Today's Projects: Starting a Starter & Homemade Cheezits

Becoming a bread snob is not something I anticipated, given that I grew up on whatever was on sale and spongy enough for kid sandwiches... But, alas, bread snobbery has overtaken me and I can't even entertain the idea of a loaf that comes in a brown plastic bag with a twist tie. My first ventures into homemade bread took place in a great span of purposeful unemployment in the two months before our move to Portland. I made my own starter from scratch, using an LA Times recipe, and devoted many mornings to break making. Settling on the NY Times No Knead recipe as my ultimate favorite (who's going to argue with less work?!), I made endless loaves of bread that spring. When we moved, I couldn't bring my starter, and I promptly stopped baking bread.

Last winter I pulled out the LA Times article on starting a starter and was surprised, and saddened, when it didn't work. Maybe I'd forgotten to use spring water? Unsure of what went wrong, I quickly moved on to other projects and Mark started making bread with regular old yeast which was delicious enough to distract me from getting a starter going.

Since January is a good time to resolve to do everything on your list, I added "start making sourdough bread" to my list of resolutions. On New Year's day I got out the recipe and the flour, remembered to use spring water, and my starter is now at stage 4-- almost a "mother starter".



Starting a starter is a bit like having another pet-- because you have to pass close attention to it's livelihood, and feed and water it accordingly to schedule. But once you get it going it rewards you with fluffy, perfectly consistent loaves of homemade sourdough. Once you have an active starter you can store it in the fridge and feed it every few weeks, it's just getting to that point that takes a little patience and dedication.

Once the starter was fed and aerated I moved on to a more indulgent project-- homemade parmesean crackers, as featured on one of my favorite cooking blogs Smitten Kitchen. Cheezits are most definitely my very favorite junk food, and they have to be the "full fat" version-- none of this reduced fat or sodium business when I'm eating Cheezits! I was sure I would like these, but unsure if they'd be worth the trouble. The verdict is in, and they are worth the 30-40 minutes I spent from start to finish, and that includes washing the bowl.

I made a few modifications to the recipe- the main one being use of just a spoon since I don't have a food processor. I also used cold butter and a pastry blender to blend the flour and butter-- this resulted in the flaky pastry crust I was hoping for. The recipe made around 40 small crackers, and I promptly devoured about half of them. YUM.

Limoncello Love

I absolutely adore limoncello, and while I have yet to find one that I consider unpalatable, the most delicious limoncello I've was the first batch I made myself. After spending the holidays outside of San Francisco last year, we drove back to Portland with a trash bag full of lemons from my parents' yard. Destined to become limoncello, they also provided the impetus for plenty of other lemon projects, including lemon pudding, candied lemon rinds, lemonade, and frozen lemon juice (to be used over the months to come).

This year we have a slightly smaller batch of lemons to work with (thanks for bringing them to us Mom!), and round 2 of the homemade limoncello is underway. The lemon zest will sit in the alcohol for 42 days before we move on to adding the sugar.

Plum Wine: An Experiment

Last summer, our first full summer in Portland, we were delighted to discover an abundance of fruit growing on trees throughout our neighborhood and friends' yards. We ate fresh figs, plums, cherries and apples right off the tree throughout the summer months. The plums were definitely the most plentiful, and one evening we went to a friend's house and picked a good 20 pounds of plums from her trees. Our sights were set on homemade wine, something Mark had experimented with once before. His first fruit wine was choke cherry--and required an amazing amount of sugar, and might have been less and wine then a liqueur in the end, but delicious in any case!

This time around, we followed a recipe specifically for plum wine and added champagne yeast. A key step of the wine process was taking place two days before our wedding, and there is some question as to whether the sugar was ever added to the plum wine! So we've decided to give it some more time (we're about 6 months into the project at this point), and hope for the best.

Locavore Challenge: Day 15!

We made it!

The local eating adventure is winding to a close, but judging by the pile of veggies in our fridge, and impending CSA pick up today, we'll continue to eat pretty locally. I'd say we were much closer to Michael Pollan's "eat food. mostly vegetables." these past few weeks than we generally are.

We have decided to try to continue to focus our meat purchases on those of the extremely local variety. Buying from a farmer you can actually talk to, and ask about their farming practices, it optimal, but when that's not possible we'll focus on sourcing from sustainable farms from local businesses. Because it's definitely more expensive to buy meat of the sustainable variety, we will limit our meals cooked with meat to two per week if possible. This will be an experiment of sorts for a while, we'll see how it goes.

The cost breakdown of eating this lcoally has been a frequent question- so I'll attempt to break it down. Over the past 2 weeks we have definitely spent more on groceries, and spent more at the farmers markets. But, we weren't eating out, something we generally do at least once if not twice per week. So the overall total we spent on food was probably slightly less than normal. Paying the local premium also meant we were getting higher quality products in quite a few cases. The milk we were drinking for instance was Amazingly Good, but $4.49 for a glass jug (1/2 gallon?), and we normally spend $3 for a 1/2 gallon of organic milk. The difference in quality was very apparent and it cost more (and required an extra car trip to pick up in this case- it's bikeable if we decide to go that route in the future we'll have to bike there...). (Once you factor in that we weren't eating cereal and were going through half as much milk each week, it's a wash though I suppose on cost.)

Now, I am going to celebrate with a much deserved latte (don't worry from a local business that only roasts fair trade beans :-) )

Locavore Challenge: Nearing the Finish

Day 13:
Breakfast--bacon & eggs (from 4 miles away-- thanks Sarah & Patrick!!)
Lunch- Veggie stew, leftover salmon, dried plums, apple
Snack- Roasted Hazelnuts & cheese
Dinner- tons of beets, sautéed Italian peppers & onions, potatoes
And more cider

Day 14:
Breakfast- eggs.
Lunch- leftovers from last night, an apple, more cheese, and a corn meal muffin with honey
Dinner- we’re going out to a local restaurant that bases their menu on what’s in their CSA for the week. They have a good wine selection too it sounds like, time to celebrate our success at eating uber-locally!

We are looking forward to integrating the things we’ve learned the past 2 weeks into our “normal lives”—the main difference being that without making our eating the primary focus, we just don’t have the time to cook quite this much (and we love to cook!). Actually, we don’t have the time to do this many dishes either! So back to reality, but not without having located local dairy and meat option—our main intentions for the EcoChallenge were definitely accomplished.

Locavore Challenge: Lately

Here's what we've been eating lately:
-dried apples (thank you Sarah and Patrick!!)
-pumpkin seeds, roasted
-dried plums, otherwise known as prunes I suppose
-salmon (our best local meal yet! thanks Kelly & Ross!!)
-more dried tomatoes
-veggie stew, this one's not as good as the last, and I made more. oops.
-roasted pears- my new favorite dessert!
-potatoes
-cider. yum.

And, 3 Oreos. Gasp. We went to our blood donation appointment last night, and I didn't think our diet would have any effect on giving blood. But, I was wrong. I almost passed out, and realized that the volunteers there weren't going to let me leave in that state. Strangely, since it's staffed entirely by nurses, they only have junk food available as post-donating snacks. So 3 Oreos was the key to my release from the Red Cross, and I'd be lying if I said they weren't delicious!

Just 2 more days to go.

Locavore Challenge: Fresh Fish & Farmers Market Finds

It's a good day in the world of these 2 local eaters! We have fresh fish (thanks Ross & Kelly!!) in the fridge along with a healthy supply of new veggies & some bacon, and italian sausages. Another veggie stew is brewing in the crockpot, so we'll have some lunch soup. Oh-- AND we got apple cider-- a local beverage! Finally! Hopefully I won't finish the entire bottle today...