Sushi Math

Brother-Bug's all time favorite restaurant is SushiLand - one of those sushi places where we sit next to a conveyor belt and sushi rolls past us in limitless quantities. He tries it all, enjoying some things that I just can't stomach. At our last trip to the sushi restaurant, I realized we had an excellent math game right in front of us.

There are so many possibilities. The plates are 1.00, 1.50, 2.00, and 3.00 each. You pick your plates and the waiter adds up your total at the end of your gorging. On this trip, we kept it simple, just playing with some of the many numbers we encountered.

What to eat next? Tuna? Salmon? Octopus?

I kept my plates in one pile, he kept his in another pile. We estimated who was eating the most by looking at the two piles. At first we tried to keep track of how many of each plate, making hash-marks on our paper...but we got to excited about eating sushi to keep up with that.

It was just too good to track while we were eating...

At the end of our feast, we counted up. How many of each plate? How can we figure out the cost of that stack? Who ate the most? (He did - he out ate me by one plate.) About how much money did we spend? Which plate - 1.00, 2.00 - did we eat most of? Least?

Brother-Bug starts counting. I ate 9 plates. He ate 10. 

It was an awesome math game.

There are so many places it could expand as well. Multiplication, division, quantity of individual rolls...  Mental math as we add up the total... I could give him $15 and he could figure out some budgeting... And going the other way, we kept Sister-Bug involved by having her do some basic counting practice - how many rolls are on this plate? Everyone was really happy, full of sushi, and enjoying finding a new math game out in the world.

Bonus! Sister-Bug works on her fine-motor skills with her chopsticks....

What other things could we do with Sushi Math? I guess we will have to go back...

Recipe: Spaghetti Carbonarra with Lamb Bacon

It amazes me that two years ago, I didn't even know that Lamb Bacon existed. It has won its way into my heart as a favortie meat product. I don't know where to buy it, aside from the Deck Family Farm, but if you are a bacon lover and in the Willamette Valley or Portland area... WOW. Try it out! It is intesnely flavorful and wonderfully fatty. It makes a killer BLT (especailly now that the tomatoes are getting ripe).

I wish I could upload the flavor for you. So very decadent

But our favorite thing to do with it? Carbonarra.




Frequently, Carbonarra is made with pancetta or proscuitto. Often people use pork bacon as the meat, but a good pack of Lamb Bacon really makes this dish something special. As a bonus, it's almost laughably simple to create.



Spaghetti Carbonarra with Lamb Bacon

Amazing ingredients for amazing dinner.

1 lb. Lamb Bacon
1 lb. fesh pasta (preferably a larger noodle like linguini. I used egg linguini from Pasta Plus.)

4 egg yolks
3/4 cup heavy cream (like the amazing raw cream from the Deck's Creamy Cow Share. Yum.)
3/4 cup parmesan, plus extra to sprinkle
Salt and Pepper to taste



Chop the bacon into small pieces and fry. Pull out of the grease and set aside. Save the grease - you'll need it later and want the leftovers for something else good.

Cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, whisk the egg yolks, cream, and parmesan together. Drain the pasta and mix with the dairy sauce over low heat till the sauce thickens and clings to the noodles, about 3-5 minutes. Add the bacon and 2-4 tablespoons of reserved grease, mixing throughly. Season to taste with the salt and pepper.

Serve with a light salad or other veggie. Clearly this meal is the best kind of calorie fest, so keep your sides very light and simple. The Lamb Bacon has such a rich flavor you don't want to try and compete with it.

Also, if you do this and splurge on the Lamb Bacon... Go All The Way. Get really good pasta, cream, and eggs. Get local and raw if you can. I swear you will not be disappointed. It's worth it.

Recipe: Simplest Strawberry Pie

I promised some strawberry recipes - results of our wonderful strawberry picking expedition at Riverbend Farm. Their u-pick strawberries are done, but I've heard tell of all kinds of other berries coming ripe. This pie would work with any kind of berry, as long as you get a good corresponding jam.

Really, this is so easy it shouldn't count as a recipe. But here you go anyway.

One baked pie shell - I wrote out my thoughts on pie crust here, or you can check out this tasty almond (and therefor gluten free, paleo-friendly) crust here.



Approximately 4-6 cups of washed and cut strawberries.
1 cup strawberry jam (fresh made? use up last years?)
Zest and juice of one lemon

8 oz. whipping cream or 4 oz. whipping cream & 4 oz. marscapone cheese
Pinch of sugar (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla

Put the jam, lemon juice, and zest in a small sauce pan. Heat to thin the jam and mingle the flavors. Mix with the strawberries. Taste - add sugar or honey if you feel it needs it. I never think it does.

Fill the crust with the berries. Whip the cream till it forms soft peaks. Use 4 oz. if you are adding the marscapone, 8 if not. I add vanilla to whipped cream, but not sugar. Do what moves you. To make the topping truly decadent, use 4 oz. whipping cream, once it is whipped add in 4 oz. marscpone and whip again to combine. Spread on the top of the pie. Decorate with a few extra strawberries if you wish.

That's so easy. And tasty, as you will note by the lack of pictures.

Recipe: Lamb & Cabbage with Fennel

Thus far, Summer is a tease. We will have a day - maybe two! - of warmth and sun, only to be plunged back into dreary, muggy, rainy days. I'm craving the flavors of summer - corn, tomatoes, cherries - but the weather calls for different foods. Grrrrr.

The following recipe is a result of wanting a rich and warm dinner, but also lighter summer fare. The results were very pleasant and just fit the bill. The fennel is flavorful and summery, but the warm lamb and cabbage helped combat the cold and dreary day.

When I posted about Lamb Burgers, I mentioned what a difference there is between pastured lamb and cheap lamb. Don't compromise on this. Like most of the meat we eat, our lamb is raised on organic pastures at Deck Family Farm.

This was a slow cooker meal, but with a little time to simmer it would also work well on the stove.

Lamb & Cabbage with Fennel

1 lb Lamb stew chunks
1 tbl. oil or lard
3-4 cups chopped green cabbage
1 fennel bulb
6-8 new potatoes
2-3 cups water
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tbl dried oregano
Salt and pepper

Heat a frying pan and warm the oil. Brown the lamb chunks.

While they are browning, cube the potatoes, and coarsely chop the fennel and cabbage. Layer potatoes, greens, and browned lamb in the slow cooker. Sprinkle the caraway and oregano over the top. Add the water - less for a thicker stew broth, more for a thinner soup broth.

Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. Stir once or twice in the last hour or two. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread and a salad.

Strawberries to Start the Summer

Yesterday we loaded kids, carseats, snacks, and buckets into a friend's minivan - 2 moms and our 4 kids - and went questing after the fierce, but not particualrly elusive, Strawberry.

We were successful. We went picking at a friend's farm where the berries were thick and sweet.

Brother-Bug hard at work and snack.

There was great excitement from all the kids, and enough space in the open fields for them to run and scream and "help" pick berries for pies and jams and frozen treats.

I love getting kids out of the house and out of the constraints if the city. I always notice how much happier they seem, how less drastic their meltdowns become. I especially love when we can connect the experiences of outside and away to the food that we eat. It seems so empowering and health-building, not to mention FUN!

What all kids really need - space to run and play without restraint.

The strawberries taste the best when they are fresh in the field, all the better for being just a little dusty. When we bring the berries home and wash them, they still taste better than purchased berries because our work is a part of them, and our memories of toddlers free-ranging through rows of bright berries lingers around each bite.

Oh Yum!!

Berry picking should be a mandatory activity, and not only for children. Take a morning, or the whole day. Play hooky and flee to the berry patch. In most areas strawberries absurd just starting. Soon you can find blueberries or blackberries. The summer is full of sweetness.

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We went picking at Riverbend Farm, near Pleasant Hill. I love this farm and buy all my canning fruits from them. If you aren't in our area, try a Google search for u-pick berries. Find your own favorite local farms to support.

Keep your eye out for a post about all the many things I will do with these berries!

I guess my work is cut out for me...

Recipe: Palee-ish Corn Muffins

As I mentioned in my Dinner Swap post, the family I swap with eats a mostly paleo diet, which I love because it makes me cook different things and approach standby recipes from an experimental perspective. Gluten really doesn't work for the Mama in the family, so regualr bread products are out. But I love to bake, and last night the menu called for cornbread. But cornbread without some wheat flour?

I did a Google search and came up with lots of recipes, bless the internet! I adapted what I found to what I wanted and what I had. I came up with these delightful muffins. I call them "Palee-ish" because the cornmeal isn't strictly part of a paleo diet. Adapt for yourself as you see fit.

Palee-ish Corn Muffins with Bacon & Applesauce
Preheat oven to 350.

1/2 cup (one stick) softened butter (if you don't use butter mix coconut oil, olive oil, and/or bacon grease)
6 eggs
2/3 cup applesauce (no sugar added)
1/2 cup bacon bits - I chopped up leftover bacon ends. So good.
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

In a stand mixer, or with a strong arm, whip the butter, eggs, and applesauce. Add the bacon bits and combine. Mix in the flours and baking powder until well blended. Scoop into muffin tins and bake for about 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

We served this with salmon and collards and more applesauce. It was a very satisfying meal.

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A quick word on bacon ends: These are the bits that are taken off of the more uniformly shaped bacons strips. They are odd shapped and inconsistent - though just as tasty as their asthetic counterparts. Usually they are priced cheaper than bacon strips. The bacon I used was from Deck Family Farm, of course, from the pig I purchased last fall. Bacon ends are perfect for any time or place you need chopped bacon. If you are trying to eat local, organic, pastured meat they can help strech that budget a little bit.

Recipe: Goat Ribs with Greek Potatoes

Not everyone eats goat, which is a shame. Goat is darn tasty and good for you. It's also the most eaten meat on the planet. I've found that if I am doing any ethnic cooking, I can substitute goat for beef...and suddenly the spice blends synthesize with the meat flavors in really wonderful ways.

The other night, having failed to locate my lamb chops, I improvised with the goat ribs I did find. If you can't find pastured goat in your area, try this with pastured lamb instead.

Bonus: There were some leftovers. I cut the meat off the bones and mixed the warmed meat & potatoes with scrambled eggs for a wonderful breakfast!

Goat Ribs with Greek Potatoes

Goat Riblets (about 2 pounds)
4-6 firm potatoes (red or yellow are best)
Butter or olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbl. oregano
Salt & pepper
1 cup crumbled feta
1 cup kalamata olives, sliced in half

Chop the potatoes into 1/2 inch slices, and toss with butter/oil, lemon juice, oregano, and salt & pepper. Spread in a large baking dish. Reserve a little if the herbs and juice.

Rub salt, pepper, lemon juice & oregano into the ribs.

Place the ribs on the potatoes and cover. Cook at 350 for about an hour, remove cover and continue to cook for anouther 15 minutes. Remove ribs, let stand.

Toss potatoes with halved kalamatas and feta. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Serve with a spinach or Greek salad. Enjoy licking your fingers and gnawing the ribs.

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Note: I got my riblet from the whole goat I bought from Deck Family Farm last fall. If you are looking for this cut, you should contact the farm (or your favorite purveyor of pastured goat if you aren't in the Willamette Valley) and see what they have. You could substitute chops or a roast, but cooking times would have to be adjusted.

Recipe: Southwestern Bean & Chicken Soup

This soup is super fast and easy once your beans are ready. The spice is easily adjusted at the table with your favorite hot-sauce, and the salsa cooked in gives a wonderful tangy flavor. Also, adding the salsa means that there are no fussy things to cut up - so it is a great one to get a young child to help with!

Just the right soup for a rainy spring day - light and warm.

I used Lonesome Whistle's Arikara beans. They are a nice white bean that hold their shape really well in longer cooking projects such as soup. They have a balanced flavor that (so far) goes with everything. It's been nice to be back at the Farmers Market and seeing Kasey, talking beans and grains with her, and looking over her booth. It is more luscious and full each year.

Anyway...recipe!

Southwestern Bean & Chicken Soup

3-4 cups soaked and cooked Arikara beans (or another white bean)
1-2 cups cooked chicken pieces (this is a great thing to do with leftovers from a whole roasted or rotisserie chicken)
4-5 cups chicken broth
1-2 jars of your favorite green salsa
2 tsp. cumin
1 tbl. corn or tapioca starch
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil or cilantro

This is so easy it feels like cheating. In your soup pot, combine the broth, beans, and chicken. Bring to a simmer. Add the salsa. Pull out a little broth (2-3 tablespoons should do it) and whisk in the starch and cumin till there are no lumps. Gently stir it back into the soup. Allow to simmer and thicken. Just before serving, add the basil or cilantro.

Serve with corn chips, sour cream, green onions, and your favorite hot sauce.

Recipe: Lamb Burger with Apple and Gruyere

For Mother's Day, Papa-Bug & Brother-Bug made me these lovely lamb burgers. Simple and very tasty. It's the honey-dijon sauce that really puts them over the top. We ate them outside after a day of wonderful sunshine and yard work, with oven-baked french fries. Simple, yet gourmet and deeply satisfying.

No pictures, because we ate them up too fast!

A couple of tips.
Get good buns - if you're going all the way with a fine cheese and good meat, don't scrimp on the buns. Go to a bakery and see what they have that's real. Your standard wonderbun just won't cut it here.

Get pastured lamb. Seriously. I could (and eventually will) go on and on about the flavor differences in pastured versus feed-lot raised meat. But the place that I notice the biggest difference is in lamb. Good lamb, from animals who have been with their herd in lush fields, is amazing. It doesn't get much better. Cheap lamb tastes...cheap. And it's cruel. But if you are making hard decisions with your food dollars - and with the need for organics for many people combined with rising food costs, who isn't? - choose to get the pastured and worth-every-penny lamb.

Lamb Burgers with Apple and Gruyere

1+ pounds pastured ground Lamb (1 pound will make 4 quarter-pound burgers...do your math and figure out what you need.
2-3 tart apples - Papa-Bug used Granny Smith
Wodge of Gruyere (enough to have slices for the number of burgers you are making, but can you get too much?)
Good buns - as mentioned above
Romaine hearts
Salt, pepper & onion powder to mix into the meat
Olive oil
Creamy Honey-Dijon Sauce
1-2 tablespoons honey (gently warmed till melty)
1-2 tablespoons dijon mustard
2-4 tablespoons whole yogurt
Mix throughly, tasting and adjusting honey and mustard till you're satisfied.

Mix the meat with the salt, pepper and onion powder to taste and form into patties. Peel and slice the apples into cross-wise rings, taking the core out of each ring. Toss the apple rings with olive oil. When the grill is ready (I assume you know what you are doing here. There are lots of website dedicated to the hows of grilling if you need help...), put the apples on, grilling them till they are warm through. Add the burgers and grill as you would any burger. Add the cheese near the end of the burger's second side, and the apple on top. When the burgers are satisfactory, remove and quickly toast the buns over the grill. Spread each bun generously with the Honey-Dijon Sauce, apply burger, and romaine. Enjoy.

Bonus!

Easy Oven Fries

Preheat the oven to 425F.

For a family of 4 cut 3 average sized potatoes into your favorite fry shape - long and skinny, short and fat, wedges, whatever. Toss with salt, pepper & olive oil (or a combination of melted butter and coconut oil). Spread the fries on cookie sheet in a single layer. Pop those fries into the oven for about 15-20 minutes, turning half way though. The time they need to bake will depend on how thick or thin you cut them. Poke them with a fork to see if they are done.

These are so easy that I wonder at buying frozen fries (even though I do so at times...).

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If you are in the Willamette Valley, Oregon and need some pastured Lamb...because you read my recipe and now you are craving...the Deck Family Farm sells such an item from the farm, which you can visit or at 7 different Saturday Farmers' Markets! One in Eugene and 6 in Portland. Contact them for more details.

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. 

The Flavor of Milk

Sister-Bug drinks her fresh milk in the dairy barn at Deck Family Farm.

We drink raw milk. We are blessed to have many local farms and friends that choose to leave their milk in its whole and most nourishing state.

Because of pick-up issues we took a break from raw milk, getting regular old organic carton milk at the store. Our busy life being what it is, I forgot. Then, out at the Deck Family Farm the other day, we pulled cups of fresh, cold milk from the big milk tank. The flavor hit me, deeply resonating as food, nutrition, satiation. One sip and I could feel my body respond to the goodness of it.

We're back on raw milk now.

There is tremendous controversy around the benefits versus the safety of raw dairy products. I don't need to address that controversy here and now. You know what side I am on. I'm on the side with the good flavor - that my body deeply and viscerally recognizes as Food.

You can find out more about the benefits (and some of the risks) of raw milk here:

Raw Milk Facts 
Raw Milk Risks & Benefits
Health Benefits of Raw Milk

Selling raw milk is illegal in most states. Find out how to legally buy it here.

If you live in the Eugene/Springfield area, check out the Deck Family Farm's Creamy Cow Share.

Ever thought of making cheese? The less pasteurization the milk is exposed to, the better your cheese product. Fresh raw milk makes the best fresh mozzarella - and it is almost tomato & basil time....

And one final thought about milk. Many people tout the benefits of whole food, eat whole grain bread and leafy green veggies. At the grocery they stock up on 2% (or skim) milk and low fat yogurt. That dairy has been altered and processed to have some of its nutrients removed. It's not a whole food. Just a thought.

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Because I love and revere local food, and whole food I really enjoy writing about the cooking and experiences I have. I work at the Deck Family Farm booth at the Lane County Farmer's Market and we eat almost all Deck meat. As the Lonesome Whistle feature slows down, I plan on featuring more Deck products and writing about pastured meat - because cooking it is a little different than cooking feed-lot meat! And it's all just so very tasty...

Recipe: Bite the Bullet Chili

The Dutch Bullet Beans  from Lonesome Whistle have such a great smokey flavor that they are perfect for chili... I was sure. And then I thought of the name and knew a recipe had to be born.

Usually we make chili with darker red or black beans and lots if steak, sausage, and other meat. But I didn't want such a heavy chili, feeling like too much would overwhelm the beans. So without further rambling...


Bite The Bullet Chili

1 lb. ground beef
2 cups dry Dutch Bullet Beans
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
*Spices to taste
2-3 cups water or broth
3-4 leaves of kale or chard (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Prepare your beans - soaking, rinsing, par-cooking, to suit your preference. If you put them in the chili dry, add some cooking time!

Chop the onion and mince the garlic, sauté till they are transparent. Add the beef and brown slightly. Add spices.

*I used some mild New Mexico green chilis from a friend and a touch of red chili. With the name, I really wanted to make something spicer, with a nice kick, but I was cooking for kid palate and Brother-Bug hates all things with any spice at all. I contented myself with adding personal kick later when serving. Beyond the chilies, I put in some cumin, oregano, and just a dash of nutmeg.

Add the bean with the water or broth. Use just enough liquid to barely cover the beans if you want a thick chili, more water for a thinner product. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn to low and simmer till the beans are done - check the water level every 20-40 minutes, adding more water if needed.

Just before it was done I chopped up some chard that needed to be used and threw it in. It was a nice addition but made it feel less like true chili. That's your call. I like getting greens into anything and everything the kids eat. 

Adjust flavors with salt, pepper, more chili...

Serve with cornbread or corn chips and sour cream.

It all was consumed before I could take a picture - so make it yourself and find out what it looks like!!

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A side note on bean substitution:  Dutch Bullet Beans are a very specific heirloom bean. With Rio Zape beans you can use a dark bean to substitue, with Calypso beans a white... your final product will taste a little different because the flavors of heirloom products are so pronounced, but it will be similar enough. The Dutch Bullets have such a special flavor that I don't know what could possibly substitute. If you find something that you think would be a good match, let me know!

A Yummy Bowl

Here is the Willamette Valley we have a local chain called Cafe Yumm. Their Yumm Bowls make up a fair part of the kids eating-out experience. They key is their amazing Yumm Sauce. Tasty.

But we can't afford to eat out often, and I love to make things myself. A dear friend gave me her recipe for what she calls Yummish Sauce. Be patient, we will get there.

A Yumm Bowl spread is a great thing to serve to large groups of diverse eaters, especially when kids are involved. It's super basic and pretty much infinitely adjustable. It falls into the 3 Gs without any effort at all.

Here we go, from the bottom of your (large) bowl up:

Greens of some kind - mixed salad greens, cooked kale, chard, or collards, spinach, steamed nettles, steamed broccoli....

Cooked grain of some kind - brown rice, millet, quinoa, wheat berries, barley, corn chips.... Or skip the grain if you don't do grain.

Cooked beans - our last bowls had Lonesome Whistle's Rio Zapé beans. So good. But any bean will do. Black, white, red, pinto, cranberry, garbanzo...

(You begin to see how infinitely adaptable these are, right?)

Okay, that's the base. Traditionally this is vegetarian, but I've been known to throw in left over meat that was available - some slow-cooked chipotle goat leg was incredible. Extra taco or burrito meat, turkey, chicken, whatever. I think pulled meats work better than others, but that's more of an aesthetic choice than anything.

All kinds of other stuff goes on top:

Cheese
Sour cream
Green onions
Avocado
Salsa
Black Olives
Tomato
Fresh Basil or Cilantro
More greens
Jalapenos
Bell peppers
Anything else your imagination inspires you to try...

On top of all that, we slather on the Yummish Sauce. Mix it up (or not - your preference) and watch it get inhaled out of the bowls.

What? The Sauce recipe? But of course!

Yummish Sauce

This makes about 2 1/2 cups, which we will use up in a couple of days. However, it freezes really well, so making a little extra (or a lot extra...I usually make about a gallon at a time) and popping containers in the freezer means having a go-to snack and dinner option.

Blend in a food processor:
1/2 cup oil - I usually use Olive Oil
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup cooked and drained garbanzos
1/4 cup soy beans
4-6 garlic cloves

(I've successfully used cashews in place of the almonds, and other white type beans, like Arikara Beans, in place of the garbanzos and/or soy beans. Like the bowl recipe, this is only limited by your imagination and what is in your cupboard.)

Slowly add, one at a time:
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp. soy sauce or Braggs Liquid Aminos

(Here I have tried other herbs and spices. When Sister-Bug had broken her clavicle, I blended up a bunch of sauce with Comfrey tea and leaf for its bone healing properties. I plan on putting nettles into the next batch...and who knows what else!)

Blend well with each addition. Adjust the salt and spices as desired. Adjust the thickness with water and oil - I like to make mine like a thick dip, knowing it's easy to thin later and makes a nice dip or sandwich snack if it's a little thicker.

This is a guaranteed kid-pleaser...or has been with every kid I have ever fed it to!

A Collection of Soup

Over at TidyMom they are collecting soup recipes. I think this is brilliant, because I love soup. There is a give away also, but my motivation is mostly my love of soup. I looked back over my posts and here are all the soup recipes I have posted about. All tried and true favorites - which one will you try?

Almost-Instant French Onion Soup - this relies on the magic of a slow cooker. It's not instant in that you have to start it the night before. It is instant in that your total cooking time is 20 minutes with a food processor. And you end up with extra caramelized onions, which is always good.

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Dinosaur Bean Soup - a creation I made when working with some heirloom beans from a local farmer. The first part of the post is about the bean and grain CSA that I belong to (and love). The soup recipe is near the end.

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Sunshine Soup and Ham & Barley Winter Stew - two recipes in one post! The sunshine soup is a bright soup with all red, yellow, and orange ingredients that we made for Winter Solstice. The Ham & Barley Stew is just what is says it is. Both these recipes feature more heirloom beans and grains from my CSA. The flavors of these ingredients is amazing and worth tracking down if you have time and resources.

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Summer Cucumber Soup - yesterday it was warm here, and sunny! We worked outside for a while, transplanting raspberry canes, and I got to thinking about all the tasty summer foods in the nearing future. This recipe is not appropriate now...but will be in just a few months. And SOOOO refreshing on a summer day!

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Sweet Potato & Beef Stew - using that earlier technique of slow-cooker caramelized onions, I made this amazing stew a couple weeks ago. There is no picture because we ate it to fast. There were no left overs.

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So those are the soup recipes I've posted here. I hope you try them out, enjoy them, and let me know. And really - give-away or no give-away, there are some amazing recipes in the Soupapalooza post I linked to in the beginning. This is the official line: "Come join SoupaPalooza at TidyMom and Dine and Dish sponsored by KitchenAid, Red Star Yeast and Le Creuset!" The give-away ends today, but that is no reason to ignore the cache of amazing recipes. Check them out.

Recipe: Sweet Potato & Beef Stew

Here's the thing - I'm not usually a huge fan of your standard beef stew. It's okay, but the flavor combination never enthuses me. So I set off a couple of days ago to do something different. And I did - it is still stew and has many of the qualities of stew that we all know and love. But the flavors are new, to me anyway.

Sweet Potato & Beef Stew with Caramelized Onions

2 onions
1/2 stick of butter
4 cloves of garlic
1 pound stew meat (or chuck cut into cubes)
1/2 cup flour
1 leek
1 large parsnip
2 sweet potatoes or yams
4 cups beef broth
2 bay leaves
Rosemary, salt & pepper to taste

I used my slow cooker for this, but it should be easily adaptable to stove top.

Night before: slice the 2 onions and toss into the slow cooker with the butter. Set on low for 8 hours. Wake up to Caramelized Onions. This is a good thing.

In the mid-morning: cube parsnip, sweet potatoes, and slice leeks. Mince the garlic. Dredge the stew meat in flour and brown in a skillet with the garlic. Place veggies, meat, herbs, and beef broth in the slow cooker. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve with crusty bead and salad.

Calypso Beans

Beautiful. Striking.

Of all the delightful items in the grain & bean CSA, I think the Calypso beans are my favorite. I was so happy to cook them up, and especially happy that they retain much of their color and pattern when they are cooked. I was a little worried they would be like red lentils - so pretty dried and so blah when cooked. But the black and white fades to ivory and charcoal grey and is still very striking.

Their texture is creamy and perfectly starchy; Kasey compares them to new potatoes. My batch didn't hold their shape as well, but I think I over cooked them or added too muck soda to the cooking water. They have the less robust flavor of a white bean, but more complex than your average white bean. Our tester bean-pot (beans, olive oil, salt, herbs) was heartily enjoyed by all of the family. Brother-Bug made some comments about eating the cow-beans.

The leftovers made into one easy lunch and one fabulous dinner.

For lunch I re-warmed the beans and tossed them with baby spinach and a generous amount of Gorgonzola. Simple. Divine. Deeply satiating. The warm beans wilted the spinach and softened the Gorgonzola, and the flavors merged in a wonderful way.

Cooked Calypsos - still so striking to look at.

Dinner was more complex than tossing some beans and spinach.

Delicata Squash Stuffed with Calypso Beans

3 Delicata squash (though probably any winter squash would work)
1 cup cooked Calypso beans (if you can't get Calypso beans, try a good white bean)
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup cream cheese
1 cup grated sharp cheddar
Salt, pepper & herbs to taste.

Preheat the oven to 400. Cut the squash in half and lay open side down in a baking dish with a little water. Cook until easily pierced by a fork, remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 350.

(Note: I always scrape squash seeds and strings after I bake them. The softened squash is far easier to work with.)

While the squash cools, mid the remaining ingredients together (reserving half the grated cheese) in a bowl - adjust for taste and personal desire. If I had been making this for adults, I think some red chili flakes would have been good, but that was not an option for my kids.

Scrape the seeds and strings from the squash. Leave the flesh intact. Fill and then over-fill the squash halves with the bean and rice mixture. Top with the remaining cheese. Place the squash in a baking pan and pop in I the oven until the cheese is all golden and good.

The only bummer here is that the cheese on top hides the beautiful beans.

 This squash is a balanced meal in itself, but a salad makes a nice accompaniment.

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In other bean and grain news, I started a sourdough starter with half white flour and half Kasey's excellent whole wheat flour. I've never made my own starter before, so I am excited to see what happens and how it turns out.

So You Forgot To Soak The Beans?

So many beautiful beans in the world...

This is a perpetual issue for me - I can remember to get dinner going early enough, but I think I have remembered to give my beans am overnight soak maybe half a dozen times in my adult life. For years this frequently prevented me from cooking bean recipes.

Finally I read Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, in which he does not insist on pre-soaking beans.

"[The myth of soaking beans...] is the most egregious, and the most harmful , because it has given millions of people the idea that beans must be prepared well in advance. Although soaking speeds cooking, it does not do so significantly. If you soak most beans overnight you will shave fifteen to thirty minutes off the cooking time."

(Bittman; How to Cook Everything; pg. 500)

Equipped with his ideas I began to explore cooking beans in a satisfactory and short-sighted way that works for me.

Bittman's recommendation is to cover the beans with water, bring to a boil, cover loosely, and simmer (stirring occasionally) till done.

I tried this with several types of beans and found it worked, but didn't quite cook the beans to my taste. My adaptations work as follows:

Warm water in a tea kettle and pour over rinsed beans. Lid the soaking beans and let sit for 30 minutes or more. Strain and rinse.

Stove Top:
Put the beans, a teaspoon of baking soda (I use about one teaspoon per cup if dry beans - very approximate) and ample water in the cooking pan. Turn on high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer till the beans are tender. This should be between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the beans. I never time them, but instead check them periodically.

Slow Cooker:
Place the beans, baking soda, and ample water in the slow cooker. I then turn mine to high for 6 hours. This might make my beans a little mushy, but I usually check them frequently throughout the day if I am home and turn the cooker off when they are done.

This works especially well with fresh beans, such as the heirlooms I have been playing with from Lonesome Whistle. And if you are cooking beans, make a double batch. Take half of the soaked beans and freeze them in their soaking water. They are ready to cook when you have even less time than usual!

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As an aside, I highly recommend Bittman's book. It's an excellent go-to for any and (almost) all cooking questions.

A Catching Up

Life is so full! With cooking, writing here and other places, creating, sewing, parenting, and everything else I do... I have lots of draft posts started and few finished.

We are enjoying the winter and learning a lot right now.

Brother-Bug went with me to see The Nutcracker in December and has been dancing variations ever since. Sometimes he is Clara, sometimes the Mouse King, sometimes Fritz... He is taking official ballet lessons now, to everyone's delight. They are a little bit hard, as he is not experienced in a class atmosphere, but his teacher is great and he dreams of being a Baby Mouse in Nutcracker next year. And the little boy in his ballet shoes is so very cute.

Anticipating his first class...

Another wrinkle in our days has been the removal of sugar from Brother-Bug's (and therefore all of our) diet. He was continuing to have some focus and behavior issues that just didn't feel right to me and the Papa-Bug. We don't expect our kids to behave like angels, or look like magazine cut-outs, or even keep their clothes on for more than ten minutes. But there was something way off about Brother-Bug's (often complete) lack of emotional control. A friend suggested taking sugar and dyes out of his diet for an experiment... and that did it! He still has his moments, but we noticed a change within a couple of days. Asking him to get his glasses is no longer a potential nuclear disaster area. We can get out the door with our pants on correctly and he politely asks if his shoes are on the right feet. This might sound trivial to some folks, but for Brother-Bug and us it is huge.

Learning how to cook, bake, and incorporate sweet into our lives without sugar has been a fun cooking challenge. One of those a-yet-unpublished drafts is about the various dessert options I have discovered and created. It's amazing, and not a little scary, to me that almost every damn food in the grocery store has sugar in the ingredient list. I am thankful that we cook so much from scratch because I don't have to read the label on the wheat, oats, or beans.

Sister-Bug has no news to report. She is sweet, weird, and anticipating her birthday - which isn't for another 2 months.

My 52 Prayers project is going well, so I will leave this post with the card I drew for this week. I can hear Sister-Bug waking up.

Watercolors and ink on book page.

Adventures With Purple Barley

Last night I put 2 cups of Lonesome Whistle's Purple Barley and about 6-7 cups of water in my slow cooker. I've been meaning to try this since my success with the Scottish Oats in the slow cooker. Right before I went to bed I set it on low for 8 hours. This morning - warm and tasty barley cereal ready to go! We added butter, milk, and sweetener as we served. Some of us had it with honey, some with molasses, and some with brown sugar. Everyone enjoyed it - even Sister-Bug who often refuses to eat things that don't have Gorgonzola in them. This is one of my new favorite ways to deal with breakfast and my hungry little bugs who often can't even wait for eggs to scramble! How perfect to have breakfast ready to go, the moment they are up and clamoring for food.

A red bowl of slow-cooked purple barley.

My other success with the purple barley was the following recipe - made up largely because my mom gave me a container of Mascarpone and I didn't have any immediate inspirations of what to do with it. Leafing through old cookbooks I found a recipe for risotto with Mascarpone and Pancetta. The idea struck my fancy, and this recipe was the result. It seemed to be kind of a risotto/pilaf hybrid and I'm just not sure what to call it. It is amazingly rich and warming. Papa-Bug, in particular couldn't have enjoyed it more. 

Decadent Barley with Mascarpone

1/2 onion
5 tbl. butter
2 cups purple barley
1/2 pound ham cubed (I used a nitrite-free ham slice from Deck Family Farm...soooo good)
5-6 cups chicken broth
8 oz Mascarpone cheese
4 tbl. Fresh parsley
5-7 Green onions

Heat the butter in a large, heavy bottomed frying pan. Chop the onion and saute until clear. Add the barley and continue to saute for another 5-7 minutes (in making risotto you wait for the rice to look 'clear', which didn't happen with the barley).  Add the ham and toss to combine. Add the chicken broth and cover. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, and cook until the barley is done through - this took about an hour. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 15-30 minutes (this is essential, as it keeps the Mascarpone from separating too much). Just before serving, mix in the minced parsley and green onions and the Mascarpone.

My thanks go out to my mom for putting the Mascarpone in my fridge, causing the creation of this pleasing recipe!

Adding To The Pasta Sauce

This is not my kid... I just love this picture.

Frequently spaghetti and sauce graces our table - as I'm sure it does on many other tables. It's fast, a reliable kid-pleaser, and fairly hearty. However, serving spaghetti, tomato sauce, and a salad does not include that essential G for Growing - protein. Not in any amount substantial enough to satiate a nursing mom anyway.

I was making pasta sauce the other night and hit upon the idea of using some cooked beans leftover from a previous dinner. The whole sauce was based around what I had that needed to be used - eggplant and what not. On the whole, it worked out really well. I could have added zucchini, spinach, or any other veggies if I had them. The beans and cream gave the sauce a richness and a velvety texture not usually found in a veggie sauce. Added benefit - the kids liked this sauce way more than they like plain red sauce!



Vegetable-Bean Pasta Sauce

In olive oil sauté
1 onion - chopped
3 garlic cloves - chopped
2 sm. eggplant - cubed
(other veggies would go here)
Basil
Oregano
Parsley

Add
15-20 oz. canned tomatoes
1 c white wine
1 c water

Cook until the vegetables are soft through.

Puree in a food processor with
1 1/2 cups cooked red or white beans (one can of beans would be fine too)
1 cup cream
Salt and pepper
Until everything is blended together. Adjust the thickness of the sauce with water reserved from cooking the pasta.

Pass with asiago.

Added possibility - adding extra beans and a half cup of asiago will make a thick Italian style bean dip! Tasty on bruschetta...