Vibrant Moms

This week I’ve decided to make lots of bean dishes.  There are so many kinds of beans and so many possibilities that there’s always a new recipe to experiment with.  I’m planning to do a big shopping at the end of this week, but it will have been eight weeks since I’ve stocked up, so supplies are running low!  But I still have a nice variety of beans and grains.  I’ve bought fresh fruit and vegetables, chicken, and some other odds and ends in the last eight weeks, but I’m looking forward to refilling my depleted pantry.  I definitely prefer shopping at the beginning of the month when I’m flush with cash, though.  :)  It’s much easier to be relaxed when you know you have everything you need at the beginning of the month, and can splurge afterwards. 

Sun- breakfast - traditional granola, milk, pears; lunch - celery sticks with peanut butter; dinner - turkey hash, wild rice pilaf, salad

Mon - b - Amish oatmeal; l - wraps - whole wheat tortillas, cheese, lettuce, tomato; d - barley and white bean salad

Tues - b - buckwheat/millet pancakes; l - barley and white bean salad; d - falafel with techina sauce, salad

Weds - b - pumpking pudding; l - stuffed baked potatoes; d - sausage bake

Thurs - b - cornmeal scones; l - will be out shopping; d - lentil rice mushroom loaf, or CORN if there’s enough in the fridge

The garden production is starting to pick up, and on Friday when I popped into the produce store, I realized I didn’t need to buy anything but lettuce for the salad, since we have cukes, tomatoes, yellow squash, and zucchini - and there was more than enough for our needs for Shabbos.  That was exciting!  I also have some swiss chard and spinach that I really should harvest.  So our homegrown organic veggies will be supplementing meals from now on.  As far as fruit, I have pears, cherries, watermelon, and bananas, so those will supplement our breakfast meals.  I have some dehydrating and pickling experiments I want to try in the next couple of days with the watermelon. 

Avivah

When my ds (then 14) was in yeshiva for ninth grade, he had to be in school for three meals a day.  He liked taking this granola for breakfast - it’s a tasty recipe, and good for you, too! 

Traditional Granola

• 8 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. melted butter
• 1/2 c. melted coconut oil
• 1 1/2 c. yogurt
• 2 c. water
• 1/2 c. honey
• 1 t. sea salt
• 1 t. cinnamon

Combine the first five ingredients.  Pat down, cover, and leave out for 24 - 48 hours.  In a separate pot, heat the honey and add spices.  Add to the soaked oat mixture.  Spread mixture thinly in a baking pan and bake at 200 degrees, stirring periodically, until completely dry and crispy.  You can add nuts, dried fruit, coconut, or whatever else you can think of!

Note - this isn’t a very sweet recipe, and we find it perfect for our family (usually we cut the sweetener in a recipe by 50%).  But you may find it’s not sweet enough; if that’s the case, add some more honey.

I make double this recipe because it’s so good that it goes fast!

Avivah

Today my dd14 should be coming home from camp - we’re all so much looking forward to having her back! 

As I was planning this week’s menu I was thinking about how much I’ve changed the way I cook over the years.  I used to cook mostly vegetarian except for some chicken on Shabbos, and the meals during the Nine Days weren’t any different than the rest of the year.  But now I’ve gotten used to using lots more chicken and stock, so it was a little bit of a mental adjustment for this week.  As always, I usually note the main dish and supplement with fruit and vegetables that we have on hand.

Sunday - breakfast - whole wheat challah with cream cheese; lunch - macaroni and cheese (leftover from Thurs. dinner); dinner - honey baked lentils, kasha, tomato olive salad

Monday - b - zucchini muffins; l - ricotta cheese pancakes; d - corn chowder

Tuesday - b - grits; l - green beans and potatoes with sour cream; d - pizza (might try making a sunflower seed crust, depending how busy it is that afternoon; otherwise I’ll make a regular ww crust)

Wednesday - b - biscuits with cream cheese and jam; l - celery and peanut butter; d - lasagna, hard boiled eggs

Thursday - (breakfast and lunch are for those who aren’t fasting) b- baked oatmeal; l - leftovers; d - whitefish salad, brown rice

This past Shabbos: Fri night - homemade challah (made with 100% whole wheat), roast turkey, roasted red potatoes, baked butternut squash, kasha, fresh salad, pecan power bars;  Shabbos lunch - chicken, corn salad, lacto fermented pickled mixed vegetables, zucchini relish, fresh salad, watermelon, cake; shalosh seudos -whitefish salad,  tomato olive salad, salads left from other meals (I usually only make one or two different things for shalosh seudos and everything else is what we have in the fridge from lunch or dinner)

We’re starting to get some vegetables from the garden, which is really fun.  The tomatoes are just starting to turn red; today the kids picked a handful of cherry tomatoes and one heirloom black cherry tomato, a handful of green beans, a yellow squash, and a zucchini.  It’s not a lot yet, but it is nice for a snack or to add to the salad.  We can see lots more tomatoes that are green, so hopefully we’ll have a very generous amount once they get started ripening.

I sprouted the lentils at the end of last week, so they’re ready to go for tonight.  I’m planning to make a large batch of granola, which I make according to traditional preparation methods, so today I’ll soak the oats.  Granola isn’t on the menu for the week but I’ll have it on hand, and if one morning we’re short on time, it will be available.  Otherwise, it will be for Shabbos breakfast for the kids. 

I’m also going to grind some wheat for flour for tomorrow’s muffins and the pizza crust and then will have it ready for soaking.  I try to grind the flour fresh, but when I do it a couple of days in advance, I keep it in the freezer so that the vitamins in it aren’t lost - it’s not a big deal to grind it, but taking the grinder out for a small amount of flour is an extra step that sometimes can feel like too much at a busy time.  I’m also hoping to make another large batch of the curried carrot sauerkraut - everyone liked it so much and it was very versatile; we used it inside wraps, tacos, as a salad side dish, and even in bean sauerkraut soup. 

Avivah

<<Please explain “healthy chocolate” :o) Thanks!<< 

I know, it seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?  But here’s the recipe and you’ll quickly see why I call it healthy chocolate.

Healthy Chocolate

• 1/2 c. raw cacao powder
• 1/4 c. extra virgin coconut oil
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1/8 - 1/4 c. honey

Melt the oil and then add the other ingredients, making sure powder is fully mixed in.  Pour into molds - you can use an ice cube tray, or pour in a thin layer into a pan.  (If you make it too thick, it’s hard to break into pieces.)  Freeze, then cut/break into pieces.  When I make this I give the kids pieces for a snack or even as part of breakfast.  As I said in the coconut oil post, it’s an easy way to get coconut oil into them. 

I’ve made several variations -  the first one was with cacao powder and the smaller amount of honey called for.  This was excellent if you like bittersweet chocolate, but the kids didn’t think it was sweet enough.  When I made the next batch with cacao, I used the higher amount of honey called for and they liked it alot.  Then I ran out of cacao powder and experimented with using carob powder (which is naturally sweet and doesn’t have the bitterness of cacao) and the higher amount of honey. But they said it was too sweet, so next time I use carob I’ll have to use a smaller amount.  Then I tried using cocoa powder and used powdered stevia instead of honey, but the stevia was clunked up and so I took it out since it wasn’t dissolving in the heated mixture like I expected it to, but it left an aftertaste behind- no one liked that at all.  They really don’t like the taste of stevia.  Next time I’m going to use 1/4 c. of honey with cocoa powder; I think it should be the right balance since I think cocoa and cacao have the same flavor, but I’ll see!

Avivah

Early tomorrow morning my ds16 is leaving for camp.  Late this afternoon, I thought that it was too bad I hadn’t planned a nicer dinner since it’s his last dinner with us for four weeks, but I was already in the middle of dinner preparations.  When I said something, he told me he’ll appreciate a healthy dinner most since he’s going to be eating junky meals until he gets home. 

The main dish tonight was something I never made before, but everyone really liked it - lentil pecan burgers.  Together with that I served: baked potatoes, carrot sticks, cucumber rounds, corn and red pepper relish, lacto fermented pickles, and homemade mayonnaise.  I don’t usually serve dessert but adding dessert was a simple way to make it a little nicer, and we had a couple of pounds of organic cherries - half golden, half Bing.  (I got them at a super price - just .99 lb for the red, 1.49 lb for the golden; of course I got much more of the red!:))  In spite of not having specially planned it, it was a pretty nice meal. 

It also ended up being an expensive recipe since ds10 dropped the manual food processor (yes, the one that I just bought and only used once before) filled with lentils three times within ten minutes on our tile kitchen floor - and the third time the container part totally cracked open.  Sigh. I should have just told him to mash them by hand, which is what we had to do in the end anyway.  The attrition rate for my kitchen appliances is on the high side; I consider it a hidden cost of having children. 

Anyway, here’s the recipe.  Like lots of other recipes, I made it up based partially on something else (I took the idea of combining lentils and pecans from Nourishing Traditions) and whatever I have on hand that I feel like adding, so I don’t have firm measurements.  I’ll estimate as best as I can; you’ll probably want to adjust it to your taste.

Lentil Pecan Burgers

• 4 c. ground pecans
• 4 c. cooked lentils, mashed
• 8 eggs
• 2 t. minced dried onion (I was out of fresh - you can chop a couple onions finely and saute them in coconut oil/shmaltz/butter)
• 1 t. garlic powder
• 3 t. sea salt
• 3 t. prepared mustard
• enough flour or matza meal to bind mixture - I used about a cup

Mix the ground pecans with other dry ingredients except the flour or matza meal so everything mixes evenly, then add in the moist ingredients.  Add in enough flour to bind the mixture, but don’t add in too much - it should still be moist but not sticky (sounds like a bread dough recipe, doesn’t it? :)).   Scoop out the mixture using a 1/4 cup measure, put on a greased baking sheet, and flatten it a little with a fork.  Bake at 450 degrees until the tops start to get crispy/firm. 

This made enough for everyone to have as many as they wanted with leftovers, so  I’d suggest making a quarter of this recipe for a smaller family.  These look surprisingly similar to hamburgers, and taste meaty, too. 

Avivah

Sunday - breakfast - pancakes, homemade strawberry/blueberry jam; lunch - crispy nuts, cheese, green pepper strips; dinner - rice and carrot casserole, fresh salad

Monday - b - smoothies; l - tuna salad, baked potatoes; d - black bean burritos

Tuesday - b - polenta; l - devilled eggs, vegetable sticks; d - red meat chili, cornbread

Wednesday - b - biscuits, eggs; l - cream cheese rollups; d - lentil pecan patties, sauteed onions, carrot fries

Thursday - b - Yorkshire pudding; l - celery and peanut butter; d - macaroni and cheese (with whole wheat/flax seed noodles)

In response to request to share our Shabbos menus: this past Shabbos we ate out for lunch, so we only had to make dinner - here’s what we had: chicken, roasted red potatoes, baked butternut squash, pepper-olive salad, fresh salad, almond power bars, pumpkin gingerbread (left over from shalom zachor).  We don’t have soup when the weather gets hot, and usually we have homemade challah but this week didn’t want to bake since we only needed it for one meal, and used whole wheat matza instead. 

This week’s menu was planned with the Nine Days in mind, so that I can use up whatever fleishig gravy or stock I have in the fridge.  I made hamburger rocks (way to preserve ground meat) for the first time last week and not all of the jars sealed, so I’ll use the ones that didn’t seal for the chili. Today I’m dehydrating some mushrooms I got on sale, and because it takes the same amount of electricity to run the dehydrator if it’s full or half empty, filled some of the remaining trays with chopped onion.  Dehydrated onion is very useful.  At the end of last week I dehydrated ten pounds of frozen okra (I’m working on emptying out the freezer), as well as all the frozen peas and carrots we had.  It’s amazing how little space food takes up when dehydrated - so space efficient!

On the fermented vegetable front, I started 2 gallons of pickles (got lots of cukes on sale), and a corn and red pepper relish (using up the corn in the freezer).  We still have at least a half a gallon of curried carrot sauerkraut left, so those three will be side dishes for the week. I’d like to try making fermented bean paste this week; it would make a nice light lunch together with some veggies and tortilla chips or tacos.

We have loads of green tomatoes in our garden right now, and hopefully in the next week or so we’ll start reaping some of our bounty!  Basically all that we planted for the summer is tomatoes, several kinds of squash, green beans, and cucumbers.  We’ve picked our first cucumber and yellow squash, and are hoping before long that we’ll get enough veggies to supplement our meals. 

Avivah

>>What do you guys drink? Just water, or do you make other drinks? What drinks do you make, and how? <<

This was a very timely question, since I was planning to post about our newest adventure in culturing. :) 

Generally, we drink only water.  That doesn’t include milk or kefir for breakfast, and we have herbal teas in the winter, but basically that’s it.  I very rarely buy juice - maybe twice a year at the most.  I never buy soda - never.  This past winter, I got some juice concentrate, thinking it would be the most efficient way to mix the vitamin C powder the kids take when they’re starting to feel under the weather; rather than buying and wasting a large prepared container of juice, I could just take out a spoonful at a time.  But BH, it was a healthy winter and we didn’t need to take vitamin C often so the concentrate has stayed in the freezer and I was wondering what to do with it, except use it to make juice sweetened jam.

It occurred to me that I could transform a very low quality food (the juice concentrate) into something of nutritional value if I cultured it.  Before Pesach, a friend offered me water kefir grains but it wasn’t until a few days ago that I got them.  Water grains are used for culturing juices or a water/sweetener/fruit mix.  I mixed up the grains with a can of concentrate and a quart or so of water, and let it sit on the counter for a day.  As it cultures, the sugar is ‘eaten’ by the kefir bacteria. Then we strained out the grains and drank it - couldn’t be easier!

This is a new project so I can’t give you lots of different recipes I’ve tried.  So far I’ve made it three times with orange juice concentrate, and the kids really like the results.  It becomes fizzy and less sweet as it cultures and turns into kefir soda (though you don’t want to leave it too long because it can become alcoholic).  How long you culture it will depend on the temperature in your home -  our house is pretty warm in the summer since we don’t use air conditioning so it cultures very quickly.  

 When I run out of concentrate, I’ll use the following recipe: 

There are a couple of ways to do this:  1) Some people like to mix all of the ingredients at once and do a one time ferment.  This means putting everything together in a glass jar and leaving it on your counter until it tastes ready to you.

2) Others prefer to do two separate ferments.  That means first culturing all the ingredients except the fruit, straining out the grains and then using the fermented water together with the fruit for a second ferment.  Supposedly this keeps the kefir grains pure. 

After the kefir soda is ready, I put it into a glass jar in the fridge.  If you want to be fancy you can get glass bottles that you can fill individually.  This is a good juice or soda substitute because it’s filled with good probiotics, so not only does it taste great but it’s good for you!  And it’s very inexpensive, too!

Avivah 

Here’s a yummy breakfast food - it seems like it should be a dessert but it’s so good for you that we serve it for a regular meal!

Pumpkin Pudding

• 1 - 2 c. pumpkin puree (can use any kind of winter squash)
• 2 T. coconut oil
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice (I use a splash of ginger and nutmeg)
• 2 eggs
• 1 T. honey/agave nectar

Blend everything together, and put into a greased baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Simple and yummy!

Avivah

With the summer here, light and simple meals are once again on the menu!   

Sunday - breakfast - rice and milk, cherries; snack- watermelon chunks; dinner - chicken rolls ups, roasted red potatoes, eggplant curry

Monday - b- pumpkin pudding, kefir; s - celery and peanut butter; d - succotash, tri color pepper salad

Tuesday - breakfast tacos (beans, vegetables, cheese); s - green popcorn; d - sauerkraut bean soup (will use some of the curried carrot sauerkraut)

Wednesday - b - muesli, milk, fruit; s - celery and peanut butter; d - chicken tacos

Thursday - b - coconut flour pancakes, homemade strawberry preserves ; s - sauerkraut bean soup or cheese and nuts; d - CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

After seeing how the last couple of weeks I didn’t make a lot of the meals that I planned, I realized I need to adapt how I’m making menus for the summer.  So I’m doing two things this week - cooking extra of each dinner meal so there’s something filling for the next day if anyone wants it at around lunch time, but planning snacks instead of lunches.  Because our summer schedule is more relaxed than during the year, everyone goes to sleep later and wakes up later.  We end up having a late breakfast and by the time lunch rolls around, no one is interested in eating, and it makes more sense to have a snack instead of a meal late in the afternoon. 

Today I’m soaking 4 pounds of walnuts, and will dehydrate them overnight.  I’m also hoping to discover where 5 pounds of cheese disappeared to - my freezer is malfunctioning and forming a thick wall of ice over the foods, so it’s hard to find things that I know are there - when it’s time to take something out, I send the kids down with a hammer to chisel the ice away!   

Last month I spent a big chunk of my monthly budgeted funds towards expensive bulk goods (lots of nuts, nut flours, and dried coconut), so I don’t have much left for this week to spend on fresh fruit.  That’s fortunately not a big deal, since we have all of the canned fruit that I put up last summer to enjoy now - peaches, pears, apples, cherries, and blueberries.  I also have some frozen blueberries and strawberries (yes, in the ice encrusted freezer :)), so there won’t be much opportunity for deprivation in the three days before I restart my monthly budget.   This is one way I see the benefit of shopping and cooking the way I do - even when the money budgeted for food is finished but the month isn’t, I’m never out of food. 

After I go vegetable shopping this week I’d like to make a couple more fermented vegetable recipes.  I haven’t made pickles yet this summer and my kids love those.  If I find some inexpensive tomatoes and peppers then I’ll make tomato pepper relish from Nourishing Traditions - that was also popular last time I made it.  These supplement our dinner meals as written above, even though they aren’t noted.  Fruit and milk or kefir supplement the breakfast meals.

Avivah

Here’s the recipe for my latest fermented vegetable experiment:

Curried Carrot Sauerkraut

• 1/2 head green cabbage, finely chopped or shredded
• 1/2 head purple cabbage, finely chopped or shredded
• 6 - 7 carrots, shredded
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 - 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 - 2 T. curry
• 2 t. salt (I use coarse Celtic)

Mix all of the vegetables together, and then mix in the curry.  Pack the mixture into glass jars. Add filtered water until the combined vegetable juices (if any) and water just cover the vegetables; add sea salt to the top.  Make sure that all of the vegetables are covered with liquid.  When there isn’t enough liquid, the vegetables on top will get moldy instead of fermenting.  Leave about an inch between the top of the liquid and the jar to allow room for the juices to expand.  Cover with a tight lid or a cheesecloth and rubber band/ canning jar ring - the second option allows the gasses that build up to be released so you don’t find liquid leaking out all over your counter the next morning.  Sally Fallon of Nourishing Traditions says that because lacto fermentation is an anaerobic process, once the fermentation has started the presence of oxygen will ruin the final product, but I’ve tried it both ways (with tightly fitting lids and with cheesecloth) and haven’t found that to be the case.  Leave it on your counter to ferment for a few days, until the vegetables are all soft.  If the cabbage kind of squeaks in your teeth when you eat it, it needs to ferment more. 

There are a couple of things to be aware of in the summer.  The first is that because of the heat, the liquid will evaporate more quickly from the jar, so if you don’t use a tightly fitting lid you need to check it daily to be sure that the vegetables are still covered.  The other thing is that things ferment much more rapidly in the heat.  The faster something ferments, the stronger the flavor will be.  Cabbage needs to ferment longer than some vegetables;  I like to let it ferment for 4 - 5 days on the counter, and then transfer it to the fridge to continue the fermenting.  Since it continues fermenting in the fridge, but more slowly, it has a more mellow flavor.  If you ferment it at room temperature in hot weather, the flavor will be stronger. 

You don’t have to use a mixture of green and purple cabbage, but I think it looks pretty so that’s why I did it.  It has a nice medium purplish color when it’s done.  This is meant to be eaten as a relish or condiment to your meals; I enjoy it in small amounts but find the flavor gets to be too much if I have a large serving.

Avivah