So, I discovered something I really didn’t like about making my own Greek yogurt.

Straining it.

Sure, it’s easy–you use multiple layers of cheesecloth to either line a strainer, or you tie the yogurt up in a bag and hang it over a bowl to catch the whey.

And that is simplicity itself.

However.

When it comes to getting the yogurt out of the cheesecloth bag and into your container, this solution becomes downright messy and irritating.

The yogurt sticks to the cheesecloth–and you have to essentially peel it off. Also, depending on the type of cheesecloth you get–it can be really essentially useless with such an open weave that even when you use four layers of it, some of the yogurt will flow out of it along with the whey and you lose lots of your valuable protein and fat.

Also, some cheesecloth sheds threads. Yeah. Threads in my yogurt. Yum.

Not.

It also sheds fibers. Fibers in my yogurt–also “not yum.”

AND, washing out the cheesecloth is another messy proposition. After you try desperately to get all of the yogurt out of it–which you will fail at, mind you–you rinse out the cloth in your sink–whereupon you will likely curse as you see all that delicious yogurt washing on down the drain when you it could instead be heading down your gullet towards your stomach. You rinse it out in the sink and then wash it in your washing machine.

But there’s a problem.

In the washing machine, if you don’t wash it by itself, it will pick up stuff from your dirty clothes.

Like lint.

Fibers.

And, my favorite and I’m sure yours–cat hair.

EUWW.

So, I resolved to figure out something to drain the yogurt more efficiently.

And I did. I use a boullion sieve.

Yes, it is an expensive piece of equipment. However, it is simple to clean (you put it in the dishwasher), it doesn’t impart hair, fibers or threads to your food and you can use it to strain anything you like. It’s actual purpose is to get every bit of particulate matter out of stock so you can make a rich, full-flavored but perfectly clear soup called boullion. So yes, you can use it for stocks.

You could use it to strain fruit and vegetable juice to get every bit of the pulp out. (Which is useful for making jelly.)

It is also an extremely sturdy piece of equipment that will likely last for decades of use, whereas most cheesecloth is doomed to fall apart after a few uses. (Unless you get the really good stuff from cheesemaking suppliers.

Before I went the route of the boullion strainer, I tried making a bag from fine muslin to drain the yogurt–but it held fibers and hair just as badly as the cheesecloth did. And picking that stuff out of yogurt is less than fun.

Edited to add: I wanted to mention the suggestions made by readers in the comments, as they are really good ideas, and are cheaper than my solution.

David T. mentioned that he uses jelly bag to strain his yogurt. The bag is made from a fine nylon mesh so there are not threads or fibers to get stuck in your yogurt. Also, you can wash it in the dishwasher.

Adam suggests that when he makes a small amount of yogurt, he strains his through a gold coffee filter. (I will say that the boullion strainer is basically like a giant gold filter–it is made of the same fine metal mesh, except in this case, it’s not gold–it’s steel.)

My main problem with either of these suggestions is that I make two quarts of yogurt at a time. The jelly bag might work for that much yogurt, but the coffee filter would require straining in several batches, and that could be frustrating.

Cooking salmon on a grill is a great idea, but often, it sticks and does its level best to fall apart, and sometimes, the great tragedy of having half a hunk of delicious fish fall between the grates into the fire to be sacrificed to The Gods of Lost Dinners.

However, if you use an untreated wooden plank, such as cedar, that has been soaked in water for a few hours on top of your grill, then set the salmon filet on top of that, not only does the fish neither stick to the grill nor fall into the fire, it is saturated with the flavor and scent of cedar smoke.

And let me tell you, THAT’s something to yearn for.

But then, I yearn for salmon all the time. It’s one of my favorite foods. In fact, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, my greatest aspiration is to be reborn as a grizzly bear in Alaska.

The worry of being shot by a big game hunter, or worse, by Sarah Palin, would be completely offset by being able to wade into rushing cold water and catch my own salmon during the salmon run. Just think of being able to gorge on all of the sushi-grade raw salmon you could eat, while getting to play in cold, clear water at the same time.

Sure, you have to deal with the other bears, but there’s enough fish for everyone, and even the scuffles are as much in play as in earnest. It all sounds great to me.

And then, for dessert, there are wild blackberries.

Ah—that would be the life.

So, anyway, I love salmon, though I didn’t always think it was the best thing in the world. When I was a kid, my only exposure to salmon was in the form of salmon cakes made from the pink stuff from a can. Mom’s cats loved it when she made those, but not me–the smell of them made me queasy, and I could only choke down one cake and that was under duress. On salmon cake nights, I usually ate a lot of parsley potatoes and canned corn, which seemed to be the usual side dishes.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager and tasted properly cooked fresh salmon filet at a Red Lobster in Columbus, Ohio, that I realized that salmon was the best thing that ever swam, even better than rainbow trout or lake perch, my two former favorite fish ever.

(Now that you know that my first taste of real salmon came from Red Lobster, I hope you won’t hold it against me.)

Anyway, now that we know my history when it comes to the best fish in the world, let’s talk about this recipe, shall we?

I decided that Japanese flavors would go really well with cedar smoke. I don’t know why I decided that; perhaps it’s because the Japanese use cedar in building some of their soaking tubs (another thing I love almost as much as salmon–a tub that I can soak up to my neck in without having to lay down and scrunch my knees up and still have them sticking up like two pale islands, cold and sad) and my brain paired cedar and water and salmon together in some bizarre word association game.

So, I made a glaze for the salmon from white (shiro) miso, which is a mild fermented soybean paste, mirin, a low-alcohol sweet rice wine, soy sauce toasted sesame oil, local honey and mild chili pepper flakes. The milder, less salty shiro miso is a great source of umami flavor–that savory taste that comes from naturally occurring glutamates, while the mirin and honey add sweetness. More umami kick as well as some salt comes from the soy sauce, while the sesame oil adds a nutty, fragrant top note. The chili is subtle, and very mild, since I used Aleppo pepper flakes, and could be left out altogether.

The only flavor note missing is something sour. This was provided by a lemon slice placed on top of each filet, which was then “glued” down to the fish with the thick, slightly sticky glaze.

If I’d had a bottle of yuzu juice handy, I’d have used that, but lacking that, lemons would have to do, and they performed admirably. Their fresh flavor brightened everything with a sparkling pure tingle as an endnote flavor.

Putting everything together was remarkably simple. I just had to soak the plank for three hours in warm water to prepare it for the grill. The salmon filet I simply cut into three portions, and whisked the glaze together. When the coals were ready (we used hardwood charcoal) and set up for direct grilling, we simply put the plank on the grill, closed it up and let it preheat and begin to smoke. Then, right before the filets were to go onto the plank, I placed the lemon slices on top of them and then brushed the fish and lemons thoroughly with the glaze. Then, carefully using a pair of tongs, we placed the fish on the plank, closed the lid and let it cook for six minutes.

We lifted the lid, gave the filets another brush of glaze and closed the grill up and cooked them for another seven minutes, until they were just done. I had bought the back half of a salmon side so the tail piece was thin and so was the most well done, though it was not dried out at all. That was Kat’s piece. The middle piece was done perfectly, flaky and moist–that was Zak’s piece.

Mine was the thicker piece from the middle of the fish–and was done perfectly to my liking–just a tiny bit “underdone” so that while it flakes, the flesh isn’t completely opaque–there is a tiny bit of roseate translucency to it, and the fish was juicy and sweet. Just the way I like it.

It turns out that grilling salmon filets on a cedar plank is a perfectly simple operation, and it is one that is well worth repeating. I can’t wait to see what kind of glaze I can come up with next time, though I am even more impatient to eat the salmon itself again, and to heck with the glaze! (Hrm. Maybe I should use blackberries and then have an ursine main course and dessert combined!)

Miso-Honey Glazed Salmon Cooked on a Cedar Plank
Ingredients:

1 cedar plank
1 slab of fresh skin on salmon filet (for three portions, I used 1/2 of a salmon side)
1 scant tablespoon shiro miso (Miso Master brand is my favorite)
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons mirin
1 teaspoon Japanese style soy sauce (I used Bourbon Barrel Foods soy sauce)
pinch of mild chili flakes (optional)
3 half-round slices of lemon 1/4″ thick
juice from 1 lemon wedge
a few diagonally cut slices of scallion top for garnish

Method:

Soak the cedar plank in warm water for three hours.

Cut the fish into three portions–one Mamma bear sized, one Pappa bear sized (I will have you know that the Mamma bear size at our house is bigger than the Pappa bear size–just saying) and one Baby bear sized.

Whisk together all of the glaze ingredients, from the miso to the chili flakes, until it comes together into a thick, delectable-smelling amber brown liquid.

Prepare your charcoal and when it is ready, set your grill up for direct grilling, which basically means, spread your coals out in an even layer underneath the entire grill.

Place the plank carefully on the grill. Zak used tongs to do this. I suggest you do the same. Close the grill and allow the plank to preheat, watching for smoke to rise out of the vent in a steady stream. This tells you that the plank is ready to go.

Place the lemon slices on top of the filets and brush generously with the glaze. Using tongs, carefully place the filets on the plank, without allowing them to touch each other.

Close the grill lid and allow the salmon to cook undisturbed for six minutes.

Open the lid and brush on more glaze. Close the lid and let it cook for six to nine more minutes, depending on how well done you want your salmon to be. I suggest six more minutes if you want your thickest piece to be nice and moist and juicy and unctuous like mine was.

Open the lid once more and carefully transfer the salmon to a serving platter. The skin may stick in places and tear, but if you are gentle and patient, your filets will come off the cedar nicely shaped and pretty.

Set the salmon aside (I know its hard, but do it anyway. If I could manage it, so can you) and using a different set of tongs, remove the plank from the fire and set on a metal table or some other heat-proof surface to cool. If there are fish skin bits clinging to it, don’t try to remove them now. Wait until the wood cools and brush it off then. If the plank isn’t too burnt, you can use it again, probably several more times, even.

Squeeze the juice of one lemon wedge over all three filets and sprinkle with the finely sliced scallion top, then serve forth.

Serves one Mamma bear, one Pappa bear and one Baby bear and no Goldilockses.

You know, I’m not really technophobic. I mean, I use a Macbook to write my blog, and I’ve been using a digital camera for nearly a decade and I can even get this complicated television set-up we have here to do what I want it to do, and on top of it all, I do carry my cellphone with me all the time and even have it on so people can call me. (I used to carry it and not have it on, because I DIDN’T want people to call me–it was only for me to call an ambulance, the cops, DIAL-A-PRAYER or what have you in the case of an emergency. I’m over that now, but still precious few people have my cellphone number….)

But I do rather have a somewhat neo-luddite reputation among friends and family because I don’t go all ga-ga over every latest invention in the world and am more apt to know about the latest development in drip irrigation systems or chef’s knives than I am about the newest networking devices. In fact, I don’t really know what a Blackberry is and why President Obama had to give his up. I mean, I kind of know, but not really–to me a blackberry is a tasty fruit, not something you use to read email. And, texting–I don’t know from that. I don’t do it. Why type with your thumbs? I mean, really? Just call your friend up, and for God’s sake don’t do that in traffic!

And Twitter. I don’t get it. I can see why it’s useful in some cases–like creating a flash mob during a political protest against an oppressive regime–but since I’m not into that at this moment, I don’t really see the point.

Before everyone thinks I’m hopeless, I am on Facebook. But I only friend people I actually know, so yeah, I’m kinda backwards.

Which is why it’s kind of weird that I have an iPad. AND–the truth is, I didn’t ask for one or really want one, until Zak found the subject of this post (you were beginning to wonder if there was a topic at hand here, or if I had just taken off on a tear about technology just for the flying fun of it) which is an iPad app called The Recipe Box.

Until he found that app and bought it for a mere $3.99, I just couldn’t see much of a reason for me to have an iPad. Sure, it made sense for Zak–he sketches on his and since he has an MA in Digital Art–a virtual sketchpad makes a LOT of sense. And we use his to help navigate on long car rides, and to find hotels and book rooms on trips–so yeah, they’re useful, but I saw no reason for ME to have one.

Except, you know, it really sucks to have to borrow your husband’s iPad to cart off to the kitchen when he’s trying to draw. It’s just not cool. So while I watched in fascination when he showed me how The Recipe Box worked, I didn’t mess with it much until yesterday, when Zak’s old iPad magically fell into my lap as a surprise gift. (Yeah, Zak got the newer, faster iPad which is easier for him to draw on, and I got the hand me down. But, its still cool!)

So, since yesterday, I’ve been putting The Recipe Box through its paces, inputting recipes from Tigers & Strawberries as an attempt to create my own virtual cookbook which will keep me from having to cart the laptop into the kitchen every time I need to look up one of my own recipes from the blog.

How well does it work?

It’s simple to use. There are FAQ’s and tutorials, but I haven’t needed them. I can cut and paste a recipe from my blog into the app, including photos, in less than three minutes. Really. It’s amazing. And the app sorts your recipes and makes them searchable by keyword, or you can look them up by their categories. But wait, you don’t like their categories? Well, you can add your own, as well as delete the ones they have.

The recipes that are included in the program–you can delete them. You can delete your own. It’s perfectly simple. Just a click here and a touch there–and boom–all gone.

You can make shopping lists with the app. You push a button on the touchscreen and it will put your ingredient list on the shopping list which comes up as a pop-up. You can cross off what you already have before you go to the store, and then cross off each item as you put it into your shopping cart.

But the best thing, as far as I’m concerned, is that it’s a lot easier to have an iPad in the kitchen than a laptop. Perching the iPad at eye level on one of my shelves keeps it in easy view, but out of harm’s way–no worries about splattering it with droplets from whisking eggs or clouds of sifted flour. My laptop is too big for that–it has to sit on the counter where it not only takes up a huge amount of valuable kitchen real-estate, but it’s also in the eye of the storm once a good cooking frenzy starts. And if I put it way across the room or in the dining room to keep it safe, I have to dash back and forth and while the exercise is good, it’s a little emotional stressful to run around like a chicken with my head cut off, just because I can’t remember the exact number of eggs that go in my cheesecake recipe.

I used to print my recipes out on paper and carry that into the kitchen, but it’s so wasteful. I hated doing it. Why do that if I have it online?

The format used by The Recipe Box is very readable, useable, and sensibly laid out. Check it out in the first picture–you can see one of my “oldie, but goodie” recipes up there–Gateau de Mumtaz Mahal. See–there’s the pretty picture from my blog in the corner. And then, as you read the steps, you can touch the screen and the next step comes up. Or you can go back to check out two steps before. It’s intuitive and simple–and it means I don’t have to scroll past my blog entries to get to the recipe at the end! (You don’t know how many times I’ve growled at myself while looking up a cookie recipe, “Damn, girl, why you got to write so much?”)

It also makes it much easier for me to email recipes to people., since you just click a button, fill in an address and then go. No cutting and pasting on the fly, or sending a link to the whole post when all that I need to send is the recipe.

Now, before you begin to believe that I’ve been paid off by the developer (Corpus Collusion–love the name) to say all this nice stuff, there is one flaw that really works my nerves, but which is usually amusing enough to make me laugh aloud when it get’s its freak on and starts messing with what I’m trying to type. The auto-correct function will take my “Murgh Methi” and turn it into “Burgh Methi.” Or, and this is even more funny, it will take “Rogan Gosht” and turn it into “Organ Gosht.” The app will get uppity when I go back to correct it, essentially forcing me to correct it twice before it accedes reluctantly that I might actually know what I mean to type better than it does. (I can only imagine what it would do if I tried to type a recipe title in Lolcatsese.)

But really, that’s not much of a complaint. The good seriously outweighs the bad in this app. Seriously.

Overall–this is a great app for an iPad user who also cooks and who gets their recipes online. It keeps the computers out of the kitchen and away from the sink, deep frying oil and sloshing wine. It keeps us from wasting paper and it keeps our recipes organized for us.

And it gives us cooking geeks a reason to have an iPad, which is especially nice when one just falls into your lap like it did in mine.

Now, I’ve got to go and input more of my recipes. I’ve got 88 down and hundreds to go.

Today started out sunny and beautiful, so out to the garden I went. I dashed out and into the car so fast, I forgot to take my methi seeds that I had soaked overnight in a mug of water (it helps them sprout) and left them on the kitchen counter.

No worries–instead of running right back home to get them, I settled in and thinned the mizuna, planted some more spinach, replanted some carrots, planted some cilantro seeds and replanted some beets.

Then, I weeded and finally sauntered home to pick up the methi seeds. Zak wanted to go out with me, so while I was waiting for him to get ready, I decided to wander the Internet and see if there were any seed companies that offered Indian varieties of herbs and seeds.

Last year or the year before when I looked I found nothing, but today, I found Seeds of India, a company that offers seeds for traditional Indian vegetables such as bottle gourd, snake gourd, winged beans and a huge array of chili peppers. And, happily, methi seeds, and tulsi (holy basil) seeds. (I have always used methi seeds that I bought as spices in the market, but I’ve always had a fairly low germination rate working that way, so I wanted to get seeds that were specifically meant to be planted in the year in which I bought them!)

The website doesn’t look like much, but the varieties of vegetable and herb seeds offered makes up for a lack of design sense. The chili offerings include the long, meaty green chilies that are used to make mirchi pakora–battered and fried chilies, as well as some of the typical fresh and dried chilies found in Indian markets.

Of course, I had to make an order, though I anticipate making a larger order next winter so I can start a variety of eggplant and chili pepper plants for next summer. I ended up picking out packets of cucumber, zucchini, and methi to try out this year.

As soon as the seeds are planted and germinated, I will keep you posted on my findings.

Renee’s Garden: Why do I love Renee’s Garden? Well, her seeds have a high germination rate in my experience, and her seed packets are among the most informational I have ever seen. Not to mention that the packaging is BEAUTIFUL, with lovely full-color watercolor art on each and every packet of seeds.

The fact that the founder, Renee Shepherd, also is a cook helps. She has recipes using her unique varieties of vegetables and herbs on her website, and she also has two cookbooks available: Recipes from a Kitchen Garden and More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden.

The vegetable, herb and flower varieties sold by Renee’s Garden come from growers around the world, all of whom are hand-chosen for organic and sustainable practices. Many of the varieties are unique to the company, and in my experience, all of the seeds germinate and grow very well.

Evergreen Seeds: If you want to grow gai lan, bok choi, Japanese bunching onions or mizuna, you need to turn to Evergreen Seeds. If you want more than one variety of daikon radish to choose from, if you want to grow winter melon, or if you want a choice in which type of bitter melon you grow, you need to check out Evergreen Seeds. Their company is THE place you go to for Asian vegetable and herb varieties that you have tasted in restaurants, read about in books or seen recipes for in my blog.

The seeds provided by Evergreen have a high germination rate, and their seed packets, while not pretty, are QUITE informative, and I have had a great success growing with their seeds for years. This year, I am trying out many more varieties than I did previously, so look for reports later in the season as to how well the seeds perform in the garden plots.

Johnny’s Select Seeds: For a real live socialist like myself (not like our President who is just called a socialist but is obviously a capitalist) Johnny’s Select Seeds is not just a purveyor of quality seeds and innovative gardening tools, it is also a model of how an employee-owned company can be run successfully, providing good customer service while also adhering to the principles of worker-ownership. AND, they have neat varieties of seeds, like their Atomic Red Carrots–carrots that are sweet and you guessed it–bright red. (I love unusually colored vegetables, so long as they taste good.)

The worker-owners also are committed to providing non GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) seeds to the public.

The company carries all kinds of cool stuff, like a wide variety of cover crops–those are seeds you plant to grow during the fall, winter and very early spring after your garden is done, or during the summer if you let your garden bed go fallow for a season–that means not planting crops in it. Cover crops are great, because not only do they keep out weeds, they also provide nutrients to the soil after you till your cover crops under at the end of their growth.

Seed Saver’s Exchange:Oh, how I LOOOOVE Seed Saver’s Exchange. I remember loving them back when you could only get their seeds by mail order or from the Internet. Now, you can get packets of their heirloom vegetable, herb and flower seeds, illustrated with lovely photographs on the front, and covered with information on the back, from garden stores, grocery co-ops, natural foods stores and feed stores nationwide. You can even get them down the hill from my house at The Village Bakery!

The special thing about Seed Saver’s Exchange is that their seeds are all heirloom and rare open-pollinated varieties that had previously be passed down from generation to generation and traded from gardener to gardener. Their seeds represent our gardening heritage, with varieties that go back to the founding of our nation.

I don’t know about you, but not only do I like to eat my food, I like to know its history, too. I wasn’t called “The Culinary Nerd” for nothing–I am utterly fascinated by types of beans that were grown by my Native American ancestors, or the types of squash that Thomas Jefferson particularly liked.

The seeds you buy from Seed Saver’s can be harvested and saved for use next year, meaning if you buy from them and save your seeds by their instructions, your first purchase of seed from them is a one-time expense. After that, the plants, with your help, just propagate themselves year after year.

Territorial Seed: I have to admit that this is my first year using Territorial Seed’s products, but so far, I am impressed with the selection of vegetable, herb and flower varieties and their customer service. They have lots of unusual selections, including beautiful purple haricot vert (slender French snap beans) that you -know- I had to plant. (And they are coming up happily right as we speak and are about two and a half inches tall.)

Their seed packets are extremely informative and their customer service is fast and friendly. So far, so good.

Burpee: I saved the most “corporate” seed company for last, but I have to admit that Burpee has great customer service, their seeds and live plants are all top notch and healthy and they carry a variety of hybrid AND open-pollinated varieties of vegetable, flower and herb seeds. They also carry a large variety of bare-root fruit plants, from strawberries to blueberries and bramble fruits (raspberries and blackberries), and I have always had great luck with their strawberry plants.

First of all, Monsanto does NOT own Burpee–it is privately owned, though it is true that the owner is an employee of Seminis, a large wholesale seed company that is owned by Monsanto. (If you are interested in learning which seed companies sell all non-GMO seed, check out this blog post from Garden of Eatin’, an organic gardening blog based in Salem, Oregon.

GMO seed aside, most of my life, I have used Burpee seed–starting as a kid, in fact. My Grandpa used almost exclusively Burpee seed, so some of the first seeds I dropped into furrows and covered up with grimy fingers were from that company. And their seed always grows true to type, has a high germination rate and grows well. Also, their bareroot fruit plants have always been healthy and have arrived alive and happy. The same can be said for the live plants they ship.

I guess I started using Burpee seeds and plants years ago because of my experiences at my Grandpa’s farm, and then continued because I found that the company did produce quality seeds and plants. This year, however, in view of their connection with Monsanto and their distribution of GMO seeds and plants, I ordered less from them and more from my other favorite companies, though I did buy fifty day-neutral strawberry plants from them.

Their prices are higher than they were when my Grandpa used them, though, and have gotten higher each year. The other companies listed have more reasonable prices, so I feel better using their seeds instead of Burpee’s.

So, there we have it. My six favorite seed companies. If anyone has any other favorites, let me know–I’m always happy to try out new sources for good quality vegetable and herb seeds!