DIY: Homemade Petit Fours

Today I made petit fours in my kitchen, and they were only a partial success— yummy to eat, but not very attractive to look at. As a result, I think I’ll stick to buying them from now on!

I used this recipe, and even though it had a few negative reviews in the comments section, I figured I would use it anyways, because most of the negative reviews seemed to be in the vein of “this recipe was too sweet,” and we all know that’s impossible. I mean, saying “this petit four is too sweet” is like saying, “my life is too great” or “my husband is too awesome” or “this meal is too delicious.” Although I expected it to be hard and time consuming, I wasn’t too worried about my skill level— I don’t consider myself an amateur in the kitchen, so I wasn’t intimidated by white peaks or double boilers.

Now, the actual cake part was easy to make, and tastes absolutely delicious. After greasing and flouring a 9-inch square pan and preheating the oven, I creamed the sugar, shortening, and butter, then added the vanilla. Next came the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) and the milk, and then I whipped three egg whites and folded them into the batter. Twenty-five minutes in the oven and the cake was done!

I froze the cake for about a half hour as some of the comments suggested, then cut it into small slices. Then I brushed on some heated preserves (I used mostly apricot because that’s what I had in abundance, and then I finished off the batch with some strawberry) and mixed up the icing ingredients (powdered sugar, corn syrup, vanilla, almond extract, and water), then heated them over two pans that I configured to work as a double boiler.

And this is where I ran into trouble— because the frosting came out like fondant, which A) doesn’t taste as good as buttercreme, and B) is  really really hard to spread. The first petit four I attempted to coat came out bulky, like a giant mass of fondant. The next one wasn’t as thickly coated, but it wasn’t very evenly coated. Finally, I resorted to drizzling the fondant “artistically” over the tops of the cake and telling myself that they’d taste the same whether they looked good or not.

And they do— they’re wonderful, really, and they’ll be great for teatime this week, or as a quick little dessert. But I won’t be giving them out to my neighbors, because they look kind of terrible— lumpy and kid of awkward instead of neat and clean like petit fours should look.

And really, petit fours are easy to find in grocery stores these days, so I don’t think I’d make these again. The effort just isn’t worth the final product, I’m sorry to say.

But they were still fun to make, and they’ll be even nicer to EAT! :)

Slow, Hard Food (That Sounds Kind Of Dirty...)

The publicity for the new movie Julie and Julia reached fever pitch this month, and as I was listening to an interview with director Nora Ephron on The Splendid Table yesterday, something suddenly clicked. "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"? Wait a minute...didn't my mom and I get that book for Adam this summer?

Recalling the dusty old book we'd found at a secondhand store and bought for my husband the enthusiastic cook, I raced to the bookshelf, and sure enough— unbeknownst to us, we actually already own a copy of this important cooking volume. I've been listening to these interviews and movie reviews for weeks now and wondering what it would be like to cook these recipes— and it turns out that Julia Child's book has been here under my nose this whole time!

Now, I'm not planning to do what Julie does in the movie— there's no way I'm cooking every single recipe here. For one thing, I just don't like every kind of food explored in the book, and for another, any type of cuisine gets monotonous after a time. But I'd certainly like to explore the book, and maybe pick out a few recipes to try eventually.

Of course, Regina Schrambling (is that really her name?) over at Slate doesn't think I can do it. She seems to believe that her sloth is everyone's sloth, her short attention span is everyone's short attention span, and her refusal to try new things is representative of everyone else's feelings on the subject. "Julia's recipes were written for a rigorous cook with endless patience for serious detail," she writes; "Snobs like me may also be amazed that more than a few recipes suggest using frozen or canned vegetables and canned salmon, a nod to the era in which the book was written and edited, when farmers markets were not even gleams in the most forward-thinking cook's eyes, before farmed salmon became the new Chicken of the Sea. Seasonality, another new watchword for smart cooking, is clearly a non-issue, or no one would be making beef stew in August in homage to the masterpiece."

Because, y'know, there is no possible way to substitute fresh veggies for canned ones. No way.

Why does everyone writing about food today assume that we're all lazy and impatient and uncreative? From Rachael Ray, whose thirty-minute meals save us time by annoyingly abbreviating all the ingredients to mindless acronyms ("EVOO," anyone?), to the idea of a "60-minute gourmet" as advanced by Pierre Franey, food people seem to think we're all ramen-noodle slurping college kids. "Everything in the tome looks complicated," moans Schrambling, "which of course guarantees the results will work but also makes cooking feel like brain surgery. Even simple sautéed veal scallops with mushrooms involve 18 ingredients and implements and two pages of instruction. If after 26 years of cooking for a living, I am worn out just reading those recipes, I can only imagine how a newbie who can barely identify a whisk will do, let alone how someone who has never seen Dover sole in his supermarket could cook à la meunière..."

Oh, no— difficult cooking? Horrors! Everyone knows that the only reason we cook is because we have to feed ourselves, right? There couldn't possibly be other reasons, reasons related to culture or community or family (cooking with Adam is a bonding experience) or even just a good old-fashioned enjoyment of food.

The other day, having coffee with my friend Allison, I brought up the tiny postage stamp that is my kitchen. Allison, it seems, has had the same trouble; looking at apartments in New York, she would find places that were open and spacious and beautiful, and then the kitchen was a strip of linoleum with a sink on the side of the bedroom. When she told one woman renting the apartment that she had expected a real KITCHEN (after all, she had asked beforehand whether there was a kitchen there, because, like us, she cooks all the time), she was told: "Oh, well, no one really cooks in New York."

I don't care if no one cooks in New York. I cook in New York. And when I cook, I expect to really cook, not just heat crap up in a microwave. Cooking is important to me. Sure, I occasionally just want a can of soup or a sandwich for lunch; sometimes that sounds good to me, and sometimes I'm stressed and don't want to deal with the whole oven/stove/countertop deal. But most of the time, I accept that a decent meal means spending a little bit of time and energy, and I'm okay with that, because it seems like a fair trade. And I refuse to believe I'm the only one who thinks this.

Do you have a particular recipe or food that takes awhile to make, or is a little complicated, but always seems totally worth it? (Mine is homemade granola!)

DIY: Mozzarella!

Until recently, I’d always thought that making cheese would be too hard for me. But it turned out that cheesemaking is surprisingly simple— and definitely fun!

My mom and I purchased a kit from the fabulous New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, a great company dedicated to teaching the art of cheesemaking. Owner and cheesemaker Ricki Carroll sells books, DVDs, supplies, and even cheesemaking lessons from her Massachusetts headquarters.

Our “Starter Special” kit was $50, but it included a DVD, a book on home cheesemaking, and almost all of the supplies we needed to make both mozzarella and ricotta: citric acid, cheese salt, vegetable rennet (so my sister can eat the cheese we made!), a dairy thermometer, some butter muslin (for straining), and a little instruction booklet. I’d heavily recommend getting this kit and watching the DVD; it made each step very clear and obvious, and helped us to understand what our cheese should look like during each part of the process.

Surprisingly, decent milk wasn’t hard to find. You need local milk that isn’t “ultra-pasteurized”— and that was easily obtainable at the supermarket two blocks down the road. The water was a little more difficult— you can’t use tap water, because you need it to be completely chlorine-free— but we got a gallon of distilled water from the same grocery store for less than a dollar.

First we dissolved the rennet in water; then we dissolved the citric acid in a separate container with water. The dissolved citric acid was slowly added to the milk in our large saucepan, and then the milk was heated to 90 degrees while we stirred it slowly.

After this, we stirred in the rennet, then let the pot sit for 8 minutes while the curds formed.

We cut the curds into cubes with a long knife, then slowly stirred them around in the whey while we heated the whole thing up to 105 degrees. Then we removed it from the heat, stirred it a bit more, and sloughed off the floating whey into a container (because my mom is going to use it to make whey bread later). We popped the curds into the microwave for 1 minute.
And then…it got tricky. The booklet said we should be able to gently fold the curds into one mass and squeeze out the remaining whey, but the curds were too small and fine, and they wouldn’t separate from the whey properly. Plus, the whole mass was so hot that it was kind of hard to handle.

So we strained the curds through the muslin. The muslin was really supposed to be for the ricotta (which we’re going to make next time), but it actually worked perfectly for separating the mozzarella curds from the rest of the whey. We squeezed the curds together into a ball and microwaved them again, first for thirty seconds, then for a succession of ten-second periods, until they reached 135 degrees.

The best part comes next— stretching the mozzarella! You get to pull it like taffy, and it’s all shiny and stretchy. Then, as you work it in your hands, it gradually gets firmer and firmer. Then put it into a bowl over ice water, and…ta-da! A ball of mozzarella!

It tastes yummy, too. We’re going to use it in a yummy salad tomorrow. Mmmmmmmm!

I’d highly recommend making this cheese— it’s easy and fun, and it tastes really good for relatively little effort. Plus, it’s a versatile cheese, and it keeps pretty well.

Next we’ll be doing ricotta…and I’d also like to try yogurt before we leave for Florida!

DIY: Bagels!

Bagels bagels bagels!

When I was growing up in Squirrel Hill, a mostly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, bagels were pretty much a staple part of my diet. Every week my mom and I would strap my sister in a stroller and go down to Bagel Land Bagels, where my mom would get us a few mini bagels to eat on the way home. Later, when the Brueggers' and Einstein Bros. chains sprang up, there were three bagel shops within two blocks from our apartment, which meant that good, fresh, warm bagels were something I took for granted.

When we moved to Youngstown, we actually used to drive the hour or so back to Pittsburgh just to get decent bagels. I’ve yet to find a supply I can trust in this area.

So making bagels was something I was really looking forward to! I took the recipe from the same book that served up my sun-dried tomato bread, Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day.

The dough is easy to mix up: 3 cups of lukewarm mater, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons yeast, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons salt, and 1 and 1/2 tablespoons sugar together. Then I gradually added in 6 and 1/4 cups of bread flour (while, luckily, my mother had given me for free several months ago when she bought a bunch of it in bulk). As with the tomato bread, this project made me very, very grateful for my fabulous Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

I let the dough rise for two hours; it didn’t fluff up the same way my breads do, because the dough was a little thicker and denser. Much like the tomato bread, however, it was a little wetter than I would have liked, so I had to dust it with plenty of flour when I handled and shaped it.

The recipe made twenty bagels, so I divided the dough into twenty little lumps and then shaped them into rings. That’s harder than it sounds when the dough is so soft, though, and a lot of them came out kind of lumpy.

Now, apparently, the way you get bagels to be bagel-like instead of bread-like is to boil them. Boiling water + 1/4 cups of sugar + 1 teaspoon = the secret to bagelness!

I dropped each bagel into the water and let it simmer in there for two minutes, then flipped it and let it cook for a minute more. Then I put them all on a floured towel to absorb the moisture before putting on the special toppings.

I made four kinds: blueberry (strawberry was the original plan, but we discovered that we still had blueberries frozen from month ago in our freezer, and I refuse to buy fruit when I already have usable fruit in my freezer), Italian herb and cheese (parm cheese with some Italian seasoning), garlic and onion, and salt (for which I used Morton’s ice cream rock salt, and crushed it up with Adam’s mortar and pestle.

Then I baked them in the over (on my baking stone!) for twenty minutes at 400 degrees. The smell of bagels wafted everywhere; I’m pretty sure even the people in the apartment section next door knew I was making bagels.

And, like in the tomato bread experiment, I used a cup of water in a broiler pan to add steam to the oven. It really does work— the crust comes out all browned and chewy!

Now, this all sounds really easy, but it was actually a really, really labor-intensive project. It involved doing about four things at once, and took the better part of four hours. I was exhausted after I finished, and it took me awhile to clean up. Plus, the bagels came out looking lumpy, which offended my perfectionist soul.

But they tasted…DELICIOUS! Just the right consistency, and the perfect size for a lovely breakfast without making you feel gross and overly full. And they came out to be pretty cost-effective, since I didn’t have to buy anything to make them— I had everything I needed in my kitchen already!

So, like the tomato bread, this project was of middling success. The outcome was awesome, but it took quite a lot of work to get here. When you get right down to it, I think I really can avoid buying bagels ever again (unless they’re super cheap or unless I find a really exciting new variety that I don’t know how to make at home), but we probably won’t have them that frequently.

Next time: cheese is still in the works (I’m doing it as a collaborative project with my mom, so we’ve got to work out times and days and materials and such), as is soap (I’m still waiting to find someone who is willing to help me…volunteers have been scarce, what with the highly toxic and dangerous chemicals involved, but maybe I can trick my youngest sister into helping). I’m making fudge tomorrow (peanut butter or chocolate? I can’t choose!) and I’m anticipating doing a batch of wine next month with Adam.

DIY: Ice Cream!

Today was a pretty warm and sweaty day, and it was also the first day we got to turn on our air conditioning! So we celebrated by borrowing my mother-in-law's ice cream maker and making some homemade ice cream, which I hadn't done since maybe first grade. I know I promised bagels, but it was really too hot, so you'll have to wait another few days to be completely jealous of my awesome homemade bagels.

Now, borrowing this ice cream maker really threw into sharp focus one of the important lessons of DIY, which is that making or doing things yourself will sometimes require an upfront investment in equipment and/or materials. Many DIY products tend to end up being cheaper than their store-bought counterparts, but sometimes this is true ONLY if you continue to make batches of said product for a certain period of time. It's hard to just experiment in one isolated instance with something like DIY beer or DIY soap, because those projects require equipment. Realistically, if you want to make some of this stuff, you really have to commit to it: DIY beer only becomes cost-effective after several batches because the small amount you save each time you brew instead of buy is going to have to offset the initial cost of the fermenting bucket and bottling spigot and capper and large cooking pot. If you just want to experiment with a product but you don't want to really commit to making all of that product by yourself for the next few months, I recommend seeing if you can borrow a lot of the equipment from someone. In fact, I recommend that you do that for your first test run, anyways, because you might not like what you make (some things, after all, are best left to the experts) and then you won't have to worry about the fact that you just spent all that cash on a brand new ice cream maker or wine press that you'll never use again.

So anyways, the ice cream maker we borrowed was electric; my mom had a hand-cranked one when I was little, but it's long gone by now, and so when my mom-in-law kindly offered to lend us hers, I was thrilled.

We used a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, a publication I got for free for my husband through an internet deal of some kind— I think it was a survey I took about our wedding. (May I just point out how lucky I am to be married to a man with a brilliant mind, a kind heart, and a passionate love for his Martha Stewart subscription? Seriously, he gets so excited when he sees that thing in the mailbox.) The ingredients are a snap— just put a cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp. of salt, and 8 egg yolks into a medium saucepan and whisk 'em together. We saved the egg whites (who could throw eight whole egg whites away?!) and we're going to use them to make egg white omelets for breakfast tomorrow!

Then we stirred in two cups of milk; of course, even though the recipe called for skim milk, we used 2%. High cholesterol? WHAT high cholesterol? *whistles innocently* As my college housemates know, I despise the taste and texture of skim milk, mostly because I grew up drinking whole and 2% milk and now I just can't stand a lower fat content, period. To me, skim milk tastes like someone poured a cup of water into the milk and figured I wouldn't know the difference. The 2% has clearly taken a toll on my health, but I'm trying to make up for it by eating less butter. *innocent smile*

Heat all that up, stirring constantly, for about ten minutes on medium heat; when the mixture gets a little thicker, you can test it by coating a spoon with it and then sliding your finger down the spoon. If the trail made by your finger is clean and straight and has defined edges, you're good; if it's hard to see and hard to make out and the edges are blurry, then you're not done. (Isn't that a neat trick? Thanks, Martha! :D)

At this point, the ice cream base doesn't have its main flavor ingredient yet; you can decide what you want it to be and then add it in either now or while the mixture is churning in the machine— when you add it depends on what you add. Dearest Martha suggested coffee, chocolate, vanilla bean, strawberries, or ginger (mmm!), but we're contrary, so of course we had to experiment...with green tea! Green tea ice cream is one of my favourite flavors; at Vassar, no trip to Sushi Village was ever complete without a bowl of fried green tea ice cream.

We didn't have any powdered green tea (the typical ingredient used), and we didn't want to have to purchase any loose-leaf, so...well, we kind of just took some of the old green tea bags we had in the back of a cupboard (I think we bought them when we were first married?) and broke them open and then ground that tea into tiny bits using Adam's beloved mortar and pestle. "Creatively unrefined" is my middle name!

So after removing our pot from the heat, we added the tea (about 1/4 cup, give or take a few pinches) to the mixture, then covered it and let it sit for about a half hour. This way, we figured, the tea would kind of steep in the mixture and add flavor, and then we could strain it out through our sieve so that the crunchy leaf bits wouldn't make their way into the finished ice cream.

Here's what it looked like with the tea mixed in:

And after we strained it:

And yes, I may have added a TINY bit of green food coloring left over from cookie frosting a few months ago. But so what if I tarted up my ice cream? I did it for YOU! I wanted you to see it in all its green glory! I do it all for YOU! :P

So then we set up our machine (a fairly simple one, actually) and added the salt and the ice around the canister of ice cream mixture. See, you put your ice cream in this can and then the can is spun around inside this other can filled with ice and rock salt, so that it gets all freezy and delicious without turning into an icy block of yuck. And there's a beater in the inside can that kind of stirs up the mixture, too. I don't really understand the science behind it (oh, wait, never mind— now I do) but it's pretty cool to see.

During the churning process, a certain little kitty from an Edgar Allen Poe poem came to find this machine fascinating. As soon as Lenore heard the whir of the machine, she instantly came in to investigate. Here she is, trying to figure out what's going on:

Her curiosity was dampened when she attempted to look INSIDE the machine, and discovered the whirring paddle that churns the mixture up within the canister. This moving part alarmed her so violently that as soon as she saw it, she scampered hastily away.

As soon as the ice cream was all churned (I guess 20-40 minutes was the recommended time, but we let it go for about 50 minutes), we scooped it into a Pyrex bowl, put a lid on it, and froze it up.

I wasn't feeling very well when the ice cream was ready to eat (I tend to have random sick moments), but Adam was willing to take on the challenge of the first taste. He proclaimed it "kind of weird" but "really pretty good," which I THINK means he liked it. :P

The next time we make ice cream, we plan on trying a fruit flavor, probably strawberry. Of course, I'm eager to make some more experimental flavors, but those would require expensive flavoring oils, and so that might have to wait a little while.

Next time: bagels. No, seriously, I'm making them. Just gimme time. :P

DIY: Fancy Bread

Yesterday, I baked my own fancy bread!

Now, I distinguish “fancy” bread from your everyday homebaked bread in that it is less for delicious sandwiches and toast, and more for just eating on its own— y’know, like those breads they sell at fancy bakeries and bread stores. It’s the kind of bread that you buy on special occasions from a place that pretty much just sells bread. Think Panera, but less mass-market. Do you get what I’m talking about?

I used a recipe (and a few techniques) out of this book, which refers to this type of bread as “artisan bread.” I’m thinking “yuppie bread” is kind of more what we’re getting at here— but then again, I like a lot of trendy foods, so I’m not one to judge yuppies for all the delicious things they have popularized (examples: lattes, veggie chips, white tea, brown eggs).

Anyways, regular bread is actually really easy to make at home— flour, water, yeast, sugar/salt, let it rise for awhile, bake, yada yada yada. But this bread was a little more involved— I mean, there’s a reason I call it “fancy.”

I decided to make bread with sun-dried tomatoes and parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Since we were already up in Cleveland last week for an Indians game (usually I would veto such a lavish extravagance, but I figured this could be a celebration for Adam, considering we didn’t go to graduation or anything; and anyway, we found the tickets on a discount site that allows you to buy someone else’s unused tickets at the last minute, so they weren’t even expensive), we stopped by Trader Joe’s on the way home.

This was a treat, since we never, ever get to go to Trader Joe’s. For one thing, there isn’t one closer than a hour drive away, and for another, it’s way too pricey for regular visits. I mean, it’s actually cheaper than the other yuppie grocery stores (Whole Foods, Wild Oats, etc.) and the products it offers are REALLY REALLY GOOD for what you pay. But on our income, we pretty much have to stick to Aldi’s (good stuff, anyways) and Wal-Mart (GAHHH, I wish I didn’t shop there, but I seriously couldn’t afford Adam’s favorite basic indulgences [i.e., soda] anywhere else).

But we do manage to make a trip there every once in a great while, mostly whenever we’re off on a different errand and find ourselves near one of the Trader Joe’s locations by coincidence. On this particular trip, I suddenly realized that this was going to be my best bet for finding quality parmigiano-reggiano cheese and sun-dried tomatoes without having to go to five different stores in Youngstown. (That’s what happened the last time we tried to find grape leaves to purchase for our dolmades. The grocery store employees all thought we were crazy— and one guy thought that “grape leaves” was some sort of dried spice, because he kept sending us to the spice aisle.)

So I picked up a can of oil-packed, roughly chopped sun-dried tomatoes and a hunk of cheese, and took them home to the Mahoning Valley with me.

Then I made the bread dough, which was also kind of complicated because, apparently, “artisan bread” requires very wet, soft dough. The recipe called for olive oil, sugar, salt, yeast, and flour; I mixed all that together in my fabulous stand mixer (yay for wedding gifts!) and then let it rise, no problem. Since I had to go to work that day, I decided to put the dough in the fridge (as per the recipe’s suggestion) so that I could make the bread at a later date.

Two days later, I came back, prepared for Bread Baking Time. But here, the wetness of the dough became a noticeable problem, as it tended to stick to my hands and ooze over the countertop. I rolled in out into a rectangle, brushed the surface with olive oil, sprinkled on my tomatoes and grated cheese, and rolled the whole thing up into a log.

But then, as I let it rise for an hour (again, as per the recipe), the dough once again began to…rebel? That’s really the only word I can find for what happened. Instead of just puffing up vertically, it began to melt outward, making itself longer and longer. And since the recipe called for the use of a baking stone instead of a baking sheet (and luckily enough, someone actually GAVE me a baking stone at my bridal shower last year!), I was concerned about the bread expanding over the side of the stone and crusting to the over rack below.

But everything worked out fine, after all. I used cornmeal to keep the bread from sticking to the stone, and I filled a roasting pan with a cup of hot water and put it in the bottom of the oven so that the bread would bake in a little steam. This gave the whole loaf a gorgeous heavy crust, quite similar to the bread you see in fancy bakeries or cafes. The loaf didn’t ooze over the side of the stone; it stayed put, and baked quite cheerfully at 450 degrees for 30 minutes.

When I first took it out of the over, I may have freaked out a little, because the crust was very brown, and I was worried I’d burned it. I’m really insecure about my cooking— my husband is much better at this sort of thing— and so I became rather upset about having “ruined” my bread. However, upon further examination of my recipe guide, I discovered that it was supposed to look all crusty and dark. And when I tasted it, I discovered why— the heavy, crunchy crust makes a delightful contrast to the soft, downy inside.

All in all, I’m unsure as whether or not my bread experiment was a success. It took longer to make than traditional bread, and it was definitely a little more expensive…and that’s not good news for anyone right now, let alone a twenty-something family. If I hadn't had the good fortune to recieve a baking stone and a stand mixer at my shower, it would have been even harder to make. However, it also was REALLY REALLY YUMMY, and it made an entire meal by itself— for dinner that night, Adam and I just ate it with cheese and some olive oil, and it made a very filling main course. And that was only half of the bread— so really, it can make several complete meals for two people.

So I’d say that fancy bread is worth it— but only for special occasions. I’d make it again for a party or a visit from a friend, but probably not just for my everyday use.

(Next time on DIY: BAGELS! I make them. I eat them. You are jealous.)

DIY: Catch And Cook Your Own Fish!

WARNING: Vegetarians and vegans may wish to avoid this post. It contains casual discussions of (and reflections upon) catching, killing, gutting, and eating fish, and utilizes photos of both raw and cooked dead fish. If the death of fish bothers you, you may not want to continue any further. You have been warned.

***

So for the first installment of my DIY adventures, Adam and I caught and cooked fish for dinner!

We fished at Diehl Lake, the same place where we held our wedding reception (it feels like only yesterday!), on a lazy afternoon. See, fishing licenses (which are required to fish in public lakes and rivers in Ohio) cost money, but fishing at a lake that your grandma-in-law partially OWNS apparently doesn't require you to pay squat. And we borrowed my father-in-law's poles, so all we had to buy were hooks (cheap at Wal-Mart) and bait (at a corner store down the road).

We used worms as bait, but Adam came up with the fabulous idea to use small pieces of onion along the hook, as well. The onion glinted in the water like a small, silvery fish, and the smell attracted larger fish to the area, while the taste of the worms got them to keep nibbling after their first tentative bite.

We caught seven in all, but of those seven, only three were both large enough and the right type of fish to keep: two crappies and a perch. The ones that were too small or the wrong kind (like bass, because Adam doesn't like the taste of bass) we simply released back into the lake. They seemed annoyed, but not unduly injured.

I'll tell you, though, that those few hours constituted the first time in my life I have ever truly understood the perspective of vegetarians. While there's nothing in the world that will ever convince me that I need to give up my weekly hamburgers, seeing those fish flopping all over the deck really did give me pause. I stopped and thought about it— what was it like to view the world from a fish's perspective? Did we look hazy and out-of-focus, as though seen through the eyes of a newborn? Was the fish in pain? Did it feel fear, seeing me through its wide, shiny eyes?

I mean, I got over it as soon as we killed them (as quickly as we could, although the one crappie kept trying to flail back to life), but it was still a useful and sobering experience, to know how my food is made, to know what goes into making it. I dunno if this makes sense or not, but: I think I ate my meal a little less casually because of what I saw.

Anyways, we loaded them up and took them home. And this is the part where the recap of events becomes a bit uncertain, because I had to babysit at that moment for a good friend, and so I left Adam to clean the fish himself. He'd never cleaned one before, so he used this handy website, which teaches you how to fillet the fish of your choice.

Tonight we finally got to eat our delicious catch; Adam blackened them with paprika, onion and garlic powders, cayenne pepper, and black pepper, and they were SO GOOD. We ate them with tabouli lettuce wraps— just tabouli wrapped up in lettuce leaves. It was a refreshing spring meal, and it definitely filled me up without feeling too heavy.

To be honest, I think this was a really good thing to do, because I believe it's always important to understand the origins of what you eat. If you're putting it your body and hoping that it nourishes you, you better damn well know what it is and where it came from. And y'know, it helps you to be more aware of the lives that you're taking in order to continue your own. While I believe that eating meat is perfectly acceptable for those who choose to do it, and I don't personally feel any guilt over it (I mean, I never see lions on the Discovery Channel saying, "Damn, I felt so bad for that cute little gazelle we just murdered!"), it's important to acknowledge that the Circle of Life that Mufasa preached to Simba does inevitably involve death. Somehow, I think we've taken ourselves out of that perspective— since we don't hunt our own food or raise our own livestock, we don't see the intense connection we have with our food, and we don't see that our nourishment really comes from taking one life and making it sustain ours.

I know it sounds stupid, but y'know how we have that stereotypical image of the relationship of the Native Americans to the earth? Remember how, as a child, you saw movies like "Pocahontas" and were told that Native Americans thanked the souls of the animals they hunted after they killed them? I dunno if it's lies or not, since I unfortunately don't know much about Native American traditions. But as we sat on that dock, I thought maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to thank the fish, anyways. And maybe it wouldn't hurt to pause in my life every so often and think about how much I consume, how much I ask of the earth and of other people, and to offer my appreciation.

Thanks, mother nature. You rule.

***

Next time: beermaking! We're thinking of calling our brew "Red Book Ale" after the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (which is a red book with a gold cross on the cover— if you came to my wedding, you know what I'm talking about). We might even put a little picture of the book on the label!

Do It Yourself- All of It!

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of DIY. Not just, like, the home improvement stuff— I like to do everything myself, by hand, without purchasing it from a store. I like to grow my own food and make my own soap and construct coffee tables out of spare sheets of wood.

In fact, Adam and I have seriously kicked around the idea of purchasing a dairy farm at some point in our lives. Adam grew up on a farm, so he feels at home in such a setting; my great-grandfather was a dairy farmer during the Depression, and I've always dreamed of creating my own line of ice cream flavors and cheese creations.

Anyways, I like doing things the old-fashioned way, so I'm going to do a whole series of posts in which I share my adventures in DIY. I dunno if it'll turn into a whole new section or not...I guess if I get enough posts together, I could do that, but we'll see.

Well, my first post (which should go up tomorrow) is going to be about making a fish dinner from start to finish— and when I say "start", I don't mean going to the supermarket. That's right, folks— I'm going to share Adam and my experience in catching, gutting, and cooking fish for a two person meal. (By the way, vegetarians and vegans might want to skip this post. I'll place a warning at the top of the piece when I post it, but I just wanted to make you aware that certain folks may not wish to venture into that particular post. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable or upset by tricking them into reading about things they find disturbing.)

On Saturday, I'll be talking about home brewing, and sharing some pictures, stories, and advice from some beer making we'll be doing with my father, who is himself a master brewer. Next week, I hope to begin exploring cheese making (which was inspired by my friend Erin, who has been making her own cheese recently), if I can figure out how and where to find some non-bovine rennet (since I'd like to be able to share it with my vegetarian sister). And as soon as I can invent a contraption to keep plants out of the reach of my cats' vicious teeth, I'll begin growing a few herbs in out apartment. (And no, I'm not subtly referring to pot; it's not that I'm morally opposed to it, it's just that I have very weak lungs and am unable to smoke anything.)

I'm trying to think of some non-food adventures to experience, but I'm having some trouble, mostly because I actually suck at crafts. I'm physically incapable of knitting (I've tried and failed frequently) and I don't seem to be fantastic at drawing, beading, or painting things. I might be able to pull off some small sewing projects, though.

Anyone have any ideas? Or have some DIY stories to share?

DIY: Homemade Granola

I can't believe I haven't yet shared the wonder that is homemade granola here on PNN! (I haven't, right? Sometimes I forget— I've posted a lot of articles in the year and a half since I've been here. :P) So tonight I made up a batch to show you guys...and the apartment smells like delicious baking oats and honey now!

I first made a batch of homemade granola as a Christmas present for my mom last year. That was right after Adam lost his job, so we had to make all our presents by hand, and I made my dad some homemade almond roca and my mom some homemade granola.

Well, I stored the granola in our kitchen until Christmas day arrived, and I noticed after a few days that Adam was sneaking handfuls of the stuff when I wasn't around. Figuring it must taste pretty good if Adam was snacking on it, I tried some myself, and was amazed at how wonderful it was! You can eat it with yogurt, which is always delicious (and is my mother's preferred method for granola consumption) or with fresh fruit, but you can also just eat it with milk like regular cereal. Yep, it's THAT GOOD.

And yeah, I'm aware that granola is kind of on the outs these days, having been unmasked as, well, not quite the health food it has always claimed to be. But that doesn't mean it's bad for you in and of itself— just that you should eat it in small doses and remember how much sugar is in it when you sit down for a bowl. And really, it IS kind of a health food for me, since it seems to help with some of my digestive problems.

Anyways, I use this recipe as a template, and then I play with it. Basically all you do is: put the dry ingredients in a bowl, mix the wet/sticky ingredients (plus the salt) together separately, and then drizzle the sweet coating over the dry stuff and toss to coat. The recipe is insanely flexible, so you can pretty much cater it to your tastes. For example, I always leave out the sunflower seeds (ew— sunflower seeds in granola?!), and today I'm leaving out the shredded coconut (didn't have any around). Sometimes I've substituted chunks of dried apricot for the raisins, and I imagine you substitute almost any dried fruit (mmmm, cranberries might be nice...) and maybe even switch out the almonds for something else (though I do love the way the almonds toast up).

Pretty much the only ingredients I find necessary are: oats, maple syrup, salt, brown sugar (the recipe says dark brown, but I use light brown because that's usually what I have lying around), vegetable oil, water, some kind of nut, and some kind of fruit. Mix that all together as indicated in the recipe, then spread it on a greased baking sheet or pan. I like to drizzle some honey over the granola and stir that in before I put it in the oven, but people who don't like sweet things, or people who want to reduce the amount of sugar for health purposes, might not want to follow my lead.

Then you bake it at 250 degrees for, say, an hour and fifteen minutes. Well, that's what the recipe says, but the first time I made it the batch was browned and crispy after about an hour, and every subsequent batch since then has taken LONGER than the specified bake time, so I'd just check on it occasionally, stirring every once in awhile, until it's brown.

And then it's DONE. Store it in an airtight container (I use a clean glass Pyrex so that I can see the deliciousness within!) and eat at your leisure. (Oh, and don't forget to add the dried fruit after you bake the stuff, not before...don't want it to get hard in the oven!)

A lot of the DIY projects I've undertaken have been one-time deals; I make them once, enjoy them immensely, and then never have the time, money, or effort to try them again. No so with granola— I make this stuff all the time, and it's a staple of our kitchen wherever we are. Adam loves it too, so it goes pretty fast!

What's Next?

Hey, guys— do me a favor and vote in my new poll, will ya? It's on the left side of the page.

The first room we organized here was, of course, the kitchen, and now I have lots of projects I want to start! But since it's a small kitchen— and since I'm still poor and jobless and pathetic— I can't really afford to do them all at once. So which one should I try first?

The possibilities are:

Homemade butter

Pros: Really easy, really versatile, yummy on toast.

Cons: Would need to go out and buy a large amount of cream.

Homemade marshmallows

Pros: Uh, MARSHMALLOWS ARE AMAZING. YUM YUM YUM! Plus I have most of the ingredients, except for the gelatin, but that seems pretty cheap to get.

Cons: This would count as candy making, and making candy be hard, yo.

Homemade petit fours

Pros: These are some of my favorite things to eat in the ENTIRE WORLD. Plus, I can eat them as dessert OR with afternoon tea.

Cons: They look pretty complicated.

Homemade ricotta (from my cheese making book)

Pros: I already have the cheese making kit, so I'd probably be able to whip it up pretty quickly.

Cons: I don't like ricotta cheese by itself— just as part of a recipe. So I'd have to bake or cook something in order to use it.

Homemade mayonnaise

Pros: I have all of the ingredients already. I also hear that homemade mayo is pretty much orgasmic.

Cons: We already HAVE mayo in the fridge, so it would kind of be silly and redundant.

What would you do?

A Bagel Poll

My next DIY project is in the works, and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help me decide on some bagel flavors.

I'm finally going to make some bagels this week, and I've got my recipe and my strategies all ready to go. But I need some help choosing what toppings on put on the bagels— and as you all know, that's one of the most important steps in the process!

So I ask you: what are your favorite kinds of bagels? What kinds do you think would be cool/interesting/fun to try?

There are only two stipulations:

1. Adam likes sweet bagels only insofar as they contain berries (i.e., blueberry bagels are acceptable, but not cinnamon raisin bagels), and I am horrified by the concept of sweet bagels entirely, as I feel that breakfasty sweetness should be completely confined to the realm of muffins and/or toast with jam. Therefore, sweet bagel suggestions should be berry-based, and should be relatively easy to make in small quantities, as Adam will be the only one eating them.

2. Nothing toooooo pricey. We're working off of a budget, folks.

Here are the ideas I've had so far (not sure how many of them would be feasible, or even actually taste good):

-Onion (boring)

-Garlic (also boring)

-Some sort of crazy cheese (totally ripped off from Panera's asiago cheese bagels)

-Spicy banana peppers (also ripped off from Panera's— they make a jalapeño version, I believe. But hey, we got a sweet deal on banana peppers last week at a flea market, and I'd hate to have them go bad)

-Sea salt

-Poppyseed (boring again)

-Italian herb and cheese (isn't that a type of bread from Subway?)

Anyone have some more inspired ideas? Mine kind of suck.

DIY: Beermaking, Part 2-- Finally!

So after the boiling process, we had to wait 3-7 days for the beer to ferment in its five-gallon tub. After the bubbling in the fermenter subsided, Adam and my father siphoned the beer out of the tub using a long plastic tube. This is done so that most of the grit from the boiling process is left in the bottom of the tub— but usually there's still a small amount of sediment left in the finished product, anyway.

And after several weeks of aging, the beer was ready for tasting, which Adam did with great relish. Here, he tastes the first of the beers:

I tasted them, too, and found that, like Adam, I actually preferred the bottles with more sediment to the ones with less. I dunno why— they just seemed fuller and tastier, somehow. But the brew was fabulous overall— light and creamy, but without that slightly sour taste that a lot of cheap domestics often contain.

Unfortunately, a few of the bottles got "skunky"— that is, they must not have been perfectly sanitized before they were filled, because they went sour on us somehow and we had to toss them. Next time I think we'll boil them in hot water instead of just running them through the dishwasher.

I think we'll stick with our original idea and call the brew "Red Book Ale," with a little picture of the Book of Common Prayer on the label. But I've decided that I'm going to call our brewing operation "Bad Cat Breweries." Here's why:

My two bad kitties LOVE the Beer Corner. They like to sit on the beer case, and they certainly like to wake us up at night by scuffling and knocking over the beer bottles!

My father seems pretty serious about starting a brewing club at our church— especially since our organist is apparently a great maker of wine. Speaking of which, Adam and I will probably be attempting wine as our next brewing project. We'll see how that works out, eh?

Back To Basics

The older I get, the more strongly I identify with the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 1800s. Well, more with the socialist-influenced European movement than the bourgeoisie, middle-class American one, but whatever, you get my drift. I mean, I suck at carpentry, so I probably won't be able to make an entire chair myself...but wouldn't it be cool if I could?

And I see more and more people in my generation becoming increasingly interested in simpler living and opting out of total, unabashed consumerism. We still buy stuff-- we'll always buy stuff-- but I see more and more people expressing interest in how their food, clothes, and everyday necessities are produced and distributed, instead of just carelessly tossing random consumer products into their shopping carts.

When I was in high school in New Mexico, my first clue to this trend involved knitting; I became increasingly aware of how interested my classmates were in joining the newly-formed school knitting club and making their own scarves and hats out of yarn. Up to that point, I'd assumed that knitting was something that grandmothers and shut-ins did in order to pass the time; the idea that people my age would flock to such an activity seemed strange at the time. But I watched as friend after friend joined the knitting club, and began turning out adorable iPod cozies and warm bed socks. I even tried it myself, although I maintain that I must have suffered some sort of minor brain damage as a child and am therefore physically unable to wield knitting needles without 1) hurting anyone, or 2) eventually ensnarling myself in a complicated knot that requires a pair of scissors and several amused onlookers to remove from my person.

And that was just the beginning. I've seen more and more young people (and not just people in their twenties and thirties-- teenagers, too!) begin to explore the joys of doing things themselves. My youngest sister, who is only 15, bakes like a pro; I think she ought to enter some cookies in the fair this year, because her cookies are the best in the ENTIRE WORLD. Most of my friends can knit, or sew, or make beautiful jewelry, or even (like my husband) know how to cook amazing gourmet meals at home.

I'm doing a part-time job at a fireworks distribution company (yes, you read that correctly; no, I cannot get you free fireworks) this month to help supplement my writing "income" (har har); it's basically just answering the phone three days out of the week, but it helps pay for our health insurance, and only one day requires me to get up early (Sunday), so it's almost like a work-study job or something. Anyways, one of the security guards comes in to take his break every evening, and yesterday we were talking about hobbies and I mentioned the Great Beer Experiment. And his eyes lit up, and suddenly we were having this whole conversation about home brewing, and what flavorings to use, and how to bottle your beer properly. Then the other day, when Adam and I went to get beer supplies, we met this dude who runs a brewing club in the Youngstown area, and apparently there are a LOT of members. Young members! People like me!

This article attributes my generation's love of DIY to a backlash against modern stress and technology, but I dunno if that's exactly it. I still like technology, and I still experience stress-- I just also want to make my own stuff. It's less to do with stress and more to do with the unnecessary complexity and complications of life, and with being a responsible person. The above article insinuates that young people's love of retro do-it-yourself stuff is the result of some sort of nostalgic longing for childhood, but really, I think it's just the opposite-- if we're gonna be adults, we want to do it RIGHT. We've witnessed the economic and material excesses of our parents' generation, and we're ready to be sober about money and consumption. We're not just into green living or thrift or simplicity because it's trendy (well, most of us aren't, anyways-- there's always a few who are just along for the ride); rather, I really do believe that a lot of us just want to be more responsible.

And the internet is helping us: if you want to know how to make soap, or how to grow artichokes in your backyard, or whether or not your house is zoned for goat-raising (funny story...), you can find the answer on the internet. Sites like Make Stuff are useful for finding out how to craft almost anything. And we can share experiences with one another on blogs, chat rooms, and message boards, and learn from one another's mistakes.

I have a lot of hope for my generation. We're politically involved, and environmentally aware, and certainly enthusiastic about the prospect of positive change in our world.

Don't worry, guys. The kids are okay.

DIY: A Walk In The Woods

Today's DIY activity is: a walk in the woods.

It may seem like a no-brainer— taking a walk as a do-it-yourself activity? I mean, you can't really pay someone else to take a walk for you, right?

Well, every day I meet people who avoid stairs, spend all day driving from place to place, feel the need to take the car in order to pop over to the grocery store two blocks away...and then shell out hundreds of dollars for a gym membership or a home treadmill.

And I simply don't understand it. Parks and roads are FREE! If you live in a major city, then you probably have one close to you; if you live out in the sticks, then you're even luckier, because your WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD can be your own personal walking turf. And I know there are people who are always too busy to spend time walking anywhere, but... if you're THAT busy, maybe you're TOO busy, y'know? Maybe slowing down and taking a walk every once in awhile would be good for you, eh?

So today, Adam and I set out for Mill Creek Park, a gorgeous park strung along a creek (Mill Creek!) and several small lakes. We took a lovely walk to Lanterman's Mill, a working 1800s mill that grinds flours and meals, then strolled along several different trails that took us over small stone bridges, across huge felled tree trunks, and into the company of squirrels, chipmunks, geese, ducks, and a rather determined little robin.

The past few days have been rainy, so the trails were a little muddy, but today was brisk and clear and sunny, with the temperature hovering around 60 degrees— perfect walking weather. And spring is really the neatest season for walking in the Ohio woods, because the whole wood smells wet, and you can feel that strange blend of ancient and newly-made: the worn stones and towering old trees alongside the green growth, the tiny minnows. It's like traveling back through time and watching a baby being born, all at once.

Several moments into our walk, I discovered a fabulous walking-stick, thick enough to thrust into the ground without breaking, but thin enough for me to clutch in my small hand. Great walking-sticks almost always appear on your path as if by magic; this is usually because someone else has used the walking-stick on a previous walk, and passed it on to you by leaving it by the path for some other traveler to find. I think this is pretty much Official Walking-Stick Etiquette, come to think of it. And whenever I find one, I dutifully leave it by the path after I've finished my walk, so that someone else can find it and use it.

Along the way, we saw all sorts of creatures, and some interesting rock formations, and a bunch of carved names on old trees: "Kevin n Bri" "Sam luvs Jan" "Kelly M., c/o '93". A couple of them were even from the 1950s, and one rock carving was dated 1884, though I'm sure the park officials had done something to preserve it like that. I wondered about this: we like to think that our we've only recently introduced extreme narcissism into our culture, but haven't people always been like that, trying to make their marks on anything they can? Haven't we always fought back against the idea that one day, our names will ALL be forgotten? I remember, when I was nine years old and living in Pittsburgh, waiting eagerly for the day when I would have access to a wet patch of cement, so that I could carve my name into the sidewalk like so many kids before me. When I finally had the chance to do it (they re-paved the sidewalks all along my street), all of my elaborate designs went out of my head, and all I could muster was a crooked "S.", carved deeply into the cement. Is it still there now? Does anyone ever see it, and wonder about the mysterious "S."?

Here's the cool thing about walking outside instead of going to the gym: there's so much more opportunity for reflection. I love going to the gym— elliptical machines FTW!— but when I'm there, I'm always just trying to keep myself from getting bored while my body does its thing. I read a magazine, or watch the TV on the wall, or listen to some music, until my required time is up, and then I turn my brain back on.

But when you walk, there's always something new to see.

DIY: Beermaking, Part 1

Because beermaking takes so long and involves so many stages, Part 1 of this post will only cover the initial beermaking steps— cooking, cooling, straining, and fermenting. Sugar addition, bottling, and aging will be covered in Part 2...after about two weeks!

Making beer isn't just cool because it's something you can do yourself in your own kitchen— it's also cool because there's so much history behind it. When you homebrew your beer, you're participating in a tradition that goes all the way back to the Neolithic Age! And the neatest part about this is that beermaking doesn't just come from one specific culture or area; many different civilizations invented beer independently, which means beermaking is equally connected to dozens (if not hundreds!) of separate cultures around the world, and wasn't just a product of one nation's imperialism.

And it's easier than it looks, although it does require some pretty serious equipment. Basically, you're making barley tea and then fermenting it. That's pretty much it.

We were guided in our beer adventures by my dad, who made beer (and some wine) all the time when I was growing up. He used to let me pick the name of each batch (I remember that one year he made some beer around Thanksgiving, and I called it Turkey's Delight!) and design the labels for the bottles. I loved waiting for the fermenting bubbles to appear in the fermenting bucket tube, and I was always so impatient to watch my dad try the first bottle after weeks of aging. Sometimes he'd let me sip a few of the bubbles on the head of the beer, and I'd wrinkle my nose and wonder why grownups liked that nasty stuff so much.

For Adam and my first real beer adventure, my dad bought an India Pale Ale kit, which you can purchase at any microbrewing store (we have two in our area, and we live in the middle of nowhere, so I bet you can find one in your Yellow Pages) or online. The kit he purchased was basic, with only the ingredients, since he already owns all of the equipment needed to brew; if you want a kit with EVERYTHING included (like the fermenting bucket, thermometer, hydrometer, and funnels), try this online store. If you just want ingredients, try here.

We started by placing all of the herbs (two kinds of malted barley) into a mesh bag, which acted as a filter.

Then we put the herbs into a large stock pot and heated some water (I think about 2 gallons) and then basically made tea. The herbs steeped in the water until the water turned a brown, tea-like color. We took out the bag of herbs, then added two cans of malt extract. (If you us malt extract in cans, try to heat the cans in a bath of hot water before you open them and pour in the malt; it makes pouring a lot easier.) After bringing the mixture to a boil again (stirring constantly, so the malt didn't burn), we added a packet of bittering hops. Then we boiled the water for 55 minutes, added flavoring hops, and boiled for another 5 minutes.

At this point, the mixture looked...kind of gross. The hops sort of coagulated at the top, and somewhat resembled moss or pond scum. My dad, however, told me that it's supposed to look like that while it's cooking, and indeed, after the mixture was done cooking, we poured it through a sieve to remove the extraneous plant matter.

Into the fermenter went the mixture, and then we had to wait for it to cool down to about 70 degrees F. We put the fermenter into an ice water bath for a little while to try and speed the cooling process. Then, once the mixture was cool enough, we took an original gravity reading with our hydrometer, and then added the yeast.

And that's it! The actual cooking process of beer isn't very difficult at all. Now all we have to do is wait 3-7 days for the beer to ferment, and then add sugar and bottle the stuff. The beer will have to age for another week or two, to improve carbonation and deepen the flavor. And then we'll be ready to drink it!

***

After Part 2, I'll be making cheese and soap, and planting some herbs. Mmmm!