How to Flash Freeze Fruits and Vegetables

Everybody knows real food is a great idea, but one of the biggest obstacles most people face is that processed food is SO convenient - it's always there, no matter the season, predictable and never-changing.  But real food comes in seasons.  You can't (or maybe shouldn't) eat fresh strawberries in December.

That's why I love my freezer!  If you opened my freezer right now (it's October), you would find containers full of strawberries and blueberries that I picked this summer.  They are obviously not as fun as fresh, but there's something decadent about a strawberry in the middle of the winter.  *

But you can't just throw a bowl of strawberries in the freezer and hope for good results!

To freeze fruits and veggies quickly and easily, do these 4 things:

1. Find a cookie sheet or quarter sheet-pan that will fit in your freezer.

2. Line the cookie sheet with parchment or waxed paper

3. Spread fruit or vegetable in a SINGLE LAYER on the waxed paper.

4. Place in freezer for a few hours.

Yes.  It really is that easy.  But it's magical: the SINGLE LAYER of fruit or veggie means when it's time to transfer your produce to more permanent freezer storage, each berry or grape or carrot slice will come off the pan without sticking to all the others!  This way, you don't end up with a giant boulder of frozen fruit that you have to break before using!

Storage Tip: in the past I've used Zip-type bags, but since I'm trying to move away from so much disposable plastic, I now use inexpensive lidded plastic pitchers.

Long Term Storage Tip: Some veggies contain enzymes that may make the produce mushy or discolored if it is going to be frozen for a long time.  For example, if you flash freeze corn as described above, after a few weeks, they will become softer.  But I have never had this problem with berries!  If you are planning on keeping frozen vegetables in the freezer for many months, you may want to steam blanch them first to deactivate those pesky enzymes.  Then you can use this single-layer flash-freezing method just as described!

* I know some hard-core preppers or even permaculturists might call me out on this: "Freezers use so much energy."  "If you can those strawberries, you can keep them at room temperature."  "If the SHTF, your frozen strawberries won't last long," sniggering behind their hands as they stockpile fake dried cheese.

And you know what?  They're right.  People have been living happily without frozen strawberries for thousands of years.  But I'm a big proponent of Jack Spirko's "Law of Prepping:" Everything you do to prepare for the future should benefit you in the future, but it should also benefit you RIGHT NOW!

And right now, I want to pick lots of local organic strawberries in June, and I want to have some to give to my kids in October when the skies are gray and cloudy and we all need a little Vitamin C.  Our current lifestyle provides us with a freezer, so I'm going to darn well use it.  A full freezer is an efficient freezer anyway.

Homemade Hash Browns in 20 Minutes

I am so excited with how popular my old post "How to Make Homemade Frozen Hashbrowns" has been!  Wow - Pinterest is an amazing thing for bloggers!

Here is the original post, in case you missed it the first time around:

But what if you haven't planned way ahead to have frozen hashbrowns in the freezer, ready to go?

I want to make sure everyone has a chance to enjoy the crispy, safe-starchy goodness of real hash browns, so here is how I prepare hash brown potatoes when I have NOT planned ahead!  This method takes about 20 minutes from start to finish, so it's perfect for dinner when I've forgotten to plan a side dish.

Ingredients:
Whole raw potatoes (3 average potatoes fit well in my medium skillet)
Butter (at least 2 Tbsp.)
Salt
Pepper

Directions:
1. Shred potatoes.  I use a box grater, but a food processor is even quicker.
2. Put shredded potatoes in a clean kitchen towel and firmly squeeze out any extra moisture into the sink.  This is like wringing out a washcloth - you have to squeeze the potatoes pretty hard.
3. Melt 1 Tbsp. of butter in the skillet over medium heat.
4. Place potatoes in skillet and cover tightly with lid.
5. Allow potatoes to steam for about 10 minutes with the lid on (check after 5 to make sure they're not browning too fast on the bottom)
6. Carefully flip potatoes (I usually divide them into a few sections in the pan to flip them one half at a time)  As you flip, put the rest of the butter in the bottom of the pan.
7. Cook potatoes an additional 5-10 minutes, with the lid OFF the pan.  Potatoes should not steam, but should get cooked and crispy on the bottom.
8. Add salt and pepper to taste.  Remove from pan as soon as bottom of hash browns reach desired crispness.  Serve immediately.

Do you eat potatoes regularly?  What's your favorite way to prepare them?  Do you have any quick go-to sides that you can whip up in a pinch?  Leave a comment and share your ideas!

Posted at Fat Tuesday

Homemade Freezer Hashbrowns

If you want to put some hash browns in the freezer to have on hand, this is the recipe for you!  But if you don't have time for the freezer part and you want homemade hash browns right now, then check out my 20 Minute Real Hash Browns recipe!

If you've been reading a while, you may know that our family is limiting how many (and which) grains we eat regularly.  My husband is trying to lose some more weight (he's lost 25 pounds so far!!), and I'm trying to alleviate my seasonal allergies, which aggravate my asthma.  The kids are just along for the ride.

Since neither the kids nor I are trying to lose weight, we are being careful to eat plenty of carbs (we probably still eat waaay less than the average American, since our diets are based more around fats).  Also, I find that we all stay fuller longer, and have more energy, when we are intentional about keeping some starchy foods in our diets.  We are avoiding wheat for now (except occasional sprouted bread), and only eating corn, oats, and other cereal grains occasionally.  But rice, sweet potatoes, and white potatoes have increasingly become staples in our diet (hallelujah, they're cheap, too!).

One of our favorite ways to start the morning is with over-medium eggs and hash brown potatoes.  This is a good substitute for my husband's old favorite of eggs and toast, and the potatoes help us all stay full and energized (just eggs, and I am ready to crash by 10 am).

So we have two choices: Frozen Prepared Hash Browns or Homemade Hash Browns

• Frozen from the store: These are quick, easy, and fool-proof.  They are also much more expensive than a sack-o-potatoes, and they all seem to include soybean oil or dextrose (sugar).  Blech.
• Homemade Hash Browns: Making them from raw potatoes is too time consuming for busy mornings (Shred, steam, brown potatoes), and they sometimes turn out soggy, sometimes burn if you look away for 3 seconds.  But they're so cheap, and I can cook them in glorious butter.

Don't worry, there's a third alternative:

Homemade Frozen Hash Browns!  These require less hands-on time overall, are quick and easy to make in the morning, and always come out nice and crispy.  

Ingredients:

Potatoes.  Lots.

Directions:

1. Scrub potatoes.
2. Bake potatoes at around 350 F for 45 minutes (way less hands-on time here than hovering over the stove while potatoes steam).
3. Grate potatoes (waaaay easier than grating raw potatoes, by the way)
4. Freeze potatoes (I like to freeze them on baking sheets, then break them up and put them in freezer bags so they don't clump together)

Ready to Eat Directions:

1. Heat pan and melt copious amounts of butter in bottom.
2. When butter is melted, add layer of frozen hash browns, and salt and pepper as desired.  Cook 4-5 minutes, or until hash browns are browned on bottom.  Flip and cook until other side browns.  Since potatoes are pre-cooked, you can cook them to your desired brownness, and they will still be "done."

Note: Once the potatoes are in the oven, they bake themselves.  So you can, you know, leave the room and do something else.  Glorious.

Grating cooked potatoes is pretty easy, especially if you use a food processor shredder attachment.  Mine is broken.

If you enjoyed this "Real Convenience Food" post, check out my Frozen Chicken Broth and Frozen Chicken Nuggets.  Simple to make, and so convenient to have on hand!

Posted at Monday Mania, Gluten Free Monday, Melt in Your Mouth Monday, Fat Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday, Teach Me Tuesday, Fight Back Friday and Simple Lives Thursday

How to Dehydrate Plums

Plums are amazing.  They are about the easiest fruit in the world to process, and (in my house!) they are universally loved!  

We are blessed to have two gorgeous Italian Plum trees in our hand-me-down orchard.  They're also called Italian Prunes, but the word "plum" sounds a little more appealing to me.  The fruits are delicious fresh, baked, and even canned and if you have a dehydrator, it's a cinch to preserve these little purple beauties as they are meant to be prepared - dried!

Step 1: Wash your plums

Like many kinds of fruit, the plums have a whitish natural coating called "bloom" on the skin, which is kind of waxy/powdery and protects them when they are on the tree.  It washes off easily in water (it also rubs off pretty well, but my kids helped me pick those...the washing was more about removing toddler goo than bloom!)

Step 2: Slice around the "cut here" line and remove pit

You guys, Italian plums are amazing.  Processing them almost feels like cheating, it is so easy.  These babies have been bred to be sliced and dried.  They are "freestone," instead of "cling," which means the pit inside is very loosely attached and easy to remove.

They also have this convenient little line down one side.  It is like the plum is saying, "cut here!"  If you  cut right along this line, then right up the other side, you will cut right around the edge of the pit (as you can see above).  Perfectly.  Every time.  Seriously, if you have never cut up Italian plums, I can't even do them justice.  They are SO easy.

Step 3: Place cut-side down on dehydrator tray.

It took me about 4 minutes to slice plums and fill up this dehydrator tray.  The work just goes quickly and easily, especially if you select plums that are nice and ripe.

Step 4: Dehydrate at 125 degrees for 12 hours.

The plums are dehydrating at 125 degrees, and after about 12 hours, they are leathery on the outside, but still juicy inside.  I am pretty excited to see how they turn out!

So, to summarize, it's as easy as 1, 2,3!

1. Wash plums
2. Slice plums around their convenient middle and arrange face-down on dehydrator tray
3. Dehydrate at 125 degrees for 12 hours!

Have you ever tried these funky little Italian Plums?  Do you have any favorite fruits to can, dehydrate, or preserve in some way?  What would you do with 100 pounds of free Italian plums?

Posted at Barn Hop, Fat Tuesday, and Monday Mania

Gluten-free Chicken Gravy

We love a good roast chicken.  This week, we had our first ever real, live, happy, pastured chicken (well, it wasn't happy anymore...it was dinner.  But it had a heck of a good life) from a farmer down the road!

We have been eating only organic chicken for over a year, only occasionally (because those poor organic birds are still not necessarily pastured or well-raised), and only whole birds (waaay cheaper, plus then we get all the bones, and we're not supporting the illogical "boneless skinless breast" phenomenon).

So this particular chicken was a bit of a treasure, and I intended to use every bit of it.  We ate up the chicken, popped the carcass in the crock pot with some water to make broth, and drained the drippings into a pan, which went in the fridge.

A few days later, those gorgeous drippings were calling my name at lunch time.  They looked like they would be perfect as a gravy to enjoy over rice noodles!

With some nice, soft noodles and ooey-gooey sauce, I was even able to pass this off to the kids as a mac 'n' cheese substitute.  It was grudgingly accepted (I thought it was delicious)

Chicken Gravy

Ingredients:
1/2 c to 1 c chicken drippings
2 tsp. rice flour (I think arrowroot starch would work too as a thickener)
1 c. cream, milk, or chicken stock
additional salt/pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Heat chicken drippings in small saucepan
2. Thoroughly stir in rice flour (a whisk helps get the lumps out).
3. When flour is thoroughly incorporated, slowly add cream, milk, or chicken stock, stirring well, until gravy reaches desired consistency.  Remove from heat.

Do you have any "rubber chicken" ideas that stretch a single cut of meat into more meals than one?  What are your favorite leftover ideas?

Posted at Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday and Pennywise Platter

Homemade Baconnaise

So, we've established that homemade mayonnaise is doable and so worth it, right?

Here's my next step: an extra burst of flavor from our old favorite...oh yes, bacon.

This is apparently a favorite in the Paleo community, so I thought I should probably jump on the bandwagon, for my husband's sake.

It is super easy, with only a few ingredients, and since I save our bacon fat, it was nearly free for us.  If you are a little short on bacon fat, I bet the bacon-y flavor would still shine through if you used, say, half a cup of bacon fat, and half a cup of olive oil.

Homemade Baconnaise

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks*
1 tsp. mustard
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. melted bacon fat (or tallow if you want to make beef-aise, duck fat if you want to make duck-aise)

Instructions:

1. In medium bowl, whisk egg yolks, mustard, and ACV or lemon juice very thoroughly.
2. Very slowly, add melted fat to the egg yolk mixture, whisking quickly the whole time.  I mean super slowly, like start out with just a drop or two at a time. 
3. Watch to make sure the oil is incorporating itself into the mixture, and that it is starting to get thick and creamy.  If it is super-runny, and the oil is just pooling on top, your baconnaise has "split," or failed to emulsify.  You can save it by adding it (again, very slowly) to an additional egg yolk.

Note 1: This is a "sometimes food" in our house, not because of the saturated fat or cholesterol (which we are generally fans of), but because bacon from less-than-ideal sources (even if it's uncured, like mine) is pretty high in omega-6's compared to omega-3's.  Most of us could use more omega-3's in comparison to our omega-6's, so unless we have a really great source of bacon (like pastured/fed fantastic stuff), we probably don't want to be inhaling the stuff every morning.  Also, I've read that pigs are notoriously bad at converting PUFA's (less stable polyunsaturated fatty acids) from their food into saturated fat (the stable kind we like) in their bodies, also making bacon a good choice for, well, sometimes.

*Note 2: These are raw egg yolks.  If you aren't comfortable with that, or you don't know where your eggs came from/don't trust their source, use pasteurized in-shell eggs.  Washing the egg before cracking it is supposed to help prevent contamination from any salmonella on the shell, however, I guess something like 1 in 30,000 eggs may have salmonella inside it.  The chances of the average egg-eater encountering such an egg is one in every 84 years, to put that in perspective.  But do note that all the official food safety people advise against eating raw or undercooked eggs.

Do you have a favorite homemade mayo or sauce recipe?  What are your feeling on eating raw/undercooked eggs?


Posted at Pennywise Platter

Homemade Ranch Dressing Mix

My family is a whole lot happier eating real food when it tastes, well, like what they are used to!

Unfortunately, so many of our favorite "signature flavor" sauces and condiments are full of preservatives, rancid oils, or frightening chemicals, making them off-limits for a real-food family.

Not to worry!  Almost every classic condiment can be easily made in your own kitchen.  

I just have to share my own favorite sauce, good old Ranch Dressing.  This recipe tastes as much as I can make it taste like H*dden Valley, but without the MSG and other fake food ingredients.  

Taking an idea from the name brand variety, I love to make a ready-to-use dry mix with all the right spices.  Then I can just pick how I want to use the dressing and mix accordingly.  Note: the flavors blend together and taste best if the dressing, dip, or spread is mixed up the night before and kept in the fridge overnight before use.

For example, for salad dressing (thin and pourable), I stir the dry mix into 1 cup sour cream (I'd love to see how homemade Greek yogurt or kefir cream would work for this, too!), 1 cup mayonnaise (homemade if possible), and 2 cups buttermilk (I also use plain raw milk sometimes)

For veggie dip (thicker), I love to mix with just 1 quart of sour cream or yogurt.

For a thick spread (like to put on crackers or veggie pizza), mix with 1 c. mayonnaise, 1 c. sour cream, and 16 oz. softened cream cheese.

Ingredients (to be mixed with 1 qt. wet ingredients):

2 Tbsps. dry parsley flakes

1 Tbsp. dry onion powder

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. dry dill 

1/4 tsp. sweetener of choice (like Rapadura)

Another note: Depending on your choice of liquid ingredients, if you add some homemade whey to the liquid ingredients, mix well, and set the mixture on the counter overnight before refrigerating, the friendly bacteria in the whey will help keep the Ranch Dressing good in the fridge much longer.  Otherwise, if you use homemade mayonnaise in your dressing, with no whey, remember that homemade mayo is only good for a day or two, even in the fridge!

What are your family's favorite condiments?  Do you ever make them from scratch?

Posted at Simple Lives Thursday, Your Green Resource and Pennywise Platter

What I've Learned About Mayonnaise

Oh, grocery store mayonnaise.  It tastes fine, it is SO easy, and it is SO cheap.  That's the trifecta of grocery store value, isn't it?

Why in the good Lord's name would I ever want to make (from scratch!) something that cheap, easy, and decent-tasting?

I'll tell you why.

The ingredient list.  Horror!

I have looked and looked (and looked), and I just can't find any store-bought mayo (even from the "natural food" aisle) that meets my criteria:

No canola oil

No soybean oil

No mysterious "vegetable" oil

No preservatives

No "flavors" added

There is a very good reason I can't find a product that doesn't contain those first three oils: they are "shelf-stable" (read: rancid, but deodorized and bleached so they will last forever without anyone suspecting), and basically ubiquitous on the American grocery store shelves.

Even the seemingly improved olive oil-type mayonnaise uses canola/soybean/vegetable oil to achieve that shelf-stability and mild flavor that people expect.  And with the recent expose on not-so-virgin olive oil this last year, who knows what that mayonnaise really contains, anyway?

But for me (and maybe for you?), having those old familiar sauces and condiments that were a part of my childhood made eating other real food seem a little less scary, a little more...doable.  There is just something about the taste of normal mayo from a glass jar that makes my frightening and strange homemade soaked or sprouted sourdough taste like a comfort food.

Also, who learns to make and understand emulsions when they are growing up in the kitchen?  Not I.  Ants On A Log?  Yes.  Mysterious oil-and-water-come-together-at-last?  No.

These are all the reasons I was afraid to make homemade mayonnaise.  Oh, and did I mention that I once went all out, gung ho, with my lightly-flavored olive oil, mustard, whey, egg yolks, and trusty, splattered copy of Nourishing Traditions, and started to make mayonnaise, only to have it "split" when I added the oil too fast?  Unfortunately, I didn't know the damage could be repaired, so I just tossed everything in the trash and put that on my list of "Things I really don't want to try again."

We carried on, eating grocery store mayo and trying not to think about it.

But, oh, that ingredient list.

Well, the other day, I just had enough.

I am pleased to announce to the world that I have conquered mayonnaise.  Feel free to applaud loudly and extol my grit and determination.  

I have to thank my husband (again) for motivating me in this department.  He is doing so well with his new Paleo eating, and I so wanted him to have decent sauces to put on his food.  My sour cream ranch was just missing something, so I decided I'd better make mayonnaise to put in it.

It was only a little scary!

And I learned:

• You can make a mayonnaise-type emulsion with any kind of oil you like, as long as you have an egg or egg yolk to emulsify it.  The egg yolk contains lecithin, which is the secret ingredient that makes the oil and other liquids blend together.
• Don't make your mayo in the blender if you have to take the lid all the way off to drizzle the oil in.  It will make a mess.  It will get all over your face and hair if you peer in.  I am still cleaning mayo off my kitchen cabinets.
• If you hand-whisk your mayo in a bowl, it will be easier to see whether the oil is emulsifying, rather than guessing and hoping while it whirs in said blender.
• If your mayonnaise "splits," or doesn't emulsify, DON'T throw it out.  All that good oil floating on top can be re-mixed with a new egg or egg yolk for a second try.

Have you ever made your own homemade mayonnaise?  How did it go?  Do you have any ideas or advice to share?

Posted at Hearth and Soul and Fat Tuesday

The Elusive Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker

I learned something new today, and on a cream-and-honey induced high, I want to share it with you.

Without pictures.

Because mine looked really bad, but tasted really good.

If you want to see pictures of this amazing Blackberry Terrine, visit the original at Things My Belly Likes.

I have to admit, I was skeptical that a dessert found on the Food Renegade blog could be this spectacularly non-healthy-tasting (and well-received by my family).  But it was.

Anyway, here's the new thing I learned today: a Terrine (which in this case was basically frozen whipped cream and whipped egg yolks), is part of a genre of French cuisine called Forcemeat.  Which is meat (or something else delicious)...forced into a dish.  Sounds pretty horrible, and honestly, the Wikipedia picture of Forcemeat looks rather frightening.

But I am delighted to learn that there is an actual genre for meat squashed into a pan.  Apparently, pate, which I hope will be my next adventurous culinary creation, is in the Forcemeat category.

My brain loves categorizing things, so just in case yours does too, you can tuck pates and delicious blackberry-flavored machine-less ice creams into the same category.

Paleo Pancakes, From Einstein's POV

We have a favorite grain-free banana pancake recipe that we've been making for the last year or so.  It is from Kate Tietje's Against the Grain e-book (I loved it so much I am promoting it...)

The recipe makes about enough to feed my 4-year-old, 2-year-old, and myself for lunch.  Today, we made a double batch and shared with my delighted, recently-turned-Paleo husband ("I can have these?!?") and one of our staffers ("Whoa, these are actually pretty good.")

I generally hate grain-free "substitute" foods, since they are generally kind of nasty, sweet enough to make your kids crave more sweets (and it's hard to explain to a 2-year-old that Mommy's coconut flour pancakes are fine, but the white-flour ones at the restaurant are just a "sometimes food"), and too often a replacement for plain, savory, nutritious food.

But these banana pancakes are, so far, one of the best recipes I have found that omits flour and does not become disgusting.  I think it helps that they are cooked on the stove, so you can check and tweak as you cook, instead of popping it in the oven and helplessly praying for good results.

Since bananas are not exactly local (ha!), and we are trying to reduce our dependence on them (the kids have pretty severe emotional attachment to them), we've also adapted this recipe to use sweet potatoes and winter squashes when they are in season.  Yum!

Here's our sweet potato version:

Sweet Potato Paleo Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, cooked and mashed (I love using leftovers from the previous night's dinner!)
3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 T honey (optional: just use if you prefer a sweeter pancake)
1 tsp. cinnamon (also optional, but it really makes the sweet potato flavor shine!)
Plenty of coconut oil, butter, ghee, or oil of choice,  for frying

Directions:

1. Mash sweet potato well.
2. Stir together sweet potato and all other ingredients.  Note: you cannot overmix this, since it doesn't contain any wheat/gluten, so mix it really well, until you get all the lumps out!
3. Melt oil or butter in skillet/griddle over medium heat.
4. Spoon pancake batter onto hot skillet, about 2-3 Tbsp. per pancake.  It helps to spread the batter out a little into a pancake shape if it doesn't spread itself out.  When batter around bottom edge of pancake just begins to brown, pancakes are ready to flip.  Experiment with this a little!
5. Continue to cook pancakes, adding more oil to pan as needed.
6. Enjoy with extra butter on top!

Adapted from Kate Tietje's Against the Grain e-book

Today, Einstein, who is now 4, elected to document our cooking session.  I'm sorry if you read the title and hoped the real Einstein had an opinion on my pancakes.  As far as I know, he did not.

I apologize in advance for the gratuitous display of toddler photography.  It's fascinating to see things from his point of view.

Chubby toddler arms prepare to mash bananas

Mashing proceeds

Einstein takes a turn while Miss Euler takes a photo

Sizzling away in coconut oil

Tim the staff member is pleasantly surprised

Posted at Fight Back Friday

How to Start Making Kombucha

Step 1: Make friends with teenage staff member whose mom cooks real food.
Step 2: Mention that we like real food too.
Step 3: Gasp when said "Healthy Mom" picks her son up for the weekend, and she suddenly presents me with an extra kombucha Scoby.
Step 4: Decide not to kill Scoby.
Step 5: Rationalize that if "Healthy Mom" can keep kombucha alive along with her 7 kids, I can probably manage it with just 3.
Step 6: Start brewing.

That's why we now have a gallon jar of kombucha on the kitchen counter.  I will admit, I was afraid of kombucha.  But it turns out, it's super easy, even easier than the water kefir I used to make (until I killed it when we moved to Oregon).

So, here's how easy it really is to make kombucha:

1. Boil 3 quarts of water, then add 1 cup of sugar to the hot water.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved.  
2. Add 4 teabags, and let steep.  
3. Let sugar/tea mixture cool to room temperature (you can just leave the tea bags in until everything is cooled)
4. Pour sugar/tea mixture into gallon jar, add 2 cups of kombucha from a previous batch, and plunk the old scoby into the jar.
5. Cover with towel, secure with rubber band, and ignore for a week!  That's my favorite part...

These instructions assume you've gotten a scoby from someone else, along with a little bit of kombucha to add to your first batch.  If you aren't fortunate enough to have a scoby foisted upon you by a friend, you can also order a dehydrated one online from Cultures for Health or a plethora of other online vendors.

Posted at Monday Mania and Fat Tuesday

Real Convenience Food: Chicken Broth in the Freezer!

And check out the Homemade Frozen Hashbrowns and Homemade Chicken Nuggets tutorials, too, for more great "Real Convenience Food!"

What a week!

Baby Euclid is only 4 weeks old, and our last week was spent with all three kids having the same cold, in varying degrees of severity.  I wasn't too worried about the "big kids," who don't generally have any trouble getting over colds (unless they're subjected to goldfish crackers in Sunday School, which seem to extend the duration of the cold by about 5 days).  But I've never had a baby get sick so young before - scary!

We were blessed, though, to have a complication-free cold for the little guy, and he's recovering nicely.  The most frustrating part of the experience was feeling that I could do so little for him.  There was, of course, the perpetual saline-and-bulb-syringe routine, but not much else to do but wait for the cold to work itself out.  

Fortunately, little Euclid is a champion breast-feeder, so, strange as it felt, while he was sick, I ate just the way I would have done if I had a cold myself.  Despite repeated assurances from many breastfeeding organizations that a nursing mother's diet doesn't matter that much, that mother's milk will always provide baby what he or he needs, I am convinced that a mother's diet has an impact on the quality of her milk.  If my diet can make my baby gassy, why can't it also help him recover from illness quickly?  It was worth a few days of careful eating.

Fortunately, I had plenty of my favorite sick-food on hand in the freezer: homemade chicken broth!  

Ever since discovering several years ago that bone-in chicken breasts are half the cost of boneless/skinless, I've been saving bones to make broth.  Now, we don't buy chicken breasts very often anymore, preferring to buy whole chickens, but, if anything, the broth process is even easier now!

I used to be bogged down by my cookbook, always making sure to add just enough carrots, celery sticks, or whatever, to just the right amount of water to make stock that simmered just the right amount of time.  But I'm way more likely to actually follow through with my good intentions if I simplify the process!

All chicken bones and scraps go in bags in the freezer to be saved until I have enough (or stripped whole carcasses go straight in the crock-pot) to be simmered overnight in a crockpot full of water.  The next day, I have the most glorious, delicious chicken broth waiting for me on the counter!  I don't even add veggies or spices to that first batch, just a little Apple Cider Vinegar, which I've heard is supposed to help draw nutrients out of the bones.

In the morning, I strain the broth into a big bowl and toss the bones right back into the crock pot with fresh water to make one more batch.  If I have veggie scraps (like celery leaves, onion ends, etc.) in the freezer, those go in too.  

To make the broth truly convenient, I freeze it in ice-cube trays and toss the frozen cubes in a bag in the freezer, so I can grab just as much as I want to thaw or add to recipes.  

Some of my favorite uses for homemade stock:

• Toss a few cubes in a saucepan to heat up and drink straight (with a little pepper)
• Use in place of water to cook rice
• Heat up with leftover meat and veggies to make the quickest soup of all time!
• Use a few cubes to deglaze my pan after cooking/sauteing and make a quick sauce to go with dinner.

What do you use stocks and broths for?  Do you have a favorite method to make them, or prefer the ready-made variety?  If you make your own, do you add Apple Cider Vinegar while making stock?  Any idea if it helps?

Posted at Monday Mania

Schmaltz: How to Render Chicken Fat

I recently deboned 16 lovely chicken thighs to make some homemade chicken nuggets.  I've always saved the bones to make chicken stock, but this time, it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't need to throw away the chicken skins like I usually do (this was the first time I've had organic chicken to work with, and I never cared to save the fat from the conventional chicken).

So, what to do with chicken skins?  Render the fat from them, of course!

It was unbelievably easy:

Schmaltz: Rendered Chicken Fat:

Materials:
Medium sauce pan
1/2 c water
Chicken skins

Instructions:
1. Place chicken skins in pot with water.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until water is boiled off and chicken skins are crispy.
3. Strain fat into jar and refrigerate/freeze until needed.
4. Eat chicken cracklins (crispy skins) if you want, or toss them to the dog!
 
Here's what my chicken skins, which otherwise would've ended up in the trash, became:

The skins from 16 little thighs yielded about 6 oz. of organic chicken fat, plus chicken "cracklins," which are kind of like pork rinds, I guess.  I ate a few (they needed salt!) and gave the rest to the dog, who thought they were a gift from heaven.  I think (for humans, anyway), they may be one of those things you have to get used to...

Since the fats I use in my kitchen tend to be a little pricier than the average cheap, nasty tub o' canola, it was really exciting to get almost half a pound of organic, saturated fat for free!  

Posted at WFMW

Homemade Freezer Chicken Nuggets: 75% Savings!

If you like this kind of thing, also check out Homemade Chicken Broth and Homemade Frozen Hash Browns for more REAL convenient food!

Don't you love the trade-off between doing things yourself, inexpensively, and doing them quickly, but paying a whole lot more?  Take frozen chicken nuggets, for example.

My last trip to the freezer section revealed that I could purchase ready-made organic chicken nuggets for $16.00 a pound!  Yes, that's right, the 8 oz. package was $8.00.  

A few rows down, in the meat section, I found organic chicken thighs for $2.49 a pound.  Sold.

They are not packaged in a colorful bag, but these nuggets cost me about $3.00/lb, instead of $16.00!

Of course, since deboning chicken thighs is not my all-time favorite thing to do when I have some free time, I put off actually making the nuggets until the defrosted meat in my fridge really couldn't be ignored another day.

Then, using approximately the same method I used when I posted my original Freezer Nugget Recipe, I deboned the thighs, cut them into bite-sized pieces, breaded, and baked them.  They turned out quite a bit crispier this time, and just as delicious!

Ingredients:

• Chicken of your choice, deboned, and cut into bite-sized pieces
• Eggs (about 2 eggs per pound of chicken meat)
• Flour of choice (I used rye this time, but next time I'm going to try out rice flour)
• Breading Seasonings:  Salt, Pepper, Onion and Garlic Powder, whatever you feel like trying!  

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Whisk eggs in small bowl.
3. Mix flour and seasonings together in another small bowl.
4. Working one at a time, or in batches (whatever works for you), dip each chicken piece in flour mixture, then egg, then flour mixture again.  Place on greased baking sheet.
5. When baking sheet is full, bake for 20 minutes, flipping chicken nuggets over after 10 minutes.
6. Cool, store, and reheat whenever you need a quick meal or snack!

Posted at Monday Mania and WFMW

Fantastic Soaked Whole Wheat Biscuits

I am SO excited about this new recipe I found at Nourished Kitchen for soaked whole wheat biscuits!

Here's why I'm so excited: although he happily eats all kinds of weird kitchen experiments, my husband is not a huge fan of soup.  Especially because soup is often my sneaky attempt to provide a full meal with whatever small amount of leftover meat we have on hand, I think he often feels like he is getting cheated out of a full dinner when we have soup.  It makes a lovely side dish, but, "is this all we're having?"  

Fortunately, since I love soup, and it's cheap, easy, and crock-pot friendly, he will eat soup much more happily if it is accompanied by some type of bread for dunking purposes.  In the past, this has generally meant either biscuits or cornbread, because they are really fast and I don't have to think about them ahead of time.  Soup days, thus, had become one of the few times we consumed white flour at dinner - so much for a totally healthy, guilt-free meal!

My past attempt at soaked cornbread from Nourishing Traditions (also baked at 9000 ft) was not a success, and neither was my last attempt at soaked whole wheat biscuits.  I don't remember where that recipe came from - another blog, I think - but I don't think you would want me to share it with you anyway!  Those biscuits turned out like flat, hard rocks.  Good thing we had some soup to eat with them to make them somewhat edible!

I love this new recipe I found for a few reasons:

1. The biscuits are light, moist, and fluffy!  Way fluffier than your standard whole wheat fare.
2. They have way more delicious flavor than their white-flour counterparts.
3. The flour in the biscuits soaks in buttermilk (or in my case, yogurt mixed with some raw milk) overnight, which helps neutralize the phytic acid content of the whole wheat and makes the nutrients in the wheat easier for the body to absorb.  This is also what helps the biscuits fluff up so well and not taste so heavy and "whole grain-y."
4. To go along with #3, these biscuits pass the Pregnancy Heartburn Test!!  Right now, being 7 months pregnant, I have this convenient little indicator for when I have eaten things that are not digesting ideally - raging heartburn!  Most grains give me trouble (especially wheat... rice is fine), but sprouted bread is okay, and these biscuits are burn-free!  Not only do I not have to be uncomfortable after eating them, but I can feel more confident that they are easy for my body to digest, rather than placing a burden on my digestion.  
5. They are an excellent butter vehicle.  :)  Funnily enough, butter (contrary to the warnings of most mainstream pregnancy books), doesn't bother my heartburn in the least.

I have been debating whether to post the recipe for the biscuits here, with my one change (2 Tbsp. yogurt stirred into 1 c milk, to replace the "freshly cultured buttermilk" called for in the recipe), but I didn't really change it enough to make it "mine," and I don't want to rip off Jenny's hard work.

So here is the link again for Whole Grain Buttermilk (or other soaking medium) Biscuits at Nourished Kitchen

They are excellent.  If you are looking for a delicious way to rid your life of a little white flour, I highly recommend them.

Have you tried any whole wheat or soaked whole wheat recipes?  What kind of success have you had?  Have you ever noticed grains or any other kind of food aggravating or irritating your digestion?


Posted at WFMW and Living Well

Canning Conundrums

My husband and I are so ridiculous.  Every time we drive home (a very pretty wooded drive along a lovely river) or sit out on the porch swing (left by our predecessors!), we just stare at the lovely landscape and say things like, "Wow, it's so pretty here."  Over and over.  I assume we will outgrow this with time.  Maybe.

The thing is, Oregon seems like the kind of place where people are just supposed to  live.  The ground is just bursting with life, begging you to plant things and, please, buy a cow to eat all that extra grass.  This is in stark contrast to our previous home, which, while lovely, requires more of a hunter-gatherer mindset to live off the land, rather than an agricultural one.  You have to fight to live "traditionally" in our part of Colorado, while this area of Oregon just invites you to plop down and start up a farm.

Isn't this field just begging to be inhabited by a cow and some chickens?

Anyway, all this agricultural bounty is a very welcome addition to our lives.  In particular, we're enjoying the mature orchard out in our garden, especially the ripe blackberries and prunes (not plums...) that are ready right now.  

I am very motivated to use as much of this fruit as possible.  But I am running into the age-old problem of how to keep it around and fresh for longer than a few days!  We have limited freezer space, and moving across the country has left no room in the budget for a fancy new dehydrator.  What we do have is a canner.  And lots of jars.  Perfect solution!  Kind of.  

After spending a good half hour tearing through boxes marked "books," desperately searching for my Ball Blue Book, I found the darn thing right on the cupboard shelf where I put it when I unpacked it last week.  Problem is, the good folks at Ball don't seem to have a problem with packing themselves (and their recipes) full of sugar, and I do have a problem with that.  Their recipes are so clearly laid out and easy to follow that they are a good place for a beginner canner like me to start, but I don't think plum jams that are more sugar than fruit are a good staple to have in my family's pantry.

So far, these have been my solutions:

1. Canning "fruit in syrup," using large chunks of fruit and either the "extra light" syrup or diluted fruit juice.
2. Making normal, very sugary recipes with the intent of giving them away as holiday/hostess/whatever gifts, rather than consuming them ourselves.

These lovely jars of prune jelly (I will probably call them plum), are just begging to be given away as gifts!

Does anyone have any good ideas for reducing sugar in canned goods, or a great recipe resource with lower-sugar alternatives?  Really, I'd love to hear any ideas for preserving my garden bounty!


Posted at Monday Mania

Help!

I'm calling in all my favors (what favors?) today!  I need some expert advice, and I think this may be the place to find it!  Here goes:

Does anyone know whether, if I left my villi yogurt out on the counter an extra night, and it has turned into curds and whey, can I use the curds and/or whey to culture a new batch?  I don't want to have improperly cultured yogurt, from using unsuitable starter!

Anyone?  I may be heading over to Dynomom or Common Sense Homesteading here to request help - I know both Melissa and Laurie are Villi pros.

On a more positive note, my Water Kefir grains just arrived in the mail from Cultures for Health!  I didn't allow myself to order them until I had a good yogurt-making routine down.  Little did I know that my recent chicken fatalities would throw off my morning routine long enough to sabotage my yogurt-making!

I guess today is a day of questions - if you've made water kefir or kombucha, what are your favorite juices/flavorings to add for a second ferment in the fridge?


Posted at Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist

Most Effective Ways to Wash Conventional Produce

In my recent post about incorporating veggies into our breakfast menu, I mentioned that I don't have access to organic bell peppers where I live.  Unless you live in a large-ish city or a very organic-y area (like Boulder or Portland...sigh...), chances are you've run into this problem too: there is not always an organic version of every fruit and vegetable available in all areas.  Of course, we can change our menus to only include organic ingredients, or we can only use organic produce from our own gardens.  But what if I just really, really want to put a bell pepper in my breakfast omelette?

Unfortunately, one of the main problems with pesticides is that they don't always stay nicely on the outside of the produce they are applied to.  The Environmental Working Groups Dirty Dozen list of the 12 most pesticide-laden produce items was actually compiled using data from produce that had been washed and peeled.  Even after washing and peeling the items, 97.8% of conventional apples still had traces of pesticides in them!  So the obvious perfect-world solution is to just buy organic always (this has the added benefits of supporting organic methods with your food dollar and keeping additional pesticides out of the dirt, water supply, etc.).  When it's not possible to buy organic, though, it's extremely important to wash produce thoroughly.  Some pesticides find their way into the flesh of the produce, but the main concentration is still generally on the outside.

So what's the best way to get that produce clean?  Well, many of us grew up thinking that a simple rinse in the sink was more than adequate.  Grocery stores and natural foods stores have several varieties of produce wash to choose from, and the internet abounds with advice.  What's the best?

I did some investigating this morning with a lovely 2 pounds of blueberries.  The grocery store seemed to be fresh out of organic berries, so I sprung for the fantastic sale on conventional berries.  I didn't realize at the time that my copy of the Dirty Dozen was out of date, and blueberries are number 10 on the updated top-pesticide residue list.  Alas.  Anyway, I divided them up into groups, tried some different methods for washing, and evalutated the results:

A:    Soak in slightly sudsy dishsoap-y water for 5 minutes (then rinse): Berries had no waxy residue appearance.

B+:  Soak in lemon juice/baking soda solution for 5 minutes (then rinse): Berries had very little waxy residue appearance

B+:  Soak in Apple Cider Vinegar solution for 5 minutes (then rinse): Berries had very little waxy residue appearance

C-:  Rinse with water: Berries still looked just like unwashed berries, with all the waxy residue apparently intact.

Now, this wasn't exactly a scientific test: I didn't have any pesticide-testing equipment to see how effective the washes were, I just had the appearance of the fruit.  But the difference in appearance was quite noticeable.  After coming to my own conclusions, I asked my husband which batches he thought looked cleanest and dirtiest, and he chose exactly the way I did.

It makes sense that the dishsoap would do a great job removing a waxy, petroleum-based residue on fruit, since it is made specifically to cut grease.  However, the apple cider vinegar solution and the lemon juice/baking soda solution have the advantage that they are both made of entirely edible ingredients.  If they don't get rinsed off very thoroughly, they won't do any harm, as the dishsoap might if it's not rinsed well.  I'm always suspicious of cleaning solutions that combine an acid and a base, though, like the lemon juice/baking soda solution.  They react in the bowl when they are combined, before any fruit is added... so then aren't they pretty much neutralizing each other and not doing any good?

Anyway, the result is pretty clear: take an extra few minutes to wash your produce well, with any of the above solutions, or a commercial product.  They really do clean better than water alone.

Take heed: after you wash the waxy residue off your produce, it will probably have a reduced shelf life (since it has lost its protective coating).  So don't wash your produce until you're ready to use it, especially for fast-spoiling or delicate foods like berries.

What do you think?  Do you use any particular product or concoction to clean your produce?  What works well for you?

Sources: EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides

Posted at Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS

Pressure-canning Ground Beef

Have you ever had a new tool that you were so excited to get started with, but a little nervous to try?  That's been the story of my pressure canner the last year or so.  I've used it with the lid off, as a boiling-water canner, several times.  But actually hooking up the lid with the little weight and the pressure gauge?  Sounded scary!

Not so.  A little instruction-following is all it takes.

I took the plunge recently, and canned my first ever low-acid food!  Low-acid foods are more prone to going bad over time, especially by being infected with botulism.  So instead of canning them in a normal boiling-water canner (a big pot), they must be canned at high pressure, to raise the temperature of the boiling water.  Check out the visual: the pressure-temperature graph for water.

Source: How Stuff Works

As the graph shows, as pressure increases, water boils at a higher temperature.  So to process my low-acid food at a super-high temperature, which kills all the potentially lethal fungi and bacteria that it contains, I have to raise the pressure.

This is done with a lovely gadget called a pressure canner (basically just a giant pressure cooker), which has a tight-sealing lid to keep pressure in, and a gauge to measure the pressure.  

As the water boils, it turns into steam, which builds up pressure inside the sealed pot.  By adjusting the flame under the canner, I could control the pressure in the pot, keeping it right where I wanted it to maintain the correct processing temperature.  

Here we go:

I chose to can ground meat (a few cans of turkey, and a few of beef) because it is cheap, readily available, and widely used in my recipes.  It's important to choose lean meat because the fat in fattier cuts can easily become rancid during storage, even if it's canned.  Rancid fats are not "good eats."

1. I prepare my meat and equipment:

   -the canner (full of water) on a high flame on the stove (back right burner)

   -the jar lids simmering (back right burner)

   -the meat browning in two pots

   -my pint canning jars were already thoroughly washed and in the canner, heating up too.

2. After it was browned, I carefully funnelled the meat into the prepared jars, wiped the rims with a vinegar-soaked cloth (to clean off any fat that could keep the lids from sealing, screwed on the lids, and began to process the jars.  

3. Processing in the canner:  Every canner is probably different, but the lid on mine just screws on very securely to create an airtight seal.  It took at least 15 minutes for pressure to build up in the canner.  Here it is at zero, before the pressure built up. 

4. Finally, the pressure increased to the amount specified in my manual (or check this chart, which will show you exactly what pressure you need for your altitude, and how long to let them boil), I turned the flame/burner down a little on my stove to keep it at that specific pressure, and I let the jars process at high pressure for the time specified on the chart.

5. All the boiling paid off with eight jars of lovely, ready-to-use beef.  Once the specified time to boil at high pressure has been reached, it is VERY important to just turn the stove off and leave the pressure canner alone until the pressure dial goes back down to "zero."  There is a TON of pressure built up in that sucker, and you don't want to blow the lid off into your face (or through the kitchen window!) by messing around with it!

So, why go to all the work of pressure canning anyway?

I have never (purposely) eaten much canned meat before, and I'm philosophically opposed to most canned meats from the store, because of all the added salt and chemicals.  But it's really nice to be able to store meat, ready to go, outside of my very overcrowded freezer.  These jars have no added ingredients (you can add salt if you want, but I didn't), and the jars are glass, so there's no BPA scare.  I don't know if this will be my normal method of preparing meat for everyday use, but it is nice to have some stocked up, and to have the knowledge to be able to do it again.  

I am really excited about this meat, not only for everyday convenience, but because my rural area loses power quite frequently in the winter.  I am excited to have a fully cooked, ready-to-heat meat option available in my cupboard!

If you're interested in canning meats or other low-acid foods, it's VERY important to follow the directions on your pressure canner.  It's a simple process, but you don't want to mess around with meat that's going to sit in the cupboard for 6 months.  

Posted at Simples Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS

Real Butter Spread

One of the little things I always forget to do is set my butter out to soften before I need it.  And there's nothing worse than going to butter a piece of bread and having hard-as-a-rock butter that tears up the bread.

I grew up always having some kind of soft spread on hand, but after switching to real butter, that wasn't an option.  Lately, my family's been using the "spreadable butter" that is mixed with olive oil (or canola when the olive oil kind is not on sale).  I am not wild about any extra canola oil in my family's diet (and we eat quite a lot of toast and butter), and I have yet to find an organic version of the butter-oil mixture.

Luckily, we ran out of spreadable butter last week, and in slight desperation at toast time, I tried this!

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter

1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil (if you don't like that olive-y taste very much, you can use light)

pinch of salt (if your butter is unsalted)

Instructions:

Process in food processor (mixing with a spatula does NOT work... it leaves it really lumpy)

Refrigerate.

It only takes a minute to mix.

So... why in the world have I been going out of my way to buy this stuff pre-mixed?  Great question.  This homemade spreadable butter tastes just like store-bought (and I can even use organic, pastured butter)!

Posted at Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the KitchenKop