December 3, 2009 by Tricia
A couple years ago I zealously ordered 5 pounds of turnips through the food co-op. I avoided them so long they eventually became expensive compost fodder. A couple weeks ago, on some unfounded confidence, I decided to make a turnip side dish for our dinner party. Why not experiment at our first-ever dinner party? And, heck, why not do it with the turnip—the underdog of the root vegetables?
These spicy creamed turnips were delicious and unique. I think they were a hit among the dinner guests, or they just lied to make me feel good.


Spicy Creamed Turnips
from Cooking with Bon Appétit
:: 1 1/2 to 2 pounds turnips, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
:: 1/2 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
:: 3 c water
:: 1/2 c (1 stick) butter
:: 1/2 c all-purpose flour
:: 2 c milk
:: 2 T white wine
:: 1 T Dijon mustard
:: 1/2 t Worcestershire sauce
:: 1/2 t salt
:: 1/8 t hot pepper sauce (I used a 1/2 t of Vietnamese rooster sauce)
:: 3/4 to 1 c shredded sharp cheddar cheese (optional)
Combine turnip and onion in large saucepan. Add water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain well, reserving 1 cup liquid.
Melt butter in large saucepan over low heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly 3 to 4 minutes (do not brown). Add reserved cooking liquid, milk, and wine. Increase heat to medium high, bring mixture to boil and simmer, stirring 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in mustard, Worcestershire, salt, pepper sauce, and vegetables. Serve immediately or transfer to a 9-inch square baking dish, sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350˚ until cheese is melted, about 15 minutes.
Can be prepared ahead without cheese, transferred to 9-inch square baking dish, covered, and refrigerated for 1 to 2 days. Bake in 350˚ oven for 45 minutes. If desired, stir after 45 minutes, sprinkle with cheese and return baking dish to oven for another 15 minutes.
My notes: Next time I make this I won’t peel the turnips. Why not take a shortcut and add nutrition at the same time?
Since I rarely have white wine on hand, I always use crappy cooking wine when recipes call for white wine.
I am shocked to say that I don’t think the cheddar cheese is necessary in this recipe. I’ll leave it off next time.
Posted in Experimenting, Recipe, Vegetarian | 1 Comment »
November 28, 2009 by Tricia
Quick idea:
If, after dehydrating your potatoes, you still have more you need to use up, make hash browns! Grate the potatoes with a cheese grater, spread them out on a cookie sheet or plastic cutting board, freeze until solid, then transfer the potatoes to a freezer bag. (The potatoes stuck somthin’ fierce to my nonstick cookie sheet, so next time I’ll probably line it with parchment paper.)
When you’re ready to make hash browns, melt butter in a hot skillet, break up the potatoes in the bag first, then pour them in the skillet. Season with salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne, etc. Do not stir the potatoes; just smash them down with a metal spatula and patiently wait for them to brown. Then flip and brown the other side. And voila! Ore-Ida, Oklavore style.
Note: If you don’t want to freeze them—if you want hash browns right now, dang it!—just blot the grated potatoes with tea towels or give them a ride in a salad spinner. Otherwise, they’ll be too wet for pan frying.

Do you any other ideas for preserving potatoes? Have you had luck freezing potato soup? Once I froze shepherd’s pie, which—once thawed—rendered it a disgusting, inedible mess. So, I’m hesitant to freeze cooked potatoes. Also, do you put ketchup on your hash browns? I’ll pass on the ketchup, but I love to place a slightly runny fried egg atop my crispy hash browns. I know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow!
At Thanksgiving I learned a trick from Matt’s mom. For the post-Thanksgiving breakfast she mixed flour and a beaten egg with the mashed potatoes and formed and pan-fried potato patties. They were really tasty! I bet you could do the same thing with the sweet potato casserole.
Posted in Breakfast, Experimenting, Preservation | 2 Comments »
November 12, 2009 by Tricia
2.27 pounds of lard from Rowdy Stickhorse Wild Acres +
2.07 pounds of lard from Downing Family Farm =
7 cups of rendered lard
Here’s how ya do it:

Fresh lard

Cube the lard and add about one cup of water. Slowly melt the fat over low heat for a couple hours.*

Once the lard is melted, strain and reserve the cracklings, if you want to use them for cornbread, etc. Pour the lard into a bowl with two cups of water. Chill the lard/water mixture in the refrigerator until solid. Magically, the lard solidifies on top of the water and lard debris. Lard debris: meditate on that.

Scoop off the solid lard and discard the water and debris. Slowly reheat the lard so that you can funnel it into storage jars. Store the lard for about three months in the refrigerator or one year in the freezer.

Lard is soft at room temperature. Kind of pretty, huh?

Homemade biscuits using lard.

Yum.

I used this recipe to make pizza dough with lard.

It turned out pretty okay, but needs some work. It was too crisp—like a saltine cracker.
Why render lard? Although there are vats of hydrogenated lard (read: trans fats) at the grocery store, freshly rendered lard has gone from being a kitchen staple to a fat for the margins—back-to-the-land types or whole-food gourmets. Little use for excess fat and the demand for lean meat, has resulted in selective breeding for lean animals. According to USDA statistics compiled in Fat by Jennifer McLagan, “in 1950 a pig yielded 33.2 pounds of fat, but in 1990 this figure had fallen to just 10.1 pounds.” Crazy! Now we use brining techniques to make pork more palatable. Like all fats, lard is a mixture of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. If you care about this sort of thing, the surprising part is that lard is mostly monounsaturated (approximately 45%). For me, the attraction to lard comes from the ability to render it myself. I can’t make olive oil or canola oil or vegetable oil. I probably can’t afford to make as much butter as I need. But I know where this pork fat comes from and I can easily render a batch twice a year. And it makes for better biscuits and pie crusts, to boot.
*I rendered two batches of lard: one on the stove, the other in the oven. I found the stove-top method to be superior because I had finer control of the heat and I could easily check on it. I like to check it a lot; I’m still paranoid from my first attempt at rendering lard.
Posted in Back to Basics, Bread, Fat, Pizza | 1 Comment »
November 4, 2009 by Tricia
Do you subscribe to Meatingplace headlines and blog updates? I can’t remember how I came across the site, but I continue to read and get pissed; read, get pissed. It’s my education on inserting bias and “fast, flexible, fully automated sausage production.”
The industry blogs are even more fun, where bloggers like Yvonne Vizzier Thaxton of Poultry Perspectives argue semantics: in her view factory farms and family-owned farms are mutually exclusive. And the mere existence of factory farms is questionable. Oh, and this gem: “Poultry farmers are farmers and by nature these people love the environment otherwise, they could have a career in an office doing much less physically exhausting work.” (from “The message we need to shout,” 9/1/09; I’d link to it, but articles and blogs require a sign-in.)
Yesterday’s Meatingplace headlines were peculiar in that two stories were inconveniently interwoven.

The referenced author is Jonathan Safran Foer, whose new book is titled Eating Animals. He has an erroneously titled opinion piece here. I guess an honest, thorough title wouldn’t be as provocative. Do you think Foer’s critique of animal agriculture will be taken seriously? Is there room for another voice in this discussion?
Posted in Big Food, Blogs, In the News, Meat, Media, Reading and Research, Status Quo | 1 Comment »
November 2, 2009 by Tricia
Here’s a little clip of me using the handy-dandy mandoline to slice a wee potato. The uniform, thin slices vastly improved drying time compared to last year.
Drying the slices takes around 1.5–2 hours at 215˚, depending on the type of cookie sheet and the oven rack placement. It took probably around six hours to turn approximately five pounds of potatoes to one gallon of dehydrated potato slices.




Posted in Experimenting, Preservation | 2 Comments »
November 2, 2009 by Tricia
Posted in Fruit | 2 Comments »
September 7, 2009 by Tricia
Don’t ya just love all this “indoctrination” talk stirred up because—gasp!—the President seeks to directly engage schoolchildren?
Let us focus on some legitimate indoctrination:
“By the year 2000, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that one in five schools participating in the National School Lunch Program had brand-name fast foods in their lunchrooms.”
—School Lunch Politics by Susan Levine
More here.
Posted in Events, Health, Media, Reading and Research, Status Quo | 3 Comments »
August 18, 2009 by Tricia
Is there really a need for words?
Good, because it’s time for bed.


Porter Peach Ice Cream turns a humid August day into a blissful, humid August day.
Posted in Sweets | 4 Comments »