Category: Cooking

Coconut Rice Pudding

Ingredients:

  • 1 15 oz can coconut milk plus enough water to make 3 cups
  • 1/2 cup maple syrup
  • 1 cup long-grained white rice
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup raisins

Method:

  1. Put coconut milk, water, maple syrup, rice, and salt into pressure cooker. Pressure cook on High for 3 minutes. Let set for 10 minutes (natural steam release).
  2. In a bowl, whisk the eggs. A teaspoon at a time, add hot liquid from pressure cooker into eggs to temper. Once hot enough, mix eggs into rice pudding. Heat for about three minutes — it will thicken up.
  3. Add vanilla and raisins. Stir to combine.

Blueberry Maple Muffins

Ingredients:

  • 1 ¾ cups white whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ⅓ cup melted coconut oil
  • ½ cup maple syrup
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 cup blueberries
  • 2 tablespoon maple sugar for sprinkling on top

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
  2. Combine flour with baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix with a whisk.
  3. Combine the melted coconut oil and maple syrup. Beat together with a whisk.
  4. Add the eggs and beat well, then add the yogurt and vanilla. Mix well.
  5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until combined (a few lumps are OK).
  6. In a small bowl, toss the blueberries with a teaspoon flour to prevent the blueberries from sinking. Gently fold the blueberries into the batter.
  7. Divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with maple sugar.
  8. Bake the muffins for 16 to 19 minutes, or until the muffins are golden on top and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Scott and Anya had picked blueberries at a local farm — I made muffins and jam using the fresh berries. I made a double batch of these muffins, vacuum sealed some (it’s better if you freeze them first … otherwise the vacuum sealer compresses the muffins) in the freezer. A minute in the microwave, and we’ve got fresh muffins again.

Buttermilk Waffles

Ingredients:

  • 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Method:

  1. Preheat the waffle iron to medium-high.
  2. In one bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.
  4. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do not overmix — a few lumps are OK.
  5. Pour some batter into waffle iron and cook for about five minutes.

These are great for breakfast, but I’ll make these as a quick sandwich bread when we’re out of bread too. Add savory add-ins like green onion and cheddar cheese.

Discard the soaking water

Every recipe I’ve ever read for soaking and then boiling dried beans says to discard the soaking water. None ever explained why, and I figured you were kind of cleaning the beans as you soaked them. Throw out the dirty water, get clean water, and boil ’em. Turns out that beans — even fresh from the garden, which you are waaaaay more likely to eat without boiling for a while — contain a toxin. A gastrointestinal purge kind of toxin. Phytohaemagglutinin, or pha … and some of it comes out in the soaking water (so throw that stuff out) and the rest is neutralized by boiling for at least ten minutes. This seems like really important information that’s missing in the whole “discard the soaking water” statement.

That’s a hard “no” on shelling some fresh beans from the garden and eating them as you walk around the yard. Also — cooking kidney beans with chili in a slow cooker? Bit of a risk.

Maple Blueberry Jam

Maple Blueberry Jam

Recipe by LisaCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 5 cups of fresh blueberries

  • 1/4 cup lemon juice

  • zest of one lemon

  • 1/2 cup maple syrup

  • 1 tsp cinnamon

  • 2-4 Tbsp tapioca powder

Method

  • Add blueberries, lemon juice, zest, and maple syrup to pan and heat over medium heat.
  • Add cinnamon and stir. Add tapioca and stir.
  • Heat for about 20 minutes. Transfer into jars and seal.

Switchel (a.k.a. haymaker’s punch)

We made switchel today — it’s a quick drink to cook up, but it takes a while to cool off. A couple of cups of water in a pot, add in a cup of maple syrup and 1/2 cup of grated ginger (we used a large microplane grater). Simmered it for ten minutes, then pulled out the ginger pulp and drained it into the pot. More water was added to make one gallon of water, and a cup of apple cider vinegar was added. This cooled it off enough that it could be transferred into a container and refrigerator. When serving, we add extra water because it’s a little powerful and not well balanced. Next time, I think we’ll use the same ingredients but get close to 2 gallons of water.

Buttermilk Corn Bread

Buttermilk Corn Bread

Recipe by LisaCourse: SidesCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup salted butter

  • 2/3 cup sugar

  • 2 eggs

  • 1 cup buttermilk

  • 1/2 tsp baking soda

  • 1 cup cornmeal

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

  • 1/4 tsp salt

Method

  • Preheat oven to 375 F and grease an 8″ square pan
  • Melt butter. Stir in sugar. Add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into butter mixture.
  • Add cornmeal, flour, and salt. Blend until well mixed (may be a few lumps remaining). Pour into prepared pan.
  • Bake 30 – 40 minutes.

Garlic Butter Rice

In the pressure cooker pot, melt 4 Tbsp of salted butter. Add in 6-8 cloves of garlic (cut into small chunks). When you can smell garlic, add 1 1/2 cups of long-grain white rice and stir around to coat with butter. Add 2 1/2 cups of broth and pressure cook on ‘high’ for 3 minutes. Allow to rest for ten minutes (natural steam release).

Ingredients:

  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 8 cloves of garlic
  • 1.5 cups rice
  • 2.5 cups broth

Frozen Pizza

For some reason, frozen pizza never gets cooked right when I follow the instructions. Yes, the oven is actually at the right temp (I know not to trust the built-in thermister … but, if three different devices agree within a degree or so … I am confident that I’ve got the oven to a reasonably correct temperature!). But the middle ends up uncooked and soggy. Ugh! And cooking it for a few more minutes until the crust is actually cooked just yields burnt pizza. Also ugh!

So I did an experiment — instead of cooking the pizza at 400 for 22-24 minutes, I tried half an hour at 350 and half an hour at 375. I had to add a couple extra minutes in either case, but 34 minutes at 350 yielded a not-burnt-but-cooked frozen pizza! That’s not exactly a quick meal — if I have frozen dough defrosted, I can bake a fresh pizza at 550 for about ten minutes and have a full half-sheet of well-cooked pizza. But it’s a lazy meal — maybe three minutes of active cooking and half an hour to wash dishes or something.