Special Processes and Techniques
A Quick and Easy Guide to Homemade Foods
A few years ago, while attending a family reunion, I visited the house my mother grew up in during the 1930s. The low-slung, brown, brick house sits on a large lot on the outskirts of a small town near Salt Lake City. The house was surrounded by a farm until a portion of the property was sold to the high school next door. My mother’s siblings, Aunt Amelia (Aunt Mil) and Uncle Don, still live there. They still grow a few rows of this and that, and the crabapple tree still bears fruit. The pantry off the kitchen was the thing that struck me most powerfully. The shelves were lined with pickles, preserves, jams, jellies, and canned tomatoes and other vegetables from the garden. It looked strangely foreign to me, like a museum in some other country.
My mom never canned or preserved a thing. She relied on packaged, convenience products to put dinner on the table seven days a week while working a nine-to-five job. Cooking was work. The only time she seemed to enjoy cooking was on special occasions when she’d make some of our traditional Serbian family dishes: sarma (stuffed cabbage rolls) or the yeasted, barely sweet walnut-date bread called orevnitza that’s only served at Christmastime, or Aunt Mil’s jam-filled sugar cookies. Today, I’m thankful that Aunt Mil stayed in that house all these years, preserving the harvest right along with our family food traditions.
When I first saw all those jars neatly lined up, their contents barely discernible in the dim light, the hand-written labels indecipherable, I felt both happy and a little wistful. Happy they were there, but wistful because something that should have been part of me wasn’t. I’d missed out on a culinary tradition. That was when the memories of eating at my grandmother’s house came back—dim ones to be sure. I was only four when we moved away to California. But I do remember platters of homemade food full of richness, love, and skill. I remember women working in the kitchen. I remember playing outside between the rows of plants. I remember the first time I learned what a honeysuckle tasted like.
By the time of that family reunion, I was already a professional cook with a natural curiosity about how things work in the kitchen. Still, I wasn’t as connected to my food as I wanted to be. After seeing my mom’s family home, I went back to my home inspired because I knew that those Depressionera characteristics were in my genes—resourcefulness and an inability to waste food.
BEYOND THE PACKAGE
My personal journey into making more of my own basic foods started as a way to revive the lost kitchen arts that I had seen my aunt upholding. I questioned why I was purchasing everyday staples that are so easy to make—things like granola, bread, butter, tortillas, and pickles. I started dabbling a little here and there, noticing how much better most anything I made from scratch tasted than any food from a package—however special or gourmet it purported to be. I began looking at labels more closely, noticing the ingredients that are added to almost all foods to preserve their shelf life, color, and texture. I knew that even the highest-quality products weren’t necessarily made with the freshest, tastiest, seasonal produce, because they’re made year-round, not just when the ingredients are at their best. Packaged foods have to be consistent and cost effective. Seasonality isn’t a consideration. I wanted to get beyond the packaging altogether and create a completely homemade kitchen.
That was about the time I realized I was drowning in plastic quart containers from my daily yogurt habit. It made me a little sick just to think about all that plastic—not just what I was buying, but what others discarded as well. I wondered if it was really necessary. I considered buying a yogurt maker but visions of abandoned appliances left on urban sidewalks stopped me: Those sad, yellowed yogurt makers, Crock-Pots, and bread machines left over after yard sales with hastily scrawled signs saying “FREE” taped onto them. I thought, “Do I really need another appliance?” Surely people made yogurt successfully before there were yogurt makers. So I did some research and figured out that all you really need is a way to keep the milk warm while it cultures. I looked at many suggestions and rigged up a method that worked for me.
Another thing happened that pushed me even farther away from packaged foods. One summer Sunday, I noticed that a family member’s backyard plum tree was literally dripping with gorgeous, plump, purple plums. After gorging ourselves on several, we realized that the bulk of the remainder needed to be harvested that day or they would end up falling to the ground and rotting. Yet, I could easily imagine any of us in a grocery store buying jam within the next few weeks. It seemed criminal. We got out the ladder and worked together filling countless paper grocery bags. We gave away all we could to friends, neighbors, and a local foraging group called Forage Oakland; ate more than we should; froze all that would fit in the freezer; and still there were more. The next day I made jam for the first time. The family got their plums back in jars. They were delighted. I brought some to friends. We ate it all winter on toast and stirred into yogurt. Many people told me it was the best jam they’d ever had. I thought so, too. I came to a realization: If I can make the best jam ever on the first try, in just a couple of hours, why buy it? If you truly care how your food tastes and about knowing exactly what’s in it, why buy anything when you can make it yourself?
Around this time, a lot was happening outside of my kitchen. Just as the Slow Food movement was starting to penetrate beyond its early adherents, and more people were becoming aware of the pleasures of eating locally and simply, people started waking up to the problems in our industrialized, globalized food system. It was becoming clear that our food is making us sick—sometimes very slowly, through unhealthful additives and the wrong kinds of calories. And sometimes more quickly, through food contamination and adulteration. Then the economy started to shake and food prices climbed suddenly. Feelings of vulnerability sparked a nationwide resurgence in self-reliance activities not seen since World War II—activities like urban farming, suburban homesteading, keeping chickens, foraging, canning, preserving, and planting backyard gardens. It seemed that just as people were finding that they wanted to reconnect with their food, they were learning that they might just have to.
The truth is, we’re not very handy in the kitchen anymore. We’re accustomed to convenience and being able to buy whatever we need whenever we need it. For many people who do cook, spending time in the kitchen has become a recreational weekend activity, not an everyday way of feeding ourselves. Even those of us who cook every day sometimes struggle with putting dinner on the table night after night, and a lot of us resort to take-out more than we’d like.
I like knowing that I have the skills to make something I could easily buy. It’s important to me to have food on hand that I’ve made myself because then I always have the makings of a meal. When there are pickles, sauerkraut, bread (either fresh or in the freezer), salad dressing, cheese, eggs, and a few vegetables in my larder, I’m in control of what I’m eating that day. I don’t have to be at the mercy of the grocery store deli when I’m tired. Or go out when I’d rather be home. Or spend money I’d rather save. Or eat something that’s neither healthful nor tasty. Instead of feeling frustrated, stressed, and out of control, I feel resourceful and ready for anything. I feel like I’m taking good care of myself and my loved ones. Just as the victory gardens planted during the World Wars made people more self-reliant, my well-stocked kitchen and new way of eating is like a personal victory over the chaos of life.
That’s what I want to share with you—more than just a collection of recipes, but a way of eating that is uncomplicated, sensible, and at the same time, deeply satisfying. I didn’t invent many of the techniques in this book. Yogurt, sauerkraut, sourdough bread, and fresh cheese existed long before me, but I’ve put my own twist on them and put them together into one book. I hope the foods in this book will serve as building blocks for your own new way of eating. You’ll also find recipes that utilize one or more of the basic food items as a way to demonstrate how you can use the building blocks. There are special sections with ideas for easy meal preparation that I hope will help you eat better and inspire your own ideas. And, of course, you don’t have to make everything yourself. Start with a few items that inspire you and you’ll begin to see how you can combine homemade items with store-bought ones, as well as fresh meats and produce, and you’ll likely find yourself building a repertoire of homemade foods over time.
I hope this book will help you integrate the preparation of food into your daily experience, slow down, and enjoy cooking and mealtimes more. I hope it will inspire you to reconnect with both your food and the people with whom you eat. I hope you feel proud of the things you make with your own hands and that you enjoy them deeply.
This book includes a variety of different types of recipes, with varying levels of complexity. At its most simple, there’s a repertoire of basic salad dressings to serve as a reminder that salad dressings don’t have to come in bottles. You’ll find two salsa recipes that are easier, yet much tastier, than anything you’ll find in a store. Slightly more complex, but easier than you probably think, are items like homemade crackers, jam, tortillas, and mustard.
There are a few techniques that may be new to you. They were once new to me, too, and I was apprehensive. Don’t worry; we’re in this together! I consulted experts for several areas of this book in which I wasn’t an expert, and I encourage you to do the same in your communities and families. Skill sharing is a great way to build community and self-reliance.
As you learn new skills, you’ll find that an understanding of how things work in the kitchen not only increases your self-reliance, but it also bolsters your connection to the natural and scientific worlds. All human cultures once knew that salt and wild bacterial organisms that live in our environment could be used to preserve vegetables, resulting in healthful, delicious foods like sauerkraut and kimchi. Scalding milk and then inoculating it with the proper bacteria to make yogurt is an easy process but seems magical the first time you do it. Teaching yourself and your children the science of the kitchen can not only be fun, but it can provide a great sense of satisfaction.
FERMENTATION
Fermentation is one of the special techniques here that may be new to you. The surprising list of fermented foods we eat every day is exhaustive. Some of my favorite foods, such as salami, wine, cheese, and chocolate, are all products of fermentation. In this book, you’ll learn how to make your own sourdough starter from scratch, using just the wild organisms in the air; red wine vinegar and kombucha from a special culture; sauerkraut, kimchi, and Wild Salvadoran Curtido by adding salt to inhibit harmful bacteria; and naturally carbonated soft drinks.
FEAR OF FERMENTATION: We tend to fear the things we don’t understand, whether they are unfamiliar religions, cultures, or the workings of the internal combustion engine. Our disconnection from food likewise breeds a fear of unfamiliar kitchen processes. For example, many people are nervous the first few times they leave a food product out at room temperature for several days to let it ferment. That’s a normal and reasonable reaction. Our modern food system has taught us to treat our foods like biohazards, because many of them are. Due to lack of traceability and proper inspection and enforcement protocols, the onus has been put on us to overcook our meat and bleach our countertops, because the food system can’t guarantee that the foods we eat are safe. So, if you’re worried about making yourself sick with fermented foods, consider that the government-supervised food system hasn’t done such a good job of keeping us safe. Trust your own kitchen and your own judgment and senses. Keep things clean and pay attention to what your eyes and your nose tell you and you won’t have any trouble.
If you’re still nervous, remember that fermentation was developed as a way to preserve foods before refrigeration, and we somehow survived as people long enough to invent refrigerators. Fermentation occurs when beneficial bacteria and wild yeasts colonize food. Once the good bacteria colonize a food item, the bad bacteria don’t stand a chance. On occasion, bad organisms get into a food before good ones—usually early in the process. That’s why it’s important to keep things clean. If it happens, you will know it. Your nose will tell you in no uncertain terms. I can’t stress it enough. Trust yourself.
There are books on fermenting and there are books on canning and pickling. Usually, however, they are not the same books. I like fermented pickles, but I also like the bite of a nice vinegary pickled vegetable, so I’ve included both in this book. Pickling is easy. You just have to use the proper proportion of vinegar to keep it safe. I don’t have a large garden, so I rarely find myself with a windfall of vegetables to preserve. The recipes in this book are for small batches of pickles that are kept in the refrigerator. However, I’m all for preserving and canning. If you are too, you likely already have a canning book. You can take the recipes in this book and scale them up and process them according to the canning chart in any recently updated canning book. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends canned processing for anything that will be stored at room temperature, including fermented pickles and jams.
CULTURING
There are several cultured dairy products in this book, including butter, yogurt, crème fraîche, and mascarpone. The culturing process is similar to fermentation. A culturing agent is introduced into either milk or cream, which is then exposed to the proper temperature conditions for the proper amount of time to allow the culturing agent to work. It’s pretty much as simple as that. This process, like fermentation, tends to make people nervous. If anything, dairy products are even more likely than vegetables to tell you when something has gone wrong. So trust your nose.
Is the D.I.Y. kitchen also an unplugged kitchen? Yes and no. I firmly believe that a person can successfully make bread without a bread maker and yogurt without a yogurt maker. And I do have a special relationship with the mortar and pestle on my counter. So in these senses, the D.I.Y. kitchen is unplugged.
On the other hand, both your blender and your food processor will get a pretty good workout in this book. The better the quality of these two pieces of equipment, the better the recipes will turn out. I also enjoy having a coffee grinder devoted to spices because it speeds things up, but a mortar and pestle work fine.
CAST IRON
A cast-iron skillet is one of the best pieces of kitchen equipment you will ever buy. Once it’s well seasoned, it’s like a trustworthy friend. It goes from the stove to the oven, nothing will stick to it, it cleans up like a dream, it browns and caramelizes like nobody’s business, it makes perfect pancakes and tortillas, and it dry roasts the ingredients for authentic salsa better than anything else. And guess what? It’s cheap. I’ve found great cast-iron skillets at garage sales for as little as $1 or $2 and even brand new, they won’t set you back much. They’re even still made in the United States. Get yourself one.
MISCELLANEOUS TOOLS
You will need a few really good strainers for various recipes, both fine and medium mesh. A Crock-Pot or slow cooker is nice to have, and if you want to make corn tortillas, it’s best to use a tortilla press. Of course, some tortillas are still made entirely by hand, but this is after years of daily practice. I believe in avoiding frustration in the kitchen as much as possible. A mortar and pestle are essential for pounding garlic into a paste for certain recipes in this book. It mellows the garlic and is used when you want the flavor of garlic to permeate a dish subtly but completely. It’s a technique that is easy and quick, and when it’s called for in a dish, it matters. A pasta maker is nice to have for homemade pasta, but it’s not essential. For vinegar, you’ll need some sort of crock, and for pizza, you’ll be a very happy pizza maker indeed if you have a stone and a peel. All of these items are discussed in recipe head notes and the Sources and Further Reading section.
MASON JARS
You will need mason jars, mostly 1-quart, wide-mouthed jars, for many of the pickles and fermented items. These are also good for storing grains, granola, and leftovers. For jam, you’ll want to buy smaller ones.
Kosher salt is used in almost all of the recipes in this book. It’s a good allpurpose salt that is affordable and readily available. In cases where it might be nice to use a fancier salt, like a fleur de sel, I point it out, but it’s never necessary. In cases where the directions say “season with salt,” it isn’t important what kind of salt you use. But for pickling and fermenting, it is important to use what’s specified because different salts have different-sized crystals and they will tend to weigh and measure differently. For example, you must use about 50 percent more kosher salt in a recipe than pickling salt because pickling salt is finer grained.
I prefer to use organic turbinado sugar rather than bleached white sugar, simply because it’s less processed. I buy organic because I think it’s important to support organic practices, but it’s not necessary for the recipes. Many of the recipes here call for alternative sweeteners like honey, agave syrup, or maple syrup.
A few special cultures are called for in this book to make dairy products, soft drinks, vinegar, and kombucha. Availability and sources are discussed in recipe head notes and also in the Sources section. Most of the spices used in this book are easy to find in regular stores across the country. A few items, such as Korean and Aleppo pepper, are found only in specialty or culturally specific food stores. For those items, substitutions are suggested, or look in the Sources section.
Besides the obvious benefits of eating more healthfully, and avoiding additives and excessive packaging, investing time in making foods from scratch can actually save you shopping and cooking time later on. You’ll be surprised at how many creative ways you can use and repurpose the homemade foods in this book for quick, economical, and creative meals and snacks. The simplest things taste better because you’ve made them yourself!
Following are a few easy ideas for using various homemade foods to make impromptu appetizers and quick meals.
Serve with homemade or store-bought crackers or breads along with olives and homemade pickles for a quick and easy appetizer.
Whisk with olive oil and make a quick dressing for salads or drizzle over grilled or baked fish, chicken, or roasted potatoes.
Thin with a little white wine and use it to marinate fish just before cooking.
Stir into scrambled eggs during the last few minutes of cooking.
Use it as a pasta sauce or pizza topping.
Serve alongside mashed potatoes and browned sausage.
Tuck into a grilled cheese sandwich with homemade or store-bought bread.
Toss with whole-wheat pasta and leftover Mustard and Bourbon-Glazed Pork Roast.
Eat with beans or atop a bean soup.
AVOCADO-TOMATILLO SALSA OR
SIMPLE TOMATO SALSA
Smash some cooked pinto beans and make a layered dip with the beans and homemade Crème Fraîche or store-bought sour cream.
Shred leftover chicken, beef, or pork and reheat with either type of salsa. Serve tucked into Tortillas.
Stir into scrambled eggs or homemade savory porridge served with an egg.
Stir into cooked beans and serve alongside rice or with eggs and tortillas.
Reheat leftover shredded chicken in the sauce for a mole-like dish.
Stir into cooked polenta or other porridge during the last few minutes of cooking and top with shredded cheese.
Drain for two hours and make a marinade for chicken or fish by adding lots of garlic, lemon juice, fresh herbs, and/or dried spices and a little olive oil.
Drizzle over cooked lentils or beans.
Stir into homemade porridge.
Repurpose it into a dip by draining it in cheesecloth over a bowl or sink for several hours.
Drizzle over fresh pasta or any vegetable soup.
Instead of cream, add it to a pasta dish or pureed soup during the last few minutes of cooking.
Serve with fresh fruit for dessert, drizzled with honey or not.
Drizzle over a pizza topped with smoked fish.
GARLICKY CUCUMBER PICKLE RELISH
Serve on a pork or chicken sandwich.
Drain well and sprinkle over a cured meat or smoked fish pizza after it comes out of the oven.
Serve on crackers with soft cheese.
Serve with beans.
Add to grain salads.
Enjoy alongside brown rice and canned sardines, herring, or mackerel.
Toss with soba noodles and vegetables.
If you don’t eat processed food, why should your baby? Commercial baby food in little jars is a convenience to be sure. Those little jars are super-portable. But they are expensive, and what’s on the ingredients list? Even if there are no additives on the list, how can you know that the best-tasting and freshest ingredients went into that jar? The best way to teach kids to like vegetables and other good-for-you foods is to make sure that the first such foods they try taste great. Not to mention, those little jars are a waste of production energy even if they do go in the recycling.
It’s easy and fast to make your own baby food and it can be just as convenient to store and transport as little jars. The best way is to freeze portions of homemade baby food in ice cube trays and then store them in resealable plastic bags. When you need food to go, take out a few cubes; transfer them to a small, lidded container; and tuck it into an insulated bag. The food will thaw while you’re out and about.
Baby food can be any kind of real food, as long as allergies are taken into account and it’s not heavily seasoned. You’ll want to balance the fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins. In many cases, baby can eat the same thing you’re eating, sometimes with textural adjustments, sometimes not. Wholegrain porridge is a good example of a baby-ready food.
FRUITS: apples, peaches, pears, melons, berries, citrus
VEGETABLES: green beans, peas, legumes, squash, root vegetables, broccoli, greens, corn
GRAINS: brown rice, oats, barley, farro, porridge
PROTEINS: small portions of meat, plain Yogurt, Fresh Whole-Milk Soft Cheese
There are books and Web sites that detail how to make baby food, but all you really need to do to any of the previously listed foods is to cook (in most cases), mash or puree, and store properly.
COOKING METHODS: steam, roast, or boil
PUREEING METHODS: blender, food processor, immersion blender, potato masher, baby food mill
STORAGE: ice cube trays; resealable plastic bags; small, portable lidded containers
Even before the problems with deadly contaminants in pet food surfaced, many pet owners questioned whether commercial pet food was really the best thing for their beloved family members. Even if you buy a respected brand of organic pet food in a pet store, you’re still getting highly processed food, akin to some of the organic packaged and processed foods on the market today, only with more by-products. As with any processed food, you’re really buying convenience. It’s important to remember that domestic animals evolved by living alongside humans and eating most of the same foods humans ate, in the form of table scraps.
I’m not suggesting you feed your pet only table scraps, but in some cases it’s a fine idea. Brown rice or other grains, with a little broth and some vegetables from a soup are perfectly good foods for your dog. I often feed my dog foods that I cannot use or don’t want to eat (but that aren’t spoiled)—it’s better than wasting food. Ground-up fish bones or cooked soup bones are also good for dogs, and a treat they’ll appreciate. Trimmings from fish or fresh meats are other good candidates.
Since you can’t count on your table scraps to feed your dog or cat, there are other ways to go about making sure your animals have the healthiest food possible.
Before making drastic changes in your pet’s menu, I recommend speaking to your veterinarian and doing some research. There are a few things that are poisonous to dogs, like onions. But feeding your animals on your own goes back to the issue of trusting your own instincts and knowledge versus trusting the quality of the ingredients the pet food industry is using. I’ll put my money on the pet owner any day.
Though it’s beyond this book to provide pet food recipes, I’ve provided resources for learning more about various pet diets. At my house, I cook a weekly batch of quinoa, chicken, and vegetables for the dog that I alternate with raw chicken necks (never cooked chicken bones). I supplement with a multivitamin and my dog is healthy, has boundless energy, has no skin problems, and rarely needs to visit the vet.