Citrus Powder--How to make Citrus Powder

Lemon and Lime Citrus Powder

 

Several  month's ago I read an article in Bon Appetite Magazine about  how the chef at State Bird Provisions was using sour salts to brighten up dishes, and make use of an ingredients that would otherwise not get used.  His approach was simple, dehydrate something as simple as a preserved lemon, grind it into a powder, and boom you've created a flavorful salt without even trying.  After reading that article, I knew that I wanted to try making a preserved lemon salt.  I put it on my list of things to blog about, but never got around to it--it has been almost a year since I read that article!  I had almost forgotten about wanting to do a preserved lemon salt until last week, my husband and I went out to eat.  I ordered a Caesar salad, and when they brought it out, it looked completely under dressed, almost like they had forgotten to put the salad dressing on it.  I took a bite thinking it was going to be a bland salad, but instead  got this bright  burst of flavor.  The chef had dusted the salad with lemon zest.  The salad was fantastic! Even better than my Caesar Salad.  I  knew then that I had to try this at home.   It wasn't until I read a review for the soon to be released cookbook Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes that I got the idea about exactly how I could do it, but even better.  Lemon zest is great but it's not exactly shelf stable.  If you're going to use it, you definitely have to use it right away.  But if you take the peels of a lemon, lime, or even an orange, and dry them in the dehydrator, and then blend them into a powder, what you get is something extremely flavorful, and shelf stable.  You also get a way to use leftover peels! I don't know about you, but I hate to waste, so anything that allows me to preserve, rather than waste, I love.   So you're probably wondering besides a salad what you use these powders on.  The answer is almost anything!  You can sprinkle the lemon or lime powder on chicken, fish, pork or steak to give it a fresh and vibrant twist.  You can add these citrus powders to baked goods, rim your tequila glasses with them, add them with some other dry spices to make a citrus rub, (stay tuned for that post), make citrus salts, the list goes on and on.  If you make enough of these powders you can even give them as gifts for Christmas.  I for one am doing a lemon pepper for my friends.   Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes hasn't been release yet, but I've already pre-ordered a copy through Amazon.  It's full of recipes for dehydrating and powdering everything from herbs, to yogurt.   Yes you can even dehydrate yogurt! I suppose it's not such a leap to know that you can dry yogurt, especially given the fact that powdered milk, and cheese are products that you can buy in most grocery stores. However, the thought of being able to use my dehydrator to make my own powdered yogurt and herbs excites me!

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Drying time: 1.5 hours-2 hours

 

Ingredients:

The peels from 2 lbs of organic citrus --I used lemon, lime

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 150F if using an oven.  If using a dehydrator set it to 135F.  Using a vegetable peeler peel the skin off of the citrus.

Add the citrus to a pot, add enough  cold water to cover all of the citrus and bring to a boil---let boil for 1 minute.  Drain peels into a sieve and rinse under cold water.  Return back to the pot and repeat: boil ,drain, and rinse twice more.

Spread the peels out evenly onto your dehydrator sheets if using a stove,  spread the peels over a wire rack set inside of a bake sheet.

bake or dehydrate  until peels are hard and brittle, it took about 1.5 hours in my dehydrator. Once peels are hard and crisp, transfer to a spice mill

and grind until powdery, transfer the powder to an air tight container.  OMG the smell of these when you are grinding!  AMAZING!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

D.I.Y. Ground Ginger-How to Make Powdered Ginger

How to make Powdered Ginger

 

If you've been on the fence about whether or not to purchase a dehydrator, my blogs this week may just get you off of the fence.  This week you may find yourself ordering  a dehydrator, or at the least adding one to your Christmas wish list. My dehydrator has been in constant use, and I can't wait to share what I've been doing. So let's get started! I've purchased fresh ginger so many times, and only used a fraction of it, the rest goes bad and then in the trash--a total waste! I was reading about drying in one of the books in my Modernist Cuisine set, and then I read a blurb in "Bon Appetite  Magazine"about powdering herbs and boom--light bulb--I thought to myself, why not powder your own ginger? So I did.  You're probably asking yourself, "do I really need a dehydrator to do this?" The answer is no! You can do this in the oven set to 150F but you have to stay home to watch it! If you had a dehydrator you could set it and forget it--well not completely, but you wouldn't have to worry about it burning.

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Prep time:5 minutes

drying time: 1.5-2 hours

Ingredients:

1 large bulb of fresh ginger

tools: spice grinder

Directions: remove the skin from the ginger, then slice the ginger thinly.

Place the sliced ginger pieces on a piece of parchment paper, or on the sheets of your dehydrator and place in the dehydrator or oven, then set the temperature to 135 on the dehydrator, or 150F in the oven.

Allow the ginger to dry until it become crisp. Transfer to the spice/coffee grinder

and blend until nice and powdery.

 

 

Store in an airtight container, it will be good for 8-12wks. Use this in any recipe that calls for ginger.  Add this to your favorite gingersnap recipe, and you will have some of the best gingersnaps that you've ever eaten!

 

Chicken in Milk

Chicken in milk

 

A few weeks a go I came across a recipe for Chicken and Milk by Jaime Oliver.  The recipe used one of my favorite ingredients--a whole chicken.  It seemed simple (code:Lazy) enough for me to try.   It didn't require much more than adding the ingredients to a pot and letting it braise for an hour or so.  It also featured another one of my favorite ingredients-lemon with the addition of the milk--taste buds were anticipating  chicken stewed in a creamy lemon sauce. The sauce was not as creamy as I had anticipated and hoped for, but it was still a great sauce none the less.  While Jaime Oliver's recipe looked amazing, I did add a few of my own touches to the recipe.  I have been reading about the use of lemon leaves, (from a lemon tree), in cooking.  The leaves are usually used in the same way that bay leaves are used. You use them to impart flavor but you never eat them.  If you have a lemon tree, pick two of the most beautiful leaves that you can find, wash them and add them to this dish.  Also be grateful that the next time you trim your lemon tree, you will have an alternative way to use the leaves--you can dry them just like bay leaves! If you don't have a lemon tree call a friend or neighbor who does and ask for a few! Just make sure to ask if they use any pesticides on their tree.   If that attempt fails, just cook this without the lemon leaves. I also added poultry seasoning, I didn't have any fresh sage, which Jaimie's recipe calls for.  The poultry seasoning has sage, so I used it.

 

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 1.5 hours mostly non active

 

Ingredients:

5 pound Whole Organic Chicken

10 cloves of garlic (whole no need to remove the skin)

Zest of two lemons (1 Tablespoon of lemon zest)

2 Leaves from a Lemon Tree

3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of poultry seasoning

1/2 stick of cinnamon

Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste

 

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 375F  Rub the chicken generously with the olive oil, and season with a good amount of sea salt and black pepper.

 

Then Brown both sides of the chicken over medium high heat. Once brown add in the Lemon zest, garlic, poultry seasoning, cinnamon, and milk.  

 

 

Cover the pot with a secure lid, then transfer the pot to the oven and cook for 1.5 hours   Remove from oven. serve and enjoy!

Lazy Girl Stove Top Lasagna

Lazy Girl Stove Top Lasagna

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind, I have been burning both ends of the candle wick for some time now, and it finally caught up with me.  But even when mom is sick, our kiddies still need to eat! I normally use all of these ingredients to make my lasagna, but I make the meat sauce on the stove, then transfer the sauce to a bake pan and layer it over the noodles, top with cheese and finish this in the oven.  However, because I was sick, I thought why not just try this on the stove top.  Surprisingly it worked! This lasagna is the ultimate in lazy cooking, but it yielded the best lasagna that I've ever made, and the easiest!

 

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Prep time: 2 minutes

Cook time: 25-30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 lb of grass fed ground beef

1 small brown onion (chopped)

3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 teaspoon of dried basil

15 ounces of organic tomato sauce

1 cup of organic mozzarella cheese

5 tablespoons of organic whole fat cottage cheese

2  lasagna noodles I used brown rice lasagna noodles

1 tablespoon of olive oil

sea salt to taste

 

Directions: Heat olive oil in a saute pan, add in onion and garlic and cook until onion turns translucent.

Add in ground meat, season generously with sea salt and cook until brown.  Drain any excess fat.

Add basil, cottage cheese and half of the tomato sauce,. stir until all ingredients are combined,

Top with the lasagna noodles--I broke them and spread them out over the the entire pan--

D.I.Y. Taco Seasoning

Taco Seasoning

I used to be the queen of packaged seasoning, if they made it I tried it.  It never really occurred to me that I could just as easily make most of these seasoning with spices that I already had in my pantry.   It wasn't until I was in the middle of browning some ground meat to make tacos that I realized I was missing one key ingredient--the taco seasoning--and I was forced to make due with what I had. That was a fateful day indeed. Enlightening and freeing! I no longer buy pre-made seasonings.  I just make my own.  This taco seasoning is equally as good as the prepackaged mix that I used to buy, except it doesn't have any cornstarch or any of the other fillers that packaged seasonings tend to have.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Servings: 1/4 cup or one package of taco seasoning

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon Cumin

1 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika

1 teaspoon of onion powder

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon of chili powder (optional)

Directions: Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl until well combined. Add the entire contents to browned ground meat, or try it out in my recipe for Makeover Chicken Taco's

Pear Fruit Roll-Ups-How to make fruit roll-ups at home

Pear Fruit Roll-Ups

One of my favorite ways to use ripe fruit is by making fruit roll-ups.  In my opinion it's the best way to use fully ripe fruit, because the fruit is ripe, it's very sweet, and that means that you don't have to add sugar to make these fruit roll-ups great.  Additionally fruit roll-ups are so super easy to make and a great way to reinvent a fruit that you have an abundance of.  I have dehydrator, but these can be done in an oven.  Just set your oven to 150 or the lowest possible setting. If you don't own a dehydrator yet, I suggest that you get one, they are really inexpensive around $40-$50 on the lower end--these work fine, and $299 on the higher end.  But they are so useful! At the least you'll be able to make some of my favorite fruit roll-up recipes like: Tropical punch fruit roll-ups, pineapple fruit roll-up, Strawberry-apple fruit roll-ups or strawberry fruit roll-ups.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 4-6 hours

Ingredients:

5 ripe pears

Directions:  Quarter the pairs and remove the core.  Add cored pears to a blender,

Blend until smooth.

Pour the pear puree out onto a piece of parchment paper or a silpat, and smooth out into a thin layer.

Place in a dehydrator on 134F for 4-6 hours.

Alternatively you can place the parchment paper or silpat on a cookie sheet and place in the oven on the lowest setting for 4-6 hours.