Homemade Mayonnaise...easier than you might think

Everyone has a line drawn in the sand. A point at where you just raise your fist to the heavens and shout "No more!". This, my friends, is what has happened to me.  My line was crossed. In the grocery store isles, shopping for mayonnaise, the ugly scene ensued... it went something along the lines of, "Are you freaking kidding me? Over $4 a quart for freaking mayonnaise?"

Freaking indeed.

Now I make my own mayonnaise, because I no longer find it convienant to be fleeced in that particular aspect of my life. Yes I realize I'm fleeced in many other areas that I have no control over. But darn it, I know how to make some darn tasty mayonnaise, and now I'm mad and motivated, and I will share with you :)

First off, I have come to love making mayonnaise. It really is kitchen chemistry at it's finest. It sort of makes me feel like a mad scientist..and not just mad at the cost of store mayo. Anyway, mayo is tempermental ...but only at first. Then it's relatively forgiving. However, you MUST follow the beginning steps or else you will not have mayonnaise. But no worries, I'll get to that.

Mayonnaise is an emulsion of eggs and oil. According to chemistry, an emulsion is "any colloidal suspension of a liquid in another liquid." Thank you dictionary.com. Good eggs are important for taste and also because we're going to use them raw- as in uncooked. You can use pasteurized eggs, and if you're at all sqeamish about raw eggs, that's what you should do. You can use any oil. The Spanish love to make mayo with olive oil for the taste, but in this post I'm aiming to reproduce store-bought mayo, so we want to use a neutral-flavored oil. Pick your favorite.

I like to make mayonnaise in my kitchenaid with the whisk attatchment. It's easiest for me, but you can adapt to a hand beater or a whisk if you're determined to get an arm workout.

Basic Recipe for Mayonnaise

(all seasoning will be tasted for and adjusted up if needed at the end, so you can go lightly)

3 eggs- separated and reserved

1.5-2.5 c. oil approximately

1-2 T. of acid (lemon juice, lime juice, assorted vinegars)

.5-1 t. salt

pinch of sugar if desired

a squirt of prepared mustard or some mustard powder if desired

also: some people enjoy a few drops of hot sauce or pinch of cayenne. It's up to you.

Start with eggs that have been out of the refrigerator for a few minutes. 

Ice-cold ingredients can doom your mayonnaise.

We start with the egg-yolks only.

This is the fairly runny mixture of egg-yolk, acid, mustard and salt/sugar.

Now this is where I get serious. With the mixer running,

or you whisking away, start adding the oil to the egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon at a time. 

This is literally a few drops at a time, a dribble, a wee bit.

You must do this for at least the first 1/4 cup of the oil

if you want the mayonnaise to form properly.

If you over-dribble, stop oiling and let it beat in for a bit

and pray for the best!! 

You can see it starting to thicken some more here.

Yes, it is very yellow at first, but will gradually get

lighter as you keep adding oil. You don't have to be

quite so precise after the first 1/4 cup, but do add

slowly and let it mix in before you add more.

Keep going, but you can see it getting lighter and thicker.

Here I'm scraping down the sides. The downside of

my mixer on high speed is that it likes to kick stuff

onto the sides of the bowl.

It's really gelling here. You can see that the texture is

definately thick. I'm going to add a bit more oil.

Ok, so we're going to stop for a bit. We need to chat mayonnaise. What we have here is called "heavy mayonnaise". Obviously, you can tell from the picture that it is very thick and saturated stuff. It's used in the food industry quite often. It is better for foods like mayonnaise salads that are going to be made ahead of time. It doesn't get as weepy or icky since the moisture content is minimal, it coats very well and doesn't get absorbed as easily as regular mayo. This is useful to know, especially if you are going to make something with mayonnaise and need to hold it for awhile.

Here you can see the very custard-y texture of the heavy mayonnaise. Like I said, heavy mayonnaise has lots of uses. However, this is not quite the product that we buy in the supermarket when we pick up a jar. (or not if it's $4!!!!) For that type of mayonnaise, we must do a final step.

See what happened?  We went from gloopy to creamy, yellow-y to ivory in a single bound by simply adding 2 of the reserved egg whites back into the mix. It's magic, I tell you! See how pretty it is? Now you can taste it and check for seasonings...does it need more lemon juice? more salt? Add it in and mix it up. It's quite forgiving at this point.

So now, all that's left to do is put the delicious, homemade, preservative-free (and cheap, did I mention cheap? as in not $4 a jar?) mayonnaise into a jar and into the fridge.  With all the sandwhiches that get made at my house for school lunches, it goes pretty fast and I haven't had a problem with spoilage.  However, you can easily make a smaller batch if you have a smaller group to feed.

Enjoy!

To the Farm, in dream if not reality

Hungarian Wax Peppers (rather chiles)

I've been living in suburbia and cities my whole life, with brief visits to the very rural part of Louisiana where my husband spent summers on his Uncle's farm. That hasn't stopped me from realizing that I've been bitten by the farm bug.

Maybe it happened because I love the country. Maybe it happened because the more I read about food production the more I realize that I want to have control over mine. Maybe it happened because I've always wanted to live in a zoo. I have no idea. However, I do know, that sometime in the future, I will have my farm. Until then, I will continue to learn what I can, dream what I may, and have fun with my garden.

I had this sort of surreal experience the other day. I was in Costco, and I discovered that they've created a huge walk-in cooler space for milk and eggs. So I walk through these plastic swinging door-thingies, and I'm in the cooler space, and it's quieter in there, and all around me on gleaming steel shelves are gallons of bright and shiny milk containers, and cartons of eggs, bundled two-by-two in plastic-wrap. As I picked up a gallon of milk and my hand closes around the cold, plastic handle, and grab a bundle of eggs that I couldn't even check to see if they were cracked, I just got this awful, bone-deep sensation of wrongness, of knowing that this was not natural, this was the farthest thing from natural, and with my skin crawling, just wondering what on earth was in this stuff? I started to balk, but unfortunately, or fortunately, or whatever, I sucked it up because where else am I going to get food? I vow, that someday soon, my food predicament will change. I vow that all my eggs are coming from my own happily scratching chickens, not stuffed and caged critters fed whatever crap makes them spit out the most eggs in the shortest amount of time without keeling over. And my milk will be from happy, pastured animals, chewing on whatever they chew on, the milk split between my family and theirs. Sigh..the dream.

The reality...I ate my first home-grown zucchini tonight...I should have taken a picture, but I didn't think about it. I cut it from the vine, cut it into sticks, dusted them in some flour, and fried it in olive oil. Sprinkle on the salt and my-oh-my. It was heavenly. The flavor was so mild, it was pure zucchini divinity. It really tasted different. Maybe because it ripened on the vine, maybe because there were no chemicals used in it's production, maybe it was the varietal. I really don't know the reason.

What I do know, is that I can't wait for my first yellow summer squash. I have one that's only a few days away. I have delicious, brightly colored swiss chard that I am starting to use in many different things. I also have young green tomatoes and baby eggplants growing. It's so exciting to see them start to produce fruit. Amazing!

My first real yield of anything was Hungarian Wax Peppers...they're really chiles. They are early producing here in the northeast, and prolific! I was very pleasantly surprised, they've gotten a big jump start over the sweet peppers I've planted, although the plants themselves look fairly identical. I've got tons of little babies after bringing in a bunch just a few days ago. They have a nice flavor, a grassy, sharp heat when raw, especially with the seeds, but mellower, losing that bright, sharp edge when cooked. I'm going to start pickling them. They seem like they would be perfect for it.

I'm sort of amazed at how much I am loving growing food! I love the planting, the watering, less keen on the weeding, but I know it's necessary, so I do it. I am eagerly awaiting the next fruit of the vine, so to speak. I'll keep you posted.

Musings on (what's in) Chocolate

Lately, because of different circumstances and people in my life, food ingredients and purity of ingredients has really been in the spotlight for me. I've been learning so much about different food additives, and also about how our bodies process what we eat, sugars and carbohydrates in particular. It's fairly mind-boggling. This in turn is redefining what I consider quality food products, and what I will and will not buy. My health is very important to me, and so is the health of my family and my clients. The more I know, the more I realize I have to know, because there is no one out there going to take the responsibility for my health and safety. I have to know what's good, and I can't rely on governments or food manufacturers to do my homework for me, or be in my health's best interest. Especially when that best interest comes into direct conflict with the bottom line.

So, a few days ago I talked about Chocolate, one of my favorite foods on the planet. I gave information on the "Don't Mess with our Chocolate" campaign, which I wholeheartedly support. But now I want to talk about what is currently in our chocolate. I've done a lot a research on what is added to the chocolate in particular. The two main additives that can be questioned are soy lecithin and PGPR. From what I can gather, soy lecithin, a chocolate emulsifier, of itself is not a problem. The problem lies in the fact that soy lecithin can be made from Genetically Modified Soy(GMO), and/or it can be manufactured by a chemical extraction process. The optimal soy lecithin for consumption is made by organically grown, non-GMO'd soy, manufactured by a mechanical process. As you can imagine, this is also the priciest lecithin product out there, so... good luck, label watchers.

PGPR is another emulsifier that is being used in chocolate. Polyglycerol polyricinoleates (PGPR's) are produced from esterification of polyglycerols with polymerised ricinoleic acid. Doesn't that just sound delicious?

Anyway, this product is supposedly derived originally from castor oil (which is something I love, personally, as a skin oil as long as it's cold-pressed) but which I'm not too impressed to find in some weird chemical soup in chocolate. It says right on Danisco's website (one of the European manufactures of PGPR) that "It can replace fat (cocoa butter) in chocolate while maintaining the same flow properties during production. Thus, when thin-flowing chocolate is required for enrobing or when producing hollow products, e.g. Easter eggs, GRINDSTED® PGPR can be used as a cost-effective alternative to a higher fat content."

Yay! Who needs cocoa butter, that pricey, pricey stuff, when you can use this new goop and cut costs and still get chocolate! Well, sort of, but that's OK. Americans will eat it!

Some pages worth reading:

"Organic Rules Tightening on Lecithin" By Ken Roseboro, Editor The new proposed labeling requirements actually made me happy. However, it's also disappointing to understand that as soon as labeling laws change, the first things companies do is try and figure out ways around them. They seem less interested in making their products safer or healthier. It's a little sobering to realize that even in health-food stores with health-food products, you can't just blithely throw items in your cart, secure in the knowledge that the higher price tag guarantees you quality. Because it doesn't.

'How to order "The Non-GMO Sourcebook"' Listed on The Organic and Non-GMO Report website. This website also has some good information on soy lecithin.

Twango's Tidbits Blog: "The Shopper's GMO guide", by Twango
I love the information on this page, and I want the book she's talking about! Very much worth a read.

Polyglycerol "Polyricinoleate (PGPR) Popping Up In Sugar-Free, Low-Carb Chocolates", by Jimmy Moore I'm not really on the low-carb bandwagon- I'm more on the eat the correct types of carbohydrates and in the correct proportions wagon, but this article has some good information.

HFCS and Bah! Humbug!

Well, it's December now and it's snowing out which is nice, but I'm feeling a little peeved. Actually, I'm feeling a lot peeved and more than a little poisoned. I'm getting extremely tired of finding newer and scarier concoctions added to my food. I'm tired of being on guard every second of every day to try and limit my poison intake. I don't even hope to be able to really purify my food. I've accepted that the reality is I can do my best, but I don't have absolute control over the food that I eat. I do have to rely on the integrity of others to place the quality of their product in a higher position than the bottom line. Touch the cashflow? Oh my! No wonder it seems like a futile, and never ending battle!

High fructose corn syrup is high on my hit list for it's varied and numerable offenses, synthetic sweeteners for the same reason, soy lecithin is suspect as the most vast and inexpensive supply of said soy lecithin is from GMO'd soy. Forgive me for being suspicious, but honestly, how many times do we have to be taught the lesson that the more you process and chemicalize our food, the worse it is for us and the scarier the results are? I mean, it's mind boggling how much "stuff" I have to look out for to avoid. The high fructose corn syrup alone knocks off an amazing amount of food from all major brands in the US, not to mention the synthetic sweeteners, modified food starches, hydrogenated oils, and synthetic this and that.

Remember when butter was bad for you and hydrogenated margarine was the saviour of mankind? Now it's come out that trans-fats are bad, very bad. Remember when low-fat was king and it was good for you even if it had a million carb calories and half a dozen chemicals as long as it had no fat? and then no sugar? Then it came out that the carbs and synthetic sweeteners are killing us. Notice a trend? High fructose corn syrup has replaced natural sugar in just about every commercial product that I look at that's not specifically made not to include it. It just amazes me that the connection between the recent trend of American obesity and the Type 2 diabetes running rampant through our population and this product isn't being shouted from every rooftop. Instead, I feel that the lines are being drawn between the increasingly paranoid, health-conscious, label-reading "conspiracy nuts" like me, and the rest of the population who contently or uninformatively consume high fructose corn syrup by the pound every month.

I found three good articles on the topic of health and high fructose corn syrup and added them for you viewing pleasure. I think they do a good job of transferring information.

"High Fructose Corn Syrup: It's everywhere", by By Keecha Harris, Dr. P.H., R.D.
"Sugary Sodas High in Diabetes-Linked Compound", By Theresa Waldron
"Sickeningly Sweet: The Effects of High-Fructose Corn Syrup", By Marin Gazzaniga

More ranting:
According to the website "Don't Mess with Our Chocolate" , which I highly recommend taking a peek at, the U.S. Chocolate Manufacturers Association whose members include Hershey's, Nestle's and ADM, along with 11 other food industry associations, have joined with the Grocery Manufacturers Association in petitioning the FDA for approval to change what the legal definition of chocolate is so that they can remove the cocoa butter (too expensive! it's cutting into the profit margin! wah!) and replace it with hydrogenated and or/ modified cheaper vegetable fats and other wonderful things like milk substitutes and synthetic sweeteners and still call it chocolate. Ooooh joy. Apparently, up for review are the current requirements for a number of food categories, of which chocolate is included. I would love to learn what else they're trying to do to the unsuspecting consumer and what garbage they're trying to shove down the American gullet. The petition is recorded with the FDA as Docket # 2007P-0085.

Oh, but definate kudos to Guittard Chocolate Company and Mars, Inc for saying that they are opposed to removing the cocoa butter in chocolate for other ingredients, though they are members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association. In fact it is Mr. Guittard who is responsible for the "Don't Mess with Our Chocolate" website. It's nice to see someone in the commercial food business who cares..like a diamond ring sparkling at the bottom of a cesspit, a glimmer of hope in the toxic sludge that has become our food supply. Sound dark to you? Bah! Humbug!

I remember being in elementary school when the big joke was "Hey- did you know that a McDonald's milkshake has all the ingredients minus one used to make plastic? Hahaha!"

Sigh...kids. Why did we find that so funny? I mean, even if that's remotely the case, then the joke's on us.