From "Awwww, Nuts" to "Ahh, Nuts!"



If you've read my other blog (which I totally abandoned upon the arrival of kids), you know I had an "Awww, nuts" experience that I blogged about (here).  Well, I'm happy to say my experience on the local foods blog is instead called, "Ahhh, nuts!"  A couple weeks ago my friend sent me the following Craigslist posting.  After reading it, you'll see why I was happy - a local source of nuts!  I only got 5#, wanting to test the quality of the product before buying more, but after tasting them wish I would have just trusted the advertising and gone with more.  They are worth the drive (er, well, they are worth the drive my friend did to pick 'em up for us)!

Pecans Fresh 2012 Organic

Date: 2013-02-24, 11:48AM
Fresh 2012 Organic Pecans. Partially removed, easiest picking of cracked pecans you'll ever do. Every pecans is hand cracked by me so I inspect every pecan. This is not commercially cracked, it's better.

A ton easier than removing native pecans!

5lbs cracked $18

10lbs cracked $34

20lbs cracked $62

40lbs cracked $115

Uncracked in shell $15 per 5lbs

Removed/Shelled $8 lb

Ward 316- 777- 1349

• Location: Mulvane
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

And a new local producers category is created on this website's Wichita Area Local Producers page...NUTS.  Now, I'm still looking for a local source of edible oats - email me if you have one!

This tastes like Grandma's house.



As many of you know, we welcomed an addition to our family late January.  Madeline Elizabeth has made our family of three into a family of four, and we are excited to get to know her better as she grows (and teach her about local food!).



Helping us ease into our new life, many friends generously provided us with tasty meals.  One night Chris said, "It's like going to restaurants, without having to leave our house." Indeed, but it's also like going to Grandma's house.  Why?  One night we received a delivery from a new friend who said, "It's home grown corn."  "Neat," I thought, but didn't realize how special it was until I tasted a spoonful of that corn.  J*U*S*T  L*I*K*E  Grandma's!  The flavor was wonderful and completely unlike any corn from the grocery store.  Chris tasted it, and immediately recalled the first time he had home grown corn as a college student in Oregon.  This is local eating.  Tastes that are so memorable and special that you know when you've had them before, and you remember them.

Local Butter Basics

Homemade Butter & Local Honey - A Tasty Combination!

Chris and I love to host local foods meals.  Each attendee brings something that was produced locally to share.  At our most recent meal some new friends brought homemade butter, which I thought was so fun!  Here's how they made it - apparently it's not an exact science so Chris will be great at making it (he doesn't measure anything) and I might have trouble (I measure all my ingredients!)

Here's the butter making process that was shared with me:

My friends put a small amount of room temperature Hildebrand Farms cream in a mason jar (filling no more than 1/3 of the jar which allows the cream to have room to concuss.)  If you're unfamiliar with this local brand, see this post I wrote previously.  They then started shaking the jar and from their experience (they've done this multiple times), it takes anywhere from 4-15 minutes of pretty constant shaking. Apparently, you know you're close to butter when you hear a sloshing sound, and the sides of the jar are no longer coated with cream. Once you actually see the lump of butter, shake for another couple of minutes to separate more of the buttermilk (but not too long, otherwise the butter gets waxy.)

Next, use a small strainer to drain off the buttermilk (and save it to make pancakes!) then rinse the butter with cold water. Put the butter in a small dish, add some salt (my friend would estimate 1/3 teaspoon for 1/3 of a large mason jar) and mash it around with a spatula.

Finally, the easiest step of all...enjoy! 

In my opinion, this post is a Pinterest "pinnable" post.  Someday I plan to show my little one how butter is made through this fun science experiment using food.



Christmas, the Local Foods Way!

 

 

This year's local foods Christmas gift.

Each year Chris and I make food baskets for our family and friends and like to tie in our love of local foods.  Part of the fun is brainstorming ideas for our basket, and this year, we decided to share homemade mulberry syrup and pancake mix made with organic locally grown wheat.  Every year isn't successful, like the year we made homemade pasta and due to lack of proper drying time, the jar was filled with mold by the time it reached Chris's grandmother.  (Yes, you need to start early for some of these projects, which we don't always do!)  Yikes!  Well, at least we had a festive colored package, even if it wasn't supposed to be green!

I wanted to share the process we went through, okay, Chris went through, to make part of the gifts this year.  The mulberry syrup was an extra special project that expanded my food knowledge.  Here's the process...

Of course, every good local gift begins with the harvest.  Here are a couple pictures of the May mulberry harvest we enjoyed over the summer.  Yes, Clara helped :)

and she enjoys feeding others as much as Chris and I do.

 



Chris began the syrup process by thawing, boiling and mashing the mulberries.

 

 

Once they were adequately boiled, he cut up an old (but clean) shirt and tied them up to drain all the sweet goodness out of them, and to remove the skins and seeds.

 

 

We put what we didn't use in the compost bucket, which made me a little sad because I like to use EVERYTHING if we can.  What could we have used this for?  Fruit leather?  I figured the flavor was mainly gone, so I didn't put up too much of an argument to save this compost.  Chris said it's hard because there are so many seeds.  And really, as compost, what is seen in this picture will become tomorrow's nutritious garden soil and our yummy tomato.

 

 

Before packaging, Chris reduced the mulberry juice, added sugar, corn syrup, salt

and a couple drops of lime juice.

 

 

When I finally got to taste the syrup, I was ecstatic over the flavor of the syrup.  As I described it to Chris, I said the flavor was really "quick" or "short."  That maple syrup has a much longer, milder flavor but this syrup, this was powerful and wonderful.  He confirmed that people in the foodie industry do use the terms "long" and "short" to describe flavors, which was new to me but made complete sense after tasting this mulberry syrup.

 

Now, for the pancakes, the less interesting (in my opinion)  process included milling the flour.

 

 

 

Once he milled the local flour, Chris added a few necessary ingredients like salt, baking soda and cream of tarter (our own aluminum free baking powder mix), etc.  Then it was time to package.

 

 

We hope everyone who received a little part of Kansas this year enjoyed it.  I know I sure do (thankfully, we've got some syrup left over!)

 

From our lil' family to you, hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!