Gotta Cook!

Whenever we are gone for four or five days, we are wild to start baking/stewing/souping/braising - and just plain making - again in the kitchen. Even if we have been staying places with kitchens so we can make some real food, we still come home raring to go.

I suppose part of this urge stems from how bare we leave our fridge when we head out. When we get home from a trip, the home made food "cupboard" is pretty bare. We are loath to grab something out at a restaurant. Didn't we just do that off and on for the past few days?

Today found us mad for making!

Lloyd with his fresh baked bread

Lloyd made his rustic whole wheat bread - a welcome all day project. A loaf for his mom, a loaf for a neighbor and two loaves for us to enjoy over the next few weeks.

And if you have fresh warm bread, what is better than soup? I got busy making a Scotch Oatmeal Soup - leeks, carrots, celeriac, a jar of our canned tomatoes, cabbage and a half cup of steel cut oats. It's hearty and tangy and perfect accompaniment for crusty bread! The recipe is from Dana Jacobi's 12 Best Foods Cookbook.

With the leftover celeriac from the soup, we made the Celery Root and Hash Brown Cake from Deborah Madison's Vegetable Literacy and paired it with some tasty leftover turkey and gravy for the family Thanksgiving yesterday.  We did like the celery pop but the greasiness of the hashbrowns - not so much!

Finally we had some pork shanks we wanted to braise today to use in another dish tomorrow. We find that the rich broth from the slow braised pork pairs perfectly with the winter root vegetable (leeks, fennel and cabbage) braise we make often. That recipe comes from Fine Cooking Magazine No. 18 from Dec 96/Jan 97. It's killer!

So that's our day of delectable makings.

Do ever feel that "gotta cook" urge after time away from the kitchen?

Late Fall Eating

We all enjoy the robust summer growing season that brings us a ton of fresh fruits and veggies throughout May-October. It's simple to make meals with the bounty.

Late fall and into winter are more challenging. But in many ways we find the food more interesting.

Many years ago, Steve Keune, offered a year round CSA. Lloyd and I thought it was the perfect time to challenge ourselves to eat with the seasons as much as possible. We had to be uber inventive as the winter closed in with all the root and "keeper" veggies. They took a starring role in our cooking.

We discovered it was easier than we expected to enjoy the vegetables we had available in late fall and early winter. And we got a little hooked on those humble roots in our eating. We have found ourselves in fall or winter CSA's ever since.

Harmony Valley CSA will be providing veggies through January for us this year. Squash, rutabagas, potatoes, onions, beets, brussel sprouts, cabbage, turnips, celeriac, carrots, parsnips, winter radish, sweet potatoes - these all become the stars of braises, stews, mashes, veggie roasts, soups and salads. We buy salad greens at the co-op. This year we are thinking about making sprouts to keep fresh healthy greens at our fingertips too.

Let me share a favorite recipe that lets rutabagas shine out. It's inspired by a recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone : Turnip or Rutabaga Puree with Leeks

Rutabaga/Potato Mash

• 2 small buttery potatoes (russet,  yukon gold, kennebac, yellow finn), peeled & chopped
• 1 medium rutabaga, peeled and chopped to about half the size of the potato chunks
• 1 medium leek, white parts only chopped
• splash of buttermilk 
• 1-2 T butter, depending on your taste
• S & P

Add water to cover veggies, some salt and simmer, partially covered 15-20 minutes or until tender. Drain the liquid. Mash the veggies with butter and buttermilk until smooth. Eat 'em up!

Cold weather coming? We are ready!

I Killed It!!!

Like many of you we have been making our own yogurt for years.

Our former CSA farmer on the eastern side of the state, Steve Keune, had shared a starter culture of mjölk or as it is more commonly known filmjölk about fifteen years ago. This creamy, slightly tangy yogurt-like dairy product is about the easiest way to make yogurt in the universe.

It cultures right on the counter! Add milk to a few tablespoons of the last batch, place it in a corner of the counter, unrefrigerated, and 24 hours later, you have a new batch. No heat, no timing, just yogurt. To keep it going it needs to be cultured weekly. We learned to make a pint of fresh mjolk weekly - enough to make a smoothie and use some for topping soups, stews and etc. We easily handled that amount and kept it fresh.

I shared my batches with plenty of friends and relatives over the years and, up until two weeks ago, only lost it once before in 2008. Steve provided me with another starter but I knew I better be ready in the future just in case it happened again. I couldn't keep depending on Steve now that I'm across state.

Around March, I noticed my culture getting weaker - a little more watery and a little less firm. I used whole milk and every couple of months half and half to boost its fat content to see if that would work. It was hanging in. I had some heavy cream for a recipe and thought, "I'm going to make a batch with that!" and see if I can add some muscle to the mjölk. The next morning, I found a completely broken yogurt. One sniff told me the tale. I killed it! A sniff of the cream told me why. It had turned and I hadn't noticed.

Filmjölk culturing on our old family highchair

Luckily, I had done my homework and checked the internet. There are a number of sites that sell starter cultures. I ordered two. When it arrived, we mixed the culture in a pint of fresh milk and put our baby by the specified 70-77F spot (a little tough during WI fall-towards-winter) near the pilot light on our gas fireplace. The instructions said it would culture within 12-48 hours.

We waited anxiously.

12 hours - still milk!

24 hours - still milk! (gulp)

36 hours - mjölk!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're back in business again. Today we had a delicious smoothie and started our weekly culturing again. Tomorrow morning, our fresh baby will be waiting  again!