Heidi Cooks Supper

Red Cabbage, Beets & Cranberries Slaw with smoked sausage and melted smoked gouda on the side.

Summer is a great time for salads. This recipe takes three healthy winter foods and turns them into a delicious summer slaw. A little planning ahead helps to make this recipe. Fresh cranberries are in the stores for a short period during the Winter holidays and roasting and chilling beets takes a few hours, but you can solve these problems by making do with sweetened dried cranberries and canned beets. The taste won’t be the same but the salad will still be delicious.

Red Cabbage Slaw with Cranberries and Beets

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Serves	2
Prep time	1 hour, 5 minutes
Meal type	Salad
Misc	Serve Cold

A delicious and nutritious sweet-tart slaw incorporating red cabbage, beets, and cranberries.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cranberries (fresh or frozen. If using dried, presweetenen cranberries, omit sugar but rehydrate 30 minutes in 1/2 cup hot water.)
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 large beet (roasted or steamed, cooled, peeled, and cut into 1/2)
• 4oz apple sauce (or 1 medium apple, peeled, cored, and diced.)
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds (preferably toasted.)
• splash vinegar (any type) (to taste.)
• dash salt & pepper (to taste.)

Note

A bright-tasting salad packed with good nutrition that stands up well to ham or smoked sausage.

Directions

Step 1

Grind the cranberries and sugar in a food processor until roughly chopped. Allow to sit 30 minutes for the cranberries to soften and form sweet juice.

Step 2

Combine cranberry mixture, shredded cabbage, diced beets and apple sauce (or diced apple) in a large bowl. Toss to mix evenly. Taste and adjust flavors with vinegar, salt & pepper. Chill for 30 minutes to meld flavors.

Step 3

Just before serving, add almonds and toss again briefly. Adding the almonds at the last minute keeps them crunchy.

Nutritional information estimated based on information found in the food database at www.myfitnesspal.com

Sodium estimated BEFORE any added salt.

In the mood for sandwiches but have a bag of spinach that needs to be used before it expires?  This spinach, tuna and mushroom sandwich spread is delicious and satisfying.  It also comes together easily in just a few minutes.

According to the calculator in http://www.myfitnesspal.com/, one entire batch of the filling made according to the recipe given is 682 calories.  You could easily reduce this by steaming the spinach without olive oil and cutting the amounts in the mayonnaise/yogurt/cheese dressing.  As is, however, it’s delicious.

Spinach and Tuna Sandwiches

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Serves	2-3
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	5 minutes
Total time	15 minutes
Meal type	Main Dish

A tasty sandwich filling putting a bag of spinach in two or three sandwiches in a very delicious way.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 10oz fresh spinach ((1 bag))
• opt.minced onion, pressed garlic or asefoetida (hing) (as desired)
• 4oz mushrooms (sliced)
• 12 medium oil-cured olives (pitted and chopped)
• 5oz tuna (water-packed, drained (1 can))
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon Greek yogurt
• 3 tablespoons parmesan cheese (freshly grated)
• 4 to 6 medium slices bread (toasted, if desired)

Directions

Step 1

Heat olive oil in a saute pan. Saute spinach briefly until wilted, adding onion, garlic, or asefoetida (hing) if desired for flavor.

Step 2

Remove spinach from pan and drain well by pressing against the walls of a collander. Chop finely.

Step 3

Saute mushrooms in the now empty pan. When the mushrooms are golden, return spinach to the pan along with olives and drained tuna. Stir to mix and remove from heat.

Step 4

Mix together mayonnaise, yogurt, and parmesan. Stir this into the spinach mixture. Fill the sandwiches and serve, still warm.

Making fresh pasta dough is especially easy if you use a food processor. There are endless variations for flavoring the pasta and shaping it. All start with the same basic dough.

Fresh Pasta in the food processor

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Ingredients

• 1 cup flour (Plus additional flour as needed to complete pasta.)
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• several tablespoon water (As needed)

Note

Ingredients are given for a basic 1-egg, single batch (two servings).  Recipe may be doubled.  Much more may put too much of a strain on the food processor.   Different ingredients may require additional flour or water.

A NOTE TO NEWBIES:

If this is your first time making pasta, consider making plain pasta. Flavored pasta doughs tend to be a bit harder to work with than plain. Any flavoring that contains water (e.g. vegetables) will probably require that you add more flour. Sharp seeds like caraway will want to tear the pasta.

Directions

Step 1

Put flour, egg, oil and salt in the food processor and process to a loose, grainy consistency. If it is a little sticky at this point, don't worry. You will just use less water. *To make the pasta leaves pictured, make small balls of dough and flatten them with a rolling pin or pasta roller.

Step 2

With the processor running, add water 1 teaspoon at a time until the dough forms a single ball beside the central column of the processor. If you overshoot, add a little flour. *Pictured, cilantro/parsley/spinach noodles in 80g single serving nests to freeze before bagging.

Step 3

Remove the ball of dough from the food processor, fold it on itself a couple of times and form it into a ball. *Pictured, frozen cilantro/parsley/spinach noodles wrapped in 80g single serving packets. These will be put in a gallon zipper bag and returned to the freezer.

Step 4

Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes to relax the gluten. If you cannot shape it immediately, wrap it very tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Bring back to room temperature before shaping. *Once frozen separately on a cookie sheet, ravioli, like the whole wheat butternut squash version pictured, will stay separate stored in a large bag as long as frozen hard.

Step 5

Shape with your hands, a rolling pin, a pasta roller, or the like into the desired shapes. You will probably need to dust the dough with flour to work with it. *Pictured, spinach spaghetti, rolled and cut with an Imperia pasta machine, well-floured to keep separate until cooking.

Step 6

Toss the raw pasta in flour (optionally, mixed with a bit of cornmeal) to prevent sticking and use immediately or freeze. To protect complex shapes, freeze first on a cookie sheet and then toss in a bag. *Pictured, potato whole wheat radiattore shaped on the back of a quarry tile with a Pampered Chef mini roller.

Step 7

To cook the pasta, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Shake any loose flour off the pasta a place in the boiling water. If you have frozen the pasta, do not defrost it but put in the boiling water while still frozen. Fresh pasta cooks in about 2 minutes, depending on its thickness. Do not overcook. Sauce it as you would any other pasta.

Variations

Step 8

TO MAKE SPINACH PASTA: Before adding the eggs and oil, process fresh spinach with the flour. Then continue as before, adding water or flour until the dough forms a ball. Since spinach is predominantly water, you will need less water than for plain pasta. To use frozen chopped spinach, drain and wring out in a towel as much water as you can.

Step 9

TO MAKE OLIVE PASTA: Pit about 20 medium oil-cured, calamata, or other olives and add to the flour and egg in the food processor. Omit salt for all types of olives. Omit olive oil for oil-cured olives. Compensate for the saltiness of this pasta in the final dish, e.g. don't use this pasta with a salty ham. This pasta is good mixed with other pastas for multi-colored pasta dishes.

Step 10

TO MAKE OTHER FLAVORED PASTAS: Add flavoring during the process of making the dough and adjust water and flour amounts as necessary. Possibilities include any green leafy herb (parsley, basil, etc.), spices (e.g. pepper), a vegetable paste (tomato, olive, etc.), vegetable juice (instead of water, e.g. beet juice for pink pasta), and so on.

Step 11

FLOURS TO USE FOR PASTA: Pasta can be made with almost any flour. Finely ground durum flour is used in Italy and makes delicious pasta. American "semolina flour" is often more coursely grained but can add flavor and texture to a pasta made with it mixed with other flour. Whole wheat pasta can be made with either 100% whole wheat or a mixture of whole wheat and white flour. It will take proportionately more water than white flour pasta. Rye noodles can be made using rye flour but note that, as rye does not make gluten, these noodles will be more fragile and the dough will feel gummy. These are probably best rolled by hand rather than in a pasta roller.

Straight from the fridge! Cold beef stock is naturally jellied consomme. Great with a bit of lemon juice and salt.

We love homemade beef stock.  It is rich and delicious and wonderful and easy to make.  It is also much lass salty than the boxed or canned broths.

The hardest part of making beef broth?  Getting beef bones from the supermarket.  So, the first step is training a local supermarket butcher to save beef bones for you.  The second step?  Once he or she is saving bones for you, let the store manager know that you particularly appreciate this service from the butcher.  Billy and Rudy at the Bi-Lo save bones for me.   They’ve been known to chase me or my husband down the meat aisle with a package of frozen beef bones when they spot us in the store.  You can’t ask for better service than that!  Expect to pay a reasonable price for good meaty bones; my most recent purchase was $1.89/lb.

I use the oven to make stock so I can safely ignore it for long periods of time.  Whether a crock pot, the oven, or the  top of the stove is the most energy efficient seems subject to debate.  There are a lot of opinions on the web but few reports of actual experiments that measure energy costs of the three methods.  If your oven is relatively new, it is probably well insulated and fairly efficient for long, slow cooking of a big pot of goodness.  A pot of stock in a 250ºF oven will simmer consistently without boiling over or scorching on the bottom.

Ingredients:

(Amounts are imprecise.  Intensity of flavor of the broth varies with the ration of water to the other ingredients and the amount of time the broth is allowed to simmer.  More time and less water equal more flavorful broth.)

• 3 to 5 pounds of meaty beef bones
• An about equal volume of vegetables in large chunks, e.g. carrots, celery, onions, leeks, mushrooms, etc.
• A handful or more of herbs and spices, e.g. parsley, thyme, bay leaves, pepper corns, etc.

The real step one: scatter meaty beef bones in a large roasting pan.  Cut up a variety of vegetables into large chunks and scatter these among the meat.  I like a few large carrots (not peeled) and stalks of celery cut into 2″ pieces.  If you have some slightly tired mushrooms, throw them in whole.  Quartered onions, peel and all, are a great addition as are well washed leeks.  These vegetables will give their all to the stock and will be discarded so don’t worry about how they look.  Just make sure they are free of dirt and still edible.

Put the beef and vegetables into a 400ºF oven.  This is imprecise cooking so it doesn’t matter if the oven is preheated or if the meat is frozen.  If your frozen meat starts out as one massive lump, remove it from the oven periodically and pull the pieces apart as they thaw .

Roasted beef bones, carrots and celery in the stock pot.

Bake for one hour and check to see how the meat and veggies are doing.  You want the meat to be somewhat browned on the outside and the vegetables to be starting to brown.  You are aiming for brown not black, caramelized not carbonized.  Lengthen the cooking time a bit if necessary.  To speed it along, raise the oven temperature a bit.

Place the beef and veggies in a large stock pot.  Add water to cover. Turn the oven down to 250ºF.

Fond is full of flavor!

Place the roasting pan on top of the stove over medium heat.  Leave the fat in the pan; we will remove this later.  Add about 1/2 a bottle of red wine to the pan and simmer for a few minutes to loosen the fond.  Fond is the baked on drippings on the bottom and sides of the roasting pan and will add much flavor to your stock.  Add a bit of water if the wine evaporates before the fond is loose.  Once all the fond and fat are loose in the wine, pour it into the stock pot.

Bay leaves & parsley to flavor the stock.

Add a variety of herbs and spices.  These, like the vegetables, will be discarded later so do not worry about enclosing them in a bouquet garni.   Basics include bay leaves, pepper corns, parsley (a good use for the stems), fresh sage and thyme.  Stand in front of your spice cupboard and imagine what flavors you wish to add to the broth and go for it.  Are you adventurous?  Try a couple cloves.  How about a cinnamon stick?  I like to lightly crush a few juniper berries and throw them in.  There are no rules except your own.  Just remember these flavors are there when you later use the stock.

Cover the stock pot and put it in the now cooler oven.  To hasten it along, you can bring it to a simmer on top of the stove before you do this.  Allow the stock to simmer for several hours, 3 or 4 at least.  Taste it occasionally.  When it tastes beefy, it is done.  Remember, it has no salt yet so don’t expect a salty taste.

Remove the stock from the oven and allow to cool to a workable temperature.  Strain it through a screen sieve or cheese cloth.  Discard the solids.  You may salt the broth at this point if you wish.  I prefer to salt it as I use it.

Refrigerate the strained stock overnight.  The fat will rise to the top and solidify.  Skim the solid fat off the top.  A rubber spatula works well for this as the fat gravitates toward the rubber.  You can now discard the fat or use the beef fat to brown some stew meat.  It adds great flavor.

The stock is likely to be gelatinous when cold.  Spoon some in a bowl, put a bit of lemon juice and salt on top and you have a marvelous, cool, treat.  If you’ve never had jellied beef consommé, you don’t know what you are missing!  The rest of the broth can be stored in the freezer, turned into a beef stew, or just used whenever a recipe calls for broth.  Our broth rarely makes it as far as the freezer before it’s gone and time to see if Billy or Rudy have saved more bones for me.

The bread bakers’ formula in a nutshell: weight of the flour = 100%; all other ingredients are measured as percentages of the flour.

Made by weight: 50% whole wheat flour, 50% bread flour in a 70% hydration bread.

In the U.S., we are used to measuring ingredients by volume rather than weight.  Wedded as we are to teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups, we hesitate to try recipes that call for 100g (grams) of butter.  Or at least I did.  The bread bakers’ formula has converted me.

Flour is a major component in bread.  It is notoriously difficult to measure consistently by volume.  The weather, the packaging, and the method of scooping all affect the amount of flour in “1 cup.”  Test this yourself by scooping the same amount of flour out of a newly opened bag and out of a flour canister that has been moved a few times.  You are likely to find that those two scoops, done by the same cook with the same brand of flour, differ by as much as 2 to 1 in weight.

For the novice bread maker, recipes using volume measurements are often quite vague about the amount of flour to use, expecting the cook to know how much flour to add during the kneading process to bring the dough to a proper consistency.  Our great-grandmothers may have learned how to apportion flour at the feet of their grandmothers but we are likely to be on our own, relying on the recipe author to steer us in the right direction.  From this, I made bricks, doorstops, and ballast until I learned about measuring bread ingredients by weight from the many helpful participants in “The Fresh Loaf” (www.thefreshloaf.com).

Most inexpensive digital kitchen scales measure both in English (pounds, ounces) and metric (grams) weights and have a “tare” button that resets the scale to zero.  Bread formulas often use metric measures for the simple reason that grams are small and easy to multiply.   For example, 20% of 1 pound is 3.2 ounces whereas 20% of 100 grams is simply 20 grams.

Sample formula for whole wheat bread:

• 300g (50%) GM “Better for Bread” flour
• 300g (50%) GM white whole wheat flour
• 9 g yeast (1.5%)
• 12 g salt (2%)
• 24 g sugar (4%)
• 210 g skim milk (35%)
• 210 g water (35%)

Lightly knead, wait 45 minutes, stretch & fold,* wait 45 minutes, shape, set oven to 375F, wait 30 minutes, bake 1 hour, cool, slice, apply butter.

*I’ll discuss stretch & fold in a future posting.  Meanwhile, Mike at Sourdough Home has some great stretch & fold videos (http://www.sourdoughhome.com/stretchandfold.html).