Canning 101

With the summer season cooling rapidly, I bet many people are rushing around trying to squeeze in the last little bit of summer's food juices (literally!).


My exciting summer garden adventures are over and the Minneapolis farmers markets are starting to taper.... so its time to start PRESERVING!!! I am lucky because I have always been so close to my grandmas' great cannings that I haven't even given canning much more of a thought. I still get some canning from them, but I have to wait for such a long time in between that I wish I knew more about the underrated art!


My inspiration sparked from work one day (Local D'lish). Ann (the owner) decided to contact one of Minneapolis's well-known healthy living/eating experts Anna Dvorak. This woman is amazing and so inspirational. Check her out here and here! Fantastic artist as well!

The class was great. Ann and her daughter CC, Anna, and I canned all night long! It was very nice because we got to do a lot of hands-on to really learn the tricks and techniques. At the end of the night we walked home with a tasty treat! (A jar of concord grape jelly!) We even used organic sugar!! I'll let you know how my canning goes this weekend!

List of things to can before fall:

Tomatoes (stat!)

Apples (while the pickin' is good!)

Some fruits... (the farmers market will show me what there is now!)

Wish me luck at the Farmers Market this Saturday!!! Depending on how early I want to wake up I will either go to the Midtown Farmers Market or the NE Farmers Market!

Top'o the Mornin'

I love breakfast. So, my crazy recipe searching typically is densely geared towards breakfast/brunch. Here is a breakfast that is one of my new favorites! I didn't have flax seed, but it still tasted great. It has such a rich but smooth flavor. The combination of the banana and the vanilla soy milk really bring the whole drink together into a sweet (but not-to-sweet) breakfast drink! If you want it to be more bitter add more cherries! This recipe would work with any fruit! Try it out for yourself.






Cherry Vanilla Flax Smoothie

From Kashi

Makes 2 servings.
Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

2 tablespoons organic flax seeds
1 cup organic low-fat vanilla soymilk
¼ cup frozen organic dark tart cherries, defrosted (use fresh when available)
½ medium organic banana
3 ice cubes

Directions

Using a coffee grinder, grind flax seeds to a fine powder. Pour the flax powder into a blender and add the remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth.

Nutrition Facts

Number of servings: 2 servings. Serving size: 1 cup, Calories 139, Calories from Fat 47, Total Fat 5.2g, Saturated Fat 0.5g, Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 65mg, Total Carbohydrate 18.8g, Dietary Fiber 3.7g, Sugars 10.5g, Protein 5.8g, Vitamin A 1%, Vitamin C 6%, Calcium 5%, Iron 7%

Healthy Pasta!

I was brainstorming today about what to eat; as I usually end up doing in the middle of my mug of coffee or on my bus ride between classes. I often find that I rarely have any time during the week to make a meal meal more than a couple of times. So subtracting out the days for left-overs that usually leaves me with at least 3-5 meals where I don't have a lot of time to prepare an extravagant dish.

Lately I have been finding everything that I can whip up quickly is usually not the healthiest for you.... anything prepacked with an expiration date that is longer than three months from now is probably chalk full of preservatives that are unnatural for our bodies.

Pasta is my favorite go-to dish for a quick meal, so I decided to do some research for everyone and find some pasta dishes that are healthy to for your body and quick to make.
(These pictures are not pictures I have taken. They are pictures from the website that the recipe is located on.)

No Bake Mac&Cheese
from: EatingWell

This recipe contains most of the ingredients you would have on hand. I would advise switching the cheese depending on what you liked. I even kick it up a bit by adding some spices and additional veggies like red peppers and some Sriracha sauce! And for those meat lovers, this dish would be very youthful with some chopped up hot dogs or more fancy with some thinly sliced prosciutto.


Prep time: 20mins
Total time: 25mins
Per serving: 412 Calories; 13 g Fat; 7 g Sat; 1 g Mono; 37 mg Cholesterol; 56 g Carbohydrates; 22 g Protein; 7 g Fiber; 640 mg Sodium; 236 mg Potassium

Athena Pasta Primavera
from: EatingWell

What I like about this recipe is that everything is literally fresh. The recipe is so simple that you could change it depending on what veggies are in season. You could also tailor it to your favorite veggies. It is a very filling dish, but with the nutrients you gain from the veggies and the whole wheat pasta it is a quick and healthy dish to keep handy!


Prep time: 30mins
Total time: 30mins
Per serving: 305 Calories; 6 g Fat; 3 g Sat; 3 g Mono; 13 mg Cholesterol; 51 g Carbohydrates; 10 g Protein; 8 g Fiber; 326 mg Sodium; 236 mg Potassium


Whole-Wheat Pasta with Garlic and Olive Oil
from: MarthaStewart

This is probably the easiest pasta recipe I could find. Once again, like all of the other pasta recipes, this one could be tailored to what you like to have in pasta. Personally if I'm feeling like something a little less sharp I would replace the parsley with basil and I would definitely add some tomatoes. Preferably cherry tomatoes!


Sorry guys, Martha doesn't have the nutritional values nor length of time it would take to make. If I were to guess though:
Prep time: 5mins
Total time: 15mins

Exploring the New French Bakery!

Today I visited the New French Bakery to get some bread! This is where Local D'lish gets all of their fresh bread. They have many great sorts of breads from a cinnamon raisin loaf to baguettes to certified organic rolls! They make new batches daily and have markdowns for their breads that weren't made that same day!
I snagged a baguette and the raisin loaf for myself! A hearty loaf of bread is also on my list of foods to tackle and be really good at making. Leslie greeted me from behind the counter, and Rebecca chimed in on information about their store. The New French Bakery is located on 26th ave and 26th street in south Minneapolis accross the street from a popular hang-out Memory Lanes. Check them out! Also, check their breads out at Local D'lish! Buying local is soo rewarding and SOO fresh!
(The baguette picture was found on the New French Bakery website, and unfortunately I didn't have my camera with to take a picture of the outside so I found that on Google)

Experimenting

This may sound strange to some, and maybe completely normal to others, but I love to search the internet for new recipes on any down time that I have. On my lunch break at work I am searching...in the mornings before I go to work instead of checking the news or weather I am looking at new recipes...at school when my professor is taken a breath I'm searching...

I love it. It is a thrill for me to find something that I want to try. I love cheeses, salt, sugar, you name it. I have just this year started an herb garden in my kitchen window sil. I have found it more rewarding and exquisite to cook with fresh herbs. After realizing this I would purchase the herbs recipes needed from the grocery. Being a scrounging college student I decided that this new habit would get expensive fast so I started diving into information about growing herbs to cook with. This grew into a small kitchen herb garden, which grew into a small front yard herb garden. About a month after I found the success in this herb garden I decided to grow some fresh veggies too!

I can't stop. I have been reading and experimenting with anything and everything cooking related since. It is becoming bittersweet seeing the sun come up more slowely in the morning and faster at night. I have been reading advice online about how to bring gardens inside, but it seems very expensive.

If anyone has any advice they would like to share about thier successful indoor gardening PLEASE speak now! Thanks!

PS. I promise my other blogs won't be this long! Whew!