Gluten Free Injera

I recently went out with a bunch of friends, for a birthday dinner at a Ethiopian restaurant (sorry, they don't have a website!) I've been there several times, but that was before I was wheat free. It's pretty good, the service is a little slow, but not rude, and the food is really, really tasty.

Injera (the bread) is traditionally wheat free, being made from teff flour. However, wheat is cheap and readily avaliable, so restaurants tend to supplement the teff with wheat, mostly for cost reasons, or so I thought. Now, some places will make GF injera for you, and I'm sure it's lovely, but they probably charge for it, because as we all know, GF flours are expensive.

I decided I would do it myself.

I bought an inexpensive, but well rated cookbook and did some research on the interwebs. When you look at the book, it's pretty short - about thirty pages long - so there aren't too many recipes in it. The reason you want this book is because it was written by American missionaries who didn't know how to cook Ethiopian food. See, that's the major complaint about most Ethiopian cookbooks: amounts and instructions tend to be very vague. Once you have a basic understanding of how to cook the food, look on the interwebs and find all the recipes you want, but because you now know how the basic cookery works, you won't feel like you're screwed. What these ladies did was move over there, get to know people and how to cook the food. Then they made a cookbook that we can understand!

It does not have a traditional injera recipe in it. It has ... a cheater recipe. I'm sure you've seen it out there, it used baking soda to leaven the bread. You're not going to get the right texture this way. Injera is a fermented bread and the fermentation process breaks down stuff in the grains.

So we come to my soap box moment: pretty much everyone on the interwebs says that injera is SUPER hard to make. It can't be. Honestly people a whole freaking country of people make this as a staple bread, it can't be rocket science. That's like saying pancakes are hard to make. What people don't understand out there is how to make sourdough bread. That's what it is, a sourdough bread. Get over yourselves, I did some research and managed it on try one. Crying out loud!

I also used my brain (perhaps I'm cheating by doing that), maybe something people out there didn't do. When you make GF breads, they tend to be crumbly. Crumble, crumble and then fall apart. Apparently this is a problem with GF injera, and this is where people think it's hard to make. I did not have this problem (see, using my brain here!) And this is probably why adding wheat is so popular, because it contains that magical substance: gluten. Gluten, the glue of breads that provides so much texture and reduces crumbles.

What do we all add to our flours to help fake that gluten feel? Xanthan gum.

Well, another point about Ethiopian food I have to make is they eat a lot fat. It seems to be where most of the calories come from. The books aren't wrong, it's not a typo, several recipes call for a cup or two of fat. These feed 4-6 people. Good gravy! If I ate like that I'd be super porky! Just add less. Like when you make anything healthy, just use less. I made one of the recipes that called for a cup of olive oil, and just used a few tablespoons, it turned out delicious. Don't worry about following the recipes that closely, just put in normal amounts of fat. Especially because they make a spiced butter, and you don't need a lot of that (1/4 cup here, 1/2 cup there, 2 cups to cook a pound of chicken), I think you'll get the hang of it when you start cooking it.

I will tell you what the pictures are: I have a lentil stew, a cabbage salad (I didn't photo it well because I had leftover red cabbage from another dinner I made with that great German red cabbage and it just didn't look at pretty when I got done with it all, but it tasted just fine. I wouldn't do it again for like, people coming over unless I knew them well. Instead I would use white cabbage.) There's a beef stew (amazing: saga) and a onion wot. You will notice that my injera folds, and folds nicely. I'm going to give you the recipe for the GF injera, because I couldn't really find a good one out there. I bought my teff from Whole Foods, but you can pick it up online if you don't have a good specialty store out there. I'm not sure that the grains you use will be super important, but I probably wouldn't use millet. I like it, but it's really crumbly, so I would maybe use quinoa or something like that if you don't have sorghum.

You must start the night before, it only takes a minute to whip up, and then you take care of it the next day. This will start out not very sour, but get better as you make it over a period of several days, and when you make Ethiopian food, it's like a leftover's dream. You'll be able to just whip up the bread and heat up leftovers for a week at a time if you cook a bunch at once, or just make one more dish as they start to run out.

Another small note, you don't eat a lot of each dish, just like 1/3 cup, so invite friends over.

Gluten Free Injera

Ingredients Day 1:

1/3 C. Teff flour
1/3 C. Sorghum flour
1/3 C. Basic rice mix or other GF blend (it probably won't matter)
1 tsp. yeast
1 tsp. xanthan gum
2 C. water


Ingredients Day 2:
1/3 C. Teff flour
1/3 C. Sorghum flour
1/3 C. Basic rice mix or other GF blend (it probably won't matter)
1 C. water
a little salt
some oil in your misto

Equipment:
A pan that you can make crepes in. I've often used my big cast iron pan for this, it is well seasoned and works really well. A crepe pan would work, but I've been using a big non-stick skillet that's in good condition.

Method:

Whisk together the day 1 dry ingredients and then whisk in the water. Cover loosely with a clean plastic bag and set on the counter to hang out. It might look a little gloopy, have no fear, just let it be, and it might also be a bit lumpy.

The next evening when you're ready to make the injera whisk up the batter and then take out 1/2 cup or so and put it in a clean bowl. Again add the ingredients for day one to this new bowl and whisk it all together. This is the last day I would add yeast, just two days of yeast, as you'll have a good sourdough started after that. If it doesn't rise up the third time, just pitch in a tsp of yeast in the morning.

Now with the rest of your batter whisk in the ingredients for day 2. Whisk them well and let it sit and whisk again to remove lumps. My stove is a gas stove that has 7 settings (1 is low and 7 is high). I put my stove on 3, a low setting. Heat your pan and give it a little tiny mist. Rub a clean cloth around to leave enough oil for crepes. Take the pan and hold it in your off hand, pour about 1/2 cup of batter in the center and shake and tilt the pan to move the batter to cover the pan. When you're done shaking, shake the excess toward the center of the pan to leave thin edges.

Put the pan on the heat and let it hang out till the edges start to pull away from the pan. It might not look all done, but should be dry and have lots of broken bubbles. Lots of people talk about how you need a cover to finish the cooking, I just flip mine over for a few seconds, just to finish those pesky little spots that aren't done.

Remove from the pan (do be gentle) and place on a cloth, stack them up they don't seem to stick too much.

Repeat until you're out of batter.

This process can keep going as long as your batter is good. It will get more sour over time, and if you get to a point where you're not going to make it for a while, just save some of the batter in the fridge (in a very clean jar), probably not for more than a month. But you can feed it like sourdough to keep it going longer. The first day, of course you won't have very sour bread, but it was still good. The bread will just get better with time.

I'll bet your gluten free dumplings suck.

I looked all over the web for GF dumpling wrappers. Most people call them wonton wrappers, but I know that you can make all sorts of delightful dumplings out of them. Also I'm not looking for wonton wrappers specifically, I want the Korean-slightly chewy style that just scream home-made dumplings when you bite into them.

If you google gluten free wonton, you get some very lame discussions about how you have to make them yourself (duh), or that you can buy the tapioca ones usually used for fresh rolls, but also a lot of recipes that are the same. They all call for about a cup of flour, an egg and some xanthum gum. You make this into a stiff pasta type dough and roll it out thin. I tried this, and it's ... ok. I mean, you can make wonton skins like this and they're not bad, but really they're not that good. If you're looking for something really good, that reminds you of the dumplings of your childhood, this won't cut it.

I also noticed that they couldn't be rolled very thin and the dough kept trying to break apart and crumbled a little. It's not the best way honestly.

I would recommend this last method for people who want to fry their wontons, as it will probably work pretty good, but I like to cook mine like gyoza, fry them a bit and then steam them. I also like to put them in soup, and this means your dumpling skin has to be a bit heartier. Not thicker, but able to hold up. I'm sure you all know that gluten free items are not know for their ability to 'hold up'. Breads are crumbly, buns don't work as well as they could, let's not talk about tortillas. Though I do have a new idea for my tortillas, I was looking at the commercially made ones and they put xanthan gum in theirs. I'm going to give it a try.

Back in my wheat eating days I made dumplings all the time. I liked making them and found the project a good one for my couch and the tv with a big cutting board and my pasta roller. I made them in all flavors and cooked them different ways. I liked steaming them, frying them and dropping them into broth to make a quick soup. I also liked making bao but I will have to work on that later.

This new way to make GF dumplings I came up with from my experience and lots of Asian and Korean cookbooks. They are not GF cook books, but that doesn't make them without value.

Now, this might seem super messy when you start out, but you must persevere. You must also follow the directions and use the products listed.

I use a basic flour mix: two parts rice flour, one third part tapioca flour, two thirds part potato starch. I make this and keep it in my flour container on my counter. I add in whole meal flours, quinoa, KA Ancient grains blend, millett, whatever I need and go from there.

This next bit of information is important. I don't muck around with gritty flour. I don't like grit, and I don't like bean flavor. I buy rice powder, it's easy to get from Asian grocery stores, sold as rice flour, it's extremely fine. Don't give me your whole grain BS, I don't want to hear it. I don't get to eat wheat and I want good products. This is how you make them. Brown rice flour has bad texture. Bad. Do not use it, your dumplings will suck, and so will most of the things you make out of.

I also have a product I use for more glutenous flour applications. OrgraN Gluten Free Gluten Substitute. It's really good, and it's available from a major online distributor. You know the one. They sell lots of things. Don't worry that you have to buy so much, you'll use it once you figure out how make bread with it. It's great.

Now that you have these things you will need other things: a pasta roller, you might be able to use a tortilla press, but I don't think it would be the same. You will also need a lot of a starch. I use potato starch because I get it automatically delivered and isn't very expensive that way. Tapioca or corn starch will also work.

You can fill your dumplings with whatever you like. I used beef because that's what I have on hand. I also like to make non-Asian style ones, you could use these skins to make perogies and other recipes that call for wonton skins, like little pies or what have you. I have a basic recipe for a beef filling, but really any meat would work.

Now that we have discussed the things needed here is how to make the best gluten free dumplings there are.

Bitches I'm Beef!

Crikey I made a simply divine stew today. Remember when I said I bought 1/4 beef? I still have most of it. I have been trying to remove the ground from my small freezer so that I can get the turkeys for our Thanksgiving party, I need three of them. Anyhow, I have all this beef and thought, golly it's cold outside, perchance I shall make a hearty stew!

I like to make meals with a little bit of meat in them. I don't like to eat tons of meat all at once, and find that all I really need is about 3 oz of meat at once. Serving meat in a stew or soup makes me feel like I've gotten to eat a decadent thing, without over indulging and also keeping cost and health issues in check. So when I make a pot of soup or something, there's about six servings happening from one pound of beef. Works out well for everyone.

I had recently gotten the cutest butternut squashes from the market and was like 'ooh how adorable', because we all know that when food is small, it is much cuter. So I was looking to use those as well.

Anyhow, I found a lame recipe that I made much, much better and the stew turned out so good, I tried to take a picture of it. Turns out cameras need to be charged once in a while and wouldn't you know, my camera is out of batteries. I know there won't be any to take pictures of later. I don't think it will look as good later either. I have some ... other pictures to entertain you. I didn't take them.

But please, refer to the picture of the beef, it's informative and good to know your sides of beef.

I must tell you about this stew, I would be dis-not-loving my public if I did not.

I know my husband ate a good sized bowl, and texted me at my girls-night to let me know how good the stew was. That's how good it was. Also, you know it's a good meal when it watches after itself while you go out with your girls.

My husband almost never comments on my food, and I think this is because apart from my many, many success, I do have a lot of misadventures. But, if you don't adventure, how do you learn?

I also have another theory about cooking. If I always cook good food, the level of expectation in my home goes up, and eventually my really good meals are just the norm. So then when I fail, it's rather epic, and when I make something amazing, it's just ok. I should just make worse food, but that doesn't appeal to me either.

This episode is mostly so you can partake of the wonderment that is my stew.

Butternut Squash and Beef Stew
6 servings
7 WWPP

Ingredients:

1 tsp olive oil
1 lb. lean grass fed stew beef (chuck)
1 sweet onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound butternut squash, peeled and cubed*
1 Cup carrot chunks
1 Cup diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can rinsed and drained garbanzo beans
2 Tbs Better than Bullion Beef Base
1 cup water
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
4 cardamom seeds (not the pods, the seeds)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp red chili flake
1-2 tsp Secret Aardvark sauce
1 Tbs corn starch mixed with a few Tbs water

Salt and pepper as you see fit

Method:

Heat a dutch oven and put the olive oil in the bottom, spread around to coat and in batches brown the beef on all sides.

Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is clear on medium heat. Add the rest of the ingredients except the corn starch and secret Aardvark. Bring to a simmer and add the corn starch slowly and stir. Cover and let simmer over low heat for, at least three hours, but probably closer to four hours. Five hours is plenty, six is right out. Stir in the Secret Aardvark to finish, makes a hearty meal all on its own.


*Use a vegetable peeler to peel the squash first, then cut in half, remove seeds and cube. This makes the squash easier to cut up.

Even better than before!

I just made a new batch of my GF pumpkin muffins, and they are so good I realized I had done a disservice to you all by posting my previous recipe. I'm so amazed at the goodness created by the new flours I'm incorporating it's really hard to believe that I waited so long to expand my horizons.

When I started out GF it was very intimidating. There are so many flours out there that the lists go on, and on. I decided I would only start with a few alternative flours and learn those first, and the nature of non-wheat flours. I used rice, tapioca, potato starch, and a little oat, I also tried a bean flour mix. I worked on the rice mixtures and tried all sorts ways to recreate the protein structure of gluten. I tried eggs, gelatin (btw, that does NOT work), xanthan gum, guar gum, no gums, lots of gums, medium amounts of gums, all the gums, and I have settled on two options. I have some guar gum in my pantry, I will use it if I need to. Now I use Gluten Free Gluten, and that works really well. I also have xanthan gum and use that quite a bit. The thing about the GFG is that it has some of the gums you would normally use in it, it also has a few that are only available to commercial bakers. Perfectly measured out, you use 1 part of the GFG to 5 parts whatever flour mixture you use. I don't use it in quick breads, it's only intended for yeast breads, where you would have a higher gluten content.

Having been baking a lot this last two months, attempting to recreate bread for a sandwich (not easy to do), I am starting to branch out. I pulled out my mill today and milled up some quinoa. I have some milled oat flour and some teff on the way. I did this mostly because rice flour has a lot of calories in it. 550 calories a cup? Wheat flour only has around 400 a cup. WW says rice flour has 15-17 points in a cup of rice flour, wheat flour has 12 points in it. It's a big difference when you're really counting calories.

Let's talk about GF bread for a minute. I'm sure it would make great stuffing, because it's all so dry! Many of them taste fine, but they tend to be small, already stale, and expensive. I bought a local commercial loaf, thinking it would be great, however the slices are so tiny and thin it makes me wonder how they're packing 80 calories into a slice! Also when I toast them they turn into hard chunks of mouth ripping cardboard.

Tomorrow I'm making french toast.

I did find a local gluten free bakery, and I've had some items from them that are really quite good. I liked them so much I bought a cookbook written by the owner. I then went and bought a loaf of bread from the bakery. The woman loves bean flour. Garbanzo bean flour in this, garbanzo bean flour in that, making cookies? Add garbanzo beans why not? Can you make your baked goods more dense? You want to know why the cakes are so heavy and a loaf of bread from this place weighs two pounds, yet is the size of a bloated softball? Garbanzo bean flour is super heavy, and doesn't rise very well. I'm not saying her bread is bad. It's quite good, but not really what I'm looking for. It is tasty, but I'm not sure it's the best for sandwiches unless you slice your slices 1/4 pound thick. I am not a fan of her cake. It has garbanzo bean flour in it. Cake SHOULD NOT BE DENSE! The densest cupcakes known to man.

It also makes me think: she says she focuses on whole grains, but mostly she just uses garbanzo bean flour. Where's the variety? I have noticed that once chefs find a method that works for them, they stick to it. In cookbooks, they tend to have one basic blend, and that's what they use for everything. It's usually a rice blend, augmented with teff, sorgum or garbanzo bean flours.

I'm not sure where I'm going, but I don't want to have a 'generic' mix, and would rather use the freshly ground grains I have from my recent millings, so they stay fresh and use what is available rather than a standard mix.

Where is all this going? I removed a cup of rice flour from my pumpkin muffins and added to it 1/2 C quinoa flour and 1/2 C oat flour. I also ground my own rice flour, it took some time and I had to put it through the mill a few times. I thought they might turn out too grainy or gritty, but no! The mill worked really well for the rice, it ground up very fine and very little remained after sifting. Quinoa also mills into a nice fine flour on the finest setting. I have a heavy duty professional grade KitchenAid stand mixer, so I'm able to use the mill attatchment with that. I don't think you should use a mill if you have a smaller stand mixer, just buy a quality free standing mill.

Every time I make baked goods, I must try them. Especially muffins, or little items, I'm so curious to find out if it turned out good. I made up the new muffins and ate one (I had the WWPP for it, so no problem), so good. So much, much better than before! The nuttyness of the oat and quinoa together was very mild, but went so well with the pumpkin. I'm so happy with the new results that I plan on taking them to a ladies afternoon event with me.

Spurred on by my success I started working on my sandwich bread. I'm so close. The last loaf I made was almost as good as the wheat infested stuff. It just had a little too much egg in it. Also the book I'm adapting the recipe from, the lady likes to 'spread' her dough, and the loafs never look nice if you do this, so I have my own method. It came to me on my way to work. It's worked very well. You can spread if you want, but your bread will not look nice and round and it probably won't rise up as good.

Now I know I just got done saying not to have a 'generic mix' but I do have a basic mix that I keep around to help make baking easier and faster. This is for when I want to make up some rolls or pizza dough at night and I am tired. I just don't use it all the time.

Basic Gluten Free Gluten Rice Mix

6 oz. Thai rice flour
3 oz. potato starch
3 oz. tapioca flour
2.4 oz. OrGran Gluten Substitute

I would not recommend mixing home milled whole grains, as they need to be frozen and used quickly to prevent them from going bad. Just make up your basic mix and supplement as needed. Also, this is done by weight so the amount of gums in your mix will be the correct amount. I would recommend to any GF baker: just get a scale and quit whining.

Buttermilk GF Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:

1 C. GFG rice mix
1/2 C. oat flour
1/2 C. quinoa flour
1/8 C. tapioca flour
1/8 C. potato starch
.8 oz OrGran Gluten Substitute
2/3 tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbs. unbleached sugar
1 Tbs. dry active yeast
2 tsp. baking powder
1 large egg
3 Tbs. canola oil
3/4 cup + a little extra(about 2 tbs) warmed buttermilk
extra flour for dusting work surface


Method:

Grease a smaller bread pan.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a stand mixer. Even the yeast. Whisk the wet together and pour into your off stand mixer. Turn the mixer on low till the wet and dry are just mixed. Turn the speed up a bit and mix until you have a smooth mixture. It's not really a dough, and not really a batter. Prep your work surface with flour and put the mixture on the flour. Pat it into a loaf and coat in flour. Put into the pan and let this rise for about an hour. After 45 minutes or whenever the appropriate time is turn the oven onto 350 degrees and then bake your bread for about an hour. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.

Slice and enjoy!

Look at the size of those muffins.

Having to cut wheat of your diet is really obnoxious. On one hand I do feel better and my blood sugar is at a constant level, on the hand I am having to learn how to bake again. This is very frustrating as I used to be able to whip up delightful baked goods without thinking about it. Now I have to research and test and hope and most of the time just fail.

I bought two gluten free cookbooks. They are clearly for beginners, which is what I am all of a sudden. Neither of them focuses on healthy cooking, just delicious cooking. I am all for that, and GF breads cannot be made just whilly nilly, as it turns out. However, I cannot be consuming giant sugar filled muffins if I want to fit into my pants!

I have had some triumphs: I can make pizza dough (hooray), rolls, cupcakes, muffins and hopefully soon: sandwich bread. I know you can buy these things, but honestly, they suck. They're dry and really expensive. They go bad quickly and they come in the smallest sizes. Five dollars for what is basically 2/3 of a loaf of bread, that's dry before you get it. Blah. I'd rather go without.

I made some pumpkin muffins today, based on a recipe in one of my cookbooks. As I was looking at the recipe I was shocked. It makes 12 muffins with like 1 1/2 cups of flours! I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but GFs go a lot farther, you need less of them to make the same amount of a wheat flour recipe. The recipe also had 2 cups of sugar in it! TWO! oof, they must be the sweetest muffins ever! I halved the sugar and they were plenty sweet, I think two cups would be over kill. Then the author goes onto say that these muffins are a 'snack'. Phhhhhffft! Snacks are not sugar- fat laden carb balls!

Now I don't know if I have the smallest muffin tin known to man, or other people are on purpose buying giant muffin tins, but whenever a recipe says it makes 12 muffins, I usually find that I can make 18 with that amount of batter. Who are these people and where are they buying their muffin tins?

I say to those of you who have to be gluten free - rise up! Make better for you baked goods. Just because something is GF doesn't mean it has to be bad! It also doesn't mean that it has to be super bad for you. We can have balance too! Force your gluten free prowess on others and make them tell you your GF products are delightful, without saying 'for a gluten free product'.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins
makes 18 muffins
4 WWPP

Ingredients:

1/2 cup oat flour**
1 cup rice flour*
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup unbleached sugar
2 Tbs molasses
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin

Topping:
1/2 tsp cinnamon in a tea steeper

Method:
Heat oven to 350, and prep muffin tins with liners. Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Stir well. Whisk together all the wet ingredients in a different bowl. Add the wet to the dry and mix well by hand, being careful to not over mix. Fill muffin cups 1/2-2/3 full and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar in your tea steeper over the tops of the muffins. Bake for 20 minutes or until just done. Remove from oven and cool on rack.



* a quick note about rice flours. If you want finely ground, non-gritty rice flour you must buy it from an Asian grocery store. The Thai brands are the best, they are very finely ground, more finely ground than any American product. I know it's not local, but you need a quality product for this. They aren't gritty at all. The brand with the elephant on the front is the best.

**Also a note about oat flour. If you want a more ... stone filled whole wheat like texture feel free to follow directions from the internet about using your blender to make oat flour. I found this to be gritty and horrible, though quick. I'm going to call that the quick and dirty method. If you want a finely ground flour that feels like whole wheat flour use a mill. I have one for my stand mixer, truly an investment for any cook who cares about the quality of their oat flour.

Super phat beets!

So, I've gotten off wheat, and this makes meal planning a bit more ... different. I think I'm dealing with it admirably, as i cook often and well. I think it must be harder for people to go wheat free if they don't cook at all. those people might end up eating even more processed foods, simply from a lack of knowledge.

I have purchased a few products, but they're so expensive that I'm really just inclined to make my own. I recently had success, making my own wheat free pizza, and it was quite tasty. I didn't need to do a thousand experiments, or purchase a special pizza mix. I also didn't spread mine with a spatula (seriously? you're spreading your dough out instead of making a real dough?). Anyhow, I also didn't make mine vegan or covered in gross frozen spinach. What it is it with people who are wheatards? Why is the only pizza flavor we can think of spinach? Frozen spinach is super gross, and you should never, EVER consider it.

Being the little gardener that I am, I have about a thousand green tomatoes, along with a whole ton of ripe ones. I grew several varieties of heirlooms, purple something or other, a big orange boom or such, several red types, green when ripe (so hard to tell!) really the point is, I have tomatoes coming out of my various ears. I decided that I would try fried green tomatoes, and they're SO GOOD! Amazing, why haven't I been eating these all along?

I've been pan frying mine with just a little cooking spray, and really the best directions I've got are to do it like meat: flour, egg, crumbs. I did some up for lunch with Bob's Red Mill GF flour mix (I know I did just say I don't want mixes, but this isn't really a mix, just a flour blend. We all know how I feel about specialty flours. mmmm. specialty flours), along with finely ground corn meal... fabulous. I think the trick is to brown them well and then bake them a little, I just popped mine into the toaster oven for 10 minutes. Oh, you must season your crumbs well; I suggest cayenne, salt, pepper, garlic and grated Romano cheese.

The whole lunch of my day centered around one of my favorite veggies to grow and then eat: beets. So amazing, cooked, raw, roasted, steamed, added to roast potatoes, in soup. This is my own new invention: grated beet salad. I did this initially because I wanted to make coleslaw and was low on cabbage and had a thousand beets, it works really well. I think you could use any dressing you like, but the balsamic is a favorite of mine.

So the whole lunch was a couple of large beautiful orange tomato slices, one fried green tomato with sour supreme dippy sauce (no, I'm not going to tell you how to mix garlic and sour cream together), and grated beet salad. I will tell you how to make this, but only so that you'll have the confidence to strike out on your own and make a make your own weird grated veggie salad.


Grated Beet Salad with Balsamic Reduction Dressing

Ingredients:

1 largish medium beet, or a few small ones - grated
3 organic scallions - sliced on the bias
some balsamic vinegar
honey or agave syrup
1 Tbs. organic olive oil - good quality
salt, pepper
a small knob of goat cheese
Thin cucumber slices

Method:

Grate the beets into a small bowl, add the white part of the onion to the beets, reserving the green for garnish. In a pan heat the balsamic vinegar with a little salt and some honey or agave, it works best to make a lot of this at once, so however much you want. Reduce by half on simmer. Add some pepper. Whisk over ice to cool and beat in a little olive oil, just about a Tbs per 1/4 cup reduction. Pour a little of the dressing over the beets and onions. Arrange the cucumbers on a plate and placed the beets on top. Put the goat cheese on the salad and garnish with green onions. Serve with fried green onions and a dippy sauce.

And we're back!

It's been a while since I've posted, but I got busy, and then I forgot, and then I felt it had been so long.

However, I have been thinking about it, and making really good food, so I thought I should share. Yesterday, after several days of ripping our patio to shreds, digging it up and moving all the cement and dirt away from our house, my parents in law and we had a delightful dinner. I had thought about this before hand and realized that I might be tired. I made a simple repast of sesame green beans, a garden salad with homemade cilantro dressing and burgers.

Two things about this meal 1: the peas I've grown this year are amazing. They are so crispy sweet and good I can't imagine growing a different variety. I've been growing Super Sugar Snap peas, I get mine from Territorial Seeds. 2: I made up the recipe for the beans out of my own little brain and I cannot think of a better thing to do with them. It's so mind blowingly good that I have been eating them for lunch with rice and calling it a meal. I can snack on them and I know they're super healthy for me. When you hear of people serving beans, or you go out to eat and order beans, it seems like everyone forgets that green beans already taste good. They're all trying to drown them in butter or canned soup (mmm ... gross) and mask the taste of beans, and I'm not really sure why! The big secret is to get a refillable mister. I got one and I love it. I've got some really good olive oil in mine, and I 'enhanced' it with a little sesame oil, because I love the taste of sesame. So, it's too much .... art... and no actual measurements to actually give you a recipe. Here's what you do: blanch a bunch of beans (a minute or two, depending on how thick your beans are) the main thing is they should be bright green. When they are done and still nice and crisp and plunge into an ice water bath. Spray a large pan with your sesame oil concoction, just like a tsp is plenty of oil, I use 1/4 tsp. throw in some salt, pepper, sesame seeds and fresh garlic into the pan. Turn the heat off and toss the beans in this until you can see the pepper coating the beans. I use lots of pepper, fresh cracked of course. I think this dish is perfect, especially for cook outs because it's really good cold or room temperature, I don't have to worry about those beans being hot or cold, they're just good.

When you make beans like this, you'll need a lot of beans per person as I think you'll find people will eat more of them like this. It's because they're like crack.

Other events: I recently purchased a quarter of a beef. Fans of the blog will remember that I started out trying to purchase a lamb, and there was much woe. I am now super pleased, and we have tons of beef. When you buy around 175 pounds of beef at once, the total bill seems quite high. However I've never had such good beef, and we like to go out to nice restaurants that 'hang their own beef' and all sorts of other things. My cow, lived on a field with access to a barn, ate grass and lived a happy life until it was humanly killed on the farm (no stress from being transported) and then butched by a master butcher.

Is that a verb? Butch, to butch a cow. Well if it's a verb, it can be passed tense. Never mind! The result: THE BEST BEEF EVER! And I know where my meat came from, however I'm not telling you, you might buy up all the home grown beef.

Find your own farmer!

Pictures in this blog are of random foods I won't tell you about!