Pie Workshop, Wednesday Nov 7

Writing after the fact, last evening's Pie Workshop was great fun.  Nine students made 6 beef & veggie pies, 5 berry-berry pies, and 4 veggie & cheese quiches.  They played with creative crust designs, baked pies and took them home.  We couldn't bake them all, in spite of running the workshop more than 30 minutes longer, so students brought some of the pies home unbaked, destined either for a late evening bake-off, or a freezer stay.
I am amused to report that by the time I had made a crust for one of my own pie plates, all the fillings had been made into pies (bravo!), so I brought my crust dough home, whipped a bag of frozen apple pie filling out, thawed it in a warm water bath, and pulled a nice pie from the oven before 11 pm.
Just to re-cap simple instructions for pie:
Crust:
2 cups flour + 1 tsp salt;
1/2 cup oil + 1/4 cup milk + 2 tsp water (H2O is an "altitude adjustment", approx 1 tsp / 4k.ft +);
pour liquids into dry ingredients, mix quickly with a fork until flour is absorbed - use hands to finish mixing.
shape dough into 2 balls, one slightly larger for the bottom crust.
roll larger ball between two sheets of waxed paper or parchment until it is circular, and larger in diameter than your pie plate by 3 inches.  remove top sheet of paper, flip crust into pie plate and shape, leaving even excess around all the edges, then remove bottom sheet of waxed paper.  set aside.
roll smaller ball the same way, though diameter can be just 1 1/2" larger than pie plate.
pour filling evenly into pie plate, spreading to minimize gaps, and filling just to the level you are confident will avoid oven spillover when the filling cooks.
remove top sheet of paper from top crust and flip onto pie, centering so that edge overlap is balanced all around the pie.  remove bottom sheet of paper and press edges of both crusts together, shaping as desired into finished pie. alternatively, top crust may be cut into strips or other shapes and used to decorate the pie any way you like.
Filling, Fruit:
3 1/2 cups of fresh or frozen berries per 9" pie, or 5 cups per deep-dish 9", or shallow 11" pie;
1/4 cup max of brown sugar per cup of fruit - I usually cut this in half, but not last night!
Lime zest and juice from one lime per pie
1 Tbs Corn starch and/or Tapioca per cup of fruit.
Filling, Beef & Veggie:
saute' garlic, onions, ground beef and chopped veggies in oil with salt and spices to taste (last evening we used Herbs de Provence, alder-smoked sea salt, and smoky Turkish pepper or "Urfa Biber"), anything you like.
measure volume of filling mixture, and make gravy using liquid from sauteing meat & veggies, plus pre-made beef broth, totaling 1/4 cup of liquid per cup of filling.  measure 2 tsp of corn starch per cup of pie filling, and mix with a small amount of the cold broth, until a thin, smooth paste is formed, then mix with all the broth in a saucepan, and stir while heating, until gravy thickens.  mix gravy with beef and veggies, ready to make into pies.  taste and adjust spices to suit.
Filling, Quiche:
saute garlic, onions, mushrooms and peppers in oil with desired spices, them mix 1 1/2 cups of this with 8 beaten eggs and 1/2 cup of cheese.  add diced fresh tomato or other veggies not pre-cooked as desired.  pour filling into pie plate with lower crust only, and decorate top of egg mixture with sun-dried tomatoes, diced scallions, cheese or whatever suits your fancy.

bake pies in oven at 375°F for between 45 and 60 minutes.  when you have more than one pie in the oven, baking times may need to increase.  judge finished pie by the brown-ness of the crust edge.  with practice you can detect a perfectly finished pie, just with your sense of smell.

It's easy to find pie recipes on the internet, which you can follow verbatim, or use for inspiration for experimentation.  One thing for certain, your family and friends will enjoy your pie adventures, even if you do make a mess of the kitchen.

Happy Holidays and Happy Pies!
Michael Thompson

MT-RecipeCalc spreadsheet for great vegetarian foods

Artisan Bread Class at Rock Bottom Ranch, Oct. 24, 2012

My second Artisan Bread Class was attended by 12 students on Wednesday evening, Oct 24.  We succeeded with everyone mixing dough, shaping loaves, and baking them.  We reviewed the creation and maintenance of bread cultures.  To recap:
Bread Culture may be started from an existing culture, from airborne yeast microbes (by leaving a mixture of flour and water exposed to the air for about 3 - 5 days), or from yeast cultures such as dry bread yeast, or beer yeast left in the bottom of a bottle of homebrew.  Bread culture is fed with flour and water, in an approximate proportion of 2-3 : 1.
Sweet Culture may be started from an existing culture, from airborne yeast microbes, or from commercial yeast.  Sweet Culture is fed with flour, milk (cow, soy or nut milks), and sugar, in an approximate proportion of 2-3 : 1.0 : 0.5.
When using cultures often, you can keep them fairly "thin", but when you are going away for a week or two, feed the culture with more flour, making it "thick", so the culture has plenty of food to keep it healthy.
The oatmeal mix I use to add moisture and texture to bread and pancakes is made from one cup "Bob's Red Mill Ten-Grain Cereal", one cup "Steel Cut Oats", five cups water, and one teaspoon of salt, brought to a boil, then simmered while stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens to desired consistency, then covered with the heat off until cooled.
Here are links to my recipes for the Sweet Culture:
Sourdough Oatmeal Pancakes
Sourdough Oatmeal Coffee Cake

Canning Workshop - Saturday Oct 6, 2012

ACES Rock Bottom Ranch Managers Caitlin Bourassa and Peter Arthur are hosting a Canning Workshop from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012. You may sign up by calling 970.927.6760, or registering Online.For a preview of the recipes, download my RecipeCalc file for the full scoop on the ingredients and instructions we will follow, for Pickled Red Beets, Lemon-Ginger Marmalade, and Peach Salsa  (Apple-Pear Sauce will replace salsa, due to market conditions).
As a student, you'll need to bring a cutting board, paring knife, an apron and a pair of rubber gloves, if you want to handle the hot stuff.  We'll provide all the ingredients, tools and guidance required to complete three projects and send you home with a jar of each, including labels.
What Fun!  Hope to see You there!
MT

Sourdough Bread

Tom Baker, owner of Loaf, a small artisan bakery in Birmingham England, tells us how it's done!


The Starter from Old Dead Eye on Vimeo.
Tom Baker's "Loaf" Cooking School and Community Bakery in Birmingham, England:
http://www.loafonline.co.uk/

PIE BAKING CLASS at Rock Bottom Ranch, August 23

What’s a young Dad to do, with two daughters at home and a wife who travels for work?  Learn to cook, of course!

Michael Thompson learned the art of pie baking from his wife Jan, when she was traveling, their preschool daughters wanted Mom’s pie, and would settle for nothing less. With a late night overseas phone call, Dad got the job done, and has enjoyed the art of pie baking ever since.  Their daughters are now grown and on their own, and are also accomplished pie bakers.

Jan’s pie crust recipe is simple, easy to make, and delicious.  It can be adjusted to be partly whole wheat, and it works very well for savory and sweet pies.  Michael, who taught a sourdough bread class at Rock Bottom Ranch in February 2012, is returning to share this art with you.  Here’s how the class will run:

Students will bring one or two pie plates to class (glass, tin or foil, any size), along with a roller (straight-sided wine bottle will do) and a bowl or two of filling, which can be savory or sweet.  Feel free to be creative, or follow one of MT's recipes:

Meat & Veggie Pie:
For a standard 9" pie plate:  1/2 pound ground beef , 2 Tbs olive oil, 2 cloves garlic, 1 onion, 1 red beet, 2 carrots, 2 cups chopped greens, 1 cup broth, 3 Tbs corn starch, salt, pepper, spices to taste.  Saute ground beef in pan with a few drops of olive oil, stirring until lightly browned and finely grained, remove, drain and set aside.  Finely dice garlic and saute in olive oil, add chopped onion, peeled and chopped beets and carrots, and saute until onions are clear.  Add chopped greens, salt, pepper and other spices, lower heat, and mix in corn starch and half of the broth, and stir until mixture begins to thicken.  Taste and adjust spices as desired.  Continue stirring while slowly adding remaining broth, then stir until mixture begins to boil, then turn off heat, cover and let cool.  Bring to class with pie plates and roller, ready to make pie.
Fruit Pie:
For a standard 9" pie plate: 3 cups fruit*, 2Tbs lemon or lime juice, spices, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, thickener**:
*Apple:  6 - 7 medium apples cored and chopped, citrus juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, **3 Tbs corn starch;
*Peach:  8 - 10 peaches, citrus juice, brown sugar, 1/4 tsp almond or vanilla extract, **3 Tbs tapioca;
*Cherry:  3 cups pitted fresh cherries, cut in half, citrus juice, brown sugar,  1/4 tsp vanilla extract,  , **3 Tbs corn starch, tapioca or arrowroot powder;
*Strawberry/Rhubarb:  3 cups chopped fresh strawberries and rhubarb stalks (3:1), citrus juice, 1 cup brown sugar,  1/4 tsp vanilla extract,  , **3 Tbs corn starch, tapioca or arrowroot powder;
During the class, we will discuss the various thickeners used in pies, which are best for what kinds of pie, and how to make various different crusts.  Students will go home with the pie(s) they made, ready to bake at home, or freeze for baking later.  Hope to see you there!

Bread Baking Workshop!

Workshop Students hard at work!

It was great fun having the bread baking workshop, and I hope everyone is enjoying their new skills.  Check out the next baking day at the Carbondale Community Oven, Saturday March 10, oven fired and ready by 1:00 pm, behind the Third Street Center!

http://carbondalecommunityoven.weebly.com/

Dylan's home bread baked

Batch #1 out of the oven

"Sweet Bread Culture" for:

Pancakes

Coffee Cake

Food Movies!

I have sent to Mary, Gloria and Eileen these two films about the food we eat, how and why to improve the sources of food we use.  I hope your three families will view them soon, and pass them along to Kathleen, John and Daniel, and they will share them with Mom and Ann.  Here are trailers for the films:
"FRESH"

"FORKS OVER KNIVES"

So NOW WHAT?  Am I suggesting that we all abandon eating meat, and make everyone eat only organic produce?  No!  I'm still eating meat and fish, but in far lower quantities, and trying more vegetarian recipes.  My good friend Sam Gordon, after having heart bypass surgery in his 40's, has long been practicing this diet of meat moderation and healthy plants, and he has shared a few recipes with me.  I have added a few more, and put them all into a spreadsheet (each recipe on a different tab along the bottom), which you can download by clicking this link:
MT-RecipeCalc
Our favorites are the Hummus (both garbanzo and fava bean, which we call bean pate'), the Baba Ganoush and the Schoog, all middle eastern dishes that are very nutritious.
One final video, Food Network Chef Alton Brown (my favorite food geek) on the many ways to cook with Garbanzo Beans, and the history of this nutritious legume.
Enjoy!
Love, Michael

an assortment of love

Haley posted these delectable images of "pastel macaroons" from a specialty baker in LA:

Christmas 2009 - Sibling Gifts

SIBS! I hope you enjoy the physical part of our gifts to you, these little jars of fruit preserves. Your "Apple Syrup" is the result of a hunch, that the sweetest cider I harvested this Autumn, from a tree whose apples had hard-frozen and thawed several times and turned brown on the tree, could be distilled like maple sap, into a sweet syrup. It is nearly as sweet as maple, but the apple syrup has its own distinctive character. Warm it up and pour it on pancakes or waffles, and see if you don't like it just as much as maple syrup. Apple syrup's "carbon footprint" is a lot smaller: Maple Syrup is boiled 40 parts sap to 1 part syrup, while Apple Syrup is boiled approximately 7 parts cider to 1 part syrup. Here is my "Rocky Mountain Local" replacement for pancake syrup. The Apricot-Peach Sorbet does not need to be frozen until you open it. Once you have frozen your sorbet, take it out of the freezer about ten minutes before eating, to let it soften just a bit.
The SECOND part of our gift to you is information, contained in the regional posts below this one. Check out your region, and all the small farms and farmers markets you can access for fresh, locally grown organic food. WHY are we giving you this information? Because the world is changing. Many serious problems have come together at once, including crises in global banking and debt, food safety and security, health care, energy and climate change. As we see failures in all these areas, large shifts are underway all around us, to create healthier ways of living, much of it by producing healthy organic local food. I am focused on this work myself, creating solar heated greenhouses, growing edible polycultures, creating wonderful foods from local sources, and trading gifts with my friends who are doing complementary work. We are building community, while watching segments of our global markets collapse, and we are making other arrangements by becoming part of the local supply chain for everyday needs of our community. I hope you enjoy this blog, and as Julia Child would say, "BON APETIT!"

Los Angeles Clan - Your Local Food Networks

As you probably all know, there is a very robust network of LA FARMERS MARKETS, many of them year-round.  Your MAP shows just a few of the closest Farmers Markets to you, and you can DOWNLOAD PLACEMARKS to see them in Google Earth, and to open each one's properties to reveal all the necessary information about the markets.
Of course, for healthy organic grass fed meat, visit your EAT WILD DIRECTORY, and click the link to their CA MAP to zoom in on the meat providers in your area.  It looks a bit scarce in the LA area, but there's a grass fed organic buffalo rancher selling meat in Valencia CA.
To see MAPS for all these places, you can visit LOCAL HARVEST and put your zip code in the upper right field, to see a map and list of the farmers, farmers markets and subscription farms in your area. Go ahead and zoom in on the map so you can see the actual locations in detail.
My favorite COOKING website is ALL-RECIPES - where you can enter a few ingredients you have, and it will give you recipes people have entered, using those ingredients. You can "scale" each recipe for the number of people you want to serve, or amount of ingredients you have. You may also search for "articles" offering advice for canning, roasting meat, making jam, chutney, bread, you name it!

Lorentz Clan - Minneapolis Local Food

Eileen, John, Olivia and David, perhaps someday you will meet the Lasleys at GROWING POWER in Milwaukee, on your way to or from a visit, for a hands-on tour of New Organic Agriculture.
Here is your MAP of a few Farmers Markets and Organic Meat sellers in your area.  You can DOWNLOAD PLACEMARKS for these, which will fly you in Google Earth to their locations, and if you open each placemark's properties, I have included all the contact info and web links for each one.
Of course you have your own HOPKINS FARMERS MARKET that runs through October, and you can also access locally raised, grass fed meat through your Minnesota EAT WILD directory.  You can zoom in on their MN MAP for organic grass fed meat growers nearest to you.  There is a concise CSA FARM DIRECTORY for the twin cities region where you might find just the right deal for fresh vegetables by the weekly share.

Lasley Clan - Your Chicago Connections

Gloria, Dave, Luke, Faith, James - you are all SO LUCKY to be only 85 miles away from one of the coolest New Agriculture learning centers in the nation, GROWING POWER in Milwaukee.  If you made a day trip up there to take one of Will Allen's tours, you would learn a lot about healthy food and see how it's grown.
Here is a MAP of your location and the Farmers Markets near you.  DOWNLOAD PLACEMARKS for these markets, and view them in Google Earth.
I found a great FARMERS MARKET DIRECTORY for the state of Illinois, by town.  Also a list of WINTER FARMERS MARKETS in the Chicago area.  You are surrounded by a network of CSA's (community-supported-agriculture), or Subscrtiption Farms.  GRASS IS GREENER delivers meat, poultry and egg shares in Evanstone and Oak Park, and THE LOCAL BEET will connect you with subscription farmers delivering fresh produce around Chicago.  Check out their websites, read their descriptions of what's in a weekly share, how much of what kinds of food, and how much money they get per share.  "Share-a-Share" with friends or family, or see if you can just order a large quantity of something you'll preserve.
One of the best ways to afford organic, grass fed beef, poultry and pork is to buy a CHEST FREEZER and to buy your meats in quantity.  I am still eating from a quarter steer I put away two years ago, and this year I added a whole lamb, several pastured chickens and a turkey to the freezer.  ILLINOIS EAT WILD has a good listing of organic grass farmers raising all kinds of meat.  You can click on their MAP LINK and zoom in on the growers in your area.

Connecticut Clan - Your Local Farmers

Here is a "Google Earth" map of CT, showing "placemarks" for your homes, as well as for some of the farms included in the lists you can link to, below.  Once in Google Earth, you can enter the address of any farm or farmers market from these lists, and the program will "Fly" you there.  If you download the placemarks I have already created, you can open them to see address, phone number, and sometimes websites for your local food providers.  DOWNLOAD CT PLACEMARKS.
I love everything about picking APPLES in the Autumn.  America's Northeast Region holds a special allure, with the brilliant colors, sounds and smells of trees draining their leaf energy back to the roots, their leaves drying and falling to the ground.  Find an Apple Orchard near you by clicking CT APPLE ORCHARDS.
How about Farmers Markets for all your fresh local vegetables? Clink on these links for Farms and Markets in MIDDLESEX COUNTY, NEW HAVEN COUNTY, FAIRFIELD COUNTY, HARTFORD COUNTY, and LITCHFIELD COUNTY.
To see MAPS for all these places, you can visit LOCAL HARVEST and put your zip code in the upper right field, to see a map and list of the farmers, farmers markets and subscription farms in your area.  Go ahead and zoom in on the map so you can see the actual locations in detail.
For locally raised, grass fed organic meats and eggs, see EAT WILD - CT for meat growers and vendors in your state.  See their CT-MAP to zoom in and find your closest ranchers.
My favorite COOKING website is ALL-RECIPES - where you can enter a few ingredients you have, and it will give you recipes people have entered, using those ingredients.  You can "scale" each recipe for the number of people you want to serve, or amount of ingredients you have.  You may also search for "articles" offering advice for canning, roasting meat, making jam, chutney, bread, you name it!

NOAH - Edible Aspen Magazine, Winter 2009-2010

Click on the photo to read the article about Jerome's high altitude greenhouses!

Food For Thought...

The Business End is a bi-weekly radio show on the underbelly of New York's food system, co-hosted by Nelson Harvey and Annie Myers. Lots of good stuff! Check them out HERE.

Welcome to Locavore Life!

Every time I hear people complain about situations beyond their control, like the global banking crisis, the health insurance crisis, the food safety crisis, and so on, I try to imagine what a LOCAL solution to the problem might look like, a solution we could put faces to, of people we know in our communities, providing goods and services we would otherwise obtain from a global industry.
It hasn't been that long since a large portion of a family's provisions came from local sources. In the Central Rocky Mountains, where I live, supermarkets came to town only after WWII, in the late forties and early fifties. We've enjoyed the conveniences and apparently declining costs of a global factory farming and food processing system for little more than half a century now, and the hidden costs of this unsustainable system are becoming more and more apparent: Severe health problems in humans and in the animals raised for human food, Poisons sprayed on our food crops, and these food crops being genetically modified to survive applications of poison, intended to kill pests and weeds. How can we believe these poisons and genetic modifications won't harm us?
Enough is enough. So what do you do? Must everyone grow a garden in their backyard? Well, not exactly. Many people are already choosing organic produce in their supermarkets, even though there is a degree of "sticker shock" at the checkout. They want healthier food for their families. Each time they make this choice, they are voting for better quality food, and gradually, growers are listening. More and more farmers are seeing other choices themselves, and are leaving the factory farm industry, to convert their soil back to organic, to work with nature instead of against it, to start CSA's (community-supported agriculture, or subscription farms), and to develop local markets for their products. Join a CSA. Buy organic produce from Farmers Markets near you. Find something YOU enjoy growing, making, or baking, something everyone will want.
I have long enjoyed baking bread and brewing beer in my kitchen, and giving these treasures as gifts to my friends. Some of these friends are farmers, raising animals for meat, eggs, growing vegetables and salad greens year-round in greenhouses, roasting organic coffee beans from Mexico and Brazil, making bar soap from local resources, and so on. They sometimes give me some of what they produce. Pleasing them with my bread and beer makes me want to constantly improve my skills, and we are all happily "gifting" each other with things we would otherwise be buying from a factory far, far away, where performing for Wall Street is more important than improving quality for its customers.
This is why I "choose" to seek out local providers for everything possible. These choices create local jobs, seek quality before financial gain, and build real bonds of trust that create solid, exuberant community.
Choose local whenever YOU can, and find a new world right outside your back door. We'll keep an ongoing list of LINKS in the right sidebar, to help you find your way. WE will be an expanding band of brainstormers with solar-powered flashlights to help find our way to a fine future. Welcome!