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
On the Facebook page for Cooking Traditional Foods, I often post what I’m cooking, along with reminders to do things like thaw your meat and soak your grains. Today I mentioned that I’m making curried pumpkin soup in preparation for the power outage that is expected. Several people requested the recipe, so I decided to post it here.
Beginning tonight and through Tuesday, we’re expecting ice and snow. I’m preparing four day’s worth of food. I’ve also made potato soup and I’m making chili, cornbread, some brownies and possibly some baked goods for breakfast later today.
This soup is insanely good. The combination of pumpkin, coriander, coconut milk and curry is beyond fabulous. Don’t skimp on the rapadura, it offsets the spiciness and really makes the flavor pop. If I could only have two soups in my life, this would be one of my choices.
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
I periodically spend time thinking about ways to hide veggies in most foods, and I’m always on the look-out for ideas. After looking into purees and the books that promote them, I decided that most of them were a lot of work for little vegetable content per serving in the finished product. While I applaud any efforts to get veggies into children, I felt like many of these recipes were too much work for too little results to be the main thrust of my efforts. Many of the published recipes I found only had 1/2 – 2 Tbs of puree per serving and the purees often have water added so you’re getting very little in the way of vegetables. Many of them showed a remarkable lack of variety or weren’t recipes acceptable for a traditional foods diet as they contained unsoaked flours, soy flour, or other undesirable ingredients. Many of the recipes used applesauce to replace the fat or a puree to replace the egg. While it is better than nothing, I felt like I could use different methods to achieve better results while keeping the recipes true to traditional foods. I decided for the most part that the recipes that didn’t try to hide the vegetable flavors but instead complimented them and recipes where the vegetable replaces the flour were good candidates. This is easily accomplished in many brownies, cakes, pies, blondies and even dishes such as custards and puddings. Even some cookies, ice creams and sherbets will work! For breakfast, many pancakes, waffles and other baked goods are a snap to convert, especially those with liquid batters.
By far, I feel the strategy of using vegetables to replace the flour in a recipe is the best way to get veggies into a recipe. Many gluten-free recipes contain bean flours, so using pureed beans to replace the flour while reducing the liquid works very well. It is possible to produce flourless recipes this way! And, by soaking and cooking the beans correctly, you make the recipe traditional food and you eliminate the gastric distress that comes with using unsoaked bean flours. In some of these recipes, adding extra eggs is possible, further increasing the nutrition. The beans increase the nutrition content while decreasing the carbs, so it is a wonderful strategy. Especially good for filling little bellies and keeping them full until the next meal.
This recipe, using black beans, is the first recipe I will post in this series. It is a plain, chocolate brownie. Cocoa powder covers the color of the black beans. For blondies, a white beans such as navy or cannellini work beautifully. In the coming weeks, I will post cakes, blondies, dressed-up brownies and more using this method.
From the Menu Mailer Voume 4 Week 24
½ cup rapadura
4 large eggs
3 Tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs coconut oil or butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 (14.5 ounce) can or 1½ cups cooked black beans, drained and rinsed
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8×8 pan and set aside.
Place the eggs, rapadura, cocoa powder, baking powder, coconut oil and vanilla in a blender or food processor and blend until well-combined. Add the beans and blend until thoroughly combined and smooth. Pour into the pan and bake 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool before slicing.
This post is part of Food Trip Fridays and the Beans and Lentils Linky.
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This recipe was requested over on the CTF Facebook page. If you use Facebook, come over over and join us. I post daily reminders about thawing meats, soaking grains and planning your meals. It’s great if you’re in a meal-cooking rut or need some inspiration, because many folks post what they’re fixing for meals and snacks, too. I mentioned testing a chicken mole recipe and someone asked me to post it.
Chicken Mole
From the Menu Mailer
[Read more…] about Chicken Mole
While searching online for herb remedies, I saw sage as a runny nose remedy on many web sites in every form from tinctures to elixirs to teas. I tried it last night, and it worked well. TOO well. I took about one teaspoon crushed sage mixed into a little raw honey. It dried my sinuses out until they ached and I couldn’t breathe out of my nose on one side! I considered it to be a good trade considering what I had been experiencing and using a neti pot helped considerably with the discomfort. It fixed my runny nose for several hours, well into the night. It also stopped the coughing from post-nasal drip which in turn helped my sore throat, which was a huge blessing.
This morning, I gave each of the kids a pinch and I took two pinches mixed into a tiny amount of raw honey. Neither of the kids complained about taking it like that. I suspected they’d object to the tea, so this was a great solution. It is working extremely well, with no dryness or discomfort. I imagine if your runny nose was severe, you’d need a higher dose. Most websites recommended dosing it two to three times a day. I will experiment today with how often I need to dose me and the kids to be effective without drying us out. I am especially anxious to see how well it works to stop post-nasal drip that causes my kids to cough at night. I’ve been getting up twice a night to give them Ivy Calm for multiple nights now, and if this works I will switch to this instead as it is much cheaper.
Last year before Thanksgiving, I had ordered a one-pound bag of rubbed sage from Frontier, not realizing that it would be cups and cups of sage! So now I am glad to have one more use for this herb. I’ve been using sage tincture as an ingredient in mouthwash, and I believe now that I will make an elixir of it, too.
WARNING: Sage is a drying herb. If you are nursing, it will reduce or stop your milk supply. I would avoid it entirely while nursing, especially if your supply is borderline. It is also listed as a uterine stimulant and an herb to be avoided during pregnancy. However, I have seen no warning to avoid a culinary dose of this herb during pregnancy, so please do your own homework before considering this remedy if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.
Shared at Nourishing Treasures and Wildcrafting Wednesday.
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