I am not advocating anything illegal here. I merely want to point out that unless authorities ban ginger, sugar and water, anyone under the age of 21 or living in a dry state such as Tennessee can make alcoholic ginger beer pretty easily. Ginger beer tastes like grown up ginger-ale with a spicy kick that burns the […]
DIY
A Tour of My Tiny Kitchen
Updated 10/20/17 I’ve moved to a different unit since writing this but he setup is the same. Last week, a reader left this suggestion in the comments: I would love it if you could do a tour of your kitchen in a future blog post. I would love to see which tools you find most […]
Zero-Waste Menu No 1
I remember our excitement over our first plastic-free meal (cooked by my daughter MK*): Mushroom-bean burgers Homemade burger buns Salad and veggies on the side We were thrilled. We felt a little deflated when we noticed a plastic cheese wrapper. Still. We had come a long way. However it did take two or three months […]
How to Make 5 Dairy Staples Each with 2 Ingredients
I like to keep my grocery shopping simple and buy as few items as possible. And because I don’t buy food packaged in plastic, I can’t buy many items. (Today’s news on the health risks of plastic food packaging comes to you from the New York Times…) However, where I live, I can buy organic, pastured […]
How to Make Free Apple Scrap Vinegar
Updated 09/24/22 In my home, homemade vinegar has been the Holy Grail of scratch cooking. My daughter MK tried a few years ago and came very close, but flies invaded her apple scraps and ruined it. It sure smelled great though as I tossed it onto the compost. I have tried making vinegar a couple of […]
DIY Lard
If this was truly DIY, I would also raise the pigs… This may sound like a contradiction, or merely a justification from a woman who really likes to eat lard, but I don’t actually eat much meat and I rarely eat pork.
5 Reasons to Ferment Food
I find fermentation fascinating. I’m pretty much obsessed with it and wish I had discovered it earlier in my adult life (better late than never). I can’t really be too hard on myself though. In just a few generations, we’ve lost (most of) our food-growing and food-preparing skills. Fortunately slow, local, organic, real food has gained […]
My First Attempt at Homemade Hooch: Mead
Click here to go to the recipe “It looks terrifying.” That’s what my friend Amy said when I opened my jar of homemade mead and poured her a cup to try. Mead is honey wine. Aristotle speaks of it. Beowulf drank it. Shakespeare mentions it. The simple recipe likely explains mead’s persistence throughout the ages. In a nutshell, […]
How to Make Fabulous Ricotta with Two Ingredients
Click here to go straight to the recipe. You may never buy ricotta cheese again after you taste this. Dense, creamy and delicious homemade ricotta surpasses any store-bought brand I’ve ever tried, and requires only two ingredients and about twenty minutes of actual cooking time. I use high quality ingredients to make ricotta—Straus organic milk […]