Beets for dessert!

My kids are, shall we say, rather "skeptical" of red beets. Something about that bright red color of borscht makes them uneasy. Until recently, the only dish they like is when I roast them (I cut them up and coat w/ oil & a wee bit of maple syrup before baking).

But today, I surprised them with a new recipe, and they barely believed me when told that they were eating their BEETS!!! My husband nearly dropped his fork... but our daughter did reassure him that mommy was pureeing a bunch of beets earlier in the day. It really does not taste beety at all -- just a very nice moist rich chocolate cake. TRY IT.

Red Devil Chocolate Cake (with a secret ingredient)
The recipe is originally from Moosewood Cookbook of Desserts, and was on the list from our CSA, Glacier Grist # 64)

14 oz beets (called for roasted, I boiled mine)
1/2 c water (I needed more like 1 c)
2 eggs
1.5 c sugar
1 t vanilla
1/2 c oil (can reduce by half)
1/2 t salt
1.5 c flour (I used 2 c)
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5 t baking soda

1. Grease and flour pans (I used 2 8-inch round pans), and preheat oven to 350.
2. Puree the boiled or roasted beets with water -- I'm guessing mine came to somewhere around 3 cups, and I was worried it was too much! That's why I ended up using a little more flour.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add sugar and remaining wet ingredients, incl. beet puree, then fold in the dry ingredients.
4. Pour into prepared pans, and bake for 30-45 min, until toothpick comes out clean.
5. After cooling, you can frost cake, or dust w/ powdered sugar.
I served it with whipped cream and strawberries. Yummy.

Home-made Granola Recipe

Back in my granola days, I used to make my own.
More recently, Eldest introduced granola-making to the younger crowd. Now that she's hiking the PCT (see Borealkraut post here), she needs lots of horsefeed to keep those calories burning, so she requested we send her some home-made granola, and provided this recipe from someone named Joe. content="Microsoft Word 2008">

In a large bowl, mix the following. Joe triples this recipe by measuring with a 4-cup scooper and mixing in a 5-gallon paint bucket, then eating from a trough with yogurt and powdered milk.

• 9 scoops old-fashioned rolled oats (equal to all other ingredients)
• 1 ½ scoops wheat (or oat) bran
• 1 ½ scoops sesame seeds (½ ground in blender)
• 1 ½ scoops sunflower seeds (cooked or uncooked)
• 1 scoop sliced almonds
• ½ scoop flax seed ground in blender
• 1 ½ scoop dates

Note: If you want raisins in the granola, add them after it is cooked.

Stir the dry ingredients together with your hands. Then pour in:

• 1 ¼ scoop oil

Stir the oil in well (with your hands), working the oil through all the oat mix. Then add and do the same with:

• 1 ½ scoop honey

Work this in until all the lumps are gone.

Spread foil on two cookie sheets and grease them with Pam or oil. Spread the raw granola in the pans, no more than 1-inch deep. Cook at 325ºF for 15 minutes (set a timer) or until the edges of the granola in the bottom pan begin to get slightly brown. If this takes much more than 15 minutes, turn up the heat in your oven a bit, but keep in mind that the honey makes the granola burn easily when the temperature is too high.

After 15 minutes, switch the pans on the oven racks, one to the top, one to the bottom, so both brown evenly. (You only want a very light browning for most of the granola.) Cook for another 15 minutes (30 minutes total).

Immediately after removing the granola from the oven, use a spatula to scrape it into a big container or bowl to cool. When it is cool, cover it tightly and store at room temperature.

Now to this week's variation, which I shall call

ALASKAN GRANOLA FOR THE MOJAVE DESERT

my "scoop" was sized 1/4 cup -- I'm starting small since my oats are running low...

2 1/4 c rolled oats

1/4 c sesame seeds

1 T ground flax seed

1/2 c sliced almonds

1/2 c dried blueberries

1 T finely chopped candied orange peel

Test eaters at Borealkitchen generally prefer their granola without fruit, but otherwise approved.

Future variations might include:

ginger?

coconut

Menu for last week of April

CSA box this week brings:
Alaskan white potatoes | Alaskan beets | Alaskan carrots,
certified organic d’anjou pears | certified organic choice navel oranges | certified organic kiwi fruit | certified organic asparagus | certified organic Romaine lettuce | certified organic cabbage raab | certified organic collard greens | certified organic mustard greens


First of all, I gotta do something with those beets -- still have some from last box!
Borscht is not exactly welcomed with open arms around here, but last week's Glacier Grist (#64) has an intriguing recipe for a red devil chocolate cake using red beets as the secret ingredient!

The greens is what I usually use up first, and our favorite application is Flanks and Greens,a cajun recipe, but this week I'm trying some different recipes.

Sunday: Jambulaya w/ spicy brats and shrimp, green salad
Monday: carrot-tahini soup (GG#64), Bubble and Squeak (GG#2), green salad
Tues: Indian Lamb and pea curry w/ brown rice
Wed: White Bean soup with collard greens, German pancakes w/ strawberries
Thursday: Salmon baked en papillote, potatoes & artichoke gratin (GG#63), asparagus
Friday: Pasta or Pizza
Saturday: Nature Center Auction & Dinner
Sunday: Pasta w/ Raab, red peppers, etc

Health Nut Bread

My son surprised me the other day, upon leafing through The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (borrowed from a friend), by requesting Health Nut Bread (p.166), full of fruit, nuts and containing soybeans.
Given that I did not have all the ingredients on hand, nor am known for following recipes anyhow, here's what I tried:

I had some sprouted beans (small navy), so I ground those up with a bit of water and added them to the dough in lieu of the soy grits. The result was a moist loaf, on the dense side, but it lasted well for a week (I did refrigerate the 2nd loaf). Good toasted!

Meanwhile, I bought some soyflour, which I plan to add to my next "Health Nut" loaf.

Borealkitchen's Health Nut Bread
1 c assorted dry hard fruits (raisins, apricots, peaches, prunes, cherries, etc), soaked in warm water if very hard
2 t active yeast, dissolved in 1/2 c warm water
1/2 c yogurt
2-3 T oil or butter
pureed cooked or sprouted beans (1/2 cup)
(Note: original recipe called for 1/3 c soy grits soacked in 1/2 c hot water)
1.5 c fruit broth (from soaking fruit) or fruit juice (apple, etc), water, or combination
1-2 T ground flaxseed
optional: 1/4 c soy flour, garbanzo bean flour, or buckwheat flour
5 c+ whole wheat flour (plus 1 T Gluten flour)
1 t salt
1/2 c toasted nuts, chopped

Let rise once, then form 2 loaves, let it rise again, and bake for approx 1 hour at 350F.

Makes a good breakfast toast.

Antibiotics in Factory Farmed Animals

Why eat less meat?

There's a bumper sticker I see around occasionally, which reads

PETA People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

(For my German relatives, let me spell out that PETA originally stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is the most vocal Animal Rights Advocacy group in the US.)

Besides Animal Rights issues (and despite how tasty meat can be), there are good reasons to eat less of them, and to me one of the main argument is that it's wasteful to raise meat -- both in the sense that productive land that could be used to raise vegetables, but also that it's inefficient to grow grains and corn for the purpose of feeding to livestock... But there is further trouble!

A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that in the United States, 70 percent of antibiotics are used to feed healthy livestock, with 14 percent more used to treat sick livestock. Only about 16 percent are used to treat humans and their pets, the study found.

More antibiotics are fed to livestock in North Carolina alone than are given to humans in the entire United States, according to the peer-reviewed Medical Clinics of North America. It concluded that antibiotics in livestock feed were “a major component” in the rise of antibiotic resistance.

Kristof concludes his piece quoting a former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Dr. Martin J. Blaser, as agreeing that agricultural use of antibiotics produces cheaper meat. But he says the price may be an enormous toll in human health.

“You could have very lethal pandemics,” he said. “We’re brewing some perfect storms.”

Rye Bread revisited

It was snowing like crazy yesterday -- perfect day to bake!

My sourdough Rye Bread is getting better and better, and I'm continuing to tweak the recipe. This picture shows a hearty loaf that I think even my German relatives in the "Old Country" would approve.

I've tried it both with retarding the dough overnight in the frig, and without. Both produce good results, with retarding bringing out more of the sourdough flavor.
I also made these as dinner rolls recently to serve with Bouillabaise -- very tasty, and easy to freeze the left-over rolls for another snowy winter-soup day...

Gudrun's Rye Bread
1 T active yeast, dissolved in 1 c warm water
2T molasses (approx. 40 g)
1 c rye starter (150g) --mine is fairly liquid
optional: altus (old rye bread, soaked & drained through a sieve)
1 c dark rye flour
3 c+ white flour (350 g) -I used Montana White Whole Wheat, which has 15% gluten content
optional: 1-T additional gluten
1 t salt
Optional flavors: caraway seed, fennel seeds (crushed or ground), minced onion, flax seeds (soaked overnight), sunflower seeds, raisins; and if desired to achieve darker color, instant coffee or cocoa.

Total weight of ingredients:
First 3 items "mostly liquids" were 400 g before adding flour to make sponge
Final loaf weighed 800 g


9am: Started w/ sponge (after having given the starter a fresh feeding).
9:30am: added althus, all the flour, ground fennel seed and salt, and started kneading.
9:45am: Let rise in warm oven (woodstove is cold because a certain teenager got behind on her firewood duties -ahem!)

11am: Punched down, kneaded (actually stretch and fold), and let rise again.
noon-ish: Punched down, kneaded and formed loaves. Let rise again.
Preheated the oven to 375 w/ pizzastone -- it needs to be thoroghly heated for good crust.

1:20pm Boiled water and placed in pan at bottom of oven.
1:25pm Transferred bread onto pizzastone.
1:35pm Removed pan of water. Reduced temp to 350 F.
2pm Bread is done.

I'm afraid that my rye sourdough today may not have been aged very much -- I had accidentally used up all of Gudrun last time I baked, so a couple of days ago (2?), I took some Pedro sourdough starter (who only eats white flour), and started daily feedings w/ rye and water, and in my oh-so-casual way, I didn't measure anything! The fact that my recipe contains yeast as well was probably its saving grace!

But seriously, although my casual approach to sourdough feeding seems to work fine, below is a more serious approach by HarryGermany from www.thefreshloaf.com discussion board (link here), where he makes a large quantity of a much thicker ("porridge-consistency") sourdough initially.

Feed your starter with 100 g rye flour and 100 g warm water (approx. 1/2 c each). Stir and keep in a warm place for 24 hours, covered. Repeat for 3 more days, so on the 4th you have about 800g. Save 100 g in frig (feeding weekly w/ 1 T rye flour and water). About 3 days before baking next loaf, take starter out of the frig and feed & build as above.

Harry says: "Rye flour needs acid to be ready for baking. The sourdough has the acid. For a bread with rye flour turn 30-50% of the rye flour sour in a sourdough. A wheat-rye bread 30%, a pure rye bread 50%." (Translation: if you're making pure rye bread, then 50% of the rye should be soured in the sourdough process, whereas for a wheat-rye bread (such as my Gudrun), only 30% needs souring.

Harry's rye-wheat bread 2 loaves of ca 850 g each; hydration 73%
============

Ingredients:
700 g rye-sourdough (made from wholemeal)
400 g rye flour
400 g all-purpose wheat flour
450 g water
25 g salt
1 pouch (7 g) dry yeast or 21 g fresh yeast
(The recipe also works without any added yeast, but the yeast makes it success proof and quickens the prove.)
---------------------

* Mix all ingredients (rye-sourdough, rye flour, all-purpose wheat flour, water with solved yeast, salt) and knead well (by mixer ca 7 minutes, by hand longer).

* Let the dough rest 20 minutes. (cover and keep warm)

* Knead short by hand. Let the dough rest 5 minutes.

* Shape two loaves, give them surface tension and place them in floured dough rising baskets. Cover with a cloth.
Let the loaves rise in a warm place until volume has doubled. This might require 60-90 minutes (with yeast) or up to 5 hours (no yeast).

* Very carefully place the loaves on a baking sheet with baking paper.

* Start baking with 480°F for 15 minutes. Steam once within the first 3 minutes.
(To steam, use a fresh flower spray, spray hot water against the hot inner walls of the oven. Don't hit the electric lamp!)

* Turn down the heat to 400°F and finish baking in another 50 minutes.

Bread w/ sprouted grain: Round 2

I broke down and bought a kitchen scale!
Can you believe it?
It's a cheap scale (not electronic) and I doubt that I will start weighing everything -- but for baking, at least, I want to get a better handle on the ingredients, so I'm turning into more of a German/scientist (your pick!) and am starting to actually weigh my ingredients...

SO, let's start with the sprouting: I used hard (winter) red wheat berries.
1 c berries (before sprouting) = 250 g
yield after 4-5 days was 3 c sprouted wheat (white tails, roughly the length of berries) = 400 g


I did not dry these, but that's what's needed in order to grind them if using a grain mill.
Instead, I took the sprouts and used my food processor, combining with 1 c sourdough.


I dissolved 1 t active yeast in 1 c water and 1 T sugar/honey, then added 1 c flour (King Arthur whole wheat, 150g) to form a sponge, waiting for 15-30 min for it to get nice and "bubbly". Then I added the food-processed sprout-sourdough mash (the 400g sprouts plus 1 c sourdough).

Now it's time for the rest of the flour (don't forget the 1 t salt -- best to add at the very end).
It took another 2.5 c of flour until I had a kneaded dough, still slightly sticky, but workable. And since I have a handy scale now, I can tell you that the final weight of my dough was 1340 g.

Rise until doubled, twice, then bake at 350 for about 45 min. May need longer -- internal temperature of loaf should read 200F.

Makes a nice moist bread, not too heavy. I'm guessing this to be around 1/3 sprouted, but to calculate that accurately, the sprouted grain should have been dried first. Stay tuned for another post on the subject.