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Wash your Produce

I can’t stress enough the importance of washing well all your produce before eating it or using it in your cooking. The produce you buy has passed soooooo many hands between being picked in the field until you get it home – and that does not count all the dirt, smog, wax, pesticides and insecticides sprayed over them.

I fully advocate washing well all produce before using it or consuming it – even if you’re peeling it.

In the yoga center I attend, we need to peel most produce before using it, especially those vegetables that have wax sprayed on – apples, pears, cucumbers, tomatoes, grapes (yeah, not nice and very time consuming when we need to make a fruit salad), oranges, peppers, etc.

To make my life easier at home and to preserve the nutrients and fiber in the peel of produce, I use a product I learned about when I worked at Procter & Gamble called FIT.

Fit is a solution made from natural ingredients designed to take most of the dirt and wax of the produce we use. I buy it in my neighborhood health food store and I find that it takes the entire waxy residue off the tomatoes, cucumbers, pears, etc. It also helps clean my lettuces, spinach, or any leafy green.

I use the little sprayer for individual items and I soak for anything that’s larger or leafy, like leeks, lettuces, cabbages, herbs, etc.

I am not a scientist, but I like that their ingredient label states natural sources for their ingredients. I no longer work at P&G, and they licensed the name to another manufacturing company, but I still feel Fit is a great product that helps me eat produce more naturally without the added toxins on the produce’s skin.

Tags: Fit

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Categories MY EDITORIAL

No-Knead Bread – Consolation prize for my ego

2 Mar

I already told you about my fiasco story on the Daring Bakers Feb 2008 Challenge – Pain Francais.

So, to give myself an ego-boost, I decided to try out the NY Times No-Knead Bread Recipe… of course, with a few modifications because I was using whole wheat flour again. For months I have been meaning to make this recipe… and to me it was a dream come true, because one of the reasons I have never dared to make any breads or pizza dough is the lack of a Stand mixer – remember my Xmas wishes??? So, this recipe eliminated that need…

For this recipe you need a cast iron dutch oven… yikes, I don’t have a cast-iron dutch oven either. But my friend Kathleen told me I could probably do this with a Pyrex bowl on top of a baking sheet. I don’t have a big Pyrex glass bowl, but my mom has a glass Pyrex dutch oven – the best of both worlds.

You still need to plan this recipe out… it needs about 12 hours to proof. It’s not like you get a bread craving and you can make this in a pinch. You can make the dough at night to bake it in the morning, or make the dough in the morning to bake the bread at night.

NO-KNEAD BREAD

Adapted from the original No-Knead Bread recipe from the NY Times.

3 cups of whole wheat flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 tbs kosher salt

1 package of dry active yeast

squirt of honey

1 3/4 cups of water

2 tbs wheat germ

Covered Pot – (5 quart or larger cast iron, Pyrex, ceramic, enamel – something that can go into a 450F oven)

Mix the Dough

When using whole wheat flour, I read in several sources that it’s better to proof the yeast before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. So take like 1/2 cup of the water the recipe calls for and dissolve the yeast packet. Add a squirt of honey to help it come alive. (I threw away several packets of yeast thinking they were dead before doing this little trick to it.)
Combine all ingredients in a big bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough just comes together. It will be a shaggy, doughy mess. Control the urge to add more water. Cover with a plastic wrap and let sit in counter-top for about 12 hours. The room should be about 70degrees F. Leave for up to 20 hours if room is slightly cooler.

Shape and Pre-heat

The dough will be wet, sticky and bubbly. With a wet spatula, dump the dough onto a floured surface.
Fold ends of dough over a few times with the spatula and nudge it into a ball shape. You can use your hands if you prefer.
Generously dust a flour sack towel with flour and wheat germ. Set dough seam side down on top of towel. Let it rest for 2 hours.
Set 2 timers – 1 for 1:30 hours and one for 2 hours.
When the 1:30 hour timer rings – it’s time to pre-heat the oven. Put your covered pot in the oven and preheat the oven with the pot inside for 30 minutes at 450 degrees F.
When the 2 hour timer goes off – it’s time to bake.

Bake

The dough should have doubled in size.
Carefully, remove pot from oven. Holding the dough inside the towel, dump the wobbly dough inside the pot – it does not matter which way it lands. Cover.
Bake covered for 30 minutes. Set timer again for 30 minutes.
Uncover. Bake another 15-20 minutes uncovered until the crust is golden brown and beautiful.
Remove from oven and let cool in a cooling rack.

I ate mine warm with lots of butter. The crust was superb. I ate some of it, and gave a piece to a friend and my mom, which loved it too.

I still do not consider myself a bread baker by any means. However, I will definitely make this recipe again… and I know that as I feel more confident with it, I will start making modifications to it… adding cheese, or nuts or other flours. You’ll see. I won’t keep it to myself…

Tags: bread, no-knead bread, whole wheat

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Categories basics, MY EDITORIAL

Pain Français- DBC Feb 2008

1 Mar

I am not a baker. So I joined the Daring Baker’s Challenge.

If I am not a baker, why in the world would I join a group of called Daring Bakers??? To get out of my comfort zone precisely. To try recipes I would never dare to try. To learn things, techniques I may be avoiding… to indeed, become a baker after all.

I was inspired last month with January’s challenge – Lemon Meringues. All the recipes I saw looked sooooo beautiful that I felt compelled to join. Please remind yourselves… I AM NOT A BAKER!!! My dessert repertoire extends to cookies and flans – anything else besides that is just baked fruits, fruit sauces, and boiling cans of condensed milk… ahhh, and buying Haagen-Dazs mango sherbet at the supermarket. Yet, after knowing all of this, I dared and joined the group. No pun intended.

I have to admit, I was daunted and excited when I received my first recipe – Pain Français from a Julia Child recipe…. Oh my gravy!!!! I was excited, as you know I take French lessons at the Alliance Française. To say I was super excited was an understatement!! But, why daunted??? French bread only has really 4 ingredients – flour, water, yeast and salt. What can be simpler??? Anything in this world is simpler, if you ask me.

And, I am not a quitter. I was not going to pass this up , my first Daring Baker’s challenge, just because I had an 11-page recipe – yes, this is not a typo, 11 pages… I was sent a video to see the kneading technique, the forming technique, the baking technique… I read the recipe 3-4 times. I saw the video twice. Yet… I never achieved the perfect loaf of Pain Français. The only thing I did change in the recipe… was the flour. I only like to use whole wheat products when I bake, so I used whole wheat flour… here are the results:

This is the flour I used – I do not recommend it for this recipe. This was the dough, before kneading. How dry it was should have told me something then, but I continued with the process as dictated in the recipe.

This was the dough after “kneading” for about 500 times… I was so tired after that, I had to lay down to rest. Really.

And this was the frustrating moment when, after 3 hours of “rising time” my dough was exactly the same size as it started.

But, in my opinion, there are many ways to define success. Success is not only demonstrated by showing here my “perfect loaves of french bread from the first try”… To me, success is also achieved by all the learnings gathered from trying to execute this recipe. I actually have a list of learnings I would like to share with you and all my fellow Daring Bakers:

You need a really large kitchen with lots of counter space to bake bread. – my kitchen is TINY and trying to knead bread almost inside the kitchen sink is not the ideal of any bread baker.
A Kitchen-Aid mixer is a must if you’re a petite bread baker. – I am sorry, but kneading 800 times by hand is not my definition of a good arm workout. My arm was about to fall off – I guess because the flour/water proportions were off when using whole wheat… but that’s another learning.
Stone-ground whole wheat flour is NOT ideal when trying to make Julia Child’s french bread recipe. – Start with whole wheat pastry flour and then move gradually to coarser flours, especially when you do not have a stand mixer.
Bread baking is not for the impatient. – You need a good day to make this recipe… no plans to go out, no plans for someone to come over, just stay home and bake bread. Now I know why Rachael Ray is not a baker…
Bread-baking is not for the compulsive cleaner. – No matter how clean I tried to keep the kitchen floor, there was flour all over… all over!!! all over my dishes, all over the sink, all over the counters, all over the floor, all over me!!!!
11 page recipes need to be left to professionals. – I am sure that if I had spent a day learning this by actually watching someone do it, I would have grasped it a little better. I felt consumed by the pages in the recipe.
I will try this recipe again SOON.– I was not able to do it all over before the posting date, but I will not let this recipe get to me.

Let’s say I have a new-found appreciation for bread bakers. And as a consolation prize for my ego… the only thing left for me was to try… The No-Knead Bread recipe. YEAH!!!

Tags: bread, daring bakers challenge, whole wheat

Comments 8 Comments
Categories daring bakers challenge, MY EDITORIAL

Tamarind Balls – The best reason to visit St. Kitts

27 Feb

Sorry, I feel like I have been neglecting all of you… but I was away for the weekend celebrating my 20th high school reunion aboard the Empress of the Seas, a weekend cruise that took us to St. Kitts and St. Maarten. It was awesome to spend time with my school friends, some of whom I had not seen in over 10 years and have known for almost 32 years of my life. I practically grew up with these people!!!

We visited St. Kitts as one of the stops in our journey… and my good friend Marly told me about Tamarind Balls. This is a local sweet made with tamarind pulp, sugar, sometimes spices and even has the tamarind seed inside. They’re tart and sweet, all in the same bite. This is my kind of souvenir – not a t-shirt or a hat, a good sweet treat only made and found in this little Caribbean island. My friend Marly discovered them because a cousin for her husband went to school in St. Kitts and used to bring them to them as gifts from the Island. She tells me she has kept some for over a year in her fridge and they do not go bad.

I bought them in a pharmacy – they were sitting right there amongst the traditional commercially made candy. The lighter colored version is made with sugar and spices. The darker ones are made only with sugar. To my taste, they taste truer to a raw tamarind fruit. They’re both good in their won little way. They cost me about a $1 USD each. I brought in about 10 packages – some for me, some to give as gifts…

The beach was great – we went to Turtle Beach, with Nevis on the background. I will not go into the details on how we got to Turtle Beach, but to me, the best reason to visit St Kitts, is for their Tamarind Balls.

Tags: St. Kitts, tamarind

Comments 10 Comments
Categories MY EDITORIAL, treats

Vanilla Powder

11 Feb

Vanilla – one of the most versatile spices there are… it works in desserts, beverages, milkshakes, side dishes, main dishes… I use it all the time.

A few years ago it was brought to my attention that most vanilla extracts are mostly made with alcohol, and in the yoga center I attend and cook for some times a month, we are not supposed to use anything with alcohol as an ingredient. So, we need to buy some alcohol-free vanilla syrups or some locally made vanilla extracts, which many times are difficult to find. I have used fresh vanilla pods, but I can’t find them here in Puerto Rico easily… I have to buy them when I travel to the US or online, when I can find a provider that will ship here…

But last year I found this great product – VANILLA POWDER. Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Powder from Nielsen-Massey . It’s a sugar-free and alcohol-free dry product which can replace vanilla extract in any recipe. It extracts the essence of vanilla beans and is infused in a natural, dry base. And the smell is… AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!!!!!!

I bought my initial bottle in Indiana, when I visited my sister last year… but I was very pleasantly surprised to find it now in the spices section of my local Freshmart supermarket.

To me, this powder is far superior than any McCormick product out there… go out and look for it. You’ll never go back to alcohol-based or vanilla flavored products. Mark my words…