foody weekend

I've been reading Animal Vegetable Miracle, and it's making me freak out sometimes. There's so much information in that book. Really good stuff, but I'm having to reign myself in and consider what I can realistically do, and what will have to wait. I'm realizing, though, that there's more that I can do than I'd seriously considered.

You know what?

This is going to require its own post in the near future.

For now, I'll just tell you that I made bread this weekend. My gorgeous, hilarious, generous friend Lisa gave me the recipe and the bread flour and the yeast. It was DELICIOUS. Crusty and yeasty and bready. And the hardest part? The math of when to start it so that I'd be home when it finished the first rise and was ready to go into the oven. It had to rise for eighteen hours, then be fiddled with a bit, then another two hours of rising, and then it gets baked in a huge covered pot. And then... then you wish you'd made a double batch. (Which I will next time.)

After I started the bread, I was inspired to bring down my juicer from its lofty hideaway. I had carrots and apples and spinach languishing in the fridge, and I hope that the yumminess of the juice they yielded will remind me to lug out the juicer more often. (Spinach, however, may be better added in the blender after juicing the carrots and apples.)

I also made cheese this weekend, but the pictures aren't pretty. The recipe didn't specify whether the milk had to have a certain fat content, but I should have known. Whole milk would have unquestionably made better-tasting cheese than 1%, but the 1% was on sale and I was pretending to be healthy. Low-fat and organic. The road to bland, rubbery cheese is paved with good intentions.

(I'd also suggest ignoring that you have a microwave, if you do indeed have one. I think it'll come out better with the non-microwave instructions.)

I have so much more to share, but it's suddenly almost ten, and I must turn in... Stay tuned!