in community

Yesterday was an exciting day for us!  We officially (and finally) became members of our local food co-op!  I've been consistantly shopping there for almost a year now, so it was exciting to finally take the leap.  

One of the things that I love about shopping at the co-op, and our other small local shops, is that people know me there.  Now, being the introvert that I am and having an extremely extroverted, outgoing, and woo-like husband, that says a lot!  You see...we frequent a lot of local shops and restaurants and in most of them, people know my husband.  He's the kind of person that everyone knows and everyone remembers.  When we're together, they also know me!  I'm Dan's wife!  However, when I walk into those same places by myself, I'm just a another customer.  After a few confusing interactions, I've learned to just laugh about it.

There are a few shops, though, that I usually go to by myself.  The co-op and the local garden shop are two of those.  I've made a point in both of those places to start to get to know the people that work there and I must say, it's such a better shopping experience when you're greeted by a "hey, how are ya?!" that's accompanied by a smile that says, I know you!

I grew up in a smallish town, right outside of the suburbs.  We shopped in the suburbs and went out to eat in the suburbs.  So, while living in a small town, I enjoyed very few of the perks of small town life.  One of the things that I've learned to love about the city is that I've realized how easy it can be to have a small town experience within a large metropolis!  And through that I've realized how lovely it is to start to live and thrive within that community!  

We see the same people at restaurants, shops, art/music events, and bars.  Not only do we know the people who work in those places, but in many of them we know the owners as well.  Those relationships make our little corner of the city stronger and more connected, and it creates a beautiful community.  

I'm starting to see the benefits of living locally and being invested in the community around us. And each time I get more involved, the desire to be involved grows even more.  

How about you?  What does living locally look like for you?  

beans, beans, the musical fruit...

We eat a lot of beans in this house.  In soups, in salads, in tacos, on their own.  Partly because they are delicious and come in so many types, but also because they are cheap and a great source of protein!  As we have slowly made the switch to eating better produce (organic/local) and better meat (grass-fed/pasture-raised/free-range), I've tried to find ways to reduce our grocery budget in other ways so that we can afford better quality food overall.  One of those ways has been incorporating more beans into our meals.  I've found that I can buy better meat by buying/eating less meat and preparing more vegetarian meals.  In order to fill our bellies with those meals, they often contain beans.  

Beans in any form are cheap, which is lovely when you're working within a budget.  However, dried beans are by far the most economical way of purchasing beans.  While less convenient than canned, they are better for you because they don't contain BPA, which can't be said of their canned counterparts.  Cheap and healthier?!  Forget the convenience, both of those factors were enough to win me over!

Once I decided to make the switch to dried beans, I explored a few different options for preparing them.  My favorite so far (for convenience and ease) has been the slow-cooker.  It's a pretty slick process!  Rinse them, soak them, add seasonings, turn on the Crockpot, come back a few hours later, and ta-da -- you've got beans!!!  

I've always known that dried beans are cheaper, but this last week I took a few minutes to figure out just how much I saved.  I bought about 2.25 lbs of organic black beans at my co-op for $2.39/lb, which totaled about $5.28.  These dried beans produced about 14 cups of prepared beans.  That's more than 7 cans of store-bought prepared beans.  Without adding in the cost of the onion, garlic, bay leaves, and salt (which would be a very minimal addition), the cost per "can" of my prepared beans would be $0.78.  The average cost of one can of non-organic black beans is about $1.00, and my beans were organic!  The savings to make non-organic dried beans would be even more.  

Dried beans give me a way to get organic beans into our bodies for less money and without BPA!  I personally find these benefits far out way the time it takes to make them!  

Slow-Cooker Dried Beans

2 lbs dried beans*

water

1 large onion, quartered

2 whole garlic cloves

2 bay leaves

1 tbs of salt (you may want to start with 1/2 tbs and go up from there)

Sort and rinse your beans.  This step is important because it's very possible that you will find dirt, rocks, or other debris in your beans.  Pour the rinsed beans into your slow-cooker and cover them with water.  The water should be 1-2 inches above the beans.  Let them soak for about 8 hours (I do this overnight).  The long soak is very important for the nutritional aspect of the beans.  Read more about this here.  

In the morning, add the onion, garlic, and bay leaves.  You may need to add extra water, if the beans have soaked too much of it up.  Your water should still be covering the beans.  Turn the slow-cooker on low and let it do it's thing for about 6 hours.   You may want to stir it once or twice, if you're home.  I find that this helps the beans cook more evenly (totally not necessary, though).  After about 6 hours, start testing the beans for softness.  You should eat 5-10 beans to see if they are all soft enough.  If any are still hard, then you should keep cooking them.  It's better to have a few mushy beans, then a few hard ones (trust me).  Once they are done, add the salt, stir, and let them soak it in for a few minutes.  Taste them again.  If they are to your liking, then turn off the slow-cooker and let them cool.

Take out the onion, garlic, and bay leaves, and put the beans into freezable storage containers.  I typically strain out 2 cups of beans, add some of the liquid back, and put them into quart-sized freezer bags, and lay them flat in the freezer.  Eventually, I'd like to find some glass containers that would work well for that amount of beans without being too bulky for my little freezer.  However, for now, freezer bags it is!  Freezer bags also thaw very quickly in a bowl/sink of water.  This is handy when you need them in a pinch.  

When you're ready to use them, just take them out of the freezer, let them thaw, then drain them like you would a can of beans from the store.  

*You can use any kind of beans (black, kidney, great northern, etc.) for this.  However, the time in the slow-cooker may vary from one type to another.  You may also find variations between brands of beans or even with your slow-cooker.  Play around with it.  Experiment!

How about you?  Do you have any cost-saving tips for getting good food into your family's bellies for less?!

a slow rise

Last week I told you about my dear sourdough starter and the fun that I've had getting it a-bubbling.  This week I thought I'd share my bread making process with you.  As I mentioned last week, I found this bread recipe at the end of last year and have tweaked it a bit to better fit my bread-making style.  

Bread making, for me at least, has always been an idealist thing.  The idea of having only homemade bread in the house, is lovely, but let's be honest...who has time for that!?  Bread making is such a process--and a mess maker.  And while I've always loved that process, it's never been a spur of the moment kind of project in my life.  That is, until I met this recipe!  

Not only have we come to love the flavor of this bread, but I truly love the easy process!  All you do is mix it with your fingers in a bowl, let it rise for 12 hours (or so), knead it into a ball, let it rise again for 12 hours (or so), shape it into a ball, let it rise again (1-12 hours), then bake it at 350 degrees for 40 min.  No messy countertops.  No greased bowls or pans.  No fancy ingredients.   Just flour, water, salt, and sourdough starter.  It's a marvelous thing!  

Below is the recipe and pictures of the process.  Please know that this recipe is not my original recipe.  I've tweaked the Nourished Kitchen's No-knead Sourdough Recipe just a bit, because it seems to work better for me.  

Sourdough Bread

3 cups flour (I use a mixture of wheat and bread flour--typically 2 cups wheat, 1 cup bread)

2 teaspoons salt (I typically use sea salt)

1 cup bubbly sourdough starter

1/2 cup to 1 cup water (I prefer filtered water)

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix with your fingers until all of the flour is moist and mixed in.  I usually do a little light kneading in the bowl, just to get the flour all worked in.  Cover and let rise for 12 hours or so.  I typically do this in the evening before bed.  It takes about 10 minutes to mix up the dough and then feed my sourdough starter.  

In the morning, my dough looks like this.  It has risen a bit and is a little sticky.  At this point, you should gently press it down to get any air out of it.  Then knead it into itself a few times so that it forms a nice ball.  If it's too sticky, work a bit of flour into it.  Cover and let it rise for another 12 hours or so.  I usually do this step in the morning before I head out the door.  This takes about a minute or two.  

When I get home from work, my dough has doubled in size and is ready to be shaped into a loaf.  Prepare your baking stone by sprinkling corn starch or flour onto it.  You can also do this on a pizza peel or counter and then slide the risen bread onto a hot stone in the oven.  However, I'm all about the easiness of this process and so I skip that step.  It leaves me with a weird looking loaf sometimes that occasionally sticks to my stone, but I don't care.

Press your dough down gently to real ease the air.  Then shape it into a ball (or boule) by pulling the top down to the bottom side of the ball and gently working it into the bottom of the dough.  This should just take a couple of minutes, as you don't want to over work the dough.  Once it's in a ball-like shape, place it onto the cornstarch on your baking stone.  Cover lightly and let rise.  The rise time can be anywhere from 1 to 12 hours.  We have found that the flavor and texture improves with a longer rise time.  However, I've had times where I've only let it rise for 30 minutes or so, and I still ended up with a loaf of bread...

I sometimes do this step when I get home from work and then bake it in the evenings or sometimes I do this step right before bed and let it rise all night.  It just depends on what the day looks like, and what our bread needs are.  

The longer rise times will produce a loaf that has doubled in size--leaving a lighter, airier loaf.  Once you are ready for baking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put a few 1/2 inch cuts in the top of your loaf.  This will help it to keep a nice shape as it bakes.  Bake for 40 minutes.  

After the bread comes out of the oven, move it to a cooling rack to cool.  Once you cut into it, keep it wrapped tightly to keep it from drying out.  We find that our bread tastes best if we eat it within 5 days, which is usually not difficult to do.  It's so yummy!  

Because sourdough is easier for your body to digest (due to the fermented dough and long rise times), we find that we can eat a lot of it and still feel great--which is not always true with other types of bread (especially store-bought bread).  This means we use this bread for everything, and love it!  

Happy bread making!

just a few....

I love to cook and then, of course, post pictures of the food I've made.  Because of that, people often ask me where I find my recipes.  When asked this question, I always feel like I should have a great answer--I mean, I do cook a lot!  However, my answer often comes across as kind of lame.  "Cookbooks...? Yeah, I guess most of my recipes just come from my cookbooks."  This is true.  I use do my cookbooks a lot.  However, I really use just a few of them to make the delicious go-to recipes that I make on a regular basis.

I got to thinking about this recently as I read the book Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson.  While the premise of her book is summed up in the title, she also spends a lot of time talking about how to live with less.  Since reading the book, I've been slowly decluttering and getting rid of things that I just really don't need.  

My cookbooks were one of the first places I started and it happened after I got three new ones for Christmas.  I went to add my three new and exciting books to my collection and realized that my little top of the cupboard spot was rather full and my little kitchen had no more space to offer.  Purge, I must purge, I thought.  So, purge I did.  I gave some away that I really didn't use/like/need.  I moved a few to the basement that I really only used for holidays and special occasions.  I also moved a few to the basement that I didn't feel like I could give away just yet, but I also didn't need/want them.  I'm sure they'll make it into the donations pile in the next year or so.  I also had three years worth of RealSimple magazines that I had saved for the yummy recipes.  I saved the November/December issues (for holiday inspiration), but gave the rest away to be read or cut up into art projects.  

What I was left with was a rather small, yet rich and simple collection of my favorite go-to books.  

Having fewer cookbooks has made my menu planning a lot easier.  When making grocery shopping/menu plans, I'm able to grab two or three of my favorites, along with my recipe box, and sit down for a much quicker planning process.  A few of the reasons that this simple collection works for me is that I have books for specific purposes.  I have my trusty Betty Crocker, that I wouldn't live without for all of my basic baking, roasting, cooking needs.  I have The Epicurious Cookbook, organized by season, with it's inspirational pictures and absolutely fabulous recipes.  The Homemade Pantry, which encourages me continually to assess what I'm buying versus what I'm making at home from whole foods.  And my newest favorite, The New Midwestern Table, which uses local ingredients and constantly reminds me of why I love Minnesota and it's food.  

We live in a world filled with options.  We are accustomed to options.  Yet, as Bea Johnson states in her book, options make life more complicated and require more time for us to decide which option we want.  Simplifying my cookbooks has made my kitchen just a bit simpler and has made my time spent in the kitchen just a bit easier.  I'm sure I'll continue to add books to the collection over the years, but my goal is to keep the size of the collection the same by replacing the old with the new.  

How about you?  Where do you find your recipe inspiration?