Posts Tagged With: Food

How NOT to Make Cheese – in Pictures

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Anisa

In the last couple of weeks, I have tried and failed twice to make mozzarella cheese in my kitchen.  It’s supposed to be easy.  They say you can do it in 30 minutes with a microwave, or slightly longer without.  Here is a photo journal of my two attempts at cheese making.  The first attempt actually went a bit better than my second.  The pictures of my second try are in the thumbnails.

So without further ado, “How Not to Make Cheese” in pictures.

Step one: bike to local home brew store to buy rennet.  I bought vegetable rennet tablets as that was all they had at the time.  They do stock animal rennet, but were all out.

Step two: back at home, gather supplies including milk that has not been ultrapasturized.

Step three: heat milk to 55 degrees and add citric acid.

Step four: at 88 degrees, add rennet stirring with an up and down motion.

Step five: bring milk up to just over 100 degrees (some say 103 and some say 105).

Step six: Check that the curds and whey have separated.  The whey should not still be milky, and if it is, let it heat a while longer.  Note that the instructions for my first attempt did not include letting the curds and whey sit for 3-5 minutes, then cutting the curds with a knife.  I tried this on my second attempt though.

Step seven: scoop curds out into a bowl.

Step eight: drain as much whey as possible back into the pot.

Step nine: press the cheese into a ball.  Heat the whey and return the curds to the pot to heat.  On my second attempt, the curds were too soft.  I thought I’d try using some cheese cloth to keep them together while they were reheated.  It didn’t work.

Step ten: knead the hot curds.  Reheat as needed.  Eventually the curds will hold together and get elastic.  If they are crumbly, reheat some more.  This is where my second attempt ended, with super hard, dried out curds that would not hold together at all.

Step eleven: admit defeat.  After a hopeful beginning on my first attempt, the curds got all hard and dry and unworkable.  Not sure what went wrong.  On the second try, as I already mentioned, they got to this point MUCH more quickly.

Step twelve: feed the gross hard curds to the chickens along with the whey – they liked it all at least.

After my spectacular double failure, I was planning to give up cheese making completely, but Rick says I need to try again.  If I do, I will try using animal rennet instead.  Anyone have any ideas or suggestions for me on what the heck went wrong??

Categories: Canning and Food Preservation, DIY, Food | Tags: , | 12 Comments

Independence Days: Week 31

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Anisa

Plant something – nothing

Harvest something – eggs, tomatoes, kohlrabi, zucchini, eggplant (!), pumpkins.  The chickens are really slowing down with their eggs.  In fact we had to buy some this past week.  😦  I harvested three of our eggplants.  They were a bit on the small side, but I didn’t want to take the chance of them getting a frost without us even getting one.  They were delicious.  There are a few more still out there.  We’re going to let them grow as long as the weather holds out.

Preserve something – dried more tomatoes on the dehydrator, froze some winter squash puree.

Waste Not – compost and recycling, scraps to chickens, etc.

Want Not – nothing.

Build Community Food Systems – started working up a plan for my neighbor’s garden.  After six years of watching us, he’s announced that he’d like a space in his yard (next to our garden) where he’d like to grow corn and potatoes.  He asked for help and we are HAPPY to give it!  Yay!

Eat the Food – made a couple yummy things this week.

Orecchiette with Butternut Squash Cream Sauce

Cook 2 cups orecchiette pasta in salted water until al dente.  In the mean time, saute 1/2 a diced onion in olive oil until soft.  Add 1 tsp dried sage and saute until fragrant.  Drain pasta reserving 2 TBS of the cooking water.  Return the pasta to pot.  Add the onions and 1/2 a butternut squash that has been roasted until tender and smashed slightly to the pot.  Stir in reserved pasta water and about 1/4 cup half and half.  When all is well combined stir in 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese.  Serves 2.

Double Chocolate Jalapeno Muffins (pictured above)

So I took the original recipe found here, and substituted three fresh jalapenos that had turned red (therefore a bit sweeter than the green ones).  So delicious!

Categories: Food, Garden, Independence Days, Recipes | Tags: | 3 Comments

Independence Days: Week 28?

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Anisa

Wow – I think it’s twenty-eight.  I have sort of lost count.  So we’ll go with it.

This week I’ve been playing catch up with the house and laundry and trying not to let any of the food go bad.  I don’t yet have all the green chiles peeled and in the freezer yet.  I’m hoping they will make it a couple more days, but I’m afraid they might not.

I’ve also been trying to get a lot done around the yard.  This weekend is Denver’s chicken coop tour, which we’re participating in.  So of course, I want our yard in an unnaturally clean and perfect manner.  😉  Ha!

Back when we picked peaches, we got a few apples as well.  they’ve been yummy and lasting quite a while on the counter, but our time is about to run out with them, so I decided this morning to dry them.  I’ve never dehydrated apples before, so wish me luck!

Here’s the update this week.

Plant something – some more flowers and bulbs.  No food, but I am hoping to get a few seeds in the ground to over winter (garlic if it’s not too late).

Harvest something – eggs, tomatoes, kohlrabi.

Preserve something – tomatoes frozen, French onion soup made and frozen, some chiles in the freezer.  Put apples on the dehydrator this morning.

Waste Not – compost and recycling, scraps to chickens, etc.

Want Not – nothing.

Build Community Food Systems – I just realized that I never told you that H, E and I helped with a film that Denver Urban Homesteading is making to get the city of Denver to lift the law preventing chickens inside city limits without a permit.  I am excited to see the video (I think it will be on youtube), and I will certainly share when it’s finished!

Eat the Food – made a big pot of veggie soup just to use some things up!  I also made this eggplant lasagna that was a bit of an experiment – the original recipe was a bit different, and I didn’t have what was called for so I made some substitutions.  It turned out really yummy.  Here’s the recipe – it sounds so weird, but it tasted great!

1 ½ pounds eggplant sliced ¼” thick
3 Tbs olive oil
coarse salt and ground pepper
4-6 slices bacon cooked until crisp and crumbled
¼ tsp ground all spice
1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
1½ tsp dried oregano
5 cups Bechamel Sauce (I would increase the milk in the recipe to 5 cups, the flour to 1/3 cup, and add 2-3 cloves of garlic)
8-12 no-boil lasagna noodles
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Toss eggplant with 2 Tbs olive oil, salt and pepper and put on a baking sheet.  Roast eggplant in 400 degree oven for about twenty minutes.  Meanwhile, make your Bachamel sauce and cook your bacon.

When the bacon is crisp, remove from pan and drain off most to all of the drippings.  Add 1 Tbs olive oil to bacon pan and all of the herbs and spices.  Saute about three minutes, and add crumbled bacon back to pan.

Spread 1 cup sauce in the bottom of an 8×8 pan (I use a pan that is about 8×10).  Place two or three noodles over sauce.  Layer with half of the eggplant.  Then 1 cup more of sauce and ¼ cup of Swiss cheese.  Layer two or three more noodles.  Layer on all of the bacon-herb mixture.  Top with another cup of sauce and another ¼ cup of Swiss cheese.  Top with two or three more noodles and repeat eggplant layer with remaining ingredients, reserving the Parmesan.

Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes.  Remove foil, top with reserved cheese and continue to bake 5 -10 minutes more until the cheese is bubbly.  Remove from oven, let cool 15-20 minutes and serve.

Categories: Canning and Food Preservation, Food, Independence Days, Recipes | Tags: | 1 Comment

The Impact of Eating Organic

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Anisa

A sustainable dinner - organic beans and squash, bakery made bread with organic butter, organic meat raised on pasture and wild brush - all local within 100 miles.

This past Tuesday, I came across a video interview of Michael Pollan with MSNBC, talking about eating organically as an investment (you can watch the video here).  He included some great tips for getting affordable sustainable meat, keeping hormones out of your diet and reasons to eat organically/sustainably.  Additionally he talked about the difference between animal products from grass-fed or pastured animals, and ones that are fed on a feed lot, even an organic feed lot.

Then, this morning, I noticed on the side of my Organic Valley half and half a note stating that by “using a quart of organic half and half [in lieu of conventional], every week for a year, you help to keep 6.2 lbs. of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and 1.3 oz. of toxic pesticides from being used.”  They said they offered a calculator on their website so you could see the impact you are having by consuming their organic dairy products.

I don’t eat strictly from this brand, but I wanted to see what impact my dairy dollars are having on the environment each year.  In a typical week our family consumes two gallons of milk, one quart of half and half, one and a half pounds of butter and one pound of cheese.  They calculate that buying these items organically instead of conventionally saves the environment from 65.9 lbs. of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and 14.3 ounces toxic pesticides and herbicides per year. That’s just our family’s dairy purchases, let alone meat and produce!

Additionally, the Organic Valley site states that  “public health costs associated with pesticide-related acute poisonings and cancer alone add up to an estimated $1.1 billion dollars per year.*”  Below are listed some of the other impacts of pesticides on children.

“Impacts on Children

Pesticide exposure poses special concerns for children because of their high metabolisms and low body weights.

  • More than 1 million children between the ages of 1 and 5 ingest at least 15 pesticides every day from fruits and vegetables.
  • More than 600,000 of these children eat a dose of organophosphate insecticides that the federal government considers unsafe.
  • 61,000 eat doses that exceed “unsafe” levels by a factor of 10 or more.5“

“Prenatal Exposure

Most babies today are born with persistent pesticides and other chemicals already in their bodies, passed from mother to child during fetal development. 21 different pesticides have been found in umbilical cord blood, suggesting tremendous potential damage at a critical developmental time. Since a baby’s organs and systems are rapidly developing, they are often more vulnerable to damage from chemical exposure.  The immature, porous blood-brain barrier allows greater chemical exposures to the developing brain.6″

Wow – that’s pretty huge motivation to eat organic foods!  But they can be a bit more expensive.  Which brings me back to the Michael Pollan interview.

Organic foods are more expensive because there is a greater demand for them than there is supply.  In America, we vote with our dollars.  The more we demand organically grown and produced foods, the more farmers and companies out there will be motivated to switch to using organic practices, adding more organic foods to the supply chain.  the more food suppliers producing organic products, the more competition.  The more competition, the lower the prices.  the way we demand products is to buy them.  So, if you want organic food at competitive prices, start buying it and watch the price drop.

There are a lot of options out there.  Buying locally will be the least expensive and have the biggest impact on protecting the environment and the local economy.  Check out http://www.localharvest.org/ for local farmers, markets and CSAs near you.  There you can find not only produce, but local meat processors and restaurants who use local and organic products (you are still effecting the supply and demand of how food is produced when you eat out).

To read more about the impacts of synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, GMOs, hormones and antibiotics, check out Organic Valley’s website.

* “Promoting Sustainable Food Systems through Organic Agriculture: Past, Present and Future,” Christine McCullum-Gomez, C., and Riddle, J. HEN Post: Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association, Spring 2009. www.hendpg.org

Categories: CSA, Food, Sustainability | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

How to Make Grape Jam – In Pictures

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Anisa

How to Make Grape Jam in Pictures on Punk DomesticsWhen the concord grapes get ripe, we like to make jam!  Here’s how we do it.

You’ll need two quarts of concord grapes, six cups of sugar, two small saucepans, a strainer, a canning pot and accessories, and three pint jars with lids and bands.

Wash the grapes and measure out two quarts.  In this picture, there are enough for three batches (six quarts).

Next, peel the grapes, putting grapes in one pot and peels in another.  When the grapes are ripe, you can just give them a squeeze and the grapes pop right out of their skins.

Cook the grapes without water and the peels with just a little water in separate pots for ten or fifteen minutes until the peels are soft and the grapes are separated from the seeds.

Combine the peels in a larger pot with sugar (3 cups per quart of grapes).  Strain out the seeds from the pulp, and add the pulp to the sugar mixture.  Bring to a boil until jam reaches the gelling point.  You can test this with a candy thermometer (211° in Denver), a spoon or by putting a plate in the freezer.

Ladle your hot jam into hot jars.  Process pints in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes here in Denver.  Process five minutes less if at sea-level or using half-pint jars.

Voilà – Grape jam!

Categories: Canning and Food Preservation, DIY | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

Fruit

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Anisa

This weekend was the weekend of fruit.  On Saturday morning we went to Palisade for the second time this summer, and we came home with 319 pounds of peaches.  150 pounds were for friends, and we kept the other half for ourselves.  Then, Sunday morning, before we had even gotten a peach into the freezer, my brother-in-law came by with over 1500 Italian plums.  Thankfully the plums are a bit green, as we didn’t really have much time to mess with the fruit on Sunday.

Monday, we ate some of the plums in a plum coffee cake, and then we went to our friend’s home outside of Allenspark.  Mike grilled and we gathered around the fire pit, and had a nice evening with friends (and peach cobbler), watching the smoke from the fire in Boulder county blow over the horizon.

On the way home we stopped outside of Longmont where we could see the fire above Boulder.  My pictures here don’t do it justice, but it was incredible.

Tuesday is farm day for me, when I go and work at the CSA.  I brought home our share, and had barely pulled into the drive when our friend, Rich drove up with twenty plus pounds of concord grapes!  These grapes are our favorite and they were very generous!

So we have a fruit filled week ahead of us.  I had actually planned to pick strawberries and raspberries this week too, but I am putting that off until next week in hopes that I can get somewhat caught up around here before adding more to it!

Here’s the update:

Plant something – nothing.

Harvest something – eggs, tomatoes, zucchini, peaches

Preserve something – three batches of peach preserves, two and a half boxes (approx. 30 lbs) of peaches sliced and frozen, 3½ pounds green beans frozen, 1 gallon bag of tomatoes frozen, 2 batches of carrot soup in the freezer.

Waste Not – compost and recycling, scraps to chickens, etc.  Lots and lots went to the goodwill over the last couple of weeks.

Want Not – nothing that I can think of right now.

Build Community Food Systems – all the fruit trading!  Yum!

Eat the Food – as mentioned, plum cake and peach cobbler.  Also eating all the yummy farm veggies.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  😉

Categories: Canning and Food Preservation, Chickens, Food, Garden, Independence Days, Recommended Reading | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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