In the Kitchen....

I've recently been enjoying a renewed interest in back-to-basics cooking: learning to make everyday things from scratch.  After getting a bit lazy over the holidays, we're back to making our own bread, and I'm making yogurt again.  This weekend, I felt like I was in the kitchen for entire afternoons.  A bit ridiculous, considering how insanely hot it was.  I thought about the women of our great-grandmother's generation and how they would have spent long days preserving and making sauces and jams in the late-summer heat.  I was lucky to be in shorts and not a long Victorian skirt, no?

At any rate, two of my new ventures were making homemade crackers and tomato relish.  I'd never experienced tomato relish in the States, but in New Zealand, it seems to be a pantry staple.  You can use it on crackers with cheese, in pasta sauces, or anyplace you would use ketchup.  Believe me, it is soooo much better than ketchup.  Heinz is out.  Tomato relish is in.

Our family's lovely auntie talked me though the final steps, and in the end, I felt quite proud of the joint effort (Jake for growing the tomatoes, me for preserving them, and Auntie Shelley for teaching me how.)

And crackers -- really pretty easy.  I've become aware recently of how many ingredients even the healthiest crackers have, and in the interest of simplifying and eating fewer preservatives and additives, I think homemade crackers are the way to go.  Hopefully I'll have the patience to keep these going -- they were delicious and felt like much more of a special treat than store-bought crackers.

I used the recipe from Alison Holst's "Dollars and Sense" cookbook -- one of my best and most often used purchases from the flea market.  She calls for two cups of white flour, but I used half white and half wholemeal (wholewheat) flour and that worked fine.


Homemade Crackers
1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
25 g cold butter
1 Tbs golden syrup or malt
about 1/2 cup water (I used more)

Mix dry ingredients well.  Rub in cold butter.  Mix the golden syrup with the water and add in slowly until the mixture is damp enough to form a roll-able dough.  Roll out thinly, using flour to keep the dough from sticking.  Cut into shapes with a cookie cutter or knife.  Prick each cracker in a few places and bake on a lightly greased tray for 10-15 minutes until golden.  Cool and store in an airtight container (if you don't eat them all first.)

And finally, I found myself out in the studio a few nights ago really and truly intending to do some serious work.  But I was confronted by my stack of thrifted plates and some leftover paint that would have dried out had I not used it immediately (I swear!).....so I played around a bit more, with better results than the first time.  Rather than fight the tacky, quick-drying texture of the paint, I just avoided layering all together. I have to remind myself that complicated doesn't = good.  Sometimes (meaning usually) simple is best.

I hope your week is off to a good start. x Jen

At My House

We've been enjoying....

:: Produce from the garden.  Lettuces, beans, blueberries, cucumbers, tomatoes....Here's Aya eating the first apple off the tree we planted for her when she was born.  (The are 26 more on the little sapling, so we'll all get a chance to sample them in a few weeks time.) ::

:: First forays into preserving and jam making. ::

:: Experimenting with infusions. This one is raw apple cider vinegar with basil -- supposedly a 

natural immune booster.  I've been making "quick pickles" using this as marinade for 

raw veggies like cucumber and beans.  Perfect as a pre-dinner snack. ::

:: Refueling after long weekend runs. ::

And finally....homemade peanut butter.  I found the recipe here, on one of my favorite foodie blogs.  I swear up and down, this peanut butter is the best you'll ever eat.  Instructions are as follows: dump a bunch of quality (roasted, salted) peanuts in your food processor, add a glug of oil (I just use canola) and whizz until it reaches your desired level of chunkiness (2-3 minutes.)  Refrigerate.  I gave jars of this out for Christmas this year; I wish I could have told people I labored away, stomping on peanuts or grinding them with a mortar and pestle -- but truly, it couldn't have been easier.  Our locally-made (albeit very good) peanut butter is up to nearly $20.00 a kilo.  Making our pb at home (and how much more local could you get?) costs about a third of that -- $7.00/kg.  My only problem with this recipe is that if we're in stock, I seem to qualify multiple spoonfuls of the stuff as a meal.  Must work on willpower.

Next up:  homemade crackers.  I'll let you know how it goes.

x Jen

No Rest For Blogtoberfest

 

This post was very nearly about how I'm taking the weekends off from blogging, Blogtoberfest be darned.  And then I realized I had already pretty much done my post for the day, and an idea for tomorrow (to recur on Sundays) had come to me while writing too.   If I need to take weekends off in in the future, that's fine.  Good enough is good enough.  And short and sweet is good enough too.

Inspiration came to me today in the form of baking.  I love these Anzac biscuits -- comfort food of my adopted home. In most ways, this is a traditional recipe, but I bake them in muffin tins rather than on a baking sheet, which creates a really nice crunchy outer and a beautiful soft middle.  Plus, they're big -- and bigger in this case is definitely better.  I made some for us and some for the kids' great-grandfather up in the North Island.  They'll have to weather a few days drive with my cousin-in-law, but I figure that's what they were originally designed for -- to travel well.

Ingredients:
3/4 c flour (I usually use white, but whole-wheat works as well)
3/4 c sugar (any type really -- up to your preferences)
1 c coconut
1 c oats
1/2 c butter
1 Tbs golden syrup
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbs boiling water

Mix together dry ingredients.  Melt butter and syrup.  Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and add to butter mixture.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients.  Press into muffin tins (I really love baking with silicone -- easy, not greasy.)  Bake for about 15 minutes at 180 C (350 F) or until tops just begin to brown.    

Totally delicious.  'Nuff said.

Yo No.

Well, I must have angered the yogurt gods with my over-confidence and blase attitude toward measurements, temperatures and times.  A few nights ago, I made my second batch of attempted yogurt, and was even foggier than before about following directions.   I'll tell you what -- when I opened my oven door in the morning, I was greeted by two warm bowls of milk.  Oh no!  

I was determined not to let all that milk go to waste.  Perhaps, if I boiled it again, I could start over?  I put the milk in an extra-big soup pot, turned it on high and covered it.  And then the phone rang; my milk and good intentions were completely forgotten.  About ten or 15 minutes later I returned to find a pot of very hot milky water and what looked like giant cottage-cheese curds.  Again, oh no!  But perhaps all was not lost -- cheese is made from milk too, right?  Maybe I've accidentally made cheese?  I scoured the internet to try to discern what happens to milk when it is boiled and separates, but came up empty-handed.  Certainly, cheese is made from milk, and you can make it at home, but the information I found about that made it seem like a far more complicated process.

 

At any rate, I strained my cheese-like concoction through a colander and refrigerated it.  At lunch time I made a cold pasta salad with whole-wheat penne, black beans, sunflower seeds, balsamic, olive oil, avocado and my curds.  Absolutely, completely delicious. 

 

I have no idea what this is -- cottage cheese?  Ricotta?  Whey?  A completely stumbled-upon creation.  Yogurt gods, I promise to amend my non-measuring ways.  Cheese gods, thank you for stepping in and opening the door to a whole new realm of experimentation.

Yo.

Despite New Zealand's thriving dairy industry, purchasing quality yogurt can feel like a bit of a luxury, and the cost of organic yogurt here is nearly prohibitive.  Nonetheless, I'm a huge fan of the taste, nutritional value, and health benefits of natural yogurt, so I was game to try out this incredibly straightforward recipe I found in one of my most beloved magazine subscriptions.   (Um, actually my only magazine subscription.  Only and most beloved.)

The above (plus an oven, a saucepan, a towel, and a few extra bowls) is all that this recipe requires.

Preheat oven to about 100 degrees C (200 F)

Heat 1 liter (1 quart) of milk (non-fat or full-fat, depending on your preference) in a saucepan until it reaches the boil.  Keep a close eye on your milk -- it's liable to boil over quickly (as mine did.)  Once it boils, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and let stand until the temperature cools to 43-46 degrees C (110-115 F) -- if you don't have a thermometer, just wait until the milk feels warm, but touchable.  If a skin has formed, try to skim off most of it.

Stir about 1/4 cup of natural yogurt into a bowl with about 1/2 cup of the heated milk, then transfer back into the saucepan and blend.

Turn off oven.

Divide milk/yogurt mixture into two bowls, cover with plastic wrap (or I used re-usable, shower-cap type covers) and then a towel.  Put into oven and allow to sit overnight (6-15 hours - - I erred on the lengthier side.)

I was a bit surprised at how well this worked.  I even fudged all of the particulars (amounts, temperatures, times....) and it still set.  Amazing!  I mean, of course -- yogurt has been around for about 4,500 years.   Long before grocery stores, yogurt makers, or mixes.   

 This yogurt was a bit runnier and milder than store-bought, but apparently, the longer it stays in the fridge, the tangier it gets.  S ate his for morning snack with cinnamon, I put some in the black bean soup I made for lunch, and baby A had hers straight -- the milder taste suited her just fine.

At a fraction of the cost of  ready-made yogurt, we're definitely signing up to be card-carrying members of the culture club.  (Yes, Groan.  Sorry, couldn't help myself.  Yogurt jokes abound!)

The Roastery

Welcome to our own little coffee cottage industry!  We began roasting our own green beans a few months ago -- one of those DIY skills, like bread-baking, that feels especially satisfying.   To be honest, it's a deceptively simple process....Our "roastery" consists of a popcorn maker and a corner of our garage.  We buy fair-trade, single-origin green beans from a local coffee shop for about a quarter of the price of roasted beans, and away we go!  There is a bounty of information about roasting your own on the web -- just type "coffee roasting+popcorn maker" into your search engine.  (Alternately, here or here may be good places to begin.  N.B. there are all sorts of important safety precautions that go along with this method -- please don't burn your house down!)

Learning the ins and outs of home roasting can take a few weeks -- through trial and error, we've found that we like a really dark roast that goes for as long as 6-7 minutes, and that leaving the beans uncovered for at least 24 hours after roasting results in a much improved taste. 

We roast our beans in a Breville popcorn popper we picked up for free, and we choose to roast without the lid on at all (the popper gets really hot, and it almost seems like the plastic lid could melt.)  We feel fine about the chaff (the outer part of the bean, which can create a bit of a mess) being less contained since it's outside in the garage.

My husband and S usually take on this piece of work -- S can help sift the beans and enjoys stirring them afterward during the cooling process.   I'm happy to let them go to it!  The smell of home-roasted beans wafting into the kitchen while I make dinner is just divine....And home-roasted brew, well, it's not exactly the same as coffee that's professionally roasted, but it's still pretty darn good  -- and getting better and better the more we experiment.  Plus, nothing tastes quite like a hot cup of self-sufficiency and economy  (stirred well to taste.)

Cheers!

**  Just one more day of the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway -- please be sure to enter if you haven't yet!**

Our Daily Bread (Part 2)

It's fair to say that the bread recipe I posted a few weeks ago has become a bit of a fixation.  We've stopped buying bread altogether now; I sat down and figured out that we can save about $500.00 a year just by baking our own (factoring in the cost of ingredients and power to run the oven.)  With the added benefits of knowing exactly what goes into our loaves and the pleasure of hot, fresh bread, it seems well worth it.  As with almost everything, this recipe seems to get easier and better the more I experience I have with it......I've figured out a few shortcuts like using the warm sink bath for rising (keeping the dough in the original mixing bowl and separating afterward) and then later using the same water to rinse my baking equipment.  I've begun to double or even triple the recipe -- I usually make one regular loaf and put the rest of the dough into our large silicone cake pan, resulting in the gorgeous loaf above (baking time remains the same.) 

Recently, when we've visited friends, I've brought a loaf with me for the kids to snack on and to leave with our host.  This morning I made a breakfast bread by adding cinnamon, chopped dates, and sunflower and flax seeds -- I imagine that the recipe will lend itself to other combinations as well.  To top it all off, miracle of miracles, my toddler will actually eat the crust of this bread, protesting if I try to take it away.... Yes, my relationship with the No-Knead Wholemeal Loaf has advanced from crush to full-blown romance.    I can't help it; I'm in love.

Our Daily Bread

Once in a while, when an unexpected expense pops up, or just to boost our savings, we drastically trim our budget where we spend the most: groceries.  For us, going down to about a third of what we would normally spend can free up quite a bit of extra cash.  Believe it or not, I've found that we actually eat better during these "lean" weeks.  I spend more time menu-planning and put more thought and effort into preparing meals.  The result is fresh, made-from-scratch foods that I think actually win in both taste and nutrition over our often hastily-cobbled-together meals.  Also, there's an inherent sort of gritty-pioneer satisfaction in making it through the week with only what we have in our pantry and freezer plus the most basic of grocery items  -- which for us includes milk, cheese, eggs, a big bag of flour and a ton of seasonal fruits and vegetables from the farmers' market.

Because our family can easily go through a loaf of bread every day, making our own is an easy way to meet our budgetary goals.  Plus....hot, fresh bread -- what could be better?   We certainly don't feel as though we're depriving ourselves when we serve up a slab of crusty toast with butter, cheese, and salted tomatoes.

I'm a busy mama however, and also one who likes to minimize messes and clean-up.  So, kneading? Not for me.  Not now anyway.  Fortunately, I've found two quick and delicious bread recipes that are completely knead-free and work beautifully with wholemeal flour, which we prefer.  One, which we've used now for a few years requires 10 minutes of work, tops - -the only caveat being that you need to plan about a day ahead because it requires overnight sitting.   It ran in the New York Times a few years ago and can be found here.  It yields a gorgeous loaf -- perfectly crusty on the outside with a moist crumb on the inside.  Great for impressing your friends, to give as a gift, or for eating any time, any day of the week.....

Recently, I found another recipe which is similarly low-effort, but more quickly gratifying (also, incredibly easy to double)....

No-Knead Wholemeal Loaf

1.  Stir 1 1/2 tsp yeast, 1 Tbs sugar (or golden syrup, honey etc.) and 2 cups lukewarm water in a large bowl.  Allow to sit in a sink full of warm water for 20 minutes until yeast begins to bubble.
2. With wooden spoon, stir in 2 Tbs of olive oil, followed by 4 cups whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 tsp salt.
3.  Tip into prepared loaf pan (I use silicone, but buttered if a metal or glass dish) allow to rise in a warm sunny spot until doubled (about 30 min.)
4.  Bake in preheated 200 C (about 400 F) oven for 30 minutes.  Turn down to 180 C (350 F) if top is browning well and bake 15 minutes more (45 minutes total.)
5. Tip out to cool.

6. Ta-da!  Bread so easy, I can make it daily.

Morning Tea

Confession:  I'm not much of a recipe-follower.  I'm much more of a recipe-maker-upper.  Sometimes my kitchen creativity yields great success....and sometimes not.  This morning I wanted to make a healthy snack for the kids; this muffin mixture uses heaps of fruits and veggies, whole wheat, and no added sugar.  It turned out pretty well.  S was able to help with the mashing and mixing and subsequently ate about 6.  Give or take.  Not a problem, since they're so healthy.

Preheat oven to 180 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit)

2 bananas (mashed)

1 apple (chopped)

1 med zucchini (grated)

handful of dates (chopped) 

1/3 c canola oil

1 cup milk (soy, rice, or regular)

2 big shakes cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 cups whole wheat flour

Bake in muffin cups (greased, or I like to use silicone) 25 minutes or until fork comes out clean.

Enjoy!