Cabbage and Carrots - Ethiopian Tikil Gomen

Herb and Seed Sourdough Bread

This is essentially the same recipe as my Basic Sourdough Bread, but spiced up a bit. The method is the same though. Adding herbs and seeds is a good way to make your bread more exciting, even if it's not turning out as well as you'd like...

Malai Kofta Sauce - Gateway To India Style

Simple Roasted Vegetables

If you want to get more vegetables into your diet, this is one of the easiest ways to do it. Slow roasted vegetables are a delicious and savory addition to any meal. You can make them in big batches and store the leftovers in the fridge. Have them with eggs for breakfast, with crackers at lunch, or with some meat and pasta for dinner.

Basic Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Starter

Bread's got a bad reputation lately, but it hasn't always been that way. Bread has been a staple of the European diet for thousands of years, so why is it suddenly so bad for us? It's all about how it's made.

Store bought bread has been optimized to be fast and cheap to make. Industrialization is all well and good for some things, but it's turned bread from a nutritious food staple to junk food. There are 2 issues at play here:

1. Our guts can't break down the nutrients in most grains. Ever notice corn kernels in your poo? It's not just corn that we can't digest, most grains are that way. Grains are full of nutrients, but our guts need help use them.
2. Store bought breads are full of sugar. The sugar makes the bread dough rise fast, which manufacturers love. It also gives the bread a soft texture and sweet flavor, which we love. Unfortunately, the sugar is about the only part of the bread our bodies digest. This gives us a brief sugar high followed by a crash.

Before we had commercial yeast and sugar to leaven our breads, we had to do it with sourdough. The yeast in sourdough is slow. It takes no less than 24 hours to leaven a loaf of bread. During that time it's fermenting. The yeast slowly digests the flour and lets off CO2. This not only makes the dough raise, it also pre-digests the grain, unlocking the nutrients that our guts couldn't use before.

It's that simple. The natural fermentation that occurs when making sourdough makes bread a guilt-free nutritious food. Now here's how to make healthy delicious sourdough bread at home:

Making a Starter

Sourdough bread only take 3 ingredients: flour, water, and yeast. A starter is a simple mix of flour and water inoculated with yeast. You can get some starter from a friend, or you can make it yourself.

I think it's a great idea to make your starter from scratch. It helps you get acquainted with the fundamentals of bread making. Also, the flavor of each starter is unique to the place where it was made, so your starter will "taste like home" in a certain sense.

Making a starter from scratch will take about 3 weeks. To do so, mix half a cup or flour and half a cup of water in a glass container (I use a pint sized mason jar). Drape a small towel of cloth over it to keep stuff from falling in there and leave it on the counter. Once a day, scoop off the top half of the mixture and mix in 1/4 cup of fresh flour and water. After a week or two, you'll start to notice bubbles in the mixture. ITS ALIVE! By the end of 3 weeks, the mixture will be a fully mature starter, producing lots of bubbles and a tangy yeasty smell.

Storing and Maintaining a Starter

Taking care of a starter is a little like having a pet. You need to feed it and care for it regularly. I named mine Mittens.

You can keep your starter out on the counter indefinitely. Just remember to keep it covered with a cloth and feed it once a day. Feed it by scooping off the top half and mixing in 1/4 cup each of flour and water.

If you aren't using it regularly, you can put your starter in hibernation in the refrigerator. Feed it as you normally would by scooping off the top half and mixing in 1/4 cup each of flour and water. Transfer the starter to a clean glass container and cover with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the plastic to let it breath and put it in the fridge. I've kept my starter in the fridge for several weeks without any problems.

To wake a starter from hibernation, move it to the counter and feed it. Let it digest 12 hours, feed it again, and wait another 12 hours for it to be fully revived. Now your ready to bake!

Korean BBQ Sause

I'm filing this recipe under meats, but it's really just a sauce. You can use it on anything!

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Pear Puree
1/4 Cup Onion Puree
4 Cloves Garlic
1 Green Onion
2 TBS Soy Sauce
2 TBS Brown Sugar
1 TBS Sesame Oil
Pepper

Cook the ingredients. Put on food.

Crispy Chewy Sourdough Pancakes

Pancakes are a sort of indulgent weekend breakfast for Ed and I. This recipe takes some of the guilt out of eating bread for breakfast by making it fermented bread.

Serves 2 | Makes four 10" Pancakes

Ingredients
Sourdough Starter (about 1/2 cup)
3/4 cup, plus 1/4 cup Flour
3/4 cup, plus 1/4 cup Water
2 Eggs
2 Tbs Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
Healthy oil for cooking, I use coconut oil

The night before, combine the sourdough starter, flour, and water in a medium sized bowl. Consider using a combination of whole wheat and white flour for added flavor and nutrition. Cover the bowl with a clean dish cloth and let sit on the counter overnight.

In the morning, transfer 1/4 cup of the sourdough starter into a clean glass container. Mix in 1/4 of flour and 1/4 cup of water, cover, and set aside for your next project.

To the remaining sourdough starter, add the eggs, sugar, and salt. Heat a 10" skillet over medium low heat. Add a tablespoon of oil to the skillet and about a quarter of the batter. You may need to smooth out the batter to cover the bottom of the skillet. Cook until the bottom is golden, flip and cook till the second side is golden. Repeat with the remaining batter. Keep finished pancakes in a warm oven until ready to serve.

Root Vegetable Pie

Simple Roasted Leeks

Roasting vegetables is probably the best way to eat them. I joked at a recent dinner party that's it's been a long time since I've eaten lettuce - raw vegetables, just not my thing. But I love roasted vegetables. I'd estimate about half of what I eat is some kind of cooked veg. This recipe is one of my new favorites.

Leeks are delicious and really good for you. Until recently, I'd only really had leeks in soup. Oh what I was missing! Like most vegetables, roasting leeks concentrates their flavor and brings out their natural sweetness. All you need to add is the tiniest bit of salt and oil for a super yummy treat. 

Ingredients

1 Leek

1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp Miso Paste (can sub 1/4 teaspoon salt if you don't have miso)

2 Tbsp Shredded Hard Cheese (about 1/2 oz, I used Asiago)

Fresh ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 325. 

Chop the roots and tough leafy greens off the leek. Slice the leek stocks in half lengthwise and discard the outermost layer. Rinse any soil from between the outer layers. 

Mix the EVOO and miso, then brush it onto the cut surface of the leek (if not using miso, brush with EVOO and sprinkle with salt). Slice the leeks crosswise into 2 inch sections and line them up on a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with pepper and cheese. 

Bake for 40 minutes and enjoy. 

  

blackberry weekend

The best part of August? Blackberries, of coarse! So last weekend, Ana, Dane, and I went picking! Considering how prevelent blackberry brambles are in Tacoma, it was suprisingly difficult to find good berries. All of the obvious places were pretty picked over. Eventually, we found an undisturbed bush next to the highway. You can see pictures of our berry hunt on Ana's blog, Oh Ana.

When we got home, we got to work making delicious berry treats!
Before we got to the berries, we needed some bloody marys. I love this recipe, it's got horseradish, which gives drink a great complexity. Try it out!
Next up, blackberry cocktails. We made a puree of berries, peaches, and maple syrup, then blended with ice and absolute. Delicious!
No blackberry cooking spree is complete without cobbler! For a little extra flare, Ana poured some melted butter on top before baking. It was like magic in my mouth. So glad we made a couple of these!

lavender martini

Ever since I first went to the bar 1022 in Tacoma, I've been obsessed with their lavender martini. I'm super into DIY, so of coarse I had to find a way to make it at home. After a few weeks of tinkering, I think I've got it!


So here it is, and here's what goes in it (serves 2):

1/2 can heavy coconut milk, none of that light crap here
2 tsp lavender extract, recipe here
juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 shots absolute citron
simple syrup to taste

Shake with ice, serve garnished with a slice of lemon zest.
Everything here is to taste, I don't measure when I make these. If you like the flavor of one ingredient more than another, add more! Enjoy!