Kefir Disaster but Blukeberry Redemption

I'm really enjoying this whole dairy kefir gig.

I've been straining it and it tastes somewhere between sour cream and Greek yogurt: yum! I haven't strained it long enough to make cheese, but that will be next. I can't wait to try kefir ice cream.

I ran out of milk, though, and thought I'd try the grains in cream.

The only cream I have (and the only cream they sell around here) is ultra pasteurized. The kefir experts say "never use ultra pasteurized dairy," and I thought they were just being snobs.

Uuum... no, they're definitely not. The cream smells gross and it never thickened, either. Lesson learned!

At least my blukeberry (blue/blackberry mix) bars turned out...

So all is not lost.

Tasty Tuesday: Keepin' It Real

Grab the button here and come join us, or just link to another site with a recipe you're going to try... or post a recipe in the comments!
Well, as anyone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter knows, I had a pretty rotten day in the kitchen yesterday.

First I attempted to make whole wheat flour tortillas. ICK! They didn't puff up at all in the pan, and they ended up as crispy as crackers. I saved some of them to use as crackers, actually, but it was a definite kitchen fail.

Then I tried to make hummus. Cooks Illustrated (a.k.a. America's Test Kitchen) has never once failed me in all of the years I've made their recipes. But this one was a real loser AND a gigantic waste of roasted garlic! That was the real tragedy. I could down roasted garlic by the squishy caramely toe (actually that makes it sound kinda gross), but the roasted goodness got lost in the resulting paste that tasted like mealy peanut butter. Too much tahini! A kind reader posted a recipe on Facebook that I intend to try after I've finished making PBJ sandwiches out of this guck.

So life here in the Farmer's City Wife's kitchen is not all glory and roses. And it also leaves me without a photographed recipe for today's Tasty Tuesday post.

But all is not lost. I started some chicken stock last night that is looking glorious this morning, so we should have a great chicken soup tonight.

Please share some of your kitchen successes!

Estrogen in the... Peanut Butter? Yippy Skippy

Soy mimics estrogen. Who knew? Soybean oil (which is vegetable oil), "partially hydrogenated" soybean oil, soy lecithin, soy powder, soy flour, and anything else with "soy" on the label... hello estrogen.

I have an overload of estrogen already. It's one of the many factors of my present inability to conceive. So over the last several months I've slowly been weeding out everything that has soy and soybeans and soybean oil in it. It's really hard, but each time I learn to make something from scratch, sans soybeans, I get a little thrill.

This week it was time for the great peanut butter purge. Our last jar was running out and I sadly read the Jif label for the 1000th time. There staring back at me, unblinkingly, was "hydrogenated vegetable (soybean) oil."

Yes, I know there are natural peanut butters. But I like JIF! I like PETER PAN! I like SKIPPY! I even like STORE BRAND PEANUT BUTTER!!!! I've tried Adam's Natural (with the two inch layer of oil on top) and can I just say, "blech"?! Give me smooth, creamy, and hydrogenated any day!

So in the bulk section of our grocery store this week, my husband saw a vat of plain roasted peanuts that you could grind right into a container. It was a pretty cool gadget so we gave it a spin.

*crank crank crank, grind grind grind, whirl*

Out came some pretty neat looking peanut butter.

That evening my husband brought me a graham cracker with our new peanut butter and some Nutella on it (I let him keep his Nutella -- a man's gotta have some things he likes).

"Oh my goodness, this is delicious!! I wonder if it's just the Nutella or if the peanut butter is really just this good?"

"No, it's the Nutella. The peanut butter tastes like chewed up peanuts."

"No it doesn't! This stuff is amazing."

He shrugged and I basked in the triumph of another step towards freedom from Sir Soybean.

This morning I tried some of the peanut butter on a spoon (the best way to eat it).

"BLECH!! This tastes like chewed up peanuts!"

Mr. Amazing smirked.

I added salt. "Now it tastes like chewed up salted peanuts." I added honey. "Chewed up salted peanuts with honey."

*sigh*

I so want to Skippy on down to the grocery and be back with a Jif.

Dinner Fail

Yesterday I tried to get away with some fru-fru food for dinner. Teriyaki burgers with mango pineapple salsa. I had some ripe mangoes and a fresh pineapple; why not give it a go?

Because I'm married to a manly man, that's why not. With the notable exception of pineapple ham pizza, fruit belongs in desserts and meat belongs in... meat.

Suspiciously eyeing the mango pineapple salsa: "What do you do with this stuff?"

"You put it on the burger."

"To eat?"

"That's the idea."

I thought it was pretty good, actually. It wasn't a "let's eat this every week," but it was a "nice Summery meal."

My darling, on the other hand, ate with the same resigned look on his face as when my niece put a flower ribbon in his hair. Of course he would never complain!

"The buns and meat are really good. And I like mangoes." (There's a non-sequitur for you).

Thankfully there was pumpkin roll for dessert.

Litte Pig, Little Pig, GO AWAY

I've discovered that no matter how you try to mask leftover tough pork roast in "exciting" "exotic" or "delightful" recipes, it still tastes like leftover tough pork roast. We've been working on this one for over a week. First there were the pork tacos, then the pulled pork bbq sandwiches (but considering that it was so tough, it wouldn't "pull"), crispy asian pork with asparagus, the "ham" omelet, then pork tamale pie. Each of them tasted wonderful except for the chunks of rubber. There's still 1/5 of a roast left... I wonder why suddenly I feel like chicken tonight.