Raspberry Muffins

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

First off, I feel the need to apologize for my complete and utter absence from this blog. Ever since I came back from Switzerland (after my Dad had to have emergency surgery)I have been a bit out of sync. My dad, thank god is doing much better, I am relieved to say, but somehow I just haven’t been able to get back and pick up where I left off. My cooking-and-writing-about-it Mojo has been sadly missing. Not that I didn’t cook, no, I just didn’t feel like ‘talking’ I guess. Here’s to hoping I’ll get back to the blogging a bit more soon.

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Raspberry Muffins: Quick, easy and good :)

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 1/3 cup crème fraîche OR 1 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 to 2/3 cup frozen raspberries
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda

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Directions

  1. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners, or grease well. Set aside.
  2. Preheat oven to 380º F
  3. Combine flour, baking powder, soda and sugar in a medium bowl
  4. Stir in crème fraîche and Raspberries.
  5. Fill muffin tins and bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean
  6. Enjoy!

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Well here’s the other reason I have been busy: I had several of my lace knitting patterns published :)

2013-02-19 11.48.28

 Tulip Tree

2013-03-15 09.25.42

Sanguinella

2013-04-09 13.50.33

Copyright © 2013 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved

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Feijoada completa – Slow Cooker Friday

Posted on March 7, 2013 by

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If you have ever had Brazilian Feijoada, you know it is one of the most delicious things that can be made with black beans. However, traditionally it takes all day to cook and it is therefore only made for special occasions (or you can get it at restaurants that specialize in it. ) Generally it involves at least three types of meat, fresh, salted, and smoked. Sausage and something with bone are almost always required, often dried meat is one of the ingredients as well.

In order to save the modern cook a bit time and to make it a bit easier to achieve the flavor without having to hunt down obscure dried Brazilian meats, I used smoked pork chops and ham hocks with bone (which admittedly are quite salted as well, so too strikes) and the slow cooker to make this. You could presumably also use a small pork butt /ham as a meat, and (I am sure this is blasphemy) polish kielbasa or other smoked sausage or cook some fresh sausage to chop in at the end. Am not claiming to be completely authentic here, but yummy it is all the same! It is meat heavy, but served over rice with a nice side of braised chopped collards, after a hard day’s work on the range, herding cattle and catching calves, there’s nothing better! Common, just try, you can make that desk and computer fade away before your mind’s eye!

imageCook it simply in the slow cooker, takes all day but not all day of your time and when done, it is simply delicious!

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feel free to make less as this will feed an army, or freeze it in portions and just thaw and heat when hungry!

Ingredients:

  • 2 lb dried black beans (about 4 cups)
  • 2 medium onions, chopped
  • 1 head garlic (6-8 pieces will suffice)
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 2 sprigs thyme
  • 2 ham hocks, with bone (or salted/smoked meat of choice)
  • 1 thick cut smoked pork chop, with bone

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Directions

  1. In your large slow cooker insert, combine rinsed drained black beans (no need to soak overnight), onion, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, ham hocks and pork chop or meat of choice (except fresh sausage, that come later) and about 7  cups of water, add more water as necessary. (depending on the ‘age’ of your beans, they might take more or less liquid to cook through properly)
  2. Turn on high* and let it cook for 6-8 hours.
  3. When the beans are cooked, remove about a cup of the soft beans, mash with a fork or blend in you machine, then add back to the cooking beans. (At this point you can also cook the fresh sausage and add to the concoction, if using)
  4. Serve over rice and with a side of Collard greens. And of course, it’s best to wash it all down with a nice Caipiriña!

* slow cookers vary, check your instructions to see what setting is recommended for cooking beans

image Copyright © 2013 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved

Posted in corn free, dinners & main meal, frugal, gluten free | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Sausage Vegetable and Couscous skillet

Posted on February 24, 2013 by

imageA quickie for those nights when you really don’t feel like cooking, or cleaning up much after. Hot Italian sausage shaped into patties, either by cutting the casing open and ‘tablespooning’ it out, or as I like to do ‘toothpaste’ style dispensing it into the skillet. It all cooks up in 15 minutes flat and uses up the leftover random veggies you have on hand AND uses just one skillet :) I’d say that’s a win-win situation for your fridge and your dishwasher (person)

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Ingredients

  • 1/2 pound hot italian sausage
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 zucchini
  • (1 small potato, piece of red, yellow or green pepper) optional
  • some baby spinach 
  • 1/4 cup Israeli couscous (that’s the bigger kind)
  • a little salt
  • about 1/2 cup water

Directions

  1. Heat a little oil in your skillet, when hot, cook the sausage patties until browned on one side, flip over and add the chopped carrots to the pan, the couscous, and top it all with the softer vegetables (except spinach). Cook about 2 minutes until patties begin to brown, then add the salt and water and cover.
  2. Cook until couscous is ready and vegetables are cooked through, stirring periodically and adding a little more water if necessary.
  3. Top with spinach, close the lid again and steam the spinach just until wilted.
  4. Serve and enjoy the easy clean-up!

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Posted in dinners & main meal, frugal, quick & easy | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

10 Grain Sourdough Loaf

Posted on January 31, 2013 by

imageBaked with love!

This time, I wanted easy. So I used a baking dish, a cake form as they are called. You can most certainly make this bread free form as well, like I usually do. I enjoy the random shapes the sourdough loaf can take. Sometimes a little softer so it ends up more squat, other times more round. Hey, what can I say, gotta live on the wild side every once in a while ;) But the only thing here that’s wild, is the yeast strains I caught and made into a sourdough starter.

Bread Baking Day # 56 - A Bread Fashion Show (last day of submission February 1st)

My starter is all rye. I had researched it for  a while and apparently it is easier to create a viable starter by using rye flour, so that’s the route I went. And because for a while I was on a rye bread (Walliser Brot to be exact) kick, the starter has remained, pure rye.

I do make wheat breads with it, but I always feed the rest of it separate with some ground rye or rye flour, or use the ‘discard portion’ ( You know the cup you remove when you feed your little pet, so you don;t end up with five tons of sourdough in the fridge.)

But enough talk. This is my submission to Bread Baking Day #56

The rules are as follows:

yeasted bread (wild or commercial yeast ok)

Has to be PRETTY, so I decorated it, with seeds shaped into hearts :)

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Ingredients

For the chef: (pre-dough, the day before baking)

For the dough:

  • chef from above
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 cups 10-grain flour (or whole wheat, if not available)
  • 1/2 cup water

* right from the fridge. Stir well if separated, then feed w rye and water and take the 1 1/2 cups from the resulting mix, let the rest do it’s thing before returning to the fridge

Directions

  1. On day one, mix the sourdough starter with the 1/2 cup warm water, and stir in the bread flour. The resulting ‘dough’ will be very wet. Cover and and set aside at least 5 hour or overnight. Until dough looks big and ugly ;)
  2. The next morning stir in the other 1/2 cup water and the salt and 2 1/2 cups of flour, mix, adding more flour if necessary. Knead first in the bowl and then on a floured surface until  the dough is smooth and elastic, shape into a ball, place back into the bowl, cover and set aside in a warm spot for 3-4 hours, or until almost double in size. (This depends on several factors, how active your sourdough starter is, and how warm your kitchen is are some of the variables.)
  3. Lightly grease a cake pan. Shape the dough into a thick roll and place in the pan. Lightly cover with cling warp to prevent the surface from drying out. Set aside to rest for another 3 hours or until puffy looking (doesn’t need to double in size, just rise nicely)
  4. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Brush surface of loaf with water, then decorate with seeds and nuts of your liking. I used chia, sesame and flax seeds, plus pumpkin and sunflower seeds.
  5. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 60 minutes, checking on the bread after 45 minutes. You can tell if the bread is done by tapping the bottom with your fingers (careful beard is hot!) if it sounds hollow, it’s good.
  6. Let cool on a rack until completely cool before cutting into it. I know it’s hard to do, but if you cut the bread while still warm, it might stick to your knife. Cool breads don’t compress as easily and therefore don’t become gummy when you cut them.
  7. Enjoy!

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Posted in frugal, Sides | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

End of the Month Cabbage Soup

Posted on January 29, 2013 by

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So here’s one for those times where the wallet looks awfully empty. Or maybe you are saving up for something big, or you had a big expense that was unavoidable but not planned. You look into your pockets and realize, hmm, maybe the steak will have to wait, oh and maybe the sausage too… Well, no worries, you can still make yourself an utterly tasty and nourishing soup. ‘Weniger is mehr’ or in English ‘less is more’ when it comes to soups. As a side note, a lot of stores will cut a head of cabbage in half for you, so you don’t have to eat cabbage until March ;)

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Ingredients

  • 1 onion
  • 1/2 head of savoy cabbage (that’s the frilly, blistery leafed kind)
  • 4 stalks of celery
  • 1/2 cup chana dahl*
  • 2 cups vegetable stock or rapunzel vegan bouillon cube and water
  • 2 -4 cup water ( I make this by eye, using my 5 qt pot, just fill until all the veggies are covered.
  • up to 1 tsp salt (depending on your broth, if it’s not salt broth add 1 tsp)
  • Optional: other veggies that lie around your fridge looking for a good home that would be yummy added to this: Carrots, red bell pepper, potato,

* Chana Dahl is an Indian split chick pea, it has the lowes glycemic index known to man, specially as far as legumes go. You could also use a can of beans, but the chana dahl cooks rather quick and adds a creamy thickness to the soup all while remaining (al dente) intact.

Make sure you stir it up well before serving, the chana dahl tends to be all on the bottom. I noticed that after having a mostly cabbage bowl, then a mostly chana dahl, made for a protein rich second serving ;)

imageYep, it’s a green soup :)

imageDirections

  1. Peel and chop the onion. Cut the cabbage into 1″ thick slices. Dice the celery.
  2. Heat a tablespoon of oil in your soup pot, add the onion and cook until translucent and soft, turn up the heat a bit to give it just a hint of brown, then add the celery and cabbage. Stir and cook until the darker cabbage leaves turn a bright green (see picture)image
  3. Deglaze pan by adding the broth and the water to cover the veggies, stir to loose any bits that might have stuck to the bottom.
  4. Add the chana dahl
  5. Cook until chana dahl is softened and gives easy when  pressed with a fork, about 40 minutes.
  6. Serve with a hearty slice of bread, or of course you could also hear up some kielbasa or other sausage right in the pot (make sure you cook raw sausage all the way)
  7. Leftovers may need to be thinned out, as I discovered. I wonder if the chana dahl is absorbing the water. Remedy? Just add some water to your ‘stoup’ (Stew+Soup)

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Posted in Bootcamp approved, dairy free, dinners & main meal, frugal, gluten free, quick & easy, Uncategorized, vegan | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Gluten Free Hazelnut Pancakes with Maple ‘Cream’

Posted on January 25, 2013 by

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I am still not feeling too talkative right now, so just a yummy recipe for you to try. Still recovering from the shock. On an up note, my dad is doing better and was able to sit up in hospital today. They ended up finding three (yes 3) aneurysms, one of which had burst. Lucky for him that was the one in his hip area,  as I was told, if the abdominal one had gone, he would not even have made it to the hospital. Crazy how one minute you go to the store to pick up your new computer and the next you land in the ER… So thanks for all your positive thoughts and well wishes, it made a huge difference :)

And now to some yummy eats, and gluten free for those of you that have to watch, but even if not, they are just so yummy, don’t let it hold you back!

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Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup ground Hazelnuts*
  • 1/4 cup potato or tapioca flour
  • 1/2 cup sweet white sorghum flour
  • 1/4 cup millet flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup milk (or almond milk)
  •  1 egg
  • 1 pinch xanthan gum
  • 1 tbsp turbinado sugar
  • 1 cup greek yogurt
  • 4 tablespoons maple syrup (more for serving, if desired)
  • Raspberries and Pomegranate seeds for serving, or fruit and berries of choice

*also sold as hazelnut meal or filberts. or blend your own, or like me, use the remnants of a botched attempt at making hazelnut butter. I think I have to face it, my blender just does not make nut butter, no mater how hard I try. See here)

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  1. To make the maple ‘cream’: Mix the greek yogurt in a small bowl until whipped and creamy, add the maple syrup and stir to combine. Set aside.
  2. Mix the flours, sugar, xanthan gum and baking powder.
  3. Add the milk and egg and stir until just combined, a few lumps are okay.
  4. Heat a skillet and rub the inside with a paper towel and some oil. (This is an easy way to control how much oil you add, and is plenty for pancakes. Repeat as needed in between batches.)
  5. Pour batter into hot skillet, about a 1/3 of a cup per pancake and cook like regular pancakes, until bubbles appear on the surface and bottom side is set, then flip and cook on the second side.
  6. Set finished pancakes aside, (to keep warm place them in the pre heated oven)
  7. Serve garnished with berries and a dollop of whipped maple cream.

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Peanut salad

Posted on January 22, 2013 by

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Have you ever thought of using peanuts as a main ingredient for your salad? I am not talking as a topping, no. Main ingredient. Well, in fact you can! Since peanuts are really not a nut, but are part of the legume family, they are more like a bean than what we usually use them for, a culinary nut. Adds some interesting variations to your lunchtime routine, adds protein to your salad, and is tasty, sounds like a win-win to me! Now stop, don’t go running to that vending machine and get some Mr.Peanut for it.  Nonono. You will need to find yourself RAW peanuts. But that’s really easy to do, many Asian and Indian stores have them in stock, in fact the, and you can use them shelled or with the papery shell, husk, whatever it’s called, left on. After cooking it won’t matter. So it really comes down to a color preference. In the past I have used shelled and de-husked peanuts, but the salad in these pictures was made with shelled-but-red-husk-left-on peanuts, mainly because I had them and after some research on the internet I found that it can be left on without detriment to taste or health ;)

peanut salad

Ingredients

  • 2 cups raw, shelled peanuts (red husk removed, if desired)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved lengthwise
  • 1 medium cucumber, peeled and diced
  • 1 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
  • 1-2 chili peppers, finely died (depending on your tolerance for hot, use only a half)
  • 2-3 tbsp lemon juice,
  • olive oil

Directions

  1. In a saucepan bring the peanuts, covered generously with water, to a boil and the bay leaf covered in water. Cook for about 30 minutes or until peanuts are soft enough that you can easily crumble them when pressed with a fork.
  2. Discard the bay leaf. Drain and rinse the cooked peanuts.
  3. In a salad bowl, toss the peanuts, tomatoes, cucumber, cilantro, chili peppers and lemon juice, drizzle with a touch of olive oil (speak 1-2 teaspoons) and serve.

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