June 18, 2009 at 11:26 am (Preserving Traditions)
Are you daunted by the thought of making homemade pie crust? Come join Preserving Traditions on Sunday, July 12 for a sweet lesson. Our teachers, Mary Wessel Walker and her dad, Jim, will lead us through making a real lard-and-butter pie crust and tart cherry pie filling. (If you don’t care for lard, you’ll be able to use butter or shortening in a separate mixer.)
Each participant will take home a ready-to-bake cherry pie! You’ll need to bring the following:
- One generous quart of fresh tart cherries (we’ll pit them at the Grange)
- 2 cups of sugar
- A stick of butter (4oz)
- A pie plate
Also, let us know if you can bring any of the following:
- A cherry-pitter, either mechanical or the handheld plunger type
- A food processor with a steel blade
- A rolling pin
…and let us know if you prefer not to use lard. We’ll have vegetarian/vegan options on hand for you.
Cost is $5 (free for members of the Grange). Space is limited! RSVP at http://cherrypie.sign-up-sheet.com/
Sunday, July 12
2-4:30 pm
Pittsfield Grange
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May 13, 2009 at 8:00 am (Preserving Traditions)
Come learn to can with Preserving Traditions! We’ll be making a relatively low-sugar strawberry jam recipe that requires only three ingredients, but can be adapted to a variety of interesting flavor combinations.
Once the jam is made, we’ll learn how to can it in a simple water bath canner. This water bath technique can be used to can any jam, jelly, fruit, and many kinds of tomatoes and salsas.
Bring 3 quarts of fresh strawberries and 2 empty pint canning jars (or 4 half-pint jelly jars). We’ll provide all the other ingredients plus equipment, lids, and bands.
Space is limited to 15 people – please RSVP here!
Sunday, June 14th
2-4:30pm
Pittsfield Grange
3337 Ann Arbor-Saline Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI
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May 12, 2009 at 8:54 am (Preserving Traditions, recipes)
Seven people joined us at the Preserving Traditions event at the Grange last Sunday to learn to make yogurt and granola. Yogurt, as a process, takes time but not much attention once the milk has come up to temperature. Granola is also easy, though you really need to watch the timer once it goes into the oven.
We made half a gallon of plain yogurt and three batches of granola: pineapple/coconut, sesame/currant, and “the kitchen sink” with wonderful crispy walnuts, sesame seeds, and several kinds of dried fruit. Even after our yogurt parfait buffet, there was plenty for each person to take home.
There’s lots of variation in recipes for both yogurt and granola. The instructions below are a good set of guidelines – don’t be afraid to play with them a bit to suit your taste.
Yogurt
- Heat one or two quarts of milk to 180 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer, heat it until just before it boils. You want steam and a few bubbles, but not actual boiling.
- Cool it to 110 degrees – just barely warm to the touch.
- Take about 1/2 cup of milk out and dissolve your starter. You can use prepackaged starter or existing yogurt.
- Add the starter back to the big pot of milk and mix thoroughly.
- Pour into containers and keep warm for 4-8 hours. We used a cooler with a hot pack – you can use any method you can think of to keep the jars at around 90-100 degrees.
- Once it’s thickened, store in the fridge.
Yogurt notes:
- You can use any kind of milk: skim, whole, creamtop, powdered, ultra-pasteurized, and even soy.
- There’s a lot of variation using yogurt as starter. Best results come from homemade yogurt started with packaged starter, but you can also use Dannon plain yogurt – about 2-3 Tbl per quart of milk.
- The thickening of the yogurt comes from keeping it warm during the incubation period.
- The yogurt will reach maximum tartness (and lowest lactose levels) after 3-4 days.
- It’ll keep at least 2 weeks in the fridge.
Granola
You can mix an match any flavor combination you like, but keep these proportions roughly equal:
- 5 cups dry ingredients: rolled oats, other rolled grains, puffed grain cereal
- 1 cup nuts or seeds
- 1/2 cup oil plus 1/2 cup honey or other sweetener
- 1 cup dried fruit and/or coconut
Method of assembly:
- In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients and the nuts.
- Heat the honey and oil until it’s very liquid.
- Pour the honey and oil over the dry ingredients and stir to coat thoroughly.
- Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes.
- When the nuts start to get toasty, or the oats start to brown, remove from oven.
- Stir in the fruit and coconut while it’s still warm.
- Cool and eat!
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May 10, 2009 at 7:44 pm (Musings, Preserving Traditions, recipes)
I’m not going into the details here, because this is not a “dear diary” kind of blog, but oh my, has a lot of Life Been Happening lately. My main task has been to keep my head above water, and if I have any left, those of my loved ones, so blogging…not so important lately.
In lieu of writing full posts on all the things I could be writing about, I give you a List of Stuff. Details may be forthcoming on some of them; if one intrigues you, let me know and I can bump it up in the queue.
Listiness:
- Lentil pie: carrots, onions, and broccoli (pick a different 3rd veg next time) topped with seasoned lentils (not very soupy) and a layer of diced potatoes. Sprinkle top with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic and a good spray of olive oil. Bake at 400 for 35 mins. Nummy.
- Preserving Traditions continues to rock. We made yogurt and granola today, and it was intensely gratifying when we got to the sampling part of the day that the only noise was the clanking of spoons and the occasional grunted “Mmmm, tha’s good!”
- A local cooking angel will be doing a small fundraiser dinner for PT in June. Details as they become available…
- Found a 17-piece Farberware set for $99 after rebate today. Bought one and will split with the Grange.
- Food allergy testing is a pain in the neck, but going ok.
- I still have candy left from the awesome schmawesome Easter basket I got this year.
- This town is full of brilliant, visionary, hard-working local food entrepreneurs. Soon, there may be local sauerkraut, kimchee, kombucha, and other fermented wonderfulnesses!
- The peas in the greenhouse are up to my HIP. Spinach, lettuce, and a couple leaves of kale have been harvested.
- In 2 hours this morning, I got the screenhouse and the strawberry bird netting up. They both need some tweaking, but they’re mostly ready. The number of garden infrastructure projects is down to 1 necessary and 4 would-be-nice projects, so that’s a huge relief.
- I can plant the rest of the garden (almost) any time now.
- I can now tie a bow hitch knot with one hand, thanks to a workshop at the cool weekend event I went to. It was my first NRA-subsidized event, but I didn’t learn to shoot because all those workshops were full by the time I registered.
- I made my first solar-cook-while-at-work dinner: split pea soup. Just set everything up before work, and it was soup when we got home. Amended with a couple quick sides and dinner took 15 minutes and almost no cleanup.
- There are volunteer squashes growing in the new middle garden. I think they are from the jack-o-lanterns that were composted out there last fall!
- Gonna frost tonight; we’ll see if those Contender beans I’ve been saving are as frost-hardy as they seemed to be two years ago.
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April 16, 2009 at 12:14 pm (Preserving Traditions)
Mom always said breakfast was the most important meal of the day. So bring your mom, or your kids, or think fondly of your own mom who’s far away, and come learn how to make your own yogurt and granola this Mother’s Day (May 10th) with Preserving Traditions! We’ll demonstrate the basics of making yogurt with no special equipment, and then we’ll concoct several varieties of granola together. You’ll also get to make a yogurt parfait with homemade cream-top yogurt, the granola we’ll make in class, and some local blueberries picked last summer.
We’ll provide rolled oats, oil, and sweeteners. Each person should bring a container to take home some granola, and one of the following:
- One cup of puffed rice, kashi, or other puffed grain cereal
- 3/4 c. bite-sized dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, diced apricots, diced apples, etc.)
- 1/2 c. shelled nuts or seeds (almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc.)
- 1/2 c. “extras” – coconut, wheat germ, ground flax seed
RSVP here!
Note: Preserving Traditions is part of the Pittsfield Grange. Grange members attend all PT events free of charge. We request a donation of $5 from non-members to cover materials and use of the hall, or you can sign up for membership the day of the event.
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February 12, 2009 at 10:39 am (Preserving Traditions)
Lee Purdy of Westwind Milling Company (Linden, MI about 40 miles north of Ann Arbor) will talk to us about different types of wheat, the kinds of wheat grown in Michigan, and his farm and historic mill.
Westwind is one of the few places in our area to buy locally-grown grains, and they are organic. They also have much better prices than the grain sellers at the farmers’ market, so if you do a lot of baking, consider placing an order. If you would like to buy some flour or baking mixes (or mustard, or syrup, or…) from Westwind, place an order by phone or through their web site and Lee will bring your order down on March 8th. (Please pay directly to the mill when you place your order.)
You will also have a chance to try several types of home grain mills and learn about grinding your own flour from whole grains. If you can bring a grain mill to demonstrate, please let us know in the “additional information” box. (Don’t throw your back out bringing your cast iron Country Living mill, though!)
RSVP here!
When and where:
Sunday, March 8th, 2pm
Pittsfield Grange (map)
3337 Ann Arbor – Saline Rd.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
$5 donation requested
Note: You can take the #16 bus from the Blake Transit Center downtown Ann Arbor. Get off on Oak Valley Drive (the bus will pass Meijer and turn left). You’ll have to walk a couple hundred yards down Ann Arbor – Saline road; the Grange is on the south (left) side of the road.
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February 8, 2009 at 7:54 pm (Cooking, Preserving Traditions)
Wow. Just…wow. How to sum up the Preserving Traditions noodlemaking event?
Well, first of all, my arms are so freakin’ tired! Making noodles with a rolling pin is hard work! I’m so glad so many folks brought pasta machines to share. And also, I think I’m finally “letting down” after about two solid weeks of being completely abuzz about this event. It was almost like a 2-week caffeine high – for someone who doesn’t drink coffee.
So – the event. There were 19 attendees, plus me and our most able presenter, Julie Ritter. Julie led us through the basics: 2 cups of flour and 2 eggs; smoosh together, then knead. And knead. And knead. We explored dough elasticity and resiliency, and when she discovered someone with a nice lump of dough, we all ran over to that table to poke and prod it.
Then we started rolling and cutting the dough – some with rolling pins and knives, some with machines. We also had a couple kinds of flour. The all-purpose flour looked much more like whole wheat dough than I’d expected, and we also had spelt and semolina flours. The semolina was almost magical. It started off looking like cornmeal, and somehow came together into an amazingly smooth, elastic ball. It didn’t tear when rolled.
We also learned the importance of flouring the noodles before putting them into a bowl or a bag! I ruined half my finished noodles by not flouring them enough. I don’t know how they make those pasta “nests,” but you can’t just coil up the pasta and have it work out. Maybe if it dried completely?
We cooked 2 batches of noodles: one all-purpose flour, hand-rolled and cut (and very thick!) and one semolina and done with the machine. They were both good, but very different. The hand-cut noodles would be great in a heavy winter soup, like chicken and dumplings. The semolina made pasta more like what you’d buy and serve with an Italian sauce.
And now I’m pretty whipped. I’m ready to let a day or two – or heck, even a couple of waking hours – go by without plotting, planning, or arranging something for Preserving Traditions. And then I’ll be ready to get the next events around, because holy cow…this was a blast and I can’t wait to do it again!
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There are a few spots open in Sunday’s strawberry jam canning class! 
