Recently on the Facebook CTF page, someone mentioned a new dairy-free cheese on the market that melts and strings like real cheese. Since I’ve been working on developing a variety of pizza crusts, I decided to look into it. [Read more…] about Review- Daiya Dairy-Free Cheese
Winter is coming.
A couple of weeks ago, I stood at my kitchen window in the early morning. Looking through the fog, I saw one single, yellowed leaf float down from the trees. My throat tightened. Last week in the same early morning time at my sink, I saw several more fall, dancing gracefully. Friday, I crested the steep hill on my road to see the Appalachians displaying change visible from a great distance. Today, I see the trees across the street are turning. Red and yellow. This morning, I had to grab a robe when I got up. The kids complained their feet were cold on the wooden floors. Friends are telling me the Blue Ridge Parkway, not far from home, already has yellows, oranges and reds beautifully visible.
Winter is coming. Soon. [Read more…] about Potato Soup
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
This summer has proven to be incredibly busy, much busier than I expected. A few weeks ago, I felt like the Lord was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to get organized quickly and declutter as much as we can. We have some elderly family members who might need assistance, and we need to prepare for that possibility. So I have kicked myself into high gear, trying to school on our year-round schedule, do my job and handle the garden and daily chores in addition to the extra workload this presented. And we have managed to accomplish everything on a shoestring budget while we save for some needed car and home repairs.
Despite spending time gardening and even expanding our garden, we have lost most of what we planted. What the Mexican bean beetles and squash vine borers didn’t destroy, the chickens did when the town mowed down a post of our garden fence when they were tending the ditch with their machinery. The chickens got in and decimated what was growing in short order. What we have left is some green tomatoes we hope will ripen, about 5 sunflowers that are now over 10 feet tall, and we’re waiting now to see how the potatoes did. The onions are still tiny, despite supposedly being close to time to be pulled. We have replanted the winter squash on Monday and we’re now organizing to put the fall and winter garden in.
The last few weeks I have spent time at the farmer’s market, buying wholesale. The Lord has plopped some incredible deals on produce in our lap. While canning I worked a full week of VBS at our church and managed to wear myself out between the two. We processed our extra roosters over a period of two weeks and sent them to freezer camp. We cleaned out the freezer that needed defrosting and got everything organized in an effort to have enough space to hopefully purchase half of a cow this fall. I found I had one whole shelf full of stock bones that I need to use. I also got all of the remaining meats grouped by type, to better help me plan our meals and use what we have wisely.
I have started setting up ‘centers’ for everything I do at home, where everything needed for that project is centrally located to where the work is performed. I have created centers for laundry, baking, dry goods in use, personal care, herbs, school and work, gardening and more. This inspiration came from listening to Vicki Bentley at the NCHE conference Memorial Day Weekend. Vicki is an excellent speaker, and if you ever have the opportunity to hear her, I highly encourage you to do so. I would be willing to drive to a conference just to hear her speak, she gave so much inspiration, encouragement and practical advice. (You can purchase MP3s of Vicki’s presentations from the conference here.) Her chore and star chart information alone has been a huge help to me in getting my kids motivated to do chores and take initiative without being asked. Vicki said in one of her presentations that if you spend just 5 minutes looking for one item every morning and every evening, you waste over 60 hours a year. I have found that I am going up and down the hallway and the stairs too often because things are not centrally located, and I wish to free up that time so I can accomplish more.
For the baking and dry good centers, I took one cabinet and placed my measuring cups and measuring spoons along with mason jars of xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, baking powder on the bottom shelf. In racks hanging below the cabinet are all of my spices. Each spice has a label on the lid so I don’t have to hunt for the correct one. The rapadura, flours and dry goods are located behind me on a baker’s rack. Each item in stored in a quart to half-gallon size mason jar with a labeled lid. I do not have to take extra steps in the kitchen, saving me time and energy. We also reorganized and deep cleaned the kitchen.
For the laundry center, we reorganized the laundry room so that we now have a rotating system for the clothes hangers, separated by type. Each day when we get dressed, the empty clothes hangers get hung on each bedroom doorknob. One child is tasked with the chore of retrieving all of the clothes hangers, taking them downstairs and putting each hanger where it belongs. This has solved the problems with wrinkled clothing and additional ironing time because it had to be hauled up the stairs after coming out of the dryer while we hunt for the clothes hangers that fit the item. And you know any time kids haul a piece of clothing, it’s bound to wind up wrinkled. 😉 All of the different clothing and fabric types now each have their own bin to facilitate quick sorting and washing of the laundry. We finally installed the utility sink that we purchased in 2007 in the laundry room.
For our school supplies we use daily, we repurposed a rolling cart which is now located within reach of my computer. We also located a bookcase and the filing cabinet beside my desk in order to facilitate school, bill paying and handling my job. Now, when mail comes in, I can handle it immediately and drop it right into the correct file folder in the filing cabinet. Paper doesn’t have to be handled twice, nothing gets lost and I don’t worry about any bills or other important paperwork getting missed. We located a locking cabinet with doors in an unused area of the living room that holds shoe-box sized rubermaid containers. These boxes contain our items that are in pieces, such as the math blocks and flashcards, as well as the games and the small-piece items such as K-nex and Legos.
I updated my household binder (Flylady style) and created binders for family recipes, every mailer I have published, our school records, and the gardening and homesteading records. I also have one binder where I keep info on ideas or things I want to try, build plans for potential projects and the like.
I obtained two rolling carts, one for each child. These carts now hold the library books and are parked beside the homeschool cabinet. These carts are incredibly handy and stop the problem of having to haul the books to the car and into the library, breaking my back. This has just about eliminated our hunting for a book that is due and it keeps the books out of the kid’s bedrooms.
I created two memory card boxes. I used the Simply Charlotte Mason Memory System and made one for our scripture verses and made one for the myriad of other things I wish my children to memorize. We have included everything from family members phone numbers to poems, science and history facts, songs and more. These boxes set atop our rolling school supply cart.
I still have to get the dining room chairs recovered so we can reclaim our dining room table. We are also looking for an effective storage solution for our canning jars, both full and empty. Both of these projects are likely going to take some cash, so I’m looking for the most workable solution that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
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KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.
This is one of my go-to meals when I am in a great hurry time-wise when I had planned to cook dinner. You know those evenings, where you have some meat thawed and a meal planned, but something comes up that needs your attention instead? I use it when I have time for the oven to do all of the work but I don’t have the time to stand there.
The chicken takes me about 10 minutes to get it in the oven. If I don’t have any leftover rice in the fridge, have one of the kids scrub some potatoes, poke them with a fork, rub with oil and salt them. I place them in a baking dish and put them in the oven when I begin pre-heating it, before I put in the chicken. Check them when the chicken is done, as they might need a few extra minutes.
Then I pull out some leftover veggies or 10 minutes before the chicken comes out of the oven, I saute up some pre-prepared kale and I have a quick meal on the table in less than 20 minutes of hands-on time. Prepare your greens when you get home from the store. Wash them, cut them, dry them thoroughly and roll it all up in some paper towels, sealing it in a ziplock bag. You have a quick side dish whenever you need it.
The Back to Basics series is going quite well. So far, we have covered nine weeks of basic recipes, including:
Family Favorite main dishes- apple and maple chicken, BBQ sauerkraut meatballs, chicken fajitas, pot pie, burrito beans, fish sticks, chicken fingers, French chicken, sweet and sour chicken and more
Family Favorite breakfasts- sweet sausage, fried oatmeal, puff pancakes, oven bacon and more
Family Favorite desserts- peanut butter cups, blondies, brownies, various puddings and custards, baked goods with hidden vegetables, ice cream, impossible pie
Family Favorite side dishes- mashed potatoes, sauteed greens, french fries from butternut squash and more
How to make spaghetti sauce and chili loaded with veggies
How to broil and grill a steak
How to prepare batches of meat for the freezer that will marinate as they thaw
How to make beef stew, stroganoff and beef roast in the oven and the crock-pot
How to make meatballs
How to make falafel and tahini salad dressing
How to roast a chicken in the oven and the crock-pot and make rubber chicken meals- stretching a roasted chicken into multiple meals
Hiding sauerkraut and liver in ground meat dishes
How to bake the side dish in with the main dish to save time and electricity
How to make meatloaf with hidden veggies and without using breadcrumbs
How to cook soaked beans with non-acidic seasonings to make a meal instead of pre-cooking them
How to make sauerkraut
How to soak grains and flour
How to make latkas and hash
How to cook dry beans in the crock-pot
How to make taco meat and taco seasoning mix
How to make a tamale pie with any filling
How to make pesto
How to make juicy, pan-seared chicken thighs and breasts
How to make cream of ____ soup, also called white sauce
And much, much more!
This series runs until New Years. If you would like to join us, you can purchase the back issues and subscribe at the Menu Mailer website.
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KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.
