getting it right - creamy coleslaw

i have been making coleslaw for years, and yet, i've never been happy with it. i've tried recipe after recipe, and never loved the results. i managed an awesome one with savoy cabbage and green garlic a couple of years ago, but while it IS fantastic, it requires a very specific list of ingredients and season to pull off. it's good. it's not basic, classic coleslaw like i want with my barbeque or beside my burger in the summer.

so, yesterday i did some research--i read probably 100 recipes for basic coleslaw, then made something up. this time i was careful to measure everything as i went in case it was actually good. and man--it IS! it has the right mix of sweet, tangy, and creamy for me. it probably helps that all the produce was super-fresh, but i am telling you--this is the one true coleslaw for our house from now on. it's simple, to be sure, but it's a tasty enough version of the classic to share.







INGREDIENTS
1 medium head of cabbage
1 medium to large carrot
4 scallions
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon celery seeds
black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
core and chop cabbage and add it to a large bowl. peel the carrot, then grate it into the cabbage. slice scallions and add those as well. toss the veggies until mixed. in a separate bowl, mix all remaining ingredients and stir with a whisk or fork until it's smooth and creamy. taste your dressing, so you can adjust for sweetness and peppery-ness, etc. add dressing to the cabbage mix and toss until the veggies are well coated. refrigerate for an hour or two before you eat so that the flavors have time to marry.


we had this for dinner last night on some pulled pork sandwiches, and it was beyond delicious.







it's worth mentioning that this meal was almost all local. the produce was all from our CSA from in good heart farm, the pork from fickle creek farm, and the onion challah rolls from la farm bakery. i cheated on the beans--they are from the good folks at bush's beans. all of it was 100% yummy.

dark days of winter meal 7: chicken and dumplings

i guess i missed a couple of weeks there--i am doing a LOT of local cooking, but the blogging part is often hard for me to keep up with. especially true when there have been some family illnesses to deal with on top of all the normal life madness. not making excuses...just explaining where the heck i've been. to me, the point of this challenge is to make me aware of where everything we eat originates and to make as much of an effort as i can to keep things as local as possible.

on the menu

• chicken and dumplings with kohlrabi and baby carrots
  

(WORST. PICTURE. EVER. --sorry!)

local ingredients

• whole stewing hen from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
  
• cutting celery from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
  
• kohlrabi from coon rock farm (hillsborough, nc, 35 miles)*
  
• mixed baby carrots from coon rock farm (hillsborough, nc, 35 miles)*
  
• thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
  
• whole wheat pastry flour from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
• rendered lard from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
  
• butter from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc 35 miles)
  
• buttermilk from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc 35 miles)
  
  

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• onion
  
• pepper
  
• salt
  
• baking powder
  
• sugar
  

easy: this is a meal i planned for while walking through the farmers market, so it was very easy to get all the ingredients on the spot. some things i already had on hand.

challenging: oddly, nothing to report here. i have accepted the salt, pepper, baking powder, and sugar limitations, so there were no issues there. i just use those things as sparingly as i can, and keep the focus more on the local things i CAN get.

recipes

chicken stock

ingredients:
1 whole stewing hen, about 3 lbs.
1/2 large yellow onion
4-5 stalks of cutting celery
a bunch of thyme
salt and pepper to taste

directions: this one's easy. place all ingredients in a large stock pot. add water until everything is well covered with maybe 1.5 inches to spare. bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. cook until the meat is starting to separate from the bone, about 4 hours. remove chicken and strain the broth into a clean soup pot. add salt and pepper to taste.
note: you now have awesome broth--you could make anything! :)

chicken and dumplings with carrots and kohlrabi

ingredients:
1.5 - 2lbs young fresh carrots
~1 lb kohlrabi, about 2 bulbs
1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp lard
3/4 cup buttermilk

directions:
trim carrot stems to about 1/2 an inch, then peel carrots. trim away thinnest part of root if necessary. peel and dice kohlrabi to about 1/2 inch chunks. return the broth to a slow boil, and meanwhile, make the dumplings. in large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. cut in butter and lard with a pastry knife or work in with fingers until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. aff buttermilk all at once and make a sticky dough. turn onto floured surface and lightly knead (more like patting) until dough gets just a little springy. roll out to about 3/8 inch thickness, and cut out dumplings (i used a 1-inch round cutter, but you can use whatever you like.) when the broth is boiling, add the veggies and let them cook for about 5 minutes befor eyou add the dumplings. add them slowly, one at a time, till they are all in. note that if your pot is furiously boiling, it will break the dumplings apart. go slow, and cook at a soft boil. everything should be done by the time the veggies are tender, about 10 more minutes.

note: the dumplings are adapted from the biscuit recipe in bill neal's souther cooking cookbook, and they definitely need a little tweaking to get just right. when i made this, i think i added too much buttermilk, so i cut the amount here back a little to 3/4 of a cup. my dumplings fell apart more than i would have liked, although they tasted great. next time i will put in 3/4 cup buttermilk, and maybe up the other fats just a little while dropping 1/2 a tsp of baking powder. the kitchen, as y'all well know, is a lab.

family ruling
AWESOME! will absolutely be making this again.

further thoughts
there are few foods on the earth more divine than fresh baby carrots. so. delicious.

kohlrabi is turning out to be a new favorite of mine. it's like a cross between jicama, broccoli, and a potato. it's good julienned and added raw to salads, it's good in stirfry and sautes for pasta, and it's delicious in stews and soups. it brings a lot to the table, and there's nothing hard to prepare about it. i was kind of intimidated by it at first, but now i want more, and i can't wait to try making slaw out of it, too. it seems like you could use it with or in place of many other things. i wonder if i could make it mashed with some cheese? steamed? in strips with hummus in my lunch box? it seems remarkably useful, healthy, and versatile. let's hear it for cool new (to me) veggies!

one last note on lard: this was my first time working with it, and man--it's pretty awesome. it's the texture--it's smooth as silk, and so easy to work into the flour. i think i might have to try making some tortillas. i am almost sorry i liked it as much as i did--it's not exactly the healthiest fat. but i just wanted to check it out. i felt so old school! i'd be interested to know if you've every cooked with it, and what you thought. my mother always swore it made her biscuits. i wonder if it would mine, too...

dark days of winter, meal 6: one pot meal challenge

the dark days of winter challenge is starting to have some theme and challenge weeks here and there. this week's theme is soups and one pot meals. i decided to challenge myself to see if i could make this from what i already had in the kitchen with zero shopping or planning. sometimes i think i do better when there are limitations that force me to become creative.

on the menu

• hearty winter stew with chicken and cabbage
  
• rosemary beer bread
  

local ingredients

• whole chicken from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
  
• wheat berries from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
  
• cabbage from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
  
• homemade chicken stock from my freezer
  
• sweet josie brown ale from lonerider brewery
  
• bay leaves from east wake apiary (wake county, nc, exact mileage unknown) *
  
• whole wheat bread flour from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
  
• rosemary from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
  

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• salt
  
• pepper
  
• garlic
  
• onion
  
• butter
  
• baking powder
  

easy: honestly i thought this would be harder. i turn out to have a really well stocked fridge and pantry. lol.

challenging: the challenge here was staying local. there were some things in my fridge that needed to be used and were not local--i couldn't see the value of seeking out the local counterpart to something i already had if it meant wasting something. so--i used the half an onion in my crisper rather than try to find a local onion. for all i know, it WAS a local onion--either way--it went in the stew.

recipes

hearty winter stew with chicken and cabbage
this one's 100% made up.
ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 cup wheat berries
1/2 large yellow onion
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup water
2 cloves garlic
2-3 bay leaves
1 small to medium head of green cabbage
1 cup dark beer
salt and pepper to taste

directions: about 6 hours before eating, cut chicken into 8 pieces, and place into a slow cooker. roughly chop onion, then add it, along with the wheat berries, to the pot. add chicken stock, water, garlic cloves, and bay leaves. cook on high for about 4 hours. while this is cooking, go ahead and roughly chop the cabbage. set aside for later. after 4 hours of cooking time, remove chicken, pull the meat from the bones. discard skin and bones, then return meat to the pot. add cabbage and beer. continue to cook from about 2 more hours until wheat berries are just starting to split.

beer bread with rosemary
this is based on the beer bread recipe on the food network's website. i changed the type of flour, added rosemary, and cut the butter in half, but the original concept is still theirs. :)
ingredients:
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
~1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
12 ounces dark beer
1/4 cup melted butter

directions:
preheat oven to 375 degrees. butter a 9x5 baking pan. sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. (note: when i sifted my locally milled flour, the sifter wanted to keep much of the wheat berry hulls and other bits of the rough flour. i did sift, but i also dumped those back in. my point was to aerate the flour more than to "strain" it, so to speak. if you wanted fluffier bread, you could leave those things out, but i wanted all the nutrition that comes with the WHOLE wheat berry being included.) whick 1/2 the rosemary into the dry ingredients. add beer, and stir just until mixed. pour into greased loaf pan. pour melted butter over mixture. bake about 1 hour until golden brown and crusty. cool in pan for 5 minutes, then move to wire rack. let sit for at least 10 minutes more before slicing.

family ruling
i knot that picture up there isn't the most stunning, but trust me, people. this. was. awesome. we had friends over for dinner, and the vote for awesomeness was unanimous. it was warm and comforting and delicious, as well as ridiculously healthy. the 8-year-old at the table ate two big bowls, and i think all the grown-ups did as well. this is one made up recipe i'll be hanging onto! the bread as well was a pleasant surprise. i had heard good things about the beer bread recipe, but i was a little reluctant to try it with the dark flour and beer--it was fantastic and went really well with the stew. also--it's worth noting that all of this held up very well--the leftovers i ate for lunch a few days after this was made were probably even better than the freshly made stuff. YUM!

further thoughts
a note on beer and broth. this is something i have never done--add beer to broth. i've read countless recipes for stews and soups that use beer, but for reasons i can't even begin to think, it never occured to me to actually make one before. but i was about to add the cabbage to the stew, and i kept tasting it, and thinking it was missing something...something to give it a little more kick and add to the heartiness of the dish...something a little bitter to balance the sweet cabbage i was about to add. BEER! it was right there in front of me, so i tried it--totally the right thing.

also a first for me: wheat berries. sharon, the farmer at my market who is growing wheat and milling flour had some of these for sale, and i was like, wha??? she assured me that they were delicious, and that you could add them to hot, long cooking cereals like steel cut oats, or to soups where you would normally use barley or brown rice or something like that. i admit, i was a little nervous about them. rice in stews can get mushy, and barley can make them too thick. but. i had them, i wanted something different, and i needed a starchy something in the stew for body. OMG, they are fantastic! they turned out like rice, but chewier, a tiny bit crunchy, and not mushy at all. after 6 hours on high, they were just starting to split and release a little thickening wheat germ into the stew. all of us really liked both the texture and the slightly sweet flavor they brought to the table. so. good. one of those foods i now wonder where it's been all my life. if you can get your hand on some, i can't recommend them enough.

so yeah. success.

dark days of winter, meal 5: gettin' experimental

i seem to be skipping a week here and there. again, my meal# isn't matching up to the actual week the dark days of winter challenge is on, but i swear i am doing the best i can! :)

this week, the meat was super basic, but i got a little experimental with the veggies. i had some turnips left from my fall CSA (those things last forever!), and a couple of big bunches of kale. the hippie is always talking about trying some green smoothies, so i get extra greens for him. however, it takes us a while to start following through on intentions like that, so i sometimes end up with the extra greens lying in the fridge begging for mercy! suffice it to say, we've had a lot of turnips and kale this year. time to try something new with them!

on the menu

• grilled smoked pork loin chips
  
• creamed turnips with bleu cheese
  
• kale chips with french grey sea salt
  

local ingredients

• smoked pork chops from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
• thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
• salad turnips from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
• carolina bleu cheese from the hillsborough cheese company (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)*
  
• kale from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• salt
• white pepper
  
• cream(organic, but not local)
  
• olive oil
  
• garlic
  
• cloves
  
• french grey sea salt

easy: this week's meal was thrown together pretty quickly from things i already had in the house--no real planning till i was ready to start to cook. i LOVE when that happens.

challenging: i was a little disappointed that i failed to buy local cream and butter for this week. i've been trying to favor those, but a) i can't get them at the farmers market, and b) not all grocery stores have them either. if i don't make it to the places that do, which are a little out of my way, then i can't get local. i always get organic, but it would sure be nice if local were as easy to find.

recipes

grilled smoked pork chops
recipe is a strong word for this--we don't do a thing to fickle creek's smoked pork chops other than heat them on the grill. i unwrap them and hand them to the hippie, and he grills them about 3 minutes per side on high heat. let them rest a few minutes, and eat them up!

creamed turnips with bleu cheese
ingredients:
~2 lbs salad turnips (these are small white turnips with a milder flavor than the big purple kind)
2 whole cloves
2 cloves of garlic
~1 tsp fresh thyme
1 oz good quality bleu cheese
1/4 tsp white pepper
heavy cream to texture
salt to taste

directions: peel and chop turnips to about 3/4-inch cubes. place in saucepan with both whole cloves and garlic cloves, cover with water, and bring to a boil. reduce heat slightly and continue to boil just until turnips are tender, about 15 minutes. drain well and remove cloves (leave garlic in!). mash turnips slightly with a potato masher and drain again. i discovered that turnips contain a LOT of liquid--drain them a lot so they don't become soupy. add thyme, bleu cheese, white pepper, salt, and a tiny bit of cream, and whip. add cream in increments and by tiny amounts--you don't need much.

kale chips
(recipe from use real butter, one of my absolute favorite food blogs)
ingredients:
a bunch of kale
olive oil
sea salt

directions:
preheat oven to 350. wash and dry kale thoroughly. remove the hard center stems, and roughly tear or chop it into manageable sized pieces. toss with a small amount of olive oil. line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lay the kale out in a single layer. sprinkle with sea salt. bake for about 12-15 minutes until crispy.

family ruling
this whole meal was YUM city, ESPECIALLY the kale chips! those were just fantastic. i've wanted to try them for a long time after having so many friends rave to me about how good they are. i was skeptical, but delighted in the end. i can't recommend it enough. (note: our 3-year-old was NOT as impressed. he was game and tried them, but HATED them--so much that i gave him a cookie to make up for the level of horror he experienced. it's rare for us to have such a mega-fail with him, but there you go--this was right up next to cauliflower on his PLEASE-MAMA-NOT-THAT list, which is saying something. his statement? "mama, i don't really like kale chips." lol)

now. the turnips. turns out they have about 12x the amount of liquid in them as potatoes. so, while the creamed turnips TASTED awesome, they were far more soupy than i intended. i should have done a better job of draining them before i added the cream, so i adjusted the directions accordingly. that said--this was a delicious amalgam about about 15 different recipes i read. i will definitely do this again--i will just know next time to drain better and use less cream.

further thoughts
i forget how much i like playing in the kitchen. this, and the one-pot meal i made for next week's challenge are the first couple of truly creative things i've done in the kitchen in a while. i miss it! for some reason in winter, i seem to stick more to the tried and true than i do in the summer. i think this has something to do with the variety of available produce for sure, but i have also realized that i tend to feel pressed for time when it gets dark so early, too. i need to shake that feeling off and continue to get creative on the winter veggies.

dark days of winter, meal 4: keepin' it simple

i skipped a week of the dark days of winter challenge because of the holidays and ensuing chaos. that said, i made a LOT of local food over the holidays, including the main showcase of the christmas eve feast i cooked for friends: a pair of lovely london broils from smith angus farms in snow camp, nc. so very delicious!

anyway--onto what is my meal #4, although i have lost count of what the actual week is...

for this week's meal, and after all the madness of the holiday eating, i decided to keep things very simple. again, we ended up with friends spontaneously over for dinner. it seems we do that a lot. and as usual, the number and quality of my photographs drops in direct proportion to how many people are in the house when i am cooking. this post is the lightest one yet for pictures--sorry!

on the menu

• simple roasted chicken
  
• baked sweet potatoes
  
• grilled fennel
  
• a big salad

local ingredients

• whole chicken from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
• thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
• oregano from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
• rosemary from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
• sweet potatoes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
• butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
  
• fennel from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
• lettuces from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
• cucumber from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
• tomatoes from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
• watermelon radishes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• salt
• pepper
  
• olive oil
  
• cinnamon
• yellow pepper (organic, but not local)
• celery (organic, but not local)
• salad dressings
  

easy: really, just about everything here was easy. this is how i cook all the time, and i've gotten used to buying as much locally as i possibly can. in the light of the busyness of this time of year, i think i also accepted the limitations better this go around.

challenging: as usual, the exceptions are spices, oils, and the things that aren't frown in my local greenhouses. also, it was a little harder over the holidays, since some of my farmers also took actual vacations to see their own families. how crazy is that??

recipes

simple roasted chicken (adapted from recipes from home, one of my favorite cookbooks):
ingredients:
3-4 lb chicken
6-10 sprigs of fresh herbs (i used thyme, oregano, and rosemary since that's what i had on hand)
salt and pepper

directions:
preheat oven to 450F. rinse the bird and pat dry. salt and pepper inside and out. add herbs to cavity of chicken, and tie legs with twine or linen. place chicken on roasting rack in pan, and roast for ~40 minutes. turn oven temperature down to 350 and continue to roast for 30 more minutes or until juices run clear when the joint between the leg and thigh is pierced. (note: the actual recipe calls for 10 basil leaves, 3-4 sprigs each of thyme and rosemary. it also specifies half a lemon, cut in half, with which you rub the insure of the bird's cavity. this does bring something to the table, but i find that the chicken is still delicious without it. as long as you have a good quality, free-range, non-fatty or water heavy bird, this is fool-proof!)

baked sweet potatoes ("recipe" is a strong word for this!)
ingredients:
sweet potatoes

directions:wash and dry the sweet potatoes, and, as long as they are fairly petite, just throw them into the oven with the chicken. when you turn the oven down to 350, pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork. these were small enough that they were perfectly cooked by the time the chicken was done. if they were larger, i would have started them in the 450-degree oven about 15 minutes before i put the chicken in, and i think they still would have been fine. we're all about efficiency around here. we served them with cinnamon and butter.

grilled fennel (again, not really a recipe)
ingredients:
3 bulbs of fennel
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

directions:
remove stems from fennel bulbs. slice vertically into 1/8 - 1/4-inch slices. toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. grill for about 3 minutes a side or until desired texture.

salad
this one contained:
2 small heads of red oak leaf lettuce
1 head green bibb lettuce
1 large watermelon radish
2 stalks celery
1/2 large english cucumber
1 very large heirloom red tomato
1 yellow pepper

directions: chop everything into bite sized pieces. toss. apply favorite salad dressing, and eat as much as you want--salad is awesome!

family ruling
the chicken was awesome, as it always is, and everyone at our house loves sweet potatoes and salad. the fennel was the dud of the meal. disclaimer: i HATE fennel and didn't even eat it, although i DID force myself to try it just to check to see if i had changed my mind about it. (i hadn't.) but even for the other folks who love it, it was just kind of lacking something--i think i should have maybe grilled it with some other veggies--maybe an onion or a pepper or something. people ate it, but no one relished it. i won't do it again on it's own...

further thoughts
i am so grateful for fresh lettuce in the winter. the new greenhouse guy at my farmers market has been a godsend with his cucumbers and lettuce and peppers and LOVELY tomatoes. i read something recently about the incredibly high carbon footprint of shipping greens, and i am so very glad i can still get them, virtually guilt free, even in the dead of winter. i didn't realize how addicted to salads we had become until we started trying to eat closer to home.

in addition to the greens, i am still in love with the way my farmers market is always showing me something new--the watermelon radishes in this particular salad were a delight. since my farmers market started, i have also tried lemon cucumbers, english cucumbers, french breakfast radishes, black spanish radishes, kohlrabi, poona kheera cucumbers, baby ginger, kale (many kinds), mizuna, tatsoi, savoy cabbage, fresh elephant garlic, and so many other things i never knew i was going to love. the variety in what we eat is ever-increasing, which is an incredible gift from the local farmers to us. so thankful...

dark days of winter, meal 3: Southern Q

this week's post is horrifyingly low on decent pictures, due to distractions in the form of friends showing up to meet the new dawg and staying for dinner. in lieu of a plate shot, i give you ginger, our new puppy:


now, on to business.

this week's meal is all southern, and very old school, with the exception of the fact that i used my crock pot to make BBQ instead of digging a hole in my back yard to smoke it.

on the menu

• pulled pork BBQ
  
• old school braised greens with indian dumplings
  
• honey glazed roasted carrots
• sweet josie brown ale from lonerider brewery
  (there's a keg of this local brew in my garage--i thought i'd feature it along with the food.)
  

local ingredients

• fresh boston butt from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
• carrots from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
• butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
  
• honey from our family's bees (20 miles)
  
• rainbow swiss chard from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
• collard greens from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles) (CSA)*
• red pepper flakes from my friend rich's garden (durham, nc, ~15 miles)
  
• cornmeal from muddy dog roasting company (morrisville nc, 10 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• salt
• red pepper rib rub made by my friend karen
• apple cider vinegar
• liquid hickory smoke (real, not chemical--cause, ew)
  

semi-local ingredients

• bone-suckin' sauce - made in north carolina, but i have zero clue from whence the ingredients come. it's as local as i can get BBQ sauce without making my own, which is a challenge in the winter.
  
• bacon fat - from holland brothers bacon, not local to us, but local to the grandparents who live in PA. bacon from this place is a yearly gift from our family, and it's awesome.
  

easy: as always, meat and produce are the no-brainers.

challenging: the semi-local ingredients here are my compromise. things like apple cider vinegar, liquid smoke, and salt i KNOW i can't get locally, but the other things? well--i guess i am just trying to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible on things like that. it doesn't make sense to me to buy bacon that's local to me, when i already have bacon that was a gift from someone for whom that bacon IS local. does that make sense?

recipes


pulled pork, crock pot style (made up on the fly):
ingredients:
boston butt or pork shoulder roast
your favorite rib rub
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
20 or so drops of real liquid smoke
BBQ sauce

directions:
cover pork roast liberally with spice rub, and put into your crock pot. add apple cider vinegar. cook on low for 8 hours. remove pork and pull from bone with 2 forks or tongs. drain off most of liquid (reserve for soup stock or beans--trust me--keep that stuff). (note: if you are going to make the greens below, reserve a couple of ounces of meat at this stage.) return the pork to the crock pot. add a little of the cooking liquid, maybe 1/4 a cup. add the liquid smoke, and about 1/3 a cup of BBQ sauce. mix well, and cook another hour on low to mix flavors and caramelize the meat. serve with more sauce or on buns or you know--however you like to eat BBQ.


honey glazed roasted carrots (made up on the fly)
ingredients:
carrots
~2 tablespoons butter
~2 tablespoons honey

directions: preheat oven to 425 degrees (F). peel carrots and cut into sticks. put into a baking dish with some butter. roast for 8 minutes, then stir. roast for 8 more minutes. add honey and stir in. roast for 16 more minutes, stirring one more time half way through. carrots should be starting to caramelize when they are done. best use of fresh carrots in the world!


braised greens with indian dumplings (adapted from bill neal's southern cooking)
ingredients:
2.5 to 3 lbs cooking greens (collards, kale, chard, etc.)
8 cups water
~4 tablespoons bacon fat
1 teaspoon salt
2 oz pork meat or a small ham hock
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup cornmeal
1.5 tablespoons butter or bacon fat or lard

directions:
in a large stockpot or braising pot, add water, bacon fat, salt, finely chopped pork, and red pepper flakes. bring to a boil, then boil on medium-high heat for about 20 minutes. add the greens, cover tightly. return to a boil, stir down the greens, and then simmer, covered, for about 50 minutes if you are going to add indian dumplings, or an hour if you're not.

for the dumplings, place cornmeal into a small mixing bowl. steal 1/2 cup of boiling liquid from the greens, and slowly work it into the cornmeal with the back of a wooden spoon. work fat in with your fingers while the cornmeal mix is still warm. shape into small biscuit-like disks, about an inch wide and 1/2 an inch thick--it should make 16-18 of these. when the greens have been cooking for about 50 minutes, give them a final stir, then lay the dumplings on top to cook. let them cook for about 10 minutes, and voila, you have delicious little dumplings in your greens.

note: indian dumplings are like a cross between hushpuppies and gnocci. this was the first time i'd made them, but they were surprisingly easy and fast--i will most certainly make them again. i can imagine they would be delightful with soups and stews as well as in greens.

note the second: after you serve the greens, you will have quite a bit of liquid left. if you combine it with the reserved liquid from the pork, you have an EXCELLENT soup base on your hands. i generally throw this in the fridge overnight, so i can skim the fat off easily in the morning. then i put it in the freezer to use whenever. i recommend this as a base for my white bean and kale soup.


family ruling
everyone at our house loves all this, and the friends we spontaneously had over for dinner last night agree. the 11-year old had 2 helpings of the greens, so--win.

further thoughts
southern cooking is my kitchen comfort zone, as it turns out. i feel more free with recipes and restrictions in this area than any other, and since i live in the south, it makes sense that these are the ingredients that are easiest for me to get locally. i am guessing you will see more southern food from me before this is challenge is done. meal #3 i am calling a resounding success. yay for BBQ!

dark days of winter, meal 2: dinner with a friend

this week, i ended up cooking a last minute dinner for a good friend who came into town unexpectedly. this means i had less time to think about what to make, and had to rely on what i already had in the house. as a result, this week's meal has more non-local ingredients than last week's, but i am happy with how much of it IS local, with very little effort!



on the menu

• chicken and 40 cloves
  
• whipped sweet potatoes with ginger
  
• salad
• rosemary olive oil bread
  
  

local ingredients

• whole chicken from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
• thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
• butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
• honey from our family's bees (20 miles)
  
• sweet potatoes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles)*
• fresh ginger from redbud farm (burlington, nc, 62 miles)*
• milk from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)
• french breakfast radishes from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles)*
• lettuces from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
• cucumber from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
  

* purchased at western wake farmers market


non-local ingredients

• salt
• pepper
• olive oil (organic)
  
• celery (organic)
  
• grape tomatoes (organic)
  
• garlic
• red bell pepper (organic)
  
• cinnamon
• rosemary olive oil bread (not pictured) (baked locally, but sourced from ???)
  

easy:
as always, the meat and produce is mostly easy for me to get locally. everything you see here i already had in my house with no planning at all.

challenging:
this week i was traveling and very busy, so there was not as much time to plan my meal. as a result, this one is mostly local--all the spotlight parts are local. but it still feels a little cheater-y to me. this is especially true for the non-local salad produce, the bread we had with dinner, which was a last minute purchase, and the salad dressing, which was whatever we had in the fridge. i didn't even think about dressing until dinner was made and on the table.

recipes

chicken and 40 cloves:
this is a tried and true recipe from alton brown. it's posted on the food network website, so i think posting it again here might be a copyright violation. you guys know how to click a link though, right? go make this right now! it's awesome!

whipped sweet potatoes with ginger (made up on the fly)
ingredients:
9-10 small sweet potatoes
~2 tablespoons butter
3-4 tablespoons honey
~1.5 tablespoons chopped gresh ginger
(note, i used uncured, super-fresh ginger from a local supplier, and NOT the ginger from the grocery store, which is much stronger. if you use that, i'd recommend cutting this amount in half.)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
milk to texture (added gradually while whipping)

directions:
preheat oven to 450. bake sweet potatoes for ~40 minutes until soft, piercing with a fork after 20 minutes. remove skins and place in a large bowl. add butter, honey, ginger, cinnamon, and about 1/4 cup of milk, and mash with a potato masher until well mixed. then, using a hand mixer, beat until fluffy. add milk if necessary to obtain the right texture/moisture.

salad
um--i can't say i have a recipe for a salad. i just put everything i can find in the fridge that looks like it would be good in a salad. this one contained mixed lettuces, celery, radishes, red pepper, grape tomatoes, and cucumber.



family ruling
everything was awesome, especially the sweet potatoes. my friend who was visiting seemed stunned that this is what i ended up with when i just threw something together, so that's a good ruling as well--he ate everything with gusto.

further thoughts
cooking on weeknights is a challenge for me. i work full time and have two small (hungry) children in daycare. i have to leave work, get them, drive home in a boatload of traffic, and THEN address dinner. i get around this most of the time by planning ahead and cooking and prepping as much as i can ahead of time. some weeks it's great--others, it falls apart on me. this past week, i had the added travel stress on the table, and then my friend showed up out of nowhere--this was literally the best i could pull off. i am not as proud of this as i was of my sunday brunch last week, but then i didn't have the time for the same level of planning and thought as i did for that meal. i will say this, however: i am very proud of my pantry and my freezer for getting me this close to an all local meal absolutely on the fly.

dark days of winter - meal 1: sunday brunch

this is the first official week of the dark days of winter local cooking challenge, so i decided to start with the first real meal of the week: sunday brunch.



on the menu

• blueberry buckwheat pancakes
• spinach and cheese frittata
• sausage patties

local ingredients

• whole wheat pastry flour from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
  
• buckwheat flour from the old guilford mill (greensboro, nc, 70 miles)
  
• eggs from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
  
• butter from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
  
• buttermilk from homeland creamery (julian, nc, 57 miles)
• blueberries from smith's nursery (benson, nc, 38 miles)*
  
• honey from our family's bees (20 miles)
  
• spinach from ben's produce (clayton, nc, 33 miles)*
  
• mozzarella cheese from the hillsborough cheese company (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)*
  
• milk from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc, 34 miles)
• ancho peppers from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
  
• oregano from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
  
• sausage from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• salt
• pepper
• baking powder

easy: meat, eggs, and produce are no problem for me to get, given the awesome nature of my farmers market. in addition, the market vets its vendors carefully, and while not every farm and food producer there is certified organic, all of them are local to us and follow extremely ethical farming practices, often going beyond the requirements of organic certification. the animals are all free range, and none are given any unnecessary antibiotics or growth hormones. most of the farms are very small operations and family farms, and we have gotten to know these vendors over the past couple of years. we are extremely fortunate to have this place, which is open all year, available to us.

challenging: what do you do about things like salt, baking powder/soda, vanilla, and other pantry-type things you use in your cooking without thinking about it? i am trying hard to keep these things to a minimum, but i admit, i forgot all about baking powder when i was thinking about making pancakes. i guess i am trying to look at this from the point of view of a pioneer person--in days of old, you would have traded for these items, right? this is stuff that has almost never been available locally, anywhere. some small carbon footprint is, i suppose, not avoidable in everyday cooking.

recipes

blueberry buckwheat pancakes (adapted from here):
ingredients:
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups buttermilk, room temperature
5-6 teaspoons of honey
2.5 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
1 cup blueberries, fresh, or thawed from frozen

directions:
in a small bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt. set aside. in a larger bowl, beat the two eggs until frothy, about 2 minutes. add honey, butter, and then buttermilk, mixing well after each addition. gradually stir in flour mixture until smooth. gently stir in blueberries. note: batter will be very thick. let sit for a few minutes. cook on a lightly buttered griddle or in a flat pan over medium-high heat, about 1/3 cup of batter at a time. after 2-4 minutes, when edges are set and blueberries are starting to crack, flip over and cook on other side, about 2-3 more minutes. makes 10-12 pancakes. serve with honey.

spinach and cheese frittata (made up on the fly)
ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoon butter
2 cups spinach, cleaned, de-stemmed, and roughly chopped (packed tight!)
1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1/2 fresh ancho chile pepper, chopped fine
2/3 cup shredded fresh mozzarella
10 eggs
1/2 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

directions: preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). grease a 9x9-in pan with 1/2 tablespoon of butter. melt the other tablespoon in a skillet. saute the spinach just until wilted. immediately remove from heat and allow to cool. in pan, layer herbs, chopped peppers, and cheese. evenly distribute cooled spinach over this. in a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and milk until very well mixed. i usually add salt and pepper in this step. pour egg mixture over the other ingredients. taking care to distribute evenly. bake for about 25 - 30 minutes until the center is set. let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

sausage patties
no real recipe here. i bought a pound of local sausage, made it into small patties, and fried it up in a pan over medium heat until it was well browned and delicious!


family ruling
absolutely delicious--i would make every bit of this again, and eat it happily. children and man agree.

further thoughts
i am very grateful that we thought to buy a lot of extra local blueberries this summer and freeze them. our children eat them straight out of the freezer, but they are also mightily awesome to have around for this sort of application and for the random pie craving. if you decide to do this, don't wash them--just throw them straight into freezer bags. wash them when you are ready to use. also, if you use them for pancakes, make sure you thaw them completely first. if you don't you will have nasty, gooey globs of uncooked pancake batter surrounding every blueberry--GROSS!

there's been a lot of discussion in the group about local flours on the east coast and how difficult they are to obtain. i've been discussing this a lot with local millers and bakers to see where people source their wheat. most people are sourcing from the midwest, which is no real surprise. however, i was delighted that sharon funderburke from singing turtle farm in dunn, nc is growing her own wheat. she's growing both hard and soft red winter wheat, and she has just in the last month started grinding her own flour. she sells wheat berries for both varieties as well as bread flour and pastry flour. she also sells chicken feed made from the wheat and from her oats, as well as a small amount of baked goods. her crops are 100% organic, and her practices are beyond sustainable. she is a second of third generation farmer, looking for ways to improve her family's farm. she's been a joy to learn/buy from the past couple of seasons.

first meal of this challenge went well, i think. i'm pretty proud of the fact that everything is local but the stuff i really can't get locally, plus i am happy that it was all delightful--i didn't feel like i was cutting corners anywhere. in fact, the local butter especially felt like an indulgence--talk about GOOD! now onto thinking about my next meal...

dark days of winter

i talk about food a lot, i know. but get ready, people--i am going to start talking about it even more. as you know, our family has, over the past few years, become more and more interested in healthy eating, local eating, sustainable farming, and reducing our carbon footprint as much as we can. we've been faithful visitors to our local farmers market, which we all adore. we are trying to teach the children by example to love food in the right way, and to be aware of what they put in their bodies. we are working hard to eat well, to cook at home, to get the right nutritional balances to (hopefully) avoid some of the health problems that may be headed our way as we age. anyway--you see my point. good food is good.

i have decided to participate in the dark days of winter local eating challenge from (not so) urban hennery because it represents everything we're trying to accomplish. the goal is simple: cook (at least) one meal a week featuring local, sustainable, organic, ethically grown ingredients and write a post about it. i think i can handle that, and i think it will be a good way to record some of what we eat locally during the winter months. i kind of can't wait to get started!

quiche, revisited

since i posted the recipe for spinach and mushroom quiche and the recipe for whole wheat pie crust separately and without pictures, i thought i'd come back and add some. here are links to the original posts:

spinach and mushroom quiche
whole wheat crust

the process:

1. prep, 2. whole wheat crust, 3. saute, 4. cheese, 5. herbs, 6. peppers and onions, 7. spinach and mushrooms, 8. milk and eggs, 9. baked

dinnertime!

peanut butter pie

i cook a lot. i read food blogs like some people read news feeds. i am not a huge contributor to the online foodie network, but i am most certainly present for it. earlier this week, a food blogger i only occasionally read, jennifer perillo, lost her husband mikey very suddenly--he died last sunday, leaving her and their two children unexpectedly alone. i have been thinking about her all week. and about my brother doug's quick descent, leaving my sister in law and their children similarly bereft. and about myself and my two small children, and what we would do if something happened to our beloved hippie. i cannot imagine, and i hope i never, ever have to know what that's like.

since doug's death, i have become morbid. i think about death almost constantly, and i have bone-shaking fear in my heart every single day. i don't talk about it much--what's the point? and i go on living my life, loving my people, and doing what i need to do. but it's omnipresent--this cloud of doom that follows me. i am self-aware enough to know that this is my way of grieving. i know it will get better with time. but there are days when the weight is literally soul crushing. i cling to anything that can lighten that weight, even for a moment.

the events of this year have taught me, again and again, how very important it is to hold the people you love close to your heart every day. EVERY day! and TELL them you love them. and SHOW them you love them. every day. the whole purpose of this life is to make every second of it count, and i honestly believe you can do that only by living every day as though the future is unknown. because it IS unknown, and all you really have is what's right here in front of you now.

some folks who know jennie much better than i do set up an event for today: making her husband mikey's favorite peanut butter pie as a show of support and commemoration for his life. and in spite of the fact that i do not really know her, i wanted to add my efforts to the event so she will know that one more person in the world knows and cares about her and her family. further, making a peanut butter pie provided a perfect opportunity to tell my hippie that i love him and i am glad he's home. he's been away at a conference all week, and he came back late last night. i made the pie last night, and chilled it overnight so that it's waiting for him this morning as a welcome home gift. i predict he will love it since peanut butter is one of his major food groups. i think i will make him some coffee and serve him a piece of pie for breakfast.

so jennie--i am thinking about you. i am so sorry for the loss you have suffered this week, and i am sorry for the many days of suffering that will come in the next weeks as well. time will heal. and remembrance will help. thanks for sharing this recipe with us.

the recipe can be found here:
http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/for-mikey.html

for the record, it's absolutely delicious!

whole wheat crust

after that last post about quiche, i decided to try making one with a whole wheat crust. i had every intention of photographing the whole process, but then of course i forgot to do that about half way through. i did manage to snap this one pic with my phone. there are herbs and parmesan cheese in there, in case you're all--what's that stuff??

anyway--the variation on the crust is as follows:

1 c whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 stick butter
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp iced water

everything else is the same as below. this was slightly more dense, but still nicely flaky and delicious. i think it might be good with the further addition of some cayenne pepper or chopped herbs, etc. i plan to experiment further...

quiche, sadly with no pictures

lately, i've been making quiche, and our whole family is into it.

in fact, a couple of days ago, kieran was pretending to make quiche using some random toys. i questioned him about his choice of ingredients, and he told me his quiche contained spinach, basil, red onion, peppers, chicken, and lots of cheese. he also told me he had to make a crust, and that he would use flour, butter, and marshmallows. i was like--marshmallows??? and he goes--MARSHMALLOWS ARE DELICIOUS! hard to argue with that.

but i digress...

until very recently, i had never made a quiche on my own without hand-holding from my friend, meredith, but i decided i would try it anyway since i always have stuff around i think would make good ones. and, OH. MY. GOD. it's been amazing! AMAZING! we always eat them too quickly for me to take any good pictures, which is, i know, the sure way to lure you into trying something, but i am telling you, people--make some quiche. eat it. be happy. here is the recipe (though i use that word lightly--y'all know my favorite measurement is "some") for the one i have liked best so far:

INGREDIENTS

crust
1 3/4 c flour
1 stick butter
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp iced water

filling
4-5 baby portabella mushrooms
~1/2 small red pepper
2 cups packed washed spinach leaves
1 small spring onion (or 2-3 scallions)
olive oil
~1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano (or other herbs)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
salt and pepper
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk

DIRECTIONS
preheat oven to 400 F.
make crust: sift flour and salt together into medium bowl. work butter into flour mixture using fingers or pastry knife, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. add 3-4 tablespoons of iced water, just enough to make a dough that will stick together--it should still be fairly dry. on a floured surface, roll out the dough and place in a 9-inch pie pan. fancy up the edges if you feel like it--i like mine a bit on the rustic side. line the crust with foil, making sure the edges are covered, and fill with dry rice or pie weights. bake for about 20 - 25 minutes, until the crust is cooked but not browned. meanwhile...

make the filling:
thinly slice the mushrooms. finely dice the red pepper and the onion or scallions. in a medium to large-ish pan, heat a little olive oil and quickly saute the mushrooms, peppers, and onions, for just a couple of minutes. add the spinach and remove from heat as soon as the leaves wilt. you want these veggies cooked, but NOT overdone--they should still have some life in them. in a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, and add salt and pepper as you like--i never measure salt and pepper, but i would gess i added about 1/4 teaspoon of each and maybe a few extra shakes of pepper. when the crust is done, remove the weights and foil. sprinkle the parmesan cheese into the crust. next add the oregano, and then the veggies. last, pour the egg/milk mixture over the other ingredients. use your foil to cover the edges of the crust so it doesn't burn, then bake for 15 minutes. remove foil and bake about 10 more minutes or until the quiche is set. then eat!

we've been having it for dinner one night with a big salad, then eating the leftovers for breakfast a couple of days later with some chopped tomatoes--highly recommend!

robbing the bees, part two

note: this is part two of a two part post on my family's honey harvest. click here for part one. also, if you want to skip the words, and just check out the pictures, you can find them all here: honey harvest, a set on flickr.

spinning the honey

once the wax caps have been cut away so that the honey is exposed in the honeycomb, you load 8 frames into an extractor and spin the honey out. the extractor is basically a centrifuge, and i have learned that there are two kinds, radial and tangential. the one here is tangential, which means that we have to spin the frames twice: there is a solid layer of wax in the center of each frame, so you have spin in one direction, then flip the frames over and spin the honey out the other way as well. with a radial extractor, you can extract both sides at once because of the way the frames are positioned in the centrifuge. in both cases, as you spin the extractor, honey is forced to the outside of the cylinder and then runs down to the bottom, where it collects until you are ready to drain it. this is harder than it looks, just from a control standpoint. note that in the pictures, you can see that dan chained the whole thing down to a heavy wooden stand so that nothing could get too out of control. each of the frames isn't all that heavy on its own, but you add 8 of them, full and dripping, and your load not without some inertial mass. you have to lean down on the top of the apparatus as you crank it, or it will go flying out of your hands. and then slowing it down when you want it to stop is an act of brute strength--i am pretty sure i came a hairs breadth of letting that thing fly across the room at one point. it's worth mentioning that you can also go too slowly or too quickly as well. you want to go fast enough to extract the honey without getting TOO fast and accidentally collapsing the honeycomb in the frame. kieran and finn were fascinated by the extractor. it's loud and whirring, and produces a lot of wind if you open the lid during the spinning process. and believe me, when the bottom of the tank starts to fill up, you KNOW when it's time to stop--the thick honey will hit the bottom of the centrifuge itself, and it's suddenly like trying to stir a brick. when the honey is out of the frames, they are light, and the comb cells are empty. some people will cut the comb and include it in jars of honey, but i really don't see the point of that. unless you have a use for the beeswax, i'd say just let the bees have it back.

bee pollen (aka, problem frames)

once in a while, you come across a frame that's a big pain in the butt to deal with. this one has a mix of half-filled cells, capped honey cells, and bee pollen. the pollen is the real issue--you don't want to spin that pollen out into your honey because you will NEVER get it back out again. dan taught me how to look at the frame and tell which cells are good and which are not. i thought it was odd that the bees cap the pollen cells just like the honey cells. so the trick becomes uncapping the honey cells without opening the pollen cells. then you can spin the frame just like the others to get what honey there is without getting pollen into the mix. it should also be noted that this is the bee pollen you can buy as a dietary supplement--some people believe that it's beneficial for all kinds of things ranging from improving memory, helping with weight loss, increasing sexual performance, to preventing hay fever. there's actually some evidence to support the use of local pollens to help with allergies, although from what i have read, ingesting them can also CAUSE sever allergic reactions in some people. i think most of these claims are probably marketing hokum, but what do i know, right? if i ever decide i need any, i clearly have a good source for it right here. :)

straining and pouring

as you extract the honey, you periodically have to empty the tank. since we had many hands, we just ran the honey through a fine mesh strainer into big stock pots, then took it upstairs to pour into clean jars. this process is slow, but not difficult. if we were doing this as a commercial operation, we would probably have gone through more than one straining of the honey to make sure we got all of the impurities out. however, since our honey is for--well--us, we strained it once and called it good. i would say about 99% of all the stuff was out after that first straining anyway. it's actually pretty amazing how clean and clear it is straight out of the hive. after the straining, the pot of (freakin' heavy!) honey is carried up to where the jars await. these are just basic mason jars, for which i have some kind of i-was-a-farm-wife-in-a-previous-life kind of love. why do i think they are so pretty?! the pouring is straightforward, if a tad messy. i am honestly not strong enough to do it with a full stockpot of honey, so i enlisted help from the hippie. check out those guns. heh. i thought it was cute how he tucked in his hair to keep it from getting into the honey. this strategy, while seemingly sound, did NOT keep the honey from getting into the hair by the end of the day.

a LOT of honey!

in the end, we harvested over 12 gallons of honey, which is a TON if you ask me! keep in mind that this is only a portion of the harvest, and only from two of the four hives. we will harvest again in the fall, but at that point, we will not take as much from each hive since winter will be coming, and the bees will need honey for themselves. i am really interested to see how the summer harvest is different from the spring one. even this time, there was a marked difference between the early spring honey, which was very light and clear, and the later honey--you could tell that dan and denise's neighbors had put in a buckwheat field in the late spring because the honey suddenly became much darker. we didn't try to separate the honey, but rather chose to blend it all together. however, i've talked to people who do this professionally, and they will rent little plots of land on which ti place bees on farms where specific crops are growing just to get different varieties of honey. i had some cotton honey once that was almost clear and so sweet it hurt my teeth, and then i've had buckwheat honey that's as dark as molasses and has a nuttier flavor. the honey is as different as the crops themselves.

finishing up

last, but not least, you have to harvest the capping wax and honey. this is done with heat--you collect it all in a pot, and slowly heat it till the beeswax melts. this causes the wax to come to the top, with the dirt, debris, and impurities in a layer under the wax, and then the honey on the bottom. from this amount of wax, dan said we should get another gallon or so of honey. and this honey, we WILL keep separate since it's been heated, which changes its character.

to wrap up, here are the answers to the questions everyone has been asking me since harvest day:

1. no, raw honey hasn't been heated in any way at all. it will crystallize more quickly than honey that's been heated, and if this happens, you can return it to nearly its original state by heating it very slightly. however, you don't want it to go over about 120 - 130 degrees F or you will start breaking down the sugars.

2. no you do NOT need or want to store honey in the fridge. it really doesn't go bad that i've ever seen or heard of. just keep it in your pantry. (or if you're like me, put it in something pretty because you are going to keep getting it out and leaving it on the counter so you can look at it.)

3. do NOT give honey to a baby under a year old. the sugars in honey are more complex than their little digestive systems can handle, and giving it to them can make them very sick. in fact, my grandmother used to say not to give it to a baby under 3 years old--the american academy of pediatrics now says one.

after all this, i guess it's safe to say that i am even more of a honey evangelist than i used to be. it just has to be one of the coolest processes in nature. i'm grateful to dan for teaching me so much about it, and i am really hoping he will let me help with the bees in the fall when we get ready to harvest again. if so, there may be a part three. we'll see!

robbing the bees, part one

i love honey. i think it's beautiful and tasty and healthy, and i love trying all different kinds. i like cooking with it (especially pumpkin pie!), i like it on toast with butter, it soothes my throat when it's sore, it's good in peanut sauce and salad dressing, and i have this idea that at some point i will have time to make things like facial masks and stuff out of it as well. i love how it smells and how it tastes. i've read books on its history, taken pictures of it, and eaten it by the spoonful. there are probably 15 kinds of honey in my cabinet right this minute. so when my pseudo-father-in-law, dan, asked me if i wanted to help him harvest the honey from his hives, i jumped at the chance. and folks, that was one awesome, educational, hard-working day! prepare to be bombarded with pictures, and more information than you ever wanted about honey! (by the way, i think i am going to break this up into two posts--there are too many pictures and too much information for one.)

note: if you want to skip the words, and just check out the pictures, you can find them all here: honey harvest, a set on flickr.

the hives

dan has 4 hives, all lined up in a perfect, shady clearing well away from the house or anything that would disturb the bees. the two in the middle are parent hives, and the two on the edges are child hives. this means that he's using the first two colonies to set up two new colonies in the smaller hives. the parent hives are normally much taller, but dan had already pulled out the boxes we were going to harvest when i got there. as the colonies grow, the hives will as well, but you start the child hives small and with the hive entrance facing in the opposite direction from the parent hives. if you look closely at the middle picture, you can see the bees coming in and out of the entrance on the bottom level of the hive. there's a stump in the middle of the clearing that's hollowed out and filled with water for them to drink. the bottom picture is the view of the top of the clearing, and when you stand there, you can see the bees zooming in and out of the clearing like tiny dive-bombers.

the stucture of supers

each hive consists of a stack of wooden boxes called supers, and each super contains 10 frames, which are wooden frames in which the bees build honeycomb that gets filled with everything bees need: eggs and larvae, pollen, and eventually, honey. when you pull the supers, you suit up in protective gear, smoke the bees to calm them, pull the boxes out, inspect them to make sure they are not brood chambers (ie, filled with eggs, larvae, baby bees, etc.), brush off the bees with a paintbrush, and take 'em into the house--all before the bees get wise to your game and come after you. this is the part i didn't get to help with, about which i was both relieved and sad. honestly, i don't know if i could lift a full super--they are pretty heavy even without a full load of honey! the bees have spent all spring gathering pollen, turning it into honey, which they put into the combs in the frames, and capping the honeycomb cells with wax as each one was filled. the picture on the bottom of this set is a full frame, and the white/yellow coating you see are the beeswax caps on the honeycomb cells.

processing the frames

so, to get the honey out of the frames, we must first remove the caps. dan has this special knife for cutting them off--it's an electric knife shaped like a flat sword that heats up so that it melts the wax enough to cut through it. this process is straightforward but a little tricky. you stand the frame up and hold it with one had, while skimming off the caps with the other. you want to cut deeply enough to open the comb without gouging the it, lest you a) lose too much honey, and b) damage the comb, which will be returned to the bees after the harvest is complete. some people take the comb for the wax, but dan lets the bees have it back so that they spend less time building new comb and more time making honey. makes sense to me. the pointed sword edge of the knife is essential for getting the caps off in the corners. it's also worth noting that this knife is HOT, which means the honey that does come out of the comb at this stage is also HOT, and hot honey is more than a little bit like napalm. there's quite a risk of burning here. i cut a couple of the frames, but dan did most of them, as he's about 14 times faster than me. he makes it look easy and simple, but trust me--it's not. as you cut the caps, you just let them fall into a pan to deal with later. they can be used for any number of things of course, primarily candles and seeding new frames for new bees. the bottom picture is what a very full freshly capped frame looks like. that one is now ready for processing.

next up, spinning, straining, and pouring!