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SPINACH TORTILLAS
2 cups water
4 cups loose, fresh spinach
6 cups wheat flour
1/2 cup butter, softened (can substitute coconut oil)
2 tsp. salt
Note: If you leave out the spinach, these are just regular tortillas.
Place water and spinach in blender and blend until spinach has been liquefied. Place water mixture with all other ingredients in your Bosch mixing bowl and begin to knead. At this point, add more flour if needed until dough cleans sides of bowl. Add as little flour as possible so dough stays as moist as possible. Knead for 8 minutes on Speed 2. (If you don't have a Bosch, you can use a Kitchenaid mixer or just mix dough in a bowl, then knead by hand.) Let dough rest while you heat your griddle or Villaware Tortilla Press*. Break off lime-sized pieces of dough. Roll out into very thin circles and place on hot griddle for about 30-60 seconds per side.
Notes: We call these Shrek Tortillas. (We don't even own that movie, but the kids know who he is. I don't know if this actually makes it more fun for the kids, or if they have figured out that when mommy says "Shrek" that just means "spinach" in mommy language.) Eat them while they're HOT and you'll be in homemade tortilla heaven! You can also freeze them for later use by cooling completely and placing in a ziplock bag. I buy the large bag of baby spinach from Costco. You can also experiment with the flour by using half wheat, half spelt, or another combination of flours.
*I use the Villaware Tortilla Press, which I have really enjoyed having. It presses out the dough and cooks it at the same time. However, it does make the tortillas quite thick.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Fruit leather
I LOVE my Excalibur dehydrator. I use it frequently for yogurt making and have also used it to dry pears, peaches, and even bucket lids we were washing & drying for our wheat storage. I've even heard of people using it to dry boots (but...yuck...I'm kind of a germ freak...)
Today my Super-Husband found a smokin' deal on strawberries. I've never seen them cheaper than .99/lb so we picked up 20 pounds. I froze two cookie sheets full (later to be used for smoothies), saved 3 pounds for eating for breakfast, and made fruit leather with the rest.
I have a really easy recipe for the fruit leather. The thing is, you can stretch out your fruit with apple or pear sauce so you don't have to have only one fruit in the leather. Neat, right? But, don't worry--you can also just use one fruit and I'm sure that would be very tasty, too. It's a forgiving recipe because if it's too watery, it just takes longer to dehydrate. No biggie.
FRUIT LEATHER
4 cups applesauce
2 cups strawberries (or other fruit)
3/4 cups water
Put all ingredients in blender and blend thoroughly. Pour into dehydrator trays so it's about 1/8" to 1/4" thick. You need to have the mats they sell for your dehydrator that are meant for liquid items, or you can line your trays with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Set at 115 degrees and dry for 8-10 hours. Drying it at a temperature below 116 degrees will preserve the enzymes which are super healthy.
You can add sugar to sweeten these up, but why? If you must, consider an alternative sweetener like agave, stevia, raw sugar, or fruit juice. Refined sugars are bad, bad, bad. (I use white sugar sometimes, but only when we're making a treat. I'd like to wean us from that.)
Mine are in the dehydrator right now. I made some with plastic, some with parchment paper. I also made some with just straight strawberries. I'll let you know how they turn out in the morning!
Also see www.simplylivingsmart.com or www.greensmoothiegirl.com for more inspirational food ideas!
NEXT DAY UPDATE: I just looked at my fruit leather and discovered some things that need improving. First, if you are using an alternative to the mats that come with your dehydrator, use plastic wrap but avoid parchment paper. Perhaps wax paper would work, but trust me, parchment paper does not.
Second, I would go for at least 1/4" thickness. I was leaning towards 1/8" but mine got paper thin. It still tastes great but it is VERY thin. It's pretty much strawberry paper.
Third, the applesauce trick worked great! It took on the strawberry taste and stretched the strawberries much further.
Overall, it was a success!
Today my Super-Husband found a smokin' deal on strawberries. I've never seen them cheaper than .99/lb so we picked up 20 pounds. I froze two cookie sheets full (later to be used for smoothies), saved 3 pounds for eating for breakfast, and made fruit leather with the rest.
I have a really easy recipe for the fruit leather. The thing is, you can stretch out your fruit with apple or pear sauce so you don't have to have only one fruit in the leather. Neat, right? But, don't worry--you can also just use one fruit and I'm sure that would be very tasty, too. It's a forgiving recipe because if it's too watery, it just takes longer to dehydrate. No biggie.
FRUIT LEATHER
4 cups applesauce
2 cups strawberries (or other fruit)
3/4 cups water
Put all ingredients in blender and blend thoroughly. Pour into dehydrator trays so it's about 1/8" to 1/4" thick. You need to have the mats they sell for your dehydrator that are meant for liquid items, or you can line your trays with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Set at 115 degrees and dry for 8-10 hours. Drying it at a temperature below 116 degrees will preserve the enzymes which are super healthy.
You can add sugar to sweeten these up, but why? If you must, consider an alternative sweetener like agave, stevia, raw sugar, or fruit juice. Refined sugars are bad, bad, bad. (I use white sugar sometimes, but only when we're making a treat. I'd like to wean us from that.)
Mine are in the dehydrator right now. I made some with plastic, some with parchment paper. I also made some with just straight strawberries. I'll let you know how they turn out in the morning!
Also see www.simplylivingsmart.com or www.greensmoothiegirl.com for more inspirational food ideas!
NEXT DAY UPDATE: I just looked at my fruit leather and discovered some things that need improving. First, if you are using an alternative to the mats that come with your dehydrator, use plastic wrap but avoid parchment paper. Perhaps wax paper would work, but trust me, parchment paper does not.
Second, I would go for at least 1/4" thickness. I was leaning towards 1/8" but mine got paper thin. It still tastes great but it is VERY thin. It's pretty much strawberry paper.
Third, the applesauce trick worked great! It took on the strawberry taste and stretched the strawberries much further.
Overall, it was a success!
Friday, July 2, 2010
A new way of eating
I've been slowly changing the way we eat over the past several years. More whole grains, less refined foods, less sugar, less meat. But now I'm feeling the need to change even more. And I need help. We need to eat as healthy as possible to protect our health. However, like all other moms, I am busy and don't want to spend all day in the kitchen. Also, we home school which keeps me on my toes, I have a baby who doesn't want me to put him down, and I have lots of taste preferences to deal with. Luckily, we don't have too many intolerances. We're all fine with wheat, dairy, etc. I feel blessed about that.
What I need is simple ideas. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. If your idea is a simple two-ingredient throw-together dish, I want to hear it!
Here are my criteria:
I hope everyone will benefit from seeing everyone else's recipes! Thanks everyone!
By the way, if you want to post a link to another website or blog with great ideas, that would be great, too. I found this one, but her over-use of exclamation points is already driving me crazy. (!!!!!) Great information, though. http://simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com/
This one is also great! www.greensmoothiegirl.com
P.S. I think I need to also mention how we are currently eating, for comparison's sake. We eat only homemade bread made from freshly ground whole wheat. We drink smoothies a lot which we make with fresh oranges and a tiny bit of milk & vanilla. We usually have fruit with breakfast, fruit or veggie with lunch, and a veggie for dinner. We do eat dairy but we don't eat much meat at all and when we do it's either ground turkey or boneless skinless chicken. We have a bit of a sweet tooth so we do make treats a couple times a week. We never drink soda--only water. We generally don't eat processed foods but sometimes we will buy mac & cheese. No food coloring, no artificial sweeteners, no high fructose corn syrup. We focus on whole foods and cook most of our foods from scratch. We just need to step things up a notch.
What I need is simple ideas. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. If your idea is a simple two-ingredient throw-together dish, I want to hear it!
Here are my criteria:
- Focus on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and non-meat proteins.
- No meats, poultry, or fish for now, but we're fine with eggs and cheese.
- No refined sugar or white flour. No processed foods.
- No cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Unless you want to be mean to Marty. :)
- If it has mustard or vinegar, I have to leave it out for certain family members so we try to stay away from those.
- Easy--not looking for gourmet, here.
- Budget friendly
- Baby or kid-friendly--it would be great if I could feed it to the baby, too, but it has to at least please the children.
I hope everyone will benefit from seeing everyone else's recipes! Thanks everyone!
By the way, if you want to post a link to another website or blog with great ideas, that would be great, too. I found this one, but her over-use of exclamation points is already driving me crazy. (!!!!!) Great information, though. http://simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com/
This one is also great! www.greensmoothiegirl.com
P.S. I think I need to also mention how we are currently eating, for comparison's sake. We eat only homemade bread made from freshly ground whole wheat. We drink smoothies a lot which we make with fresh oranges and a tiny bit of milk & vanilla. We usually have fruit with breakfast, fruit or veggie with lunch, and a veggie for dinner. We do eat dairy but we don't eat much meat at all and when we do it's either ground turkey or boneless skinless chicken. We have a bit of a sweet tooth so we do make treats a couple times a week. We never drink soda--only water. We generally don't eat processed foods but sometimes we will buy mac & cheese. No food coloring, no artificial sweeteners, no high fructose corn syrup. We focus on whole foods and cook most of our foods from scratch. We just need to step things up a notch.
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