Naturally Risen Sourdough

Here's an update on my sourdough experiments : my first batch without any added commercial yeast rose all on its own! Previously, I'd relied on 1/4 tsp of commercial yeast as a sort of training wheels, but now I'm excited to be able to bake bread without it. It feels empowering to know that if I maintain this starter, I can make bread even if I don't have access to yeast.

Two days before baking, I removed the sourdough starter from the fridge and fed it with 3/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup water. I covered it with a wet cloth and let it sit on the counter overnight. By the next day, it was dotted with tiny bubbles and smelled quite yeasty. By feeding it and letting the starter sit out of the fridge for a night before baking, it really activates the yeast - unlike the cold in the fridge, which suppresses it.

I prepared the dough by combining half the starter with 2 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup flax seeds, 1 tsp salt and a little less than 1 1/2 cup water. I went easy on the whole grains this time so as to not hinder the rising process. Since it worked out, next time I'll try adding a greater proportion of whole wheat and other grains. I let the dough sit out on the counter for another night, before baking it the next day according to these directions.

I returned the sourdough starter to the fridge to wait until the next baking. I added just a little flour and water, so that the yeast won't run out of "food" over the week or so. When I'm ready to bake again, I'll follow the same process as above.

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Making Whole Grain Sourdough Bread

I always wanted to try sourdough bread...someday...but was put off by the all the complex instructions out there for getting started. This summer, I got lucky when a friend gifted me a starter from his own sourdough baking, with the instructions to follow the recipe for sourdough in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. 

the starter

Bittman's recipe is a good place to start because it's almost like sourdough-lite. You still add commercial yeast to make sure the bread will rise, and the starter is really there just for flavor. The day before baking, I spoon out half the starter into a bowl to combine it with yeast, flour, water, salt and my own mix of whole grains to up the nutritional value. Since his recipe involves making dough the day before, it means I can take a no-knead approach and just do a quick knead until it forms a supple ball. After letting the dough sit overnight, I bake it sometime the next day. 

using half the starter to bake a loaf

Each time I bake, I feed the starter by adding more flour and water. I then let it wait in the fridge for a week until I'm ready to bake again. Sometimes more than a week goes by, and the starter accumulates a grayish liquid on top - which is apparently alcohol called hooch that forms when the yeast runs out of sugar and starch to feed on. I pour off the hooch and scrape off the top grayish layer of starter to discard. Then I feed the starter and then wait another day or up to a week until I bake again. 

feeding the starter with new flour and water

Sometimes my sourdough bread rises well, and sometimes it doesn't. I am not really sure why - I think it has to do with how the starter has been fared since the last time I fed it. It's also possible that the rye flour I like to include is suppressing yeast bacteria. There are all sorts of forums for diagnosing soudough issues that you can get lost in, but I choose to ignore them and stick with my same approach. I don't let perfection worry me too much, and just hope it turns out better next time. My friend said he's since moved on to a new method that doesn't use commercial yeast, which I'll have to try next...

Whole Grain Sourdough Bread 

(adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

To make the starter:

At least two days ahead of baking, combine 1 1/2 cup flour, 1/8 tsp yeast and 1 cup warm water. Cover with a damp towel and leave out on your counter. Stir every 8 to 12 hours. Within 1-3 days, the starter should be bubbly and develop a sour smell. After that you can store it in the fridge until you're ready to bake.

To maintain the starter:

Each time you use half the starter for baking, feed it by adding 3/4 cup all purpose flour and 1/2 cup water. Whisk to combine. Cover with a damp cloth and leave out overnight. The next day, cover the container and store in the fridge for up to a week before baking and/or feeding again.

To make the dough:

1/2 of the starter

1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 - 2 cups of water

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup rye flour

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup oats

1/4 cup flax seeds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 tsp salt

The day before baking: 

In a large bowl, stir the yeast and 1/2 cup warm water until the yeast is mostly dissolved in the water. Let it sit for about five minutes until you can smell the yeasty aroma that indicates the yeast is working. Dump the flour, grains and salt on top, along with 1/2 cup of water. Stir to combine and add more water as needed in 1/4 cup increments. With experience, you will learn the consistency you are looking for - wet and pliable but still able to knead and handle without it being too sticky. I knead right in the bowl, rather than on a cutting board to save on cleanup efforts, for about five minutes. I dust my hands and the dough with flour a few times during kneading as needed. Form the dough into a ball, place seam side down in the bowl, and cover the bowl with a damp towel. Let it rest overnight.

12-24 hours later:

Preheat the oven to 450 about 30 minutes prior to baking. Lightly grease a loaf pan. Gently press down the risen dough and shape into a loaf. Bake at 450 for 30 minutes and then turn down the heat to 350 and bake another 15-30 minutes, until loaf is golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

If you're not ready to try making sourdough yet
See here for my versatile adaptations of no-knead dough
and see here for my regular whole grain bread recipe

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Thanksgiving 2011

It's been three years since I was last lead cook for Thanksgiving. This year, I made all the side dishes and my own turkey legs. My mom made the big turkey and gravy and pies and my relatives brought the rest of the desserts. I came home Wednesday to give me plenty of time for cooking ahead and wrote out a schedule of food prep to follow on Thanksgiving day, which helped it all go smoothly. Except that I can never get the hang out how my mom's oven is consistently hotter than every other oven I've ever used and doesn't brown when roasting but goes straight to burn.

Roasted turkey legs
Roasted for about 90 minutes at 350, turned over halfway through.

My mom continues to insist on a free Shoprite turkey, so this year I did what I should have done in other years and brought my own portion of turkey from the farmers market to eat.

Rosemary no-knead rolls
Prepare the no-knead bread recipe, double it and add a bunch of diced fresh rosemary. The next day, two hours before baking, grease two muffin tins. Lightly press down the dough, pinch off pieces and roughly form them into balls and place in muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Makes 24.

These rolls were a little tough on the outside. I think the crunchy crust that this no-knead method can create translates to toughness in rolls. Probably I need to try rolls made all in on day with milk for a fluffier texture.

Green beans with lemon, shallots and almonds
Sautee shallots and almonds. Meanwhile, steam green beans in a few inches of water for 5-10 minutes to desired tenderness. Combine in one dish with the juice of one lemon.

I don't like green beans that much but I liked this just fine.

Roasted Brussels sprouts
These sprouts were small enough that I didn't need to cut them in half first, just roasted at 400 for about 20 minutes on one side and ten minutes on the other.

A classic that pleased my grandfather who thinks boiled brussels sprouts taste terrible, despite being slightly overbrowned.

Mashed potatoes and celery root
I think celery root lends an elegant flavor to mashed potatoes. But I only used one large celery root to about 8 potatoes, so the ratio was off and it should have been more like two celery roots.

Hasselback sweet potatoes with maple syrup and sage
Slice sweet potatoes almost all the way to the bottom. Finely dice one bunch of sage and mix it in with two tbsp olive oil and two tbsp maple syrup with sage. This is messy, butuse your fingers to spread the sage, olive oil and mayple syrup mixture in between the potato slices. Bake at 400 for about 40 minutes. Can be made ahead and rewarmed.

My mom usually makes just straight up baked sweet potatoes, so this is classier and prettier and creates a nice hint of sweetness and sage. However, it was time consuming to carefully slice the potatoes and spread the sage mixture.

Roasted butternut squash with chickpeas and parmesan
Cut one large butternut squash into small one-to-two inch pieces. Roast in olive oil at 400 until browned. Afterward, add one to two cups of pre-cooked chickpeas and grate in a half cup of parmesan. Can be made ahead and reheated the next day in the oven.

A favorite combination of mine.

Stuffing with celery, apple and onion
Dice two red onions, one bunch of celery and three apples. Sautee in one stick of butter (!) until softened. Tear up two day-old baguettes into small pieces. Combine vegetables and baguette in a container of vegetable stock and add sage and poultry seasoning. Let sit in the fridge over night. Use some stuffing to stuff the turkey. The remainder will fill a casserole; bake at 400 until warmed through and browned on top.

This is the stuffing recipe I have been eating my whole life, made with baguette instead of pepperidge farm bread crumbs.

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My Standard Whole Grain Bread

This is the bread recipe that has become my standard. I was into the no-knead method last year, but now I'm back to taking a whole weekend afternoon to make bread and other things. Mostly just because I'm having a hard time planning to be able to start no-knead dough a day in advance.

While this may not rise very much and is on the dense and crumbly side fresh out of the oven, it makes for excellent crunchy toast, which is how I usually eat bread anyway. Since I can't finish a loaf on my own before it goes stale, I slice and bag it for the freezer, most often having a piece of toast with a cup of tea or coffee for breakfast on morning workdays. The variety of grains gives it a complex and nutty taste that goes well with a little butter or peanut butter on top.

I only wish I hadn't accidentally broken my other beautiful loaf pan. I need to get a second one ASAP because now that it's summer, it makes sense to bake two loaves at a time and use the oven less often.

Wholegrain Bread
1 tsp yeast
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat bread flour
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup rye
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
About 1 1/2 - 2 cups water total

In a large bowl, stir the yeast and 1/2 cup warm water until the yeast is mostly dissolved in the water. Let sit for about five minutes until you can smell the yeasty aroma that indicates it's working. Dump the grains, salt, olive oil, and honey on top, along with another 1/2 cup of water. Stir to combine and add more water as needed in 1/4 cup increments. With experience, you will learn the consistency you are looking for - wet and pliable but still able to knead and handle without it being too sticky.

I knead right in the bowl, rather than on a cutting board to save on cleanup efforts, for about five minutes. I dust my hands and the dough with flour a few times during kneading as needed.

Form the dough into a ball, place seam side down in the bowl, and cover the bowl with a wet dishtowel. Let rise for about 90 minutes, until the dough has approximately doubled in size.

Gently press down to press out the air. Use a spoon or spatula to carefully gather the dough away from the sides of the bowl and reform it into a ball. Let rise another 60 minutes with the wet towel on top.

Grease a loaf pan. Once the dough has about doubled in size again, press air out gently and remove from bowl. In my hands, I form the dough into a ball again and then gently elongate it into more of a rectangle that is the size of the loaf pan. Place in the pan, seams down. After 15 minutes, preheat the oven to 375.

After another half hour, once the dough has risen above the top of the pan, place the pan in the oven. Bake for one hour. Let cool for another hour before slicing.

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Rosemary Leek Buttermilk Biscuits

What did I end up making with the butter and buttermilk? Again I copied Kelly of Eat Make Read and made biscuits! With dried rosemary and a chopped up baby leek from the farmers market.

This was the first time I've tried making biscuits and they didn't rise very much. I'm not sure if the consistency of the batter was too wet. Or it could have been that I used white whole wheat flour. Or that I cut the dough into rounds too small. Despite not being fluffy, they still had a great buttery flaky taste.

I brought the biscuits, as well as extra butter for topping, to a friend's potluck and meant to take pictures but was having so much fun that I forgot! I will also add that the homemade butter has lasted a few weeks now and has not gone bad as I had read it might.

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Experimenting

I haven't have a whole lot of time or inclination for cooking or blogging lately, as music making has been edging out other activities as a priority. So it makes me happy when I manage to find an occasion to cook something new rather than the tried and true like yesterday's post.


I had some delicious soft and slightly sweet bread at Spring Street Natural a few weeks ago that we deduced to be sweet potato bread. I experimented with making my own recently, adapting the potato bread recipe from my trusty copy of Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. And my new apartment came with a dutch oven(!), which makes it easy to achieve this beautiful crust without needing to adapt my slow cooker crock with aluminum foil. I used one medium sweet potato in my version, and the flavor came out nice but a little too subtle, so I'd like to experiment again with a greater proportion of mashed yams.


I also tried my hand at homemade veggie burgers for the first time recently. I don't know why I'd never done this before...I guess I thought it was more complicated, but it really is as easy as throwing beans and a few other ingredients in a food processor, forming patties, and frying them. I forgot to snap pictures, but I made vegan black bean burgers with onion, garlic, cumin and other spices, and oats instead of bread crumbs. Well, they were vegan until I added cheese on top. It was a winning combination together with toasted slices of sweet potato bread and mustard.


I would have liked my burgers to be less mushy on the inside, which seems like a common problem with veggie burgers - does anyone have any tips on that? My sister recommended incorporating wheat gluten for consistency. I will be experimenting with homemade veggie burgers more now that I have become an almost vegetarian (more on that another day), so I'll report back once I settle on a recipe or two I like.

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The Bread of Life

I finally tried no-knead bread. Yes, I am late to this game, but like everyone says, it is truly revolutionary how easy it is to make a great artisan loaf with this recipe. No need (pun intended) to take the time to knead by hand or to knead by food processor and then wash its bazillion parts. No need to spend all afternoon or evening monitoring a rising blob of dough.

I started making my own bread two and a half years ago, as part of my campaign to cut out processed foods. Even healthy sounding breads available at the supermarket are hiding high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. Baking at home is cheaper than shelling out $4 for a fresh bakery loaf and allows you to control the ingredients. I have the added option of making totally local bread, since here in NYC, we are lucky to have access to locally grown and milled flours from the Blew Farm, Wild Hive Farm, and Cayuga Organics, sold at the Union Square and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarkets.

I've kept it up fairly faithfully, making a loaf every week or two, except for those steamy summer days when you wouldn't dare turn on the oven, and except for the six months when my sister lived with us and brought home fresh bread daily from the bakery where she worked. My go-to recipe used to be the basic whole wheat recipe in The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking, but it takes over four hours from start to finish and involves a lot of hands-on time, which was annoying on work nights.

In contrast, the no-knead method feels like a breeze. I take five minutes to mix dough one night after work. The next night when I come home, I simply reshape the dough into a ball, wait two hours, and then bake it for an hour. If you've wanted to try breadmaking, but you've been too intimidated, I encourage you to start with this method.

* You do not need a dutch oven. I don't have one, which is why I always avoided this method, but I finally took the time to look it up, and my CrockPot stoneware is oven safe and it does the charm (not including the glass lid - cover the top with foil instead to catch the steam).


* A regular loaf pan, preheated, will also work with a foil cover. The Kitchn suggests some more dutch alternatives here

* The recipe is forgiving. For a while, I was lacking in teaspoons and my yeast measurements were more of a guessing game than an exact measurement, but 24 hours allows plenty of time to rise and develop gluten even if you're a little short on yeast. Likewise, if you're worried you didn't get the right ratio of flour to water, it will still turn out okay.

* This recipe can be used for making a decent pizza crust. Divide the dough in half to make two nice-size pizzas on a preheated baking sheet or preheated cast iron pan.

* You can go ahead and add whole wheat flour. It won't rise as much or get as holey, but it will still have a crackly top and become a moist, hearty whole wheat loaf.

* I have experimented with making a multigrain loaf, but I went a little too crazy (cornmeal + rye + whole wheat + ground flax seeds + molasses + yogurt + sunflower seeds) and I don't think there was enough gluten to give it structure. This version was adequate, but not stellar. I'm going to work on this and will be sure to report back with a multigrain recipe once I've made some progress.

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Chicken and Hot Pepper Pizza

I made pizza again and look at how beautiful it is! I'm always surprised at how it comes out looking and tasting like real pizza, minus the whole charred crust blackened by an 800 degree brick oven of course. This one was topped with tomato sauce, diced chicken, hot pickled peppers, and parmesan.

I know everyone loves Peter Reinhardt's whole wheat pizza dough as featured on 101 Cookboks, but whenever I make it, the crust is just too thin for my liking. It works great for the grill, but now that I've got my oven back, I'm sticking with my other go-to pizza dough recipe, which is what I used here.

Mmm pizza. I guess it's a good thing it's so time intensive with all that rising, or I'd be making and eating pizza to much for my own good.

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Grilled Pizza with Arugula and Goat Cheese

Another grilled pizza success, using dough balls that I had kept in the freezer since last time I made pizza. I changed up the topping by making simple arugula and goat cheese pizzas. I drizzled olive oil over the top, scattered a handful of fresh arugula leaves, dotted it with goat cheese, shredded some parmesan, and finished it off with a little salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning spices. The peppery argulua wilted down nicely and goes oh so well with creamy goat cheese. As you can see above, I didn't use so much goat cheese - because I find my local Patches of Star goat cheese to be really rich and like it best in small, savored doses.


After making two such pizzas, I ran out of arugula - what to put on the third? Then I spied a mushy Heirloom tomato that needed to be eaten soon in my fruit bowl, so I sliced the tomato thinly and placed it atop all the ingredients on the pizza, minus the arugula. Also delicious - how can anything with crispy bread and sweet heirloom tomatoes not be?

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A Busy Night

I came home tonight and cooked for about 2 1/2 hours straight. I didn't need to. I guess I just felt like getting all this food prepared in one go to make the rest of my week easier. And, when I made pizza dough this weekend, I had the foresight to freeze a few dough balls, so I also have my eye on giving pizza another try later this week with the rest of the arugula and chevre. Again no pictures because the camera won't give up its hiding spot.

- dinner tonight: first bruschetta of the season! with heirloom tomato, garlic, basil from my deck, and olive oil on homemade whole wheat toast

- dessert: a decadent peach and nectarine smoothie with Ronnybrook ice cream instead of yogurt

- into the fridge for lunch tomorrow: salad of arugula, radishes, beets, hard boiled egg, Patches of Star chevre, and an olive oil-red wine vinaigrette

- into the fridge for a future dinner: caponata to have with toast and chevre

- into the fridge for a future snack: boiled and balsamic marinated beets

- into the freezer: steamed beet greens, which probably will be eaten in tacos at some point

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Dog Ate My Pizza

Yeah, there he goes looking all cute and innocent again until...

First the good news. Last time I tried to make grilled pizza, it was a gummy disaster. I think that dough recipe, which works wonders in the oven, was probably just too thick for the grill. Meanwhile, tons of people out in the blogosphere have made grilled pizza with no problems. So I was determined to try again using a different, thinner dough. I wisely chose the mother of all thin crusts: Heidi's whole wheat pizza dough, also following her grilled pizza tips.

Tonight, I came (home from work), I saw (raw sausage and radish leaves turn into a delightful sauteed topping), I conquered (grilled pizza). However, I was so worried about the giving the pizza ample time to cook through in the middle that I let the first couple pizzas burn a tad, but at least it was edible and delicious, compared to last time. Heidi's pizzas are actually so thin that they don't really have a middle, just crispness, so there was no need to worry. Next time, I will leave my dough a little laxer instead of stretching it out parchment thin as she recommended.

But here comes the bad news. I made three pizzas tonight with my own blood, sweat, and tears (okay more just like a little easy labor with the help of a friend). We ate up two of the pizzas but didn't touch the third. It lay there waiting patiently to be packaged into an amazing lunch for tomorrow. I walked my friend to the door when she left. I was gone for about TWO minutes. I came back upstairs. Huge gasp - the pizza is gone! Without a trace. Because my dog ate my pizza!!!

Devil dog strikes again. All of my hard work wasted on his already-fed stomach. What misfortune will he bring next? Only his pea sized brain can tell. And that's why I have no pictures to show for my work, either, because as you could say, the dog ate my homework!

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Kitchen Disasters

That was a beautiful and delicious pizza I made last week with local flour, turkey sausage and radish greens, and nonlocal tomato sauce and parmesan. Yes, you can eat the greens that come with a bunch of radishes. I wash them thoroughly, sautee them, and they wilt down a lot. They're a little bitter, but add a nice complexity to pizza.

I loved the pizza so much that I tried to make it again this week, but with the sick humidity crushing us this week, I decided to try my hand at making grilled pizza. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but I tried twice with two pizzas, and both times the edges of the dough grew colored and crispy, almost burnt, while the gummy inner dough refused to cook through, no matter how long I let them linger on the hot grill or in the toaster oven afterward. They looked tasty like they wanted me to eat them, but I couldn't. I salvaged the sausage and radish greens by scraping them off and throwing together with quick-cooking orzo for a meal, while the pizza remains above sadly went into the garbage.

I have three theories - I should have used a dough that reliably produces a thin crust since my recipe usually puffs up a bunch; I shouldn't have topped it with so much sauce and sausage; I should have let the first side cook longer before I flipped it over. We'll see. For now, it's back to my tried and true method for making pizza in the oven, despite the heat.

This meal that I made for dinner last night looks great, but it wasn't actually, because it was pervaded by bitterness. I was so excited about being able to eat radish leaves, that I decided to give carrot tops a try. The bunch that came with my carrots from the Greenmarket looked so pretty and frilly that it seemed a shame to just throw them away.


I made a salad of lolo rosso lettuce, grated carrots, and a garnish of chopped carrot tops, with a roasted garlic dressing. The dressing was a gift and was pleasant. But the lettuce was overwhelmingly bitter, and the carrot greens didn't help, being chewy and bitter and not fun to eat. I couldn't even finish my salad. I guess there's a reason why people always throw out carrot tops.


I used Sixpoint Gorilla Warfare, a rich stout, to cook the mussels. I sauteed garlic scapes and another handful of carrot greens in olive oil, then added mussels and half a pint of beer, and let it cook, covered, until the mussels opened.

I had been craving mussels all week, but it was a bit disappointing. The garlic scapes weren't potent enough to lend the dish a garlicky aroma like I hoped, the wilted carrot greens weren't much to taste, and the stout gave the mussels a slightly bitter taste. I should have known that a mild lager or white wine works better for mussels. It wasn't a total disaster, like the failed grilled pizza, but it wasn't the rich warm broth of mussels that I had hoped for.

But that's how it goes with cooking. You experiment, and you learn from your mistakes. And post them on the Internet for others to learn from as well.

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The Other White Meat

Tofu's not something I cook with often. I used to eat it more when I was a semi-vegetarian in college, for no better reason really than being wary of handling raw meat, but since careening down the path of eating local, whole, farm fresh foods, I left tofu behind, along with all the other "Chik Patties" and overprocessed fake meats I stopped eating.

But after work the other day, I made a rare trip to Whole Foods to check out their organic chicken selection, since I wasn't able to stop at the farmers market the day before, and I needed more food for dinner that night. To my surprise, Whole Foods' organic chicken breasts are more expensive than at the Greenmarket! Why would I pay $10 a pound for factory farmed meat when I can get happy chicken breasts from Quattro's Game Farm for $6-7 a pound? No thanks. Seeking an alternate source of protein, I ambled (more like pushed and dodged) my way over to the tofu section. And what did I behold but a tofu package beaming "Local Tofu" back at me, made in Nyack, NY. No, it is unlikely that the soybeans were grown in the area, but I was happy to at least be supporting a local vendor. And at $1.99/package, tofu definitely trumps chicken in terms of keeping my savings in my pocket.

I've realized lately that I am spending more money than I'd like to on food, probably as a natural consequence of being a foodie. Of the money I spend, most of it goes toward food (and some to alcohol), since due to my anticonsumerism stance, I don't buy much clothes, or makeup or books or movies at all (thank you library). And yes, I totally espouse the idea that it's good to pay more to buy sustainable food, because it's important to pay the true cost of food. But I still don't like to see my money disappear. So I've been making a concerted effort to cut down costs by buying cheaper cuts of meat like sausage, cooking less meat, cooking with dried beans (at $1-2/lb in bulk, they are the cheapest protein ever!), baking my own bread, buying the less fancy vegetables like radishes that have dual uses (roots and greens), growing my own herbs, and meal planning up the wazoo to make sure food in my fridge gets eaten or frozen in some form before it goes bad. As food prices rise, we all want to find ways to cut costs, and Cathy also recently posted helpful suggestions on how to "combat soaring food prices."

So speaking of meal planning and using up what's on hand - after dinner that night (radish, bok choy, and tofu stir fry with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and quinoa), I combined the rest of the tofu with my leftover garlic scape pesto, this time adding parmesan and almonds to beef up the pesto. I left the tofu pesto salad in the fridge for a couple days to let the flavors mingle. Then, amidst all the running around before camping last weekend, it made the perfect lunch served on homemade bread with fresh lettuce. The tofu pesto salad sandwich was creamy and had a nice spicy kick from all the garlic scapes. I thought it would also taste good blended into a tofu cream cheese (speaking of which, I really need to attempt that), or warmed up on the stove a bit, for a form of imitation scrambled eggs. Something tells me we'll be seeing tofu a little more often around here.

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Camping at Little Pond

I don't recommend camping just for a night - it's too much prep work to drag out camping gear, figure out food, pack everything up, set everything up, and do it all in reverse again the next day. But that's what we did anyway Saturday, as we found ourselves on a long drive up Route 17 to camp in the Catskills. We stayed at Little Pond Campground, a state campground that actually features a rather large pond with a beach, picnic areas, and hiking trails. There are even some campsites situated tranquilly right on the water, but those were already taken by the time we made our reservation.

The campsites were quiet and more secluded from each other than other campgrounds I've stayed at. Our site was bizarrely large, as you can see below.
Near dinnertime, I tried to grill potatoes in foil, but our fire wouldn't stay consistently hot. After over an hour the potatoes were still raw and hard. We have much to learn in the art of fire-making for our next camping trip. Our propane-powered camping stove is great for cooking, but I would also like to be able to harness the fire's energy for cooking like Liz.

After giving up on the potatoes and chucking them back into the cooler to be cooked later in the week, we turned to making the rest of dinner: burgers on homemade toast (made with local flour before we left) and topped with beer-braised swiss chard. We simply sauteed half a bunch of swiss chard in olive oil and then let it braise in half a can of beer for about ten minutes. It could have used some more spices, but that was all we had on hand and it worked. Then Jesse came up with the idea to put the swiss chard on the burgers, which was brilliant.

The burgers were grass finished black angus from a new Greenmarket vendor, Grazin' Angus Acres. Their farm in Columbia County uses wind power and they also raise chickens to provide the farm's nitrogen needs, inspired by Joel Salatin's sustainable farm described in Omnivore's Dilemna. I recommend taking a look at their website, which has informative information on the health and ecological benefits of grass fed meat. Not to mention that the burger was delicious. And of course, what camping trip is complete without cheap beer? I forgot to pick up tastier local beer, so Jesse's Bud is what I was stuck drinking.

It rained just as we woke in the morning, so we stayed inside the tent until the torrents passed. Unfortunately that meant we didn't have time to cook breakfast before we had to pack up and check out, so breakfast was at Roscoe Diner.

I don't recommend it unless you like institutional style food, down to the bagel that was toast in the shape of a bagel. As I ate it, I realized it's been years since I've eaten that poorly. Luckily, I wasn't a foodie back in the days of my Aramark-catered dining hall, or I don't know what I would have eaten throughout college.

The sun perked up during our long drive home to Brooklyn so I could fully enjoy the lush green landscapes of the Hudson Valley and cry a little inside about not living in the country anymore. Summer in the Hudson Valley is my favorite thing ever. We took a detour on the way to pick up my sister from my hometown and ferry her to the city.

While there, we also stopped at Rosner Soap in nearby Sugarloaf, a cute crafts village, so I could stock up on soap. They make my favorite soap - it comes in a multitude of flavors like lemongrass oatmeal and peppermint tea tree that smell heavenly, it lathers well, it doesn't contain scary chemicals like store-bought soaps, and at $4.50 a bar it's much cheaper than certain $8 Brooklyn-made soaps. Add to that their colorfully painted stores and beautiful flowers, and I get the feel-good buzz of supporting a local vendor.

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