New PT workshop outlines – reviews needed!

Ok…I need reviewers interested in Preserving Traditions to go to http://preservingtraditions.org/join.html, scroll down about halfway, and let me know what you think of the workshop outlines. The idea is to lay out everything a would-be presenter needs to know to run a workshop on a particular topic (assuming they are able to do the skill in question, but just need some help turning that into a workshop).

I also hope that other people will take the template and start submitting their own workshops (Mary…how ’bout writing up your pierogi workshop?) for inclusion on the site. You can submit your own workshops to preservetrad@gmail.com.

Ah, and I think I need to run my own instance of WordPress’s blog on pt.com so I can set y’all up as authors without having to get your own WordPress login…so much to do…it’ll happen, albeit slowly…

 

Agritours

Preserving Traditions member Lauren Zinn is now giving educational tours of southern exemplary Michigan farms. Here’s the info – check her out!

LAUREN ZINN AGRITOURS

• Experience guided tours of working urban, suburban and rural farms.

• Learn how sustainable practices are making a difference.

• Engage in inspiring conversation with the stewards and farmers whether they manage 400 acres or 400 feet.

• Participate in demonstrations.

• Develop ideas for applying sustainable practices in your own life.

SPRING SERIES 2010 Agritours

#1:  A School Farm in Detroit, MI –Saturday, April 17^th

A 2 acre farm including horses, goats, chickens and a garden serve as an alternative biology and chemistry lab for the pregnant teens who attend this school.  Imagine the possibilities for all schools.

Onsite: 2:00-4:-00 $25/Adult  $10/Student  Reservation deadline: April 3rd

#2: A Horse Farm in Chelsea, MI – Saturday, April 24th

This small, efficient farm of 5 acres includes horses, a garden, woods/pond and features energy conservation/green building and the social structure for intentional community living. Experience the horsepower behind this little place.

Onsite: 2:00-4:00 $25/Adult  $10/Student Reservation deadline: April 10th

#3: An Urban Farm in Ypsilanti, MI –Saturday, May 1st

Tour a residential backyard of chickens, goats, rabbits, garden, and greenhouse– all thriving!  Learn the secrets of efficient and sustainable micro-farm management.

Onsite: 2:00-4:00 $25/person $10/Student  Reservation deadline: April 17th

#4: An Amish-Style Farm at Community Systems Learning Center in Camden, MI (Hillsdale) – Saturday, May 8^th- Sunday, May 9^th MOTHER’S DAY SPECIAL

Amish style houses and a wind tower built from scratch grace this 380 acre property in Amish country.  See the Barn become a hands-on renewable energy classroom.  Learn how an alternative approach to science education can lead to innovative and sustainable solutions to global problems.

Onsite: Noon, Sat, May 8^th, to Noon, Sun, May 9^th (Mother’s Day Breakfast)

$100/adult ($50/student) ($75.00/adult with tent after house spots fill up.) Option to attend Saturday only: $70/Adult  Reservation deadline: April 24th

For more information and registration, please email: laurenzinn@gmail.com

School group agritours are also available.

 

Tamale workshop wrap-up

photo by Dan Bruell

The on-again, off-again, on-again tamale workshop was a huge hit! About 20 people packed into the back of Pilar’s Cafe while owner Sylvia Nolasco-Rivers and her mom walked us through making tamales from scratch.

The biggest surprise to me was that it is the masa (corn flour dough) that is the real focus of a good tamale – not the filling. I knew Sylvia and her crew make over a dozen flavors of tamales – from chicken and pork to black bean and even “Greek” tamales with fresh local greens, feta cheese, and kalamata olives – but I didn’t know that they make a different masa to go with the different types of fillings. Chicken tamales have masa made with chicken stock, pork tamales get pork stock, etc. The black bean tamales are even made with black bean “stock” – the saucy broth left after cooking the black beans for the casamiento (beans and rice). All the stocks are homemade from real ingredients – no bouillon here!

Sylvia makes a very “loose” masa. It looks like cake batter when you first mix it up, and it has to stand for at least one night in the fridge before you can scoop it and roll it into tamales. If you’ve ever bitten into a tamale and found it to be too dry, it’s because the masa was not mixed with enough stock and is simply dry and stiff. After standing for several hours, the masa should take on the consistency of creamy mashed potatoes. Masa will keep a long time in the fridge – a couple weeks at home, though Sylvia uses hers in under a week at the store.

Photo by Dan Bruell

Assembling the tamales is a little messy, but not too hard. You need a 12×10″ square of aluminum foil and a 6×9″ sheet of parchment paper. You can also use a cleaned square of banana leaf on top of the foil, if you like, though washing the leaves takes several changes of water and is very labor-intensive. Sylvia has stopped using them in her tamales because she’s concerned about the pesticides sprayed on the leaves. Many of her ingredients are organic, or at least hormone- and antibiotic-free, so she doesn’t want to ruin the health benefits by wrapping them in chemical-soaked leaves.

Don’t overfill the tamales; an egg-sized ball of masa, spread out with a dimple in the middle, is about right. Add some salsa and whatever fillings you like, then roll it up. This video shows the tamale-rolling process far better than I could explain.

After we made our tamales, we sampled some that had been cooked already, along with cortido (pickled cabbage salad) and horchata (an amazing sweet beverage with cinnamon and morro spices, reminiscent of chai but totally dairy-free). Snack time also gave us time to talk – we learned how horchata is made (and wow, is it totally worth $4/cup!) and about Sylvia’s plans to add an espresso bar to the cafe, with horchata lattes and spicy mochas. Yum! Sign me up.

Sylvia will probably be teaching more classes in the near future. She’ll announce them in her newsletter (sign up by calling the store at 734-929-4161) and when I learn of them, I’ll alert you to them here, too.

 

Tamale workshop is back on!

Sunday, Jan. 10th, 2pm, at Pilar’s Cafe, 2261 W. Liberty, Ann Arbor (map).

RSVP at http://tamales.sign-up-sheet.com/ by noon on Saturday!

 

Tamale workshop postponed

The tamale-making workshop has been postponed. I was out on family business for essentially all of December and couldn’t nail down details before our presenter left for the holidays.

I’ll try to reschedule, but I’m not sure when that might happen.

 

Survey: Topics for 2010

Welcome to 2010, everyone! I’m drawing up the schedule for the Ann Arbor group’s year of workshops, and would like your input. Would you take five minutes to answer our survey about topics for this year? Thanks!

Emily

 

Sauerkraut wrap-up and recipes

Last Sunday, we learned how easy it is to make homemade sauerkraut. I forgot my camera (again…) but the inimitable Ilex over at Homesteading in a Condo recently posted a photo essay of how she makes kraut. I refer you to her excellent guide to making sauerkraut, and make a few notes here about how we varied the process slightly.

Holly has beautiful, vintage sauerkraut crocks, and she makes several gallons at a time. If you are not blessed with such crocks, or want to make smaller batches, all is not lost! Canning jars make excellent small-batch kraut containers – use either quarts or half-gallon wide-mouth jars.

You can either salt the shredded cabbage in a bowl, tossing thoroughly to mix, or layer cabbage and salt right in your crock or jar. In either case, every few inches you need to stomp the cabbage and thoroughly bruise it. This gets it to release its juice, which will combine with the salt to make the salt brine that preserves the cabbage. Shred, salt, stomp. Shred, salt, stomp. That’s about all there is to it.

When you get to the top of your container or run out of cabbage, you want to make sure the kraut is submerged under brine. In a canning jar, I get great results by tucking a whole cabbage leaf into the jar, tucking it down around the shredded cabbage, to make a “stopper.” Then I put a quart-sized freezer bag into the neck of the jar and fill the bag with brine (2T salt to 1 quart water). Make sure the bag fills every crevice and holds the cabbage under the brine, and top with a loosely-sealed plastic lid.

Some other thoughts:

• A 3-4 pound cabbage makes about a quart of kraut.
• Use a total of 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of salt per quart of kraut. Measure it out beforehand and sprinkle it in evenly as you go.
• More salt preserves better; less salt tastes better. As long as you keep the cabbage submerged and the top on (but not tight), you can usually keep the kraut from getting moldy.
• Mold or “scum” (usually kahm yeast) is not dangerous, but it doesn’t taste good. You can safely scrape it off (taking a layer of kraut with it, if the gunk isn’t free-floating) and the rest of the kraut is OK to eat.
• You can season kraut. Try:
  • 1-2 Tbl Caraway seeds
  • 1-2 Tbl mustard seeds plus 1-2Tbl prepared horseradish, dispersed evenly throughout the kraut
  • Add red pepper flakes, shredded carrots, shredded daikon, scallions, and ginger for a kimchee-like salad (this works great with nappa cabbage, and may need some additional brine)

Also, you don’t just have to eat your kraut straight. Try these:

• Crumble and brown sausage with a diced onion. Add shredded cabbage and kale, a diced tart apple, and cooked diced potatoes (boil them with a lot of salt!). At the last minute, stir in about a cup of kraut and just heat it through. Top with cheddar, if you’re feeling decadent.
• Add well-drained kraut to potato pancakes.
• Mix 1/4 c. kraut or pickle juice, 1/4 c. vinegar, 1/4 c. salad oil, and 1 Tbl prepared mustard. Mix together and use as salad or slaw dressing.

 

Event Wrapup: Apple Turnovers

We had a small, fun group for our apple turnover class, led by J.J. Jacobson (the Culinary Curator) on October 11th. Turnovers, for the uninitiated, are a buttery, flaky crust wrapped around half a peeled, sliced apple, spiced with cinnamon. Sort of a hand-held pie, but the crust was a revelation (at least to me). Far easier to work with than pie crust – more elastic and forgiving. Beats me how this works, because the ingredients and methods look very similar to pie crust (though we used all-purpose rather than pastry flour).They tasted amazing – truly the best baked-apple-pastry thing I’ve ever had.

The recipe is after the cut!

 

Learn to make sauerkraut! (Ann Arbor location)

Old-fashioned, homemade sauerkraut is nothing like the salty, sharp kind you get at the store. Instead, it’s tangy, crunchy, and full of healthy probiotics (like in yogurt). It’s also really easy to make!

Bring one head of green cabbage, the fresher the better. You’ll also need to bring a wooden spoon and about 1 gallon’s worth of containers. If you don’t have the traditional pickling crock, you can use any of the following:

• The ceramic liner of a crockpot you don’t plan on using for a couple months and a 1-gallon freezer bag
• A clean, food-grade plastic pail and its lid, or a freezer bag
• Two half-gallon mason jars  and plastic lids <–these are actually my favorite kraut pickling jars
• Four quart-sized mason jars and plastic lids (or just bring one or two and make less kraut for this first trial run)

Sunday, November 8th
2-4:30pm
Pittsfield Grange
3337 Ann Arbor-Saline Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI

Cost is $5; free for members of the Grange. RSVP here!

 

Grange membership special: 15 months for the price of 12

If you’ve been enjoying Preserving Traditions events, you might consider joining the Grange! The Grange is full of folks who are interested in old-fashioned food and friendship…it’s part of the reason Preserving Traditions has been such a great fit.

As a member of the Grange, you’ll attend all Preserving Traditions events for free and get first chance to sign up for our most popular (and space-limited) events, like canning work days and farm visits. As a member of the Grange, you’ll have be able to participate in monthly potlucks and hear interesting presenters. There’s also a discount on the Grange’s family dances, and membership in the national Grange organization, as well, giving you a voice in local, state, and national Grange business. (And yes, there is actually a secret handshake!)

Annual membership is $40 (or $70 for the whole family), but we’re running a “special” this year: if you sign up before December, we’ll extend your membership through December 2010. You can download an application and mail it to our membership director, Joan Hellmann (info is on the application).