Juli Ford

apples...part four...applesauce

This was such a fun day for me.  I got really nostalgic about doing this as a kid with my mom and my brother.  When we went apple picking last week-end, I called my mom to see if she still had our old food mill but it was apparently long gone.  So I went on a search for one and it was not easy to find!  Of course, you can make applesauce without a food mill.  But I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.  So we ended up at Charlie's Hardware (doesn't that just crack you up?) where we finally found our Foley Food Mill and it was love at first turn for all of us.

Our recipe was ...apples.  Oh, and a little bit of cinnamon, of course.  Delicious!

dragon bread

We celebrated our first Michaelmas yesterday (there are so many ways to celebrate this autumn festival and I like the overview given here at the Parenting Passageway blog).  We chose to focus on the strength of defeating the dragon by making dragon bread and telling a fire-breathing dragon story from our Earthschooling curriculum. 

The children loved making these (apparently we have been doing a lot of quick-bread type muffin making lately and I didn't realize how much they had missed making "the kind of dough you can play with").  They spent tons of time rolling, pulling, patting, and stretching these dragons into being and they adored adding all the spikes (slivered almonds) and teeth (sunflower seeds) to make the dragons "scary".

I won't bother posting the recipe because I actually didn't really like it (it worked well for shaping but didn't taste terrific without a lot of butter and/or honey).  Just a basic bread dough recipe(we generally use half white, half wheat) will do if you want to give it a try.  Fun. Fun. Fun!

apples...part two...muffins

We love the following recipe which we have adapted a bit from one given to us in our Waldorf parent-child class.  The original recipe was for zucchini muffins but it can be easily used for carrot or apple muffins as well.

Apple Muffins

1 c. organic white flour
1 c. organic whole wheat pastry flour
1 c. rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon (we use less cinnamon with zucchini or carrot muffins)
1/2 c. honey or sucanat
2 eggs (or use 1/2 c applesauce instead)
1 1/2 c. milk (or oat,soy or rice milk)
5 Tbsp oil
1-2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups grated apples (we used about 3 good size apples)

Sift dry ingredients together (add oats without sifting). Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Mix wet and dry ingredients together and then stir in the apples.  Bake at 350 degrees.  This makes a LOT of muffins so plan to freeze or share some or cut the recipe in half if you don't want so many.  This usually makes about 18 regular muffins plus anywhere from 10-20 mini muffins as well.  Bake minis for about 10-12 minutes and regular for about 18 minutes.

raw zucchini pesto "pasta"

This is just my kind of non-recipe recipe.  Sorry for those of you who like to be more specific but this is all I've got for you on what I threw together for dinner one night this week. For me.  I wish I could say Rod and the kids were right in there with me devouring this but....ah....not yet.

Raw Zucchini Pesto Pasta
-Grate up a raw zucchini
-Throw in the blender or food processor- a bunch of basil, a drizzle of olive oil, a garlic clove and a pinch of salt
-Toss the pesto over the shredded zucchini and throw some tomatoes on there too
-Enjoy!

vegan chocolate cake

We had such a great Mother's Day celebration at our house yesterday.  It was also a birthday party for my Dad who, as some of you know, has been making a lot of food changes for his health.  So we had a vegan party and it was fantastic. 

I think he was amazed at the wonderful variety of yummy things that he can eat.  Of course, the idea is to not do much sugar at all but we made a little exception for the occasion.  Happy Birthday, Dad!

The cake recipe is another great one from Vegan Express.  The only change I made was to use Soy Nut Butter instead of Peanut Butter because we had a guest with a peanut allergy.  It still worked great.  Here's the recipe.  Enjoy!

Note- one cool thing about vegan baking is that you can always lick the bowl with no worries!!

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Makes One 9 inch round cake (you can easily double this to make a layer cake)

(Organic ingredients whenever possible, as usual)
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup natural granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder (non-aluminum)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup safflower or canola oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp natural vanilla extract

Frosting
1/2 cup vegan semi sweet chocolate chips
1 heaping tablespoon peanut, cashew or other nut butter
3 tbsp rice milk

1.  Preheat oven to 350 and oil the cake pan.  The cake will come out of the pan much more easily if you also line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

2.  Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl.  Add the sugar and stir to combine well.

3.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the warm water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.  Stir with a wooden spoon until moistened , then beat with a whisk until batter is smoooth.

4.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, just until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack in the pan.  Let the cake stand until just warm if you will leave it in the pan or let cool completely first if taking it out of the pan

5.  Make the frosting.  Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan over low heat and stir together until very smooth.

6.  Spread the frosting over the top of the cake while it is still warm (or over the middle and the top if a two-layer cake) then let stand 30 minutes or so.  Enjoy!

thai coconut corn soup

Love this super easy recipe from Vegan Express.  My friend Kim Sanders of Creating a Life of Wellness recommended this book to me and said she had never been disappointed in any recipe she had made from it.  So far so good- even the kids loved this!  Note- I went light on the curry and skipped the red curry paste to make it more kid-friendly.

Nearly Instant Thai Coconut Soup (no kidding, you can whip this up in 15 minutes!)

1 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
4-5 medium scallions, thinly sliced
1 medium red bell pepper cut in thin short strips
Two 14-15-ounce cans of light coconut milk
1 1/2 cups rice milk
One 16-ounce bag of frozen organic corn
2 tsp curry powder (I used 1 tsp)
1/4 tsp Thai red curry paste (I skipped this for the kids)
1 tsp sea salt (or to taste)
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro (I didn't have any on hand but I think it would have been great!)

1.  Heat the oil in a soup pot.  Add garlic, saute about a minute, add the white part of the scallions and the pepper.  Saute over medium heat until softened and golden (you can see in the picture that my peppers are charred- I cooked them separately and added them later because Rod doesn't like them).

2.  Add the coconut milk, rice milk, corn, curry powder and green parts of the scallions.  If using the curry paste, dissolve it in a small amount of water before adding to the soup.

3.  Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat.  Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes.  Season with salt and remove from heat.

4.  Serve, passing around the cilantro for topping.

We had this with another fresh, yummy loaf of the bread I blogged about earlier this week.

bread and jam

I can't even remember where I first heard about this book because it seems like it is showing up everywhere now.  We did our first experiment yesterday with this method of baking Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and the results were...yummy!!!

It was ridiculously easy to make a really beautiful, delicious loaf of bread and now we've got a giant bowl of dough in the fridge to make a loaf anytime we like in less than 5 minutes of hands-on time. 

This method actually has so little hands-on time that I had to break off some extra pieces of dough for the kids to play with just to make the fun last a little longer.  And, yes, we couldn't help ourselves....lunch was bread and jam.  Maybe there was a banana in there too.  But mostly bread and jam.