Artisan Foods - Making Your Own

Well, doing lots of cooking here for sure – but not much that is really new or different….however I have had a hankering for some very different kinds of foods over these past few weeks and that is what I have been working on.

One of these is some salted meat or perhaps cured meat is the best term to be used here. Years ago this was a regular staple in my diet (probably not a healthy one) but it is something I would like to know how to make at home.

I am just jumping ahead here to when we have more of our own meats available and need to keep them in some way - of course smoking, salting and what not are very traditional methods of preserving foods and I am all for that. 

So this week I am trying my hand at making a couple of different things – one of them is to cure a piece of venison and the other is to salt some fresh cod fish. Actually I grew up salting cod fish on ‘flakes’ outside in the sunshine during the summer months….

And am well used to salted fish. This time around I will just brine it over night or for a little longer and cook it in a traditional way with some drawn butter, onions and garlic. These days I am not certain we would get a full week of uninterrupted sunshine to dry any fish...and it would take a lot of fish (I'd better get fishing! LOL).

I can’t wait to get back to normal food days and then of course our Easter Feast is fast approaching. It’s hard to believe March is flying by and spring is here (well, some days at least!).

But, first….I am planning on branching out into making some different kinds of bread. I for one really enjoy any kind of breads and have spent many years not eating it only to come back full circle as my gut healed from dysfunction to finally be able to make (and eat) my own baking.

Lots to look forward to as this cleanse winds down later this week – and I for one, can’t wait. 

April

Me doing what I love to do - kitchen duty!

Cauliflower Soup with Garlic Croutons

I love this – cooking late a night when the children are asleep and the house is quiet. Using up some end of the week vegetables before they go off. But also getting a chance to create and really think about the food I am preparing.

Not that I don’t consider it now – but I don’t always take the time to break down each piece of the food equation as I go about putting the dish together. By this I mean that sometimes I just throw the vegetables in and hope for the best!

So, last night I had a cauliflower to use up….I don’t know about you but this is one vegetable that I have had a weird relationship with over the years. I like this vegetable and everything from it’s Brassica family but when it tastes a little sharp or sour I often have a hard time getting the children to enjoy it.

The dish I ended up making was a cauliflower stew - to start if off, I began with sautéing the cauliflower together with onion, leek, celery and garlic in some water to sweat it down and then a little butter.

I would not ordinarily use butter – but I wanted to bring out a particular sweet taste that I know cauliflower has when cooked in this way. It was sautéd until lightly browned and very fragrant. Then I added turmeric, thyme, cumin seeds, cinnamon, salt and pepper and a little allspice to gently spice this up.

In the meantime I washed and rinsed a few red lentils (yes I am on a lentil binge right now) and brought them to the boil in a sauce-pan. Then I added some sliced carrots and sweet potato.

Once the cauliflower mixture was ready I added it to the lentils in the pot and let it all gently boil for about 40 minutes or so – until I was happy with the consistency.

It had thickened nicely and had a lovely fragrance. This was let cool overnight – but before serving to my taste tester I blended half of it in the food processor until smooth and then added it back into the sauce pan to heat.

To make it extra special I made some croutons with a little left over nearly stale olive bread by lightly frying them in crushed garlic and butter for a few minutes. It was a hit and something I will make again.

April

Cauliflower Soup with Croutons

Spicy Dahl with Vegetables

I had a need to cook something yesterday – I have been slacking off on cooking this week as I had some meals prepared for those who are eating while the rest of us are doing this cleanse.

When I am thinking something over, I always like to cook, bake or be in the kitchen in some way – just to create. In the end I decided to make a sort of dahl dish for my daughter…

Of course there is no real recipe that I follow for this meal – I just sort of add things together until I get the result I am looking for. And with any dahl, it is so easy to make – and tasty too!

I started with a few vegetables – onion, leek, garlic – and stir-fried these in olive oil until well done and fragrant in the sauce pan. Then I added about 1 cup of soaked red lentils and some water and let all of this come to a low boil.

In the meantime I chopped a few carrots, a large sweet potato and a little seaweed and placed them into the pot. Next it was time for some seasonings…so I just put in whatever I could find.

Turmeric, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, salt and pepper – all went into the stew as it bubbled away until there was a nice dahl like smell filling the kitchen. Of course this type of dish cooks fairly quickly – so nearing the end of cooking I added a dollop of butter and another large tablespoon of coconut butter.

After about ½ hour this was nicely thickened and ready to sit for awhile – which is when I added a little sprinkle of chopped parsley before I blended it a tiny bit just to make it a little more like a dahl.

Once it was cool some chopped garlic chives were tossed over the top – and it smelled lovely – great with some of that olive bread I had ready with very garlicky guacamole. 

April

Spicy Dahl with Vegetables

No Time To Cook

'It’s too much trouble or I have no time to make a meal when I get home'…I have mentioned this topic quite a few times on here and it never gets old – because I still keep hearing it! LOL This is quite an interesting saying actually and surely must have been inserted into the brains of modern thinking fairly recently.

But the sad fact of this situation is that there is always time – you have to take the time, make the time, it’s for your health. Besides, how many people have times themselves – driving to the shop, selecting some ‘food’ (I say this loosely these days) waiting in line to pay and then driving home to – heat it up, cook it, or whatever?

I wonder if it might take far less time to go home – cook some brown Basmati rice, while that cooks – chop a stir fry of onion, leek, garlic, grated carrot (add turmeric, cumin if desired) – sauté in a little olive oil. In the meantime, place ½ cup of lentils to cook….

Once everything is cooked – add them all together in a large deep bowl and gently toss for a minute. You can add a little more olive oil here and season with some salt and pepper.

All of this should take less then 20 minutes or so. If you make extra, you can take some for lunch the next day or for the next day’s dinner. If you want a little more protein or a different taste add some olives at the end of cooking, a tin of tuna or salmon or anything else. If you like something a little more exotic, add a couple tablespoons of coconut cream or coconut milk.

Really the combinations are endless – and each time you will have a different tasting meal. Change the lentils to red, brown, green, Puy – try one of the many kinds of rice (white, red, black, wild, aged, Jasmine, sushi rice), and there are endless vegetables to put into a stir-fry.

The bottom line here – is this is so easy. Eating well, making your own meals (for far cheaper) and staying on a healthy track is doable – perhaps you just have to believe it. 

April

Investing in Your Health - Through Your Food

Our health has a life long purpose – it’s meant to sustain us throughout the years, changes and challenges of walking towards our own individual destinies. Without it, we cannot do much of either of these – at least not as well as we should do.

One of the most important things I have learned over these years spent researching, reading, dreaming up new recipes, cooking and eating food – is that good quality, wholesome nutrition is an investment into my own health.

It is also an outlay of energy into my family’s well-being, future and immediate health not to mention growing healthy children. When you are eating properly, your body functions better, your thinking is clearer and you are simply better able to cope with life’s stresses.

So what do I mean when I say ‘invest’ in our food? Well, for us this has come to mean several things. First of all we maintain a garden of some sort – right now we have herbs, a few greens, sprouting broccoli, soon Brussels sprouts that we are eating, but lots of others things are growing.

We spend time and energy in the garden taking care of it, expanding it, finding the plants we would like to have as well as buying organic seeds where possible. This is a project – it may take a few seasons, years and revolutions around the sun to see the benefits we hope to have.

Then there are our animals – we wanted to stop buying eggs, milk and meat from the shops – knowing if we could provide these for ourselves, they would taste better, as well as give us the immediate peace of mind knowing the animals were well treated, gently raised and organic.

This is also a project for our children who are very much involved in every aspect of the garden, rearing animals (collecting eggs, milking a goat, planting seeds).

I also buy in bulk where possible – raw ingredients are brought in and then made into the foods we would like to eat. We make our own nut butters, mayonnaise, mustards, pickles, jams, chutneys, breads, cakes, cookies, treats and each meal we eat.

Each of these activities are investments in time, energy and careful consideration of our needs, desires, tastes – and other then the actual set up of an organized system….it’s not as much work as you might think.

Actually when your body works more efficiently because you are eating your own far superior food – you have more energy for everything else in your life – and to do it right.

Think about it – with all the adulterated food on the market these days (meat, honey, fish etc.) why worry about someone else investing in making your meals – make them yourself.

April

Two Geese A Laying - Quiche....

After taking a little break from cooking over the weekend – due to being so busy with other things- today I was back in the kitchen with some rather large goose eggs to use up.

Right now with the spring coming on into full swing (you would never know it today however with the snow flurries) our geese are laying an egg each day. And we love it!

They are such wonderful large specimens of life and especially great for baking, cooking or eating as they are. Because the rest of us are doing our parasite cleanse, I wanted to make something with the eggs that could be kept and frozen.

Funnily enough – unless we have our own eggs, we don’t often eat that many of them, so quiche or egg pie is not something I would make very much of. But today I decided to give it a go.

Of course then I had to carefully consider how to go about it and whether I would make one in layers of mix everything together. I also wanted a pie with a crust, but not something heavy or doughy.

In the end I made an oatmeal based butter and coconut crust – baked it on it’s own for a few minutes and then poured in the filling. For the filling – I used up a few things I had on hand...

To start with I had a huge bag of pok choy, some kale and spinach – this was gently steamed down to greens and then blended while I stir fried some onion, leek, garlic and celery in a little olive oil.

Next I chopped some Welsh onion stems, garlic chives and other green shoots from the garden and placed these fresh into the steamed greens along with fresh coriander.

By now it was starting to smell very fragrant! Then I just added these together – the greens, the stir-fry, some feta cheese and left over olives were sliced and stirred into the mixture with salt, pepper and thyme.

I placed this mixture into each tin with the cooked pie crusts – and then poured well beaten goose eggs over top of each pie. After nearly 30 minutes in the oven, they were done – and got a thumbs up from my taste testers!

Can't wait to taste these myself....

April

Quiche with goose eggs