News on the Global Food Movement

I'm in the library. I should be studying. I'm reading food articles instead. Story of my life.

Photo courtesy of "The Nation." 

Anyways, I stumbled upon (not on StumbleUpon) an article by Michael Pollan earlier on Twitter and quickly realized that this weeks issue of "The Nation" is all about the global food movement. I'm eager to get my hands on a copy, although the closing of my local Border's this week is making it difficult. You can read it online though, definitely worth a look.

What do you think about a weekly or bi-weekly food link digest? I love the food link digests put out by Bon Appetit and Mark Bittman. Is the world ready for a MitM link digest?

I hate GRITting confused.

Hello from Ann Arbor! This first post of the school year got me thinking about my first post ever around this time last year. This also means I failed to throw my blog a proper birthday. To make up for it, I'll eat cake this week and maybe even recap my blogging over the past year here. 

On to today. After a week of downpours and drizzles, today's beautiful weather was welcomed. Mondays are my best class days because I only have two and am done by noon. I came back to my apartment after class, power napped and then biked to the Arboretum to find a shady place to study. I got more studying than expected done and was also able to relax and take in the great outdoors for a while. I returned from my excursion refreshed with big plans to run (it was pretty short, slightly pathetic) and make dinner. 

The recipe for Roasted Tomato Grits with Goat Cheese has been on my mind since it appeared on Love & Olive Oil last week. I've been wanting to expand my grit repertoire (ok, well start my  repertoire) for quite some time and it is prime tomato time in Michigan, so it didn't take much to sway me into trying this recipe. 

I roasted cherry tomatoes from the Farmer's Market, and found the suggested 400° oven to be a bit too hot. Next time I would stay closer to 350°. 

 

I ran into problems when cooking my grits, I'm still not sure where the misstep was. The recipe suggests cooking stone-ground grits for 45 minutes. I purchased these grits from Bob's Red Mill, but it took less than 10 minutes start to finish to cook them. I was worried about the grits drying out so I added the butter and goat cheese right away hoping that would provide enough moisture until the tomatoes were done. When it the grits continued to dry out, I divided them into two ceramic dishes and popped them in the oven for about 10 minutes. My grit vs. polenta knowledge is minimal and I'm not exactly sure which one I ended up with. 

Nonetheless, I was pleased with the end result. I topped my "grits" with the roasted tomatoes, freshly chopped basil, and a little more goat cheese. The rich flavor of the roasted tomatoes was the star of the show. 

Off to study grits, polenta, and direct object pronouns in Spanish. . .

Updated 9/13/11: I checked out what Mark Bittman had to say in How to Cook Everything about grits and polenta. It appears grits are a coarse grind of corn and hominy, while polenta is a less coarse grind of cornmeal that sets as it cools and seems to lend itself to more savory dishes. Tomato, toma-toe, I think my dish was more polenta-ish. 

MitM in the Battle Creek Enquirer

My little corner of the blogosphere is getting some attention this morning. Check out Munching in the Mitten in today's Battle Creek Enquirer. :)

From the Battle Creek Enquirer online. 

Lord Grey's Peach Preserves

The adventures in cannin' and jammin' continued today with another Preservation Society recipe for Peach Preserves with Earl Grey tea. The recipe was easy to follow, and went a little something like this:

To start, score a shallow "X" in the bottom of your peaches. You will want to use five pounds of peaches. Then, in batches, drop them in boiling water for about a minute until the skin loosens up. Cool the peaches in an ice water bath so that you can comfortably peel and slice them. Once you have peeled, quartered, and sliced your peaches into 1/3" slices, mix them with four cups of sugar and two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes the peach+sugar mixture will have produced a lot of juice. Drop in four Earl Grey tea bags and cut open an additional tea bag and mix the leaves in with your peach mixture. Bring the mixture to a boil for about twenty to twenty five minutes. Meanwhile, sterilize and prepare your jars for preserving following this method. To check if your preserves are ready to go into their jars, Bon Appetit recommends a nifty method. Put a small plate in the freezer and after boiling your peaches for the allotted time, spoon a small amount on the cold plate. When the peach mixture doesn't run, you know its done. Skim the foam off the top of the peaches before canning (I think I missed some, the top of my jars look a little foamy). 

Continue to process you jars as described by the method in the link above. 

Blurry picture. :(

After finishing all of the jars, I enjoyed the pan scrapings the best way I know how. Preserves atop goat cheese and Carr's whole wheat crackers. So.good. The peaches with the Earl Grey tea produces a really unique flavor. 

My preserves are resting on the counter for the next 24 hours until they move to a more permanent, cool, dark location (the pantry!). I'm excited to pack a few jars for school. More importantly, I'm crossing my fingers that Irene doesn't delay my older sister's travel plans later this week - then I can share them with her. :)

When the cat's away the mice will play...

...with tofu! Actually to be grammatically correct, the cats were away (no apostrophe). By cats I mean Mom and Dad, who were moving our little Molly into college. I'm not sure what is harder to believe - that Molly is a college freshman or that I am a senior? Let's not ponder that too long.

Anyways, Mom + Dad's absence seemed like a good time to cook something I'm pretty sure they wouldn't love, tofu. I wasn't in love, but I was in like with it. My method came from a favorite blog, Kath Eats Real Food. First I sliced and pressed the tofu for about twenty minutes beneath a few dusty cookbooks. 

Then I marinated the tofu in a homemade BBQ sauce, the recipe accompanied KERF's baked tofu method. Twenty minutes in the oven at 350 after marinating for a bit and your done.

I ate my tofu with a few (like two) salad greens, farmers market tomatoes, cantaloupe and corn anadama bread from the Bread Man, with the company of a Food & Wine magazine.

Oh summer, don't leave. 

Back-2-School (WHAT!?) Potluck

Last night Molly and I hosted a potluck for several of our friends to celebrate the summer and hang out one more time before its back to school. Molly (my little sister) leaves for school this week, but I still have a few more weeks (this is totally fine with me, I could use another a month).

We had a great evening! It is nice that as we have gotten older, we share friends - much more fun and efficient. :)

I am the fairest of them all, yikes. 

My contribution to dinner were the kabobs. Yummy Honey Chicken Kabobs from All Recipes, to be exact. I always find the comments on All Recipes to be helpful. With a commenter's advice I added pineapple to the skewers and remembered to soak the skewers in water for a few hours prior to grill time. However in true Madeline-cooking-fashion, improvisation was necessary and "grilling time" turned into broiler time. No.Propane. Next time your grill runs out of propane, charcoal, etc., broil your skewers for five minutes on each side. 

The other great items on the plate were: caesar salad, balsamic quinoa salad with cranberries, feta, and cucumbers and taco dip. Not pictured: goat cheese and whole wheat Carr's crackers. 

And for dessert, an always popular crowd pleaser: brownies (made with applesauce instead of oil). Yum!

More end of summer celebrations to come!

P.S. The coriander seed has been dried and plucked from it's stems. It didn't quite fall off like it was supposed to but came off quite easily. Now, what to make with it?

KODAK Gallery Photo Book

KODAK and Foodbuzz (the Facebook for foodies site you see links to on my page) recently teamed up to offer Featured Publishers, like myself, the opportunity to create a free Quickstart Photo Book. Initially I had several different ideas about what type of photo book I wanted to make, but ultimately decided to use this opportunity to compile the many family photos we took in June when we celebrated my little sister's graduation and my older sister's marriage.

The scrap booking gene skipped several generations in my family. Luckily creating a Photo Book with KODAK couldn't be easier. All the tools you need are right in front of you on the page.

I'm still finishing up my Photo Book but I will be sure to share the final product soon! In the meantime you should head on over to KODAK because they are offering readers (you!) 40% off of a medium hardcover or large Photo Book. Go to www.kodakgallery.com/creativity to redeem before August 31st, 2011. Thanks KODAK & Foodbuzz!