Perfect Flavor

Just ask my kids…I am ALL about making up new baking recipes at home, and giving them funny names! I’m here to inspire all of you to begin your very own journeys of creating real, “family-secret” recipes for baked goods and breads that can get passed on from generation to generation. Too often, we all love a recipe our mothers made, that was said to have come from our grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother. How deflating is it to discover, then, that this favorite recipe actually came from the back of a box or soup can? I know I, for one, love the tradition that baking foods and desserts from scratch holds in my home, and I want desperately to educate everyone out there that family recipes can in fact be created NOW for all of the generations to come.

It’s easy to start! Take a favorite recipe from any book, say a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the Joy of Cooking. Try it out as the recipe states, make notes about what you would like to change (ex. more salt, less salt, more brown sugar for a molasses taste, crunchier (more butter), chewier (more eggs), etc.) and with your next recipe, change your ingredients a tad, and remark on how well you liked your own changes. Over time, you WILL develop your very own family recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies that is individually yours, one that your family will ask for with mouths watering time and time again.

Incidentally, this is something we constantly do for savory recipes. We are hesitant to do this with baking because we have always been told that baking is a science and we must follow every direction exactly. This is true for candy especially, but please note that not following an ingredient list or method exactly will not result in baking ruin—JUST a different cake, cookie, mousse: whatever the product may be. For example, using room temperature butter and creaming it with sugar will result in a very different cake texture-wise than melting butter and folding it into your batter will. You might actually come to find, however, that you prefer the texture of the melted butter cake to the creamed butter variety. This is all about experimentation—and all of your results should still be incredibly edible!

Once you’ve mastered the “Recipe Doctoring Stage,” might I suggest moving on to something a little more daring? Now, what I am about to introduce can be a little daunting for baking renegade newcomers. But let’s give it a go…how about writing your own recipe entirely BASED on your preexisting knowledge of baking ingredients and the role they play in the foods we bake? Here’s a great example of something I just conjured up a few days ago out of baking excitement and pregnancy hunger pangs for crumb cake.

Every time I make a crumb cake out of a book, I’m never happy with the recipe. I know what I want: moist, cake-like, light (not dense), sweet and salty, and a realyl good streusel on top. I woke up on Saturday morning with, yet again, a strong desire for crumb cake, but had trouble with the idea of getting out of bed to make a so-so cake. SO!…I decided I would make up my own recipe. Now, when you do this, the first thing to do is to get out a pad of paper and pencil and make note of your ingredients and process. This is so that you can keep track of your recipe, no matter how bad or great it comes out! If you’re not so happy with your results, at least you have a platform from which to build off of.

So, I used my knowledge of pound cake (the idea that you use a pound of flour, pound of sugar, pound of butter, hence the name “Pound Cake”…this may not be the exact recipe, but you get the picture…) and translated that idea into a crumb cake recipe, in which I used the theme of “TWO” of everything…hence my rather creative name, “Two Cake.” My results? Unbelievable! This is a family treasure, for sure! Also, I can rest assured that no other family has this exact recipe. Except, now I’m going to share…so scratch that last part=)

TWO CAKE

preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Combine:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons leavening (1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder)

2 half teaspoons salt (1/2 for now, half for streusel)

In a separate bowl, combine:

2 eggs

2 half cups dairy (1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup whole milk)

2 half cups sugar (1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Melt butter and set aside:

2 sticks butter (1.5 sticks melted, retain half a stick and cube it, reserving for streusel)

Cake Process:

Combine dry and wet ingredients with a whisk, reserving butter and fold in gently with a rubber spatula until butter is incorporated. Set batter aside, which will help to aerate…my sneaky little tip is that melted butter, folded in to cooler ingredients, will actually fluff up your batter if you let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes.

Streusel

In a food processor, combine…

2 half cups pecans or walnuts

2 teaspoons cinnamon

your remaining 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup flour (ok…not “TWO” but no one’s perfect)

1/2 cup brown sugar (ok…not “TWO” but no one’s perfect)

remaining half stick of butter, cubed

Process until mixture is in medium-fine crumbles

POUR batter into a buttered 9×9 brownie pan or glass baking dish, top with all streusel, and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out moist but clean.

A great thing about this recipe is that you can eat almost right away.  Allow to cool for just 5 minutes, then cut straight out of the pan into squares and serve warm.  This cake can be stored with aluminum foil to cover at room temp for 4 days.  It just gets better with time, but should be served either room temp or warmed in a 350 degree oven.  IF you want to keep this cake around longer, either refrigerate or freeze in wrapped aluminum foil for easy reheating.

Hope you like this cake as much as I do.  What’s next?  Maybe there is a THREE CAKE in my future…

Up until now, I always bought my mushroom stock.  Why?  I thought that it was too expensive to make on my own.  While I happily oblige when making chicken stock and enjoy going out to get a whole chicken, I was adament in my mind that mushroom stock would be more expensive to make.  Hmmm…I was a little wrong about that=)

I purchased a pound of mushrooms for my husband to use in a famous Tom Ka soup of his, but then life caught up with us and neither of us ever got around to using them.  Then it hit me: “Now’s my chance to make stock!”  So, I happily got on my way to making what ended up being the most flavorful, rich mushroom stock I had ever had, far better than store bought, bland stock, and not only that-but I discovered that I could keep this stock in my fridge or freezer and use it for an array of different dishes.  Also, never had I noticed before until this stock-trial that the mushroom stock I was buying at the store had carrageenan in it!  After making my own I have decided I will never go back to the unnecessary purchase of mushroom stock filled with unnecessary ingredients.  Here’s my recipe:

Lynsie’s Delicious Mushroom Stock

1 pound mushrooms, cleaned and chopped (go neutral with button mushrooms, or go crazy with shiitake, cremini, etc)  If you prefer, you can leave the mushrooms whole, but chopping them roughly now allows you to use your mushrooms in other dishes later.

1 gallon water (adding more at the end if you find your stock to be “too rich”)

1 small yellow onion, roughly chopped

3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 sprig rosemary, fresh please*

5 sprigs thyme*

*for these herbs, it’s up to you whether you wish to strip the stems and chop or not.  If you leave the leaves (I’m so punny) on the stems, especially as it concerns the thyme, the leaves will eventually fall off in the stock.

Process:

1. Add some butter or olive oil to a stock pot and begin to heat over low heat.

2. Throw in onions and garlic and begin to cook to translucency.

3. Add mushrooms and herbs and cook til mushrooms begin to absorb butter and soften.  Also add salt and pepper to taste.  Remember you can always add more at the end of cooking.

4. Add water and bring stock to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and simmer anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how much time you’ve got!  Longer is better, but not necessary by any means.

5. In your sink, place a clean large bowl or similar-sized stock pot.  Set a large strainer inside the pot, and carefully pour your freshly-made stock through the strainer into the pot beneath.  With the back of a large spoon or spatula, press lightly on remaining ingredients in strainer to extract as much flavor as possible into the stock.

6. Allow stock to cool and taste.  If too rich, add more water.  Add more salt/pepper if desired.  Pour into storage containers or ziploc bags, label, and refrigerate or freeze.

7. Reserve mushrooms, onions, garlic, etc and store them in a separate container.

Now you can proceed with any recipe desired to make a mushroom-inspired dish.  Here are a few suggestions:

Mushroom Risotto

Heat 1 1/2 cups cream, milk, or a mixture of the two.

Add 1 cup arborio rice (risotto prior to cooking) and stir until rice starts to absorb liquid.

While this is happening, heat 5 cups mushroom stock in a separate pot on the stove, and every time rice absorbs liquid, add 1 more cup of stock until rice is al dente and stock is gone!  If you need more liquid, adding more stock or even water is just fine!

To finish, add some of your cooked mushroom mixture, sprinkle parmesan or asiago on top and serve immediately.

Shepard’s Pie

Prepare your favorite Shepard’s Pie and for liquid use your mushroom stock.  Add your cooked mushroom mixture in with your other veggies and chicken.

Braise beef, chicken or pork in equal parts stock and water, garnish with mushroom mixture.

Beef Stroganoff

Heat 1 cup milk, 1 cup sour cream, and 2-4 cups mushroom stock (depending on desired thickness) with a spoonful of dijon mustard.  Add mushroom mixture, heat and pour over cooked egg noodles.  YUMMY!  If desired, you can also add browned ground beef or strips of steak.

I teach a cheese class at a local culinary vocational school to both students and average jill’s & joe’s that typically sells out in two days or so.  And I can’t take the credit for it.  With a class of 50-60 students, they come to see how cheese is made in the hopes of being able to make it at home.  What they don’t know going in to this experience is just how simple home cheesemaking can be.  Now, we’re not talking triple creme camembert or 18 month-aged parmesan.  (Which can become easy with a lot of practice and exprimentation.)

We’re talking simple, fresh, soft cheeses, like ricotta, impastata, queso fresco, queso blanco, creme fraiche, cream cheese, mascarpone, mozzarella, yogurt, fromage blanc…you get the picture.  Now most of us born-and-bred Americans don’t use a lot of these cheeses in our everyday cooking/consumption.  Ask any French or Italian expat, and they’re tell you that these cheeses were a part of their daily diets back home, and are quite difficult to find in the U.S.  Once found, they tend to be expensive.

At Perfect Flavor, we made all of these cheeses and found that our customers, grocery stores, and restaurant clients hesitated not to get their hands on these locally sourced and produced cheeses.  Why?  Locally made soft, fresh cheeses are in high demand.  We were the only local creamery making a lot of these cow’s milk cheeses.  And for those local-food conscious individuals, being able to purchase these specific cheeses on a local level helped them complete their missing link of locally sourced, handmade and home grown foods.

Now that we’re no longer selling our cheese in stores due to this not-so-little expectation of ours, people are constantly complaining of the lack of these products on their local shelves.  My answer?  Make your own…and here’s how!

Today, we’re going to start with one of the simplest of all: Ricotta.

True ricotta is extremely different from that found in commercial grocery stores.  First of all, real ricotta made with local milk (raw milk from a local milk share IS preferred) has a sweet, complex flavor.  In other words, this simple cheese is far from its bland sister found at the grocery store.  And why skimp on flavor when it’s easier to make ricotta at home than it is to go out and buy some–cheaper, too!  Also, as an added bonus, what if I told you that you could make homemade ricotta AND from-scratch bread all in the same go-round?  Well, you can.  Both recipes could not be any easier, and are great for beginners.

Homemade ricotta can be great on its own, in a savory dish OR a sweet dish.  Often pureed with a little cream and organic sugar, ricotta is the very best healthy dessert served with some fresh,  seasonal fruit.  Also pureed, it can be used to make an ethereal cheesecake.  Mixed with a little sea salt and fresh herbs, it is fantastic as a spread for crackers or crostini.  And of course, there exist its typical uses: filling for cannoli, stuffed shells, lasagna, ravioli, and more!  Making it at home ensures a nice medium curd that is soft like a cloud and oh-so-healthy.  Here’s the recipe:

Ricotta

1 gallon whole milk, preferably raw and from a local farm (never skim, which would make the cheese too dry and rubbery.  If you’d like to experiment but cannot get your hands on local milk just yet, go with organic whole milk, just keep in mind that store bought milk is already over-processed and produces a small, grainy curd)

3/4 cup white or apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt

Process:

Gently heat milk in a stock pot or large saucepan over medium-high heat to 190 degrees F.  Be sure to stay near the milk toward the end, constantly whisking the bottom to prevent major scorching and an even more major clean up later.  Once at 190, remove from heat and pour in vinegar.  Let sit 30 seconds, then begin to whisk slowly.  You will begin to see the curds separate from the whey (yes!  Just like the Miss Muffet rhyme).  What you’ll be looking at are big, puffy, cloudlike white curds that will float separately of the yellow-green watery whey.  Add your salt and stir to incorporate.  At this point, you can strain out your curds through a fine-meshed sieve set over another large bowl or stock pot big enough to hold the whey. Why?  Well, you’re saving the whey, of course!  Now you can package your ricotta in an airtight container and store in the fridge.  It should keep for at least two weeks and usually longer, depending on the freshness of the milk.  To keep it moist, pour a little remaining whey over top to cover.  Ricotta does not melt when cooked, and is great cold, but preferred when warmed.

While whey is not great-tasting on its own, it makes a great substitute for milk in the following bread recipe.  Also, I’ve found that my dog absolutely loves whey and gobbles it up any time I have extra.  After eating/drinking it frequently, her coat becomes softer and shinier.  Amazing and so healthy for her!  Here’s that bread recipe I was talking about, adapted from Ricki Carroll’s “Home Cheese Making” book.  It is not only fluffy and delicious, but so quick and easy to make that you have no excuse NOT to make homemade bread for yourself and your loved ones.  It practically makes itself in an hour and a half from start to finish, with only about 10 minutes being actual hands-on time.

Italian Feather Bread (perfect as an accompaniment to an Italian-themed dinner starring your very own Ricotta)

1 cup warm water (100 degrees)

2 packages yeast (or 4 1/2 teaspoons)

1 tablespoon sugar

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

3/4 cup hot whey (120 degrees)

2 teaspoons salt

5 1/2-6 cups all purpose unbleached flour

Process:

1. If you need to proof your yeast to make sure it’s still alive, then mix it with your warm water and sugar and watch it dissolve and grow.  If you use it often and know it is still kickin’, simply add the water, yeast and sugar directly to 3 cups of the flour in a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer.

2. Add your butter and salt to the heated whey and whisk to melt.  You do not want to add this mixture to your yeast if it is too hot, as it will kill the yeast.  I find that adding cold butter helps to bring down the temp to about 100, which is where you want it in order to keep the yeast happy.

3. Once you have added your whey/butter/salt mixture to the 3 cups of flour, mix until incorporated.  Add a cup of flour at a time, not to exceed 6 cups, until the dough looks manageable enough to knead by hand.  If you only need to add 4 cups of flour, then go for it.  The less flour, the better the bread!

4. Knead until smooth and soft (like a baby’s bum).  If it seems to get too tough and resistant, let it sit under a damp towel for 5 minutes, then go back to kneading.  Don’t worry if it seems a tad sticky, just remember to flour your HANDS constantly and NOT the bread itself.

5. Divide your dough into two portions and either shape into large loaves, each on its own parchment/silpat-lined baking sheet OR place shaped loaves into individual buttered or oiled bread pans.  Since this bread is great for sandwiches, I like this option because you WILL have leftover bread and this way it can go into lunches for the week!

6. Cover with damp towels or oiled plastic wrap to rise for 45-60 minutes in a warm place.  Heat the oven to 425 degrees.

7. Once risen, brush with a beaten egg white (if you like a glossy bread) or just leave plain and bake for 30-40 minutes until golden in color.  You can go on feeling the bread to judge its doneness, just keep in mind that a stiff crust in the oven will turn into a soft crust once slightly cooled, and that is the nature of this bread.  Cool on a rack in order to avoid a dewy underside!  (did I just say that?!?!)  =)

Happy Cheese & Bread Making!

Long before we got Perfect Flavor up and running, making fresh ice cream, cheese and yogurt, we were making yogurt at home.  There are many, many reasons why we thought that making our very own yogurt at home was important.  From a crunchy point of view, we loved the idea of making lots of our own food from scratch.

From a healthy point of view, we were discouraged for some time over the state of commercial yogurt.  Turn over almost any commercial yogurt in the store and you’ll see ingredients way beyond just milk and cultures (which are the only ingredients that should be in there!).  You’ll see ingredients like gelatin, pectin, corn starch, powdered skim milk, chemical dyes, HFCS and more!  All of these ingredients are completely unnecessary to the production of yogurt, but are added by big, BIG commercial producers of yogurt to ensure a “consistent” product every time that is smooth, thick, and creamy.  What does this mean exactly?  Well, it means that dairy products are inconsistent by nature.  Depending on the type of cow, the ever changing fat content of the milk depending on the cow’s diet and the season in which the cow was milked, and the cultures used.  In fact, yogurt made with just milk and cultures can often turn out slightly different every time it is made.  PLUS, real yogurt, like the kind you find in Europe or the kind you make at home, is MOST often much thinner than the kind we’re used to from Yoplait, Dannon, or other brands.  Adding unnecessary ingredients like pectin, gelatin or other stabilizers is only added to increase thickness, and like I mentioned before, consistency.  If you see a yogurt on the shelves with any other ingredients besides milk and cultures, then in my opinion it is not a true yogurt.

When we began making yogurt and selling it at Perfect Flavor, we encountered almost immediately many customers who were very confused when they saw how “thin” our yogurt consistency was.  It was only when we encountered chefs, the family members of dairy farmers, europeans, and a small number of educated local consumers that we got the response we were looking for.  Finally, they said, here was a yogurt that was the real thing!  And we agreed.  Now, the question is, how can you achieve this real yogurt at home for less money and more fun than buying it at the store?  Easy.

There are two main ways to make yogurt at home.  The first is using an incubator: a small piece of equipment that you can purchase for little money online.  The second is using an oven.  I have used both methods and find them to both be effective!

I first came across the act of making yogurt at home using an incubator when I lived in France.  Needless to say, I was in absolute awe of the fact that I could watch my French hostess pour milk mixed with culture into small glass jars placed in an incubator at night, and in the morning have delicious yogurt in time for breakfast.

When back from France but visiting my dear friend, Samira’s, Bengali mother in Toronto, Ontario, I was curious about the delicious yogurt we ate at her home at almost every meal.  It was then that Samira’s mom taught me how to make homemade yogurt in the easiest way possible: at home with the help of an oven.

For the incubator method, your equipment needs are a little higher, therefore you’ll want to give yourself a week or so to procure your necessary tools.  You’ll need a medium saucepan, a working thermometer whose range starts at at least 100 degrees, great quality raw milk or organic milk (the less processed and pasteurized, the better!), an 8 ounce cup of plain, unsweetened yogurt as your starter (choose Brown Cow, Stoneyfield Farm, or Seven Stars–better yet: a local brand is BEST, but remember to look for the brand with the right ingredients.  You do not want to start your yogurt off on the wrong foot with unnecessary ingredients) and of course an incubator.  My current favorite yogurt incubator is Euro Cuisine.  For this model, make sure to purchase a set of extra glasses on amazon.com so you can make a batch of yogurt while one is still in the fridge.  I like this model in particular because not only is it easy to use, but it’s got glass jars.  With the constant questions raised with the health risks of plastics, especially plastics that are coming in contact with your food while being heated, go with glass and rest assured that you’re not adding any phthalates into your diet.  This incubator is also very easy to clean and has only two buttons: an on/off button and a timer to use for setting how long your yogurt incubates for.  Here’s the recipe:

Take 1 quart of milk, place in your saucepan and heat until the milk reaches 110 degrees F.  This will happen sooner than you think, so stay near the stove and keep an eye on your thermometer.  Remove your milk from the stove and have a pitcher on hand.  Spoon all 8 ounces (1 cup) of your yogurt into the pitcher, then little by little, add the warm milk while whisking until you have a smooth yogurt starter/milk combination.  The small amount of yogurt you have added will be very happy to be mixed in with the warm milk, and once incubated, the cultures present in the mixture will begin to multiply and thrive, turning your milk into full-on delicious yogurt.  Pour your milk/culture mixture into each glass jar, tighten lids, and place in the incubator.  Allow to incubate for as little as 10 hours and as long as 16 hours (the more time the yogurt is in the incubator up to 16 hours, the thicker it will be and the stronger the taste).  I make this yogurt after dinner, allow it to incubate overnight, and place in the fridge in the morning.  The yogurt is ready to be eaten once it is done incubating-at room temp or cold.  Just for your own personal knowledge, the incubator keeps the yogurt at a constant 108 degrees F.  Do not be worried about food poisoning here!  Even though you wouldn’t normally leave milk out on the counter overnight, introducing yogurt culture actually combats the growth of negative bacteria that might make you sick.  Think of it this way: yogurt culture is good bacteria that kills off the bad bacteria naturally.  This does not mean that you would want to never refrigerate your yogurt, just that in the 10-16 hour window that it’s not refrigerated is not going to hurt you.  In fact, those cultures present (probiotics) aid in digestion and help the digestive system to break down all of the food you eat in a healthy, natural way.  This yogurt, once refrigerated, will last in your fridge for up to one month, however this all depends on the freshness of your milk and yogurt starter used.

Now, for those of you interested in trying your hand at yogurt making before committing to a piece of equipment, making it at home in your oven is a great way to start.  Here’s what you’ll need: an oven, a heating pad, a towel, mason jars with lids, a saucepan, a thermometer, milk and 8 ounces of yogurt culture.  Here’s the recipe:

Repeat process above by bringing 1 quart of milk to 110 degrees F, removing it from the stove and adding yogurt culture and milk together in a pitcher.  Meanwhile, prepare your oven: Turn your heating pad on its lowest setting and place the heating pad in your oven to gradually warm the oven.  Make sure you can still create a draft-free environment for your yogurt by ensuring that you can close the oven door with the cord of the heating pad sticking out the side.  Clean your thermometer and place it inside the oven but not on the heating pad.  This is to make sure your oven is maintaining the proper amount of heat for incubation.  Your desired temperature is 108 degrees.  If this means that you’ll need to increase the heat to medium, then do so accordingly.  Pour your milk/starter mixture into your clean mason jars, loosely screw on lids, and place in oven on top of your towel but not directly on the heating pad.  The heating pad should just be sitting somewhere in the oven.  Put a note on the outside with not only the time you put your yogurt in, BUT that NO ONE should turn on oven while your yogurt is incubating.  If the yogurt reaches 120 degrees or higher, the culture will die and you will not make yogurt.  This yogurt, if made at night, will also be ready in the morning, however you may want to experiment with it to let it go a little longer than 10-16 hours in order for you to reach your desired consistency.  Periodically before bed, check the thermometer in your oven by gently opening the oven door, or better yet, just by looking through the window, to make sure the temp is staying at an even 108 degrees F.  If you must open the oven door, do not jostle your mason jars.  Yogurt does not like to be moved at all while it is incubating.  If it does move, the consistency will be chunky and not smooth.

Troubleshooting:

If your yogurt, once incubated, seems to thin, refrigerate it first and the yogurt should become thicker in the fridge, especially if it’s got fat in it.

If your yogurt has lumps, this means that when you combined your milk and yogurt starter, you did not whisk thoroughly enough and distribute the cultures throughout the milk.

Any other questions?  Contact me!

We like to add a bit of organic sugar, raw honey, fresh fruit or wheat germ to our freshly made yogurt.  Have fun with flvoring yours OR just eat it plain!

Here’s to your health!!!

Want a smoother smoothie? Tired of those stubborn icy pieces that don’t get quite blended in? Try this tip that I learned from my good friend, Kristie, when we both had to get to work at 4:30 am and needed to bring along a quick, easy, and healthy breakfast:

Freeze your fruit! That’s right, instead of using fresh fruit, place your freshly purchased fruit, like blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, bananas, etc. into the freezer after washing and shaking dry. Place the fruit in a gallon size ziploc bag or rubbermaid container and allow to freeze overnight before making that morning smoothie. If, by chance, you prefer to buy locally grown fruit when it’s in season, then when strawberries are in season, for example, buy enough for the year and freeze the strawberries in smaller containers, like ziploc bags, that you can easily shake to separate the frozen fruit if it’s stuck together. Also, as an extra tip, let your fruit thaw in its bag, in a larger bowl, overnight in the fridge and what you’ll be left with is delicious all-natural juice that can be used to also flavor your smoothies or salad dressings. Strawberry balsamic, anyone?

Anyway, as usual when it comes to food, I digress…

Here’s the Smoother Smoothie Recipe:

Combine 2 cups frozen fruit with…

1 cup yogurt*

1/2 cup milk*

add a bit of organic cane sugar or local honey if desired. However, in-season fruit is perfectly sweet on its own!

*as many of you know, I am a real dairy girl, and therefore love milk, yogurt, and cheese in its most unadulterated form. Therefore, I use whole milk (full fat) everything! It’s much more decadent, not to mention that full fat dairy has the right kind of fat in it that is truly healthy.

Blend in a blender until smooth and eat right away. The frozen fruit will give your smoothie the chill that you’re normally going for when adding ice if eaten immediately. Also, the texture of your smoothie will be rich, creamy, and thick, as opposed to a thinner smoothie made with fresh, not frozen, fruit.

No doubt my friend, Gleamer: the Smoothie Queen, has already discovered this tip for making smoother smoothies for her beautiful kids who, lucky ducks, get to enjoy smoothies all the time. Gleamer, if you’ve got any more tips, I’m sure we’d love to hear ‘em!

What is the prize for a diet high in protein?

Well, prior to being pregnant, I always assumed two things regarding high protein diets primarily: One was that folks on the Atkins Diet (which I tried out of desperation in college and quickly stopped 1 week in) consume lots of protein, and really only protein. Another aspect of a high protein diet brought to mind body builders downing strawberry-flavored powdered milkshake blends. yum…?

I never really knew until getting pregnant and beginning my childbirth education class focused on The Bradley Method that protein is good. Really good if you’re pregnant. In fact, contrary to what some doctors may say, a diet high in protein during pregnancy is really healthy for both mom and baby. Dr. Bradley, founder of The Bradley Method and an obstetrician from the middle of the 20th century until his recent death, recommends a daily intake of 80-100 grams of protein. Since I couldn’t really wrap my head around what this meant, but now after learning I understand how to incorporate healthy protein into my diet, I’m going to share what I know:

Protein can be found in many foods. Some have lots of protein, others don’t have as much. Foods high in protein are meat, dairy, grains, eggs and nuts. For example, a 3 oz (pretty small) serving size of steak has 20 grams of protein. Chicken of the same portion has 25 grams. Eggs have 6 grams each. A cup of milk (8 oz) has 8 grams, an ounce of real cheese 7 grams, and so on.

Why do I know all of this? Because as a student of The Bradley Method, I have homework each week in which I must record and calculate my daily protein intake as part of a well-balanced diet. In other words, I can’t just eat steaks all day and drink milk, even though my husband would argue that that is exactly what I do-at least when it comes to milk consumption. You see, unbeknownst to me, as I would fill out my daily protein intake on my little pink homework sheet and hand it in to my wonderful teacher, Jenny, she was actually examining everyone’s sheets and running a sort of “protein contest.” Well, as it turns out, my love for milk has paid off. Being that on a typical day I drink between one and two quarts a day, which results in between 32-64 grams of protein alone, I was the Number 1 protein consumer in my class. And I got a prize! It’s a beautiful little Peter Rabbit baby spoon.

Now, first of all, I was not expecting a reward aside from the most obvious prize of all: a healthy pregnancy and really healthy baby. But, I have to admit, getting recognized for my protein-packing abilities makes me feel good. Not to mention the fact that physically, I actually feel fantastic.

Here’s a nice, easy recipe to follow that helps you, pregnant or not, to get a healthy meal with a really healthy dose of protein.

Blue Cheese Steak Salad

Ingredients:

one 8 oz steak (about 53 grams of protein), preferably a locally raised cut like a Delmonico from Polyface Farm

a nice 4 ounce slice of locally made or artisan blue cheese, crumbled (28 grams protein)

1 cup pecans (24 grams protein), toasted at 350 degrees for 7 minutes whole in the oven, then chopped roughly

a big heaping portion of your favorite salad green: I like to use arugula for its spice, or romaine for its crunch. Spinach also works!

Salad Dressing (recipe to follow):

1 hard boiled egg (6 grams protein), pureed with the following: juice of two lemons, 1/2 cup olive oil, smoked sea salt or regular sea salt, white pepper or black pepper to taste, and anchovy paste if you’ve got it, just a couple squeezes from the tube. If you desire, throw in a 1/4 cup blue cheese to make a creamy dressing. Blend and pour over mixed salad.

Process:

Remove steak from packaging, pat dry with a paper towel while your skillet (preferably cast iron) heats on medium high. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper on both sides and place steak directly onto hot skillet. Set a timer for 6 minutes and DO NOT MOVE, POKE, PROD, or otherwise TOUCH. When six minutes is up, flip the steak, set timer for 6 more minutes, then remove to a cutting board to rest for ten minutes. This will produce a perfectly cooked steak, and depending on how thick, can range from a medium rare to medium well. A 1 inch thick delmonico yields a medium at my house. Do not cut into the steak before the ten minute rest is up.

Presentation:

In a large bowl, place salad greens and scatter still-warm pecans over greens. If you’re using arugula or spinach, the warmth from the nuts will help to wilt your greens to a nice texture perfect for this kind of salad.

Sprinkle on crumbled blue cheese.

Pour dressing over salad and toss.

Slice your steak thinly, plate your salad onto two individual plates, and arrange steak on top.

If desired, sprinkle some more pecans and blue cheese crumbles on top and enjoy while warm!

If shared between two people, for instance a pregnant lady and her partner, this meal yields a whopping 55.50 grams of protein per person, which is more than half of your daily required intake!

For dessert, throw in some ice cream (the real stuff!) or some whole milk yogurt with fresh fruit, and you’ve got a fantastic, delicious meal that is not only practically effortless, but also quick to prepare and a very easy way to get the protein you need with the smallest amount of hassle possible.

Look here for more posts concerning healthy protein-filled recipes as well as much more info on The Bradley Method and my adventures in childbirth education!

It’s been a long time since we got rid of our microwave.  I must admit, after having grown up with a microwave, the thought of not having one in our kitchen was slightly scary.  What would we do if we needed to, gasp, reheat something?

Our reasons for getting rid of our microwave were not entirely wholesome.  We were renovating our kitchen and were worried that our current microwave’s location would be too close to the large and leaping flames of our new gas range getting installed directly underneath our behemoth of a microwave.  The microwave itself was probably installed in the 70s, as our good friend Samira and Philip can attest to, since they have the very same one in their condo which was built around that time.

So, with a little trepidation and a lot of hope for what our food future would hold, we ditched our giant microwave.

While prior to saying goodbye to this large device, we were making most of our food from scratch and not eating processed food TV dinners, easy mac, vegetable “steamers” or the like, I don’t believe we knew what a profound impact life with out a microwave would have on our family food culture.  Think about it, what foods can’t you prepare without the help of a microwave?  Processed, typically frozen foods, of course.  Just ask anyone who has, in desperation and sans microwave, tried to heat up a lean cuisine in the oven…what anyone would end up with is a bunch of semi-hot food surrounded by melted plastic-yum!

…also, as a side note, do we really need to be eating frozen “health food” anyway?  Take a look at the current Cambell’s Soup Select Harvest tv ad in which shoppers are blindfolded as they purchase their “health food” and ask yourself…should they be looking at the calorie content or should they actually just be reading the ingredients???  Yes, it is true that a lot of the American public walks around a grocery store with blindfolds on when it comes to intelligently discerning the ingredients present in the foods we eat, but guess what…no microwave = no processed frozen TV types of foods.

Colin and I have a hard time figuring out just how many processed foods we consume currently, the reason being that we do not consume much aside from the occasional bags of chips or crackers and the cereal (we try to find the best possible) that we eat in the mornings sometimes.  MOST of the food we eat, about 95% of it, in fact, is made from foundational ingredients, like unbleached flour, unsalted butter, local eggs, local meats, local or organic veggies and fruits, or both, depending on the season.  All of these ingredients, when used in conjunction with each other, can turn out some pretty tasty dishes that are really, really healthy for our family, and require no microwave to cook.

The bottom line is this:  If you want to make healthy food for your family, get rid of your microwave.  How to reheat that cup of coffee?  Pour the rest in a small saucepan and heat up over low heat.  What about defrosting that chicken?  Place the chicken in the fridge 1-2 days prior to cooking.  Also, you can defrost any piece of meat, sausage, etc quickly by placing it in a ziploc bag and then inside a large bowl filled with cold water.  Change the water out every hour, and within 1-3 hours your meat should be thawed.  (Do not think that running hot water over the meat will defrost it quicker-it will not…it will only harm the texture of the meat by cooking it slightly.)

When in doubt, think 19th century…how did they cook and heat food in the old days?  There’s no reason why we can’t figure this out in today’s culture!

As a family, we feel better when we eat real, healthy food.  We’re teaching our children about how to do this for themselves as well, which is an invaluable lesson.  Life with out a microwave may take a little more planning and organizing, but its values go far beyond tonight’s meal.  Good luck!

Aebleskivers. When I came across the cast iron pan by the same name, I had never before encountered such a name and concept. What are they?

In essence, aebleskivers are pancake balls that, when cooked in oil in this very special pan, fluff up in the shape of perfect little globes that get eaten so fast once made that one can hardly keep a full plate on the table!

As seems to be usual for us, Colin and I purchased an aebleskiver pan long before they started to seemingly become popular. This past holiday season saw shelves filled with practically a different aebleskiver pan for each different recipe. I am here to say that you need just one pan and one recipe. This recipe, altered slightly to my specifications and desires, comes directly from the official Lodge Cast Iron cookbook entitled, “A Skillet Full of Traditional Southern Lodge Cast Iron Recipes & Memories.” This recipe was originally written by Sarah Kirkwood Lodge of the original Lodge family.

Here’s the recipe in all its delicious glory. You’ll find that these little pancake balls have a crispy, buttery texture on the outside with a doughnut-like, buttery, chewy texture on the inside. They really are nothing short of heavenly, and if you happen to have a group of grumpy kids or a husband who’s had a long week, there is nothing like a batch of aebleskivers to get everyone back on cloud 9!

Aebleskivers

Ingredients

4 eggs separated

2 tablespoons organic cane sugar

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (local is best, but King Arthur red bag will work)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 stick butter, melted

scant 2 cups whole milk

Method: please read all the way through before beginning

1. Melt butter slowly in a small saucepan and remove from heat when stick is almost melted but not quite. Swirl in the saucepan and you will have accomplished two things: melted the rest of the stick AND maintained a low enough temperature with the butter to not cook the eggs once added to the batter.

2. In the meantime, separate your eggs: yolks into a medium sized bowl, whites into the bowl of a mixer or just a separate medium bowl, making sure that your whites are free of any trace of yolk or other debris (except salt, see below), as any foreign ingredient other than the white itself will inhibit the whites’ ability to froth up and beat properly. Add the salt to your whites, which will help them beat up to an even stiffer and more stable peak.

3. Hand whisk your yolks until thickened and light in color. Add your sugar and continue to whisk until even thicker and lemon colored.

4. Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) in a small bowl and retain your measuring cup in this bowl.

5. Measure milk into a glass measuring cup meant for liquid measure and set aside.

6. With your whisk in hand, begin to add dry ingredients 1/4 cup at a time and alternate with milk 1/4 cup at a time. This will aid in developing the cake-like structure of this batter. Also, and perhaps most importantly, if you’re a lump-freak like me, adding your ingredients alternatively and little by little this way will ensure that your batter will be lump free if you’re whisking vigorously as you add each ingredient.

7. Once all ingredients have been added, fold in melted butter with a large rubber spatula until just mixed.

8. In three batches, add your egg whites (which you could have had beating while preparing the batter), folding in slowly and gently.

***Now is when I like to add a little extra magic: Combine in a small cereal bowl 1/2 cup organic cane sugar with 1 teaspoon (or more depending on taste) cinnamon. Mix and set near your pan.

9. Heat your aebleskiver pan over medium heat and pour 1/2-1 teaspoon vegetable oil into each well. Allow oil to heat enough for frying. If your oil is not hot enough when you add your batter, the batter will soak up the oil before it has the chance to bake, and will be heavy and greasy. If you’re unsure of when the temperature has reached the right point, you’ll just have to do what I do: sacrifice a poor aebleskiver individual first and take a look at how it bakes, then proceed with the others.

10. I spoon out the batter with a medium-sized cookie/ice cream scoop, which helps make clean up a little easier and ensures that each ball is the same size. After the edges begin to look brown, 3 minutes or so, I use a fork to gently turn each ball over so that the batter side can form and cook. Basically, you’re going for a perfect sphere, so turning your ball over before all of the batter in the center is cooked means that the rest of the raw batter will mold to the well in the pan and thus create a perfect circle of decadence.

11. Remove aebleskivers one by one, rolling each in your cinnamon-sugar mixture until coated, then place on your breakfast dish.

12. When repeating cooking of all the batter, you may need to adjust your stove top temperature. I find that for my gas range, I must reduce the heat to low as time goes by because the pan tends to get very hot and my batter has the tendency to burn if I do not monitor the temperature very closely. Also make sure to add a new round of oil to your pan every second-third batch.

Once my first batch is done, I holler at the kids and wonderful husband to come in and eat. Usually by the time I finish each consecutive batch they are finished with the plate that came before. There are days when they are not as hungry, so I do not make all the batter into aebleskivers at once. Instead, I’ll use about half of the batter up and then make more aebleskivers the next morning or the morning after.

This batter makes about 40 pancake balls and can be kept in the fridge for up to three days.

Incidentally, a well-seasoned cast iron aebleskiver pan is the best (see my previous cast iron post), and cheapest, option. There are some nonstick options out there, which as usual, I do not trust both for their lack of long-term nonstick capabilities but also for the fact that teflon scares me. If you cannot locate the proper pan, consider this: the recipe recounted above can also be used to make waffles that are crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, as well as pancakes AND pancake puffs (or special pancake as my kids call it, which is aebleskiver batter baked in a buttered glass dish in a 375 degree oven until puffy and golden).

Yum, now I’m hungry!

Recipe Variations:

Want chocolate aebleskivers?  Substitute 1/8 cup cocoa for 1/8 cup flour and continue recipe like normal.

Want savory aebleskivers? How about chive & chevre?  Substitute 1/2 cup fresh chevre for 1/2 cup milk and add 1/2 cup chopped chives.  For other cheese variations, keep milk content the same and add 1/2 cup shredded hard cheese to batter.

yummy aebleskivers, pronounced "able-skivvers" according to my authoritative knowledge!=)

Our family is big on cast iron. And that’s probably understating the very state of our cast iron collection…

Kitchen calisthenics is practiced most when small hands and wrists try over and over to carry a cast iron skillet or dutch oven from stove top to sink. I do believe that Colin is the only one who can successfully tip and pour out the contents of our 10 inch skillet with one hand, although Nick, at 5′8″, is certainly gaining speed on his dad.

Colin and I both, before meeting, owned 1-2 cast iron pieces. All were essentially skillets, while one of mine was a skillet with a grill pan feature imbedded in the bottom, which I used for grilling fish, burgers, or making panini.

Since we’ve fallen in love (with each other AND cast iron), over the last almost 4 years, our collection has grown considerably, with now more skillets, dutch ovens, pans, etc than I can count accurately. Not only is cast iron our preferred vessel for cooking everything from omelettes to stocks to braised beef to tomato sauce due to its amazing nonstick attributes, BUT cast iron is the absolute most inexpensive line of cookware out there today. It also lasts the longest. And what product has withstood the test of time more than cast iron? Look back into the centuries and cast iron is there: in paintings, cookbooks, you name it. Even Thomas Jefferson used cast iron. And while you may not consider it fancy or elegant, do consider this: Ask any chef out there what cooking vessel they could not live with out, and I bet they’d answer that their cast iron skillet is it. Just check out Mark Bittman’s article on cooking with cast iron and the benefits that ensue.

Lodge Cast Iron is the most popular brand of cast iron cookware, and if you happen to live near an outlet, take FULL advantage! Colin and I always stop in to the Gatlinburg, Tennessee outlet on our way to and from my parents’ house in Madison, Alabama. The Lodge manufacturing headquarters itself is located in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. In fact, this cast iron foundry started by Joseph Lodge is still in production after more than 100 years.

Cast iron is loved for its even heat distribution, natural (not teflon) non-stick qualities, and over all resilience. It is also quite easy to take care of, contrary to what you may have heard. (See Mark Bittman’s article for more info.) In our house, we buy pre-seasoned cast iron cookware, even though buying your cookware unseasoned would be just as easy to get up and running (and a bit cheaper). Slightly different from Bittman’s seasoning advice, (and no, we are not seasoning with salt and pepper, that comes later…) Colin likes to season our pre-seasoned cookware often immediately after purchase and any time it begins to start looking “dry” or rusty. We simply pour a bit of vegetable oil in our pan and wipe throughout with a paper towel. We then place our cookware in a pre-heated 250 degree oven for an hour, then cool. Then repeat. Done!

Seasoning cast iron with a touch of oil and heat procures a true non-stick pan that requires little effort to keep glistening and smooth. Just remember that cast iron does not go in the dishwasher (I think its weight would probably break the flimsy plastic shelving anyway!) and that we do not use soap in our house to clean it, just a steel scouring pad. If we must, we soak our pans overnight to loosen up any cooked-on pesky bits of food. Otherwise, it’s scour, rinse, pat dry and store. Leaving any residual water drops in a pan overnight can result in rusting. But have no fear, to remedy this problem would simply mean another brief round of seasoning.

If you’re interested in starting a collection of your own, here is what I would recommend to get you started:

1 8 inch skillet

1 10 inch skillet

1 10 inch dutch oven with lid (which by the way you can even bake CAKES and BREAD in!)

and that is it my friends!

Cast iron is the true stove to oven to table cookware. In fact, for those of you who do not know, the fancy Le Creuset line of cookware is simply cast iron covered in shiny painted enamel.

Coming soon…I will detail a few of my favorite recipes as well as highlight some specialty pans and the special recipes that go along with them.

Check out Lodge Cast Iron to learn more!

What’s this page about?

Different from my “Recipes” tab, “Cooking” will go much more in depth to answer all aspects of more involved techniques required for perfecting that cherished bread recipe, that fluffy yellow cake gem, or the science behind making homemade cheeses.

In other words, come here if you’ve had a good amount of experience with cooking and baking and are now curious to know and understand what ingredients do what things, or, for example, why it might not be smart to make candy on a rainy day.

Below is a simple cookie recipe for beginners with a syrup recipe that’s got a lot more science behind it than meets the eye.

Post your questions or what you’d like to see me cover.  I’d love to help broaden all of our culinary backgrounds!

Stay tuned…