Happy New Year!

Manchego got an ice cream maker for Christmas!

Ever since my culinary school adventure, during which I would sit dreamily in lectures imagining new and fanciful ice cream flavors, I've wanted one of my very own.

The day after Christmas I made my very first batch of sinfully delicious and highly caloric vanilla bean ice cream. It was really terribly simple, I'm afraid. I started by heating:

2 1/3 cups of whole milk
2 1/3 cups of heavy cream

And then infusing the dairy mixture with:

1 whole vanilla bean, with the innards scraped out of the pod and included in the milk/cream

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, I whisked together until thick, smooth, and pale yellow:

3 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
1 1/8 cups of sugar

Then I removed the bean pod, tempered the egg mixture with 1 cup of the hot cream/milk, and then added the eggs and sugar to the rest of the cream/milk back in the saucepan. I cooked that to just short of 180 degrees (the temperature at which the eggs would have coagulated, which is well above the 165 degrees required to kill salmonella bacteria), stirring constantly. And once it was done, I removed it from the heat and added:

2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract

After that I chilled the whole combination for a couple of hours - first in an ice bath and then in the refrigerator - before putting it into the previously frozen freezer bowl and turning on the ice cream maker. Thirty minutes later...Voila! The most delicious and decadent vanilla ice cream I've ever tasted.

Nutritional information per 1/2 cup serving: 257 calories, 19 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 166 mg of cholesterol, no fiber.

There's still some left if you're interested. You'll just have to get up here fast. I'm eating my 1/2 serving just about every day.

Hope your New Year is off to a good start!

I'm going to try to blog more regularly in 2008...although you know what they say about the road to hell...

Listeria hysteria

If you've been following the New England food news lately, perhaps you've heard that there have been four reported cases of listeria infection in Massachusetts since June. Two people - both men in their 70's - have died and one woman who survived had a miscarriage. I'm not sure what happened to the 4th.

All four cases were traced to a the milk processing plant of a family-run dairy here in the Commonwealth. They've voluntarily ceased operations until they can find the source of the bacteria and resolve the issue.

My heart goes out to the four people who've gotten ill as a result, and to their families. And I'm sure there are more than the four cases, which have been reported. Those with compromised immune systems - like the very young, the very old, and the pregnant - are most likely to suffer serious consequences from listeria infection. Anyone else is likely to feel like they have a passing case of the flu.

My heart also goes out to the Whittier family who own the dairy and the milk processing plant. A large dairy could take the financial hit more easily than a small dairy, obviously. I hope they get the problem resolved quickly and are able to regain the trust of their customers. For their personal financial sake, of course, and for the sake of the small-dairy industry and family farming in general. It would be a tremendous loss if they were not to recover from this.

As a sidenote, in the news coverage it was mentioned that they sell their milk under 5 or 6 other brand names, two of which, I've purchased in the past believing the milk was from the (even-smaller) family farms from which I've bought stuff locally. It raises questions for me...when a local farm store advertises their milk as "from our own cows," but it's either not true or not entirely true...well, I'm feeling a sense of grief more over that apparent breach of trust than over the listeria outbreak itself.

So, to get to the bottom of it, I sent an email today to Whittier to inquire...do they process milk from other dairy farmers? And if so, do they keep it separate from the milk from their own cows? Or do they simply sell their own milk under other brand names, as the articles suggest is true?

I want to know what I'm buying. That's one of the benefits of buying locally from people whose names you know. And I thought I did...but...

I'll keep you posted...

Happy New Year!

Addendum:

I heard back from the good people at Whittier Farms. Sounds like what was reported in the paper was true. All milk processed by them is their own. They do not process and/or bottle milk from other suppliers. So, when my old farmstore says their milk is "from our own cows," well, it seems they're being misleading...sad.

What a fall!

Well, there's been a lot going on in the EIK since last I wrote. Most of it utterly mundane. I've been back to work full-time since summer and sabbatical, and full-time work is time-consuming.

Today I had a day off - a snow day - as church was actually cancelled. What a nice treat! So, I thought I'd briefly update you. Very briefly.

The big news of late is that my truck is in the shop. Head gaskets. Been there about a week. Hopefully I'll get it back Monday or Tuesday. Otherwise, I'll need to rent another car for a few more days.

I've rented two so far, both SUV's on account of the Twitchy New England Weather. First, a Chevy Equinox, which was kind of nice. Then a GMC Envoy, which I initially liked a little less than the Equinox, but which completely won me over during a 3 hour commute home in the midst of a snow storm this past week.

My Beloved and I are actually soon to be in the market for a new car - not because of the head gaskets. We just need a little more room. So, I'm finding myself in yet another moral dilemma. I want a car with a high green rating and superb gas mileage. It must have either AWD or 4WD, as we've been spoiled by both in our current cars. And after all the nasty things I muttered - well, yelled - at other cars on my way home the other day, I certainly don't want to be one of them - stuck on the side of the road with my lowly front wheel drive vehicle in some future storm. That would be mortifying. I also want a car that can meet all my needs, which include hauling two labrador retrievers, plus hockey gear, plus human passengers when necessary.

I'm leaning toward the Ford Escape Hybrid...hopefully it'll be big enough.

That's really the biggest news that's fit to print rom here.

I have been thinking a lot about posting more regularly once again at Reverent Eater. I've been consumed once again by all-things-food. Plus I'm organizing a sort of symposium (although that's far too grand a descriptor) in the spring for some colleagues on the topic of Food and Spirituality. So, I'll be reading and thinking about food a great deal between now and the end of April. I'm not guaranteeing anything, of course, but you might want to look there periodically in the next few weeks...

The Reason You Come Here...

...is to read about food, right? About what I'm cooking up in the ol' EIK? Well, have I got a story for you...

This coming Saturday night, I'm having some people over for a special dinner. This was an event offered through the church auction last spring. I agreed to prepare a multi-course meal from all (or mostly) local ingredients for the 8 highest bidders.

And so, here I am, less than a week away, trying to plan the menu, procure ingredients, and do some prep work so that I'm ready for Saturday when the guests arrive. Keep in mind that I still have to work all week, although fortunately for me this is a week without many evening meetings. That having been said, I still have a capital campaign kick-off sermon to write, a memorial service to plan and officiate, and a stewardship training to attend. Plus most of the regular stuff. But you don't want to read about all of that. You want to read about the food.

Here's what I'm thinking for the menu:

Some appetizers and nibblies, which I haven't figured out yet, but which are sure to include a selection of local cheeses...

A soup course, which is likely to be a butternut squash soup...

A salad of some kind, which will depend on what's fresh and available through either the farmer's market or my CSA farm share this week...

Some homemade quick bread using whole wheat from Maine and cornmeal from Rhode Island (and perhaps some slow rise yeasted whole wheat bread, as well, if I have time)...

Braised Beef with Red Wine (Boeuf Bourguignon) from Thomas Keller's Bouchon, using meat from our cow, wine from a great local winery, and veggies from the farm...

And for dessert, a maple creme brulee and an apple crisp...

So, that's your preview. Today is my only full day off, which means it's beef stock day here in the kitchen. The bones (from our cow) are in the oven roasting now, and a half an onion is charring on the stovetop to add color to the stock. I'll try to keep you posted throughout the week as to how I'm doing with the procuring and the prep. So far, the biggest trick has been finding locally grown yellow onions. Not quite the right time of year. So, the onions in the stock will be "from away," but hopefully I'll do better with the braise and garnishes...

Another One of Life's Big, Sick Ironies

We played in a golf tournament today at a hoity toity country club that was already on my bad list. The tournament was a fundraiser for breast cancer research. They slipped yet another notch on my chart this morning when I saw the sign indicating that TODAY was pesticide and fungicide application day. For goodness sake, people! Get with the program!

Come on everybody, do your exercise!

Remember Wonderama?

I don't. Not in the least. But I must have seen this children's show in the early 70's before it went off the air. In fact, I must have seen it with some frequency, because I remember well the song they'd sing: "Exercise, exercise...come on everybody, do your exercise."

I mention this only because I exercised today, which actually is something worth mentioning in and of itself, since it's something I do so seldom.

It was awfully hot today...summer's reprise...90-something degrees. Not a particularly good day to exercise for the first time in a long time, unless of course, the exercise is swimming. And, as luck would have it, I just joined the "Y" last week, and now have a pool at my disposal.

The "Y" is such a great thing, I'm surprised it's taken me so long to join up. When I was growing up, we were members of the "Y" and that is where I learned to swim. Today...different "Y," different state...but I must say, it felt comfortingly familiar to walk in, show my card, and head to the lockerroom and then to the pool to swim some laps.

I swam for 30 minutes - breast stroke, side stroke, back stroke, and a little bit of crawl, which is my least favorite. It felt really good. Now I'm exhausted. But it was so much better than riding an exercise bike in my hot basement!

Monday Morning Breakfast

I've been a terrible chefette of late. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Perhaps because we were away for a few weekends...perhaps because I've been working more weeknights than is usually common during the summer...I don't know. I just haven't wanted to cook. But my diet has certainly suffered. All these gorgeous vegetables from the farm and I've cooked with nary a one. I gotta get back on track.

So, this morning, I made myself a fancier-than-usual-of-late breakfast. Very simple. Very tasty.

First, I diced a small red potato, half an onion, half a green pepper, and a whole jalapeno, but with seeds and most of the membrane removed. Threw them all in a saute pan with some olive oil and cooked them until the potatoes were nearly done. Then I added a clove of minced garlic and cooked for another minute. Salt, pepper and some chili powder for a Caribbean sort of flair. And once that was all mixed well, I poured on some egg whites and cooked until set and done, flipping once or twice.

A nice, healthy, easy, hardly-worth-mentioning, but-thanks-for-obliging-me vegetable scramble, half of which I ate for breakfast, the other half of which I'm just finishing up now as my mid-morning snack.

How are y'all doing with getting your 5-A-Day?