Duchess of Evil

I'm coming to my canning late this year, due to the late produce being, well, produced this summer, and then there were things like surgery...anyway, I realized this week if I don't get on it, the season, such as it is this year, will have passed me by.   

Since my little raspberry vines are still small enough this year to produce only a handful of berries, I trekked to the farmers market this morning and bought the last gasp of strawberries for more jam, and a flat of raspberries for this year's batch of the husband's favorite, raspberry jam.  

I sorted the bad from the good, and put the 8 cups worth of raspberries in my large glass measuring bowl in the fridge, while I hulled the strawberries and made that batch.  Then, when I happened to open the fridge, I noticed my lovely raspberries had a few friends:



Those aren't leaves or needles or seeds on the side of my measuring bowl, but...I don't know, exactly.  Baby slugs?  Tiny worms?  Whatever.  I am not super squeamish, being farm raised, but I do have my limits.  I immediately felt mildly ill about the few berries I ate while sorting them earlier.  Ugh.  

Ah, well.  The trick with raspberries is, if you rinse them too vigorously, you lose a lot of the firm juicy berries, and end up with watery mush.  But I do not prescribe to the school of no rinsing, for exactly the reason you see above.  So, I rinsed them five or six times in cold water, then dumped them in a pan and proceeded to heat and mash them until anything living would be dead.  Now the berries are sitting in my fridge, slowly draining juice through a sieve and several layers of cheesecloth. I do not care for seeds in my jam.  Or slugs, or worms, or whatever.  But I very much doubt a single one of those little critters could survive the rinsing/heating/mashing/sieving process.  Right?  Ah, well.  I'm sure I consumed much worse with all the gallons of wild blackberries I ate out of our field growing up, back when I didn't pay enough attention to look and see what might be on my berries.

And yes, that is my Ronon cup-of-sex icon.  Because I haven't used it in forever, and it sort of relates, given all of the sugar that goes into jam. :)

 Coming from a family of chefs and bakers, it's practically second nature to be conscious of food and flavor, and how they relate.  What's hard is striking some sort of balance between flavor, health, and caloric intake.  Weight is an issue that runs heavy in my family.  My grandmother on my father's side has been very heavy for as long as I can remember, and it's played a definite role in her health as she's aged.  My Mom's side runs to curves, and curvy women often seem to have a harder time keeping weight off other areas of the body.  Well, we certainly do.  I can remember my Mom doing no-fat everything, and I remember after chef school, how she turned away from all of that and went by the school's creed - fat equals flavor.  Real cream, real butter, et al.  Neither decision helped her be healthier, actually.  Now, she tries to balance the two.  Cutting fat when she doesn't need to sacrifice flavor by doing so.

Over the past two years, my medical situation has made me far, far more conscious of what I eat.  My doctor is a proponent of both Western and Eastern medicine, and she's of the opinion that all the preservatives, chemicals, etc., we put into our bodies from the food we eat can have some unanticipated, unwanted side affects, perhaps even things like premature ovarian failure, like me.  As I've stated recently, I grew up on a farm, and I know from personal experience the vast difference between the taste of a steak bought in the grocery store, and good grass fed beef.  Garden fresh vegetables, and store bought.  I think my recent gardening interest is partially a result of that history, a reaction to rising grocery store prices, and becoming more conscious of all the crap they put in and on the food we buy at the store.  

I've been buying beef from local farmers for over a year.  Buying organic milk and eggs.  And now I'm growing a garden.  Of course, what do I do when I get into something new?  I research it.  I read articles, forums and blogs from people who know more than I do.  One of those has led me to something that has nothing really to do with gardening, but still strikes me as interesting.

Did you know the milk most of us buy in the grocery store, the homogenized milk, has been broken down to the point where your cells can absorb the fatty (and other bad) bits even in your mouth??  You don't even have to swallow it!  In non-homogenized milk, these things are large enough that this is not the case.  Apparently some heart attacks have been linked to our bodies absorbing a lot more of these fats than we would drinking milk that has not been subjected to this process.  Now, I noticed an immediate difference in texture and flavor when I started buying the organic 2% milk, which is NOT homogenized, but I never knew why.  I'm guessing the homogenized vs. non is part of the difference.  

I should probably pause here and mention that like regular farming, dairy farming also runs in my family.  My great aunt and uncle ran a dairy farm up in Washington until they retired.  I can remember visiting them and drinking fresh milk, but like so many things when you're a kid, I had no real appreciation for it. :)

Anyway, back to the gardening blogs, and what I stumbled over.  Namely, a local dairy that makes organic, lightly pasteurized (because by law in Oregon milk must be pasteurized) dairy products.  Milk, yogurt, cheese, butter.  

And get this: they deliver right to your door!  In glass bottles, just like the milkman of old.  For free.  I mean, no delivery charge.  You know how coke and pepsi taste so much better from a glass bottle?  Well, after reading this, I just had to try it! I got my first delivery from Noris Dairy today - two glass bottles of milk, a carton of yogurt, and some butter.  Mmmmmmm.  I've already had some of the yogurt with some fresh strawberries and a drizzle of honey.  I can't wait to try my coffee with the milk tomorrow morning.  The butter I've cut into chunks and divided between the fridge and the freezer.  Next week, I'll place my order and put out the rinsed empty bottles, and....like magic, they will be replaced with fresh bottles of milk!  

The funny thing is, the prices are the same or a little less than the organic stuff in the grocery store I buy.  But fresh, delivered, and it has that whole nostalgia factor going for it.  I plan to have a taste test in the morning.  A drink of the dairy milk, vs. the store bought organic, vs. the regular store bought jug.  I will report back my findings!

I did not take a photo, and it wouldn't have looked significantly pretty, anyway, since all the containers had lids. But I haven't posted about lunch in awhile, and today's was particularly good:

~ Leftover homemade bean soup, vegetarian version
~ baby carrots + ranch dressing for dip
~ applesauce
~ home canned pears

Yummy!

Also, I had oatmeal for breakfast. That all sounds very healthy to me. :)

And while we're talking about canning, I've home canned several things in my canning adventures so far this year:

Peach Jam
Raspberry Jam
Peaches
Pears
Concord grape jelly (for my dad-in-law, for his birthday, with grapes he planted last year)

A friend canned fresh tuna for me, and that is also teh awesome!

On my list still to do:

A last batch of pears (the husband loves them), green beans, salsa (if I can find a really good recipe), applesauce (I am VERY excited about this!), and perhaps tomato/spaghetti sauce. I am a little nervous about using the pressure cooker, I must admit. So far, it's all been water bath canning, but the beans and salsa and so on need to be canned at a much higher temp, hence the pressure cooking.

Also, I believe we're going to research dehydrators. Apparently they make the best elk jerky, much more moist than smoking, so the husband wants to try it. Also, he loves dried fruit, and so do I, and we both grew up with it - he from his grandmother, me from my Mom. I would love to make my own dried apples and bananas! Mmmmm.

Reading morwen_peredhil's recent post on horrible recipes reminded me of how lucky I am to come from a family that loves cooking, loves food, and knows how to cook food right. 

My mother and sister both graduated from Western Culinary Institute in Portland, OR, one of the top rated schools of its kind in the country.  My Mom, bless her, is the pastry chef at a highly rated Mediterranean restaurant on the Oregon coast, called April's at Nye Beach.  She fills the dessert menu there with wonderful things, like Raspberry Swedish Creams, Eclairs, Chocolate Silk, Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie, the best Creme Brulee I've ever tasted and other such unashamedly high caloric sweets. 

Why am I going on about this?  Because earlier this week, when my Mom memorably drove to my house while I was at work to take our dog to the groomers for us, she left me a surprise in my fridge.  Of all her desserts, my hands down favorite has always been her Eclairs.  They are, in a word, divine.  I should take a pic the next time I have the opportunity, to show you how amazing they look as well as taste.  They don't look anything like the store bought variety.  Every year for my birthday, that's what I want instead of cake.

So I guess they'd been selling out at the restaurant lately, so she made a few extra for the weekend, and then inexplicably the crowd shifted, and people didn't order as many eclairs.  So Mom had extra to get rid of.  Usually the staff gets the desserts once they don't sell, but since Mom was coming over that day anyway, she brought me one! 

My family is of the firm opinion that if you're going to eat calories, they might as well be damn good tasting calories. :-D