White Sauce

A white sauce is a simple thing to make, but after decades of recipes which read, “Use a can of mushroom soup,” or “Use a jar of Alfredo sauce,” this may have become a lost art. But look how simple it is to make a quality white sauce!

The great thing about making your own is that you can decide what goes into it and you can alter the flavors to suit your particular dish.

½ cup butter

4 tablespoons flour*

2 cups milk**

Seasonings

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour as soon as it is melted. Stir continuously and bring the butter flour mix to a boil. Add the milk and continue to stir and cook until it gets to the thickness you need.

2. For the standard white sauce, salt, pepper and a spoonful of vegetable or chicken bouillon powder will give it a good flavor. You can also add any herbs or spices that fit with your use for the sauce. A few good ones are: parsley, basil, caraway powder, curry powder, thyme, and coriander.

3. To make a cheese sauce, add grated Parmesan and/or Romano cheese.

4. If you want a garlic flavored sauce, add a couple of cloves of mashed, roasted garlic.

*You can use nearly any kind of alternate flour if you don’t want the wheat flour. A tiny bit of cornstarch mixed with water, chick pea flour, or rice flour will work as thickening agents.

**Almond milk, coconut milk or any combination of the two will work as well.

White sauce is simple and has only a few ingredients. Now, go look on the label of the mushroom soup!

Nothing is worth more than this day.  Goethe

Tomato Sauce with Vodka

 VODKA SAUCE FOR LASAGNA OR SPAGHETTI

This is a slow cooker version of an old favorite that is easy to make 

and has a dairy free option, as well. This takes some time, but very little attention, but you may never want to buy sauce in a jar again!

Mince and sauté:

1 medium onion and 3 or 4 garlic cloves

Boil a large kettle of water and immerse 8 large or 12 medium tomatoes. Let them cook for about 2 minutes; then remove them with a slotted spoon. Let the tomatoes cool slightly and slip the skins. Take out some of the seeds as you cut the tomatoes and put them into the crock pot. But don’t worry about getting all of the seeds out.

Peel and chop two good sized carrots. Add them to the crock pot.

Add:  Oregano, thyme, chopped rosemary, and basil. Fresh is always best, but use what you have.

Put all of the above ingredients into the cooker on high for 3 hours.

Cool, stir with hand blender; add salt and pepper to taste.

Add ½ cup vodka and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Just before serving, add 8 oz mascarpone cheese (or a cup of full fat coconut milk for a non-dairy option) and meat such as cooked sausage or ground beef.

You can obviously leave the vodka out of this recipe.  The vodka reportedly acts as a flavor enhancer, so there’s your iron clad reason for using it! The alcohol cooks away so it is safe to serve to anyone.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.      Marcus Aurelius

Well Wrapped

A sandwich wrap seems like such a good idea, but I am usually not really pleased with 

the texture or the taste of commercial wraps. Here is a simple to make wrap made with 

real food and no wheat or gluten. The breakfast wrap in the photo was made with cooked

squash and roasted garlic, which gives it that beautiful golden color.

The filling is: scrambled egg, avocado, cheese, and tomato. 

1 cup golden flax meal

1 cup fava or chick pea flour 

1 egg 

1/4 cup butter 

1 cup cooked, pureed vegetable, i.e. spinach, zucchini, 
broccoli, chard, or squash

1 teaspoon salt 

Soften butter and mix all ingredients.

If it is too sticky, add a little more fava flour. 

Chill the dough for at least an hour, then form small flat discs 
about 6 - 7 inches in diameter. I use a floured pastry cloth to pat the dough 
into shape. Make them as thin as you can without ripping them.

Fry in a small amount of coconut oil on a low heat. These make a 
great holder for beef, egg, chicken or other sandwich fillings. They probably 
taste a little better warm and are a little easier to handle while they are 
slightly warm. 

To rewarm them, run them quickly under a cold water faucet and wrap in a cloth dishtowel

or napkin and microwave for about 15 seconds. 

This recipe makes a fairly large batch - about 10 wraps. I usually make about five and 

put the rest of the dough in the refrigerator and make the second five fresh.

You can also make them a little smaller and use them more like a traditional flat bread for dips 

or to accompany a meal. 

There is time for everything.   Thomas Edison 

Pumpkin Oat Bread

If you want to make bread, and you know you do, fall is a great time to do it. And this pumpkin oat variety is just as good as it sounds!

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast with 2 tablespoons sugar (any sweetener will work)

Let the yeast mix sit in a warm place and work for about 1/2 hour. When the yeast has grown to at least twice its original size, add the rest of the ingredients.

1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats - grind in

coffee grinder

1/2 cup oats - not ground

1 cup cooked squash or pumplin

1/2 cup flax meal

3 tablespoons molasses

2 eggs (optional)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups water  

3 cups wheat flour

Stir and let sit covered in frig for 12 or more hours.

Knead on a floured pastry cloth, adding enough flour to make the dough smooth; form loaves; let rise until doubled, and then bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Everybody should be free to go slow.      Robert Frost




































 

Bread Diary Update

I have recently discovered an efficient way to make home made bread. This is a flexible rising and baking plan, and it offers options for the final product, as well.

After you have mixed your bread dough,* put it in a glass or enamel bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set it in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours. The great thing about this method of bread making is that you do not have to complete the additional steps at any particular time. The bread dough can sit in the refrigerator for up to one week. I like to have some dough waiting in the refrigerator almost all of the time.

When you want to bake, simply take the amount of dough you want to use, and put the rest back.
For instance, if you want to make a single loaf, pull off about 1/2 of the dough and form into the shape you want.

Let it sit in a warm place until it doubles in size. Then bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. The rise from the refrigerated state will take about 2 1/2 - 3 hours.

Another advantage to having bread dough in the refrigerator is that it is an easy way to make naan, which is an East Indian fry bread. Pull off several small lumps of dough (plum size) and, with floured hands, form them into round, flat shapes - approximately 7 inches in diameter. Fry with a small amount of oil on a medium low temperature.  No rising time is needed for these; you can fry them as soon as you form them. I like to use these as sandwich bread.

You can also use the naan to make a sort of multi-national breakfast taco. Fill the naan with scrambled egg and bacon and any condiments you like, such as: sour cream, chopped fresh basil, salsa, or chutney.

Basic recipe:

1/2 cup warm (80 - 90 F) water with a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of yeast
Put the yeast mixture in a glass container and let it sit in a warm place until it begins to bubble and foam. It should rise up about an inch or two.

After your yeast has worked a bit, add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

1 3/4 cup warm water
5 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup flax meal
2 eggs (optional)

This recipe will not work well as a gluten free option, but you can certainly vary the flours you use. Oat flour, amaranth, spelt, einkorn, whole wheat, fava bean flour, garbonzo bean flour, almomd meal, and many others can be used in place of a portion of the wheat flour. No wheat flour = no gluten= no rising. But a dough with 1/2 wheat and 1/2 alternatives seems to work pretty well.

For more ingredients that can be added to bread, see some older posts or be an adventurer and just add something you like!

Be kind whenever possible; it is always possible. Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Baba Ganoush

This recipe comes from my friend Sandy, who treated Mercedes and I to lunch at her beach home and served this fabulous dip.

You will need:
1 large or 2 small to medium eggplant
2 - 3 tablespoons tahini
3 - 4 cloves garlic
A tablespoon of lemon juice
2 - 3 tablespoons olive oil

Begin by roasting the eggplant and a head of garlic. Drizzle these with a little olive oil and sprinkle the eggplant with sea salt and pepper. Roasting should take about 45 minutes at 325 degrees.

You can use crushed raw garlic, but as long as you are roasting the eggplant you might as well have the delectable flavor of the roasted garlic.

When these two items are cooled enough to touch, scoop out the eggplant, leaving the skins and squeeze out 3 or 4 cloves of garlic. These come out almost like toothpaste from a tube.

Put the vegetables in a blender along with the tahini, lemon juice, and olive oil. You may want to add a little more salt or some fresh parsley. Blending will only take a few seconds; the dip will get creamy very quickly.

Put the extra roasted garlic in a covered glass jar in your refrigerator and use to make a fantastic salad dressing. See Roasted Garlic and Tahini dressing on this blog.

If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.   Bob Hope

Zucchini Flatbread

2 cups grated zucchini

2 cups oat flour

1/4 cup plain yogurt (This can be almond or coconut yogurt if you are trying to go dairy free.)

3 or 4 cloves of roasted garlic

1 teaspoon curry powder

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1. Sauté zucchini over low heat for 10 or 15 minutes.  Cool, then use a cheese cloth to squeeze out excess water. Use a hand blender to puree the zucchini.

2. Mix all of the ingredients together. The dough should be slightly sticky.

3. Coat 3 baking sheets lightly with olive oil and drop spoonfuls of dough onto them, flattening out the dough with a spatula as you go. Aim for a round disc shape about 1/8 inch thick.

4. Sprinkle the tops with ground sea salt.

5. Bake in a low oven - about 325 - for 15 minutes on each side. You can also cook these on a fry pan on a low heat, but the oven makes the job much easier.

Eat these alone as a snack or use them to dip into soft cheese, guacamole, or baba ganoush. They could also accompany a meal as a bread substitute. 

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix