30 Days of Real Meals- #2 Sourdough Pizza

Ancient pizza was leavened with soudough, so I figured I'd give it a try tonight.  The BEST pizza crust ever - and I didn't feel all bloated and gross after I ate it.  Day 2- Pizza Night.

SOURDOUGH PIZZA 

1 1/2 cups active sourdough culture

7 cups organic flour (I used a combination of Red Fife, unbleached wheat and spelt)

2 1/2 cups warm water

1 1/2 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil or melted coconut oil

Tired of the same old, same old pizza toppings?  Check these out:

Butternut Squash Pizza

Broccoli Pizza

Artichoke and Basil Pesto Pizza

Apple Cheddar Pizza

Bacon Pesto Pizza w/Wilted Chard and Onion

Pepperoni Pizza with Mushroom and Olives

Veggie Pizza

Method: Mix together the culture, flour, water, oil, and salt in a large mixing bowl and knead it for 20-30 minutes to develop the gluten.  Place the dough in a bowl and cover it with a plate or lid and let it proof for 4 hours at 77*-82*F.  Punch down and divide into 6 balls.  Place the balls on a baking sheet, cover with an overturned roasting pan, and proof for an additional 4 hours at room temperature(70*).

     Press the dough into desired shape on unscented coconut oil greased pizza pans and proof for 1/2 hour while you get your toppings ready.  Sprinkle with toppings and bake in a preheated 425* oven for 7-9 minutes or until the edges brown.

30 Days of Real Meals - #1

Welcome to Day #1 of Real Meals!  It's winter, the pickings are slim, but we're eating, and eating real.  Good or bad, I am going to share with you what my family of four (2 adults, a 5 year old, and a 2 year old) eats every day for the next 30 days.  In many ways, we are your typical Canadian family, with a few twists.  For one, we never eat out.  We eat only organically. We strive to eat seasonally and as locally as possible.  So within those parameters, my job is to juggle raising two kids, and make three healthy meals, every day.  The pictures may not always be pretty as I reach for the camera regardless of the lighting or perfection of the dish I'm photographing - but hey, over here, we like to keep it real.

DAY #1 - DINNER

Romano Roasted Potatoes and Carrots

Steamed Cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts with Nori- drizzled with olive oil and umbeshi vinegar

Roasted Haddock with Salsa and Romano Cheese

ROMANO ROASTED POTATOES AND CARROTS

4 cups organic Yukon Gold potatoes (3/4" on all sides)

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp garlic salt or powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tsp organic paprika

1 tsp organic ground black pepper

5 Tbsp grated Romano cheese

Method: Preheat oven to 425*.  Place the cubed potatoes into a baking dish or cast iron skillet.  

Transfer dish to the oven and bake 30 mins. 

Remove from the oven and toss - put back in oven for another 15-25 minutes, or until they are golden and crispy.

HADDOCK with Salsa

4 pieces hook and line haddock, rinsed and patted dry

1-2 cups organic tomato salsa

sea salt and pepper

romano cheese

Method:  Preheat the broiler in your oven.  Spread the salsa onto the fish, season with sea salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Broil for about 10-15 minutes, or until fish is firm.

SOURDOUGH BREAD that doesn't feel like a brick

I am pretty happy with my latest batch of sourdough culture.  It is a different recipe from the one I shared with you a while back for Pain au Levain, which produces a more rustic, French style bread.  The thing I like about it most is that it produces loaves of bread that are much lighter than some of my previous sourdough experiments - like light enough to make a sandwich with! Yay!  

     I just can't make bread with yeast anymore. After reading so much about how sourdough predigests the gluten and neutralizes enzyme inhibitors (that interfere with digestion) and phytic acid (that blocks mineral absorption), how could I possible feed that to my family with a good conscience?  Well, I couldn't, and now I don't have to

     Perhaps the best thing about this bread is the ritual I've gotten into which involves getting the bread started in the evening when the house is quiet and the children are in bed.  So, no little fingers poking into the dough, or mid kneading diaper changes are involved.  Peaceful, relaxing, unhurried and pleasant.  The dough rests overnight, and then in the morning I let it rise in the pans and bake it by our afternoon naptime.  Perfect.

SOURDOUGH CULTURE

Ok, first you have to create a really active culture.

organic flour (I used unbleached and whole wheat flour)

warm water

Method:  Mix 2 cups of flour and 1 1/2 cups warm water in a 2 litre glass bowl.  Stir the mixture vigorously to allow lots of air to infuse the batter. Place the bowl uncovered on top of your fridge, or another nice warm spot.  Stir the mixture at least twice every 24 hours.  In 2-3 days, some bubbles should appear on the surface.  At this point, feed it a cup of flour and enough water to maintain the previous consistency (like thick pancake batter), and stir it well.  Be sure to still stir it twice a day.  You may need to repeat additional feedings at 12-24 hour intervals for several successive days.  When it forms a 1-2" layer of foam, you will know you have an active yeast in your brew.

     Once you have a good, bubbly culture, use it to make bread, or pour it into some mason jars and refrigerate.  If you do refrigerate, be sure to feed your culture once a month to keep it alive.

Fully Active Culture

     When a refrigerated culture is warmed and fed, the organisms begin to reactivate, but the activity of the wild yeast is often inhibited by the increased acidity of the culture.  To reduce acidity do the following:

- remove jar from fridge and fill the jar with warm water while you stir it vigorously

- leave about 1 cup in the jar and discard the rest

- feed the culture in the jar 2/3 cup flour and enough water to make a thick pancake batter

- proof at 70-75* for about 2-4 hours until it is foamy

- if your culture has been in the fridge for longer than 2 weeks you may have to repeat this process

Culture Proof

   Warming and feeding for 2 hours is usually not enough to prepare a refrigerated culture.  Therefore you must create a culture proof:

- start with a fully active culture

- stir it and put half in another jar 

- to each jar add 2/3 cup flour and water to make a thick pancake batter

- proof 8-12 hours

- now it is ready to use to make bread

SOURDOUGH BREAD

(makes one loaf - I usually double it)

1 cup culture

1 cup warm water

1 tsp sea salt

2 cups organic unbleached flour

1 cup organic whole spelt flour

1/2 cup organic whole wheat flour

Method:  Pour the culture into a mixing bowl.  Stir the water and salt into it.  Add the flour  a cup at a time until the dough is too stiff to mix by hand.  Knead it until it is smooth and satiny.

     Proof the dough overnight at 70* F in a greased and covered bowl- it should double in size.  

     In the morning, use a spatula to gently ease the dough out onto a floured board.  Allow the dough to rest for 30 mins.  

     Flatten the dough slightly, then gently form a ball by lifting from the edges and pulling into the centre. Then form into a loaf shape and put into a greased loaf pan.

     Cover with a large overturned bowl and proof for 2-4 hours .  

     Place the pan into a cooled oven, then turn the temperature to 375* and bake for about 45-70 minutes.  Remove from pan and allow to cool.

SUPER SIMPLE (and fast) BROTH

I am just about to make a bit pot of turkey soup and wanted to let you in on an amazing tip:  pressure cookers make the BEST broth.  I even amazed myself last night when after Christmas dinner I proceeded to pick all the turkey meat off the bones, put away leftovers, and still have the energy (and desire) to make broth.  The reason for this my friends, is that I was dying to try making broth using my pressure cooker because I knew it would only take 30 minutes.  What?!  That's right, you can make the awesome, nutrient dense bone broth that we all know is so good for us, in as much time as it takes you to watch a sitcom on tv.  I know, I know, I even posted a vlog detailing the 12-24 hour bone broth marathons I used to have - but no longer.  I am a pressure cooker convert.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this was the best turkey broth I have ever made.  It even looked beautiful, a lovely golden yellow.  So, if you are out there with a fridge full of turkey and a carcass just begging to be made into soup, try using your pressure cooker - I swear you will thank me.  

TURKEY BROTH (that will raise the dead)

Okay, so just to pre-empt this recipe, my pressure cooker is big, but not huge, so I had to divide the carcass and only put half in my pot.  Don't worry, the other half is tucked in the freezer for another cold winter day when I am in the mood for soup.

1/2 organic free range turkey carcass

1 large organic carrot, chopped

2 organic leeks or onions, chopped

2 organic celery stalks, chopped

1 tsp organic apple cider vinegar

1 tsp sea salt

organic black pepper, ground

optional- bay leaf, thyme

Method:  Place all ingredients in a pressure cooker pot, close lid and bring to high pressure, lower heat just enough to sustain pressure (like 1 or 2 your stove dial) and let cook for 30 minutes.  Remove from heat and allow the pressure to subside on it's own.  Strain and reserve stock for soup or freeze.  Another tip:  I like to freeze my stock in stainless steel bowls in the freezer and then I either forget about them and the bowls stay in the freezer until I make soup, or I tip the frozen stock chunks out and store them in a freezer container until ready to use - no plastic!)

HOLIDAY BAKING

It's hard to believe three months have passed since I last wrote a post on here.  Life became so FULL with so many important and exciting things that just seemed to overshadow so many other important and exciting things in my life.  But I'm back and happy to be in immersed deeply in the celebration of winter holidays.  I've been up late sanding, painting, and knitting special gifts for my little boys.  Days have been full with cookie baking and playing in the snow.  Speaking of which, today I am sharing a recipe for Spelt Shortbread that I made using coconut sugar.  Coconut sugar is quickly becoming my all time favorite sweetener because:

* it is natural, with no added chemicals or additives used to make it

* it is organic

* it is high in minerals like potassium, magnesium, zinc and iron - it also contains vitamins B1, B2, B3, and B6

* it has twice the iron, four times the magnesium and over 10 times the amount of zinc of brown sugar

* it has a low glycemic index

* now readily available and can be used 1:1 for granulated sugar

What's not to like? 

SPELT SHORTBREAD

Makes 2 trays of cookies

2 cups organic spelt flour ( I used white and whole spelt flour)

2/3 cup organic white rice flour

1/2 cup organic coconut sugar (I grinded it to a finer powder in my Vita Mix)

1 cup organic unsalted butter

pinch of sea salt

Method:  Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl and rub in the butter with your fingers.  Turn onto a board sprinkled with flour, roll out and cut.  Bake at 350* for about 10 minutes.

EASY, PEASY LACTO-FERMENTED CARROTS

Hats off to Sally Fallon for really getting people interested in lacto-fermentation.  I love it, it's so easy, tastes great and is awesomely good for you too.  One of my favorite recipes from her book Nourishing Traditions is a really simple shredded carrot.  In the book Sally recommends adding fresh ginger, but to be honest, I think it tastes better without.  So, after harvesting the carrots out of our garden before we move to the new digs, I made a batch and thought I'd show you how I did it.  

LACTO-FERMENTED CARROTS

adapted from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions

4 cups grated organic carrots

1 Tbsp sea salt

4 Tbsp organic whey

Method:  Add the salt and whey to grated carrots.  Bash with a pestle until the juices start to ooze, then pack it into a glass jar.  Cover and let sit at room temperature for three days to ferment, then refrigerate. Keeps for at least 3 months.

KEEPING THE CROP

 

 Garden harvesting is in full swing, and each day finds me out in the garden and then into the kitchen to preserve the bounty.  To make things a little extra challenging this year, I must find ways to preserve the harvest that do not rely on freezer space.  We are moving in a few weeks and will be downsizing to one refrigerator.  In other words, we are going from a house with a deep freeze and two upright refrigerators/freezer units down to just one!  Day by day I am using up whatever we've had stored in these freezers, but I am starting to wonder how I am going to work with less freezer storage.  

     Our garden produces so much kale each summer that I usually blanch and then freeze it in Mason jars.  I did some of that this year, but I am also trying out a couple of new techniques.  The first idea I got from my sister who really loves kale.  I was over at her house one day and noticed she was juicing a lot of kale and then pouring the juice into an ice cube tray and freezing it so that she could use cubes of kale juice in her smoothies in the winter.  It's a great way to use up lots of kale and very little freezer space, which is perfect for me.

     I've also been giving my dehydrator a work out drying kale.  This way I can powder it and add it to whatever I like in the winter - popcorn, soups, smoothies, baby food - really the possibilities are endless.     

     I am also back into the lacto-fermentation groove.  The beets from the garden are now delicious lacto-fermented Pickled Beets.  The cabbages that barely survived a full out attack from some sort of caterpillar army managed to produce a nice large jar of Cortido once I cut off all the nasty bits and removed the critters still living in and on them.  The onions and fatty carrots Scott planted also made their way into the cortido, which was really exciting because pickling is so much more gratifying when you use vegetables from your very own garden.

     It was also high time I dug up the rest of the potatoes and figure out what to do with them until we are ready to eat them.  I had no idea you need to be very careful when you harvest potatoes.  Any little blemish or scratch on the surface of the potato could cause it to spoil and ruin the bunch when they are in cold storage.  Next year I will be extra careful not to stab them with the pitch fork when I dig them up, nor will I carelessly toss them into the basket.

     I had big plans to spend the afternoon packing, but when I got home from the market all I wanted to do was pickle and make immune boosting herbal remedies for the winter.  No one was home, so I went with it.  Besides, something had to be done with all the cucumbers growing in the garden.  Last week I made a batch of my favorite Cucumber Relish, and really wanted to use the rest to make my ultimate sweet sliced dill pickles that taste amazing on sandwiches.  

SWEET SLICED DILL PICKLES

Makes about 5-500ml jars

4 lb organic pickling cucumbers

6 medium sized organic onions

3 cups local honey

4 cups organic apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

1/2 cup sea salt

5 cloves organic garlic

5 heads fresh organic dill

Method:  Slice cucumbers into 1/4" slices, and the onion into thin onion rings.  Set aside.  Combine honey, vinegar, water and salt in a large stainless steel saucepan, bring to a boil.  Add the onion and cucumbers to the liquid and return the mixture to a full boil.  

     Place 1 clove of garlic and 1 head of dill  in a hot jar.  Pack cucumber and onion slices to within 3/4" of top rim.  Add pickling liquid to cover cucumbers to within 1/2" of top rim.  Remove air bubbles, readjust head space and wipe jar rim.  Screw on lidd and place jar in canner.  Repeat.  Return water to boil and process for 10 minutes.

     My oldest son is starting Kindergarten this year, and so I've been getting him prepared for school - getting him a knapsack and clothes, organizing his lunch kit.  I am now starting to think about winter colds and him being exposed to so many children on a daily basis.  The whole family has started taking fermented cod liver oil to bump up our vitamin A & D, not to mention all that essential fatty acid goodness.  While at the health food store I was about to pick up a bottle of elderberry syrup when I suddenly remembered this post by a friend of mine over at Sparrow Tree who shared a simple homemade version.  Now I must admit to having fantasies of finding a spot nearby where wild elderberries grow so I could wildcraft and then make healing syrups, but I have yet to locate this special place.  So, until then I will use dried berries from the store.  This stuff is so delicious, I am pretty sure I won't have any trouble getting my son to take a spoonful of it every day to keep him healthy.  I think I am almost ready to send my little boy off into the world.  Sigh.