Sustainably Lux--Better from the (Urban) Farm

Ok, yes, I'm an environmentalist but I admit it--the main reason I want an urban farm is I have expensive tastes. I'd floop around all day in Jimmy Choos from patisserie at Alice Walker's Chez Panisse in Berkeley to a tasting menu at Thomas Keller's French Laundry, picking up artisan candles and soaps along the way, if I could--but sadly, house payments.

Hi. I'm a freeloading slacker that does nothing but provide shelter and keep you from your dreams.

Luckily, urban farming, as in so many other ways, provides. Here are a few of my favorite things that are sustainably lux and so, SO much better from the farm:

Crack Level-Addictive Everyday Sandwich Bread

First of all, can someone PLEASE deconstruct the heavenly orgasm that is the smell of fresh baking bread and bottle it into a candle because I cannot maintain my sanity in a kitchen that is slightly warm and filled with that ambrosial scent of yeasty wheat rising loaves. It's seriously one of the things you're supposed to do to sell your home--have something baking in the oven--and nothing is better and more universally yummy and comforting than the smell of baking bread. I wish I could dab it on behind my ears and go. Gucci "Essenza del Pane". I'm saying.

My recipe for everyday sandwich bread is delicious to smell but even better fresh out of the oven, because I have a little trick of greasing the loaf pans with bacon grease. That's...not the most elegant and luxurious phrase in the world so ...I'm going to rename it Flavor Infused Crisping Oil, because that's exactly what it does. I bake my bacon in the oven on racks over a roasting pan to catch the drippings and then use that as my cooking fat for just about everything, including greasing baking tins. It leaves a faintly salty flavor on the crispy crust of the fresh baked bread, so when you take it out of the pan, it slides right out and tastes like crunchy soft heaven. You cannot get fresh baked bread that is that hot and crispy unless you stand in the bakery and wait for them to hand it to you straight out of the oven. This bread also has no preservatives and you won't need preservatives because in my experience you can't keep a loaf in the house without it being devoured within a day.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Lemon curd is super easy to make; it's essentially zest, juice, egg yolks, butter and sugar whisked together over a double boiler until it thickens. It takes about 15 minutes to juice and zest the fruit and 15 minutes to cook.

Wait, then why does this cost $12.95?

Meyer lemons, full disclaimer, are not one of those super hyped, no delivery fruits that people tack onto the name to make something look "artisanal". Meyer lemons are actually almost a completely different fruit, with an increased sweetness, a finer peel, lower acidity and are somewhere between a Eureka (standard) lemon and a clementine. While you could definitely make a regular lemon curd, it would be much more sour and lemonade-flavored than the delicacy of a meyer lemon curd, which is so delicious and rich you really won't need more than a bite. Perfect for tarts or for a dollop on top of yogurt, it's just one of my favorite things.

There are a ton of lower priced substitutes, but I think Williams-Sonoma is the best curd, lightly sweet and rich, bringing out the flavor of the Meyer lemons. At $12.95 for a jar of what is essentially flavored butter, though? Mmm, that's asking a lot. Luckily, Williams-Sonoma publishes their recipes and you can make your own exactly like theirs. You can find Meyers in the grocery store and at farmer's markets in the spring and summer, and you only need three for this recipe (two if they're particularly big). I get mine from my dwarf Meyer lemon tree that lives in a pot on my patio and produces lemons all year round. My curd is vibrant, sunshiney-lemon yellow with no additives because of the intense color of my backyard chicken eggs--their highly varied diet makes their egg yolks an extra bright yellow. 

On the left, Mrs. Dickinson's (pale and sad) on the right, my brilliant, happy curd. 

Dwarf Meyer lemons are about the easiest thing to keep in your backyard, and they cost about the same as a single jar of WS Meyer Lemon Curd; they're happy in a big pot, just add citrus fertilizer from time to time and you've essentially taken out the most expensive ingredient in the recipe to lemon-y joy.

Meyer Lemon Curd (Source: Williams Sonoma Kitchen)

• 8 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup Meyer lemon juice
• Grated zest of 2 lemons
• 12 Tbs. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut
    into 1/2-inch pieces
• In the top pan of a double boiler, combine the egg yolks and sugar and whisk vigorously for 1 minute. Add the Meyer lemon juice and lemon zest and whisk for 1 minute more. Set the top pan over but not touching barely simmering water in the bottom pan and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the butter, 1 piece at a time, whisking until melted before adding more.
  
  Remove the pan from the heat. Pour the curd through a fine-mesh sieve set over a bowl, pressing the curd through with a rubber spatula. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. Makes 2 cups. 

The only problem with this recipe is that you're left with a ton of egg whites. What to do, what to do, what to do with those beautiful egg whites from your backyard chickens?

Lemon Meringue Tarts

I typically freeze extra egg whites in the hopes of not having to waste them, but once I had collected a huge bag full in the course of making a few batches of lemon curd, I had to do something with them. I went looking in my copy of Thomas Kellers "Bouchon Bakery" cookbook, seriously the gold standard of baking from basic French technique all the way up through a completely hedonistic decadence, for things that require egg whites. Meringues were the first thing that popped up, and in conjunction with having just made lemon curd? How could I not make lemon meringue tarts?

With as sweet and rich as the lemon curd was, I chose a tart dough with no sugar, made for savory tarts, called pate brisee. Once the tart shells were cooled I filled them with lemon curd and chilled again, then topped with delicious swiss meringue and bruleed them with a culinary torch. You can also use the swiss meringue recipe to make a pavlova--a baked meringue that tastes like a crispy marshmallow--just spread or pipe it into a circular shape and bake at 350 for a few minutes until it solidifies. You can then use the pavlova as a shell on its own and spread it with lemon curd or any kind of jam for a delicious sweet dessert with no fat.

Swiss Meringue (source: Thomas Keller's "Bouchon Bakery")
Egg whites--100 g/about 3
Sugar--200 g/1 cup

Mix egg whites and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer set over a double boiler. Whisk and heat to 160 degrees, then put back on the stand mixer and whisk for 5 minutes on medium high or until meringue holds stiff peaks.

Pate Brisee (source: Thomas Keller's "Bouchon Bakery")
All purpose flour, divided--140 g/1 cup
                                            165 g/1cup+3 tablespoons
Kosher salt--3 g/1 tsp
Cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4" cubes--227 g/8 oz
Ice water--58 g/1/4 cup

Mix the 140 g flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. With the mixer running on low, add the butter small handful at a time. When all butter has been added, increase speed to medium low and mix for 1 minute until blended. Scrape down, turn to medium low, and add remaining 165 g flour. Mix just to combine. Add water and mix until incorporated. Dough should feel smooth, not sticky.

Pat into 7-8" disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 1 hour to overnight.

Roll out between two sheets of plastic wrap to 1/8" thickness and drape to fit individual tart pans (makes 1 dozen). No greasing of pans is required, butter in the dough will not stick when baked.
Blind bake at 350 for 12-16 minutes with tart pans on a cookie sheet, then allow to cool completely on wire racks.

Seriously, what better use for backyard chicken eggs?
Speaking of backyard chickens...

Backyard Chicken Eggs

One of these things is better. You see it. Left, store bought and chalky. Right, backyard deliciousness.

They're just better. Think about a commercial chicken on the worst end of a spectrum, and the battery cage where she lives, stacked under another battery cage with another hen, and so on up to the top of the cement warehouse where they will live out their lives, breathing and eating each other's feces along with the cheap, filler and hormone laden food they're fed to keep them at their most productive. 

A "cage free" hen gets a slightly better life in that she's not under layers and layers of other hens but the FDA doesn't regulate "cage free" eggs as anything beyond literally hens not living in cages. The warehouse with the concrete floor is still there, along with the feces in the air and in the food, being ingested by the chicken who is processing your eggs. Even a "free range" chicken can sometimes live in the same warehouse, with access to the outside via a small channel that most of the hens in the house will never get close enough to experience. 

'Kay. It's gross. 

But a backyard chicken lives with a dirt floor in the open air. Litter in their coop absorbs the worst of their waste; the rest dries and decomposes into the dirt below. Hens have access to clean feed but also an omnivorous diet as is their nature--bugs, worms, snails, grass, leaves, clover, weeds. Pizza sometimes, if I'm honest, but also asparagus, peppers, pumpkin seeds, sage, kale, carrots, almond meal, stale cake--anything unspoiled and edible. My hens eat as well as we do, and they process eggs that are richly, beautifully, perfectly yellow. Side by side with even farmer's market eggs, there's no comparison. They taste gooier, eggier, more intensely flavorful. In comparison store bought eggs start to taste chalky. Backyard eggs are better in EVERYTHING, from scrambled eggs to sugar cookies.

And speaking of sugar cookies...

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Okay, this isn't grown on my urban farm. But it's created on my urban farm, it's flavorful, it's super easy to make and it's a little cheaper than grocery store vanilla--a lot cheaper than Nielson Massey (the gold standard of vanilla extract). I make mine in a pretty glass cruet, extra artisanal-ly delicious. You will need:

1 cup vodka, rum or bourbon (inexpensive is fine)
5 vanilla beans
Glass jar with lid or cork

Fill the jar with your alcohol. Vodka will leave the cleanest flavor; bourbon or rum will leave a little extra flavor behind. Cut the vanilla beans into 1" pieces and slice them open; scrape the vanilla flecks into the jar and then add the beans themselves. Shake to mix, and shake occasionally for the next eight weeks. Once fully diffused, you can add more alcohol as the liquid levels drop with use; if the flavor starts to feel become too diluted, add another bean. Shelf stable, no need to refrigerate.

Sugar cookies with this bourbon vanilla extract taste extra delicious; even the most simple recipes are infused with added flavor. We also use it in our homemade chocolate syrup to bring out the flavor of the cocoa for our almond milk mochas.

Almond Milk Mocha

Yes, this is also not grown on my urban farm but created, and it's so tasty and flavorful that when our espresso machine was out for repair and I had to go back to Starbucks, I ended up taking one sip and just decided to go without until we could make our own again. What makes it so fantastic for me is the fresh almond milk we make ourselves (a hassle, but 100% worth it, one taste of authentic fresh almond milk and you will never be able to go back to the flat, chemical flavor of store bought); homemade chocolate syrup, and fresh ground espresso.

Any coffee drink you'd normally have with cream or milk is fantastic with fresh almond milk. Where milk fades into the background of a coffee drink, almond milk enhances and adds a flavor of its own. Fresh almond milk is foamy, creamy and without any of the cloying sweetness of store bought.
You will need:

6 oz. raw almonds
5 cups water
A cheesecloth or a nut bag

Put the almonds in a small bowl or pyrex measuring cup with enough water to cover, and let soak overnight. Drain and place almonds with 5 cups water into a blender. Blend on high until almonds are liquified. Strain through cheesecloth or nut bag into second container (we repurposed a glass juice jar with a tight fitting lid). Makes 4 cups. Keep refrigerated for no more than two days. Shake before use.

Urban farming satisfies my gourmet tastes on a budget...backyard blueberries with as varied flavor as different varieties of grapes, sun-warmed strawberries, PINEAPPLE strawberries, fresh onions so strong and green and fragrant you can smell them on the breeze, crisp sugar snap peas straight from the vine...ahhh. If only I could grow Louboutins in my raised beds.

Berry-red...close enough.