Good Food Comes From Happy Cows

HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT YOUR MEAT LATELY?

The most thought I've given my meat consumption lately has been "do I really want chicken again?"

After listening to the Deconstructing Dinner podcasts last year, I've seriously been trying to cut my meat consumption but find that I keep slipping back into eating it more often than I would like.

The only meat I don't feel guilty eating right now is beef.  It's clean, it was raised on pasture, it was raised by a family (not a corporation), it doesn't contain hormones or antibiotics and it's delicious.  I swear Joe Morris seems like the nicest man you'll ever meet and I'm so happy people like him are raising animals humanely.

But I recently saw this new blog:  Honest Meat.  It's written by Rebecca, who with her husband operate TLC Ranch (Tastes Like Chicken).  Probably the cleverest name that I can think of.  Anyways, she's made me consider again how my food purchases affect so many things in the world.  It's good to be reminded of things we want to work on.

I don't think I'll ever stop eating meat and I don't want to.  I just need to keep in mind that finding, well, honest meat is the goal.

HOMEMADE YOUGURT!

Who knew that curdling milk could be so easy?  Yeah yeah,  I screwed it up the first time but it's shocking how easy it was the next time around.  Basically, heat the milk to 180 degrees.  Cool it to 118 degrees.  Mix in some starter (i.e. yougurt) and keep that baby roasty toasty warm.  E voila!  Yougurt!

It's not as tangy as I would like and not as thick as the greek style yougurt that I used as a starter.  But... technically, it IS yougurt.  Now I need to whip up a bunch of smoothies to make room for another test batch.

HOMEMADE YOUGURT?

No, not quite...

Before going to bed last night I checked on the yougurt.  It was still milky, not settled at all.  And it seemed a bit cool.  Like a good mom, I checked it's temperature.  Barely 80 degrees.  Which is on the low end needed for the baby bacteria to grow into young adults and reproduce like crazy. 

I wracked my brain for ways to increase it's temperature without taking it out of the plastic container it was incubating in.  I mentioned my conundrum to Thor, but alas, complete lack of interest in anything cooking or creating-related, paired with preparing for a 50 mile bike ride, compounded with his obsession with reading anything related to 'The Tour' rendered him useless in offering suggestions. 

I figured that heating it in a water bath over the stove was probably the easiest solution.  Which I did.  I raised it back to 115 degrees, nestled it back in it's insulated container and parked it in the pantry.  I'd previously left it on the counter but I was worried that the granite might be cooling it too much.

Before going to bed I joked to Thor about setting the alarm to wake me at 3am so I could check on the yougurt.  He scoffed and we went to bed.  At 2:30 I woke up, thinking of my yougurt baby brewing in the pantry.  Upon picking it up, it sloshed.  Crap.  I took it's lid off and stuck the thermometer in.  The resistance inside gave me hope!  It was firm inside.  A little watery on top though.  So into the fridge it went.

This morning upon opening the container I saw whey floating on top.  A lot of whey.  I poured it off to find a congealed block of... no, not yougurt.  More like ricotta.  Tangy ricotta.  But grainy, you know, like ricotta.

 
I probably heated it too much last night.  The next batch is incubating in the pantry and this time I'll just sit tight for about 8 hours before checking on it.  Keep your fingers crossed...

CHICKEN SALAD

Could that title sound any more generic and bland?  What are you picturing?  Dry, overcooked chicken...gloppy mayo...chopped celery...

Something like this beauty served at the Lincoln Public Schools?

Hmm, remind me not to raise my kids in Nebraska.  Okay, maybe Nebraska is okay, I'll just have to homeschool them so I'll know they're not eating anything that looks like that.  Did you check out the chicken fingers they serve?  They look like what some REALLY bad restaurants call calamari.  Yuck.

Here's the chicken salad I want my kid to eat, Chicken Salad with Pears, Almonds and Cranberries:

Thor really really liked it so it's definitely going in the rotation.  I found this recipe on the Cooking Light website and just tweaked it a bit.  It called for seasoning the salad with garlic salt but I just feel dicey adding it to uncooked dishes.  Besides, with the feta, you don't really need to add anything else with salt in it.  After reading through this recipe, it kinda felt like a kitchen sink salad with the pear, the cranberries, the feta, the almonds but I have to tell you, it all worked.

So bust out the grill and enjoy!

Chicken Salad with Pear, Almonds and Cranberries

1/4 cup slivered almonds
2 chicken breasts, skinless
1 pear, ripe but firm
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, good quality
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 green onions, sliced
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
4 cups salad greens

1.    In a 6- to 8-inch frying pan over medium heat, stir nuts until golden, about 6 minutes. Let cool.

2.    Season chicken breasts with your favorite seasoning mixture and grill until cooked through.  Cut chicken into 1/4-inch-thick strips 2 to 3 inches long.

3.    Rinse pear and cut lengthwise into quarters. Trim core from each quarter and thinly slice quarters lengthwise.

4.    In a large bowl, mix vinegar and olive oil. Add cranberries, green onions, almonds, feta cheese, and salad greens. Mix gently to coat.

5.    Portion the salad onto plates and spread chicken slices and pear slices on top.  Serve.

ADVENTURES IN BACTERIAL INCUBATION: PHAGE 1

The yougurt kit arrived Thursday!  Smokin' fast eh?  I only ordered it late Monday night so I wasn't expecting it until Friday.  But yippee for me!  I really wanted to order it from a supplier located closer to me, preferably someone in California but the one place I found didn't have kits.  And since I didn't have an ounce of understand what the process of making yougurt involves, I didn't want to take my family's digestive system on a wild adventure and order what I thought I would need.  Especially since one of us wears diapers.  No, not Thor.  Not yet...

So I have my first batch of yougurt in the incubator now.  I used Clover organic milk and a greek yougurt as the starter.  Hopefully in about 6 hours we'll have yougurt.  It might take as long as 12 hours to incubate, but if that happens, it's toast.  I'm not staying up late to babysit it but a batch of curdling milk.  Should I have started the process early tomorrow morning when I'd have 12 hours to devote to nurturing developing prokaryotes?  Yes.   But I want to have yougurt tomorrow morning.  I want it now now now.

Here's the kit I got.  The yougurt is now nestled into the insulated canister you see in the center.  See the nosy little hand reaching for the thermometer?

I'll let you know tomorrow what develops.  Or what fails to develop.

MORNINGS AND MOTHERHOOD

They just don't go together do they?  Thor usually wakes up with Fia and watches cartoons with her and feeds her cereal with a banana.  I mean feeds her cereal AND a banana, not that he uses the banana to feed her cereal!  Thor is our of town.  That means Fia gets  a peeled banana and a bowl of dry cereal to eat on her own so mamma can slowly gain consciousness with her best friend, Columbia Supremo, while doing various and sundry internet researches.

My current is cooling the home.  Our neighbor has been thinking of installing a whole house fan.  It seems like a lot of work and contracting.  My parents have one and they use it every night to cool their house.  But it's loud.  There are quieter whole hou$e fan$ though. 

So through my research one of the common suggestions is to install a radiant barrier which is basically a high-quality sheet of aluminum foil backed with paper and sometimes sandwiched with insulating materials.  You just staple it to the rafters of your attic and it traps the heat between the foil and the roof.  One manufacturer states that it will only rasie the temperature of your roof shingles by a couple degrees.  It should block over 90% of the solar radiation entering the roof, which translates into a 50% reduction in temperature of the attic, which translates into a 10 degree drop in temperature in the second story.  Which is just about what I'm looking for, a cooler room temperature while Fia's going to sleep.

The best part?  It would only cost about $200 to do our attic.  That's a good deal since I have project money ear-marked for another crazy project...

LIVING ON THE EDGE or INCUBATING BACTERIAL CULTURES

Last year I tried my hand at making mozzarella after reading Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle".  Seriously folks, which nerdy food lover didn't try it after reading her book?  She probably single handedly double or tripled the sales of cheesemaking kits.  I thank her profusely for opening my eyes to a great little pleasure.  Especially if your going to make a caprese salad with homegrown tomatoes and basil.

But this year I need to try my hand at making fresh cheeses and fermented dairy products; chevre for cutting into thick slices, patting with breadcrumbs and pan frying before setting on a salad, fromage blanc for spreading on thick slices of toast, buttermilk for luscious buttermilk pancakes on Sundays, sour cream for taco Fridays, but mostly for yougurt.

Fia and I have been plowing through quarts of yougurt.  We use them in smoothies, topping with honey and fruit, and making lower fat salad dressings.  I just hate throwing out the containers.  The folks out in our neck of the woods do not recycle them so they end up in a landfill.  Trust me folks, I put enough crap in the landfill so this is one way I can ease up on Mother Earth.

Besides, shouldn't homeade yougurt just kick ass on the mass produced kind?  I guess we'll find out!  I ordered the Gourmet Kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company and hopefully it will be here soon.

When I told Thor about the kit he seemed fairly okay with it.  Then I described the incubator for the yougurt and he said that we probably shouldn't be making anything that requires incubation since it just doesn't seem safe to do at home.  I better start emailing the millions of people who are living dangerously and making their own yougurt.  Danger, Will Robinson...

WEATHER HOCUS POCUS

Okay, I'm not here to bag on weather forecasters.  Really, they seem like really nice people.  But I checked the forecast today because it felt a little humid this morning and I was curious to see how humid it was going to get.  Weather.com states that the high for my zip code is 73 degrees.  It also states that the current temperature is 85 degrees.  Couldn't they at least change the expected high so as not to look so flippin' wrong?

THE GARDEN: IT'S HERE!

Remember how our parents (yuck, and maybe now we) say "Money doesn't grow on trees"?  As though emphasizing the fact that money doesn't just magically appear from nowhere.  Well, I kinda get it now.  Stuff growing on trees is pretty darned magical.  And for most of my life I've taken it for granted that food just exists for my shopping pleasure.  Even having had a garden last year didn't stop me from growing complacent about just buying food.  You know, the funny part of that saying is that it's a teensy bit untrue.  Produce growing in the garden IS like money.  Hmm, there's even counterfeiters trying to pass off their Frankenfruit as the real thing...

I went to water the garden this morning and found a decent sized cucumber growing, about 4 inches long now.  Holy cow.  That wasn't there last week!  I'm still shocked and awed by the magical presence of fruits.  I mean come on.  You mean all I have to do is throw a plant in some relatively decent dirt, let the sun hit it and give it some water and it will feed me.  I'm still floored by the whole process.

Here's a few then and now pictures.  From June 30:

From July 14:

From June 30:

From July 14:

Here is a close up of the Roma tomatoes:

The cucumbers that are just itching to get in my belly:
  
The studly jalapenos patiently waiting for the prepubescent tomatoes to ripen so they can get married and make mad, passionate salsa together:

Needless to say, I'm thrilled that after my failure of trying to start from seed, waiting until well past spring to throw anything into the ground, and unknown quality of dirt that anything is growing.  On the downside, I have tomato seedlings popping up like freakin' weeds in the beds!  After all that work to try to start them from seed, they go an act like the Spears family and pop out youngin's like nobody's business!  I hate hate hate to pull them out and cut their little lives short.  But, the watermelons are busting up all over the place too.  Yeah, after I went and planted a few transplants this week.   I'm going to let them goahead and do their thang since I think they may mature and ripen after the other plants have had their fill.

Big yay:  I got the potatoes planted today.  We'll see if they take.  If so, Twice Baked Rosemary Gorgonzola Mashed Potatoes for everyone!!!!  I planted some Yukon Golds and German Butterballs.  Seriously, is there a better name for a potato?  Doesn't it make your stomach growl just reading it?

Buttah ball.  Buttah ball.  Buttah ball.  Try to remember to sit in the lotus position when you practice this mantra :)

ENCHILADAS SUIZAS

Do you suppose in Switzerland they have a dish called Fondue Mexicana?  Yes, I know there is queso fundido, but do the Swiss make their own version of what they think a Mexican Fondue is?  A quick google search failed to show a definitive reason why these yummy green enchiladas are considered Swiss, except that maybe swiss cheese is used in some recipes or that they are topped with a tangy white cream.  Whatever the reason, they are yummy!

Thor used to eat the Lean Cuisine version ALL. THE. TIME.  I never understood why because they looked kinda gross.  But then I tried them (in a restaurant) and saw the light.  They're lighter, tangy from the tomatillo sauce and have a bit of heat that I wasn't expecting.  Now we have them quite often.  For those of you who are lazy  like to be efficient, Ive found that I can make a large portion of the filling in advance and vaccum pack it and freeze it for future use.

There are quite a few recipes on the web and many variations, including using tomatillos, bell peppers, red tomatoes with green chiles, evaporated milk, Mexican Crema and of course, my favorite, canned enchilada sauce.  If you want to make the from scratch, Married...with dinner... has a recipe that sounds great.

If you want to be lazy efficient like me, let's go!  Shred some roasted chicken, chop green onions and cilantro, add shredded jack cheese and cheddar cheese (or whatever cheeses you have/like), add chopped black olives and mix everything together.  In order to keep these lighter, I heat the tortillas in the microwave to soften them for rolling.  I spoon a generous helping of sauce on the bottom of a glass baking dish along with a some jarred tomatillo salsa.  Then stuff, roll, and place your enchiladas in the dish, cover with more sauce (I use a LOT of sauce, I just love it), sprinkle with more cheese and sliced green onions.  Bake until heated through and finish under the broiler if you want your cheesy goodness to brown.

Again, trying to be healthier, I served these with back beans topped with a fresh made salsa: