Hasta La Ideas

Crafted on a small family-run farm in Sonoma County, CA, Bellwether Farms’ creamy sheep milk yogurt makes a tasty and healthy substitute for both standard cow milk varieties and other alternatives. Since the protein in sheep milk more closely matches human breast milk, it’s easier on digestion than cow or even goat milk yogurt.

Bellwether Farms raises their East Friesian sheep (a prolific and lean European breed commonly used to make cheeses such as Manchego, Ricotta, Feta and Pecorino Romano) on natural pasture, grains and sprouts. The resulting naturally homogenized sheep’s milk contains no antibiotics or growth hormones and, thanks to the higher density (about 50% more) solids, the yogurt has a thicker consistency, more calcium, protein and as one of their farmers recently told us, more “better for you fat.”

Those familiar with traditional Greek yogurt (not cow milk versions sold in the U.S.) will recognize the taste of the milk’s make-up, which also lends a natural sweetness to the plain variety Bellwether produces. But, working with an Oregon producer that counts Bellwether as their only food manufacturer client, their deliciously fruity flavors—strawberry, blueberry, blackberry and vanilla—rank high above others who use “fruit preparations” that often list their first ingredient as water.

Bellwether Farms sheep milk yogurt and artisanal cheeses sell stateside at sustainably-minded retailers.

by
Gregory Mitnick

For this video we visited our friend Tim‘s grandma, Yu Um Chon, at her home in New York where she showed us how she makes Kim Chee. As one of dwindling numbers of Koreans who still make the spicy pickled staple themselves, she explained that everyone has their own recipe and walked us through hers (including the addition of artificial sweetener to cut down on sliminess).

Yu Um Chon’s Kim Chee*

1 Napa cabbage
1 Korean (or daikon) radish, cut into matchsticks

1/2 C ground Korean hot pepper
1/4 C Korean salted shrimp
1 bulb of garlic, finely minced)
1 (three-inch) piece of fresh ginger root (minced)
1 bunch of scallions
salt and sugar to taste

Dissolve about six tablespoons of sea salt in a large bowl of water (about a gallon), add the cabbage, and let it soak in the salt water overnight, rubbing the salt on the cabbage a few times.

Remove the cabbage from the salt bath, drain, and rinse.
Combine all ingredients with the shredded radish in a large bowl. Season with salt and sugar to taste.

Layer the radish mix in between the cabbage leaves, place into a large glass or other non-reactive container, and allow it to sit for two to three days.

*All amounts are approximate and can be varied according to your preference!

Reader Carla submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

After too many episodes of struggling to find a top to match a Tupperware in my mother’s kitchen I’ve decided to buy her a new set of food storage containers. Can you recommend the best type of food storage containers? The requirements I’d like to fulfil are:

• a few different size containers all with the same interchangeable lids
• stackable
• high quality

I seems to be difficult to find all of these qualities in one product. Do you have any recommendations?

Food storage containers, until recently, were some of the most ridiculously designed items for the kitchen. Additionally, they easily stained, warped, and lost their lids like socks lose their mates in a dryer. Research now shows that some were even made of plastics that leeched chemicals into the food — yummy!

Thankfully, food storage containers have advanced quite a bit in recent years. Today, if I were replacing my food storage containers, I would buy Rubbermaid’s Easy Find Lid Containers. They’re BPA free, the lids all snap together and to the bottoms of the containers so you don’t have a giant mess in the cabinets, and many of the lids can be used for different-size bases. Plus, $11 for 24 pieces won’t be too painful on your pocketbook.

I know that not everyone loves plastic storage, but based on your qualifications it’s pretty much the only option available to you. There aren’t any glass or stainless steel brands right now that have interchangeable lids (at least not that I have found). Also, they’re not usually stackable. If any of our readers know of a brand of glass or stainless steel food storage containers that hasn’t yet made it onto my radar, please share that information in the comments.

Thank you, Carla, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column, and good luck taming the kitchen clutter!

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

From fashion week festivities to parties at the Met, Sweet Jewels have been a recent hit on the NYC scene. New Yorker Julie Le whips up the multi-layered treats by blending cake with frosting, dipping them in chocolate and hand-rolling them in coconut.

Le—a librarian at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute by day—explains “I like watching my friends take a bite into their first cake ball, because the interior is what always surprises them once they get through the hard coconut covered chocolate shell.”

A self-taught baker and entrepreneur, her newest recipe is inspired by An Choi, a Vietnamese eatery in the city’s Lower East Side, and a collaboration with Lipstick Queen‘s Poppy King is in the works, where Le will create cake ball flavors inspired by shades of lipstick. When she has a spare moment, Le also designs one-of-a-kind necklaces she threads from vintage chains under the moniker Crunchy Jewels.

“Cake balls are entertaining all around. They are sweet, the ultimate indulgence in bite sized proportions, not messy like cupcakes, and there is a filthy connotation that goes with it that has everyone giggling like teenagers” Le said. “The jokes about my yummy, tasty balls never get old.”

Sweet Jewels sell from her Etsy shop, with prices starting at $14.

Here’s another project by Chinese designer Daizi Zheng who created the mobile phone powered by cola in our earlier story: this time a range of healthy snacks packaged to look like drugs and junk food, including these blueberries in a blister pack. (more…)