Homemade mayo now sits next to homemade salad dressing and is becoming one less processed packaged food we get pre-made. This change is mostly because you cannot find mayonnaise made with olive oil, only canola, though there are some new (expensive!) variations that include other healthier oils, but are still based on canola. Homemade also just means less packaging and things to buy.

This process of weeding out packaged foods always reminds me of those essentials I don’t produce. I can’t make my own olive oil and at this point I don’t have chickens. That would be an exciting next step to self-reliance.

I make this by hand, you can definitely use a food processor. Start with an egg yolk from a happy bug-eating chicken. (The Organic requirement for eggs is that they have a vegetarian diet, presumably from the industrial farming practice of feeding their dead chicken back to their live ones, which creates a closed loop system for disease. When in fact sometimes chickens DO eat other chickens, and mice, and bugs, and sometimes grains and seeds. They are vicious little omnivores like us and need a varied diet. So you can look all you want for the perfect egg at the store and finally settle on cage free organic, but you won’t get the egg with the most nutrients from the happiest chicken. Get your eggs at the farmers market and make sure to ask if their chicken eat bug. This way you know that they are out and about living their chicken lives and that the egg you get is optimal.)

Wisk the yolk and start dripping in olive oil- I start with about 3/4 cups. One yolk can really only take up 1 cup total. Starting with a slow thin stream and always incorporate all the oil before adding too much more, otherwise it will seperate. When it starts to get too thick to wisk (this cue is why I like doing it by hand) add some water. You will see the mixture immediately lighten up and get whiter.

Some lemon juice and salt can also be added. Also some whey, as it more than doubles the life of your hard-earned mayo. Actually there are endless possibilities of things to add flavor-wise. Garlic and herbs being ideal. Basil is outstanding!

                          

I added more to this one- oyster mushrooms fresh from the market and a little meat. Sauteed all the fillings, letting the onions get dark and sweet on their own first, then the mushrooms, chard stems, and the slices of meat (I am being generic, because it was a gift and it is called a “beef stick” and I just don’t know what else to call it)- adding a bit more olive oil at this point- and lastly the rough chopped chard (I actually just turn the pan off and then add the greens so as not to cook them down too much). Then all that goes into six beaten eggs along with salt and pepper and more olive oil (also garlic, but I left it out on this one)

Scrape all the bits into the eggs, mix together and then heat the pan again and add it all. This is the part that is key to me, departing from Alice’s instructions. I just let it set and then when it seems like the bottom is done (like you can lift it with the rubber spatula) but the top is still liquidy I put it under the broiler flame and it gets this beautiful delicate bubbly browned slightly crispy layer that clearly defies description. Many recipes tell you to invert the whole thing onto a plate and then cook the other side. I can’t imagine that being successful, and I also have never seen a picture of one cooked this way so I don’t know that it would look nice or have nearly such a unique and pleasing texture as the top flame method

This technique may not work with electric ovens- I don’t know. When I turn my oven on there is a flame in the broiler section, I put it under a medium flame, not the full broiler heat. I think you can also just put it in the oven close to the top as long as it heats from there. All better choices than this ridiculous flip.

                          

 (note the eggs should actually be beaten before going in, but I took artistic license)

Making pasta, I have now learned is not hard at all. It’s not convenient or fast, but it certainly isn’t hard. But guess what else it is? Cheap! Yes. Homemade pasta from local organic flour and local organic cage free eggs is cheaper than organic dried pasta from italy or who knows where.

It breaks down like this: Eggs are ¢21 a piece. The super nice local flour feels like a lot at $12 for a 7lb bag, but it comes down to ¢51 per cup. One batch of pasta can be made with 1 egg and 1 c flour. Try buying delicious fresh pasta for ¢72

Toothsome eh?

Note on the shrimp and any previous or future meals with beautiful seafood. A main purpose of the Goods are Odd is about living Mind to Mouth. This is about using your gray matter to come up with rational and creative solutions to the problem of health and healthy food being seemingly limited to those with significant income. Rational and creative sometimes includes luck. Everyone seems to have their lucky hook-ups in one part of life or another. A lot of times in communal settings there is a good deal of sharing because no one has much except what they can offer through their job or family or other hobbies. Ours happens to be a hook up with delicious, fresh, sustainable fish. Are you reaching out to those around you and sharing the hook-ups you have in possible return for others? This requires talking to and connecting with your neighbors and co-workers, or potential friends on the internet and often being the first to be generous.

                          

The salad is a testament to the fact that growing your own food can really help expand personal tastes. As an adult I struggle to move beyond my initial childhood reaction to crunchy things that come out of the ground- which was to sift past them with my fork if they somehow managed to get on my plate. When you’ve grown something yourself there is more motivation to try it, and the payback is so good since you couldn’t find it fresher. Note to parents. Growing your own food means you can’t always choose what you eat. These radishes I previously never liked were bursting out of the ground and had to be eaten. So like most new foods I mixed them into things I liked and with greens and broccoli from the garden we made this healthy heap!

With our beautiful fresh eggs, laid just a few days previous, I couldn’t resist making a tartar sauce with our california olive oil (which is almost overwhelmingly grassy) and a bright orange yolk. I threw in garlic, chopped dilly beans (thanks Martha!) garden parsley and lemon juice. This process is way easier than some folks make it out to be- and since olive oil isn’t so cheap I don’t use quite as much as called for which makes is a bit thinner, but still very delicious.

Carrots and potatoes are from the farmer’s market, oh and the freshest halibut from the best source in the Bay Area. There is a lesson here that sometimes when you eat well you have a skimp sometimes on other things…I think it’s obvious.

                          

One way to save money on local, organic, healthy food is to check out who in your community may have excess of something you are in need of. For instance, we learned in the craigslist ‘free’ section that a lovely family had taken in many many chickens to relieve people of finished class projects or failed personal homesteading endeavors. These chickens forage on their large plot of land, just the free ranging local food we are looking for. And since they were so busy with their clucking charges they were willing to trade for garden goods.

At the time of reading this post our neighbors who share our garden were out of town, and we had an unwieldy abundance of green beans, snap peas, and (of course) zucchini. We also had harvested a friends lemon tree, with this trade in mind. So we brought our extras for a wonderfully fair trade for some of the most darling and delicious eggs I’ve ever had.

We are excited about our ongoing relationship with the egg people and that our garden not only saves us money on the veggies we grow but is a resource to acquire other things we need as well.