Gaelen’s Whole Wheat Mac N Cheese
Serves 6-8
This is my 13 year old son’s Mac N Cheese recipe and he loves Mac N Cheese. Actually, this should be called Fusilli and Cheese not macaroni. Gaelen prefers the whole wheat fusilli. It seems to catch the sauce better and not be as dense as whole wheat elbow macaroni. Any pasta will due so try out your favorite. Read the rest of this entry »
If you like wild mushrooms this is a very flavorful main course dish. You can use any mushrooms. I like the more exotic ones like chanterelles and oyster and morels, but if you can’t find them use Portobello, shiitake, button or cremini. I also added some dried mushrooms like porcini and morels but I soaked them for at least ½ hour, rinsed them well, and then squeezed them dry before adding to the pan when sautéing with the other mushrooms. Also, if you don’t have spelt, you can serve this stew over pasta, brown rice, wheat berries, barley or any other grain. Read the rest of this entry »
I was looking for something to do with the beets in my refrigerator so I started surfing the web for inspiration. I found a Youtube video of Rachel Ray making this Roasted Beet Risotto. Go Rachel! If you love beets, you will love this risotto. The color is amazing. I served it with Grinach bread and it made for a very festive menu, perfect Christmas colors. Every good risotto begins with Arborio rice and a really good stock. I just used vegetables I found in my refrigerator like potatoes, carrots, celery, parsley, thyme, and even the stems of the beets after having stripped the greens to use as a garnish. The red stems added a beautiful color to the stock.
I made a lot of this risotto so I turned the leftovers into Beet Risotto Cakes. I made them into patties, like crabcakes, and sauteed them in some olive oil on the stove until they browned nicely which caramelized the rice a bit. Serve this with a cucumber/yogurt raita. Read the rest of this entry »
Okay you all are probably thinking, what the heck is Rumpledethumps. It is my red-haired Irish son’s favorite dinner. This is a good old-fashioned Irish colcannon, a potato and cabbage dish, traditionally served on Lugnasa, the harvest festival. It is basically good old peasant food with the addition of my new favorite secret ingredient, mace. Mace is found on the outer shell of the nutmeg, think of savory nutmeg spice. It is fantastic with potatoes.
Leave it to Marcella Hazan, the guru of Italian cooking, to turn a simple recipe into a gourmet delight. This spinach is so full of flavor and great as a side vegetable dish. Tonight I made it with a combination of spinach and beet greens. This is really good with any greens but if using tougher greens like kale, you may want to parboil it first.
2 pounds fresh spinach
Sea salt
2 large cloves garlic, peeled
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Discard the hard end of the stems of the spinach or if tough, remove the leaves from the entire stem. Rinse the spinach leaves in several changes of cold water and drain. Cook the spinach leaves in a covered pan with 1 tbsp salt. Cook until tender. Drain well but do not squeeze.
Put the garlic and olive oil in a skillet, turn the heat to medium high and when the garlic becomes a light nut-brown color, remove from the pan. Add the spinach and toss in the garlic flavored oil. Taste to adjust seasoning for salt. Transfer to a warmed platter and serve at once.
Here is a simple recipe for almond milk. It is easy, raw, and totally nutritious. I love almond milk as the base of most of my smoothies. I find fruit juice too sweet and dairy products too rich. If you really love it and find yourself making almond milk often, it is best to invest in a Soyabella. This is an electric soy milk and nut milk maker. It is super easy, and I make fresh almond milk most mornings in about 5 minutes (including clean up!). You just have to remember to soak the almonds overnight.
1 cup soaked almonds (soak overnight and then rinse before using)
1 date, soaked and pitted (optional)
1 tsp. Vanilla (optional)
Blend on high all the ingredients with 3 cups of water until well blended. Strain in a fine colander or through a mesh bag or cheesecloth. Store the milk in a glass jar in the refrigerator. It will keep up to 4 days.Almond
1 banana
Handful of fresh spinach, washed
1 – 2 cups of nut milk (raw almond milk is great.)
1 date, soaked
1 tbsp of your favorite green powder (I use Synergy and blue manna in this)
Ice cubes
Put all the ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth. You can adjust the amount of nut milk to your desired consistency.
(Optional ingredients: raw cacao, nut butter, avocado, ground flax, chia seeds, camu camu)
When I visited my friend Michael in Los Angeles, not only did he teach me about Kombucha, but also about Pau D’Arco tea.
Pau d’Arco is a natural herb retrieved from the inner bark of the Tabebuia Avellanedae or Tabebuia Impetiginosa, known as taheebo. Pau d’Arco, also known as ipe roxo or sometimes lapacho (its derivative), has been used for centuries by the Indio tribes of South America, as well as the ancient Incas and Aztecs. They say it is beneficial in treating cancer and also Candida.
Michael was brewing this up in a crockpot because the real thing is literally the shaved bark of the tree and takes a long time to brew. (Beware of Pau D’arco in tea bags, it may only be made from sawdust.) It tastes very earthy with a hint of vanilla. It is good served hot, cold or made into a chai. You can buy the bark at http://www.mountainroseherbs.com. Check it out at my links section. Read the rest of this entry »
Last night we made this cool looking green spinach garlic bread, inspired by Rachel Ray. We just saw Jim Carrey in the Grinch and so we named it Grinach Bread. Very popular amongst all our guests from teens to adults and even one meat-eater who was a little intimidated by our green way of eating. (I think I really through her for a loop when I sat her down near the kombucha jar with its floating alien fungus staring up at her.)
This version of garlic bread is super colorful and a great way to get extra greens into the pickiest of eaters. Try it, you’ll like it.
So I will begin with my article on how to make Kombucha. Kombucha is a fermented tea drink that is delicious and also very healthy due to the live enzymes and probiotics found in the drink. Kombucha proponents claim many advantages such as increased energy, sharper eyesight, better skin condition, and better experience with foods that ‘stick’ going down such as rice or pasta. It may have originally come from Russia and the Ukraine but it has also been enjoyed in Asia, particularly China and Japan. They say that the Kombucha fungus starter was so prized in Japan, that it was passed down from mother to daughter as part of the daughter’s dowry.
My friend, Michael, gave me a gift of a small part of his “shroom” or fungus culture to bring home with me from Los Angeles. I was so excited they did not confiscate it at security. Having safely arrived home with my little prize, I brewed up a batch the next day and watched my shroom grow from about 1/2 inch in diameter to about 10 inches over the course of a week. It was really fascinating. Talk about kitchen science experiments!
I am always amazed as to who discovered this in the first place. How would you know that a slimy fungus growing on the top of a drink would turn it into something healthy and delicious. Go figure.
Here are Michael’s tips for making kombucha. We are currently making it with black and green tea and organic sugar. Most of the sugar is fed to the fungus to grow and the caffeine is also greatly eliminated in the fermentation process so there is only a small amount left. I will experiment however with decaffeinated tea and maybe agave instead of the sugar. I will keep you updated. Read the rest of this entry »
Katherine
vegoutgourmet.com 