Cardamom Ginger Soda

I wish a had a healthy blog with whole healthy foods and very few sugary or fatty ingredients. I don't.

I read a lot of blogs that fit this criteria. You find that when you search out individuals with a gluten free eating plan (that write about it) there is a huge cross over with dairy free, generally grain free, egg free, nut free, refined sugar free, allergen free, and the list goes on. Paleo eating plans are also popular as they introduce very few inflammatory agents into the body, and some individuals with gluten sensitivity find that enough damage has been done to their insides to be exceptionally sensitive to highly processed foods, or foods with certain ingredients, even ones without gluten.

In addition, though some products claim that they are gluten free, its only because they have been tested to be below a certain threshold for gluten. The threshold is a number that is below the level that many bodies would register, or would be so minimal in damage as to be safe to most consumers. Not everyone has such a tolerance for even such a tiny amount, though. On top of this, individuals that have been gluten free for longer than I have were once faced with shelves that had no warnings of glutinous ingredients, and certainly no options that were both palatable and truly gluten free. The number of gluten intolerant individuals that are aware of their condition has grown so rapidly in the last decade that food manufacturers have finally caught up. We're a niche market, and we're a community to make a profit on.

I found this article to be exceptionally informative for the way that gluten intolerance is slowly becoming a relative norm as far as American lifestyles are concerned.

General Mills producing gluten free products is fabulous on some level, but a little worrying on another. One of the wonderful things about going gluten free initially, before I discovered products that had any taste quality to them, was that I had to almost entirely steer clear of the aisles at the store. If you stick the peripheries of produce, dairy, and meat, your eating is much more simple. I like simple.

Despite liking simple, I still eat an unfortunate amount of processed foods: candy and soda are two of my weaknesses. One of Michael Pollan's Food Rules (#39) is "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself" (p. 85). This rule haunts me. The Costco-sized bag of milk chocolate peanut butter cups sitting on the kitchen table haunts me. The bottle of store brand cola sitting in the fridge haunts me. The bag of tortilla chip remains sitting on our "pantry" shelf haunt me.

Everytime I make something, though, life feels a little simpler. The pear cake Patrick made a week ago, the beet chips and kale chips I make, the oatmeal made without sugar sitting in the bowl next to me: these are simple things in my mind.

If I were to make my own soda out of my own simple ingredients, life would feel simpler still.

To many people, it just sounds like more work, which might be considered less simple. I don't mind more work in the kitchen... Keep in mind that this is partly because I don't do dishes. Thank goodness Patrick loves my cooking so much or there would be a serious rebellion on my hands.

Maybe he'll love my soda too.

All this, though, is really inspired by the fact that the Costco near us is finally carrying Soda Stream. This is a mechanism that carbonates water. All you need to make soda is carbonated water and flavored syrup. While Soda Stream has their own flavored syrups, I'll admit that they aren't very good. With our Soda Stream we got a sample pack, and none of them have been akin to even store brand flavors. All flavors, even non-diets, have sucralose in them. Sucralose, while not aspartame, still gives a diet after taste. According to my friend who has had one of these for quite some time (and is the reason I lusted after one myself) even diet drinkers don't like the diet flavors. This doesn't mean I haven't drank them, though. A carbonated beverage is a carbonated beverage, afterall.

It has, however, made me think about what I could make instead. I personally like just plain carbonated water, or lightly flavored carbonated water. The first night we had it I cut up half of an orange and half of a lemon and put these in the carbonated water to provide a hint of citrus.

I liked it, but I know many individuals who would have found it distasteful. You can't really blame them; not everyone likes plain carbonated water and this was just a teeny tiny step away from that.

I searched for real Coca Cola brand syrup, and while you can technically buy it, its in a huge quantity. You can buy cola syrup in bottles from a number of places, but this searching made me start thinking of all the other flavors out there in the world. Why stop at such a traditional flavor as cola? There are many odd flavored sodas that I really like, Lavender or Juniper Berry Dry Soda being two of them. I've had celery soda in the past, too (Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray Soda). Jones soda, though I'm not a huge fan, has gone as far in past years as making Turkey flavored soda during the holidays. I've not had the "pleasure" of that personally, though.

And so, the internet research began. If you search "flavored simple syrup" you get a lot of recipe hits on Google. If you just search for "flavored syrup" you get a lot of product hits on Google. Most simple syrup recipes are meant to be used in alcohol, but its very clearly the case that one doesn't have to mix them with anything more than water, iced tea, or carbonated water. One alcoholic beverage idea that I came across, though, gave me some inspiration. I had already found a recipe for cardamom simple syrup, but this idea put it over the top: "For a cocktail party a few years ago, I made a rum punch spiked with ginger-cardamom syrup, for example. To make the ginger-cardamom syrup, I grated the ginger and cracked open the cardamom pods before adding them to the sugar and water. (You could also discard the pods and just use the seeds.) This syrup is also wonderful with lime juice and sparkling water as a non-alcoholic cocktail."

Yep, Cardamom Ginger Soda. I was sold on that idea.

We bought whole cardamom pods and had a large piece of ginger in the refrigerator from a recipe we made. I broke open probably 10 of the pods in a small bowl and Patrick finely grated about a half a tablespoon of our fresh ginger. It was a fine grate but we also have a fine mesh strainer we can use to get the bits out. Even if we couldn't get all the bits out we wouldn't be concerned. Our favorite ginger sodas leave ginger remains in the bottle (the ginger-y-ness simply enhances with time).

Here are my cardamom seeds:

2 parts sugar, 1 part water in a pan and bring to a boil. Add ingredients, and remove from heat. Transfer to a glass container that will be air tight when closed. Allow to cool.

Strain out bits.

This proved delicious; even moments after I had taken the pot from the burner the syrup already had excellent flavor. When added to carbonated water in a small amount it is a warm but refreshing taste. Patrick doesn't agree. When added in high quantity its like a ginger soda with a hint of cardamom. The flavors are really quite complimentary. I will mention, though, that the flavor is light. If you're looking for a ginger soda like Vernors or, my personal favorite, Fentimans, this isn't it. In our next attempt we will be more thoroughly crushing the cardamom, adding a higher quantity of both ingredients, and might allow the syrup to sit for about a week if I can handle the anticipation.

I did add a dash of orange juice to my lightly sweetened version and this was absolutely wonderful.

Our next experiment will be with vanilla, orange, and coconut. We will need more sugar before then, though.

Portland on a Clear Winter's Day

While it isn't the best picture, it is an image of Mt. Hood as seen from the freeway while we were stuck in traffic yesterday afternoon on the way home from an adventure to find Indian spices.

I never actually checked the grocery store for Indian spices before setting out on this adventure (I did check this afternoon and am happy to report that they do not have the spices I was looking for). Patrick and I have a love of Asian markets, and used the Indian spices as an excuse to frequent two of them (we didn't find it at the first). In fact, we used the spices as an excuse to go to the one we love most on the opposite side of town from us. Granted, the opposite side of town in Portland is only about 15 miles away, so its not like we had to travel far.

I did, however, have a realization while we were slowly making our way onto the east side of the Markham Bridge, from which this picture was taken:
I hadn't really spent any time exposed to the out of doors in 5 days.

My drive to work is only 20 minutes and I leave work after dark, so that hardly counts as daylight exposure. All truth be told, we didn't really spend much time explicitly outside on our adventure, but exposure to daylight even from my car windows for several hours was better than 20 to 30 minutes a day for a week. This sudden realization explained to some degree my deplorable mood that had persisted for the previous few days.

"Oh! Right. Its the time of year when I should be taking Vitamin D..."

And yet, I had not been.

But let's not dwell on negativity, let's instead dwell on Chana Masala.

This is the Indian spice mix that we chose at the Asian market. I was really looking for a spice mix called Kitchen King Masala, but I was unable to find it at the two locations we visited. Chana Masala is a good substitute.

Why, you might ask, was I searching so far and wide for a spice mix? Because I needed to use a pear, of course!

I had decided that the best use for any fruit that we were not as keen on eating plain (and pears appear to be such a fruit) should be made into chutney. Or, at least, what I call chutney. I've looked at recipes for chutney, and they never seem to be what I think chutney aught to be. They are vinegary and salty rather than smokey, spicy, and sweet. Once upon a time I had a necessity of using some nectarines and made such a chutney without consulting any recipes at all. I did the same last night, but this time I have written down the recipe.

I've gotten much better about writing down recipes thanks to my significant other's pleadings. Patrick does not experiment in the kitchen like I do, but wants to be able to replicate my experiments if they are worth while, and work on improving them if they are not.

The chutney, in my opinion, was not quite sweet enough and was a bit too spicy. I am recording my approximate recipe below, but you may wish to take my thoughts on it into consideration before trying it yourself. Feel free to take creative license!

Know that sometimes I don't measure spices, and so some are a guess of how much went in.

__________________________________________

Pear and Apple Chutney-ish Type Condiment

·         1 large ripe Comice or similar pear, peeled, cored and chopped into approximately ¼ inch dice (maybe a little larger)

·         1 small Jonagold or similar apple, peeled, cored, and chopped into approximately ¼ inch dice (a peel/core/slicer would have made this quite quick)

·         ½ large yellow onion, ¼ inch dice (could probably use a little less)

·         2 large cloves garlic, diced

·         Between 1 teaspoon and ½ tablespoon fresh ginger peeled and diced (estimate)

·         1 tablespoon Chana Masala spice (typically used for Indian chickpea recipes, but I like using it for chutneys)

·         ½ teaspoon chili powder (estimate)

·         ½ teaspoon salt (estimate)

·         ½ teaspoon (or less, or none) spicy sauce. I use a habanero sauce called Secret Aardvark (this probably wasn't a necessary addition, I think it would be fine without so much spice, since the chili powder and Chana Masala do add their own)

·         ½ cup white wine, grape juice, or apple juice (I used some old Fish Eye Pinot Grigio that we had in our fridge from a Chicken (Not) Marsala recipe I made awhile ago) – use half wine and half water if you want, but you need something with a bit of acidity and the sugar helps thicken the chutney into a sauce. I think I will make it with juice next time as this particular wine wasn't really sweet enough.

·         1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon oil depending on type of pan being used (I used canola oil in a cast iron skillet) (estimate)

Heat oil in pan over medium heat.

When oil is hot, add onion and garlic and allow to soften. If for some reason you over color (aka, lightly burn, but only to toasty brown color, not to black) your onion and garlic a little like I did, add some water to release from pan and keep flavors.

Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine in pan.

Bring to a simmer and stir occasionally until mixture becomes the consistency of jarred salsa, bordering on jelly.

Remove from heat, and enjoy on any number of things.

__________________________________________________

Potatoes and pork chops seem to be excellent with chutney-like substances, and I would recommend both. We, in fact, enjoyed it with purple potatoes, or PP's for short. Purple potatoes are a little strange to cook with, but only because they make everything purple. And its no wonder that they do:

Purple. Very Purple.


We mashed a mixture of potatoes the other night and they came out a sort of periwinkle...

For our chutney, though, I attempted to make Latkes, which just ended up being hashbrowns in the end. Patrick was a big fan of the hashbrowns and chutney for breakfast. I made pumpkin pancakes for lunch and wish I could say that I plan to continue the P-food for the day. Alas, I am making the delicata squash soup I spoke of in an earlier entry and attempting it with my recommended changes (well, and adding in some leftover periwinkle mashed potatoes and left over butternut squash soup just to get those things out of my fridge... I'm upcycling my food)

By the way, purple potatoes are a floury potato and taste the same as other floury potatoes as far as I'm concerned. Just another way of "eating your colors" without getting too healthy about it.

Thanksgiving Aftermath

It's 9:28 am and I am eating Thanksgiving leftovers.

One of the things I bemoan the night of a Thanksgiving feast is that I cannot fit more into my stomach. I spend most of the night keeping my fullness at maximum capacity, heading to the kitchen for a bite of turkey or a spoonful of mashed potatoes or ambrosia salad every time there is a centimeter of space in me.

Unlike most of the country, we celebrated Thanksgiving last night instead of Thursday. As most of our friends have family elsewhere we all joined culinary forces to create a Friday Feast.

There was turkey, and I'm sorry to say, its the best turkey I've ever had. I'm sorry to say this because it means that I've told my mother her turkey has been dethroned as best turkey. I highly recommend brining your turkey, and I would follow Alton Brown's recipe if you attempt it. The recipe even has a link for the Good Eats episode that shows you how its done and why it works so well. Alton Brown is a culinary icon in my mind.

Mashed potatoes, stuffing (both gluten free and otherwise), and a collection of various vegetable dishes were also a part of dinner. Ambrosia salad, pumpkin whoopie pies, peanut butter ice cream pie, pumpkin pie, and custard tarts were for dessert. While the tarts and pumpkin pie were not gluten free, we had contributed the whoopie pies and peanut butter ice cream pie, so those most definitely were. You can find the pumpkin whoopie pie recipe here. They were delicious! I do however, recommend using a single recipe of filling for two batches of cookies, but that's just me.

The peanut butter ice cream pie recipe comes from a small book my grandmother got for me while I was in Lake Tahoe visiting her last summer. We had ventured to Virginia City, as we typically do, and gone to their old fashioned ice cream parlor to watch them make sweets and treats in their window. A conversation had begun about making ice cream, as my friend that had joined us had brought the ice cream maker attachment for her Kitchen Aid Mixer. My grandmother responded by buying the book for us. Its brilliant!

____________________________________________
Peanut Butter Ice Cream Pie (care of Old Fashioned Ice cream Recipes by Bear Wallow Books, page 23)

Ingredients:

• 1 9-inch graham cracker pie crust (make with gluten free graham crackers if desired)
• 1 quart vanilla ice cream, softened
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup chopped peanuts

"Prepare graham cracker crust. In a mixing bowl blend the quart of softened ice cream, the cream whipped to soft peak stage, the peanut butter and half of the chopped peanuts. Pour into pie crust and top with remaining chopped nuts. Freeze pie till firm."

Note: I do not like chunky peanut butter and therefore left out the peanuts. I made up for the volume by putting in a cup of peanut butter instead of a half cup.

Note unrelated to cooking: Also, I put the directions in quotations because of the use of the word "till". Its until, not till, people. Till is not a preposition, it is a noun or a verb: a cash register, a type of sediment, or the act of cultivating land. I distinctly remember editing a professional research paper for engineers that had that word in it. This is why I now own a soap box specifically used for the misuse of the word till.
____________________________________________

Here are some pictures of the pie making process. 

Despite how wonderful the pie was, I think I am most excited for my stuffing recipe. It is a work in progress, but its coming along pretty well.

____________________________________________
Gluten Free Stuffing (adapted from several recipes to the point that I think its officially my own now)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 loaf Pamela's Gluten Free Bread (mix info here) cut into slices or cubes and set out to dry for at least 48 hours
• 1 tablespoon sage
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 large onion chopped in 1/4 inch dice
• 3 celery stalks chopped (halve lengthwise and then slice in 1/4 inch pieces)
• 1 14.5 oz can chicken stock
• 2/3 cup golden raisins
• 2 to 3 small apples chopped
• olive oil (I never measure this, but I would guess it was about a tablespoon overall)

If bread is already cubed, simply toss with sage, thyme, and garlic powder. If it is in slices, break slices into food processor and add spices. pulse until there are both bread crumbs and some larger chunks (about 1in x1in at most). Transfer bread mix to large mixing bowl (I use my giant stainless steel bowl for this to help me avoid making a giant mess)

Heat oil over medium high heat until hot. Add onion and cook until softened and translucent, about 10 minutes. Transfer to bowl with bread, there should be some oil left in the pan.

Preheat over to 325.

Add celery to pan and 1/4 cup chicken stock. While celery is softening, put golden raisins in bowl with the rest of the chicken broth and microwave on high for 1 minute. Allow celery to continue to soften for about 10 minutes in pan, stirring frequently.
Add the broth and raisins and bring to simmer in pan. Simmer for a few minutes to allow raisins to begin to plump up (may not noticeably do so at this time).
Add apple and simmer for another minute or too to soften apple slightly. Pour celery mix over bread and onion and toss everything together. Transfer mix to 9x13 pan.

Bake at 325 for 20minutes uncovered, then cover pan and bake for another 10 minutes.

Note: To be honest, I haven't tried the cubed bread method, and I don't think that half a loaf is enough for a 9x13 pan. Feel free to adjust ingredients as you see fit. I am young and the number of holiday meals that I have contributed to are few. It was still quite delicious.
____________________________________________

This year, I guess I am thankful for a gluten free partner that stands ready at the sink to wash all the dishes I use while baking our contribution to a Thanksgiving feast.

Enjoy your own holiday aftermath!!

Thanksgiving and Google

Google is a harsh mistress.

Long ago I started using the Google network and set up an account tied to my primary e-mail address. At some point in the last couple years I made a Gmail account, which is powered by Google and was thus made on the same account as everything else I'd ever done with Google. I made this account specifically for one purpose and this purpose no longer exists, but the name I used on the account does. Its not a name I care to have attached to me any longer, yet its a name that Google insists I use if I reactivate Gmail on that account.



Oh Google, why must you be so enchanting most of the time and yet, every so often, be so cruel?

I had a solution to this problem, however. For months now I have bemoaned my plight and been told by friends that I should simply set up a new account. I insisted that this would be highly problematic as I now have a Google+ account, Google Documents, and Maps set up through my old Google account. Despite this concern, I gave it a shot. It was so incredibly simple to send my contacts from Yahoo! to Gmail, and Google told me that I could toggle between two accounts. This, however, wasn't really as easy as it seemed like it would be, or at least the easiness was over-shadowed by the annoying-ness of switching accounts back and forth. I, therefore, moved my Google Documents over (as simple as sharing them with my new account and then making the new account the only individual that could edit them). I set up a new Google+ account and most of my Friends have already added me back, I'm not worried about the few that haven't. The maps I've set up aren't anything I've looked at in a long time so I'm sure they aren't that important.

"Great!" I thought, "I'm well on my way to getting my new Google account set up and I should be set to delete my old one by the end of the holiday weekend. I think I'll go blog about this ..."


"Oh shit."

My blog is also tied to said old Google account.

I then considered the cons of creating a new blog on my new account.

• It would require a  new web address and therefore a new name - If anyone had bookmarked my blog, they would have to change the bookmark. I can't imagine too many people having trouble with this and I could make a name that is similar
  
• I would lose all of my old blog entries - On some level this bothers me, but on another I find it perfectly fine. Other than the few most recent blogs I've written, I'm not especially attached to the old entries. In fact, I look back at them and feel that they could have been done better, or that they are outdated.
  
• I don't know if I could make it look this same - This is by far the con that seems to upset me the most. I recall when I started this blog that it took me a great deal of fiddling to get the look to my satisfaction. I was surprised that the image I uploaded as my new picture at the top of my blog got placed so well.

Obviously, these concerns are not really concerns; they are trifles. So I did start a new blog. It does look a little different, but I think I am satisfied with the overall look of it.



You can now find my new blog here.


In addition, today is Thanksgiving, though I'm not celebrating it today. I'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday and promise that I will be posting about our Thanksgiving on Saturday after we've had our Friday Feast. This post will be on my new blog.

Waste Not, Want Not

I've spent the last couple hours cooking and pureeing some winter squash for a soup I am making for dinner. The soup recipe calls for frozen pureed squash, which would make the recipe unbelievably easy from my perspective. We, however, have entered the winter squash season for our CSA box. I couldn't be more pleased about this even if it does make soup recipes take 4 times as long to prepare.

The winter squash I am working with this afternoon was one that I wasn't really familiar with before it showed up in our box the Thursday before last. Luckily, I have a culinary bible known as Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka. The last 140 pages before the index of this cookbook has something called the "Cook's Guide" in which Kafka describes the way to identify, pick, store, prep, and cook almost any vegetable you could think of. Her section on winter squash includes the description of what each type of squash looks like and this was my resource for discovering that the squash I just dealt with was Delicata Squash.

And I quote complete with citation:

"DELICATA (Cucurbita pepo) This small (1 to 1 1/2 pound) cucumber-shaped squash has pale yellow skin creased with green stripes. The flesh is pale yellow with a light taste reminiscent of sweet corn and a texture between that of winter and summer squash. Delicata will store for only 2 to 3 weeks. During storage, the green stripes may turn orange; this color change will not affect the taste. Delicata slices easily and is best steamed, sauteed, or baked. Its small size and shape make it ideal for stuffing." (Kafka, 2005, p. 651)

Two pages later, Kafka describes how to cut said squash and also divulges that the skin is edible. Turn one more page and you'll find directions for steaming said squash. This is what I did.

This book is indispensable to the recipient of a CSA box.

In addition to this information, there is a note somewhere in the winter squash section that says that most winter squash seeds are edible and should be roasted. I have an affinity for roasted seeds and decided to try to live more by the title of my blog by spending 45 minutes picking seeds out of gourd snot.

Unfortunately, Kafka doesn't mention Delicata seeds anywhere in her recipes for roasting seeds. This concerned me, and I went on a web search to see if anyone else had ever tried such a feat. Luckily, the mighty Google led me to a blog called "Lighthearted Locavore" and the author included this entry on delicata seed roasting, complete with pictures (which I lack due to the lack of a worthy camera for such a job). I plan to add some chili powder to mine in addition to salt.

I hope everyone can enjoy some winter squash this season!

Addition:
After making the recipe that I linked above, I would say that the sausage seriously overwhelms the dish. Save yourself the money and the calories and use less or something less fattening. We plan to try it with ground turkey that we have mixed dry or fresh sage into next time. Also, there aren't enough beans in our opinion. As an ex vegetarian, I don't often do meals that are heavy on the meat and was raised on my father's super frugal heavy bean, light meat chili (much to the chagrin of my meat eating friends). More beans and less meat would also bring out the flavor of the squash a bit more, which I am sad to say was not even remotely prevalent enough for my liking.

Just my two cents; take it or leave it.