Food – Page 48 – Into the Woods

What's beneath the eggs ?

Guest Post by Anivid

Is it sauercraut ??
Is it beans ??
Is it rice ??
NOPE 😉
It’s hash brown …… sort of.
Hash Brown made of raw potatoes, which after grating is placed in a strainer, and rinsed thoroughly in lots of water until the outgoing water is free of cloudyness.
– and why is that ? – for extracting the starch which else would be responsible for the whole item clotting together in a kind of porridge 😉
Then the grated, washed potatoes are placed in a cloth, wrapped up tight and squeezed until the water is drained.
Next some parsley (or other tasty, healthy stuff like grated carrots*) is added – and the mix placed on a hot oiled frying pan.
Fried on both sides – or all over (stirred, not shaken 😉
Then we place some roasted champignons at the side – and fried eggs on top.
Voila – enjoy !!
* The root of plants being just like the egg of birds – it contains everything necessary for the whole individual to grow & unfold 😉

After the sumptuous meal we take a little chicory coffee for rounding off.

Signing out: Anivid, Southern France, Gastronomy & Culture.

Garlic harvest

It looks a fright, but there are couple of pounds or more of good garlic in there.

I had been waiting for a cool morning to harvest the garlic. It was a chore. It would be nice if one could just pull it up by the stalk, but the stalks were too dry and weak for that, and the roots too strong. So each bulb had to be excavated with a garden tool.

I planted the garlic in, I believe, late October. I pulled it in mid-July, so that’s almost nine months to grow. I was tempted to wash it and make it look like the Sonoma County fair, but I didn’t think getting it wet would help preserve it.

There will be something very garlicky for supper tonight, using the bulbs that fell apart while I was pulling them.

How the garlic looked in early May

Chapati bread

The dough, kneaded and resting

Those of you who’ve been reading my scribblings here know that two tenets of my theory of cooking and health are that we should all eat like diabetics, even if we’re not; and that the elimination of simple carbs is the key to maintaining body weight.

The problem is, bread is probably my favorite food, and hot homemade bread is something I’d rather not imagine living without. So I’m always thinking about breads that are as easy as possible on the carbs and as low as possible on the glycemic index. That’s a short list of breads. But one such bread is whole-wheat chapati bread. It’s a dense, unraised flatbread. Google for recipes. I make it with King Arthur whole-wheat flour, water, and a bit of coconut oil. That’s right, not even any salt. For years I have noticed that unsalted bread can be much more interesting than bread with salt in it, with an eerily old-fashioned taste. I have no idea why. Anyway, like all wheat breads, the dough must be kneaded. Cook it well-floured on a dry griddle or pan.

Chapati bread goes exceptionally well with the curries of fresh summer vegetables that are my default supper this time of year.

Rolled and ready for griddling

Cook them hot so they blister and brown, but don’t let them smoke.

Chapati bread, curry of squash and peppers, and zingy peanut sauce

Dieticians give their blessing to vegans

A vegan summer supper here in the sticks. The tofu, walnuts, and sesame dipping sauce mix amino acids from legumes, seeds, and nuts to boost the quality of the protein. I’m not a strict vegan, but I eat lots of vegan meals. Tofu is mighty tasty if you dip it in the right stuff.

The American Dietetic Association released a position paper this month on vegetarian and vegan diets. You have to be a member of the association to read the full report, but the abstract is available on their web site:

“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. A vegetarian diet is defined as one that does not include meat (including fowl) or seafood, or products containing those foods. This article reviews the current data related to key nutrients for vegetarians including protein, n-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, iodine, calcium, and vitamins D and B-12. A vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, supplements or fortified foods can provide useful amounts of important nutrients. An evidence-based review showed that vegetarian diets can be nutritionally adequate in pregnancy and result in positive maternal and infant health outcomes. The results of an evidence-based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Features of a vegetarian diet that may reduce risk of chronic disease include lower intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, soy products, fiber, and phytochemicals. The variability of dietary practices among vegetarians makes individual assessment of dietary adequacy essential. In addition to assessing dietary adequacy, food and nutrition professionals can also play key roles in educating vegetarians about sources of specific nutrients, food purchase and preparation, and dietary modifications to meet their needs.”

Chicken news

Behind the new defenses

My hens will soon be five months old, so they should start laying before long. I decided to go ahead and switch them to laying mash. Until now, they’ve been eating a Purina starter mash. I was delighted to find out that the roller mill at Walnut Cove, where I buy chicken feed, mixes their own laying mash. It looks like a good mix, because it has a calcium supplement and no animal byproducts.

I found one of my hens dead Saturday morning. She was inside the wire with no broken skin but with clear signs of neck trauma. I’ll never know what happened, but I think she probably was strangled by a raccoon that reached through the wire and caught her by surprise. I spent the day Saturday putting up 1/2-inch hardware cloth. I also doubled the electrical defenses and installed a higher-power, always-on fence charger. Poor chicken. The only good to come of it is that, with four hens, there’s more room in there. Given the quality, and the cost, of the chicken defenses required around here, I don’t think I’ll be able to build them a larger coop any time soon.

The Walnut Cove mill’s homemade layer mash

The Monitor Roller Mill at Walnut Cove. It’s an institution in these parts.

Inside the roller mill

From Time magazine:

Time magazine has a lame piece today on why there is more obesity in the South than in the rest of the country. They’re right about some things, for example the correlation of health and weight to income. But they trot out all the old stereotypes about biscuits, fried chicken, and pie. Southerners have always been poor, but they have not always been fat, as an examination of any collection of old photos will show you.

As a Southerner, a foodie, and a person who takes careful note of what people have in their carts in the grocery store line, I claim the standing to comment knowledgeably on this question.

1. Southerners have stopped cooking from scratch. This is clear from the contents of their grocery carts.

2. Southerners have too little color in their diets. Pretty much everything in their grocery cart will be meat or something white.

3. Southerners consume astonishing quantities of canned and bottled sweet drinks. By weight, sweet drinks are probably the main items in their grocery carts. Few even seem to make fresh iced tea at home anymore.

4. Southerners eat too much meat. They seem to have cut way back on pinto beans, which, in my childhood, you were guaranteed to get at least twice a week.

5. Southerners eat too much cheap white bread and too many chips.

6. Southerners buy very few fresh foods, not even fresh potatoes. It took me a while to realize that people aren’t interested in starting gardens because they aren’t interested in what comes out of gardens.

7. When Southerners eat out, whether at fast food places or not, they eat even more calories than they eat at home. Restaurants compete on price and the size of the portions.

If Southerners could go back to the era of homemade biscuits, all would be well. People made biscuits because it was hard to get white bread, or the white bread cost more. Biscuits come from an era in which everything came from the kitchen, from scratch.

Michael Pollen’s rule of thumb is the best I’ve ever heard: It’s about remembering and honoring what our great-grandmothers cooked. Many Southerners seem to have forgotten.

Garden

I was too busy to check the garden for a few days, and suddenly the zucchini were a foot long. I hope they’ve not turned to seed. The oversize cucumbers are great, though. Some of the zucchini will go into a curry for supper.

Ice cream for Lunch.

By Anivid in the south of France

It was a sunny day in April, a perfect day for trying out an ice cream dessert before the saison of tourists started.
Instead of lunch of course – ice cream desserts being on the rich & heavy side, especially when being enjoyed in the most luxurious place of the town 😉
The one I chose, called Melissa, consisted of vanilla ice cream, drenched with sauce caramel, sprinkled with caramel pieces, nuts, grilled pine kernels, cinnamon (your mouth water starts forming ??) and topped with a lot of chantilly (whipped cream). Finally two sticks of wafers as antennae for decoration.
It was served with the usual tap water carafe.
Need I say it was heavenly ??
Especially the combination of icecream and pine kernels was delicious, pine kernels as a soft chew together with the soft caramel and ice enveloping the toungue.
There was just the correct mix of everything, and it was so sweet & cold as to rise the IQ (my mother always told me to keep my feet warm and head cold 😉 and as the brains preferred energy source is carbohydrates – I thought my choice very wise (and my mother’s maxime satisfied 😉

I sat outside by the little stream led through the city and thoroughly planted with beautiful flowers following the changing seasons.
There might be not so pretty quarters elsewhere in the municipality, but the stream with its flowers & bridges are always kept picturesque – a joy to greet for citizens & visitors.
The pleasure costed app. 14 $ – and my mouth can still remember the feeling of its cornucopia 😉

Signing out Anivid, Southern France, Gastronomy & Culture

Chicken house move-in day

The chickens pose for a picture shortly after moving into their new house, before they had a chance to dirty it up.

The chickens moved into their new house today. They’re now 12 days old. They’ve spent the last week living in a box upstairs in my unfinished house, where they got in the way of all the work that was going on this week. Now that they’re older and the weather is a bit warmer, I’ve moved them into their new chicken house. They still have their heat lamp for cold nights.

My brother built the chicken house. We considered a number of designs for backyard chickenhouses, but we liked the house-on-stilts design the best. It affords some extra protection from predators and easier access for human caretakers. There’s a screen around the bottom, and a door in the floor of the chicken house. There will be ramp stairs between the two levels soon.

I’m still thinking about security from predators. I may put a run of electric-fence wire around the base of the chicken house and have a timer turn it on from dusk until dawn.

The plywood panel in the front is temporary, covering the spot where the nests will be. The nests will extend out from the front of the chicken house, with egg-robbing doors on the outside.

Chickens!

On Friday my mother and sister drove up to Stokes bringing me five baby chickens. The chickens were hatched the previous Monday. There are three barred rock hens and two golden comet hens. No roosters. Roosters cause too much noise and turmoil. I’m trying to learn more about barred rock and golden comet chickens, but they’re supposed to be hardy, friendly, and good layers of big brown eggs.

I have not had chickens since the 1970s. I’ve wanted chickens for a long time, so getting baby chickens is a big deal. My brother has built me a chicken house. A bit of work remains to be done on the chicken house, but as soon as that’s complete I’ll have photos. The chicken house is 4 feet square. It sits high off the ground on legs to help protect the chickens from predators. Right now it’s too cold for baby chickens outdoors anyway, so they’re temporarily housed in a box in the new house, with a heat light.

Neighbors have told me horror stories about the high risks to chickens around here from predators. There are coyotes, foxes, possums, raccoons and owls in the woods and hawks in the sky, not to mention dogs. I am still thinking about my chicken defenses. One neighbor says that defending the chicken house with electrified fence wire is the best solution. I may put up some electric fence and get double duty out of it to keep deer away from my vegetable beds.

Right now, I’m still nailing down my flooring, and that has kept me extremely busy. I’m almost done with the floor. Then I’ll be able to turn my attention to some other things, like chickens and the spring gardening work that needs to be done.