My Kitchen Clatter

Real Food - Real Life

Müesli

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Müesli is a wonderful, healthy alternative to granola. And it’s even easier to make than granola, because no oven is involved. Unlike granola, müesli has no added fat or sugar to mess with the goodness of the whole grains, nuts and dried fruits.

For serving, I spoon about 1/2 a cup of müesli over homemade yogurt for my morning breakfast. Add a banana or some berries and you are really set to go for the morning.

And if you are into overnight oats, you can sub müesli for the rolled oats. Just place about 1/2 cup of müesli into a 2 cup mason jar, cover with milk or coconut water, add some yogurt and then top off with your favorite fruit (frozen blueberries are mine). Let sit in the fridge overnight (or two) and you’ve got breakfast ready for the morning.

This recipe really should be considered as a starting point. You can mix and match your grains, nuts, seeds and fruits as you wish. A good rule of thumb to start with is about 80% grains and 20% nuts and dried fruit, but feel free to play with that ratio. I’ve added some warm spices to the mix for a little extra depth of flavor, but they can be left out or played with as you like. Here are some ideas for the ingredients to get you started.

  • Grains: Rolled oats, wheat bran, whole rye, rye flakes, whole barley, sorghum flakes, quinoa flakes, millet puffs, millet flakes, buckwheat groats.
  • Nuts/seeds: Sliced almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, pepitas, chia seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, unsweetened coconut flakes.
  • Dried fruit: Dried apricots, dried cherries, dried figs, raisins, golden raisins, currants, apple chips, dried blueberries.

Müesli

andrea
Müesli is a healthy, low-sugar alternative to granola. Use this recipe as a starting point to make your favorite combination of grains, nuts, and dried fruits. Serve with milk or yogurt.
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Prep Time 5 mins
Cook Time 0 mins
Course Breakfast
Servings 12 1/2 cup

Ingredients
  

  • 1/4 cup buckwheat groats
  • 1 3/4 cups rye flakes or rolled oats 
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds
  • 1/4 cup shelled pistachios, chopped
  • 2 tbsp shelled sunflower seeds
  • 1 tbsp flaxseed
  • 1/4 cup dried cherries
  • 1/4 cup dried apricots, small diced
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions
 

  • Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir until well combined.  Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to six months. 

To Serve

  • Serve 1/4 – 1/2 cup of muesli with an equal amount of yogurt or milk, a drizzle of honey, and fresh fruit like a sliced banana or berries. 
  • Müesli also works really well in overnight oats as a substitute for plain rolled oats. 
Keyword breakfast, easy, healthy, oats, whole grains

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

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I like my cookies to have a nice chewy bite, be soft in the middle, and have crispy edges. Oh, who am I kidding? I like my cookies in any form as long as they are fresh out of the oven. I pretty much have zero standards for cookies other than that they be homemade. All that said, this cookie comes out soft in the middle with crispy edges. It’s pretty darn great. It’s not overly sweet or difficult to make.

A little about sourdough starter…

I wrote this recipe specifically to use up extra sourdough starter. I think the starter helps to give the cookie its excellent crumb and softness. Your starter can be well fed or just your discard. The recipe does call for a full cup of starter, but it can easily be divided in half, depending on how much starter you have available.

And some words on flour…

Whole grain flours really make this cookie. If you only have all-purpose flour on hand, go ahead and use it. But if you’d like to increase the flavor, fiber and nutrients of your baked goods, be sure to give these a try with your favorite whole grain flour. My standard go-to for this cookie is normally a soft white wheat or a spelt flour. Both will make a chocolate chip cookie that has a nice mild flavor with slightly more depth than you’d find using all-purpose flour. But honestly, try this with any flour you have on hand. My favorite flour that I’ve tried with these cookies was buckwheat flour. Let me know in the comments what flours you try them with.

Sour Dough Chocolate Chip Cookies

Serving Size:
4-5 dozen cookies
Time:
20 minutes, plus rest & baking
Difficulty:
Easy

Ingredients

  • 3 cups + 2 tablespoons (380 g) of soft white whole grain wheat flour or all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
  • 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature or softer
  • 3/4 cup (180 g) granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup (120 g) light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup (240 g) sour dough starter discard
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

  1. Combine the dry ingredients (flour through salt) in a medium sized bowl. Whisk to combine.
  2. Combine the butter and both sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on high speed for 3-4 minutes. The sugar butter mixture should be light colored and fluffy.
  3. Add the eggs, on at a time to the butter mixture and mix until combined.
  4. Add the sour dough starter and the vanilla extract to the butter mixture and beat for 2-3 minutes until well combined.
  5. Add the flour mixture to the stand mixer. Combine on low speed, just until the flour is incorporated.
  6. Add the chocolate chips to the dough and mix until just combined.
  7. The dough can be baked right away, but it benefits from at least 30 minutes rest in the fridge. Wrap the dough in parchment paper and rest in fridge for 30 minutes or up to 2 days.
  8. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Drop heaping tablespoons on dough on the pan and bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool on the pan for 3-4 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Wheat Berry Salad

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This is my go-to summer salad because it is easy, healthy and super flexible. And by super-flexible, I mean that I can usually pull off making it without an extra trip to the grocery store. I often find myself emptying out lots of odds and ends of vegetables or cheese into this salad. And it always turns out great. I think the secret is in the salad dressing.

A Bit About Wheat Berries

Wheat berries are the unprocessed wheat kernel which includes the bran, endosperm and germ. They are most often milled to make flour, but in this recipe we are going to cook and use the whole wheat berries. If you are a person such as I who mills their own flour, then you most likely already have wheat berries around the pantry. For the rest of you, you will need to search out wheat berries or another whole grain at the grocery store. The wheat berries can be substituted in this recipe with farro, spelt, kamut, or barley. If your grocery store carries Bobs Red Mill Grains or if they have a bulk food section, you will find one of these grains in those sections.

Step one is cooking up your wheat berries. I use my pressure cooker to cook the wheat berries for about 35 minutes. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, they can be cooked on the stovetop for about 60 minutes. Either way, I usually plan for about an hour of cooking time for the wheat berries before assembling the salad.

About the Dressing

I use my favorite homemade vinaigrette, Green Herby Dressing, to make this salad. This dressing is pretty simple and only uses olive oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic and fresh herbs. You can assemble the dressing as the wheat berries are cooking.

If Green Herby Dressing isn’t happening for you, you can substitute it with a fresh pesto.

About the Rest of the Salad

Once you have the wheat berries and the dressing figured out, the rest of the salad is pretty flexible. I like to add:

  • lots of fresh veggies such as chopped cucumbers, snap peas, fava beans, celery, sliced fennel, and sliced onion.
  • chopped greens such as spinach, radicchio, or kale,
  • a handful of dried fruit such as dried cherries, cranberries, raisins, or blueberries,
  • a bit of cheese such as feta, goat cheese

The wheat berries on their own can be a bit heavy, so I usually add enough veggies and greens to lighten the salad up quite a bit.

Wheat Berry Salad

Serving Size:
4-6
Time:
75 minutes total
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of wheat berries or other whole grain such as farro, Kamut, spelt or barley
  • 4 cups of water
  • Green Herby Dressing or a 1/2 cup of pesto
  • 4 cups of chopped greens such as kale, spinach or radicchio
  • 2 cups of fresh vegetables such as snap peas, celery, sliced fennel, cucumber
  • 1 cup of dried fruit such as cherries, blueberries, or raisins
  • 1/2 cup of crumbly cheese such as goat cheese, feta, or blue cheese

Directions

  1. Cook the wheat berries in four cups of water. If using a pressure cooker, cook 35 minutes on high pressure with a 10 minute natural release. If using a stovetop, simmer covered for 60 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. While the wheat berries are cooking, prepare the Green Herby dressing or pesto. Prepare the vegetables and greens by chopping into bite size pieces.
  3. Once the wheat berries are done cooking, drain the extra liquid off and place the wheat berries into a large bowl. Toss the warm wheat berries with the dressing. Add the kale and any hardy veggies while the berries are warm.
  4. Toss the cheese into the salad before serving.
  5. This salad can be served at room temperature or cold from the refrigerator.

Green Herby Dressing

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This is a recipe of sorts for my favorite salad dressing – one I have lovingly nicknamed Green Herby Dressing. In case you are wondering, in my head, I pronounce Herby with a hard H. It just makes me want to sing and dance around the kitchen…

Back to salad dressings, if you follow a couple basic rules of thumb, you can be creative with most of the recipe. That being said, I’ve written this recipe for Green Herby Dressing as I currently make it.

I use this recipe as my potato salad dressing and as a dressing for my wheat berry salad. I toss it on those salads while they are warm so the vinaigrette can infuse a bit with the salad. Green Herby would also be good on a kale salad.

All of the herbs in this dressing would make Green Herby a little strong for a lighter salad such as one based with spring greens. If you want a lighter vinaigrette for spring greens, just back off on the fresh herbs or eliminate them all together.

Vinaigrette Basics

So… lets start with the basics of making homemade salad dressings. We are going to be focusing on vinaigrettes with this post. I’m going to save creamy dressings like ranch and blue cheese for another day.

The trick here is to remember to keep it simple. A few ingredients and a quick spin with the immersion blender. Don’t get bogged down with the fact that you are MAKING YOUR OWN DRESSING! It is actually really easy to do and lots healthier that the store bought stuff. I also usually make just a small batch. Usually enough for the salad I’m making or maybe enough for a week or maybe two. It won’t last in the fridge much longer than that, anyway.

The base for vinaigrettes is usually olive oil. After that, you add a touch of vinegar and seasonings to test. I find it helpful to remember that the rule of thumb for the ratio of oil to vinegar is 3:1. So that means 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Don’t get these swapped around or you’ll need to start over – ask me sometime how I know that! Anyway, three tablespoons of oil and one tablespoon of vinegar.

To mix the ingredients together, I use my handy dandy immersion blender and the tall beaker that came with it. The immersion blender does most of the chopping and emulsifying for me. I also use the beaker to measure the oil and vinegar as I pour them in. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can pull this off with a regular blender or a little whisking and chopping. Note that for this particular recipe of Green Herby Dressing, there is a lot of chopping of herbs involved.

Vinaigrette Ingredients:

  • Oil for the vinaigrette base. Usually this will be olive oil.
  • Vinegar of choice, this will add a little acid and kick to the vinaigrette.
  • Dijon mustard adds a little creaminess and flavor, but it is optional.
  • Sweetener such as honey or maple syrup. This is also optional, but you can use it to balance out the vinegar if you added too much.
  • Garlic gives a good flavor, but it can be substituted with a shallot or left out completely.
  • Salt and pepper.
  • Other additional ingredients include fresh or dried herbs.

Green Herby Dressing

Serving Size:
1/2 cup
Time:
5 min
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 6 T olive oil
  • 2 T apple cider vinegar
  • 1 garlic clove, sliced or chopped
  • 1 large bunch of herbs of your choice (parsley, dill, cilantro, basil, oregano, chives, etc)
  • Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Remove stems of the herbs.
  2. If you are using an immersion blender or blender, combine all ingredients except the salt and pepper in the blender or a small bowl. Blend until combined and the herbs are finely chopped.
  3. If you are not using an immersion blender or blender, finely chop the herbs and garlic. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, chopped garlic and herbs.
  4. Taste and season with salt and pepper. You may also add a touch more vinegar to taste.

Butter Pie Crust

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Sure, I know pie crusts can be found pretty easily in the refrigerator section of the grocery store. But I would argue that it can be a really fun process to learn how to make your own crust. For me, my pie crusts have been a labor of love over the years. I’m constantly perfecting my pie crusts with lots of practice. I play with how I crimp the edges, mess with the latices, and design different patterns on the top. But really, in the end, if I’m going to bother to make a pie filling, then it seems that the least I could do is surround the filling with a little extra love.

Pie crust recipes are not super complicated. The ingredients don’t vary much between one recipe and the other. The difference between a flakey crust and a less perfect crust comes out in the techniques. This post is intended to give you a quick start into making a crust. I learned originally from a basic recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook, and that’s still where I sometimes send people for help.

If you decide you want more pie crust in your life, then I recommend delving into more details after you have tried a basic recipe a few times. This will give you a feel for where you need to polish your technique. There are lots of good classes, books, and videos available with tips to a great pie crust. But for beginners, I recommend keeping it simple and not getting too bogged down in the details.

Here are a couple of my tips to get started:

  • One, keep things chilled – this includes both the ingredients and yourself.
  • Two, roll from the center of the dough out.
  • Three, give yourself time. Start the dough the morning or even day before you want to bake the pie. This allows time for chilling and also time for mistakes.

Butter Pie Crust

Serving Size:
2 crusts (for one double crust pie or two single crust pies)
Time:
20 minute + rest time
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups (300 g) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 14 T unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes (see notes) 
  • 1/2 cup ice water + 1-2 T more as needed
  • Additional flour for rolling out dough

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, add the flour and salt and stir to combine. Add the butter to the flour and toss with your fingers. At this point, you can use a pastry blender, or your fingers to cut the butter into the flour. You should try to work quickly here. If you are using your fingers and it is a warm day, you can chill your fingers with ice cubes before you start. The key is to try to keep the dough chilled. If using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks crumbly and the largest pieces are the size of peas. 
  2. Sprinkle ice water, one to two tablespoons at a time, over the mixture and toss with your fingers or two forks. Add water by the tablespoon until the dough holds together when you squeeze a handful of it.
  3. Turn the dough out onto the counter and divide the dough in half. Gently shape each half into a disc about 4-5 inches across. If you are making a lattice top pie, you can shape the dough into a 6×3 inch rectangle. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap. Seal any broken edges by rolling the wrapped dough along the edge. Place in the refrigerator and chill for at least a couple hours before rolling out. Ideally, the dough can be made the day ahead. 
  4. At this point, the dough will keep about 2 days in the fridge or it can be put into plastic bags and frozen for up to 6 months. If frozen, remove it the day before you plan to use and thaw in the fridge. 

Homemade Coleslaw (Vinegar Based)

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This recipe for vinegar based coleslaw is so delicious and easy. You may never go back to the store bought stuff again. Try it with your favorite barbecue recipe. It is perfect on pulled barbecue chicken or pulled pork. Personally, I like it as an easy side to any picnic. And I’ve been known to snack on the leftovers straight out of the bowl.

In my opinion, the best part of this recipe is that you can control the sugar and fat. The store-bought versions never taste just right to me, probably because they are loaded in sugar.

If you have a food processor or grater attachment for your mixer, this is the time to get it out. A mandolin with a shredding blade would be a good friend to this recipe also. But you can definitely use a sharp knife to slice the veggies. It doesn’t take that much time and there are no hard and fast rules of how finely cut anything needs to be. The main tip that I have is that you try to cut all the veggies to the same width. Of course, there is one easy time saver – just substitute with a bag of coleslaw mix and make the dressing. You’ll save lots of time and still have the big health advantage of making the homemade dressing.

If you don’t have all of the veggies called for in the recipe, you can adjust the recipe to whatever you have on hand. No green onion? Use a little red onion. No green cabbage? Just use all red cabbage. You get the idea. I only had green cabbage when I made it for this post, so there you go.

Vinegar Based Coleslaw

Serving Size:
8
Time:
20 min
Difficulty:
medium

Dressing Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
  • 1 T of dijon mustard
  • 1 T of honey or 1 teaspoon of sugar
  • 1/4 cup of olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon of celery seed
  • kosher salt and pepper, to taste

Salad Ingredients

  • 1/4 of a green cabbage
  • 1/4 of a red cabbage
  • 2 whole shredded carrots
  • 3 thinly sliced green onions

Directions

  1. To make the vinaigrette, add the vinegar, mustard, and sugar to a small bowl. Whisk while slowly drizzling in the olive oil until emulsified and then finish with celery seed, salt and pepper. Taste to see if you like the sweet/sour flavor. Add a little vinegar if you want it more sour or more sugar if you want it a little sweeter. If the flavor seems flat, try adding a little salt.
  2. Cut the cabbage in four quarters and remove the core. Chop the vegetables and add to a large bowl. Season with celery seed, salt and pepper and toss everything together.
  3. Pour the dressing over the veggies and toss together. Tongs or your hands work really well to toss.
  4. This salad is best if you make it an hour or two before you want to serve it. If you want to make it much further ahead of time, keep the dressing and veggies separate and toss together a bit before you want to serve.

Instant Pot Chicken Tacos

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This is a super quick way to get dinner on the table. Only four ingredients and you basically dump everything into your instant pot.

If you are like me and enjoy rice with your tacos, I’m also sharing a trick of cooking the rice at the same time as the taco meat. You will basically put the rice and its water into a separate bowl and set it on top of the chicken. Then the two will cook at the same time. If you have a rack that sits nicely over top of the chicken without hitting the bottom of the lid, use it. But if your rack doesn’t sit nicely (and it probably won’t), it can seem a little awkward to plop the bowl of uncooked rice on top of the chicken. Never fear. It will work. Just put the bowl of rice on the chicken, however you can make it work. Be forewarned, the rice will likely pick up a little of the color and flavor of the tacos. Not a problem in our house, but if you are looking for perfectly plain, white rice – don’t follow this method.

This cooks so quickly that you may find it takes you longer to prep your toppings. Hey. There are worse things in the world. Just let the pressure cooker go into the the warm setting and open it just before you are ready to eat.

Instant Pot Chicken Tacos

Serving Size:
4-6
Time:
25 minutes total
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 1-2 pounds of chicken breasts
  • 1 cup of chicken broth (or water)
  • 1 cup of your favorite salsa (I like salsa verde)
  • 2-3 T of taco seasoning (adjust to taste)

Ingredients – Rice (Optional)

  • 1 cup of your favorite rice – white, brown, long or short, doesn’t matter
  • 1 1/4 cup of water (add 1/4 cup of water for brown rice)

Directions

  1. Add chicken, broth, salsa, and taco seasoning to the insert pot of your instant pot. Stir.
  2. If you are making rice, rinse the rice. Combine the rinsed rice and water in a 4 or 6-cup oven safe bowl (such as a pyrex dish). If you have a rack, place it on top of the chicken and set the rice dish on the rack. If your rack doesn’t fit, you can wiggle the chicken around to set the rack in the pot or you can set the rack on the chicken, or you can just set the rice bowl directly on top of the chicken.
  3. Lock the lid on the pressure cooker. Set the cooker to high pressure and cook for 12 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes and then release the remaining pressure manually.
  4. Using oven mitts, remove the bowl of rice. Using tongs, place the chicken onto a cutting board and allow to cool for a couple minutes. You can use two forks to easily shred the chicken for tacos. If you made extra chicken, you can make short work of the shredding by placing the chicken breasts in your mixer bowl and use either the dough hook (Bosch mixer) or the cookie paddle (Kitchen Aid) give a few pulses and let the machine do the work for you.
  5. Serve shredded taco meat with your favorite shells, tortillas, and taco toppings.
  6. A quick note on the extra liquid in the pot. You can (and should) add some of it to the shredded chicken so you have nice moist taco meat. But, you may have some extra left over. Before you toss it, consider saving it for a second meal. If you have leftover chicken, add it back into the cooking liquid the next day for a chicken taco soup. Serve over tortilla chips with a little cheese and sour cream on the top.

Homemade Laundry Soap

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Posting about soap and cleaning is not my normal sort of recipe. But I do love my homemade laundry soap. I’m sure that many of you think I’m nuts for all of the things that I make instead of buy. With regards to homemade laundry soap, my main motivation is that I don’t like to waste money or resources. With four boys in our house, I do a lot of laundry. And the store bought detergent for a family of six, adds up quickly – even when you buy the cheap stuff. Then consider all of the plastic containers that liquid detergent comes in.

Our friends, Kevin and Lori, introduced me to this recipe years ago, and I’ve never looked back. I think it cleans just as well as the liquid stuff that I used to use. If you research homemade laundry soap recipes, you’ll find that recipes fall into two categories – powder and liquid. I use a powdered version, mainly because it is easier to make and store. I have also read that the Borax is activated by water, so it loses some of its potency when you make a liquid laundry soap.

I grate my soap pretty fine and then run it through the food processor using the sharp blade. Add a bit of the Borax and/or washing soda with the soap in the food processor and you’ll produce a fine powder. I’ve found that if I don’t get it very fine, some of the soap may not dissolve in cold water. Not a huge issue, just annoying to find little white specks of soap on your black shirt. The food processor fixes that issue.

When making this recipe, you can use pretty much any bar of soap. I am currently using Ivory soap, but have used Fels Naptha and Kirks Castile in the past. Kirks Castile has an unscented version, but it is pricey and difficult to find. Thus, Ivory. I find my Borax and washing soda at Farm & Fleet. Borax is pretty easy to find in most big box stores. Washing soda is not as easy to locate. But Farm & Fleet has it. Ah! Farm & Fleet. Anyway, I digress. Wherever you go, both will be in the laundry isle. Both are sold in large boxes. And washing soda is not the same as baking soda. Same sort of orange packaging – different product.

And finally, because someone will ask – I do not have a HE washing machine. I understand that you can use this recipe in your HE machine, because it produces very low suds.

Homemade Laundry Soap
Author: Andrea
Make sure to grate the soap into a fine powder. I use the grater attachment on my food processor to grate the soap and then the sharp blade to mix the Borax and washing soda with the soap into a fine powder
Ingredients
  • 1 bar of soap – Ivory, Fels Naptha, or Kirks Castile are good starting points
  • 1 cup of washing soda (not baking soda)
  • 1 cup of Borax
Instructions
  1. Fine grate the soap. I use my food processor’s grate attachment.
  2. Combine all the ingredients. I combine in my food processor with the sharp blade and pulse until the soap is a fine powder.
  3. Wash your food processor!
  4. This recipe can be multiplied. Four bars of soap and four cups of washing soda and Borax will last our family of six about 6 weeks.
  5. Store in containers. I used 1 T to a large load of laundry. 2 T for extra dirty laundry.

 

Homemade Pumpkin Puree

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Homemade Pumpkin Puree

Sugar PumpkinSo don’t let the title of this post fool you. I usually make my “pumpkin” puree from a combination of sugar pie pumpkin, butternut squash, hubbard squash, or kubocha squash – pretty much any squash that the farmer’s at the market tell me will work. Why do I do this? Partially because of availability and quantity – some of these squashes (like the hubbard) are HUGE and will make a ton of puree. Some of these squashes are also lots cheaper than pie pumpkins. But it also helps to mix up the flavors and textures. A butternut is lots sweeter than pumpkin, but it is very wet. The hubbard is also really sweet, but it is comparatively dry. So when I mix a bunch of them together, I end up with an amazingly sweet puree that is not too wet or too dry. Do you ever want to eat pumpkin puree out of can? Me neither, but when I make homemade puree, I often find myself licking the spoon and the bowl – it’s so good. And isn’t that really what we want to be baking and cooking with?

  • Cut squash in half and clean out seeds.
  • Save those seeds! Sort them from the flesh. I like to soak mine in cold water for 1-12 hours. I guess this helps to get the sprouting process started which can help increase nutrition and digestibility – whether or not that’s true, I think they taste better soaked. Drain, rinse, toss with olive oil and salt. Roast in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes until toasted. You can mix up your seasonings also – try cumin, chili powder, cinnamon and a little sugar or even a curry seasoning.
  • Back to the squash – I’m going to give you two methods to cook it. In my opinion, they both end up tasting the same. Pressure cooking saves time and energy, but may not work if you are trying to do a huge batch.
    • To roast in oven – Place squash, cut side down on rimmed baking pan. Add ½ cup of water and roast in 400 degree oven for 45-60 minutes until it is pierced easily with fork and starts to slump. Cool until it can be handled.
    • To pressure cook – add 1 cup of water to pressure cooker. Cut squash into pieces and place into pressure cooker. Lock lid and bring to high pressure. Cook for 6 minutes. Release pressure naturally.
  • Once squash is cool enough to handle, use a spoon to scrape out the flesh into a big bowl. I usually taste a little bit of each squash to make sure it tastes sweet. You can also taste the raw squash, if you are into raw squash. If it doesn’t taste good (and you’ll know it), then toss it. I know that hurts, but it’s better now than later when you’ve made an awesome lasagna with not so great squash puree.
  • In small batches, puree the flesh in a food processor or blender until smooth.
  • You can use the puree immediately, refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze. I usually freeze in 2 cup portions (same amount as a small can of pumpkin). Bags of frozen pumpkin puree can be thawed overnight in the fridge, or more quickly by submerging the bag in hot water for 15-30 minutes.

Use this puree in pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bundt cake, butternut squash lasagna, pumpkin chili, pumpkin butter, and butternut squash soup.  Yes, I know I should post my recipes for all of these great things. I’ll get to it. And then I’ll have a blog of entirely pumpkin things. Not the worst thing in the world, I know. If you have any great ideas for using pumpkin puree, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your ideas.

 

Homemade Fruit Vinegars

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Making your own fruit vinegar sounds so hard. But it’s not. Have you ever had a jar of apple cider go sour accidently? Or a bottle of win or beer? Then you’ve made vinegar and probably not even known it.

I’ve made vinegar from scraps of all sorts of fruits – apple, peach, pear, raspberry, strawberry, and blackberry. I’m even giving cherry a try this spring. Your final vinegars are more interesting than most store-bought options and they have the added advantage of containing beneficial probiotics. Give it a try, you’ve got nothing to loose.

The Basics – Getting Started

Vinegars are one of my favorite ferments to play with – I have to say I’m slightly obsessed with them. I love seeing science in action in my kitchen. This stems back to high school chemistry. I think. Anyway, to make a fruit vinegar, you start with fruit, water, and a little sugar. Mix everything together in a large glass jar with a wide opening. I like the 1/2 gallon Ball jars to start with – they are cheap and easy to find at most hardware stores. I also have some large one gallon jars that I picked up at our local beer brewing shop. You’ll want to use a glass or other non-reactive container for this so the vinegar doesn’t react with the metal. Also, the beneficial bacteria don’t like the metal either. Finally, look for a wide mouth jar since you want a good air to liquid contact area. The bacteria need oxygen to do their job on the vinegar.

I use fruit scraps to get my vinegars started. I love knowing that I’m not throwing away all those apple peals or slightly mushy strawberries. You can use the stems, peels, brown spots, and mushy fruit for this. Just make sure everything is clean – both the jar and the fruit scraps. Basically, you’ll ultimately end up making something out of nothing. Fill the jar about half full of the fruit scraps. Add anywhere from a tablespoon to a quarter cup of sugar per quart and top the jar off of with water. The sugar gives the bacteria a little boost to get to work and it will affect the sweetness of your final product. Try to use water that has not been chlorinated since the chlorine will stop the natural processes that we are aiming to encourage.

As the fermentation process proceeds, the jar may start attracting fruit flies. I normally cover  my containers with a breathable cover (such as a coffee filter, paper towel or cheesecloth) held on with a rubber band. Once I start seeing the flies, the jar usually gets kicked out of the kitchen to either the garage or basement. The temperature range for the fermentation process is pretty wide – between 59 and 94 degrees F – so this gives you a lot of flexibility on where to store your jars as they are fermenting.

During the first step, natural yeast and bacteria (Acetobactor) in the air start to go to work on the sugar and they produce alcohol, essentially turning the water into alcohol. Meanwhile, your fruit is also flavoring the water into juice. You’ll notice some bubbling in the mixture, which is a good sign that your reaction is taking place. Stir the container once a day to keep it oxygenated. Stirring also helps redistribute the fruit so that the pieces sticking out of the top don’t go moldy. If you get a moldy piece of fruit, just pick it out and keep going.

After about a week or so, the bubbling will stop and you can strain off the fruit and let the yeasts and bacteria keep working on the alcohol. At this point, your chemical reaction will change and the alcohol will ferment into vinegar.

This is the point where the process gets really fun – and some people may get grossed out by this stage. But you will start seeing a gelatinous mass begin to cover the top of the vinegar. At first it will look like a foam forming on the top. This mass is called the mother of vinegar and it is actually a cellulose mass of the Acetobactor bacteria. It consumes the alcohol in the liquid and expels acetic acid – or vinegar. The mother will get thicker as the fermentation proceeds. If you have a little unpasteurized apple cider vinegar or mother from a previous batch of vinegar, you can jump start the mother formation by adding a couple tablespoons to your jar. But I’ve actually seen mothers start to form within the first day of removing the fruit scraps.

Once the mother forms, try not to disturb the jar so that the mother can remain floating on the top. If it sinks to the bottom, don’t worry. The fermenation will keep proceeding, but the jar will probably start forming a second mother on the top.

The entire process is an aerobic process, which means that your jar of liquid needs to have oxygen for the chemical processes to occur. So keep the breathable lid on the container this whole time. After about 3-8 weeks, the vinegar will be finished.

Finishing & Bottling

Now the tough question – how do you know when the vinegar is done? For me, it is mostly a matter of taste and smell. Does it smell like vinegar? Yes? Good. To taste it, stick a straw in the container, slide it under the edge of the mother, and see what you think. It’s really a matter of personal taste. The acidity level can have a pretty high range to give you a weaker or stronger vinegar. If it’s too strong, you can always water it down.

What if you let the vinegar go too long? It’ll get stronger – to a point. And then the chemical reactions start backfiring on you and it actually will start converting back to water. This can take a few months or more.

Once you have a vinegar you like, you can filter and bottle the vinegar. First, remove the mother. You can save it for future vinegars. Most of mine get composted. Then filter the vinegar through a cheesecloth and bottle into narrow necked jars. Now you can cap the jars for storage. At this point, you don’t want oxygen contact with the vinegar because you want to stop the fermentation process.

You may find a new mother form in you stored bottles. This is most likely to happen if you don’t bottle it into narrow jars. If it happens, just fish it or strain it out of  there.

Your vinegar will continue to develop flavor as it ages. I have some two year old raspberry vinegar that has wonderfully deep flavor. You can even store the vinegar for three years or more, depending on the vinegar and storage conditions.

Ideas  for Using Vinegar

Obviously, cooking is a great use for flavored vinegars. Homemade vinegar can be used in almost any recipe calling for vinegar – including salad dressings, potato salad, coleslaw, and barbeque sauce. Just don’t use your vinegar in canning recipes that call for 5% vinegar since you don’t know the actual acidity of your vinegar.

If you make up a bunch of apple cider vinegar, you can use it for all sorts of health, cleaning and beauty products. While I do use vinegar in cleaning, I don’t use it for much of the health and beauty stuff myself. If you are interested in this, do a search for uses of apple cider vinegar and you’ll find lots of ideas such as wart remover or a digestive aid. I personally like the ideas for a hair conditioner, but then again I haven’t actually attempted it myself. Although, I will admit to giving the chickens a little apple cider vinegar in their water as a probiotic.

Along the idea of probiotics, as long as you don’t pasteurize or can your vinegar, it contains natural bacteria that are good for your gut. This is the same reason that yogurt and kiefer are good for us. Even using your homemade vinegar in your salad dressings is a great way to help introduce some additional good bacteria to our systems.

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