Free Books to Help with Traditional Cultured Foods

Need some help learning about traditional cultured foods? Cultures for Health has several free books (down-loads) available.

They walk you through ingredients, safety, basic steps, and include many recipes.

I think the Kefir "Book" was the first I received. I enjoy the Kefir ice cream recipe! It includes dairy and water kefir recipes.

Other books, I've received are: Cheesemaking, Kombucha, Lacto-Fermentation, Sourdough, and Yogurt. I choose to print the books out and keep them in a large Three-ring binder.

To receive these wonderful resources go to the bottom of Cultures for Health's home page and sign-up. They are free and there is also a free newsletter. An easy and free resource to improve your health!

Homemade Chicken (or Turkey) Soup-canned

Last Fall to make room for the in-coming Game meat and quarter beef, I used Simply Canning's recipe for Chicken Soup.

It was so good, I thought I'd try it this week with the bits and pieces from a Turkey I roasted on Sunday and some broth I made from the bones.

This is so convenient heat to a boil, add noodles or cooked rice and finish cooking. Serve.

Link: Homemade Chicken Soup

This is a very simple recipe, but you do need a Pressure Canner to can it.
It could be frozen too. The veggies would be softer after freezing though.

Chocolate Chip Butter Cookies

These will remind you of melt in your mouth butter cookies from a good bakery. We usually make them for our Christmas Cookie Trays.

350°F about 65 cookies

1 pound of butter
Powdered Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Vanilla
4 1/2 cups flour
2 cups or 12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate pieces.

Cream butter, 2 cups of powdered sugar. Add salt, vanilla, and flour. Mix well. Stir in pieces.

Roll into 1” balls and flatten with fork dipped in powdered sugar on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes at 350°F. Sprinkle with additional powdered sugar while hot.

These are such a favorite at Christmas I decided to re-publish the post.

Greek Yogurt or Yogurt Cheese

Greek Yogurt seems to be all the rage lately.

I've been making a gallon of yogurt a week and turning it into Greek Yogurt.

Simply drain your plain yogurt (to make your own yogurt go here) in a cheesecloth bag or better yet use a nylon paint filter bag. 

These bags are a breeze to wash out!

I bought mine at Home Depot.

Yogurt dripping in a 1 gallon nylon paint filter bag.

For Greek yogurt drip for at least 4 hours up to about 8 hours. The longer it is left to hang the drier your yogurt will be. For yogurt cheese let drip at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours.

Breakfast Sausage

This recipe works well with game meat.

For 30# meat:
1/2 cup salt (I used coarse Light Grey Celtic Sea Salt)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup dried sage
3 Tbsp coarse Pepper
2 Tbsp Cayenne Pepper

Mix into the meat pieces and then grind to get the best flavor distribution.
You can mix the seasoning together and then use 1 Tbsp per pound of meat for smaller batches.

To fix-I make a "hamburger" type patty and fry on a fairly low setting in a pan rubbed with coconut oil. We also use it crumbled and cooked part way on pizza. If you cook it all the way before putting it on the pizza it will be too dry when the pizza is done.

Freezer Biscuits for a large crowd

Being in charge of the church's "Easter" breakfast means I'm always on the look-out for a way to serve healthier food to a large crowd. When Money Saving Mom shared making Freezer Biscuits I knew I needed to try it.

I had an old recipe of a Freezer Biscuit that we didn't like, because it was dry and didn't raise well.
The tip of letting the biscuits thaw for an half-hour to hour makes all the difference.

Here is the recipe I'm using:

4 cups flour (I've also done two batches with half pastry wheat flour)
1 cup butter
3 Tbsp. Baking Powder
4 tsp. sugar (if using honey half)
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. salt
About 1 1/3 cups buttermilk, milk, kefir

Cut butter into flour. I used my beater to break up the butter well, before turning the mixer on to finish blending the butter in.

Add all other dry ingredients. Mix until a fine crumb.

Stir in buttermilk until just moistened. Depending on your flour and weather you might not need all the buttermilk.

Knead exactly 10 times on well-floured cloth or board. Pat out to about 3/4" thick. Cut with biscuit cutter.

Place on cookie sheet.

Place cookie sheet in freezer. Let freeze. Bag up and keep in freezer.

This size batch makes about 18-20 biscuits.

To Bake:
Preheat oven to 425- 450°F while biscuits are waiting. (The electric ovens at church we used 425°F, my propane oven at home I use 450°F.

Set frozen biscuits on cookie sheet. (I cover with a tea towel.) Wait about 30 minutes to 1 hour then bake at 450°F for about 12 minutes. Because they are still firm when you put them in the oven they will take a little longer than normal biscuits to bake.

I also love that I can take out just a few at a time when it is just 2 or 3 of us here to eat.

Flavored Milk Kefir

I've been making my own kefir the last few weeks. Then adding some fruit and sweetener to flavor.

To every cup of kefir I add a handful of frozen fruit and 1/2-1 teaspoon of sweetener-honey, sugar. Stevia does not need as much. Sometimes for more intense flavor I add a spoon of frozen 100% fruit juice concentrate.

Blend.

Delish.