Monthly Archives: June 2011

June 21, 2011 · 4:18 pm

Love in a Bag

I bounded out of bed this morning with love on the mind…

The LOVEly folks from Love Grown Foods sent me some granola to sample and so far I’m loving it!

Besides the cute name, I am also a big fan of the whole food ingredients in all of  Love Grown Foods products-they are nutritarians too!

For breakfast I opened the Sweet Cranberry Pecan granola.  Crunchy clusters, ample nuts, and just the right sweetness.  These oats are neither oily nor candy-sweet, two qualities that often keep me away from granola.  It tastes like delicious, nutritious REAL food, which is obviously right up my ally!

I made a piece of french toast with Matt + Kath‘s Great Harvest Cinnamon Walnut Raisin bread, topped it with plain Greek yogurt, organic blueberries, and half a serving of granola.   Damn good.

I LOVE (last one, promise ;)) that this granola uses honey and agave instead of refined sugar!

Breakfast powered me up and off I went on a mini duathlon.  I didn’t feel like running around my neighborhood, what I was really craving was a trail run but Tate had the car.  So I biked to the trail!  I biked-ran-biked for a total of 5 miles biking and 4 running.  It was a really fun way to start the day and get an hour of cardio!

If you were hoping to find the spiced salad dressing recipe in this post, sorry!  I can’t give you a recipe ONLY because the key ingredient is a homemade spiced peach-plum butter that I made last fall.   Here’s the basic idea and if you want to play around it apple butter or something, let me know how it goes.  I love that the fruit butter thickens and sweetens the dressing without a lot of oil or refined sweetener.

Makes about a half a pint.

In a small jar put equal amounts (2-3 tablespoons)

  • low sugar jam (I used Trader Joe’s Strawberry)
  • red wine vinegar
  • high quality extra virgin olive oil
Use a small whisk or fork to mix.
Add 1/4-1/3 cup spiced fruit butter and lavender salt (or salt and crushed lavender).  Put a lid on the jar and shake until it’s all mixed up.  Taste and adjust to your taste preference.
Seriously-let me know if you try this dressing with another fruit butter!

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Filed under breakfast, food, running, workouts

June 20, 2011 · 9:20 pm

Knead for Cheese

I’m on a DIY dairy kick.  First it was yogurt, then soft cheese, and now…mozzarella!

Making homemade mozzarella is simple, at least in theory!

It only requires 3-4 ingredients

  • whole milk
  • citric acid
  • rennet
  • salt (optional, I suppose)

For the milk I used local Homestead Creamery non-homogenized (a.k.a creamline) milk.  I bought citric acid in the bulk bins of my local Whole Foods and ordered the liquid vegetarian rennet online from The Cheesemaker.

Before embarking on this challenge I read through several recipe’s and they all said the same thing, “heat milk and citric acid, add rennet, reheat, cut, let sit, strain, microwave, knead, reheat, add salt, form balls, refrigerate”.

Really that’s it.  The whole process took probably 40 minutes but only about 15 were active.  Very active.  I’m sure I will be calmer next time I make it but last night I was dodging around the kitchen, spilling milk, and having a grand ‘ol time.

One gallon of milk yields just shy of a pound of cheese and a ton of whey.  Good thing I like whey.

What better way to showcase fresh mozzarella than a capresse salad?

On of my garden goals this year is to put up some pesto and I am happy to report our garden is flourishing with three kinds of basil!  For this salad I combined chopped Sweet Dani, Purple Ruffles, and Sweet Genovese basil, two barely-ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden (couldn’t resist!), the mozzarella balls, a drizzle of fine olive oil, and a sprinkle of black Himalayan sea salt.

The cheese is really good!  It turned out a little harder than I had hoped, I think I overkneaded…

If you want more details, here’s the recipe I used.

Grilled wild Sockeye salmon, corn, zucchini, and brown rice completed our dinner.

Mmmm, tastes like summer!

Need yet another reason to eat wild salmon?  According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, is takes 3 wild fish to feed one farmed fish!  That is just not sustainable my friends.

 

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Filed under goals