Household Blog

I love risotto, and beyond the obvious loving to eat risotto, I love to make risotto. Let me be clear: making risotto is not hard, but it takes a long time. It is a labor of love. If you cringe at the idea of standing in front of a stove for an hour or so, this recipe is not for you.

If you’re like me, however, and the thought of sauteing mushrooms, stirring slowly in mindful meditation, sipping on a glass of red wine, breathing in the rich scent of slow-cooked butter and the forest floor, this is for you. Put on some good music (we played Sigur Ros this time, and I’ve enjoyed Over the Rhine in the past, but any warm mellow music will work), prep all your ingredients, pour yourself a glass, and get cooking.

Making risotto is not a chore that we have to do sometimes. Making risotto is something we get to do, when we have the time, when we have the right mindset. It’s a little mini-vacation in the kitchen. A labor of love.

NOTES: Homemade broth is best (vegetable, chicken, lamb—oh lamb would be great!). I make my broth in big batches and then freeze it for future use. If you’re doing this, be sure to thaw it and bring it to room temperature before using, and I find it helpful to have my stock close by in a quart jar for easy measuring. Also, yes, butter is necessary—accept no substitutions. And finally, most risotto recipes call for arborio rice. I personally love using brown rice, have also made it with red rice, a wild rice blend, and quinoa. You might want to follow the recipe straight the first time till you get the hang of it, but after that, feel free to experiment! Plus then you can play with the name—quinotto, milletto, etc. (I haven’t tried this yet with millet, but I would love to! I also wonder if oat groats might hold up to it… if you try it, let me know how it goes!)

Mushroom Risotto

• 6 Tbsp butter, divided
• 14 oz. fresh crimini mushrooms (or your favorite fungus), sliced
• 2 4-inch sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 1 small onion or half a large onion, diced
• 1 1/2 c. long grain brown rice
• 1/2 c. red wine (see, some of it even makes it into the food!)
• 4 c. good-quality stock  (I use chicken)
• 1/2 c. parmesan
• salt and pepper to taste

Prep all ingredients in advance—you will thank yourself later while you placidly stir, humming along with your music of choice. If you don’t prep, you will not enjoy the process quite as much :)

Heat a broad-bottomed deep skillet over medium. When it is hot, add 4 Tbsp of the butter and melt. Add the mushrooms, stirring constantly, about 8 minutes. At first they’ll soak up all the liquid, but then as they cook the juices will come out and become nice and brown and bubbly and smells oh-so-good… Use a slotted spoon to remove the mushrooms from the pan, leaving the juice. Set mushrooms aside.

Add to the skillet the remaining 2 Tbsp butter, then the garlic, onion, and rosemary. Saute for 3 to 4 minutes till the onion is softened and starting to turn translucent. Add the rice and stir, coating it with the butter, for 2 or 3 minutes—the rice will become shiny and semi-translucent. Add the mushrooms back in, and add the wine. Stir to combine.

Add 1/2 cup of broth at a time, each time waiting until the prior addition has been mostly absorbed before added more. Stir constantly. This will take a while. Settle in, relax, enjoy it. Continue adding and stirring until the rice is just softened but still has a touch of firmness to it  (Snoopy said, “It ain’t over till Al says ‘Dente!’”). This was at exactly four cups of stock for me, but if it takes less, it takes less. If you need more liquid, add more water from a teapot or wine or stock if you have it on hand. You get the picture.

Once the risotto is just about done, remove the rosemary sprigs, then stir in the parmesan. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper (I don’t think I’ve ever had to add salt, but fresh ground pepper is great). Garnish with grated parm and maybe some fresh parsley.

Serves 4 as a main course, 6 to 8 as a side dish.

What’s your favorite risotto combination? brainstorms? favorite moody cooking music?

I’m so impressed with my fiancé. Really, he’s just… there’s not a sufficient adjective really. Not only is he fun and goofy and kindhearted, not only does he patiently put up with my sometimes mercurial temperament, but he’s upped the ante on kitchen antics—big time.

So I got home from work last week to discover that Snoopy (aka Damon) had made gluten free pasta from scratch, something I myself had not yet attempted. We whipped up some spicy pumpkin tomato sauce and feasted. It was full of yay. The pasta recipe is below, and don’t be afraid: it’s not hard! No special equipment, in fact we don’t own a rolling pin, so Snoopy (who is not gluten free except by association) ended up using a large beer bottle to roll out the dough, as pictured below.

So then I got to thinking, hmmm, lasagna… mmmm…. See, we were going to my pal Samson’s for dinner and a movie, and not only is Samson a ridiculously talented musician/composer/conductor/arranger (check out his tunes on cdbaby!), but he’s also no slouch in the kitchen. Lasagna with homemade pasta might just fit the bill. And seeing as Samson went back for seconds and thirds, Snoopy and I feel pretty good about sharing this recipe with you.

We’ll start with the pasta recipe, which Damon has kindly written up. Following that is the lasagna recipe. Hooboy, enjoy!

Gluten Free Brown Rice Pasta

Credit to Bob’s Red Mill for recipe inspiration. Flour and starches used in our batch were all Bob’s products as well. This recipe has rolled out multiple times for us to be cut as thin noodles (pictured above) as well as the larger lasagna sheets.

• 1/2 cup brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 1/4 cup potato starch
• 1 tsp xantham gum
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 4-5 tsp water (or more)

Sift dry ingredients ingredients into a bowl. Beat egg and oil together, then mix into the bowl with dry ingredients. Mix well using a fork or your hands, adding 1 tsp of water at a time until you can pull all the dough up into a ball. We’ve found if all you have are small eggs adding additional teaspoons of water brings it to the right consistency nicely. Just add water until the dough is firm and dry, not sticky.

Place dough on a counter dusted with extra brown rice flour and knead by hand for 5 minutes. Place back in bowl, cover, and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes,  place the dough on a lightly floured board and start rolling it out. Even if it’s still a little crumbly, the dough will roll out pretty flat. I had to keep cutting it and rolling it back in, mostly to keep it fitting on the dinky cutting board I was rolling on. When at your desired thickness (the thinner, the better), set the pasta sheets aside to dry on wax paper for another 30 minutes before cooking. If you’re making cut pasta, slice it before letting it dry. Any pasta not used in the dish can be kept in the fridge for a few days.

Sausage, Spinach, & Mushroom Lasagna

• 1 recipe of the above pasta, rolled out in sheets (uncut and uncooked)
• 0.75  lb. bulk sausage of choice (we used a local sage sausage—deelish—Italian would also be good)
• 1 tsp. fennel seed
• 10 oz. crimini mushrooms, sliced
• 1/8 c. white balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 c. water
• 1 lb. frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• 28 oz. crushed tomatoes
• 1/4 c. fresh chopped herbs of choice
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• 16 oz. ricotta
• 8 oz. mozzarella

In a large deep skillet over medium to medium-high heat, cook sausage until browned, adding the fennel seed halfway through. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add to the drippings in the pan the mushrooms, saute a minute or two, then add the vinegar and water, and continue to cook, stirring often, until mushrooms are soft. Remove pan from heat and add back in the sausage as well as the spinach. Stir well and set aside.

In a bowl, combine the tomatoes, herbs and cinnamon. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350. Use butter to grease a 9″x13″ casserole dish. Layer in the lasagna ingredients in the following order:

1. Tomato mixture – just enough to coat the bottom of the dish
2. Pasta (mix and match it to form a solid layer)
3. Half the ricotta
4. Half the sausage mixture
5. Tomato mixture
6. A third of the mozzarella
7. Pasta
8. Remaining ricotta
9. Remaining sausage mixture
10. Tomato mixture
11. A third of the mozzarella
12. Pasta
13. Remaining tomato mixture
14. Remaining mozzarella

Once the lasagna has been assembled, cover the casserole tightly with foil. Bake for about an hour, removing the foil for the last five minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Makes 8 – 10 servings, depending on the size of your appetite.

As Snoopy (Damon) said, the word of the day (or rather the weekend) is “apples.” I picked up a bushel of apples this week from a local farm, and I’ve been in the kitchen all day today and yesterday preserving the bounty, and as an added bonus, filling the house with warmth and apple-scented goodness!

Already completed are 17 pints of apple sauce, 14 8-ounce jars of chutney, and the apple butter is still bubbling along as I write this, getting thicker and richer with every passing moment.

And how easy is all this? First off, canning itself is not hard, but you need to know how to do it properly. For general canning instructions (and recipes, resources, etc.), click here. For those of you who have already canned in the past, for the apple sauce, peel and chop your apples to fill a big pot, cook over medium low till the apples are mushy (technical term, there). Use a potato masher or immersion blender to make the sauce smooth, then process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes (for pint jars).

For the apple butter, I filled my slow cooker with apple sauce, added a cinnamon stick, and am currently cooking the heck out of it, until it is rich and dark. Process in water bath canner 5 – 10 minutes. Nope, no sugar. Nope, no pectin. I’m actually surprised at how many apple canning recipes call for pectin—especially since apples naturally contain a large amount of pectin. Huh.

But the real jewel in the crown of this year’s preserving festivities was the chutney. Oh so good, so simple, so richly flavored… so many future variations already seeding themselves in my brain. We enjoyed this last night on veggie burgers, but I think this is going to be a constant condiment on our table—sweet, savory, spicy, tangy, and deeeeelish.

Future variations? I could have done with this being a little hotter, so I might add more hot pepper or red pepper flakes next time. Different sorts of dried fruit: apricot, mango, etc. Some diced sweet bell pepper might be nice. Alternative vinegars? You get the idea.

Curried Apple Chutney

• 4 to 4 1/2 pounds apples, peeled and diced
• 3 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
• 10 oz. (1 1/4 pound) raisins
• 3 c. brown sugar
• 2 to 3 inch knob of ginger, peeled and minced
• 2 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 t. sea salt
• 1/2 large onion, diced
• 2 small hot red peppers, finely chopped
• 4 t. sweet curry powder (good quality, like Penzeys)
• 2 T. dijon mustard

Set slow cooker to high. Place all ingredients in slow cooker—this may need to be strategic, as it just filled to overflowing my 4-quart crockpot, and it took some pushing, stirring, and cooking-down for me to get all of it in there :)

Cook covered for 3 hours or so, till apples and all are well softened. Once they are soft, use a potato masher to start breaking up the chunks and giving you that chutney consistency. How chunky you leave it is entirely a matter of taste—I like some chunks in mine, as you can see in the pictures.

Once your chutney is the consistency and flavor you desire, process in 8-ounce jars in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. Make sure the lids all pop down (showing a good seal) and label and date your jars. And… enjoy.

Yield: about 14 cups.

I love oats. It’s one of those pretty amazingly wonderful perfect foods—delicious, comforting,nourishing both inside and out, can be eaten raw or cooked, chewy, crunchy, gooey, you name it. And affordable, that’s a bonus too, only somewhat more expensive if you have to get gluten free oats. And they grow right here in Virginia. If I had to pick a grain to have a crush on, oats would be the one.

Normally in the colder months I opt for hot oatmeal or granola, but more and more in the hot, humid summer months that we get here in Richmond, I try to stay away from cooking much, especially things that steam. We don’t need any more steam down here, no thank you. So cooking passively has been a thing. But shoot, with oats, there doesn’t even need to be cooking at all!

For the summer months, try muesli for your breakfast. With so many enticing fruits in season, who could resist?

Muesli

• 1/2 c. gluten free rolled oats
• 1/2 t. plain yogurt
• Water
• Sweetener of choice, to taste (brown sugar, honey, agave syrup, jam, maple syrup, etc.)
• Dried or fresh fruit of choice
• Raw nuts or seeds

The night before, place your oats in a bowl, add the yogurt, raw nuts, and cover with enough water to just cover it all. Mix the yogurt in, then cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature overnight—this ferments the oats, making it even more healthful and easier to digest. The next morning, add in your sweetener to taste and fruit of choice. You can also add in some more yogurt if you like. Mix and enjoy. Easy as… well, actually, much easier than pie.

Stay cool!

Growing up, I hated sauerkraut. Loathed it. My mom would make sailor sandwiches and oven baked hot dogs with kraut occasionally, and from the first odors I was set against it. It was mushy, stinky, ugly, and revolting in every way. I’ve never been one for subtlety of opinion.

Well, I’m hereby changing my tune. Sauerkraut has become a favorite treat at the Purple House, regularly added to salads and soups as a condiment, taken along to cookouts to adorn all manner of grillables, and it’s not rare for me to just eat a couple mouthfuls straight out of the jar (I also do this with nut butters).

How did this shift occur? Well I’ll tell you I still don’t buy the flaccid canned mess from the store. I make my own fermented kraut at home with local cabbage and sea salt. It’s crispy, zesty, a great source of vitamin C, and of course it’s purple because we’re the Purple House people.

This is as easy as can be. The steps are pretty much the same as the kimchi, just fewer ingredients.

Purple House Sauerkraut

• 2.5 pounds purple (or regular) cabbage
• 1.5 Tbsp. sea salt
• de-chlorinated water (boil and then cool, or use distilled)

I make this in 2-quart batches. Sometimes I double it and just divide it into smaller jars for the fermentation stage. Anything more than two quarts during fermentation just seems unwieldy to me.

Shred the cabbage using the slicer of a food processor or a mandoline. I like thicker pieces because they stay crispier.

Layer cabbage and salt into a large stoneware or glass bowl and allow to sit 15 to 30 minutes, allowing the salt to start drawing salt out of the cabbage.

Use a pounding tool to pound the cabbage, pulling liquid out of the cabbage. This will be your brine. Continue pounding and stirring alternately till you have a good amount of brine in the bowl. This will take a while, so put on some good music and have fun with it!

Begin to spoon your kraut mixture into a 2-quart glass jar(s), pressing it down with your fist to drive out any air bubbles every couple inches.

Once all the cabbage and brine are in the jars and all the air bubbles have been pressed out, you’ll need to make brine baggies to weigh the cabbage down below the surface of the brine, preventing exposure to air during fermentation. Using 1 Tbsp salt per cup of water, dissolve salt in water, then pour into sealable plastic baggie(s). Place the baggie on top of the kraut mixture and arrange it so all the cabbage is submerged. Wipe the exposed inside of the jar clean with a paper towel, and put the lid on the jar.

Allow to sit out at room temperature, burping the jar 2 or 3 times a day to release gases and avoid a sauerkraut sprinkler system (ask me how I know). If you see air bubbles building up down in the cabbage, just use a clean hand to press the mixture down and drive out the air bubbles.

Every couple days you may want to rinse off and dry your baggie, wipe out the inside rim of the jar again, and replace the baggie. If the baggie breaks, no problem! That’s why it had brine in it.

Fermentation times vary, as short as 5 days in a warm kitchen, much slower when it’s cool. You’ll know it’s ready by taste and smell. If any of the cabbage gets exposed to air and discolors, just remove the affected pieces, press the mixture down again, rinse and replace the brine baggie, and wipe out the rim again.

When your kraut is ready, store it in the fridge, keeping the rim clean and the baggie in place. It will last months.

This may sound complicated but I have a tendency to be verbose and err on the side of over-explaining. Trust me: once you’ve done it and thoroughly enjoyed the end product, you’ll be fermenting everything you can get your hands on!

A great resource for other projects is the book Wild Fermentation, one of a very few food books I’ll actually read in bed.

Have fun, and feel free to send your questions and comments!

A friend of mine recently asked me how I cook amaranth that I don’t burn it. Oddly, I’ve never had this problem, but when a complication threw itself into my schedule recently, I figured out a solution for her.

Having just put a pot of quinoa on to cook, I received a call demanding a needs-your-immediate-attention Web site update. The quinoa had just started to boil, so I turned off the heat and left it to do the update, thinking I would just come back later and finish cooking it.

Well, it might sound like the most obvious thing in the world, but when I returned to the quinoa about thirty or forty minutes later, it was *perfectly* cooked. So my conversation with my friend came back to mind and within that week tried doing amaranth and rice and hulled oats the same way: bring it to a boil, then cut the heat off and let it cook the rest of the way passively. LIKE A CHARM it worked. Perfectly tender grains, sometimes a little leftover water to drain off even (I often have to add more), energy saved, and my kitchen doesn’t get so goshdurn hot – a consideration because I try not to run the AC until it’s sweltering. And I’m pitta, so that’s saying something.

So I had to share. Have you tried cooking things passively? I’m wanting to try this with pasta and potatoes and such – has anyone tried this already?

Love from foodie land – Anna

Canning season has officially begun, and my first foray: strawberry jam. On toast, spread over brownies, spooned over yogurt – this stuff is divine. This is the recipe I used this year, no doubt next year I’ll have learned something new and be doing it differently, but this worked this year. You’ll need a water bath canner and clean 8 or 16 ounce canning jars with bands and new lids. Also, I never follow the directions on the box. So, yeah. There’s that. If you have experience with other variations on lower sugar water-bath canning recipes, I’d love to hear your tips – please share your experience/tips/recipes/variations in the comments.

Strawberry Jam

• 8 cups crushed strawberries (from about 5 pounds whole strawberries, cleaned and tops removed)
• 1 1/2 c. raw organic sugar
• 1 packet (1.75 oz) no-sugar-needed fruit pectin
• organic lemon juice

Heat water in your water bath canner to boiling, and make sure jars and lids are clean and warm.

Clean and remove tops from strawberries, then crush them using food processer or, if you like chunky jam like me, a potato masher. Place 8 cups crushed berries in stock pot.

Add sugar and pectin and stir well, heating to a rolling boil – even when you stir it it continues to bubble. Allow to boil, stirring constantly for one minute. Remove immediately from heat and skim any foam off the top, if necessary.

Using a canning funnel, ladle strawberry mixture into jars, filling to a quarter-inch from the top and adding about a teaspoon of lemon juice to the top of each 8-ounce jar and about a tablespoon lemon juice to the top of each 16-ounce jar. Top with lids and bands, tightening only finger tight. Note: no need to stir the lemon juice – I just add it to ensure that the jam has enough acid to prevent nastiness such as botulism. We don’t like botulism, not one bit.

Place each jar in the water bath canner rack as you fill them. When full, lower the rack into the boiling water and cover the pot, allowing cans to boil for five minutes.

Remove cans from rack and place on towel, listening for each seal to “pop.” It may take up to ten minutes for some, but usually it happens pretty quickly for me.

Store jars in cool, dark place until ready for use. Enjoy

As part of my herbalism class, this past week we had a guest teacher, the lovely Suzanna Stone, to teach us about fermented foods, fermented beverages, and above all, the importance of joy and courage in the kitchen. We all left the class thoroughly blissed, with happy tummies and tons of inspiration to digest.

Over the course of the day, we sampled and/or made sauerkraut, kimchi, ginger carrots, beets, brined garlic cloves, herbal soft drinks, kombucha, and t’ej – an exquisite no-heat Ethiopian honey wine. Needless to say, I can’t wait to try out these wonderful ideas in my kitchen at home. Currently percolating, I’m planning to make a fermented green tomato salsa with the last of the tomatoes left on the vine. I’ll keep you posted as I progress.

Suzanna introduced us to a wealth of wonderful information about the health benefits of fermented foods. My favorite quote of the day: “’Rotten’ is a culturally-determined concept.” That made me chuckle. In addition to adding a couple fabulous new books to my wishlist (especially Steven Buhner’s book on sacred and herbal beers) and nifty way of peeling ginger with a spoon (again, how have I missed this!)  we were introduced to Lehman’s Non-Electric, a catalog wonderland of do-it-yourself whizgiggery, sturdy tools, enough non-electric (and some electric, to be fair) items for the home, kitchen, and farm to put a tear in any luddite’s eye.

I placed my first order on the Web site (funny that – non-electric and available on the Web) this morning and am eagerly anticipating my first shipment, along with a free copy of the paper catalog, which will be my evening harlequin romance reading for many an evening, tucked under the covers with a warm dog at my side. I feel almost a little cheated that I’ve missed out on this for almost thirty years, but I’m happy to make up for lost time.

It’s fall, full-fledged and fiery on the trees, and as all the leaves turn golden, orange, and crimson, I’ve got greens on the brain.

When we picture our fall cornucopia, we often think of pumpkins, sturdy winter squash, onions, garlic, potatoes, appples, and looming over all of these is the ominous T-Day turkey. But most of all, I am thrilled by the bevy of greens – swiss chard, spinach, watercress, kale, collards – the southern girl in me is salivating at the thought. The theatre geek in me can’t help but thinking of Bernadette Peters’ vegetable rap from Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Oh Bernadette, how I love you.

I’ve begun studying herbalism this year, and more and more I return to the thought that we aren’t meant to receive our nourishment from pills and vitamins, but from whole foods. As Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine.” And you can’t beat dark, leafy greens for a healthful meal. I gather them up by the basketful and fling them with abandon into soups, stews, salads, and sautes. The morning after could very well find the remnants in a quiche or omelette. I just can’t get enough.

Here are a couple of my favorite ways of preparing greens, very simple, oh so good:

Greens—Mediterranean Style

1 bunch greens, any kind, clean and dry
1/2 c. raisins (adjust according to taste)
olive oil
champagne vinegar (or your favorite vinager)
salt & pepper to taste

Bring a teakettle of water to a boil on the stove. Place raisins in a heat-safe bowl and pour boiling water over them till they are covered. Set aside.

Heat a glug of olive oil in a skillet or crock over medium heat. Add the greens, toss briskly, sprinkle on a bit of seasalt, and cover. Allow to steam just until softened but still brilliant green – do not overcook. Remove from heat and stir in a tablespoon or two of vinager, salt and pepper to taste. Drain the raisins well and toss these with the greens. Serve.

Greens—Asian Style

1 bunch greens, any kind, clean and dry
olive oil
1 T. fresh minced ginger
1 – 2 T. tamari (soy sauce)
1 T. honey

Whisk together ginger, tamari, and honey, adjusting amount to your particular tastes. Set aside.

Heat a glug of olive oil in a skillet or crock over medium heat. Add the greens, toss briskly, sprinkle on a bit of seasalt, and cover. Allow to steam just until softened but still brilliant green – do not overcook. Remove from heat and toss with the tamari dressing. Serve.

What are your favorite ways to prepare greens?

Oh the unending pleasures of raw milk! In addition to my fierce new fondness of Dagoba’s Xocalatl hot cocoa (so spicy, so delicious!), my pal Robbie has turned me onto the joys of making kefir. In case you don’t know, kefir is a fermented milk product, similar in taste to yogurt but slightly thinner in consistency, and full of probiotic goodness. It’s so easy to make, I’m doing it every week now (reserving a couple cups of milk for my cocoa habit), putting it in smoothies, eating it with granola, or just stirring in a spoonful of raspberry jam. You can also use it as a substitute for sour cream or yogurt, and I’ve even used it in place of milk in baking.

There’s oodles of good information out there on the nutritional benefits of kefir and myriad versions of how to make it. Here’s what works for me.

The first thing you’ll need is some starter. Similar to sourdough bread or kombucha, you can use a portion of a previous batch as a starter or you can find kefir starter grains at your local natural health food store – for Richmonders, you can find starter grains at Ellwood Thompson’s, Good Foods Grocery, or One Earth Natural Marketplace.

The second and only other ingredient is raw milk—this is very important—you cannot make kefir with pasteurized milk. If you don’t know where to get raw milk (then you haven’t been reading my blog very much) check out the Realmilk to locate cowshare programs near you. Again, for Richmonders, Avery’s Branch Farms has cow shares available and their milk is really lovely.

Here’s what I do. I pick up my milk on Wednesday afternoons, so that’s kefir day. When you get your milk, pour off a couple cups from the jug to make room (and for cocoa later!) and let the rest warm to room temperature—this will take a few hours at least. Once it’s warmed, add in your starter. If using the powder starter the first time, follow the directions as to what amount they suggest for your volume of milk. If using kefir from a previous batch as a starter, use about a cup. Put the top back on the jug and shake it well. Let it sit out at room temperature for about 24 hours, shaking occasionally. By the end of that time, the milk should have fermented and thickened—voila, kefir! Refrigerate and enjoy for up to two weeks.