From the Middle East to France, and Dangers on the Ranch

The recipe that follows pita bread in Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is, of course, hummus.  I've made hummus before, from a recipe found here, on a blog by Jonah Lisa Dyer.  I thought that the hummus I turned out from that recipe was okay, but I wasn't thrilled with it.  She did make me laugh at the thought of even contemplating removing skins from chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and had good suggestions on how to make it really creamy.

I decided to try Jennifer Reese's recipe for hummus.  The night before, I rinsed and put the beans into a pot of water to soak overnight.  Bright and early the next morning, I rinsed them again and set the pot to boil.  It's supposed to simmer, which is - I think - a safe thing to do when I drive the kids to school (my carpool morning!), so I set it low and slow and left.  When I came home, the water was hot, but not simmering, so I had to bring it up to speed again, because the beans were still hard as rocks.

I wish that the beans had done their thing while I was out, because I don't really appreciate the smell of simmering garbanzos.  It's not "bad," per se, but it certainly doesn't bring to mind the scrumptious hummus that I'm sure will be made from them.

There are differences in these two recipes.  One is that obviously my most current venture into the Land of Hummus was twice as large as Jonah Lisa's.  She used canned beans, and though I used cooked dry beans for that recipe, it wasn't the whole one-pound bag like I planned this time.  If you make hummus from a pound of beans, I hope you have friends to give it to, a family that will eat it up like maniacs, or a freezer.  It's a lot of hummus.

Jonah Lisa suggests creaming the tahini and lemon juice at the beginning, then adding the other ingredients, saving the beans for last, and I agree with her that that method works best.  I also use a food processor and not a blender.  I think it works better, and I'm lucky to have one that my awesome eldest daughter, Jessica, gave me.  I like the cumin in Jennifer's version.  It's one of my favorite spices, and one that I fell in love with when I discovered a recipe for Grilled Chicken with Fresh Herbs and Farfelle in an issue of Cooking Fresh magazine.  It's a summertime staple, so I'm sure I'll share soon!

The last time I made hummus, Jessica had cooked beans and had 1/2 pound left over that she gave to me.  Yesterday was the first time I'd gone from ground zero to hummus, and I was feeling frustrated.  At hour 2.5 of simmering the gol-durn beans, they were still hard, so I started warming milk to make chevre.  It all starts with a gallon, yes, a whole gallon, of milk. 

I'd never made anything using this much of my goat's milk, so I was a little nervous at first.  This is silly.  If I mess it up, there's more brewing right outside, and there's about another two gallons still in the fridge.

About the time that the milk had heated to the 86 degrees that was needed to add culture and rennet, the garbanzo beans had finally softened.  I drained and cooled them, then started to assemble the ingredients to make the hummus.  The pot of cultured milk went onto a heating pad to keep it at temperature for 12 hours.  That's going to be a late draining at 10:00 p.m.  Note to self to start chevre earlier in the morning.

I got anxious when I couldn't find the tahini immediately.  I dropped extra bucks to get organic because, though Jennifer has a recipe for making tahini, I haven't even attempted that yet.  Mixing the tahini and lemon juice creates a frothy concoction.

I was anxious to add the rest of the ingredients and get whirling!  In went the spices and garlic and olive oil.  I started adding the beans a handful at a time.  About halfway through I realized ... I should have checked the capacity of my food processor bowl before making this recipe.  I really should have known.  I filled it as far as I could, did some juggling around, mixing and removing and remixing, tasted it, and liked the intense garlicky and nutty flavor so much that I didn't want to add the last 3/4 cup of beans.  It was creamy and just fine the way it was.

I had a mess to clean up, the chevre was still staying warm, and I had a ton of work to do in the garden, so I took off the apron and tossed on the old clothes, gloves, and hat, grabbing the weed whacker on the way out the door.  I also grabbed the leftover beans, because the chickens love chickpeas!

I am making good progress in the garden.  The tall grass, weeds, and thistles that had regrown after the last rain are cleared, the greenhouse is nice and steamy (I have to take off my glasses before entering!), and I'm getting the soil softened so I can dig out some weeds in the raised beds.

After picking Becca up from school, my neighbor's brother stopped by to warn us that he'd seen three rattlesnakes that day.  He is really concerned, because normally he sees three in a whole season.  Later, Bette texted me to let me know that she'd seen another near her goat barn.  Feeling on edge already, when the day cooled, I went out to see if the yellowjackets I'd seen hanging around the pickup had made any nests.  I carefully opened the driver's door and saw that a nest was being started in the door jamb, just where it'd been last year.  I left that open and popped the hood.  The passenger door was clear, and after I carefully opened the hood I got a chill, seeing one, two, three yellowjacket nests under there.

Becca and I made a quick trip to the store to get a trap.  As she got out of the car she screamed and started flailing her leg, stomping the ground.  A yellowjacket had been on her ankle!  When it was time to leave, she really wanted to walk the six miles home, and did NOT want to get into the car.  We had no idea if it'd left or not.  It took some firm coaxing and an examination of the car to get her in, and a promise to stop if she saw anything.  Half a mile down the road, she started yelling - it was on the floor, walking around.  We pulled over and dispatched the creature, and made it the rest of the way home without incident.  By now the day had cooled, so I knocked down the nests, discovering two more that had been barely started.  The hood of the truck is open today and I'll keep an eye out.

As creepy and nerve-wracking as these things are, rattlesnakes and yellowjackets, and bobcats, raccoons and skunks and other creatures are just another part of the country living we enjoy.  Learning to live with and near them, and encouraging them to stay away from my place, is a balancing act.  Extra vigilance is a small price to pay for a place that I enjoy spending more time outdoors than in, can enjoy fresh air, grow good food, and not hear traffic, arguments, or sirens.  I fall asleep to the sound of coyotes in the hills, and appreciate that life here is darn good.

New Beginnings

There has been a huge gap in my blog postings, which I really didn't expect to happen.  I suppose it's a combination of things.  One is that the speed of life has been so dizzying, there hasn't been a lot of time for contemplation before a keyboard.  The wee hours of weekend mornings that I love to use to write have often been consumed by oversleeping because I'm transcribing too late at night, transcription because I'm trying to keep up with a big onslaught of work at home, or a pre-teen who surprises me by getting up early.

There's also this thing that has happened over the last couple of blog postings.  I like what I've written, and an audience began to develop.  I saw people checking the blog regularly to see if something new was posted.  That made me feel great.  I also allowed it to make me feel as if I had to do something more than just be me.  I set expectations for blog posts higher than I'd had when I started this mission.  I started believing that I needed to have a "wow factor" in order to post something.  It had to be entertaining, funny, insightful, educational, or ... something more than my everyday life.  What happens when I set goals too high is that I start feeling that I can't reach them, and just sit and stare at them for a while.  Uh-oh, I got stuck.

The way to get unstuck is to just start moving again.  Or as Dorey in "Finding Nemo" says, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming," paraphrased of course - this is from memory.

Moments over the last month?  Here they are, and I hope you enjoy.  I know I have, for the most part.

Cooking!  Baking!  I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen.  Part of it is that I'm trying to do weekday prep on the weekends, so we have food that's easy to prepare and healthy to eat during the week.  Another goal is to use as much milk as I possibly can, so it doesn't go to waste.  I've been making a crockpot yogurt every weekend with mixed results.  I love the flavor, and Becca uses it with fruit to make a smoothie to down before we head out to school - often drinking it in the car.  The downside is that I've had a hard time with the texture.  It's been like a slightly thickened milk.  That's fine for smoothies, but not much else, and I don't like drinking my yogurt all the time.  I used a different starter yogurt culture last time that worked better, and picked up a tip that using a little tapioca flour might help.  I'll try that and let you know how it works.

Cajeta is a fixture every weekend, and more and more people are trying and loving it.  I've been told it will be okay to sell some at the school Christmas craft fair, so that is on deck.  I've been trying to figure out how to provide samples.  I started off thinking of buying tiny spoons, but don't like the idea of so much waste.  Next, small cookies?  Maybe.  After the apple/pear/cheese tasting last weekend, I decided that apple slices are the *perfect* way to showcase the deliciousness of cajeta, in addition to providing an idea for its use in a real fashion.

I discovered a fabulous honey wheat bread recipe that I modified and have been making every weekend.  When Becca doesn't want yogurt, we toast slices of this bread and smear homemade apple butter on it for an easy start to the day.  Yum!  I'll post the recipe below.

In addition to the apple butter, which is fabulous and also made in the crockpot, I've been making focaccia.  Dropping ingredients into the bread machine and using the dough setting makes prep easy.  After that, shaping the dough on a cookie sheet and brushing with olive oil before baking is all that is needed to finish it.  I discovered a lovely Meyer Lemon Olive Oil at the farmers market a couple weeks ago, and it is *perfect* brushed on top of the focaccia.

I make both the bread and focaccia using whey instead of water, which imparts more nutrients and lovely flavor and texture to the breads.  It also allows me to use the whey so it doesn't go to waste after making cheese.  I am still trying to perfect cheesemaking, and currently have a Camembert attempt started in the fridge.

Those goats are still keeping us on our toes!  They have been well behaved the last few weeks, but a couple days ago we made a mistake and ended up on a trek in the dark looking for an errant goat.  Typically, we put leashes on the big girls (Lily and Salsa) and Imbri, letting the youngest Nigerian goats trot off to the barn themselves, as they are most likely to do.  Imbri has a habit of going to the barn instead of waiting at the milk stand, but Salsa is good about hopping right up for her food.  Lily likes to wander about and nibble on interesting plants, so she needs firm guidance to get to the barn.

It was Friday night, and dark when we got home after dinner at my parents' in Novato.  Salsa was loudly telling everyone that morning that she was in heat, and she greeted us with a yell (and another and another) when we drove up.  When we put leashes on the goats and let them out, Becca and I both forgot that when Salsa is in heat, she doesn't behave properly.  As soon as she was out of the pen, she walked the opposite direction, and we both realized that we were going to have to chase her down.  We decided to get all the rest of the goats into the barn first, so we didn't have to run around after FIVE instead of just one.

We walked in the dark, with only the light from the flashlight gizmo mounted on my cap (I LOVE THIS HANDS-FREE FLASHLIGHT), stars flickering in the sky, but no moon.  The motion-detected light at the front of the house was on, so we could see Salsa standing near the gate to her pen, in addition to hearing her bleat loudly.  She started to walk away from us, so Becca headed down behind her, while I walked the upper driveway in an attempt to head her off at the pass.  Too slow.  I was 2/3 of the way there, when Salsa popped out of the path between the bushes and started walking away from me.  I called her gently, and she started to trot with intention.  She was on a mission to find bucks.

Becca joined me, and we held hands as we got to the end of our driveway and turned left, up the hill toward my landlady's house and animals.  It was so dark that we couldn't see anything but the circle of light from my flashlight on the driveway in front of us.  This made me a little nervous, and I suggested that we go get the car, but Becca was fine.  I angled the light up a little, we saw a faint glint of white up the drivway, and kept on walking.  Salsa had quit yelling, so it was hard to tell exactly where she was, but as we neared the gate to my landlady's goats, we saw her white coat glowing on the right side of the driveway.  She had her nose pressed against the fence, and one of my landlady's bucks was on the other side of the fence, nuzzling her nose and making blubbering noises.  She didn't want to leave him, so Salsa didn't try to run away when Becca grabbed her leash.

We turned and headed back down the dark driveway, and she was fine until the buck quit following along on the other side of the fence.  Then she started to pull back and yell again.  I had to grab Becca's arm a couple of times on our way to the milk stand, so that she didn't get pulled over by Salsa trying to go the other direction.  She is a LaMancha/Saanan full sized goat, and outweighs Becca.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, but it was a lesson that we didn't forget the next night we got the goats out of the pen.  Salsa is in heat for 2-3 days, and should be over it by tonight, but we'll still hold onto that leash at least for another couple nights to be sure she doesn't run off.

We had a good day yesterday, meeting Amanda, Jessica, and Marie for Amanda's first foray into wedding dress shopping.  What an endeavor!  The selections are so overwheming, and so beautiful.  We had a ball looking around and helping Amanda select dresses to try on, and then watching her model each of the selections for us.  The first one she tried on blew us all away.  It was absolutely perfect on her, and there was nothing else after it that gave us the same impact.  She tried it on one more time at the end, and we all concluded that this is probably *the* dress.  There are two wedding shows next weekend, however, and Mandi wants to see if she can win a gown before committing, so she will wait.  I think this is the winner, though.  If you are looking for a wedding gown, check out Wine Country Bride in Santa Rosa.  They have a fabulous selection of reasonably priced gowns, and the service is SUPERB.

One of our favorite restaurants, Las Guitarras in Cotati, is closing.  We are so bummed about it.  It is hard for me to make it there since we've moved, but that has always been one of my favorite restaurants.  We made it a point to meet up with my parents for lunch there after wedding dress shopping, and had good food, times, in good company.

We will be getting ready to attend the wedding today, 10-10-10, of the mother of one of Becca's best friends.  It's the perfect day for it!

You might wonder about the title - New Beginnings?  Where?  Well, it's me starting to blog regularly, even if I'm worried about what my "audience" might think.  It's wedding dress shopping for Amanda's new and renewed commitment with Anthony next year.  It's a farewell to a good restaurant, after losing a good man that managed it, and a new beginning for that building, while Las Guitarras Novato continues on strong.  Finally, a new beginning for Diane and Reuben - may they have a lifetime of happy years together.

Honey Wheat Bread - Bread Machine Recipe

This recipe is modified from the Mabon Marigold Honey Wheat Bread posted by girlichecf on blogspot.com. You can find her original recipe posted here.  The link also contains the recipe for the AWESOME Apple Butter I've been making with local, in season Gravensteins.

1 cup warm water (or warm whey)
1/3 cup honey
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Place ingredients into the bread machine in the order listed, making a dent in the side of the flour to place the yeast in.  Select the wheat setting, choose the crust color and loaf size, and start.  My bread machine bakes this in about 3 1/2 hours.  No fuss, wonderful aroma in the house, great treat!

Farm Fresh Weekend!

This has turned out to be a Farm Fresh Kitchen Weekend.  A really satisfying weekend, overall!

It started Friday night, when I started a batch of chevre (goat cheese) for one of the attorneys at my office.  I had brought some chevre to share at a birthday gathering last month, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  She asked if they could buy some cheese from me for a birthday party.  I told her I can’t sell cheese, and can’t guarantee yet that I can produce a good batch consistently, but if I could do it, I would like to offer them some as a birthday gift.  She was delighted!  Last weekend, I made a batch that turned out horrible.  It was a rare hot day, and the heat in the house just basically curdled it, and not in a good way.  The party was the 12th, so I knew that if I was going to be successful I would need to start it Friday night.

Well, I learned that the best way (for me, at least) to make chevre is to do it this way - overnight.  I heated the milk, added the culture and rennet, and then it was able to sit overnight for the requisite 8-12 hours.  Draining took another couple of hours, and voila!  It turned out wonderful.  I love the smooth, fresh taste of this homemade chevre.  It is so good just on its own and on crackers or french bread.  I was so excited to be able to call and let her know that we had chevre success!  Becca and I were getting ready to go to the feed store, so I asked if we could drop it off for her.  The timing worked out well, so I put the container in a cold sack with an ice pack (it was pretty hot here yesterday) and headed to Santa Rosa.  She and her partner are always so gracious, and I was happy to see the smiles on their faces and the appreciation of what I had done.  She said what made it so special is that she knows that I am out there in the early morning, milking my goats by hand, and that I take care and pride in them and in the products I make with their milk.  It meant a lot to me that she was aware of not only the time it took to make the cheese, but the love and care that goes into the production of the milk itself.

We headed off to the feed store to pick up food for the critters:  alfalfa for the goats, chicken feed, and cat food.  Last time I bought chicken feed, I discovered that Western Farm Center in old town Santa Rosa carries organic feed, and I was really happy to get that for my chickens.  I was even more happy to see that it came from Hunt & Behrens in Petaluma.  Organic AND local!  The perfect combination.  I don’t usually frequent Western Farms, unless there’s something I need to pick up on my lunch hour or they have something special no one else does, so I asked at my usual feed store if they were carrying organic feed yet.  That was confirmed a couple weeks ago, so I headed there for our shopping this weekend.  They always load my truck for me, so I don’t usually see what’s back there until I get home.  I was disappointed to see a different bag for the chicken feed, and even more so when I examined it.  This was shipped to California from Missouri.  Why, when there is a local producer?  I’ll ask them to look into picking up the feed from Petaluma, or I’ll just start getting it at Western Farm.  The price is about the same.

Unloading the truck needed to wait until Sunday, as by the time we got home, it was time to take care of the animals for the evening.  I had also finally unloaded all the beautiful things that we brought home from Gail’s last weekend, and I couldn’t face moving things out of the truck again.  I had such a good time in the morning, though, appreciating each thing and finding a place for it at the house.  The rocking chair has become a favorite retreat for both me and Becca on the front porch.

I am tickled with the shelf, pitcher and pots that Gail sent home, and am looking forward to filling those pots with living and wonderful things.  I used the enamel cookpot for the chevre, and find it to be the best pot, ever.  The wagon wheels look good by the front of the house where I am hoping to add a fountain.  There is still so much to do here, but I am really enjoying it!

I was so pleased with the chevre I made, I wanted some for myself, so I started another batch last night.  I was hoping to start it with last night's milking, but Imbri had other ideas.  I should have known better to stay alert when milking her last night.  When I placed her feet on the milkstand before washing her and my hands, she moved her foot.  I firmly picked it up and placed it back, which usually takes care of the matter.  I was almost done milking when a song came on the Blackberry that I wanted to make sure I had “liked” for Pandora, so I paused momentarily to grab it.  That’s all it took.  I looked back just in time to see her foot move directly into the milk pail.  Oooooohhhhh, I was so frustrated!  There is no way to recover from a move like that, and nothing to do but let the milk go to waste.  Taught me a good lesson, tho’.

I am much more confident in making the cheese now, and think that I may be ready to try Camembert next.  Mmmm.  I saw a recipe a couple weeks ago for Cajeta and Goat Cheese Brownies.  OMG - wouldn’t that be a great combination??  So part of this chevre is going to be used in that brownie recipe.

I was reading through some dairy recipes this morning and saw a chevre recipe that mentioned putting the cheese into molds.  Why hadn’t I thought of that before?  A year or so ago, I bought a cheese making starter kit.  It included two cheese molds, but I never thought to use them because all the recipes I’ve seen so far call for the cheese to be drained in cheesecloth.  I decided to use the molds for this cheese today, and hope that it all works out as well as I think it will.  So much easier and prettier than the bagged cheese look.

It’s Sunday, so that means it’s Windsor Farmers Market Morning!  To top it off, we heard on the radio last night that a Tomato and Pepper Festival was being planned at the same location during that time, including tomato sampling and a salsa contest.  Something more to look forward to!

I really love going to this farmers market, and I’m sure you are all tired of reading about it by now.  I was especially pleased with what we brought home today.  We had to get the biegnets, of course, plus the sausage/spinach ravioli that we really look forward to every week.  I have pesto in the freezer, so we passed on the prepared pestos, and picked up some more fragrant basil so I can add to my pesto stockpile.  Hot and spicy jalapeno and serrano peppers were on the list this week, because I loved the way that the addition of that to basil pesto really adds a nice warmth and brings out the flavors in a fabulous way.  The tomatoes I picked this morning, plus what I brought home from Mom’s last week, meant salsa was on the menu, too.  I was surprised and very happy to see big, red, ripe organic strawberries, and picked up a basket of those to add to our homemade yogurt.  I could smell them from the aisle, which is what drew me in to their bright red luciousness!  Corn was all over the place, and very reasonably priced!  Four of those, please and thank you.  I need eggs for the brownie recipe, and was happy to pick up the last dozen from a Healdsburg rancher, and chat with her about how to stop mine from being a cannibal and eating her eggs.  No real resolution to that yet, but I’m still going to work on it.

We were getting a little weighed down, so put all our purchases quickly into the trunk and came back to look at the tomato and pepper festival area.  We sampled different tomatoes that I’d always wondered about and hand’s down, we are getting the Purple Cherokee tomatoes from OAEC to grow next year.  I love the sweet Burbanks that I’ve been growing the last couple of years, but the Cherokee tomatoes were something special.  Super large, purple in color, with firm flesh and an amazing, intense, sweet tomato flavor.

We had to stop and sample the salsas.  Some were good, some so-so, and I was looking forward to going home and making my own salsa fresco.  Then the lady started putting out samples of this clear jelly-looking stuff.  Hmm?  Becca and I tried it and it was fabulous.  Sweet, hot, but not overpowering, with an intense pepper flavor.  We asked who made it and what it was - it’s pepper jelly.  I’ve bought jalapeno jelly at the grocery store before for my brie quesadillas, but this was amazing.  We booked over back to the market area she pointed out to find the farm that provided it (and took first place in the contest).  We found the small stand, with produce on the tables and a tall, kind-faced man behind them.  I looked around - no jars - and asked if he had any of the pepper jelly that we’d just fallen in love with at the festival.  He smiled and said, “Well, let me tell you what happened.”  His wife gave him two jars for the competition, and told him that she wasn’t sending any for him to sell, as she made them for holiday gifts.  He laughed, and said that he will have to tell her what a hit they would have been, and that there were customers hoping that she might send some next week.  He gave me his card in case I wanted to call and see if he was bringing any, but I told him we’ll be there anyway, and will look for him.

As we walked away, I remembered that the lady I bought the pesto from before has pepper jellies, and so Becca and I headed over there to sample what she had.  She had an awesome peach pepper jelly, and a tomato pepper jelly.  Becca like the tomato one best, so that’s what we picked up.  I preferred the peach, but I’ll get that one next week.  Heh.

We stopped at Safeway to pick up some odds and ends needed to fill in the blanks, and headed home, feeling VERY satisfied and excited about getting into the kitchen!

The first thing I started was cajeta, because it takes so long to make.  I decided to try making a vanilla infused caramel this week, instead of the traditional cinnamon.  Instead of simmering it with a cinnamon stick, I am using half of a split vanilla bean.  It is on the stove now, and smells absolutely heavenly!!  While that started cooking, I did some dishes and made some fresh salsa that we’ve been nibbling on this afternoon.  Next is the strawberry puree and hopefully some pesto.  Of course, once the cajeta is done, we’ll look at time and see if we can get the brownies made tonight.  That might have to wait.

It’s now time to start getting the barn ready for the night and tuck the animals in soon.  We are stepping even more carefully now, as my landlady told me this morning of her little adventure last night.  She’d gotten home late, and stepped out of the truck in the dark at the same time her dog started going after something near the driver’s side door.  She knew his sounds and was pretty sure it was a snake - the frogs are so loud at night, that she didn’t hear any rattle.  She went to the garage to grab a flashlight and the pole she uses for snakes, and came back to see it coiled near her door, and her dog going after it.  He killed it before she could do anything.  It was a baby rattler, and luckily the dog is smart enough to know how to avoid getting hurt himself.  She showed me the snake this morning, and it’s a good reminder to look very carefully these last days of summer, make lots of noise, and be aware.

P.S. I just strained the vanilla cajeta and sampled it - it is truly amazing.  Not a speck more sugar in this recipe than my regular recipe - all I did was replace the cinnamon stick with the vanilla bean - but the sweetness is so intense and smooth.  This is going to be fabulous in those brownies.