A Simple Apple Dessert

We went apple picking last weekend.  We do this many times in the fall and I am sure you'll do it once or twice, if not you'll take advantage of all the apples that are for sale around this time of year.   This is a very quick and simple dessert that pleases everyone and might be fancy enough for company.  All you need is an apple corer (worth every bit of the $6 or so you'll spend) and some oven proof individual dishes (though bigger than ramekins). My mother needs the credit for this dessert.... she makes it all of the time.

Basically, you core the apples (do not peel them). Place them in the small dish and fill the hole with maple syrup. I use real maple syrup, but I have never tried it with pancake syrup, so I am not sure if it would work as well.  You could also just use brown sugar if you don't have real maple syrup. Place the apples in the oven (about 350F or 375F, it doesn't really matter) and wait 30 minutes or so. They will start to melt down and bubble. The more time you leave them in there, the more melted the apples will become. Eat them as is or if you would prefer: top with ice cream (rice dream ice cream is fine), heavy cream or add some brown sugar. Adding dried cranberries or nuts would also be nice.  Its like eating apple pie without the crust and it takes no preparation or work, aside from coring the apples and opening the oven.  This dessert has always been a hit, and is a great and easy way to use all those wonderful fall apples. Enjoy!

Trash and toilets.

I have used reusable bags for my shopping for over two years (maybe three?) and though I feel good about this, I always squirm when I need to purchase trash bags. They are plastic and in purchasing them I am knowingly sending them to a landfill, which is both ironic just to buy something to throw away and environmentally unfriendly. Same with toilet paper. Not only is it something that really goes to "waste" but it is even harder to pay more for the environmentally friendly kind when you see your 22 month-old trail it from the bathroom through the kitchen and into the living room.  So what to do? 

You can compost, recycle, reduce trash by purchasing things in bigger (and recycable) packaging, but it is very hard to completely remove the need for trash bags. The other day I was in the commissary (military grocery store) and I found degradable bags by Presto that didn't cost a fortune. Supposedly they degrade in 12-18 months. I impulsively bought them and  then came home and started using them.  They aren't bad, I don't have that much garbage so they haven't leaked yet. The problem is that I paid for and am using something I thought was good for the environment.  They really aren't that much better than regular trash bags.  For things to degrade, they need exposure to sunlight and oxygen, two things which are not abundant in a landfill.  Frustrated, since I had thought I had found a solution to my trash bag problem, I did a bit of research and found that the best thing you can do (once you have recycled, composted, and reduced) is to buy recycled trash bags.  This way, though the bags will still not degrade in the landfills, you at least aren't using NEW plastics.  7Th Generation sells some that are made with 65% recycled plastic and according to their website, if every family in the US would use just one of package of their bags instead of regular trash bags, then we would save 39,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat 2,200 US homes for ONE year.  I will be on the lookout for these bags the next time I hit the grocery store and update you on what I have found.

7Th Generation also sells recycled paper products, a solution to the toilet paper (and paper towel) predicament.  I have also found another company that uses recycled paper for their paper products, Marcal.  Their items are usually low cost, but some of their individually wrapped toilet tissue is wrapped in plastic, so not as environmentally friendly as purchasing individual rolls all wrapped in paper.  Green Forest also sells recycled toilet paper and paper towels.  One blogger suggested buying the 7th Generation toilet tissue in bulk; at Amazon.com you get a case of 48 for $47.99 plus shipping.  The rolls have 500 2 ply sheets.  In comparison to regular toilet paper, also at Amazon.com, you can purchase 45 rolls (5 packs of 8 rolls) of Charmin Ultra for $41.49, however you will get only 250 2-ply sheets per roll. Thus in some stores and online, it is possible to buy environmentally friendly paper products that are actually cheaper than conventional products.  

And for the curious or those picky about what comes in contact with the sensitive back end, I have found that the green forest, Marcals and 7Th Generations are all pretty soft and hold up rather well. Marcals are the least soft, but my girls like them because they have hearts. They are not as soft as a package of kleenex, but not irritating or harsh.  If you have any opinions or reviews about any of these products, I'd love to see your comments posted. I am not too picky and my kids haven't complained.

As for paper towels: the greenest option would be to only use cloth (napkins, dishtowels, rags) rather than paper products, but sometimes, for certain things, paper towels are nice to have and if you do need to use them, might as well be made from unbleached recycled paper.  

In conclusion, if you can find toilet paper made from recycled paper and trash bags made from recycled plastics, you will reduce your dependence on foreign oil, reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment.  Perhaps, you may even help your wallet!

Soy, Milk and Wheat Free Waffles and Pancakes

Hello all,  as promised after 4 months of perfecting these recipes, here are our recipes for milk, soy and wheat-free waffles and pancakes. (They really aren't that hard!)

Milk, Soy, Wheat-Free Pancakes:

1/2 cup sweet rice flour*

1/2 cup brown rice flour*

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 tbsp oil (safflower, etc).

up to 1 1/2 cup of rice milk

1. Heat your griddle, I like using one of those electric griddles since we can make a bunch at a time.

2. Mix your dry ingredients.

3. Add the egg and oil.

4. Add the milk until you get the batter to more liquidy  than in the waffle recipe, so that you can pour it onto the griddle and it spreads out. (But not so thin they are like crepes! Which are good too, but not as easy for a small child to eat.)

5. Pour a small amount of batter onto the griddle, they work best when they are mini-sized, about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter.

6. Flip the pancakes over when they start to bubble, wait a minute or so more and voila!  rice-flour pancakes.

Milk, Soy, Wheat-Free Waffles:

1/2 cup sweet rice flour*

1/2 cup brown rice flour*

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 egg 

2 tbsp of oil (safflower, etc)

up to 1 cup of rice milk

1. Preheat your waffle iron.

2. Combine all dry ingredients, mix.

3. Add egg and oil. Start stirring.

4. Add  rice milk slowly, until you reach the desired consistency, which is to say, a smooth but still thick batter (it will stick to your spoon).  Its about 3/4 of cup. 

5. Pour/ Spoon batter into waffle iron and follow the waffle iron's directions.

 

* If you don't want to make them wheat-free, just use a cup of regular flour instead of the 1/2 each of sweet and brown rice flours.

Enjoy!  You can also always add some Enjoy Life! Brand chocolate chips to vary the recipe a bit.  If you don't know about Enjoy Life! chocolate chips and you have a child that has soy and dairy allergies, google them. You can buy them on-line, but I can find them at my local health food stores, Hannefords, and Wegman's.  They are near the Gluten Free section.

Fish...

I am a sea food lover.  Until I got married and moved around the country, I never lived more than 2 hours away from the sea and usually, it was less than 1/2 hour.  I love fresh water fish and salt water fish as well a host of other sea foods... lobster, clams, mussels, crab, shrimp, crayfish. I will eat it cooked in a number of ways and I love it raw or "cooked" in acid, such as lemon juice- ceviche style.   We try to eat fish at least once a week in our house. I believe it is an excellent source of protein and evidence shows that the Omega-3 fatty acids they provide are key to our health. I think a varied diet of whole, natural foods is essential for good health. 

Eating fish, however, does have its complications.  Which is better for the environment? Wild Caught or Farm-Raised?  What fish are high in mercury or PCBs? Sometimes it is easier not to buy fish than to sit there at the fish counter and debate which you should take home for dinner.

The problem with farm-raised fish.

Due to over fishing, certain fish populations have declined. Raising fish for consumption seemed like a great idea, fish would be available for consumption without endangering the wild populations.  However, farm-raised fish face similar health problems that cattle in CAFOs (feedlots) do.  CAFOs are Confined Animal Feeding Operations, and essentially, fish farms are just aquatic version of this.  Farm raised fish are fed a diet of pellets that are not nutritionally equivelant to their natural wild diets.  Furthermore, the fish do not have room to move about freely and because of their close proximity to each other, they are more prone to diseases... so farmed raised fish are administered preventative antibiotics. By weight, farmed raised salmon, for example, has the highest amount of antibiotics administered than any other livestock.  What is more, the fish pellets fed to the fish are made of wild caught fish (thankfully not corn!) but farm raising fish does nothing to stop overfishing since it takes almost 3 tons of fish to make 1 ton of farmed salmon.   The biggest environmental concern is the escape of these farm raised fish, many of whom have been genetically modified to grow faster, into the ocean where they compete with wild fish for the same resources. Another concern is that of the toxic waste that is produced by these "farms".

The Problem with Wild Caught fish:

A study published in Science in November of 2006 state that by the year 2048 the population of all species of seafood could collapse to a tenth of their record highs.  This is extremely concerning.  Overfishing plays a  large role in the decline of the fish populations, but so does loss of habitat, pollution and the loss of filtering water vegetation.  What is encouraging is that when sustainable practices are employed, the fisheries seem to rebound.  So, it as important as avoiding PCBs and Mercury to buy fish that have been fished/harvested sustainably or from populations that are not declining.

So which fish are the best?  Since one of the benefits of eating fish is I consulted a few websites that I will list at the bottom of this blog and came up with this list.  All the fish below fall into the "low mercury" category and is safe to consume 2-3 times a week. Also, they are harvested or fished in a sustainable manner. The number next to the fish's name is the content of Omega 3's for each 3.5 ounce of fish:

• Mackerel- 2.6 (Not King Mackerel)
  
• Wild Caught Salmon- 1.5
  
• Herring- 1.7
  
• Sardinnes- (canned OK)- 1.5
  
• Freshwater trout- (2.o for lake, .6 for brook, rainbow, etc)
  
• Whitefish (lake)- 1.5
• Anchovies-1.4

I don't mean to imply that other fish are not good for you, there are many that have low mercury levels and despite being lower in Omega 3's, they still have some as well as a whole host of nutrients.  This was just a list I came up with to make my shopping easier.

The Green guide has several articles as well as a printable guide, but it does not list the Omega 3's.

http://www.thegreenguide.com/gg/pdf/fishpicks0607.pdf

I found the Omega 3 information in a reader's digest article:

http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/omega-3-rich-fish/article16092.html

Delicious Organics has a longer article regarding Farm Raised and Wild Caught:

http://www.deliciousorganics.com/controversies/wildvsfarmfish.htm 

Banana Oat Muffins- Wheat, Soy, Milk and Egg free

Today we hosted a playgroup and I wanted to make some muffins that all the kids could eat- including Emma and another toddler who was allergic to egg and milk. So I got out the mini-muffin tin again and Claire helped me make these muffins. This recipe makes about 30 mini muffins. At the end of playgroup there were 3 left. I am not sure I would say they are the best, but the kids liked them and Emma could eat them as well.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/3 cup oat flour

1/3 cup rice flour (or ommit the rice and make it 1 2/3 cups oats)
2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer (or 1 egg)
1/4 cup of water
2 tsp baking powder
2 bananas (ripe)
1/3 cups oatmeal (preferable not the quick cooking kind)


1. Beat the oil and sugar together.
2. Add the dry ingredients (except oats), mix using the blender
3. Add the water and the bananas, mix using the blender again
4. Add the oatmeal, stir.

Place about a tablespoon or so in each of the mini-muffin cups and bake at 350 until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (about 15 minutes.... sorry I forgot to keep track of the time!)

Homemade Chicken/ Turkey Nuggets

Saturday, I decided to try my hand at homemade nuggets in the hopes of getting Emma to eat some meat. She liked Ian's allergy-free chicken nuggets, but they are super expensive (almost $5 for 16 tiny things) and I am trying to have the girls eat the same things. So, I decided to make my own so that all my kids could eat them. Also, I am trying to avoid buying too many processed foods. Making them myself also allows me to control the ingredients and use organic and/or locally grown meat and remove corn syrup. Also, I could use olive oil instead of a soy oil blend, since Emma doesn't tolerate soy, at all.

You could just as easily subsitute regular wheat flour instead of oat flour and feel free to add veggies to the meat puree. The concept behind homemade nuggets is rather simple: puree the raw meat in the food processor, add a few spices (and veggies if you so desire) make little balls out of the puree. Then dip the pureed meat balls in flour, then egg, then flour. Fry in a sauce pan with 1 1/2 cups or so of oil. Nuggets are just glorified meatballs that are fried and tend to be made with chicken or turkey rather than beef.

This time, I used ground turkey and oat flour, so they were slightly darker. I also added a raw carrot. Claire and Emma liked them but Caroline refused to eat them. This is rather atypical of Caroline- she is usually the easiest kid to feed, but she wasn't feeling 100%. Also, she doesn't typically eat that many chicken nuggets since she eats lunch at school. Claire has them once a week at least, so I really wanted to make them healthier for her.

Once they are cooked, you could freeze them... I would have, but they are all gone. To freeze them you could place them on a cookie sheet, cover them with wax paper and stick it in the freezer for an hour or so and them place them in a bag or other storage container.

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breast (or about 1 lb of ground turkey, chopped pork, etc)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp EACH of parsley and oregano,
1/4 tsp Each of Pepper and onion powder
1/4 vegetable of choice (carrots, broccoli, etc)- This is optional, but a good way to sneak some veggies.

2 Eggs- beaten (to dip)
1 cup or so of flour (I used Oat flour, but you could mix oat and rice and/ or add some corn meal for texture)
about 1 1/2 cups of oil

1. Heat oil in a heavy duty skillet or sauce pan on medium-high heat while preparing the nuggets.

2. Cube meat (chicken, turkey or pork)- skip this if you already have ground meat

3. Place meat, spices and vegetable (if using) into a food processor and blend until it is a fine paste.

4. Place the flour on a large plate and the eggs in a small bowl, ready to work with.

5. Roll the chicken/ turkey/ meat paste into 30 or so small balls (smaller than golf balls- the smaller the easier they are for a toddler)

6. Roll the chicken balls into the flour, then the egg and then the flour again. Press the ball down to make a nugget. Repeat with the rest of the chicken/meat paste.

7. Test the oil to see if it is ready. To do this, sprinkle a bit of flour into the oil. If it bubbles quickly and right away, the oil is ready. Place as many of the little balls as possible into the pan. Fry until the bottoms are golden and then turn and fry again. Each side will t ake about 4-5 minutes.

8. Remove the nuggets from the oil and place them on a towel lined plate.

9. Enjoy. They are great with some homemade ketchup!

"Emma's AlphaTots Recipe"- AKA -How to Sneak Vegetables into Your Toddler

As many of you probably know, my youngest, Emma is Wheat, Milk and Soy intolerant. I suspected the milk protein allergy from the time she was 3 or 4 months old, but we did not find out until she was over one that the wheat and especially soy bothered her so much. These ingredients caused reflux and a host of intestinal woes. As a result she has some food aversions and would be happy to live off of fruits, Ian's Alphatot potatoes and rice cakes. Fruits are great, but without much other bulk, tend to have a certain affect. But she loves, loves, loves her Ian's Alphatots (basically, potato fries shaped as alphabet letters and cooked and processed on equipment that prevents the cross contamination of allergens such as wheat, soy, dairy and eggs). Potatoes are a great food, they have carbohydrates and starch and more potassium than a banana and almost have the RDA of Vitamin C. However in the hopes of diversifying her diet and salvaging my grogery bill, I came up with an easy recipe to make them myself. (Besides it kills me to have her eat so much processed foods, especially since all they are, are potatoes!)

I have an cast iron alphabet cookie pan made (for shortbread cookies), but if you don't have one, you could use a mini muffin tin and fill them half-way.

Note: The goal is to make a thick puree, one that would stick to the back of a spoon without dripping. The thickness you are aiming for is that of mashed potatoes, which is what they are. Using the food processor makes them velvety smooth and adding other vegetables add color and nutrition. If your child loves mashed potatoes, you could stop here. I often put carrots or squash in my mashed potatoes, especially now that we can't use milk since they add flavor.

Preparation:

Pre-heat your oven to 350

oil/ grease your mini muffin tin or alphabet cookie pan.

Ingredients:

2-3 potatoes, chopped

1 cup of any vegetable, chopped. I used a butternut squash that I had roasted in the oven to make soup the day before.... but you could use any vegetable cooked or raw.

1. Boil the potatoes and the vegetable (if not yet cooked)

2. Once the potatoes are cooked, remove them from the water and place them in a food processor, along with the vegetable.

3. Add just enough of the water from the cooking process to help make it smooth, about 1/4 cup, maybe even less. It depends on the kind of potatoes and vegetable you use - so add a little at a time.

4. Spoon the smooth puree of vegetables, (it should be rather thick, like mashed potatoes) into the mini muffin tin or other pan. Fill the mini muffin pan only halfway.

5. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until brown.

6. Let them cool 5 minutes in the pan and them place them on a cookie rack.

Voila!

If you want one of those alphabet cookie pans, you can get them for about $25 on Amazon.com.

Claire's Ketchup

Claire and I made ketchup yesterday morning. We were almost out and frankly, there is a lot of corn syrup in commercial ketchup. I thought that instead of baking, something Claire loves to do, we'd try our hand at something she eats alot of. It is february and I don't have a garden right now. To make it truly local and sustainable, it would have to be July and I'd have to have a surplus of tomato plants. Since I usually only have 3 or 4 tomato plants, that doesn't usually happen. That bigger garden will have to wait until Eric retires from the Army. So, I did the next best thing; I bought a can of Wegmans Food You Feel Good About Tomato Puree and started with that. I had a hard time finding a recipe online. I finally found one on epicurious.com, but it needed quite a bit of tweeking. Still the whole process didn't take very long- maybe 20 minutes. The ketchup then sat and cooled while we headed off to the library.

RECIPE:

1 28-oz can of pureed whole tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of tomato paste
2/3 cup of brown sugar (you can make it a little less, I didn't pack or level it)
1/4- 1/3 cup of cider vinegar
Spices:
about 1 1/2 tsp salt, all spice, dry mustard, celery seed, pepper (you can add more or less to taste... this is an approximate guess- Claire helped!)


1. Cook the chopped onions over medium heat in olive oil until soften (5-8 minutes)
2. Add the pureed tomatoes, tomato paste, cider vinegar, sugar and spices.
3. let everything simmer for about an hour. (less if you need to go somewhere, but longer will let the flavors develop. Don't forget to stir occasionally)
4. Turn the heat off and let it cool.
5. Blend. Either put several batches into a blender or if you have one, use an immersion blender.

You can refrigerate this for about 3 weeks. If you have more than you'll eat in that time and you don't want to give some to the neighbors, I suggest canning it. Since it is acidic, you can just buy a few small glass canning jars and lids, sterilize them (either boil them or have them go through the dishwasher) and then place them in boiling water for 15-20 minutes to seal them.

Making your own butter

Butter is not hard to make, especially if you have a stand alone mixer.

I buy milk from a local farm that delivers. It is not organic but the cows are not given the bovine growth hormone. I bought a quart of heavy cream from them.

Ingredients:
4 cups or so of heavy cream that is not ultra pasteurized
1/2 tsp (or so) of salt

Before you start: Fill a bowl with water and place in the refridgerator.

1. Place the cream in the bowl of the mixer and use either the wisk or plastic beater.
2. Beat the cream into whipped cream and continue beating it as it becomes stiffer and stiffer whipped cream. At one point the cream will seize and collapse and you will hear a sloshing sound. You will see bits of butter floating in buttermilk, and a few seconds later, a glob of yellowish butter will separate from milky buttermilk. It took about 15-20 minutes in my machine.
3. Drain the buttermilk. Please keep it- it is great fresh buttermilk and will be great in any pancake or waffle recipe!
4. Add 1/2 cup of the ice cold water. Beat again. Drain. Repeat this 3-4 times until the water comes out clear.
5. Add the 1/2 tsp of salt. (Omit if making unsalted butter)
6. Using a kitchen towel (or a paper towel), squeeze out the rest of the water. I used a smooth kitchen towel (you can also use a flour sack).
7. Store the butter. It made somewhere between 3/4 and a pound of butter.

I did this with my girls and one of their friends. They had a great time and played between checking if the whipped cream had become butter.