Archive for March, 2010

Lunchtime!

March 19th, 2010

We had so much fun in our raw class this week and were able to whip up four great lunches! These included two from Ani Phyo — mediterranean dolmas and lemon fennel soup — as well as the very filling celery soup. The fourth light meal we shared is from one of our favorite books called Raw Foods for Busy People: Simple and Machine-Free Recipes for Every Day. Author Jordan Maerin really hit the mark with this little gem of a book. The recipes are just as she says, easy, quick and oh, so yummy!

The other recipe is Jordans Nori Filling that we used in a nori wrap. I love that this recipe requires only a couple minutes, is versatile and requires no equipment other than a whisk.

EZ Nori Filling

  • 1/3 cup raw tahini or almond butter, at room temp
  • 3 TBS unpasteurized miso of your choice
  • 1TBS raw honey
  • 1 clove garlic, minced or 1/8 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
  • 1/4 cup scallions, minced
  • 1 TBS Nama Shoyu, or more to taste

Mix all ingredients. Yup, that’s all folks!

For our class I used almond butter and red miso. Again, this is an adaptable recipe and I usually use tahini and white miso. If you do not have scallion on hand you can use onion or onion powder. I always use wheat free Tamari instead of Nama Shoyu and 1 TBS is plenty. I do not recommend adding more.

To make a yummy wrap, take a quartered sheet of untoasted nori and put a smear of nor filling on it, some avocado and tomato slice, fold and eat!

Add water to the filling and you have a fantastic dip for veggie crudites or a little thinner and a fine dressing to wow your taste buds atop fresh salad greens.

Enjoy!

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local food made easy

March 17th, 2010

Inspired by the rave reviews of a few friends, I decided to take the plunge and place an order with CT Farm Fresh Express (CTFFE). Deb Marsden started CTFFE to connect Connecticut farms with the customers who don’t have the means to travel to farms for food each week. Farm fresh food delivered to your door — what more can you ask for? Their website has a lovely, easy-to-use online store. In addition to a description of each item, you can learn more about the  farms or artisan who sell their products through CTFFE, as well as listening to some of the media outlets Deb has appeared on highlighting CTFFE. They carry everything from soaps and cleaning products to gluten-free baked foods to maple syrup, greens, sprouts, meats and cheeses and more. In the summer, you can get a wider range of vegetables than what’s available in early March in CT when I ordered.

You can order until Tuesday, she contacts the farms on Wednesday to let them know what she needs, she picks up at the farms on Thursday and Deb, her husband and 3 other drivers delivers to you  on Friday. She operates out of East Haddam, so the delivery charge is based on your town’s proximity to EH, and ranges from $5-$15. She communicates very well via email about what you can expect and what you need to do — which is basically leave a cooler big enough for your order near your door, and a check to cover the invoice that was emailed to you on Thursday.

CTFFE orderI placed my order before arranging the Aiki Farms field trip, so the first item I put in my cart was the Aiki Pea Shoot 8oz bag (big bag at far right of picture). Oh my gosh, we LOVED these. I did the usual things with them like top my salads or just dress with some oil and vinegar, but Luke found some creative ways to use them,  putting chopped sprouts into the eggs he made for Lucia. They are crunchy and juicy and LOVELY to eat.

We also ordered microgreens from Two Guys from Woodbridge (small plastic box in center of pic), not having tried them before. These have a light peppery flavor and again, I loved the added dimension they gave to my salads. Given large quantities (I only ordered 1oz) I could find myriad uses for these little greens with the small bite. Microgreens are densely nutritious and have a much more delicate flavor than their full-grown counterparts.

Next were the greens, which were all intensely flavored and blew anything I’ve gotten from the grocery store out of the water. The lettuces (romaine next to pea shoots going counterclockwise, then Shisho, Lettuce Bouquet, Sorrel, lastly arugula with a generous wad of fresh cilantro in the bag just under the microgreens)  were more flavorful and less like iceberg than the romaine I get at shaws or even whole foods. There is a sense of fragility to these leaves, in that I don’t think they would travel 2000 miles very well like their counterparts in the stores, but since the farmers don’t have to concentrate on shelf life, flavor is the priority and it shows. We made a simple green salad with just the romaine, pea shoots and slivered onions with a splash of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Great flavor, simple food. Doesn’t get much better than that!

local saladI’ve got some sorrel seeds to sow this year, and while I’m familiar with wild varieties of this plant, I haven’t tasted the cultivated forms. OH MY! Run to your computer or local farm and get your hands on a head of this absolutely fantabulous lemony green. Succulent and sweetly sour, it was gone in minutes. What I hadn’t added to the salad, that is. And the lemony tartness sent our green salad to heretofore unattained heights. If you come across sorrel, definitely pick it up and try it.

The arugula was as tasty as that we grew in our yard last year, so it’s lovely to have an off-season source until we build a greenhouse. The shiso was a new flavor, and its deep purple leaves looked pretty admist the sea of green, tho they all seem to have gotten tossed beneath in the picture. Quoting Dante upon taste-testing a leaf “This tastes like nothing I’ve ever had before”. It’s in the mint family, and the purple shiso is used to dye umeboshi red. High in calcium and iron, this “green” is definitely worth a try. It can be used whole or cut into strips in salads or stir fry.

We also ordered a bag of potatoes, but had some that needed using up first, so I stashed them in the basement and will be bustin into the bag this week. Organic and local — gotta love that!

We have tasted the Two Guys from Woodbridge mesclun and pea shoots at a friend’s who kindly fed us between acrobatics and skating this past weekend (Thanks, Marcella!) and the pea shoots from there were very different, so I recommend trying both.

Food starts to lose nutrients and flavor shortly after harvest, so it makes sense that this option for local food is a good thing. And CTFFE makes it as easy as pie! Have you tried CTFEE or a similar service? How was your experience?

Happy local fooding!

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labels in a can

March 16th, 2010

Today we’re heading back to the garden for some more seed-starting ideas. Specifically, making plant labels from aluminum cans. Recycling AND making something you can reuse again and again. Perfect!

It was harder than I expected to lop off the top and bottom of the can with scissors, so I used the tin snips to make it a little easier. Perhaps your scissors would be up to the task, but alas, not so mine.

snippin cans

Cutting a ring around the top, then straight down one side of the can and another ring around the bottom left some rough edges, which I was easily able to trim off with my lame-ish scissors.

rolled and ready to go

The metal was still fairly curled, holding fast to memories of its previous incarnation as a can, so I rolled them the other way and had rubber bands hold them this way for 20 minutes or so. Not a necessary step, but this did make it easier for me to do the rest of the cutting, etc. Once I unrolled one, I folded it in half, making two 4-inch long pieces of metal, which I then cut into four 4-inch by almost 1-inch wide strips.

strip!

Since the kids help with these, I trimmed most of the top edges into a rounded shape. But you can see that I experimented with alternatives to this as well. I also folded the opposite end as you would starting some paper airplane folds to make a pointed, reinforced edge to stick into the soil.

The last step is writing in the plant names. I did it both ways, with the “Tomato ‘Sioux’ ” sample being written directly on the silver side of the marker. I also tried the alternative (says “Tomato ’sweet pea’ ” which, for me, involved writing the words backwards on a piece of paper, and then copying the backwards letters onto the printed side of the can. This gives an embossed appearance to the letters. After doing a few and getting my brain into the backwards letter mode, I didn’t have to write them out on paper first, but it did take a few attempts before I was in the ‘zone’.

tomatoes!

I can’t say I do this for seed starting, I like my popsicle sticks with a sharpie jes’ fine for the many labels I need. But I would consider labeling the many new herbs we’ve decided to grow this year with these more weatherproof markers. I probably won’t limit myself to the small, utilitarian labels above, but make bigger labels with some decorative touches like scrollwork, etc. as well.

I found details for this idea at little house in the suburbs, and I love the herb label they ended with and plan to make something along these lines for our own until we’re more familiar with them and can identify them in the blink of an eye.

rosemary label

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seaside salad

March 15th, 2010

This flavorful salad is so simple to make and slurpingly satisfying. Kevin and Anne Marie Gianni of Renegade Health made this recipe which is adapted from Donna Gates’ The Body Ecology Diet. Arame is a mild tasting seaweed. It is a good source of iron, calcium, zinc and iodine. Seaweed, as you may suspect, is very high in sodium.

Cucumber Arame Salad

  • cucumber arame salad ingredients1.5 oz arame
  • 4 cucumbers, peeled and sliced very thin
  • 2 tsp sea salt
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • 1 small red onion, diced
  • 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 TBS unrefined oil
  • pinch pepper
  1. Soak arame for 15 minutes in enough water to cover.
  2. Sprinkle sea salt on cucumbers and let set for several minutes to release juices.
  3. Discard soaking water and chop arame.
  4. Mix cucumbers, arame and all other ingredients, and toss.

cucumber arame salad I will often halve  this recipe and it makes plenty. I usually leave out the black pepper and I do not chop the arame. I leave it in longer strands. I add nutritional yeast about 1 tsp. at a time and stir until it is thickened slightly. In total, I use about 2 TBS. It adds a great flavor! My hubby loves this one and so does my almost 10 year old. My 5 year old would like it with less arame, some sweetener and no red onion. Me, ooooo, it is a favorite!

Sioux adds — I too cut this in half, but my kids like it so much that I might just try not doing so next time. I do chop the arame, I use sesame oil, and I add a tablespoon or so of honey and nutritional yeast, as well as sesame seeds (black if I have them, they look pretty). My entire family loves this recipe, and the kids actually cheer when I say its on the menu. I started introducing this recipe with less arame than called for, but have slowly increased it now that everyone is familiar with it. The taste of the arame is pretty mild, actually, and it didn’t take us too long to get up to the full amount.

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homemade hummus

March 14th, 2010

One of our favorite on-the-road snacks is hummus. Garbanzo beans are high in calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium and zinc, and are a source of dietary fiber and protein.The tubs in the store can be expensive, and can have preservatives or other unnecessary ingredients.

Soak the beans overnight to reduce cooking time — soak, drain and cook for 1-2 hours, and drain again. You can soak for 12-24 hours, sprout them for 2-3 days until the tail is about as big as the bean, and then steam them for 20 minutes or so until they soften. I’ve found enough information online and in The Sprout Garden to make me wary of eating raw chick peas, so if you decide to go that route, proceed with caution and do your research.

Seeing Lucia making sweet potato chips for the camera, Dante decided he wanted to make some hummus too. Except that was the first day we used the camera, and somehow the main video of him putting in all the ingredients was corrupted. Since he gives the recipe, I asked him to film it again using the extra chick peas and pretending to add the rest. He was a trooper though and acted as tho he had actual ingredients to add to the food processor bowl (love watching him “scrape out” all that tahini!).

Hummus

  • 4 cups cooked/steamed chick peas (~ 2 15oz cans)
  • 2 Tbsp lemon
  • 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1/2 cup tahini
  • 1 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 1/2 tsp  cumin (or to taste)
  • pinch nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup water (or as needed to reach desired consistency)
  • 3-4 Tbsp olive oil

Put all ingredients in the bowl of the food processor and whizz. We usually add everything but the oil, and once the dip is nearly done, we add in the oil. We taste and add more spices, salt or lemon juice at this point as well. Sometimes we add more garlic, or roast the garlic first. You can add more lemon, 1 red pepper, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, chives or more to keep things interesting. While we tend to use hummus as a dip, we also spread it on rinsed romaine leaves and top with onion and tomato .  Sometimes we smear it on toast

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Marinated mushrooms

March 12th, 2010

Mmmmm those Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms were soooo good! Now, hold on, don’t throw those lovely mushroom stems away! Of course, you can use whole mushrooms for this recipe as well but it is great for the stems alone.

Marinated Mushrooms

  • 1 pkg of mushrooms, leftover mushroom stems or a variety of mushrooms
  • 1/8 cup olive oil
  • 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 TBS wheat free Tamari
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt or herbamare
  • 2 tsp dried tarragon
  1. Wash mushrooms or stems and place in a bowl.
  2. Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl.
  3. pour dressing over mushrooms and let marinate in fridge for 1-2 hours.

These will last in the fridge for about 3 days. I like to have this on salads or just plain as a side. Another great way to serve this is to serve on marinated spinach.  For the spinach: massage spinach with a little bit of olive oil, herbamare and tarragon. Massage for about 5 minutes until it is wilted. A little olive oil and sea salt and herbamare goes a long way.

Our favorite fan of this recipe is Uncle Barry! The kids aren’t big fans but I have to admit, it is one of my favorites so there is often not much left for them to try of this one!

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best ever pesto stuffed mushrooms

March 11th, 2010

One of the first raw books I ever purchased was Living On live Food by Alissa Cohen.  At a friend’s party I couldn’t get enough of a dip she had made and had no idea it was even raw! Turns out it was the Mock Salmon Pate in Alissa’s book. It is still a favorite. Alissa did it again with her Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms. These little morsels are amazing and you would never know they weren’t cooked. Serving them right out of the dehydrator, they are warm and divine with their bready stuffing. I would double this recipe if you are sharing!

You will need 18-22 button mushrooms, washed and stemmed. Save the stems for an upcoming recipe!

Stuffing

  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup pine nuts
  • 2 cups fresh basil
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  1. Blend all stuffing ingredients in food processor until smooth.
  2. Scoop small amount of stuffing into each mushroom cap.
  3. Dehydrate at 105 for 5-6 hours or until soft.

As they dehydrate, the mushroom caps absorb some of the oil and give a cooked appearance as well as softening the caps.

I usually have extra pesto leftover that I can then add water to for a dressing or I will also use it to mix with steamed veggies for the kids for dinner. Myself, I love pesto, so I eat it right off the spoon as well!

I think my favorite part of this whole recipe is seeing Gatlin sneaking into the pantry and reaching way up high (for him) into the dehydrator for a mushroom. River is not as big of a fan but does love pesto on veggies. My husband, Dan loves these almost as much as Gatlin!

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Newspaper seedling pots

March 10th, 2010

Well, the new moon is on March 15, so we’re in a big rush this week to get our newspaper pots up and running by then. We’re experimenting with various garden techniques this year, and lunar gardening is one of them. I read some interesting info, having noticed that the Farmer’s Almanac includes “planting by the moon” information on their calendar. Many studies have been done to validate the folk observations of the effects of the moon on plant growth, and I figure I could use all the help I can get growing more of our food and herbs. I found several books on the subject via ILL at the library, and a website called gardeningbythemoon.com.

Last year we made newspaper pots to house our seedlings until they were ready for the garden. Definitely more time consuming than buying seed trays, but you can plant the entire thing in the ground making transplanting much less traumatic. And I imagine the newspaper disintegrates faster than peat pots since it’s so much thinner. Plus we’re keeping materials out of the waste stream rather than purchasing a single-use piece of plastic, with all the environmental burden that carries, or the peat pots, another non-renewable resource. Needless to say, it eliminates the need to sterilize seedling pots, a task I detest.  AND we have well-read seedlings, up on the latest town politics. Either way, it’s a win-win, n’est-ce pas?

So, first step. I took the local paper that comes each Friday (smaller than a NYT type paper, so if you’ve got one like that you might have to adjust or use a bigger form), opened it and cut along the center crease. Then I turned it 90 degrees and cut along the fold. Lucia took some shots to illustrate.

I now had what I needed to make one pot. I turned it so the shorter side was near my stomach, and folded that up about 1.5 inches. After creasing that fold, I brought the opposite short edge under the one I’d previously folded, not coming all the way to the fold, but perhaps a half inch or so back from it.

Next, with the smaller fold folded over the bottom fold, and keeping this thinner fold toward the top of the jar, I wrapped it, folds inside, around the jar, leaving a little less than half the newspaper hanging off the bottom of the jar. Can I say fold a few more times and confuse you? Fold down the larger fold, fold the shorter fold over it, keep that nearest the top of the jar. Phew!

newspaper pot step 2

Turning the jar on it’s lid, I folded the newspaper down to cover the bottom. For these small jars (Bionaturae glass jars, though cans work as well, just give a bigger pot), I had to fold it down in 3 sections.

newspaper pot step 3

Done folding down the bottom, I turned it over and slid the jar out. Now it’s time to tuck the part of the top that wraps around into the slit created by the first fold.

newspaper pot step 4

You need to keep pushing down at the same time to keep the bottom folds from popping up and destroying the pot. I found that it took a couple of tries to get the hang of it and then it was pretty easy.

newspaper pot step 5

Voila! Ready to fill with potting soil and put in the container. Definitely fill it as soon as you fold it, because I didn’t and half of them came undone when I picked them up to fill a while later.

newspaper pot step 6

Ready for seeds.

newspaper pots ready for seeds

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Grawnola

March 9th, 2010

I love the Go Raw brand of snacks but it tends to put a big dent in my purse. After trying their granola, I decided to give it a whirl myself. I changed it up a bit and came up with a great recipe.

Grawnola is quick to make so make lots as it will keep for awhile. It is a satisfying breakfast when you are wanting something more substantial to stat the day. We like it as a snack and it is a perfect travel food.

River and Gatlin are both fans of this grawnola and my hubby finishes off whatever is left so I feel it safe to say this is a family winner.

My Homemade Grawnola

  • 2 cups sprouted buckwheat or buckwheat crunchies*
  • 1 large apple, finely chopped
  • 1/8 cup chia seeds
  • 2 TBS sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 TBS yacon syrup
  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add the yacon syrup and mix, mix, mix. It takes a little time to get it incorporated into the mixture, but keep mixing and it will all become covered with the yacon.
  2. Dehydrate at 105 for 5-6 hours on teflex sheet or parchment.
  3. Once it is dehydrated, you can add goji berries and/ or raisins.
  4. Serve with fresh almond mylk and some fresh berries if you got ‘em.

Feel free to play around with adding other seeds to the mix or other dried fruits. You may also enjoy adding some other spices for variety.

*To make buckwheat crunchies:

  1. Soak raw buckwheat groats for 1-2 hours. They will be very slimy so be sure to keep rinsing until the water is clear and no longer slimy. This can be done in a colander but I find it handy to do in a nut mylk bag or my inexpensive version which is a nylon paint strainer from the hardware store. They are about $5 for a pack of 2! Do get the large or extra large size.
  2. After drained well, leave in sprout bag or bowl to sprout overnight, rinsing twice a day.
  3. For this recipe, you may use the buckwheat now or dry them in the dehydrator on 105 a few hours until completely dry and there you have it… buckwheat crunchies!

As you have seen in other posts, buckwheat crunchies are great to have on hand to add on top of smoothies. I recommend making these in a big batch since they keep for a very, very long time in a glass airtight container.You can also sprinkle them on top of fresh fruit or banana with a fruit puree for a yummy dessert!

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magnificent muesli

March 8th, 2010

muesli in a jarMy kids love their breakfast cereal. Except much of what you find on the store shelves is relatively devoid of nutrients, and is pretty pricey to boot! So we’ve experimented with alternative breakfasts. Smoothies make up the bulk of our morning meal these days, or sometimes we’ll do the mono-meal thing and eat an entire cantaloupe, honeydew, or  pineapple. But sometimes they tire of the fresh fruit thing, and are looking for something completely different. The spiced apple oatmeal fits the bill on a cold day, but on the warmer spring days we’ve been having, muesli answers the call.

I tend to make this at night, in big batches, so that its ready for breakfast the next day. I soak the nuts or seed for the milk, and since I’m rooting around in our dried fruit/nut drawer in the fridge, I pull it all out on the counter and go to town. I start with a base of buckwheat crunchies if I have a lot prepared and can share them out from my smoothie addition supply. Last week I didn’t have enough to use as the bulk of the muesli, but I did have a surfeit of rolled oats, so we went with that.

I don’t really have a recipe for this. I pour a large amount of oats into a bowl. On top of that I toss things like raisins, dried tart cherries, dried cranberries, golden raisins, and goji berries. I chop up bigger dried fruits like dates, apricots and prunes before adding them to the bowl.

muesli in nut milkNext up are the nuts and seeds. I chop bigger nuts like almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts and cashews. I do tend to roughly chop bigger seeds like pumpkin and sunflower too. Then I toss in hemp and chia seeds. If I have it pre-ground, I also add some flax meal. Sometimes I have pre-soaked and dehydrated nuts on hand, sometimes I don’t. If I don’t, I rely more heavily on fruit and seeds and use the unsoaked nuts sparingly. Lucia prefers her muesli without nuts anyway, hence the second, smaller jar of her own private nutless batch.  I topped all this with a couple handfuls of my precious crunchies (is it me, or do I sound like the lovechild of Gurgi and Gollum, with my precioussss crunchings and munchings?).

Sometimes I add coconut flakes, sometimes cacao nibs. After this last batch Dante specifically requested that I leave the cacao nibs out, while I found them to be a yummy addition. Muesli is like my veggie soup  — it all depends on what I have on hand, and no two batches are exactly alike. But I can whip up a batch pretty quickly and it lasts a few days if I make enough. Luke likes it too, and can put huge dents in the supply.

They will all eat it by the handful or from a jar with a spoon on the go, but they adore muesli for breakfast with nut milk.

What have you been having to break the fast?

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