Lunch with the girls

The other week I had two gorgeus girls come over to make some yummy and healthy food. It was so fun we will have to do it again. Nothing like real food and real beautiful friends. We made a quinoa tuna salad and a banana coconut smoothie. I only recently discovered young coconuts and am in love with them at the moment and usually buy one every week. I have to get my hubby to open them for me because they are pretty hard to open. The young coconuts have lovely sweet water in them which is supposed to be really good for you. So to make a smoothie we just blended the coconut water and the flesh that we scraped out from the coconut in a blender with a banana. As for the quinoa salad it was really easy and I have made this salad again heaps of times since having the girls here. We used white quinoa but black and red work great too or a mix of them all. We just added the things I had in the kitchen at the time like lettuce, cucumber and tomato but basically you can put whatever you want in the salad. A roasted pumpkin and rucola version is super good. Oh yeah and the yoghurt makes it all nice and creamy!!

Quinoa salad
1 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup natural yoghurt
125g tuna
Juice of half a lemon
Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, avacado
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Sourdough crackers

Crunchy and out of the oven 

Mixing in butter and oregano to the dough

 

Ready!

It's cracker time. With my sourdough starter baby that is now part of the family I have been making all sorts of things with it. One of them is these sourdough crackers. I like them because they are easy to make and nice and crunchy. I eat them on their own or with a dip like hommus. I don't have a specific recipe, I just go with the flow. But they are so easy I don't think you can go wrong. All I did was take some sourdough starter and mix enough flour to make it a stiff dough. Then I let it sit overnight in the kitchen in a covered bowl or for at least 8 hours. The next day I just kneaded some butter into the dough and then rolled the dough out very thinly. I put it on the baking sheet and cut into little squares and added some salt and herbs ontop. You can also brush the crackers with some olive oil before putting in the oven. Then I just baked them in the oven until crispy!

Cookie time

Ready with some lemon icing!

About to go in the oven..

It's saturday today and that means I have time to do fun stuff in the kitchen. Weekends are lovely because I usually have time to cook and try out new things. I really felt like cookies today so I whipped up some of these real quick!

These cookies are only sweetened with honey and are made from almonds. They smell like gingerbread cookies. I whiz up almonds in my blender to make my own almond meal. I made some lemon icing from coconut oil, honey and lemon juice to put on top. You just have to wait for the cookies to cool down before putting on the icing. I debated whether to make chocolate icing using raw cacao powder instead of lemon. But lemon won today. It will be chocolate's turn next time:)

I didn't know what to call these. Almond cookies? Spice cookies? Anyways, here is the recipe for super yummy cookies:

1 cup almonds
1 tbls flax seeds
2 tbls butter or coconut oil
2-3 tbls honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnammon
1 tsp ginger
1/2  tsp cardomon
1/2  tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda

Blend almonds and flaxseeds into a fine powder. You can leave it more coarse if you want a more nutty dough. Add rest of ingredients and mix with hands so that the butter becomes soft and it all forms a sticky dough. Roll into small balls and press flat onto baking sheet. Wet your hands if the dough is sticking to your fingers too much. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye of them as they brown quickly!

 Makes about 16 cookies

Colourful breakfast

I had to quickly take a photo of my breakfast. Aren't the colours pretty? I love my scrambled eggs! I just mix some eggs with a fork with a little water and herbs and onions and scramble it in the fry pan with heaps of butter. Oh yeah and I love my butter. It's what people have always traditionally been eating and beats margarine any day nutrition and health wise.
I have been trying to eat different fermented foods so I made some of my own tomato salsa, which proved to go super well with the scrambled eggs. I have also been making some beet kvass lately which is basically fermented beetroot juice and is a wonderful health tonic. Can't wait to have a juicer one day too so I can have fresh veggie juice as well... *dreaming* .. :) I really like the taste of beetroots so beet kvass is just my thing. I just mix a little into my glass of water most mornings.

Sourdough Bread!

There is some joy in the kitchen because I am so excited that I have made my very own loaves of sourdough bread!!! Oh the feeling. And they were edible too which is also important ;) It is such an exciting step for me because I have been wanting to try baking my own sourdough bread and get a sourdough starter going for ages.. I wasn't sure if I would succeed. I have seen so many other real foodies on their blogs talk about how the make their own sourdough and have seen all these yummy recipes you can make with excess sourdough starter. I kept imagining freshly baked bread coming out from oven.. mmm.

Real sourdough bread (not the wannabe ones you probably find in most shops) is a traditional way of baking bread. Today in this 'I want it now' culture I feel we have swapped traditional nourishing ways of preparing food with quick alternatives which are no where near as good for our bodies. Commercial yeast, refined flours, rancid vegetable oils and lots of preservatives are basically what breads today are made from. Sourdough bread only needs water, flour, some starter and sea salt. Here is a lovely blog were you can see some of the benefits of why to eat sourdough:)
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/05/food-for-thought-health-benefits-of-sourdough/

The first step was to get a sourdough starter going. I tried this in the summer time and got one going after my third try with some rye flour. I was squealing with joy when I noticed after a few days the starter had doubled in size and was nice and bubbly! You see to make a starter you mix flour and water together and feed it a mixture like this every day and after a while it should start to bubble because of the wild yeasts and bacteria. I'm not sure how the chemistry of this all works but anyways this is how a sourdough starter is formed and you use some in the bread to make it rise and sour the bread. How cool is that!  Well my first starter lasted a week and ended up dying and I couldn't get another one going since. I wasn't sure if the temperature in my kitchen was not right of the flour I was using wasn't fresh enough. But recently I decided not to give up and and tried again and this time added a tablespoon of milk kefir whey to the mixture. I had read in places that this helped get the yeasts and bacteria in the starter going. And it worked!! This starter I have now  is made from wholemeal spelt flour. I have some in a little jar and feed it every day the same amount of flour and water that is in it. After a few days as it grows I have enough to make some bread and then save a little to start the process over again.

I can't wait to to dive into the world of making sourdough bread and learn how to become a real bread master haha. I use this seriously easy recipe from my Nourishing Traditions book which is essentially a no knead method and doesn't take much time at all. I do my work then leave the bread to do it's magic.

Apricot muesli bars

I made a big batch of these the other week to take with me to college and for Jaakko's coffee moments when he wants something sweet. I don't know if you can call them muesli bars but that's the closest thing they were for me! I even cut then into muesli bar slice sizes how cool is that.

Here's something interesting. A great thing i've learnt over the past year is soaking seeds and nuts. Because I have a dehydrator I soak my almonds and sunflower seeds in salty water overnight and then dehydrate them so that they are crispy again. This is the best way to get the most nutrients from nuts and seeds and make them more digestible. In my Nourishing Traditions book it explains how nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors. Soaking in salt water activates the enzymes that neutralize the enzyme inhibitors and makes the nutrients more availabe. You can also dry nuts in seeds in the oven at a low heat after soaking them.

Another great addition to these is dried apples! See if you can find dried apples and apricots without those nasty sulphur presrvatives.

Apricot muesli bars
Handful of dates pitted
Handful of dried apricots
Handful of almonds
1 Tbls sunflower seeds
A pinch of cinnamon

Pulse the nuts and seeds first in the food processor. Then add everything else and mix until a sticky ball texture. Press out onto baking paper (so it doesn't stick) in a square or rectangular container/tin to desired thickness. Freeze or put in fridge until firm and cut into pieces.
I keep mine stored in the freezer. They are nice and chewy and are best when straight from the freezer or fridge!

Essential oils

Hello!

Today I made sure I bought some new batteries for my camera so I can have it ready in the kitchen to snap a picture of everything as it happens as a lot goes on around here:) And the foods I make sometimes get eaten before I have a chance to take a photo. I thought I'd share with you my latest two essential oils that I bought, tea tree and sweet orange. Essential oils are slowly joining my family and I am finding ways to use them more and more. My number one favourite way of using them at the moment is for cleaning floors. I put some hot water in a large bowl and add a few drops of an essential oil in the water and use this to wipe the floors in the bathroom and kitchen. So simple and leaves a nice scent. Another thing I'm going to do is make my own body and hair mist. I have this organic patchouli-sweet orange mist in this cute little spray bottle I bought a while ago. I looked at the ingredients and was like I bet I could make that myself! So when it is empty I'll take the bottle and fill it with some filtered water and a few drops of my own essential oils. And maybe I'll hunt down some vegetable glycerin to make it uber cool.

Over the past few years I've been moving away from using cleaning products that are toxic and contain harmful ingredients. I mean it just doesn't make sense to "clean" with toxic chemicals now does it? I've found lots of good natural non toxic products by looking around and knowing my ingredients. And I have also started making my own by using things that most of us have our kitchen. For example a few drops of essential oils in a water and white vinegar mixture makes a great all purpose cleaner. I use this for wiping cupboards, doors, getting rid of mold and and cleaning the shower. Oh, and don't forget baking soda! I love baking soda. It cleans all sorts of things and can be used for so many purposes.

If you have any ideas or ways you like to use essential oils add a comment and let us all know!

Love Katja