Sustainable Saturday

This recipe uses no white sugar, no milk, no eggs, no butter..

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground black pepper (optional) – I like it spicy
2 tsp cocoa powder
pinch of nutmeg
1/2 tsp of ginger powder
1/2 tsp of cardamom
1/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup of maple syrup
1/3 cup blue agave syrup
1 cup water
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp baking powder

Glazing:
Powdered Sugar
Egg white
lemon juice

Mix all spices with flours until well combined. Add olive oil, honey, syrups & water. Mix into hard sticky dough with paddle attachment. Refrigerate at least overnight for the spice flavors to combine..

Roll thin and cut shapes of your liking. For fast cutting into squares or diamonds I use pizza slicer. Bake at 350F/180C about 10-12 minutes.

For glazing mix up powdered sugar, lemon juice and egg white. Add enough powdered sugar to make a thick paste that holds it shape and does not run. Scoop into a pastry bag (or a zip-lock bag with one small corner cut off). Decorate cookies immediately after taking them out of the oven so the heat from the cookies settles the glazing fast.

Ingredients for 3-4 portions:

• 2-3 leaves of Tuscan kale
• about 1/8 of cabbage
• 2 carrots
• 2 medium apple or 1 extra-large apple
• 2 celery stems
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• salt

Slice the Tuscan kale and cabbage into thin slices. Chop the celery. Grate the apple and carrots. Mix all together with some salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

Enjoy with dinner or a meal of its own (as its quite filling). Optionally you can add some nuts on top for extra protein..

Another successful Sustainable Saturday. Apart form the regular organic grocery shopping and visit to the local library we

• put up a  puppet show with the kids
• made a princess costume with crown & magic wand for my “princess” (with some cardboard & golden Christmas wrapping paper)
• did lot of coloring & drawings
• organize the kids playroom & found some boardgames for next week
• read books
• Start the bread dough to bake on Sunday morning

Season for tomatoes and cucumbers is over and time to invent something new. This is a salad from some local organic vegetables which I was able to source. 3-4 portions.

• slice of pumpkin
• 2 medium apples
• approx 1/8 of cabbage
• 1 small broccoli
• lemon juice
• olive oil
• salt

Grate the pumpkin and apple. Slice cabbage into thing slices. Cut the broccoli into small pieces. If your broccoli has a long stem, peel it so the hard part is off and cut the middle part into thin slices. Add some lemon juice according to your taste, olive oil and salt. Mix all ingredients.

Nice and filling salad.

The Sustainable Saturday #3 was a very sleepy day. I guess the rainy weather got us all. Kids took a nap in the afternoon and not much was done.. Except the usual organic grocery shopping & regular trip to the local library..

Recipe for our family favorite bread (makes 2 big loaves):

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
4 cups all-purpose four
3 cups warm water (41-43 C)
3/4 teaspoons of salt
1/4 cup of olive oil + a bit extra for greasing the bowl
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp honey
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In a bowl mix water, yeast and honey. Cover with a towel and let it proof until its foamy (approx 7-10 minutes).

Add salt and olive oil. Mix.

Add 2 cups of whole-wheat flour and 2 cups of all-purpose flour. Mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until well combined. It should have thickness of something like pancake batter or a bit thicker. Cover again with a towel and let it rise for 15 minutes.

Add rest of the flour and knead the dough until its smooth and elastic (10-15 minutes in low-medium speed).

Grease a bowl with a little bit of olive oil and transfer dough into it.

METHOD #1 – FAST RAISE

Cover with towel and let it raise in room temperature for 45 minutes until its double.

Fold the dough gently and let it raise another 30 minutes. Then fold it, divide into 2 and form the breads on the pan. Let it raise another 20-30 minutes.

Score the bread and bake in the oven at 180C/350F degrees for 40 minutes until golden brown on top. Turn the heat off and leave the bread in the over for another 10-15 minutes. Cool down on a rack.

METHOD #2 – SLOW RAISE

Cover with towel and let it raise in the fridge overnight. In the morning take out the dough, fold it, divide into 2 and form the breads on the pan. Let the breads raise about 40-60 minutes so the dough warms up.

Score the bread and bake in the oven at 180C/350F degrees for 50 minutes until golden brown on top. Turn the heat off and leave the bread in the over for another 10-15 minutes. Cool down on a rack.

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TIPS:

Enjoy hot with butter and honey

I do not pre-heat the oven to create a thicker crust on the bread. If you pre-heat the oven, you will need to reduce the cooking time about 10-15 minutes.

“Sustainable Saturday” #2 Update. Not much news this time though..

As traditionally our  morning passed fast – out in the library and organic grocery shopping in local farms. Make sure to use your reusable bags

The afternoon was spent with the kids – got out some crayons and coloring books. Also worked on my t-shirt recycling/reusing project and got it going ahead quite  a bit. Hoping to add a picture of it soon to show my progress.

How did your’s go?

So here is my update for the first Sustainable Saturday. How did yours go? I would love to hear about it..

1. Eating organic.
Make sure you prepare in hand -as you need to get stocked up with some organic ingredients. Starting with breakfast we’ve had some nice home-made muffins. Here is the recipe For dinner we had a nice vegetable stew with some beans, greens & portobello mushrooms.

2. At least 1 raw meal per day
For lunch -  nice salad of fresh greens, local grape tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli and radish with a few spoons of cottage cheese. Drizzled with some lemon juice and a pinch of salt.

3. No-Power Entertainment
As promised I stayed away from the electronic – computer, TV, etc. Instead we went to the local organic farm, bought some nice fresh greens, apples, tomatoes, etc. We also took a nice walk to the library – luckily the weather was beautiful – nice and sunny with 10+ degrees. In the evening I worked on some craft projects – started on the Christmas egg ornaments and also continued my recycle-t-shirt project that I started a few weeks ago. I will be posting about it later, after I can take a nice picture of the final result.

I found my Sustanable Saturday very relaxing and actually felt a had more time for myself. Stay tuned for the next week update..

Here is a super-simple recipe for delicious organic muffins. This recipes fills 12-tin standard muffin pan exactly.

INGREDIENTS:
* 2 cups of flour (I used 1 cup of all purpose + 1 cup of whole wheat, but you can use anything you have, e.g. spelt flour)
* 2 teaspoons of baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
* 1/2 cop of raisins
* 1/4 cup of chopped nuts of your choice (e.g. walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds)
* 1/2 cup of olive oil (or canola oil)
* 1 cup of juice (apple, carrot, etc) or milk
* 1 large egg or 2 egg whites
* 4 tablespoons of honey
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* lemon rind from 1 lemon
* 1 tablespoon of cocoa (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a muffin pan with oil and set aside. In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, raisins, nuts (and cocoa if using) and stir together thoroughly using a wire whisk. In a separate bowl combine the hone, lemon rind, vanilla extract, oil and egg. Whisk until well combined. Add juice or milk. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine gently. Scoop into the muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. An inserted toothpick should come out clean.

TIPS:

* If you do not have baking powder in hand you can make some of your own. Baking poder consists of 1/3 of baking soda + 1/3 cream of tartar + 1/3 of starch. I have also used rice flour instead of starch and worked out very well.

* I combined cocoa to the batter after I had scooped half of the muffins into the pan – so I end up with 2 taste selections to put on the table

* to add some moisture to the muffins you can also grate some season fruit like apples or pears and mix it to the batter.

* You can experiment and add different spices to the muffins instead of lemon rind and vanilla. E.g. cinnamon & nutmeg goes well with apple muffins.