Zucchini Germanica

My favorite way to eat small zucchinis. My Mom in Germany served these to us last summer and they were delicious, so I named them after my home country!

Melt a couple of tablespoons of good-for-you butter in a heavy skillet. Slice zucchinis lengthwise. Add to skillet. Season with your favorite spices. I like onion powder, curry, paprika, pepper and sea salt. Flip when they start getting soft or brown a little. Flip over and add seasoning to other side if you'd like. Be careful not to overcook them. They should not turn translucent, just tender enough to eat.

Guten Appetit!

Check out this website if you want to know why butter is so good for you!

My yogurt recipe

For this recipe you would need:

• a 2-quart yogurt maker such as "Yogourmet"
• A double boiler
• a digital thermometer

2 quarts milk (ideally raw, organic, grassfed)
1/2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp. (is that 2 1/2 tsp?) unflavored gelatin (or one pkg from the store)
4 Tbsp. plain (unsweetened unflavored) whole milk yogurt (store or previous batch)

Put water in the bottom pan and start it heating up. Reserve about 1/3 cup of milk in a measuring cup. Add milk to the top pan and insert thermometer. (Since I use raw milk I need to heat it to 160 F to kill competing bacteria). While milk is heating, add gelatin to the reserved milk in the measuring cup to dissolve. Set aside. Turn off heat when milk reaches 160 and set the top pan with the milk into the sink with an inch or so of cold water to start in cooling down. Slowly pour the gelatin milk mixture into hot milk while whisking briskly. Prepare the yogurt maker according to instruction and get your container ready with the yogurt starter. When milk has cooled to 112 degrees F pour into container and whisk or stir well. Milk should be between 108 and 112 F. cover and put into yogurt maker. Set timer for 5 hours. Move the yogurt into the fridge without disturbing it and give it at least 10-12 hours before opening it. Cream will be at the top. The yogurt will still thicken slightly after that but it should be stiff enough where you can scoop with a spoon and leave a smooth mark.

There are other ways to make yogurt but this is what I do. I invented the part where you add the gelatin (which I buy in bulk at azure standard) after you take it off the heat. It seemed to have improved the thickness of my yogurt. Good luck!

Favorite Tomato Soup

5-6 lbs tomatoes (about 16 medium)
2 small onions, chopped
2 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. Sea salt
1 quart chicken broth
3 basil leaves, chopped (optional)
1 garlic clove, minced (optional)

Put all ingredients into a stockpot. Boil uncovered for 20 min. or til tomatoes fall apart. Strain through fine sieve. Enjoy!

Is't that easy? And so delicious and nourishing! I have also canned the recipe. But you need to add lemon juice to the jars (I think its 4 tsp per quart, 2 for pints) and the processing is 35 minutes I think. Don't quote me on that. I have read different things since soup is not often listed for canning and with the broth it has a small amount of fat in it. According to my research the fat is not an issue in such small amounts.

Anyway, if you don't can it, it is still worth the effort. You can halve the recipe or freeze it. I can alot of pints and use it in recipes instead of campbell's. Works wonderful. Let's see if I can can enough this year to avoid using Campbells....

Blueberry sauce for plain yogurt

I thought I would share this idea for those of you who would like to make plain yogurt more interesting without it becoming the sugar-bomb that flavored yogurts are.

I make our yogurt in a quart size yogurt maker. I add gelatin just before I start cooling it down and let the yogurt incubate or 5 hours. It comes out with a wonderful thick consistency and tangy taste. Of course for most of us including my kids and husband this tangy taste it too much to enjoy eating it straight. In a pinch I eat my yogurt with some frozen blueberries thrown in and a small handful of granola. No other sweetener. For the kids I usually use honey or if I have time I make a blueberry sauce, which when strirred in turns plain yogurt into something very similar to a store version.

I don't actually have exact measurements. I just use a small saucepan and fill it half with frozen blueberries (bulk from Azure Standard). I add some water, maybe half a cup in which I have dissolved some arrowroot powder (could use cornstarch) for thickening. How much water and thickening agent depends on how you like your sauce, do you want more blueberries or more sauce and do you want it runny or like jelly? I start heating it to boiling and add some honey, maybe 3 Tbsp (?) I make it rather sweet. Too sweet when eaten straight since it will be mixed with yogurt and is supposed to sweeten it too. Again, depends on how sweet you want it. Just try it and experiment a little. When you think you hit on the right combination for your family write it down!

Then I just keep the finished sauce separate in the fridge and mix up little with yogurt before serving. Not sure what would happen if you added it to your whole batch of yogurt. Might work.

This could also be done with strawberries, raspberries etc. but you would deal with seeds then unless you strain it.....too much work!

This is how my husband eats the yogurt if there is no blueberry sauce around: He uses Nesquick Chocolate Syrup and makes chocolate yogurt out of it!!!! Yuck!!

Fermented Cucumbers/Sour pickles

I have finally tried to make pickles without vinegar and they are superb. I used Sandor Katz's recipe from his book "Wild Fermentation" and the flavor was right on and I am not even a pickle person. I literally never have pickles in my fridge or would ever touch the ones at a restaurant. I did eat pickles some growing up but they were always very garlicky and better somehow. Now that I have learned that true fermented pickles are actually health food that aids in digestion and supports the immune system I was willing to try it for myself and I am more than pleased with the results. And it is really very easy. The hardest part was peeling all those garlic cloves but it was well worth the effort. The oak or grape leaves by the way supposedly keep them from getting mushy. Seemed to work for me.

Here now the recipe:

3-4 lbs small to medium cucumbers
6 Tablespoons sea salt
3-4 heads fresh flowering dill (or 3-4 Tbsp. of any form of dill)
2-3 heads of garlic, peeled (not cloves, heads!) I only had about 1 1/2 heads. So I used those.
1 handful fresh grape, cherry, oak and/or horseradish leaves (I put in 4 oak leaves of my trees!)
1 pinch black peppercorns

Process:
1. Dissolve sea salt in 1/2 gallon of water to create a brine.
2. In a crock place dill, garlic, leaves and peppercorns.
3. Place cucumbers in the crock.
4. Pour brine over the cucumbers. Place a clean plate over the them and weigh it down with a jug filled with water. The brine needs to cover the plate.
5. Cover the crock with a cloth to keep out bugs.
6. Check the crock every day. Skim any mold from the surface and don't worry about it. It only forms where air is present.
7. Taste the pickles after a few days. They ferment faster in warmer spots.
8. After one to 4 weeks, depending on temperature, move them to the fridge where fermentation will be slowed down greatly.
9. They are ready to eat at any point when they taste right to you.

Even the kids like these pickles. Just eating a little bit with your lunch or dinner will greatly improve your absorption and digestion.

A note on equipment:
A real crock is very expensive and I don't own one. At the thrift store I found a ceramic container that has "Flour" written on it, such that people would use in a kitchen to store their flour, sugar etc. It has straight sides and I jsut found a plate at home that would fit inside. Then I filled an old apple sauce jar with water as a weight and covered the whole thing with a flour sack towel. It worked.

Best Banana Bread

2 cups white whole wheat flour (or regular flour)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup rapadura
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 large ripe bananas, mashed well
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs
6 Tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp. vanilla

Combine the first 5 ingredients. Set aside. Mix mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter and vanilla. Lightly fold banana mixture into dry ingredients until combined and batter looks thick. Pour into greased pan. Bake for 55 minutes in 350 F oven.

I actually put the peeled, whole bananas in the stand mixer and mashed them in there and added the rest. Then added the flour mixture. I just made sure I only ran in to just combine, as to not overmix it.

Apple Rhubarb Crisp

I was looking for a way to use some apples from the freezer and to cut down the sugar in the rhubarb recipes I have. This uses only 1 cup of sweetener (1/2 sugar, 1/2 rapadura) per 9x13 pan. Usually its 1 1/2 to 2 cups. The results were delicious and not overly sweet but just enough.

Apple Rhubarb Crisp

4 cups frozen apples
2 cups fresh rhubarb
1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rapadura
1 tsp. cinnamon
Dash salt
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup quick oats

Barely thaw apples and spread in 9 x 13 pan greased with coconut oil. Chop up rhubarb and spread over apples. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup sugar.

Combine flour, rapadura, cinnamon, salt and oats. Cut in the butter. Spread over the apple and rhubarb. Bake in 350 oven for 35 minutes.