Tuesday Twister – June 9, 2009

My Tuesday Twister posts are my weekly round-up of what’s going on in my kitchen and our lives, as it pertains to food. So here we go – I’ll catch you up on what’s twisting in the kitchen this week!

• Chevre – For my third batch of chevre, I dug in my fabric stash and found a nice cloth with lower thread count than the butter muslin I purchased from DairyConnection.com. The lower thread count cloth allowed the whey to drip out much faster – creating chevre in less than 24 hours. So now I know not to use fine cheesecloth (1m x 1m) for this type of cheese! (It took three days in my first batch of chevre.) Incidentally, I also learned that the best care for any cheese-making cloth involves rinsing in cold water, washing in the washing machine, and hanging dry. The recommended way to sterilize a cloth is by boiling.
• Cultured Butter – I mentioned that I was going to try making cultured butter from goat milk(instead of cream) and I would say my first batch wasn’t worth the effort. From a quart of goat milk, I ended up with 2 tablespoons of butter. However, after talking with Jerri of HomesteaderSupply.com (the person who told me about the recipe), I think I didn’t give the milk enough time to “churn” in the food processor, so I could have gotten more butter. So I am going to try it one more time to see if I get a better yield. Also, I learned not to use the Vitamix for the “churning” because the Vitamix heats up its contents when run that long, which doesn’t work with making butter (you want very cold). I’ll try again, this time entirely in the food processor.
• Sprouted Kamut Crackers – I sprouted and dehydrated kamut last week and have been using the flour for crackers this week. I use the Sprouted Spelt Cracker recipe. The liquid is raw milk from our goats. The crackers are so awesome! I roll them very thin and after they are baked, they taste just like wheat thins. They are heavenly dipped into chevre.
• Natural Goat Care – My mom sent info about a book, Natural Goat Care, by Pat Coleby. I hadn’t seen that book before so I was very thankful she thought to pass it on. I ordered it right away (that “natural” title gets me every time!) and it arrived yesterday. I am going to read a good bit of it today. So far, it looks excellent. Here’s a choice sentence that has me convinced it is worth every penny: “Goats are animals that above all thrive on fully organic natural conditions on the farm; this book tells how it can be done.” I hope to learn more about the traditional diet and habitat of goats so we can work toward providing it; also about non-invasive remedies for illness.
• Hummingbird Wholesale – Today we are receiving our every other month co-op order from Hummingbird Wholesale out of Eugene, Oregon. I love it that they deliver right to me due to the size of our group’s order. I have to ask JJ, the driver, to call me 1/2 hour before he’s going to arrive so we can get all the animals in the barn and lock them up.  Otherwise, his stop can be quite challenging, unloading all those goodies with curious animals! The kids and I will be very busy this afternoon splitting and sorting orders. I’ll deliver some of them tomorrow (Wed) and some on Friday. I schedule the orders for when I know I’m going to be in town and I go to a central location where everybody meets me to retrieve their items.
• Lacto-Fermented Vegetables – Boy, am I dense! My mom told me that she used to do pickled veggies the traditional way, through lacto-fermentation, as taught by my grandma (Tata Wardeh, my namesake)! Why didn’t I pay more attention to this stuff when growing up? But at least now I know where I got such a strong start in life – homemade yogurt often, lacto-fermented veggies, whole grains and raw ingredients. I am ever so grateful to my parents for feeding us real food (even though I didn’t know enough at the time to be grateful).

What’s twisting in your kitchen? I would love to hear!