1. Our classic recipe (dairy-free) with olive oil

2. Our grain-free, Paleo-friendly recipe with coconut flour and coconut milk and dates as sweetener.

Both are moist, warming, and highlight butternut squash as a tastier pumpkin substitute.  Perfect for this time of year. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Olive Oil

1 lb butternut squash (about half a small squash, eat the rest for dinner!)
2 cups unbleached all purpose and/or  whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt (we use Real Salt)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
3 large organic eggs
1 1/3 cup unrefined cane sugar (Sucanat or Rapadura)
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (we like Napa Valley Naturals)
zest of one orange, optional

Prepare the squash:
Pierce the butternut thoroughly with a fork. Place on a cookie sheet in a 400˚ oven.  Roast until squash is tender, about 45 minutes.  Let cool. Scoop the flesh from the skin.  For a smoother, you can puree this in the food processor. This can be done 2 days (or more if frozen) ahead.

Make the batter:
Oil a muffin tin and  preheat the oven to 350˚. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices into a medium bowl and set aside.  In an electric mixer on medium speed, food processor, or with a wooden spoon, beat the eggs, sugar, and olive oil together.  Stir in the dry ingredients.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix on low speed until just incorporated.  Stir in the pumpkin until it is evenly distributed.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 15 minutes for cupcakes or 30 minutes or so for cake,  until the cake springs back to the touch   Let cool a few minutes and remove to a cooling rack. Dust with sugar and top with orange zest to serve if you like, and enjoy!

Coconut Flour Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

1 lb butternut squash (about half a small squash, eat the rest for dinner!)
4 large organic eggs, separated*
1/2 cup plus 2 tbs coconut milk
10 mejool dates or 4 oz (1/4 lb) of another variety
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp vanilla- optional
1/3 cup coconut flour (Vitamin Cottage has this in the refridgerator)

*If you’re not feeling the beating the egg whites separately step, you can skip it and just process the whole eggs together as below. Your cupcakes will be denser but still tasty.

Prepare the squash:
Pierce the butternut thoroughly with a fork. Place on a cookie sheet in a 400˚ oven.  Roast until squash is tender, about 45 minutes.  Let cool. Scoop the flesh from the skin.  This can be done 2 days (or more if frozen) ahead.

Prepare the batter:
Preheat oven to 400˚. Pit your dates. Blend together the egg yolks, coconut milk and dates in the food processor until the dates are chopped finely. Add in the salt, spices, optional vanilla, and coconut flour and process until smooth.  Add the squash and process until smooth. Pour into a bowl. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold these into the batter.   Silicon muffin pans work best for these muffins, otherwise grease your muffin pan very well with more butter or use paper cups. Scoop the batter into cups and bake for about 15 minutes or until slightly browned and springy to the touch. Cool in the muffin pan then remove. Best within two days or freeze. Nice when warmed again.

Makes 8-10 muffins depending on your pan size.

One of our favorite types of fermented foods are lacto-fermented vegetables–mainly because there are endless varieties of sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, etc.  We find that as in traditional diets, these ferments are perfect accompaniments to any menu and aid digestion.  For those that are unfamiliar with the process, essentially vegetables are being preserved in a solution of their own juices and salt.  The salt inhibits the growth of unwanted bacteria and organisms while at the same time encourages the proliferation of lactobacilli (friendly bacteria) that preserve the vegetables and give that delicious sour tang.  These lactic microbes convert the sugars of the vegetable to lactic acid creating an acidic environment impossible for food spoiling bacteria to thrive!  Amazing!

One of our dreams at Back to Basics Kitchen has been to offer you some type of fermented vegetable each week in our meal service menus and now the time has come.  Meet Willow and Mara of Esoteric Food Company.  They are long time friends who are carrying the art and tradition of fermented vegetables forward.  We are super pleased to include their delicious and lovingly prepared ferments called Zuké to our weekly meals.  They offer a variety of delights including a couple of types of sauerkraut (traditional and citrus ginger), pickled beets-kale-hijiki, and a fantastic kimchi.  Here’s what they have to say about what they do: “We make life-giving foods that carry old world traditions into the modern sphere and they are made by hand, with healing intentions and a bit of poetry added for good measure.”

Willow actually attended one of our knife skills classes a couple of years ago and of course we’d like to think we had something to do with inspiring all the chopping she and Mara do, but we have a feeling that the good work they do comes from their love of food and making something special.  These women are awesome and so are their products.  Hope you enjoy!

Our favorite resources for inspired reading and experimenting with fermented foods:

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Preserving without Canning by

Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice

www.nourishedkitchen.com

Susanna and I took a day off from our kitchen organizing to visit Lasater Ranch about a couple hours southeast of Boulder County just outside the small community Matheson.   Each month we visit one of the farms where we source our ingredients and since we love Lasater Grasslands Beef, we didn’t want to miss their Annual Field Day.  For us, it’s important (and fun) to see where our food comes from and meet the passionate people who are making it happen.  There is always something to learn and great to make new friends too! See all of our pictures of our adventures here.

Below is an excerpt from one of our favorite Colorado wineries, BookCliff Vineyards , February newsletter that explains their growing practices and philosophy when it comes to organic and the difficulties of organic certification.  It is an excellent reminder that labels often only tell a small part of the story.  This is a big advantage of buying local- you can ask your farmer/ producer exactly what they do, and make a purchase decision that is right for yourself based on your own philosophy around organic.

For more information on choosing responsibly produced wines- local or not, here is also a recent LA Times article that delves more into the complexities of organic wine production and especially the use of sulfites.

From BookCliff Vineyards Newsletter- Feb 2011:

“At the Boulder Farmers Market we  frequently get asked whether our wines are organic. Most of the time I respond with a quick No, as the answer is quite complex and would take some time to explain.

To receive the USDA organic certification, wine has to be made from organically grown grapes and the addition of sulfites is not allowed.

For John and me it was always important to get a grape crop every year and to be a good steward of the land at the same time. Right from the beginning we did not use herbicide and instead bought a grape hoe for in row weeding. We also do not use pesticide. We do use sulfur, which is considered organic, to spray for powdery mildew and if temperatures reach above 90 degree Fahrenheit we use a chemical as sulfur burns the leaves and leaves are needed to ripen the grapes. 2011 is the third year we have made our own compost from apple pulp, wood chips and chicken manure, which now replaces the chemical fertilizer we used before. At this point we have no plans to become USDA organically certified.

When it comes to wine making we will continue to use sulfites as a preservative to keep our wines from oxidizing and grow bacteria that negatively affect the flavor. Personally, I think it is fun to enjoy a 15 or 20 year old bottle of wine. Winemakers, us included, also use fining agents, which either precipitate out or are removed by filtering the wine. Some of the options for fining are egg whites, casein (milk protein), gelatin, isinglass (derived from fish) and bentonite clay. Whether to use any fining agents is a preference in the style of wine, just as different people are looking for different flavors in the wine.

If the grape growing and wine making practices used to make the wine are important to you, I suggest to ask the source, which is easy and another benefit when buying local.

For further reading here is a link to an article recently published in the LA times, that talks about the complexity of organic labelling and wine. “

-From BookCliff Vineyards Newsletter- Feb 2011

Tips for tasty Brussels Sprouts:

• Cook them until tender yet still bright green. Overcooking can enhance the bitterness.

• Brown them up a bit by sauteing or roasting.  This caramelizes the sugars and gives a sweet toasty flavor.

• Shred or cut them in halves or in quarters.  The bitter flavor components will more easily leach out.

• Get them fresh! They’re less bitter. Here in the Colorado Front Range, the farmers’ market still abounds with beautiful Brussels.

Recipe Round Up:
Great Brussels Sprouts

Our favorite recipes from around the web.

Cream Braised Brussels Sprouts:  A lovely side dish for a winter celebration.

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts:
This is a nice basic sprout recipe that will please the not-so-sure about brussels crowd.  Use this recipe minus the cheese for adding brussels sprouts to any favorite dish like pasta, quiche, pot pie, grain salads, etc.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts:
Simple and delicious- an easier way to get a similar result as the above recipe. Try roasting broccoli and cauliflower too.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Apples:
Susanna’s mother’s favorite festive-colored vegetable dish to bring to holiday parties. A tried-and-true recipe for that tough to convert brussels sprout skeptic. This recipe converted the adamantly opposed host of a regular New Year’s gathering.

Happy Cooking!

Chelsea

After my discovery I searched high and low for this herb, also known as Beefsteak Leaf or Perilla.  No one had heard of it.   I decided I must grow it.  Found seeds, planted, no luck.  Then I can across starter plants last year at the Atlan Alma stand at the farmers market.  Eureka!  I bought three varieties green, purple, and Korean. My favorite is the green with its stronger flavor and divine aroma.  The purple is tasty as well and is used to pickle ume plums for umeboshi.  Beyond culinary uses purple shiso has anti-inflammatory properties and is high in iron and calcium.

Shiso is yummy in a potato salad, torn into your green salad for brightness, in guacamole, cole slaw,  shredded over sweet potatoes, with grilled meats or fish, etc.  Basically use in place of cilantro, basil or parsley. You must try it.  I’ll be honest, I still have not seen it in any major store or Asian market in our area–which makes no sense because it’s the best thing ever.  Best bet is go to your farmer’s market or garden store and buy a plant.  Apparently it is easy to grow.  I let a couple of the plants from last year go to seed and to my delight I have shiso everywhere!

Baby Yukon Gold Potato Salad with Shiso

“What is that delicious smell?”

Chelsea and I recently returned from a weekend of giving food demos for the Natural MarketPlace Expo in Las Vegas, and we couldn’t even begin to prepare food for the demos without someone following his nose to our booth to ask us that question.  The expo is a large natural foods show, and we’re honored that New Hope Media hired us to head out there.

(If you’d like to see photos of our Las Vegas trip, check out our Facebook page. )

It was tons of fun.   All of our demos were based on our What’s for Dinner? Kitchen Boot Camp featuring recipes that can easily be doubled or tripled and then used as a base for a wide variety of dishes.  While all the recipes were popular, there was a clear winner in the “most delicious smell” category:  chicken marinated in roasted garlic dressing and pan-fried.   We had to turn disappointed people away, telling them we were not selling the chicken for lunch.

So we thought you’d enjoy this recipe too. This highlights an important tip to save cooking time and money that we like to share in our boot camp: Dressings Equal Marinades.

This recipe is delicious on all the wonderful greens that are available at the moment.  But it’s also, as we found out, irresistible as a marinade and sauce for chicken.

Roasted Garlic Dressing

Makes about 1.5 cups.  Adapted from the wonderful book Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

1 head garlic (about 12 cloves)
1 cup cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup water
1 tsp unrefined sea salt
1 tbs Dijon mustard

1. Roast the garlic: During the summer you don’t want to turn your oven on just to roast one head of garlic. Here’s a stove top method instead:  Separate the cloves with paper still on. Heat in a dry cast iron or other heavy skillet over medium heat until browning and soft.  Turn at least once.  You’ll smell them and they will be soft when they are done.  Or, if you love the oven or are using it anyway, put the whole, unpeeled head in an oven at 400˚ for 15 minutes.   Cool.

Tip: you can roast extra garlic and keep it in olive oil. You’ll have roasted garlic on hand, and a deliciously scented oil too.

2. Blend the rest of the ingredients with the garlic: Puree the garlic with remaining ingredients until smooth.  This dressing will keep covered in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Now enter Susanna’s Most Favorite Kitchen Tool Ever. (Well, besides the basic knife and cutting board.) The immersion blender.  If you have a regular blender that’s fine, use it.  But I don’t like doing extra dishes. And when I’m making soup, I’d rather not pour hot liquid into a blender and then risk having it explode out of the blender all over me and the kitchen.   The immersion blender lets you blend your dressing right in the jar in which you’ll store it or your soup in the pot in which you’ve made it.

Tip: If you’re making dressing/ marinade that doesn’t need pureeing, for just one meal go ahead and whisk it in the bottom of your salad bowl. Then toss in your salad.  Less dishes!  Or, to make dressing to have on hand, put all your ingredients in a bottle and shake away. This is Jamie Oliver and my boyfriend’s favorite jar dressing method (he loves that he came up with it independently of Jamie).

Roasted Garlic Chicken

For our demo, we used this chicken to top a pasta with homemade white cheddar sauce and basil.  Here’s what we did:

1/2 recipe of Roasted Garlic Dressing
1 lb chicken breast, cut into smaller pieces
extra virgin olive oil

Marinate chicken for at least 30 minutes up to overnight covered in the dressing and refrigerated.

Heat a large, heavy bottomed uncoated (not non-stick) skillet over medium high heat, until oil shimmers.  Place chicken pieces in pot, being mindful of splattering oil. Do not over-crowd pan- give each piece a little space.  Cook until browned on the bottom and starting to cook through to the middle (you’ll see the flesh turning white).  Flip your pieces and cook on the other side.  If your pieces are small, this should take just a few minutes per side.

Sprinkle with a little more sea salt and enjoy!

Variations:

Seafood- This marinade could be used on seafood too, but only let it sit in the dressing for up to 30 minutes. Seafood is more delicate and suseptible to ‘cooking’ by the acid in the dressing

Tofu/tempeh- Slice or cube, cover in marinade and let sit as long as you want, then pan fry searing as above. Or, marinate the tofu in a baking dish and then pop it in a 400 degree oven until browned.

Seasonal idea for garlic lovers:

The first full heads of garlic were at the Boulder farmers’ market this week, but garlic scapes are abounding as well (removing them actually helps the garlic bulb left in the ground grow larger).

For a fresh, spicy version of this dressing try using 1 or 2 garlic scapes, sliced thin, in place of the roasted garlic.  Blend, or not. Use garlic scapes instead of garlic cloves in your recipes- they’ve got the same garlicky kick. They’re also beautiful garnishes.

Update on yogurt making.  Here’s an easy way to make yogurt raw or heated in your crock pot!  I, Chelsea, honestly thought it sounded a little strange, but why not give a try.  This is what I did…

You’ll need:
-an instant read thermometer
-crock pot with the capacity of at least 1 quart
-whole milk
-starter culture (other yogurt or powdered culture concentrate)
-towels
-clean jars for storing yogurt

1. Wash and dry the crock.  Place it on it’s base and turn heat to low.  (I have an simple model with low or high settings.)

2. Add in 1 quart of milk (in my case,  Windsor Dairy raw milk).  1 quart milk will give you 1 quart of yogurt.

3. Monitor milk temperature until it reaches 110 degrees or desired temperature*.  This took about 30 minutes.  Once 110 degrees has been reached whisk in 2-4 tablespoons of yogurt (store bought or from previous batch) or yogurt starter (1/4 tsp per 1 quart of milk if using Windsor Dairy’s starter).

4. Turn off and unplug the crock pot.  Immediately wrap in towels, big bath towels work well, and cover with a large bowl or box–something to help contain the heat.  I’m sure you could then set the bundled crock pot in a large ice chest.

5. Leave undisturbed for 4-24 hours.  The closer to yogurt’s favorite inoculating temp of around 90 degrees it stays, the quicker it will set.  Just check periodically the first couple times you do this.

———-
In my case I started at 4pm and left the yogurt until 9am the next day.  It was great fun to unwrap my bundle to see if the magic had happened turning the milk into rich yogurt.  Indeed, it had thickened and tasted pleasantly sour and creamy.  I gently ladled it into a clean quart size mason jar and put it in the fridge to chill.

The ease and fun of making yogurt is delightfully empowering.  Try it out.  If you think you don’t have time, make an appointment with yourself to try.  Bring in the kids or the neighbors kids and say let’s try an experiment.

If the taste and the satisfaction don’t convince you, it’s just plain economical!  Make your own flavored yogurt cups and baby yogurt cups.  Using small jars put about a tablespoon or so in the bottom and cover with that same quart of freshly made yogurt.

For other yogurt-making ideas, check our first yogurt recipe.

*180 degrees is the typical temp. recommended for creaminess, but the milk will no longer be raw.

Enjoy!

Chelsea

PS- We’d love to hear your experiences and questions.  If you don’t see the reply box below, click here.

Many people ask us how to incorporate more greens into their diet and into the diet of the their children.  One way is to pair the vibrant flavor of the green to a yummy fat like quality butter from grass-fed animals, extra virgin olive oil, nuts, avocado, or…even bacon (no nitrites, please).  Everyone loves fat. The combo is a perfect balance and coincidentally quite nutritious.

Here is a great spinach walnut pesto recipe that I love not only for its deliciousness, but for it’s versatility and flexibility.   The recipe is more of a guide that an exact ruling.  For instance, I made a version of this for clients this week and used dandelion greens and parsley.  No walnuts?  Try almonds.  Play around with combining different ingredients for flavorful creations.   Any way you make it you’re getting a tasty and nutrient packed dose of goodness.

What to do with pesto:

• Pesto can easily make a quick meal tossed with hot pasta
• Add it into a salad dressing
• Put a tablespoon or so into hummus
• Dress up a soup
• Top a baked potato
• Swipe some on a sandwich
• Spread on a tortilla and top with cheese for a quick pizza

Spinach Walnut Pesto

Makes about 2 cups
3/4 lb. spinach
one handful arugula or other spicy green
juice from half a lemon (for more lemon flavor add the zest)
1/2 cup raw walnuts
1/2 tsp sea salt
a few grindings of fresh black pepper
optional-one garlic scape sliced- they’re fun and so garlicky!
1/3 cup grated cheese (Windsor Dairy’s Colona Reserve is nice for you Front Rangers or Parmesan)**
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash and dry spinach thoroughly.  Place in a bowl of a food processor with the lemon juice, walnuts, sea salt, pepper, and grated cheese.  Pulse until finely chopped.

With the motor running, slowly add the olive oil to form a smooth, thick paste.  Serve immediately or store in a container with a tight fitting lid and refrigerate.  Keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or the pesto can be frozen.  Freezing in ice cube trays in particularly convenient–just add a cube to your hot pasta for a quick meal.

*Note:  Cheese can be omitted for a dairy free version.  Increase the amount nuts by a 1/4 cup or so.

Enjoy!

Chelsea

Yogurt Basics:

Making your own yogurt is simple, doesn’t take much active work, can save you money, and tastes great!

Chelsea and I are members of an amazing organic, grass-fed raw dairy in Colorado and we like to make our yogurt raw too. But by no means do you have to, instructions are below for using raw or pasteurized milk.  A thermometer is helpful for this, but not necessary.

1) Choose a yogurt culture. Any ‘live, active cultured’ plain yogurt will work- yogurt is its own culture. We like  Stoneyfield, Nancy’s, and Strauss when our dairy’s culture isn’t available. Brown Cow is nice too and is readily available in individual cups.

2) Heat whole milk.  However much milk you use is the amount of yogurt you’ll end up with.

*For 1 qt of yogurt, heat 1 qt of milk to 110 degrees if keeping it raw, or for a thicker-textured yogurt heat to 180 degrees (or just boil your milk if you don’t have a thermometer), and let cool to 110-120 degrees.

*Lukewarm- neither hot nor cold on your wrist- is about 110 degrees if you’re without a thermometer.

3) Stir in your culture- 2 to 4 tbs per quart. I’ve had luck with 2 tbs, my Windsor Dairy friends use 4 tbs (1/4 cup).  Try it out and see what you like!

4) Pour the milk/ culture mix into a clean jar (mason is good), cover, and keep it in a warm place undisturbed for 4 to 24 hrs, till you’ve got the consistency you’d like. The warmer the jar is kept, the faster the conversion into yogurt.

This is probably the most finicky part of the process, and it will affect the texture of your final result. The live cultures are organisms that eat the sugar in milk and convert it into yogurt. They ideally like to live between 90-110 degrees.  Cold slows their activity (like refrigeration) and too hot will kill them.  So insulating your bottle, in the winter especially, is important.

Warm places for yogurt-making:

- In a ‘cooler’, surrounded by blankets or a warm water bath
-In a gas oven with pilot light on- slower culturing
-Wrapped in a few kitchen towels and placed in a crockpot left on warm- faster culturing
-On a car dashboard when sunny (and you’re not driving anywhere!)
-In a sunny window or even outside on the porch in the summer

Your yogurt is alive! Learning what your cultures like is a process, and you will perfect it, if not the first time, then the next.  Once you have your favorite yogurt-making spot, it’s easy!

Buttermilk Basics:

This is even simpler! For 1 quart of buttermilk:

1) Take 3/4 cup to 1 cup of buttermilk  (we like Organic Valley) and mix it thoroughly with 3 cups of whole milk in a quart jar

2) Cover and place in a warm spot- see above suggestions- for 12 up to 24 hours (at room temp- the warmer, the faster it will set and the thicker it will be).  More than this can lead to some funny tastes, smell and taste a tiny bit.

3) Enjoy! Buttermilk usually lasts for at least 3 weeks.  Great for baking!

Again, click here for more details on buttermilk making and uses.

Let us know your successes, challenges, ideas, suggestions, and any questions.

Happy culturing!
Susanna