Pickled Radish Seed Pods

We received radish seed pods in our CSA the last two weeks. These are the seeds that radish plants develop when they grow past prime harvesting. When eaten raw they're like a spicy green bean. I searched for pickling recipes and found that our friend Jess adapted a pickling recipe for these. They'll be perfect to bring to Wisconsin for the 4th of July week. Thanks, Jess!

Ice cream experimentation

Last week we tried recipes for salted caramel ice cream and Kir Royale sorbet. Yum.

Mississippi Market Porridge

Ingredients:

15 c. wheat flakes
12 c. oatmeal
10 c. bran
6 c. cornmeal
5 c. rye flakes
4 c. millet
4 c. cracked wheat cereal
2 c. flax
Bulk ingredients can be found at most co-ops or natural food stores.
Mix together. To keep large quantities fresh, freeze until ready to use.

Cooking instructions:
1 c. salted water
1/3 c. cereal
Boil water. Slowly add cereal while stirring constantly. Cook for 10 mins. Stir occasionally. Add raisins or other fruit if desired. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 mins.

Christmas Candy

My first high school job at the chocolate shop taught me the joy of simple foods with few ingredients, like sugar, corn syrup and heavy cream. This Christmas, as in years past, we made sponge candy, chocolate-covered caramels and candied orange slices.

Red Maple Farm Delights

My stepsister Meghan and her family live on a farm and are busy making too many delights to keep track of. They gave us this amazing basket of wedding goodies, including homemade wine and beer (both delicious!) fresh-pressed cider, and honey from their hive, comb and all. We're ready to invest in a share of Red Maple Farm.

We mixed the crabapple juice with soda water to make these juice spritzers.

Pickled Ramps

Our first CSA delivery arrived this week, including several vegetables we'd never encountered (sorrel, black radishes and sunchokes). Ramps are wild leeks that have to be foraged, and our farm has them growing on their land. We grilled some of the ramps this week, and pickled the rest. Here is a very easy refrigerator pickling recipe for ramps.

A Spring Quiche

Last weekend I attended a clothing exchange brunch with a wonderful group of ladies. It's an event we plan a few times a year to purge our closets and bring home crazy new fashions we otherwise wouldn't have the guts to try (hilarious highlights from this exchange included a two-headed dress, a floor-length satin queen of hearts dress, and I came home with a vintage juicer!)

For the brunch, I wanted to find a quiche recipe that could include some fresh tarragon I had in the fridge (tarragon is also really good in egg salad). I added asparagus to this goat cheese leek quiche recipe from Whole Foods. I'm really picky about pie crusts, ever since I started to make my great grandmother's pie crust recipe (below). So I substituted my crust for a store-bought one. I usually keep these balls of dough in the freezer to be thawed and rolled out as needed.

Don't be grossed out. This is the quiche before it went into the oven. The cooked-quiche pic came out blurry.

Alterations to the quiche recipe:

I cut up several spears of asparagus and simmered them with the leeks, then proceeded with the recipe as directed.

My Great-Grandmother's Pie Crust Recipe

*Makes enough for 3 double pie crusts

3 c. flour

1/2 lb. chilled lard

1 tsp. salt

10 Tbsp. COLD water

1 egg

1 tsp. vinegar

Using pastry knife, cut the lard into the flour. Add salt and thoroughly combine into a fine meal. (Be patient). Then add cold water, egg and vinegar. Combine. Separate into 6 equal balls and roll out with flour. Crusts can be frozen between sheets of plastic wrap for later use.

Homemade Ginger Ale

Rachel just tried making her very own ginger ale. It tastes great! Here's a recipe. She used a Nalgene bottle instead of an empty 2-liter.

Homemade Yogurt

Homemade yogurt. Here's why: 

I like tangy plain yogurt of the variety sold at my local co-op. 

I can't possibly re-use all of of the plastic yogurt containers that are piling up in my cupboard.

The containers aren't recyclable. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

Yogurt in bulk. What could be better?

I've made 3 or 4 batches of this with varying results. The most important secrets seem to be the use of milk solids and incubation time. Thanks to the assistance of not one but two yogurt gurus, I have a darn good recipe.

1 quart milk

1 packet starter culture (or 1 Tbsp live active culture yogurt)

1/2 c. non-fat dried milk powder

Heat milk in a double boiler (don't let it boil). When it reaches 100 degrees scoop out 1/2 c. and put it in a separate bowl with the starter culture. Set aside. Note that temps above 120 degrees will kill the culturing bacteria.

Add powdered milk to warm milk and continue heating until it reaches 180 degrees. Hold temp at 180 degrees for about 20 mins and then quickly bring the temp down to 116 degrees. In the winter this can be done by placing the milk pan in the snow, or just use a sink full of ice water. The temp will drop surprisingly quickly so watch it.

Add the 116-degree milk to the starter culture until you have about 1 1/2 c. Then add the starter to the milk. This split process might give the culture a chance to acclimate to the new temp.

Put the milk into a sealed container. Ideally you'll culture it at a constant 100-110 degrees. Without a yogurt incubator, you can warm your oven and leave the oven light on. You can put it in a cooler and wrap a big blanket around it. I tried monitoring a crock pot, intermittently turning the heat on and off. Skip this - unless you have nothing better to do that watch yogurt incubate for 7 hours. 

I put the milk in a jar and into a styrofoam cooler. Ideal incubation time is 7 1/2 hours. 5 hours will make it sweet but not solid. At 9 hours it starts to get a little sour. This still might taste good with middle eastern dishes, for example. I tried Doogh, a savory Persian yogurt drink, for the first time last weekend and immediately thought of homemade yogurt.

After incubation, put to yogurt in the fridge right away and chill for a day. The yogurt will firm up more as it cools. My yogurt has tended toward a thinner consistency, likely because I incubate below 100 degrees. But it's tasty and is great in smoothies. 

* Recipe thanks to Jamin Johnson's decades-long yogurt experimentation. Additional tips from Lauren Dee. 

Lemon Curd

This recipe from Fine Cooking kind of rocks. Worth trying on crepes too.