R E A D E R S F A V O R I T E T I P S A N D R E C I P E S from maria s farm country kitchen S C R AT C H C O O K B O O K. C O M ON SALE 10/11/16 RODALEWELLNESS.COM FOLLOW US @RODALEBOOKS ON
THANK YOU FOR PRE-ORDERING I love to cook. I also love to show people how easy it can be to cook delicious foods from scratch. More than anything, I want to share that happy feeling that comes from eating a good meal, prepared with love, from scratch. I started sharing my recipes and food tips on my blog, mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com, and found a lot of people love my cooking tips and recipes as much as my kids and I do! Of course, my readers have favorites, the most-requested tips and recipes they have raved about, shared with friends, and used time and again. I ve pulled those readers favorites together in this special collection. It s my thank-you for ordering my new cookbook, Scratch. With love from the kitchen,
basic baking tips i had to learn the hard way BAKING 1 To keep a cake from sticking to the pan, coat the pan with cooking spray or butter, then cut a round of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan. (Place the pan on parchment paper, trace around the bottom with a pencil and cut the round out, making sure you cut inside the pencil marks. Use the parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan). This tip saved me years of disasters 2 Let the cakes cool I mean really, really cool before you frost them. 3 I used to scoff at buttermilk, until I found organic buttermilk at the farmers market. The real stuff is thick and creamy and works really well. The acid in buttermilk results in more airy and tender baked goods. The best substitute for buttermilk I ve found is as follows: Combine 1 cup whole milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice or distilled white vinegar, stir, and let stand for 10 minutes before using it in your recipe. It won t be as thick as the real thing, but it will do the trick. 4 To keep cupcakes from spilling over the sides of the muffin cups, only fill the cups two-thirds of the way up. Doh! Why don t they tell you that in college? 5 To keep cupcakes from sinking in the middle, make sure they are fully cooked before removing from the oven. FROSTING 1 Have you ever heard of a crumb coat? I hadn t until I asked for some professional baking help. It enabled me to make my first-ever frosted cake that didn t look horrible. The basic idea is that first you do a thin coat of frosting that catches the crumbs (and holds them in place); refrigerate the cake for half an hour to set a little. Then you frost the cake with the remaining frosting. 2 There is a reason cakes often have a lot of frosting on them it hides the crumbs and cracks. 3 Frosting can be very temperature-sensitive, which is why it melts easily in the heat and goes very hard in the fridge. If it s going to be a hot day, don t use coconut oil because it will liquefy and melt. But in the winter, coconut oil is perfectly fine to use.
10 things to do with rotten bananas Unless you loathe bananas (like my oldest), you are bound to, at some point, have a few rotten ones on your counter (you should never store them in the fridge). I was reminded about how versatile a product a rotten banana is the other week when I was in the Florida Keys and ordered a banana-orange-mango smoothie at a local health food store. The woman took a bag of frozen banana pieces out of the freezer and used them instead of ice. Of course! That just got me thinking of all the ways we can use our old bananas instead of throwing them out: 1 BANANA MUFFINS. My littlest used to call them happy cakes. 2 BANANA-COCONUT BREAD. This quick-and-easy recipe is a guaranteed crowd pleaser! 3 BANANA CAKE. Ummm... YUM. 4 FRESH SMOOTHIES. Put a banana in a blender and add all sorts of other good things ice (unless you have frozen bananas), a liquid of some sort, and any other fruit you wish. It s hard to go wrong with a frozen smoothie. 5 FROZEN BANANAS FOR SMOOTHIES. Cut them up, put them on a baking tray, and freeze them. When they are frozen, toss them into a plastic bag or jar. 6 CHOCOLATE-DIPPED FROZEN BANANAS. Melt some chocolate chips (organic, of course) and dip the cut-up bananas in the warm chocolate. Then freeze the chocolate-dipped bits on a baking tray. Once frozen, toss them into a plastic bag or jar. Adding some crushed peanuts is a plus. 7 BANANAS FOSTER. For every banana, melt a tablespoon of butter. Slice up the bananas and cook the slices in the butter, then add 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for each banana. Eat plain or on top of ice cream. Add some coconut on top if you wish. Cinnamon if you feel like it. Traditionally, the recipes call for rum, but no rum in my house, so sorry. You don t need it anyway! 8 BANANA ICING. See Banana Cake recipe. 9 FEED THE BIRDS, butterflies, and babies. If you have a baby around, mash up the banana and feed it to her. If there are no babies near, you can put the bananas outside for the birds and butterflies to eat (provided it s bird and butterfly season). 10 If all else fails, THROW THEM ON THE COMPOST PILE! ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON MARCH 11, 2015
amazing gravy from scratch Gravy, real gravy, has to be one of the best foods on earth. It makes everything taste better (rice and gravy, potatoes and gravy, stuffing and gravy, bread and gravy, gravy and gravy... yum!). Gourmet machinations just mess it up. It s got to be simple, pure, heavenly gravy. I know some people make it in a saucepan with broth and giblets. I ve never quite understood the appeal of that. Adding any sort of alcohol ruins it completely. I ve only made gravy one way, and it s the way my mother made it before me, and the way my kids are already making it after me. Why mess with perfection? 1 Start by roasting a chicken or turkey in a high-sided (3 inches will do) pan that can also be used to cook on top of the stove. THIS IS KEY. 2 When the bird is done, take it out of the oven and transfer the bird (try to tilt it so its juices run into the pan) to a platter for carving or serving or whatever. Put the roasting pan on top of the stove. 3 In a glass or cup, mix about ½ cup of flour to 1 cup of water. Stir the flour mixture with a fork until there are no lumps (unless you want lumps). 4 Turn on the heat under the roasting pan. When the brothy grease is boiling, add the flour and water mixture, and stir. Make sure you scrape all the brown crispy stuff off the edges and bottom of the pan until it all melts into the mixture and it thickens into a golden, bubbly, delicious, and thick GRAVY. This step should only take a few minutes. If it seems too thick, you can always add more water. 5 Add salt and pepper. Pour off excess fat if you want to. Put it into a gravy boat and serve it with a ladle. Truly good, clean gravy is the secret to many things good food, a happy household, and children who love to eat. It makes good leftovers, too. The next day, make some toast, add some leftover chicken or turkey. Put gravy on top and microwave it until the gravy is hot and melted. Heaven! ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON NOVEMBER 25, 2009
homemade bread cubes and bread crumbs (for stuffing) These days, it seems everyone has some sort of adverse feeling or physical reaction to oldfashioned, store-bought white bread. So when it comes to making stuffing, it seems wrong to buy the little white dried bread crumbs or bread cubes (or croutons) that have been sitting in a bag for lord knows how long. So I decided to make my own. Let s get one thing clear: I am not BAKING bread from scratch. That s not my thing. Maybe one day, when I m retired, I ll bake bread. But for now, there are so many delicious, yummy choices at my local farmers market that I just don t need to. So here s how to make homemade bread cubes or bread crumbs: 1 It all starts with the bread. Pick your favorite bread, hopefully organic. Also, lighter bread, nothing too dense. I went with a light and fluffy farmhouse wheat bread that my family and I all love the flavor of and that seems like it will taste good with gravy. 2 Now, cut the bread into cubes and lay them out on a baking tray. Basically, you want the bread to dry out and go stale without going moldy. If you need to speed the process along, place the bread cubes in the oven for an hour or two at 200 degrees. 3 To keep the drying process going while still protecting your cubes from interested parties (mice, bugs, cats, or kids), cover with a tea towel. 4 You can go from fresh bread to bread cubes in two days (maybe faster, but that s as fast as I needed to). From here, use them in your own stuffing recipe or in my favorite stuffing recipe. 5 If you want bread crumbs... simply crush the cubes into bits. That should be fun! ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON NOVEMBER 19, 2014
chicken and gravy in 15 minutes The other day I was in a 4-hour meeting in New York City. Sometimes in New York, no matter where you are, you can smell food cooking from a restaurant or apartment somewhere. Well, all during that 4-hour meeting, I smelled chicken and gravy. It didn t stop me from paying attention (it was a very interesting meeting). But it wouldn t go away. Suddenly, all I could think of was chicken and gravy and getting a hold of some as soon as possible. On my way home from the city, I was pondering how I could get some chicken and gravy. I knew that by the time I got home everyone would be hungry and that I didn t have a thawed chicken roast. I forget what I ended up cooking for dinner that night. It was good, but it wasn t what I really wanted. The next night, I am ashamed to say, dinner was real beef jerky from Dietrich s meats, pretzels, and chips because we were on our way to Eve s horseback-riding lesson and there was no time for a proper meal (Dietrich s was on the way). Last night, I still really wanted chicken and gravy in fact my parting words to my husband yesterday morning were chicken and gravy. Which is why I was surprised when I got home from work and found he had brought home takeout Turkish food. It actually looked pretty good, but it wasn t chicken and gravy. And the kids were balking, too. I was getting fairly desperate at this point and was ready to run down to the local diner and get an open-faced hot turkey sandwich smothered in fake gravy... when I got my idea. I took the three boneless, skinless organic chicken breasts that I did have in my fridge, cut them into little pieces, and sautéed them a bit in a saucepan with butter and olive oil. Then, I took out a quart of my homemade chicken broth from the freezer, thawed it in the microwave, and poured it over the chicken. I put ½ cup of flour in the bottom of the quart jar then returned about a cup of broth (not yet hot) to it to mix with the flour. Once the broth with the chicken was boiling, I added in the flour mixture to thicken it. Lots of salt and mere minutes later, I had chicken and gravy. I toasted up some of the stale white bread that came with the Turkish food, and voilà! How do I know it was a success? First, my craving is gone. Second, the kids devoured it, saying yum the whole time. And third, last night as I put little Lucia to bed, we were talking about the next day. I asked her what she wanted for dinner and she said chicken and gravy! RECIPE CONTINUES >>
<< RECIPE CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE chicken and gravy in 15 minutes continued 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 3 or 4 breasts boneless, skinless chicken 1 quart chicken broth (preferably homemade and with fat) ½ cup flour Salt to taste (a must!) 1 Put the butter and olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. 2 Cut up the chicken into pieces and add to the pan. Cook slightly, but don t brown too much. 3 Add the chicken broth. 4 When the broth is warm, mix about a cup of broth with the flour in a mixing bowl, and stir until well mixed. 5 When the broth in the sauté pan is at a full boil, add the flour/ broth mixture. 6 Stir until thickened. 7 Add salt. 8 Serve over toast! ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON OCTOBER 9, 2009
pancakes from scratch in a pinch The other weekend my daughter had a sleepover, and I needed to redeem myself with breakfast, since the dinner I d served the night before was... well... absolutely horrible. It was leftover Chinese food. Unthinkable, right? So, the kids asked for pancakes, and I said yes before I realized I was out of my usual organic mix. And parents were coming to pick up their kids in about 25 minutes. Crap! I pulled out The Joy of Cooking and made pancakes from scratch, and it reminded me just how easy they really are... no mix necessary! I have since adapted the recipe slightly (I prefer even numbers) and so, here it is. The whole thing, from beginning to end (end being in the tummy), takes about 30 minutes or less. 2 cups organic flour (can be whole wheat, white whole wheat, or white) 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 tablespoons sugar 3 eggs 1¾ cups milk Butter for cooking 1 Throw everything except the butter into a bowl and whisk! 2 Melt butter in a giant cast-iron skillet, or wherever you cook your pancakes. 3 Use a ladle to drop in some pancake batter and cook, turning over when the pancake is bubbly and golden. 4 Repeat. 5 Serve with REAL organic maple syrup! Yum. Pancakes go very well with bacon. This recipe serves four fully, and six if bacon is involved. I also love to have pancakes occasionally with jam for afternoon tea! It brings back memories from a sailboat excursion in the British Virgin Islands a very long time ago. Sigh! ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON FEBRUARY 12, 2010
bone broth from thanksgiving turkey bones Bone broth is everywhere right now. It officially seems like a craze to me. Some crazes are crazy (margarine, for example); others are great (like the running or yoga crazes). What s funny to me about the bone broth craze is that I ve been making it forever. I just called it homemade soup broth. In fact, I blogged about it back in... January 2014 (actually, much earlier than that, but somehow the original blog got lost in a digital re-platforming). My house and my family would not function without my homemade broth. I make it in bulk, using any carcass or leftover bones I have available (chicken, turkey, ham, smoked ham!, goose, duck, lamb, beef). It has, for centuries, just been a part of any good household management: You make something, and then you make something else from the leftovers. Homemade broth is not only financially and environmentally smart, but it s also the most freaking delicious thing you can ever make. And once you start making it, everything else in the universe that claims it s broth will taste fake. Homemade broth from bones tastes like truth. I m not going to comment on all the health benefits and nutritional data or whether or not collagen will make you look younger. I m just going to tell you how to make it using your leftover turkey carcass. You will be so thankful you made it! One turkey carcass (majority of the meat removed) A large soup pot Enough water to cover at least most of the bones Salt 1 Place the turkey carcass in the soup pot. Cover it as much as possible with water. I like to use filtered water just because, but you don t have to. If the carcass is too big, you can try and break it up and jam it in. If you don t have a pot big enough, buy one. You won t regret it. 2 Place the pot on the stovetop and turn the heat on high. Bring to a boil. Once it boils, skim the weird stuff off the top and turn down the heat. 3 Let it cook. For hours. I find 2 to 3 hours is usually enough. What you want to wait for is that moment when everything just collapses and the broth is golden and fragrant and has a nice glow to it. RECIPE CONTINUES >>
<< RECIPE CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE bone broth from thanksgiving turkey bones continued 4 Add salt to taste. You will need a lot. More than you think. 5 Turn off the heat and let the soup sit until cool enough to strain. But in the meantime, enjoy eating as much as you can. STRAINING BONE BROTH: For the clearest broth, you will want to strain the liquid from the bones. I use a stainless steel fine-mesh strainer that looks like a cone. Put it over another big pot and pour the whole mixture in so the strainer still holds the bones and all that is in the other pot is clear broth. Feel free to pick over the carcass and save the meat for use in other ways (all pets will stare adoringly at you while you complete this process). You now have bone broth, or basic soup stock. I vehemently dislike adding vegetables and herbs to this mixture. It takes away from the truth of the broth. Of course, you can add that later when you are making a soup. The variations of soup from broth are endless. If you ve done all this correctly, you will have way more broth than you can eat in one meal. So you ll want to freeze the extra for those times when you just need some broth. It freezes super well. FREEZING BONE BROTH: Ladle the broth into a wide-mouth glass jar (I use a funnel to reduce spillage). Make sure to leave an inch or two at the top of the jar because the broth will expand when it freezes. Put a label on it. Wait till it cools (store it in the fridge overnight if you must), and then put it in the freezer. If you or a family member are feeling under the weather and just want some homemade love, this is the secret healing recipe. And now, you have it. ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON NOVEMBER 26, 2014
homemade canned pumpkin without a can! While this might seem like a little more work than simply buying a can from the store, one pumpkin will probably give you two or three cans worth (depending on the size). More important, roasting it will make your house smell divine, will give you a great nutritious and delicious pumpkin seed snack, and will give you bragging rights with friends and family that you made this puree from scratch. Even better if you grew the pumpkin yourself! Trust me, people will notice the difference and appreciate your effort. We ll just keep it between us that it s actually super easy! How to make pumpkin puree in 5 easy steps: 1 BUY A PUMPKIN. Small is good. A baking variety is great types like Cinderella, Autumn Gold, or Fairy Tale but any kind will work, even a similar squash like butternut or Hubbard! Go to your local farmers market and buy one directly from the farmer, if you can. 2 ROAST THE PUMPKIN. Wash the pumpkin and place it in a roasting pan with high sides (because juice may come out). Cut open the top and remove the seeds. Follow this method for roasting pumpkin seeds to snack on! You can roast them at the same time in the same oven as the pumpkin! Roast the pumpkin at around 375 degrees until it s soft (when you can easily stick a knife through it) and maybe even collapsed a bit. How it responds in the oven depends on the pumpkin s water content. So the knife test is the best way to tell if it s tender. 3 REMOVE THE PUMPKIN MEAT. Separate the good pumpkin meat from the skin and also from the gnarly fiber stuff, if there is any, that lined the inner cavity. 4 BLEND THE PUMPKIN MEAT WELL. I use a Vitamix food blender, but you can also use a food mill or probably even an electric mixer. The smoother you want the mixture, the longer you ll need to blend it. 5 USE IT OR FREEZE IT! Voilà! You have created pure pumpkin puree. I freeze mine in glass jars and use it for pies, muffins, soup, and whatever else calls for pumpkin. ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON OCTOBER 14, 2015
quick homemade mashed potatoes from scratch When I was much, much younger, I made instant mashed potatoes. But then I realized making mashed potatoes from scratch was just as easy and so much more delicious. So many people overcomplicate what is at its essence already perfect. Use this recipe to make a delicious and comforting quick side dish for a weeknight dinner or an essential part of an epic family dinner. Its basic portions are for a small group; scale up accordingly! 4 large potatoes, peeled perfectly (no spots or skin!!) ⅓ cup whole milk 4 tablespoons butter Salt 1 Boil the potatoes (cut up into smaller pieces so they cook more quickly). If the potatoes have eyes (sprouted) or bad spots, just cut them off. 2 Drain the water and mash the potatoes with a hand masher. 3 Add milk and butter and mash some more. 4 Add more milk as needed to get the right consistency, depending on the type of potato some need more milk and some need less. Start with less and add more if you need it. 5 Depending on your love of butter, your potatoes may need more butter or less. If you are super health conscious, you can use olive oil instead of butter. YOU are the boss! 6 Salt to taste and enjoy! Disclaimer: Feeding yourself and your children organic foods may cause extreme health, healing, and happiness. ORIGINALLY SHARED ON MARIA S BLOG ON JULY 8, 2013