My New Beverage.

December 1, 2010March 17, 201815 Comments

You all were so adorable in your comments yesterday. It is a great/magical story! Thanks for sharing in the happiness of it with me. So sweet. (FYI, the awesome vintage pressed glass bowl below is also from my thrifitng adventure. Love.) And am I using the cabbage glasses? Everyday I tell you. They are key for my new nightly treat, my Clementine-Ginger Spritzer.

Truthfully I'm more of a red-wine-in-the-evening girl, but I've been having migraines like nobody's business lately. Every week or two I find myself curled up in a ball, wishing it would all just end. And for me nothing motivates a lifestyle change quite like debilitating pain. So I've decided to go with my instincts and give up the two beverage habits that I enjoy most: caffeine and alcohol. While I don't binge on either, I am suspecting that my body just can't handle the chemicals that they both contain, so I am cutting them out for a while to see what happens. (I considered throwing wheat and sugar in the do-not-eat mix as well, but goodness, it's almost Solstice and what would I do at our all-night-sugar-fest without those two vices? Wheat and sugar will just have to wait until January.)

Granted I'm only on day three, but I've almost replaced my tea habit with my old nettle chai recipe. I'm weaning myself off of the black tea one cup at a time, and I think that's working well. And the wine? The wine was replaced with a homemade Clementine-Ginger Spritzer. So yummy that I drank two bottles full last night. (And hey – no headache!)

I use homemade fizzy water in these, but you can just as easily use store-bought.

Since the holidays are upon us, I thought you might enjoy the recipe to rotate into your holiday mix. (With so many mamas and pregnant mamas posted in the giveaway I am hosting for LuSa goodies, I might be onto something with this caffeine and alcohol free/low sugar beverage theme. Kid friendly!) Here's how.

Gather your ingredients:

Three organic clementines (or tangerines or satsumas – call them what you will)
1" nub of ginger
1 Liter carbonated water or mineral water
A few drops of Stevia or honey

Make it:

If you have a masticating juicer, throw the unpeeled ginger in and catch the juice in one cup. Then juice the peeled clementines and catch juice in another cup.

If you don't have a fancy schmancy juicer, just finely grate the ginger and squeeze out all of the juiciness with your fingers into a cup. Then halve and juice the clementines by hand into a second cup.

The ginger can be unpredictable, so we'll add that slowly. (Thus the add-ins segregation.)

Add clementine juice to fizzy water, then add ginger a few drops at a time. Taste and add a few more if it isn't too zingy. Add a squirt or shake of stevia (I'm loving the liquid stevia as it seems far less bitter than the powder) or if you prefer add some honey diluted first in warm water so that it will mix in. You only need a little, as the clementines are sweet already.

Gently stir and taste. More ginger? Probably yes. Take it to the edge of spicy balanced with the sweet of the clementines and stevia. Serve over ice.

All I can say is yum. And wine? What wine? I don't remember any wine…

A Day at the Orchard.

September 23, 2010March 17, 201816 Comments

My mom is visiting this week from Milwaukee. We've spent most of her visit in the kitchen so far (this is the season for long hours there). Yesterday we decided to head over to Lansing to a small organic orchard yesterday for some autumn magic in the warm sunshine.

The drive was beautiful, the apples were perfect, and the woman who owns the orchard was a homeschooler's dream. As of today Sage is working on planting rootstock from crabapple seeds, discussing benefits of different grafting techniques, and planning our orchard.

The orchard we visited is Countryside near Lansing, IA. Jamie, the owner, has woven a rich history throughout her orchard and farm. Aside
from the apple trees one treasure was her work-in-progress "Wild
English Garden" – a collection of wild and heirloom plants rescued from
construction and demolition sites and roadsides throughout the region.

We'll be back next fall to be sure.

From Tree (and Farm, and Garden) to Table…

September 14, 2010March 17, 20189 Comments

We have been picking and purchasing and bartering and harvesting the most incredible bounty of produce this past week. It keeps my kitchen busy (and messy) most days, and will serves us beautifully throughout the winter.

We visited the local organic apple orchard this weekend to pick apples with friends in the warm sunshine. Those apples are destined for saucing this afternoon (and perhaps a crisp is in order to appreciate their loveliness as well).

Tomatoes from a local organic farmer are stacked in my kitchen. Today I will salt and roast them and then freeze for sauces and other goodness throughout the winter. Some will become salsa and others (if there is enough) will be for our first foray into ketchup.

And the pesto. Oh, the pesto! Our house smells of garlic and basil this morning after yesterday's all-day-pesto-thon. My freezer is brimming with cubes of pesto and basil puree. I made it from a variety of locally and homegrown garlic varieties, basil from a friends' farm, sunflower seeds and/or pine nuts, and olive oil. (The puree I left without nuts or garlic to include in non-pesto recipes during the winter.) For pesto I measure nothing, so each batch will be a surprise.

And in the non-culinary realm, thank you for the kind words about the gnome hat! Inspired by my post, Living Crafts Magazine has a generous offer for each of you as well! With each new subscription you will receive an additional issue – a
copy of the fall 2010 (our issue!) at no additional cost. Five issues
for the price of four, an $8.95 savings over the cover price. Use
coupon code F10clean on their website.

And the winners of the current issue of Living Crafts Magazine are:

Andrea who said:

you
were kind enough to send me a tutorial quite a while back after your
orginal gnome hat post! sadly, i have yet to getting around to making
it. i think i found a red sweater to use though… I need to get
moving!!!!

I've love a subscription to the magazine!

and

Karri R. who said:

love the hat! she's an adorable gnome!

Homemade Beet Ravioli.

August 26, 2010March 17, 201812 Comments

The kids pulled beets from my mom's garden when we were visiting last week. We steamed up a few too many for dinner two nights ago and needed a creative plan to use up the leftovers. On a whim the kids and I transformed them into technicolor pink ravioli. Here's how:

Puree two cups of chopped beets with 2 eggs in food processor or blender.

Placed 2 1/2 C flour mixed with 1 tsp salt.

Make a well in the center of the flour and add beet mixture. Stir and knead (adding extra flour as needed) until well combined. Continue adding flour until a stiff (read: not sticky) dough is achieved. Cover with a damp towel and allow to rest for 1/2 hour. (My kids have an adorable habit of singing lullabies to "resting" dough. *Love*)

While the dough is resting mix up your filling. We used caramelized onions (1/2 C), goat cheese (1/3 C), ricotta (1/2 C), a pinch of salt and an egg. Chopped roasted walnuts would have been a lovely addition but we were out.

Roll out dough on a well floured board. Cut into 2" squares. Into each square carefully place a tablespoon of filling in the center. Moisten the sides with water. Place a second noodle square on top and press edges to seal.

Cook in rapidly boiling salted water for four minutes per noodle. I boil them in batches as we get them ready and then lightly oil them after transferring to a serving bowl to prevent sticking.

Like most of my finished food shots, the cooked noodles didn't photograph well. But trust me that they were delicious and beautiful. We served it with garlic infused olive oil and garden fresh veggies. There were no leftovers. Improvise with any pureed, steamed, drained vegetable. Enjoy!

Fresh Mint Ice Cream

August 6, 2010March 17, 201816 Comments

Two years ago I planted a few tiny mint sprigs in my garden. Today they are the dominant plant in our yard (note to self: contain mint in sunken pots). What to do with all of this mint? Daily mint water, drying for tea… Then yesterday the kids and I had yet another taste for ice cream and we decided fresh mint ice cream sounded dreamy. We found a recipe online and set to work.

As an experiment for those of you who don't have an ice cream maker we tried Ice Cream in a Bag. The concept is that you create an ice cream maker with a zip bag of ice cream custard tucked inside of a zip bag of ice and salt. You shake and massage and it transforms into ice cream.

Full disclosure – we had done it at a birthday party a couple of years ago and it worked awesome (Comilla – share your suggestions in the comments field about how to make this work as well as it did that day!). On this day it worked okay, but we failed and making thick ice cream. We made glorified milkshakes.

The remainder of the batch we put in our trusty thrift store ice cream
maker. And it was nothing short of amazing. You can find the recipe here. Two ice cream posts in one week? I think that's over the top. But whatever. Its August.

P.S. For those of you who left comments yesterday: You can leave up to three comments (one for the heck of it, and an optional second and third for becoming a fan of Clean and Original Tree Swing on Facebook). And please note that the giveaway is for the items described at the bottom – not a tree swing. I hope that wasn't confusing yesterday. To find us on Facebook just search for LuSa Organics and choose the Clean option and search for Original Tree Swing.

Have a delicious weekend!

In My Kitchen.

July 28, 2010March 17, 201822 Comments

Thanks for the many sweet comments yesterday. I love that I can put a thought out there and you read it and then – like magic – a few of your write back. So cool.

My kitchen was wildly busy yesterday. I had a box of produce from a friend, my CSA share, and some harvests of my own.

Here's what happened around my cutting board in just a few short hours:

Kale chips. One word: Yum.They don't photograph well, and we ate half of the bowl before I thought to pick up my camera, but yum, yum, yum. Recipes abound online. I used a ton of kale, a splash of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt. Toss well, spread out in a single layer on a cookie sheet, and bake at 300 for 20 minutes or so. Watch them. My stainless steel trays were great but the batch I put on an aluminum tray (in an effort to bake them all in one round) burned.

Zukes: grated and frozen for future baked goods and soups.

(More) kale plus chard: Stemmed, blanched, chopped, and frozen. Winter greens for skillet dinner, soups, and baked dishes.

Live fermented dilly beans and cukes: I can hardly wait to dip into these in the coming days. I posted a recipe for the dilly beans here. You an use it for any vegetable worth fermenting. Beets, cukes, garlic, cabbage, carrots… you get the idea.

Pesto: Lots and lots of pesto. I freeze it in ice cube trays, pop out the cubes, and store in a jar or zip bag. There is something so delightful about pesto in January.

And of course, peanut butter cookies: (This was Lupine's addition to our day.) Not exactly seasonal fare, but it doesn't take much to convince me to make these.

And today in the kitchen? We'll be making another batch of toothpaste and some homemade deodorant. Not edible, but definitely on the necessary list around here.

Homemade Spelt Cracker Recipe.

July 14, 2010March 17, 201822 Comments

Crackers have been on my "must post" list since way back when butter,
yogurt, and tortillas were making their how-to debuts on Clean. Crackers are so quick,
so easy, and darn close to free when you make them at home. Today we whipped
up three batches in less than an hour: cardamon-honey graham crackers, grain-free almond crackers with cumin,
and our standard sesame-spelt.

It is a kid-friendly cooking task too, and so fun let your little ones cut out shapes with cookie cutters when they have a sweet craving that you don't want to give in to. (We've found that a cookie shape is often all they're after.)

I'll share one of the three recipes with you – or standard spelt cracker. If you'd like the grain-free almond crackers (shared by reader Casey – thanks lady!) or the cardamon-graham crackers just let me know. I'm happy to share those too.

Sesame-Spelt Crackers

Easy is an understatement. This is our basic cracker recipe. It is infinitely adaptable to what you have a taste for.

1 1/4 C freshly ground spelt flour (or whole wheat or rye flour)

2 Tb cold butter or coconut oil

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tb sesame seeds (or other seed. Both flax and cumin are lovely, or try a small amount of chopped fresh herbs)

1/4 C water

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Combine the flour, butter, and salt in food processor until well combined. Add seeds. Pulse several times. With food processor running, drizzle in water until the dough seems like its holding together without being wet or sticky. If you added too much, just dust with flour and work in.

Roll out between two sheets of parchment paper or on a floured surface. Feel free to add additional seeds now by sprinkling them on top and continuing to roll out. Its a nice touch. (You can also omit 1/2 of the salt and add coarser salt now to the top.)

Score with a knife or pizza cutter and move to cookie sheet (this is easy if you are using the parchment – just transfer to baking sheet, bottom parchment and all.

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on a cooling rack and store in a glass jar or tin.

Berry Jam Recipe

June 30, 2010March 17, 201820 Comments

Strawberry season is winding down early around here, but berry season as a whole has just begun. The black caps and mulberries are ripe, the raspberries are next, and blueberries and blackberries are on the horizon.

We make our jam with honey, and not much of it. We don't eat a ton of sweets around here so no one seems to mind if our jam is more fruity than dessert-y.

While apples, pears, and citrus are in a different jamming category, feel free to improvise the recipe below with whatever berries you have on hand. The batch below included some rhubarb mixed in with the strawberries.

For thickening without much sugar, we use natural pectin from the coop called Pomona's. It is a two-part process with a calcium water component and a pectin component. When combined they thicken the jam. So cool.

Pamona's is the only way I have found to successfully make a thick, low-sugar jam. We tried making our own pectin last year out of apples but made more of a sauce than a jam. A worthwhile experiment that I may try again some day, but for now I'm happy with the store-bought version and crazy thick jam.

Any Berry Jam

4 C berries (ripe, stemmed, and mashed)

1/3 – 1 C honey (we used 1/2 since we added rhubarb)

1/4 tsp stevia (optional)

1/4 package of Pamona's pectin

Wash, stem, and mash berries with a potato masher. Proceed according to the pectin instructions, adding the calcium water to the fruit mash and the pectin to the honey. Cook for two minutes. Fill sterilized jars, cap, and hot water bath can for 5 minutes.

Homemade Rhubarb Ice Cream

June 16, 2010March 17, 201816 Comments

To feel the cycle of the seasons in the foods we eat is one of the many delights I feel from eating locally. But to my kids, if its at the coop it must be good. It can be hard to explain why I won't buy a watermelon in April. And I don't want to burden
them with any heavy thoughts on our industrialized food system –
organic or not so I just quietly explain that we'll eat watermelons when they are ripe in the garden or when they arrive in our CSA share. They don't totally get it.

But strawberries and rhubarb… we all understand the precious treasure of this fleeting season.

Yesterday the kids and I made an amazing batch of homemade ice cream. Looking back it was all fresh, local goodness in there. Cream, milk, eggs, strawberries, and rhubarb from nearby farms. Maple from a friend down the road. We cranked the ice cream on a blanket in the yard. If was so easy, and so wonderful.

Simple goodness, I think. Simple, local, sustainable goodness.

If you're looking for a recipe I posted a stellar one here last year. The only substantial change I made this year was to throw in the sliced fresh strawberries. Happy churning!

Homemade Granola Recipe

June 9, 2010March 17, 201833 Comments

When I was a kid there were two foods I could smell from a half-block away: stuffed green peppers and homemade granola. They existed on opposite ends of my culinary spectrum: one being my worst nightmare and the other my favorite homemade treat. Even as I type this my mouth can't decide if it wants to water in the good way or the sick way while thinking about this contrast. (My sister knows exactly what I mean.) When the smell from the bus stop was the good one I remember running that half-block home and being handed a bowl of still warm granola, right out of the oven. Heaven.

Yesterday it rained all day. We were a little stir crazy, and then – for some reason – I remembered my mom's granola. At 3:00 we preheated the oven and mixed up a batch. We rarely make it, since its straight-up-non-soaked-non-sprouted grains, but it was raining. I was nostalgic. And I caved.

And we're all so glad I did.

As you already know, I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook, but I measured just for you and jotted down this recipe. If you are missing an ingredient improvise. Adjust. Flow. It'll be perfect – I promise.

Rainy Day Granola

4 C rolled oats

2 1/2 C nuts (we chose a combination of sliced almonds and chopped pecans and walnuts)

1/3 C sunflower seeds

1/2 C flax seeds

2/3 C coconut flakes

2/3 C coconut oil, melted

1/3 C maple syrup

1/8 tsp stevia or 1/4 C molasses

3/4 C dried fruit (we used a mixture of golden raisins, dried elderberries, dried sweetened cranberries, and goji berries)

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Combine dry ingredients. (Except the dried fruit which becomes hard, bitter, and nasty if baked. Well add the fruit in a bit, so set it aside.)

Add coconut oil and sweeteners and stir well.

Spread in pans (jelly roll or lasagna pans work well) and bake for 20-30 minutes. Watch carefully and stir and rotate trays every 10 minutes. The corners and edges are prone to burning, so be sure to stir in these zones.

When golden brown all over, remove from oven, cool and stir in dried fruit. Store in a glass jar in fridge. (Be sure to eat your first bowl still warm from the oven though, okay? It's magic.)