Bread Making using Natural Raising Agents: Wild Yeast

Recipe for Flat Bread included.

From the lovely lady over at get-baking.com. 

Read the full article here.

The rich diet of nomadic early man began to be supplemented with the wild grains, fruits, and vegetables, readily available in their locality. Wild yeasts added rise to stone ground grains to give bread, albeit a slightly raised flat bread. As nomadic man began to settle and farm, ingenuity produced better results: Yeast skimmed from fermenting beer, or a small amount of uncooked dough kept over from the previous day. These not only added some ‘lift’, but also increased flavour. The sourdough process in vogue today is a good analogy.

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Read the full article here.

Sourdough Bread from Scratch! Make your own Bread Starter.

Basic Natural Yeast Starter Recipe

From the lovely lady over at get-baking.com

Read the full article here.

You will need:
50g/2ozs/1/2cup Strong Bread Flour
Sufficient Water to make soft dough.
The same quantities of flour and water each time you refresh.

Making a 'natural' yeast starter is easy. All you require is flour - the food, water - moisture, sunlight - warmth, and TIME. Give the above mixture two or three days, (or longer if cold weather). When it has risen and collapsed back down, throw away 4/5ths of the mixture. Add more flour and water to the remaining 1/5th - to replenish the food source, (the same amount as above). Go on repeating this process and before long you will have an active sample of natural yeast.

Read the full article here.

EcoAdventures Redesign

Whoa! It's been a hot minute since we did this project for one of our Dr. Hamming classes at Centenary. After a bit of discussion, we decided we ought to revamp the site and change up our approaches to eating just local market foods. That said, we're currently in the design development stage, we'll begin updates soon.

We're excited about the upcoming changes.

Stay tuned!

Monique
(a.k.a. the meatatarian)

Aaaaaannnnnnd So We're Back!

Veggie's back with a brand new recipe!

Corn Maque Choux, or, Creole Spicy Corn

It's been 5 years and several countries now that we have eaten our way through ;) and we've decided to come back to the home discussion: meat vs veggies. Stay tuned as the veggie fan posts her favorite dishes and the meatatarian shows you her preferred sizzlers!

Conclusion post for the Vegan

In conclusion I have decided several things:

1) Veganism excludes a lot of foods I normally use in my daily diet (and I don't think I'd like to continue eating like this, though I will continue to eliminate 90% of dairy and meat from my diet, I just feel better that way), but is one of the healthiest lifestyles one can live, IF DONE PROPERLY.

2) Living a local vegan lifestyle is impossible. You'll never get the proper amount of protein and nutrients to stay healthy. The U.S., particularly the Shreveport /Bossier City area, just doesn't produce the neccessary dietary supplements that other countries use almost daily. Tofu and soy products are the main ones though, please, someone correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, I did break the local foods rule of this project a couple times. Hunger is a very strong incentive. I think that there could be a very strong local foods market in this area, we just decided to do this project at the wrong time of the year. With fresh vegetables and soy and tofu additions to one's diet, I beleive that one can live a relatively local diet. And that's a belief I plan to try out this spring.

3) The general public view of veganism is negative. I even had one person ask me: "Are you trying to kill yourself?" (and no, it wasn't Monique). I had the most trouble finding vegan options in restaurants, at school, in prepared food stores; basically anywhere that I didn't cook for myself. People just don't understand--nor do they try to--veganism. The idea has so many negative connotations that attach veganism to "liberal, elitist, animal saving, crazy people" (one of my personal friends-who is a kind and understanding person, once he realised that I wasn't going to die from starvation. No, the quote from my earlier post wasn't from him).

So, I think that education is the key for vegans everywhere. If people understood the ideas and practicalities behind veganism, I think that there would be a lot more options in town. The same goes for local foods. This is difficult for a nation ruled by fast food though.

It's so much easier, faster and cheaper (in the short run) to go to the nearest fast food joint than to cook one's own meal, but I beleive that we are slowly changing our view on food based on the health issues that have cropped up all over the nation, and beyond. Fast food is not the answer, otherwise why would they be introducing lo-cal optiond to their menus?

Information is key. Options are really great too!

*Until this spring,
Jen, the-not-so-exerimental-vegan-anymore-but-still-continuing-some-of-the-ideas.

Veganism, day 3 and onward

So, by day 3 I had established a rythm. Oatmeal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch and cook dinner when I got home in the evening. It worked pretty well. The snags I encountered happened at work and at school. I had to make sure and pack my own lunches to make it through the day.

The cafeteria at school is less than adequate for a vegan diet (sorry, I wasn't going to eat french fries and a plain salad, no dressing, for lunch) and finding a vegan meal at a restaurant that isn't geared towards vegans is next to impossible. My boyfriend did take me out to eat over the weekend and that was fairly sucessful, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't local. I'll talk more about that in my conclusion post.

Some restaurants in Shreveport that have vegan options on the menu :
Albasha's
Dahn's
Yeero Yeero
El Compadre
* Did you notice that all the restaurants are International foods? Yeah, so did I.

Here are the meals that I used throughout the week:

Black-Eyed Peas and Green Beans over Rice
Cajun Spicy Rice and pan-seared Tofu with Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Red Beans and Rice (no sausage, of course)
Instant Oatmeal (duh, duh duh)
Yellow Curry with pan-fried Tofu and Veggies
Hummos (we ate a lot of this, my roommate has an excellent recipe)

A Meatatarian Conclusion

Thursday night I was invited out with some friends and in the name of science I decided to find out if I could keep to the parameters of the Eco experiment. Going to the bar pretty much killed this experiment. I found no local drinks and afterwards when we went to IHOP the waitress gave me a crazy look when I asked her about the origins of certain foods. Needless to say, if one wants to live on local foods then the best bet involves buying some land and growing your own. As for meats, well, hunting licenses and the butcher's shop are probably the best bet, after all, no one seems to know where the food comes from.

The lack of care over where food originated is kind of scary. Of course, this lack of concern seems bred into the population of grocery shoppers, myself included.

On another note, while I firmly believe Wally World is evil, I am satisfied that the next time I run out of tea I can drive over the bridge and make my two AM purchases.

That's it, I'm out!