Cheesy grits with hominy

I have a habit of tasting something from the hot bar every time I go to the Seward for groceries...it's like the treat before I check out. A few weeks ago they had some cheesy grits with hominy that was SO good, I have been thinking about making it ever since. I have never made grits before, and it turns out there are quite a few different methods.

I primarily was in search of something that would satisfy my yearning for mac and cheese but without gluten, and I also really liked the hominy in the grits I had from the seward, so I wanted that too. I created a recipe based on a few different searches - and ended up cooking my own hominy too. The grits turned out really good independently, and stuffed in green peppers.

2 c. milk
2 c. water
1 c. grits/polenta
1 T. butter
2 c. cooked or canned hominy*
1 1/2 c. cheese (I used a raw cheddar)
salt and pepper

*The only raw hominy I found was actually from Native Harvest and the White Earth land Recovery Project, which is not cheap. It feels really good to support that project and the work there though, and I was excited to cook my own hominy. I did mine just like I would cook beans - in the slow cooker, after soaking overnight, with lots of water. I am hoping to make posole ometime soon with the rest because this hominy is totally gorgeous and huge. Yum.

Put the water, milk, and grits in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Stir frequently as it comes to a boil and starts to thicken. Once it starts boiling, let simmer (while stirring) for another 5-10 minutes until thick but still mildly soupy. Add sat and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat and stir in the hominy and the shredded cheese. I also stirred in two red banana peppers because they were fresh out of the garden.

From here you can fill bell pepper halves if you want to go that route, or pour the grits into a buttered casserole dish. Put either/both in the oven for about 40 minutes (until browned) at 350.

Sauerkraut

A couple of years ago my mom got me a really fancy German sauerkraut crock. It is extra fancy in that there are weights to hold the kraut down under the liquid, and there is a lip around the whole thing that you pour water into to keep an air seal for the fermenting kraut inside. And it is big enough to make 7 quarts of sauerkraut! This last batch is the largest I have ever made, and with the help of friends, it went very quickly.

The recipe we used is based on the one in Wild Fermentation, but really it is just salt and cabbage. We added caraway too.

1) Chop or grate cabbage, with or without hearts, however you like.

We used a blend of green and red cabbages, and tried three different shredding techniques:
1) My food processor (which has a grater blade and shreds very small)
2) My hand-me down mandoline (an orange plastic job that you might remember from the pay per view commercials circa 1980)
3) A sharp knife

My personal fave was the mandoline because it made long thin strips, and because it was even FASTER than the food processor?! woah. who needs these new-fangled electronic gadgets when you can do better without?

2) Sprinkle salt on cabbage as you go. This is because the salt pulls water out of the cabbage, which creates the brine for the fermentation process. It also keeps it crunchy.

Katz's recipe calls for 5 pounds of cabbage to 3 T sea salt

Through some scientific hand weighing, we determined that each head of cabbage approximated about 1 T of salt (the small ones a little less, the big ones a bit more). And we just poured in the caraway seeds in between in quantities less than the salt.

3) Add other veggies if you like, or herbs and spices.

4) Mix ingredients together and pack into crock (or jar or whatever food grade bucket you use).

We established a fancy system to get the most liquid out of the cabbage: using the butt end of a wine bottle, we pounded the cabbage in a bowl before transferring it to the crock, where it was pounded some more with a fat rolling pin. This got lots of liquid out of the cabbage and allowed for a jam packed crock.

5) Cover kraut with a plate or some other lid that fits snugly. Place a clean weight (glass jug filled with water) on the cover. This will keep the cabbage submerged under the brine. Cover the whole thing with cloth to keep dust off.
*This is where the fancy German crock comes in handy...no dust via the water seal.

6) Leave the crock to ferment for 1-4 weeks. It was getting cool the last several weeks already, and ours sat out about 3 weeks. The warmer it is, the faster the fermentation goes.

7) Check the kraut every so often. Sometimes a white film (aka mold) appears on the top of the liquid. This is normal and you can just scrape it off (any remaining bits will break up and be unnoticeable). It is due to air hitting the surface, but the kraut itself is under the "anaerobic protection of the brine" (I particularly like that line).

8) Enjoy! (Taste along the way til its the tang you like)

We packed up the many quarts of kraut and stuck them in the fridge. They need to be chilled at this point or they will continue to ferment. Some people can their kraut, but heating the kraut kills all of the really really good stuff (drink the liquid as a "rare delicacy and digestive tonic" says Katz).

Saag Paneer

This recipe is from my friend Ixchel, cook and roommate extraordinaire. Sadly, she no longer lives in Minneapolis so Mary and I were on our own this time. Thanks to Angelica for organic spinach fresh off the farm and to my mom for a never-ending supply of tomatoes. Delicious and nutritious. Especially good if you listen to Erasure while you make it.

Paneer:

1/2 gallon whole milk

2-3 tbsp white vinegar

Saag:

2 pounds fresh spinach, trimmed, washed and coarsely chopped

1 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek

1 jalapeno, minced

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 inch piece of fresh ginger, finely grated

1 cup finely chopped tomatoes

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cornmeal

2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp cinnamon

-To make the paneer, heat the milk in a large, heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat.

-Meanwhile, place a colander in the sink and line it with 3-4 layers of cheesecloth.

-When the milk begins to boil, turn the heat to low. Quickly add the vinegar and stir. The mixture will curdle at this point, the whey separating from the curds.

-Empty the mixture into the colander and drain out the whey (which you can save for other uses). Twist the cheesecloth tightly to form a ball. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can.

-Place the ball, still in the cloth, on a cookie sheet, top it with another cookie sheet and put some giant books on top of it. Let sit for about 45 minutes.

-Meanwhile, make the saag.

-Bring one cup of water to a boil in a large pan. Add the spinach, fenugreek, and jalapeno and cook covered for 15-20 minutes.

-In a separate pan, saute the onion, ginger, tomatoes and remaining ingredients until thickened.

-Blend or mash the spinach, depending on what consistency you like.

-Combine the onion/tomato/spice mixture with the spinach.

-Slice the paneer into rectangular chunks and add to the saag.

-Heat and serve with rice or naan.

Fermented green tomatoes

My tomatoes had a rough year. From what I hear, they weren't alone. The first fruits began to rot on the vine before they turned red. Bottom rot, a pocket of water that accumulates on the bottom of the fruit, is (according to Wikipedia) a possible consequence of erratic watering behavior. My beginning-of-the-season over-eagerness followed by a week and a half vacation might have had something to do with this.
I didn't want to throw them away, so I decided to experiment with fermentation. The tomatoes in my first jar ended up tasting a lot like green olives. I liked them so much I started wondering whether I should let the rest of my tomatoes turn red. Lucky for me, the threat of early frost came along just in time, and I decided to just call it on the tomato plants rather than tucking them into layers of blankets every other night.
This more recent batch was a bit crunchier and greener, so I'm excited to see if/how the flavor changes.

Here are some guidelines:
Put on a good record, probably something good and twangy
Pack your sliced green tomatoes into a clean jar
Add some other flavorful stuff like onions or garlic or peppers
Add some spices and keep them whole (I like mustard seeds and black peppercorns)
Add 2 T whey per pint
Add 1/2 T salt per pint (or closer to 1 T if you're not using whey)

Top off the jar with filtered water, screw on the lid (not too tight) and let it sit (covered) on your counter for awhile. In the heat of summer, I only waited a few days, but with the colder weather you'll probably want to wait a bit longer. Test the tomatoes anytime to check if they're tasty enough for you. When they are, put them in the fridge and keep for as long as you like (ok, probably not more than a year).

ketchup

A few weekends ago, my kitchen turned into a tomato-processing MACHINE. With an absurd amount of tomatoes, plenty of beer, pie and ice cream, we managed to crank out more than 30 pints of salsa. Even so, I woke up the next morning to a beautiful box of paste tomatoes waiting patiently for their turn. Now, I'm a big fan of salsa and all, but the thought of making any more was pretty unbearable. Enter: the king of condiments, ketchup.
When I was a kid, I wouldn't think twice about sucking that nasty red paste right out of the bottle. Perhaps I overdid it in my youth, though, because my (slightly) more refined adult palette has never been a fan of the grocery store variety. Lucky me, this stuff is NOT grocery store ketchup. It's spicy and tangy and has a much more pleasant (and believable) consistency. No corn syrup here! Some of you might even be tempted to bring a jar with you to your favorite bar (aghhhmeganaghm).

From: http://www.canningacrossamerica.com/recipes/regular-ol-tomato-ketchup-but-better/

1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
5 whole cloves
5 cardamom pods, crushed
1 star anise
10 black peppercorns
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes
1 large yellow onion, quartered
2 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil, like canola or sunflower
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/3 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
1/2 cup champagne vinegar
1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions: Using a piece of cheesecloth (or an empty tea bag), tie the cinnamon, bay, cloves, cardamom, anise, and peppercorns into a bundle. Set aside.

Pour the tomatoes and their juice into a food processor or blender. Puree until totally smooth, and set aside all but about 1/4 cup. To the remainder, add the onion and puree.

In a large nonreactive Dutch oven (bigger than you think, as this will splatter like a Pollock painting), heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion puree and the 2 teaspoons of salt and stir well. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, letting the puree reduce and lightly brown. Add the tomato, sugar, and vinegar, turn the heat to a low simmer, and reduce for about 15 minutes, uncovered, with an occasional stir. Add the spice bundle and reduce for 10 minutes more. When it’s done reducing, it should be a little thinner than commercial ketchup. Stir in the paprika, taste for seasoning, and adjust as needed.

Let the ketchup cool and remove the spice bundle. Pour into a jar and chill overnight, or for at least 6 hours.

How to Store It Refrigerated: homemade ketchup will keep at least 2 months.

How to Can It: Ladle into sterilized half-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace, and process in a hot-water bath for 15 minutes at altitudes up to 1,000 feet, 20 minutes at altitudes up to 6,000 feet, and 25 minutes at altitudes over 6,000 feet

Nanaimo bars

Thank you to Megan for hosting such a magical blogluck and for creating an incredible summer table! Here's the recipe for the dessert, courtesy of Oh, She Glows. Yum!


Note: they can be made gluten-free by using GF graham crackers!

Caprese Salad

Ah the end of summer! Soon there will be overnight frosts and the tomatoes will all have to come inside. I love this simple salad - it is so easy and delicious. I tried something new this time, and reduced the balsamic. Just take more than you want to use (not quite twice as much) and set it on low heat on the stove for 5-10 minutes. (Keep a close eye though so you don't burn it - a heavy pot will be nice for this.) It is done when it is a thick, pourable product somewhere between maple syrup and molasses. The reduced version is richer, sweeter, and looks nicer poured over the tomatoes and mozzarella.

Slice tomatoes and mozzarella and layer on a plate
Insert basil leaves wherever they fit (in an aesthetic fashion)
Drizzle olive oil over the top
Drizzle reduced balsamic
Sprinkle salt and pepper
Enjoy!!

*I had a little left over balsamic and ate it over some fresh peaches. Yum! It would be good on strawberries too.

Blogluck!

End of summer blogluck! So lovely and delicious.

Kale, peach, corn and feta salad

This was a blogluck contribution that I thought turned out super tasty. The combination of veggies and fruit are not something I would ever have come up with...peaches, on salad?! The flavors were amazing together though, and it is another raw kale option that tasted really nice and fresh and substantial. I think this is especially perfect now, when the peaches are just ripe and the corn is fresh off the cob.

I found the original recipe at a new blog here. Her directions are a wee bit vague though, and I made a larger amount. My measurements are below, but see hers if you want to make a salad for 2 or 4.

Serves 8
2 large bunches kale
1/4 c. sherry wine vinegar or red wine vinegar
2 lemons, juiced
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 c. cilantro
salt
1 red onion
4-6 ears corn (depending on size of ear, mine were really small, so I used 6)
4 ripe peaches
1 block salty feta

1. Remove stem from kale and chop into bite size pieces.
2. Mix vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil and cilantro. Add salt generously. In a large salad bowl, mix kale with dressing and stir well so that all greens are coated.
3. Sliver the red onion and add to salad.
4. After cooking the corn, remove kernals and add to bowl, along with peaches. Top with crumbled feta.

This salad seems to get more tasty the longer it marinates. I recommend making it at least an hour in advance.

Camping delicacies

I went camping last weekend near the boundary waters and ended up having some really good food despite the complications of needing to plan meals that did not need refrigeration and were not overly heavy. It's a different kind of food planning - I am more used to bike touring where you can bring cans of things, or pick up stuff along the way. So, in the hopes of spurning a new category on WFDM, I am sharing some of my camping food highlights. Note photo here of "the cooking area" - a grate that was used more as a table, and a lovely view!

I have to say, the total topper of a meal resulted from the final fish catch of the trip - it was so good I will literally try to recreate this at home: fish curry. Before leaving, I packaged up 3/4 c. of basmati rice mixed with 1 t. of curry powder. Another baggie with dried coconut and raisins also came along (to add to the rice with some ghee towards the end of cooking), and a package of Kitchen of India's "ready to eat" fish curry paste. This curry sauce was amazing - spicier than any packaged sauce I have ever had, super easy, and with all whole ingredients and nothing weird. AND, there was a little sauce left over - which made a great addition to pasta sauce the next day.

Pasta and sauce: Mixing the aforementioned left-over curry sauce, an onion and 3 banana peppers (that all made it to day 4 unscathed!) and a small can of tomato paste with some spices and water (oregano, pepper flakes, dried onion, garlic) turned out great. It topped GF pasta* that can be cooked in only 8 minutes.

*The pasta actually is a potato pasta, and we ended up saving the water to try making some sort of horchata type beverage for the day's canoe travel (thus increasing water consumption - the water tasted a little weird - and also relieving the need to dump starchy water anywhere). The experiment was surprisingly successful: left over pasta water plus most of a can of milk, honey and stevia (or whatever sweetener) all shaken up in a nalgene. It totally tasted like horchata, though i would bring cinnamon for it next time.

Other items of interest:
My Charming Companion made Ghee before we left, which is a process of heating butter so that it separates, leaving a more solid, buttery, rich product that can go without refrigeration for up to 3 months and is very good for cooking at high temperatures. See how to make it here. We fried fish in it, added it to rice and porridge...it was aces. The photo here shows it going on a fry pan. Ghee = Delish.

I am new to the world of fishing and preparing fresh fish, and we forgot to bring a corn meal/GF flour mix to fry the fish in. We did have some buckwheat flour (originally for pancakes) that we used instead, and did some frying in that with lard (another fat that stays solid without refrigeration). Whatever flour substance, I am bringing something along for fried fish next time.

Buttermilk Cake

This is from Heidi Swanson's cookbook "Super Natural Everyday." It's delicious, not too sweet to eat for breakfast but sweet enough to satisfy a hankering. She also recommends a winter version of this cake using dates and walnuts in place of the plums.

2 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 c fine grain natural cane sugar

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 large eggs

1 1/2 c buttermilk

1/4 c unsalted butter, melted and cooled a little

grated zest of 3 lemons

plums, thinly sliced...I used 3 medium

3 tbsp turbinado sugar

-Preheat oven to 400, with rack in top third of the oven. Butter and flour an 11" round tart pan.

-Whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.

-In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk, then whisk in the butter and lemon zest.

-Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir briefly, until just combined.

-Spoon the batter into the tart pan, pushing it out toward the edges. Place plums on top and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

-Bake for 25 min or until cake has set.

Quinoa bowl

I recently got an email suggesting all sorts of new cookbooks, most of which were vegan and gluten-free. I used to buy cookbooks on a whim, but now I'm more selective (due to financial and spatial constraints), so I checked out most of the list from the library. Can we talk for a minute about the Hennepin County Public Library? I cannot say enough good about this library system. It is AMAZING! Thank you, wonderful HCPL! They have an amazing selection, a fantastic Interlibrary Loan system (way better than the one at the U, FYI), and FREE use of incredible databases. Unbelievable! I.love.this.library.

Anyway, OK, I altered a recipe from The Conscious Cook, which is a very pretty cookbook (tons of photos) but slightly more "chef-y" than I like (e.g., he uses ring molds and things for plating. Plating!). Still, there are many delicious-looking recipes in the book and I'm excited to make a few.

This was supposed to be a quinoa, avocado, and sweet potato timbale with roasted tomatillo dressing, but turned into a bowl of quinoa + yam + the dressing.


1) Make some quinoa.

2) Cut up a sweet potato (I used a yam) into small cubes and saute in a little coconut oil until crispy.

3) Roast 2 tomatillos (10 minutes or so in a 375 oven). Combine tomatillos, 3 T. olive oil, 1 T. rice vinegar, 1/4 c. chopped cilantro, and 1 t. light agave nectar (and salt and pepper) in a blender. Process until smooth.

4) Combine everything in a bowl! Add fried tortilla strips, avocado, etc., if you want.

(Apologies for the terrible photo. I am keeping true to my bad photography on both blogs!)

Key Lime Kream Bars

This recipe is from a cute little cookbook called Ani's Raw Food Desserts by Ani Phyo (who has branded herself an "eco-lifestylist"). Oh my. Anyway, I'm excited about some of the recipes because they are so easy! (And very tasty.)

I cut this one in half because I didn't have 4 cups of cashews--it worked just fine.

4 c. cashews
1 c. lime juice
1/2 c. agave nectar
1/2 c. liquid coconut oil
1 c. water, as needed (I probably used 1/4 c. water)

Combine everything in a food processor (or high-speed blender) and process until smooth. Scoop the mixture into a pie dish and freeze until chilled. Cut into bars to serve.

Yum!

Tomato chickpea soup

Another Vegan Yum Yum recipe, and another one with chickpeas! (She's winning me over.)

Once again, this is quick and easy and yummy. And just in time for fall!

2-3 T. veggie oil (I used olive oil)
1 onion
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced (she says this is optional, but when is garlic ever optional!?)
1/2 t. cumin
1/2 t. chili flakes
1/2 t. mustard seeds
1/2 t. turmeric
1 15-oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 t. salt
2 T. nutri-yeast (also optional)
1 c. hot water
Pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil, add the onion, and saute until softened. Add garlic, cumin, and chili flakes, and stir for another minute.
2. Add the mustard seeds, turmeric, and chickpeas. Cook until the chickpeas begin to turn golden.
3. Add the tomatoes and salt and let simmer for 10-15 minutes until the tomatoes are cooked.
4. Using an immersion blender (or transferring the mixture to one), blend! (But first, add the nutri-yeast and hot water.) Adjust the seasonings.