The dessert recipe Sally calls Ambrosia is worthy of the name. I could not believe how delicious it is!
Dried coconut, orange slices, chopped dates, and crispy pecans. That's all. Mix, chill, and eat. WOW!
And for all you fellow Orthodox, it's 100% lenten, too!
Apr 5, 2009
Mar 13, 2009
The Poison is OUT!
Last night I went to sleep on the first try. I did not awaken with a start and scream, nor did I feel a shock go through me and startle me awake, nor did I choke and wake up gasping. I didn't take magnesium before bed, either. I can't remember the last time I could have reported having such an easy time falling asleep, but as of yesterday, I'm different: my amalgam fillings are GONE!
Chances are that those symptoms were from oral galvanism, the electrical currents produced by all fillings due to the dissimilar metals they are made of. I read about a woman whose oral galvanism made her vision flip upside down from time to time, after which she would faint. Amalgam replacement solved her problem, too.
My dentist, Dr. Sukel is great. He uses a unique device to protect the patient from mercury exposure during the procedure. It forms a collar around the tooth and concentrates very strong suction directly over the tooth being worked on. This works very well and I don't believe I was exposed at all. I also had an oxygen supply mask over my nose and a pair of swimming goggles.
I have been SO sick for so many years. My fillings went it 14 years ago when I was 15. I missed many days of school in high school, went to the ER for abdominal pain several times a year (including overseas!), developed horrible allergies to various things, and was treated for severe depression and anxiety. (This list is longer, but those are the "highlights".)
Now I must recover and detoxify, but the worst is over now and the world is SO MUCH BRIGHTER!!! Thanks be to God for all things!
Chances are that those symptoms were from oral galvanism, the electrical currents produced by all fillings due to the dissimilar metals they are made of. I read about a woman whose oral galvanism made her vision flip upside down from time to time, after which she would faint. Amalgam replacement solved her problem, too.
My dentist, Dr. Sukel is great. He uses a unique device to protect the patient from mercury exposure during the procedure. It forms a collar around the tooth and concentrates very strong suction directly over the tooth being worked on. This works very well and I don't believe I was exposed at all. I also had an oxygen supply mask over my nose and a pair of swimming goggles.
I have been SO sick for so many years. My fillings went it 14 years ago when I was 15. I missed many days of school in high school, went to the ER for abdominal pain several times a year (including overseas!), developed horrible allergies to various things, and was treated for severe depression and anxiety. (This list is longer, but those are the "highlights".)
Now I must recover and detoxify, but the worst is over now and the world is SO MUCH BRIGHTER!!! Thanks be to God for all things!
Jan 23, 2009
Kefir and Whey Sodas
These are the recipes I will be demonstrating tomorrow for my local WAP chapter!
Ginger Ale
In a 2 qt jar:
1 apple, quartered (or 10 slices dried apple) or one lemon, sliced
1-2 T ginger, ground or fresh or combination
1/4 c honey or rapadura/sucanat
1 T kefir grains
1 T malt syrup if using milk kefir grains
1 small piece of eggshell
filtered water to fill, leaving 1" headspace
Close tightly and leave in soaking cabinet for 2-4 days. Soda should become fizzy and sour. Strain in colander to remove large bits and kefir grains. Reserve grains for future batches. Drink straight or with added natural sweetener, if desired. Extra-delicious chilled. May be fermented for several more days at room temperature after the kefir grains have been removed.
Beet Kvass
In a 2 qt jar:
2 large beets, peeled and chopped very coarsely
2 T salt
1/4 c homemade whey
filtered water to fill, leaving 1" headspace
Close tightly and set in your soaking cabinet for 2-5 days. Should be salty and fizzy. Strain and serve chilled. Beet kvass is not a fancy beverage, but a health tonic. Excellent for colds and fatigue.
Kefir Grains:
The kefir-fermented ginger ale below is actually a variation on an ancient fermented drink called water kefir. Ideally, it would be make with Sugar Kefir Grains (SKG), which are composed of glucose-eating microbes. However, these are not always available, though many of us have milk kefir grains. If milk kefir grains are used, fermentation is improved by the addition of barley malt syrup because maltose is more similar to lactose and preferred, over glucose, by the SKG organisms. Both SKG and milk grains are built out of calcium, which they need if they are going to proliferate. Proliferation is desirable because it not only increases your supply of kefir grains, but also ensures that the grains you already have are thriving. Once a set of milk kefir grains has been used in water kefir, it should not be used in milk kefir again, but reserved for its new purpose.
One simple method for using kefir grains in soda is to tie them into a little sachet with a piece of muslin cloth. This prevents them from getting mixed in with the other solid ingredients such as fruit and spices so that they are easier to retrieve at the end of a brew.
Homemade Whey:
Don't try to purchase whey for your beet kvass! To work properly, it must be microbiologically active. The best ways to make whey are to drain them off of kefir, curdled raw milk, or homemade yogurt. In a pinch, you could try using the whey from store-bought yogurt, but your results might not be good. (You'll recall that yogurt ferments at a warm temperature between 80° and 90°F. It is impractical and unnecessary to maintain those temperatures for beet kvass, so using yogurt cultures might prove problematic.) To drain whey off of kefir or sour raw milk, line a colander with a piece of muslin and fill with finished kefir which has begun to separate. Collect the whey in a bowl under the colander. Save it all! What doesn't go into your beet kvass can be used to start pickles, sauerkraut, and drinks, as well as adding the required acidity to your soaked grains. I keep whey in the fridge in jars for up to two months. If it smells bad, it is bad.
Ginger Ale
In a 2 qt jar:
1 apple, quartered (or 10 slices dried apple) or one lemon, sliced
1-2 T ginger, ground or fresh or combination
1/4 c honey or rapadura/sucanat
1 T kefir grains
1 T malt syrup if using milk kefir grains
1 small piece of eggshell
filtered water to fill, leaving 1" headspace
Close tightly and leave in soaking cabinet for 2-4 days. Soda should become fizzy and sour. Strain in colander to remove large bits and kefir grains. Reserve grains for future batches. Drink straight or with added natural sweetener, if desired. Extra-delicious chilled. May be fermented for several more days at room temperature after the kefir grains have been removed.
Beet Kvass
In a 2 qt jar:
2 large beets, peeled and chopped very coarsely
2 T salt
1/4 c homemade whey
filtered water to fill, leaving 1" headspace
Close tightly and set in your soaking cabinet for 2-5 days. Should be salty and fizzy. Strain and serve chilled. Beet kvass is not a fancy beverage, but a health tonic. Excellent for colds and fatigue.
Kefir Grains:
The kefir-fermented ginger ale below is actually a variation on an ancient fermented drink called water kefir. Ideally, it would be make with Sugar Kefir Grains (SKG), which are composed of glucose-eating microbes. However, these are not always available, though many of us have milk kefir grains. If milk kefir grains are used, fermentation is improved by the addition of barley malt syrup because maltose is more similar to lactose and preferred, over glucose, by the SKG organisms. Both SKG and milk grains are built out of calcium, which they need if they are going to proliferate. Proliferation is desirable because it not only increases your supply of kefir grains, but also ensures that the grains you already have are thriving. Once a set of milk kefir grains has been used in water kefir, it should not be used in milk kefir again, but reserved for its new purpose.
One simple method for using kefir grains in soda is to tie them into a little sachet with a piece of muslin cloth. This prevents them from getting mixed in with the other solid ingredients such as fruit and spices so that they are easier to retrieve at the end of a brew.
Homemade Whey:
Don't try to purchase whey for your beet kvass! To work properly, it must be microbiologically active. The best ways to make whey are to drain them off of kefir, curdled raw milk, or homemade yogurt. In a pinch, you could try using the whey from store-bought yogurt, but your results might not be good. (You'll recall that yogurt ferments at a warm temperature between 80° and 90°F. It is impractical and unnecessary to maintain those temperatures for beet kvass, so using yogurt cultures might prove problematic.) To drain whey off of kefir or sour raw milk, line a colander with a piece of muslin and fill with finished kefir which has begun to separate. Collect the whey in a bowl under the colander. Save it all! What doesn't go into your beet kvass can be used to start pickles, sauerkraut, and drinks, as well as adding the required acidity to your soaked grains. I keep whey in the fridge in jars for up to two months. If it smells bad, it is bad.
Jan 16, 2009
Kefir, Cheese, Cream, Butter, ...and Tomato Paste?
The question posted to one of my local lists was: "I would like to make my own cheese, kefir, cream, butter and tomato
paste. I have no idea where to start." So I answered, and figured it would make a good blog post since I've been kind of preoccupied lately with newest baby and all!
Cheese is most easily made from kefir, so I'll cover those together. For a hugely extensive read on the subject of kefir and the cheese you make from it go to: Dom's Kefir In-Site However, he does not cover my favorite kind of kefir, which uses no grains, so you can start right away without finding a starter culture.
Here's how to do that:
Drop 1 tablespoon of raw honey into one quart of raw milk. Stir to dissolve honey. Leave this at room temperature for 12-48 hours, until it sours. It may take even longer for the first couple of batches depending on your ambient temperature and your honey's enzymatic activity, etc. The kefir is done when it is sour, slightly thickened, and not yet separated into curds and whey. On the first batch, the results are not usually very tasty, so you can take 1/4 cup of the finished kefir out as starter for your next batch, and then let the rest sit until it separates, and even a bit longer. This will become your cheese. Start your second batch by adding that 1/4 c kefir to a new quart (or two) of milk and waiting. Repeat for the third batch. You can expect a great-tasting (less pungent) kefir on your third batch.
To make the cheese:
I do not recommend cheesecloth for cheese, because the holes are too big to use only a single layer and it is not reusable. Instead, I prefer unbleached muslin, which is cheap and reusable and has exactly the right filter size for cheese.
1. Line a colander with the muslin and set it in a large bowl so you can collect and save your whey for other uses.
2. Dump in all the curdled kefir. Don't be alarmed if it smells very strong. As long as the smell is not like acetone or particularly "gross", you are on the right side of the microbial population. The sharpness of the smell (almost burns your nostrils) decreases later in the process. It is fine (and often important) to taste the cheese at any point in the process.
3. Collect the whey that comes off initially, and put it in a jar in the fridge. then set the whole operation in your soaking cabinet (or on the counter) and leave overnight to drain.
4. When you come back to it, stir it to help it continue draining. Repeat this every few hours until the curds are not very glossy. Remember to get rid of the whey in the draining bowl each time. You can dump it or save it. Either is fine.
5. Now salt your cheese to taste. The flavor will be quite unpleasant without salting, so taste it several times after you've mixed each addition of salt in well. You want to get the salt right! After you do this, you have a very nice, spreadable cream cheese which you can use with no further attention. The cream cheese is great on soaked dough flat bread, which you can make with some of that whey in the fridge. Or, you can proceed with the rest of the steps.
6. Pick up the corners of the muslin and gather them together, twist them all tightly together and twist up the ball of cheese in order to squeeze out more moisture. Tuck the "tail" of the cloth under the ball and set it back in the colander. Now, each time you visit your cheese, give it a little twist. You will be amazed at how much whey comes out of that curd! Eventually, your cheese will dry, in its cloth, to be quite firm to the touch.
7. Now you can unwrap it and oil it all over with olive oil or butter. Do this each day for 2 weeks. This step prevents the growth of surface mold.
8. Coat the entire thing with beeswax and put away to age for at least 3 months.
Cream
Cream is fairly easy to skim, but even easier to buy (if you can get the good, raw stuff!), since the skim milk you are left with after skimming is not really suitable for human consumption. If you must skim your own, it is pretty easy to cut off the top of a milk jug once the cream has solidly risen (give it a couple days). Or set it in a bowl to rise, to make skimming easier.
Butter
I love to make butter, even though it takes time, makes a mess, and seems expensive!
I use my electric mixer. Start with the cream at room temperature and beat it on the highest speed with your hand or stand mixer. It will go through the whipped stage and start to clump after that, getting yellower all the while. You will begin to think it looks like butter before it is butter.
...Don't give up!
...Keep beating, periodically scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper.
Then, fairly suddenly, the buttermilk will "fall" out. My first clue that this has happened is always the feeling of splattering buttermilk on my hand. At this point, stop the mixer and look, and you will see the oddly-colored buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. Use a large spoon to press clumps of butter together off to one side of the bowl. Pick up this clump and form into a ball with your hands. Rinse it by dipping it in a bowl of cold filtered water and then squash it again and rinse it again. If the water is sufficiently cold, the butter should not stick to your hands. Rinse a few more times until the buttermilk is all out. Stuff it in a jar, and there you go! Salt is also recommended by some, but I don't bother. I just add salt when I use it.
Tomato paste:
You can start with sauce, and reduce it in a saucepan over low heat. If you start with tomatoes, you make a pureed sauce first and then do the same. I'm not sure what else you want to know. You can spread it out and dry it in a dehydrator, too. Or in the oven on low. Great for your bumper crop! Not so great for tomatoes that come from trucks.... :-)
paste. I have no idea where to start." So I answered, and figured it would make a good blog post since I've been kind of preoccupied lately with newest baby and all!
Cheese is most easily made from kefir, so I'll cover those together. For a hugely extensive read on the subject of kefir and the cheese you make from it go to: Dom's Kefir In-Site However, he does not cover my favorite kind of kefir, which uses no grains, so you can start right away without finding a starter culture.
Here's how to do that:
Drop 1 tablespoon of raw honey into one quart of raw milk. Stir to dissolve honey. Leave this at room temperature for 12-48 hours, until it sours. It may take even longer for the first couple of batches depending on your ambient temperature and your honey's enzymatic activity, etc. The kefir is done when it is sour, slightly thickened, and not yet separated into curds and whey. On the first batch, the results are not usually very tasty, so you can take 1/4 cup of the finished kefir out as starter for your next batch, and then let the rest sit until it separates, and even a bit longer. This will become your cheese. Start your second batch by adding that 1/4 c kefir to a new quart (or two) of milk and waiting. Repeat for the third batch. You can expect a great-tasting (less pungent) kefir on your third batch.
To make the cheese:
I do not recommend cheesecloth for cheese, because the holes are too big to use only a single layer and it is not reusable. Instead, I prefer unbleached muslin, which is cheap and reusable and has exactly the right filter size for cheese.
1. Line a colander with the muslin and set it in a large bowl so you can collect and save your whey for other uses.
2. Dump in all the curdled kefir. Don't be alarmed if it smells very strong. As long as the smell is not like acetone or particularly "gross", you are on the right side of the microbial population. The sharpness of the smell (almost burns your nostrils) decreases later in the process. It is fine (and often important) to taste the cheese at any point in the process.
3. Collect the whey that comes off initially, and put it in a jar in the fridge. then set the whole operation in your soaking cabinet (or on the counter) and leave overnight to drain.
4. When you come back to it, stir it to help it continue draining. Repeat this every few hours until the curds are not very glossy. Remember to get rid of the whey in the draining bowl each time. You can dump it or save it. Either is fine.
5. Now salt your cheese to taste. The flavor will be quite unpleasant without salting, so taste it several times after you've mixed each addition of salt in well. You want to get the salt right! After you do this, you have a very nice, spreadable cream cheese which you can use with no further attention. The cream cheese is great on soaked dough flat bread, which you can make with some of that whey in the fridge. Or, you can proceed with the rest of the steps.
6. Pick up the corners of the muslin and gather them together, twist them all tightly together and twist up the ball of cheese in order to squeeze out more moisture. Tuck the "tail" of the cloth under the ball and set it back in the colander. Now, each time you visit your cheese, give it a little twist. You will be amazed at how much whey comes out of that curd! Eventually, your cheese will dry, in its cloth, to be quite firm to the touch.
7. Now you can unwrap it and oil it all over with olive oil or butter. Do this each day for 2 weeks. This step prevents the growth of surface mold.
8. Coat the entire thing with beeswax and put away to age for at least 3 months.
Cream
Cream is fairly easy to skim, but even easier to buy (if you can get the good, raw stuff!), since the skim milk you are left with after skimming is not really suitable for human consumption. If you must skim your own, it is pretty easy to cut off the top of a milk jug once the cream has solidly risen (give it a couple days). Or set it in a bowl to rise, to make skimming easier.
Butter
I love to make butter, even though it takes time, makes a mess, and seems expensive!
I use my electric mixer. Start with the cream at room temperature and beat it on the highest speed with your hand or stand mixer. It will go through the whipped stage and start to clump after that, getting yellower all the while. You will begin to think it looks like butter before it is butter.
...Don't give up!
...Keep beating, periodically scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper.
Then, fairly suddenly, the buttermilk will "fall" out. My first clue that this has happened is always the feeling of splattering buttermilk on my hand. At this point, stop the mixer and look, and you will see the oddly-colored buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. Use a large spoon to press clumps of butter together off to one side of the bowl. Pick up this clump and form into a ball with your hands. Rinse it by dipping it in a bowl of cold filtered water and then squash it again and rinse it again. If the water is sufficiently cold, the butter should not stick to your hands. Rinse a few more times until the buttermilk is all out. Stuff it in a jar, and there you go! Salt is also recommended by some, but I don't bother. I just add salt when I use it.
Tomato paste:
You can start with sauce, and reduce it in a saucepan over low heat. If you start with tomatoes, you make a pureed sauce first and then do the same. I'm not sure what else you want to know. You can spread it out and dry it in a dehydrator, too. Or in the oven on low. Great for your bumper crop! Not so great for tomatoes that come from trucks.... :-)
Nov 1, 2008
Sprout More!
I got sick of sprouting in four or five separate quart-sized mason jars with fussy screen lids. The repetitive motions of filling and draining them all at once was getting to me. I never had enough bulgur on hand. I solved all of these problems at once by using....
BIGGER JARS!
This is a revelation, and epiphany, and otherwise, not really a religious experience. But I will not say that it wasn't life-changing!
I have some nice 2 liter hermetically-sealed jars, the kind with flip lids and removable rubber seals. I like them for making things fizzy, like kefir and ginger ale. So I sprouted in these, with no seals, and just used a strainer over the top when draining them. They made perfect and fast sprouts, which now fill my oven with their released moisture and my house with their aroma. (sorry, been reading a blog about bad english translations).
BIGGER JARS!
This is a revelation, and epiphany, and otherwise, not really a religious experience. But I will not say that it wasn't life-changing!
I have some nice 2 liter hermetically-sealed jars, the kind with flip lids and removable rubber seals. I like them for making things fizzy, like kefir and ginger ale. So I sprouted in these, with no seals, and just used a strainer over the top when draining them. They made perfect and fast sprouts, which now fill my oven with their released moisture and my house with their aroma. (sorry, been reading a blog about bad english translations).
Oct 31, 2008
No Honey Needed
I've been a little bothered by our high honey consumption, even though it is raw honey, just because I'm not sure about whether it interferes with remineralization of teeth and such. The kids expect honey in their oatmeal and milkshakes, and sometimes on bread and butter and we just seem to use it up fast. This morning, they wanted apple chopped into the oatmeal while it cooked because yesterday we bought some lovely romes at the Geneva Green Market. They also requested cinnamon, and even my sweet-toothiest boy did not ask for any honey in his cereal but just devoured two bowls. The kid that did ask for honey agreed when I said it didn't need any! One for the Mom Team!
Oct 17, 2008
Gentle Goat Milk
I am happy to have goat milk these days. Five of us are trying to get over a chest cold, but I have had the worst case by far. Three nights of coughing-more-than-sleeping. But the first of those was the hardest, probably because I had a great big (cow) milkshake right before bedtime. This was a bad move and I knew it. But in the evenings I often crave milk, probably for the fat. Trouble is, cow milk makes most people phlegmy (is that the same as phlegmatic?). I guess this is considered normal, and I have read some explanations for it besides the standard "allergenic" argument, but in my case it is definitely true. Adding a lot of goo to the already stressed breathing system, though, is not fun.
So I've stuck to goat milk in the evenings for two nights. What a difference! No effect whatsoever on the throat, but I can still make a big yummy milkshake with honey and cocoa and whatever else it seems to need.
The milk is a bit tangier, but that is good for the purpose of keeping all two gallons from disappearing right away. The kids much prefer the cow milk, so they just ignore the jugs with white caps and leave my goat milk alone.
Update:
I made goat cheese! Very easy: just forget about the goat milk on the counter and in a couple of days, strain out the curds. At first I thought it was horribly bitter, but when I mixed in some salt, it became delicious! Goat milk doesn't give up its cream very easily, so it's easier to make a fatty cheese, too, where cow milk likes to separate if you let it curdle on the counter, but then the cheese isn't as good at all!
So I've stuck to goat milk in the evenings for two nights. What a difference! No effect whatsoever on the throat, but I can still make a big yummy milkshake with honey and cocoa and whatever else it seems to need.
The milk is a bit tangier, but that is good for the purpose of keeping all two gallons from disappearing right away. The kids much prefer the cow milk, so they just ignore the jugs with white caps and leave my goat milk alone.
Update:
I made goat cheese! Very easy: just forget about the goat milk on the counter and in a couple of days, strain out the curds. At first I thought it was horribly bitter, but when I mixed in some salt, it became delicious! Goat milk doesn't give up its cream very easily, so it's easier to make a fatty cheese, too, where cow milk likes to separate if you let it curdle on the counter, but then the cheese isn't as good at all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Blogs I recommend
Posts
