Sustainable Healthy Plate

As I move forward into 2020 I am looking eat more healthy and eat a more plant based and environmentally friendly diet. I did not have room for a traditional garden this year, so I grew what I could in oversized pots. One of my favorites that resulted in a huge pot  packed harvest was the Jerusalem Artichoke or Sun Chokes as some refer to them. If you are not familiar with these plants, they grow very tall and produce an edible bulb and a beautiful bee attracting flower that resembles a small sunflower.  These flowers grow abundantly all over the northeast. The bulb has a flavor similar to a potatoe and is often roasted in a little olive oil. I had started out with a half a dozen bulbs planted in a large round tote and ended up with a huge bucket full at end of summer. I gathered about 50 and threw into a paper bag and set on my back porch in November as I moved to a new apartment. I am amazed at how well they are keeping in cold storage. The Jerusalem Artichoke is a very healthy and sustainable choice for eating. Sun chokes are high in Potassium, can help lower blood pressure and one cup provides 1/4 of you daily iron.  Planting these  in the summer will produce bee attracting flowers at the end of summer and will come up year after year if you leave some bulbs to reproduce in the spring.  Tonight I roasted mine with tomatoes olive oil and rosemary. I then made a little roux with turmeric and black pepper to add some additional health benefits and flavor. I would love to hear how others add these to their diet! Recipes anyone?

Instant Pot Low Carb Cinnamon Toast

I woke up craving cinnamon toast this morning one day after resolving to eat healthy. Here is my alternative to my body’s first sugar carb addiction craving.

Ingredients:
1Tbsp butter melted
1egg
3 Tbsp coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp coconut flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

Topping:
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp stevia powder

Whisk ingredients together, pour into lightly greased ramekin/s
Place onto rack of instant pot to which 1 cup water has been added.
Pressure cook under the egg setting at 6 minutes. Quick release steam  at end of cycle.

If presentation is important to you, and you want your cinnamon toast to have a toasted appearance
you can then pan fry in a skillet just long enough to brown one side.  Sprinkle Top with a mixture of stevia and cinnamon.

This does not taste exactly like cinnamon toast, but it was close enough to break the craving and give me a satisfying breakfast.

Ingredient Info:
Servings: 1
Serving size: 2 ramekins

Calories per serving: 344
Protein:12.3g
Total Carbs: 24.6
Dietary fiber: 13.9g
Net Carbs: 10.7
Total fat: 21.6g

Please note: ingredient information can vary slightly with type of ingredients and brands used. The ones listed above are approximate.

I used to be terrible at baking bread. I could make the flakiness pie crust, the lightest cake or the heartiest soup, but the chemistry that goes on internally in the bread making process mystified me. I told myself the reason my attempts at baking bread failed because I didn't have the right kitchen utensils, the processor, the proof box, the gizmo, the machine. I did have the desire...I secretly wanted to be in control of my own life.I wanted to take control over what I put into my body, I wanted to save money....but then came the excuses.  I just didn't have the (time) (patience ) (things) (money) (skill) (knowledge) I thought I needed ...herein lies the irony...to make do with less. To live more naturally. To live more true to myself. That was it right there... I believed in a lie. True is true and it wasn't until I realized That I had everything I will ever need, from the day I was born to master anything. Time patience tears. That is life. Flour water salt. That is bread.

   My first attempts at baking bread were unpredictable and often inedible. Either there were huge holes running through  a seemingly fine exterior, or the whole thing sunk into a brick that rated a 7 on the hardness scale and occasionally there was the doughy center encrusted loaf that if you swabbed enough butter on and ate warm could pass for bread. Needless to say I didn't give myself many more chances for failure and sadly cut myself off from the opportunity for success. Years and years went by. I didn't even want homemade bread until one day when I was thinking about when my children were young. I remembered making sourdough pancakes for them, because well I couldn't make bread. I always thought the sourdough wouldn't rise enough to make bread. I would give anything to be able to go back in time now and make the time to make sourdough bread for them....real sourdough bread from scratch. The kind with no added yeast. Back then they believed in magic. I would prove it to them. I would show them the miracle of how simply a little flour and water paste could spring to life with the addition of the spark of bread life...wild yeast. Still a mystery to me, there is something wonderfully amazing about growing a sourdough starter,
 watching its texture change from paste to sponge....and through patience finally learning how to take it from blob of dough to nourishing bread. Time patience and tears ( salt water) is all you need. Yesterday I took my cup of starter, added more flour and let it rest...for eight hours. During that time I thought of all the things I thought I needed to be happy, to make others happy to have a satisfying life. Then I thought about what really mattered the most in my life.  The people in my life.  The laughter. The tears. That magic spark of life...like the wild yeast that activated it all...love. Empathy.compassion. Whatever you want to call it. The time of rest was over, and adding more flour plus a little salt it was time to knead. To work the dough. Then place the dough in a pan for one more chance to rise. In the natural world of sourdough this too took hours. No worries though. Once I thought I needed special utensils, pans, ovens to bake the perfect loaf of bread. Now I know better. My oven is temporarily broken and yet no worries. I have been happily using a crock pot. I put the bread in a small foil pan I am reusing and set it in the crock pot with the lid until it doubled in size. That took hours...then turned on the crockpot to high and cooked for a couple hours. The perfect loaf of sourdough would be browned on top, and I could run through the toaster oven for a few minutes to brown the top...but I am less concerned with appearances these days and more concerned with the body of the bread. Healthy organic rye flour. The action of the
sourdough process makes the bread more easily digested. Time patience and tears with a little spark of magic to activate life...that and someone to share with. All I need. All I want.