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.

                          

The tiny kitchen was all over the NY Times this week from the debut of a cute video bit (that I bet will become a regular thing) to the discussion of great cooks having modest work spaces from Mark Bittman, and for some reason the Well blog also brought it up (I assume because cooking at home is generally better for you and pointing out how if Mark Bittman can manage in a cramped space, the perceived inadequacy of your kitchen is one less excuse).

As I said in a comment on the Well blog I think small works best when you have a few things that are quality and get the job done. Bittman’s tag line is that you only need a “A stove, a sink, a refrigerator, some pots and pans, a knife and some serving spoons,”… “All else is optional.” Another commenter made that point that if you can crummy tools it makes cooking really hard, and I have to agree. A cramped space with bad tools makes cooking a chore. But a little attention to detail, anything you can do to improve the space and any investment made on a knife sharpener, a heavy pot or two makes the restraint of space hardly noticeable.

Here are the three things I like best about my tiny kitchen:

Even though it has to be cleaned often (and of course there is no dishwasher) it cleans up fast

The efficiency of having everything within arms reach (or arm, plus step stool in my case) can’t be beat

The less space you have the more money you save on gadgets you don’t need because there is literally no room (You can see in the bit about the new Tiny Kitchen videos that she has not used this advantage as her kitchen has spread out to make her living room look like a diner and she has a mess a gadgets that seem to be pushing their IKEA storage solutions to the max )

The last is a blessing and a curse depending: For the most part i like to cook on my own, just do the whole thing start to finish, just to do it my way. And there can’t be too many cooks in the kitchen, when there is literally only room for one. When I need help though, space seems to open up (maybe because I allow it to?)

I am happy to see the tiny kitchen get some good attention because I think it does well to represent a renewed appreciation for simplicity at a time when we all need to scale back. You simply don’t need a lot to live well and the more people that realize that and live it out in the way they eat, shop, and make their homes the better off we all will be.

                          

 (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.

                          

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!