Green Options

Give me a piece of paper and pencil and I might choke out a few stick figure drawings for you. I’m not much of an artist in the traditional sense. But give me a chunk of cheddar, some beer, fresh veggies and other local ingredients from my home state of Wisconsin, and I transform into the artistic ninja of my kitchen here at Inn Serendipity Farm and B&B. Give me a palette of local, homegrown flavors and I can channel my inner culinary muse.

Case in point: Wisconsin Melting Pot Cheese Soup, my recent entry into the Wisconsin State Fair’s “Cornucopia Challenge” culinary contest, featuring ten different Wisconsin-produced ingredients. This recipe below garnered a third place white ribbon in this culinary contest category sponsored by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s “Ag in the Classroom” efforts to promote Wisconsin products.

Ready to take on your own private “Cornucopia Challenge,” creating your own signature dish featuring your local fare? Here are four tips to get you thinking creatively about combining your area’s flavors into a state fair ribbon worthy dish:

Oh, the joys and delights of that perfect food… pizza.  Just looking at this picture is making me drool, how about you?

Takeout pizza always seems to taste better than homemade, doesn’t it?  It’s partly because of their specialty pizza ovens, but it’s mostly the excessive amounts of grease and salt.  Frozen pizzas are often full of MSG and artificial flavours.  Not to mention the potential risk of PFC’s in the boxes!

For those of us trying to save a little money, and keep our families healthy, here are a few tips on making your homemade pizzas super-yummy.

You can make your own cheese, and it’ll be tasty, local, and organic.  Yes, right in the comfort of your own kitchen, probably with cooking equipment you already have.  If you have an hour of time and an adventurous spirit, you can easily make your own mozzarella cheese.  After one failed attempt I made mozzarella cheese in about an hour, though with some practice, it could probably be done in half that time.  Mozzarella cheese is one of the easiest cheeses to make and since it can be used in a variety of dishes, sandwiches, pizzas, pasta, etc. it will disappear quickly.

The holidays are starting to wind down, but there’s still that mad dash to New Year’s Eve, the lavishly fun and festive foray into the next chapter of your life.  If you’re a diehard foodie like me, your new year’s resolution probably consists of things like wanting to learn how to cook gourmet meals or master the art of entertaining — all while saving money and being as eco-conscious as possible in the process.  It wouldn’t hurt to look fabulous while doing it, either! 

Who are these women who arise looking airbrush perfect, whisk the kids off to school, work a full day and manage a perfectly prepared home cooked meal for dinner anyway?!

With the help of Behind the Burner, I have put together a cheat sheet for navigating the new year in style.

Before we delve into becoming a master chef and entertainer extraordinaire, let’s look like one.  Thanks to Shannon Reed, kitchen couture is as stylish as designer label clothing.  From jackets to aprons, she creates unique chef attire that is anything but uniform, and her selections will shroud you in the confidence you need to take on the task of cooking like a pro.

But what to make?  Recipes in gourmet food magazines are either overly simplified and lacking in the artistry of the craft or too complex, resulting in a dilapidated dish that looks nowhere near as perfect as the glossy photo that accompanies it.  

Ten credible on line calculators gave Carbon Footprints that ranged from 27 000 to 76 000 pounds of carbon emitted a year for the same input data. An understanding of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with what we do and consume will give us a better chance of reducing our emissions than using such inaccurate calculators. 

What’s the problem?

J. Paul Padgett and collegues at Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington analysed the results obtained using 10 carbon footprint calculators from credible organisations including; American Forests, Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), CarbonCounter,The Conservation Fund and the Environmental Impact Agency (EPA). Their results are published in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review 28 (2008). They identified the massive range refered to above, that ammounts to a difference of  180% between the lowest and highest figures and concluded that “Given their prevalence and potential influence, CO2 calculators can provide even greater public benefit by providing greater consistency and clarity.

Add Kraft to the growing list of companies that turn waste into energy. Two of the company’s New York cheese plants plan to turn used whey into biogas—enough to provide energy to 2,600 homes. Previously, Kraft relied on other methods to get rid of its waste.

While any red-blooded foodie enjoys a veggie burger now and again, it can get tiresome to keep chowing down on the same prepackaged bulgar patty as meat-eaters feast on a vast array of grilled options from shrimp skewers to pulled pork, salmon sides and steaks. What is the vegetarian-minded BBQer to do amidst the seemingly endless parade of imitation-meat options? Sick of soy and tired of tempeh, I’ve turned to halloumi cheese as my protein source of delicious grill flavor.

Halloumi has a high melting point which allows it to keep its shape and firm consistency when cooked. It is a fresh cheese, prepared much like mozzarella from goat’s or sheep’s milk. While it comes from Cyprus and is common throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, I first encountered it when I lived in Brazil where it is served as a beach snack. A good place to look for Halloumi is a Mediterranian or Middle Eastern grocery, but some supermarkets have started to carry the cheese. I’ve even found it at my farmer’s market, where one of the vendors is like-minded when it comes to grilling. Preparations after the jump.

There’s always a better whey.

A Wisconsin cheese producer, Joe Van Groll of Stratford, Wisconsin, has a way with whey.

For nearly a decade, Van Groll experimented using the waste product of cheese manufacturing, whey permeate, to manufacture ethanol. During the past four years, he’s been doing just that, and believes his process can produce ethanol for less than $1 a gallon.

If the combination of Middle Eastern hummus and Mexican tortillas seems strange, just give it a chance. The result is absolutely delicious, and is an incredibly fast meal or snack. And kids of all ages LOVE it!
Makes 8 quesadillas

Ingredients

Hummus (store-bought or made from scratch – see below)
8 corn or flour tortillas
½ cup chopped green onions
1/2-1 cup favorite salsa

The name pesto derives from tradition of making this sauce in a mortar with a pestle. The following recipe, which I encourage you to use a food processor for, unless you have a few spare hours, proves that you absolutely don’t need cheese to make a fantastic pesto. Purchase fresh basil (or grow it yourself!), and find a nice fruity olive oil.

Advance Preparation: Pesto freezes very well. Defrost pesto at room temperature, about

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The versatile little soy bean is used to make such delicious foods as tofu, tempeh, miso, and soy milk, and yet it’s misunderstood, especially here in the West. Tofu is derided, scoffed at, and even feared by some, and I’m here to set things right. Our little lesson may seem technical at first, but once you read it, I think you’ll come away with a much better understanding of our high-protein friend and

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