How To Get Dressed In Seconds

One of my favorite things about spring is the return of Salad Season!

During the summer, I pretty much live on salad. It's good for breakfast, it's good for lunch, it's good for dinner, and it's good for just a random snack. If you grow your own salad greens and veggies, it's even better, but you don't have to. Just make sure you're going to a farmers' market or a good produce stand for the good stuff; plastic-wrapped iceberg lettuce really has no place on anyone's table.

Salads don't have to include lettuce at all, of course. It's great if they do, but you can be creative. In the summer, I make salads out of nothing but tomatoes piled high, sometimes sprinkled with crumbled cheese, and of course tossed with dressing. Tonight I'm making a sunchoke salad (think potato salad with more flavor), and last summer I made a fabulous salad out of grilled vegetables (which included eggplant, potatoes, onions, and turnips, if I remember right).

The real secrets to a good salad are the dressing - we'll get to that in a minute - and, most importantly, variety. Salads are satisfying when they combine lots of different flavors and textures into one huge sensory experience. The one in the picture, which was our lunch the other day, was made of a mix of young spring greens topped with sliced artichoke hearts, diced avocado, carrot shreds, raw kohlrabi, leftover BBQ chicken, and sunflower seeds. Think about all the nutrition in such a meal! So many vitamins, good fats, proteins, and everything else the body needs. It kept us full for hours, much longer than you'd think "just a salad" would.

But now for the dressing, which is crucial. Most of the time when you go to a restaurant, they'll serve you a perfectly healthy salad and then drown it in a dressing which is actually worse for you than anything else you could order. For example, here's how a salad at Wendy's weighs in:

1/2 Pound Double Cheeseburger - 750 calories, 42 g fat, 1520 mg sodium
Chicken BLT Salad - 790 calories, 53 grams fat, 1670 mg sodium

That's right, almost all the day's fat intake and most of your calories (and way more sodium than you need) in a damn SALAD! Some of that is in the processed chicken they use, but almost all of it is in the dressing, and bottled dressing from the grocery store is not much better. So make your own. (It's a lot cheaper that way too!)

Salad dressing, contrary to popular opinion, is super-easy to make yourself. All you need to remember is two parts oil to one part acid (which can be vinegar or acidic fruit juice). Play with different oils and different vinegars, and add whatever spices you like (paprika and cumin are delicious with balsamic and olive oil, for example). Here's my most common, foolproof standby dressing - it goes really well on just about everything, from green salad in the spring to tomato salad in the summer to hot potato salad in the fall and winter.

10-SECOND LEMON-DIJON VINAIGRETTE

1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
2 Tbsp lemon juice (see note!)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Few drops of hot sauce, optional

Note: If you made the Preserved Meyer Lemons I posted about two weeks ago, use the juice from that and don't add any more salt to the dressing. You can even chop up one of the lemon wedges very fine and stir that in for extra zing!

Add all the ingredients together right there in the measuring cup and whisk them together with a fork for ten seconds. Pour into a pretty little serving container if you want, and serve. If you're keeping this on hand to use a little at a time, just store it in a jar and shake it up before using, or give it another whisk with the fork.

Easy-peasy!

Farm-Fresh Friday: Raw Milk

Now that spring is here, 'tis the season for sweet fresh milk - straight from the cow (or goat), unprocessed, just as nature intended it!

If you're horrified by the idea of unpasteurized milk, let me point out the difference between farm and factory. In a factory farm, dairy cows are crammed into a modified feedlot, fed on a diet rich in corn. Ruminants like cows did not evolve to eat grain, so while the corn does boost their milk production, it also makes them vulnerable to the diseases that fester in the filthy conditions. The corn in their diet is rounded out with cheap non-food fillers, which not only abuses the cows but also makes the milk taste nasty. (This is why no one pours a glass of milk to drink anymore.) On a good farm, on the other hand, a manageable number of cows will live on grass (or hay in winter), soaking up the sunshine and clean fresh air that keeps them healthy.

Science has discovered that two weeks of a grass diet completely eliminates E. coli from a sick cow's digestive tract. Yep, all of it. No further processing needed on the E. coli front. But of course it's better if they don't get sick in the first place.

Pasteurization, therefore, is necessary in a factory system where the milk is diseased, infectious, and full of nastiness you really don't want to read about over breakfast. This is why mandatory pasteurization almost immediately followed the birth of the modern corn-based feedlot. It is not so necessary with farm-fresh milk. What's worse, pasteurization destroys vital nutrients and robs the milk of almost all of its health benefits.

Remember when every other kid didn't have asthma or lethal allergies? I know, those days seem more and more like ancient history, writ with every kindergartener's EpiPen. But it appears as though raw milk boosts the immune system better than anything out there, preventing or even curing allergies, asthma, and other immune disorders. It has other benefits too - you can read about them here.*

If you're lactose intolerant and think you can't drink milk, surprise! Raw milk has an enzyme built into it, called lactase, which helps to break down lactose; this enzyme is replicated in the Lactaid product you get at the store. Pasteurization destroys milk's natural lactase, but it's there in raw milk and it will do the work of breaking down lactose so you can digest it easily. Many people who are intolerant to pasteurized milk can drink raw milk without a problem.

"But I don't like milk," you say. If I may say so, you haven't had milk until you've had it raw. The flavor is so much sweeter; it tastes like rich, creamy sunshine. I love the joy of getting up the morning after we make our milk buy, and the cream sits in a thick layer in the top of the jar, with the smooth milk underneath it. I like the fresh cream in my coffee, but it's also good to cook into desserts and occasionally I make cultured butter with it. My husband and I like to drink the milk itself after a workout - it's got just the right combination of proteins, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates to rebuild our muscles and replenish our energy.

To answer a common question, raw milk usually keeps in the refrigerator for a week or two. When it starts to turn and it's not good to drink anymore, you can still use it. Pasteurized milk goes rancid, but raw milk just cultures with the beneficial bacteria living in it (those "probiotics" you hear so much about). You can make sour cream or creme fraiche from the cream, and from the milk you can make yogurt or kefir. You can cook with it in soups when it starts to go off, or bake with it as you would buttermilk. Yesterday I used up some slightly-off raw milk in a cheesy sauce for cauliflower au gratin. So unlike processed milk, there's no waste with living milk!

If you thought raw milk was illegal, you can be excused for thinking that. In most areas, however, it isn't. Availability varies by state (and country). In some areas, you can buy it in certain stores; in most areas, you have to purchase it directly from the farm. Many farms cater to buying clubs, where members take turns making the drive out to the farm to bring the milk into town so everyone can pick it up locally. We just enjoy a pleasant drive to the country every week or so; it takes about an hour to make the trip, and the scenery is gorgeous.

You can find out where to buy raw milk at this link.

As for the other common objection - yes, it costs a little more. But at what price your health? My grandmother always says she'd rather have a big grocery bill than a big doctor bill, and it really does work out to be one or the other. In the 1950's we spent about 19% of our income on groceries and about 9% on health care; today those proportions are almost exactly reversed. There is a direct correlation between one and the other, and besides, healthy food is more delicious anyway. I know I'd rather spend my money on sweet, fragrant, tasty milk and farm-fresh foods than asthma inhalers (which I used to shell out $150/month for and now no longer need).

So find a farm near you, preferably one with Jersey cows because the milk is richer and more filling. (We only need 4 oz at a time when we drink it.) Then pour yourself a nice glass of living, probiotic, nutrient-dense milk and toast: To Your Health!

* (Of course there are some who are so immunocompromised or have other issues which preclude the consumption of untreated animal products, so avoid them if this is you, but the trick is to avoid getting into that situation in the first place whenever possible.)

Coconut Oil!

Continuing off Lizzie's beauty treatments of yesterday, here's a little plug for one of nature's greatest gifts: coconut oil!

Now personally, I am not a fan of coconut as a culinary ingredient. I don't like the flavor, I hate the texture, and something about coconut milk is just off-putting to me. The oil, on the other hand, is a miracle worker. It has numerous health benefits - both inside and outside your body. It may even help you lose weight!

To cook with it, use just a spoonful of it when sauteeing (just as you would any oil), or substitute it for butter when making a grilled cheese. It melts very quickly and easily, and doesn't have a coconut flavor so don't worry about it affecting your foods.

My favorite use for it, however, is for skin care. Since I began using coconut oil a couple years ago, my skin has become more soft and supple than it's ever been, and I never need to use lotion anymore. When I moisturized with lotion, I always found my legs drying out by midday, but with coconut oil I haven't had any dry skin problems at all.

Just take the jar of coconut oil into the bath with you, and drop the jar (tightly sealed) into the tub so that the oil melts to liquid. After you shave, massage the oil into your legs, and keep going until you've massaged it into your whole body from the neck down. Don't use it on your face, and (ahem) feel free to bring in someone to oil your back for you if you can't reach it by your lonesome!

If you feel a little oily when you get out of the tub, that's okay; it'll absorb into your skin as you dry off. For maximum benefit, hang out naked for a few minutes and air-dry. You'll help the moisturizing along because you won't be able to stop checking out how smooth and silky you feel.

For even more benefit, apply coconut oil to your dry hair (Ends only! Not your scalp!) when you first get into the tub and let it sit there for awhile. You can read a book, sip wine, shave your legs, or just doze a bit in that hot steamy bath and the coconut oil will soak in and make your hair super-glossy and soft. Once it's sat for a bit, shampoo and condition your hair as normal and then style it however you usually do. You'll notice a difference right away!

Farm-Fresh Friday: Homemade Butter

I used to "make butter" for gifts and it always went over well. It was simple; I'd just soften storebought butter (a good brand, like Tillamook) and then mix in honey and cinnamon, or lemon juice and dill, or garlic and parsley, or any other combination I liked. Flavored butter is a great way to dress up a meal, and by adding edible flowers you can make it a beautiful addition to the table, too!

So with that experience under my belt, I read with interest the current issue of "Organic Gardening" magazine, which included a little article on how to actually make butter from cream. We all know the typical way they teach little kids - put cream in a jar and shake shake shake until your arms fall off - but it gets so much easier than that with the use of a little modern technology.

Meanwhile, this week my husband and I scored a great deal on some nice fresh raw milk and I wanted to put away some of it before it spoiled. I made some cheese (and a lovely soup with the leftover whey), and I made creme fraiche (about which more in a bit), and I made butter. It was a snap!

All I had to do was skim the cream off the milk (feel free to use storebought cream for this) and pour it into a bowl. Then I took an electric mixer to it and beat it up - first into whipped cream, and then it got grainy, and then after about 10 minutes of beating, the solid butterfat separated from the liquid buttermilk. I poured off the buttermilk, working the butterfat in a fine mesh strainer with a spoon to get all the liquid out, then added ice water to the bowl of butter and washed it. This sounds more complex than it is - you just press the butter up the sides of the bowl with a spoon, spreading it thin, then dumping the milky water and repeating with fresh ice water until the water stays clear. Then scoop the butter into a nice little dish and enjoy fresh raw probiotic vitamin-rich butter! Herbs and spices can be added at this point if desired.

To make creme fraiche, just stir a tablespoon of the leftover raw buttermilk into a little raw cream and let it sit out on the counter for a day or two. It cultures itself and thickens up all on its own! Ain't nature great?

The rest of the buttermilk can go to work making you the most rich, creamy biscuits you've ever had. This buttermilk tastes nothing like the thick buttermilk you get in a carton; it's light and sweet with a delicious tang. It's actually worth making butter just so you can have the buttermilk afterward!