Ghee, Glorious, Ghee (How to Make Purified Butter)

Ghee, it's all the rage in the health food world today so it was high time for me to check it out. It's been used in Indian culture and cuisine for thousands of years so I guess we are behind the eight-ball, but now that it has caught on, it's spreading like wildfire.

Basically, the process of making Ghee is just a few steps further of rendering and straining butter. When you make ghee, you remove the milk solids from butter, so you end up with a butter-like substance that lacks both lactose and is then considered "purified". Also during the purifying stage, most of the water is removed which gives the ghee a much longer shelf life. (can be stored un-fridgerated, for up to a year).

Ghee provides essential fatty acids (where are necessary for our body) and is considered the most digestible fat (some even say it aids the digestion process!). It can be heated to high temperatures which makes it great for cookin

g and it also contains vitamin A and E.

That being said it is a pure saturated fat, so, like all fats, should be used sparingly.

The clarifying process is easy! Start with a pound of unsalted butter (four sticks), the better the quality of butter the better the quality of ghee. Put them in a pan on medium heat and DON'T stir them. The process will take about 20-25 minutes. You will start to see a froth rise to the top of the pan and a sediment will start to fall to the bottom of the pan. The butter will start to bubble and hiss gently and the sediment will slowly turn a golden brown.

At about the 20 minute mark the bubbling and hissing will quiet down and the sediment will be a

amber color. If you can't see the sediment, gently, tip the pan to get a look at it. When the sediment is

an amber color turn the heat off immediately so it won't burn. Let it sit for about five minutes.

Line a strainer with cheesecloth and pour the liquid through into a sterile jar. I actually forgot the cheesecloth and in a state of emergency while the butter was on the burner, I ripped my house apart for a cheesecloth like material, ended up with a sheet of gauze from the med kit hah. You can see all the milk solids that were left over. I tasted them, they kind of tasted like parmesan cheese in a way…
While the Ghee was still warm, it looked like this below
But after it had cooled to room temperature it sort of had a whipped butter texture (the first picture on the page). I'm not really sure how I feel about the way my ghee came out. It tastes fine but almost has a grainy texture. I figure it'll be good for cooking. I think maybe my use of gauze as opposed to cheesecloth might have had something to do with it. I'll update ya'll next time I make it with the proper equipment and see if it makes a difference in the texture.

Well that's all for now folks! Now get making some Ghee!

How to make Masala Chai (Chai Tea!)

Today I want to talk about tea! Tea is the most popular beverage, after water, throughout the world. I am a huge Chai Tea fan. Every time I stop at a coffee shop or anything I always try to order an Iced Chai, But the thing that irked me is that barely anywhere makes their own chai teas. The places that I go that I know DO make their own chai are always out because they say that it is a hassle to make it doesn't keep for that long, so today was the day to try my hand at making it!

"Chai" is a literal translation for the word tea is both the Hindi and Urdu language. The world "Masala" is a Hindi word for spiced. So together "spiced tea" or "Masala Chai".

The ingredients were rather expensive, just because the spices that are used are not as common in the States so they tend to be on the pricey side, but I'm gunna do some bulk shopping around and see if there is anywhere where I can get them cheaper. I was pretty happy with how my Chai turned out in the end.

• 2 teaspoons fresh ginger root; grated
• 1 whole star anise; broken up
• 1 teaspoon orange peel; grated
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds
• 10 whole cloves
• 5 whole peppercorns
• 5 cups water
• 1/4 cup loose black tea leaves;
• (I used Darjeeling but I want to try making it with Green or white tea,
• also, I if you can't find large leaved, loose tea, then just go with
• using about 7 tea bags because it's hard to strain a lot of the smaller ground loose tea)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 cups milk

The first step is to take those first seven ingredients and put them into cheese cloth and tie it up so the ingredients are contained. I actually found a Spice pouch made of organic materials at the grocery store which was convenient. the pouch I used was made by the Organic Coffee Co. which was perfect! Place the pouch into the water and put it on hi on the stove. I tied the string to a wooden spoon and placed it out of the pan like a big tea bag. This is helpful because it makes it easier to fish out the bag out later on.

As soon as you bring the water down to a simmer you can add the tea. Let it simmer for 15 minutes.

I made the mistake of using a finely ground loose tea and it really made a mess with straining. Also I find that loose tea ends up being more bitter for whatever reason… dunno why.

I read a tip somewhere that said if you like strong tea, try increasing the amount of tea you use, instead of increasing the amount of time you cook the tea.

After 15 minutes of simmering has passed. Remove the spice pouch and strain the tea into another container. Here add the vanilla and honey. You can also add the milk at this time, but I decided to leave it out so that my friends and family could add the milk to taste.

I used my tea and spice pouch to make two batches. My first batch was much too strong and

bitter but the second batch was great. I used maple syrup to sweeten the second batch.

If anyone has any tips or suggestions or would like to tell about how their Chai turns out, I would l

ove to here form ya'll!

Garden ants and Basil plants.

I don't think I will ever have to buy a potted plant. It always seems like I am finding them in trash heaps, or in this case coming across abandoned plants. I know they are just plants but I always feel so bad for the little guys, hence why I have a whole garden in my dorm room.

My brother just bought a new apartment building in Gloucester, and while I was over there checking out the new property I found a poor shriveling plant in a plastic tupperware container, with it's soil dry as hell. Like always, I took him home and re-potted him, and, Guess what! He's a little baby Basil plant! The first of the many herbs I want to grow for my kitchen.

Baby Basil before re-potting...

Baby Basil all happy in his new pot in the sunshine.

Today was beautiful, the first taste of spring in 2011. To get the feeling of spring in the house, my little sister, Bea, and I made made a collection of birds and bugs to hang on the potted Weeping Fig tree we have in our kitchen.

Below: I made the Robin, the Yellow bird and the ladybird and Bea made the Caterpillar and the Snowy Owl.

The dogs on a walk to the lake today, warm enough to swim but not warm enough to melt al the ice, Yikes! (Maggie up front, and Wellie in the back)

Enjoy the Weather!

Back from the dead and ready to rejuvenate.

I've started a new painting, this is Woman Stage 1 so far! (more about her below)

It has been awhile since I've been around huh? I have decided to change the direction of this blog a little but the name still fits since I am still Finley and, like always, I am still in action! Well I have settled down a little over the last few months; I have actually been living in the same place for almost seven months now! No more service projects in Salt Lake City, no more traipsing around Europe, and no more firefighting (for now). I am a university going girl now.

Since I have had so much time on my hands at school I have really gotten back into the arts and the crafts. I've decided to share my current artwork with the mother earth and everyone on the internet (or at least everyone that this blog reaches haha). I am going to attempt to put some picture up of what I have been doing but I am afraid I without camera right now so my macbook built-in camera is going to have to suffice.

I have started a new painting! The first image on the page is my new acrylic painting. I have been studying women and the reproductive system a lot recently (since I am studying public health with a concentration in woman studies at school) and so I have started to explore that field in a more artistic way versus the scientific way that I have been. That is what I have worked on so far

I've also decided to try my hand at printing! These images below are my first two block prints I have every tried.

Above here is all the supplies I used. I use the brand Speedball, but mostly just because that is all my local art supply store sells. You need a tube of in (comes in tons of colors), a rubber roller, a bench hook (its the red tool in the corner, it comes it a few different sized heads), an inking plate (this isn't necessary but it's helpful), and of course a carving block. I used Easy-Carve blocks because they are so easy to work with but they also damage easily. Blocks come in wood, and linoleum.

Above: This is a print I made of a Downy Woodpecker. Below: Here is how the print came out. You can tell I used too much ink on the top one. Also those lines are around the woodpecker because I didn't carve down the rubber around him evenly… but I kind of dig them anyways.

Above here is a block I carved of a Toucan (I know I've got a bird theme going but you don't even know the half of it hahah)

Below are some of the prints I made of it. I'm happy with how it came out but i need to press down harder on the back of the blocks when I do the printing.

OK well Cheerio! Hope all is well and I'll post again, maybe next post I'll talk about the foods I've been making lately… who knows?

And the work begins!

OK I only have a few minutes so I will give a quick update.

Work is going great! the weather has been pretty nice so we have been burning a lot. Basically every year when it is fire season, the firefighters start cutting all underbrush on big chunks of land so it is less likely to burn if it is hit with lightning or whatever, and they pile all the brush up and let it dry for a year. The next year before the fire season starts (when it is still wet enough) they start burning all the piles to get rid of the fuel. This year they have 14,000 piles to burn! so we have been burning like crazy! we get all dressed up in our Nomex (fireproof gear) and packs and take our tools, and drip torches and hike up the the burn pile areas and start lighting them all on fire. It is a lot of really hot and smokey work but it is fun too. A couple of times the area has been too dry and the fire has started creeping around and cathing trees on fire. When that happens we stop burning and start cutting a big line down the the mineral soil around the fire so that it can't jump then line and spread to the rest of the forest. The people we are working with are soo awesome I am really looking foreword to the rest of the summer.

On a side note I went to San Fran last weekend with the boys, Jersey and his buddy Jason. It was so fun! We went and saw the Oakland A's vs the Indians and saw the Giants vs the cardinals!! I was so happy to see some baseball, wish it was the Sox though... but the Sox are playing the Giants in June so who knows!! haha

well I can't upload pictures on the computer I am on but I will try later because this computer doesn't right click apparently but I got some great ones so I will promise to try to get them up here

Hope everything is going well out there, my email address is finley.janes@gmail if anyone is trying to reach me and I will write when I can

ps
BRUINS MOVED ON IN THEIR SERIES AND THEY JUST WON THEIR FIRST GAME AGAINST THE FLYERS!

Up at Strawberry Valley.

So its Friday and this brings an end to the first week up at Plumas National Forest.

The Area is beautiful!!! absolutely gorgeous! So on Monday we packed the van up full and headed the short two hour drive from Sacramento up into the Sierra Nevada mountains where we were going to be working. About 45 minutes into the drive we get a call from the Forestry guys and they tell us is was snowing up in the mountains. This was a shock because it was suppose to be 60 and sunny but instead, as we get up higher and higher we end up having to take the chains out and chain the tires so we could get up some of the hills.

As soon as we got past the foothills we lost service on our phones completely. And that was the end of outside communication. When we reached the forestry barracks which is about 20 minutes from the engine house we were staying in, it was snowing so bad that the electricity had gone out up where our housing was so we ended up staying at the barracks for a night before we could move into our housing. the housing is very nice, its a small little house attached to the Strawberry Valley Engine House and it has a big kitchen which is perfect for all our food (because we eat A LOT!). I am sharing a tiny little room with my team mates Maggie and Warith. There are two beds in the room and a mattress on the floor for Warith but it doesn't really fit so Warith has to sleep with his feet under my bed hahaha. But its cosy and not bad at all.

The Mountains are really amazing. The whole town we live in has only about 20 structures. Two stores, and about 80 people in the whole town. The forest encompasses everything. Huge Ponderous pines with their trunk diameters up to 5 feet wide. Sugar Pines with pine cones as big as my forearm and my favorite trees, Medronas. There are 5 beautiful lakes near by and a stunning reservoir in walking distance, the water of the reservoir is a bright turquoise green because the soil is dark red from the cedar trees.

The guys we are working with are GREAT!. They are all really chilled out and relaxed and funny as hell. They really know their stuff about the forestry and firefighting and chainsaws and in the few days we have been here they we have learned so much already. We haven't done much work yet. They spent the first few days getting us certified to cut bigger trees down and teaching us more techniques.

The chain saw we are using is SO heavy! before this we have been using chainsaws with 24 in bars and pretty small engines. Two days ago I ran the new saw for about 2 and a half hours and my forearms were DEAD. Its the 460 which is one of the most powerful chainsaws so it cuts like butter but its bar is about three feet long and it weighs close 25 pounds which gets tiring to hold up all day. But I am excited to become proficient with it.

The nice thing about our schedule is that it is 4 days on and 3 days off. So I always have 3 days weekends! and we just work 7-5:30 during the week instead. Its great! and it will especially be great once the weather gets nice because then we can spend the weekends like fishing and playing games and hiking all over the national forest, I can't wait!


Ok well I can sometimes get service if I hike around a little bit, but I really am only gunna be able to get service/ web when we make the treck down to the foothills on some weekends so communication might be sketching. Good Luck all and

GO BRUINS!!!!

Tree Planting, Transitions and New project

Hey All OK

well I am back in Sacramento again for a week. But first I have a little re-cap on the past few weeks like I promised.

Ok So a few weeks ago we spent two weeks working at a non-profit camp called Camp Niwana. This camp was a sort of bastard child of camps mostly because it was underfunded and lacked a board of directories. Well due to the lack of funding the camp was forced to clear cut 35acres of forest. When we arrived it looked like a nuclear war had taken place there. There was just fields and fields of sticks and slash and torn up brush, really horrible. Our first week there a bit of a horror show. First off, the camp had planned to have us stay in the house that the camp grounds keeper stays in during the summer. This Camp was about 2 hours away from our other camp on Vashon Island and we had to take a ferry to get to it. But anyways, we we got there the staff, who had not been to the camp in 4 or 5 months because it was off season, realized that all the water pumps were broken so if we were to stay there we would not have water. So we ended up having to commute about 4 hours a day there and back. That was bad but the work for the first week was even worse. We spent 9 hours a day picking up sticks. And really it was nine hours straight (well lunch break) of picking up the branches and slash and putting it into neater piles. It was boring, monotonous work and it really wore on you. But It was only a week. the next week was great. We got to stay there so there was no more commuting and we started planting trees to reforest the area!
It was great!! Ever morning we would get up, do PT and then get to work. We would get these two big satchels that you strapped to your hips and filled with 2 year old saplings. We probably put about 40 or so baby trees in each satchel. Then we would take our dibble bars, which is sort of like a shovel except the entire thing made out of a heavy metal, and the end is thicker and narrower. We would slam the dibbles into the ground, wiggle it around so it made a big enough hole and then carefully slide the sapling into the hole making sure not to crush the roots and then stomp the soil around the tree.
After we got used to it, it would take about 40 seconds to a minute per tree. Between the ten of us we plants 5,000 trees, some Douglas Firs and Some Red Cedars. And we covered all 35 acres with new growth!


So Now as I said before we have left Vashon, which is sad because I loved it there but exciting too because it is GREAT to see all my friends back at base. This base weekend was a long weekend for us and my parents and my brother and my baby sister all flew out to meet me in San Fran!! It was so much fun, we saw all over the city, drove up to wine country and visited my campus!! Now I am back in Sac, besides all of the paperwork and meetings I have to go to, it is really really really really really nice to be back with my friends. But unfortunately we will be splitting up again on Monday. Because on Monday I am going to my next project!!!!!!!

My next project is going to be great. We are working with a Fire and Forestry crew that run Plumas National Forest in northern Cali! We are very excited because being with these guys puts us at the best chance for actually going to a fire. Also there is a different element to this project... usually all projects are from 2-8 weeks. I am going to be stationed in Plumas for four months!!! which is kind of sucky because I would like to move around more but is also good because this also gives us a better chance to see fire then if we were on any other shorter spike.
we will be living in a bunk house at an Fire Engine station near the forest in a town called Strawberry Valley. That's all we know now but I'll keep y'all tuned in

BYE