Life is a Process

I’ve been on a book buying and swapping spree lately. My Amazon.com wishlist is lengthy and so is my list on PaperBackSwap.com. So, a few reviews…

Being dairy-free and still confronting the “I want cheese” feeling, I recently bought The Uncheese Cookbook. I tried 3 recipes - a white bean dip (yum), a no-bake un-cheesecake (not bad but I’ve got better recipes elsewhere), and fake Brie (i.e., vegan brie cheese - disastrous). I’m now trying to brave it to try a few more recipes but the brie one was just so awful…..

I just recently got my hands on Living in the Raw Desserts. Most of the cakes are variations on a theme - nuts and dates and vanilla/spices for the base, fruit and macadamia/cashew nuts and vanilla for a frosting, and a mound of neatly placed fruit on top. I haven’t explored it in sufficient detail, but since it is strawberry season (almost), I was thinking about doing a Strawberry Torte from this cookbook in the coming weeks.

Some time ago, I also bought Gluten-free Quick and Easy. I think I’ve made something from here, but these recipes are not necessarily dairy-free. They also have some carbohydrate component (GF bread, use of GF flour or something) - I’ve discovered that we do best in our house on, literally, meat and veggies. The preschooler likes his food items separate, so we’re only just now getting him to eat sauce on the Tinkyada rice pasta (at most, once a week). He’s also coming ’round again to chili, avocado, olives and chips. Occasionally, dear husband will ask for my knock-off of Chebe bread - if I have time and the ingredients (i.e., tapioca flour), I usually agree. We did an awesome pizza with this knock-off crust, super easy, and super fast, that I don’t really have the urge to make the GF pizza in this cookbook. The cookbook did jump out at me today again, so maybe it is time to try something in it again…

I re-read (ok, re-skimmed) Wild Fermentation not too long ago. There is a fabulous kefir/yogurt-based vinaigrette recipe that uses 8 garlic cloves (in an 8 oz jar). I’ll try to share the recipe when I have it in front of me again. There are also a few recipes I want to try - sunflower seed sour cream and a jazzed up miso soup recipe (with more than just miso, seaweed and tofu).

Although, not a new addition, I hauled out Nourishing Traditions again. I’ve made the fermented mustard (good but be sure to use ground mustard, not mustard seeds ground in a coffee grinder), the fermented ketchup (try it again without the fish sauce), and the fermented punch (YUM! in a 1 gallon jug, pour juice of 6-8 lemons, 1/2 c. Rapadura, 1/2 c. whey, 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg, 2 quarts filtered water; ferment on counter for a few days; refrigerate and drink). I tried the Orangina recipe but it came out quite awful. I’m itching to try the Sweet Potato Soda but will wait until the fall.

The WF book then got me thinking about home brew with kefir. So I flipped through (and will start to really read soon) another book Sacred and Healing Herbal Beer. Most of the recipes, at first glance, seem to involve regular yeast - and there’s nothing wrong with that; however, with all the kefir we drink and all the kefir cheese I make, I’m toying with the idea of doing some small scale recipes using kefir whey or kefir grains.

I’ve also hauled back out my copy of Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine. Where better to look for good salad, nut-veggie pates, and unusual trail mixes than in a raw food recipe book?

A final new book that just came back into memory: Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation. I’ve already tried 1 recipe in here for radishes - radishes with a bit of their tops, cider vinegar, lemon slices, onion slices, peppercorns. Pack everything except the vinegar into jars (I only had radishes for 1 jar). Heat the vinegar to intensify the flavor, then cool. Pour vinegar into jar. Cap tightly and keep in fridge. Ready in 3 months. If I remember, I’ll post on the results at the end of the summer (darn - I so dislike delayed gratification!).