Confession #13 - Slow cookin' - life's little joys

I'm crock pot obsessed. Do you see in photo that I have not one, not two...but three crock pots running simultaneously?

I'm not picky about my rice, so one has brown rice. The next has a roast bought from my local farmers' market. The third (on the stove) has black beans.
Black bean soup is awesome!  My children eat it plain, with cheese, with tortilla chips and sometimes rice.  It has got to be one of my favorite super easy, super cheap go-to lunches (and it has starred as dinner too!).

Black Bean Soup
(this is a take off from a recipe of a lady I worked with back in my days at the library - yep I worked for a library system for almost 10 years. Next week you'll hear more about what happens in the stacks).  Here's my version:

Half a pound of dried black beans
Fist full of leeks (onions if you must LOL)
Two cans of tomatoes (or if you are blessed with family that cans or you can your own veggies, put in one quart jar of home canned, home grown tomatoes)
1/2 tsp of basil
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne (more if you're daring)
Cover in a big crock pot and cook on low overnight.  Your house will smell yum in the morning!  Add some salt to your taste preference. 

My favorite?  Scooped into a bowl with a dollop of sour cream and a scandalous amount of diced local vine-ripe tomatoes and a few tortilla chips crushed over the top. My daughters like to have it with cheese on top and  scoop it up with blue corn torilla chips.  Many days (like the last few I've had a stomach bug) my hubby is just excited I made food!

Love, Carra

Confession #12 - Frugal and picky

So if I were just frugal, I would use the whole loaf of bread (even the heels) for toast and sandwiches.
But I'm also picky. I don't like heels for toast and sandwiches. But I don't want to be wasteful.

So what can I do? Make breadcrumbs! As we use up loaves, I pop the leftovers into the freezer. Once I run out of room in our freezer door, I take out all the bread pieces and lay them out to "dry."

Once there's not the concern of condensation, I pull out the food processor. Blending this "day old bread per se provides nutritional boost to my meatballs (it is soaked whole wheat sourdough sold by a lady at my local farmers' market after all). And these bread crumbs make my fish crunchy and delicious.

I store my breadcrumbs in the freezer so they're fresh long term. Still promising by the end of this week...natural product for you "punctuation" as Heavenly Homemakers puts it.
Love,
Carra

Confession #1 - Not as natural as you may think

Ok, I just wanna get this out there. I'm a bipolar granola mommy. I love sugar. I particularly love chocolate.
Natural side: I make my own chocolate syrup. How? Well, I'll tell you...

Chocolate Syrup


Half a cup of cocoa
Half cup water
Half cup of sweetener (honey, rapadura sugar or a combination)
One tablespoon of sorghum molasses
Pinch of salt.

1. Combine in a medium pot (fancy recipe people would say saucepan...I call it a pot).
2. Use a whisk to mix everything together.
3. Cook over medium heat. Stir pretty constantly or you'll burn the yummyness.
4. Once it comes to a rolling boil (gently puffing up as it boils, stir really well for about one more minute. Take if off the burner and let it cool off.
5. After it cools, pour it into a jar and keep refrigerated.

Add to whatever you like some chocolate on. Note: if you use 100% honey to sweeten, it will have a honey taste. The molasses helps through.It makes a fabulous chocolate milk!

Confessions of my NOT so natural side: so there are some serious weaknesses in my resolve...a bakery called Delicious near us - wow amazing - they make a classic yellow cake with a fudge icing...yum. Some of my other weaknesses include the milkshakes from Chick-fil-A, iced lattes from Java K's Coffee house, and giradelli semisweet chocolate chips right out of the package.

So there you have my first confession. I make my own cereal, eat veggies from a CSA, grind my own wheat.......and.......eat every crumb of that piece of cake.

Love, Carra

Dangerously Yummy Concoction

I have been known to enjoy a good drink now and then... a coffee drink.  I have a friend who drinks coffee black.  Personally I prefer a little coffee in my cream and sugar.  I remember even as a young girl (pre-age 11 but I can't remember any closer than that), I liked the taste of coffee.

Hardly a connoisseur, I would mix the decaf instant coffee with hot water, then add ridiculous amounts of sugar and milk.  In my "library life" where I worked for almost 10 years, coffee became a part of my (every) week.  There was this awesome, cooler than you coffee shop called Coffee Underground.  It was literally under the street level under an Italian restaurant.  They had a delicious ham and brie sandwich that was truly unparalleled. But I digress. CU introduced me to the dangerous concept of the flavored iced latte.

So years later, at least the "ham" part of ham and brie sandwiches are behind me. But a girl needs some yumminess in her life :-) That's where this concoction comes in.

Cream so thick and rich that it pours like syrup. ...ahhhh yum. Well if you take some decaf coffee (brewed, not instant anymore LOL) and you add real cream (about one part coffee to two parts cream) you get a "milk latte."  But the beautiful taste of the iced flavored lattes of Coffee Underground is the flavored part.  My favorite flavor is vanilla. But I just can't do the pre-made syrups like they put in at coffee shops - corn syrup at the vary least are in those.  So what's a latte-loving (yet granola-natural) girl to do?  Make my own!

Natural Vanilla Syrup

• Sweetener (one cup of honey or natural sugar)
• Water (about 1/2 a cup)
• Pure vanilla extract (tablespoon or so)
• Vanilla bean specks (see below)

I'm currently soaking some vanilla beans to make extract.  This will be my second time around so I happen to have vanilla beans around the house soaking in vodka tucked in the back of the pantry (needs to be dark).  So I took a bean and opened it up and gently scraped out the vanilla specks from it into my syrup.  It is so cool to look into your coffee and see the specks of real vanilla.

Anyway, bring the first three ingredients to a very low boil for about two minutes. Watch it carefully.  Once it's all smooth, add the specks and vanilla extract..  Add to your latte and enjoy!  I introduced my drink concoction to my staff team last week.  Seems to be a hit.  Bet you'll like it too!


Love, Carra

Dwelling on the past...Fried Okra

As I have said before, I have discovered (through pain) that gall bladders should be taken better care of especially during pregnancy.  Gratefully, diet has been a primary relief.  At least once in our marriage, Pete requested that we have a vegetable that is *not* fried.  With the new gallbladder friendly diet, this is no longer an issue between us.


I grew up in South Carolina.  The best tasting things are those with a little breading and fried up crisp.  In honor of my roots and fondly remembering when I could enjoy fried foods with abandon, I submit to you what I call "REAL" Fried Okra.

Aside: If you are a true southerner, you pronounce the last word as /oak - ree/.  I have somewhat lessened my intensity of the pronunciation after nearly ten years of teasing by my more grammatically-correct Canadian husband.

If you have only had okra from Cracker Barrel (or equivalent), you have not truly experienced okra in all it's deliciousness. Notice that you can actually see the vegetable. This is a food that is not "battered and deep fried,"  it rather has a light flour coating and is pan fried (or baked in the oven). 


Real Fried Okra

1. Gather a mess of fresh okra (picked small, fresh as possible)
2. Wash well (your fingers may itch just a little if you grab one too tight near the top)
3. With a nice sharp knife, cut into disks (maybe 1/3 inch or so) into a clean bowl (that has a tight-fitting lid)
4. After you have a nice bowl full of (yes, somewhat slimy-feeling) sliced okra, you add the "breading"
5. Scoop a small amount (1/2 cup or so) of flour (whole wheat of course)
6. Shake some salt and pepper (to your taste, but more salt than pepper and use sea salt of course)
7. Cover the bowl and shake it well so that all the sticky okra gets a light coating of the flour.
8. Dump the bowl of okra into a hot frying pan (cast iron is a great choice) with some coconut oil in the bottom (not a ton, but enough to cover the bottom well).You can also "bake/fry" this in the oven.  Use a jellyroll pan and lightly coat the bottom with coconut oil.  You'd cook it about 375 for half an hour but stir it a couple of times for even cooking.
9. Stir or continue to scrap with a spatula.  If it begins to stick, add a little more coconut oil.  You may do this several times while it cooks.
10. Cook the okra until it is tender, crispy on the outside and literally melts in your mouth.

Love,

Anniversary Apple Pie

Yesterday was our ninth wedding anniversary. It was somewhat somber because the miscarriage began exactly one week ago. We had dinner with the girls here at home and caught up with "24 " (after the girls were in bed!) and talked. We reminisced about our wedding day and the things we have experienced since and about our future - imaging what God has in store for us. It was a very low key anniversary but a good one. It's not the "how" but the "who." I am so blessed with an awesome, godly husband. I haven't been anywhere so I didn't buy him a card. But I showed him love in a way that has been consistent throughout our marriage.... I cooked :-)

Apple (or Pear) Pie (either works - I've done both)
Homemade Pie Crust for 9" pan (I'll share my recipe soon I hope)
5 cups of pears or apples pealed and sliced thin
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 tbsp plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp softened butter
Roll out your crust and lay into a 9" pie pan. Combine the rest of the ingredients and spread over bottom crust. Roll out the top crust and pinch the bottom & top crusts together. Poke a generous amount of vent holes across the top of the pie. Bake @ 450 degrees for 10 minutes, reduce temperature to 350 and bake another 35 to 40 minutes.

I highly recommend serving this hot with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. We had Breyers. I know - it has sugar! Honestly, we've really fallen off the "no sugar" wagon in recent months. Tasty food can be a welcome distraction when you're sad, tired or stressed. It seems like we've been in constant rotation of those feelings for about 8 months. I'm praying for strength and wisdom as we try to get our family back on a healthy groove. Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Recipe or Concoction?

Last week we had an unusual opportunity to get some serious focus on this whole kitchen renovation. Since I had been to the market to pick up my CSA (love the Faucette Farms), I had a bunch of yummy veggies just asking for consumption.

The girls (who do not care for "stuff" in their breakfast) were happily at grandma's house eating their weight in homemade biscuits. So with only myself and Pete to please - I decided to have a veggie scramble breakfast. Aside: I told Pete I was jealous of myself for getting eat this delicious dish. He mentioned pridefulness - I repented.
Here's what I was on my plate: eggs, green peppers, roasted red peppers, leeks (I can't do onions), fresh tomatoes, spinach leaves, cheddar cheese and pesto sauce.

Wanna try it? Here's what to do (although I imagine there are several different approaches). Big hint: Get all your "parts" together and ready so you don't accidentally overcook the eggs.

1. Put a little olive oil or coconut oil in a big frying pan and heat to med high.
2. Begin sauteing peppers and leeks.
3. Add several beaten eggs (I used 5 between us I'm pretty sure) with salt and pepper added.
4. Scramble the eggs and veggies to get them partially cooked.
5. Throw in the roasted red peppers, fresh tomato and spinach.
6. When the eggs are done to your liking, remove from pan and stir in a little pesto sauce (I used half teaspoon to a teaspoon)
7. Grate some cheese over top. Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum Yum.

More renovation pics and stories soon!

Rice and Easy

I know I twittered that I was sharing sour cream. When I "tweeted" that, I did not realize that we would be without a working dishwasher for over two weeks! As I mentioned before, our new house is great but the one major area that is not updated is the kitchen.

For a lady who is passionate about natural cooking (that would be me), it has been challenging to have my kitchen discombobulated. My wonderful husband has worked on the old dishwasher, installed a free dishwasher from my uncle (which ended up not working), and now finally in the process of installing a new dishwasher. Yay!

So I wanted to share a little idea that seems to make our lives a little easier. We eat brown rice as our primary carb with meals. Okay - one hour is not that big a deal most weeks to cook some. However - I have been very oriented toward "easy" as we moved, traveled and have general chaos in our world.

So I made a big pot of brown rice then dished it out into muffin tins (no teflon - just a little olive oil to keep it from sticking). I froze it, then popped it out, lined zip bags with wax paper and stored in the freezer.

It can be heated directly or tossed into a pot of broth with some chicken and yeehaw - a meal :-)
I'll get back to the sour cream soon - I will do my best!

As promised... Homemade Yogurt

My main guide for making yogurt is one I I found on ehow. But I thought I would share my version and some pictures.

• milk 
• yogurt (yes, it takes yogurt to make yogurt - unflavored with active cultures - Stoneyfield is my favorite to use as a starter yogurt)
• thermometer - The temperature of the milk is very important (learned that the hard way). I have used a meat thermometer, but we now have a real candy thermometer.
• whisk - Getting the "already yogurt" to mix well into the "becoming yogurt" is also very important (another hard way lesson).
• a pot to heat it in (narrow at the base ideally)

This is how I do it:

1. Measure the milk into a quart jar. I fill it a little less than the full jar so there's room for the yogurt & milk together when you go to let it "process." I usually leave about two inches gap.





2. Get your pot and heat the milk to 110 degrees F. I usually tilt the pot to submerge the bottom of the thermometer to get a more accurate reading. I also keep swirling the milk around with a whisk to get a good reading too.

3. Once the milk hits 110 degrees, remove from the heat and whisk in about 1/3 cup of yogurt immediately. Then I pour it back into the jar.













4. Set the yogurt in a warm place (110 degrees) for about 8 to 10 hours. My yogurt mentor, Susan, has said that the longer you leave it, the more tart it becomes. My family likes it about the 10 hour mark. I make it before I go to bed while I'm still cleaning up. Then the next morning, while I'm making breakfast I remember that I left it and then put it into the fridge.

As far as leaving the "milk becoming yogurt" in a warm place.... My yogurt mentor places hers in the oven with the light on all night. I've heard you can use heating pads or a crockpot. I just happen to have two different yogurt making things.

I bought the Salton 1-quart yogurt maker from Amazon about a year ago and paid maybe $25 to $30 including shipping. They currently have this listed for almost $200! -which is absolutely insane. I picked up a single serving yogurt maker which is sort of an older version of this one. It was $5 -sweet!

We are plain yogurt people. We just keep blueberries in the fridge and add as we serve. I also like mine with toasted oat and a little honey. But I'm trying to lay off the honey. So happy yogurt making! I'm off the pack up my house!

Bold choice in my quest for jelly

So I "have to" deal with these delicious looking muskadines and scuppoernongs. It is time to make jelly. All I need are the berries, jars, pectin and sweetener. So my grocery envelope has 55 cents left and I have no pectin to make the jelly "gel."

What I do have is beef gelatin from my marshmallow experiment (part one, part two and part three). aside: I do believe I will be trying those again with honey this winter. Unfortunately I read online that animal based products lead to spoiling. Alas - but then I remembered... I bought agar powder! Agar is a red algae vegetarian substitute for gelatin. Now technically I need pectin, not gelatin. But I figure if the only reason not to use gelatin is the meat content - then I should be safe to use agar. Does my logic make sense?

So since there is no other website that I can find that has documented this much less gives the quantities - this will be an experiment in the highest degree. So I'm going to take you along the journey and see what happens....

12:15 p.m. Put Faith to nap and them wash all the berries.
12:20 p.m. Realize kitchen is in no shape to produce food - decide to clean kitchen first ;-)














12:40 p.m. Much better. Twenty minutes to clean and I even fielded a phone call about the caterer for our fundraiser dinner. Here's my Gracie washing the berries and removing (many of) the stems. :-)















1:45 p.m. Muskadines and Scuppernongs are lightly boiling, started cracking the peels and smelling quite lovely. Discovered that okra in fridge was getting desperate too - so cut and frying that right now as well.


1:50 p.m. Looked over some writing work and cranked up Explode the Code online for Gracie. Strained the juice through a colander, then through a lightweight cloth (from my cheese experiments). Set the juice to simmer for about half an hour. Feeling weak, realized I fed children and never ate. Well, looks like the okra will make a fine lunch ;-)


2:30 p.m. Added agar power, 2ish cups of grape juice and a half a cup of honey to sweeten. I kept adding agar power until I put a spoon in the fridge and it jelled! I have no idea how much I put in. Probably a couple of tablespoons? Stirred it in with a whisk (one of my favorite kitchen tools).




3:00 p.m. Boiled water in my stock pot to sterilize and proof the jelly.





3:30 p.m. Realized that full quart jars cannot fit with an inch of water boiling over the top of them. Perhaps should have bought pint jars, but I'm low on funds til Friday and couldn't go out anyway - Faith sleeping.










3:40 p.m. Water boiling - barely meeting the top of the lid. Hoping for the best. Realize I do not have a jar lifter. Called our neighbors to see if they had one, but they weren't home. Sterilizing the jars was already a little tricky using towels and hot mitts.

Catching you up - after they lightly boiled for 15 minutes, I removed them from the heat and very carefully lifted them out onto a towel. Babysitter arrived and we left for a staff social. When we arrived home I checked the jars.

They gelled and they sealed! If they actually taste good I will have reached the pinnacle goal of my afternoon (including finding a great price for food for our fundraiser dinner LOL). I'm going to save the taste test for tomorrow morning on my toast. I am pretty sure it tastes good though - I did some sampling to adjust for the desired sweetness. Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Apple Honey Oatmeal Cake

I just made this and wanted to share with you. This is so moist and delicious. It is such a loose take off of a recipe I found on the internet (using neither honey, pecans or apples) that I feel comfortable calling this my own. I had some apples I bought at retail natural foods store that went mealy really fast. Not wanting to waste, I peeled, chopped them up and cooked them for something yummy. This recipe is more like a muffin batter, but I cooked it in a 9X13 pan for the ease of cleaning.

Apple Honey Oatmeal Cake

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

11/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 egg

1/4 cup butter - melted and cooled

1/2 cup honey

11/4 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups (can vary of course) of cooked apples
1/2 cup chopped pecans

I baked mine at 375 / adjusted down to 350 about 20 minutes into cooking. I think the total time in the oven was 30 to 40 minutes.

Sabbatical from Agave

How long have I loved thee - agaveee?

I suppose it was too good to be true - a sweetener that has no strong taste or aftertaste - that dissolves immediately in liquid. I've heard rumors, caught a little article here and there saying that agave is more processed than we first expected. But I chose to ignore. This stuff is great - there are always nay-sayers.

Alas - two sources whom I trust - Dr. Mercola and the Weston Price Foundation (article by Dr. Ben Kim) both came out recently about the delicious liquid. Unfortunately not only regarding it's degree of "natural" but unfortunately its danger as well. I need to read more carefully and get all the facts straight. (I have been distracted by the other things happening in my life right now).

After I do some more research, I'll share a more put together blog about it. But to be cautious - we are taking a sabbatical from agave. We're now all about maple syrup and honey. I made honey chocolate cake and some honey brownies that were quite good. The cake is from another site, but the brownies are my own adaptation. Here's the recipe:

Brownies Sweetened with Honey
* Between 1.5 & 2 cups honey (depending how sweet you like it)
* 1 cup oil (usually I use 1/2 sunflower, 1/2 olive - all olive is a bit too much of the taste)
* 4 eggs
* 1.5 tsp vanilla
Mix all this together and then grab another bowl for the dry ingredients.
* 1.5 cups flour (it can handle all whole wheat, but for lighter brownies, try half naturally white flour)
* 1 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup of cocoa

Mix this well especially the cocoa chucks. If you are inclined you can sift it and it turns out better. I should, but I usually don't. Kitchen confessions ;-) Mix everything together and bake in a greased 13 x 9 pan in a 350 degree oven (if your oven runs hot - turn down to 325 or they won't taste as moist or sweet). Bake for about 20 minutes. Take out when the middle is firm, but not 100% completely done on top. This takes a little experimenting to see how to get them cooked just right. Happy Honey Cooking!

Things I never thought I would do...

For a girl that grew up on Dr. Peppers and nutty buddy's, I have become some hilarious health nut. If I my 24 year old self ever met my 34 year old self - she would think I was way over the top. And so I am.  So in the last two weeks I have made butter, buttermilk, yogurt and mozzarella cheese! If you are willing to have milk all over your kitchen for a few hours....

• Butter - I tried using the stand mixer, but the food processor was much, much easier (and cleaner)
• Buttermilk
• Yogurt - I actually bought a yogurt maker to keep the cultivating stuff at a constant temperature. It was only about $20 - very worth it since we spend $5 to $8 per week on yogurt. BTW - I don't use the plastic container - a washed out mayonnaise jar fits perfectly inside.
• Mozzarella cheese - mine did not "spin," but it tasted great and was able to be shredded the next day.
• Ricotta cheese - here's the recipe - I'm planning to make it tomorrow from all the whey I had left from the cheese making.
• Sour cream - here's the recipe - I'm planning to make it Saturday after I get a fresh gallon. It also has good info on butter, buttermilk, etc.

Macaroni and Cheese, with a natural twist

So since we do natural and largely "non-packaged food, a friend had asked how we did without cream of whatever soup in dishes. I thought about this version of the ever-so-kid-friendly dish -

Macaroni and Cheese

• * Boil plain macaroni noodles (we use mainstream noodles, I need to find a decent price for organic, but these do not have any msg or pretend msg). I'm looking into a better alternative
• Make a rue. Fry some butter and flour until light brown, add salt and pepper. Add water (cup-ish) and boil until it thickens up. Then add milk (cup-ish) and simmer until it's thickened again.
• Grate some fresh cheese (we usually use colby or mild cheddar) - about half a cup into the creamy stuff.
• Add this to the macaroni noodles and add more salt, pepper, little garlic powder and some basil.

It makes enough for us to eat two meals or fill in the gaps of a lighter meal.

Success in Marshmallows

WARNING: Please read this post on the use of agave nectar before pursuing this recipe. I'm planning to attempt honey-sweetened marshmallows in the near future - so in the mean time - try organic cane juice.

Over the Christmas and New Years holidays, I finally had the opportunity to attempt the marshmallows. I followed the video and instructions from volcanic nectar website. I took a few pictures to share the process. After we left them to set overnight, we all enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate with a marshmallow on top. They were indeed the agave-sweetened kosher homemade marshmallows of my dreams.