Food Crafting 101
The Food Crafting 101 class at The Institute of Domestic Technology, began with bread making. Erik Knutzen of Root Simple, started off by sharing his thoughts on various flours and yeast, followed by a hands on demonstration for making our own Twenty-One-Hour Boule. Now, I know that sounds like an enormous amount of time to make bread, but it's only about 10 minutes worth of work, the remaining time is resting & rising the dough.
After we made our own dough, we stored it in a container to bring home and bake later. Here's my finished loaf I shared on Instagram...
From there we moved on to my favorite part of the day, jam making! We made a Strawberry Rhubarb Jam with Balsamic and Black Pepper. Holy smokes it is so good!
We washed, sorted, and cut the strawberries and rhubarb. Then added them to an enormous bowl (10+ lbs of berries!) and mixed in the sugar. No commercial pectin was used in the recipe, as the natural pectin found in the fruit was all that was needed. The fruit and sugar mixture were brought to a boil on the stove, and the balsamic vinegar and black pepper was stirred in just before it reached gel point.
Here Steve Rudicel of Mariposa Creamery, and the Institute of Domestic Technology's Director, Joseph Schuldiner transfer the cooked jam into a large pitcher. This makes it easier to pour the jam into individual jars. Much better than scooping the hot jam out of the pot for each jar!
After adding the jam to the jars, the inside is scraped for air bubbles and the outside rim is wiped clean. From there, the lid is added and they go into the large canning pot of boiling water.
While our jam was being watched by their staff, we were treated to a beautiful luncheon...
Next came our Mustard class. So many of the students were interested in this portion of the day. Have you ever made your own mustard? I hadn't, but found it couldn't be easier.
The mustard seeds had been soaking in a mixture of red wine vinegar and Guinness Extra Stout for a day or two. All we needed to do was add our own creative "spice mixture".
I chose a combination of ground ginger, orange peel, saffron salt, black peppercorns, and honey. After tasting and stirring your mixture, it's blended in a food processor for about 3 minutes, or until it reaches a consistency you like. That's it. I can't wait to add mine to a smoked turkey sandwich or grilled fish entree.
Our last class of the day was to learn how to make chevre from the creamery's fresh goats milk.
This started with a milk tasting, which I must admit, was my least favorite part, since I don't enjoy drinking milk. At all. But I still tasted it so I could observe the differences between the brands and varieties. We learned about rennet and starter cultures and how few steps there actually are to making really delicious chevre. And do you know how amazing homemade chevre is with freshly baked bread and Strawberry Rhubarb jam? Divine!
Lastly, I thought I'd show you a peek of their open kitchen. I loved their subway tiles.
The Institute is also a zero waste facility. Meaning, they encourage you to bring your own containers, and the majority of waste is either recycled or composted. Why, they even took the leftover milk from the tasting and fed it to their chickens. Natural recycling at it's finest.
