The ones in the back garden have been attacked by slugs; this specimin was container-grown.

The recipe is very nearly vegan.  You’d have to omit the fish sauce, but it would still be tasty.  If you don’t have access to a thai grocery you may not find bird chiles or brown beech mushrooms, but that’s okay.  You  can use any other small hot pepper, and any other culinary mushroom.  I imagine shiitake would work well.

Tom Yum Soup:

Materials:

2 cans coconut milk
1 cup vegetable stock
2 thai bird chiles
a small hunk of fresh ginger, cut into ten discs
3 stalks lemongrass
A handful of thai (holy) basil
A handful of cilantro (optional)
1 lime
Some quantity of mushrooms that looks like enough
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar

Method:

Begin by doing violence to the lemongrass.  Smash it with a meat mallet, or if you don’t have one of those, use the flat back of a chef’s knife.  This releases the aromatic oils that will flavor your food.  After smashing, slice into slices two to three inches long.

Mix the coconut milk and vegetable stock in a medium to large sauce pan.  Add the lemongrass, ginger, and whole bird chiles.  Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.  Add the mushrooms immediately (they will cook in the hot liquid even though you have turned off the flame), and squeeze the lime juice into the soup.  Mix in the fish sauce and sugar.  Add the basil.  Serve hot or cold; garnish with cilantro immediately before serving.

Thai Salad

Materials:

A handful of green beans, washed, trimmed, and broken into bits
A cup or two of mung bean sprouts.
Another handful of holy basil
1 cucumber, julienned
3 more bird chiles
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, lightly chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 package tofu and oil for deep-frying, or buy fried tofu

Method

If frying your own tofu, do that first.  Immerse the tofu in 400 degree oil until it is brown and crispy on the outside.

While the tofu is frying you can make the dressing.   Begin by stemming and deveining the bird chiles.  Dice them and put them in a bowl.  Go wash your hands.  Right now.  Don’t touch your face.  That burning you feel all around your mouth and inside your nostrils?  It’s because you didn’t listen.  I told you not to touch your face!  Now go wash your face with lots of soap.

Once your face stops burning, return to the dressing prep.  Mince or press three garlic cloves into the same bowl as the chiles.  Now put a tablespoon of oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic and chiles.  Once everything is sizzling stir in the sugar.  When the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and stir in the peanuts.

Toss the vegetables together in a salad bowl with the dressing you just made, then top with the tofu and garnish with holy basil.  Go eat it outside!

1) I had a conversation with my landlady yesterday about how we might not have any more conflict about the garden. We agreed that I can plant anywhere that I want to, so long as a) I put a border around my garden, and b) I do not use the fence as a trellis again this year.

2) The hops are budding aggressively, so I am now thinking about what sort of trellis they might like this year. I have a few weeks before I have to decide.

3) Today I planted mustard greens and sage around the hops, as well as a few perennial wildflowers.

This may also be the meal that sealed the deal on my three-month vegan experiment. Recipe below the jump.

Total prep time: about an hour.

Materials:

1 package (12 oz) extra-firm tofu
1 can (or equivalent amount home-made) cranberry sauce. Whole-berry preferable.
Soy sauce, 2 tbsp
1 lime (juice and zest of)
1 stalk lemon grass (optional)
1 can coconut milk
1-2 tbsp Sambal Ulek (or genic asian hot chili pepper sauce)
2-3 leeks
1 onion
Asparagus, one bunch
Fresh ginger, 1 thumb’s worth, grated
basil, fresh or dried (copious)
Tarragon or cilantro
Whole-grain Fettuccine or udon noodles.
Olive oil for sautéing.

Method:

mix 1/4 cup cranberry sauce with 2 tbsp soy sauce, tbsp sambal ulek, and the zet and juice of one lime. Cut tofu into strips and marinate in this mixture from 30 minutes to overnight.

About an hour before you want to serve dinner, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. While oven is preheating, arrange the tofu strips in a single layer in an oven-safe baking dish with a cover. Or in a casserole dish, and cover with aluminium foil. Pour marinade on top of tofu. Bake for half an hour covered, then remove cover, bake for 15 minutes, and turn off heat until ready to serve.

Once tofu is in the oven, clean and dice the leeks and mince the onion. In a large skilled, heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil over high heat. On another burner, bring a medium saucepan full of water to a rolling boil. Add onion and leeks to hot oil, toss about, then cover and reduce heat to low for fifteen minutes, or until the alliums are well-steamed. Then add basil, tarragon, and ginger. Raise heat to high, and cook for one minute. Then add coconut milk and asparagus spears, and cover. Simultaneously add noodles to boiling water. When coconut milk is simmering, reduce heat to medium. After about ten minutes, asparagus should be well-steamed and tender. Remove from heat. Serve coconut cream vegetables over pasta, and top with baked tofu. Garnish with a bit more tarragon or a sprig of fresh basil, mint, or cilantro. Serve remaining cranberry sauce as a side.

I considered adding shiitake mushrooms, but forgot to put them in. If you do this (or make the chicken variant), post the results here?

Ingredients:
1 28-ounce can of plum (Italian) tomatoes or tomato puree, or 1.5 pounds fresh tomatoes.
1 can tomato paste (optional)
3 chipotles in adobo sauce
Salt
Ground Cumin
Garlic (4-6 cloves, smashed or minced)

Method:

If using whole tomatoes, put in blender with 1/2 can tomato paste and chipotles and blend until smooth. If using puree, consider pureeing the chipotles, or mince and skip to the next step.

Set tomato puree and paste to boil in an open pan. Be prepared to wipe down your range later. Do not cover–you need the evaporative thickening here!

After a while, whenever you feel like it, add the garlic.
Add a bit of salt, say 1/4 tsp. But really, don’t bother measuring.
Add cumin continuously until it tastes right.

Hops: 3.2% Saaz, 2 oz

Yeast: White Labs WLP302 American Hefeweizen liquid yeast tube

Equipment:
50 quart mash tun, of my own fabrication (with the aid of Zymeco Kewler Kitz, and a lot of screwing up along the way)
21 quart water bath canner/lobster pot, which transfers heat to the fluid remarkably well
12 quart aluminium stock pot, which leaks at the top and doesn’t do nearly as well (so it’s more like a 10 quart pot, functionally)
1L Erlenmeyer flask
5 gallon carboy
6.5 gallon food-grade plastic brew bucket, with grommeted hole in the lid
3 airlocks and 2 bungs

Protocol:
Cleaned and sanitized carboy, bucket and flask
Cleaned all other equipment
In large stock pot, brought 20 quarts H20 to 45ºC. Meanwhile in small stock pot, brought ~8 quarts H20 to 100ºC.
Mixed all grains together in mash tun
Stuck mash with 20 quarts @45ºC (should have been 10 quarts!)
After 20 minutes, added 8 quarts @100ºC (this was too much heat–it got the mash temperature up to 75ºC, at which point desirable enzymes begin to denature.) Beteween the screwups in the above two steps I ended up with a much weaker brew than I wanted.
Left lid open and added ice cubes to reduce heat to 65ºC
Closed lid and mashed at 65º for 1 hour
Noted only insignificant dripping from imperfect pipe fittings in mash tun bulkhead
Lautered first runnings at 1.044 OG (1.0636 adjusted for temperature)
Added 3 gallons sparge water at 70ºC, allowed to dissolve sugars for 15 minutes
Lautered second runnings into separate vessel at 1.025 Og (1.047 adjusted for temp)

Boiled first runnings with 1.0 ounce of hops for 60 minutes, adding 0.5 ounces at 30 minutees
Boiled second runnings with 0.5 ounce of hops, 60 minutes
Diverted 800 mL of boiled second runnings to Erlenmeyer flask, and pitched 1/10 of yeast tube, affixed airlock

At 60 minutes, chilled both boils to ~26ºC. Due to ambient temperature, was unable to achieve further immersion chilling (maybe next time will run cold water line through an ice bath!)
Decanted first runnings (with some second runnings added, for an OG of 1.033) to bucket. Pitched remaining yeast affixed lid and airlock.
Decanted second runnings to carboy, affixed airlock

Day 2:
Bucket not fermenting well. Added 1 Tbsp di-ammonium phosphate (yeast nutrient) to bucket, re-aerated
Pitched starter in flask to carboy, added 2 tsp of DAP, re-affixed airlock
Picked 6 pounds blueberries
Both carboys fermenting vigorously by evening.

I’ve been asked for pictures, so here they are, using a gatorade bottle as an example:

Materials:

Tools for the plastic bottle planters

I used four tools that I had lying around to make the planters:

• A pair of scissors
• An X-acto knife–I wouldn’t use one with a metal handle!)
• An old, 15-watt soldering iron.  A higher-power soldering pen or wood-burning iron would work better
• A small, hand-held butane torch.  This produces a 2400º flame and is powered by an ordinary cigarette lighter.  It makes me happy.

If you have a wood-burning pen with a hot knife tip, you can dispense with the knife and torch.  Alternatively, you could use a gas stove to heat the knife.  If you don’t have a gas stove, a torch, or a wood-burning pen, you can do this with a pair of scissors and a ball-point pen as your ownly tools.  It will just be less elegant.

Besides the tools, you will need a 1-litre or bigger plastic bottle, some soil, and something to plant in it.

Technique:

First, remove the label.  Hot water inside the bottle will dissolve the adhesive so it’ll come right off.  Just don’t put boiling water in a soda bottle–you will shink the bottle and possibly burn yourself!

First cut the plastic bottle.  For the gatorade bottle the picture shows where to make the cut.  If you are using a soda bottle, Inside Urban Green has tips on where to cut.  This is where the hot knife comes in–it’s easier to make the first incision with heat, but you could do it with an unheated knife and some brute force.

Cut Bottle

Click on the photo for a bigger copy–it’s cut right below the curvy bit.  The gist is that the curvy bit, upside-down, should fit in the other bit so that the lip of the bottle just touches the bottom.

Next, it’s time to poke some holes in the curvy bit.  These holes allow the soil to drain excess moisture, and there’s some suggestion that humid aeration is good for the roots.

Here I used the 15-watt soldering iron.  This is an old iron that barely gets hot anymore (I think there’s some corrosion impeding thermal conductivity), but a better-working or hotter iron would do the trick.

Finally, the planter needs a wick–this will irrigate the soil by capillary action from below.  Or in simpler terms, it will suck water up into the soil!  A scrap of fabric from an old pair of jeans works marvelously!

That’s it–I just scooped some potting mix into the planter and added a few mustard seeds–they should germinate in 4-10 days.

Turns out, it’s easy.

Eqipment:

1 wide-mouth quart mason jar
1 pint mason jar
Spare change, pebbles, or something else heavy.

Ingredients:

Six limes
1 garlic bulb
1 hand of ginger
Lots of kosher or pickling salt
3 ounces of hot chili peppers (that’s a lot)
Methi (fenugreek) seeds (they’re not in the spice section of your local grocery; they’re in the ‘foreign’ or ‘ethnic’ section).
Mustard seeds
Ground turmeric

Method:

Cut limes into thin wedges over a bowl, catching the juice.  Put wedges in bowl and salt liberally. Cut tops off the hot peppers, slice down the side, throw in bowl with limes and salt liberally.  Slice garlic and ginger thin, put in bowl, and salt liberally.  Mix.  Violently.  The mixture should smell very limey.  Toss in methi and mustard seeds.

Pack the mixture into your quart mason jar.  I emphasize pack.  The items should not be loosely tossed in, but squished with all of your might, so as to remove any air pockets and thoroughly juice the limes.  Fill your pint jar with spare change and use it to really ram the vegetables down into the quart jar.  Then leave it in place to hold everything under the lime juice.  If the lime juice does not fully cover the vegetables, squish more.  If it still isn’t enough, go buy some lime juice and squirt it in until they’re covered.

Wait a week or three.  Refrigerate.  Eat.

Update: One of my two quarts is now done after ten days, and very tasty.  Could use some more fermenting, but I’m gonna call it good.  The other, which is wetter due to more added lime juice, still tastes fresher.  So I’m leaving it out longer.

Yesterday I encountered Tofutti’s “better than cream cheese” at the grocery store, and decided to try it out.

See, I’m one of those people who believes that “omnivore” means “eat everything,” as long as it’s food.  But I’m picky about that last bit.  I’m a firm believer in “fake” food, though I don’t like the term.  I eat tofurkey Italian sausage, I drink silk, and I like veggie burgers.  I also occasionally eat pork sausage and hamburgers.  I don’t drink dairy milk, because lactose and I don’t play nice.  That’s where Tofutti comes in.

I will say first, “better than cream cheese” tastes roughly like cream cheese.  Most “fake food” doesn’t taste like what it’s named after.  You eat it because it’s tasty and can be used like its “real” cousin, not because it tastes the same.  Tofutti is merely a pale imitation of real cream cheese.  Passable, though.

EXCEPT:

IT’S MADE FROM TRANS FAT!!

That’s right, ingredient number 2 is “partially hydrogenated soybean oil.”  At least the nutrition label admits that of the 2 grams of fat per serving, 2 grams are from trans fat.  For those who haven’t been following along at home, trans fat is an unnatural kind of fat that’s very difficult for your body to break down, so it has nothing better to do than deposit in your belly, thighs, and oh yes, coronary arteries.  This shit is bad for you.  And because it doesn’t occur in nature and can’t be made in your kitchen:

Toffutti-brand “better than cream cheese” flunks the “made from food” test.

Update: I’ve been informed that Tofutti makes a trans-fat free version; but that it has been largely rejected by consumers because it is more expensive, tastes nasty, and is no good for baking.  But if you want nasty, expensive, unbakable soy-cream cheese, you can get it at Whole Foods.

That’s all, folks.

The cranberry kombucha is all gone.  It was lovely, but it tasted so unlike tea that I tended to foget there was caffeine in it.  I think next time I will not use black tea for this.

Meanwhile, I have a new 3-quart batch of rose hips kombucha that’s looking close to ready!

Below the cut, Weinkraut and Sourdough

Weinkraut

My parents got me a Harsch Crock for Christmas, so Adrienne and I put it to work last week.  I bought 15 pounds of cabbage for 10 liters of kraut, that was about 2.5 times as much as I needed.  We packed about 6 pounds of shredded cabbage into the crock with a head of lightly-smashed garlic and a few caraway seeds.  The cabbage was apparently quite dry, it took about 3 litres of bugundy wine to fill all of the interstices and cover the weights.  It has been fermenting for four days now; the Gospel According to Katz suggests it should be done in about a week.

I have never had weinkraut before, but I hear it is a German tradition and I look forward to trying it.  Then again, all of the (non-fermented) recipes I’ve seen online use white sauerkraut and white wine; I’m using Rotkohl (red cabbage) and red wine.

Sourdough

I had about a cup of leftover cooked rice getting stale on my kitchen counter, so I took a suggestion from Katz and mixed it up with a cup of whole wheat flour and two cups of water to make a sourdough starter.  He quite correctly points out that the yeasties will eat the rice carbs just as happily as the flour carbs, and by the time I go to make a loaf out of it, the original grains that I put in the starter will be fermented beyond recognition.  What a fabulous way to recyle stale rice!

*This post is tagged “locavoracious” even though none of the food involved was locally-sourced, because next season I hope to be fermenting my very own home-grown cabbages.  Eventually I’d like to be gowing my own wheat, too.