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February 24, 2012

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Making refrigerator pickles

Do you know what can be wonderfully tasty? Pickles! Not just any pickles, but ones that you make yourself from in-season local veggies.

After hitting up our local farmer’s market, we came home with gorgeous cauliflower and carrots with the intent to turn them into pickles.

Beautiful multi-colored carrots. They tasted like candy.

First carrots I ever purchased with the tops still attached!

Delicious white, purple, and green cauliflower.

While you can make refrigerator pickles from scratch, I chose to use mixes that I picked up during a trip to Cook Forest, Pennsylvania previously.

Ready to go pickle mixes

We also have a collection of flip top glass jars that are perfect for refrigerator pickles. I filled them up with a combination of carrots and cauliflower and then modified the recipe to make a partial batch. The mix called for a gallon of vegetables, which is way more than I had.

Veggies chopped and ready to pickle.

 

The dill pickle mix has a few more days to marinate, but the bread and butter type mix has already been taste tested and given a seal of approval. I’m sure they won’t last long.

Ready to marinate!

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February 3, 2012

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Growing mushrooms in your own home

For a gift this holiday season I was given the back to the roots mushroom growing kit.  It’s designed to allow you to grow two crops of oyster mushrooms at home.

It comes with a plastic bag filled with mushroom spawn (I guess this is mushroom speak for roots) and coffee grounds. You cut it open, soak it in water for a day, and mist twice a day and you’ll start to see mushrooms grow!  See pictures below for the progression. They grew impressively fast.

The trickiest part was deciding when to harvest the mushrooms. The directions that came with the box and the directions on the site are different. The box says to harvest at 1.5″ in diameter and before they start to curl, but doesn’t tell you if you should harvest them all at once. The website tell you to harvest when they are 2 – 3″ in diameter and to harvest them all at once. Anyhow, I harvested them once they started to curl. I didn’t get as many out of the batch as I expected, but I did turn them into a delicious stirfry.

I think I’ll try using the mushroom starter in a container outside after I grow my second batch to see if they will establish themselves. The kit is a little pricey for only two batches of mushrooms, but it is definitely cool so it would be awesome if I can figure out how to reuse it.

See the photos:

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January 31, 2012

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baking, bread, Food & Drink

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Making no knead bread

I recently stumbled across this recipe from five years ago, published in the New York Times about how to make bread without kneading. And it includes yeast. I had never made bread with yeast other than in a bread maker before and I was anxious to try this method after getting a dutch oven as a gift.

My new dutch oven is 3 quarts and the recipe makes reference to a 6 to 8 quart dutch oven so I decided to try to divide the recipe in half. I tried this twice. The first time was a disaster after just halving the ingredients exactly. The second time I used more yeast and more water and had better results. However, I decided that it would be better with actual bread flour instead of whole wheat flour and that I should use fresh yeast. After getting the new ingredients I went straight for the whole batch the first try. Huge difference! The 3 quart dutch oven worked just fine. I also only let the dough sit for about 6 hours instead of 12 before kneading it just a bit and letting it rise for about 3 hours instead of 2. It was hard to work the bread’s schedule into my schedule this weekend.

Initial dough – it’s a bit shaggy:

After kneading into a round shape and allowing to rise under a cotton towel (in a bowl so that the dough rises up instead of flat):

After baking, the bread is beautifully crusty:

The crust is quite thick, but after wrapping in foil and refrigerating the loaf, it wasn’t quite so hard. Just out of the oven:

You can see the bread is light and fluffy inside. Very chewy and quite delicious especially when toasted:

I definitely plan to make this again! Probably will try adding some herbs like rosemary or thyme sometime soon.

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January 23, 2012

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Making miso soup

For a while I’ve had some miso in the fridge. I knew I wanted to try making something with it again so I settled on making soup. I found this recipe from Vegetarian Times that appealed to me because of the variety of vegetables it includes. Of course, I made the decision to change it up so I got extra cremini mushrooms  in addition to the oysters, an extra white onion, a poblano pepper, and went for mustards greens instead of spinach since they were particularly pretty at the store and they’re a winter crop. The grocery store also conspired against me by not having any fresh ginger OR frozen edamame. The nerve!  Of course I also doubled or perhaps tripled the recipe so that it would last all week (and then some it turns out, must remember that I’m only feeding two people).

Anyhow, my version went something like this:

Slice 3 large carrots, one poblano pepper, onion, scallions (AKA green onions), and mushrooms and cook in minimal oil for a few minutes.

Add lots of water to the pot, bring to a boil. Add frozen peas in place of edamame, continue to cook for a few more minutes

Add mustard greens since they are a little tougher than spinach and I assume take longer to cook than the spinach called for in the recipe. Cook a few minutes.

Reduce heat, add rice noodles that had been soaking in water and powdered ginger. I just tend to wing it with ginger since I’m a fan of the spice.

Blend a bunch of brown miso in some warm water with a mini whisk or fork. Add miso, sesame oil, and soy sauce to pot.  Allow to simmer for a while. Taste and adjust flavors as needed. Of course, soups are always better the next day. We ended up adding sriracha to our individual bowls to make them a bit spicy.

Turned out pretty well, overall. Definitely more flavorful than many other soups I’ve made. And probably pretty healthy with all of those pretty veggies…

 

 

 

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January 17, 2012

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Edamame hummus, a delicious color of green

The thing I like best about edamame hummus (or spread if you insist hummus is only made of chick peas) is its beautiful light green color. OK, really what I like best is the taste but the color is a close second, especially since my kitchen is basically painted the same color. It’s also seriously easy to make since I don’t add any extra flavoring.

Ingredient list:

  • Frozen edamame
  • Olive oil
  • Plain yogurt
  • Garlic cloves
  • Squeeze of lemon
  • Sea or kosher salt
  • Herbs to taste (I used parsley and thyme)

Instructions:

Cook edamame according to instructions. I buy the kind that steams in the bag in the microwave. Add the entire bag (or less if you want to use edamame for something else) to your food processor. Also add minced garlic – I used 3 big cloves, which is pretty garlic-y, juice from a quarter of a lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and herbs to taste. Add about 3 dollops of yogurt and turn on the food processor for about a minute. Check the hummus. Continue to add yogurt and run the food processor until you reach the desired consistency.

Before processing:

After processing – yum!

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January 8, 2012

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Kale crisps… learning how to make them right

Kale is delicious, as I’ve mentioned before. Early in 2011 I started reading about making kale chips / crisps and tried it myself. Using my oven, they came out tasty but you had to eat them right away or they didn’t stay all that crispy. Fast forward to now. As a gift this year, I got a Nesco food dehydrator. Technically, I got it to make my dog sweet potato chews, which are quite pricey to buy. I will try to make those soon and post my results. My food dehydrator is simple, with just an off and on switch, no temperature settings that many dehydrators seem to have. I wasn’t able to find out how long I should dry the kale, so I had to experiment. I tried making both the curly and flat leaf kale and I found that the curly leaf kale definitely tastes better.

Kale crisps recipe

Ingredients:

  • Curly leaf kale
  • Olive oil
  • Spices – salt and pepper are a must. Try also adding paprika or your other favorite spice blend.

Method:

Rinse kale thoroughly. Make sure to check the underside of the leaves for any bugs. Tear it into pieces about 1.5 – 2 inches. Don’t bother with the small pieces on the stems because they will wither away and just look like crumbs. Dry the kale – a salad spinner works well for this.

Put about half of the kale into a large bowl. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil and add some spices. Roll up your sleeves and use your hands to knead the kale to get the oil to coat the kale leaves. I found that using a spoon didn’t coat the leaves well enough. After you have kneaded in the oil, the kale will have wilted a bit and now you can put the other half of the kale in. If you had plenty of oil already, you can just continue to knead to spread the oil. If needed, add another drizzle of oil. Continue to add spices to taste.

After the oil and spices are spread, arrange the kale on the dehydrator trays. Don’t layer too much, but you can definitely crowd it on the trays.

Then, turn on the dehydrator. After about 3 hours, the kale should be done!

Store in an air tight container and enjoy!

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January 1, 2012

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Making apple crisp, a simple but delicious dessert

I used to make an apple crumb pie for Thanksgiving. It was good, but I don’t really like to mess around with real pie crusts so I always just bought a frozen crust. That was probably the downfall of my pie.

Then one magical day, I discovered the world of making apple crisp. Ok, so someone else actually made it and I was so enamored that I had to have the recipe. She obliged and now it’s one of my favorite fall and winter desserts to make. I’ve changed up the recipe a bit to add more spice of course.

Apple filling:

  • 5 – 6 Medium to large apples – I like to use sweet apples like Gala, Braeburn, Jonagold, Cameo, Fuji, etc.
  • 1/4 cup water
  • Cinnamon and ground ginger to taste

Topping:

  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened / melted
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • Cinnamon and ground ginger to taste

Directions:

Chop apples. Peel them if you like, but I like to leave the peels on. Place in a baking dish and toss with water, cinnamon and ginger.

Combine topping ingredients. Stir together by hand until combined. No mixer required.

 

Spread topping on top of apples. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until apples are soft. Hard apple cider in a Christmas glass is optional, but highly recommended for the cook.

It was so good I didn’t even get a picture of it before it was partially eaten.

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December 29, 2011

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Making a quinoa loaf

The holidays this year have been crazy. We didn’t even have time to make our typical multi course holiday meal to enjoy slowly throughout many days. Instead I settled on making one dish that was somewhat festive. To avoid using meat, I found this whole foods recipe for a quinoa loaf with mushrooms and peas.  I didn’t get that many pictures, but you basically make a paste with oatmeal and chickpeas and then stir in the mushrooms, peas, onion, sun dried tomatoes, and quinoa. To bake it, the mixture is pressed into a loaf pan:

After baking:

The loaf was good, but definitely go heavy on the spices and add any additional spices that you like. To reheat slices, I first heated them in the microwave and then browned the outside on a pan so that it would be toasted. We added either some hot sauce or tapenade to the top.

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December 27, 2011

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Caramel apple oatmeal cookies… a perpetual hit!

If you ever want to make cookies that are guaranteed to get raves, try these caramel apple oatmeal cookies. They take a bit of work to make but the result is delicious. The trickiest part is cooking them long enough. Either my oven isn’t hot enough or the time quoted on the recipe is way too short. To get them fully cooked, I ended up baking them for at least 16 – 18 minutes.

Assembling the ingredients:

Chop up the oatmeal in the food processor. I really like this step because I’m not a huge fan of oatmeal cookies, but if you chop it, the texture is much nicer.

Chop up the apples into little bits:

Mix the wet and dry ingredients:

After mixing in the apples and caramel bits, the dough is chilled for an hour or more and then formed into round balls and placed on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Extra caramel bits are added to the top of the dough for presentation.

After baking, they are ready to eat! This particular batch was actually under cooked. You need to make sure that the tops are a golden brown. Even under baked, they are quite delicious.

These cookies are quite soft and get softer by the day because of the moisture in the apples. I found it best to store them in the fridge.

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November 18, 2011

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baking, beer, bread, cooking, Food & Drink

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A dinner made with beer

Recently we were on a salad eating kick, and we always like to have a slice of nice bread with our salad. However, we were out of bread so I decided to whip up a batch of beer bread yet again. This time I tried a recipe from Farmgirl Fare. I made the Garlic Herb version with a bottle of Avery White Rascal.

I skipped the glaze. It turned out pretty well, especially toasted with some butter.

Because it’s starting to feel like fall, I settled on making french onion soup for dinner this week. I wanted to make a vegetarian recipe, so I modified this recipe from the Craftzine blog. My modifications were:

  • Cooking the onions with a small amount of vegetable broth rather than a slew of butter
  • Using a bottle of Maredsous along with the vegetable broth to make the stock, instead of sherry. I used 4 cups of vegetable broth, one bottle of beer and probably about one extra cup of water to make sure we would have enough broth to go with all of the onion
  • I added dried thyme to the broth for some extra flavor
So many onions:
After simmering with the beer vegetable broth:
I then ladled the onion soup into a soup crock, topped it with a slice of the beer bread mentioned earlier, and covered it with cheese. After baking in the oven for a few minutes and then using the broiler to finish the top, it was ready to eat!