It's Easy Being Green

Are you faced with a cooking dilemma this Valentine’s Day? If you’re planning a home-cooked  meal but you have a funny Gluten-Free Valentine, you might be wondering what you could possibly make for dessert. In my humble opinion, it is often easy avoiding the pitfalls of flour and gluten with wholesome, made from scratch main dishes, but not so easy when it comes to the finishing touch that will satisfy your sweetheart’s sweet tooth. Homestead Hottie has a huge sweet tooth and this recipe has been nothing but magical when she gets a craving that can’t be remedied by some store-bought “Gluten Bomb”.

Enter the Chocolate Lava Cake for two made without nary a drop of flour. The ingredient list contains nothing exotic and takes only 10 minutes to prepare, another 10 to bake. How does that work you ask? It rises and bakes like an egg soufflé but with all the chocolatey goodness of a warm, moist cake. If you want that molten chocolate center, make sure to pull your ramekins a minute or so early. If you let it go to the timer, you’ll end up with less chocolate lava in the center. Don’t fret if you do because both ways are delish!

These single serving Chocolate Lava Cakes should satisfy any chocolate lover whether they're GF or not.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Lava Cake for Two

• 1/2 stick butter
• 2 oz. (1/4 c.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla

Here’s to hoping you and your Gluten-Free Valentine have a very happy day!

Popularity: 25% [?]

Pickling food is almost as old as civilization itself so it is no surprise that every culture around the world has their own take on this popular method of food preservation. No matter what culture, the transformation from raw food to completed pickle results in some of the most unique and complex flavors our palates can encounter and often with little work on our part. Pickling is often as simple as putting a few key ingredients together and letting Mother Nature’s wild side take its course with often fascinating end-results. I’m glad to see this lost art is beginning to see a resurgence in popularity here in the states.

Food maven Karen Solomon has embarked on a new journey with her intriguing culinary writings by publishing a new series of e-cookbooks called Asian Pickles. The first in the series, Asian Pickles: Japan, details the ins and outs of creating some of the most famous sweet, sour, salty, cured, and fermented tsukemono (preserved vegetables) of this western Pacific nation. At just 56-pages in length, Solomon cuts to the chase and immerses readers quickly into the most sought after Japanese pickling recipes. Solomon teaches you everything from creating the ever-easy and pleasing pickled ginger up to the most complex nuka-zuke pickling bed. She also gives a brief history lesson on each tsukemono, making these foreign kitchen journeys even more enticing.

With few words, Solomon got my tongue waggling for these innovative recipes steeped deep in Japanese tradition. She clearly explains the exotic ingredients used and the process to help push ordinary fruits and vegetables to a higher culinary plane. I can’t wait to dive into making some of these tsukemono recipes and will be anxiously awaiting Solomon’s next installment in her Asian Pickles series.

In the meantime, here is a quick recipe for making Karen Solomon’s “Sitting Fee” Cabbage Pickles:

Time: about 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs. head of green cabbage
• 2 Tbsp. kosher salt
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 Tbsp. freshly toasted black sesame seeds

Directions:

Discard the tough outer leaves of the cabbage. Cut cabbage into quarters lengthwise. Cut out and discard the core from one quarter, chop the quarter in half lengthwise again, and slice into 1-inch pieces. Cut the remainder of the cabbage this same way, separating the leaves as necessary.

Place the cabbage in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle with salt; toss gently. Allow the cabbage to sit for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Using your hands, squeeze the cabbage very tightly to make it rain. It can take a full minute to extract all the juices. Discard the liquid and return the cabbage to the bowl. Squeeze in the lemon juice and add the sesame, and the cabbage is ready to eat. It will keep refrigerated in an airtight container for 1 week.

Popularity: 19% [?]

We were stoked to be in the path of the Christmas Day blizzard that socked the Half-Acre Homestead with Old Man Winter’s one-two punch. Stiff winds helped pelt the house with sleet most of Christmas night until it finally turned into snow sometime in the early morning. When we woke up, we were greeted to a winter wonderland of snow…8-inches to be exact!

Our flock of chickens has refused to budge from their coop, instead laying about and basking under the glow of their heat lamp while the flakes cover their yard. I can’t say as I blame them. Who would want to strut around in the snow without any giant woolen socks or insulated snow boots?

The weather outside might be frightful but that doesn’t mean there isn’t time to enjoy some indoor pursuits. Homestead Hottie picked up a great Christmas gift this year, one that’s as nice to look at as it is functional. I was lucky enough to receive a 15 liter fermentation crock made by TSM Products.

If you read my blog frequently, you already know I like to homebrew and bake my own breads (other processes of fermentation). With Talina’s gut healing journey, we’ve learned the benefits of all those micro-organisms that so often get eliminated from our gut with today’s modern diet and convenience foods.

Sure, we eat a lot of yogurt and drink a lot of kefir and coffee but what about kombucha, kraut and the myriad of other fermented delicacies consumed around the world? Each live, unpasteurized, fermented food acts as a delivery vehicle, dropping all those strains of beneficial bacteria into our gut where they can flourish and aid digestion.

Last spring, we were gifted with several large heads of cabbage from another local gardener. They were gorgeous demonstrations of her decades of gardening experience but what is one to do with 4 bowling ball sized heads of the stuff? We made cabbage rolls, apples with cabbage and every other type of cabbage dish imaginable until it finally dawned on us: sauerkraut.

Thank goodness we found Sandorkraut (a.k.a Sandor Katz) to show us the fermentation process is not hard or scary. His book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is a trend-bucking bible of time-tested fermentable foods. The more than 180 page book is packed with just under 100 recipes that will keep your kitchen bubbling with beneficial bacteria and some truly tasty fermented treats to nourish your belly.

Back to the kraut, we didn’t have a giant crock to ferment this cabbage in but Katz taught us that something as simple as a crockpot can be used as a fermenter. Weighed down with a bag of brine solution, our kraut bubbled and boiled for about three weeks in the corner of our Half-Acre Homestead kitchen. The sharp tang and amazing taste of living sauerkraut was astonishing. Those cans of crap from the grocery store have nothing on homemade kraut!

Well, now the Half-Acre Homestead has another fermenting vessel proudly working away in our kitchen, just a few feet from my 5 gallon beer fermenter. The TSM fermentation crock looks stately sitting on display by our front window but few people probably realize the treat that is slowly converting inside. Another 5 pounds of cabbage are fermenting away and with the innovative water seal, you can’t smell a thing. I do like to lift the lid every few days and take a whiff though, reminding me the food inside is very much alive and the age old process is working just as it should.

Popularity: 30% [?]

I got excited earlier this summer when First Lady Michelle Obama released her new book American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America
. In an interview with NPR, the First Lady revealed they were brewing beer at the White House using honey harvested from their garden hives.

Thrilled about the prospects of a President interested in homebrew and a First Family enjoying the fruits of the garden, I was hoping they would some day reveal their brew recipes. No, there’s no “POTUS Porter” (that ought to be the next named recipe though) but they did release the recipe for their White House Honey Ale and White House Honey Porter.

I’ve posted the recipes below along with the video featuring Sam Kass, White House Assistant Chef and Tafari Campbell, White House Sous Chef as they brew up a fresh batch of beer in the Presidential kitchen. It’s also great to see their homebrew setup is no more complicated than mine. Now I just wish everybody could settle down and have a gentlemanly discussion over a cold one and toast Ales to the Chief!

Download a printable PDF of both recipes.

WHITE HOUSE HONEY PORTER

Ingredients

• 2 (3.3 lb) cans light unhopped malt extract
• 3/4 lb Munich Malt (cracked)
• 1 lb crystal 20 malt (cracked)
• 6 oz black malt (cracked)
• 3 oz chocolate malt (cracked)
• 1 lb White House Honey
• 10 HBUs bittering hops
• 1/2 oz Hallertaur Aroma hops
• 1 pkg Nottingham dry yeast
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for bottling

Directions

1. In a 6 qt pot, add grains to 2.25 qts of 168˚ water. Mix well to bring temp down to 155˚. Steep on stovetop at 155˚ for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, bring 2 gallons of water to 165˚ in a 12 qt pot. Place strainer over, then pour and spoon all the grains and liquid in. Rinse with 2 gallons of 165˚ water. Let liquid drain through. Discard the grains and bring the liquid to a boil. Set aside.
2. Add the 2 cans of malt extract and honey into the pot. Stir well.
3. Boil for an hour. Add half of the bittering hops at the 15 minute mark, the other half at 30 minute mark, then the aroma hops at the 60 minute mark.
4. Set aside and let stand for 15 minutes.
5. Place 2 gallons of chilled water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons if necessary. Place into an ice bath to cool down to 70-80˚.
6. Activate dry yeast in 1 cup of sterilized water at 75-90˚ for fifteen minutes. Pitch yeast into the fermenter. Fill airlock halfway with water. Ferment at room temp (64-68˚) for 3-4 days.
7. Siphon over to a secondary glass fermenter for another 4-7 days.
8. To bottle, make a priming syrup on the stove with 1 cup sterile water and 3/4 cup priming sugar, bring to a boil for five minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 1-2 weeks at 75˚.

WHITE HOUSE HONEY ALE

Ingredients

• 2 (3.3 lb) cans light malt extract
• 1 lb light dried malt extract
• 12 oz crushed amber crystal malt
• 8 oz Biscuit Malt
• 1 lb White House Honey
• 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings Hop Pellets
• 1 1/2 oz Fuggles Hop pellets
• 2 tsp gypsum
• 1 pkg Windsor dry ale yeast
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Directions

1. In an 12 qt pot, steep the grains in a hop bag in 1 1/2 gallons of sterile water at 155 degrees for half an hour. Remove the grains.
2. Add the 2 cans of the malt extract and the dried extract and bring to a boil.
3. For the first flavoring, add the 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings and 2 tsp of gypsum. Boil for 45 minutes.
4. For the second flavoring, add the 1/2 oz Fuggles hop pellets at the last minute of the boil.
5. Add the honey and boil for 5 more minutes.
6. Add 2 gallons chilled sterile water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons. There is no need to strain.
7. Pitch yeast when wort temperature is between 70-80˚. Fill airlock halfway with water.
8. Ferment at 68-72˚ for about seven days.
9. Rack to a secondary fermenter after five days and ferment for 14 more days.
10. To bottle, dissolve the corn sugar into 2 pints of boiling water for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 2 to 3 weeks at 75˚.

Popularity: 8% [?]

As a home brewer, I think there are some fairly natural progressions into other homemade commodities: wine, mead, fermented foods and cheese. In fact, a lot of home brewing suppliers also carry cheese making supplies, making it even easier to leap from one homemade pursuit to another (much to my wife’s chagrins).

My interest in home cheese making has really peaked now that a  coworker of mine is starting a commercial cheese making operation at her local farm. She’s built an entire dairy and four-room, underground cave to age her cheese in. We’ve even been lucky enough to taste her first test batches and they are delish! I can’t wait for the farm to start selling publicly because there is nothing finer than fresh, local cheese.

Because of my newfound interest in cheese making, I have been reading Homemade Cheese: Recipes for 50 Cheeses from Artisan Cheesemakers by Janet Hurst.  This new guide to cheese making packs 160 pages with full-color photos and recipes of palate-pleasing cheeses you can make in the comfort of your own home, using just a few simple ingredients and tools.

Hurst walks you through the basics of making cheese from beginner recipes like Chèvre and cream cheese on up to more complex recipes like Gruyère. Interplayed throughout the recipes and discussion of cheese making are profiles of dozens of artisan cheese makers who share their passion for fresh artisan cheese.

I would recommend picking up this handy cheese making guide if you’re interested in starting up your own small dairy operation or are looking to start cheese making in your home. With twenty years of cheese making under her own belt, Janet Hurst breaks down the process into a few simple steps that anyone with a little time and patience should be able to follow. Recipes using cow, goat and sheep milk are all included too! I bet the results are well worth it and can’t wait to try my first batch of homemade cheese!

Have you ever wanted to make your own Ricotta for a fresh batch of lasagna? Try Hurst’s recipe below:

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Ingredients:

1 gallon whole cow milk

1/2 cup apple-cider vinegar

1 Tbsp. non-iodized salt

Place milk in a large cooking pot over medium-low heat. Stir often to avoid any scorching. Bring the milk up to 190°F (87.7°C) and remove from heat. Stir and add the vinegar while stirring. Tiny bits of curd will form. Pour the curds into a cheesecloth-lined colander. Drain for about 30 minutes. Add the salt, working it gently into the curds. If you want a creamier texture, stir in 2 or 3 tablespoons of cream. This cheese keeps about a week in the refrigerator. Ricotta can also be sweetened to make a perfect filling for crepes, cannolis or any other desert using a sweet cheese.