zucchini bread

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.

Today I picked up a CSA share for someone on vacation.  I was not prepared for the bounty of berries I was to receive!  2 pints of raspberries and 2 quarts of strawberries, plus other assorted vegetables and herbs.  I had been prepared to make a currant quick bread, and had prepped some wheat the night before (soaked it in yogurt and left it out 24 hours), but when I realized I could now make a raspberry currant pie, I had to switch gears and figure out something else to do with my soaked wheat.  I froze the raspberries and currants  so I could make a pie with them later this week.  The raspberries would not have lasted more than a day in the fridge, which is always the pity with raspberries.  So delicate that they must be used or frozen right away.

Since I’m getting a delivery of meat in 2 days, I figured I should use something from my freezer to help free up space.  Well, I did happen to have a little less than a cup of grated zucchini so I thought I’d make zucchini bread.  Besides, here in the northeast, the zucchini have arrived at the farmer’s markets, and soon we will be up to our ears in it!

Now, this isn’t a recipe that uses heaps of zucchinis.  It only uses about a cup of grated raw zucchini, or about 1/2 – 2/3 cups grated, blanched zucchini.   So this is a good recipe for when you have an odd zucchini.  Not enough for a meal, but you don’t want it to go to waste.  Of course, you could make multiple loaves and freeze them for later…

Soaking the flour overnight in yogurt is an essential step.  This neutralized the phytic acid present in the wheat.  Phytic acid is an anti nutrient found in nuts, seeds, legumes, and grains that can cheleate minerals from your body.  It can be neutralized by properly preparing these foods, such as soaking flour in yogurt.  The other reason the yogurt step is important for this zucchini bread is that it really helped to leaven the bread.  I would have used all soaked wheat in the recipe, but it would have thrown off the liquid to dry ingredient ratio.  Since I couldn’t soak all of the flour without making the batter too runny, I used sprouted wheat.  Sprouting will also destroy phytic acid.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, fresh out of the oven.  Recipe below.

• 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 cup Yogurt
• ~ 2/3 cup Shredded zucchini
• 2/3 cup Sucanat/Rapadura/Evaporated Cane Crystals
• 1/3 cup Melted coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
• 2 Eggs
• 1 1/2 Sprouted flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon Baking powder
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup raisins

Combine 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour with the yogurt.  Mix well, cover with a towel, and set aside in a warm part of the room, away from drafts for 24 hours.

After the 24 hours have passed, in a separate bowl combine the zucchini, sugar, coconut oil, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix well.  Pour into the flour and yogurt mixture and add the sprouted flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, baking powder, pecans and raisins.  Mix and then let it sit for 3 minutes or so while you butter a bread pan.

Bake in a 400 degree preheated oven for about 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes up dry.  Cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

I love making crisps; if I were to have a “signature dessert” it would be crisps.  I make them so much because they taste great with the fruit and brown sugar combination, crispy topping, and fruity bottom and they are so easy.  I’ve never really exactly followed a crisp recipe, but if I did, it would be the one in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.  By the way, I highly recommend that cookbook.  It is filled with lots of great information, tons of inspiration, and everything uses real foods.  I’m not a vegetarian, but her cookbook can be used for side dishes, meatless main dishes (for those of you, who like me frequently have “Meatless Meals” or days), and everything tastes great.

Crisps are great all year round.  Any kind of fruit can be put inside to make them suitable for spring (rhubarb and strawberries, tada!) to fall and winter (apple crisp, anyone?).  This recipe will work for all seasons and all fruits with a little bit of know how – really juicy fruits will benefit from the addition of some sort of a starch such as flour or tapioca in the filling to help hold it together a little bit, and the sweeter the fruit, the less sugar you need.

Strawberry season is in full force here in the northeast.  Almost every stand at the farmer’s market has pints lined up, and more to replace the ones that are purchased.  Rhubarbs are still hanging on, as they will until the weather gets too hot for them in another month or so.  I never grew up eating strawberry and rhubarb in combination, but it seems it is a classic, so I made it into a crisp.

This post is submitted to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday.

Here is how I make a Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp.  Here are the ingredients for a 7×11 in baking dish:

• Rhubarb (about 4-5 stalks)
• Strawberries (about half a pint)
• ~1/2 cup Unrefined sugar such as sucanat, rapadura, or evaporated cane juice
• 6 tablespoons Unsalted butter (grass fed)
• 3/4 cup Unrefined sugar (see above)
• 1 tablespoon Molasses
• 2/3 cup Sprouted flour
• 1/2 cup Rolled oats
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Strawberries and rhubarb in the pan

Now this is what I do.  I chop up enough strawberries and rhubarb to fill my baking pan (about half strawberries, half rhubarb.  If you use more strawberries, you will need to add a little starch to the strawberry rhubarb mix to prevent it from getting too soupy and less sugar since strawberries will provide more sweetness).  Right now I’m using a pyrex baking sheet about 7 in x 11 in.  That was about 1/2 a pint of (whole) strawberries and about 5 stalks of rhubarb.  I put them in the baking dish and sprinkled half a cup of sugar over the top and mixed it in well.  Then set it aside.  Remember, feel free to use less sugar if the fruit is sweet enough on its own, or if you like the tartness of the rhubarb.  I wouldn’t want to add more sugar unless you were using a bigger pan.  Trust me, a crisp is not as good when it is overly sweet.  Plus, sugar is something you should only eat in moderation.

Now for the crisp topping.  I like a LOT of topping.  You might like less.  Play with the amount you put on your crisp until you find something you like.  This makes enough to cover my 7×11 baking dish.

In a separate small bowl, combine the 3/4 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of molasses.  You can use a fork to cut them together really well.  Now, put that in a big bowl along with the oats, sprouted flour, butter (cut into smaller chunks), salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.   Now – don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty!  Stir it up, mush it up using your hands.  Mix it until it is a crumbly texture.

Put that over the top of the strawberries and rhubarb, then bake in a preheated oven at 375 for about 45-60 minutes.

The crisp right before baking

Strawberry Shortcake

Today at the farmer’s market, I saw strawberries for the first time.  Not really having  plan, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them if I were to get them.  I just knew I had to have them.  When I got home, I browsed my cookbooks for inspiration.  When I saw strawberry shortcake, I knew that is what I had to have.  But none of the recipes seemed to be what I wanted.  They had too much sugar, used refined white flour, or even used vegetable shortening!  No thank you!  So I went about creating my own recipe.

I also whipped the cream by hand – no kitchen aid here, sadly.  Though I must say, I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment when I beat that whipped cream to stiff peaks.

This is a great dessert – one you can serve to your kids or guests and they will feel as though they are getting a decadent dessert, but you can feel good that you are giving them something that has some good nutrients for them with its coconut oil and sprouted whole wheat flour.

Coconut oil is preferable to vegetable shortening by the simple fact that coconut oil is a food, while vegetable shortening is a highly processed industrial product that was originally designed for candles.  Coconut oil has lots of amazing properties that make it a healthy choice, such as boosting metabolism and providing anti viral and antibacterial properties.  Sprouted wheat flour is preferable to white flour because sprouting changes the wheat in important ways – it gets rid of the phytates, allowing our bodies to absorb the minerals, and makes the flour easier to digest.  It also has a higher percentage of the B-complex vitamins.

Recipe, instructions and resources to purchase sprouted flour, coconut oil, and sucanat, rapadura, and evaporated cane juice below.

Strawberries

• About a handful of strawberries per serving – more or less, depending on your tastes
• About 1/2 to 1 tablespoon sucanant, rapadura, or evaporated cane juice, more or less depending on the sweetness of the berries, and your individual tastes  (some people may find that extra sugar is completely unnecessary.  Start with the smallest amount of sugar and work your way up if it isn’t sweet enough).

Shortcake (makes 6 shortcakes)

• 2 cups sprouted whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 tablespoons of evaporated cane juice, sucanant, or rapadura
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 3/4 cup milk

Whipped Cream

2 cups of whipped cream is probably enough for 6 servings, but since I don’t serve all 6 at once, I make the whipped cream in batches.  For each cup of whipped cream:

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon evaporated cane juice or fine rapadura or sucanat

Instructions:

Make the strawberries first.  Wash and dry the strawberries, then slice.  Mix with the sugar and let stand out in room temperature for about an hour.

When the strawberries are nearly ready, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and stick an empty high sided bowl in the freezer (you will see why soon).  Combine the sprouted flour, salt, baking powder and evaporated cane juice.  Then add the coconut oil and cut with a pastry cutter or slice with 2 butter knives until the mixture is crumbly.  Then add the milk and stir.  This forms a dough which you should then knead on a lightly floured surface.  Knead for about 5 minutes or so.  Then roll it out to half an inch thick and cut into 3 inch circles.  I used the ring of a quart size mason jar lid.  Place them on an ungreased baking sheet and bake about 10 minutes or until they are done.

When the shortcakes are cooling, take that bowl out of the freezer so it is nice and cold.  Pour the heavy cream and tablespoon of evaporated cane juice into the bowl and whisk your heart out.  I thought my arm would fall off, but I managed to keep at it until it formed stiff peaks.  I figure if they did it a hundred years ago without a kitchen aid, so can I.  Of course, if you happen to have some sort of electric appliance that can do this for you, by all means!  If I had one, I’d probably use it too.

While the shortcakes are still warm, slice them horizontally (like an english muffin).  Very lightly butter the two inside facing surfaces (with unsalted organic butter from grass fed cows), then add a layer of strawberries sandwiched between them.  Top with more strawberries and finish off with the whipped cream.  Make sure to drizzle some of the strawberry juice on the shortcake too.  Then you can enjoy. 

Resources

I purchased my sprouted flour from Building Health and coconut oil from Wilderness Family Naturals.  They both offered great service and fast shipping.  Sucanat and/or rapadura can frequently be found in health food stores including national chains like Whole Foods.  I can usually find packages in my locally owned and operated health food stores as well, and sometimes in the organic section of my conventional supermarket.  Evaporated cane juice is a little easier to find and may be in any health food store, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, or even the sugar section of your conventional grocery store.  These sugars can also probably be found online, though I have not purchased from anywhere online yet.  Organic grass fed butter can be found at most grocery stores.  The Organic pastures brand is pretty good.  There is also Kerrygold that I’m quite fond of.  I also purchase butter directly from farmers sometimes.

A piece of rhubarb buckle

At the farmer’s market I bought a few pounds of rhubarb.  Normally, I would make a crisp, but since I had so much rhubarb, I thought I’d try something else first.  Enter the buckle.

A buckle is a dessert from the colonial times.  It is related to the crisps, cobblers, and brown bettys.    A cake-like batter is made with fresh fruit folded into it, and then a lovely crumble topping it added to the top of the batter just before baking.  It is essentially the marriage of a cake and a crisp.

The buckle turned out very well: a delicious large crumbed cake filled with bits of tart rhubarb and topped with a buttery crumble.  For my recipe I used sucanat for the crumble topping and as half of the sugar in the cake.  Sucanat retains more of the nutrition found in sugar cane, so it isn’t all empty calories like refined white sugar.  It also has a richer flavor, similar to molasses.  It works really well for this type of recipe.  Don’t be fooled though, sugar is still sugar and this is just a treat!

Here is my recipe, inspired by The Washington Post.

Crumble Topping
1/3 cup sucanat or rapadura
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Cake
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
scant 1/2  cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup sucanat or rapadura
2 eggs
¾ cup soured milk, at room temperature (can substitute kefir, yogurt, buttermilk, or fresh milk + lemon juice or vinegar if you do not have raw sour milk)
1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and thinly sliced (about 2 ½ cups, or 5 stalks)

Make the topping first.  Mix all the ingredients together, then put it in the freezer so it won’t melt into the batter when you bake it.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  To make the cake, sift the flour, baking powder, ginger, baking soda and salt together in a large mixing bowl.  In a separate bowl, cream the sugars and butter together.  I did this by hand, but a mixer will obviously make it easier.  Add the egg and mix each one in before adding the other.  Then add the soured milk.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix and then fold in the rhubarb in.  Pour into a greased 9×9 baking dish, sprinkle the frozen crumb topping over the top, and bake for 45-50 minutes.

Ginger Pear Spice Muffins - perfect to bring to a friend.

This post is submitted to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday.

Cooking for people brings me enjoyment. I like seeing them enjoy something I’ve made, and I feel good about making something nourishing for the people I care about. So when a friend had a small get together at her house, I thought about what I would bring. The food needed to taste good, but be healthy. In fact, I wanted my friends to be surprised at just how healthy it was. I wanted to bring something sweet, since I knew someone else was bringing something savory. I also wanted it to be vaguely breakfast or brunch appropriate. I turned to the food blogs, but did not see the inspiration I needed. So I turned to Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and saw just what I wanted (with a few modifications, of course!).

I ended up going with a variation of the Basic Muffins recipe found on page 482. Everyone loved them. They thought that the spices were just right, they were delighted with the level of sweetness, and they couldn’t believe the real pieces of pear inside. They taste delicious, and you would be hard pressed to find a healthier muffin. The recipe uses whole wheat flour, demonstrates soaking of the flour overnight to reduce the phytates, uses maple syrup (and a small amount at that) instead of a refined sugar, and includes fresh whole fruit. You must give these a try.

Ripe Pears

Ingredients:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups of water
• 2 tablespoons whey*
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 ripe pears, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

The day before you bake these, you need to combine the whey* with water and then mix with the flour. Then cover with a towel and leave in a warm spot in the house.

After 12-24 hours (24 is best), chop the pear, grate the ginger, and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Combine all of the rest of the ingredients, including the chopped pear and grated ginger, with the soaked wheat. If you have some sort of a food processor or kitchen aid, you might want to use it. I don’t have one and just used old fashioned arm power. At first, it might be difficult to combine the ingredients as the gluten in the flour was working overnight. But cradle that bowl in your arm and stir vigorously, just like they did in the days before the food processors, and you’ll be able to combine it, as I did.

Fill a buttered muffin tin about 3/4 of the way. I used the “jumbo” muffin size tin and it made a full dozen muffins. Bake for about 40 minutes. or until a toothpick pierces the muffin and comes up dry. Then they are done – nice and gingery with real bites of pear. Incredible!

Ginger Pear Spice Muffins

*Whey can easily be made if you have raw milk or yogurt. Set the milk out for a few days until it has clearly separated. Yogurt does not need this step.  Then pour the separated milk or fresh yogurt into a clean towel or pillowcase. Hang it over a bowl for 12-24 hours – whenever it stops dripping.   The whey is the watery stuff in the bowl.  What is left in the towel is cream cheese.  Whey can keep several months in the fridge and can be added to smoothies, can be used in lieu of water for bread making, and can be used to start various lacto-fermented veggies. Whey has wonderful beneficial bacteria and a slightly sour or acidic taste.  The cream cheese will keep for a few weeks in the fridge and is excellent on crackers.  You can lightly salt it if you want to.

If you do not have raw milk or don’t want to make whey, you can substitute whey for a mild tasting vinegar or lemon juice. You can also use 2 cups of yogurt, kefir, or buttermilk instead of the water + whey combination. The goal is to soak the flour in an acidic solution for 12-24 hours.

Soured Milk Chocolate Cake

Most of the milk I consume is raw milk. This means that it has not been pasteurized. I buy it from small farms who keep their cows on grass. I like raw milk for a number of reasons – I like that the vitamins have not been destroyed from the heat of pasteurization (vitamins are added back into pasteurized milk, but why not get the real vitamins inherent in the milk?). Raw milk also contains beneficial enzymes and probiotic bacteria. Plus, I just like the taste better. So there are lots of reasons to drink raw milk.

Fresh raw milk is wonderfully sweet and delicious. At some point, it starts to sour. It differs from batch to batch (since it is a real food, not a food that has been packed full of stabilizers and preservatives, or cooked before refrigeration). But when raw milk starts to sour, it isn’t bad. Sour cream is, well, soured cream. I’ve made cream cheese from soured milk before. When pasteurized milk goes sour, don’t drink it!

Since I don’t want to drink a glass of soured milk or pour it over cereal, the question becomes, what do I do with it? I recently had a full half gallon sour on me since I didn’t drink any for about a week. I couldn’t bear to throw it down the drain, so I had to figure something to do with it. A half gallon is a lot, so I needed several ideas. This was one use for it – a chocolate cake made with soured milk! If you don’t have sour milk, or if you don’t have any raw milk, you can sour regular milk by adding a tablespoon of plain white vinegar or lemon juice to one cup of milk. I imagine that kefir, yogurt, or buttermilk would also work in place of sour milk.

The resulting cake is incredibly moist, light, and fluffy. It is chocolatey and sweet, but not overly so. Make, and enjoy!

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup sucanat, rapadura, or evaporated cane juice crystals
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 tablespoons baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sour milk

Cream the sugars and coconut oil. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, and baking soda. In a 3rd bowl, mix the wet ingredients together. Then alternating between the wet and the dry ingredients, add them to the oil/sugar mixture and mix until combined. Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

This post is a part of Real Food Wednesdays.

I made it on Sunday, and it was a sucess.  The bread has a warm, coconutty flavor, further deepened by the honey.  The banana gives it just a touch of flavor and adds moistness.  This is not an overpowering banana bread.  The banana takes a back seat to the honey and coconut and helps round out the flavor.

I followed the recipe exactly except for the mango honey.  I did not have any (though now I simply must find some to try!), so instead I used a local apiary’s raw honey.  It is dark, thick, and rich.  It carries a strong flavor, and worked well in this bread.

It tastes great warm out of the oven, cooled in the next day’s lunch, or warmed with some butter melted over the top.  This is a recipe I’ll come back to over and over again!