Happy Birthday Season, Fieldfare ... Perfect Lamb...

The original recipes that follow are included in the keepsake book I have written and published privately, entitled, - Life in the Kitchen - clabbering, fermenting, sprouting, souring -building and collecting- in the heart of your home - for Joy and Good Health. Along with designs and tips from the farmouse kichen here, the book also includes recipes I have developed using healthful olive oil, whey and your own Simple Cheese in delicious, “Right This Whey”, baked goods. You are welcome to the following three recipes from my book for your own personal use.
For further information about my book, or to order your own copy (each copy is made individually), please email fieldfare@klis.com or write:
Pons Angeli Press, Box 1 RR1, Glenwood, Nova Scotia B0W 1W0

- and very best wishes, from this farmhouse kitchen, to your own!

Kathleen A. Wilson

How to make curds and whey in consistent, family-sized amounts:

First, the definition of a term; i.e. Simple Cheese. What I like to call, Simple Cheese, most people think of as ‘fresh cheese’. I urge you to think of Simple Cheese, as ‘fresh cheese’, with the mystery removed. With a little whisper of an apology to the dairy industry, I think that there’s been far too much mystery in this simple, old kitchen stand-by, for far too long.
To make excellent curds and whey in your own kitchen, you need milk from a good dairy, and you need to pay attention to one Rule (well, one Rule with two Parts): low heat, and slow-going, time-wise.
Here’s how we do this here (and if you do not have a similar cast iron, enamel-lined saucepan -which I will say is ideal- you can still achieve excellent results with a double-boiler, so long as you keep in mind that all-important two-part Rule..)
So, It helps if you have a pan that's good and heavy -and it's perfect if it's lined with enamel, though stainless steel is also fine (no aluminum for cheese-making, however).

You'll also need, 2 litres/2 quarts 2% m.f. milk, white vinegar, and a stainless steel sieve, and a stainless steel slotted spoon. Very useful is a screen disc, to serve as an open-air cover for your heating milk.

Our stove is electric, and the controls go from MIN (1) to MAX (10), and we put two quarts of milk in our 2 qt. Copco saucepan, and set the temp at between 2 and 3, and slightly closer to 2 (the engineer here calls this setting, 2 and 1/3, but he may be overly drawn to precision). I cover the pan of milk with one of those round, screen-like discs, which I think are generally used to prevent splattering in cooking, but we use ours for curds and whey.(so, basically, except for this sort-of cover, which you can think of to keep spiders out, you're not covering your milk while it is heating). I time this process and return to the pot of slowly-heating milk in 1 and 1/2 hours, and even longer, up to two hours is fine, though it is wise to remember that even slow-heating milk will boil eeventually. What you should see when you return is that although a skin has formed on the top of your milk, the milk is not boiling or even simmering at all -it shouldn’t be. Remove the skin from the top with a slotted spoon, discard the top skin, and turn the heat down to between MIN and 2 (so, MIN and 2/3, the engineer’s way), and pour in 1/3 cup of white vinegar, all at once. Stir this in very slowly, very gently, until your milk has separated completely, into a mass of lovely white curds, and a clearish-greenish-yellowish liquid -which is whey. Strain the curds, and add whatever you like to these milk solids, or keep them plain, and from then on of course they should be refrigerated -and keep the whey in a jar in your refrigerator, for baking, for drinking, adding to things, whatever. We consider whey a miracle product, using it all the time here, and of course, your Simple Cheese, well ... you’re likely to think it’s ...simply a marvel....

Our Daily Bread Recipe (an easy recipe for old-fashioned Graham Bread):

We have made this bread, with slight variations, nearly every day for many years. I offer this easy recipe in its step-by-step version for those who, like we do, bake regularly and might like to try a bread with the healthful benefits of added whey, and with olive oil for shortening. A few words, first.
As a ‘daily baker’, I have long wanted a method for maintaining the freshness of our daily loaf, with ‘environmentally benign’-as well as effective - packaging/storage of the loaf, and last year we came up with the idea and the design of the Bread Bed and Dream Slicer of Fieldfare. My husband says something about the elegance of simplicity as a function of perfect and complex engineering in design, and I humbly submit the Bread Bed and Dream Slicer of Fieldfare as proof of the validity of such a concept. That, and also this, it taught me: Keep plugging, and you’ll get there.
Packaging is simple -standard waxed paper. There are no fasteners; the sides of the Bread Bed hold the waxed paper in place, completely covering the standard-sized loaf. Turned over, the Bread Bed becomes cooling rack, first, and Dream Slicer, once your loaf is cool. Now the recipe, in baby steps, in case you’re a first-timer. Welcome to ...Our Daily Bread!

First, you gather together -along with your own Spirit of willingness and high adventure- the following ingredients and materials:

Ingreds. - whey (of course, you can substitute another liquid, within reason; use the same amounts as those given); salt; molasses; corn syrup; brown sugar; light tasting/extra light olive oil; whole wheat four; white flour; granular yeast ('Traditional' , not 'bread machine')

Materials: a timer; two bowls, one to mix and hold your Graham Flour (you’ll be making your own), and one comfortable, good-sized stainless steel mixing bowl, in which you'll be doing all the heating, mixing, kneading, and loaf-shaping; measuring spoons, measuring cups, mixing spoon, strong two-tyned pie or meat fork (your 'dough hook' if you were a machine, doing this); pastry brush, one standard-sized loaf pan. (I find aluminum to be the absolute best for this purpose, but this is a matter of personal choice of course)

Method:

Make one rule of Graham flour, which is: 1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour, plus 1/4 cup wheat germ, and added to this, 3 Tablespoons light tasting olive oil. Rub the oil into the ww flour + wheat germ with a pastry blender sort of attitude and implement. This mixture is called Graham Flour.

Now, for this recipe, add to your Graham Flour, 1 cup of all purpose flour, and mix this well in, and these are your standard dry ingredients (i.e. for quick 'dumping in', once your liquids are ready for that step); in addition to this flour mixture you've measured out, have at hand (reserve this for the kneading and dusting step) an additional cup of flour; this latter cup, to be added to your bread dough more gradually.

Now, and this is where 'having the right gear' is helpful -
In a stainless steel mixing bowl, (best if it has a somewhat pronounced, flat-ish bottom, rather than a rounded bottom), place 1 and 1/3 cups of whey, 1 tsp. of salt, 1/8 cup molasses, 1/8 cup corn syrup, 1 tsp. brown sugar (or sweeteners to your own taste, but these are what we use), stir these liquids and salt and sugars together, and heat this mixture in this bowl, which is your every-step bowl, soon) on medium heat, for five minutes or so, then remove the bowl from the heat, and cool this mixture to yeast-adding temperature (that being, a temperature slightly warmer than tepid, but NOT hot, since excessive heat kills yeast), and when you are satisfied that the liquid is 'not too hot, not too cold, but JUST right', and yeast can be added, sprinkle 1/2 Tablespoon of granular yeast ('Traditional' yeast, not the bread machine variety) onto the surface of the liquid ingredients, -don't stir it- and cover your bowl with a tea towel for several minutes (nine, fine).
After these several minutes have passed (by the way, your bowl should be in a warmish, draft-free, hospitable-to-yeast sort of spot), lift the tea towel, and you should observe that the surface of the liquid mixture now looks sort of foamy where you sprinkled the yeast -and by the way, if it does not look foamy, you probably should repeat the liquid steps, from scratch, but as you read this, have some confidence that this shall not be necessary, because frankly, it has never happened to me ( our yeast is used frequently, though) Now stir around the foamy liquid, and then add the Graham flour mixture, all at once, mixing it well in with the two-tyned meat fork, making the fork work as much of the flour as possible into the liquids as you stir. Catch as much flour and moisture as you can with this fork, all around the bowl, bottom and sides. When you've worked in as much flour with the fork as the dough will bear, you are then ready to begin kneading the dough with your hands. By the way, all of this is being done in the stainless steel mixing bowl, so there's no real mess involved, and even the kneading step is quite easy with this recipe, in my opinion, because the amounts of ingredients are quite close to what's actually needed in the finished loaf.To knead, sprinkle flour from that extra cup you poured at the start, onto the surface of your dough, and work these dustings of flour into the ball of dough, mostly with the heel of your hand, until the dough no longer sticks to the bowl or to your hands, and until, in the words of the old woman who taught me to make bread many years ago, your bread dough "feels like a baby's behind”, or, as I describe it, until you sense, in the ball of dough, the resistance of a living thing.*[a philosophical, philological, etymological, -Linguistic- Note here: "resistance" is NOT Always "living"-but that gets a bit Deep for our purposes here, and we’ll leave Black Holes -i.e. the Dark Matter of the Universe- to another discussion]. This kneading can take 5-7 minutes -or even less, once you’re familiar with the feeling. The ingredients are quite right in this recipe, I find, making the kneading step -though doing it properly is still all-important- less of 'a federal production'. (In any case, you probably will have some flour left over in that extra cup you have at hand. Keep it at hand for the loaf-shaping step.}

Now, oil the bowl by dropping 1 tsp. of olive oil down the sides of the bowl, coat the dough lightly over its entire surface by passing it over the sides and bottom of the oiled bowl. (what you're doing in this step is protecting the dough with a very light -very very light- coating of oil, so that no air enters and the yeast can thrive as it's rising) Now cover the dough [too tightly is not necessary] first with waxed paper, and then cover the bowl with a damp tea towel. Set your bread dough to rise in a warmish place (inside the oven, with just the oven light on, is quite ideal for this) for 1 hour and a half. When you take it out, your dough should be about double the size it was when you first set it to rise. If you leave it too long, it shall fall and sour...

Now, until you get used to this [really very easy] breadmaking process, you may find this next part the trickiest, but ease yourself into it as follows:

Get the loaf pan ready, by lightly brushing all inside surfaces of it, even the top edges with your very light olive oil, in case your bread really gets some spring in the oven, and the crust ends up sticking to those edges. Have your somewhat diminished cup of flour at hand; you'll probably need a few more little dustings of flour over your dough at this point. Now you are going to punch down the dough and shape your loaf, hopefully, so that it doesn't appear too much as though you are a bread apprentice -though, in fact, you are, and in fact, on occasion, we all are, if we are slipshod here.

Again, you don't want that dough too moist, which translates into too dense and dough-y in the finished product, and too sticky or oil-y here. Lightly dust the top surface, if it sticks to your hands at all, and punch the dough flat to get all big air bubbles out Work in that slight dusting of flour, by continuing to lightly punch it in, over the flattened surface.Now turn the dough over, and lightly dust the other side, if it’s needed, and work that in, too. Now roll up the flat dough, pressing it fairly tightly as you do this, so that, when your bread is finished, you don't see this [“rolling”] step in each slice, then pinch and turn under the ends, place your loaf in the pan, and lightly -very very lightly- brush the to of the loaf with olive oil. Set this to rise, covered with a tea towel, in your oven with only its little light on, and here's the timing and procedure from here.
Set a timer for 15 minutes. When it goes off, carefully remove the tea towel, without disturbing the loaf, but leave it in the oven to rise another 15 minutes. At the end of that period, carefully remove the risen loaf from your oven and set it on top of your stove (assuming your stovetop is only warm, and not HOT, while preheating). Then preheat your oven to 400 F. This takes about 7 or 8 minutes here, which means that the total time for the second rising of your loaf is close to 40 minutes. When the oven reaches 400 F, carefully set the loaf in the center of the oven, carefully close the oven door (sudden jarring movements or changes to suddenly lower temp will cause your loaf to fall at this point), and set your timer for 15 minutes. Open the oven door, very lightly brush the top of your half-baked loaf with either melted butter or light olive oil (we use olive oil), turn your loaf around to ensure even baking, shut the oven door, and immediately turn the heat down to 350F, and bake for, at most, 17 minutes longer. (It usually is closer to 16 minutes.)
Turn the loaf out of the pan onto a rack to cool. It should give a hollow sound when you tap it.
I brush the finished loaf all over ('very very lightly') with olive oil. Wait about fifteen minutes to slice and serve.

A Little Something for other dear creatures of the Earth (we sometimes call these, You-and-your-dog’s-cookies, and with a few variations, they are called, You-and-your-animals’-crackers)

Mix all these together -

1 heaping cup of whole wheat flour*, with another cup standing by for dusting the ball of dough
generous 1/3 cup brewers' yeast
generous 1/3 cup cornmeal
generous 1/3 cup millet or rolled oats
1 eggshell, that has been cleaned, dried, and crushed as fine as you can
4 crushed kelp tablets (the ones I use are 650 mg. each)
a generous pinch of baking soda
[2 crushed pantothenic acid tablets (250 mg each)]
[3 PABA capsules [contents of] 300 mg each]

[those last two items in brackets are optional]

in a mixing bowl, mix together:

1 egg
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup whey
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses or corn syrup

Method;
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients all at once, and stir around with a strong two-tyned meat fork, picking up all dry ingreds from sides of bowl, and then dust with flour til you can knead the dough (not a lot of kneading, just til everything's well in) without it sticking to your hands or the bowl very much. Then, as evenly as you can, roll it out on baking sheet that you've covered with waxed paper (I find this easiest, because i use the same baking sheet a lot), score this rolled out dough in shapes as you like, prick all over for even baking and bake at 350 F for 13 minutes. Turn off the heat, but keep your biscuits on their sheet in the oven til completely cool (this is for hardening the biscuits). When the pan of biscuits is cool, break them up and store somewhere not-too-tightly covered, so they harden even more.

*Buckwheat flour is also excellent, when available, and indeed, almost anything can be thrown into this biscuit recipe, in these proportions, though I am on something of a personal crusade against bran of any sort, which I believe to be relatively analogous to the eating and/or feeding of banana peels - .