Baked: Sweet Grain-Free Acorn Squash Muffins

It is essential for me that when someone tries something I make, they simply say, "This is good." I don't want them to say, "This is good...considering it's [grain-free] [healthy] [made with liver] [etc.]." So I'm excited to be experimenting with grain-free treats that are simply yummy ~ not conditionally yummy. ;-) It's also important to me not to use specialty ingredients. Real, old-fashioned ingredients that are no longer generally carried at a regular grocery, such as soup bones and liver from grass-fed animals ~ yes; fancy "gluten-free flour" ~ no.

I've been using this grain-free muffin recipe for years now. And I've honed custards (a mix of egg with liquid, such as cream or milk, soup, pureed veggie or fruit, etc.: looks like a post I need to create!) ~ both sweet and savory ~ to a perfection. So now I'm working with this concept: of eggs with different thickenings, essentially, to come up with all kinds of (mildly) sweet, grain-free baked deliciousness. My way of cooking, mind you, is largely "a little of this, a little of that;" I only use rough measurements. And I encourage you to try this method in your own kitchen as much as you dare. It takes practice and a bit of adventure. But if you start with quality ingredients, even if it's not contest-worthy, it'll most likely still taste good. ;-)

So here's a rough recipe I created this morning that turned out yummy. Especially successful because the toddler asked for seconds and thirds! I hope I have the time to share more of these recipes soon.

Sweet Grain-Free Acorn Squash Muffins

makes 9 small muffins

Preheat oven to 375.

3 eggs ~ from a local farm you know and trust

about 1/3 cup leftover baked acorn squash (butternut or pumpkin would work well, too)

1/4 cup flax seeds, ground in a seed/coffee grinder

1/4 tsp organic butter, melted

3-4 medjool dates, pitted and chopped fine (or chopped in a food processor)

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Extra butter to grease the muffin cups.

Blend all ingredients. I use a hand-held mixer. Pour into well-greased muffin cups. Bake until firm and brown ~ no longer than 30 minutes; probably closer to 20.

These muffins are so moist and satisfying! My 3 year old daughter ate three at one sitting! That's a record-breaker. The flax helps them to stay together and have body, while not being too "flaxy" (read: "crunchy-granola 'healthy'"). And the dates add just enough sweet without creating a sugar high and subsequent crash! These muffins stand on their own, but you know I won't flinch if you melt some butter or cream cheese on top. And I bet a drizzle of raw local honey would be divine!

Involve your children in the process! Kids love to help if we'll let them. And helping ensures they'll like the end product more because they can take pride in it. It might take a few more minutes, and some food might end up on the counter or on the floor. However, an interest in cooking that starts early is a life-skill that is worth the investment. Anjali helped me make these by pouring in the dry ingredients after I measured them. She also quality-checked the dates. ;-)

fermented: Autumn Harvest Fruit Scrap Vinegar ~ with grapes, apples, blackberries, and pears!

oh! The kitchen is alive and vibrating with bounty at harvest time! I feel so fortunate to have arrived in Oregon at this time of year. As soon as we plopped the moving boxes in the middle of the room and assembled the bed, the pots and crocks and kettles have been a-bubbling and brewing ever since. Abundance. Vitality found at the end of a wooden spatula shared with friends.

I started a post weeks ago which attempted to quickly run through all the fermented preservation I've been up to, but guess what? I'm too busy preserving! :-) Many are clearly experiments. A few are clearly delicious. That brings me to quite possibly my favorite ferment, besides just good ol' plain ol' cabbage sauerkraut: fruit scrap vinegar. With Mother Nature, truly there is no "waste." That's what I love about making vinegar from fruit scraps: the parts that would usually get tossed to the compost pile have one more step of utility to us first. I have realized this is my passion ~ making useful beautiful things out of stuff that most people in our culture nowadays consider "waste." I make clothing and other useful items from second hand fabric (if only I could unearth the machine from the boxes!), make broth from onion peels, carrot stubs, etc., and bones (which I by no means consider scrap, but instead highly valuable, however most Americans do consider these rubbish). And vinegar from fruit scraps! Ding ding ding! I win!

Ha ha. Well, it's obvious I'm passionate. ;-)

I'm thrilled to be transplanted from the city to the country. And thrilled that we have overflowing fruits for the taking right here on the rental property. This vinegar exemplifies that sweet harvest with apple, pear, blackberry and concord grape! If I had thought to add wild rose hip (oo! that's an idea!), it would almost be showing off. Though I have made luscious fruit scrap vinegars in the past ~ Rainier cherry, and ripest Kashiwase Farm nectarine from Bay Area farmers' markets come to mind, this is the most beautiful fruit scrap vinegar I may ever assemble. I mean. Just look at it.

sweet and ripe apple, pear, blackberry, and concord grape fruit scrap vinegar peeks out from its bonnet.

This is a gallon jar, by the way.

I got the idea originally from everyone's favorite Fermentation Guru-Nextdoor, Sandor Katz (featured prominently to the right), in his must-have Wild Fermentation, with the ratio for added sugar to water being 1/4 cup sugar to 1 quart water. In the past I have tried honey, and Sucanat, and probably organic white sugar. Right now I'm using some organic palm sugar that I hoarded away years ago and have since never touched. One of the things I appreciate about Sandor and his truth of fermentation is ~ use what you have, and what motivates you. The "recipes" are mostly just guidelines; you can use your imagination and what's around you to fill in the rest.

Fruit Scrap Vinegar

~Pile the fruit scraps in a clean glass vessel (I give it a good scrubbing and then fill it with boiling water beforehand, which I pour out after a few minutes).

~Fill up the empty space with the sugar water.

~Cover with a clean towel or napkin secured with a rubberband to keep the flies away.

~Let sit until the water is sufficiently cloudy ~ a week or more.

~Then strain out the solids for the compost, and pour the liquid back into the well-ventilated vessel and re-cover.

~Let it sit till the smell turns from sweet to vinegar-y.

A cloudy or fuzzy membrane might form over the top. That's ok; just use a spoon to pull it off.

This vinegar can be used in any way that you use other tasty vinegars ~ in cooking, on salads, and even just to drink, like a tasty kombucha. Yum!

Good News: Citizens Take Food Sovereignty into Their Own Hands

Haha! I've had that gloomy post at the top of this page long enough. I strongly believe in focusing on what you want instead of on what you don't want.

Cheers to folks standing up for their freedom to choose the foods they want to nourish their bodies, and to farmers standing up to sell wholesome food to folks who want to buy it!

And this is one city of a few US cities who have taken this step. Exciting!

Here's the link about Santa Cruz's Food Freedom Resolution.

Raw Milk: Under Militant Attack by US Government

Uggh. I should've written about this weeks ago, but. If you want to know what really gets my blood boiling ~ it's this and I just didn't want to face it. Many armed SWAT-style raids on small, honest, family-owned farms and businesses selling clean, nutritious raw milk to people who go out of their way to get it and pay top dollar for it. On a planet where many people every day die from lack of access to food, in a country where millions are ill and dying for lack of proper nutrition, our government is pouring out gallons and gallons of uncontaminated, healing, nurturing, life-supporting raw milk. Of all things sick and twisted about The System today, this ~ that is happening much more than you'd think ~ is huge and criminal.

Get in touch with your food supply. Know the people who raise your food, support them, and, even better, raise some of your own food. We can't keep leaving our nourishment up to big businesses (including the government); it's killing us.

This quote was left as a comment after a YouTube video linked below and it rings true with me, too.

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny."
— Thomas Jefferson

Here's a press release about the most recent raid on a food buying club in LA, called Rawesome.

And here is a collection of video footage from the raid, and then from the protest following it. I like one of the signs a protester held, saying something like, "Raid Crack Houses, not Food Buying Clubs."

Then finally, and most importantly, here's a link to the movie, called Farmageddon, which tells the story of so many small farms and farm families around the country who are going through the exact same thing. If you can watch the trailer and not get your feathers ruffled, you probably came to this blog by accident. ;-) Find a way to see it. I'll let you borrow my copy of the DVD when it's available for purchase.

If you don't want to eat real food, keep eating the packaged garbage sold to you by advertisements on TV. But please let me and my family have the right to choose to eat real, wholesome food from the earth, the way Nature intended it.

Food Sovereignty!

To help, Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund is a great organization.

Raw Milk: Safe Even According to Government Data

Though we know better than to rely on the research the US government chooses to publicize, now even government data shows that raw milk from healthy cows grazed on grass is much safer than many other foods available in grocery stores. This also proves that the FDA has an agenda other than public health behind their overt opposition to raw milk. Here's an article about it, and an extensive explanation of the research, by the author, Dr. Ted Beals.

From Dr. Beals, "..we can show, using government figures, that you are about 35,000 times more likely to become ill from other foods than you are from raw milk."

The Next Level: Grain-Free Banana Bread French Toast over a Campfire

Here I am humming with pleasure at one of my favorite things: cooking outside! We went for an overnight trip to Tahoe to feed our souls before embarking on a huge hunk of busy-ness. Always well worth it. And the food? Always well worth it. Food does taste better outside.

The aspects that a photo can't convey are the heavenly fresh scent of the redwoods and Douglas firs, the rushing of the alpine creek that was directly past this little campsite, the crackling of the fire with its occasional stinging smoke in my eyes as I shuffled the pans. The feeling of cool powdery dirt between my toes. The fact that it's perfectly acceptable to use the lid of a camping pot as a cutting board. The added smells and sounds... the breaking of usual rules. ;-)

We've been quite pleased with the previous Homey Grain-Free Banana Bread recipe. I happened to have most of a loaf to take with us on our camping trip. And then it dawned on me: French toast! Oh, man. We fried (pasture-raised, artificial nitrate- nitrite-free) bacon beforehand, and then fried the French toast in the leftover grease. You know it! I made the batter the usual way; I beat an egg for each person with a pinch of sea salt, and about a teaspoon of organic maple syrup. Then I let the pieces of banana bread ~ about the width of my thumb, 3/4 inch thick? ~ soak in there on both sides. The pan and grease were hot enough that when I put the first piece in, it sizzled on contact ~ how you want the pan when you fry pancakes. Most of the pieces browned and crisped nicely on both sides, one piece got a little more ... charred.. as the fire licked up a bit. All a part of the camping experience, right?! Then we added pats of yellow butter, a drizzle more of the maple syrup, and a generous handful of ripe local blueberries. With the foil of a perfectly crisp piece of bacon, this French toast was divine.

That piece in the middle is mighty dark, but I love the way the blueberries look with this plate. I can smell the campfire from here. :-)

You might be grimacing at such a full-on presentation of fat. There is a lot in this meal. But the beauty of eating nutrient-dense foods is that a little goes a long way. Unlike the fluffy, empty, saturatedly-sweet piles of French toast that most (I think I could actually say all) restaurants offer, after a couple small pieces of this French toast, even a hearty eater like my husband is satisfied and fueled for a long hike in the mountains ~ instead of for a several-hour belly-rub on the couch.

I need to add that a meal that I eat that includes good meat and good fat is never complete without a heaping spoonful of fermented veggie, and hopefully something else fresh ripe and raw. This is where my summer salsa comes in. One of my favorites of the summer season is cherry tomatoes. With ripe cherry tomatoes that burst with sweet sunshine flavor when I bite into them, I can easily pass by the price-inflated slicers (till the end of the season when they're priced to move). And cherry tomatoes are so easy to grow. Whereas slicers take some skill, cherry tomatoes overproduce with abandon. This season my favorite has been Sun Gold. I buy a pint every time I go to the co-op. My other favorite this year is cucumber. I am not finding the Armenian cucumber I loved from the Berkeley farmers' markets, but any that I've tried this season have been good! So I've been halving Sun Golds at every meal, tossing them with another fresh veggie, such as chunks of cucumber, and then I add a few scoops of fresh sauerkraut to the mix. A splash of olive oil sometimes, a sprinkle of sea salt. This is the ideal summer accompaniment to a hearty breakfast. I dare say, a must.

Salsa of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and cabbage-n-cauliflower sauerkraut smiles in the redwood-filtered morning sunlight.

Baked: Homey Grain-Free Banana Bread

Back before I started keeping this blog, this is the way I kept track of recipes I wanted to remember:

I still like this tactile way of keeping up with cooking, like the way I like hand-written, poetic cookbooks, and don't really find a use for overly scientific, technical cooking directions; cooking is a wholly sensory experience. Writing it down gets even more of your body involved. I also like the cute pictures I always drew to illustrate. ;-)

When I smelled that unmistakable pungent fragrance of very ripe bananas from the bowl on the counter, I felt the rush of a longing: for old-fashioned, classic, comforting banana bread like I ate when I was a kid. I didn't want anything exotic or gourmet; just some moist banana bread with a generous layer of melty gooey cream cheese on top. Of course I would use nutrient-dense ingredients instead of the standard white flour and white sugar, but I wanted my rendition to be as reminiscent as possible to the one I ate on a sunny summer afternoon, spread out on the back porch of Mom's kitchen when I was a kid.

My taste for sweet is so sensitive these days that if you are used to eating Standard American sweetened foods, this might not do it for you. But for me and my family, it was perfect. Moist and just juicy enough, with a delicate texture when warm, and the twang of ripe banana-meets-nutmeg. The thing I also like about this wholesome version is that the egg and butter balance out the sweet-sweet banana so that you (and your children!) don't get the sugar spike and subsequent hangover of a usual sweet treat.

For bioavailability, I soaked the organic almonds overnight beforehand by covering with filtered water with a tablespoon of salt. Then I ground them in a few batches in the spice grinder. There were still some big chunks, but mostly a fine meal.

Homey Grain-Free Banana Bread

preheat oven to 350 and butter a breadloaf baking dish.

2 cups soaked but not toasted almond meal

1/2 cup coconut flakes

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

3 pastured eggs from a farm you trust

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup Sucanat/Rapadura

3 overripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup butter, melted

Mix the first group of ingredients thoroughly. Beat the eggs and mix in the vanilla and Sucanat till combined. Then add the dry to the wet and mix. While stirring, pour the butter in till it's all incorporated. Bake until the center is firm. The outside will get very brown. Let sit for a few minutes before slicing and eat while still warm ~ or toasted ~ with a nice slab of cream cheese on top.

This blog entry is a participant in Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday!