I don't know what they put in Meyenberg Goat Milk Butter to make it so delicious&mdash maybe it's the "natural flavors," maybe it is just the goats' milk, cream and salt, and maybe I don't care, because I cannot stop eating it! It is light and delicately goaty, perfectly salty, with an absolutely creamy and tender bite. I want to eat it like cheese, but am mostly managing to restrain myself.
P.S. I am not in any way affiliated with Meyenberg, but I am starting to wish I were.
Over Thanksgiving, I became acquainted with this lovely device. I know, I know, I'm late to the party. But, ok, it IS awesome&mdash it slices, it dices, and all of that. This baby churned out apples for two overstuffed pies in just a couple minutes. The best thing of all? The little lever-operated suction cup that affixes it to the counter. More things should have lever-operated suction cups!
A friend of ours throws a delightful cookie party every December: guests bring cookies or dough to swap and decorate, and after a few hours of leisurely baking and frosting, everyone goes home with a giant box of cookies. And I mean giant. These pictures do not even begin to convey the spectacular variety or overwhelming number of cookies at this party. On top of the gingerbread, molasses cookies, truffles, sugar cookies, coconut clusters and pizzelles below, there were biscotti, mint-chocolate chip, three kinds of oatmeal, toffee bars, spoon cookies, wine twists, crumbly crescent cookies and mini black and whites.
I've got a paper due this week, so you've got this beautiful persimmon and granola post-Thanksgiving breakfast pic!
Expect a mondo Thanksgiving post soon!
In the calm before the storm, I can almost hear this simple breakfast mocking: apres moi, le dindon! (that's "turkey" to you!)
This is lunch and dinner for four people for two days: everything we need to make salmon noodles and lentil curry with cous cous, plus plenty of cured meat, fruit and crackers for lunch and desserts. Breakfast and snacks are the purview of other participants, but probably include oatmeal, more fruit and nuts, chocolate, and lots of instant coffee. Oh! I just realized I left the wedge of hard cheese out of the photo. Oh well. This is probably far more food than we need, even without the cheese, but a couple of the team are potential bottomless pits, and hungry hikers are grumpy hikers!
I do know what I ate when I got home, however: this glorious, refreshing, jewel-toned pomegranate. Sent from generous friends in California, it was the perfect way to spend the one moment I had to myself. Eating a pomegranate is something more than sustenance alone, almost a meditation: the juice running everywhere completely precludes multitasking, and navigating the convoluted internal landscape of the fruit is just about as close as I ever get to zen.
When I started making kefir about a month and a half ago, I used a liter container that produced too much of the tart, fizzy fermented milk. I had to change out the milk in the container nearly every day, or else keep the container in the fridge, where it languished and produced weak and mild kefir. Since then, I have found a nice rhythm. I switched to a pint Ball jar, which I keep filled with fermenting milk at room temperature, changing out approximately half the volume every other day. When I refresh the jar, I pour out some of the finished kefir, which goes in a container in the fridge, and top the jar off with milk. This method, which keeps some milk in the jar for longer fermentation, seems to make a thicker and more consistent kefir. I produce between a half-cup and a cup of kefir every other day, which just about perfectly keeps up with my consumption. I use about a half-tablespoon of grains in the pint jar&mdash any more and the kefir ferments too quickly and separates.
The photo shows a very healthy clump of kefir grains&mdash my original photo showed both the grains and some thickened lumps of kefir. When mixed, the kefir becomes liquid and smooth, while the grains remain separate, distinct and rubbery.
Last year a friend gave us a jar of this amazing chutney, a chutney that I ate with yogurt, on bread, and by the spoonful. Sweet, with a spicy, gingery bite and a cloying undertone of onion and mustard, I simply couldn't stop eating it. This summer, I couldn't let plum season pass without making some for myself. Here it is in it's uncooked state; in the jar it's a gorgeous ruby. The recipe is from the excellent Herbfarm Cookbook
