Little Coffee Beans

in the kitchen :: rocking salad dressing

 

 

It's salad-eating season again! Do you crave fresh salads this time of year, too? Soon we'll be harvesting garden greens, but for now, I'm making do with store bought spinach, because the craving for greens can not be ignored. I've made my own salad dressing for years. It's the easiest thing to make and get right, and it costs a fraction of what the store bought stuff goes for. Also, I can keep the ingredient list short and clean. My go-to dressing uses three parts extra virgin olive oil to one part apple cider vinegar with several dashes of herbs, salt & pepper. Sometimes I add yogurt or homemade pesto, too.

In addition to loving some fresh greens around here, we also seriously love us some Michael Franti. Love. Just the other day the Flower came up to me and asked "can you play some Michael Fwanti so we can dance Mama?" Naturally, we danced. A few weeks ago Mr Franti posted a photograph on Instagram of his homemade salad dressing, and it sounded delish. Two nights ago, I gave his recipe a go.

Using his inspiration I came up with this:

1/4 Cup raw, unsalted cashews

1 clove garlic

5 cherry tomatoes

2 Tbs apple cider vinegar

1 tsp dried parsley

salt & pepper

Throw it all in your blender with a few Tbs of water to help it blend, and pour it on your greens.

(This dinner also included frozen ravioli, because sometimes life requires frozen food, am I right? Our own canned tomato sauce, our own butternut squash roasted alongside one giant beet.)

I swear, if Michael Franti and Jamie Oliver could rule the world, everyone would be happy, in love and well-fed. Let's dance!

 

in the kitchen :: not my nanny's collards

This soup introduced me to collards. Well, it didn't really introduce me to them - I mean, I grew up in Georgia - but this soup has led to my current crush with collard greens. You see, my early childhood memories of collards stem from my Nanny's kitchen. I remember a big, splattering pot that the grown ups oohed and aahed over. So much as I can put it together, I believe my Nanny used to simmer her collards for hours (or maybe it was days?) in a salty infusion of fatback. The end result? Limp, tired looking greens, that were not at all appetizing, to a kid anyway. I never, ever allowed any of those greens to reach my plate. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking on my Nanny's cooking (rest her loud and rowdy soul). She could cook up a feast out of practically nothing, and her kitchen was always filled with bits of this, and that to munch on. I had my first cup of coffee in her kitchen at the ripe young age of six. I vividly remember her fixing a pot of coffee for us kids, setting out the sugar bowl, then heading off to bed. You can imagine the caffeine-fueled mayhem that followed. There were mounds of sugar and loads of milk, and a giant, living room-sized fort was constructed that night. I can still recall the feeling of too much sugar on my tongue, and later, laying on the floor with my sister, and my cousin Billy, covered in heavy blankets. 

My favorite food that Nanny served up was her cornbread. Hands down. There was always a cast iron full of cornbread on her kitchen table, and as a child I loved curling up on her sofa with a red solo cup full of soupy buttermilk and cornbread. These days, I count on getting my corn bread and buttermilk fix on special occasions at my Mom's, who still uses Nanny's old cast iron skillet.

Most, if not all, of my memories of Nanny are of her in her kitchen, sweating and tending to a hot stove top. Upon walking into the house, and directly into the kitchen, all children were immediately greeted with sweaty sugah (kisses, for the uninitiated) and were then ordered to "git outta my kitchen!"

 

 

Anyway, I digress. This post is supposed to be about our new favorite soup. So let's get on with it!

A day or two before new year's eve, feeling inspired by the promise of good luck in the new year, I started looking for collard recipes. I stumbled upon this one and knew that I had to give it a go. I made a few changes to the recipe, and the end result has completely affirmed my current crush on the collard.

This soup is nutty, creamy, tangy and so interesting to the palate that you're likely to eat more than your fair share.The collards hold up well under the heat of cooking and maintain a nice bite. The sweet potato adds the smallest bit of sweetness, and combined with almond butter, gives the soup a lovely creaminess.  

It's nothing like what Nanny would have made, but after her initial shock of realizing there was no fatback anywhere to be found, I think she would have liked it.

 

 

Collard and Sweet Potato soup 

 

Gather ::

one whole onion, diced

one large sweet potato, peeled and cubed

a large bunch of collard greens (7-8 leaves), de-stemmed and cut into bite size pieces

a couple cloves of garlic, minced

a couple (2-3) tablespoons of fresh, grated ginger

8 cups of stock - vegetable or chicken

(optional: 8-10 ounces boneless, skinless chicken cut into small chunks)

one cup fresh ground almond butter 

one lime, wedged

salt & pepper to taste

Put it all together ::

To a large soup pot, add the stock, onion, garlic and sweet potato. Bring to a boil and add the chicken. Let simmer about 15-20 minutes then ladle some of the stock into a bowl with the almond butter. Stir it up well, until the almond butter is soupy, now add that back to the pot. Also add the ginger, collards, salt & pepper. Let cook for another 5-10 minutes. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve with a generous squeeze of lime over each serving. 

I'd call this 4-6 servings. It easily fed us two adults, plus a toddler for two days. The second day I added brown rice to each bowl to stretch it out. 

 We've eaten this soup twice in the last two weeks, and I can't get enough of it.  Turns out my littlest nursling isn't too fond of collard-infused Mama's milk. Looks like my love affair with my new favorite green will be on hold until L's digestion can keep up with my cravings. (Sigh.) I suppose I'll be subbing in chard for collards until then.  

But you can bet we'll be planting collards in our 2013 garden.

Happy and healthy eating to you and yours!

in the kitchen :: birthday pie

The pie turned out beautifully. I used whole wheat flour, with ahem, two sticks of butter for the crust! Wow! But how can you go wrong with that much butter? For the filling I went with a mix of apple and pear (thanks for the idea Kimberly!) and mostly followed this recipe (instead of cornstarch I used flour, I used half the amount of clove, and instead of 1 cup of sugar I only used 1/3 cup - which was plenty).  

For dinner I made sweet potato, collard soup with almond butter and lime. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but oh em gee, it is delicious! You'll have to wait until next week for the recipe, but it is hands down, our new favorite soup. We've had it twice in two weeks, and it's safe to say it will be in our permanent rotation.

Have a great Thursday friends!

birthday loving

Today we celebrate my biggest crush. It's Steve's birthday, and the girl and I are doing some early morning birthday crafting over here. Next up, I'm attempting my first ever homemade pie crust thanks to the help of Ashley English.

Why pie? After our first successful date (which was a blind date!) my man called, and left me a message saying that he'd like to invite himself over to my house for dinner, and in return he'd be bringing homemade pie fixing ingredients, including rhubarb from his garden. I think I made something spicy with chard and noodles, and his pie crust turned out beautifully. It was a good date! Today, I'm taking on apple pie. I think it's the perfect way to help my honey greet 39 with a smile.

I'll let you know how it turns out!

in the kitchen :: olive biscuit cookies

Yes, you read that title correctly. Olive. Cookies.  And, my goodness, are they fabulous.

I'm not much of a baker, really. I love to cook, but sweets are not typically what I crave (Well, except chocolate, of course. There's always chocolate in my house). When I was invited to last weekend's cookie exchange, I knew I wanted a cookie recipe that was both delicious and creative. I turned, as I often do, to 101 Cookbooks and found this recipe.

I made a test batch mid-week, and as soon as I tasted the batter I knew they'd be incredibly yummy. And when the lightly browned, crunchy cookies came out of the oven, and I tasted the sweet and savory combo, I was blown away by the unexpected flavor of sugar meets olive.

 

I made two changes to the recipe: On my third and fourth batch I added 1 tsp freshly ground (dried) rosemary to the batter, which gave the cookies a fragrant high note. I also rolled out my batter slightly thinner, which resulted in a crunchier cookie. Soft, doughy cookies are not my thing. I'm all about the crunch.

Zinnia liked them, too. And believe it or not, these were her first cookies.  

 

 

If you're wanting to mix up your typical sugar, molasses, almond holiday cookie repertoire, I highly recommned this recipe. They're slightly wack-a-doodle, and while the taste is unexpected, they're absolutely delicious in a have-to-keep-eating-to-figure-this-flavor-out kind of way. We just might make them again this weekend as we put up our tree!

yogurt and a mailbox

Two firsts for me this week: I made my first batch of yogurt. And I planted my first mailbox (okay, Stevie did the planting bit).

How in all my years of make-it-from-scratch-goodness have I not made my own yogurt? Somehow that one slipped through the cracks, until now. I used this recipe from Rachel over at 6512 and Growing, and it was super easy. All you need is milk, 2 Tbs of yogurt and a thermometer and et voilà, you can make yogurt. 

It's creamy, and tangy and yummy. And requires minimal effort. What else could you want?

Now about that mailbox. The mail carriers don't deliver mail up our dirt road. Since we've been here I've been schleping the kids to town a few times a week to collect mail from a po box type store. Sounds easy enough, really, and it's only a 15 minute drive. But, strapping and unstrapping two kids from their respective car seats just to pop inside and check an empty po box has become the least (and I mean least) favorite of my errand running. 

In an effort to curb my own grumbles I called the post master and asked them, "How might I get a mail box down at the bend in the road?"

The answer was, of course, quite simple.

"Well, ma'am you go to the hardware store and buy yourself a box and you plant it in the ground along there with all those others."

"Does it have to be in a specific order?"

"No ma'am. You just put it wherever you like. But don't go blocking any other boxes or we'll have to drive up there and take yours down."

Our frist attempt was a wee bit too tall. Out came the saw.

(Stevie took this one.)

Also, if I gave you my address recently, get in touch with me to get our new one. The po box will only still work for a few weeks.

And my goodness, people here in the south are so polite. I sorta forgot, having been gone for twenty years. I can barely make it through the grocery store without having three 15 minute long conversations. And everyone "ma'ams" me, which I don't necessarily love, but I go with it. 

Anyway, yogurt and a mailbox. That was my Tuesday. How was yours?

in the kitchen :: apple crisp

I imagine most of you have moved on to pumpkins and squash, but still, I must share. A few weeks (months?) ago I made a plea to you all as I was looking for ideas on what to do with all of these apples. I found a great recipe for an apple crisp, changed it around a bit to suit my tastes, and et voilà, Apple Delicousness!

My inspiration for this recipe comes from here, but this is how I put it together.

 

Apple Crisp

Gather ::

a big ol bowl full of apples, with the skin on, cut into smallish chunks (I've made this several times and it works great with all varieties of apples)

1 Tbs lemon juice

1 Tbs arrow root powder (or corn starch)

3/4 Tbs cinnamon

a bit of butter or coconut oil (I used about 2 Tbs butter cut in small pats)

a drizzle of maple syrup

1 Cup oats

1/4 Cup flour (use whatever kind you have, I used whole wheat)

large handful almonds, coarsely chopped (or other favorite nut)

Put it together ::

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a glass baking dish (8x8 or 8x12 depending on how many apples you have) toss the apples, lemon juice, arrow root, butter and cinnamon together with a drizzle of maple syrup. Use however much maple syrup feels right to you. This dish doesn't need much help in terms of sweetness, so I used just a drizzle. In a pan, melt the butter or warm the oil and stir in the oats, flour, almonds and another small drizzle of maple syrup. Remove from heat (the point isn't to cook it, just melt everything together). Spread this evenly over the apples and place in the oven uncovered and cook for about 20 minutes. If it's getting golden brown on top, then cover with foil and cook for another 15-20 minutes. 

Because this is a not-so-sweet, sweet treat I feel great about serving it to Z. And my goodness, does she love it. And truth be told, after she was tucked into bed, I ate mine with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top, and well, you can imagine how good that was! 

in the kitchen :: pickled chiles

We love chiles!

Serrano. Thai. Jalapeno. Ordono. Tara Humara. We grow many, many varieties and our favorite way to preserve our crop is by pickling. The end result tends to be a more tempered spice level and easy serving access for spooning over favorite dishes. 

Steve spoons chiles over just about anything from eggs, to noodles. And this year may go down as one of our biggest harvests ever. 

No matter what kind of chile you choose to pickle, this general recipe should do the trick.

In a sauce pan combine ::

5 cups vinegar - We've used both white and apple cider and both work well. Rice wine vinegar is also nice.

1 cup water

4 tsp canning/kosher salt

Optional spices: garlic cloves, peppercorn, and whatever else suits your fancy

(Optional 2 Tbs sugar - Some recipes call for sugar. We've used sugar once or twice, and have found that it's not necessary and we prefer the taste without)

Heat to a boil.

Pack your sterile jars with your clean diced or topped chiles. And then pour the vinegar/water solution into the jar, leaving a 1/4 head space at the top. Wipe the rims clean with a damp towel and place the lids and bands on, just finger tight. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes at 0 - 1,000ft, 15 minutes at 1,001-6,000ft, and 20 minutes above 6,001ft. Refrigerate after opening.

If  you don't feel like fussing with the hot water bath, you can also make refrigerator pickles. When doing this you can use a 1:1 ratio of vinegar and water with about a tsp of salt. Boil the mixture, pour over your chiles and keep refrigerated until you've eaten the last one.

Even Zinnia likes a little spice here and there. Last night, over our meal of kale and noodles she asked for "no chiles, just spice." Interpretation: I want that spicy vinegar, but no chunky chiles please. 

To see more to of this season's canning exploits go here and here.

*This recipe is only a guideline. Please read up on safe canning and pickling practices. This is but one resource.

apples

 

Zinnia and Steve came home from their morning run yesterday with a BOB full of apples from a neighborhood tree.

Who has an outstanding recipe for something delicious? Something I can sweeten with honey or maple syrup? Something that's not going to take a lot of work to whip up?

 

weekend in the kitchen

Motivated by Steve's encouragement, we set to pickling beans this weekend. I've known that this was an impending task, but when it came down to it, I was more interested in relaxing pregnant-style on the couch. After Steve came in from the garden with 3.5 pounds of beans and started pulling out our canning supplies, I found the motivation to join him in work. 

In no time at all, the beans were snapped (thanks to my enthusiastic helper), cleaned and ready for their jars.

Here's how it came together.

Dilly Beans

Gather ::

3.5 pounds of beans

9 pint sized jars

dill seed 

mustard seed (from last year's mustard crop)

peppercorns

peeled whole garlic cloves

1/2 Cup + 2 Tbs kosher salt

5 Cups apple cider vinegar

5 Cups water

* In a medium sized sauce pan boil the water, vinegar and salt. Prepare sterilized jars and add to each: 1 tsp of dill seed, mustard seed, peppercorns and 1-2 cloves of garlic. Pack well with washed beans, leaving about 1/2 inch head space. Cover with water/vinegar mixture. Process in a hot bath for 5-15 minutes, depending on the elevation where you live: 0-1,000ft 5 min, 1,000-6,000ft 10 min, above 6,000ft 15 min.

These have been a favorite snack all winter and our last jar has but 5-6 more pickles in it. Good timing on this harvest. And it looks like we'll be making dozens more in the coming days and weeks. There will be little freezing happening this season with our upcoming move, so bring on the pickles! 

*(Please read more detailed information about safe canning practices. This recipe is but a flavor guideline for how we processed our pickles.)