Food

Building an indoor kitchen garden doesn't have to cost a lot of money. It can be as simple as a few pots on shelving units near the windows, or it can be as elaborate as you wish with heat lamps and UV lighting. There are many bonuses to investing your time into cultivating an indoor kitchen garden whether you are looking to increase the "feeling" of the room or would just like to add fresh ingredients to your cooking.

1. Organic Eating - Of course, eating organic depends on the chemicals you put into your fruits and vegetables. However, you may be inclined not to use such chemicals within your home. Growing your own veggies will provide you with edibles that are unscathed by the devices of humankind. In reality, you can't get any cleaner tomatoes and such outside of utilizing your own garden. Having it in the kitchen only makes it easier for you to add these components into your cooking plans.... read more

Yesterday Farmigo announced that it has launched the first ever online farmer’s market!  

The online farmer's market is designed to connect communities such as workplaces, schools, or community centers to local farms.  This will help them provide a personalized online farmer's market allowing people to purchase local, fresh food. The first food communities are starting off in San Francisco and New York.  Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Chicago, and Philadelphia will be rolling out soon. 

“At Farmigo, we envision a community-oriented food system in which people and farmers in the same geographic region are connected, and everyone has access to fresh-from-harvest food,” said Farmigo founder and chief executive officer, Benzi Ronen. “The Internet has been collapsing supply chains and rewriting conventional business models for nearly two decades, but until now it has had limited impact on the food industry, which is ripe for change. There has never been a better time to disrupt the status quo and Farmigo is poised to fundamentally change the way food is purchased and distributed.”... read more

Cheese begins with milk, as most people know. But vinegar is a key ingredient that really gets the process going. Vinegar is what encourages the milk to curdle and give cheese an acidic flavor. Before vinegar, bacteria was used to produce the acid. Using bacteria is a lengthier process and the cheese continues to increase in flavor as it ages. Some of the most expensive cheeses are still made with acid-producing bacteria instead of vinegar. 

Many cheeses can be made with vinegar, including the simplest of all, cottage cheese. Cottage cheese does not require rennet, which is an enzyme that helps to harden the cheese curds. This enzyme is derived from calf stomachs, as they have natural enzymes for processing cow milk. But rennet, as well as acid-producing bacteria, is temperature sensitive and requires several steps in processing. Vinegar bypasses several of these steps, leading straight to the cooking step. Harder cheeses also require the time-consuming process of draining, pressing, and drying the cheese, in addition to aging for several months.... read more

jackolatnersWho here is planning to carve some jack-o-lanterns this week?  Who here is also tired of using the pumpkin meat to cook the same old pumpkin bread and same old pumpkin pie?

We all know the importance of not wasting the inside of the pumpkin, so here are 5 different things to try out:

1.  Pumpkin Ice Cream.  Try this recipe from Williams-Sonoma.   You will not regret it.  It is delectable on its own or is also tasty on top of a slice of homemade bread pudding.  ... read more

Of course, we all know the environmental benefits of eating locally grown food.   In much of the country, it's still tricky to eat locally year round.   It's tricky, but not impossible.  

Here are some tips to help you:  ... read more

• Become a seasonally savvy shopper and learn what’s in season in your neck of the woods and when.  This makes it easier to shop for local food.  Epicurious has an easy-to-use map, making it quick and simple to learn what’s in season.  You can even click on the list to get recipes in case you're stumped.  
   
• Whole Foods Markets often have locally grown produce, even in the winter.  Many of these items come from local greenhouses and root cellars.  Even if the local produce pickins are slim, Whole Foods Markets often has other local foods, such as meat, baked goods, tomato sauces, ice creams, and more.  Every Whole Foods Market in the North Atlantic region has a Forager.  Kathleen Connolly, Forager at the Newton, Massachusetts Whole Foods Market explains:  "Every Whole Foods Market in our region has a forager whose duties, in addition to their everyday responsibilities, are finding local companies whose goals and mission are similar to ours and helping them bring their product to sell at Whole Foods."