I recently got an email from a new reader asking me what that red jar was that seems to be in almost all the pictures I take in my kitchen. You can clearly see it in this picture.
So, I thought I would answer it here. That is my butter jar! It is a popular myth that butter must be refrigerated. It isn't at my house. If you think about it, people have been eating butter for centuries. There wasn't any electricity then. If you were lucky enough back then, you could chill your butter in a local cold spring. Most people used what I use to store butter, my butter jar.
It is easy to use. The butter goes into the cup on the top, and water goes into the cup on the bottom. It is the water that seals the butter and keeps it fresh. You can get the idea from this picture. You can purchase these from a lot of different companies. Do a Google search on 'butter crock' and you should find plenty of sources.
In my house, in the winter, room temperature is between 65 - 68 degrees. At this temperature, the butter will stay fresh for one month. In the summer, room temperature is about 78 degrees. At this temperature, the butter will stay fresh for two weeks. Change the water in the jar every day or every other day.
I do not use butter from the store in my butter jar. (I do purchase butter from the store when I am doing a lot of baking. For example, at Christmas time.) Butter is quite easy to make. Even better, if you use shelf stable cream, no electricity is necessary! You can see how I make butter here.
Try storing your butter on the counter and start to reduce your need for electricity!
Do you have a sourdough starter? If you don't, let me suggest you make one! With it, you can make bread, pancakes, waffles, muffins, biscuits, bagels, pies and even cake! The best part is you don't need yeast in your recipes when using sourdough starter.
Before people could go to the store and buy yeast, bread was made using a starter such as sourdough. Sourdough likely originated in ancient Egypt. It was used to make bread all through the middle ages, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and went west with the pioneers. What I think is the best part of using sourdough is the total control you have over the taste. You can make it extra-tangy or extra-mild.
Long ago, I thought the only kind of sourdough that was acceptable, was sourdough started on the west coast (think San Francisco sourdough). That was before I knew that all sourdough starters take on the characteristics of the local wild yeast. What that means in the south is, my sourdough bread will not taste like San Francisco sourdough bread since the wild yeast are different here. Your starter will taste different where you live as well. Since you can't keep the San Francisco flavor in your sourdough starter, why pay for it? It doesn't make sense to pay a lot of money for a starter that originated somewhere else.
What to do? Start your own! My friend Chef Tess has a tutorial on her blog that gives step by step directions. She also has a great sourdough bread recipe there as well. This is how I made mine.
Start with a clean non-metallic container. Sourdough and metal don't mix so be sure to use non-metallic spoons when you are stirring as well. This is what I use. I got it as a present. It is from the King Arthur Flour Company.
To the container, I added 1 cup of water and 2 cups of whole wheat flour. I mixed that well and added 1/4 teaspoon of yeast. (Adding the yeast is not necessary, it just speeds things up a bit. If you don't add the yeast, it will take longer to get a good sourdough starter because your starter will need to collect wild yeast from the air.) I used bottle water to avoid the chlorine.
The next day, I poured out some of the starter and fed it again. This time I used 1/4 cup bottled water and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour. Stir well.
I repeated the process for four days. At the end of that time, the starter was ready. It should be nice and bubbly and look like this.
Now the starter is ready to use in lots of yummy recipes! If you aren't ready to use your starter yet, or if you have a starter and want to take a break from using it, you can put it in the refrigerator. When in the refrigerator, you will only have to pull it out weekly to feed it. When you want to use it in a recipe again, take the starter out the day before and feed it. The next day it will be ready to use in your baking.
I have also had some success freezing the starter for up to six months. In my experience, when I let the starter go longer than six months in the freezer, I have mixed results when trying to re-activate it. If you want to take a break from sourdough for longer than six months, you can always follow these directions again to start a new batch.
I will post some of my favorite recipes soon!
The other day I noticed that I was out of macaroni. Now, most of you would think, "Just go to the store and buy some more!" But I don't do that. If I need macaroni, I make my own from wheat berries. Rather than store many different kinds of pasta such as spaghetti, macaroni, ravioli, and others, it is much easier to store wheat berries as part of a food storage program and make your own.
To make macaroni, you need semolina flour. Semolina flour is made from durum wheat berries. So first thing I needed to do was grind some durum wheat berries. To do that, I used my wheat grinder. I have a Wonder Junior Deluxe Hand Grain/Flour Mill. I really like it. It is strong enough for daily use yet isn't as expensive as others out there. I have had other (cheaper) ones in the past, but since I tend to use a grinder frequently, they didn't last.
I do have a few tips for breaking in a new machine, (or new stones/burrs). When you first set up a new machine, the grinding stones and burrs may have a few sharp edges that will make the machine harder to turn. The instructions recommend that the first few cups of flour should be discarded because they may contain some bits of the stone or shavings of the steel burrs. To grind this flour yesterday, I was using new grinding stones. I only needed to grind two cups of berries to make the macaroni. However, to break in the new stones, I had to grind a total of 4 cups. I discarded the first two cups in the trash.
The first few times you use this grinder, you will get a real workout! If you have never ground your own flour before, (and if you don't usually work out), you will notice your arms tiring. After a few times at grinding flour, it will get much easier. Here is a picture of mine.
I really do prefer using the stones (as opposed to the steel burrs) because you get a finer flour. Here is a picture of my semolina flour.
Now, to make the dough, you need to add eggs to the flour. Of course fresh eggs will work, but it wouldn't be cooking with food storage if I did that. I used egg powder. The recipe required three eggs. The equivalent of three eggs is six tablespoons of egg powder.
Egg powder has a tendency to lump up so I mixed the flour and egg powder well, breaking up any egg powder lumps as necessary. To this I added nine tablespoons of water.That is the amount of moisture equivalent in three eggs. I didn't add them all at once because you really only want the dough to be moist enough to stay together. If it is too moist, it won't go through the extractor easily to make the macaroni. However, this time I had the opposite problem. Once I added the water, I couldn't get the dough to come together. Instead of adding more water, I turned it out onto a piece of freezer paper and tried kneading it together.
I really was hesitant to add more water because it is very easy to add too much water to this dough. Caution is the word here. Once I kneaded it a bit, it came together nicely. I then rolled it into a log to make it easier to cut. I let it rest for a few minutes while I set up the macaroni machine.
The macaroni machine I have is an Atlas Manual Pasta Extruder Regina. It is super easy to use and easy to clean as well. Here is a picture of mine.
I used the small macaroni cutter (the manufacturer calls them dies). The machine comes with five different cutters so you can make five different types of pasta. To start, cut the dough into pieces that will fit into the funnel.
Then put a piece in the machine and start cranking.
After a few turns of the handle, the dough will peek out the front of the machine.
At this point, stop cranking and cut off the macaroni at the length you desire. From this point on, the instructions recommend one complete turn of the handle for most of the pasta. I like two turns.
Once you have cut the pasta off the machine, crank again and cut again. I should mention here that dough doesn't normally fit well into any extractor machine. It will be necessary from time to time to push it a bit so the dough will flow smoothly.
In a few short minutes you have macaroni!
The instructions with the machine recommend that the noodles dry for at least one hour. I like to dry them longer, at a minimum of two hours. They are easier to work with when they are dry. I do check on them every so often to separate them and break up any clumps that stick together. In the picture above, you can see in the upper left corner some of the pieces sticking together. If I am not going to cook them the day I make them, I will dry overnight and then vacuum seal in a canning jar for longer storage.
Last night, I used two cups worth in a food storage recipe I cook often, beef stroganoff You can see how I make that recipe here. The rest was dried overnight and stored for later use.
The entire process was super easy! AND the best part is it didn't take any electricity!
Have you ever tried kefir? All the information I read about it says it is a super food. For example, here is a paragraph from The National Kefir Association:
"Research shows that Kefir has a wide range of stellar health benefits. Its seven to ten probiotic cultures, combined with essential vitamins and nutrients, work to improve your body from the inside out, helping jump start your digestion, control your weight and fight the flu."
My response to this is "yeah, right!" It sounds like the claims made by 'snake oil salesmen' of yesteryear. So, while I don't really believe in these miracle claims, I do have it and drink it. I purchased mine from here but I bet if you search the Internet, you can find other suppliers.
Why do I drink it? Because in my opinion, it really is a nice yogurt substitute. It doesn't quite taste like yogurt, it has more of a sour taste. However, when mixed with other ingredients, I can't tell the difference between it and yogurt. AND even better, it doesn't require energy of any kind to produce. You don't have to heat it up to a certain temperature or incubate it to get it to culture like you do with yogurt.
It is super easy to make!
All the directions I have read said that It is best to start with fresh milk. You should not use ultra-pasteurized milk (like powdered milk and shelf stable milk or cream). They are supposed to starve the kefir grains. However, I have found that both shelf stable milk and shelf stable cream work just fine. While I have only used shelf stable dairy a few times, my kefir grains don't appear to be dysfunctional in any way because of it. Still, I don't think it is a good idea to slowly kill them either. So, overall it think it is best to keep the use of ultra-pasteurized dairy to a minimum. You can use ice cold milk right out of the refrigerator. From what I read, many people make it with raw milk.
Pour the milk into a non-metal container. I use a pint canning jar.
Add the kefir grains. Now, this can be a bit tricky because first you need to fish them out of the cultured milk from yesterday. It works best if you get a small strainer. Pour the kefir into the strainer over a clean bowl or container.
Stir the kefir in the strainer as you look for the kefir grains.
The first few weeks, it took a very long time to find them. But, after a while you will be able to spot the grains quickly. I promise! It doesn't take more than a few minutes for me to find them now. Here is a picture of a kefir grain.
Continue removing all the grains from yesterday's batch. You can just drop them into the fresh milk container. Cover the container with something breathable. You want air to get in but bugs to stay out. I use a paper towel with a rubber band. Let it sit on the counter 12 - 24 hours. I usually let mine sit for 24 hours.
Next morning you will have kefir. It looks like this when you take the cover off. You can notice some of the kefir grains at the top of the jar.
We drink it in fruit smoothies for breakfast. Blend it with some fruit (freezed-dried fruit works really well) and a teaspoon or two of stevia and you have a great smoothie! Since the kefir is created with room temperature milk, you may want to refrigerate your smoothie or add ice to make it cold. We drink ours at room temperature.
Let me also add here it takes four to seven days before new grains will start to culture milk. Be sure to follow the directions on the package to properly re-hydrate the kefir grains. Once up and going, the grains can be used indefinitely.
If you don't want to make kefir every day, you can place your container in the refrigerator. That will slow down and may even stop the culture. You can also dry the grains for more long term storage, up to six months.
I believe kefir offers an exceptional substitute to yogurt or sour cream when you are baking. It is so easy and convenient to make and your homemade kefir doesn't have any emulsifiers or other unwanted ingredients like you can find in the store bought versions.
It seems to me a perfect option if you are trying to reduce your dependence on electricity. All you need is a source of fresh milk!
I may try my hand at baking with kefir. I have been collecting recipes for baked goods that look appealing. When I do, I will be sure to post the results here!
You are probably thinking it is too soon to think about the garden for next spring! Or, you may be browsing seed catalogs with no thought of going outside. Let me suggest a mid-winter chore that will help make your life easier next summer!
Go outside and turn the garden dirt over! If you live where the ground is frozen right now, wait until a mid-winter warm spell. However, if it is winter where you live and the ground isn't frozen solid, January is the time to take care of this chore. It really isn't necessary to get out the tiller, you can do it by hand. It doesn't have to be perfect!
What this will do is bring up to the top of the soil all the bugs and bug eggs that are over-wintering six to eight inches down. They like it down there. It is warm and their chance of surviving the winter is good. Bringing them up to the surface of the soil before the next hard freeze will help kill them. Exposing them to a hard freeze will wipe out the eggs of many different types of bugs!
When will you notice? Next summer. Your bug population will be significantly less if you turn over the soil now. That will help to eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) the need for pesticides on your garden next summer!
Try it! It really works!
