Showdown: Store-bought vs. Homemade Broth or Stock

Time for another Homemade vs Store-bought showdown! This time we're going to look at broth and stock.

I spent time gathering data on both broth and stock. You'll notice I'm using these terms interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same thing. Broth is made by boiling meat and vegetables in water without bones. Stock is made by boiling meat, bones, and vegetables. I always make stock rather than broth. It has a higher nutritional content and better flavor.

I found some things out that really surprised me. For instance, did you know that it costs 2/3 more to buy broth than it does to make it at home? Yep. I have specific numbers under the cut.

And now, the showdown.

Recipe: Liver and Onions

I know some of you read the title of this blog post and immediately wrinkle your nose in disgust (hi mom!). Well, wrinkle no more. If you've tried liver and you hate it--well, fine. To each his own. But I maintain that this is a delicious thing to eat. Mr. Scrimp and I enjoy it on a fairly regular basis.

This is a simple recipe and most of what it requires is time... and an enjoyment of liver. I first started eating liver because I was anemic, and it turned out that Mr. Scrimp and I both had a taste for it, especially with onions. Make sure, by the way, that you have enough onion to go with your liver. The sweetness of the onion compliments the richness of liver perfectly.

Raw Milk Ohio: A Thrilling Tale of A Covert Operation, Part 1

Recently, as those who follow us on Facebook are already aware, Mr. Scrimp and I purchased an interest in a local dairy herd. We did this because we really wanted to start drinking raw milk. But, because Ohio raw milk laws prohibit sales of unpasteurized milk, we had to work pretty hard to find a safe, legal source.

Photo credit

I am going to share the story of how we came to be investors in a cow (or group of cows), because I want everyone to know what we had to go through here in Ohio to exercise our rights to food choice and food freedom. Sadly, I will not be able to share the real names of anyone involved in this story, because even though no laws were broken, the ODA have still been known to open investigations that often end in the unjust arrests of farmers involved in providing raw milk here.

The whole thing felt like some sort of drug deal or espionage. And, although everything we did was legal, according to our state and federal governments, it sort of was.

Why Keep Eating Poison?

GMO crops, conventionally grown corn and soybeans chief among them, can be found in a huge proportion of our foods these days. It's one of the big reasons that Mr. Scrimp and I changed our eating habits. We became convinced that we were eating foods that had been contaminated with poison.

A report at the Huffington Post now tells me that we were right, and I only wish we had run away screaming from conventionally grown food even sooner. You see, those GMO crops have been modified to be resistant to the weed killer RoundUp. They get sprayed with it again and again throughout the growing season. It cuts down weeds and increases crop production.

It also causes birth defects in mammals, and that has been kept secret from the public for quite a long time now.


I know there are readers of the blog who have maintained that Mr. Scrimp and I are overly concerned about GMO foods and conventionally grown vegetables. I hope this makes you reconsider.

Homemade Pop Tarts

I think most people under the age of 30 love Pop Tarts, or have loved them at some point in the past. But if you're like Mr. Scrimp and me, that love has been tainted by your knowledge of how absolutely terrible they are for you--am I right? (You don't need to answer that; I know I'm right)

Pop Tarts, for me, have always fallen into that heartbreaking category of "processed foods that are impossible to make at home," along with Ecto-cooler, Little Debbie Oatmeal Cakes, and Eggo waffles. Let's just face it, people. Some foods are delicious because they are full of horrifying chemicals. And, probably thanks to their vividly colored fillings, neon sprinkles, and tooth-aching sweetness, I just always assumed Pop Tarts were one of those things.

Proof that I was wrong?

Enter the Los Angeles Times (really) and their recipe for homemade Pop Tarts--oh wait, I mean toaster pastries, because convention demands we lie to ourselves and pretend that toaster pastries that aren't Pop Tarts are still worth eating.

Are they Pop Tarts? Technically no. Stupendous Man refuses to eat store-bought organic toaster pastries and although I know he'd try these, I doubt I'd be able to manufacture something that tastes like a perfect replica to him, primarily because there are only one or two situations in which I will willingly use corn syrup and as for the rest of the crazy things they put into Pop Tarts, I don't even know how to pronounce half of those ingredients, let alone where the home cook might buy them.

Still, a toaster pastry that I can fill with my own homemade jams or jellies? Or frangipane? Or Nutella? A Nutella-filled pop tart!! You have my ear, L.A. Times. I am definitely going to give this recipe a try, and I am just going to try and ignore the fact that each one has nearly 500 calories in it. I sleep through breakfast and skip lunch on many Saturdays, making this a totally acceptable weekend breakfast because shut up.

So it might not be healthy in terms of calories, but I'd rather sit down and split a single, chemical-free homemade, Nutella-filled pop tart with Mr. Scrimp any day than stock my pantry with brand-name cancer pastries.

Recipe: Homemade Oat Flour and Pancakes

I'm not gluten intolerant (as far as I know) but I do have an intolerance to both wheat and corn. When I was first diagnosed, back in grade school, my parents cut them both out of my diet. Over time, we phased them back in (on the advice of my allergist) and things seemed fine.

Recently, though, I've started having allergy problems again, so I'm cutting wheat and corn back out of my diet. As I start to explore wheat-alternative recipes and foods, I'd like to share my findings with you. Many of these will be gluten-free and safe for people with celiac disease. Others won't. Remember, wheat-free and gluten-free are not the same.

What can I do with these delicious looking things?

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck

Ok. So I've talked before about processed foods. Today, I want to focus specifically on one of them, one that--for no particular reason other than personal caprice--is possibly my most-hated example of the entire genre.

I'm talking, of course, about margarine.

Seriously? This is not even close to appetizing.

Why Organic?

One question I've never been asked is why Mr. Scrimp and I make an effort to eat organic, local, and/or unprocessed food whenever possible. I think that's because, particularly amongst our 20-something age group, eating organic and local has become a very fashionable thing to do, which makes it a very unfashionable thing to question.

But, I think it's worth discussing our reasons, because I know there are so many people out there who aren't doing it, and I believe it's very valuable.

So, here's a list of the reasons we changed our lifestyle like this.

Recipe(s): Strawberry Rhubarb Dessert

This week's CSA delivery included a pound each of rhubarb stalks and strawberries. Well, every Mrs. Scrimp knows what to do with those two fresh ingredients... make a pie!

I knew I'd be doing it as soon as I picked the food up on Friday, but I also knew that Mr. Scrimp and I would be camping in West Virginia for the weekend (I came home with literally eighteen--eighteen! I counted!--bug bites on my right arm alone, and that's after practically bathing in citronella). So, I washed and dried the rhubarb and put it in the fridge, and I washed, hulled, and halved the strawberries and froze them for the weekend.

On Sunday, we were invited to a barbecue, and I knew it was time for some pie action.  But I had no recipe... so, I made up my own.

Container Gardening Experiment: The Saga Begins

According to the chart that Burpee published and Home Depot hung in their garden center, today, May 25, is THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR to start planting seeds in Northern Ohio. So, I have duly planted a host of seedlings and am settling into the waiting game to see if any of them actually work their magic and, you know... grow.

I know some of my readers are fortunate enough to live in areas with a fair amount of available land to them. Mr. Scrimp and I, however, have a postage-stamp front lawn, a front step with a foot or two of space on it, and no back yard at all. So, traditional gardening just isn't really an option for us. We have a couple strips of rocky, weedy ground off to one side of our driveway, that gets just about the right mix of sun and shade to be perfect for growing plants in. That's it.

So? Container garden!

Product Review: Pomi Tomatoes

First off, sorry about the lack of posting this week. Things got crazy all at once and I was just so overwhelmed by it all that honestly, even logging in to say I wouldn't be posting felt like a bit too much. But I'm back now, so let's not dwell on the past!

Instead, let's talk about delicious food.

I've discussed my concerns about tomato products here in the past--the quality control issues, and the issues with chemicals in canned tomatoes. So you can imagine how happy Mr. Scrimp and I were to find that our local Whole Foods and our local Italian/import grocery store both carry Pomi tomatoes.

Gross!

"Federal agents descended on Kraft’s offices near Chicago and confronted Mr. Watson. He admitted his role in a bribery scheme that has laid bare a startling vein of corruption in the food industry. And because the scheme also involved millions of pounds of tomato products with high levels of mold or other defects, the case has raised serious questions about how well food manufacturers safeguard the quality of their ingredients."

If you haven't yet made the switch away from processed foods, I urge you to read this article in the New York Times and reconsider.

Mr. Scrimp and I do believe that, by and large, our food is well monitored and safe. We do eat some processed foods now and then, and Mr. Scrimp has yet to totally break his Taco Bell habit.

Still, I have to be honest and say that this is going to make it easier to break myself of those last few food habits that I haven't changed yet. I want to grow tomatoes this summer and can my own so that I can eat pasta sauces and soups without wondering exactly what I'm eating. I am angry and I am sick and tired of not knowing where my food is really coming from and how.

The peace of mind that comes with knowing that everything I eat and feed to my family is safe and fresh is well worth the extra effort and minimal expense involved.

via Accidental Hedonist

Recipe: Pasta

I recently got a pasta recipe from my old friend Liz, who writes the blog Slow Home Grown. I fiddled a bit with the proportions, put on my apron, rolled up my sleeves, and went for it.

Well, I'm happy to tell you that it worked really, really well, and I am here with photos to prove it, and a recipe so that all of you will immediately follow suit and make yourself some pasta from scratch. It was delicious. Neither Mr. Scrimp nor I had eaten all day and we ended up wolfing down pretty much all that I made... but that's ok, because it was also very easy.

If you own a pasta maker of some kind, well, good for you, and I'm envious. I don't, so my directions include how to make noodles without a pasta maker.

Unpackaged, London

So I got a link today to an article about a small grocery shop in London that doesn't sell packaged food. Just about everything they have is sold in bulk, and customers are responsible for bringing their own packaging, eliminating waste and long-term plastic storage of food. This is brilliant, and I desperately want a store like this to open here in Ohio so that I can shop there.

In the world of my daydreams, someday shopping will universally go back to this--recognizable food, sans plastic or styrofoam, that you can buy in exactly the increments you need, no more, no less, from a small store.

Totally apart from whether hardcore environmentalists have got it right, it seems to me that this is just a more desireable way to live, and it's what really lies behind the Scrimpalicious ethos. I have no problem with home-processed, dried, frozen, or otherwise stored food, but it's time to do away with all of this fake, processed stuff, wrapped in plastic, sterilized, and totally disconnected from its source.

You can read the full article about Unpackaged and see more photos at the Inhabitat website.

On Food

I am a big fan and proponent of eating healthy food. It's part of why I started this blog, in fact. Food is, to me, one of the most important facets of our lifestyle. But I realized today that, apart from posting recipes, I've done very little talking about food and what we feel it ought to be.

Put very simply, it's this--we don't eat "health food," we don't eat processed food, we do our best to eat local and/or organic, and we try not to eat a lot of fat or sugar. We've been doing that for six and a half months now, and we've both lost weight. More importantly, though, we have more energy, fewer aches and pains, I sleep better (I used to have terrible problems with insomnia), and we both feel just generally better.

I spent about two hours walking around the grocery store today. It normally only takes me about 30 minutes to get all my shopping done, but Mr. Scrimp was at work, and I didn't have a list with me, so I took the time to browse and really enjoy myself.

Normally I shop with a list, but even when I don't, I try to be guided by a few simple and easy-to-remember rules:

• Don't buy pre-made food. It will almost always be better if you buy the separate ingredients and make it yourself, even though it will be more time consuming. You will also have the benefit of knowing exactly what you're eating, all the time.
• Don't buy food with ingredients you can't pronounce or find at the grocery store. Chemical additives in food are a relatively new addition, and are mainly present (or have been up until recently) in American diets. There aren't enough data yet to solidly lay the blame for the terrible health of Americans on chemical food additives yet, as far as I know, but the circumstantial evidence continues to mount up, especially as highly processed food begins to make its way into Europe and previously healthy countries experience similar spikes in their rates of certain health problems. I am simply tired of putting things into my body that have only been eaten by humans for the last 20-40 years. It strikes me as folly.
• Don't buy foods that are artificially low-fat, fat-free, or "lite". This is especially true of things like "fat free half & half" or "fat free sour cream". Half & half is half milk, half cream. Sour cream is, well, sour cream. By their very nature, those products have fat in them. What that means is that in order to make them fat-free, they have to be so chemically tweaked and altered that what you're really eating or drinking is asoup of seaweed, starches, sugars, thickened skim milk, chemicals, and sugar, sugar, sugar. Fat is one of the things that makes food taste good. Sugars are one of the others. Diet food products might be low in fat, but they almost always have huge amounts of added sugars and sodium to make up for it--otherwise you'd be able to taste all the chemicals you're eating. 
• Don't buy imitation foods. This is sort of an addendum to the last rule--margarine, tofurkey, American "cheese product", and all those other bizarre foods are terrible for you. They are unhealthy. They are heavily processed. They are full of sugar and chemicals that are probably someday going to turn out to be toxic. And they don't even taste good. 
• Don't buy canned when you can get fresh or dried. There's evidence coming out that food stored long-term in aluminum cans gets chemicals leached into it. I was actually advised away from canned foods and beverages by my doctor a few years ago because most of the cans are lined with soft plastics in order to keep the food from developing a metallic taste, and the plastics can leach into food over time. Instead of canned beans, buy dried. Instead of canned tomatoes, buy fresh. Or at least buy foods canned in glass, or frozen.
  

 It's been long enough now that Mr. Scrimp and I can both tell the difference. Maybe not every day, but when we have occasion to eat processed foods or foods that contain a lot of chemical additives, it takes him about 30 minutes and me about 2 hours to start to really feel unwell as a result.

During some of my Christmas vacation, we didn't have time to go grocery shopping and so ended up eating a lot of pre-made, restaurant, or even fast-food for a few days. By the end of it, I felt terrible.

"Did I used to feel like this all the time?" I asked Mr. Scrimp, staring in the mirror at my puffy eyes and wan face as I downed a couple of Advil to kill the headache that I couldn't seem to get rid of. "Why did it take me so long to stop?"

He shrugged. "We were just so used to it that we didn't notice anymore, I guess."

You might read this and think, "You know, that's true for you, but I feel fine eating processed food. I don't feel like it's affecting my health or my sense of well-being. I've lost weight on my lite-foods diet and I think it tastes delicious."

I challenge you to cut those foods out completely for two months (it takes about that long to get over the food cravings and feeling constantly hungry), and then tell me you don't feel better.

Maybe you're just so used to it that you just don't notice how you really feel.

Recipe: Butter

Yep... butter. We mostly cook with oil, but sometimes you just gotta have butter, and there's nothing like really fresh butter. It's incredibly easy to make.

For best results, I recommend using low-heat pasteurized, non-homogenized cream, if you can get it in your area. The flavor is excellent.

Butter (makes about 1 cup)

Ingredients

• 1/2 quart cream
• Salt, to taste

Let cream warm to about 60 degrees. Pour into a mixer or food processor. (If using a mixer, I start with the whisk attachment and once the cream has whipped, I switch to the paddle).

Mix or process, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides of the bowl. After about 12-15 minutes, cream will grow yellowish and then separate (fairly quickly) into large clumps of butter and thin buttermilk. Watch for this so you don't end up splashing your whole kitchen with buttermilk.

Pour buttermilk off into a storage container to drink or use for baking. It's not cultured, so it won't be that thick, lumpy stuff you get at the store, but it definitely has a bit of sourness to it. Some people really like to drink it--Mr. Scrimp thinks it's disgusting.

Rinse butter in cold water until it's chilled and buttermilk is washed away. Turn onto a cutting board or countertop and knead/squeeze it to remove as much buttermilk and water as possible. Knead in salt, if desired. Pack into a glass container and store, covered, in the fridge.

Recipe: Bacon - Special Guest Post by Mr. Scrimp!

Mr. Scrimp here. Let’s take a moment to talk about meat. 

Specifically, bacon.

I feel, unfortunately, that bacon has sort of jumped the shark as of late. Bacon ice-cream, bacon vodka, and the accompanying bacontini. I’m not saying any of these things are bad. On the contrary, there is a certain appeal to the idea of a salty/meaty vodka concoction. This doesn’t change the fact that while a lot of people are talking about a lot of bacon, very few people are talking about the quality of the bacon that they eat.

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that you’ve never eaten good bacon. Ask yourself this question; “Did I buy the bacon in a supermarket?” If you answered yes, then the bacon was almost definitely bad. OK, let’s be honest, even bad bacon is still pretty tasty. However, good bacon is one of the greatest things you will ever eat and it is astonishingly easy to make, and I promise that you’ll have problems going back to the watery strips that people try to tell you is bacon.

Michael Ruhlman, a native of my own hometown, wrote an excellent book on charcuterie (called, appropriately, Charcuterie), which I highly recommend you purchase. At the most basic level, bacon requires two things: pork belly and salt. Pork belly can be purchased at a good butcher near you, or can be ordered online if you lack a butcher. At a butcher, pork belly should run you around 2.50$ to 3.50$ a pound. Ordering online will probably cost you a bit more, so make the effort to find a local butcher.

The other element is a basic dry-cure, which can be made in bulk and saved for multiple bacony applications in the future. The ingredients are as follows:

1 pound kosher salt

8 ounces sugar

2 ounces pink salt (pink salt is regular salt that has been mixed with sodium nitrate to prevent botulism and can be obtained here).

Sealed and refrigerated, the dry cure will last forever. Having made your dry-cure and obtained your pork belly, bacon is a scant week away. These are the directions for preparation:

Step 1: Dredge pork belly in dry cure until thoroughly and evenly coated.

Step 2: Refrigerate for 7-9 days in a non-reactive, sealed container (Pyrex or a Zip-loc bag will work just fine. Bacon should be rather firm (think medium well steak).

Step 3: Rinse clean, pat dry.

That’s it. If you order everything tonight, you are less than two weeks away from the best bacon you’ve ever eaten. Here’s the glorious thing though: that’s just the start. The dry cure is so simple and pork is so magical that you could throw in all sorts of flavors! Garlic and black pepper, orange zest, cumin and cayenne, maple syrup and brown sugar, ad infinitum!

You, my friends, can help rescue bacon from its supermarket purgatory. 

(Photo credit to this awesome blog entry about homemade bacon by Menu in Progress) 

Product Review: Pomona's Universal Pectin

Partly because it's fun, and partly because we eat very little sugar and low-sugar alternatives are all full of gross chemicals, I've started (occasionally) canning jelly.

If this sounds impossibly daunting, I am there with you! Jellymaking is one of those things that I've always viewed with a kind of embarrassed terror otherwise reserved for driving in downtown New York City and those dreams where you show up at school or work and don't realize until way too late that you're naked.

That being said, do yourself a favor and try making jelly sometime. Regardless of the fact that I have now set my stove on fire twice while  making jelly, I view it as one of the most rewarding projects I've ever completed.

Now, because we are solidly in the bleak midwinter and fresh fruit can be hard to come by (to say nothing of all the work involved), I recommend you start with an easy, no-fuss recipe like this one for grape jelly from store bought juice.

They say they're optional, but when you're just getting started I really can't recommend enough that you buy or obtain the pieces from a starter canning kit--tongs for removing jars from water, a funnel, etc. You can find jars and lids at Ace Hardware.

Which only leaves the question of the pectin.

I tried making jelly once with Sure-Jell. It was the pectin that the store was selling with the canning jars I bought. Why not? I thought to myself. Surely one pectin is like another. Right?

Wrong, past self. Oh, how wrong you were.

To make jelly with Sure-Jell and most other types of pectin, your recipe needs to have at least 50-60% sugar added to it. Otherwise the pectin won't activate and your jelly will be a very viscous and not very tasty or useful syrup. I found this out the hard way and ended up throwing out probably two gallons of potential jelly, and a full pound of sugar.

I also had a box of Pomona's Universal Pectin that I'd picked up at Whole Foods, so I girded up my loins and gave it a try.

Pomona's is activated by calcium powder (included in the package) instead of sugar. As a result, you can use it to make jelly with very little added sugar. You can even use it to make jelly with artificial sweeteners, honey, or just the natural sugars in concentrated fruit juice. That's right--no added sugar. I like things tart, so this is right up my alley.

Each box of Pomona's also comes with a handy dandy little insert that has recipes for multiple kinds of jam and jelly, both canned and frozen, from fresh fruit or from juice. It is very easy to use, works like a charm, and did I mention that you don't need to drown your fruit in sugar in order to get it to jell?

If you're ever going to give jelly a try, or already like to make jelly and want to cut sugar out of your recipe, get ahold of Pomona's. It's worth ordering online and waiting for if there are no local stores that carry it in your area (our Whole Foods only has it in stock during the late summer and early fall).

Remember, before you start canning or preserving things, to read up on proper hygiene and food safety. It's very easy to preserve food of all kinds at home (Mr. Scrimp will be writing an entry on charcuterie soon), but it's of huge importance to do it safely.

And now I think my stove has cooled down enough that I can scrape the charred, caramelized apple juice off the burner. Sigh.

Food for Thought

Well, I'm happy to announce that after 24 hours of intense antibiotics and a day in bed being tended by the saintly Mr. Scrimp, I'm starting to feel human again. The blog will be moving to a new domain this weekend so posting may (or may not) still be fairly light.

It's been a week or two since I talked much about the Scrimp household's food choices. We try very hard to eat as little processed food as possible. This saves money in the long run, and it is far, far healthier.

Found this article yesterday. Even if you still eat processed food, this is worth considering. Small changes in your eating habits can lead to big differences. It's been about six months since Mr. Scrimp and I started making a real effort to avoid processed food and we both feel much, much healthier and generally all-around better.

News articles about things like this are often sensationalized, so take it with a grain of salt--but it's very true that food is less nutritious than it used to be, and modern farming and food storage practices are part of that. My doctor long ago recommended against storing food in plastic, or in aluminum cans, which are lined with soft plastics to keep the aluminum taste out of the food, because of chemicals that can leach from the plastic into the food. 


The 7 Foods Experts Won't Eat - Yahoo News (via Fark)

PSA

So, this message is really only relevant to those of you in the Ohio area, but the spirit of it extends beyond that.

Husband and I were at Whole Foods doing a grocery run this afternoon. We're big milk drinkers, so we'd put a gallon of the Whole Foods brand into our cart and were leaving the dairy aisle when we were stopped by a guy at a display table with samples of organic milk. I was thirsty, and I am always up for organic milk, so we chatted with him and got a sample of the 2% milk.

That was about half an hour ago and I can still taste the delicious milky aftertaste in my mouth. I kid you not, this stuff was the best non-raw milk I've ever tasted. It comes from a place called Snowville Creamery, which is down by Columbus. They don't ultra-pasteurize; they only heat it to the minimum allowed temperature, which retains a much better flavor in the milk, although it keeps the shelf life at only (only!) 14 days or so. I was sort of shocked to learn that the milk we were buying, because it was ultra-pasteurized, had an expected shelf life of up to 60 days! That just seems.. wrong.

The milk is also non-homogenized, which means that when it's been sitting in your fridge, you need to take it out and shake it before you drink it, because the cream separates out. I used to spend my summer vacations on a working dairy farm, so that brings back happy memories for me.

We put our gallon of 1% milk back and picked up a half-gallon of Snowville Creamery 2% instead. It's $2.99 for a half-gallon, so it's almost double what we usually pay for milk, which is a problem, because we drink milk everyday in fairly copious amounts. We're in the process of deciding whether this is a special-occasion milk, or if we're willing to cut spending somewhere else in order to be able to afford to drink this stuff all the time.

If you live in the Cleveland or Columbus area, you've got to try this stuff out. I haven't even told you everything about their rad sustainability practices or natural milk philosophy yet.