Granola: A yummy food... and also a lifestyle discriptor.

I have been known to wax philosophical on granola... the food, the lifestyle... the fact that on more than one occasion I have heard this word called out in a crowd and known, instinctively, that it was a moniker for myself and not anybody else. And I was right!  I have heard tell that granola is indigestible. This may be true and I have yet to test this information any double blind control groups... in the mean time I will continue to make and eat this stuff... cause it's delicious. And it makes me feel like a million bucks. And yes, this could very well be because it's an awesome way to eat lots of indigestible fiber that cleans out my insides... so what? It's been a much more enjoyable experience eating this on the regular than it ever has been to take phsylum husks powder. Bleckity-bleck-bleck-blecks! All that being said.... I make granola frequently and unapologetically and I savor the results with a relish bordering on food worship. Here is my recipe.

Homemade Granola
makes about 10 cups

Ingredients:
6-7 cups oats

1-2 cups "fillers" (this could be nuts, seeds etc)

1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 cup honey

1 cup oil ( olive oil is great, coconut oil is divine.)

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

3 Tbsp flax seed meal

 

 

Method:

Butter a large casserole and fill with the dry ingredients. Give this a little stir while your honey and oil heat up until just warm and mixable. I prefer to to this little warm up act in a sauce pan on the stove. Add the vanilla to the honey and oil and then pour the wet over the dry and stir until it's allwell coated and glistening. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove and stir. Bake another 15 minutes and stir again. Might need a little bit more to just perfectly toast your cereal... this is a case by case basis. Use your best judgement. Once it appears to be perfectlygolden brown take it out of the oven sprinkle with the flax seed meal and give that a stir. Then let it sit until room temp. Somehow, magically, when you leave it alone to cool like this it clumps into delicate little crunchy clusters. Fresh, homemade granola is fantastic as a breakfast or snack we usually enjoy our granola topped with some fresh fruit and our homemade yogurt.

Bone Broth: An easy way to stretch your money while adding nutrition and flavor.

Potions Class....

There is something about stirring a large pot full of ambiguous looking bones and scraps that makes me feel ... witchy. In a good way! I stir that junks counterclockwise and reminisce about cloaks, wands, bezoars and widdershins. Fantasy fiction aside though, bone broth can be a great way to stretch your dollars and put more nutrition per bite into your meals. I have heard tell that the apple cider vinegar does an awesome "leaching of the bones" which pulls the nutrients out of them and into the broth. And how this is so good for your immune system it used to be the only thing prescribed by doctors for a cold.... Chicken soup. Because it was assumed that this dish would be prepared with proper bone broth and not from a can that looks strangely similar to some of my favorite pop art. 

Bone Broth
makes 3-4 quarts

Ingredients:
1-2 lbs bones (fresh or leftover)
3-4 cups saved veggie peelings. (onion, carrot & potato skins etc)
12 pepper corns
a bay leaf (if you have it)
3 Tbsp apple cider vingar

Method:   

Throw all the above ingredients in a large soup pot. Cover them/fill the pot with water. Let this sit for an hour or so to thaw if your ingredients were starting frozen. Bring just to a boil and lower the heat to a simmer and let this sit partially covered for a few hours. Then use a colander to strain out the bones and veggies and save your broth in a jar or pitcher. You can skim the top if you want to take your fats out. If you aren't going to use this broth within a week I would suggest saving it in the freezer. It's probably best to use from frozen within 3 months of preparation. There are a couple great methods for freezing broth. Individual freezer bags work well if you use a few cups at once... ice cube trays work well also. Though I would suggest a few hours freezing and then moving your broth cubes into a freezer bag to keep them fresh.

Lentil Stew

This approach to lentil stew was first introduced to me from a great book I picked up on clearance at Boarders years ago called 'Soups and Breads' distributed by Bay Books. I have a few steady variations from their take so I feel confident in sharing this recipe as my own. There are so many ways to make this soup... all you absolutely need are the onions, garlic, lentils and water. All the other ingredients can be either left out or substituted. I have made about fourty pots of this stew since I discovered it was a family favorite a few years ago.    

Lentil Stew served with grated parmesan and parsley flakes

 Lentil Stew
serves 8-10

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
3 onions, chopped
8 oz bacon, sliced thin
6 garlic cloves, sliced thin/rough chop
3 carrots, peeled and chopped 
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
2 parsnips, chopped
6-8oz (half a bag) lentils (brown, red or green) RINSED
4 cups broth (can be substituted for water)
4 cups water
10 oz small pasta, such as risotto or alphabets
2 more cups water
2 Tbsp lemon zest

grated parmesan and fresh or dry parsley as a garnish when served. 

Method:
In a large soup pot saute the onions, bacon and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are tender. Add the carrots, celery and parsnips and saute these until tender. Stir in the rinsed lentils. Gradually add the water and stir frequently. Bring this to the boil and lower the heat to keep on a simmer for 25 minutes or until the lentils are tender and falling apart. Then add the pasta and extra 2 cups water. The pasta should cook in about ten minutes. Then stir in the lemon zest and take it off the heat... it's done! My favorite way to serve this up is in a low bowl with a bit of fresh grated parmesan cheese and a sprinkle of parsley. A slice of homemade whole wheat bread and butter is the perfect side.

Lentil Stew

Belgium: Vlaams Rundvlees en Bier Casserole "Beef and Beer Casserole"

image yanked from a google search page. without permission.

This weekend I went to Belgium! I was busy with a few other trips and projects... so for my culinary adventuring things were kept to a sweet slow and low style of cooking.  I love this style because one gets the opportunity to appreciate the meal on so many levels. First is the fresh ingredients phase... when you can notice and appreciate the high quality, colors, freshness and raw tang of the foods. Then as you begin chopping and throwing things into the crock pot or casserole dish a few more smells and tiny tastes get thrown into the air. By the time my casserole had been in the oven for a few hours you could smell it all the way down the block. As the boys were sure to tell me when they came back from their tennis show-down at the park. My favorite was our young friend Simon enthusiastically exclaiming, 'Smell that!!!" When he and Silas first walked into the house from outside. Best compliment of the evening. And there were many!

 

 

 

Belgian Beef and Beer Casserole with Belgian style beer!

Here are the basics of what I did so that you could try this for yourself sometime... I'm doing my best not to break copyrights with this book I am posting about so bear with me.

You will need:
A few pounds of quality beef. I used top shoulder think steaks.
A garnish of smoked ham. (I know, meat on meat! Don't you love it!?!)
A pound of thinly sliced onions
A heavy touch of your favorite saute oil... I went for lard. Goes well with the meat theme.
Few tablespoons of flour
Touch of herb... I used thyme.
Dash of Mollasses. (I swapped this for the sugar the origonal recipe called for)
A 12 oz beer.
few tablespoons of red wine vinegar

So basically saute your meat until it's just brown. Don't worry about cooking it through cause you're going to slow roast this lovely meat on meat mixture in your beer sauce. Set this aside and leave the juices in the pan. Saute your pound of thinly sliced onions until they are brown. Set this aside and get ready to ROUX. This was my first experience with a brown beer roux and I loved it so much I can't wait to try some more variations!! If you have a few tablespoons of oil and juices left... fantastic start with this... if not throw a little more oil or fat in the pan.. only a few tablespoons and try to deglaze  the meat and onion into the fat to help get that yummy brown flavor (and so that your pan doesn't start smoking!) add your flour and mix well. slowly add the beer. then the spices. a little bit of minced garlic is lovely as well. hold back the vinegar, that's for last. once the roux has boiled a bit and thickened then you're set to layer your meat and onions in a casserole (chose one with a lid to help keep the moisture in. a dutch oven would be perfect for this!) Once everything is in pour the beer roux over all and cover it with a lid and let it do it's thing in the oven at around 300 degrees for a few hours. When you just can't take it anymore... peel and boil some potatoes. I used golds with their wonderful buttery flavor. However, think that russets would go well with the meat theme as well. These are supposed to be peasant style, boiled and plain, a delicious preparation that I underestimated in the past. I like to have a green veggie represented on the plate of every dinner... this time we went with pan steamed kale and spinach. Once everything is set pull your casserole out of the oven and drizzle the vinegar over all and you are set to eat!

Austria: Tyrolese Soup, Gefullter Kalbsbraten and Linzer Torte

 We went to Austria! It was an exciting trip. We listened to many world renowned musicians as I slaved away in the kitchen over some pretty choice dishes! Mid-meal I flipped through some info about the country and showed the kiddos. I decided that if we did some actual, physical plain traveling that I would want to see the city of Hallstatt first in my visit to Austria. So cool! Oldest salt mines ever... and I love some salt!

Hallstatt, Austria. I ganked this image without permission from miriadna.com

More Hallstatt, this image was also taken without permission from seemorepictures.blogspot.com

And now to show off the fruits of my labor. We enjoyed a three course meal. It began with Tyrolese soup. This soup is like if potato soup and split pea soup had a love child. Totally yummy.

Tyrolese Soup

Next on the agenda was the main course. A lovely veal steak smeared with freshly minced veal, veg and spices and rolled around a hard boiled egg. Pan fried in butter to a golden perfection. Mmmmm.

Gefullter Kalbsbraten

After all that meat we needed something extra special to entice us when the dessert cart rolled around. Of course none of us could resist the Linzer Torte!

Linzer Torte

Linzer Torte, as served with an enormous tower of fresh, organic, grass fed, creamy whipped topping.

I dunno guys... you think Juda might be a little excited about dessert? Ah, my sweet little blur that refuses to be accurately photographed. Gotta love that kid!

Australia: Veal and Ham Pie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I snipped this image right off google's search page. bam!

We went to Australia! It was very cozy and entertaining. I feel that since we had some company joining us for the evening the hubby and I were a little distracted from the educational side of Around The World Night. However, there is a gentle effort made towards finding some didgeridoo music and we all enjoyed ourselves very much.

The main recipe of the evening was Veal and Ham pie. This was a casserole style dish of the comfort food variety. Our family loved it so much that I think I should put it on the regular rotation.

The first layer: veal, ham, potato, salt, pepper, parsley

Just before my final layer of potato... this is how I spaced out my veal and ham.

Enough fixin's for two more layers. I divided my ingredients to get three layers total.

 After arranging all my layers I poured on a cup of broth (chicken stock is what I had on hand) and then dotted the top with 2 Tbsp butter and laid my freshly prepared and rolled out pastry dough over all. Baked all that nice and low and slow at 325 or so for 1 1/2 hours. Since I had the oven on already I threw in a apple crisp. It remains etched in  amy memory forever as completely lovely. However, we were too busy eating it to take a picture!

Penfolds red wine. Koonunga Hill. Shiraz Cabernet. From Australia.. of course!

Lovely little salad of fresh greens with a sprinkle of feta.

Veal and Ham Pie