A Friend in Mead is a Friend Indeed

My adventures in brewing alcohol began with mead - too many viking stories and D&D I guess. My brother-in-law and I decided to begin with a simple mead recipe that only requires a trip to your local supercenter.

Supercenter Orange Metheglin (Spice Mead)

   1 Gallon of Spring Water (room temperature, do not get refrigerated)
   3 pounds of honey – pure unprocessed
   1 bag of balloons big enough to stretch over the mouth of the water jug
   1 package of Fleishmann’s Yeast
   1 box of raisins
   1 Orange
   1 whole clove
   1 half cinnamon stick

Place the honey jar in a bowl of hot water to loosen it up a bit and make it easier to pour. Pour about half of the water into a clean container then slice up your orange into eighths and put the slices, honey, twenty-five raisins, spices and the yeast into the jug. Pour some water back into the jug so the level is a couple of inches from the top then put the cap on it and shake it up well. If you can, you should shake it for a good five minutes. This will aerate the mixture. The yeast really needs lots of oxygen to grow vigorously.

Now poke a pinhole in the top of the balloon, remove the cap from your jug and put the balloon right over the mouth of the jug. Stretch the open end of the balloon right over the jug so that as the gases form inside the jug they will inflate the balloon. Put a rubber band or tape around the neck to keep it firmly in place -if it feels like it might come off. Leave it out on a counter for the first day so you can monitor it.

Somewhere between an hour and twenty-four hours later the balloon will start to inflate. This is a great sign and it means that your yeast is transforming the contents of the jug into wine. Gases are forming inside the jug and are escaping through the pinhole. This setup insures gases escape but no contaminants get into your brew. If the balloon is getting big you may need to poke another hole or two in it. You don’t want it to burst. It would leave your mead open to contamination. Once you are satisfied that the gases are escaping and the balloon is not under unusual stress you can set the jug in a cool dry place like a kitchen cabinet or closet shelf. Check on it every day if you can just to make sure it is ok and the balloon hasn’t popped off.

After two to three weeks the major portion of the ferment will be done and the balloon will be limp. At this point you can taste a little bit to see how it is coming along but it isn’t really a tasty wine at this point. It will need another couple of months to start to get delicious. Over time, as you check on it you will notice that the cloudiness disappears and it slowly clarifies and transforms into wine.

The Orange and the raisins can stay in the mixture for the whole duration but if you want to make the mead a little milder and help it clarify faster you can transfer the liquid into another gallon jug and place the balloon on that one. This would be after the two to three week ferment period has completed. This process is called racking and it will move your mead along nicely.

We transfered the mead to bottles and corked them after about 5 months.  This was to make sure the yeast were all finished so the bottle doesn't explode. We drank a bottle here and there but we noticed about a year later (17-18 months after we started) it really got good. Unfortunalty it was our last bottle so I had to get another batch going.

Gardening for Dummies

  If I told you that there is a type of gardening that requires no digging, no weeding, even no sunlight and would provide (semi) instant gratification would you be interested?

Sprouting seeds in jars has been around for thousands of years and only recently it has become associated with the "hippie-granola-head crowd" but pound for pound there are few foods on this planet more nutritious than sprouts. Sprouts are very easy to grow and require little hardware to get started. They make numerous sprouters that are available online but if you just want to try sprouting a quart-size mason jar is sufficient. Other than the jar you need a fitting canning ring and a piece of cheese cloth or window screen that will fit over the mouth of the jar.
Getting the seeds, however, is more difficult. You can't head down to the garden supply store and buy a packet of seeds, dump them in you sprouter and Viola!- sprouts. You need seeds with a high germination rate that are sold by the pound. Sprouts seeds are light in weight and shelf stable so ordering them from an online retail is a good idea. Other than that check out your local whole earth market. You know they type of place- they sell grass fed alpaca steaks from Chile and amazonian Acai berries, the parking lot is full of Subaru Outbacks, tandem bicycles and VW buses and the dudes that frequent the place look like ZZ Top rejects. If they don't carry sprouting seeds chances are that they will know where to get your hands on some seeds.
Now that you gave the guy down at the market with the hemp shirt a hard time about being pro-sprouts but anti-veal (think about it - it's the same thing!) and have your seeds- now what?  It's bath time! Put about 1/4 cup of seeds into the jar and fill it with cool water then let them soak for about 12 hours. When they are done soaking, secure the screen across the top of the jar with the canning ring and drain the water out. Put the jar, upside down, in your dish drainer so no water will pool around the sprouts. Once a day or so rinse the sprouts by filling the jar with water, drain the water then return the jar, again upside down, to the dish drainer. I usually rinse my jars in the morning (yes I have multiple so I can rotate 'crops'). In about 3-6 days your sprouts will be ready. You will know when they are ready because they look like sprouts not seeds.
Sprouts are great in salads-or as salads for that matter. They add a welcome crunch to sandwiches/wraps and make a nice topping for some stir fry. How about breakfast? Try a sunny side up egg on top of a handful of sprouts and crumbled bacon- awesome!

Breaking a Few Eggs

It began as an attempt to increase my wife's protein intake to combat gestational hypertension, combined with the fact that I now raise chickens. I cook a lot of eggs for breakfast. I wish to share with you the fastest egg preparation I know; the french omelet.
  Even with busy morning schedules an omelet is easy to fit in. The key is to prepare the filling beforehand. I usually cook up some vegetables and meat the night before and use it over several mornings' omelets.
 First put a non-stick pan over medium heat and add a little fat, usually butter, bacon fat or olive oil. Then crack a few eggs (my wife prefers a two-egg omelet, I usually go for four) into a small bowl, add a pinch of salt and a little cream (whole milk works well too). I beat it until mostly combined. I have tried beating the eggs well but have found it to produces an omelet too delicate to handle and I usually have to try to keep myself from throwing the misshapen eggs across the kitchen.
  Once the pan is hot pour in the eggs and grab a spatula. Lift the edges of the omelet and let the uncooked eggs flow underneath. Repeat this around the omelet until no more uncooked egg is pooled on top. Next top with your filling, fold the omelet in half, slap a lid on the pan and kill the heat. Go grab a plate and pour yourself a cup of tea. Take off the lid and slide the omelet onto the plate.
 The total time it took to cook the omelet: 5 minutes 37 seconds. In that short amount of time you have a healthy, home cooked breakfast. Additionally omelets can contain a cornucopia of healthy fillings.

Try sausage, leek, mushroom and cheddar (my current favorite).

How about bacon, onion and roasted red bell pepper?

Maybe diced ham, onion and green bell pepper?

Feeling Mexican? Go for leftover turkey, avocado, cilantro and queso fresco.

Greek? Leftover ground lamb, feta cheese, diced tomato, cucumber and a bit of fresh oregano.

Want some heat? Pickled Jalapenos and cheddar.

How about some leftover sliced steak and some sauteed mushrooms?

Summertime? Go with sliced garden tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and a chiffonade of basil.

Be creative and varied with you omelets. It will add interest to the most important meal of the day, not to mention it is a wonderful opportunity to add vegetables to your diet.

Salad Daze

One of my all time favorite cook books is my reprint of the 1950s Betty Crocker. Showing idyllic, almost Normal Rockwellian portrayances of food, it is both entertaining to peruse and ever so slightly uncomfortably fascist.
  I tell you this because several months ago I hit a low point, culinary speaking. I appreciated the importance of eating raw vegetables in general but became so sick and tired of salads. The salads I served with dinner consisted of a nothing but a handful of greens and blue cheese dressing dumped on top. It was something I would mindlessly consume first so I could get to the 'real' food. But it was faithful old Betty Crocker who pulled me from this hole.
  They say smell (and therefore taste by association) is the most memory provoking of senses. What sparked my salad revelation was a slice of cheese cut, accidentally, on the stinky side of my wooden cutting board. I use one side of the cutting board for most uses but the second side is used for pungent vegetables; onions, garlic and the like. It was on this surface that I sliced some cheddar and let it lay upon the tainted wooden surface while my attention was elsewhere. Upon returning to the slice and consuming it I noticed that it held a faint hint of the onion and garlic oils infused with the wood. I also noticed that it tasted good.
  This then sparked a memory from the salad section of the old Betty Crocker Cookbook instructing one to rub a wooden bowl with cut cloves of garlic to infuse the greens with a hint of garlic flavor. The bowl was then washed with hot water only and was not put to any other use that you did not want the subtle flavor of garlic added. I did not have a wooden bowl at the time but that very night I tried the trick with a glass bowl and for the first time in a long time I enjoyed a salad with dinner.
  This sparked a salad renascence in my kitchen. I now own a wooded salad bowl- purchased with some leftover Christmas money and it holds salad nearly every night for my family. I have been experimenting with just about any vegetable that tastes good raw. I also have mostly abandoned bottled salad dressing. I suggest never reading the ingredient list on bottle of salad dressing if you wish to continue using then. Instead I have been dressing the salad in the bowl with oil and vinegar plus basically anything else I think will taste good. Below I have included several suggested combination.

Mixed greens, minced shallot, blue cheese crumbles, chopped walnuts, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Red leaf lettuce, sprouts, thinly sliced red bell pepper, chopped avocado, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, red wine vinegar, cumin, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Romaine lettuce, sliced cucumber, grated pecorino romano cheese, olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mixed greens, sliced cucumber, minced red onion, fresh oregano, feta cheese crumbles, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Green leaf lettuce, sliced onion, sliced celery, sliced apple, chopped pecans, blue cheese crumbles, olive oil,  apple cider vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mixed greens, sprouts, sliced radish, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, dry mustard, paprika, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mainly I suggest experimenting with the salad, make them interesting to make and they will be interesting to eat as well. Plus, let's face it, we could all use more raw vegetables in our diets.

Steaking My Claim

I went with my wife out to a steakhouse for dinner and had a lovely meal. I was forced, however, to specifically ask that my steak not be adulterated in any way. Ever single piece of cow on the entire menu had various rubs and/or sauces added to them. In general I am in favor of subtle and layered flavors in food but do not mess with good steak. Rubs, sauces and steak sauces are for steaks past their prime. If the steak is good all it needs, in my opinion, is a little salt.

How Steak Should Be
  Steak (Any good cut is fine. Rib, T-Bone, Sirloin, Tenderloin, etc.)
  Kosher Salt
  Canola Oil

Turn on your stove vent and crack a window. Then put a cast iron skillet over the top end of medium high and add little canola oil. We are looking for an oil here that will take the high heat and have a neutral flavor, canola works pretty well for this.

When the iron smokes, only then remove the steak from the fridge. Cold meat will stay rarer in the middle, and rare is good. Sprinkle lightly on one side of the steak with kosher salt- the flake shape of the salt sticks better to the meat.

Place the steak salt side down on the cast iron and don't touch it for three to four minutes. Flip the steak with tongs and again do not touch it for three minutes. Evacuate the steak to a platter and allow it to rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting.

This produces a steak know as 'Black and Blue.' The outside should have a nice deep sear (especially on the salted side) and the center should be basically still raw. Because of this I do not recommend this style of steak to anyone pregnant, nursing, has a weakened immune system or is rather young. Additionally I would make sure the steak is fresh, good quality and from a reputable butcher. Use caution here because used improperly this recipe can make you ill. Good Luck.