I LOVE to try new recipes and cook.  I would bet you love to create in the kitchen too, if you have what you need to do it.  One of my biggest pet peeves is finding some recipe that sounds really good, but missing one or two ingredients for it.  I hate that.  It almost happened to me today but fortunately, since I have been stocking my pantry with staples instead of processed foods, I usually have most of what I need.

Take today for instance.  When looking for a recipe for my chicken breasts I knew I had cream cheese to use up.  My other pet peeve is wasting food.. so when I search for a recipe I sometimes put in a couple ingredients to search by... today was chicken and cream cheese.  Then I stumbled upon a wonderful recipe for stuffed chicken breasts... yummy!  The only problem was that it called for chopped green peppers and 4 green onions...  ok, really???  HATE that!  Then I would have had to either run to the store before cooking OR lose the spontaneity of a sudden urge for cream cheese stuffed chicken breasts and PLAN them for next week.

Chances are, even then, if I planned some recipe for next week that called for 4 green onions, I would have had to buy a whole bunch and some of them then would have gone to waste in my refrigerator later.

TO THE RESCUE!!  Dehydrated chopped green onions.  I bought some a while back and used a few fresh and then dehydrated the remainder of them for just such an occasion!  And as for the green peppers?  I have several from the garden frozen in the refrigerator for just this reason.

Dehydrated food is easy to store... it even looks cool on the counter top, lasts virtually forever, and is easy to re-hydrate in order to use it for cooking.  I just put a few in a little prep bowl and added some of my purified water to soak them until time to use them in the cream cheese stuffing.

I happened to have some bacon in the freezer and my frozen peppers and was able to make this delicious chicken on the fly!  LOVE MY DEHYDRATOR!!

I bet you are thinking about this chicken now, aren't you?  Would you like the recipe?  It was seriously about the best thing I have made lately!  You will love it.  OK, here is the recipe.

Stuffed and Wrapped Chicken Breast

Ingredients:

8 slices bacon 6 ounces cream cheese, softened 4 green onions, chopped 1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a small baking dish.
2.	Place the bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until the grease has mostly rendered, but the bacon is still very soft, about 3 minutes. Remove, and pat dry with paper towels; set aside.
3.	Stir together the cream cheese, green onions, bell pepper, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a bowl until combined. Divide this mixture onto each chicken breast. Fold the breasts in half, and wrap with 2 slices of bacon. Secure with toothpicks as needed. Place into the prepared baking dish.
4.	Bake in the preheated oven until the chicken is no longer pink in the thickest part, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove the toothpicks before serving.

And before you start thinking, "I thought bacon was unhealthy"....  we buy uncured nitrite and nitrate free bacon and don't eat too much of it!

You should try it too!  Bacon is wonderful but not near to the extent that you need it in large quantities every day. 

In the Kitchen - Spinach Orzo Salad Recipe

Going to Whole Foods is so much fun to do at lunchtime!  I get the shopping done while sampling my way through the store... much better tasting their food than the "mystery samples" that Sam's Club used to offer up every Saturday.  It is while sampling that I get frequent inspirations for recipes. 

Spinach Orzo Salad.  Sounds weird, looks yummy.  Tastes divine!  I tried it first at Whole Foods and then looked at the list of ingredients in it and decided it was for me!!  This reminds me of a greek flavored salad.  The orzo adds bulk, the spinach is fresh spinach, I love Feta cheese and balsamic vinegar and onion only hurts those around you.  Onion is actually very good for you!  When I jotted down the list of ingredients, I actually came home and did a search for the recipe... here it is!

Spinach and Orzo Salad

Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) package uncooked orzo pasta 1 (10 ounce) package baby spinach leaves, finely chopped 1/2 pound crumbled feta cheese 1/2 red onion, finely chopped

3/4 cup pine nuts 1/2 teaspoon dried basil 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

Directions:

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add orzo and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse with cold water. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in spinach, feta, onion, pine nuts, basil and white pepper. Toss with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Refrigerate and serve cold.


My favorite kind of recipe:  EASY, EASY, EASY..  

I must admit here that I have never had Pine Nuts.  When I make this recipe I use Pepitas or Sunflower seeds... I am cheap, remember?  It tastes fine with them and still has that crunch so good enough!  Some other things I have thrown in this treat is artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, or olives.   You can experiment with different tastes and add to this cold side dish.

 

DIY - Homemade Firestarters

Nothing completes the suburban homestead better than a fire warming the room on a cold night.  I love my fireplace but have to buy wood every fall for burning all winter.  I suppose I could go cut down some trees in the timber somewhere and leave them somewhere to cure for a year or two but that has just not happened yet so I leverage my time elsewhere and buy wood.  Not being a good Girl Scout, I never did learn to start a fire without my handy Bic lighter and a "firestarter".  In seasons past, I purchased boxes of little compact "bricks" that would easily light and stay burning long enough to catch my wood on fire.  It always "burned me" to pay another $20 for a box of those firestarters that would last only a season, but I did not know any other way until I found this "recipe" that may interest you too!

Last night Journey and I made Firestarters out of materials we had around the house.  It was so much fun!  Kind of messy and a little time consuming but we got to spend time together and learn as we went.  Let me show you what we did.

We made two kinds of firestarters last night.   The first was made totally from trash and our trusty double boiler full of candle wax.  Any kind of wax will work.  Old crayons, old candle pieces, purchased parrafin, or in my case, old wax that I used to dip candles into.  You can add aromatic oils or color to your wax if you like.  The first type we made was constructed of DRYER LINT and Toilet Paper Rolls... just what we could find in the trash. 

Start by filling the toilet paper rolls with the dryer lint and a piece of string that will suffice as the wick for lighting.  I used a muffin cup paper to catch the overflow of wax, which worked well and will also burn.  Anything that burns can be used to fill your toilet paper rolls, like hair, lint, fabric... you name it. 

Keep in mind that it is Halloween season and the mustache that you see on her forehead was in the correct spot above her upper lip just a few minutes before this pic. She had a great time stuffing dryer lint and a wick into the toilet paper rolls.

After they had dryer lint stuffed in them we poured or ladeled hot melted wax into them... as they were sitting on end in a paper muffin cup.

Any kind of wax will do.  I happened to have some in a double boiler that was left over from candle making years ago.. you can even use old candles or pieces or broken crayons.  Anything flammable in your toilet paper roll and any kind of wax.  The wick sticking out can be any kind of fiber.. just enough to start the rest of it burning.

Here they are finished... not pretty but functional! 

Now on to the REALLY PRETTY AND NEAT ONES!!!!
I had some pine cones in a metal basket (for so many years they were dusty...) and some more downstairs in a plastic bag that almost got sold in the garage sale except no one else wanted them.  For some reason after the sale I thought I might use them for something some day so I put them back in the basement.

I gathered all of them and put Journey to work tying string to each of them at the top with a long enough tail to dip them into the melted wax.  We dipped them once into the wax, completely covering each of them and then held them above the wax pan while they drip-dried a little bit. 

When they were done dripping we put them on wax paper to dry a little bit and dipped another one.  We ended up dipping each of them twice into the hot wax to make them nice and coated.  When we were done dipping, we cut the "wick" off at about 2 inches so we could light them.  Because they are so dry and cured, they will burn nicely, the wax keeping them on fire until our logs catch too.





The look really pretty in the holder on the hearth of the fireplace and will stay handy there all winter.  They would also make great Christmas presents if you have family or friends with a fireplace.  Experiment with scents and colored waxes and let me know how yours turn out.  I really love my plain ones!

In the Kitchen - Homemade Cinnamon Rolls - Sprouted Freshly Ground Flour!

I was so excited today to use my new grain mill for the first time.  I am happy to report that I did it right, it was easy, and I did not explode anything.  It is such a relief to me that I can at least use the grain mill and dehydrator without burning, cutting, maiming myself, or the kitchen!  As far as the cutting machines, I do not have such luck. 

Today I was SO hungry for cinnamon rolls.. I think it is because my friend Shari talks about them like an obsessed woman... so I had to try them.. for her.  I found a recipe for Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls and went to work.  I was so happy to be able to grind my own white wheat berries that I had previously sprouted and then dehydrated, just waiting for this moment to come when I wanted to make something fresh!

So easy to use!!  Just poured about 1 cup dry wheat berries in for every 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cup of flour in the recipe.

My flour was full of nutrition, fiber, and nutritious oils found in the natural wheat berry... very nutritious!

Ingredients for the dough
1 cup water
2 Tablespoons yeast
2 teaspoons honey
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2 teaspoons sea salt
8 cups whole wheat flour

Ingredients for the middle
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sweetener (I used my new Turbinado raw sugar)
1/2 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
Melt the butter, set it aside and mix the "sugar" and cinnamon in a bowl.

Making the dough:

In a large bowl, mix 1 cup very warm water, 2 T. yeast and 2 t. honey.  Stir this together and kind of mush the yeast around.  Let this sit for a few minutes while you do the next step.

Melt a stick of butter in a large saucepan.  Add 1/2 cup honey, 4 t. salt and 2 1/2 cups of milk.  Heat this to 120 degrees.

Pour milk mixture into yeast mixture and stir.  Stir in 8 cups of flour, 2 cups at a time. (add more if you need it)
Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes.  Plop it into a bowl, cover it and let it rise for 1-1 1/2 hours.
After dough is nice and fat, punch it down and knead out all it’s bubbles.  Cut the dough in half, setting one half aside.

On a well floured surface, roll dough into a nice big rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick.

Use a pastry brush to spread 1/2 of the melted butter all over the rectangle.  Sprinkle 1/2 of the sugar/cinnamon mixture all over the butter.

Roll up the dough.

Cut into thin slices, about 1/2 inch thick.

My serrated bread knife worked wonders for this job.

 Place rolls side by side on baking pan.

Repeat process with other 1/2 of dough.  (At this point I should tell you that all I made was 1/2 of this recipe and had 20 or more rolls from it in these 2 pans - if you make the whole batch you will end up with a LOT of cinnamon rolls)
Allow dough to rise about 30 minutes.
Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown at 350 degrees.

The pan on the left was full when I pulled it out of the oven.  I sent a few to my neighbor to try (and I ate one)

 So how were they?  I think they were a bit dry.  Perhaps next time I will tolerate a little moister dough at the onset... I ended up adding more flour during the kneading process and this may have been what dried them out.  I may also bake them in an oven with a pan of hot water in the bottom.. I have heard that doing that may increase the humidity in the oven.

I would also have added more butter and cinnamon to the insides!  They are light on cinnamon.. but seem sweet enough.  I like my sweet cinnamon rolls pretty gooey but of course I had not frosted them yet.

Frosting too??... yes, here is the recipe!
1/4 cup butter
3 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 - 2 cups powdered sugar to make the consistency you like.
Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, milk and powdered sugar.  Whisk together until smooth. 

How about the sprouted wheat?  Here is what I will tell you.  Whenever I have had an opportunity to soak commercial flour overnight or used sprouted wheat ground myself, I have not had a stomach ache from eating grain... usually flour products cause me a little distress but not today.  That roll was smooth!!

In the Kitchen- Homemade Potato & Sweet Potato Chips

We sort of miss potato chips at our house.  I know that many are loaded with MSG and a lot of other stuff that I don't want to miss but we are certainly not "anti-foods"... we are just "anti-manufactured" foods.  The salty crunch of a potato chip sounded wonderful this weekend so I did some research and experimentation..  funny that you can make about anything at home, and BETTER, that you can buy at the store.  The one thing about homemade food is that it won't last on the shelf in a little plastic wrapper for years.. sorry.  Most of it has to be refrigerated, canned, frozen, or better yet, EATEN!

Journey is not fond of sweet potatoes (yet).. so she wanted "regular" chips.  So I made a few batches of chips.. one for her and 2 sweet potato recipes for the adults in the house.  Sweet potatoes have much more nutrition than a regular white potato, but white potatoes should not be vilified.. there is certainly some nutritional value in them, especially if you leave the skins on.

Begin by washing your potatoes.  The Microfiber Fruit and Veggie Scrubbing Cloth I use does an awesome job... really takes off the dirt and a bit of the loose skin.

For the regular potato chips, all I did was slice the potatoes very thin and lay them out on a baking sheet sprayed with olive oil.  Then I sprayed the tops of the potato slices with more olive oil and put some seasoning on them.  For my first batch I just used mineral salt and pepper.  Then baked them in the oven at about 300 degrees until they became browned and crispy.  This did not take a long time but depends totally on how thin you can slice your potatoes.  Some of mine were thinner than others so I had to pull the thinnest ones out earlier than the meatier slices and continue cooking them.  Journey LOVED her new potato chips!

The regular potato chips are on the left and the first batch of sweet potato chips on the right.

For the Sweet Potato Chips I tried a few different methods and will share my results.  I first washed the potatoes and cut away any bad spots.

I tried a manual food processor for slicing first but did not like the inconsistent results I got with it.  Some of the potatoes were super thin and some were thick.  So I moved to a Mandolin Slicer in hopes of getting consistent thin slices.

The Mandolin Slicer cut them consistently and fairly easily but it turned out that I could not get thin enough slices with it, so my potato slices were too thick to turn out as good as I hoped... but we are on the right track.  I have to keep searching for the perfect slicing tool.  Maybe it will have to be that evil old food processor that sprayed pumpkin guts all over my kitchen.. I don't know yet.

When you have your slices of sweet potatoes in a bowl like this, you then mix up
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tsp salt (use the good kind with minerals or sea salt at least)
1/4 tsp cayenne (optional - we omitted it because we don't like ours that spicy)
1 tsp Real Maple syrup (you could use some brown sugar instead if you want)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder

I mixed all of this together in the magic bullet to mix well (this made plenty to cover the slices made by 2 sweet potatoes.. next time I will cut back on the amount of olive oil).

Pour this into the bowl of sweet potato slices and thoroughly mix it up with your hands, making sure every potato is covered on both sides.

Lay the potatoes out on a cookie sheet and bake at about 200 degrees for a few hours.. 1 - 2 ought to do it.  I checked on them a lot and turned them so they would cook evenly.  They taste great but since my slices were a little thicker than ideal, they are a bit chewier than crispier like I would have liked them.  It takes a bit of experimenting in the kitchen to get good results when cooking new foods. 

In the Kitchen - The Great Pumpkin Explosion

Pumpkins went on sale this week at our local Earl May...  $1.99 each for any size and any type.  Journey was able to get 4 to carve this weekend at that price, and one is really big!!  I thought it was a pretty good deal and you know how much I like to save money and get a good deal.

I never knew there was a difference between a "baking pumpkin" and a "carving pumpkin" but the gal at Earl May says there is a difference.  So when Journey got 4 "carvers", I got one "baker" for me.  I have never made my own pumpkin puree so I was excited to get home and research how to do it today.  It seemed pretty easy and with some frozen pumpkin puree, I could make more baked pumpkin donuts and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving without having to buy canned pumpkin.  The instructions seemed pretty easy:

Cut the pumpkin in half (you could also bake it whole but I wanted to preserve the seeds without cooking them so I had to cut mine first).  Of course I removed the seeds and guts.  Oil the edges of the cut pumpkin and place it cut side down in a baking pan.  Bake for at least 90 minutes at 350 degrees.  I added water to the bottom of the baking pan to add a steam effect to the cooking.

Mine was in the oven for 2 hours and probably not quite as done as it could have been but it looked like it was soft enough.

Let the pumpkins cool in order to be able to remove the skin.  I used a knife to cut the skin off, preserving as much flesh as I could.  I added the skin to the compost pile... never waste anything.  Journey will be disappointed after school when she finds out that I could not remove the skin in one piece and save it for her.  She wanted to make a "hat" out of the skin.   :)

Once the skin was removed, the next step seemed like a "no-brainer".  Puree the cooked pumpkin in the food processor.  This was only the second time I used my "new" 1960s $5 garage sale GE Food Processor.  I purchased it only because I thought there may come a time when it was clearly the best tool for some particular job.  This seemed like the perfect job, so with pride, I stuffed about 1/2 the pumpkin into the processor in big chunks and turned it on.
.
The poor old processor sounded like an airplane in my kitchen.  So loud but seemed to be working... well not well enough...  maybe I had too much in the processor or maybe the pumpkin could have been a little mushier.. or maybe the darn food processor was just old and tired.  I don't know.  What I did next, I even knew NOT TO DO!  I put a scraper down into the little chute and carefully tried to push the pumpkin pieces down to the reach the blades.

You know what happened next, don't you?  I was not prepared for this so I let out some choice little words when a LARGE GRINDING SOUND erupted in front of me, the blades stopped suddenly, the processor bowl lid flew off, and partial pumpkin puree EXPLODED ALL OVER me and the kitchen.  It was in my hair, on my shirt, on my new slipper, all over the floor, the refrigerator, walls, under the cupboards, and half way to the dining room.  The scraper was wedged in the blades.  I DID have the mind to quickly unplug the machine (but that was a little late..the machine was totally ground to a halt by then).  I could only laugh.. should have taken a picture but I quickly got into cleaning mode and wiped everything down.  Here is the only true damage:

I am not willing to look and see if that is one of my Pampered Chef scrapers or one of the Salvation Army 99cent scrapers.  It is now in the trash, where it will stay.

After all the cleaning was done, I went back to processing.. more patiently and without shoving anything in the top of the food processor.  I ended up with 2 bags of pumpkin puree to freeze for later and pretty darn happy about it.  Need to update my whiteboard now with new inventory.

You know, I was pretty worried about buying a food processor for just this reason.  I just knew I would do something like that and prefer the old fashioned knife and cutting board approach to chopping, slicing, etc.  It is the "puree" issue that I need a darn high powered machine to do.  Hopefully lesson learned.. at least I still have all 10 fingers so I can keep blogging..  ..  ttyl!

In the Kitchen - Solving the Freezer Inventory Problem

A week or so ago I wrote a blog about using the foods I had prepared for the freezer and pantry.  Since then we have had blackberry cobbler, used some frozen cauliflower, other frozen vegetables, and some of the frozen meat.  I feel like I am making headway on that freezer stockpile finally.

One problem I seem to have is remembering what is in that deep freeze.  Even the small upright freezer which sits in the garage contains food wrapped such that it is hard to identify unless I stand in the open door, letting all the cold out, and rummage.  I seem to do that entirely too much!  I was thinking about a list on the outside of the freezer that I could keep up to date but did not like the idea of having to keep that list up as I added and removed foods from there.

Then I ran across an old whiteboard that I found in the back of the hall closet.  Do you have one of those closets that is a catch-all for everything you don't know what to do with?  That is our hall closet.  I was in there cleaning it out last week so I could take inventory on coats, boots, mittens and scarves with cold weather approaching, when I found that little whiteboard in the back.  I parked it in the kitchen thinking I could write notes to myself or keep a grocery list going.  Mike quickly reminded me that it would be tough to tote that whiteboard to the store with my grocery list on it, and he was right...  so we quickly went back to a paper grocery list and continued looking for a good use for that whiteboard. 

I have a history with whiteboard utilization.  I think perhaps I have always been on the hunt for the perfect fool-proof way to stay organized and remember all that I am supposed to do.  I remember about 10 years ago, when I had a desk job and was required to run back and forth to meetings all day.  My to-do list was long and forever changing.  I tried little notebooks to keep notes in but lost them easily.  So I tried a little whiteboard to keep notes on.  I thought I was very smart when I thought of that.  I would not lose a whiteboard and I could keep the list current without creating a lot of new lists.  That worked well for a few days until I was walking down the hall one day with the whiteboard sitting on top of a stack of books I was carrying.  When I got to the meeting and sat down, everyone noticed 2 things right away.  One was that there was a large portion of the writing on the whiteboard smeared and erased (I had lost some critical information, I was sure, but could not remember what had been written there).  The other noticeable thing (and something I have never lived down) was that the wipe-off marker was ALL OVER my white shirt.. right on the left...ummm... how do I say this(?)...  chest area.  I had to wear that shirt the rest of the day and obviously quit walking around with a whiteboard!! 

Sorry to digress from my freezer story but I thought you should know my sordid whiteboard history.  A thought was forming in my mind that this whiteboard might solve my freezer problems.  I took a quick inventory of the outside freezer once again, and made notes on the whiteboard.  That was a couple of days ago and it has come in very handy.  The board sits on top of the freezer (so I don't accidentally wipe out my inventory list) and today I pulled a pork roast out and updated the whiteboard.  I don't have to stare inside the freezer and move stuff around anymore to know what is in there and the list stays handy and updated easily. 

I think I have the solution!!  I may one day fasten that whiteboard to the front of the freezer so it is handier but for now it lays on top. 

This list gives me some comfort as well as being practical.  It makes it like a menu in a restaurant when I am looking to plan a meal.  I really like it.

In the Kitchen - Preserved Lemons

I felt so guilty for not posting anything on the blog yesterday.  It was another pretty nice day and there was so much to do around the home.  So, while I spent time in the kitchen making these Preserved Lemons and taking pictures for you, I did not get time in the end to post until today. 

I got excited about Preserved Lemons for the first time this week when I ran across this recipe that I just have to try!  It looked so good, but I am a sucker for lemon and mint so maybe it is just me. 

Israeli Couscous with Feta/Lemon

Israeli couscous mixed with feta, preserved lemon and fresh mint has bright, bold and unique flavors. Preserved lemon is a key ingredient in this Israeli couscous recipe and can be found at many speciality food stores, or you can make preserved lemons at home.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups dry Israeli couscous
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/4 cup minced preserved lemon
• 1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint leaves
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta

Preparation:

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pot. Add couscous and saute 2-3 minutes until lightly toasted. Add water, broth, bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil then turn heat to low and simmer with a lid for 10-12 minutes until water is absorbed and couscous is soft but still slightly chewy. Let cool.
Add lemon, almonds, mint, feta and remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the couscous. Add salt to taste. Serve at room temperature.

This recipe looked so good with the Feta cheese, lemony taste, mint and couscous, that I had to go a step further and click the link about Preserved Lemons.  Then they looked so good that I had to try the recipe.  It came at a great time because my friend had just mentioned that lemons were 10 cents a piece at Walmart this week.  I generally do not shop Walmart grocery, as most of what they offer is highly processed BUT the lemons are not on the "Dirty Dozen" (have to buy organic) list so I was excited.  While I was there I also found they sell a brand of unprocessed cane sugar (good choice) and even better, they had a 25 pound bag of white wheat berries for just a little over $13.00.  I will be back to Walmart at some point in my grocery travels.

So, Preserved Lemons?  What are those?  I did not know either until I read the recipe so here is how you make Preserved Lemons, and no, that is not the same as lemon preserves.  Haha

Wash the lemons well.. I used my Norwex Microfiber cloth so I was sure they were good and clean on the outside since I was going to eat the WHOLE LEMON!

Once washed, assemble supplies needed for preserving them.

Any large grain salt will work.  I use canning and pickling salt.

Next, cut the stem ends off of the lemons and cut each lemon into quarters, leaving them attached at the bottom like this.  (if you cut them all the way through, the quarters will still work fine).  Do this over your bowl to save the lemon juices.

I let the seeds fall into the juice and strained it later when adding it to the jar.

Take your thumb and squish out all the lemon juice, smashing each quarter as much as you can, letting the juice and seeds fall into the bowl.  The kitchen SMELLED SO GOOD!
Next step is to take 1/4 teaspoon of the salt and rub it into the lemon, a little on each quarter.  I did this over the bowl too, so the extra salt would join the juice.

 

Once you rub the salt into the lemon, drop it into your canning jar and do the next one. 

When you have pushed and squished as many lemons as you can get into the jar, you are done.  Make sure they do not come up too far, for they have to be covered in juice in the end.  When you have done this, strain the juice you have leftover (so you capture the seeds) into the jar to cover the lemons.  I did not have enough juice so I squeezed one additional lemon for juice and then added some organic lemon juice I had in the cupboard until all the lemons were covered.

Put a lid on the jar and leave it on your counter for 30 days, shaking every day to make sure the lemons and salt get all mixed up.  When 30 days are up, you can open your jar and check out your preserved lemons or use them in recipes, chopped up.  They can be refrigerated up to 6 months and still be good. 

So in 30 days I will be trying that couscous dish and let you know how Preserved Lemons taste!  I have to say, they sure are pretty!

Fun - A wonderful day for a ride

I can't resist posting this one because I have been so busy lately with cooking, foraging, ebaying, and blogging, that I have not really taken time for me.  Today was the day!

It rained this morning but cleared off to a crisp cloudy 70something day.  Finished with lunch and my first 2 blogs, Mike and I decided to dust off the motorcycles and take a ride.  And I really mean "dust off".  Since we have been working on the flooring in the family room, the whole garage got covered in a wonderful layer of sawdust.  My poor beautiful red motorcycle looked like it had been in storage for years, instead of just unridden for a few weeks.

The air felt good as we got rolling on I-80.  The majority of the dust did blow off during the ride and it was very comfortable and relaxing.  As we rode, I reflected on the Pioneers of long ago taking their horses into town monthly to get provisions.  I am so glad life has changed enough to allow me to ride my own iron horse as a woman!  The feel of the wind, the speed, the control, and the freedom all make me so grateful to be a suburban pioneer!

As we came home along more rural routes than I-80, I was thinking about next spring and summer, when I hope to take those routes looking to forage.  I wondered if there is any way I will ever be able to recognize trees or plants from the roadside in order to have more food experiments that do not include an ER visit.  Haha.  Hope by that time to partner with people who have the ability to identify edible plants!

No matter what keeps you busy all day, remember to make some time just for you and what you enjoy!  It feels good and feeds your soul just as good healthy food feeds your body!  Enjoy!

Health - Water!

Water... everyone knows that if you drink a lot of water you will be healthier, right?  (yes)  A person can only live 3 days without water.  Our bodies are made up mostly of water.  Water is a good appetite suppressant and some even say that when we think we are hungry it is really thirst, so drinking lots of water will help you lose or manage your weight!

But did you know that our water is contaminated?  (yes)  Whether you are drinking well water or city water, you are also drinking heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, pesticide run-off, petroleum by-products, and heaven knows what else!  Contaminants even include things put in our water to "help" us like Flouride and Chlorine....  Thanks very much but no thanks!

A few weeks ago I wrote about finding a water treatment system in my basement.  It is now up and functional.  A wonderful man from Rainsoft came and connected and checked the soft water treatment system, the reverse osmosis system, and then installed a chlorine removal system.  Just this last few days Mike finished the last installation portion of it and connected our refrigerator drinking water and ice machine to the reverse osmosis.

So what has changed?  For one thing I now have piece of mind when it comes to the quality of the water we use and drink!  Let me explain what these do and what we have seen since cleaning our water.  I am not an expert but I just figure that you may not know what it is either and at this point I know something about what is happening in that basement.  Let me share. 

Soft water:  Salt is added to a tank and it treats the water.  Somehow it removes a lot of the minerals that cause hard water!  Hard water is tough on your appliances and pipes and it is hard on your skin and hair. Since having soft water, I have noticed my skin is softer (too much time in the kitchen was making my hands really dry and rough).  My hair is cleaner feeling and easier to comb out after the shower and my shampoo lathers really well, even the "healthy" kind that normally does not lather much.  The dishes in the dishwasher appear cleaner, as there is less spotting. 

There is some salt that seeps into the water that comes out.  Not enough to cause most folks a problem with salt intake in their diet but if you were on a special salt free diet, you would want to understand that a little more.  The soft water is great inside the house but the garden would suffer over time if watered with that water that contained sodium.  It would eventually strip the nutrients from the soil and plants would not thrive.  There is a valve downstairs that I will have to use to "turn off" the soft water next spring and summer when I am using the hose outside... it will bypass the water softener then.  LOVE the soft water!!

Reverse Osmosis:  My dream come true.  It is a separate set of 3 tanks that only go to a faucet at the kitchen sink and one for the refrigerator/freezer.  This filters every impurity out of the water at least 99%.  No more flouride, chlorine, sediments, or even that soft water salt.  It will filter lots of the other contaminants too!  I now feel safer than I did drinking city water.  The water coming out of those 2 faucets is delicious!  No after taste. 

The one amazing thing I recently notice is the ice cubes coming out of the freezer now that the water is purified by the reverse osmosis.  The ice cubes are clear as pure crystals.  I never even gave a thought to the look of the ice cubes before until I saw these.  They sparkle in my glass of water like clean glass.  It is rather obvious that there was some sediment in the water before, now that I see this water.  I also get to cook and soak my grains and seeds in this purified water.  I am so grateful and it is AMAZING!  Love it!

Chlorine removal tank:  This is an additional tank that filters the water after it is softened not the drinking water.. the reverse osmosis filter takes care of it).  This tank has a carbon filter system that removes over 99% of the chlorine from all the water in my house. Why?  Because one day I interrupted Journey in her steamy morning shower for something.  When she opened the bathroom door to talk to me, the smell of chlorine was so strong coming out of there that it smelled like a public swimming pool!

The skin is the largest organ in the body and it is designed to absorb.  So it absorbs all that chlorine when taking a long shower or bath.  That worried me.  Do we really know what that is doing to our health over the long term?   I doubt it.  Now we are all safer!  The plants will also like that better, I am sure!  There is a way to divert that that tank too, but I see no reason to do that at this time.  Love that there is no chlorine in my water!

What if you are a bottled water drinker?  Does that make your water safe?  I hate to burst your bubble but I do not think so.  There are issues with most bottled water.  One:  It only has to meet the same standards of purity as city water does.  You do not know the source or what contaminants are potentially in that water.  Two:  It is stored in plastic bottles.  It has recently been shown that a substance in these plastic bottles can leach into whatever is stored in them, thus adding another contaminant.  Three:  The pH of water is important.  Normal pH is about 7 on a scale of 0 - 14.  Below 7 means it is acidic and above 7 is alkaline.  The body needs to stay in an alkaline state to prevent disease and contribute to overall immune function and health.  Most bottled waters I tested came out in the acidic range, yet my tap water from the city tests alkaline.  As a result of these things I have not been a bottled water fan.

So I love my water system!  I hope you may have learned something you did not know and may consider some sort of filtration system for your house.  You can get a reverse osmosis system for under your kitchen sink pretty reasonably, even if you cannot afford an entire house filtration system.  We have been saving 2 years for this and I am so glad we finally have it!

In the Kitchen - Chicken Stir Fry

I love to create in the kitchen... when I get hungry for something I search the internet for a recipe that fits what I have in the kitchen and also either has healthy ingredients or allows for substitution of ingredients.  Today I was hungry for Stir Fry. 

When I plan a meal or what to create next in the kitchen, I take stock in the refrigerator.  If I have something that will not last long in there, I plan to use it in an appropriate recipe.  Good food is not cheap and I really HATE throwing away something Mike has worked so hard to buy.  LOL

A few days ago, I had leftover cream cheese that Journey had requested but lost interest in.  Instead of letting it go bad in the refrigerator, I made her homemade mashed potatoes (and also used the potatoes in the Foccacia Bread recipe from an earlier post).  Instead of milk and butter when whipping the potatoes, I used some of the cream cheese and YUMMY!!  Made them good and creamy! 

So today I had some organic celery, mung bean sprouts that I sprouted myself a few days ago, a frozen bag of stir fry vegetables and a chicken breast in the freezer.  I decided Stir Fry would be good and full of veggies! 

The bowl is full of the sprouts..  I have the leaves and ends of the celery stalk under the sprouts.  I used all the celery!!

Here is the recipe I adapted to my own:

Chicken Stir-Fry

Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 35 Minutes Ready In: 1 Hour 20 Minutes Servings: 6

"This chicken stir-fry is a little spicy and a little sweet. Fresh ginger and garlic and a little kick, which is balanced with brown sugar. Though the recipe calls for bell peppers, water chestnuts, and broccoli, try it with any vegetable you like!"

Ingredients:

2 cups white rice 4 cups water 2/3 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes 3 skinless, boneless chicken breast

halves, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 green bell pepper, cut into matchsticks 1 (8 ounce) can sliced water chestnuts, drained 1 head broccoli, broken into florets 1 cup sliced carrots 1 onion, cut into large chunks 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Directions:

1.	Bring rice and water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until rice is tender, and liquid has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes.
2.	Combine soy sauce, brown sugar, and corn starch in a small bowl; stir until smooth. Mix ginger, garlic, and red pepper into sauce; coat chicken with marinade and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
3.	Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir bell pepper, water chestnuts, broccoli, carrots, and onion until just tender, about 5 minutes. Remove vegetables from skillet and keep warm.
4.	Remove chicken from marinade, reserving liquid. Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir chicken until slightly pink on the inside, about 2 minutes per side; return vegetables and reserved marinade to skillet. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until chicken is longer pink in the middle and vegetables are tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Serve over rice.

Just a note here about more substitutions and the use of Soy Sauce.

Instead of white rice, get creative and add a little nutrition to your meal.  I used a combination of Quinoa, Couscous, and Old World Pilaf that I got in bulk from Whole Foods.  The combination of grains delivered a variety of different nutrients to our plate and turned out real good!

A small amount of each.   Pilaf cooks 50 minutes, Quinoa cooks 15 minutes and must be rinsed first and Couscous cooks 5 minutes so the timing and total water content of this dish had to be carefully figured and managed.

I used Turbinado sugar for the first time in this recipe. I found it at Whole Foods and while I am taking processed sugar out of our diets, this looked like a good alternative for some cases.  It looks like brown sugar and it is much less processed that granulated sugars in the supermarket. I probably could have used a little agave and molasses to flavor this but wanted to use my new sugar. 

The recipe calls for fresh Ginger but I did not have any and don't really want to make a supermarket run for something like that... so I substituted 1/2 the amount called for of the ground ginger in my spice cabinet.  Most recipes can substitute fresh for ground or dried spices ... the conversion is usually 1/3 to 1/2 ground or dried to 1 of the fresh.

For the oil, I used coconut oil for the vegetables and olive oil for the meat ...  I did not go buy Sesame oil just because the recipe called for it.

The Soy sauce...  well here is the deal on that...  I love soy sauce.  It is the only soy product that I can abide by for my family. I do not use it very often and have read a lot about the process of fermenting soy..  that is how soy sauce is made and the fermentation process changes the raw soy into something much different and not harmful to your body.  Fermentation of foods is healthy actually.. so I feel pretty safe with a little Soy Sauce... but every time I pull out a bottle of sauce or manufactured goods, it does give me pause to think and I am not sure I like it.  Getting healthy is a process and although I work really hard at it for my family and sharing it with you, I do not want you to think I am perfect at it.  NO WAY!  But I do try to understand my choices and make informed decisions.

So was it good?  Absolutely!  We loved it.  Here is the stir fry vegetables before I added the chicken.

In the Kitchen - The Best Ever Granola Bar- Ironman Coco-Nut Bars

I found a recipe today and just had to try it!!  Love new things to feed my family.  We are big snackers in our house.  We seem to eat little bits all day long so I keep lots of snack foods around that are healthy and also satisfy that little sweet tooth.  It keeps us from ever buying candy or junk at the store!  We have also managed to keep our weight off, just by ensuring our protein intake is still high (to keep our metabolism up) and frequent small delicious meals and snacks that fuel our body with what it needs WITHOUT toxic ingredients like preservatives, chemicals, etc. 

Calories are not all created the same.  When the body is properly fueled, the cravings for the bad stuff quit and what you are left with is healthy function!  A calorie should be nutritionally dense so that it provides necessary nutrients and not just empty fuel..  so keeping granola bars and snacks in the house works when they are the right snacks.

This Granola bar recipe is GLUTEN-FREE with the nutrition provided by flax (Omegas), nuts (healthy fats and proteins), and coconut and other dried fruits (for vitamins and anti-oxidants).  I was surprised the recipe turned out so well because somehow it bakes up without any flour, oatmeal, or other starch...

Here are the ingredients

I would have used other dried fruits but someone in my house ate all of my stock.. LOL.

Homemade Ironman Coco-Nut Bars

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp flax seeds (grind to flax meal or start with flax meal)

1/2 cup raw honey (any honey will do)

1 tsp sea salt

1 cup raw almonds (total 1 cup of nuts of any kind)

1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1/2 cup dried apricots (Can use any dried fruit here – be creative)

1 Tbsp goji berries (added for extra anti-oxidants – any dried fruit will do)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine ground flax, honey and salt.  Mix well.

Combine all the rest of the dry ingredients and mix them well.  (Make sure all your ingredients are chopped coursely)

Add the honey mixture to the dried fruit and nut mixture and mix well.

In a greased 8 X 8 pan, press this mixture down and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until center is brown and sides are crispy.

Cool for about 15 minutes and cut into squares or bar shapes.  If you cut them when too warm, they will not stick together well and if you let them cool too long they will be pretty hard to cut!

For the record, this is the first time I have made this recipe.. I cooked these for about 22 minutes and next time I will leave them in until the top is a little browner.  The brown at the edges tasted great...not burnt or too hard.  If they had had about 5 more minutes in my oven, I think they would have held together better when I cut them.  

But suffice it to say these passed the taste test!!  They are wonderful!!  Coconut and the nuts and raisins made them so sweet and they taste a lot like some kind of candy bar!!  But better because I get to choose the quality of the ingredients!!