Ahhhh.. ‘Tis the season for rhubarb. It always seems that folks that don’t have rhubarb in their gardens can’t get enough of this astringent veggie, and those that don’t want it can’t get it out of their garden. I myself … Continue reading
Today we have a guest post by Anne Pryde, a Natural Nutrition Consultant and Certified Professional Cancer Coach, and the proud owner of Clean Temple Wellness Studio. She lives with her family in Hatchet Lake Nova Scotia. ~~ When a … Continue reading
I’ve been wanting to make mozzarella for years. There’s something about learning a mysterious process that takes one familiar thing (milk) and transforms it into another familiar thing (cheese) that I find irresistible! After I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book, where she tells the story of her family’s pledge to buy food grown or produced in their own community or learn to live without it, I was particularly inspired. Kingsolver blithely speaks of whipping up a batch of fresh mozzarella in a 1/2 hour for her weekly pizza night and makes it sound easy. If there’s any book more likely to fan the flames of latent cheesemaking desire, I haven’t seen it. I needed to try this! But where do you find rennet? And unhomogenized millk? And someone who’s done it before?
The milk was easy – Foxhill has been selling their lovely unhomogenized (pasteurized) milk from their storefront at the Seaport market for about a year now. Rennet was a bit trickier to source, but we managed to find a supplier online that specializes in the home-cheesemaker here. As for someone who’s done it before, it turned out that Libby, our researcher with the Our Food project had worked in a deli years ago that made their own mozza. After a few practice batches at home that turned out great, we put on a class, which filled up quickly. It turns out that I hadn’t been the only person with a burning desire to learn how to make cheese! (Check out the links at the bottom for the full recipe and sources.)
Curds being cut to release whey.
First, you add some citric acid to your milk and heat it to 88 degrees. At this point, you can add your rennet and gently stir it in. Let it sit undisturbed for about 5-10 minutes until the milk starts coagulating and begins to separate from the whey. Once the curds are quite firm you can cut them into chunks and scoop them into a colander to drain.
Once your curds have drained, you can begin the heating process. If you want a firmer cheese you can squeeze out the whey through cheesecloth. This makes the final cheese a little tougher, but it’s easier to work with, especially for your first time!
Now the fun part begins.
In order to transform this lump of curds into cheese, it needs to be gently heated until the point that it gets stretchy. You can do this with a microwave if you truly do want to make it in half an hour – or you can gently dip your cheese ball into very hot whey for a few seconds at a time, and kneading it while it’s very hot. Either way, your goal is to get the curds hot enough that they start to stretch like taffy.
And stretch it will! Right before it gets to this point, it will stretch and then break apart. Keep heating it and the texture will eventually change to a smooth, glossy, stretchy texture. Shape it into a ball (or lots of small balls for bocconcini) while hot, and drop it in some ice water to cool.
That’s it! Cheesemaking 101!
Click here for a quick mozzarella recipe similar to the one we used.
Click here for some more great tips and troubleshooting your own mozzarella.
I’m determined to eat up the very last of my winter stores, and so the great freezer clean-out continues. One way to use up small amounts of fruit is to throw them into a batch of muffins. I like the following oatmeal muffin recipe, because I can make it almost exclusively from local ingredients, I generally have all of the ingredients on hand, and it’s very flexible. Blueberry-apple, strawberry-rhubarb, blackberry-peach or the most recent combo – zucchini-cranberry.
I had a cup of frozen cranberries in the freezer and a 2-cup bag of grated zucchini. I defrosted the zucchini, and after I had strained off a lot of the liquid, I had a little less than a cup. So I threw both the cranberries and zucchini into the following batch of muffins.
Oatmeal Muffins (adapted from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin)
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
1 1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1-2 cups of your favourite fruit
(you can also throw in a small amount of nuts or seeds)
1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix together oats and yogurt and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Butter the insides of a muffin pan.
3. In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
4. Beat egg, brown sugar and butter into the oat-yogurt mixture. Stir in dry ingredients until just mixed. Gently stir in fruit and nuts. Spoon batter into muffin tin.
5. Bake 15-17 minutes or until knife inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean.
Makes 12 muffins.
Yours in Food,
Marla
Here’s an interesting fun fact about this blog: according to WordPress statistics, one of the most popular blog posts we’ve ever had is ‘Pining For Parsnips‘. It’s a little bewildering, but week after week, this post continues to be viewed by folks all over the world. Obviously the hungry public out there has an appetite for parsnip info!
I recently dug up my parsnips that I planted last summer, and they’re so sweet after being in the ground all winter. If you didn’t plant any last summer, the farmer’s markets are full of them right now, so do yourself a favour – pick up a bunch and make this soup! It’s very rich and elegant – all you need is a simple green salad (with local greenhouse spinach!) and you’ve got a fancy supper.
Maple Parsnip Soup
Melt 2 Tablespoons butter (can use part vegetable oil) in a heavy-bottomed soup pot.
Add and sauté until onions are translucent but not brown:
1 pound (500 g) chopped parsnip
2 medium onions (chopped)
2-4 cloves garlic (minced)
Add and bring to simmer:
6 cups vegetable broth (substitute or add in a ¼ cup of white wine, cooking sherry, or a cup of apple juice if you like)
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Cook till parsnips are soft (40 minutes or so)
Add and remove from heat:
1/2 cup homogenized milk (options – cream tastes AMAZING in this soup if you want to splurge, and I’m sure almond milk would taste great if you wanted a non-dairy option)
Transfer to a blender or food processor and blend until velvety smooth.
Stir in:
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tablespoon Dijon mustard (or more for spicier taste)
salt to taste
Sprinkle a little fresh thyme on top, or some shaved toasted almonds. Eat and enjoy.
Happy eating!
~Alison
We’ve been holding seasonal cooking classes for awhile now, and we’ve loved sharing knowledge about the bounty of Nova Scotia. Spring can be a tough time to eat local though – a lot of farmers are almost at the end of their winter root vegetables, but it’s still too soon for springtime favourites like asparagus, fiddleheads or strawberries.This last Monday, we decided to embrace the season head-on by building a menu around a CSA (or Community Shared Agriculture) produce box from Taproot Farms.
A lot of folks who get a CSA share for the first time are occasionally at a loss as to how to work with the veggies you GET, rather than the veggies you FEEL like buying. We thought we could try to promote truly creative meal planning by building a cooking class around using the veggies in a typical CSA produce share. This was out of necessity as much as it was an exciting plan… it can be hard to plan a menu in March for a class in April when you don’t know what produce is going to be available to you!
Our intrepid volunteer instructor, Lori Cadelli, came up with a few basic vegan, gluten-free recipes that would be easy to adapt to whatever deliciousness we’d find in our veggie share. The menu would feature a lentil stew with seasonal veggies, a shredded salad, and some gluten-free scones. We figured that whatever we’d end up getting in the box would be easy to incorporate into our menu.
When we picked up our box last Saturday, here’s what we got:
2 cabbages, a bag of small beets, two cucumbers, about a dozen apples, about 3.5 pounds of potatoes, about 2 pounds of carrots, and a bag of spinach.
After we saw that we’d have exotic things like greenhouse cukes and spinach, and a whole bunch of lovely apples, we decided to switch things up a bit so we could highlight these things a bit.
Cucumber-Apple Salad:
Grating beets with a food processor keeps your hands stain-free!
We had planned on making a shredded slaw-type salad, but those cucumbers were too good to pass up. We ended up making a Cucumber-Apple Salad with a honey vinaigrette, on a bed of shredded raw beets for colour and contrast.
Dressing:
¼ cup Olive Oil
¼ cup Apple cider Vinegar
2 tbsp honey
Salt & Pepper to taste
Salad:
6 or 7 Apples
2 seedless cucumbers
10 little beets
Directions
Whisk together dressing ingredients up to 2 days ahead of time.
Scrub beets well, and grate with the peel on. Toss with ½ the salad dressing. Finely chop apples and cucumber. Toss with the rest of the dressing up to 2 hours prior to serving. Lay the grated beets on a serving platter and scoop salad on top.
Main Course:
Our lentil stew recipe was ready to incorporate our carrots, spinach and cabbage, and we decided that making some garlicky mashed potatoes to accompany it would be divine.
Lentil Stew
- 2 cup lentils
- 2 diced onion
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 5 carrots
- 1 small cabbage, coarsely chopped, core removed
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 cup rice
- 4 tablespoons miso
-1 bag spinach, chopped and stems removed
- salt and pepper
Prepare lentils according to package instructions.
Saute onion and garlic together for 2 minutes in a large skillet. Add remaining vegetables and bay leaves and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.
Add rice and 1 cup of water and continue to cook for 30 minutes. Add more water if required.
Add lentils and miso to the stew. Cover and simmer another 15 minutes.
Add chopped spinach 5 minutes before stirring, and let wilt.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over garlic mashed potatoes.
Mashing potatoes is vigorous work!
8 big potatoes, peeled and halved
4 cloves garlic
Almond milk
Boil potatoes in plenty of salty water with garlic. Process cooked potatoes and garlic with potato ricer. Add a splash or two of almond milk and a few more cloves of minced raw garlic. Add freshly ground pepper and minced herbs.
Finally, for dessert we made some gluten free scones made with brown rice flour with raisins and pumpkin seeds. The recipe for the scones needed applesauce, and luckily we had lots of fresh apples to make some up! The leftover applesauce was delicious on the warm scones for dessert!
Pumpkin Seed and Raisin Scones
- 4 ½ cups any gluten-free flour (we used brown rice flour)
- 1 ½ cup soy, almond, or rice milk
- ¾ cup applesauce (two small apples, diced, with ¼ cup water. Simmer until soft, then mash. Eat any leftover sauce with baked scones!)
- 1.5 teaspoon salt
- 6 teaspoons baking soda
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 1 cup raisins
- ½ cup pumpkin seeds
Preheat oven 350 degrees Fahrenheit /180 Celsius.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, sugar and salt and mix well.
Add milk, applesauce, and raisins and pumpkin seeds. Knead until dough forms.
Drop spoonfuls of dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. (Scones will not expand too much during baking, so the size of your spoonfuls will determine the size of your baked scone.)
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until scones are golden brown on top.
~~~~~
If you’re interested in joining a CSA for summer, now’s the time to sign up! Check out this blog post for a list of Nova Scotia CSAs:
For some more tips on how to plan menus around your CSA box, check out these blog posts from our archives:
I know that a lot of us are pretty tired of eating root vegetables – but honestly? I don’t think I can get sick of potatoes.
I’ve written about my love of potatoes before… I think my favourite thing with these starchy tubers is that so many cultures around the world have figured out how to incorporate them into tasty food. While they’re not exactly transformed in these dishes, they remain an excellent vehicle to transport flavour.
Case in point? Veggie Samosas.
We all love ‘em, but did you know how easy they are to make? And how impressed your friends will be when you take them to your next potluck?
Spicy Potato Samosas (Aloo Samosas) by Julie Sahni
For the filling:
2 to 3 Tbs. ghee or vegetable shortening
1 tsp. coriander seeds
1/4 cup minced shallots
1 tsp. freshly grated ginger
1-1/4 lb. baking potatoes, boiled until just beginning to fall apart; cooled, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1-1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. garam masala
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne
For the dough:
5-1/2 oz. (1-1/4 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour; more for dusting
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 Tbs. plain yogurt, mixed with 1/4 cup water
2 Tbs. unbleached all-purpose flour dissolved in 3 Tbs. water
Peanut oil or corn oil, for deep-frying
Make the filling:
Heat the ghee or vegetable shortening in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the coriander seeds and cook until they darken slightly. Add the shallots and ginger, and cook until soft, about 2 minutes.
Add the diced cooked potatoes to the skillet and sauté until slightly golden, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the peas, lemon juice, salt, garam masala, and cayenne, tossing gently to combine. Let the filling cool completely.
Make the dough:
In a wide, shallow bowl, mix the flour with the salt and baking soda. Make a well in the center and drop the shortening into the well. Pick up some flour and fat in one hand. Rub the other hand lightly over this mixture, moving from heel to fingertips, letting the fat-coated flour fall back into the bowl. Pick up more fat and flour and continue this rubbing action until the flour is evenly coated; it should have a fine texture with no lumps.
Add the yogurt-water mixture a little at a time. Add just enough liquid until the dough comes together in a mass. Depending on the the flour and humidity, you may not need all the liquid; if you need more, add plain water a tablespoon at a time. Knead the dough until it’s smooth and elastic. The dough is ready when it’s no longer sticky and feels as soft as an earlobe, after about 5 minutes of kneading.
Roll the dough into an 8-inch log, wrap it in plastic, and let it rest for about 15 minutes. (The dough can also be wrapped tightly and chilled for a day. Bring it to room temperature before continuing.)
Assemble the samosas:
Cut the dough into eight even pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten slightly. Keep the pieces you’re not working with covered with plastic wrap. Roll one flattened piece of dough into a thin 6-inch round, rolling from the center of the round and turning the dough frequently to achieve a uniform thickness. Cut the rolled circle in half.
Pick up one semicircular piece of dough and moisten half of the straight edge with a little flour-water mixture. Create a cone by bringing the dry half of the straight edge over the moistened half. Press the seam together to close. Be sure to pinch closed the point of the cone as well; a good seam will keep the stuffing in during frying.
Fill the cone with two heaping tablespoons of the spicy potato mixture. Hold the cone about a third of the way up to keep it from collapsing as you fill. Brush one open side with the flour-water mixture and pinch the opening closed. To give the samosa its characteristic flared ruffle, continue to pinch the straight edge to slightly thin and extend it. Use remaining dough and filling to make 15 more samosas.
Fill the cone with two heaping tablespoons of the spicy potato mixture.
Fry the samosas:
Fill a heavy, deep pan with 4 inches of oil and heat it to 350° F (use a deep-frying thermometer to monitor the temperature). Add the samosas in batches of four or five, being careful not to crowd the pan. Cook the samosas, turning often, until they’re golden brown, at least five minutes. Transfer samosas to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Serve immediately or let them cool to room temperature.
Serve with bought tamarind sauce or homemade chutney.
Today’s post comes from fellow EAC staffer, Jennifer West. You may remember Jen from this cooking workshop post last year. This Groundwater Coordinator knows her way around a kitchen.
I have to admit I am very organized. I am also very cheap, and so find that the most cost effective way to make it through a few days without going to the grocery store is to make a menu for the week on Sunday and… here’s the key… stick to it. I really look forward to planning my meals, and feeling like the week is under control based on my regular schedule and my husband’s unpredictable shift work. We usually have one expensive meal, a few reasonable meals, and one or two really cheap meals. Our fridge can look a little scary sometimes, with only two or three things in it, but those things will make a delicious meal if I have planned carefully.
One of our favorite easy meals is homemade pizza. It’s my favorite because it’s healthy and better than takeout, and I get to share the work with my two-year-old, Rachel. When my toddler and I are heading home in the evening, I love to tell her that we’re having pizza for dinner, and to talk about how we are going to put it together or cook it. She loves the feeling of the dough, loves putting on the sauce and the toppings, and we have a game of her eating toppings when I’m not looking and me trying to catch her (if there is a better way to get your toddler to eat vegetables, I haven’t seen it yet). Sure I have to wipe down a larger surface area when we are done, but we got to spend time together! I would rather clean a kitchen than find crayon rainbows on the wall in her room that she did when I was cooking dinner and she was playing by herself.
Dough (from Looney Spoons, “There’s No Business Like Dough Business”)
2 1/2 tsp bread yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
(You can find locally milled wheat from Speerville Mill.)
Put the yeast in a bowl. Combine the warm water and honey in a measuring cup, and stir to dissolve. Add the water-honey and oil to the yeast and leave it until it gets all frothy (a toddler can watch and let you know when this happens, while poking it occasionally). Add salt, and then the flours. Stir the flour and when it gets too thick, use your hands. A small portion for the toddler will keep her busy. Messy but busy. Knead the dough until it is elastic and not sticky (add flour if it`s too sticky or pastey). Slowly stretch it out and press it out with your fingers and hands. If you have time to let it rise, then leave it for an hour, otherwise just form it into a pizza shape (depending on your pan shape). Sprinkle the pan with flour and/or cornmeal to keep it from sticking without using oil.
Sauce
(I sometimes take a container of homemade sauce out of the freezer in the morning, or the night before. Here is the recipe I will use on the weekend, and freeze in yogurt containers for the week)
1 onion
1 carrot
2 celery stalks
1 clove garlic
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dice the vegetables finely, and saute in oil until they are soft. Add garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add the remaining ingredients, and cook until bubbly and the desired consistency.
Toppings
Some of our favorites include olives, leftover chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, salami, peppers, and artichokes. Obviously mozzarella, but feta and chedda make it betta.
Bake at 350 until the cheese is bubbly and golden, around 20 minutes.
As a student with a hectic week-day schedule, it’s taken a lot of planning to make sure I pack meals to eat between classes at school. I’ve scoped out all the public microwaves on campus, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to nibble on your lunch while doing your studying in the library, (in one of the food approved areas, of course!)
I’ve been making this whole grain salad a lot this winter – it’s yummy, it’s filling, and I don’t have to worry about keeping it refrigerated. This is one of those salads where you don’t really need a recipe, and I make it a little differently each time.
Here’s the basic idea, though:
1/2 cup wheat berries
1/2 cup of barley
1/2 cup of quinoa
1/2 cup of bulgar wheat
…or whatever grains, legumes or beans you have on hand.
I like wheat berries because they have a great chewy texture, but you need to soak them overnight before you cook them, and the cook time can be a good 40 minutes or so. Quinoa, barley and bulgar wheat take the same time to cook, so I mix them together in a pot with 3 cups of water, and cook for about 20 minutes.
Once your cooked grains have cooled, add some shredded carrots, minced onion, finely chopped kale or brussels sprouts. When I have some pickled peppers or capers, they taste pretty good in here too. I like my salad pretty heavy on the grains, so I usually use 1/2 a red onion, one carrot, and a few big leaves of kale.
I make a really strongly flavoured vinaigrette for this salad, and let the salad kind of marinate in it for a day or two. The salad keeps tasting better every day!
Mustardy Vinaigrette
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp cayenne
Salt and pepper to taste.
What’s YOUR go-to portable lunch idea? Share your tips in the comments below!
Yours in Food,
Alison
I must now confess that I ordered too many beets for my root cellar this year. However, I’m stubborn and the beets are still firm and I am just as determined as ever to eat ALL of them. And thus beets are the subject of today’s clean out the root cellar and deep freeze challenge post.
In a thorough examination of all the cookbooks I own (current count: 30), I have discovered three beet recipe themes. They are 1) pickled beets, 2) borscht, and 3) beet salads.
I passed on the pickled beets, still having 2 unopened jars in the basement. Then, I made a borscht. Pretty good, probably my fifth batch of the season, but not something I can eat any more of this year.
So, that left the beet salad. I have blogged on more than one occasion about my grated winter salad. However, a girl’s gotta branch out. More recently I’ve been roasting the beets and tossing them with spinach and goat cheese, and a little olive oil & balsamic vinegar. (The first bags of spinach have hit the farmers market in Halifax.) Yum.
But there are still more beets. So, while I was in Cape Breton, I left my partner in charge of eating beets. As I was running out the door with my bags, I shouted to him, “I love you. Eat the beets and take a few photos of whatever you make. Bye”. And so he did.
This salad will actually use several ingredients from your root cellar. Adam said it was great. All I know is that there was none left upon my return home.
Beet, Potato, Carrot, Pickle and Apple Salad
from Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France by Joan Nathan
2 medium beets
5 tablespoons olive oil
salt to taste
2 small potatoes
1 large carrot
2 tablespoons red or white wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
dash of sugar
freshly ground pepper to taste
1 large kosher sour pickle, diced
1 tart apple
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Preheat oven to 350.
Cut tops off of the beets, scrub them, and place on baking sheet. Coat them with 1 tablespoon olive oil and roast for 1 hour. Remove from oven. When they are cool enough to handle, peel and cut them into 1/2 inch cubes.
Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil, and cook the potatoes until they are tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from water, allow to cool before cutting into 1/2 inch cubes. Cook the carrot about about 5 minutes in that same boiling water. Remove with slotted spoon, cool and cut into 1/2 inch rounds.
Whisk together vinegar, garlic, mustard, sugar, salt and pepper to taste in a salad bowl. Stream in the remaining 4 tablespoons olive oil. Toss in the beets, potatoes, carrot, pickle, apple and eggs. Stir until everything is just coated with vinaigrette. Serve at room temperature, or refrigerate and serve the next day, either way garnished with fresh dill.
Yours in food,
Marla
