A Taste Of India

  

Picture 1:  Oh, those Vermantas, they do what they want ta.

Picture 2:  This shirt says "America's Pastime."  I, of course, read "Erica's Pastrami." 
Have I mentioned that I don't have air conditioning?  I could have it, but I'm just masochistic like that.  Just kidding, I like the heat.  Although, less humidity might be nice.  I'm a bit too sticky and sweaty to really be seen in public.  

Daily Blue Ledger:

Woke up at 7, cheese house by 8ish, poured curds until 12ish.  Then I went from cheesemaker to housewife and made lunch, took out the trash, did my laundry, hung everything on the clothesline, washed the dishes, and folded my dry clothes.  Afterwards, I went for a little walk to a bridge that overlooks a creek/river/stream and read my current book while other people were fishing.  When I got back to my little apartment, I realized 1. I didn't feel like cooking dinner and 2. I had an intense craving for Indian food.  So I went out for dinner!  By myself.  Which was an interesting experience...I've never done that before.  Not sure I want to do it again, but I'm glad I did it.  I got Aloo Chana Saag (Potatoes and Chickpeas in Spinach) and Garlic Naan.  The best thing about Indian food is that you can always take some home with you and have the leftovers for lunch.  Or breakfast, if you're me.  Oh, I forgot to mention that before I went out I did a Zumba (I obviously just discovered you could link things on the blog) tape and danced around like a fool in 95 degree heat for about 40 minutes.

Now I'm going to sleep!  Because on a farm, that's what you do at 9 PM.

HOT

I had such great pictures for today but I can't put them up!  UGH blogger.com fails me sometimes.

I feel like in Philly, the temperature doesn't go from 60's to 90's in the space of a day.  But that's what it does in Vermont!  It was rainy and cold yesterday, and today it is humid, hot, and sunny.  

Daily Blue Ledger:

I woke up at 4:30 for morning chores.  The day started off on the wrong foot when I was herding the girls into the barn.  Three of them were having some kind of epic goat battle and apparently they were too engrossed to listen to me.  So it took quite a while to even start milking.  And then once I'd started, two girls in the fourth group jumped off the platform, pulling off one of the units that mechanically milks the goats.  Connie (the dog) tried to help me by attacking the goats, which was obviously not very helpful at all.  And then in the last group of girls, there were only 6 (as opposed to 7, the correct number).  AHHHH goats.  They make me go crraaazzzyyyy.  After that, I fed the pigs.  At this point I was sweating because it's so lovely and hot!  Yay heat!  

I worked in the cheesehouse for a little bit and then weeded in the garden.  We're trying to turn a patch of grass into a garden, so it's a constant struggle against the encroaching weeds.  I made one row of spinach/beets look pretty.  It took 2 hours to do it.  

In the afternoon I went to the co-op, where I discovered the spice section!  THEY HAVE EVERY SPICE IMAGINABLE!  I could have sat there for hours, I swear.  They even have flowers and medicinal herbs.  Things like "skullcap" and "slippery elm."  I got out my camera and took a picture, and some lady walked by and looked at me like, "Um...what are you doing?"  She apparently couldn't relate to my love for spices.  I came back from the co-op and started to make dinner really early because it was kinda elaborate...I made these crazy veggie burgers.

Barn Swallows:

Oddly Sweet California Veggie Burgers (makes 4)

1/2 medium sweet potato

1/2 cup quinoa or millet

1/2 medium carrot

1/2 small onion

1 large garlic clove

sesame oil

1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas

1/2 cup cooked or canned chickpeas 

salt

garam masala

cumin

cayenne pepper

curry powder

ginger powder

1/8 cup whole wheat flour

1/8 cup sunflower seeds

1 Tbs lemon juice

alfalfa sprouts

avocado slices

your favorite salad dressing

Bake sweet potato at 400 F for 40 minutes, or until soft.  Peel and mash, when cool enough to handle.  Cook quinoa in 1 cup water for 15 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed.  Mix with mashed potato.  Finely chop carrot, onion, and garlic (or pulse in food processor).  Saute with sesame oil until onion is translucent.  Add to millet mixture.  Boil peas until tender but firm, about 3 minutes.  Mash peas and chickpeas and add to millet mixture.  Add lemon juice, sunflower seeds, and spices.  For into 4 patties.  Cook patties in skillet with sesame oil for about 7 minutes on each side.  Put on bun or bread or lettuce leaf or nothing at all, top with avocado slices, sprouts, and dressing.  Complicated and possibly not worth the work, but interesting nonetheless.  

I just checked the weather and it's going to be in the 90's or high 80's for the next three days.  The only problem with that is that I have to wear long pants for both milking and the cheesehouse.  That sucks.  Ah, well, it's part of the job.  Hope it's not too hot where you are, readers of my blahg!  Readers of my blog who don't post comments anymore.  I'm going to have a question at the end of each post that you can answer through a comment.  If you don't know how to post, I'm pretty sure all you have to do is click on "post comment," type your comment, write in that wiggly word that shows you're not a robot, and hit "publish your comment."  Maybe it's more complicated than that, I'm not sure.

Here's todays question, which is not in the form of a question.  It's more like a mandate: 

Think of a new kind of chévre...so far we have cranberry walnut, herb, and pepper.  Ready...go!

Banana Pancakes

Picture 1 : My fingers yesterday after washing moulds

Picture 2 : My starter

This morning when I looked out the window I saw the it was going to be a grey, chilly, rainy day.  So after I worked in the cheesehouse wrapping chévre from 8-12, I went back in my apartment, turned up the heat a bit, put on my pajamas, and put on the song "Banana Pancakes," by Jack Johnson.  And then I realized that I needed to make banana pancakes.

Barn Swallows

Vegan Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes

1 large banana, sliced

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 Tbp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup rice/soy/hemp/almond milk

2 Tbs oil or melted Earth Balance

3 Tbs agave nectar or maple syrup or honey or juice

VERMONT MAPLE SYRUP

Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then combine and mix until just combined.  A few lumps okay...don't overmix.  Heat pan with oil or Earth Balance and pour batter to form 4 inch circles.  Place banana slices on top.  Cook until the edges look dry and you see bubbles.  Flip!  Cook for about 2 minutes on the other side, until golden brown on each side.  Serve with VERMONT MAPLE SYRUP, smile at the rain, and eat up.

Another thing that I noticed this morning, besides the rain, is that my sourdough starter has doubled in size!  It's so cool.  I wish I had taken a picture of it yesterday, so that you could compare, but just know that yesterday it was half the size and looked like goo.  Now it's bigger and frothy!  Excitement.

After lying around in my pajamas and eating banana pancakes, I changed into dirty jeans and a fleece and went to milk the goaty goats.  When I was on the third group of goats, Chris came to deliver a bunch of goat's milk (we buy milk from a farm nearby).  So I stopped milking for a little bit to help him pour these huge metals cans of milk into a tank.  Fun fact: Chris is left handed too!  I get really excited when I meet other left handed people.  Anyway, I went back to milking and for the first time, there were no crazy problems!  WOOOO!  I did spend about 5 minutes trying to get one girl in the last group up onto the platform, but eventually I succeeded.  Then I fed the pigs and made dinner.  I sauteed spinach with garlic, onions, and sesame seeds and brown rice.  I topped it with avocado slices, soy sauce, and nutritional yeast.  Yum yum.  

It's Thursday Again!

It's Thursday again!  Thursday, if you don't remember, is the crazy cheese day where I wash moulds for hours.  But since Tucker's working now, it was not as crazy.  My fingers still got pretty pruny though.  

Daily Blue Ledger:

I woke up at 7:00 and did all that morning stuff like eating breakfast (I ate leftover samosas...yum!), getting dressed, etc., and went out to the cheese house at 8.  I was about 5 minutes late because I was downloading some Sufjan Stevens.  I had an urge.  We salted the chévre from yesterday, washed ALL those moulds, and sanitized the camembrie moulds.  Then we had a nice long lunch break, during which I ate salad and swung on the swing set.  Back in the cheese house, we cut the curds, poured the camembrie, and cleaned the bulk tank.  Then it was 4 and we were done!  Time passes so quickly while I'm working.  It's almost frightening.  I made a quick dinner...

Barn Swallows:

Potato Tomato Salad

Potatoes of any sort, boiled

Tomatoes

Basil leaves

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Paprika

Salt

Slice potatoes into 1/4-1/2 inch slices.  Put in a hot pan with oil.  Sprinkle salt and paprika on top of each slice.  Cook until brown on one side, and flip.  Sprinkle again with salt and paprika, and let brown on other side.  In the meantime, slice tomatoes slightly thinner than the potatoes.  Layer potatoes, tomatoes, and basil leaves.  Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Sprinkle with more salt, if desired.  Enjoy this light dinner.

After dinner I babysat for Livia and Hayden from about 6:30 - 9:30.  We watched Howl's Moving Castle (that animation in that movie is so gorgeous...everyone should see it and read the book) and read 101 Dalmations.  I've never had such an easy time babysitting.  Those kids are awesome.  And now I'm going to sleep!  Goodnight.

Sweet Cecily, Samosas, and Starters

Daily Blue Ledger

Today was a Wednesday, so it was my day off...yay!  I slept until 7:30 and then got up and made quinoa porridge, which was really quite yummy.

Barn Swallows I

Quinoa Porridge

1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup rice milk

Banana slices

Maple syrup

Ginger powder

Flax seeds

Put quinoa and rice milk in pot and bring to boil, simmer for 15 minutes until liquid is absorbed.  Put in bowl and add sliced banana, maple syrup, flax seeds, and ginger powder.  Stir and eat!  

Then I spent about 2 hours downloading contemporary folk music off Limewire...should I not say that on the internet?  Whatever...the RIAA already caught me once.  I'm a bad girl.  I got some great stuff, though...it's cool, the iTunes store gives you a whole playlist of suggested artists that they think every modern-folk-lover should have.  So it's like, David Gray, Lucinda Williams, Beth Orton, The Weepies...and I downloaded a few top songs from each.

After that, I felt like I should probably go outside or something, so I went to visit Molly at Sweet Cecily, where she works.  Sweet Cecily is a store on Middlebury's Main Street that is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen.  It's similar to Blue Tulip...but just much better.  It has all these fairy knick knacks and soaps and cards.  The best part is the view; there's a balcony the overhangs the waterfall.  It's gorgeous.  So after I visited her, I went to the co-op and got a multi vitamin, just to make sure I'm getting all the right nutrients, and some fruits and veggies.  Then I came back to the farm and looked up a recipe for samosas, which I had never made before.

Barn Swallows II

Vegan Samosas

Dough:

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 Tbs oil (I used 1 T sesame and 1 T olive)

3/4ish cup warm water

3/4 tsp salt

Mix together until forms a ball with a "pie-crust texture" (that's what the recipe I used said, interpret as you will).  Let rest for 30 minutes.

Filling:

3 potatoes, peeled, boiled, and mashed

1 small onion, diced

1 cup peas

A medium-spiced chili pepper, minced (I didn't have one, so I used a red bell pepper)

Garlic

Oil or Earth Balance

Spices: Nutritional yeast, curry powder, garam masala, paprika, salt, cayenne pepper

In the meantime, saute onions, pepper, and garlic in oil until soft.  Add peas and mashed potatoes and combine.  I added a little Earth Balance at this point.  Add all spices, blah blah blah...

Ok.  Preheat oven to 375.  Divide dough into 8 pieces.  Flatten each piece into a square a 1/4 inch thick and about 4-5 inches across.  Put some filling in the middle and fold diagonally to make a triangle.  Pinch edges together firmly.  Place on greased baking sheet and put middle of oven.  Bake for about 20 minute?  The recipe said 40-50 but I think that's incorrect.  Just make sure they're not burning.  Let cool a bit and enjoy.

Greg knocked on my door tonight to ask if I wanted to make sourdough starters for bread.  And of course I did, because cooking's my thing and I love bread.  It's a 14 day process to grow a culture, and it starts very simply.  You sanitize everything, then mix together flour and water in a big container.  To start off the fermentation, you use some type of organic fruit...we happened to have apples.  So you put apple slices in cloth bags squish the juice into the starter and put in the entire bag in the mixture.  Then the lid goes on tightly and it sits until the next step.  It's really a growing thing, and it has to be fed like an infant.  It's sitting next to my bed and I'm going to sing to it every night so it feels loved.

It's getting late and I have to go to sleep...night night.

Another Tuesday

Picture # 1: The sky in the Simpson's opening theme

Picture # 2: The sky in Salisbury, VT

Starting off with a story...so Greg's stepdad found my blahg online somehow (impressive and slightly creepy) (Hi Greg's stepdad, if you're reading!) and told Hannah and Greg about it, and apparently sent it to some of his family (Hi extended family!)...so my audience has grown.  It makes me feel slightly famous, and slightly nervous.  I'm just going to continue on my merry blogging way, though, and try not to censor too much.  Because then it would just be boring.

Today was another one of those crazy Tuesdays, although it wasn't really that crazy for me.  I went to bed late last night because I was up blahgging (late means 10:00), and then I woke up at 4:30.  So I was pretty tired all day, and consequently I had one of those days where I just annoyed myself to death.  Almost everything I said made me want to punch myself in the diaphragm.  So then I tried to stop speaking, which was almost as bad.  Oh, well.  I really must get more sleep.

The Daily Blue Ledger:

Woke up at 4:30 and did morning chores.  We just had a new girl freshen (I believe this means when a goat starts giving milk after having a baby? possibly?  Hannah?  Greg?) and she was so good for her second time being milked (first time being last night).  I was excited during the 2nd to last group of goats because I'd done the whole thing by myself and there were no problems.  Then during the last group I realized there were only 6 girls instead of 7, which meant one girl broke out while I was milking.  So I ran all over the field looking for a girl that hadn't been milked but I couldn't find her!  I'm really hoping there will be a day when none of these crazy things happen (milk spilling on the floor, goats jumping off platforms, missing girls, etc).  Ugh, what can I say, I'm a recovering perfectionist.  I worked in the cheese house after that.  I learned how to coat hard cheese with wax, which I'm really not very good at.  I think it might be easier if my hands were bigger and I was taller.  You dip a wheel of cheese halfway into the melted wax a few times and then spin it around so there aren't any drips.  Then you dip the other side, and then repeat the whole process.  It's really important to make sure that there aren't any pinholes in the wax, or bad molds will grow in there.  I also poured some chévre and tasted the new cranberry walnut chévre (SO YUMMY).  I think that was it...I gardened after that.  I weeded for about an hour and then Hannah and I planted corn!  I love the garden.  Oooo the spinach was ready to eat so I picked some, even though I already have a ton of spinach.  You can never have too much spinach, I always say.  I know Popeye agrees with me.

Barn Swallows:

Veggie Fried Rice

Cooked brown rice

Garlic

Fresh spinach

Button mushrooms

Red bell pepper

Peas, fresh or frozen

Sesame Oil

Flax seeds

Sunflower seeds

Flavorings: Soy sauce, Maple syrup, Nutritional Yeast, Red Pepper, Ginger Powder 

Saute garlic and red pepper in sesame oil until soft.  Add mushrooms, cook until soft, add peas and spinach, cook until spinach is wilting.  Add rice, saute until hot.  Add sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and all flavorings.  Healthy Chinese food!

Tomorrow is my day off, but I think it's going to rain.  We'll see what I do!  Your guess is as good as mine right now.

Sorry, Guys...

So I've been a pretty terrible blogger lately...but I have been really busy.  So where did I leave off?  Oh, yes.  Sunday.  Oh, it's only been one day since I posted!  That's not so terrible.  So my Sunday schedule is lovely, because I work in the cheese house from 8-12 and then I'm done!  I can wake up late and get out early.  I didn't know what I wanted to do with my half day off, and I was determined not to sit around by myself, so I decided to finally contact the one person I know up here, Molly.  And she was a good friend and invited me to hang out with her and her friend Abby.  Wooooo people my own age!  We went to get ice cream (which I don't eat, sadly) and walked around Middlebury.  Oh, fun fact about Vermont!  Not only are they the state with the largest number of western Buddhist converts, but they also call soft-serve ice cream "creemees."  It's like, "Hey, I'm bored.  Wanna go get a creemee?"  I think it's cute but I'm pretty sure I sound ridiculous saying it.  So I'll stick with good old soft serve.  Then Molly and her mom (who I really love) and I went to see the Narnia movie, which both Molly and I had already seen.  It's so epic, everyone should see it at least twice.  But it was really nice to not be sitting alone on the farm.

Daily Blue Ledger:

My sister Rachael has cleverly come up with my daily summary title...apparently the name of the newspaper in Superman is the Daily Ledger?  Anyway, very cute, I'm a fan.

This day started out normally, 8-12 in the cheese house.  It's June 2nd, Tucker's first day!  He seems really cool.  He's going to be a senior at Middlebury, and he's an environmental science/geology major.  Anyway, I flipped and wrapped some Crottina, put together some Lake's Edge, packed restaurant tubs of chévre, and rolled chévre in herbs.  They just came up with a new chévre!  We already have plain, pepper, and herbal.  Now we're going to have walnut cranberry.  It sounds so good, but I have yet to taste it.  I've heard that there's a place that makes chévre with chocolate...I think it sounds really interesting.  In a good way.  So after my cheese duty I went to the co-op, bought some yummy food, and came back to do evening chores.  It was the first time I had to bring the goats in from the woods (they graze in all sorts of different terrain: woods, wetlands, and open fields).  It was a crazy experience.  It's actually hilarious...you call the goats, and they just come trotting along in a double file line along their little goat trail.  Getting them all in the barn took about a 1/2 hour, because some of them break away and you have to drag each back separately. 

A Goat's Tail:

When I started milking, in the very first group (the groups usually start out being well behaved and by the end are absolutely stupid) a goat jumped of the 3 foot high milking platform and ran out the barn door.  My worst nightmare had come true.  Remember when I'd written about my vision of me running up the road in spotted rain boots?  Yeah.  It happened.  Minus the roadkill.  Scariest thing ever, though.  I caught her eventually and brought her back, and that was my exercise for the day.  And after that, the rest of the goats were just their usual stubborn selves.  Once I was done milking, I had to clean up and feed the pigs (also very stressful, because of aforementioned Miyazaki film). 

Fun fact about me:  I'm dumb.  Today I got shocked by an electric fence.  The end.

Barn Swallows:

I was so tired after that milking that I just made a salad...

Mixed Greens

Black Beans

Avocado

Goat Cheese

Carrot

Sunflower Seeds

Annie's Goddess Dressing

Combine ingredients, toss, and eat.  So simple.

Sorry for the lack of pictures...they wouldn't load for some reason.  Hopefully it'll work tomorrow.