The Tofeta Experiment – 1

This post is the first post in what we’re going to call The Tofeta Experiment. Basically, we’re trying to create our own Tofu Cheese, and we’ve decided to start with Feta. Why Feta? Well, because 1) it’s crumbly, and not melty, so we should be able to get the texture a bit more easily, 2) it’s funky, so we figure that we can do a takeoff of tempeh (see How To Make Tempeh) with maybe an extra-long fermentation / mycelium growth period. So, our first task, then, is to get ahold of some tempeh culture, and then some soybeans.

The plan is to go through the steps of making tofu, but to take the okara and inoculate it with tempeh culture. We’ll, of course, do something else with the soymilk, like make tofu from it, but the okara will become our first homemade tofu cheese. Wish us luck.

Thoughts of Harvest

This morning, in preparation for next weekend’s guests, I made up a batch of dried tomato tapenade. This took up the last of our dried tomatoes except for what I’ve got stashed in the deep-freeze (two, one-gallon freezer bags). I’m feeling like last year’s harvest is finally running out, and that as soon as I make it through the rest of the dried squash, it’ll be time for harvest to begin again! What marvelous timing, and what great time to be exchanging correspondence with Jackie of One Thread Two Thread regarding what to do with all of that excess produce.

Jackie tells me:

With my green tomatoes, I usually make relish. I have an allergy to mustard and so most store bought relishes are inedible by me. I usually don’t have too many green tomatoes. Most of the plants that we grow are short season plants, any where from 48 to 80 days (from transplant) with the average being about 70. I also (much to my husband’s horror) start pinching off any blossoms about the second week of August. It concentrates the plant energy into ripening the already set fruit. At least that is what I have been told.
I would love the recipe for your fruitmince. I am always willing to try something new in the preserves department.

So, by way of sharing, I’ll provide you with the recipe I used as a base, which comes from the Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving, and will also point you to my earlier post on mincemeat, and to Cook Almost Anything‘s pretty pictures of dried fruit … which also gives directions for making fruitmince.

Do note that this recipe is merely a starting place for making fruitmince. We’ve done it faithfully all of once, and have since altered it into “whatever’s on hand that sounds good.” We’ve combined it with the recipes for Tomato Apple Chutney, Curried Apple Chutney, and Peach or Pear Chutney. But here’s the starting point:

Brandied Mincemeat

  • 4 chopped Fuji apples (or similar firm variety)
  • 4 cups cranberries
  • 2 pounds raisins
  • 1 pound currants
  • 1 pound figs, chopped
  • 2 ground and seeded oranges and zest
  • 2 ground and seeded lemons and zest
  • 1 cup candied orange peel
  • 1 cup candied lemon peel
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp cinnamon powder
  • 2 Tbsp ginger powder
  • 1 cup candied ginger
  • 2 tsp ground allspice
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 quart apple cider vinegar
  • 3/4 cup brandy
  • 1/2 cup dry sherry

Combine all ingredients, except alcohol, in a large nonreactive vessel. Simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; stir in brandy and sherry. Return to heat; simmer 30 minutes. Ladle hot mincemeat into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 30 minutes in a boiling-water canner.

From there, what we’ve done is to basically add a whole bunch of green tomatoes, increased the spice factor by at least double if not quadruple, added quantities of Pomona’s Universal Pectin (to the cold liqids), and added more vinegar and more alcohol. We’ve also, because we’re unsure of the acidity and because of possible alkaloids present in the green tomatoes, processed these at high temperatures in a pressure canner.

We’ve found that pressure canning things really destroys any pectins; nothing will gel after it’s been up to those temperatures. So, don’t bother with the pectins if you’re going to go for pressure canning these. We’re a bit nervous about the acidity, so we usually go for the pressure option, especially when we’re “just throwing things in.” That said, the liquids added here are either vinegar or citrus or alcohol, and increase the acidity quite a bit. Between those and the sugars, we’re probably quite safe.

What do you do with this when you’re done, you ask? Why, you make pie! Depending upon how firm you want it, you add between 2 and 4 Tablespoons of corn starch to 1 quart of fruitmince, throw that into a pie shell, and bake for about an hour and a half. If you underbake it, it’ll be kind of milky and soft in the center, and that’s just not appetizing. This last year we made over 100 quarts of the fruitmince plus another 10 quarts or so of chutney (basically, add some onions, curry powder & some hot peppers to the fruitmince & you’ve got it). We have about 3 quarts left, and those are in little bitty jars for making tartlets. That’s it. Everything else is either firmly encamped about our middles, or has gone to friends.

I encourage you to experiment, to grow more than you think you can eat, and to preserve things!

Will Babies Never Cease?

Yet another baby hat, but this one done up on size 3 double-pointed bamboo needles the whole way. It seems that everybody’s having babies; I don’t know if it’s the war, or just biological clocks ticking away, or what, but the babies could stop now. They really could. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I like the little things, provided they’ve gotten past the stage where you can see their pulse in the soft spot on the top of their head. Something about there not being any skull to protect their brains just gives me the creeps, which is probably why we feel the need to knit them hats. But really – enough, already.

It is giving me the opportunity to get rid of all of this yarn, though I’d like there to be some girls, at least, if everyone’s going to keep on having all of these kids. It seems that they’ve all been boys lately, and that really puts a strain on my hat-making skills, as I’m having to resist giving scalloped edges, or frills, or laces. I mean, this one’s a bit lacy, and I’m hoping that his mommy will forgive me for it. We’ll see – and I hope they give me some good pictures of it on their site.

Remodeling Pause

Our books have finally made it to their new home. They had been living in bags – lots and lots of paper grocery bags – but we’ve finally gotten to the stage of settling things into their proper places. May I just say that it’s enough to make you feel human again, to have books upon shelves? And to realize that you have some nice books, books that you’re proud to own, let alone to have read at least once if not several times?

You see, these are the beloved books. These aren’t the books which live upon shelves in the office; these aren’t reference books, but books we have decided are worth reading again and again, and books which can be picked up, caressed. These are what really tell us that we’re home, and well, and make us feel wealthy.

Yes – books make us feel wealthy. It’s strange, until you consider that we’ve had to sell books, and have suffered with their loss. The Riverside Shakespeare, the Riverside Chaucer: they went during the first year of our marriage, when we were living in a one bedroom apartment above somebody’s garage, and were lucky that one of us was working. We lived on spaghetti and jarred sauce; we sold our college texts, because they would get us through the difficult times. We heated the apartment with the electric oven and countless candles, and played cards for hours on end, betting with pretzel sticks. We had a black and white television, with a straightened metal coat-hanger for the aerial. We got all of three channels, one of which was FujiTV.

So, throughout the years, we’ve collected books to replace those beloved ones we sold; the Riversides haven’t made it back into our collection, probably because they sell for hundreds of dollars, and we didn’t like them that much. We look back on that time in our lives, and know that it shaped who we are today. We still love watching Iron Chef – because we watched it on the little black and white set, subtitled in English. We love watching cooking shows in general, because we watched so many on that little set, and we were so hungry at times. Not that we were starving or any such thing – at least, not starving for calories, but for richness, and specialness. To feel wealthy.

So, as we’re remodeling, we’ve pulled back into ourselves. And we’ve been dieting. And our things have been packed away, and we’ve had mess and clutter everywhere. And we’ve had a gimpy heater. So, in some ways, we’ve been waiting for the end, and experiencing a sort of gleeful rebirth as it’s come. I’ve been repeating the phrase, “nobody else has keys to our house” for several weeks now.

And our books are home.

Relocating Serpents

The Critters are being relocated, finally, to their new homes. With all of the chaos of this remodel, they’ve been living in the guest room, trying to stay away from the dust and chaos. They’ve been relatively happy, although they haven’t had much in the way of socialization. Willful has been moved downstairs, to the top of the television cabinet. His tank is about 4 inches too large for the cabinet, so … we may have to find him another place. But we wanted him downstairs, where he’d be out and about, and easily accessible.

Chicken, on the other hand, is going to be moving to our garden after this weekend. He’s a California King snake, illegally obtained by a former coworker’s child. I inherited him when said coworker’s child spent some time in juvenile hall and was unable to take care of him. We named him Chicken because he’s so determined not to be handled, and hides pretty much all of the time; he’s been known to stick his head out of his hidey-hole only to grab the mouse, and then to duck back inside. California Kings are not supposed to be bought or sold, nor are you supposed to catch them, so … we’ve decided to let him go, where he can do us some good. Another week or so and he’ll be after our gophers, we hope!

Curse you, 1950’s man!

At the end of all this remodeling, and because summer is fast approaching, I’d thought to see what it would take to get our heater replaced, and to add an air conditioner. I know, it’s not all that environmentally friendly to use air conditioning. We both work in an office upstairs in our small condo, though, so it’s a necessity for a couple of weeks every summer, if not for a full month. We’d been getting by with a portable unit, but it wouldn’t even touch the heat of last summer. So, I figured I’d have somebody tell me what it’d take to get an a/c put in, and to replace this behemoth of a 1960’s heater while they were at it.

Just one problem. See the shiny pipe? See the shiny coating on the shiny pipe? See the tape, which was holding the shiny coating in place? Well, here’s the scoop: the shiny coating inside is just plain steel ducting. The shiny coating on the outside, and the tape? Oh, those are just asbestos. Yup. Each and every duct is wrapped in asbestos, which, in turn, has been wrapped in shiny paper. And, to seal each section of asbestos “cardboard” together, they used asbestos tape, of course!

So, the heater project is going to run us $3,200 more than it would have, if we’d not had to replace the bright ideas of 1950’s man. And who was this man? You know: the man who said, “let’s see if this rock burns,” and then, when it wouldn’t, decided it was a good thing to make into insulation?

I don’t know who he was, but he owes me an air conditioner.

On the flip side of this whole thing, and just as a matter of passing interest and “isn’t that creepy”-ness … if we’d lived in the county next door, we wouldn’t have to replace any of the asbestos at all. You see, the county next door falls under a different set of regulations regarding asbestos. We’ll tell ourselves that it isn’t because they’re darker-skinned over there. Yes. We’ll tell ourselves that.

Truthfully, we’re not legally obligated to replace all of it, just the bits which are exposed to the heater area. However, if you’ve ever blown across the mouth of a straw which was immersed in liquid, you’ve noticed that air moving past a small opening creates a vacuum, sucking your soda up the straw. It’s the same effect as opening two windows on the same side of your car – the window in front exhausts air from the vehicle, sucking air in the rear window. Because of this wonder of physics, any crack in the asbestos tape will let air beneath the asbestos, provided that there are small gaps in the ducting. Thus, any gap in the ducting will be sucking air in past the oh-so-dry-and-dusty asbestos fibers, and will end up depositing those fibers into our living space.

So, we’re replacing all of the ducting we can get to. This will leave about 15 feet of ducting which is enclosed in the floor / ceiling between the first and second floors. There’s not much we can do about that, unless we want to tear out the ceiling. So, we’re going to live with that risk for a while, if not indefinitely.

Our only recompense is that we’ll end up with a decent heater for next Winter.

Mucking About

In the spring, a young girl’s fancy turns to thoughts of putting down her knitting and sitting outside doing nothing but watching the clouds…I have just gotten new Spring shoes, and I spent the other morning scuffing around happily in them, in ankle deep muck.

Yes. Ankle-deep. Muck.

I am ridiculously excited these days by ankle deep muck. No, I haven’t got a horse (boy, wish I had – or at the very least, a herd of goats – that manure would come in handy about now!), but I do have a garden. Right now it looks like twenty-three four-foot plots in a grid shape, with the odd triangular and boomerang shaped plots on the very edge. It might be the tiniest bit mad to rhapsodize about dirt, because yes, to date that’s all it is, but it’s good dirt. Great dirt, if I might be so bold. It’s the dirt we’ve been working toward for the past… oh, six years or more.

Every year we’ve amended, tossed in various potions and promises in the hopes that we are continuing the process of breaking down adobe clay into reasonable soil. Last year’s backbreaking 15 sq. yards of composting tree leaves finally did the trick. That, and the water-absorbing polymer, the late rains, the early freeze, perhaps — everything rolled into one and the Moon being in the 9th House have created the kind of dirt that you step into… and sink.

Thus my new shoes, ankle deep, in muck.

Joy.

Tomorrow will be one of those testing points in any relationship, wherein your nearest and dearest begins a conversation with you that opens, “Well, it’s time to choose the tomatoes. I think we’re only going with two plants this year.”

And one says, “Mmm” and “Hmm” and one tries very hard not to make any faces that look like incipient laughter will erupt or to have any expression whatsoever. Why? Because we have this conversation every single bloody year. And, every single bloody year? We end up with our body weight in tomatoes. And we’re food obsessed, okay? Even with the Plan of Miserable Reducing, ye olde body-weight is not… erm, slight.

And let’s not even begin on the peppers. Now, we are not Thai, and though I do a creditable imitation of Thai food (well, I can put a bit of coconut milk into anything… and if you’ve never tried it — people, you must, you must), I have no idea why every year we must grow those wicked-hot Thai bird chilies. Or the chocolate habaƱeros. I can understand squash very well. But six varieties?! Every year this dear man says, “Oh, we won’t let it get out of control.” And every year… well, you’ll see. You’ll see.

Garden & Remodel Update

If you squint hard you’ll be able to see me in this picture. Yup – these are the first of the garden space, with 6’3″ me standing amongst the rows, by way of perspective. We’re so proud of our beds this year it’s not funny. And best of all? Tomorrow we go to pick out tomatoes!

Jackie from one thread two thread has promised to send me some crimson hot peppers in exchange for a few of our seeds from Kitazawa. I’m hoping that she’ll have some luck growing the Thai Hot way up there. (I looked at your address on a map, Jackie: you’re about as far away from us as is physically possible while still remaining on the same continent! And when you say “frost” I’m thinking that you mean something entirely different than we do down here!)

The remodel actually looks like we may wrap up this current stage (floors) soon. The downstairs bathroom (shown to the right) is as “done” as it’s going to be for a while. We still have to get some additional storage for it, and to bring back some of the missing decorations … and, oh, some hand towels would be nice, as would some soap. But, other than that, it’s the first room downstairs to be completely finished.

The stairs have to come out again, temporarily, because they squeak awfully. So, we’re going to not let them “float,” but are going to apply copious amounts of construction adhesive. It’s not a happy thing, to glue them down, because it’ll make them harder to replace if they get damaged. But … well, you do what you have to, because the stair noses are actually working their way loose, and won’t be worth walking on in a few months if we don’t fix them.

More tomorrow, when we know how many and what varieties of tomatoes we end up with, and when the builder has left … hopefully for good!

Gardening Begins … Kinda Sorta

We’re both pretty sore today, ’cause we spent all day yesterday rototilling & then cleaning up rows to make high beds – they’re about a foot and a half above the level of the paths between. It took us just about all day to get watersorb, gypsum, slow-release fertilizer, and blood meal added; everything rototilled twice; and to form up the beds. But it’s now ready for planting, and all we’ve got to do is to get the tomatoes from the nursery & to lay in the major drip lines and we’re ready to plant.

In addition to what I listed in a previous post, we’re planting Collard Greens, Red Potatoes, and Sweet Potatoes. Most of those seeds come from Kitazawa Seed, which is a seed company here in San Francisco which specializes in Asian vegetables. They’re pretty cool, and I suggest that you grow some Kabocha squash if you grow anything at all, ’cause they’re truly fabulous – way better than pumpkin for making pies.

Here’s a diagram of what the layout is like. It’s 25 feet from top to bottom, and about 45 feet from left to right. The spaces between the rows are about 1 foot, so that should give you an idea of what you’re looking at.

The space is shady towards the top left corner (where the Celtuce is to go), and we’ve had to balance out where to put things based upon where they’ve been before (no tomatoes nor potatoes can go in the same place they’ve been unless you’ve had three years in between, for example), but we’re pretty sure of this layout.

One thing we learned last year was that you can’t really trellis more than two tomatoes in a row, because you lose fruit where the plants intermingle, and you end up with plants being dwarfed by their neighbors. So, we’ll be planting the tomatoes in short beds, with only two tomatoes in each bed, and stretching two support beams above the three beds. It should let us trellis successfully, and give us a better harvest. We’ll see.

We’ve also made the beds much higher than we’ve been able to make them in the past, which should make it easier to harvest and to weed. AND we’re only planting one thing in each bed. We’ve tried to mix things in the past – tucking basil beneath the shade of a tomato, for example – and it just doesn’t work all that well. Not only do you end up with things competing for resources, you also end up with an inability to plant things in replacement. For example, if you’ve already pulled all of your beets out, but you still have greens growing, you’re stuck with leaving that bed to the greens. If you plant just one thing, however, you could plant a replacement crop, better utilizing the space.

These are things we think about. And lie awake thinking about.

Happy Gardening!

Embrace the Frog

I finally gave in: I frogged my 10 inches worth of Branching Out. I realized, in posting the other day, that I hadn’t been knitting anything, and that I’d been actually dreading working on that particular piece. I know why: it requires slavish attention to a pattern, which is detailed enough not to be able to stick in my mind. So, I couldn’t memorize it (or I was unwilling to put in the hours to do so), and it just wasn’t pretty enough to keep me at it.

So, I ripped it back, I frogged it, I tore it out. And I’m knitting this morning, because I realized that we’ve a friend who’s due this week & I haven’t knit anything for the child (boy), and that I have an orange hat for my sister-in-law’s boy (due in June), but that he probably needs some socks, especially since I have miles of the same orange yarn. So, a blue hat for the boy due this week, and then on to orange socks.

It feels nice, to have gotten rid of a piece which was keeping me from knitting. Silly, I know, but I’d worked myself into a corner: I was going to do that pattern, darn it … but, really, who cares? I know that I can follow a pattern … so who am I proving things to? It’s sad that it’s taken me so long to think through this, but there it is.

Now, on to the blue hat, and all of the possibilities of not following any pattern, but relying on intuition and whim and whimsy.