Claire Mack Lactose-Free Hollandaise Demo a Success

[caption id="attachment_1271" align="aligncenter" width="483"] Maurice Gwinn, Jerry Hill and Claire Mack[/caption]

Claire Mack, former three-term mayor of San Mateo, spent a few hours at our store yesterday demonstrating her lactose-free take on the classic Hollandaise recipe.

Among those who stopped by to shop, test-taste and mingle was California State Senator, Jerry Hill.

Look for more demonstrations with Claire coming up in the new year! Want to be notified of our next event? Email us with your name and email with the subject "sign up".

Claire, a San Mateo native, became the first African-American woman elected to the San Mateo City Council in 1991. She served three terms as councilwoman followed by her three terms as mayor. During her years on the council, she fought to preserve and improve neighborhoods, advocated for activities for youth and worked to develop more affordable local housing.



Claire has taken a recipe from one of her daughter's cookbooks
and modified it to be lactose-free. Hollandaise sauce is most often served on Eggs Benedict, and on vegetables such as broccoli or asparagus, but can be creatively added to all manner of savory dishes.

Eggs Benedict was originally created as a hangover cure for Lemuel Benedict. The chef at the restaurant was so impressed that he added it to his menu!

Homemade Vanilla Extract Recipe

Homemade vanilla extract!

Ingredients:

10 vanilla beans, split lengthwise - be careful to keep the gooey-inside-seedy-stuff in the pods.

1 liter of Vodka

Directions:

Place the vanilla beans in a bottle of vodka and seal.

If you're going to give these as gifts, find some pretty clear glass bottles and make smaller batches.

Store in a cool, dark area such as a kitchen cabinet for 3 weeks, shaking the bottle every week. Three weeks is the minimum, store it 6 months for the best flavor. After using, replace with more vodka. The same beans will continue to flavor the vanilla for up to a year.

Organic Pumpkin Pie Recipe (From A Pumpkin!)

[caption id="attachment_543" align="aligncenter" width="529"] Image © Brownies For Dinner[/caption]

Organic Pumpkin Pie (from a pumpkin no less!)
2 cups of pumpkin pulp purée from a sugar or other pumpkin*
1 1/2 cup organic heavy cream or same amount of hemp milk (my choice by far and I drink milk)
1/2 cup packed organic dark brown or raw cane sugar
1/3 cup organic white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 organic, free range, cageless eggs plus the yolk of a third egg
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 good crust (see recipe below)

* To make pumpkin purée from a sugar pumpkin: start with a small-medium (about 2 pounds) sugar or other pumpkin, cut out the stem and scrape out the insides, discard (save the seed and see our roasted pumpkin seed recipe). Cut into sections and steam in a saucepan, with a couple inches of water at the bottom, until soft. Scoop out the pulp from the skin. Or you can bake whole or halved in a 350°F oven until fork-tender. Optional – put pulp through a food mill or chinois to make extra smooth. NOTE: I am a lazy cook and I don’t bother with making extra smooth pulp. But, I do bother with real pumpkin. Start it first and it will be done by the time you assemble the rest of the ingredients and it is worth it!

Preheat oven to 425°F. Mix sugars, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Beat the eggs and add to the bowl. Stir in the pumpkin purée. Stir in cream/hemp milk. Whisk all together until well incorporated. Pour into pie shell and bake at 425°F for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes reduce the temperature to 350°F. Bake 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours.

[caption id="attachment_544" align="alignleft" width="300"] Image © Cook Book Man 17[/caption]

Isophene’s Short Pie Crust

This recipe is from my grandmother who’s middle name was Isophene. I am NOT a pastry baker and I was scared of pie crusts until I was 34 and my mother assured me I could make this crust. I was also living in Costa Rica, pre-made crusts were nowhere to be found and I had 30 coming for Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out to be really easy, fun and is the only pie crust recipe I use!

2 C Flour
½ tsp. Salt
¼ tsp. Baking Powder
½ C Salad Oil (this is how my grandma wrote it – I use soy, corn or safflower oil, but not olive – it’s flavor is too strong)
¼ C Water

You’ll need a 9” pie tin and you’ll use this as your mixing bowl. Put your dry ingredients in the pie tin and mix well with your hands. Add wet ingredients and mix with your hands – remember back to your mud-pie days. This crust will not look super even, white-ish spots are fine. You want it blended, that’s all. As my mother wrote in giving me the recipe, “This falls apart easily. Don’t worry. It also smuches back together easily.” Once it’s mixed, start smuching it out towards the edges of the pie tin. Leave a little extra at the lip of the tin and using a pinching method make the little scalloped edges. Viola!

- Jocelyn Broyles

Homemade Fresh Mushroom Soup Recipe

Homemade Mushroom Soup by Season with Spice
Serves 2

Ingredients:
300g or 2 cups fresh mushrooms - cleaned and chopped finely (I used a mix of swiss brown and white button)
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic - chopped
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 - 2 bay leaf
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 tbsp flour dissolved in 1 tbsp water
Salt to taste
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
Dash of nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Fresh parsley or thyme for garnish

Method:
1. Heat olive oil in a sauce pan. Add butter and lightly sauté garlic on medium heat.
2. Add in mushrooms, thyme, bay leaf and Worcestershire sauce. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until the moisture from the mushrooms disappears.
3. Add in chicken broth. Stir occasionally until broth boils, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
4 Add diluted flour in, and stir constantly (while simmering) until the mixture thickens. Season with salt and nutmeg. Taste and adjust seasoning.
5. Finally, add milk and heavy cream, and bring to a simmer. Turn heat off.
6. Serve hot in your soup bowl. Add freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with fresh parsley or thyme if you have them on hand. And warm up this holiday season!

Notes:
- You can thicken the soup by adding in another tablespoon of flour or cut down on the broth, for use in pasta or your Christmas casserole dishes.

Read more at SeasonWithSpice.com

Canning Recipes (and Canning How-To)

[caption id="attachment_372" align="aligncenter" width="529"] Image © Ball Canning Jars[/caption]

I don't can. I love the jars, I love the stuff inside the jars, I don't love steps that have to be performed perfectly. I'm more of a, "Oh look, a pretty picture with a recipe! Hmmm, I don't have that ingredient, or that one, but I bet I can wing it. And I only have a round pan, not a bundt cake pan, but that'll be fine." kind of a cook.

So when it comes to canning, I tend to think, "I'll do that next summer."

But now I work for a bunch of family-run ACE hardware stores, and Ball canning jars are all over the place right now, which leads me to think, "Well, maybe this is the summer after all.

And come to find out, canning is actually pretty easy. You do have to follow some basic steps, but I can foxtrot, so surely I can can. Right?

Here's the canning how-to guide I'm going to follow this season, and it includes carefully marked steps as well as a video. I can do this!

[caption id="attachment_376" align="alignleft" width="300"] Image © Andrea Nguyen[/caption]

I happen to love pickles, I happen to have a good friend who grows cucumbers, and my family happens to hail from the Midwest, which predisposes in me a penchant for bread and butter pickles, so I'll start there.

This recipe is coped in its entirety from Freshpreserving.com:

Makes 2 (32 oz) quarts
For when you want to make just a few jars of Bread & Butter Pickles, use this recipe featuring Ball® Bread & Butter Pickle Mix - Small Batch with Pickle Crisp® Granules for crunchier pickles!

You will need:

3 1/2 lbs pickling cucumbers (about 14 small to medium)
2 1/2 cups vinegar (5% acidity)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup Ball® Bread & Butter Pickle Mix
2 Ball® Quart (32 oz) Fresh Preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:

1. PREPARE canner, jars, and lids according to manufacturer's instructions.
2. CUT ends off cucumbers. Cut into 1/2 inch slices.
3. COMBINE vinegar, sugar, and contents of pouch in a medium saucepan. Heat to a boil.
4. PACK slices into jars. Ladle hot pickling liquid over slices leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rims. Center lids on jars. Apply bands and adjust to fingertip tight.
5. PROCESS in boiling water canner for 15 minutes, adjusting for altitude*. For best flavor, allow pickles to stand for 4-6 weeks.*Increase processing time: 5 minutes for 1,001 to 3, 000 ft; 10 minutes for 3,001 to 6,000 ft; 15 minutes for 6,001 to 8,000 ft; 20 minutes for 8,001 to 10,000 ft.

-Jocelyn Broyles

Hot Fudge Peanut Butter Pie

I first saw this pie on Pinterest and was encouraged by a reader on facebook to hunt down the recipe. I think, in a move of sheer self preservation, I'd left the post at just sharing the photo and hoping that would be enough to quench my craving for a gooey, sweet, peanut buttery, hot fudgy, crispy cookie crusty bite of this delight.

But, as a I can't very well leave a sincere request hanging, I am compelled to post the recipe. Let us all be blessed with at least some willpower around this thing.

CHOCOLATE GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST
1 1/4  C  Natural Graham Cracker Crumbs, Fine (about 9 crackers)
1/4  C     Sugar
1/4  C     Cocoa Powder, Unsweetened
1/3  C     Organic butter, Melted

Make crumbs either in a food processor, or the old-fashioned way like my mom did, by putting them in a Ziploc bag and using a rolling pin.

Stir together the crumbs, sugar, cocoa powder and the butter until the mixture is combined well. You can also do this step in a food processor.

Press the mixture onto the bottom of a buttered 10-inch pan.  Bake at 180° C (350° F) for 5-7 minutes.

Cool, covered, while making the filling.

Note: Safeway usually carries Open Nature, a 100% natural graham cracker brand.

[caption id="attachment_313" align="alignright" width="300"] © yummyluv.blogspot.com[/caption]

WHIPPED CREAM FOR PIE FILLING
1 1/2 C organic whipping cream
1 tsp organic vanilla
1/4 C organic powdered sugar

Whip with mixer or by hand (the mixer is much easier) until fluffy and peaks form. Stop there, or you'll make butter.

Divide in half. You'll use half in the pie and half on top.

KELLY’S HOMEMADE ORGANIC HOT FUDGE SAUCE

1 C organic butter
1/3 C + 2 Tbs organic cocoa powder
1/2 C organic raw sugar
1/2 tsp organic vanilla extract
pinch sea salt

In medium saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the cocoa, sugar and salt. Keep stirring until all sugar dissolves, boil gently for a few minutes, being careful not to let it burn. Remove from heat, add vanilla and stir. Sauce will thicken as it cools.

This makes about 2 cups, and you'll only need about 1.5 for the pie (then again, use it all if you want, we're certainly not counting calories with this baby!).

Divide.
Set aside 2 Tbs for topping. Put in a plastic baggie to use as a frosting tool.

PIE FILLING
1 C organic creamy peanut butter (set aside 2 Tbs for topping. Put in plastic baggie for frosting later.)
1 package (8 ounces) organic cream cheese, room temperature
½ C sugar
1 1/2 C whipped cream (from above)
1 1/2 C organic hot fudge sauce


PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

In large bowl, beat peanut butter, cream cheese, and sugar until creamy. Fold in one half of whipped cream. Spoon the mixture into the crust and smooth to edges.

If your hot fudge has cooled and hardened, reheat just until soft enough to spread. Spread on top of peanut butter layer.

Refrigerate pie until just before serving.

At serving time, carefully spread remaining whipped cream on top of pie.

Knead the reserved hot fudge in baggie with hands; cut a tiny hole in the corner of the baggie and pipe over pie. Repeat with the reserved peanut butter and pipe on pie in opposite direction.

Serve.

Lavender Lemonade

[caption id="attachment_281" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="Lavender Lemonade"][/caption]

I was poking around Pinterest, in the name of finding fun things that can be made with ingredients from ACE - have I mentioned I love my job?

I found lots of fun projects including painted plastic animal figurines as place settings, mason jar lanterns and decorated chalkboards. And then I came across Lavender Lemonade.

Now, if you're anything like me (or even nothing like me, really) you probably like lavender. And if your mom is anything like mine, you know that people actually cook with lavender. As an herb. Imagine!

So when I saw that there was such a thing as lemonade enhanced with a bit of lavender simple syrup, I actually took pause and thanked the elves at Pinterest for placing this delicacy in my path.

Then, I promptly copied the URL for the recipe and was about to email it to my mother, when I thought, wait. There are way more people who need to know about this. And so, I share it with you.

Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar
About ¼ cup fresh lavender blooms, stripped from their stems*
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained.

DIRECTIONS

1. Make a simple syrup by combining the sugar with 2 ½ cups water in a saucepan and boiling until the sugar dissolves, about 1 minute. Remove from heat, add the lavender blooms and cover. Let stand for 1 hour, or up to 4 hours. Strain syrup and discard lavender.


2. Pour lavender syrup into a pitcher. Add lemon juice and 2 ½ cups water. Stir, taste, and adjust to your liking, adding more lemon juice or water if desired. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

* Culinary lavender can be found in farmer’s markets if you aren’t lucky enough to have some growing behind your garage.

Note: If you’d like to make Pink Lemonade, add a splash of grenadine.

Recipe and Image taken directly from Shindig411.com, credited originally to Elizabethwgiftbaskets.com though I couldn't find the recipe or the image on that site.

- Jocelyn Broyles

Quinoa Salad With Chicpeas and Lemon Zest

[caption id="attachment_258" align="aligncenter" width="427" caption="Image © The Diva Dish"][/caption]

While poking around Pinterest, I came across this fabulous treasure trove of healthy, fresh, incredible-sounding food: The Diva Dish.

I've copied her recipe for Quinoa Salad here, in an effort to share her site with you all and, moreover,  to have this recipe at hand for next Saturday when I'll be attending a potluck.

Lemon Quinoa Cilantro Chickpea Salad

Adapted from: Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

1/2 C. dry quinoa

2 C. vegetable broth

1 can garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed)

1 c. cherry tomatoes cut in half

2 avocados diced

2 C. spinach

1 bunch cilantro

1/4 C. onion

2 small cloves garlic

For the dressing:

Juice of 2 lemons

zest of 1 lemon

2 tsp. dijon mustard

2 tsp. olive oil

1 tsp. agave nectar

1/2 tsp. cumin

dash of salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Make your quinoa first. Soak the quinoa in a pot in the veggie broth for about 15 minutes. After that, turn on the heat to medium high and let the quinoa come to a boil. Once it boils, reduce heat to medium/low and let quinoa simmer. Stir every so often, and cook quinoa for about 20-25 minutes just until the liquid absorbs. You don’t want it completely dried out, so when there is just a TINY amount of liquid left in the pot, remove it from heat and put a lid on it. Set it aside, and make the rest of the salad.

Your quinoa will look similar to this when it’s all done:



2. In a food processor, add your spinach and cilantro. Make sure to wash you greens.

3. Process the greens until they are finely diced. You can do this by hand as well if you don’t have a food processor.

4. Add the greens to a bowl, and set aside. Next take your onion and garlic and finely dice those (I do this in the food processor to), and add to the greens mixture. Next add your chickpeas and stir until everything is combined and coated. If the quinoa is cooled, you can add it to the chickpea mixture next.

5. Make your dressing by whisking all the ingredients together. Pour over salad, and mix until combined. Add in tomatoes and avocado and mix. Set in fridge for about 10-15 minutes before serving so the flavors set.



Pin It