Saying Grace

9/18 Menus:
 breakfast: flapjacks (Birkett Mills buckwheat) with chopped apples (Littletree) and maple syrup (Schoolyard Sugarbush)
 lunch: barley cakes (Cayuga Pure barley, Greenstar bulk local honey and sunflower oil, raisins from Thornbush grapes), apples, sweet pepper (garden)
 dinner: pork chops (Kingbird) with sauerkraut (homemade from Blue Heron cabbage); baby potatoes (Greg's garden) with butter (Meadow Creek) and parsley (garden); maitake mushrooms (Kingbird) with butter, squash oil (Stony Brook), and cooking wine (homemade from arbor grapes)

I do most of the gardening work, but there are a couple foods Greg has taken on, and potatoes are one of them. He's worked for several hours over the past couple days digging up potatoes, cleaning them, and laying them out to cure. All in a day's work for me, but it's not the way Greg usually spends his manual labor budget. So I'm feeling a need to put Greg's name on it. Which makes me realize that I've been treating my own labor as generic ("garden" really means "my garden.") Oops. How feminine of me. Just for the record, I'm the cook, too. And the maker of most of the preserved foods. If the source listed is generic, it's me. Thank you, me. :^)

9/19 Menus (so far):
 breakfast: grits (Cayuga Pure) with chopped peaches (Black Diamond) and maple syrup (Schoolyard Sugarbush)
 school lunch: sauerkraut with pork (leftover), barley cakes (leftover), apple (Littletree), cucumber (a friend's garden)

We still had some almond milk in the fridge, but when I went to get it for the grits this morning, I discovered it had gone bad. That wasn't a problem when we were eating cold cereal for breakfast every day. But we use a lot less milk with the hot cereals, plus I'm cooking other things more often because the difference in labor isn't as great. Oh well. Time to get going on that homemade granola.

While I'm on the topic of acknowledging people's labor, though, I want to say something about the almond milk. Every time I write it on the menu I feel funny describing its source as "exception." We have a family practice of listing the sources of the foods on our plate before we eat, and the almonds do have a known source, even if it's not local. I've thought about shortening my menu lists on the blog, leaving out the sources of foods we use every day, but that doesn't feel right either. For me, naming those sources is a way of saying grace: we're acknowledging the people and places that provide our sustenance. It also keeps us aware of which foods are anonymous -- we list those as "no idea," or "who knows where."

I direct order raw, unpasteurized organic Carmel almonds (I love the flavor of the Carmels) from Jim Bremner, who runs Bremner Farms in Chico, CA. Almond milk is made from sprouted almonds, and almonds have to be raw/unpasteurized in order to sprout. Direct ordering is the only way to get those now, so I have USDA regulations to thank for driving me to do business with a real person, instead of a plastic bin in the bulk section. I appreciate the opportunity, but I wouldn't have gone there without that little extra push (and Jim Bremner might not have gotten his web site set up for direct sales, either, without the looming prospect of bankruptcy when the new regulations destroyed his market.) I'm glad he hung in there, and I'm glad he got a direct sales exemption. And I'm glad I found his website. I think I will start listing him on my menus.

Autumn's Harvest

We went out for dinner last night!

We went to the Autumn's Harvest Benefit Dinner for Healthy Food For All, a program that raises money to subsidize CSA shares for low-income families. The food was donated by numerous area farmers and food producers, and cooked on a volunteer basis by chef Samantha Buyskes, whose fare is also available at Simply Red Bistro. We learned that the meat served at Simply Red comes almost entirely from Autumn's Harvest Farm (nice to know.) The wine selections were donated by Hosmer Winery, which is not one we've tried before. So we got to do a wine tasting along with the meal (they were all very good.) Thank goodness it was a long slow dinner, with modest portion sizes, or we would have been laid low by it all. As it was, the amounts were just about perfect.

I had expected to see a lot of wealthy-looking people at the dinner, because of the steep ticket price, but many of the folks we met were farmers. We talked about animal behavior and housing arrangements, methods of food storage, how your life changes when you work outdoors, and similar topics. In some ways, it seemed as much a networking opportunity for the farmers as a way to redistribute the community wealth. Autumn's Harvest Farm is a mile or so from Cayuga Lake, with a gradual downslope between, so we got to watch the pastel side of the sunset over the water as we dined (the sun was behind our backs, toward the farmhouse.) We could see our breath over the last couple courses, but the cold wasn't unpleasant until we walked away from the canopy tent, after it was over.

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience: food, wine, music, and company. Greg is talking about doing it as a monthly event. We could cover the price within our monthly eating-out budget, if we cut back enough on other outings. Of course, Greg's out of town for the next one, and I suspect it won't be that common to find a menu that's as easy on my diet as this one was, so I'm guessing our presence will only be intermittent. But it was well worth the cover charge.

9/17 Menus:

 breakfast: oatmeal (Cayuga Pure oats) with chopped apples (Littletree), maple syrup (Schoolyard Sugarbush), and almond milk (exception, Bremner Farms)

 lunch: corn on the cob (Sabol's) with butter (Meadow Creek) and salt

 snack: apples

 dinner: Autumn's Harvest Farm Dinner

Barley Cakes and "Lemon" Butter

This morning I was feeling a little frantic -- not in the mood for cooked-grain-with-sweetener for breakfast, no leftovers for Sophia's lunch, and no breads or biscuits ready made. I had enough time to make a quick bread, but I was out of almond meal, which is one of my standard biscuit ingredients, and low on corn meal, which is another, and which also meant I couldn't make corn bread or muffins either. That left buckwheat, which I've never seen a baking recipe for, and barley, which I haven't used on its own before.

A couple weeks ago I discovered this ancient Roman recipe for barley cakes, and this seemed like a good time to try it. So I looked it up again. Of course, it would be denominated in metric -- those darned Romans. It's simple enough to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit using an online converter, but grams to measuring cups is not so straightforward. And, oh dear, I was running out of honey too. I decided to make a smaller recipe, throw in some raisins for extra sweetness, wing it on the amounts, and hope for the best. After all, the real ancient Roman recipe probably went something like, "bake barley with honey." It most certainly did not include a ten minute residency in the fridge.

Half an hour later, I gave Sophia a small bite to sample, to verify that she was willing to have it as part of her lunch. Next thing I knew, she had half a barley cake in her hand and the other half in her mouth, and was reaching for another. So I chased her out of the kitchen, hoarding the four remaining cakes (they were pretty small) so I'd have enough to pack for her.

After she left I did a Greenstar run for more honey, and made a second batch for my own lunch, measuring things more carefully. Here's what I came up with:

Barley Cakes (a not-so-ancient Ithacan recipe)

3 T honey (or to taste)

2 T sunflower oil

1/3 cup water

1 1/2 cups barley flour

1/4 t salt

raisins (to taste -- optional)

Set oven to 400 F. Mix honey & oil into 1/2 cup flour. (The honey tends to glop up in the water otherwise.) Mix in water, salt, and raisins, then mix in the rest of the flour a bit at a time. Let stand for 10 minutes in the fridge (or on the counter -- I'm not sure it matters, since it's a liquid oil.) Add flour as needed to keep it from sticking as you remove it from the bowl, shape it into a ball, and roll it out thinly (I stopped rolling when the raisins started to stick out.) Cut with a cookie cutter or thin-edged glass and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes, to taste (they don't seem to brown much, but they gradually change from chewy to crunchy as they bake longer. Thinner ones get more crunchy.)

The Result

Kind of like a cross between a biscuit, a cookie, and a soft cracker. Noticeably sweet, but not sugary. All gone again, though. Sophia wants me to make a third batch.

9/16 Menus:

breakfast for Sophia: grits (Cayuga Pure) with raisins (arbor), maple syrup (Schoolyard Sugarbush), and almond milk (exception)

breakfast for us: omelets (eggs from back yard chickens) with broccoli (West Haven), scallion (garden) and sweet pepper (garden)

school lunch: buffalo snack sticks (Glenwood Farms); barley cakes (barley (Cayuga Pure), honey and sunflower oil (Greenstar bulk local), raisins(arbor grapes)); red sweet pepper (garden); frozen blueberries (Farmer's Choice u-pick)

my lunch: barley cakes; ants on a log (celery (garden), peanut butter (exception), raisins (Thornbush Farms)); raspberries (garden)

snack: barley cakes. and apples. lots of apples (Littletree)

dinner: green and wax beans with sorrel butter (garden, Meadow Creek); Japanese Steak House style veggies (onion, summer squash (garden) and baby bok choy (Sacred Seed) with salt, cider vinegar (Littletree apples), and cooking wine (arbor grapes))

When we got back from apple picking, I wanted something simple for dinner, and I did not want to put tomatoes in it. I had a vast number of green and wax beans (oops, I ignored them for a few days too long) and I was in the mood for steamed beans with lemon butter. But I've been resisting using lemon juice, even though it probably technically qualifies as a seasoning.

While I was pondering what to do, I overheard my roommate suggesting to her daughter that they add curly dock to a dish they were planning. She described the flavor as "lemony." Voila! I didn't want to use curly dock, because its flavor could also be described as "bitter," and its texture could be described as "slimy." (I'm picky about my wild foods, what can I say?) But I have french sorrel growing in my garden, which I rarely use because I'm not sure how to cook with it. This, however, was easy:

Local "Lemon" Butter

1-2 T butter

3-4 french sorrel leaves, sliced very thin

salt to taste

Melt butter, add sorrel, stir until it "melts" into a greenish sauce. Salt to taste. (This could probably be made with wild sorrel as well -- you know, the clover-like garden weed with heart-shaped leaves and little yellow flowers and a lemony flavor.)

Can't get much simpler than that. Makes me happy.

Halfway Through!

I've been having some fast-food cravings the past couple days. Not McDonalds -- I'm not that depraved -- but convenience has been calling louder than usual. Two days in a row I was out long after lunchtime, driving around hungry, and it took some self-discipline not to stop along the way and pick something up. I lasted until I got home by thinking about how I'm almost to the halfway point, and I'm perfectly capable of surviving feeling hungry for a few more minutes.

The cool thing is that I haven't used rice yet! I was also wanting pasta last night; it would have been really good with the sauce I made for dinner. But I wanted to go one more day -- a full half month -- without resorting to imported grains.

There have definitely been nutritional changes to my diet as a result of this challenge, not least of which is that I am, for the first time in my life, eating 100% whole grains, with no refined flour (or sugar) at all. So okay, the first few days we still had some Greenstar GF bread to use up, and there was Sophia's birthday party, and I have been indulging in a bite of chocolate here and there (up to a maximum of 10 grams chocolate, which contains 3 grams sugar, per day.) But compared to the universal presence of refined carbs in every processed food on the market, that's a pretty significant shift. Even though I use mostly whole grains and sugars in my home cooking, refined carbs still leak in every time I succumb to convenience, which under normal circumstances is a lot. (I generally consider packaged crackers and boxed cereals to fall in the "refined" category even when they're made from whole grains, because the high-heat crisping and puffing and flaking they go through destroys most of the nutrients.)

I think we may also be eating fewer grains overall, since turning them into food requires extra work that I don't necessarily have extra time for. The place I notice this most is that I'm not routinely adding toast & butter to my plate when I make eggs (which is one of my quick-fix foods when I'm feeling rushed.)

And, speaking of eating less of, the other big nutrititional shift I've noticed is what I eat when I snack. On my normal diet, "snack" most often means "nuts" or "processed grains," since those are often the most convenient foods available. Now, the most convenient foods are either fruits & veggies or leftover home-baked biscuits, waffles, etc.

There appear to be fewer calories in this diet, and there are most certainly fewer fat calories. And I think I'm losing weight, though it's not dramatic enough to brag about. 'Course, I've always been suspicious of those "lose 10 pounds in one week" (and gain them back in the next) diets anyway. The best weight-loss diet, in my opinion, is one you don't notice you're on until your clothes get looser. Which this one might just qualify for.

9/15 Menus:

breakfast: waffles with raspberries (same as yesterday)

school lunch: chili (leftover), sweet peppers (garden) and cucumber slices (a friend's garden), peach (Black Diamond) and raspberries (garden)

my lunch: leftover waffles, grits (Cayuga Pure) and refritos (leftover) with sweet pepper (garden) and lettuce (Blue Heron), red plum (Black Diamond)

dinner: chicken sausage (Bilinski's) au jardinera (with the garden -- summer squash, onion, red pepper, in tomato sauce with marjoram, tarragon, thai basil, garlic, and a sprinkling of parsley on top)

evening: hot grape juice (mix of wild, arbor, and Thornbush Farms grapes) with cider (Littletree) and honey

Local Bread Part 2

I baked the other half of my batch of experimental wheat-free 100% local multigrain bread Monday. Thought about adding more yeast, but decided it was too much bother at that late stage.

The Process:

Last week: Created the half batch of dough (using this process) and put it in the fridge.

Sun 8 p.m.: Took it out of the fridge. It was quite bubbly, with a nice sour/yeast aroma. Added enough rye flour to start kneading. Kneaded with corn flour (which means this loaf has less rye and more corn than the first loaf), and left the dough a bit softer. Left in a warmish place to rise overnight (covered by the recommended triple layer of muslin, with the middle layer damp.)

Mon 7 a.m.: Kneaded in a little more corn flour, shaped and scored loaf lengthwise, left in a warmish place to rise. (Dampened the middle layer again.)

Mon 5 p.m.: Heated oven to 425 degrees (it's a convection oven, so I often reduce the recommended temp by 25 degrees) and baked 35 minutes (5 minutes longer than the first time.)

The Result

This loaf is less dense than the first, with a color that shows more yellow & less gray. The corn flavor is detectable behind the rye/sourdough flavor. The lengthwise scoring worked better than the crosswise scoring that I did the first time (the first loaf cracked on both sides, so it was mushroom-shaped in cross-section, and the sticky-outy pieces tended to break off when I was cutting it.) I'm noticing that it has a similar texture to eastern european breads that are typically cut very thin, so I'm cutting my slices very thin too. It holds together nicely.

Overall, I like this version better.

Big disappointment afterward, though. Sophia and I both had stuffy noses after eating the second loaf. There are several possible explanations. One is that we're having a delayed reaction to the rye (these breads are the first time I've tried the local rye flour.) We've eaten imported rye crackers in the past with impunity, though, as well as cracked rye bread made from whole grain rye, so this seems relatively unlikely. A second is that the new batch of flour (which we picked up Saturday and used in the second loaf) might have wheat in it. That's a fairly common problem, when an alternative flour is ground in the same facility as wheat flour. A third possibility, which also seems unlikely due to the lack of other symptoms, is that we might be coming down with something. Or, we could both be reacting to a new pollen source or some other environmental allergy. We ate outdoors that night, so there might have been something on the breeze.

I wish these things were simple to diagnose, but they're not. For the time being, we're going to lay off the rye flour; maybe we'll experiment again once our symptoms clear up.

Fruit Drinks

I forgot to list some really yummy drinks that we've had the past couple days. The first was Seaberry (Daring Drake) juice, sweetened with honey (Greenstar bulk local.) We ran the berries through the juicer then mixed the juice 1:3 with water and added honey to taste. It was surprisingly good; very distinctive flavor. The other was hot grape juice: a mixture of wild (from the community garden deer fence) and Concord (from the arbor over the sandbox) grapes, simmered in water to release the juice, then strained. I don't think we added any sweetener to this one.

9/13 Menus:

breakfast: sprouted steel-cut oatmeal with homemade raisins, with honey (Greenstar bulk local) and almond milk (exception)

school lunch: multigrain bread (Cayuga Pure grains) with jelly (Kestrel Perch berries, honey) and honey, buffalo snack sticks (Glenwood Farms), grapes (arbor, Thornbush Farms), sweet pepper (garden)

my lunch: multigrain bread with peanut butter and jelly, raspberries (garden), sweet pepper

snack: plums (Sabol's Farm, Black Diamond)

dinner: chili (kidney beans (Cayuga Pure), lamburger (Northlands), veggies (garden, Early Morning)); multigrain bread (new loaf)

bedtime snack: corn fritters (corn (Sabol's Farm), flour mix (Cayuga Pure and Birkett Mills), eggs (Sabol's), almond milk (exception)) with maple syrup (Schoolyard Sugarbush)

Sophia didn't like the corn fritters :^( but Greg and I thought they were yummy. The chili is one of our standard winter staples; sometimes I make it vegetarian and sometimes I add in whatever kind of meat we happen to have handy. It's good either way.

9/14 Menus:

breakfast: waffles (Cayuga Pure grains, almond meal (exception), eggs (back yard chickens)); red currant/maple syrup (Kestrel Perch/Schoolyard Sugarbush), raspberries (garden)

school lunch: chili (leftover), raspberries (garden), cucumber slices (a friend's garden)

my lunch: chili, plums, cucumber

snack: grapes (Thornbush Farms)

dinner: lamburgers (Northlands), roasted beets (garden), rainbow chard (garden), creamed spinach (Blue Heron, with Meadow Creek butter, Cayuga Pure barley flour, and almond milk)

snack: peanuts (exception), dried watermelon (garden)

Locavore Book Discussion

I'm hosting a book discussion for the Locavore Challenge. Here are the details:

NOFA-NY Locavore Challenge Book Discussion

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

Two Mondays, September 19th and 26th, 7-9 p.m.

SoNG Common House Sitting Room, Ecovillage at Ithaca

Hope to see you there!

Local Raisins

We thought about using one of our exceptions for raisins or currants, because we use them so often in hot cereals and baked goodies, but we decided instead to try making our own. The first batch came out of the dehydrator a couple days ago. They took *forever* to dry, compared to other fruits I've tried, because of the impermeable skin (it helps to blanch or freeze them first -- I froze these ones -- but it still took three times as long as dried apples.) The thicker northern skins probably exacerbated that problem. I was concerned that they might make the raisins overly chewy, too, but it's not noticeable, at least on this batch. And it's definitely a win, flavor-wise!

So today I bought a big sampler bag of grape varieties at Greenstar (from Thornbush Farms, in Aurora), cleaned them, and stuck them in the freezer. They'll move from there to the dehydrator either tomorrow or Wednesday. Four distinct seedless flavors, which I'm going to try to keep separate at least through the drying process -- "strawberry" (Einset), "melon" (Reliance), muscat (black muscat) and "mild and sweet" (they're green, but I forget the variety name.)

So now I can have raisins in my granola, too. :^)

9/11 Menu:

breakfast: granola (Greenstar bulk) with almond milk (homemade/exception), scrambled eggs (Sabol's Farm) with spinach (Blue Heron), and multigrain bread (Cayuga Pure grains)

lunch: Greenstar deli soup for Sophia, multigrain bread with honey (Greenstar bulk), raspberries (garden), tiny plums (West Haven Farm)

dinner: refritos (leftover) with corn tortillas (Cayuga Pure flour), lettuce (Blue Heron) and sweet peppers (garden)

9/12 Menu:

breakfast: flapjacks (Birkett Mills buckwheat) with red currant/maple syrup (Kestrel Perch/Schoolyard Sugarbush), red plum (Black Diamond)

school lunch: lamb & potato stew (leftover), multigrain bread (Cayuga Pure grains) with honey (Greenstar bulk local), carrots (Early Morning), buffalo snack stick (Glenwood Farms), watermelon (garden)

my lunch: dried pears (front yard) and peaches (farm stand), eggs (back yard), multigrain bread with red currant/raspberry jelly (Kestrel Perch berries, Greenstar bulk local honey)

snack: corn on the cob (Sabol's), watermelon for me, red plum for Sophia

dinner: refritos again (leftovers), melon and raspberry salad (garden)