Hot Breakfast Cereal Options

We eat a lot of oatmeal around here - partially because we have ample Steel Cut Oats from our Lonesome Whistle CSA and partially because we just like oatmeal. If there is one grain you should eat, it's oatmeal.

Oatmeal is good for your nervous system, supporting, healing, and strengthening the mylin sheath that protects your nerves. (This link will take you to excellent information on the whole plant.) When I hear someone say their "nerves just feel frayed", I tell them to eat oatmeal. Of course it won't work for some folks who need to avoid grains of all sorts, but the rest of us can really benefit from a good bowl of oatmeal (or an oatmeal cookie!).

We like to bulk up our oatmeal - a lot. We add all kinds of nuts and dried fruits. The dried fruits mean we can add less (or no) sweetener later. I almost always add flax seeds for a little extra nutrition. Along the same lines, I often add a handful of coconut. The result is a bowl of goodness that sets us up for a busy day. Some of our favorite combinations (in addition to the flax and coconut);

*Dried blueberries, cashews, & pumpkin seeds.
*Raisins, dried cherries, almonds, & pecans.
*Dates, sunflower seeds, & any tree nut.
*Dried cranberries, crystalized ginger, & pecans.
*Sliced fresh apple, raisins, pecans or almonds, & pumpkin seeds.

I know I have barely begun to tap the myriad possiblities, but those are some of the best. Add a drizzle of honey, a little butter if you like, and a splash of milk.

So that's good, but sometimes we have grains leftover from our previous dinner and I want to use them. Cooked rice or barley are the most usual suspects here, though wheat, kamut, or spelt could work as well.

Make a breakfast pudding!

I recently did this with a blend of brown rice and the purple barley from Lonesome Whistle. There's not really a recipe... but here's the general concept.

Combine the leftover cooked grain in a pan with enough milk (cow, coconut, or almond milk are my favorites) to just cover. Add raisins, almonds, flax seeds, coconut (or any other combination...as above). On medium heat bring to a simmer, reduce heat and cook on low, stirring frequently until thickened. If the puddin is too thin you can pull some liquid and temper an egg or two into your pudding (which adds some extra protien - always good!), add the egg back in and allow to thicken. If eggs aren't your thing, stir in a couple tablespoons of almond meal. Add honey to taste, a dash of vanilla, and a pinch of salt. The resulting pudding is rich and flavorful.

Combining this, lots of different fruit and nut combinations, oatmeal, and plenty of extra nutritional add-ins...and suddenly those hot breakfast cereals offer a lot of diverse options for a most basic breakfast.

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And if you like coconut milk, did you know it's easy to make your own? I've been using these instuructions with a fair amout of success. The resulting milk is thinner than what I use for cooking usually, but really tasty. The kids drink it up so fast there usually isn't much left for cooking anyway. 

Recipe: Crackling Cheese-Chive Muffins

"Warm and plump as fresh baked muffins..." (Charlotte Pomerantz)

This morning called for something more than cereal or scrambled eggs. The day called for Muffins. So Sister-Bug and I whipped up a batch while Brother-Bug slept in.

Two other excellent reasons to make muffins:

1) You have sour milk. Like I wrote about here, sour milk has a magical effect on the consistency of baked goods like muffins, quick breads, and pancakes. And why waste that potential?

2) Mixing muffins is an easy project to do with a little kid. Muffin batter is very flexible and forgivable. Once you get a general recipe down you can add and subtract, and your toddler can pour in too much baking powder...and you can still save it and come out of the experience (usually) with something edible.

These are our favorite muffins, and a wonderfully flexible recipe. Because they are savory they make a good addition to any meal and I've seen them disappear at many potlucks. My mom made a similar muffin when I was young and I've kept it and adapted it for our days when we just need muffins for breakfast - like today.

I used Lonesome Whistle's Red-Fife Wheat Flour and Buckwheat Flour which gave this particular batch of muffins a particularly rich flavor and a wonderful crumb. The millet is for texture fun (as well as the wonderful nutrition found in millet). As the muffins bake, the millet softens a little and toasts which is what makes these muffins "crackling" - the millet pops while you chew which is really fun! You can use any flour combinations, but at least 1 cup must be a whole grain flour or the texture will be really strange. I like a sharp cheddar and chives best, but only fresh chives. However, any combination of cheese and herbs will work, and it's fun to play with flavor potential.

Sister-Bug considers the implicatons of muffin batter.

What else could you add? Bacon or ham bits? Blue cheese instead of cheddar? Roasted red pepper bits? Flax seeds, bran, wheat germ, or other nutritional delights? Rye flour and caraway seeds? So many possibilities.

It's the fresh chives that really make this recipe so good.

Crackling Cheese-Chive Muffins

2 cups flour (combined whole wheat, other whole grains, and a little white to keep it light)
4 tsp. baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups sour milk or thinned yogurt
2 eggs
1-3 tbl. fresh chives (or other herbs)
2/3 cup millet
1 cup grated cheese (sharp cheddar or ??)
3 tbl. melted butter (or vegetable oil)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the dry ingredients and make a well. Add the milk and eggs and beat throughly. Add the chives, millet, and cheese mixing till just combined. Stir in the butter.

Spoon into muffin tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean - about 20 minutes. Eat warm, eat cold, eat plain, eat with butter... Just eat them quickly before your kids inhale them!

Just coming out of the oven...

Baking in Cast Iron? I always bake my muffins in my cast iron pans. They are a bit of an investment, but they are really worth it! Preheat the pans with the oven and use a basting brush to grease each muffin cup. Spoon in your batter and bake as usual. Because your muffin cups are hot iron, they bake the bottom of the muffin - making the whole muffin crisp around. And as long as you wipe them up right away and don't use soap on your cast iron (EVER), they are clean and back in the cupboard very quickly. 

Buckwheat Pancakes for Breakfast

Swimming in Maple Syrup...

We've been enjoying Lonesome Whistle's Buckwheat flour in our pancakes and waffles recently.

For either pancakes or waffles I use a basic recipe (usually from Mark Bittman's 'How to Cook Everything"). When I add the flour I measure half buckwheat and half white. Sometimes I'll mix in some whole wheat, add a little bran or oat flour or whatever I've got, but that's dependent on the day and what's in the pantry.

In the waffle maker, the buckwheat waffles seem to be more crisp than a regular waffle - I wonder if this has to do more with the buckwheat or with the freshness of the flour?

I usually make my pancakes with thinned yogurt (buttermilk being rarely on hand) or milk soured with a little vinegar. Today I had some sour milk that needed to be used and I added that instead of yogurt.

My pancakes with yogurt are very good and cook up really nicely, but the sour milk really made a world of difference. The milk based pancakes were so much fluffier and cooked more evenly on the griddle. The yogurt pancakes are denser, more "stick-to-your-ribs" kind if a cake, pairing well with apple sauce and light molasses. The sour milk cakes absorbed the butter and maple syrup perfectly, and didn't need anything else to compliment their flavors.

It's funny to me that something as hideous as soured milk can make something as fabulous as a pancake so much better!

CSA pick up number one and a quick dinner

I was so excited as I opened my bucket of goodies from Lonesome Whistle Farm; the kind of anticipation my kids are feeling about the impending holidays. Flour! Barley! Beans! Oats!

Thursday after delivery was an unusually busy Thursday, with us rolling in late from errands due to a birthday party. I knew we would be snacking and enjoying cake and coconut ice cream, so something simple for dinner was key.

Bread.
Beans.
Greens.

Brother-Bug chose the Vermont Cranberry beans and I set them in some warm water for a quick soak. Because the beans were so fresh they started to plump up right away.

Personal Disclaimer: I never remember to overnight soak my beans. I have, therefore, become adept at cooking dry beans fairly quickly without a pressure cooker. More about that in a future post.

A fuzzy picture of soaking beans.

After a couple of hours soaking, I rinsed the beans, added fresh water, and set them to boil, then simmer. They smelled divine and wonderfully bean-y while they cooked. I turned them off after about a half hour and left them. We ran errands and went to the birthday party. When we got home, while the bread was baking, I turned the stove back on and reheated the beans. Strained, mixed with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme, they were ready to eat.

Onto the bread.

I like yeast breads better than quick breads, but I didn't have time for a long rise, punch down, and rise again. I was on a major time line. I adapted the Master Recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day as follows:

Measure 1 1/2 cups warm water, 1/4 cup honey, and about a tablespoon of yeast into a bowl and let sit till the yeast is going. If you've made bread before you will know what I mean.

In a large mixing bowl combine:
3 cups flour (I did one of the Rye flour, one and a half of the Whole Wheat, and a half cup of organic white flour to lighten the texture a bit)
1/2 tbl. salt

Add the water/yeast/honey, beating vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough will be very sticky. Don't knead it. Don't add more flour. I swear. Cover the bowl with a towel.

Let it sit until you are ready to preheat the over (to 400 degrees). At least an hour, longer is okay too. Once you set the oven to heat, flour your hands and form a quick round loaf. Don't try for anything super artistic, just make a basic loaf shape. Cut a couple of slashes in the top with a sharp knife. Let it rest while the oven finishes heating.

I bake my bread on a pizza stone, but a cookie sheet will work too. Make sure you set your resting loaf on coarse corn meal so you can move it around easily.

When the oven is hot, put the bread in and bake for... I forgot to look at the time. Darn it. I baked it till the crust was turning a little golden and the bread made a hollow thump when I tapped the bottom.

Cool and slice. Eat!

That was the bread.

As I stated, I re-warmed the beans and baked the bread when we got home. I sauteed some kale. That was it. And it was good. It was eaten up by all family members, even those who had recently gorged on cake.

The Vermont Cranberry beans are almost aromatic in flavor - the same way the nuttiness of an almond is aromatic and still nutty. They don't taste like almonds...it just struck me as the same kind of rich and subtle flavor, if not the actual same flavor. Their texture is smooth and starchy-creamy. Satisfying. Filling. And they are so rich in both flavor and texture that they didn't need more than the oil, thyme, salt, and pepper I tossed them in. Even that could have been too much. I am excited to try them in a recipe and see how they stand up to other flavors.

Papa-Bug expressed it best: 

"If beans were like this people would eat them."

Such a pretty, simple, satisfying meal...

And he's right. These beans are much more than just a burrito filler, to be covered over with other flavors. If I could always eat beans like these I would eat beans far more often. Thank goodness for the CSA!

The bread, the flavors of the flour... Wow. I wanted to keep eating it even after I was full. It was a dense bread due partly to the whole-ness of the flour and the short rise time, which was what I wanted for our dinner. It was a little sour and a little savory and rich of that nutty flavor that is an essential part of fresh wheat. Warm with butter... YUM!



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A couple of nights later I threw together this recipe which was a hit with the whole family. I made this up out of a moment of indecision - wanting to cook with all the lovely things from Kasey and not knowing what to choose!

1 cup Arikara beans
1 cup Vt. Cranberry beans
1 cup purple barley
1/2 cup dried mushrooms (I used chantrelles - and if you soak them separately you can use the soaking water in your broth)

1 tbl. olive oil
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
3-4 cups broth (I used a mixture of water and chantrelle broth)
1- tsp. dried thyme or marjoram
1-2 cups frozen corn
Salt & Pepper

Soak the beans, barley and mushrooms for about an hour. In a soup pot, Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil. Strain the beans and barley, add to the pot with the mushrooms, broth, bay, & thyme/marjoram. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer till the beans and barley are done. Add the frozen corn and continue to cook till the corn is warm through. Salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Meet Our Farmers: Lonesome Whistle Farm

We are getting ready and excited for the first delivery from our Lonesome Whistle Farm Grain & Bean CSA. While we wait, I thought I would bring you a post highlighting Kasey & Jeff, and some of what they are doing. My earlier post about Black & White Popcorn balls was also graced by Lonesome Whistle harvest.

Growing fields of beans.

This post is an interview with Kasey White. She and Jeff are the ones growing us such good beans and grains. One of my favorite things about shopping at my Farmer's Market is developing relationships and deepening my understanding about food and where it comes from. Getting to know Kasey, hear her passion for garlic, and see her wonderful bean jewelery has been a delight.  

An heirloom bean from the Mega-Whole-Nutrition-Style store might be tasty, but one that my friend and community member grew will always taste just a little better to me. I know that it is mostly in my mind, but that's okay. I love the warm feeling I get eating foods that came from friends. 

That said, let's meet Kasey, Jeff, and their lovely 

Tell us a little about your farm...how big is it? What do you grow? 

We grow beans, grains, corn, and vegetable crops on 20 acres.  We are located 9 miles north of downtown Eugene on River Road.  

When did you start farming?

We started farming in 2003 on 2 acres and have been on 3 different farms in our 9 years.  We just secured land with the help of some investors and will be putting roots down on this farm, very exciting.

 Why did you start farming?

We have a food justice and social activism goal with our farming.  We wanted to do something meaningful and direct with our lives and provide healthy food for us and our community with the goal of becoming less dependent on corporations to meet our needs. 

Some of that hard work...Brother-Bug loves this!

What is the hardest thing about being a farmer?

The work never stops.  You are always thinking about what the next step is and problem-solving.  Often, we are using equipment we have no experience with and old equipment at that.  Like a combine from the 1970's and cultivating tractor from the 50's.  You have to be on your toes and a jack of all trades to do it well.  It's hard being "on" all the time. 

What is your favorite thing about being a farmer?

Making my own schedule and the quiet time in the field to have my thoughts to myself.  Not punching a time clock, and being creative.  We see farming as an art form.   

Why grow heirloom beans and grains? Why should we buy them?

We grow heirloom seeds because they are open pollinated, old varieties that are interesting and resilient.  They are not available through the industrial food system, and many of the varieties have outstanding taste and characteristics.  We keep discovering new and beautiful beans and corns that we can't resist to grow out each year.   

What is your favorite thing to grow?

Jeff's favorite is corn.  We grow Dakota Black popcorn and other dent corns.  I love the beans personally.  I love them so much that I am making jewelry out of them.   

Of the things you grow, what is your favorite thing to eat?

Bean burritos are Jeff's favorite food of all time.  He eats two large ones a day, in fact.  I love to eat beans too, but love making my own bread with our grains and using our vegetables too.   

Share a favorite recipe?

The beautiful booth at the Lane County Farmers Market in downtown Eugene.

My basic pot of beans is seasoned with rosemary, thyme, olive oil, and salt and pepper.  Really simple. 
 
Besides signing up for a CSA share, what can community members do to help local farmers?

The best thing to do is come to farmers market or become a CSA member and offer support to farmers through your consistent buying, eating, and enjoying of their foods.  Small gestures go along way in the middle of a stressful farm season.  

If we wanted to come visit the farm, how would we go about it?

We would love to show you the farm! Because of our schedules, please call or email in advance of your visit to make sure we are able to show you around. 
You can contact the farm here. 

Who wouldn't want to eat beans and grains grown by such loving and beautiful people?

Blogging About Beans

I have a farmer friend named Kasey White, of Lonesome Whistle Farm. They grow amazing garlic, assorted tomatoes and etcetera, and heirloom beans & grains.  They also grow black popcorn, which is really exciting and a perfect Halloween treat!

Look closely at the amazing colors of all those beans!

Their farm offers a CSA for their beans and grains, and I am so excited to be on the list of CSA Members. I am doubly excited because I am working off part of the cost of my share by featuring these tasty foods, and creating recipes for them, all to be exhibited here on my blog. I like this arrangement because I love to work for food, I like the challenge of new recipes, and I want to help support farmers - especially farmers who are trying to grow heirloom species and keep bio-diversity alive.

The CSA starts officially this month, and to start us off, Casey gave me a little bag of "Ireland Creek Annie" beans from last year's harvest. Lonesome Whistle didn't grow this bean again this season, so we will have to look elsewhere for it... because it was really, really tasty.



To start learning about heirloom beans, I'm going to cook each one as a plain bean before I attempt any recipes. I had heard Kasey say that heirloom beans have more complex flavors than the regular old black bean or kidney bean you buy in the store, so with the Ireland Creek Annie beans, I set out to test that assertion.

Beautiful beans. Gorgeous garlic.

These beans are a "white bean", of the kind you might use in baked beans, or a simple bean soup (keep reading if you like the soup idea...).  With half of the pound we soaked them in warm water, and cooked them at a simmer on low for a while.

(In the future I will give better, more detailed information about my cooking process...promise.)

Sister-Bug examines the dry beans.

Anyway. They had a soak and simmer until they tested done.

I mixed them with a little of Kasey's garlic, some butter, and some parsley... and of course a touch of salt and pepper. Just plain beans.

And what do you know! They were way more flavorful than most beans I have eaten. The garlic and the butter were good, but these beans could have stood alone as just a simple bean and still been very enjoyed by our family.

Their texture was smooth and a little starchy, and the flavor was nutty. One thing I have noticed about other heirloom foods I have tried, and these beans are no different, is that they taste like the "normal" incarnation of the food (white beans in this case) only more so. These beans were "beanier" than my usual white beans.

When cooked, they retained their color and shape better than my usual bean. There were few of the exploded or mushy beans mixed in, and they held up well when I was stirring in the butter and garlic. 

They were a huge hit with my family - everyone eating them up with alacrity.

Beans, garlic, butter... Bon apetit!

 With the second half of the pound, I wanted to see how they fared in a more flavorful recipe. I invented

Dinosaur Bean Soup

It comes by its name from the addition of Italian Kale, which my family thinks looks like something a dinosaur might eat or wear.

1 large leek - coarsely chopped
1 celeriac - peeled and cubed
1/2lb bacon - cut into chunks or bits
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic - minced
1/2 lb Ireland Creek Annie beans - pre-soaked (or other white heirloom bean)
1/2 by Italian kale - coarsely chopped or torn
4-ish cups of water
Salt and pepper

Heat a large soup pot. Add the bacon (we used Deck Family Farm Lamb Bacon, which has a flavor like no other. If you haven't tried Lamb Bacon, I think you should. Unless you don't eat lamb...). I usually take scissors and snip the strips into 1/2 inch pieces as I add it to the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes to let the fat coat the pan, then add the leek, celeriac, bay leaf, and garlic. Cook for until the bacon is just beginning to crisp.

Add the soaked beans and water. Cover and simmer for about 40 minutes. Check the beans a couple of times. If you have pre-cooked your beans, you need to just heat the water and everything thoroughly. Just before serving, add the kale, stir, and wait a few moments for the kale to wilt.

(To make a vegetarian version, omit the bacon, saute the veggies in olive oil, and add 1/2 tsp. veggie bullion to fill out the missing bacon flavor.)

Serve and enjoy. This is good with crusty bread.

Sister-Bug gives these beans her hungry toddler award. She wouldn't stop eating them!

Keep checking back for more bean recipes, information about heirloom beans & grains, and other related content. And go to your Farmer's Market and find a heirloom bean farmer, because if these beans are any indication, you will not be disappointed!