Good afternoon!

Now that I’m entering the home stretch of pregnancy, I’m hit with a double whammy. I’m too tired to cook many nights, but I also want to make sure we have a good store of freezer and pantry meals ready for the little one’s arrival in a month or so. This has resulted in a lot of boring, but nutritionally sound, meals that just aren’t that much fun to talk about. Mostly, . . . → Read More: Preparing for Baby with Soup]]>

Good afternoon!

Now that I’m entering the home stretch of pregnancy, I’m hit with a double whammy. I’m too tired to cook many nights, but I also want to make sure we have a good store of freezer and pantry meals ready for the little one’s arrival in a month or so. This has resulted in a lot of boring, but nutritionally sound, meals that just aren’t that much fun to talk about. Mostly, a TON of soup. Since most soup recipes serve 6-8, one batch will yield enough for Erik and I to eat for two meals plus one or two quart jars of soup in the freezer. Not exciting, but very practical.

We finally did hit on a meal that is both. This wild rice soup is based on a recipe from the very “ladies who lunch” River Room at Dayton’s in St. Paul. Yep, Dayton’s. It was hard enough to call it Marshall Fields, although I finally got used to it, but I am NOT calling it Macy’s. Anyway…I digress. We’d sometimes meet my dad there for lunch on special occasions when we didn’t have school, but he had to work. I always felt pretty special and grown up. This is, hands-down, the best wild rice soup out there. It’s not overly rich, but is nonetheless silky and delicious. If you’re feeling very indulgent, make some popovers and have a real River Room experience.

Note I: I’ve tweaked the recipe to use a very unattractive leftover roast chicken.

If you don’t happen to have one sitting in your refrigerator, you can use homemade or canned chicken stock and some sort of pre-cooked chicken – grilled or poached breasts or thighs would work well. You could also pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner and then make this the next day. The possibilities abound!

Note II: You’ll need to pre-cook the wild rice. My favorite way to do this is to mix 1 cup of wild rice with 3 cups of water in a covered baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour to an hour-and-a-half or until the rice has absorbed the water and is nice and fluffy. This will give you WAY more rice than you need for this dish, but I happen to like having extra in the refrigerator. It makes a quick side dish or an interesting addition to oatmeal in the morning.

Minnesota Wild Rice Soup

Makes about 6 servings

Directions

1. Pull the remaining meat off of your roast chicken. Aim for about 1-1/2 cups, but more or less won’t ruin anything. Refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Combine the chicken bones and 8 cups of water in a pot or slow cooker and simmer for as long as you can. In the slow cooker, I aim for 8 hours on low. On the stove, I let it go for at least a couple of hours, but it depends on when I have to leave the house or go to bed.
3. Strain the chicken broth through a colander to remove the large bits and then a lint-free towel to catch the smaller pieces. You should end up with about 6 cups of broth. If you have more, hurray! Save it for later. If you have less, just add a bit of water to make up the difference. Refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Chop up all your vegetables.
5. In a large pot, melt the butter and add the onions. Saute over medium heat until the onions have started to soften, 5 minutes or so.
6. Add the scallion, mushrooms, and carrots to the onions and cook until softened, about another 5 minutes.
7. Sprinkle the flour over the veggies and stir until the flour and butter form a paste coating the vegetables, about a minute.
8. While whisking, pour the chicken broth into the pot. The flour will help thicken the broth, but could also make it chunky. Whisking and slow pouring help to create a smooth soup. Simmer for 20 minutes (more or less…this is soup, after all, not wedding cake).
9. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until warmed through, another 5 minutes or so. Enjoy!

We’re leaving for Florida early this week and received a shocking amount of food from our CSA, considering it’s still the winter season and it was the second-to-last pickup. Four pounds of onions, four pounds of beets and radishes, five pounds of apples… you get the picture. We’ve certainly gotten our . . . → Read More: A Busy Day Working with and Against Microbes]]> Lindsay and I had a busy day. But we had a lot of help in the form of pressurized steam, yeast, and lactobacillus bacteria.

We’re leaving for Florida early this week and received a shocking amount of food from our CSA, considering it’s still the winter season and it was the second-to-last pickup. Four pounds of onions, four pounds of beets and radishes, five pounds of apples… you get the picture. We’ve certainly gotten our money’s worth this year! But with all this food on top of what we already had, we needed to prep some for storage.

To deal with the four pounds of fingerling potatoes (which we already had a bunch of), Lindsay used our pressure canner for the first time:

Regular water-bath canning limits you to recipes that are acidic or briny enough to kill off botulism. 212-degree boiling water will kill off everything else, but botulism can survive (see our rules of canning, which we will need to update to include a guide to pressure canning). Pressure canning uses pressure to get the temperature high enough to kill absolutely everything, which means that you can do absolutely anything you wants.

And it’s a two-fee: it cooks at the same time it preserves. In six months, if we want to make potato salad, we can just reach for one of these jars. Lindsay will have to write-up the process of pressure canning. Even though it was perfectly easy and safe, the first time is still scary and intimidating, even for someone comfortable with canning. Just look at this steampunk contraption:

Second, to deal with the two heads of cabbage we weren’t going to eat, Lindsay made (actually, is still in the process of making) sauerkraut. Our CSA this year has given us a lot of cabbage (both red and green), and we’ve found that we waste a lot less of it by taking an hour to make one large batch of kraut which will supply 5-10 quick dinners down the line. We even decided to invest in a ceramic fermenting crock that has a water moat to allow it to “burp” while fermenting while still enduring that no nasty microbes can get in:

Finally, speaking of fermenting, I made a batch of beer this weekend. I plan to take more photos down the line and do a real post once I get the hang of the process, but for now, here’s a preview:

It is an all-grain (from malted barley) recipe and we decided to save the “spent grain” that is left over. This grain has been crushed and steeped in hot water to convert and extract all the sugar from the starches, but what’s left over still has flavor. We used our dehydrator to dry it out so that we can store it. It goes great as an added crunch to granola (reminds me of grape nuts) and we also plan to crush it into flour and make some spent-grain baked goods:

Happy New Year!

For us, New Year’s Eve is an excuse to host a dinner party, so we invited our closest friends over and had a low key evening. We started with homemade French bread (recipe to come) with local butter and quick-pickled radishes. Then we had braised pork belly with turnips and an arugula-parsley salad. For dessert, Erik fried Twinkies. Yeah, we had fried Twinkies after such a homemade old-school meal. They were . . . → Read More: What to do with a half-drunk bottle of Champagne?]]>

Happy New Year!

For us, New Year’s Eve is an excuse to host a dinner party, so we invited our closest friends over and had a low key evening. We started with homemade French bread (recipe to come) with local butter and quick-pickled radishes. Then we had braised pork belly with turnips and an arugula-parsley salad. For dessert, Erik fried Twinkies. Yeah, we had fried Twinkies after such a homemade old-school meal. They were fantastic. He promises to post the recipe soon.

The pork came from this great, relatively new butcher in our town. He sources from small, local farmers and is really knowledgeable about his art. He tries hard to sell the whole animal, even the parts that aren’t so popular, so the shop is full of cookbooks and he’ll suggest ways to prepare, for example, trotters (pig feet). When there wasn’t enough pork belly in the case, he shouldered half a pig and filled our order right there and then. Take a look!

Anyway…after dinner, we rang in the new year with Champagne from Westport Rivers in southern Massachusetts. Since none of us are huge Champagne fans, we awoke this morning to at least half a bottle of warm, kind of flat Champagne sitting on the kitchen counter. As you know, I have trouble wasting food, so I found two recipes for using the last bits of Champagne in the bottle.

The first, Champagne vinegar, isn’t much of a recipe. For every cup of leftover Champagne, add one tablespoon of homemade apple cider vinegar or a store-bought apple cider vinegar with the “mother” (Bragg is a good brand). Pour the mixture back into the bottle and cover the top with a thin towel or cheesecloth, secured by a rubber band or piece of string. Let it ferment in a dark, cool place for a month or so. It’s ready when you like the taste.

The second, Champagne sorbet, is from the Flour cookbook, which I LOVE for special occasion baking. It has a nice Champagne taste, but it’s not overwhelming. We might make it next year for a fancy-schmancy New Year’s Eve dessert – we certainly can’t get less fancy than fried Twinkies.

Champagne Sorbet

Makes a generous 2 cups

Directions

1. Combine the sugar and water in a small pot and heat to boiling over medium-high heat.
2. Boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves. When you think it’s fully dissolved, turn off the heat and wait a minute until the water is still. Check the bottom of the pan for undissolved sugar. If you spot some, bring it back to a boil for another couple of minutes and then check again.
3. Let the syrup cool in the pot. Transfer it to a small bowl and refrigerate for two to three hours.
4. After the syrup has chilled, add the Champagne, lemon juice, and salt.
5. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the maker’s directions. For ours, this was 45 minutes.
6. If you want a firmer sorbet, pack into a freezer-safe container (we used a pint jar) and freeze overnight.

I did NOT expect this to work out. It had been sitting in a crock on the kitchen floor for months, but last night Erik gave me the serious face and said “we’re decanting this now, young lady”. OK, he didn’t really say the “young lady” bit, but he should have. I had been studiously avoiding his less pointed . . . → Read More: Holy Cow! We Made Vinegar!]]> Apple cider vinegar! From cores we kept in the freezer that normal people throw away!!

I did NOT expect this to work out. It had been sitting in a crock on the kitchen floor for months, but last night Erik gave me the serious face and said “we’re decanting this now, young lady”. OK, he didn’t really say the “young lady” bit, but he should have. I had been studiously avoiding his less pointed hints for weeks, because I didn’t want to face a container of moldy apple juice. Yeah, this is standard 401(k) behavior…thinking about it too much makes me anxious, so I just pretend it doesn’t exist. Really adult of me, right? Luckily, Erik was the mature one and made me taste it. Success!!

We got almost 3 quarts of apple cider vinegar from apple cores and peels and very little work! I won’t repost Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking’s directions for homemade apple scrap vinegar here, but I will say that we ignored the apple scraps for at least two weeks (rather than the recommended one) before straining and then let the liquid ferment for a couple of months (instead of two to three weeks) before bottling. Just to give you an idea of our recklessness, we started the whole process on New Year’s Eve. It’s April 20th, people! That’s some forgiving fermentation.

I’m almost completely unable to throw out food. I hold on to bits and pieces like we’re in the Dust Bowl and it’s 1933. My great-grandmas would be proud of me. Erik thinks there isn’t a use for the last tiny bit of jam or apple peelings, but there is! Flavoring yogurt and pectin stock for jam and jelly! So there!!

Until I found this recipe, I was throwing out the pulp from making . . . → Read More: Carrot Almond Macaroon Recipe]]>

I’m almost completely unable to throw out food. I hold on to bits and pieces like we’re in the Dust Bowl and it’s 1933. My great-grandmas would be proud of me. Erik thinks there isn’t a use for the last tiny bit of jam or apple peelings, but there is! Flavoring yogurt and pectin stock for jam and jelly! So there!!

Until I found this recipe, I was throwing out the pulp from making carrot juice and almond milk (and dying a little inside). I mean, you get tasty carrot juice and almond milk that’s much cheaper and less-filled-with-junk than store-bought, but still! All that perfectly good pulp…it made me sad. Plus, I like cookies, especially macaroons and especially when they use up stuff that I was previously tossing/composting while tasting rich and delicious.

Also, it’s a well-known fact that cookies have no calories when they’re mostly made of ingredients that were otherwise destined for the garbage.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to make almond milk or carrot juice first to enjoy these. I adopted this recipe from 101 Cookbooks, which uses chopped nuts and grated carrots.

We aren’t lucky enough to get oats or almonds at our farmer’s market, so we get both in the bulk section at our grocery store. They might not be local, but buying from the bulk section creates significantly less waste than buying pre-packaged.

I’d like to experiment with using ghee instead of coconut oil to increase the local-ness, but the coconut oil really makes them macaroons and isn’t as bad as it was once thought to be. Plus, I’ve replace my moisturizer with coconut oil, so we always have some on hand.

Carrot Almond Macaroons
Makes about 3 1/2 dozen

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking powder, and salt) in a large bowl.
   
2. Add the carrots and almonds and whisk long enough to break up most of the clumps. Our juicer sometimes leaves a few chunks in the carrot pulp, so I fish these out now, too.
3. In a glass measuring cup, melt the coconut oil in the microwave until just melted. This usually takes about a minute, but it depends on how warm the apartment is.
4. While the coconut oil melts, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or grease them with non-stick spray or butter.
5. Add the maple syrup and ginger to the measuring cup and stir to combine

   

6. Pour the liquids over the dry ingredients and stir to combine.

   

7. Use either a 2-teaspoon scoop or a tablespoon, drop the cookies onto the prepared pans. They won’t spread much, so you can place them pretty close together.

   

8. Bake for about 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for as long as you can wait.

   Our oven runs hot, so I always set the timer for 8 minutes and then check every 2 minutes after that. To speed things up, I fill one pan and get it in the oven right away (top rack). The second pan takes me about 2 minutes to fill (thanks to the scoop!), so I put it in the bottom rack and rotate the pans when the initial 8 minutes are up (i.e. move the top pan to the bottom and the bottom pan to the top). Then I just remember that the second pan (now on the top) needs a few extra minutes.

These pack well, so I have been taking some along on my weekly business trips. It’s a nice little taste of home.

UPDATE: I just made these gluten-free by using buckwheat flour (instead of whole wheat) and gluten-free oats. They’re still delicious!

We had leftover ingredients from a number of meals this past week: spinach from our roasted squash and black bean salad, one solitary English muffin from quinoa black bean burgers (we plan to post them next time we make them), and ricotta cheese and portobello mushrooms from the pizza we made on Saturday. We bought three big mushrooms, and it turned out we only needed one for the pizza.

This creative meal took about . . . → Read More: Waste Not Want Not: Open-faced Portobello Mushroom Burgers]]>

We had leftover ingredients from a number of meals this past week: spinach from our roasted squash and black bean salad, one solitary English muffin from quinoa black bean burgers (we plan to post them next time we make them), and ricotta cheese and portobello mushrooms from the pizza we made on Saturday. We bought three big mushrooms, and it turned out we only needed one for the pizza.

This creative meal took about 15 minutes total, and used up all the leftovers.

We marinated the mushrooms in a mix of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper, for about 10 minutes. Then we put them under the broiler for 5 minutes. We toasted the English muffin halves in the broiler for 3 minutes. We spread a little ricotta on each English muffin half, added the spinach, and topped with a mushroom. These open-faced sandwiches were delicious.

On the side we ate some of Lindsay’s dehydrated vegetable chips. We had dried carrot, parsnip, and Daikon radish chips:

This salad will make you love grains and dark, leafy greens. I wish I were eating it right now for breakfast.