This wasn't the Luddite victory I hoped it would be, but making one's own mayonaise is most definitely a victory, and a tasty and satisfying one at that. I made my initial attempt with a hand whisk, but this attempt failed (although it did yield a very tasty almost-mayo sauce). I made another go, and decided to remove the variable of my own pathetic whisking and this time used a blender.
The ingredients to a basic mayo are pretty simple (the possible variations, however, are endless):
2 egg yolks
6 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar - I used freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tablespoon of dry mustard
salt to taste
1/4 to 1/2 cup of some kind of oil - I used the last of my storebought vegetable oil.
Add the egg yolks, salt, and mustard to the blender, along with 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice. Start the blender on a low speed, and keep your eye on it. After a couple minutes, you'll hear the blender start to slow down a little, add a few drops of oil. Let it process, and add a few more drops. You should hear the blender start working harder and harder - slowly add more oil. The key here is to add the oil very slowly, and after you add some, wait a bit for the blender to do its thing before you add some more. Gradually, the mixture in the blender will really start to look like mayo and continue to thicken. Add the rest of the lemon juice, and continue to drizzle in the oil until it's all gone. At some point, the mayo in the blender is going to get as thick as the blender can manage on low speed. You could scrape down the sides, but at this point you run the risk of breaking the mayo (which can be fixed, but why do it if you don't have to?). I transfered the mayo to a glass bowl, and finished it by hand.
Now taste it... Go ahead...
Mine was mind-numbingly good. It was like I'd never actually tasted mayo before. I transferred mine to a mason jar, and stuck it in the fridge. My BLT's are even better than they've ever been before.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Magical Lemonade
Today makes one whole week since I've started living alone. Yesterday was the first day that the kids have stayed for dinner. They elected to have hotdogs, which have always been one of my guilty pleasures. Once she was done with her home work, my daughter came into the kitchen to see what I was doing - I was scooping out avocados for a bowl of guacamole, but she became fixated on the basket of lemons and limes I had on the counter. "My teacher says," began my daughter, with a level of earnest concern that only a six-year old can maintain, "that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. But lemons are too sour for that..."
"Well, you're wrong about that," I told her. "You can't make lemonade at all without lemons. You just have to know what else to add to it, otherwise it would be called 'lemon juice' instead of 'lemonade'."
"Let's make some then!" she beamed.
Maggie's Super-special Lemonade
"Well, you're wrong about that," I told her. "You can't make lemonade at all without lemons. You just have to know what else to add to it, otherwise it would be called 'lemon juice' instead of 'lemonade'."
"Let's make some then!" she beamed.
Maggie's Super-special Lemonade
- Juice of 4 Lemons
- Juice of 2 Limes
- Water to taste - a quart to two quarts, depending on your particular six-year old. We used almost two
- Sugar to taste - we used a little more than half a cup.
Juice lemons and limes in a large pitcher. Add 1/4 cup of sugar. Mix well until sugar dissolves. Add more water and sugar as needed until you think it's right.
Maggie says to garnish with a couple of lemon seeds and a little bit of pulp, just so you don't forget it's super special and homemade.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Darn Good Soup
Last night I thought soup and a sandwich would be a pretty good supper. Generally, I'm not a soup man, but I had some vegetables I needed to use up before they went bad: Some leeks that I bought on a whim, never having eaten them or cooked them before, and some baby portobello mushrooms. I bought the leeks because I love onions, and decided that I'm going to try all the different kinds there are. I did a quick recipe of Allrecipes.com, and a common use for them seems to be as a companion to potatoes in soup. I frequently browse Allrecipes for ideas, but have found the recipes there to be of random quality. Beside, I already know how to make potato soup, so I set to cooking. Here's what I came up with:
Charles' Potato, Leek, and Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
4 largeish Yukon Gold potatoes
4 cloves of garlic
3 Leeks, dark green tops and root ends removed
12 Baby Belle Mushrooms
Chicken stock (low sodium)
Salt, to taste
Black Pepper, freshly ground, to taste
1 Tablespoon of Garam Masala (optional, but recommended)
1 can evaporated milk
Method
1. Peel potatoes and slice thinly on a mandoline. Uniform size is important for even cooking time, thin is important for reducing cooking time. Place slices in a soup or stock time, add chicken broth to cover potatoes, plus an inch or two. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a low boil, stir occasionally to prevent potatoes on the bottom from burning. Add a little salt and pepper to taste.
2. Slice leeks in half length-wise, then into thin half-moons. Slice mushrooms to your own liking. Heat a healthy table-spoon of oil in a skillet or saute-pan. Once the oil is hot, add leeks, mushrooms, minced garlic, garam masala, and sautee until tender.
3. When potatoes are soft, drain but retain the stock. Drain any remaining oil from the leeks and mushrooms, and add the leeks and mushrooms to the potatoes. Add the condensed milk, and retained stock to obtain desired consistency.
4. Bring back to a simmer, stirring occasionally, adjust seasoning to taste (I added a good healthy pinch of cayenne), and add stock if needed to maintain desired consistency (I like my potato soup to be on thick side, so I didn't add any more). Simmer 20-30 minutes (until you're happy that the flavors have properly married).
I seriously enjoyed this soup - so much so that I completely forgot about the grilled cheese sandwich I made to go with it and went back for a second bowl.
Charles' Potato, Leek, and Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
4 largeish Yukon Gold potatoes
4 cloves of garlic
3 Leeks, dark green tops and root ends removed
12 Baby Belle Mushrooms
Chicken stock (low sodium)
Salt, to taste
Black Pepper, freshly ground, to taste
1 Tablespoon of Garam Masala (optional, but recommended)
1 can evaporated milk
Method
1. Peel potatoes and slice thinly on a mandoline. Uniform size is important for even cooking time, thin is important for reducing cooking time. Place slices in a soup or stock time, add chicken broth to cover potatoes, plus an inch or two. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a low boil, stir occasionally to prevent potatoes on the bottom from burning. Add a little salt and pepper to taste.
2. Slice leeks in half length-wise, then into thin half-moons. Slice mushrooms to your own liking. Heat a healthy table-spoon of oil in a skillet or saute-pan. Once the oil is hot, add leeks, mushrooms, minced garlic, garam masala, and sautee until tender.
3. When potatoes are soft, drain but retain the stock. Drain any remaining oil from the leeks and mushrooms, and add the leeks and mushrooms to the potatoes. Add the condensed milk, and retained stock to obtain desired consistency.
4. Bring back to a simmer, stirring occasionally, adjust seasoning to taste (I added a good healthy pinch of cayenne), and add stock if needed to maintain desired consistency (I like my potato soup to be on thick side, so I didn't add any more). Simmer 20-30 minutes (until you're happy that the flavors have properly married).
I seriously enjoyed this soup - so much so that I completely forgot about the grilled cheese sandwich I made to go with it and went back for a second bowl.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Busy times
Well, I'm livng alone now in my big house, and I've been busy, busy, busy.
First, there's the cleaning. It's not a big deal really, just time consuming. I spent the weekend sweeping, vaccuuming, mopping, wiping, and dusting, and I'm still not done. In my previous incarnation as a single man I discovered that 30 minutes of intense cleaning activity every day was sufficient to keep the house clean. I lived in a much smaller townhouse then, however, and I'm not really sure it'll be enough to keep this house clean. A good base cleaning can't help but make things easier.
I wish Icould tell you about all the clever, homemade cleaning solutions I've come up with, but there hasn't been any of that. Unlike many divorces, this one didn't start out with me in an empty house, and my ex left pretty much everything that was already open, so I'm using up what she left before I start experimenting with homemade cleaners.
Food
When I haven't been cleaning, I've mostly been cooking. I did a marathon grocery shopping trip to stock my pantry, and have been putting those gorceries to good use. I roasted a chicken that was absolutely delicious. I made a great meal of Polish Kielbasa, cabbage, onions, and potatoes, a noodle and chicken stir fry with left overs from the roast chicken (and still have enough left for a couple more meals), a Corned beef brisket, and a yummy spinach and mushroom curry, all cooked from scratch. I'll be posting recipes soon.
"Free Time"
I've been busy enough that there hasn't been a whole lot, but when I've had some, I started knitting a scarf. Knitting isn't the most manly of past times, but it is productive and fulfilling. Sometimes it's downright frustrating, such as when my work popped off the needle and I essentially had to start over. Maybe an expert knitter could have salvage things, but I am by no means an expert knitter.
I also started incorporating regular guitar practice into my daily routine. Only 20 minutes a day right now, as I need to get my fingers back into shape. No beautiful music yet, just 20 minutes of scales and chord change drills to build up some stamina. Anyone who hasn't attempted to learn guitar has no idea the amount of conditioning needed in one's fingertips, and finger muscles.
Making the quest for finger conditioning that much more difficult, I gouged the tip of my right thumb adjusting the fence on my table saw. I have a half-built bookshelf that I could really use right now, and only ten minutes into working on it, I started shedding blood.
Coming soon
These post will be more organized and actually contain some useful information. There should also be more of them. I plan to start posting my recipes, photos of my projects, tutorials or links to tutorials on what I'm up to, and to turn this blog into a source of useful information.
Until then, may God bless you with fair winds and following seas....
First, there's the cleaning. It's not a big deal really, just time consuming. I spent the weekend sweeping, vaccuuming, mopping, wiping, and dusting, and I'm still not done. In my previous incarnation as a single man I discovered that 30 minutes of intense cleaning activity every day was sufficient to keep the house clean. I lived in a much smaller townhouse then, however, and I'm not really sure it'll be enough to keep this house clean. A good base cleaning can't help but make things easier.
I wish Icould tell you about all the clever, homemade cleaning solutions I've come up with, but there hasn't been any of that. Unlike many divorces, this one didn't start out with me in an empty house, and my ex left pretty much everything that was already open, so I'm using up what she left before I start experimenting with homemade cleaners.
Food
When I haven't been cleaning, I've mostly been cooking. I did a marathon grocery shopping trip to stock my pantry, and have been putting those gorceries to good use. I roasted a chicken that was absolutely delicious. I made a great meal of Polish Kielbasa, cabbage, onions, and potatoes, a noodle and chicken stir fry with left overs from the roast chicken (and still have enough left for a couple more meals), a Corned beef brisket, and a yummy spinach and mushroom curry, all cooked from scratch. I'll be posting recipes soon.
"Free Time"
I've been busy enough that there hasn't been a whole lot, but when I've had some, I started knitting a scarf. Knitting isn't the most manly of past times, but it is productive and fulfilling. Sometimes it's downright frustrating, such as when my work popped off the needle and I essentially had to start over. Maybe an expert knitter could have salvage things, but I am by no means an expert knitter.
I also started incorporating regular guitar practice into my daily routine. Only 20 minutes a day right now, as I need to get my fingers back into shape. No beautiful music yet, just 20 minutes of scales and chord change drills to build up some stamina. Anyone who hasn't attempted to learn guitar has no idea the amount of conditioning needed in one's fingertips, and finger muscles.
Making the quest for finger conditioning that much more difficult, I gouged the tip of my right thumb adjusting the fence on my table saw. I have a half-built bookshelf that I could really use right now, and only ten minutes into working on it, I started shedding blood.
Coming soon
These post will be more organized and actually contain some useful information. There should also be more of them. I plan to start posting my recipes, photos of my projects, tutorials or links to tutorials on what I'm up to, and to turn this blog into a source of useful information.
Until then, may God bless you with fair winds and following seas....
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
When is it waste?
I'm smack in the middle of putting my household together. This has meant buying a lot of stuff - some of which it actually irks me to buy, and which goes against my normal sensibilities. A good example of this is plastic storage containers. It's not just that they're plastic, but that they're labeled as 'disposable'.
So why did I buy them? Well, for a number of reasons: First, they're really cheap and there are just so many things I need to establish a working household, and need now, I can't afford to pass up a bargain; Second, while they're billed as 'disposable', my experience is that they can be reused often and actually hold up for a long time, even a couple years if well taken care of; Third, and this is the real heart of the matter - since I plan to cook a lot, and mostly from scratch or near-scratch, I need to be able to store things. To cook effectively for one, I need to be able to cook in quantity and save what isn't consumed immediately for later use, especially for lunches. In order to be saved, the food has to be stored in something. Thus, plastic storage containers, and no small number of them are a logical choice, and seem to be a wise use of my limited money. So is it wasteful to purchase these containers?
Thinking about this led to my questioning other aspects of waste - money vs. time; money vs. resources; time vs. resources; space vs. energy; etc. More permanent, non-plastic (or less-plastic) solutions to the problem of food storage that I came up with are mason jars; re-cycled jars from gorcery store products, and commercial glass bowl (like pyrex) with plasticy resealable lids. I do use mason jars for storing dry goods in, as well as for sprouting, and a few other things. I like the commercial pyrex bowls too, but they're expensive, and the lids are still plastic. Admittedly though, I usually don't repurpose the glass jars that come with grocery store products, and simply put them in the recycling bin. Obviously, this is something I need to correct.
Another conundrum occurred to me while thinking about this and dealing with a limited budget: most food stuffs - from potato chips to spices are cheaper when bought in bulk quantities. For a larger group of people, this is a no-brainer. But what about for a single-person household? Should we only buy small quantities, and sacrifice our money and the time it took to earn that money? To me, the logical course is to buy the large quantities, and take steps to mitigate spoilage through repackaging. Unfortunately, this seems to mean learning to live with more plastic.
So what's the biggest waste? My time and money, the resources used for 'disposable packaging', or letting food go to waste?
So why did I buy them? Well, for a number of reasons: First, they're really cheap and there are just so many things I need to establish a working household, and need now, I can't afford to pass up a bargain; Second, while they're billed as 'disposable', my experience is that they can be reused often and actually hold up for a long time, even a couple years if well taken care of; Third, and this is the real heart of the matter - since I plan to cook a lot, and mostly from scratch or near-scratch, I need to be able to store things. To cook effectively for one, I need to be able to cook in quantity and save what isn't consumed immediately for later use, especially for lunches. In order to be saved, the food has to be stored in something. Thus, plastic storage containers, and no small number of them are a logical choice, and seem to be a wise use of my limited money. So is it wasteful to purchase these containers?
Thinking about this led to my questioning other aspects of waste - money vs. time; money vs. resources; time vs. resources; space vs. energy; etc. More permanent, non-plastic (or less-plastic) solutions to the problem of food storage that I came up with are mason jars; re-cycled jars from gorcery store products, and commercial glass bowl (like pyrex) with plasticy resealable lids. I do use mason jars for storing dry goods in, as well as for sprouting, and a few other things. I like the commercial pyrex bowls too, but they're expensive, and the lids are still plastic. Admittedly though, I usually don't repurpose the glass jars that come with grocery store products, and simply put them in the recycling bin. Obviously, this is something I need to correct.
Another conundrum occurred to me while thinking about this and dealing with a limited budget: most food stuffs - from potato chips to spices are cheaper when bought in bulk quantities. For a larger group of people, this is a no-brainer. But what about for a single-person household? Should we only buy small quantities, and sacrifice our money and the time it took to earn that money? To me, the logical course is to buy the large quantities, and take steps to mitigate spoilage through repackaging. Unfortunately, this seems to mean learning to live with more plastic.
So what's the biggest waste? My time and money, the resources used for 'disposable packaging', or letting food go to waste?
Monday, January 23, 2012
Life, Plus or Minus Plastic
I'm no great fan of plastic. The primary reason for this is because of the role it has played in eliminating the craftsman from the manufacturing process, but also because it promotes the idea of disposability, put another way, waste. Despite this there are some arguments to me made for plastic as a material: There are some jobs for which is plastic is well-suited, and there's just so much of it around - to eliminate it entirely, or to reject it completely is to commit the sin of waste in a different way. The solution, as with so many other issues of technology, is to use plastic wisely and responsibly.
I came at this issue initially intending to eliminate plastic completely. Like many other eco-minded Americans, I started by amassing several canvas bags to use in place of plastic grocery store bags. This led to the surprising discovery that I really depended on platic bags, and had used them in numerous applications from ad hoc waterproofing material, to pipe patches, to well... bags for carrying all sorts of things. In fact, I found that of all the platic items I encountered in modern American life, those ubiquitous and scandalous plastic bags were one of the items I was most likely to reuse and repurpose. So I've struck a compromise: I try to reduce the number of plastic bags I consume, but rather than suffer a guilt attack everytime I end up with one, I save them as a precious resource, and re-use them.
Lately I've been shopping around alot for household items, and stocking up a pantry. As much as possible, I look for non-platic solutions to my household needs. Still, I find plastic is everywhere, and trying to boycott plastic is even harder than trying to boycott Chinese-made goods. At this point, I'm not even sure that it can actually be done. Still, I believe that just because I can't do everything doesn't mean I can't do anything at all. Just because I can't eliminate plastic doesn't mean that I can't reduce the amount that I use, and that I can't use it responsibly when I do.
A simple example will suffice I think. Water bottles. Water is my beverage of choice when I'm not drinking coffee or tea. When purchasing bottled water, plastic is almost always involved. Generally speaking, I don't buy bottled water, more because it's simply filtered tap-water, and thuse represents a near 100% profit margin for the bottlers. Instead, I have one of those water pitchers with the filter, and have a selection of permanent water bottles made from a variety of materials - some are stainless steel, and others are nalgene plastic - but even the stainless water bottles aren't plastic free, because the tops are made of plastic. The water pitcher and the filter assembly are... made of plastic.
Whether I like it or not, plastic is, and, for the immediate future, will remain part of my life.
I came at this issue initially intending to eliminate plastic completely. Like many other eco-minded Americans, I started by amassing several canvas bags to use in place of plastic grocery store bags. This led to the surprising discovery that I really depended on platic bags, and had used them in numerous applications from ad hoc waterproofing material, to pipe patches, to well... bags for carrying all sorts of things. In fact, I found that of all the platic items I encountered in modern American life, those ubiquitous and scandalous plastic bags were one of the items I was most likely to reuse and repurpose. So I've struck a compromise: I try to reduce the number of plastic bags I consume, but rather than suffer a guilt attack everytime I end up with one, I save them as a precious resource, and re-use them.
Lately I've been shopping around alot for household items, and stocking up a pantry. As much as possible, I look for non-platic solutions to my household needs. Still, I find plastic is everywhere, and trying to boycott plastic is even harder than trying to boycott Chinese-made goods. At this point, I'm not even sure that it can actually be done. Still, I believe that just because I can't do everything doesn't mean I can't do anything at all. Just because I can't eliminate plastic doesn't mean that I can't reduce the amount that I use, and that I can't use it responsibly when I do.
A simple example will suffice I think. Water bottles. Water is my beverage of choice when I'm not drinking coffee or tea. When purchasing bottled water, plastic is almost always involved. Generally speaking, I don't buy bottled water, more because it's simply filtered tap-water, and thuse represents a near 100% profit margin for the bottlers. Instead, I have one of those water pitchers with the filter, and have a selection of permanent water bottles made from a variety of materials - some are stainless steel, and others are nalgene plastic - but even the stainless water bottles aren't plastic free, because the tops are made of plastic. The water pitcher and the filter assembly are... made of plastic.
Whether I like it or not, plastic is, and, for the immediate future, will remain part of my life.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Still in a holding pattern...
... and will be for another three weeks or so. If you think it gets old reading about it, try living it.
The Potholder Saga
I mentioned last week that I attempted to make a potholder with one of those loopy looms but that my inner 5 year-old abandoned me at the end. Not one to give up easily, I put my thinking cap on and decided to salvage the thing. The solution I came up with was to take a piece of coat hanger wire and bend a stop on one end and a loop on the other. I then transfered all of the remaining loops onto this piece of wire (bending it as needed at the corner) and pulled off one loop at a time as I was ready to deal with it. I'm now the proud owner of one ugly potholder.
As I mentioned before, the technique doesn't really seem worth the trouble, except for the fact that I have a daughter who turns six tomorrow and she thinks making potholders out of little loopy things is a fabulous idea. I'm putting the whole thing aside until the next rainy weekend, at which time we'll let her have a go at it.
A cool website
Makezine recently featured a spot on their website about a knockdown backyard pizza oven. The source of the idea was Gardenfork.tv wich turns out to be a really cool site, with lots of advice and ideas on green living. They have some good looking dogs too.
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