ice cream bonanza

March 31st, 2010

With the warmer weather of the past couple of weeks, we’ve been wanting ice cream!  Dante led the way, putting a number of bananas in the freezer. We learned how to split a banana into 3 thin sections using only your fingers (cool trick, we’ll make a video soon) so that they freeze faster. If you plan ahead and keep frozen bananas on hand, you can have delicious ice cream in minutes!

Our basic process involves putting about 3-4 frozen bananas in the food processor and whizzing them up. If they have been frozen for more than an hour or so, you may need to either wait a few minutes for them to soften or add one room temp banana to the processor and whiz again to achieve a soft-serve ice cream consistency.

This creates a great banana ice cream as it is, but we have started adding things both to the processor and as toppings to enhance this tasty treat! We have added cacao powder to the processor to make a chocolate ice cream, and vanilla by adding vanilla extract. We make a chocolate chip nut butter swirl by drizzling nut butter  onto the banana ice cream and topping that with cacao nibs. Other add-ins we like are coconut flakes, nuts, seeds, berries, and other fruit.

We make a sorbet by putting a bag of frozen berries into the food processor and whirring it up into sweet, frozen goodness. Some people add dates or honey as well, but we like it without this and consume enough sweet stuff elsewhere that we leave it out. I made a version of this with raspberries and blueberries for Dante last weekend when he was feeling poorly, but he didn’t finish it all. Later in the day, he requested banana ice cream, so I pulled the melted sorbet from the fridge and poured it into the food processor bowl with the already-whizzed bananas and Voila! A beautiful, ruby-red berry ice cream! I topped it with some frozen berries and chia seeds and served (it’s the pic at the top).

When we lived in Boston, we frequented J.P. Licks ice cream shops and one of Luke’s favorites there was Maple Butter Walnut. So we took the basic banana ice cream, and drizzled maple syrup over it and tossed in some chopped walnuts. Lucia wanted chocolate chip ice cream, so we took the plain banana soft serve and put it in a bowl with cacao nibs for her. Take a gander at this shot of goodness — this was breakfast a couple of weeks ago!

Dante didn’t want either of those variations, so he left his portion of the banana ice cream in the food processor and added some frozen raspberries. He used a slice of banana and more frozen raspberries to make a flower on top of his raspbanana ice dream! The boy loves to garnish…

If you haven’t tried this before, pop some bananas onto a cookie sheet or plate in the freezer with enough space between them that they don’t overlap much. Once frozen, you can store them in a zip lock freezer bag to keep them from getting freezer burn. We also make banana pops — cut the bananas in half, insert a popsicle stick up and wrap them in foil or put them on a cookie sheet until frozen and again, store in a freezer bag or other airtight container. These are one of our favorite treats for a hot day!

What’s your favorite cool snack for the dog days of summer?

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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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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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Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!

February 1st, 2010

It’s that time of year again here in the Northeast. The holiday whirl has subsided, we’ve had a month for quiet reflection and a string of family game marathons. We’ve peeked into our nooks and crannies and donated the things that don’t fit. Well, we’re still working on that last one, actually. It’s tough for a family of packrats to let things go easily.

The spring-like weather of the past week has gotten us thinking about what new plants we’ll try to grow this year. Some of our seed catalogs arrived back in December, when we didn’t have time to pore over the rainbow within. Today, now that the bitter weather has snapped back into place, we’re happy to snuggle up inside and do just that. I ordered online last year from several of these companies, but it’s lovely to have a paper catalog to leaf through.

gardening when it countsLast year, I stumbled on an interesting book called “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times” by Steve Solomon. As a previous owner of a seed company himself, he offered some ‘insider’ information about the quality of seeds offered for the retail market, and how to ensure that you get quality seeds. The bottom line is that, for the best results, you want to be sure that you buy from reputable companies. He recommended several, and I’ve parsed that list to include companies that sell seeds which thrive in the New England area, as well as those with a strong committment to sustainable agriculture and a non-GMO approach.

Baker’s Creek Heirloom Seeds offers open-pollinated heirloom varieties, presenting a collection of unusual, colorful and flavorful varities from around the world.

Seed Savers Exchange a non-profit, member supported organization that saves and shares heirloom seeds — more than 25,000 endangered vegetable varieties, most having been brought to North America by members’ ancestors who immigrated from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and other parts of the world. SSE is the largest non-governmental seed bank in the United States

Seeds of Change offering 100% certified organic flower, vegetable and herb seeds, many heirloom, native and hard-to-find varieties

Johnny’s Selected Seeds is an employee-owned seed producer in Maine selling heirloom and hybrid vegetable seeds; medicinal and culinary herb seeds; flower seeds; cover crops, farm seed, and pasture mixes; fruit plants and seeds, and high quality, problem-solving tools and supplies for both the home gardener and larger customers. The opportunity to purchase in bulk abounds in this catalog.

Richters Herbs offers a wide variety of culinary and medicinal herb seeds, plants, extracts and herb-related products. If you need an obscure herb, this is your source. Last year was my first ordering from them, and I’m excited to see how my “leftover” seed germination rates are this year. They also offer bulk packaging.

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