Showing all posts tagged food:

Braised Bone-In Chicken with Tarragon

On your next trip to the grocery store, do yourself a favor and skip the boneless chicken breasts. Bone-in chicken is cheaper, tastier, and leaves you with the ingredients you need to make a beautiful and nourishing broth. Pick up bone-in chicken legs, thighs, breasts, or even a whole chicken! If you can, choose organic/pasture-raised meat - it is definitely more expensive, but truly a good value if you use every bit. This braised chicken dish has got to be my family’s favorite dinner. It is...

Sourdough Crepes

Crepes are pretty easy to make (especially if you don't mind what they look like), though they take some time, since they are cooked a one-at-a-time. They are also a very handy use of ‘discarded’ starter (what you need to take out before feeding). They keep well for a few days in the fridge, and can be served almost ANY WAY. For a sweet treat, spread/fill with jam, berries, whipped cream, syrup, chocolate, honey, cinnamon and sugar, etc. For savory, optionally omit the sweetener in the crep...

Kale, Queen of Vegetables

Kale is really good for you. You knew that, of course; but have you tried [cooking with] it? My daughter and I love kale. The boys in the house could do without it. But since I am the one shopping and cooking, I say tough luck. There are several varieties of kale, but I prefer the Lacinato or “Dinosaur" variety, as I personally think it's the easiest to prepare. When prepping kale, wash the leaves individually, front and back, checking for anything clinging to the backs. Kale has a tough ste...

Processed food challenge, part 1 (cleaning out the pantry)

Happy New Year! Thinking about how to eat healthier? Join the club. :) Seriously, what can you do to improve your diet? A great start is to look in your cabinets and start [re-]reading product labels. How many ingredients do they contain? How may can you pronounce? How much violence have they likely suffered before they reached you? Even if it is “organic", how much does the product resemble something you have seen in nature? The industrial processing of food not only frequently adds junk ...

Sourdough Crumpets

Quick, easy, tasty, convenient and versatile! Also, dairy free/vegan. :) Crumpets are somewhere between a pancake and an english muffin. Make extra and put them in the fridge or freezer, as they are best toasted. With a little extra honey and added cinnamon, they are a lovely morning treat. Without the cinnamon, they can be eaten anytime, any way! This recipe is based on the one from Cultures for Health. Note: You will need ‘special equipment’ for these. I bought these metal english muffin r...

Sourdough Muffins

This tasty and flexible muffin recipe is adapted from The Basic Sourdough Muffin recipe on the Cultures for Health site. They have lots of air pockets from the sourdough and soda, and a lovely chewiness/elasticity. Nice crust on top. Yum. Ingredients: ½ cup sourdough starter 1½ cups white or whole wheat flour, or a combination up to ½ cup water, as needed (depending on wetness of starter) ½ cup (1 stick) melted butter 2 eggs 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon soda ½ cup sugar (evaporated cane juic...

Sourdough Pancakes

Here is a sourdough pancake recipe [mostly] from What's Cooking America, perfect for using up starter (you might want to bulk up your starter just for this). The batter is a little goopy, so tricky to get onto the griddle without making a mess--but worth it! The texture is excellent. I made these pancakes recently with 3 cups starter and two eggs, and bumped up the other ingredients by about half. I had plenty left over for the freezer. Pop them in the toaster (or just let them thaw) and they...

Sourdough Starter: getting and maintaining one

As I mentioned in my first Sourdough post, you can make your own sourdough starter, like I did, purchase a starter, or get some from a friend who has one going. The instructions I chose to follow to start my own sourdough are on the kitchn website. I found the day-by-day instructions very reasonable to follow. I recommend these instructions to anyone who wants to try to make their own starter. If you want to purchase a starter, you can get dried starter in a packet (with instructions) from Cu...

What’s in the pantry? (Sweeteners)

As with oils, sugars and other sweeteners were an important target in cleaning up my pantry. I had been using Florida Crystals and Turbinado sugar, thinking they were better than plain white sugar. Unfortunately, it turns out they are not quite the improvement I was looking for. I wanted something that had not had all possible goodness processed out of it. Something that would not be toxic! In general, sugar is really just not good for us. Even natural “healthy" sweeteners are not good if yo...

The Wonders of Sourdough

How do I love thee? Well, just let me count the ways... Sourdough has been such a great find in our house. I had basically taken us all gluten-free, owing to both kids seeming to do better that way (and I felt better too). But then I started reading about traditionally-prepared (long-proofed or long-fermented) sourdough as a solution for gluten-sensitive folks. Even for celiacs, evidently. I was so intrigued, I decided to dive in and experiment. Sourdough is fermented grain. The fermentati...