What to do with Sour Milk

Image by Jorge Arrieta

Over the summer, we get a large quantity of fresh raw milk on a regular basis. While the raw milk abundance is completely awesome, it can be hard to keep up with such a high-volume, ongoing milk influx.

We have just begun to scratch the surface of cheese-making in the past few years, and continue gradually to expand our cheese repertoire, but in the meantime, highly perishable raw milk tends to crowd our small fridge in the summer, and I am always in search of quick, spontaneous ways to make use of milk at various stages of souring.

Fortunately, making food with slightly fermented milk is an ancient tradition, and there are some delightful ways to make use of soured milk.

Here's my favorite way to enjoy sour milk so far:

Fluffy Sour Milk Pancakes

I can't describe how delicious and addictive these pancakes are. I think I ate them for 3 meals in a row in one recent 24-hour period. Mmmmmm.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 Tbs. butter, melted
• 2 cups sour milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbs. sugar

Simple ingredients + sour milk = super-delightful pancakes.

Instructions:

1. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl (sift if you want to - I don't sift because I am a lazy cook).
2. Beat the egg well. Add the beaten egg, along with the milk and butter, to the dry ingredients.
3. Let sit for at least a half hour and up to a day. I discovered by accident that if you ferment the batter overnight after mixing it up, you will have significantly fluffier pancakes. If you are going to let the batter sit for more than an hour or so, put it in the fridge in a loosely covered, non-plastic container with plenty of "headroom" for the batter to rise. It only took one explosion in our refrigerator to learn the importance of leaving room for expansion inside the container when you store the batter -- it's alive!
4. After the batter has had a chance to rise for an hour or a day, spoon onto a hot, buttered cast iron griddle or skillet.
5. Cook until browned on both sides.
6. Serve hot. I like these best topped just with butter and honey, but you can of course top them with any favorite pancake topping. . .maple syrup, jam or apple butter, yogurt, or fresh fruit. They are also good with fresh ricotta cheese. Yum!

On Souring

Raw milk sours well, and ours is usually sour within 4 or 5 days in the fridge. Pasteurized milk probably would not sour enough to work for this or other recipes calling for sour milk.

There are various instructions available online for faking sour milk by combining pasteurized milk and lemon juice or vinegar. Faked sour milk, however, would contain none of the beneficial bacteria of fermented milk, and I doubt it would taste as good. It definitely would not add the fluff/heft to the pancakes that comes from bubbly, fermenting sour milk.

Notes on raw milk and commercial dairy:

Lots of info on raw milk can be found at: rawmilkfacts.com and realmilk.com.

More on the movement to expand food choices to include legal access to raw milk can be found

on the Farm to Consumer Foundation's website, including information on how to start a cow share.

In stark contrast to raw milk from grass-fed cows living on small local farms, most commercial dairy in the US is produced in big CAFOs -- factory farms that waste resources, confine animals in cruel conditions, and pump dairy cows massive doses of hormones and antibiotics. Raw milk tends to be sold by small operations directly to the consumer. This means that the milk-drinker has a chance to see the cow and the milking operation firsthand. I'll take raw, local milk from a cow I've met over ultra-pasteurized CAFO milk any day!

Further Adventures in Fermentation: Collard & Radish Kraut

Collard greens and dill picked this morning for fermenting.

Wanting to eat homegrown food year-round; loving simple, low-tech ways of doing things; nerding out on food traditions; and prefering to eat food without zapping the nutrients -- for all of these reasons, fermenting things in the summertime has become a big part of my gardening and cooking life.

There's almost always something fermenting in our kitchen. For the past six weeks or so, I've had a 1-gallon crock of garlic scapes pickling in brine on the countertop, and today I started another ferment: the first kraut of the year.

We finally polished off the last of last summer's sauerkraut a couple of months ago, and my mouth has been watering for that sour, salty taste ever since. Our cabbage is not ready to harvest yet, so I am trying to satisfy my craving with an experimental collard kraut.

Though I have attempted fermentation of dozens of other vegetables and fruits over the years, I've never tried collards, strangely. They are such a close cousin of cabbage, the traditional sauerkraut stalwart, that it seems likely that collard greens will make a lovely kraut. I love the spicy crunch of radishes in kraut, and we have a superabundance of radishes and more coming on all the time in the garden, so they were a natural addition.

Radishes on their way to the fermenting crock.

Dilly Collard and Radish Kraut

Equipment:

• 1- or 2- Gallon ceramic pickling crock
• Glass or ceramic plate that fits inside the crock
• Clean mason jar filled with water and screwed shut

Ingredients:

• A hefty bunch of collards - I used about a pound
• Radishes to taste - I used mostly daikon, but any kind will do
• 1 large onion
• Fresh dill to taste - I like to use lots of dill flower heads
• Salt
• A handful of whole peppercorns
• Salt water (1 Tbs salt per 2 cups water)

Instructions:

1. Line the bottom of the crock with dill flower heads. Sprinkle in a Tbs. or so of salt and some peppercorns.
2. Slice collards into very thin strips and cut radishes into paper-thin rounds. Slice the onion in half and then slice into super-thin slices.
3. Fill the crock, alternating layers of collards, radishes, onions, and dill. Start with a layer of collards 2 inches deep or so, sprinkle on a Tbs. of salt and a few peppercorns, and pound with a potato masher. Then layer on radishes and dill, and another layer of collards.
4. After each layer of collards, add a Tbs. of salt and pound. The pounding helps release the juices of the greens and gets the fermenting process started.
5. Once you've used up all of your ingredients, cover with salt water and press the plate down on top of the last layer. Everything should be submerged. Use the jar of water to weigh down the plate, cover with a cloth tied or rubber-banded around the crock to keep out bugs, and let sit.
6. Check every day or so, pressing down the jar.
7. After 3 weeks or so, the kraut should be sour, juicy, and ready to eat. Taste it and see. You may want to scoop some out to eat at that point and leave the rest to ferment longer. Traditional krauts sometimes are allowed to ferment for months, getting stronger and stronger tasting and more and more full of beneficial probiotics. Ferment as long as you like, and enjoy!

A fat & juicy fresh onion, which will taste nice and sour after a few weeks in the crock.

Robbing Potatoes

A freshly robbed potato

We've finally started "robbing" new potatoes from the potato patch--hurrah! Robbing is a thrilling process of rooting around with your hands in the potato beds until you feel . . . Viola! A potato! It's a treasure hunt with a delicious, nutritious reward.

Once you find the potato, slip your fingers around it and gently extract it without harming the roots and stems, leaving the potato plant to grow and thrive and produce loads more potatoes throughout the summer and into the fall. Robbed new potatoes seem like a bonus prize, a little special extra treat.

This morning, I robbed several overflowing handfuls of Yukon Gold potatoes from our potato hills.

New potatoes, leeks, and collard greens.

We happen to have a large quantity of raw cow's milk from next door to use up before it goes bad, and leeks and celery ready to harvest in the garden, so a creamy potato soup was clearly in order.

I sometimes like to add sturdy greens of some sort (collards, kale, cabbage) to potato soup, but not too much as to overwhelm things. And there were collards galore in the garden, so a soup was born:

Creamy soup with New Potatoes, Leeks, Collards, and Celery

• 8-12 new potatoes
• 3-4 leeks
• A small bunch of collard greens, cut into very thin strips
• A handful of celery stalks of any size (we're growing a gorgeous heirloom red stalk celery that can be harvested at any stage by the stalk), sliced thinly
• Fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• 3-4 cups of milk (raw if possible!)
• 3-5 Tbs. butter
• Salt and pepper
• A generous handful of fresh dill leaves

Ingredients on their way to the kitchen.

1. Cut potatoes and leeks into bite-sized pieces.
2. Saute leeks in a generous amount of butter in a heavy soup pot. Add salt.
3. When leeks are soft, add potatoes and a few grinds of black pepper. Stir, cover and cook, adding water as necessary.
4. Add collards and celery. Add a little water to keep things juicy. Continue to cook, stirring.
5. Add water and cook on medium heat until everything is nice and soft.
6. About 5 minutes before serving, add parsley and continue cooking.
7. Turn off the heat, stir in the milk, and cover.
8. Tear up a bunch of fresh dill, sprinkle in, and stir. Mash everything up a little bit with the back of a ladle if you want the soup to have a creamier texture.
9. Let sit for a minute or two to cool and for all the flavors to meld. Add more salt to taste. Serve!

The soup

. . .

mmmmm!

We had the soup with a salad fresh from the garden -- lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, and edible flowers and a garlickey dressing from our own garlic. Every ingredient was from the garden, with the exception of the milk, which was from the cow next door, and the salt, pepper, and butter, which, along with the oil and vinegar in the salad dressing, were from somewhere far away.

Summer!

Full Bloom

Photos from this morning in the garden:

Dino Kale

Chamomile

A whole lot of garlic and potatoes

Valerian & Ironweed

Onions, leeks, and brassicas

Love in a Mist

Leeks flowering, with sorrel in the background

The incredible, edible day lily

Lavender

Red Milkweed

Bring the Scapes!!!

Every Spring around this time, the modest, unadorned, hearty hardneck garlic plants that have been stoutly soldiering along since October become for a brief moment the most glamourous and exotic plants in the garden. Rising above their plain, strappy, green leaves are suddenly: SCAPES!

Serpentine, delicate, gorgeous and elegant, garlic scapes are the flowering stalks of hardneck garlic plants. They curl and spiral up and out from the plant, with a smooth, green, snake-like grace.

The flavor of scapes is a pure, intense, garlicky burst of spring green. We've eaten them all kind of ways: sauteed in butter, mixed in a stir fry, finely chopped raw in a green salad or with grated beets and carrots.

I would love garlic scapes even if they were common and abundant over a long season. But the fact that they can only be had for a short window of time, and a time before much else in the garden is producing heavily, makes them all the more precious and delightful.

It is good to pick the scapes as soon after they appear as possible so that the garlic plants won't spend energy flowering and will instead put all of their spring plant juju into growing large bulbs. Seeing as how we planted 1,500 garlic plants last fall, we have a lot of scapes to harvest and quick. Thus, we are cutting scapes fast and furious these days, and coming up with new scape recipes pretty much every day.

Christopher with some of the scapes we harvested last evening.

MF dropped by last eve just in time to help cut scapes (and squish a few potato beetle egg clusters), and Sandi came over later for dinner and scape escapades. We made pesto (see recipe below) and feasted on scapes until it felt like we were exuding garlic juice out of every pore.

Here are some of my favorite new ways to eat scapes:

Garlic Scape Pesto

I cannot describe how good this is. We ate it on pasta, but I also downed a few spoonfuls straight. It is a bright green, full-on, intense garlic experience.

• A whole bunch of raw garlic scapes
• A handful of mild greens (we used chard) if desired
• Walnuts, pine nuts, or sunflower seeds (we used walnuts)
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Salt
• Parmesan or Asiago cheese (optional - we made a vegan batch and a cheesy batch)

Throw everything in the food processor and pulverize to desired pesto texture. Enjoy!

Sandi gets her pesto groove on

Garlic Scape Risotto

So creamy and garlicky and delicious!

• A handful of garlic scapes
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 4-5 cups stock or water
• Parmesan, Asiago, or another hard cheese, grated
• Salt, pepper, olive oil, and butter

Chop garlic scapes into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces. Saute in butter and olive oil (about 2 Tbs of each) until soft. Add arborio rice and continue to saute for a few minutes until the rice is

slightly toasted.

Add 1 cup of water or stock and stir. Stir. Stir. Stir. This is the key to a creamy risotto. Keep stirring and cooking over low to medium heat until all of the first cup of water or stock is absorbed. Add another cup of liquid and repeat. Stir constantly. Cook until water is absorbed.

Continue adding liquid a cup at a time and stirring, stirring, stirring until you have a super-creamy risotto. At this point, I added a tablespoon or so of pureed sweet pepper to the mix, but that is optional. About 5 minutes before serving, add 3/4 cup grated cheese.

Enjoy!

Lastly, I am trying a brine pickle with some of the scapes.

I chopped them up and layered them with salt in a ceramic crock (the first ferment of the season!), covered them with salty water and am now watching and waiting to see if they will ferment into a pickled, garlicky condiment of some sort. It seems like it will have to be good.

Anyone have other ideas of ways to eat scapes? We still have hundreds to consume!

War on Slugs: Slugs Winning*

As I've mentioned before, it was the wettest May on record last month with more than 9 inches of rain.  We have inadvertently discovered the following tried and true garden formula.

Recipe for an Ultra-Slugerific-Slugtastic Slugfest:

Ingredients:

• 9 inches of rain
  
• Thick mulch
  
• A large serving of tasty young edible plants 
  

Sprinkle garden with plants. Apply mulch generously. Gradually add rain and let sit. Viola!

~~~~~   

Thanks to our perfect execution of this recipe, we have found ourselves fighting a war on slugs that seems almost as futile as the war on drugs.  My usual slug-fighting weapon, Sluggo, an organic slug-killing product, has proved insufficient.   

So this evening we've pulled back our beloved mulch (to which I am deeply philosophically attached and the absence of which pains me as I watch the sun dry and leach the soil), applied a boatload of Sluggo, and prepared to host a massive Slug Beerfest tonight.  Christopher sacrificed his last three Pabst Blue Ribbons to create a buffet of beer saucers for the slugs.  And now we wait.

Anyone who thinks growing vegetables, even organically, doesn't involve killing things should come visit our garden this month.  Let the garden pest hunting season officially begin.

Hugs not Slugs!

*An homage to one of my favorite The Onion news stories of all time: Drugs Win Drug War 

On Interplanting

We just planted our first bean and squash bed for this year: 41 feet long by 3 feet wide with 160 Cherokee Trail of Tears Black Bean seeds and 21 Waltham Butternut Squash transplants from our Spring seed-starting bonanza. It's a modified Three Sisters planting since we have consistently had problems with our heirloom pole beans choking out corn and other "living trellises" such as sunflowers.  So this year we're trying Two Sisters.  

Beans and squash in last year's garden

Interplanting, a fancy word for planting more than one thing in the same bed, makes better use of space in the garden and can also help deter pests.  

Also called companion planting or polyculture, interplanting is old hat for most home gardeners, who are used to making the most of small spaces. But most food eaten in the US is produced in large-scale monoculture operations where companion planting is nowhere to be found. We're experimenting with interplanting on a scale somewhere between home garden and small farm: we'll plant 1,000 pole beans and 120 or so winter squash plants in our Two Sisters beds by the time we're done this spring.   

Aside from the practical benefits of interplanting, I think it makes for a more aesthetically interesting garden.  Beauty is not one of the defining characteristics of most food production in the US.  But we're interested to see if we can produce a relatively large amount of food in a beautiful, lush garden more akin to a permaculture food forest than to the image of a field of  row crops that comes to mind when most of us think about food production.  

And more important than all of the philosophizing: we want to eat a lot of dried black beans and butternut squash (protein! beta carotene! vitamins! minerals!) all winter long.  These bean and squash beds in the garden should supply plenty for us, and maybe we'll even have some to trade and sell.  

In the meantime, here's a good resource on companion planting: Sloat Gardens blog post, and another: companion plant table from Urban Grange.