Fall officially arrived on Friday, September 23rd. And the weather is finally turning around. It even looks like it might rain around here.

To say good bye to summer I made one of my favorite summer salad using Butter lettuce. I’ll call it “Bye Bye Summer Salad”

It’s really easy to make.

Butter lettuce
shredded green mango
yellow & red tomatoes

Homemade Buttermilk dressing:

1 cup of buttermilk
3 tbs yogurt
2 tbs mayo

Seasoning:
1 tsp of black pepper & garlic
salt to taste

Whisk together all the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

I have not bought “bottled” Ranch dressing in years.  Mainly it’s because of all the ingredients listed.  This dressing is perfect because it’s simple and made with only a few ingredients.  It’s so good I could use it in bean salad, pasta salad, or even topped with baked potatoes.

My latest adventure in homemade yogurt.  This time using whole milk and it’s really creamy and much thicker. I’m almost done with this jar. This is the yogurt I included with this Ranch dressing.

Note: The most healthiest yogurt is probably the goat milk yogurt, although it was very thin and didn’t taste as good as this whole milk version.

After I ate all the skim milk yogurt, I decided to make goat milk yogurt next.  The process is the same as making regular homemade yogurt.

It looks more like condensed milk.  But still taste tangy, creamy and delicious.

Other people who have tried making goat milk yogurt suggest using raw goat milk for a superior quality yogurt.  But that would be difficult to find as not everyone has a lactating goat at home. And the U.S. government (at least in California) prohibits goat owners from selling their raw milk.

But it would be nice to have a pet goat that would supply me with raw and fresh goat milk.  As goat milk is expensive and a quart cost about $3.29 compare to a gallon of milk.

For those that never tried goat milk, it is really good and creamy milk. It’s also consider to be much healthier than cow milk. And for some people who cannot tolerate cow’s milk, they can still drink goat’s milk without any problems.

In 2007, Researchers at the University of Granada found that the properties of goats’ milk compared to those of cows’ milk could help prevent diseases such as anemia and bone demineralization. Goats’ milk was found to help with the digestive and metabolic utilization of minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium.

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It was exciting and really worth it to make homemade yogurt. I started off making a smaller batch than the other recipes because I didn’t think I could eat that much yogurt.

Here’s my first jar of homemade yogurt. I’ve already finished half of it and it was delicious! It’s really creamy and not as tangy or thick as the store bought one.

The usual recipe calls for 8 cups of milk and 1/2 cup of starter yogurt. I used 4 cups of milk and 2 heaping tbs of plain yogurt. I got 2 mason jars of yogurt.

For a starter I used Nancy’s organic yogurt which has billions of live cultures of acidophilus and bifidum. But any plain yogurt will be just fine.

Directions:

Using a 2 quart crockpot (which is the smaller one) I measured out 4 cups of skim milk (1% fat milk). Let it cook in the crockpot for 2.5 hours at LOW setting.

Then unplug and let it sit there for 3 hours. After 3 hours, take out 2 cups of the warm milk and add in 2-3 tbs of plain yogurt. This plain yogurt is the starter that will provide the good bacteria.

Whisk the yogurt into the warm milk thoroughly then add the it to the crockpot. Stir well, close lid. Take a towel and wrap it around the crockpot for 8 hours. If you have a gas stove with a pilot light you can always stick the crockpot ceramic into the oven for the next 8 hours. The longer you keep it wrapped and warm, the more sour it gets.

After 8 hours just transfer the yogurt into a clean sterile jar and refrigerate. It should keep for 1-2 weeks.

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I used to eat lots of yogurt, especially those with fruit on the bottom. I liked the variety of fruits they used, but it was always too sweet. And the fact that is was loaded with sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup made me stop eating them.

Then I discovered Greek yogurt which is not as sweet and much thicker in consistency. And it fills me up for a long time too. That’s because it has more protein then regular yogurt.

It seems I’m not the only one that prefers Greek yogurt over regular yogurt. Sales of Greek yogurt has been doing very well, even when it’s twice as expensive as regular yogurt.

Yoplait Greek yogurt with blueberries on the bottom. It’s very thick!

The Altantic reports, “Just five years ago, Greek yogurt was a $60 million market in the U.S. (Too sour! Too thick!) But sales have increased 2500%, accelerating through the Great Recession despite the fact that the “Greek” stuff (it’s actually more Lebanese, but anyway) tends to be twice as expensive as normal yogurt.”

Yogurt is consider one of the world’s healthiest food. It’s health benefits includes building stronger bones, enhances immunity, lowers blood pressure, and may even have anticancer and weight-loss effects. Also improves lactose intolerance and provide probiotics for healthy digestion.

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I’ve never tried eating fiddleheads before, but I have seen them in the wild while hiking in the forest.

The ones I’ve seen in the forest are surrounded by more leaves then in this photo.  These are fiddle heads of young plants. Photo from missouriplants.com

I suppose fiddleheads are easy to find, much easier then foraging for mushrooms.  Try looking along hiking trails and deep in the forest. Of course you can also find them at specialty markets selling from around $16 per pound or more. Very pricey!

From the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.  Photo by via Fickr.  They sure look interesting and remind me of the head of a fiddle or violin.

They are described to be very delicious and taste similar to asparagus.  Fiddleheads are found in the wild during the springtime (around the end of April and into May). And some people really enjoy foraging for these little delicacies.

The Forager Press gives this advice when seeking fiddleheads in the wild:

“Look for fiddleheads as soon as the earliest spring flowers bloom and anywhere you’ve see ferns growing before. You want to harvest them while they still retain a curl at the top and like asparagus, use as much of the stem below the curl as you can collect. This part is often overlooked and is every bit as good as the top.”

Recipe Bodega has Pan-Fried Gnocchi with Morels and Fiddleheads that looks very tasty!

Autumn is the one time I like to eat pickled vegetables. I was inspired to make these when I recently had Mexican pickled jars of jalapenos and carrots.

It’s got a good mixture of spice and tang. The mints give it an interesting twist to the pickled carrots. It was initially odd at first, but after several days it only got better.

Ingredients:

10 medium to small size carrots, peeled and cut into thin slices.
1/2 cup of vinegar
2 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of sea salt
2 teaspoons of pickling spice
Small bunch of peppermint leaves

The pickling spice I used is from Monterey Spice Company. It includes: Mustard, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, dill seed, cloves, coriander, allspice, chili peppers, and bay leaves.

Directions:

In a pot, bring the water to boil and add the carrots. Let it cook for 2 minutes. Remove and drain under cold water.

In another pot, combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil then pour over the carrots. Then tear up the bunch of peppermint leaves. Add the mints to the mix.

Set aside 2 medium sized jars. Fill it up and keep it refrigerated. You can eat them within 3 days, but they do keep for a while. I’m still eating them 3 weeks later and they are good.

I like eating them on the side with noodles. Also good addition to sandwiches too. It’s best to keep it refrigerated so it stays crisp.

I found these interesting fruits at the Mexican produce section of the market. They are the fruits of the cactus plant. They are known by many other names including cactus or prickly pear.

Native to Mexico where they refer to them as tunas. They also grow wild in parts of the Southwest U.S.  I have seen people grow them successfully here California.  And this is the time of year where they are about to ripen.

These are the green variety.  I have tried the red flesh variety but I like the taste of the green version.  This taste very much like honeydew melons.

But they are very tricky to prepare.  There are little spikes that come out of the eye.  It is recommended to place the fruit on an open flame and burn off the prickly hair like spines.  Or maybe wear leather gloves when handling them.

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When we think of super food, we usually think of blueberries or even exotic fruits such as acai berries coming from Brazil.

Dr. Zhimin Xu of Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge has new promising research on the health benefits of black rice.

He stated, “Just a spoonful of black rice bran contains more health promoting anthocyanin antioxidants than are found in a spoonful of blueberries, but with less sugar and more fiber and vitamin E antioxidants.”

Anthocyanin antioxidants are commonly found in such foods that are red, purple, or blue in color.  Such as strawberries, grapes, red onion, and more.

These antioxidants have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.

The only black rice I’m familiar with is Japonica Black rice and Chinese Black rice. We usually refer to them as purple rice. And it’s best cooked as rice pudding or other desserts.

Photo above is Lundberg’s Black Japonica rice, which is a mix of mahogany and black rice.

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This is one of the first few bounty harvested from my mom’s garden.

We’ve always refer to them as Japanese pumpkins. The correct name is Kabocha squash, and it’s a type of winter squash.

The Kabocha squash took only four months to start producing. The seeds came from the squash she purchased at the market. I am always surprised to find that seeds from market produce can grow just as nicely in the garden.

My mom thinks they are one of the most easy to grow pumpkins. She just loves growing pumpkins and has three varieties in her garden.

One of which is almost white in color and grew by accident. But then it became a favorite for it’s taste. Her pumpkin varieties are known to be very creamy, nutty, and sweet. And the Kabocha fits right into the list.

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When I think of Luang Prabang (in Laos), I usually think of clean and quaint streets. Along with sacred Buddhist temples and other beautiful scenery.

But then I came across this article. The author was talking about how plastic bags are becoming a polluting sight seen along roadsides to landing between crops.

There are also sight of rubbish mounds (mostly of plastic bags) being burn across many villages.  Which only adds to more air pollution.  It really saddens me to hear this.

A unique way to take cabbages from the market. Plastic or Rattan? Photo from EatingAsia.

An excerpt from EatingAsia:

Each item, purchased from a different vendor, will be placed into its own clear plastic bag –, and each of those bags slipped into another, larger one. Customers leave the market with their fingers dripping yellow, pink, black, red plastic bags.

Most of those bags will never see a second use. If you live or have traveled here you’ve probably seen where they can end up: alongside roads, strewn over hillsides, on beaches, blanketing land resting between crops.”

What ever happened to traditional market baskets? The nicely weaved ones that can carry loads of vegetables. Even heavy duty and reusable nylon bags and cotton bags would be a better choice.

To my surprise, not all hope is lost.  As market vendors came up with this neat idea.  Instead of “Paper or Plastic? In Luang Prabang, it’s plastic or rattan strips?”

Other vegetables that can be strung and carry this way are bamboo shoots, lettuce, and even small bunches of herbs such as peppermint. I think it’s a great idea!  

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