Crustless Quiche

I cleaned out the fridge the other day and had some leftovers to use up - a bunch of wilting chard, two little strips of salted duck meat that I had to trim off when making prosciutto, heels of cheeses, etc. My first thought was quiche (it usually is), but with health, weight loss, and time concerns, I didn't want to make a crust for it. Thank heaven for crustless quiche.

It's good for you, it's delicious, and it's one of the easiest things you can make (especially in the field of pie). You can clean out your fridge and throw in whatever you have; even leftover broccoli would work. If you don't have time to caramelize the onions and your meat is already cooked (or you aren't using meat), just throw in some green onions or shallots. Quiche is so flexible!

CLEAN-OUT-THE-FRIDGE CRUSTLESS QUICHE
serves 4

2 Tbsp butter, divided
1 Tbsp olive oil
½ small onion, finely chopped
½ cup meat of your choice, cut into small cubes (optional)
1 ¼ cup grated medium cheese (cheddar, gouda, mozzarella, etc.), divided
1 bunch spinach, chard, or kale (washed, dried, and chopped)
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp flour (wheat or gluten-free)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 tsp dried)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried)
½ tsp Dijon mustard (optional)
¼ tsp nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
1 tsp paprika

Coat the inside of a pie plate or 9-10" casserole dish with 1 Tbsp butter, then spread ¼ cup cheese over the bottom. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 400 F.

In a small skillet, melt the remaining butter with olive oil on medium heat. Add the onion and saute until it starts to soften. Add the meat and continue cooking about 5 minutes or until onions are light golden and beginning to caramelize, and meat is cooked. (If the meat's already cooked, wait until the onions are done and then just stir it in.)

Meanwhile, dump the greens into the food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the remaining 1 cup cheese, eggs, milk, flour, herbs, mustard, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Pulse a few more times until everything is blended. Pour in the caramelized onions and meat, along with the butter and olive oil they cooked in, and give it a quick pulse or two just to stir. Pour into the prepared pie plate or casserole and spread out evenly. (It won't look very pretty. That's okay.)

Sprinkle the Parmesan and paprika over the top and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes or so (while you whip up a salad to go with it, perhaps) and cut into wedges for serving.

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Turkey-Leek Pie (with vegetarian option)

In the winter, I often make this vegetarian leek-artichoke pie with excellent results. Today I was craving it, and I had some leeks, but I didn't have any artichoke hearts. So I dug around in the fridge and improvised, taking the opportunity to use some of the huge gallon bag of turkey I had left over from Thanksgiving weekend (we froze most of it, but I had some I'd thawed this week). The result - even better than the original.

And with this crust, it's unbelieveably simple. You don't even have to roll the crust out or dirty up a bowl! It really is "easy as pie." Make it gluten-free with brown rice flour instead of wheat, if that's your thing.

To make it vegetarian, just leave out the turkey and throw in another cup of veggies - artichoke hearts are great, obviously, but so are potatoes or even beans. You could throw in some chunks of frozen tofu as well, and I was just thinking how good pine nuts would be. If you want to leave the egg out, just increase the milk to a full cup. This is a very flexible dish! And soooo comfort-foody. Just serve it with a salad for a delectable dinner.

TURKEY (OR VEGGIE) LEEK PIE
Serves 4-6

Crust:
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup unbleached white flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp milk
¼ cup olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

In a glass or metal pie plate, combine dry ingredients and whisk to blend. Add the milk and olive oil, then gently mix until it forms a dough. Use your hands to pat it into place over the bottom and sides of the pie plate. (A few tiny holes or rips are fine, just pinch them together if you can.) Set aside.

Filling:
1 Tbsp butter
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 large leek (or 2 smaller ones), white and light green parts, sliced & rinsed
1 cup kale (or spinach), rinsed and chopped
1 medium-sized turnip (or potato), diced small
1 cup cooked turkey (or chicken), diced
Salt & pepper to taste
Dash nutmeg
Fresh thyme (optional)
¾ cup milk
1 egg
2 Tbsp flour, any kind
½ cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese, divided

Melt the butter in a big saucepan or wok over medium-high heat, and add the garlic. Saute for a minute or two, then add the leeks, kale, and turnip. Stirring occasionally, cook until the leeks and kale begin to wilt. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and thyme if using. Add turkey and cook another minute or two more.

Whisk the egg into the milk, then add the flour and whisk to blend. Pour into the pot with the veggies and turkey, and stir for a minute until warm throughout. Take it off the heat.

Spread all but 1 Tbsp of the gorgonzola into the bottom of the pie crust. Pour the veggie mixture on top and smooth it out evenly. Sprinkle the remaining 1 Tbsp gorgonzola crumbs on top and bake for 30-40 minutes or until set firm. Let stand at least 5-10 minutes before serving.

Note: If you're pressed for time after work, you can make the filling and crust a day ahead and refrigerate them separately; then just dump in the filling and cheese and throw it in the oven when you're ready.

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Quiche: Delicious and Nutritious, and Dairy-Free!

Here's me on the last day of the Naturally Frugal Challenge, squeaking in my big entry at the last minute. But I have a decent excuse, besides the business and travel I've been up to this month! See, the idea of the contest is to come up with an all-natural, in-season entree (no problem there) without using dairy (eeeeep!).

I knew my entry would have to be a pie of some kind. So of course I set myself the ultimate challenge - can I make quiche without milk, including soymilk or almond milk, which might count as processed foods?

My first attempt, while edible and not too bad, was not a winning contest entry. Simply leaving the milk out of the quiche doesn't work, since the milk is what fluffs up the eggs and produces that light, melt-in-your-mouth texture. What did work, on my last attempt, was separating the eggs and beating the whites separately. Air is even lighter than milk, and it will fluff your quiche beautifully with only one extra step!

Also in the first attempt, I tried to make the quiche gluten-free and wholegrain by making a crust out of brown rice and eggs. It was decent, and I could've made it work, but it made the whole dish a bit heavy on the egg front, and to be honest I like a nice pie crust under my quiche. I do make an excellent gluten-free pie crust (the recipe is at my other blog), which has butter, but this time I used my regular whole wheat crust and tried it with coconut oil. It worked beautifully. You use whichever homemade, whole wheat or gluten-free pie crust you like for this one.

The result of all this experimentation was the Ultimate Autumn Quiche. A variety of seasonal ingredients play off each other so that each bite is a unique experience; sometimes it's fruity, sometimes it's warm and toasty, sometimes it's complex and spicy. The ingredients may look sweet, and it does have a pumpkin pie texture to it, but the eggs, spices, nuts, and arugula just perfectly balance the cranberry and apple. I will definitely make this for company at the first opportunity!

THE ULTIMATE AUTUMN QUICHE

1 frozen homemade pie shell
1 cup pumpkin puree
3 eggs, separated
¼ cup natural or homemade applesauce, unsweetened
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp Dijon mustard
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
⅛ tsp paprika
1 cup arugula, chopped
½ cup dried cranberries
¼ coarsely-chopped hazelnuts or pecans
1 Tbsp finely-chopped hazelnuts or pecans

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Leave the pie shell in the freezer for now.

Combine the pumpkin, egg yolks, and applesauce in a large mixing bowl and whisk thoroughly to blend. Add the nutritional yeast - you don't have to use it if you can't find it, but it does add a nice cheesy dimension - as well as the maple syrup, mustard, and spices. Whisk again until it's all evenly blended.

One at a time, stir in the arugula, dried cranberries, and coarsely-chopped nuts. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into the pumpkin mixture. Retrieve the pie shell from the freezer and carefully pour in the filling; sprinkle the finely-chopped nuts over the top.

Bake at 400 F for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 F and continue baking another 25-30 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Suggestion: If you have to have meat in your entree, this is an excellent use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Just add ½ cup diced turkey when you add the arugula, cranberries, and nuts!

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This is getting ridiculous.

It's been a busy time for me these days, which is why I haven't been blogging as much. It's been a busy time for the FDA too - the jackbooted thugs are out in droves once again, holding children at gunpoint, confiscating hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of inventory from small family farms, illegally stealing computers and office equipment without warrants, and generally doing what they do best, which is eliminating the competition for Big Ag.

The current target is raw dairy, and cheese in particular. It started with an illegal raid on the private food buying club Rawsome Foods in California. I'll let you read the article so I don't clutter this space by repeating information, but this baseless raid resulted in the (illegal) confiscation of certain raw cheeses produced by Missouri's Morningland Dairy. Those samples sat around for 30 days - a few months after leaving the dairy - and then one of them somehow tested positive for listeria even though none of the dairy's thoroughly-tested equipment was contaminated. No, I'm sure no one tampered with that sample...

So anyway, now the FDA is out to destroy Morningland Dairy. This tiny family farm has been prohibited from making or selling any cheese since August, and they've been ordered to destroy over $250,000 worth of product, which would completely put them out of business. For six weeks they were forced to dump their milk - remember, we live in a country where children are suffering from malnutrition in an economy that makes it difficult for many people to buy whole foods, and six weeks' worth of fresh milk is a lot of nourishment to feed the sewer. Eventually Morningland was permitted to sell the milk for pasteurized, homogenized distribution, which nourishes no one, may cause heart disease, and does not generate a significant profit for the dairy, but they take what they can get while the government holds them hostage.

Now they're after another farm, the Estrella Family Creamery in Washington state. Same shit, different day - the FDA shuts down the dairy and orders the destruction of massive amounts of high-quality cheese that carries no pathogens whatsoever, ostensibly because someday it might.

It should be noted that the Morningland Dairy has been in operation for over thirty years, and the Estrella Family Creamery for nearly ten, and not one person has ever been sickened by their award-winning cheeses. Can Kraft say the same?

It's worth contrasting the FDA's actions here with their handling of the recent salmonella outbreak at Umpqua Dairy, a pasteurized-homogenized industrial "milk" company here in Oregon (they sell their products at supermarkets throughout Oregon, Washington, and northern California). Back in August, the state of Oregon issued a press release warning that 23 people had been infected with salmonella as a result of consuming Umpqua's products. Two of them were hospitalized. If you're waiting to read about the FDA raiding and shutting down Umpqua in the name of public health, well, so am I. Instead, a voluntary recall was issued, and government officials bent over backwards to soothe the public about how low the risk of illness actually was.

It all makes you wonder what the FDA's true agenda is - public health, or industrialization? And it also makes me worry about the Food Safety Modernization Act, currently before the Senate. This act, designed by Monsanto's own Michael Taylor, would give the FDA unprecedented and unconstitutional powers and allow them to act completely without judicial oversight. This bill would spell death for organic farming, farmers' markets, and small local food. (Monsanto's own power and influence would also, of course, increase exponentially, delivering the last nail in the coffin of family farms.) As Hartke says of the FDA, "If they get more power through S.510, they will regulate the family farm and real food to death and give you Cheez Whiz and Twinkies as government approved food."

That's not what I want or need. Think hard when you cast your ballots next week, and remember - if we don't speak up for Morningland or the Estrellas now, who will speak up for us later?

UPDATE: As of today, it looks like Morningland is going to court. It also appears as though it is a crime in the state of Missouri to request justification before obeying a government order to commit suicide. This has terrifying implications for all Americans... whatever happened to due process?

Terrifying.

Well, I'm back. I've got some pleasant settling-in things to talk about, but first I need to mention the ever-increasing threat of the passage of the Senate's ironically-titled Food Safety Enhancement Act (what a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak).

Click this link to get the info.

Then call your Senators, your local newspaper, and all your friends and family. We need to raise holy hell over this. If EVER there was a time to step up and scream "NO!" - this is it.

Happy Times

Apropos of nothing: Here's a baby zucchini in my garden.

Apparently, I post on Sundays now. I keep meaning to post more often but man, I am SLAMMED! With work, and writing, and cooking, and of course, canning.

I'm up early today to put up some salsa verde before I go to work, and then we're heading to Sauvie Island for a 10 lb bag of pickling cucumbers to go with my 10 lb bag of beets. Half the beets are going to be pickled, and half will become beet relish. I also want to pickle some carrots, after nibbling some spicy pickled carrots yesterday...

Ahh, yesterday. Nearly a perfect day! We started out at the farmers' market for a nice long breakfast and some lingering shopping. I treated myself to a cup of lucious French press coffee, and a transcendent caprese salad - juicy, candy-sweet cherry tomatoes, halved and mixed with fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and torn chunks of a gloriously salty crusted baguette, all tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Unholy.

After we loaded up on fresh produce - OH MY G-D, the tomatoes are FINALLY in at a reasonable price! - we took a little walk downtown and browsed through Powell's Books, the world's largest independent bookstore, and then I went to work. Decent day there, and when Keith picked me up, we headed up to Mt. Tabor (Portland's volcano) for a brief hike; we left Mt. Tabor for The Moon & Sixpence, our favorite British pub, for dinner over the newspaper and the crossword. And then we saw the new Todd Solondz movie, Life During Wartime, which I've eagerly anticipated for over a year. All told, a fabulous day.

Does mean I have to catch up on the canning though, and I've also got some extra cream I skimmed off our raw milk, so tonight I'll be whipping up some butter. Now's when I miss having a food processor - it's so easier to make butter with one - but I'll get by.

Gotta love a weekend that is this pleasant AND enjoyable.

Unbelievable. (Well, it's not, but it SHOULD be.)

I just read this post about corruption in the dairy industry, and watched the videos there at the link. Most riveting was the second video, which I found so compelling I'm sharing it here:



If you do nothing else today, WATCH THIS VIDEO. It's the most enlightening ten minutes you'll spend. And, though it probably shouldn't be, it's shocking. I'm not the least bit surprised that Monsanto knew about the harmful effects of bovine growth hormone and its other drugs, nor am I surprised that the corporate media covered it up. But the lengths that corporate media will go to, and that the government will go to, to aid and abet the deliberate poisoning of our population (especially children)... well, I don't have a strong enough word.

And make sure you stay tuned for the ending.

Interesting that Canada, the UK, and the rest of the civilized world has banned the use of bovine growth hormone (known as rBST) in dairy production because it causes cancer and a host of other harmful effects. But in *this* country, we have a government that not only permits rBST, but encourages it, and penalizes those who avoid it.

Case in point: Dairy farmers who wanted to label their milk as being "rBST Free" were BANNED from doing so by the FDA, after Monsanto's lawyers and lobbyists objected to the honest labels. Dairies are now free to use the "rBST Free" label, but they have to include the disclaimer, "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST treated cows" - in other words, they're required to lie on their own packaging. And who wrote the disclaimer? Why, that would be Michael Taylor, then-FDA Deputy Policy Commissioner, who was one of Monsanto's attorneys before he joined the FDA, and who returned to Monsanto's employ when his "service" at the FDA was done.

Monsanto is now lobbying aggressively at the state level to ban "rBST Free" labels so that consumers are unable to choose. They're pretty threatened about this issue, since consumers have voiced their preferences so loudly that many sellers have stopped using or offering dairy treated with rBST - Tillamook Dairy, Ben & Jerry's, and Starbucks banned rBST, as did Kroger, Publix, and Safeway, and even Wal-Mart's generic brand of milk is rBST Free. So Monsanto is losing money here, most definitely, and they're sending out their most vicious dogs to corral the herd. And the FDA is one of those dogs.

Moral of the story: You cannot trust federal regulators with the safety of your food. Monsanto is working overtime to destroy our options, to render us dependent on their poisons, and to purchase our government and media. Check those labels, and keep your eyes open, and don't let the dogs herd you into the corral. That corral is attached to a slaughterhouse.

Article: "Sour Milk"

I just had to share this article:

Sour Milk:
Big-box dairy farms bring manure and misery to some Central New York communities
by Rebecca Lerner

This is an excellent illustration of the destruction wrought by factory farming, even on those who aren't participating in it. The next time you reach for a package of mass-produced cheese or milk (hey look, it's only $1.99!), think of this story.

Good Feeling, indeed!

OH MY G-D THERE'S A BIG HOT BALL OF LIGHT IN THE SKY!! What the hell is that thing?! It reminds me of something I've seen before, long ago, but I can't quite remember what...

I looked it up, and it is SUNNY today! For the first time in what feels like ages. Yesterday was rainy and chilly, and out of nowhere today it's bright and sunny with a high of 81. Keith left for another work trip this morning, so I was up before dawn to make him biscuits for the road, and he dropped me off at the Tik-Tok Cafe so I could get a bit of writing done. I was there just over two hours before I'd had all the coffee I could handle, and then I started out on a nice hour-long walk home.

The sun came out as I was walking - it was a chill morning - but once I lost the hoodie it was a really pleasant walk. It was great to see everyone out and about for once. A man was washing his truck, kids were running around, lots of people were out gardening. And that's what I'm on my way out to do, too.

But first I had to fortify, and I did that with a kefir smoothie. I've gotten really into kefir lately; the name comes from the Turkish word for "good feeling," which is appropriate because it does always seem to elevate my mood for a bit. It originated centuries ago in the Caucasus, where shepherds would carry milk in leather bags with kefir grains to culture and preserve it; the cultured drink is still popular in Eastern Europe.

Kefir is incredibly easy to make as the cultures do all the work. I just stir the kefir grains (which are colonies of beneficial bacteria and yeasts glued together in the proteins and other stuff that they make) into some raw milk and leave it sitting out on the counter for a day or two, giving it a quick swirl every so often, and then I strain the grains out and let the kefir finish ripening in the fridge for another day.

It has a sharp taste, kind of like yogurt but sharper and better, and it's not thick like yogurt - it's more like buttermilk, but with a better flavor. It's even better for you than regular milk, since the kefir grains convert the lactose into folic acid and other nutrients, and that conversion of the lactose aids digestion and loads the body up with antioxidants. Kefir may also lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol levels, and boost the immune system.

But even more important, it's tasty, especially when sweetened with a little raw honey (woohoo, more nutrients!) and fruit. I like to add peanut butter to mine too, just to boost the protein and heart-healthy fats. Sometimes I add flaxmeal to make it even more nutritious. It's really hard to believe that something this healthy can be so delicious; a smoothie of kefir, peanut butter, banana, and honey (in the picture above) tastes more like dessert than breakfast, but without all those funky-feeling refined sugars. It just makes you feel good all through, especially when you're sipping it by the window as you bask in all that glorious, uh... what's that word? Oh yeah! Sunshine!

Nights of Wine and Roses (and healthy bread)

Last night it was raining again, and neither of us really felt like a big meal. I was craving bread, which we've been trying to avoid lately, so I gave in and threw together a wholegrain maple-oat quickbread.

I love our porch. It has a clear roof on it, so we can sit on our porch and stay dry while we watch the rain. Our porch is screened from the street by a dense thicket of red roses, so when we sit out there in the evening, it's like being wrapped up in roses and rain, with the fresh floral scent and heavy music from the roof all around us.

There's also a table and some chairs out there, so we had our supper on the porch last night. We had the wholegrain bread with sliced radishes, pickled garlic, asiago cheese, and smoked bleu cheese. And of course, a nice little shiraz. The bread was still hot from the oven and really brought out the flavors in the cheeses... it was a good meal to linger over.

This bread is super-easy to make yourself (I adapted it from this recipe). It's a good base, so add whatever you want to it. You could add dried fruit and nuts, or seeds, or wheat berries, anything. I'm going to try it with gluten-free flour soon and see how it works as a gluten-free bread. It seems pretty flexible!

WHOLEGRAIN QUICKBREAD

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup flaxmeal
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 scant cup milk
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Lightly oil a baking sheet or cover it with parchment paper.

Chuck all the dry ingredients into a bowl, just as is. Whisk it together with a fork. Pour the milk into a measuring cup, add in the olive oil and maple syrup, and whisk them together too. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, mix it up with that fork until evenly blended, and spoon it all out onto the cookie sheet in a big rounded pile. Pat it into a round, even loaf with your hands and stick it in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes or until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

This is by far the easiest bread I have ever made, and it's delicious. You can use honey instead of maple syrup, soy/rice milk instead of cow's, a nut flour instead of the flaxmeal (but the flaxmeal is so good for you!), add those seeds, nuts, fruit, etc... go crazy with it.

Just make sure you enjoy it on the porch. It goes best with a rainy evening.

Easy like Sunday morning...

So Saturday was pleasant and sunny and warm, the first non-rainy day for 20 days straight in Portland...

...so of course, as we lay in bed Sunday morning, we woke up to the heavy beat of rain on the skylights. Everything was soaked again. It's a good thing we got in our yard work and beach time when we did on Saturday.

Sunday morning we slogged out into the rain and mud for the first day of the Lents International Farmers' Market. The turnout wasn't great, but we made some purchases (mustard greens, a bundle of baby leeks, some radishes, asparagus for a high school wrestling team). Soaked and muddy, we changed back into our pajamas as soon as we got home, and lingered over the crossword together as we had breakfast.

We spent most of the day taking it easy, with the windows open so we could hear the rain, and I made raw ice cream, which was amazing. Raw milk, raw cream, our backyard eggs, real vanilla, those little fresh bananas, and the strawberries we'd picked on Sauvie Island the day before... it's a bit less creamy than I'd like, so next time I'll use less milk and more cream, but otherwise it was perfect. Tons of fruit flavor, not a lot of sugar, that sweet raw dairy, and all the good fats and nutrition intact! THAT is "guiltless ice cream," not that tasteless chemical crap they sell at the store. It's nice to indulge in a lovely dessert and not feel the least bit of worry over the consequences. Here's the recipe:

RAW STRAWBERRY-BANANA ICE CREAM

2 pints strawberries, washed, hulled, & halved
4 small bananas, mashed
3/4 cup sugar, divided
2 pastured eggs
2 c raw milk*
2 c raw cream
1 Tbsp vanilla

* In retrospect I would reduce this to 1 cup milk.

Mash the strawberries in a big mixing bowl, then stir in 1/4 cup sugar. Set aside and let it macerate for 30 minutes to an hour, so that the sugar dissolves and pulls all the juice out of the crushed berries. Stir in the bananas and mash it all up some more together. Set aside.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl with a mixer, going on medium-low speed until the eggs foam up. Beat in the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, a little at a time, until it all thickens up. Mix in the remaining ingredients, then stir in the fruit and transfer it all to your ice cream freezer to let 'er rip. This makes about 2 quarts.

Anyway, Sunday night dinner was awesome too - did you know that you can stuff steak? I had a lovely flank steak, which I marinated in soy sauce and olive oil with a bit of molasses and garlic, and I cut a deep pocket into it while it marinated. I stuffed it with some barley that I cooked with sage and some other spices, as well as carrot and green onion, and then slow-roasted the whole shebang. It was perfect! We will definitely be doing barley-stuffed steak again. I served it with the asparagus we'd gotten at the farmers' market, steamed up with some lemon, and a nice red wine. Perfect for a rainy Sunday:



Yesterday was much less peaceful, got the house clean finally (the one thing I miss about apartment living is getting all the cleaning done in two hours) and got caught up on bills and all the mundane welcome-back-to-life stuff. And now, we're officially caught up and back home. We took a nice walk to His Bakery this morning and read the paper over breakfast (a lemon-ginger scone for him, a pecan cinnamon roll for me). Keith's been doing yard work, since it's mercifully not raining yet, though it looks like it wants to. I'm about to go munch on some leftover blackeyed peas and cornbread (which we had with mustard greens for dinner last night) and get some writing in. It's all so mundane but I love that it's all getting back to normal.

We're Home! (A Very Portland Weekend.)

Oh man, am I exhausted! But it's the good kind.

We made it from L.A. to Portland in one 18-hour day, including a stop for lunch at a decent little pizzeria in Northern California, and a trip to a kitchen goods outlet store, which is a dangerous place for us to be but we scored a great deal on a salad spinner I really wanted and a very nice ice cream maker at half the retail price. Yay for homemade ice cream! We've really wanted an ice cream maker for some time now so that we can make our own deliciousness out of raw milk/cream and good organic fruits and herbs. Coincidentally we also scored ten bananas for fifty cents at our little produce market here in Portland yesterday, so it looks like banana ice cream is first up (though more on that later)!

Anyway, we also made the obligatory stop in Central Point, Oregon, for Rogue Creamery cheese and Lillie Belle chocolates, plus a very pleasant wine tasting. So we weren't in the car for the full 18 hours. But we were still pretty exhausted by the time we got in, about 10:30 pm. We loved on the cats some and passed out.

Since then it's been a flurry of catching up. Portland has suffered through a pretty massive rain in our absence, yesterday being the last day of a twenty-day run of straight rain. This is typical of winter around here but not summer, and no one knows why it happened. The most noticeable effect of it all was evident even as we pulled into our driveway in the dark: an explosion of roses, and knee-high weedy grass. Oops.

So we had mowing and weeding and staking roses to get through, plus unpacking, laundry, straightening up, restocking chick feed, restocking people feed, marveling over the chicks' incredible growth, and otherwise restoring the balance. We've been hard at work and still aren't done yet. I hope to finish tomorrow.

But today was Saturday, so we went to Sauvie Island for the afternoon. We made a stop at Kruger's Farm for fresh-picked, candy-sweet roasted corn, then headed for the beach, where we waded through thigh-high flooding to get to a narrow strip of sand along the swollen, fast-moving river. After so much rain ending in a sunny warm Saturday, all of Portland was out enjoying the weather today, but our strip of beach wasn't too crowded and we soaked up some vitamin D and relaxed for awhile. Eventually we headed back to Kruger's Farm to pick ourselves five pints of strawberries.

We got home sun-tired and woozy, but hungry, so I quickly seared and roasted a fresh salmon filet we bought yesterday (with fresh rosemary from the yard), and served it up atop a lovely salad of red lettuce, green onions, red turnips, sunflower seeds, and smoked bleu cheese. A lemon vinaigrette held it together nicely, made with a lemon from Keith's father's lemon tree (that tree makes the sweetest, juiciest, tastiest lemons I've ever had). The salmon was so perfectly moist and flaky, and went so nicely with the smoked bleu cheese, that we both just sat at the table quietly licking our lips like cats for several minutes before Keith got up to do the dishes.

I was going to make the banana ice cream tonight, but I'm just too freaking tired right now to skim the cream off the three half-gallons of raw milk we have in the fridge, much less cook up the custard and make ice cream. So I'll save that for tomorrow. It'll be a good day for it, since tomorrow is the first day of the Lents International Farmers Market (our favorite market in Portland, and also our closest one)! We'll have to celebrate with strawberry-banana ice cream now since we picked all those strawberries. Maybe we got too many, but they were so brilliantly red and sweet, still warm from the sun - I could've picked the whole field and brought it home.

Joel Salatin on the Revolution

I just had to share this article - actually an excerpt from Joel Salatin's foreword to The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights. If you don't know Joel Salatin yet, you should - and if you know me, then you know him, because I admit to devoted fellowship in the First Church of Salatin, Farmer. I know I talk about him a lot. Have been ever since seeing him in Food, Inc. and reading his groundbreaking, revolutionary book Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.

It's not just his farming technique, it's his worldview, his classically American belief in liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Joel Salatin is at the forefront of a movement which recognizes that a corporate-controlled government oligarchy is NOT equipped to decide what we should eat, how we should conduct free enterprise among neighbors, or how we should nourish our families. I'll raise a glass of my grey-market, life-affirming raw milk to that philosophy - especially as Congress moves forward on current legislation which would effectively ban organic farming and farmers' markets (yes, really).

So anyway, the article. I can't repost the whole thing here, so click the link to read it.

I drink raw milk (sold illegally on the underground market)
by Joel Salatin

Excerpt:

Isn't it curious that at this juncture in our culture's evolution, we collectively believe Twinkies, Lucky Charms, and Coca-Cola are safe foods, but compost-grown tomatoes and raw milk are not? With legislation moving through Congress demanding that all agricultural practices be "science-based," I believe our food system is at Wounded Knee. I do not believe that is an overstatement...

Indeed, what good is the freedom to own guns, worship, or assemble if we don't have the freedom to eat the proper fuel to energize us to shoot, pray, and preach? Is not freedom to choose our food at least as fundamental a right as the freedom to worship?

Is it not, indeed. Jackbooted government thugs are harassing Amish farmers like Daniel Allgyer and Emmanuel Miller while Monsanto contaminates our groundwater and other corporations infect our children with E. coli and diabetes. And Congress, predictably, comes down on the side of its corporate sponsors.

Joel Salatin is right, we are absolutely at Wounded Knee. Voting out the incumbents and casting real votes for freedom this November, that's not just about taxes or Obamacare or who looks better on TV. This election is about our very survival, our fundamental right to choose nourishing, life-sustaining foods. There's nothing more basic, or more important, than that.

Lana's Got Real Eggs!

Nine fertilized eggs! For only $3. What a nice lady!

We drove out to the country east of town this morning to pick up our raw milk, then dropped it off at home and headed out for an hour in the opposite direction for fertilized eggs. It was a nice morning for driving out to the country; we woke up on our own just before dawn anyway, so we got a scone at His Bakery and began our day. There was a thick milky fog all morning, and it was chilly, but in that springtime early-morning way that lets you know it'll be beautiful later. Sure enough, it's now 12:30 and the sun is shining over a gorgeous day.

So we got our fertilized eggs for broody Lana to sit on - we got three Australorp eggs, four Cuckoo Marans (including one frizzle!), one half-Australorp and half-Blue Cochin, and one little bantam egg from a tiny mutt hen. When we got them home, I put on a heavy glove and slipped each one carefully underneath Lana, who was less than thrilled to have me reaching into her nest. She pecked and bit the glove, clucked and screeched with anger, but never moved from her nest. And now she's settling over those eggs and warming them up to grow baby chicks!



If all goes as it should, we expect the eggs to hatch over the weekend of April 9-11. We're planning a little jaunt to Ashland for the 11th, so hopefully the chicks come on the sooner side, but either way I'm confident Lana will handle them just fine. She's already such a protective mother! (And now she has nine real eggs and two fake ones to defend - quite the clutch for our Mama Hen.)

We also passed a nursery on the way home from the farm, and stopped because the sign bragged of Walla Walla onion starts. I can't resist - those sweet sweet onions are my absolute favorite in the summer, especially caramelized on the grill - so we got two big bunches of them and I'll plant them in the backyard later.



But I'm not planting them today! This afternoon we have our first BBQ of the season. A couple of Keith's work friends are dropping by before they leave for L.A. (they were in town shooting over the weekend) so we're dusting off the grill. Chicken with the cherry-chipotle BBQ sauce I put away in the freezer last summer, roasted veggie chips, salad with a salted lemon dressing, and homemade pickles from last summer too. For dessert, I'm making Jamie Oliver's rhubarb fool (it's stewed rhubarb layered with a vanilla-orange-honey sweetened yogurt and baked cinnamon puff pastry slices). And I'm juicing Meyer lemons for a honey-sweetened lavender lemonade. Photos and a rundown tomorrow, probably!

Saturated Animal Fats: To Your Health!

I just came across this excellent article (click to read). It explains how it happened when, after thousands of years of consuming delicious saturated fats such as butter, we in the USA suddenly decided that those fats were unhealthy and should be discarded in favor of hydrogenated trans fats and other solidified oils. Even after heart disease became the #1 killer, and the original researcher discovered a massive flaw in her own work and tried to correct it, we stuck with the margarine myth for decades.

Of course, the article never mentions the one really serious flaw in margarine, the one that's worse than heart disease: It tastes like ass. Sorry, but it does. I don't know anyone who's ever said, "You know what this dish REALLY needs to enrich the flavor? A big glop of hydrogenated vegetable oil!" In fact, one of the first discoveries I made when I first began cooking in my teens came when I realized that you could use less fat and get more flavor with a small knob of butter. The margarine was so blegh that you had to use huge scoops of it just to get a faint hint of artificial butter flavor. Give me just a little pat of real butter any day!

So I enjoyed reading that over my coffee-and-raw-milk this morning, and now I'm off to clean the house and make our Shabbos dinner (game hens, root vegetable mash, and turnip/kohlrabi greens tonight, perhaps with fresh wheat rolls). First, though, I'm actually proceeding with plans I had before this article - whipping up some tasty animal fats for cooking!

The raw milk we buy is obviously not homogenized, so I typically make butter with the cream. However, today I'm going to make clotted cream with it instead! I grew up reading about clotted cream (typically on scones with jam) in British novels as a kid, though I didn't really know what it was. I've still never had it, though it sounds delicious, so I'm making it today. In the morning I think I'll whip up some traditional English scones and serve them with clotted cream and jam, and maybe tea instead of coffee for once, just to keep it authentic.

Today's cooking adventure that most excites me, though, is schmaltz. I've always heard that schmaltz, known to gentiles as "rendered chicken fat," makes a better cooking fat than butter. I've been idly thinking of making my own schmaltz for several months now, but this week our local paper actually did an article on cooking with various animal fats, and they included a recipe for schmaltz! So I take that as a sign, and I'm going to raid the freezer for all the chicken skin and fat trimmings (the ones the dog didn't eat) and see about getting schmaltzy.