Chocolate Chip Cookies - changing the recipe!

Hi, everybody!

Today I want to tell you something which could be very useful to you and can make your work in the kitchen much easier: don't be afraid to change my recipes. Or any recipes. 

If you don't have an ingredient or you don't have it in the amount that it is prescribed in the recipe, fell free and use your imagination to replace it with another suitable one, or to reduce the amount of one ingredient and increase the amount of another. Play with the ingredients and try to be creative. Preparing food could be a funny activity, especially if you avoid boring and repeating recipes.  

For example, today I wanted to prepare Chocolate Chip Cookies, one of my old recipes and very loved by my kids. But I realized that I don't have enough walnuts, my recipe requires 500 grams (17.6 oz). So, I used only what i had, like half of the amount (250 grams = 8.8 oz).

Now, the question is how to fill the missing quantity. So, I added 100 grams more gluten free flour, and 30 grams Raw Almonds Flakes. And I reduces the butter quantity a little bit (from 200 to 170 grams), because I dont need the same moisture. 

Now the recipe looks like this:

- walnuts - grinded (soaked before; see here how) 250 grams (8.8 oz)
- all purpose gluten free flour 350 grams (12.3 oz)
- cane sugar 200 grams (7 oz)
- raw almonds flakes 30 grams (1 oz)
- ghee butter 170 grams - melted (6 oz)
- 2 free range eggs
- dark chocolate chips 100 grams (3.5 oz)

The way you prepare the recipe and cook the cookies is the same as for Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Best Tip to Get Picky Eaters to Eat Healthy Food

I can not believe I didn't tell you till now the most efficient and successful "recipe" for picky eaters. By "recipe", I mean how you can get them eating healthy food with pleasure.

Read very carefully and pay attention for the next rules...

1. Just eat with them, don't let them eat alone, stay near they at table, don't wash the dishes, or watch tv, or speak on the phone with someone else while they are eating.

2. It's not everything to stay with they at the table. Give them your attention, talk to they about the food you are eating, about what you did that day. Keep the tv turn off while you are eating.

3. Also very important is to eat the same food like they are eating. You should be an example for them. If you have a baby or a toddler, my advise is perfect for BLW (baby-let weaning). And never say, even whispering, that the food they are just eating, you don't like or you wouldn't eat.

4. Don't be discouraged if they seemed not to do like you, for the moment. This kind of education takes time. Have all the patience in the world and one day when you won't expect it, you will be surprised to see the results!

Homemade Bread Crumbs

It's said that 30% of the bread we buy, get to garbage. Why does it have to be like that? We can waste this food lost, buy making bread crumbs at home. It's very easy, homemade bread crumbs taste far better than the store bought bread crumbs, and you also save money.

For picky eaters, food with a crispy, crunchy texture is always a way to make them eat. The simplest way to achieve this texture is by frying in oil. But frying is not a healthy way of cooking, especially for children. The salvation is to crisp up the food with bread crumbs. We can cook with bread crumbs a lot of healthy meals for kids: oven baked schnitzel (oil free), gratinated cauliflower, even deserts, pudding, pies. Just let you imagination goes on! 

First step, take the old bread you have and cut it into thin slices. Take care, the bread should be old, but not stale! I usually buy country bread made with potatoes, because it tastes much better. You can use also a gluten free bread if you are on a gluten free diet.

Cut the slices of bread into small pieces, not equal, just as you can do it quit fast with a knife. Place the pieces in a tray in the oven for 2 hours at 50 degrees Celsius. Then let them cool down for at least 30 minutes. 

You can also keep them in the kitchen in a dry place for a day or two. If it's hot in your kitchen, the bread pieces will dry faster. It depends of the region where your home is. If you are leaving in a hot region, you will probably have it done in a few hours. If you leave in Alaska, you will need more that 2 days :).    

Whatever way you choose to dry the bread pieces, when there are dry enough, put them in a mixer and mix them for some minutes. And that's it! You got now your homemade breadcrumbs. 

Keep the bread crumbs in a paper bag in fridge. The longest time I kept it, it was for a month, and it was still good.

Soaking Nuts and Seeds

First of all, we need raw nuts, seeds, grains or beans, local grown, non irradiated. 

There is no recipe with nuts or seeds, that should be made without soaking them before. Even for eating them like that, we need to soak them before. Soaking is absolutely necessary for nuts and seed for eliminating the anti nutrients which are not good for our health.

The time for soaking is different for each kind of them. Above there is a picture, with the time for most of them. As you can see, the time of soaking grows with the size of nuts: if for sunflower are enough 2 hours, almonds need 12 hours. 

In the picture at the top of my article, there is also the time for sprouting, but I will not talk now about it. All I want to say about sprouting, is that the seeds or nuts will never sprout if they are irradiated. 

I want to add that soaking is better if you add into the water, a few teaspoons of something acidic and sour, which helps fermentation, like lemon juice, raw milk yogurt, or borscht.

Once the nuts or seeds are soaked, they could be kept in a closed glass jar, in the refrigerator, even for 1 or 2 days before using them in a recipe, or for eating them just like this. 

  

Coconut Cream Recipe

Due to Victor's dairy intolerance, and mine also, I use a lot of coconut (milk, flakes or cream) to substitute the dairy products. These can replace the taste, flavor and texture of cow's milk, cream or whipped cream made by real milk. If we are talking about gluten free dishes, coconut is also helpful, because can replace very well the consistency of dough.  

So, this is the reason I have all the time in my kitchen blended coconut, made like a cream, from coconut pulp and water. To get this coconut cream, first you have to open the coconut. Here you have how you can do this at home.

After you have cracked the coconut, remove all the pulp from the shell, helping by a knife like in the picture above. I suggest you to wash the pieces of coconut pulp before putting them in the blender, because they can have tiny pieces of coconut shell. Then you just put the coconut in a blender with water (for one coconut add 2 glasses of water) and blended it until you get a smooth cream.

I keep the coconut cream in glass jars and freeze it immediately after I prepare it. You can keep it in the fridge, but no more that a few days, because otherwise it will get rotten.

So, this coconut cream can replace sour cream, whipped cream or Mascarpone cheese in many recipes. Or you can eat it just like this. It's a perfect meal for a baby, starting with age of 6 months. For babies I suggest you give it to them, only fresh, not freezed.  

How to Crack a Coconut

As I've already told you, me and my son, we both have dairy intolerance. So in many of my recipes I replaced dairy ingredients with coconut flakes or coconut cream or coconut milk. 

First step, soak the coconuts in water for at least few hours. This will make them break easier and it will make them split in half over the equator. Then you can recycle them in nice bowls.

Second step: hold a coconut in one hand, take a big and heavy knife in other hand, and tap the coconut around the equator. Tap with the blunt edge of the knife, not the blade one. 

Tap and rotate until the coconut will split in two half pieces. Place a bowl under the coconut, to catch the coconut water in the moment the coconut splits. 

How to Boil Milk without Burning

I breastfed Elena until May this year, so she have never eat any formula. Starting with September last year, I started to give her whole raw milk from free range pasture raised caws. Because we didn't have all the time a trustworthy source of buying this kind of milk, sometimes I prefer to boil the raw milk.

In this situation, the main issue is not to burn the milk. So, I invented this method of boiling: bain-marie with a cast iron pot. 

Best Marinade for Tenderizing Tough Meat

Tough meat needs a strong marinade to tenderizing it. By tough meat, I mean: beef, lamb, venison, even pork, duck or chicken if they are free range pasture raised. The best ingredient of a efficient marinade is pineapple, due to one of his enzymes, called bromelain. Bromelain can tender the  meat no matter how tough it is. 

So, my best marinade recipe for tough meat is: 
- blended pineapple
- water (let's say 5 times the amount of pineapple)
- olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Of course you can add also other ingredients, but these are the principals. And the secret is to keep the meat in it, at least 12 hours.

Now I will show you how to prepare the pineapple to have it in your freezer, any time you need to prepare this marinade. As you can see in the picture above, you have to chop a fresh pineapple, and bend it.  

Just pour the blended pineapple in small plastic glasses and freeze them. I put 60 grams (2 oz) in each glass, because most of the times I prepare small meals, just for my two kids, and I need only a small quantity of marinade. If I need more, I can use more glasses.  

Of course, it's better to avoid plastic containers for freezing. But glass is not every time an option, because it's heavier, takes more place, and breaks easily. So, sometimes I use plastic, sometimes glass, depends of the free place I have in the freezer and my mood :))

When you want to prepare a marinade, just take off the pineapple from the freezer, let's say one hour before.