Words- Family Lexicon and Bonus Recipe!

One of my favorite classes in college was linguistics. I found studying the origins of words and the history of words fascinating. I also loved the change of pronunciations and the change of meaning interesting too.

For example, it really isn’t very kind to call someone “nice.” (Did you notice I chose the word kind instead of nice?) Most people use the word “nice” to refer to kind or good. That isn’t the root of the word though! Think about it, when someone is set up on a blind date and they ask about the person and with a slight hesitation and whine the other person says, “Well, he is nice…” What does that convey? I thought so! Historically, the word “nice” referred to delicate, over scrupulous, fastidious, week, foolish, easily injured, or “perceiving accurately the smallest faults, errors or irregularities.” (There are many more definitions in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary, but these are just a few.

All this talk brings me to the definition of two words in my home: Sawdust, and Trash soup.

First, Sawdust. Most people think of sawdust and think of the left over bits of wood that are created when cutting with a saw. In our home, it refers to a non-dairy parmesan cheese substitute we make. It is made with nutritional yeast, almonds, and sea salt. It tastes an awful lot like parmesan cheese and makes a great addition to pasta and Caesar dressing (non-dairy of course). The etymology of sawdust: A couple of years ago, I made some “sawdust” and placed it on the table. One of the children asked what it was and my husband answered, “sawdust,” since it resembles sawdust in color and appearance. It has stuck ever since.

Trash Soup refers to vegetable broth.  Etymology: Last Thanksgiving, before I went to bed the night before, I realized I had forgotten to buy veggie broth for the various dishes I was making. I remembered the peels and stems I had in the freezer so I ran downstairs and threw them in the crockpot with water. The next morning, Tiger came downstairs and asked what I was making. I told him I was making, “trash soup.” He was absolutely horrified and asked me to be serious. I then re-stated, “trash soup!” Once I showed him, he thought I had lost my marbles until I explained that really it was veggie broth. Then he had fun asking for some trash soup for the various recipes.

So, in honor of Make-It Monday, Here is the recipe for Sawdust!

Coarsely grind up 1/3 cup almonds. Blend with 2 tsp nutritional yeast flakes (I like to grind the yeast flakes at the same time I am grinding my almonds so it mixes well and the yeast flakes get powdered) and 1/4 tsp sea salt. Serve as you would parmesan cheese.

Make It Monday- Roasted Veggie Enchiladas

One thing my dad’s family did for Christmas Eve was make Enchiladas and Feijoada for dinner. This year, I resurrected the Enchiladas for Christmas Eve dinner and they were delicious! For Make-It Monday, I am sharing my recipe. I hope you like it. Quantities below are for 6-8 enchiladas. I made quite a bit more than this by increasing the potatoes, mushrooms, and sauce quantities. I also didn’t use the whole container of ricotta. I made 28.

1 onion, roughly chopped
1/2 red bell pepper and 1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
2 red potatoes cubed
1 medium sweet potato, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 small head broccoli, roughly chopped
1 small head cauliflower, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons olive oil
6-8 corn tortillas (8 inches), warmed
1.5 cups enchilada sauce (I use both red and green sauce- Trader Joe’s Salsa Verde watered down works wonderfully in a pinch. I loved the Sweet Creek sauces we used.)
1 small container whole milk ricotta
shredded cheese (I used a mix of raw cheddar and goat milk cheddar)
chili powder

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chop the veggies into small uniform pieces, about 1/4-1/2 inch. Things that cook faster like broccoli and cauliflower can be a little larger than the things that cook slowly like potatoes and sweet potatoes. Toss in a bowl with some olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet in a thin layer in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until tender and some of the edges are beginning to brown. Stir a couple of times during the roasting to prevent burning and to evenly roast.

Here are my chopped veggies in 2 pans ready to mix.

After roasting, season with chili powder and adjust the salt and pepper. Cool while setting up your assembly line for the enchiladas. Turn down oven to 350.

Warm the tortillas before assembly. I use the stove to heat both sides of the tortilla. They could alternately be wrapped in foil and heated with the veggies until warmed through.

Prepare your baking dish with several tablespoons of enchilada sauce on the bottom of the pan. Spread a teaspoonful of enchilada sauce on the tortilla and spread it around. Add a small teaspoon of ricotta cheese and spread on one side of the tortilla. Spoon in some roasted veggies and sprinkle with a tiny amount of cheese. Roll and place in the baking dish seam side down. It really helps if the seam is placed in such a way that the tortilla wants to unroll towards the other rolls. Note the enchilada sauce on the bottom of the pan. 

After filling all the tortillas, pour enchilada sauce on top. Sprinkle a little cheese on top to. These enchiladas are ready for the oven.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted. These are out of the oven.

Serve warm with Spanish rice and salad.

Other bloggers are participating in Make-It Monday. Feel free to link at Kathy’s Cluttered Mind.

Make It Monday- Chili Baked Potatoes

I was having a super busy day and B was working from home. I realized at 10 that I had to feed everyone lunch and we were out of bread. I also realized that I didn’t have time to do much for lunch. So, I pulled out my trusty thermal cooker and I made chili and baked potatoes. YUM! Since I was in a hurry and didn’t have time to chop veggies, I used some Thrive veggies I had on hand. I learned that the thermal cooker is the best place to rehydrate freeze dried beans. I find that the freeze dried beans can be burntish tasting when boiled but thermal cooked, they taste fresh and delicious!

Step 1- scrub potatoes and place whole in the bottom of the thermal cooker. I chose to use Yukon gold potatoes but russets and reds work too.

 

Step 2- cover with water and bring to a boil for 2-4 minutes. (Make sure that the top part of the pot fits on top of the potatoes and water so air space is used up).

Step 3- Mix together some freeze dried onions, carrots, beans, and mushrooms (fresh could be used for sure, but I was in a huge hurry so I used some freeze dried food storage). Add the correct amount of water and some chili powder and bring to a boil.

Step 4- Place both pots into the thermal cooker and close. Come back in 2 or more hours. Season the chili with a little salt and maybe some left over tomato sauce. Adjust the chili seasoning if necessary.

  

Step 5- Enjoy!

Make it Monday- Onion Honey Cough Syrup

I am going to try to create a “Make it Monday” post each week. Try being the operative word here! So, for the first Monday, here goes!

Cough syrup is nasty stuff. It tastes bad, has artificial colors and flavors, and usually is meant to suppress a cough. Given that coughs are the body’s way of expelling harmful elements in the lungs, I don’t believe suppression is the answer. I believe that soothing and healing as well as supporting the cough to be productive is a better way to handle a cough. So, I make onion honey cough syrup for my family. It is super easy and contains a minimum of two ingredients everyone has in their kitchen: Onion and Honey.

Chop 1 large onion.

Place in the top of a double boiler.      

Cover the onion with honey. The onions just need to be covered by about 1/4 inch or so.

Place on the stove and simmer the water on low for 2-4 hours or until the onions are done. I like to use a lower heat and cook longer so mine takes closer to 4 hours. You will know the onions are done when they are translucent, papery, shrunken, and have little to no flavor.

After 1 hour: 

After 2 hours:

3Hours- Still large chunks but they are getting a little more shrunken.

4 Hours: Notice the onion is now shriveled a bit and if you look at the pot behind, they are not as closely packed. Strain and bottle. Store in the refrigerator or ad d 25% vegetable glycerin to extend the shelf life and store in the cupboard. 

Additional herbs can be added to this syrup when it is placed in the double boiler. Thyme is one I sometimes use. Generally speaking, I recommend only using herbs not roots or bark since honey doesn’t extract roots and bark very well.

Super Delicious Cranberry Sauce

I love cranberry sauce. It can’t be fall without cranberry sauce. I can eat good cranberry sauce by the spoonful. As a kid, my mom would serve it and I would eat it for a snack plain. I don’t think there is a such thing as eating too much of it. Turkey, when I still ate it, had one purpose- to hold cranberry sauce. Forget turkey with cranberry sauce. Nope. For me, it was cranberry sauce with turkey.

When I was first married and went to my husband’s for Thanksgiving, I was horrified to learn that his family opened a can of jelled stuff and no one ate it. Blasphemy! I didn’t care if all the other dishes were nothing like I was used to, but I really truly had to have cranberry sauce. B warned me that if I made it no one would eat it since no one linked it… thankfully he was wrong. I made cranberry sauce at my in-laws and many of the family not only ate it but LIKED it! It became my responsibility to make cranberry sauce when we gathered for Thanksgiving the next time.

Of all the things to cook for Thanksgiving, I must say, cranberry sauce is the easiest! So, here is my recipe. I love it any time of the holiday season, so I will share it even though Thanksgiving shopping has been done and everyone is already making their preparations and feasting.

1 bag cranberries, washed (pick out any soft berries)

1 c honey

1 c water or orange juice

1 green apple diced finely (I keep the skin on)

1 small can mandarin oranges

In a saucepan, combine the cranberries, honey, water, and apple. Bring to a boil being careful not to boil over. Turn down and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the berries are bursting and saucy and the apples are soft. Let cool completely and chill. Stir in mandarin slices and serve chilled.

Elderberry Syrup

There are lots of tutorials on how to make Elderberry Syrup online. Some have add-ins and some don’t. Whenever I am making an herbal preparation, I always consider those who are in need of the herbs and I tailor things to them. Thus, as I was preparing this syrup and was considering my family and the respiratory congestion they are fighting, I made some tweaks. Here is what I did:

4oz elderberries (about a cup)                                                           

1 T cinnamon chips (not sweet candy, but broken bits of cinnamon bark)

1T cloves

1/2 T golden seal root

1 T Echinacea root

2 inches fresh ginger thinly sliced

1/2 organic lemon thinly sliced

1 T chamomile flower

1 T thyme

3 cups water

1 cup raw honey

Simmer the elder berries, cloves, goldenseal, Echinacea, ginger, and cinnamon on low for 30 minutes.

Take off heat and stir in chamomile, thyme, and lemon slices.

Let sit until room temperature. Strain.

Reheat just enough to melt  honey in- you don’t want to go above 110 degrees or it kills the honey. Stir in honey.

Bottle in a dark colored bottle.  

Makes just under 1 qt of elderberry syrup.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nurse, registered dietician, or other medical provider. I am a Master Herbalist and teach about the historical and traditional usage of herbs. Nothing posted on this post or anywhere else on this blog is intended as medical advice. This post is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition.

I Love when Dinner Cooks Itself!

Ok, so maybe dinner didn’t totally cook itself, but pretty close. For dinner tonight, we had garden fresh corn chowder and a raspberry rhubarb “crisp” made in my thermal cooker. I started with the garden corn chowder from Hezzi-D’s to make a vegan corn chowder with a few more veggies… 

My recipe:

4 c. + 1 c frozen organic corn kernels,
4 c. water
1/3 c almonds
1 t. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large onion, diced
2 medium red bell pepper, diced
2 medium zucchini, diced
3 small carrots, diced
1 T broth powder (I make mine with some spices and nutritional yeast using the recipe for Traci Seller’s broth powder from a 2010 article from Herbal Legacy. One copy of the recipe is here.)
6 fingerling potatoes sliced in 1/4 slices
Fines Herbes

Blend 4 c corn, water, broth powder, and almonds in a blender until smooth. (I used a vitamix) Sautee onions in a little olive oil in the bottom of the 7L thermal cooker pot. Add in the rest of the veggies for a few minutes. Add the corn and milk mixture and bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes.

While waiting for the chowder to boil, I made some crisp for the top pot.

3 stalks rhubarb diced
1/2 c chopped apples (I used freeze dried)
1/2 c raspberries (I used freeze dried)
4 T rapidura
3/4 c coconut milk
1 3/4 c water
1 c steel cut oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/4-1/3 c maple syrup

Stir together everything except the vanilla and maple syrup. Bring to a boil and boil 2 minutes. Turn off heat, stir in vanilla and cover.

Place the small pot in the large pot and seal in cooker. Stir in maple syrup before serving.

       

If it hadn’t have been a super busy night, I would have served a green salad too.

To Feed an Army or The Magic Rice Pot

I love the rice from my thermal cooker- light and fluffy! It doesn’t stick together like boiled rice but fluffs like steamed white rice from a restaurant.

On Sunday I planned to serve taco salad for dinner right after church. I didn’t want to have to come home and make rice, so I did it in the thermal cooker. I figured if I made a large batch, I could  portion some out for lunches for my husband. Another reason for cooking a large batch is air is the enemy of the thermal cooker- the more air the cooker has in the pot, the less efficient it is.

Saratoga Jacks recommends 5 cups of rice and 8 cups of water for the bottom and then something in the top pot or 2.5 cups rice and 4 cups water in the top pot and something else in the bottom. Because I didn’t have anything in the top, I added another portion of rice to the bottom pot. I cooked 7.5 c rice and 12 c water. It was enough to feed my family of 7 for dinner and only 1/4 of the pot was used!… then B scooped out enough for 3 lunches. The pot was still half full! After that, I scooped a bunch out on 2 large cutting boards (think cookie sheets) and froze it in an thin layer. This rice I broke into pieces into Ziploc bags for future quick meals. Leftover was still another quart of rice!

Ordinarily my family could eat 3 cups of dry rice in a meal but by steaming it in the thermal cooker it went much further. As I scooped out more and more and more rice, I kept thinking about the Magic Porridge pot story… In this case it was time to tell the cooker to “Stop little pot stop!”

I wish I had a picture after the dinner was served and 3 lunch portions scooped out- I took one but it got deleted :(

Holiday Cooking

What is a holiday without special holiday cooking? When we moved far away from family and it was just me, BC (my husband) and 2 kids, I didn’t want to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner. What was the point? It was just for us! They all protested and I got roped into hours in the kitchen.

So, what was the point? The point was that traditions are important. In a lot of ways, we have established new traditions for our Thanksgiving meal, but we have kept a few old favorites from when BC and I were younger. Now, our children are growing up with their own traditions for Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

I became vegetarian/vegan about 8.5 years ago when I realized our daughter was allergic to all animal products other than fish. So, what were we to do without the turkey BC and I grew up with? (BC still is not vegetarian but eats a mostly vegetarian diet). He didn’t care what we did as long as he could have mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing. All I cared about was the cranberry sauce made from scratch… Thank goodness for the internet. I found recipes for vegan gravy, an incredibly yummy not too sweet yam and apple baked dish so we could have special yams without being overly sweet (I have never liked candied yams), a lentil and grain loaf, stuffing (which I make with sprouted grain bread from scratch) and a vegan pumpkin pie that does NOT have tofu in it. We also add in a salad and are quite happy with our meal. Last year we added a really delicious Brussels sprout recipe as well. We just omit the bacon.

I was going to share some of the other recipes, but I can’t find my cookbook! Oh dear, I better start searching because my family just might mutiny if they don’t have their traditional fare.

I did manage to find the Pumpkin Pie recipe though.

This recipe really should be made the day before so it can set and get firmer but I have succeeded the day of. Also, it is a very flavorful filling. You may wish to reduce the spice- I don’t.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Have ready, one 9" unbaked pastry crust (I make my own with sprouted grain a pinch of sugar, and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice)

Blend in blender:
2 c. solid-pack canned pumpkin (if you use home-cooked pumpkin, drain it for
several hours hanging in a cloth bag, so it's thick like canned pumpkin)
1 c. non-dairy milk (preferably a rich soymilk) (I make rich almond)
3/4 c. brown sugar or Sucanat
1/4 c. cornstarch
1 T. molasses or blackstrap molasses
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. EACH ground ginger, nutmeg and salt
1/4 tsp. ground allspice or cloves
Pour the filling into the pastry and bake 60 minutes, covering the edges with foil if they begin to brown too quickly. Cool on a rack, then refrigerate overnight before serving.

Recipe by Bryanna Clark Grogan from www.vegsource.com

 

As for Christmas, we don’t have our menu as set in stone, but we usually have a southwest pea soup made with yams, chili, and lime juice.

So what do you do?

Sprouted Spelt Potato Bread… an experiment in baking

Tiger loves to watch Chef Brad’s Fusion Grain cooking show on our Roku player. He has always enjoyed cooking, but now at 10.5 he wants to cook more and more. This is good… and bad. Mostly he does a great job but sometimes he makes a big mess and gets a little too creative.
I remember I was first taught to bake bread as a married adult. Prior to that, I was freaked out to try. Bread was hard right? It was easy to mess up right? Tiger on the other hand is fearless in the kitchen. I think a large part of it comes from the fact that I don’t often follow recipes to a T coupled with I do make a lot from scratch including pie crust and occasionally bread. I was never afraid of making anything that I remember my mom making- but bread and pie crust were supposed to be too hard according to everyone I met. (For the record my mom says she made bread and I know she made pie crust but I don’t remember the bread and I don’t remember seeing her do either one).
So how did we come upon Sprouted Spelt Potato bread and what does this have to do with Chef Brad? Chef Brad made a spelt potato bread on the show. It looks so easy- dump the flour and the potato water in the Bosch mixer and voila- bread! Now he knew he couldn’t do that because I can’t eat flour and flour products. I can on the other hand eat sprouted grains so he had to start with sprouted flour… that in and of itself can create some challenges and changes with bread making. Furthermore, he wanted to duplicate Chef Brad’s recipe… but he wanted to use a gluten free rice sourdough starter instead of the sourdough starter called for in the original recipe. The big problem with that was that he had no idea that  sourdough starter would take several days and he wanted to make the bread ASAP! I also have no idea how it would work to start with a GF rice sourdough starter and then add sprouted spelt flour… someday we will try but this was not the time. I have a recipe for 100% sprouted wheat bread but it uses half moist grain and half dry sprouted grain that you then grind. In order to help him make this bread, I was going to have to get a little creative and help him.
We started with Traci’s Transformational Cookbook recipe for Sprouted Wheat bread and referred to several recipes for conventional bread   and then we changed it- almost entirely. Really the only thing we kept the same was the method.
Prep work:
Soak spelt overnight, drain, rinse, and dehydrate. Then grind and sift out 5 cups of flour.   
Boil 1 cubed potato in 2 1/2 cups of water. Measure out 1 cup water and take another cup and blend it with the potato.
1 cup hot potato water (105 or so degrees)
1T plus 1/4tsp Active Dry yeast
1 T honey
2tsp sea salt
4 1/2-5 cups sprouted spelt flour
1 T olive oil plus more to oil the surface, pan, and hands
Mix 1 cup hot potato water with honey, yeast, and oil. Let sit for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place 3 cups of the sprouted spelt flour in a large bowl and mix in sea salt. Pour the yeast water and the blended potato water into the bowl. Stir to combine. Slowly add the remaining flour. After about 4 cups or so we turned it out on a well oiled board and kneaded the rest in with well oiled hands until he held together. Sprouted grain dough will be STICKY. If you knead it too long it will break down. Don’t knead more than 5 minutes or so. Shape into a well oiled pan and let rise until double- about 30 minutes depending on temperature. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes until browned on top. For softer crust, rub all crusts with olive oil.
We put just a bit more than half of the dough in the loaf pan and the rest we pat into a quiche pan. Tiger really wanted to make the rosemary flat bread Chef Brad had made too. I didn’t know that he had recommended not rising the dough and baking on a pizza stone at 500 for 7-8 minutes so we let our flatbread rise (it didn’t get as puffy as the regular bread)  and baked it with the regular bread. To make the flat bread, Tiger made finger dimples with his finger tips and then poured olive oil on top. A sprinkle of sea salt, pepper, and rosemary finished it off.
I have to say both breads turned out excellent. They are filling, tasty, and I would consider a success. They are not light and fluffy like white bread, but they are not super dense either.

Vegan Garden Fresh Corn Chowder

I have been searching for vegan once a month cooking recipes because I figure if I can pack a few in my freezer I will have some meals for when the baby comes or when I am not feeling well, etc. Also, they tend to be easy to fix so the burden on Tiger or my husband is a little lighter. I search for vegan because they don’t have dairy and meat to contend with even though we are not really vegan- fish is rarely found in the once a month cooking recipes I have seen.
So, on to the recipe. I started out by browsing the menu plans on Once A Month Mom and found a link to a non-vegetarian summer squash and corn chowder. It contained bacon, milk, and cheese. OAMM had changed the recipe to be vegetarian with vegetarian bacon… I changed it even further. Here is my version:
1 pound frozen corn + 1 cup extra frozen corn
4 zucchinis quartered and sliced
3-4 Yukon gold potatoes cubed in 1/4” cubes
2 leeks finely chopped
3 ribs celery finely chopped
2-3 carrots shredded
1 can coconut milk (I use organic Thai Coconut)
1 T olive oil
1 C water
1 tsp salt
pepper and other spices to taste
Put oil in the soup pot and sauté leeks a few minutes. Add potatoes and stir. Allow to sauté for a minute or two. Add celery and zuchini. Add 1 cup water and cover. Shred the carrots and add them. Make sure veggies are cooked and then blend coconut milk, salt, and 1lb of corn and pour into pot. Add in extra 1 cup frozen corn. Bring to a boil and then serve. We sprinkled some pepper and Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset on top. It was creamy and delicious. I probably should have had Tiger chop some fresh parsley and stir that in right before serving but I didn’t think about that until I was posting the recipe. That would have been tasty.