Preserving Pears

Sometimes we joke that we bought our yard and the house came with it. That's because in the warm months, there are times when the house gets neglected because we are focusing our energy on the backyard, which includes mature fruit trees- 1 pear and 1 apple, 3 raised bed gardens, a 200 square ft. rain garden, 2 compost bins, and-most recently-aronia berry bushes and 2 paw paws! The fall is filled with lots of preserving, and in the past we couldn't go through the pears fast enough- even dehydrating them (which is excellent) only uses a few at a time, and the thing with pears is that they are ripe for about a week, so the window to do something with all that tasty fruit is small!
So, I wanted to share what I did this year.

First, I boiled some water and got a big bowl of ice water ready. I had the idea that I was going to hold the pear by the stem and dip it in the water, then put it in the ice water to cool (to make it easier to remove the skin, like you do with tomatoes). This didn't end up working, because it takes pears much longer to soften their skins than tomatoes. I ended up dropping a couple of pears into the boiling water and removing them with a slotted spoon after a few minutes. Still, the skins did not just rub off.

I ended up using a paring (pear-ing) knife to peel off the peal, but it was worth using the boiling water method first, because peeling off a softened skin is much easier than a hard one.
Once the skin and core were removed, I sliced the pear and put it in a bowl with a little water and lemon juice in it.




When I was done, I put the pear slices in quart ziplocks with some of the acidic water, tried to squeeze as much air out as possible, and stuck them in the freezer for use in desserts this winter!

Don't forget to compost!

The Best (Super) Foods!

Lately, I have been finding a lot of lists compiling SUPER foods- the best for your health. Do they agree? Let's look at 3 sources. (* means it shows up on more than one list)

1st, from Environmental Nutrition:
Avocado*
Blueberries*
Brazil Nuts
Broccoli
Butternut Squash
Edamame
Flaxseed
Kale*
Kiwi
Lentils
Onions
Quinoa
Sardines
Tomatoes*
Yogurt

Next, it's from Forbes (here's the link)
Raw chocolate
Honey
Avocado*
Pumpkin
Black tea
Eggs
Cinnamon
Tomato paste*
Blueberries*
Wasabi

Advice from Dr. Terry Wahls:
Kale*
Collards
Mustard greens
Romaine lettuce
Spinach
Leaf lettuce
Parsley
Bell peppers

And here is a great food pyramid!
In conclusion, for a nutrition-boost, make a meal that includes avocado, blueberries, tomatoes and kale. Now you know what to put on the grocery list!

Okara!

I have been attempting to make homemade tofu lately, with local organic Iowa soybeans. The first try was pretty successful, despite the amount of time it took and the difficulty of the clean-up afterward. The second time, I tried to triple the batch and I wasn't as successful. I didn't have proper equipment for that quantity and in the end, it didn't turn out as firm as I would have liked. But when you make homemade tofu or soy milk, you get a lot of okara, which is the by-product of making tofu/soy milk. Literally, in Japanese, it translates to "honorable shell". It is high in fiber, protein and nutrients. Some Japanese farmers use it for livestock feed, it also can be an ingredient in high-protein cat and dog food, and it can be good for us humans to eat too!
First, I'll give you a rough outline of how tofu is made. You mix soybeans and water, blend it into a milky substance, and bring it to a boil. Then you pour that into a multiple-folded cheesecloth or a fine-woven towel in a strainer, and the part that strains out is the soy milk. After squeezing as much milk out as possible, you have dried-out pulpy stuff left, which is the okara. (You can then go on to heat up the soy milk and add nigari salt, which coagulates it, and pour it back into the cheesecloth- "tofu stock" will strain out and what's left in the cheesecloth is the curdled soy milk, or tofu).
In my experience of making tofu twice, I ended up with more okara than tofu. It can be composted, or frozen for future use, but I'm the adventurous type, so I did some research and found this blog- all about okara! I also got some ideas from The Book of Tofu and I have made chicken-less (or un-chicken) nuggets, okara muffins, okara cookies, okara granola, and okara english muffin bread. The baked goods don't necessarily taste much different, but they are much more filling, and good for you!
On the off-chance that someone out there on the world wide web is looking for something to do with their okara, I will be posting some of these recipes for you soon.
Above: less then half of the okara from 3 lbs. of soybeans used in chocolate-banana muffins, carrot-almond muffins, chocolate chip cookies, english muffin bread and granola!

Maple Apple Crisp

I had a bunch of apples to do something with, so I searched on supercook.com but didn't find much there, but while browsing recipes on the all recipes website, I found this recipe among the "apple desserts" category. I changed it a bit, see my recipe below.
*6 apples- a good mix of red, green, reddish yellow and reddish green (peeled, cored, sliced)
*3/4 c pure maple syrup^
*1/2 c flour
*1/2 c rolled oats
*1/2 c brown sugar
*pinch of salt
*1/2 t cinnamon
*1/2 t nutmeg
*1/4 c butter, softened
Preheat oven to 375.
Butter a baking dish. Put apples in it, pour in syrup and mix it all up.
In a small bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the soft butter and mix it up with your fingers until it's crumbly. Then pour the crumbly mixture on top of the apples and get it all covered up.
Bake for 35 minutes.
I have a glass baking dish, so when I peaked inside to see how it was coming along, I noticed that the liquidy bottom (mostly syrup with some juice from the apples) was boiling up through the entire dish. I took that as a good sign.

^A note on syrup: someone on all recipes commented that you should use real pure maple syrup and not regular maple syrup. I recently went to the store to buy some cheaper maple syrup for cooking with, and found out that most of the "maple syrup" on the shelf is something like high fructose corn syrup with artificial maple flavor. I found one that boasted on the label "no high fructose corn syrup!" so I looked at the ingredients and the 1st ingredient was light corn syrup. Yeah, I guess that's not high fructose, is it? I bought Hy-Vee's Grand Brand pure maple syrup. It wasn't organic but it was affordable, and the ingredient list said: pure maple syrup. I have organic pure maple syrup at home, but at $15 a bottle, that stuff is only going on pancakes- not in baked food.

Magazine Recipe: Tortellini with Eggplant & Peppers

From Real Simple Magazine.

Occasionally I’m at the grocery store and I see one of those frozen packages of ravioli or tortellini and I think “that would make a quick and easy meal”. Then I mix it with regular ol’ pasta sauce and it’s eh, okay. But alas! I have found something you can do with that boring old bag of frozen tortellini sitting at the back of your freezer!

Get together these:

Olive oil

4 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2” pieces (why don’t they just say “bite sized pieces”?)

3 bell peppers, whatever colors you like, chopped up however thick you like

Because it is from the Real Simple magazine, you will want to add salt & pepper, of course

6 cloves of garlic, because no matter what the recipe calls for, I always up the amount of garlic, minced

¼ t red pepper flakes (or I would do a couple of shakes rather than try to measure it)

3 cups vegetable broth. I have those little boullion cubes, and I heat them up w/ 3 cups of water to make the broth. And if you have an open container of free range chicken broth in the fridge, you might as well use it up before it goes bad. I think you basically just want to use something w/ more flavor than water here.

1 pound package of frozen cheese tortellini

½ c fresh basil (the original recipe called for parsley, so use that if it sounds better to you. It just seems to me that basil+pasta=yum.

½ c grated asiago cheese, or however much you want.

Take out a large skillet. I use a wok, that was sold as a wok because it has that shape, but really it’s just a large pan. Whatever, I use it for almost everything. I bought it at Sunrise Asian Grocery in Eugene, Oregon. That place is awesome, it used to be the post office.

Heat the oil in the pan over med-hi heat. Add the eggplant, bell peppers, salt & pepper. Stir occasionally, the vegetables should begin to soften, around 8 minutes.

Add the garlic and pepper flakes and cook for another 1-2 minutes.

Add the broth & tortellini. Cover & simmer over medium heat, stir it occasionally, about 12-15 minutes. Add the basil (or parsley) and ½ of the asiago. Stir it up well, then dish it into bowls & sprinkle with more asiago.

This is an easy one pot meal, which means not much clean up! Goes good w/ homemade bread or a good crusty artisan bread.

Magazine Recipe: Roasted Chicken, Apples & Leeks

See the original recipe here.

5-6 chicken legs

3 small crisp apples, like Braeburn

4-5 leeks, according to the original recipe, “halved crosswise and lengthwise”. In other words, quartered, I would think.

Sprigs of fresh rosemary

Olive oil

Hey, hey! Salt & pepper, and my addition- garlic salt in addition to, or instead of regular salt.

Okay, this is going to seem strange at first. But follow the directions, and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Preheat the oven to 400. Take out a large baking sheet with rims, or edges, or something to keep stuff from sliding off. The original recipe called for the apples to be “quartered”. But I disagreed, so I cut the apples in half, and then each half into thirds. In other words, or in another word, the apples should be sixthed rather than quartered. Or would it be sexed? No, we don’t want to go there. Sixthed. I may have just coined a new term because Word is giving it the old squiggly red underline. Also, it is good to have an apple corer for this. Apple corer is one of the top 10 items everyone should have in their kitchen. #1 being a large fork. I should make a blog of my top 10 necessary kitchen items. But that’s in the future, and right now, you are trying to make this damn recipe and the oven is preheating and you didn’t come here to read a novel, so back to the recipe….

Once your 3 apples are sixthed into 18 pieces, put them on the baking sheet with the chicken legs, leeks, rosemary and spices. Oh, did you cut off the tops of the leeks? You should have. Remove the tops if you forgot that part.

If you have one of those olive oil dispensers that you pump and spray with, spray a bunch of oil all over your dish. But you probably don’t have one, because I only just recently found out they existed, and then I had to search for awhile to find one. So, slowly pour a little oil over the food and carefully toss it around until it all seems coated. Your hands will become quite oily and you’ll want to wash them, with soap. Do not, by any means use Pam or any other kind of artificial cooking spray. Because I said so.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and set the timer for about 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn the chicken to the other side. Drool over the dinner you’re about to enjoy. Don’t drool into the pan, especially if you’re sharing the meal with anyone. Put the dish back in the oven and set the timer for 20-25 more minutes. When the timer goes off, check the fattest leg to make sure it’s done, and if it is, take it out of the oven, turn the oven off and let it cool for at least 5 minutes.

This dish should feed 3 people, but if you have 3 people eating it, you might use 6 legs instead of 5 to avoid fist fights. Serve with bread and wine, if you want to. You will be surprised at how good it is. I was.

Magazine Recipe: Indian Goulash

The original recipe is here.
*2 cups dry brown rice w/ 5 cups water, if using my rice cooker
*olive oil
*1 onion, chopped
*3-4 cloves garlic
*several chopped tomatoes from the farmer’s market or your garden, if it’s July or August in Iowa, if not, a large can of diced tomatoes should do the trick.
*1 lb. eggplant. This would be about 3 normal sized eggplants, but since they come in such a variety of sizes, it’s good to weigh them. Of course, you can have more or less, I don’t think it will alter the recipe too much. Cut them into 1/2” pieces, but please, don’t get out the ruler.
*1-2 jalapeno peppers, or something to make it spicy
*1 ½ or maybe 2 ½ T curry powder. If you live, or visit, Iowa City, or you want to support a spice guru online, check out Cocina del Mundo’s Authentic Curry Spice.
(Hey, wait a minute! Real Simple just went beyond salt & pepper! Hooray!)
Oh, wait… the next thing on the list is:
*salt & black pepper
*And my spice additions: garlic salt, cayenne (to taste)
*1 15 oz can chickpeas, rinsed
*fresh basil
*¼ c plain yogurt

Cook the rice.
Meanwhile, sautee the onion & garlic. Add the tomatoes, eggplant, spices and cook, stirring occasionally, the original recipe says “until fragrant”, but I cooked it longer than that. Add 1-2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the eggplant is tender, 12-15 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas and cook about 3 min. more. Remove from the heat, stir in the basil.
Serve over the rice with a dollop of yogurt.

I renamed this recipe, because it has an Indian flavor, but it reminded me of the goulash I make, but with rice instead of macaroni noodles, Indian spices instead of chili spices, chickpeas instead of kidney beans, eggplants instead of whatever veggies/meat/tempeh go in goulash, and yogurt instead of sour cream. See the connection?