I just got a good question in my comments:
What is the difference between buttermilk and kefir? I have heard that both are good for you (talking health here) and just wondering what the differences are or similarities? Thank you
They have different flavors and consistencies. I too am exploring the health aspects to them. BTW- the book Nourishing Traditions is quite the eye opener! I just started it and its rocking my world.
Briefly
- cultured buttermilk is the liquid that comes out of the butter-making process. (My post about butter making doesn’t include the culturing step- but the blog Travelers Lunchbox does. Its an easy process- I recommend it. ). Cream is mixed with a yogurt culture and set out for a couple of hours at room temperature. The now cultured cream is churned into cultured butter and cultured buttermilk is the liquid that is left over.
- kefir is milk that is treated with kefir grains or freeze-dried kefir culture. The grains are reusable, the freeze dried culture isn’t- a new packet is used each time you make kefir. The kefir is made in a manner similar to making cultured cream for making butter- the kefir grains are added to milk that has been briefly heated. The milk with kefir grains is left at room temperature for several hours and becomes thick and takes on a yogurt-like flavor. It is then refrigerated when it achieves a good flavor and is thicker. Kefir will continue to ferment- and become more nutritious with age.
Kefir looks and tastes like a drinkable yogurt- however it contains beneficial bacteria that is slightly different than yogurt and more active. It’s flavor is also more nuanced than yogurt’s.
How are they good health wise? Eating food like kefir is considered beneficial as it contains healthy bacteria that are digestive system needs in our gut to help our own bodies with the digestive process. Food cultures worldwide have a tradition of supplementing their diet with “live” foods such as kefir, yogurt and other fermented foods.
Another good book to explain fermentation and its context in our food culture is Sandor Ellix Katz’s book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods.
hope that helps!
–McAuliflower
This weekend I was making a quick ingredient run to get pastry making ingredients together for a crazy afternoon of cake making. My smudged list included the standards- cream, chocolate, eggs, sugar and gelatin (for making the easy egg white free style of gelatin stabilized whipped cream mousse).
Much to my surprise I discovered that my neighborhood Whole Foods doesn’t carry gelatin. Having lived several years in Eugene with vegetarian grocery stores, this is a tactic that doesn’t surprise me. However, I was completely taken by surprise that a grocery store with a meat section wouldn’t carry gelatin!
“Not even kosher, fish-derived gelatin?” I whined.
“No.”
In my argumentative way- I’d rather have the whole animal (hoofs and all) used if we are going to sacrifice it for food. Whole Foods right?
In a taste of my own medicine way- I really don’t like not being able to make my own choices regarding food ethics.
Have you run into grocery store peculiarities like this?
Sometimes salads just compose themselves.
No need to struggle over what flavors go together or which textures accentuate your lettuces the best- seasonality often takes care of those questions for you. Paying attention to the selections of your farmer’s markets will usually reveal flavor pairings right alongside each other.
Learning to recognize these opportunities takes some practice. I’ve been using the Zuni Cafe Cookbook to remind myself how well composed Oregon’s seasons are. This salad is one such wake up call.
The warm juicy cherries, soft salty cheese and crunchy toasted nuts are a perfect addition to your fresh salad greens.
Oregon Summer Salad of Warmed Cherries with Oregonzola & Hazelnuts
adapted from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook’s Mixed Greens with Roasted Cherries, Hazelnuts, & Warm Saint-Marcellin. Here I pit the cherries, which are warmed on the stove as opposed to roasting whole in the oven. I also choose the prized Oregonzola from Rogue Creamery to round out our dish.
makes 4 servings
1/4 cup of whole hazelnuts
4 ounces of Oregonzola
16 cherries
olive oil
8 cups of young salad greens
salt and pepper
In a 325F oven, roast a 1/4 cup of whole hazelnuts till the skins are cracked and the nuts are slightly tan and fragrant. Rub the toasted nuts in a clean dish towel to loosen most of the skin off the nuts. Transfer the hazelnuts to a bowl, clean off the skins from the dish towel, and return the nuts to the cloth. Fold the cloth over the nuts and crack each nut with the heal of your hand. Set aside.
Bring 4 ounces of Oregonzola to room temperature. For speed- place the cheese on parchment paper and slip into the oven still warm from the hazelnuts. Warming the cheese to an almost melted state will be fine.
Wearing an apron, de-stem 16 cherries. With the blade of a kitchen knife, press down on each cherry splitting the fruit and popping out the pit. Tear each cherry into halves and scoop into a bowl along with the juices.
Warm a skillet over medium high heat and lightly drizzle with olive oil. Add the cherry halves to the skillet and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Heat through ~3 minutes getting the cherries nice and hot. Add a small splash of your favorite vinegar to the hot pan of cherries and quickly transfer to a bowl.
Lightly dress 8 cups of young salad greens with a simple vinaigrette (for example: 1 Tbs vinegar whisked with 1/4 cup olive oil, salt & pepper). Arrange on individual dishes, or a large platter. Slide the Oregonzola off of the parchment paper next to the lettuce greens. Spoon over the salad the warmed cherries and sprinkle with toasted hazelnuts.
I now realize how delinquent I’ve been regarding introductions.
What I should have said months ago:
“Alton Brown’s ribs, meet my smoker”.
Alton Brown’s Baby Back Ribs recipe has been rocking my world lately and ushered our household into a meat phase. These baby back ribs come out meltingly tender, with a touch of sweet and spice.
A great feature to this recipe is how its steps can be easily broken down into elements:
- rub down ribs with dry rub
- slow cook ribs with braising liquid
- boil down cooked juices
- glaze ribs
- finish under the broiler
After making up AB’s recipe as written a couple of times, I encourage you to study those components, and then steal his recipe and make it yours.
You know what I mean…
Shake up the dry rub:
- add a pinch of ground up candied orange peel,
- massage in some pummeled cilantro,
- candy some cacao nibs, grind them up and apply liberally,
- try some Szechuan peppercorns
Change out the braising liquid:
- pineapple juice works well,
- I imagine cherry lambic will have us turning cartwheels,
- apple cider plays well with pork,
- did I mention sake has a wonderful skill set?
Kick up that glaze:
- I’ve become addicted to adding mango jelly in at this point
- a swirl of Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce is more than nice.
- do you have some tamarind or pomegranate paste lurking in your refrigerator?
Next time up, I’m going to take my own advice and cook these babies in the smoker. It’s high time they met.
More baby back ribs from food bloggers
Blogger Ms Bitchcakes does some simple nutrition math to realize that Starbucks can’t possibly be telling the truth on their peach tart nutrition information.
Do you think the chain’s peach tarts are only 120 calories? (hint, one gram of fat is 9 calories)
Follow her adventures to find out what the real caloric count is.
What other foods been notably wrong with their nutritional information?
- Chili’s: “In the case of the Chili’s sample, that information didn’t square with the calorie and fat test. A serving of the chain’s “Guiltless Grill” salmon contained 35 grams of fat - 2.5 times as much fat as the restaurant claimed - 14 grams - according to the food analysis.” Reported on SeattlePI.com
- Taco Bell: “Taco Bell’s products also contained more calories than the company claim. Its “Fresco Grilled Steak Soft Taco” had four times as much fat and almost twice as many calories as advertised.
Taco Bell says the steak taco has 4.5 grams of fat and 160 calories; testing showed it to have 20 grams of fat and 297 calories.
” Reported on SeattlePI.com
- Applebee’s: “Also at variance is Applebee’s, which has teamed with WeightWatchers to create a special menu. Several items - including the “Cajun Lime Tilapia,” “Steak and Portobello,” and “Garlic Herb Chicken” - had twice as much fat as the company claims.” Reported on SeattlePI.com
- McDonald’s: “McDonald’s website claimed that a Big Mac and medium fries had 786 calories but analysis showed it had 900.” Reported by the Independant
- Burger King: “Burger King’s Whopper and regular fries had 19 grams of saturated fat, rather than the 13 grams claimed.” Reported by the Independant
- Veggie Booty: “At an independent laboratory, chemists found 8 grams of fat and 147 calories — a far cry from the 2.5 grams of fat and 128 calories the package claimed.” Reported on SFGate.com
I’ve hit on a formula for making my favorite potluck dishes.
It’s based on the classic gratin preparation- though is shockingly at times devoid of cheese, as seen in this current example. Layers of vegetables often dressed and then baked together can add up to great large dishes suitable for large gatherings of hungry friends.
Using potatoes as a main ingredient, helps insure your dish’s reception in a spectrum of temperatures from cold to hot.
This pictured dish is a layer of onions, kale and vinaigrette dressed potatoes- its almost like a baked German potato salad. Scrunching all the potatoes up on end helps bring easily crisped height to the dish.
Fancy Looking Baked Potato Dish
Choose a large baking dish and preheat your oven to 375F.
Lightly oil/butter the bottom of the baking dish.
Slice an ample amount of potatoes (to fill a layer of your baking dish- the more the better) into salted water in a saucepan and boil approximately 5 minutes. Cook the potatoes until just barely fork tender. Drain and allow to cool.
In a skillet, sauté sliced onions with a pinch of salt and ample oil. Transfer the onions to the baking dish when they have achieved a golden color. Spread the cooked onions so that they cover the entire baking pan surface.
In the same skillet, dry sauté bunches of kale and spread on top of the layered cooked onions.
Sprinkle the the kale with your favorite salad dressing and a pinch of salt.
Also dress the cooled potato slices with salad dressing, coating more liberally than the kale, so that the entire potato slice is covered.
Starting at one end of the baking dish layered with onions and kale, make rows of potato slices stacked on top of each other, and laying down (like a traditional potato au gratin dish). To make the potato slices stand up straight, wait until the baking dish is 3/4 full with potato layers and gently press the potato layers back towards the end of the dish you started at. This scrunches the layers in closer and closer together and allows you to build more potato layers into your baking dish. When you have fit as many potato slices as possible you are done assembling the dish.
Drizzle the dish with one last touch of salad dressing and a sprinkle of salt. Bake until the potatoes are cooked to the level of your desired crispness.
I found I liked to enhance the potato salad aspect of this dish and further dressed it with a splash of vinegar.
This layering approach offers many opportunities to add your own variations depending on what ingredients you have on hand. It also offers a wonderful formula to have in mind on your next trip to the farmers market.
Portland’s library system has shocked me into having to develop a note taking system. I’m not in the habit of a library having such a great resource of cookbooks available. As such, I’ve had great books leave my hands that I regrettably didn’t take adequate notes from.
I’m finding such a range- some books need only a couple insights jotted down, wile with other books I have to restrain myself from wanting to scan the entire thing electronically!
Do any of you have a nice system for keeping borrowed book inspirations at your finger tips?
Have you ever scanned a cookbook? Photographed a page?
Do your notes go up on a blog, or do you keep them private?
100 sweaty hungry bikers out in the woods. This is our captive summer audience.
What would you feed them?
Two years ago we made a Mediterranean camping dinner for 100. This time, I want to make it a bit simpler (less sides).
Hmmmm
This weekend our household took one further step towards reducing our use of our local grocery store with the purchase of a soda siphon.
We’ve been frequent purchasers of unsweetened carbonated water in citrus flavors, choosing that as our soda replacement. About a year ago I decided to not buy plastic bottles of water, picking up glass bottles instead. Now we’re drinking out of our own cups with no bottles at all.
I’m interested in flavoring our water. Ideas so far:
- adding a few drops of lemon oil to the canister
- a drizzle of vanilla was surprisingly nice
- macerated mint leaves with the water
- a bit of lavender?
- maybe some cucumber slices will be enough to add flavor
Hrmm- would cinnamon water be too much?
Oregon’s weather taunts us with quick bursts of hot steamy weather, which lasts all of about two days before returning to the normal conditions of gray and drizzly.
I try to make the most of these sunny bursts by declaring popsicles for dinner. A proper popsicle menu consists of an appetizer, main, and dessert course- at least!
This popsicle recipe is the dessert course entry from our popsicle dinner night: smoky spicy BBQ Chocolate. I started with a fudgesicle recipe from the Scharffenberger recipe book / chocolate bible, the Essence of Chocolate and gussied it up with chipotle, orange, and a touch of smoked sugar. The flavor combination is a winner- alluring, sultry, warm yet cold.
And homemade fudgesicles- how great is that to find in your freezer!
BBQ Chocolate Popsicles
- unsweetened cocoa powder: heaping 3/4 cup
- granulated sugar: 2/3 cup (I used 1/3 cup smoked sugar, 1/3 cup normal sugar. If you don’t have smoked sugar, add a 1/4 tsp liquid smoke)
- salt: 1/2 tsp
- whole milk: 1 1/3 cup
- half and half: 2/3 cup
- chipotle powder: 1/2 tsp or to taste
- orange oil: 2-3 drops
- maple syrup or agave syrup
- water
Note: recipe written for 4 cups in volume. This is easily adjustable by adding more of less liquid.
In a microwavable bowl, combine the cocoa powder, sugar, salt and enough water to make this a stirable chocolate sludge. Heat in the microwave till the chocolate sludge is too warm to the touch. I like to heat-stir in 30-40 second bouts.
Scrape the chocolate sludge into a blender, and add the milk, half and half, chipotle powder, orange oil and enough water to bring the blender liquid contents to 4 cups (4 cups is the volume held by my popsicle mold. Adjust this volume to fit your molds by adding more or less water). Whirl in the blender till combined.
Sample your popsicle mix and sweeten to taste with the liquid sweetener of your choice: maple syrup or agave syrup. You’ll want to add enough sweetener to make it taste just one step too sweet. Whirl the blender again to combine. Remember that cold desserts like ice cream and popsicles will taste less sweet frozen than they do at room temperature. This is why you’ll want to oversweeten it as you are tasting it non-frozen.
Pour the blender mix into your popsicle molds, adjust your sticks, and meditate on remaining patient while this slowly freezes.
