Category Archives: Recipes

Chocolate Beet Cake Recipe

Chocolate Beet CakeThis cake is outrageously good – moist and full bodied. Great texture too.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil or butter a 9 x 13 pan  (I use coconut oil spray).

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/2 cups cooked, peeled and pureed beets (should be consistency of applesauce  so you may need to add a little water) 
  • 6 tablespoons cocoa
  • 3 eggs 
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar 
  • 1 cup oil 
  • 1 tsp vanilla 
  • 1-3/4 c. flour 
  • 1-1/2 tsp baking soda 
  • 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 c. chocolate chips

Mix wet ingredients together. Mix dry ingredients together. Combine dry and wet and mix well. Batter will be very red and thick; you can add a little water so you get cake batter consistency. (I mixed with my hand held mixer for a couple of minutes but take care to not overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into baking dish and bake 35 – 45 minutes. Cake comes out looking like dark chocolate.

I frosted with a small amount of genache…sugar, butter, cocoa, splash milk, splash of leftover coffee and cooked over stove top to soft stage; then added 1 tsp vanilla. (you could add rum). Cool slightly before frosting. It makes a glossy glaze.

Sugar Scrub

My aestheticism gave me a great recipe for a home made facial…baker’s sugar and olive oil.  Rub very gently into a clean face and then sponge off with a warm washcloth.  Makes your face feel like velvet and gets rid of old skin cells.  But definitely be gentle because the sugar has the capacity to leave your face red and raw if you get too vigorous.

Weaving Community

Molly and AikoMolly wouldn’t get out of the car.  Hannah and I were in eastern Washington visiting Tara at 3-Bells Ranch and Molly, The Courageous Snake Finder, decided she would very much like a vacation to the Land of Somewhere Else.

As we were packing to leave, Hannah, who’d been praising Molly all weekend for her bright spirit, teasing that we’d like to take her home, found Molly waiting in the car. Molly pretended that she didn’t hear us tell her that she had to get out; that although we’d love to take her, Tara needed her.  She was, after all, a Very Brave Animal, highly prized and valued on the ranch. Molly sighed.  She needed a vacation…really she did.

Connecting With Each Other

Pondering the events of our excursion, it became clear to me that in order to survive in this rapidly changing world, we need to consider each other in more ways than ever before. As Tara turns her property into production growing hay and raising beef and rabbit I’m reminded that rising expenses, prohibitive fuel costs, and erratic consumer spending conspire to challenge us in ways that force both connection and creativity.

It’s the very thing that inspired this blog.

Buying close to home or from one another is a key principle of sustainability. When you click through from one of the ads on these pages, Hannah and I make a small commission on the sale that helps support us and this blog.  It’s just that direct.

Rural people understand what it takes. Patronizing and hiring friends and community members is a no-brainer. Not necessarily so in the cities, where selection is vast and people are used to sussing out ‘the best for the least.’ Sustaining those you care about, those you know, those you trust is the nucleus of community.

I bought and cooked some of Tara’s rabbit meat, knowing how the rabbits were raised and butchered; knowing that ultimately, they served to help her survive. I prepared that rabbit in a totally different spirit than I do the meat I buy in the store.  Although I buy organic and give thanks for the life that nourishes mine, I knew intimately the source of this food.  I could make conscious connection to all the elements, all the effort, that went into getting it to my table.

Rabbit Coq Au Vin ala Libby

One 3-4 pound domestic rabbit

2 large onions, chopped

3 cloves crushed garlic

Mushrooms, as many as you want

Flour for dredging (I used a gluten free mixture)

1 tsp salt

Pepper (as much as you like)

1 tsp smoked paprika

2 c. sake (Japanese white wine)

Olive Oil for browning, maybe 3 tablespoons

1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut rabbit as you would a chicken; wash well and pat dry.  Mix flour, salt, pepper and paprika together and dredge rabbit in flour mixture.  Heat cast iron dutch oven; add olive oil (don’t let it get too hot); brown rabbit pieces; turning once.  (If the pot isn’t big enough, brown what it will hold and remove to platter until all pieces are browned and ready).

When all pieces are browned, return to cast iron pot, add garlic, chopped onion and sake.  Cover and bake for 1.5 – 2 hours, checking occasionally to add more moisture (water, sake or chicken broth if you like).  You should maintain 2 – 3 inches of liquid in the pot.

When rabbit is fork tender, remove from pot with slotted spoon.  Make a gravy by adding sour cream to pan drippings and whisk until smooth, adding a little of the dredging flour if you like thicker gravy. Season to taste. Add rabbit pieces back to the sour cream gravy and serve the whole thing over rice or noodles.  If you want a fancier presentation, spoon cooked rice or noodles onto a serving platter, top with rabbit pieces, pour sour cream gravy over the whole thing, sprinkle with shredded fresh parsley and a little paprika.  Delicious!


This Changing World

We all need to face the possibility that things are not going to return to ‘normal’ in this country, maybe even the world.  By ‘normal’ I mean before 9/11.  That event, whatever you may think or know about it, was a turning point that woke us up to facts and fictions that are still unfolding.  The economic collapse that we’re in was predicted; the events of the last decade follow a well-worn pattern, and although we don’t have all the pieces, we all sense that ‘something wicked this way comes.’

Sounds spooky, doesn’t it?  I waffle between fear and the thrill of possibility.  I know that all births are preceded by transition, and that transition is a touch and go time that can last moments or millenniums.  I sense that we’re in a big one and that’s really all I need to know.

Replacing fear thoughts with hope isn’t enough though. Action is what matters on the ground.  Connecting to each other, forming community, supporting one another’s endeavors, talking over the dimensions of change we see (or think we see), being open to new ways and willing to prune the dead weight…these are the steps that help midwife change.

Those of us that operate on the edge may not know what the next footfall will bring, but we are all pathfinding.  We are leaving footprints for others who might pass this way and need to find their way.

libby.tara.finding coordinates2
Tara and Libby trying to find their coordinates in an uncertain world.

Flu Remedy

Submitted on 2009/07/21 at 10:04pm

Hi,

I live in the woods, I use plants for things like burn salve and teas. I like to wild gather berries for pies and elderberry brandy. This recipe is for when everybody’s got a nasty flu or some other kind of plague, and its got you too. Recently a friend was visiting from out of town, and she got real sick….she was staying at a rented place, not mine – but she was down with swollen throat, infected ears, sinus infection – it was nasty. I gave her my best referrals and she got some meds and started feeling better. That’s when I went out to dinner with her – and the next day I had it.

Here’s my remedy – it kills anything – and it works in 24 – 48 hours for me, but I eat real healthy all the time, so that might make a difference. It definitely beats any meds they’ll give you – it’s a quick bounce back.

Take two capsules of goldenseal 4 times a day. Take vitamin C 1000 mg on the hour. Drink as much water as is humanly possible. And take a half dropper of Lomatium Osha tincture 4-6 times a day under the tongue (it tastes horrid at first). And sleep – sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.

If you tend to have a pretty sugary or white diet, then you can alkalize your blood with two tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar in a quart of water and drink that, or add some lemon to your water, or make a vegetable broth (any kind) – that really helps too.

When it’s all over, you need to take two caps of probiotics every morning 30 minutes before food (for two weeks), with a cup of warmish water to rebuild your intestinal flora that were killed by the golden seal.

Stay shining!

Saphir

Summer of Our Tomatoes

Heirloom Tomatoes for Canning
Heirloom Tomatoes for Canning

In February, before I said final goodbyes to my partner and my daughter, I bought a packet of heirloom tomato seeds. They didn’t have a name, but promised to have loads of beta carotene that held up under canning. Extra vitamins in the long dark months of winter in the Pacific Northwest.

My little seeds grew to tiny plants in the dining room. They grew as my attachment to the man I had hoped to marry broke and I began the long season of missing him without reaching to him. I sat on the floor and watched the wee plants unfold, thinking of a happier summer ahead.

In April, strong enough for a short journey, I gave 10 away, transplanted 20 into pots filled with the soil mixture recommended in
All New Square Foot Gardening, and set them on the front patio to grow.

They looked small and cold, buffeted by the Northwest marine breezes. So I covered them with pint canning jars -the same ones, turns out, I canned them in five months later.

I got the guest room ready. My daughter was coming in early June after her last hectic days of college. It would be our final summer ‘just us, like it always was.’ She, off to England to her vocation and her man there. Me, proud of her accomplishments and honored that she would spend a final summer with me.

At the feed and garden store, I tried not to compare my frail starts to the tough and burly adolescents for sale there. I hovered over mine, eventually changing the pint jars to quart ones – a good sign. Suddenly, in June, they took off, tough and strong.

Heirloom Tomatoes in Pots
Heirloom Tomatoes in Pots

My daughter arrived thin and weary and our summer began. In this glory place of water, mountains, osprey, eagles, horsetail, cedar, salt and wind, I cooked for her, while she longed for the partner she would soon be with.  She tended to me, who would not be with mine. She cried easily. I cried easily. We knitted and read and talked. We watched seven seasons of All Creatures Great and Small: The Complete Collection. We did not sleep well.

Out front, looking east to Mt. Pilchuck, nineteen tomatoes grew strong. One stayed small and frail, trembling in the warm breezes. That one, I spent extra time chatting up, based on a study that they grow better if talked to by a woman. By July, I was glad there was no man to contend with. I wanted them all for us.

They grew and flowered and thirsted. My daughter tended them, too, watering deeply and well morning and afternoon. In July, she counted 92 tomatoes on the largest plant. The smallest, my avid listener, had produced one. Hurray for her!

The Smallest Tomato
The Smallest Tomato

And then the tomatoes ripened the way popcorn pops: slowly, then faster, then in an explosive rush. The first one we picked reverently, with gratitude to The Mother. We praised it, sliced it in half holding our breath, then breathed in the juicy scent of coral-red. It tasted like sun, like our island, salty and loamy.

My little seeds grew to lusty mothers, who spilled their bounty and shared easily. When the fruit was red and ripe, they let go.

Island Summer Salsa
Island Summer Salsa

It was not so easy for me, but I prayed each day for the will to release my child gracefully. She got stronger and calmer. I let go of my man some more. We finished up our knitting, and she left for good.

She left before the time to put them by, before the height of the harvest.  I picked them by myself. She lives now in her heart’s home, far away across the sea, and I live in mine, here, facing east to the Cascades, alone and content.

When next we meet, I’ll take her a jar of salsa, and she can share our summer tomatoes with her man, and remember our tending that brings nourishment in the long stretch of winter ahead.

Island Summer Salsa

7 cups Chopped cored peeled tomatoes NOTE: If you are new to canning, please carefully learn
how.  There are endless sources!
Here’s one: Ball Blue Book of Preserving

1. Prepare 6 pint jars
(but you probably will only use 5)
2. Combine all ingredients in a stainless steel pot.
3. Bring to a boil and stir frequently.
4. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently,
until slightly thickened.
5. Put hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1 cm headspace.
6. Carefully remove bubbles, wipe rim, center lid and screw band down tightly.
7. Completely cover jars with water and process for 15 minutes in boiling water.2 cupsChopped peeled cucumbers2 cupsChopped sweet yellow peppers1 cupChopped green onions1 cupChopped peeled roastedAnaheim pepper1 cupChopped seeded jalapeno peppers Zest of 1 lime1/2 cupCider vinegar1/4 cupHoney1/2 cupLoosely packed finely chopped cilantro1 tbspFinely chopped fresh marjoram1 tspSalt2 tbspLime juice

 

 

 

Homemade Cough Syrup

This is one from my grandmother…

Her mother would cut the stem end off of a large horseradish or black radish and hollow out the center. Then she’d fill with rock candy (I supposed honey would do well too). She’d put the stem end back on and set it in the dark. She never said how she kept it from tipping over but must’ve rigged up some way to keep the thing upright. When the rock candy had thoroughly dissolved, it signaled her that the cough syrup was done…the sugary mixture had taken on the healing properties of the horseradish. She poured it off and that was the cough syrup!

Home Remedies

Here’s a Home Remedy to help ward off the flu.  It’s from my friend Saphir Lewis:
I live in the woods, I use plants for things like burn salve and teas. I like to wild gather berries for pies and elderberry brandy. This recipe is for when everybody’s got a nasty flu or some other kind of plague, and its got you too. Recently a friend was visiting from out of town, and she got real sick….she was staying at a rented place, not mine – but she was down with swollen throat, infected ears, sinus infection – it was nasty. I gave her my best referrals and she got some meds and started feeling better. Thats when I went out to dinner with her – and the next day I had it.

Heres my remedy – it kills anything – and it works in 24 -48 hours for me, but I eat real healthy all the time, so that might make a difference. It definitely beats any meds they’ll give you – its a quick bounce back.

Take two capsules of goldenseal 4 times a day. Take vitamin C 1000 mg on the hour. Drink as much water as is humanly possible. And take a half dropper of Lomatium Osha tincture 4-6 times a day under the tongue (it tastes horrid at first). And sleep – sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.

If you tend to have a pretty sugary or white diet, then you can alkalize your blood with two tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar in a quart of water and drink that, or add some lemon to your water, or make a vegetable broth (any kind) – that really helps too.

When its all over, you need to take two caps of probiotics every morning 30 minutes  before food (for two weeks), with a cup of warmish water to rebuild your intestinal flora that were killed by the golden seal.

Plums in Brandy

Bumper crop of plums?  Me too.  Made jam and sauce and didn’t know what to do with the rest.  Found a recipe in an ancient old cookbook for brandied plums, using cherry brandy.  Sounded great!  But no cherry brandy on hand.  However, way back in the cupboard I found orange brandy so I’m soaking a load of sugar plums (otherwise known as Italian prunes) in that.  Will serve them over ice cream or make jam out of them for Christmas if they’re good.  Oh, and I added a few whole allspice and a stick of cinnamon to the mix.

Fried Green Tomatoes

My garden was fertilized with alpaca manure this year and the tomatoes are loving it.

I just finished a lunch of fried green tomatoes.  I made them 2 ways…one using the traditional recipe, which is slicing and salting them, letting them sit for about 10 minutes, then drying them off and dipping them in egg/buttermilk mixture and them rolling them in a mixture flour,cornmeal/breadcrumbs.  Of course everything every step of the way was seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and my latest find…smoked paprika.  After frying the first batch, I mixed the wet and dry ingredients together to get a batter and dipped the tomato slices in it.  It tended to slide off so I had to help it along…but when I fried them up, it created a terrific tasting, crunchy crust that encased the whole tomato slice, leaving the center soft and delicious.

The difference was that the first batch of slices came out grainy, dry and rough on the outside.  The second batch was crispy and, well, battered.  Both were so good I almost fainted.

These were not the heirlooms.  They’re not ready yet.  These were Early Girls.