Making Butter with a Toddler

I am proud to say I always knew that margarine was a hoax.

Freshly made butter. Pillowy and white. Cool fat lingering on the tongue. Sweet undertones. Soft like a baby’s cheek. Clean cream. Who can offer such encomiums for that nasty ole margarine?

Churning butter is for me a social activity. My great-grandmother had a simple wooden churn. The pole (churner, is it?) was the sort of smooth wood that satisfies the hand so certainly enticing you to continue handling it. The pole, tethered to the wall by a loop of twine, was to be turned and turned and turned.

There I would sit, toes fiddling against the stone floor. My great-grandmother was had a sort of ease and confidence; she spoke her mind and lost friends accordingly. She embraced and nourished childish caprices unlike any other adult in my childhood. She was a woman who felt that tiny, tiny masala dosas, fantastic stories and as much Bournvita as I could drink were important parts of any childhood. And, most importantly she spoke to me. She asked me. She heard me. At seven, those were credentials of an amazing adult. So, at that churn, we talked. Lord knows what I told her. My plans for archiving my sticker collection? My love of Duran Duran? My belief that Esprit was the height of fashion? It didn’t matter—she talked with me. And, in return I heard her. She told me stories of my mother’s childhood, about God and religion, about food, about life. I heard her and even seventeen years after she passed away, I still hold onto her.

Without a butter churn, sure you can whip out your stand mixer. (bad puns are my bread and butter...) But, there is something so industrial and antisocial about that. You can also fill a mason jar 1/3 full of whipping cream (not half and half) and shake, shake, shake senora. For little hands, use a small jar or a baby food jar. It turns to butter when the buttermilk separates. That butter milk is yum straight or good for mashed potatoes or biscuits. After the butter is finished, salt to taste and store in nice cold water. Or lick it from the jar.

Set up a youtube playlist and dance. Make sure to do it with a buddy and make sure to take the time to share a few stories.



The butter was delicious on homemade bread from Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio. My husband has scooped up the copy and claims it is a wonderful book. If I could sneak it away from him, I am sure I would agree. Ruhlman was kind enough to send me a copy for my entry to his BLT contest. Thanks Michael.

This is my entry for IFR: Memories by Manisha at Indian Food Rocks.

Pickled Baby Carrots

Waiting….

Waiting….

You might not realize this but I am a wisp of a person. I hit 5 foot 3 only on days humid enough to give my hair extra lift. I am the sort of gal who can shop in Gap Kids. But husband on the other hand is a bit shy of 6 feet and has the build of someone who played football in high school. (He didn’t—he was an art nerd.)

With each pregnancy, I take on the appearance of a young sapling taken over by an enormous gall. People see me walking around and wonder how I can keep all that baby up. Luckily, pregnancy turns me into a weeble-wobble—I can’t fall down.

With my last pregnancy there was the fear that my body wouldn’t make it 40 weeks as an incubator. Everyone said, oh you will go early; you will never make it your due date; you are having THAT baby early. With Belle, I was a couple weeks early. Not scary early, just early enough to rescue me from the terrible nausea and illness that typifies pregnancy for me.



But as one of those wonderful aphorisms goes, “Every pregnancy is different.” While people are still amazed by my girth—many woman at work have kindly told me that you are HUGE!, this baby shows no sign of budging. I am now just a few days before my due date and after ages of Braxton hicks, I am still just waiting. After weeks of being careful to conserve calories to help the baby, I am imagining taking long walks, eating spicy food and doing jumping jacks to help get things going. But frankly, I am still too nauseous to walk or to do any of those things.

There is another old wives tale about nesting—as soon as you start nesting and are in the middle of things getting settled you go into labor. You basically run to the hospital with the house half cleaned, the mop still in the water bucket.

While I am not one to mop the floors ever (my husband is much neater than I), I thought pickling might be a sort of nesting thing. I don’t mean to say I went through the whole 9 yards and pickled 17 gallons of anything, but I did make a small batch of pickled carrots. Putting things by seems like an age-old form of nesting.



We have plenty of baby carrots from Snake Hill Farm and some homegrown spicy peppers. I wasn’t organized enough to write down the recipe—but basically equal parts water and vinegar, salt, sugar, cumin seeds, homegrown dill weed, and mustard seeds.

This is my entry to One Local Summer for this week and for Grow Your Own hosted by Amy of Playing and started by Andrea of Andrea's Recipes.

It didn’t seem to help budge the baby at all—so I spent the rest of the day standing up cooking. Maybe a fridge full of cheesecake bites will start labor… well, if she doesn’t come I will post those next.

Royal Foodie Joust: Duck Bacon Salad

RFJ time again. And, I was planning to abstain as work has been crazy. But, last month's winners from [eating club] vancouver are two of my favorite bloggy people so I felt obligated...

My entry was time consuming but easy

Coffee, blackpepper and honey duck bacon served on a salad of arugula, carrot and grapefruit dressed with a siracha, honey and blackpepper viniagrette (the title was a couple characters too long to fit in the title slot of the post.)

Basically, make the duck bacon the day before the party. I followed a recipe from epicurious, but changed it slightly. Then make the dressing just before the party, and dress at the absolute last minute.

Recipes
Duck Bacon
Marinate 1 duck breast in:
3 T Major Greys
3 T Honey
15 black peppercorns crushed
1.5 cups coffee
.5 cups water
.5 cups oil
1/3 cup jaggery
2 1/2 tablespoons Insta Cure No.1

After 15 hrs or so, drain the marinade, pat the breast dry, score the flesh and then smoke.

Slice very, very thin. Serve on salad with shaved carrots and grapefruit (or eat from the fridge.)


Siracha, honey and blackpepper viniagrette
(this is really an approximation)
Mix 1 T sriacha with 1 T honey and microwave for 30 second

Add sea salt and plenty of crushed black pepper

1/2 cup or less grapefruit juice

Drizzle in grapeseed oil while whipping.

Blackberry Tammy Collins

While I love autumn, I always get wistful for the warm long days of summer. Eating bushels of tomatoes is a one way to hold onto the warmth, but for me summer is about fruit. Pies, jams, sandwiches, pasta, pizza, salad, curry, kimchi all get made with fruit. But, at the end of summer, I also turn to alcohol. That came out wrong...nevermind. I have been making infused vodkas.

The latest was red currant vodka. I was in an infusing phase a while ago. The last of these was red currant vodka which only takes fresh red currants, vodka, and time. The result was only vaguely curranty--so ended up not being the best use of those lovelies, but alas.

I used this vodka to make a Blackberry Tammy Collins following White on Rice Couple's Tom Collins as a guide. These were delicious and addictive. And as it is Friday, have a couple with dinner tonight. I might.

Red currant jelly

Currants are expensive. And, yet, they are like living jewelry. Their color is so appealing; one of those colors that you might love to capture and view always in your walls or clothing but can’t. That is of course due to the way each little jewel captures and refracts the light like an unfaceted gem. And, so, I bought a few boxes. I let them sit in the fridge for fear that I would misuse my precious bounty. They sat in the fridge for a while like some prom-queen turned wallflower. Finally, guilt got me into action and we sprang forth with many recipes. (And, eventually, I have begun to post them.) The jelly seemed a natural. It didn’t make much. Enough for some cupcakes, a cocktail (yes), and a couple breakfasts. Basically, I cooked my lovelies with equal parts sugar, strained, and then added a smidge pectin and waited for it to set. delish.

Rhubarb Jam

Sugarlaws had a lovely rhubarb jam on their site, so with the last of the rhubarb for the year, I decided to make jam. I followed her lead, but I added some strawberries. (Hence the much deeper color.)

I was good enough that I just ate it out of the jar. I should also say, I halved the recipe--how much jam can one family eat?

Cherry Preserves of Three Sorts

In a whirlwind this afternoon, after three days as a lotus eater, I set to preserving all those cherries I bought. I wanted to make the sour cherry kumquat marmalade that I read about at Hill Trash, but alak the kumquats were too expensive.

So instead, I made a straight cherry preserves for which I am afraid I can give no recipe. I basically cooked the cherries, added ground pink pepper, kept adding sugar until it was sweet, and finished with some pectin. When it passed the cold plate test, I put it in a jar. I have since (it has been about 30 minutes since the preserves were complete, mind you) eaten it combined with some kumquat marmalade, big faker that I am.

So that takes care of two types of cherry preserves. Now for the third. Shall I glace? I have major panetonne dreams. About every August, I ask my husband if his dear departed Nonna made this Christmas bread. And, then for two-three months (depending on his fortitude), he reminds me his Nonna had too many children, too much work, and too little money for such things. And, why does it draw me? For the shear challenge, of course. And, wouldn't it be ideal to make panetonne with homemade glace fruits? I have never eaten a single glace fruit. (Nope no fruitcake either.) And, it does look odd, but by the 14th century there were whole towns in Europe famous for their fruit jewels. So, what if I make but a handful? Any votes yeah or neah. Anyone made them?

"Puerto Rican" Eggplant Kimchi

According to the very relgious and the media, the world is ending. And near the end, I will be in my pantry eating kimchi out of jars--in part because kimchi is delicious and in part because I can't stop making it. I started with ramp kimchi. (Why not start boutique?) And, then there was the pea shoot kimchi (not as yummy.) And, then I came upon "Puerto Rican" Eggplant. Why quotation marks you ask? While I admit there are always chinks in my grammar, these quotation marks are so that I don't get slammed with flamming comments about my cultural insensitivity to the actual homeland of my striped green pretties. My grocery store told me they were from the warm land of J.Lo and the Internet did not disagree and I always agree with the Internet....

So, I purchased way too many and then left them in my fridge. Many types of produce were consumed in their stead, and then finally I could not wait much longer. Would these be seedy like Thai eggplant? Would these be bitter like grocery store eggplants? I wasn't sure, but I figured kimchi would solve all and any problems. (Kimchi is a miracle.) They turned out to have a fairly thick skinned, mild flavorer with few seeds. And, they were lovely when kimchied up.

Ramp Vodka and Rhubarb Vodka

Last week at the market, when I bought my ramps, I informed the purveyor that I would be infusing vodka. The farmer looked past me for a moment, as if pondering the need for an intervention. After an awkward silence, I explained my planned uses: vodka tomato sauce, to finish sauteed mushrooms, to augment white wine in risotto. All of a sudden my plan seemed to make perfect sense. Since then, I have come to understand that this vodka is also great in bloody marys and dirty martinis.

Ramp flavored vodka is super easy. We followed the basic principals of vodka infusion set down at Burnt Lumpia. He used limes. Basically, use lower price range vodka, filter it through a water filter, and martinate your flavoring agent in the vodka for 1 week. Easy and fancy all at once--though my use of canning jars for the process takes down the fancy level considerably.

For the rhubarb hooch, I had a vague plan to make rhubarb wine. A friend who is an experienced brewer and drinker explained that this is easy but can turn bitter, so I tipped my foot into the world of rhubarb-flavored alcohol with a vodka infusion. In this recipe that I found, rhubarb infusion seems a more complicated process than the ramps. But, with that ramp success, I thought, bring it on. Has it succeeded? Ask me on September 15.

Cabbage Kimchi and a small Announcement

Swati of Sugarcraft mentioned in a comment on my Ramp Kimchi recipe that she would love my recipe for Cabbage Kimchi. In full disclosure, I have eaten at Korean restuarants, but I am most definitely not Korean and nor have never lived in Korea. My Kimchi experience is from a sincere love for kimchi and a natural born love of the pickled. In full disclosure, I am an Indian-American, and as such, from childhood, I have loved spicy preserved goods.
And, I really like to think of kimchi as the lovely (if odiferous) substantial cousin of achaar--Indian pickles. And, that to me is the essential difference. In my family, achaar is a condiment and accompaniment. I have been known to add Bedekar's lime pickle to yoghurt and cucumbers for a sinister dip for chips. My grandmother presaged the hot and spicy Cheetos by insisting the plain variety should ALWAYS be dipped in vadu mango achaar. Kimchi is closer to a side dish and eating it with rice would seem acceptable and even filling. I could never feel satiated eating rice with achaar--I would definitely need dal or a vegetable side dish.

Of course there are more practical differences. While both use salinated, hypertonic environments to hold off bacteria, kimchi also is fermented (another great method of preservation.) In addition, while salt is used to soften the cell walls of the vegetables in kimchi, in many pickles, but not all cooking is often used. I have a few more Indian pickles to post, eventually, but if you wish to read about cooking in Indian pickle recipes, look at my orange pickle recipe.

So that said, here is how we make cabbage kimchi. First, we accept the ridicule and derision that might occur from purchasing kimchi red pepper, chinese cabbage (substitute napa if desired), and turnips at a Korean grocery store. I almost never ever make kimchi without a radish, daikon, turnip component. I love their crunch. You can add shredded carrot, I often do. And to answer Modern Beet's question, spring green garlic would be great. Pea shoots are good. Nettle and sorrel work, but when added to cabbage. Rhubarb and spring garlic, it is weird but good. (Will post that eventually.)

Plan of action:

Cabbage and Turnip Kimchi
Cube a 4 inch piece of daikon or turnip. Remove the stems from 1 small cabbage and cut into thick shreds. Salt all the vegetables (use about 1/2 cup pickling salt, yes, 1/2 cup), reserve in a colander over a bowl. Squeeze the cabbage periodically.
Pour out the water and rinse these vegetables. Place in a non-reactive sealable container. Tupperware is fine but it will stain. Add:
2 scallions sliced
5 cloves garlic slivered
2 t sugar
2 T korean chili powder
1 T sesame oil
2 t ginger powder
1/4 cup soy sauce

Mash together this mixture with your hands, put in sealed container, leave out for 4 days and then refrigerate.

Pickled Ramp Kimchi over Rice

So, the sickly pallor has finally lifted from my daughter's eyes, and now she is all trouble all the time. I am fairly confident that she is attempting make up for lost time, because she is more active, more inquistive, more physical. Yesterday, we had only a few minutes to make lunch. There is a smidge more ramp kimchi left. I quickly fried up an egg sunny-side up, put it over sticky rice and added 2 or three leaves of kimchi. This might be an advanced use for kimchi because my husband abstained from this completely and opted for toast for breakfast. To each his own...

Pickled Ramp Bulb

Recently, we made ramp kimchi and we rejoiced. When any food stuff is a two-fer, it can be fantastic or perplexing. Think of that moment when you have made a couple batches of macarons, which incidentally have made your hold your breath all afternoon, and now you are looking into a bowl of 12 egg yolks, thinking what the hell. Well, of course you make flan, lemon curd and an egg wash. (Or to heck with it all, you cook up a couple up for the dog.) Way off track already, and I have 8 more ramp posts to go. Damn, this is really going to be a long evening.


So, ramp kimchi was mainly ramp leaves with just a few bottoms. So, what to do? Periodically, I lurk at Miss Ginsu (doubtless Ms. Ginsu younger, less feminist sister). They had a reproduction of Floyd Cardoz's Quick Ramp Pickles. Floyd is a man I have never met, but I have never ever disliked any of his recipes that I have cooked. And, this is no exception. It was fantastic, easy and satisfying.

When it was finally ready, the first thing we put them on were grass-fed beef hot dogs. I eat hot dogs very rarely, so I decided this one had to be super dolled up. And, this tart looked like she was, well, overdressed. She had Floyd's ramp pickles, hot mustard, red onions sliced oh so thin, and green tomato pickle. It was high/low brow and I ate it leaning over the kitchen counter because I couldn't wait to get to the table.

Ramp Kimchi, Masoor Dal and Potato Sandwiches

I have a terrible back log of ramp recipes to post. It seems sort of cruel to do so as the ramp season is over (at least in Northern Ohio.) But, as this blog is mostly a selfish exercise of journally our culinary adventures--I am just going to put these recipes down regardless of the present availability of these ingredients. (Apparently, I am hard-hearted inside.)

The ramp kimchi we made ages ago was fantastic and easy. As made commenters said, it is easily enough to do, and it would likely be good with green or fresh cultivated garlic. A few weeks ago, I wanted a hearty sandwich with my tea in the late afternoon. I had some cooked masoor dal in the fridge, so I microwaved a potato, chopped up some kimchi (1 tsp per sandwich) and put a heaping mound in two pieces of wheat bread. My sister-in-law's waffle iron is becoming my new friend (even if it doesn't approve of falafel making), and the result was spicy kimchi sandwiches. Best served with hot black tea.

These were such fantastic sandwiches--warm and spicy; I kind of wish I had one with me right now.

While there is no recipe, I think the point is two-fold: kimchi is great in a warm sandwich and if the dal is thick enough it can be used in a sandwich. Food-n-More has a sandwich event, so why not include this lovely?

Spring Preserves: Ramp Kimchi

When one of the multinational appliance companies did a global study of fridge needs, in Korea, they found that housewives sought a fridge with a special compartment to house the kimchi. Why segegrate their national dish? Because, the fermented dish of preserved turnip and or cabbage, can be stinky. Though have we not all learned that stinky can mean yummy? (Think cheese.)

There are two basic branches of kimchi--summer and winter. The latter is the more odiferous and the way that fall's bounty would be preserved for the long, cold Korean winter. I myself am partial to the turnip. Though, sticky rice with a fried egg, cabbage kimchi and an ice cold beer is a wonderful meal.

Spring kimchi or seasonal kimchi, on the other hand, spices up the best of the season for short-term storage. I am all about quick gratification, and I have some seasonal goodies that I wanted to preserve (if only for a few days.) So seasonal kimchi, we made.

The word on the street was that the ramp season is basically over. But, since I saw the Preservation announcement on You Say Tomayto, I say Tomahto, I knew I wanted to make ramp Kimchi. And, this was the weekend to do it.

While we have had a good long time fulfill this Preservation event run by Pixie and Rosie, I put this project off because, well, I didn't want to explain my kimchi plans to my friendly Korean grocer. We have three Korean grocery stores close by. I frequent two of them almost equally--I want all good local businesses to succeed. But, whenever I am making something Korean, they are fairly incredulous. (Actually, I have found this a hallmark of all ethnic grocers.)

I had everything I needed except the special Kimchi pepper. When we walked in, the owner was having a fairly animated (though jovial) conversation on the phone in Korean. "No", "not true", "important business decision" all seemed to be key elements of her point, whatever it was. I was secretly swearing at whoever was winding up this lady.

When she got off, the owner stated she remembered us from previous shopping excursions, and then asked why after all those years of marriage, we didn't have children. If this woman wasn't so loveable, I would have been peeved or claimed to secretly be a man. After this surprisingly intimate small-talk, we explained our plan to make kimchi. The chuckle was fairly slow at first, but then she began to mention our plan to the other patrons..."kimchi blah blah blah in Korean HA HA HA blah blah blah in Korean"

In the end, the owner actually seemed pleased that we were making kimchi. She suggested that we freeze any red pepper that we can't use. We left with her waving us good luck storming the castle--I mean good luck with your kimchi.

Note: We worked out this recipe from a Mark Bittman article with a cucumber kimchi recipe. There are other few ramp kimchi recipes that I found online, one here and another at No Recipes. In addition, there is a great article on kimchi making courtesy of the North Korean government. We decided to make our vegan because we have laid off seafood due to environmental concerns.

Ramp Kimchi

Wash and dry:
2 bunches ramp greens

Salt the greens liberally with kosher or pickling salt (1/3 cup or less).

Create a paste of
3 T ground Korean chilies
4-5 ramp bulbs
1-2 cloves garlic
2 T garlic
2-3 T minced scallions
1/3 cup sesame oil
1 T amchur powder

Massage the greens with the paste and reserve in a non-reactive container. Eat after 1 day.

Homemade Lemon Pickle in Spicy Beef Soup

We had cooked rice noodles and brisket in the fridge. It was 9:30 and we were starving. So, what was there to do? Spicy beef stew. We topped the noodles with cooked brisket, finely shredded cabbage and a good dollop of homemade lemon pickles.

But, I must say, the spicy orange pickle was FANTASTIC. It was so much better than most storebought pickles (though I have never seen orange pickle per se in stores.) It was so easy, if you are reading this, you should stop and make some yourself.

Crying over Spilled Marmalade

I am very ambivalent about the nature of the universe--Is there a greater being? Can we change our destiny or is it written in stone? Are there forces greater than yourself that can affect your life? What does this have to do with marmalade? Well, very sadly, this week I have had my wallet stollen and my computer harddrive with a good portion of my pictures of Belle (and all my blog pictures) died. This is not to mention a variety of other things that have made me feel grey and limp. (Two sad starts to entries, huh. When will Spring arrive on this blog?)

So, my point is that I no longer have all the pictures from Preservation Saturday that happened a few weeks ago. We had so much citrus--so much. And, so my gorgeous friend M--, my husband and I spend a great Saturday night drinking beer and putting food by. We made made different kinds of marmalades, Indian Pickles and pickled eggplant.

With started early with an easy recipe. Charcuterista has a good kumquat marmalade recipe. This was a very yummy recipe and we then used it to fill vegan linzer cookies using a rose water cookie recipe from Veganomicon (oh how I love you Veganomicon.)

After that, we went on to play with kumquats. I wanted to make the most of the pectin in the rind (I assume that is why Charcuterista's kumquat marmalade had no need of pectin). But, I wanted to have a sort of asian dipping sauce inspired marmalade. Rather I wanted something sweet, tart and spicy. I used pectin, limes, kumquats, a tiny pinch of five spice and star anise.

Then we got really fancy and decided to make orange marmalades. (Yes, this was a very long night.) We made a blood orange marmalade with black peppers. This was so lovely; slightly kick but mostly sweet. And, then an orange/meyer lemon marmalade with cardamom. This last one was a little odd, and not necessarily a success. It felt a little medicinal.

And, then it got spicy. We decided to make two Indian-style pickles. The first was a simple meyer lemon pickle using a recipe from Indian Food Rocks. The second was an orange pickle. I have never eaten orange pickle--or even heard of it--but there is only so much orange marmalade that you can consume (or give away.) I read a few different recipes and combined them. This resulting recipe involves some amount of fortitude. All of the spices need to be browned over heat. As pickles are said to cure for a few months, it is not as if I could taste this recipe and understand if the spice was right. Instead, I had to go by smell, and that sense really couldn't be trusted either. Because, well, the fumes of spices that traveled through the kitchen were halting. (My husband might say instead noxious.)

Just before the concoction was ready to be bottled, we tasted it. My husband, first to the tasting, was fairly convinced we had failed. It was bitter, spicy and strong. M-- just passed on the tasting phase all together. For me, I tasted it and extrapolated that this would be just right. It was unbalanced but had the right undertones that I have tasted in Indian pickles. In fact, I was so jazzed by the process that I went out an bought more canning jars.

Sadly, my recipes were basically lost in the computer death--so I can't even write about the eggplant pickle--it was rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt, and what else, who knows. But, I can put down a few basic recipes--though I am doing these from memory.
Recipes:
Kumquat/ Lime Marmalade
Wash and slice, very thin,
1 lbs kumquats
½ lb limes

Boil for 30 minutes in 5 C water with
½ cup lime juice

Add
6.5 cups sugar
3 star anises/ stars of anise
½ tsp Chinese fivespice

Cook for another 45 minutes or so on medium. Add ¼ cup pectin, boil for 1 minute. Transfer to sterilized jars when marmalade is thick and hot. Sterilize jars according to package directions
Blood Orange Marmalade with Peppercorns
Wash and dry
2 meyer lemons
8 blood oranges

With a sharp paring knife, remove the rind of the citrus, and then juice all the fruit. With a sharp knife, slice the rind into thin slivers.

Boil the peels for 15 minutes in 1 cup of water in a heavy-bottomed pan and boil.

Boil for 20 minutes:
2 cups of juice from meyer lemons and blood oranges. (You might need to juice more fruit to get the right amount of juice.)
1 cup orange juice (ideally freshly squeezed)
½ cup pulp from the blood oranges

Add and then cook on medium for 35 minutes
6 cups sugar
6 peppercorns

Add and boil for 8 minutes
1 pkt pectin

Once the mixture has gotten thick, place the mixture when hot in sterilized canning jars. Makes 7-1 cup jars of marmalade.
Spicy Orange Pickle
Wash and then dice
4 medium oranges (leaving the skin on)

In a heavy bottom pan, sautee in olive oil for 2 minutes
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp black onion seeds
6 whole dried red chili pods
1 tsp asafetida powder
¼ cup chili powder
½ tsp haldi (turmeric) powder

Add and simmer for 15 minutes
cut oranges
4 green chilies
1 inch piece of ginger in long slender slivers
½ cup salt
2 cups waters

Once the mixture is cooked down and slightly cooled, add
¾ cup canola or mustard oil

Add the mixture to canning jars and then sterilize.