What is the secret to fudgy brownies? From scratch?

by late night guest blogger Chef Betharoni

This, my dear readers, is where the secret lies:

And this is the secret, kept by my mother since 1978, when, as a penniless student, she managed to stretch her pockets enough to purchase the small reunion cookbook.

When we lack unsweetened chocolate squares, we follow the penciled in substitutions using cocoa powder and butter.  No matter the ingredients on hand, the results have always been fully deserving of the capitalized and exclamationed “Good!” written in the left-hand margin.

Brownies are an inherently simple baked good; tamper with them too much and you end up with not-brownies.  Less flour and you have fudge, more flour, you have cake, more egg gets souffle-y and less sugar makes it more of a biscuit.

The ingredients look like they belong together, which I take to be  a good sign.

The saddest part of the secret is that a good fudgy brownie, made from scratch, will require fat, calories, and a leetle more fat.

The happiest part of the secret is that this fat comes via chocolate and butter, which are good friends of any pastry chef.

Just as the three rules for real estate are location, location and location, the three rules of French cooking are frequently listed as butter, butter, and butter.

This guideline is based on two facts regarding fats, particularly natural fats such as butter.  Fat carries flavor and fat tenderizes.  Too much butter in a cake batter and it ends up structure-less.  Work your butter into your pie crust properly and you end up with a tender and flavorful crust.

While giving butter full credit, it would be a mistake to not spend some time on the sugar and eggs.  When I was still taking my culinary classes, one of my assigned bakery lab experiments was to increase and decrease the amounts of sugar in a cupcake recipe and observe the results.  The cakes with less sugar lacked flavor and structure, while the ones with an excess … exploded in the oven.  Sugar as an explosive – who knew?  Whisking the eggs with the sugar until the mixture is thick and fluffy provides some air and structure for the brownies, while the correct ratios, plus beating yolks and whites together, prevent an overly fragile and airy dessert.

Adding the warm chocolate and butter to the mixture deflates it somewhat, but the incorporated air helps avoid accidentally cooking the yolks with overly warm chocolate.   When melting the chocolate, it is helpful to melt it with the butter, this prevents burning of the chocolate and makes a smoother mixture to add to the eggs and sugar.

In return for all the butter, sugar, and eggs you have added to your batter, you may avoid unnecessary carbohydrates as you proceed to add the flour and salt.  It takes very little flour to counter the moisture of the eggs enough to reach the proper level of moist, yet slightly firm, chocolate that fudgy brownie eaters desire.

Here, the printed recipe suggests the addition of nuts, which we sometimes add.  We have also been known to add m&ms, chocolate chips, and oatmeal, in various combinations.  Much like a choose-your-own ice cream shop, the mix-ins here are up to your discretion, although it is wise to keep in mind that additions such as oatmeal will make the final product slightly drier, unless you compensate with extra liquid or less flour. 

Once the mix-ins have been folded in, the batter can be slipped into a pan, which can be slipped into an oven, where it can sit for approximately half-an-hour, while you clean the kitchen.

I won’t judge you if you decide that the best way to clean the mixing bowl requires that you consume some of the batter.

Now, if you have kept your ratios and mixing methods in order so far, there is one final secret to the fudgy brownies.  You have to remove the pan from the oven while they are still moist and soft in the center.  The top will gloss over beautifully and form a crisp top layer, but underneath, you want there to be lurking beneath the surface a layer of still malleable chocolate, not yet formed into a firm structure, with only semi-distinct crumbs to give a hint of previously applied heat.

And I imagine everyone already knows the next step.

So many times when we have a party or dance, there aren’t nearly as many men as there are women.  This is not the case with chickens.  It is hard to find a person raising chickens that hasn’t had to try to find a home for a rooster at least once, whether that home be someone’s back yard or their freezer.  Many people who raise chickens keep mostly hens for egg production.  Some people raise chickens for meat.  We raise them for both, keeping the hens and butchering all but a couple roosters, eating the eggs and the meat.  We usually butcher our surplus roosters and sometimes we give them away, but we don’t normally have more than two or three to take care of.  In this case, we had eight.

Last spring, my mom gave three hens and one rooster to her friend, Mrs. Nelson.  They agreed that if they could hatch chicks, they would equally split the resulting chickens between them.  Soon, one of the hens went broody and hatched twelve chicks.  One of the chicks died, but the rest continued to grow strong and healthy.  We wanted to find out which ones were roosters as soon as possible, so that the meat on them wouldn’t get tough.  They grew to be about eight months old before we thought we were sure that all but four of them were roosters.  When we found this out, we knew that we wanted to butcher the roosters as soon as possible.  Mrs. Nelson told us about a company called Cluck & Pluck that butchers birds for people.  Our first plan had been to butcher the seven roosters at home, but it quickly got too cold for that.  We decided to see if Cluck & Pluck would be able to butcher our roosters for us.

After Mrs. Nelson gave Mom the phone number, I called 541-856-3347 to see if Cluck & Pluck would be open any time in November or December.  We were told that they would be open once more that year.  After a few more phone calls back and forth, Mom had directions on how to get there and all we had to do was wait for the day to come.

On the morning of Saturday, December 11, 2010, Jesse and I went out in the dim morning light and caught the four roosters that we wanted to take to Cluck & Pluck. By the time Mom had started warming up the car, we had them securely shut in two card board boxes and placed in the back of the car.  Mom and I drove to Mrs. Nelson’s house to pick up her roosters.  Altogether, with our roosters and Mrs. Nelson’s, we had seven chickens in three cardboard boxes.  We ended up leaving one of the young roosters at Mrs. Nelson’s house under the misconception of its being a hen.  While Mom and I were driving, Mrs. Nelson called to say that the supposed hen had just crowed and was going to be posted for sale on Craig’s List.

The roads were icy and there was still snow everywhere from before Thanksgiving, when we received about 7 inches of snow.  About forty-five minutes after leaving Mrs. Nelson’s house, we drove up to a small metal building next to a few other houses and surrounded by snowy fields.   The snow made it a little more difficult to recognize your surroundings, especially if you had never been there before.

The Small Metal Building

When we first arrived, we were unsure if it was the right place.  There was a group of men talking by some cars and one young man, wearing a worn, yellow, plastic jumper over his clothes, going in and out of the building.  Mom stepped out of the car and asked the men if this was where Cluck & Pluck was operating.  It was, so we unloaded the boxes of chickens with the help of the young man in yellow.  We were instructed to put the boxes just inside the door, where there happened to be a puddle of dirty water.  There were two other men in the building, who were also wearing yellow plastic jumpers, and a woman wearing a black apron, in the other side of the building.  After they had taken our roosters, the men asked us if we wanted the boxes back.  Mom laughed and said no, explaining to me that she didn’t want the card board boxes that had been sitting in blood, water, and chicken feathers.

When we stepped into the small metal building, the first thing I noticed was the warm steam, the second was the smell.

It wasn’t any worse than the smell of chickens or goats, but I would need a moment to get used to it.  After I was accustomed to the smell, I studied my surroundings more carefully.  I was standing in an open corner to the right of the door and, despite the machinery, could see into all except one of the other three corners of the building.  I was glad I had such a good view of things without being in the way of the employees.  All the birds went through every working station in the building.  The first step was to get the squawking, flapping chickens to stay still.

Our seven roosters were put, head down, into metal cones which held the chicken’s heads apart from the rest of their bodies and kept most of them from flapping their wings.  While the last of our chickens were getting put into their individual cones, one of the first to go in managed to wiggle back up out of the cone.  He was immediately confronted by the man who had put him there.  The rooster was flapping its wings and squawking like a chicken that thinks it’s dying just from being touched by a human.  The man soon won the struggle, but not without receiving a few hard whacks from the rooster’s strong wings.

There was no more noticeable movement from the roosters until the nerves reacted after they were decapitated.  The birds were left in the cones for a while to let the blood drain out as much as possible and their feet were cut off.

The employees worked on another man’s birds until ours were done draining.  When they were, the employee working nearest to the door moved them to a counter and thoroughly hosed off the wall and floor where they had drained.  This employee was probably in his twenties and had been working there since he was a young child and his grandfather owned the company.  He was very friendly the entire time, but also kept working while he talked with Mom.  After he finished cleaning, he put four or five of the birds into a treasure chest shaped cage that was attached to a rectangular metal machine.  When the machine was turned on, the cage was lowered into steaming water and was slowly rotated.  Occasionally, the employee would stop the machine and pull off any obvious clumps of feathers.

Once all seven of our birds were done in the steamer, they were relocated to the plucking machine.

This was a machine that looked like a large tub with short rubber tubes covering the inside.

I never saw the machine working, but I know that it made quite a bit of noise.  When the chickens came out of it, they were no longer the proud owners of any feathers.

After that, two people in the back worked on removing the entrails and double checking the work of the plucking machine.  When they were done, one of them would make sure that all the heads, feathers, feet, and insides were in a bucket.  He would then take the bucket out and dump it in some large trash barrels that would be emptied at an organic land fill.

The meat continued to move on, the next step being to cool in a tub of constantly fresh water.  Since these tubs were in the other side of the building, Mom and I went to look and wait in the front corner that I had previously been unable to see.  There were other birds also cooling in the tubs in the back, but all the orders were kept in separate tubs.

The owner was the lady working back here.  She was cooling the meat, then vacuum sealing it into bags for the customers.  Mom talked with the owner and one other customer while we waited.  In the first side of the building, there had been steam from the steamer that kept me warm, but in this side of the building I soon became cold and Mom sent me to sit in the car with the heater on.  I sang and crocheted until Mom came out with out chickens.  We put them into a cooler and Mom went back in to pay before we left.  She then came back out, and we went on our way.  We drove back to the Nelson’s house and gave them three of the chickens.  Mrs. Nelson paid Mom, and they talked while I played with the Nelson’s dogs.  Since Mom and I had been gone from home all morning, it was a short visit.  We got back in the car for the last time before reaching home.

As soon as we arrived at home, we put the chickens into the freezer until a day when we would want to cook with them.  I had been running after chickens and waiting in places where chickens had been all day, so I felt rather filthy.  Thankfully, I was able to shower right after helping Mom put the chickens away.  The rest of the day was pleasantly relaxing after the fast paced morning and I didn’t leave the house any more that day.  Twice since then, we have enjoyed the chicken in delicious soups.

I was glad that we didn’t end up butchering the chickens ourselves out in the cold.  It was also interesting to see at least one of the ways that other people take care of their extra roosters.  It hadn’t previously occurred to me that there were companies that butchered birds or other animals in small quantities for people who raise fewer at a time.  I would recommend Cluck & Pluck as a solution for unwanted rooster populations.

List making serves the obvious purpose of aiding my memory at a particular moment, but, more than that, I believe it organizes and frees my mind.  When I write down what I need to attend to, some process begins of it’s own accord that connects wires and produces ideas that I hadn’t thought of before.  Sometimes, I don’t even need to refer to a list for the rest of the day.  The simple act of writing it down has given me the necessary direction.  Other times, my list provides the backbone of my day, standing firm against falsely urgent Sirens.

Amazingly, my lists engender flexibility.   Energy that might have been used up by little bits of information constantly needing to be recaptured is now able to be used on a higher level.  Creative opportunities present themselves.  Solutions to the days challenges have been known to unexpectedly appear as the list naturally reveals priorities.   I do not permit a list to become a tyrant.  It is always a servant, designed by me for my benefit.  Also, lists are expected to accommodate unanticipated things, whether it be what my husband needs/wants me to do or variable needs of other family members.  Actually, the list helps to quickly evaluate adjustments to make this possible.

I regularly have daily lists, carry-over lists, long term to-do lists for specific categories, reusable charts.  They all evolve as life changes.  Below is a copy of my current master grocery list.  I usually have a copy of it on the refrigerator.  I frequently use simple code next to an item if I want to remember to get it at a certain store.  You can also see that I have a list of certain stores where I often shop, but don’t have regular enough items to get there.   My motto could be:  Take a load off of your mind, make a list.

master grocery list

I have three foundational ideas for managing my food preparation:  1) stock basic staples, 2) keep food simple most of the time, and 3) make things from scratch.  This  has frequently lead to creative alternatives to buying pre-mixed products.  An added plus is that I have a much better idea of what is in my food.

Over the years I have experimented with salad dressing recipes, but have been frustrated with everything from taste to still ending up with multiple jars of flavors in the fridge.  In the end, it was our short time in residence in Taiwan that helped me over the hump of coming up with a basic salad dressing.  I was extremely limited in what ingredients were available to me that I recognized.  Greens were popular over there, but not salads in the sense that Americans are generally familiar with.  There was also the issue of limited storage space living in a 5th floor apartment, not to mention that in the higher humidity everything, even what was in the refrigerator, spoiled more quickly.

The recipe we came up with was so satisfactory that we have used it ever since, completely preferring it to prepared salad dressings.  The proportions are approximate, because I never measure when I am making it.  The ingredients are:

1 part real mayonnaise to about

3 parts PLAIN yogurt (homemade or Nancy’s are what I use)

a couple or more tablespoons of red wine vinegar (I am thinking of experimenting with other flavored vinegars)

about 1/2  teaspoon of salt per 4 cups of total salad dressing

possibly 1/4 teaspoon pepper, same comparison as for salt

garlic, granulated, 1/4 teaspoon?, optional

herbs, such as basil, optional

Use a wire whip to mix all of this.  Remember, you can always add more of things like vinegar and salt to bring out flavor, but you can’t take it out.  The salad dressing can be personalized by having cheeses, such as feta or bleu, available among the salad makings.  If anyone needs to add pickle relish or ketchup for their dressing, they can do it in another little bowl for their portion size.

Put any left-overs in a container with a lid, then into the refridgerator.  A mason jar with the Ball white plastic lids works well.  I find labeling and dating containers of food very useful for kitchen management, but also things tend to get eaten, not forgotten, if people know what they are.  The dressing seems to store well, but we have a large family of salad eaters, so it’s not usually around for more than a month.

(you should be able to make them larger by clicking on them if you want to get this basic guide for a single serving)

This is the original recipe written out for me by my Aunt Charlotte.  I lived with her and Uncle Ralph, actually my father’s aunt and uncle, for a few months while in college and this was something she fixed for me for dinner.  It has changed some over the years, as I have prepared it regularly for my family.  Now I make enough to fill a 10 x 15 oblong glass baking dish:

Easy Gourmet Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Preheat oven to 375 F.  Generously butter 10 x 15 baking dish.

Bring a large pan of water to a boil.  Add 4 and 1/2 cups of dry elbow macaroni.  (I have been know to mix and match pastas, depending on what I have on hand.  Just make sure they are compatible thicknesses if you are cooking them in the same water.)  Cook, stirring a few times, until firm tender, about 8 minutes.  Drain.

Option:  Cook some diced onions or leeks in a little olive oil until tender.

Meanwhile, crack 9 eggs (best if they are from your own chickens!) into a large bowl and beat well.  (I use an old fashioned springy egg whisk similar to this because it is fun as well as being easy and effective.)

Add 4 and 1/2 cups of milk.  (I have recently started using part cream for this, up to half the amount.  Yum.)

Stir in about 9 cups of grated cheese, usually at least part cheddar, but about half Jack cheese adds nice flavor, too.  (I have been quite loyal to Tillamook cheese over the years, and still think it is some of the best out there.  However, in the last couple of years I discovered Organic Valley Raw Milk Sharp Cheddar cheese.  I also use it to make cheese sauce to drool over.)

Mix in about 3/4 teaspoon of (sea) salt and enough ground black pepper to suit your family’s palate.

Gently stir in the drained macaroni (and onion or leeks if you are using them).

Place in greased baking dish,

then put in oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until nicely browned on top and fairly set in the middle.

We had ours last night with green beans frozen from the garden and homemade applesauce:

‘

Some family members enjoy salsa or (shudder) ketchup on it.   It is so easy and nutritious, fills people up, and saves well for left-overs.  (BTW, kids your dad and I are going on a date tonight….)

Thank you, Aunt Charlotte.

( Beef Cobbler)

Living with a blossoming chef (below)

(a different day:  research with toffee)

has many advantages, one of which is learning of reliable sources of creative recipes.   She not only knows where to look, but she has intuitive insight into how to evaluate or play with the recipes.  This is how I became familiar with epicurious.com and began a new level of experimenting with food.

One afternoon a few months ago, I was looking at the ubiquitous thawed ground beef, not at all excited about my previous plans for dinner.  I searched a few places and landed at the above mentioned website and found Spiced Beef Corn Bread Cobbler.   The chief problem with following a recipe from many of these sites, however, is that nearly everyone experiments with the original, so the reviews are nearly useless.  On the other hand, one leaves the discussion feeling very free to branch out with a myriad of possibilities.

Admittedly, I didn’t follow the recipe, either, for reasons of personal taste and ingredients on hand.  The results we had for dinner became an easy family favorite, which I made again tonight.  Maybe my version will inspire you:

Spiced Beef Corn Bread Cobbler

2 medium onions, diced

about 4 Tablespoons vegetable oil (I generally use olive oil)

5 cloves garlic, mashed or pressed (have used granulated garlic also)

3 pounds ground beef

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons brown sugar

scant 1/2 tsp cinnamon

around 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2-3/4 teaspoon mild curry powder

dash of cayenne

2 teaspoons salt

about 3 cups (home canned) pureed tomatoes, juice and all

one 6 ounce can tomato paste

two 15 ounce cans black beans ( drained seems to work best, but not crucial)

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Cook onion in the 4 TBSPs of oil in deep heavy skillet over moderate high heat, stirring occasionally, until edges are golden, maybe 3-4 minutes.  Add garlic and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes more.  Add beef and cook, breaking up lumps, until no longer pink.  Add sugar, spices, 2 teaspoons of salt – cook while stirring.  Add tomatoes with juice, tomato paste, and beans.  Simmer briskly, stirring occasionally, until liquid is slightly reduced and somewhat thickened.

Meanwhile make cornbread topping:

2 and 2/3 cups yellow cornmeal

1 and 1/3 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 and 1/3 cups milk

4 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar

6 Tablespoons oil

whole corn (optional)

In medium-large bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, 1 and 1/2 TBSP sugar.  In another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, and 6 TBSPs oil.  Combine with flour/cornmeal mixture, just until dry ingredients are moist (avoiding over-mixing).  Fold in cheese (and a cup or two of whole corn, if desired).

Butter a large flat casserole dish, at least 10 x15 inches.  (Mine tends to spill over just a little in this size dish while baking. Maybe two 9x13s would be a good idea?)   Spoon beef mixture into dish.  Spoon mounds of cornbread batter over beef and smooth somewhat evenly.  Sprinkle with some extra cheese if desired.

Bake 20-30 minutes, or until wooden pic comes out of center of cornbread clean.  A bit of sour cream on the side is nice.  Goes well with steamed broccoli.

May all your culinary experiments be delicious!

I was dubious.  I imagined zucchini chips as bland and tough.  However, I was ready to make a lot of use of my new dehydrator.  I asked a friend who is more experienced with drying food.  She said they are surprisingly good.  Next, I researched details in my new resources, such as  Preserve It Naturally and Preserving Summer’s Bounty.

The spice mixes I found were too complicated or exotic sounding for my taste and my projected uses for the zucchini pieces.  I remembered what I had recently learned of the culinary attributes of kosher salt and my choice was made.  The next problem was to decide how to cut them up.  With my large kitchen being inundated with garden produce, I needed something faster than hand slicing.  I was worried my 20 year old Kitchen Aide and it’s slicing attachment might mangle the squash too much, but a trial run proved that the right amount of pressure yielded good sturdy slices, even if some of the smaller squash cut sideways.  There were a couple handfuls of bits and pieces which I deemed quite an acceptable loss considering the amazing speed and fun of using my power tool.

The nearly 30 cup metal bowl filled was enough to fill the 9 dehydrator trays, with about 2 cups left over that I would package for the freezer.

I decided to blanch the slices before drying, since longer winter storage is desired.  The younger, denser zucchinis held up to this best, although thickness also played a large part.  After the ice water cooling and draining, I arranged them on the trays and sprinkled lightly with the kosher salt.

They were so wet, it was hard to envision them drying well.  However, just 24 hours later, they looked pretty crispy.  They had shrunken significantly.  They had a subtle buttery zucchini flavor.  The kosher salt was perfect.  I look forward to munching on them for snacks and trying them in soups.

I must say I am very happy with my dehydrator.  There are dried carrots already stashed away, as well as a fine variety of herbs from my garden, including chocolate mint.  There are high hopes for dried apples and raisins.  Weather permitting we will yet have some tomatoes and peppers, too.

Recent wanderings in Victoria, BC, resulted in the deliciously satisfying discovery of Chocolat, Chocolatiere de Victoria.  Everything about the shop drew me in, from it’s mouthwatering sign to the chocolates displays I could see just three feet beyond the windows.  While it’s true that tasting is the test of substance, it is also true that one can determine a lot about quality and taste just from looking.  I was very hopeful looking at these chocolates.

The shop, at 703 Fort Street, on the south side just east of  Douglas Street, in downtown Victoria, is apparently owned and run by chocolatiere Helene Pappas, a renowned chocolate chef.  There is some seating inside that invites indulging in the already desirable fare.  On one side is a bar with stools where one can casually watch the passersby while they watch you with envy as you savor each bite.  Or there is a cozy corner couch where you can meet with a friend or two and attempt to verbalize the indescribable flavors.

I chose five pieces to share with a friend on that Tuesday of my travels.  It was difficult to choose.   To my surprise, even the chilis in dark chocolate were appealing.  However, the bag ended up containing one each of:  a Chocolate in the Raw (see two pictures up), a Cinnamon Swirl (not pictured, but looks similar to the chili chocolates), a Butterscotch Pecan, a Maple Cream in dark, and a Coco Truffle.  Keep in mind that each of these are absolutely chocolate, somehow blended with the flavors of the other foods to create distinct, yet subtle masterpieces.

Deciding to save our chocolates until after dinner, I stashed them safely in a loose, outside pocket until we made it back to the hotel.  Once there, I cut all but the Maple Cream in half, having already been advised by the kind gentleman manning the counter that the filling of that one would ooze out quickly.  As I tried to eat each selection as slowly as I could, all I could say was, “OH…  THAT’s good” followed by “OH! THAT one is really good, too!” and so on.  My friend would then proceed to try them and say, “Oh!  That IS good!”

I immediately determined that I needed to tell the world about this shop.  Having neglected to carry my camera when out that evening, I needed to go back for pictures the next morning, but our flight was going leave shortly after noon and the chocolate shop didn’t open again until 9:30 AM.  We worked out a plausible itinerary for breakfast at a cafe across the street and planned to wait until Chocolat was open, then make a mad dash for the airport.

The next morning after breakfast we still had nearly an hour to wait.  We took a few photos of the outside, then peered in the window wishing it would open.  A different man showed up to knock on the door like he was coming to work.  I ventured to ask him if that was the case, but he said, no, he was not an employee, but was there to work on a machine.  As the kind man from the day before opened the door to let him in, I tentatively and quickly explained why I was there and asked if it would be acceptable for me to go in and take a few pictures for my blog before they opened since we needed to go catch a plane.  With old world graciousness and charm (I don’t know why it’s called ‘old world’, but that seems like the appropriate description) he invited us in.  The owner was not available because she was in the back dipping chocolates.

The pictures don’t do the chocolates justice.  I am, after all, an amateur photographer.  Hopefully you can still get a sense of the perfect tempering, elegant design, and marvelous taste.  After eating them, I was left with feeling both complete satisfaction with what I had just partaken and hope that I would have a chance to eat some another day.  If I had had the option with my luggage situation, I would have purchased more and had them packed in one of the stacks of boxes.  But, alas, I only had carry-on luggage and it was full to capacity.  I have never taken a trip centered around chocolate, but these candies are a strong motivation to consider just that.

(Phone number is:  250-381-0131, Canada)

I’m trying to moderate a surge of excitement that I am feeling as garden season approaches full-swing.  My mother isn’t helping any.  Yesterday she  gave me a book on root cellars that has  been like a dose of high sugar coffee to a squirrel.  Fortunately, I have just rearranged my whole basement to accommodate food storage in the coolest room of the house (don’t tell my older daughters who used to have to sleep there…  ), so I have a head start on the theme.  That major reorganization is also a result of talking with my mother, as well as  a long standing problem with my only adequate space for food storage being in the furnace room.  No matter now.  The games, craft supplies, detergents, etc., are now in that cozy room.

The totally unheated pantry is a smaller version of the storeroom in Blast From the Past, only I think I will enjoy “shopping” in my pantry more than the bomb shelter wife of that fun flick.  My stock should be fresh every year and grown mostly in my own back yard.  That’s the plan anyway.  I have to learn how to work with the temperature in that room, which is really not quite cold enough.  However, there is a window that may help me keep it colder in the winter if I can figure out how to insulate the doorway and not turn the whole downstairs living area into a freezer.  I know that reality may hold some lessons for me as I learn this new skill, but, for now, the thrill of anticipation is energizing me.

I checked on many of my seedlings yesterday, those in the garden and those in flats that spend the days on the patio and the nights in the greenhouse.  They are all robust and cheerfully green.   Well, the ones that have survived the cats digging in the raised beds or pill bugs gearing up for whatever pill bugs do.  Then I received this new book and made it to chapter 8 already.  I find that I need to adjust my ideas of a planting schedule some and I will try a few new types of vegetables to give variety to the winter fare.  Things like endive and kale.

So off I skip to the Territorial Seed Company website to order a few more packets of seeds.  I may also hit Johnny’s Selected Seeds again.  The ancient art of using a root cellar is new to me, but I think it’s time to learn about it.

Anyone who has ever entertained ideas of frugality, food storage, a back-to-basics diet, or farmstead cooking has tried cooking dry beans.  I have a good supply of beans in my downstairs pantry, maybe a few too many, maybe a few years old, and they appear to get drier all the time.

Earlier this week I brought some black beans to a boil, soaked them overnight, and put them in the fridge for use soon.  My husband likes to cook up pots of tasty beans, so I said he could have some of them. He cooked them for hours and they were still quite hard.  He cooked them a few more hours the next day and they yet retained some firmness.  I knew I faced a challenge when I decided to use some of the beans for a soup today, but needed it midday.  I began my project around 9 AM.

I had stored the beans in 3-4 containers, and with the ones Greg had cooked, was having trouble identifying which were mine and which were his.  I never eat anything he has cooked without verifying its hot chili content.  I asked Beth to email him, since we couldn’t reach him by phone.  She wrote:

“Dear sir,

We would like to respectfully inquire whether or not the beans in the square white container in the refrigerator are to be considered your personal property or if they can be added directly to the communal ham and soup pot.

Sincerely,
The Bean Inquiry Committee (BIC) “

We didn’t hear back, but I proceeded as best I could.  After the soup was well under way he responded with the longest email I can recall ever receiving from him.  Maybe the most words ever used in one instance:

“Dear BIC,

We ate at 12:30 and the kids assured me the  soup and beans were yummy and not breaking any teeth.  I had to agree with them, however, the beans were still moderately crunchy.   I have an abundance more of them downstairs to experiment more on.