Why you need a pressure cooker...

One dish meals are quick and
easy and clean up is, too!

I love pressure cookers, a lot. I have two ten quart Fagor pressure cooker and keep them in constant rotation. Love, love, love them. When I first started blogging, I received a couple of emails from nice but concerned people that I was slowly poisoning my children with my rampant speed demon ways so I felt really very vindicated by Food Renegade's post on how they are, indeed, healthy (see HERE). One of the best things about the pressure cooker is the way they can take cheap, tough cuts of meat and make them melt in the mouth fabu in half an hour. From frozen. This is especially important for those of us who do not have a magnatron in their homes (read: microwave).

We had a microwave at our old house and largely it was used to boil water, sterilize cleaning sponges, and hold baked goods but it was a constant temptation. My husband hated it, he told me it creeped him out, but he would sometimes thaw meat in it, warm butter in it, or even re-heat left-overs. He and the kids both. When we moved to the farm, there was a microwave here but in that cramped pantry with space at a premium, we took it out to make room for all the things we really needed. Now it is not a temptation because it is the barn. If I forget to thaw meat, not only can I not thaw something really fast but there is not an option of running to the store. The small town is almost twenty minutes away but only has a post office. So, I need to be on my game.

Yesterday my husband took the rest of the kids into the big town to meet the dog some of us had already visited at the Humane Society and then called to say they were able to bring the dog home. Not only did I need to get dinner ready after an afternoon with only little ones and lots of (attempted) school room organizing, I had forgotten to thaw the meat and now needed to get some things ready for the dog I did not expect until the end of the week (she was recovering from being spayed). Oh, Fagor to the rescue!

Melt in your mouth beef.

First I tossed the beef into the sink for a short thaw in water. In the pressure cooker I dumped in two pounds of chopped bacon and two chopped Vidalia onions and cooked until browned and yummy and deglazed with about a cup of red wine. Then I added four cups of brown rice (I sprout my own, see HERE), eight cups of water, a big fistful of bay leaves and a FROZEN two pound beef roast of some sort. Probably a chuck, because it is cheap. I brought it pressure before I turned down the heat and walked away for 35 minutes. Afterwards, I pulled and chopped the beef and stirred frozen veggies (all-purpose vegetables, as Eli calls it). Stirred the whole pot and viola! Dinner for a dozen in forty-minutes and all from frozen. Uh, for reals. Even the bacon. Just to drive to and from the closest grocery store would have been twice that.

How the heck does that work?

Pressure cookers work by increasing the temperature through, you guessed it, pressure. Think back to grade school. Atmosphere creates weight which pushes on the surface of water which resists boiling. This means it takes more heat to boil water at a lower altitude (more weight on the water's surface) than at a high altitude (less weight). Because the outlet of steam is restricted in a pressure cooker, it increases pressure to the point that the boiling point of water can be as high as 240F. The higher temperature means faster cooking. At sea level (where I am now) water boils at 212F, where I lived in Colorado it boiled at 204F. This means that food cooked in Denver takes longer than food cooked at a lower altitude because there is actually less heat, because once you reach the boiling point of water, you get vapor and the temperature no longer increases. Pressure cookers make even more sense at high altitude where every degree counts. And...this is why you need to process home canned foods longer at higher altitudes.

These few degrees make a giant difference in that it cuts cooking time in half, or even more. Brown rice can take one hour or more whereas in a pressure cooker it is about 24 minutes. Beans which might take two hours to boil can take only 40 minutes. My frozen beef roast went from barely able to pry out of the wrapping to falling apart tender in 35. But here is the rub, it was 35 minutes at pressure. It took a few minutes to get it to that point. I usually start my electric kettle while I chop or prep or brown the aromatics so it is rocket hot when I add it, which means it boils and comes to pressure very quickly.

Here are some more tips for working with pressure cookers:

• Remember to use a small amount of liquid because they use steam, you can use one or two cups of any flavorful liquid. I will use left over beer or wine or small amounts of bone broth but almost always cut 50/50 with boiling water to make it go faster.
• Don't use too much liquid because it won't evaporate and concentrate. Start with a sparse amount and add richness and flavor by using broth or booze to begin with.
• Remember that milk and other dairy curdles at high temperatures so don't rush milk based puddings or use coconut milk with an additional 20% water added to the total amount of liquid.
• You can't add thickeners to the pot as easily because you can't open it as quickly. I will use either Masa Harina (Mexican cornmeal) or run corn tortillas through the food processor and sprinkled liberally over the top of stews but not stirred in. It will thicken the whole pot.

Lastly, you can de-pressurize the pot in a couple of ways:

• Most pressure cookers have a release valve, but it makes a lot of hot steam and tends to be loud.
• You can turn the heat off about ten minutes early and let it coast in the rest of the way.
• You can put it in the sink and run cold water over it until it is cool. This is my preferred method for thickened soups and puddings, like rice puddings.

In other news, it's a mad busy life for everyone, all the time. Here is my little slice:

• Tomorrow will be the Bearnaise sauce because I won't have time to make it today. Kids are having roast chicken made by the college student. Sorry y'all, but I have a date with hubs. So, maybe I am not really sorry. At all.
• We just got a dog and the kids are trying to love it to death. Don't worry, I will have photos and details later. Suffice it to say she is some kind of hound/lab mix and has the energy and patience to keep pace with eleven kids. The kids wanted to name her Cookie but Ben is not really digging it. He has decided to spell it Kuki and pretend that it is the Finnish surname that is her name. If deception makes you happy, honey, go ahead.
• Finnfest USA starts tomorrow. In Europe it is based on the Nativity of St John the Baptist but it coincides with Midsummer and here it also coincides with some significant immigration dates. You can see some about it HERE. The mania surrounding it is hysterical here. I have been warned the kids will be up to midnight this week. Because bonfires are a big part of it. And on the top of the planet the sun does not set until ten meaning it is not dark until 10:30. Hence, midnight bedtime for everyone!
• Also, my kids have become bug food. They are bitten and eaten up and have ticks all the time because they run through the back fields in grasses taller than they are. Why? I don't know. Because all they do is scream every time they see a tick or whine every time they get bitten. *Sigh*

What is new with you?

With flour-less chocolate cake for dessert...

So we celebrated Fathers Day yesterday with what the kids called the festival of food. We started with pizza for lunch. I made the dough the day before and we used local bacon. It was pretty fabulous. Then I baked a flour-less chocolate cake, whipped some cream with homemade vanilla and some honey as well as roasted carrots in olive oil with some salt and pepper. We grilled a whole beef tenderloin over apple wood branches and topped it with homemade Bearnaise sauce. We had dinner with some other family members (including the girls' favorite, Aunt Marilyn). Auntie is gluten-free and this cake seriously satisfies. I have been cheating you on recipes lately, so here is a good one. I wish I had a photo to share, so I will have to update the post later. We started our meal outside and then rain pushed us inside and with a scant dozen children and five adults and some phone calls from Colorado, the picture I meant to take didn't happen.

This cake requires some effort. You will need to follow the instructions exactly for this specialty cake and you might want to get a hand in the kitchen. It is simple but precise and definitely worth it.   If you over bake this cake, it will be crumbly, and if you serve it at room temperature it will be too soft to serve. Make it the day before and allow it to cool completely before refrigerating it in the spring form overnight. Because all the ingredients start cold (unlike most cakes) you can just dive in to make it, that is, if you have enough of each ingredient!  It is much, much larger than other flour-less chocolate cakes and so it serves a big crowd of  14-16.  Take the recipe to the store with you, it calls for larger quantities than you are used to. It is fabulous by itself but you can cut the richness with some nice tart berries, either fresh or frozen ones cooked into a sauce.

Flour-less Chocolate Cake for  Crowd

1 1/2 lb of high quality dark chocolate chopped (24 ounces)
3 sticks of butter cut into pieces
1/3 C black coffee, espresso or prepared coffee substitute
1 dozen whole eggs, cold
One pinch of salt (if your butter is unsalted, otherwise omit)
One pinch of cinnamon
1 tsp of vanilla

Requires a 10.5" springform pan

Prepare your springform by buttering it thoroughly along the sides and bottom. Wrap the outside of the pan in a double layer of  heavy duty aluminum foil covering both the sides and bottom. Ensure it fits inside a high sided roasting pan then fill a kettle with water.  Melt the chocolate and butter with the coffee in a large metal bowl fitted over a Dutch oven filled with two inches of water, lift out the bowl to make sure that the water does not touch the bottom of it by seeing that it is dry. Stir the chocolate and watch carefully. It must be completely melted. Do not add the coffee to already melted chocolate, it will seize or suddenly clump up and be unworkable!

While it melts, beat the cold eggs with the salt with an electric mixer for ten minutes. The will become frothy, light in color and almost double in size. Don't cheat on the time, you will ruin your dessert.  Bring your large kettle of water to a full boil and preheat the oven to 325F. Once the eggs are ready and the chocolate it melted, slowly pour the eggs into the chocolate while whisking constantly. It should make a thin stream and never be poured so fast it pools on the surface of the chocolate. Eggs that were not fully beaten will scramble. To the batter add the vanilla and the cinnamon and combine well. These delicate flavors should always be added at the end.

Once the eggs are fully incorporated, pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Place the roasting pan on the oven rack while it is fully extended and cover your glass window with a thick towel. Fill the area outside the springform and inside the roasting pan with your boiling water. It will keep your cake soft and mousse like. Bake for about 25min until a sharp blade inserted near the center pulls out cleanly but still damp. Cool completely on a rack, cover and refrigerate overnight.

To serve, fill a pitcher with very hot but not boiling water. Insert the blade of your knife briefly in the water and the dry it with a clean kitchen towel before you cut each slice. You can cut the slices before dinner and pop it in the fridge to serve afterwards. When people ask which bakery you went to, you can gleam with pride and tell them you made it yourself. Because you rock. Everybody wishes they were you.

Maybe tomorrow I can tell you how to make my quick and easy Bearnaise sauce. It is stupid simple but makes you look like a rock star. Or at least like the chef in a fancy steakhouse.

A resourceful family...

What does this picture of my sweet four and three year old daughters have to do with a blog post about garbage? Nothing.  It was just on my phone. Now that we have cleared that up, on to the topic of managing our resources and our waste on the farm...

We are living out here in the woods and the town closest to us holds only a post office, volunteer fire department and a bar. We are not even a one-traffic-light-town (not that we are in town) we are a one-stop-sign town. For reals. What this means is that we are pretty much on our own out here. We are not off grid (though my husband wants to get some solar panels) and we receive our electricity through a rural co-op but the gas comes in from the giant propane tank by the house and the water comes from a well. We do not have a city sewer here, we have a grey-water system (where the sinks, the tub, shower and clothes washer drain into) and a septic tank. The water that we pull from the ground is returned to the ground here and our run-off makes it way (eventually) the lake where my children swim. We have no garbage service coming once a week to fool us into thinking that we produce little waste and what we do create conveniently disappears. All this means that we need to think about resources and how we use them very differently than we ever did before.

Despite having a large brood (now numbering eleven) we always produced much  less trash than our neighbors. I was way too proud of that. We recycled, we composted, we bought recycled. We also used cloth diapers, cloth wipes, cloth napkins, bar towels and even cloth menstrual pads. I also bought in bulk and I shopped with washable produce bags and reusable shopping bags. I cooked at home and so there was not the waste of take-out. I thought we did well. Then I thought about life at the farm and realized I did not do enough. So we have conscientiously decided to do more.

We have set up dedicated recycling bins for aluminum and glass. In the house we are using compostable garbage bags and everything that goes into the bathroom and kitchen waste is compostable. Period. The newspaper, junk mail and old drawings of the children are now being composted. Some of the paper is being used to start fires but really, we are composting everything. All our moving boxes and the newsprint wrap are out composting right now. We only pulled off the tape. We have one kitchen sized garbage can for things (like the tape, plastic windows from mail and staples from papers) which is neither recyclable nor compostable. That's it. Nothing else is allowed to go in there. Because we are dealing with garbage differently, we think careful about each item that comes into the farmhouse, we consider it's packaging as a part of the product itself. Think about your home right now and consider all the plastics that you bring in, think about all the compostable things you don't compost and all the recyclable items you don't recycle. It is no longer an option for us to be momentarily thoughtless. There is no garbage man, there is just the meadow we live in, the fields around it, and the woods around that. There is no away, there is only here.

When you wake up every day and look at the place where you might leave garbage, you have to think and act differently. We have to consider every moment in the waste stream, every stopping point and its impact. Here every single soap, cleanser or cosmetic is either homemade or carefully selected to be non-toxic in both their storage and waste state. This clearly makes us different than other households. There is no bleach, no harsh cleaners, no hair dyes or other toxic beauty supplies here. Nothing to poison a child who gets into it (the most toxic thing we use for cleaning is either the witch hazel or the vodka). The water we drink and bathe with comes from here and stays here and we are not about to contaminate it. There is motor oil for the vehicles and farm equipment but that is recyclable and easily even if not conveniently brought into the bigger town about thirty-five minutes away.

We are still very aware of the things that we using, even if they invisibly arrive here, things like electricity. We are hanging laundry in the sun and wind to dry outside despite having a brand new dryer. On a recent rainy patch of a couple of days, we used the wood cook stove to both warm the house a bit, cook some food (read about that HERE) as well as dry some on a folding rack in the kitchen next to the stove. The woods need to be thinned and the fields need to be cleared and dead trees close to areas where we live and play need to be cut down. So the wood is cut and drying so it can be split later in the summer so we can heat and cook with it over the winter. This is not horrific clear cutting, but living on the land here and keeping it in balance for our use and the use of our children. This has been a lot of work, and "making wood" will continue to be a lot of work all summer long so that we can be ready for the long, dark winter ahead. We have an outside wood furnace that heats a boiler, which in turn heats the radiators on the ground floor of the house. There are funny grated holes in each upstairs room (the biggest room has two) which allow the heat to rise up. Winter is serious business here and need to listen to those who know more about it so we can be ready (at least as much as we can).

It's different here, but in a good way. It is better for us and the children to think this way.

Exploring my new home...

Ben took me out to explore the farm and the woods. It is so beautiful here. It is bright, bright green and very lush but not hot like the south. We took the ATV and went all over the farm, the old pasture and the orchard and then out into acres and acres of heavy woods just to see it. The farm feels like it goes on forever and ever and it does not take long to go far enough into the woods to be unable to see or hear the farmhouse. That is the impressive part, not hearing eleven kids as the work and play.

Here is an old logging road (sometimes the trees are thinned and sold as lumber) and walked into the small clearing to the small frog pond filled with tadpoles. And, apparently, much mosquito larvae. I think it is their love motel. We were good for less than ten minutes before the bugs heard the  dinner bell and were on us. So made our exit. I had this lovely idea of putting chairs out on the large covered porch for dinner out and tea in the morning. It is too buggy right now for that so on my grocery list is some citronella anything. I just want to mosquitoes to abate long enough for me to enjoy some coffee on the porch. Or a cocktail, that would be so nice. Which leads me to my next point...

Groceries

We are living in a very, very rural area. There is no Starbucks, no Target, no Costco, no Walgreens. In hamlet closest to us, there are no stores, only a volunteer fire department. The closest village of any size is about twenty five minutes away and there is a gas station there. We have to go a bit over half an hour to get to the actual town. Despite not having any other big box stores, there is a Wal-Mart there. It seem you can't escape Uncle Wally anywhere. Right now I have to start all over in my grocery shopping strategies.  I have to remember the basic food rules. Here is what I am doing...

Dairy...local, raw, grassfed milk, cream and butter is best but local low-temp or regular pasteurized and non-homogenized is a good choice.

We are getting our raw milk locally having bought into a local herd share (see HERE) but we are getting local no-RbGH, regular pasteurized cream and occasionally extra cream line milk which is pasteurized but not homogenized. The kids are going through milk like there is no tomorrow. We are getting butter but I have not been able to get any grassfed butter here at all. But some butter is better than none at all. I have been able to get ghee in the store, so there is that.

Eggs...local eggs from hens living on pasture is best but hormone free, organic or cage-free eggs are a better choice than simple any eggs which are a good choice.

We right now are getting loads and loads of local eggs from a fairly large though imperfect farm. A chicken coop is high on the priority list right now. We need to talk to some local folks about keeping hens in this climate, which is admittedly harsh for a good part of the year.

Grains...organic or pesticide free whole grains ground and prepared properly at home are best and at times polished grains which are organic or pesticide free are acceptable.

When we first got here, I didn't have my kitchen, just a few things already here. I relied on Dutch oven bread (you can find my recipe above or HERE but it does need correction as I haven't used gluten in a couple of years now). I made a lot of half wheat and half white bread and white basmati rice. It took six days to get our things (blame the long winter and the road restrictions as well as the Memorial holiday). The local co-op here can order my grains like my Kamut wheat or my short grain brown rice.

Produce...local and organic produce is best but buying only the most contaminated produce in organic and compromising with conventional is a good choice.

This has been very difficult. I lived in Colorado before and organic produce is everywhere in every store and other organic products are easy to find. That is not the case here. So I have been trying very hard to stick to the Environmental Working Group's Clean Fifteen (see HERE) which means lots of cabbage (particularly in soup), onions, frozen peas, and asparagus as well as copious amount of bananas which are not on the list but are peeled before they are eaten. We have been trying to be economical when buying other organic produce and buying whatever is cheapest such as pears.

Meat...obtained from animals living on pasture on their natural diet is best but organic is a better choice than conventional, minimally processed and hormone free which is an acceptable choice.

This has been the hardest of all. There are no organic meats at any of the local shops. So, I am reading all the labels very carefully and choosing hormone free meats with no enhancers or stabilizers. There is a local sausage company (which I am NOT going to name) which has cornered the market here. When I asked for other kinds of sausage, the man at the store said, "We carry all Brand X varieties, they are all there, which one do you want?"

"Well, not Brand X."

He looked at me, squinted his eyes and whispered, "What?!"

So I have been buying only their accidentally nitrate-free varieties which limits us some. There is also no nitrate free bacon except at Wal-mart, which, incidentally, smells like vomit. We went there specifically to look for the Hormel Naturals brand and it was there but the whole place smelled like vomit. I don't know that we can go back. Really. It was that bad! This means that Ben is going to go talk to our dairyman about steer and hogs. He really wants to find a better way to get meat.

View of the farm from the
edge of the woods.

Our food goals...

These include doing animals at the farm like hogs, meat birds, beef steer but maybe goats since I know them, they are easy and eat anything. But Ben hates goat meat. Lots. We also want to get our own laying hens because with so many boys working on getting the fields sorted we are eating maddening amounts of eggs and meat.

Getting a garden in likely won't happen this year because we got here so late and summer is so late in getting here and we don't have the hoop houses built. So this all goes on the list. We need to grow more produce so we can have the right sorts of foods.

Putting up apples and maple are high on the list. When the apples and various berries come in, I will be working myself and the kids to the bone. There are acres of trees, just sitting out there, full of blossoms and bees and we are going to make use of them. I bought some local maple syrup but we are going to tap and boil our own next year. One of Ben's uncles did it up here for years and years. Now we have to learn how to do it ourselves.

It's going to be hard work and pretty wild ride but it is going to be fun.

Crazy hippies living in the woods...

This is a photo of our clothes line. We needed to add some more lines because the couple that were here are simple not enough for the massive amount of laundry that a family of thirteen brings. My second son was mowing today and you can see the area around the laundry was not mowed which makes it look like the poles are standing in a green rug. The grass grows like there is no tomorrow, you have to actively work to kill it otherwise it takes over. As I watch it grow and I listen to my son mowing on a lawn tractor, I think that we need to get some animals that eat it. Otherwise, it just seems like a waste of resources. Maybe we should get that animal barn built so that we can get that milk cow we have been talking about and do it sooner rather than later. Maybe we should get some sheep...

Ahh...sheep. I have seen them around and I want some. Some make wool (because it is their job) and wool makes me happy, so it seems like a match made in heaven. Until I have finished organizing and sorting this out, I won't have much time for knitting. Too bad, I have a sock that needs that heel turned. I did find time to run out to yarn shop in the village of Lake Linden. It's called Yarns and Threads and is pretty cool. I have been working like a dog to sort the house and was feeling burned out so a yarn fix was in order. It helped so much to sit and nurse and visit a bit with a fellow shopper while I basked in the glow of wool...Yarn shops are great places to meet people and while they attract all sorts, they tend to especially attract crazy hippies like myself. I have to the realization that this is exactly what we are. We are crazy hippies living in the woods with our gaggle of children.

Think about it...

We have been using the wood oven and using it to bake bread and making chicken bone broth and even a quick lunch of reheated roasted chicken and couscous. We are hanging out clothes in the sun, letting the kids run like maniacs through the pasture (which needs some tending), using all those hippie green cleaners. Because the house has a septic and a grey water system, we need to be considerate of everything that goes down the drain. A quick stop in the local co-op (another place which I love up here) proved fruitful, they carry everything that we needed and even do Dr. Bronner's by the pound. You can do a tare weight on whatever container you bring in and save the packaging. We go through a lot since we wash everything but dishes and glass with it so we went home with a whole gallon. We also made sure we got some soap for washing dishes at the sink as well as in the dishwasher. And some laundry soap. We used the last of the compost-able diapers and now are back in to cloth. We are composting all our moving boxes and packing materials (one the tape is pulled off) as well as household food waste and recycling anything and everything that can be. We have no garbage service here so everything needs to be taken care of carefully and no new waste brought into the house. We really are crazy hippies living in the woods, only with a lot less naked.

I have been called a hippie before and I thought it was funny because I a bit young to be one, and living in the city center and then the 'burbs made me feel like I was too out of touch to be really a "back to the lander" even if some people thought I was one. But here I am, living in the woods (like really, really in the woods) on tens of acres of which I have explored like two, and trying to preserve the land for the children who run back to me to tell me about each bird nest and every pond with tadpoles. It's kinda crazy, not totally crazyville but maybe that is only because we are too rural too be anything-ville. Still, maybe it is not too crazy since Ben's family has been living here a long time and some of the things we are doing (and only some) are very much like what they were doing when they first started farming here.

Maybe all those people saw something I didn't. I guess I am a hippie.

But I haven't traded in my cultured urban hipster, farmer's market shopper, smart phone club ID card. I still have the internet. And I still watched Dr Who online last night.