Dad’s B-Day Gift – Crushed Red Pepper Flakes and Seeded Rye Crackers

 

For my Dad’s birthday this year I put together a jar of my homegrown crushed cayenne peppers and these seeded rye crackers with amaranth, sunflower seeds and fennel from the garden. 

 

My dad like’s spicy food, so I figured he could get some use out of my peppers!  Here is my post about drying the peppers, and then I simply crushed the dried peppers up a mortar and pestle until they were nothing more than seeds and pepper flakes.  So good!

 


This was my first time making crackers.  I didn’t have much wheat flour left, but I had a whole thing of rye flour.  I followed this recipe as my base and added seeds and more rye flour.  My adjusted recipe goes as follows:

½ CUP plus 2 TBSP rice milk
3 TBSP olive oil
1 CUP whole wheat flour
1 CUP rye flour
½ TSP baking powder
1 TSP garlic salt
2 TSP amaranth seeds
¼ CUP sunflower seeds
1 TBSP fennel seeds

 

Mix the milk and oil together.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until dough is formed.

Roll out on a floured surface and cut into cracker shapes (either into squares or use a cookie cutter).  I flattened the dough to about 1 cm, but you could make thicker crackers too, just cook a little longer.

 

Place the crackers on parchment paper lined baking sheets and cook for 18 minutes at 350°F, rotating about half way through.

 

They taste great!  My dad will love them.  I put my goods in glass jars and made a couple personal labels using sticker paper and permanent markers.

(I grew Joe's Long Cayenne Pepper's; I crossed the "E" in Joe's out and put a "Y" above to spell my name, Joy :) )

Stuffed Tofurkey

 

I’ve been vegetarian for over 10 years now and I’ve never made a tofurkey!  So I figured it was about time.  I looked at a bunch of different recipes, combining several but mostly followed this one; it has great pictures of each step.  It’s also an easy recipe to adapt depending on what herbs you have available.

This is a bit of a process, but after tasting the results I may be making it every year!

Basically you are making 3 parts; the “turkey”, stuffing and a marinade.  I started 2 days before Thanksgiving, because I had to drive to Columbus this morning, but you can make it work starting the day before.  And if you’re already out of time, there is always this fabulous beer can tofurkey idea!

 

 

TOFURKEY

INGREDIENTS:

3-4 14 oz containers of extra firm tofu
1-2 TBSP of each of the following herbs:
   Oregano
   Sage
   Rosemary
   Thyme
   Garlic Scapes (/Chives/Green Onions)
Salt and Pepper to taste

 

 
Let the tofu sit out overnight or at least a few hours so it’s at room temperature. 

 

With your hands, squeeze all the liquid you can get out of the tofu.  Then mix in the remaining ingredients.

 

 

Take a clean, wet piece of cheesecloth and drape it over a strainer.  I sprinkled some rosemary and chopped sage leaves down first.  Then scoop the tofu mix into the covered strainer.  Use the excess cheesecloth to wrap the top of the tofu and press any liquid out.  Put a bowl under the strainer and a plate on top of the cloth.  Sit in the fridge overnight and place something heavy (I used a juice bottle) on top of the plate so that the presser will continue to squeeze liquid out of the tofurkey. 

 

 

 

STUFFING

You can make this the day of your meal or before and refrigerate.

INGREDIENTS:

3 CUPS bread cubes
1 TSP or so olive oil
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 celery stick, finely diced
1 small apple, diced
3 TBSP herbs (I used sage, cilantro, rosemary and thyme)
Pinch of cayenne (crushed red pepper)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 TBSP maple syrup
1 TSP balsamic vinegar
½ CUP sunflower seeds or other nut/seed
¼ CUP dried fruit (I used dried goji berries from the garden but you can use cherries, cranberries, etc.)
½ CUP vegetable broth

 

First cut the bread into cubes and dry in the over for 20 minutes or so at 250°F.

 

Heat a pan with a little olive oil and sauté the onion for a few minutes until soft.

 

Add celery, cook another 2 minutes

 

Add apple, herbs and spices and cook 5 more minutes.

 

Add syrup and balsamic vinegar, mix and remove from heat.

 

Combine this mixture with the dried bread cubes, seeds and dried fruit.

 

Put the stuffing into a greased pan and pour the vegetable broth over the top.

 

Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes at 300°F.

 

MARINADE

I also made the marinade the day before and let it soak in all the flavors.

 

INGREDIENTS:

¼ CUP Braggs (/soy sauce/tamari)
¼ CUP olive oil
½ CUP chopped herbs (I used sage, chives, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and parsley)
1 TSP sesame seeds, finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

 

 

 

 

Just mix everything together and keep in the refrigerator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASSEMBLY….

 

Scoop out the center of the tofurkey, leaving an inch or so on the sides.

 

Fill hole with stuffing, and recover with scooped out tofu.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then very carefully flip the whole tofurkey into a cooking pan (I just sort of picked up the whole cheesecloth, placed the baking pan on top of the tofu and flipped).

 

Baste with the marinade, and cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours at 350°F.  Baste the tofurkey as much as you want throughout the baking.

 

I had some extra stuffing, so I reheated it separately and added it in around my tofurkey!

 

Beautiful and tastes amazing!  Much better than eating something this cute…..

 

Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits

 

I made a variation of these dog biscuits last Christmas for a few special dogs in my life.  All the dogs enjoyed them, as well as a couple of my friends who tested them for the pups :) They really are more of a peanut butter banana cracker, so these are approved for dogs and humans!

 

 

This recipe is super simple too, just mash up:

4 eggs

2/3 cup peanut butter

2 bananas

 

Mix in:

2 cups wheat flour

1 cup wheat germ

 

Until you have dough (you can see my pup waiting patiently in the background)

 

Then roll it out on a floured surface and cut your shapes out.  I found a dog bone cookie cutter at a craft store for about $0.75.

 

 

 

 

Put them on an oiled cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let cool and watch your dog devour them!

Chicken Coop Addition and the Adventures of Integrating a New Hen

What a busy month it’s been!  Lots of projects in the garden preparing for winter, and a million things to make for the holiday season!

 

And to add to all the chaos I brought home a young hen to add to our flock.  There were supposed to be 2 little hens, but one was killed by my Dad’s older hens.  So I was really cautious about integrating The Buffster, as we have come to call her.  She is a Buff Orpington, and we kind of just liked that as her name, so Buff for short.  This page is an excellent resource for integrating chickens.  Apparently some people just put the new hens in with their flock when they are sleeping, but my city chickens are pretty tough and much bigger than Buff.  I used the other two options, seperate spaces and caging the bullies.

 

Unfortunately the 2 quail that were living in the garden died a couple months ago, but I was able to use their old cage for Buff.  I set it up next to the chicken coop so all the chickens could see each other and get used to the changes. 

This is how the integration began:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not horrible fighting, but lots of pecking and chasing.  It was mainly the #2 hen, Corn Flake, that would pick on the Buffster.  I seperated her from the others a couple times when she was out of control.  It was strange though, her aggression seemed to bump her up in the chain of command and now she is the Alpha Hen.  We gave them time together almost every day and let them scratch around the backyard where there was plenty of room for Buff to run away if she needed to. 

 

After about a week the older hens didn’t bother her much at all.  So it was time for full integration.   We decided to actually combine the 2 cages.  The original coop needed a bit of reinforcing to begin with.  Once everything was covered in small mesh chicken wire we lined the quail cage up next to the chicken coop with the doorway facing in towards the coop. 

 

We cut a matching doorway out of the side of the chicken coop by cutting a vertical line through the center, then horizontal cuts along the top and bottom of the door.  This allowed us to bend the cut chicken wire into the quail cage to secure the gap between the two cages.  We used gorilla tape around any sharp edges that we couldn’t bend smooth. 

 

 

The overall plan is to add a sunroof to the quail cage section using an old window pane.  We plan to use the top of the main part of the coop to catch rain water, store supplies or turn it into a green roof. 

Even though there was still a little pecking and fighting between hens at this point, we left them alone together to sort out their differences.  And they were fine!  It took another 2 or 3 days until the older chickens let Buff sleep in their house, but now they are one happy flock.

 

Here is one last addition I’ve made to the coop that has made a big difference.  I saw this idea here.  The purpose of the rocks is to keep the chickens from throwing hay and dirt into their water.  Basically I laid a couple logs down in the corner of the coop to close in a square section which I filled with rocks and bricks.  It’s not perfect but much cleaner.

Jim Morrison Wall Art

It’s my amazing sister Holly’s birthday today!  I made her a huge Jim Morrison painting.  It turned out great; I really wanted to keep it for myself!  I think I will just have to do another one for us… maybe with Lux Interior instead?!  I basically just made a huge paper stencil and painting on canvas.

 

I made my own canvas with 24” and 32” stretcher bars and light tan canvas.  You could buy a pre-made canvas too, but it’s usually cheaper to make your own if it’s big painting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took an image of Jim Morrison that was easy to recognize and decent quality so the basic details would show up in a stencil.  I used Gimp (a free, open source photo editor) to edit my picture.  I changed it to black and white then adjusted the levels, brightness and contrast of the photo until it was straight black and white.  Gimp also has a color option called Posterize (not sure what it’s called in Photoshop); where you can choose to only have 2 colors, black and white, in your image.  With these tools a stencil is easy.

 

Once I had my stencil I made the whole image the same size as my canvas and split it into 8.5” x 11” paper sized sections.  You will have to do some math for this part.  My image was going to need to be printed on 9 pieces of paper.  I made sure to overlap where I cut my image into sections, so that I could easily match the pieces up and wouldn’t miss any part of the image.

 

I printed each section out and then cut the border of the page off.  I assembled the image together and taped the paper with packaging tape on the front and back.  It may be helpful to print the whole image out on a separate piece of paper just so you have a model to look at.

(Also note that I printed my image in colors because I was out of black ink, but I will refer to the colored sections as black and the white as white to make it easier)

 

Now that you have your image, it’s time to make the stencil.  Cut the black spaces out with an X-Acto knife and scissors.  For any floating white spaces (as in not touching other white areas) you will need to keep a little “bridge” of black paper to keep it attached and make placement easy.  It may help to draw the “bridge” before cutting so you don’t make a mistake, as I have done many times with stencils!

 

Once all the black spaces are finally cut, pin the paper onto your canvas.  Take a permanent marker and outline around every line of the stencil. 

 

 

 

 

 

When you finish the overall outline you can go back through where you made the “bridges” and as you’re unpinning, draw in where the floating white pieces begin and end.  I drew a squiggly mark over those spots that would become black to make painting easier.

 

Now just color it in!  I used black silk screen ink with paint brushes, and then added a second coat of paint with a sponge for a smooth finish.  You could use acrylic paint too, but I wanted it to be flat and smooth like a giant silk screen.  I heat set the ink with an iron, although I’m not sure if it was necessary, but maybe it will help keep it from fading.

 

Such a large gift required a lot of wrapping paper, so I taped old phone book pages together and tucked the edges under the stretcher bars.  I even found her name in the listings and drew a heart around it as a gift tag.

 

 

 

Drying Peppers

This year I grew a bunch of peppers I’d never grown before.   I usually just make hot sauces or use fresh peppers in my cooking.  For hot sauces I will freeze peppers as they ripen until I have enough for a decent amount of sauce.  But to fully utilize my Alma Paprika and Joe’s Long Cayenne Peppers I needed to dry them.  I learned that not all peppers dry the same, so I used two different methods. 

 

I also dried some of my Thai Hot Peppers, because they are small and perfect for throwing into soups, pastas, curries, etc.  So for the Thai Hot and Joe’s Long Cayenne Peppers, I simply strung the peppers through their stems on cording.  I used sewing thread for the small peppers and yarn/hemp for the larger peppers.  You can tie a bead or large knot on the bottom of the string to keep the peppers from sliding off as they shrivel up.

 

 

I let the smaller peppers touch each other, but for the cayenne peppers I tied a knot every 3 inches or so after each stem to keep them dry and separated. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hang the strung peppers in a sunny window.  I just put a couple nails at the top of my window sill and hung the peppers from there.  You can hang them outside, but if it rains and the peppers get moist they will rot or mold.  At first I put the nails on the outside of the window sill, but I kept forgetting to bring the peppers in now that it’s finally raining again!

 

 

 

I had trouble with my paprika peppers; my first harvest rotted when I tried to hang them.   I’ve been dehydrating the rest in my oven.  I slice the peppers and spread them onto a baking sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

Then bake them on the lowest setting for several hours until all the moisture cooks out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ground them up in a blender and made Paprika!  It smells and tastes amazing, I’m going to use it in a potato salad for this weekend.

 

I’m still waiting for the cayenne peppers to dry completely so I can grind them up too; I can’t wait because I love cayenne powder.  One of my favorites is to add it to Alfredo sauce for spicy Alfredo!  I throw a little cayenne in everything to add some spice!

Rice + Water + Blender = Rice Milk!

I never realized how easy rice milk is!  We were buying a carton a week almost, but not anymore.   Brown rice works best since it has the most nutrients, but you can use any rice you like.

 

First cook a cup of rice.  Follow the directions on the bag, the brown rice I used took 2 ½ cups of water for 1 cup of uncooked rice. 

 

Once your rice is cooked and cooled slightly, blend it with enough water to get the blender moving freely (I usually use an equal ratio of water to rice).  You want to chop up the rice as fine as possible, so add as much water as is necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

When your rice mixture is a nice smooth consistency strain it into a clean bowl.  You may have to stir the little rice chunks around so the whole mixture can pass through the strainer.  Continue to strain the mixture 3 or 4 more times, cleaning your strainer and bowls in between.  (I haven’t figured out anything useful to do with the waste rice other than giving it to the chickens or compost, but it seems like it could be a good hot cereal).

 

 

Put your milk in some kind of air tight container, like an old juice or soda bottle.  Gradually add more water until you get it the consistency you desire.  I like my rice milk pretty thin so I added about 3 more cups of water. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also add flavoring to the milk; such as sweetener, maple syrup, vanilla, cocoa powder, fruit, etc.  The possibilities are endless, but trust me you will not be wasting money on rice milk ever again after trying this.  Just remember to shake the milk before pouring and you can always add more water if it starts to thicken.