Happy Holidays and Tasty Kringler!

Sunday we head out of town to southern Minnesota to start our 7 day whirlwind holiday tour. We will be starting in Blue Earth where my grandma lives. Blue Earth, the land of the Jolly Green Giant, ho ho ho!

While I have been packing and checking my lists twice, I often find myself thinking of my grandma and the wonderful memories I have of her and the farm she lives on. One of my favorite memories is eating her delicious Kringler (pronounced Kring-la). For many years I tried to get the recipe from her, but she always made it seem like a secret, and told me it was kind of hard to make.

Finally after she stopped making them, she showed me the recipe in her German Luthern cookbook from her local church. I have to say they are not hard to make. I am not sure if she said that because she thought they were, or if she just wanted to keep them a surprise for me. Either way, I now want to share the recipe because I think they are tasty! Though I avoid gluten and dairy, I would make an exception for these on a special occasion.

Kringler (pronounced Kring-la) 

Makes a couple dozen cookies (depends on the size and shape you choose to use).

Ingredients

1 Pint sour cream

4 Egg yolks

1-1/2 tsp. Almond flavoring

1-1/4 Cups sugar

4 Cups flour

3/4 tsp. Salt

1-1/4 tsp. Baking soda

1-1/4 tsp. Baking powder

Directions

1. Beat the egg yolks, then add in the other ingredients and mix well.

2. Refrigerate 3 hours, to overnight.

3. Take a fist full of dough and roll out into a rope under your hands, approximately 6-8 inches long and 1/2 an inch thick. Form into a figure eight, or into a circle, pinch ends together. It is kind of like making a pretzel, just a different shape. Put on cook sheet(s).

4. Bake 12-15 minutes in a 400-425 degree oven until lightly brown.

5. Watch closely as they should be light brown, you do not want to over bake them.

6. Take off cookie sheet and cool on cookie racks.

7. Serve warm with butter. They are also tasty at room temperature plain.

Below is a link to another version, and there is also a picture of what they look like:

http://www.restenergy.net/blog/2009/08/kringle-a-delicious-norwegian-goodie/

Have a wonderful holiday season! Though we leave Sunday, we are starting our holiday celebrations tomorrow as a family, so I am signing off until the new year. Family comes first, and this is the season to celebrate everyone we love!

Chicken Stock (Bone Broth) from the Against All Grain Website

All right, I have already posted a link about bone broth. However, I just made some and was thinking about how great it was! I was on Facebook this morning and a post from Danielle Walker came up on my feed. I thought I would post a link to her article and recipe as a reminder of the awesomeness of bone broth!

http://againstallgrain.com/2014/03/03/chicken-stock-bone-broth/

FYI, she has two great holiday ebooks out, 'Thankful' and 'Joyful'. They are just a couple of bucks and contain some wonderful grain free recipes.

The Long, LONG, Long Wait

"Is today Christmas yet?", asks our excited 4-year old every morning. Every morning. This started the day after we brought home our Christmas tree, which we did the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

It's fun to see her excitement, the anticipation of this wonderful day she is just starting to understand. 

However, I also feel bad that she has to wait. I can only imagine how frustrating that is to someone who barely understands the concept of time and days of the week. We have learned to not tell her too far in advance when we are going to do something fun, but it is kind of hard to keep Christmas a secret!

I also struggle with trying to explain to her the true meaning of Christmas. A 4-year old loves the idea of presents, but has a hard time accepting that they also go to other people. She doesn't get why we donate books at the book store instead of taking them all home. Or especially why we give money to the bell ringer in the grocery store, instead of putting it in her piggy bank. She is excited and confused about the Christmas story, because this is her first year of Sunday school and apparently we have not done as good a job explaining it.

The other night at dinner she grabbed a Christmas decoration with Santa on it and said, "I think this is Jesus dressed up like Santa". We had a good laugh, then had to explain to her that that never would be the case. I suppose it is confusing when we have a manger scene next to a Santa scene in our livingroom. 

We want her to have all the wonder and joy that Christmas brings, but also to understand its true meaning. Celebrating the birth of Jesus, being with family and loved ones, giving to people who don't have as much as we do.  We want her to get excited about getting presents, but to also love giving them. 

I have to remember though that she is four, and that it takes time to understand these things. All we can do is make sure to lead by example, and continue to teach her and explain to her the true meaning of Christmas.  That Santa is more about the spirit of giving, and that Christmas is actually a very important birthday.

In the mean time, we still have a long, LONG, long wait!

Celeriac, Sweet Potato and Hazelnut "Stuffing"

This is a dish I made recently for Thanksgiving. This year I wanted to prepare food that I could eat, I know that is selfish, but I felt that if I was going to cook, I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Thankfully the people I spent Thanksgiving with are great people and did not mind a few changes to the traditional dishes that are usually served. Because I could not eat the traditional bread filled stuffing, I wanted to recreate something that at least had some of the same moistness and crunch. The addition of celeriac gives it that lovely celery flavor that my stuffing would normally have.

No this is not a picture of a space alien. This ugly root vegetable is the tasty celeriac. Underneath all that ugliness is an intense celery flavored vegetable that can be used in place of celery. What I love about it is that it is a storage vegetable grown by my local CSA. I do not need to buy celery grown elsewhere for my winter recipes.

Ingredients

1 Cup diced celeriac

1 Cup diced sweet potato

1/2 Cup diced red onion

2 Tablespoons cooking fat

1/2 Cup chopped hazelnuts

Salt and pepper to taste

Optional: Garlic salt

Directions

-Cook celeriac, onions and sweet potato in cooking fat over medium heat in a large skillet for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Watch closely and adjust heat and/or time if vegetables start to brown too quickly.

-When almost browned to your liking (about 10 minutes), add in hazelnuts and season with salt and pepper (and optional garlic salt).

-Cook mixture for a few more minutes until hazelnuts start to get lightly brown, stirring occasionally.

-Serve as a side, or on top of a bed of fresh spinach.

-Makes 2-3 side servings.

Note: If you would like to double or triple this recipe, you can also roast the vegetables (coated in your cooking fat of choice and salt and pepper) in the oven at 450 degrees for approximately 30 minutes, flipping the vegetables after 15 minutes. Add in the hazelnuts for the last 5 minutes. Make sure the vegetables are in a single layer, use multiple pans if needed.

Diced vegetables cooking in bacon fat.

Coarsely chopped hazelnuts.

Finished celeriac, sweet potato and hazelnut "stuffing".

"Stuffing" on top of lovely, local winter spinach. 

Vegan Green Bean Casserole (gluten free, grain free, paleo friendly) ByIrvin Lin

I love green bean casserole! I almost did not make it this year because of the gluten and dairy found in the original version. However, two of the people I was having Thanksgiving with really like it. So, I did some searching and found the recipe below. It was wonderful! I did have some problems creating the fried shallots, but I think that was an operator error, not an error of the recipe. I think this would taste great without the shallots on top also. The only change I made to this recipe was to use chicken broth instead of vegetable, and I used 1-1/2 to 2 cups instead of 1 cup. I did this because I like a soupier casserole instead of a dry one. If you are looking for a tasty side at your next holiday gathering, give this a try! 

The recipe and following information below came from the post: http://www.eatthelove.com/2013/11/vegan-green-bean-casserole/

Vegan Green Bean Casserole  (gluten free, grain free, paleo friendly) By Irvin Lin

The classic green bean casserole is part of nearly every Thanksgiving potluck in middle America. This recipe reworks the canned green bean and mushroom soup version into an easy from scratch recipe that is friendly to most people with food restrictions, other than those with nut allergies. Even better though, is that the final dish tastes BETTER than any green bean casserole you have ever had. Truth. Bonus, the dish isn’t really a casserole, as it’s made on the stove, which frees up room in the oven for other dishes.

There are a few things to note about the ingredients. The cashews need to be raw and need to soak overnight in water, so plan accordingly. The almond meal or flour can be purchased or just take plain unsalted almonds and grind them up into a powder in a food processor. Arrowroot flour is a thickener that is gluten free and paleo friendly. If you don’t have any on hand, you can substitute cornstarch, glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour in its place.

Revised from a previous post of mine for Vegan Green Bean Casserole, which in turn was inspired by a Cook’s Illustrated recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews
3 large shallots, sliced into 1/8 inch thickness
1/4 cup almond meal or flour
1 tablespoon arrowroot flour (or cornstarch, see note above for other substitutions)
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
7 tablespoons olive oil, divided
10 oz brown or white button mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
6 medium cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
1 1/2 lbs fresh green beans, tips snipped off
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 fresh bay leaf or 2 dry bay leaves
1 cup vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions
1. Take the cashews, place them in a medium sized bowl, and cover them with water until they are completely submerged. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. Once the cashews have soaked, drain them and rinse thoroughly. Place the cashews in a blender or food processor and add 1/2 cup of water. Process on high speed until pureed into a thick cream consistency.

2. Line a baking sheet with a double layer of paper towels. Place the shallot slices in a medium bowl and sprinkle the almond meal, arrowroot flour, ground pepper, and salt over the shallots. Toss to evenly coat the shallots. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a large sauté pan or skillet on high. Once the oil starts to shimmer (but before it starts to smoke) reduce the heat slightly to medium high and add the coated shallots and fry them, stirring constantly, until they are golden brown, about five minutes or so. Once they are golden brown, move them to the baking sheet.

3. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil to the sauté pan or skillet and turn to medium heat. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until they are brown, about 5-7 minutes depending on how thick the mushrooms are. Pour the mushrooms and any accumulated liquid, into a heatproof bowl.

4. Add the final 2 tablespoons of oil to the sauté pan or skillet and turn the heat to medium. Add the onions and cook until they soften about 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the green beans, thyme, bay leaves, pureed cashews and vegetable stock. Cook, stirring frequently, until the beans are slightly tender but crisp in the center, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and liquid and continue to cook for another 5 minutes, or until the green beans are tender and the sauce has thickened. Once done, season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the thyme and bay leaves before plating and sprinkle the fried shallots over the green beans before serving.

Makes 6 servings.