Avivah Werner

Category: nutrition

  • Dehydrating zucchini squash and celery

    Today was a nice productive day.  I started off by cutting up all those pairs of jeans so I could easily store the needed fabric for whenever I get around to starting a quilt.  The pile is significantly smaller now, which is good, since I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the amount of clothes needing to be put away for projects.  Then I sketched out a couple of designs for quilts for the boys’ room, and asked my ds15 how he liked them.  It’s good to have a basic design worked out because you really have to have a plan before you start.  Last week I cut out a bunch of squares, but realized that I was complicating things for myself by not having the plan in place first.  Fortunately my dd found the graph paper (it was missing last week when I wanted to start thinking on paper regarding designs) so I was able to do that today.  It seems like the kind of thing that can be done in little blocks of time. 

    Then I went to the hospital with the kids, then to the post office to mail some organic tea to someone who generously sent me some heirloom seeds for planting in this summer’s garden, and back home.   We got a bunch of inexpensive zucchini, so much that there’s no way to fit it into the fridge.  And it’s one of those perishable veggies that don’t last long outside of the fridge. 

    So we sliced a bunch up in the food processor to dehydrate.  We did it once before and it was very successful – the slices were so thin that when we dried them, they were like crunchy chips.  They ended up getting gobbled up as snacks the first day we made them.  You can also brush the tops of the sliced zucchini with olive oil and spices, and they are delicious when dried!

    I bought a few bunches of celery from the reduced rack with the intent to dehydrate them, and I’m going to slice a bunch of that up and dry it tonight, too.  I’ve seen how useful having dried veggies to use has been so far in putting together quick meals when prep time is short, and it will be nice if we can add celery to the list of things I have on hand.  It’s nice to have a way to prep vegetables in ‘bulk’ and use them later on when we need them, and it’s nice not to need to rely as much on my refrigerator to keep things useable. 

    Avivah

  • Raw milk

    >>I was wondering if you purchase raw milk? I know you have linked to the Weston Price foundation before and I know they are very supportive of drinking raw milk. I was just curious because it really intrigues me. I have actually been doing some research on it and was thinking you would be a great person to ask and then this post reminded me to ask you.<<

     Yes, we do drink raw milk. 

    >>I am thinking about trying some for my family. We are not big milk drinkers, in fact I do not drink it at all, but I have been researching all of the health benefits and think it is definitely worth a try. Did it take a while for your family to adjust? <<

     We also weren’t milk drinkers before discovering raw milk – I can probably count on one hand the amount of times my kids had milk in their lives.  I had never even heard of raw milk as a possibility until three years ago, and I did a lot of research and reading before I was even willing to consider the possibility that dairy could be good for you. It didn’t take any of us any time to adjust, physically.  The harder part was thinking of milk as something that had a positive nutritive value – I had always attributed my kids’ good health to staying away from dairy products.  My husband was reluctant to try it, because he had allergies when he was younger to milk, but was surprised to have no reaction to raw milk.  Many people who can’t tolerate dairy find that they can digest raw milk just fine, thanks to the nutrients not being denatured.

    >>I was told to take a probiotic (which I do anyway)for a week or so before consumption.<<

    That seems unnecessary to me, but probiotics are good to take at any time, so it couldn’t hurt!   But having just a small amount and seeing if you have a reaction would be prudent, if you’re concerned.  I’d be more cautious about suddenly using something like kefir, which is a powerful probiotic – in that case, to avoid your system suddenly cleaning itself out, it’s good to start off taking just a small amount and giving your digestive system a chance to adapt. 

    >>Also with such a limited shelf-life, do you freeze the milk?<<

    Both farmers I bought from told me that the shelf life was a week.  But we found that the milk stays fresh in the fridge for two weeks in the summer, three weeks in the winter.  I think they are choosing to err on the side of caution – when I questioned one of them a second time, he said that they find it stays two weeks but don’t want to take a chance of someone’s spoiling before that and getting upset.  Remember that I get it the day it comes from the cow, so it hasn’t been sitting around.  I refrigerate what I think we’ll use within two weeks, and put the rest in the freezer.  Interestingly, raw milk doesn’t spoil in the way that regular pasteurized milk does because of all the good bacteria in it – it changes form as it gets thicker and more sour, but remains useable and good for you.  So even if you had it sitting in your fridge for six months, you could use it (it’d be more like sour cream by that point).  Pasteurized milk putrifies, though, and I’d hate to think of doing anything with it but pouring it down the drain once it started to go off!

    Freezing raw milk changes the consistency, but not the flavor.  The cream, since it hasn’t been homogenized, will freeze into tiny pieces and stay in tiny pieces after defrosted.  Not bad, but not as smooth once it’s defrosted.  If you blend it up with some fruit, it’s not noticeable.  We definitely prefer it before it’s frozen, but no one turns up their noses afterwards!

    There’s alot of misinformation and disinformation out there about raw milk, and most of what people say comes from simply not being educated about it – like too many things, there’s an excessive amount of fear mongering that comes from ignorance.  But the taste is great (some people notice a difference more than others) and the health benefits are wonderful, so if it’s something you can get hold of, it’s a good addition to your family’s diet.

    Avivah

  • Manual grain grinder

    Minutes before Shabbos, we got a knock on the door and found our mailman waiting with a package.  Because time was so tight, we didn’t open it until tonight, when we saw our new grain mill!  After having my electric one out of service for several weeks last time, it made me think how dependent I am on it to use my bulk purchased grains as planned.  I also thought about The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and how they spend all day grinding enough wheat for a small loaf of bread for lunch and dinner, because all they had was a small coffee grinder.  And so I decided that having a manual grain mill would be a useful addition to our pantry supplies.

    The one we chose was the Family Grain Mill.  It’s not the cheapest, but it’s not extremely expensive, either – it was $120.  I wanted something that worked reasonably well but didn’t have a huge price tag attached, and this was the one that seemed to best fit my needs.  Tonight the kids all tried it out – for hours.  🙂  It was one child after another taking turns grinding, even the 2.5 year old. 

    It’s certainly not as efficient as the electric grinder, but it produces a wider range of grinds (ie, coarseness/fineness).  They had lots of fun, and the flour is freshly ground and ready to be made into pancakes for breakfast tomorrow morning.  🙂  I think the pancakes will taste even better to them than usual, knowing all the labor that went into the grinding. 

    Avivah

  • Making orange zest

    When I got my dehydrator, I didn’t expect it to be so fun or so frugal!  For years I thought of it as a luxury item and couldn’t see a practical value in it, but I’m now enjoying proving myself wrong and finding new uses for it.

    I bought these gorgeous navel oranges, with thick clean peels, and it occurred to me that maybe I could dry them to make orange zest that would be used for baking.  At first I sliced them into small pieces, since I didn’t want to make them so small that they’d fall through the spaces in the drying tray.  But even though things shrink substantially when dehydrated, they’re still a little too big to use as zest (funnily enough, my baby thinks these are a super treat!).  Then my dd14 put the next peels into the food processor with the ‘S’ blade, and put them on top of the paraflex sheet (that’s intended for making fruit leathers) that covers the regular dehydrator tray.  That worked perfectly, and the final result is a perfect orange zest, just like you’d buy in the store.  It’s a nice feeling, turning something you would have thrown away into something of value.

    I don’t like to run the dehydrator just for a small quantity of something, because it seems to me an inefficient use of energy – I made these because there was one unused tray that afternoon that wasn’t needed when drying all the shredded broccoli stems that I experimented on the same day. 🙂  Those turned out great, too.

    Avivah

  • How to can ground meat

    >>How do you can ground meat? Do you cook it in a sauce or soup before caning? <<

    I used to hear how complicated and dangerous canning meat was, and I’m really glad that one of the very first things I canned was turkey.  That way I did the ‘hardest’ thing first and I wasn’t intimidated by it because I had nothing to compare it to.    Some people will tell you to start out with fruits and jams and then work your way up, but it worked out well for me the other way!

    Despite what people  may say, it’s really not hard or complicated to can meat.  It does require precisely following instructions, like any other low acid food (ie, not fruits and jams).  You MUST have a pressure canner and follow all proper safety guidelines.  Fill with water up to the water line (marked inside the canner), and fill up the jars you’re going to use half way with water.  While you prepare the meat, your jars will be sterilizing, and then the  jars will be ready to be used at the same time the meat is ready to be packed. 

    Before preparing the  meat, you have to decide what you’re going to later use it for.  I decided I wanted to cook it up as crumbles that could be added to stews, pot pies, etc because that has the most possibilities.  (I considered making patties and then decided against it, but it is possible to make little meat balls or burgers and can them.)  I sauteed the meat in its own juice and broke the chunks up into crumbles.  It’s suggested to drain off the fat since it could interfere with the seal. 

    I removed each jar, poured out the boiling water, and filled it with hot meat.  Then cover it with boiling broth or water, leaving 1″ headspace.  Make sure there’s no air space in the jars.  Wipe down the top of the jar, so that there’s no residual grease that might keep it from sealing later on.  Put the heated jar lids on, screw on bands, and put back in pressure canner.  It needs to process at 11 pounds pressure for 75 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts.  Exhaust the canner for ten minutes with the steam steadily rising from the vent hole, then put the weight on top and wait for it to get up to the proper pressure.  Start timing the process from the point that it’s at the proper pressure. 

    You have to keep it at the right pressure the entire time.  If it gets a little high, that’s okay, but if it drops below 11 pounds pressure, you have to restart timing the canning all over again (to prevent possibility of botulism).  So don’t let it drop!

    So far in the meat department, I’ve canned beef cubes, beef stew, turkey pieces, ground chicken, ground beef, broth, and meat spaghetti sauce.  The only problem I had was with jars that failed to seal because I didn’t drain the fat enough, so when it reached the high temperature inside the canner, it boiled over the jar lid, and then the lid couldn’t adhere.  I put those in the fridge and used them right away, but they could have been reheated it, and then reprocessed. 

    If you start canning and do some meat, please share your experience!

    Avivah

  • Homemade Strawberry Jam

    We made a delicious experiment last week that was so simple that I had to share it with you, a sugar free strawberry jam! It’s slightly softer than a jam, so maybe to call it a fruit spread would be more accurate.

    Here’s the proportions we used:

    • 3 lb. frozen strawberries (you can use fresh, too)
    • 1 can frozen apple juice concentrate
    • 1 box powdered pectin (use the pectin intended for low sugar recipes)

    Put the strawberries and concentrate in the pot.  Cook on low, covered, until the strawberries are soft.  Mash the strawberries using a fork while keeping them in the pot.  Add the pectin, thoroughly mixing in so that there are no lumps.  Cook on medium-high for another few minutes, and then pour into jars.  It won’t look as if it’s at all jelled by this point, but don’t worry about it – it will continue to set after it cools.  If you cook it until it looks thick, it will be overdone and hard to spread once it cools.  (That’s what happened to our first batch.)  This recipe yields 7 half pint jars of jam.

    If you’re not going to be canning it, you can store it in glass jars or empty peanut butter jars.  We canned ours in 1/2 pint jelly jars, processing for five minutes in a boiling water bath.  Once it’s canned, you won’t need to keep it in the fridge or freezer.

    For one batch, we added blueberries; for another we used a different flavor juice concentrate.  All of the batches turned out well.  I think if you keep the basic proportions the same (7 c. fruit to one can concentrate), you’ll find you can successfully experiment with different fruits.

    Avivah

  • Dehydrating frozen carrots

    When I last went shopping, I got a huge amount of frozen vegetables.  One of the things I ordered for the first time was frozen diced carrots, and when I got there to pick up my order, the woman in charge of the frozen section told me that I was in luck, since the manager told her to mark the frozen carrots down fifty percent that morning.  And even though I placed my order the week before, that applied to my carrots, too.

    That made the diced frozen carrots 25 cents a pound, which is very, very cheap, especially considering that the peeling and chopping has been done for you.  When I saw them marked down, my first instinct was to buy a bunch more than the case of 24 pounds that I already had ordered. But my rational brain took over after taking a second look at the industrial sized cart she had wheeled my order out on, and I wondered what I could possibly do with more, since as it was I didn’t have room in the freezer for everything.  I briefly considered canning them, but I prefer not to can vegetables and knew that I would be creating a lot of time pressure for myself if I had to can everything before it defrosted.  So I reluctantly stuck with just 24 pounds.

    Then later that night, eight hours later to be precise, it occurred to me that I could have bought them and then dehydrated them.  I felt like smacking my forehead when this occurred to me, but there was no way I was driving two hours in each direction just to go buy some more!  I had never tried it before, which is why it didn’t occur to me in the store. 

    I was very lucky in that the weather has been so cold that nature has been keeping several cases of veggies frozen for me, so I didn’t have to rush to deal with them. But I can’t rely on it staying this cold forever, so I decided yesterday would be a good day to dehydrate some.  My dd8 and I did this together – it was pretty easy since there wasn’t much prep work, just separating the pieces that froze together after she took the bags out to defrost and spreading them evenly on the trays.  We took out three bags of 4 lb. each, and that was one load in the dehydrator.  It took most of the day (I’m estimating about twelve hours, though I wasn’t watching the clock), since there was so much moisture from the ice that had to melt first – I turned it off before I went to sleep and the last of them were finished by then.  It always amazes me how compact everything becomes once it’s dehydrated.

    Today, I plan to do another load, since there’s no advantage to keeping them frozen over having them dehydrated.  In fact, the opposite is true – they will take up lots less space when dried and free up freezer space for something else.  Since I plan to use them in stews, chili, pot pies, etc., they’ll be rehydrated as a natural part of cooking and dehydrated works just as effectively as frozen for my purposes.

    Avivah

  • Soaking and drying nuts

    Last night I decided to try soaking some nuts again, thanks to the encouragement of blog reader Chava.  (Here’s why I soak nuts.)  I had some unroasted walnuts that I thought would work well, so I soaked them overnight in water with sea salt.  Early in the afternoon, I strained them out, rinsed them, and put them in the dehydrator at 145 degrees (my oven doesn’t go low enough and over-toasted the nuts I tried in the past).  And since four cups of walnuts only took up one tray, I chopped up a bunch of purple onions I bought at .29 lb and prepared four trays of those, so the dehydrator wouldn’t be running for just one tray.

    After dinner, I took the tray out, and they were done perfectly.  The kids and I tasted them, and we all agreed that they are good – they hardly tasted any different than they usually do.

    I’m so glad I tried to do this again.  Now that I see how easy it is, and the results are good, I’ll try to integrate this on a regular basis.  The easiest way to do it would probably be to buy and then prepare a large batch of nuts at a time, so that they are all dehydrated at one time.

    Avivah

  • Coconut oil sources

    Here are the companies I’ve ordered coconut oil from.  The first is Omega Nutrition.  I order in five gallon buckets, and you have to call to get the pricing on that.  They may not know what to do with you because you aren’t a restaurant, but just tell them your friend ordered a big bucket and you know it’s possible, and they’ll figure it out.  🙂    They have the extra virgin and regular organic.  I’ve ordered both in the past.

    I more recently discovered Mountain Rose Herbs – they also have two kinds of coconut oil, but only one is suitable for eating (the other is for cosmetic use).  It’s a raw high quality oil.  Their prices for five gallon buckets as well as smaller containers are on the page I linked to, and their prices are lower than Omega.  But you’ll have to clarify about the status of their hechsher (kosher supervision) on your own; they say it is kosher and it is a raw and unrefined product.  But as I said, you’ll probably want to clarify with your lor.  I use it but prefer recommending Omega for this reason.

    Even in large amounts, coconut oil isn’t cheap.  And I’ll warn you ahead of time that shipping is also expensive because the bucket is so heavy – probably about forty pounds or so; figure in about $40 per 5 gallon bucket for shipping.  But – it lasts a long, long time, and stays without needing any refrigeration.  As I’ve said before, I economize in a lot of areas of our food budget, and that creates room to buy the more expensive things like this.  I do kind of dread when I have to place my coconut oil orders, though, because it’s so expensive, even though it’s in the budget!

    Avivah

  • Soaking grains, flours, beans, and seeds

     >>Can you explain a little bit about soaking flour (and other grains as well)? Do you use an acid medium? Do you soak all your grains?<<

    Soaking grains and flours is something that traditional cultures have done for many centuries, tapping into an intuitive wisdom that I think we’ve lost.  They didn’t need the scientific explanations of why it was helpful; they must have sensed a difference when they ate things prepared one way or another.  But I found it helpful to learn more about it when I first encountered the idea, which seemed foreign to me.

    Basically, whole grain products and the flours made with them are a source of many nutrients.  The challenge is that they also contain large amounts of phytic acid, which binds with the nutrients when ingested, and escorts them right out of your body.  So in order to benefit from the nutrients, you need to do something to neutralize the phytic acid.  That something is soaking the grains in an acidic medium, and there are a number of options to use: apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, whey, buttermilk, kefir, and plain yogurt are the ones that come to mind, but there are probably others that I’m not aware of.   

     I’ve tried using apple cider vinegar/lemon juice as an acidic medium.  It’s added by the tablespoon (1 T. acv and one cup water: one cup grain) and even though the amounts are small, my kids didn’t like the sour taste so I don’t use that anymore.  I’ve used whey, but that’s not something I often have around. When I made cheese, I had a good amount left over from each batch, and if I get around to making cheese on a regular basis, that would be a good option.  And I have a small amount when I let the kefir I make sit too long and it separates.  To use whey, you use a tablespoon and one cup of water in place of the liquid called for (just like the lemon juice or apple cider vinegar).  But what I’ve preferred using has been either kefir or plain yogurt.  It does change the flavor, but not so much that the kids grimace.  🙂  Seriously, it tastes fine with the yogurt as a soaking medium.  For baking quick breads like pancakes and muffins, it adds a very nice, light texture. 

    I don’t soak all of my grains, though I’d certainly be better off nutritionally.  Some grains are more important to soak than others, since they’re so much higher in phytic acid.  That’s what I focus on.  The highest of them is oats, and that’s the grain that I most regularly soak.  This is very easy – I put half the water the recipe for oatmeal calls for in the pot the night before, and add some plain yogurt.  The next morning, I add the rest of the water and it cooks up very quickly.  When I prepared the baked oatmeal for today’s breakfast, I mixed it up the night before, and let it sit overnight before baking it.  (I’ve been wondering about the value of butter as an acidic medium, since it’s composed of lactic acid, so it seems to me it should work fine, too.  But I didn’t look into that, it’s just my own mental conjecturing.)  The hardest part is planning ahead so that you have the flour soaked and ready to be used when you want it, and a menu plan comes in very handy here.

    The grains we use the most are brown rice, kasha (buckwheat), and millet and all of them are low in phytic acid.  So I don’t soak them, particularly since I usually prepare them for meat meals, and the options for soaking that I like are dairy.  I do usually cook them with a broth that has often been made with an acidic medium, though (adding a small amount of apple cider vinegar when making stock accomplishes this very easily).   

    As far as flours go, I fall very short in this area.  Initially I soaked, sprouted, and then dehydrated wheat before grinding it to bake with.  I was very displeased with the quality of the flour.  It probably would be fine for cakes or cookies, but not for yeast breads.  And it was a long process to prepare it in that way, and didn’t seem worth it for mediocre results. 

    But I do try to soak flour when I can, though definitely not always.  This is only when I’m baking for dairy meals, usually breakfast muffins, quick breads, or pancakes.  I’ve found that soaking the flour overnight gives a very nice light quality to those things, and adds a pleasant flavor, too.  In those cases, I generally soak the flour at a ratio of 1 cup flour to 1 cup  of thinned yogurt or kefir.  Other than this, I don’t use very much flour in our meals.  The main exception that comes to mind is baking challah, for which I unapologetically use freshly ground, unsoaked, unsprouted flour. 

    I also soak beans overnight at the very least, though I don’t always sprout them.  I tend to sprout them more in the summer just because they sprout so much faster in the heat. I never soak or sprout seeds or nuts.  I wasn’t happy with the results I got when soaking nuts, and decided not to pursue that further.

    I don’t use wheat germ, or wheat/oat bran, because I think it’s best to eat foods in the complete package, not one part or another.  If I did, I’d try to soak them as much as I could, treating them like flour.  I also stay away from puffed wheat products, and very rarely have rice cakes, because the processing for these foods has been shown to be harmful.  I sometimes have shredded wheat for breakfast or baked wheat crackers (like shredded wheat in cracker form), but I don’t fool myself that they’re healthy.  I consider them treat foods that are best used in small amounts. 

    I’ve learned to adapt most recipes so that they nutritionally conform to guidelines I feel are helpful, though I don’t always post my adaptations when I share recipes.  If something says flour, I may or may not soak the flour as described above, but generally it can be done without drastically changing the recipe. 

    Avivah