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You are here: Home / Archives for kids favorites

kids favorites

Fermentation Friday: Fermented French Fries

March 13, 2011 by KerryAnn 42 Comments

We’ve fallen in love with this recipe and this is the only way I will make fries in the future. My kids inhale these and ask for more, no matter how many I make. They are just like I remember fast food fries to be- crisp on the outside, hot and soft on the inside. And since they’re fried in tallow, I feel good about my kids eating them.

When I developed this recipe, I’d been in a fermenting funk. I was having a hard time coming up with something creative. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sauerkraut and kefirs. But I needed something…. more. Different. Something my kids would love. One of my dear friends, Loztnausten, had a post about making shoestring french fries and one on fermenting fries. I had read it long ago, but I kept on having the ‘too much work’ mantra scroll in my head. Hand-cutting all of those fries…. I wanted a food processor with a blade that could do it for me, but it was out of my budget. If I wanted french fries, I would ask my husband to make them for me as a treat, when I was working a late night and he had some free time and was looking to dote on me by whipping up something special and junky in the kitchen for us to munch on while I slaved away on the computer. Last January my husband made some french fries, using the mandolin slicer I had recently acquired from a friend. He asked me to look up what temp to cook them at, as his last batch had turned out too oil-logged. We knew he needed a higher temperature, so I surfed over to Everything Free Eating to see how LZ does her fries and I again saw the fermented fries post.

A light bulb went off.

The Research

I did a little research. In this paper, fermentation with a lactic acid bacteria (LAB) resulted in a reduction of the acrylamide in french fries by as much as 90% after 15 minutes. Fermenting in an anaerobic environment is the best way to encourage the production of LAB at home so your can achieve this same result without needing a lab coat, a college degree and an industrial process to cook your diner.

Why do we want to reduce the acrylamide? It’s a carcinogen. Anything that browns while it cooks- bread, potatoes, chips, biscuits, pretty much any baked or fried good, forms acrylamide as it browns.

How does LAB fermentation work to reduce the acrylamide? A quote from Science Daily tells us

“Acrylamide is formed as a reaction between the amino acid asparagine and simple sugars such as glucose and fructose. Put simply, the lactic acid bacteria remove these compounds and inhibit the formation of acrylamide.”

If you’d like to read more about how LABs consume these simple sugars, this book is a good place to start studying. The paper mentioned above, Lactic acid fermentation reduces acrylamide formed during production of fried potato products, was published in the journal Aspects of Applied Biology. It says in its summary:

“Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) metabolise simple sugars rapidly, producing lactic acid which lowers pH and reduces the Maillard reactions initiated by heat. This method can be used in industries producing fried potato products to reduce their problems with acrylamide formation. Applying the LAB method to French fries shortly prior to the pre-frying step reduces acrylamide formation as much as 90%. Browning reactions consequently are reduced. Sensory analysis shows loss of colour and burnt smell and taste without affecting quality of final potato sticks. A fermentation time of approximately 15 minutes is needed given a dense LAB culture. The results from large scale industrial- batch as well as continuous experiments – indicate that LAB fermentation provides the best means for acrylamide mitigation in the production of fried potato products.”

The Application

So the research says that LAB thrives best in an anaerobic environment. Anaerobic means that oxygen is not present; aerobic means that oxygen is present. In order to get LABs to proliferate, I needed to provide an anaerobic environment that would encourage their growth while discouraging the growth of all non-beneficial species, especially the aerobic ones.

So, how can be get an anaerobic environment in home fermentation? That can only be accomplished with a seal that prevents oxygen from entering while an airlock allows carbon dioxide to escape. Without an anaerobic environment, the LABs will not flourish and the acrylamides will not greatly diminish. Open air fermentation will not reduce acrylamides to the same extent due to the lack of LABs. As the bacteria produce carbon dioxide and use up the oxygen, it reduces the population of undesirable, aerobic bacteria and allows the LAB to flourish in the oxygenless environment. The Pickl-It provides this type of environment, as it as an airtight seal and an airlock for the growing carbon dioxide to escape. An open bowl provides a continuous supply of oxygen, never increasing the amount of LAB present and giving an environment that is ideal for the undesirable, aerobic bacteria to flourish. A mason jar would not, either, as it has to be burped regularly to allow the building carbon dioxide to escape. Any time you burp a mason jar, it allows oxygen to rush into the vessel, starting the process all over again. Not burping the jar would cause explosions, as I have had happen in the past. An air-tight vessel with an air lock is the only way to see the LABs flourish and therefore reduce the acrylamide in the potatoes.

This makes sense to me. The examples of ancient fermentation crocks I have seen contained wooden lids and were buried while they ferment. A good example is Korean Kimchi. Ditto for the Icelanders and their fermented shark, called Hakarl, which sits in the ground for 6-12 weeks to ferment. You don’t get air circulation under the ground.

You will notice in the study, that the concentration of LABs used to reduce the acrylamide by 90% was a 1% solution. In order to reach a concentration of 1% in your own kitchen, you need your potatoes to be in an environment where oxygen can not enter for 3-6 days, according to the Handbook of Fermented Functional Foods. If you preview this book on Amazon using their Look Inside! feature, you can read about it on page 402 of this wonderful and very detailed book. Other parts of this book are available on Google Books, if you’d like to read the beginning of the book.

The Recipe

Mmmmm… crispy outside, soft inside, and just the right amount of salt!

[Read more…] about Fermentation Friday: Fermented French Fries

Filed Under: Best Of, Blog Carnivals, Casein-Free, Cultured Foods, Egg-Free, Featured Recipe, Fermentation Friday, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Kids, Lactofermentation, Nut-Free, Packaged Replacements, Portable Treats, Recipes, Sanity Savers, Side Dishes, Snacks, Soy-Free, Sweetener-Free, Vegetables Tagged With: bacteria, carnival, fermentation, Fermentation Friday, food, french fries, grain mill, kids, kids favorites, lard, linky, March, mason jar, potatoes, rice, stove-top dishes, tallow

Dollars to Donuts

February 21, 2011 by KerryAnn 16 Comments

We recently had a day that needed a special breakfast but I was having trouble coming up with the right thing to fix.  I started brainstorming out loud with my better half, from across the room.  We both buried ourselves into Google on our respective computers, looking for a good recipe to try.  The word ‘donut’ fell out.  We both smiled.  We have had donuts only a couple of times since we went gluten-free.  I have purchased the Kinninnick donuts twice from the salvage for special occasions, when we could get a box for $1.  But I don’t like to use them often, because they contain ingredients that aren’t real food.

The ingredients in Kinninnick vanilla donuts are

Icing (sugar, water, glucose, vanilla), Sugar, White Rice Flour, Tapioca Starch, Water, Whole Eggs, Sweet Rice Flour, Palm Fruit Oil (non hydrogenated), Frutooligosaccharide, Yeast, Pea Protein, Egg Whites, Xanthan Gum, Fruit Concentrate (dextrose, dextrin, fibre), Salt, Rice Bran Extract, Cellulose, KinnActive Baking Powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, pea starch, mono calcium phosphate), Glucono Delta Lactone, Sodium Bicarbonate, Nutmeg

Last time I checked, I wasn’t able to grow lactone or pyropho… pyra…… in my back yard.  Yeah.  And, for sake of comparison, here’s the ingredients in a Dunkin’ Donut:

Donut: Enriched Unbleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron as Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, Enzyme, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Palm Oil, Water, Dextrose, Soybean Oil, Whey (a milk derivative), Skim Milk, Yeast, Contains less than 2% of the following: Salt, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Baking Soda), Defatted Soy Flour, Wheat Starch, Mono and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Cellulose Gum, Soy Lecithin, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Artificial Flavor, Sodium Caseinate (a milk derivative), Enzyme, Colored with (Turmeric and Annatto Extracts, Beta Carotene), Eggs; Crunch Topping: Sugar, Coconut, Yellow Corn Flour, Caramel Color, BHT (antioxidant); Glaze: Sugar, Water, Maltodextrin, Contains 2% or less of the following: Mono and Diglycerides, Agar, Cellulose Gum, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Artificial Flavor; Apple Filling: Water, Sugar Syrup, Corn Syrup, Evaporated Apples, Modified Food Starch, Contains 2% or less of the following: Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Sorbate (Preservatives), Salt, Cinnamon, Malic Acid, Nutmeg.

I don’t think I need to say much about that list, it speaks for itself.  And Krispy Kreme won’t even give an ingredient list online that I could find.  Just a statement that they don’t use trans-fats in their shortening blend.  Ahem.

So I set out to make healthy donuts my kids would love. [Read more…] about Dollars to Donuts

Filed Under: Baked Goods, Casein-Free, Desserts, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Kids, Nut-Free, Portable Treats, Recipes, Snacks, Soy-Free Tagged With: 15-minute dishes, baked dishes, baking, breakfast, coconut flour, coconut milk, donuts, eggs, fast food, food, junk food, kids, kids favorites, rapadura, silicone pan, stevia, stoneware, sweetener

Dollars to Donuts II- Chocolate Donuts

April 18, 2012 by KerryAnn 16 Comments

For information on the pans and techniques for making these donuts, see our first post in this series, Dollars to Donuts. This recipe is grain-free and nutrient dense. There is one egg and over one tablespoon of fat in each donut, and the recipe has a low-sweetener option. I prefer making the low-sweetener variety using Nu Naturals Stevia. I get my stevia from Iherb.com. You can get a discount on your first order with coupon code KED184.

 

Chocolate Grain-Free Donut

 

Chocolate Donuts

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 – 1/2 cup rapadura/sucanat and 1/4 tsp stevia or 1 cup rapadura (2 cups if your family has not adjusted to low-sugar)
6 eggs
1/2 cup coconut milk, dairy milk or water
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup butter, melted (or additional coconut oil)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease your pan, if you are using stoneware, and set aside.

Sift together the coconut flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. If you are using powdered stevia, sift this in as well. Set the bowl aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the rapadura, eggs, milk, vanilla and oil. Whisk the wet into the dry ingredients. Add a little extra water or milk, if needed, to get the batter to come together and be wet enough to pour. Quickly pour into the greased pan- I made this easier by transferring the batter to a pyrex measuring cup so I could measure and pour without blobbing the batter all over the little divet-thingie in the pan. The coconut flour will absorb the fluid as it sits, so get it into the pan so it is easier to work with. Jiggle the pan a little to get the batter to level out.

Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean for a stoneware mini-bundt pan. For a traditionally-sized donut pan, the baking time would be reduced to 15-18 minutes.

Glaze- I make my donuts to be very low sweetener, then mixed a little powdered sugar with some cocoa, vanilla extract and enough unsweetened almond milk to make a glaze and drizzled it over.

 

This post is part of Monday Mania, Traditional Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesdays, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Grain Free Tuesdays and Show Me What Ya Got.

 

Filed Under: Baked Goods, Best Of, Breakfast, Casein-Free, Desserts, Featured Recipe, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Kids, Low-Carb, Nut-Free, Packaged Replacements, Portable Treats, Recipes, Sanity Savers, Snacks, Soy-Free Tagged With: 15-minute dishes, baked dishes, baking, chocolate, cocoa powder, coconut flour, coconut milk, donuts, eggs, family, junk food, kids, kids favorites, rapadura, silicone pan, stevia, stoneware, sweetener

Fermentation Friday: Sourdough Pancakes

March 11, 2011 by KerryAnn Leave a Comment

Between these Sourdough Pancakes and the Soaked and Veggied Blender Waffles, my kids are totally in love with breakfast again! I haven’t heard a request for cold cereal in ages, and I couldn’t be happier.

[Read more…] about Fermentation Friday: Sourdough Pancakes

Filed Under: Blog Carnivals, Breakfast, Casein-Free, Cultured Foods, Fermentation Friday, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Grains, Hidden Veggies, Menu Mailer, Nut-Free, Recipes, Sourdough, Sourdough, Soy-Free Tagged With: 20-minute meals, 30-minute meals, baking, bean flour, breakfast, carnival, coconut flour, dessert, eggs, fermentation, Fermentation Friday, grain-free, hidden veggies, kids favorites, linky, Menu Mailer, pancakes, soup, sourdough, sourdough starter, stove-top dishes

‘Fast Food’ Breakfasts

March 10, 2011 by KerryAnn 3 Comments

One of the main complaints about Traditional Foods meals is the amount of time needed to plan and assemble the meals. Sometimes it seems like every ingredient needs advance preparation. There are a variety of strategies to combat this problem. Making a menu plan with a preparation schedule is extremely important. Batch cooking tried-and-true recipes is another essential tool, to have leftovers or freeze the excess for another meal.

By far, the hardest meal to deal with for many is breakfast. It’s not that the planning ahead or cooking is difficult. The issue is that for most people, mornings are the most hectic part of the day. Many moms tell me they throw up their hands and give in to their children’s pleas for a bowl of cereal (with raw milk) when the alarm doesn’t go off or another mishap happens that cuts into the amount of time set aside to get ready. How many mornings have you had the dryer eat your clothing, the baby spit up on your only clean top or the wild hunt for the missing toddler shoe that got up and walked off by itself?

The best way I have found to circumvent these mornings is [Read more…] about ‘Fast Food’ Breakfasts

Filed Under: Breakfast, Casein-Free, Egg-Free, GAPS, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Lazy Cooking, Low-Carb, Menu Mailer, Nut-Free, Packaged Replacements, Paleo, Pork, Portable Treats, Recipes, Sanity Savers, Soy-Free, Sweetener-Free, turkey Tagged With: bacon, baked dishes, batch cooking, breakfast, eggs, fast food, fat, food, garlic, ginger, junk food, kids favorites, meat, Menu Mailer, onion, parchment paper, pastured, pork, sausage, scrambled egg, toaster oven

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Meet KerryAnn

I'm KerryAnn Foster, a crazy vibrant Jesus Freak with a heart full of hope. I'm not afraid to love on the least of these or get my hands dirty. This blog is my journey from ineffective, uptight, obese wallflower to a woman on fire for God and living the most vibrant, passionate life possible!

I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with my husband, Jeff, and our two teens. I blog about self-confidence, health and home, homeschooling and living a vibrant, wide-open Jesus-centered lifestyle. I have over seventeen years of real food, natural lifestyle and health experience. We have homeschooled our children since birth and both Jeff and I run home-based businesses. We're crazy, we know it, and we love every second of it!

Read about my journey to health through celiac disease, PCOS, food allergies, obesity, adrenal fatigue and heavy metals.

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