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My First Coconut Flour Experience

For a while, I’ve been wanting to try coconut flour.

coconut flour

Coconut flour is made from dried, finely ground coconut meat.  It is high in fiber (one serving provides about 1/4 of the recommended amount of fiber each day), gluten and grain free, and low in soluble carbohydrates.  It smells faintly of coconut (not a bad thing in my opinion).

From what I’ve read, recipes using coconut flour require a lot of eggs.  This is because all that fiber absorbs a lot of liquid.  After further research, I learned that it is recommended that each half cup of coconut flour be paired with 6 eggs.  Eggs are so good for you – especially pastured eggs – that this is truly a bonus.

I discovered this ratio after I made my first foray into coconut flour use.  The recipe I used – one for pancakes – only used 4 eggs to a half cup of coconut flour, though it also used a cup of milk.  Still, I found that these pancakes were a little dry, and I could tell they were not made with grain.  They had great flavor, though, and didn’t taste much like coconut at all.  T even thought they were tasty.

coconut pancake batter

I found that I had to add butter to them post-frying to moisten them up; this never happens when I make pancakes with wheat or sprouted wheat flour.  I expect that if I upped the egg amount this would take care of that.  However, the batter would be much looser.  Perhaps then I’d have coconut flour crepes?  Intriguing… I of course added maple syrup because that’s the perfect pairing with pancakes.  That also helped with moisture levels.

cooked coconut flour pancakes

I also think incorporating bananas or berries would be a welcome addition and add to the feeling of moistness in the pancakes.

Since coconut flour is so fiber-rich, these pancakes were crazy filling.  I could only – actually, barely – eat two small pancakes. I think next time I’d make a half batch – I had a bunch left over after Sunday’s brunch.

So, although the resulting pancakes did not meet my expectations, I do plan to experiment with this recipe again, and consider other recipes that ask for coconut flour.  Cilantro chicken filled savory coconut flour crepes come to mind right away.  I also might try using coconut flour in brownies, too.  Looking forward to playing more with this new ingredient!

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CSA Bounty – Week Eight

week eight collage

So far this season, this week has been my favorite week with the CSA.  The share was quite varied, as you can see.  From the top left, clockwise:

Basil, cherry tomatoes, blackberries, peaches, yellow plums, radicchio, fennel, cucumbers, apples, and summer squash. Not pictured: lettuce.

Last night I made a salad of the tomatoes, cucumbers (from the CSA and the monster lemon cucumber from my garden), basil, scallions, all dressed with olive oil, salt & pepper.  I added sherry vinegar to my serving, as T does not like vinegar.  It was a fantastic salad.  I ate it with eggs and goat cheese for protein.  Such a lovely summer meal.

csa salad

The weather has calmed down some, and for the past couple of days it’s felt like a normal NYC July.  People seemed in a better mood, in general.

distribution week eight-2

I mentioned above including my lemon cucumber in the salad, and I just have to say, what a delicious cucumber!  It actually tasted a little lemony and not at all bitter.  The flesh is really tender, too.  These cucumbers are a winner in my book.  No wonder my grandfather grew them every year.

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Garden Update – Waiting for Red-o

Well, my garden is still pretty green – foliage is thriving, though no red tomatoes are to be seen.  I did spy my neighbor’s garden from the back deck Sunday afternoon, and saw only one red tomato amongst the urban-vast stretches of green, so perhaps our little microclimate is just sluggish in getting our tomatoes to turn red.

The tomatoes that are on the vine are green, firm and healthy… except for another small tomato found with blossom end rot (BER).  This tomato was on the same plant, in the same part of the plant as the other tomato with BER.  Both tomatoes were sharing a branch that created “big bertha”, as I endearingly call her – a gigantic tomato, probably 5 inches across.  I wonder if that tomato is just sucking up all the nutrients, denying the other two tomatoes any chance of thriving.   This question will be answered perhaps if this gigantomato turns red without any rot.

I also picked this beast of a  lemon cucumber last weekend:

lemon cucumbinator

It’s about 3 inches across, by far the largest lemon cucumber I’ve ever seen.  It was hiding under the leaves in the corner, so I’m glad I found it when I did.

Remember this?

mystery plants

This is a mystery plant that appeared under my ground cherries and in the middle of my tomato plants.  I thought it was summer squash but now believe it to be more cucumber plants; the flowers are quite similar to the cucumber flower on my lemon cucumber plants.  I’ll know for sure once it starts fruiting.

I’ve also started harvesting ground cherries.

lemon cucumbers and ground cherries

These ones beat the pants off of the ones I grew last year – they are sweeter, tastier, and bigger.  I believe the quality of soil I’m using is just much better than the soil I had access to at the community garden.  The weather – hot, hot, hot – probably has something to do with that, too.

I really can’t wait until the tomatoes ripen!

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Fagioli Con Limone – Amazing Green Beans

green beans in egg lemon sauce

We got summer’s first green beans in our CSA share last week; we tend to get a lot of green beans (and purple beans and yellow beans) in our share each season.  Sadly, wasting them – meaning, letting them rot in the fridge – inevitably happens because we get so, so many each summer.  This year, I’m determined to not waste any.

There are some simple and delicious ways out there to cook green beans: sautéing them with garlic, ginger, and a little naturally fermented soy sauce, topped with Sriracha; incorporating them into omelet; and simply eating them raw in salads.

But I have one way to cook them that makes them really special; it elevates the simple green bean to something truly amazing.

boiling beans

I discovered this method several years ago, and rediscovered it while perusing my cookbooks last week.  After making it mid-week, I was reminded why I love this dish – it holds a wonderful combination of summery, earthy green flavors lent by the beans in a silky lemony egg sauce, almost like they are in a warm lemony aioli.  The green beans also take on my favorite texture – fork tender. It’s really easy to make, too.  And it’s full of good fat and protein from the pastured eggs and butter.

beans and lemon egg mixture

I find it’s easy to down a half pound of beans when cooked like this.  In fact, I had to restrain myself from eating them all the other night, so that I could save some for lunch the next day. They were terrific as leftovers.

I’ll be making this all summer, I believe.  I doubt there will be any wasted green beans, too!

Fagioli Con Limone
from The Vegetarian Table: Italy

1/2 pound string beans, ends trimmed, preferably organic
2 tsp kosher salt or coarse sea salt, plus more to taste
1 tbs unsalted butter (I used raw butter)
2 small eggs, preferably pastured
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (not from a bottle)
grated zest of 1/2 small lemon
freshly milled black pepper

In a saucepan bring enough water to cover the beans generously to a rolling boil. Add the beans and 2 tsp salt. Cook until tender, 6-7 minutes, then drain well.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the drained beans to the butter, toss to coat, and cover the pan to keep them hot. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs, and then beat in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and pepper to taste. Add the egg mixture to the hot beans and stir quickly with a wooden spoon. To prevent the eggs from curdling, keep the pot over the lowest possible heat, or place a flame tamer over the burner. As soon as the sauce thickens, remove the pot from the flame.

Serve hot.

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CSA Bounty – Week Seven

CSA Week 7 Collage

This week the share seemed quite large to me.  From top to bottom row, left to right:

Beets, tarragon, scallions, lettuce, green beans, zucchini, red and yellow plums, mutsu apple, nectarines.  Not pictured: cucumber.

So much deliciousness!  This is my favorite time of the year for fruits and vegetables.  Summer makes for such beautiful produce.

Not much else to say, but…. YUM!

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Blossom End Rot

Last week, I believe, I discovered a horrific development in my garden:

BER tomato

My immediate reaction was, “eeuw, gross”!  It really does look nasty.  It was soft and squishy, too. Double eeuw.

This is one of the first tomatoes to appear on my Pruden’s Purple plant.  At first I thought I had come across late blight, but the leaves looked pretty good and healthy, as did the surrounding plants.  So, I did some research and came to the conclusion that this tomato suffered from blossom end rot.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the remaining tomatoes on this plant, and they all look good so far.  The tomatoes on the Silver Fir, Amish Paste, and mystery tomato also look fine – still green and firm, no rot.

My understanding is that blossom end rot has to do with the plant’s inability to absorb enough calcium and/or water.  I have ordered some seaweed extract to add to the soil to bump up the calcium content in the soil, in case BER becomes more prevalent.

I’ve also heard that it can crop up after a heat wave, and that’s exactly when it showed up on this tomato.  We’ve been in the middle of another heat wave this week, but it hasn’t been nearly as intense as the one just after July 4.  I hope this won’t set any BER into motion.

Here’s hoping for healthy tomatoes from here on!

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I Took a Little Break

So last week I was a little lax with the posting.  It was my birthday on Friday, and I had a bunch of plans with friends, so I ended up being offline from Friday afternoon through the weekend.  It was a nice break, and a little odd not turning on the computer, but I think it’s important to unplug from the laptop a bit for a few days from time to time.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to reconnect with old friends, as well as with some newer friends, and that made the weekend really special.  So good to be with the people you care about, and who care about you.

As far as what I ate… well, I admit that overindulged in the rich, sweet food category a bit, but hey – it was my birthday!  But on the bright side, what I ate was made with quality ingredients.  I had some cake from a local bakery that uses real food – butter, eggs, cream; none of this shortening or veg oil business.  And I did make a peach sorbet from my CSA peaches, which came out great. Had a few cups of fair trade coffee and tea.  Sharing it all with friends made it even better.

So now I’m back on my favored eating path, and expect to feel amazing over the next couple of weeks!  I’ll have some recipes, a garden update, and another CSA report this week.  Stay tuned!