All Natural Angus Cookies

Angus Cookies

My sweet Rottie Angus got caught trying to snag a warm chocolate chip cookie from the kitchen table a few weeks ago.  His heart was broken that those delicious smelling creations were not for him.  He watches intently every week when I make my DH cookies and really wants to try one.  This weekend, after seeing his pitiful face - I promised to make him some cookies of his own.  One small problem - Angus has a lot of food allergies.  Typical dog cookies with any traditional meat (chicken, beef, lamb) are out.  Grains are also a no-no. So today I set out to develop a grain free - meat free recipe for cookies that my sweet boy can eat without suffering from the itchies later.  

Ingredients

2 cups almond flour

1/2 cup flax meal

1 cup natural (no sugar!) peanut butter

1 tablespoon raw wild honey

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Mix all ingredients together until it looks like cookie-ish dough.  It will be a bit oily from the peanut butter and won't quite have the consistency of human peanut butter cookie dough.

Form dough into 1.5 inch balls and press flat into circles that are between 1/3 and 1/4 inch thick.  Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.  They do not spread out at all so you can really load the baking sheet up.  The bottom side will brown and the top will not so don't be fooled into thinking they aren't done after 10 minutes.  

This recipe makes five dozen tasty healthy cookies.  They last a week in an airtight container, longer if refrigerated.  Angus definitely approves!

You could also roll the dough out and cut out cute shapes but I can't find my rolling pin at the moment so circles is what Angus got.  I think if you want to roll the dough you may want to add a bit more almond flour and refrigerate the dough before attempting to roll it.

Solstice Musings

I love winter solstice.  Some people might feel depressed or down in the middle of winter but solstice to me is about hope.  I feel energized and powerful on the shortest day of the year.  Why?  Because we have made it to the depths of winter and are about to emerge.  We are marching toward spring and rebirth.  We are strong and resourceful.  We have survived the worst of it and are now moving into the light and the warmth. I love the feeling of rebirth.  The slumbering earth is stirring - just a bit.

So on this solstice - think about your plans for the future.  Feel the energy of the earth as it begins to stir and breathe deep.  Feel the power that lives inside each of us.  Embrace the turn of the seasons and the milestones we meet along the way as we circle the sun one more time.

Blessed be.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup - with a kick

Tonight was one of those 'clean out the fridge' kind of dinners.  Sometimes they turn out awesome, sometimes not so much.  I think this one wasn't too bad.

I was home sick all day, it was cold and snowy pretty much all day long.  Soup was sounding really good but I didn't want to have to go to the grocery store.  I knew I had a head of cauliflower and a chicken breast that both needed to be cooked before they went bad.  And so a soup was born.  I think it tastes great - let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower

1 chicken breast

1 tablespoon chipotle

4 cups of chicken stock (or a carton of low sodium chicken broth)

1 onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

a dab of Mongolian fire oil *if you are heat sensitive you can leave this out*

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

pinch cayenne pepper

salt and fresh ground pepper

1 tablespoon of corn starch for thickening

sour cream for garnish

Start by rubbing the chipotle all over the chicken breast and letting it marinate for a few hours.

When you are ready to make soup - preheat oven to 450.

Cut cauliflower into florets, place in large mixing bowl with a little bit of olive oil and some ground garlic (to taste).  Mix well so cauliflower is covered well.  Place into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.  You will need to stir every 10 minutes or so to keep from burning the bottom of the florets.

Meanwhile, cut up the chicken into 1" cubes.  Chop the onion.  Cook the chicken and the onion in olive oil until onion is tender.

While chicken is cooking, mix chicken stock and spices in a large pot and begin heating.  Place the cooked chicken and onion into the stock.

When the cauliflower has roasted and cooled, grind up about 2/3 of the florets in a food processor or blender.  Cut up remaining florets into bite sized pieces.  Place all the cauliflower into the broth.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  I used a lot of black pepper.

Heat until broth is hot.  Mix the corn starch in enough warm water to make a thin paste.  Add to the soup and allow it to thicken.

Serve with a dab of sour cream to make it good and creamy.  You can also add homemade croutons on top.

ENJOY!

Fall is in the air!

It's definitely feeling like fall here on the Palouse.  And that has me thinking about two things - fall crops and winter sowing.

When you live in a temperate climate as I do - you really have to make the most of the growing season.  To do that you can employ several different season extending methods.  Probably the easiest one is winter sowing.  Winter sowing is a technique that allows you to have sprouting seeds when the first spring warmth comes around.  One definite advantage of winter sowing is that seedlings produced this way tend to be hardier and more able to withstand transplanting into the garden than those that are germinated inside the house under lights.

It's a very easy process - this is a great link that outlines step by step how to winter sow plants for early germination. 

 http://www.bachmans.com/files/GardenGuide/WinterSowingGuide.pdf

The other thing I think about during this time of year - is fall crops.  With a simple cold frame, it is easy to have fresh greens for several months into the winter.  Garlic is another crop that needs to be planted in fall for bigger, healthier bulbs.  This year we are trying something a little bit new. 

We scored some big tractor tires from a local farmer and we are going to use those for our garlic and fall crops.  We just cut the tops out of the tires, filled them halfway with compost, finished filling with a good garden topsoil, and planted.  For the garlic tire, we will just leave it uncovered over the winter.  The fall crop tire will have a cold frame installed to help keep our lettuce, spinach, and kale happy at least for the next month or so.  

Ok Peeps! It's recipe FRIDAY!

This one is one of my favorites - easy peasy and oh so good!

Southern Fried Cabbage.....

Ingredients
1 head cabbage shredded
1 package Tennessee Pride HOT sausage
1 can Rotel tomatoes

YEP that is IT.

How do you assemble this fabulous dish?  Easy.

Cook the sausage.  Add the Rotel and the shredded cabbage.  If you like it HOT (and we do!) add cayenne and black pepper.  Cook over medium heat until cabbage is tender and ENJOY.

Have a great Friday!

The Incredible World of Cover Cropping

So - we are taking a sustainable farming class offered by our local agricultural extension office and a cool not-for-profit group called Rural Roots (www.ruralroots.org).  Anyone local to the Moscow area should check them out.  They offer and support a variety of farming classes and seminars.  This happens to be a six class series on starting a sustainable farm in Idaho.  It's pretty cool because it is simultaneously being offered at a bunch of locations across Idaho - so it is a mix of webinar and classroom modules.  And it does of course have homework.  

Anyhoo.....our second session was yesterday.  It was about cultivating crops.  I have to say - I learned SO MUCH about farming I can't hardly believe that I was so uninformed.  DH and I have spent the last few years in feverish pursuit of weed-free bare soil everywhere except where our food plants were.  In the process, we were KILLING our soil.  That's right folks, we are murderers.  As a by-product of our dead soil, we had increasingly smaller yields from our garden.  We kept blaming the weeds but really - it was us.  We did it.

I am a little disappointed in myself for not seeing this.  I am, after all, a trained biologist.  But I never really took the time to learn about growing vegetables naturally - because I thought I already knew how.  Boy was I wrong!  I mean, I knew that healthy soil was necessary for plant growth, but I really had no idea what 'healthy soil' actually was.

Probably the most important lesson I took away from our session yesterday is that sometimes you have to grow 'weeds' to improve your soil.  I know, right?!!  Terms like green manure, live composting, and cover crops - if I had heard them before, I certainly didn't understand them and how they can help me grow better, healthier, more productive plants.  I want to share this shiny  new, amazing, incredible, and mind blowing information with YOU.  But remember, I am a neophyte.  So this is just the introduction to these topics.  I am going to learn as much as I can in the months remaining before garden season - then I will try things and share with you my book learnin' and my hands on experiences.   I'm so excited!

Here is the 10 second sound byte:  cover crops are things that you plant for the main purpose of killing them.  Yep - that is right.  Their purpose in your garden is to die.  But before they do - they do all kinds of other great things.  They shade out weeds, keep the soil from eroding or blowing away in the wind, hold moisture, add nutrients to the soil, and.....they can even help decompact hard soil types.  Amazing right?  There are lots of complexities to the use of cover crops - what to plant, when to plant, how to kill, till in or leave on top........but because of that - the potential is unlimited for incorporating them into your garden.

Some of the common suspects for use as cover crops include cereals, ryegrass, sudan grass, hairy vetch, and winter peas.  There are many more.   They can be planted in summer after early crops are harvested or they can be planted in fall to over winter.  It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish with cover cropping.  You can even incorporate cover crops into your garden while it is growing - between rows and even between plants to help deter weed growth.  I can't wait to try this!

No more neat rows of plants with bare dirt in between - no sir!  Our garden is going to look more like this......messy is GOOD.  More later....

Ok folks - so I am thinking that maybe this is the best thing I have ever eaten....if you like Indian food, holy cow!  Let it simmer all afternoon for tender tasty chicken with a lovely sauce.  Enjoy!

New Delhi Stewed Chicken

Ingredients

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 cup (1 medium) yellow onion - chopped

4 cloves garlic – minced (or pressed)

1 tbsp fresh grated ginger root

1 cup frozen peas

1 cup cooked garbanzo beans (chickpeas)

4 cups chicken broth

1 small can tomato paste

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 tbsp garam masala

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp cayenne

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Fresh cilantro, for garnish

Instructions

Boil the chicken breasts until they are cooked through.  Set aside the broth for later.

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and brown on each side for 4-5 minutes. Set aside until cool.

In the same pan, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil and add the onion, garlic, and ginger. Sauté for 6-8 minutes until soft. Add a tablespoon of the tomato paste and the dry spices. Stir to mix well and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Shred the chicken into large chunks and add it, the chicken broth, and the remaining tomato paste. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the sweet potatoes. 

Simmer for another 35-45 minutes, until the sauce is thick and the potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally. During the last five minutes, stir in the cooked garbanzo beans, and the peas. Season with salt and pepper to taste (I don’t usually put any salt in it).  Garnish with fresh cilantro.  Serve warm over cauliflower rice or basmati rice.

SIMPLIFY TIP:

Chicken and garbanzos can be cooked ahead and frozen.

Cook a large quantity of chicken and shred ahead of time.  Place 3-4 cups into large Ziploc freezer bags and freeze.  Also freeze the broth in 2 cup quantities in freezer containers.

Cook garbanzos and freeze in 1-2 cup quantities.