Have you ever read the nutritional information on the packaging for kielbasa? The last one I purchased suggested that it should serve seven people! In the past, I’d felt guilty of skimping when dividing it into four or five portions, but seven–how could one be satisfied with such a small portion?
Answer: add lots of vegetables. The sausage is robust; if you slice it into several rounds the savory-ness will compliment roasted vegetables. Scatter Mrs. Dash seasoning over the zucchini squash and onions before sliding the sheet pan into the oven if you are avoiding excess salt.
We also added chopped cilantro and raw, ripe avocado for a touch of freshness.
Yes, those julienned potatoes were hand-cut by my husband, Joel.
Summer is coming, and with it comes the cost of air conditioning. One should at least think twice before turning on the oven and heating up the kitchen. Thankfully, this week, the temperatures are still in the 50 to 60-degree range. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to coordinate several bakes.
Before lunchtime, I grated the last lonely zucchini that was in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. I used it to experiment with a bag of coconut flour blend that I bought on sale. At first, I wasn’t sure that the recipe’s amounts were right, because the batter was so dry. The maple syrup and the egg whites slackened the crumbly mixture and brought it together into something manageable. It did take more than 12 minutes for the muffins to bake through, though.
We usually eat at 11 a.m., but occasionally push lunchtime forward thirty minutes to an hour. Today was one of those days. The muffin tin went into the oven at 10:50 a.m. and our lunch ingredients would need a higher oven temperature.
Potatoes were starting to wrinkle, so they were definitely on the menu. Without their skins, they weren’t so ugly–pretty and firm enough to cut into French fries. They soaked in a salty bath while I seasoned some frozen broccoli. The green vegetable and potatoes could roast together; they were spread on separate baking sheets to make sure that they got crisp rather than steaming in a crowd.
When the ten-minute timer buzzed for the muffins, the batter had spread a little bit, but the top was still pale. Three minutes later, the tops were hinting at brown and the shapes were nicely rounded. So, I pulled them out. When I touched one, it was obviously not ready, though, so back in they went. Maybe coconut flour takes longer than spelt flour (what was called for in the recipe). I didn’t record exactly how many minutes longer it took, but probably a total of twenty?
As soon as the muffins came out, I cranked the oven temperature from 350 up to 450 and impatiently waited for it to preheat. It would be worth the wait to have crispy fries that were cooked through.
The fries and broccoli roasted for ten minutes before I flipped them and put them back in for another ten minutes. At this point, Joel needed to turn a tall fan on to stop the smoke alarm’s loud warnings. Three hot dogs were added to the broccoli pan to heat through.
Spicy ketchup (think curry) was a nice change from straight sugary tomato ketchup. We were satisfied without buns for the hot dogs.
Bonus with the cooling-yet-still-hot oven is that you can set your recently-washed pans inside for them to quickly dry.
Zucchini & Apple Muffins
2 large eggs, separated
1/2 c canola oil
2 c cup-for-cup coconut flour blend
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 medium zucchini, grated
1/4 c dried apples, Craisins, raisins (rehydrated)
1/2 c maple syrup
Pinch salt
Preheat the oven to 350* F. Line a muffin tin with colorful papers. You may need to find 2 extra cups: I had enough batter for 14 muffins.
Beat the egg yoks and canola oil together until smooth and creamy: about four minutes. In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add this to the egg-oil mixture. It will seem dry and crumbly. Add the maple syrup, zucchini, and fruit mix. In a clean, narrow bowl beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites a spoonful at a time into the crumbly mixture. This should slacken the ingredients up into a manageable batter.
Fill each muffin slot no more than 2/3 full. My cookie scoop worked well: two scoops per muffin. Slide the tin into your pre-heated oven. Set the timer for 10 minutes. When it rings turn the light on to see how things are going. Mine weren’t ready until closer to 20 minutes of baking had passed.
Remove from the oven. Cool or enjoy warm. The similar recipe in Love Bake Nourish suggested a cream cheese frosting, but I found that mine were sweet enough on their own.
How many of us have looked at all the containers of dried herbs and spices on our kitchen shelves and wondered, “When was the last time I used them?” Herbs were the subjects of our April cooking class. There are many questions to ask, and there are many ways to explore in search of answers. Too many for one class. We decided to focus on the most common herbs, and we crossed a few of them off the list knowing ahead of time that they weren’t favorites. Still, we were able to fill a chart with information regarding flavor, pairing, and storage.
In addition to learning about herbs, we wanted to learn how to include more vegetables in our diet. So we combined the two with recipes for roasting herbed potatoes (root vegetables). Knowing that roasting would take some time, we jumped right in to preparation. Gayle practiced her knife skills by cubing the russets and sweet potatoes into similarly-sized pieces. She also chopped the rosemary and thyme leaves into even smaller pieces, so that their strong flavors wouldn’t overwhelm.
One of the recipes mentioned that you could use an air-fryer in place of a traditional oven. We read the manual, wiped down the machine, and plugged it in. Half our prepared potatoes went into the air-fryer and the other half were well-spaced on parchment paper lined baking sheets and into the preheated oven. I also threw in some carrots seasoned with dill, to encourage Gayle to reconsider her aversion to the flavor.
My lesson plan was less structured this month. Rather than me providing all the information, I suggested that Gayle look inside the cookbooks she owns to see if they had anything useful. One had recipes that used herbs, but it didn’t have a section devoted to any discussion. The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook had a paragraph about each of the common herbs, but the information was very basic. We found descriptions, uses, health benefits, etc. in a few herb-specific books that I had brought with me.
The potatoes still needed a few more minutes to finish cooking. So I pulled several plastic portion cups from my bag. We removed lids one at a time to smell the different dried herbs. We set them aside when the aroma of the roasting potatoes and fresh herbs began to fill the kitchen.
The results from the two methods weren’t extremely different. We preferred the air-fried potatoes, but we had a variable: we forgot that the pans were in the oven so those vegetables were more well-done.
This class was lacking in attention to health benefits, reasons to choose fresh over dried, and arguments to convince you to plant your own garden. But we did test different cooking methods, review/practice knife skills, and handle fresh herbs. Best of all, we enjoyed spending time together and enjoying the fruit of our labor.
KZ Kitchen 