Shopping for Gourmet Food on a Budget

Real food is worth spending a little more money on than fake food.  Sometimes it is even worth spending a LOT more money on – if you showcase it in a special dish and use more economical ingredients in the remainder of a meal.  Over the years, however, I have learned to spend less eating well than the average American spends eating poorly.  

My husband and I really like to eat.  We have pared our bill from $150-200 a week for two down to $50 (summer)-60 (winter) a week, primarily out of necessity.  He is retired; I am back in school and only working part time.  We just don’t earn what we used to.  That $60 still covers French roast coffee, steak and a decent (but not great) quality red wine.  

To get from $200 to $60 took almost a year because I didn’t want to seem mean about it!  First we replaced the highest end products like Bubbe’s sauerkraut at $6.50 a jar and lamb chops at $12/lb. with imported sauerkraut at $4 a jar and local lamb shoulder at $7/lb.  The coffee and wine also got traded down.  I always raised and butchered my own poultry and bought beef at the local butcher; I now buy more organ meats and stretch all meats farther.  I also always grew a garden and canned and froze what we did not use immediately; these I continue to do.  Now I also barter with the neighbors when we have more plums than we can use.  They give us their excess eggplants and squash. 

Instead of shopping every week, I drive a little farther every 9 days or so to the closest thing I’ve found out here to a low cost multi-ethnic grocer.  I live in rural Oregon now, so this isn’t anywhere near as multi-ethnic an option as it was when I lived in Northern Virginia.   Anything I can’t get there, I save for trips to Eugene, when I’ll stop in the Asian store or Big Lots, which is one of those places that buys surplus merchandise.  (I never quite know what you will find so I go prepared for some normal purchases like Bigelow teas, hair conditioner and Bob's Red Mill quinoa, but I may end up buying European gourmet items, including high end chocolates, olive oils and sauces.) 

I go to farmer’s markets early in the morning, when they first open and their produce is at its best.  Yes, produce is cheaper when they are packing up at the end of the day, but it may be wilted, too.  Occasionally at the end of the season, I will call around to see if anyone is selling boxes of produce cheaply to add to what I am already canning from my own garden.  Yes, I will be very angry with myself while I am actually doing the canning and my back is hurting and I am dripping sweat.  But in December, when I have a cupboard that contains a nice variety of salsas, spaghetti sauces, apple, plum and pear butters, chutneys, etc., do I remember the back aches?  I do not. 

In the winter, if I find a particularly good sale on apples, carrots and potatoes, I store them in my mud room, which is unheated.  In the summer, bruised or single bananas, which are sold at the reduced price of $0.49 a pound most of the year, often go for $0.29 a pound and I buy half a cart load of them.  Sounds silly, but what else is so good for you at such a low price?  I peel them all, break them into bits and put them in freezer bags for making delicious dairy free smoothies and ice creams – with a very realistic dairy-like texture - all summer long.  

If you have an apartment with a balcony, you can grow basil and tomatoes in big pots on it.  I would not bother growing anything else.  Those two things are so much better grown at home and picked fresh than anything you can buy elsewhere and bring home.  Make sure you plant quick growing varieties that are indeterminate, meaning they will produce for a long period, not all at once – I would do one cherry and one slicer, both in 5 gallon buckets with multiple holes drilled in the bottom and a tray underneath to catch the drainage.  The basil does not need such a large pot – maybe 12” tall.  

I don’t think Costco or Sam’s Club are really great bargains unless you have a large family.  You have to pay a membership fee up front and most things come in gargantuan packages, which you will then feel compelled to use, whether you like it or not.  I think such stores foster either overeating or resentment, depending on whether you have the personality to finish off or be repelled by the presence of too many leftovers in the refrigerator. 

It is a good idea to go to a grocery store for perhaps three of four of your shopping trips and to save one shopping trip a month for a place like an Asian store or Trader Joes.  Then confine yourself to cooking only from items you bought at that store or that you have leftover from your previous trips.  Do not go to two stores in one week or you will overspend.  

Don’t buy anything but groceries at a grocery store, unless you really do get a better deal on it (sometimes cat and dog food qualifies) than you would elsewhere.   

Go with a list.  Vary from the list only when the items ON your list are NOT on sale and can be replaced with items that ARE on sale for a GREAT price.  For instance:  if I want tomatoes, but they are not on sale, but red bell peppers, which usually are expensive are on sale, I will buy a lot of them.  They are sweet and juicy.  They can be roasted and have a texture similar to cooked tomatoes or they can be sliced and be added to salads.  

Buy produce so that it will last for at least a week, with some items ready to use immediately and some that can keep.  Break bunches of bananas so you have a few ripe ones and a few green ones.  Buy perishable produce and also hard, long keeping produce like carrots, onions, cauliflower and broccoli.  Buy frozen vegetables, too.  That way you can stretch out your shopping trips and go less often, therefore spending less in time, money and gasoline.  

Despite what I said about going with a list, I don’t believe too thoroughly in planning meals ahead of time or being a slave to the ads.  Nor do I believe in cutting coupons.  Ads and coupons generally get you to buy the big name products.  Do people who read food blogs really want corporate cereals and sliced processed cheese?   I believe in knowing what you have in your kitchen RIGHT NOW, in knowing what you like to cook and like to eat.  

Learn to write your list in the order in which things are laid out in the store – for instance, I  always enter the store in produce, then go to bulk foods, then head back towards wine and meat, then over towards coffee and butter, then to frozen vegetables and then to the cashier.  This is the order in which I write my list, every time, so I never have to backtrack. 

Also, don’t go to the grocery store when you are hungry, or everything will look wonderful.  Also, don’t linger too long – go with a purpose and stay out of the aisles where you are most likely to cheat on your budget or your diet.  

Make sure you pay attention to unit pricing. Sometimes packaging is deceiving and a bigger box may actually contain less product.  Sometimes a sale price of a brand name item may still be more expensive than a different size of the store brand.

Know your spending goal before you even enter the store and how much you are willing to vary it if you come across something truly spectacular.  (Have a pretty clear idea of what spectacular means to you and what you will sacrifice from your list to buy it if it puts you over budget.)  Add things up as you go.  You can take a calculator if you want, or a pencil and paper and use the tally system, writing a slash for every dollar (rounded) you spend.  If you do this four or five shopping trips in a row, you probably won’t need to thereafter unless your spending creeps upwards again.  

Check out the bulk section of your grocery store.  If your grocery does not have one – or if the lids don’t close well, consider finding another grocery.  If the store has good traffic, many bulk items will be just as fresh, or maybe even fresher than packaged goods.  I buy as many spices as possible in bulk, for huge savings.  I also buy an assortment of specialty flours like stone-ground malted wheat, buckwheat and almond.  Nuts and dried fruits are usually half the price of gourmet and health food stores.  I get a lot of short grain brown rice, a little long grain basmati and a little wild black rice and mix them after purchase, for an expensive looking, flavorful blend that costs me very little.  I also use red lentils and azuki beans often.  Like the rice blend, they are attractive, so I store them in glass jars on the counter.  

If you buy designer coffees away from home, buy yourself a coffee machine and start making it at home.  You will save money (and probably calories) doing this.  

You can also save a lot of money on fast food or other meals out by buying precooked rotisserie chicken and packaged “baby carrots”, washed snow peas and other such convenience items at a grocery store when you are in a hurry.  You will be getting real food, just as quickly, for less money – and you will have leftovers!  

Hope some of these ideas help you save money at your own grocery store.  I may add more later.  I am supposed to be studying for a psychology exam.

Viking Aronia / Huckleberry Chutney with Anise / Blackberry Chutney with Anise

The last time I was at the grocery store, I found pineapples 3 for $2 and a jar of Frontier organic anise for $2.  My Viking aronia, which has never borne fruit before, is loving this cold and wet summer (I read there is a major drought affecting most US produce, but it is hard to believe it here).  It is so full of berries, the branches are starting to break!  The berries, which are tart, most resemble huckleberries in flavor.  If you have neither, blackberries would also be nice. (Or a mix of blackberries and salal.)

I whipped this up to serve alongside steak and salad. 

Ingredients

1 heaping tbsp. coconut oil

1 medium onion, chopped fine

½ c. finely chopped pineapple, preferably fresh

½ c. Viking aronias or huckleberries or 2/3 c. blackberries

1/8 c. red wine

1 tsp. garlic

½ tsp. anise

Pinch salt

A few grinds of black pepper

Method

Cook onions over medium low heat in coconut oil until transparent, then add pineapple,  aronias or blackberries, red wine and spices.  Continue cooking, stirring, until fruit has softened (aronias) and begun to split or until blackberries are losing their shape.  Taste and adjust seasonings; you may wish to add more pepper or anise depending on how strong your onion and fruit are. 

Enjoy with steak or duck or some other strongly flavored meat and a glass of red wine. 

Rye and Anise Honey Cake

The last time I was in the grocery store, I rummaged through the disorderly grocery cart that says “half off” on it.  I never know what I will find inside, which is half the fun; most of the time it contains junk food I would never buy.  But this time I found a bottle of Frontier Spice Anise for $2.00 so of course I had to get it. 

I got home and made chutney (separate post) and a kind of honey cake with it immediately.

This resembles most Jewish honey cakes only in proportions and moistness.  Generally honey cake recipes are for very sweet, white flour cakes – usually at least a cup of sugar, a cup of honey and 3 ½ cups white flour. 

(Once or twice a year I forget myself and am tempted by some bakery sweet.  About an hour after I eat it, I have a blood sugar crash that is serious enough to remind me for several months not to cook like that at home.)

Despite the use of 100% rye flour, this is not a heavy cake.

Rye and Anise  Honey Cake Ingredients and Method

Mash with a fork in a large bowl or in an electric mixer:

1 large ripe banana – at least some black spots

Mix together in a saucepan over med-low heat until melted, then add to bowl with banana:

1 c. water

¾ c. honey

1/2 stick butter (4 tbsp., salted)

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Add to bowl:

3 ½ c. rye (light or dark, your preference, but choose a fine grind)

½ tsp. salt

2 ½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. ginger

½ tbsp. anise

Mix all above together, then add:

1 c. raisins, currants or dried cranberries

Zest of one large lemon or orange

Spray a bundt pan thoroughly with baking spray (the kind with flour in it) and put in oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.  Check for doneness.  May need five or ten minutes additional depending on your oven.  Definitely check it at one hour, though, because both honey and raisins burn easily.

Enjoy this with a mug of coffee or Earl Gray tea. Try not to go back for seconds and thirds.

Restaurant Quality Miso Soup and Natto with Rice, Egg and Seaweed

Natto with Rice, Egg and Seaweed  

and Restaurant Quality Miso Soup   

(Shopping and preparation order instructions included.  Recipes serve 4.  Suggest serving with a salad.) 

I’ve heard that Natto is supposed to be a weight loss food.  Why is that?  Is it because it is so ugly you lose your appetite?  Does the slimy, stringy texture make you wonder if it’s a tad bit unsafe to take another bite?

After that lead-in, am I really going to give you a recipe for it?

You betcha!  Because although Natto is ugly and doesn’t taste wonderful by itself, it is really good made this way, with rice, seaweed and egg.  

Natto, like other fermented products (think sourdough bread, long-aged cheese and yogurt without jam) is really good for you.  Nutritionally, it is like beans on steroids, packed with fiber, protein and vitamins – and with an extra boost of vitamin K and nattokinase, an enzyme that is beneficial to the heart.  For more specifics, here’s an article from livestrong.com:  http://www.livestrong.com/article/127997-nutritional-value-natto/ and a webpage by a natto producer:  http://meguminatto.com/about_natto.html

Natto is made of soybeans with the bacterium Bacillus subtilis natto added to them.  I suppose you could save some storebought natto to start your own  batches at home (using a yogurt maker or dehydrator or oven on low).  However, if you have a good Asian store in your area, you shouldn’t need to go through the trouble, because they will have several kinds of inexpensive natto to choose from.  Health food stores might also carry it, although at significantly higher cost.  

The Asian store I go to in Eugene has a large variety of natto – all in tiny little frozen Styrofoam packets, about the size to put in a lunch box and take with me to work for topping my afternoon rice.  I feel a little guilty (for environmental reasons) using those tiny Styrofoam packets.  (About 25 years ago, I worked in a sushi bar in Washington, D.C.  One of the chefs ordered natto in one-pound plastic tubs to be delivered to the restaurant, not for sale to the customers, who probably would have been horrified, but for his own meals.  I would love to find one pound tubs for us.)

If you’re still with me, shopping and preparation instructions are below.  If not, perhaps I’ll list the miso on a separate post, also, because it really is special.  We go to a lot of Japanese restaurants when we are out of town and my husband says mine is the best! 

Shopping

Read the recipes through; unless you are really into Asian foods, you might not have all the seaweeds; I do list alternative ingredients.  Other  important points when shopping are: 

1.    Buy only Shiro (light colored, yellowish) miso.  Red (dark) miso and Hatcho (barley) miso are useful for flavoring meats, but will overpower the soup.

2.    Buy silken or egg tofu, not firm or block tofu in a tub.  The silken comes in a box; the egg comes in a tube. 

3.    Buy bonito in flakes and kombu in pieces.  An alternative is “instant dashi”, but I prefer to buy bonito and kombu separately.  They are not expensive and the results taste better.

4.    Buy nori in sheets for sushi.  You can have fun with any leftover pieces making hand-rolls.   An alternative is to buy premade seaweed topping (it comes in jars) for rice, but be sure to check the ingredients.  Many have both sugar and msg. 

 

Recipes are given separately; however, you will want to perform steps in the following order: 

1.         Start a pot of brown rice

2.         Chop veggies, set aside

3.         Start bonito broth cooking

4.         Mix miso, set aside

5.         Cut tofu and scallions, set aside

6.         Strain broth, add veggies to it

7.         Mix natto with seasoning packets and Braggs

8.         Make seaweed topping

9.         Mix miso into strained broth.  Add tofu and scallions. 

Warm on low heat. 

10.          Meanwhile, serve rice, add natto on top, then press a

depression in center and slide an egg yolk in.  Sprinkle

seaweed topping around edge of egg.

11.          Serve miso soup.

12.          Enjoy! 

Natto with Rice, Egg and Seaweed

1 c. brown rice

Dash peanut or vegetable oil

2 tbsp. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos

4 styrofoam packs natto (with seasoning packs)

4 egg yolks (very fresh!)

Seaweed seasoning, below

Make a pot of short-grain brown rice.  I use a stainless steel rice cooker, primarily because I don’t have to watch it or worry about aluminum getting in the food.  (Sometimes I cook the rice on top of the stove, in which case I start with 1 c. brown rice and 3 c. water, bring it to a boil and turn it down to a simmer, stirring occasionally until all the liquid is gone, then checking for doneness and adding more water if necessary.)   Using short grain rice is important.  The rice holds more moisture and is easier to pick up with chop sticks.  It is moister, plumper and a little more flavorful.  If you want to increase the flavor, you can toast it a moment in a medium-hot dry skillet on a stove before cooking it in water.  Add 1 tbsp. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos and a dash of peanut or other non-olive vegetable oil early in the cooking process. 

While the rice is cooking, mix the Natto in one bowl and the seaweed topping in another. 

Natto

Open Styrofoam packs of natto.  You will find one mustard and one vaguely teriyaki-like sauce in each one.  Mix 4 teriyaki sauces, 3 mustards and 4 packs of natto together in one bowl.  Add 1 tbsp. Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. 

Seaweed Seasoning

One sheet nori

1 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

2 tbsp. dulse flakes

Break up one sheet of nori into small cubes.  Mix with 1 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds and 2 tbsp. dulse flakes.

When the rice is done, portion out between four bowls.  Portion out the natto into four bowls.  Then make a depression in the top of each rice/natto mound. Break an eggs, separate out the white and slide the yolk only into the depression onto the rice and natto.  (Reserve the whites for some other recipe, or maybe cook for your dogs or cats.)  Sprinkle  seaweed topping artfully around the yolk. 

Restaurant Quality Miso Soup

serves 4-8 (depending on whether served as an opening course or as a main part of  the meal)

Have all ingredients prepped as written in ingredient list as below:

8 c. water

1 tbsp. bonito flakes

1 sheet kombu approximately the size of your palm (a little smaller is ok)

Approx. 1 c. vegetables, thinly sliced.  Carrots and mushrooms are traditional, but red or orange bell peppers are nice, also. 

½ c. plus 1 tbsp. shiro miso mixed to paste with ½ c. warm water

1 package silken or egg tofu, drained gently between two towels and cubed. 

seaweed seasoning, natto,  miso, tofu, snow peas

2 or 3 scallions, sliced  

Perhaps a couple snow peas to float on top of the finished soup

Place bonito and kombu in water and turn to high, allow to come to boil, then turn down to low.  Simmer ten minutes.  Turn off pot, strain liquid so it is clear and pour back into pot.  Add vegetables except scallions.  Turn on to medium low heat.  Cook ten minutes longer. 

Mix shiro miso with ½ c. warm water, then add a little of the now clear dashi broth.  Keep stirring until the miso mixture is free of lumps.  Add the miso mixture to the strained broth in the pot.  Stir.  Immediately slide the tofu cubes in (carefully) and the sliced scallions.   Serve within five or so minutes.  Do not overcook. 

Enjoy, preferably with a nice salad including some Asian vegetables (snow and snap peas, radish, pak choi, mizuna, tatsoi, carrots, etc.).  This time of year, I also like to put in a few purple gooseberries and aronias, both of which are firm, tart berries that hold up well in a salad and aren’t too cloying. 

Why are Gallbladders Blue?

I was reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and stopped suddenly on page 234 because I found an error that reminds me of an important fact of nature.  Everywhere you look in the natural world, there are clues about wise and poor food choices.


Pollan is a good writer, and he did a lot of fun, get-out-of-the-city research for this book, including processing chickens and hunting for the first time in order to write this book.  However... Pollan says the gallbladder is a dull mustard. It is not. The gizzard is dull mustard on the rough side you want to peel off (after cleaning out the grit). Nothing in the gizzard will make you sick. Nothing in the heart, lungs or any other internal organ will make you sick.


But the gallbladder will, and it is too strange a blue-green to be missed.


The first time I processed a chicken, I stopped at the liver, looking at the attached gallbladder in amazement.  I was thinking of insects that use color to signal poison - or at least a bitter taste - to potential predators. The gallbladder's bright prussian blue in a cavity filled with rusty red and mustard yellow is the same type of warning. Moreover, it is easily pinched off from the liver, which is nutritious and good to eat.


My mother once used the word atavistic to describe my attitude towards food; I am the first in generations of our family to think like a native. Atavistic is usually a negative term, but I find great joy in my little epiphanies.


Today, tomorrow and every day for the rest of your lives, maybe you can also begin to see what a native might see, right in your own neighborhood.


Have you ever smelled a rose in an apple? Noticed hawthornes look like infant crabapples or rose pits? Noticed how similar the bark, flowers, leaves and flesh are of apples and pears? They are all related. The season for good tree fruit is long over, but the next time you are at a farm stand with fresh picked apples, pick one and try to smell and taste the rose.


If you see a weed that looks remarkably like a commercial food plant, pick a leaf and a flower (if one is available) and look it up online. (Sometimes weeds that don't look like food plants are quite edible; my favorites are miner's lettuce and young sorrel leaves. Sometimes things that do look like food plants - especially white mushrooms - can make you very sick. Looking up all new plants before you taste is prudent.)


When do wild animals like seeds best? Either when they are new and fat, filled with nourishing oils, or after they have sprouted. Seeds naturally have an "anti-nutrient" to them to keep them from decaying until the next viable season, when they will sprout. Until then, they are hard to digest - by natural plan. Fermentation leads to decomposition when conditions are poor to a plant, but to sprouting under ideal conditions. After sprouting, seeds are not only easy to digest, but extra nutritious.  (Pollan says Joel Salatin's pigs are interested in the grain alcohol in fermenting corn, but they may be just as interested in the nutrients, including sugars and vitamin C.)


There are thousands of such questions you can ask once you begin to think as nature designed us - human opportunists - to think. The blue gallbladder is merely a beginning.

Yachats, Oregon and Hazel Miller

My grandmother Hazel owned a restaurant on University of Oregon campus, where the bookstore is now. 

She went to college to become a school teacher.  She taught four years until she married.  Then the county made her resign in case she corrupted the children’s minds by becoming pregnant.  (Horrors!)  I suppose the inspiration for the restaurant came from the recipes she collected while she was a member of the college cooking club.

The cooking club was smitten with Crisco, which launched its first radio advertisements in 1923.  You can almost imagine them swooning over it.  Recipes written in 1922 had no Crisco.  In 1923 everything seemed to contain Crisco!  (I don’t understand.  Tasteless white fat made in a laboratory seems awfully unappetizing.  If I’m going to eat fat, I want every calorie of it to be delicious.   I suppose at that time, radio ads were new enough so they did not realize they were being manipulated.)   

I have Grandmother's recipes, all written in her lovely teacher’s longhand.  They are yellowed, torn and wrinkled, stuffed into a blackish leather book that is scuffed like an old man’s shoe.  I am afraid to lose any, so I keep the book in a plastic Zip-lock bag.  Once in a while I open the book up randomly to a page, just to think about what I find.

My mother, who waitressed in the restaurant, said the weekday meals were acceptable farmhouse fare.  Eugene was still a small town, not like Portland or Seattle, which were far more cosmopolitan.  Dairy, grass seed farms and homesteads surrounded the area.  The students probably expected hamburgers, white biscuits and meat loaf.  Every Sunday, Grandmother made international fare from far away places like Italy and Pakistan! 

My mother says Grandmother’s interests skipped a generation and settled on me.   I’m the one who wants to own a restaurant and likes canning, homesteading and putting by.  Both of us, however, inherited her interest in environmental politics.  


When my grandmother retired from the restaurant, she moved to Perch Street in Yachats, to a tiny cabin that she remodeled with interesting found materials.   She lived there until she died in her mid-80s after a long fight with assorted cancers and emphysema.  

Today I am looking out the window of a Yachats hotel room overlooking the beachfront 804 Indian trail, which is now on the National Historic register. 


In the 1970s, my grandmother and four other locals initiated a massive letter writing campaign to save this trail from being privatized by casinos and closed off to the public. I don’t remember the others involved.  I was just a child.  I remember only my grandmother, sitting in the little log church museum or in the odd green light of her plastic garage, writing out hundreds of letters longhand, addressing and licking hundreds of envelopes, licking hundreds of stamps she paid for herself although she was very poor.  She sent me to Washington, D.C. to talk to Senator Bob Packwood and someone else I don’t remember.  I was small, blonde and cute at the time (I am none of those now) and apparently we had an impact, because the trail was saved.  

There is a bench here – not her original bench, a replacement - with her name and that of another woman’s on it.  I remember her sitting in about that spot, looking a bit odd, wearing three shirts, a scarf, a baseball hat and dark sunglasses.  She fed the seagulls dry ends of bread.

My parents used to sit on that same bench when they lived not far from here.  I have a picture of my father hand feeding bread to a squirrel on that bench.  He is also deceased.

Grandmother’s friends are gone.  The fishermen with peeling faces and hands.  The stooped women seascape painters with puffy bodies like rising bread dough.  The gardeners who fiercely dominated this windy and gravelly land.  All gone, the 33 or so year-round residents I remember from the seventies.  Also gone are most of their  gray, wind-chipped single bedroom-bathroom-kitchen-mudroom cabins, all replaced with multi-colored-storied-bedroomed-bathroomed-windowed architectural wonders.

Today I realized Yachats is not our town anymore.  It is now “The gem of the Oregon Coast”, a beautiful little tourist destination, studded with restaurants, wine stores, crystal and cheese shops and bakeries that are open on weekends. If you Google this town, you will find articles in major newspapers from all over the United States - heck, even in the New York Times wrote about this place.  So Hazel won, did she not? 

But today, I feel heartsick and so I am going to get in the car and drive north, to a town I don’t know, to a town where I can sip a cup of coffee and walk on the beach and see beyond my own memories.

Rye and Raisin Sandwich Rolls

These are a fairly quick recipe, made to be eaten the same day as they are started.  They are delicious! 

Rye and Raisin Roll Ingredients 
Have all ingredients at room temperature

1 ½ c. water

2 tbsp. molasses

1 level tbsp. yeast

3 c. bread flour

2 c. dark rye flour

1 ½ - 2 tsp. fennel or caraway (I prefer fennel)

1 tsp. salt with 1 stick unsalted butter (or no salt with 1 stick salted butter)

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

¾ c. raisins, preferably about half yellow and brown

½ c. additional bread flour for kneading at end and dusting pan.

Baking spray

Method:

Mix water, molasses and yeast together inside the bowl of a large electric mixer for convenience.  Proof about 10 minutes or so until yeast is clearly active.  Then slowly start adding other ingredients while mixing with dough hook on lowest speed.  When all ingredients are added, increase speed of dough hook and mix for five minutes more.  Dough will be wet and gloppy.  Remove dough hook.  Cover bowl with greased wax paper, not plastic wrap because dough will rise to top of bowl and stick to it!  

Let rise about 45 minutes.

Punch down, re-cover with wax paper and let rise another 45 minutes.

When the dough has again doubled in size, sprinkle about half a cup of bread flour on the counter and place the dough on the counter.  Knead it as best as you can, using a sharp spatula or a specialized French bread tool just for the purpose of scraping sticky dough up off a counter, to help you.  Give it a good 3-5 minutes effort, though.  It should start out nice and elastic right after you add the flour and end up a little stringy and sticky – about the opposite of what you would expect.  Do not add so much flour that you make the dough as dry as the counter!  Rye dough needs to be a little sticky or it becomes tough.

Grease pizza stones and sprinkle cornmeal on them.  By pizza stones, I mean the ceramic baking stones that are either round or rectangular and can be heated up to 500 degrees safely.  If you do not have these, baking sheets for cookies will do if they have more than one layer, generally.  The thin type baking sheet you find in the grocery stores tend to scorch.  Another idea is cast iron skillets, but you will need three of those!

Break the dough up into 12-16 even sized rolls depending on your use and try to spread them out so after they double in size they will almost touch.  Otherwise, they will not brown well.  Look at my picture – I have only one ceramic stone, so I crammed all my rolls onto it.  

In order to get a nice, crispy, crunchy crust on them, after 25 minutes, I had to take the three brownest ones out, spread the rest apart and put them back in!  It wasn’t a tragedy, no, but I could have saved myself the trouble with one more pan.

Note also that the rolls will be sticky and won’t make nice, even balls.  Don’t worry about it because they will rise and smooth out somewhat.  Just try to make them all about the same size so they will cook evenly.  If any of them happen to be larger, put them in the corners of the pan, which get hotter.  Put smaller ones in the middle, which will be cooler. 

Cover the rolls with more greased wax paper and let rise another 35 minutes or so.  Then turn the oven on to 400 degrees.   By the time the oven has preheated, the rolls should have doubled in size.  Remove the wax paper and place the pans of rolls in the oven.

Check rolls at 35 minutes.  They should nicely browned, with the outer ones heading towards darkness in the centers.  Pull the pan out of the oven and remove the rolls with a spatula.  Tap them on the bottom and see if they feel firm and crispy.  If so, place them on a rack to cool.  Do not open them up.  If the rolls are not crispy on the bottom, place them back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes, depending on how undone they are. 

Let rolls cool at least 8 minutes to improve their texture before eating.  Allow any rolls that escape your appetite to cool thoroughly before storing in wax paper (secured with tape or rubber bands) or waxed paper bags rather than in plastic, which will ruin your crispy crust.

I took a bag of these on a trip with my mother to a week-long art class in Newport.  (Her art class.  I'm dog sitting and wandering on the beach.)  We arrived late after a three hour drive, tired and hungry.  We ate them with hummus, red pepper and eggplant dip and snow peas I brought from home.  In the morning we had to leave before the hotel's breakfast bar was open.  These rye rolls, delicious but filling, served us well, two meals in a row.

Hope you enjoy them, too. 

Four Course Thai Feast

This is a four course dinner, with Smoked Garlic Lime Carrots, Mushroom Sesame Soba, Smoked Black Bean Garlic Beefsteak and Coconut Banana “Ice Cream” (in a separate post) for dessert.  (There is no dairy, so this is a kosher friendly meal.)  Prep consists primarily of chopping, soaking and marinating about an hour and a half before you wish to eat.  The recipes are listed separately, but all the marinating and soaking should start at about the same time.

You can grill the carrots and beef, but I prefer to smoke them.  You can achieve the same effect with a charcoal grill if you put the cover down and purposely let juices drip down onto the briquettes.  I own two of those stacked bullet shaped smokers with two grill racks and one has a space for a gas canister.  They were cheap.  (One I bought used for $5.00!)  The charcoal isn’t really that cheap, but I augment it with pinecones sometimes.  I try to grill as much as possible at one time – meat and vegetables – for at least two meals – to get my money’s worth.  

The photo above is of the leftovers, which I arranged as an attractive cold single course dinner!  (You'll have to forgive the wine being in the wrong place in the photo.  I'm still learning about food photography.)

Mushroom and Sesame Soba Ingredients

2 oz. dehydrated mushrooms (black tree fungus type or shitake)

1 medium onion

2 tbsp. peanut or other vegetable oil

8 oz. package buckwheat soba noodles

½ c. frozen spinach

1 tbsp. fish sauce

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. chili oil

2-3 tbsp. toasted sesame oil

2-3 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

While the meat and carrots are marinating, also soak mushrooms in the same pot you will use to cook buckwheat soba noodles in later.  You can use black mushrooms (a curly tree fungus) or shitake, which may be easier to find, but which you will need to trim the stems off of after soaking). 

Chop 1 medium onion and saute’ in 1 tbsp. peanut oil.

An hour later, squeeze the water out of the mushrooms into the same pot you will use to cook the soba and turn the water back on to boil.  If you are using shitake, trim the stems off.  Move the mushrooms to a large bowl and douse liberally with (approximately 2 tbsp. each) of soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds and chili oil.  Add about 1 tbsp. fish sauce.  By now the water is probably boiling.  Break the soba in half and add it to the pot.  Give it a stir, add a bit of inexpensive oil (peanut or other vegetable) and stir it again.  After 6 minutes of a rolling boil, add ½ c. frozen spinach to soba. Water will of course stop boiling.  Stir the noodles again.  When the water begins to boil again, drain the noodle/spinach mixture in a colander.  Then pour noodle/spinach mixture onto mushroom/sesame mixture and stir.  Taste it for seasonings before serving; this is very important because the mushrooms, fish sauce and soy sauce can vary tremendously in taste.  Today’s mushrooms were a surprise because they were pretty, but they were bland, so I poured on a lot more seasonings than usual. 

Garlic Lime Carrots Ingredients

5 lbs. carrots

juice of 2 ½ limes

1 tsp. each salt and garlic

2 tsp. each medium hot sauce and toasted sesame oil

Peel and slice carrots in half lengthwise.  Marinate in the lime juice mixed with salt, garlic, hot sauce and sesame oil about one hour. 

Black Bean Garlic Beefsteak ingredients:

3.5 lb steak (bottom round or other medium quality steak is ok)

Juice of ½ lime

2 heaping tbsp. Lee Kum Kee black bean garlic sauce

Marinate steaks one hour in the lime juice and black bean sauce. You can add another tablespoon of sauce if you like because it is pretty low in sugar, but do not substitute a high sugar sauce because it will burn.

After an hour is up, start your grill if it is the charcoal type because you’ll want at least 15 minutes for the lighter fluid and charcoal to burn off and settle down.   

As I said, one of my smokers I paid real money for (a Brinkman like the one below but not as clean), but the other was only $5.00.  I've seen smokers made of 50-gallon metal drums, trash cans and 2 old kettles like witches used in scary movies, one turned upside down on top of the other.  You can make a smoker yourself if you want.  You just have to fiddle with the fire and be patient.  Have a long thermometer to poke down in the rust hole if you use kettles or trash cans so you can keep an eye on the temperature.  And DO NOT USE the coils from the back of a refrigerator for the grilling rack (unless you're willing to risk not returning from a trip to the hospital). 

 

Method for cooking carrots and beefsteak together:  

Drain most of the liquid from the carrots.

Make sure you have two pairs of tongs and a very large clean platter (or two medium ones) for the cooked meat and carrots (microscopic parasites do hang onto used utensils and plates, so don’t reuse the same ones for cooked food that you used for raw food).  Also take oven mitts outside to protect your hands.  Forgive me if I’m overstating things – but I have been outside and have been in the middle of grilling and burned myself because I forgot my tongs or my gloves.  And I think I’ve got a lot of experience.  Also have some type of wire basket that can take a scorching.  I use a steamer basket that I never use for its original purpose, which is boiling pasta. 

Pour the carrots into the wire basket on one edge of the smoker.  They will lose a little juice into the briquettes below.  If you poured off almost all the liquid earlier, this won’t put out the fire, but will increase the smoke, which is good!  Close the lid of the grill.  Wait 5 minutes.  Lift the lid, stir the carrots.  Arrange the steaks around the basket, with the thickest closest to the center and the thinnest closest to the edge of the grill.  Close the lid again.  Check the temperature.  If the temperature is low, around 200 degrees, but you have a good smoke going, you will have a long wait, but some very tasty steaks.  If the temperature is very high, around 500, you will have to hang around very close by and you will have a lot less flavor.  I would shoot for about 250 or so and turning the steaks in about 10 minutes, then leaving them alone another 10 minutes.  Don’t cut the steaks to see if they are done.  Use a probe thermometer if you are unsure.  Rare is 120, medium 130, well, 140 degrees inside; they will cook more after you pull them off the smoker and leave them alone to rest ten minutes inside before cutting into them (as you must to let their juices and textures settle). 

The advice about temperatures is completely wrong if you are grilling with gas rather than smoking.  In that case, you want to use very high heat.  You will not get a smoky flavor, obviously, but you can get a nice, crispy texture on the outside of each piece of beef.  You will need to stir the carrots pretty frequently so they don’t scorch.