Chelsea Green Blog
Food & Drink
Making Yogurt or Kefir Cheese: A Simple How-To
Making your own yogurt is an easy, healthy, and affordable way to experiment with fermentation, make milk last longer, and replace an industrial food product filled with mysterious chemical ingredients with one you know all about. Yogurt itself is a wonderful, versatile food, but you can also turn it into a spread or dip by…
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Make Your Own Root Beer: Celebrate the Wort Moon!
Much of what we know about the moon consists of when it’s waning, when it’s waxing, and that a full moon makes people do strange things. And while it’s common knowledge (and not just on cheesy astrology websites) we have a connection to the moon, it’s hard to know exactly what it is, without sounding…
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Traditional Italian Sponge Cake Soaked in Liqueur
Is your happy hour missing something? You’re sitting there, enjoying a glass of wine, a pint of beer, or a snifter of scotch — depending upon your tastes. The cares of the week are melting away as you slip under the spell of alcohol, one of the human race’s most ancient and most reliable methods…
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Blood Moon Recipe from Full Moon Feast: Swedish Meatballs
The following recipe was adapted for the Web from Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice. In midautumn, when the air is growing colder and the nights longer, comes the Blood Moon. Also called the Hunter’s Moon by indigenous peoples in the eastern woodlands, it was a time when northern…
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Fermented Foods: Health Benefits & Cultural Rehabilitation
When we talk about “culture,” we’re talking about everything humans have ever created to make their lives a little nicer, from painting, to music and literature, and including food traditions. We also use the word “culture” to describe foods that are alive with beneficial bacteria. It’s no coincidence. Humans have been working together with health-giving…
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10 Sheep Cheeses, An Excerpt from The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese
Until the end of the month, all of our tempting cheese books are 25% off. One of them is The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese by Jeffrey Roberts. Below is an excerpt from the book, featuring 10 cheesemakers who work with sheep: The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese is available in our bookstore–25% off until…
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Drying Herbs and Flowers
The following is an excerpt from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning by the Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivante. It has been adapted for the web. A few guidelines: Pick plants in the morning, when it is dry and sunny and they are at their peak, depending on the plant and the part that…
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A New Kind of Pickles! Hurray, Hurrah!
Your pregnant girlfriend loves them. Your mother loves them. Your friends and your house guests and your children love them. They store well, they last long, and they’re perfect in potato salad. Pickles–the magical fermented sour (or sweet) treat. But have you ever made a pickle a la Sandor Katz? Because, ehem, he’s sort of…
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From Seed to Table: Buckwheat Pancakes
According to a column in Agricultural Research from September 1974, “buckwheat has an amino acid composition nutritionally superior to all cereals, including oats,” due to its high content of lysine. Not only that, but hearty buckwheat pancakes are just as tasty, if not tastier, than those made from wheat. So what are we waiting for?…
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Old Nalgene Bottles: 5 Ways to Reuse Them
The water bottle that (kind of) defined a generation…is really a killer. Last year, toxic plastic struck close to home. In April 2008, the FDA deemed Nalgene water bottles—those awesome, never-break, never-leak containers you had come to depend on—as unsafe for use, due to dangerous levels of toxicity in the plastic. Durability, in other words,…
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A1 Cow’s Milk May Account for a Range of Serious Illnesses
The following is an excerpt from Devil in the Milk: Illness, Health, and the Politics of A1 and A2 Milk by Keith Woodford. It has been adapted for the Web. What North Americans should be concerned about is that North American milk is very high in A1 beta-casein, and no one is doing anything about…
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5 Things You’ll Need to Get Back on Your Bike: Spring Is (Almost) Here!
It’s mud season in Vermont—also known as late winter/early spring in other parts of these here United States—but spring is just around the corner. That’s the thought that keeps getting me out of bed every morning. It’s time to get the ol’ bike out of mothballs, grease up your chain, fill up your tires, and…
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Grow Berries in Your Low-Light Urban Space
The following is an excerpt from Fresh Food from Small Spaces by R. J. Ruppenthal. It has been adapted for the Web. A central problem for many of us who garden in the city is a lack of light. This is covered extensively in the vegetable chapters. I mention it again here only to note…
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Raise Bees in Your Apartment: Urban Apiculture
Not everyone is a fan of bees, but when you get down to their level, you start to appreciate all that they do for us; pollinating the flowers and giving us delicious honey. Beekeeping is a noble profession or hobby to take on as you are providing a habitat for your colony to thrive. But…
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Growing Shiitake Mushrooms in a Garage or Yard
Learn how to grow shiitake mushrooms in almost any environment, including your yard and even your garage! The following is an excerpt from Fresh Food from Small Spaces by R. J. Ruppenthal. It has been adapted for the web. Some of the most expensive and delicious gourmet mushrooms on the market are shiitakes, which also…
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Recipe: Sour Pickles
Growing up in New York City, experiencing my Jewish heritage largely through food, I developed a taste for sour pickles. Most of what is sold in stores as pickles, and even what home canners pickle, are preserved in vinegar. My idea of a pickle is one fermented in a brine solution. Pickle-making requires close attention.…
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Replace Your Soap with Soapy Plants
Sick of chemical-filled soaps that leave your hands feeling dirtier than before you washed them? Then we’ve got the project for you! Do it yourself soap with soapy plants! It’s as simple as adding water. The following project is from When Technology Fails by Matthew Stein. It has been adapted for the web. There is…
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Creating Community While Reducing your Food Bill
Sick of expensive groceries? Grow your own food with your community to cut costs and build lasting relationships! The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2: Urban Ecology in Heather C. Flores’s Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community. Many people see ecological living as…
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Perennial Veggies: The Benefits of Perennial Vegetables
Think about how much work your perennial flower beds take compared to your annual vegetable garden. In a busy year, your perennial garden largely sails through despite neglect. Once your perennials are established, and if they are suited to your climate and site conditions, they can be virtually indestructible. An annual vegetable garden, as we…
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Spicy Fried Egg and Tomato: Good Food Corner
Add some punch to a bland winter afternoon. Dust off your frying pan and whip up some Spicy Fired Egg and Tomato for yourself or your family. Taken from This Organic Life by Joan Dye Gussow, this recipe is great for less-than-perfect tomatoes. Ingredients 1 mild green chili pepper 4 tablespoons unrefined corn oil 1…
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