While Mama Dazz is off on one of her super duper important job adventures, I have taken the liberty to implement my plan to change the way we eat food... and using the majority (if not all) the kitchen's counter space.
Those with healthy eating blogs and websites eat healthily, and I thought I was healthily eating healthy foods in a healthful sort of way. But then something clicks for you, in my case a hike in the woods with HL who told me how she discovered her love of fermenting food, and then I started doing research about what and how I was eating.
You could say I saw a new “whey” of thinking.
Fermenting food, with salt, whey, and sugars of all sorts, is changing my life for the better. It rippled into other aspects of health and I began questioning: why I was drinking whole milk products that were homogenized and pasteurized and not raw; for that matter, why I was eating anything pasteurized to start; why I was drinking caffeine every morning (more on this later); why there was "edible" wax on certain fruits and veggies I ate*; why I wasn’t soaking or sprouting grains/legumes/seeds every time I prepared to eat them (more on this later also); and why not everything I ate was either organic, from an eco-friendly sustainable source, something I grew or helped raise, or local? I need to be the change I wish to see for the world. A lot of things weren’t adding up, and I didn’t like it.
So today, as an experiment, I went shopping for this week’s provisions, all organic from Trader Joe's and from the farmers market**. It turned out it essentially cost the same, in some cases less to buy our food this way! I plan on getting raw milk from the Amish farm to make my own yogurt/kefir, soft cheese, and whey, and ordering our legumes and grains online. Until then, I’m using up the food we have, enjoying goat milk in my hot drinks, dreaming about lacto-fermentation (both the whey way and the sea salt way), kombucha, and getting ready to soak some sprouts.
This post marks the journey of how Meals with Morri is looking at and treating food differently, and the usage of many, many mason jars.
* "Edible" by these standards means "non-toxic".
** I went to the Cascades Farmers Market this time, was thoroughly impressed, but be sure to bring cash with you since few accept credit cards.
** I went to the Cascades Farmers Market this time, was thoroughly impressed, but be sure to bring cash with you since few accept credit cards.
Fresh whole Amish milk? Might want to try this the next time you want some fresh cheese!
ReplyDeleteHomemade Paneer (Indian cheese): Boil a gallon of organic or fresh whole milk, add to it a quart of buttermilk (Lemon juice, or another acidic liquid will also work). strain curds that form into a colander with a cheesecloth spread out in it. Contents will be ridiculously hot, be careful. Squeeze out remaining liquid, then blend to smooth out texture. Cheese can be molded into a block and cooled in the fridge. You can also season as desired before the curd-stage (put into the boiling whole milk). Cheese will otherwise have a mostly flavorless ricotta taste. Add to Indian or any other dish. This works amazingly well in sauces of all tastes and textures.
As a snack, I have been known to lightly fry the cheese cubes such that the outsides turn a beautiful golden color (think roasting marshmallows for color comparison). Crispy on the outside, smooth and warm on the inside. Add a bit of salt (and perhaps some garlic and other spices) and enjoy :)
Great minds think alike! I was actually thinking about paneer, and heard how amazing it was made from scratch. Thank you!!!
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