Cheesy Corn & Carrot Chowder

This is an adaptation of the recipe for "Cheese and Corn Chowder" from The More with Less Cookbook produced by Doris Janzen Longacre for the Mennonite Central Committee. This cookbook, as I've written in the past, espouses values of healthier, more economic cooking through the use of basic ingredients. I also love the companion cookbook, Simply in Season.

This adaptation is *spicy*, but you can always eliminate/reduce the peppers if you want. Also, if you intend to freeze the soup, omit the cream and add it back in when you thaw and reheat.

Sauté in a Dutch oven:
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 serrano peppers, chopped (mine were actually dried from last summer)
--About 5 minutes on med-low, or until onions are translucent.

Add:
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
--Cook another minute on med-low.

Add:
 1 cup water
2 cups chopped carrots
3 cups potatoes cut into 1 cm cubes
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Turn the hotplate onto high, cover the saucepan and bring contents to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes.

Add:
4 cups cream‑style corn (or just use a 2 large cans, which isn’t quite 4 cups)
Simmer 5 minutes.

****If you are freezing the soup, this is where you stop.*****

Add:
2 cups milk
2/3 cup grated cheese (I used Tillamook Cheddar)
Stir until the cheese melts and the chowder is heated through. Do not boil.

At this point, you can choose to leave it chunky. I used an immersion blender to mix it somewhat, but not so much that it was perfectly smooth. 

Money, Honey, and Rutabagas?

So, last week I purchased a "companion" to More-With-Less, Simply in Season. This cookbook promotes environmentalism in the kitchen. The idea is that we can save a lot of energy by eating foods that are locally grown, and grown in environmentally-friendly ways. This means "voting with our dollars" and buying foods that come out of the ground /naturally/ at any given time of the year. The cookbook is divided into five parts - Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and All-Seasons - and gives recipes that focus on produce that is available at that time of year.

I found the recipe I'd try first, and got the veggies during my Win-Co trip this week. I wanted to make "roasted winter veggies," and I bought two small beets, a rutabaga (which my grandmother used to make often, but which I haven't had since), a sweet potato, carrots, and an acorn squash. I also added in a potato, but we had those at home already.

I was shocked to discover that these veggies were 20-30% of what other, "out of season" veggies cost! Now, I haven't been cooking for myself long, but I bet that there are people who have who STILL missed this memo. So, let me say this again: SO CHEAP!

I roasted these lovely winter veggies, and they were SO GOOD. Seriously, they have driven me to use all caps to express my love. I have never eaten beets before, and I was pleasantly surprised. I think that cooking in-season will force me to widen my horizons, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.

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I also purchased honey at Win-Co for future breadmaking. I found it amusing because the bulk containers were wooden and said, "Do not lift lid, or bees will escape." Wow.

The honey was quite expensive, but cheap compared to the cutsie teddy bear containers. I think that the extra expense is worth it because it doesn't have processed sugar. I had to put it in a plastic container that they provided, but I will take mine back when I need to refill.

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I made chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and they were the best I've ever made (I think). I mixed whole wheat and regular flours, and I actually only used 70% of the sugar that the recipe called for. I am going to continue to reduce the amount of sugar until I find out what the like..."bare minimum" that I can stand is. : P

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Also, I have other news. I knew, coming home, that recycling would be harder because we live out in the country and they don't collect recycling this far out. I also didn't know whether Jan would be receptive to me collecting things in our house to recycle.

However, I was pleasantly surprised. I cleaned out the utility room simply because it needed cleaning, but in the process found room to put some boxes for collecting recycling. I called our center to find out what they collect, and once a week I have been taking the stuff down to the "transfer station," from which the City will collect recycling. The transfer station is actually only a couple of miles from my house, and I can take stuff down there on the weekends.

We can "downcycle" all sorts of plastic tubs (butter, sour cream), jars (coffee) and bottles. We can recycle cardboard (corrugated and not), and mixed paper. The transfer station also takes magazines, phonebooks, and glossy paper, but I'm not sure how much of this actually gets recycled. I know that the best way to go is to not buy things in plastic in the first place, but I really appreciate that we can downcycle what we can.

It's kind of nice to have my aunt constantly asking me what can be recycled, because it has been a learning experience for both of us.

Baking & Breaking Bread

Today, I made my first loaf of home-baked bread.

Last week, I tried to bake bread with a breadmaker at my aunt's insistence. I failed twice, and I failed because the machine had been sitting on a shelf for five and a half years and apparently can no longer be relied upon to do anything but make a cake-y mess and a lot of noise. The breadmaker's cookbook had also warned me that baking bread was tough, and that yeast was super fragile, and that I would never manage on my own because I am a Naive Human Being.

Well.

Today, I used More-With-Less' recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Bread. I kind of integrated information from the old standby in our house, Joy of Cooking. Here is how it happened, and why:

Reading and Mentally Preparing

I read More-With-Less and wanted several things out of baking my own bread: I wanted to feel that I could do it and know that I could be independent from store-bought bread, I wanted to avoid the packaging and production waste associated with store-bought bread, I wanted to make sure that only "good" ingredients were going into my bread, and I wanted to give my family the gift of home-baked bread again. It has been five and a half years since my uncle died, and he was the last one to use the breadmaker.

I decided on the Honey Whole Wheat recipe because it looked easy, and didn't require any processed sugar. I love wheat bread, and this seemed like a great place to start.

Shopping

Karen and I went shopping at Win-Co, and we found all of the ingredients in bulk. I can also draw a wheat kernel now on demand, because Karen had an illustrated explanation for me of what wheat germ was. At Win-Co, I can even get honey in bulk.

I did not get soy flour, but adding some into my recipe would have added nutrients to my bread. I chose not to do so because Karen freaked me out with all of her baking science talk, and I just wanted something straightfoward. Having actually succeeded once now, I may experiment with flours. Win-Co has like...a billion kinds of flour.

Recipes and Reality

This morning, I spent a good long time thinking about yeast. Joy of Cooking told me that yeast is a prima donna and that she does not like a cold dressing room. Okay, thanks, Joy of Cooking. I divvied out all of my dry ingredients, and warmed up my liquids. Then, somewhat holding my breath, I dove in.

1) I dissolved the yeast with some sugar and warm water. I created a "sponge" a la JoC. I let the sponge "rise" in front of the wood stove, because the rest of the house is about sixty degrees. Then, I kneaded in the rest of the ingredients.

2) I turned the kitchen sink into a lovely "bread sauna" because, like I said, the house is at about sixty. Then, I started running out of time.

3) I pulled the bread early from its first rise (at about 45 min, instead of letting it fully double), because I had to make sure that it rose again before I had to leave. I pressed it out by hand, and then rolled it (by hand, again). I tried my best to seal the edges. I put it into the pan and made sure that the short ends touched the short ends of the pan, because JoC assured me that this would help the bread rise. Then, I refilled my "bread sauna" and let the bread rise again.

4) I had to leave, and so did Scott, so I couldn't put the bread in the oven. With my heart in my chest, I wrapped it in an old produce bag that my aunt had washed and saved, and stuck it in the fridge.

5) When I came home six hours later, I pulled the bread out to warm up for fifteen minutes or so. Then, I baked as normal.

The Results

The resulting loaf was dense, but lovely. I think that I will definitely make this a habit, as I ended up liking my loaf much better than store-bought. All of my ingredients were very inexpensive except for honey, but I'm pretty sure the whole thing is still under the $1 we pay for a generic wheat loaf at the store.

I only made a single loaf today because I was afraid that I would mess up again, but I will definitely bake two next time in order to make better use of the oven space.

I will also give my bread more time to rise next time. :)

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I think that everyone should try to bake bread. It wasn't hard; I just followed the directions very carefully. I think that this is one small way that I can take ownership of what I eat, and I want to continually seek those opportunities.

Bulk Foods: Nature's Burger

At Win-Co last night, I found a few surprising items available in bulk. The Win-Co in Corvallis is larger than the one in Moscow, so it feels like I will always be finding something new. Last night, I shopped for various staples to make bread, whole wheat pasta, and curry powder. I knew I'd find these things in bulk. However, I also found a garden burger mix.

Nature's Burger comes as a powder, and you mix it with equal water. I was dubious about how the flavor of the burger would turn out, so here's what I did:

1/2 c mix (enough for two patties)
1/2 c water
2 spoonfuls of dry vegetable soup mix (also available in bulk)

The result was quite delicious. I made patties, but I will probably use the mix to add texture to casseroles and things. The mix was very inexpensive (I paid about $2 for enough mix to make 6-10 patties, which places the expense WAY under buying packaged, pre-made garden burgers), and it seems like it will be very versatile. I will also experiment will adding garlic or lemon pepper to the stuff.

The other thing that I found, but did not get, was a mix for hummus. I will get this next time, as hummus is wonderful for all sorts of things. I love hummus, and I like to add tomatoes or garlic to mine.

I almost had a completely plastic-free shopping trip, except...

Apparently Shop N Kart here in Lebanon has stopped selling lemon juice in bottles, and ONLY sells the little plastic lemon containers. My aunt was very upset that she could no longer buy a glass bottle, or any kind of bottle for that matter. At Win-Co, I couldn't find glass bottles either, but a large plastic bottle uses less plastic than many lemon containers, and can be downcycled at the end of its life.