a tale of two dishes

chicken feet, kombu, ginger, apple cider vinegar, salt, and water, simmering all day...

and the resulting stock cubes! (this is how it's done)

making cinnamon rolls. in a way, it's easier than with gluten dough to form a rectangle, because you pat it into place; with glutenous dough, if it gets a bit lopsided you can't just reconfigure it the way you can with GF dough because of the gluten bonds. The dough is rice flour, almond meal, milk, butter, honey, salt and yeast. I formed the dough, chilled it a bit, then applied the filling...

butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

rolling... slowly, gingerly. you expect tears in a GF dough... but actually it went really well!

I got into the flow.

the completed log. not torn to pieces!

then cut, placed in a buttery dish, left to rise, and baked. wow! they were yummy! Sam and I are starting a 21-day sugar detox tomorrow, so I wanted to go out on a sweet note :)

Oh hi picture uploader!

These are the donuts. Ugh, they were as awesome as they look. Totally crumbly and stuff. The boys ate them within reason. Only sharing because Sam is making me (geeky face).

Carob millet milk popsicles... they weren't that good actually. Ah well. I am really enjoying a new flavour, not included in the post - beet, pineapple and banana! First you get the tropical banana-pineapple explosion, which then fades and allows the beet in. I mostly used beet because I had raw beet puree for cake icing (see below) and it's just so colourful, I thought it would look nice in popsicles. Ambrose doesn't love these ones to be honest, but I very honestly do, and before we started getting a produce basket, with beets I had to figure out how to eat, I really wasn't a beet person. I genuinely like them now. Yum!

Red kale is so gorgeous. Really all kale is gorgeous. Kale is probably my favourite vegetable. Or maybe collards.

Whipping the cream cheese frosting (as per this recipe, but with a tablespoon of raw beet puree and some butter because I added too much maple and it got too thin - you DO NOT taste the beets at all! For more info on why it has to be raw beets, this post about the chemistry of beets is very informative.)

I actually also played with the cake recipe, adding a full cup of butter, if I recall correctly. I think they rose too much actually, so I am going to tweak it a little more before I publish an updated version on that (notice the steam cracks in the top)

Ambrose was a big fan. Making the icing pink makes the cake 100% more delicious :)

I've been trying to sprout beans regularly before cooking, for Tony's tummy. That is pretty simple and low-effort. However, I then skin them as much as I can, which is more time-consuming, as apparently it's the skins that have a lot of the indigestble bits (I read that in A Taste of Lebanon, not 100% sure how true it is but it makes enough sense that I'm trying it out.)

Look at all those skins in the sink!

I bought chicken feet to make stock with. Ewww, kind of! You have to cut off the nails. Ahh! They add lots of collagen or whatever.

Tony is trying GF now too, so I made him two pans of breakfast casseroles, which yielded 8 portions each. The total count was 24 eggs, about 1 lb cheddar, 5-6 medium potatoes, cooked, about 4 tomatoes and 3 spring onions, lightly cooked, and some fresh basil, and salt & pepper. I froze the portions all individually.

I've been working on opting for veganish choices if using cruelty-free animal products isn't feasible for a particular recipe, so I made coconut ice cream - two bars like this (1.45 each), 800 mL water, 1 c sugar, 1 vanilla bean, sliced, one pinch of salt, and I also added 1 tbsp dried mint - it wasn't quite enough to taste. Anyways it was nice, cooked and processed, though dry coconut bars have meat and I didn't strain, so there's definitely that flaky coconut texture. Still delicous.

Cabbage is so beautiful. ... making pork & cabbage rolls for company last week.

the other liquid gold

(The first, of course, being human milk...!)

Yes, that's right... another post on bone broth!

 Every time I make a chicken, which is usually every second Sunday, I make stock. On Sunday we roast the chicken, on Monday we eat any leftover meat, and then I toss the bones and skin and bits right into my crock pot, then rinse out the pan before we even sit down for supper that day. I cover the bones etc. with water, then a few good splashes of apple cider vinegar, and turn it on low for 12 hours. Then I go sit at the table and enjoy my evening.

 It's really that straightforward. I used to fuss more with salt, vegetables, etc., but I've learned these really don't matter. If you've first seasoned and roasted the chicken, there will still be salt on the remains. The point of the stock-making process isn't to make a perfectly balanced soup - the point is to extract as much nutritional content and flavour as possible from the leftover bones and meat. Vegetables can be added when you cook whatever it is you make with the broth.Chances are you'll add more veg then anyway, so save yourself the extra time!

 In the morning I turn off the crock pot, remove the lid, and let it hang out for awhile, like 2-3 hours at least, to cool off. I then use a medium sieve to get out what solids I can, and start to work it, squeezing out the liquids, crumbling the bones, and pressing it all against the sieve to let the goodness drip into the stock. (To see this process a bit check out this entry from last year, which has a video of me crumbling chicken bones cooked in water and vinegar). I put the squeezed-out solids aside in a bowl, then continue to repeat the process. At some point I pour the liquid over the sieve into my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl, because it's a nice fit, and finish the scraps there. I then pour all the squeezed-out bits back into the sieve, pour a bowlful of stock over it, and then squeeze it out once more. I swipe the bottom of the sieve with my fingers and let the fine loose particles fall into the stock. Then I serve the solids to the cat. (Where you wondering what those pictures were?)

 The resulting stock is very different from your typical animal stock. In fact I think there should be a different word for stock that is made with vinegar. It's a whole new level of nutrient density, and the quality is just very different...! Look at this recipe on allrecipes.com, for example. See the top picture? Bright yellow and clear stock, made with no vinegar, bones discarded. Will it taste chickeny? Sure. Is it thick and nutrient-dense like the vinegar-kind? No. Look at the solids on the bottom of my jar! (Are you confused about the difference between broth and stock? Apparently a lot of people are. No worries, just be sure to support me when I become president and insist that we clarify our vocabulary.)

Lovely fats and gelatin floats on the top, and will solidify in the fridge. Be sure to lovingly help it all out of the jar when you use your stock to make anything; don't leave behind that goodness! Can be used to make soup, or cook rice, quinoa, beans, etc. Bon appetit!

chicken broth discovery

It's been awhile since I've bought a whole chicken to roast for meat and make broth with the bones and leftover meaty bits, and since then, I've read you should add some vinegar at the beginning. This is supposed to help leach the minerals out of the bones. In fact, I learned that soon after I made and canned my last batch of chicken stock, so I was eager to try it again. I *think* it was on Kitchen Stewardship, but in a brief perusal the other day I couldn't find which entry it was mentioned in - she has a few on making chicken stock.

So anywho - it worked way better than I expected. Check out the video!!



 Normally I bring it all to a boil, then let it simmer 24 hours, let it cool, then use a strainer to scoop out bones and such. I rest it on the brim of the pot and pick out the bones, and then scrub them with my fingers to get off any meat. The bones just crumbled! There were still some shards that had to be thrown out, but it was maybe 5%-10% of the total bone mass, it was incredible! With enough soaking and rubbing it just turns to mush. Woah! Imagine the difference of mineral content with all that marrow and bone matter! I didn't even use that much vinegar - maybe 3/4 c added to about 5-6 L of water with the chicken. Try it!

I also put two small handfuls of kelp meal in there, with the orange, onions and carrots and salt the chicken had roasted with, along with extra onion and lots of garlic and a good amount of crushed chilli pepper. Tony had some with supper the other night and he liked it; cooked, the vinegar taste is very subtle-to-absent.

The resulting stock is quite thick and dark; normally my jars of stock have meat gathered at the bottom and the rest of the broth is a transparent yellow, whereas these are like an opaque beige. Can't wait to use them!