Category Archives: Recipes

Sweetness and Thorns

It’s that time of year again… Heading towards the warmest months of summer when the sweetest berries ripen. And in this hottest time of the year, it also brings us back around to canning time. Come January I’ll be trying to invent things that will heat up the kitchen like canning does, but in July and August… in our house without air conditioning… making jams and other preserves makes the house feel something like an Amazonian rain forest. Only the love of jam, the availability of free (when you know where to harvest the wild thing, or have your own bushes) berries, and the desire to actually be able to pronounce the ingredients in your food would lead to such folly. In short, I love it. 😉

Gooseberries are some of the most beautiful berries ever. They look jewel-like and the resulting jam… worth every single thorn.

I left the lemon half in the shot to give a sense of scale, but man… these little buggers can leave a mark.

Now my favorite berries, blackberries and blueberries, will not be ready for harvest for a couple more months. The harvest season that is soon upon us, however, is that for the gooseberry. This is not Dave’s favorite berry. He likes the jam well enough, but this delicious jam comes at a prince, and a bloody price at that. This rather innocent looking bush is studded with profoundly sharp thorns to protect its delicious produce. These are not like the puny thorns that snag you from blackberry bushes, but gooseberry thorns are more like mini daggers that sink into your skin and will not let go. Last year Dave was in Belgium on fieldwork when the gooseberries came ripe so it was only myself and Little Man to gather our berries. He says it was academic work. I think it was to avoid the gooseberries.

Little Man was my gooseberry helper last year. He brought one of his superhero action figures and played in the dirt, tossing in a few berries here and there. His favorite part was dumping my “picking bucket” into the larger berry bowl. Kids can help in lots of ways.

Besides the issue of harvesting the gooseberries, the berries will need to be stemmed and tailed. This can be tedious, but I have found that doing this with a friend (or my husband) along with a nice cold beer (or maybe two, but remember you need to keep your wits about you if you are making the jam right after preparing the berries) makes the process a lot nicer. If that does not help, just keep reminding yourself how amazing this jam tastes. You truly cannot buy this flavor from the store.

Removing the stems, tails and leaves from freshly picked gooseberries can be tedious. Grab a friend and a favorite beverage and make the chore into something fun.

Making Gooseberry Jam
Ingredients
4 cups of gooseberries (stemmed and tailed)
1 ¼ cup water
1 lemon, juiced
4 cups sugar

Directions

Prepare your canner, jars, lids and rings. Place a couple of small ceramic dishes in the freezer. You will use these to test your jam’s doneness later.
In a large stock pot or Dutch oven combine half of the berries, lemon juice and water. Bring the pot to a boil and cook the berries for 10 minutes. Some of the berries will start to pop and the liquid will turn garnet red.
Add the rest of the berries and the sugar to the pot and stir over gentle heat (about 10-15 minutes) until the sugar dissolves completely. Do not rush this part or the sugar can crystallize (aka bad mojo for jam). Once the sugar grains are all dissolved bring the berries and sugar to a full, hard boil that cannot be stirred down. Stir often for about 10-15 minutes with a long handled wooden spoon to ensure the jam does not stick or burn.
To see if the jam has set, remove one of the chilled plates from the freezer and drizzle a little bit of the hot jam mixture onto the plate. Then tilt the plate to let the jam run. If the jam firms up quickly and sort of crinkles on the top, then it is done. If it does not firm up quickly, then let it continue to boil hard for a couple more minutes and test it again. Keep going until you get the crinkles, then you are ready to fill.
Once the jam is firming up well, remove it from the heat and skim off any foam. This can be set aside in a bowl to add to a nice piece of toast to celebrate your hard work.
Fill and process your jars based on the manufacturer’s directions. I like to use wide mouthed 250 ml jars.
After the jars are processed, set them aside to cool for 24 hours. Resist the urge to touch or move them during this time. If any lids don’t seal properly, simply put those jars into the refrigerator and enjoy over the next couple of days. The sealed jars can be stored for up to one year.
Click here for a printable version of the Gooseberry Jam recipe.

Do not be tempted to clean the water deposits off of the lids until they have cooled for 24 hours. Let them sit undisturbed so you do not accidentally pop a seal.
After the jars are cooled, clean them off and remove the rings. Label your jars clearly with the name of their contents and the date they were sealed. Store the jars in a single layer in a dark, cool area. Do not stack your jars on top of one another. The reason you remove the rings is that if something went wrong with the canning and bad stuff is growing in there, the lid will lose its seal and pop open. This food should be discarded and not eaten. If you keep the rings on or stack something on top of your jars, then you cannot tell if a seal has popped.

The innocent little bush, just waiting for this years victims… I mean berry pickers…

Breakfast Snack Cookies

Homemade Curry Powder

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I love spice. Love it! The size of my spice cupboard is ridiculous, and that’s even after some serious culling both before and after we moved to Canada. I’m looking forward to the day (hopefully not too distant in the future) when Little Man will start to enjoy food with any level of heat to it. Until then, I still use spices heavily throughout my cooking, but limit myself to those that add flavor, not heat.

One of the drawbacks (and sources of great woe) of the low FODMAP diet has been in the total absence of onion and garlic in the spices we are allowed to cook with. Garlic can be used as an infused oil, but all other forms are forbidden since they are a primary culprit of the bad gastric issues we are trying to avoid with Little Man. This garlic and onion spice avoidance also means that just about every commercially available spice blend, even from the really good places, are also forbidden since they all contain some form (sometimes multiple forms) of dried garlic and/or onions. Sigh…

The other day I finally hit my point of “enough!” when I was skimming through some online recipes and they all contained curry powder. It just so happens that my spice cupboard holds multiple types of curry powder, all of which contain the forbidden items. Argh! As I glared at my spices it suddenly occured to me that I actually had all of the ingredietns that I needed to make a garlic- and onion-free (aka FODMAP friendly) curry powder. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize this, but challenge accepted!

I do have to state here that there is absolutely nothing authentic about curry powder. It’s basically an invention of colonialism as the British came back from their time in India and wanted to recreate the flavors of that incredible place. Point of fact, this is also how Worcestershire Sauce was created, but that’s a different story. The point here is to please not expect an authentic Indian cuisine experience from this spice blend, since it isn’t authentic. It is, however, delicious.

Once you have the ground spices at hand, making the spice blend is literally as easy as stirring them up in a bowl and storing them in a tightly sealed jar in a dark, cool, place. You can therefore tweak the recipe to give it the kind of flavor (or appearance) that you prefer, such as adding cayenne in place of where I use paprika. Trust me, if I wasn’t doing this for Little Man specifically, I’d be using the cayenne as well.

I like to use this curry powder to toss with potatoes or yams for roasting in the oven along with a little olive oil, salt and pepper; or add it into quinoa or brown rice before boiling; or even mixing it into a simple vinaigrette for a punch of flavor in an acidic salad dressing. Your only limitation in how to use this curry powder is your own imagination. It goes great with just about anything. And if you don’t need to follow a low FODMAP diet, by all means add a teaspoon or so of garlic and onion powder to your spice blend. I’ll just have to vicariously live through your allium usage.

FODMAP Friendly Curry Powder
Yes, it is easier to buy an already blended spice mix from the store, but this version lets you adjust the heat level to your (or your family’s) preferences or dietary needs. My version creates a blend suitable for low FODMAP diet dishes, while giving you a fresher flavor than you’ll find from the store shelf. For the best curry powder, grind whole cumin and coriander seeds in a spice or coffee grinder. I use powdered here for quickness.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. ground cumin
2 tbsp. ground coriander
2 tbsp. ground cardamom
2 tbsp. turmeric
2 tsp. paprika (or cayenne for more heat)
2 tsp. dry mustard powder
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Directions:

Combine the spices in a bowl, then pour into an air tight container.
The spices for my homemade curry powder.

Stirring them together.

And viola, you are done. My curry powder is not as yellow as some store brands. You can make it more yellow if you want by adding more turmeric. I like this deeper color, and the balance of flavors created here.
Store in a cool, dark place. Use in any recipe that calls for curry powder. The curry powder can be used in a vinaigrette, tossed with potato or yam wedges for oven roasting, or rubbed onto a whole chicken before roasting. Enjoy!

Then just store the spice in a tight jar, like my tiny mason jar or any recycled jam or honey jar, and you are ready to go.

Click here for a printable version of the FODMAP Friendly Curry Powder recipe.

These little jars can also make fantastic gifts. Try putting a few together for a hostess gift, for a wedding shower, or around the holidays.

Adventures with FODMAPs – Lactose Edition and Amazing Cornbread with Maple Butter

Adventures with FODMAPs – Polyols and Sweet Potato “Fries”

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We’ve finally made it through the initial eight weeks of the FODMAP diet so we can begin trying to reintroduce different categories of FODMAPs into Little Man’s and our diets. Whew! It’s been a bit of a haul, and honestly it’s likely been closer to 10 weeks because we completely botched the first week or two. After that point we got into the swing of things and started seeing really great improvements in Little Man’s health. Now we get to start trying out foods, one category at a time, checking for reactions to each one, slowly going through multiple foods from each category before moving on. Let the games begin…

For more specifics on the FODMAP diet and reintroducing foods, please see Sue Shepard’s Complete FODMAP Diet book. This details the tests they ran to create the diet, the types of issues that following the diet can help, a detailed discussion of FODMAPS, foods to avoid and how to reintroduce foods for these “challenges” to see what reacts badly with an individual and what can be safely eaten. I do not attempt to be an expert on this diet, but simply am doing my best to follow the guidelines to help my family’s health.

Shepard recommends starting the reintroductions with the Polyol FODMAP category, moving slowly through up the scale of contentious other categories, and finally ending with the one that no one can actually digest well… Galactoids (aka beans… but more on those in a few weeks). Polyols are “sugar alcohols” and occur naturally in some foods, but are also used in processed foods as sweeteners. For us, the high FODMAP polyols that we used as “challenges” to reintroduce to Little Man are apples, blackberries, pears, and mushrooms, as well as the moderate polyol FODMAPs of sweet potatoes and avocados. Even though this was the least contentious of the categories to start with, it is one that I’ve been looking to forward the most because of its prevalence as a sweetener in juices, cookies, granola bars, fruit snacks, jams, and any other myriad of snack treat or food aimed towards kids. Try finding jams, juices or fruit snacks for kids that don’t contain either high fructose corn syrup (another high FODMAP, but one that we try to eliminate anyway) or some form of apple. Ugh…

Starting the reintroduction process has been nerve wracking. Little Man’s tummy was looking good and it’s difficult to put that at risk, but I’m also excited to start this process so that we can (hopefully) finally know what his triggers are. My hope is that it will be easier to only have to avoid a few triggers (please be only a few!) than the world at large.

For the reintroduction process, it’s important to not completely gorge on the food you are testing, but also to make sure that you eat a good portion. If you try too small of an amount, you may not get an accurate response. So you should try a regular-sized portion (Shepard has suggestions), see if there is a reaction, and then try again. If you have a regular sized proportion of a high FODMAP food and have a reaction, Shepard suggests that after your symptoms subside try the food again at a smaller amount. It might just be that you can only tolerate a small bit. Once you know what foods and what amounts of the foods you can (or cannot) handle, you can start to better understanding your triggers. Shepard also suggests trying these trigger foods again at a later date. Sometimes our systems change, and especially since Little Man is so young he may out grow (or may not) the unfortunate reactions he’s experiencing today.

It took us almost two weeks, but we just completed testing the Polyol FODMAP food group. Luckily for us, Little Man did great with all of the polyols we tried. He did so good, in fact, that for the first time in months I let him have one of the good fruit snack treats (sweetened with apple juice) we call fruit straws. He was ecstatic, and so far I haven’t seen any bad reactions. To celebrate this “challenge” Little Man and I ate our fruit snacks while going on an adventure walk in our neighbors’ Enchanted Forest. Aside from the fruit straws, we were also treated to our first view of a native orchid species to these woods called Fairy Slippers. The orchids are tiny, so it took us a bit of time to finally locate the amidst the larger Trilium and gorgeous yellow violets. Little Man, who is obsessed with all things Kung Fu Panda, was determined that we were having a hard time finding the Fairy Slipper orchids because a group of Croc bandits must have come through and taken them all. Luckily we chased off the Croc bandits and found the orchids. Whew!

Aside from apple, one of the polyol foods that I have been looking forward to “testing” are sweet potatoes. We are still struggling with getting Little Man to eat vegetables (and fruit in any form that is not completely pulverized or turned into jam), but one that he will eat without any question is a sweet potato. In our household we call these “french fries” even though they aren’t fried, aren’t made from regular potatoes (though you can use them if you want), nor are they in french fry shape (though you can easily cut them that way too). Ah well. The good news is that since Little Man has cleared this challenge, we can start enjoying sweet potatoes again at dinner time. Little Man’s favorite way to eat sweet potato “french fries” is in the form of Oven Roasted Sweet Potato Fries. For the reintroduction celebration of sweet potatoes, I served them as Smokey Sweet Potato Bites. I’ve included both recipes here, though the pictures are only for the Smokey Sweet Potato bites since the method is the same. When we put these on the dinner table Little Man’s eyes lit up and he literally fell on them with both hands. Dave and I were concerned that he was going to eat too many of them and therefore have a bad reaction, but all was well with the world and Little Man was super excited to have one of his favorite foods back. Whew!

If you think that you don’t like sweet potatoes, maybe give them one more chance and try these out. The cost and labor output is low, and you might be surprised by actually liking them. I, myself, only like sweet potatoes in certain dishes. I’m not a huge fan of baked sweet potatoes served like regular baked potatoes, nor do I like sweet potato fries especially if they are treated like a dessert and covered in cinnamon sugar. Apologies to all of those sweet potato lovers who like those two dishes, but they simply aren’t my thing. My classic Oven Roasted Sweet Potato “Fries” and Smokey Sweet Potato Bites, however, are totally different. The sweetness of the sweet potato is balanced with the smokey spices, and the edges of each bite are crisped in the oven. What’s not to like? Here’s how they are made.

Oven Roasted Sweet Potato “Fries”
In our household, these are the classic form of “French fry” that appear on our dinner table regularly. They aren’t fried, nor are they made out of potatoes, nor are they in French fry shape (though you can easily cut them that way). What they are is delicious, and Little Man’s favorite vegetable. If you don’t think you like sweet potatoes, give these a shot. You might just change your mind.

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes
¼ cup olive oil, plus extra
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400°. Prepare a baking sheet by drizzling a little olive oil over it, then spreading the oil around with your fingers to evenly cover the pan. Set it aside.
Peel the sweet potatoes, and then cut them in half the long way. Then cut those halves in half the long way again. Line up your sweet potato quarters and slice them into ¼ inch “bites.” Try to keep the pieces close to the same thickness, otherwise the really skinny ones will burn before the thicker ones crisp. Once all of your sweet potatoes are chopped, place them in a large bowl.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and toss with a large spoon until the sweet potato bites are evenly coated.
Pour the seasoned sweet potatoes out onto the prepared baking sheet. Be sure that your sweet potatoes are all in one layer, spreading them out if needed.
Bake for 30 minutes, checking the “fries” towards the end of the cooking time to ensure that they aren’t “over caramelizing.” If they are getting too dark at the corners of your baking sheet, simply flip them around with a spatula moving the darker pieces into the center and the less done pieces to the corners.
Once the fries are crispy and browned, remove the pan from the oven and move the bites with a spatula into your serving bowl. Taste for seasoning, adjusting if necessary. Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of my Oven Roasted Sweet Potato “Fries” recipe, and keep on reading for another variation (this time with pictures!).

Smokey Sweet Potato Bites
These are a smoky, spiced version of the classic Oven Roasted Sweet Potato Fries that Little Man loves. That basic recipe can be a blank canvas to season with whatever spices and herbs you are feeling inspired by. I love the smokey paprika with these fries, and they pair fantastically with roasted chicken or pork, or with any hearty vegetarian main. Like with the classic version, if you don’t think you like sweet potatoes, give these a shot.

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes
¼ cup olive oil, plus extra
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
2 tsp. smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400°. Prepare a baking sheet by drizzling a little olive oil over it, then spreading the oil around with your fingers to evenly cover the pan. Set it aside.
Peel the sweet potatoes, and then cut them in half the long way. Then cut those halves in half the long way again. Line up your sweet potato quarters and slice them into ¼ inch “bites.” Try to keep the pieces close to the same thickness, otherwise the really skinny ones will burn before the thicker ones crisp. Once all of your sweet potatoes are chopped, place them in a large bowl.
I included this picture to let you know the approximate size that I tend to buy of sweet potatoes. I generally avoid the ones that are closer to small comet size.

The look after being peeled…

Halving them lengthwise…

Then halve them lengthwise again, and slice into little arcs. These are perfect bite size (or for little fists…) bites.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and toss with a large spoon until the sweet potato bites are evenly coated with the oil and spices.
Adding the spices to the bowl. I love smoked paprika. Look at that color!

Evenly tossed raw sweet potato bites with spices and olive oil.
Pour the seasoned sweet potatoes out onto the prepared baking sheet. Be sure that your sweet potatoes are all in one layer, spreading them out if needed.
Pouring the bites onto a prepared baking sheet.

Smooth out the pile so that each bite can get nice and crispy in the oven.
Bake for 30 minutes, checking the sweet potato bites towards the end of the cooking time to ensure that they aren’t “over caramelizing.” If they are getting too dark at the corners of your baking sheet, simply flip them around with a spatula moving the more done pieces into the center and the less done pieces to the corners.
These are about halfway done. Flip them here so that both sides get golden brown, and if any on the edges are browning too quickly you can move them to the center.

Here they are almost perfect. You can taste them now to adjust for seasoning.
Once the sweet potato bites are crispy and browned, remove the pan from the oven and move the bites with a spatula into your serving bowl. Taste for seasoning, adjusting if necessary. Enjoy!
Smokey Sweet Potato Bites!

Click here for a printable version of my Oven Roasted Sweet Potato “Fries” recipe or my Smokey Sweet Potato Bites recipe.

Cooking with Kids

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When I first started cooking with Little Man, he couldn’t yet walk. I would hold him on my hip and press his little hand around a long wooden spoon and let him “help” me stir whatever I was making. As he grew older, I started asking him to help me cook or bake and he would gleefully dump in a cup of flour that I’d filled for him. Sometimes he would drop the entire thing into the bowl, measuring cup and all. Even if all he did was add in a premeasured scoop of flour, he would tell his Daddy proudly that he’d helped make the muffins. Now more and more it’s not me asking him to come and cook with me, but if he sees me making anything in the kitchen he comes running up asking to help, dragging a stool in his wake.

Two year old Little Man helping me stir ingredients in a measuring cup in our tiny Iowa kitchen.

I don’t want this to sound like a fairytale of always awesome cooking experiences. In fact, there are numerous times when I ask Little Man if he’d like to help me cook or bake and his answer is a curly haired blur of “no” as he runs off to do something else. But, since I’ve taken the time to slow down and get him involved with baking special treats or snacks, as well as making pancakes or stirring dinner, he now thinks of cooking or baking as something that can be fun to do and he often helps me in the kitchen.

Here three year old LM has his first ball of bread dough to play with.

Cooking with kids is a completely different ball game from the cooking you do on your own, and for some people it can be incredibly stressful. When I first learned that I was pregnant with Little Man, I knew that I wanted to have special cooking times with him, and I also knew that I was going to have to change how I worked in the kitchen. I was a good cook, but often got stressed out when trying to cook with someone in the kitchen with me. If Dave was in our tiny kitchen as I cooked… forgetaboutit… not good. Around the same time there were numerous T.V. series about people learning how to host television cooking shows, and much of what they were learning was about how to cook nicely with others and how to teach cooking. I started watching these shows and trying out their advice so that I could learn to play nicely with others in the kitchen, and hopefully be able to teach my son both how to cook but more importantly how to love cooking.

The Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa, also had mini

The Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa, has cooking workshops for kids. LM got to color his own chef’s hat and then make a turtle cup cake.

Learning how to cook with Little Man has taken quite a bit of trial and error, but now it’s something that we both look forward to. For me, the three main goals for cooking with kids that I try to be mindful of are to:
1. Choose a time to cook when you aren’t pressed for time
2. Embrace the mess
3. Focus on the process not the product

LM is helping Dave grate cheese last Mother’s Day for wraps to bring on our picnic. I’m not sure how much cheese actually made it to the wraps, and how much was “sampled” by the chefs.

Timing is Everything!
There are days (and quite a few of them) when I simply need to get dinner on the table. There’s not a lot of time to mess around, I just need to get into the kitchen, get dinner going and onto the table asap. Those times are not the best for cooking with Little Man. I do my best to never turn him away if he asks to help me cook, but it’s taken lots of practice for me to be able to do this, and frankly there are times when it wouldn’t be safe for him to help me (like even shallow frying or browning meat/veg with splattering oil). This is why when I know that I will be making something that is calmer, that is a particular favorite of Little Man’s, or when I know that I can be more relaxed with when a dish or treat is done then I invite Little Man to come and cook with me. I try to be strategic when I can. There are even certain dishes that he loves that I require he cooks with me, like boxed mac and cheese. If you want to see a great Pavlovian-dog response with Little Man, shake a box of mac and cheese in his vicinity. You’ll see his eyes widen, back straighten, and curls bounce as he runs to see if he heard that rattle correctly. So now, if we’re having boxed mac and cheese, then he’s the one making it (just not the draining of the hot pasta part yet), with my help of course.

It’s the issue of time and timing that I’ve had to work on the most for cooking with Little Man. As with anything else dealing with kids, if you are stressed about it your child will be stressed too. I had to practice this, but it’s almost like a deep breathing exercise. Just accept the fact that if it normally takes you 20 minutes to get a pan of muffins into the oven, when you first start cooking with a child that time could easily double, but that’s OK. The goal isn’t speed here, it’s teaching your child how to cook, how to enjoy cooking, and most importantly getting to spend some special time with you while doing so. If it takes you a few more (or many more) minutes to cook something together, then those are bonus moments that you get to spend together doing something fun.

These were LM’s birthday cup cakes to bring to day care. I found little sprinkles all over the kitchen for days.

Embrace the Mess!
Much like giving up control of your timeline, especially when first learning how to cook with your child or when cooking with a young child you need to accept the fact that it’s going to get messy. Just ask my husband (or mother-in-law… wait… on second thought don’t do that…), I am not the most organized or cleanest cook out there. I’ve gotten better over the years, but I tend to leave a swath of destruction in my wake (just check out the background in the banner image of this post… wait, no don’t do that… its too messy). I’ve been practicing being better, specifically as an example for Little Man as we cook, but I have a bit of work to be done there.

That said, I am trying to cook cleaner, so when I first started baking with Little Man it was hard for me to let him do the scooping of ingredients on his own. I would scoop the flour/sugar/spice, hold the measuring cup or spoon over the bowl and only then let him dump the ingredient in. The reason I did this was partly based on Little Man’s age at the time, and partly based on my own desire to control the potential chaos in my kitchen. You know best the abilities of your child, and if you aren’t sure of his/her abilities in the kitchen then start with what you are comfortable with and move up from there. Just remember that your child learns and develops at an astonishing rate. You (meaning me too) need to remember to let your child push his/her abilities from time to time to see what they really can do.

Increasingly Little Man asks if he can do any of our cooking or baking tasks “all by” himself. Since baking particularly needs to be pretty precise, I will still often scoop and level a measuring cup or spoon, but then I hand it over immediately to Little Man who will then move it to the bowl and dump it. Especially at first there was quite a bit of spill over with a winter-esque coating of flour and/or sugar across the kitchen counter when we were baking. But that didn’t matter. He could dump an entire cup of flour on the floor… much like I myself did last night… and it wouldn’t matter. We would look at each other then bust up laughing. I’d help him do the correct measurement, and then we’d stop to clean up the mess together. As with anything else in life worth learning, you are going to make a mistake from time to time. It’s important that we give our kids the freedom to make mistakes and to learn from them as well. This also gives Little Man practice in cleaning up, but he doesn’t mind doing it with me since it’s all a part of the cooking game.

I love how serious he is here with his mixing bowl, as he whisks dry ingredients together. The flour cloud must have subsided by the time I took the picture.

It’s About the Process Not the Product
This last goal for cooking with kids really sums up the previous two about letting go of stress about time and cleanliness. If your muffins are the ugliest in the world, that’s just another part of the great story that you’ll tell for years. And who knows, even though they look a mess those ugly muffins might still be delicious. If you make something that is a complete flop, inedible to the core, again this can become part of family lore and it can also be a great opportunity to call in reinforcements like the local pizza delivery place. The only thing that matters is that you were in the kitchen cooking with your child. Period. End of story.

If you are going to cook, at some point you are going to fail in spectacular proportions. I, myself have had some doozies. For years Dave would not let me make mashed potatoes since mine were insipid at best, watery and under/over seasoned at worst. Then there was also the first Thanksgiving meal that I made him. That shall not be spoken of here. There was also the time that I didn’t just “over caramelize” the kale chips at my mother-in-law’s house, I incinerated them. I’m not even sure there was any forensic evidence left of those “chips” that had started out as a beautiful head of expensive kale. Perhaps a fancy chef could have used them as a kale ash garnish for something, but for me that fail was so spectacular the only thing I could do about it was laugh and deposit my creation in the organic bin.

We all make mistakes. Frankly these mistakes in cooking mean that we are trying something new, and hopefully we can learn from what went wrong, making our cooking better for the next time we try that recipe. Like my “blackened” kale chips, I learned to watch crisping kale like a hawk, never taking my eyes off of it. From your cooking mistakes you can learn to make your own cooking better, as well as letting your child learn from mistakes too. What is most important here is that you deal with the mistake with grace (and maybe even some laughter), try to troubleshoot it to see if it can be fixed (more learning moments here), and if all else fails you clean up together and try again (or call for take out).

LM loves chocolate and I love all of the healthy ingredients I get to sneak into his snacks.

Getting Started…
The best way to get started cooking with your child is to choose a recipe that is a sure fire hit with your child, as well as being one that fits your comfort level in the kitchen. For me, that “dish” was boxed mac and cheese. It’s not even a recipe, really just more of following instructions on the box. What was important for me was that this is something that Little Man LOVES, that we could pull off quickly before his attention span faltered, and that turns out the same every time. The first time “we” made mac and cheese together, all he did was dump in the sauce mix and stir the milk in for a few seconds before he decided he wanted to go play. No problem. He played and I finished off our masterpiece. For lunch that day he was super impressed with himself that he had helped Mommy make the food. As Little Man has grown more confident in the kitchen, I keep finding new things for him to do. I think that the first actual recipe we did together was for Banana Chocolate Muffins (see above picture for the results). From that point on I made a point of asking him to come and cook with me whenever I was following a recipe for a dish that I knew he would particularly like (such as pancakes), as well as letting him join in when ever he asks.

What I’ve started to do recently is to ask Little Man if there is something that he would like to make with me in the kitchen. Right now that question still stumps him a bit since he doesn’t know the options he has to choose from. So if he seems stalled, I suggest a couple possibilities that I know we have ingredients for and let him choose. I think the next thing we’ll try is to flip through one of my cookbooks with pretty pictures and see if something catches his fancy. Let’s just hope he doesn’t choose some form of fancy souffle. But you know, even if he does choose a souffle, something that I’ve never made before, and even if it is a magnificent flop, we’ll have a blast doing it. I might just be sure that I have the ingredients for some Not So Traditional Chocolate Chip Cookies stashed away… just in case.

Here are my favorite recipes to make with Little Man:
1. Mini Chocolate Cupcakes
2. Auntie Erin’s Cocoa
3. Cheddar Chive Scones
4. Marie’s Hummus
5. Mom’s Latkas
6. Perfect Spelt Pancakes (also Perfect Whole Wheat Pancakes)

Enough chatter, get out there and cook with your favorite kid or kiddos. And if you have any tips that have worked for you, please let me know in the comment section. I’m always interested in learning more.

Based on my outfit, I must have just come home from teaching, jumped into the kitchen, then grabbed LM for some Mommy time while making dinner.

Friendship Cookies and Good Bye Tears

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Sometimes there are things that I want to write about, but the moment is a bit too close at hand. I started to write this post last August after a dear friend from Pella and her family visited us for a couple of days in the middle of their epic road trip from Iowa to British Columbia and then back down to the Oregon coast.

Dinner on the Deck

Visiting the fairy doors at Neck Point.

We’ve done a lot of moving around, Dave and I. From various apartments in upstate New York during graduate school through our impromptu academic tour of the American Midwest and now to Vancouver Island. Most of these “homes” have not lasted for more than two years before we move again following the job market. In each of these places we have been blessed with some amazing friends. The kind who we may not see for a year (or more), but the minute you are back in contact it’s as if you were never apart. Conversations pick up as if we had just been chatting yesterday, and it is this effortlessness that makes it all the more gut wrenching when you have to leave them again.

Learning to skip stones at Neck Point.

Also checking out the gorgeous sea life in the shallow waters. Can you see all the tiny crabs?

Sailing cork boats at Transfer Beach, Ladysmith.

Which brings us back to the post that I started last August. Little Man still talks about Iowa as a place that he wants to go back and visit. In fact, he consistently talks about how “tomorrow” we need to catch a plane and go to Iowa then to China to visit his Kung Fu Panda friends. At first I thought he assumed that all travel must go through Iowa since that is the last place that he traveled from on our move here. So we pulled out the globe and his map and I showed him how Iowa is in no way closer to China than we are here. Then Little Man explained to me that the goal was to visit Iowa and his blue home (our house there was painted blue with a scarlet front door), then to travel on to the Jade Palace in China. Ah…

When our friends came out to visit from Iowa, it was as if we’d just parted company the day before, not the year it was in real time. We played, the kids played, and we ate, drank and talked for hours. It was fantastic. And as is often the case, the better the visit is, the sadder the departure. We had already taught Little Man the Turkish tradition of throwing water on the vehicle of loved ones who are leaving to ensure that they must come back soon. So as they were getting into their car, Little Man was urging me on quickly to grab a container of water to make sure they came back. We dowsed the car, and are still waiting with baited breath for them to return.

He was quiet as we went back inside after their departure. We closed the front door and Little Man looked out the window watching their car disappear around the corner into the woods. Dave scooped Little Man up and took him to the couch in his arms.
“Daddy, what does ‘sad’ mean?”
Little Man’s head was bowed so all I could see were his golden curls, not his face.
“Sad is something we feel when we are upset. Are you sad that your friends are leaving?”
A nod of curls followed by, “Do you cry when you feel sad?”
“Yes, some times we cry when we feel sad,” Daddy said. “It’s OK to cry when we feel sad. It’s OK to cry.” Daddy folded him in his arms as Little Man’s face crumpled into tears.

Paparazzi taking photos of dinner.

We had to treat our Iowa friends to some locally caught salmon. This time packet grilled and seasoned with ginger, garlic, chives and soy.

We had to treat our Iowa friends to some locally caught wild salmon. The salmon was packet grilled and seasoned with ginger, garlic, chives and soy.

Dave’s famous… I mean, Joe’s famous potatoes (Cabin Grilled Potatoes)

This much sauteed kale with garlic, came from…

this much rainbow chard that came from…

my glorious garden. I can’t wait to see it lush like this again!

I stood in the kitchen, “good bye” tears in my eyes, and tried to gain control. My “plan” had been to hold it together for Little Man’s sake, so I could comfort myself with tears later after he was asleep. No such luck. So instead I baked. The known movements of measuring, portioning and stirring were comforting, as was the aroma from the oven. For this moment, for me at least, the main point wasn’t the special treat to eat afterwards, but the actions and senses leading up to it.

That visit spurred me on to try to find Little Man more friends here on our island. He was only 2 1/2 when we left Iowa, but all of his little friends that he’d known since birth were now far away and it’s hard (even for a little guy) to break into a community like Nanaimo where many people have lived for generations and don’t know what it’s like to be new in a place and friendless. Now, to celebrate when we make new friends or for special play dates (generally outside ones where errant chocolate chips won’t ruin someone’s couch), I like to make a baked treat to bring along. Sometimes this means mini-muffins or scones, but what we’ve started thinking of as special treats with friends are cookies.

One of my favorite comfort foods is an old fashioned chocolate chip cookie. However, the “old fashioned” part has had to be updated a bit for our current dietary requirements. My goal here was to take that standard recipe for a delicious chocolate chip cookie with crispy edges and a chewy center loaded with chocolate chips, and make it into something that while it would be a stretch to call it “healthy” I could feel good about feeding my child and offering to other children (and parents, of course). So in my case that meant getting rid of the wheat and using spelt flour, which still has some gluten for texture but has less of the gastro-issues than wheat has, and sneaking in some chia meal to up the “goodness” value.

As I’ve written before, there’s no need to go out and buy a special bag of chia meal. If you have chia seeds at home, all you need to do is pour some of the seeds into a coffee grinder or food processor and blitz them up. Creating your own chia meal has the added benefits of making all the great nutrients of chia more easily accessible to your body, and there is less chance of a stray whole chia seed getting into your dishwasher and growing like a chia pet. If you don’t have chia, but do have flax seeds feel free to use them the same way. If you have neither, then you can simply replace the amount of chia meal for a flour of your choice, or even oats.

Enough talking, let’s make some cookies…

Not So Traditional Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
2 cups spelt flour (or whole wheat)
¼ cup chia meal (see note)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) good quality dairy free margarine (or butter), softened
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375°. Set aside an ungreased baking sheet.
Combine the spelt flour, chia meal, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Set this aside.
I love how the chia meal always looks like I’ve just dumped a ton of black pepper into a recipe. Trust me, it will work its way in unobtrusively soon.

See, the chia meal is whisked into the rest of the dry ingredients and away it goes.
Combine the softened margarine (or butter), sugars and vanilla in a large bowl either by hand or with an electric beater or stand mixer. Make sure the mixture is smooth and creamy.
There’s no need to use any other tool than a large spoon and a little elbow grease to combine the wet ingredients here.
Add the eggs, one at a time, to the butter mixture, combining well.
Adding the eggs, one at a time.
Carefully add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, stirring slowly at first so that you don’t create a flour cloud by beating your ingredients too enthusiastically. Make sure that the dough is smooth and thoroughly combined.
I did the sizing of the bowls backwards in this picture, so this step might look a little different for you. It will still taste amazing in the end.
Add the chocolate chips, stirring just to distribute them throughout.
I’m surprised that Little Man didn’t sense the chocolate being added to the bowl and run out in his pjs requesting a sample.
Using two spoons (or a small scoop if you are feeling fancy) scoop out and drop tablespoon-sized portions of dough onto the baking sheet, spacing them a few inches apart since the dough will spread while baking.
The dough is a little glossy here since the cookies had been in the oven for a minute or so before I remembered to take the photo.
Bake the cookies for 9-11 minutes or until nice and golden brown. The cookies should not look wet in the middle, but will be soft when you take them off of the tray. Don’t worry, they will firm up as they cool. Remove the tray from the oven and let the cookies sit for about 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. They can be cooled completely or served immediately. Just warn little mouths about the potential for hot, melted chocolate chips.
Perfectly golden.

Dangerously ready to eat.
You can continue baking the cookies until the dough is done, or take any dough that you don’t wish to bake now, form it into a log on plastic wrap, cover it securely and keep it in the freezer until you are ready to slice and bake the cookies. You may need to increase the baking time by a few minutes, so watch them carefully towards the end. The dough can be frozen for up to a few weeks. Enjoy!
You can freeze cookie dough to make your own slice and bake cookies, ready whenever you want them to be.

No, the cookie log does not need to be perfect. You are just going to slice and bake it so don’t waste too much time making the perfect cylinder, unless you have a food stylist snooping around in your freezer.

Click here for a printable version of the Not So Traditional Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe.

All these need is a glass of milk.

And a friend.

Walking at Neck Point.

The Reckless Abandon of Sunshine on Easter

Pancake Breakfast

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I love Saturday breakfasts, and I guard this morning jealously. Little Man is getting of an age when dance or sport classes might make an inroad to our Saturday breakfasts, but not quite yet. It’s the one morning of the week when we don’t have to rush to be anywhere else. No one has changed out of their sleep clothes before breakfast. We haven’t washed our faces or brushed our hair, we just relax and enjoy being with each other.

Two of Little Man’s most requested breakfast foods are pancakes and waffles, which I don’t mind since I can still try to chock them full of as much nutrients as I can, then sit back and enjoy my own buttery, mapley goodness. I love pancakes too.

My favorite pancake recipe is adapted from one that we learned in upstate New York, from a family cookbook of dear friends that’s kept up at their camp. When made with all purpose flour, these are the fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever had. The only problem with them was that I always ate too much, and that left me feeling all sorts of blah. So sometime after we moved away from New York I started experimenting with shifting the recipe around and incorporating whole wheat flour. They were still fluffy and awesome, but I could feel good about incorporating some whole grains into them and they didn’t leave me collapsed on the couch. I tweaked the recipe a bit more, thinning it out a bit when I wanted to make fun pancakes for little man, like his initials or a reindeer face, but for the most part I was very pleased with my Perfect Whole Wheat Pancakes.

Then came the shift in our diets and wheat was no longer welcome in our household. It has been a tough break up. Though I find that some of the gluten free flour blends are fine in some baked goods, I wasn’t happy with them in pancakes. Then I tried replacing the whole wheat flour with spelt flour, and the results were fantastic.
The spelt flour pancakes are not quite as fluffy as the whole wheat version, but they are incredibly tender and have great flavor. They aren’t just vehicles for butter and syrup, but have a great nutty taste of their own. I do still need to thin the batter a bit to make the decorative pancakes, but a little loss of fluff is worth the gain in Little Man smiles when I made planet pancakes for his birthday.

For this post I’ve included recipe links for both my Perfect Whole Wheat Pancakes and my Perfect Spelt Pancakes. The only difference between the two is in the flour used, but for the ease of people searching for recipes I’ve included them both. The pictures here are from making a batch of the spelt flour pancakes. If you are gluten intolerant, this recipe does work well with gluten free flour blends. I’ve also dosed both versions of the pancakes with a good amount of chia seed meal with the goal of sneaking in whatever extra nutrients I can to Little Man’s diet. You can, of course, purchase chia seed meal in the store, but it’s just as easy to buy a bag of chia seed and pulverize a bit every now and then in a coffee grinder. That way you have the whole seeds around if you want them, and you can grind up the meal whenever you want. I tend to make about 1/2 cup of chia seed meal at a time, and keep the rest in a baggy in the freezer.

Another plus is that if you have extra pancakes (or want to make an extra batch) these store really well in the freezer. Little Man often eats pancakes or waffles for breakfast during the week when there is no way that we have time to make them from scratch. So I tend to make larger batches on the weekend and freeze the leftovers. A couple of seconds in the microwave or in a warm skillet and they are ready to go.

Oh, and one last thing before we get down to the recipe. As one batch of pancakes are done, I put them in the warm oven on a baking tray and then start another batch. The main joy of Saturday breakfast is that we all get to sit down together to eat, not to have one family member constantly cooking pancakes to only see them devoured before the short order cook ever gets a chance to sit down. So use your warm oven well. Get the food cooked that can hang out for a bit, like the pancakes and bacon, make the coffee or tea, doing the eggs last. Then make sure that you get to sit down with your family and loved ones for a well deserved meal. You want memories with your family, not ones where they only remember you standing by the stove.

Little Man and I adding frozen blackberries to a batch of pancakes in our “Saturday best.”

Perfect Spelt Pancakes
Ingredients:
2 cups spelt flour
2 tbsp. chia meal (aka ground chia seeds)
1 ½ tbsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
2 cups almond milk (or any kind)
2 eggs
3 tbsp. oil
1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (optional)

Directions:

Heat a cast iron griddle or other large, flat skillet over medium heat. If necessary, brush your griddle with a little canola oil. Turn your oven on to low (200°) and place a baking sheet inside.
You don’t have to use a griddle to make pancakes, but the nice large flat surface makes it easier to form and flip the pancakes. A pan with higher edges can make things a bit… awkward.
In a large bowl whisk the dry ingredients together. Make a well in the center and set the bowl aside.
The chia meal looks like a nice heap of black pepper right now, but it will completely disappear into the batter soon.

The mixed dry ingredients with the chia incognito.
In a large measuring cup or medium bowl, measure out the almond (or cow or coconut or soy, etc.) milk then break in the eggs and add the oil. Stir with a fork until the yolks are broken and the ingredients are more or less combined. This doesn’t need to be perfect.
I like to in my milk into a large measuring cup, then add the eggs and oil. They all get mixed together in this cup without dirtying another bowl in the process.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to blend well.
The batter is ready to go. If I am making fancy or decorative pancakes, then I like to remove a bit to a small bowl and thin it out with some extra milk. Then I put it into the pancake pen, or just free hand initials or planets or bunny bums, etc.
Make sure your griddle (or pan) is heated and oiled. Pour the batter onto the griddle in the amounts you desire. I use about ½ cup for a really big pancake with a tablespoon or slightly more for silver dollar sized ones.
When I called these “perfect” pancakes, I was talking about taste not presentation. I’m not interested in making Yoda faces or artistic pieces too pretty to eat. These are pancakes. They should be fun. Don’t sweat it if your child’s initial is barely legible. As long as they know what you’re trying to do, you’ve succeeded.
Wait until the edges of the pancakes start to look a bit dry and the bubbles stop forming. This is a relative waiting game, and will differ based on the heat of your griddle/pan, etc. Flip your pancakes and adjust the heat. If they are too brown turn down your heat and wait a moment to let the griddle/pan cool. If they are too pale, raise the heat slightly.
Look for the edges of the pancakes to start to be a bit dry and for the bubbles to slow in forming on the tops. This means that the pancake is set enough to flip without splattering all over the pan.

The first batch of pancakes is always the sketchiest. The griddle may be too hot or too cold. Just adjust your settings or batter and keep on going. You can always serve the “special” pancakes last.
Once cooked, remove the pancakes from the griddle and put on the warmed baking tray in the oven. Repeat with all of the remaining batter until all the pancakes are cooked. Prep/cook any sides you want, and warm the maple syrup (the real stuff, please). Enjoy an awesome breakfast!
Pancakes staying nice and warm in the oven until the rest of breakfast is ready to be served.

Any leftover pancakes can be frozen and then reheated during the week for a fast and awesome breakfast. I often make extra just so Little Man has some good pancakes to eat on a rushed week day morning.

Click here for a printable version of the Perfect Spelt Pancakes recipe.

Click here for a printable version of the Perfect Whole Wheat Pancakes recipe.

Oh, for the love of garlic

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Up until a few weeks ago if you had mentioned the words “low FODMAP” to me, I would likely have thought that I’d misheard you or that perhaps you were referring to some form of low weather pressure zone. Maybe that’s what’s been dropping all that snow back east? Alas, no. It is something far more troublesome… a huge dietary change.

For over a year now we’ve been struggling to figure out some dietary issues for Little Man. After a year of tests and tweaks and a complete lack of progress our pediatric dietician suggested that we might want to try a low FODMAP diet to see if that helps. Let me state right from the beginning that I am not a low FODMAP specialist, and everything that I’ve read states that you should never start a low FODMAP diet without first consulting your doctor. This is not a weight loss or fad diet, it’s a change in the way of eating for people who struggle with IBS, Celiac disease, or other gastric issues. In short, this whole thing revolves around the fact that there are certain foods that contain short chain sugars (FODMAP is an abbreviation for the scientific names of these foods, and can be checked out online for specifics) that when they get to the gut can ferment and create unfortunate symptoms in some people.

When the dietician first mentioned the low FODMAP diet to us, I was interested… until she mentioned that two of the high FODMAP foods that we would have to give up were garlic and onion. Seriously? How does one live, let alone cook, without garlic and onion? So I pushed the low FODMAP diet out of my mind and acted like it didn’t exist… until Little Man was still not healthy and nothing seemed to help. So on board we got, and thus began our saga of a dairy-free, wheat/barley/rye free, garlic and onion free, etc-free diet. Sigh… For 6-8 weeks we need to stick this out hard core, then after that we should be able to start one by one reintroducing restricted foods, seeing what does or does not react negatively, and keep on going. And, yes, I do know that low-lactose foods are allowed on the low FODMAP diet. Unfortunately Little Man reacts badly to those, so they are persona non grata (or victus non grata?) to us at this time. Heavy sigh…

With the print out of “foods to be avoided” in hand, I went through our pantry, fridge and freezer with a vengeance. Shelf stable foods that we could no longer eat were given to a local food bank, while the perishables were “donated” to the pigs. The pigs, by the way, are huge fans of this and welcome any such donations. Then I made dinner, and while the flavor was fine, overall the food just tasted bland. I wasn’t sure what to do to replace garlic and onion since it was banned in all forms, fresh or dried.

Since then I’ve learned a couple of tricks to add the lacking depth of flavor to our garlic-less and onion-less meals. The first thing I did was to use more spice in just about everything. While I cannot use garlic or onion powder, I’ve been digging deep into my stores of cumin, coriander, paprika, and just about anything else I can get my hands on. I’ve also been using colored peppers with reckless abandon. Normally I don’t splurge for those in the produce aisle, but in times such as these I’ve been looking for more flavors to add and some brightness to the dishes. The colored peppers fit the bill nicely, and as soon as the weather warms up a bit out here I’ll be planting some in our garden.

Another trick that I’ve been using is garlic-infused olive oil. While garlic itself (dried or fresh) is to be avoided (sob!), you are allowed to use garlic infused oil. For the first couple of tries, I would heat a little bit of oil in a pan and toss in a whole peeled clove. Once the clove browned, I would remove it and proceed as normal. Would I toss out that lovely browned clove? As Pete the Cat would say, goodness no! This was sliced up and given as a treat to Dave and myself since we are not fodMAP restricted. While Little Man didn’t get the actual garlic, he did get the flavor in the meal itself.

While this infusing of oil with garlic in the pan each night allowed us to have some garlic flavor, it became cumbersome. Most nights I don’t cook with much oil at all, and it was difficult to even coat the clove with oil let alone infuse any flavor. There’s also the fact that during the week I’m generally trying to get dinner going fast, and any steps that I can take to make dinner prep quicker are golden. Enter the glory of garlic infused olive oil. You can, in fact, infuse any type of oil that you generally cook with, including canola, grape seed or peanut oil. We cook mainly with olive oil, as well as using that in marinades, salad dressings, etc. so that is the oil that I chose.

A quick word of caution before we get to the recipe. During my research into garlic infused oil, I came across a number of cautions about simply dropping raw garlic into oil and letting it sit. This can lead to a rapid development of botulism and should not be done. Here’s a link where they discuss this problem (Garlicster).

It should also be noted that garlic infused olive oil only has a shelf life of about one week in the refrigerator. So if you aren’t sure that you will use two cups of olive oil over the course of one week, then simply cut the oil amount in half. I started with the two cups of oil since I knew that there were a number of recipes that I would be making that first week that required olive oil, including a couple of salad dressings, a marinade, and a low FODMAP version of garlic bread. If that didn’t use up the oil along with my regular cooking, then I had plans for a hummus type dip that would be amazing with that garlic infused olive oil.

Oh, for the love of garlic.

Garlic Infused Olive Oil Recipe
This is an intensely flavored garlic infused oil specifically designed for use in cooking when you cannot use actual garlic. If you want a lighter flavored oil, simply reduce the cooking time to 5 minutes. This infused oil is great to use in vinaigrettes, to flavor pastas, make marinades, for dipping bread, or in any of your regular cooking where you would use olive oil. Just be aware that it has a relatively short shelf life of about 1 week, so only make as much as you think you will use within that time frame.

Ingredients:
1 head of garlic
2 cups of olive oil

Directions:

Dismember the head of garlic, disposing of any loose, papery skins that come off. Don’t be too finicky here, since you will have plenty of garlic skin to get rid of soon.
The dismembered head of garlic ready for bashing.
Place the whole garlic cloves into a small metal bowl and cover with another similarly sized bowl. The bowls must be metal; glass, ceramics and plastic are not hard enough to properly bash the garlic and will not work. It is fine if one of the metal bowls fits into the other, as long as the garlic can’t come flying out the sides.
The reflection of the camera flash in the metal bowl makes the skins of the garlic look shiny, but they haven’t been peeled yet. That comes next…

The bowls don’t have to be the same size. In fact, having the smaller bowl fit into the larger bowl made it easier for me to hold on to them both while I shook their skins off. Just be sure that both bowls are metal, or this won’t work.
Shake the bowls hard for a good 15 seconds, then open them up to see if you need to shake them some more. This is a great task for little kitchen helpers, but gauge your child’s skill level. You know what s/he is capable of, and what could create a lovely mess. Little Man is not quite ready for this task, but he’s getting there. After being shaken for 15 seconds or so the garlic should have bashed itself right out of the skins. If any are still clothed, simply pull off the skins, since they are likely cracked and easy to peel.
Oh yeah… After a good 15 seconds of shaking the cloves literally fell out of their skins. Two weren’t completely undressed yet, but I just needed to pull off the already cracked skin and they were done.

Your fingers still get a bit sticky removing the cloves from the pile of skins, but when trying to peel an entire head of garlic… I’ve never had it go so quickly and with so little mess.
Cut the cloves in half the long way and place them in a small sauce pan, just large enough to hold them and 2 cups of olive oil. Pour the olive oil over the sliced cloves and heat the mixture over medium heat until it just starts to bubble. Cook the garlic in the oil for 10 minutes. If the garlic begins to brown quickly, carefully remove the pan from the heat and let it cool briefly before returning it to the stove. Monitor it regularly to make sure nothing is burning. After 10 minutes carefully remove the pan from the heat, cover it and let the garlic steep in the oil for one hour.
I halved the garlic cloves since I greedily want as much garlic flavor in the oil as I can. If you want a milder flavor, then omit that step.

The garlic cloves in the bath before heating.

The garlic should just start to bubble in the oil over medium heat. If it starts to brown too quickly, carefully remove it from the heat for a minute or two and then put it back on. No burnt garlic here, please, or your whole batch will taste burnt.

This is the garlic after 10 minutes simmering in the oil. They are lightly brown all over, but still look like they have some moisture left inside. Take them off the heat, cover them, and let them steep.

This is the garlic after steeping in the oil and cooling to room temperature for an hour. Most of the moisture is gone, and they’ve given all of their awesome garlic-iness to the oil. Spell check doesn’t like that one.
Once it has cooled to room temperature, pour the oil through a strainer into a clean glass jar with a lid. The oil can be used immediately, or it can be stored in the refrigerator in a glass jar for up to a week. If you think that you won’t use two cups of oil over the course of a week, simply cut the quantity of oil in half and make the same thing with 1 cup of oil.
I didn’t want to spill the oil as I strained it into the glass jar, so first strained it into my measuring glass that had held the olive oil for this recipe. Then I poured from the spout of the measuring glass into my storage jar.

Lovely dessicated garlic and beautifully infused garlic olive oil.

With a tight fitting lid this garlic infused olive oil will last for up to one week in the refrigerator. I already have many plans for my oil, including a low FODMAP garlic bread, so stay tuned.

Click here for a printable version of the Garlic Infused Olive Oil recipe.

P.S.

Since originally writing this blog post (it sat around a bit until I could take the pictures) we have found that as restrictive as it is, the low FODMAP diet has had a tremendously positive effect on Little Man. We are looking forward to being able to try reintroducing some of the high FODMAP foods back into his diet eventually, but for now the sacrifice of the dietary change has been well worth it.

The Sheep Are Out…

I'm a mom, an anthropologist, and a food lover finding her way on a small farm on Vancouver Island

Category Archives: Recipes

Sweetness and Thorns

Homemade Curry Powder

Adventures with FODMAPs – Lactose Edition and Amazing Cornbread with Maple Butter

Adventures with FODMAPs – Polyols and Sweet Potato “Fries”

Cooking with Kids

The Reckless Abandon of Sunshine on Easter

Pancake Breakfast

Oh, for the love of garlic

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