Sep 14 2007
Projects
I am determined to be, if not a domestic goddess, a rustic Montana militia survivalist-type. To that end, I have a variety of food-based projects I intend to accomplish:
Hard cider
Ok, so this isn’t an essential to life for everyone, but I miss it and there *are* apples out here. It’s hard to find recipes online that don’t refer you to buying some kit from America, though, and I *think* I might need to find some sort of special yeast to get it going - bread yeast, while available, won’t cut it.
Bread
Assuming my biscuits haven’t been re-cursed, I’d like to learn how to make proper bread - you know, the kind that rises and has holes inside from that. When I was staying with Suzie the breadmaking was getting there, but once I procure a small oven here I’ll be back in business with something to eat as well as occupy my mind when there’s nothing else to do.
Dried and canned things
It’s harvest time in Khovd and relatively many things are available. This won’t be the case several months from now so I better start storing up - even though I love getting my American dried fruits and all I don’t want to be always asking for stuff. I’m thinking at this point apples, nectarines, and tomatoes. According to a little manual I have eggplant is also viable. Canning things I’m not so excited about, mainly because I haven’t accumulated a store of glass jars through various purchases here. I need to check out the market some more to see what’s available, but there’s also the option of storing stuff on my balcony once it gets below freezing, especially meat and root veggies.
Brats
I have all the ingredients for a great bratfest - onions, beer, buns, mustard - except for the brats themselves. Conceptually sausages don’t seem difficult - meat, fat, spices, tada! - but I’m not sure how to negotiate the “can I buy those pig intestines off of you?” for casings and the fact that again, most instructions seem to think you own your own automated sausage stuffer and electric meat grinder. I think I need something called a…sausage stuffing horn? to do it by hand. This sounds like a more early winter activity anyway, as I have to refrigerate em somewhere (like my balcony).
Just about any of these could possibly make me sick, but I’m up for it for the greater good of, erm, culinary exploration. I continue to tread carefully on the internet here - I move slowly and carefully so as to not startle it and heaven forbid that I attempt to load more than one page at a time.
