Recipes

If these aren't my recipes, I have cooked them and have had success.

Breakfast:
granola
Granola Bars--by Rhythm of the Home
yogurt--by Fias Co Farm--I like this method best of all

Entres:
Easiest noodles and cheese
Pasta with cauliflower, speck, fromag blanc--from Caprial and John Pence

Fruits
Crapapple butter--by Wisdom of the Moon

Legumes
Falafel tutorial
How to cook dried or shell beans

Misc
Nut butters
Corn tortillas--by Chine News--note that I have not tried this specific recipe but it looks good
Homemade mustard--by Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

Sweet stuff
Homemade brown sugar--by Chiot's Run
Homemade vanilla--by Easy Living the Hard Way
Pumpkin cookies--from the Pences--I make this annually for Halloween
Less sinful cupcakes (get a load of these recipes!) NPR
Seriously good carrot cake

Vegetables
French fries 
Potato terminology
Radishes--by Diggin Food
Roasted walnut oil vinaigrette
Roasted Tomato sauce--by Garden Rant
Summer squash
Sundried tomatoes--by Fennel and Fern



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Pickles

This year all of my pickling cucumber plants were eaten by slugs. Luckily, Justy's Produce had a fairly decent price on a 25 pound box so I was able to make pickles anyway.

I tried a bunch of new recipes this year out of the Joy of Pickling book. Included in this book are many fermented pickle recipes, which I have never tasted before until now.

Fermented pickles in an  antique crock.

Full-sour New York pickles.

I thought there would be a flavor revelation between the fermented and vinegared pickles but there wasn't much difference. I didn't think they were bad I wasn't crazy about them. I will probably just stick to vinegared pickles next year.

Seriously good carrot cake

A few weeks ago I had a sweets craving, and decided to make carrot cake. Fortunately for me, I only had part of the ingredients that I needed on hand and double of the others. So, I threw them together. And, to my surprise, it was good! Really good. Ed scarfed it down too, and he's not much of a sweets person.

I'm going to attempt to duplicate it tomorrow for my Mom's birthday, and hopefully this will be a record for future reference.

I did make a cream cheese frosting, but honestly, it was overkill, so I'm not gonna post it here.

The recipe is based on the Joy of Cooking, except one major difference: the amount of carrots are doubled, butter replaces the vegetable oil, and the carrots I used were grated, frozen, and then thawed. The freezing definetely had an impact on the carrots. They were partially broken down, making them more tender and rendering some of the carrot juice. The freezing may have altered the sugars making the carrots sweeter, but I cannot say for sure.

Here goes.

Carrot cake:

Aim for all ingredients to be at room temperature.

Whisk together: 1 and 1/3 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1.5t baking soda, 1t baking powder, 1t cinnamon, 1/2t cloves, 1/2 t nutmeg, 1/2 allspice, 1t kosher salt.

In another bowl, combine: 1 cup melted butter (use some of this butter to grease the pan), 3 large eggs, 3 cups of grated carrots, frozen and then thawed, 1 cup walnuts.

Combine both. Scrape into a greased 8x8 (or so) pan and bake in a 350 oven until cooked (start checking after 20 minutes or so).

yum yum.

Book review: Nourishing Traditions

As the title implies, this book is all about traditional foods. It is largely based on the work of the dentist Weston Price, who traveled the world and found that those who ate their traditional diet were far healthier than our modern diet.

The book attempts to debunk the so-called "myths" surrounding the saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease theory. The author throws a billion studies at the reader. But the author strikes me as a gal who was already convinced of her own perspective and sought evidence to convince readers into thinking the same.

Many writers are convinced that saturated fats and cholesterol have no bearing on heart disease. I guess I cannot fathom how so many doctors and so many studies could be that incorrect. But it happened with margarine, so I guess it is highly possible.

Cooking fats: two intersting articles

http://www.westonaprice.org/Why-Butter-Is-Better.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/Put-Lard-Back-in-Your-Larder.html (make sure to note vitamin D content)

Canola Oil...is it actually bad for you?

I've been reading about this across the blogosphere. Here is one interesting article. http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/10/27/food-for-thought-canola-oil-a-unique-omega-3-thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down/

Easiest noodles and cheese

Guy loves pasta. He asked me for lunch today if we could have "some noonles?"  But what kid doesn't love pasta, right? Especially if you couple it with cheese.

One way that I've found I can get a little green vegetable into my son's diet is to use spinach pasta (but any pasta will do) such as this. The consistency is just like regular pasta.

Here is how I cook pasta:

1. Bring water to a rolling boil. Add Kosher salt. I like Diamond Crystal, which comes in a red box. I add enough salt to make the water taste like the sea.

(I know that sounds like a lot, but you won't need to add any more salt when you drain the water off).

2. Boil noodles until tender, drain off most of the cooking liquid, leaving a couple of tablespoons behind. This is how the Italians cook their pasta.

3. Put the pot back on the burner, add some olive oil or butter, and add some grated cheese. Any cheese will do. This particular cheese is just plain old cheddar (even easier than mac n cheese!).

4. Stir rapidly, coating all the noodles evenly. Simple tongs work best for this. The noodles will be ready when the cheese, butter and cooking water have turned into a saucy consistency.

5. Make sure to get some water on your pot and tongs right away for ease of cleanup. Better yet, toss  the dishes into the dishwasher and run through the rinse cycle if you're not ready to clean up quite yet.


This is a silly and dizzying video of Guy eating noodles, posted mostly for the grandparents.