Showing posts with label locavore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label locavore. Show all posts
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Community supported fisheries
As heard on NPR yesterday, many places in New England are getting fish shares that work like our farm share. Sounds nice! I would be happy with a dairy & eggs share.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Homemade Yogurt
Yesterday I made yogurt. I have made it a couple times before, with a yogurt maker some years ago, but this was my first time making it with no special equipment. It was easy, inspired by Harold McGee's column in the New York Times, They Do the Work, You Reap the Yogurt.
It turned out perfectly. It's satisfying and a bit magical to have made something by microbial action (like sauerkraut, but starting with a known culture) that turned out correctly. I wouldn't say it pays off as a money-saving venture, as I managed to turn $1.00 worth of milk plus about $0.07 of yogurt into a $2.19 quart of yogurt, at a time investment of about 20 minutes, but it is good and fresh and sort of fun, like making cheese.
Another intriguing mention in the article was making crème fraîche, something that is hard to come by around here. I found a recipe from the Splendid Table that uses buttermilk as a culture, as McGee does, or you can order cultures from The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (where we got our cheesemaking kit) as well.
It turned out perfectly. It's satisfying and a bit magical to have made something by microbial action (like sauerkraut, but starting with a known culture) that turned out correctly. I wouldn't say it pays off as a money-saving venture, as I managed to turn $1.00 worth of milk plus about $0.07 of yogurt into a $2.19 quart of yogurt, at a time investment of about 20 minutes, but it is good and fresh and sort of fun, like making cheese.
Another intriguing mention in the article was making crème fraîche, something that is hard to come by around here. I found a recipe from the Splendid Table that uses buttermilk as a culture, as McGee does, or you can order cultures from The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (where we got our cheesemaking kit) as well.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Last box: Finally the kohlrabi arrives!
Honey Brook Organic Farm made it into the New York Times regional section again today, this time in an article about locavore Thanksgiving. This picture was of a couple gathering pick-your-own herbs at the farm.Today was the last box of the season, which is always a bit sad, while also something of a relief to not have to figure out what to do with a surfeit of daikon and kohlrabi! Speaking of which, I'm sure we got more kohlrabi last year - this is the first and only time this year. And we got four little heads of lettuce on the last day of the farm share in mid-November! The carrots, cauliflower and sweet potatoes will keep us eating our veggies for a while.
- Carrots
- Cauliflower
- Celeriac
- Kohlrabi
- Baby Lettuce
- Parsley
- Radishes
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Good press for Honey Brook Farms
Our CSA pickup site was in the news this week, featured in a front page article in the regional section of the New York Times. They even had a picture of the garage in South Orange where we pick up our vegetables every week. They also carried this sidebar with information about joining this and other New Jersey CSAs.As an experiment this week, I weighed the tomatoes we got: 1.2 lb. of grape tomatoes, plus a separate box containing 3.2 lb. of regular tomatoes and two heirlooms weighing in at 2.4 lb combined. That's a total of 6.8 lb. of organic tomatoes.
- Basil
- Cilantro
- Dill
- Eggplant
- Garlic
- Peppers
- Hot Peppers
- Potatoes
- Scallions
- Summer Squash
- Tomatoes
- Heirloom Tomatoes
- Grape Tomatoes
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Homemade mozzarella
It would never have 
occurred to me to make mozzarella from scratch until Alice & I both read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer. It was an interesting book, and got us thinking even more about eating seasonally and locally, including canning our own produce.
One of the striking things in the book was how casually they make cheese. They even gave a website to order cheesemaking supplies from
, so we went ahead and ordered a kit for $25. It comes with citric acid, rennet tablets, salt, a thermometer, cheesecloth, and instructions. The only part of this that's actually hard to find separately is the vegetable rennet, which comes in 10 tablets, enough to turn 40 gallons of milk into mozzarella. We will order this separately in the future if we run out.
The recipes are available online here and here for mozzarella. I think we've tried it a total of six times now, with 4 successes and 2 failures. The failures we attribute to excessively pasteurized milk, and we have been keeping a list of brands that work and brands that don't (Trader Joe's and Farmland have been good, Shoprite and Borden's have not). When it works, it really takes about half an hour to turn a gallon of whole milk into about ¾ pound of cheese. The process can be summarized as curdling the milk with citric acid and rennet, then squeezing out the whey while heating it up until it is firm enough to knead. We've made ricotta twice, too, which is even easier, you just curdle milk with citric acid (which initially looks as disgusting as it sounds) and strain it through cheesecloth. The ricotta ends up drier than store-bought, but we think it may be more like the Italian style.
One trick with making mozzarella is knowing when to add the salt. The first time, I added the salt to the milk initially, and I think it came out with the whey. I think the secret is to add the salt at the very last stage, when the whey is almost entirely out, but the consistency has not yet changed to the glossy, resilient final product.
It's fun to make and watch, and good, but not noticeably better than other fresh mozzarella. As for the locavore credibility, I'm not sure it save you much having the milk transported in gallon form from the dairy, instead of being transported as much more compact cheese. If you're comparing local milk with imported mozzarella, sure, you are eating a more local product if you make it yourself, but if the sources are comparably distant, my guess is that you would have a lower impact buying it as cheese.
occurred to me to make mozzarella from scratch until Alice & I both read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer. It was an interesting book, and got us thinking even more about eating seasonally and locally, including canning our own produce.One of the striking things in the book was how casually they make cheese. They even gave a website to order cheesemaking supplies from
, so we went ahead and ordered a kit for $25. It comes with citric acid, rennet tablets, salt, a thermometer, cheesecloth, and instructions. The only part of this that's actually hard to find separately is the vegetable rennet, which comes in 10 tablets, enough to turn 40 gallons of milk into mozzarella. We will order this separately in the future if we run out.The recipes are available online here and here for mozzarella. I think we've tried it a total of six times now, with 4 successes and 2 failures. The failures we attribute to excessively pasteurized milk, and we have been keeping a list of brands that work and brands that don't (Trader Joe's and Farmland have been good, Shoprite and Borden's have not). When it works, it really takes about half an hour to turn a gallon of whole milk into about ¾ pound of cheese. The process can be summarized as curdling the milk with citric acid and rennet, then squeezing out the whey while heating it up until it is firm enough to knead. We've made ricotta twice, too, which is even easier, you just curdle milk with citric acid (which initially looks as disgusting as it sounds) and strain it through cheesecloth. The ricotta ends up drier than store-bought, but we think it may be more like the Italian style.
One trick with making mozzarella is knowing when to add the salt. The first time, I added the salt to the milk initially, and I think it came out with the whey. I think the secret is to add the salt at the very last stage, when the whey is almost entirely out, but the consistency has not yet changed to the glossy, resilient final product.
It's fun to make and watch, and good, but not noticeably better than other fresh mozzarella. As for the locavore credibility, I'm not sure it save you much having the milk transported in gallon form from the dairy, instead of being transported as much more compact cheese. If you're comparing local milk with imported mozzarella, sure, you are eating a more local product if you make it yourself, but if the sources are comparably distant, my guess is that you would have a lower impact buying it as cheese.
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