I had fun showing off my artisan multi-grain sourdough bread but it took three days of my visit to prepare and was gone in a few hours. Wanting mama and all to have the most nutritious bread I decided to try a more quick and dirty recipe.

I prepared a quart of my starter and then mixed it with about 6 cups of spelt flour, the recipe (from Nourishing Traditions) said to rise from 4 to 12 hours depending on the temperature. I let it go overnight, which was probably too long as it got a bit deflated. I didn’t have loaf pans, so they were kind of batard style loaves. The shap of the slice wasn’t ideal but the flavor was wonderful and went great with the raw cream cheese spread I made.

As soon as I got home I started on another batch. This time I started with spelt berries and ground the flour myself. It sounds like a job for a toiling little red hen, but it’s just an electric gadget and doesn’t take any effort, but yields the freshest flour you can get, ensuring no rancidity. Spelt is a nice grain for home grinding because its gluten level perform like an all-purpose flour, which is actually a mix of soft and hard wheat. So, unless you want to grind two different grains, spelt is a lot simpler.

In my first go at grain grinding I just followed the directions and ground the whole berries on the finest setting, which gave me two distinct layers of flour, a fibery hull and a fine powdering flour. I used it as it came for the bread, which turned out delicious and hearty. After some expert advice, on the next batch I first ground the berries on a coarse setting and then ran it through again on the smallest setting which gave me a much more even flour and more flour per cup of berries (which seems to be about 2.5 c. of flour to 1 c. berries, but it depends on your grind- I am still working out that ratio)

The recipe called for the dough to be soft and easy to work with. To knead Sally says to stretch and fold, a different kneading process that I usually use.

I have now made three batches of the bread and the best results actually came from making the dough in my Kitchen-Aid mixer with the dough hook. The pictures below are from the batch made by hand, and it turns out beautifully, but the mixer does allow a wetter dough since you dont have to add more flour to be able to handle it. This was my fist time making dough with a machine and it left me standing there watching it, sort of wondering what I should do while it worked. It was strange to not be able to feel the dough change. So, I am still a bit conflicted about the thing. I was also hesitant to do sourdoughs in metal, but apparently it makes no difference.

Cooked in a loaf pan, this bread makes a great homemade substitute for sliced sandwich bread. Not the handsomest, but probably the freshest, healthy bread you can get in your mouth.

                          

I started the process with some confusion. The recipe in Nourishing Traditions states: ” If you are using raw milk, place the milk in a clean glass container and allow it to stand at room temperature 1-4 days until it separates”. Now, to me there are two things that are unclear about these instructions. The first is whether or not the glass container should be covered if not sealed. I really could not find an acceptable answer searching the web, so I decided to screw a lit on the jar and see what happens. Because there were no explicit directions to keep the process from the air I often opened the lid to see and smell what was going on. The lid would get taught with pressure from the activity in the jar so I would release that, which I think was a good thing to do.

For the risks of playing around with bacteria activity in an non-sterile kitchen the lack of specificity in the instructions for this process is frustrating. But I decided to trust the fact that people have been doing this with milk for thousands of years, since I have such additional advances as hand-washing and flush toilets, I think I should be fine.

Here is the beginning of separation. But it being winter room temp was pretty low and the process was going slower than it seemed like it should. We also decided to move the jar to the top of the fridge where it is warmer. This move helped to move things along and after day four actual changes were happening. But I have to admit I was pretty unsure about the whole thing.
That brings up the second issue with the directions we weren’t sure what degree of separation we were looking for. Did we wait for the first signs or for distinct layers? I don’t know why recipes like this decide to error on the side of less information, it doesn’t seem conducive to the success of one’s instructions.

We decided to wait longer. (Or rather one of us did, and I decided to go along.)

We waited for something to happen that, it turns out,just doesn’t happen. You can see that there are three distinct parts, the cream on top, the liquid (whey) and the now solid-ish milk. But it doesn’t become three different layers one on top of the other like we imagined, in fact it doesn’t even have to get as far along as we let it. In fact I was pretty sure that this was too far. I opened it up to smell.

Up until now the stuff had had a sour aroma, but nothing bad-smelling, kind of a mix of Parmesan and yogurt. But then at this point it smelled stronger and off and I got worried. Plus I saw circles on top which looked suspect to me. So I gave up. On this batch anyway.

I went and bought a new half gallon of raw milk (this is not the part of the blog where I am saving money) and started over with the jar on top of the fridge. I decided to let it go just to the point where separation begins, not letting it get too far along. Four days later I saw some separation, smelled it and called it good. The milk is more solid, there is liquid and cream, but nothing has really changed places.

At this point it smelled a fresh sour (which apparently is not a contradiction) and very pleasing.

I dumped out the jar into my towel (I chose a pretty thin one) lined strainer. Immediately I could see that much more separation had happened than it looked from the outside. All the solid milk collected in the strainer and almost three cups of why poured out the bottom immediately. I put this in the fridge, while the remainder dripped out.

Without squeezing tie up the bag and let it drip.

The picture in Nourishing Traditions shows doing this over a tall wide-mouthed container, like a pitcher. I don’t have anything like this so I arranged this set up to get the necessary height and the width needed. For a while this dripped steadily. It can stay and drip almost all day. In fact it took a while for it to stop dripping entirely. Those last drips hang on and are slow to reform, but they are there and keep coming longer than my patience could handle.

I decided the drips were slow enough and far enough apart to open ‘er up.

The rest of the whey went in jars in the fridge to be used later (stay tuned!). And this beginning of cheese went in a glass container covered with plastic wrap.:

At this point you can do any number of things, though I don’t recommend eating as is. Just a reminder for those inspired to do this yourself. I started with whole raw milk. Not available in most states. You can make whey with yogurt but I don’t know how the cheese part come out. Or, start with pasteurized milk and culture it (this is instead of leaving it out to separate and culture on its own) or get it to curd with buttermilk or something acidic, linke vinegar. There are lots of resources for making cheese at home that is not raw and from milk that is homogenized.

Here is what I did with mine:

In a food processor with a couple squirts of flax oil and salt you can mix just about anything to make a raw, cultured and amazingly healthy cream cheese. If the flavor is a little ripe for you keep it in the fridge and let it mellow, my second batch was much calmer.

This one is smoked salmon and parsley. Spread on a sourdough bagel from the farmer’s market, I felt pretty legit.

                          

For the most part the best food for you, whole foods (grains, beans, vegetables etc) are affordable. There is much discussion about this- clearly there are some highly processed, crappy food out there that is cheaper and easier, and maybe in the short term more satisfying than whole foods. But even just considering whole cost of health problems whole/healthier foods are cheaper. And I firmly believe, with the right knowledge on where to buy and how to cook, healthy with end up cheap.

Fresh, local vegetables direct from the farmer is the way to go. You are eating well and spending so little. But, I think it’s fair to say that most people don’t know how to cook vegetables in enough ways to keep them interesting and delicious. Also, there may be things in season that you have very little familiarity with. Or you may want to cook something in particular and find it not in season and not available. Also, if you are like me (or thankfully, were) and confounded or even turned off a bit by veggies or primarily veggie  based meals.

So these books have gotten me to a place where I understand the veggies I have on hand and can think of a variety of ways to prepare them.

A lot of the blogs and sites I’ve found on eating well on the cheap aren’t so helpful to me (which motivates me of course, because it’s my favorite topic). And even though I love the Get Rich Slowly blog, I think two posts he has up on this topic are almost irresponsible. This 16 ways to Eat Healthy While Keeping it Cheap really should be taken down, or just put somewhere else with the title “how to body build while on a college budget” or something. The first two tips (which could really just be one) is switch to water. Yes, good, of course. Some of the others like eating eggs, tuna in a can, and taking a multi vitamin are fine (you can get line caught tuna, but it isn’t something your should eat everyday). But these aren’t exactly the cornerstones of a cheap and health diet. Most notably because he eats frozen vegetables as a rule. I just really hope GRS takes this down because it’s simply isn’t good advice.

Some of the other posts there on food and eating are fine, but I think the concept is much simpler that these discussions admit. To cut and paste the quote of 2008 on food from Michael Pollan’s newest book:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

So what about this?:

• start with fresh local veggies: get a range from leafy greens to solid squashes. Have a list of what you will always have on hand like onions, garlic, and green- then go with what looks good and inspires you.
• then stock up on a variety of beans and other legumes (like lentils)
• Also have a good stock of a variety of grains from the instant pastas to the more lengthy rices then to flours that you can use to make breads, crusts, tortillas etc from scratch.
• Then fit in more complex protein sources. I eat a good variety of fish. I will buy a whole chicken to make stock to keep on hand and then have the stewed meat for a few other meals. Only grass-fed beef and only this and other meats occasionally.
• Avoid buying items that are “one use”. Make sure any packaged (including bulk) goods are able to be stretched over many meals. Figuring what packaged items you can manage to do homemade is a great adventure, from cookies to yogurt, bread to sauerkraut.
• Indulge in treats like a nice cheese, wine, desserts etc. Just keep them special by limiting. Start shopping by meal then fill in.

Bulk is beautiful!

                          

Finding good standards that are affordable and satisfying seems to be the way to indulge more often, so in sharing my finds I can also keep track (how many times have I been at the counter and forgotten what it was I liked so much before?!). The reason for this is that simple pleasures are important in lean times (as I, and many others, are currently facing) so that frugality is not an experience of total deprivation.

This Valentine’s day, we got it right on all accounts:

A Spanish wine, Finca Yerro. I think Toro is the type. Though you’ll have to forgive my lack of knowledge in wine taxonomy, especially when it’s all in Spanish and there isn’t the easily recognizable pinot noir etc…

It’s been about a week since we had this, so the lasting impression was perfectly drinkable, heavy, and not a trace of that metallic edge. It was a valentine’s splurge, and I think it was 15 bucks. This is definitely the maximum, and not exactly this “affordable standard” I’m wanting to track- but so delicious!

(I’m not going to brush up on wine tasting/reviewing, it’s all about the moment, and the combination with the food. This one we had with these braised short ribs, a saffron rice pilaf, and the cheese below and it was perfect)

Cheese: Montcerda, Pyrenees, Cadi. Again, the categories of this information are not entirely clear, but logically- maker, location, type. This is an almost buttery, salty cow’s milk cheese that has enough bite, texture and flavor- that lasts on the back of the tongue- to motivate another four or five fat slices.