My second challenge: Same time frame, narrower focus. This time, it was grassfed beef and pastured chicken and pork.

As promised, here’s a look at those two cooking classes, each attended by ten persons. (You can read the course descriptions and reader suggestions here.)

Cooking 101

What went right:  Class participants unanimously liked the hands-on aspect of the class. There were few enough in class that they each took a turn at the counter or burner trying and demonstrating cooking techniques. That allowed them to be involved and allowed me to make suggestions on how to do things better. We covered measuring, differences in baking (relatively exact) vs. general cooking (relatively forgiving), a general discussion of cookware, the benefits of mis en place (getting everything ready in advance), and general encouragement. I prepared great handouts, if I do say so. And the food tasted good.

What went wrong: Created a small-scale explosion (of the FOOMP! variety) in trying to use a portable propane burner; had to restart omelet-cooking after burning (or very nearly burning) butter in a too-hot pan on that very-hot-burning burner; took too long to get food samples on the tables, and took too long in general to prepare the food, at least partly because the students were doing the prep work. As a result, the last part of the class was rushed, and I didn’t get to discuss meal planning or most of the handouts.

Next time: I don’t know whether I’d try this one again. My pedagogical goals were too ambitious for the 2-hour time slot. A series would probably be better.

Grass-fed & pastured meats

What went right:  Participants asked good questions, and samples were ready in a reasonably timely fashion. The hamburger was excellent.

What went wrong: Chicken took longer to cook than expected. Top round steak (instead of chuck steak as I’d used in the past) cooked faster than expected and as a result was a little tough. Too much down time because I was overprepared. After having to rush the end of the previous class, I got darned near everything ready in advance and then had to stand around and talk while waiting for dishes to finish.

Next time: I’d prepare the sauces during class, and I’d ask the butcher to cut the chicken into parts for faster cooking and easier serving.

Will I do it again?

I need to ponder whether I’ll do classes again. They are a lot of work, and the best teachers of these kinds of classes are entertainers, which has not been my forte. I doubt I’ll develop the perfect timing of the professional chefs who also give these classes.

At the same time, both these classes are on topics that I think are important and that I really wish more people would learn about. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

In the meantime, here are some of the handouts (PDFs) if you are interested:

• Conversions
• Glossary for beginning cooks
• Grain-cooking guide
• Menu planning grid
• Substitutions

Can corn on the cob relieve anxiety? Probably not, but maybe writing about it will.

The project I’m working on has me in a knot of anxiety, which I hate. I’m not usually an anxious person. I do like writing on this blog, though, so as a reward to myself for a day of teeth-gnashing on the book project, I offer up this quick post on the world’s easiest way to cook corn on the cob.

1. Inspect

Peek inside top of corn ear to make sure it doesn’t have a worm. (I don’t want to cook worms.)

2. Cook

Put the whole ear in the microwave, and zap it for 2 minutes. Turn it over and zap 1 minute. Remove from microwave and wait a minute or two.

3. Shuck

Using a towel or hot pads (the ear and its contents are hot!), pull back the corn husks and pull away the silks. If you haven’t cooked a whole ear before, you will not believe how easily the silks pull off when the ear has been cooked.

4. Eat

Adding butter is optional, but I kind of like it.

Anxiety arrested

I feel better now. I haven’t tried this with more than one ear at a time. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work with more. Just increase the cooking time, I reckon.

Until last week, I’d recommended Joanne’s method of roasting tomatoes for tomato sauce, but I hadn’t made it myself (if you don’t count one attempt). Sister Lori endorsed the method heartily, so I passed it on to Lynn, who pronounced it genious… and then turned around and gave me 2 1/2 gallons (dry measure) of gorgeous organic plum tomatoes that she and her family had grown.

Hooray! It was time to try it for myself for real, and I couldn’t be happier with the approach. The photo above shows the results…and I didn’t cook all the tomatoes!

So here’s the method in recipe form. You’ll note it’s highly imprecise, but I think that’s because it can be. Do what works best for you.

Roasted tomato sauce

• Large quantity plum or slicer tomatoes
• 1/4 large onion per quart (dry measure) tomatoes
• 1 clove garlic per quart tomatoes
• Salt
• Ground black pepper
• Olive oil

1. Wash and trim tomatoes of anything you wouldn’t want to eat, such stem scars. Halve small tomatoes (such as plums) or cut large tomatoes into chunks. Let’s say 1-inch cubes, but larger is fine.
2. Distribute tomatoes in large ovenproof pans with a lip to catch juices. Tomatoes don’t have to be in a single layer, but don’t mound appreciably above the height of the pan’s lip, as the tomatoes will give off juice.
3. Peel and trim onion and garlic and distribute among tomatoes. Generously sprinkle tomatoes with salt and pepper, and drizzle oil over all. I stirred the mixture a little to distribute the oil and probably used about 1 cup oil for the 6 quarts or more tomatoes.
4. Place pans on racks in 350-degree oven and roast about 2 hours, or until the tomatoes have cooked down considerably, and the onions and garlic are soft. Expect the tomatoes to be sitting in some liquid. The following photos show one of the pans fresh from the oven and a closeup of the tomatoes.
   
5. Cool, then transfer tomato mixture in batches to the bowl of food processor and puree, skin and all. Marvelous! Transfer to freezer containers and freeze, or use as desired. Yield: A lot of tomato sauce.

Notes: It’s OK to use multiple oven racks, but try to leave room for air to circulate around the pans some. After 1 hour or so, you might want to stir tomatoes and rotate pans for more even roasting. Feel free to add herbs to the mixture as you roast for additional flavor.

Thoughts

The finished sauce had a consistency similar to commercial canned crushed tomatoes, but the flavor was much better. Yes, I could detect a touch of bitterness, no doubt due to the skin and seeds. No, I don’t care. (If you use plum tomatoes and the seeds offend you, they’re easily scraped out before roasting.)

Yes, the sauce would be more refined if you passed it through a food mill or cone sieve, and it’s perfectly fine if you want to. I took Joanne’s word and decided it wasn’t worth the effort for such a large bunch of sauce.

I’m hoping write a more substantive post later about the exchange. For now, though, you can see, more or less step-by-step, the creation of chirashi zushi (scattered sushi) by the visitors. You also can read about the demonstration and visit in the Lawrence Journal-World story.

One cook prepares the world’s thinnest omelet:

Another rolls the cooked eggs and slices the roll into thin ribbons:

A woman described as the grand mentor of Japanese organics chops potatoes:

Dan Nagengast and Pat Graham, Kansas organizers of the exchange, explain what the cooks are doing:

Local ingredients in the dish included (I’m pretty sure): the eggs, potatoes, carrots, greens, which as I saw them prepared looked a whole lot like Swiss chard, although Graham said they were “beefsteak plant,” presumably Perilla frutescens. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perilla_frutescens.) Not quite local ingredients included the sushi rice, pickled ginger, sesame seeds and nori. We’re a little weak on local seaweed in Kansas. We have good mushrooms from Wakarusa Valley Farm, but I don’t know whether the mushrooms were local or not.

Anyway…to combine the sushi ingredients, one cook first added the vinegar to warm rice as another fanned the rice to cool it and dissipate moisture, Graham said:

Then, they added slivers of the various ingredients before topping it all with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. The final dish for display:

Next, the Japanese cooks set out samples for the hungry horde:

Arigato!

p.s. A special treat for me was hearing from Dan Nagengast while he was in Japan that someone there showed him a link to a post I wrote last year for Ethicurean about sweet potato greens. :)

This sad fact comes to mind as I pursue my goal to eat all my CSA food despite my most recent bag holding someone else’s selections. The way it works with Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance, the farmers pile the produce on tables, and customers go through in a line and make selections from each pile. Often, a couple of piles have options, where you can have either the mushrooms or the strawberries, for example.

I couldn’t make it for my most recent pickup, so the Monday coordinator made the selections for me. The result: a turnip and rutabaga and a bunch of gorgeous collards mixed in with stuff I actually like.

Lovely collards

What to do?

I fretted for a few days trying to figure out the most appealing way of using these unappealing items. Finally, as I also regarded the soon-to-be-slimy beet greens I’d set aside a week (or two?) before, I realized that freezing provided the perfect option for long-term procrastination.

Hence, I boiled a pot of water, and blanched the clean beet greens (2 minutes); chilled them in ice water; drained and squeezed them dry-ish; chopped them; wrapped them in foil; labeled them; and installed them in the freezer.

As the prep progressed, I gave the collards the same treatment, but blanched 3 minutes. Same deal for the turnip and rutabaga too (2 minutes blanched), except I peeled and diced them first and stored the final product in a freezer jar instead of foil.  To my surprise and disappointment, they didn’t turn pink despite the beet greens’ getting first dip in the pot.

Looking ahead

Guess I need to start a freezer inventory. Even with a small freezer (at the bottom of my fridge), I still forget what’s in there. I need to remember, because now I know what to do with those collards and roots: hide them in soup. I love soup, and with a really good broth, I might forgive turnips and collards. For details on freezing your own undesirable vegetables, see the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

What kind of fool am I? Who’s in the photo above?
It seems I’m the fool that Janet’s been speaking of.

What kind of dessert is this? a pie without shell, a gel
In custard, where sweet and tart flavors dwell?

What kind of tastes are these that are so hard to miss?
That make tickled taste buds savor me like this?

Why can’t I go down soft, like any other sweet
And maybe then I’ll know what kind of fool you eat

What kind of taste am I? What do I know of food?
Why can’t I cast away the bad-taste rep and know I’m good?

Why can’t I go down soft, like your favorite jam?
And maybe I’ll know what kind of fool I am.

An added ode to rhubarb: When I made this fool (yes, with the custard rather than a whipped-cream addition), I saved the cooking water and added a little sugar. The result: Rhubarbade. I drank it when cool. The pectin in the rhubarb gave a little body to the mixture, and it was delicious!

When it comes to bread-baking, many paths seem to lead to the same destination. Some of those paths might leave you a little off-target, but with flour, water and yeast, you’ll wind up with something like bread in the end.

Through my own efforts, your comments and the words of assorted experts, in fact, I’m willing to say only three things for certain about bread:

• You need lots of practice to get a consistent result.
• You need to weigh your flour (versus measuring by volume) to get consistent results.
• You need to have a controlled environment in terms of temperature and humidity to get consistent results.

Seeing as I have none of the above, I’ve had and expect to continue to have inconsistent results. (OK, I do have a kitchen scale, but I don’t think it’s very accurate and I haven’t used it to weigh flour.)

All else varies

Everything else seems up for debate, whether it’s the type of yeast (fresh, active dry or instant/quick rise), the quantity of yeast, the temperature of the water (as long as it’s below the temperature at which it will kill the yeast, let’s say 120 degree F and higher), the rising time, the rising temperature…well, you get the idea.

The one bread recipe I’ve used a lot, for Tuscan bread, always produces two loaves of bread but the quality varies. My recent efforts to make a satisfactory all-whole-grain bread have produced, shall we say, unsatisfactory but edible results.

I therefore have decided to focus on 50% whole wheat bread (which everyone agrees is easier) and one that requires scant physical effort due to aging wrists and thumb joints and laziness. Even though my first effort didn’t proceed exactly as I expected from reading the recipe (dough was too wet to handle), it was delicious. It had a crispy crust, a beautiful brown color and a nice crumb and flavor. Yes, it’s that loaf at the top of this post as well as here, fresh from the oven:

Here’s how it went. It’s based on Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread in How to Cook Everything (10th Anniversary Edition). The recipe as it appeared in the New York Times is here.

Slow crusty 50% whole wheat bread

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon vital gluten
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 cups warm water (about 80 degrees)

1. Mix the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, vital gluten, salt and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add water, and stir until ingredients are well-combined. Dough will follow the spoon and clean the sides of the bowl as you stir but will be fairly soft and sticky.
2. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and put someplace to rise and ferment. It’s ready for the next step when the surface is bubbly looking. (My photo efforts were no good.) As to the rising time, my first time out, I let it rise about 20 hours on top of the refrigerator overnight. It was pretty cool in the room, maybe 66 degrees, and it needed that long rise. Second time out, I put it in the same place, but room was about 75 degrees, and the dough was bubbly within about 5 hours. In other words, unfortunately, you’re going to have to wing it unless you have a well-controlled environment, which my house most definitely is not. If you need to arrest the rising until you have more time, put it in the refrigerator. (More on this in a minute.)
3. Deflate the dough by pressing down with your hand or a spoon. Turn onto floured surface, dust top with flour and form into a ball. (That’s my first “ball” at right.)
4. Place ball on well-floured, smooth kitchen towel (not terry cloth) or silicone mat. Cover again with plastic, and let rise an hour or so, until pressing the surface with your finger causes the dough to yield and not spring back. (It’s risen too much if the dough has become really squishy, where putting your finger in it isn’t too far different from putting it in, say, whipped cream.) If you aren’t going to bake it in an hour or so, put the dough into the refrigerator, then bring it out later and let it warm up and rise until it meets the no-springback-but-not-squishy test.
5. Preheat a heavy Dutch oven with lid in your oven set at 450 degrees for about a half hour. Then, push, shove, drop or do whatever you need to do to get the dough into the dutch oven. (I seem to need to push, shove and drop to get the job done.) Cover with lid.
6. Bake 30 minutes, then remove lid. Bake 20 minutes more or until golden brown.
7. Remove bread from Dutch oven with mitts or tongs (or just upend the pot), and allow to cool on rack 30 minutes or more before slicing. Yum!

Note: You could probably skip the vital gluten, especially if you use bread flour instead of all-purpose flour, but I had the gluten so I used it and probably got a little boost in structure as a result.

Bread in pan right after lid is removed

Refrigeration and timing

I’ve come to the conclusion that the refrigerator is the key to making this work if your schedule isn’t entirely predictable. The second time I made this bread, it rose quickly, and I’m not sure what might have happened if I let it ferment overnight as planned. Maybe the yeast would have died or maybe I’d have wound up with so-called flabby dough, as it would have lost some of its oomph from excess rising. I don’t know. Not an expert here.

In any event, when my dough rose much faster than expected (maybe I accidentally used more yeast?), I moved the covered bowl into the refrigerator until lunchtime the following day. Then, I took it out, deflated it, formed a ball, covered it and put it back into the fridge, because I wasn’t going to be able to bake it until evening.

I was surprised when I pulled the dough back out a few hours later and found that the dough had risen somewhat. I set it on the counter to complete its rise, which it did in about 30 minutes. How did I know it was ready? Yes, it was nearly double the size of the original ball, and it didn’t spring back when touched but wasn’t squishy. The dough was cool still from the refrigerator. Undeterred, I baked it as described and got a loaf even better than the one I got the first time. Yea!

Lesson learned: Go by the descriptions, not by the time when trying this exercise. And stick the dough in the refrigerator to slow or arrest rising.

The Dutch oven

I’ve been the lucky owner for some years now of a couple of Le Creuset enameled iron pots. (I got them as gifts, lucky me!) I love cooking in them, but the one I used most (naturally) for mysterious reasons had a nonstick lining. Enamelware is so easy to clean, I don’t know what they were thinking with that lining. Anyway, the lining degraded and took to flaking off in whatever was cooking. Although I read that that isn’t a health hazard, it’s certainly unappealing.

So I was delighted to buy a significantly less expensive and similar pot with the Rachel Ray label. I apparently didn’t read something, because I learned too late that its cushiony silicone handle wasn’t supposed to be used in an oven above 350 degrees F. Uh-oh. Funny sounds and unpleasant smell revealed a problem, as did the crack in the handle and black stuff from it that cooked onto the lid. I proceeded nevertheless but figured I’d better replace the handle.

I replaced the RR handle with a $2 Bakelite handle from the hardware store, and it works great. (No hardware store? replacement knobs are also available at Amazon.com.) The New York Times story about the bread method says baker Jim Lahey used a Le Creuset pot and a heavy ceramic pot, and writer Mark Bittman says he has used cast iron, so those are other options.

Lesson learned: Find out how much heat your pot’s knob can handle before you heat it to 450 degrees.

The big lesson learned

The big lesson learned, however, is that heck, yes, I can bake a good loaf of bread that isn’t quite as good as but has many of the same qualities as a good loaf from WheatFields Bakery and at a significantly lower cost.

And I got a bonus when I baked the second loaf:  I also baked a dessert and a giant sweet potato from Rolling Prairie. True, I wouldn’t have baked those two things at as high a temperature if it weren’t for the bread, but I just kept an eye on them, and they were perfect without spending an extra penny for the heat.

Yes, I can make a good loaf of bread. I’ll bet you can do it too.

Although you can learn about canning and other preserving methods when the bounty is flowing, it’s easier to learn it in the off-season. Happily, the University of Missouri Extension offices in the Kansas City area are offering a series of classes on:

• Water-bath canning
• Pressure canning
• Freezing & dehydrating
• Pickling

Not all classes are available at all locations, but if you think you’re interested, here’s the announcement (PDF). Thanks to the Kansas City Food Circle and its bulletin board for bring it to my attention. I couldn’t find the announcement on an MU site, so I have made it available here.

I might add that the KC Food Circle is having its 11th Eat Local Exhibition of Farmers on two dates:

• 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, this Saturday (March 28) at the Shawnee Civic Center, 13817 Johnson Dr. in Shawnee, Kansas
• 9:15 am to 2:00 pm, Saturday, April 4,  at the Roger T. Sermon Community Center, Truman & Noland Rd., Independence, Missouri

Details on on the Food Circle site.

Kierstin followed her brother by a week and appeared on a cool afternoon to make soup and biscuits. She seems to enjoy the process more than her brother, maybe because she’s older.

I was in a bit of a dither when she arrived, since moving my office furniture got delayed until cooking day due to the weather. In any event, she was patient as I pulled items out of the dishwasher and washed them by hand. (I’d forgotten to run the dishwasher.) She also was patient as I took more than the normal number of pictures. In fact, she’s my model for the to-be-written tutorial on biscuit-making I’m planning for Homecookingrevival.com.

Plan of action

Despite the disarray, I did have a plan:

• Start soup.
• Start biscuits.
• Teach Kierstin the game I couldn’t remember when her brother was here.
• Bake biscuits.
• Finish soup.
• Eat.

During all of the steps, I’d badger her for photos. She was so patient!

We made Leek and Potato Soup, which is as easy as it is satisfying.

The process

First, we trimmed and slit the leeks and put them in water to soak. Meanwhile, Kierstin peeled the potatoes (with the nifty peeler her mother gave me, which I love) while I tried to determine which way was up.

Then she rinsed the leeks well.

And chopped both before dropping the bits into the pot of water. She’s good with a knife!

Next, we got started on the biscuits, measuring the dry ingredients into a bowl and then cutting in the shortening. We set the timer for 10 minutes while we went and played the game Sprouts. (Like the game I taught her brother, it’s an excellent time-passer while waiting in restaurants.)

Then, we added the milk to the other biscuit ingredients, gave it a couple of kneads and turns, cut and baked the biscuits. (I won’t show you photos here, because I’ll use them on Homecooking Revival. In case anyone is worried, this double-coverage of her cooking session will in no way be unfair to her brother, because all his cooking visits have been documented, but K’s first visit was not, because I didn’t have a digital camera then.)

The phone call

Kierstin, feeling magnanimous, thought it was a great idea to ask her mother and brother to join us for our soup and biscuit meal. (Her dad was out of town.) The timer for the biscuits went off while I was on the phone and, oops, we baked the biscuits a wee bit more than we might have otherwise, but no harm.

Kierstin smashed the vegetables with a potato masher (although we went for a smoother soup with the help of the immersion blender), and then added the half-and-half.

The biscuits were delicious and hot, and no one minded their being a little extra crisp on the bottom. The soup was delicious, and extra-special because we garnished it with the first crop of the season from her family’s yard: chives!

I have every confidence Kierstin could make the soup and the biscuits entirely by herself. She might want some help getting the pan out of the oven, but otherwise, the girl’s got what it takes. Can’t wait till next year.

So, lemon granita it was. If you want to make it too, simply substitute lemon juice in the lime granita recipe. (We also reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup.) It’s remarkably easy.

And so we begin

First, Sam cut the lemons in half. He’s a stickler for safety, so he readily followed the directions for keeping his fingers out of the way of the knife.

Always time for clowning.

Then, we squeezed the juice using my handy juicer. (I see it isn’t rated too well on Amazon. Works great for me. For large oranges or grapefruit, simple quarter the fruit first.) Sam already knew the drill from school.

Hey! There’s Sam’s reflection!

To the stove and freezer

Lemons squeezed, we simply brought the juice, sugar and water to a boil, then poured it into a shallow pan. We let the mixture cool a bit before putting it into the freezer and periodically scraping up the ice crystals as they formed.

In between, I taught Sam a nifty game, which he promptly mastered and beat me at several times, the rascal.

His patient mother (I told her to pick him up sooner than I should have) took him home to share his icy winter citrus. Next weekend, his sister will be at the stove. She’s older, so we can get more done. We’ll see what treats await.