It’s easy to start! Take a favorite recipe from any book, say a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the Joy of Cooking. Try it out as the recipe states, make notes about what you would like to change (ex. more salt, less salt, more brown sugar for a molasses taste, crunchier (more butter), chewier (more eggs), etc.) and with your next recipe, change your ingredients a tad, and remark on how well you liked your own changes. Over time, you WILL develop your very own family recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies that is individually yours, one that your family will ask for with mouths watering time and time again.

Incidentally, this is something we constantly do for savory recipes. We are hesitant to do this with baking because we have always been told that baking is a science and we must follow every direction exactly. This is true for candy especially, but please note that not following an ingredient list or method exactly will not result in baking ruin—JUST a different cake, cookie, mousse: whatever the product may be. For example, using room temperature butter and creaming it with sugar will result in a very different cake texture-wise than melting butter and folding it into your batter will. You might actually come to find, however, that you prefer the texture of the melted butter cake to the creamed butter variety. This is all about experimentation—and all of your results should still be incredibly edible!

Once you’ve mastered the “Recipe Doctoring Stage,” might I suggest moving on to something a little more daring? Now, what I am about to introduce can be a little daunting for baking renegade newcomers. But let’s give it a go…how about writing your own recipe entirely BASED on your preexisting knowledge of baking ingredients and the role they play in the foods we bake? Here’s a great example of something I just conjured up a few days ago out of baking excitement and pregnancy hunger pangs for crumb cake.

Every time I make a crumb cake out of a book, I’m never happy with the recipe. I know what I want: moist, cake-like, light (not dense), sweet and salty, and a realyl good streusel on top. I woke up on Saturday morning with, yet again, a strong desire for crumb cake, but had trouble with the idea of getting out of bed to make a so-so cake. SO!…I decided I would make up my own recipe. Now, when you do this, the first thing to do is to get out a pad of paper and pencil and make note of your ingredients and process. This is so that you can keep track of your recipe, no matter how bad or great it comes out! If you’re not so happy with your results, at least you have a platform from which to build off of.

So, I used my knowledge of pound cake (the idea that you use a pound of flour, pound of sugar, pound of butter, hence the name “Pound Cake”…this may not be the exact recipe, but you get the picture…) and translated that idea into a crumb cake recipe, in which I used the theme of “TWO” of everything…hence my rather creative name, “Two Cake.” My results? Unbelievable! This is a family treasure, for sure! Also, I can rest assured that no other family has this exact recipe. Except, now I’m going to share…so scratch that last part=)

TWO CAKE

preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Combine:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons leavening (1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder)

2 half teaspoons salt (1/2 for now, half for streusel)

In a separate bowl, combine:

2 eggs

2 half cups dairy (1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup whole milk)

2 half cups sugar (1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Melt butter and set aside:

2 sticks butter (1.5 sticks melted, retain half a stick and cube it, reserving for streusel)

Cake Process:

Combine dry and wet ingredients with a whisk, reserving butter and fold in gently with a rubber spatula until butter is incorporated. Set batter aside, which will help to aerate…my sneaky little tip is that melted butter, folded in to cooler ingredients, will actually fluff up your batter if you let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes.

Streusel

In a food processor, combine…

2 half cups pecans or walnuts

2 teaspoons cinnamon

your remaining 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup flour (ok…not “TWO” but no one’s perfect)

1/2 cup brown sugar (ok…not “TWO” but no one’s perfect)

remaining half stick of butter, cubed

Process until mixture is in medium-fine crumbles

POUR batter into a buttered 9×9 brownie pan or glass baking dish, top with all streusel, and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out moist but clean.

A great thing about this recipe is that you can eat almost right away.  Allow to cool for just 5 minutes, then cut straight out of the pan into squares and serve warm.  This cake can be stored with aluminum foil to cover at room temp for 4 days.  It just gets better with time, but should be served either room temp or warmed in a 350 degree oven.  IF you want to keep this cake around longer, either refrigerate or freeze in wrapped aluminum foil for easy reheating.

Hope you like this cake as much as I do.  What’s next?  Maybe there is a THREE CAKE in my future…

I think it’s safe to say that products that fit into my “bad” category are the cleaning products and brands that most of the US population uses in their homes. Things like bleach, Formula 401, Windex and especially Clorox cleaning products like bleach, wipes, and sprays. We stopped using these products long ago. In fact, when I met my husband I was still using them to clean up my apartment and it was my husband who introduced his method of natural cleaning, but we’ll get to that later.

VS

In the meantime, harsh chemical cleaners, like Clorox brand products, are toxic and are known to be hazardous both for humans AND their pets. In fact, if you’re wondering why Fluffy always seems to piddle in the same spot, annoyingly so, which requires you to constantly be on hands and knees cleaning, consider this: the smell and toxicity of the product you’re using is repulsive to her, which is why she is using the strong ammonia in her urine to blot it out and bring her habitat back to some sort of controlled normalcy when it comes to comfort. And do not be fooled by Clorox’s new “green cleaning” line of products. Unless the ingredients are words you both understand and can pronounce, they are not natural.

So if you don’t want to have to poison your pets or lock away your cleaning supplies from your toddling tots, what other option do you have? This brings me to my “better” category…

For things like dish washing detergent, clothing detergent, and dish soap, using a natural cleaner, like a product from Seventh Generation , which refers to a Native American ideal of making decisions with the philosophy in mind that whatever you decide will not only affect your generation, but will still be suitable for 7 generations to come, is the way to go. In fact, their new TV commercial hits home when it comes to the reason why folks who want a more natural approach to housecleaning turn to what Seventh Generation has to offer. They openly declare that when using their products, it is unnecessary to hold one’s breath when spritzing and spraying in order to clean. And it’s true. How often have you found yourself holding your breath when spraying some Clorox product? Seventh Generation products actually smell great. Plus, you can opt for the fragrance free varieties. BUT, you may say, “natural cleaning products are much more expensive than regular brands.” And this can be true, but here’s where the “BEST” category comes into play.

What if I told you, that for pennies, you could keep your house clean using only ONE cleaning implement? Sure, for clothes washing and dishwashing our family still uses Seventh Generation products, but for cleaning counters, dusting, cleaning mirrors and windows, and sanitizing, guess what we use as our truly multi-purpose cleaner? Vinegar!

White Distilled Vinegar that can be purchased in 1 or 2 gallon jugs is actually the answer to all of your cleaning woes. To get started it’s simple: Purchase an empty plastic spray bottle that has never before been used. (I would normally suggest reusing an old empty bottle, however mixing vinegar with bleach or ammonia can cause a chemical reaction which creates a poisonous gas, so please don’t do that. Besides, your empty bottle will last you years.) Also, buy your white distilled vinegar at the store, and fill your bottle 3/4’s of the way full with vinegar. Top it off with water from the faucet, and you’ve got a mega cleaning product that can easily wipe away grease, spaghetti sauce, dust and more without the use of harsh chemicals. Plus, one bottle usually lasts at least a few months. The tougher the stain, the easier it is to clean: simply spray on a heavy layer of your vinegar cleaner and let sit for 5 minutes, then wipe down with a clean white towel (no paper towels here!) that has been soaked in warm water.

For those of you who might be worried about the smell that vinegar imparts, simply add a few drops of your favorite essential oil, like lavender or peppermint. Even orange or eucalyptus would work nicely. We don’t mind the vinegar smell as it evaporates quickly, so for us, we like to leave our cleaner plain and simple.

Even more importantly, you may be asking yourself if vinegar really has the power to disinfect surfaces the way bleach or other harsh chemicals can. The answer is, of course, that we wouldn’t use vinegar unless it sanitized surfaces. In fact, we believe that vinegar kills enough bacteria in our kitchen with out creating a completely sterile environment, which is actually better for you and your family in the end.

In the times of hand sanitizer, bleaching kids toys, and generally being freaked out at the thought of one single germ in your house, using vinegar will not only teach you that you shouldn’t be afraid of your own kitchen, but that simpler is better. After all, can’t you see the hypocrisy in worrying about bacteria while all the while inhaling harmful chemicals?

I think the trade-off is easy to see, and swallow.

Perfect Flavor is interwoven into the stories of these two men and the documentary “FOOD, INC.” in a way that would be enviable to most sustainable food companies. Not only have I brushed shoulders with Pollan, who can be thanked for launching our current local & sustainable food movement into its current stratospheric position, but I have worked closely for the last year with the family and farm that is responsible for catapulting both “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “FOOD, INC.” into the public’s view: Polyface Farm and The Salatin Family

When we began the process of starting up Perfect Flavor, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” was the first book on local, real food that Colin and I read. We were stunned and so very pleased to discover that Polyface Farm and the Salatin family were located just miles away from our home and where we would eventually settle our production kitchens. Sheri Salatin, the daughter-in-law of Joel, married to Joel’s son, Daniel, was the first person I would contact in order to begin the process of sourcing all of our ingredients locally. It was Summer of 2006, and Sheri’s and my relationship has grown stronger and stronger ever since. I have much admiration and respect for what she and the rest of the Salatin family are choosing to do with their lives, that is: raise beef, pork, chickens, rabbit, eggs, and more, honorably and honestly.

How do we at Perfect Flavor fit in? Well, we started by buying eggs from Polyface for our ice cream in early 2008 at the launch of our company. We then teamed up with Polyface to begin selling our ice cream through their amazingly popular Buying Clubs, which are full of intelligent, well-educated and themselves honorable Buying Club Members, who once a month subscribe to this Club which allows them to order everything that Polyface produces. This is especially important because it gives folks in many cities in Virginia no excuse to buy grain-fed beef or antibiotic-filled chicken from a no-name source at the grocery store EVEN if they can’t make the trip down to Swoope, VA (pronounced Swope) located near Staunton, for a grocery store run. Through the Buying Club, everything Polyface has to offer gets delivered to a drop point located in central locations to where many of these members live, often in neighborhoods. These folks, when offered the chance to also purchase our handmade ice cream made with Polyface eggs and local milk, jumped at the chance, and we had a steady business from last March 2009 to December 2009 selling to Polyface’s customers everywhere from Williamsburg to Harrisonburg to Northern Virginia and beyond. It must be mentioned that Polyface only sells locally, meaning that the farthest north they will take their Buying Club is Southern Maryland. The farthest South currently is Central VA. For more info and to become a member, visit here! I was so thrilled to be a part of Polyface’s far reaching touch that I volunteered to ride on the delivery truck for one month with Polyface’s amazing delivery guy (for lack of a much more fitting term), Richard Morris, who has an inspiring story of his own pertaining to the lessons he learned in dealing with real, whole foods. Learn more about him here! My experience working with Polyface and Richard taught me absolutely invaluable lessons about the educated consumers out there who demand good food for themselves and their families. And this was what Oprah’s show was really about: the necessity for all of us to take the health of ourselves and our families back under our own control when it comes to the choices we make about the foods we eat.

As far as Chipotle goes, and our connection with it, it may be small, but I am proud of our ties to this wonder of a business. Firstly, when we started making cheese at Perfect Flavor, we were ending up with a fair amount of whey, which most industrial cheesemakers just dump down the drain. Not us! I went straight to Polyface and asked if we could donate our whey to them each time I came to drop off an ice cream order. They were happy to take our whey and feed it to their pigs. And from what I hear, the pigs loved it! Now, how does this connect with Chipotle? Well, did you know that the Charlottesville Chipotle location was the first to not only use outdoor, humanely raised pork, but that it was the first to use LOCAL pork. That’s right, and where do you suppose they get it from? Polyface, of course. So, every time I eat at our local Chipotle, I order nothing but the Carnitas pork option on the menu. With confidence, not only do I know that my meat is local, but that I am also eating a little bit of my whey from my own sustainable business as well!

I am happy to admit that I am both a member of the Charlottesville Buying Club and also currently have a half a pig in my freezer that most likely was fed our very own whey!

Now, I must note that due to my pregnancy, we are no longer supplying Polyface with ice cream or whey, and boy are our customers upset, the pigs in particular=) My hope is to do right by my family first, however, as the Salatin’s have chosen to do. In a long conversation with the always inspiring Teresa Salatin, Joel’s wife, we discussed how family should come first. Until I can reopen Perfect Flavor in terms of ice cream and cheese production, I will continue to gather my research and resources and share the good news about local and healthy food here on my blog.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank both Polyface and Michael Pollan for the chance to work along side their cause, even in the most humble of capacities. My experience has been priceless.

Did you know that cloth diapering is cheaper than purchasing your regular run-of-the-mill plastic diapers? According to The Stork, a local diaper delivery service in Charlottesville, VA, even a cloth diaper service such as this can guarantee diapers at a cost of 33 cents/unit, which is the same as a unit of Huggies. This fee, to top it off, includes the diaper service itself. All one needs to do is throw a dirty diaper into a bag and wait for it to be picked up by The Stork at home. And what does this person get in return? Clean diapers, of course. Imagine how much less the cost is if you own your own cloth diapers and are washing them yourself?

And just how easy is it to wash cloth diapers? For a newborn who is nursing, it’s as simple as throwing them straight into the washing machine. For an older baby, diapers need only be rinsed in the bathtub or sink, then washed in the washing machine.

And how might we decrease the costs of cloth diapering even more? Instead of purchasing from a company that sells pre-fabbed diapers, send a cloth diaper sewing pattern to a mother, mother-in-law, or friend of a friend who sews. In all cases, offer to reimburse for all fabric costs and labor, unless of course, your friend or family member wants to offer these cute little white ones to you as a shower gift proxy. You could even ask them to modify the pattern to include a fold-over feature or a small dip near the front of the diaper for baby’s healing belly button.

Check out popular patterns here!

My mom is currently working on my diapers and I can’t wait to put them to good use!

Also, for you really easy breezy hippies out there, Gerber makes really cheap cloth diaper panels sold in packages of 4-6 that are so multi-purpose that you’re going to want them in your baby repertoire no matter what. Use them for spit-up clean ups, burp cloths, blankets, and babies who need an emergency diaper change or who are in-between sizes. Do keep in mind, though, that the sewing patterns offered above are very close to a one-size-fits-all baby, at least at the beginning. One pattern can fit a baby anywhere from 6-30 pounds!

Lest we forget that the best news to cloth diapering has got to be the next-to-zero waste factor. I think both baby and parents and sleep and breath easier knowing that their diapers are not sitting in a landfill somewhere.

Also, cloth diapered babies are less likely to develop diaper rash, as the outer layer of the diaper is made of cloth, not plastic. Plastic locks in moisture while cloth allows baby’s bum to breath!

One final tidbit: did you know that cloth diapered babies are more likely to potty train earlier than plastic-diapered babies? It’s because cloth diapers do not wick away liquid as magically as the infinite layers inside plastic diapers, therefore teaching your children a very important lesson: If they don’t like to feel wet, then they will learn how to remedy their situation naturally by using the toilet instead of the diaper. The average cloth-diapered baby is potty trained by age two.

woohoo!

Greetings! For those of you who do not know me, I’d love to introduce myself.

I am Lynsie Steele, age 27, and am the wife of Colin Steele (the love of my life) and the honored stepmom of Nick Steele, age 14, and Kate Steele, age 10-almost-11. I am also (she says with a grin) expecting my first baby due in May. I am currently 4.5 months pregnant and am loving every precious minute.

Perfect Flavor was started by my husband and I long before we married, and Nick and Kate have been a part of our company from day 1. This has always been a family endeavor full of learning curves, many surprises, and even more rewards. For the past 4 years we have been building our business into a solid local food entity that greatly supports local dairy products in a way that not many business do. We make gourmet ice cream and artisanal soft cheeses, like fresh mozzarella, ricotta, mascarpone and yogurt. At least we did up until this week.

Now, since we’ve got a baby on the way, I am taking a break from the food operation side of things and focusing more on spreading the good word about local food, sustainability, making healthy foods at home and raising my kids in a way that is natural, respectful and right.

You will find in “Parenting” many of my own experiences and how I’ve dealt with anything from a kid who’s had a bad day to teaching a little someone how to make bread on their own to what’s going on in the world of natural parenting.

I am by no means an expert parent, but who is? I simply hope to share the experiences I have of being a stepmom, being pregnant, and eventually raising this bio-baby of mine in this big, huge, wonderful mix of love and family.

I invite you to enjoy the ride of this modern-day parent!