Cinnamon Seaweed Chicken Soup - Immune Booster!

Today I have a cold. Actually, I've had a cold for the past few days and I am thoroughly sick of breathing through my mouth, sleeping (or not) with three pillows and all the aches & pains that go along with it.

Ok. Enough complaining....because, I am also aware of so much more that my body is doing right now with this glorious cold (did I just say that?!). I can actually feel my immune system revving up, like a great engine waking up after it's winter slumber. 

My lymph nodes are 'active' and my thymus gland is busy rushing T-cells around my body to root out nasties that have lingered during our hibernation. Well, not that we've been staying inside, we have really had some lovely warm weather this entire winter and I have been out in the tunnels and garden since January...but you know what I mean! 

Winterish weather though is pretty well over - the flowers are all blooming (at least they were until the goats got out into the drive way and ate all mine) the bees are flying and the leaves are coming out. It's spring and quite often that means a great head full of snot! 

In honour of all of these bugs & viruses that are making their unrelenting rounds - I've made a Cinnamon Seaweed Chicken Soup and am busy enjoying every morsel in the clinic today. It has been a very busy week but I have finally found a day where I can nourish myself and hopefully give my body what it needs to boost my immune system and be ready for this new season.

When I make chicken soup.......

I like to bake the chicken (whole) first until it nearly falls apart.....then with my pot of lovely root vegetables (today I used sweet potato, celeriac, carrot, turnip, onion, garlic) bubbling away I add  a generous amount of seaweed (dillisk), the chicken and spices. I love cumin, cinnamon, black pepper and fresh parsley from the garden at this time of year, it tastes lovely with this mixture of vegetables. 

Tiffin with Cinnamon Seaweed Chicken Soup

Healthy Breakfast - Rice Pudding

 Sometimes we get a little tired of the same old, same old for breakfast….or at least some people do (I happen to love porridge and toast!). When you are in need of a small change there are lots of options, you just need to use your imagination.

 My children love rice dishes and so do my dogs, we make their food for them, so there is usually lots of extra rice or beans on hand. Rice is also a tasty and healthy option to have at any meal – so why not for breakfast as well? It’s so quick and easy to make too….

Any time you have left over rice, you can make this easy breakfast or dessert, depending on the meal you have in mind. It only takes a few minutes....

To make a rice pudding for breakfast I do some very simple things….I take a couple cups of cooked rice (brown basmati is very nice) add a little butter, sultanas, chopped nuts, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon or whatever our tastes might be on that morning.

This is mixed a little but not overly, just enough to stir the flavours around as well as for the milk. You don’t want it saturated, so don’t add too much milk and butter. We also like it warm, so if you want – place this on a stove to heat it gently.

Then, just before serving, I sprinkle a handful of toasted muesli or toasted crunchy oat cereal overtop or even homemade yogurt. This is a lovely treat on a cold morning and something different from porridge – it can be as sweet as you like or even a little fresher with some chopped fruit.

It’s all so good for you!

April

Rice Pudding for breakfast

Fritters - Yellow Split Peas

So, remember all those yellow split peas we all have sitting in our cupboards? Well, I have the recipe for at least some of them...these look, smell and apparently taste very good - if the children eating them all in one go is any indication! 

They were also very easy to make (and quick) which is also a bonus. The only thing is I would recommend you soak the peas at least overnight because anything soaked for awhile is more digestible and we all want to go easy on our hard working guts.

I soaked a bowl full of peas overnight in cold water - adding more water as it was soaked up by the peas. Then today I took about 2 cups of the peas and ground them in the food processor even though these are often made with dry peas.

Once ground, I put the pea mixture into a separate bowl and added finely chopped onion, garlic and fresh parsley. Next I added a generous teaspoon (or a bit more) of ground cumin, a little salt and pepper and some coconut flakes (in place of oil).

This was all mixed thoroughly - but here is where I did something a little different. Instead of frying them in hot oil I dropped tablespoonfuls onto a parchment covered baking pan and placed them into a hot oven (about 180C).

Once they were in the oven for about 10 minutes I lightly brushed some olive oil over top of each fritter and put them back in for another 10 minutes or so, until starting to brown on top and very fragrant. Then out they came....

I don't think they even had a chance to cool down - they were gone! 

April

Yellow Split Pea Fritters

Guinea Fowl Chilli (Tomato Free)

I don't eat chicken - ever since my days (years) spent as a Food Hygiene Inspector where I saw thousands of them coming down the line....often with tumors, growths and what not. It used to be surprising to me because they were for the most part still quite young.

However, it seems they were very prone to cancers of one sort or another. I never saw this in any other animal to this extent and naturally removed them from my diet. Actually I haven't eaten them since - instead I would tend to go for their wild fowl friends.

I really have come to like guinea fowl which is not related to the chicken, but belongs to the pheasant family. It is a lovely bird and I have written about on here before. Again, like any meat, it is not something we would eat more then 3 or 4 times a year, but when we do we love it.

This past week I had a guinea fowl to do something with and decided to make a chilli with it. Just something a little different and with a lovely combination of flavours. It turned out nicely - I have made this before and everyone has enjoyed it.

To make the chilli - I proceed in steps. First of all I slow roast the guinea fowl in the slow cooker for most of a day or a night. This way it is succulent and tender. I cooked this one in plenty of onions, garlic, sage, salt and pepper.

I take the meat off of the bones and place the meat back into the pot - keeping it on a low heat setting. The guinea fowl had lots of liquid around it so I sprinkled a little spelt flour over top to make a thicker consistency.

In the meantime I soaked some red kidney beans over night to be ready to cook once the meat was done. I always cook my beans in lots of sea weeds - so they are not tough, and the sea weed gets into the meal as well.

In another pot I made a sauce - using carrots, beetroot, sweet potato, squash, sautéd onions, garlic and leek - these were cooked until tender and then blended into a puree. Then I added generous amounts of cumin, coriander, turmeric, pepper, salt and some bay leaves. 

Next I started to assemble everything - the beans went into the slow cooker with the meat and liquid, then the sauce was poured over top of everything. I left it to blend and heat through for about an hour or so and then turned it off. 

Once it had been sitting cooling for the afternoon it was ready - the kids loved it, the guinea fowl adds a rich taste to the rest of the ingredients as well.

April 

Guinea Fowl chilli

Herb & Spice Loaf

Today I wanted to make something quite different - I had been thinking of using up some of the dried fruit leftover from Solstice as well - so I put these two ideas together to come up with a bread/cake that everyone would enjoy.

There is a traditional loaf made most often with a strong tea (Tea Loaf or Tea Bread) however, as I don't drink tea, but I do drink anything with herbs in it, I decided this could be made using some of the more flavourful ones.

A tea loaf is usually spiced as well with either pumpkin pie spices or apple pie spices. If you don't have any, this is not a problem as we most often have the ingredients for these in our cupboards. To make apple pie spice mix together cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and a little cardamom.

Now for the bread - I mixed about 1 and half cups of dried blueberries, dried cranberries, sultanas, dates, and my personal favorites, elderberries. These were soaked in 1 1/3 cups of boiling water to which I added 3 teabags of lemon and ginger.

However, anything would do - perhaps lemon verbena, chamomile and lavender or any combination of herbs for taste, flavour or added health benefits. I put the apple pie spices (about 1 teaspoon) in with the soaking fruit - just to blend the flavours more.

This fruit was left for about an hour in the hot water, but could easily have been sitting overnight to bring out the full blend and tastes. As well, the spices could have been added to the flour mixture for a more subtle taste.

Next I put 3 cups of spelt flour in a deep mixing bowl and then sifted in 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt. Once these were thoroughly mixed I rubbed in 3 heaping tablespoons of goat's butter until the flour was forming peas.

In another bowl I had an egg well beaten with 1/4 cup of molasses - I like to use the black strap because it has the most mineral and highest nutrient content. I poured this in with the flour mixture and then the fruit was gradually added together with the water it had soaked in.

Once this was mixed it resembled a thick cake batter. I spooned the batter out into a prepared loaf tin and baked it for about 1 hour at 180C. It is a rich dark cake with a lovely moist texture...great with a cup of herbal tea.

April

Herb & Spice Loaf

Slow Cooker Red Cabbage, Apple and Onions

One of the only vegetables I get kind of stuck in a rut with, is cabbage. I really enjoy it - but sort of always cook it one or two ways and that's it. Usually I grate it into a coleslaw type of salad or roast it in the oven with veggies.

But we also like it as part of a stir fry too and often throw it in there. However, we don't eat near enough of this lovely vegetable and I have been mulling over how to use up the two I had in the vegetable box for the last week.

So, today I decided to pull out my handy slow cooker (what a godsend that thing is!) and see what it does with my red cabbage. Right now I am enjoying the smell of it - mostly because I am not eating right now, but also because it does smell very nice.

To make this most simple dish I chopped up the cabbage (not too finely) and started layering it with chopped apples and sliced onions and garlic. This time I used both red and white onions because I wanted to use them up.

Once the vegetables were in the crock pot I added about 1/2 cup cider vinegar, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup of olive oil. Then with the pot on high - I started adding some spices. The ones I usually use with cabbage are coriander, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. 

Next I sprinkled on some sea salt and ground black pepper then added in 1/2 cup of water because it seemed like it needed something to keep the cooking process going. Lastly, 2 tablespoons of honey and 2 tablespoons of butter to sweeten the dish and that is it.

It's a very simple but lovely tasting side dish to have with nearly any meal and goes really well with meats, especially goose and any wild game such as pheasant or venison. 

April

Red Cabbage dish

Molasses Buns - Sugar free, probiotic winter treat!

I have been busy baking and cooking for the last couple of days as we have had a birthday celebration as well as our little Thanksgiving, so have made a few oldies as well as some new recipes to me. Amongst them is roasted pheasant (which was delicious), molasses buns and a steamed pudding...

To be honest I haven't done any of these in years. Once upon a time I would have made roasted game birds quite often at certain times of the year. And as we approach Solstice it is nice to try out some of these and give them a trial run. I like to make things a few times to get it down pat, but also to tweak my own recipe..

Another recipe I tried out on the gang here was old fashioned molasses buns - this is something I would have grown up eating as molasses is a common enough additive in Newfoundland. However, my children would have never eaten this type of food, until we bought molasses to make feed for the goats!

So, now we have organic molasses and I have been itching to bake and use it in my cooking... So far I have made these buns and of course they are great and very easy to make. Actually we used to refer to them as hockey pucks growing up, come to think of it they do look a little like that.

To make molasses buns you would start off with all the usual ingredients....

Molasses Buns

4 cups spelt flour

1 duck egg

1 cup molasses

1 cup butter (melted)

¼ cup agave syrup or honey

½ to ¾ cup goat’s milk

1 cup raisins

2 teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon, cloves or allspice (or 1 teaspoon of a mixture of these)

Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a large cookie sheet or some other pan with parchment paper. Measure out the flour, baking soda, spices and salt into a deep bowl and sift together. 

In a small saucepan melt the butter and add molasses and honey to this mixture. Add the milk to the egg and whisk well. Pour these wet ingredients into the dry flour mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. If too dry, add a little more milk as you add the raisins.

Roll out onto a generously floured surface to about 4 or 5 cm thick or more if desired. Using a cookie cutter or a glass, punch out round shapes and transfer these onto the cookie sheet. Then quickly into the hot oven.

Bake for about 14 -15 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. These are delicious warm with butter and a tart jam or on their own with a cup of herbal tea. 

A little taste of something very old and wintery - but also great as a gut probiotic! 

April

Floury Molasses buns

Cranberry Apple Sauce - So Easy to Make! (sugar free)

Although this is not really an Irish thing, it has become more popular over the past few years and it seems to be something most people would buy rather than make at home. Cranberry sauce is a staple this time of year for the holiday season as well as anytime you think of eating turkey.

This week we will be having a turkey (the first time in about 10 years!) and it is one of our own. I was delighted that it turned out so well, growth wise anyway and seems to be plenty big. This one dressed out at just under 22 pounds... More than enough!!

Getting back to the sauce... well, I wanted to have a selection of condiments to choose from on the day and that meant getting cranberries. They are readily available in most shops and are also very easy to work with. 

What I like most about cranberries, besides the fact that they are so good for you, is their versatility. You can put many different things with them but my personal favourite would have to be apples. I like apples mainly because they balance the tartness of the berries with a sweeter softer taste.

They also thicken up the sauce very well eliminating the need for any other gelling agents. It's really so easy to make and could also be used as a jam for bread or crackers. Actually with a little cheese....

So, to make cranberry sauce I washed 500gr of berries and chopped up 4 apples (peeled and cored). These all went into a pot with a little water to be boiled down to the desired consistency. I did add a little ground cloves (what's winter without it?) and some agave syrup to sweeten, then blended the results once it was cooked.

Because I was making lots, I also sterilized 2 jars and canned the extra sauce for our Solstice season...and we still have a bowl of it to try in the meantime. It is lovely without being overly sweet or tart - the nicest thing about making this yourself is you can decide on the taste!

April

Cranberry Apple Sauce before blending 

An Imperfect Cookie - Bliss

Right now I am eating (another) an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie - it is so tasty, I am even overlooking the fact that it's a little crumbly. How are cookies supposed to be anyway - I mean what are we comparing them to? 

Perhaps our 'ideal' for nearly any foods these days is to compare it to something perfectly round, flat, held together and uniform in every other way from a factory machine. Of course along with that perfect cookie comes the extra ingredients that are put in to get the desired effect.

Nothing like that with homemade foods - this cookie I am munching on right now is not uniform in any way - each one looks different. They are slightly crumbly from the use of only oat flour and oats and I probably put in way too many raisins. 

I like them that way.

Of course, you can't compare a homemade anything with a factory made something else - because the energy of the food is so very different. Whenever someone asks me what my secret ingredient is for my lovely cakes and cookies - I always say it is butter and love. 

So, with that in mind here is my recipe for these Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (as it stands right now).

3/4 cup butter

1 duck egg

2 cups oat flour

1 1/2 cups oats

3/4 cup raisins

1/3 cup honey or Maple Syrup

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon or all spice

1/2 tsp baking powder

salt (pinch)

2/3 cup nuts (optional)

Place all dry ingredients into a deep bowl and sift together to mix well. In the meantime melt the butter over low heat in a small sauce pan, put the honey in with it and mix. Beat the egg into submission in a separate bowl.

Once the flour is mixed, add the butter and egg - keep mixing until well coated. Then add in raisins and nuts if desired. This mixture should be thick and not runny - because each flour absorbs liquid differently, adjust quantities if needed. 

Spoon out large spoonfuls of the dough onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper and bake at 175C for about 12-14 minutes or so. Don't leave too long as they will be too dry and don't take out too soon as they will be doughy in the middle. 

These are fabulous with a cup of dandelion coffee! And you will have made them yourself...bypassing the food processing, perfect cookie route to enjoy imperfection at it's finest!

April 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie 

Baked Beans - a wonderful fall meal...

Although I am not eating right now, I still cook every day for my family and want them to have nourishing delicious meals. Yesterday I was wondering what I might make that I haven't made in a while and thought of baked beans.

You know me, I love these clay pots - so I got out my bean crock pot and put some haricot beans in soak for this meal. I am starting to wonder if meals cooked in clay pots are that much less acidic, as people claim. Maybe time will tell - our bodies should digest the food better or something?

So, today I wanted to make baked beans- one of my favourite dishes especially good with a warm slice of buttered bread right out of the oven. I even made some spelt bread with loads of herbs and walnuts for a little twist to go with the beans. 

Haricot beans are a lovely bean to cook, easy to digest -- I always cook beans with seaweed in the pot as opposed to salt which would make them tough. Once the beans were done, I scooped them out of the pot and used some of the water as a base for the sauce.

Haricot beans in bean pot

To make the sauce I used beetroot, carrot, pumpkin, squash, onion, garlic and leek. The onion, garlic and leek were sautéd separately first and then added to the cooking root vegetables. These would have taken at least an hour or more to blend completely.

For extra taste and flavour, I love using warming spices such as turmeric, cumin and thyme and fresh herbs from the garden oregano, chives and lovage. These were gradually added during the course of cooking. Once the sauce was well cooked I added in 1 large tablespoon of corn starch to thicken it a little more.

Then I pureed the vegetables into a smooth sauce -- you could never tell there are no tomatoes in there! The colour is lovely! This was poured into the crock pot with the beans and baked in the oven for about 45 minutes or so. 

It got a thumbs up from my taste testers and I have enough sauce left over to freeze for when my fasting is over.... Great days work

April

Baked beans in extra sauce!

Banana Chutney

I know, this sounds different and it is something I would probably not have put together myself - however I came across a mention of banana chutney as being really nice with left overs from a big meal. Such as often happens when we have a feast!

Usually during any feast I am cooking up a storm and have found myself standing in the kitchen in my pajamas late in the afternoon having virtually not left the kitchen since my eyes opened in the morning - spending my day cooking.

The is serious stuff here for us and I wanted to try out some new tastes, textures and combinations of foods over this next little while. So, when I got to reading up on what to do with extra dates, I found a mention of this banana chutney which of course includes dates and a few other things.

Tonight, I decided to dive into making some and perhaps late next week we'll see how it tastes (it should be left to sit for about 10 days or so). It certainly smells lovely and even looks nice in a chutney sort of way.

Fruit and vegetables for Banana Chutney

For the chutney I mashed bananas, chopped apples, dried dates and apricots, sliced onions and diced garlic - this all went into apple cider vinegar to bubble away over half an hour or so. In the meantime part way through the cooking I added in some date syrup, water whenever it looked too thick, and spices (allspice, turmeric, ginger, salt, pepper, cumin).

Banana Chutney steaming away as it slowly cooks 

Once this was placed into jars and processed in the boiling water bath it turned out well and the jars sealed up. I am finding the larger jars take longer to seal and I really do prefer the screw top Kilner jars as opposed to the flip top lids. However, I will use anything that comes into the house at this point!

Apparently banana chutney is very nice served with cheese and crackers, leftover meat such as duck or lamb, salad and stirred into yogurt. When we have a feast day there is always lots of food left for the next meal, a nice chutney (or a couple of them) will add some interesting flavours to these meals and I can't wait to try them.

Well that's my story today - day 9 of my August cleanse, I was itching to cook something interesting and found it. Perhaps I will do some further searches to see what else I can find...

Have a healthy day!

April

Big jar of Banana Chutney

Sweet & Sour Honey Pickled Beets

Today I am making pickled beets - with some old larger jars that I had on hand but had not used as they are nearly too large for my canning pot. But, they do mostly fit, so I have been giving it a go to see if I can get these to turn out.

By the way, my jam I made yesterday in the flip top jars, failed to seal in 2 of the jars. Now I know what I don't like about these jars! Because there is no lid that 'pops' when it seals, you do not know if the seal has taken until the next day when you can undo the clamp and see if the lid opens.

I can re-process them again in boiling water or leave them in the fridge and we'll have to eat them sooner. Before I started to become negative about it, I stopped to remind myself that my first try with the other type of jars did the same thing, so perhaps this is all part of the learning curve.

Even as I write this, there is another jar of sweet & sour honey pickled beets in the canner. The entire process of making pickles is far more involved and messy - but again it is something that would only be done a couple of times a year and we would get to enjoy more yummy foods made at home.

1 litre jars for the beets

For the beets I read and read what other people have done and finally decided on a few ingredients that I would enjoy with the beets. These are very sweet vegetables, so I was amazed at the amount of sugar people were putting in with their pickling juice. 

Boiling water bath with the larger pot and jar

Of course, no sugar here, so to keep it from being overly sour I added a little bit of honey, cinnamon, cloves and the vinegar. It certainly smelled lovely, but it takes a couple of weeks to cure before it should be tasted. 

Chopped cooked beets ready to go into jars - hot

As I am fasting for the next week, that is not a problem, but once again I am looking forward to tasting these foods that I am making. Oh and by the way, the jars with the beets sealed right up (popped) a few minutes after coming out of the boiling water bath, music to my ears! LOL

Off to go figure out a recipe for these gherkins....

April

1 litre jar of pickled beets 

Making Preserves

Yesterday was a preserve day, I made nine jars of different kinds of preserves with the fruit that I had on hand. And, as usual I wanted something a little different from the ordinary jams that I had been eating all along. 

First of all, there is a slight difference apparently between preserves and jams - preserves are thicker, chunkier and usually contain other ingredients such as dried fruit and spices. As opposed to a jam which most often contains only fruit and water (in my house anyway!). But, both are fruit based and these terms are often used interchangeably.

With all of the types of fruit that I had in the house this week, I thought that it would be great to make something a little different and to keep expanding my own learning and methods of working with each type of preserve. I also wanted to make something that was chunkier and could be used as part of a meal rather than only being suitable for toast and crackers.

Since I had a few apples and pears in the house I ended up making a great smelling spiced apple/pear preserve that was not blended as much as it normally would leaving it quite chunky and very thick. The only spice that I used was cinnamon for this one just to keep it simple and because cinnamon goes very well with anything related to apple.

Raw Apple and Pear ready to cook

The end result is similar to an apple sauce, but with the presence of pears, will give a softer, fuller flavour. This type of preserve will be great on crackers with cheese or on the side of a veggie rice stir-fry as a sauce. I am enjoying the versatility of these foods and can imagine endless possibilities and ways to use them.

Jars of spiced apple & pear preserves 

Next, with all of the apricots, nectarines, peaches and more apples, I decided to make what I ended up calling Apricot Raisin Preserves because that was the dominate fruit. Again I wanted to try my hand at making something a little different to give us various flavours, textures and tastes to enjoy in the coming months. This one I can't wait to taste!

There is something about the delicate flavour of apricots that draws us in and awakens the senses, when combined with a few spices and some other equally delightful flavours, this should turn out to be a wonderful addition to any meal. 

For this preserve I chopped and chopped everything that was to go in the large pot (I ended up making a lot of this) and then put in some apple juice, raisins and spices with a little water because the dried fruit would soak up a lot of the liquid. Again as with the mango chutney, I had to keep stirring because it was quite heavy and would settle on the bottom of the pot.

Chopped fruit and raisins for the preserves

I also let this mixture cook for quite a while to get the goodness of all these fruits well blended throughout the preserve. I decided to add pumpkin pie spice which I made up myself from cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. Of course the smell is magical and this will taste great with a meal , on bread and crackers or any where else that I can find to use it.

A big batch of preserves 

Today I am off to make some ice cream from left over bananas and some of these fresh preserves,

Have a good one!

April