Boh Bon Soap Review

OK, first of all, I swear I have no affiliation with the Boh Bon Soap company. Really. This is going to sound like a sales pitch, so I figured I better get that out of the way first!

I love this soap. My kids love this soap. My husband with the itchy-scratchy-rashy skin loves this soap. We were the ones who stumbled upon them at the Plymouth festival and bought a few bars. Then we ordered a few more bars. Then I recommended them to Julie because I thought the product was so superb and the idea of zero-plastic packaging just so awesome.

The Bayshore Blues is a family favorite, the fresh and spicy scent really is like a fresh, Grand Traverse Bay breeze. The littlest boy just plain loves it because it's blue. I love it because my boys actually use it, which means they get semi-clean. I have 4 boys, I will take what I can get!

I have been trying the Earth Mama Goat to wash my face. I read this article about the amount of plastics in face washes and cream cleansers and got completely icked out. Though, I really didn't want to pay $8 for a bar of burt's bees either. Then, I heard from a friend that goat's milk soap is great for your complexion, so I thought I would give it a go. I've got to tell you, in the world of soap, this bar for $3.25 is a darn bargain compared to fancy-schmancy face washes and designer bar soaps! I'm betting it will last longer too. It's been doing a great job of washing up my sweaty, oily face each night after spending the day in the heat and dirt watching my boy's playoff baseball games. It's not dried out or itchy and I think I smell pretty darn good when I go to bed at night too! And, I sleep a little better knowing it's all natural and didn't come to me wrapped in any plastics at all.

This week I am going to make the foray into the world of shampoo bars, I am ordering a bar this week. As a die-hard Aveda hair product user, this will be the ultimate test of the shampoo! I will keep you updated!

Product Review: Creswick Farms Hickory Smoked Bacon

This is what bacon is meant to be.

It fries up nicely with a savory aroma that makes you want to just eat the stuff as you're cooking it and never mind the meal. The hickory aroma fills the kitchen and blends very well with the salt. This is uncured bacon, with no nitrites added. The slices are not uniform like corporate bacon--they're generally wider on one end and a bit thicker--and they have a much better meat-to-fat ratio. This is seriously meaty bacon, and the thickness makes it nice and toothsome. If you like your bacon to be really crisp and crunchy to the point of being crumbly you'll have to cook this a bit longer than you're used to. If, like me, you enjoy bacon that's crisp but still needs to be chawed on some, you'll love it.

We had breakfast for dinner last night. Our oldest, Alex, did the pancakes. We used an organic mix**, alas, but we put in an egg and some strawberries from the farmer's market. While he was flipping the pancakes, I fried the bacon. After the bacon was done (I cooked the whole package--couldn't stop myself!) I used the grease to fry up a few eggs (from Hampshire Farms; I'm pretty sure LVL offers these). The bacon grease lent a nice hickory undertone to the eggs, and they needed no salt or pepper. Next time, though, I'll turn down the heat a bit before cracking the eggs in. The edges got a bit crisper than I usually like.

We really missed bacon. We haven't indulged ourselves in a long time, though, now that we know a bit about what happens to corporate bacon before it becomes bacon. This bacon is everything bacon should be and more, without the baggage. It passes our cost test, but even if it didn't, its superior taste and quality would make it worth the extra cost. We don't eat a lot of bacon--or meat in general, for that matter--but the next bacon we buy is going to be from Creswick Farms. I really hope they also do ham.


**Does anyone have a good scratch recipe for buttermilk pancakes? We made butter out of some Calder's cream (also from LVL!) it was delicious on the pancakes, but now we've got all this buttermilk and nothing to do with it.

Dinner that even the kids wolfed down!!

A few nights ago we planned to grill some steaks. Well it was pouring out at dinner time, so instead we pan-seared some Filet Mignon steaks with a sprinkle of Penzey's Chicago Steak Seasoning. We paired it with some sauteed greens, carrots and onions and garlic scapes (veges from either our CSA or the farm market) to which we added some garlic, ginger, tamari and salt and pepper. We also made some of the Mannomin (wild Rice) from LVL, I cooked it with a bit of broth, salt, pepper and water. It was delicious just plain!!! The kids LOVED the rice. It was the tastiest wild rice I have ever had. It will become a staple in our house!!

We had homemade chocolate custards for dessert. Great Meal!!

Last night in an attempt to use up greens (we get more today from our CSA) we made a delicious vegetable, chicken, egg drop soup! Used homemade chicken stock as a base and boy was it good.

Lisa

Sweetening One Local Michigan Summer

Our attempts to document our version of “one local Michigan summer” is off to a slow and pathetic start due to the long interruption of power at the Whitfield house and the resulting disheveled schedules not to mention we're really bad at taking pictures and even worse at taking the time to write a blog entry. What seemed easy when we signed up for it now seems a bit challenging under these circumstances however, rest assured we're giving it the old college try - even if local means slapping a couple poached eggs on a plate courtesy of five cage free/free ranging hens loving life 50 feet from our back door. In the mean time, please accept this suggestion from Whitfield Apiaries (the Simply Raw Honey people) to help you meet your goals of eating “local” this summer.

Honey has been used for centuries as a natural sweetener and was a much coveted staple known to be present in every king or pharaoh’s pantry. Whatever happened to honey as our preferred sweetener? That is another story but for now, pure, naturally produced honey combined with local flour from Westwind Milling Co. is a sure way to complement those “local Michigan summer” meals with your favorite baked sweets.

To make the substitution, simply follow these guidelines that have been tried and proven for years by the food scientists at the National Honey Board. You can make good recipes even better using local, naturally produced honey:

• Substitute honey for up to half the sugar called for in the recipe. With a little experimentation, honey can replace all the sugar in certain recipes.
• Reduce the liquid in the recipe by ¼ cup for each cup of honey used.
• Add ½ teaspoon baking soda for each cup of honey used.
• Reduce oven temperature by 25 deg F to prevent over-browning.
• Remember, honey has a higher sweetening power than sugar. It will take less to sweeten your recipe.
• For easy measuring and fast clean-up, coat measuring cups and spoons with oil before measuring honey.
• 12 oz honey equals 1 cup.

If all this brings back bad memories of high school chemistry class, go to The National Honey Board and pick from the 1400 proven recipes offered. This is one of the best honey information resource for consumers, food industry professionals and beekeepers alike.

Best of luck with your “one local Michigan summer” and let Honey make your good food even better.

Bryan & Judy
Whitfield Apiaries
Ortonville, MI

Easy Cherry Sauce

Looking for some ideas for frozen fruit? Fruit that's getting just a bit overripe? Or, fruit your kids might not eat in it's original form? This is an idea I have been using for times when I can figure out what to do with yet another bushel of peaches or fruit hanging out in the fridge just a little too long.

Cherry Sauce:

1 qt. bag of frozen tart cherries

1/2 cup organic sugar (more or less to taste)

few drops vanilla

touch of corn starch (not necessary for peaches, pears, apples)

Combine all ingredients and boil rapidly for 2 minutes, stirring and "squooshing" the fruit a little. Turn down heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Cool and pour into glass jar. I save pasta jars for this purpose.

Serve over pancakes, ice cream, shortcake - you name it! It's a great way to get an extra serving of fruit in my kids at breakfast and cut back on the maple syrup! YUM!

More Local Food and a rhubarb recipe

On my own blog, I posted about (and some pictures) the breakfast and lunch I had today. I also posted a recipe for a fabulous Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp I made Sunday night. I saw that Julie posted some more rhubarb recipes on her website, so I thought this might be a something useful for those who have some extra rhubarb (I love to put it away in the freezer to use all year!!).

Dinner tonight was local too, We had roasted chicken (we get our chickens from Cloverlawn Farm--Jackie and Steve Good who I think live near Imlay City), Kim chi (homemade) and some of the Leelanau Cultured Veggies Ty's Spiced Beets which are oh so good, for the side dish my hubby whipped up some sauteed greens which was a combo of swiss chard and some unknown asian green both from Cinzori's Organic Farm. He added a bit of garlic, ginger, sesame oil and organic tamari sauce to the greens. Yummy!!

Lisa

Product Review: VitaSpelt Organic Spelt Spaghetti

We have several packages of VitaSpelt products in our cupboard at the moment, and we tried the "Pasta d'Abruzzo" (lighter in taste and color!) style spaghetti the other day. Here's how it worked out for us.

We've been using Meijer's store brand organic pasta* for some time now. It's tasty, but certainly not local (the box says "product of Italy"), so we were very pleased to find pasta that comes from nearby. The fact that it's made from spelt instead of wheat made little difference to us; we're not concerned with gluten allergies or anything like that.

We prepared the spaghetti just like any other kind, and it cooked up nicely al-dente, and was easy to serve. After it cooled, it did stick together a bit, but not as much as our usual brand. We used the Meijer organic* sauce to top it, with some locally grown onions and basil mixed in for fun and flavor. The taste and texture were somewhat lighter than our usual pasta, and the flavor was almost unnoticeable in the background under the sauce. Most importantly, our 3-year-old ate it happily (without sauce) and had seconds. All in all, it was like replacing the coffee we usually serve with Folger's crystals--we didn't even taste the difference.

The one drawback is the price. At $2.25 for 8 oz of noodles, VitaSpelt spaghetti costs more than double the Meijer organic pasta ($1.99 for 16 oz). Ouch.

If you have gluten allergies, and value local food, VitaSpelt is definitely the way to go. But we have a policy about cost-benefit when it comes to our shopping. If an item costs double the nonlocal price (or more), then there needs to be an additional benefit to buying it (animals pastured and humanely slaughtered, for example, or markedly superior quality). The VitaSpelt spaghetti is perfectly good; there's nothing at all wrong with it. But for the price, well, we're going to try our hand at making our own noodles with local flour instead before we decide it's worth the extra expense. We have a recipe. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

As mentioned above, we have some more varieties of the VitaSpelt pasta that we haven't tried yet, including whole grain angel hair and wide Amish style. I'll let you know how we like those as well.

Cheers!

*We know, industrial organic is only marginally better than agri-corp food, but those acres aren't sprayed or fertilized, so we reckon that's a gain. A small gain, but every little helps. And we can use the extra couple bucks at the Farmers' Market or other LVL products.