Itty-bitty lentil crackers

June 10, 2015 2 Comments

When E. was born, nearly 2 years ago now, he received a really beautiful, illustrated copy of “The Wind and the Willows” from one of Paul’s friends.

At 229 pages, I figured this was a book we would largely ignore until E. became old enough to listen to chapter-length bedtime stories.

But lately E. has been really into his “big book.”

He hoists it off the shelf with both hands and drops it on my lap.

“Heavy,” he says, with satisfaction.

Then we flip through the pages and talk about the drawings of Mr. Toad, Mr. Mole, boats, cars and countryside. One of his favorite pictures shows a couple of animals having a picnic in the grass.

“What are they eating?” I ask.

“Watermelon,” E. says decisively, though there’s no watermelon in sight.

“Tea,” he adds. “Toast.”

“If you were going to have a picnic, what would you take to eat?” I ask next.

“Crackers!” he says….

Paneer (Indian cheese)

May 21, 2015 2 Comments

When I was growing up, our refrigerator was always home to lots of questionable odds and ends lurking at the back of the shelves: half-empty jars of duplicate jams; tiny containers housing a forkful or two of aged leftovers; cheese sporting unintentional mold; a jumbo-sized squeeze bottle of Heinz ketchup that moved with us from house to house, its cap slowly scabbing over with tomatoey goop.

In college I would sometimes return home for Chanukah or Christmas (we celebrate both) and open the refrigerator to find the month-old remnants of Thanksgiving dinner still biding their time.

It was like the place where good food goes to die….

Small-batch strawberry jam

May 7, 2015 Leave a Comment

Lately, the little one and I have been going through strawberries at a rate of about one pound per day.

This takes place mostly at breakfast when we eat them over yogurt (me) or speared on the end of a tiny fork and paired with a chaser of milk (him). And, in case you are wondering, at 22 months his appetite matches mine berry for berry.

A week ago we bought a big flat of strawberries at the farmers market and then, last weekend, we went to the fields and picked some ourselves.

Picking strawberries has always been a favorite springtime ritual and I was excited to share it with E., who wasted no time filling his bucket with ripe, red specimens.

I expected his haul to be full of either under or overripe fruit, but he took his job very seriously, carefully pushing aside leaves to seek out the best berries then calling out “nice one!” before freeing each new find from its stem.

In the end, we picked nearly 10 pounds of berries. Even our berry-laden breakfasts aren’t enough to make it through that much fruit before spoilage sets in, so I pulled out the jam pot and got to work….

Homemade Greek Yogurt

February 2, 2015 1 Comment

We eat a LOT of yogurt.

So much so that I can’t count the number of times that grocery store cashiers and other shoppers have stopped to comment on all the plastic yogurt tubs in my shopping cart.

The baby and I both eat plain, Greek-style yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast almost every morning. At dinner, we dollop yogurt on top of soups and alongside spicy Indian-inspired entrees. Last night, we spooned some onto our tacos in lieu of sour cream and sometimes I mix it into baked goods instead of buttermilk.

So when I decided earlier this year to start reining in our grocery spending, yogurt was a natural place to look for savings.

We were going through at least three gallons of Greek yogurt each month (plus another gallon or so of the coconut milk yogurt that Paul prefers) and we were spending a lot of money on it.

We try hard to buy dairy dairy from producers that take good care of their cows, which means we inevitably end up paying premium prices. My back of the envelope math shows that we were spending upwards of $100 a month on yogurt, for both the cow milk and coconut milk versions.

I couldn’t find a way to spend less without reducing our consumption or compromising our ethics, neither of which we wanted to do.

Years earlier, I’d made yogurt a few times with lackluster results. I used an electric yogurt maker I’d received as a gift and powdered yogurt starter cultures, but my homemade yogurt was runny and too tart. I quickly went back to the store-bought kind.

But monthly yogurt expenditures in the triple digits compelled me to take another stab at homemade yogurt….