July 31: Salad, corn fritters, and smoked salmon we brought back from the “Take Home Fish Company” in Neah Bay, WA.

August 15: Buffalo and blue cheese meatballs, roasted okra from the garden (yay!), and potato salad (this is one of my favorite potato salad recipes because, not only is it very tasty, it uses ingredients I can easily get locally: yogurt, chicken broth, and oregano). This meal is approximately 94.37% local. Well, not really, but close. Definitely close.

August 19: Finished off the salmon we brought back from our vacation, roasted okra, and butternut squash with butter, brown sugar, and pecans. Let me tell you about this squash: it patiently sat in the pantry since November. A great keeper! The outside looked a little rough (spotty), but the inside was just fine.

August 14: Beautiful brioche from Prairie Thunder Baking Company via Urban Agrarian.
Take a slice of that pretty loaf and top it some butter, thin apple wedges, and blue cheese. Broil it for a couple of minutes. I’m on a blue cheese kick right now.

I didn’t know how to tell you, so I’ve put off this post for some time. I killed my vinegar mother—the gelatinous substance that turns wine into vinegar. Over a year ago I acquired a mother from Jackie Dill, the self-sufficient, wise wildcrafter of Coyle, OK. And since I was so grateful that Jackie shared her mother with me, I’ve felt guilty about wasting it.

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My basic understanding of the vinegar-making process is this: a mother is the name for the bacteria that develops on fermented liquid. She eats up the alcohol and creates acid. This could happen just by ignoring an open container of wine for weeks or months, until the right wild bacteria finds the wine—same concept as sourdough yeasts and the open fermentation of beer. Maybe this bacteria is more prevalent in certain geographic areas? I’m not sure. Regardless, you can speed up the process by buying or acquiring a vinegar mother like I did. The mother is put in a glass or ceramic container or an oak barrel and is fed a diet of red or white wine. You need to pick which wine you’re going with and stick with only that type. You can keep her alive indefinitely by feeding her alcohol.

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There seems to be two main approaches to feeding the mother: 1) add a glug of wine to your mother every day or so or 2) add a bottle at once and let the mother do its thing. I chose the latter and ignored the mother to a fault. I have to admit—I was intimidated by this whole process, which is, I think, why I neglected/forgot about the hungry, vinegar-making blob at the back of my pantry. I basically starved her to death since she eventually ate all the alcohol and I didn’t give her any more. Although I killed the mother, I was still able to get some delicious red wine vinegar out of the experiment.
My first try at vinegar making has been an education I hope to build on once I get another mother.

The vinegar mother that I got from Jackie Dill. It came in pear wine vinegar.

I strained and reserved the pear wine vinegar so I could use the mother to start my red wine vinegar. I covered the container opening with cheesecloth and slid it to the back of the pantry. Instead of fearing and ignoring the vinegar for 9 months, I should have tasted the liquid every couple of weeks to check its progress.

Out of sight, out of mind. Nine months later I finally strained the mother out and pasteurized the vinegar. In retrospect, it was hasty to assume the mother was dead. I should have tried to keep her going by adding more wine.

My vinegar-loving friend Nicole and I had a taste test between my store-bought and homemade red wine vinegar. As you can see, the homemade vinegar is much deeper in color and body. Its taste is rich and mellow compared to the store-bought vinegar, which makes my eyes water and my mouth pucker.

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If you’re interested in learning more, these websites are helpful:
http://www.gangofpour.com/diversions/vinegar/vinegar1.html
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/the-virtue-of-homemade-vinegar
http://chefsblade.monster.com/training/articles/782-making-vinegar-with-a-mothers-love
http://www.squidoo.com/Vinegar_Starter_Culture

The okra is looking promising. Though, I’ve never grown okra before so I’m not really sure what’s supposed to be happening right now.

One tomato plant looks very healthy and might start producing. I planted it late, so maybe it will hold off and I can get some fall tomatoes. The others are looking pretty ragged and barren since the cucumbers decided to use the tomato plants as a trellis. (I didn’t think the cucumbers needed a trellis since I planted “Bushy Cucumbers.” “Compact,” my ass.)

The oregano, thyme, and basil are all doing well.

I harvested and cured onions a few weeks ago.

So, that’s a garden update. When I return I’ll tell you the story of how I killed my mother—my vinegar mother. In the meantime, check out these videos:

Local-food pioneer, April Harrington, is going through major hell, also known as eminent domain. The local news summarized her plight. Call your elected officials! This situation not only concerns April, but her employees, farmers, and entrepreneurs that use her commercial kitchen. April buys bumper crops and “ugly produce” from farmers and preserves it by canning, freezing, and making ready-made meals. She also makes delicious crackers, granola, and pancake and cookie mixes from freshly milled Oklahoma wheat.

And now for some silliness: this gives a whole new meaning to “playing with your food.”

I’ve come to enjoy meal planning. This is how I do it:

My meal planning routine comes down to lists: 1) frozen food; 2) food I want to make; 3) shopping lists to fill the gap between what I have and what I need.

1) frozen food list
I keep a list of the contents of the freezer. This was initially a way to save energy by reducing the amount of peeking in the freezer. But it has also turned out to be a helpful way to plan meals and make shopping lists.

Frozen meats

Frozen food

2) list of meals/dishes
My meal planning routine includes time for flipping through cookbook indexes looking for ways to use ingredients I already have on hand (for example, now I would look for recipes using a lot of potatoes or cucumbers) or I anticipate getting from the food co-op or farmers’ market (like eggplant). Or I look through saved websites or blog posts for recipes that sounded promising or exciting. I bookmark the cookbooks and write down the recipe names on a piece of scrap paper, sometimes noting the recipe source so I can easily find it later. I usually try to include a meal or two that uses non-perishable or frozen food like pasta or meat from the freezer. There might be a lack of fresh food, but I know we have the makings of a meal, even when the refrigerator or pantry look bleak. For example, meatloaf is always an option since eggs, tomato paste, frozen ground meat, and breadcrumbs are staples.
These meals aren’t planned for certain days, but there is usually a balance between quick-and-easy and more elaborate recipes. Once the planning and shopping are done, I usually decide what to cook a day or two in advance, depending on my schedule and the status of my fresh ingredients.

What's cookin'?

As I make the list of meals, I reference the frozen food list and refrigerator contents, while making note of any items I need to buy. Which leads us to the third list:

3) shopping list
I try to group items on the shopping list by source: farmers’ market, Buy For Less, ethnic grocers.

Read about Chelsey’s similar system. Also, Bob Waldrop has two recent blog entries on meal planning.

Do you have a meal-planning system? Please share. What are your go-to meals or staple ingredients? What delicious meals have you prepared when, at first glance, it seemed there was no food in the kitchen?

Larry Ressler’s cornmeal.

I met Larry over a year ago. He was a new co-op producer—selling eggs and smoking wood—and was visiting co-op pick-up sites to meet his customers. We chatted and he asked what unmet demand there was in the co-op. Besides the typical needs at that time—produce, chicken, and bacon—I mentioned cornmeal.

Later he wrote to let me know he planted meal corn. He periodically dropped a line updating me on the corn’s progress. In late June he lamented his corn was 6 inches tall, while his conventional-farmer-neighbor’s corn was 6–8 feet tall. By September his corn was catching up: “It’s as big as an elephant’s eye (or something like that),” he said.

In late February Larry’s cornmeal was ready. He sent me about one pound of finely ground cornmeal. It was a precious gift; I knew how much effort, thought, and consternation went into it.

This year Larry is growing about three times more corn than he did last year. Let’s wish him luck to endure this crazy weather and persevere against hungry raccoons.

Here’s what I made with the cornmeal:

I made one of my favorite desserts, cornmeal cobbler. This time I made it with some apples I canned last year. But I’ve made this cobbler many times: with blackberries, blueberries, peaches, and pears. You can add different spices to the cobbler batter to complement the fruit you’re using. For instance, I added cardamom when I made the pear cobbler.

I made polenta, which I baked on top of sautéed kale and roasted red peppers. Cold polenta forms a firm loaf, so I sliced the refrigerated leftovers, pan-fried the slices, and topped them with Om Gardens mushroom gravy.

I also experimented with a lemon berry cake recipe. I really liked the dense, lemony, cake-like topping that soaked up the juices from the cooked strawberries. When cooked, the batter forms a nice crisp glaze on top. This cake gets baked in a pie plate. (Disregard the springform pan in the photo. That was a bad idea.) 

Lemon Berry Cake

:: 3 c strawberries, hulled and sliced (any type of berry will do)

:: 1 3/4 c sugar, divided

:: 1 c melted butter, cooled

:: 3/4 c flour

:: 1/4 c cornmeal

:: 1/2 t lemon extract

:: 2 eggs

Put sliced strawberries in a pie plate. Stir in 1/4 c sugar. In a medium-size mixing bowl combine the remaining 1 1/2 cup sugar with the melted butter, flour, cornmeal, lemon extract, and eggs. Stir until smooth. Spread evenly on top of strawberries. Bake for 40 minutes at 350˚.

*These photos were taken before the torrential rains descended upon OKC.

It’s a tiny amaranth plant. It doesn’t look like much yet, but look what it can become!

Last summer I collected amaranth blossoms from Kamala’s garden, put them in a paper bag, and hung the bag in the basement over the winter. By springtime, the flowers had dried and the seeds could easily be shaken loose. In mid-April I planted the seeds along a small section of our fence line. I did the planting in a very haphazard fashion: at first I used a trowel to loosen the dirt and remove some grass, then I got impatient lazy and just sprinkled the seeds on the ground. I watered in the seeds that day and then promptly forgot about them. So I was pleasantly surprised today to see that a few plants have emerged. I would love for them to take off; maybe I should give them a little love.

Photo by dhamzza