Carrot Cookies

The carrots look, feel and taste wonderful this week. Carrots are in the top 5 of my favorite vegetables, and they really are a great food for your eye sight! I have never heard of a carrot cookie. I love carrot cake and muffins so what the heck, lets give it a try. I was told once that if you take 1 part fat, double that with a sweetener and double that with a binder you’ll have a cookie. Simplified – if you bind fat with sugar you will probably like it. So I tried it and it worked, but it was a bit sweet for me. I find matching the same amount of sweetener as fat works out better for my buds.

Ingredients

½ Cup Coconut oil or Butter (Saturated Fat)
½ Cup Maple Syrup or other sweetener – You can add more if you like a sweeter cookies.
1 Cup Oatmeal (Binder)
1 Cup Flour (Binder)
You can mix the binders up a bit if you like. I usually go a little heavier on the oatmeal side. I have even blended up some breakfast cereal when I needed more binder. It worked great!!!

That’s the base so now lets give it some personality.
1T fresh ginger juice (Herb/Spice)
½ Cup chopped walnuts
1 Cup grated carrot (about two big ones)
1 tea baking powder. (I’m told that baking powder makes baked good puff up and baking soda makes them flatten.)
a pinch of salt.

Pre-heat the oven to 375.
Mix all the dry ingredients in one large bowl. Do the same for the wet ingredients.
Mix the carrots into the dry flour mixture. Then add the wet ingredients to the flour/carrot mixture. I add the nuts in at the end so I can see how much I want to use.

 

I like super textured food so I used more nuts. I had walnuts and they do go well in carrot cake so I choose those but other nuts or seeds could be used successfully. Cool the dough for 5 minutes in the fridge so that they roll into little balls easily. Place a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Roll the dough into small balls and place them on the parchment
paper. Flatten them a little. Bake 18-20 minutes or until cookies are lightly brown on the bottom. Cool on a cookie rack. Eat with a smile : )

In Health,
Lisa F. Ehlers CN., CH
The Natural Cook Studio of Bend
www.NaturalCookStudio.com
541-318-0458

Gingered Carrot & Parsnip Soup with Cashew Cream

Check out the origin of this recipe on AC member Marissa Steven’s food & recipe blog! Thanks Marissa for sharing this with us!

Gingered Carrot and Parsnip Soup with Cashew Cream

Adapted from Prairie Home Cooking: 400 Recipes that Celebrate the Bountiful Harvests, Creative Cooks, and Comforting Foods of the American Heartland (America Cooks) 

Shredding the parsnips and carrots speeds cooking and makes this a great weeknight soup – a food processor’s shredding disc does quick work of this. I like to scrub the parsnips and carrots but leave the skin intact – you can peel them if you prefer. Also, you can use 1/2 cup heavy cream in place of the cashew cream. 

1 cup raw cashews, soaked for at least an hour and up to 24 hours
2 large parsnips, shredded
4 large carrots, shredded
2″ piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated (a microplane grater is good for this)
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and white pepper to taste
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
minced fresh chives (optional)

For the cashew cream:

Drain the cashews from their soaking water and add to the jar of a blender. Add water to cover cashews by about 1″ and blend until smooth.

For the soup:

Heat the parsnips, carrots,  broth, and ginger in a soup pot over medium heat until boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for about 25 minutes. Remove from heat.

If you have an immersion blender, use it to puree the soup while it’s still hot. If you’re using a traditional blender, let the soup cool for a bit and then blend in batches. (If you’re using a traditional blender and the soup is still warm, fill the jar about halfway, cover the lid with a dry towel, and hold down manually to keep the liquid from spraying out.)

Season the pureed soup to taste with salt and ground white pepper. Add the lemon juice and cashew cream and bring to a simmer again over medium heat. Garnish with chives if you like and serve.

Makes 8 servings

 

Mixed Greens Pesto

Another week of fresh produce. As I look at my produce share I see GREENS. Lots’ of them so I want to use those. Last week I did a “single” vegetable dish so this week I wanted to do a mixed vegetable dish.

The word pesto comes from the Genoese word pestâ (Italian: pestare), which means to pound, to crush. Because pesto is a generic term for anything that is made by pounding, there are various other pestos to be made. I have made them using spinach and lettuces but never anything as strong as kale and chard. So the story goes…

Ingredients

3-6 cloves of garlic
2 T horse radish (optional) or other strong spice
1 Lime juiced or 3 tsp vinegar or lemon juice
¼ C Almonds or a big handful or a nut that you have on hand.
⅓ C oil (I used toasted sesame oil) any oil would work because you are not heating it.
½ an individual share of greens. I cut out the stems of the kale and chard. (reserve for later, these can be made into
a stock to cook grains in).
Toppings
Look around…I had a red onion.
Red pepper or any raw colorful crisp veg could work.
Parsley
Thin slices of parmesan cheese (optional)
Barley
1 Part Barley
2 Parts Water
Sea Salt and Freshly ground Pepper

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to serve my pesto on so I decided to do a grain instead of pasta. You can serve it on anything you like pesto on. Roasted cauliflower is a favorite of mine. To make the barley. Wash and dry roast your pearled barley. Boil water. When both are hot put them together. Hot to Hot. This helps to keep the grains from being sticky although barley will still be chewy. Reduce heat to simmer and put a lid on the pot for about 45 minutes. (I use a heat diffuser for most simmering over ½ an hour. If your stove doesn’t have a really low simmer I’d put the $5.00 into one. The best $ 5 bucks I’ve ever spent. They keep the bottoms of many dishes from burning.)

In a food processor chop garlic, almonds and a pinch of salt. Pulse-pulse. Then add the greens. Pulse-pulse. Scrape the sides down. Add the lime juice or a vinegar and oil. Pulse -pulse. Salt and Pepper. Pulse- pulse.

As I added things I kept tasting and smelling. I kept getting overwhelmed by the thought of a green smoothie and that is not what I was trying to make so I decided it needed something.

An interesting thing about flavors is that any of the other four can fix the overpowering one. The overpowering taste was bitter. The five tastes are: Salty – Sour – Pungent – Sweet – and Bitter. I already used salty (sea salt) and sour (lime) and pungent (garlic) and I don’t want sweet so I looked around in my fridge and pulled out horseradish. Smelled it. Yes. Tasted it with a little of the pesto. Yes. And added a spoonful and tasted it. Added another. Yes.

Mixed the pesto with the cooked barley. Top with a little red onion, chopped parsley and a little parmesan cheese.

Mixed Green Pesto leftovers? Add some to a breakfast burrito made with farm fresh, pasture eggs from Dansky’s Dragonfly Ranch, Sand Lily Goat Farm or DD Ranch and some Cada Dia cheddar cheese.

In Health,

Lisa

Lisa F. Ehlers CN.,CH
www.naturalcookstudio.com
NaturalCookStudio@gmail.com
541-318-0458

Cream-less Cream of Broccoli Soup

Hi, My name is Lisa Ehlers and I donʼt usually write recipes, I write stories. I look at the produce at hand and make a few decisions like do I want a mixed vegetable dish or a single vegetable dish. Do the vegetable look like they would go together well or stand better on their own. My choice was to focus on Broccoli.

Cream-less Cream of Broccoli Soup
So here goes the story.
It was a very windy Thursday and I needed to write a recipe. On a windy day I like creamy soups.

These are the ingredients I used:
1 head of Broccoli broke up into florets, (About 2 Cups). Remove the hard outer skin on
the stock and chop it up and add it too.
½ Onion per head of Broccoli
2 cloves garlic or enough for you…be brave!
Salt & Pepper
1 Squeeze of Lemon 1 Tablespoonish
1 T Rice per head of broccoli (uncooked) This is a good place for white rice. It cooks
much quicker.
Stock Vegetable or Chicken or home made.

 

Heat a sauce pan add the olive oil and immediately add the onions. Coat the onions in oil and let it caramelize on low heat for 3 + minutes or until you see the darkening color. Donʼt burn them. Then add the broccoli and coat it in the oil too. I call this sealing the vegetable and itʼs important in the flavors your can hold in a soup. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the uncooked rice, and coat them too.

Pour in your stock until you have covered your vegetable by about an inch. Cook long enough to make sure your rice is done. The rice will give the soup a creamy feel when blended. A little cauliflower would do the same. When the rice is done I turn off the heat and put my immersion blender in the pot and stir it around a bit. If you donʼt have an immersion blender you can use a Cuisinart or a blender. If you use a blender donʼt fill it above half way or the heat will pop the lid.

I topped mine with a little freshly grated parmesan cheese and served it with roasted red pepper hummus on rice crackers.  The colors work well together and the flavors were Yummy!

Chard & Brussel Sprouts Salad

Chard and Brussels Sprout Salad

From AC member Marissa Stevens. Thanks for sharing Marissa! Find out more recipes on Marissa’s food blog.

If you choose to make this with kale instead, use Italian kale, also called lacinato or dino kale. If you can find Beaufor Extra Dijon mustard – I highly recommend it.

2 teaspoons minced shallot
1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice (preferably fresh)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 Brussels sprouts, bottom and outer leaves trimmed
2 or 3 leaves green or red chard
2 ounces shredded pecorino cheese
1 ounce toasted, salted almonds, coarsely chopped

Prepare the dressing in the bottom of your salad serving bowl – it’s easier to toss it in to the greens from the bottom. Whisk the shallot, mustard and lemon juice together, then slowly drizzle in the olive oil and whisk until emulsified. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper

Using a sharp knife, finely chop the Brussels sprouts and chard leaves. Add to the dressing in the bowl and toss to coat. Add about half of the shredded pecorino and toss again.

Top with remaining pecorino and almonds; serve.

Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 really hungry people (yep, we ate the whole thing)

 

Potato, parsnip & cabbage soup

Another recipe recommended by AC member Laura Korb. Find more info. HERE.

Ingredients

• 3 cups cubed new potatoes
• 2 parsnips, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons vegetable bouillon base (such as Better Than Bouillon®)
• 2 quarts water, or as needed to cover
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 cup applesauce
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 3 large cloves garlic, mashed into a paste
• 1 teaspoon truffle oil
• 1 head green cabbage, chopped

Directions

1. Combine the potatoes, parsnips, and vegetable bouillon base in a large pot with enough water to just cover the vegetables; season with the sea salt and black pepper. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook until the potatoes and parsnips are tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
2. Pour the mixture into a blender, filling the pitcher no more than halfway. Hold the lid of the blender closed with a folded towel and carefully start the blender, using a few quick pulses to get the mixture moving before leaving it on to puree. Process in batches until all vegetables are pureed.
3. Return blended vegetables to the pot, and place over medium heat. Stir the applesauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic paste, and truffle oil into the soup; bring to a simmer, and reduce heat. Simmer until the flavors combine, about 50 minutes. Add the cabbage to the soup, and cook until the cabbage softens, about 10 minutes.

Caramelized Brussel Sprouts

This recipe was recommended by AC member Laura Korb. I tried it last week and it was DELICIOUS!!! Find out more and see images HERE.

Carmelized Brussel Sprouts

serves 2-4 as a side-dish

adapted from 101 cookbooks

Print this recipe!

Ingredients:

12-14 large brussels sprouts

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

pinch sea salt

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/4 cup roughly chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted

Directions:

Slice each brussels sprout very thin until you have a mound of feathery brussels sprout ribbons. Heat the olive oil over medium high in a large skillet and saute the garlic for 30 seconds. Add the brussels sprouts and continue sauteing for another 4-5 minutes, until bright green and tender. Add the sea salt and brown sugar and toss together. Finish by adding the toasted nuts.

Time:

20 minutes

Check out The Natural Cook Studio of Bend!

Thanks Lisa Ehlers for helping Agricultural Connections out with this new recipe & more blog!

Welcome to Agricultural Connections’ new recipe blog!!

I am so excited to have a place to post recipes using fresh, local and organic ingredients from Agricultural Connections’ farm partner’s bounty! Please feel free to send recipes that you would like to be posted to me at liz@agriculturalconnections.com and I will add them to the blog to be shared with all of AC’s members!