Wheatless: Food for Life tortillas

Burritos stuffed with rice and pork.

Are you wheat-free? Did you think you'd never have burritos, enchiladas, or quesadillas again?

If your answers are "yes", you can imagine how thrilled I was to find these 8-inch gluten-free tortillas at Healthy Living in South Burlington (in the wheat-free aisle, freezer section).

It looks like a wheat tortilla, but throw that image right out of your mind and think: brown rice fruit roll-up.  The "skins" are the texture of fruit leather and not appetizing at all unless they are toasted. They also get tougher and more brittle the longer they are out of the package.

These burritos were in the oven at 300f for 20 minutes.  Dan said the tortilla was flavorless, but I detected a nutty/seediness.  They are very, very chewy, which I didn't mind because I got to eat a burrito for the first time in two years.

Would I buy them again?  Yes.  Would I inflict them on guests?  No.  They are a convenient way to use up leftovers, but are just too far away from the 'real' thing to share with allergy-free innocents.

Here they are in a quesadilla.  I let this sit on the counter for ten minutes while the oven pre-heated and as you can see, the top layer dried out and curled up.  (I flipped the quesadilla over to flatten it and popped it in the oven).  

It looks like it should, but it isn't quite right in texture or flavor.

On the road again, and again, and again

Time to go over Jay Peak to Troy again.  This journey was made to pick up half of our frozen meat packages from Brault's Custom Processing and bring them home.

It looked like an overcast, stormy day on the Montgomery side...

...but on the Troy side, clear skies and roads...

Only one more trip and then we are done with processing until June.

Random ground photos

The walking path to the barn is clearing up; I hope this last storm was the final one before the ice recedes from the driveway.

Even in the snow and ice, Dan still rides his bike to work.

Slush puddle at the quick-stop. I don't know why this appealed to me, maybe I saw it as a harbinger of spring, like taxes, mud and robins.

Aged Vermont Blue

(note the stab marks from the piercing needle)

On the days that we make too much curd, I use the excess to make one or two 6-10 pound cheeses. 

They age out a couple of months longer than a normal 3-lb. cheese. 

These cheeses are sold as a special offering at farmer's market, but I cut one up this week to sell at our cheese plant during sugaring season.

(notice the rind wrinkles from the cheesecloth that it was wrapped in during the draining process)

This blue cheese is harder than our 3-lb. wheels: strong, cheddary, and intense in flavor.

Cheesemaking: The sixth wheel

We didn't make any of this particular cheese last year because the weather changed from damp to dry too soon to make and age it out successfully.  This is "Connor," an abbey-style washed-rind cheese, dubbed a "pizza cheese"  since it is good on flatbreads. It is a very, very hard cheese, even when conditions are optimum.

Connor will only be available at farmer's market.  Of course, I never know if the cheeses I make only once a year will work out or not.  It's just one of those risks we cheesemakers take, I guess.

Monday Menu: Beef skirt steak

Yummy beefy bits.

Skirt, flank, and flatiron are my favorite steaks for the grill. But, this evening it was all wet blowing snow outside and I didn't want to let all the heat out of the house opening and closing the door to the porch.

After coating the skirt in Montreal seasoning it went in to a hot pan for 6-7 minutes per side to sear. Then the whole pan went in to a pre-heated 300f oven for 20 minutes. As you can see, it shrinks quite a bit.


I didn't bother to let it rest, and it was medium-rare to rare in the thickest part.

For a side, I lightly blanched a head of cauliflower (in the microwave), tossed with beaten egg and worcestershire sauce, then sprinkled with parmesan, asiago, and paprika, and baked until golden (convection oven under the setting for "vegetable casserole" - I think this is 375 for 20 minutes). The cauliflower was very sweet.

Served up with a little sushi rice.



I am looking forward to more frequent grilling now that our meats are coming back from the processor.

Easy meaty red sauce

I started with a 1.2 lb. package of our own ground beef, two small onions (diced), 1/2 head of garlic (cloves finely chopped).  I sauteed the onions for a few minutes until they were translucent, added the garlic and sauteed a few more minutes.  I added the beef and continued until it was browned (I did not drain the beef since we do not add fat to our ground meat). 

Then, I added a jar of Arethusa pureed tomatoes that I had purchased at the Winter Farmers' Market and let it reduce a bit at the simmer, adjusted the salt, and voila!  An easy meaty multi-purpose red-sauce.  

This is a test-product for Arethusa, and it was similar to the home-canned tomatoes that my mother used to put aside at the end of every garden season.