Pimento Cheese!

Roasted homegrown pimentos

After a long, long period of neglect of my beloved Milkweed Diaries, I'm breaking radio silence with a short little ode to pimento cheese.  Oh pimento cheese, I love you!

A classic staple of the American South, this delicious and creamy treat is traditionally made with Duke's mayonnaise and canned pimentos. My slightly pretentious, healthy, homegrown version is made with raw goat cheese and fresh roasted peppers.  As I spooned this experimental concoction straight into my mouth fresh from the food processor, I announced to Christopher: "I believe this is the best thing I have ever made."  Even in the clear light of day a week later, I'm pretty sure it's true.  

Here's how to make it:

• Roast the pimentos. I did this at 450 degrees using the broiler setting of my toaster oven.  I drizzled  them with a scant bit of olive oil and broiled them until they had begun to pucker and develop black spots on one side and then flipped them and broiled on the other side.

  

  Roasting the pimentos

• Let the pimentos rest in a paper bag.  This will make them easier to peel.
• Peel the pimentos. This is the tedious and slightly time-consuming part. Remember, it's worth it.  At this point you can store the pimentos in a jar for a day or so if you need to sit the project down til you have time to complete it.

Mixing in the food processor

• Mix the pimentos with fresh raw goat cheese. I used a basic soft goat cheese I had made the night before from our goats' milk using Ricki  Carroll's recipe - a raw, cultured goat cheese made with mesophillic culture.  Any good mild, cultured goat cheese will do - the slight cultured tang adds a really nice zest.  I did the mixing by dumping the pimentos in the bottom of my food processor and gradually adding cheese until the consistency, color, and mix looked right. 
• Enjoy immediately!  This cheese stores well in the fridge and also freezes well, but I find it tastes best at room temperature.

The final product: Pimento Cheese!

One important tip: use good pimentos - as fresh as possible.  I was inspired to make this by the abundance of pimentos rolling in from our garden this year.  I used about 25 homegrown peppers - the beautiful, plump, and prolific Ashe County Pimento from the High Country of Western NC via Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Ashe County Pimentos

I also threw in some Doe Hill Golden Bells which are supposedly a bell pepper, but to me look like a small, golden pimento. This seed was also from Southern Exposure, and has been a great addition to our pepper production bed this year. The plants have produced abundantly, and the flavor is wonderful.  According to Southern Exposure, this little gem is a pre-1900 family heirloom from the Doe Hill area in Highland County, Virginia.

Doe Hill Golden Bells

This cheese is so delightful spread on toast, noshed upon with crackers, as a garnish on tomato salads, and eaten straight up with a spoon. I froze a ton of it and am envisioning pimento deviled eggs, pimento grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, and all manner of pimento goodness through the months to come. Yum!

Bachlelorette's Liqueur

Christopher is out of town, and in addition to having a "lost weekend" with my sister Mary and going out for mixed drinks with my ladyfriends, I am taking advantage of having the house to myself by engaging in a number of complicated, messy kitchen projects (for instance, learning to make mayonnaise).

My parents, who are also out of town (separately), dropped off a big basket of peaches just before they hit the road for two weeks. Their peach tree has started producing like crazy in the past couple of years, and my world is a better place because of it.

The confluence of these two events has led me to experiment with peach preservation. However it is hot as holy hell here right now, as it is pretty much everywhere else in the United States, and I cannot bring myself to endure canning. The other day I heard someone say, "Satan called, he wants his weather back." That pretty much sums up how it's been feeling here, and I am not about to fire up the stove and stand over steaming pots in the middle of the worst heat wave anyone can remember.

So I turned to this book, which I raved about in more detail last year, for assistance.

I found a great heat-free recipe for "Officer's 'Jam' or Bachelor's Liqueur" which is basically what is known in the South as Brandied Peaches, but without the canning.

Here it is. Since I'm bachin' it this week, I changed the name.

Bachelorette's Liqueur, or Brandied Peaches Sans Heat

Ingredients:

Peaches

Good Brandy

Sugar (roughly the same quantity as the fruit or less)

1. Cut fruit into pieces and remove pits. Layer it into a stoneware pot or a crock with a lid. After each layer, add sugar (I used far less sugar than fruit). Do not stir.
2. After all the layers are in the crock, pour in enough brandy to submerge everything. I topped this off with a plate that fit down inside the crock to prevent any air exposure for the fruit.
3. You can keep adding fruit as it ripens throughout the season, just keep topping with sugar and adding brandy. Again, do not stir.
4. Mrs. Defacqz of Switzerland who submitted the recipe to Terre Vivante says that the mixture should be allowed to sit for at least 6 months, and is really best after a year.

I'm letting it sit in my 2-gallon crock, alongside the apple cider vinegar in the next crock over.

I'm guessing it's going to be ridiculous over some vanilla ice cream. I'm not sure if I can wait six months.

Making Mayonnaise

The source of all mayonnaise

Our household consumes a huge quantity of mayonnaise. This is mostly because of Christopher, who believes that mayonnaise makes everything better, and often serves himself such a large portion of mayo that it appears more like a side dish than a condiment. Naturally, with plenty of fresh eggs from the chickens and a great local source of cheap organic extra virgin olive oil, I decided it was time we start making our own mayonnaise.

Years ago, I made some aioli to serve with fresh asparagus and it was a triumphant kitchen moment. I had a vague memory that it involved whipping for a long time, and pouring in the oil very, very slowly. My friend Kathryn makes mayonnaise sometimes, and I remembered her saying she used a blender. I did a little googling and found this excellent recipe for "Homemade Mayonnaise Without Tears" which recommended using a mixer with whisk attachments.

I don't have whisk attachments, but I figured that couldn't be that big of a deal, so I grabbed some eggs and got started.

A couple of hours and four appliances later...I had achieved mayonnaise. But it was not easy, let me tell you. I share this story in the hopes that it may spare some future mayonnaise maker from the frustrations of mayonnaise failure.

I started out with my grandmother's Sunbeam Mixmaster. It seemed like a reasonable choice given the "No Tears" recipe, plus it is glamourous and I always like getting it out for kitchen projects.

I do not recommend a mixer like this for mayonnaise-making. The beaters only hit the center of the bowl, leaving the edges unwhipped/unblended, and the whole Sunbeam operation was a colossal failure. I ended up with an oily, un-emulsified, very un-mayonnaise-looking mixture. It looked like raw egg yolks and oil blended together. Which is what it was.

Next I switched to the hand blender (aka immersion blender). This is a tool that I love and that a number of people in the googleverse recommend for mayonnaise making. I almost burned up the motor, and created a foamy yellow oily substance. I kept whipping, waiting waiting for that magic moment of emulsification, but it never happened.

At this point, fortunately I found several references saying that failed mayonnaise could be substituted for oil to make a new batch, so I saved the failed batch and moved on to appliance number three, the hand mixer. This seemed like it would solve the problem of not reaching the edges that I had encountered with the Sunbeam, and incorporate much more air than the hand blender/immersion blender.

Wrong. No magic mayonnaise moment.

Finally I switched to the trusty Osterizer.

Why did I not use the blender to start with?

I followed the directions in this recipe precisely (with one small exception, see #2 below) including beating the eggs for one full minute in the blender before beginning to add the oil (in my case oil/egg failure mixture) and adding it at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Finally. Mayonnaise success. The magic moment of emulsification.

Here are a few tips for my fellow novice mayonnaise makers to spare yourself time and struggle:

1. Use a blender. Don't bother experimenting with mixers of any sort. They don't work.
2. Use the whites of the eggs too. Most of the recipes I looked at called for separating the eggs and using only the yolks. In the end I used whole eggs, including whites. Correlation is not causation, so it's possible that using whites too had nothing to do with my success, but when I used the whole eggs, it worked. I think keeping the whites made the mayonnaise a more familiar and thereby more appetizing color, too.
3. Whip the eggs on high for at least one full minute before adding any oil.
4. Add the oil with excruciating, ponderous, agonizing slowness. Drips to very slow, thin drizzles only.

In closing, I would like to say: how did people EVER do this before electricity?!? At some point in between appliances, in my search for ways to salvage the failed mayonnaise, I found this lovely post about how French vendors just whip up little batches of mayonnaise by hand using only a whisk and a bowl, just right there on the spot on the street to accompany orders of french fries. It was totally demoralizing to read this as I struggled with my four appliances and runny yellow oil and egg substance.

The ridiculous number of appliances employed, dirty dishes produced, and electricity expended probably don't justify just over a pint of mayonnaise. I can report, however, that it was immensely satisfying to finally see that creamy, thick, delicious substance appear like magic out of nothing but eggs, salt, and oil.

All the dishes, appliances, electricity - that's tuition, as my dad would say. Now I know, and there will be no stopping me in the pursuit of mayonnaise.

Ridiculous number of dirty dishes produced in The Mayonnaise Lesson.

Adventures and Misadventures in Fermentation

Experimenting with fermentation over the years, I've learned that you win some and you lose some. And then there are the ones that you really, really lose.

When something that has just been fermenting for a few days or weeks goes awry, it's no big deal. But when it's been a lengthy, elaborate, labor-intensive process involving a months and months of fermentation...then I turn for comfort to pop-psychology clichés about learning to let go and tired yet soothing bromides such as "life is a journey, not a destination."

Last fall we borrowed a cider press, our farm interns Ali and Dau gleaned a whole bunch of apples from a neglected nearby orchard, and six of us spent an afternoon making fresh apple cider.

First the apples had to be chopped into a mash.

Then came the pressing. Lots and lots of pressing.

What was left of the apples after the pressing

Then came the straining.

Fortunately, at that point we drank quite a bit of fresh cider on the spot and bottled up a bunch for drinking fresh in the week to come. It was ridiculously good.

The last three gallons of cider we set aside for fermentation into hard cider. Two gallons were poured into glass gallon jugs with a plastic bag/rubber band lid for a controlled fermentation and the last gallon we fermented in a cloth-covered crock for a "spontaneous" hard cider a-la Wild Fermentation.

The spontaneous cider was awful. We still have a dozen or so bottles of it around because I hold on to the notion that aging in the bottle might improve it and I can't bear to let it go. The glass jugs first fermented like crazy for a while and then once they were done "working," we switched out the plastic bag/rubber band combo for an airlock.

11 months later, I tasted it. The first gallon was tolerable. The second gallon was downright ¡guácala! as they say in Español.

Because I haven't learned that aforementioned "letting go" lesson, I bottled up the first gallon and decided to convert the second into apple cider vinegar. The vinegar-making is a nice diversion - I've convinced myself it's a great use for the end product of all of that work (something about lemons and lemonade comes to mind).

We use tons of apple cider vinegar for pickling, preserving, and everyday consumption, and it seems like a staple while hard cider seems like a luxury item.

The best apple cider vinegar is apparently made from hard apple cider and here is how it's done:

1. Pour the hard cider into a ceramic crock or wide-mouthed glass jar
2. Add a bit of live-culture apple cider vinegar (not pasteurized - with "the mother")
3. Cover with a cloth to keep bugs out and ferment for 4-8 weeks at 70-85 degrees.

The fermentation adventures continue. Here's hoping that my trusty 1-gallon crock will come through with its magical powers of transformation and we will have a gallon of delicious apple cider vinegar in 4-8 weeks. One year, lots of effort, and lots of microbial activity later . . . . lemons / lemonade, journey / destination, etc, etc, etc.

UPDATE (September 1, 2011): The end result was the best apple cider vinegar I've ever tasted. Since we actually use a much larger volume of apple cider vinegar than hard cider, I consider myself fully satisfied with this fermentation project.

Easy, Creamy, Dreamy: Raw Goat Milk Yogurt

So I have discovered that there is almost no work at all involved in making yogurt from raw goat milk. The goats and the microbes do all the work for you! Put some milk in a jar with a little bit of yogurt and viola: creamy, thick, sour-delicious yogurt.

Raw milk yogurt is so easy to make it's hard to even use the word "recipe" here, but here's the recipe:

Goat Milk Yogurt

1. Fill a clean quart jar almost to the top with raw goat milk
2. Add a spoonful or two of live culture yogurt
3. Screw on the lid and let sit for 18 hours or so in a warm place.
4. Enjoy. Save a couple of spoonfuls for the next batch.

Yum. After the past few years of perpetual move-busting, it's nice to do something that is easy.

I would like to thank the fabulous Ms. Foxy Brown for providing the milk for this adventure in cultured dairy.

Taking Care of Babies

2011 is The Year of the Animal on Red Wing Farm.

First there were our girls -- three young Nubian does (Zuzu, Jojo, and Foxy Brown) and a Sannen doe named Rosie. And Buckley, a handsome Nubian buck. These goats came to us from Three Graces Dairy up in Madison County and piled out of the truck into the newly-built barn and made themselves right at home.

Then came more two more goats from Three Graces, a dog, and a brief duck experiment. 13 chickens and one deranged pea hen have been bustling around in the background through it all.

We have been taking care of babies all Spring. It started in February with the spontaneous adoption of Mona, a wonderful mama Nubian, and her 9-day old doeling Moonpie (pictured a few days after their arrival, above).

Then came little Merlin, a 4-month old buckling given to us by our friend Val at Double G Ranch, a "buck trade" on the promise of a future buckling of ours to go to Double G.

On June 1st, our Nubian first freshener Foxy Brown gave birth to the first baby born on the farm, little Felix. Motherhood did not come naturally to Ms. Foxy--she looked at Felix first with confusion and then with fear. She rejected him completely, refusing to let him get anywhere near her to nurse. We had to hold her and force her to let him nurse at three hour intervals for the first four days of his fragile little goat life, and then, miraculously, she figured it out.

The same week Felix was born, we found a listing for a full-blooded Border Collie surrendered by a breeder to an animal shelter in eastern Tennessee. We had been looking for quite some time for a rescued Border Collie to train as a goat herder, and we had to act fast. So I drove to Chuckie, TN and collected Maisey, a sweet and smart 3-month old pup who everyone has fallen in love with.

In the midst of this animal explosion, we tended and sent to new homes somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 annual and perennial seedlings. The plant babies were demanding in their own way, requiring daily attention from February through the end of May.

Three more goats are pregnant, so the babies are going to keep on coming through the fall, and we will very likely have a small flock of Khaki Campbell laying ducks established down by the pond by the end of the year.

It has been an exhausting, gratifying, and humbling experience caring for and connecting with all of the new nonhuman members of our farm family.

I've fallen off the blog wagon as animal and plant chores have eclipsed everything else. But I wouldn't have it any other way - our fridge is full of goat milk, goat sour cream and yogurt are culturing on the counter, Maisey's crashing into things on the porch chasing her tail, and baby Felix is frolicking up a storm. And The Year of the Animal continues!

Christopher and Moonpie at 4 months

Newborn Felix

Little Felix at about two weeks old with Mama Foxy

Homegrown Foods in the Wintertime

Canned foods and bottled meads and ciders ready for action...

The path from gardening to food preservation is a short and well-traveled one. In the ongoing quest to eat from our garden year-round, I've gone further and further down that path over the past few years. It's been a sweaty journey (standing over steaming pots in August) but a satisfying one.

I loved this recent story on NPR about the home canning renaissance - it made me feel a little less odd, or at least not alone in my oddity, as I perused my shelves and cabinets full of homegrown items.

Christopher finally had to build more shelves for food storage this year, as my jars of canned goods had begun to creep across the floor and down the hallway and our clothes were being squeezed out of the closet by winter squash and sweet potatoes.

We have finally reached the point this year where we really can eat homegrown foods every day in the winter, and where a large part of our winter diet comes from foods we preserved from the garden.

A few heroic vegetables like winter squash, sweet potatoes, garlic, dry beans, and potatoes make it easy - no canning, freezing, fermenting, or packing in oil required.

Greek Sweet Red squash

Cured sweet potatoes in storage.

Of course there are also a few unbelievably hardy vegetables like this chard harvested in mid-January, thanks to floating row cover, make a nice fresh addition to all of the roots and relishes too.

One day we'll get in the rhythm of hoophouse greens in the winter -- all of our lettuces and winter greens growing under cover in the hoophouse now are too tiny to harvest, since we planted them a bit too late.

Bruchetta with local bread (made with NC-grown wheat!) topped with a bunch of preserved spreads -- frozen mole paste and frozen pesto, and canned sweet pepper hash andgreen tomato marmalade.

There is something magical about eating those precious preserved foods in the wintertime - it seems like such a special treat.

I always feel like I'm opening a little gift from myself when I pop open a jar of tomatoes or peppers or dilly beans.

Cherry tomatoes, basil, and pearl onions preserved in salt and oil (recipe and details here) - I sauteed them in olive oil and added fresh greens, garlic, and garbanzos for a hearty winter stew.

Sweet peppers roasted and packed in oil.

Homegrown dry black beans with garlic and preserved sweet peppers, pesto from last summer's basil, and homegrown German Butterball potato "bruchettas" with various homegrown/homemade toppings, including creamy sweet potatoes.

Dilly beans, pickled green cherry tomatoes, and various other preserved things.

And then there is the occasional special winter food gift - Chinese chestnuts from Ali in this case.