Recipe: Roasted Butternut Squash

Yum!

Roasting hard winter squashes whole makes them a lot easier to cut into.  You also need to cook them a bit longer, so you are trading the cutting into a hard squash for some extra time running the oven.

To do this, take a whole squash and score the outside by poking it with a fork or a knife a half a dozen times.  Place it on a cookie sheet (or not, but they drip sometimes), and put into the oven at 350 for an hour to an hour and a half.  It is done when it is soft for a fork.

If you let this cool, you can easily peel the skin and use it for such delisiousness as pancakes (here and here). You could even sub it for sweet potatoes in recipes like this.

Enjoy!

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Hot Peppers Part 3: Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce

Yesterday, you read about the Southeast Asian Chile-Garlic Relish, which is an ingredient in today's third and final installment of How to Eat Hot Peppers all Year.

This recipe is also from The Joy of Pickling and it is for Sweet Chile Garlic Sauce. I am looking forward to dipping grilled chicken breast in this sauce.  

If my hands weren't smelling like garlic before, they certainly were sticky and full of garlic after getting 1/4 cup of it for this recipe. 

I substituted honey at 1/2 the amount for the sugar in the recipe.  She is specific about the temperatures, and at one point even calls for a candy thermometer if you have it.  This recipe also differs from the others in that it is cooked.

Hot Peppers Part 1: Pique Sauce
Hot Peppers Part 2: Southeast Asian Chile Garlic Relish
Hot Peppers Part 3: Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce

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Hot Peppers Part 2: Southeast Asian Chile Garlic Relish

Part 2 of my Goodness That's a Lot of Peppers series is another sauce I found in The Joy of Pickling.  

This one is Southeast Asian Chile-Garlic Relish and I tasted it tonight with a sausage and MAN, it is spicy!  It was incredibly delicious, so I had about a teaspoon of it (hence the name "relish").  But then it had an afterburn on my tongue that required some milk swishing and a banana.  Then I got hot~ my whole body.  Suffice it to say, try this in moderation but it is worth trying.

I halved the recipe, which is hot peppers, garlic, salt, and cider vinegar. 

I made it in a jar so I could use the immersion blender.

She says to keep the chili seeds intact, and the immersion blender did a nice job of that.

This is an essential ingredient in the next recipe, sweet chili garlic sauce.

Hot Peppers Part 1: Pique Sauce
Hot Peppers Part 2: Southeast Asian Chile Garlic Relish
Hot Peppers Part 3: Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce

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Hot Peppers Part 1: Pique Sauce

What to do when life gives you peppers?

Make hot sauce, of course!

After staring at the pile of peppers for a day and deciding they weren't getting any fresher, I turned to The Joy of Pickling for some inspiration. This cookbook has been a great resource for creative and delicious recipes.   It didn't disappoint today.

I found three that looked good, and had enough hot peppers to make them all.

The first was a Pique, which was super easy to make and she describes it as an easy restaurant-style condiment.  It's basically hot pepper infused cider vinegar.

To make it, I used an old vinegar jar and sliced up the peppers and garlic, and added them and 12 peppercorns and some salt, then the cider vinegar.  It's on my counter for 2 days before I get to try it.

Hot Peppers Part 1: Pique Sauce
Hot Peppers Part 2: Southeast Asian Chile Garlic Relish
Hot Peppers Part 3: Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce




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Green Beans- Steamed with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

Sometimes it's the simplest things in life that are the best.

These green beans, for example, are so easy that I make them, or another veggie the exact same way, at least three times per week. You can easily substitute broccoli, cauliflower, or zucchini.

veggies to fit in your steamer basket

1-4 T good, real, local if possible olive oil

1/2-1 t. sea salt

Steam veggies until they are al dente.  For us, it used to take 12 minutes but with our new cooktop it only takes 7.  They should be bright in color but with an edge when you bite them.

Rinse in cool water.  This stops the cooking and also makes them cooler for little mouths.

Drizzle olive oil and sea salt over them.

Enjoy!

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Recipe: Banana "Ice Cream"

This "ice cream" was inspired by the cookbook Well Fed 2, which, like the original Well Fed, is a wellspring of recipes and inspiration.  The kids like to make it, or eat it (or both!).  It is good both freshly made, as soft serve, or we freeze any leftovers in our popsicle molds, or if those are full, in little cups with popsicle sticks in them.

3 frozen bananas (freeze after they get brown spots on them)

4-6 fresh pastured egg yolks

1 T vanilla

1/4 cup raw milk

Combine all in food processor.  Serve with soaked and dehydrated pecans (3 per serving).

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Kids' Cooking: Prairie Sushi

We stole this from Ree Drummond's show, but it's really great.  These are basically a sandwich wrap but sliced to imitate sushi.

It's a tortilla with cream cheese spread on it and fresh parsley and basil sprinkled over that.  Then, across the middle, is lunchmeat and matchsticks of carrots and cucumber.

This is rolled up tight then sliced into one inch (or so) thick segments and served flat.

Mmmmmm....



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Recipe: Leftover Veggie Muffins

4 cups leftover steamed green veggies (like broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, zucchini)

2 cups cooked winter squash (like butternut or pumpkin)

1/2 cup butter

4 eggs

1 t. vanilla

1 T cinnamon

1/2 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. cardamom

1/2 t. sea salt

Mix in food processor until very smooth.  Spoon into buttered muffins or loaf pan (or use muffin papers or parchment paper).  Bake at 325 for 20 minutes for muffins or 60 minutes for a loaf. My kids went crazy for these!

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Recipe: Cherry Chia Jam with no added sugar

1 cup pitted cherries

2 T lemon juice

2 T chia seeds

1/4 cup bone broth or water

Simmer cherries in broth (or water) for 10 minutes.  Mash.  Add lemon juice and chia seeds.  Refrigerate.  

You can also can this by boiling your jars and lids, then putting this in and boiling with the lids for 10 minutes.  Make sure you leave headspace when you close it, wipe the rim, and let it cool with minimal handling.

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Recipe: Raw Zucchini and Chicken Salad (Paleo/ Primal)

Salad:

4 large zucchinis, cut thin or spiralized

1 T sea salt

1 cooked chicken breast, diced into large pieces

1/4 cup parsley, diced

2 T fresh basil, diced

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

4 green onions, tops only

6-10 cherry tomatoes, cut in half

2 stalks celery, sliced 

Dressing:

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 T coconut aminos

1 T tamari or Nama Shoyu (or soy sauce)

2 t. lemon juice

2-4 T olive oil (to taste)

1/2 t. fresh cracked black pepper (or to taste)

First salt the zucchini and set aside.  Let sit while you prepare everything else.

Put other salad ingredients into a large bowl.

Put all the dressing ingredients except the olive oil into a small bowl.  While whisking by hand, add the olive oil.

Rinse the zucchini.  Add it to the other salad ingredients.  Add half the dressing and see if you like that amount of dressing.  Add more as desired (or use elsewhere another day!).

Enjoy.

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Recipe: "Basic" Smoothie Recipe - hidden bone broth

2 c home made bone broth (you don't taste it at all!!)

1/2 package organic frozen berries (I use Trader Joe's Organic Mixed Berry Blend)

scoop green vibrance

scoop sunwarrior vegan protein powder

scoop Jay Robb whey protein powder

1/4 cup fresh spinach, wilted (measured wilted- it's 2 cups raw... and to wilt it, you just steam a week's worth at a time and store in the fridge)

Blend. makes 2 servings (drink 1/3 pre-workout and 2/3 post-workout if you work out in the morning).

(option: 2 scoops Reservage whey instead of Jay Robb and sunwarrior)

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Homemade Olive Oil Mayo

2 T. lemon juice

1 pastured egg from a reliable source (this will be eaten raw)

½ t. mustard powder

½ t. sea salt

¼ c. + 1 cup oil (I mix avocado oil, MCT oil, and olive oil but you can use all of a light-tasting olive oil)

Combine all of the ingredients except for a cup of oil into a food processor.  Look at the time. Turn it on.  Drizzle in the remaining cup of oil.  Take two minutes to do this. The sound of the mixture will change as it emulsifies.

This will keep for a month in the fridge. 

Use eggs like this is you can find them (fresh from the back yard).

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Hanukkah Recipes: Latkes and Cranberry Apple Sauce

Hanukkah is a holiday which celebrates the Jews in the old temple hunkering down during a war with enough oil to last only one night.  But...  the oil lasted in their candelabra for eight nights, which was a miracle.  

It wasn't typically a major holiday until fairly recently, when the Christmas hype and marketing caused people to overestimate its importance and start giving mounds of gifts.  Passover, in the spring, is a much more important holiday, as are Rosh Hashannah (the New Year, celebrated in the fall) and Yom Kippur (ten days after Rosh Hashannah).  

Families typically celebrate Hanukkah, also transliterated into being spelled as Chanukah or Chanukkah, by lighting the candles of the menorah at sundown, adding an extra candle for each night until the slots are all full.  While the menorah is being lit, the family says two prayers (a special one is added on the first night to mark how special it is to be together and start Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights).  The menorah is a special Hanukkah candelabra that is handed down through the generations, and kids in school often make them, so many times families have more than one.  The candles, also specially made for the holiday, are allowed to burn until they are finished, and the menorah was historically placed in the street-facing window to spread the light of the holiday.  

The commercialization of December has added gifts to Hanukkah.  Families used to give gelt, or money, and play games like dreidel and sing songs.  They eat latkes, cooked in oil to again remember the oil that lasted for eight nights.  In Israel they eat donuts for the same reason.  Nowadays families will either give a gift each night, or choose one night to exchange gifts or give the children more than one gift on one night.  Families have different traditions based on what their lineage is (Askenazi or Sephardic), and this is true of many Jewish holidays, especially with the traditional foods, which differ by region.  What is traditionally eaten by Jews whose ancestors are Russian is different than those with Spanish ancestry. 

My great-great grandparents came from Russia and Poland, which makes me Askenazi.  They emigrated to Ellis Island in the middle of the 19th Century.  Growing up, we celebrated Hanukkah with Latkes and Cranberry-Apple sauce, which was my mom's change on the typical apple sauce eaten with latkes.  Others prefer sour cream on their latkes, and I often serve them with dripped yogurt instead.   The menu for Hanukkah isn't really fixed, since it is so many nights, but there is often one night chosen to be celebrated more than the others.  In addition to serving latkes, often a brisket or roasted chicken is eaten, or chicken soup.

Traditional Potato Latkes (almost my Mom's recipe)

Growing up, we got to eat these exactly once per year, on one of the eight nights of Hanukkah.  It was a much-anticipated evening, since making them is so small feat.  I skip the potato peeling as an adult, and it shaves off a lot of the prep time.  We also like to have two skillets working at a time.  My home, however, smells like latkes for a week after making them~ just like it did when I was young. 

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

3 cups potatoes, grated and drained (we use the food processor)

2 T onion, grated

1/4 t. pepper

2 T flour (can substitute white flour with whole wheat, rice, or coconut flour without noticing)

1 t. baking powder

coconut or olive oil for frying

Mix ingredients in large bowl.  Cut open a stack of brown paper bags.  Heat oil about 1/4" deep in skillet.

Place mixture in to hot oil by tablespoonful and flatten.  Fry both sides. Take out onto cut open brown grocery bags, or layer in a Pyrex with the paper in between and keep warm in the oven at 200 degrees.

Serve with applesauce, cranberry-apple sauce, sour cream, or dripped yogurt (cultured cream cheese).  Best served HOT.  Recipe can easily be scaled up or down.

Egg-Free, Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Latkes

My husband and I started making these nearly a decade ago, when I stopped eating potatoes and vegetable oils like canola oil.  I have included an egg-free version, so you can see that substitute binders like flaxseeds and chia work just as well as eggs.  

3 eggs (3 T flaxseed meal or chia seeds soaked in 1/2 cup water for at least 10 minutes if egg-free)
3 cups sweet or regular potatoes (or a mix), grated and drained (food processor)
2 T grated onion
1 t salt
1/4 t pepper
2 T flour (rice or coconut flour if gluten free)
1 t baking powder
olive oil for frying

Mix ingredients in large bowl.  Cut open a stack of brown paper bags.  Heat oil about 1/4" deep in skillet.


Place mixture in to hot oil by tablespoonful and flatten.  Fry both sides. Take out onto cut open brown grocery bags, or layer in a Pyrex with the paper in between and keep warm in the oven at 200 degrees.

Serve with applesauce, cranberry-apple sauce, sour cream, or dripped yogurt (cultured cream cheese).  Best served HOT.  Recipe can easily be scaled up or down.

Cranberry Apple Sauce

Boil a bag of cranberries and three cut, cored, and (optionally) skinned apples with a cup of homemade chicken stock and a cinnamon stick. Lower to a simmer for 15 minutes.  Mash with a potato masher if you prefer a different consistency.

Cultured Cream Cheese

Cultured cream cheese is just a fancy way of saying dripped yogurt, or even Greek Yogurt.  This is delicious on crackers or bread, or even as a dip for veggies.

To make it, place your colander into a bowl.  Line it with a cloth (cheesecloth or similar~ even a light dish towel or cloth napkin would work).

Dump a quart or two of full-fat organic yogurt into the colander.  Place in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

Save the liquid~ it is called whey and is useful for fermenting or it is high in probiotics and you could eat it plain or in a smoothie.

Chicken Stock

Using heads and feet make a thicker stock.  We usually use a carcass from a roasted chicken, and add a third of a pound of chicken heads, a third of a pound of chicken feet, and a few chicken necks.  We get all of our meat from our local meat club CSA Marin Sun Farms.  Their chickens are pastured on the heels of the cows, which is as good as it gets for chickens.

1. Fill a stock pot with filtered water, the bones, a quartered onion with its peel, 3 roughly chopped carrots, the greens and middles of a head of celery, and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.
2. Bring it to a boil.
3. Skim off any foam.
4. Lower to a low simmer, and simmer, covered, for 12 to 24 hours.
5. Strain and store.  We like to use canning jars and put the lids on while hot so they sort of "can" themselves.  Many recommend to use stock within a week, but we feel like this gives us a bit more time with it.  We store it refrigerated and use it as often as possible-- often in place of water in cooking or just to drink as a beverage with meals.

As long as you are making this, you may as well go ahead and make some chicken soup!  Good ol' Jewish Penicillin.  

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Actual Thanksgiving Menu - Probably

So... I had plans for Thanksgiving (here).  After some cooking, here is what we have in store for tomorrow. Probably.

First Course

Leek Soup my own recipe, with extra ginger and leeks

Main

Crisp Roast Chicken (Best roast chicken recipe ever)

Vegetarian Stuffing from Trader Joe's (fancy, I know. My husband loves the stuff)

Paleo Stuffing from Paleo Movement - replace beef for pork, skip the nuts (I just forgot them, am not anti-nut), added raisins 1/4 cup

Mashed Cauliflower from Zen Belly - will make this tomorrow

Cranberry Apple Sauce from yours truly - BUT I used pears instead of apples and added some orange zest and an orange- and added a teaspoon of salt.

Third Course

Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies from Gourmand in the Kitchen- replace sugar with half as much honey, add 1/4 c. more coconut flour to compensate for texture difference

Pumpkin Custard from Nourished Kitchen (with no whipped cream for topping)

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Thanksgiving Menu + Shopping List

First Course

Deviled Eggs (Hard boil 4 eggs, slice in half. Mix yolks with 2 T homemade mayo and 1/2 t. mustard.  Replace into whites.)

Pumpkin Soup (Saute 1 onion and 3 cloves garlic, add 2 cups chopped pumpkin and 1" fresh peeled and chopped ginger, then add 1 1/2 qt. bone broth. Bring to a boil, add 1 t. salt and 1-3 optional chilies.  Lower to a simmer for 25 minutes.  Blend using an immersion blender. Also great with carrots.)

Main Course

Roasted Chicken (Bake a whole chicken in a Pyrex with a sprinkle of sea salt at 350 for 1.25 hours.)

Vegetarian Stuffing from Running in a Skirt

Paleo Stuffing from Paleo Movement

Mashed Cauliflower from Zen Belly

Cranberry Apple Sauce from yours truly

Third Course

Whipped Cream (1 pint raw cream in mixer with 1 T vanilla and 1 t. honey)

Pumpkin Pie Recipe Made w Honey from Prairie Homestead

Pumpkin Custard from Nourished Kitchen

Shopping List

4 Eggs, hard boiled 

6 eggs, fresh

homemade mayo (1 1/4 c. olive oil, 1 egg, 2 T lemon juice, 1/2 t. sea salt, 1/2 t. mustard powder)

1/4 t. mustard

 4 1/2 qt. bone broth

whole chicken

1 lb. ground meat

1 3/4 pints raw cream

2 T lard

2 T coconut oil

stick butter

1 carrot

2 stalks celery

8 apples

2 bell peppers

1 lb. mushrooms

3 bags cranberries

2 cups chopped pumpkin, raw

2 cups cooked and mashed pumpkin

1 head cauliflower

4 onions

5 cloves garlic

1" fresh peeled and chopped ginger

 4 t. sea salt 

1-3 optional chilies

1 T fresh rosemary

1 T fresh thyme

5 T fresh sage

1 T pumpkin pie spice (or 2 parts cinnamon, 3/4 part nutmeg, 1/2 part cloves)

1 T chives, optional

1 cup honey

1 T + 1 t. vanilla

1/2 loaf rice bread, cut into 1/2" cubes

1/2 c. raisins

1/3 c + 2 T coconut flour

1 1/4 c. flour

4-6 T cold water

+ ingredients for
Pumpkin Custard from Nourished Kitchen (her website is down)

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Recipe: Corn Muffins~ Inspired by Nourishing Traditions

2 c cornmeal
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 1\2 c water
1 c buttermilk or yogurt

3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 T maple syrup or honey
1 t sea salt
2 t baking soda
1/4 c melted butter

Mix first group of ingredients together. Cover with a clean dish towel and let sit 12-24 h (longer is better).

Add other ingredients.

350 for 20 min as muffins or 30 as bread.

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Recipe: Squash Pancakes - Paleo/ GAPS

1 cup cooked squash or sweet potato

1 cup almond butter

5 eggs

1/2 t. sea salt

1 T. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

fat for frying (butter, coconut oil, lard)

Mash ingredients together and mix until smooth.  Heat cooking fat in skillet (we use a thin cast iron) on medium-high.  I am generous with the amount of fat-- it ends up about 2T per 6 pancake load.

Drop pancake batter into fat.  I use a 2T measuring cup (half of a quarter cup).  When one side starts to bubble, flip.  Wait a little bit, then they are done.

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