Mystery Veggies

For the last month or so, we’ve been participating in the Bountiful Baskets program. It’s like a co-op, we pay a certain amount each week and get a big box full of organic veggies. I guess you could also call it a CSA, but those are usually consist mainly of local produce and since Bountiful Baskets is in about 20 states it’s not usually local produce.  We’ve even had produce from Mexico.

So far I really like the program, I haven’t received any produce that was already past it’s prime and compared to going to the Whole Foods and buying the same things, it’s one heck of a deal. However, there is one great perk that I didn’t expect when I first started participating, we have tried veggies that I would never have tried on my own. It seems each week we get some sort of veggie that I’ve never seen before. Sometimes I’m a bit intimidated when I open my box and find something like this:

Or this:

But usually all it takes it my best friend Google to help me figure out what it is and what to do with it.  And if nothing else I use my new motto “when it doubt, roast it.”  LOL

In case you’re wondering, the top picture is celery root and I think the bottom is a sugar beet. And those are just two of the new veggies our family has tried since the beginning of the year. Without much complaint, my kids have tried celery root, sugar beet, butternut squash, asparagus, artichoke, brussels sprouts and zucchini just to name a few. My husband and I have also eaten these foods, but let’s face it the kids trying them is the bigger victory!

Overall, I am really enjoying getting a random box of produce each week And sometimes I even get a nice little surprise like this smiley avocado!

I highly recommend the Bountiful Baskets program, but it’s not available everywhere.  To see if it’s available in your area, go to bountifulbaskets.org.  If your area isn’t listed, check out localharvest.org to see if there are any CSA’s you can join near you.

 

 

 

 

High Altitude No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

As I mentioned in my last post, I am on a quest to find a good recipe for a 100% whole wheat bread that is high altitude friendly. My previous method of using wheat flour in this recipe just wasn’t cutting it at 7,000 ft. The loaves didn’t rise well and were pretty dense.

See how small they are?

I’m sure it’s not all the altitude that screwed up that recipe, it probably doesn’t help that I took a recipe that called for AP flour and just put in 100% whole wheat. Still, I didn’t want to try and tweak that recipe anymore so I started googling.  

While I love making bread, I’m not into the recipes that take forever and require multiple rises and massive amounts of kneading. I started searching for no-knead bread recipes and most of the ones I found required 12-24 hours between making the dough and baking it. I was delighted when I stumbled upon this recipe and I tried it out right away. However, because of it’s rapid rising time the inner structure of the loaf wasn’t very stable. It did have a great flavor though, so I used some of the knowledge I’d picked up from Pie in the Sky and made some tweaks. What resulted was a loaf of bread, slightly larger than I’m accustomed to, that held together beautifully and had amazing flavor. The best part is that it only takes about an hour from the time I start proofing the yeast until I pull it out of the oven!

Look at the difference!  That’s a gorgeous loaf of bread!

High Altitude No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

(adapted from baking bites)

4 1/3 cups white whole wheat flour (you can find this with other wheat flour)
1 3/4 cups warm, not hot, water
4 tsp active dry yeast
2 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup butter, melted (you could probably use coconut oil in place of this)
1 3/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place flour in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 30-40 seconds, until warm to the touch.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine yeast, honey and 1 cup of the water. Combine and let sit for about 10 minutes, until yeast foams.

Add the remaining water, butter, salt and about 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon.

Attach dough hook to stand mixer, turn to recommended setting when using the dough hook.  (My mixer’s manual said to use the dough hook only at speed 2.) Continue adding flour gradually until dough forms into a smooth ball and begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn mixer speed up a notch or 2 and mix for 1 minute. (I know this breaks the rules with my mixer, but it hasn’t hurt anything…yet!)

Butter a 9×5 loaf pan well.

Turn dough into loaf pan and press down to form it a bit to the shape of the pan.

Lightly grease a piece of plastic wrap and lay it over the pan. Don’t seal it, you’re just trying to keep out cool air. (I use my Misto for this so I don’t have to worry about the junk in the spray cans of oil)

Allow dough to rise for about 20 minutes or until dough has risen approximately 1 inch above the sides of the pan. Depending on the weather, the temperature in your house, etc. your bread may rise faster or slower, just check on it every 5 minutes or so to see how fast it’s rising.

When bread had risen, remove plastic wrap and place pan in oven.

Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for another 15-20 minutes. Bread should be a dark golden brown and sound hollow when you tap on the top.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then place on wire rack to finish cooling.

If you can resist the delicious smell of freshly baked bread, let it cool completely before cutting into it.  Cutting into warm bread often results in a mess!

If you can’t resist it, enjoy anyway!

High Altitude Baking is not for Wimps!

8 months ago we were living 50 feet above sea level and I never had a problem baking anything, 7 months ago we moved to Colorado….at an elevation of 7,000+ ft. I have barely done any baking since that move. I had no idea that the altitude had the ability to affect my baking so drastically. What was once a joy and something that helped me relax, had become something I dreaded and feared!

Until a couple weeks ago, I was unaware that mini-cupcakes had the ability to sink in the middle! Who knew they were big enough to even do that?!?!?!?!?

Thankfully I was given a cookbook recommendation that has restored my ability to enjoy baking! It’s called Pie in the Sky and the author definitely did her research.  She took the time to test and adjust over 100 baking recipes at 4 different elevations, 3,000 ft., 5,000 ft., 7,000 ft. and 10,000 ft.

(If you’d like to check out the book for yourself click on the picture, it’ll take you to the Amazon page.)

 

When I got this book, I read through it like it was a novel.  I wanted to understand what makes high altitude baking difficult and how to adjust my recipes to make them successful. Thankfully, she does a wonderful job of this; providing adjustments for her own recipes as well as guideline for adjusting your own.

Following Susan G. Purdy’s advice, I took one of her basic recipes and made it my own by incorporating lemon zest.  The end result was an AMAZING lemon cake that didn’t sink one bit and was fully cooked throughout! This came just in time too, since I’d already committed to making a cake for a friend soon. I cannot wait to try some more of her suggestions and start crafting some more delicious sweets.

I realize that this sounds just like any of the other book reviews I’ve posted, but this is not a formal review. I just wanted to share this info with anyone else who might be having the same issues I was having.

Next up, I’ll be on a quest to perfect a 100% whole wheat bread that tastes delicious, doesn’t just fall apart, and doesn’t rise to fast that is jeopardizes the structural integrity of the loaf.  Any suggestions?

Cook Book Review: You Be Sweet

You Be Sweet
By
Patsy Caldwell and Amy Wilson

If you love Southern cooking, especially dessert, you need to read this book!

Each section starts out with a short story by Amy Wilson. The stories give a little background and create a setting in which one might serve the recipes that follow. The stories told are entertaining and help take this cook book to another level; a step above your standard cookbook with just recipes and pictures. I really wish there was more to read about the characters introduced, but since this is a cookbook and not a novel I guess I’ll just take what I can get.

When I opened the book to the table of contents, I was shocked at the amount of recipes this book contains. There are ten chapters and each one of the contains 15-20 recipes. I’ll let you do the math, but trust me…that’s a lot of recipes!!!  Patsy Caldwell must have given away every secret family recipe in this book. There were only a handful of recipes that didn’t appeal to me and that’s just because of my taste preferences; there wasn’t anything that seemed downright nasty. Here are a few of the recipes that stood out to me: Sara’s Peanut Brittle, Lemon-Raspeberry Cupcakes with Lemon Icing, Homemade Caramel Candy and Old Fashioned Southern Chess Pie. One of my favorite things about this cook book is that most everything is made from scratch, there aren’t too many pre-made ingredients.

I can’t wait to try some of these recipes. If I get a chance, I’ll make sure to post some reviews about them here.

Buy the book:

This book can be found at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as many other retailers.

Disclaimer: A complimentary copy of this book was provided for review by Thomas Nelson Publishers. All thoughts are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

Cookbook Review: Simply Grilling

Simply Grilling
105 Recipes for Quick and Casual Grilling
By
Jennifer Chandler

In her latest cookbook Jennifer Chandler, a chef trained at Paris’ famed Le Cordon Bleu, provides simple, yet delicious recipes for grilling that you can use any night of the week. She’s really tried to make sure that all of the dishes in the book can be made on even the busiest night of the week. She starts of the book with a section titled Grilling 101 in which she addresses the basics of grilling, essential grill gear and various tips and trick to use while grilling. Following are sections including starters, poultry, meat, vegetables, desserts, and more. Each of the sections starts with a little introduction or story about how she came up with the recipes and why she included the section in the book.

I really enjoyed looking through this cookbook; the recipes sound amazing and there are gorgeous pictures accompanying each one. Along with clear step-by-step directions, Jennifer provides cooking tips, variations and suggested sides where appropriate. I haven’t had the chance to make anything from the book yet, but looking at the pictures and reading through it all makes me want to try it all.  If you’re a fan of grilling and are looking for some new recipes, I’d highly suggest this book. Here are just a few of the recipes included:

Tequila Chicken Fajitas

Prosciutto and Fontina Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Cowboy T-Bone with Whiskey Butter

Grilled Potato Salad

New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp

Grilled Peaches and Pound Cake

I cannot wait to try these recipes….hopefully I’ll have a chance soon!

Buy the Book:

This book can be found at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as many other retailers.

Disclaimer: A complimentary copy of this book was provided for this review. All thoughts are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

Purple Sweet Potatoes: 2 Ways

Recently I’ve fallen in love with Hawaiian purple sweet potatoes, especially the ones served at one of my favorite restaurants, Monkeypod Kitchen. Unfortunately I can’t afford to go there and eat them as much as I’d like to, so while I was at Costco the other day I picked up a 5 lb. box and figured I’d try my hand at cooking them. I love mashed purple sweet potatoes, but there was no need to cook all 5 lb. this way so I decided I’d also try making some baked potato chips.

Both recipes start with peeling the potatoes. At this point they look a little strange and I was beginning to think they might be kinda strange.

I started chopping the potatoes I was going to boil and found that the inner portion looks much more like I’d hoped.  Check out the color!

After chopping these (about 1-in. cubes) I boiled them until I could easily stab them with a fork. It took about 20 minutes. I was left with these beauties and a pot of dark blue water….my daughter said it was ocean blue.

I used my hand held mixer to mash these up with some butter, cream, salt, and pepper. I was super excited that they tasted exactly like the ones I’ve had at local restaurants. The color is a little off in the picture below, but trust me, they were awesome!!!

I’m not usually a fan of sweet potatoes, but these taste so much different than any type of sweet potato I’ve ever tried. I can’t get enough of them.

To make the potato chips, I used this bad boy to thinly slice a few potatoes.

By the way, I love this food processor.  I use it all the time for anything from grating cheese to mixing up biscuit dough. It took about 30 seconds to turn 4 good-sized potatoes into this:

I spritzed the sliced potatoes with some olive oil and baked them at 400 degrees until they were slightly crisp and brown, about 10 minutes. In all honestly, I slightly over cooked the first batch and under cooked the second batch, just bear with me and pretend that I cooked them perfectly.

After I took them out of the oven I sprinkled a mixture of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger on half of them. And sprinkled salt and pepper on the other half.

The colors are a little off in that picture too, I’m not sure why I was having camera issues today!!!

I wasn’t a huge fan of the chips, I think it was probably the fact that they didn’t taste the way I’d expected them to. Also, it was my first ever attempt at making baked potato chips….I think I could use a little practice.  My family really seemed to like them, though. I don’t know that I’d make the chips again, but I’d definitely make the mashed potatoes. I think they’d taste really good with some fish and a tropical salsa.

Does anyone know where to get purple sweet potatoes on the mainland?  I think I might miss them once we leave this island!

6 Ingredient Graham Crackers

I’m finding that one of the hardest parts of adapting to a “real food” lifestyle is that there is no such thing as convenience food. Eating less processed foods means that the majority of what we eat has to be made at home…by me. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy cooking and providing wholesome food for my family, but sometimes it would be nice to just go to the cabinet and grab a box of some processed, packaged snack food when my kids are telling me they’re hungry for the 427,573,235th time.

Today my son was begging me to buy him animal crackers and there was no way I was going to go to the store to buy them. I started looking through my cracker recipes and realized they all required time to chill, so even if I threw some together they were not going to satisfy his cravings any time soon. So I did what I do best….I called upon my BFF Google to find me something quick, easy and not full of junk. That’s when I stumbled upon a graham cracker recipe on a blog called Feeling Lovesome . I followed the direction and whipped a yummy batch of crackers in about 15 minutes. Score!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

 - 2 cups whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur Whole White Wheat)

 - 1 tsp cinnamon

 - 1/2 tsp baking soda

 - 1/2 tsp baking powder

 - 1/2 cup butter, melted

 - 1/2 cup honey

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Mix dry ingredients together, set aside

Mix honey and butter in a separate bowl. Pour over dry ingredients.

 Stir all ingredients until well combined. It kinda looks like stiff, oily peanut butter at this point, but don’t worry the end result is delicious!

Dump mixture onto cookie sheet. Roll flat making sure mixture goes all the way to the edges. If you want the holes in your crackers, poke with a fork.

I’m not sure what size my cookie sheet is, I think it’s a half sheet but I’m not sure.  It’s a bit bigger than a standard jelly roll pan.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Cut crackers as soon as you pull them out of the oven. I used a pastry cutter. I put mine on a cooling rack for a few minutes after I cut them, but I think they’d be fine if you let them cool in the pan.

And the MOST IMPORTANT step….enjoy them! I’m planning on putting some homemade cream cheese frosting and chocolate syrup on a few as dessert tonight!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Our family loves chocolate syrup! We like in milk, in coffee and especially on our ice cream. Even before we started on our quest to eat better, I loved the challenge of trying to make something rather than just running out to the store to buy it. Chocolate syrup was one of the first recipes I tried; it’s super easy and tastes way better than anything you can buy at the store. After making my first batch, I threw out the store bought stuff and haven’t looked back. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Random side note: Check out this post about real food basics, I read it right after I posted my last entry and it seemed to answer some of my questions and ease my guilt just a little.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup
I borrowed the basics from Alton Brown, but tweaked it a little to omit the corn syrup. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups water

3 cups sugar

2 Tbsp honey

1 1/2 cups cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Bring water, sugar and honey to boil in a medium pot, whisking frequently.

Whisk in cocoa powder and salt. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened, whisking constantly. Remove from heat. (Sauce will thicken as it cools, so don’t feel like you need to cook it to the perfect chocolate syrup-like consistency.)

Stir in vanilla.

Let cool to room temperature and pour into squeeze bottles, mason jars, etc. (I poured some into a squeeze bottle and the rest into a mason jar.)

Store in refrigerator and enjoy on ice cream, in coffee, in chocolate milk or any other way you see fit!

Though I haven’t tried it yet, I bet this recipe would be customized just a bit .  I’m thinking special dark cocoa powder with peppermint extract in place of vanilla….yum!

UPDATE:  If you want to see how Alton Brown does it, check out the video here.

Information Overload

Over the past few months my husband and I have been learning more about the food supply in the US and more about the chemicals found in many of these foods. I often begin to feel like I’m staring at the sign in the picture above. There is so much information out there and my Type-A personality struggles with taking it all in and figuring out what to do with it.

We’ve adopted a lifestyle of healthier eating, more organic foods less junk, more whole wheat flour vs. white flour, etc. Then I read articles on topics such as sugar potentially being a toxin and grains not being the great for you or something of that nature. It’s overwhelming when try to take it all in and apply it to our family. I’ve tried as much as possible to make most of our food from healthy ingredients, even go so far as to make homemade cheezits and ice cream this weekend, but sometimes I even feel like that is inadequate. I read blogs about “real food” and feel bad that sometimes I like to eat junk. I want to make the best food for my family, feeding them real food without chemical additives, but sometimes miss the days when swinging by Taco Bell to pick up a quick dinner was an option. (Honestly, Taco Bell doesn’t even sound good anymore. It’s the idea of a quick, convenient food that I miss.) On top of all this I live on Maui where sometimes ingredients are hard to find, my kids after school activities keep me busy most afternoons and we’re preparing for a big move in a few months. Sometimes it all just gets overwhelming and I want to cave….until I remember all the chemicals and other crap that I’ll be subjecting my family to if I do.

I’m hoping to take the 10-Day Real Food Pledge after life settles down this summer, but until then I just keep trying to do the best I can. For right now this means reading labels and buying food free of ingredients I can’t pronounce, artificial colors and flavorings, and random crap that I just don’t feel comfortable feeding my family. On the flip side it also means that sometimes dinner comes from a local restaurant, not fast food chains, but not necessarily fresh, organic, chemical-free ingredients. I have to keep reminding myself that the way we eat now is vastly different from how we were eating a year ago and about a million times better than my husband and I used to eat before kids. For now I need to tell myself that doing the best I can is ok, I can’t stress out about every little thing or I’ll go crazy….and nobody wants a crazy mama running around this house!

What about you?  What are some ways that incorporate healthier food into your diet without going crazy? I’d love to hear your stories, tips and suggestions.   I’d also love it if you’s share your recipes.  I’m hoping to get better at this blog thing and share some of the recipes our family enjoys.

What Are We Really Eating?

I’m about halfway through Robyn O’Brien’s book, The Unhealthy Truth, and I still can’t wrap my mind around even a tiny fraction of what I’ve discovered.

Just to give you an idea of what it’s about, Amazon’s description of this book is as follows:

Robyn O’Brien is not the most likely candidate for an antiestablishment crusade. A Houston native from a conservative family, this MBA and married mother of four was not someone who gave much thought to misguided government agencies and chemicals in our food—until the day her youngest daughter had a violent allergic reaction to eggs, and everything changed. The Unhealthy Truth is both the story of how one brave woman chose to take on the system and a call to action that shows how each of us can do our part and keep our own families safe.

O’Brien turns to accredited research conducted in Europe that confirms the toxicity of America’s food supply, and traces the relationship between Big Food and Big Money that has ensured that the United States is one of the only developed countries in the world to allow hidden toxins in our food—toxins that can be blamed for the alarming recent increases in allergies, ADHD, cancer, and asthma among our children. Featuring recipes and an action plan for weaning your family off dangerous chemicals one step at a time The Unhealthy Truth is a must-read for every parent—and for every concerned citizen—in America today.

The main goal of Robyn’s research was finding out why food allergies are becoming so much more common and severe. She wondered if there was any link between how our food is grown and cared for and the increased rates of allergies. What she found was mind-boggling. The US is allowing things into our food supply that other countries wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. What’s more shocking is that the reason other countries aren’t allowing substances such as artificial colors, artificial flavors, chemical preservatives and genetically modified (GM) foods into their food supply is usually due to one of two reasons: 1) research results showing that these substances are potentially harmful to humans or 2) there is a lack of research showing how these substances affect humans.  If other countries see these things as risky, why is the US allowing its citizens to be unknowing guinea pigs?

It’s not just other countries that see the danger in these things, the U.K. components of companies such as Mars, Nestle, Cadbury and Coca-Cola have taken these dangerous substances out of their products marketed in the U.K., most have even stated that their removal has not altered the taste of their products.  That begs the question, “If it works in the U.K., then why not here?” Obviously, the removal of things such as aspartame, artificial colors and artificial flavors hasn’t hurt these companies, so why are they still putting all this crap in our food?

Another shocking detail is how close the relationships are between the companies that produce these chemicals and people in the government. In what O’Brien calls a “revolving-door” effect, many high level employees in these companies (not to point fingers, but the biggest one out there is Monsanto) leave their positions with the company to go take positions in the government, usually in areas related to our food and drug supply. I’m pretty sure there are some conflicts of interests going on there…

As a mom, I’ve been trying to get a grip on all this information and figure what I can do to protect my family from all of this junk that is being marketed as “food.” I have to digest all the info little by little or I can easily get overwhelmed. I never used to be this into organic and non-GM foods, but the more I learn about it the more I realize I can’t just sit back and ignore it either. Call me crazy or “crunchy” if you want to, but I can’t be ignorant any more.  At the same time, I can’t just let food control my life. Right now for our family, this new approach includes more label reading at the grocery store, preparing more foods from scratch and relying on less pre-prepared foods, eating more organic foods (not just fruits and veggies) and being more selective about what we eat outside of the home. In all honesty, unless you’re willing to grow all your own food, keep your own cows and chickens, and never set foot in a restaurant again, you can’t really make sure that 100% of your food is free ofd all that junk. We’ve pretty much decided that we can achieve somewhere around an 80/20 balance with it all; 80% of our food will be pretty much free from such things and the other 20% is just something that we’ll have to live with since we live in the US and these substances are so rampant in our food supply. We’ll still eat out, we’ll still have fun, but we’ll also be more aware of what we’re eating and, more importantly, what we’re feeding our kids.

If you’re looking for an eye-opening look at the food supply in the US, I’d highly recommend you check out this book for yourself.  I know that most of the other books I post about are reviews in exchange for free books, but this is not one of them. I bought this book myself, no one asked me to write anything about it, but I just couldn’t help but share some of what I’ve learned while reading.