Farmer’s Market Time
July 26th, 2010
It’s summer and I’m lovin’ it!
It seems that now is the time that there is so much raw goodness out there and available. Just in your own backyard there is enough to create lovely salads and add-ins to smoothies to make one smile.
A favorite activity of ours is going pickin’!! We love going berry and fruit picking to eat up the sun-kissed fresh fruit. I love seeing the kids explore the farms and see how the food grows. Is it a tree, a bush, low to the ground? What do the leaves of the plant look like?
The plan is always to pick enough to freeze. We haven’t quite been able to accomplish this because we eat every last little berry we pick. It is also a good lesson in what is in season and local to us.
Another high point for us is the local farmer’s markets. They are all so different from one another. A favorite used to be Coventry Farmer’s market when we lived closer to it. Lots of great vendors including our very close friend Hurricane Farm!! Coventry also has guest speakers and it is so fun filled.
Now we are in a different location and we have been checkin’ out the scene. My new favorite is Ashlawn Farm in Lyme, CT. They are open Fridays from 3-6pm and Saturday am 9-noon. There are two organic vendors with fantastic veggies and flowers. Hidden Brook Gardens is a new favorite. They have lush greens and are passionate about what they do. I have gotten some great tips about growing and different ways to use the produce. The Hay House has gorgeous flowers and extras of greens and veggies that have not gotten used for their CSA. Scott’s is not organically certified but uses organic sprays when possible and has a huge variety of fruits and veggies. They are happy to answer questions about their goods and their practices. There is yet another vendor that is not organic and does uses sprays I care not to partake of so be sure to ask. They also have fresh baked items as well as a fresh seafood vendor and meat vendor. Ashlawn farm is a beautiful farm that is super friendly and it is fun to sit on a chair or blanket after getting your goods to watch the animals or go into their little store to buy a fresh made smoothie.
Get into the swing and find your local farmer’s markets and go check them out. Be sure to visit all the local ones as they truly are each unique and offer different goods.
So, What is your favorite market?
WOW: Day lilies
July 16th, 2010
You know summer is in full swing when you see drifts of day lilies gently waving to you from roadsides and front yards everywhere. Their short-lived blossoms (each flower lives only for a day, hence the name, tho each stalk has several buds waiting for their turn to shine) serve as a reminder for me to enjoy each long summer day as much as possible.
Did you know that you aren’t limited to enjoying the dancing orange beauties with only sight and smell? The petals taste delicious as well! You can pull them off and toss them in salads whole or sliced. Or you can stuff them with whatever you think is tasty — flavored rice/quinoa/millet, chopped fruit or a slaw-ish salad. The greener end where the flower is attached to the stem is bitter, so you’ll want to leave it on your plate, but YUM! We ate most of the salad (a kale-cabbage-carrot slaw with a lemon tahini dressing) stuffed into all of the lilies in the picture as dinner one night.
Since borage and heartsease were also blooming in the garden, the kids picked them and tossed them into for good floral measure. I think there were some sliced rose petals in there as well. As you can see, the salad bordered on the garish, it was so colorful! Currently, our gorgeously crimson bee balm is flowering — you can pull the petals off those and toss them into salads for some beautiful color and taste, and our nasturtiums, started from seed a little late, have also started to flower. Both leaves and flowers add a peppery bite to a green salad that needs no other adornment. When I started researching what flowers could be safely consumed a couple of years ago, I was astonished at how many I already had in my yard! I have bookmarked this list of edible flowers and use it to double check plants I’m not sure about.
Back to day lilies. One afternoon Dante announced that he had something special planned for dessert. Since raspberries and wild black raspberries were also in season, he and Lucia collected a basket of berries and some day lily blossoms and disappeared into the kitchen, forbidding me to follow. He chopped up some sorrel and berries, mashing this all together a bit with some finely diced apples and the juice of half a lemon. He stuffed this mixture into the blossoms, and lay them on a plate. He put the rest of the chopped fruit mixture into the Vita-Mix to make a sauce, which he drizzled over the blossoms. We devoured this treat and wished we had more.
One caution — eating too many day lily flowers in one sitting can cause digestive upset in some people. Proceed with care until you know how many you can handle, or plan to stay close to a bathroom the next day!
If you are lucky to have a thick patch of these nearby, you can also harvest and eat the shoots raw or cooked in the early spring. Once leaves are 8-12 inches high, they will become too fibrous to enjoy. Unopened buds can be prepared much as you would green beans, and spent flowers that bloomed the previous day can be added to soups, stews, or stir-fry. The tubers at the tips of the rhizomes are also edible all year long, but the general consensus in our wild edibles books seems to be that unless you are in a survival situation, they are simply not worth the work.
Be sure to identify stands of them this summer. Otherwise, if you find a likely patch in the spring, dig up a clump and look at the root system. The underground stems (rhizomes) that end in tubers distinguish them from poisonous lilies. As with all wild edibles, you must be sure that they are free from contamination — roadsides and farms or yards that use chemical pesticides and herbicides can taint nearby wild edibles with toxins.
Happy foraging!
I’m dyin’ for Daiya!
July 10th, 2010
Last year, I stumbled across a post on the Mothering.com discussion boards about substitutes for cheese for those of us who avoid dairy. The general consensus seemed to be that I needed to get my hands on Daiya cheese, however I could.
It wasn’t available in retail packets in the US (it’s Canadian), but several sites sold it online in 1lb bags. I bought both the mozzarella and cheddar style. We made some pizza, we broiled some nachos, and most of us were delighted to find something that filled that need for cheese. Lucia didn’t care for it at first, but now that she’s had it a few times, she’s delighted with Daiya like the rest of us.
Fast forward to this summer, and Daiya has hit US markets — it’s in Whole Foods, local health stores, and our food coop catalog. Yipee!
Why are we excited? Because we avoid dairy, we now skip traditional “treat” foods that include grilled cheese sandwiches, tacos, burritos, pizza, nachos and more. Daiya allows us to enjoy all those foods with a cheese substitute that isn’t as heavy, rubbery or greasy as your standard pizza or nacho cheese, it’s made with ingredients that aren’t liked to cancer and other health conditions, and it MELTS!
I let the pizza cool too much to get a good stretchy picture, but you can visit the Daiya website for some lovely images of just that.
Daiya Shreds are made entirely from plant-based ingredients and are FREE. Oh, was that misleading? No, not like you’re hoping (it costs around $5 for 8 oz in stores), but check this list out:
- Cholesterol free
- Trans Fat free
- Dairy free
- Free of all animal products (Vegan)
- Free of common allergens including:
- Soy, Casein, Lactose, Gluten, Egg, Wheat, Barley, Whey, Rice, and Nuts
- Free of Artificial Ingredients
- Free of Preservatives
- Free of Hormones & Antibiotics
The full list of ingredients for the cheddar style shreds are as follows:
Filtered water, tapioca and/or arrowroot flours, non-GMO expeller pressed canola and /or non-GMO expeller pressed safflower oil, coconut oil, pea protein, salt, inactive yeast, vegan natural flavors, vegetable glycerin, xanthan gum, citric acid (for flavor), annatto.
By no means am I suggesting this this is something to eat to bring about optimal health and nutrition. This isn’t a product to consume on a daily basis, and I’m still wary of ingredients listed as “natural flavors” even when they’re preceded by the word “vegan”. Ditto for glycerin, xanthan gum and citric acid. This is a processed food, something we avoid on a regular basis. However, when invited to a pizza party, it’s much easier on the kids if they have pizza to eat, and easier on me if I am not concerned about the effects of wheat and dairy on their systems.
You can see the pizza before we cooked it — Bob’s Red Mill GF Pizza Crust (made with ground flax instead of eggs) topped with tomato sauce and mozzerella Daiya. See all the lovely individual shreds? Honestly, it smells better and tastes better to me than most of the rubbery stuff you can get in the local supermarket, be it Kraft, Sargento or Organic Valley.
Then we cooked it — we baked the crust for about 15 minutes first, then pulled it, added the sauce and cheese, and popped it back in for 5 more minutes or so until the cheese was melty and bubbly. Click on this picture to see the enlarged version. If you have cut dairy from your diet for health or ethical reasons, but miss the meltiness and tanginess of cheese topping on your pizza, this is some serious food porn.
Yum, yum and more YUM!
patriotic shortcake
July 9th, 2010
The kids voted for which red-white-and blue dessert we would make as part of our Fourth of July festivities this year — smoothie parfait with a blueberry level, coconut milk yogurt level and sour cherry or raspberry level; blueberry shortcake with raspberries, or something along the lines of Sabrina’s Berries ‘n Cream.
As you can see, shortcake had unanimous support, and I made a sour cherry smoothie to wash it down — mostly cherries, with a little water, one banana and 2 dates. To prepare for this colorful treat, we picked oodles of fat blueberries at Belltown Hills Orchard in Glastonbury. Afterward, we followed Matson Hill Road to the end and went for a walk in the woods and dip in the water at Cotton Hollow. Then onto the Glastonbury library (to reluctantly relinquish their overdue copy of David Wolfe’s The Sunfood Diet Success System
I hem and haw (gee, that seems silly in print) about buying organic berries from California, but everything I have read on the topic makes me feel very strongly that even washed berries contain high levels of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. You remember the invaluable resource we mentioned back in February — Environmental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides. Like this article today from Rodale: Coming Soon to Your Strawberries: Newly Approved Carcinogenic Pesticide. Aside from those grown in my yard, I have yet to find a good source of local organic berries, especially strawberries. Last year we drove out to the lovely and amazing Kristin Orr’s organic blueberry patch at Fort Hill Farms in Thompson, CT. A gem of a woman, a very special farm, it was worth the trip and we picked 10lbs of organic blueberries! If you know of another organic pick-your-own or farm stand in CT, please pass that info on!
I avoid buying food from across the country when local alternatives are present, but we wanted us some strawberry shortcake. We had several bowlfuls of homegrown strawberries this year (well, those that actually made it into the bowl, that is, and weren’t gobbled up by my two garden gremlins), but we only made shortcake once.
This is a picture of our first attempt at almond flour drop biscuits which I actually made as drop biscuits. Ignoring the directions, I scooped out a bunch of dough, dropped it on the pan and baked it. Dante chopped and slightly mashed up our berries with a little wood sorrel and Voila! We sliced them in half and added the berries, but since they were so big, the texture of the biscuits left something to be desired and we didn’t have the abundance of berries so much biscuit required. Since they were tasty, we tried again.
I followed the directions and used my 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop the dough, and flattened it once it came out on the baking sheet. Much better! Here’s the recipe, once again using almond flour so entirely gluten free and without that odd aftertaste that we find in many GF flour mixes that involve beans and loads of tapioca or corn starch!
Gluten Free Almond Flour Classic Drop Biscuits
- 2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees; line baking sheet with parchment or grease the baking sheet.
- Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Combine wet into dry until thoroughly mixed.
- Drop the batter in scant 1/4 cups onto baking sheet (will make 8-10 biscuits). Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.
She called for grapeseed oil and agave, and we replaced each egg with 1 Tbs ground flax mixed with 3 Tbs water, allowing it to stand until thickened. I mooshed the dough into my 1/4 cup measure, and it came out nicely onto my sheet. I then pressed it down a bit into the shape you see on the right and popped them in the oven.
I whizzed some blueberries and chia seeds in the Vita-Mix, and once smooth I added another couple handfuls and ran the blender gently to chop them a bit to give the sauce a chunky texture. Blueberries thicken on their own, as anyone who has left a blueberry smoothie to stand for a while can attest, but I added the chia to accelerate this and boost the nutrition of the dish.
I started 1 cup of cashews soaking before I mixing shortcake dough or chopping berries. I rinsed these well, drained and added them to the rinsed blender with some water, several dates, the juice of 1 lemon and a pinch of Himalayan sea salt and whizzed til smooth to make a cream sauce to top our shortcake. I didn’t measure, and did this to taste, adding a little water gradually until the blender was able to do it’s job and I achieved the consistency I was looking for.
Our red, white and blue shortcake was a big hit with the family, and some had seconds. The shortcakes were tasty, and I want to try them with little or no sweetener perhaps mix in some chives or other herbs and serve them with a savory dish for dinner. We used to make a veggie stew with cheesy cheddar biscuits, and I think these would be a lovely sub. We’ve even found a replacement for the cheese that melts, stretches and taste delicious! More to come soon on that!
The garden beckons, and the heat wave demands a pilgrimmage to a local body of water, so I’m off!
Happy high garden season!
Berries ‘N Cream
July 4th, 2010
Happy Fourth of July!!
Today is a day of red, white and blue and celebration of America’s independence. Happy Birthday America!
We were headed to a family gathering by the lake to have a cookout, swim and celebrate the fourth. While everyone else was planning on grilling I wanted to make sure we could join in while still keeping in line with our choices for food. So we broke out the sunshine burgers and tossed them on the grill to heat for a minute towards the end of the rest of the family cooking their various meats. We piled the burgers high with lettuce tomato and melted Diya cheese on millet bread. They were great and the kids loved them. It teamed up perfectly with the Waldorf Salad I brought and our Aunts potato salad.
They real highlight was dessert! I made a new favorite.
Berries N’ Cream
In a bowl, layer sliced strawberries, cream and then blueberries on top. Get it, red, white and blue!
Cream:
3/4 cup walnuts
3/4 cup cashews
2 TBS maple syrup
1 TBS honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 -3/4 cup water
Put all cream ingredients in vitamix and blend until smooth, scraping sides down as needed.
You can use any nuts you would like including all walnuts or cashew, pecans, macadamia or a combo. Also, feel free to use dates (about six) in place of the honey or maple syrup. You could also use all honey or maple syrup.
Add the water slowly so it stays nice and thick. Change it up a bit by adding some lemon zest or orange zest, or coconut water to make new flavors.
For the top, I fan cut a strawberry and placed it in the center. Garnishing it this way added a nice splah of color and the kids thought it was cool to cut the strawberry this way.
So simple and beautiful. I ate 2 helpings while I was there and a nice snack of it when we got home. Gatlin stated, “I am so full of this but would eat it all if you made it again sometime.” My husband ate a huge container of it. Ok, so I don’t recommend that, but the point is, it is that good!
No need to worry about missing out on that whipped cream experience anymore. This one is sure to please.
WOW: Wood Sorrel
June 30th, 2010
One of our favorite garden weeds is wood sorrel, also known as sour grass. With it’s bright green leaves and pert yellow flowers, it lends a cheerful air to shadier areas in garden beds, lawns, woodland margins, etc.
We love it’s lemony tartness in salads, sandwiches, smoothies and soups. Once the tomatoes come in, lunch often consists of tomatoes chopped with wood sorrel, basil, a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of Herbamare or salt. Simple, quick and oh so satisfying. And literally mouth-watering. Seriously. Try a bite. I defy you not to salivate! This is a handy trick when hiking with thirsty kids.
Leaves are a sunny light green and are divided in three heart-shaped leaflets with a center crease that allows the leaves to fold down at night or under stress. Although sorrel leaves are lighter green, their shape is otherwise quite similar to those of clover. Flowers are a bright golden yellow, with five petals. Other varieties of this weed have pink or white flowers, but in our area, yellow is the dominant color.
Medicinally, wood sorrel is a wonderful source of comfort for several ailments. As with plantain or yarrow, you can crush the leaves and put them on wounds or burns to promote healing. An infusion is helpful for digestive maladies, as well as for reducing fevers. High in niacin, thiamin, riboflain and Vitamin C, wood sorrel can be a nutritious addition to your diet . A note of caution, however — it does contain oxalic acid (also found in spinach, rhubarb, parsley, etc) and should be used in moderation. Those with gout and other conditions that are irritated by oxalic acid should probably forgo the pleasures of this mouth-puckering herb.
If you aren’t already familiar with wood sorrel, you will soon discover that it’s lurking about in shady spots all around you. Find a spot that is unlikely to be contaminated by pesticides, auto exhaust, etc and enjoy!
Power Slaw
June 13th, 2010
Wow! I am so impressed with the salad I am going to share with you today. It is called Wakame Hemp Power Slaw and it is a knockout! I am still on my kick of using my recipe books at home. I like to call my raw books recipe books because well, they aren’t really “cook”books. I have also changed my lingo in conversation to making or preparing food rather than cooking it since I am not applying heat to the dishes. Anyway, back to the point. This salad blew me away and is another new favorite. I am so grateful to Ani Phyo and her book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen for all the new salads I have been exploring through her book. They are so varied and different than your typical salad so now I have almost enough salads in my repertoire for every mood I am in!
Wakame Hemp Power Slaw was so easy to prepare and will last 3-4 days in the fridge. Mine didn’t last but two. Proud to say, my hubby even took some to work the next day he liked it so much. I also brought some to share with Sioux to get her review. So, my kids didn’t like it so much but I think they would after a few exposures. I read the other day it can take 15 exposures to a new food before taking to it. So, one down, 14 to go because mamma will be making this one again with all it’s flavor and creamy goodness.
I think we have all heard of the wonderful benefits of kale but what about wakame? Sea veggies are powerhouses. Wakame is high in calcium, protein and chlorophyll. Sea vegetables add essential nutrients and minerals to our diets. They are very versatile and are great in salads and soups. Nori is a common seaweed used as the wrapper for sushi. Dulse is a great salt substitute as is kelp granules. Here is a yummy to add more of these treasures from the sea into your diet.
Wakame Hemp Power Slaw
slaw:
- 1/2 head kale, ribs removed and torn into bite sized pieces
- 1/4 head red cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
- 2 scallions (I used chives from the garden)
- 1/2 c dry wakame
- 1/2 c hemp seeds
power dressing
- 3/4 c brazil nuts (I was out so I used some almonds and cashews)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 TBS grated ginger (I didn’t measure and just threw about a 1 inch hunk in)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 c hemp oil (I used olive oil but hemp or flax would be delish!)
- juice of 1 lime, about 2 TBS
- 1/4 c water
- For slaw, tear kale into bite sized pieces and put in a bowl with the thinly sliced cabbage, scallions or chives and wakame.
- To make the dressing, use food processor to process nuts, garlic, ginger and salt. Add remaining dressing ingredients and process until smooth. I just put it all in the Vitamix and whizzed it up until smooth.
- Pour or scoop dressing into bowl with slaw and toss until well incorporated.
- Top with hemp seeds
The slaw does have very interesting flavors. The lime and ginger in the dressing combined with the creaminess hold up very well to all the flavors of the kale cabbage and wakame. This salad doesn’t need to stand off to be labeled a side dish but is a perfect meal type salad and can hold it’s own in the spotlight. Enjoy!
yard salad
June 10th, 2010
Thanks to our chickens, who managed to escape their large run frequently this spring, many of our greens got off to a slow start. Therefore, when I want a salad, I have to meander about the yard grabbing bits here and there to make up a salad. I take up a bushel or the salad spinner and head out into the yard to see what I can find. The flavor and freshness of yard salad bowl me over, and I love adding whatever edible flowers we have for both decoration and flavor, depending.
We just used a light homemade vinaigrette and made a salad bar, so everyone could choose the salad components they liked — yard salad with herbs and flowers, a spicy mix with cress and sliced radishes, and a not-exactly-from-our-yard mix that includes cucumber, romaine, celery and pea shoots. I wasn’t sure if they mesclun would be too spicy for the kids since some of it had bolted in the warm weather but it turned out to be tame enough for their palates.
The kids picked some small not-quite-ready-yet french breakfast radishes while I cut the mesclun mix and cress (cress, tiny radishes and mesclun in spinner acros the top of the picture). I also gathered (going clockwise for rest of picture) parsley (far left), lambs quarters (pick them young — you can eat the stems if they’re young enough, or just the leaves if they’re woodier), some merveille de quatre saisons lettuce and bronze arrowhead lettuce, two varieties of kale and just a pinch of basil.
These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, and the rest of the radishes have poked their ruddy shoulders out of the ground and were eaten already. Our lambs quarters are at the point that I’m only picking leaves, and our parsley, which had overwintered, is starting to flower. The lettuces are offering up more than just a couple of small leaves, and the chard is also big enough to harvest so we’re still enjoying yard salad in all it’s seasonal variations. The chive flowers have passed, though i’m wondering if I’d chopped them all off and not allowed it to set seeds, if it would keep producing flowers — anyone have any experience with this? We’ve started adding rose petals and wood sorrel which are out now that earlier “weeds” like chickweed are also past their prime.
What do you scrounge from your yard for your salad?
Pretty In Purple
June 6th, 2010
I love to get new raw books from the library! For a change, I decided to start making more recipes out of the many raw books on my own shelf. What a novel idea, eh? So, it was time to go grocery shopping again and I went to the shelf and picked Ani Phyo as my author of choice this time around. I bookmarked several recipes I want to make and am concentrating aon a couple a week.
I am always leery of kale salad recipes because I LOVE the one that I currently make and have tried many others and none have held up to the one tried and true recipe that makes everyone in my house go goo goo for kale and may I add, is the most passed on recipe I have. In her book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen is one titled Cabbage Kale Slaw In Simple Greek Dressing. It is so simple and I really dig this way to use kale!
Pretty In Purple Salad
- 1/2 head kale, any type, destemmed (I used curly)
- 1/4 head red cabbage (Iused 1/2 a head)
simple Greek dressing
- 2 TBS apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 c. olive oil
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp thyme
Thinly slice the kale and cabbage and place in a mixing bowl. Place the dressing ingredients in the bowl and toss well. Eat right away or set aside to marinate and soften.
I had also added a couple cloves of garlic to the dressing. I put the dressing ingredients in the Vitamix to blend and then poured it on the slaw and massaged it to aid in softening the veggies since the dinner bell was going to ring soon.
Fantastic and pretty! Just right and perfect for lunch the next day. I even sent some into to work with my hubby and he ate it all up, yum!
The dressing recipe is like an extra special bonus. It is so good and really tastes like Greek dressing. It calls out for further experimenting to make a big Greek salad with greens, olives, grape tomatoes and dare I say a raw feta to crumble on top!
Soup, It’s What’s For Lunch
June 5th, 2010
I really love Gatlin’s interpretation of my lunch today. He called it a plate of sunshine. I made River and Gatlin veggie soup (cooked) and myself another one of Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen recipes called Tomato Basil Bisque. I had actually made the soup the evening before and was having the leftovers.
Raw foods are interesting in that as time goes by, the flavors of dishes change and meld together. I have had some dishes that I didn’t care for after making them but a day or even two later they are smashing. The same seems to hold true for Ani’s Bisque. I liked it better day two. The kids didn’t really care for it day one but Gatlin said, “Not bad” this next day at lunch. Neither of them still ate a bowl.
Instead, Gatlin devoured my rays of sunshine! I sliced red pepper and stuffed it with a simple homemade guacomole. He loves these as do I. River is my simple kind of man. He likes just straight up red pepper and lots of it. He does like guacomole but not tampering with his red pepper.
Tomato Basil Bisque
bisque base
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 c. olive oil
- 2 tsp sea salt
- 2 c. water
bisque toppings
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1 c. basil chiffonade
- blend bisque base ingredients until smooth
- pour into four bowls and top with tomatoes and basil
Did your eyes pop when you read 1 1/2 c. oil? Mine did, but I followed the recipe. Whoooo, too much oil. I would at least half the oil next time. It had mellowed by the next day but still way too heavy for me. I also didn’t have another tomato to dice for the top so I made and ate only the base. It would be really good with the basil and diced tomatoes on top but would lend itself well to other toppings as well.
A new cut: chiffonade, for those that are unfamiliar, is a way of cutting the basil. It will create long, thin strips. I like to take a few basil leaves and lay them on top of one another. Roll them up together and then cut thinly from the short end to the longer end. This looks decorative as all the strips will be of equal width. Basil is a tender herb so cutting it chiffonade also helps not to bruise the basil.
Enjoy!
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