Tuesday Twister 11.10.09

I recently discovered a few food blogs that participate in GNOWFGLINS' "Tuesday Twister" as a weekly picture show of notable things that happened in their kitchens over the last week. Though I have not taken many food photos during the last week, I thought I would start playing today anyway.

First a huge batch of broth, complete with chicken feet. Then, it was soup making.

Pictured left is a Roman Lentil Soup, made with fresh onions and carrots from our CSA box, as well as locally grown lentils, and homemade broth. Served with home-cultured creme fraiche and a sprig of parsley (also from CSA box).

I also made a lovely cream of broccoli that did not get photographed.

Today I will be making another soup recipe, which hopefully I will remember to photograph and share for next week (with the other happenings in my kitchen!).

What about you? What is happening in your kitchen? Care to share? Join us for Tuesday Twister next week. I always find that photographing my meals helps keep my accountable to make something fresh, nutrient-dense, and attractive.

For more inspiration see today's list of Tuesday Twisters and see what's twisting in other real-foodies kitchens.

November Challenge: Make Your Own Broth

"Good broth resurrects the dead" - African proverb

The leaves are falling, the air is crisping, and in my house, the broth is simmering. November is an ideal time to start experimenting with your own broth. If there was ever a month in which I could eat soup every day, it is November. Broth is inexpensive to make while adding 5-star richness to the meals you serve at home. It is additionally great on its own to help kick a cold or flu.

I use stock (or broth) primarily for soups and sauces. Any high caliber restaurant does the same thing. If you have fallen in love with a soup or sauce when eating out, it is probably because they make their own stock.

Stock refers to a liquid made for its own sake from whole ingredients (for example making chicken stock with whole chickens and using the cooked meat for something else later), whereas broth typically refers to liquid made from "leftovers". Broth is usually what simmers here because I use leftover chicken carcasses rather than a fresh bird, though I always add fresh feet and necks as well as fresh vegetables (following the bone broth recipes in Nourishing Traditions by Sallon Fallon)

Making broth from your leftover carcasses is economical and adds value to your original purchase. Also, consuming stocks and broths allows your body to utilize proteins better so that you do not need to eat as much meat to gain the same benefit, which can save you even more.

Challenge Level One:

With Thanksgiving approaching, I challenge you to make your own stock and boil down a 5-star sauce from the turkey drippings. With cold and flu season upon us, I encourage you to stock up on stock. Keep it in the freezer to have on hand when the sniffles come. The gelatin and nutrients in broth are also good for numerous other health problems (especially digestive ones).

Challenge Level Two:

If you take the plunge and experiment with making your own broth, write about it! Or if you regularly make your own broth, share a recipe or write a reflection spurred from the simmering brew, and let me know by leaving a link in the comment section.

Bucket-Of-Fat Give-away!

Kelly the Kitchen Kop is promoting a give-away from U.S. Wellness Meats for a huge bucket of rendered tallow. This is a healthy fat for deep frying and the secret to amazingly flaky pie crusts. Consider this the first post in a series on getting ready for Thanksgiving and the holidays.

Visit Kelly's post to enter (up to 7 ways to enter), while I keep my fingers crossed that it's me!

October Challenge: Home Brew Kombucha

October usually means more time indoors. It is a darker time in our house and a time of more consistent temperatures as we turn the heat back on. Often October signifies the return of comfort foods and a return to the kitchen after a long summer spent cooking outside and making meals with minimal prep.

As you shuffle back into a darker kitchen and spend a little more time actually using your kitchen this fall, I have an easy challenge for you, brew some kombucha. This is an incredibly simple and incredibly healthy drink to make. You can refer to my "ode to kombucha" and preparation instructions or read my additional thoughts on brewing kvasses, but I will also provide some simple instructions here.

You will need:
A glass or stainless steel container suitable for holding a gallon of liquid
A towel
A dark place with a fairly steady temperature of around 72 degrees F (I use a paper bag turned upside down over my kombucha jars atop the refrigerator)

Ingredients:
4 organic black tea bags (or 4 small black tea nests if using Pu-erh)
1 cup sugar (yes, refined sugar)
3 qts filtered water
Kombucha "mushroom" and 1/2 cup starter (kombucha from a previous batch)

You should really use organic tea as it does not contain formaldehyde or any of the other strange chemicals often used in making non-organic black teas. Refined sugar is the best sugar to feed the culture. You also want filtered water because most tap waters contain chlorine, which can kill your starter culture.

Instructions:
Bring water to a boil. Add sugar and completely dissolve. Remove from heat and add tea bags. Let steep until room temperature. Remove tea and pour into fermenting container (or strain into container if using loose leaf tea). Pour in 1/2 cup kombucha from a previous batch and top with "mushroom". Let sit anywhere from 7-21 days. It is ready when it is tangy, slightly fizzy, and has no taste of tea remaining. This will fluctuate depending on kitchen and weather conditions. Once done, pour into jars and place in cold storage.

Each time you make kombucha your "mushroom" will make a "baby", which is simply another layer of mushroom atop the starter mushroom. You can allow these to continue multiplying and they might help your previous batches finish faster. You can also pull the new layer off and pass it onto a friend. To double the batch you do not need a second mushroom, but simply double everything else including the starter liquid.

You can further experiment with adding flavors, once made, and bottling them and letting them have a second fermentation on the counter for a couple of days to get fizzy again. You can also make kombucha with other teas and sugars, however, the recipe I am sharing is designed to give the highest quantity of gluchronic acid, which is what gives kombucha its remarkable health benefits. I cannot speak to the benefits of the drink when not made with black tea and sugar.

Rest assured, the fermentation process transforms the caffeine from the tea as well as the sugar into gluchronic acid, so there is no concern about giving this drink to children. However, I will say that it can have the same effect as black tea in staining your teeth. So if pearly whites are important to you, make sure to drink water afterward, or brush your teeth the same as you would after drinking tea or coffee.

Challenge Level One:
Locate a kombucha culture and take inventory to see if you have the equipment. You can often find cultures from friends who brew kombucha and I have even seen them advertised on Craigslist. However, if you do not have a friend who brews and need a reliable source, Cultures For Health can ship you one anywhere in the US.

Challenge Level Two:
Take the plunge and make some! It is inexpensive and not a large time investment. Besides, you might like it and your gut will thank you. It is also handy to have as we enter "cold and flu" season as it is a significant immune booster and detoxifier.

Challenge Level Three:
If you are already a kombucha brewer, try brewing something else. Try a true ginger beer or ginger ale, or better yet get started on some homemade sparkling apple cider for Thanksgiving next month. Whatever you do, tell me about it here!

For the Love of Food

Local and organic.
It does not get better.


Lunch


Dinner

Can you name all the vegetables seen above?

September Challenge: Switch to Real Milk

I apologize for not putting the challenge out there earlier this month. The challenge is simple, switch to raw milk (or at least find some and try it). However, I am working on an article that would provide help to locate raw milk near you and reasons why it is worth switching.

In the mean time, do you already drink raw milk? If not, what is holding you back?

In Non-Food News

Our third baby arrived on Thursday (needless to say that my menu planning went mainly to waste, though my husband did cook us the roast). Meals every other day from our church will start tomorrow and last for three weeks. As much as I love cooking, eating without preparation is pretty nice too.

Marination Idea: Flat Steak

This works great for flat iron steak, or any long thin (and tough) piece of meat (seen here is a "round" steak).

Puncture meat all over with a fork. Cover with sea salt, pepper, and whatever herbs sound good to you (here I have used basil just dried from the garden), as well as extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I also added some raw apple cider vinegar.

Let sit at least 15 minutes, and up to an hour (but cover with something to keep bugs and dust away).

Broil for 5 minutes and let stand for 5 minutes (based on 1" thickness), or grill for 2.5 minutes per side and then let stand 5 minutes .

You can slice this into steak servings, cut it thin for fajitas, and make sure to save any leftovers for steak Caesar salad later.

CSA Report: 3rd Week of August

Not pictured: A lovely 100yr old variety of muskmelon that was quickly devoured for dessert

Menu Plan Monday

I am trying to restore some routines before the baby comes, so I am launching again into Menu Plan Monday's hosted by orgjunkie.com. Our CSA box came today, as well as our grocery delivery from Azure Standard, so I am working with a decently stocked pantry. However, we are still on a bit of a pantry challenge this summer trying to see how well we can live off the cow we bought last spring, our CSA box, and our weekly trip to the farm for raw milk and eggs. Please keep that in mind as there is nothing but beef, veggies, and eggs on the menu because a lot of our meals look a little like the photo below.

Monday
B: Eggs and buttered toast, raw milk
L: Individual "pizzas" (bread, tomatoes, hormone and nitrate free pepperoni, and mozzarella), plums from the back yard, raw milk, kombucha
D: Burger patties, fresh salad, sauted zuchinni, raw milk
Dessert: Muskmelon and nectarines
To Do: Soak oats for porridge, defrost roast, culture buttermilk,

Tuesday
B: Oatmeal porridge with raisins, cinnamon and nectarines, raw milk
L: PB&Honey, carrots, nectarine, raw milk, kombucha
D: Steak, salad, sauteed chard, raw milk
To Do: Start new batch of Kombucha, soak oats for porridge, marinate roast in buttermilk, soak flour for bread, start new sourdough mother, make quiche & pie dough, start another batch of beet kvass, culture sour cream

Wednesday
B: Oatmeal porridge with raisins, cinnamon, and butter, fresh squeezed orange juice, raw milk
L: PB&Honey, nectarines, carrots, raw milk, kombucha
D: Quiche, Salad, sauted greens, raw milk
Dessert: Nectarine pie
To Do: Soak flour for orange cake, make bread, separate cream cheese and whey, feed sourdough, soak oats for porridge, soak flour for pizza, preserve garden beans and sauerkraut, start beef bone broth, make mayonnaise

Thursday
B: Oatmeal porridge with raisins, cinnamon, and butter, raw milk
L: Grilled cheese, carrots, nectarine, raw milk, kombucha
D: Pizza, potato salad, Steamed salted and buttered yellow wax beans, raw milk
To Do: Make pizza sauce, feed sourdough, soak oats for porridge, cook and begin fermenting orange cake

Friday
B: Oatmeal porridge with raisins, cinnamon, and butter, raw milk
L: PB&Honey, Carrots, Nectarine, Raw milk, Kombucha
D: Roast with potatoes and carrots, salad, sauted zucchini, raw milk
To Do: Soak flour for Carrot Cake, Feed sourdough, soak oats for porridge, make ice cream, make tart dough

Saturday (Soren's 4th birthday party & some friends' wedding)
B: Oatmeal porridge with raisins, cinnamon, and butter, raw milk, orange juice
L: Pizza, potato salad, carrot cake, orange cake, strawberry tart, ice cream, raw milk, kombucha
D: Eat at friend's wedding
To Do: morning: Cook Carrot cake, make cream cheese icing, assemble tart, feed sourdough mother

Sunday
B: Eggs, sauted zucchini, hash browns, raw milk, orange juice
L: Leftovers from week
D: Steak, salad, slow roasted beets
To Do: Soak oats for porridge, feed sourdough mother

August Challenge: Marinate!

In keeping with last December's "bite-sized steps to a nutrient dense diet" this month's challenge is to develop the habit of marinating your meats, especially red meats. August is a busy and lazy month. As such any new "challenges" should be low-key. Marination is not time, nor labor, intensive, but like so many aspects of traditional cooking, it is forethought intensive.

For example, I have a pot roast that I punctured all over with my meat thermometer marinating in homemade buttermilk right now. It has been marinating for nearly two days, and I plan to cook the roast tomorrow. Some things take less time. I typically marinate steaks or ground meats at room temperature in olive oil and vinegar with spices for 15-45 minutes on the counter. Lamb shanks and some roasts I leave in a nice red wine for 12-24 hours.

The science behind marination is that raw and cultured mediums (buttermilk, extra virgin olive oil, vinegars, wine) will start eating, or pre-digesting, the meat for you which leaves less digestion work for your body to absorb the nutrients. Additionally, it imparts flavor and tenderizes the meat making it more satisfying on the palate. Marination is a not-so-secret technique of all good cooks. Biting into something flavorful, tender, and easy on the stomach later leaves any guest wanting to eat from your table again.

There is also creative joy when blending various herbs and spices to compliment meats. One of my favorite discoveries is cumin, fennel, salt and pepper in an olive oil base on lamb or pork chops. Let it sit for 15-30 minutes on the counter and then scrape off the fennel and broil them (or pan fry) for 4 minutes a side (estimated for a 1" thick cut).

Challenge for the month:
Plan for marination. Try something new or use your nose to create a new blend that gets your mouth watering in anticipation. Do you already have a favorite marinade? Please share it!

Sauerkraut: How To

Sauerkraut is incredibly simple. I am posting instructions quickly and hope to follow up with pictures soon. We had technical issues this month, so I apologize for how belated this post is.

You will need the following:
A large bowl you can pound in
A pounding pestle (I use the pestle from my mortar and pestle - but I am saving for a real kraut pounder available through our Eugene chapter of the Weston A Price Foundation)
Quart mason jar (you can do larger or smaller depending on how quickly you will go through the sauerkraut once opened)

1 Medium Cabbage
1 Tbsp Caraway seeds
1 Tbsp Sea Salt
4 Tbsp Whey (or 1 additional tbsp salt)

Core and thinly shred the cabbage. I do this with a large serrated chopping knife. I had purchased a mandolin type shredder but found it was more trouble that it was worth and it did not shred fine enough, so I returned it and went back to using my knife.

In a large bowl, combine shredded cabbage, caraway seeds, sea salt, and whey (or additional salt). Pound with pestle or wooded pounder (or whatever else you might find - like a meat hammer), for 10 minutes to release juices.

Place in quart mason jar and press down firmly with pounder/pestle until the juices well cover the top of the sauerkraut (leave 1" of room before the top of the jar as it will expand during fermentation). Cover jar very tightly and keep at room for about 3 days (more or less depending on temperature - ideal is 72 degrees) before transferring to cold storage (like the top shelf of your refrigerator -shooting for 40 degrees). You can eat it immediately after this, but it will also improve in flavor with age (some say it takes 6 months for sauerkraut's flavors to fully develop).

The lovely thing about naturally fermenting food is that your nose will tell you when it has gone bad so that you have no need to fear botulism. Further, naturally fermented foods are full of lactobacilli which enhances the foods digestibility as well as increases the vitamin levels. Additionally, these foods are living and full of enzymes, natural antibiotics and anti carcinogens. These foods will promote health gut flora which is at the foundation of all good health.

For more on fermenting you own foods please take a look at the following links:
Cheeseslave: Ten reasons to eat fermented foods
Food Renegade: How to make Sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables
Wild Fermentation
Portland Preserve
Sauerkraut: The Miracle Cabbage
and of course, many fermented recipes can be found in Nourishing Traditions

CSA Report: 2st Week of July

Mystery item:

We have received this several times and still have not figured out what it is. Tastes a little like leafy peas...but we don't know. Do you?

July Challenge: Make your own Sauerkraut

The growing season is in full swing, and we have been delighted by the large cabbages in our farm box the last couple weeks. Now is the time to utilize garden abundance to preserve foods for the winter.

In keeping with that idea, the challenge for this month is to make your own sauerkraut. This is actually a very simple and rewarding task that will also be good practice for other traditional preserving later in the harvest season (I am thinking salsa, chutneys, etc).

This challenge is simple, try preserving sauerkraut traditionally (this means fermenting with salt or whey rather than "pickling" in vinegar). If you are already a preserver, study your harvests (or u-pick options) and see if you can figure out how much you would have to preserve to last you through the next season. I noticed that bulk cabbage is on a great special right now through Azure Standard, and since our own cabbage does not seem to have taken well in the garden this year, a bulk order may be in store this month for us.

I will post a photo-how-to in the next week on making sauerkraut, and you can see how simple it is, even without fancy equipment. I will also share tips for some tasty variations (like latin American sauerkraut).

Other things you are inspired to preserve this month? Please share in the comment section!

Healthy Desserts: Quick Compromise Cupcakes

My youngest son turned 2 yesterday. We had just returned from a trip out of town but I really wanted to bring something for celebration to my eldest son's soccer class (filled with lots of mutual friends and little siblings who watch). This gave me about an hour to come up with something. Sadly, not enough time to soak or sprout and grains. However, if a pie can have unbleached white flour for the crust, then surely some birthday cupcakes can have un-soaked, non-sprouted, whole spelt flour.

Quick Compromise Carob Cupcakes

Cake Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole spelt flour
1 cup milk
1 cup rapadura
1/3 cup carob powder
1/3 cup melted butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp chocolate extract (optional)
1 tsp vinegar

Topping Ingredients:
1-2 cups heavy whipping cream (not ultra-pasteurized)
pinch of stevia powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat oven to 350. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well with a hand-held mixer. Divide into muffin tray lined with baking cups and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from tray immediately and let cool on wire racks. In the mean time, whip cream until soft peaks form, add stevia and vanilla extract and whip until cream is quite thick (but not butter). Place a dollop of cream on each cup cake and enjoy!

One of the moms commented on how "organic" these cupcakes look. Organic in the sense of simple and from the earth, not necessarily that they looked certifiable =) I enjoyed the novelty of cupcakes with cream rather than frosting as well, and the kids all thought it was grand (and no one seemed to mind the carob!)