Sprouting Grains

It is only fairly recently that I have begun incorporating sprouted grains into my own diet, and now by extension we have both begun to enjoy them with some regularity.  It wasn't really the mystery of the process that had prevented me from attempting to do so in the past, but rather the lack of any real need.  Personally, I don't have a great deal of desire for most breads or cereal grains.  Once I changed my dietary habits years ago, I found that I didn't really miss bread all that much, and that while I have no issues with gluten or any other component of wheat, I just rarely had the desire.  This is not to say that I don't appreciate a good piece of bread (or pizza  or pie crust) every now and again, and I did go through a serious baking kick a couple of years ago where I finally figured out how to consistently produce good leavened breads in my own kitchen, but given my own natural food predilections, I could and do easily go months in between having any baked good or really any grains in general.  The one exception to this is oats; I really like oats and I eat them all of the time (usually soured), but oats are good enough for me and I never grow tired of them.

Christa likes bread a whole lot, though.  She is also generally a big fan of cereal grains and pasta in particular.  It was partially due to this that after putting together a batch of tabbouleh together one afternoon that I started to consider some healthy grain options that we could both enjoy together.  I like the idea of sprouting grains for the same reason that I like to sour my oats - make the nutritional quality greater for the same amount of calories with just a little extra investment of time.

Grains are cheap, too, relatively speaking.  This appeals to me, because quality pasture raised animal products (meat, milk, eggs...) are not.  It's good to be able to make up the balance of one's caloric needs with something that only costs a couple of bucks at most per pound.  I decided to go with hard winter wheat berries, as they were only about $1.50/lb and I thought that we might be able to use them in much the same way as bulgur.

The procedure is very simple, and I'm happy to say that even on my first attempt that I had a great batch of wheat sprouts.  I usually sprout about a cup of wheat each week, which gets us through for a couple of servings.  In order to sprout wheat, or by extension just about any other whole grain, you'll need a jar of some sort with a semipermeable cover that will allow water and air to circulate while containing the grains.  I use an old glass jar that I saved and make a makeshift cover out of a rubber band and some cheesecloth. 

The first thing that you'll need to do is to soak the grains in warm water for about 8-12 hours.  This will rehydrate them and initiate the sprouting process.  You can see below how the grains have plumped up a bit after the initial soaking period.

Now, pour the water off of the grains, rinse again with warm water, drain, and place them in a dark spot (I used my food dehydrator because it is on the kitchen counter already and is quite dark inside).  Any box or even a paper bag would be just fine.  Lay the jar on its side as shown, in order to give the grains room and to allow air to circulate around them to avoid growing mold.

Now, every 12 hours simple rinse off the grains with more fresh warm water, drain, and return them to dark storage.  The rinsing keeps them moist without soaking them (an entirely different process).  Within 2-4 days, depending on the grain and the temperature, the grains will have sprouted.  You can see below how these have just barely begun to sprout.  Note the small white protrusions. 

In another 12-24 hours, they look like this when I do wheat:

This is when I stop the process by placing the sprouts in the refrigerator in a covered container to be used in cold salads (toss with parsley, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar), or steam them and coat with butter and salt, or maple syrup, honey, or anything else that you might put on a hot breakfast cereal.  Use your imagination with these; wheat is a fairly blank canvas (though the sprouted wheat does have a really excellent flavor and texture without the addition of anything else).  The sprouts will keep for several days once refrigerated.  

Creamy Potato Bacon Soup

 This soup really is a heavily bastardized version of caldo verde.  I'm very familiar with this fact, as I started out a few years ago making caldo verde, and it has finally evolved into this slightly different version that you see below.  I like the play of the bacon to the potatoes more so than any sausage that I have tried, and a good quality raw cheddar cheese seemed like a natural topping for a soup that already tasted like a bacon stuffed baked potato.

To start, get yourself a big sack of potatoes.  I would highly recommend going with a gold potato or even a red potato, as baking or russet potatoes don't really lend themselves well to this recipe.  Below you'll see that I went with some beautiful yukon golds.

Yukon Gold, baby.

Due to the fact that I happened to be in the midst of making a chicken stock while preparing this soup, I scrubbed the potatoes very well so that I could save the skins to add to the stock.  I then set up a peeling station, because 5 pounds of #1 potatoes takes a while to peel.  Once peeled, I put the potatoes into a large bowl filled with cold water and some ascorbic acid.  I did this to prevent them from oxidizing while I was working on the rest of the ingredients (of which there really aren't many).  Some lemon juice in the water, or even just the plain cold water by itself would work fine if you don't have any ascorbic acid or vitamin C laying around.  I did.

My dad used to tell me how much fun he had peeling potatoes in the navy.

Once the potatoes were peeled, I then cut them in half lengthwise and then into 1/4" thick slices.  I returned the slices of potato to the large bowl of cold water.  After that, I chopped this marvelous 18 ounce pack of thick, apple-wood smoked bacon into a small dice.

Bacon has magical properties on the internet, right?

I then tossed the diced bacon into a very large pan and let it brown.

Looking Good

Looking Better.  We can just stop here, right?

After the bacon got crispy, I removed it and placed it in a small bowl to just hang out for a while.  I also drained most of the bacon grease out of the pan.  This bacon grease went into the fridge, where it is still performing feats of awesomeness, such as frying eggs or being slathered all over whole chickens before roasting.  I did leave a few tablespoons of the bacon grease in the pan, and to this I added the drained potato slices.

While the potatoes were frying in the bacon fat...hang on, let me just savor the thought...I poured the liquid that I had used to soak the potatoes into a small saucepan and reduced it in volume to roughly one quart.  I was going to need some extra liquid, and rather than just add water I thought that it would be much more sensible to use the water that was already full of potato starch and any other enrichment that may have leached out of the potatoes while they were soaking.  Once the potatoes had browned just slightly, I poured this reduced liquid into the potato pan.

I also added a quart of rich beef stock for a heavy dose of nutrients and some excellent background flavor notes.  Chicken stock would work very well, too. 

If I can put bone stock into something, I will put bone stock into something.

Once the potatoes were well established in copious amounts of liquid, I turned the heat down and let them simmer while I ate all of the bacon.  Just kidding.  I simmered the potatoes until they were very soft, and then blended them along with the cooking liquid until velvety smooth.  I incorporated the bacon pieces back into the creamed potatoes and poured the whole mess into my slow cooker in order to let the flavors meld together for a few hours at a low temperature.  You don't need to use a slow cooker, but I did so that I could just walk away from the whole operation without fear of having anything burn.

Just hanging out and getting friendly

At some point in time I think that I took a nap.  I undoubtedly wasted some time on the internet.  However, I'm sure that I took a large bunch of lacinato kale that I had washed and sliced the rubs out of the leaves before cutting leaves into fairly fine slices.  I used lacinato kale because it sounds much more pretentious than regular kale.  Regular kale is for chumps, right?  This is a blog about food, so I felt obligated to opt for the fancier version of this robust leafy green.  Feel free to use regular kale when you make your own version, but be sure to tell your friends and loved ones that you used regular old kale because you truly don't give a damn about them.  Meanwhile I will continue to use my fancy kale.

OK, the lacinato is also a darker color and is not as crinkly, so it does look a lot better in soups like this.  That's actually what drew me to it in the first place.  Anyway, shortly before it's time to serve, stir the sliced kale into the soup and just cook it for about 10-15 minutes at most.  It will turn a very mice shade of green and be soft without totally falling apart.  The soup is very rich and savory, and the sturdy green of the kale (lacinato or otherwise) juxtaposes this in a wonderful way.  I elected to top the soup with some freshly shredded raw cheddar cheese, which was very good, or you can omit the cheese and just enjoy it how it is.  I put it into a hot thermos and sent it off with Christa for lunch.

So, in summary:

Creamy Potato Bacon Soup

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs of yellow potatoes
• 16-18 ounces of good thick cut bacon
• 1 quart of beef stock
• 1 head of lacinato kale (or regular kale)
• cheddar cheese to taste (optional)

1)  Peel potatoes and place in bowl of cool water with some vitamin C (to prevent oxidation)
2)  Cut potatoes into 1/4" thick slices and return to water to continue soaking.
3)  Dice the bacon and fry until crispy.  Remove the bacon from the pan, and reserve all but 2-3 tablespoons of the bacon grease for other projects.  In this 2-3 tablespoons of grease, toss the sliced potatoes to brown.  Meanwhile, reduce the soaking water to roughly one quart in volume.
4)  Once potatoes are brown, add reduced water and beef stock.  Simmer until the potatoes are soft.
5)  Blend the potatoes in their cooking liquid until smooth.  Add the bacon to this and simmer for a few hours to meld the flavors together.  I used a slow cooker for this part of the process because it was just much easier than manning a pot.
6)  Shortly before serving, stir the sliced kale into the soup to cook.  It won't take long for the kale to turn emerald green.  Ladle into bowls and top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Carrot Soup

I like to make simple creamy soups our of root vegetables or squash combined with a meat stock base.  My go-to vegetable is butternut squash in chicken stock, but as Christa is not a fan of that particular gourd, this time I tried carrots for a similar effect.  The addition of ginger plays well with the roasted carrots, and the real cream turns the soup into a velvety meal.

To make this soup, you will need the following:

• 2.5 lbs of carrots
• 10 cloves of garlic
• 4 or 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 1 quart of chicken stock
• olive oil
• butter
• 1/2 of a large white onion
• 1 cup of heavy cream (preferably non-homogenized grass-fed)
• 1 cup of ginger infused water*
• herbes de provence

1.  Peel the carrots and chop into large rounds.  Place them in a baking dish along with the garlic and rosemary.  Drizzle just a little bit of olive oil on top, and put them into a 375F oven for an hour to roast.  Discard the rosemary afterwards and put vegetables aside.
2. Dice the onion very finely and saute in a large saucepan with about a tablespoon of butter.  When the onion is very soft and translucent but not browned, pour the stock into the pot and add the roasted vegetables and herbes.  Simmer this gently until the carrots are soft and mushy.
3. Take an emulsion blender and begin to liquify the contents of the pot.  At this time, add the ginger water (it will help to increase the volume of liquid while you are blending).  Once the soup is smooth, turn off the heat and use the blender to incorporate the cream.

carrots, garlic, and rosemary all ready for the oven

After blending all of the ingredients, it's ready to serve.

That's all there is to it.  The soup is warm, creamy, and just a little bit sweet, however the sweetness is cut by the ginger which is in turn mellowed slightly be the cream.  Pack it in a hot thermos to take for lunch with a couple of hard boiled eggs, enjoy a steaming cup of soup on a cold evening, or just pour it on your lap.

-J


*Ginger infused water:  Take a finger of ginger, peel it, and dice if up into very small cubes.  Place it in a heat safe container (I like to use a thermos for this as it holds the heat longer) and pour 2-3 cups of boiling water over the ginger.  Let it steep for several hours.

I was thinking about using this for my desktop wallpaper...

Fried Shrimp

Fried shrimp...it might conjure up the image of some butterflied shrimp tails covered in breading and then deep fried in some frightening trans-fat laden vegetable oil and served with a lackluster side of mediocre tartar sauce and a lemon wedge.  Well, if that's the image that came into your mind before you saw the photo above, I'm here to set the record straight, because this is how you do fried shrimp. 

It's fast, it's easy, and if you have never had shrimp this way it will probably change your opinion on this humble crustacean.  The ingredients are few, but quality is especially important here.

Start with some large whole shrimp.  Whole shrimp!  Don't just buy the tails and call it a day.  The body is where all of the flavor is, so get about a pound (depending on how many you are serving) of very fresh whole shrimp from your local merchant of choice.

You'll also need some quality rendered leaf lard.  I render my own from a local farm that sells the hard kidney fat from their whey and acorn fed pigs.  The rendering process takes a little while, but it is very easy and you can produce a lot of lard and store it in the freezer for a long time.  Lard is excellent for frying because it is heat stable, does not impart any flavor, and makes food incredibly crispy.  In fact, I eat the entire shrimp when cooking them in lard (head, body, tail, shell, legs, eyeballs..everything).

Wash the shrimp under cool water and pat dry.  Toss them with seasoning of you choice (I used a paprika and celery based mixed seasoning from my favorite local spice shop for these, but salt and pepper are great as well).  Heat about 1/4" deep layer of lard in a stainless steel or cast iron skillet and add the shrimp carefully into the oil.  Take care not to crowd them; it is better to cook them in several small batches than to overload the pan.

Cooking time really depends on the size of the shrimp, but fortunately they have a built in cooking indicator.  When you see that the shrimp have turned pink just a little bit more than halfway up their sides, flip them over and cook for a few more minutes until the entire shrimp is pink and crispy.  The meat should be cooked through but not tough, and the shells will be so crisp that you can eat these whole (and I suggest that you do at least try it for full effect).
Simply remove from the oil and serve hot.  This is serious 'finger food', so keep your sides simple.  Some broccoli or even brussels sprouts would make a good pairing.

Everything on this plate is edible; from the crispy shells to the tasty guts

Venison and Barley

 Sometimes it pays to cook all of the components of a dish together, especially if it is a slow cooked meal.  However, other times it is preferable to cook a dish such as this in separate stages in order to get the most out of each component of the recipe.  This works better as the latter.  The use of a slow cooker and cooking in stages makes the actual active cooking time fairly short and spread out.

Ingredients:

• 3-4 lbs of venison leg roasts, cut into large chunks (or any other red meat)
• 4 cups of beef stock
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 10 cloves of garlic, whole
• 2 cups of barley
• 1 pound of mushrooms (shitake and crimini) 
• Fresh rosemary 

1)  Start off by browning the meat in a large pan with some tallow.  Any red meat would be fine, I used venison because I have a freezer nearly filled with it.  Beef, lamb, horse, goat, or any other red meat would work just as well for this.  Transfer the now browned meat to a slow cooker and add the onions, garlic, and stock.  Cook this on low overnight (or for 8-10 hours).  Remove everything from the slow cooker except the stock and reserve.

Put the meat, onions, and garlic in the refrigerator for now.

2)  Par boil the barley in a large pot of water.  I always partially cook barley before I put it into a soup or a stew because it has an ungodly capacity for liquid absorption.  In fact, this dish was going to be a stew, at least conceptually.  While you are doing this, clean the mushrooms and cut into a rough dice.  Add them to the stock along with the rosemary and the drained barley.

mushrooms float; barley sinks

3)  Cook the mushrooms and the barley for another 8-10 hours in the slow cooker.  The barley will probably have absorbed all of the stock from the pot, and you will have only a mix of barley and mushrooms.  I feel like no matter how much stock I would have started with, the barley would have just sucked it all up.  This is fine, really, as all of the flavor and nutrients of the beef stock have been incorporated into the barley, which in and of itself is pretty bland.  Remove the rosemary at this time, unless you enjoy picking little sticks and hard leaves out of your teeth later. 

the stock has been completely incorporated into the barley and mushrooms

4)  Shred the venison and add it back into the slow cooker along with the onions and garlic.  Stir everything together and allow the meat to heat up.  Plate into a heated serving bowl.  Rosemary makes a good garnish.  You can pour some more heated stock over this when you serve it if you'd prefer a more soup-like presentation.  I served up the first batch as pictured below, but later on I ended up adding anther quart of stock cut with some water just to have more of a soup...the barley absorbed most of this liquid, too, when I put those leftovers in the fridge.

Ox Tail Tomato Sauce

 

I'll admit that I have very little experience with making Italian style pasta sauces, especially red sauces, but I wanted very much to make a sauce that not only tastes rich and comforting for Christa (who truly appreciates a good bowl of pasta), but would also be loaded with minerals, vitamins, and quality protein as well.  

 

For this, I decided to use an oxtail.  Why an oxtail?  Well, the short of the matter was that I already had the tail thawed out and ready to use, but with no beef stock on hand (whoops), my original plan of braising it as a stew was not destined to come to fruition.  What I ended up with was far better.

It was very good over pasta, but even better served over seared beef liver.

Ingredients:

• One ox tail
• A bottle of red wine (like Cabernet Sauvignon in this case)
• 40 ounces of diced tomatoes (approximately)
• Half of a large onion
• 6 cloves finely diced garlic
• Dried oregano and basil

broiled ox tail

1. Clean ox tail and place under broiler for just long enough to brown the meat.  The one that I used took only ~8 minutes to get some good color on it.  Remove the tail from your oven and let sit on the counter to cool enough for handling while you proceed with the base of the sauce.
2. Pour 2 cups of wine into a sauce pot, and add the garlic and herbs.  Let this come to a boil to remove the alcohol.  Add the tomatoes and reduce to just barely a simmer.  
3. Cut the ox tail into individual joint pieces and submerge them in the sauce.  Ensure that the pot will not come to a full boil (lots of steam and an occasional bubble breaking the surface are all that you're going for here.  Braise the tail pieces in the sauce for about 8 hours.  This is a good overnight process
4. Remove the tail pieces from the sauce and pick all of the meat off of the bones.  Place the meat in a container and reserve in the refrigerator for now.  
5. Dice the onion and saute in a little bit of tallow.  Add this to the sauce, and place the whole pot of sauce in the refrigerator to sit during the next phase of cooking.
6. Take the bone pieces and bits of connective tissue leftover from the tails and place them in a small saucepan.  Add about a cup of wine to this pan, and enough water to completely submerge the bones.  Bring to a rapid boil for about 5 minutes, and then reduce heat to just barely a simmer.  Let this simmer for 8 more hours to soften the bones and draw out more nutrients from the stock.  By now, the bones should be losing some of their integrity.  I pulled them out at this point and mashed them with the poll of an axe before returning them to the wine for a few more hours in order to maximize the surface area.
7. By now, you will have drained all of the minerals, vitamins, and flavor from the bones.  Strain the wine 'stock' through a cheese cloth and return to the saucepan.  Reduce to 1/3 original volume and then combine with the tomato sauce and meat that you had reserved earlier.  Let this simmer for a few more hours on low to allow the flavors to meld.  Toss with pasta and top with the shavings of a good aged raw milk cheese.

broiled tail pieces set into the wine to braise

Add enough tomatoes to submerge the meat.

slow cooked beef; picked off of the bones

Venison with Onion Gravy

While this sounds like one of those lengthy, overnight/multiday recipes, it is actually something that cooks up quick (dinner can be ready in less than 20 minutes) but tastes like a slow cooked meal.  The rich and meaty dish pairs well with a salad of baby greens or some lightly steamed broccoli. 

You'll need the following:

• 2-3 lb venison thigh roast
• 1/4 cup of tallow
• 1/4 cup of spelt flour
• 1 cup of beef stock
• 1 large onion
• Tallow for frying

1)  In a small sauce pan, heat the tallow and stir in the spelt flour to make a roux.  Stir this constantly until it is the color of chocolate.  Be sure to stir out any lumps of flour to ensure that all of the flour is cooked in the fat.  Once the roux reaches a nice dark color, pour the stock into the pot and whisk rapidly to make a smooth gravy.  Bring this to a boil, stirring often, and then turn down the heat to very low.

2)  French the onion into thin slices and put in a pan with hot tallow.  Fry gently over medium heat to soften and slightly caramelize the onion slices.

 

Soft, flavorful, but not overcooked onion

3)  Add the onion to the gravy and stir in thoroughly.  Simmer this for as long as your heart is content on the stove to continue cooking down the onion and incorporating the flavors of the gravy.

Yum...very beefy already

4)  Meanwhile, place your roast on a cutting board and identify the grain.  Cut the roast into 1/4" thick slices against the grain.  In the same pan that you cooked the onions, fry the venison slices in batches and set in a warmed serving dish.

The grain should be fairly obvious

5)  Spoon the gravy over the plated slices of venison and enjoy.

Something is missing, though...something green, perhaps

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

I'm not always around to make sure that Christa has something hot, fresh, delicious, and also nutritionally solid to help keep her going through the day.  Some days I don't get to see her at all (these aren't great days), and I wanted to cook something that would store easily in the freezer and take minimal effort to convert into a hot and satisfying winter meal...something that she could just grab frozen and toss in the toaster oven in between teaching swimming lessons and skiing lessons.  What I came up with is a variant of one of our favorite types of pizza that we had made last summer, but rather than make a bunch of little fragile and messy pizzas, I opted to roll them up into sandwich sized calzones.


I whipped up a batch of my favorite pizza dough and roasted a chicken the day before I was planing on actually making these.  The dough needs to rise overnight, and I find it much easier to work with leftover chicken that has cooled down (also the whole-bird roasting process makes it taste so much better than quick cooking chicken parts).




So to start, we have some dough that has come to room temperature:

This will make about 12 individual calzones

...and also some cleaned chicken meat that is a little bit colder than room temperature:

Oh the possibilities....

Now would be a good time to put a pizza stone in the oven and turn that oven up to 500F.  It's hot, but you really need a hot oven to pull off bread.  I have seen plenty of failed breads due to a fear of the application of serious heat.  While the oven heats up and the dough is resting, combine some cayenne pepper sauce, butter, and black pepper in a small saucepan like so:

Rich and spicy...at least, it will be soon. 

Melt the butter while stirring every now and again until you have a buffalo sauce:

It really is that easy

Calzones need cheese...some kind of cheese.  For these I selected a buttermilk blue raw milk cheese:

This is entirely gratuitous....and so delicious.  Just enjoy it.

Now, it's time to actually make these calzones...mini strombolis...pizza sandwiches...whatever.  Assemble all of the ingredients:

rock and roll

Cut the dough into twelve or so small portions, depending on how large or small you would like the calzones.  I recommend going for 10, as I am making in this recipe.  Roll each ball of dough out very, very flat:

 

...and cover with toppings.  Resist the urge to pile them sky-high, or you will never be able to fold these things up and transfer them to the oven.  Show a little constraint with the filling and the results will be better for it.

that's about all this thing can hold without bursting

Fold the dough over and pinch it together in as neat or a shape as you can.  Some of these are neater than others, and while I would like to say that the messier looking ones were the first ones, I'd be lying...so I'll blame trying to do all of this while operating a camera.

it's not a tumor!

Once you have transferred the closed but yet uncooked calzones to a sheet pan that has been heavily dusted with corn meal (to prevent them from sticking to the pan and also later on in the oven), brush them lightly with oil, top with a pinch of sea salt, and then cut some small slashed in the top to allow the steam to escape (but not the cheese).

oiled and ready for heat treatment

Put the lumpy little loaves into your oven directly on the hot stone for about 10-12 minutes.  Because my goal was to make a sort of healthier option to a "hot pocket", I undercooked them ever so slightly so that they could finish browning in the toaster oven.  Let cool completely before wrapping in foil and then sealing tight in a freezer bag for cold storage.

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

• pizza dough (that's a good recipe)
• cooked chicken meat (some leftover roast chicken would be perfect)
• 1/4 c butter
• 1/4 c cayenne hot sauce
• 1/3 lb or so of a very good blue cheese
• olive oil
• salt
• corn meal

1. Take dough out of cold storage and let warm at room temperature for about two hours.  Put your pizza stone into your oven and bring the temperature up to 500F.
2. Meanwhile, combine the butter and hot sauce in a saucepan and just melt to combine.  Shred the chicken into bit size pieces and crumble the cheese likewise. 
3. Divide the dough into about ten small balls, and roll them out very flat and thin.  Top with chicken, cheese, and sauce.  Fold over and crimp.
4. Set uncooked calzones on a tray, brush lightly with olive oil and salt.  Cut slits in each calzone to let steam escape.  
5. Put the calzones in the hot oven directly onto the stone for about 10 minutes.  You should just ever so slightly undercook these if you are planning on storing them for future meals as I did here, because they will finish browning when they're in the oven or toaster oven later on.  Dust the stone with corn meal prior to laying the calzones on it to prevent sticking.

Whenever you want a hot cheesy pocket of goodness, just pop one of these straight from the freezer into a 375F oven or toaster oven until it is slightly more toasted and heated through.  Enjoy, whether making them for yourself or the one that you love.

-J