fall gardening for spring

Fall around here is mesmerizing. The trees ringing the pasture are orange-ing, the mornings are misty and cool, the fireplace is keeping us company again come evenings, and the elk are bugling right outside our back door (and under stars and moon we hear the wooden clack of antlers crashing in battle). 

Our garden is dying back (except the zucchini, which seems to be raging, raging against the dying of the light), and it's bittersweet. For next season, we'll be gardening in the pasture in front of our house. New neighbors are moving in next door, and so we're picking up our fencing and greenhouse and shifting to a new plot. I was somewhat devastated at first; that garden, my first very own garden, felt like my child. But good things abound: we hope to befriend the neighbors, we think this new plot will get more sunlight, and it's twice as big (yes, we measured). More space for more veggies! Our landlords are pretty awesome to let us till up their sheep pasture to grow things. 

We harvested our soup beans, potatoes, and winter squash. We'll still be harvesting carrots, beets, kale, fall lettuce, chard, some basil, and hopefully brussels for a while to come in the old space. 

This evening, we planted one row in the new space of favas and shallots. Not to be harvested until spring and midsummer, respectively. How odd, to tuck seeds into the ground knowing that a whole winter and spring of waiting lies before us. It's an investment in the future. 

mutton

About a month ago, we added to our home butchery repertoire mutton. Or, as my uncle's girlfriend Eve says, the French way, moo-tone. Which does sound much more elegant. I think mutton has a bad rap, and that was evident in the price we paid for it (half of what we'll pay for lamb later this fall). But this ewe grew up on lush pastures right outside our back door, lived a quiet and peaceful life, and I have to argue that it's taste-able in the mutton curries and roasts we've cooked so far. It's fall-apart tender and, when paired with either red wine and herbs and garlic or toasted Indian-style spices and ginger, just delicious. You would be hard pressed to differentiate it from beef. I'm serious. 

Researching specific mutton recipes has been somewhat difficult online. The BBC has a few; some very Indian websites have some (confusingly written!). But not much. So we've taken the tips we gathered from Eve and from some articles on the BBC, and basically crafted our own recipes each time we've cooked it.

This is the curry I came up with. It would be equally yummy with lamb or beef. The key is toasting the spices and then concentrating all the flavors slowly with the tomato juice. Also simmering the meat for a loooong time, until it's as tender as pot roast. 

Spice mix

1 tbsp fennel seeds

1 tbsp cumin seeds

1/2 tbsp coriander seeds

pinch peppercorns (maybe 1/8 tsp) 

seeds from 5 cardamom pods 

generous pinch red pepper flakes

1 cinnamon stick 

shake of paprika 

Toast all the spices but the paprika in bottom of dutch oven until aromatic. Set the cinnamon stick aside. Then grind the toasted spices and the paprika in a spice grinder and set aside. 

Curry

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, chopped 

1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced

4 garlic cloves, minced 

1 (14-oz) can diced tomatoes 

Grapeseed oil

1 pound mutton, cubed into 1-inch chunks 

1 can coconut milk 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Melt the butter in same dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, cook until glossy, and add the ginger and garlic. Cook until aromatic. Add the ground spices and cook until more aromatic. Add a splash of the juice from the diced tomatoes and cook until it’s evaporated and a golden crust is on the bottom of the pan. Add more juice, scrape the pan, and cook again until evaporated and another golden crust coats the pan. Continue this cycle with all the juice you can get out of the tomatoes—probably four or five rounds of this. The last round, use the juice to scrape up the browned bits and then transfer everything to a bowl before it has a chance to brown again. 

Pour in a splash of grapeseed oil and wait for a moment for it to heat up. Add the mutton pieces and brown on all sides, turning quickly—you just want to seal the juices. Add the onion mixture back to the dutch oven along with the remaining tomato chunks, the cinnamon stick, and the can of coconut milk. Bring to a simmer. 

Cover and transfer to the oven for about an hour and a half, until the meat is tender and easy to shred with a fork. Salt to taste. Remove the cinnamon stick. 

Serve with bulgar or brown rice. 

 

zucchini abounds

Post-vacation garden harvest

It's that time of the year (and has been for a while) when your neighbors start to ask "Can I give you some zucchini?" and you run away screaming.

We planted four zucchinis, and at first it seemed like the perfect amount. Every day, we had one or two on-the-small side squashes, perfect for sautéing with green beans as a dinner side. But for the last few weeks, we've been so overrun that I'm now avoiding peeking under the umbrella-like leaves at all.

Upside, I've settled on a zucchini bread recipe. The first two I tried were just not right--even my usual favorite people at America's Test Kitchen didn't win me over in the end with their attempt to better old-school zucchini bread recipes by toning down the amount of oil and nixing such add-ons as cinnamon, nuts, and chips. The result? Bread that was too light and flavorless, I thought. Boring.

I rediscovered the winning recipe thanks to my mom and a 1970s-era church cookbook. This one brings on the vegetable oil, cinnamon, nuts, and chocolate, and manages to be moist and light at the same time. The spices and add-ons give the zucchini the helping hand it--let's be honest--really needs. Because the irony of zucchini bread is that it's not about the zucchini. At least, that's what I've decided after a double batch of it cleaned me out of flour, sugar, eggs, and chocolate chips, and made barely a dent in our pile of squash. The zucchini is merely an excuse to consume slice upon slice of chewy chocolatey nutty cinnamony quick bread with morning coffee.

Now that our freezer is stocked with loaves, I'm trying other things to conquer the pile. Zucchini blanched and frozen. Zucchini in vegetable soup. Zucchini soup puree. Zucchini slices baked with bread crumbs and parmesan. And, because it's a losing battle, zucchini for the chickens. They love it!

Zucchini Bread 
Adapted from Westminster Presbyterian's 1970s cookbook 

I prefer to use zucchini that's over 1 pound here--save the smaller ones for stir-fries or salads, as they're moister. The larger ones are dryer, which is better for this bread.

2 1/2 cups grated zucchini
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup chocolate chips

Toss the zucchini with 1 tablespoon of the sugar and set in a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl. Let the zucchini drain for about 30 minutes--you'll be left with greenish water beneath and much dryer zucchini. Squeeze the squash with paper towels to sop up any excess moisture.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and prepare a loaf pan or a muffin tin by oiling the bottom and sides, then dusting with flour. Alternately, use parchment paper or muffin cups.

Cream the remaining sugar and eggs; add the oil and zucchini. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until just combined. Add the nuts and chocolate and stir.

Pour into the prepared loaf pan or muffin tin. Fill the loaf pan about two-thirds of the way full; fill the muffin cups about halfway full.

Bake a loaf for 1 hour or muffins for 25 minutes, until the tops are more golden than glossy and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Let the bread rest in the pans on a cooling rack for about 7 minutes. Then remove and let cool all the way (or, okay, as long as you can wait).

You can freeze the loaves wrapped in plastic wrap, then tinfoil or butcher paper.

i am not a canning person

My summer canning marathon is over, and I now remember how much I do not like canning. I forgot in the eleven months since my last canning marathon. Mostly because those months were accented by yummy canned goods: sweet cucumber relish folded into salads, cardamom plum jam smeared on toast, tomato sauce spooned over pasta. My efforts last summer, which included one epic weekend where I think I did seven different canning projects, were, okay, totally worth it. We gave pickles and jam as Christmas gifts and brought them as host gifts, shared them with family and friends, and just finished the last jam a few weeks ago.

This weekend, while Tim was across the country for a friend's wedding, I decided to revisit some highlights--hot-cumin zucchini pickles, dilly beans, and sweet cucumber relish--as well as some sweet cucumber pickles that our landlords served once and I've been dreaming about ever since. I made it to the jar-filling stage of my first project, the relish, when it all flooded back. Oh no, I do not like canning at all. It's the water-bath canner on the stove hissing hurry up as I pack the jars; the millions of precise steps in the recipes shouting you forgot, you forgot; the sneaky jar lifter slipping its grip and whooping ha!; the heat in the kitchen stickying my skin. 

Maybe I spent too much time with canning equipment this weekend. 

As I relayed my frustrations to Tim on the phone midway through the marathon, he said, "Maybe you are not a canning person." And something clicked for me. I actually felt relieved. He is right. I am not a canning person. 

Sure, I will probably continue to make a few small batches of pickles and dilly beans and relish each summer. How can you not when you have eleven pounds of cucumbers languishing in the fridge? I will probably try new canning recipes, too, because I always fall for the romance of new recipes and home-preserved self-sufficiency. Come rainy November, I will definitely be delighted to crunch into a dilly bean and might even feel nostalgic for steamy nights spent slaving over the stove with tools that seem less anthropomorphic after a few months of separation. 

But I am pretty sure that we are fermenting people. It's not just that fermenting is less work--you throw things in jars with water and maybe salt, check on them every evening or so, and let the microbes pull the weight. It's that fermenting seems looser and more forgiving to me, in my experience. Instead of trying to nuke all the microbes, good and bad, out of a jar and hope for a sterile environment, you nurture the right microbes so that they can demolish the bad ones. If mold grows on top, you skim it off. Not a big deal. And then you get to eat the good microbes, which do good upon good in your gut. 

I could wax scientific, thanks to the fantastic fermentation guide I copyedited this summer (Fermentation and Home Brewing: The Ultimate Resource), but no. I'm going to go put my feet up and eat some ice cream. It's recovery time. 

chicken

So far, we've tried whole chickens two ways: smeared with olive oil and herbs, stuffed with lemon, and roasted in a Dutch oven placed inside a 450 degree oven; and braised in a Dutch oven with soy sauce and lemon juice. Both delicious, juicy, and simple. 

Tonight, I stumbled on a gold-mine recipe for chicken breast. I'd been canning all day, so I needed something not just simple but fast, and while Tim was out of town and I almost felt like dipping into our emergency store of Annie's mac 'n cheese, I resisted. 

The New York Times Cooking app came to my rescue. I didn't follow the recipe I chose exactly, because when do I ever, and I even used the last dregs of a very bad bottle of white wine—and still, I give it a rave review. 

First, you brown a flour-dredged chicken breast in butter with chopped rosemary and garlic. After cooking it just 4 minutes on each side, you add lemon juice and white wine, cover, and cook 3 minutes more. 

When it was done, I set it aside on a plate tented with tinfoil, poured off most of the pan sauce into a little bowl, and tossed diced zucchini, beans, and leek into the hot pan. Turned up the heat. In another 4 minutes or so, the pan sauce had coated the vegetables and then evaporated, and the vegetables were still slightly crunchy and just starting to brown, my favorite way. 

I piled the veggies next to the chicken, drizzled the sauce on top of the chicken, and headed out to the back patio to commune with the view and consume the feast. 

Chicken Breasts With Rosemary and Lemon

Adapted from this recipe by Pierre Franey, published here: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/4689-chicken-breasts-with-rosemary-and-lemon

Serves 1

1 whole skinless, boneless chicken breast

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary 

1 garlic clove, minced 

1/4 cup white wine

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 small leek, washed thoroughly and sliced thinly 

1 small zucchini, halved and then sliced thinly 

8 or so green beans 

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, pound the chicken breast to an even thickness. I think mine was about 1/2-inch thick in the end. Dredge it in the flour and season with salt and pepper on both sides. 

When the butter is just sort of browning a little, add the chicken. Scatter the rosemary and garlic on top and around the pan. Cook 3-4 minutes until the chicken is golden brown but not dark or crispy. Flip and do the same on the other side. 

Add the wine and lemon juice, cover, and cook for 3 or so more minutes until the chicken juices are no longer pink when you cut into it, but the chicken is still very moist and tender. 

Set the chicken aside on a plate, cover with foil, and set a kitchen towel on top to keep it hot. Pour off most of the pan sauce into a small bowl, reserving erough to just barely cover the bottom of the pan. 

Add the leek, zucchini, and beans and turn the heat up just slightly. Sauté, stirring often, until the pan sauce has evaporated and the vegetables are just barely browning, but definitely not limp yet (or, okay, if you're my husband, sauté until they're not crunchy anymore and very brown!). Four minutes max, I say!

Serve the vegetables next to the chicken. Drizzle the rest of the pan sauce on top of the chicken. 

snapshots

We're at the far left of the pasture above, just in the trees (photo by my grandpa, Lauren Rice).

Today's our five-month anniversary here. Although I meant to blog more this spring, I'm settling for snapshots instead, as I look back on where we started on April 1 and where we are now.

Moving here was a huge adjustment. First, the creatures called sheep that are now in our care! The lambs are not so cute as this one pictured above anymore; they're almost as big as their 200-pound mamas. But when we moved here, they were barely a few weeks old and jumpy and basically stuffed-animal adorable. I've been jumpy around them myself, especially lately; the pasture is so dry that we're feeding them hay and grain like it's winter, so when I feed them in the evenings, well, it's a stampede. With not-200-pound-me in the middle. However, tonight I wrangled one of them--pretty sure it was the lamb above, one of two all-white ones--when it escaped out the gate. Hauled it bodily back into the pasture, and felt like I'd graduated to the next level of shepherding.

The other huge adjustment was, well, that Seattle is far away. For a city girl at heart, it is still the weirdest thing to live so removed from normal noises like cars driving by, sirens wailing, neighbors talking, airplanes roaring overhead. Here, the soundtrack is sheep baaing. Wind sighing, sometimes. And okay, the volunteer fire department siren a-wailin' whenever there's an accident on the highway.

But the view is ever stunning. Mornings, mist waves across the golden pasture. Afternoons, the grass and the foothills and mountains in the distance shimmer in the heat, or appear and disappear through dramatic clouds. Evenings, Sauk Mountain flares pink--we watch the reflections of the sunset through our east-facing windows. Often, we count elk grazing at dusk. On nights with full moons, we go to bed with the light silvering the metal roof of the sheep shelter out in the pasture and the shivery sound of coyotes yelping.

Has country living already gotten under my skin? Maybe.

To top off all the change, we got a kitten--a little black thing named Ginger. From her two-pound beginnings here, she's been a wild one, playful and curious and actually sort of insane sometimes, like Jekyl and Hyde. She can be tearing laps around the house one hour and purring on the couch the next.  We built her two cat towers early on, one with a cozy box on top and the other with three different perches. Tim's dream come true would be to turn our whole house into a cat kingdom for her; he's that obsessed with this crazy cat.

Okay, I am somewhat obsessed, too. Even though she types things like this on my computer keyboard when I'm not looking:

```````````````````````````````````````````]\\\\\uí:"""""""""""""v;c/

mid-May

My very favorite thing about this new place is our garden, nestled between the empty house next door (gets more sunlight over there) and a big shed.

early June

Now it's a veritable jungle of winter and summer squash, green and soup beans, potatoes, onions, leeks, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces and greens, cabbages, beets, and baby brussels sprouts and baby winter kale and cabbage.

The garden bookends my days. I water and harvest in the mornings, then water what needs it at midday. Our nightly ritual (and sometimes morning too) is to wander out and peer at things and exclaim over new growth. 

Weekends and some evenings this spring, through June, we were pretty much addicted to working here: turning new soil, planting new seeds, weeding, and chipping away at the garden fence we still need to finish, which will be our attempt to keep out the bunnies that nibble at our onion tops. 

Even as we're harvesting cucumbers by the basketful, and crossing our fingers for the tomatoes to overcome an all-around awful blossom end rot plague, and drowning in zucchini, and pulsing basil into pesto for the freezer, we're looking ahead to winter already. Above, the curlies of a winter squash plant. 

We have a regular fermentation factory in the coolest kitchen cupboard: turnips, radishes, beet kvass, sauerkraut, and pickles bubbling away at all hours of the day and night. I made the beet kvass with some trepidation, as the tang of fermented foods is not honestly my favorite and my obsession with fermentation up until now has been merely with the process, half romantic and half scientific--it's both magical and creepily fascinating to watch substrates transform by the actions of microbes I cannot see. But at the first sip of kvass the other week, I was hooked. Sweet, a little salty, and tongue-twistingly sour, it's now my summer drink of choice, cold and slightly carbonated. 

When we're not gardening, we hike the trail around the property here, a three or four mile loop through the forest along the river. Or explore our bigger backyard...the North Cascades. 

The swimmin' hole (I have yet to go swimming--glacier water!) on the property

Baker River

View from Sauk Mountain at sunset 

Phinney Creek forest road adventures (photo by my dad, Andrew Rice)

Cascade Pass

Lest this all sound and look too perfect, let me say that these five months have been a roller coaster, lurching through the lows of not knowing too many people around here as well as soaring through the highs snapshotted above. It's been lonely and hard, yet full and sweet all at the same time. But even in the midst of the lows, I would not change a thing about our decision to come here. 

new

When we butchered our pig back in November, we kept one of the hams whole, bone-in. It came to 7.5 pounds. “We gotta throw a party to eat this ham,” we said, and kept saying it all winter. We shared pork chops with friends and family, and made some delicious party batches of ham and bean soup, but we never got around to eating the 7.5er. I kept wondering, every time I looked in the chest freezer, when we’d eat that ham. Who would eat it with us? 

To my surprise, the real question was where we’d eat it, and I had no idea back in November that we’d bake that ham in a new home, in a new town, in a new part of Washington State, this May. We moved nearly two months ago to a lovely home overlooking a sheep pasture and Sauk Mountain on a 300-acre property called Elysium Farms along the Skagit River. The inspiration for the move was a job for Tim at Glacier Peak Winery, up near Marblemount, a position that’s given him hands-on experience in a vineyard and winery both, a job that I can tell every day makes him so happy--a mix of satisfaction and curiosity and passion that's turning him into a pretty big grape-growing geek. But that one thing, a job, has opened up so many new possibilities to us that I’m amazed, looking back, that I actually dragged my feet about the whole thing at first. This new place has been rich and full for us, and I’ve seen the Lord’s provision everywhere, in everything. 

So the other weekend we cooked the ham with family around the table, and that was the end of our Vashon pig. We mourned the pig a bit—and mourned the empty freezer, the end of easy dinners for now—but we haven’t mourned the move. The freezer is empty, ready for the next new thing (not another pig; I need a break). And we are ready, too.

our new home

savory french toast

Necessity is the mother of invention, and I find that phrase to be most true in the kitchen. Eating in season means that when something is in, we have a lot of it. A lot of turnips. A lot of snap peas. Too many radishes!

Well, those three are currently in abundance only in my spring-dreaming mind. In winter, at least while the farm stand is closed, we have too many eggs. Now that we milk Jingle once a week, we have plenty of milk and cream, too. That leads to cheesemaking, which creates whey, which we turn into loaf after loaf of homemade bread (the whey lends an addicting sourdough tang).

It all collided one night recently with a hunk of bacon, and transformed out of necessity into savory French toast. I threw it together almost without thinking--my only logic was need. What to do with all this milk? Need to use bacon. Have leeks. Need something sharp for contrast. 

So when we actually sat down to eat the french toast, in a haphazard fashion as it came off the griddle, I was totally blown away. I think I said "this is so good, just so good" to Tim about ten times in surprise.

I'm usually a sucker for sweet French toast with maple syrup and whipped cream, but I skipped a second piece of the sweet stuff for a third piece of savory that time. It was just that good.

Not French toast, but another recent abundance-fueled experiment: homemade neufchâtel, a soft French cheese

For the French toast 
1 cup whole milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
Butter for frying
6-8 slices of hearty bread

For the toppings 
bacon slices
1-2 leeks, trimmed, washed, and diced
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
parmesan cheese, thinly sliced

In a shallow baking dish, whisk together (carefully) the milk, egg, and salt. Scatter in the flour, whisking constantly. Set aside.

Heat a medium-sized skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bacon slices and cook, turning over once or twice, until crispy. Remove and set aside. Turn the heat down to medium and add the leeks to the hot pan. Sauté--in the bacon grease, yes!--until soft and more richly green. Then add the red wine vinegar and cook a minute or so more until the liquid is gone.

Now go back to the toast. Heat the butter in a griddle or frying pan over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, soak the bread slices in the milk-egg mixture for about 30 seconds, then flip and soak for 30 more--the time here, though, will depend on the freshness of the bread. When the slices are thoroughly soaked, transfer them to the griddle. Cook about 1 minute on each side--the time here, too, will depend on the thickness of the slices--until golden brown, crispy on the outside, still soft in the middle but not squishy.

Plate the toast. Layer with slices of parmesan cheese, then heap with leeks and bacon (I snipped the bacon up with scissors into little crumbles).

Serve with a bowlful of spicy greens.

Some thoughts: Next time, I want to try mustard, perhaps instead of (or with, if I'm feeling bold) the vinegar. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to smear the toast with more butter before layering on the parmesan cheese. Right?! And the possibilities for cheese and meat are pretty much endless--as long as the cheese is sharp and the meat is crispy, you just can't mess this up.

slow-cooker pork

Tim and I love to cook--that's been established. But while we do happily spend at least an hour most evenings cooking dinner, we also relish those nights when dinner time rolls around and dinner is already done. There's no post-work prep, almost no clean-up, and dinner is just as good, possibly better, than the dinners that take us hours to prepare.

What is this magic? A squat little kitchen gadget that sits on our counter all day, making no noise at all, looking for all the world like it's doing nothing, when inside it's transforming a Boston butt or picnic roast into fall-apart carnitas, succulent stew, tender braise.

Maybe because it's winter, a season for stews and meaty feasts, I'm newly obsessed with our slow cooker. We originally just used it for picnic or Boston butt roasts (the tougher cuts that need slower cooking), but we've since branched out and now love slow-roasted fresh ham.

Here are my top three favorite recipes so far. 

Pork carnitas 

I make no claims of authenticity--I just threw together spices that sounded good. But the meat was tender, the flavoring intense, and the juice dripped everywhere: the sign of a good taco. 

One 2-3 pound pork shoulder roast 

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon ground cumin 

1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder 

3 cloves garlic, minced 

One 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes (or a similar amount of frozen roasted tomatoes) 

Put the roast in the bottom of the slow cooker. Rub it with the olive oil, then with the spices. Pour in the canned tomatoes (or put the hunk of frozen tomatoes next to the roast; it will thaw). Cover and turn the slow cooker on low. Let it all cook for 5-6 hours. 

Once the meat is falling apart, pull it apart with a fork. There will be a good, juicy amount of hot tomato liquid in the bottom of the pot; throw the pulled pork back into the liquid, turn the slow cooker down to warm, and let it stew until it's dinner time. 

Serve with warmed corn tortillas, cilantro, yogurt, and lime juice. 

Pork roast braised in milk

I first tried this recipe because it sounded so strange and because we have an abundance of milk. The pork's tenderness and flavor is unmatched, and there's the added bonus of the milk broth, a drinkable savory treat. And I just recently learned a sweet trick for the broth: if you find curdled milk odd (and yes, the milk in this recipe should curdle), just blend up the sauce with an immersion blender after removing the meat. Voila! 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

One 2-3 pound shoulder roast

A mix of dried herbs like oregano, rosemary, sage, or basil 

16 ounces (approximately) whole milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. When the oil is just about to smoke, put the meat in the pan and brown it all the way around.

Move it to the slow cooker, add the herbs and milk, cover, and cook on low for 5-6 hours. The meat will be tender, falling apart, and the milk curdled. This is okay! Good, actually. If it bothers you, though, whizz it up with an immersion blender.

Salt and pepper it, then serve over brown rice or polenta (to really jazz up the polenta, make it with a cup or so of the milk mixture).

Five-spice pork 
Thanks to Fine Cooking and a Chinese-food-themed Superbowl party, we just recently discovered this super easy pork dish. We've made it twice so far, with a few adaptations to the original recipe and homemade five-spice powder, and I'm in love. It's rich, surprisingly semisweet, and deeply flavorful. Both times we've made it, we've marinated the meat in the sauce overnight. That's not necessary, though; it just made day-of prep time as simple as dumping it all in the slow cooker.   

1/3 cup Mirin cooking wine
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon Sriracha
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
One 2-3 pound pork roast
1 large onion, diced or sliced 

Mix all the ingredients except for the pork in a medium bowl. Cut the pork into about 2-inch strips or cubes. Add to the sauce and marinate overnight, or add all to the slow cooker right away.

Cook on low heat for 5 hours or on high heat for about 3. An hour or so before you want to eat, add the diced onion.

Serve over brown rice. 

cow to table

The delicious mozzarella at the cheese class I took this fall, dressed with pickled peppers and herbs

Cheesemaking, my surprise fall/winter project, has reminded me a lot of canning--basically, that it's precise and recipe driven. Pretty much exactly what my true cooking soul is not. My cheesemaking journey has been bumpy, to say the least, taking me from exhilaration to panic, glee to despair, cheesy delight to masses of mushy failure destined for the cat and the chickens.

There was the honeyed fromage blanc I served to my mom, grandma, and sister on crusty homemade bread (alongside homemade Greek yogurt and homemade butter)--all as delicious as it sounds. But there was also the feta that turned to mush while brining in the fridge, the feta that tasted way off after brining in the fridge, the soft cheese that stayed milk... I could go on.

Still, there's something enchanting about cheesemaking, the act of helping to transform a liquid to a solid in a matter of minutes or hours, of trusting things I can't see (like cultures) to do their work and make me cheese.

Last week, mozzarella. Success and failure.

After we milked the cow on Wednesday, we got home around 6:30 with three gallons of warm, raw milk. I plunged two gallons into a sink full of ice water to speed the cooling process, and dumped the other gallon into a big pot. I perused four quite different mozzarella recipes, including two quick ones that differ at almost every step, and then decided to follow the quick recipe I'd observed at the cheese class I took last fall. While Tim cooked rib chops and carrots, I stirred in the citric acid, heated the milk, added the rennet, cooked the curds, and had a plateful of sliced mozzarella balls dressed with olive oil, balsamic, and oregano ready in time for an appetizer. The success was sweet. From cow to cheese in under two hours!

Half of the sweetness was the smoothness of it all, too, the lack of disasters, the fact that the mozzarella was mozzarella, just like it was supposed to be.

So then, of course, it was all the more disappointing to open up the jar of mozzarella balls at lunch the next day and discover that the poor babies had, while floating in their brine, turned into mush. I am not at all sure what this brine = mush thing is. I did eat some for lunch, but we also gave some to the cat--it was just not the same.

Back to the stove that night, I decided to follow the other quick mozza recipe--from Home Cheesemaking--because, hey, cheese might feel like magic sometimes, but it's really a science, and I was irresistibly curious. Why are they so different? This recipe called for one and a half times as much citric acid, a higher temperature for adding the rennet, and a completely different method and temperature for shaping the mozzarella. (You can see the differences below if you're curious.) And, just for kicks, I shaped it into one big ball instead of a bunch of tiny ones.

The final cheese, which probably took a bit longer than the first to finish, although still ready in time for dinner, was smooth and easily sliceable. It was a much firmer consistency than the night before, and squeaky. Even more mozzarella. When dredged in a tangy balsamic and scattered with chunky sea salt, it is, well, something that will make you want to rejoice in Italian and raise your wine glass so exuberantly that the wine all sloshes out.

Moral of the story? Both cheese were successful, and both were mozzarella. But I'm hypothesizing that a few factors contributed to a firmer cheese with a more strongly mozza mouthfeel:

1. Pressing the whey out of the curds before heating them to the magical protein alignment point
2. Getting the whey above the target curd temperature of 125 (the curd becomes more reliably taffy-like and stretchable)
3. Kneading and stretching the curds until smooth before shaping them into balls 

How's that for scientific?


Mozzarella 1:
1 tsp citric acid: 1 gallon milk
1/8 tsp rennet
Heat milk to 86 degrees before adding rennet
Let milk set for 5-10 minutes (I had a fairly clean break after 5 minutes)
Raise curd and whey to 125 degrees
Shape into balls

Mozzarella 2:
1 1/2 tsp citric acid: 1 gallon milk
1/8 tsp rennet
Heat milk to 90 degrees before adding rennet
Let milk set for 5 minutes (I had a very clean break after five minutes)
Raise curd and whey to 110 degrees
Remove from heat and stir curd for 5 minutes (for firmness)
Remove curds and gently press out all the whey you can
Heat whey to 175 degrees
Drop curd into the hot whey until stretchable, like taffy
Knead until smooth and shiny
Shape into balls

perfect pumpkin pie

January isn't a pumpkin pie month—traditionally. But I'm on my eighth pumpkin pie of the squash season, and I don't think I'll stop making them until the last potimarron is gone.

I never was a pumpkin pie gal. At Thanksgiving, I always stuck to apple pie or, better, my Grammie's chocolate pudding pie. All of that changed a few years ago when I made a pumpkin pie for the first time, using butternut squash and a recipe in Baking Illustrated. While their test kitchen recommends sticking with canned pumpkin for ease, it seriously only adds five minutes of work and a little extra oven time—and it adds unbeatable flavor and texture. 

For the first pie this season, I used a little pie pumpkin. But the pumpkins on the farm went fast, so for the next pie, I had my pick of squash of all wintry colors and knobby shapes. I tested out a few; it was easy to decide on potimarron for its size, super-smooth purée, and sweetness. One potimarron, peeled and gutted, is just about sixteen ounces, the exact weight of squash needed, and its sugariness means I can drop the added brown sugar by half. 

Mixed with the usual spices and cooked briefly over the stove with cream and milk (fresh and raw, yes), then poured in a buttery, prebaked shell, it was a very good pie. 

But then we butchered the pigs, and besides all the meat, we got a handful of pounds of leaf fat, a delicate and prized fat that lies just behind the pig's kidneys and renders into a snowy white fat that's apparently magical for pies. We spent a few afternoons rendering the fat over super-low heat—the liquid that seeps out cools into a solid that is actually, shockingly pure white. After a few trial runs, I decided that just one ounce of leaf fat mixed with three ounces of butter added a melt-in-your mouth flakiness to the crust that plain butter just doesn't, but avoids any unwanted lardy taste (which I admit I'm overly sensitive to). This week, I finally made the crust—the pinnacle of crusts, with that sought-after crisp and flake and melt, a bit of sweetness, zero sogginess under the custard. And I really think it's mostly because of that one ounce of lard. 

Probably the biggest turning point in the pumpkin pie season was this New York Times article, though. It's a dangerous article—I may never be satisfied with plain pumpkin pie again after stealing its secret. Instead of relying on the typical spice suspects, like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, it calls on the warm and savory blend of garam masala. Garam masala does include those basic spices, but also adds cardamom, cumin, and fennel. 

When I finished this week's pie, I felt like I'd graduated. I'd dealt with grainy custard (no more baking in toaster ovens), burnt crust (use aluminum foil!), weird crust (I botched the butter ratio), forgetting the eggs (yes, I did pull the pie out of the oven to add them in), and probably other disasters. But this one, this one, was a perfect pumpkin pie.

* * *

Pie crust 
From Ratio by Michael Ruhlman, this crust relies on an easy-to-remember ratio of flour-butter-water: 3-2-1-PIE! Use a scale to measure out the ingredients--easier than it sounds, and you won't have to wash out any measuring cups.
6 ounces flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 ounces cold fat (I prefer 3 oz butter, 1 oz leaf fat)
2-3 ounces cold water

Pumpkin custard 
Adapted from Baking Illustrated and the New York Times recipe for Garam Masala Pumpkin Tart. 
16 ounces potimarron squash, peeled, gutted, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2-2/3 cup brown sugar
1-inch piece of ginger, grated fine
1 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
2/3 cup cream
2/3 cup whole milk
4 eggs

I love using my hands when I make pie dough—it seems to be so important to be able to feel the consistency and texture of the dough. It will tell you all! Mix the flour, salt, sugar, and fat with your fingers, rubbing it all together until the mixture is sandy and has lumps of fat no bigger than a pea. Add the water slowly; use your fingers to press the dough together. When the dough comes together, stop. Don't overmix it. Shape the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for an hour.

When the dough is thoroughly chilled, roll it out. I use a marble pastry slab or a silicon baking mat and plenty of flour, flipping the crust over frequently to make sure it's not sticking and rolling very slowly and not too firmly. If it cracks, it is not a big deal. At all. Just patch it back together.

When the pie dough is rolled large enough to cover the pie pan and hang an inch or so over the edge all around, transfer it to the pan. You can do this by folding the crust lightly into quarters, placing the parcel in the pan, and carefully unfolding it; or—this is truly life changing—lift the silicon mat, flip it over the pie pan, and slowly peel back the silicon. Make your pretty pie crust edges, cover the pan with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for about an hour, then freeze for 10-15 minutes.

All the "cold" terms here are key. Keep the fat chilled and it will make a flaky crust. Let the fat melt and it just won't be the same.

While the pie crust is chilling, preheat the oven to 375. Put the squash in a rimmed baking dish, add a splash or two of water, and cover with foil. Then bake for 15-20 minutes, or until it's very soft. I've found that roasting the squash without the foil and water causes undesirably crispy edges (yummy with dinner, not in pie) and a dry texture that doesn't yield a spectacular custard consistency.

When the pie crust is thoroughly chilled, cover it with foil and a thin layer of dried lentils or beans (or pie weights), and put it straight in the 375-degree oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until it's a nice light golden color. Remove the foil (although I like to leave a ring of foil around the crust edges to prevent over browning) and bake for another 5-6 minutes, until nicely golden.

Meanwhile, puree the squash in a food processor until super smooth (it's fine to use hot squash, but beware of the hot-things-expand-in-a-blender rule). Add the brown sugar, ginger, and spices and puree again until blended. Transfer to a medium pot over medium heat on the stove. Heat until it sputters a little, stirring carefully so it doesn't burn or stick. Then add the milk and cream in a slow, steady stream, stirring all along (I find a wooden spoon works well) so that everything incorporates smoothly. Continue to stir occasionally and heat until the squash-milk mixture simmers gently.

Now crack the four eggs into the food processor bowl (no need to clean it out first). Pulse a few times until blended. Then pour the hot squash-milk mixture into the food processor. Blend for about 30 seconds until smooth and silky.

Right about now, your hot pie crust should be steaming on your stovetop. Increase the oven temp to 400, pour the hot custard into the hot pie crust, and send it off to bake for 20-25 minutes.

All the "hot" terms here are key. Hot, prebaked pie crust = no soggy mixing with custard. Hot custard = a quick set, so no soggy mixing with crust.

When the custard jiggles just a bit when you gently move the pie, it's done. Let it cool to room temperature, and chill it if you want, but I bet you won't want to wait that long.