Monday, 6 Sep 2010
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Recipes
Apple (or other fruit) Chutney
This is an uncooked, lacto-fermented chutney and is delicious. It is also really good for you with loads of natural enzymes. A living food.
3 cups chopped peeled apple (or pear, mango, peaches, papaya)
1/2 cup filtered water
grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
1/8 cup natural sugar (rapadura, shakkar)
2 teaspoons celtic sea salt
1/4 cup whey
1/2 cup chopped crispy walnuts
1/2 cup dark raisins
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
(You can do your own by cutting a red pepper into strips and drying in oven at 65 degrees. Store in glass jar).
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried green peppercorns (White ones will do)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon teaspoon coriander seeds
If you like a bit of heat, you can add 1/2 teaspoon of chopped chillis
Mix water, lemon juice and rind, Rapadura, salt and whey. Peel fruit and cut up into lemon juice mixture. Mix with nuts, raisins, herbs and spices and place in an Agee jar. Press down lightly with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer, adding more water if necessary to cover the fruit.
The mixture should be at least one inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for 2 days then put in the fridge. Will keep for 2 months. It will become more fizzy and sharp as time goes by.
Asparagus and tuna in sour cream
Serving of asparagus
Small tin of tuna or salmon in spring water
Sour cream, creme fraiche or quark
Steam chopped asparagus and drain.
Add tinned fish and as much sour cream as you like - I like loads.
Heat and eat.
You could serve with a side salad for lunch or replace asparagus with sauteed mushrooms if you desire.
Cooked Muesli
Serves 4:
Prepare the night before. Mix together:
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup almond slivers (preferably soaked 7 hours and then dried in a slow oven)
1/4 cup coconut slices
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Soak these in 1 and 1/2 cups of water with a little yoghurt or lemon juice overnight
To cook: In the morning bring 1 cup of water and 1/2 tsp salt to the boil. Add the soaked oat mixture and 1/4 cup raisins. This will cook really quickly because of the soaking. Serve with whole milk and a good knob of butter or cream. You can also sprinkle ground flax-seeds on top.
Dressing - Mayonnaise
1 egg
1/4 cup lemon juice or vinegar
salt and pepper
1 tsp mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
Beat the egg, add mustard, salt and pepper.
Gradually add the oil and lemon juice or vinegar, alternately, beating all the time.
Lastly add 1 tablespoon of boiling water.
Keep refrigerated.
Dressing - Oil and vinegar
This keeps well so make up a jar at a time.
Half and half fresh lemon juice and olive oil.
Add a good dollop of balsamic vinegar and lots of ground black pepper.
If you like you can add herbs of your own taste, like thyme or basil.
Dressing - Yogurt and Cider Vinegar
Mix half a cup each of plain yogurt and cider vinegar and add a desertspoon of dessicated cosonut. Shake well and keep in the fridge.
Falafels
From Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions
2 cups chickpeas
filtered water
4 Tbsps whey or lemon juice
4 cups parsley leaves, loosely packed
4 medium onions
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp rock or sea salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp baking powder (Aluminium free)
Cover chickpeas with plenty of boiling water, add 2 Tbsps lemon j or whey. Stand for 12 hours. Pour off excess water and repeat this, for another 12 hours.
Place about 1/4 of everything in a food processor and chop. Do this with all the rest in stages. Mix all together into a coarse paste. Put in the fridge for at least an hour. Shape into patties and fry in dripping or olive oil. (I found it easier to mix in an egg as well to help keep the patties together). Serve with tahini sauce and a green salad.
Tahini sauce:
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
Enough water to get a good consistency.
(Chopped tomato is good mixed into this sauce too.)
Kombucha
You need a kombucha 'mushroom', 'mother', 'scoby' (Symbiotic Community Of Bacteria and Yeasts.
Make tea in a big ceramic or glass bowl or jug using:
* 2 litres of boiling water
* 5 tea bags, 4 of them need to be Bell, Choysa,(gumboot) Earl Grey or green. They have to contain tannin. I then use one Blackcurrant and Apple tea bag as well to add a fruity flavour. You could use Chai tea, or raspberry leaves, or any other herbs or spices you want to try.
* 3/4 cup of white sugar.
Stir in the sugar and let it cool. When cool, take out teabags and add the scoby to it, cover with towell or plate and leave in warm place.
After about 5 days, try it every day and wait until it is slightly fizzy, gingery with no taste of sugar. The pour the kombucha into a bottle to keepin the fridge to drink. Make another brew, as you will go through it quickly. I have 2 on the go all the time. As the mother grows, you will be able to give some away to others. You can keep the mother in a jar in a little of her own juice for ages.
Very good for your digestion and a support for your liver's toxin removal process.
Life-Saving Stock
Beef Stock
About 2 kg beef marrow and knucklebones
1 calves foot, cut into pieces (optional)
1½ kg meaty rib or neck bones
5L or more cold filtered water
½ cup vinegar
3 onions, coarsely chopped
3 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 celery sticks, chopped
Several sprigs of fresh thyme, tied
1 tsp dried green peppercorns, crushed
1 bunch parsley
Good beef stock must be made with several sorts of bones: knuckle bones and feet impart large quantities of gelatine to the broth; marrow bones impart flavour and the particular nutrients of bone marrow; and meaty rib or neck bones add colour and flavour.
Place the knuckle and marrowbones and optional calves foot in a very large pot with vinegar and cover with water. Let stand for one hour. Meanwhile, place the meaty bones in a roasting pan and brown at 180 degrees in the oven. When well browned, add to the pot along with the vegetables. Pour the fat out of the roasting pan, add cold water to the pan, set over a high flame and bring to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen up coagulated juices. Add this liquid to the pot. Add additional water, if necessary, to cover the bones and bring to a boil. A large amount of scum will come to the top, and it is important to remove this with a spoon. Reduce heat and add the thyme and crushed peppercorns.
Simmer stock for at least 12 and as long as 72 hours. Just before finishing, add the parsley and simmer another 10 minutes.
You will now have a pot of rather repulsive-looking brown liquid containing globs of gelatinous and fatty material. It doesn't even smell particularly good, but don't despair. After straining you will have a delicious and nourishing clear broth that forms the basis for many other recipes.
Remove bones with tongs or a slotted spoon. Strain the stock into a large bowl. Let cool in the refrigerator and remove the congealed fat that rises to the top. Transfer to plastic bags for long-term freezer storage.
Whenever you make soups or stews, take out a bag of stock and use it for the base.
Nuts and seeds
Nuts and seeds should be soaked in salted water, to remove enzyme inhibitors that stop then from being easily degested, and phytic acid that binds minerals and stops us from absorbing them.
Buy plain, unsalted nuts. Keep the different types of nuts apart, as they wil dry at different rates. Soak them in a bowl of water with a spoon of salt added, for at least 7 hours. Cashews are already soaked once before we get them, so about 3 or 4 hours is enough for them.
Don't soak linseeds, they turn into a jellified mess.
Drain the water off the nuts and put them into roasting/baking dishes or plates into a low oven at about 70*C. Leave them for at least a day, they are fine overnight. Then give them a mix up with your hand now and again and try one. When they are dry and crunchy, let them cool before you store them in jars.
Porridge that will sustain you all day
Porridge
1 big cup serves 2 people.
The night before, soak 1 cup of rolled oats in 1 cup of water with a desertspoon of yogurt, or a squeeze of lemon juice or cider vinegar.
The next morning, add another 1/2 a cup of water and 1/2 tsp salt and simmer for about 3 minutes.
Serve with a knob of butter, cream and a little honey or maple syrup.
This porridge will not give you indigestion, bloating or make you hungry by half past ten.
All grains and seeds need soaking before they are able to be digested. Except for rice, and linseeds.
Quick tuna salad
Small tin tuna (in spring water)
Tomato
Salad ingredients
Drained tuna and add chopped tomato and anything else you fancy (spring onion, green or other peppers, raw mushroom, cucumber, rocket or parsley.
Add oil and vinegar dressing (or just a good dollop of lemon juice).
It is surprisingly filling and satisfying.
Salad suggestions
Serve salads with a sprinkle of pumpkin kernels and chopped feta cheese or any cheese) and a few olives.
I often go out into the garden and pick a few dandelion leaves, a silver beet leaf, a sprig of parsley, a few leaves of mint, some chick-weed and whatever else I can find and chop them all up together finely and sprinkle them over the top.
They are natural, handpicked, fresh, not sprayed (I don't have a cat) and full of nutrients and enzymes.
Sauerkraut
Makes 1 quart (1.2 litres)
1 medium cabbage, cored and shredded finely
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon sea salt
4 tablespoons whey (page 87) (if not available,
use an additional 1 tablespoon salt)
In a bowl, mix cabbage with mustard seeds, sea salt and whey.
Pound with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer for about 10 minutes to release juices. Place in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason (agee) jar and press down firmly with a pounder or meat hammer until juices come to the top of the cabbage.
The top of the cabbage should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.
The sauerkraut may be eaten immediately, but it improves with age. It is the perfect accompaniment for any meat dish. Mix any other sliced vegetables, seeds and spices in that you fancy. Anything goes.
Sourdough Bread
Sourdough Bread
This bread is made of natural yeasts that come from the air and the grains.
Over the years I have been making it I have revised and simplified the recipe. It's not rocket science, just make it, re-make it and re-make it. It's only by doing that you get the feel for it.
The ingredients are simple:
Sourdough starter - (flour, water, time)
Flour
Salt - non-refined and additive free like Celtic Sea salt or Himalayan rock salt
Water
To make the starter:
Rye flour makes a good starter. I use wholemeal, stone-ground rye flour.
Mix a quarter of a cup of rye flour with water to make a soft porridgy paste
Leave in a warm place for 24 hours
If the top is then dry and crusty, scrape off the grey top and add a bit more flour and water
Leave for another 24 hours
Keep adding more flour and water, leave in a warm place and one day you will find see bubbles in the mix. This is from the growing yeast.
You have a starter!!!
As you will want 2 cups of starter to make the bread, keep adding flour and water to grow up the starter to about 3 cups.
I make 2 loaves at a time in Pyrex loaf pans. Butter the 2 Pyrex pans.
KEEP SOME STARTER FOR NEXT TIME. Once you have taken out the starter for this bread, leave some in a jar and add some rye flour and water to keep it going. Put it in the fridge.
To make the bread:
Put 2 cups of your new starter in a mixing bowl
Add 3 cups of water
Add 1 good teaspoon salt
Mix
Add any flour you want. It could be more rye, buckwheat, unbleached white, spelt ... or a mixture of all and any
Add flour and stir until you have a mix that is still too wet to handle. You want a really soft dough, otherwise your bread will be very heavy and dense
When it can almost be handled, use your hands well covered in flour and add more flour bit by bit until the dough is JUST able to be held.
Split it into 2 and drop it into the buttered Pyrex loaf pans. The pans should be about 2/3 full to allow for room to rise.
There is no kneading.
Sprinkle the top with a little flour and stand on your bench top or in the hot water cupboard for at least 7 hours to prove.
Bake for 1 hour at 210*C
Test with a skewer, and if clean, turn out of tins, turn the oven off and put back in upside-down to crisp up the base if you wish
If you want a fruit loaf you can also add chopped apricots, cinnamon, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, sultanas ...
If you want really light bread, you can make the mixture quite soupy, and pour it into the pans. I have found that if this is left to prove for too long, it can collapse again. So it is a bit more tricky.
Flour can be purchased by mail order from:
Terrace Farm - Methven, Canterbury
Demeter grains and flour directly from the grower.
All the processing is done on the farm and the flour is milled to order.
Phone: 03 3028663
Email: terracefarm@slingshot.co.nz
Yoghurt - Alex's thick and creamy yoghurt
10 litres milk
1 tsp starter (from previous batch or use Cyclops thick and creamy, Greek style which is the one I started with)
This is a lovely sweet yoghurt. It is best to heat the full cream milk in a water bath, but if you don't have one, and don't mind lots of stiring and potscrubbing after, you don't need one.
Scald milk by heating it to 90 degrees stirring constantly. As it gets close to 90 degrees start ladeling milk and dropping back into saucepan (this seems to help thicken the finished product). The Nepalese people scald milk three times but I haven't found the need to do that.
Once milk hits 90 degrees it is ready and should be cooled in a sink of cold water down to 43 degrees. Stirring stops a skin forming.
Add starter, only one teaspoon per ten litres and stir in.
Put in a warm place with the aim of keeping it between about 35 and 40 degrees. I use the hot water cupboard and wrap the bucket in blankets). You could use a slow oven or a chilli-bin with a hot water bottle.
The yoghurt will be ready in 7 to 12 hours depending on temperature. It must stay below 43 degrees. The yoghurt is ready when it forms a solid curd. The longer you leave it after that the more sour it will be.
The cream will come to the top and can be used separately as a type of sour cream, or can be mixed into the yoghurt for a full cream flavour. If a little whey comes to the top spoon it off.
Mix the yoghurt until smooth and then add any flavouring like pulped fruit, maple syrup, chopped nuts.
Keeps for three weeks in refrigerator.
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