Nourished Kitchen» Vegan

Kombucha: A Reintroduction to this Ancient Tonic

Jenny — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:42:47 +0000


	This is a guest post from Hannah Crum – the fermenter extraordinaire and the woman behind Kombucha Kamp where she sells kombucha mothers, continuous brew kits and all things kombucha.I had the pleasure of first meeting Hannah at the Freestone Fermentation Festival this past May where we both spoke about the pleasures of fermented foods, demoed our techniques (I showed the folks there how to make brine-pickled beets with orange and ginger) and taste-tested a panel of artisan kombucha brews from around the country with the likes of Sandor Katz and Michael Pollan.I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do. – Jenny

Kombucha – A Reintroduction

As a reader of this site, you’ve almost certainly heard about the fermented tea with a funny name, Kombucha. Perhaps you’ve brewed it yourself (or still do) or maybe you’ve only ever tried a store bought brand. Even if you’ve never tried it before, allow me to reintroduce you to Kombucha from the beginning and clue you in on a few secrets and tricks, including flavoring ideas and my favorite way to brew, the Continuous Brew method.

The first question is, with all the fermented food choices out there, why Kombucha? Well, let me say, I love a glass of kefir, be it water or milk, and enjoy yogurt regularly too. Sauerkraut and fermented veggies are staples at my table and lately I’ve been experimenting with a ginger bug. Still, Kombucha is queen because fits into any time of my day and with any meal, especially because I mix up my flavors for variety. I enjoy something a little sweeter in the morning, like a pink lemonade Kombucha, usually mixed half and half with water to help with my morning detox and rehydration. Then I might switch up to a green power Kombucha with lunch or just a tall glass of unflavored from my home tap to help with digestion after eating. Really any time of day seems to work for me and my family.

Kombucha, also, because of the ingredients and brew cycle, is a longer, deeper ferment that offers more, in my opinion. More complex acids, more flexibility in when and how to flavor or serve, more ways to use the tea and culture to improve your diet and household; in this way, Kombucha can be a gateway into closer connection with traditional ways of living, not only by fermenting more foods but also in ways such as making your own household cleaners, bath products, first aid items, pet care and more. The living spirit of Kombucha is personified by the abundance it is constantly creating, a message of everlasting life.

Some people may find the flavor off-putting at first, especially if their taste buds are over sugar-fied. Some ways to ease the intensity include adding it to smoothies, pouring it over ice or diluting with water or juice. You still receive all of the health benefits and over time may discover that your tastes shift.

My last reason for loving Kombucha? It’s fun in so many ways: seeing the SCOBYs grow, experimenting with different tea or sugar combinations, and of course the never ending possibilities when it comes to flavoring. It’s also social. It’s a wonderful thing to bring a bottle to parties, sure to inspire conversation and, if you’re a talented kitchen witch, win over some new fermented foods converts. There is something wonderfully social about sharing a glass of Kombucha that brings sparkling magic to conversations.

History of Kombucha Tea

The legend of Kombucha Tea stretches back thousands of years as home brewed beverage, often maintained by the grandmother and passed down through the generations. It is said to have been invented in 220BC for a Chinese Emperor, favored by Genghis Khan for keeping his soldiers strong on long journeys, credited for saving Nobel Prize winner Alexsander Solzhenitsyn’s life while in exile in Siberia and rumored to have been on Ronald Regan’s daily menu during his presidency. Modern day movie stars seem drawn to the drink, while recently health conscious types and athletes have finally begun touting the benefits of including fermented foods in our modern diets, specifically Kombucha.

Why do we need Kombucha or any fermented foods?

You don’t need me to tell you that the state of America’s health is in SAD shape (pun intended). When there is money to be made off illness, then expect illness to thrive, unless we take our health back into our own hands. Foods that are nutrient dense, unadulterated, fermented, sprouted and so on are making a huge comeback. “You are what you eat” is finally breaking through our very thick skulls and making some sense as it rattles around in there. We must make better choices and we must get educated and educate those around us or we are to blame!

As many readers here are familiar with Weston A Price and his findings, you already know that fermented foods play a crucial role for digestion, mineral absorption and maintaining balance. The healthy bacteria in sauerkraut, yogurt and kefir have evolved with humans and without them our quality of life simply is not the same. Side note: have you been staying updated on The advances of the incredibly cool Human Microbiome Project. Scientists made the connection that they can’t even finish sequencing our human DNA until they map all or most of the bacteria in our gut first! These bacteria literally inform our body’s cells how to behave. It’s no wonder fermented foods have been showing such promise with improving the condition of autistic children when you consider these new discoveries. I recommend you visit their website, it’s fascinating stuff.

So what about the benefits of drinking Kombucha? While all fermented foods are good for you, for me, Kombucha is queen. Made from 3 simple ingredients – tea, sugar and water, the SCOBY transforms them into a powerful detoxifying and alkalizing tonic. Moreover, in addition to beneficial bacteria, Kombucha has been specifically shown to aid healthy liver function and detoxification, balance blood sugar and improve digestion. From personal experience, I know that the more Kombucha I consume, the less sugar my body can tolerate. My skin cleared up, digestion improved and it even has pulled poison oak out of my skin when I applied it topically.

How To Make Your Own Kombucha – The Ancient Method

Making Kombucha at home is very easy. Always start with quality ingredients, which means tea, sugar and water all free of toxins and a healthy, full-size Kombucha culture, never dehydrated or stored in the refrigerator (those lead to mold). Follow the super simple recipe on and in about 7 days you will have delicious homemade Kombucha that you can bottle and flavor to your heart’s desire. There is no downside to experimenting with this ancient ferment.

Okay, I cannot lie, there is one down side to brewing Kombucha, but it’s not that much different from any food preparation: the clean up. A batch of Kombucha usually takes between 7-10 days to ferment, and at the end it’s time to bottle and start another batch. The best way around this problem that I have found is called Continuous Brewing (CB).

This method is actually most like the ancient method for brewing Kombucha and is very simple. As Kombucha is removed from the brewing vessel (via a spigot, the secret key to CB) to be consumed or bottled for later, more sweet tea is added to the brewer. Because only a small amount has been removed, it will take only a short time, much less than the normal brewing cycle, for that sweet tea to be transformed into mature Kombucha Tea (KT). It’s important to start with a large batch of mature KT, at least 2 gallons, so that the sweet tea will quickly transform into Kombucha.

So obviously CB saves time. Many people also appreciate not having to handle the cultures all the time, though I admit I really do love that process. With CB, the big SCOBY that grows only needs to be tended to once or twice a year. That was basically what convinced my mom and step-dad to start making their own Kombucha. My mom maintains the continuous brewer and he can just pour it from the tap right into his glass and never have to see what’s going on behind the scenes. They recently added a second brewer because they started drinking it all day instead of diet soda. It helps control his sugar cravings so that he doesn’t have to take medication for adult onset diabetes.

The last reason some prefer the CB method is that it’s a deeper, healthier brew. The reason is that at the 15 day mark and 30 day mark of the brewing cycle, new healthful acids are expressed in the Kombucha fermentation process. Most of the time, Kombucha brewed in the batch method for 15 or 30 days would just be too sour. In CB, old Kombucha and young Kombucha alike can mix together, producing a delicious drink.

I hope you will come by Kombucha Kamp and enjoy all the free videos and information we have available, and consider making Kombucha brewing a part of your real food routine.

Follow-up Resources for Kombucha Brewers

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A Recipe from the Garden: Vanilla Bean & Mint Extract

Jenny — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:22:12 +0000

Homemade mint extract, and other extracts, number among my favorite additions to desserts. And, in keeping with most of the several real food recipes at Nourished Kitchen, it is shamefully easy to prepare and requires only a handful of ingredients. And, in winter when my herbs are frozen over until the spring thaw, I rely on these extracts to enliven chocolate-mint mousse, strawberry mint sorbet and mint ice creams with their sweet and herbaceous flavors. Just a few drops does it.

Unlike purchased mint extracts – which often contain petroleum derivatives like propylene glycol and which are potent with the overwhelming intensity of menthol; homemade mint extract is mellow and sweet. Better yet: in this version the natural menthol in fresh mint is tempered by the sweet and earthy softness of vanilla bean.

When making extracts, I like to use a variety of mints. I’m fond of mint, you see – it’s the herb of Venus. And in magical combination, it both stimulates and calms simultaneously. On my front porch, where I keep all my herbs, I typically grow at least three or four varieties of mint: peppermint, chocolate mint, spearmint, dotted mint while other varieties arrive in my weekly CSA – pineapple mint, lemon mint, mountain mint. And if you’re a mint lover as I am, you should know that most of these varieties are available online from seed companies specializing in heirloom varietals (see sources).

Making mint, or any other extract, is easy: simply steep herbs, spices, citrus skins or whatever you like in alcohol in a dark cabinet for a few weeks, decant if you like, and use as you would any commercially available extract. Most home cooks who make their own extracts prefer the use of vodka for its clean, clear and near flavorless qualities, but me, I like a good dark rum for its rum’s natural sweetness that adds a subtle, but uplifting volume of flavor to basic extracts.

So if you’ve chopped, dried and frozen your way through your kitchen herbs as the cold of autumn begins to creep in your garden, consider purchasing a good bottle of dark rum and preserving the remainder of your harvest in this simple, sweet alcohol where its vibrancy can lift your cooking well into the deep, dark days of winter.

Vanilla Bean & Mint Extract Recipe

vanilla, mint, dark rum, time

ingredients

4 vanilla beans (buy them online)
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
2 cups dark rum

method

Pack a 1-pint glass mason jar with vanilla beans and chopped fresh mint. Cover with dark rum. Close tightly with a lid and leave in a dark cabinet for at least six weeks before using. There is no need to strain the vanilla or mint from the rum, just spoon off the liquid as you need it.

TIME: 5 minutes (active), 6 weeks (resting) | YIELD: 1 pint

And just a head’s up: I wrote this post while participating in the Sowing Millions Project by Real Food Media on behalf of Seeds of Change. I received product and exclusive content to facilitate my post (free seeds rock!). My thoughts and opinions are my own and not of those of Real Food Media or Seeds of Change. I’ll be participating all summer long – sharing garden tips, news and recipes. You can follow seeds of change on facebook, twitter and upload photos to their virtual garden where you’ll undoubtedly see more pictures of my lovely herbs soon.

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A Recipe: Sourdough Focaccia with Grapes and Rosemary

Jenny — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:07:07 +0000

Sourdough focaccia with grapes, fresh rosemary and coarse sea salt found its way to our kitchen last week. Loosely adapted from the classic Italian grape bread or schiacciata con l’uva, this sourdough focaccia with grapes and rosemary takes an even more rustic approach – omitting enrichment by egg and sugar in favor of only the most basic of ingredients: levain or sourdough starter, whole grain flour, grapes, rosemary, coarse and chunky unrefined sea salt – all doused by a heavy application of full-bodied and fruity unrefined extra virgin olive oil (see sources for my preferred producer).

I like working with sourdough. It’s a wild food – unruly and unpredictable. For many cooks, it takes a special rigor to tame the beast - coaxing the wild bacteria and yeasts from the air, feeding them gently on freshly milled flour and clean water, training them to bubble, rise and fall. Tending a levain or sourdough starter is an ancient rite, a lost art, having fallen from favor once bakers yeast was introduced to the French courts in the latter half of the 17^th century. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a slow-risen yeasted bread too, but it can share no comparison with a true, honest-to-goodness sourdough whose character far supersedes the bland nature of a yeasted bread. And in this focaccia, where the ingredients are few but magnificently intense, sourdough proved the only sound choice. If you’re new to sourdough baking and want to tend a levain, you certainly can catch wild yeasts with a mixture of flour and water, but I recommend using a starter culture (see sources) to inoculate your flour ensuring more reliable results.

Sourdough focaccia with grapes, as with any soured bread, offers more than just improved flavor over its yeasted counterparts, but also an dramatic increase in the quantity of vitamins coupled with an increase in the bioavailability of trace minerals. All grains, and nuts and seeds, too, harbor anti-nutrients in their germ including phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. Together, these anti-nutrients make grains difficult to digest and bind up minerals like zinc and iron naturally found in grain, preventing their full absorption. For many people, omitting grains from the diet entirely and adhering to a grain free diet proves the best course of action; for everyone else, it is essential that they learn to prepare grains properly to mitigate the effects of naturally occurring anti-nutrients and improve the nutritional quality of the grains and flours they consume, if they bother to eat them at all.

In our version of schiacciata con l’uva, we top sourdough focaccia with grapes, rosemary, coarse sea salt and unrefined extra virgin olive oil. A heavy sprinkling of coarsely ground black pepper doesn’t hurt either, I might add. Concord grapes, though an American varietal, prove a near-perfect choice for this classic bread which typically uses grape wines. The Concord grape, peppery and almost foxy in its finish, is a magical and transformational fruit. Intensely grapey in flavor with its thick and deep-hued purple skin and a pale green interior, the Concord grape outshines the characterless red and green table grapes you typically find in the produce section of your supermarket. It’s a small, round grape that rolls along your tongue, and, like any overbearing mother, the Concord grape is not one to yield her seeds easily; she fiercely grips them and it takes some effort to first pierce the grape’s skin and then wield the seeds from her tart, green flesh.

Learn more about sourdough!

Want to learn more about the benefits of sourdough baking? Check out this online cooking class focused entirely on preparing healthy whole grains through soaking, sprouting or sourdough fermentation.

Sourdough Focaccia with Grapes and Rosemary

Sourdough focaccia with grapes and rosemary pairs perfectly with a salty, raw ewe’s milk cheese as a light lunch or as an accompaniment to an autumn picnic. The inky and potent flavor of Concord grapes marries beautifully with the tartness of sourdough focaccia – all perfumed by the woodsy odor of fresh rosemary and drenched in unrefined, extra virgin olive oil.

Ingredients

For the Sourdough Focaccia

1 cup proofed and bubbly sourdough starter (see sources)
1 cup warm, filtered water
1/4 cup unrefined extra virgin olive oil (see sources), plus extra for greasing the mixing bowl
3 to 4 cups whole grain flour, preferably sprouted (see sources)
2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt (see sources)

For the Grape and Rosemary Topping

1 1/2 cups grapes, preferably Concord or wine grapes
2 tablespoons loosely packed fresh rosemary needles
up to 1 tablespoon very coarse unrefined sea salt (see sources)
2 tablespoons unrefined extra virgin olive oil (see sources), plus extra to serve
coarsely ground black pepper, as it suits you

Advisable Equipment

stand mixer with dough hook
baking stone
mixing bowl and wooden spoon
plastic wrap or a slightly damp 100% cotton kitchen towel

Method

Preparing the Dough

Stir proofed starter, warm water, olive oil, whole grain flour and sea salt together until well combined.
Pour the dough into the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with a dough hook and mix the ingredients together at a low speed; alternatively, flour your counter and knead the ingredients together until a smooth, pliable ball of dough forms.
Grease a mixing bowl with a bit of olive oil; place the dough in the bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a slightly damp kitchen towel.
Allow the dough to rise at room temperature for about four hours.
Punch it down, and allow it to rise again, until doubled in bulk.
After it has doubled in bulk, roll the dough into a rectangle about 3/4-inch thick. It is now ready for the grapes, rosemary and other toppings.

Finishing and Baking the Sourdough Focaccia

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once you’ve rolled out the sourdough, indent its surface with the pads of your fingers or prick its surface with the tines of a fork.
Toss whole grapes onto the dough’s surface, then sprinkle the dough with coarse sea salt, rosemary needles and coarsely ground black pepper.
Bake the focaccia on a baking stone in an oven preheated to 475 degrees Fahrenheit for twenty to thirty minutes, or until the bread is browned and crusty.
Allow the focaccia to cool to room temperature and serve it with additional olive oil.

YIELD: about twelve to sixteen slices

TIME: about twenty minutes (active time), eight hours (rising time), twenty to thirty minutes (baking time)

NOTES: Use the sourdough focaccia as a base for pizza or choose other topping for the bread. Take care not to seed or split the grapes, as they will exude too much liquid and make the focaccia soggy. You may ask why I recommend sprouted flour for use in sourdoughs. I recommend sprouted flours or freshly ground flours because, when soured, they offer an even more improved nutrient profile than regular whole grain flours which, I might add, will do just beautifully in this recipe.

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Stocking Up: A Recipe for Homemade Sauerkraut

Jenny — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:11:52 +0000

Homemade sauerkraut, in all its funky humility, is a favorite food in our home – particularly in wintertime when fresh, local produce is a rare treat and we rely on what we’ve put by over the summer and autumn months. For us, this means lots of fermented foods and sauerkraut in particular.

We grow cabbage in our tiny plot in the community garden, and I’ve a preference for the more whimsical heirloom varieties – Wakefield cabbages with their conical heads and Shoshudori cabbages with their wide and flat ones. I love the crinkled Savoys and the brilliant hue of Mammoth Red Rocks. Cabbages are lovely things, indeed. While these varieties aren’t found in most garden supply centers, you can typically can find them online (see sources) or from seed saving enthusiasts. They grow well at high altitude where frost lingers until mid-June and begins to threaten gardens again in late August.

So, when the time comes, we harvest ours and peel back the rough outer leaves that blanket the tender heads, core them, shred them fine, salt them and let them sour on the countertop for weeks and sometimes months until they acquire the requisite funk that only true fermented foods enthusiasts love, and that – cabbage, salt and time – is all you need for a truly wonderful homemade sauerkraut. We serve our sauerkraut throughout winter, with sausages and preserved meats in choucroute garnie, on its own or dropped by the spoonful into bowls of steaming lentil stew - welcome nourishment for cold and dark days. Of course, planning for homemade sauerkraut takes time – it’s something you start now in late summer and in autumn that will nourish your family until spring.

Homemade Sauerkraut: Optimal Nourishment for Dark Days

Homemade sauerkraut takes time – a week for the impatient and months for those who love their sauerkraut with the same fervor that an oenophile devotes to wine. Originally, the production of sauerkraut served the primary purpose of preserving the harvest into the winter when food was scarce and hunger a true threat. Sauerkraut is a peasant food, humble, disparaged, but truly lovely when produced with tenderness and the passion only a true real food lover can provide.

So while European peasants preserved their cabbage with salt in an effort to keep hunger away during the dark months, their method of preservation fulfilled another need: that of optimal nourishment. The process of lactic acid fermentation used to transform salt and cabbage into sauerkraut increases vitamins, particularly vitamin C and B vitamins, and food enzymes. Moreover, homemade sauerkraut is also extraordinarily rich in beneficial bacteria – friendly microorganisms which help to colonize the gut, train the immune system and manufacture vitamins in the digestive tract. In winter, when colds and flus make their rounds, homemade fermented foods which provide plenty of vitamins, food enzymes and beneficial bacteria coupled with fermented cod liver oil (see sources).

Finding the Right Crock for Your Homemade Sauerkraut

If you’re like me, you began fermenting foods like homemade sauerkraut in mason jars for want of something better – and while mason jars work fine for small quantities of fermented foods, they’re not optimally suited to fermentation. Fermentation is an anaerobic process and when fermented foods are exposed to air, as they often are when fermented in open crocks and mason jars, they run a very real risk of being contaminated by stray microbes, yeasts and molds. Creating a true anaerobic environment by using the right crock or fermentation device results in better sauerkraut, less contamination and fewer failed batches. So if you’re committed to preparing fermented foods for your family: either as a method of old-world food preservation or for their health benefits, investing in a good crock is essential.

You can typically find fermentation crocks online (see sources) – some are glass jars fitted with airlocks which helps to maintain that anaerobic environment essential to proper fermentation; others are traditional ceramic or stoneware crocks equipped with a heavy weight (to keep fermenting foods completely submerged in brine, thus creating an anaerobic environment) and a lid. Both function well though the traditional ceramic and stoneware crocks typically have a larger capacity than glass fermenting jars equipped with airlocks.

Homemade Sauerkraut Recipe

cabbage, salt, time

Ingredients:

2 medium heads cabbage (about 4 to 5 total pounds), cored and finely shredded
2 tablespoons unrefined sea salt (see sources)

Equipment:

large mixing bowl
sauerkraut crock or vegetable fermenter (see sources)
wooden spoon or dowel

Method:

Toss cabbage and salt together in a large mixing bowl and begin to squeeze the cabbage and salt together with your hands, kneading it thoroughly to break up the cellular structure of the shredded cabbage.
When the cabbage has become limp and released its juice, transfer it to a sauerkraut crock or vegetable fermenter (see sources). Pack the salted cabbage into the crock or fermenter as tightly as you can, eliminating air bubbles. Continue packing the cabbage into the container until it is completely submerged by liquid. Cover loosely and allow it to sit at room temperature, undisturbed, for at least seven days and up to three or four weeks, testing the sauerkraut every few days until it is done to your liking. Transfer to the refrigerator or other cold storage where it should keep for at least six months.

TIME: 20 minutes (active), 1 to 4 weeks (fermentation) | YIELD: about 2 quarts | Click here to visit the recipe page where you can print, email or text this recipe to your phone.

NOTES: If scum appears floating in the brine of your homemade sauerkraut, simply spoon it off. You won’t be able to remove it all, but spoon of what you can and don’t worry about. The real key to preparing homemade sauerkraut, and any fermented food, is that the solid materials rest below the liquid. Fermentation is an anaerobic process and to expose your ferments to air increases the likelihood that they’ll become contaminated by stray microbes, yeasts and molds.

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Tomatoes Provençale & Where to Find Truly Good Olive Oil

Jenny — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:25:08 +0000

Tomatoes provençale, a simple dish that highlights the bounty of late summer gardens with its emphasis on fresh tomatoes, finds its way to our table almost daily in August when we buy heirloom tomatoes by the case at our local market. Tomatoes, you see, don’t do well up here at 9,000 feet. So we get our tomatoes from the market and dress them with garden herbs: anise hyssop, oregano, two kinds of parsley and sometimes basil – which is also finicky when grown in such thin air.

Mostly, I put tomatoes up – as paste for homemade ketchup or as sauce, and we eat plenty fresh in tomato and cucumber salads or with purslane and lemon, but it’s this dish: tomatoes provençale that we really appreciate.

While most gardens across the country hang heavy with tomatoes, my herbs are flourishing – the curly parsley and the flat-leaf parsley, three types of mint, lemon thyme and standard thyme, Mexican oregano and Greek (most of them got from Seeds of Change as part of the Sowing Millions Project) – so I trim them back and reserve the trimmings for this dish where their bright flavors marry well with the rich and robust sweetness of heirloom tomatoes, ripened under the warm sun of Colorado’s western slope.

Tomatoes Provençale: Simple Nourishment

Tomatoes provençale is a lovely dish, a dish that speaks to late summer in a way few others do. And while some cooks halve tomatoes and stuff them with a concoction of breadcrumbs and cheese, I, as I invariably do, opt for the simplest preparation: sliced, sprinkled with herbs, seasoned with a good olive oil and baked – no fussy stuffings, just honest food simply done.

While we consume plenty of raw foods and dishes in our home – simple salads, fermented foods and of course raw milk and cheeses, I’m no fan of the raw food movement whose zealotry I oppose and which I feel lacks balance – one of the key aspects of the food philosophy here at Nourished Kitchen.

Indeed, some foods are better for you when cooked; their nutrients become more concentrated and bioavailable. Tomatoes, though we enjoy plenty fresh, number among these foods. Lycopene, a carotenoid, is a strong antioxidant which has shown promise in fighting prostate cancer as well as preventing the oxidization of cholesterol and thereby fighting atherosclerosis is more bioavailable when cooked, and, like most caroteneoids, your body also absorbs it better when you pair it with a good quality fat – which is why you should always butter your vegetables.

Tomatoes Provençale: Importance of a Lovely Olive Oil

In tomatoes provençale, we pair lycopene-rich tomatoes with a good quality olive oil – one that provides not only the nourishment of phytonutrients and fat-soluble vitamin E, but also unsurpassed flavor. While you can get extra virgin olive oil in any supermarket in the country, they will pale in both flavor and nutrients when compared to an artisanal oil.

As if flavor were not enough to steer you to a good olive oil, keep in mind that many commercially available olive oils that sit on your store’s shelves are tainted. You pay top dollar for extra virgin olive oil, and find that the U.S. has been a dumping ground for cheap oils for years, and that many of the commercially available olive oils are sold by unscrupulous middlemen who stretch olive oil with cheaper, genetically modified canola oil.

For this reason, I typically purchase my olive oil online (see sources) from generational family farms practicing sustainable farming techniques – from growers who take pride in how their olive groves are cared for and how their oil is produced. Moreover, this allows me to purchase unfiltered and unrefined olive oils – something not typically sold in stores. And these unrefined olive oils retain a greater level of antioxidants including vitamin E which helps to mitigate oxidative stress and thereby reduce risk of several chronic diseases.

So enjoy this recipe for tomatoes provencale and treat those fresh and beautiful tomatoes right by dousing them with a good quality olive oil.

Tomatoes Provençale Recipe

tomatoes, garden herbs, olive oil, sea salt

Ingredients:

2 lbs tomatoes, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
1 shallot, peeled and finely minced
1/2 cup minced fresh garden herbs (anise hyssop, basil, thyme, chervil, parsley, rosemary etc.)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt (see sources)
2 tablespoons unrefined extra virgin olive oil (see sources)

Equipment:

cast-iron, enameled cast-iron skillet or ceramic baking dish

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Layer tomatoes in the bottom of a cast-iron or enameled cast-iron skillet, sprinkle with minced shallot, fresh herbs, unrefined sea salt and ground black pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and bake in an oven preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit for ten to fifteen minutes.

YIELD: 4 to 6 servings | TIME: 5 minutes (active), 10 to 15 minutes (oven)

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Raw & Naturally Fermented: Salsa Verde

Jenny — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:24:54 +0000

Salsa verde, bright and hot and green, makes its way to our kitchen every August when tomatillos come into their season. No, they don’t grow in our little corner of the community garden – the altitude is too high and the climate too cold, but they arrive in paper bags with our CSA and in baskets at the farmers market my husband and I manage. While lovely roasted, tomatillos are better served fresh and raw where their vibrant acidity contributes a beautiful punch of flavor to a truly good salsa verde recipe.

A good salsa verde recipe should be light and green, both in flavor and appearance, and it’s salsa verde’s very lightness that lends itself so well to summer foods: grilled meats and fish as well as classic Mexican and South American dishes like anticuchos de corazon (that, dearest real food lovers, is coming). So when I’m looking for something bright, fresh and delightfully raw to lighten up the otherwise rich, buttery and slow-cooked dishes I tend to prepare.

Making a Good Salsa Verde Recipe Better: Fermentation

My favorite salsa verde recipe, like most of my favorite recipes, undergoes that traditional and slow practice of fermentation, one that imbues the fresh puree of tomatillos, garlic, jalapenos and serranos with deeper nutrition: beneficial bacteria which then, in their own turn, create an abundance of B vitamins and increase the vitamin C content naturally present in the salsa verde.

Fresh whey drawn off after making labneh (yogurt cheese) acts as an excellent inoculant for all fermented foods, but can be particularly helpful for sauces such as salse verde which have a greater chance of going awry than other ferments. While whey works fine in this salsa verde recipe and in other fermented foods, I prefer to use a vegetable starter culture, which you can purchase online, as such starter cultures convey the added benefit of culturing specific beneficial bacteria which offer therapeutic effects on digestive health. While ostensibly more expensive than fresh whey, the therapeutic effects of culturing particular beneficial bacteria, much like the therapeutic effects of a daily dose of fermented cod liver oil (see sources), makes it a worthwhile expense.

Salsa Verde Recipe

tomatillos, jalapenos, serranos, lime

Ingredients:

1 lb tomatillos, husked and halved
8 to 12 jalapeno or serrano peppers, seeded if desired and chopped
cloves of 1 medium head of garlic, peeled and crushed
juice of 1 lime
1 tsp unrefined coarse sea salt (see sources)
1/2 packet vegetable starter culture (buy it online) dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water or 1/4 cup fresh whey

Method:

Toss tomatillos, peppers, garlic, lime juice, salt and starter culture or fresh whey into a food processor or blender and process until smooth, adjusting for seasoning as necessary.
Transfer the sauce to a mason jar or a vegetable fermenter (see sources and allow to ferment at room temperature for three to five days before transferring to cold storage. Serve the salsa verde over grilled chicken or fish or as a garnish for tacos and burritos.

YIELD: about 1 pint | TIME: 5 minutes (active), 3 to 5 days (fermentation)

NOTE: Fermentation, I think, makes everything a bit better, deepening the flavors and improving a dish’s nutrient profile, but if you can also skip the fermentation process entirely for this classic salsa verde recipe and, instead, serve it immediately after step #1.

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Roots, Berries, Bark & Flowers: An Old-fashioned Recipe for Root Beer

Jenny — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 02:08:25 +0000

There’s an old-fashioned charm to homemade root beer with its odd array of roots and bark, flowers, leaves and berries. It, like many other fermented beverages, once enjoyed position as a staple of American cookery. Water, as you know, was not always potable and raw milk, small beers, cider, perry and other fermented beverages were consumed as the drink of choice – even for small children. For a time, each community and each family enjoyed a closely guarded homemade root beer recipe.

While most home brewers now make their root beers from commercially sold root beer concentrates, there’s a certain undeniable charm of brewing root beer the traditional way – slowly simmering a concoction of roots, berries, bark and spices, dissolving a sweetener into the herbaceous brew adding a natural source of yeast, bottling and then simply waiting for the yeast to do its work. (If you’re reading this on email, be sure to click through to view the history of root beer, the safrole controversy, its use in folkloric remedies and, of course, the recipe).

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A Recipe for Spring: Strawberry Mint Sorbet

Jenny — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:49:47 +0000

Strawberry mint sorbet is one of those desserts – those simple treats – that I love sharing with my family. It’s fresh and vibrant with flavor, but also utterly uncomplicated. Celebrating some of the best flavors of spring – strawberries and fresh herbs – this strawberry mint sorbet provides the perfect combination of bright flavors to summon you from the drudgery of winter.

Of course, in my community, winter still looms deep. Our mountains of snow won’t recede for another two months and it won’t be until July that we taste the first of the tiny alpine strawberries to come out of the woods. So for this recipe, I dug deep into the recesses of the freezer to pull out some of the berries we had preserved from last summer, pairing them with fresh and local mint from our larger foodshed. To my delight, I saw another beautiful reminder of spring when I opened that package of mint: the first ladybug of the season.

Strawberry Mint Sorbet

strawberries, fresh mint & vanilla

Ingredients:

1 lb frozen strawberries, thawed at room temperature for twenty minutes
1/4 cup minced mint leaves
no more than 1/4 cup unrefined cane sugar or honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 to 4 drops food-grade peppermint essential oil

Equipment:

food processor

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.
Transfer to the freezer, if necessary, to harden or serve immediately.

YIELD: about 1 pint.
TIME: about 5 minutes.
NOTE: Depending on the sweetness of your berries, you may wish to add less sweetener or omit it entirely.

Love strawberry mint sorbet? Try these other nourishing desserts.

Melted Apricots with Fresh Raspberries

So simple and so fresh, melted apricots with fresh raspberries is both tart and sweet and served just hot enough to barely warm the belly. I love to serve this dish with plenty of fresh cream.

Blackberry Sorbet

A decidedly tart finish to supper, our family prefers to prepare this wholesome, antioxidant-rich dessert without additional sweetener, appreciating, instead, the full flavor of local blackberries frozen at their height of ripeness.

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A Recipe for Winter: Apple & Spice Dutch Baby Pancake

Jenny — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:37:30 +0000

Dutch baby pancakes, puffy and golden brown, are my go-to dish for wholesome and nourishing breakfasts. At night, when I’ve tucked my son into his cotton quilts and woolen blankets, I ask him what he wants to eat for the next morning’s breakfast. So many dishes, properly prepared, need time – soaked oatmeal porridge, baked oatmeal or buttermilk biscuits, for instance. And while eggs are a household favorite, more often than not, “PANCAKES!” comes his reply. Like most moms, I don’t have a lot of time in the mornings and as much as I love food and cooking, the painstaking process of pouring, flipping and turning every single pancake makes me shudder. I get bored, check my email and burn half the batch of pancakes in the process. It’s not a pretty sight, and we’re left with a mountain of dirty dishes and batter-splattered counter-tops as a result.

So when he asks for pancakes, I negotiate. “How about a Dutch baby?” I ask. He acquiesces and we’re both satisfied.

Dutch baby pancakes are sinfully easy to prepare. In their simplest form, you can mix a quick batter, pour it into a skillet and throw it into the oven for a half-hour to forty-five minutes. Me? I like to complicate things, if only slightly – preferring instead to fry some fruit and pour the batter over the fruit. I use less sugar that way, and add a little variety to the meal.

While regular pancakes are primarily composed of flour and a sweetener with eggs used as a binder; a Dutch baby is primarily composed of eggs and milk with a bit of flour and sugar included. So while the ingredients are more or less the same, the proportions are different. In my family, we tend to err in favor of the inclusion of fats and protein – like that provided by farm fresh eggs which are extraordinarily rich fat-soluble vitamins E, D and A as well as beta carotene; moreover, farm-fresh eggs offer a favorable fatty acid ratio.

Dutch Baby Pancake Recipe

dutch baby pancake with apples, cinnamon and cloves

Thanks to the inclusion of both chopped apples and whole grain flour, this Dutch baby won’t rise quite as high as those made with white flour; however, you’ll find the results equally delicious.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons clarified butter or ghee (see sources)
3 medium apples, cored and chopped into 1/4-inch dice
6 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk, not ultrapasteurized (see sources)
1/2 cup whole grain sprouted flour (see sources)
no more than 1/4 cup whole unrefined cane sugar (see sources)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
1 lemon, sliced thin, to serve

Method:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Melt clarified butter in a cast iron skillet over a moderate flame, then toss in chopped apples. Fry the apples in butter until they release their perfume and become tender when pierced by a fork, about six to eight minutes.
Beat eggs and milk together in a separate bowl until smooth and uniform, then beat in sprouted flour, unrefined cane sugar, cinnamon, cloves and sea salt. Continue beating the batter for the Dutch baby until it is smooth with no lumps. The batter will be very liquid.
Remove the skillet from the heat, pour the Dutch baby batter over the cooked apples and bake in an oven preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit for thirty-five to forty-five minutes until puffed and golden.
Serve the Dutch baby pancake immediately, garnished with sliced lemon.

YIELD: 6 to 8 servings.
TIME: 6 to 8 minutes (stovetop), 35 to 45 minutes (oven)
NOTES: If you are lactose- or casein-free, you can substitute coconut milk. Sprouted rice, wheat and spelt flours (see sources) work equally well in this recipe.

Love this Dutch baby pancake recipe? Try these other breakfast dishes:

Buckwheat Sourdougnuts

Not too sweet, sourdough doughnuts are cake-like and dense thanks to the inclusion of buckwheat flour. Filling with a wholesome rustic texture and flavor, these doughnuts are leavened first through the same method used to prepare sourdough bread.

Baked Oatmeal

Wholesome, filling and a perfect alternative to soaked oatmeal porridge, baked oatmeal nourishes and satisfies. This recipe for baked oatmeal is seasoned with cinnamon and dotted by the inclusion of raisins, dried cranberries and apricots, though you can use any dried fruit you have on hand.

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A Benign Indulgence: Rustic Mayan Chocolate Truffles

Jenny — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:57:24 +0000

Mayan chocolate, bitter and sexy, with its resonant flavors of cinnamon and chili always reminds me not of Mexico, but of Amsterdam. It was in that cold and wet city that my husband and I tied the knot to the bells of the Oude Kerk six years ago. We’re not much for fanfare, we two. And while we’d planned the trip for months, it was only in the three days before we left that we decided to make the Valentine’s getaway a honeymoon. A trip to the county clerk for our $10 marriage license, $165 on eBay for our wedding rings, and we were set. No satin dresses, no expensive flowers, no wedding invitations. Just us, in love. We were young and poor and passionate (and, I imagine, you could say that not much has changed since then). We rented an apartment in de Wallen – one of the city’s oldest sections in which stunning architecture and history combine with Amsterdam’s most well-known indulgences: coffee shops and the red light district.

After a few days in the city, visiting the Stedelijk and spending hours walking from canal to canal, we met my brother-in-law at Central Station. He rode the train in from Italy where he’d spent a few years hopping from farm to farm. We surprised him with the news and signed our papers while he dished out a bowl full of risotto with winter vegetables – our reception dinner, if you will, combined with a cheap bottle of viognier. Intimate, quiet and simple. My brother-in-law stepped out of the apartment only to return a short time later with a box of truffles, among them Mayan chocolate. And, perfectly, our only wedding gift.

Bitter Mayan chocolate with its aromatic spices will always remind me of Amsterdam and of that quiet night we spent huddled in that apartment, laughing, telling stories, eating chocolates and reveling in a young love.

Mayan chocolate is infinitely complex, and worth savoring. Like a rich and complicated perfume, its flavor follows a sequence – vibrant top and middle notes fading away into a robust and lingering bottom note. The pleasure of Mayan chocolate begins first on the tongue with a powdery and astringent bitterness quickly outshined by floral notes of vanilla and orange that fade into the throat with the lingering and stimulating spice of cinnamon and chipotle chilies. Mayan chocolate is an experiential exercise in pleasure more than a treat or an indulgence.

So this Valentine’s day he greeted me with roses, and I greeted him with Mayan chocolates. May you celebrate today in the arms of someone who drives your passion.

Mayan Chocolate: How it Nourishes

Chocolate is a strong food – one whose bitterness is typically tempered by cream, milk powders and mountains of sugar. Most chocolates are further insulted by the addition of soy lecithin, an emulsifier which some manufacturers include in lieu of additional cocoa butter. In many conventional brands, soy lecithin is sourced from genetically engineered beans and is best avoided. Sadly, milk chocolate bars which typically contain milk powders are best avoided as milk powder is a source of oxidized cholesterol. What you want in a chocolate is high cocoa content, no emulsifiers, limited sugar and no milk powder. Read more about how to choose a good organic dark chocolate.

Chocolate is also rich in theobromine, a stimulant, and is best consumed in small pieces when consumed at all. Though a stimulant, chocolate also may offer cardioprotective and anticarcinogenic properties thanks to its rich combination of antioxidants – boasting an ORAC value of 20,832, a feat considering the ORAC value of raspberries and blueberries (both foods lauded for their antioxidant content) is 4,882 and 6,552, respectively¹. Flavonoid-rich dark chocolate also helps to improve blood vessel flexibility, thereby decreasing risk of cardiovascular disease². Chocolate is also rich in trace minerals including iron, phosphorus, zinc, copper and manganese³ – necessary components of vascular tone and cell health⁴. And for expectant mothers, chocolate intake may help to reduce the risk of preeclampsia^5,6 while a Finnish study found that mothers who consumed chocolate daily during pregnancy reported better temperaments in their babies than those who avoided chocolate or only ate it seldomly⁷.

While I wouldn’t recommend chocolate as a dietary staple due to its naturally occurring stimulants and its tendency to be addictive, a little treat like these Mayan chocolate truffles might be a worthy indulgence now and then. Moreover, these chocolates contain about one-half a teaspoon of added sugar per piece – an indulgence well within the recommendation not to consume more than two teaspoons in one serving.

Where to Buy Good Quality Chocolate and Spices

The flavor of these truffles can be only as good as your ingredients. Make sure that you choose a good quality dark chocolate (I use dark chocolate with an 85% cocoa content), and it should also be ethically sourced from companies who adhere to fair trade standards as child slavery is rampant in the chocolate industry. Yes, it will be more expensive. But, remember, treats like these mayan chocolate truffles are just that – treats. For such a rare indulgence, the added expense won’t add up and you won’t be contributing to the problem of child slavery on West African cocoa plantations.

Spice makes these truffles, so purchasing a good quality spice is essential. If you don’t have a favorite local spice shop, you can purchase organic spices online in bulk. I buy from Mountain Rose Herbs which offers both culinary and medicinal herbs and spices.

Mayan Chocolate Truffles

Mayan chocolate with orange, cinnamon, chili and vanilla

This recipe for Mayan chocolate truffles calls for chocolate with an 85% cocoa content, bitterly and wonderfully dark; you’ll find that the addition of other flavors such as orange, cinnamon, vanilla and even chipotle chili powder enhance the complexity of the chocolate’s inherent flavor and aroma. You won’t miss that sugar one bit. Further, these Mayan chocolate truffles are more simplistic and rustic – they require no hand molding; rather, simply chill the chocolate in the refrigerator and cut away at it to form beautifully imperfect bite-sized pieces. Beauty lies in imperfection.

Ingredients

10 ounces chocolate with 85% cocoa content (I use this one), chopped coarsely
zest of 1 orange
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1 vanilla bean
dash unrefined sea salt
1 cup full fat coconut milk (see sources or make your own)
1 tablespoon coconut oil (see sources)
cocoa powder, for dredging truffles

Method

Toss chopped chocolate into a mixing bowl with the zest of one orange, cinnamon, chipotle chili powder, the contents of one vanilla bean and a dash unrefined sea salt.
Bring coconut milk and coconut oil to a slow simmer in a saucepan over a moderate flame.
Pour coconut milk and oil over the chopped chocolate and seasonings then stir continuously with a wooden spoon until the chocolate is thoroughly melted and the mixture, or ganache, becomes thick, uniform and glossy.
Transfer the mixture to a plate lined with parchment paper, molding into a log as best you can, and allow it to harden in the refrigerator for eight to twelve hours, or overnight.
After the Mayan chocolate has hardened in the refrigerator for eight to twelve hours, remove it, unmold it from the parchment paper and carve it into irregular bite-sized chunks.
Toss the chunks with cocoa powder and serve.

YIELD: About two dozen Mayan chocolate truffles.
TIME: 10 minutes (active), 8 to 12 hours (refrigeration)
NOTES: Unless you live in a very hot climate, these truffles should keep at room temperature indefinitely.

Love this Mayan chocolate recipe? Try these nourishing sweets:

Sesame Honey Candy

A traditional Greek confection, sesame seed and honey candy is just about as wholesome as candy can get with its inclusion of mineral-rich sesame seeds, unrefined sea salt and wildflower honey.

Sugar Plums

Sugar plums, wholesome and humble, are easy to prepare at home – combining nuts with once exotic spices and dried fruits. Perhaps this Christmas Eve, you can find a little room on your supper table for these nourishing treats from a time gone by.

1. Oracvalues.com (accessed 2/12/2011) 2. Kris-Etherton and Keen. Evidence that the antioxidant flavonoids in tea and cocoa are beneficial for cardiovascular health. Current Opinion in Lipidology. February 2002. 3.Steinberg et al. Cocoa and chocolate flavonoids: implications for cardiovascular health. 5. Saftlas et al. Does chocolate intake during pregnancy reduce the risks of preeclampsia and gestational hypertension? Annals of Epidemiology. August 2010. 6. Triche, et al. Chocolate consumption in pregnancy and reduced likelihood of preeclampsia. Epidemiology. May 2008. 7. Raikkoken, et al. Sweet babies: chocolate consumption during pregnancy and infant temperament at six months. Early Human Development. February 2004

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A Tutorial: How to Make Coconut Milk

Jenny — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 04:08:15 +0000

Ever wondered how to make coconut milk? No, not the tinned stuff; rather, have you ever wondered how to make truly fresh coconut milk? While tins of coconut milk do just fine – a compromise food that balances the traditional with the modern, the flavor of a true homemade coconut milk is unsurpassed. Take the time and the effort to learn how to make coconut milk at home, and your work will be well-rewarded.

Coconut, traditionally eaten across the South Pacific and in parts of Asia, is a powerhouse of nutrients. Coconut is rich in trace minerals including manganese which is essential in metabolism, healing and collagen formation, copper which plays a role in immunity and bone health as well as selenium, a nutrient which is critical to thyroid function as well as developing healthy skin, nails and hair. Beyond these trace minerals, coconut is a potent source of lauric acid – a wholesome and nourishing saturated fat with strong antimicrobial properties which may help to bolster immunity and even show promise in the treatment of acne¹.

So, there you have it: coconut is a beauty food which makes learning to how to make coconut milk a worthwhile pursuit, no? Consider it a beautifying tonic, essential in your routine like an afternoon beauty rest or a tonifying French clay masque.

Better than Store-bought: Learn How to Make Coconut Milk

If you’ve read Nourished Kitchen for any length of time, you’ll know we don’t take much of a liking to any canned or processed food which makes coconut milk a bit of a quandary; after all, it’s a rich source of lauric acid – a deeply nourishing fat which is otherwise only available in human breast milk. It’s also a good source of minerals and for those who avoid fresh raw milk by necessity or preference, coconut milk makes an excellent alternative – substantially better than high-glycemic oat and rice milks, undoubtedly better than hormone-disrupting soy milk and better still than nut and seed milks which tend to be high in omega-6 fatty acids and low in omega-3 fatty acids. In many ways, those cans of coconut milk are a compromise food – and one of the only canned foods recommended by the Weston A Price Foundation, a nutritional advocacy group, though it is not recommended for GAPS patients. Add the challenge of cans lined with bisphenol-A, a known human endocrine disruptor² and probable carcinogen^3,4, and you couple the degradation of nutrients by high-heat canning methods with the adverse effects of endocrine-disrupting. Canned coconut milk is, at best, a compromise.

Fresh, homemade coconut milk is also richer in vitamins, food enzymes and nutrients than coconut milk from a tin. Indeed, fresh coconut milk contains three times as much vitamin C as canned coconut milk and is richer in thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate and panthothenic acid. Moreover, fresh raw coconut milk contains vitamin E, a heat-sensitive, fat-soluble vitamin that is otherwise absent in canned coconut milk. Learning how to make coconut milk is, indeed, worthwhile for its nutrition benefits alone, let alone the culinary pleasure you’ll experience in tasting something truly fresh, creamy and markedly lacking in that unpleasant dull metallic aftertaste that comes from any tinned food.

Fortunately, learning how to make coconut milk is easy. So you can drop the cans and pick up a fresh coconut, widely available at most grocers as well as online, and make your own.

How to Make Coconut Milk

Learning how to make coconut milk is easy. Select a ripe coconut by holding it up to your ear and gently shaking it; if you hear the sweet slosh-slosh of liquid, you’ve got a good one. In this recipe for homemade coconut milk, we call for hot water which produces a richer coconut milk that’s higher in coconut oil; however, if you’re intent on making an unheated coconut milk, you can use cold filtered water.

Ingredients

2 brown coconuts
3 to 4 cups filtered water, preferably hot

Equipment

sharp knife
mixing bowl
hammer or rolling pin
kitchen towel
vegetable peeler
high-powered blender (like this one)
butter muslin (which you can get online)
mason jar or pitcher

Method

Pierce the eyes of the coconut with a sharp knife and drain coconut water into a mixing bowl. Split the coconuts by covering in a kitchen towel and smashing with a rolling pin or hammer.
With a sharp knife, pry the coconut meat from its husk, then peel off any remaining brown bits of skin that adhere to the coconut meat. Place the coconut flesh and coconut water in a blender, adding three to four cups hot water Blend until the coconut and water forms a smooth slurry.
Pour coconut mixture through a butter muslin or nut milk bag into a mason jar or pitcher. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible, and transfer the coconut milk to the refrigerator.

YIELD: about 1 quart.
TIME: 20 – 30 minutes (preparation), under 5 minutes (blending)
NOTE: Save the coconut pulp and dry it in your dehydrator. It can be used like any dessicated coconut – in pastries, baked goods, sweets and as a coating for fish and chicken.

1. Yang, et al. The antimicrobial activity of liposomal lauric acids against Propionibacterium acnes. Biomaterials. October 2009. 2. Soto, et al. Environmental causes of cancer: endocrine disruptors as carcinogens. National Reviews. Endocrinology. July 2010. 3. Bolli, et al. Bisphenol A impairs estradiol-induced protective effects against DLD-1 colon cancer cell growth. IUBMB Life. September 2010. 4. Weng, et al. Epigenetic influences of low-dose bisphenol A in primary human breast epithelial cells. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. October 2010.

Love this tutorial? Check out the others:

How to Render Lard

Learn why lard is actually more nourishing than you think, and learn how to render lard easily at home on the stove top just like your great-grandmother did.

How to Make Raw Milk Yogurt

Rich, creamy and full of beneficial bacteria, food enzymes and nourishing fats, learn how to make raw milk yogurt easily at home.

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Visions of Sugar Plums: An Old-world Recipe

Jenny — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:40:15 +0000

Sugar plums, round and humble, evoke a sense of otherworldly fancy – of mystic lore, ancient yuletide celebrations, of poetry. From Clement C. Moore’s much-cherished ‘Twas the Night before Christmas to sugar plum fairies of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, these beloved confections have woven themselves in and out of the culinary traditions of Christmas and Yule. And while sugar plums still hold a place of fanciful whimsy in our poetry and plays, the confections are little more than a vestige of the bygone days of the old-world, all but forgotten in modern kitchens. A simple sugar plum recipe contains but nuts and dried fruit – wholesome ingredients, that, in their humility, may lack cloying sweetness that modern holiday treats like sugar cookies, marshmallow fudge and peppermint bark offer to contemporary tastebuds.

With culinary tradition, of course, comes nourishment and while the complex sweetness of a traditional sugar plum may pale in comparison to modern-day sweets, the confections offer a greater and more complex depth of flavor – combining allspice and coriander, cinnamon and fennel or other spices with dates, dried cherries, figs, prunes and apricots. There was a time when prunes, wrinkled and plain, served as a treat and a time when sugar plums made up the stuff of children’s dreams.

The term sugar plum is a bit of a misnomer by today’s standards as it once applied to nearly any small, round treat – from dried fruit to hard candy made of sugar and coriander. Today we think of a plum strictly as a summer stone fruit, with the sugar plum itself being one of the sweetest varieties of fruit – lacking the mouth-puckering sour skin of other plums.

In the sugar plum recipe below, we call for soaking walnuts overnight in slightly salty warm water – a traditional process that not only improves flavor by releasing some of the nuts’ bitter tannins into the water, but also improves digestion of these foods by neutralizing enzyme inhibitors naturally present in nuts and seeds; moreover, the simple process also helps to facilitate the degradation of food phytate – a naturally occurring antinutrient which binds minerals in the digestive tract preventing your body from reaping the full complement of minerals offered by nuts, seeds, grains and legumes. We couple soaked walnuts with dates, prunes and unsulphured apricots as well as an assortment of old-world spices: cinnamon, allspice and coriander for a treat that is wonderfully nourishing and truly special.

Sugar Plum Recipe

Sugar Plum Recipe: Ingredients

1 cup shelled walnuts (see sources)
1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt (see sources)
zest of 1 orange
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1 cup chopped pitted dates (see sources)
1/2 cup chopped unsulphured apricots (see sources)
1/2 cup chopped pitted prunes (see sources)
powdered unrefined cane sugar (see sources) or unsweetened dessicated coconut (see sources), optional

Sugar Plum Recipe: Equipment

mixing bowl
colander
kitchen towel
food processor

Sugar Plum Recipe: Method

Toss walnuts into a mixing bowl with one-half teaspoon unrefined sea salt and add warm water to cover by two inches. Allow the nuts to soak, covered, in salty water overnight between eight and twelve hours.
After the nuts have soaked between eight and twelve hours, drain them in a colander and rinse them well. Pat them dry with a kitchen towel.
Toss the soaked nuts into a food processor with the zest of one orange, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, coriander as well as chopped pitted dates, unsulphured apricots and pitted prunes.
Pulse the mixture three to four times to combine, then process the dried fruit, walnuts and spices until a paste forms – about four or five minutes.
Transfer the paste to a mixing bowl and form the sugar plums by rolling about two tablespoons of the paste in the palms of your hands until a round ball forms. Dredge the sugar plum in powdered unrefined cane sugar or unsweetened dessicated coconut.

YIELD: about 3 dozen sugar plums.
TIME: 10 minutes (active), 8 to 12 hours (soaking)
VARIATIONS: Substitute any nut or seed for walnuts and use the spices of your choice.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |