Sure, it's not complicated, you just place the butter in the FP in cubes and pulse it until it is softened. If it's a recipe that has you beat butter and sugar together (as in many cookie recipes), you can put them in there at the same time. I pretty much make all of my cookie recipes in a food processor since you can start with cold butter and end up with dough in less than a minute.
It left me with some deep-seated discomfort about the injustices and inequality prevalent in our school system. Why do school kids in CA get freshly milled flour, when kids in depressed rural areas can't even get a new textbook or a classroom that's not rotting? It's enraging.
Obviously, I'm aware that educational inequality is not your topic, but I do appreciate it when you tie issues of racial and economic justice to your content.
Kristin - I agree, it is enraging. This program is just a drop of hope in a sea of inequality. That said, just because the Farm to School program is in CA doesn't mean it's for well-off kids:
"The majority of the students at Shandon and San Miguel are farmworkers’ kids, and most are Latinx. “My food service manager [at Shandon] told me, ‘For some of these kids, [school breakfast and lunch] are the only two meals they eat throughout the day,’” Carter says. “So I have to feed them the best I can. How can I be serving them a Pop-Tart, canned fruit, and fruit juice? If you add that together it’s 65 grams of sugar—and that’s just their breakfast!”
Perhaps someday this program can be brought to schools throughout the country, no matter how rural.
Could you maybe tell us how to plasticize the butter to soften it? I’m curious. Thanks!
Sure, it's not complicated, you just place the butter in the FP in cubes and pulse it until it is softened. If it's a recipe that has you beat butter and sugar together (as in many cookie recipes), you can put them in there at the same time. I pretty much make all of my cookie recipes in a food processor since you can start with cold butter and end up with dough in less than a minute.
That’s helpful. Thanks!
I also found the article about the Farm to School milling inspiring and a fun read when I came across it.
But not too long before reading that article, I read this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/magazine/rural-public-education.html.
It left me with some deep-seated discomfort about the injustices and inequality prevalent in our school system. Why do school kids in CA get freshly milled flour, when kids in depressed rural areas can't even get a new textbook or a classroom that's not rotting? It's enraging.
Obviously, I'm aware that educational inequality is not your topic, but I do appreciate it when you tie issues of racial and economic justice to your content.
Kristin - I agree, it is enraging. This program is just a drop of hope in a sea of inequality. That said, just because the Farm to School program is in CA doesn't mean it's for well-off kids:
"The majority of the students at Shandon and San Miguel are farmworkers’ kids, and most are Latinx. “My food service manager [at Shandon] told me, ‘For some of these kids, [school breakfast and lunch] are the only two meals they eat throughout the day,’” Carter says. “So I have to feed them the best I can. How can I be serving them a Pop-Tart, canned fruit, and fruit juice? If you add that together it’s 65 grams of sugar—and that’s just their breakfast!”
Perhaps someday this program can be brought to schools throughout the country, no matter how rural.