I was an accidental, partial locavore – eating yogurt and sprouts that were being produced within a 100-mile radius of my dining room. The eco-gastronomic sprouts were growing in a very local ecosystem – a glass jar on my kitchen counter. I don’t know if the altitude, the terroir, of my fourth four apartment affected the flavor of the sprouts, but they certainly added texture and flavor to sandwiches and salads.

There’s evidence that cultured milk products were being made in 2000 BC. Pliny the Elder noted that nomadic tribes knew how to thicken milk into a substance with agreeable acidity, and yogurt has long been a staple in the diets of people in Central Asia. It appeared in my grocery store in the late 1960’s packed in plastic cups with a puddle of sweetened fruit slurry. Soon after yogurt appeared in grocery stores, electric yogurt makers replaced fondue pots as ‘must have’ kitchen equipment. My kit consisted of glass jars with lids, a thermometer, dried yogurt culture and a temperature-controlled container. Producing yogurt was an appealing scientific experiment.

When I read that the earliest yoghurt was probably fermented spontaneously, perhaps by wild bacteria found inside goatskin bags used to carry raw milk, I realized that making yogurt didn’t need to be as precise as the five pages of instructions that came with my yogurt maker. I no longer have an electric yogurt maker and the only special equipment I use is an instant read thermometer. I make yogurt in eight-ounce canning jars that are kept warm in the oven with two large tin cans filled with hot water. Rather than using a dry yogurt culture, I use a tablespoon of plain yogurt, either homemade or store bought, as the source of Lactobacillus, the ‘starter’. Here’s how I make it:

Yogurt

I begin by heating  a quart of milk in order to get rid of any unwelcome bacteria. (Raw, pasteurized, full fat, skim, or 2% fat will all work.) It takes about four minutes in my microwave for the milk to reach to the required temperature of 180º. Boiling milk makes a mess so I keep an eye on it and check the temperature every minute. While the milk cools in a covered container, I prepare a warm environment for the milk to be transformed by bacterial fermentation into yogurt. Preparation is simply a matter of turning on the light in the oven, putting two large tin cans, filled with boiling water, into the oven and closing the oven door.

I add one tablespoon of room temperature yogurt to the milk when it has cooled to 105º, mix it well and pour the mixture into four eight ounce glass jars. I cover the jars and put them into the oven along with an instant read thermometer and refresh the tins with boiling water. Fermentation takes between four and seven hours in a warm environment, between 100º and 106º. I check the consistency of the yogurt and the temperature of the ‘environment’ every hour. If the oven cools to below 100 degrees, I replace the water in the tins with boiling water. I have also created a ‘warm environment’ by heating a small, insulated cooler with two large tin cans filled with hot water.

When the yogurt has reached the consistency of custard, I move it from the warm environment to a chilly one, the fridge. I try to remember to save a tablespoon of yogurt to use as the starter for next week’s batch.

More ‘starter’ will neither speed the process nor make better yogurt. Too much ‘starter’ results in sour and watery yogurt.

Plain yogurt is great on its own, or can be dressed up with the addition of fresh fruit or berries. Vermont maple syrup on top is heavenly. Pancakes and muffins made with yogurt are fluffier than those made with milk. I make yogurt lassi to share with Charles by using a blender to combine one cup of yogurt, three quarters of a cup of crushed ice and two teaspoons of sugar. A handful of frozen raspberries added to the mix makes a pink lassi.

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Here’s how I did it:

Vanilla Extract

I split six vanilla beans and put them into a one-quart mason jar. I added two cups of vodka, pushed the beans down so that they were submerged, put the lid on the jar and put the jar in a dark corner of the pantry. I’ll bottle and label the vanilla extract, along with a piece of vanilla bean just before Christmas. Click here  to download a label for bottles of vanilla extract.

When I make only one jar of vanilla sugar, I get a vanilla bean in the spice aisle at the market. But one vanilla bean costs about five dollars and I needed ten beans to make six jars of vanilla sugar and sixteen ounces of vanilla. Luckily, I found Beanilla.com. It is a source for eight varieties of vanilla beans that are significantly less expensive than those bottled individually.

I got a bit carried away when I ordered vanilla beans but I love the intoxicating scent of vanilla that has filled the house. My next project is to try to make a bottle of brandy-based vanilla extract. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

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Vanilla begins as the seedpod of an orchid native to Mexico. Conquistador was my sister’s favorite word, and I remember when she told me that it was a conquistador, Hernan Cortes, who brought both chocolate and vanilla to Europe in the sixteenth century after observing Montezuma drink a mixture made with cocoa beans, vanilla and honey.

Vanilla grows as a vine with white flowers. The Melipona bee, the only insect that pollinates vanilla, is native to Central America, and so when grown in the tropics anywhere else in the world, vanilla must be pollinated by hand. Vanilla flowers last only one day and growers inspect their plantations every day for open flowers. The beans, actually seedpods formed by the pollinated flowers, are harvested by hand and then cured in a four-step process. The first step, wilting the vanilla beans, is done either by a quick dip in hot water, by freezing, or by heating in an oven or in the sun. Step two, sweating, consists of wrapping the beans in woolen blankets and baking them in the tropical sun. The beans are then dried to prevent rotting and to lock in the aroma. The final step, conditioning, is achieved by storing the beans in closed boxes for a few months. The intensity of labor required to grow and cure vanilla makes it the second most expensive flavoring after saffron.Vanilla sugar brings flavor and aroma to coffee and hot chocolate, is delicious when used to sweetened oatmeal, can be sprinkled on fresh berries or on fruit before it is baked. It’s an easy way to add flavor to meringues, marshmallows or custard and is a gift that makes both cooks and non-cooks happy. The six jars I made will be ready by Christmas. Here’s how I did it:

Vanilla Sugar

I put one vanilla bean, split lengthwise, in each one-pint jars, covered the bean with granulated sugar, put lid on the jar and gave it a shake. That’s it! I put the jars on a shelf in the pantry near the tea so I will be reminded to shake them occasionally. In a couple of weeks, the vanilla will have flavored the sugar and I will be wrap the jars and deliver them to friends. I made a label for the vanilla sugar that lists some of its uses, and suggests that, if the jar is refilled with granulated sugar when half of the sugar has been used and then left to steep for a few days, the vanilla bean will continue to flavor sugar until next Christmas. You can download and print the label HERE.Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

My bag also had a note from the Clay HIll folks with an update on the irrigation system, information about the green house and hoop houses and a recipe for Garlic Scallion and Almond Pesto.

I’m planning on making fresh pasta and the pesto for dinner tomorrow night.  I let you know how it goes.  I made maple syrup seasoned salad dressing to top the spicy mixed greens for  a salad for dinner. Here’s how I did it:

Maple Salad Dressing

I combined one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, three garlic scallion, half a teaspoon of salt, five grinds of pepper, half a cup of maple syrup, one third of a cup of olive oil,  one third of a cup of grape seed oil and one third of a cup of safflower oil in my mini processor.

I used a couple of tablespoons of the dressing and the remainder went into the fridge in a jar. I’ll be able to make nearly instant salads all week.

Download  a label for your jar of salad dressing by clicking here.

Maple Salad Dressing List

• Dijon mustard
• balsamic vinegar
• red wine vinegar
• maple syrup
• lemon
• garlic scallion
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
• grape seed oil
• safflower oil

When I was nineteen, I moved to an apartment on the second floor of a converted town house in Washington, DC. The French Market, a boutique grocery store, was on the ground floor. It had become a successful business when John Kennedy was president and all things French became fashionable. By my third visit, I realized that my gastronomic education had begun.

The owner, Georges, was from Nice, in the south of France. He always had time to answer questions, share recipes or offer tastes. He never looked at his twelve-inch chef’s knife as he minced garlic, parsley and almonds to make snail butter and gossiped with market regulars. After he put a cooked snail into each shell he sealed the opening with a knob of the seasoned butter. When he suggested that I try the snails for dinner, I bought a dozen, a baguette and two sets of snail-eating equipment. He explained how to heat the snails in dimpled metal plates and how to use the tool that looked an eyelash curler to hold the hot shell while fishing them out with a small snail fork.

The snails were interesting, a bit chewy, but the apartment smelled wonderful! The chunks of bread soaked in the hot garlic butter were divine. It was the beginning of a new friendship, “Bonjour Garlic!”

Since that introduction, garlic has been a permanent resident in my pantry. It appears so frequently in my recipes that I use garlic scapes, the immature flower stalks of hard neck garlic, as my logo. The best way to store garlic is at room temperature, in a porous container. I have a ceramic garlic pot with a lid that keeps out the light and holes in the sides that allow air to circulate, preventing garlic from becoming moldy.

Georges showed me how to add zip to salads by rubbing the inside of a wooden salad bowl with a clove of garlic and a pinch of kosher salt. Occasionally, he had cooked artichokes next to mushroom, fennel and green bean salads. A small container of mayonnaise mixed with mince garlic, lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne pepper and an artichoke made a lunch that was tres chic.

The pate Georges made was perfumed with garlic and it inspired me to use garlic to season meatloaf. When Georges prepared chickens for roasting, he pushed a mixture of butter, garlic and thyme under the skin of the bird.

He seasoned legs of lamb with garlic, rosemary, sage and thyme before deftly forming each roast into the shape of a duck with the end of a bone as the duck’s head. I’ve never tried the fancy butchering but I do use the same herb and garlic mixture to season lamb.

I don’t remember who introduced me to the complex, sweet and earthy flavors of roasted garlic. I make it often by cutting off the top of plump garlic bulbs, drizzling them with olive oil, wrapping the bottoms of the bulbs in aluminum foil and roasting them. After half an hour in a 350-degree oven, the golden paste can be spread onto crusty bread to make appetizers that I serve with red wine.

Fifteen years later, my friend Gwen served a salad made with blanched garlic. She said that it was easier to digest and that it added flavor with less bite. She claimed that blanching eliminated volatile sulfur compounds that cause garlic breath and indigestion. Gwen simmered garlic in boiling water for a minute before peeling it and blending into salad dressing. Blanching garlic in the microwave by zapping unpeeled garlic cloves in a half-cup of water in a partially covered container for 30 seconds seems simpler to me. I use blanched garlic in barley or bean salads that will not be served within and hour.

Garlic is called the stinky rose and blamed for causing bad breath but its presence is recognized in cuisines around the world as the promise of a tasty meal. The pan of garlic roasted root vegetables I served on Saturday delivered on that promise when Jim and Anne joined us for dinner.

Along with the roasted turnips, carrots and potatoes roasted, a can of cranberry sauce mixed with a couple of tablespoons of horseradish and a roasted chicken from the market were all I needed for our impromptu dinner party. The scent of the roasting vegetables made it seem as if I had spent the entire day, rather than half an hour, cooking. I started the vegetables in the microwave and they finished roasting while I set the table, and cut up the chicken. Here’s how I did it.

Roasted Root Vegetables with Garlic

I peeled four carrots and cut them into two-inch lengths. I cut four medium, peeled turnips and four medium, unpeeled red-skinned potatoes in half. I put all of the vegetables into a shallow ceramic baking dish added a tablespoon of water, covered the dish with waxed paper and zapped them for four minutes, on high, in the microwave.

I stirred in a two tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of unsalted butter, twelve large unpeeled garlic cloves, and generous pinches of dried thyme, kosher salt and black pepper. The garlic will burn if the papery skin is removed.

After thirty minutes, in a 375-degree oven, the vegetables were tender, golden and ready to serve. I stirred them twice as they cooked. Dinner was so easy that I had enough energy to enjoy both the conversation and the dinner.

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Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

High in antioxidants, and bio-flavonoids, a polyunsaturated oil containing the highest amount among any oil or food source of linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid that the human body can not produce, it is healthier than olive oil. One tablespoon provides nearly the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin E.

Grape seed oil has a relatively high smoke point and can be safely used to cook at high temperature for deep frying as well as in stir-fries and sautéing. Its light, nutty taste makes it perfect for salad dressing, as a base for flavor infused oils, and in homemade mayonnaise. Although sometimes referred to as a vegetable oil it is actually fruit oil.

Grape seed oil is widely used as a base for skin care products, is used as a carrier for aromatherapy and makes great massage oil.

Surely with all of this to recommend it, you can find space in your pantry for a bottle of it.

Riverview Farm in Plainfield, New Hampshire was the place. The sign at a bend in the Connecticut River pointed at the lane to the fields and the currants. The bushes were filled with stems of ruby spheres and picking was easy. There were no bugs, it wasn’t raining, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. In less than forty minutes we had picked three pounds of red currant.

Paul Franklin, proprietor of Riverview Farm weighted the currants and we talked recipes for a few minutes. He told me about his breakfast biscuits with red currants folded in.

Another farmer told me that red currants had been hunted and eliminated by federal agents in the early 1900′s because of concern for the ‘white pine blister rust’ and fear that white pines would suffer the same devastation as the elms. He went on with a smile, ‘If they had tried to take Granny’s red currant bushes, she would have met them with a shot gun.’

Let’s get to the juicy part. Here’s how I did it:

Uncooked Russian Red Currant Jelly

This unlikely recipe appealed to me because I thought it might be a better way to preserve the fresh color and taste of the currants.

I began by putting a large handful of currants into a shallow bowl in the sink, and with a gentle stream of cold water overfilling the bowl, I separated the currants from the stems, the currants sank and the bits of leaves and twigs floated and washed out of the bowl.

If you’d rather not take the time, you can simply remove large pieces of debris and rinse the currants without removing the stems. I crushed the currants with a mortal and pestle and put the fruit into a jelly bag suspended over a bowl and went out to dinner.

In the morning I weighed the juice and an equal quantity of white sugar. Stirring constantly, I slowly added the sugar, and stirred, and stirred until the sugar was completely dissolved. It took about twenty minutes of stirring.

I poured the sweetened juice into small canning jars and processed them in boiling water for ten minutes to seal. The notes I had said that the jelly set more easily in small jars.

The jelly looked beautiful but I had my doubts that it would really work so I decided to press on, literally, and make a second batch of jelly using the crushed and drained fruit still in the jelly bag.

Cooked Red Currant Jelly

I put the fruit along with an equal quantity of water in a sauce pan and boiled it for ten minutes, before pouring it all into my faithful jelly bag. Running out of patience, after twenty minutes of draining, I squeezed the remaining liquid from the fruit, and combined it in a heavy bottomed pot in a ratio of three quarters of a cup of sugar for each cup of liquid.

I brought this to a boil, skimmed off the foam that rose to the top and cooked it until the thermometer read two hundred and twenty degrees, or eight degrees higher than the boiling point.  The finished jelly was sealed in small jars.

I was extremely doubtful that juice and sugar would be magically transformed into jelly but — eight hours after I put it into jars, I opened one and it is jelling. The flavor is amazing.

note: the uncooked jelly is in the flat jar and the cooked is in the tall jars.

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Red Currant Jelly List

• red currants
• sugarNote: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

A Pantry Basic
I use cayenne pepper in everything from creamed spinach to chocolate sauce for ice cream. The handle of a teaspoon or the tip of a butter knife are what I use to measure out the tiny quantity necessary to give a boost without a burn. Aztecs combined chili and chocolate in hot chocolate. I wonder if it was called Hot, Hot Chocolate.

I add a pinch of chili pepper flakes to olive oil, garlic and onion at the start of a marinara sauce. Poblano chili in adobo sauce combined with sour cream is a great sauce for grilled chicken.Jalapeno peppers are usually the only fresh at my market. I find the habanero and Scotch bonnet peppers too hot for my palette.

Sambal, an Indonesian condiment I first tasted when we lived in Singapore, heats up my nearly daily lunch of Asian Noodle soup with bitter greens.

I store whole dried and Serrano chilies in a tin until needed for a mole sauce. Experiment with chilies. Start cautiously, the goal is to enhance flavor not to set any fires.

Capsaicin, the chemical in chili, has been shown to stimulate endorphin release. Using chili may not only zip up what you’re cooking but put a smile on your face as well.

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Sel de mer, also from France, is less expensive and quite fine making it perfect for sauces and salad dressings.