homemade...cultured vegetables tutorial

This has been quite a week, and it almost got away before I had the chance to share this promised tutorial. I was honored to be featured in an article over at Shivaya Naturals this week, and it has been a really incredible to connect with so many inspiring and creative women as a result. All I can say is wow...how blessed I am!

I chose making and eating fermented foods as my one small change for January. I've made cultured veggies before and purchased them from local growers, but my new commitment is to get into the habit of making them for my family regularly so they are available and consumed with every meal.

This time of year it is really important to try to up the nutrition we receive from our foods because we are not eating from our garden or from local sources. Eating cultured veggies does just that. It ups the vitamin content of the vegetables, provides important enzymes, and provides us with healthy bacteria for our digestive tract. And making cultured veggies is super easy and even young children can participate in the preparation. Here's how...

Gather your materials. You need whatever veggies you want to use ( see the end of the post for some recommendations), some sea salt, and we used some caraway seeds (this is optional). You need something to grate or chop up your veggies into small pieces.

Make your veggies smaller by grating or chopping them. You want to increase their surface area...I like keeping things simple and using a grater.

Jude got into the action with the grater.

Then we got out this crazy chopping contraption which was a hit.

Of course you could use a food processor instead.

After the veggies are smaller, use your hand...

potato masher, or spoon to squish the veggies and release their juices.

Add salt to taste. Enough salt is necessary to inhibit the microorganisms that we don't want.

We added some caraway seeds too.

Transfer to a clean dry jar or ceramic crock (no metal).

Push the veggies down until they are submerged under their juices.

Add a bit of water and additional salt if you need to.

Set the jar in a shallow container or bowl in case it overflows and cover it with a cloth or loosely with the jar lid (gases need to be able to escape).

Put the container in a warm spot in your house (ideally 72F). Check on it after a couple of days to make sure the veggies are staying under the liquid. You will start to see bubbles on the surface. You can taste it every day to see how it changes. It will take on a tangy taste, and you get to decide when they are done...generally 3-6 days. Then store your container of cultured veggies in the refrigerator.

You can use all sorts of veggies for culturing. Beets, daikon, and of course cabbage all work really well. You can add ginger, garlic, other herbs in various combinations. The real purpose of this tutorial is to show you how simple making cultured veggies is, but I love experimenting. There is lots of room for that with cultured veggies.

I've always eaten cultured veggies as a condiment, in other words, a tablespoon or so with my meal. I chose to give carrots a try this time because I have a mama hunch that Jude will like these.

In case you are a video person, I found a really great video of Sandor Kantz demonstrating how to make cultured veggies. His website has a wealth of information on fermentation too.

There are numerous recipes out there on the web, but I really enjoyed reading Making Fermented Foods: the Why and How and encourage you to take a look if you are not sure why eating fermented foods is such a good idea for your health. Additionally, there are a great collection of basic recipes at the end. I am particularily interested in trying Shivani's bread, which is a flat bread made from fermented grains...gluten and wheat free if you choose.

But the next fermented food I'm going to try making is still waiting patiently in that brown paper bag ...I'll let you see the results, hopefully, next week!

homemade...cottage scones

This is my version of Mrs. Eliot's buttered scones. I've made these many, many times, and they seem to have universal appeal. I've even gotten the comment "these are the best scones that I've ever had." We sometimes have clients stay in our cottage showroom, and I like to provide them with everything that they need for breakfast. These scones are always made and even though there may only be 2 people staying with us, there are never any left behind.

Preheat oven to 425F

In a large bowl, measure out 1 cup of white whole wheat flour (I use this a lot. It's fine like white flour, but it has the whole grain and therefore the nutrients) and 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. You can also use 1 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour or your flour of choice. If you use only white whole wheat you may need a bit more flour as your dough will be wetter in my experience.

2 teaspoons of baking powder

spices (I used 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon)

2 Tablespoons of sucanat

Blend the dry ingredients with a whisk and add 4 Tablespoons of butter. Work the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers until it looks like little crumbs.

add dried fruit and nuts

(I used cranberries, but my favorite combination is dried cherries and pecans)

In a smaller bowl, place 1 egg

1/4 cup of milk

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

and beat these ingredients together.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you have dough

Place dough on a floured board and work with hands (as minimally as possibly) to form a rectangle. In my experience it is okay if the dough is a little wet.

Cut into 8 triangle or the shape you prefer. I don't like to over handle this dough so I don't like use a biscuit cutter and rework the leftover dough.

Place in the oven for 12 minutes until they are golden brown and smell delicious.

Serve with a side of homemade hot chocolate and enjoy! In all honesty, Jude is definitely smiling at the marshmallow in this picture;)

homemade...apple dumplings

Ever since we received a bushel of apples from our neighbors I’ve intended to make apple dumplings. Last week was just too full of activities. I made the pie dough and tossed it into the freezer until I had time to enjoy making these treats.

I finally got around to making the dumplings yesterday and wanted to put together a little tutorial/recipe to share. Mine had some issues, and I almost decided to scrap the tutorial and wait until I had a chance to refine my crust recipe. Then, Jude and I shared one today after our lunch, and it was so good. So despite some structural issues, I just have to share this in all it’s wabi sabi-ness. I’ll also share some ways to avoid some of the issues we had.

I used my recipe for a double pie crust. (Yeah, this is reveal #2.)

We soaked four apples and Jude polished them.

Then peel…apple peels look like worms according to Jude.

Then core…we do a lot of pretend construction work when we bake and you would be surprised what a 3 year old can do with a little help. The corer is definitely like a little drill.

Cut in half horizontally so apples stand flat.

Mix ½ cup sucanat, 3T butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of nutmeg (use freshly ground if you can). (measuring cups and spoons are dumptrucks in our kitchen)

Blend with a fork until it is a coarse mixture.

I cut slices off the dough ball I froze after I let it thaw out a bit.

Place between two sheets of parchment paper or wax paper.
Roll into a larger circle that you can put your apple into 2 ½ times or so. (good measuring lesson opportunity here.)

Place apple in center of dough circle.

Stuff core with butter sucanat mixture (Jude did the stuffing…into the apples and into his mouth;)

Wrap dough around apple.

No worries if you have a bit of a hole…as jude said, “just mend it.”

Place on parchment in a baking dish.

Bake at 425F for 10 minutes.

Then reduce the oven temperature to 375F for 25 minutes.

We prefer our apple dumplings without the syrup, but you could also make a syrup with ½ cup of water, ½ cup of sucanat, 3 T of butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Bring this to a boil, and then let it cool a bit. This can be served on the dumplings after they are cooked or you can also bake your dumplings in the baking dish with the syrup but add 10 minutes to your baking time.

Our dumplings cracked a bit and some (not much) of the butter/sucanat mixture oozed out. My crust recipe might have been part of my problem. I use butter not shortening and that makes the dough a little less flexible. I also used a cup of whole grain flour that was not finely ground. You might try whole wheat pastry flour.

The other thing that I have heard is that you should not use red delicious apples because they won’t hold their shape and the crust will crack. We used empire apples, but they did not hold their shape either. A good winter apple would probably work better.

But despite the crust cracking a bit, they were delicious…delicious…delicious.

Enjoy!

homemade...cherry cobblestone tutorial

Cherry season is fleeting. If you blink your eyes, it’s over. In fact, it is over here. So I’m not sure how many will actually get to make use of this before cherries are no longer in season, but it can be used with all sorts of berries, peaches, and apples too.

If you need a quick dessert that is not only delicious but really easy to make, this is the one. It is a miracle of sorts because the ingredients rearrange themselves in the process of baking. We call it cobblestone because that is what the finished dessert looks like, and I guess there is some controversy over what a cobbler really is. Some say it has to have dropped biscuit like dough on top to be a true cobbler. Whatever you want to call it is just fine with me…we call it yummy cobblestone!

Here we go…

The hardest part about making a fresh cherry cobblestone is pitting the cherries. I don’t have a cherry pitter, but a sturdy straw works wonderfully and makes a lot less mess. (The only reason I am assuming that this is less messy is that I am reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver and one of the characters makes cherry preserves and describes her kitchen looking like a murder scene after pitting her cherries with an antique cherry pitter. That was enough to convince me my method works just fine.) I just push the straw into the middle of the cherry and slide the cherry up the straw. The pit stays in the straw, and then I squeeze it out into waste bowl. I used a quart of cherries (see top photo), but if you had more you could use another pint or so.

Once you have your cherries pitted, put a stick of butter into a 9’ x 13’ baking dish.

Put the butter in the oven while preheating to 350 F.

Depending on how sweet your cherries are you can add a little bit of sugar. I used sweet cherries and really didn’t need much sugar at all, but I used a bit too much in my opinion. Sour cherries, of course, will need more sugar. Try 2 tablespoons- ½ cup depending on the sweetness of the cherries. And add 1 tablespoon of flour.

In another bowl, mix together 1 cup of white whole wheat flour, ¾ cups sugar ( I would like to try sucanat or a mix of sucanat with turbinado sugar), 1 teaspoon baking powder.

Add 1 cup of milk and stir until all the ingredients are blended thoroughly. (Ignore that cut lemon in the background. It has nothing to do with the cobblestone.)

Check in the oven to see if your butter has melted. Pour the batter mixture over the butter and do not mix or stir.

Pour cherries evenly over the butter and batter and do not stir or mix. Place the dish into the oven and cook for almost an hour. I would check on it at 45 minutes and continue cooking until the batter is golden brown. Serve warm and enjoy!

Fresh cherry cobblestone

What you need:

½ cup of butter

1 cup of white whole wheat flour + 1 Tablespoon of white whole wheat flour

¾ cup sugar (or a mix of sucanat and turbinado)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup milk

1 quart of pitted cherries

2 T-1/2 cup of sugar depending on the sweetness of the cherries

What you need to do:

1. Melt butter in a 9’ x 13’ baking dish in a 350F oven.

2. Mix together flour, ¾ cup sugar, baking soda in a bowl. Pour in 1 cup of milk and blend until smooth.

3. Pour batter over melted butter. Do not stir or blend.

4. Add the amount of sugar needed for the pitted cherries and 1 T of flour. Stir to coat the cherries.

5. Distribute the cherries evenly over the butter and batter. Do not stir or blend.

6. Cook for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm. Enjoy!

I failed to take any really good pictures of the finished cobblestone. I was more interested in eating it than taking a decent picture apparently. But this shows you what you should pull out of the oven. Don't judge the taste by this horrible photo!