Probiotic Coleslaw

Including probiotic foods such as fermented pickles and yogurt is essential to healthy digestion and great for all around good health. We have yogurt for breakfast every morning with chia seeds, banana, and soon bee pollen. The protein really keeps us going strong all day without the drowsy effects that eating wheat has. Try having toast before you hit the gym and then have yogurt the next day instead: i'll bet you'll be jumping higher on the yogurt day! I make our yogurt every two weeks. We get raw milk and I always save enough yogurt from the previous batch to make the next week's new batch of yogurt. It's the most delicious yogurt either my husband or i have ever tasted, and the cost is ridiculously frugal: a quart of White Mountain yogurt will set you back over $5. I turn one gallon of milk into about 5 quarts of yogurt for about $7. It's very easy, doesn't require any special skills or tools, and has increased our health by leaps and bounds. Immune systems, check! Healther skin and hair, check! Increased energy levels, double check!

Yogurt for breakfast is great. Yogurt in baking is really great, but i really don't need to be eating more baked goods. So, how can one use yogurt for dinner recipes? Yogurt is great added to a curry or cream sauce. Yogurt can be used as a sauce or dip, and can be incorporated into just about any recipe that would normally use cream, milk, or sour cream. Get creative! You get the most health benefits by not cooking out the good bacterias, so always add the yogurt at the last minute and don't let it boil.

A recent favorite in our kitchen has been a yogurt sauce/dip. We used it on our nachos on game day, and it's really, really delicious on fried fish or in fish tacos in place of ranch dressing. Use whatever herb you have growing seasonally, we've been using cilantro:

• Plain Yogurt (whole milk yogurt will make a thicker dip, skim is saucier)
• Pinch herbs (cilantro, dill, basil, mint, you name it)
• 3 garlic cloves
• Pinch cumin
• Salt to taste

Blend this up until the garlic cloves are completely chopped. The fresh garlic, and herbs along with the probiotic rich yogurt is a real immunity booster, and super delicious. This sauce is so versatile and can even be added to some shredded cabbage to make the most delicious coleslaw with no fat needed.

Do you make your own yogurt? What are your favorite yogurt based recipes?
This post can also be found at the blog hop: Simple Lives Thursday

Fish Tacos in Homemade Corn Tortillas

I got a new tortilla press for my birthday, and i am stoked to try it out!
Homemade corn tortillas sound super easy - but will they be plagued with the same "cracked in the middle when trying to fold, taco contents everywhere but in mouth" problem many store bought corn tortillas have?

Tortillas (makes 7-8):

• 1 cup masa
• 2/3 cups cold water
• 1/8 tsp salt
• optional flavorings, i added some chilly powder

(ratios of masa to water are generally found on the package of masa - can be increased or decreased per the amount of tortillas you desire)

Fish filling:

• Fillets tilapia, one per person
• Generous lathering of the following herbs/seasonings
• cumin, cardamom, salt, pepper, chilly powder (optional), lime juice, garlic powder

Optional filling ingredients/condiments:
Chopped cilantro, salsa, ranch dressing, habanero sauce,  coleslaw (without the mayo or miracle whip, plus more vinegar, some mirin, and green onions from my garden instead of a vidalia).

Mix the masa with the salt then the water, blending to form a dough. Let dough rest, covered for about 20 minutes. When ready, form into 1 1/2 inch balls, one at a time placing in tortilla press (sandwiched betwixed wax paper) and press flat. Carefully peel wax paper off of tortilla, not the other way around. If you accidentally break off a chunk of tortilla, just reform the ball and squish again. Heat two minutes per side in a hot pan on medium heat. Place in a tortilla warmer or lidded pan (off heat) until ready to use. Tortillas can also be frozen.

For the fish, simply slather the herbs on each side of the fish, stick them on a baking sheet and back about 15-20 minutes on 350. You want the fish to be sizzling, cooked through (firm to the touch) but not dried out. Can be kept on 'warm' or on top of the warm-from-cooking oven between taco construction/consumption.

Delicious! Pictured here with habanero sauce, diced cilantro and freshly made coleslaw (with a side of homemade mayo for the heck of it). The little tortillas ended up being about 65 calories a piece and scrumptious! AND: They folded well! No breakage! Yipee!
No picture of the folded taco,  (again i was anxious to EAT not photograph) but the husband agrees: "These fold great, very sturdy."

FYI: i skipped the 'let them rest' portion of the preparation: i simply mixed the dough, rolled into balls and covered with a moist towel while preparing the fish. As fish cooked, i pressed and cooked the tortillas. By the time all the tortillas were made the fish was perfectly cooked: couldn't be easier.
So, don't be afraid to make your own tortillas. The press was a whopping 17 dollars at my local feed store, a great investment for quick, delicious, bendable, homemade tortillas anytime you please.

Do you prefer corn or flour tortillas? Have you ever made your own?

Pasta: A First Attempt

This past week has been a bit crazy. My folks are in town, their RV is in fact hooked up to my house and parked right outside my window as we speak. Needless to say, my normal routines have been a bit off and it feels a little too much like vacation around here.

That being said, having guests may not be conducive to writing down good and specific recipes, but it is good for trying new foods and experimenting on large numbers of people (mwa ha ha ha).

Last night I made some scrumptious fish tacos with tilapia (seasoned with lime, cumin and cardamom and baked at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until sizzly and cooked through), store bought tortillas (we got home after a long day at the fair and it was past dinner time - not a good day to try making corn tortillas from scratch for the first time) and tasty coleslaw. This time 'round my coleslaw consisted of:

• 1 head regular green cabbage, cut finely
• 1 whole granny smith, shredded
• 1/2 sweet onion, cut into fine strips
• several good  pinches lemon basil (dried this time'round)
• 2 spoonfuls mayo
• drizzle vinaigrette - mostly vinegar
• drizzle lemon juice
• salt and pepper

It was a nice, green refreshing thing to eat after a day slogging through dust.

But enough about yesterday, today is a day of butter making, garden tending - time to prep the beds for corn seed!, sun basking, and later on: pasta making.

Today's pasta method:

     4 eggs

     2 cups flour (unbleached white whole wheat)

Mix into a stiff dough with a sprinkle of salt. Roll out as thin as you can stand it, lay out on a cloth for one hour. Wish i had a better surface to roll things out on, as i hate how things like to stick to my counter. 

Spoon about a teaspoon of filling onto the pasta, cut into 3" squares. Roll the pasta over and press on both sides with a fork to seal the edges. Made about 30 raviolis plus some extra noodle.

Filling:

• Bunch spinach, sliced and microwaved briefly
• 5 ice cubes pesto, thawed
• Generous pinches shredded mozz, parm, and garlic/herb cheese 

Let the raviolis sit on a floured board for another hour or so and drop into rapidly boiling, salted water for about 20 minutes - while heating up some tomato sauce. I wanted the raviolis to be the stars tonight, so i used a can of Hunt's Diced garlic and herb tomatoes (which are really quite good!) and a splash of red wine, plus an ice cube of pesto.

Cooking the raviolis proved to be a battle of the boil - they wanted to leap out of the pot! But after about 15 or so minutes, and occasionally flipping and shoving down into the water, they were cooked to perfection. Served with the sauce, the homemade ravioli was a meal fit for any queen: guest or otherwise. Filling, protein packed, cheesy/pestoy delicious: these will make their way onto our menu often. I look forward to playing around with whatever i have in the garden, and making the noodles with some veg in them also.

 

Obviously, we were all too stoked about the eating of the pasta, 

the photographing of the pasta before it was eaten didn't happen. 

You'll just have to trust me that it was beautiful and delicious.

Pretty easy to do: the rolling out thinly was the hardest part. Making homemade pasta takes quite a bit of inactive time, but if you're around the house, you might as well be making pasta!
Stay tuned for a future review of a brand new pasta maker that may be coming my way!

Do you make your own pasta? What is your favorite ingredient to include?

Coleslaw

My mother has coined this "southwestern coleslaw" but i'm not sure why. (she is a yankee. she has very sensitive  mouthbuds to heat. i'm talking regular pepper, here)

I just whipped this together with ideas in my head of what i thought would make coleslaw that i would like, as i don't like coleslaw.
This is what i ended up with.

• about a half a head of Napa Cabbage, shredded very thinly and chopped
• about 2 heaping tablespoons each of low fat mayo and miracle whip
• one thawed ice cube of meyer lemon juice
• several dashes crushed red pepper
• about 5 small leaves lime basil, a front fresh dill and parsely, all chopped finely - total about 1 tablespoon fresh herbs
• salt and pepper
• a quarter sweet onion, chopped finely
• a quarter apple, shredded

Toss all veg and herb ingredients together then add wet ingredients and stir thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.