Real Milk

I'm not sure I can express fully what I'm learning in a new book I picked up, called Real Food, or if it's really time for me to share it before I've finished reading, but as my husband can attest to, I'm full to bursting with astonishing new ideas.

I've only read the first part, which is basically about the true nature of milk. Even with a healthy dash of skepticism it's amazing stuff. I've never seen or tasted "real" milk -- raw milk -- and, unappealing as it sounds to my pasteurized, homogenized soul, I can't throw out all the author's claims since I've only ever seen industrial factory milk, not farm milk. And she does make some really far-out magical claims, but they're so fascinating...

I'll have to let you know how it goes. Two other things about reading this book: I bought my first free-range eggs and sausage (triple the price of regular, I won't be doing that very often), though I haven't tasted them yet; and second, it makes me hungry every single time I read. Very dangerous...

And neither here nor there, I wish I had known years ago how absolutely easy and delicious homemade cranberry sauce was. No more canned ever. The recipe was just written on the package, and I finally bothered to look! Bring 1 cup each water and sugar to boil, add 3 cups fresh (or frozen) cranberries, and simmer for 10 minutes. So easy, and fun to watch the berries pop and mush and turn such a cool neon color as they cook.

End Results: Magic!

Usually the end results I'm referring to on this blog are directly edible, but today I'm rejoicing in something a little different, the result of a year -- or possibly a year and a half, it's been a while -- of weeding and paring and raking and chopping. Almost all of the vegetable offal of our lives has gone into our compost heap, and today I finished shoveling the huge pile back onto our garden plot.

I often joke to Scott that we're pulling one over on California, stealing all their nutrients to put into our own garden. During the winter, just the rinds of all the oranges we eat would likely fill the wheelbarrow more than once. Of course truthfully, most of what goes into that moldy, rotting pile is probably the weeds I pull from good ol' Delaware soil; yet it still amazes me that most of what Americans don't eat goes into the dump or down the garbage disposal. For his part, Scott is so obsessed with not wasting any organic matter that he brings me home his apple cores from work for the kitchen compost bin.

And it turns into something magical. There's no other word for it. What goes in is smelly, often slimy, and multi-colored; what comes out is rich, luxurious, black dirt. Our pile is "slow", not "hot", meaning that it takes a long time to turn the garbage into dirt and it doesn't heat up and essentially cook all the bad weed seeds and germs and such. So when I finally managed to get the thick plastic unwedged from around its huge bulk, the top third or so was still visibly pine needles and carrot peelings. Once I removed that, though, I got 4 or 5 wheelbarrows so full of dirt I could barely lift them. I succeeded in staggering the few feet over to the weed patch -- oops, I mean garden -- and dumping them.

At our local garden center they sell relatively small bags of something called "Gardener's Gold", which is basically compost soil. I don't remember exactly how much they go for (a fair amount) and don't know how much they hold compared to a wheelbarrow full, but my guesstimate is that we got $100 worth of dirt out of that pile this weekend.

Not bad for a bunch of cantaloupe seeds and cabbage cores.

Sourdough Pancakes

I promised someone our sourdough pancakes recipe, so here it is:

1 ½ c. flour

1 ½ c. whole wheat flour

Heaping ½ c. powdered milk

¾ c. sourdough starter

3 c. water

3 T. vinegar

3 eggs

3/8 c. oil

3 T. sugar

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Combine first six ingredients in medium bowl. Cover and let stand an hour or refrigerate overnight. Combine eggs and oil in smaller bowl. Add to medium bowl and stir till blended. Stir in remaining ingredients and let stand for 5 minutes before cooking. Makes about 3 dozen.

(Note: powdered milk amount is for the fine Church-cannery milk only. You can swap out the powdered milk and water for just 3 c. liquid milk if necessary.)

Lawnmower Soup

This week we ate:

Caldo Verde (somewhat affectionately known when I was growing up as lawnmower soup, though to be fair it contained much more greens and they were chewier kale rather than spinach);

Chicken-rice bake and carrots (which I burned, unfortunately);

An experimental pork and vegetable curry with cilantro and turmeric, next time not so much turmeric;

Pasta with pesto, along with a marvelous vegetable gratin;

Homemade pizza night (mushrooms, spinach and pepperoni on the grown-ups' pizza);

and a leftover night on Halloween, which basically ended up being Scott and I eating more curry while the kids subsisted on candy. Surprise surprise.

The family votes on best food this week? The caldo verde was the hands-down winner, with NO leftovers and no person declining to eat it. The vegetable gratin came in second, with only one child eating off the herb-cheesy-breadcrumb topping and leaving the cauliflower, broccoli and carrot medley untouched, and most everyone else asking for seconds.