It's Fun to Fondue!

My wife's family has a tradition of serving fondue on New Year's Eve and we have been continuing the tradition along with my family's tradition of going to bed early that night. I changed the traditional wine to hard cider simply because I like it better. The arrowroot helps keep the fondue smooth- I used to use cornstarch but swapped it out now that I don't eat grains. Lastly the cider vinegar helps cut down the cheese strings.

 

Swiss Fondue

 

  1 clove garlic, halved

  1 (12-ounce) bottle hard apple cider

  2 tablespoons cider vinegar

  Pinch kosher salt

  1 pound Swiss cheese- grated

  2 tablespoons arrowroot starch

  Several grinds fresh ground black pepper

 

Rub inside of fondue pot or heavy small saucepan with garlic. Pour cider into pot. Add 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar and salt and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Meanwhile, grate the cheese and toss well with the arrowroot in a large bowl. When the cider just begins to simmer, gradually add the cheese a handful at a time, allowing each addition to melt completely before adding the next.

  Continue adding cheese and stirring until all cheese is incorporated. If mixture starts to bubble, reduce heat to low. The mixture is ready when creamy and easily coats the back of a spoon. Lastly, stir in pepper. If cheese seems stringy, add some or all of the remaining cider vinegar. Move fondue pot to alcohol warmer and keep stirring during service.

  We dip apple chunks, kosher dill pickles, cherry tomatoes, chunks of smoked sausage or blanched vegetables like carrots, broccoli or cauliflower. Feel free to dip bread cubes as well.

 

Happy New Year!

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Tonight is Pot Roast! The greatest use for cheap cuts of beef in existence, pot roast -or Yankee pot roast as it is sometimes called- is quintessential 'Home Cookin'.
  The true beauty of Pot Roast is its use of cheap cuts of beef. Rump roasts, chuck roasts and arm roasts are some of the cheapest cuts per pound and all make great pot roasts. Bone is good- it adds flavor, connective tissue is good- connective tissue is made from collagen and collagen breaks down to gelatin during cooking and gelatin is finger-lickin good.
  Now that you know what roast to use, all you need now is your pot. You need a pot that can take the high heat to brown the meat and heavy enough to absorb the fluctuating heat of a low oven and radiate it constantly to the meat inside. There is only one vessel I know of that can handle that; a cast iron dutch oven.
  Now on to process. First put your dutch oven over medium-high heat and add a bit of oil, canola and peanut are good but coconut oil or beef tallow is best. Try to stay away from olive oils and butter. These have low smoke points and can't handle the high heat.
  Next crack a window and turn on the stove's hood blower if you have one. If not take the batteries out of you smoke alarm for a bit. Season all the sides of the roast with salt and when the dutch oven is hot add the meat. Brown well on all sides- it will improve the flavor of not only the meat but the gravy as well. After your meat is brown you need to add a braising liquid. There are many things you can use. Wine or beer if you are feeling European, possibly beef broth or tomato juice. I go with the no frills approach and use about 2-3 cups water. Though if your tap water tastes like it came out of the public pool I would recommend bottled water for that. After adding the liquid, slap on the lid and put it in a 300° oven for about 2 hours.
  After time's up add 6-8 potatoes- halved, plus a few skinned onions and a small bag of baby carrots. Return the pot to the oven for another hour to hour and a half. After it is finished cooking evacuated the contents to a platter and put the pot on a stove over medium heat. Mix about a quarter cup of flour with a cup of water and stir well in a glass. Using a whisk stir small amounts of the flour/water slurry to the juices in the dutch oven until it is thickened to your liking. Slice the meat and serve with the vegetables and gravy. Viola- Home Cookin'!

The Dark Side

At risk of my mother killing me over the holiday season I will share with you how I modified one of her chocolate Christmas candy recipes. The recipe is called Critters and the closest I can come to explaining it is fudge drops but that isn't exactly it either. After cutting sweets and eliminating anything containing high-fructose corn syrup from my diet- my sweet tooth has become very sensitive. Additionally the healthy part of chocolate is the cacao so I decided to replace the traditional chocolate chips in this recipe with bakers chocolate (100% Cacao). The finished product isn't as smooth as traditional critters but its texture and taste is akin to that of a dark chocolate brownie.

Dark Critters
  16 oz baker chocolate- chopped
  14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
  1/2 cup butter
  1/8 tsp salt
  2 tsp vanilla extract
  2 cups chopped walnuts

In a dry saucepan over low heat mix the chocolate, condensed milk, butter and salt until completely melted and smooth.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and nuts. Drop small spoonfuls of the mixture onto wax paper and allow to solidify in a cool place. One cooled completely store in an airtight container.
 

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut Again.

It is the Holiday Season and for many that means baking. I enjoy baking with my son but how does one bake without grains? I have managed with a few recipes and one is an entirely flourless cookie using almond butter. Feel free to replace the almond butter with peanut butter for variation.

Flourless Almond Butter Cookies

  1 cup natural almond butter

  1 cup sugar

  1 large egg, lightly beaten

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  Coarse sea salt

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and place racks in the upper and lower third of the oven.

In a medium bowl, mix the almond butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until well combined. Spoon 1 tablespoon of mixture about 1 inch apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Flatten the mounds with the tines of a fork, making a crosshatch pattern on the cookies. Sprinkle coarse salt on top of the cookies.

Bake until golden around edges, about 10 minutes, switching the position of the pans halfway thorough baking. Transfer to racks to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough.

 

Happy Holidays!

Chewing the Fat

I would like to say first off that the last time I had blood work done the nurse told me my cholesterol was 'ideal'

I cook a great deal with animal fats. Other than that I use olive oil and coconut oil only. If you can't get oil from it by squeezing it I won't cook with it. Corn oil, canola oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil, shortening, etc are chemically synthesized and some studies suggest that these synthesized oils are worse for you than the animal fats they were intended to replace. Actually the high grain, low fat diet that we have been lead to believe is a healthy lifestyle is based in what is called 'The Lypid Hypothisis' and is far from proven- freaky huh?

Anyway, soapbox is away now. I cook with animal fats and since bacon is pricey I needed to look for a better source of cooking fat. The last time we got a cow I requested they package and freeze the fat off of her. This got me strange looks so I decided not to bother telling then I intended to eat it.

Now that I had large bags of frozen chunks of cow lard I needed to render it down. First I tried cooking it down in a cast iron dutch oven in a 250 degree oven and that worked pretty well. My next try was much much easier. I just plopped (yes, plopped) the fat into my slow cooker and left it on low for a few days. When there was nothing but liquid fat and little dark chunks left I strained it into canning jars. I put one in the fridge then labeled and dated the rest and put them in the freezer. I have read that rendered fat is shelf stable but I don't think i need to risk that when I have other option like refrigeration.

At first I was intimidated by the whole thing but the slow cooker made it very simple.

Quite a Stretch

Meat is expensive. It is important to have a few recipes that can take a little meat a long way. This is very difficult now that I have stopped eating grains. No longer am I able to use noodles or rice to stretch a meat sauce. One paleo friendly option is to use eggs to stretch ground meat. Below is one such recipe that not only took a pound of ground beef a long way but was approved by my 4-year-old!

Meatball Pancakes
  6 eggs- yolks and whites separated
  1 lb ground beef
  1/2 tsp baking powder
  1 tsp salt
  a few grinds black pepper
  2 tsp lemon juice or cider vinegar
  1 tsp dried thyme
  1 medium onion- grated

Beat the whites to stiff peaks in one bowl. Mix all the other ingredients in a second bowl. Fold the white into the meat mixture just enough to blend them. Drop spoonfuls onto a greased griddle (I like to grease it with rendered beef tallow) over medium heat. When puffed and brown, flip and brown the other side. It is good served with ketchup or sauteed mushrooms.

I haven't tried it yet but I think this recipe would be awesome for breakfast- just use sausage instead of the beef and leave out the thyme.

Not Easy Being Green

Almost every Saturday we go and pick up fruits and vegetables from the back of a truck. You never know what you are going to get but that is half the fun. Last week we got collard greens, I don't cook collards much so I didn't use them. This week I got collards too I guess I need to cook collards...

Smoke Turkey Collards

1 quart water

1 1/2 pounds smoked turkey legs

2 pounds collard greens

1 teaspoon salt, plus extra if desired

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

 

Place the water and turkey legs in an 8-quart pot over medium-high heat. Cover, bring to a boil, and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

   In the meantime, remove any large stems from the greens and wash them thoroughly; do so in a sink with at least 5 inches of water. Moving the leaves around in the water and allowing them to sit for a few minutes to allow the sand or dirt to fall to the bottom of the sink. Once clean, chop pieces in half.
   Once the turkey legs have simmered for 10 minutes, add the greens, salt and vinegar, reduce the heat to low, cover, and allow to simmer gently for 45 minutes or until the greens are tender. Move the greens around every 10 to 15 minutes. Taste and season with additional salt, if desired.

It may have just been the mead I got into but I thought the stock at the botton of the pot was the best part.

 

The Mayo Clinic

Dropping processed vegetable oils from my diet also necessitated the elimination of mayonnaise as well. Commercial mayo is nothing more than a disturbing mixture of oils, emulsifiers and chemicals.  So what to do? I figured that since I had my own chickens I could make my own mayo the way it used to be done; by hand. It was a little intimidating at first but once you have the trick down it's not too bad.
  This recipe uses raw egg so please use caution. I only make it with eggs I just pulled from the chicken coop or, at most, a day old. I would not use commercial eggs nor old eggs and I make sure to keep the mayo well refrigerated. I label the jar with a throw out date a week from when I make it. The recipe is easily halved so make as much as you need to make sure you use it up.
  I use cold pressed virgin olive oil for this but have read that it can create a bitter flavor in blender or food processor. I hand whisk it in a glass bowl and it's not too tough. Really.

Olive Oil Mayonnaise
  2 egg yolks
  3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  1 tsp mustard ( I use Dijon)
  1 pinch of paprika
  1 pinch salt
  1 cup olive oil

Whisk together the yolks, vinegar, mustard, paprika and salt in a glass bowl. Put the olive oil in a  cup with a pour spout and while whisking the egg mixture drizzle the oil down through the moving whisk in a thin stream. Everything should thicken up as you get to the end of the oil. Use it anywhere you would normally use mayonnaise; sandwiches, salads, coleslaw, etc.

Beet It

We subscribe to bountifulbaskets.org.  Through them, every Saturday morning, we pickup a basket of fruits and vegetables at one of the local drop points. You get a random assortment of produce and it is exciting plus exposes you to vegetable you may not have used much before. Because of this I have been exposed to collard greens, jicima, chard, mangoes, persimmons, etc.
  The last two weeks we got beets. The only experience I truly have had with these roots is either cooking them in with a corned beef brisket or using them to pickle eggs. I was unsure what to do with the, so I roasted them.

Roasted Beets
  6 large beets with green trimmed off to about 1 inch
  Olive Oil
  Salt

Preheat the oven to 400 and lay your beets out in a roasting pan. Coat them with oil and sprinkle a bit with salt. Roast the beets in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until when stabbed with a knife it feel like an undercooked potato. Let them cool and the skins can be rubbed off with a kitchen towel. You can slice them thin and sprinkle with chopped walnuts and crumbles of blue cheese for a very nice salad.
  What else can you do with beets? Pickle them! Add the sliced beets to a mason jar and top with the pickle brine recipe from last November and let them sit in the fridge for a week or so.

Pickling Brine:   1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
   1 cup Water
   1/4 cup Sugar
   2 tsp. Salt (I use Kosher)
Combine all ingredients small sauce pan and bring to a boil.

The Short End of The Rib

My wife's parents get whole cows (a practice we now follow as well) and keep them in a pair of freezers in their garage and their children are permitted, within reason, to help themselves to said beef. I have observed this  practice  repeatedly over the years and have noticed that the cuts disappear in a particular order. The ground beef goes first, then the steaks, next the roasts. Last to be used are what I have called the 'junk' cuts. Arm roasts, chuck roasts, soup bones and short ribs lay strewn across the bottom of the chest freezer like a child's forgotten playthings.
  I strongly feel these 'economy' cuts are the soul of good cooking. The tougher roasts become a luscious pot roast and collagen may be enticed from the soup bones to make beef stock . But what of the humble short rib? What does one do with a cut of beef containing more fat, connective tissue and bone than meat? Tougher cuts usually require braising to break down its connective tissue and short ribs are no different. My mother will braise short ribs in a cast iron dutch oven with onion soup mix and while delectable I need to watch my salt intake.  Therefore I have replaced the soup mix with fresh onions and utilize my slow cooker rather the my dutch oven in order to make short ribs a weeknight meal.

Onion Braised Short Ribs

3-4 lbs short ribs, cut into single rib sections
4 large onions
3 tbs butter
2 cups beef stock (homemade if you have it but low sodium canned is fine too)
Bacon Grease or Heat-Tolerant vegetable oil (Canola, Peanut, etc)
Salt and Pepper to taste

  The night before, turn your slow cooker to HIGH and add the butter. While the butter melts slice the onions and add them to the crock. Add a pinch of salt and stir to make sure all the onions are coated with butter.
  In the morning (after about 8 hours) check your onions, they should be nicely caramelized and reduce the slow cooker to LOW. Next put a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat and add the bacon grease or oil. Once the pan is hot add the short ribs and brown well on all sides. You may want to use a spatter guard if you have one. After the ribs are browned, add them to the slow cooker.
  Pour the beef stock into the hot skillet and use a whisk to scrape up the browned bits off the bottom of the pan then add that to the slow cooker as well. Continue to cook on LOW for 8 more hours. Next remove the ribs from the crock and keep warm. You can serve the remaining liquid as a jus (as-is), thicken into gravy or hit it with a stick blender (watch out for splatter!) to thicken.
  Serve everything over rice with a green side salad.

Bakin' Bacon

We eat alot of bacon at my house. But weekday mornings frying bacon can be a challenge, so what to do? Bake an entire package and keep it in the fidget to zap quick in the microwave is what we do. Baking the bacon cooks it beautifully with no burning, required no babysitting and allows me to collect the dripping to cook with.

Here is how I do it: First take two cookie sheets (technically they are called jelly-roll pans but I am not getting into that right now) but you know what I am talking about, right? The wide pans with the short lip that most people use to bake cookies on? Alright now that we are all confused take two wire cooling racks and set one in each cookie sheet (Jelly-Roll Pan!) the lay your bacon out on each rack. Next move your oven racks to the top and bottom third of the oven and set it to 250°F. Put each sheet/rack/bacon apparatus on each oven rack.  Depending on how fatty you like your bacon it will take about  1½ to 2½ hours to roast the bacon. I go about 2 hours most of the time.  After it's done let is cool on the counter a bit then bag the bacon and toss in the fridge. If you feel inclined pour off the drippings into a canning jar and pop that in the fridge as well for future use as well.

For breakfast place 6 pieces or so on a plate and nuke 30 seconds to a minute. It doesn't take long to heat it up once its cooked. You can also chop it cold for topping a salad or for a bacon broccoli cheddar omelet (one of my favorites)

I use the bacon grease for high heat frying (cold pressed olive oil for low heat) or for dressing spinach salads. I would also like to go on record saying that since dropping grains from my diet, the bacon grease has not had any adverse effects on my cholesterol. In face when I last saw my doctor I had blood work done and the nurse said my numbers were 'Ideal' (a direct quote, that is what she said).

So go put some bacon it!

Squished Squash

We have been eating alot of squash lately. Squash seems the most appropriate substitute for grains and starchy vegetables. The main stumbling block is that it takes over an hour to roast one and being summer I am not too thrilled to turn on the oven for any reason. But I have found a solution to the weeknight squash dilemma; The Miracle Of Radiation!
  Microwaving squash reduces the cook time from over an hour to fifteen minutes. The three main squashes I cook are acorn, butternut and spaghetti. The first two cook very similarly: halve them, scrape out the seeds and nuke the halves cut side up about 12 minutes on high (times may vary with microwave wattage) Butternut I hurl forcefully down upon my cement driveway, peel, seed, cube and nuke 10 minutes. (That is the easiest way to get into one of those that doesn't require high caliber firearms or a chainsaw) Now that we can cook squash quickly, what to do with it?

Mash butternut squash with some butter, coconut milk, cinnamon and top with chopped nuts and you have: Breakfast!

Spaghetti squash topped with Bolognese (Italian Meat Sauce) or Marinara with meatballs and it's Italian Night!

Fry shreds of spaghetti squash on a pan with little butter or bacon grease, maybe add a little diced onion and bell pepper and you have Squashbrowns. (lovely with a few poached eggs)

Load halves of acorn squash with cooked bulk sausage or corned beef hash for an autumn feast. 

Spin butternut squash with coconut milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in a blender for a 'Pumpkin' Pie Smoothie.

Let's Salsa!

We go through a lot of salsa in this house. On eggs or in Mexican food, it is a healthy topping adding more vegetables to the diet. I set out to make my own but it needed to be good so the 4-year-old would eat it and it needed to be easy so I could easily pick up the ingredients with the weekly shopping trip and whip up a batch when we ran out. Would you be interested if I came up with a fire roasted salsa recipe that didn't require any fire roasting or barely even a knife? All that is needed is a can opener, bowl, spoon and a quart mason jar to keep it in. Just make sire you read the ingredients of those cans to make sure nothing unpronounceable is getting in your salsa.

Easy Squeezy Fire Roasted Salsa

  Two 14.5 cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes
  Two 4 oz cans fire roasted green chilies
  One 6 oz can tomato paste
  1 tsp ground cumin
  One minced canned chipotle pepper (one pepper not one can) or more to taste
  Juice of 1 lime

Mix everything in a bowl and transfer to a quart mason jar. Allow flavors to meld overnight in the fridge before serving. Not sure how long it will keep in the fridge but I would guess it would last a long time.

Ketchup Revisited

A while back I posted a recipe for ketchup. It tasted pretty good but setup more akin to tomato jam once it was put in the fridge. I have been expreimenting with raw ketchups lately and have hit upon one I particulary like. It takes little time, uses cheap ingredients and lacks the insulin spiking high fructose corn syrup of commercial brands. Best of all it is -so far- the only homemade ketchup approved by my 4-year old.

Raw Ketchup

12oz. can of tomato paste
3 garlic cloves- smashed
1/2 a small onion- chopped
1 and 1/3 cups apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground alspice
1 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Add everything except the tomato paste to a food processor and take it for a spin. Once everything is completely liquidized add the tomato paste and pulse until combined. Transfer to a quart mason jar and allow to setup in your fridge for 12-24 hours before you use it.

Doubtless God could have made a better berry but doubtless God never did

Berry season is upon us and my wife picked up eight pound of strawberries a week ago and another eight pounds last weekend. The problem with strawberries is that the mold almost before you can get them home from the store. To say that they are very perishable it putting it mildly. I decided to share some berry preservation techniques that may help those among you who with to take advantage of these seasonal jewels.

• Hull (remove the green part) and halve the strawberries. Dry in a food dehydrator cut side up until crunchy. Store in a sealed container in a cool, dry place away from light.

• Hull and halve. Full a quart mason jar with them then top it off with a mid-shelf brandy. Lid and store. They should keep indefinitely at room temperature.

• If you are looking for something a little less potent try this: Hull and half the berries and fill a quart mason jar. Add about 2 tbs of honey, zest of one lemon, a few grinds of black pepper and top the jar off with a sweet red wine. Keep it in the fridge and it makes a nice topping for shortcake.

• Hull your strawberries and mix them with a few pounds of crushed dry ice in a pot. Toss the pot in a cooler and let em freeze solid. Bag them and store in the freezer. The colder temperature means faster freezing means smaller ice crystals means no mushy berries after you thaw them.

We are getting a bunch of blackberries this weekend- I would guess that it should with them as well. We shall see...

Everything But The Squeal

I dig pig.  Of all of the great foods that used to have a face, pork is my all-time favorite. We ordered half a pig a month or so back and , well, it's gone. The pork chops, hams, bacon, sausage and butt; gone. The last cut was this little piggy's ribs. Spare ribs to be specific and we had them tonight.
I was looking for a recipe that would not induce an insulin spike but since usually pork ribs are slathered with sugary barbecue sauce I was faced with somewhat of a challenge. I went with a salt based rub and a braising liquid made with my homemade hard cider- if you don't brew your own cider a store-bought cider is fine.

Cider Braised Spare Ribs

Salt Rub:
  2 Tbs Sea Salt
  1 Tbs Smoked Paprika
  1 Tsp Black Pepper
  1 Tsp Chili Powder
  1/2 Tsp Cayenne Pepper
  1/2 Tsp Dried Thyme
  1/2 Tsp Old Bay

Combine ingredients and rub onto a slab of pork spare ribs. Preheat you oven to 325. Wrap the ribs in foil but leave a spout to pour in the braising liquid.

Braising Liquid:
  1 Cup Hard Cider
  a good squirt of Honey
  A few dashed Worcestershire sauce

Combine the ingredients in a glass bowl and warm for a minute in the microwave to dissolve the honey.  Pour in the braising liquid and seal the foil packet.  Place the ribs on a sheet pan and bake for about 2 hours. When the ribs are done, remove them from the oven as set it to broil.  Peel the foil packet open and slide the ribs under the broiler for a few minutes to add a bit of color. I served them with a nice salad and some steamed broccoli I browned under the broiler along side the ribs.

Jerky Boys

With the weather improving more people are traveling and whether it be by foot or airplane you need to carry provisions. Jerky is compact, lightweight and calorie dense. Commercial made jerky is contains several unpronouncable ingredients so I prefer to make my own. This is my current favorite recipe- kind of a combination of pepper steak and african biltong.

Beef Jerky

3 pounds lean beef sliced thinny with the grain
1 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup worchestershire sauce
2 cloved garlic smashed

 Combine everything in a zip top bag and marinate overnight- longer is better. Place meat on dehydrator trays and sprinke with fresh ground black pepper and ground coriander. Dry for 6-10 hours depending on you dehydrator and humidity. The jerky should be dry but not brittle.

Baby Sheep Plus Fire Equals Good.

Okay, the soapbox is put away now.

I have been exploring meats I have not cooked often and included amung them is lamb. I have never been a big fan of lamb before but have discovered that cooking it over charcoal to rare is really good! Below is a gyro recipe I put together to use some lamb steaks from my freezer- feel free to use just about any cut of lamb you can get you hands on.

Grilled Lamb Gyros

2 pounds lamb steaks
Sliced tomato
Dice red onion
Large lettuce leave
Crumbled feta cheese
Tzatziki sauce (recipe below)
Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper

Drizzle the lamb with the olive oil, salt and pepper then grill over medium hot charcoal about 2-3 minutes per side (go 5-6 if you want medium rather than rare). Slice the lamb thinnly and divide amung the lettuce leaves. Top with tomato, onion, cheese and tzatziki sauce. You can also brush pita bread with olive oil and grill a few minutes on each side and pile everything on that instead.

Tzatziki Sauce
1/2 large cucumber- grated
1 large clove garlic- minced
2 green onions- sliced
2 cups full fat greek yogurt
1 tbs kosher salt
1 tsp ground cumin.

Mix the cucumber, onions, garlic and salt in a bowl and put it aside fo about 10 minutes. Rinse and squeeze dry the vegatable then combine with the yogurt and cumin.

Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork

I know I promised but I have been asked by several people about healthier choices at mealtimes. In addition to dropping grains, I also have dropped legumes- they contain some of the same inflammatory toxins that grain do. That means no beans, peanuts and peas. I also dropped processed vegetable oils because I feel they are a leading cause of heart disease.  I have also reduced processed food of all types and reduced my dairy intake in general. Below are a few nutritious substitutions for common craving.

General Rule of Thumb at Dinner: Replace your starch/carbohydrate with a large salad

Bottled Salad Dressing = Olive Oil and Vinegar/Lemon Juice

Spaghetti = Roasted Spaghetti Squash

Egg Noodles = Zucchini shaved with a vegetable peeler and steamed

Peanut Butter = Almond Butter

Rice = Steamed and Grated Cauliflower

Hash browns = Grated and Fried Jicama

Mashed Potatoes = Mashed Cauliflower or Sweet Potato or Parsnips

Ice Cream = Fresh Berries topped with Heavy Cream

Brown Rice = Quinoa (it's not actually a grain but a protein rich seed)

French Fries = Roasted Sweet Potato Fries

Milk = Go for quality over quantity; full fat milk but just drink it sparingly

Cheese = Same rule as milk; go for hard, aged cheese with a strong flavor and go easy with it.

Breakfast Cereal =  Go for some scrambled eggs or omelet instead.

Tortillas = Use large lettuce leaves for wrapping

The American Heart Association Killed My Grandfather

I ask you to ponder this. Why is it that after several hundred thousand years of evolution are humans only recently plagued with an epidemic obesity, heart disease, compromised immune systems and cancer? I am not saying that these maladies were completely unknown to mankind, only that they seem prevalent now. Does it not seem we are de-evolving?
  Why do people have trouble loosing weight and keeping it off, even with a healthy diet and lots of exercise? Many blame genetics, stating that some people are just destined to be fat. Why then do we not see this trend in the fossil record? Wouldn't saber tooth cats have picked off all the chubby humans that can't run fast enough and therefore keep the 'fat' gene from being passes on?
  My wife brought to my attention a compelling theory (She is smart as well as pretty). Several thousand years ago mankind began growing and consuming grains and consequently became, in general, shorter and fatter.
  Several months ago I decided to plan some long distance backpacking this coming summer. This necessitated my dropping weight and conditioning my body for the exertion. My wife suggested eliminating grains from my diet and once I did it made quite a difference. My energy has skyrocketed, I am effortlessly loosing weight (40 pounds and 7 inches so far) my muscles are harder and I feel stronger. I sleep better, my blood pressure is dropping and I haven't got sick yet this winter.
  It is not my intention to turn this blog into another of the thousands of diet blogs out there. I just wish to state than future posts are unlikely to contain grains in them. I eat fatty meats, tons of vegetables, some fruit and I feel great!
 I just thought you had a right to know and I swear I will not let my weirdo diet change affect the quality of the recipes henceforth.

A Friend in Mead is a Friend Indeed

My adventures in brewing alcohol began with mead - too many viking stories and D&D I guess. My brother-in-law and I decided to begin with a simple mead recipe that only requires a trip to your local supercenter.

Supercenter Orange Metheglin (Spice Mead)

   1 Gallon of Spring Water (room temperature, do not get refrigerated)
   3 pounds of honey – pure unprocessed
   1 bag of balloons big enough to stretch over the mouth of the water jug
   1 package of Fleishmann’s Yeast
   1 box of raisins
   1 Orange
   1 whole clove
   1 half cinnamon stick

Place the honey jar in a bowl of hot water to loosen it up a bit and make it easier to pour. Pour about half of the water into a clean container then slice up your orange into eighths and put the slices, honey, twenty-five raisins, spices and the yeast into the jug. Pour some water back into the jug so the level is a couple of inches from the top then put the cap on it and shake it up well. If you can, you should shake it for a good five minutes. This will aerate the mixture. The yeast really needs lots of oxygen to grow vigorously.

Now poke a pinhole in the top of the balloon, remove the cap from your jug and put the balloon right over the mouth of the jug. Stretch the open end of the balloon right over the jug so that as the gases form inside the jug they will inflate the balloon. Put a rubber band or tape around the neck to keep it firmly in place -if it feels like it might come off. Leave it out on a counter for the first day so you can monitor it.

Somewhere between an hour and twenty-four hours later the balloon will start to inflate. This is a great sign and it means that your yeast is transforming the contents of the jug into wine. Gases are forming inside the jug and are escaping through the pinhole. This setup insures gases escape but no contaminants get into your brew. If the balloon is getting big you may need to poke another hole or two in it. You don’t want it to burst. It would leave your mead open to contamination. Once you are satisfied that the gases are escaping and the balloon is not under unusual stress you can set the jug in a cool dry place like a kitchen cabinet or closet shelf. Check on it every day if you can just to make sure it is ok and the balloon hasn’t popped off.

After two to three weeks the major portion of the ferment will be done and the balloon will be limp. At this point you can taste a little bit to see how it is coming along but it isn’t really a tasty wine at this point. It will need another couple of months to start to get delicious. Over time, as you check on it you will notice that the cloudiness disappears and it slowly clarifies and transforms into wine.

The Orange and the raisins can stay in the mixture for the whole duration but if you want to make the mead a little milder and help it clarify faster you can transfer the liquid into another gallon jug and place the balloon on that one. This would be after the two to three week ferment period has completed. This process is called racking and it will move your mead along nicely.

We transfered the mead to bottles and corked them after about 5 months.  This was to make sure the yeast were all finished so the bottle doesn't explode. We drank a bottle here and there but we noticed about a year later (17-18 months after we started) it really got good. Unfortunalty it was our last bottle so I had to get another batch going.

Gardening for Dummies

  If I told you that there is a type of gardening that requires no digging, no weeding, even no sunlight and would provide (semi) instant gratification would you be interested?

Sprouting seeds in jars has been around for thousands of years and only recently it has become associated with the "hippie-granola-head crowd" but pound for pound there are few foods on this planet more nutritious than sprouts. Sprouts are very easy to grow and require little hardware to get started. They make numerous sprouters that are available online but if you just want to try sprouting a quart-size mason jar is sufficient. Other than the jar you need a fitting canning ring and a piece of cheese cloth or window screen that will fit over the mouth of the jar.
Getting the seeds, however, is more difficult. You can't head down to the garden supply store and buy a packet of seeds, dump them in you sprouter and Viola!- sprouts. You need seeds with a high germination rate that are sold by the pound. Sprouts seeds are light in weight and shelf stable so ordering them from an online retail is a good idea. Other than that check out your local whole earth market. You know they type of place- they sell grass fed alpaca steaks from Chile and amazonian Acai berries, the parking lot is full of Subaru Outbacks, tandem bicycles and VW buses and the dudes that frequent the place look like ZZ Top rejects. If they don't carry sprouting seeds chances are that they will know where to get your hands on some seeds.
Now that you gave the guy down at the market with the hemp shirt a hard time about being pro-sprouts but anti-veal (think about it - it's the same thing!) and have your seeds- now what?  It's bath time! Put about 1/4 cup of seeds into the jar and fill it with cool water then let them soak for about 12 hours. When they are done soaking, secure the screen across the top of the jar with the canning ring and drain the water out. Put the jar, upside down, in your dish drainer so no water will pool around the sprouts. Once a day or so rinse the sprouts by filling the jar with water, drain the water then return the jar, again upside down, to the dish drainer. I usually rinse my jars in the morning (yes I have multiple so I can rotate 'crops'). In about 3-6 days your sprouts will be ready. You will know when they are ready because they look like sprouts not seeds.
Sprouts are great in salads-or as salads for that matter. They add a welcome crunch to sandwiches/wraps and make a nice topping for some stir fry. How about breakfast? Try a sunny side up egg on top of a handful of sprouts and crumbled bacon- awesome!

Breaking a Few Eggs

It began as an attempt to increase my wife's protein intake to combat gestational hypertension, combined with the fact that I now raise chickens. I cook a lot of eggs for breakfast. I wish to share with you the fastest egg preparation I know; the french omelet.
  Even with busy morning schedules an omelet is easy to fit in. The key is to prepare the filling beforehand. I usually cook up some vegetables and meat the night before and use it over several mornings' omelets.
 First put a non-stick pan over medium heat and add a little fat, usually butter, bacon fat or olive oil. Then crack a few eggs (my wife prefers a two-egg omelet, I usually go for four) into a small bowl, add a pinch of salt and a little cream (whole milk works well too). I beat it until mostly combined. I have tried beating the eggs well but have found it to produces an omelet too delicate to handle and I usually have to try to keep myself from throwing the misshapen eggs across the kitchen.
  Once the pan is hot pour in the eggs and grab a spatula. Lift the edges of the omelet and let the uncooked eggs flow underneath. Repeat this around the omelet until no more uncooked egg is pooled on top. Next top with your filling, fold the omelet in half, slap a lid on the pan and kill the heat. Go grab a plate and pour yourself a cup of tea. Take off the lid and slide the omelet onto the plate.
 The total time it took to cook the omelet: 5 minutes 37 seconds. In that short amount of time you have a healthy, home cooked breakfast. Additionally omelets can contain a cornucopia of healthy fillings.

Try sausage, leek, mushroom and cheddar (my current favorite).

How about bacon, onion and roasted red bell pepper?

Maybe diced ham, onion and green bell pepper?

Feeling Mexican? Go for leftover turkey, avocado, cilantro and queso fresco.

Greek? Leftover ground lamb, feta cheese, diced tomato, cucumber and a bit of fresh oregano.

Want some heat? Pickled Jalapenos and cheddar.

How about some leftover sliced steak and some sauteed mushrooms?

Summertime? Go with sliced garden tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and a chiffonade of basil.

Be creative and varied with you omelets. It will add interest to the most important meal of the day, not to mention it is a wonderful opportunity to add vegetables to your diet.

Salad Daze

One of my all time favorite cook books is my reprint of the 1950s Betty Crocker. Showing idyllic, almost Normal Rockwellian portrayances of food, it is both entertaining to peruse and ever so slightly uncomfortably fascist.
  I tell you this because several months ago I hit a low point, culinary speaking. I appreciated the importance of eating raw vegetables in general but became so sick and tired of salads. The salads I served with dinner consisted of a nothing but a handful of greens and blue cheese dressing dumped on top. It was something I would mindlessly consume first so I could get to the 'real' food. But it was faithful old Betty Crocker who pulled me from this hole.
  They say smell (and therefore taste by association) is the most memory provoking of senses. What sparked my salad revelation was a slice of cheese cut, accidentally, on the stinky side of my wooden cutting board. I use one side of the cutting board for most uses but the second side is used for pungent vegetables; onions, garlic and the like. It was on this surface that I sliced some cheddar and let it lay upon the tainted wooden surface while my attention was elsewhere. Upon returning to the slice and consuming it I noticed that it held a faint hint of the onion and garlic oils infused with the wood. I also noticed that it tasted good.
  This then sparked a memory from the salad section of the old Betty Crocker Cookbook instructing one to rub a wooden bowl with cut cloves of garlic to infuse the greens with a hint of garlic flavor. The bowl was then washed with hot water only and was not put to any other use that you did not want the subtle flavor of garlic added. I did not have a wooden bowl at the time but that very night I tried the trick with a glass bowl and for the first time in a long time I enjoyed a salad with dinner.
  This sparked a salad renascence in my kitchen. I now own a wooded salad bowl- purchased with some leftover Christmas money and it holds salad nearly every night for my family. I have been experimenting with just about any vegetable that tastes good raw. I also have mostly abandoned bottled salad dressing. I suggest never reading the ingredient list on bottle of salad dressing if you wish to continue using then. Instead I have been dressing the salad in the bowl with oil and vinegar plus basically anything else I think will taste good. Below I have included several suggested combination.

Mixed greens, minced shallot, blue cheese crumbles, chopped walnuts, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Red leaf lettuce, sprouts, thinly sliced red bell pepper, chopped avocado, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, red wine vinegar, cumin, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Romaine lettuce, sliced cucumber, grated pecorino romano cheese, olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mixed greens, sliced cucumber, minced red onion, fresh oregano, feta cheese crumbles, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Green leaf lettuce, sliced onion, sliced celery, sliced apple, chopped pecans, blue cheese crumbles, olive oil,  apple cider vinegar, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mixed greens, sprouts, sliced radish, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, dry mustard, paprika, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Mainly I suggest experimenting with the salad, make them interesting to make and they will be interesting to eat as well. Plus, let's face it, we could all use more raw vegetables in our diets.

Steaking My Claim

I went with my wife out to a steakhouse for dinner and had a lovely meal. I was forced, however, to specifically ask that my steak not be adulterated in any way. Ever single piece of cow on the entire menu had various rubs and/or sauces added to them. In general I am in favor of subtle and layered flavors in food but do not mess with good steak. Rubs, sauces and steak sauces are for steaks past their prime. If the steak is good all it needs, in my opinion, is a little salt.

How Steak Should Be
  Steak (Any good cut is fine. Rib, T-Bone, Sirloin, Tenderloin, etc.)
  Kosher Salt
  Canola Oil

Turn on your stove vent and crack a window. Then put a cast iron skillet over the top end of medium high and add little canola oil. We are looking for an oil here that will take the high heat and have a neutral flavor, canola works pretty well for this.

When the iron smokes, only then remove the steak from the fridge. Cold meat will stay rarer in the middle, and rare is good. Sprinkle lightly on one side of the steak with kosher salt- the flake shape of the salt sticks better to the meat.

Place the steak salt side down on the cast iron and don't touch it for three to four minutes. Flip the steak with tongs and again do not touch it for three minutes. Evacuate the steak to a platter and allow it to rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting.

This produces a steak know as 'Black and Blue.' The outside should have a nice deep sear (especially on the salted side) and the center should be basically still raw. Because of this I do not recommend this style of steak to anyone pregnant, nursing, has a weakened immune system or is rather young. Additionally I would make sure the steak is fresh, good quality and from a reputable butcher. Use caution here because used improperly this recipe can make you ill. Good Luck.

Sauerkraut Part Duex

I pulled the sauerkraut today and I couldn't stop eating it. I have been experimenting off and on over the last three year in making sauerkraut and this one is the best so far. I wanted to share a few additional tips that I have found out in its making. First I used a 2 gallon Ohio stoneware crock that I picked up at ACE hardware and it worked perfectly. If you are planning on doing alot of fermenting I highly suggest one over a food grade bucket. Second, a seven and a half inch ceramic salad plate from Target fits perfectly inside the 2 gallon crock. Third, a one gallon jug of bottled water was the perfect weight for over the plate. Last it took about three and a half weeks to ferment to my liking, it may take longer is you like a stronger sour flavor, less if you prefer milder kraut.

Now that I have 6 quarts of sauerkraut what next? Well between myself and my family we ate one today. Another quart was transferred to a quart canning jar, lidded  and put in the fridge for semi-immediate consumption. The remaining four quarts were bagged and put into the freezer for future use. It is great in Reuben sandwiches and hot dogs, good with kielbasa and perigees plus makes a nice bed to roast a pork loin or slab of ribs on. I have mentioned before that a good use for the sauerkraut juice is in a Bloody \Mary so below I have attached my recipe.

Sauer Mary
  1.5 oz Sauerkraut juice
  8 oz tomato juice
  .5 oz grated horseradish
  2 dashes hot sauce
  3 oz vodka
  1 dash lemon or lime juice
  1 dash celery salt
  2-4 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Mix in a highball glass.  May be shaken vigorously or stirred lazily, as desired. Garnish with a celery stalk; a skewer of olives, pickles, carrots, mushrooms, or other vegetables; or even meat or fish (salami, shrimp, etc.) and cheese. Occasionally, pickled asparagus spears or pickled beans are also used.

Yeast Influxion

Sourdough pizza crust was a success! I modified the recipe we usually do that uses instant yeast. The added bonus is that we make pizza almost every Friday night and this way the sourdough starter will continually be used and kept up as long as I keep it in the refrigerator to slow the yeasts down! I love it when a plan comes together.

Sour Pizza
  2 tbs sugar
  1 tbs kosher salt

  1 tbs pure olive oil

  1 ½ cups bread flour (for bread machines)

  1 ½ cups sourdough starter

  2 tsp olive oil

  Olive oil, for the pizza crust

  Cornmeal, for dusting the pizza stone

Take the sourdough starter out of the fridge a day and a half before you want pizza. Since pizza night here is Friday, that means I take out the starter Thursday morning. This lets it wake up and you will get a better rise out of it.

That night start your dough. Add the sugar, salt, oil, four and starter in you mixer bowl. Stuff it in the mixer and attach the mixing paddle. Turn the mixer to medium and mix until it turns into dough. Swap out the paddle for the dough hook (Turn of the machine first, duh) and dial the mixer back up to medium. Make sure the mixer is not in a position to walk off the counter and leave it on for about 25-30 minutes. That is not a type-o, 30 minutes. Kneading the heck out of it creates gluten and gluten is good in yeast breads. So turn on the mixer and go watch a some TV.

After the mixer is done pull off the dough and work it into a smooth ball with your hands. Coat the dough with a little olive oil and toss it in a bowl about 3 times the size of the dough ball. Cover with plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out then leave it until dinner time tomorrow. Feed the sourdough starter still in your jar ¾ cup water and ¾ cup flour.

Preheat the oven to 450° and dust your baking surface with cornmeal (baking stone, cookie sheet, jelly roll pan, Terra cotta tile, etc). Spread the dough out to pizza shape and put on top of the corn meal.

You may then build the pizza as you like. Usually sauce goes first but not always; tomato, alfredo or pesto for example. Next usually is cheese. We usually just do mozzarella but have used half blue cheese half mozzarella. Last is toppings, we usually don't bother with any since the crust is so good but go with whatever you like. Pepperoni, Canadian bacon, sausage, onions, peppers, olives, jalapenos, anchovies, smoked oysters, whatever you like. The sauerkraut from the post a while back is fantastic on pizza (I am totally not kidding on this one).

Bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye on it and pull it out when the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. And don't forget to put the sourdough starter back in the fridge.

Fungal Husbandry

I decided last week to try my hand at attracting wild yeast, feeding them, keeping them warm then eating them. I speak of course of sourdough starter. It turned out to be relatively simple though I foresee keeping them producing to be more of a long term commitment than I can handle.
  The hardware consists of a quart glass canning jar, fitting canning lid and a thin dishrag. The software is 2 cups water (use bottled if your tap water is chlorinated) and 2 cups flour. Mix well the flour and water in the jar, cover the jar with the dishrag and secure it in place with the canning ring. Wait about 4- 5 days until it starts bubbling. Viola!
  The theory is that wild yeast floating in the air will make their way into the mixture and begin fermentation. I decided not to chance it and cheated a bit and seeded the starter first. Thin skinned fruits attract wild yeasts and it forms a white film on the surface of the fruit (yummy huh?) I had a few grapes still on the vine that neither I nor the birds have gotten around to eating so I dropped about 5 into the flour and water mixture. Just make sure to fish them back out before you use the starter.
  Now that you have a smelly jar of semi-rotten flour water, what do you do with it?  I tried sourdough pancakes!

Sourdough Pancakes
  1 cup sourdough starter
  2 cups lukewarm water
  2½ AP Flour
  2 tbs sugar
  1 egg
  2 tbs vegetable oil 
  ½ tsp salt
  1 tsp baking soda

In a large bowl combine the starter, water, flour and sugar. Stir until smooth, cover and let sit in a warm place for about 8-12 hours. (I did it the night before and had them for breakfast)
  Heat your griddle.  Beat the egg with the oil and salt and stir into the mixture. Combine the baking soda with 1 tbs warm water and fold that in too.
  Cook and serve just like regular pancakes.

My wife told me they were 'different' and I do not take this as any sort of criticism. They were heavier then my chemical leavened (baking powder) pancakes. But not necessarily in a bad way, they were simply more substantial and I really dug the sour flavor in contrast with the syrup.
 After I made the pancakes I fed the starter with ½ cup flour and ½ cup water then let it bubble on the counter for the rest of the day and put it in the fridge. That should slow the yeasts so I won't be required to use the starter quickly before it goes rancid. I plan to take it out in a day or so to wake up then we are trying sourdough pizza! I'll let you know if it goes well.

I Shout, You Shout, We All Shout for Sauerkraut!

I would like to be the first to say that the title above is not just awful, but god awful. 
Santa brought me a book this year on natural fermentation. In it, among other strangely interesting things to rot, is sauerkraut. Home fermented sauerkraut is a completely different beast than store bought. Not only is the flavor different but it is still alive. Yes, that is what I said. Alive.
Home fermented sauerkraut teems with live lactobacilli and what give it its sour taste is lactic acid, a byproduct of these lactobacilli living out their happy little lives feeding on the cabbage. This zombie sauerkraut is reputed to be very healthy, I am not sold on this but it tastes good.

Sauerkraut
10 pounds Cabbage (Green, Red, Nappa, Bok Choi, whatever)
5 tablespoons salt
2 gallon crock or food-grade plastic bucket
1 plate that fits inside the crock/bucket
1 weight (clean rock, jug of water, etc.)
kitchen towel to put over everything to keep out the bugs.

1. Shred cabbage. I used the rotary shredder attachment for my mixer. You can also do it with a knife, mandolin or grater. Put the shredded cabbage in the largest bowl you have.
2.  Sprinkle the cabbage with the salt. Mix well with you hands.
3. Load it into you crock or bucket (the cabbage, not the bowl). Mash it down with a tamper of some sort. You can use a potato masher, clean length of 2x4 or even your fists. The salt draws out water from the cabbage and you want that water to rise to the top so no air gets to the cabbage.
4. Put the plate on top of the cabbage and the weight on the plate. This will keep the cabbage under the brine. Then top the whole thing with a towel and let it sit in a warm spot for a few days.
5. Once every few days skim the scum off the top of the brine and rinse it off the weight. Try to get any mold off the top if it appears as well.
6. After 4-6 weeks you should have sauerkraut. I usually portion and freeze it. You can also boiling-bath-can it because it is acidic enough or just eat the whole batch and use the juice to seed a new batch.
7. Sauerkraut juice also tastes good in a bloody mary BTW.

Weighty Responsibilities

I think I have mentioned before that I am not much of a baker. Where cooking is more gut instinct and spontaneity, baking is about precision. Basically a subdivision of chemistry, baking requires exact measurements and procedures and because of these exacting requirements I have taken to weighing most of my baking ingredients.
  Why weigh? It has to do with dry granule shape and size.  A cup of sifted flour weights less than a cup of unsifted flour because the sifted flour has more air in it and therefore less flour. This inconsistently can screw your baking royally. Another example is salt, salt is salt right? Not exactly, if you compare the weight of a cup of table salt with kosher salt, the table salt weights more because its grains sit tighter together than the flakes of the kosher salt. If you weigh pickling salt it will weigh even more since its grain size is smaller. Smaller grain size means less air and less air means more salt and more salt means more weight.
  If I can manage it I try to use recipes that are based on weight rather than volume. A digital scale is not a huge investment if you like baking ($20 at Wal-Mart) and most can weight in ounces and grams, allowing you to use metric and standard recipes. They also have a tare or re-zero function, allowing you to reset the zero of the scale. Why is this important? It allows you avoid doing any math while measuring ingredients and we all know that math is the (square) root of all evil.
  First put your mixing bowl on the scale and hit the tare; the display now reads 0.00.  Add the first measurement then hit the tare button again. This keeps you from trying to remember 8 ounces of butter added to 12 ounces of flour is 20 ounces, 22 after adding 2 ounces of sugar and so on.
  To help illustrate the concept I have included my favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe - altered to use weight measurements. To give credit where credit is due, the recipe is from Alton Brown's Cooking show 'Good Eats.' Which is why it is kind of, well, Wierd. The only alteration I have made is to add chopped walnuts because that simply makes a superior chocolate chip cookie.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - By Weight
  8 ounces unsalted butter
  12 ounces bread flour
  1 teaspoon kosher salt
  1 teaspoon baking soda
  2 ounces granulated sugar
  8 ounces light brown sugar
  1 large egg
  1 large egg yolk
  1 ounce whole milk
  1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
  12 ounces chopped walnuts

Melt the butter in a 2-quart saucepan over low heat. Set aside to cool slightly.
  Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda onto a paper plate. Pour the butter into your stand mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar and beat with the paddle attachment on medium speed for 2 minutes.
  Meanwhile, whisk together the whole egg, the egg yolk, milk and vanilla extract in a measuring cup. Reduce the mixer speed and slowly add the egg mixture. Mix until thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds.
  Using the paper plate as a slide, gradually integrate the dry ingredients, stopping a couple of times to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Once the flour is worked in, drop the speed to "stir" and add the chocolate chips and walnuts. Chill the dough for 1 hour.
  Preheat the oven to 375° and place racks in the top third and bottom third of the oven.
  Scoop the dough into 1 1/2-ounce portions onto parchment-lined half sheet pans, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake 2 sheets at a time for 15 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. Remove from the oven, slide the parchment with the cookies onto a cooling rack and wait at least 5 minutes before consuming.