Super Mom Makes Homemade Mayo {Video Recipe}

One dark and stormy night, tragedy struck the Hound household. Sweet Lil wanted to make tuna salad but there was no mayonnaise in the house. "Help!", the selective eater cried out, unable to eat plain tuna or the delicious meal her parents cooked.

Super Mom heard her cries and rushed to the rescue!

With forearms of steel and patience for pouring, Super Mom cracked an egg, squeezed a lemon, and began whisking. Streaming oil into her potion, Super Mom transformed the three liquids into a semi-solid sauce: mayonnaise!

A few days later, Super Mom taught Lil how to make homemade mayo herself so she would never be helpless again. Kudos to intern Cami for capturing and editing the moment.

With a little practice, you too can gain the Mayo Master badge of honor and be able to create the delightful emulsion at a moment's notice! You could employ the use of a blender, but every true super hero knows how to make mayonnaise by hand.

Have you made mayo recently? How did it turn out?

PS. Join Super Mom (that's me) on Mother's Day for a class revealing all my secrets for homemade condiments at Franklin Park Conservatory. Space is limited and every participant goes home with a jar of mayo, mustard, or ketchup!

Handmade Mayonnaise Makes: about one cup Time: 5-10 minutes

1 fresh egg yolk (use a pasteurized egg if you're worried about salmonella) 1/2 fresh lemon 1/2 - 1 cup oil (use any lightly flavored oil) 1/2-1 teaspoon salt

1. Pour egg yolk into a clean medium mixing bowl. 2. Juice lemon into bowl and whisk the yolk and juice together. 3. While continuing to whisk, add one teaspoon (or one slight pour) oil and whisk until incorporated. Repeat with several more teaspoons. 4. Slowly begin increasing the amount of oil, whisking continuously. The mixture will begin to change color towards a lighter yellow and develop a stiffer texture. 5. Continue whisking and adding oil until you reach the texture of mayonnaise. Stir in salt. 6. Store in a clean container in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Farmers' Market Fresh - How to Store & Preserve Produce

Choosing delicious seasonal fruits and vegetables from farmers' markets and CSAs is an investment of time and money, a commitment that keeps dollars in the local economy, supports sustainable agriculture, and helps people have a healthy diet. There is much to learn about what's available when and who to buy it from. I recently contributed 'How to Shop A Farmer's Market Like a Pro' guide on Once a Month Mom with my top tips for feeling comfortable at farmers' markets.

The dedication to local food doesn't stop at the farmers' market or CSA pick up. Once the hand-picked produce is home, cooks want to use the fruits and vegetables to their full potential without waste.

Farmers' Market Fresh

Sensing a need, I created Farmers' Market Fresh, a guide to storing and preserving Midwestern seasonal produce. My one-page chart details how to keep fruits and vegetables freshest, how long you can expect them to last, and suggestions for long-term preservation.

Click on the icons in the top right to expand Farmer's Market Fresh on your screen. If you want a print copy (how exciting to think this might end up on someone's fridge!) download the seasonal produce guide as a printable .pdf.

Will you use the Farmers' Market Fresh guide? How do you get the most out of farm fresh produce?

PS. My farmers' market (Clintonville) starts tomorrow from 9 am to noon! I am so excited to be selling seedlings, microgreens, and mushrooms with Swainway Urban Farm. Stop by our booth at Dunedin and High (on the side of Global Gallery coffee shop) and say hello.

Baby Fruit {Wordless Wednesday}

1. concord grapes 2. red currants 3. peach 4. montmorency cherries 5. strawberries 6. raspberries 7. blueberries

I took pictures of fruit babies last year. The comparison is interesting both because the fruits are three weeks ahead of where they were in 2011 and my photography skills have improved dramatically.

Watching my fruit babies mature is bittersweet this year. The fully ripened fruit will likely be harvested by the new owner(s) of the homestead. I would like to move as soon as possible so that I can plant at the TBD new location, but at least if we stay around here long enough, we'll enjoy some fruit this summer.

Our realtor is hosting an Open House for our home at 349 Tibet this Sunday from 2-4 pm. I'm providing scones and jams - come see the homestead and grab a homemade snack!

Rhubarb Infused Vodka

It's rhubarb season in central Ohio! I like rhubarb in jam, strawberry rhubarb pie, and my grandmother's rhubarb crunch. But my favorite way to enjoy this slightly sweet, floral, first "fruit" of spring is in a vodka infusion. You might think I'm a lush but hear me out. Rhubarb is tongue-searingly sour and requires a lot of sugar or another strong flavor to temper the tart. Until I infused vodka with rhubarb, I had never truly appreciated the subtlty of the rhubarb flavor.

Making an infusion, with rhubarb or any other fruit, is dead simple. Chop or mascerate fruit in a clean glass container. Fill with vodka to cover all the fruit. Age in a dark place, tasting regularly, until the infusion matches your desired flavor. Strain out the fruit and enjoy the infusion as a mixer or on its own with fizzy water, a delightfully low-cal, high-zest drink.

In the case of rhubarb, I like to leave the infusion for up to two weeks. The clear vodka will turn a dusty red color and keep its piquancy for up to a year. The picture above shows the last of our 2011 rhubarb infusion, in one of my favorite jars made in Columbus Ohio, surrounded by the fresh rhubarb from the Greener Grocer that will make this year's batch.

I am reserving some rhubarb to make into a shrub, a sweetened vinegar infusion. I suspect that the shrub method will show off the many characteristics of rhubarb much like the vodka infusion I hold so dear.

Do you like rhubarb? How do you prepare it?

PVC Chicken Feeder Plans & Coop Video Tour

At last week's backyard chicken basics class, I admitted that our coop is a jumble of reclaimed parts and pieces, including two wooden boxes 'saved' from alley trash. Lil contributed a little whimsy with some Angry Birds pig faces painted on old rubber stepping stones. Our coop will not win any design awards but it works for us and shows that a coop can be made out of darn near anything.  Alex's PVC chicken feeder is a bit more brilliant. Made from four pieces of durable, inexpensive pvc pipe, the feeder uses gravity to allow our hen access to grains at all times. We buy the Gregg's Organic Ohio-grains layer feed from City Folk's Farm Shop - I am so thankful to have it available locally now!

Cami Snyder, a lovely sophomore intern from Linworth Alternative High School, recorded and edited this impromptu chicken coop tour starring me, Lil, and Austra the Australorp hen. My favorite part of the video is when I'm showing off the next box and Austra is cooing.

Gravity Fed PVC Chicken Feeder

Materials: 2-3 foot length of 4-inch diameter PVC straight pipe 1 4-inch slip-fit cap 1 4-inch to 2-inch coupler 1 2-inch 180 degree elbow with male end and female end PVC cement hand saw (we like the Japanese-style Fine Cut Pull Saw) sandpaper 2 stainless steel screw eyes 2 s-hooks, screws, nails, and or wire on which the feeder will hang

Assembly instructions:

1. Work in a well ventilated area. PVC cement can stain, so you may want a covered surface.

2. Cut food storage compartment (4" pipe) to desired length based on capacity you want it to hold. Ours, measuring about two feet, feeds our single hen and snitching sparrows for about five days.

3. Use PVC cement to attach reducer to bottom of 4" pipe by painting the inside of the reducer with PVC cement and then setting the straight pipe in place.

4. Attach the male end of the elbow to the 2-inch side of coupler with PVC cement.

5. Using a hand saw, trim feed end of elbow to horizontal with the ground so that chickens can feed easily. Use sandpaper to smooth the edges.

6. Twist screw eyes into the back of the 4 inch pipe near the top, allowing for the cap to fit.

7. Fill feeder from the top. Twist on the cap. It may need a little sanding to release easily.

8. Hang feeder from s-hooks mounted on a wire or nails on the run rail so that the bottom is 6 inches or so off ground.

Cornbread & Butter Beans & You Across the Table...

...eatin' beans and makin' love as long as we are able." - Carolina Chocolate Drops, video below. The above tune is a catchy one. On autoplay in my mom's head last week, she wanted to build a meal around it. Is it obvious now where I get my propensity to create odd theme dinners?

We added a line from another CCD song, Knockin', to round out dinner: "Chicken in the fridge, half a bottle of wine, sit and eat your fill, then give me some of mine."

Alex fried chicken, Dad made the cornbread, we all drank a half a bottle of wine, and I cooked butter beans.

The all-knowing-Internet tells me that butter beans are lima beans, though a true southerner might correct me. I could only find dried limas at the market so that's what I used.

Beans stewed low and slow with onion, herbs, and pork fat is no new thing to my family. What amazed us was that cornbread and butter beans is more than a fine lyric - it's a well-matched set of sides. The savory melds with sweet and the buttery bean texture offsets the crunchy cornbread.

Cornbread and butter beans is a combination that will most definitely be repeated often, like a great song stuck in your head.

Butter Beans Makes: 12 large side-dish servings Time: 24 hours, active cooking 60 minutes

3 cups dried butter (lima) beans 1 tablespoon bacon fat 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 1 large sweet onion, diced 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced 1 large handful fresh oregano, washed and minced or 1 tablespoon dried oregano 4 stalks fresh thyme, leaves washed and minced or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 2 tablespoons honey 1 teaspoon soy sauce 3 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon dried mustard powder 20 grinds of fresh black pepper 2-3 bay leaves 1 teaspoon lemon juice

1. Wash beans. Cover with 4 inches of water and soak overnight. 2. Twelve hours later, heat a skillet. Add bacon fat, butter, and onions. Cook until onions are translucent. 3. Add onions to beans. Stir in all ingredients other than lemon juice and cover with additional water as necessary. 4. Heat in a crock pot on low for 10 hours or until beans are tender and liquid is absorbed. If you are close to serving time and the beans are too liquidy, simmer on stove top to boil off some water. 5. Adjust salt and add lemon juice. Remove bay leaves. 6. Puree beans for 30 seconds with immersion blender for buttery texture. 7. Serve hot with cornbread.

NB. An appropriate dessert would be the Carolina Chocolate Drop cookie I created last year.

Food Dialogues with US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance

Do you know about the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA)? It is a newly created umbrella organization of state farm bureaus and grower's councils. Their mission is to "lead the dialogue and answer Americans’ questions about how we raise our food". Their new website Food Dialogues is designed to help facilitate conversations about how people, the planet, and businesses are affected by agriculture. I have been a member of the Ohio Farm Bureau (OFB), member of USFRA, for over a decade. This relationships started because of their Nationwide insurance discounts and continues because I want to be part of the food culture in Ohio.

Conflicted History

My feelings about the Ohio Farm Bureau, and hence the USFRA, are mixed, though. While the OFB presents the stories of friends Sippel Family Farm and Marilou Suszko in their lovely and informative Our Ohio magazine, the values advocated by OFB are often out of line with my own. I passionately argued against the intrusion of 'livestock care board' into the Ohio state constitution while the Farm Bureau helped deceive Ohioans into voting for Issue Two a few years ago. Similarly, while I believe in the rights of workers to organize, the Farm Bureau presented anti-union arguments in last fall's Ohio Senate Bill 5. I truly couldn't understand their position on SB 2, as the farm bureau itself is an organization of workers.

The USFRA is made up of other groups that ruffle my feathers, including Monsanto, Dow AgriSciences, and DuPoint as "Industry and Premier Partners". Behind the scenes, these monied and influential businesses promote agricultural bills that generally work against the diverse, organic, small farms that I believe are healthiest for farmers, consumers, and the environment.

Continue the Conversation

Despite conflicts, I believe that staying in the discussion is important. If local food advocates turn their backs on the USFRA, our voice will be lost. Perhaps by making some noise about what we want to see in the food system, we can affect change.

There are so many reasons to speak up. The honeybees and rivers need advocates to call attention to how farm waste can affect species far from farm sites. People who do not have the time or courage to speak up - the working poor, undocumented immigrants, and children - need us to insist on affordable food that does not compromise human and environmental health. People like me who care about antibiotic overuse must speak up for the farm animals who are given disturbing quantities and varieties of medicines to stay alive during stressful raising conditions. Farmer workers themselves, sometimes locked into contracts to use products that may be harmful to their personal health, need consumers to demand safe growing conditions.

The USFRA is hosting conversations virtually at Food Dialogues and on their facebook page. I set up my profile and joined the Facebook page to ask questions like:

• How will the USFRA support and grow the number of small organic farms in the US?
• Why is there arsenic and antidepressants in chickens and what is the USFRA doing to stop this practice?
• How can environmental protection be promoted when agricultural subsidies encourage over-production?
• Transporting livestock to slaughter, produce across the country, and even farm workers between farms uses an excessive amount of fossil fuels. The Eat Local movement reduces this demand. How will the USFRA support reduced 'food miles'?
• Why are there no councils or groups of produce growers in the USFRA? Maybe if a vegetable council promoted fresh produce, Americans would have more access to affordable fresh food.

Please join me in dialogue about growing food in the US. Leave a comment below (about agriculture, food, or anything you like) and enter to win a prize package of a Crock-Pot Programmable 6-Quart Slow Cooker and two reusable designer shopping bags from Envirosax.

Giveaway details: Prize package is a Crock-Pot Programmable 6-Quart Slow Cooker and two reusable designer shopping bags from Envirosax. Prize Pack ERV - $68. Prize is provided and delivered by USFRA; Entrants agree to not hold Rachel Tayse Baillieul or Hounds in the Kitchen liable for the prize. Entry open to US resident adults 18 years of age and older. Entries as comments on this site will be accepted from 10 am EST Wednesday April 11, 2012 - 10 am EST Wednesday April 18, 2012. One winner will be chosen on Wednesday April 18, 2012 by random.org and notified via email. In the event that a winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be selected.

Disclosure: The US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance paid me a stipend to introduce readers to their Food Dialogues website and Facebook page. All opinions are clearly my own.

Spring Chimichurri With Boiled Eggs On Grilled Asparagus {Recipe}

Nothing says spring like firing up the grill, eating local asparagus, enjoying herbs from the garden, and reveling in the wonder of the egg. Combine them all in this grilled asparagus chimichurri recipe and the season bursts forth from your fork.

Chimichurri is an Argentinian herb sauce typically made with chopped fresh parsley, oregano, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil. Like Italian pesto, chimichurri is flexible to your personal taste. Substitute any and all fresh herbs popping up in your garden or at the farmer's market.

Traditionally, chimichurri tops grilled steak and is indeed a tasty light counterpoint to rich meat. Drawing on a fantastic appetizer prepared by Jim Budros, Steve Stover, and Rich Terapak at a Franklin Park Conservatory cooking class, we pour chimichurri over grilled asparagus. The herbal garlic sauce highlights the sweetness of the crisped asparagus. Full-bodied chopped boiled egg completes the dish.

Serve chimichurri asparagus with a bread salad for lunch, as a side for dinner or as an appetizer over toast points. We might make it to share with family this Easter Sunday.

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Added to Hearth and Soul.