Category: local food

Biscuit theory.

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I have long held the theory that if I just found the right biscuit recipe, I would be able to make flaky, delectable biscuits that my family would rave about.  Over the years, I have sworn by this recipe and then that one.  Among my cookbook collection, I have dozens upon dozens of biscuit recipes – my Southern Living Southern Heritage series alone has 95 recipes scattered throughout its eighteen volumes.  The “Bread” volume alone has an entire chapter on biscuits, with subsections on beaten biscuits (5 recipes, including Maryland and Kentucky style beaten biscuits), yeast biscuits, basic biscuits (17 recipes, including 3 with ‘buttermilk’ in the name), as well as biscuits suitable to be served with tea. Both the beaten biscuit as well as the basic biscuit section feature picture tutorials with step by step how-to instructions.
It’s not entirely about the recipe though, it’s about the ingredients and technique of putting those ingredients together.  While many of the recipes I have call for all-purpose flour, one could assume all flour is the same, when in fact, all purpose flour differs from  region to region.  Southern all purpose flour is made with soft red winter wheat, which has a lower protein and gluten content than what is available in other regions of the country.
I first learned this in conversations with my friend Mark down at city market this summer.  He often sets up a stand, handing out samples and recipes of dishes made with local produce.  We share similar interests in food and when he’s down there, I find myself engaged in conversations with him and other foodie types, discussing things like pickles and grits and curing your own meats and yes, flours.  Turns out that while I was reading Game of Thrones on my summer vacation, Mark was reading about biscuits.  Three books worth in fact.
As a baker, I knew the importance of different flours – high gluten flour for pizza crusts that resemble the ones your favorite local pizza place makes,  Cake flour for lightly textured cakes, pastry flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, buckwheat flour and more, including just plain old bleached & unbleached all purpose flour, but even I did not know that flour was different from region to region, brand name to brand name.
Interestingly enough, my older (1946 & 1964) copies of The Joy of Cooking both call for cake flour in their biscuit recipes, saying that it will make for a lighter biscuit.  Nowhere else have I seen a peep about how the flour you use is a large factor in making your biscuits light and fluffy.
There are differing opinions on how much to handle the dough, whether to knead or not, some say to roll it out, others say to keep the rolling pin far away from the biscuits.  Beaten biscuits, which apparently are unbelievably light and fluffy are made by literally beating the biscuits for a good 20 minutes or until the dough starts to ‘blister’ and pop.
With it being soup season, that means it’s biscuit season too.  I made my first batch of biscuits the other night,  using a technique I picked up from Rachel’s pie class I assisted with this past summer.  She cuts her fat in in stages, handling the final crust as little as possible. This, combined with using a southern flour (which took visiting a few grocery stores, believe it or not, despite the fact that I live in Virginia, which is considered the home of the ham biscuit), resulted in what I think is hands down my best biscuit ever.
They were everything you want a biscuit to be – light and flaky, excellent with butter and some blackberry jam for breakfast the next morning too. I think I have finally figured out the secret to a good biscuit – it’s not necessarily the recipe, it’s the flour you use and how you put them together.  Really, so much to cooking is about the ingredients you use as well as techniques.
Here’s my next goal – to figure out how to make a biscuit using whole wheat flour that is just as flaky and light as a biscuit that’s made of nothing but white flour.  I know that whole grains are healthier for us and since a big part of my motivation in my food sourcing and cooking is so that my family eats healthy, nutritious food, I’m not comfortable with us eating home baked goods on a regular basis that only use white flour, especially the lighter versions with less nutrients.  I have a few ideas about how I want to go about developing my own flour mixes, namely I’m going to try mixing some cake flour with some whole wheat flours and seeing what those results are.  I’ve also gotten my hands on some lard, not from the grocery store, but from animals that have been raised humanely, not commercially.  I’ve read good things about cooking with lard and I want to see for myself how they work in my biscuits and pie crusts.

You are what you eat.  Which is why I spend so much time thinking about biscuits, clearly.

Scenes from a weekend.

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Hot air balloons overhead, market, soccer, the Fiber Festival and Sheepdog trials (where I left the camera with Edie, only to find yet more photos of her toes), an unwilling photo subject,  inspiration for new projects,  a fermenting class at the cooking school, visit with grandparents and a grown up field trip on a dreary Monday to one of the nearby wineries.
Not pictured – new orange yarn that’s already being knit up into a yummy scarf, a home run on a homemade pizza crust, a sublime batch of sourdough bread served with the last of the bacon jam & melon jam, and confirmation that the okra pickles need a few more weeks before they are prime for eating.

Not Pickled.

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I put some produce up this week that believe it or not, wasn’t pickled. I know, right?
I stumbled upon this last summer and it worked well, so I decided to try it again. I take an assortment of chili peppers and roast them in the oven until they are done.
Most were from my garden.
The thing about chili peppers is that one plant produces buckets of them.  There is always plenty to share.
I happened to be the lucky beneficiary of a chili pepper enthusiast I met at Leni’s Second Wednesdays last week who brought a few extras along.
I’m digging the Peruvian Purple Peppers. I may need to grow some next summer. I grow purple basil & purple pole beans, why not purple hot peppers?

 

You can also find chili peppers for about 10 cents each at the farmer’s market this time of year.  $1 worth of peppers is a great deal.  Enough to make a nice hot sauce.  (That’s my next experiment.)
Roasting helps the skins pop off and I read somewhere that it makes them hotter because the roasting releases the capsaicin. Don’t quote me on that.  It does make them easier to chop up and throw in the freezer.
Last year, I filled small jars with them, but by the time I would finish a small jar, some of them had gone bad in the fridge.  So I thought I’d freeze them in ice cube trays and have smaller portions I could work with.  It doesn’t always take much of my mix to flavor a dish and I like having my own, local chilis, you know?
I didn’t think about wearing gloves though, so my hands tingled for a good few hours yesterday afternoon and evening.  I think I did that last year too.  I blame my blondeness.  I’m good about washing my hands after chopping peppers, but I did two cookie sheets full of peppers, a grocery bag worth.  When you deal with that amount of peppers, you really should consider gloves.
Last year I tried making a hot sauce with cayenne peppers and vinegar and Pat didn’t care for it.  So, I’m going to try again, but get a little fancy with it.  Maybe add some fruit?  I don’t know.  Anyone ever make one?  Know someone that makes one?  I’m now accepting recipes.

Scenes from the week.

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 It’s been a busy week around here.  Here’s some of the highlights.
Playing around with the settings on my camera, I finally figured out the b&w one.  
The Planting Seeds Festival

held at the Buford Garden, had a fantastic turnout and was a success

despite the fact that Mother Nature didn’t fully cooperate.

The whole shebang was moved into the cafeteria at Buford when the skies opened up and the children took over the face painting stand. 
Face painting became full body painting.
Apparently this is what a gang of girls will do when left with a stand full of face paint.
When the headliner, Dar Williams, took the stage
there was dancing and sing-a-longs.  A good time was had by all.

Anniversary dinner of shrimp and grits.

This bug paced the top of my monitor literally all day Wednesday, back and forth, for hours. 
Please ignore the dust.  He did.
My Mother’s Day gift to myself.
A variegated leaf geranium. 
There’s practically a rainbow on every leaf!
My winning streak lately has not been limited to just new fly rods. 
I won a seed giveaway thanks to the Eco Women.
That’s a cosmos popping up from seed.
I also won some apron patterns from Lesa , but I’ve used my rainy days to clean around here, instead of sewing, despite what that picture of the top of my monitor tells you.  Sewing when your hands are covered in poison ivy is not ideal anyway. Neither is cleaning really.
While I was at the nursery, I spied a tag for Becky Mix. 
Of course it came home with me.  They are now planted in the back yard.

Near my new patchouli plant.
Who knew it was a plant?
It has a much softer scent than what you  remember.  There’s no second note of uhm, well, you know.
I was listening to the Dead as I ran errands that day and as I’d already bought and planted my scarlet begonias for the year, I thought why not?

One of the roots of that pesky muscadine vine I’ve been digging up from all over the back yard. 
It’s huge.  I need to take an ax to it.  It’s the size of my foot, maybe bigger and
I wear women’s size 10 shoes.   
I may have underestimated it’s ability to not die.  It’s the energizer bunny of invasive plants.
I threw the hibiscus in a spot of dirt a few weeks ago and despite the neglect, it’s thriving.
I guess it’s earned a weeding and mulching session, hasn’t it?
Just as soon as I dust off that computer monitor and finish hacking away at that muscadine root.
I finally found myself some new canvas gardening gloves so I am going to try to stop ripping roots out of the ground with my bare hands.  Wish me luck.

Chickpeas two ways, gardens and more.

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It started with this recipe.  Mock tuna salad made with chickpeas?
Had to try it.  You should try it.  It’s good.  I was surprised at how much the flavor resembled tuna salad.  Texture not so much, but flavor, yes.  I made it the way I make my tuna, right down to chopped pickles.  In this case, pickled okra. So good.  You should try that in your next whatever salad you make.  I am definitely thinking of trying my lemon basil green bean pickles in my next batch.
Up next was something that caught my eye over at E.A.T. (Which incidently is fast becoming one of my favorite food blogs, I’ve gotten a few great ideas from there recently and since it’s a Richmond blog, that’s practically local!)  I digress…
Spicy Carrot Sandwich– That had my carrot loving girl’s name all over it. Only, as I was making the hummus to go with, I added too much liquid. Necessity being the mother of invention as they say, I had to get creative with the sandwich idea, as my hummus was just a little too thin to stay on a sandwich.
I borrowed a trick from the first chickpea recipe and made the spicy carrot sandwich in rice papers.  I added sprouts and romaine and we feasted.
They liked it.
And no one complained we had chickpeas for dinner two nights in one week. 
That’s pretty huge. 
Especially when you consider it was chickpeas in rice paper wrappers, twice.
I represented Edie’s school at a meeting of the city elementary schools with the schoolyard garden folks at Buford Middle School yesterday afternoon.  It seems all the elementary schools here in Charlottesville City are in different stages of starting up gardens.  There was a group of students from the University of Virginia who are involved in different aspects of some of these schoolyard gardens, including a group that is helping to develop curriculum that ties what the kids are doing outside into things like S.O.L.’s, Virginia’s standardized tests.  Some of them are headed to California this summer, to see Alice Water’s Edible Schoolyard and gleam some ideas from there. There is going to be a celebration/fundraiser for the city elementary gardens in May – I may have volunteered to help with that.  I also asked about a garden at Walker Upper Elementary.  With every elementary school now developing a garden as part of the curriculum, as well as Buford’s garden, there is a two year gap for the kids in 5th and 6th grade at Walker.  I was told there is a plan for that and so I may have offered to help with that as well, since I will be a parent there next year.  Yes, I may have a problem with volunteering for too many things, but this is something I believe in so much – teaching kids about food, how to grow it, to think about where it comes from….it’s so exciting to be a part of and make change happen.  This is one of the big ways I truly think we are going to change our food system.
Speaking of schools and food, you might want to check out this month’s Chew on This potluck. It’s my friend Ivana‘s latest initiative, to get us talking about food issues.  This month is a conversation on her recent visit to the DC Central Kitchen and is it possible to bring something like that here.  Sadly, Wednesdays are my jam-packed days with things like Girl Scouts and piano lessons and I won’t be able to make it. But you should go, definitely.
And on a completely unrelated note, Pat superglued my glasses yesterday, so they are a little more stable than just the duct tape fix.  I do love that man of mine.

In Season.

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The other night while watching television, we saw a commercial for a local produce store.  After their whole pitch about how they are the best for fresh, local produce, and the tag line “If it’s in season in Virginia, we have it in stock”, they immediately announced a special on strawberries.

Edie actually beat me to the yelling at the television. 

“It’s January.  Where in Virginia are those strawberries from!?!?!”

And then yesterday, as we were heading out to meet the egg lady*, Edie told me how in school that day, her class watched a video that included footage of chicken houses. You know, the big ones, with no windows and the sign telling you that this family farm is a proud producer of chicken/eggs for (Insert name here of big food producer, like Tyson or Perdue). Apparently they are studying the southeast and that particular clip was part of showing how the chicken industry is important economically to the region.  Every time we’ve ever driven by one of those factory farms, her father has been sure to point out, in great detail how gross they are.  Because of his career in environmental non-profits, he is well versed in how factory farming is harmful to our environment, not to mention our health.   So to be shown this as a ‘good thing’, well, my child was slightly horrified. 

“Why would you show that to people and then want them to buy the chickens and the eggs they are trying to sell?  It’s gross Mom.”

Yes, my dear, it is.  But it’s good to show that, because maybe, just maybe, it will make people sit up and question where their food comes from.

I’m pretty sure my kid takes this for granted. She’s a not quite 10 year old foodie, and has been on a first name basis with more than a few pieces of meat that have come across her plate – heck, she’s even seen it being born.  She has been raised with me questioning where all our food comes from as long as she can remember.  I’ve been called obsessed about knowing where our food comes from.  We are what we eat, after all.  My husband says of all things to be obsessed about, this one has healthy implications for our family, and it’s a good thing.  Living here in Charlottesville, it’s not hard to find like minded folks.  Back in June, Forbes Magazine called us the locavore capital of the world.  I know that the whole ‘eat local’ movement is often dismissed as a yuppie thing and I get why.  It does take tend more, both time and money, to eat foods that aren’t factory farmed and processed.  This is where I tend to go off on huge rants about how the system needs to change.  And while there are a number of changes that can only happen at the top, we need a grassroots effort to make the top sit up and notice.  This grassroots movement needs to encompass all of us, no matter our economic status, education level or the color of our skin.  Everyone needs to sit up and realize that those chicken houses are beyond disgusting, that those strawberries on special in January are strawberries in name only, because they sure as hell don’t taste like the ones I pick out of my garden every spring and I shudder to think at the chemicals involved to make them look that big, firm and red this time of year, despite the number of miles they’ve traveled.  That all this cheap, processed food is actually costing us more in the long run than it’s saving us in the here and now.

I had coffee yesterday with my friend Ivana. She was a big driving force in the new wellness policy adopted at Charlottesville City Schools recently, and is working on some other really great ideas, among them, a new roaming monthly potluck, to be held on the 3rd Wednesday of every month.  Families are welcome and child care is provided for a nominal fee (a $3 donation).  If you can’t make it this month, but are interested in being on the mailing list, there’s a spot on the website for that.  I’m really looking forward to this gathering. 

I try not to rant on here too much about the state of our food, although I do talk about how much local food we eat, my garden and canning.  I’ve been told I should use this space to talk more about my passion for overhauling the food system in this country and perhaps I will.  It’s really not hard to learn how to change the way you eat.  I often hear from friends and family “You’d be proud of me” and they then proceed to tell me how they’ve made some small change in their diet as a result of listening to me babble about the state of our food.  Yes, I am proud of them and yes, I’m proud of myself, for getting them to think about where their food comes from.  This is how we are going to change the system – from the bottom, one small step at a time.

*The egg lady is a vendor from the Charlottesville City Market that I have been buying eggs from for some time.  She asked if I would like to continue getting eggs from her farm all winter and so now I meet up with her in parking lots to get my goods.  The first time I met up with her this fall, it was in an abandoned Martha Jefferson parking lot, cold, getting dark and really sort of sketchy.  I kept waiting for some undercover agent to bust us.  It had that sort of a feeling….

When life hands you apples…….

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I have written before about my love of apples. It’s deep.
I have been an apple a day girl as long as I can remember.
They store well. You can throw one in your purse and carry it about until you are ready to eat it.
In fact, if you were to ask me what I always have in my bag, you’d find my wallet, ponytail holders, chapstick, a water bottle and an apple.
Those are my essentials.

Mollie asked I bring some apples when we came for Oysterfest. I used this as my excuse to head out to Henley’s Orchard and grab a bushel of seconds. I also thought I’d get some non-seconds, and I printed out the coupon from the website that said, buy a peck, get a free gallon.
She’d also asked for some cider and I’d heard Henley’s made some good stuff. 
Now, I know everyone in Charlottesville goes to Carter’s Mountain for apples.  Yes, the views are great.  But it also can be completely overrun.  And as much as I love the cider donuts, the cider they sell is not made from their apples – at least, the stuff I’ve seen there the last few years wasn’t locally made. And I’m stickler for local.  So, when I heard on good authority that Henley’s had good, local cider, I decided to check them out.  I can say, I will never again go to Carter’s for large amounts of apples, nor cider.  The prices and the varieties at Henleys are far better. Oh, and that cider?  Heavenly. 
But I digress.
I went to Henley’s for apples and got a bushel of seconds, a peck of non-seconds and a free gallon.
I got a mixed bunch of varieties – heavy on my beloved Black Stem, but also some Fuji, and thanks to the suggestion of the young man working at Henley’s that day (who encouraged me to pick up an apple and try it), some Cameo and Mutsu apples.  I think he threw some Granny Smith into the seconds bushel as well.
I thought I’d get non-seconds to have on hand for eating.  But as I looked through my bushel, I noticed there were a number of small apples, which are actually my favorite, as well as Edie’s favorite.  Turns out they are considered seconds.  Next time, I might not even bother getting the non-seconds, because the difference between the two were slight in the selection I got.
Again, I digress.
A bushel, a peck and a gallon. 
That’s what they looked like on my kitchen floor.
I filled a 5 gallon bucket and took it to Mollie last weekend.  Barely made a dent.
We have eaten fried apples for dinner almost every night for 2 weeks.  I made a pie – actually two, because Mollie & I made one last weekend and since I got only a bite, I came home and immediately made another one.  This morning for breakfast, we had a pan of baked apples.  Snack time around here is, can you guess?  Apples.
I finally got around to trying my hand at apple butter.  I didn’t add as much sugar as is called for, so I’m wondering if that is why it took 3 full days in the crockpot.  It’s good though.  I definitely think I’m going to start another batch.  I also keep meaning to throw some pies in the freezer.  And I promised my husband some apple crisp. I am considering making a batch of applesauce too, although that will require me to go get more canning jars, as I’m out.  I have used every last one of them in canning and pickling this year.  And I added an extra 4 cases or so to the stash this year. 
I’ve realized that a bushel, a peck (which is half a bushel) and a gallon (which is half a peck), adds up to be one and three quarters of a bushel.  Not quite two bushels.   As soon as I got home and unloaded them, I realized I may have gotten too many apples.  Okay, the fact that they took up ample space in the large trunk of my car was a clue.  And full disclosure – I didn’t unload them, my dear husband did.  Without questioning the amount of apples I had just dragged home.  Which is precisely why, he will get an apple crisp tomorrow.
After all, I did make him baked apples for breakfast…