Spicing (and baking) it up

There's been a transition since I started a new job 2.5 months ago -- we have less time to cook with both of us working full time.  However, we still spend a lot of time in the kitchen and cooking/baking continues to be something that Erin and I enjoy doing together.  This post is about a few things we do to try to be a bit more self-sufficient.

First, something that's been a project years in the making is my habit of reusing old glass containers for spices, lentils, flours, etc.  Sure, you can buy matched sets of Tupperware, glassware, and all that.  But how much more interesting to clean out jam and pickle jars and reuse them!  To this concept, Erin added a brilliant touch -- chalkboard stick-on labels.  Thus, our mini-pantry looks like this:

It's a hodge podge, to be sure, but we like it.  We look forward to having a bit more space than this in the future since this is only about half of it.  Anyway...

Another thing that's been fun is that we've stopped buying bread.  Erin got me a great book for Christmas about bread making.  The first 10-14 days of the year, I "caught" wild yeast from the air and developed it into a perpetual starter.  Once you have this going, you just feed it 2-3 times per week.  As a result of this, I tend to bake two loaves of bread every Sunday.  This necessitates buying white and whole wheat flour in bulk.  We get great organic flour in 25-lb sacks from a little local shop:

I like to think that the bread baking has been going pretty well.  We eat some, we freeze some, we give some away, and we find create ways to use the rest (think: croutons -- and this fantastic recipe for Spring Panzanella that we made the other night).

Here's one of my loaves:

What's brewing

It's been a few weeks since our last update and we wanted to write a quick update about what's brewing. Literally.

As part of our project this year, we decided that we would NOT purchase any wine or beer (or other alcohols) for consumption at home, but instead stick to drinking what we already have and making our own beer and wine.

There's a few reasons for this - 1. Erin has a drinking problem.... no just kidding. But, she does like her coffee and wine. Not willing to part with either of these vices, even though they are consumables, her commitment for this year is to not purchase take away coffees or store bought wine.

2. There are considerable cost savings in going this route. Average price of a bottle of wine in BC is $20. Average cost of home made wine is $3-$4.

3. Brian has long brewed his own beer, and it's an activity that we've discovered we quite enjoy doing together (even more so now that we have concrete floors that are really easy to clean up).

For the wine, not having all of the equipment, I opted to go in with Sarah on a batch of Okanagan Pinot Noir from a local U-Brew company. We recycled wine bottles from friends and neighbours and Sarah and I spend a great afternoon together bottling (and tasting) the wine.

Friends have all been surprised that it's not store bought, as are we impressed with the quality and flavour. There's more in the works - Chilean Sauvingnon Blanc (shared with Sarah and Darlene) and Chilean Malbec (still looking for a friend who may be interested in sharing...). I'm excited for the day when we have the space where I can complete the whole process - start to finish - at home. For now, the U Brew option is a great solution and I highly recommend you checking out what's available in your locale.

As for the beer, right after we moved into our new place in December, we brewed a batch of Juniper Berry beer which turned out really nicely for a winter ale (and is almost entirely depleted). Inspired by Spring, Luke and Brian brewed a honey, coriander, vanilla, and orange peel "experiment". The reason it's been dubbed an experiment is because we're not sure if we should classify it as an ale or lager, and it fermented a little more vigorously than anticipated (thanks again, Derek, for helping clean up the beer explosion)...

And thanks to a really thoughtful gift from Tara, we have some other recipes we're really excited to try out - including root beer and limoncello!

All in all, the period of time where we didn't have any wine was a bit of a challenge, but this project has been very fruitful!

Cheers!