Archive for the 'Food' Category

Stalking the wild maitake mushroom

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Brian
on November 2, 2008
in Food and Life
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Last year, I wrote about finding a giant maitake mushroom on the land here at Dancing Rabbit. Last week, I walked out on the property with my dad, and we found the mushroom in the same spot yet again - right at the base of a dead oak tree.

A great spotlight was cast on the mushroom, which made it all the more appealing and beautiful in the fall woods. Although smaller than last year’s maitake, this one was just as delicious. What a treat! I will undoubtedly make a regular journey to the woods to seek out the mighty grifola frondosa.

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Cook with a hot box and save energy

Published
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Brian
on October 9, 2008
in Food and Sustainability
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Whenever I cook rice, I use a hot box. I boil the rice for five minutes, and then throw the pot into an insulated hot box for about three hours, and then have perfectly cooked rice for dinner. It’s a no-brainer way to use less energy.

I wrote up an article for Planetsave about how to make a hot box. You can read about it here: Take Action to Save Energy: Cooking with an Insulated Hot Box

Making applesauce

Published
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Brian
on August 20, 2008
in Dancing Rabbit and Food
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apples

Other than the massive amounts of cobbing lately, there has been some excitement on the food front, too. On July 31 (my birthday), Jeff noticed the first truly ripe apple on my apple tree, and we picked it and ate it. What a treat. Delicious. I have been fortunate enough to inherit a mature apple tree on my warren (that’s DR speak for ‘plot of land’), and this was the first year it decided to put out fruit. (It may have done so last year, but the late frost killed any potential.)

Over the next week, most of the apples ripened, and last week, I harvested a giant pot’s worth and turned it into applesauce. The final color was a beautiful light pink. I decided to leave the skins in the sauce, just to keep things simple… it was less work, and just seemed right, too. I got about seven quarts worth from the haul - not bad!

Hunting for morel mushrooms

Published
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Brian
on May 13, 2008
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
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The end of April through early May is the peak season for hunting morel mushrooms in this area. Morels are delicious little mushrooms that are short-lived and notoriously difficult to pin down to a specific environment. Generally, they pop up near dead or dying elm trees in cool, shady woods, or especially in recent wildfire areas. There’s not a huge amount of wooded land here at Dancing Rabbit, but there are a few sweet spots to find the elusive morels.

Last weekend, I went out for a walk with two of the kids here to try and find some, and after a good 20 minutes of searching, we finally struck upon a productive area. We walked away with a few good handfuls. Later, I went searching in another spot (where we found last year’s giant maitake mushroom), and found another dozen morels of a different variety - I think they were morels. Not sure, though.

Needless to say, they were delicious, sauteed in oil with a little bit of soy sauce.

Hopes for making homemade butter

Published
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Brian
on March 4, 2008
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
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It’s easy for me to get pretty excited about food. Especially making new and different types of food. Yesterday, I went to the dairy to get some milk for my usual kefir making. I left an extra quart of plain milk outside overnight, and since it was so cold, it froze and the cap bent up and became loose.

Around lunchtime, I took the milk in after it had some time to unfreeze, and I noticed that the top looked to be distinctly like cream, and since it was still pretty frozen, it was easy to spoon out from the milk. I did so and stuck it in a tiny mason jar, and started shaking it. About 20 or 25 minutes later, I had about two little pads worth of butter floating in buttermilk.

butter01.jpg

I was enthralled. Last year, I visited the superheroes people / The Possibility Alliance community in La Plata, and they had homemade butter that they made from cream from their Amish neighbors. It was the best butter I ever had. Anyway, ever since then I have been wanting to make butter of my own.

After shaking up that small bit of inspirational butter, I called another local dairy here (not the one I usually go to that is a mile and a half down the road) to find out if they sell cream directly, which they do. It’s $1.75/pint (versus the $3 and change from in the store here in town), so it’s a much better deal to bike out there and get it direct. The milk at the dairy down the road does not have a significant cream content, so it might be worth traveling for the cream specifically if there’s a good deal to be had on larger quantities…

homemade butter

I hope so. Nothing beats fresh, homemade butter. Drool.

The hen of the woods

Published
by
Brian
on October 28, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
. 2 Comments

Yesterday, I was shooting video with a fellow who lives here at DR, Thomas. It was for a new Dancing Rabbit TV video that I am working on, and we were walking through a particular section of the woods as I had the camera rolling. Thomas started to tell a story about how he had found this great big mushroom at the base of an oak tree in this same location a few years ago, and then as he looked down, there was yet another sitting there — a gigantic maitake mushroom, or hen of the woods.

We gasped in amazement at the sight of it. There it was, nestled near that oak tree, a huge, probably four pound maitake beast. We scooped it up and made our way back to the village, anxious to cut into the fleshy polypore. Thomas carefully pulled it apart in preparation for cooking it, filling an entire large wok with bits of the mushroom.

Then we let it cook for a good while with some garlic, oil, and soy sauce in a gigantic cast iron pan. Afterwards, we partook in the feast that was this mushroom. Lots of people came for a sample and delighted in the flavor of the maitake. It has a very unique texture, almost rubbery and slippery, like chicken meat. The flavor is prominent and earthy. What a treat!

Tempeh and natto

Published
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Brian
on October 25, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
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On Tuesday, Amy and I made some delicious fermented goodies. We had ordered some tempeh starters, and I got myself a natto culture from GEM Cultures, and we set about soaking soybeans the night before for the great fermentation experiment.
Tempeh is a pretty popular type of fermented soybean product that originated in Indonesia some time ago. It’s easy to find at places like Whole Foods, and it’s both versatile and tasty. It’s something of a meat substitute with its protein power, plus it has other valuable nutrients. The actual tempeh is something of a brick or cake of cracked soybeans inoculated with a Rhizopus bacteria culture. After boiling the soybeans, you simply stir in the starter, and then pack either a glass or stainless steel baking sheet (or plastic bags) with the beans. After sitting for a full day at 85 degrees, you have tempeh ready to be cooked and eaten. Here’s what our final product looked like:

tempeh-01.jpg  tempeh-02.jpg

As you can see, it’s pretty heavy on the mold, but it’s totally fine to eat! Mmm… mold… Don’t be put off by its appearances. (Tempeh that ferments in sealed plastic bags doesn’t develop a moldy upper crust like that…)

The natto was my own baby experiment. Thomas and I had attempted to make it a few weeks ago, but we were unsuccessful. This time, I kept a closer eye on the temperature and made some finer adjustments, and the starter was successful.

Now, how to describe natto… Every culture seems to have its own rather, well, unique (or disgusting?) food product unlike anything else from the outside. Natto is Japan’s version of that all star national food. It’s a type of fermented soybean inoculated with bacillus natto, resulting in a rather slimy, wispy soybean that smells something like ammonia. Most people are turned off by it. It’s an acquired taste, to say the least. I myself get a kick out of the sheer individuality (moreso than the taste, maybe) of the natto, with its incredible strings and wisps. When you pick up the natto off a plate, the beans leave long trails of something that looks like spider webs that get stuck to your fork and chin. We have taken to calling it “snotto” around the food co-op due to its appearance and taste. Anyway, it’s a pretty wild food, and nothing short of unique (or revolting, some might say). Here’s what it looks like:

natto01.jpg  natto02.jpg

I actually think the natto could have done with even more wisps and stringiness, but there’s always next time to improve my technique and method…

Fermenting is fun!

Fermentation

Published
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Brian
on September 20, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage, Food and Life
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I’ve been doing some thinking about fermentation lately. A copy of the book, Wild Fermentation has been floating around the kitchen lately, and I’ve been thumbing through it for a few weeks now. There is a wealth of great information and recipes inside, and it’s inspired me to look into doing more fermenting of foods.

In the Bobolink food co-op, standard yearly fermented foods include sauerkraut and pickles, and this year, we tried fermenting some squash due to the sheer abundance of it this season. The process is pretty much identical to pickling cucumbers, and the results are very tasty. Amy of Bobolink recently fermented some onions, which I tried yesterday, and enjoyed quite a bit. They are very sweet and make a great pizza topping. All it took was some salt, and time did the rest.

My own fermenting pursuits lie in kombucha and kefir. I made my first batch of kombucha the other day in over two months, and I enjoy having kefir regularly with a bowl of oats in the morning. But I want to try something new. Flipping through Wild Fermentation, I became interested in amazake, a fermented rice drink. It requires nothing more than rice and a koji culture, which can be purchased from G.E.M. Cultures. The drink itself is very sweet and can be used in baking as a sweetener. While browsing on the G.E.M. Cultures website, I noticed they have natto starter, which is combined with soy beans to produce a very unique, sticky, stringy soy ferment. I’ve had natto a few times in the past at Japanese restaurants, and despite the strange flavor, it’s pretty tasty and I wouldn’t mind giving a spin.

But yea, there is something very appealing about the process of fermentation. It’s like a magical transformation of food that usually requires nothing more than time and natural bacteria. It’s like a science, but not necessarily a precise one, and it amazes me that just about anything can be fermented with relatively simple processes.

Harvesting

Published
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Brian
on July 18, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage, Food and Life
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The past couple of weeks have seen an influx of fresh veggies from the gardens at DR. Normally, we buy at least some vegetables from the Ramers, a local Mennonite family that grows organic veggies locally, but the Bobolink food co-op’s garden is notably robust this year, too. Lately, we’ve been eating lots of carrots, squash, greens, onions, green beans, garlic, potatoes, cucumbers, and cabbage. Tomatoes are still not ripe, and we’re still waiting on stuff like broccoli, edamame, celery, and others. We also made pesto from fourteen pounds worth of basil over the weekend… yumm.

It’s funny to think about how the most simple of foods, like salad (traditional salads, that is, with lettuce and cucumbers and tomatoes) are composed of vegetables that do not even grow during the same times of the year. It makes for a very different approach to cooking here.

But it’s an amazing feeling to see new vegetables being pulled up and brought into the kitchen each day, and overlooking the garden from the window near the dining table while we eat. Knowing exactly where your food is coming is great.

Homemade organic, local-y pizza

Published
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Brian
on July 5, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage, Food and Life
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Last night was a “no cook” night at Bobolink. That means individuals are responsible for cooking their own meals. Earlier in the week, Dan and I decided we would make another batch of mozzarella cheese, and then use it on some pizza. Last night was the perfect opportunity to do just that.

Tuesday night’s cheesemaking was successful, and we produced about a two pound yield of mozzarella. Last night, we set about making the pizza. I think it’s safe to say this was the first time I ever made pizza that was pretty much entirely organic and made from local ingredients:

  • Dan and I made the mozzarella ourselves from raw, organic milk obtained no more than a mile away (and we made a small batch of ricotta from the excess whey, too)
  • The whole wheat used in the dough was freshly milled and came from Sandhill Farm, about three miles away
  • The tomato sauce was canned last year from Bobolink’s own tomatoes
  • Dan picked the basil right out of his garden beds right before we put the leaves down on the pie
  • The scallions were purchased from a local and organic Mennonite farm
  • The tofu was made from soybeans from Sandhill

Other than stuff like the vegetable oil, salt, and a couple other spices, everything was locally grown. So satisfying!

Anyway, we made four total pies: double cheese (mozzarella and ricotta), scallion, marinated and fried tofu, and plain. They were quite good and we offered slices to friends and passers-by. It was a great meal… yummm.

pizza02.jpg pizza01.jpg

Life in an organic vegan food co-op

Published
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Brian
on May 30, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage, Food and Life
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Amy of Bobolink (the food co-op where I am currently eating) has started a blog to document our daily meals. She started it only a few days ago, so there’s only a few images so far, but check it out. Today was my cook shift, and I made tempeh reubens again, and you can see what they look like there. (The rolls didn’t rise properly today, though… damn.)

Here it is: Eco-vegan, or Life in an organic vegan food co-op

Cheesemaking

Published
by
Brian
on May 23, 2007
in Dancing Rabbit, Food and Life
. 2 Comments

This morning, Dan (another resident) and I headed up some mozzarella cheesemaking. Yesterday, we bought a gallon of milk (raw and organic, $2 a gallon!) down the road from the dairy, and buried it in the ground to keep cool overnight. (We were out of space in the fridge.)

raw milk

Using a 30 minute mozzarella recipe (from this book), we set about the curdling up the milk and had no difficulty in producing curds and separating them from the whey. Overall, it was a successful first attempt, and the venture resulted in a nice yield of delicious mozzarella. It was a quite simple process (in no doubt due to the quality milk!), but I think our first batch could have benefited from better stretching and shaping; our cheese was a little flat. Although, that is something that can be worked out as we do it again.

I can’t wait to be do another, bigger batch for some homemade pizza.

And damn, you just can’t beat raw, organic milk for $2/gallon. My friend Jeff back in NJ would be in high heaven with such easy access to cheap, raw milk for his own cheesemaking adventures. (I know you are reading this, Jeff!)

cheesemaking cheesemaking2 cheesemaking3 cheesemaking4 cheesemaking5

(Note: No, the cheese was not that yellow… I am just too lazy to correct the color in the photos.)