I ate this hamburger.
It was made by Citizen Burger Bar.
The beef is from a local happy cow who lived a peaceful life eating grass under the sun at Timbercreek Organics, a pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, hormone, and antibiotic-free farm.
It was good. But I still prefer sweet potato fries to hamburgers.
Everyone loves a guest post from Cheenius! Thanks, Cheenius!
With a name like Cheenius, you’d expect someone who really knows cheese. But frankly, Cheenius has been more of a cheese dabbler than anything else. Sad. So, you can imagine her excitement when she sourced some local goat milk and decided to hold her very first CHEESE DAY!
First, somewhat sleep-deprived from the anticipation that accompanies Cheese Day Eve, Cheenius got up early to pick up the goat milk. The friendly goat owner provided Cheenius with not only a gallon of fresh milk, but some chevre and extra milk for tasting. Cheenius even got to meet Lavender, the goat who provided the milk!
After Cheenius gathered her mostly-willing Dad, Aunt, and Uncle, goat milk shooters were downed and the work began.
We assembled the ingredients, and then discussed our battle plan: One Day. Two Cheeses. We wanted to attempt a simple paneer and then if we weren’t demoralized and/or cranky, move up to a slightly more advanced feta.
For the paneer we basically just heated up the goat milk, added lemon juice, let the curds and whey separate, salted, and then squished it for awhile, and voila! Very-bland-but-edible cheese!!
[ed: there’s cheese under there. took me a sec.]
Paneer-fortified, and feeling pretty darn confident, we were now ready for feta. We went with Tinkling Springs whole cow’s milk for this attempt, and then hit some tedium: a lot of chemistry, heated discussions about the best way to maintain a temperature of 88 degrees, and then long periods of just waiting.
Luckily, we filled the waiting periods with games of pool or Bananagrams, so no time was actually wasted. We did realize that we should have started the feta earlier, since to stick with the recipe Cheenius had to stay up late to salt the feta at the right time. We were also a little disappointed that for all that work we only got 4 turds of feta (only 2 shown; Cheenius is not an idiot, she know how to count turds).
The next day we bounced out of bed to try the perfectly salted feta, and it tasted like . . . FETA! Evidently our 5 degree temperature swings (yeah, whoever won that argument about temp control didn’t actually “win”) weren’t enough to upset this very forgiving cheese. Cheenius plans to try freezing some to see if she can make bigger batches in the future and get more turds for the same amount of work.
The unexpected bonus to the experience was that two Cheese Day byproducts, the whey and the extra goat milk, were made into Whey Bread and yogurt. Yum!
All in all, Cheenius was ecstatic that she finally got to live up to her name, AND she got to boss around her family for a whole day. Thank you Family! Special thanks to our goat milk provider, S.S., along with Ricki Carroll’s cheesemaking kits, and Gianaclis Caldwell’s book, “Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking.”
One last thought to leave you with, as HP always says: Remember, you’ve got a friend in cheeses!
If you have a caffeine emergency south of Charlottesville, proceed directly to the Trager Brothers roastery in Lovingston.
Did you know this existed? Mr HP, Momma HP, and I stumbled upon it last weekend when Rapunzel’s was closed (they open at 4, fyi) and we were so desperate we were driving to McDonald’s for some McCafe when we were saved by a sign for the TBC Roastery. What a happy surprise to be able to drink organic coffee roasted on-site while supporting a small, local company. That’s the opposite of going to McDonald’s.
From the Trager Brothers website:
Trager Brothers Coffee is a 100% Organic micro-roastery located in beautiful Nelson County, Virginia. We are family-owned and operated, serving fine coffees and espresso drinks at our four Higher Grounds locations in Charlottesville, Virginia since 1993. TBC is committed to bringing you the highest quality, freshest, environmentally sound coffee on the market. We believe you will notice the difference in the cup.
The Roastery is open Monday through Friday 6am-3pm, and Saturdays 8 am-1pm.
Location: 486 Front Street Lovingston, VA 22949
You can also get their coffee at small groceries in the C’ville area, and regional Whole Foodses. Here are all their locations if you want to try their coffee and don’t want to trek to Lovingston. We three found it to be excellent. And caffeinated!
It’s boring to read about what other people ate. But since many of you aim to eat real food and avoid gut-irritants like I do, maybe this will be interesting despite being about what someone else ate. Also, steak!
So, without further ado, here are some things I ate this weekend.
Overnight no-cook refrigerator oatmeal. I love this easy breakfast and adjust it in the following ways:
Yum.
Adult smoothie with frozen berries, coconut milk, and Malibu.
Blend up a few cups of berries, a glug of coconut milk, and a few glugs of Malibu, and enjoy!
Avocado tuna salad. This is quick and easy and, like the oatmeal, you can toss in whatever you have on hand. I don’t bother with the fancy leave-some-avocado-in-the-shell part, but it would be impressive for company. I’ve added combinations of the following to great effect:
This dish will be going into the HP household rotation. It seems sophisticated, but is easy to make with great flavors and textures. I don’t know that I had ever cooked scallops before; here’s a useful tip if you’re a scallop newbie too: put the scallops in the pan and don’t mess with them until it’s time to flip them. I’m a compulsive over-stirrer/poker and probably would not have gotten such a lovely sear if I hadn’t read that tip.
Local ribeye steak from The Organic Butcher, with Mustard-Garlic Brussels Sprouts
I wasn’t crazy about this steak, but Mr HP, who knows better, was. It was too chewy and fatty for my redeveloping meat tastes, but the flavor was good. Mr HP salted the steaks and threw them in the freezer for a bit before grilling on high heat to crisp up the outside while not overcooking the inside. The Brussels sprouts were phenomenal. They were both savory and a bit sweet (due to roasting), healthy, and incredibly simple to make. YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE.
This recipe is designed for leftovers. I planned on using leftover steak, but we ate it all for dinner, so I used onions, avocado, tomato, and spinach. It was a fun change from scrambled eggs, but it did involve me spending a considerable amount of time staring at the frittata in the oven to see when it was cooked enough but not too much. Presumably I will have to watch it less as I get more frittata experience.
Please share your favorite healthy, easy, tasty recipes with me!
Greetings, confidants.
As you know from reading about my juice cleanse epiphanies, I have been thinking about reintroducing meat into my diet. I’ve determined that beef is my gateway drug of choice: my metaphorical gut does not want chicken, and I won’t argue with my gut (and, interestingly, chicken is the meat I gave up first when I started quitting meat back in the day), and my psyche is not ready for pig.
I knew that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right and make sure my beef was from a local, grass-fed, humanely-treated cow, so I visited JM Stock Provisions, a new local/organic/happy meat butcher in town, for an expert recommendation.
The butcher was a font of information about the benefits of eating grass-fed (including that grass-fed beef is the easiest meat for a vegetarian’s system to handle?) and talked me through a few different cuts before recommending a flat iron steak from Timbercreek Organics. I left with a lovely little 2-person steak and very specific cooking instructions to pass on to Mr HP, my trusty steak chef and staunch carnivore, who was not familiar with the cut. I was encouraged to see this article, titled “The Flat Iron Steak: Is it really the best cut of Beef?”
Cooking instructions were:
I was in charge of the side, and tried a new recipe: Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Cream Sauce. I omitted the tallow/lard–baby steps here, people. It was SO good. Make it.
The verdict: Steak tastes good. There were some chewy gristly bits–of course–that grossed me out, but the flavor and overall texture were pleasing enough to make me want to continue my beef experiment. I tried to keep tabs on my energy levels and athletic performance over the following couple days, and can’t really say I saw impressive physical effects from the protein punch, but I did feel happy and energized and healthy. I should make a graph.
The above graph represents the increase in happy feelings toward steak, zoodles, and avocados I experienced following this meal. I’ve been making zoodles like mad and adding avocados to EVERYTHING.
Lessons learned: The best meat is local, humanely-treated, hormone- and antibiotic-free, grass-fed, free-range, etc, etc, etc, happy meat; everyone needs a julienne peeler for making zoodles; and avocado makes any dish better.
Hello friends. As you may know, recently Mr. HP celebrated a milestone birthday, and with that came a month-long food and drink binge for the entire extended family.
Add to that the horribly depressing winter weather we had until early April in Virginia, and you get a few people in a state of suboptimal health.
Accordingly, in late March, the ever-adventurous Cheenius, always-obliging MrDr Cheenius, and I decided to do a juice cleanse after the final birthday party to kickstart a new era of good feelings. Fortunately for us, Charlottesville is home to The Juice Laundry, an organic, cold-pressed juice company that offers several types of cleanses to the Central Virginia area. We chose a medium-strength 2-day cleanse, but a wrench was thrown into our juicing plans by a nasty snowstorm that interrupted juice production, delaying juice delivery by a couple days. The new schedule didn’t suit my plans, so the Cheeniuses forged on alone.
Day 1 for the Cheeniuses was a bit rough as their abused systems angrily complained, but by Day 2 they were flying high. I believe the word “magical” was used when they raved to me about feeling the toxins leaving their bodies, and they plan to do a reset cleanse quarterly. Based on their reviews, I eagerly scheduled my cleanse for the following week. Below are my notes.
The Juice Laundry 2-day “Normal Wash” cycle. 6 juices + 1 NOMÜ nut milk drink per day. I chose the Creamy Cashew NOMÜ.
Normal Wash juices are:
A cup of black coffee is allowed, but I abstained during my cleanse for the full detox effect.
From the Juice Laundry’s site:
Juice consumption allows your overworked digestive system to devote more energy to detoxifying, cleansing, purifying, and healing your body and strengthening your immune system.
The Juice Laundry cold-presses and doesn’t pasteurize its juices in order to maximize nutrients and beneficial enzymes and microorganisms.
This cleansing argument resonated most with me, based on my post-celebration physical state:
A cleanse is as much about what you’re leaving out of your body as it is about what you’re putting in.
Also: 2 lbs of produce in each juice!
Also: Why not? Sure, there are plenty of nay-sayers out there, but when it comes to nutrition nobody agrees on anything anyway. If something sounds interesting, the only way to know if it’ll work for you is to try it yourself.
Juice 1: Gentle Green. Smells highly vegetal but has a sweetish taste from the apple. Actually very good. Finished it around 10:30. Am not hungry now, but keep thinking about food, probably because I know I can’t have any.
Juice 2: Red Load-ed. Smells like red peppers, and I’m not a big fan of red peppers. The carrots are the main flavor, and I do like carrots. Overall not bad.
Mid-morning: Feeling totally distracted from work (even more so than usual).
Lunchtimeish: Freezing (even more so than usual). Not sure if it’s related to juicing.
Juice 3: Rinse + Refresh. Yum! Fruity! Finally! Pineapple is the main flavor. Crisp though, not too sweet.
2pm: Starting to wonder how I’ll get through all 7 bottles in 1 day.
Juice 4: Green Agitator. Ingredients are intimidating. Also, starting this one at 3pm, feeling a bit of time crunch. Smells very kale/spinachy. No me gusta. Must power through. It’s easier if I do a big exhale after swallowing and don’t breathe in the odor.
5pm: Feel kind of sad. I miss food.
Juice 5: Rinse + Recharge, a little after 5:00. Sweet and refreshing, with a sneaky cayenne burn. Less burn w/ the same exhale through the mouth trick as used for #4.
Juice 6: Gentle Green again. It’s fine. I’m cranky and irritated. This cashew milk had better be amazing.
Juice 7: Cashew milk blend. Yummmmmm. Can take big sips happily. It’s sweet, hearty, comforting.
Bedtime: Stomach started growling as I tried to fall asleep.
Morning: Unfocused, blue, blah. Not physical, just mental. Hard to blame it completely on the lack of food since the weather is crap and work is dull. Need to drink faster today to be done with everything by 7:30 for dance class. I miss food. Constraints make me angry.
Mid-morning: Working on #2. Feeling cold and distracted again, but it feels more like my normal levels of cold and distracted.
Early afternoon: The agitator wasn’t as bad today. About to start the cayenne… also less offensive. Huh.
Late afternoon: Mood is unmotivated, blah. Physically a little tired. Really looking forward to eating breakfast tomorrow, and I’m daydreaming about what I should make.
Evening: Finished #6 early, at 5:45. Got a little mood lift late in the afternoon, maybe from a walk? Still not very productive at work.
Soooooooooooooo excited to eat. Made spinach and eggs.
In a fantastic mood today. Could it be the weather? It’s still cold and blustery out, but today is the turning day. The past 2 days I didn’t want to interact with anyone at work, felt bristly and irritated and sulky. Today everything is funny, I can’t keep my mouth shut in meetings, I’m singing stupid songs, etc.
Lessons learned: The lack of food forced me to examine my relationship with food, and I want to start cooking more, like I used to. I also want to try adding meat back in, starting with cow. That’s kind of a major realization. I didn’t feel the magical physical changes that the Cheeniuses did–and I was jealous of them for that–but the psychological effects were interesting.
Will I do it again? Maybe, but I’d probably sub in the beet juice for the agitator, or try the Light Rinse cleanse just to make the experience a bit more pleasant. I imagine the terrible mood I experienced on Day 2 would be lessened a bit next time knowing how happy and energetic I’d be feeling the next day.
Would I recommend it to others? Absolutely. It’s all about self-experimentation, and everyone’s mileage will vary.
Recently I attended Transition Charlottesville‘s butter churning skillshare, where Cheenius and Butter Boy taught me that it is possible to make butter by pouring cream into a jar and shaking it. Magical!
But it gets better! They next said you can put the cream jar into a backpack and take it for a hike and it will slosh itself into butter! I immediately thought of horseback riding as an potential jar agitator, and over the weekend I conducted a little experiment. I am happy to report that it was a delicious success! Read on for the details of my science project (please imagine you are viewing a science fair display board) and to learn how you, too, can churn butter on horseback.
Is it possible to shake a jar of cream into butter during a session of horseback riding?
If I put jars of cream into a pack on my back and ride my horse, then at the end of the session I will have jars of butter.
: 
my unwitting accomplice
1. Let the cream sit on the counter for a couple hours to come to room temperature. Fill the jar(s) about halfway with cream.
2. Put the jars in a backpack. I used a lumbar pack and started with the jars in the main pocket, moving them later to the water bottle holders to keep them from knocking together.
3. Ride your horse. Do not fall off your horse with jars on your back. Do not freak out your horse with the strange jar noises coming from an unknown (to horse) location.
4. Halfway through your ride, check the jars. You should see a thick sludge of whipped cream. If you have to remove your pack in the middle of your ride because your horse didn’t appreciate the clatter and threatened to unload you, you may have to do some shaking by hand afterward to reach the solid butter stage.
halfway there; had to remove pack due to irritated pony
all the way there, after a bit of hand shaking
5. Once you have a solid ball of butter sloshing in buttermilk, scoop the butter into a bowl and rinse it a few times, mashing it around to get all the buttermilk out. Buttermilk left in the butter will mold and turn the butter rancid quickly.
6. Eat the butter!
I noticed when we started trotting that the jars were a bit noisy, and my horse was acting up a little. My horse is normally sassy, so it’s hard to say if she was reacting to the scary sounds or just being her usual self, but when we started doing more serious work I decided to take the pack off to avoid upsetting her. After about 20 minutes of bouncy riding, the jar contents were a heavy sludge of whipped cream and a friend (hi Josh!) and I finished shaking the jars by hand after we rode. It took less than 5 minutes of shaking to get to the butter stage. I did not expect the jars to make so much noise in the pack (even when separated) and next time will wrap them in cloth to muffle the sounds to spare my poor, sensitive princess pony.
While horseback butter churning may take longer than shaking a jar by hand, it requires less effort. Next time I will give the cream more time to completely warm to room temperature before beginning, to shorten the time required to reach the butter stage, as warmer molecules move faster than cooler molecules. I could also try adding an agitator like a marble or wine cork to the jar to speed up the process.
The type of riding, and the intensity of your session, will affect the time required to reach the butter stage: mellower types of riding, like Western pleasure, where there’s no posting and gaits are smooth, or trail riding at slow speeds, are less bouncy than typical English hunter/jumper riding; and a casual stroll will agitate the cream less than a vigorous training session.
Time to reach butter stage (in minutes):
Perceived effort required to reach butter stage, on a scale of zero to ten:
The effects of smoothness and intensity of the ride (rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most roughest/most intense) on the total time required:
Level of annoyance felt by horse, as a percentage of maximum possible annoyance:
(Note: these graphs are not based on real data)
Is it possible to sufficiently shake a jar of cream into butter during a session of horseback riding?
Yes! While my jars didn’t quite reach butter stage before I removed my pack, I am confident that they would have if I had kept the pack on until the end of my riding session, based on the short length of hand-shaking time required to finish the butter.
On Monday night, our daring dairy divas Cheenius and Butter Boy, after honing their churning technique at home, presented their butter knowledge to an eager group at a crowded Transition Charlottesville Skill Share session. The presentation was fantastic, complete with expert commentary, audience participation, butter trivia and jokes (we learned there are no funny butter jokes), and buttermilk shooters. We tasted the final product on tasty Great Harvest bread and those of us who paid attention to the email and brought containers (thank you for your spare, Rachel!) took home some of the freshly churned gold. Your intrepid reporter’s favorite aspect of the evening was learning about making butter in a jar: pour in some cream, shake it for about 25 minutes — OR throw the jar in a backpack and go for a hike, ride a horse, mountain bike, etc etc etc — and boom, you have butter. Look for a Haute Pasture Research Experiment Report on that soon.
Thank you Cheenius and Butter Boy for a delicious evening!
(we started with this)
(then we took turns churning)
(and we took turns shaking)
(we peeked a couple times for status updates)
(we did not use Cheenius’ antique butter stamp)
(the jar butter is almost done)
(butter vehicles)
(it’s ready!)
(the jar butter)
(rinsing the churned butter)
(we did it! let’s eat!)
Obviously all my readers come here for the recipes, so I thought I’d share my two favorite recipes of this winter. They are both quick and easy to make, healthy, and really delicious. Give them a try and let me know what you think!
In the Andalucia region of Spain, writes Jeff Koehler in the book “Spain: Recipes and Traditions From the Verdant Hills of the Basque Country to the Coastal Waters of Andalucia,” spinach and stewed garbanzo beans (as they’re called there), are popular tapas fare. Traditionally, crusty bread is pounded with toasted garlic to make a paste, which is stirred into the dish.
The recipes Google showed me seemed very similar, so I picked Mark Bittman‘s version. I omitted the bread, and when I didn’t have paprika on hand I doubled the cumin, which works–but it’s better with paprika. I recommend a bit of salt, too.
This was dinner tonight:
In closing, here are some sheep:
Fun facts about kangaroos:
When we went on our Wild Kangaroo Odyssey last week (see #4 in my Perth Favorites list–they are not in any particular order btw), the ever astute Mr. HP asked our gracious tour guide where kangaroo meat comes from–are there kangaroo farms in Australia? We were pleased to hear that no, kangaroos are not farmed; kangaroo meat comes from wild kangaroos shot by licensed hunters. Seemed ethical to us. But as I read more, I learned it’s not that simple.
Kangaroos are recognized worldwide as Australia’s mascot. They are protected by state and federal law, and appear on the federal coat of arms. They are also a nuisance to farmers, gardeners, and drivers, and lack natural predators in an urbanized environment, similar to white-tailed deer on the East coast of the US (watching the kangaroos, they reminded us a bit of deer). As with deer back home, hunting helps to keep the kangaroo population in check. The Australian government has strict regulations regarding hunter licensing and kill quotas, and only permits hunting in areas where kangaroos have been declared a nuisance. The quotas are reviewed yearly, based on population trends and climate predictions, with conservation of the species the most important objective. Kangaroo meat is touted as a leaner, hormone- and antibiotic-free alternative to beef, and more environmental: wild kangaroos require far less water and release much less methane than farmed livestock.
However:
For people who are not against kangaroo meat, there is a movement called kangatarianism, which prescribes following a vegetarian diet with the addition of kangaroo meat, since “Australian kangaroos live natural lives, eat organic food, and are killed humanely.” There’s also a similar cameltarianism movement! Bonus points for great names–and who knew there are feral camels in Australia?
So, as with everything, it’s up to the consumer to understand the issue and make an informed decision for herself on the ethics of kangaroo meat. What are your thoughts?
References
http://thinkkangaroos.uts.edu.au/ethics
http://envirorhi.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/kangaroo-meat-environmentally-sustainable-or-australias-shame/
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/kangaroos.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_meat
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/05/02/is-it-ethical-to-eat-kangaroo-meat
http://www.awpc.org.au/kangaroos/eating2.htm
http://candobetter.net/?q=node/908