Yogurt--it's not just for hippies anymore

It's cooking season again, as my husband says. I made yogurt yesterday; I made it regularly for a while, but took the summer off. I guess I wasn't looking for rich dairy products in the hot weather.

Dusted off the yogurt maker--yup, I do it the easy way with the little glass jars instead of the way my doctor makes it, in a chipped earthenware bowl, on the counter, wrapped in a sweater that gives it just the right amount of warmth. When I told her I had a yogurt maker, she basically called me a wimp. Whatever--I wasn't gonna argue with her--she knows my darkest secrets!

I guess the biggest issue with making yogurt is the milk. It's got to be processed by the dairy at lower temperatures than the supermarket milk--can't be "ultra-pasteurized." The higher-temp flash pasteurization kills all the good microbes and your yogurt will never set up. Luckily, we can get just that kind of milk locally at Shaw Farm in Dracut. They do the lower-temp pasteurization, not the flash kind, and it makes lovely, tangy yogurt. I'd love to get my hands on some raw milk, but the germ-phobes around here won't let anyone sell it. Julie, I know your neck of the woods has some places you can procure it, sometimes surreptitiously if you say it's for your cats!

I also use a powdered yogurt culture, as in the past I've used already-made yogurt for my culture, and it's hit and miss whether the new batch'll set up.

The Girl helped me with the yogurt-making, and she was surprised that it mainly consists of boiling the milk, cooling it a bit, mixing the culture, and pouring it into the jars. Then it's into the yogurt-maker for 12 hours. If you do this in the morning, you can put the jars in the fridge overnight and have fresh yogurt for breakfast. That's what we all did this morning.

Let me tell you, it's tangy. Definitely not like the candy-flavored yogurt my kids used to clamor for (bubble gum? Are you KIDDING me?) but so good with honey or jam mixed in. Plus it's healthy for your, ...um, ...how do I say, your innards. Eat a jar of this stuff every morning and you'll be talking about your happy colon on national TV just like Jamie Lee Curtis. :)

New CSA

First, an apology: whoa, I haven't posted in a while! For those of you who don't read my personal blog, I have a pretty good excuse--we welcomed our 3rd child five weeks ago. As I'm sure none of you are shocked to hear, not much imaginative cooking is getting done in our house. We've been eating a lot of salads (and sandwiches and bowls of cereal!). Don't worry, I have been doing some cooking, relying on tried-and-true recipes, like Jules' sausage kale soup, roasted garbanzo beans with swiss chard, and of course chocolate zucchini cake!

The other big exciting change in our lives is that we moved (4 days before lil' Z-man was born, but that's a whole 'nother story!). It's been great, except one thing: we're really too far away from our CSA at our new house. We've belonged to Waltham Fields Community Farm for the past two years, and I can't even tell you how awesome it's been. I absolutely love, love, love them! But now it takes nearly an hour to get there, sometimes more like an hour and a half if I'm fighting rush hour traffic. They've pushed up their renewals from January to October (now!!), so I was forced to make a decision with heavy heart not to renew our share.

So now I have to decide what to do for next summer. I'm looking into CSAs in the Nashoba Valley area (basically, anywhere kind of near 495 between Rte 3 and Rte 2, or even southern New Hampshire in the general vicinity of Nashua). I've been looking at Bear Hill Farm (Lisa, I hope you'll chime in!), and Dragonfly Farm, plus a few others I saw on Local Harvest. Anyone have any recommendations for me?

Alternately, I could just plan to shop the farmers' markets next summer. That supports local farms as well and may work better with the little man's nap schedule (whatever that ends up being!) than a shorter pickup window with a CSA. Plus, there's generally a wider selection at farmers' markets...things like bread, cheese, eggs, meat, fish, and fruit. I don't know, though; I really like the set up of a CSA.

It might be moot. I might pick a CSA and end up waitlisted for next summer anyway. But now's the time to start thinking.

Anyway, any opinions would be welcome, and I should be back with recipes soon!

Introducing myself (What A Card)

I figured before I really get going, I'd do a brief introduction of myself. I live in the suburbs of Boston with my husband and two (soon to be three!) boys.

Why the interest in local foods? Well, for a number of reasons. I think it's better for us, better for the environment, and better for the local farms. Oh yeah, and it generally tastes better to have the freshest ingredients. It's fun and expands our diets beyond the normal stuff you get at the grocery store.

I'm far from "perfect", though. I have budget constraints, and sometimes even more importantly, time constraints. But I do my best and have fun doing it. I'm a big believer in making small changes, and eating locally, at least on a small scale, is part of my small changes. I may not eat 100% local, but I try to make local choices when I can.

So you're not going to get any judgments here. If you only replace one ingredient a week with something local, that's a great start. One of the problems I had when I was first getting started was that I didn't know where to find local ingredients. Another problem was that when I did find local ingredients, they were sometimes things with which I was unfamiliar. Hopefully this blog will help answer some of those questions for those of you just getting started. And I'm excited to learn new things from the other writers here!

If there's anything you're interested in hearing more about, or any questions you have, leave us a comment. Looking forward to getting to know all you readers and writers!

How and Why This Blog Came to Be

What a Card and I have talked about beginning a blog to share our love of food, particularly local food, for some time now. I think it's actually her way of "forcing" me to join the blogger world, but I digress.

Anywho...the real motivating factor behind this endeavor (besides my desire to create a central location in which to store my thoughts/recipes/experiences related to eating and cooking local ingredients) is to create a resource, which is useful to others of similar mind. And hey, if our sharp wit provides an ounce of entertainment along the way, well, that's just a BONUS!

I'll be the first to admit, my level of commitment to eating locally varies, depending on the season (or my craving(s) at any particular moment). For instance, I love bananas and last time I checked, there weren't too many New England farms growing those delectable, yellow fruits. (I have tried to grow my own, but have not yet met with success. Sigh.) I think what's important, is that each individual establishes their own, personal comfort level with regard to eating locally. To some that may be a year -round commitment. For others that may mean choosing ingredients produced as close to home as possible (and perhaps during the growing months only).

So no matter what level you're at, I hope you'll visit us frequently, taking a little something away each time, while sharing your own thoughts and experiences.

Bon Appetit!