Love Soup

I am pretty sure that I already mentioned this, but I love soup. Love it. And, my husband and kids love it. It is a total win-win situation for us so when I heard about this new soup book called Love Soup I knew I had to check it out. It is full of vegetarian soups, many of which can be made vegan for those who swing that way. I just got it from the library the other day and have tabbed countless soups I want to try and we even tried one. It was delicious. A friend gave us some zucchini from her garden (I love that I live in Portland and there are still fruits and vegetables coming on!) so we made the Zucchini Potato Soup (I didn't have time or ingredients to make a vegetable broth so I just used chicken broth I had on hand). It was yummy. I think it would make for a better late summer soup when the evenings are cool but comfortable than a warm-me-up fall soup. No bother. We still ate it and loved it. It was a brothy soup with zucchini, potatoes, basil, and parsley. Light, not over powering. Yum. I love this book so much that I have already added it to our Christmas list. I heard about it from Angry Chicken's blog, a great blog for all people who love food and crafting, especially if you live in Portland (she goes to great local shops). So, go now, find the book and check it out! (FYI I was not paid to rave about this book, it is just pure love).

Applesauce

Yummy, fresh apples made into delicious applesauce. I decided not to add any sugar because I figure that way people could make them as sweet as they want. Our boys don't care that there is no sugar and they devour the applesauce. Bowls are returned licked clean. I love how the peels turned it pink.

Here is what we did: rinse the apples, cut out the seeds and stem (it is not necessary to cut out the whole core), cut the apples into 2-inch chunks, place in a pot with about 1/2-inch or so of water (watch the water, you don't want them to be too runny but you also don't want burning or sticking because that would ruin the whole batch), cook until mushy (about 10 minutes), run them through a strainer or food mill. We used a Foley Food Mill, which I highly recommend. I think it was the two quart size but I am not sure. It was very easy to use and clean up. After all of the jars were filled, we processed them for 25 minutes in the water bath canner. Don't forget to warm up the glass so it doesn't shatter in the canner (I just ran them under hot water for a minute or so).

Homemade Yogurt

We have finally succeeded at making our own yogurt. It is really quite easy to do. This was our third attempt but after each failure we learned a little more. All you need to have in order to make yogurt is milk (any kind will do - skim or whole or something in between), yogurt, a crock pot, jars with lids (we just use pint-size canning jars), towels, and a meat thermometer (not really necessary but it makes me feel more comfortable). You can add powdered milk but we were out so it didn't happen this time. Here is the recipe we went off of (for the most part). Here is what we did:

First, heat up 4 cups of milk in a saucepan to 175 degrees (F). Stir it occasionally to be sure the heat is distributed evenly. It helps to have a candy thermometer clipped on the pan so you don't get the milk too hot or not hot enough. This will kill any bacteria that may compete with the wanted bacteria in the yogurt.

Next, remove from heat and allow the milk to cool to 110 degrees (F).

Once it has reached 110 degrees, add 1/4 cup of plain, unsweetened yogurt with live active cultures. The yogurt should be as fresh as possible to get the best results. You can also add 1/3 cup of powdered milk at this point. Stir well. Pour into jars and put the lids on.

Place the jars into a crock pot, pack with towels, and turn the crock pot on for a little while to heat up. I placed the meat thermometer between one of the jars and the towels so I could monitor the temperature. You want the temperature to be between 100 and 110 degrees (F) for about 8-10 hours. Do not leave the crock pot on the whole time because it will get too hot and kill the bacteria, leaving you with sour milk. If it goes below 100 degrees the bacteria will not incubate properly. All I did was turn the crock pot on high for about 10 minutes then turned it off for the rest of the time. It was about 10 hours later when it was down to 95 degrees and by that time it had firmed up and turned into yogurt. Do not stir the yogurt or jostle around the jars while they are incubating. They should sit as still as possible.

Once it has incubated for about 10 hours remove the jars from the crock pot and place them in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat it. When you are ready to eat, add whatever you would want in your yogurt - vanilla, sugar or honey, fruit... - and eat it up. You can use this as the starter for your next batch.

10 hours may sound like a long time but in reality your are only working for about 20 minutes then they just sit. Other than peek at the thermometer a few times, I didn't pay the yogurt any attention. It turned out fantastic!

Soup's On

I can't say that I know anyone who doesn't like soup, especially starting around this time of year. The weather is cooling off, the days are getting shorter, and gardens are ready to go to sleep for the winter. We have been bring back soup for a couple weeks now. This soup is a great way to finish off your summer squash. I used yellow crook neck squash from a friend's over productive garden but you can use any soft summer squash (zucchini included). Totally easy. Totally delicious. Inspiration from here.

Summer Squash Soup

1½ pounds summer squash

2 Tbsp butter

1 medium onion (or 2 Tbsp dehydrated onions)

¼ lemon, sliced, seeds removed (or ½ Tbsp lemon juice)

¼ cup flour

6 cups chicken broth

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp white pepper (black pepper will work fine too)

⅛ tsp cayenne pepper, ground (plus more for garnish)

1 cup milk (or cream)

1. Wash and trim squash. Slice, reserving 8 very thin slices for garnish.

2. In a large saucepan (or soup pot) melt butter. Add onion and lemon and sauté. Sprinkle with flour and cook slowly, stirring, until flour is absorbed. Add chicken broth gradually, then add sliced squash, salt, and pepper. Simmer about 30 minutes or so until squash is tender.

3. Puree soup in blender or food processer. Return to pot, stir in cayenne and milk with wire whisk and cook over medium-low heat. Do not allow to boil.

4. Ladle into individual bowls and garnish with reserved sliced squash and a sprinkling of cayenne.

Makes 8 servings

1167 total calories (146 Calories per serving)

Canning

It is hard for some to believe but I hadn't ever canned until this week. I love it! I am addicted. First we canned plums that we picked at the home of a friend of a friend. We started with about 40 pounds of plums (Italian prunes) and ended with 21 quarts of plums in syrup. We did it as our Family Home Evening lesson/activity. My 20 month old handed me plums, I rinsed them off, my husband cut them in half, and our 6 year old removed the pits and packed them into the jars. After a while of that I moved on to making the syrup by boiling 5 cups of water with 3 cups of sugar. I filled the jars then when 7 were done we processed them. I only had 14 quart jars so we had to use 14 pint jars too, which made for 4 batches. I had two quart jars burst in the canner but other than that, they all sealed and worked just fine. We think the two burst because the syrup cooled too much so the temperature changed too much when they hit the boiling water. For the rest we placed the jars into hot tap water for a couple minutes to warm up the glass before putting them in the canner. It seemed to work. I followed these instructions.

Then on Wednesday my friend and I went out and picked grapes and tomatoes from another friend who had an abundance. We ended up with about 85 pounds of grapes, which we juiced in an awesome steamer-juicer. We ended up with 24 quarts and about 20 liters of juice. The quart jars seal on their own because the juice comes out of the steamer at about 200 or so degrees so you just put on a clean lid and as it cools it seals. The liter bottles are just old juice and soda bottles that we pop into the freezer. To drink the juice I dilute it to about 50% and add a little sugar (some of the grapes were not fully ripe yet). It is so delicious. I am not a fan of most store-bought grape juices but this is totally different, and oh so delicious.

On Friday, while we were finishing up the grape juice, I tried my hand at canning tomatoes. It was really easy. I blanched the tomatoes to remove the skins (place in boiling water for 30-60 seconds or until the skin splits, then remove and place in cold water for a few seconds) then I quartered the tomatoes (they were roma tomatoes so they weren't too large) and stuffed them into pint jars. Because tomatoes have been bred lately to have less acid, you have to add lemon juice (1 Tbsp per pint, 2 Tbsp per quart) to inhibit the growth of bacteria (Whose idea was it to take out the acid in tomatoes? Just leave the darn things alone.) So, after I added the lemon juice I added boiling water until I had 1/2 inch head space, put on a clean lid, and screwed on the ring. I ran them in hot tap water to avoid bursting then processed them. We got 16 pints of tomatoes (3 were just yellow pear tomatoes, which I did whole because they are so small).

Now I am stuck between being excited to use my home-canned produce in recipes all winter and being afraid I will use them all too quickly, which makes me not want to use them. Does anyone else have that problem?

No More Nausea!

Wow! I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. To my credit, the whole first trimester of this pregnancy was spent with me unable to think about pretty much any food at any time. Now that I have recovered from that (although I still am struggling with bread and brown rice), I hope to be posting more.

I never did post my solution to my cooking spray post. I received some emails on the subject then did a little trial and error and found that the best solution was to butter the pan with cold butter and lightly dust it with flour. I only have to flour the bottom of my bread pans and the bread just slides out. Good luck!

Brown Rice

(image from Wikimedia)

We switched to eating all whole wheat about 6 months ago (previously we used 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 white flour). The change has been great. Most recipes adapt very well. Ever since then I have been thinking about whether our delicious, wonderfully yummy, and easy to cook white Basmati rice is really the best option for our family. After doing some research, it became evident that we should really make the switch to brown rice (it has more nutrients naturally and like other whole grains it is better for the body). I have to admit that I had a few concerns - would it be crunchy? (all of my other attempts yielded crunchy rice because I couldn't cook it long enough without it drying out); would it take too long to cook?; would it be good alone? (we like what we call breakfast rice - warm rice with butter, sugar, and cinnamon) - but I forged ahead anyway (I could always go back, right?). I found this website that made me confident in my abilities. It was heavenly. I am not kidding. It was not crunchy (although it does have a bit more chew to it than white rice), it only took about 20 minutes more to cook than white rice (from about 25 minutes to 45 minutes), it makes absolutely wonderful breakfast rice (in fact, it is much more filling), and it has a nuttier flavor, which we all really like. So, here is how I make it:

Brown Rice

1 1/2 cups water
1 cup brown rice

Add both ingredients to a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low to maintain a low boil. Allow to simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to sit for at least 20 minutes.

1 cup dry = 3 cups cooked

1 cup cooked = 225 calories

To make breakfast rice, place about 1 cup cooked rice in a bowl and add about 1/2 Tbsp butter, 2-3 tsp granulated sugar, and sprinkle on some cinnamon; stir and eat. (1 serving = 350 calories)