Stop Calling People Food Snobs (I’m Sick of It)

January 20, 2016January 20, 2016 / farmandhearth / 2 Comments

Guys really,

It’s time. I think we’ve all had enough of it.

What is a food snob? A food snob is a colloquial term for someone who deviates from eating whatever is perceived, by the accuser, as being “normal” food and eats something perceived, by the accuser, as being “different.” For purposes of distinction, we should make note of the fact that a food snob does not necessarily compel anyone else to participate in their particular program – the food they eat may well affect only themselves.

A food snob could be a vegan, a vegetarian, a Paleo advocate, or someone on Whole30. It could be someone who shops at Whole Foods or in the produce section at Walmart or goes to the farmer’s market. It could be someone who doesn’t eat kale salad because they don’t like how it tastes. It could be someone who declines a certain brand or variety of food in favor of another, or – and this seems to be the culmination of cultural blasphemy – brings their own food to an event in order to maintain a certain variety or level of nutritional intake. The term food snob can also apply to persons with allergies, sensitivities, auto-immune diseases, genetic markers and random personal likes or dislikes of foods that are out of their control.

Most often, food snob is the term used for anybody who deviates from the modern, standard American diet, especially someone who chooses to forego many processed foods.

Shame on you for eating something else … Calling someone a food snob is to participate in a rampant shame culture that, among other things, determines that anyone who does anything different than the individual(s) defining the norm is bad and must be forced, through humiliation, exclusion, belittling and rejection, both subtle and blatant, both public and private, to conform to a perceived norm.

I can see you. The astonishing thing about a shame culture, however, is that it opens a page into the private heart of the accuser, to those who know how to read it. In her book Daring Greatly, social researcher Brene Brown tells us, “What’s ironic … is that research tells us that we judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame … If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived shaming deficiency. It’s hurtful and ineffective…” (1) The more someone belittles another for their food choices, odds are the more guilty and ashamed that person feels about their own food decisions. A person who feels confident, comfortable and secure in their choices has no need to make another feel small for their choices.

Don’t feel self-righteous just yet. This is a knife that can cut both ways – someone who is adhering to a specific food plan can pick relentlessly at those around her or him, becoming an annoying and aggravating source of unwanted information. So to the person accused of being a food snob – don’t be a snob. Snobs are annoying. There is a way to be snobbish and rude and annoying about your food choices, and there is a way to be loving, and kind, and open-hearted and generous about your food choices. You have a story of healing to tell, and that’s why you’re here, making the choices you do! Share your story with authenticity. Don’t play the martyr, or the saint, or the food snob.

What do we do when someone calls us a food snob? Ouch. It is far more appropriate to show love and listen. The person accusing you the loudest of being a food snob is very likely the person hurting the most. Listen to their hurt, and employ shame-resilience strategies for yourself in the face of their criticism:

Acknowledge to yourself the wound of their insult, and respect the hurt it can bring and know that you are not alone in your pain. Feel gratitude that you are able the make the choices you do despite harsh comments opposing you. Stay engaged in the culture that gives you support.

Then move on from the experience and understand that no matter what you do, somebody out there will disapprove, because somebody out there is uncomfortable with their own choices! Unless they are going to be living in your body, they don’t get a vote. Provide the wonder and awe that inspires you to eat the way you do, and let the shamers continue on their path.

Thanks for listening. I love you guys.

1 Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Brene Brown. Page 99. Penguin Random House, New York. 2012

Rustic Bone Broth, Bouillon and Powdered Broth

November 10, 2015November 10, 2015 / farmandhearth / Leave a comment

Novemberites and lovers of fall and food,

Bone broth has to be one of the cheapest, most nutrient-dense sources of food out there. One of the oldest and most revered foods, it has long been the way matriarchs prepared nourishing food with meager expenditure. Cooked until the bone is crumbling and breaking, bone broth is rich in gelatin, collagen, protein, glycine and minerals. It creates foundational building blocks for our gut health, skin, hair, bones, teeth, and it can be a wonderfully soothing source of nutrition for the ill, or for anyone suffering from morning sickness.

Not only can you make it cheaply, but you can easily store bone broth by cooking it down and making bouillon cubes, or dehydrating and powdering it.

Bone broth can be expensive to buy, but preparing it from scratch costs almost nothing – even when you use the finest, grass-fed, organic bones and vegetables.

I use leftover bones from our meals (even the drumstick you picked clean at dinner – that makes great bone broth. Squeamish about cooties? Remember, it’ll be cooking for over 24 hours – even if there WERE any cooties on that bone, they’ll be gone by the time you strain your broth!). Wilful waste makes woeful want! Waste not, want not. I use fish-heads and bones from local fishermen, and carcasses from cutting up whole chicken or turkey for dinner. The bones from ham, beef and any other meat we eat go straight into a pot, along with any vegetable scraps from preparing dinner.

I'm not above prominent product placement. Gary made this mahogany salt cellar; click the picture to see more.

I’m not above a little prominent product placement! Gary made this mahogany salt cellar; click the picture to see more.

Print recipe for bone broth, bouillon and powdered broth

Rustic Bone Broth

2 pounds bones – leftover roasted poultry bones or piece bones, ham bone or pork chop bones, oxtail bones, fish heads or spines, or boiled and rinsed pig’s feet
Butt from 1 – 2 bunches of celery
Butts and/or skins from 4 – 10 carrots
Butts, skins and any pieces from 1 – 3 onions
Potato skins
Any other vegetable scraps, skins, tops, butts
2 – 4 tablespoons fat (coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, bacon drippings, duck fat), optional
2 – 4 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar (optional), to help draw minerals from the bones
Sprigs thyme, sage and a few bay leaves, salt and pepper
Filtered water

Prep the bones | If bones are not already cooked, heat oil in a large skillet. Add bones and herbs and sear them for a few moments on the stove. Note: Cover and let sit for 45 minute if you are using beef bones; or let them roast, uncovered, at 375F for 45 minutes. Beef bones should always be roasted for 45 minutes or more prior to use. Fish bones can skip this step entirely – do not pre-roast or sear them (if they are pre-cooked, that is fine).

Stovetop | Place all scraps, seared or roasted bones, herbs, any leftover oil and cider vinegar (if using) in a large stockpot. Add water to cover, or up to 2 gallons. Cover with a lid and bring up to a strong simmer. Turn down heat and let simmer for 24 – 48 hours.

Crockpot | Place all scraps, seared or roasted bones, herbs, any leftover oil and cider vinegar (if using) in a large crockpot. Add water to cover. Top with lid and bring to LOW temp; cook for 24 – 48 hours.

Continuous broth | Follow directions for crockpot. Every 24 hours for 5 -7 days, remove 1 – 2 quarts of bone broth and replace with fresh water. Use a large spoon to continuously break and distress the bones each time you remove broth.

Usage | Bone broth should be consumed daily; use it to cook rice, quinoa, millet or other grains. Drink a mug of it, well-seasoned, as a nourishing and comforting beverage. Bring a thermos to work or school. Use to cook pieces of meat and vegetables for delicious and nutritious soups!

Print recipe for bone broth, bouillon and powdered broth

We should visit more soon; have you checked my events page to see if I’ll be in your area? Maybe we can chat over a glass of kombucha, or a mug of steaming bone broth!

Until then,

Andrea

But I can never give up rice! You can’t make me!

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 / farmandhearth / 4 Comments

I’m not a doctor. I’m not anything.
I just love preparing good food, and studying food science.
And eating.

Dear rice lover,

Calm down there. Nobody is going to make you give up anything you don’t want to.

After giving up all grains for sixty days (doing Whole30 twice, back to back), I’ve found that rice is one of the culprits that gives me heartburn and discomfort. I’m not too tempted to eat it.

But what if you’re okay with rice? What if it’s an integral part of your life? How to make it more nutritionally acceptable for a Real Food lifestyle? How to avoid the glucose spike that follows from eating a food that is, effectively, pure sugar?

Health advocate Ashley Grosch, leader of national health education group The Oil Tribe, suggests adding a tablespoon of coconut oil to every one cup of rice you cook. This converts digestible starches into indigestible (resistant) starches, so the rice doesn’t metabolize as glucose (unused glucose is what builds fat in our bodies!). Resistant starches are also prebiotic and complimentary to probiotic foods, as they feed the beneficial bacteria that inhabit healthy guts. Pair a bowl of prebiotic rice with some probiotic kimchi, and suddenly you realize why traditional meal plans have made sense for generations of humanity.

Keep your blood glucose from spiking after a starchy meal – rice, white potato – simply by adding fat – coconut oil, ghee, butter – to the starch! Who wants to eat a potato without butter, anyway? Not me.

Add even more nutrients to your rice (or quinoa, or millet, or whatever else you’re cooking) by cooking it in nutrient dense bone broth, or vegetable broth if you don’t eat meat.

Read more sciencey facts here at Perfect Health Diet, and do some of your own research! Or just take my word for it, and use the following recipe when you prepare rice (which, for the record, shouldn’t be at EVERY meal. I mean, our pancreas can only take so much).

Print Rice Preparation instructions

Real Food Rice Preparation

This is a recipe for white jasmine rice. For brown rice, increase liquid to 2 cups, and cooking time to 30 – 40 minutes at a low temperature. For maximum benefit, serve this prebiotic, resistant starch with a probiotic food such as kimchi or kraut.

1-1/2 cups bone broth or vegetable broth
1 cup dry white jasmine rice
1 tablespoon coconut oil, ghee or butter

Rinse rice briefly and add to a cooking pot. Add broth and coconut oil. Cover pot, bring to a boil and shut off heat. Let rice sit for 15 – 20 minutes; remove lid and fluff rice deliciously to serve.

Print Rice Preparation instructions

Do you plan to keep eating rice? Does this make you feel more confident about including it in your meals? Leave a comment and let me know!

Andrea

A Fall Menu: Silky Squash Soup and other delicious stuff you’ll want to eat

October 24, 2015October 25, 2015 / farmandhearth / Leave a comment

All of my recipes come packaged in a downloadable
PDF that you can save to your computer.
Read on for the recipe packet from our fall menu!

Dear Pompkin,

I just like the way early Americans spelled pumpkin. Pompkin.

Pumpkins, squash, and all manner of root vegetables feature strongly in the fall. This is some of my favorite cuisine! Filling, rich and hearty, it qualifies for comfort food any day of the week. Buttery baked dishes, creamy soups and silky puddings dazzle me all through the long winter months! (Although to be honest, the winter in Virginia Beach is starting out a little weak – it was in the 70s last week, and this is October we’re looking at.)

And of course, I love everything about Thanksgiving. Candles, corn cobs, turkey and all that festive business sucks me in every time. I have so many deep and wonderful memories of family life associated with Thanksgiving – the turkey placemats my grandma made, the battered yellow tablecloth she used every year, the chaotic and sometimes argumentative and always loving gathering around that all-important Thursday.

Fall is just full of delight for me. I taught Cooking with Fall Veggies at Norfolk Botanical Gardens this week, and the class was a slam-dunk. I brought leftovers to my husband on base, and he and the guys there devoured it and pronounced it good. I made the baked root vegetables dish for an Oil Tribe class the following evening, and everybody was asking for the recipe!

Solid, simple food is the best. It wins our hearts every time! Our menu featured rustic, seasonal dishes.

The soup was a perfectly silken puree, topped with pepitas. For a vegan alternative, swap out the bone broth for a full-bodied vegetable broth made with dried shishito mushrooms for lots of meaty umami flavor, and trade the butter for expeller-pressed coconut oil or fruity olive oil. Filled with butternut squash and pumpkin, this dish is nourishing to body and soul.

The Maple-Glazed Baked Root Vegetables were a slam dunk. We chose to coarsely chop beets, carrots, celery root, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, fingerling potatoes, parsnips and onions for our selection of roots and squash; any combination of these or other root vegetables is perfect.

A family favorite, Spicy Sweet Potato Fries make a special treat any time. I love to dip fries, so we created a special dipping sauce of mayonnaise (any homemade or high-quality store-bought, or aioli), blended with a lacto-fermented homemade sriracha sauce.

We also made a delicious Maple Cornbread, using coarse, colorful cornmeal from Indian corn. Colorful corn contains a little more nutrition than regular sweet corn – no surprises there!

And because she rolls that way, Lady Camille was in the carrier on my back while we set the room up for class. Once class began, our friend Mary snuggled baby during the whole thing.

Silky Squash Soup with Bone Broth

I created this dish while I was in Washington and wanted to serve a warm, filling meal to my family during the Seahawks game (we lost. It sucked. We needed comfort food). It’s simple, straightforward and truly not all that unique. There are millions of variations you could create from this basic dish, and the measurements I provide here are basic guidelines – you can do whatever you want, really.

4 cups bone broth or an alternative broth
2 cups pumpkin, raw and cubed, or cooked and pureed
2 cups butternut squash, raw and cubed, or cooked and pureed
3 large carrots, coarsely chopped
3 shallots or 1 medium onion
1 15-ounce can coconut cream
3 – 6 cloves garlic
1/2 cup butter or an alternative fat
Pepitas, dried pumpkin seeds, for garnishing
Salt and pepper

In a skillet, heat the butter. Add cubed pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots and onion; or add what is cubed, and reserve pureed mixtures. The goal is to cook the squashes down until they are soft. While mixture is cooking, crush garlic and set aside.
Once mixture is soft, use broth to help blend it until smooth; add garlic while blending, and then pour into a pot. Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender for this step. If you are using pureed pumpkin or butternut squash, add it now, and any more broth, and begin to heat mixture. Whisk in coconut milk. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Ladle into bowls and serve hot; sprinkle with pepitas before eating.

If you use ghee, bacon fat, coconut oil, olive oil or avocado oil instead of butter, this dish qualifies as a Whole30 and Paleo soup.

Download the recipe PDF for silky squash soup, baked root vegetables, spicy sweet potato fries, fermented dipping sauce, maple cornbread and a printable menu

I know you’ll feel just as indulgent and spoiled as I do when you get to enjoy these delicious foods … and let me know what your favorite tweaks are so I can try your versions, too!

Andrea

Download the recipe PDF for silky squash soup, baked root vegetables, spicy sweet potato fries, fermented dipping sauce, maple cornbread and a printable menu

Clean-Eating Paleo Baking Powder: no sodium aluminum sulfate required

May 2, 2015May 3, 2015 / farmandhearth / 1 Comment

Dear leavened,

I was happily stirring up a triple batch of banana bread a few days ago when I was dismayed to realize we were out of baking powder! Fortunately, I had the ingredients on hand to whisk together a batch of homemade baking powder. It’s an easy recipe to remember, and it took me just a few extra moments to stir up enough to fill my baking powder container.

Of course, the banana bread came out perfectly; and if you’ve already downloaded the recipe for yourself, you know how good it is!

I was baking cookies with a friend once when she revealed she had no baking powder. “Isn’t baking soda basically the same thing?” she asked, surprised that I wasn’t accepting the brightly colored box of Arm & Hammer.

In a sense, yes; baking soda and powder are both chemical leavening agents that build puffy, gassy bubbles in dough much faster than fast-acting yeast or sour starters do. Hence, things like banana bread, Irish soda bread and baking powder biscuits usually fall under the category of ‘Quick Breads’.

Terms and Conditions

Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate, or alkali), is used in recipes with acidic ingredients it can interact with, like vinegar, lemon juice, buttermilk, non-Dutch processed cocoa, molasses, honey, and so on. Baking soda is instant-acting and batters made with this leavener should always be baked immediately after mixing, with minimum stirring involved.

Baking Powder is a mixture of baking soda, an acid salt, and usually a starch to absorb moisture so that the soda doesn’t react with the dry ingredients until the wet components are added. The acid salt can be cream of tartar. This acid salt takes the place of adding lemon juice, buttermilk or another acidic liquid to your batter; magically, the acid can be wetted by whatever liquids you add to your batter, and activate the baking soda! The cookies my friend and I were making in the story above would not have been sufficiently leavened without baking powder, because there was no acid in the cookie ingredients to activate the bubbling of the baking soda. The third ingredient, a starch, which is technically optional, can be organic cornstarch – or arrowroot powder, if you are minimizing grain ingredients in your diet. If you leave the starch out entirely, you will have to use your baking powder right away, or within a few days or weeks! This is one way Paleo baking powder is different from regular baking powder!

Double-Acting Baking Powder is what you would buy in the grocery store, as packaged single-acting baking powder is generally only sold for commercial baking. As the name indicates, double-acting baking powder leavens twice (hence the double-acting). When the batter is initially mixed, there is an immediate acidic reaction from the cream of tartar, with the wet ingredients of the batter and the baking soda, and carbon dioxide gas is produced. The second reaction comes from a second acid that doesn’t activate until the temperatures are elevated (that is to say, the batter goes into the oven), and the gas cells expand and cause the batter to rise. The second acid is usually calcium acid phosphate or sodium aluminum sulfate, two ingredients that many health-conscious consumers are now choosing to avoid due to possible neurological issues associated with aluminum.

Homemade Baking Powder is not double-acting – if you use homemade baking powder in a recipe I would recommend baking the batter right away and not delaying (so make sure you preheat the oven when you start mixing your ingredients!). Homemade baking powder is used in the same ratio as store-bought. If your recipe is for a batter that sits in the fridge overnight or which specifically calls for double-acting baking powder, know that the homemade one will probably not produce the desired effect; that second, heat-activating acid would need to be present.

How long do these last in my cupboard?
Baking Soda can sit in the cupboard, sealed, for an indefinite length of time. If you are worried that it is too old and you want to test the effectiveness before mixing it into your ingredients, mix 1/4 teaspoon of soda with 2 teaspoons of vinegar. It should bubble up immediately just like in science class.

Baking Powder should only sit in the cupboard for about six months; the components to homemade baking powder, however (soda, cream of tartar, arrowroot/cornstarch), can sit separately in the cupboard indefinitely so you can keep those handy and simply mix up small batches at a time. To test if baking powder is still active, mix 1 teaspoon powder with 1/2 cup hot water; it should bubble up with carbon dioxide immediately.

How much baking powder do I use in a recipe?
If you are creating your own recipe, a good rule of thumb is 1 to 2 teaspoons baking powder to 1 cup of flour. Too much baking powder, and the gas bubbles will expand too quickly and cause the batter to collapse in baking. Too little baking powder, and there won’t be enough gas bubbles and the batter will be dense and tough.

Download Baking Powder Recipe

[Paleo] Aluminum-Free Single-Acting Baking Powder for Storage

If you bought this at the grocery store, it would cost twice as much as regular baking powder. Crazy, huh? Use this baking powder teaspoon for teaspoon to replace store-bought baking powder. The ratio is one part baking soda, two parts cream of tartar and one part starch.

Sodium bicarbonate: 1/4 cup baking soda
Acid Salt: 1/2 cup cream of tartar
Starch: 1/4 cup arrowroot powder or 1/4 cup organic cornstarch

Whisk ingredients together, pressing through a mesh sieve if baking soda has clumps. Store in an airtight container for less than six months.

Immediate-Use Starch-Free Baking Powder

The ratio for baking powder is two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda. This baking powder is meant to be used immediately – do not store it! Since there is no starch, you only need 3/4 teaspoon total to replace 1 teaspoon in a recipe calling for standard baking powder.

To replace 1 teaspoon of baking powder in a recipe, without any additional starches:
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Remember, your baked goods must go in the oven immediately after you mix them, as the carbon dioxide bubbling will have begun the second liquids contacted the acid!

Download Baking Powder Recipe

Happy Baking!

Mrs H

UnGranola Porridge: grain-free, dairy-free, Whole30 kind of

April 4, 2015April 4, 2015 / farmandhearth / 6 Comments

Dear -free advocates and hungry breakfasters,

While I like to think we eat a clean, real-food diet, doing the Whole30 challenge has revealed to me where I am lacking in that area – highlighting bad habits I’ve developed, areas I’ve gotten lazy. And while I love everything on the Whole30, sometimes I just want to eat a breakfast that isn’t made out of eggs!

Well hello, UnGranola.

Whole30, in short, means no dairy, no grains, no pseudo-grains like quinoa seeds or buckwheat, no sugars including maple syrup or honey or stevia except for fruit sugars, no legumes (peanuts, beans, soy), and no psychologically-enhanced grain-free Paleo baked indulgences like coconut flour pancakes and muffins. What I do eat are a lot of eggs, mountains of green vegetables, free-range and grass-fed meat from local farmers, fruits, nuts … potatoes, root vegetables, seaweed, seafood, coffee, Choffy, tea and lots of other good stuff. It takes creativity and energy to put together meals without dropping back into habits that are long-established, and there is basically Nothing At All in the grocery store that is pre-made that fulfills the Whole30 requirements, so if one is tired and doesn’t feel like cooking but is also hungry, one is out of luck. (You’d be surprised how much stuff has pea protein in it, am I right?)

Benefits for this pregnant lady on Whole30 (under midwife supervision) include: on Day 23 today, this is the longest stretch I’ve gone without throwing up since I got pregnant. I love me some good food, but I hate seeing it twice! As of about Day 5, my life-interruptingly uncomfortable hiccups and overwhelming chest-pressure ceased entirely, enabling me to do things like breathe during the day, and sleep laying down, instead of propped up over four hundred pillows. And my legs – it’s like the excess baby weight is already trimming itself down despite the fact that I am consuming more calories now than I ever did before, because my clothes fit more easily (but the belly still grows!).

So back to eating a breakfast with no eggs. We eat a lot of fried, scrambled, poached, and boiled eggs in general, because we like them. Yet sometimes I just want something else in the morning, like a hot bowl of porridge with fruit on top. I don’t know if this strays in to “non-Whole30 approved psychological destruction” of the program, but at any rate it keeps me happy on the program and I still feel refreshed, nutritionally fulfilled, and experience none of the negative side effects that my previous (carbohydrate-enhanced) meals were apparently giving me.

I also wanted something Relatively Fast – I don’t always feel like/want to spend forty hours in the kitchen making a meal, so I wanted to make a mixture that could be chucked on the stove, oatmeal-style, and cooked up in just a few minutes. I wanted something the little kids would eat. I wanted something with nutrition, variety, flavor and spices. I wanted something that goes in a bowl and I eat, earthy peasant-style, with a too-large spoon. This satisfies all the requirements, and still meets the standard of no grain, dairy, legumes blah blah.

Enter UnGranola.

Peaches ‘n cream, anyone?

This porridge fulfills the desire for texture, warmth, a little sweetness if you desire (sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t). And while I like the popular Paleo nut-butter porridges and make those from time to time, they ultimately are something I can only have few and far between because the very nutty smoothness of them gets underwhelming after a while. Download the recipe PDF for UnGranola Porridge at the bottom of this post!

The ingredients can vary widely based on your taste, or what you have available in your pantry. Spices can be mixed up to suit your personal preference, too – I love using cinnamon, cloves, fresh nutmeg and a little vanilla powder – because on Whole30 you can’t use vanilla extract, there are too many illegal ingredients! Plus, using powder keeps my mixture nice and dry. I order it from Beanilla and use it for all sorts of things in the kitchen!

Everything goes in the blender or food processor to mix – you have to be careful that you don’t churn it into a paste-like nut butter, though! I think a food processor is the best option, but I don’t have one so the Vitamix is my go-to. The new, wide-based Vitamix would be perfect for this! Sometimes I use the dry cup, but it doesn’t make much difference really.

Once everything is ground together, as coarse or as fine as you prefer, you have a handy mix to keep in the fridge! I keep it refrigerated because I don’t want the nut oils to go rancid – our house gets pretty warm in the spring and summer. A dark, cool pantry might be just fine, but the fridge is a nice, safe bet.

To prepare your delicious morning bowl of UnGranola, you take a scoop of the mixture and add a liquid to it. This can be whatever you like! Coconut cream and water, coconut milk, fresh almond milk, goat milk or cow’s milk if you drink dairy.

The almond milk, if you’re on Whole30, will probably be homemade, because there will be carageenan and other 30-illegal ingredients in most packaged almond milk.

Then, you have the option of adding a sweetener if you choose! For a banana-blend UnGranola, mash in a sliced fresh banana, or slice in a frozen one and let it cook down while you stir and mash. The little kids seem to particularly like this version, and it makes a very pleasingly thick, gently-sweet porridge.

For Blueberries ‘n Cream, you can add blueberries or use them instead of bananas. Add them fresh or frozen close to the end of cooking, and gently stir in! It’s a good thing summer is coming because I’m almost out of frozen blueberries – we pick at least a hundred pounds a year and wash, freeze on pans and then store in gallon bags. After serving the bowls, I like to add a little extra spice to the top – some cinnamon and fresh nutmeg will enhance these berries!

For Peaches ‘n Cream, I popped open a jar of peaches from our summer harvest. You could use fresh or frozen peaches, too! I mashed them in with a fork while the mixture was cooking.

Serve the granola with more fruit, spices and milk if you like. A swirl of jam or jelly, some dried fruit, or a rich dollop of butter, ghee or coconut cream. The sky is the limit!

Download the recipe PDF here!

UnGranola Porridge

Measurements will vary; these are all approximate! You can increase one ingredient in favor of another, if you prefer. A nut-free version is distinctly smaller but still possible.

UnGranola Mix
Makes approximately 3 – 4 cups of mix, or 6 – 8 servings (1/2 cup dry mix per serving)
1 cup raw walnuts
1 cup raw, dried pumpkin seeds (or other gourd)
1 cup flaked or shredded unsweetened coconut
3/4 cup raw pecans
3/4 cup shelled, raw sunflower seeds
1/4 – 1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 – 1/2 cup almond flour
1/4 – 1/2 cup hempseed
1/4 – 1/2 cup chia seed
1/4 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
Vanilla powder to taste (optional)
Ground cinnamon and cloves to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg
Ground pink Himlayan salt

Liquids:
Coconut cream and water, coconut milk, almond milk or another nut milk, a dairy milk if you prefer

Sweeteners (optional):
1 banana or another fruit, or maple syrup, honey, stevia or another sweetener of your choice

Making the mix
Pour all of the UnGranola Mix ingredients into a blender or food processor. If using the Vitamix, turn to speed 8 and stop every 30 seconds to scrape container with spatula; press down gently with the tamper while mixing, being careful not to over-blend into a paste.

Scrape mix into a glass container for storage; cap and store in the refrigerator.

To serve UnGranola Porridge:
Scoop 1/2 cup of mix and place in a small saucepan. Add up to 3/4 cup of the liquid of your choice, more if you like your porridge thinner. Stir briskly with a fork over medium heat, whisking in a banana if you choose and mashing it fully or choosing another variation or sweetener. Heat for about ten minutes, stirring frequently, or until mixture is hot and thick to your liking. Serve with additional fruit, spices or milk if desired.

Tips: If there are any coarse pieces of pumpkin seed or coconut, longer cooking will soften them. If you made your porridge too thin, whisk in a little coconut flour to bulk it up.

Variations:
Blueberries ‘n Cream: Stir in fresh or frozen blueberries towards the end of cooking. Grate fresh nutmeg on top before serving.

Peaches ‘n Cream: Stir in fresh, canned or frozen peaches, dicing or mashing in to your preference. Sprinkle with cinnamon and pour in cream to serve.

Pumpkin Spice: Add allspice to the spice mixture, and increase the amounts.

Gingerbread Wonderland: Add ground ginger and additional nutmeg to the pumpkin spice version; serve with hot applesauce.

PB&J: Swirl in a dollop of peanut butter, almond butter or another nut butter, and add a spoonful of jam or jelly just before serving.

Hot Butter: Top with a slab of butter or ghee, and a sprinkle of salt.

Download the recipe PDF here!

I hope you’ll keep me posted on any fun variations you and your family come up with – I am also always on the lookout for new and interesting ingredients to throw in the mix, so let me know what you find!!

Blessings,

Mrs H

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Homemade Refried Beans (and pressure canning them!)

March 20, 2015July 6, 2016 / farmandhearth / 9 Comments

Dear refritos,

It must have been at least five years ago when my friend, foodmaster and chicken boss Miz Carmen and I spent a rainy, wind-lashed day cooking a monster batch of beans a la charra, a recipe gleaned from a now-out-of-print cookbook she owns from a now-out-of-business Mexican restaurant. She photocopied the page for me, because those beans became an instant hit at our house! She froze most of hers, and I pressure-canned mine. A freshly opened jar of these delicious beans has saved many a dinner for me, between multiple moves (military and otherwise!), and the arrival of our first child!

I’m anticipating baby #2, so it seems like a good time to stock up on canned soups and beans in the home pantry – aka fast, real food. Canning beans at home is not only a great way to save money – dried beans cost significantly less than canned ones, even when they’re on sale! – but it saves on waste, too. The jars are reusable (and the lids, if you use these), so you can refill them with beans again and again. You don’t have to agitate about excessive BPA or BPS in metal cans, or try to navigate the harrowing lists of nasty ingredients most canned recipes have.

Leave the bacon out if you’re opting for a vegetarian version!

If you’ve never canned beans, Jill over at The Prairie Homestead has a gorgeous beginning tutorial, as well as a guide for pressure canning! You cannot, ever, ever can beans in a water-bath canner, ever, ever, no matter what you heard from your neighbor or read on Snopes. You can read this fact in any of the Ball canning books, any pressure-canning books, or take my word for it – I’m an internationally certified acidified foods processor, and took a beastly course on microorganisms in the jar to get there. Beans are very low-acid, and in order to kill the microorganisms that can live in a low-acid environment the contents must be heated to far beyond the boiling point, and only a pressure canner can do that.

I did not create this recipe – I’ve just loved it for many years! The cookbook is no longer in print sadly, and the restaurant that inspired it is no longer operational. In our home, we’ve created a number of variations, as is irresistible to do with beans as delicious and simple as these! Be sure to use fresh, high-quality spices for a truly outstanding experience – I obtain mine from MarketSpice or Penzeys, and grind the cumin seeds fresh. The quality of your ingredients will make a difference in the finished product!

Download recipe PDF (and bonus Frijoles Refritos recipe!)

Beans a la Charra

The original recipe comes from a cookbook published by a now-defunct Mexican restaurant in the Seattle area. I can’t find any copies of the book now, and all I have left are photocopies provided kindly by my friend at Domestic Endeavors! Also called “cowboy beans” for their rough-n-tender campfire feel, these beans make the perfect addition to any meal. Pour a jar over a pan of organic, salted chips, and scatter with shredded cheese before popping in the oven to warm. Serve in burritos, enchiladas, alongside rice, or add to a pan of cooked, sliced potatoes to make “cowboy potatoes”, one of my favorites growing up. Puree the entire mixture to serve as soup (do not puree before canning)! All pressure canning is incurred at your own risk. Be sure to follow safety procedures carefully.

3 cups dried pinto beans
3 quarts water
6 slices (about 8 ounces) uncooked bacon, coarsely chopped
½ cup diced onion
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
½ jalapeno, stemmed, seeded, chopped (some like it hot: keep the seeds, or add more jalapeno!)
1 tablespoon chile powder or 2 tablespoons fresh taco seasoning
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon salt

In a stockpot, soak the beans overnight in the water (to cover), optionally adding a tablespoon or two of whey, lemon juice or vinegar to aid in later digestion of the beans. The next day, cook the bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, and jalapeno and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the chile powder and cumin and cook for 1 minute more. Add 1 cup of the soaking water from the beans while stirring and scraping the bottom of the skillet to loosen all the brown bits adhered to the pan. Add the beans and remaining water, and bring to a rapid boil. Skim foam; decrease the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 1-1/2 hour to 2 hours, or until the beans are soft. If you are planning to can them, you can undercook the beans until they are still a little crunchy; they’ll cook the rest of the way in the pressure canner. If you cook them fully, some the beans will disintegrate somewhat which is delicious and perfectly heavenly in its own right. When the beans are cooked through, add the salt, and cook 1 to 2 more minutes.

Pressure canning: For sea level, process pints at 10 pounds pressure, for 75 minutes. Adjust pressure for altitude. Remove finished jars and let cool, undisturbed. DO NOT press on lids yet. 12 – 24 hours after canning, remove rings and check seals. If any lids pop or shift, remove to refrigeration and use within 2 days. Wash all jars in warm, soapy water to remove residue from the canner.

If serving: Keep warm until ready to serve, or cool, cover, and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Download recipe PDF (and bonus recipe!)

The jars will have residue from the beans on them – be sure to let them sit, undisturbed, overnight or for 24 hours before checking seals! Wash all jars and rings thoroughly in warm, soapy water, and leave the rings off. Rings breed potential mold if any moisture or food particles linger, and we don’t want that! Plus, if you enter a jar in the county fair, it will be automatically disqualified if there is still a ring on it, and where would your blue ribbon be then?

Pressure-canning tip

Waiting for the pressure to dissipate and the pressure-valve to drop can be a long, boring wait, especially when you’re anxious to re-load the canner with a new batch of jars!

When the canner is about to finish the designated time for canning … Fill a large container or sink with cold water (ice is not necessary). After shutting off the heat and letting the pressure drop to about five pounds (this takes just a few minutes), carefully remove the canner and set in the cold-water bath. It’ll try to float, so keep a hand on it! In a very few minutes, the pressure will drop completely and the pressure-valve will pop down. You can then remove the lid and extract your jars, setting them aside to cool overnight. I learned this handy trick from somebody who saw it on America’s Test Kitchen – if you know the original episode, let me know!

Recommended Tools

23-Quart Pressure Canner
This is the pressure canner I recommend – Presto makes a wonderful, fail-safe product! No mistakes, mishaps or misfires with this canner. I own three of them, and with their heavy, reinforced bottom I use them without the lid for everything from cooking down huge batches of ketchup and applesauce to water-bath canning. You can double-stack pints for canning and pressure canning, they are that deep! Replacement parts can be ordered on Amazon and from Presto’s website. Their customer service has always been friendly and prompt! Note that a small pressure cooker WILL NOT work for pressure canning, EVEN if it comes with a small canning rack!! A pressure cooker is NOT made for canning, and is too small to maintain even heat throughout the substrate (contents of the jar), thus proving UNSAFE for home pressure canning. USE ONLY A DESIGNATED PRESSURE CANNER!

Oakton EcoTestr pH 2 Waterproof pH Tester, 0.0 to 14.0 pH Range
This is not necessary for pressure canning – but it’s great if you’re food-nerdy, or if you want to can tomatoes which may or may not be acidic enough for waterbath. If you want to test the acidity of, say, a batch of tomatoes, pH test strips are not recommended – there is too much margin for error! This bench tester was recommended to me by a lab technician as one of the best handheld options, unless you want to jump up to the $500 versions! When testing the acidity of something chunky, like tomato sauce or a finished jar of pickles, note that you must blend the contents thoroughly and test a sample of the blended contents. So, if you are planning to process whole tomatoes and you want to check the acidity first, you must blend a representative sample of the tomatoes for testing. Follow the instructions on the tester carefully, and plan ahead – calibrating base for your first use can take time!

General Hydroponics Ph 7.0 Calibration Solution – 8 Ounces, 1 bottle
You’ll also need some standard reference solution. This one will do the trick!

Update – IMPORTANT!!!!

Chevys Fresh Mex Cookbook
Miz Carmen has found The Cookbook on Amazon!! It’s only twelve buckeroos and full of deliciousness. I need MY OWN COPY now!!!!!!!

See more of my recommended products in my Amazon aStore – we could talk cookbooks ALL DAY!!!!

Happily canning and eating,

Mrs H

Turkey Leftovers: Moo Shoo Wraps, Burritos and Delicious

November 29, 2014 / farmandhearth / Leave a comment

Dear Thanksgivingers,

I actually buy extra turkey in advance, just so I can have more “leftovers” to make this. I was filling deviled eggs and whipping meringue for Thanksgiving dinner, and the wraps I would need for both of these recipes were already sitting on the pantry shelf, waiting for Their Day.

Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to post heartwarming Norman Rockwell paintings.

Oh, these are good, very, very good. They drip juice, they crunch, they fill you up, and everybody wants more! For the Moo Shoo wraps, you can use cabbage or bok choy, whichever you have – both are available on our farm during this season, so I toss in a miscellaneous mixture of the two.

A big wok is best for making this, but you can also make it in a regular pan if you wish! If you are a vegetarian and you use something other than the usual turkey as your main, I’d be curious to know if you can throw a meatless twist on this! If you do, hook us up with a recipe link in the comments (I’m looking at you, Mysterious Mrs. S!).

This turkey is giving ’em a run for their money!

I originally shared this recipe back in 2011 on the old blogstead; I’d already been making it for several years by this time, and we still love it today. Love it so much, in fact, that it gets gobbled up (like that pun?) before I ever get any pictures – I’ll snap some this round, and add them to the post for you photophiles. And for your photo files.

Photo Credit: The Kitchn

Note: This is the oil we use and which I recommend to anyone looking for coconut oil – ethically sourced, traditionally prepared, and organic, the expeller-pressed oil has no coconut flavor or aroma and I use it for everything from frying chicken to scrambling eggs to pouring into my smoothies!

Moo Shoo Turkey Wraps

Download the Moo Shoo Turkey Wrap & Turkey Burrito Recipes

Obviously, there is lots of wiggle room in this recipe. Add some toasted sesame seeds if you like; I love to serve these with homemade (or storebought) sweet plum sauce! To really go with the Asian theme or to avoid extra gluten you could use rice wraps, like spring roll wrappers, instead of tortillas. If you like, you could use a bagged shredded coleslaw mix instead of a cabbage.

1 tablespoon olive oil, coconut oil or rice brain oil
1 additional teaspoon olive oil, or any of the above options
10 – 16 ounces sliced mushrooms
4 green onions, sliced
1 small knob peeled, grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic, crushed
16 – 20 ounces shredded fresh cabbage or bok choy (one small cabbage, or less than half large cabbage)
1/3 cup water
2 cups shredded leftover cooked turkey (you could use chicken or pork, if you preferred)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons (plus extra for serving) hoisin sauce (sometimes I use home-canned plum sauce instead)
8 tortillas, warmed

In a skillet or wok, heat one tablespoon oil on medium-high until hot. Add mushrooms and saute 6 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned. Remove to a plate.
In the skillet, heat one teaspoon olive oil on medium-high. Stir in green onions (reserve a small portion if you want to sprinkle some fresh on the wraps), ginger, crushed red pepper, and garlic. Add shredded cabbage and cook 2 minutes or until cabbage begins to soften, stirring constantly. Add water and cook 1 to 2 minutes or until water evaporates. Cabbage should be tender-crisp, not mushy; stir frequently. Stir in turkey, soy sauce, 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce, and cooked mushrooms; cook an additional 3 minutes or until turkey is hot, stirring constantly.
Spread tortillas with hoisin sauce; top with turkey filling, extra green onions if you like, roll up and enjoy! These are very juicy. These are very delicious. These are amazing.

They aren’t always so agreeable to peeling potatoes, but sometimes you can trick ’em into it

Is it okay if I post two turkey recipes? Because this one is so insanely, crazy good that I can’t leave it out. I know you’ll go nuts for this one, too, because my entire family did!

Turkey and Bean Burrito

Download the Moo Shoo Turkey Wrap & Turkey Burrito Recipes

If you so desire, drizzle into your burritos a little Louisiana Hot Sauce, some homemade spicy ketchup, or some enchilada sauce! We crazy love this recipe, and you can sneak a little gravy in there if you like, too … See the original post from 2011 here.

1 tablespoon olive oil or any of the above options
1 yellow onion, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chile powder
1 pint diced tomatoes or you can purchase a can of tomatoes with diced chiles in it, such as Rotel tomatoes, and ignore the next ingredient
1 – 2 tablespoons chopped chiles or pickled jalapenos
2 tablespoons lime juice or the juice from one small lime
4 cups shredded cooked turkey (or chicken, or pork, or julienned tofu!)
1 pint pinto beans, fresh-cooked or canned, rinsed
6 tortillas, warmed
8 ounces shredded Monterey, pepper Jack, or cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded green cabbage or bok choy (one small cabbage, or less than half large cabbage)

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute, stirring, until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in garlic, cumin and chile powder and cook for 30 seconds or until the spices release a fragrant scent. Add tomatoes and lime juice; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until onions are very tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in turkey and cooked beans and continue cooking until the mixture is heated through, approximately five minutes. Fill tortillas with the turkey and bean mixture; top with cheese and shredded cabbage, roll, and enjoy!

What do you do with your leftover turkey? Please tell me – I love turkey, I love it all manner of delicious ways!!

She loves turkey, too.

Don’t forget to Download the Moo Shoo Turkey Wrap & Turkey Burrito Recipes for your recipe files!

Gobbling,

Mrs H
Our turkeys are on Facebook
Instagram is clearly for the birds!

Sauerkraut: The Great Pickled Vegetable

November 24, 2014November 24, 2014 / farmandhearth / 2 Comments

Riddle me this: What food is gluten-free, vegan, Paleo, GAPS, vegetarian and kid-approved? Read on …

Dear scientist chefs,

A kraut by any other name would be as sauer! Kimchi, kraut, cortido, sour cabbage, tsukemono, atsara and pickles are just a few of the names you’ll find around the world for the sour, lactic-acid-fermented vegetables that virtually every culture knows and loves. Every combination under the sun – with spices, onions, peppers, mixed vegetables, herbs, wild weeds, boiled eggs (what?!), fruits, chips of bark and probably the occasional unfortunate cricket – can be found as you travel from home to home, country to country. Eastern Europeans favor dried fruit, caraway seeds. Warmer climates tend towards spicier, peppery blends. Studying the trends in different regions, you can find the logic in it; dried fruit is available in Eastern European climates, where it grows fresh throughout the year. Spiced-up krauts are less inclined to mold, and in hot climates ferments lean towards mold very quickly. Isn’t it funny how natural food culture, separated from the supermarket mentality, really suits the region?

A few of my favorite fermenting books

In Seattle, Washington, Britt’s Pickles can be found in various farmers markets. They ferment their pickles in huge, steam-cleaned oak barrels from local wineries. Their Pickleator and other fermenting tools are available online.

Out here on the farm, we make our kraut by pretty much dumping in everything we have on hand at the moment! We held another rollicking kraut and kimchi food lab, where the class chopped up four monstrous boxes of cabbage, as well as black Russian kale and a case of fresh-picked bok choy. We threw the chopped cabbage into tubs and salted it in layers, and pounded it with a wooden rolling pin by turns until the juices leaked and the cabbage was thoroughly bruised on every side.

All the pounded, salted greens went into a huge, ten-gallon crock, and then the students set to work chopping up their unique flavor choices. Everybody was making their own delicious jar of kraut, or kimchi, or whatever you want to call it – by this stage, no true name really applied because we weren’t following any rules! White turnips, black radishes, peeled and shredded gingerroot, red and green apples, yellow onions, habanero and Carmen peppers, lacinato kale, celery, rainbow carrots, red radishes, daikon radishes and garlic were all chopped by students and their selections were mixed by handfuls in their individual kraut bowls. Then, everybody shoveled scoops of the bruised, dripping kraut into their bowls and hand-mixed it with the vegetables they had chosen, before pressing it into quart jars, labeling and capping them.

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A small batch of kimchi I prepared back in June; we enjoyed eating it on fresh bread, with slabs of cold butter, during class.

And the kale grows, and grows, and grows … this is White Russian Kale. Photo credit Kevin Jamison

These stuffed quart jars will sit on the counters in their homes, hopefully in a rimmed baking sheet or something to catch the juice that will surely leak out! Every day, for a few days or even a week, they’ll release the lid, letting out some of the built-up gases escape. Those jars hiss like a bottle of homemade kombucha when you pop the top! After a few days of this, the jars can safely sit – with only the occasional lid check – until the substrate inside is fully soured to the chef’s taste. How do you know if your kraut isn’t done fermenting? It will taste like salty cabbage! How do you know if it’s fermented enough? It tastes as sour or tart as you like it to! Then, the home cook will eat it and/or move that jar to the fridge, where bacterial activity will slow to incredibly low rates. Yes, it will keep fermenting in the fridge – but very slowly! It can take months and months for marked flavor change to develop.

One of the students snapped a few pictures for us before things got muddy – it’s a little hard to take pictures in the building at night, but you can get a general idea of what went on!

Chef Lyndsay preps some fresh bread for snacking during class

Lots of big Boos boards for chopping – they donated six to our Food Lab, very generously!

A rather blurry picture of some of our fermented vegetables, ranging between six months to two years old.

That old pickle jar is full of small heads of cabbage drowning in saltwater.

Sauerkraut FAQs from the Food Lab

Download Kraut FAQs and Recipe

1. How long does it take to ferment my kraut in the jar?

It depends on how much salt you added. With more salt, and in colder temperatures, it will take a long time. A light hand on salt, and a warm kitchen – 70 – 85F – and the kraut can go faster, maybe becoming sour in as little as a week or two. I like to leave my krauts to ferment for a few weeks or even months, and then move them to the fridge for another few months. Some purists say the real flavor doesn’t even begin to develop until after six months!

2. How do I know if my kraut went bad?

You’ll know – it will be slimy and moldy, it will stink to high heaven, and nobody could pay you to eat it! If some mold develops on the top of your kraut, don’t be alarmed – gently scoop it off with a spoon, and replace the missing liquid with purified, salted water if necessary (you want your vegetables to stay beneath the brine!). Some of the mold might break off and float away, but just get what you can. The vegetables deep under the brine are still safe for consumption.

3. How much salt do I use?

I really don’t measure the salt – I sprinkle it in as I layer the chopped vegetables before pounding them, and during the summer I tend towards a heavy hand with salt. The lactic acid that the vegetables create are what inhibits the growth of pathogenic bacterias – but lactic acid takes about three days to kick in when fermenting cabbage! That’s what the salt is for – it does the work of inhibiting the pathogens until the lactic acid can do the dirty work. If you really insist on a measurement to get started, you can use about 1-1/2 tablespoons of kosher sea salt per average head of cabbage. Get used to using that amount, and pretty soon you’ll be able to vary up and down per your own preferences.

4. Why kosher salt, or sea salt, or whatever you had said up there?

Use salt that does not contain iodine and anti-caking agents such as yellow prussiate. These tend to make the cabbage slimy and gross.

Download Kraut FAQs and Recipe

This kimchi is covered with a cloth, and a thick layer of brine and jar weights. Generally, I prefer using lids on jars.

Simple Seasonal Sauerkraut

1 organic head of cabbage (Chinese cabbage, green cabbage, it doesn’t matter)

1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons sea salt, approximately

Optional: caraway seeds, turmeric, peeled and crushed garlic, peeled and shredded ginger, small amount of dried or shredded fruit (about ½ cup or less), other vegetables cut, shredded, julienned, diced or sliced the way you like them

1. Shred or coarsely chop cabbage; place in a metal or plastic bowl that won’t break and sprinkle with salt.

2. Firmly massage with your hands, or pound with a wooden mallet or the end of a rolling pin for about ten minutes, until the cabbage is very juicy and wet. When you start pounding, you may think “I’ll have to add water to this to get enough brine to cover it!” If you’re using nice, fresh cabbage, just keep on pounding till that ten minute mark. You may be surprised how much brine will leak out of that cabbage!

3. Mix in any other spices, herbs, vegetables or fruits that you like. I tend to keep the “other” ingredients at less than 50% of the volume, usually well below that, so my krauts are mostly cabbage.

4. Pack it all into a large jar or multiple jars, pressing the vegetables down so the brine covers them completely. Pieces that poke out or float will probably be thrown away when you open the jar to eat the kraut, so really smash it down firmly!

5. To keep everything beneath the brine, you can add small jar weights (available from Cultures for Health, Britt’s Live Culture Foods and other places), or use the stem end of the cabbage to wedge in to the top of the jar.

6. Place the jar on the counter in a rimmed baking sheet or pan to catch any juices that may leak out; you will need to pop the lid once or even twice a day for a few days. Depending on how warm your house is (70 – 80F is a happy place for fermenting!), you can taste test it as soon as three days; it may take up to a few weeks. If you don’t want it on your counter that long, you can move it to the fridge and let it slow ferment for a lo-o-o-ong time!)

Kraut will last months and even years in a cool place. My favorite ones are at least a year old. Some traditions say the true kraut flavor does not even begin to develop until after six months!

Adding caraway seeds, turmeric or even a few tablespoons of raw, cultured whey will help reduce the risk of your kraut molding.

Download Kraut FAQs and Recipe

A batch of kimchi, ready to move into the fridge for cold storage and spicy snacking!

Bacterially yours,

Mrs H
My phone was stolen so I haven’t grammed you in a while!
Hunt us down on Facebook – we “like” that!

Recommended Reading

I’m always building up my fermenting library (and you will be, too, with all the book giveaways I have coming up!). These are some of my long-standing, time-tested favorites. Just reading them makes me all giggly and happy inside – and of course, the wealth of knowledge that can be gleaned by cross-examining all the books should not be underestimated!

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from around the World

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods

Asian Pickles: Sweet, Sour, Salty, Cured, and Fermented Preserves from Korea, Japan, China, India, and Beyond

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

Kombucha Revolution: 75 Recipes for Homemade Brews, Fixers, Elixirs, and Mixers

The Nourished Kitchen: Farm-to-Table Recipes for the Traditional Foods Lifestyle Featuring Bone Broths, Fermented Vegetables, Grass-Fed Meats, Wholesome Fats, Raw Dairy, and Kombuchas

Gluten-Free Waffles: Re-post from San Francisco Book Review

November 13, 2014November 26, 2014 / farmandhearth / Leave a comment

In addition to blogging and making kombucha and sometimes folding my laundry, did you know I also review books for the San Francisco Book Review? If you’re an avid bibliophile, you’ll devour their scores of reviews, pithy articles and audible author interviews, and if you’re a writer as well, you might enjoy reviewing for them yourself!

In their blog series on food, Alphabet Soup, various reviewers highlight favorite recipes from cookbooks they’ve reviewed for the publication. Read on for my review of Shauna Ahern’s Gluten-Free Girl Every Day, and get the recipe for Gluten-Free Buttermilk Waffles -wickedly wonderful – as well as her whole-grain gluten-free flour mix.

It’s election season, so it’s a good time to talk about waffling, right?

Just kidding. Let’s talk about food. We can all vote for that! Waffles are a favorite part of my breakfast repertoire. Actually, they’re just a favorite part of my repertoire, period – served sweet or savory, I can take a crispy waffle any time of day! But what about when you’re eating gluten-free? Whether it’s by medical necessity or just a part of your health choices, eating gluten-free can interrupt the normal scheme of cooking.

Photo Credit Food Network, Shauna Ahern

Until you gratefully pick up Shauna Ahern’s book, Gluten-Free Girl Every Day, of course. If you want to hear me rave, read my featured review here – I truly fell in love with this picturesque book. Not only does she hail from the same Western Washington as I do, but the gorgeous pictures by noted food photographer Penny De Los Santos, and Ahern’s friendly, casual approach to food make it a true delight and a feast for the eyes. Centering her recipes on the freshest and best, and taking a practical, real-world approach to cooking, she left just one problem in this book: a reader can hardly decide where to begin.

Click here to read the rest of the article on SFBRs webpage and get the gluten-free waffle recipe

Waffling it up,

Mrs H
Instantly grammed, just for you
My face is an open book they say