We have had some really scorching days lately! The past several of them have been in the 90′s! I thought I left Florida to get away from the heat, but it looks like it must have followed my mom up here. She arrived on the coolest day we’d had in weeks, lending credence to her idea that we live in The Great White North, but in less than 48 hours, it became an absolute inferno. She loves the heat, so she’s not complaining, but the rest of us are lethargic, even the pets!

So naturally this kind of weather calls for ice cream! But really, we love ice cream and have it quite often no matter what the weather. When I was in Italy, I fell in love with what I called my perfect combination of gelato – one scoop of Frutti di Bosco and one of Nocciola – “Fruits of the Forest” or mixed berries and hazelnut. Such a dreamy combination. Light yet rich at the same time. So I decided to make my own perfect flavor at home, using kefir, a fermented, probiotic dairy drink as the base. We make kefir here at the homestead fresh every day and I love finding new uses for it, beyond a glass straight up for breakfast! So I can now confirm it makes a really delicious ice cream! Next time I will probably add an egg or two to the mix, for a more creamy consistency. But there was nothing lacking in the taste department here! So if you are as hot as we are, or just looking for a different kind of ice cream flavor to cool off on a hot summer day, give this one a try! I promise you will love it!

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups of plain whole organic dairy kefir
1/3 cup of fresh organic heavy cream
¼ cup Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
½ cup of raw hazelnuts, toasted
1 cup frozen or fresh organic raspberries
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD:

I have a Vitamix, so I placed all the ingredients, in order listed into the Vitamix and blended just until the nuts were pulverized. I was looking for a creamy consistency. Then I placed all of it, in my ice cream maker and made it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. You can serve it before placing in the freezer for a more “soft serve” texture, or freeze for a harder consistency. I have also found that adding a ¼ cup of alcohol also lends to better scoopability.

HELLO COMPOST!

Life has been extremely busy here on the homestead. If you are following my facebook updates, you know I have been up to my ears (almost) in dirt. I have learned in these few short weeks, that spring is the busiest time of the year in the country. If you are in the North Country, you are trying to get your gardens, fruit/nut tree groves and berry patches started for the summer, while dodging rain storms, and on occasion even snow storms! Here at Thistlemoon Meadows, it is no exception. All of this while trying to settle into a new place. We have been spending as many sunny days as we can outdoors, and if there isn’t enough of those to do what we need to accomplish, we go out in the rain – and if you can believe it, the snow storm is actually a blessing from Mother Nature, as it allows us time to go indoors and take care of household needs. It has been several years since I have really enjoyed the dichotomies that make up spring and it has been amazing – when you are working with things that grow, it kind of all makes sense. Nature is amazing that way.

(The Culture Club (this is not how I normally have my “lab” set up. If you are culturing more than one kind of culture they need to sit a few feet apart from each other, but I asked them all to gather together for  photo).

Our house is not a home unless I have set up my cultures, lovingly termed my “science lab” in the kitchen. On any given day I have sourdough starter, kefir, some kind of sour milk either viili or buttermilk, yogurt and sometimes cheese culturing. Plus I usually have various kinds of grains and legumes soaking and fermenting. It is this life sustaining and nourishing foods that get our bodies through all the hard work that comes with setting up and maintaining a homestead. And our chickens haven’t even arrived yet!

FIDDLEHEADS!

So to celebrate spring in all her glory, on one warm and beautiful day, we decided to have our first barbecue of the season. We had been to the local market earlier in the day and picked up a prized local wildfood – fiddlehead ferns. These ferns can only be harvested for about 2 weeks in the early spring, in Northern climes, like New England, and Canada. Fiddleheads are harvested early in the season before the frond has opened and reached its full height – they are named fiddleheads as they bear resemblance to the curled ornamentation on the end of a stringed instrument, such as a fiddle. Since I am a fiddlehead, it seemed like a food I should try. It is not suggested that you eat fiddleheads raw, as they have a bitterness to them before cooked, that can lead to stomach upset. I was told they taste a bit like asparagus, so I decided to just toss them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and cook them on the grill, on top of foil – kind of like broiled asparagus, which is my favorite way to prepare it. Although truth be told, if asparagus ceased to exist, I wouldn’t miss it.

For this meal I wanted to cook everything on the grill. Steak is best when grilled, and we had also gotten a beautiful skirt steak from a local farm. I lightly drizzled olive oil on it, and then dressed it up with fresh herbs – cilantro, thyme and basil.

To accompany this meal, I decided to make poutine on the grill, sans gravy, which I guess really makes this potatoes and cheese curds – but it was light and perfect with this menu. I cooked both white potatoes and sweet potatoes on the grill in foil packets for about 40 minutes. For the last 15 minutes,I opened the packets so the potatoes could brown, and then put the cheese curds on top, turned off the grill and closed the grill lid for about 5 minutes.

(Spring Foods Dinner)

It was a wonderful evening outside listening to the night sounds – frogs, birds and eventually even a guitar and…you guessed it, a fiddle.

Well I have been up to a little kitchen experimentation, lately. First I wanted to tackle another batch of Fromage Blanc made with goat milk. The last time I made it , after draining it for 12 hours, I gave the cheese cloth a bit of a heavy handed squeeze which resulted in a dry and crumbly sort of cheese. I liked it. It was good for stirring in eggs and other dishes. However this time I was hoping to yield a softer more spreadable cheese. Basically I followed the same procedure as last time , except that I used pasteurized goat milk, instead of raw, let the cheese drain for about 15 hours (instead of 12) and did not squeeze the bag. It came out perfectly! Wonderful and creamy and perfect to spread on crackers…except there were no crackers!

That was an easy fix. I have been wanting to play with some of the recipes from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. Jeff and Zoe, along with Monica from their publishing company, St. Martin’s Press, are generously hosting 2 months of giveaways of this book on Foodieblogroll.com! I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the book from Monica and really wanted to get baking. I was particularly interested in the gluten-free breads. So I was delighted to find a gluten free version of the Olive Oil bread, I use so often from their first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. The gluten free recipe called for soy flour, and I have a soy sensitivity and I didn’t have rice flour on hand either. So I decided to make a modified version, using what I had available – since I really wanted to enjoy some cheese & crackers.

These crackers are not gluten free, but what I call transitional crackers. Although you could make them gluten free by using rice flour in place of the WW flour. I used kefir and raw apple cider vinegar to soak local whole wheat Vermont flour – from a farm we visited in Vermont this fall and then used garbanzo bean flour to cut down on some of the grains in this cracker. The garbanzo bean flour had a very strong smell and so I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out if I used exclusively garbanzo flour. I used over half of the dough to make crackers, and then used the other part to make a small loaf of bread. The bread was not great, but the crackers were wonderful! The bean flavor in the flour really complimented the nice crispy crackers. Here is my recipe inspired by both Gluten- Free Olive Oil Bread and Gluten-Free Cheddar and Sesame Crackers from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

Seedy Garbanzo Crackers (NOT Gluten-free)

INGREDIENTS:

1 ½ TBS yeast

1 TBS sea salt

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp raw apple cider vinegar

2 large organic eggs

½ cup of homemade kefir

2 cups filtered water

3 cups whole wheat flour

3 cups garbanzo bean flour

½ cup corn starch

Cracker toppings: seeds: white or black sesame, fennel, flax, etc, salt, za’atar spice or any other spices or dried herbs you like.

METHOD:

1) Whisk together flours, cornstarch, yeast and salt, and put in a large lidded bowl.

2) Combine all the liquid ingredients and gradually mix with the dry ingredients using a spoon, or 14 cup food processor.

3) Cover (not airtight) and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for at least2 hours, but better for those with grain intolerance, to let it rest for 12 hours and up to 24 hours.

4) The dough can be used immediately after its initial rise or you can refrigerate in the lidded container and use it over the next 7 days. The flavor will be better if you wait for at least 24 hours of refrigeration.

On Baking Day:

1) Thirty minutes before baking time preheat the oven to 400 F.

2) Cut off an orange sized piece of dough, place dough on a piece of parchment paper or a silicone mat. Then cover with more parchment paper or plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin and roll until you have a 1/16^th inch rectangle. Peel off the top layer or wrap or paper, and place the dough on top of the paper or mat onto baking sheet.

3) Using a pizza cutter gently score the dough into the shape you want the crackers (be careful not to cut the silicone mat, if that is what you are using).

4) Just before baking, using a pastry brush, paint the dough with water and sprinkle the top with black and toasted sesame seeds, salt and za’atar spice.

5) Bake for 15 minutes, or until crackers are golden brown. Allow them to cool before eating.

6) Serve with fromage blanc!

Are you looking for Finest Foodies Friday? If so, please go over to Foodieblogroll.com. From now on, all Finest Foodies Friday posts  will be featured over there! Click here to check out today’s featured blogs!

It has been almost two years since I have written a non-Finest Foodies Friday post on Friday on this blog! So I decided to post something simple, yet profound (for me, in any case). A few months ago I posted about Breakfast being the most important meal of the day. What I like to call my “Breakfast of Champions”.  In that post I mentioned that I soaked my grains or grasses (buckwheat/quinoa) for 24 hours before cooking them in my breakfast. The post also explains my reasons behind soaking. I got a lot of comments about how good the breakfast looked, but about how it was too time consuming with the soaking for most people to make everyday.

I have wanted to write a post addressing this for a while, so yesterday as I was doing my weekly soaking and dairy product making, Roberto reminded me that I should post about it. So here I am. Basically I am here to say that you can soak your grains, grasses and legumes and make dairy products on a weekly basis, without taking much time out of your busy schedule. In fact, doing this helps you to save time during the week, because you have food ready to go. As I was telling Amy the other day, that this is my idea of convenience food. You can check out her time saving efforts here.

Basically prep time for getting beans and grains soaking is about as long as it takes to boil a cup of water and mix it with apple cider vinegar and more water to cover. Then it does the work itself over 24 hours. If you want to take it further you can cook them to almost al dente, and then freeze them for throwing into quick meals later in the week. The beauty of that is that while they are cooking, you can be doing other things. You can even cook them in your crock pot, and you don’t even have to be home!

The same can be said for dairy products. Every week I make yogurt, kefir and some kind of cheese. If you let your milk come to room temperature before cooking it to make these items, the whole process takes about 5 minutes. Maybe 15 for yogurt. Then you let it sit for 12-24 hours, while you are doing other things.

This week I made creme fraiche, which is a delicious version of sour cream! It is well worth the extra few minutes in taste as well as health because you can monitor exactly what goes into it.

All you need is 2 days – and really only about an hour or two on both of those days of actual labor. If you don’t have that much time, you could break it up into ½ hour over several days. Between yesterday and the day before, I made 8 cups of homemade turkey stock in my crockpot. I also soaked chick peas, buckwheat, 2 kinds of rice and oatmeal AND I made yogurt, kefir and creme fraiche. If you can spare 2 hours a week, you can do this too! It is fun, easy, a way to save money, and much better tasting than what you can buy at the store in cans, as well as better for your health! So try it today!

To get you started on the benefits of soaking beans, grains, grasses and making your own stock, please check out: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

If you want to get into making dairy products, please check out: Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses

Have fun and enjoy!!!!

FIRST BREAKFAST – “Breakfast of Champions”

(My “Breakfast of Champions”)

Today I want to talk about Breakfast – the most important meal of the day. I have spent my whole life sort of at odds with it. I generally prefer something savory in the morning, but I also like something that is quick and easy to prepare, without a lot of cleanup. I like a breakfast that gives me good balanced energy – that keeps me feeling full and energetic until lunch time. I am not really a fan of typical breakfast foods like bagels, muffins or pancakes. I like eggs, but cleaning the pan deters me from cooking them everyday – and I don’t like to rely on the microwave for an everyday meal. I avoid the micro as much as possible. Until recently, I never really worried much about breakfast, but lately it has taken a place of importance.

For the past few months I have become a total work-out-a-holic. I hate the gym, and have never joined one, but I do work out a lot at home. So now, my breakfast needs to stand up to and fuel me for the intense workouts I do 5-6 days a week (whether it is Combat Hapkido at the dojo or heavy weight lifting, strength training and intense cardio at home). It has become an important part of my lifestyle – something I really enjoy, makes me feel good, and keeps me healthy and fit. Plus I am married to a Sardinian – the first “Barbarians” so I might as well start looking the part! But, anyway,  I am not into all the supplements, or weight machines at the gym. I want to do it myself, with real food, a balanced diet and my own body.

So I tried to work first with my tastes. Some mornings I get a craving for last night’s chili or even a hot dog (grass-fed that is). I have tried protein bars and shakes, smoothies, cereal, oatmeal, and toast with all the toppings you can imagine. But nothing ever really cut it. So I made it a goal of mine to re-think breakfast and come up with something I could rely on, and also change up without a lot of hassle. I want to share with you three different breakfasts that really work for me in terms of flavor, nutritional value and energy giving elements.

The first one I want to share with you is what we call my “Special Breakfast” here at home, but really it is my breakfast of choice. I like to call it my “Breakfast of Champions”. Not that I am a champion or anything, but it has a wonderful balance of all the ingredients that are very energy giving, protein, greens, some carbs and dairy.

It starts by soaking a huge batch of barley and buckwheat for 24 hours in warm water with some whey. The soaking allows enzymes and other friendly organisms to break down the phytic acid, an organic acid found in all grains (and legumes) that may make the digestion of grains (and legumes) harder for some people, like me! Once the grains have been rinsed, I store them in a leftover container in the fridge. I make enough for about a month’s worth of breakfasts. I also hard boil 6 eggs (I do this about once a week).

When I wake up in the AM, while the espresso is brewing, I sautee a palmful of barley in some extra virgin coconut oil that I got as a sample from Tropical Traditions (if you are a food blogger, you can also get a sample from them!). Then I add a nice handful of chopped greens, swiss chard, arugula or kale, cook until starting to wilt. At that point I add a chopped hard boiled egg and another palmful of the buckwheat, and cook until it is heated up. I put it all in a bowl, add some fresh ground pepper, flax sprinkles and homemade goat cheese. Sometimes if I have leftover sausage from the night before, or an odd hotdog, I will add that into the beginning of the mix. The amount of the various ingredients can be tweaked based on your needs. But this is the base. It is nice, balanced, tasty and very filling. Gives you lots of fuel too, and cooks up in under 5 minutes.

SECOND BREAKFAST – Homemade plain yogurt with toppings

The second breakfast I want to share is a sweeter one. On the rare occasions that I am in the mood for something sweet, I will take a half cup of homemade yogurt, and add to it either peanut butter and blueberries or pumpkin butter, peanut butter and a handful of nuts or seeds. But I usually prefer this as an after workout snack.

Sometimes I will cook up the buckwheat and barley, and eat it like a hot cereal with a nice liberal splash of homemade kefir and cinnamon. This is good with soaked steel cut oats too, but I prefer the buckwheat and barley to oats. This is also a good snack – and way better for you than pre-packaged cold cereal. You can enjoy it cold too – but you do have to cook the buckwheat ahead!

THIRD BREAKFAST (or maybe Elevensies for the Hobbits among us) – Buckwheat Pancakes

On weekends, when we have a quiet morning, I like making buckwheat pancakes. In general I am not a fan of pancakes or waffles at all. But I do enjoy crepes, and I found that I really love buckwheat pancakes – they are not as sweet, and not as “bready”.

To prepare the pancakes, I soak a mixture of buckwheat and whole wheat flour overnight in ½ cup of filtered water and ¼ cup of whey. In the morning, I mix it with ½ cup of almond milk, 1 egg and some cinnamon and nutmeg. These pancakes are good with pumpkin butter, peanut butter, butter and Vermont maple syrup, or even nutella (that is Roberto’s favorite way!).

Make sure to get in your fruits (and veggies)

I always accompany these breakfasts with a bowl of fruit. Generally whatever is in season – watermelon, papaya, cantaloupe, blueberries, orange segments, apple slices, pear slices, peach slices, etc.

These are just some ideas of how to make homemade breakfasts at home that are delicious, fast, easy and full of nutrition, perfect for athletes, or just active people. All you need is a little planning. I have been at battle with breakfast in years, but I think I finally have my bases covered.

What do you like to eat for breakfast that keeps you going?

Body By Basic Homemade Goodness

If you are like me, you know the joys of reading cookbooks cover to cover like a novel. Looking at the photos, skimming the recipes, planning future meals and letting the creativity flow is one of my favorite pastimes. I have an entire bookshelf full of cookbooks in my kitchen. I have made at least one or two recipes out of all of them, but I like to keep things interesting, and generally I use cookbooks as inspiration for my cooking, rather than a step-by-step guide. Now with all the wonderful food blogs I have at my fingertips, I find myself using them as creative fodder more often, so in the spirit of conservation I have really tried to limit my cookbook purchases.

However, sometimes, a cookbook will really speak to me and when I purchase it, it will get a place of honor on my counter-top cookbook stand. Generally that spot is reserved for Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day but now it has a roommate Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. Several people over a short time period told me that I should check this book out. I remember several patients we had at the holistic healthcare office I used to work at talking about Weston Price and fermented and cultured foods, but I never really explored it back then. However, based on all these recommendations, I decided to buy the book. I spent several days reading the introduction which discusses at length the similarities of food preparation (not necessarily ingredients) from traditional cultures all over the world. It also discusses at length the major food groups and gives a lot of information to think about. Now I know some people might read this and be converted right away. I am a skeptical animal by nature, and so a firm believer in moderation as opposed to dogma of any kind. But I have found a lot of useful information in this book, as well as confirmation of a lot of clues and messages I have gotten from my own body when I choose various foods to eat. So for me, much of this book rings true. Then there are the recipes – all of which I want to eat! Well maybe not the organ meat section, I have had quite enough of that to last me a lifetime. But the emphasis here is on real, whole, traditional foods – not new fangled, or processed foods -and some of the foods that fall into that category might be surprising to people – yet it does ring true. It really explores some of the information we, as consumers accept as reality, but may not be the truth of the matter.

For the past 2 months I have been exploring a gluten free diet. But I am not convinced yet that gluten is my culprit. I think my culprit is grains in general and Nourishing Traditions gives lots of information for why that theory may be true. It also gives a lot of suggestions for fermenting grains (and legumes) or soaking them in vinegar, buttermilk, yogurt or kefir as our ancestors did. There are examples from all over the world in this book to support this claim. The soaking allows enzymes and other friendly organisms to break down the phytic acid, an organic acid found in all grains (and legumes) that may make the digestion of grains (and legumes) harder for some people. This sounded like an experiment I wanted to try – not only because I wanted to find a way to digest grains better, but because I really like kefir, yogurt, vinegar and buttermilk, and thought the flavor might actually enhance the grain dishes. I have to say I had a lot of success in the past few weeks with bulgur, lentils and even oatmeal – something I have been trying to learn to like for years. After learning to soak lentils in warm water and apple cider vinegar, they have become so much easier to digest and are becoming a mainstay of our diet. This book has given Roberto and I the opportunity to actually enjoy foods that were previously not on the tummy friendly list. So just for that I am loving this book.

My favorite grain on the planet is buckwheat also known as kasha (which is not actually a wheat – but a grass). So I started the soaking experiment with buckwheat and lentils for dinner one night – serving them together as a pilaf. I served it with a modified version of Nourishing Traditions’ Moroccan Style Chicken (see my recipe after the cut) and roasted sweet potatoes. It was such a delicious meal – so filling and satisfying…and well, a breeze in the digestion department! I was feeling so inspired that night I starting soaking some Irish oats for breakfast the next day, and it was my best experience with oatmeal ever. I am not a convert yet, but I can see myself eating it more often. With all these successes, and so many other delicious recipes to try, I will most likely be featuring more and more of the recipes and ideas from this book.

Yesterday I ordered a bunch of cultures and cheese making supplies from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company so that I can begin making my own kefir, yogurt, buttermilk as well as some soft cheeses. Also, for more Nourishing Food ideas, I have found a great blog – The Nourished Kitchen authored by Jenny who is really a wealth of knowledge on this way of eating. I came across her blog a few months ago when she was doing a giveaway for a Kimchi and Sauerkraut (some of my favorite foods) Maker! I never wanted to win something so bad. I didn’t win, but that maker is certainly on my wish list, along with the CIA version of the Vitamix! In fact, I think I may to buy that maker today…it is under $30 and the only pickles I can find at the store now without corn syrup and dyes are $8 a jar – and I eat A LOT of pickles! Anyway, as you can see I am really excited about all these new discoveries. So likely this will be a topic of discussion in the future.

As I told Hank Cardello, author of Stuffed Nation during a very enjoyable phone conversation yesterday, I am still on the road of discovery about what “healthy eating” means to me. I don’t have all the answers yet, but the learning process sure has been fun, tasty and eye opening so far, and I am already about 8 years into the discovery process with so much more to learn. Speaking of Mr. Cardello and Stuffed Nation, keep your eye out for an intriguing giveaway we will be doing together in September to help spread the message about food policy and the fight against obesity in the US.

*Update: I am really happy to see the responses and comments on this article. If definitely answers my question as to whether these kinds of posts are valuable/interesting to my readers! Your comments always help me to decide which kinds of articles to write, and although I get great responses to my recipes, it seems that I always get very thought provoking comments on these posts I do on food quality. So I am moved to do more of these in the future. For more articles on this topic, check out my “Health and Wellness” category (categories can be found on the left hand side bar). Thank you all for comments!

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