Fast Finger Food

Almost every child loves macaroni and cheese, and most will eat vegetables drenched in cheese sauce as well. I used to love the rare occasion my mom would make cheese sauce for cauliflower, taking a pretty bland food to a whole new level! Now we are fortunate to have a local, organic grower who produces purple and orange cauliflower and sells it at the farmers' market. Garden fresh cauliflower, like just about everything else, is so much more flavorful than the pasty white, mass produced hybrids bred to withstand the travel to the grocery store.

Thinking along the lines of fondue tonight, I decided to pull a baguette out of the freezer, steam some veggies, and make a quick cheese sauce. Dinner was prepped, made, and on the table in less than twenty minutes! Now there's some fast food for you, and not really any excuse for not having the time to cook! (Clean-up was minimal too.)

I have made traditional fondue for my family in the past, but much of the time the wine and/or liquor flavors were too overwhelming for the little kids. This cheese sauce can be made with just about any of your favorite cheese(s), but I prefer Tillamook. I used a combination of Tillamook Special Edition Extra-Sharp White Cheddar and my all time favorite, their Medium Cheddar. I use ground onion and garlic instead of fresh to keep the sauce extra smooth.

Cheese Dipping Sauce

1 1/2 cups low fat milk

1 1/2-2 cups freshly shredded cheese*

2 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

pinch onion powder

pinch garlic powder

ground white pepper, to taste

a few drops Tabasco

sliced or cubed whole grain breads, steamed veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, summer squash, zucchini, carrots, asparagus, etc.), raw pepper strips, and fruit slices for dipping (apples and pears go well with cheese).

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour to form a paste. Slowly whisk in the milk. Heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat and stir in the onion powder, garlic powder, and Tabasco. Stir in the cheese until melted. Add pepper to taste, and, if needed, a drop or more Tabasco.

If desired, sprinkle individual serving sized ramekins with cayenne or chipotle powder (for adults) or chopped parsley. Serve immediately.

Makes enough for a family of four.

*Make sure to shred your own cheese. It takes just a minute longer than opening the package of preshredded cheese, but it costs less and melts better. The packaged varieties contain an agent to stop clumping from happening, which makes for a lumpy cheese sauce. Various cheddars, Gruyere, Fontina, or a combination of cheeses will work nicely. Pepper Jack would bring a spicy punch, if your children are into those flavors!

Vegetable Soup, Redefined

I love the harvest season. It's so refreshing to be able to finally have access to fresh, delicious, local produce! This morning I headed down to the farmers' market, my usual Saturday routine, and loaded up on organic strawberries, the first of the local plums (both Japanese and Green Globe), and a myriad of vegetables. Since my garden is winding down, I am now free to indulge in some of the other items grown locally. One of my favorite late summer soups is a flavorful combination of yellow split peas, summer squash, coconut milk, heirloom tomatoes, and lots of spices. My husband even enjoys it, even though a year ago he finally informed me that he really doesn't care for summer squash (I like it even more than zucchini, prepared all ways, and I may have overloaded him at one point). Because the soup is pureed, most people can't really identify what, exactly, is in it...they just know it tastes good!

Summer Squash and Yellow Split Pea Soup (adapted from the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook, original recipe by Ayla Algar)

3/4 cup dry yellow split peas
1 tsp turmeric
3 thin slices fresh ginger
2-3 cups water
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp ground mustard seed
a few twists of freshly ground pepper (1/3 tsp)
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 lb yellow summer squash, cut into cubes
1/2 cup chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3/4 cup coconut milk*
salt, to taste

Place the split peas, 1/2 tsp turmeric, and the ginger in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer about 30 minutes, or until the peas are softened.

Cook the onion and garlic in the butter in a stockpot. Stir in the remaining spices, including the remaining 1/2 tsp turmeric, and cook 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, squash, and cilantro; cook 15 minutes.

If you like a lot of ginger, leave the slices in, otherwise, remove them, and add the peas (and water) to the stockpot. Stir in the broth and simmer, covered, until tender, 30 minutes.

Cool the soup slightly and puree in a blender. Return to the pot and stir in the coconut milk and salt; heat through. serve, garnishing with additional cilantro, if desired.

*Just about every brand of canned coconut milk is lined with an epoxy material, which contains BPA. Instead of giving up this yummy ingredient, look for Native Forest; their canned products don't contain BPA! (Locally, Thunderbird carries it in the natural foods section.) If you can't find it, you may substitute cream...but while you'll have good texture, you won't have that same flavor.

Lessons Learned...

Good food shouldn't have to be so much work. I'm not even talking about cooking the stuff. I'm talking about finding it and bringing it home.

By now you probably know I go to some extremes to keep my family well fed. I travel to buy "local" olive oil, pastured organic chicken, and bulk organic produce for canning. I make many of my own cheeses, breads, snacks, treats...ok, so I make whatever I can! I seek out local meat to buy and have it butchered locally as well. I try.

Every year we buy a portion of a grass-fed beef and a whole pig. They are slaughtered and custom butchered to order. I am lucky to have been connected with a young guy who raises the pigs (and also a few turkeys, one of which was ours for Thanksgiving last year), and I have supported him for the past few years. This year he changed butchers.

In the past he's gone through a small shop that kills the animal and then custom processes it to each customer's specifications. This particular shop happens to make all of their bacon nitrate-free, and it is fantastic! I don't particularly care for their plastic packaging (as opposed to the classic butcher paper), but even though it leaks when defrosting it's nice to see the meat and nice to know they don't use a ton of horrible health-harming chemicals in their products.

When I got the call from the other, much smaller, shop I was a little surprised. I gave my cut and wrap instructions, but with some requests that apparently boggled the man's mind a bit. Nitrate-free? No. Not for the bacon, not for the ham. MSG in the sausage? Yup, and it's in every mix he has. Lovely.

Now, I try to be reasonable when it comes to these kinds of things. Eating nitrates a few times a year when eating out or at a friend's house is what I consider moderation. Not in addition to several packages that I'll be feeding my small children throughout the year. And they won't stop at just one or two slices! (We rarely have leftovers after cooking a package of bacon.) Because of this, it is extremely important to me that I not knowingly feed them harmful chemicals and preservatives.

So I was a little frustrated at this point in our conversation, and not knowing much about actual butchering and curing, I told the man I'd do what I could with what he gave me, but would not eat anything with MSG or nitrates in it!

I just visited the rather rustic meat establishment to pick up our pig. When I pulled up, I was greeted with a western sign above the door, a slab of barn wood with the lettering burned into it and an animal head positioned over the center. I opened the door and almost ran right into a giant hanging skinned carcass of beef. For a second I thought I'd gone in the wrong door! The lady cutting and wrapping pieces of meat assured me I was in the right place. Whoa. So I paid the man and had my boxes loaded up.

I have since been educated. To make bacon, you have to have a whole pork belly. Pork is more tender than beef and falls apart easily, so it has to be cured in one piece (to my understanding, anyway). The butcher sliced ours raw and packaged them in little portions (which were frozen solid). Hams must be cured whole as well, and I'd told the butcher we would take ours elsewhere to do a natural cure, but he chopped them into chunks, or roasts, and froze those too. What to do?!

I drove back to the original butcher shop, the one that does natural cures and has processed our meat in the past. I pleaded my case, and they took pity on my uneducated soul. Live and learn! They are going to flavor the bacon with their natural jerky cure (since they can't throw it in a big barrel with the whole pork bellies), and will make the hams a natural cure too, as an attempt to fix this little mess! Now there's some good customer service, and I will be asking my supplier to return business to them next year! Penzey's makes some good sausage seasonings, so I'll just flavor our plain ground pork with those spice mixes as I need it.

Really, though.... The knowledge is out there, and it's not a secret that these natural products are better for our health. So why is it such a big deal and such a headache to get a decent edible product?!

Fruit Roll-Ups, My Way

When I was little I would climb any mountain and eagerly looked forward to the end of just about any hike if my mom's fruit leather was promised as the celebratory treat. We had a few apple trees growing up, and every summer my mom would make tons of applesauce and transform some into the coveted fruit leather. Once we moved into town, and away from the apple trees, we began making apricot fruit leather instead, with the surplus from the tree that hung over the deck at her new dental office.

Now that I have a family of my own, I make the sweet, healthy snacks too, only I use whatever fruit I can possibly get my hands on. My children don't get the candy-like fruit roll-ups sold in the grocery store. Come winter they usually find one of my rolled up fruit leather chunks inside their lunchboxes instead of the mealy "fresh" fruit available in the produce section, and when I have a craving for something sweet I have been known to grab one as well.

I use a food dehydrator to dry fruit slices, leathers, and various other items, but you can also use your oven on the lowest setting and a piece of parchment. Just place whatever fruit you're working with into a blender, puree, spread evenly on the sheet, and dry until leathery (I don't even remove skins). So easy!

Some of the flavors I make are:

~apple(sauce)
~apricot
~apricot-mango
~strawberry-rhubarb (using cooked, sweetened rhubarb)
~strawberry-banana
~cherry
~cherry berry blend
~pear
~blackberry-pear
~fruit salad (Whatever you can find, pureed . Today I used peaches, pears, green grapes, and strawberries)
~peach-raspberry

After the leather has dried, I cut it into rectangles, roll it up, and place a piece of plastic wrap over each piece. I keep it in a labeled zip top baggie in the freezer to discourage people (ahem, MYSELF) from eating it, and then pull out a variety to keep in the pantry when there's a lack of fresh fruit.

My Daughter's 3rd Birthday

A few months before my kids' birthdays they begin planning how they think things should go for their party. Actually, my 6 year old starts planning his right after his guests start leaving from that year's festivities! This year my daughter has been into very girly, pink stuff, and her favorite story is Pinkalicious. Because of the brightly colored pink cupcakes in the story she has wanted a "peeenk cake" for months now, and it was easy to find pink princess items to round out her party.

I made the cakes a week ago and froze the layers. I've had houseguests the past week and knew time would be short. Most sane people would take that as a cue to pick up something from a local bakery, or at the very least make a simple design, but...well, I wanted to experiment with tiers and have a little fun with it! Frozen unfrosted cake, if wrapped tightly, keeps very well, and it makes the icing glide on so smoothly. I like the texture of cake that's been frozen better than fresh too; it seems to be more moist and the flavors have blended better also.

The bottom 9-inch round was a chocolate layer cake, and the top 6-inch was a white chocolate-flavored layer cake. I used a raspberry liqueur syrup on the layers to make them extra moist while the cakes were still warm from the oven (before being cut and frozen). Yesterday I filled each with white chocolate buttercream and fresh raspberries, did a thick crumbcoat of the icing also, and covered the whole concoction in marshmallow fondant sprinkled with sparkly luster dust. This time I made the marshmallows from scratch.

On that note, the marshmallows were easier to work with a gave a better consistency for rolling out when the fondant was finished than the store-bought variety. Yes, it was more work to make the marshmallow, but they're fairly easy. The end result was worth it!

My only problem was with the royal icing that cake decorating books recommend for "gluing" the layers together and for piping along the bottom of the cakes. I hated it! It was glossy (the fondant was matte), it was difficult to work with compared to buttercream, and I ended up scraping it off and using buttercream instead.

Because I was expecting a lot of guests, and because the Pinkalicious book has pink cupcakes featured in it, I also make a dozen of the smaller treats. I used a basic yellow cake recipe and topped it with fluffy standard buttercream, colored pink of course! I thought I had white sprinkles, but they were actually lavender, so I made teeny little balls out of the leftover white fondant to sprinkle over the top, and also gave a slight dusting of pink luster dust for shimmer.

I think it turned out well, for my first attempt at a tiered cake (and my second attempt at fondant). It was definitely worth the time and effort when I woke my little princess up from her nap and brought her in to see the spread. She was very excited to try her "peeenk cake!"

Crunch, Munch

We are enjoying an afternoon snack at the moment. They were supposed to be for dessert tonight, but it's very warm in our house right now, the kids are hungry, and...well, why not have a treat midday for once?! Of course, this means that we won't be having any sugar post-dinner, just to keep things balanced!

A good ginger flavored cookie recipe is a staple for any baker, and I searched a long time for the right one. While crunchy Gingersnaps find their way into my kitchen from time to time, my absolute favorite ginger cookies are out of the Healthy Oven cookbook. They're chewy, and yet still manage to maintain a crispness as well. They hold together nicely and keep fresh tightly sealed in a container for several days, should you not consume them all within the first day or two.

Ginger and lemon pair very nicely, should you go ahead and make the ice cream sandwiches, but vanilla ice cream (or butter toffee) would be fabulous as well. I used a pint of Julie's Organic Lemon Frozen Yogurt for ours. I wanted larger sized cookies for our treats, so I used about 1/4 cup batter for each ball of dough instead of the usual walnut sized chunk. The baking temperature stays the same, but if you make yours bigger also, then they'll probably need a few extra minutes of time in the oven.

Ginger Crackles (from The Healthy Oven Baking Book by Sarah Phillips)

1 cup packed brown sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground white pepper, optional (makes the cookies so tasty!)

granulated sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly spray two cookie sheets with oil.

Using a hand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar. Beat in the egg and molasses. Add the spices, salt, and baking soda and mix well. Add the flour and beat just until combined.

Place about 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a shallow dish. Scoop 1 inch sized pieces of dough into your hands, roll into balls, then roll in the sugar. Place on the prepared cookie sheets. Flatten slightly with the bottom of a drinking glass.

Bake about 10 minutes, just until the cookies are set. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes about 32 cookies.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

For the ice cream sandwiches, use about 1/4 cup dough for each cookie. Roll in the sugar and flatten as above, but increase the baking time by about 2 minutes.

Once the cookies have cooled completely, Place a scoop of softened ice cream or frozen yogurt onto the center of one and place another cookie on top (about 1/4 cup). Press gently to sandwich them together. Place on a cookie sheet. When all of the sandwiches have been made (work quickly), place the cookie sheet in the freezer for at least one hour, or until the cookies and ice cream are frozen solid. Wrap each in plastic, place in a large sealable bag, and freeze until needed.

Makes about 8 large sandwiches.

CSB Annoucement

While I haven't posted any new recipes in the last few days, it's certainly not for a lack of cooking/baking! I have been very busy with my usual domestic activities, and have also been getting ready for company and a kitchen inspection. I finally took the plunge and got my kitchen certified! This means that I can now legally take snacks and/or treats to my kids' classrooms, and I can sell baked goods to the general public.

While I do not want to bite off more than I can chew, I do recognize that making a little extra money would be nice, especially if it off sets the cost of the kitchen license! So I have started a CSB (community supported bakery), which will begin the first Tuesday in October. If you'd like to know more about my CSB, you can read about it here. Baking is a hobby for me, and I give so much away as it is that it would be nice to get my fix, not waste it, not have to eat it all, and share the treats with people who would normally not get to sample them at all.

I am hoping for a small number of clients, just enough to keep me busy, but not so many that I can't do the things for my family that I currently do (my first, and most important job, is being a stay-at-home-mom, after all!). So if I post a little less often here, then you can still follow the kinds of things I'm making at my new site, http://kfallscsb.blogspot.com. Cheers!