once.
After I prepped the carrots, I threw the peelings into the stew pot. I will also throw in some non-organic carrots before I go to bed.
And I made short ribs -- the really short thick kind. I made my own sauce for them, which was pretty good - could have been a bit hotter.
For the rib sauce, I used a big spoon of my home-made lacto-fermented ketchup, a big spoon of molasses, two big spoons of the lacto-fermented salsa I made last week, and mixed it all with a stick blender and let it sit while the ribs cooked. I made some white rice (I'm still using up what's in my cupboard) at the end of the two-hour cooking time for the ribs, and when they came out of the oven I pulled them off the bones, cut away the worst of the gristle and cartilage, and put the bones, gristle into the stew pot. After we ate, I threw in the last, smallest rib that neither of us had room for. And I poured in all the fat.
Before I go to bed I'll add those carrots, and some celery and parsley too. There's already half of a big onion in each pot.
Tomorrow I'll cool it down and strain out the bones and gunk and put it in the frig for soups and gravies. If any of the bones have marrow left in them, I'll dig it out and save it or throw it back into the broth.
Cabbage
Now the cabbage purchased at the same shopping trip is sitting on my table mocking me.
I won't be mocked by a cabbage. My cutting board and a wide mouth mason jar are going through the dishwasher now.
I'm trying to decide how much more I'm really up for tonight. Last time I made sauerkraut I went to bed at 2 a.m.
But this time I'm experienced.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Recipe-Free Sourdough-Scotch Oats-Potato Pancakes
I've made enough sourdough pancakes and waffles (as well as plain pancakes and waffles) to have a sense of how the recipes are constructed, and a few weeks ago I started working without a recipe, at least for recipes where the pancake is just starter plus other ingredients. First with small amounts -- a cup of lively starter, a single egg, a splash of milk, maybe a little honey, a pinch each of salt and soda. Yum. That's really a recipe I had been working from just scaled down, but I did it without referring to the recipe.
It's really fun to invent things with pancakes. My favorite so far has been sourdough zucchini fritters with a little onion in them and topped with cheese. I'll work with that one to make sure I have reliable and measurable directions, and post it.
There's a real sense of freedom in this. I'm not just throwing things together -- I'm working with knowledge and have a pretty good idea of how it will turn out -- but if I am struck by inspiration, I no longer have to turn to a cookbook or the internet to find someone who did it first. I can just work on my own.
Yesterday I took my starter out of the frig mid-morning intending to grind up some flour to feed it so I could bake bread today. But there were lots of other things going on, and by bedtime it still hadn't been fed. Rather than feed it all-purpose flour--yes, I still have a couple of pounds that I'm using up by using it to flour the kneading board -- I grabbed a bag of Bob's Red Mill Scotch Oats. These are oats that are not just cracked, but partially ground -- little nuggets of goodness that make a chewy porridge. I had over two cups of starter my jar -- I dumped a cup, stirred in water and oats, and put it back on the counter.
This morning the starter was still nice and bubbly. It liked the oats.
I decided on sourdough potato pancakes. I started with about a cup and a half of starter. I just spooned most of my starter jar out into the bowl without measuring.
I had a couple of boiled Yukon gold potatoes left over from last nights dinner, so I broke them up with a fork and mashed them into the starter. I added a big glug of raw milk, one egg, a shake of salt and a little soda poured out of the box into my hand.
I greased my cast-iron "spider" with coconut oil and cooked them up. They made a big plateful, and I dished up about a third of them for myself with butter, a spoonful of yogurt, a little grated pepper jack cheese (raw goat cheese from Steamboat Island), with two spoonfuls of ginger carrots on the side.
After a few bites, I grated a little pepper on top. This went a long way to persuade my palate that this dish really was supposed to be savory instead of sweet.
I'm trying out the theory that sour, tangy fermented foods can kill a sweet tooth. It seemed to work for this meal....the pancakes would have been equally good with maple syrup, maybe snuggled up to a couple of nice fat simmering breakfast sausages. But not today.
I'm out of syrup, both real and fake (the HFCS "maple flavor" syrup went in the garbage in a recent refrigerator purge).
And now that I have eaten, I no longer feel the desire to ransack the frig for a substitute (I think a jar of preserves made with cane sugar survived the corn syrup purge.) And I know there is sucanat in the pantry. But I think I can go along for a few hours now without digging it out.
I tried taking a photo, but still can't find good batteries. I may try again with the leftovers later today.
.
This post is entered in Tuesday Twisters at GNOWFGLINS and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
It's really fun to invent things with pancakes. My favorite so far has been sourdough zucchini fritters with a little onion in them and topped with cheese. I'll work with that one to make sure I have reliable and measurable directions, and post it.
There's a real sense of freedom in this. I'm not just throwing things together -- I'm working with knowledge and have a pretty good idea of how it will turn out -- but if I am struck by inspiration, I no longer have to turn to a cookbook or the internet to find someone who did it first. I can just work on my own.
Yesterday I took my starter out of the frig mid-morning intending to grind up some flour to feed it so I could bake bread today. But there were lots of other things going on, and by bedtime it still hadn't been fed. Rather than feed it all-purpose flour--yes, I still have a couple of pounds that I'm using up by using it to flour the kneading board -- I grabbed a bag of Bob's Red Mill Scotch Oats. These are oats that are not just cracked, but partially ground -- little nuggets of goodness that make a chewy porridge. I had over two cups of starter my jar -- I dumped a cup, stirred in water and oats, and put it back on the counter.
This morning the starter was still nice and bubbly. It liked the oats.
I decided on sourdough potato pancakes. I started with about a cup and a half of starter. I just spooned most of my starter jar out into the bowl without measuring.
I had a couple of boiled Yukon gold potatoes left over from last nights dinner, so I broke them up with a fork and mashed them into the starter. I added a big glug of raw milk, one egg, a shake of salt and a little soda poured out of the box into my hand.
I greased my cast-iron "spider" with coconut oil and cooked them up. They made a big plateful, and I dished up about a third of them for myself with butter, a spoonful of yogurt, a little grated pepper jack cheese (raw goat cheese from Steamboat Island), with two spoonfuls of ginger carrots on the side.
After a few bites, I grated a little pepper on top. This went a long way to persuade my palate that this dish really was supposed to be savory instead of sweet.
I'm trying out the theory that sour, tangy fermented foods can kill a sweet tooth. It seemed to work for this meal....the pancakes would have been equally good with maple syrup, maybe snuggled up to a couple of nice fat simmering breakfast sausages. But not today.
I'm out of syrup, both real and fake (the HFCS "maple flavor" syrup went in the garbage in a recent refrigerator purge).
And now that I have eaten, I no longer feel the desire to ransack the frig for a substitute (I think a jar of preserves made with cane sugar survived the corn syrup purge.) And I know there is sucanat in the pantry. But I think I can go along for a few hours now without digging it out.
I tried taking a photo, but still can't find good batteries. I may try again with the leftovers later today.
.
This post is entered in Tuesday Twisters at GNOWFGLINS and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Treasure from my Bookshelf: The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book
Have you ever noticed, in eating whole wheat bread from the grocery store, that there is a bitter taste underlying the other flavors? Yeah? I think most of us have.
But did you know that bitter flavor doesn't have to be there? It is not just part of the flavor of whole wheat -- it comes from the oily part of the seed, the wheat germ. As soon as grain is ground into flour and the oils are exposed to the air, it begins to oxidize. That bitter taste is there because the bakery was using rancid flour.
That's one of the many tid-bits of bread science I learned from Laurel Robertson.
White flour, in fact, began to be mass-produced during the Industrial Revolution as a method of preservation! (I learned that tid-bit from Wikepedia.)
I am now more firmly than ever on the side of the omnivores in the Great Food Divide -- and I avoid any soy products that aren't fermented -- but while I was in college I started learning about natural foods, and I learned a lot from the original Laurel's Kitchen. She was the first person to ever tell me, for instance, that butter is good for you and margarine isn't.
So when I came across The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking
, first published in 1984, I bought it eagerly. I have owned it so long and used it so much that the spine is broken and it fall open by itself to the section on desem bread. It has flour on the pages. I have loaned it out, and been grateful to get it back.
I was living with my parents at the time, after college and before marriage, and I sat down with it and started reading. It's one of those books with lots of narrative (with helpful illustrations), so it is possible to actually sit and read it.
Then I went out and bought whole-wheat flour -- all the recipes are for whole grain -- and started baking.
I wasn't a total novice. I had learned a lot from my mother.
My mother started baking bread for the family when I was in my early teens. She experimented with whole wheat but wasn't happy with the results. After lots of trial and error, she settled on a basic bread recipe that she kept taped inside one of her counter doors. It was usually white bread, but sometimes she would make substitute whole wheat for a portion of her flour.
Laurel experimented in her kitchen too. She learned from her mistakes. She asked other bakers, and professional bakers, for their secrets. She became convinced that it wasn't necessary to incorporate white flour, which is stripped of its fiber and nutrients, fortified with chemical versions of a few nutrients, and then bleached.
In my mother's kitchen, I worked my way painstakingly through the Loaf For Learning recipe, reading all the directions and studying all the pictures. The first loaf came out pretty good. The second, third and fourth loaves got even better.
The Loaf For Learning Recipe started on page 33 and ended on page 58. It gave detailed, illustrated instructions for every step, including how to knead a wet dough without adding flour, and how to tell when the dough was ready to move on from that step to the next step. The final two pages of the recipe advised me on how to evaluate my results -- the rise, the color, the texture, the crumb. Finally, it referred me to the Troubleshooting section at the back of the book!
This might sound intimidating, but it wasn't. I felt like someone was holding my hand and explaining everything to me all along the way.
I learned how to protcct the gluten film at every stage. I learned that putting my bread into a cold glass pan to rise will make a big hollow near the bottom crust (the secret is to warm the pan with hot water first). I learned why pans should be greased with solid fats instead of oils. I learned different methods for getting a "baker's oven" crust on French breads. I learned that while pure French bread has nothing but flour, water, yeast and salt, there are different additions and glazes to bread (oil, milk, eggs, sweeteners, oatmeal) that can make it more tender, more moist, and longer lasting. I learned that bread will "spring" in the oven if you get the proofing just right and wait until the last minute to cut in any slashes in the top crust.
I coveted brick ovens, pizza stones, grain grinders and baker's peels. (I still covet the brick oven and the pizza peel, but I have a stoneware cookie sheet that stands in nicely for the pizza stone, and a Vitamix serving as a grinder.
After I got married I got brave enough to start ordering fresh flour from King Arthur's for the Desem Bread recipe (a European-style sourdough in which the starter feeds on the gluten instead of on the starches). That recipe is even more extensive than the loaf for learning -- it begins with burying a hard ball of flour and pure water in the middle of a five-pound bag of freshly milled flour and leaving it in a cool place (she specifies an exact temperature range) for three days. I never managed to be organized enough to keep a desem going, but I loved its delicate, complex flavor.
The back of the book is a Bread Handbook, with the first aid section ("Aaak, is it too late to add salt?"), the trouble-shooting section ("Why does my crust crack and split all around the top?"), and all of the information Laurel and her co-authors had gathered about bread baking but couldn't cram into individual recipes.
What I'm saying here is: Even if you are an experienced baker, you can probably learn from this book. Even if you are committed to baking sourdough and never using commercial yeast, you can learn a lot about kneading, shaping and proofing from the Loaf for Learning, about getting a good crust from the sections on French bread and desem, and an alternative sourdough starter from the desem section. There's also a good section on traditional rye breads.
I've been taking the 23-week Sourdough Course at GNOWFGLINS. I'm up to week 8. Even though he was out of town for three weeks at the beginning and occasionally sleeps over with a friend, my son already is deathly tired of sourdough. So I pulled this book out last night and went through the Loaf for Learning again, doubling the recipe and making one pan of sandwich bread and one pan of dinner rolls. He and his girlfriend both liked it.
I suppose this is progress. Instead of begging for white bread, he begs for "not sourdough."
Once I finish the Sourdough Course at GNOWFGLINS (or maybe sooner) I'm going to start choosing some old favorites from this book and start reworking the recipes to accomodate the Weston A. Price Nourishing Traditions approach to bread-making -- which means either using sprouted flours, or finding a way to give the flour an eight-hour soaking--both techniques reduce phytic acid and increase the available nutrition. For the Loaf for Learning, which calls for two rises plus proofing in the loaf, I think just slowing down the first rise in a cooler place would do the trick.
I think I'll start by looking over the book's detailed schedules for ways to fit baking into your life...
But did you know that bitter flavor doesn't have to be there? It is not just part of the flavor of whole wheat -- it comes from the oily part of the seed, the wheat germ. As soon as grain is ground into flour and the oils are exposed to the air, it begins to oxidize. That bitter taste is there because the bakery was using rancid flour.
That's one of the many tid-bits of bread science I learned from Laurel Robertson.
White flour, in fact, began to be mass-produced during the Industrial Revolution as a method of preservation! (I learned that tid-bit from Wikepedia.)
I am now more firmly than ever on the side of the omnivores in the Great Food Divide -- and I avoid any soy products that aren't fermented -- but while I was in college I started learning about natural foods, and I learned a lot from the original Laurel's Kitchen. She was the first person to ever tell me, for instance, that butter is good for you and margarine isn't.
So when I came across The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking
, first published in 1984, I bought it eagerly. I have owned it so long and used it so much that the spine is broken and it fall open by itself to the section on desem bread. It has flour on the pages. I have loaned it out, and been grateful to get it back. I was living with my parents at the time, after college and before marriage, and I sat down with it and started reading. It's one of those books with lots of narrative (with helpful illustrations), so it is possible to actually sit and read it.
Then I went out and bought whole-wheat flour -- all the recipes are for whole grain -- and started baking.
I wasn't a total novice. I had learned a lot from my mother.
My mother started baking bread for the family when I was in my early teens. She experimented with whole wheat but wasn't happy with the results. After lots of trial and error, she settled on a basic bread recipe that she kept taped inside one of her counter doors. It was usually white bread, but sometimes she would make substitute whole wheat for a portion of her flour.
Laurel experimented in her kitchen too. She learned from her mistakes. She asked other bakers, and professional bakers, for their secrets. She became convinced that it wasn't necessary to incorporate white flour, which is stripped of its fiber and nutrients, fortified with chemical versions of a few nutrients, and then bleached.
In my mother's kitchen, I worked my way painstakingly through the Loaf For Learning recipe, reading all the directions and studying all the pictures. The first loaf came out pretty good. The second, third and fourth loaves got even better.
The Loaf For Learning Recipe started on page 33 and ended on page 58. It gave detailed, illustrated instructions for every step, including how to knead a wet dough without adding flour, and how to tell when the dough was ready to move on from that step to the next step. The final two pages of the recipe advised me on how to evaluate my results -- the rise, the color, the texture, the crumb. Finally, it referred me to the Troubleshooting section at the back of the book!
This might sound intimidating, but it wasn't. I felt like someone was holding my hand and explaining everything to me all along the way.
I learned how to protcct the gluten film at every stage. I learned that putting my bread into a cold glass pan to rise will make a big hollow near the bottom crust (the secret is to warm the pan with hot water first). I learned why pans should be greased with solid fats instead of oils. I learned different methods for getting a "baker's oven" crust on French breads. I learned that while pure French bread has nothing but flour, water, yeast and salt, there are different additions and glazes to bread (oil, milk, eggs, sweeteners, oatmeal) that can make it more tender, more moist, and longer lasting. I learned that bread will "spring" in the oven if you get the proofing just right and wait until the last minute to cut in any slashes in the top crust.
I coveted brick ovens, pizza stones, grain grinders and baker's peels. (I still covet the brick oven and the pizza peel, but I have a stoneware cookie sheet that stands in nicely for the pizza stone, and a Vitamix serving as a grinder.
After I got married I got brave enough to start ordering fresh flour from King Arthur's for the Desem Bread recipe (a European-style sourdough in which the starter feeds on the gluten instead of on the starches). That recipe is even more extensive than the loaf for learning -- it begins with burying a hard ball of flour and pure water in the middle of a five-pound bag of freshly milled flour and leaving it in a cool place (she specifies an exact temperature range) for three days. I never managed to be organized enough to keep a desem going, but I loved its delicate, complex flavor.
The back of the book is a Bread Handbook, with the first aid section ("Aaak, is it too late to add salt?"), the trouble-shooting section ("Why does my crust crack and split all around the top?"), and all of the information Laurel and her co-authors had gathered about bread baking but couldn't cram into individual recipes.
What I'm saying here is: Even if you are an experienced baker, you can probably learn from this book. Even if you are committed to baking sourdough and never using commercial yeast, you can learn a lot about kneading, shaping and proofing from the Loaf for Learning, about getting a good crust from the sections on French bread and desem, and an alternative sourdough starter from the desem section. There's also a good section on traditional rye breads.
I've been taking the 23-week Sourdough Course at GNOWFGLINS. I'm up to week 8. Even though he was out of town for three weeks at the beginning and occasionally sleeps over with a friend, my son already is deathly tired of sourdough. So I pulled this book out last night and went through the Loaf for Learning again, doubling the recipe and making one pan of sandwich bread and one pan of dinner rolls. He and his girlfriend both liked it.
I suppose this is progress. Instead of begging for white bread, he begs for "not sourdough."
Once I finish the Sourdough Course at GNOWFGLINS (or maybe sooner) I'm going to start choosing some old favorites from this book and start reworking the recipes to accomodate the Weston A. Price Nourishing Traditions approach to bread-making -- which means either using sprouted flours, or finding a way to give the flour an eight-hour soaking--both techniques reduce phytic acid and increase the available nutrition. For the Loaf for Learning, which calls for two rises plus proofing in the loaf, I think just slowing down the first rise in a cooler place would do the trick.
I think I'll start by looking over the book's detailed schedules for ways to fit baking into your life...
This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS
and Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Estrella Family Creamery deals wtih Contamination Issues
I stumbled across this looking for information on another company entirely, and I felt I had to provide it to my readers, since I was recommending these cheeses recently (in a still-unpublished guest blog) and on this site back in 2008.
The Estrella Family Creamery -- the same one I was just raving about the other day -- has halted sales of their cheese due to contaminated samples of Listeria monocytogenes found in two cheeses (cheeses that have not yet been distributed to the market) and in one of their aging caves. Consumers are advised by FDA to discard cheeses they have already purchased in case the contamination has been existing for a while.
No illnesses have been reported.
Here's a link to the 9/4/2010 FDA Advisory.
Here's a link that includes information from the Estrella family as well as the FDA:
http://www.dbtechno.com/recall/2010/09/07/recall-issued-for-estrella-cheese/
Here's a more detailed one "clarifying" the situation (it's the report that provides some of the details in my first paragraph.)
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7019819817
And here's what it says on their site:
I hope that this will turn out to be an example of how the food system should work to resolve contamination issues. I keep reading that there were numerous indications of ongoing problems in the big 15-million egg recall, months before the recall was issued.
Ideally, small producers, responsible and accountable, can identify food safety problems before they hit the marketplace -- which is what Estrella appears to be saying has happened here -- and take steps to eliminate the factors that made the contamination possible. I really hope that's how this one will play out.
This post is being shared on Real Food Wednesday.
The Estrella Family Creamery -- the same one I was just raving about the other day -- has halted sales of their cheese due to contaminated samples of Listeria monocytogenes found in two cheeses (cheeses that have not yet been distributed to the market) and in one of their aging caves. Consumers are advised by FDA to discard cheeses they have already purchased in case the contamination has been existing for a while.
No illnesses have been reported.
Here's a link to the 9/4/2010 FDA Advisory.
Here's a link that includes information from the Estrella family as well as the FDA:
http://www.dbtechno.com/recall/2010/09/07/recall-issued-for-estrella-cheese/
Here's a more detailed one "clarifying" the situation (it's the report that provides some of the details in my first paragraph.)
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7019819817
And here's what it says on their site:
"9/7/2010 Despite some news reports now circulating, it is not true that we have recalled any of our cheeses. We are working with the FDA to resolve this issue. We have no reported illness."
I hope that this will turn out to be an example of how the food system should work to resolve contamination issues. I keep reading that there were numerous indications of ongoing problems in the big 15-million egg recall, months before the recall was issued.
Ideally, small producers, responsible and accountable, can identify food safety problems before they hit the marketplace -- which is what Estrella appears to be saying has happened here -- and take steps to eliminate the factors that made the contamination possible. I really hope that's how this one will play out.
This post is being shared on Real Food Wednesday.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Still a Favorite
Culinate was the first foodie web-site I ever really fell in love with. The writing is crisp and personal, the photographs luscious, and the recipes practical and easy to follow. Until this summer, it was always my go-to site for a recipe. It was the first place I looked for ways to try out unfamiliar greens from my CSA or new ways to prepare old favorites. (That is slowly changing as I learn to cook "traditional" recipes with an emphasis on soaking and fermenting grains for maximum nutrition....but Culinate still rules for fruit and veggie info.)
They promote local, seasonal eating, the slow food movement, and social awareness of where our food comes from.
And most of the writers are based in the Northwest, so their idea of seasonal is in sync with our seasons!
The website is set up with social network features, and registered users can keep a food blog, maintain a recipe box, and keep up with a network of Culinate friends.
So I'm adding this old favorite to my links on the right, under the Real Food (etc.) header.
They promote local, seasonal eating, the slow food movement, and social awareness of where our food comes from.
And most of the writers are based in the Northwest, so their idea of seasonal is in sync with our seasons!
The website is set up with social network features, and registered users can keep a food blog, maintain a recipe box, and keep up with a network of Culinate friends.
So I'm adding this old favorite to my links on the right, under the Real Food (etc.) header.
Northwest Coast Magazine Spotlights Our Local Food
This feature story in Northwest Coast magazine covers many aspects of the local food movement in Cowlitz County, including the Lower Columbia Farm to Table organization, the farmer's markets, Watershed Gardenworks, and even local fast food.
http://www.nwcmagazine.com/2008/07/eating-local-the-farm-to-table-movement/
http://www.nwcmagazine.com/2008/07/eating-local-the-farm-to-table-movement/
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Some Dairy Sources
Steven's comment, below, leads me to put a disclaimer on this post. I've been reading about the value of raw dairy for a few months and have been drinking it for about a month. If you want to try it, I encourage you to become an informed consumer. RealMilk will give you the "pro" side of the case. If you Google "e coli" and "raw milk," you will get lots of info from the other side.
I've been putting this post off for a long time -- because what I really want to do is visit these dairies and do interviews and take photographs. And right now, that's beyond my means. So here is everything I know about how to buy the best-quality dairy possible in Longview.
Let me say first of all that I can't always buy the products listed below. I frequently buy Tillamook cheese and butter--their cattle have at least some opportunity to graze real grass and they are located less than 100 miles away. And I sometimes buy Umpqua dairy products, which are produced in Oregon, are rBST free, and are pasteurized instead of ultra-pasteurized. And cheap, especially at Grocery Outlet.
But when I can, I go for the good stuff.
The Blue Rose Dairy is the most local cheese that's actually being sold in Longview, at least, that I know of. They are located in Winlock, Washington, in Lewis County. Their goats are fed grass, hay, and grain and the cheese is pasteurized. I've bought it several times at the Cowlitz County Farmer's Market. My favorites are the chevre and feta. I love buying from their stand because I can sample the cheese and ask as many questions as I like.
Dee Creek Farm is actually located in Cowlitz County, but they market all their products to south, in Vancouver and Portland. They sell raw and lightly pasteurized goat cheeses, and they sell raw goat milk in Washington only.
Both Blue Rose and Dee Creek offer cheese making classes and events on the farm -- check their sites for details.
I was delighted to find that Longview Produce Co. is selling cheese from Steamboat Island Goat Farm. The farm is located outside Olympia, WA. Longview Produce Co. is at 851 California Way in Longview. These cheeses are aged raw-milk cheeses, and they are really wonderful. So far I have bought the pepper jack, and sampled the cheddar, cumin jack and an herbed cheese.
Finally -- yes, there is a source for raw milk (WAPF calls it Real Milk) in Longview. I was lucky to be there on the right day of the week, or I would not have known. The Country Village sells milk from Dungeness Valley Creamery, which is a rich, creamy raw Jersey milk. They are pasture based and feed a diet of grass (with alfalfa hay in winter) supplemented with a grain ration.
Since not everyone who wants to buy high-quality dairy products is an upscale, affluent consumer (ahem), I would like to point out that Longview Produce and Country Village both take EBT cards.
This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday
.
I've been putting this post off for a long time -- because what I really want to do is visit these dairies and do interviews and take photographs. And right now, that's beyond my means. So here is everything I know about how to buy the best-quality dairy possible in Longview.
Let me say first of all that I can't always buy the products listed below. I frequently buy Tillamook cheese and butter--their cattle have at least some opportunity to graze real grass and they are located less than 100 miles away. And I sometimes buy Umpqua dairy products, which are produced in Oregon, are rBST free, and are pasteurized instead of ultra-pasteurized. And cheap, especially at Grocery Outlet.
But when I can, I go for the good stuff.
The Blue Rose Dairy is the most local cheese that's actually being sold in Longview, at least, that I know of. They are located in Winlock, Washington, in Lewis County. Their goats are fed grass, hay, and grain and the cheese is pasteurized. I've bought it several times at the Cowlitz County Farmer's Market. My favorites are the chevre and feta. I love buying from their stand because I can sample the cheese and ask as many questions as I like.
Dee Creek Farm is actually located in Cowlitz County, but they market all their products to south, in Vancouver and Portland. They sell raw and lightly pasteurized goat cheeses, and they sell raw goat milk in Washington only.
Both Blue Rose and Dee Creek offer cheese making classes and events on the farm -- check their sites for details.
I was delighted to find that Longview Produce Co. is selling cheese from Steamboat Island Goat Farm. The farm is located outside Olympia, WA. Longview Produce Co. is at 851 California Way in Longview. These cheeses are aged raw-milk cheeses, and they are really wonderful. So far I have bought the pepper jack, and sampled the cheddar, cumin jack and an herbed cheese.
Finally -- yes, there is a source for raw milk (WAPF calls it Real Milk) in Longview. I was lucky to be there on the right day of the week, or I would not have known. The Country Village sells milk from Dungeness Valley Creamery, which is a rich, creamy raw Jersey milk. They are pasture based and feed a diet of grass (with alfalfa hay in winter) supplemented with a grain ration.
Since not everyone who wants to buy high-quality dairy products is an upscale, affluent consumer (ahem), I would like to point out that Longview Produce and Country Village both take EBT cards.
This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday
.
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