BreadFoot

I like bread. Making it, eating it, taking photos of it. Not just an excuse for playing with yeast and digging both hands into a pile of dough, these loaves proved excellent substrate for pesto, hummus, a quarter-inch layer of garlic, etc, etc.

The Nearings had no good opinion of bread, deeming it a "dead" food. And I guess they're right, since it's usually milled, packaged, shipped a distance, and then left to sit on a shelf. I tried looking up bakeries that mill their own flour on site, but only came up with one place, in England. I'm sure there are other, less web-savvy operations out there--if you come across one, please let me know!! This article, The Oil We Eat, includes a deeper look at the cost of large-scale processing of staple grains.

At Kings Valley Gardens, the rule is to make about 10 loaves in one go and freeze them. We used a John Robbin's recipe, "Ocean's Bombs of Love Bread", from May All Be Fed, and an unusual kneading process. I'll post the recipe as soon as I can get my hands on a copy of the book...

Falafel Revisited

This cook night (not mine) turned me on to The Joy of Cooking. I'd never really considered it before, it seemed, I dunno, full of meat dishes and old-fashioned? But there's only one way to judge a book, and that's by its recipes. Specifically, in this case, by its falafel recipe--Joy's uses the magical properties of blended, uncooked chickpeas in place of the usual chickpea-egg combination. We lightly fried them as patties rather than balls, so while they taste great, they don't look as official as these falafels over at One Hot Stove. I'll have to make them both one day to compare/contrast. Hopefully then I'll also be able to replace this lame picture. You're just going to have to trust me, they're yummy!

Recipes for falafel and whole wheat pita bread

Sushi Inspiro

Sushi Night! Veggie sushi, that is.

Served with tamari, gomasio, and wasabi. Turns out that most of what's sold as wasabi is actually horseradish, mustard, and food coloring. MMm, mmm, Blue #1 and Yellow #5, my favorites. These folks think it can't compare to the real thing, but I'm guessing that would be too hot for me as well.

Since my participation in sushi nights centered on cutting the insides (any combination of peas, carrots, radishes, cilantro, avocado, beets, tofu, etc), I have no insight on the rolling, but I've seen it done sans
bamboo-mat, so don't let the lack of one stop you.

I was hoping to find an article on how to build your own sushi roller from recycled chopsticks or shishkabob sticks, but no luck on that front. Instead, I was met with this contraption.

The recipes I've seen online add vinegar and sugar to the sushi rice, but I'm sure that we didn't add sugar to ours, with no noticeable effect. Then again, what do I know--this was my first time having sushi (unlike this lucky kid).

For why not to substitute brown rice and other tips, check out the PPK's take on vegan sushi.

Pear-ific!

Please forgive me for that title. There's no excuse.

Unlike apples, pears will ripen after they've been picked, and it's often a good idea to pick them all unripe or else the birds and bugs will beat you to them. Some varieties (like Anjou's) require 30 days of cold storage to bring up their sugar level--isn't that odd to think about? That straight off the tree might not taste as good as ripened indoors? I wonder if the nutritional value matures as well?

At KVG they've got Bartletts, Bosc, and Anjou's. Lately we've been drying some and canning some sliced (the juice is divine!) I like pears just about any way you can have 'em--fresh, dried, and in this pear-ginger chutney.

I Heart Mason Jars

And just looking at these shelves (at KVG) makes my heart flutter.

Mason jars, so called for their inventor, tinsmith John Landis Mason, were patented in 1858 1. That's all I got. I just like looking at them.

Omega-3s and Stained Hands

Walnuts! I'd never seen them in their shell before. And who knew nuts could be messy? After peeling away the dark outer flesh we laid them out on screens to dry.

According to one site, a quarter cup of walnuts gives you almost all of the omega-3 fatty acids you need (i don't really trust "daily recommended values", but I do like eating walnuts).

If you're in the mood for more walnut facts and lore, try this article from a vegetarian web magazine. And remember, you are what you eat, so, go nuts!

An Apple a Day...

Today we harvested the rest of the apples. I just read that there are over 7,000 varieties! That's crazy! And they're so good for you--doing everything from clearing tartar from teeth to stabilizing blood sugar levels to removing heavy metals (yay pectin). Has anyone had experience making apple cider vinegar? I'm curious to try it this winter.

Andrea and Lore take apple breaks during the harvest

We put some apples to work as a sweet complement for samosas. This apple chutney recipe comes out thick and not overly sweet. Recipe here.

Bye, Blues

A final blueberry posting for the season. Excuse any spelling errors in the post, it's difficult to type while sobbing. Sigh. In addition to tasting wonderful, blueberries are packed with vitamins C and K, manganese, fiber, and antioxidants. And they're native to North America--no tropical fruit guilt here.

Can you believe I used to be a raspberry person?

At KVG, the blueberry bushes are stealing the fall foliage show--from bright reds to pinks, yellows, purples, you better believe I took some photos.

Click here for more photos

Bed Prep and Garlic Planting

Broke out the shovels today for some bed prepping. Oh, the satisfaction of looking at a newly turned bed, all rich and brown and full of soil amendments and composted chicken manure. And waking up sore, that's a good one, too.

I didn't post anything back when we harvested the garlic in July, so I'm throwing in some shots now, since I didn't take any of the planting process (stem end down, yo). I really like the look of the rootlets attached to the heads.


Recently, I heard that a cut clove of garlic is a good bee string remedy (possibly because it's alkaline? I've also heard of baking soda and water being recommended by poison control centers). At KVG we had occasion to try a grated onion for the same reason, but we learned that you have to put it on right after the sting, not after the area's already swelled.

Pickles from the Old School

No vinegar here, just a tried and true fermentation process. Thanks to Sandorkraut's book for the recipe. We lined the crock with flowering heads of dill, grape leaves (to keep the pickles crunchy), and lots of garlic before adding our cukes. For the real deal, we went with a 5.4% brine strength, which translates to about 3 T of sea salt to 1 quart of water. The result? Gorgeous (if I do say so myself) and deliciously sour pickles. It was amazing to be able to use ingredients completely grown at the farm--when's the next time I'll be able to just jog outside for grape leaves?

If you're into canning pickles in vinegar, consider a KVG twist and spice them up with mustard seeds and curry powder. And when you have a few extra pickles lying around, consider this experiment.

Bagel Inspiro

Inspiration struck Lore and Marissa this weekend and they bagel'd for the better part of a rainy Sunday, the "Bakequinox". They mastered the genre as far as I'm concerned, and I think this is the recipe they used. It's the real deal--sans eggs and complete with boiling step, of course.


Bagels proofing by the woodstove (the picture that didn't come out too yellow came out too dark!):





On the menu were 7 kinds of bagel:

Everything Bagel (garlic, onion, sesame seeds, poppy seeds...)
Berry Bagel, my favorite, with blueberries, cranberries, and raisins
Carob Peanut Butter Bagel
Tomato Rosemary Everything Bagel
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel
Jalepeno Cheddar (with garlic) Bagel
and last but not least, the Cranberry Goatcheese Bagel.

Hung the Cabbage

Cabbage, my new favorite vegetable. And not just for kraut! We threw it in a minestrone the other day and it held its own beautifully. I'm just not quite ready to take on Charles Hardy--he holds the world record for consuming over 6.5 pounds of cabbage in only 9 minutes 1.







This book, by Mike and Nancy Bubel, takes you from designing and building your own root cellar to practical tips for preserving different kinds of fruits and vegetables (the list is loooong).


Justin hanging cabbage in the cold room (a tough job considering you have to step around boxes of apples and pears, over a tarp full of ripening tomatoes, and duck under bags of potatoes). Photo credit: John Madsen

Another great thing about (red) cabbage is that you can use it to make your own pH indicator! As you can tell from this photo, you get some beautiful colors and a fairly distinct range. These sites will hook you up with a procedure for making your own and an explanation of how it works.

Nixtama-Wha?!?

So how excited was I to learn how to make tortillas?

There are only two ingredients: corn masa harina and water. Corn masa is traditionally made by a process called nixtamalization, in which corn kernels are soaked and cooked in lime-water, de-hulled, and ground into a dough (or dried and ground into a flour, called masa). **Don't try it with plain cornmeal, all you'll get is a mess!** Corn treated in this manner is known in North America as hominy. Some, including Wikipedia, cite this process as the foundation for the civilizations of the Americas (North and South), since the combination with lime-water makes bio-available the niacin and essential amino acids that corn alone lacks, creating a complete protein. When Europeans took to using maize, they skipped the nixtamalization process, and the maize-dependent cultures on that continent consistently developed protein-deficiency diseases.

Sadly, the Maseca we're buying here in the U.S. doesn't even approximate the real masa. Read this article from Grist and add another notch to the "how messed up can the world's food economy get?" belt.

That said, these blow store-bought corn tortillas out of the lime water. We never quite figured out the ratio of masaharina to water--it kept changing! There was the 1 c masa to 11/8 c water on a label, but then we got 2.25 c masa to 1.5 c water, and another time 2 c masa to 11/8-11/3 c masa (which is close to the last ratio, right?). So we just went by feel. Once the water is thoroughly mixed in, the dough should be just wet enough to shape into balls. The real test is in the pressing. Place a dough ball between two ziploc bags to press into shape. Cracks will form around the outer edge, try to correct those before you keep enlarging the dough circle. The test is removing the circle--it's often a close call, but if it sticks completely to the ziploc, it's too wet. If the cracks are unmanageably large, the dough is too dry.

Hat's off to Andrea for bringing this process into our lives. And also for being so hardcore that she's going to try using woodash to make her own masa from corn she grows.