Cherry Chutney (Nourishing traditions)

Cherries!



Cherry season is almost over, but with this you can preserve some cherries for a few months. There are many wonderful ways to eat cherries. The best is the classic way to eat them plain as is. Recently cherries have been shown to act as a mild pain killer (similar to aspirin) on the body. But they need to be fresh to have this effect, and you need to eat a decent amount of them. Another great reason to eat your fruit!

This Chutney is a nourishing traditions recipe


You will need to whey for this recipe, which helps preserve the chutney and ferment it. This step is very important as the fermentation adds valuable enzymes which is half the point of making fermented things (the other half is to preserve it). Here is a how you make whey.

For the Chutney:

Four cups ripe cherries, pitted and quartered (I halved mine)

1/2 tea coriander seeds
1/2 tea whole cloves
grated rind and juice of one whole orange
1/4 cup whey
1/8 cup rapadura (whole cane sugar)
2 tea sea salt
1/2 cup filter water

Put the cherries in wide mouth mason jar. Mix other ingredients  in another bowl, then pour over cherries. Make sure the cherries are two inches below the liquid. Add more water if needed. Put a lid on it then leave it at room temp for two days in order to ferment. Then move it to your fridge, where it will keep for about two months.

All done! So how does this taste? Different then I thought. I pictured sweeter. I made have added to much salt. The salt helps preserve the food as well. It has a strong spice/orange/salt taste. But it's good. However, chutney is usually used on meat dishes, and as a vegetarian I haven't decided what would go good with this dish! Maybe some wild rice? We shall see. Let me know if you have any ideas!

This post added to Real food wednesdays!

Blue GF Cornbread

Blue Corn Gluten Free Corn Bread!

I love Cornbread. But for some reason the past dozen or so times I have made corn bread, it didn't rise well and came out a bit strange. It did, however, taste good. The problem was the recipe. So, I changed it! This may be the best corn bread I have made. I think the key is the xantham gum. I'm not a huge fan of using this, but, I see it is a good comprise now that I am GF.

If you don't have blue corn, you can use regular corn flour. But I like blue corn.

Recipe:

1 1/4 cups blue corn flour

1 1/4 cups rice flour

1/3 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1 T sea salt

1T baking soda

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Mix dry ingredients together. Make a well in the center of dry mix or mix in a separate bowl:

1 egg.

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup water

1/3 melted coconut oil

3 T honey

Blend everything together. It should be a thick pancake like batter. Add more water if needed. I needed to add more water to mine so the amounts may be off slightly.

Bake at 350 for 20ish minutes. Enjoy!



Again, this is some of the best cornbread I have had. I hope your comes out as well!



I made my corn bread into a Sunday of sorts.

I cut it in half and filled with pink beans and cheese and topped it with more beans, salsa, and sour cream. It was like eating desert for dinner.

For those of you interested as well I made my own sour cream this past week! I turned out well. I recently found out that many companies use powdered milk in the products! This is not good. Powered milk is all kinds of bad. Whole milk is good, however. So I checked the ingredients on my Organic Valley sour cream I had been buying, and one of the ingredients is non fat milk. Non fat milk does not belong in cream, which leads me to believe it is powdered milk, because according to this post powdered milk can be added to products and they can just label it "milk." Part of the problem is that we have a milk surplus right now. But I was quite upset by this as I have been trying to avoid powdered milk. I used Nancy's organic milk products because they have great flavor, but at least they state on the package that they use powdered milk. So I stopped using them. Really I just need to make my own milk products. It is not hard, it's just different. My first sour cream turned out great and was really easy. I was quite sure that I was about to ruin a perfectly good quart of cream... I will be trying again a few more times and then posting the results.

For those who cannot wait take one tablespoon of butter milk an add it to a quart of cream in a very clean jar. Leave 20 to 24 hours. All done!




This post linked to two for tuesdays!

Sprouted Rice

Sprouted Rice.

Now is a great time to make this. Why? Well because Rice can be tricky to spout and sprouting is very easy in the warm summer months! Rice is also great for cooling summer heat (according to Healing with Whole Foods). Sprouted food in general also cools the body plus it is easier to digest.

Pick any kind of brown rice. I'm pretty sure I used brown basmati rice, because that is my fav. But I have many kinds of rice on hand at all times. Short grain, long grain, jasmine, Black Rice, Red Volcano Rice, there are so many kinds!

Soak your rice over night, or for 6 to 8 hours.

Drain.

Rinse two to three times a day.

You can do this by leaving them in a colander or by using a mason jar with a cheese cloth on it or a handy sprouting lid

I use something very similar to this lid. It makes it way easier.

Drain your rice after Rinsing by putting it upside down in a dish rack or bowl.

Proper Draining is important!

Your rice should be ready in two to three days. It is done when there are small sprouts coming off of it. Don't let it go for too long or it may get moldy or go bad. You KNOW when it goes bad. It has a strong unpleasant smell. This can also happen from not rinsing.

As you can see in this picture I also soak my nuts before eating them. This makes them more digestible. Nuts are one of the more difficult foods to digest. Think of how much power is in one nut! Think of a walnut, then picture a walnut tree! Nuts have things in them to encourage them only to grow at the right time.. Soaking them starts the spouting process which releases all of that dormant energy. After I soak them over night I toast them on low in the oven to make them crunchy and store well. Soaked nuts go back quickly, which I have learned several times recently... But when you dehydrate them they last for many months in a cool place!

So what do you do with all of that rice? Well you could make rice milk by blending it with water.

I used it to make Spanish rice.

This is a pretty simple meal. The Rice was cooked with onions, garlic, and a canned of fire roasted tomatoes. I used canned black beans as a side. I generally prefer to cook my own beans, but I keep canned beans around as a quick "fast food" for when that doesn't happen.

Sprouted Rice also makes a great breakfast cereal when cooked with water or milk.

This post is part of two for tuesdays Blog Carnival!

http://girlichef.blogspot.com/2010/07/two-for-tuesdays-vol5.html

Gluten Free Lentil Burgers

Lentil Burgers!

I've been on a gluten free diet lately. I was tested recently for celiac and thankfully it came out negative. But I still suspect some gluten intolerance. We shall see! The only way to figure it out is stay off the gluten and then reintroduce it. Some days I think I feel way better without it, some days I feel no difference. Most days, however, I miss bread. I made these and didn't use a bun due to avoiding gluten, however, they were rich enough that I didn't miss the bun. I think using bread may even take away from their flavor.

I used sprouted red lentils. But you can use any kind of lentils, sprouted or not. I recommend at least soaking them over night first. This makes them more digestible. You will also need a food processor for this project.

First, cook the lentils. Cook one cup lentils in about two cups of water. Bring lentils to a boil, cover, lower heat and simmer. Add some sea salt near the end of cooking time.

Cooked Lentils
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/8 cup grated carrot
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup rice flour
1/4 quinoa (if you don't have this on hand it will work without it, I used some leftovers)
1 t cumin
1 t oregano
herbmare or sea salt to taste

Blend sunflower seeds in food processor until finely ground. Add all other ingredients except for rice flour. Blend well. Add half of rice flour, blend again. Test mixture for thickness. If it is not thick enough, add more rice flour. If you have ever made falafel, it should be a similar consistency. The finished product should be thick and heavy. Kind of like cookie dough. I am not sure how much rice flour I used as I don't like to use measurements, but should more, since I am writing a food blog...

Form into patties, and fry. I used a cast iron skillet, which worked great. I fried these in cold pressed sesame oil as well. Coconut oil would also work.

Top with your favorite toppings. I used avocado sauce, and barbecue sauce.

I made a coleslaw to go with them

But I will give that recipe another day!