In my last post, I shared with you my first Every Day Chef contest entry, Pumpkin Pie Parfaits. Today I will share with you a delicious holiday starter, Autumn Bisque.

Here is my inspiration for the recipe:

“I love cooking seasonally, and autumn is my favorite season. I adore the bright orange squashes that are so plentiful this time of year. We are hosting Thanksgiving this year, and I wanted to create a wonderful seasonal starter with delicious local vegetables, local beer and sharp cheddar cheese – all three things we are known for in terms of food culture here in Vermont.”

So yes, this delicious and creamy soup contains, vibrant orange winter squash, local beer, sharp cheddar cheese and BACON! So what’s not to love? Please click on this link to see the recipe and vote ! It only takes a second, you don’t need to register to vote, or anything. AND, you can vote everyday! So if you feel inspired and like both this recipe and the Pumpkin Pie Parfaits, you can vote for both, everyday until November 14th! Thank you so much!

Today is a very exciting day for me; one of the posts I wrote for my homesteading blog was featured on the blog of one of my personal heroes today, Gene Logsdon’s blog, The Contrary Farmer.

I am really in awe right now and truly honored. Gene, along with Wendell Berry and David Kline, among many others, notably, Joel Salatin, are such amazing and down to earth (literally, in so many ways) advocates for the agrarian movement. Their writing has inspired and taught me so much. So to have my writing featured on a blog of Gene’s writings is well, just WOW.

Thank you so much to Dave Smith and Gene Logsdon for featuring my post! If you want to follow my homesteading adventures, please check out my blog Got Goats? – we are on facebook too and would appreciate if you could “like” us! THANK YOU!

Delicious Maple Smoked Bacon and Pork Loin

Before I get to the “meat” of my post, I want to give a great big THANK YOU to Rachel and the team from ThriftCultureNow.com for featuring me and this blog, as the Thrifty Blogger of the Week . You can follow them on facebook and get their Thrifty Tip of the day, on their facebook page I have to hand it to Rachel for painting me, the blog and our lifestyle in such a wonderful way. So please check out the article, and their website for more great info!

So last week, I shared with you a comprehensive post about breaking down a whole pig into useable parts, the genius of my friend Cole Ward, The Gourmet Butcher (who was also nice enough to give me a shout out on his blog, recently) and the making of fresh sausages.

This week in my Value Added Products class at Sterling College, our instructor, Chef Anne Obelnicki showed us about the art of curing, fermenting and smoking meats. We pretty much used up the rest of the pig yesterday. It was a long day – 10 hours of standing, cutting, simmering, mixing, grinding and stuffing in a hot and humid kitchen. I totally lost count of how many times I washed my hands in the first 5 minutes.  When I got home around 7, Roberto had dinner ready. I scarfed it down and went to bed shortly after. Dealing with a whole animal, even when you break it up into two days, is hard work, but it is also FUN. You get such a huge feeling of accomplishment from the whole process! Plus it is really fun working with a few other people feverishly to get it all done!

Yesterday we hot smoked the maple bacon and brined pork loins we started curing last week. We also smoked the hocks and the bones. Nothing on this pig went to waste. We trimmed the jowls to start curing guanciale and used the second shoulder to make fermented sausages – spicy sopressata and hunter’s loop. We also made another brine for the 2 hams – we injected the brine first and then placed the hams in the leftover brine to continue curing. These products will have to ferment and cure for several weeks, so I am not sure I will be able to taste the outcome. But the preparation was an education in and of itself, and has led to a lot more questions for me, mainly about the use of nitrites.

“Pink Salt”, spice blend for spicy sopressata and wood chips soaking

I guess it is a good thing that I don’t want to make sausages for a living, as Roberto and I have been avoiding foods with nitrites for several years now. I did a lot of reading this week about charcuterie, and it seems that if you are going to age anything that will not be cooked at some point, nitrites are used.  For example, you don’t need nitrites to cure bacon, since that will be hot smoked once it has cured. But you do use nitrites to make salami, sopressata and various other cured meats that will not be cooked.

Apparently nitrites are naturally occurring and can be found in dirt, rocks, etc as well in an abundance of vegetables, most notably beets and celery, which is what some producers of cured meats use in the place of “pink salt” ( “pink salt” is salt mixed with a smaller amount of powdered nitrites that is dyed pink so that you don’t sprinkle it on your eggs by mistake) when curing.  So even “Nitrate Free” foods still contain nitrites, even if it is just in the form of celery juice, because nitrites are naturally occurring.

Nitrites do two things when curing – preserves the food and contributes to aesthetics – namely color and taste. It reacts in the meat to form nitric oxide which retards rancidity and suppresses the growth of harmful bacteria, like the ones that cause botulism. However, nitrites react with amino acids in our digestive tract to create nitrosamines, known DNA-damaging chemicals.  Not only that, but you know it is harmful when it is suggested to use gloves when working with “pink salt” and other forms of curing salt. Yes, it is supposed to convert to something less harmful through the aging process, but can something like that ever be truly safe?

According to Harold McGee, the author of famed book : On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, “…yet at present there is no clear evidence that the nitrites in cured meats increase the risk of developing cancer…” yet he also exclaims in the same book when comparing the difference in taste between grass and grain-fed beef that “another important contributor to grass-fed flavor is skatole, which on its own smells like manure!” and also, “the saturated fats typical of meats raise blood cholesterol levels and can contribute to heart disease”. So personally, I think I will take his lax attitude towards nitrites with a grain of sea salt.

This issue of nitrites is something I definitely need to explore more. Like, is there a difference between naturally occurring nitrites, like celery juice and sodium nitrite which is added to many processed foods.  Luckily we don’t eat much cured meat or any processed foods.  Just bacon once a week…and our favorite prosciutto – Prosciutto di Parma which I also learned in the Harold McGee book,  is cured with sea salt not nitrites.

But the fact that an old and revered food art, like charcuterie has a long use of nitrites in its history is a little disheartening and I was pretty bummed to learn about it. I guess you can’t assume just because it is a traditional art, or because it is “natural” it is good for you.  I guess in the case of cured meats, it is the lesser of two evils – botulism or nitrites? I am not sure I like the odds.

If you have more information about nitrites, the differences (or NOT) between naturally occurring and things like “pink salt”, I want to hear about it! So please leave a comment.

Happy New Year to all my readers! I wish you all, health, happiness, love and prosperity in 2011! Blogging has given me all of these things, and I am eternally grateful for all of your support these past years. The Leftover Queen is going to be better than ever this year! So please make sure you are subscribed to my  email updates, RSS feeds,  and my NEW Monthly Newsletter (see box at the top right).  You aren’t going to want to miss a single post! This year I will be focusing more than ever on my homesteading adventures, cooking real food, making my own convenience foods, making dairy products and much, much more! Make sure you are following me on Facebook (if link does not work do a search for: The Leftover Queen) and Twitter (@leftoverqueen), I often post things on there that I don’t blog about, and there are often many interesting conversations going on!

Last year I made a list of food goals for myself – and I am happy to look back at them, and see that I accomplished every single one, even though I don’t think I looked at the list once since I wrote it. The only thing I didn’t accomplish was getting sheep and goats. But that is in the works and will *hopefully* be happening this spring. The barn is just waiting for them!

In 2010, after moving to Northern Vermont, I have basically become a full-time locavore. The majority of the foods we eat are local or something we have grown ourselves. If it isn’t local, we at least buy it from a local, independent store, instead of a chain. Even our holiday celebrations are locavore. This means we have eaten the freshest foods and best ingredients, while supporting our local economy, even in these hard times. It is because of this, that I am now, more than ever convinced that everyone, no matter what their economic situation is or how busy they are, can find a way to feed their family the best, freshest food possible. We are living proof of that truth – with full time jobs, raising animals, growing food plus all our other extra-curricular activities and crazy schedules. We always share dinner together at the table, as a family – every single day.

These are all good changes. I am extremely happy with how much I learned about homesteading this past year, and look forward to many more years on this journey. I have finally found my calling in life, and it is simple: become more sustainable, more self-reliant and bring back the old, tried and true ways of doing things. This is the best way I know how to honor and respect my ancestors. Something that is so important to my spiritual practices. This means constantly evolving and learning new skills and techniques – in the kitchen, the garden, the barn and the woodlands. I want to create the kind of life where when we have a family, our children will grow up with all these skills as second nature. Something neither Roberto nor I ever had.

This year, to continue on this journey, my goals are:

Food Goals 2011

Discover the foods of my ancestors and learn about the traditional preparation of those foods~

I have learned quite a lot about my ancestry this year. As an adoptee, this has been a lifelong journey, that I was finally able to get some answers to, after following my new year’s resolution in 2010 to get my DNA tested.  I strongly believe that the best foods for an individual to eat, are those foods that their ancestors ate. Which had a lot to do with motivation towards this goal.  As individuals we have come up through the ages, riding on the coat-tails of those that have gone before us. I wrote a bit about that in this post.

So look for recipes this year from the following cuisines, as I explore the foods of my ancestors: English, Scottish, German, Danish, Dutch and perhaps even some Mohawk recipes.

Play more with dairy products ~

My doctor told me that although wheat and gluten really mess my body up – that I am one of those rare people that have a good reaction to dairy – that it actually helps me, and gives me energy! This made me so happy! I love dairy. So although in 2010 I learned the techniques for making yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, cheeses, crème fraiche, etc, I want to perfect the recipes and play with them – learn to use them even more in my cooking and flavor them.

Play more with home-brewing techniques ~

I usually make a batch of limoncello every year – but now that we are not in Florida, it wouldn’t be a locavore thing to do. So I am thinking this year about mead. Something my ancestors definitely enjoyed and definitely using local ingredients.

Eat more liver, wild caught seafood and roe ~

All important components of a healthy fertility diet. This couples nicely with one of my personal goals and wishes for the new year!

Just wanted to take this moment to thank all my readers for inspiring me year after year to write this blog and in turn grow as a cook! I definitely pay attention to your feedback, and it helps me to determine the direction the blog takes. So here are your favorite posts of 2010 – as determined by the number of comments!

Looks like my readers like Pancakes (especially when they are disastrous!), Eating Organic On The Cheap and Healthy and Frugal recipes! So I will make sure to keep those kinds of posts coming in the New Year!

The Incredible Edible Egg

Kitchen Disasters: Pancakes

Goat Fromage Blanc with Garbanzo Bean Crackers

Creamy Tomato Soup and 7 Things

Eating Organic On The Cheap

Nourishing and Comforting Shepard’s/ Cottage Pie (less than $3 a serving)

Aebleskiver: Danish Pancakes

Homemade Lacto-Fermented Condiments

Food Preservation: My Life As A Squirrel

Have Food Will Travel

Safe & Happy New Year to all of you!

I don’t go to the grocery store very often anymore. I am lucky to have a variety of year-round farmers markets, local farm stores and independently locally owned markets that sell locally made food available to me. Generally going to the grocery store means that I am really really pressed for time, or desperately need something I can’t get at these stores like paper products. To save on gas, I might pick up some organic staples while I am there and make due for the week with what I have in the pantry and freezer. But I know that not everyone has this variety of Local Love available. So I wanted to talk about how the average person living pretty much anywhere, can eat organic and local and SAVE money.

Many months ago I had such an experience. We were actually still in Florida. I had just stocked up on frozen organic berries for smoothies and some organic meat ( which was on sale) and I was getting all my dairy to make cheese, yogurt and kefir for the week (not a farmers market week). The woman in front of me had her cart, which was not as full as mine, with frozen dinners, boxed lasagna, bags of frozen meals – where you add your own meat, soda and a few organic veggies (she was trying)– enough food for maybe a week of meals. I made sure to take note of her total just for curiosity’s sake. When my cart was rung up, my bill was only $2 more than hers. I had loads of fruits and veggies, grassfed beef, organic meats, frozen organic berries, eggs, dairy and pantry staples – things I would be using over the next several weeks. This really amazed me, because I have been told so often that eating the way we do, is too expensive for the average Joe or Joan. So much so, that I was actually starting to believe it.

This event has stayed with me all these months, and so when Andrew from Eating Rules asked me to guest post for his October: Un-Processed challenge (you can still take the challenge!!!), I enlisted the help of friend, fellow blogger and grocery store resister, Melissa from Alosha’s Kitchen to write a post about how eating locally and organic has reduced the cost of our food bills over a year by about 30-35%!!!

If you want to see how we did it, I suggest popping over to Andrews blog and reading all about it!

Learn how to  have fun in the kitchen and support your local community, while feeding your family healthy and nutritious meals that taste WAY better than pre-packaged fodder, for less than the cost of eating every meal out, or takeout, or from the frozen food section! Try it yourself and see what happens! There are several recipes in the post to help get you started! Enjoy and Have FUN!

This week has been spectacular in terms of media relations for this blog and for The Foodie Blogroll. I had an interview on The Afternoon News with Richard Brown earlier this week, and today a long awaited article about this blog and The Foodie Blogroll appeared in this week’s Seven Days, an altweekly  Burlington, Vermont Newspaper!

I feel extremely lucky and blessed with all this recent attention. I want to thank my loyal readers and Foodie Blogroll members for all your support of this blog and the blogger network all these years. Without you, none of this would have been possible. THANK YOU!!!! I will continue to do my best writing post about wholesome, natural foods on a budget, as well as continue my efforts  in partnering with great gourmet food companies and cookbook authors, to give you the best giveaways than any other food blogger network! The team behind The Foodie Blogroll may be small, but the network is a force to be reckoned with, with over 30 million monthly hits our widget is the most popular amongst food bloggers! So THANK YOU!

Please check out the Seven Days article here!

From top, clockwise: Happy Boloco people, Inspired Burritos, My buddy Matt hard at work, Happy Bloggers – me, Cheryl and Greg from CrankyCakes)

This week I attended my first foodie event in our new (again) home state of Vermont! Again and again I am reminded in subtle ways why we moved back to this great state, and this was no exception.

Pairing is Caring was held on Monday, August 16th and joined the forces of Boloco Inspired Burritos and Magic Hat Brewing Company . I was invited as part of the press pack on behalf of PMG Public Relations. PMG stands for People Making Good. PMG is not your typical PR firm, they are local to Vermont and focus on healthy brands. Brands that care about the environment, culture and responsibility. PMG has core knowledge of issues, goals and philosophies behind socially and environmentally responsible business and their targeted audience. So thanks PMG for a great night out!

The proceeds from Pairing is Caring went to icouldbe.org, a leading online e-mentoring program that matches middle and high school students with adult mentors from all over the country. Funds raised from this event will be used to implement an icouldbe.org mentoring program in one of Vermont’s public schools. It is easy to become a mentor with icouldbe.org – it takes about an hour a week to connect with your “mentee” but can make all the difference in the world to them and the path of their lives. It all takes place online, making it all the more manageable for people with busy schedules. So check it out today!

We had the chance to sample all eight varieties of Boloco burritos as well as 4 Magic Hat brews – the goal was to see which pairings of burritos and beer were a match made in heaven.

Boloco is not just a burrito shop, it is a business that cares about people, both customers and workers. It cares about the environment by serving drink and food in corn cups and bamboo bowls. It’s about naturally-raised meats and organic tofu. It’s about composting and recycling and reusing building materials. CEO John Pepper in his presentation to kick off the night, discussed many of the goals for his shops. Mostly centering around being part of the community and about changing the face of the fast food world, where customer opinion matters and where employees can make a real living, and even career with their jobs.

This philosophy really shines through when you talk to the servers, the people behind the counter. Like my new friend Matt, who gave me the full menu run down, after I told him that this was my first time eating at Boloco. Matt was very well informed about the flexibility offered on the menu and clearly passionate about the ingredients and food philosophy of the restaurant. In one simple word, he was inspired, just like the burritos. I mentioned to John, the CEO towards the end of the night how impressed I was with Matt. He wasn’t surprised. He knows his employees and works closely with them to make sure that each person at Boloco is true to the vision. This is not your average fast food establishment, people.

As for the beer, well anyone who loves a good microbrew should be familiar with Magic Hat, whether you are in New England or not. Magic Hat is one of the pioneers of the microbrew movement, and has achieved much acclaim.

Now on to the Food and Drink section of this blog post! So as I mentioned, we were able to sample all 8 varieties of Boloco Burritos as well as a special burrito just for the event and 4 Magic Hat Brews.

BURRITOS AND BREWS

Burritos:

Buffalo Chicken
Memphis BBQ
The Summer
Bangkok Thai
Teriyaki
Yucatan Habanero
Cajun
Classic Mexican
Spicy BLT (this was created just for the event, and will be featured on the menu in the coming months – it features local bacon, cheeses and veggies).

Brews:
#9
Hex
High PA
Odd Notion

My personal favorite pairings were as follows:

Memphis BBQ and Hex
Buffalo Chicken and Odd Notion

Disclaimer: I did not personally try all 9 burritos or all 4 beers. I didn’t sample Bangkok Thai or Teriyaki burritos since both had soy products in them, tofu in one and soy sauce in the other. But those who did try them really liked them. I also did not try High PA as I am not a fan of IPAs and I didn’t drink #9 either, since I am already familiar with the beer, and although I like it, it is not my favorite of the Magic Hat varietals.

The Memphis BBQ burrito was my over all favorite of the night. It was filled with all natural pork carnitas, sweet bbq sauce, cole slaw, pinto beans and rice. It had a wonderful bbq flavor and the pork was melt in your mouth tender. Not to mention it has coleslaw in it – and I am a known cole slaw fanatic. I have never met one I didn’t like, and that is the truth.

The Buffalo Chicken was nice and spicy, but not overwhelmingly so. If you like buffalo wings and all the traditional accoutrements, this would certainly satisfy the craving and is a lot less messy.

I also believe that the Yucatan Habanero is worth mentioning – filled with grass-fed humanely raised steak and pickled onions, with a spicy habanero sauce, it satisfied my spicy tastebuds. Although for some it was too hot, so bear that in mind when ordering.

As for the beer, I really loved Hex, and could see myself buying it. It is a seasonal beer, amber in color with hints of toffee, caramel and smoke, all flavors that I am looking for in my beer. I also enjoyed the Odd Notion, a Belgian style beer with flavors of coriander, bitter orange peel and a hint of green apple. This brew was really refreshing, and just a bit odd – in a really good way!

So to wrap up, all in attendance had a great night at the event – the food and drink were really good, and the passion of the people involved in all aspects of the event, from the hosts, organizers and charities it was funding, was infectious. What I brought away from the night is that people have a lot of choices when you find yourself out and needing to eat at a restaurant. So why not support the local ones who also support the local food shed, and the people they work with to make your dining experience unforgettable? Spend your dollars wisely. We all have a choice, and we can all make a difference by making small choices that add up. There are inexpensive places to enjoy food that not only tastes good, but is also trying to make the world a better place, one burrito at a time.