Six months

I can't believe that it has been six months since my last post. Thanks to gentle prodding, I am going to try and post more often. I need to do this for my own interest as well. Cooking can become very mundane if we aren't careful. Sharing this blog with you all helps to give a purpose to a very ordinary necessity in life.

I will be making a homemade ranch dressing and sharing it with you. This dressing will have a lot of enzymes in it because it is made with raw ingredients. There is no MSG or chemicals in it. Some recipes take a few days to prepare the ingredients to be able to post all at once so stay tuned.

Lisa

"Healthy habits aren't a burden. They're habits. "With habituation, one can get used to anything" observed an 8th century Indian pundit, Tsong Khapa. Now, chose one new diet goal for yourself that you want to become a habit."

Angel Food Cake

We didn't want to throw out the 12 egg whites that were seperated from the 12 egg yolks for the ice cream, so we made angel food cake.

Recipe for 12-Egg-White Angel Food Cake (taken from recipeland.com)
1 1/4 cups cake flour* sifted
1 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 large egg whites (room temperature)
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional; we used it)

In bowl sift together flour, 3/4 cup sugar and salt.

Re-sift 3 times. Set aside.

Beat egg whites until foamy.

Add cream of tartar and continue to beat until soft peaks form.

Gradually beat in remaining 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, until mixture holds stiff peaks.

Fold in vanilla and almond extracts. Add 1/4 flour mixture at a time, folding gently with rubber spatula.

Gently spoon batter into ungreased 10-inch angel food cake pan.

Cut through center of batter 2 or 3 times with spatula to remove air bubbles.

Bake at 350* 40-45 minutes or until top springs back when touched with finger and wood pick inserted near center comes out clean.

Invert pan over bottle or inverted funnel and let stand until thoroughly cool. (The new pans have little legs, so there is no need to use bottle.)

When cool, loosen sides and center with metal spatula & turn out onto platter.

Makes 10-12 servings.

*To make your own cake flour, put 2 tablespoons of corn starch into 1 cup and fill rest with flour. For the 1/4 cup add 1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch and fill rest with flour.

Roasted Beets

You start with just regular ol' dirty beets.

Chop tops off, rinse beets, put in dish. Greens are there too.

Rinse and spin greens.

Cooked beets! They go in the 250-degree oven for 2 hours, or until soft enough to slice easily.

Peel and slice cooked beets.

Puts lots of butter on them. :D (Cover and keep warm.)

Greens in pan with much butter.

They cook down a lot. This is after sauteeing.

Ice Cream

Ingredients for double batch: 12 egg yolks, 2 cups sugar (scant), 6 cups cream, 2 cups milk, & 2 Tbsp vanilla.

Separating the yolks from the whites. (They are very mischeivous and sometimes fight when together.) We put the yolks in the sugar.

Mom showing an egg, and then it separated.

Whisk the yolks in the sugar.

Put cream and milk in heavy saucepan. Slowly heat it, until small bubbles begin to appear around the edge of the pot. Remove from heat.

Whisking all the time, gradually (and slowly) pour the warm milk/cream mixture into the egg/sugar mixture.

Return to saucepan. Stirring constantly, reheat it until it coats the spoon. Do not let the mixture boil.

Add vanilla.


Allow the custard to chill overnight or 24 hours. Then follow your ice cream maker's instructions on how to make the ice cream.

We had our ice cream as root beer floats...

...and sharing it with friends.

:D

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Ingredients: 4 cans tuna fish, 1/2 cup butter, 4 cups milk, two celery stalks, medium onion, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Celery and onion in butter.

Add flour and salt.

And milk. (This picture shows the beginning of quite a mess.)

Stir until thickened.

Add tuna fish.

Add cheese -- about a cup. (We forgot it in the ingredients.)

The ingredients to cook noodles. (I gave Mom a hard time about this, but she wanted it anyway.)

Add tuna glop to cooked, drained noodles.

Put it all in a greased 9"x13" pan and bake at 350* until top is crispy.

Santa Fe Black Bean Salad

Katie also made this recipe.

Ingredients: 2 cups black beans, 1 cup cooked corn, 1/2 cup green bell pepper, 1/2 cup red bell pepper, 1/2 cup onion, 1/4 cup lime or lemon juice, 1/2 cup oil (not shown :P), 2 Tbsp cilantro (we don't like cilantro so we don't use it), 1 tsp ground cumin (we use sometimes 1/2 tsp), 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or a few shakes).

Mix the oil, lime/lemon juice, cilantro, cumin, salt, and cayenne in a medium bowl.

Add vegetables. :)

The End. :D

But we usually mix this with our homemade salsa. :)

Salsa

Katie made this recipe. :)

The ingredients for the salsa. Frozen tomatoes from last year's garden, frozen peppers from last year's garden, a medium-sized onion, and a garlic clove. (You can, of course, use fresh or canned tomatoes and peppers.)

Then you sautee the onion in olive oil, add tomatoes and peppers and stir frequently. Throw the chopped garlic in toward the end. Make it to the desired consistency.

Crackers & Yogurt Cheese: Part Two

The next day I roll the cracker dough out on a pastrycloth covered in flour. And cut them out in little circles and put them on a greased cookie sheet. Bake them in 250* oven until dry. (About an hour or so.)

The yogurt with all the whey drained out.

Cutting chives for the yogurt cheese.

My special ingredients for yogurt cheese: black olives, leeks, garlic, chives, salt, and pepper.

The finished yogurt cheese!

Crackers & Yogurt Cheese: Part One

Along with mayonnaise, I also make the crackers and yogurt cheese 'round here. Mostly because I eat the majority of it. :D

First we grind 1 1/3 cups rye berries for the crackers.

While that is grinding, we collect our materials for yogurt cheese: 1 quart yogurt, a colander, a bowl, and a threadbare-but-not-holey towel.

We place the colander in the bowl, the towel in the colander, and the yogurt in the towel. :D Leave enough towel to cover the yogurt.

Ingredients for crackers: 2 1/2 rye flour (you can use any flour), 4 Tbsp butter, 1 cup yogurt, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 2 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds.

The cracker dough. :)

Let it all sit overnight. (I find that putting the dough in the refrigerator makes it too hard to work with.)