Category: Food

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.

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.

Chicken Birthday Cake

Chicken Birthday cake
Print

Chicken Birthday cake

Recipe by LisaCourse: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy
Servings

12

servings
Prep time

30

minutes
Cooking time

50

minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup coconut oil

  • 3 eggs

  • 1/2 cup sugar

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour

  • 1 cup all purpose flour

  • 2 tsp cinnamon

  • 1 tsp baking soda

  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

  • 2 cups wet grated zucchini

  • 1/4 c sugar

  • 1 tsp cinnamon

  • 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method

  • Preheat oven to 350F
  • Melt coconut oil, mix in eggs.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk together flours, cinnamon, baking soda, and cream of tartar
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
  • Mix in zucchini.
  • Add batter to muffin tins for chickens. Then mix sugar into remaining batter.
  • Mix together the topping ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, cream of tartar). Partially fill remaining muffin tins. Sprinkle n topping, then fill the rest of the way and sprinkle topping again.
  • Bake for 40-60 minutes until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
  • Remove from muffin tins and allow to cool.

Our first chickens turned one year old on Tuesday, so I came up with a recipe for a “chicken birthday cake” that would be healthy(ish) for chickens and tasty for us. Leaving the sugar out of the batter worked well — the chickens got whole wheat, coconut oil, cinnamon, and zucchini. We got cake — and the topping mixture gave the muffins a crispy and crunchy top. Would totally make this again.

Braised Rabbit Marinade

Marinade:

  • 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
  • 1 Tbsp ground mustard seeds
  • 1 Tbsp Sunny Paris seasoning
  • 1 cup whole milk Greek yogurt
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • salt

Don’t add all of the water — mix everything else together, then add water until you get the consistency you want. Pour into bag, add rabbit, freeze. Once solid, seal bag. It’ll marinade when it defrosts. Then cook at about 300F for 1.5 – 2 hrs.

This marinade made a wonderful dressing too — I mixed up another batch later that night. Thinly sliced cucumbers and onions coated in the yogurt dressing.

Dilly Beans

We made dilly beans tonight.

Ingredients:

  • Fresh string beans
  • 1.25c vinegar
  • 1.25c water
  • 2T salt
  • Whole dill
  • Whatever spices — garlic cloves, peppercorns, hot pepper flakes, chipotle pepper,  cinnamon, maple syrup, mustard seeds

Method:

  • Clean beans — wash, trim stem end, remove string if there is one
  • Pack beans into wide-mouth canning jars
  • Add in a sprig or two of dill along with other spices
  • Put brine ingredients into a measuring cup & microwave until boiling, pour over beans.
  • Put on lid, allow to cool, then refrigerate

Sustainability and meat

I’ve seen a lot of info on the incredible (bad) environmental impact of meat production — the amount of land and water it takes to grow a cow is staggering. Something like 77% of the world’s land that is used for agriculture is used to graze livestock. Lamb/mutton, beef, and cheese (mostly cows still) top the list of inefficient ways to produce a gram of protein. I see plant-based fake meat (Beyond, Impossible, etc) marketing toward this — a lower impact way to enjoy a burger. I’d like to see more focus on using existing food sources to reduce the amount of meat contained in meals — rewriting recipes to reduce meat consumption.

I make a lot of meals where meat is a small component of the dish — additions instead of subtractions from the normal recipe. Enhancements instead of restrictions. Turkey burgers with lots of spinach, some feta, and garlic. Stroganoff with three different types of mushrooms, plenty of onions, and a bit of beef. Tacos and wraps loaded with rice, beans, tomatoes, onions, avocado, cheese, grilled corn, and a little grilled chicken. Sloppy joe sandwiches where half of the ground beef is replaced with red lentils. Pasta salad that’s more salad than pasta with a little bit of diced pepperoni. We have completely vegetarian meals, and I use the Beyond/Impossible substitutes to make meatball subs or sausage pizza. That all balances out the grilled steak or rack of ribs some other day.

Spruce Tip Ice Cream

I have a bunch of recipes from https://foragerchef.com that I wanted to make this year … but we seem to have missed the harvest this year. Reminder for next year — snip a bunch of the citrus-y spruce tips and make spruce tip syrup and spruce tip ice cream.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups half and half
  • 1/2 cup fresh spruce tips
  • 5 large egg yolks
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1 teaspoon lime juice 

Instructions

  • On low, heat the half and half, sugar, salt, and egg yolks in a small sauce pan, whisking occasionally until the mixture is hot and thickens slightly.
  • Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, then transfer to a blender.
  • When the mixture is cool, chop the spruce tips well, then add to the blender and puree until very smooth. It takes a bit of horsepower to break down the needles, for the best flavor you really need them finely blended.
  • When the mixture is pureed, pass it through a fine mesh strainer. If possible, allow the custard to sit in the fridge overnight, which will give a better texture in the finished product. Before spinning, whisk in the lime juice.
  • Place the spruce custard in the bowl of an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturers directions. Mine usually takes about 45 minutes.