What Grandma Ate is What I Eat

At the Food and Nutrition Centennial, several presentations covered links to healthy eating patterns then and now.  I really enjoyed John Coupland's presentations where he discussed social and technological causes on changes in our diet. I'm fortunate to interview my Mother, now in her 10th decade, about her meals as a child.

As a young child, Mom's Dad had a dairy, where milk was homogenized and bottled.  When she only 3, he opened a grocery store. There was no school lunch, so the kids walked home to eat the mid day meal, then walked back to school.  Many times she ate lunch at her Grandmother's house, which was closer to school. 

Breakfast was oatmeal with milk. Lunch was often a soup with vegetables or potato soup, prepared by Grandad Mullan.  There were always Saltine crackers. Grandad Mullan had a big garden and canned many vegetables and fruit.  After his death, when they sold the house, there was a whole cellar full of these home canned treasures.  Mom enjoyed the pickled beets and canned pears. 

Mom's mother cooked a full meal with meat and vegetables.  The store had 2 ice boxes.  Ice was delivered twice a week to keep the meat fresh.  McIntyres Bakery was just across the street.  The bread was at first purchased as whole unsliced loaves until the innovation of a machine that sliced the bread.  Every Sunday, Grandma served chicken with 3 kinds of potatoes-sweet, white and potato salad. As the Depression ended, Grandma sold the store.  They never went hungry and never let any one else go hungry.  The neighbors needed help with food and they were there.  In later years, the family found carbide cans of bills that were owed by people that could never pay.

The lunch and dinner traditions continued when I was a child.  Though we ate school lunch during the week, we were served mostly vegetable meals with perhaps a little meat on off days.  I recall big pots of cabbage and potatoes, with a can of corned beef on top.  We ate beans and ham, homemade chicken noodle soup, and vegetable soup.  In summers, we ate fried squash and tomatoes.

Mom always served a full dinner,  The table was set and we enjoyed a meat, often grilled, and accompanying vegetables.   Sunday meals were shared with my Grandparents, who lived next store.  My Grandfather had a big garden and a root cellar with potatoes. Grandma taught me how to make potato salad, with a cooked dressing. Grandma had an addition built onto their house with a kitchen for canning. For my girl scout cooking badge, Mom taught me how to make meatloaf.  These days my brother makes my Mom a full plate of homemade foods.

When we stayed at the lake during the summer, my sister and I fished, catching small perch and sunfish that Grandma and Mom cleaned and fed us several a day.  Breakfast at the lake was fresh caught fried fish.  I had a special green plate that was all mine.

Even though I sometimes ate too many packaged cookies between meals, I always ate a good My Plate kind of meal.  I loved the melons and tomatoes that were available in the summer.    

We are real people who eat real food.  I'm fortunate, like my Grandmother, to have farm friends who raise and process the fresh meat I eat today. I buy sustainable frozen seafood at the grocery store.  I also purchase many vegetables from the farmers market.

My link to a healthy meal pattern also influenced my career and hobbies.  I'm fortunate to have this exposure.  

A prayer said at the dinner table when Mom was a child:

"A little head, a little heart

Bowed down in simple prayer

Thank the Lord for food and drink

And loving daily care."      

Bread of the Prophet

Ezekiel Bread, made with 4 grains and 4 beans, is a complete protein bread on which a Biblical prophet was able to survive for almost a year.  (Ezekiel also drank water)  The recipe was a delight for this home miller.  The cookbook was my ultimate find at the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo, celebrating the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics centennial year.  

in her book, Sue Becker share 100 pages of information on grains and milling, then over 100 recipes to make with the whole grain flours produced.  After almost a year experimenting with my home mill, I now have many tried and true recipes to make and enjoy.  

Ezekiel Bread

(1 9X5 inch loaf-about 12 slices)

Combine and mill grains and beans.
3/4 cup 1 tablespoon 1 teaspoon wheat berries
1/2 cup spelt berries
2 tablespoon 2 teaspoon hulled barley (not pearled)
1 tablespoon 1 teaspoon millet
1 tablespoon 1 teaspoon red and black lentils
2 teaspoon northern beans
4 teaspoon assorted heirloom dried beans

With paddle in place, mix water, oil, honey and salt in bowl of electric mixer.
1 1/2 cup hot water (130 F)
2 tablespoon 2 teaspoon olive oil
1/3 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
Add 1 2/3 cup flour to bowl and combine.

Sprinkle yeast on top of batter and combine.
2 teaspoon quick rising yeast

Add remaining flour.  Mix on low speed for 5 minutes.

Pour into loaf pan greased with olive oil spray.  Cover with cloth and allow to rise for about 30 minutes, until dough is about 1/4 inch from top.

Bake at 400 F for 40 minutes.

Unlike Ezekiel, I am not fasting.  We enjoyed our bread with Shepherds Pie, a grapefruit half and a glass of milk.

The pie is made with lean ground beef, carrots, onions, red pepper, celery and wine, then topped with fresh cooked potatoes, hand mashed with Greek yogurt, black pepper and celery leaves.   

My meals follow a pattern consisting of lean protein, colorful vegetables and fruit, whole grains and low fat dairy. I have been following this pattern for meal planning over 40 years.  A concurring theme at the conference was not to promote individual foods, rather a meal pattern like this one.

 

   

Flaky Tiers

I'll admit that my love of whole grains and selected fats have sometimes led me to create hard crust.  (I rarely follow a recipe to the tee).

I like this technique, called "laminating" which calls for folding and rolling chilled dough.  This is outlined in The Local Palate October issue.  I also watched a 'Biscuit Queen' on Public Broadcasting do the same technique.  

I used vegan buttery sticks for the fat.  These were cut in small squares and placed in the mixing bowl with the flour.  I chilled the bowl, then mixed slightly with the paddle blade before adding the liquid.  I did not overmix, rather just enough to press together a dough ball-placing it in saran wrap and refrigerating it again. 

The chilled dough bowl is rolled into a rectangle on a floured pastry cloth.  The rectangle is folded into thirds and rolled again.  At this point the dough can be wrapped and chilled again, repeating the folding and rolling again.

For biscuits, I cut the rolled dough into sizes that fit in a muffin tin, baked some and froze some dough rounds to be baked at a later time.  The thawed dough rounds bake in 10 minutes.  The frozen dough rounds bake in 20 minutes.

The Barley Biscuit recipe is from Martha Stewart.  I cut the added salt in half.  By cutting the dough in rounds, the servings yield was 12-14 ( 3 biscuits each) rather than the 9 (original recipe) cut in squares.

I simply love the whole grain puff pastry recipe from the Local Palate which details the laminating technique.  My tomato tart has a pesto base and toasted ground pepitas sprinkled on the pastry edges.

I still have some perfecting to do. . . but I'm liking the results I'm getting!

 

 

Farm Fresh Sampling Nurture City

Farmers markets may be the best venue to unite folks wanting fresh, local, whole foods to nurture their families. At our monthly culinary samplings we provide tastes of meats and vegetables prepared with these seasonal foods. Today we're promoting pre-orders of Thanksgiving turkeys and an assortment of fall produce in a vegetable soup.

The soup recipe, while calling for a total volume of assorted produce, does not specify which vegetables.  Do you ever know exactly what volume of diced butternut squash you get from one squash?  Last week market vendors donated one cabbage, one head of celery, two butternut squash, and two large sweet potatoes, along with a few onions and garlic heads to use in the soup.  I bought a pie pumpkin elsewhere.  The seasoning in this recipe defines fall and a unique taste that may be unfamiliar to some.  

The turkey tenderloins were roasted the day before, sliced and served cold on top the cup of soup.  Turkey tenderloins are the inside of the breast-white meat- and take only an hour or so to roast (internal temperature of 165F).  These are perfect size for one family meal or a few days of deli turkey.

We served 175 customers in 3 hours.

My time is volunteered.  WorkingHFarms provides the meat and facility to prepare, along with paying for our table space.  Mountain Harvest Farms, who coordinate a CSA with WorkingHFarms, provide on-going produce.  The other farm vendors (this week DeBerry, Charm Farm and Lee Farms) also donated produce this week and seem to love the sampling.  We certainly love the camaraderie.     

 

Fit Fare Furnishings

In this class for life long learners we reviewed more than a dozen pieces of common equipment found in many kitchens and things to make in them.  The goal was to encourage making something new.  The equipment included:

When I asked for help on social media, I gathered more responses than ever.  In the three weeks prior to the class, I tried many of the suggested recipes.  I enjoyed the challenge!  

My favorite (new) recipes included bread stuffing baked in muffin tins.

My gluten free colleague suggested making Black Bean Brownies in a muffin tin to control crumbling.  These little muffins were good and very inexpensive!

I really enjoyed the yeast batter pizza waffles.

To make these I first placed 2 tablespoons of batter on each square.  We added our choice of pizza toppings.  I finished by topping each square with 2 more tablespoons of batter.  When the lid was pressed down, the waffles got crisp and brown and were delicious dipped in a warm marinara sauce.

What's was the most popular item of the class participants?  Applesauce!  (I took hot applesauce for all to try.)  Mine is simply made with peeled chunks of apples, cinnamon and nutmeg cooked on low for 3-4 hours in a slow cooker.  The conclusion of classmates:  one really doesn't need to add sugar to applesauce!

 

 

We all loved the dehydrated pineapple samples I dried overnight and took to class.  Mine was still moist, but so yummy!

In all the testing I've done in the past few weeks, I had some waste.  For my next class, I think I'll focus on cooking for one or two.