Chard and Chantrelles

I did a very Berkeley thing today. I let a passage from Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma put the idea for dinner in my head. Or rather it was a combination of Pollan and the funhouse of fungi at Monterey Market.



The chard is lightly sautéed in oil with salt, black pepper, and mustard seeds. The mushrooms (a mixture of chantrelle and oyster) are seared per Francis Lam's instructions with thinly sliced shallots. Next time I think I'll add a bit of garlic to the mushroom to round out their flavors a bit. In general though, exciting times with fungi.

Lenten Practice

Great and Holy Lent, as I've been reminded multiple times in the past couple of weeks, is a time for repentance and transformation. Casually and sadly though, Lent seems largely to be thought of as a time of fasting and giving up -- a purely negative connotation.

In my mind, neither fasting nor repentance should have a solely negative connotation. Repentance involves knowledge and confession of former sins. But biblically, the act of repentance tends to be the command, "Go, and sin no more." One is to move past one's sin and reconstruct one's self. There is transformation and rebuilding in the light of past failings. Likewise, fasting shouldn't be understood simply as giving up certain foods or habits. Fasting is a positive reordering of habits; one that takes place at the very primal level of eating.

I have several goals for the Lenten Fast this year. Most basically to keep it to the best of my ability. Beyond that I hope to practice mindfulness and deliberation in what I eat. Both out of concern for self-care and to better understand the interconnection and impact of my habits of consumption on the environment and the global economy.

French Pressed Almond Milk

Temporary veganism (Great and Holy Lent) begins today/tomorrow, and I decided to kick it off by making my first batch of nut milk in Kate, my shiny new food processor.

After reviewing my notes from last week's foodie date and reading various guides to making nut milks I settled on the following ratios and procedure:

1 cup of whole blanched almonds
4 cups of water
1 TBSP honey

I soaked the almonds in cold water for several hours then pulverized them in the food processor. Then I added water that had just come off boil in batches (to accommodate the size of Kate), blended the mixture for 2-3 minutes, and strained the resulting liquid in my french press. In between batches I returned the almond meal to the food processor. I sweetened the milk at the end by adding a TBSP of honey and shaking the lidded jar vigorously. The remaining pulp has been saved in the fridge and will probably end up mixed in with steel cut oats for breakfast.

The french press use had a couple of rationals behind it. One, I don't yet have any cheesecloth in my arsenal and didn't feel like dropping the money on it at the grocery while waiting for my Amazon order to arrive. Second, after reading the descriptions of making almond milk, it seemed to function on a very similar principle to coffee preparation. You want to extract oils and some fine solids from a pulverized seed type thing. A french press is a great tool for coffee -- why not almond milk.

I found that the french press did very nicely; although, a quick google search turned up one story of a shattered press. I used very slow and even pressure on the plunger and didn't try to force it down too quickly. The press seems no worse for the wear, and I have a happy little quart jar of homemade almond milk.

ETA: Made another batch the other night using cheesecloth to strain the milk from the almond pulp. I managed to extract about 3/4 cup more of milk from the mixture.