Book Review: Made From Scratch

I have been wanting to read Jenna Woginrich’s book, Made from Scratch, for a while now.  Our library didn’t have it, but when I got a gift certificate to Amazon, it was on its way.

Woginrich’s subtitle, ‘Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life,’ was what originally drew me to the volume.  Those of you who have been reading this for a while know I enjoy making things by hand and have, over the years, made more and more stuff that way.  I haven’t bought bread in ages (save one emergency loaf six months ago), I rarely buy cookies (only the occasional Joe Joe’s!), and I like to sew.  a lot.  I’ve also gotten better at repairing sewn goods that I’ve bought, and grown my own veggies. I see what Jenna is after in her book, and I get it.

Woginrich provides lots of examples of her hit and miss homesteading out in Idaho.  I appreciate her honesty, and it helps remind a novice urbanite (or, suburbanite, now) like myself that homesteading is hard work.  Sure, sometimes I dream of a little flock of chickens laying eggs for me and a hive of bees to fertilize my plants and provide me with honey, but it’s a pretty romantic dream.  Starting those projects, as Woginrich learned, and maintaining them are hard work.  She divulges the real heartbreak she’s had in the process, but is always encouraging.  So maybe I will get a beehive someday.  But it won’t be soon.

Woginrich was very enthusiastic about bread baking.  I remember the thrill of making my first loaf of bread, and noticing just how much better it was than anything I’d bought in the store.  Dear readers have seen me make many, many loaves of bread on this blog, some with better success than others.  Woginrich provides a fairly fool-proof recipe for country white bread, which, having not made it in ages, I eagerly assembled.  It has great structure and holds up well for several days; you don’t get a lot of crumbling, which is often the case with homemade wheat breads.  It lacks a little bit in the flavor department, but adding a little more salt and swapping in butter for veggie oil might do the trick.  As it is, though, it makes excellent french toast and is a great vehicle for peanut butter.

Woginrich has written an easy read with a nice little index section.  It might be enough to get me to buy my own banjo…

Ugly But Tasty Squash and Sausage

Last night I made a recipe that was not very pretty to look it.  It was all in the same section of the color palette (beige, yellow, gray) and was served with more beige (roasted potatoes).  So I’m going to share with you the recipe, but not bother with photos, as they may just turn you off.

 

You’ll need:

1 spaghetti squash, sliced in half lengthwise
1 lb sweet (or hot) Italian sausage (I used turkey)
One onion, chopped
pinch of basil
salt and pepper

Start by cooking your squash. After slicing, I scooped the insides out of mine, placed a half cut side down in a baking dish, added a little water, and put in the microwave. About 10-12 minutes later it was done, and I proceeded with the other half. While the second one cooked and the first one cooled, I added some olive oil to a pan on medium high heat and added the sausage, which I squeezed out of the casings. I cooked this until done, browning it up a little, and then put it in a bowl. As the sausage cooked, I scraped out the ’spaghetti’ from the squash with a fork. I added a little more oil to the pan then sauteed an onion. To this the squash was added, warming it through (though it was actually still pretty hot), using its liquid to scrape up the brown bits on the pan’s bottom, and letting it brown a smidge. Then I added back the sausage, a little pepper (Whole Foods’ turkey sausage is really salty, so I didn’t add any extra), and a pinch of dried basil. I stirred to combine a few times, and that was dinner.

It was really tasty and hearty along with some roasted potatoes–all you need for that are a few potatoes (I did 4 medium russets) scrubbed and cut into chunks; I put them into a shallow casserole dish, doused them with a little olive oil, garlic powder (whenever I use real garlic it burns, so I use powder for my taters), coarse salt and pepper. Bake in a 400* oven, about a half an hour or until they’re soft throughout and you can pierce them easily. I try not to stir them so at least one side gets a nice crunchy crust.

Halloween!

This is my Halloween gift to you–a freakish carrot pulled by Mr. Pea when he closed down our community garden plot today.  He came home with a couple of dozen carrots–most of them enormous and stout, which makes me wonder–but this one is hte winner as our oddest veg of the year.

 

Pardon my silence this week–I’ve had a terrible setback with the vertigo, prompting panicky doctor’s visits and general mayhem.  I’ll post more soon–making some country bread right now, plus a book review.

New Skills: Darning

Last night I learned a new skill:  darning.  I know few people darn their socks anymore, but I have a favorite pair–green and blue striped wool–that have been worn out by many years of use and which, other than the hole in the heel, were in good shape.  I would be darned (ha) if I was going to toss them out over two little holes, so yesterday I looked up how to darn.  It’s not especially hard to do, so while watching baseball last night (sorry to see you go, Angels), I fixed up three of my holey socks.  Here’s one that’s done.

To darn, you need something hard inside the sock that you can stitch against.  You can buy what’s called a darning egg, which is a wooden or plastic egg shape on a narrow rod; being resourceful and cheap, however, I just used the backside of a remote control.  I stuck it in my sock and was good to go.  Once you have that set up, you need a long needle and some kind of stitching fiber.  I used embroidery thread, so it would match and be thick.  Then you sew a running stitch along one side of the hole; you then make stitches going in rows in the other way.  I started with a stitch up the left side, and then made my horizontal rows.  Then you begin to work in the other direction–vertically, in this case–weaving your fiber into the stitches you’ve made.   Voila–you’ve rewoven your sock, and it’s good to go.

Since I’m rather a poor explainer, here are some great tutorials:
Over at Craftzine
at WikiHow

I know some of you may giggle and tell me to just buy new socks, but why should I when a) I like these socks and b) I can fix them! Call my cheap, but at least I have warm feet, and a new skill.

Artisanal Cheese

I bought this cheese last week at the local farmer’s market.  The women who sell it are very sweet and let you try a whole bunch of different ones.  I have to confess that once in the summer I tried this, loved it, but was feeling poor and hot (hot as in it was 90*, not as in I felt sexy or anything).  So I sheepishly scurried away, as walking it back to my house would have resulted in some melty bacteria-filled cheese, nothing particularly lovely.

But last week when I went to the market there they were and I decided it was high time I put my money where my mouth is.  I think it’s really nice and really important to support local growers and local artisans.  I really appreciate people who make things with their hands, and I love the idea of keeping them in business.  This cheese would not be terribly pricey to one who buys nice cheese a lot, but for me, $17.50 a pound or whatever it was is well outside my usual cheddar-and-mozzarella price range.  But I got a nice little quarter-pound of this–Herbs de Provence cheese, made by Beaver Brook Farm in Lyme, CT.  It’s a creamy cheese, somewhere, texturally speaking, in between cream cheese and feta, coated with a layer of herbs.  It’s divine.  Mr. Pea brought home some crusty bread last week so we could eat some; we’ve since put some in scrambled eggs, too, which was just heavenly.  I couldn’t necessarily afford this stuff every week, but man, it was worth the few extra bucks!

Steel Cut Oats

This morning, since I had a little extra time, I made steel cut oats for breakfast.  I’ve never had them before; I usually make rolled oats but lately have seen steel cut pop up in so many places (online, magazines, etc.) that I figured it was worth a go.  Whole Foods carries them in bulk, so I could get just a little to try them, rather than getting a pricey, huge container.

Steel cut oats taste like oatmeal, but the texture is different.  They are whole groats, chopped, rather than rolled thin and flat.  They kind of pop in your mouth, which is fun.  They take a long while to cook, though I read several recipes yesterday that recommend using an overnight method or the crock pot.  The process itself is simple, only a little time-consuming.  I used a ratio of 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt to 1/2 cup of oats.  First I boiled the salted water, then added the oats, and then simmered them gently for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.  When they were done I ate half the batch with a sliced banana and a drizzle of maple syrup.  Yummy, filling, and warm.  You can’t beat that on a fall morning!

Appreciating the Small Things

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind this past weekend–there was a death in my family, a wedding in Mr. Pea’s, a half-marathon, a nor’easter, a college ceremony, a bit of a revival of the vertigo, and a knock to the head thanks to my parents’ dog. Seriously–this was Thursday through Sunday. I did not cook–who had time? But such chaos made me reflect on small things, and how much we take them for granted when our lives seem to spin out of control.

I’ve been listening to a lot of classical music–sometimes because it’s soothing, sometimes because it suits my mood.
I really want to bake something.
I saw lots of family I hadn’t seen in a decade, easily, last week, which was really nice despite the somber circumstances.

Molly over at Mommycoddle, one of my favorite blogs, had a piece recently on appreciating the normal. Our average everydays seem pretty dull sometimes–but we miss them when they are replaced with zaniness. So, she says, we should try and appreciate the ordinary days, to notice them, to enjoy them for what they are, as there are more of them than any others and we suffer when they leave. You can read it here.

I also started reading an interesting blog last week called Small Measure. It’s written by Ashley, who lives in the hills of North Carolina and really embodies a do-it-yourself ethos that I appreciate, even if I can’t quite do as much as she does. She’s got some great posts on sustainability, cooking, canning, baking, sewing. I’ve been reading through the archives in the last few weeks, particularly those from colder months that make me want to finish the coin quilt so I can snuggle under it.

So those are my thoughts for today. I’m hoping to bake my sugar pumpkins this week so I can make some pumpkin bread, or maybe a pumpkin custard. It’s that time of year and I feel behind the curve. But that’s ok. I’ll show you my freezer soon–all those veggies from the seasonal market have it stuffed to the gills. More later this week!

Delicious Cake Brownies

I am not usually a fan of cake brownies.  They can be dry, and I opt most often for fudgey brownies, with all their gooey glory.  The only reason I made cake brownies was because I lacked the ingredients for fudgey ones–those generally require a block of unsweetened chocolate, which I rarely have on hand.  I needed a recipe that used only cocoa, and I modified one I found in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

This recipe is very, very simple, and I made it all in one saucepan before baking.  Start by greasing and flouring a 9″ x 13″ pan and heating up your oven to 350*.

You’ll need:
3/4 c butter
1 1/4 c sugar
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 c milk
1 c chocolate chips (it calls for nuts, by why add nuts if you have more chocolate?)

Melt butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Remove from heat and add sugar and cocoa powder. Stir until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until just mixed. Add your dry ingredients, being careful to sprinkle the powders over your pan evenly in three shots (you could mix them all in a bowl first to assure no clumps of baking powder, but I hate washing dishes). Alternate each dose of dry with a dose of milk. I added half a cup of flour and the baking soda, then some milk; another 1/2 c flour and the baking powder, then some milk; then the end of the flour and some milk. Stir until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into your pan and bake for about 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The original recipe had a bigger, thinner pan (something like a jelly roll pan), so it had only a 15 minute bake time. I think mine took between 25 and 30 minutes, but I can’t remember now. Just keep an eye on your pan and you should be fine.

A last hurrah of preserving!

Holy cow, folks.  That’s all I have to say.  Last night Mr. Pea’s mom called to tell me that their local farmstand (a huge one) was closing for the season and that everything was on sale.  Would I like anything? she asked.  But of course!  Maybe a couple squashes!  Some tomatoes!  Do they have sugar pumpkins?

This is what she sent Mr. Pea home with, after he spent his Monday off helping them with some projects.

Would you like a tally?

2 enormous boxes of field tomatoes.  I don’t even know how many pounds there are.  lots.  I am planning on blanching and freezing them, cutting out the less desireable parts and popping them in gallon bags.  And eating them.  Tonight we had one in enchiladas.

6 butternut squash.  Six.  Thankfully, they’re all under a pound.

3 acorn squash

2 enormous spaghetti squash

3 sugar pumpkins

12 ears of corn.  12.  I put one in the enchiladas tonight–why not?  I am planning on blanching and stripping the rest for freezing.

Holy cow.  I don’t have time for mass preserving, so I’m really, really grateful that the squash will last a while on their own, probably most of the winter.  I’d like to can the tomatoes, but I’m not messing around with those quart jars again after the last disaster–when I couldn’t get enough water to go over them to seal well and made a heck of a mess of my stove.  I don’t feel like buying more pint jars, though I definitely wish I’d done that in the first place way back when.  I’m very grateful for all these veggies, and I think we’ll enjoy them for months to come.

I hope next time she sends him back with a bigger freezer.

Beer bread

I’m not one to sacrifice beer for other food, but I had two bottles of rather old Sam Adams Light in the fridge, leftover from a variety pack I bought when we moved last spring.  Since they were past their ‘best by’ dates, I figured another use for them would be better than letting them sit for eternity in the fridge.

I know that there are a lot of people out there who are a little nervous about working with yeast, but who would love to make their own bread.  Beer bread is a perfect recipe for those folks–it comes together in all of five minutes and requires no yeast, no kneading, no rising.  I can’t take credit for the recipe–it’s Foodie Farmgirl’s Beyond Easy Beer Bread, and it’s pretty darn good.  This is the partial whole wheat variation, and honestly, it takes longer to warm up the oven than it does to assemble the recipe.

You’ll need:

2 c whole wheat flour
1c all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1 12-oz bottle of beer, plus 2 oz (1/4 c) water

Mix your dry. Add the wet. Stir until just combined. Spread into a greased loaf pan and bake at 375* for 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan 10 minutes, and out of the pan 10 minutes, before you dig into it. Wait until you see how hard that 20 minute wait is!